1955 - SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, another film in the wonder of Cinemascope

Set in Hong Kong in the 1950's with Communist China hanging over the heads of the British colony.  Soldier of Fortune was based on a book by Ernest K. Gann, who also wrote the screenplay.  The film stars Clark Gable and Susan Hayward.  Hayward's husband played by Gene Barry is a prisoner in Communist China and Gable is the man she turns to for help in an escape attempt.  Naturally Hayward and Gable fall in love before the big escape scene.  This is a very bad movie.

The film was shot in Fox's CinemaScope screen process with the widescreen just constantly full of a lot of pictorial scenery, when the film moves indoors the sets are so full of stuff that it seems like the actors are performing inside a museum gallery.  The director Edward Dmytryk appears to have had his hands full just moving people around the widescreen frame.  

 

But frankly the chief villain of this film is not Communist China but the terrible screenplay from Ernest Gann. Everything about this film just stinks, the colorful characters, the love story, the plot and the lack of action.  It seems like 20th Century Fox took this production and as they say tried to "put lipstick on the pig, " to cover up its deficiencies.

 

This was Clark Gable's first film away from MGM studios.  Working as a freelancer,  his later films kind of lacked the spark he had brought to his early MGM films.  Susan Hayward who apparently was a pretty tough cookie was going through a divorce and refused to travel to Hong Kong for filming.  Any scenes with Gable and Hayward on location are played by a stand-in for Hayward. The rest of her scenes were filmed on sound stages back in Hollywood. 

 The best I can say about this film is that it runs 96 minutes.

1971 - ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED aka Night of the Big Heat

 Hammer films director Terence Fisher directed a few low budget films away from Hammer, Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, The Earth Dies Screaming and this film Island of the Burning Damned.  None of these films can really compare with Fisher's best Hammer films although The Earth Dies Screaming isn't bad.  

The film is about an extraterrestrial invasion of earth with the vanguard of space aliens landing on an island.  The space aliens are unique in that they are to put it mildly warm blooded.  They begin to heat   the island up to temperatures of 100 degrees plus.  Into this situation comes Christopher Lee as a scientist trying to stop them and Peter Cushing as a doctor on the Island.

 

For a science fiction film a lot of time is spent on some love triangle between an author, his secretary  who parades around in a bikini and his wife who is the manger of the local pub.  After a while one hopes they will get back to the actual problem at hand instead of having to watch them work out their personal problems during an alien invasion.  

 

Terence Fisher was a good director of horror films but this low budget effort did not seem to bring out the best in his story telling despite the presence of old acting colleagues like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Towards the end of the film they finally show the alien invaders but the cheapo production apparently didn't have the money to make them convincing alien monsters.

Anyway, the running time is 94 minutes, the writers were Pip and Jane Baker and Ronald Liles.

1968 - THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS, one of those elaborate heist films.

One of those elaborate heist films like Ocean's 11, Rififi, the remake of Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12, Ocean's 13 etc. They Came To Rob Las Vegas was filmed by a Spanish director in the United States and Spain.  The cast is certainly very eclectic, Gary Lockwood, Elke Sommer, Lee J. Cobb, Mr. Rififi himself Jean Servais, Jack Palance and Lee J. Cobb.

The story is about a revenge heist where our antihero played by Gary Lockwood decides to steal an armored truck right under the noses of the police and some American gangsters.  Frankly the plot is rather preposterous but just watching how the writers work it out is rather entertaining.

The movie has decent location work, the acting isn't bad, even Elke Sommer gives a fairly decent performance for a change.  The action and the gun play is fairly decent.

 

All and all this is a fairly good 1960's crime film set in Las Vegas but with a kind of weird European vibe to it which I guess isn't surprising since it's an international film production.

The running time is 129 minutes, the film was written by Antonio Isas, Lluis Josep Comeron, Jorge Illa and Jo Eisinger. 

