Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Movie review - "Goodbye Columbus" (1969) **
This is highly regarded by some critics and was a big hit in its day but the allure escaped me. Richard Benjamin is well cast and Ali MacGraw stunning good looking but I foun it all a bit bleh. It has a frankness depicting sex (the act and talking about it and it's consequences) which would have seemed fresh at the time. It all feels overly familiar: Jack Klugman as the unimpressed rich dad, Nan Martin as the snobbish mum - and Benjamin's slacker hero not that particularly interesting. It ends on a flat note. The movie felt like a rip off of The Graduate and I wasn't wild about that either. But it does have its fans.
Movie review - "Goodbye Paradise" (1983) **** (warning: spoilers)
Raymond Chandler on the Gold Coast, brilliantly pulled off by star Ray Barrett (in the role of a life time) and writers Denny Lawrence and Bob Ellis. It's a Gold Coast that doesn't exist in this way any more but certainly did then - in tropical, socialist hating Queensland, with its dingy clubs, discos, drag shows, cults, right wing political movements and military bases. (It actually seems more interesting)
There's some beautiful dialogue - Ellis at his most wonderful, perfectly delivered by Barrett. The plot isn't bad either, with Barrett chasing various clues as he tracks down a missing girl and encountering various characters (many of whom are familiar to Barrett... unlike say Philip Marlowe he's not entering a strange world, he's participating in a world he knows very well).
Great cameos from Kate Fitzpatrick (politician's second wife), Paul Chubb (seemingly dodgy ex cop), Lex Marinos (local tour guide), wondrous Robyn Nevin (an old flame of Barrett's), Mark Hembrow (night club guy), Grant Dodwell (sleazy Sea World type), Don Pascoe (old Labor senator), Kris McQuade (hooker), Guy Doleman (pukka officer), Tex Morton (politician), John Clayton (hippie). Many of these are not what they seem - wonderfully, Clayton and Doleman are in cahoots for a coup so that the Gold Coast can secede from the rest of Australia (a superb conceit), McQuade works for ASIO, Hembrow for army intelligence, Dodwell tries to assassinate someone, etc.
Not surprisingly for an Ellis script the young women are weak and all want to hump middle aged men - the girl who plays the first Cathy is especially terrible. And it's a shame Barrett is so passive at the end - I felt he should have helped expose the coup more, at least taken revenge for Nevin's death.
But it's got a lovely texture - melancholic, haunting - with decent action. A real cult movie.
There's some beautiful dialogue - Ellis at his most wonderful, perfectly delivered by Barrett. The plot isn't bad either, with Barrett chasing various clues as he tracks down a missing girl and encountering various characters (many of whom are familiar to Barrett... unlike say Philip Marlowe he's not entering a strange world, he's participating in a world he knows very well).
Great cameos from Kate Fitzpatrick (politician's second wife), Paul Chubb (seemingly dodgy ex cop), Lex Marinos (local tour guide), wondrous Robyn Nevin (an old flame of Barrett's), Mark Hembrow (night club guy), Grant Dodwell (sleazy Sea World type), Don Pascoe (old Labor senator), Kris McQuade (hooker), Guy Doleman (pukka officer), Tex Morton (politician), John Clayton (hippie). Many of these are not what they seem - wonderfully, Clayton and Doleman are in cahoots for a coup so that the Gold Coast can secede from the rest of Australia (a superb conceit), McQuade works for ASIO, Hembrow for army intelligence, Dodwell tries to assassinate someone, etc.
Not surprisingly for an Ellis script the young women are weak and all want to hump middle aged men - the girl who plays the first Cathy is especially terrible. And it's a shame Barrett is so passive at the end - I felt he should have helped expose the coup more, at least taken revenge for Nevin's death.
But it's got a lovely texture - melancholic, haunting - with decent action. A real cult movie.
