1939 - THE FOUR FEATHERS. there will always be an imperalist England

Almost a dry run for Lawrence of Arabia. This large scale and big budget film is impressive for the on location photography and battle scenes filmed in the Sudan in Technicolor.  This is a considerable achievement, the early Technicolor cameras were huge and weren't actually film friendly when it came to moving these monsters around on dollies and cranes.

The is a very old fashioned adventure.  The story was probably a little dated when it was filmed but the basic situation of an ex soldier having to prove he isn't a coward is rather interesting.

The film was directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by his brother Alexander Korda. This family practically invented the British film industry.  The film looks good in another well done Criterion presentation.

 

Written by R. C. Sheriff, Lajos Biro and Arthur Wimperis.

Running time 130 minutes.

1972 - JOE KIDD, tired Clint Eastwood western.

Nobody brought their A game to this disappointing western from Clint Eastwood and John Sturges.  Clint's the tough guy who's been hired to kill a Mexican bandit in a land rights swindle.

 

Sturges direction seems very tired and everyone has seen Clint do his silent tough guy shtick more than a few times.

The film has a decent action scene towards the end but that's about it.  Sturges occasionally shows his ability to frame individuals against scenic vistas and even in a tired film like this, he does stage some of the action scenes fairly well.

 

Elmore Leonard wrote the boring script but it doesn't help that everyone seems to be mumbling throughout the picture.  It's hard to tell what is going on.

Running time 88 minutes.

1995 - GET SHORTY, gangsters vs Hollywood

 Lone Shark "Chilli" Palmer is in Hollywood to collect some debts owed to some Miami gangsters.  While there he gets the movie bug and decides he wants to produce films.  Little does he know the movie business is just about as cutthroat as the gangster business.

Get Shorty is probably John Travolta's last decent role as "Chilli" Palmer.  He's mister cool dressed in black with his hair slicked back. Gene Hackman is the B movie producer he gets involved with who has aspirations of being a big shot.  Rene Russo is the small time actress and current girlfriend of Hackman. She's someone who has been "rode hard and put up wet"  as they say.  The film is stylishly directed by Barry Sonnenfeld who has a knack with comedy.

Thriller writer Elmore Leonard wrote the book on which the movie is based.  Leonard had spent plenty of time in Hollywood writing westerns so he probably knew a thing or two dealing with sleazy movie industry people.  The film is very funny.

Scott Frank wrote the screenplay. Running time 115 minutes

2003 - THE ITALIAN JOB, the remake

Because Hollywood is completely out of ideas, we have the remake of The Italian Job.

The producers kept the basic idea of the gold heist and the escape using Mini Coopers. To give them credit they did try to vary the plot for this film.  The action scenes have been hyped up, because that is what they do in remakes.  The problem is the sense of fun is completely missing from the film.

About the only thing to recommend it is Charllize Theron who is at the peak of her beauty.

 

The film was written by Donna Powers and Wayne Powers.

Running time is 110 minutes but it seemed a lot longer.

1969 -THE ITALIAN JOB, the original version

One of Michael Caine's famous roles from the the 1960's.  Caine is Charlie Croker a master thief pulling off a gold heist in Turin, Italy.  The plan involves screwing up the city with a massive traffic jam and using Mini Coopers to move the gold around the city.

 

This is a very lightweight film not particularly well directed.   Caine had pretty much polished his Cockney smart ass character by this point.  He has a decent cast to play off of.  Noel Coward, now the grand old man of the English theater is the big shot providing the funding for the heist.  Benny Hill, of dirty old man fame, is of all things the computer expert assigned to screw up the traffic during the heist.

Probably the high point of the film is the goofy car chase with the police pursing the Mini Coopers throughout the city.   The end of the film is also known for it's literal cliffhanger.  Quincy Jones wrote the score which includes "The Self Preservation Society" sung by Michael Caine himself.

 

As I said, the film is not really very well directed but the actors and situations make it some kind of minor classic.

Written by Michael Deeley.

Running time 99 minutes.

