What classics did you see last week ? (21 Jul - 27 Jul 2019)

To The Ends Of The Earth / Robert Stevenson (1948). Columbia Pictures. Treasury Department investigator Michael Barrows (Dick Powell) relates in docu-drama fashion a case he handled before the war – in 1935. After witnessing the deaths of 100 people while checking on an unidentified freighter in San Francisco Harbor, Barrows travels to Shanghai on the trail of the freighter. While there he realizes that the rogue ship is involved with a world-wide drug smuggling ring. His travels also take him to Cairo and then on a ship voyage back to America. In each of these three places he has to discover who is in possession of the drugs being moved, how are they disguised, and how are they being secretly shipped. So we get three mysteries with three ingenious solutions as Barrows tracks the drugs to the end point to round up the top people. Along the way, Barrows keeps running into Ann Grant (Signe Hasso) who is traveling with a Chinese teenage girl (Maylia), a refugee from Japanese. Burrows begins to suspect that Ann’s late husband, an engineer working throughout the near and far East, had ties to the drug smugglers. The best and trickiest of the segments is the last one on the ocean liner. Barrows has to do some fast thinking and hustling to recover the illicit cargo and collar the mastermind behind the whole scheme. Dick Powell gives a committed performance as the lawman up against some ruthless and clever criminals. Signe Hasso, though she was dynamite as the head of the Nazi spy ring in 1945’s docudrama “The House On 92nd Street” (directed by Henry Hathaway), is pretty bland here. Maybe she was directed to be passive. An exciting ride, suspenseful, but not without a few drops of sly and sarcastic humor sprinkled on top. Highly recommended.




Kill Or Be Killed / Max Nosseck (1950). Eagle-Lion Films. A man in a horse drawn wagon pulls up in front of a building with a sign announcing “Huerta’s International Café. The Only Place Along The Amazonas River With Genuine Air Conditioning and Genuine Blondes.” The man is Robert Warren (Lawrence Tierney), an American engineer who came to South America to install the promised air conditioning, but he hasn’t been paid. As he goes to collect from Huerta, someone else is in the office knifing the nightclub owner to death. Warren finds the body so everyone assumes he did it. This noirish adventure thriller is directed by German ex-pat Max Nosseck who had helmed the unlikely 1945 hit “Dillinger” with Tierney as the famous gangster. “Dillinger” was an unexpected hit and even scored an Oscar nomination (Philip Yordan, Original Screenplay). Nosseck and Tierney would team up for a third time in “The Mobster” (1951), one of the darkest and most nihilistic of the noirs – the title mobster gets what’s coming to him at the city dump, fur cryin’ out loud. How noir is that? In “Kill or Be Killed,” however, expectations are reversed as Tierney takes a leading man role in an action movie. According to Wikipedia, during the period KOBK was being shot, Tierney was making his reputation as a bar fighting mean drunk who was arrested more than a dozen times between 1944 and 1951 for brawling and/or drunkenness. Yet, on screen, he appears to be in very good physical shape, toiling anonymously with his shirt off while hiding out on a South American plantation. The cinematography is by J. Roy Hunt who shot a lot of westerns in his time but did a couple of pictures with Nosseck and dipped into noir with “I Walked With A Zombie (1943), “The Devil Thumbs A Ride (with Lawrence Tierney) (1947) and “Crossfire” (1947). In KOBK he does a couple of innovative things including a 360 ͦ camera turn around a circle of plantation workers burying one of their own. The romantic interest is played by Marissa O'Brien who only has one other picture on her filmography. Mercury Theatre vet and frequent Orson Welles collaborator George Coulouris is the man who does the dirty work for his boss, the plantation owner.. The presence of some outdoor location work indicates that this is maybe a B+ movie. In many ways a routine programmer (it wraps up with a fist fight and a gun shot), Lawrence Tierney and some directorial moves elevate it. A decent hour’s entertainment.




