1969 - BATTLE OF BRITAIN , big expensive dud of a war film

This is one misfire of a war film.  Battle of Britain was supposedly a tribute to the English pilots that held off the German air force in the summer of 1940 before the United States entered the war.  The film had about every living British actor who was ambulatory in it.

However this is one snooze inducing mess of a film.  The screenplay can't even begin to explain the battle plans that the German's drew up for the invasion of England.  It seems their strategy was "lets bomb the hell out of them."  On the other hand a lot of time is spent on how the English would by overwhelmed by the German Luftwaffe.  Thankfully a plucky bunch of Limey pilot lads held off the German war machine.

In reality the Northern part of England was able to produce plenty of fighters to supplement the British air force and the British had a substantial number of foreign pilots to fly them.  Instead what we get are lame Polish jokes

What you also get for the time invested in this film are some large scale dogfights. This production was amazingly able to find enough planes to stage and photograph these fights.  However after a while one dogfight starts to look like all the others so a kind of viewer boredom sets in. There isn't even any point discussing the subplots of the personal lives of the pilots, it's just the usual bunch of war cliches.  

Battle of Britain was clearly a very costly film to make.  Acquiring all of those planes and pilots to fly them couldn't have been easy or cheap.  Freddie Young photographed the film, he was usually associated with David Lean so I'm sure he didn't come cheap.  The director Guy Hamilton did an adequate job but he doesn't seem to be able to work up much enthusiasm for the story.  Perhaps the large scale production was a little to much for him. In a film like this the second unit directors and action coordinators really run the show.  

The film was written by James Kennaway and Wilfred Greatorex.  the running time is 133 minutes.

1980 - THE MIROR CRACK'D, nice and boring Agatha Christie mystery

 The producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin go to the well once again with another Agatha Christie adaptation.  They had considerable financial success with Murder On The Orient Express starring Albert Finny as Hercule Poirot.  Their follow up was Death on the Nile another Hercule Poirot film made money but considerably less than Murder On The Orient Express.  Probably looking for a break from Poirot mysteries the producers hired director Guy Hanilton to film The Mirror Crack'd with Agatha Christie's other popular detective character Jane Marple.

 

At times the producers seemed like they were thumbing their noses up at the mystery. The cast was a real collection of Hollywood has beens. Elizabeth Taylor played an aging film star, Rock Hudson played her husband a hack film director. Kim Novak was cast as Taylor's movie star nemesis and Tony Curtis was the producer of a film that is being shot in Jane Marple's home town, this is an amazing cast of past their prime performers. 

 

Many scenes in the film featured Taylor and Novak trading quips about aging Hollywood movie stars. The film they are making appears to be about the life of Mary Queen of Scots a woman who died at the age of 44.  Taylor at the time was 48 but looked about 60 with years of partying finally starting to catch up with her.  The cameraman must have had his hands full photographing her.  I suspect Agatha Christie would have not been real thrilled by the changes made in her novel.  Angela Lansbury played Jane Marple a character she basically rehashed for her Jessica Fletcher character in her TV series Murder She Wrote.

 

Well anyway we see Miss Marple go through all the expected motions as she solves a couple of murders relating to the movie company.  Guy Hamilton's direction is competent enough. He was always a decent craftsman if not an "auteur" film maker.  The photography is nice and pretty and if you are in the mood to watch a bunch of has been actors hamming it up this film is as good a time killer as any.

The film was written by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, the running time is 105 minutes.

1971 - DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, Connery returns to Bond

With the incredibly stupid decision by George Lazenby not to continue in the role of James Bond after On Her Majesties Secret Service.  United Artists went into overdrive to get Sean Connery back into the fold.  Connery had gotten sick of the role and had not been happy with the money he was receiving from the producers Broccoli and Saltzman.  But after some negotiations Connery received one of he highest salaries an actor had ever gotten for a film at that time.  Diamonds Are Forever with Sean Connery was on.

The film had the old production team back, production designer Ken Adam, cinematographer Ted Moore,  director Guy Hamilton and writer Richard Maibaum. Since the film was primarily set in Las Vegas it was decided they needed an American writer.  Tom Mankiewicz son of legendary director/writer Joseph Mankiewicz also has screen credit.

 

In spite of the behind the camera talent and the usual good looking production the film has a messed up plot line caused by some rather severe editing that clearly went on after filming.  The other problem is that nobody takes anything seriously in this film.  Encounters with a couple of "women's lib" amazons kind of went nowhere and the casting of sausage king and singer Jimmy Dean really didn't work all that well

Even with the return of Sean Connery, the producers were taking no chances on this film.  Diamonds Are Forever has two comedic car chases a big shoot out on an oil rig and Jill St John running around in hot pants or a bikini.  Charles Grey brought kind of a detached amusement as Bond's nemesis Blofeld.  However the whole gangsters in Las Vegas plot line that leads into a science fiction plot which is really contrived. 

Well for better or for worse this is the transitional film with the departure of Connery and the entrance of Roger Moore as a more lightweight and jokey James Bond.  For all the problems with the film it's still fun to see Sean Connery back as James Bond, no one could deliver a clever quip like Connery and he has an undeniable movie star presence.

