1988 - I LOVE MARIA, aka Roboforce

Filmmaker Tsui Hark is the producer and stars in this pretty wild film which mixes about every conceivable genre possible for one film.  The obvious inspiration for this film was Robocop but instead of just doing a rehash of that film I Love Maria is jammed with lots of crazy action and comedy scenes.

In brief, a criminal gang known as The Hero Gang has built an impregnable robot called Pioneer 1 who can tear through the police like a piece of paper.  The stated goal of The Hero Gang is to eliminate the police and create chaos.  In addition they have developed another more humanoid looking robot called Maria played by Sally Yeh.  Yeh was the actor who was the blind women in John Woo's The Killer but I digress.  Anyway a scientist from the police force, a former member of The Hero Gang and a goofy reporter manage to get control of Maria and take on The Hero Gang along with help from the robot girl.  

 

As with a lot of these Hong Kong action films from the 1980's the fighting and shootouts are very well done. However you have to sit through a lot and I mean a lot of some really dumb comedy.  But that's the price you pay when you watch some of these Hong Kong action films.

 

I Love Maria is an entertaining film and a very fun ride of a film for the most part. 

The film was written (if that's the word) by Yuen Kai Chi, the running time is a frantic and never dull 96 minutes.

1958 - MAIGRET SETS A TRAP, character study disguised as a crime story

Inspector Maigret the famous French detective had been around since the 1930's.  The character has also been in many films almost from the start of his literary career.  Charles Laughton portrayed him in a 1950 film Man On The Eiffel Tower directed by Burgess Meredith.  In 1958, Maigret Sets a Trap showed up in America in a slick film production.

The Maigret character was played by Jean Gabin.  Gabin in his younger years was a romantic lead in films like Pépé le Moko, Port of Shadows and The Human Beast.  As Gabin grew older he took on more character driven parts as he assumed the role of "elder statesman" in the French cinema.  Gabin's take on the Maigret character is sort of a French version of Lt. Columbo, a detective who uses his brains instead of his gun etc.

In Maigret Sets a Trap the detective is after a serial killer of women.  Maigret has to match wits with the killer in the same sort of "as shucks" manner that Peter Falk did on Columbo.  Frankly the mystery and crime elements of the film are a little obvious but the entertainment value is in watching a great French actor do his acting thing.

 

This is a very good looking film with excellent black and white photography and overall an impressive studio production.  Jean Gabin went on to play the Maigret character in two more films.

The film was written by Jean Delannoy, Rodolphe-Maurice Arlaud and Michel Audiard.  the running time is 119 minutes. 

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. 

1940 - DOWN ARGENTINA WAY, musical in blazing 40's technicolor

If the dreary Broadway Melody of 1940 was almost redeemed by the final dance number with Astaire and Powell, Daryl F. Zanuck's production completely exceeds expectations in the entertainment genre.  Down Argentina Way shows Fox Studios delivering a highly entertaining musical without lingering over any thing so mindless and boring as a plot.

And speaking of the plot here we go.  Don Ameche sporting a rather shaky South American accent is a horse breeder in Argentina.  On a trip to the United States he falls in love with a horse breeder played by Betty Grable.  It's the usual light weight love story that's frequently found in light weight musicals.  But the writers and producer Zanuck made sure to stay focused on the good looking leads and add enough entertaining subplots to keep things moving along at a rapid pace.

This was a big breakout film for blonde Betty Grable who would go on to be one of Fox's biggest stars surpassing Alice Faye who was the big blonde big deal prior to Grable's ascent.  Grable had actually been in the entertainment business for 11 years before finally hitting the big time.  She was one of those Hollywood stars who apparently everyone could get along with.

Don Ameche's career started in radio and he had a long one working into the early 1990's.  Also featured in Down Argentina Way were the Nicholas Brothers an amazing dancing specialty act who Fred Astaire commented were the best tap dancers he had ever seen.  Mention should also be made of Carmen Miranda who was probably the only actual Hispanic in the cast.  She's in a couple of specialty numbers which for once don't bring the film to a halt.

 Down Argentina Way moves at a quick pace,  Zanuck liked his films to move.  The film is literally bathed in early bright and stunning technicolor which is really something to see.  This film cries out for a 4K remaster as it is it's really a visual treat.  This 1940's musical is over 80 years old and is still highly entertaining.

