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Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002)
The Forgotten Sound of Young America
This musical documentary brings to the forefront the session musicians known as the Funk Brothers who played on all those fantastic Motown hits of the 60s. Made in 2002, it brings together as many of them as were still alive at the time to tell their story and also pay tribute to their colleagues who had since passed away. Although you could argue that there was a Motown "sound", as a fan of all those records since I was a boy, for me each artist sounded different and it's remarkable to think that these guys (unlike with their Wrecking Crew counterparts, there don't appear to have been any female players in their number) created all those contrasting backings.
The film takes them back to the Hitsville studio in Detroit for an emotional reunion not only with the studio itself but of course with each other. They very quickly reconnect with one another and spark off lots of reminiscinces and anecdotes. So far, so good.
However where this no doubt out well-intentioned feature fails in my eyes is ironically in not paying enough tribute to the real creators at the studio, viz the artists and producers. It's claimed at one point that Smokey Robinson would come in with the bare bones of a song and the musicians effectively put all the flesh on the bone almost as part of the creative process which somehow I just didn't buy. I'm sure they would contribute some ideas of their own to the making of a record, but they were still backing musicians at the end of the day. Did they deserve credit for what they did, absolutely and its 100% correct that we now are aware of the brilliance of players like drummer Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson as well as the unofficial group leader Earl Van Dyke. It's also cool that back in the day the composition of the group was multi-racial as evidenced by white players Joe Messina and Bob Babbitt.
Did some of the stories told by the old boys sound a little exaggerated and even apocryphal? Well, I guess that's only natural when looking back so far in their memories. I would certainly like to have known if they were well treated by Motown although it's significant that the label effectively broke the mould by suddenly upping sticks to LA in 1972, leaving many of the players jobless.
As a film itself I did feel that this production could have been a lot tighter. Pointless reproductions of the past are carried out by anonymous actors and the story-telling is punctuated with a reunion concert by the boys in the band but unfortunately the songs aren't sung by any of the great names of the past but instead are performed in an inferior way by largely B and C list artists like Eddie Levert, Joan Osborne and Ben Harper. I'm a fan of Bootsy Collins and Chaka Khan but personally struggle to see their connection with the label. I'd much rather they had inserted vintage video footage of the actual artists themselves performing these great hits and in the end I had to fast forward myself through these sub-standard performances.
You also have to wonder while Martha Reeves and producer Paul Riser say a few words, why the real giants of the label Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and many other of the then surviving Motown legends weren't anywhere to be found to give their side of the story which I'm sure would have been complimentary to the brothers.
In the end, my feelings about this movie were that while I appreciated it's attempt to reach out to tell this forgotten story, ultimately it left me somewhat upright with its execution.
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939)
Well Offside!
I have an abiding interest in football from bygone eras, especially when I watch today's money-soaked apology for the beautiful game. So I was naturally interested in this old British movie made just before the outbreak of the Second World War, centring as it does on two football matches played at Arsenal's famous old Highbury ground, which itself was closed down some fifteen years or so ago. Moreover it features rare footage of some of the star players from that great team of the time, when they dominated English football, including names like Eddie Hapgood, Cliff Bastin and Ted Drake, all English internationals. None of the actual players can be trusted with much more than a cursory line or background nod of the head but their then manager George Allison actually features quite prominently.
All the players are filmed mostly on the pitch, either in long-shot from an actual game played against Brentford F. C. or in rather unconvincing simulated close-ups on the field of play. In the story, Arsenal are pitted against a supposedly top-notch amateur side here called the Trojans in two charity matches, the second one a replay after the first one is abandoned when one of the Trojan players collapses and dies on the field of play during the game itself, sadly not a unique occurrence in football.
It turns out the player was the Trojans' star player but who was s unpopular with his teammates owing to his womanising ways which include canoodling with the girl of one of his fellow-players. Much is made throughout about the players' code of loyalty to the team, but this guy must have been a bad egg who somehow slipped the net. Not long afterwards the Harlow-esque blonde with whom he was having the affair dies, meaning the race is on to capture the killer who seems to make no attempt to escape at least until after he's played his part in the follow-up match.
Following their noses are a Scotland Yard detective and his diligent, dimwitted second-in-command who after lots of running about and really rather a lot of time talking on the phone, finally catch their man black rather than red-handed.
Like I said I was grateful to see the contemporary football footage but really everything else about this film was rather turgid and poorly acted. Including some odd scenes, presumably intended for comic effects, with the detective rehearsing some of his jolly coppers on parade wearing tutus for some revue of sorts, this is one film about the old plod that really does plod along. The camera work is largely static, (barring a game attempt at collage near the end) everyone seems to be speaking their lines the minute after they've just read them and the dialogue is as dull as yesterday's porridge.
The equivalent of watching a 0-0 draw in the pouring rain, this is one film which doesn't stay long in the memory.
Head (1968)
Head's Up
By the time this movie came out, the Monkees had, within two short years put their names to five studio albums, twelve singles, two seasons (58 episodes!) of their television series, toured three times (once in the UK) and finally got around to making their first movie just as their popularity was beginning to wane. By then, the cat was out the bag about the group being a fiction, in the sense that they didn't play the instruments on most of their early records. By the mid-late 60's, this couldn't have been more uncool with music critics. So could this movie turn their fortunes around? Sadly not, as it in fact turned out to be a resounding flop and was roundly panned as pretty much a mess by the majority of film critics at the time.
How does it stand up now? Well, personally I loved the TV show, and the best of their singles, although the albums I found to be patchier affairs, although they were still massively successful with the general public. At the time the movie project came up, things were starting to fray within the group (Tork actually quit before the movie was released), as they gamely put their trust in director Bob Rafelson and novice writer, one Jack Nicholson esquire.
Anyway, I came to it with an open mind and must admit I really enjoyed it. Everyone was always comparing The Monkees to the Beatles and I'm not going to be any different but I do see this feature as one the Beatles could easily have made if you follow the progression from their three prior movies up to this same point, from the monochrome vérité of "A Hard Day's Night", through the colourful escapism of "Help!" and then the psychedelic weirdness of "Magical Mystery Tour".
