2026 - THE ODYSSEY, on the big screen is long and very loud

This is the big summer movie filmed in 70mm with a big budget and a big Hollywood cast.  It has it's good points and not so good points.  As a high school student who along time ago was forced to read the Robert Fagles translation of Homer's poem I can say that Christopher Nolan changed a lot of stuff.  But there have been so many translations and interpretations of this epic Nolan certainly has the right to create his version.  The biggest change is the addition of the Trojan horse and the siege of Troy which I believe are not mentioned in the poem.  Odysseus is also now a doubting leader racked by guilt about his role in the war and haunted by the deaths of his men  He's a candidate for some serious mental health counseling and maybe a prescription of Prozac.

The film includes all the greatest hits of The Odyssey.  The encounter with Polyphemus the cyclops (probably the best scene in the film) who munches on his crew like they were after dinner mints.  A battle with the Laestrygonians, some giants that attack and destroy his ships. We are spared the scene from the book where they also eat some of Odysseus's men.  Apparently one cannibal scene was enough for this film.  Circe and Calypso are here and there's a side trip to Hades.  The final slaughter of the suitors in the banquet hall is for the most part unchanged.  About the only mythological character Nolan missed was Bobo from Clash of the Titans. 

The cast much to my surprise was fairly decent.  Matt Damon isn't bad as Odysseus and doesn't look to silly with that broom helmet on his head.  Anne Hathaway is his wife the faithful Penelope.  She's actually very effective in her scenes.   Robert Pattinson is one of the suitors of Penelope he makes a good hissable villain in the great tradition of these "sword and sandal" epics.  Tom Holland an actor now in his 30's is also good playing Odysseus's young son Telemachus.  Every time he refers to Odysseus with the anachronistic name of "Dad," that played a little cringy for me.  Tom Holland's wife Zendaya is Athena the muse of Odysseus.  However Zendaya makes absolutely no impression in this very small role. 

Yes the production is impressive considering the challenges of filming with 70mm cameras.  The Odyssey does have plenty of fighting and battle scenes to satisfy the action fans.  For a 2700 year old poem a lot of the story still works fairly well.  The soundtrack on this film is very LOUD.  I actually sat in my car for a few minutes after the film to wind down.

I will give Christopher Nolan credit this guy isn't afraid to think big and go over the top in his film making.  If he doesn't always succeed with his approach at times at the very least he is trying to go there with his large scale approach to storytelling.  Nolan's in the great tradition of super epic filmmakers like David Lean and Sergei Bondarchuk, directors who worked on a large canvas. 

 The running time is 173 minutes, screenplay by Christopher Nolan.

2026 - THE SHEEP DETECTIVES, bah bah (what else).

Hugh Jackman is a sheep herder who lives in a caravan in some rural town in England.  He spends all  his days tending to a flock of sheep.  In the evening the sheep gather round and Jackman reads mystery stories to them.  Well surprise surprise when the sheep are by themselves they talk in the Queen's English.  Jackman is murdered and suspicion falls on his estranged daughter from America who has come for a visit.  It's up to the sheep to solve the murder of Jackman and somehow communicate to the police whodunit. 

This is sort of a family film which has a lot of whimsy make that a whole lot of whimsy.  The sheep all have individual personalities and they are voiced by actors British and American actors.  Besides Jackman, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun and Conleth Hill are the actual human actors. 

Obviously the sheep are animated.  The director Kyle Balba started his career in film working for Industrial Light and Magic and had animated films like A Bug's Life, Mars Attacks and Monster's Inc. so he knew his way around integrating computer animation with live action. 

There's nothing particularly bad about this film although I have to say I didn't particularly care for it.  The Sheep Detectives just seems to have a very serious case of "the cutes.''  The film at times wallows in it's own sentimentality and cleverness.  Yes it has some funny stuff in it.  However you also have to endure a lot of sheep talk about their place in the universe.  I enjoy fantasy films as much as the next film nerd but even I have my limits.  And come on, this is a film about talking sheep.

 As an aside, I've spent some time around actual sheep and I can state that they are very stupid creatures.

 The film was written by Craig Mazin, the running time is 109 minutes.  

1979 - CITY ON FIRE, aka burning people

Why review a film called City on Fire?  Well it's a nostalgic look back to a time in my life when I was younger and forced to watch movies on television which were loaded with lots of commercials.  Well to get to the point, City On Fire was one on the earliest films that got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 comedic voice over treatment. 

