1993 - TOMBSTONE, back at the OK Corral

Back in Tombstone again in 1993 with another big budget production of the Wyatt Earp saga.  This time the script aims to stick a little closer to the facts and follows up the shootout at the OK Corral with all of the bloody revenge killings that occurred afterwards.  The writer Kevin Jarre probably got as true to the actual story as any Hollywood studio would allow.

Unfortunately for Jarre, who started out as the director of Tombstone, he was removed and replaced by George Pan Cosmatos director of such action junk as Rambo 2, Escape from Athena, and Cobra. This insured that Tombstone would have plenty of violence.

The cast of Tombstone is somewhat impressive, Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton and Val KIlmer stealing the film as Doc Holliday.  Also somewhat impressive are the mustaches these guy sport throughout the film.  At times it's impossible to tell who is who with all the facial hair everywhere.

Tombstone is a decent attempt to tell an interesting and mostly true story about the America West which ends up in the second half of the film as just a lot of people getting shot up.  It is not an especially memorial or great western.

130 minutes.

1973 - MASSACRE IN ROME, interesting true World War II story.

Probably not a great film but a very interesting one.  In 1944 as the Allies were closing in on Rome, Italian resistance fighters killed 33 German soldiers.  In retaliation the Germans killed 330 Italians and buried them in a mine in Rome.  The film tells the story of the efforts of an Italian priest played by Marcello Mastroianni  to stop the German commander played by Richard Burton. 

The director George Pan Cosmatos was not known for making this kind of film.  He was usually associated with big budget action films like, Rambo, Cobra and The Cassandra Crossing.  On this film he actually has a screenwriting credit.

For a couple of past their prime acting hams, Burton and Mastroianni are pretty restrained.  I almost believed for a minute that they were real characters.  Burton has always been kind of a sad case as an actor, I guy who kind of threw away his talent during his career.  He is actually pretty good in this film. 

Massacre in Rome has some interesting criticisms of the Catholic Church, the Vatican and the Pope who if he didn't sanction it made no effort to stop it.  Probably the most depressing aspect of this film is the brutality of the killing the Germans committed.  A further example of the human race's ability to inflect pain and suffering on their own species.   

110 minutes, written by Robert Katz and George Pan Cosmatos.

1979 - ESCAPE TO ATHENA, light weight action film with a one of a kind 1970's cast.

Typical 1970's action/comedy/war film with a bizzaro cast to put it mildly.

First off, you have the romantic team of Telly Savalas and Claudia Cardinale.  Sonny Bono, and Richard Roundtree are wandering around in it for no particular reason.  Roger Moore is playing a German prison camp officer and Elliott Gould and Stephanie Powers are USO entertainers who are prisoners in Roger's POW camp.  Old time Hollywood star David Niven is also in it playing some sort of art historian good at mowing down German's occasionally.

The plot has something to do with stealing Greek art treasures and German V-2 rockets which are going to be used against the invading Allied fleet.  Lots of stuff gets blown up and lots of machine guns get shot.  This is all kind of standard undemanding action crap for the most part with the exception of an exciting motorcycle chase.  It's shot on location in Greece so it looks real pretty.

The chief reason to watch this junk is Telly Savalas who is an actual Greek.  He walks through his role as Zeno a former Monk.  Savalas acts like this whole save the Allies from the German V-2 rockets plot is basically just a big joke, which it obviously is.

You can spend worse ways to squander your life away then watching Escape to Athena.

125 minutes