1974 - THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, B movie time

Everything about this film just screams B - movie.  To begin with the film is based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who had brought the world Tarzan.

The cast is headlined by American actor Doug McClure a mainstay mostly on television in particular the TV western The Virginian.  Because it is this kind of a film  there always has to be a girl, Susan Penhaligon is the lucky actor.  The rest of the cast is made up of journeymen British actors affecting German accents.

 

This film has one crazy story line.  During World War I a German U-Boat sinks a British merchant ship,  The survivors of the ship manage to somehow take over the U-Boat and they attempt to sail to a neutral seaport.  Instead they get lost and end up on a continent called Caprona which is full of dinosaurs, volcanoes and cavemen.

 

Well there's lots of fighting and running away from dinosaurs.  The dinosaurs are some sort of special effects using some kind of puppetry, they look kind of cheesy.  To cut to the chase, this film is what it is an adventure film for 12 year boys who like lots of fighting and dinosaurs.

Written by MIchael Moorcock and James Cawthorn, running time 91 minutes.

1997 - THE SECOND CIVIL WAR, surprising still relevent film about politics

 Joe Dante's satire on American politics, the media and just about everything else is 25 years old and the film is surprisingly contemporary considering our present day political climate.

It seems the Governor of Idaho who has been having an affair with a Hispanic news reporter has decided to close his state's borders to any new immigrants.  This prompts a crisis in Washington DC as the President of the United States and his advisors decide to confront the Governor.  Meanwhile a powerful cable news network is manipulating both sides of the crisis in order to secure higher ratings.  The whole situation eventually becomes an armed conflict between the state of Idaho and the Federal government.  While all of this is going on the Governor of Idaho is trying to rekindle his affair with the Hispanic reporter.

This is one of Joe Dante's best films as he skewers both sides of the crisis.  This story allows him to really show his satirical side.  Dante also has an excellent cast in this film.  Beau Bridges is the clueless Governor, Phil Hartman is the ineffectual President.  James Coburn is an advisor to the President who doesn't seem to have much good advice.  Meanwhile at the cable news network, Dan Hedaya is the manipulative news editor.  Dennis Leary is the cynical reporter covering the story and everyone is struggling with how to prevent preempting All My Children during this crisis.

 

The Second Civil War was made for HBO but I doubt they would finance a political satire like this today. Anyway,  the film is a good black comedy.

 

The film was written by Martyn Burke, the running time is 98 minutes.

1945 - HANGOVER SQUARE, efficent film noir

The old mad killer driven insane by voices in his head is given the 20th Century Fox treatment.  Hangover Square features Laird Cregar as a composer trying to finish his concerto before he goes completely "nuts".

 Laird Cregar went on a diet for this film.  He usually played corpulent bad guys but he got himself in shape to perform love scenes with Linda Darnell who plays a conniving music hall singer exploiting Cregar for his talent.  George Sanders is his usual reliable self playing a doctor trying to figure out what is going through Cregar's head.  He's an early version of Lt Colombo I guess.

 

For a modest film Fox had a lot of behind the camera talent involved.  The excellent black and white photography was by Joseph LaShelle who had filmed Laura and Marty to name just a few.  Probably the most important contribution was from the composer Bernard Herrmann.  Herrmann wrote what is now known as the "Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra".  The  Concerto is performed at the end of the film with the director John Brahm filming the scene with all the stops pulled out.

 

Written by Barré Lyndon, the running time is 78 minutes.

1923 - THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, first DeMIlle version

There are film historians who think that Cecil B. DeMille's first version of the biblical story about the Jew's exodus from Egypt,  is a lot better than his Vista Vision epic which he filmed in 1956,  the older version  certainly moves along story telling wise much better than the ponderous and very long version he remade with Charlton Heston.

DeMille and his writer Jeanie MacPherson sure keep things hopping along.  A decision to essentially split the film into two different stories allowed for DeMille to pour on the spectacle of the Bible story with large sets and impressive special effects for 1923.

