1957 - THE MYSTERIANS, Toho's science fiction battle epic.

Toho's first color science fiction film shot in a widescreen process called TohoScope.  The film is about an invasion by aliens from a destroyed planet called Mysteroid.  Earth Defense Forces primarily led by the Japanese battle to keep these aliens from kidnapping and mating with our women.

This is very colorful stuff to put it mildly. Special effects are the real star.  It features Eiji Tsuburaya's models and lots of work with the optical printer creating laser rays and lighting bolts to put it mildly.

 

Ishiro Honda, a reliable director of these types of movies was in charge of assembling this film.  

Takeshi Kimura wrote the screenplay. The rousing music score was by Akira Ifukube.  The film runs about 90 minutes.

1988 - RED HEAT, strictly by the books action flick

 I don't know what went wrong with this film but it sure isn't anything special.  Writer/director Walter Hill teamed up with Arnold Schwarzenegger with another one of those "fish out of water" action movies that they should have been able to shoot in their sleep.  

Maybe that was the problem, the characters, the Chicago settings and even the action stuff are all kind of boring.  Maybe they did shoot it in their sleep.

Since Hill was the driving force behind the film I guess he ultimately should have the responsibility for the lack of imagination that runs throughout the film.

Running time 103 minutes.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET - Fuller's Commie bashing spy story

Richard Widmark is pickpocket Skip McCoy who picks the purse of prostitute Jean Peters playing a character named Candy.  Little does Skip know, that Candy is also a courier for a Communist spy ring trying to smuggle a piece of microfilm out of the country.  With the help of Moe a snitch for the police the chase is on with the cops and the commies in hot pursuit of Skip.

And so starts another Sam Fuller film where everyone talks tough and Fuller's idea of a love scene is to have Skip punch Candy out and knock her into unconsciousness.

Widmark has played this kind of very tough guy many times but the fact is he is very good at it.  Peters who at times was a sensitive actress is also pretty good as the hooker, Candy.  But probably the best performance in the film is veteran character actress Thelma Ritter as the ultimately tragic stool pigeon, Moe.   

The film is filled with the usual flamboyant camera angles and it zips along at a quick 80 minutes.

1965 - THE HEROES OF TELEMARK, Anthony Mann's last completed film

No wimp actors allowed in Anthony Mann's last completed film before he died. Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris are clearing freezing their butts off on location in Norway during the filming of this story during the winter months.

The film is based on a true story of Norwegian saboteurs blowing up a "heavy water" factory which the Nazi's were using to develop the atomic bomb during World War 2.  I would say based on is to put it mildly somewhat of a long stretch.  The screenplay wants to incorporate a love story, a spy story and finally a war film.

In spite of the film's shortcomings, Anthony Mann still stages the action scenes with his usual skill.  Shooting on location really brings an almost documentary like reality to the film.  Frankly it looks cold and very foreboding in Norway during the winter.

An interesting fact, Kirk Douglas was the producer of Spartacus and fired Anthony Mann and replaced him with Stanley Kubrick while filming that epic.  Douglas apparently felt guilty about the whole affair and years later tried to pay Mann back by starring in this film.

 

The film was written by Ben Barzman and Ivan Moffat the running time is 130 minutes.

1997 - SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL, another disappointing sequel

The critics and public killed this sequel to Speed when it was released.  In reality it's just another action film done in by a very poor script.

Keenau Reeves one of the stars of the original film passed after reading the screenplay. Sandra Bullock signed up again to repeat her character of Annie Porter.  Never let it be said that losing a star from the first film every stopped anyone.  The actor Jason Patric played her new love interest but he's basically playing the Keenau Reeves part again.  

This film was set on a cruise ship which was criticized as being to slow moving, unlike the out of control bus from the first film.  However it seems to me it doesn't hurt to mix it up a bit with a different idea or two.  What the filmmakers should have thought about was a better villain.  It's just the same old brilliant psycho running around causing trouble.

The film does have a very spectacular action stunt piece where they rammed a cruise ship into a mock up of a Caribbean village.  The reported cost of this crazy stunt was $5 million dollars.  Speed 2:  Cruise Control is at best an OK time killer.  It's not really the complete disaster the critics said it was.

The screenplay was by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson.  Running time 126 minutes.

1954 - THE FAR COUNTRY, another fine James Stewart/Anthony Mann Western

The 4th in the Mann/Stewart western series.  This one is set in Alaska during the gold rush but actually filmed in Alberta Canada.  The Far Country is part of the adult western film fad that set in during the 1950's. Basically the western film toughened up after surviving lots of light weight films in the 1940s (singing cowboys anyone).

