1968 - ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, the classic Western film

Haven't seen this one in a very long time.  My latest viewing of Once Upon a Time in the West reminds me that this is a great film and also a really long film.

Critics talk about how Sergio Leone is the master of wide screen composition and the close up, can't argue with that.  Leone also has a sense of humor, casting Henry Fonda as a real bad guy and loading the film up with cameos from American western actors like Jack Elam, Keenan Wynn, Lionel Standler and Woody Strode.  Strode said in an interview that Leone was the only director who gave him a lot of closeups in a film. 

Ennio Morricone wrote a fairly sparse score which consisted of about 3-4 themes which are repeated throughout the film it's very effective.  The principal leads with exception of Claudia Cardinale were American they were all very good, particularly Charles Bronson as a kind of crazed revenge seeking gunman.

Lots of good stuff in this film however the chief complaint would be the length of this film.  The film could probably have done with a few less expansive crane shots.

 166 minutes, written by Sergio Donati and Sergio Leone.

1946 - GREAT EXPECTATIONS, classic film is good for lazy students who didn't finish the book and have a test the next day

Usually considered one of the best adaptations of a Charles Dickens novel, David Lean and his team brought this film in under two hours a considerable accomplishment considering most of these Dicken's novels are very long.

Lean and his writers apparently went through the book and underlined what they considered were the major scenes in it and then took this material and turned it into a screenplay.  Apparently this was accomplished in a couple of weeks which must be some kind of a record

The film is sort of a greatest hits of Great Expectations and having read the book (admittedly a long time ago) it's hard to figure out what exactly was left out of the film.  If I had any criticism of the film at all it would be with the ending which is just a  little contrived.  Pip finally gets Estella to see the light by literally having her walk into the light.

Even early in his career David Lean was the total pro when it came to making films.  The cinematography, acting, editing, production and sound design are at a very high level for what is a decent but modestly budgeted film.  This is a very easy film to watch for a 40's classic.

The screenplay was by David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame the running time is 113 minutes.

2013 -THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, the 2nd in the 2nd trilogy or the 5 in the Lord of the Rings Saga

What an incredible piece of crap and this is getting good reviews mostly it seems because it was better than the first film in the new series.  This Hobbit film is essentially a rehash of The Fellowship of the Rings film which featured a bunch of guys being chased by some Orcs.  Nothing succeeds like success so Peter Jackson and his team just remade that film.  In The Hobbit:  The Desolation of Smaug,  the hobbit and the dwarfs are chased by what else, Orcs.

This film is also incredibly violent, I can guarantee that the viewer will get his or her fill of Orcs getting shot through the neck with arrows or beheaded with a sword.  Jackson must like this stuff because there is a lot of it throughout the film.  Since no blood comes leaking out of the dismembered body or head it's apparently OK to constantly show it.

Considering all the money Peter Jackson had at his disposal he seems to be a very unimaginative filmmaker.  The film constantly repeats the same shots of the hobbit and the dwarfs walking around while the camera swoops in from a great distance.  If there is a mountain in the background and someone is walking up it, you can be sure the camera will come flying in from some bird's eye view almost crashing into the mountain. 

By now it's well know that The Hobbit will be a three part film series which means more story padding and more beheading scenes.  But I could be wrong.  Next year the public will proably all walk into the theater like lemmings to watch The Hobbit 3:  Hobbits Are  A Girl's Best Friend.

161 minutes, written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro.

1974 - MCQ, a very bad John Wayne film.

A very bad film made by John Sturges and John Wayne late in their careers.  Clearly the point of  McQ was to put the iconic actor in a contemporary cop film similar to Dirty Harry. But considering the talent, the film is a very poor rehash of that film.

A lot of the people involved in the film like John Sturges and composer Elmer Bernstein are working well below their skill level.  It's like hardening of the artistic arteries had set in with these old time professionals.  John Wayne in particular looks really out of it.  He seems barely engaged with the film and is incredibly stiff and slow moving throughout the film.  Wayne acts more like a senior citizen in need of a walker than a tough veteran cop. 

To add to the oldster status of the film, the rest of the cast features a bunch of old timers.  William Bryant, Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, Clu Gulager, David Huddleston, Al Lettiere, Julie Adams and Colleen Dewhurst.  It's like being at a celebrity senior citizens center.

 The plot is about drug dealing and dirty cops something that was on Quinn Martin TV shows every other week.  The action is unimpressive except for a final car chase along a Pacific Ocean beach.

The whole thing is just pretty depressing and bad.

111 minutes written by Lawrence Roman.

1963 - THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, early giallo film

The Girl Who Knew Too Much is a very early giallo film shot by Mario Bava who is one of the creators of this genre.  To refresh everyone's memory, giallo films feature lots of murders, blood, suspense and a little sex.  

As one of the first giallo films this one sticks to that formula.  Murders with people getting knives in their backs and a young blonde heroine who is constantly being stalked by a killer while everyone around her are dropping like flies sprayed with insect killer.

The film is photographed by the director Mario Bava in his full gothic look.  Nothing like a nice creepy film in black and white. 

86 minutes, written by Ennio De Concin, Sergio Corbucci, Eliana de Sabata, Mino Guerrini,  Franco Prosperi and Mario Bava.

1932 - THIRTEEN WOMEN, a fascinating film mixing hypnosis and horoscopes

Short and sweet.  This odd drama features American actor Myrna Loy during the odd part of her career where she was frequently cast as mysterious Asian women.  Loy plays a woman who was ostracized by her classmates at a girls boarding school.  Years later, Loy decides to have her revenge on 13 of her classmates through seduction, hypnosis and the power of suggestion which involves sending them horoscopes which predict their deaths.

Thirteen Women is barely and hour and zips along at a very fast pace.  The scheming Loy is fun to watch especially when she goes after goody two shoes Irene Dunne.  Unfortunately the dictates of a Hollywood studio film decree that all American actor Irene Dunne will come out on top.

59 minutes.

1981 - SPHINX - HItchcock wanna be thriller and travelogue

Actress and model Lesley-Anne Down was fairly hot in the mid 70's.  Today I doubt most people would have a hard time even recalling exactly who she was and what she appeared in.  Down was chiefly known for appearing in the British upper class/lower class drama Upstairs, Downstairs.  That show was the Downton Abbey of it's day and was very popular on PBS, sound familiar?

Down tried to use her popularity on that show to jump into a film career. She did a number of supporting roles in films before she got her big break in the film Sphinx.  Sphinx was directed by a fairly decent director, Franklin J, Schaffner who had directed Patton and was based on a novel by the then hot writer Robin Cook.  Sphinx is a thriller set in Egypt about the illegal buying and selling of ancient artifacts,  Lesley-Anne Down plays a noted Egyptologist who just happens to look like a hot model.  She pretty much throws any credibility this film has into the garbage.

On the positive side for this film, it is extremely well photographed and is if anything a nice record of all the traditional tourist hot spots of Egypt,  the Pyramids, The Valley of the Kings, Cairo, etc.  On the negative side the plot has a lot of holes and coincidences that it really stretches credibility to the point of maximum tensile strength.  

Lesley-Anne Down couldn't carry this film and it was back to TV movies and mini series for her after Sphinx flopped at the box office.  Another film with a miscast actor that suffered from the miscasting.

118 minutes, screenplay by John Byrum.

1939 - GONE WITH THE WIND, is half a good film.

I was less impressed with this viewing (which will be my last) of David Selznick's super production.  The story of the making of this film is very well documented and chiefly focuses on Selznick's detailed and obsessive perfectionism throughout the making of the film.

Selznick hired George Cukor to direct the film.  Cukor spent two years preparing the film and filmed for about 3 weeks at which point Selznick fired him.  Victor Fleming who was filming The Wizard of Oz at the time was pulled off of that film and reassigned to Gone With The Wind.  Fleming hated Selznick's guts but stayed through most of the film but finally dropped out supposedly from exhaustion.

Sam Wood wrapped up directing the film.  The production designer William Cameron Menzies appears to have directed pieces of the film in particular the burning of Atlanta sequences.  It's generally thought the Menzies was the person responsible for bringing any consistent look to the film considering all the cooks mixed up in this film.

The chief problem with Gone With The Wind is the script.  After going thorough practically every screenwriter in Hollywood, Selznick hired Ben Hecht to revise it while filming was actually going on.  Hecht only agreed to work on the film for a week and he apparently rewrote the first part which is the best part of the film.  The second half of the film was apparently written by Selznick and it's one disjointed soap opera like scene after another.  The Scarlet O'Hara love stuff where she carries the torch for Ashley Wilkes really makes watching the film a major effort. 

Gone With The Wind is saved by it's extremely impressive cast.  Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard are excellent.  However, what really holds this very long film together is Vivian Leigh.  It would be hard to imagine how this film would have been without her in the lead.

238 minutes, screenplay credited to Sidney Howard.

1929 - WOMAN IN THE MOON or FRAU IM MOND

Another fascinating film from Fritz Lang and his wife the writer Thea von Harbou.  Woman in the Moon is about the first flight to the Moon for the purpose of locating gold.  The complicated plot kicks into gear almost immediately.  A group of businessmen who control the world's gold supply want to stop the flight.  There is an espionage plot, a love story and a fairly crazed idea of what the Moon is like which in this film turns out to have a breathable atmosphere. 

 Since this is a Fritz Lang film made at the UFA studios it is an extremely well done production.  The model and miniature work are very impressive.  The photography and editing are very good, it's hard to find anything that looks substandard in this film.

Woman in the Moon is not considered one of Lang's best silent films.  The chief issue seemed to be the extremely crazy turn the script takes once the spaceship "Friede" lands on the Moon.  There is a young boy who has snuck into the Friede prior to the launch in the great movie cliche tradition of the stowaway.  Further craziness comes with the search for gold on the Moon which involves using a divining rod of all things.

In spite of these last act plot situations the film does have a fascinating ending and while it's no Metropolis, it's not the big disappointment that it is usually labeled as.  Woman in the Moon is an excellent finish to Fritz Lang's silent film period.

156 minutes.

2010 - IRON MAN 2 - finally got around to seeing this thing.

Been putting off watching this thing, it ended up being what I expected.  This is the same film as the original Iron Man except they just jacked it by being bigger, noisier and more expensive.  In the last film Tony Stark ended up fighting a guy in another Iron Man suit who was more powerful than him.  In this film he fights a whole bunch of bad robots instead of just one robot guy.  In the previous film, Tony Stark is a drunk and a playboy.  In Iron Man 2 he's drunker and a bigger playboy.  You get the picture. 

Not much of a plot mostly a bunch of random incidents.  Iron Man fights some Russian guy with electronic whips, Iron Man fights him again, Iron Man fights his robots etc.  The secret spy organization SHIELD is mixed up in this so called story.  Some agent named Black Widow has infiltrated Tony Stark's company for reasons I was not entirely sure of except that she wears tight clothes and beats up lots of guys.

Everything wraps up with a big action climax with Tony Stark and his friend wearing some robot armor that shoots missiles.  Lots of computer images blow up.  No picture needs to be painted for this movie.

As far as the cast goes, Robert Downey does his little cute playboy thing again.  Gwyneth Paltrow is probably grateful she is in a hit movie series, ditto Scarlett Johansson.  Mickey Roarke plays some brilliant Russian scientist who builds the evil robot army which is kind of amusing considering Roarke looks like he can barely groom himself. 

125 minutes

1948 - HAMLET, Laurence Olivier version

Shakespeare's tragedy if performed complete can run about 4 hours.  For his film of Hamlet, Olivier cut major chunks of the play but it still logs in at about 2 1/2 hours which is a lot of time watching a film, especially a film based on a Shakespeare play which requires a lot of concentration in this ADD cinema watching age.

This version of the play could probably be called the "watch before I have a test on Hamlet in school." .  The performances are from the classical tradition with actors parading around in big costumes and reciting as if they were playing in a theater.  It's not bad acting, it just seems a little dated.  However Olivier is good as Hamlet he was a very good screen actor with an impressive presence.

This production unlike Olivier's version of Henry the V, is not in color but gloomy black and white.  At times parts of the films are so dark I don't think anybody even bothered to build a set for some of the scenes.  I know this play is a tragedy but things couldn't been that dark and depressing in Elsinore Castle all of the time.

Being the great Shakespeare critic that I am I must say I have always found the finale of Hamlet to be a little contrived.  All that poison sword tip business and poison chalice stuff seems like an easy way to wrap up a very long play.  I think the Bard probably could have used a little bit or a rewrite towards the end.

