1966 - ONE SPY TOO MANY, hard not to review

What we have here are two episodes of the old Man From U.N.C.L.E., TV series repackaged as a quasi movie.  This was an attempt by MGM to squeeze money out of the then popular spy series as much as possible.  Since it was the 1960's and the height of the spy movie craze, I guess this shouldn't have been a complete surprise that something like this would get released.

Considering that the film was shot on the back lot of the once formidable MGM studios and no one even bothered to edit out the TV transitions, the film is actually entertaining.  Rip Torn amusingly plays an evil industrialist bent on taking over the world with a mind control gas.  Dorothy Provine, who was a very underrated actor and comedian, is his wife trying to obtain a divorce.  Robert Vaughn and David McCallum are the U.N.C.L.E agents assigned to stop Torn by their boss played by Leo G Carroll.  Carroll was an expert at playing the head of secret spy agencies, he had worked with Alfred Hitchcock on a number of films.

 

The film does have that cheap TV look to it but the director Joseph Sargent keeps the plot moving and the writer Dean Hargrove had his tongue firmly in cheek as the story rolls along.

 

One Spy Too Many is at times almost a nostalgia piece for another time and world in movies that has now turned into an age of computer generated images and formula comic book stories.

The running time is 102 minutes.

1987 - JAWS THE REVENGE aka Jaws 4

Jaws The Revenge is what happens when a good director, in the case Joseph Sargent goes horribly wrong.

Clearly made at the insistence of the studio in order to squeeze every last dollar out of the giant man eating shark franchise.  The film is enjoyable in a stupid sort of way.  The whole premise that the giant shark is on a mission of revenge against the Brody Family from the first film is to ridiculous to be believed.  

As one critic put it, if a giant shark is trying to eat all the members of your family, maybe you should move to North Dakota.

 

The film runs 90 minutes.  Michael de Guzman wrote this film but he should probably leave it off his resume.  The damn thing did make money apparently.

1977 - MACARTHUR, the Cliff's notes version of the General's life

The producer Frank McCarthy who had filmed Patton for 20th Century Fox, took another shot at a famous egomaniac military guy,  General Douglas MacArthur.  The budget was a lot less than Patton and the finished film was a lot less as well.

The approach in this film was a greatest hits of MacArthur during World War II film.  You get the escape from the Philippines, the " I shall return" stuff, conflicts with President Truman, MacArthur's rule of post war Japan.  It's all interesting but it's a lot more interesting in a good MacArthur biography like William Manchester's American Caesar.

Gregory Peck plays MacArthur and that's kind of the problem, it's just good old Gregory Peck acting the same way he does in every film he was ever in, another solid unexciting performance.  MacArthur was a very flamboyant character.

The film was made at Universal Studios so you get the usual semi cheapskate production, lots of stock footage and matte paintings trying to make the film look like an expansive war epic.

130 minutes written by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins.