1989 - THE BURBS, an underated Joe Dante film.

Dante's funny black comedy about life in the suburbs has seen it's reputation grow since it was originally released.  Tom Hanks is the everyman character Ray Peterson who along with his neighbors Art Weingartner and Lt. Mark Rumsfield are spying on their very creepy new neighbors, the Klopeks.

Dante put together a great cast staring with Tom Hanks who has never been a slouch in the comedy department.  Bruce Dern is his right wing nut neighbor and Richard Ducommun is his just plain nuts neighbor.  Throw in Dante's usual stock company which consists of Corey Feldman, Dick Miller and Robert Picardo.  I also have to mention Gale Gordon, Henry Gibson, Wendy Schaal, Rance Howard and Carrie Fischer.  It's just a fun cast.

 

This film is one of Dante's most underrated films.  For once he isn't dealing with Gremlins or Warner Brother's cartoon characters. Dante allows his sense of humor to shine through dealing with real people for a change.  It's still somewhat of a cartoon like atmosphere but at least it's a little more real world identifiable before the craziness sets in.

 

The film was written by Dana Olson and runs 101 minutes.

1977 - SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, the weakest of the Harryhausen Sinbad films.

Probably the most disappointing of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films.  This time Sinbad is in search of a cure for a Baghdad prince who has been turned into a baboon by an evil sorceress.  This film is strictly a rehash of earlier and better Harryhausen films. Even the encounters with the monsters are "seen it all before" situations

The cast is generally a disappointment, Patrick Wayne and Taryn Power respectively the childern of John Wayne and Tyrone Power can't seem to generate much chemistry.  Jane Seymour playing Princess Farah somehow ended up in a supporting role but she certainly would have been a more interesting leading lady for Wayne. Also in the film is one time "Dr. Who," Patrick Troughton who at least livens the plot up.  Margaret Whiting as the evil Sorceress Zenobia is to put it kindly larger than life in her performance.

 

Ray Harryhausen's special effects don't seem all that special in this film.  The minotaur is a mixture of a guy in a gold suit and Harryhausen's animated figure but it's easy to tell where the live action actor and the animated figure switch between scenes.  The three ghouls that Sinbad battles are entirely to reminiscent of the skeltons from Jason and the Argonauts, and the fur on the tiger is all over the place a common challenge when animating creatures with hair.

 

The usually reliable screenwriter Beverly Cross put together a by the numbers story.  The running time is 113 minutes.

1981 - AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, a horror/comedy film

The big deal on this film was the actual physical transformation of a man into a werewolf courtesy of special effects artist Rick Baker and his team.  The Howling had apparently beat An American Werewolf In London with the same type of physical effects earlier in the year.  Still this was a milestone in film effects which were eventually superseded by computer generated imaging.

The writer/director John Landis had a fondness for this genre and since it was the 1980's he updated it with a lot more violence, blood and of course sex.  Landis cast a couple of unknowns in the main roles and the rest of the cast was made of up British actors.

The film is effective in parts but I think a big issue with this film was the story.  Landis was good at writing the set pieces but he really didn't have much of a plot to tie them all together. Even the character development is on the weak side.  Exactly what does Jenny Agutter see in David Naughton anyway? When you got down to it, even at 97 minutes the story kind of dragged.  If you saw one werewolf killing with someone getting their throat ripped out, you kind of saw them all.

 

In the end the film comes down to watching Rick Baker's monster makeup.

Running time,  97 minutes.

1954 - VERA CRUZ, cynical western from director Robert Aldrich

Burt Lancaster is grinning away in Robert Aldrich's Vera Cruz.  Along with Gary Cooper, Lancaster is mixed up in the Mexican Revolution as a soldier of fortune.

The movie was noted for a new level of cynicism that hadn't been seen in westerns before.  Gary Cooper is I guess the nominal hero of the film but even he is a lot more interested in his own situation than helping out the Mexican revolutionaries

 

Robert Aldrich directed the film on location in Mexico but couldn't seem to rein Lancaster in with all of his goofy grinning.  After all, Lancaster was one of the producers.

 

The film runs 94 minutes and has some decent action.  Lancaster as usual does all of his own stunts.  Vera Cruz was written by Roland Kibbee and James Webb

1964 - THE MOON SPINNERS, Disney does Hitchcock

Perennial 1960's Disney star Haley Mills headlines a good cast in this attempt at an Alfred Hitchcock type of thriller for young viewers.  Mills was now 18 years old and had grown out of the young girl parts she had stared in for Disney the past couple of years. The Moon-Spinners is a decent transitional role for her for the most part.

Mills plays Nikky Farris who along with her Aunt played by Joan Greenwood,  gets involved in a search for stolen jewels on the island of Crete.  The chief bad guy is Eli Wallach. Silent screen star Pola Negri plays a rich woman mixed up in this stolen jewel caper.  Negri was a legendary silent screen star which probably didn't mean much to the Disney kid audience.  