As usual Mann has the cast riding over real locations not some comfy studio set back at Universal Studios.  At one point the production even filmed on a glacier.  Mann knew how to stage on location action scenes.

 

In a Mann film, these stories brought out the harder side of Stewart's character.  It was a very welcome change of pace for the good actor.

 

The film was written by the reliable Borden Chase and runs 97 minutes.

2015-SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO, tough followup to the original film

 Pretty decent sequel to Sicario.  The action is tough and there is more of an emphasis on the personal stories of the criminals and cops this time around.  Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro repeat there roles as off the grid (to put it mildly) DEA agents.  This time they are trying to provoke a war between competing drug cartels.

The film was shot in New Mexico, the technical credits are at a high standard.  If there is any problem with the film it's probably the loss of Emily Blunt who played the rather clueless FBI agent in the first film.  It would have been interesting to see how they planned to develop her character.

The film was written by Taylor Sheridan and runs 122 minutes.

1937 - SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, still an impressive animated film.

2 years in the making,  Disney's first full length animated feature is still very impressive.

Walt Disney worked with a lot of people to achieve this one of a kind film.  The film making skill behind this film is very impressive.  Particular attention is given to the color pallet, the design, music and the camera angles used throughout the film.

Probably the one area that dates the film a little bit are the characters of Snow White and Prince Charming.  They have sort of a 1930's look to them, but this is really just a minor whine.

As I indicated above this was a film that was created by a number of artists.  However Walt Disney had the final say on all the scenes that went into the picture.  At times having the animators completely change finished scenes because they didn't meet his high standards.

The film was written by Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank and Webb Smith.  It runs a perfect 83 minutes.

1978 - THE BETSY, is high class trash

The Betsy is trash but it's Harold Robbins trash.  The film has a very classy look to it.  John Barry did the music, Dorthy Jenkins was a noted costume designer.   It was filmed in Newport, Rhode Island.  The director Daniel Petrie had been involved with fairly high class projects in television and the film world.

 

But, probably the most eye rolling thing about this film is the cast.  And what a cast.  Laurence Oliver, Robert Duvall, Joseph Wiseman, Tommy Lee Jones, Edward Herrmann, Jane Alexander, Katherine Ross among others.  Exactly how they were attracted to this project will forever remain a mystery.

The film's got it all, illicit love, incest, homosexuality, corporate intrigue and  I've probably left a lot of stuff left out.  The cast is easy on the eyes and plays all this junk fairly straight.  But for the life of me I can't figure out what Laurence Oliver is doing in this thing having sex with Katherine Ross playing his step-daughter married to his homosexual son.  Well you get the idea about what kind of film this is.  The producers apparently worked very hard to get an "R" rated film.

William Bast and Walter Bernstein wrote the screenplay, the film runs a never dull 125 minutes.

1936 - SAN FRANCISCO, a big MGM film

 Ok here we go:

Clark Gable is Blackie Norton, irrepressible owner of the Paradise Club in the Barbary Coast section of San Francisco.  He is also friends with the local Catholic priest played by Spenser Tracy.  One day stumbling into the Paradise Club is Mary Blake played by Jeanette MacDonald.  Mary needs a job as she is a starving opera singer from Denver, Colorado who learned to sing opera in the church choir back home.  Blackie gives her a job as a saloon singer where she belts out the title number, the crowd goes wild.

Mary loves Blackie, but Blackie is not the settle down and have a family kind of guy so Mary splits and takes up with Blackie's rival Nob Hill rich guy Jack Burley.  Jack Burley gets Mary a job singing opera in some San Francisco opera house.  Blackie, starting to realize that he loves Mary after all tries to get her to come back to the Paradise Club. But after hearing Mary sing opera he realizes he can't stand in the way of her opera career.

Since Blackie won't tell Mary how he feels about her she decides to marry Jack Burley instead. Lots of plot later, this whole soap opera like relationship mess is finally sorted out when the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 hits. The earthquake conveniently kills off Jack Burley so Mary and Blackie can finally get together. The film ends with Blackie, Mary and the survivors of the earthquake locking arms and marching around singing "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" for some reason.

 

Robert Hopkins and Anita Loos wrote this film, the running time is 115 minutes.

1950 - ALL ABOUT EVE, high point in the career of Joseph Mankiewicz

Joseph Mankiewicz's career high as a writer/director.  This bitchy drama about the various shenanigans on Broadway featured Bette Davis in her last important role as Margo Channing reigning theatrical diva of the New York stage.  Little does Margo know, her personal assistant Eve Harrington is maneuvering to steal her boyfriend and her career.

