1959 - LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, a good western

Kirk Douglas is the sheriff looking for the men who killed his Indian wife.  Anthony Quinn is his former friend who's son is the one who killed Douglas's wife.  Quinn runs the town of Gun Hill like a western despot.  Douglas comes to Gun Hill to arrest Quinn's son and has to wait until the Last Train From Gun Hill can get him out of town.  

 The film has two larger than life personalities completely dominating the story.  Kirk Douglas who snarls throughout the film and Anthony Quinn who seems to be ready to blow with some kind of smoldering parental anger.  The two of are also competing to see who can be the bigger bad ass.

Produced by Hal B. Wallis and directed by John Sturges.  This is a good looking production with lots of well directed action scenes.  A quality product all the way

94 minutes, written by James Poe.

1974 - THE FRONT PAGE, Billy Wilder's version

For whatever reason Billy Wilder lost his ability to connect with an audience in the 1970's.  Avanti, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and Fedora have their moments, but Wilder wasn't the same guy who could toss off masterpieces like The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard and Witness for the Prosecution.

The Front Page is a particularly depressing film.  Wilder was clearly looking for a commercial property that would have audience appeal.  The Sting had been popular with audiences with it's nostalgia and charismatic stars.  Wilder was probably hoping to hit pay dirt with that formula and his favorite actors, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.  Howard Hawks had good luck remaking The Front Page as His Girl Friday and Lewis Milestone had filmed a visually flamboyant version of the The Front Page in 1931, so Wilder probably figured he couldn't miss with another remake. 

Wilder sets up a shot with Matthau and Lemmon

Almost immediately everything is off in this version.  The pace is slow with absolutely no urgency in the performances or situations.  Wilder had always been a master craftsman setting up comedic situations but here he plods along from one scene to another unable to modulate the performances of a fairly decent cast.  Wilder along with his partner writer I.A.L. Diamond also resorted to lots of dialog with swearing and shouting instead of genuinely clever writing.  

Wilder had been the director who had teamed up Matthau and Lemmon but for the first time, these guys couldn't deliver for him this time.  For a couple of veteran comedians they were not very funny. Matthau shouts and blusters his way as legendary editor Walter Burns.  In the play, Burns was a clever Machiavellian puppet master,  in this film his shenanigans wouldn't fool a 10 year old.  As ace reporter Hildy Johnson the simple fact is that Jack Lemmon is just too old to be playing the go getter reporter.  Lemmon looks like he should be sitting in front of a television drinking Geritol.

The Front Page is another example of an old school director (Hitchcock, Robert Wise, Ford, George Stevens) struggling to connect with a modern audience.

105 minutes screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.

1964 - THE GORGON, weak Hammer horror film

The ancient Greek creature the Gorgon is lose in eastern Europe turning people to stone.  It's up to a couple of British actors playing some kind of European professors to track it down. 

The Gorgon is a mighty disappointing Hammer film in spite of the involvement of "the big three" from Hammer,  Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and the director Terence Fisher.  The production looks cheap even by Hammer's standards with the whole thing filmed on about 4 sets.  The woman with the snake head hair is what it is for a 1960's special effect. 

What should have been a horror film is really more of a murder mystery story with Christopher Lee attempting to figure out exactly who the Gorgon is.  Even this part of the story is so poorly done that it's pretty obvious almost immediately

James Bernard who could usually be counted on to ramp things up with an over the top score tried for a little more subtlety this time for a film that probably needed things to be ramped up a whole lot.

83 minutes

1963 - 55 DAYS AT PEKING - another super sized production from Samuel Bronston

Producer Samuel Bronston who never thought modest in his film productions decided to dramatize the 1900 Chinese Boxer rebellion.  To accomplish this task he literally built the city of Beijing in Spain.  This is a massive production involving huge sets and employed the famous "cast of thousands."

Nicholas Ray was hired to direct and either had a nervous breakdown or a heart attack dealing with the extreme demands of Ava Gardner and the overwhelming technical details of the production.  2nd unit director Andrew Marton coordinated the battle and destruction scenes and another director Guy Green who had worked as a cinematographer for David Lean finished up the film.