Mission: Impossible – Fallout / Christopher McQuarrie (2018). Paramount Pictures. Maybe it’s just me. Better than average acting for an action movie. Great stunts, editing, and thrilling set-pieces of gun play, aerial dog fights, betrayals, chases, escapes, and high altitude dizziness. But there’s just so much of it. Too much of it. Barely any breathing space. In the end, it gets on my nerves. It’s probably just me. Anyway, the IMF guys (Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson) are legit again after going rogue in their last picture. Now they have to deal with an anarchist group who has stolen four plutonium bombs from the Russians and threaten to detonate them within a couple of days. (If the Russians are generally not movie villains any more, they are just the clumsy oafs who let evildoers waltz off with their weapons of mass destruction.) However, even though the IMF is back in fold, the CIA director (Angela Bassett) still doesn’t trust them so they are saddled with an observer, August Walker (Henry Cavill), a trained and experienced assassin, to keep them in line. So, if non-stop, can’t catch your breath action is your cuppa tea (and it is for a lot of people) then this will be your favorite movie.




PLAY

Shakespeare In Hollywood by Ken Ludwig. A farce set in Hollywood in 1935 during the filming of the Max Reinhardt production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Reinhardt first has to sell Jack Warner on the idea of a Shakespeare film which Warner believes will be box office poison. Then, as filming begins, actor Victor Jory who was cast as Oberon, King of the Fairies suddenly drops out and Mickey Rooney as Puck breaks his leg in a skiing accident. By a happy coincidence and a magic spell gone wrong, the real Oberon and Puck from Fairy Land in the forest outside ancient Athens appear on the set. Chaos ensues, especially after Puck goes wild with the flower whose drop in the eyes will make that person fall madly in love with the first living creature he/she sees. The leading lady is Olivia, but not de Havilland (maybe because she is still alive). We also meet, in addition to Max Reinhardt and Jack Warner: Louella Parsons, Will Hays, Dick Powell, James Cagney, and Joe E. Brown (“Why am I in this movie? I can barely speak regular English.”). A funny afternoon or evening at the theater.

The Thin Red Line 10/10

Terrence Malick's look inside the minds of young men at war. Didn't care much for it the first time I saw it. It's one of my favorites now.

Hi all, my quest to catch up with films from 1947 I have yet to see is drawing to a close, with just one more at the moment to catch. Thanks to morrisondylanfan for the recommend of The Pearl >


The Pearl (1947) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0037981/reference 

This is a story that old men tell to children. They aren't sure where it happened or when.
 
The Pearl is directed by Emilio Fernández and John Steinbeck co-adapts his own novella of the same name with Fernández and Jack Wagner. It stars Pedro Armendariz, María Elena Marqués, Fernando Wagner, Gilberto González, Juan García and Charles Rooner. Music is by Antonio Díaz Conde and cinematography by Gabriel Figueroa.

We are in La Paz, Mexico, and when Quino and Juana's son is stung by a scorpion the couple are anguished by not having the finances to pay for medical treatment. Hope springs eternal when Quino discovers a large pearl, something which is seemingly the answer to their prayers - is it?

What we basically have here is a morality play about the corruption of greed. Once the pearl of the title is discovered the ugliness of mankind rears its vile head. People around Quino and Juana - a homely honest but poor couple - suddenly have designs on the financial gains that the pearl can bring - with some of them willing to commit cardinal sins to achieve their aim. The pearl also begins to drive a wedge between the loving couple, and thus we are held enthral of the story to see exactly where this will all end up?

Though it's not very subtle in the telling, with Steinbeck's literary bent often as heavy as a sledgehammer, this is undeniably compelling stuff. That it's also a visual delight also considerably aids the viewing experience. Fernández and Figueroa bring truly atmospheric cinematography into play as a key character of the piece, with kinked frames and low level shots perfectly embracing the discord of the troubling human conditioning on view. Come 1947 what we would come to know as the film noir style of film making was in full effect, fans of such should for sure add The Pearl to their must seek out lists. 8/10



Roughshod (1949) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0041827/reference

Roughshod, neither shoddy or rough. ​

Roughshod is directed by Mark Robson and collectively written by Peter Viertel, Hugo Butler and Daniel Mainwaring. It stars Gloria Grahame, Robert Sterling, John Ireland, Claude Jarman Jr, Jeff Donnell, Myrna Dell and Martha Hyer. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Joseph Biroc.​​

