1920 - NEIGHBORS, Buster Keaton's version of Romeo and Juliet

After sitting through the almost 3 hour version of Romeo and Juliet called West Side Story it is a relief to see Buster Keaton's version of Romeo and Juliet.  Let's face it West Side Story gets mighty pretentious at times for a musical.

Keaton's film is set in the courtyard of a tenement building where Buster is in love with the girl next door. As in Shakespeare's story the families are feuding and Buster and the girl are forced to see each other on the sly.  There are a lot of very impressive slapstick scenes.  The tenement courtyard isn't really conducive as a location for humor.  However Keaton and his co-director Edward Cline came up with some really amazing stuff.  The film climaxes with Buster balancing the girl on his shoulders while being chased by her family.  What makes this chase special is that Keaton is on the top of two other individuals as they are being chased down the street.  Apparently these men were part of an acrobatic act.

 

The worst thing I can say about this film is that it has some stupid blackface humor which I never care for.  I did spot Buster's father Joe Keaton playing who else but Buster's father.  Neighbors gets the job done as another version of Romeo and Juliet and Keaton does Shakespeare one better, he has a happy ending instead of all that young love suicide stuff in the original.  Let's see the Bard top that.  Neighbors is available on YouTube.

 

The film was written by Buster Keaton and Edward Cline, the running time is 18 minutes.  

1920 - THE MARK OF ZORRO, a big jump forward for the Hollywood adventure film

 Silent superstar actor Douglas Fairbanks produced this film which was a real leap forward for the action film.  Fairbanks is the Robin Hood of old California Zorro. Fairbanks was known for doing his own stunts and in this film he is extremely impressive zipping around outwitting the evil colonial army.

In many ways this is still a very exciting film.  The action scenes still stand the test of time and Fairbanks along with Chaplin was one of the early superstars of Hollywood.  The screenplay was by Johnston McCulley.  Fred Niblo the director of the original Ben Hur was behind the camera. 

The film runs a fast paced 90 minutes.

2001, 2002 - THE HIRE, glorified, car commercials.

The marketing department at BMW got the brilliant idea to hire 8 top directors and have them shoot short films with the actor Clive Owen racing around in different model BMWs.

AMBUSH, by John Frankenheimer, a good car chase film.  Frankenheimer had directed Grand Prix and Ronin so he knew how to film exciting chases.

CHOSEN, by Ang Lee.  Also a fairly decent car chase film.  Probably the only interesting thing in it, Lee's little inside joke about The Hulk his big budget flop was the next film he directed.

THE FOLLOW, directed by the artsy fartsy Wong Kar-Wai, aims to be a mood piece but is just boring.

STAR, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring his then wife Madonna.  Madonna looks pretty bad and the film is about the driver embarrassing and humiliating her.  Almost prescient considering how Madonna and Ritchie's marriage ended.

POWDER KEG, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu wallows in it's stylization and pretentiousness, no fun.

HOSTAGE, directed by John Woo, only goes to prove that Woo should stick to filming scenes with Chow Yun-fat shooting thousands of bullets into guys instead of staging car chases.

TICKER, directed by Joe Carnahan, probably the best short film of the 2nd season, to bad Carnahan couldn't have brought this kind of interest to The A Team.

BEAT THE DEVIL, directed by Tony Scott.  The most annoying of all these short films, an attempt at a supernatural/ comedy/ action short film.  Filmed as usual by Scott like he had irritable bowel syndrome.

 Ambush and Ticker are probably the only two worth checking out.  This series is kicking around on YouTube.

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1920 - THE LAST OF THE MOHICIANS, another good silent film

The Indians are all played by white guys, there is the usual eye rolling silent acting, and they cut out major parts of the Cooper's book.  But this is still a very good version of The Last Of The Mohicians.

The directors are Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown.   Tourneur was the father of Jacques Tourneur and a good early silent film director.  Clarence Brown was a strong studio director and worked for MGM for many years.  These guys were craftsman in the best sense.  Tourneur and Brown took James Fenimore Cooper's boring book and cut it down to a decent little movie that emphasized the action and the love story between the native American and the white woman. 

A lot of the film was filmed on location at Yosemite National Park which gives it an authentic look.  The action scenes and fights are well directed and have some contemporary camera shots.

At 73 minutes this is an excellent well made early silent film with good action, beautiful on location scenery and good storytelling.