Movie review - "Smithy" (1946) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Have reviewed it a few times so only random thoughts.

- Ron Randell is good. Never this good in Hollywood movies. He lacked something to act maybe? Moodiness suits him? Anger? Better than Peter Finch, I think, would have been.

- Hollywood very much influenced this. The meet cutes.  Scenes in a train carriage. Maids at home. Plush sets.

- They invent Joy to be a woman. Fine. Why give her a big secret "does he know"... then it's revealed she's married off screen. Why not kill her in a plane crash then? Or with a disease?

- A bit of racism.  Alec Kellaway talking about Japanese as apes. Smithy meets a black porter (player by ???) and makes a joke about Australians being cannibals.

- Assumes a lot of audience knowledge. A lot of key incidents are referred to without being seen - Smithy crashing in desert, death of Ulm, etc. Also jokes need knowledge eg Bluey Truscott, that explorer. 

- Surprisingly down beat. Smithy feels like he's waiting to die. But it's effective. Moving.

- Muriel Steinbeck isn't in it til half way.

Movie review - "The Big Bounce" (1969) *

 Elmore Leonard is hard to adapt because you've got to get the tone. This one doesn't. It has this dreadful TV esque Mike Curb score and a TV movie feel and never seems sure how to pitch it.

Van Heflin might have worked in a better movie, ditto Robert Webber, but Ryan O'Neal and Leigh Taylor Young while both quite beautiful are too lightweight and bland. Too pretty. Neither have mileage. O'Neal isn't believable as a Vietnam vet or a drifter or anything.

The one element of interest is both O'Neal and Taylor Young go skinny dipping in a few scenes (the ocean, a pool) and you can glimpse what you can with the see through underwear. That stops you from falling asleep. Briefly.

Unmade Ryan O'Neal

 A series of films that sound pretty good

1) Out of Africa, based on the famous book, from director Nic Roeg with Julie Christie - this could've been fantastic, different from the Pollack version but with Julie Christie... wow

2) The Champ, a remake of the 1932 film, directed by Franco Zefferelli - O'Neal was going to do this but quit when the director wouldn't let his son co star - big mistake, he did Oliver's Story instead, bigger mistake

3) The Bodyguard - same Lawrence Kasdan script, with Diana Ross, and John Boorman directing - would've been amazing... possibly, if the director didn't rewrite all the popularity out of it.

4) The Thorn Birds, based on the best selling novel with Arthur Hiller directing - an utterly, utterly perfect film for O'Neal, who stepped in when first choice Robert Redford pulled out... I think it fell over when Warner Bros decided to not make a movie out of it... it became a fabulously successful mini series with Richard Chamberlain... 

5) First Blood - Morrell's novel was optioned constantly from 1972 with Richard Brooks, and Martin Ritt among those seriously interested in doing it - potential stars included Al Pacino, Steve McQueen, Robert de Niro. Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Powers Boothe... and Ryan O'Neal apparently. That's what he said in his memoirs - that Freddie Fields offered him the part but O'Neal turned it down because he didn't want to leave Farrah Fawcett at the time, which puts it in the early 1980s.

Movie review - "Barry Lyndon" (1975) ***1/2 (warning spoilers)

 Every frame is breathtakingly shot. The film goes for over three hours. It has its own rhythm. Kubrick's dirty perve tendencies are on display all the way through. -within the first ten minutes Ryan O'Neal is shoving his hands into the cleavage of a woman. There's various shots of women lounging topless throughout.

This is an odd duck. Long. Beautiful. Restrained. Kind of cold. But also not. I mean Barry cries at the death of his mentor, his son. The death of the kid is very moving. The final duel is suspenseful. The film kicked into gear in the second half for me. I can see why it wasn't a hit. I can also see why people love it. The movie's a little like an anaconda.

A lot of his issues are his own fault. People have written that the movie is about chance but it's Barry who decides to fight the opening duel, to desert, to steal the papers, to change sides against the Prussians, to pursue a rich woman, to cheat on that woman, to treat her son badly... I mean, Barry really is a dill. A little kindness and courtesy he wouldn't get in strife. Then, as the narrator points out, if he didn't have the moxie to go for those things he wouldn't have the dimness to lose them.

