ecarle Reviews

Goodbye Charlie (1964)

I Love It Through the Opening Credits

[13 June 2005]

The first five minutes or so of "Goodbye, Charlie" are simply sublime. But you can turn it off after the "Directed by Vincente Minnelli" credit comes on. But let's back up.

20th Century Fox logo on and off. Nice Cinemascope shot of a yacht off the Malibu coast at night, with jazzy-rock music in the far distance and a distant swingin' party on board. Three star credits come on and off: "Tony Curtis," "Debbie Reynolds," "Pat Boone." Onto the boat, where a raucous Hollywood party is in full swing. Director Minnelli captures all the phoniness and glamour of the party. A superfast psueudo-rock number -- "Seven at Once" -- is blaring on the "Hi-Fi" as heavy-bosomed Playmate of the Year Donna Michelle shakes her ample breasts in a low cut gold dress (in 1964, this was "sexy.") Hot young folks are dancing while stuffy old agent Martin Gabel looks on with peptic-ulcer angst. Some handsome matrons (Ellen Macrae, soon Burstyn, Joanna Barnes) try to swing with the Playmate, but to no avail. Walter Matthau (in gray wig and blazer) plays poker and puffs on a big stogie.

Old-fashioned director Vincente Minnelli tries some new-fashioned "hand-held camera" work (see: that year's earlier "A Hard Day's Night") to capture the ensuing action: Matthau's wife Laura Devon (the second sexiest woman after Playmate Donna Michelle) sneaks off for some hot below decks lovemaking with the barely seen stud screenwriter, "Charlie." Matthau snoops around in the kitchen of the yacht, and gets a gun when the maid isn't looking(this part of the sequence is like the opening murder sequence in the same December's "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" ) Matthau then bursts in on his wife and Charlie, starts shooting.

Charlie jumps out a porthole into the ocean, but Walter's bullets kill him before he hits the drink.

The party guests rush to the side of the boat and look down into the ocean where Charlie fell. Credits fly out of the water as a raucous male-female chorus sings the swinging, fun title song "Goodbye, Charlie! Hate to see you go..." What follows is a regulation 1964 animation sequence of deep sea creatures in the deep blue sea (where Charlie has gone to rest, soon to return as Debbie Reynolds) and that infectious title tune about a lothario getting his just desserts. (This song got a lot of radio play in '64/'65.) Vincente Minnelli was a pro, and this opening sequence is a lot of fun as the old (studio production values in costumes and yacht interior) fights with the new (hand-held camera, Playmate of the Year boobs) in a raucous sing-a-long opening that bids farewell to Hollywood's studio era and plants the genre as dead as Charlie with the counterculture years ahead.

"Goodbye, Charlie!" indeed...hate to see you go.

Homicidal (1961)

This IS a "Psycho" Homage (or ripoff)

[5/10 · 9 December 2004]

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD) First, I'll say that I loved the movies of William Castle. From "Macabre" through "House on Haunted Hill," "The Tingler," "13 Ghosts" to "Homicidal," with all those great gimmicks, Castle was the epitome of a drive-in horror showman genius in the late 50's.

Second, Hitchcock copied Castle when he made "Psycho." Hitchcock was well aware of the big bucks made by "Macabre" and "House on Haunted Hill" and wanted to make something like William Castle did "for the teenage drive-in crowd." Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho" came out in 1959 and Hitchcock pounced on it. Like many a William Castle movie, "Psycho" was made cheaply in black-and-white, and set in a small town backwater area like Castle movies. Hitchcock also included an "upscale William Castle gimmick." Rather than tingling seats or "death insurance," Hitchcock simply stamped a demand on all "Psycho" advertising: "No one

can enter the theater after 'Psycho' begins!" Hitch said he wanted to protect his secrets, but he was also making "Psycho" feel completely like a Castle picture.

Third, William Castle saw what a blockbuster hit Hitchcock had in "Psycho," so he rushed "Homicidal" into production. Look at the release date: June 1961. Plenty of time for Castle to see "Psycho," have a script written, and film his copycat.

The plot specifics and murders in "Homicidal" are different from "Psycho," but the film has these match-ups: 1. After years of making "haunted house" type movies, Castle makes in "Homicidal" a slasher movie like "Psycho." 2. The story begins with a title: "Ventura, California," like "Psycho"'s "Phoenix, Arizona." 3. The story starts on a pretty blonde making a journey in a car.

NOTE: Here comes BIG TWIST on "Psycho" : instead of killing the beautiful girl at the 30 minute mark, Castle surprises us by having the GIRL commit the bloody murder instead. Nice.

4. Eventually, the story moves to a lonely house near a small California town: Solvang (a real town, instead of the fictional Fairvale in "Psycho.") 5. A hero and heroine are introduced in that small town. A police detective , instead of a private eye, introduces himself.

6. SPOILER: the twist ending is just like "Psycho": a man dressed like a woman has been committing the murders.

Like most William Castle movies, "Homicidal" is cheesy fun on its own terms, and scary enough. Fair play: Hitchcock homaged Castle with "Psycho," so Castle homaged him back.

But "Time" magazine was absolutely crazy to say that "Homicidal" was better than "Psycho." That's insane.

Hitchcock's command of cinematic art is everywhere in "Psycho." Compare the editing of the shower scene to any of the murder in "Homicidal" (which involve animated cartoon blood on one victim and a dummy head on the other.) Compare Hitchcock's great camera move over Anthony Perkins, the dialogue, the acting, the other murder scene, the climax.

"Homicidal" is fun, but comes nowhere near the artistry of "Psycho."