1948 - SITTING PRETTY , late 1940's period comedy

Maureen O'Hara and Robert Young play a husband and wife living in the suburbs with three hyper active children. Unable to find any kind of help with the children, the wife runs an advertisement in the paper and ends up with actor Clifton Webb playing a character named Lynn Belvedere a person who bills himself as a "genius." Belvedere's strict approach to child care results in his bringing order to the household much to the relief of the parents.  But Mr. Belvedere appears to have other reasons for living with this family.

This is a very enjoyable comedy from 20th Century Fox studio which was mostly a show piece for actor Clifton Webb  essentially repeating his witty Waldo Lydecker character from his debut film Laura, this time without actually murdering someone as he did in that film.

 

The film has lots of amusing situations and you kind of get a feeling for what life might have been like in the post World War II world in the United States.  The film was a modest production but a hit for Fox Studio.  Webb's character was so popular he appeared in two more films playing the Lynn Belvedere character.

 

The film was written by F. Hugh Herbert and the running time is 83 minutes.

1994, BURNING PARADISE IN HELL, an odd film from Ringo Lam

Usually one associates urban action films with directors like John Woo and in this case Ringo Lam.  Burning Paradise in Hell is unusual in that it is a period piece which is a little out of Lam's film making element.

The film has one of Asia's legendary hero's Fong Sai-yuk trying to rescue a girl stuck in an underground lair ruled by a despot who has rigged the whole place up with lots of deadly booby traps.  Frankly the plot doesn't really make much sense which seems to be the way with these films.

 

Lots of action well staged a sufficiently creepy atmosphere but I've probably seen to many of these Asian action films this month, this one had that old feeling of deju-vu to it.  If you like your martial arts action sufficiently wild you will probably enjoy this film.  Tsui Hark was the producer.

Written by Nam Yin and Wong Wan-choi, the running time is 104 minutes.

1994 - WONDER SEVEN , typical over the top Hong Kong action film

A film with Michelle Yeoh made fairly early in her career.  She receives top billing but is more like a supporting or featured player.  It does appear that she is doing a lot of her own stunts and she is a rather undeniable film presence.

This is what I would call a typical over the top Hong Kong action film.  The title Wonder Seven refers to a team of undercover police agents who race around on motorcycles fighting crime.  The plot has something to do with a computer chip which the bad guys are trying to steal for some reason which I was never really sure about.  There's lots of shooting and improbable motorcycle stunts and some good action in a Hong Kong high rise that's a little reminiscent of Die Hard's office building action.

 

The whole thing is made with a lot of skill and there's no denying that it's action packed although at the expense of any kind of coherent plot or deep characterization, this film is for the undemanding action movie fan for the most part.

 

The running time is 90 minutes, the writers were, Tan Cheung, Siu-Tung Ching and Elsa Tang.

1965 - SHE , a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake

This is amazingly the seventh version of the H Rider Haggard novel.  In this version "She who must be obeyed, " is an immortal (2000 year old) queen ruling over a lost civilization in "darkest Africa."  She, named Ayesha has been patiently waiting for her reincarnated lover to return so she can take up where she left off with him.  Basically, he cheated on her a couple of thousand years ago with another woman so Ayesha stabbed him and is now waiting for his reincarnated self to return to her.

   Into this mess comes Peter Cushing playing a professor with a background in Middle Eastern legends and his friend Leo Vincey, played by pretty boy John Richardson, who surprise, surprise just happens to be the spitting image of Ayesha's dead lover.

Since this is a Hammer film, besides Cushing you can count on Christopher Lee and Andre Morell showing up.  Stunning blonde Swiss actor Ursula Andress wearing a ridiculous head piece,  plays Ayesha and a Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros is one of the handmaidens of Ayesha who falls in love with Leo Vincey, insuring  all hell will break loose again.

 

MGM financed this production so the film looks a little grander than usual for a Hammer film.  I would call this film kind of comfort food, No great shakes of a film but entertaining in it's own silly way.

 

The film was written by David T. Chantler and runs 106 minutes.  The box office was good which of course prompted a sequel called The Vengeance of She, which featured Richardson and another good looking blonde, Olinka Bérová played the now reincarnated Ayesha.

