1958 -THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, is a failed attempt to say something about elephants.

It's hard to bring any enthusiasm to writing about a film that is a boring failure.  A bestselling novel by the author Roman Gary is turned into a mess of a film by the director John Huston.  If you are going to make a movie about saving African elephants from hunters,  Probably hiring  Huston who among other things was a big game hunter may not have been a great approach

This was filmed as an independent production from Darryl F. Zanuck.  Zanuck had stepped down from running 20th Century Fox and now acting as his own producer hired Huston to direct it.  But it appears Huston didn't bring a lot of interest or enthusiasm to the film. The story moves along from one boring scene to the next.  The novel of The Roots of Heaven was a metaphor for saving humanity but the end result of this film seemed more like a poor man's 1940's Tarzan movie with Tarzan leading an elephant charge against some evil African bad guys for some reason.

Apparently the film was the typical on location troubled production.  The temperatures during the days were over 100 degrees and the nights weren't much better.  The acting is not great nor is it terrible it just has that "phoned in" or is it "paycheck" approach to performing, nobody really seems to care. The water and the heat made a lot of the cast and crew ill with the exception of the big drinkers, Trevor Howard, Erroll Flynn and Huston who fortified themselves with booze

  

The film shot for five months on location then everyone stumbled back to Paris to finish the film so Zanuck could be with his current mistress Juliet Greco who appeared in the film where she mostly struggled to act.  Orson Welles is prominently featured in the credits but he was probably in the film a whole fifteen minutes.  In interviews John Huston had spoken about how he failed to make a decent film and would have liked to remake it.  But this was a case of just being a little to late for that.

The screenplay was by Roman Gary and Patrick Leigh Fermor, the running time is 126 minutes.

1957 - WILD STRAWBERRIES, Bergan's classic film about old age

 In the film business when you're hot you're hot and Ingmar Bergman was burning up in the late 1950's.  He was entering one of the most creative periods in his career.  Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal had been very successful for him.  The Virgin Spring and his "God Trilogy" were in his future.  Bergman had been thinking a lot about the passage of time and memory when he wrote the screenplay for this film.

 

Wild Strawberries is about an old physician Isak Borg, played by 78 year old director Victor Sjöström who is literally on a journey that causes him to recall his youth while traveling to relieve an honorary university degree.  Most of his memories are about the disappointments in life which he is now attempting to come to terms with as he reaches the end of his existence.

 

This is an extremely well made film.  The black and white photography by Gunner Fischer is excellent.  The performers are from Bergman's famous "stock company." Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand and Max von Sydow in a small role as a gas station attendant of all things.  They are at their usual high caliber of acting for a Bergman film.

 

But the film is in many ways a tribute to Victor Sjöström.  Sjöström was one of the most important Scandinavian filmmakers dating back to the silent era.  Sjöström even for a time worked for MGM of all places.  He made a couple of masterpieces in America, The Scarlet Letter and The Wind with Lillian Gish before he returned to Sweden.  He was also a mentor to Ingmar Bergman at the beginning of his career.

Wild Strawberries is considered one of Bergman's masterworks and more importantly one of his most accessible films.  It held up very well on my current viewing.

Written by Ingmar Bergman, the running time is 91 minutes.

1980 - THE CHANGELING, haunted house film fairly well done.

Mr. Patton himself George C, Scott along with his wife Trish Van Devere star in a haunted house film.  Scott gives his usual really intense performance, he's not afraid of some ghost if anything the ghost should be afraid of him.

The gold standard for haunted house films is of course Robert Wise's film The Haunting.  The Changeling isn't quite in that league but it's a well done spook film.  The director Peter Medak knows how to apply all the standard scary stuff.  Creepy music, ghostly tracking shots, loud bumps in the night and naturally a scary thunderstorm during a seance. As always in fiction it's not about the usual cliches but how you deploy them.

 

The film stays fairly suspenseful and compelling for around the first half but sort of loses it's focus during the second part as Scott solves the reason for the haunting. There's a good confrontation between Scott and veteran actor Melvyn Douglas who more than holds his own when performing with Scott.  Douglas acted practically up until the time of his death at 80 years old, a remarkable career.