I will admit this is not a great film, the soap opera love story plot between Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner really slows down the film and is not remotely interesting.  However the amazing sets and action pieces are really something to see with the vast cast of extras deployed in the battle scenes.  Where did they dig up all those Chinese extras in Spain?

You can dust off the old cliche "they don't make them like this anymore,"  but the reality is they don't. This mindless film is fun to watch (especially on a large screen televison), with it's 70mm photography and old school star powered cast which included Heston, Gardner and David Niven.  It's a very enjoyable time killer. A fascinating example of excess in the film business.

150 minutes, written by Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon.

1979 - NORTH SEA HIJACK or FFOLKES or ASSAULT FORCE

North Sea Hijack or whatever it's called is a real old school film.  The director Andrew V, McLaglen was an old TV director who ended up being John Wayne's go to guy towards the end of his film career.  Roger Moore, James Mason and Anthony Perkins were products of the old studio system and the whole production had a distinctly old fashioned feeling to it.

The film is actually kind of entertaining.   Anthony Perkins is the head of a gang attempting to extort money from the British government by threatening to blow up a couple of their North Sea oil platforms.  Roger Moore is the leader of a group of commandos assigned to stop them. 

Roger Moore is playing against his usual suave leading man type i.e. James Bond.  He's supposed to be an eccentric misogynist who only loves cats however Roger really doesn't have the acting chops to make that kind of character likable much less credible.

 

Andrew McLaglen shoots the film like every other film he's worked on, straightforward and with no imagination.  He barely gets the job done but he does get it done.

100 minutes, written by Jack Davis.

1970- COLD SWEAT, typical international action thriller.

Liv Ullmann has worked with many distinguished leading men in her career, Max Von Sydow, Gunner Bjornstrand, and Laurence Olivier.  Clearly the next step in her distinguished career was to match her formidable acting skills with one of the 1970's most popular leading men, Charles Bronson.

Cold Sweat has Ullmann, Bronson, and James Mason.  It was directed by Terence Young who in his better days had worked on the early James Bond films with Sean Connery.  This film is one of those international "Euro Crime" films, heavy on the action and very light on an actual plot that sort of makes sense.

Charles Bronson is comfortable beating people up, breaking necks and generally being a tough guy, but Liv Ullmann seems completely out of her element in this kind of film.  As far as playing Charles Bronson's wife, she has zero chemistry, no hugging or kissing or any of that affection stuff.  It's probably safe to say this was strictly "a take the money and run" acting job.  

  As usual with these kinds of films they are filmed on glamorous or exotic locations.  In this case the French Riviera.  One can assume the cast and crew had a very nice stay during the production. 

94 minutes, written by Shimon Wincelberg, Jo Eisinger and Dorothea Bennett.

1969 - LATITUDE ZERO, daffy fun for 12 year old boys and up.

One Mad Hatter of a film from Toho studios and director Ishiro Honda, Latitude Zero is (or better be) an elaborate science fiction fantasy which must have been made for young 10-12 year old boys.  The film features, flying lions, flying monkey men and a flying submarine.

The plot is apparently about an underwater city doing battle with an evil scientist on an island called Blood Rock.  The film has lots of American actors like Joseph Cotton, Richard Jaeckel and Cesar Romero trying to desperately keep a straight face throughout it. This is "Where's my paycheck?" acting at it's finest.

Watching it one assumes the whole thing is kind of a put on with it's weird creatures particularly the giant felt rats which are clearly very small people in costumes crawling around on all fours,  to the flying monkey men with the vampire teeth, it had to be intentional (or at least I hope it was intentional).

The end of Latitude Zero literally rips off the ending of The Wizard of Oz.  The film is highly watchable camp if you are in the right mood.  As usual the model work by Eiji Tsuburaya is a lot of fun.

105 minutes, written as usual by Shinichi Sekizawa.