Right from the title, "Head" goes even further out there, but by the time 1968 had rolled around, the Summer of Love had turned to the year of revolution and assassinations. "Head" addresses this with its anti-war message, even including the infamous tele-video footage of the execution of a young Vietnamese boy, but clearly the Monkees were the wrong messengers and ended up getting themselves shot in the process.
Me, I found it mad-cap and surreal but funny too. Of course it doesn't all work. How could it when reportedly its running time was slashed by the studio bosses of some 50 minutes or so. It starts in blackness and ends in blackness, with no opening titles. Confused? - you will be, but hang in there and go with the flow. Clearly the individual band members do as they willingly participate in every mad skit, which include an exchange between Davy Jones and Frank Zappa, a boxing match with Sonny Liston and Victor Mature as the jolly green giant.
There's even some music to go with the madness and it's surprisingly good too, from the wonderfully druggy Goffin-King (of all people!) - written "Porpoise Song", Nesmith's careering live take of "Circle Sky", Davy's knockabout dance routine with Toni Basil to Nilsson's bitter-sweet "Daddy's Song" and even Peter Tork's irreverent "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?".
Castigated for being the ultimate (at the time) manufactured band, the group are in on the joke from the start with many references in the script to their prefabricated origins. Rafelson and Nicholson throw everything at the movie, with meta-on-meta references abounding, distorted colour-wash photography and breaking down the fourth wall while also poking fun at consumerism, celebrity, the police, sexual mores and the movie-making process itself as they spoof Westerns, spy-features, sci-fi flicks and yes, cheap pop-group cash-ins too.
Of course it doesn't work all the time but I was left at the end much more entertained than I was perplexed and wondering about just what had been lost in the enforced edit.
What a way to go out!
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
Deaf Dumb and Kind
This is a film I recall watching on TV some fifty years ago not long after its theatrical release and it has stayed with me so that I was glad to recall it to mind with a recent viewing.
With no established stars in the line-up, it's an ensemble piece even if it does feature soon-to-be prominent actors in the forthcoming 70's like Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke and a solid supporting cast including Cicely Tyson in their number.
Adapted from Carson McCullers' 1940's novel and set in Jefferson in the American South, although it's unclear at times if we're in the early 40's or the late 60's, the story revolves around Arkin's ironically-named John Singer, a deaf mute who opts to move to the bigger town to stay close to his recently institutionalised deaf-mute friend. He finds accommodation there with a struggling couple who have a daughter and son, but who are of necessity freeing up the older daughter's room to garner them extra money now that the man of the house has become permanently disabled at work and is confined to a wheelchair. Their mid-teen daughter, Locke's strangely-named Mick, to no doubt accentuate her tomboy nature, is naturally put-out by this and is initially resenrful of Singer's presence. However, when he plays up to her love of classical music, she eventually sees in him a fellow-outsider as they bind into a friendship of sorts.
Singer also encounters two other citizens in need of redemption, firstly a drunken, self-harming bum played by Stacy Keach Jr. And the other a hard-pressed black doctor Percy Rodrigues who has a prickly relationship with his resentful adult daughter, played by Tyson. At first, Singer's do-good nature appears to have a positive impact on these people's lives, but ultimately for each of them reality gets in the way to upset their aspirations and in the end his self-sacrificing demeanour leads to the ultimate sacrifice in a downbeat ending.
The episodic narrative touches on many broader issues, besides the most obvious and nowadays very contemporary issue of the rights of the disabled and mentally disturbed in society, the film also deals with the subject of institutional racism, while also including a rites of passage for Mick and her awakening sexuality.
Singer is clearly posited as an allegorical figure who in his white suit and selfless positivity tries to help others but in the end does so at great personal cost to himself. Personally, I felt the film was somewhat overloaded in its good intentions with some of the resolutions just seeming too pat to be believable, particularly the black daughter's enmity to her well-meaning father and Singer's own final desperate act.
While I may not have agreed with aspects of the narrative or characterisations, there were other things to admire in the film. Veteran cameraman James Wing Howe's cinematography is wonderfully vibrant and colourful, the direction by Robert Ellis Miller is largely sensitive and understated and there are some fine performances too in front of the camera. Most obviously Arkin shines in the Singer role - you feel watching him that twenty years later he'd have won the Oscar - Locke too as the blossoming teenage girl, especially as she was in real life many years older than her character's intended age, although that charge holds for Tyson in her role.
While I can now see some of the production flaws I obviously missed before, the film still has an emotional punch to it, even if it sometimes seems to throw too many of them at the viewer and they don't always land.
Presumed Innocent (2024)
Rusty Nailed?
I tried hard but I found it difficult to block out my old memories of the previously successful 1990 film adaptation of Scott Turow's novel of the same name. I kept anticipating the big twist I knew was bound to emerge in the final episode but was actually caught on the hop, no bad thing, by the different ending contrived this time.
Stretched out to eight 42-minute episodes there was naturally a lot more time to develop situations and introduce more characters and their motivations although whether this made for a better viewing experience is another matter. Jake Gyllenhaal, who always looks as if he's on the verge of bursting into tears, gets lots to work with here in the Rusty Sabich role played earlier by Harrison Ford. He's the deputy prosecuting district attorney of Chicago and is favoured to succeed his older boss when the latter steps down on the grounds of both age and general health. That all changes however at the next election which deposes both the DA and his deputy with the new DA quickly installing his own man, Sabich's rival, the generally disliked Tommy Molto, as the new no. 2. The two men are presented as opposites, Sabich the immaculously dressed, successful and popular family man with his pretty wife and two kids, living in luxury with the swimming pool in the back garden. Molto, by contrast is dishevelled, single, living alone with just his cats for company and is largely disliked by almost everyone around him. Importantly it's Rusty who makes it with their co-worker, the attractive and intelligent Caroline while Tommy, who clearly has feelings for her too, is met only with her derision.
The action then centres on Caroline's brutal murder in her own home, her battered body inhumanely trussed up in the style of another recent murder victim, although that perpetrator is now in jail. We learn that she was carrying Rusty's child and wanted out of the relationship but that an obsessed Sabich wasn't prepared to let her go and not only bombarded her with text messages but visited her on the night of her death. This obviously makes him the prime suspect and when he's later charged, his subsequent trial becomes the hottest thing in town, especially when the new DA puts Molto onto the case as lead prosecutor.
