I found this film really very charming, with values that have all but disappeared from popular entertainment, but still hold quite true. In that sense, the script was unusual and rare. It didn't shy away from sexuality, but rather praised the substance of love. The actors were very good, particularly Thomas and the whole variety of excellent British supporting players such as Spinetti. The very interesting part of this film is the perfect casting of Nancy Kwan at the time. I don't know any other actress I could have seen perfectly in this role, with the hint of seriousness that is in her face.
Reviews
15 Reviews
The Best Man
(1964)
Gore Vidal's point of view
26 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I write this review to complain of the easy and simple comparisons of Cantwell to Nixon. This doesn't fully hold up, as the two competing candidates in the film are from the same party (evidently the Democrats, judging by the other characters).
Rather, Cantwell bears several stunning resemblances to Bobby Kennedy, whom Vidal had particularly disparaged in an Esquire article, in which he criticized the Kennedy family in general and Bobby in particular. Vidal was related to President John Kennedy's wife, Jackie. In another article (a review of a book by William Manchester, "Death of a President"), Vidal had called the Kennedys "ruthless and not very lovable after all." The character Cantwell has a very openly cozy and loving relationship with his wife (reminding us of Ethel) and in the film is also known for his several children. More of a clue, he's a former Attorney General who was known for going after the mob and communists, and also a Senator. People forget that Joseph McCarthy was close to the Kennedy family, and had hired Bobby as counsel for his investigative committee (Bobby later resigned due to clashes with McCarthy and Roy Cohn). The characters are clearly composites, but Vidal didn't leave out his antipathy for real politicians, and for RFK in particular. It's not surprising there would also be comparisons to Nixon; Vidal was an equal opportunity critic of politicians and that certainly included Richard Nixon as well.
Rather, Cantwell bears several stunning resemblances to Bobby Kennedy, whom Vidal had particularly disparaged in an Esquire article, in which he criticized the Kennedy family in general and Bobby in particular. Vidal was related to President John Kennedy's wife, Jackie. In another article (a review of a book by William Manchester, "Death of a President"), Vidal had called the Kennedys "ruthless and not very lovable after all." The character Cantwell has a very openly cozy and loving relationship with his wife (reminding us of Ethel) and in the film is also known for his several children. More of a clue, he's a former Attorney General who was known for going after the mob and communists, and also a Senator. People forget that Joseph McCarthy was close to the Kennedy family, and had hired Bobby as counsel for his investigative committee (Bobby later resigned due to clashes with McCarthy and Roy Cohn). The characters are clearly composites, but Vidal didn't leave out his antipathy for real politicians, and for RFK in particular. It's not surprising there would also be comparisons to Nixon; Vidal was an equal opportunity critic of politicians and that certainly included Richard Nixon as well.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
(1949)
Sinatra's Irish-American Character
5 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILER ALERT*** (kind of)
It's a great film and a great musical. But, perhaps with my perspective of today, I just wonder why -- at a time when popular baseball greats were named Rizzuto, DiMaggio, and Berra -- Sinatra's character wasn't given an Italian name. Perhaps it didn't fit with the time period in which the musical was set. But it still perplexes me. All of the stars are great in this film.
It's a great film and a great musical. But, perhaps with my perspective of today, I just wonder why -- at a time when popular baseball greats were named Rizzuto, DiMaggio, and Berra -- Sinatra's character wasn't given an Italian name. Perhaps it didn't fit with the time period in which the musical was set. But it still perplexes me. All of the stars are great in this film.
Insightful episode
13 July 2015
Warning: Spoilers
***spoiler alert*** I write this review to address one aspect of this episode: the character of Kirk as played by the actress Sandra Smith. As a girl, I was intrigued by her performance, finding an incredible depth of integrity portrayed by the woman as she embodied Kirk's personality in a female body. What this gave to me was a picture of woman with balanced power and integrity, and I would call that rather a strongly positive feminine image. I know much has been written of this episode as derogatory and sexist, but I entirely disagree. When Shatner was portraying the personality of Janice Lester, it was of a person entirely ego-centric, without the balance of true leadership capabilities that come from thinking of the bigger picture -- the overall good of everyone, not simply personal glory or accomplishment.
Sandra Smith's portrayal remained for me a great and frankly, timeless, image of woman as leader and balanced wielder of power and authority. For the feminists, that's not something missing from history or Scripture for that matter; it's just sadly not really discussed when speaking of ambitions for "equality."
Sandra Smith's portrayal remained for me a great and frankly, timeless, image of woman as leader and balanced wielder of power and authority. For the feminists, that's not something missing from history or Scripture for that matter; it's just sadly not really discussed when speaking of ambitions for "equality."