The running time is 120 minutes

1985 - REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, and apparently ended with this film

An attempt to star a new film franchise based on a crummy paperback book series called The Destroyer, some of which I have read.  Remo Williams is a former marine and New York City cop whose death is faked so he can become a member of a secret spy agency called CURE.  Remo is retrained in the martial arts by a Korean master called Chiun.  He then goes on a lame spy mission to stop an arms manufacturer from selling defective weapons to the military. 

 

The film was written and directed by a couple of James Bond veterans.  Christopher Wood had written The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.  Guy Hamilton had directed Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun.  These guys should have been able to juice this film up a bit but the whole thing seems a little tired. 

Fred Ward played the lead Remo Williams although he seems a little to rough to be an action hero.  Joel Grey the musical comedy star is the real show in this film as Chiun the martial arts character who trains Williams.  Chiun is probably the most interesting character in the film, teaching Williams to dodge bullets while watching American soap operas.  

The action set pieces are OK with lots of stunt men dangling from high places but nothing really spectacular.  The film does have a sense of humor and clearly none of it was to be taken seriously, it's just nothing special.  I've seen worse.

121 minutes.

1964 - GOLDFINGER on Blu Ray

Goldfinger looks good on Blu Ray but not as spectacular as Thunderball on Blu Ray does, but it doesn't need to, it's still the best film in the entire series.

The Bond producers have been essentially remaking this film for the entire series, you can find elements of Goldfinger in every film going forward.  But who could blame them.  Everything in this films works for a change.  The actors are all iconic screen characters, the plot is still reasonably plausible and the production team assembled for this film is really on top of their game.

Connery goofs it up on the set of Goldfinger.

Finally, lets get real, none of the other Bond actors could top Connery.  Also a shout out to the iconic score by John Barry

110 minutes, screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn.

1973 - LIVE AND LET DIE, Roger Moore's first shot at James Bond

After dragging Sean Connery back to the James Bond series for Diamonds Are Forever.  The producers, Broccoli and Saltzman tried to get him back for Live and Let Die.  Connery declined,  the very light weight leading man Roger Moore was cast as Bond and the Roger Moore years commenced for the Bond series.  

Live and Let Die had the novelty of using black actors as the bad guys.  The film is sort of a blaxploitation film that has been completely scrubbed and sanitized by a bunch of white filmmakers.

Since this was a film shot in the mid 70's and all mid 70's films had to have a car chase, there are a lot of chases with vehicles in this film.  If the Bond producers couldn't think of original action situations for their film, they were going to top other car chase films with an elaborate speed boat chase which is still kind of impressive.  After that sequence the rest of the film is a letdown as the director Guy Hamilton races as fast as possible to tie up the very loose plot line and wrap up the film.

Overall this is one of the poorest of the Bond series but better than the horrible Quantum of Solace,  probably the worst in the series.  Roger Moore was known for getting along with almost everyone on set.  He made seven Bond films and got better in the role although he essentially played the Bond character like his Saint character Simon Templar.

121 minutes, written by Tom Mankiewicz.

1966 - FUNERAL IN BERLIN, spy vs spy vs spy vs spy etc

Amazingly convoluted 60's spy film.  This is the top of the mountain for a plot so confusing it literally took me many viewings over many years to finally understand what the hell was going on.

Secret agent Harry Palmer is supposed to help a high ranking Russian colonel defect to the west in divided Berlin.  Throw into the mix, Israeli agents hunting for former Nazi's, a secret network dedicated to smuggling people out of East Berlin, and enough double crosses to make the dream within a dream within a dream sequences in Inception seem perfectly understandable and everyone's awake in this film.

The film's got good photography of Berlin, and is worth having around as a historic record of the Cold War especially in the scenes shot near the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the East vs West face.

The Harry Palmer spy series was produced by Harry Saltzman one of the James Bond producers and was clearly supposed to be an alternative to the larger than life Bond series.  However this series never really caught on with the public and deliberately bewildering films like Funeral in Berlin probably helped to kill it off.

Directed by Guy Hamilton who made a lot of James Bond films, but this ain't no Bond film.

102 minutes, screenplay by Evan Jones.

1959 - THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE, George Bernard Shaw meets Lancaster and Douglas

Well they gave it the old college try on this one but it was probably doomed to fail.  Shaw's comedy/drama about the Revolutionary War plays with the idea of heroism, idealism and religion not stuff to attract the film going public.

The presence of two screenwriters means that a lot of Shaw's dialog was dropped for the film version.  This was probably for the better,  Shaw's plays are always very dialog heavy and would be a chore to watch in a film.   The film version of The Devil's Disciple also opens the play up and adds a fight scene between Burt Lancaster and a bunch of British soldiers.

The film was apparently what they call a "troubled production."  The original director Alexander Mackendrick was replaced by Guy Hamilton who had to step in and finish the film at the insistence of the producer Burt Lancaster.

The cast is all smiles

The Devil's Disciple isn't a total failure.  Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas are very good. Laurence Olivier as the British General John Burgoyne is excellent.  Some of the remaining Shaw dialog is quite witty and there is at least an attempt to make a film with a little more meat in it than usual.

82 minutes.