From there, the narrative takes on numerous turns and twists as we see close-up the effect of the trauma on Sabiich's family, comprising his wife and late-teen daughter and son. Meanwhile as internal politics rage in the DA's office, various other potential suspects are paraded before us, everything leading up to the climactic extended murder trial which contains some shocks and surprises of its own. The trial verdict is delivered only about halfway through the final episode leaving time for the big reveal which while it caught me on the hop, probably only did so because it was so improbable.
Be that as it may, there was much to commend in the production. I personally wasn't taken with the acting of Gylenhaal and particularly Ruth Negga as his troubled wife, being much more impressed by the actors playing the old and new DA, the trial judge and especially Peter Sarsgaard as Molto. My main criticisms would be the overuse of dream sequences and flashbacks plus that old bugbear of mine, especially in US-made dramas, of unrealistic unnatural-sounding dialogue (just what does "the there, there" mean?) and especially young teenagers talking as if they're mature adults.
I will go back and rewatch the movie in the near future but even if this drawn-out remake seemed in some ways unnecessary and irrelevant, it was at least mostly watchable and entertaining.
The Spy in Black (1939)
Substitutes and Submarines
Noteworthy as the first collaboration between the celebrated British - Hungarian film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, although this film is set at the time of World War 1, it was made in 1938 and released just weeks before the outbreak of the Second World Wars so that it isn't difficult to imagine P & P anticipating coming events in this production.
Compressed into just eighty-odd minutes it fairly rattles along as we follow the fortunes of a German U-Boat commander who is given a special solo mission to meet a fellow German agent on the remote island of Orkney, off the north tip of Scotland with the ultimate purpose of intercepting and sinking a significant number of British ships at Scapa Flow. His fellow-spy is a young, attractive woman, who has assumed the guise of a new school teacher but who has been kidnapped and thrown into the sea en route by a pair of German female agents.
Their deadly plan relies on the inside knowledge provided to them by a renegade British navy officer but when the original teacher's fiancé, a gung-ho vicar, not to mention another elderly couple who befriended the substituted girl before she was taken, puts the cat amongst the pigeons, requiring a quick change of plans by the scheming pair. There's a big reveal of double-double agents which transforms the narrative before it all ends up in a tense and deadly face-off between the German sub and a small boat commandeered by the Germans with the British Navy also on hand.
With more twists and turns than a slalom skier, it pays to pay attention to the fast-novibf acting. Conrad Veidt as the U-Boat captain isn't portrayed as a stereotypically cruel German protagonist but as one who has emotions as we see in his attraction to his contact, played by the plummy-voiced Valerie Hobson, later to be Mrs John Profumo of Scandal infamy as well as his final act at the end of the film.
While P & P were better known for their fantasy films under their Archers moniker some years later, here they knock out a very efficient and satisfying wartime thriller. Powell gives up hints of his coming directorial flair in a number of imaginative camera shots but here he mainly demonstrates his ability to tell a story and convey character.
All in all, a bright beginning for a partnership which would go on to make some of the best movies in the whole medium.
Contraband (1940)
Not so Great Danes
This was only the second collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and like most of their early features was inspired by the British war effort. It shows some early promise without being in any way what you'd call one of their major works.
In many ways it's a routine British wartime drama based in London, although unusually it centres the action on Conrad Veight's Danish navy officer who finds himself involved in a Nazi plot to discredit ships sailing under neutral flags and so set Britain against its then potential ally, the United States.
Along the way he acquires the help of a number of his fellow-countrymen who staff a plush restaurant as well as feisty undercover British agent Valerie Hobson but after a few scares and alarms, the final outcome is pretty much as you'd expect.
The film strives to mix a little comedy and even a spark of romance between Veight and Hobson in amongst the drama but it doesn't really get off the ground in any significant way. There's a scene where Veight and Hobson, who we've already seen start to spark off each other, are tied up together which immediately brought to mind the famous handcuffs scene in "The 39 Steps" a few years earlier with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll but Powell plays it disappointingly straight with not a hint of the sexiness Hitchcock captured so cheekily. In his movie.
There are, as you'd expect, some neat directorial touches from Powell, with some fluid camera-work showing some German Expressionist influences especially with so much of the action shot either in the dark or at night time. Elsewhere though, the film suffers from a degree of stodginess, forced humour and some rather stiff and stagy acting.
P and P were yet to really load up their arrows with their Archers production company, making this film more of a curio in their catalogue rather than a substantial entry.
Stick with them though, they would pretty soon be hitting the target after this run-out.
Contraband (1940)
Not so Great Danes
This was only the second collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and like most of their early features was inspired by the British war effort. It shows some early promise without being in any way what you'd call one of their major works.
In many ways it's a routine British wartime drama based in London, although unusually it centres the action on Conrad Veight's Danish navy officer who finds himself involved in a Nazi plot to discredit ships sailing under neutral flags and so set Britain against its then potential ally, the United States.
Along the way he acquires the help of a number of his fellow-countrymen who staff a plush restaurant as well as feisty undercover British agent Valerie Hobson but after a few scares and alarms, the final outcome is pretty much as you'd expect.
The film strives to mix a little comedy and even a spark of romance between Veight and Hobson in amongst the drama but it doesn't really get off the ground in any significant way. There's a scene where Veight and Hobson, who we've already seen start to spark off each other, are tied up together which immediately brought to mind the famous handcuffs scene in "The 39 Steps" a few years earlier with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll but Powell plays it disappointingly straight with not a hint of the sexiness Hitchcock captured so cheekily. In his movie.
There are, as you'd expect, some neat directorial touches from Powell, with some fluid camera-work showing some German Expressionist influences especially with so much of the action shot either in the dark or at night time. Elsewhere though, the film suffers from a degree of stodginess, forced humour and some rather stiff and stagy acting.
P and P were yet to really load up their arrows with their Archers production company, making this film more of a curio in their catalogue rather than a substantial entry.
Stick with them though, they would pretty soon be hitting the target after this run-out.
Grace: Not Dead Enough (2022)
Call in the Cliché Cops
This second episode of Series 2 of "Grace" starring John Simm in the title role of Roy Grace, the troubled detective working the Brighton beat, started with him coincidentally (note that word!) on the scene on the beach just as the body of a dead woman is washed ashore. More of that later.