The Way We Were (1973)

You Had To Be There

[29 November 2004]

A lot of college-and-up-age couples swooned for "The Way We Were" in the fall of '73. Male buddy pictures were all the rage -- Redford's usual partner was Paul Newman, and here for once was a love story between a man and a woman. Streisand was a huge, improbable star and Redford was reaching maximum superstar heat. He's never looked better than in "The Way We Were."

Streisand and Redford seemed like a mismatch, but it was perfect. (And Streisand held out until Redford agreed to do the movie, which took forever to achieve.)

Weirdly, this was a great date movie even though (SPOILER)....Babs and Bob split up at the end. It was just such an offbeat love story. Women could swoon at the idea that anybody, even a frizzy-haired campus radical, could land Robert Redford. Men liked Redford and found Streisand's intensity kind of endearing and sexy.

These things were unforgettable: Streisand and Redford together; that sad, sad, schmaltzy song (a Number One hit and Oscar winner); and the final scene, a guaranteed tearjerker that anybody who has ever broken up with anybody and sees their lost love later (or WANTS to see their lost love later) can relate to.

"The Way We Were": all-star Grade-A tearjerking schmaltz. Loved it then. Love it now -- it's the way we were.

P.S. I love Redford's early line to the humorless Commie Streisand when she refuses to laugh at his jokes: "OK, comes the revolution, maybe we'll all have a sense of humor."

Deliverance (1972)

Turnabout Is Fair Play

[30 August 2004]

The permissive movie code was enacted in late 1969, and by the years 1971 and 1972, Hollywood filmmakers had put plenty of movies into the pipeline to make the most of the new freedoms in sex, profanity, and violence.

Rape, with its mix of sex and violence, became the big deal in film year 1971-1972: Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs," Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" and Hitchcock's "Frenzy" all had strong rape scenes, and rape was spoken of in "Dirty Harry" and "Klute."

Except that all of the characters raped (and sometimes killed) in those movies were women.

Released as it was after those films, "Deliverance" was the movie that finally turned the tables and put a man in the victim's position in a grueling rape scene. In one way, it was just another taboo to be broken. In another, the shoe was finally on the other foot.

Ironic: men were indeed upset at the "Deliverance" rape scene, but rather quickly turned it into the butt of jokes that continue to this day: "Squeal like a piggy!" and "You've got a purty mouth, boy" have moved from lines of terror to lines of comedy. It's a guy thing.

City Heat (1984)

Two Superstars Surprisingly Fail

[24 August 2004]

In 1978, Eastwood and Reynolds appeared together on the cover of Time as the reigning male superstars. If "City Heat" had been made that year, it would have been a superblockbuster.

But by 1984, Reynolds' career was already declining (too many insipid "Cannonball Run" movies.) Eastwood -- who after "Dirty Harry" never worked with major co-stars -- may have finally said "yes" to co-starring with Reynolds because he was clearly the bigger star in 1984. But even Eastwood was starting to age.

All the problems others have related here are true, plus one more: Reynolds was hit in the face by a stunt man with a real chair while filming the opening diner fight scene. Reynolds' jaw was broken and he had a severe medical condition causing pain, headaches, and dizzyness. Reynolds was a trouper and finished the movie (he is quite funny in it), but one of the reasons the movie is so short and incoherent is that the injured Reynolds couldn't work very long in the film (notice: in the final fight, "Reynolds" is wearing a wolf mask -- because that's not Reynolds.)

"City Heat" opened at Xmas against "Beverly Hills Cop" and new star Eddie Murphy cleaned the clocks of old stars Eastwood and Reynolds . Reynolds would never be a top star again. Adding insult to injury, the ad tag line "The Heat is On!" first used by "City Heat" was shifted to "Beverly Hills Cop" when "City Heat" disappeared from theaters.

It's too bad, really. Once upon a time, Eastwood and Reynolds were both co-equal major superstars, and it would have been exciting to see them paired together. The opening diner scene and a few later exchanges give us a tantalizing glimpse of how good "City Heat" could have been had it not be jinxed from the start.

AFI Life Achievement Award: AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Alfred Hitchcock (1979) Season 1, Episode 7

Great Sad Moment of Movie History

[23 August 2004]

This American Film Institute ceremony honoring Alfred Hitchcock is equal parts spectacular and very, very sad. It was broadcast in March of 1979 on CBS-TV.

Spectacular: the sheer number of great Hitchcock stars in attendance. Hitchcock's two most famous male stars, James Stewart and Cary Grant (who rarely appeared on TV) sat on either side of Hitchcock and his wife Alma at their table. Ingrid Bergman was the night's hostess. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Sean Connery, Vera Miles, Rod Taylor, Judith Anderson, Joan Fontaine, and on and on and on attended, as well as such new stars as Barbra Streisand.

Clips from Hitchcock's great movies were shown: "Psycho," "North by Northwest," "Vertigo," "Rear Window," "Rebecca."

What was the sad part?

Alfred Hitchcock himself. He was 79 years old and just a year away from death. He could hardly understand the festivities in front of him. Camera shots showed him staring into space. Wife Alma didn't look much better. Hitchcock was supposedly preparing a new film. This show proved: he could never make another film again.

"They always give these things to them too late," Ingrid Bergman said backstage. (Now, young stars like Tom Hanks get the AFI award even if many years are ahead in their careers.)

Hitchcock wasn't quite as bad off as he looked. His stare simply reflected the fact that he didn't know where the cameras were. At show's end, he gave a (pre-recorded) speech with wit and love for Alma.

And, if you watch this, catch the great moment of film history at the very end: A tearful Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant give Hitchcock the key from "Notorious' and hug him firmly. Within a few years, they'd all be dead. But they met this one last time for a wonderful embrace.