 

The film appears to have had extensive location shooting on the island of Crete and it certainly doesn't lack for local color.  Mills is a capable heroine and the story supplies her with a handsome leading man.

 

Probably the film's biggest issue is a rather meandering script.  The film takes almost two hours to tell it's story and could have used a little pruning in the script department.  Still an enjoyable entertainment for the most part.

Written by Michael Dyne, the running time is 118 minutes.

1991 - POINT BREAK, incredible action scenes in an incredbibly stupid film.

Kathryn Bigelow directs excellent action sequences in a film which plot wise and character wise is almost to stupid to be believed.  Keanu Reeves is rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah who along with his partner Angelo Pappas is on the trail on a gang of surfing bank robbers led by the charismatic Bodhi played by Patrick Swayze.  It seems the surfers rob banks to finance their life style while blathering on with some philosophical garbage about being free spirits as opposed to the rest of us suckers.

Johnny Utah goes undercover and gets involved with this gang of surfing bank robbers and there is a lot and I mean a lot of gay subtext between him and Bodhi to put it mildly. About the only character who seems in on the joke of what a stupid  film this is  Gary Busey as Reno's partner.  Busey gives a rather bemused performance throughout this film which is definitely a highlight.

Still, say what you want about this film, the action sequences are extremely well done and really make up for the goofyness of the rest of the film.  If I'm complaining to much about Point Break, it's only because Kathryn Bigelow is clearly a very talented filmmaker which she proved later in her career.

 

W. Peter Iliff wrote the screenplay, the running time is 122 minutes.

1968 - LADY IN CEMENT, incredibly a sequel to Tony Rome.

Incredibly Frank Sinatra's Tony Rome private eye character is back in a sequel to the first under performing film.   While treasure hunting, Sinatra finds a naked dead woman with her feet stuck in a bucket of cement at the bottom of the ocean.  So the viewer is off with another Tony Rome adventure as he romances the babes again and wisecracks his way through the case yet again.

The director Gordon Douglas returns probably because he is some kind of masochist when it comes to making films with Frank Sinatra.  The music is by Hugo Montenegro a composer who is best known for his peppy I Dream of Jeannie TV series theme

Well what can you say about the cast.  Richard Conte, Marin Gable, Lanie Kazan and Dan Blocker are in it.  Blocker in the ads is frequently referred to as Dan "Bonanza"  Blocker a reference to the long running television series he was a part of.

This time Raquel Welch, 20th Century Fox's resident contract sex symbol gets to endure Sinatra's misogynistic behavior.  Anything for the great art of film I guess.

 

Two writers were involved it this mess, Jack Guss and Marvin H. Albert the original author of the novel Lady In Cement.  Yes you read that right this film is actually based on a novel.

The running time is 94 minutes.  Lady In Cement was also an under performer at the box office which insured there would be no more Tony Rome films.

1967 - TONY ROME, attempt to revive the detective film.

Frank Sinatra is Tony Rome, a private eye living on a boat in Miami.  Tony Rome is up to his ears in dead bodies, and babes.  Tony Rome wisecracks his way through his case as he puts the puzzle pieces together on a case involving missing jewels.  The reality of this film is that it is just an excuse for Frank Sinatra to romance the dolls and shoot off his mouth with lots of quips and one liners. Occasionally Sinatra pulls out his "38" and plugs some bad guy with it.

The film was directed by Sinatra's go to director Gordon Douglas but as in any Sinatra film, Frank calls the shots. It does have some nice on location photography of late 60's Miami.  Sinatra's daughter Nancy sings the lame-o, title song.

 

The cast is full of Sinatra's Los Vegas buddies and lots of fun character actors like Richard Conte, Robert Wilke, Lloyd Bochner and Simon Oakland.  The female characters are treated with a less than open minded attitude.  Jill St. John is a tough talking broad who has to put up with Sinatra's leering and  the camera frequently is pointed at her bottom.  Well that's how it went back in the 1960's I guess. You would never know the Vietnam War was going on and American cities were burning down from racial strife.

 

The film is recommended for it's very weird Sinatra Los Vegas attitude.  It's certainly some sort of time capsule of that era for better or worse.

The writer was Richard Breen, the running time is 110 minutes.

1951 - FIXED BAYONETS, back to the Korean War.

Now working for 20th Century Fox and Darryl Zanuck,  Sam Fuller is getting bigger budgets for his films.  Although shot on a sound stage on the Fox lot, the film is a fairly gripping war film.

The story is about an American platoon left behind to fight a "rear guard" as the main division retreats.  The film in many ways covers the same territory as John Ford's The Lost Patrol as one by one the soldiers get picked off by the Chinese Army.