2008 - HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, season 4

Season 4 on the long running series starts to have some issues with a number of it's early episodes. Our main protagonist  Ted Mosley gets engaged and is left at the altar.  So we have a number of episodes where we put up with the romance of Ted and his fiancee Stella Zinman which really slows down the action  

Once the series is done with this tiresome plot line, the episodes actually start getting funny again.

 

The show's actors in this season are now very comfortable with their characters.  Worth viewing after you get through the first five episodes.

 

The main writers are the series producers, Carter Bays & Craig Thomas.

513 minutes

1974 - TRUCK TURNER, very entertaining action film

A 1970's action film with Isaac Hayes as tough guy Truck Turner.  This is usually considered a blaxploitation film but that's almost kind of a disservice to a good action film.

 

Truck Turner is a bounty hunter chasing down people who have skipped bail.  He runs up against a pimp and a madame and one thing leads to another as the viewer is left with a series of shootouts and fights.

 

This studio behind this film is American International Pictures so it's a fairly low budget production.  The director is Jonathan Kaplan who knew how to stretch a buck on a very cheap production. 

 

The film has a very good cast.  Besides Isaac Hayes (who did the music) there is Yaphet Kotto, Scatman Crothers and Dick Miller.  The film also amusingly cast Lt Uhura herself,  Nichelle Nichols as the madame swearing up a blue streak. 

A very enjoyable period piece and a great action film.

Written by  Michael Allin and Oscar Williams. 91 minutes.

2003 - THE COMPANY, the flip side to The Red Shoes

The Company was made late in the career of Robert Altman.  The film was a passion project for the actor Neve Campbell since she has a producer and story credit on the film.

Altman was apparently reluctant to take on the film but it has a lot of his qualities.  The film follows a dance company for about a year in Chicago.  It is virtually a plot less film.  Although Neve Campbell and James Franco are in the main credits, if there is a main character at all its Malcolm McDowell playing "Mr. A,"  the director of the dance group.   McDowell is the complete opposite of the Lermontov character from The Red Shoes. Although focused, he's not going to drive has principal ballerina into suicide.

In fact the Neve Campbell character "Ry" is almost the complete opposite of Victoria Page the ballerina from the The Red Shoes.  She works as a cocktail waitress and actually gets hurt dancing.

This is an interesting, movie but it's lack of a story probably hurt any chance of commercial success.  I would still rate this as a very good late career film from Robert Altman.

Barbara Turner and Neve Campbell get story credit, the screenplay was written by Turner.

112 minutes.

1963 - 8 1/2

There's  just not a lot you can say anymore about Fellini's 8 1/2 probably his best film.  It usually shows up on those greatest film lists all the time. 

So lets look at a few pictures.

Here's the famous opening with Marchello Mastroianni floating above the roman traffic.

The equally famous ending scene where the director Guido Anselmi directs all the people in his life to parade a round in a circus ring to the music of Nino Rota.

And finally here's Fellini and Mastroianni who is basically playing a thinly disguised version of Fellini.

The film was written by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Ron

138 minutes.

1965 - OPERATION CROSSBOW, an attempt at a realistic James Bond film.

In the middle of the James Bond spy movie craze. Every film studio had to have some kind of spy movie.  Out comes this British film about the World War II German V1 and V2 rocket program.

 As the Germans perfect their "flying rocket bombs", the British mobilize their secret agents to stop them.  This involves casting practically every British character actor in the United Kingdom. All my old acting favorites show up in this film, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Tom Courtney, Richard Todd, Ferdy Mayne, Anton Differing, Anthony Quayle,  the list is endless.

 

 The producer throws a couple of ringers into the mix.  Sophia Loren, who gets top billing and George Peppard clearly cast for the American market.  Loren's husband Carlo Ponti was the producer.

The director tries for a semi documentary approach but the script can't entirely avoid going down the road of melodrama and coincidence.  Still this is a really good looking film and lots of stuff blows up at the end. 

