Movie review - "The Baron of Arizona" (1950) ***

One of the reason people love Sam Fuller is because he made films like this. A cheerful account of a real life swindler who almost got his hands on the whole of the Arizona. Because he's played by Vincent Price and the plan is so bold and Price puts in so much work that you really want it to take off.

Ellen Drew is sweet and lovely as the girl he, well, basically gaslights but then they genuinely fall in love so it's okay... dramatically it works I don't want to be a smart arse about it I just wanted to point it out.

James Wong Howe did the cinematography so it looks amazing. Reed Hadley is the deep voiced expert on forgery who goes after Price.

The story proceeds logically. It's not amazing (like a few Fuller movies I get the impression it's overpraised) but it is solid entertainment.

Movie review - "And Soon the Darkness" (1970) **

The first film made under Bryan Forbes' auspices at EMI Films was in theory a smart move - a low budget suspense thriller about two girls on a cycling holiday in France... they have a fight and separate and when the sensible one (Pamela Franklin) goes looking for the slutty one (Michele Dotrice... Betty from Some Mothers Do Have 'Em  and its fun to imagine this is Betty) and she's missing.

It was made by TV talent, but highly experienced - director Robert Fuest, writers Terry Nation and Brian Clemens. It has a cult reputation and was even remade.

It's not that good. There's creepiness at the beginning when you're waiting for one of the girls to go missing. Pamela Franklin has a sweet factor, and watching her I thought "I bet you've got a cult following because you're in horror movies and went nude once in a while" and that's true, but she doesn't rise to the occasion in the last third when she has to carry it all herself - she's better when she has Dotrice (a superior actor) to bounce off.

Robert Fuest has some decent credits but he wasn't a major spooky stylist - like say Roman Polanski or even Freddie Francis - which hurts because not enough happens in the second half. Either the killer is the one weird guy or the second weird guy. It needed another twist or a subplot or something. The Jimmy Sangster written psycho thrillers for Hammer were better.

I can see why you'd like this if you discovered it, like the other Forbes-greenlit thriller from EMI, The Man Who Haunted Himself - but I was underwhelmed.

Movie review - "Bowery to Broadway" (1944) ***

Universal was such a second tier studio in the 1940s this musical is very endearing in it's tackiness. It's made with their "names" - Turhan Bey, Susannah Foster, Maria Montez, Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan, Ann Blyth - and directed by old Charles Lamont.

The film is a rip off of those 20th Century Fox musicals of the time - they'd star John Payne, Betty Grable, June Havoc, etc and were set in the gay 90s and be about squabbling saloon owners who fall out over a girl. Those had more unity than this which has a more episodic storyline - I think to bring in all the stars.

The leads are Jack Oakie (who was in a few of them at Fox) and Donald Cook. They fall out over singer Maria Montez... only she doesn't appear until an hour in despite her top billing. It's fun to see her - she's slightly more animated here than in her technicolor films. (Having said that it's ashame this wasn't in colour - it would have suited it, and maybe this would be more remembered if it was).

The main plot of the first bit of the movie concerns pianist Turhan Bey (!) in love with singer Susanna Foster. He's creepily possessive, though that was a romance trope at the time - she's injured, he stands by her... then the plot switches to Cook-Montez.

There are turns by Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan (singing one song), Ann Blyth. Andy Devine is in it. So too is Evelyn Ankers. Someone plays Lilian Russell. No Lon Chaney Jnr though.

There's plenty of production value. Donald Cook isn't as good as a John Payne or George Montgomery but Jack Oakie is very good, Foster is perfectly cast, Montez and Bey offer novelty outside their normal exotic settings. I actually enjoyed it a lot.

Movie review - "Silver River" (1948) ** (re-viewing)

Hugely expensive, a film of great potential. Starts well with a scene of Errol Flynn fighitng in the Civil War. It doesn't have much to do with the final film - I reckon it was added after previews.

Because the film doesn't go well. There's no life to it. Errol Flynn should have been a great anti hero - and he and Ann Sheridan should have made a fabulous couple. But there's no chemistry - no sexual tension.

David and Bathsheba out west should work. But you never get the sense these two are hot for each other. Sheridan doesn't seem to care about her husband either. Thomas Mitchell's drunk is annoying. He should have played Flynn's best friend all along.

There's too much talk about mines and scenes where men walk through rooms and not enough sex and excitement. Why was Barton MacLane bad again?

Movie review - "That Forsyte Woman" (1949) ** (re-viewing)

Overproduced - the settings are stuffed with props and everyone's wearing too many clothes. I haven't read the novel but you cans see as here there is a basic love triangle that could work - but it doesn't. Errol Flynn is very  good as Soames, Greer Garson is alright as Irene, Robert Young is awful as  Philip and Walter Pidgeon not very good as Jolyon. Janet Leigh is too American. Bad support players.

The film needed better handling. Compton Bennett the director doesn't rise to the occasion. There's no feel, no atmosphere. No sense of family.

Movie review - "The Right Stuff" (1983) ***1/2

It takes the piss but also doesn't, which is what happened in Tom Wolfe's masterful book. This does feel like two movies though - one about Chuck Yeager, a gum chewing laconic modern day cowboy with his fellow gum chewing laconic modern day cowboy friends (seriously they're always chewing) strutting around being cool and manly with big dick energy breaking speed records. This is short like a John Ford film (elegiac funeral scenes) with a dash of Howard Hawks in Barbara Hersey's feisty hard galloping wife and Kim Stanley's hard drinking bar owner.

The other film is more Frank Capra/Preston Sturges, with wacky NASA ops (Harry Shearer and Jeff Goldblum are genuinely funny), swarms of journalists, bombastic politicians (notably LBJ), lots (and lots) of jokes about urine.

I wonder if Kaufman bit off more than he could chew - another writer may have helped. William Goldman's original script was discarded - he wanted to just focus on the astronauts which I think was the correct idea, the two films here co-exist uneasily. I mean who gives a shit if the astronauts earn Yeager's respect?

Dennis Quaid is full of charismatic swagger and makes you wonder why he never became a big star - I'm sure he wonders that too - but then you realise he doesn't have the  vulnerability of Tom cruise. If Quaid had played the lead in Top Gun it wouldn't have been as big a hit - Cruise looked as though he needed to be mothered but Quaid looked as though he could handle himself.

There's a few har-har-har military-style jokes about urination, Scott Glenn imitates a hispanic (apparently Alan Shepherd did a lot of this), they don't have Deke Slayton being turned down for some reason, Scott Carpenter is hardly in it. Weird final scene with the astronauts smiling at each other intercut with a fan dance.

Movie review - "Mara Maru" (1952) **1/2 (re-viewing)

Aspects of this film help it age well simply because they don't make these sort of crusty action melodramas any more. And if Errol Flynn was disintegrating, he was still Errol Flynn and his role suits him - a washed up sea captain. He's occasionally vague but mostly fine in his role.

He has no chemistry with Ruth Roman who is weak - mind you she has no character to play. I wish she'd just been a femme fetale. The cast of this is mostly B league but they do try. Raymond Burr is an A grade villain though.

It's an undercooked movie that occasionally jumps to life. Who cares if the Church get their cross back? Everyone needed to be greedier.