 

The Changeling is set in Seattle but was filmed in Canada as was usually the way back in the 1980's.  I suppose the producers had to take advantage of the tax breaks.

The film was written by William Gray and Diana Maddox, the running time is 107 minutes.

2023 - COUP DE CHANCE, Woody Allen at 87

This a minor but decent Woody Allen drama from a director who has had his ups and downs in his personal and professional life.  This film will be known as the one that Woody Allen shot in the French language after having his script translated.  Apparently this was the way he was able to get financing for this film.

Coup De Chance does rehash themes from Woody's previous dramatic films, betrayal, lust, retribution, etc.  Allen is an old hand at juggling his stories around to make interesting films even if his themes are the same.  The story is about a love triangle. A woman gets involved with an old school mate while her extremely jealous and as it turns out very dangerous husband becomes aware of what's going on.

 

As with all Woody Allen films, it looks great. Vittorio Storaro no spring chicken himself at age 83 photographed the film.  Storato had been associated with Coppola, Bertolucci and Argento so how could it not look good.  Frankly having Woody Allen's dialog translated into French almost works better for the film.  At times the characters in many of Allen's films could get mighty pretensious with the stuff that comes spewing out of their mouths about art and philosophy.  As usual in one of Allen's films the actors give good performances and this time in French.

At age 87 it's hard to believe Allen has many more films in him but if Coup De Chance is his last film it's not a bad way to end his career.

The was of course written by Woody Allen, the running time is 93 minutes.

2013 - THE LAST STAND, entertaining action film

This film was made in the later part of the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger after his successful run of action/science fiction films in the 1980's.  The big news was that this was the first American film from the Korean director Kim-Jee Wong who has a reputation for violent action films and intense extreme dramas from Korea.

Really there's nothing new here.  Arnold is a small town sheriff who along with his deputies has to take on a ruthless drug kingpin and his gang who are escaping from the FBI.  It all comes down to a violent showdown in Arnold's town.  The film is basically a western set in a modern environment,  kind of a contemporary version of High Noon with machine guns I guess.

Arnold brings his usual characterization to the film the loner who is a lot tougher than he seems. I can't say that Arnold would ever be considered an award winning actor but like John Wayne he knows his character and always plays it very well.

 

The director Kim-Jee Wong does a good job staging the action scenes the small town setting is a nice change of pace from the usual urban scene. The Last Stand is an entertaining action film which knows enough not to stretch the story out unlike the latest bloated films in this genre.  I'm calling you out, Indiana Jones, the Fast and Furious franchisee and the overlong Mission Impossible films.

The film was written by Andrew Knauer, the running time is 105 minutes.

1951 - STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, one of Hitchcock's best films

Saw this at a revival theater the other night, the 35 mm print was in excellent condition. This film is basically review proof.  Strangers on a Train was adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith which is even more perverse than Hitchcock's movie.

Robert Walker in the best performance and probably the best role of his career is the obviously gay villain Bruno Anthony who latches on to the unsuspecting Farley Granger and traps him into a murder plot.

 

This film is extremely well written and needless to say well made. This film marked the beginning of Hitchcock's association with Robert Burks the cinematographer who was really responsible for the "Hitchcock look, " for the next fourteen films.  Burks died in a house fire in 1968.  Hitchcock's films never looked so good again, a great loss.

Robert Burks

 Hitchcck's daughter Patrica shows up in a featured part along with the actor  Leo G. Carroll best remembered as Mr. Waverly in The Man From Uncle series.  Carroll must have been a favorite of Hitchcock's he appeared in 6 films.

It's well known that Raymond Chandler has a screen writing credit on this film but none of his material was used.  He apparently didn't get along with Hitchcock at all.

 

Hitchcock was unhappy with the actor Farley Granger as Guy Hanes, however he was wrong in this case Granger gives a very good performance. 

 

Again one of Hitchcock's best films, he was about to enter a run of 11 excellent films from 1951-1963.