MST3K originally aired on a Twin Cities UHF channel KTMA 23.  At the time much of the show's comedy revolved around references to Minneapolis and St. Paul.  Being a resident and younger I found all of this stuff quite funny.  Well the rest is history as they say.  The show got picked up and they were off and running.   Watching the unaltered (original) version of this movie was a chance to see if it was as dumb as it seemed in 1989.  The answer is a resounding yes.  

An extremely disgruntled employee of a large metropolitan city sabotages an oil refinery which ignites a fire that basically consumes the entire city.  Coming to the rescue is a group of television and past their prime actors trying to save the day.

And what a cast.  Henry Fonda in a where's my paycheck role is the fire chief.  Fonda probably shot this film in a couple of days since he never leaves the command center set.  Whoa, Ava Gardner one time screen queen is a television reporter and she's looking mighty rough after years of partying.  Leslie Nielson is the slimy mayor of the city.  Nielson was a Canadian by birth and that's only right because this film was shot in Canada.  Hammy actor Shelly Winters is a nurse.  

Finally there are the supposed leads of this film.  Barry Newman's career started out strong with the cult film Vanishing Point but descended into mediocre made for television films.  He's the lead playing the ER doctor running around saving people's lives.  His leading lady was played by Susan Clark who I swear was in just about every other piece of junk Universal Studios cranked out.  Seeing her in a television show was like visiting an old friend.  Clark actually started her career playing in the classics on the stage.

This post could go on and on but it's safe to say the plot, the dialog and the acting are shall we say not exactly something Harold Pinter would write.  Actually the burning city fire effects are fairy well done for this poor man's version of The Towering Inferno.

It took three writers to put this together,  Jack Hill, Dave Lewis and Céline La Frenière^.  

The running time is 106 minutes.

1957 - HELL DRIVERS, the world of macho British truck drivers

Stanley Baker is an ex-con looking for work.  He ends up getting a job at a company that hauls gravel for a road construction project.  The catch is that the drivers are expected to drive really fast in order to meet their daily quota.  A young Patrick McGoohan is the leader of the truck drivers.  He's a nasty bully and we know this because he always has a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  Peggy Cummins is the office secretary who knows where all the dirty secrets are buried at the trucking company,  Sean Connery and Gordon Jackson are also in the cast as truck drivers in smaller roles. 

As some critics pointed out at the time this was an unusual film since it was filled with lots of macho posturing and tough action.  Usually British films had a more shall we say refined approach to excitement as in the boring film The Scarlet Pimpernel.  For a change Hell Drivers was a rare film at this time that focused on the lives of the British working class.

The film was directed by a blacklisted American writer/director Cy Enfield.  Enfield relocated to England and filmed some tough crime and action films.  Enfield's big picture was Zulu which he produced with Stanley Baker.

Peggy Cummins had an aborted career in Hollywood after being recast in Forever Amber is in this film to sex it up.  Cummins most memorable film was the classic Gun Crazy.  Perennial British character actor Herbert Lom shows up playing Baker's Italian friend.  Ace cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth shot the exciting driving scenes.  Overall an entertaining action film. This film is dripping with testosterone and mano a mano fighting.  The action is rough and exciting.

The screenplay is by Cy Enfield and John Kruse, the running time is 108 minutes.

1953 - PLUNDER OF THE SUN, a noir film more interesting for it's location

During the 1950's John Wayne along with his producing partner Robert Fellows formed a production company called Wayne-Fellows Productions.  Their goal was to make a series of modestly budgeted films some of which Wayne would appear in and some without him.  As with these actor created companies they had their hits and misses.  Plunder of the Sun was one of the films that was produced by Wayne-Fellows that did not star Wayne.

Glenn Ford plays a down on his luck adventurer who gets involved with a dealer of antiquities played by character actor Francis L. Sullivan.  Sullivan is looking for him to smuggle a map with the location of treasure supposedly hidden in the Zapotec temple ruins in Mexico.  Ford is channeling a Humphrey Bogart type of cynical character.  He has not one but two femme-fatale characters he has to deal with.  There is also another treasure hunter on the prowl played by a blonde haired Sean McClory.  McClory was part of John Ford's stock company and is the bad guy this time instead of some whimsical boob of an Irishman in a Ford film. 

 

Frankly the treasure hunt story isn't anything special.  The director John Farrow does a decent job moving things along but the script doesn't really do him any favors.  What this film really has going for it is the on location filming at the spectacular Zapotec temple locations and the city of Oaxaca, Mexico.  This is really the only reason to watch this film.  The locations are well photographed in black and white.  The film has a nice noir look to it.