1974 - IT'S ALIVE. the killer mutant baby movie

A woman gives birth to a mutant big headed baby that kills everyone in the delivery room and then escapes in Larry Cohen's horror film that either has something to say about the nature of parenthood or is a 90 minute ad for Trojan condoms.

Larry Cohen knew how to go there with exploitative horror films like this.  The whole idea of a pharmaceutical drug being responsible for mutant killer babies has a kind of deranged cleverness to it.

Cohen loaded the cast up with veteran character actors like Andrew Duggan, Michael Ansara, Guy Stockwell and Robert Emhardt but it's the performances of the two leads John Ryan and Sharon Farrell that are kind of amazing.  They bring a seriousness and intensity to their roles as the mother and father that is overwhelming.  It's like someone forgot to tell them they were in a Larry Cohen film.

Bernard Herrmann composed the music, probably not one of his more memorable scores and the legendary special effects expert Rick Baker made the model of the killer baby which Cohen was smart enough to only photograph in shadows.

A very clever low budget horror film.

91 minutes

1953 - ROB ROY THE HIGHLAND ROGUE, I suppose.

The Walt Disney Studio had money frozen in England from box office receipts.  Disney decided to spend this money producing some films over seas.  Treasure Island, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, The Sword and The Rose and then there's Rob Roy the Highland Rogue.

Rob Roy the Highland Rogue was based on a book by Sir Walter Scott, the author of Ivanhoe, but this is no Ivanhoe.

Guys running around in kilts, undecipherable accents and a story that has something to do with the English vanishing the name of Rob Roy's clan McGregor.  It's all about the Scottish clans fighting off the oppressive rule of the British in the 1715 uprising like anyone could care about that in a movie. 

This is a film you really have to pay attention to.  Those accents make for some seriously hard going as you try to figure out what is happening  By the end of the film Rob Roy takes his bagpipes and marches to London to see the King in a scene so ridiculous it would almost be funny if you could understand what they were saying to each other.

This is an unusual stinko of a film from the Disney Studio in spite of the very good looking production they spend their frozen assets on.

81 minutes

1951 - APACHE DRUMS, producer Val Lewton's final film

The producer Val Lewton, had a lot of trouble restarting his career after he left RKO.  Lewton finally ended up at Universal Studios in charge of the kind of "B" movie that he knew how to make.  Apache Drums is a decent little western which has a number of Val Lewton's famous RKO horror film touches. 

The film is fairly standard Indians vs the settlers stuff, with lots of interesting things going on.  The main lead Steven McNally was not an "A" list actor and is probably chiefly remembered for playing the bad guy in Winchester 73 and the rapist in Johnny Belinda.  Coleen Gray's career never really took off after Red River, as you can see we were not dealing with some stellar leads but journeyman actors.

As for the Val Lewton touches, well the actual beating of the drums in Apache Drums reminded me of Lewton's classic horror film I Walked With A Zombie.  The final siege inside the town church at night is full of Lewton's trademarked shadows and sound effects. 

A fairly good western film from one of Hollywood's most influential producers.

75 minutes.

2003 - SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS, by the numbers

Another film about Sinbad, another larger than life adventure.  Sinbad fights a big animated monster. Sinbad falls in love with his best friend's girl, Sinbad's dog is a real cut up, etc.  

As is the way with animated features these days, the cast is full of Hollywood stars.  Brad Pitt is Sinbad, Michelle Pfeiffer is the love interest and Catherine Zeta Jones is the mythical creature Marina who is clearly a stand in for The Little Mermaid's sea witch Ursula.  These actors add nothing to this cartoon and I doubt anyone went to see this film because Brad Pitt was the voice of Sinbad.

Sinbad is a middle eastern character but you would never know it from the white bread animated characters and voices in fact it is impossible to even tell that is a story with middle eastern influences. 

The biggest problem with this film is that it is uninteresting.  The story is another of these hero's journey tales where at the end of the story he is a better human being for what he has gone through. sort of an updated version of Pinocchio.   On the positive side the film is pretty to look at.  Nice color and visuals that are easy on the eyes and no songs.