The writing credits on the film are, Raymond Chandler, Czenzi Ormonde, Whitfield Cook and Hitchcok's wife Alma Reville who is uncredited.  The running time is 101 minutes

1974 - SISTER STREET FIGHTER aka Revenge of the Dragon

Definitely a big step up from the mediocre Return of the Street Fighter.  Sister Street Fighter stars Etsuko Shihomi as Tina  a martial artist searching for her brother an undercover cop attempting to locate the source of a heroin connection entering Japan  The heroin is actually hidden in women's wigs but that's another story.  Anyway as Estuko begins the search for her missing brother she runs up against a tough Japanese gang peddling the hair heroin.

Needless to say since this a Street Fighter film, there is lots of martial arts action.  Etsuko Shihomi  karate chops her way through the usual bunch of incompetent bad guys.  Sonny Chiba shows up in this film but this time he is not playing Terry Sugury but a martial arts instructor named Sonny Hibach. Of course when Chiba starts fighting he's back to his old tricks of ripping body parts out of his opponents.

 

Also featured in this film is Masashi Ishibashi as a bad guy called Hammerhead who is sent out to kill Etusko Shihomi.  This is Ishibashi’s third appearance  in a marital arts film that also has Sonny Chiba in it.  Chiba ripped out his vocal chords in the Street Fighter and yanked out more body organs in Return of the Street Fighter.  This time Etsuko Shihomi gets to finish him off in this film.  But I'll bet he shows up in the other Street Fighter films in this series.  Shihomi was also a skilled martial artist.

Well there's lots of action and blood.  The karate fights are entertaining and Etsuko Shihomi makes a good heroine, apparently in real life she was a trained martial artist, actress and a singer.  

The film was written by Masahiro Kakefuda and Norifumi Suzuki, the running time is 86 or 81 minutes depending on how much of the bloody fighting was cut out I suppose for different audiences.

2023 - ONE LIFE, a true but boring story

The inspirational true story of a man named Nicholas Winton.  Winton was a stockbroker in England just before World War II broke out.  He traveled to Czechoslovakia to help with the relocation of mostly Jewish children before the Nazi's attacked.  Working with a group of aid workers he was able to relocate over 600 children to England.  This is a moving story however this is not a good movie.

A dull and very plodding film.  The storytelling is strictly from the made for TV school of film making.  I suppose you could call it a "Lifetime" film made for the big screen.  I've seen this story before.  Richard Chamberlain did a version of a rescue story called Wallenberg: A Hero's Story  which was about a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II and of course there's Schindler's List one of Spielberg's best films.  Not to make light of Winton's accomplishments but he was hardly the only person attempting to make a difference.

 

It's difficult to describe how such and underwhelming film could be made about Winton's life. He appears to be a genuinely good man. The film just doesn't seem to be able to explain what motivated him to save these children.  Winton's accomplishment's were generally unknown until he appeared on a crummy British reality show called "That's Life" which basically used his story for filler on one of their TV shows.  The film really doesn't make it very clear that Winton even at the age of seventy nine was still trying to bring attention to the plight of refugees fifty years later.  

 

What the film has going for it is a good cast with Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn playing the older and younger versions of Winton.  Helena Bonham Carter is good as the young Winton's mother who was also instrumental in getting the children out of Prague.  Lena Olin, Marthe Keller and Jonathan Pryce (in a very small role) are also excellent.  I hate to be so critical of this well meaning film but Winton's story really needed a better storyteller.  There's a reason Steven Spielberg's Schilndler's List is one of the best films on the subject of the Holocaust, he is a very skilled filmmaker and had a great passion for this story.

The film was written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the running time is 110 minutes.

1956 - A TOWN LIKE ALICE - good World War II war drama

The actor Virginia McKenna's understated but very committed performance is probably the best thing about this war drama.  During the Japanese invasion of Malaya a group of women and children are left behind during the evacuation.  Forced to march from one Japanese prison camp to another the women and children struggle for survival. 

A Town Like Alice was based on a book by Australian author Nevil Shute the writer of the extremely depressing end of the world novel On The Beach.  Besides being a story of survival during the war A Town Like Alice is also an understated love story as well.  Australian actor  Peter Finch plays a prisoner of war who has been forced to drive a transport truck for the Japanese.  At certain points in the film he is able to aid the women until he is finally caught by the Japanese and tortured in a very intense scene.