 

The film was written by Jonathan Latimer, the running time is 82 minutes. 

1955 - A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS, a fable about 1950's London

 One of England's best directors took on this very delicate story about the lives of people living in an area of London's East End called Petticoat Lane.  The film was shot in very garish color.  Petticoat Lane at the time was populated with Jewish immigrants.  For some reason the film barely gets into this and it's almost impossible to tell that any Jewish people live there and this is a story where the setting is very important to the film.

The story follows a young boy who has been listening to stories from an old tailor.  One story in particular is about a magical unicorn that grants wishes.  The boy  finds a young goat with only one horn and believes it to be be a unicorn.  The story focuses on the boy's fantasy about the goat and how it affects the lives of people living in Petticoat Lane.  We get a body builder who has put off marrying his girlfriend due to lack of money.  The tailor wishing for a steam machine to iron his customer's clothes. The boy's mother waiting for the return of her husband who is working abroad etc.

 

You can't fault the cast of the film.  Celia Johnson one of the mainstays of the British acting establishment plays the mother.  Diana Dors who was considered the British version of Marilyn Monroe gave a very good performance as the girlfriend waiting to get married. A very young actor named Jonathan Ashmore also does very well as the boy with the goat.  One of Carol Reed's strengths as a director was working with actors.  Orson Welles had said that Carol Reed was one of the few directors who really liked actors.

 

I think the problem with this film is that the story is maybe just a little to whimsical for it's own good.  It's also very tough to pull off a story that is told from a child's point of view.  Not to say that the film doesn't have good scenes in it.   But overall it just seems a little lacking.  Still Carol Reed was a superior director and the film for the most part is certainly worth a look.

The screenplay was by Wolf Mankowitz, the running time is 96 minutes.

2004 - IKE: COUNTDOWN TO D-DAY is an acceptable version of the D-Day story

TV star Tom Selleck is General Eisenhower in this version of the events leading up to the World War II invasion into Normandy.  Selleck has given interviews in which he has stated that this is the performance he is most proud of.  For the most part his portrayal is decent I guess.  Frankly the problem I have with Selleck is that every time he's on screen all I can think about is Magnum P.I. goes to war.  I kept looking for Higgins and the "Lads" to show up.  

This film gets it's facts reasonably straight. It refers to the training debacle in England called "Exercise Tiger" that cost the lives of over 700 soldiers conducted prior to the invasion.  It also focuses on General Henry Miller who got drunk in a restaurant and blurted out the time and location of the invasion.  The film also covers Eisenhower's message to the allies that had him taking blame if the invasion failed that fortunately was never needed.  It's all fairly well known history stuff.  

 

The film has the usual World War II celebrities.  Winston Churchill turns up, George S. Patton gets yelled at by Eisenhower and British General Bernard Montgomery is here in all his arrogant glory.

The production of this film was on the modest end.  It was apparently filmed in New Zealand in 10 days. The film is an okay if kind of boring version of a major World War II event. 

The film was written by Lionel Chetwynd who has done a lot of these docu-dramas.  The running time is 89 minutes. 

1936 - WIFE VS. SECRETARY, a typical 1930's MGM drama

In many ways this is a typical MGM drama from "the good old days," sometimes called a "women's picture."  Wife Vs. Secretary is the kind of undemanding stuff MGM regularly pumped out for the movie going public.  For the most part a high class soap opera with top production values, big stars and a really trite plot.

 

Here we go.  Clark Gable is a high powered magazine editor who is married to his wife played by a glamorous Myrna Loy.  Clark is a wheeler dealer who has a devoted secretary played by MGM's resident 1930's sex bomb Jean Harlow.  Through lots of plot contrivances people suspect that Gable is having an affair with Harlow.  But Clark is devoted to his wife.  How do we know this?  Well Clark sticks jewelry in her food which she fishes out which apparently demonstrates his love for her.

 

Also showing up in this film is a young James Stewart in a supporting role playing Harlow's fiance. He gets real jealous over the amount of time Jean is spending with Clark.  Well one thing leads to another and lots of misunderstandings later Myrna thinks Clark is having an affair and is ready to leave him by taking a boat cruise to Cuba or somewhere in the Caribbean. 

 

It all works out in the end because it's an MGM picture made for the middle class.  Clearly the plot should have been that Clark has an affair with Jean and then has to work out his issues with Myrna to fix his marriage.  But this is an MGM picture and they are not about to endorse infidelity and bad mouth marriage. The film is kind of silly stuff.  Clarence Brown was one of MGM's best studio directors so the film is at the very least well made.