We then cut to a murder scene in the bedroom of a rich IT guy and his wife, where the wife has just been strangled to death while being tied naked to her bed in an apparent sex-crime. The husband naturally becomes the prime suspect but how can he be the killer when we know he spent the same night with his black girlfriend. Then, when the girlfriend too is soon afterwards killed in the same way, the reasonable question arises in the investigation, why would the supposed killer murder his alibi.
The story spins out from there utilising a like I said massively coincidental twist utilising one of the oldest and most clichéd plot devices in crime drama. Other coincidences include the tie-in between the dead body on the beach and the death of the two women before another cliché rocks up when Roy's new girlfriend from the mortuary department becomes the murderer's next target leading up to Roy coincidentally appearing at said girlfriend's house just when the killer arrives and you can pretty much guess the ending from there.
Simm strolls through the lead role bringing some welcome calm to a plot-heavy narrative which crammed way too much into its ninety minute running time. Similarities to a previous TV detective who played the loner, worked in a scenic English town, had a diligent and dutiful sidekick, also the deduction powers of Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Columbo combined and, here's the kicker, had five letters in his name, seem somewhat intentional but hardly inspirational.
I remain to be convinced that this by-the-numbers progrsmme is the best vehicle for such a good actor as Simm. Let's hope the writing picks up for the next episode in the series.
Kin: Episode #2.8 (2023)
'Kin' Good
My wife and I don't do binge-watching as a rule but even we hurried on to watch series two of this Irish-made family crime drama set in Dublin after the excellence of series one.
This series certainly maintained that standard in terms of both the storytelling and the acting. The biggest development this time had to be the release from prison of the oldest Kinsella, the brutish and domineering Brendan or Big Bren as he's known. Brother to Frank and Birdy and father to Jimmy and Michael,, he quickly returns to a life of crime and re-establishes himself as the head of operations, shoving aside the visibly weakening Frank and immediately setting up a power struggle in the family with Jimmy and Eric in his thrall. On the other side, ranged against him are Amanda and Michael with Birdy trying to hold the jackets on the sidelines before she too is forced to take a side. Cruel and violent, Bren is as subtle as a flying mallet, putting him at direct odds with Amanda's scheming to prevent a war the family can't win against the Turkish cartel now demanding a heavy price be paid for Michael's unintentionally "clipping" the son of the overlord.
As before, several meaty sub-plots are played out as we see the Kinsellas warring with each other. Amongst them are the discovery of Bren's latent paedophilic tendencies, shockingly directed at Michael's school-age daughter Anna, Frank's degeneration into dissipation, the break-up of Jimmy and Amanda's marriage, the testing of Eric and girlfriend Nikita's relationship when the latter is charged for complicity to murder, Eric's ordeal in being ordered to take care of "the rat", his friend and underling Kem, Michael's continuing attempts to build a relationship with his daughter Anna as well as entering into a relationship with the young female assistant at the pharmacist where he gets his anti-epilepsy medication and crucially, the struggle for the soul of Jimmy and Amanda's 16 year-old son Anthony who is tempted into the family business by the power, status and riches it seems to confer.
With the police about a million miles behind in pursuit, it's all about the Kinsellas with again numerous twists and turns too numerous to mention as well as some genuinely shocking and cliff-hanging scenes to keep you watching every second.
Gritty, realistic and addictive, this was crime drama at its best, certainly one of the best of its kind I've yet seen. Contractual issues among the cast have reportedly stalled the possibility of a third series which would be a shame as you just know there are other stories which could play out, but if this is to be a "two and through" deal, it certainly went out on a high.
Some Girls Do (1969)
Hey Bulldog
An awful title for a pretty awful film. I bought into this second and final movie updating Sapper's 1920's fictional hero Hugh (Don't call me Bulldog!) Drummond to the Swinging 60's after quite enjoying its predecessor "Deadlier than the Male". The formula's pretty much the same, Drummond has to foil his arch enemy Carl Peterson after a number of prominent aeronautical scientists get bumped off, the dirty deeds again carried out by two glamorous young women, although they are different girls from the first feature (not surprising really as those two were blown to bits at the conclusion).
This time the twin temptresses are Daliah Lavi and Bebe Loncar, both hired by Peterson who seems to have somehow survived his own apparent demise from the film before, even if he now has a different face and indeed, body this time. Well if it was good enough for Blofeld in succeeding Bond movies...
Gone too, thankfully, is Drummond's irksome nephew, replaced this time by a doe-eyed young woman who goes by the unlikely name of Flicky who attaches herself to our hero for reasons which become apparent later on. There is though a frightfully stiff-upper-lip civil servant who attaches himself to Drummond for some rather misplaced comic relief.
In "Deadlier..." Drummond had to contend with robotic chess men, here it's robotic young women. But perhaps the biggest foe he has to face are the the terrible back projections used when he's accomplishing yet another supposedly death-defying escape from danger.
Unlike the first film which had its moments, this pale imitation lacks any of the, I hesitate to call it, verve of its forerunner. If anything too, it's even more condescendingly sexist for the time, with one or two particularly cheap and vulgar remarks spoken aloud which really should have been red-lined out of the script.
Richard Johnston again strolls through the Drummond part but even he doesn't seem to really believe in the film. The only originality I witnessed were the topical references to supersonic commercial flights and bizarrely a spot-on prediction of those robotic vacuum cleaners we all wish we could afford. Otherwise with a bland Johnny Mathis theme tune, weak action sequences, no big finish to speak of and a limp script lacking any real spark, this one really was a load of old bull.
Deadlier Than the Male (1967)
Wherever Hugh May Go
There were innumerable James Bond knock-offs and spin-offs after the massive success of Ian Flaming's top agent on the big screen, with most of them - Matt Helm, Derek Flint and Modesty Blaise going the comedic, camp route. Sapper's Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond predated old 007 into print by several years but here even he gets a swinging 60's makeover and becomes irresistible to women, an expert fighter in many disciplines and of course gets caught up in a world domination plot.