The film was written by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware and probably with some input from Daryl F. Zanuck, the running time is 89 minutes  

2025 - PRIMITIVE WAR, the "B" movie lives on

It's 1968 and we're in Vietnam where an elite group of Green Berets have been sent to a hidden valley to find out what happened to a previous squad of soldiers.  Well surprise surprise the valley is full of hungry dinosaurs who are part of a time travel experiment the evil Russians have been running.  This film isn't called Primitive War for nothing.  Yes this is a cross between Jurassic Park, Apocalypse Now, Platoon and a whole bunch of Vietnam war movies I've missed. 

You can put this in the 12 year old boy category of films.  There's man eating dinosaurs, lots of gun play, evil Russians, people getting graphically eaten by dinosaurs and a goofy science fiction subplot to tie it all together.  The cast seems game and appears to enjoy shooting their guns because there is a lot a shooting of dinosaurs so we don't have to deal with pesky things like character development and dialog.  The film was shot in Australia which is obviously subbing for Vietnam.  The film's budget was 7 million dollars, B movies aren't that cheap anymore.

 

The special effects are of a variable quality.  The CGI dinosaurs look better in the dark than the light.  It costs a lot of money these days to make realistic phony dinosaurs.  The director/writer Luke Sparke must be a real auteur since he has his name on about every other title in the credit scroll.  This is very enjoyable foolishness and yes there is a woman in the film because there always has to be a woman in a film like this.  Primitive War is certainly more enjoyable than those recent Jurassic World films.

 

The film was written by Ethan Pettus and Luke Sparke, the running time is 133 minutes.

1950 - AMERICAN GUERRILLA IN THE PHILIPPINES, bland Fritz Lang film.

The book American Guerrilla in the Philippines was purchased by the head of 20th Century Fox Darryl F. Zanuck towards the end of World War II.  The film version of the book was being prepared when studio head Zanuck decided to discontinue making the now exhausted genre of the propaganda film.  The film sat in limbo until it was reactivated a few years later with Fritz Lang as the director

 

For a film made five years after the war it's still mired in a 1940's World War II sensibility.  The Japanese are the demonic invaders, the American soldiers stranded in the Philippines are the usual cross section of good old GI Joe's, and there's lots of rah rah military music on the soundtrack.

The film is supposedly based on the actual experiences of a navel officer who was stranded in the Philippines during the Japanese invasion.  Along with some other stranded soldiers they set up a spy network to keep tabs on the activity of the enemy.  Since this was basically a script written during World War 2 there's the usual inappropriate love interest in this case a sexy French woman for the hero to romance.

 

The star of this film was one of Fox's biggest performers back from serving in the war, Tyrone Power.  Power was frankly starting to age out of these kinds of roles and he had started to lose his boyish good looks.  The female love interest was Micheline Presle who had been in an "ou la la" French film called Devil in the Flesh  a film about a love affair between a teenage boy and an older married woman.  Presle came over to California looking for a Hollywood career but as was typical ended up stuck in uninteresting pictures.

 

 

The director Fritz Lang had stated that this picture was his least favorite but he should be given credit for shooting this film on location and in color.  In 1950 this was still not a common occurrence and the fact that Lang turned in a professional job is worthy of some praise.  American Guerrilla in the Philippines is a mediocre film only redeemed by the on location color photography.

The film was written by Lamar Trotti, the running time is 105 minutes. 

1971 - LONG LIVE ROBIN HOOD, aka Archer of Fire

The macaroni version of the story of Robin Hood as filmed by the Italians.  It's the Robin Hood story told with a few different twists but it's still Robin Hood, I.E. he robs from the rich and gives to the poor etc.  

There's nothing particularly bad about this film.  The action is fairly decent and it's got big sets. The women are attractive in a sort of over made up 70's glamour gal kind of way.  Giuliano Gemma makes is a fairly lively Robin Hood.  American actor Mark Damon is Allan-a-Dale.  Damon is kind of an interesting character in the world of film.  He was an actor and appeared in some Roger Corman films and lots of spaghetti westerns.  He eventually moved into the world of film production and has many credits as a producer and executive producer.