The talented writers involved in this film were John Lee Mahin, Norman Krasna and Alice Duer Miller. The running time is 88 minutes and fortunately not a minute longer.

1937 - UN CARNET DU BAL aka Life Dances On.

This drama about a woman trying to make sense of her life after her husband dies is considered a film classic.  It's a part of the traditional French main stream film industry that was to be eviscerated by Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Godard and the rest of the "New Wave" gang looking to make a name for themselves by attacking traditional film directors in the 1950's and 60's.

However Julien Duvivier the director who was making films in the 1930's was a superb director and had an understanding of how to use the camera to tell a story.  You could probably put Duvivier's filmography next to any of the "New Wave" directors and it would more than hold it's own.

Duvivier spent some time in Hollywood during World War II where he had a mixed career.  The interesting Flesh and Fantasy and Lydia used the same episodic story telling structure as Un Carnet Du Bal.  However the ridiculous The Great Waltz which was supposedly based on the life of Johann Strauss II The Waltz King and probably one of the silliest films ever made about a composer.

  

Un Carnet Du Bal is one of his best films.  Duvivier and his writers fashioned a story that revolves around a woman remembering her coming out ball when she was sixteen years old where she was pursued by seven suitors.  She decides to find out what happened to each of these men and begins a journey to locate them.  From the beginning of the film with it's impressive memory waltz scene of her first dance to her final realization of the reality of her life, the film is actually quite a moving portrait of one woman.  

This is certainly a high point of 1930's French film making and cinema. 

The film was written by Julien Duvivier, Henri Jeanson, Yves Mirande, Jean Sarment, Pierre Wolff, and Bernard Zimmer.  The running time is 144 minutes.

1945 - A GAME OF DEATH, decent remake of "The Most Dangerous Game."

A Game of Death is a remake of The 1932 film The Most Dangerous Game which was in turn based on a short story by the author Richard Connell.  The story is a very entertaining melodrama about a famous hunter Don Rainsford stranded on a remote island who becomes they prey of a nutcase hunter Erich Kreiger who is bored with killing animals and has resorted to stalking and killing humans instead.  So the chase is on in this fast paced film.

Robert Wise directed this version after working with producer Val Lewton on his legendary series of horror films.  It's competent and decently made but I miss the flamboyance of the earlier film with it's over the top Max Steiner film music and it's really fast paced structure.  It's now a film making legend that The Most Dangerous Game was simultaneously filmed on the same jungle sets as King Kong with several of the King Kong actors primarily Faye Wray and Robert Armstrong in roles. English actor Leslie Banks in a very flamboyant performance was the crazy hunter who in this film is called Count Zaroff.  It's a very fun 1930's film.

 

The remake is not without it's merits, John Loder plays Rainsford and he gives a good competent performance.  Playing the madman hunter Erich Kreiger is the actor Edgar Barrier who was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury theater.  He may not have been as over the top as Leslie Banks but he gets the job done as a creepy menacing character.

 

This man hunting man plot has been so durable that it's been filmed many times.  I originally read this story in high school although I suppose it's not exactly a  P.C. kind of story anymore.

 The screenplay was by Norman Houston, the running time is an efficient 72 minutes.

2026 - REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES - the talking octopus movie

In the great tradition of talking animal shows such as Francis the Talking Mule, Mr. Ed the talking horse and I suppose, My Mother The Car the talking 1928 car comes Remarkably Bright Creatures. It features a taking octopus as the narrator of this film.  I guess there is some precedent for this as Shakespeare had a narrative chorus in Henry the Fifth and Romeo and Juliet.  Into the Woods features a narrator as does The Big Lebowski.  Although there is only one voice in Remarkably Bright Creatures, I could have seen a chorus of octopuses (octopi?) telling this story.  The name of the octopus by the way is Marcellus.

The film follows people living in a small Pacific Northwest town with a particular emphasis on Tova Sullivan an old woman played by 79 year old Sally Field.  She is about to transition into a senior living facility and still dealing with the death of her son and husband.  She works at an aquarium where she pours out her troubles to Marcellus the octopus who listens attentively. 

Also featured in this film is Cameron Cassmore a young drifter who Tova meets and begins to form a bond with.  Cameron is played by Lewis Pullman the son of actor Bill Pullman.  Lewis Pullman gives a decent performance as a confused young man although this role is a big step up from his appearance in that Marvel film Thunderbolts where he played the idiot member of the team.