A great show. Rent it if you can.

Fractured Flickers (1963– )

"Fractured Flickers" is Coming to DVD!

[8 August 2004]

The whole series run, I think. Sometime in August, 2004.

I agree with other posters. This show was hilarious, simply hilarious, and very much influenced "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"

One of its writers, Allan Burns, went on to write for "Get Smart" and "The Mary Tyler Moore" show.

Loved how they would take the Stan Laurel "Jekyll and Hyde" spoof and turn it into each weeks' "One Minute Mystery," with brief shots of silent stars and the narrator saying: "Who dunit? The butler? The widow? Liz? Dick? A dirty rat (actually old silent shot of dirty rat.)

They would convert classic silent films, like "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (which became "Dinky Dunston, USC Boy Cheerleader," unknown films, and shorts.

Absolutely hilarious. From 1963

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

A Mediocre Remake for Our Mediocre Political Times (SPOILERS)

[2/10 · 1 August 2004]

(SPOILERS for both the original and the remake)

This was not a bad movie on its own terms. Good cast, stylish direction by Jonathan Demme (though now in his trademark style: huge close-ups of people looking right at the camera), some nice suspense.

But everything – and I mean everything – that made the original 'Manchurian Candidate' an unforgettable classic has been forcibly removed or revamped into dumbed-down mediocrity for our sped-up, sound-bite-ridden, politicized times.

Part of the problem, indeed , is that we can't make a 1962 movie today. We're way in the future now, and the quiet, rather straightforward simplicity of the original could not be put on the screen today (Van Sant tried it with his shot-by-shot 'Psycho' and it didn't work.)

So instead of beginning (after a brief prologue) with a brilliant credit-sequence and David Amram's deeply sad and aching score, the new one begins with a herky-jerky burst of loud rock music and a helter-skelter barrage of images of war. It's 2004, kids, enough of that quiet emotional crap.

From the start, the original had emotional resonance via its music and credit portraits of the pensive lead players alone. From the start, the new movie has no emotional resonance at all. The biggest shock is how the emotion has been sucked out of the story, entirely.

In the original, when Raymond killed the Senator and his daughter, the daughter was Raymond's new wife, the woman he deeply loved, the only person in the world who might possibly save Raymond from the pre-programmed horror of his life. Raymond's killing of those two people was the turning point of the entire film – and filmed by John Frankenheimer as a dazzling Wellesian cinema sequence with the symbolic wit of the film's dark comedy (the milquetoast liberal Senator dies shot through a carton of milk, his bleeding heart bleeding the milk of human kindness.)

All gone now in the remake's bizarre attempt to merge the murder scene with Raymond's great 'jump in the lake' scene from the original. The Senator's daughter (who looks oddly like Marilyn Manson) barely cares about Raymond anymore. His killing her is of little emotional pain.

The karate fight is gone, which means the new film is action-free, but something else important is missing:

In the original, Raymond sees his 'houseboy,' and doesn't recognize him as the man who betrayed and tortured him. Marco sees the same 'houseboy,' recognizes him on sight, and launches his furious payback attack.

There was a POINT to that. Raymond was weak, controllable. Marco was tough; his brainwashing didn't take. The contrast of tough Marco and sneering, weak Raymond, and their bonding as fellow brainwashees, was emotional and meaningful. The new Marco and Raymond prove, near the end, essentially interchangeable.

The simply magnificent 'garden party' dream sequences of the original have been removed and replaced with generic herky-jerky mind-bend sequences (we saw just last week in 'The Bourne Supremacy.')

The wonderfully symbolic playing cards/Queen of Diamonds theme has been replaced by the old microchips-planted-in-my-brain canard (we saw just last month in 'The Stepford Wives.') There is no longer a visual linkage between the Queen of Diamonds and Raymond's mother.

The wonderful trigger line: 'Why don't you pass the time by playing a nice game of solitare?' has been replaced with a banal 'Sergeant Shaw. Sergeant Raymond Prentice Shaw' – so that when Streep utters the words, she had to bark them like some sort of nutcase drill sergeant (Lansbury simply offered the chilling invitation to her son.)

Classic movies bring the right actors together in the right combination. As good as they are, none of the four leads here – Washington, Streep, Schreiber, Elise – make the emotional connection that their four forbears made.

Streep is the worst, indulging her usual tics and self-referential mannerisms to make Mrs. Shaw a one-dimensional political ogre rather than the grand monster that Angela Lansbury was (here,the Manchurian Global baddies look at Steep near the end as if thinking 'We hired this idiot politician to front us?') Times being what they are, Streep will get an Oscar and mumble speeches like "For little old me? I don't deserve this." She doesn't.

Washington is a highly skilled actor who captures this version of Marco well – but Sinatra's Marco was a tougher character (that karate fight) rendered far more sad and soulful in Sinatra's best performance. Sinatra was always a great singer of lost loves and causes – he carried that emotion forward to his work as Marco. Washington can play tough, but doesn't really get to, here. Washington's fierce intelligence also neutralizes his emotional connection to the story. It's not whether Sinatra or Washington is the better actor (both won Oscars), its Sinatra's fitting the tale better.

Liev Schreiber has it in him to match Laurence Harvey's singular performance in the original (so unlovable – and yet so sad; a killer beyond his ability to control it), but the new script doesn't give Schreiber a chance.

And yes, Rosie is explained in this movie – as a character we've seen in 100 movies and 1,000 TV shows. The mystery is gone. Kimberly Elise is given nothing new to play. And she is not the star -- yet -- that Janet Leigh was when she played the role. Identification with Leigh (right after "Psycho") was more intense.