155 Minutes

1946 - THE OVERLANDERS, World War II Australian cattle drive western

During World War II, the Australian government wanted to promote their contribution to the war effort.  Great Britain's Ealing studios usually a provider of genteel English comedies featuring Alec Guinness, decided to take up the challenge.  Ealing sent director Harry Watt on a research trip to figure out a story.  The end result was a film about a cattle drive from northern Australia to the south to prevent the cattle falling into the hands of the Japanese in case of an invasion.

Tbe Overlanders was filmed on location by Watt with Australian actors and a camera crew in some fairly rugged locations.  The film has an epic scope and impressive photography, it is also a rather boring film story wise.

The main problem with The Overlanders is that the cattle drive film has been done to death.  Dressing it up by filming it in Australia can't really change or improve on the typical troupes of this genre. Still the film moves along it's only 91 minutes and is actually fairly unpretentious.

 

Written by Harry Watt and Ralph Smart.

1976 - FELLINI'S CASANOVA - the life of Casanova as rewritten by Fellini

Critics at the time of release commented that Fellini didn't seem to like his main character Casanova which was rather odd since the film was supposedly about the life of Casanova.  Fellini's Casanova is a rather empty film especially for a director like Fellini whose films are usually the "life is a carnival" thing.

Fellini's Casanova was his follow up to Amarcord which had been a big commercial and critical success.  Where that film was upbeat and funny this is one dour and cold film.  It probably didn't help Fellini's Casanova that the film was shot entirely in the studio.  This gave the film a phoney but I will have to say an interesting look.   Fellini always had the best cameramen and set designers working on his film. 

As was the process with a lot of Fellini's later films, the actors didn't actually have dialog to speak, the were instructed by Fellini to just say numbers after which he would dub in the dialog.  Fellini frequently worked from a story outline with out a fully prepared script which tended to make his later films more a series of episodes rather than a fully realized story.

 Fellini's Casanova seems to be primarly about the sex life of Casanova, but in this film all the silly sex scenes aren't presented as much fun.  The point seems to be that Casanova's hedonistic lifestyle was extremely unfulfilling and empty.  Well whatever, the film does have a few interesting scenes and it does look good.

155 minutes.

2011 - TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, or more crap for the treadmill

Unbelievably 2 hours and 30 minutes of robots bashing and busting each other and anything else that gets in their way.  This is the third in the Shia LaBeouf trilogy not to be confused with the Apu trilogy or Pagnol's Fanny trilogy.

The appeal for Michael Bay seems to be in staging elaborate scenes of improbable mass destruction while slobbering over the latest female flavor of the moment Rosie Huntington something or other.

The third film in this series is basically the same as the first two films no better or worse than the previous films.

154 minutes.

2011 - HAYWIRE, an attempt to update a 1960's spy film

Quirky director Steven Soderbergh and the writer Lem Dobbs seem to have a few ideas on their minds for this film.  They want to make an action star our of a mixed martial artist named Gina Carano, they are attempting to update the serious spy thriller which was usually competing with the James Bond series to a more contemporary time period and finally they are trying to make the action scenes in this film a little more realistic.

Since Carano had limited acting experience, Soderbergh put together a fairly high powered cast to support her.  Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum and Ewan McGregor are essentially supporting characters for Carano.

This is a modest but good action film.  The fight sequences are staged as realistically as possible and whatever Gina Carano lacks in acting ability she is certainly in very good shape physically when it comes to the running, jumping, fighting and shooting stuff.

As with all of Soderbergh's films this a technically well made and competent film that avoids a lot of overblown director's "touches."

93 minutes.

1953 - I CONFESS, one of Hitchcock's very good films.

Alfred Hitchcock had a lot of problems making I Confess.  Warner Brother's studio found the story of a priest caught in a murder/love triangle a little too hot of a subject for their taste.  Hitchcock had to modify the story and change the ending of the film.  Hitchcock wanted to use Swedish actress Anita Bjork but Bjork had a rather messy personal life which the studio thought would have been fodder for the gossip columns.  

For his male lead, Hitchcock cast Montgomery Cliff a method actor who was also a very emotionally tortured person.  Hitchcock was a director who preferred actors who worked to his carefully preplanned visual pattern.  With Montgomery Cliff, Hitchcock had to wait for him to get into the mood.   But for all the problems Hitchcock had with Cliff, it is a very impressive performance

I Confess is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best directed films.  He shot much of the film in Quebec and brought a real feeling of atmosphere to the film.  This was a story that the Catholic director put a lot of himself and his feelings about religion into the film. 