There are actually a number of occurrences in this movie which both borrow from and even prefigure future Bond productions. Examples of the former would be having a title song performed by a contemporary chart act, in this case The Walker Brothers, our hero's number one nemesis is a suave and sophisticated Blofeld-like megalomaniac who employs a hefty Oriental henchman a la Oddjob while the employment of two female assassins looks forward to the Bambi and Thumper deadly duo from "Diamonds are Forever". Oh and there are plenty of other glamorous girls milling around to tempt our hero only some of which he manages to resist.
Anyway, Drummond is called into action when a number of top businessmen suddenly start dying in mysterious circumstances. The dastardly deeds are perpetrated by two beautiful female agents who undress to impress as they use their feminine wiles to aid their killing spree, one of their victims proving to be a suited and booted Leonard Rossiter, years before his similarly clad well-known TV role as Reginald Perrin.
Drummond of course comes to the rescue, with his rather randy, dimwitted nephew in tow and after some limited globe-trotting ultimately faces off against the big baddie of the piece, the suavely elan Carl Peterson. Our hero has to survive a few unusual murder attempts involving shooting cigars and automated life-size chess pieces before he ultimately has to save the life of a handsome young foreign king, by another act of naked bravado.
Okay, so it's obvious that the film hasn't the budget of a Bond movie to really up the ante and yes, the women in the cast, even the murderous twosome, are mostly there to pander to the male gaze, but on the whole it somehow manages to just about navigate the thin line between kitsch and if not quite classy, then competence at least.
Director Ralph Thomas apparently only took the gig for the money but does a reasonable job in keeping the action moving. Richard Johnson too is fine as Drummond, even if he lacks the ruggedness and danger of Connery. Elke Summer and Sylva Koschina vamp it up in a host of fashionable outfits and Nigel Green is convincingly smooth as Peterson.
Thomas reportedly said he thought he was directing the pilot of a future TV series and the movie certainly has that vibe, if you think about contemporary hit shows like "The Saint", "Department S" and the slightly later "The Persuaders". I was a boy who soaked up all these shows in my youth so I'm not going to sit too harshly in judgement of this particular romp. In fact I might even look up its little known follow-up "Some Girls Do"...
Jaws (1975)
In the Shark-fin Soup
Spielberg's big commercial breakthrough followed up his earlier "Duel" with another often invisible, inhuman murderous thing wreaking havoc in its path.
Of course, this time, as opposed to a hulking juggernaut of a lorry, we get a hulking juggernaut of a great white shark.
The special effects are great with the animatronic shark genuinely scary and Spielberg certainly knows how to jolt the audience out of their seats especially when the monster jumps out at the screen although the worst moment has to be that rolling head!
The weakest part of the film for me was the small-town politics we witness when not only one but two young people become the shark's first victims and the commerce v public safety argument is posited, as if the beach wouldn't be closed down immediately such a tragedy occurred. I also felt the film dragged in the middle section with all that male bonding stuff among shark-hunter Quint, marine scientist Hooper and police chief Brody, the three madmen who go out on their own in pursuit of the great white.
Did I believe that the shark had the brains to effectively stalk their boat and almost seemed to be luring them into a trap? Of course not, no more I could an inanimate articulated lorry, but once you grant Spielberg his artistic licence, just strap yourself in for the ride and in particular the last thirty minutes.
I liked the way Spielberg teased the audience with various false alarms, nodding to Hitchcock and Eisenstein's techniques as he builds up the tension, before the shark reappears or turns up in unexpected places. The action set-pieces are terrific especially when Hooper crazily enters his submersible cage to take on big-tooth, plus no mention of this movie can pass without reference to John Williams' inspired music, in its way every bit as memorable as Bernard Herrman's was for "Psycho".
Probably the smartest move Spielberg ever made was walking away from the host of no doubt tempting but reportedly dismal cash-in sequels that followed. Here though, he left us one of the enduring shock-horror movies of all time and no doubt implanted that lingering doubt in all of us that we just can't shake whenever we take to the water on even the calmest beach...
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024)
Archers Right on Target
I'm a long-time admirer of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and so it seems is Martin Scorsese as he amply demonstrates in this warm and informed tribute to the duo. The first film of theirs I ever recall seeing was the wonderfully imaginative "A Matter of Life and Death", still one of my all-time favourites but of course there are so many other movies in their canon to admire and here Scorsese takes us through each of them in a linear fashion as well as imparting the usual biographical information about them.
I'm not quite sure why his commentary couldn't just have been done by voiceover which would have saved us the numerous static, cutaway shots to Marty sat in a cinema seat gazing intently at us as if the fourth wall was the movie-screen itself, other than to show us that it was indeed the renowned Mr Scorsese strewing pearls of wisdom our way, reinforcing his presence in so doing. I've not pegged him as being self-aggrandizing before so I'm going to discount that possibility too but I guess the producers thought it might have helped sell the movie a bit more when you can see as well as hear the esteemed contemporary director doing his stuff. Maybe I'm being too severe on him, in not conceding the personal nature of the project to him and also given he was personal friends with Powell for the last 16 years of the latter's life...
Another carp would be Scorsese unnecessarily referencing his own movies to the point where we're shown clips from his own films supposedly inspired by P & P. I'm not that big a fan of Scorsese's work and didn't appreciate him leveraging his own movies into the narrative to perhaps shine some unrequired reflected glory onto the Archers own productions, believe me, they don't need it. And just one more moan for the road, I didn't often hear him mention by name many of the wonderful actors employed in the various films.
Anyway, once I got past all the "All about Marty" vibes, I was able to really enjoy revisiting these marvellous films, some of among the best ever in the medium and you can tell he's watched each and every one of them and written every word he speaks. There are welcome archive interview clips of Michael and Emeric as well as some of Powell's home movies - especially the endearing man-about-town clip of him at an advanced age in contemporary Hollywood and numerous stills photos of the two. The clips from the movies themselves are judiciously selected and aptly analyzed by Mr S.
I guess if the actual presence of the mighty Marty caused a few more people to catch this fine documentary then I suppose I can park my aforementioned reservations.
I just hope the viewers next move was to hunt down a Powell and Pressburger film and not one by Scorsese as they'd be far better off if they did the former.
