1971 - RED SUN, international cast, mediocre film

Charles Bronson and Alain Delon are the leaders of a gang of outlaws.  Bronson is a bad guy with a few redeeming qualities.  Delon is a bad guy with no redeeming qualities. Anyway the gang pulls off a train robbery loaded with a bunch of gold.  Also on the train is samurai Toshiro Mifune who is on his way to delivery a priceless sword to the President of the United States.  The bad guys steal the priceless sword and Delon double crosses Bronson.  So Bronson and Mifune team up to take down Delon and the gang.

 This is a western set in the United States but filmed in Spain.  It has an international cast. American Charles Bronson, Frenchman Alain Delon, Swiss actor Ursula Andress and from Japan Toshiro Mifune all bundled together in a movie that only a bunch of lawyers and agents could put together.  The film was directed by Englishman Terence Young who wasn't exactly known for filming westerns and probably was available.  

If you think this film might have a rather disjointed and contrived quality to it you would be right.  The film also has a lot of action and for 1971, blood.  If Bronson and Delon aren't shooting someone Mifune is dissecting them with his sword.   

 

Red Sun is for the very discriminating viewer who has caught up on all those old Hopalong Cassidy movies on YouTube which are frankly more entertaining than this poor man's version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  

 

The film was written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, William Roberts and Lawrence Roman, the running time is 112 minutes.

1948 - CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS, arty British drama full of gothic touches

This is an interesting film, kind of a cross between Hitchcock's Vertigo and Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.  The film's plot involves an eccentric wealthy artist (what else) Paul Mangin played by Eric Portman.  He believes he has found his reincarnated lover whose name is Mifanwy Conway (whew).  He manages to lure her to his extravagant villa where I guess they become lovers although it's hard to tell since this is a 1940's film.  After lots of scenes of Mifanwy wandering around the villa she manages to break free of his influence and ends up with some boring British guy and settles in for a nice boring domestic life unfortunately.

The film has lots of artistic photography and some very elaborate sets.  There is a scene set at a party hosted by Mangin that is an elaborate reincarnation of something the Borgias would have given in Renaissance Italy.  The set is really something to see.  No arguing that this is a very good looking film.

 

As for the acting, Eric Portman is the eccentric artist and he manages to give a good performance without sliding into some weirdo overacting thing.  The object of his obsession Mifanwy Conway is played by the screenwriter of the film, Edana Romney.  Unfortunately I don't think Romney really had the acting chops to pull the part of the possibly reincarnated love interest off.  She saunters around the villa in a perpetual state of overacting anxiety without really being able to convey the characters conflicted feelings about Paul Mangin.  

 

 The film was directed by Terence Young who was primarily and action director. Young's place in film history was as the director of three James Bond films with Sean Connery.  These films defined the series which obviously continues to this day.

The running time is 105 minutes.

1963 - FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - the 2nd James Bond film.

 The second in the Sean Connery James Bond series, and the film that locked in the series and the character for a while until the later films with Roger Moore became more outlandish.

The film for the most part closely follows the plot of the Ian Fleming book with the addition of adding the criminal organization SPECTRE to the mix. This at times makes for a rather confusing narrative, but the performances of the cast and in particular Sean Connery keep things entertaining.

The film also has the first scene of Bond getting introduced to his "gadgets."  In the case the tricked out attache case from Q branch.  As the series progressed this became a major trope from film to film as the gadgets became more outrageous.

 

Terence Young directed with a lot of the film shot on location in Istanbul.  Richard Maibaum wrote the screenplay.  The film runs 115 minutes.

1981 - INCHON, war movie from the Unification Church.

Inchon is the notorious war film financed by the Unification Church of Korea better known as the "moonies."  The film has gained a reputation as one of the worst films ever made.  After sitting through it I can report that it is not one of the worst films ever made.  In reality it is just another mediocre movie.

The story line is about General Douglas MacArthur's brilliant amphibious landing to retake the city and port of Inchon during the Korean War.  The move mixes the usual war scenes with some dreary romantic triangle stuff before the big battle.

The cast is certainly eclectic and somewhat notorious.  Laurence Olivier was hired to play Douglas MacArthur.  Ben Gazarra is his aide and the leader of a commando attack that saves the day.  Richard Roundtree is the token black guy and Jacqueline Bisset and her bosom play Gazzara's estranged wife.  Everyone is obviously here for the paycheck. 

The director Terence Young had seen better days directing the early James Bond films.  This was clearly a paycheck  job for him as well.

140 minutes screenplay by Laird Koenig and Robin Moore.

1970- COLD SWEAT, typical international action thriller.

Liv Ullmann has worked with many distinguished leading men in her career, Max Von Sydow, Gunner Bjornstrand, and Laurence Olivier.  Clearly the next step in her distinguished career was to match her formidable acting skills with one of the 1970's most popular leading men, Charles Bronson.

Cold Sweat has Ullmann, Bronson, and James Mason.  It was directed by Terence Young who in his better days had worked on the early James Bond films with Sean Connery.  This film is one of those international "Euro Crime" films, heavy on the action and very light on an actual plot that sort of makes sense.

Charles Bronson is comfortable beating people up, breaking necks and generally being a tough guy, but Liv Ullmann seems completely out of her element in this kind of film.  As far as playing Charles Bronson's wife, she has zero chemistry, no hugging or kissing or any of that affection stuff.  It's probably safe to say this was strictly "a take the money and run" acting job.  

 As usual with these kinds of films they are filmed on glamorous or exotic locations.  In this case the French Riviera.  One can assume the cast and crew had a very nice stay during the production. 

94 minutes, written by Shimon Wincelberg, Jo Eisinger and Dorothea Bennett.

1965 - THUNDERBALL, looks good on high def

When you're hot your hot and Sean Connery's James Bond series was on fire after Goldfinger.  The producers needed a film for Christmas 1965 and rushed Thunderball into production.  Besides the main unit, there were three 2nd unit teams filming at the same time.

The director Terence Young apparently became fed up with this mess and quit the production leaving the editor Peter Hunt to patch the film together.  Re-watching the film this week was a minor ordeal over three nights.  For the most part nothing really happens in Thunderball until about 45 minutes into a film that is over two hours.

Still, this is Sean Connery in his prime, the photography looks great on location in the Bahamas and the special effects and underwater action sequences play pretty well.  Ken Adam, designed the incredible Disco Volante, Peter Hunt is still the man when it comes to editing the fight scenes, Maurice Binder starts to create his semi dirty title sequences and John Barry ties it together with one of his better scores for a Bond film.

Thunderball still has some basis in reality, the next film You Only Live Twice slides off the cliff into unreal science fiction as the series starts to enter it's own fantasy world.

130 minutes, written by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.