Mankiewicz was a big fan of the theater so his screenplay is filled with lots of references to actors and plays that probably the average viewer wouldn't even remotely have a clue about.  The dialog in the film is sharp and the cast knows they have the advantage of a great script and talented director.  However it should probably be noted that the producer of the film Darryl Zanuck had considerable influence on the film.  He had Mankiewicz pare down his 3 hour plus script to a more manageable 138 minutes.  Zanuck was an excellent editor and tightened the film's story.

 The assembled cast is good particularly George Sanders as critic Addison DeWitt and Anne Baxter as the villainous Eve Harrington.  Most people watching the film are usually aware that this was one of Marilynn Monroe's early film.  She has a small part and she's pretty good in it.

Over the years this film has at times gotten the reputation as a camp classic and it's easy to see why,  the film is a little over the top and it's hard to believe a tough cookie like Margo Channing wouldn't see through Eve's scheming.  Still, a very good film.

1961 - LA NOTTE, interesting study in modern alienation.

 Antonioni continued his study in modern alienation with this story of an Italian novelist and his wife who seemed completely cutoff from their society and ultimately each other.

 

As always with an Antonioni film it's all about the images with cinematographer  Gianni Di Venanzo providing some stunning black and white photography and composition.

A dark serious film but very worthwhile.  The performances from  Marcello Mastroianni and Jeannie Moreau are very good. incidentally La Notte translates into English as "The Night."

Michelangelo Antonioni along with Ennio Flaiano and Tonino Guerra wrote the film, it runs 122 minutes.

1952 - BEND OF THE RIVER, 2nd in the Anthony Mann James Stewart western series

Within the restrictions of a typical western film plot, this is a good tough film from Anthony Mann and James Stewart.  Anthony Mann liked his actors out in real locations, he felt it contributed to the overall feeling of the film.

Stewart abandoned at lot of his usual acting ticks and played an actual tough guy for a change. Arthur Kennedy was a good foil as Stewart's friend/foe.

A good western however you cut it.  Mann was an underrated director but when it came to staging scenes on location he was the equal to John Ford and John Sturges.

 Borden Chase an expert in writing interesting westerns was the screenwriter on this film.  The photography on location at Mount Hood and the Columbia River is a real plus.  The film runs a brisk 91 minutes.

1983 - PAULINE AT THE BEACH, the 3rd film in Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series.

Another Eric Rohmer talk fest but the talk is good.  Pauline and her cousin Marion are vacationing off of the coast of France.  Here they meet several men who they fall in and out of love with throughout the film.

This is a typical well thought out Rohmer film,  The women are beautiful, the men are kind of stupid, the scenery is nice and the dialog and situations are rather clever.

As usual the cast responds well to Rohmer's screenplay which believe is a real yak fest. 

Rohmer wrote the film,  Néstor Almendros did his usual good job with the cinematography.  The film runs 94 minutes

1939 - GUNGA DIN, one of Hollywood's best adventure films.

This is director George Steven's really coming into his own as a filmmaker with this adventure film set in India during British rule.  The film has an outstanding cast with Victor McLaglen an actor usually associated with John Ford films playing Sgt MacChesney.  Douglas Fairbanks Jr is Sgt. Thomas Ballantine and Cary Grant is Sgt. Archibald Cutter.  Grant's casting is interesting in that he is actually playing himself for a change, a cockney Archibald Leech (his real name).  

The film was originally supposed to be directed by Howard Hawks but Stevens was brought in because it was felt Hawks was to slow a director, little did they know.  The methodical Stevens took his time, reworked the screenplay adding jokes from his silent film days (Stevens had worked with Laurel and Hardy) and opening up the action.

The result was a one of kind action/adventure film with lots of clever comedy bits added in throughout the film.  Even today the film is still influential.  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom used the Thuggee murder cult from this film as their chief bad guys and the Star Wars film, The Last Jedi was apparently greatly influenced by Gunga Din as well.  If the film has any issues it's probably the patronizing attitude the film as to the Indian people.

 

 The film was written by Joel Sayre, Fred Guiol, Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht.  The running time is 117 minutes.

1975 - THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, excellent action film

The director Brian Tenchard Smith's first film is an action and stunt movie overload.  The plot is the simple hook of sending a fish out of water Hong Kong cop to Australia to take down an a drug kingpin.

 The film's star Jimmy Wang Yu was kind of the replacement for Bruce Lee who was planned as the original star.  Wang Yu is quite a character in his own right a tough actor with a short temper not afraid to get in a brawl with anyone in real life.

