1952 - THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, the remake

 Well if it worked once it will work again.  MGM purchased the rights for a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda from producer David O Selznick for a cool $225,000. Previously the studio had a success with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr in their remake of King Soloman's Mines, so Granger and Kerr were teamed up again this time with Granger as Rudolf Rassendyl and the King of Ruritania and Deborah Kerr a performer who was born to be filmed in technicolor, as  Princess Flavia.

What's so interesting about this remake of the 1937 film is that the director Richard Thorpe literally duplicated every scene right down to using the same camera angles and dialog.  The sets and the costumes even look the same.  MGM also used Alfred Newman's score from the 1937 version.  Incredibly this film was shot in a month since there was no need to get very creative after all they were just rehashing the original.

About the only differences in the two films were that this version was shot in color and the action scenes were staged better.  Ronald Colman in the original film was a fine actor but looked a little stiff in the sword fight scenes.  Steward Granger seems to handle a saber with a little more panache. 

How's the film?  Well not that bad.  The story if rather on the far fetched side is entertaining and the damn thing apparently made a good profit for MGM.  In 1998 Universal Studios and director Gus Van Sandt tried the same stunt doing a scene for scene remake of Hitchcock's  Psycho but this time this gimmick didn't pay off, the film was a flop financially and critically.

The screenwriters are basically the same bunch from the first film since this was a slavish remake, the running time is 96 minutes.

1937 - THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, good 1930's adventure/romance

Super producer David O. Selznick was probably at the height of his creative powers when he decided to take on this old warhorse of a story.  The Prisoner of Zenda is about duty, honor and saving the kingdom of Ruritania  from "Black Michael" the evil half brother of the future king.  The twist in this story is that an Englishman, Rudolf Rassendyll who just happens to be on vacation in Ruritania, is a dead ringer for the future King.  When the future King is kidnapped Rudolf Rassendyll saves the day by impersonating him since he is now The Prisoner of Zenda.  Rassendyll rescues the King, foils the evildoers and rides off into the sunset.

This is an enjoyable 1930's film that plays very well.  David O. Selznick wasn't a successful producer for nothing.  He spent lavishly on a good cast, hired one of the best cinematographers in Hollywood, James Wong Howe and had a number of good writers adapt the book into an entertaining piece of Hollywood hokum.  The film is a very good looking production with excellent sets and costumes.

 

The film's cast starts with Ronald Colman (of the mellow voice) in the dual role of Rudolph Rassendyll and the King.  The stunning Madeline Caroll is what else, a princess who Rasendyll falls in love with.  Raymond Massey is the evil half brother "Black" Michael, Mary Astor is his French mistress and probably the actor having the most fun, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the witty villain Rupert of Hentau who gets all the best dialog.  

 

As was the way with Selznick who was somewhat of a perfectionist, he used three different directors during the film.  John Cromwell who filmed most of the story.  George Cukor who filmed the love scenes and W.S. Van Dyke who filmed the sword fight at the end.  Selznick also switched cinematographers during filming and dropped an epilogue that would have been a downer for the end of the film.

You can criticize the incredible plot of this film but you sure can't argue that this is a superb Hollywood production.

The film has a lot of writers as was the Selznick way.  Wells Roo, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ben Hecht, Sidney Howard and John L. Balderston.  The running time is 101 minutes.

1971 - THE BURGLARS, aka Le Casse

This is Jean Paul Belmondo film about a team of burglars who rob a home full of a lot of jewels,  A corrupt police inspector played by Omar Sharif stumbles onto the robbery and wants a piece of the stolen goods.  Cue the action because after the robbery there aren't a lot of dull moments in this film.

To call this film a light-weight crime thriller is an understatement.  The film is such a trifle that it's basically a bunch of well executed action scenes.  The car chase in the middle of this film has absolutely no reason to be in the story but it gives Rémy Julienne and his stunt team a chance to stage some spectacular stunt driving.