Movie review - "Thunderbolt" (1910) **
Only 24 minutes off this movie survive but that's better than for most Australian silent movies and certainly enough to get a sense of what the whole thing looked like. This was directed by Jack Gavin, who plays the title role, the famous bushranger - though as per many films of the time we rarely get a good look at him because this is mostly shot in long shot, with blocking like a stage play and the camera allowed to film.
This is despite the fact that the action is inherently cinematic - the arrest of Fred Ward for cattle duffing, his fiancee going mad and dying, Ward escaping from the chain gang and swimming to freedom, then becoming a bushranger and robbing some Chinese (played by actors in yellow face mugging it up).
The scenery is passable - some very hilly countryside - but there's a decent amount of it. And the photography is of high standard.
This is despite the fact that the action is inherently cinematic - the arrest of Fred Ward for cattle duffing, his fiancee going mad and dying, Ward escaping from the chain gang and swimming to freedom, then becoming a bushranger and robbing some Chinese (played by actors in yellow face mugging it up).
The scenery is passable - some very hilly countryside - but there's a decent amount of it. And the photography is of high standard.
Film review - "Double Trouble" (1951) **
A 10 minute government short mostly notable for being the first time Lee Robinson worked with actors. It's left wing high concept - two Aussies prejudiced against new immigrants find themselves transported to a land where everyone thinks they're immigrants. The potential of this idea aren't really developed - it was only ten minutes but still... The acting is iffy and the photography good. Of some historical interest - fascinating especially from a 2015 view point.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Movie review - "Upstairs and Downstairs" (1959) **
Cheerful, bright, dim comedy which is one of the least well known of the Ralph Thomas-Betty Box output. Michael Craig and Anne Heywood are a young married couple; Heywood's father James Robertson Justice is Craig's boss and he suggests they get hired help so they can entertain. This leads to a series of not particularly funny episodes involving their attempt to find domestic help.
There's Claudia Cardinale in an early role as an Italian who parties with sailors, an old couple who are dodgy, a bossy old lady. Then in the last half Mylene Demongeot arrives as a hot girl and causes temperatures to rise. She romances Daniel Massey (in an American accent) but gets a crush on Craig.
A little more story would have helped - or laughs. And a little less upper middle class smugness. But it is cheery and amiable and it shot in glossy colour photography. Demongeot is very pretty and I enjoyed seeing Cardinale. There's also comic support from people like Sid James and Joan Sims.
What can you say about a movie like this, really? It feel as though it belongs more to the 1930s (though there is a semi racy scene where Heywood flashes her bare back in bed with Craig.) Everyone looks good, it's dim, it mocks foreigners, etc etc.
There's Claudia Cardinale in an early role as an Italian who parties with sailors, an old couple who are dodgy, a bossy old lady. Then in the last half Mylene Demongeot arrives as a hot girl and causes temperatures to rise. She romances Daniel Massey (in an American accent) but gets a crush on Craig.
A little more story would have helped - or laughs. And a little less upper middle class smugness. But it is cheery and amiable and it shot in glossy colour photography. Demongeot is very pretty and I enjoyed seeing Cardinale. There's also comic support from people like Sid James and Joan Sims.
What can you say about a movie like this, really? It feel as though it belongs more to the 1930s (though there is a semi racy scene where Heywood flashes her bare back in bed with Craig.) Everyone looks good, it's dim, it mocks foreigners, etc etc.
Movie review - "Sincerely Yours" (1955) **
We can't blame Warner Bros for trying to turn Liberace into a film star - he was one of the most famous people in the country in the mid 50s, enormously popular - and maybe he could have carried the right sort of movie (interesting challenge to set aspiring screenwriters - construct a successful Liberace vehicle) but although he tries, really tries, he's allowed to flounder here. Hopelessly miscast in a romantic melodrama, he's given way too much dialogue and a silly story. Sonja Henie was never given so much to say.
They throw in Liberace bits - opening with a concert where he plays "Chopsticks" for a kid in the audience, some banter with little old ladies at a nightclub, and plenty of piano playing - which works well enough (I liked the bit in the night club where the audience yell out "hey"). But when he's talking about wanting to play Carnegie Hall, or romancing Dorothy Malone.... I'm sorry. But no.