1982 - 48 HOURS, a buddy cop film

 A big financially successful film for Paramount and director/co-writer Walter Hill.  Also, probably one of the more impersonal films that this director has made. Since there are no original plots anymore, 48 Hours is the old opposite personalities forced to be partners.  Eventually they  begin to show a grudging respect for each other as the story progresses etc.  In this case Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy are a respectively a cop and a con man who team up to find a bad guy running around shooting people.

This was the breakout film for Eddie Murphy and propelled him to the top of the heap until has career crashed with Beverly Hills Cop III.  Still for much of the 198o's he was big stuff as a movie star.  Nick Nolte had been working in film for a while until he kind of crashed and burned with a variety of personal issues.  Third billed Annette O'Toole a very good actor got stuck with the part of the sexy girlfriend who's kind of a bitch, she's probably in about 3 or 4 scenes.

 

This is a very macho piece of film.  Women are relegated to running around topless and playing prostitutes. The guys all run around talking really tough.  It's very much a boy's club in this film which really dates it.  In some ways the attitudes in the film are even more out of it than a 1940's crime drama.

 

48 Hours did give Walter Hill commercial respect for a while but this is really not one of his more interesting films.  However no one could stage a gun fight or a fist fight like Hill probably the chief reason to even watch this film.

The film had a lot of writers,  Roger Spottiswoode, Walter Hill, Larry Gross and  Steven E. de Souza all professionals at writing this kind of Hollywood action stuff.  The running time is 96 minues.

1993 - THE HEROIC TRIO, large scale Hong Kong comic book movie

 Way before comic book movies completely took over the cinematic world.  The Heroic Trio beat them all to the punch with this action packed and crazed plot.  The film has something to do with a villain called "Evil Master" who is kidnapping babies in order to find a descendant of the Emperor who will return and rule Asia I guess.  To stop him comes The Heroic Trio.  

The trio is played by some of Hong Kong's top 90's actors.  Anita Mui aka Wonder Woman, Michelle Yeoh aka Invisible Woman and Maggie Cheung aka Thief Catcher.  I also recognized perennial Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong in yet another villain role.  

 

The director Johnnie To keeps the action coming fast with one crazed action set piece after another. The stunt work is up to the Hong Kong cinema's usual high standards.  The women are easy on the eyes and the whole film for the most part seems to be aware of it's outrageous plot line.

 

The Heroic Trio did have a sequel called The Executioners which I have seen but don't recall much of. the film runs a quick 83 minutes and was written by Sandy Shaw

1926 - THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED, early animated feature film

A very early animated film from a German animator named Lotte Reiniger.  The film is animated with a technique using silhouettes and hand painted backgrounds.  The results are still fairly impressive even today.

The film took about three years to make with all of the drawings beaning moved to match the 24 frames per second speed of the camera, this was probably very detailed and laborious work.

 

The film is a visual treat and many of the effects are very impressive.  For fans of animation, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is well worth a look.

 

The film was written by Lotte Reiniger and the running time is 65 minutes.

1955 - LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, a typical Hollywood love story.

Based on a real life incident.  The love story between an American reporter and an Eurasian doctor is given the 1950's Hollywood treatment.  In other words all of the life and passion has been sucked out of it. In the film Jennifer Jones plays the Eurasian, Han Suyin who slowly falls in love with an American war correspondent played by William Holden.  The film wants to pretend it's somewhat controversial with some very shallow discussions about race but everything is smothered over with lots of travelog shots of Hong Kong where the film is set.  As this was the prissy 1950's absolutely no sign of any kind of passionate love affair between the two of them was allowed.

If anything the behind the scenes antics would probably have made a better film.  Apparently Jennifer Jones and William Holden didn't get along at all.  This culminated in Jones eating garlic before their kissing scenes and extended to her throwing flowers at Holden who had sent them as a peace offering during the shooting.  Jones complained that the cameraman made her look old and she was described as "rude and abrasive," to the production team.  It's a tribute to both the actors that on screen they actually look like they like much less love each other. 