 

 Jean Paul Belmondo was kind of an interesting actor.  He wasn't above doing a lot of his own stunts and he was always a very likable personality in films.  In fact it's safe to say that Belmondo is probably the major reason to even sit through this film because it sure isn't about the plot.  However the film does have a good ending.  Overall this is an entertaining action film.

 

 The film was written by Henri Verneuil and Vahé Katcha, the running time is 126 minutes.

1982 - SORCERESS, extremely crappy Roger Corman production

Even by the standards of movie producer Roger Corman this exploitation film is very poor stuff.  Sorceress was directed by B movie director Jack Hill.  Clearly the intention was to make a cheapo version of the John Milius film, Conan The Barbarian.  According to Hill the producer Roger Corman stepped in after filming and did a lot of reediting ruining Hill's film.  Hill's comments are kind of laughable since this was the guy who directed, The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and The Swinging Cheerleaders, hardly award winning stuff.

Sorceress is a typical Roger Corman production with sex, violence and nudity but when it comes to female nudity in a Roger Corman show, it's nothing below the waist.  Corman was strangely prudish about female nudity in his films while still managing to exploit his female cast.  In this film the nudity is kind of ineptly photographed.

 

 Corman has recently passed away as of this writing and has been getting a lot of accolades about his career mostly I think because he was a survivor of the B movie Hollywood film scene which has been surpassed by  the crap that now shows up on streaming channels.  A lot has been written about Corman giving opportunities to filmmakers like Bogdanovich and Scorsese at the beginning of their careers but the bottom line was that it was all about turning a profit for Corman.

 

Sorceress is sort of a cult film mostly because it is so ineptly made and poorly acted and I'm not even going to get into the dialog.  I suppose there are a few chuckles to be had with some of the ridiculous scenes and characters, a guy in a Viking costume shows up for no particular reason and the climatic special effects at the end of the film are hilariously poor.  Well you get the picture.

 The film has a writing credit for Jim Wynorski although Jack Hill claims he actually wrote the script probably something he shouldn't be talking about.  The running time is 83 minutes.

2024 - THE FALL GUY, very entertaining action/romantic comedy

 The Fall Guy is a film supposedly based on the crappy Lee Major's TV show from the 1980s.  About the only thing this film has in common with the TV show is the name of the lead character Colt Seavers, his profession a film stuntman and the pickup truck he drives around in which was the method of transportation for Majors during the TV show.  This film is if anything the spiritual successor to the Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham stuntman film Hooper.

The story such that it is has Colt Seavers reuniting with the woman he broke up with Jody Moreno played by Emily Blunt.  Jody is directing her first film which she calls a science fiction love story entitled Metalstorm.  In  reality it's just another crappy action film.  When the leading man of Metalstorm disappears Colt Seavers attempts to locate him so Jody can finish her movie.

The Fall Guy has lots of stunts and action.  A lot of the stunts seems like practical effects. But what the film is really about is a satire of the current film business and it's obsession with actions scenes at the expense of characterization and story.  The film in fact is loaded with lots of funny bits, from the characters reciting dialog from other movies to a very funny Miami Vice stunt joke complete with the theme from Miami Vice on the soundtrack.

 Ryan Gosling is the put upon stunt man trying to solve the mystery of the missing leading man while simultaneously rekindling his relationship with Emily Blunt.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the vain leading man full of himself.  Hannah Waddingham is the producer of Metalstorm and Stephanie Hsu is a personal assistant pushing for a producer's credit instead of money in a ridiculous blackmail scheme.

 

The Fall Guy has not been the financial success that Universal Pictures had hoped for.  People who go to the film enjoy it but for some reason it has failed to attract a wide audience.  The worst criticism I can throw at this film is that it probably could have been a little shorter, but that's a minor complaint.  The film is entertaining  and well made.  The end of the film has outtakes from the action scenes staged for the  camera, something Jackie Chan has been doing for years.  There's also an amusing preview of the next episode of The Fall Guy.

The film was written by Drew Pearce, the running time is 126 minutes.