I Confess is one of the few films that does not feature singing nuns or comical Irish priests but instead focuses on the individual's personal spiritual relationship to their religious beliefs.

92 minutes, written by George Tabori and William Archibald.

2001 - LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER - crap to watch on the treadmill

Lara Croft:  Tomb Raider is a little over 90 minutes long so that's about 3 / 30 minute workouts on the treadmill to make the time go faster during the morning workout.  The additional 10 minutes of running time is the fooling around part where you set up the speed of the treadmill and set the timer for the morning run.

The film stars Angelina Jolie as the video game character.  Jolie is kind of young in this film, she has big pouty lips and a padded bra.  Her face is hard looking because she is supposed to be a hard ass.  She has a very bad British accent.

This is basically Indiana Jones if Indiana Jones was a chick instead of Harrison Ford.  The big action pieces are rehashes of the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade scenes involving a mix of science and fantasy.  One scene is lifted from Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad which the director just ramped up with more frenzied action and special effects.  The bottom line, this film is very derivative but then what do you expect from a video game turned into a movie.

100 minutes

2013 GI JOE: RETALIATION, absolute crap

A sequel to the previous GI Joe film, GI Joe:  The Rise of Cobra.  This film is just complete crap and a total waste of time. 

The actor known as "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson takes over as the lead and that's not saying a whole lot when you have a cast that is completely without any interest or chemistry.  But then again who really cares, this film is strictly a PG-13 action flick with lots of hand to hand fighting and shooting but no blood even though there are bodies strewn everywhere life is very cheap in this film.

The supposed highlight of this garbage is some kind of mountain climbing fight scene which is so loaded with computer generated GI Joe cartoon people and Cobra bad guy cartoon people that it just looks incredibly phoney even by the standards of lazy computer  action scenes.

Clever advertising and marketing helped this film make money but personally I am very sorry I wasted my time finishing this worthless excrement.


110 minutes.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL - a slick action thriller

Got this one out of the way.

Same old same old with a couple of variations in the formula.  Cruise and Paramount hired Pixar animation director Brad Bird who was able to stick some humor into this series.  The film is still pretty darn shallow even for a lightweight entertainment.

The humor in this film comes from the failure of the high tech gadgets when the team needs them the most which is probably the main contribution of Brad Bird.  However I have to assume that Paramount and the producer kept a tight lease on Bird because the film is still essentially the same as the previous three films.

A very watchable time killer although I couldn't remember most of it and really didn't care.

Mission:  Impossible - Ghost Protocol is over two hours which is way to long for this kind of film.

132 minutes.

2013 - THE WORLD'S END, messy mix of comedy, science fiction and a little drama

After a disappointing shot at an Anime type teenage love story, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  The director Edgar Wright and his actor buddies Simon Pegg and Nick Frost try to return to form with a science fiction comedy.  The World's End is a step up from Scott Pilgrim but not a real high step.

The film is about a bunch of aging high school buddies bar hopping through a small town.  They just happen to stumble onto a space alien invasion of robots.  This film borrows from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars and The Earth Dies Screaming.  The film also borrows some dialog from Roger Corman's The Wild Angels.  All this nerd hipster stuff gets a little tiresome but I have to admit a lot of this film is pretty funny.  Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are funny guys and the fights with the robots are well done.

Unfortunately there is an attempt to add some profound meaning to this film.  You have to sit through a lot of tiresome stuff about friendship, male bonding and growing up.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost actually do a decent job with these scenes but it seems like a lot of heavy crap to add to a film that is essentially a goofy comedy.  The dramatic elements are really trite and I've seen it all before in many other television shows and movies.

The uneven mix of all these genres might indicate that Edgar Wright is struggling with what type of film he wants to make in the future.  I wonder how many more of these genre rehash films he can keep spitting out?   It's starting to look like Wright's television series Spaced, which was very funny but had interesting characters which mixed with the funny situations could be his career highlight. 

109 minutes, written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

1952 - THE SNIPER, the psycho killer on the loose 1950's version.