Moonlight Murder
(1936)
Beautiful voices
3 July 2014
I just wanted to make a comment about the quality of the singing. While Frank McHugh is always fun to watch, no matter what part he's playing, I kept wondering who was really singing during the operatic performances in the film. I think this page has a listing for the singer dubbing Carillo's part, but not certain about the rest. Anyway, the singing is top notch -- beautiful voices of Metropolitan Opera quality. Sad that this is not appreciated! Carillo was also pretty (deliberately) hilarious in his part, and I enjoyed watching him. Interesting that Duncan Renaldo (a very attractive young tenor in the film) teamed up with Carillo to play Cisco and Pancho in The Cisco Kid later on. This may be classed as a "B" film but there is a great deal of talent here, and Hollywood quality touches (like the truly good singing talent).
The Tree and the Swing
(2013)
Enjoyed the story and its evolution
26 June 2014
I saw this film at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival (where it won first prize). I really enjoyed the evolution of the story as played out through the scenes and through the lives of these people. There were no sort of "pre-told" relationships; we found out through the script what was going on between each of these people as it naturally evolved through the story. It made me think about what "home" is, and played against the memories we have about home -- and the challenges to that idea as we grow and experience more of life. There is also a kind of hidden history here about the Balkans and Greece in particular; the film takes you into how history has shaped the lives of people in a country through their experiences, and especially how human beings make individual decisions to either defy the brokenness of that history or to mend it. Very scenic as well.
Committed
(I) (2014)
Memorable
26 June 2014
I saw this at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival. Without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I'd say that this film has a touching and memorable storyline. I truly was surprised. One of the most interesting aspects of the film seems to be the result of a tight budget (mostly due to economic crisis and perhaps the youth of the director). There are basically two characters; the rest of the film is mostly scenery -- as varied as can be found in the Mediterranean on the island of Cyprus. That is, coastline, beautiful pines, open arid spaces -- and a car. With a film done this sparely everything depends on a good story and also the capability of the actors. I liked both, and especially remarked on the female lead. But it became about the importance of honor, raised questions about what a real man is, and where we find the truth about what's essential. An affirmation of what is good, in my opinion. See it if only for the amazing job with such a budget. Shakespeare, too, was staged in early times with a kind of bare bones approach compared to today's cinema, so were the early Greek plays. Quality shows through. I won't spoil the story...but it's very engaging and also a mystery, with plot twists and pathos in the end.
The Nutty Professor
(1963)
Brilliant. And not Dean Martin.
23 November 2008
I think Buddy Love is clearly a parody of Sinatra, "the Leader", the "swinger of swingers" - and perhaps a personal comment at the time on those whom Lewis' once-beloved partner now kept company with.
When I saw this movie as a child (when it first came out) I just thought it was rather silly. Now as an adult, I think it's more brilliant every time I see it. There is nothing on screen that I know of that's like Lewis' portrayal here. I've begun to agree with the French. It's genius - and this film is adult entertainment. We're tremendously lucky for the creative, brilliant energy that was put into a "kid's film."
When I saw this movie as a child (when it first came out) I just thought it was rather silly. Now as an adult, I think it's more brilliant every time I see it. There is nothing on screen that I know of that's like Lewis' portrayal here. I've begun to agree with the French. It's genius - and this film is adult entertainment. We're tremendously lucky for the creative, brilliant energy that was put into a "kid's film."
The Shining Hour
(1938)
A Film for Adults
10 January 2008
Contrary to most of the opinions I read here, I did not find this film "soapy." I found it, refreshingly, a film for adults. For me, that's all too rare. I think it's about what relationship is, what love is and isn't, and most of all about the experience it takes and the resulting wisdom to build relationship beyond an adolescent understanding of love and attraction. And the great value of the self-knowledge that results. For me, that adult perspective was so refreshing and so rare that it beats out every other consideration. (Especially given the idiotic popular fare we're used to these days which substitutes a junior high school age cynicism for the difficult work of love.) Along with, say, "Dodsworth," for some reason Hollywood in this period was capable of some genuinely mature work for adults. The popular culture could use a little more. With Ogden Nash in the writing credits, I shouldn't be surprised at what I found valuable in this film.
The Long Kiss Goodnight
(1996)
A Great Film
29 December 2007
I disagree with the reviewer who said this film is not for the "cerebrally-minded." I happen to be somewhat the cerebral type, and I think this is a great film; I love it and have seen it many times.
For me, the great things about this film add up to a woman with a full-on assertive, resourceful personality. Of course the drama is all about the wonderful mother and teacher discovering something else true about herself - and learning to merge the two once she "remembers herself." In the end, her love for her daughter and the tender nurturing person she is merges with the resourceful assertive person who is willing to fight and not give up. Even her daughter has taken on the "don't give up" when Mom is down. I would think there's a part in many of us women that can relate to all of this. And that might explain the box office failure and the rerun hit: women had to discover what I imagine was billed as a pure action film
Samuel L. Jackson is his own type of hero, flaws and all, and nobody could say enough about him. He's another complex character: down-to-earth with a street reality perspective, lower than the average poor man's detective and fairly desperate himself. And yet heroic in the clinch and full of his own kind of love and respect for what he values in women. He's just the man to take her on, and let her know when she's -not- okay. The characters pair in a sort of perfectly out-of-the-box way. So, this "cerebral type" says that this is great writing in terms of characters and storyline. And the violence is an integral part of those characters and story, not added flash or excitement that doesn't tell us anything about their lives or the urgency of their experiences.
And, last but not least, this is a comedy! Great dialogue (and I don't know who else could have played it like Jackson). So take that glitzy action as part of what makes a comedy work here!
For me, the great things about this film add up to a woman with a full-on assertive, resourceful personality. Of course the drama is all about the wonderful mother and teacher discovering something else true about herself - and learning to merge the two once she "remembers herself." In the end, her love for her daughter and the tender nurturing person she is merges with the resourceful assertive person who is willing to fight and not give up. Even her daughter has taken on the "don't give up" when Mom is down. I would think there's a part in many of us women that can relate to all of this. And that might explain the box office failure and the rerun hit: women had to discover what I imagine was billed as a pure action film
Samuel L. Jackson is his own type of hero, flaws and all, and nobody could say enough about him. He's another complex character: down-to-earth with a street reality perspective, lower than the average poor man's detective and fairly desperate himself. And yet heroic in the clinch and full of his own kind of love and respect for what he values in women. He's just the man to take her on, and let her know when she's -not- okay. The characters pair in a sort of perfectly out-of-the-box way. So, this "cerebral type" says that this is great writing in terms of characters and storyline. And the violence is an integral part of those characters and story, not added flash or excitement that doesn't tell us anything about their lives or the urgency of their experiences.
And, last but not least, this is a comedy! Great dialogue (and I don't know who else could have played it like Jackson). So take that glitzy action as part of what makes a comedy work here!
Tom & Viv
(1994)
Betrayal - SPOILER(S) ALERT!
20 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
**SPOILER(S) ALERT!** I'm surprised that none of the comments seem to mention (unless I missed it) Eliot's awful behavior portrayed in the film. Not only does Viv apparently directly inspire some of the most famous lines (so much for the transcendent method) and indeed contribute through her own hard work and editorial efforts to his most successful poetry, when she is finally put away using an obviously archaic test for sanity practically no one could pass (a mathematical conundrum) that has nothing to do with modern notions of professional psychology, but after she is put away she is indeed truly "put away" as far as Eliot is concerned. He never came to visit her in the sanitarium - not once, nor did she hear from him. At least that's how the movie portrays him. What I wonder is how accurate it all is. Eliot here is portrayed not just as a suffering husband, but one who suffers through his affection for the social position his wife gives him, and then when she clearly becomes a social handicap she is put away and forgotten. A clear injustice given the final more professional, scientific modern diagnosis that her problems all along were hormonal - not psychological.
Shadow of a Doubt
(1943)
A Menace for the Time
27 September 2004
What I find interesting about the film is the young woman's existential situation: she's alone in her knowledge of who her Uncle really is and what he's doing. Even the detectives leave town at some point, leaving her alone with someone who wants to kill her, and she's the only one who knows it. She feels she has to protect her family, especially her mother, from knowledge of who her Uncle really is.
I find this interesting in light of the year: 1943. The middle of the war, and the reports of the horrible atrocities of both the Nazis and the Japanese POW camps, but particularly of the new nature of war itself that had come to be for the world. It's like it's all impacting on her generation, and her parents are too nice, too peaceable and part of a far more protected and homespun world unaware of the evil "out there" and under the surface lurking even in people they love. (And even the science of the Unconscious was coming to the fore as the world witnessed the evil human beings were capable of on a colossal scale, not as a sideshow or outcome of war, but rather as the result of central planning. Meantime, at the finish of that war would be the introduction of nuclear weapons -- a whole new scale of planned destruction and deliberate evil aimed at masses of humanity.)
I find in Shadow of a Doubt all of this dawning on this generation that fought that war and had to take knowledge of a world quite different from their parents', and that is the central role I see of the character of Charlie, alone with her knowledge, and with the knowledge of her own danger, who must fight her own battles and rely only on her own insights, wits, and intelligence to do so, and not the experience of her parents -- they're not prepared to cope with the knowledge of that kind of evil.