Carrie (1976)
Prom Fright
I was 16 or 17 when "Carrie" was first released and still remember keenly the hubbub which surrounded it. I recall a double page spread in one national Sunday newspaper on the frights generated by the movie with a graph highlighting the extent to which people were terrified in a kind of scare-ometer by certain scenes in the movie. In particular I remember all the chat about the climactic ending but no matter how many times you were told how it was to end you were still shocked out of your seat by what happened next.
I believe this is the first time I've watched it since then and I was immediately struck by just how dated, at least in some ways, it has become, like the fashions or the sappy pop music soundtrack but with its prominent themes of bullying, cruelty, mental health, sexuality and parenting a lot of what it depicts still resonates today.
Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, brought up super-strictly by her religious zealot of a single mother. At school, the shy and inhibited young girl is an outsider and an easy prey for the classroom bullies, coming in for particular attention from her fellow schoolgirls. In the painfully upsetting introductory scene, where the girls mercilessly taunt Carrie when she has her first period in the communal shower, we see early signs of her inner power of telekinesis which usually comes to the fore when she's emotionally disturbed. Remember that for later...
The only person initially on her side is the sympathetic PE teacher although later another girl seems to repent of her own part in Carrie's humiliation actions and goes so far as to ask her bubble-headed hunky boyfriend to take Carrie to the Senior Prom in her place. The mob-leader however, isn't so understanding and with her own boyfriend plots revenge against Carrie, having herself been banned from attending the dance for what she did.
Although her Bible-bashing mum tries to stop her, Carrie eventually goes along with the idea as we see her transformed into a pretty young deb enjoying the attention of her handsome young beau. She even wins the Prom Queen contest but as she steps up to be crowned, her nemesis exacts a literally cold-blooded revenge only for this to trigger Carrie's darkest emotions when all hell practically breaks loose.
While the film is undoubtedly painted in very broad strokes, once you get past the "High School Musical" level of much of the preamble featuring some fairly gauche acting by the younger members of the cast, the movie really comes alive with the dramatic set-pieces DePalma creates when Carrie does her stuff, which means of course a circling camera, split-screen action, long, tracking dolly shots slow-motion sequences and dramatic jump-,cuts, usually set to heightened music, indeed more than once you hear Bernard Herrman's "Psycho" violins in the background.
Not quite as good or as scary as I remember it from my youth, it nevertheless features an excellent Oscar-nominated performance by Spacek in the title role and is still an effective thriller even today.
Kin (2021)
Kin Good
This contemporary gangland series set in Dublin made for gruelling but compelling viewing. It's the story of a family steeped in criminality, hammering home the truism that not all of the outlaw sectarian gangs supposedly disbanded after the Good Friday Peace Agreement meekly fell back into being law-abiding citizens. Instead, they just redirected their nefarious practices into other crimes, making fortunes illegally from the drugs market and then channelling the proceeds into money laundering businesses like nail bars and car dealerships.
The Kinsella family, whose story we follow, comprises the middle-aged father Frank, a man compromised by his homosexual tendencies and who struggles not only to control the growing unrest with his leadership but also an escalating cocaine habit. He has three sons, the oldest Jimmy, apparently a happily married family man with two young sons but who in truth is a vicious collector of protection money who we see inducting his barely out of school older son into the family business. Next there's the quieter, less effusive Michael, previously the hitman for the outfit, just released from prison after taking the fall for a previous killing. He surprises the family by telling them he doesn't wish to rejoin their operations as he's desperate to stay out of trouble to re-establish his relationship with his teenage daughter from whom he's prevented contacting for obvious reasons. Then there's Eric the Viking, the youngest son and clearly the most reckless and unhinged of them and indeed it's his cavalier reaction to a supposed slight which will trigger the turf war which is central to the drama.
However, it's not all about the men, far from it. There's steel in the form of Birdy, the elder sister of Frank, also in Nikita, the savvy black girlfriend of Eric and especially in Amanda, Jimmy's wife, who turns out to be the brainiest and ultimately most ruthless player of them all.
As we join the family, things are apparently running smoothly in their various operations even if they have to show fealty to the big kingpin of the city, Ciaran Hinds brutally ruthless Eamon Cunningham. Everything changes when wreckless Eric upsets their whole wide world with an out-of-control random killing of one of Cunningham's low-level deputies which causes a retaliatory action with tragic consequences for the Kinsellas which will spiral into an all-out war between the two gangs and naturally takes in further blood-letting, with for the Kinsellas in particular which in some cases will strain but also reinforce family loyalties leading unsurprisingly to a shocking, bloody climax, indeed climaxes, which sets up well a second series, I for one, am keen to see.
While I really hope that modetn-day Dublin isn't the festering, lawless den of iniquity portrayed here, indeed there's almost no police presence in the whole series, I was effortlessly drawn into the mire by the strong storylines, conviction acting by pretty much all the leads and certainly the realism of the settings, especially the recurring image of the plush, modern Kinsella family home where most of their meetings take place under the shadow of the city's often illuminated national rugby stadium.
It may just be the latest take on the hit crime family template of "The Sopranos", "Peaky Blinders" and the like , going back all the way I suppose to "The Godfather", but this Irish twist in the tale certainly drew me in and like I said will now do so onto series 2.
The Wrecking Crew! (2008)
Out of the Shadows
This wonderful and informative documentary was made by the son of the brilliant but relatively unheralded session studio musician Tommy Tedesco to celebrate his own life and work but also the many other musicians who played on countless sessions predominantly in the 60's on what often became classic hit records. Personally speaking, I was aware of the names of a number of them, notably drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Carol Kaye, plus of course a small number of them went on to achieve success as solo artists themselves,notably Glen Campbell and Leon Russell.
They're literally too many to mention as is evidenced by the end title credits listing the names of all the players and of course a good number had sadly died in the intervening time, but it was nevertheless enlightening to listen in on these superb musicians reminiscing about the many hours of studio time they spent behind the scenes to create so many songs we know and love.
Not only did they enhance the sound of the various records they made, they often contributed musical ideas of their own to even improve them. That guitar lick which eases us into "California Dreamin'", or the Latin-flavoured lead into "Somethin'Stupid", the descending bass-line on "These Boots are Made For Walkin'" or the bass-line phrase which opens "Wichita Lineman", it was they who came up with them but more often it was simply about their sheer professionalism, not to mention work ethic in just turning up for session after session putting down tracks for which the singers and bands took the credit. On the other hand, the point is made that some band members, such as the multi-talented Peter Tork of the Monkees, resented the fact that they weren't deemed good enough to play on their own records.