Frankly the drama and situations in this film are nothing you haven't seen in any other "relationship" film.  Let's bring a couple of very different people together and have them find things in common so they can "bond."  Secrets will be revealed and heartwarming lessons will be learned.  The talking octopus shtick is really just a gimmick and doesn't add anything to the story.  There's also a surprise twist towards the end of this film which as far as I'm concerned is also another plot gimmick.

 This film was based on a popular book and I guess Netflix should get some credit for making a film that doesn't feature aging action stars in some improbable "shoot em up" film.  Remarkably Bright Creatures is a nice safe and boring film to watch with grandma or an elderly aunt.

The film was written by Olivia Newman and John Whittington, the running time is 111 minutes. 

20126 - THEIR FINEST, there will always be an England especially during World War II

Their Finest is a film set in London during World War II.  Gemma Arteron is a woman who manages to get a job in the British Government's propaganda department as a secretary.  Being a bright young thing she works her way up as a screenwriter working on a film about the evacuation of Dunkirk. The film's plot involves the making of this Dunkirk film which is hampered by lots of story compromises and issues that arise from the British Government's interference in the film making.

 

Gemma Arterton is the main character the film focuses on as she manages her professional and personal life.  Bill Nighy is the hammy actor cast in the film, he gets all the funny stuff.  Richard E. Grant and Jeremy Irons play the usual stuffed shirt government officials trying to control the making of the film, you can't have an English film without them.  There's a love interest for Arterton and lots of amusing film making jokes for the movie nerds watching.  There's even a thinly disguised portrait of legendary Hungarian film producer Alexander Korda who relocated to England before the war.    

  

This is a modest and enjoyable film for the most part although I think the ending was kind of a mistake .  Gemma Arteron is really the glue that holds this film together with her understated and effective performance.  Arteron should really be a bigger star but her appearances in some big budgeted Hollywood films didn't seem to do it for her.  

 

Written by Gaby Chiappe, the running time is 117 minutes.

1982 - WE OF THE NEVER NEVER, drama about living in the Australian Outback is really boring

Good intentions in a film about a do gooder do not a good movie make.  You actually have to have a compelling story to maintain a viewer's interest.   This is not one of these stories even though it is apparently true. We Of The Never Never was an acclaimed novel which was a thinly disguised true story which the author modified by replacing the names of the actual people with fictitious names.

In brief, this film follows the story of a woman named Jeannie Gunn who marries a man who is relocating to a cattle station (ranch) in the Australian Outback circa 1902.  After a difficult journey Jeannie is confronted by the drovers (cowboys) who work at the station and think that a woman has no place in the Outback.  Jeannie also decides to befriend the Aboriginals living at the station much to the disgust of the drovers who are a bunch of wouldn't you know it racists.  Will Jeannie win over the drovers and the Aboriginals at the station or is she setting herself up for failure?  Well it's fairly easy to guess which way this plot is heading if you've ever seen an episode of Little House On The Prairie. 

 

We Of The Never Never is actually decently acted.  The main role of Jeannie Gunn is performed by an Australian actor named Angela Punch McGregor who plays her like a regular down under version of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  She's basically the whole show as she struts around the cattle station doing good deed stuff.

 

This is frankly a very boring film.  It is so low key there's nothing actually dramatic that happens in it's very long running time.  The best thing the film has going for it is the cinematography.  The Australian Outback may be a hell hole but it is certainly a very photogenic hell hole. We Of The Never Never is available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure and is a great way to fall asleep for insomniac viewers.

The film was written by Peter Schreck, the running time is 134 minutes.  

1954 - FEAR, aka ANGST aka really dreary film

Well they can't all be neorealist masterpieces and this film from Roberto Rossellini is one tedious film.  The film stars Ingrid Bergman who was in a famously scandalous affair with Rossellini after being impressed with his post World War 2 Italian films made on location and with non actors. Bergman ended up leaving Hollywood and her husband moved to Italy where she collaborated with Rossellini on a series of so-so films.  Hey that's the power of films to influence people's lives I guess.

Fear is set in post war Germany during the reconstruction of Europe.  Supposedly Rossellini wanted to examine how reconstruction was affecting Germany but who was he kidding this is just a very dull marital drama.

 

In this film Bergman is a woman cheating on her husband with a younger man while also being blackmailed by the younger man's ex girlfriend.  Bergman is trying to keep her affair secret but the situation is slowly unraveling.

 

Rossellini as usual filmed on real locations to add some substance to this drama, but all the location filming in Germany wasn't going to bring this monotonous soap opera to life.  I've seen more interesting drama on General Hospital. 