 

The film has an interesting cast starting with Richard Basehart as a corporal who has an aversion to killing the enemy.  There are the usual army soldier stereotypes, the know-it-all, the southerner, the green lieutenant etc.  Of course it wouldn't be a Sam Fuller war film without the appearance of Gene Evans playing tough guy NCO Sergeant Rock.

 

A good war film without the usual rah rah stuff these 50's war films usually contain.

Written by Fuller, the running time is 92 minutes 

1957 - THE ENEMY BELOW a very good war film

A very good war film from former actor turned producer/director, Dick Powell.  In the South Atlantic  during World War II a United States destroyer escort ends up playing cat and mouse with a German U-Boat.  The captains of both ships are highly skilled seaman and the film turns into a battle of the wits between the two of them to see who will sink who first.

The film is noted for not being some anti-German propaganda piece.  It had been over 10 years since the war ended so the portrayal of Germans was slightly more nuanced.   In fact one of the stars of the film Curt Jurgens, (in a strong performance) had been sent to an internment camp during the war by the Nazis. 

 

Robert Mitchum usually a performer who encouraged a myth that he was just walking through his roles as he waited for quitting time so he could hit the nearest bar also gave a very good performance as the destroyer captain.

 

The screenplay was by an old Hollywood pro Wendell Mayes. The running time is a tight 98 minutes.

1966 - WHERE THE SPIES ARE, another spy film from 1960's

 MGM studios looking to get a piece of the pie of the James Bond spy crazy hired Val Guest to direct this story from a novel by thriller writer Jame Leasor.  

It's all here, the beautiful girls, the spy gadgets, the exotic locations and the usual amount of spy vs spy action.  But Val Guest and his screenwriter have a little more on their mind than just another James Bond rehash.  People in this film actually get hurt and die as opposed to the usual callous disregard for human life found in these films.

The film is well cast with the proper English gentlemen David Niven as the reluctant spy Dr. James Love.  His love interest is played by Françoise Dorléac sister of Catherine Deneuve.  Dorleac's career was just starting to take off when she died in a tragic car accident.

 

Where The Spies Are lacks the frenetic and outlandish action of the James Bond series but a more realistic espionage film is actually a relief to watch in this case.

 

An entertaining 110 minutes.  Val Guest's next challenge was bringing some coherency to the overblown James Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) which he should have been given some kind of special award for.

1943 - HANGMEN ALSO DIE, disappointing World War II film noir

This should have been a much better film.  The director Fritz Lang had a lot of control over this project and it would seem right down his alley.  The film is based on a true story.  Reinhard Heydrich was an actual high level Nazi who was assassinated by Czechoslovakian resistence fighters during World War II.  In response to the assassination the Nazis carried out reprisials on the Czech population which numbered approximately 5000 people.

During the making of this film not much was known about the actual facts of Heydrich's death.  Lang and his writers Bertoit Brecht and John Wexley were forced to do a lot of speculation.  This story is about search for Heydrich's killers with a very big dose of 1940's war propaganda thrown in.  Frankly the cast is really not that appealing, Brian Donlevy, Anna Lee and Walter Brennan just don't seem to fit in as Czech citizens.

 

The film is further hampered by a very long story that just seems to go on and on. Apparently Lang and Bertoit Brecht did not get along and I think it shows it in the finished film the film just plods along.  In fact Lang seems to be more interested in the Nazi detective Inspector Gruber who is not unlike the police inspector, Lohmann in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

 

As it is there are a few scenes that are very exciting and the photography from the legendary James Wong Howe is a stand out. Overall though the film is a major disappointment from Fritz Lang. The running time is a long 134 minutes.

1965 - HELP, the 2nd Beatles film.

 For the 2nd Beatles film the director Richard Lester abandoned any idea of a plot and instead went for a series of comic vignettes.  What story there is involves a Eastern cult chasing Ringo around for a sacrificial ring.  At this point in his career Lester was at his peak when it came to madcap comedy.  To cover the very thin premise of the film Lester throws in about every comic idea that he can think of. After a while the film got a little exhausting,  I wanted to finally say "wrap it up." 

The Beatles are portrayed as a very likeable bunch of guys not adverse to having a few beers at a London pub.  They are actually extremely likable and have a nice screen presence.  Lester was smart enough to surround them with some very funny performers, Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Roy Kinnear (who was in about every Lester film), and Victor Spinetti.  This helps the film a whole lot.

 

Probably the chief selling point of the film are the songs which the Beatles wrote for the film, amazingly they are all classic Beatles songs.  The presentation of the songs uses a lot of jump cutting and wild staging something that was almost a forerunner of the modern music video.

 

The film was written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood. It runs 92 minutes