 After the parting of the Red Sea in the first half of the film, the story jumps ahead to the present day and we get a tale that dramatizes the different Commandments as they apply to modern life. The modern tale is about two brothers, one who follows the Commandments and the other who doesn't and even  bad mouths God.  You know how he is going to end up.

 

Silent film brought out the best in DeMille, his staging and direction of the film is at times quite impressive.  Silent film also helped rein in the worst aspects of his film making, essentially sparing the audience from having to endure the ponderous dialog and wooden performances that usually plagued his sound films.

 

This film is an impressive achievement.  The running time is 136 minutes.

1981 - TIME BANDITS, cult fantasy film.

Terry Gilliam and some of his Monty Python pals dreamed up this fantasy film about some dwarfs who steal a map that allows them to travel through time.  The map belongs to the Supreme Being who is after them to get it back.  The dwarfs hook up with an 11 year old boy with their plan being that they will ransack different periods in history for gold.

This is Gilliam's idea of a family film, people are shot, blown up and the film ends with the boy's parents getting blasted.  The film is infused with the Monty Python humor since it was written by Gilliam and Michael Palin and there is plenty of that twisted absurdist goofiness.  Gilliam always had a strong visual sense, especially when it came to fantasy and the film looks very cool.

 

The film has a lot of recognizable English actors, John Cleese, Sean Connery, Ian Holm, David Warner (very amusing as the Devil), Sir Ralph Richardson (as the Supreme Being) and Peter Vaughan.  A couple of of American actors show up as well Katherine Helmond and Shelley Duvall. 

 

The running time is 113 minutes.

1991 - THE ROCKETEER, another attempt to start a franchise

Well the plan apparently was to set up The Rocketeer as a three picture franchise.  Unfortunately the film wasn't the financial success that the Walt Disney Company had hoped it would be.  Still, the film is entertaining especially when approached as a summer popcorn movie.

For a film about a guy who straps a rocket on his back without burning his butt.  It has fairly decent special effects before computers completely took over the special effects industry in Hollywood.  The director Joe Johnson had been associated with the Star Wars series and he probably knew his way around big budget effects driven films. 

The film is set in the 1940's and has fairly decent period detail to it.  The main leads Bill Campbell, the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly (21 years old at the time of filming), Alan Arkin and one time James Bond Timothy Dalton (hamming it up as a thinly disguised version of Erroll Flynn) do I good job of putting over this stuff.

 

I think the major problem with this film was a meandering script with brought in a lot of extra characters and subplots that weren't needed.  Also all of the 1940's references probably didn't mean much to contemporary audiences.

 

Anyway, the film is entertaining for the most part.  The film was written by Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo and William Dear.  The running time is 108 minutes.

2016 - THE NICE GUYS, entertaining private eye film

To bad audiences stayed away from this very entertaining film that takes that old warhorse the private eye film and adds some amusing twists and turns to it. 

Ryan Gossling and Russell Crowe play private investigators who initially seem completely incompatible.  They team up to solve the case of a missing teenage girl and during the investigation find themselves part of a bigger conspiracy involving the auto industry.  In fact there is really a third member of this team, Gossling's 13 year old daughter played by Angourie Rice who it turns out is smarter than Gossling and Crowe when it comes to unraveling this mystery.

 

The writer/director Shane Black along with Anthony Bagarozzi knows his way around private eye stories with a twist of humor black or otherwise.  The film has some very funny and violent situations and even the bad guys get clever lines to say.

 

It's unfortuate the film wasn't more financially successful as it would have been fun to see another team up between Shane Black, Ryan Gossling, Russell Crowe and Angourie Rice. The running time is 116 minutes. 

1990 - POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, it's all about Meryl

The third collaboration between Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols.  This is a film based on Carrie Fisher's barely fictional account of her drug addiction and relationship with her mother Debbie Reynolds played by Shirley MacLaine. 