Mary Wells (Grahame) and her "dance hall" co-workers Elaine, Helen and Marcia, have been forced out of town by the reform element and are heading for Sonoma, California. When their wagon breaks down they are pleased to find Clay Phillips (Sterling) and his kid brother Steve (Jarman) on the trail and Mary asks for their help. Clay grudgingly agrees to take them on to the next ranch, fully aware that he has troubles of his own since the psychopathic Lednov (Ireland) has escaped from prison and is hunting Clay for revenge purpose.​​

Out of RKO, Roughshod is not an action packed genre piece, this is very much about characters in life transition, people chasing dreams whilst attempting to cast off previous life demons. It starts in shocking fashion but then settles into a splendidly pot boiling rhythm. Untapped sexual tensions begin to arise, the cat and mousery of emotional states engrossing, while secrets will out and destinies are about to be formed for better and worse as it happens...​​

Mark Robson was coming off of a run of films under the atmospheric guidance of Val Lewton, and Roughshod bears all the visual hallmarks of those fine pictures. With cinematographer Biroc (The Frightened City/Cry Danger) photographing for mood purpose, and Robson having his characters shuffle about eerily throughout the night time sequences, there's a dreamy quality about proceedings. That is until we at various times switch to the escaped convicts and their journey towards Clay and the girls, they be a constant menacing threat that looms large, Lednov (Ireland wonderfully scary) a mad wolf in the fold.

With visual styling in place, Roughshod also has film noir credentials bursting from the seams elsewhere, one look at the cast is evidence of that. Then there is one Daniel Mainwaring (AKA: Geoffrey Homes), who can count Out of the Past as one of his literary superlatives. The writing is thoughtful and sensitive in how the "working girls" are drawn, while the key relationship between Mary (Grahame owning every scene she is in) and Clay simmers away with dialogue spicy as he fights his moral code by wanting her - and she revels in knowing this fact!

This is very much something of an underseen little treat for fans of film noir type Westerns, so fans of such should seek it out. 7/10



Hans Christian Andersen (1952) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0044685/reference 

It's not a story of his life, just a fairytale about a spinner of fairy tales. 

So the opening written words say to us the very thing that many across the movie forums have failed to spot, namely that they wasn't going for first tier autobiographical on this! just a celebration of the name and his work is all.

Who better to bring the great Dane to the screen than the ebullient Danny Kaye, his exuberant approach to the topic befits the glorious colour that positively sparkles in every frame of Charles Vidor's film.

The story tracks the Cobbler Andersen as he leaves his hometown of Odense to seek a new life in the beautiful city of Copenhagen. It is here that he becomes known for his stories that bring about much joy to the children of Denmark - and here that he writes his glorious ballet version of The Little Mermaid. He gets into scrapes, he falls for a pretty girl, and most of all he discovers his vocation in life, this is indeed a delightful fairytale in itself.

Sit back and enjoy The Emperor's New Clothes, Wonderful Copenhagen, Thumberlina and The Ugly Duckling, and then fall silenct for the 15 minute showing of The Little Mermaid in all its balletic glory. Hans Christian Andersen is a smashingly buoyant film, one that may come wrapped up in treacle for some folk, but for those of us with a sweet filmic tooth then the pleasures are there to be had. 8/10



The Road to Hong Kong (1962) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0056417/reference 

The Seventh Voyage of Bing and Bob. 

The Road to Hong Kong is the seventh and final film in the "Road To" series of films starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. It's directed by Norman Panama and Panama co-writes the screenplay with Melvin Frank. Music is by Robert Farnon and cinematography is by Jack Hildyard. Plot pitches Hope and Crosby in the middle of a mistaken identity scenario and thus mixed up with an organisation intent on world domination via the moon!