1939 - MIDNIGHT, a classic 30's comedy

Midnight is usually considered one of the high points of sophisticated 1930's comedy.  The technical credits of this film are impeccable.  Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett in the screenwriter phase of their careers were considered one of Paramount's top writing teams.  The director Mitchell Leisen was at home with comedies.  The cinematographer was Charles Lang Jr., one of Hollywood's best who worked about 50 years amassing an impressive lest of credits.  

 

The cast as is typical with these comedies set in Europe, is a bunch of American actors who don't bother with any of those pesky European accents.  Claudette Colbert who was sort of French played a gold digger who shows up in Paris with no money but is wearing a stunning evening dress.  Don Ameche is the penniless cab drive who falls in love with her.  However Colbert doesn't want to get involved with him since he is poor.  After many plot manipulations she ends up at the mansion of a barely sober John Barrymore playing a rich aristocrat.  After even more plot manipulations Colbert has a shot at marrying a rich French guy named what else, "Jacques."  Ameche shows up to stop her.  Will true love win out in the end?  Well this is a comedy.

 

Midnight has a lot of clever stuff and some funny scenes. How could it not considering all the talent involved.  However the film is kind of dated.  After about 80 years of every type of Hollywood comedy made, the film doesn't really age all that well.  This is an example of an original film being done in by all the subsequent films that followed it which essentially used many of the same plot points.

 

The film is worth a look I guess.  But considering it's high reputation Midnight was a rather disappointing viewing experience.

The running time is 94 minutes.

2024 - HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, funny slapstick comedy

Reviewers smarter than me have pointed out that the film Hundreds of Beavers is essentially a cross between a Warner Brothers Road  Runner cartoon and a Karel Zeman film. It's beavers vs man in a duel to the death.

The film is certainly cleverly made with animation mixed in with special effects and filmed in black and white which emphasizes the fantastic nature of the film.  The gags have been carefully worked out and the final frantic chase is extremely well done.  The film has virtually no dialog and is almost a throwback to the Buster Keaton, Harold Loyd days of silent film making

My only issue with this film is that it is a little long and probably could have used some editorial tightening up. At times all the clever slapstick gets to be a little exhausting.  Still this is an impressive technical achievement considering the extremely low budget the film was made for.

  

It will be interesting to see what these filmmakers come up with next but I shudder to think how much time they must have spent rendering these special effects scenes to achieve this result.  The film is available on streaming platforms and is playing in select theaters.

The film was written by Mike Cheslik and the lead performer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews.  The running time is 108 minutes.

2006 - THE BLACK DAHLIA, extremely disappointing film from Brian De Palms

Considering the expensive look of this film, the impressive photography and the involvement of Brian De Palma, this film is a major disappointment.

The film is based on the true murder of a woman called Elizabeth Short in 1947 Los Angeles a still unsolved crime.  The author of the novel James Ellroy took the factual aspects and wove them into a fictional narrative of a couple of LA PD homicide cops who attempt to solve the crime. The director Brian De Palma was clearly trying to make a 1940's crime thriller along the lines of Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep or Out of the Past, but something seemed to go completely wrong the pacing and storytelling is all off.

The screenplay is a convoluted mess extremely difficult to follow.  The casting is completely wrong.  Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart may look like 1940's characters but they seem completely unable to get a handle on their characters, the writing certainly doesn't help them.  Even De Palma who is a technically brilliant filmmaker good at mixing eroticism with violence seems constrained.  The film has a few standout scenes but for the most part it's just a matter of setting up the shots and letting the confused story roll out.  Hate to harp on the screenplay but it does seem to be the major issue with this film.  It's hard to believe an experienced filmmaker like DePalma didn't recognize the problems with the story.

 

Apparently the original cut of the film was three hours which according to the author James Ellroy played very well.  However the studio financing the film insisted that it be reduced to a running time of two hours.  It's hard to know the truth since I doubt anyone will ever see the original three hour version of this film.  

