Movie review – “Robbery Under Arms” (1920) *1/2

Maybe the one star is unfair considering the year it was made and the fact it was Australian but this is still a bit of a slog, even under an hour. Bushranger films were the most popular genre during the early years of the Aussie industry, but the NSW government banned them in 1912. This one seemed to skirt around it somehow – presumably due to its highly moralistic tone. Mind you, that’s not inconsistent with the novel, where the robbing Marston brothers don’t commit that many crimes but spend forever regretting it. Also consistent is the sympathetic depiction of Captain Starlight – dashing, romantic, a gentlemen, a caring lover – and a better father figure than the Marston brothers’ real dad. He’s the one who encourages his boys to go into crime; they go a big cattle duff, then head to Melbourne and romance two sisters. They wind up on the gold fields but are unable to go straight. They’re betrayed by the bitchy Kate and are imprisoned; Starlight is killed but both sons are allowed to live (in the novel only one makes it), and go on to marry their sweethearts. Starlight’s girlfriend becomes a nun. Awww…

It was written and directed by stage actor Kenneth Brampton, who also plays Starlight. It’s not particularly well made – Brampton doesn’t seem to have discovered the close up and shoots in mid shots and long shots (not untypical for directors with a stage background). There is some decent action – horses galloping past, shoot outs – and a lot of arms flinging up to foreheads by the women, false beards from the men, and general emoting. At least Starlight’s sidekick is played by a genuine Aborigine. The cast also includes Roy Redgrave, Michael’s father (who left England after his son’s birth to work in Australia for JC Williamsons and died out here, shortly after this film in fact) – he plays Dick Marton, the rival nasty bushranger (not featured enough here, although apparently he’s in some of the footage that’s missing). And Charles Chauvel also apparently has a small role.

Movie review – “The Private Life of Henry VIII” (1933) ***1/2

Incredibly important British film – a massive hit at home and the US, it was a massive fillip to the careers of Charles Laughton and the Kordas (admittedly, the latter had been around for a while but this kicked them up into a whole new level), as well as making stars of Robert Donat and Merle Oberon.

It’s striking how irreverent this is – the opening scenes have women gossiping about the impending marriage to Jane in a sexual way; the crowd gathers for the execution, a lady says poor Queen Anne then asks the woman in front to take off her hat so her view isn’t interrupted; an English executioner complains about the job of killing Queen Anne goes to a Frenchman; the marvellous comic duel between Henry and Anne of Cleeves. Yet it has it’s serious bits too, such as Anne’s final moments, the adultery of Katherine Howard, Henry talking about war and “if those French and Germans don’t stop killing each other we’ll never have peace”. Sometimes they combine the two – Henry tries to impress Katherine by engaging in a wrestling match which he wins, but makes him utterly exhausted.

There’s been some whingeing about historical inaccuracies – Jane Seymour didn’t die in childbirth but a couple of days later, that’s not how Anne of Cleeves did it – as well as some omissions (no Catherine of Aragon, Sir Thomas More, mention of religion). But so what? It’s not massively inaccurate – I mean he did have all those wives, it doesn’t make any characters up. It's not meant to be a documentary - a better way to look at it is as a cover version of a well known song - and it's a terrific, unusual cover version.

Charles Laughton is superb, incidentally - his performance helps the piece vault the ages, too - blustering, pathetic, scary, funny. The best supporting performance comes from Elsa Lancester, who is terrifically funny yet also sympathetic, smart and even romantic. Merle Oberon makes a tremendous impression, and Robert Donat, Wendy Barrie and Binnie Barnes round out the spunk quotent (although what sort of sex symbol has the name "Binnie"?)

Script review – “Sorry Wrong Number” by Lucille Fletcher

Superb radio script, which ranks with Howard Koch’s adaptation of War of the Worlds as probably the most famous radio drama of all time. Larry Cohen always speaks highly of it, it was an inspiration for Phone Booth. 

Like that and Buried it’s broken down into sequences: woman overhears the phone conversation, tries to trace the call via a phone company, tries to speak to the police but they don’t really help, tries to contact her husband but fails, realises the killers are in the house. I assume the stuff about overhearing phone calls and talking to operators is correct. 

The character of the woman is also good, constantly complaining, a naggy bitch, deserves to die. Creepy, memorable finale.