Reunited by Tedesco's son, it was great to see some of the best of them shooting the breeze in the present day, recalling their times with studio genii like Phil Spector and Brian Wilson where both these auteurs knew exactly what they wanted or more usually just doing their job in the background cranking out the hits for artists as varied as the Monkees, Mamas and Papas, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass and even ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. One thing I certainly didn't know was that it was they who played on the Byrds' epochal "Mr Tambourine Man".
Occasionally they grouch about receiving no written credits on the numerous albums to which they contributed and of course there was a comedown for all of them in the mid 70's when they weren't needed so much and demand for their services fell off, especially as bands became instrumentally more self-sufficient in the studio.
Still, if I'd contributed to even one of the several classic hits aired frequently throughout the film I think I'd be happy. They seem to have been well-paid for their efforts too by record companies keen to get the product out there quickly.
With contributions besides by the likes of Wilson, Cher, Dick Clark and Roger McGuinn, the film was a veritable treasure trove for a music buff like me. Director Tedesco tries for a swinging 60's presentation style with day-glo pop-up title cards which I found occasionally irritating and likewise employed a back and forth, rather bitty narrative style which didn't always serve the subject well but on the whole this was a very entertaining and insightful and certainly long overdue recognition of these great musicians.
I wonder if they've yet made similar documentaries on the Brill Building songwriters of the early 60's or the Funk Brothers who similarly played on all those wonderful Motown singles from the same era...
Robin Hood (2018)
No Good in the Hood
I've watched I think most of the live action interpretations of the Robin Hood legend at least back to Errol Flynn, (I'll get to Douglas Fairbanks one day!) but have to admit this most recent film adaptation largely passed me by.
Taron Egerton is of course following in fairly big tights here, not only following the two legends already mentioned above, but also other big names such as Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe, not to mention other fine television series featuring Richard Greene, Michael Praed and Jonas Armstrong . Egerton with his boyish features probably seems too young for the part but if there's a casting issue there, what to make of Jamie Foxx as Little John, where we have a black man playing a Saracen warrior who was originally written of course as an Englishman.
The narrative too takes similar liberties with the character's well-documented adventures. Here, Robin (of Loxley) is a dispossessed nobleman who receives literally a draft notice to fight in the Crusades under the order of the Sheriff of Nottingham, who then while he's away doing his duty takes possession of his castle and lays waste to it, ostensibly to raise funds for the war-effort. Even worse, his lady love, Marian (who's never called Maid!) has married the hunky Will Scarlett after saying she'd wait for him.
So then what can a poor boy do except become a crusading brigand, but this time it's unquestionably John who takes the lead, not only schooling Robin in archery but also planning the grand strategy of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. There's no first encounter with John on the log straddling the river, Sherwood Forest barely gets a look-in, Tuck again is a young man and not the combative, boozy friar one might have expected, there's no Much or Alan A'Dale and whoever heard of Marian going with Will Scarlett. More than that some of the accents are way off, you never see Robin with his band id Merry Men nor does he wear the Lincoln green we associate with him. And why the lazy insertion of contemporary phrases in the dialogue, such as "going big" or "giving them a rinsing"?
All this revisionism I might have forgiven if the new adventures were exciting and involving but sadly they're just not. The action scenes fail to thrill and the Nigel Farage-lookalike actor playing the dastardly Sheriff carries no menace and certainly can't compare to Basil Rathbone or Alan Rickman. Probably worst of all though is Egerton himself who wholly lacks the charisma and dynamism required to carry off the title role.
The director even had the cheek to insert at the end an introduction to a possible sequel but this appears to be an exercise in self-delusion. I'm sorry to say that this enterprise amounted to about the weakest and worst of all the earlier big or small screen versions of the celebrated English folk-hero.
The Devil Rides Out (1968)
Trance with the Devil
A film that I always remember scaring the living bejeezus out of me when I was a boy, I still consider it one of the best horror movies I've seen, even today.
A tale of devil worship, Christopher Lee stars for once as the hero of the piece, playing the aristocratic Duc de Richlieu a kind of defender of the faith who takes on Charles Gray's equally charming villain Mocata, the leader of a sinister cult who seeks to recruit new members to his order carried out at a blood sacrifice ceremony which does indeed call up old Beelzebub himself.
The Duc is directly involved because at stake are the souls of firstly his young friend Patrick Mower's Simon plus another young woman also under the influence, Tanith, played by Nike Arrighi and later the infant daughter of his relations Paul Eddington and Rosalyn Landor. On the side of good, supporting the Duc, is his old friend, the suitably square-jawed and stiff-upper-lipped but initially sceptical Rex, played by Leon Greene.
From their first encounter with a mesmeric genie-like demon, to the invocation of "The Goat of Mendes - the Devil himself!" to the nerve-tingling finale when the Duc, Mower, Eddington and Landor are besieged within their magic circle by unearthly spirits and a time-shifting restorative epilogue, the action and suspense fairly gallops along from start to finish.
Lee and Gray are excellent as the duelling aristos with Greene offering solid support in his Dr Watson-type role and likewise Eddington and Lindor as the parents of the little girl on whose fate the final outcome depends
Director Terence Fisher, Hammer's go-to director in the 60's, from the prolific Richard Matheson's screenplay adaptation of occult novelist Dennis Wheatley's original novel, keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats all the way through with, for the time, convincing special effects, which I recall sending me cowering behind my sofa all those years ago.
All in all, a genuinely scary movie, one well worthy of the description.
Wagon Master (1950)
The Road-Book of Mormon
Having recently finished listening to the most recent season of Ben Mankiewicz's informative podcast series "The Plot Thickens" covering the life and career of John Ford, I've been tracking down a number of his lesser known movies.