 

The Black Dahlia kind of represents the end of the line for Brian De Palma.  He makes a couple of indifferent films in Europe after this, but this film puts him what film critics like to call "directors jail."

The film was written by Josh Friedman, the running time is 120 minutes.

2024 - THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE, disappointing spy/action film.

Another one of these based on a true story films but we can get into that later.  The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the supposed true story about a team of British commandos involved in something called "Operation Postmaster" during World War II.  In real life this team snuck aboard a couple of supply ships the German Navy had in neutral West Africa and sailed them into international waters where they were taken over by the British Navy.  The raid was apparently opposed by the British Admiralty but was sanctioned by Winston Churchill himself.

Well so much for the facts.  In this telling of the story these British commandos are a bunch of carefree devils as they race around shooting German soldiers and sailors with machine guns equipped with silencers and make no mistake about it they shot a lot of guys while they crack a lot of jokes.  They are assisted by a British agent played by Mexican actor Eiza González,  not that there is anything wrong with that.  The rest of the actors are a mixed bag of American and British performers.

 

This film was directed by Guy Ritchie who would seem the perfect guy to mix his mild black humor with lots of over the top violence.  But for some reason Ritchie doesn't seem up to the task this time.  The film straddles between attempts at James Bondian quip type humor and all out dead seriousness.  Ritchie can't seem to find the tone for this film.  Instead the film degenerates into a shoot and blow things up extravagance during the last part of the story.  I guess if you are in the mood for watching a lot of German soldiers get shot up, this is the film for you.  

 

The film ends with one of those "American Graffati" endings where they show the real pictures of the commando team with a little blurb about each of them. In real life these characters in this film were killed during various covert operations during World War II.  However there is no place for that kind of ending in this film.  So much for the based on a true story credit that the film shows at the beginning of this story. 

The film was written by Paul Tamasy,  Eric Johnson,  Arash Amel and Guy Ritchie.  The running time is 120 minutes.

2024 - REBEL MOON - PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER, ? huh ?

After sitting through over two hours of this movie last night I still don't know what to make of it.  As everyone is aware this is the second part in Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon series he made for Netflix and I'm fairly certain that there will not be a part three even though the end of this thing leaves it open for a part three

It's pointless to comment on this film as the critics have already torn it apart calling it one of Zack Snyder's worst movies if not the bottom of his film making barrel.  Critics have pointed out that Rebel Moon - Part Two is really a mash up of The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven and of course a Star Wars film and we're not talking one of the better Star Wars films, it's more like The Return of the Jedi the notorious teddy bear film.

It's completely pointless to criticize much less understand what the thinking and decision making was that led to this expensive film.  The fact of the matter is that this movie exists and that's about all you can say about it.

 

The film runs 122 minutes, the writing credits are Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten.

1957 - THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH aka BIG TIME OPERATORS

This film is one of those modest British comedies that were popular in the 1950's.  Usually the studio that comes to mind is Ealing where you would find actors like Alec Guiness and Jack Hawkins in stories that usually emphasized a type of understated British humor.  Frankly a lot of these films weren't exactly laugh out loud funny it was always more like a minor chuckle.

The Smallest Show on Earth was not produced by Ealing Studios but it's a typical Ealing type of film.  A young couple played by the real life married team Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a run down movie theater complete with ancient staff played by Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles and Peter Sellers who is made up to play an old drunken projectionist.  The story involves Travers and McKenna's attempts to get the theater profitable so they can sell it to a more prosperous theater chain.  Let the quirky humor begin.

 

The audience gets lots of "screwing up film" jokes as the drunken projectionist pushes the wrong buttons to make the film go to fast or to slow or getting the dialog out of sync with the picture etc. 

This is a film made relatively early in Seller's career,  He was always the master of dialects and he does his usual impressive job playing Mr. Quill the alcoholic projectionist.  Margaret Rutherford was one of those actors you hired when you needed someone to play dotty old ladies.  Bernard Miles was kind of a mainstay of the British cinema, he appeared in a lot of films. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna basically play a typical aka boring "working class" couple.

