Change Your Image
david_weinstock
Reviews
Violence (1947)
they tried to do what they do best
There's a corruption plot here, and in almost every movie with a corruption plot, it is the dogooder politician behind the corruption. I'm not giving any secrets here. This movie is markedly different for some reason. My suspicion is they either ran out of film, money or time and had to wrap it up.
With peter whitney as the joker (no it's not set in gotham city) and sheldon leonard (no, he's not telling anyone which elevator or railroad train to take), the stage is set for a great reveal at the end of mr x's identity (no it's not elon musk or pierre watkin), but then the story just ends and michael o'shea goes off with the cute muckraking reporter. Also featured in here, as a doctor, was john (no he's not telling the copyboy don't call me chief) hamilton, a star on early tv. The most important thing in this movie is it prepared us for a corrupt, much bankrupted businessman to make a lot of noise about cleaning out the swamp, so to speak, while corrupting it himself.
Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)
Deluca made a slapstick throwback screwball
DeLuca got some a list actors like Joe bologna, John byner, Carol Kane (what a couple they make!), begley Jr, and some old gags from old movies, and went to make Yugoslavia look like transylvania. They put in more of the legendary laemelle monsters, Wolfman father and son, Frankenstein, mad scientist, Geena Davis vamp, gypsy fortuneteller, burgermeister, and investigative reporters working for Norman fell, looking for factual existence of Frankenstein in a village in transylvania for a supermarket News tabloid. There are also torch and pitchfork toting villagers in this story. Is that a spoiler or a sine qua non. Anyone who don't like this is a sourness, including professional critics.
Naked City: Howard Running Bear Is a Turtle (1963)
This episode is a perfect example
Naked City had their pick of some of the best writers, directors and actors in the country and this episode could be the archetype, with the exception that they could not seem to find any indigenous, First Nations people to play Indians . Without giving out the plot, the one of the 8,000,000 stories they tell here has no winners or lovers, good guys or villain, very much like most events in all our mundane lives. In this one we see Otsego Indians who have adopted the ways of modern civilization, and tried to balance that with their traditional ways. Like all the other cultures that blend in the melting pot of 50s new york, there are distinct complications. Excellent writing and acting and scenes from the Big Steel. Total New York!
Chandler (1971)
Is this The Narrower Margin?
The cast here is special but the story is less so. Charles Mc Graw just has a small bit here, but he was a principal in the first version, protecting a witness from the bad guys. Warren Oates, Walter Burke, Scotland Crothers, Richard Loo, and others add panache to the story. But, like in so many crime thrillers, they present a picture of an all powerful mob that controls just about everything they see, but their large organization can't get it together to prevent a washed up ex cop from Running Circles around them. Locating the story in Carmel is great for scenery hounds but the story was more compelling on the train.
Go West (1940)
Don't give up before the miracle
Some western cliches are abounding here, but the real treat was seeing the great Buster Keaton listed as an (uncredited) writer. You might ask, as I did, 'Where's the contribution?' I'm guessing he was hanging out because once he signed away the creative rights, the studio didn't have the imagination to give him work. I have no proof but the whole railroad sequence crystallized in the Keaton brain. Maybe there wasn't much he hadn't done in his other railroad sequences, but when he stacks gags together, he has no competition. The Marx brothers were no slouches either. I really wish they have got Buster in the film, and I also wish Iris Adrian had visibility, actually some lines to call out.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
if branagh directed casablanca, it would have stunk.
No spoilers here. As agatha christie stories go, this wasn't bad. But about 90% of the dialogue was filmed in close ups on the speakers, so there was not much ensemble acting. Billy wilder told an interviewer 'close ups are like trumps in bridge. You don't want to use them too often'. Branagh is no billy wilder. Older movies had several actors in a lot of the dialogue scenes, and they reacted to each other as if they were in a play, which they actually were. But in this one, each one made a facial expression and said their lines and so on and so forth. I know, old people, like me, always say things were better in the old days. Movies were better in the old days. When they took the old movies and clipped the viewpoint to fit on a 12 inch screen, it sucked and so this one sucks too, in spite of some exteriors of a beautiful city in the sea.
Run of the Arrow (1957)
Beautiful setting, lame story
First of all, most of it looks like Arizona, not Sioux prairie. No wonder there's no more buffalo. Making the tribe Apaches would be a start. Production value was tops, actors were tops and I won't give spoilers, but the man who wrote Big Red One shoulda been able to come up with a better plot. It's always nice to see Frank de Kova playing an Indian. They should have had Larry Storch Forrest Tucker in there too. I know fuller knows more history and a couple of Brian Keith speeches showed fuller was not as dumb as the script, but maybe ken berry could have added something to the story, too. The cast of thousands was something that would probably be CGI when they make the remake.
Repeat Performance (1947)
the tv host admitted they butchered a book
Even so, it runs like a long, show biz version of 'incident at owl's creek bridge'. I suspect the book was more interesting. This might be a movie worth remaking, since the movie code has just about dissolved.