The ending of the new film mangles the meaning of the original. The switch of assassins requires the elimination of the tragedy of the original, and forces a expository epilogue in the modern 'gotta explain it all" tradition.

And the loss of Joe McCarthy, World Communism, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Koreans in favor of gutless Hollywood PC villainy (an evil corporation, white guys smoking cigars, and a South African white scientist) is standard issue. We've seen this movie before – and it wasn't 'The Manchurian Candidate.'

That the new 'Manchurian Candidate' is worth seeing at all is because the source material is so good they can't totally wreck it, and because the star actors are interesting enough even if they never soar where the original took its characters.

It's a three-star movie of four-star plus material, and in destroying virtually everything that made the original such a special film and great classic, the new 'Manchurian Candidate' deserves a drop of at least another star.

Victor/Victoria (1982)

A Great 1962 Movie -- Made in 1982

[9 July 2004]

Despite all of its gender-bending commentary on sexuality, both hetero- and homo-, "Victor/Victoria" looked and sounded in 1982 (year of "ET" and "The Road Warrior") as if it were made in 1962 -- and that was a good thing. Blake Edwards' trademark ability to combine lush romanticism with immitable slapstick comedy was here matched by a wonderful score by his longtime collaborator Henry Mancini, "Voila!" -- we're back in the early sixties again. (It didn't hurt that stars Julie Andrews and James Garner were hottest in the sixties, and had acted together in 1964's "The Americanization of Emily.")

Robert Preston, "The Music Man" of late fifties Broadway and 1962 screen fame, further added an element of early sixties nostalgia -- with the twist that he here used his booming vocal tones in the service of a delightfully out and comfortable gay man. Preston was one of two hot contenders for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year. The winner was Lou Gossett, Jr. for his Drill Instructor in "An Officer And A Gentleman."

Rounding out the great cast are Lesley Ann Warren (sexy and very funny) in an Oscar-nominated role as Garner's mob moll floozie, and Alex Karras, continually funny as Garner's softhearted ox of a bodyguard. (Karras gets a classic Blake Edwards slapstick routine trapped in the freezing snow outside a Paris hotel, getting big laughs out of the simple line: "You've got heat? That's good.")

And be sure to keep a lookout for "Sherloque Tanney" as the French private detective on Victor/Victoria's trail. Tanney was Blake Edwards dentist, and appeared in almost every Blake Edwards film from "Darling Lili" (1970) on. Other than his corpse in "SOB," (1981), the French detective is possibly Dr. Tanney's greatest role on the screen. Tanney, too, gets to anchor several great trademark Blake Edwards slapstick routines.

Oh, and there's music, too. Enough music for a Broadway musical (which is what "Victor/Victoria" became), and with a sad and wistful Mancini title tune (reprised in the film by Andrews) that reminds one a bit of "Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses." Just like in the early sixties.

The Silence of the Hams (1994)

Martin Balsam Amazes

[7 July 2004]

I can't think of another movie in which an actor replayed his most famous role...for laughs. Millions of people over several decades saw Martin Balsam as the Detective who Gets Killed on the Stairs in "Psycho" (1960). And here he was, 34 years later, playing his every scene from the original as a gag.

Unlike "Psycho" shower murder victim Janet Leigh, Balsam always refused to give interviews on his scenes in "Psycho," feeling it was given too much notice over his other films (he won the 1965 Oscar for "A Thousand Clowns.") I guess he was finally willing to revisit the detective -- for pay. Maybe it was revenge for Balsam to play the role in so bad a movie this time.

Yeah, "Silence of the Hams" is terrible, but as a film artifact, I find Balsam's appearance amazing. His physical appearance, too. He's a fair sight more elderly and frail in "Silence of the Hams" than he was in "Psycho," but he takes his staircase fall ("Again??!!") yet again with grace and humor. Intriguing: this was made by its star, Italian comedian Ezio Greggio, and Martin Balsam died in Italy about a year later. Balsam had appeared in many other Italian-made films. Was this film made in Italy?

1941 (1979)

Dashed Expectations

[5 May 2004]

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Excitement and expectations were high about "1941" when it went into production for Xmas 1979 release.

It would be Spielberg's newest film after the blockbusters "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." And it would be Spielberg's first comedy: an all-star spectacular in the "Mad, Mad, World" tradition about Los Angeles coastal panic when a Japanese submarine surfaces off the coast soon after Pearl Harbor.

Spielberg had cast the two funniest leads from the blockbuster "National Lampoon's Animal House": John Belushi (Bluto) and Tim Matheson (Otter).

Belushi's Saturday Night Live buddy Dan Ackroyd agreed to make his major film debut. The two were extra hot on TV, records, and concert stages as "the Blues Brothers" and would make that movie after "1941."

These key elements were surrounded by an all-star cast that included such iconic greats as Toshiro Mifune (as the Japanese officer whose submarine surfaces off Santa Monica), Christopher Lee (as a Nazi officer on board the sub), Slim Pickens (from "Dr. Strangelove" and doing a reprise of one of his scenes from that film in this one), "Jaws" cast members Murray Hamilton (the Mayor in Jaws) and Lorraine Gary (Mrs. Brody in Jaws) and Susan Backlinie (first shark meal in Jaws) and even Laverne, Lenny, and Squiggy from "Laverne and Shirley." Plus John Candy in an early role. And Warren Oates. And Robert Stack as General Vinegar Joe Stilwell, tearing up at "Dumbo" in a Hollywood Blvd. theater as riots rage outside.

All systems were "go" for the biggest and funniest comedy epic of all time -- and it flopped.

Why? Simple reason: not funny. Slightly more complex reason: the irritatingly huge budget buried everg gag under a ton of extras and effects ("Animal House" had been ten times funnier on a 1/10th of the budget.)