There had been a ten year gap since The Road to Bali was released in 1952, but such was the success and popularity of the series the boys were once again trundled out for one last "Road To" hurrah. Behind the scenes squabbles and stipulations tainted it some what, most notably the shunting out of the way of the series' previously leading lady Dorothy Lamour (who ends up making an extended cameo), who was replaced by a youthful Joan Collins. So with some scratchy back history and a word of mouth reputation as the worst of the series, with claims of the dynamic duo being too old and long past their best, The Road to Hong Kong must be a stinker then? Right? Actually no.

Sure it lacks some of the energised nuttiness of previous instalments, but this definitely isn't a stinker. Yes the boys are a bit long in the tooth, and Collins, whilst no Lamour in screen presence and chemistry value with the duo, is sexy, spunky and grounds some of the more older frayed edges. The sci-fi plot is delightfully bonkers, very much capturing the space age zeitgeist of the 60s, and there's a whole bunch of great gags as usual (my favourite is about an elephant thermometer). Not all the intended humourous scenes work, but most do, while there's even a quite surreal one involving banana feeding machines! Bonus sees a cameo from the great Peter Sellers as his patented Indian Doctor, a scene where you can see Bing and Bob looking on and thinking the torch is being passed, while a strong support cast includes Robert Morley, Walter Gotell and Felix Aylmer. Funky opening credit sequences as well!

Worst in the series? Well that's a harsh statement, more like it's a lesser light than the rest it is probably more fairer to say, but it's a fun film that adds weight to what fine entertainment value Bing and Bob were. 6.5/10



Rollercoaster (1977) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0076636/reference

Wrong psychological profile, Harry. I'm not in this for kicks. 

Rollercoaster is directed by James Goldstone and co-adapted to screenplay by Sanford Sheldon, Richard Levinson and William Link from a suggested Tommy Cook story. It stars George Segal, Timothy Bottoms, Richard Widmark, Harry Guardino, Susan Strasberg and Helen Hunt. A Panavision/Technicolor production in Sensurround, it features music by Lalo Schifrin and photography by David M. Walsh.

A psychopathic bomber known only as "Young Man" (Bottoms) is causing terror at American theme parks. When safety inspector Harry Calder (Segal) is brought in to investigate, it sets off a cat and mouse game as the "Young Man" ups the ante...

Even now Rollercoaster is still wrongly being lumped in with the disaster movie genre that surfaced in the 1970s. Released at a time when that particular genre of film was fading out, Rollercoaster is anything but a disaster movie. What it is, in fact, is a psychopath character based thriller that adheres to procedural values and character involvement. As it runs at nearly two hours in length should notify viewers that it isn't a film chocked full of Rollercoaster sequences and explosive pyrotechnics. Yes, there's some exciting "Coaster" sequences, neatly shown to us in POV, and in spite of the (obvious 1970s) use of dummies for the plot set up carnage, this thrives on human interest and race against the clock suspense.

The marker is set early on as Bottoms' smirking killer sets up his first murderous act whilst listening to some deathly string arrangement on his cassette player. We then segue into funfair music as the joys of the amusement park brings a warmth and calm to the viewer, this however is soon vanquished as the terror that a terrorist can bring comes right to the fore. From here on in the Bottoms character remains mysterious, but we now know just what he is capable of. Likewise does Segal's character, as do the likes of Widmark's Agent Hoyt and the rest of the "suits" frantically scratching around trying to avert further tragedy as the fresh faced bomber demands money with menaces. This ensures the bulk of the film is made up of Calder and Young Man interactions and police procedural movements. It has much talk, very much so, but it's well scripted dialogue and heightens the tension as we enter the final third.

One of the few films to feature the Sensurround gimmick, the film perhaps logically loses much impact on the small screen. Prints of the film are only adequate, and the sound mix doesn't shake your lounges in the way it certainly did back in 1970s theatres. Yet this is still a damn fine suspense picture, a pic that also carries with it some stoic performances from Segal and Widmark - and a chillingly effective villainous turn from the undervalued Bottoms. Henry Fonda is on the credits, but really it's just an early cameo appearance, while there's much interest value in watching future Academy Award winner Helen Hunt as the young daughter of Harry Calder.