Ryan O'Neal's performance is good. He's muted, as required. He was better with someone to bounce off and doesn't have it here. But he was the character - charming, hot tempered, libidinous, making enemies, bad marriage, loyal..

Movie review - "Ferrari" (2023) **1/2

 Michael Mann getting into the spirit of Enzo Ferrari... a genius in his field with grey hair, struggling for money, dealing with a nagging wife, a dead done, an easy going ish mistress, their son, an annoying mother, accountants, irritating press, road rules, prima donna drivers who root actresses.

The acting is fine, the period detail is a joy, the car scenes thrilling. There should have been more of them. The main character is very interesting, the female parts less so - Penelope Cruz is angry and hurt/haunted/horny, Shailene Woodley doesn't go for an accent and picks fruit and worries about the kid, Linda Christian is hot, there's another car widow is hot. because it's Michael Mann characters stand around staring in sunglasses but that's part of his charm.

Did it need to cost this much? It lacks propelsion. I liked the driving. The big emotional scene is the big crash at the end. For a film that was so long in development there's a lot of scenes of talking to journalists. Isn't that lazy writing?

I loved the hair. Great to see McDreamy looking the part. Good for him.

I'm not sure the stakes are that gripping - "will I be able to maintain being a millionaire and keep rooting my younger mistress and give my surname to my son and escape culpability of this horrendous accident that killed people and children and aren't the media vultures for... reporting the truth?"

Book review - "Black Ajax" by George MacDonald Fraser

 Fraser was always excellent describing sports competitions - this is his one attempt, to my knowledge, to put that front and centre. It's a historical biography of a real boxer, Tom Molineaux, a black boxer in Napoleon-era England - Beau Brummel and the like. There were a number of real people who I don't know much about I assume it's accurate. Fraser throws in Flashman's dad.

It's an interesting story, especially if you don't know what's going to happen. The one thing I struggled with was the endless racist language Fraser has characters use to describe Tom - ape and so on. I mean he goes on and on. I know the argument would be "that's what people thought" but it's endless, also every character calls him a savage. With this and Joe from Flashman and the Angels of the Lord Fraser had thuggish brutal black people on the brain in the 1990s.

Aside from that it is skilful.

Movie review - "Oliver's Story" (1978) **

 Love Story made so much money Paramount would have considered it rude not to make a sequel, so they did, ponying up big money for Ryan O'Neal to come back.

But the question is, where to go? Do you give him a terminal disease? Have him find love with another girl who gets sick? Throw in a kid? You've got the two dads back (hers is played by a different actor).. but there's not enough in that for another movie.

John Korty, best known for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pickman, came in to direct and co write. He didn't do a very good job.

There's no point to the film. No conflict. O'Neal is mourning MacGraw, that's fine. Gets set up by friends Charles Haig and Swoozie Kurtz who seem like they're going to be fun, and are, but aren't in the film enough. Anyway the girl Nicole Paggett is dull but nice and he doesn't see her again. He runs into Candice Bergen, sparks fly, he goes out. Turns out she's... rich. So there's no rich-poor conflict. No dad-unhappy conflict.

O'Neal and Bergen go to Hong Kong for some pretty photos. I started to day dream maybe it would turn into Emmanuelle (Bergen takes photographs of models)... that would've livened things up.

John Korty whinged Paramount made him change his ending (where O'Neal hooked up with someone else) but the film isn't good. I mean maybe that was better than what's here - the film just ends - but I don't think that's the problem.

Bergen says that "Jenny is always with us" but you never sense that from their scenes. They flirt. Get along. They have sex it's no big deal. She's not that into him. He's not that into her. It's so hard to care. There's too many scenes with a shrink. There's a terrible sub plot about a housing estate or something. They don't use the dads. Everyon's getting along at the start.

This film was pointless. No wonder it's so forgotten.