Look more carefully, though. Other problems. The script is haywire and Spielberg uses his cast wrong. The hilarious Belushi, Ackroyd, and Matheson are kept apart from each other for the whole movie, and none of them get that much screen time even by themselves.

Instead, Spielberg insanely wastes much more footage on near-unknown Bobby DeCiccio and not-terribly-funny Treat Williams, Dianne Kay, and Wendie Jo Sperber in the film's worst subplot: about a romantic quadrangle involving two civilian lovers, the near-rapist soldier buly who comes between them, and the big mama who saves them all. Not funny.

Incredibly, every time "1941" gets some comic momentum going with Belushi or Ackroyd or Matheson (seducing sultry Nancy Allen while flying a plane he can't fly because that's the only way she gets hot), he cuts back to the extremely boring and irritating nobodies in the love quadrangle. Why?

The film simply takes forever getting started, and bogs down in a long USO dance hall dance-fight-riot in downtown LA.

Then, a miracle: the last half hour is pretty funny, thanks to these visually spectcular and funny Spielbergian set-pieces:

1. Belushi chasing Matheson and Allen in planes down a wonderfully mintaturized Hollywood Boulevard at night, with Xmas decorations all over the street.

2. Coastal homeowner Ned Beatty trying to open fire on a Japanese submarine using the anti-aircraft gun near his house -- crashing it through his house, over and over, in a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon.

3. At Pacific Ocean Amusement park and ocean pier at the Santa Monica ocean, a plane, a tank, a motorcycle, a Ferris Wheel, the Mayor from Jaws, a crummy comedy actor named Eddie Deezen and a funny ventriloquist's dummy all come together for a Spielbergian riot of special effects and well-timed comedy set to exciting John Williams music.

Spielberg finally finds his mojo for these last scenes, and then lets the movie peter down in an overlong final scene to a ridiculously heavy-handed final gag.

But wait: stick around for the credit sequence, in which Spielberg reveals what REALLY went wrong. The credits show every single member of the all-star cast, one after the other, SCREAMING. (With occasional calm remarks by some cast members as punctuation.) Spielberg reveals his essential lack of humor with his own final credits.

Spielberg's enemies smacked him hard over his failure, and he came back two years later with the tight, exciting blockbuster "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to make up for it. He's been OK ever since.

But "1941" was something else.

P.S. I like John Williams rousing "1941" overture. THIS should have been the theme for Indiana Jones.

Topaz (1969)

The French Connection

[2 April 2004]

One aspect of "Topaz" that should be kept in mind is that while American and British critics were belittling Hitchcock as a "mere entertainer," the French New Wave critics, led by Francois Truffaut, were lionizing him and Truffaut even published a book-long interview with Hitchcock published in 1967.

Hitchcock hadn't worked in years and was desperately trying to get another movie going when Universal showed him the book "Topaz" -- about spies in the French government, with a French protagonist and climactic scenes in Paris. I think that Hitchcock may have -- unwisely -- decided to do "Topaz" so he could do a "French picture."

There are some great individual scenes in Topaz -- the opening defection in Copenhagen, the suspenseful mission to get secrets from the Cubans in Harlem's Hotel Theresa (Hitchcock in Harlem?!); the hero's dangerous mission into Cuba and the death of his key contact there.

But Hitchcock really didn't like making "Topaz," he was bored and ill and resentful (Universal had killed a project called "Frenzy" -- not to be confused with the 1972 film he made of that name -- and Hitchcock was bitter about it.)

So we end up with a very half-hearted Hitchcock movie with a few good scenes, no real stars, THREE failed endings (all available to see on the DVD), and an attempt to "make nice with my French friends."

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Truly An All-Star Movie

[28 December 2003]

Imagine if today a movie was made starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Clint Eastwood, with Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, plus key stars from CSI, ER, Alias, and Law and Order in supporting roles.

Well, that's what "The Towering Inferno" was like in 1974. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were top male stars (like Hanks and Cruise today), Faye Dunaway a top female star (like Julia Roberts today), William Holden the top male star from a couple decades earlier (like Clint Eastwood today) , Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones top stars from a decade even earlier (like Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway today). The rest of the "Towering Inferno" cast (Richard Chamberlin, Roberts Vaughn and Wagner, etc) were top TV stars of the time (like the CSI and ER people today).

With today's star mega-salaries, I'm not sure a "Towering Inferno" could be made again today. What was fascinating, even then, was to see Steve McQueen turn up about 40 minutes into the film and essentially blow Paul Newman off the screen. Newman was thinner and in better shape than McQueen, but McQueen had machocharisma to burn, and his fire chief character spends much of the movie ordering Newman (the architect whose building is burning) around.

The all-star "Towering Inferno" cast consisted of "mini-reunions" of casts from other famous films: Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman's love in this movie, had been McQueen's love in "The Thomas Crown Affair." McQueen and Robert Vaughn were two of "The Magnificent Seven." McQueen had faced off against evil Senator Vaughn in "Bullitt" (but Vaughn is a nice Senator in "The Towering Inferno.") Cop McQueen's assistant cop in "Bullitt" (Don Gordon) is fireman McQueen's assistant fireman in this movie. (Maybe they transferred together.) Newman and Robert Wagner had been in "Harper" and "Winning" together. And William Holden and Faye Dunaway would play lovers in "Network" two years later.

For the cast alone, easily the best of the disaster movies. We've never seen a cast like this since.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

The Worst Movie of the 00's So Far

[5 December 2003]

...Right off the bat in 2000. Of course, it was also the biggest hit of 2000, so there you go. But I think parents dutifully took their kids to this classic "Christmas Title" and sat through it because they felt they had to. They neither knew nor cared if it was any good.