Movie review – “Scared Stiff” (1953) **1/2

Most movie comedians wind up in a haunted house sooner or later, and this was Martin and Lewis’ turn, a remake of The Ghost Breakers. Only it doesn’t quite work: Martin and Lewis weren’t that great at being scared. Martin was too smooth and confident, Lewis too anarchic and dumb – they wrecked havoc, rather than knocked knees.

 

They’re not helped by having an inadequate support cast – Lizabeth Scott looks too old and disinterested in men to be Martin’s love interest, and too tough to play the part of a scaredy-cat (the ever-sexy Dorothy Malone, who pops up at the beginning as a gangster’s girlfriend, would have been a far better choice); there’s no decent heavies either (unforgivable from a studio film even though Hal Wallis ran an independent outfit at Paramount). Carmen Miranda looks very old in her final film appearance (she died of a heart attack a few years after this was made) – although it does give Jerry an opportunity to imitate her in a night club act. 

 

That’s another thing, the film is full of Martin and Lewis doing nightclub acts sort of plunked into the action (Norman Lear, one of their TV writers, is credited as working on the script). The majority of running time takes place on a boat rather than at the haunted house. There are some laughs, though – the two leads have plenty of energy and I enjoyed the spookiness at the end.

Script review – “The Howling” by John Sayles (warning: spoilers)

I was never that big a fan of the film and didn’t love the screenplay. It’s written with Sayles’ customary intelligence and skill but for some reason it didn’t come alive. I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

 

The story is about a woman reporter who puts herself in a great deal of risk confronting a rapist killer – he attacks her but get shot, so she heads to a Colony run by her doctor to get better. She finds out the colony is full of werewolves. 

 

 This is meant to be tongue in cheek but I didn’t get that impression reading it. It felt fairly serious; the death toll isn’t that high but it has a heavy mood because of the opening sequence, and the fact that the lead is so traumatised. Also her marriage is suffering, her husband and good friend die (the friend quite bloodily), and she has herself killed on national television (a terrific ending).  

 

I think people were distracted by the satire of therapy groups and the fact that so many characters are named after the director of werewolf films: Lew Landers, Roy William Neill, George Waggner, John Brahm, Erle Kenyon, Charlie Barton. 

 

There are some good bits – like the white trash nympho (her love scene is the bit I remember most from the movie), the ending, the imagination. Like all successful werewolf films it’s essentially a tragedy. But I can’t help it, I enjoyed Piranha more (maybe escaped-animals-going-down-river simply had more built-in pace).

Script review – “West Wing – pilot” (1999) by Aaron Sorkin

Everything that’s good about American television – clever, warm, fast paced, witty, intelligent. It’s also a very good example of a pilot, thrusting the audience into a number of subplots with rapidity and skill: Sam sleeps with a girl who turns out to be a prostitute, Josh worries about being fired, Leo is trying to stop Josh being fired and has to deal with Cubans on their way, Toby tries to broker a meeting with some Christians, Josh meets up with his ex, Mandy (who was set up as a big love interest but was gazumped by Donna… who is in the pilot, adoring Josh, so it couldn’t have come as that much of a surprise). Sam is more of a womaniser here than he would become in the series (where he was more goofy, charming and not that successful with women, in line with most men in the Sorkin universe) but the rest of it is as per the series. Marvellous stuff.

Script review – “Platinum” (1981) by Joe Eszterhas (warning: spoilers)

Eszterhas wrote in his memoirs that his price as a screenwriter kept going up in the period between FIST and Flashdance despite the fact he didn’t have any credits – this script gives some indication why. The guy could clearly write – it’s a lean, tough tale that keeps you turning the pages, even though when all’s said and done the story isn’t that interesting and would have made at most a strong episode of Water Rats.

 

The hero is pure Eszterhas – a tough cop, chain-smoking and hard living, burnt out because of a shooting incident, who investigates the supposed overdose death of his rock star brother. He goes to Mexico, digs up the grave and finds there’s no body – and just to reinforce connections to The Third Man there’s a dodgy local police chief and a cab driver who turns out to be an FBI agent who keeps wanting the cop to stay out of it. Was brother knocked off to increase record sales? Turns out he faked his own death to get clean but they want him dead.

 

I enjoyed reading this –I could also see why it wasn’t made, it needed stars to carry it off. The stuff about the music industry sees to antiquated in this digital age.