What classics did you see last week ? (14 Apr - 20 Apr 2019)
Apr 24, 2019 12:07:13 GMT
teleadm likes this
Post by hitchcockthelegend on Apr 24, 2019 12:07:13 GMT
I'm old enough to remember the real Eddie, The movie hits the right tone to make it entertaining, but misses the edge to make it memorable.
Liam Neeson in an action movie, one knows what's in store. Thrilling enought for a lazy Sunday evening, and Julianna Morre was a good counter part, to keep guessing going
Trying something out of the box, a Thai-Hong Kong horror fantasy. To my surprise I was entertained.
The premise is that whatever you write, and throw in a wastebasket, a letter a book or whatever, it has been created and lives in a wasteland among many other broken ideas.
The last of the old Bond's, done in the old style. Lee is a great villain, he likes money, and has no clue about technology of solar power, and doesn't care.
Ekland must be one of the most annoying Bond Brides ever!
Generally it feels a bit tired when seeing it again.
With stars like Jean Gabin, Gert Fröbe and George Raft, this French gangster movie should have been so much better.
Cool soundtrack tough
Fröbe puts in a good performace, while Gabin and Raft is on routine spare, for next movie maybe..
Hitchcock's ride on the dark side, Henry Fonda is the right one for this, innocence is not always an advantage, it can break people down even if it's pure
It's in public domain so it's not that difficullt to find, the copy I watched was very crisp and sharp, The thing I like most is Edward G. Robinson's underplaying, and how Ihe figueres things out, with pipe and all, reminded me of 1970s TV Colombo, he knew the villain from the start, he just have to figure out how it was done.
Well that was my week!
You get as much pleasure out of killing as I do, so why don't you admit it?
The Man with the Golden Gun is directed by Guy Hamilton and adapted to screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz from the Ian Fleming novel. It stars Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Herve Villechaize, Soon-Taik-Oh, Richard Loo and Clifton James. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Ted Moore & Oswald Morris.
Bond 9 and 007 is distracted from his pursuit of the Solex Agitator when it appears he has been targeted for death by famous assassin Francisco Scaramanga.
This would be the last Bond movie to be produced by the partnership of Broccoli and Saltzman, the latter of which was the one to leave. Perhaps they fought about what direction Moore's Bond should be taking? Because The Man with the Golden Gun is not a fitting film for them to part on, their fall out most likely impacting on why this is a pretty unadventurous entry in the James Bond franchise. The film plays more as a slapstick comedy than an action adventure. The script is uninspired, with the characters of Mary Goodnight (Ekland) and Sheriff Pepper (James) reaching new lows for Bond allies, while some of the situations that arise are just bizarre and lazy. The latter statement of which applies big time to the weak finale.
However, even average Bond films have value somewhere in the mix. Here there's some grit in Moore's performance and Lee's Scaramanga is one of the series' most interesting villains. Maud Adams is given a good character to work from, her Andrea Anders is intriguing and very much a live wire in the plot, it's a good performance that would see Adams rewarded with the lead lady role in Octopussy (1983). Villechaize's Nick Nack, Scaramanga's right hand man/helper is a unique villain, though this is spoilt somewhat by a daft final confrontation with Bond. There's a brilliant car stunt performed by Bumps Willard, done in one take, it alone deserved to be in a better film.
Elsewhere. Barry is back on musical score duties, providing an Oriental tinted arrangement. Sadly Lulu's title theme song is instantly forgettable and lyrically feels like it was written in 5 minutes. Locations are sumptuous, with Macau, Hong Kong and Thailand put to great use by the team, and the gadgetry is kept to minimum which allows us to enjoy the one or two inventive modes of transport used within the piece. The box office was $98 million, a considerable take for sure but still some $63 million down on the previous Bond adventure. With critics and fans considering the film a let down, questions were again raised as to if Bond was loosing his appeal? With Saltzman, Hamilton and Mankiewicz bowing out of the franchise, would there be a turnaround in Bond's fortunes? Would Moore finally get a script and film to test him? 6.5/10
I will get to reviewing The Wrong Man this year...
The Stranger. 9/10 > www.imdb.com/review/rw2001675/?ref_=tt_urv