An attempt to dramatize a story about a deeply disturbed Army veteran, The Sniper is finally done in by the conventions of 1950's attitudes about mental illness. 

Arthur Franz is the psycho shooter who has a real hatred of women. In fact he hates them so much he decides to get rid of them.  He's sort of an early version of Norman Bates without the stuffed body in the cellar.  The police have to get Franz before he pops more women which is probably the most interesting aspect of the film.  The on location photography in San Francisco and the police investigation of the killings are also quite interesting.

However the least successful element of the film is the very dated psychoanalysis of the killer's mind by a police psychologist attempting to help the police understand his motives.  At one point the psychologist makes an earnest plea for locking up anyone who even remotely has some kind of deviant thought.  If you think about it, that would be most of the population of this country.

For all the overblown pseudo psychoanalysis, the film actually ends on a tense and understated note.  It's unfortunate that the rest of the film couldn't have been used this approach.

87 minutes.

1943 - CRAZY HOUSE, from the guys that brought you Hellzapoppin'

Olsen and Johnson are back in another comedy for Universal Pictures.  Edward Cline who had directed W. C. Fields was in charge this time.  The results are disappointing.

For whatever reason the anarchaic spirit of Hellazpoppin' seems to be lost this time.  Olsen and Johnson are still up for any type of gag they can think of but their timing seems way off.  The film is also overloaded with musical numbers and singers, from Alan Jones to Count Basie.  There is also an extremely overbearing performer called Cass Daley who is featured in some very stupid specialty numbers

This Olsen and Johnson production actually has some sort of plot.  Having been kicked out of Universal Studios they set up a film at Miracle Pictures (If it's a good picture it's a Miracle).  The chance to take some major shots at Hollywood never materializes, the musical numbers just keep coming and coming and coming.

The film does have a few decent moments which come mostly at the end when they are previewing their picture for an audience.  Only in these scenes do Olsen and Johnson get to show their madcap vaudeville stuff.  Olsen and Johnson were comedians who appeared to work best without the structure of a formal script.

80 minutes.

1991 - HE SAID, SHE SAID - is another romantic comedy.

Writing a negative review of this film is mostly a "what's the point" post.  He Said, She Said is what it is.

The film has an elaborate flashback structure about a couple who get together, break up and finally get together again.  Probably the only interesting thing about this film is that it was directed by a man and a woman although you would never be able to tell if it wasn't pointed out.

The film follows the usual formula, she's a career woman who is kind of a cute ditz who in real life no guy would want to hang out with.  Naturally she wants to get married.  He's a good looking playboy who can have all the hot women he wants.  A one point he passes on a young and kind of hot looking Sharon Stone.  The guy has commitment issues of course when it comes to long term relationships.

Will they work out their relationship and get together in the end?  I wonder how it will all turn out?

115 minutes.

1962 - THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, boring remake of a silent film success.

This is an elaborate remake of a silent film success which started Latin type Rudolph Valentino.  No expense was apparently sparred by MGM.  The film lost a lot of money

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the usual miscast mess with Glenn Ford playing an Argentine playboy.  Ford's a member of a rich land owning family which has Lee J. Cobb as the patriarch giving a hammy and fortunately short performance.  Part of the family are European German's for some reason and since this film is set during World War II they are also evil Nazis.  Ford ends up partying in Paris during the war and falls in love with Ingrid Thulin a Swedish actress who was known for working with Ingmar Bergman.  Thulin plays a French woman of course, MGM glamored her up and also ended up dubbing her voice with Angela "Mrs Potts" Lansbury.  You can already see the train wreck coming.

 

Vincente Minnelli was under contract to MGM and was hired to direct.  Minnelli was known for stylish musicals and over blown if entertaining melodramas so he wasn't the worse choice for this film.  However Minnelli wasn't exactly on his game with this film.  He clearly didn't respond to the actors and most of his interest seems to be in photographing very expense but phony looking sets and pretty on location shots of Paris.  

This film runs over two hours and seems to consist entirely of Glenn Ford and Ingrid Thulin walking around Paris and constantly talking that love talk stuff they liked to do in these old films.

 

 

An expensive big budget disaster that is a companion piece to MGM's other wreck of a remake, Mutiny on the Bounty.

153 minutes, written by Robert Ardrey and John Gay.