1960 - SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON - one Disney's best live action films

When the Walt Disney company put their minds to it they could make very entertaining live action films.  Swiss Family Robinson is one of their best films with most of the film shot on location in Tobago using Disney's go to English film crew and a mixed group of American and English actors.  

English actor John Miles is the head of the Swiss Family Robinson who end up being deserted on a tropical island.  American actor Dorothy McGuire is his wife.  Disney regulars James MacArthur and Tommy Sands play his grown up sons and the very annoying child actor Kevin Corcoran who like a bad cold constantly showed up in a lot of Disney TV shows, is their youngest son.  British actor Janet Munro is MacArthur's love interest and Bridge on the River Kwai actor Sessue Hayakawa is the pirate captain.  A real mishmash of acting talent.

 

The screenwriter and director threw out the original story and devised a plot that emphasized constant action and adventure.  Once the family ends up on the island the plot kicks into high gear with lots of clever and exciting scenes.  The Disney technicians slo devised an exciting action climax during the final pirate battle essentially a live action cartoon.

 

Swiss Family Robinson is quality family film making at a high level, a very entertaining film. 

 

The film was written by Lowell S. Hawley, the running time is 126 minutes. 

1962 - THE LONGEST DAY, on Blu Ray

The black and white photography in The Longest Day looks pretty spectacular  in this upgraded Blu Ray disc.  The film itself is starting to look a little ragged.  

Overall creative control was in the hands of Daryl F. Zanuck who had left 20th Century Fox and was now an independent producer.  Zanuck wanted to emphasize the actual story of the D-Day Invasion however he decided to stick as many known early 1960's actors as he could find into this film.  Seen today most people probably wouldn't know who they are.  The exception is John Wayne who sticks out like a very sore thumb.  It's like he wandered in from the set of The Comancheroes still playing a Texas Ranger

It's a little unfair to criticize a film like this for it's lack of explicit violence, however the fighting is pretty sanitized and the seasick soldiers coming off of their landing craft were hardly charging up the beaches.  Still the film does do a good job laying out the invasion plan and many of the vignettes are true.  

The large scale battle sequences with "the cast of thousands" are still impressive and the aerial helicopter shots are particularly outstanding.

178 minutes, written by Cornelius Ryan, Roman Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon and probably and uncredited Darryl F. Zanuck.

1982 - THE PIRATE MOVIE, musical for teenagers is basically dumb

File this one in the kind of stupid movie ideas folder.  1980's semi teen idols, Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins, sing and mug for the camera in this updating of The Pirates of Penzance, the light operetta from Gilbert and Sullivan.

I guess the idea was to appeal to the kids using these two American stars and have them race around and camp it up with lots of slapstick, silly references to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films and frequent breaking of the fourth wall as the actors spoke directly to the audience.

Even for a pretty boy Atkins is really hopeless.  It's hard to see what the big deal about Kristy McNichol once was.  She was an Emmy winning actor in the late 1970's and did lots of those after school specials and guest spots on 1970's TV shows.  She was always more of dramatic actor than a comedian.   Her role as Mable in The Pirate Movie calls for her to be funny and sexy.  She's not very funny and not particularly sexy even running around in skirts slit up the side of her leg.

The whole thing has the smell of desperation and probably needed a director like Richard Lester to pull it off.  Ken Annakin really wasn't the guy for this type of film.  Annakin had done some good work early in his career when he was involved with Walt Disney.  But I doubt  Disney would have ever gotten involved with this kind of silly musical fantasy.

105 minutes.