I once heard a comment about Humphrey Bogart as a movie hero by Alistair Cooke. He explained that the great film hero of the 30s was Leslie Howard. But when the war and the Nazis came about, Leslie Howard and his image did not seem someone who could cope with Nazis. They needed tougher heroes, people who seemingly could cope with such evil, maybe having had a taste of the darker side of the law themselves. And so, Humphrey Bogart became the new face of the hero (especially with Casablanca, 1942), the type of hero necessary for the new time, the new menace, the new enemy.
Makes you wonder about films and heroes of today a little, doesn't it? What does, for example, The Matrix say about what menaces us now?
I find this interesting in light of the year: 1943. The middle of the war, and the reports of the horrible atrocities of both the Nazis and the Japanese POW camps, but particularly of the new nature of war itself that had come to be for the world. It's like it's all impacting on her generation, and her parents are too nice, too peaceable and part of a far more protected and homespun world unaware of the evil "out there" and under the surface lurking even in people they love. (And even the science of the Unconscious was coming to the fore as the world witnessed the evil human beings were capable of on a colossal scale, not as a sideshow or outcome of war, but rather as the result of central planning. Meantime, at the finish of that war would be the introduction of nuclear weapons -- a whole new scale of planned destruction and deliberate evil aimed at masses of humanity.)
I find in Shadow of a Doubt all of this dawning on this generation that fought that war and had to take knowledge of a world quite different from their parents', and that is the central role I see of the character of Charlie, alone with her knowledge, and with the knowledge of her own danger, who must fight her own battles and rely only on her own insights, wits, and intelligence to do so, and not the experience of her parents -- they're not prepared to cope with the knowledge of that kind of evil.
I once heard a comment about Humphrey Bogart as a movie hero by Alistair Cooke. He explained that the great film hero of the 30s was Leslie Howard. But when the war and the Nazis came about, Leslie Howard and his image did not seem someone who could cope with Nazis. They needed tougher heroes, people who seemingly could cope with such evil, maybe having had a taste of the darker side of the law themselves. And so, Humphrey Bogart became the new face of the hero (especially with Casablanca, 1942), the type of hero necessary for the new time, the new menace, the new enemy.
Makes you wonder about films and heroes of today a little, doesn't it? What does, for example, The Matrix say about what menaces us now?
Penny Serenade
(1941)
A Beauty
16 June 2004
One of the best films made. 1941 was a phenomenal year, not least for this film and Grant's marvelous performance. Call it melodrama, but it's the stuff of life, heartbreak and love and helpless vulnerability. How unfashionable.
I could watch Edgar Buchanan wash that baby a thousand times. Find me one actor with enough life experience today to do that scene. Just one.
Independent films today often seem to strive to make the point that human drama is about the struggles and relationships of private life. We call it "sentiment" when studios made films about this sort of drama and what's ultimately important on the most private level.
I could watch Edgar Buchanan wash that baby a thousand times. Find me one actor with enough life experience today to do that scene. Just one.
Independent films today often seem to strive to make the point that human drama is about the struggles and relationships of private life. We call it "sentiment" when studios made films about this sort of drama and what's ultimately important on the most private level.
Deep Valley
(1947)
Stunning film and cinematography
19 April 2004
I unfortunately caught only a part of this film on TCM and I will look for it again to see the beginning. But I was stunned by its beauty and especially the cinematography, so I wanted to add my comments as a "Hear! Hear!" to the comment above.
Thank goodness there's a Turner Classic Movies. These Warner Brothers classics are gems I'd never have known otherwise. This film is visual poetry.
I had to turn to imdb.com in order to find out who the cinematographer and director were. Beautiful. One doesn't realize often enough what there was at Warner Brothers. Personally I get a thrill when I hear that introductory music.
Thank goodness there's a Turner Classic Movies. These Warner Brothers classics are gems I'd never have known otherwise. This film is visual poetry.
I had to turn to imdb.com in order to find out who the cinematographer and director were. Beautiful. One doesn't realize often enough what there was at Warner Brothers. Personally I get a thrill when I hear that introductory music.
In the Shadows, Someone's Watching
(1993 TV Movie)
Noth does a great job even with this material
31 October 2003
Given the loony material he's got to work with, Noth does a very good job in his part. I came away from this movie appreciating him as an actor much more than before, and I've always enjoyed watching him act. I'd like to see him play Frankenstein. Or Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Or a vampire. To me this is a sign of an excellent actor. He's still very interesting to watch despite the outlandish material. ("Grand Guignol" is too tame a description.) The plot may have been too over the top to forget what I was watching, but Noth was still interesting to watch anyway. He managed to add some dimension even to that character. Give this man a film and a script with a compelling villain in it. Please!
Gee, I picked a good date to do this review, didn't I?
Gee, I picked a good date to do this review, didn't I?
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