Like I say they tried - there's William Demarest doing crusty support act (he and Arthur O'Connell had this gig sewn up), Malone trying to act as though she's into him, glossy photography. And Liberace goes for it. And you know something? In some scenes he's not too bad - he can emote, and does the angsty stuff pretty well; he even pulled off a thinking about suicide scene. He's not good in romance but he's not a trainwreck as a dramatic actor. And the piano playing is excellent.
There is some terrible dialogue and dodgy script moments. The bones of the story are alright - pianist loses hearing, can lip read and sets about helping people with their problems. But its poorly executed - it takes too long for him to lose hearing, and far far too long for him to start helping people. And the people he helps aren't very sympathetic - a crippled boy who whines at God for not making him better, a woman whose daughter is embarrassed by her (Liberace gives her a make over... why should we care about this woman impressing her horrible daughter?) and girlfriend Dorothy Malone falling in love with a serviceman who doesn't come across much straighter than Liberace. The romance with Joanne Dru is poorly handled - basically thrown in at the end.
Could Liberace have carried a lead? Maybe say in a madcap comedy where he's a jewel thief, but not in something straight and serious. Still, this isn't that bad and Liberace isn't the worst thing about it.
They throw in Liberace bits - opening with a concert where he plays "Chopsticks" for a kid in the audience, some banter with little old ladies at a nightclub, and plenty of piano playing - which works well enough (I liked the bit in the night club where the audience yell out "hey"). But when he's talking about wanting to play Carnegie Hall, or romancing Dorothy Malone.... I'm sorry. But no.
Like I say they tried - there's William Demarest doing crusty support act (he and Arthur O'Connell had this gig sewn up), Malone trying to act as though she's into him, glossy photography. And Liberace goes for it. And you know something? In some scenes he's not too bad - he can emote, and does the angsty stuff pretty well; he even pulled off a thinking about suicide scene. He's not good in romance but he's not a trainwreck as a dramatic actor. And the piano playing is excellent.
There is some terrible dialogue and dodgy script moments. The bones of the story are alright - pianist loses hearing, can lip read and sets about helping people with their problems. But its poorly executed - it takes too long for him to lose hearing, and far far too long for him to start helping people. And the people he helps aren't very sympathetic - a crippled boy who whines at God for not making him better, a woman whose daughter is embarrassed by her (Liberace gives her a make over... why should we care about this woman impressing her horrible daughter?) and girlfriend Dorothy Malone falling in love with a serviceman who doesn't come across much straighter than Liberace. The romance with Joanne Dru is poorly handled - basically thrown in at the end.
Could Liberace have carried a lead? Maybe say in a madcap comedy where he's a jewel thief, but not in something straight and serious. Still, this isn't that bad and Liberace isn't the worst thing about it.
Book review - "Cagliostro: The Great Impostor" by Nina Wilcox Putnam (2009)
It's not surprising that the magician Cagliostro attracted the attention of Universal execs looking for a vehicle for Bela Lugosi, and then later Boris Karloff in the early 1930s - the mad mysterious physician inspired several books and films over the years. But the treatment turned out here by Nina Wilcox Putnam isn't very good - it simply rips off Dracula with its story of an immortal man who falls in love with a young woman who looks like his former love - only she's in love with a handsome young man who has a Van Helsing style mentor. There's black servants and a killing spree and invisible rays - it isn't very scary or memorable. What's more there's not much Cagliostro either - just "Dr Astro" (it's set in the present day). However you can see several things which were later used by John Balderstone when he turned this into The Mummy.
It is a shame Lugosi or Karloff never got to play Cagliostro - and certainly both men made movies with worse stories than the one here. But this was definitely not a Classic that got Away and Universal made the right decision not to make it.
It is a shame Lugosi or Karloff never got to play Cagliostro - and certainly both men made movies with worse stories than the one here. But this was definitely not a Classic that got Away and Universal made the right decision not to make it.
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