Lust for Gold (1949)
i won't give up any spoilers because this movie is way too good to spoil
I finally found the original book, thunder god's gold, by barry storm. The movie is based on just a small part of the book, which is about greed and treachery in the superstition mountains near phoenix, the story goes back to spanish soldiers and apaches and up to the 1940's. The only constant is greed and treachery. You can look up the cast to see what quality they wanted, and they got it, too. A lot of it was filmed in arizona, in the original sites. People are still getting murdered in the superstitions, trying to find the lost dutchman's mine. The dutchman was not lost. The mine was lost, and may still be lost, for all i know. If you are a fan of westerns, this will knock you out. There are no stagecoach robberies or horse chases or fast draws. Just great stories and acting.
Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935)
the title song makes it worth while
Gene's movies usually have some good songs and this song alone is worth watching. the movie is available on tubi, free, if you know how to sign on. i need a fire stick to get on. the location filming and stunts and chases are pretty good, too. it's not 'anthony mann with james stewart', but if you like classic westerns, this is a good one.
Have Gun - Will Travel: The Lady of the Fifth Moon (1963)
amazing performance by the idiot producers
considering that the show had kam tong and lisa lu in recurring roles, it is really stupid and offensive to everyone, not just asians, that they put bethel leslie in as a Chinese woman, in fact, two Chinese women. this is the same kind of crap that cost bruce lee the role that went to carradine. carradine and leslie just don't look Chinese. i know white men have played othello for years and that is stupid and offensive, too. is this a spoiler? no. the producers and casting directors spoiled the shows.
A Bigger Splash (2015)
this really needed more editing
i never saw La Piscina, so did not know about this being a remake, but at more than one point, i thought it reminiscent of 'Women in Love', but not exactly. i don't think this is a spoiler, as there were only a few scenes in parallel universes. the scenery of the Italian island was extraordinary and the topical mention of the migration from wherever to that island and Lampedusa was interesting to me. but i thought there was way too much loud music and gratuitous sex. even when i was young, i preferred the sex in my own life, and not so much in movies, but that's just tough for me. the acting was great, but there is a story about making 'All the King's Men' and the director told the editor to cut out a lot before the first dialogue in a scene and after the last word, and the movie flowed better. if this editor had done that, and also cut out the music, dancing, and sex that did not move the plot forward, the movie would have been about 45 minutes shorter, and much easier to watch. the last half hour was terrific, except where it reminded me of the Italian cop shows they put on the pbs late at night. the pacing of this made the pace of the English patient look like a looney tune of daffy and porky, by comparison. i would not be sending any friend to see this stinking movie. i guess that makes this a spoiler of sorts. sorry
The Lone Ranger: Rifles and Renegades (1950)
there are no spoilers in this episode
unless you don't know the ranger and Tonto always succeed in their endeavors, there are no spoilers.
in this episode, the lone ranger of the future episodes plays a sergeant in the army. that is interesting. and gene Roth plays the bad guy, like he does in every third or fourth episode. Stanford jolley also plays a bad guy. it is possible he never played anything but a bad guy, but t would take a lot of movie watching to verify that suspicion. Indians are attacking somebody with army rifles, and the ranger and Tonto are going to find out how they got them. what surprised me was that the ranger could speak some Indian tribal language, and Tonto, (is this a spoiler?) is an Indian who doesn't speak the Indian tribal language. the language includes some real funky sounding words, too. i hope this review doesn't disqualify me from IMDb. peace, love, and Ali bombaye!
Car 54, Where Are You?: I Love Lucille (1962)
there is more than i love Lucy here
there is also a great nod to the gay divorcée, with Erik Rhodes, who played 'Tonetti' in that movie, as a cinema verite director, and a salute to Fellini, too, with the bright blonde hair and music that emulates Nino Rota's Fellini movie scores. this is just one more great episode of a truly classic but under-appreciated great TV comedy. why do i have to have ten lines of text? because nine might not give enough praise to Joe E Ross, who played on the Phil Silvers show for Nat Hiken a few years earlier. he was also 'married' to Beatrice Pons on that show, with the same wonderful results. i know people with no sense of humor who laugh out loud when they see a car 54 episode. Jake Lamotta was on a few shows, Ossie Davis, and the great Molly Picon, as well. other plots emulated crime movies, naturally. this show is so underrated it s a crime.
The Story of Seabiscuit (1949)
when the legend is better than the truth, print the legend
when the truth is so much more interesting, this movie was pretty much a waste of time. the real characters were also more interesting than these two dimensional characters. the only redeeming quality was the newsreel footage of some of the actual races. fortunately, the recent Laura Hillebrand book and the recent movie corrected some of the nonsense. in real life, the great Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, Charles Howard, Tom Smith, and even Red Pollard were all much more interesting characters than those in this stinker. perhaps there were problems getting the rights to use the real names of real people who were alive at the time of filming. there is no doubt that Shirley Temple was very cute when they made this abomination, and probably was cuter than Red Pollard's own wife, the nurse. There was also no need to use such lame stereotypical characters for the non-white cast members. for a degenerate race track gambler like myself, the racing footage was worth enduring the rest of it.