Expect a taut thriller like "Two-Minute Warning", which was released the previous year, and you hopefully will not feel at all let down. Expecting a two hour disaster movie full of Coaster Carnage, however, will only lead to a crushing disappointment. 8/10



Escape to Victory (1981) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0083284/reference 

Arguably one of the most unfairly derided boys own movies out there? 

World War II and the Nazi officers have come up with a propaganda driven idea for the German national football team to play a team composed of Allied Prisoners of War. Led by Capt. John Colby (Michael Caine) the prisoners agree, but there's more than just propaganda at stake here.

Directed by John Huston in the twilight of his career, Escape To Victory, in spite of it being a perennial Bank Holiday staple viewing in the UK, is a film that's often used as a kicking post by stuffy critics. It's hard to understand why such a fun and harmless piece can cause such derision in cinematic circles. It can't be expectation because when you read the plot and see that Sylvester Stallone is playing as the goalkeeper, and that a tubby 48 year old Caine is the captain of this soccer team, well surely you know this film isn't all about about cranial depth encompassing the propaganda machinations of the Nazi regime.

Using real footballers (notably Pelé, Bobby Moore and Osvaldo Ardilies) is what makes Escape To Victory work as entertainment for so many people in the UK. Huston, much like Stallone, hadn't got a clue how to make a football based movie. In stepped the footballers to choreograph the films football sequences - sequences that give the film some truly memorable moments (Pelé overhead kick, Ardiles rainbow flick, and erm, a Stallone penalty save). They couldn't act for toffee, none of them, but that's where Caine comes in. Guiding them through their scenes, Caine was highly thought of on the set by the players, a sort of father figure by all accounts, and not just on the set, but in the bar as well. Stallone excepted (he was off doing his own thing most of the time), it was a happy shoot, and this shines bright in the movie, with the non actors growing in confidence as the movie progresses. So while the film ultimately deals in escapist fun, it's not without moments of poignancy too. A sacrificial break for the war effort induces winces across the board, whilst the arrival of the Eastern Block players from the work camps demands our utmost heartfelt thoughts.

So is Escape To Victory a great film? No, of course not. But it is a darn good one. A film that's easy to lose oneself in during the holiday periods. With Caine flicking the eff off Vs, Max Von Sydow being classy as usual and some legendary footballers strutting their stuff, what's not to enjoy? Really? 7.5/10



Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/reference

Ahh, the magic begins.

Harry Potter is an Orphan who on his eleventh birthday discovers he's a wizard and is called to term at Hogwarts School. But Harry is soon to find out that his past, and his destiny, is a truly remarkable, magical, and terrifying thing.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone arrived in a blaze of publicity, one of the most hyped and talked about motion pictures of the decade had finally arrived. The box office was guaranteed to bulge based on fandom book base alone, regardless of if the film got bad word of mouth or not, it was destined to be a monster smash hit. To someone like me who to this day has never read any of the Harry Potter books, it was easy for me to view objectively without comparison to the source - I enjoyed it immensely upon theatre release, and I still enjoy it equally as much now.

Director Christopher Columbus, I believe has wisely stayed loyal to the source material, and thus pleased the literature masses. Yet not all newcomers to the party were that taken by the magic on show, that's a little baffling to me because the budget explodes from the screen at every turn. Oliver Twist like sets form the marvellous Diagon Alley, dream like smoke cloaks the splendid Hogwarts Express, the school itself is a monolithic delight nestling in among eerie mountains - and what about the exhilarating introduction of Quidditch? Pulsating and frantic with no amount of devilment to keep us intrigued throughout.

The characters are all perfectly formed in the first two thirds of the film, here Columbus pulls off a masterstroke by interjecting the character arcs with dashes of wonder so that we the audience never gets bored. The final reel plays out solidly as per the mysterious "who done it" core of the piece, but it's down to the previous work in the film that we actually care come the finale. Some great casting of the adults really helps to make the film triumph, with Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane (one of the best casting jobs of the decade I would say), Richard Harris, Alan Rickman and Zoe Wanamaker all doing excellent work here. The kids are all newcomers that overnight were to become household names, all fresh faced and wet behind the ears, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint & Tom Felton are a delight to watch, and they all help to keep the feeling of charm constantly glowing up on the screen.

