mensa3 Reviews

Dark Command (1940)

Poor as a history lesson; good as a movie

[25 April 2000]

"Dark Command" is, of course, one of the Essential Westerns, since it puts up Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes and JOHN WAYNE on the screen at the same time--not to mention teaming up the Duke with Claire Trevor, his lady from "Stagecoach." It's also a transitional film, mixing in elements (and actors) from the long line of Republic horse operas of the 1930s with themes, leads, and a director more in line with the "A" pictures of its day. The real star is the heavy, Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon), who begins as a schoolteacher and ends as a cynical partisan leader with no real allegiance. John Wayne is no slouch here, but his role is too much the conventional good guy to allow him to outsize Pidgeon. Roy Rogers actually gets to kill a guy, and Gabby Hayes plays something more than a caricature.

Now for the history: There wasn't really a time warp in 1861 Kansas that allowed people to get Colt Model 1873 revolvers, which everyone in the movie except Claire Trevor seems to pack. Sergio Leone got away with it in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," though, so I will forgive Mr. Walsh. Cantrell is VERY loosely based on William Quantrill, a Confederate guerrilla leader who actually burned Lawrence, KS, during the Civil War. Thirty years after "Dark Command," John Wayne would play a former member of Quantrill's Raiders in "True Grit."

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)

Leisurely, thoughtful entertainment

[23 April 2000]

This movie immerses you in a world very different from ours, the life of rural England before technology had connected it with urban sophistication. If you want nonstop action and at least three "funny" quips per minute, pass it by. If you have the patience to let a timeless story unfold at its own pace, however, you will find this one rewarding.

You Can't Win 'Em All (1970)

Action Picture With Unusual Setting

[17 April 2000]

This is a competent adventure movie pairing, of all people, Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson. It's setting is an obscure one for Americans: Turkey in its days of revolutionary war following the defeat and collapse of the Ottoman Dynasty in World War I. Bronson and his band of mercs have tommy guns but don't get to use them as much as you might expect. On no best-of list, but this movie is a bit better than it had to be, and worth a look.

Arrivederci, Baby! (1966)

Half-hearted black comedy with some good moments.

[17 April 2000]

I know nothing of the history of this movie, but I suspected it started out with this pitch: "Let's do 'How to Murder Your Wife' but with Tony Curtis.'" While there was no actual murder in the aforementioned movie (made a year earlier), there are several in this one. Curtis has a fine time playing his dark side in the first half of the movie and mostly getting away with it. The last half of the movie goes nowhere, though, and Nancy Kwan really has nothing to do in the movie, even if she is on the video box cover nowadays. However, Zsa Zsa Gabor has her one perfect, if brief, role of her otherwise inexplicable career in the first part of the movie.

The Great Race (1965)

Blake Edwards at his Best

[17 April 2000]

Blake Edwards has made funnier movies, but this carefully-crafted, uncompromising comedy epic is his best work. Its gently rambling pace perfectly complements the period it evokes: the innocent early years of the 20th century and, of course, when movies themselves were beginning.

This movie also the point at which Tony Curtis was in his top form. Six years earlier in "Some Like it Hot," Jack Lemmon stole every scene he shared with Curtis, but here Curtis more than holds his own, impersonating a perfected version of his "Tony Curtis" persona, but not overdoing it as he was so often to do later. He even pulls off some good-natured swordplay in the "Prisoner of Zenda" section near the end of the film, homage to all those swashbucklers he did in the Fifties.

"The Great Race" is a perfect entertainment. And, of course, it has the greatest pie fight ever filmed.