Fear was written by Roberto Rossellini, Franz von Treuberg and Sergio Amidel.  The running time is 83 minutes.

1974 - ZANDY'S BRIDE, a western and a love story (maybe)

In the old west rancher Zandy Allen has decided he wants to marry.  He places an ad in a newspaper and Hannah Lund agrees to be his mail order bride.  It turns out that Zandy is a real misogynist and treats his new bride like a piece of crap as he looks at her like she's a breed mare.  It's battle of the sexes time as Hannah fights to earn respect from Zandy. 

The leads are played by Gene Hackman as Zandy Allen and Hannah Lund played be Liv Ullmann.  However I would have to say that Hackman is playing one of the most repellent characters I have ever seen in film.  Watching this film it's impossible to understand why the Liv Ullmann character would ever stick around to be mentally and physically abused by this guy.

 

The other issue with the film is the storytelling. With the exception of Hackman's larger than life asshole of a character this film is mighty low key storytelling. The director Jan Troell is a Swedish filmmaker trying to blend his  European filmmaker sensibility onto a simple American western.  Troell gets some very mixed results.  I suspect the American  settings might have been a little beyond his ability to get a handle on this Hollywood production.

 

The film was shot on location in the Big Sur area of California so the locations are mighty impressive to look at.  Jan Troell was always a very strong visual director particularly in his Scandinavian films..  The scenery is probably the best thing in this film but most film goers usually don't watch movies for the pretty pictures.  

The film was written by Marc Norman, the running time is 97 minutes. 

1954 - DRAGNET, the feature film...

If anyone remembers a cop show named Dragnet which I kind of doubt, it began life as a radio show produced and starring Jack Webb.  Webb went on to adapt the radio show as a half hour television show in the 1950's.  Webb brought the show back from the grave in the mid 1960's mostly to make the American public aware of the dangers of drug use particularly marijuana.  This was kind of rich since Webb was apparently a pretty big boozer in real life.

Dragnet was known as a  police procedural with the emphasis not on gun fights and car chases but on LAPD detectives assigned to a case.  Webb and his cop partner would methodically run down each lead. If you were looking for crime fighting action this show was not for you.  Supposedly the episodes were based on true life stories and the end of each show had the narrator of each episode intone in a grave voice the results of each case with loud booming music in the background.   

 

Dragnet was no doubt an important and trend setting crime genre but time has not been particularly kind to this show. Webb's emotionless clipped delivery of his dialog and the almost next to nothing drama in each episode made this show ripe for parody.

 

Which brings us inevitably to the movie version Webb directed which was released in 1954.  About the only difference between the television show and the movie was that it was filmed in color.  Otherwise this was basically and extended episode of one of his shows with the same cheap looking sets and the same stock company of actors that Webb used over and over.

 

Dragnet the film is kind of an odd bird.  The LAPD basically violates every suspect's civil rights during their investigation of a gangland shooting.  Webb seems to have a particular disdain for the 5th amendment and at times seems to want the district attorney to bring the bad guys to trial without any evidence just because he says they are guilty.  I'm not even going to get into the illegal wiretapping business.  Webb certainly had an interesting point of view when it came to law enforcement

The film was written by Richard L. Breen, the running time is 88 minutes. 

1984 - SONGWRITER, entertaining showbiz drama with a country western background

Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson are a couple of singer/composers in this very entertaining comedy/drama.  Kristofferson is a love em and leave em guy bedding one groupie after another.  Willie Nelson is a performer and songwriter trying to reunite with his first wife. Nelson's also trying to get out of a contract he had signed with a promoter some years earlier who now owns the rights to his songs.

Into this mix comes Leslie Ann Warren as a recording artist Nelson is promoting while ghostwriting songs for her.  Warren is also mixed up with a shady character played by everyone's favorite scary actor Rip Torn.  With the exception of Warren and Melinda Dillion playing Nelson's ex-wife, all of these male singer/actors are amusingly playing thinly disguised versions of themselves.

 

The film has a nice laid back feel to it from director Alan Rudolph.  Rudolph was a protege of Robert Altman and uses the same approach to working with actors that Altman did, a naturalistic kind of improvisational method. 

 

This film is highly entertaining, Nelson was not a trained actor but he was a very natural performer in front of the camera.  He was close friends with Kris Kristofferson and they play off each other very well.  The songs in the film were mostly written by Kristofferson.

The film was written by Bud Shrake, the running time is 94 minutes.