 Some of the film was apparently filmed on location in Malaya but was mostly shot at Pinewood studios in England.  The story is sort of true and sort of fiction.  Apparently a group of British women were marched and shuffled around Malaya during World War II, but the characters in this film are basically fictitious.

 

For all her quiet reserve Virginia McKenna's character shows a strong will to survive and inspires the other women in her group as well.  I guess it's some of that "steely resolve" stuff the British have in their national character at times.  This film is what I suppose would be called an inspirational story and it could have easily slid into pathos but for the most part avoids that pitfall.  A Town Like Alice was very popular when released and it's available on YouTube in a very good copy

The film was written by W. P. Lipscomb and Richard Mason the running time is 117 minutes.

1974 - RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER aka Satsujin-ken

The first sequel to The Street Fighter is a very lazy film even as crappy sequels go.  The first third of the film's running time is taken up with flashbacks to the original film and has unending scenes of martial arts students training.  The film finally settles down into the story which is essentially the same plot as the first film, not unexpected I guess.

Sonny Chiba is back as Terry Sugury, who is still a Kung Fu tough guy ripping out his opponents eyes or throats, or kidneys or any other body part that he chooses.  I've yet to figure out if The Street Fighter is a good guy or a bad guy.  One minute he's killing off some guy for a Tokyo gangster and the next minute he's wreaking havoc on the American Mafia. 

I fully realize that this film was never going to be on the level of  Kurosawa's Yojimbo or Sanjuro.  But this is pretty crappy film making even for what is essentially a B level action film.   At least the first Street Fighter film was entertaining for it's over the top violence and Sonny Chiba's constant sneering. The best I can say for this film is that Sonny Chiba is still his very scary sneering self.

 

The film was written by Hajime Koiwa, the running time is 85 minutes

2017 - LOGAN LUCKY, an amusing heist film

The director Steven Soderergh must have a thing about making heist films, because he has sure done enough of them.  Oceans 11, Oceans 12, and Oceans 13 are the three that come to mind and Logan Lucky would be on a list with those films.  However Soderbergh manages to tweak the heist genre with  some amusing ideas.

The film is set in West Virginia as I recall and the plot involves two southern brothers played by of all actors, Adam Driver and Channing Tatum. The brothers conceive of a plan to rob a NASCAR racetrack during an actual race.  They recruit a convict called Joe Bang played by of all people British actor Daniel Craig to help them execute their plan.  Joe Bang has a couple of goof ball red neck brothers who also get involved in the heist as well. Also a quick shout out to Riley Keough (Elvis Presley's granddaughter) playing a hair dresser who appears to specialize in big hair styling at her beauty salon. The overriding joke in this film is that these supposedly stupid red necks are actually a lot smarter than they seem. 

Soderbergh is good at setting up the mechanics of the NASCAR heist and he has his cast play the whole thing in an amusing deadpan southern style.  Soderbergh is also a good director and a great story teller.  He never lets the camera get caught up in stylistic tricks at the expense of the film's story.  The film is very entertaining.

 

The film was written by Rebecca Blunt, the running time is 119 minutes.

1999 - 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, a cult teenage rom-com

I'm a little to old for this film and I was definitely not the intended audience.   The film was marketed under the Touchstone production banner which was the Disney's studio's way of separating their so called wholesome family films from some films of what they felt were more adult in nature. As if this harmless film was  some kind of a version of Last Tango In Paris.

This film was  inspired by Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew.  But to put it carefully it is very loosely inspired  by that Shakespeare play.  Julia Stiles is the mean older sister to Larisa Oleynik.  Oleynik can't go on dates unless her older sister dates per their traditionalist father, a rather ridiculous premise for a film set in the 1990's.    Joseph Gordon Levitt in one of his early roles,  persuades bad boy Heath Ledger to romance Stiles and since this is a rom-com surprise surprise they fall in love.

What this film has going for it is the casting, we get a lot of young actors at the start of their careers and you can definitely see their talent shine though. Unfortunately the actors all speak like they have rom-com writers following them around because they sure don't talk like high school students.  Certainly not any high school students I hung around with.  It's a tribute to these actors that they make these constant smarmy one-liners seem sincere.

I can't say that this film isn't fun because it is.  What the film has going for it is the performance of Julia Stiles as the shrewish older sister.  At the beginning of the film she comes off as a major bitch but as the story progresses her character grows and the audience comes to understand why she behaves the way she does.  It seems that Stiles should have really been a bigger star on the basis of this film but that's the way it goes.  Stiles carved out an okay career for herself for the most part but doesn't appear to be obsessed with all the Hollywood star ego bullshit.

 

The film was written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, the running time is 97 minutes.

1935 - THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII - entertaining 1930's epic

This tale of the ancient Roman Empire has it all, volcanoes erupting, gladiators, Christians being led to the slaughter and the typical epic cast of thousands.  It also has special appearances by Pontius Pilate and Jesus himself although he is never actually called that.

 The story concerns a blacksmith in Pompeii played by Preston Foster.  Foster's wife and child are injured by a runaway chariot of course.  Unable to pay for a doctor they die.  The grieving Foster decides to become a gladiator to gain as much wealth as possible.  Along the way he adopts an orphan boy who he raises as his son. How does Jesus fit into all of this?  Well Foster and his son travel to Judea to see the most important man in the world.  Thinking the man is Pontius Pilate, played by a curly haired Basil Rathbone (the best performance in the film). They encounter Jesus who performs a miracle on Foster's adopted son who has been injured and almost dies.

It's back to Pompeii where Foster is arranging one of those big gladiator showdowns in the local amphitheater.  A Christian sect has been captured and is about to become fodder for a bunch of blood thirsty gladiators.  Foster's adopted son has secretly become a Christian and he ends up in the amphitheater as well.  Just as things are about to get really bad, Mount Vesuvius erupts and brings the film to a rousing climax of death and destruction. It's a lot of story to be told in 90 minutes.

 

The filmmakers are Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, the men behind the original King Kong.  Cooper and Schoedsack had been explorers in the 1920's and got into show biz where their films were what would be called high adventure.  Besides King Kong, they filmed She, Mighty Joe Young and The Most Dangerous Game.  No drawing room comedies for these guys.

 

The special effects were by stop motion animator Willis O'Brien and Vernon Walker and expert at creating optical effects. In the case Walker expertly blending actors with O'Brien's stop motion effects. 

This is a very entertaining 1930's film. Between the story and the big action finale you really can't go wrong.  Cooper and Schoedsack were always about putting on a good show.

The screenplay was by Ruth Rose, the running time is 96 minutes.

1951 - WESTWARD THE WOMEN , unusual but good western film

This film is about the 1851 journey of a group of women on a wagon train to meet prospective husbands in California.  The film's original story was written by Frank Capra who at one time wanted to make it.  Fortunately the film ended up with tough guy William "Wild Bill" Wellman directing.  God knows what kind of sentimental mush Capra would have turned it into.

For a film released in the early 1950's it has an unusual feminist slant which for the most part isn't compromised in the story telling.  The film was photographed in Utah on what looks to be like fairly harsh locations.  William C. Mellor was the cinematographer, he was usually associated with George Stevens. but working with Wellman he went for a very harsh look to the photography.

 

Robert Taylor is the lead and he's very good.  In one scene he dishes out some tough justice to a cowboy who has raped one of the women.  Taylor had started his career as a pretty boy at MGM.  As he got older he grew into more interesting roles.  Still the focus of the film is on the women in a series of interesting vignettes.

 

William Wellman was considered a guy's director, but he had a successful collaboration with Barbara Stanwyck and was the director on the first A Star Is Born film.  Wellman was from the John Ford school of film making.  He had a no nonsense visual style and also didn's put up with a lot of nonsense on his set.  Westward The Women is an exccellent film and one of Wellman's best efforts.

The screenplay was by Charles Schnee, the running time is 118 minutes.