Why so bad?

Because it manages to insult (1) Dr. Seuss' wonderful original book and (2) Chuck Jones' wonderful 1966 TV cartoon special.

Because, in this ostensible children's movie, there is an early scene where the Young Grinch watches the adult marrieds of Whoville have a "wife-swapping key party." VERY Dr. Seuss. So nice for the little kiddies. What the h--?!!!

Because Dr. Seuss' wonderful rhymes were largely tossed aside (as they were NOT in the TV show.)

Because everything sweet and meaningful about both book and TV show were essentially raped and converted into a typical modern-day sleaze-and-toilet-joke-fest.

Jim Carrey was OK, but buried in make-up and swamped by this awful rendition. But...he made like $60 million off of it, so what does he care?

North by Northwest (1959)

The Midpoint Movie

[10/10 · 13 November 2003]

The great "North by Northwest" comes at the mid-point of entertainment film history. When Alfred Hitchcock made it in 1959, it was the culmination of thrillers he had made: 30's British spy chase thrillers like "The 39 Steps" and 40's American World War II spy chase thrillers like "Saboteur" and "Foreign Correspondent." "North by Northwest" was Hitchcock's greatest chase, part self-homage, part self-parody.

All those chase movies came BEFORE "North by Northwest," and then this midpoint movie influenced every action thriller that came AFTER it: "North by Northwest" led to James Bond which led to Indiana Jones which led to "The Matrix."

But besides being historic, "North by Northwest" is as good as a classic gets: three classic action set-pieces (the car, the crop-duster, Mount Rushmore), some of the wittiest dialogue in the history of movies; Cary Grant at his best, James Mason at his best, Eva Marie Saint at her best. Spectacular modern fifties credit sequence by Saul Bass with Bernard Herrmann's exciting score (launched by the MGM lion's roar.)

It's not "The Matrix," but take a time machine back to 1959 and enjoy the most influential chase thriller of all time.

And remember Cary Grant, as Roger Thornhill, delivering this great line: " I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders waiting for me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly killed."

The Professionals (1966)

Great Credit Sequence Opens This Classic

[9 November 2003]

"The Professionals" is a lot of fun, a Western adventure like they just don't make anymore. It's worth watching the opening credits alone: Maurice Jarre's exciting Western/Mexican fandango kicks off the movie as each one of the four professionals is shown on screen, along with his credit and his expertise: Lee Marvin(military weapons expert); Robert Ryan (horses), Woody Strode (tracking), and last, but not least Burt Lancaster (love-making -- he's first seen bedding a woman and making a hasty escape as her hubby bursts in.)

The four men sketched in for us accordingly (Lancaster's as good with dynamite as he is with the ladies), wealthy old rancher Ralph Bellamy gives the four their mission: rescue his gorgeous young wife (Claudia Cardinale) from the Mexican desert fortress of her kidnapper, Mexican rebel and bandit chief Jack Palance.

"The Professionals" is fanciful -- the mission is impossible -- and, oddly, the action peak is about mid-way, rather than at the end. But the deadpan Lee Marvin (newly a star) and the rough-ish Burt Lancaster (in one of his last action roles) make great buddies, with Ryan and Strode interesting back-up.

The film does look like "The Wild Bunch," covering the turn-of-the-century West of Mexican/American relations, motorcars and machine-guns. (Lee Marvin turned down the lead in "The Wild Bunch" because he thought it read too much like "The Professionals.") But "The Wild Bunch" is gory, brilliant savagery. "The Professionals" is a lark. See it, enjoy it. Especially the first four minutes.

Deliverance (1972)

The Ladies' Revenge (Spoilers)

[7 November 2003]

The film years 1971 to 1972 were pretty raw at the movies. The ratings code of 1968 ("R," "X") was a few years old, sex, violence, nudity, language were all allowed in ways like never before, and for some reason (maybe sex plus violence)rape movies were all the rage. But it was usually women getting raped: Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," Siegel's "Dirty Harry," Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs," Hitchcock's "Frenzy."

Then, along came "Deliverance," and it was time for the men to get the willies, literally. I suspect that more than a few women enjoyed seeing the tables turned,.

The male rape scene is what put "Deliverance" on the map in 1972, along with, oddly enough, a delightful instrumental duet called "Duelling Banjos" that was a Top Forty hit on the radio! (In the movie, this duet comes early, and is haunting: one player is a decidedly scary looking, silent backwoods boy.)

In many ways, "Deliverance" was simply a modern outdoor adventure tale. Four suburban males (macho Burt Reynolds and three more soft fellows) take a canoe trip down a desolate Georgia river and must survive. City boys lost in the wilderness. About all audiences were expecting was a rapids ride, but thanks to that terrifying sexual encounter with some inbred hillbilly men, "Deliverance" was the an old-time adventure in the sexually explicit, realistically violent manner of the early 70's. They certainly don't make them like this anymore.

P.S. Here's a question: given what happens to each of the four heroes, which one would you want to be?

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Harryhausen's Masterpiece?

[7 November 2003]

Possibly. His first "Sinbad" film in 1958 had one moving skeleton for the hero to fight; this one has a whole platoon of them, each part painstakingly moved one tiny distance at a time personally by Harryhausen through stop-motion techniques. The seven-headed Hydra is another technical marvel. There are some other nifty creatures for Jason and his crew to battle, but for me, the most impressive of them all turns up first: the gigantic Talos, the Man of Bronze.