 

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing was filmed in 20th Century Fox's widescreen process Cinemascope and the title tune became a big hit.  The film was financially successful but it is also very bland in a 1950's kind of way.  The dialog doesn't really help matters with Jones who barely looks Eurasian mouthing fortune cookie platitudes about Asia throughout the film.  William Holden comes off a little better.  Apparently the screenwriter John Patrick had his hands full having to incorporate scenes shot in Hong Kong by a 2nd unit and the studio sets where the film was finished.

 

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing is good example of a rather trite love story put over by a good Hollywood production team but it's really not much of a film.  The running time is 102 minutes.

1971 - SKIN GAME, a western comedy about slavery

 Looking over the credits of Skin Game you will see the name of screenwriter Pierre Marton.  This is a an alias for the writer Peter Stone who took his name off of the final screenplay.  Obviously a sign that all was not well during the production of this film.

The plot involves a couple of con men posing as a slave owner and slave.  They travel from town to town where the white con man played by James Garner sells his partner as a slave who he later helps escape.  This sets them up with a clever scheme where they are able to exploit the racism and prejudices of white slave owners while making some money at the same time as they travel throughout the south.

 

Although released to theaters, the film has that kind of cheap studio back lot look to it almost like a 1970's made for TV film. Unsurprisingly the  director Paul Bogart primarily worked in television.  To further brand it like it was a TV movie, Garner played the part of the con man pretty much like his character Bret Maverick from his old TV show.  

 

The film has some amusing situations and some decent dialog courtesy of Peter Stone.  This is an okay western/comedy about slavery provided you think slavery is funny.

The running time is 102 minutes.

1989 - PETER GUNN, at first you don't suceed try again.

This is the pilot for a revival of the old Peter Gunn TV series from the late 1950's.  The writer/director Blake Edwards had gone to this well once before with a movie version of his old series called Gunn, with very mixed results.  Here Edwards plan was to revive the series for a 1980's audience

Peter Strauss takes up the role of Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams is his girlfriend/mistress Edie Hart.  Peter Jurasik is Peter Gunn's friend Lt. Jacoby who is basically in the story to provide Gunn with information that will move the plot along.  Edwards also cast his daughter Jennifer Edwards as Peter Gunn's ditsy secretary in a lot of pointless and rather tiresome attempts at humor.

If Edwards had cribbed a lot of his plot for the Gunn movie from his TV series, in this version he actually uses scenes from the Gunn movie in this TV pilot, this is getting a little confusing.

 

Peter Strauss is actually pretty good as Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams does the smoldering girlfriend part about as well as can be expected.  The plot is the old corrupt cops story line with Peter Gunn sorting out who is killing who. 

 I'll give Edwards credit in this version of Peter Gunn he went back to the original series's 1950's setting.  He also loaded enough action to keep the viewer watching.  However ABC decided not to pick up the pilot for a TV series.  There have been no more versions of Peter Gunn since.

The running time for this film is 90 minutes.

1967 - GUNN, attempt to revive an old TV show

The writer and director Blake Edwards decided to bring his Peter Gunn character back from the late 1950's TV graveyard with very mixed results.  Craig Stevens who had played private detective Peter Gunn was as one critic called him the poor man's Cary Grant.  Several of the characters from the original television show notably Herschel Bernardi and Lola Albright didn't return.  In the case of Albright, she was deemed to old to play Peter Gunn's girlfriend.

Blake Edwards mostly known for his comedies had pretty good luck with his noir film Experiment In Terror so tacking a private eye mystery shouldn't have been to hard for him.  However the film is very lazy.  Edwards clearly cribbed a lot of plot points and situations from his old series.  Edwards fascination with cross dressing also shows up in the film.  Edwards was clearly going for a noir feel to Gunn.  Many scenes are filmed at night and with everyone running around in dark suits, at times it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Gunn is an OK time killer from a director who is coasting with this picture.  Perhaps there was an interesting idea for a film rolling around here, maybe something like having a 1950's character trying to adapt to the changing 1960's.  But clearly this wasn't explored.

 

Henry Mancini as usual provided the score for this film, he can be seen performing at a piano in a nightclub scene.

The film was written by Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty, the running time is 93 minutes.