A couple of minutes on the internet is probably in order to read about the real Operation Crossbow mission.  It's actually kind of fascinating how the British managed to deal with the V1 and V2 rockets during the war.

The writers were Emeric Pressburger (under an alias, Richard Imrie for some reason), Derry Quinn and Ray Rigby.

116 minutes.

2007 - HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER SEASON 3

I enjoyed the 3rd season of How I Met Your Mother.

The writers, producers and actors definetly have the drill down by this season.  The show still manages to get a lot of humor out of the flash forward and flash back story telling structure.

This show is like getting a hamburger at a restaurant.  Always a safe bet when you are unsure what to order.  

429 minutes or 20 episodes.

1987 - SUMMER SCHOOL, a very mild comedy

The director Carl Reiner a fairly funny writer and director somehow got mixed up with this very mild comedy.

 The plot is about a bunch of low performing high school students stuck in summer school after flunking out during the school year.  The teacher is pretty boy Mark Harmon playing a gym teacher tricked into teaching them for the summer.

 

There are a few amusing moments with a couple of obsessive high schooldorks who are completely into the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre and for the most part the cast is decent enough to make a lot of the underdeveloped comedy work.

This is one of those films where the kids and teacher learn lessons about life on the way to being better citizens etc.  An OK time killer but don't expect to much from this film.

97 minutes, written by Jeff Franklin.

1980- THE SEA WOLVES, old time World War 2 film

 This throwback to a war film was already dated when it came out in 1980 to put it mildly.

The film has the usual disclaimer that it is based on a true story.  A quick search of the internet confirms it.  The film is sort of a Guns of Navarone except with old guys.  The Sea Wolves even has one of the stars of Navarone in the person of Gregory Peck.

The plot is about a bunch of retired army officers recruited to destroy a German ship providing information to a Nazi submarine for the purpose of sinking British cargo ships during World War 2.  I really don't have to rehash the plot because anyone who has seen a war movie or two knows how this thing is going to go

 

 The amazing cast is like a who's who of old British stars.  David Niven, Trevor Howard, Patrick Macnee and Roger Moore, probably the youngest guy in the group and he wasn't exactly a spring chicken when they made this.  In addition there is a whole bunch of British character actors in minor parts whose names I don't know, but trust me I have seen in a lot of British films through the years.  

 

The film was directed by amiable hack Andrew V. McLaglen whose style will never be confused with that of Francois Truffaut.  Another old timer Reginald Rose wrote the screenplay.  

With all that said, the film is actually kind of enjoyable in a tired sort of way.  Roger Moore plays his part like he's in a James Bond movie.  Gregory Peck struggles with his accent and David Niven plays the gentlemanly British character he made a career out of.

120 minutes.

1972 - PRIME CUT - a very odd gangster film

 This one went right over everyone's head.  Michael Ritchie, one of the best satirists in the film business took on the crime film genre with this oddball film.  

  

The film is at first glance a gangster film with Chicago mobsters attempting to collect from a rival gang which just happens to be located in rural Missouri.  It seems the hick gangsters haven't been paying the big city guys the money owed to them.  In an attempt to get the money the Chicago mob has sent some of their best enforcers down to collect. 

 

Unfortunately for the Chicago guys these hicks aren't exactly a bunch of pushovers.  So the Chicago enforcers return to the big city as wieners.   Yes they are processed at a meat plant in Kansas City and shipped back to the mob boss in Chicago as hot dogs.

The Chicago mob boss isn't going to take this lying down so he sends his top "torpedo" played by who else, Lee Marvin.  Bring on the violence.

The under riding theme of the film seems to be about the deep corruption in America's heartland.  The film is a mixture of county fairs, swap meets and farm boys running around with shotguns protecting their way of life even it it means killing a bunch of city slickers.

 

Subtle in it's own unsubtle way.  No one watching this film in 1972 was going to get what was going on.  I doubt even in 2020 a viewer will understand this very crazy satire on American way of life.

Prime Cut was written by Robert Dillon who specialized in very oddball stories.

Recommended 

88 minutes.