I was a kid when this came out, and I don't think I'll ever forget that moment when the huge, crouched statue came to life, turned his head towards the two men below him (his bronze head screeching with the tear of metal), climbed off of his pedestal, and proceeded to chase Jason and his men. Talos was giant like Godzilla, but as single-minded as the Terminator: all he wants to do is track Jason's crew down until he kills them all. This gave me nightmares. Bernard Herrmann's score is one of his best, making music to match Harryhausen's images. (Herrmann was coming off of other Harryhausen's, plus Hitchcock's "Vertigo," "North by Northwest" and "Psycho," and knew how to thrill you.)

Tom Hanks, who was also a kid when this came out, has said: "Everybody thinks that 'Citizen Kane' was the greatest movie ever made. But if you were young in 1963, you know the real answer is: 'Jason and the Argonauts.'"

Psycho (1998)

Right Idea, Wrong Movie

[6 November 2003]

Van Sant was trying to see what happens if you try to make a movie exactly the same, 'shot for shot.' Maybe that might work with some other movies, but not with "Psycho." "Psycho" is famous for changing the course of film history. In 1960, audiences hadn't seen shock slasher murders, a toilet on screen, a key player getting killed early, unwed lovers necking in a cheap hotel room, let alone the extremely bizarre solution to the mystery. This movie had people screaming, fainting and running from the theater in 1960. But by 1998, it was all old hat -- a thriller that doesn't thrill, a shocker that doesn't shock. Anthony Perkins was perhaps the most perfectly cast actor in film history as Norman Bates. Vince Vaughn was doomed and miscast (after many other young actors turned the role down). Anne Heche was off the mark (she ain't workin' no more.) The excellent William H. Macy was miscast -- too wimpy for his part, and wearing an awful "detective's hat." (Overall, the costuming is bad in this movie.) Van Sant's decision to remake Hitchcock's classic black-and-white Gothic in pink-and-orange pastels further ruined the effect. But the bottom line is: 1998 was not 1960. "Psycho," like most classics, is timeless, but of its time. It comes just as the quiet fifties were about to give way to the tumultuous sixties (starting with JFK's assassination). "Psycho" is a historic event. "Psycho 1998" an embarrassing work at the margins.

Dirty Harry (1971)

It All Starts Here

[26 October 2003]

Two movies are the most influential of the 70's: "Star Wars" and "Dirty Harry." "Dirty Harry" took the Western -- which had ruled for decades but was fading out -- and converted it into the "rebel cop action movie." Everybody from Charles Bronson to Nick Nolte to Mel Gibson would take a shot at this genre. But Eastwood got there first.

"Dirty Harry" also created the concept of the "action hero": Bronson, Gibson, Nolte -- sure. But also Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Segal, Van Damme.

"Dirty Harry" also inaugurated the "evil psycho villain" movie. Henceforth, villains would stop at nothing, and audiences would demand their gruesome payback deaths. There's no reason to understand the villainous killer/rapist/extortionist Scorpio, no reason to want anything for him other than death: he kills women, children, priests. He hijacks school buses. He buries a girl alive after doing unspeakable things to her. From here on out, movie villains would be evil, incarnate.

"Dirty Harry" started it all, but there's a big surprise within it: it is one of the greatest movie thrillers ever made, thanks to skilled director Don Siegel ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "The Shootist," "Charley Varrick") Siegel's skill with images, editing, and narrative give "Dirty Harry" the feel of a film noir turned horror movie, nowhere more evident than in the long, central sequence where Harry must run a gauntlet through nighttime San Francisco trying to get ransom to Scorpio before the buried girl dies. This is one of the most harrowing, suspenseful, and dynamic sequences ever filmed, as hero, villain and .357 Magnum meet in deserted SF Kezar Stadium in the dead of night.

"Do ya feel lucky, punk?" is a great speech, first in the film's early, light-hearted action sequence, and then in the dead-serious finale.

A hell of a movie. A classic. See it.

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

Worth Seeing For Richard Boone

[17 October 2003]

Mainly a TV star ("Have Gun, Will Travel"), and mainly a Western star in his movies, Richard Boone gives one of his rare contemporary film performances in "The Kremlin Letter" and just about saves the picture. His trademark moustache shaved and his dark hair bleached an alarming white-blond, Boone does a deadpan, deadly good ol' boy of a spymaster with crackel barrel charm and ice cold menace. He simply cannot read a line wrong; check out the scene near the end where he tells "hero" Patrick O'Neal that he's going to Paris. Director John Huston frames the shot to catch Boone's always expressive hand movements as Boone delivers a long speech with delightful vigor and spin.

The movie is a disappointing Huston film and really pretty awful in general, but of some historic importance. The new ratings code was in place since 1968, "R" and "X" ratings were in, older directors like Huston felt the need to sex up their movies. "The Kremlin Letter" astonishes in the depravity of its characters. Message: spying is a dirty business, with no loyalties, and anything goes: prostitution, drug pushing, kidnapping of innocents, blackmail, torture, murder.

Along with the great, underrated Boone, this was among the last films for the elegant George Sanders and the interesting Nigel Green. Along with sweet-faced, mean-voiced Dean Jagger ("White Christmas"), these actors demonstrate just how deadly an "over-the-hill-gang" of old secret agents can be.

Not a good movie, not a coherent movie, but worth seeing for: Boone, Sanders, Green, Jagger -- and Huston's desperate attempt to get sexually trendy as the New Hollywood of the 70's kicked in. Problem: hard to see. Is it even available on tape?