Owls here, witches there, what's that strange three headed dog doing over there? The Harry Potter franchise begins with a bang and a whip of the wand, and I and gazillions of others personally love it. 8/10


Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - www.imdb.com/title/tt3778644/reference

Let me give you some advice. Assume everyone will betray you. And you will never be disappointed.

So the latest in what is becoming a long running sci-fi franchise sees Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) get his prequel movie. Unsurprisingly, such is the ferocious core fan base of the Star Wars series, it has been met with a mixture of outright hatred to pats on the back appreciation. It really is a case here of jumping in to view it on its own terms to at least give it a chance. The truth is, is that if this was a stand alone movie being judged purely as a science fiction action movie, then it would be better appreciated. For this is cracker jack entertainment in that sphere, with superbly constructed worlds inhabited by delirious looking aliens species, feisty droids hold court, and the humans are daring, cheeky and even sexy. It is in short quality and fantastical sci-fi, even if in truth as per the Solo character trajectory it's safe film making.

We, as in the royal Star Wars fans we, all have our card carrying belief that our opinion on any Star Wars film is correct, but really the only advice I can honestly give here is that if you haven't seen it yet then at least give it a chance. Those that have seen it have their minds made up either way, so personally I can only say how much fun I had watching it - twice! All the dots are joined towards the Solo character I love so dear, from back when with childhood eyes in the late 70s I was transfixed on that big screen. How great to see how Han met Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and how their brilliant friendship begins. To witness the birth of the Han/Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover excellent) friendly rivalry - and all that that entails as regards our favourite spaceship - The Millennium Falcon. Yes, I like it well enough for sure, maybe you will as well? 7.5/10


Done!

A terrific review of The Pearl,Spike! In school we got forced to read Of Mice and Men, and this might be controversial, but I found it a bit too dry (it was also not helped by how pushy the teacher was.) Getting the novella from my dad, (and not knowing it was based on a script) I found The Pearl to be a far more enjoyable read,with what turned out to be Steinbeck having to adapt his script giving it a real snappy pace. This is what I wrote on the film in 2014:

 10.

Filmed on location in Mexico,co-writer/ (along with John Steinbeck and Jack Wagner)director Emilio Fernández and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa give the film an extraordinary depth of field,with Fernández and Figueroa showing Quino and Juana's village to be a scorched earth,where the blistering sun shows the complete lack of hope that anyone has in the village of a brighter future.Setting the movie alight with Film Noir oil, Fernández,Figueroa and composer Antonio Díaz Conde brilliantly reveal the raw,decaying impact that the pearl has on Quino and Juana,thanks to Fernández allowing the black tar waves to overflow onto the village,as the pearl is shown to completely block out any light from entering Juana and Quino's life.

Written before Steinbeck decided to turn the screenplay into a short story (!),the writers delicately allow the viewer to see the close- knitted bond between Quino,Juana and their baby,thanks to the writers showing each of them attempting to make the most out of a tough life by keeping their family unit strong.Hitting the family with a dazzling pearl,the writers subtly show the relationship between Quino and Juana to gradually fracture,as Juana starts to see the pearl as an embodiment of all the evil in their lives,whilst Quino becomes obsessed with the power that the ownership of the pearl offers him.

Slithering across the screen, Charles Rooner gives a brilliant performance as the Dr,with Rooner soaking the Doctors hands in sweat,as he cast his gaze on Quino's pearl.Showing a strong sense of fear over not being able to stop her husband from sinking into a deep abyss,the very pretty María Elena Marqués gives an excellent,fragile performance as Juana,which matches sensitivity with a bubbling anxiety over the rotten road that her family are going down.Casting a wide smile as he looks into the pearl, Pedro Armendáriz shows the addicted effect that the pearl has on Quino with a raw intensity which peels away every belief that Quino held,as he discovers the pearls of the deep.

The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005). A look at the English encounters with the "naturals" of Tidewater Virginia in the early 17th century. Beautiful cinematography and themes of humans immersed in nature make for a wonderful experience but they overwhelm the storyline. Nonetheless, it's a 7/10. Next for me: The Tree of Life.