85 minutes

1959 - TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN or SPACE INVASION OF LAPPLAND or HORROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN or INVASION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE

This silly science fiction monster on the loose story is nice and short and actually kind of fun.

A middle aged scientist, his very hot niece and a horn dog geologist are called up to Lapland, Sweden of all places to investigate a UFO and apparently some sort of 20 ft high monster stomping around the area.  The usual space monster destruction occurs along with the hot niece running around screaming as she is chased by this lumbering monster.  You get the picture

What makes this film so fascinating is the setting, Lapland.  There is a lot of on location filming in Lapland of all places.  I can tell you this is not a place I would choose to live,  there is snow and lots of it.  It's even more amazing that some guy in a cut rate Chewbacca costume is out stomping around in this frozen wasteland destroying houses and tents (obviously built to a smaller scale) pretending to be a space monster.  The bottom line, some interesting scenery but it looks very cold out. 

The film has a directing credit by Virgil Vogel, but it's hard to believe this competent television editor/director and one time mentor to Steven Spielberg was involved in much of the film.  At several points during the film,  the boom mike is clearly visible which only adds to the fun.

81 minutes

1952 - IVANHOE, outstanding adventure film from MGM

Here is a film that completely hits it marks.  Ivanhoe is a large scale action adventure filmed in England with a big budget.  This story of knights, Richard The Lionheart, Robin Hood (here called Robin of Locksley) and chivalry is so well done it's easy to ignore the mix of American and British actors in the cast.

The driving force behind Ivanhoe was producer Pandro S Berman, one of Hollywood's best film makers.  He had a distinguished career working at RKO with Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn, George Stevens and George Cukor among others.  Later he moved to MGM where he continued to produce films of high quality.  The director Richard Thorpe was a working director who probably was never on anyone's "A" list, but was a reliable craftsman.  F.A. Young was the cinematographer.  Young went on to work with David Lean on Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter.

The cast included a couple of stunning women, Joan Fontaine and Elizabeth Taylor.  Taylor was probably 19 years old when she filmed Ivanhoe and she was an extremely attractive young woman although she never was much of an actor.  Robert Taylor played Ivanhoe and he brings a commanding presence to a part that could have come off as silly. 

Ivanhoe has some excellent action scenes with a castle siege by Robin Hood's men being a real standout.  A great film made by a group of professionals who really knew what they were doing.

Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Noel Langley and Marguerite Roberts the running time is  107 minutes.

1963 - CALL ME BWANA, another bad Bob Hope comedy from the 1960's

Bob "ski nose" Hope made a lot of terrible comedies towards the end of his movie star run.  Stuff like Cancel My Reservation, I'll Take Sweden, Not With My Wife You Don't and Boy Did I Get A Wrong Number.  Call Me Bwana can hold it's head high with this group as truly awful.

Hope trots out his patented wise cracking coward bit yet again.  This time he's a phony big game hunter in Africa searching for a moon probe that has landed in Africa for the United States.   The Russians have sent big breasted Anita Ekberg to seduce him and steal the probe some very unfunny stuff occurs from this setup.

Since this is a Bob Hope movie, besides the lame wisecracks the viewer gets an extended golf sequence with Arnold Palmer.  In the good old days of the 1940's Hope could take command of a film with superb comic timing and rescue it, this time it seems like he isn't even trying.  Only Lionel Jefferies as a Russian agent pretending to be a missionary is actually funny.  Ekberg does what she is supposed to do walk around sticking her chest out.  The whole thing is mighty pathetic.

If the Call Me Bwana has any interest at all it derives from the company that produced it EON productions, the legendary group that filmed and continues to film the James Bond films.  There is something almost odd about seeing this film with the same cinematographer, editor, special effects man, production designer and producers essentially the men who produced the classic Sean Connery James Bond series, pumping out this unfunny mess.

102 minutes written by Johanna Harwood and Nate Monaster and knowing Bob Hope probably a bunch of his gag men.