Salem's Lot (1979)

"Psycho" References In Salem's Lot

[10 September 2003]

SPOILERS for "Salem's Lot" and "Psycho", but if you've seen them both, read on:

I came upon this show near the end of the story and I was amused by the director's direct references to Hitchcock's "Psycho":

1. Shots of Bonnie Bedelia climbing the hill to the house match those of Vera Miles approaching the house in "Psycho."

2. Shots of Ed Flanders climbing the stairs, and being attacked by James Mason (from a door to Flanders left, with an overhead shot of the attack) match those of Martin Balsam climbing the stairs and getting attacked in "Psycho."

3. When David Soul tries to kill the vampire in the cellar coffin, a close-up of Soul's hand bumping an overhead lamp in the dark -- and that lamp casting light/dark/light/dark on the characters -- is a match for the fruit cellar climax in "Psycho."

Homage or rip-off?

Bowling for Columbine (2002)

A Few Questions

[24 August 2003]

I thought the film was fine. I'm even OK with its falsity as a documentary. We live in a nation where plenty of scrutiny is applied to everything, and what's "fake" in "BFC" has been well documented by now. (Pity it beat a really "real" documentary, "Spellbound," for the Oscar, but no way Hollywood wasn't giving Moore his props.) Moore makes a whole bunch of cases for a whole bunch of rather predictable positions (gun control, America as warmonger, our "violent" history as a nation), but then seems to turn back on himself, continually asking: Why? (re: all these gun deaths in America) and not quite having the answer himself.

The questions:

1. How do the gun deaths in America break down by region? Mainly in big cities? Mainly in the ghetto? Or mainly in the suburbs? (Moore is at pains to have the Flint D.A. suggest guns are a suburban problem near Detroit.) Is it a nation-wide problem or confined to particular states (California? New York? Texas?) Is "America" gun-crazy, or just particular regions?

2. Why did gun control backfire as an issue for the Democrats in the 2000 election? (Aside from the Florida outcome, it has been said somewhere that Gore lost some states he was supposed to win because of his gun control positions.) In short, is Moore on the wrong side of this issue with Democrats as well as Republicans?

3. Where did Moore get those HORRIFYING shots of real-life gun deaths? (I'm familiar with two: a Pennsylvania official accused of corruption who called a press conference and shot himself in front of reporters, and a man who shot himself on an L.A. freeway.) And exactly what was the point of showing those scenes?

The rest, I leave to the public debate. Hardly a fair film, but one of the kind our nation always needs to see.

P.S. Seems to me that the 60's were far more violent in America than now. Any stats?

P.P.S. Moore's claim that Bush is a "fictitious President" may be argued on the Florida results, but NOT on the fact that Gore got a million + more popular votes. The Electoral College was designed to allow for exactly that result (it just rarely happens.) So does Moore want to change the Electoral College?

Frenzy (1972)

Hitchcock's Disturbing Comeback

[10/10 · 23 August 2003]

As a young Hitchcock fan who loved his big hits of the 50's but felt that he was declining steadily in the 60's, I was literally shocked to read rave reviews for the film from Newsweek, Life, and Time before it came out in June 1972. That giddy pride in a "fallen master reborn" was somewhat mitigated by the smallish, starless, and horrific "Frenzy," but the truth is, it was a comeback indeed.

In "Frenzy," Hitchcock returned to London (where he made his name), returned to the "wrong man" thriller, returned to the "doubled hero and villain" of "Strangers on a Train," and, perhaps best of all, returned to the Great Hitchcock Villain.

Joseph Cotten had been Hitchcock's great 40's psycho; Robert Walker the same in the 50's; Tony Perkins the same in the 60's. Now came Barry Foster's suave, cheery -- and quite insane -- Covent Garden greengrocer Bob Rusk as Hitchcock's fourth great psychopath, and his most graphically violent.

Hitchcock created in "Frenzy" both a return to old times (London, "the wrong man") and a nod towards new times with "Frenzy." That's why it worked in 1972, and yet seems ugly and gritty today. Around the same time as "Frenzy" came many more R-rated films from a dark period in American cinema: "Straw Dogs," "A Clockwork Orange," "Dirty Harry" and "Deliverance" all featured, like "Frenzy," graphic sexual violence. But the rape-murder of "Frenzy" is perhaps the most meaningful: heartbreaking and not titallating at all; a horrific look at what real psychopaths do to their real victims in real life.

There's plenty of British humor and plenty of Hitchcock style to leaven the single horrific (on screen) sex murder of "Frenzy." (Try the staircase scene, the potato truck scene, the Scotland Yard man's dinner scenes, and the line "You're my type of woman" as examples.) It is indeed a fine Hitchcock film -- if not quite a "great" -- and fits its particular brutal film era live a glove.

Open Range (2003)

The Same But Different Equals: Very Good

[22 August 2003]

When Costner played the live-wire, hyper young gunfighter in "Silverado," he said he always wanted to play the cool, silent type instead. He does so here, and well, in "Open Range." For most of the film, saddle buddy/mentor Robert Duvall talks first and talks most while Costner stands there silently and waits to make the first violent move. Plotwise, this is the same as every other Western made in the 50's: two good cowpokes against the evil rancher who rules the town with his gang of hired guns. But they don't make many of those anymore, so it feels new. And everything else is wonderfully different: the time spent on relationships, the love story, and, best of all, the gunfight, which is plenty exciting but filled with "authentic" details (townspeople running for the hills; strategic, merciless gunplay; and the best shotgun death in film history.)

Costner, no longer the big star of his early career, is no longer the bad star of his mid-career, either. He's making nice (giving Duvall top billing, as he did with Kurt Russell in "3000 Miles to Graceland") and keeping things modest, pleasing, and entertaining. I say its time to welcome him back into the fold. P.S. What would the movies do without Robert Duvall or Gene Hackman to play the "late middle-aged mentor" in these films. It's always one or the other of them!