Anyway, back to the film.  Since this was Trenchard Smith's first film  he loaded it up with lots of shooting, fights, car chases etc.  The film doesn't have a dull moment.  Surprisingly the film didn't do that well commercially.  This was attributed to the amount of female nudity which apparently limited the viewing audience. 

 The cast is loaded with Australian actors chiefly Hugh Keays-Byrne and Roger Ward from the first Mad Max film.  One time James Bond George Lazenby is the villain.

The film runs 106 minutes and was written by Brian Trenchard-Smith.

1996 - LONE STAR, excellent drama about a Texas town

 The director and writer John Sayles is a master storyteller skilled at interweaving several stories into one compelling narrative.  Lone Star highlights his strengths as a writer with strong characterizations and an interesting story line.

The film's hook is a mystery story.  What happened to Charlie Wade the corrupt sheriff who vanished years ago in the town of Frontera, Texas?  This plot line is just a hook to look at the interactions between the White and Hispanic residents of Frontera.  Sayles does this with a lot of insight and fairness to the issues raised moving back and forth in time with a series of flashbacks.

The large cast is excellent and the film is told in a straightforward way without any of the usual fancy camera tricks directors seem to want to indulge in.  A very good film.

Running time, 135 minutes.

JESUS OF NAZARETH, TV miniseries is very long

The 3 year public life and preaching of Jesus as presented in this miniseries.  Jesus is a white guy with deep piercing blue eyes. The large cast is made up of a bunch of Hollywood and English movie stars.  The miniseries is very long. All of the above points were major criticisms of George Steven's The Greatest Story Ever Told.  However this film got good reviews, go figure.

Robert Powell plays Jesus with a lot of soft spoken sincerity but at times kind of comes off as a creepy cult leader.  He speaks in the usual biblical platitudes probably more a fault of everyone having to hear the same New Testament stories over and over in Sunday school

The director Franco Zeffirelli moves along from one biblical event to the next. We get the feeding of the crowd with the loafs and fishes, casting out the money changers from the temple, the last supper etc.

Jesus of Nazareth is not without of it's good points but it's a long slow crawl to get to the resurrection. Frankly this miniseries is pretty boring.

Besides Zeffirelli the writers included Anthony Burgess and Suso Cecchi d'Amico,  The film comes in at a whopping 374 minutes.

1961 - EL CID, hugh epic filmed on an epic scale

The director is Anthony Mann, the producer is Samuel Bronston.  The film is huge.  A cast literally of thousands, real castles and massive battle scenes.

Charlton Heston is the legendary Spanish knight fighting to save his country from the Moors while dealing with a worthless King. Sophia Loren is his impossibly beautiful wife and the rest of the cast is the usual bunch of British actors hired to class these kind of films up.

They don't make them like this anymore and they never will again.  Viewing the film just for the large scale production values is certainly worth it.  The film also has a very memorable ending.

 

The film was written by Philip Yordan, Fredric M. Frank and Ben Barzman.  It has an epic running time of 184 minutes.

1958 - JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY, a documentary on the Newport Jazz Festival

 The photographer Bert Stern filmed this concert during the Newport America's Cup yacht races. But probably the real star of the production was the editor Aram  Avakian who not only did an impressive job assembling it but had to sync up the sound that was recorded separately.

It's a good film but apparently Bert Stern the director didn't know a whole lot about jazz so he let the producer George Avakian select the acts that were filmed.  This led to some strange omissions.

Performers like Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Ray Charles were left out.  Instead we get a whole lot of Louis Armstrong and I mean a lot being interviewed and playing what else, The Saints Go Marching In.

The film runs 85 minutes and is still an impressive achievement even with the exclusion of some of the best jazz musicians who were performing at the festival.

1957 - FORTY GUNS, crazy Sam Fuller Western

 Barbara Stanwyck is Jessica Drummond the owner of a large ranch and the ruling power in the county. She has a gang (harem?) of 40 riders who zip around on their horses scaring the crap out of everyone.  Stanwyck also has a worthless brother who's a drunk and a coward and not adverse to a little back shooting so you know he's gonna be trouble.

Into this setup comes Barry Sullivan and 2 of his brothers playing thinly disguised versions of Wyatt Earp and his brothers.  Let the gun play and perverse situations begin after all this is a Sam Fuller film.

Fuller never met a weird camera crane shot or closeup he didn't like.  He got his director of photography Joseph Biroc a cameraman who would go on to be associated with Robert Aldrich to enable him in his passion for at times outrageous photography.

Is the movie any good?  Beats me. But it's certainly flamboyant as only Sam Fuller can do.  Fuller wrote the screenplay. The film runs a brisk 80 minutes.