At this point in his life Nichols was probably on the downside of career.  He was now putting together films that were slick entertainments for the most part.  But his days of making films like The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Carnal Knowledge appeared to be behind him.  Nichols was still a very skilled filmmaker who knew how to get the best out of his actors and could get the most out of a comic situation in his films.

 

Nichols apparently had considerable input into Carrie Fisher's screenplay and his satirical scenes of the filmmaking business were at times quite funny.  Since he had a considerable reputation in the theater and Hollywood he was able to attract some major performers in this case Gene Hackman (playing a thinly disguised version of Mike Nichols),  Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss and Simon Callow.  Nichols was even able to get a decent performance out of Dennis Quaid playing Meryl Streep's sort of love interest.

 

This is an entertaining film, however if you are looking for a semi serious examination of a woman attempting to overcome her drug addiction this isn't it.  What this film is actually about is a love letter to Meryl Streep who is in every scene.  Mike Nichols and Meryl Streep were admirers of each other and it certainly shows with Nichols favoring her in about every scene sometimes at the expense of the other performers.

The running time is 101 minutes.

1959 - THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE , aka Sampo

Another large scale mythological fantasy film from Aleksandr Ptushko.  This film complements my previous viewing of his large scale Russian epic Ilya Muromets.

The film was photographed in wide screen in Finland on some impressive wilderness locations.  The special effects are fairly decent for a 1959's film.

The story once again is a larger than life tale involving and evil witch capturing the sun which plunges the world into winter and darkness.

If you have a fondness for this type of epic film this and Ilya Muromets are worth a look

The screenplay is by Väinö Kaukonen Viktor Vitkovich and Grigori Yagdfeld.The film exists in many different versions, I watched the 91 minute edit.

1994 - THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! PART III, more of the same with a few variations.

The third in the series, the original film, That's Entertainment was a movie made up of clips from MGM's peak musical period.  The old time stars who had appeared in these musicals were brought in to provide some commentary, praising the genius of MGM's musical department.

That's Entertainment, Part II had Gene Kelly directing the introductions of yet more clips from MGM's musicals.  This time Kelly and Fred Astaire did the introductions and commentaries.  It was already apparent that most of the good stuff had been used in the first film.  That's Entertainment, Part II did have Astaire and Kelly performing in a couple of numbers.  The two legendary hoofers actually did pretty well considering their ages.

 
That's Entertainment! Part III had a few new twists to it besides the usual hodge podge of musical numbers.  Outtakes from numbers that didn't make it into any film were featured.  A bizzare number featuring some sisters who were contortionists didn't make the cut.  A number with Lena Horne cut from the all black musical Cabin In The Sky probably removed for censorship reasons when it played down south.  In addition, many numbers that were re-staged with different sets and costumes, apparently the filmmakers didn't feel the numbers were effective as originally performed.

This was all interesting stuff especially for film buffs.  Unfortunately the film finally settles down into it's familiar format with the veteran performers introducing numbers which lets face it were about the bottom of the barrel since the filmmakers had already picked over the good stuff for the previous films.

 

I guess if That's Entetainment! III proves anything it's that MGM which did had some of the finest technicians on staff did tend to cater to a very middle class audience.  A lot of the numbers in this film are extremely bland.

The film was written by  Bud Friedgen and Michael J. Sheridan who were the editors on all three of these films and the directors on this one.  The running time is 113 minutes.

1970 - THE CONFORMIST, should have been called The Fascist,

A film with a big reputation, Marcello Clerici played by Jean-Louis Trintignant wants to be part of the Fascist party in Italy during the 1930's.  To achieve this goal Clerici will assassinate a former college professor who is an anti-fascist.  The film flashes back through the life of Clerici as we see how he got to this point.

 

 Frankly the film seems a little weak with the explanations of the past scenes we see of Clerici's life in order to explain why he does what he does.  There seems to be a lot of two bit Freudian analysis for my taste. But I would be negligent to point out that this film is considered one of Bertolucci's best films.  