 

Long Live Robin Hood has that kind of for lack of a better word "odd" feel to it.  Robin Hood is essentially an English legend but as this is an Italian film production so everything just seems a little off.  It reminds me of the Grace Kelly line to Cary Grant in Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief, "you're like an American character in an English film, you simply don't fit in."

There's a decent copy of Long Live Robin Hood on YouTube if you are so inclined and as they say, I've seen worse.

The film was written by Ennio De Concini, Mauel Torres Larreda, Giorgio Stegani and Andre Tranche^.  That 's a lot of writers for another rehash of the Robin Hood Legend. The running time is 103 minutes.

1940 - BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940, yet another innocous MGM musical

The biggest studio in 1940's Hollywood MGM was also the biggest at putting out really bland films only made watchable by the talented performers and technicians who worked on them.  Broadway Melody of 1940 has some amazing dancing by two of the best hoofers in Hollywood, Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire.  It also has one of the most tedious plots to sit through.  This is the usual hooey of a story of mistaken identities with at times gratingly low humor.

To be really brief, Astaire and his partner played by future Senator George Murphy end up getting involved with a Broadway star as she auditions for a new stage partner.  There's lots of tiresome confusion as she mixes up the identities of Astaire and his partner which just seems unending.  Throw in Frank Morgan, (the Wizard of Oz) for some really dumb humor about his being pursued by a beautiful woman for some reason.  Because the plot is so paper thin there are also specialty acts throughout the film.  A female juggler show up and, a guy on a unicycle bikes around for some reason.  All this just adds to the running time of the film and drags things out until the final musical number.  But frankly without these stupid specialty acts this film probably would have run less than an hour.  

 

However everything leads up to the splashy Begin the Beguine production number towards the end of the film.  Here is where MGM's production technicians really excel.  The film is expertly staged and photographed in dazzling black and white.  Most impressive in this number is the dancing of Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire at the top of their abilities.  Just watching them execute this number you can't help but think about the amount of time they rehearsed it to get it just perfect.

 

In fact the Begin the Beguine number has been excerpted a few times particularity in the MGM clip compendium That's Entertainment, it's really about the only reason to sit through this film.  You can see them perform this number on YouTube which will save you the time of sitting through this film.

This film was written by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer, the running time is 102 minutes.  

1979 - ELVIS, made for TV film on the life of Elvis Presley is really long

Probably not a lot of people know that John Carpenter's followup to his slasher film Halloween was this made for television film on the life of Elvis Presley.  Carpenter might have seemed like an odd choice for a film like this but he was a musician and had grown up in the South.  This was also Carpenter's first collaboration with Kurt Russell who was transitioning out of those Disney kid movies and into more mature film roles.

The cast for this film is interesting. Shelly Winters in all her hammy glory has the role Elvis's mother Gladys.  Bing Russell a character actor mostly in westerns and the father of Kurt plays the father.  Season Hubley is Priscilla Presley.  Hubley and Russell must have clicked because in real life they got married, well for a while anyway.  Also another favorite character actor Pat Hingle shows up as the legendary Col. Tom Parker.

 

This version of Presley's life was one of the most popular films on network TV.  It beat out showings of Gone With The Wind and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on the other networks much to the surprise of everyone.  As a film this was a very respectful tribute to Elvis and left out the more troubling aspects of his life, i.e. his drug use.  The first half of the film is best with Carpenter doing a good job moving the story along.  However Carpenter seemed to lose interest in the second half of the movie.  He appears to be going through the motions to get to the end of the story Elvis's comeback in Las Vegas.  At the time Elvis was called the ultimate Vegas lounge act by the critics.  Even for John Carpenter who worked with tight budgets early in his career, this film must have been an intense production.  He had 30 days to shot what was essentially a three hour film a major challenge for any filmmaker

 

This was an important film for Kurt Russell it gave cred as a film star.  He moved into more adult roles and working with Carpenter again in films like Escape From New York and The Thing toughened him up in the eyes of movie going public.  Elvis isn't really a great film but it does have some decent scenes and Kurt Russell certainly doesn't embarrass himself in the title role.

The film was written by the producer Anthony Lawrence, the running time is a mind bending 168 minutes.