 

The director was Basil Dearden who was a good prolific director who was adept at filming comedies or dramas.  Douglas Slocombe who photographed the Indiana Jones films late in his career handled the cinematography.  The Smallest Show on Earth is for the most part an inoffensive time killer.

The film was written by William Rose, John Eldridge, the running time is a quick 80 minutes.

1939 - THE THREE MUSKETEERS, oddball musical/comedy version of this story

This is a strange but not exactly terrible version of the Alexander Dumas classic novel which has been turned into a film at least nine times.  This version adds some mediocre songs to the story and condenses a lot of the plot, but the story is basically still there, mostly.

Don Ameche the perennial lightweight comedian and actor under contract to 20th Century Fox plays D'Artagnan fairly well.  Ameche is almost unrecognizable with the wig and mustache and does a good job with the sword fighting scenes.  Gloria Stuart who was "old Rose" in Titanic plays the Queen,  Lionel Atwell is De Rochefort, D'Artagnan's nemesis but the biggest change to this story is the inclusion of the comedy team called The Ritz Brothers.

Probably the best way to explain The Ritz Brothers is that they were the poor man's version of the Marx Brothers.  In this film they are the comedy and slapstick relief and are they ever the comedy and slapstick relief.  Not that there is much subtle behavior in slapstick but these guys really went for the goofiness.  They do have one good scene where they perform a dance sequence with pie tins strapped to their bodies.

 

This film was directed by Alan Dwan who was one of the early pioneers of Hollywood starting in the silent era and making the transition to sound films.  The  silent films were probably the high point of his career, he made fairly unexceptional sound films.  Dwan shoots most of the movie, particularly the musical sequences like he was just trying to keep the camera out of the way of The Ritz Brothers.

 

This version of The Three Musketeers is a fascinating contrast to the Richard Lester two part super production which also added a lot of humor to the story. Lester's complete version runs 213 minutes compared to this film which is under 80 minutes.

The Three Musketeers has a lot or writers for such a minor film, William A. Drake, Morris M. Musselman, Sam Hellman, Ray Golden and Sid Kulle.  The running time is 73 minutes.

1949 - COME TO THE STABLE, a film with Nuns in it.

A couple of very pushy nuns arrive in New England with plans to build a hospital.  During World War II their hospital in France was saved by the American Army although many soldiers died defending it. To atone for that tragedy they are now committed to building a hospital in a small New England town.  The trouble is that the land that they want is owned by a godless songwriter who would prefer the nuns would just go away.  So begins a battle of wills.

Come to the Stable could have been one sentimental mess of religious garbage but the writers and the director of this film seemed to have enough self control to spare the viewer from the worst.

 

Let's take a quick look at the cast.  Actor Loretta Young a "super catholic" in real life plays one of the nuns.  Young had an affair with Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild which resulted in her giving birth to Gable's child.  Young had the baby placed in an orphanage and later adopted the baby even though she was the birth mother. Yes this is one of the subplots in the Coen Brothers film Hail Caesar

Celeste Holm plays the other nun, scene stealer Elsa Lancester is a painter of religious pictures and character actor Thomas Gomez is the bookie who helps Young raise the money to build the hospital, it's a decent cast.

Also in the film is Hugh Marlowe as the godless songwriter.  Marlowe was one of those working actors who turned up in a lot of films and TV shows.  I'm most familiar with Marlowe as  Dr. Russell Marvin the scientist who battles the space aliens in Ray Harryhausen's science fiction classic Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers.  A final casting note is the appearance of Dooley Wilson in a not insubstantial part.  Wilson is best known as Sam the pianist in Casablanca. 

 

 The director Henry Koster was an expert at this family entertainment stuff for most of his career. At the end of his career, he directed The Singing Nun, but that Nun movie turned out to be pretty terrible.

This film runs 94 and although I enjoyed it for the most part I certainly didn't want it to be a minute longer.  Come to the Stable was written by Oscar Millard and Sally Benson.