 

What can't be argued is the film's stunning cinematography by Vittorio Storaro.  Storaro has long been an advocate of photographing film where the use of color can be manipulated to create an emotional response in the viewer. Along with Bertolucci's staging the film certainly has a very stunning look.

 

The film was written by Bernardo Bertolucci and runs 108 minutes.  The Conformist is a flawed film but worth seeing.

1931 - RICH AND STRANGE, early Hitchcock comedy/drama

Another interesting restoration of an early Hitchcock picture.  Rich and Strange continues to show Hitchcock's progress as a filmmaker.  His career really doesn't start to take off until 1934 with his film, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

This is a rather typical romantic comedy where the husband and wife on an ocean cruise fall in and then out of love with other people and finally get reunited.  The film contains plenty of Hitchcock's humor and amusing situations.  But I would rate this as a minor Hitchcock film.

There's nothing wrong with restoring Hitchcock's early films but I wish the BFI would lavish some attention on some of his really quirky films like The Secret Agent, Young and Innocent and Sabotage.  These are the some of the most interesting pictures from Hitchcock's British period.  Rich and Strange is enjoyable enough but it would nice to have decent copies of the above mentioned films.

Of interest in this film is the actor Elsie Randolph who plays a very annoying passenger on the ocean cruise.  Randolph shows up again in Frenzy the film Hitchcock made towards the end of his career.

The screenplay is by Hitchcock his wife Alma Reville and Val Valentine.  The running time is 83 minutes.

1994 - IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, disappointing John Carpenter film

A private investigator played by Sam Neill is searching for a reclusive horror story writer who is supposed to be based on H.P. Lovecraft a writer from the 1930's but could just as easily be horror novelist Steven King.  As Neill delves into the whereabouts of the writer,  Sutter Cane played by creepy German actor Jurgen Prochnow.  Neill begins to suspect that his stories are actually becoming true.

This is a decent enough premise but unfortunately the execution of the idea is kind of a muddled mess.  The story confusingly jumps around with frenzied editing tricks, jump scares and yucky monsters that are reminiscent of Carpenter's The Thing which was a much better film.  

 

If I step back and objectively think about this film, Carpenter's direction is actually pretty good.  He stages the scenes well and the actors all give fairly decent performances.  The problem is the mess of a screenplay by the writer Michael De Luca who was also the executive producer.  De Luca was also responsible for the horrible Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone which is not to be confused with the good Judge Dredd film simply called Dredd.  

 

Unfortunately towards the end of his career, Carpenter struggled with finding stories that appealed to the film going audience. The running time is 95 minutes.

1944 - 30 SECONDS OVER TOKYO, the Doolittle raid told the MGM way

Coming in at an incredible 138 minutes, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo is one long haul of a World War II propaganda film.  The film tells the story of the famous Doolittle Raid which occurred 4 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The raid was a morale booster for the United States and sent a message to the Japanese that everybody was in this war for the long haul.

In MGM's version of the raid Van Johnson is the all American white guy along with Robert Walker as the hick from Montana.  They clearly stand in for what the military had in mind as examples of American servicemen who are just like you and me and are ready to get the job done.  Spencer Tracy portrays Colonel Doolittle and he has a few scenes but he basically steals the show from the other actors with his commanding performance.

The length of the film is probably due to all the time spent on Van Johnson's love life with the actress Phyllis Thaxter the stand in for American womanhood in this case.  We are frequently told how cute Thaxter is but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder to be charitable.

 

The most entertaining aspects of the film are unsurprising the training and actual raid over Tokyo which takes over most of the 2nd half of the film.  Here MGM's technicians and special effects crew really shine with some excellent special effects.  It looks like the B-25's actually blew up most of Tokyo unlike real life where the actual raid did very little damage to Tokyo.

The film was filmed by uninspired but competent director Mervyn Leroy.  Comparing this film to Howard Hawk's Air Force shows the difference between competent and excellent film making.  Air Force was propaganda as well but it was extremely well made and engaging.  This film is interesting but be prepared for a lot of boring lovey dovey stuff between Van Johnson and Phyllis Thaxter.