1985 - ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS, attempt at making a good Christmas film

A little late with this one but it should still be considered as this is a well made Christmas film with good actors in it particularly Mary Steenburgen.  This is a Canadian production, the film was shot in Ontario instead of the over photographed city of Toronto which is the place for films set in New York which aren't filmed in New York.

Steenburgen plays the mother of a blue collar family.  She has a job in a supermarket as a cashier.  Her husband has been laid off from his job and they are about to be evicted from their home.  This film is obviously set during the Christmas season and it's safe to say that Steenburgen is not embracing the Christmas spirit this year.  Into the plot comes a Christmas angel who befriends Steenburgen's children and is tasked with helping her regain her Christmas spirit.  The angel is played by Harry Dean Stanton who is really cast against type in this film.  One Magic Christmas  is a little top heavy with some potentially tragic moments involving a bank robbery and Steenbugen's children almost dying but it's still a Christmas film in the tradition of It's A Wonderful Life, so you can expect a happy ending.

 

The film appears to have been actually photographed during the winter for a change and the setting of a blue collar city is a nice variation from the usual bogus Hallmark picture post card village that always shows up in their films.  The fantasy elements are handled in a very low key fashion which keeps the film from ending up as an overproduced special effects show and concentrates more on the characters.

 

One Magic Christmas was picked up for distribution by the Walt Disney company but for whatever reason the film was not really a financial success.  The reviews at the time were not that great which may have been the result of the film's setting and low key nature.  Still this is a very fine film and really deserves to be embraced as a corrective to most of those corny Christmas films that dominate the holiday season.

The film was written by Thomas Meehan one of Mel Brooks writing partners.  The running time is 90 minutes.

1996 - FIRE, a pioneering film about women in India

An extremely controversial film set in India in the 1990's.  This film's notoriety comes from being one of the first films to feature a lesbian relationship in an Indian film.  Apparently the male dominated society was not pleased with this film to put it mildly.  About the last thing Indian conservatives wanted was to have a discussion about gender and gay rights.

I do think protestors kind of missed the point of this film.  While the lesbian relationship is certainly present, it's actually handled fairly discretely.  The theme of Fire is really about the very repressive role of women in Indian society at the time this was filmed.  Of course you could probably make a good argument that women's rights in lots of countries aren't really what could be called on an equal footing with men.

The story, two women who have married into a family aren't exactly thriving on a personal or emotional level.  Sita, is married to a man named Jatin who is involved in an intense affair with a Chinese women who he is really in love with.  Jatin only married Sita as part of an arranged marriage.  The other sister in law Rhada, married to Jatin's brother Ashok can't have children.  This has caused Ashok to embrace the teaching of a religious leader who advocates the complete suppression of any kind of sexual desire.  Sita and Rhada while married are basically indentured servants to these two brothers.

The film was directed by a woman Deepa Mehta who was born and raised in India and eventually ended up living in Canada.  In fact Fire was partially financed with Canadian money.  The film has a nice feel for Indian culture.  The performances of the entire cast are at a high level and for a rather low budget film it's very well made and looks very good.  Fire is one of the more accessible dramas I have seen come out of India.

Deepa Mehta wrote the screenplau, the running time is  

1987 - GANDAHAR, another interesting science fiction film from René Laloux

Another visually striking science fiction film from Rene Laloux.  Gandhar has a fascinating story and at times some weird visuals.  It's the third and final feature for Laloux which had been preceded by Fantastic Planet and Time Masters.

 Gandahar's story is set in a future earth like planet inhabited by a female lead ruling council.  The council's scientists has developed a sophisicated organic technology over a more machine based approach in their daily existence.  One day Gandahar comes under attack by some robotic men who appear to be programmed to destroy Gandaharian society.  Needless to say the organic science is no match for the robot men.  Sent out by the ruling council, Sylvain, one of Gandahar's agents is tasked with learning the secret of the robot men and stopping them if possible

 

Simply put the film just looks interesting from a design point of view. The creatures featured in this film have fascinating looks to them particularly a race of mutants.  The animation is little more fluid than the animation in Fantastic Planet and the story moves along without any slow spots.   Definitely worth a look for science fiction fans not scared off by the animated film format.  This film also exists in an English version called The Light Years which replaced the original French music soundtrack with a more American sounding score.  It's probably best to stick to the original film.

 Gandahar was written by Rene Laloux, the running time is 79 minutes.