This one starts unusually, unless I watched a badly edited print, as we're dropped straight into a hold-up scene where a ruthless family of criminals gun down in cold blood a resistant cashier. The action then switches suddenly and without explanation to a couple of young cowpokes who are corralled, being the operative word into being wagon-masters to run the trail for a sizeable group of Mormons heading west. Now let me say here that the early scenes filled me with some dread as it initially looked like Ford had finally caved in to all his hokey, folky inclinations in presenting what I thought might be an extended lightly comedic piece, hillbilly songs and all, but thankfully the mood darkens as the criminal gang joins the happy band and temperatures unsurprisingly start to rise as the inbred lawlessness of the villains clashes with the piety of the God-fearing Mormon families.
Of course most of Ford's mature features contain that mixture of humour and seriousness and this one is no different. On the lighter side, Ward Bond's leader of the Mormon band is forever cussing around his more censorious elders, there's a comedic encounter with a travelling medicine show, a potentially dangerous meet-up with some Navajo Native Americans which is resolved over a tribal dance, complete with quack doctor, and naturally a budding romance springs up between cowboy Ben Johnson and the initially haughty "doctor's" assistant Jeanne Dru.
But all the sweetness and light turns sour and dark when the wagons are effectively hijacked by the dastardly Cleggs, one of whose number offends the Navajo hosts requiring a very public beating to be carried out to one of their number which only riles old Papa Cleggs still more.
It all resolves itself very quickly, for once without an extended gun fight and indeed the print of the full movie I watched lasted only 85 minutes from start to finish. I believe Ford himself had a soft spot for this feature which may of course have had a lot to do with the shoot itself and being on location again in his preferred Monument Valley.
The film may lack a big name star - it's not hard to imagine John Wayne in the Johnson part, for example - but I found this modest, lesser-known Ford film to nonetheless be rather charming and certainly entertaining.
Civil War (2024)
Civil War is Hell
Through the eyes and lenses of four very different photo-journalists we witness the near total breakdown of American society as two sides, significantly not identified by their political persuasions but by generic titles of the Western Forces and the Government Forces, fight a bloody civil war for power.
I was put in mind of the other civil wars in Western civilisation I've read about from history from both the distant to the recent past taking in the English Civil War to the American Civil War down to the Spanish Civil War of the last century. In this near-future dystopian movie, we're placed directly at the heart of what is clearly the second American Civil War, as the four pressmen and women, sensing the end of the war take the long road to DC to capture in gory detail the death throes of the current administration as the defiant, unnamed president makes his last stand.
We're not told how the country got to this position but you don't have to be Einstein to connect what we see with the current state of real-life affairs Stateside, with the 2020 uprising in Charlottesville (it's no coincidence that one of the stopping-off points encountered here is in the same place) and particularly the Capitol Building Riots of January 6th 2021 as glaringly obvious reference points. With the post-Trump polarisation of American politics it's likewise far from difficult to put a contemporary name to the president depicted here if you want to.
One of the major themes highlighted is the role of the press photographer in capturing raw, uncensored footage of the brutal front-line action the four see and experience on their cross-country trek, their progress periodically counted down as they go. The film posits the old dilemma about what is the correct and appropriate action to be taken by reporters and camera-persons at such times. The film clearly justifies their collective non-participation with a phrase uttered early on by Kirsten Dunst to the effect that they record the events for others to make decisions. We meet the four right at the start of the film, a savvy male reporter, a middle-aged female photographer, far too obviously named Lee Miller, an elderly, overweight, seen-it-all-before old man journalist and tagging along almost as a stowaway on her first assignment, a keen-as-mustard rookie photographer who takes the Lee character as her inspiration.
On the way to DC they encounter ever more bloodthirsty gun-toting individuals who have been dehumanised into becoming torturers and killing machines, the four finding themselves in ever more dangerous situations before they finally arrive at the utter bedlam which is reaching its bloody climax as the rebel militia approach the White House itself.
I got the blunt warning-from-history message (again there are unsubtle references to Mussolini, Ceausescu and Gaddafi) just in case there's any doubt that the cause of the carnage is the dictator currently inhabiting the Oval Office. But for me, doing so without depicting any preceding timeline to justify the uprising or explaining why some of the population are so unfazed by the horrific events happening in their country, just felt like being parachuted into a war-zone without any real kind of context. The movie ends as it began, as we see the last half hour or so play out like some out-of-control, super-violent computer game.
In the end, I found the overall premise, contrived narrative, thin characterisations and overplaying by the principals all failed to engage me. A moody soundtrack, with occasional clichéd stops for desultory contemporary songs playing over the action doesn't help either. This gruelling and unremittingly bleak alternative vision of the near future ultimately overplays its hand and instead comes over as unreal and unrelatable, numbing down this particular viewer.
Although, who knows, maybe by the year 2028, at the end of the next president's term of office, intervening events might make me think differently...
Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
Strode into View
An unusual film for John Ford, a western whodunit, complete with a start-to-finish extended courtroom scene, multiple Rashomon-type flashbacks and a dramatic reveal at the conclusion, with audiences of the day apparently petitioned not to reveal the content of the last ten minutes to other potential viewers. The film also addresses the colour issue, picking up on the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the US at the time.
Central to the movie is the rape and murder of a teenage white girl and her father in their front living room. Witnessed as being connected directly to the scene of the crimes is a Union cavalryman, Sergeant Braxton Rutledge, played by Woody Strode, of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers regiment of enlisted black men, most of them former slaves, even though they're actually commanded by Jeffrey Hunter's white Captain Cantrell.
Now standing trial for his life as the prime suspect, with the prosecution counsel determined to have him hanged as much down to racial prejudice as to the very partial and circumstancial evidence he produces, it's up to Cantrell who's acting as Rutledge's defence attorney to ensure that the true story of the murders and all that surrounded them, is brought to light. Testimonies are made from different perspectives by the ditzy wife of the crotchety trial judge, the pretty young woman Mary Beechers, spiritedly played by Constance Towers who's arrived back to visit her family and who catches Cantrell's eye but who will end up having her own cross to bear, the shop owner father whose young son we saw earlier flirting with the dead girl, Cantrell too and naturally the noble "top-soldier" himself, the seemingly doomed Rutledge.
It's a cleverly put together film as Ford gradually edges towards the truth. Of course the over-deference shown by the black soldiers to their white superiors and their stereotypical characterisations are somewhat unpalatable today, plus I could have done without the forced humour around the judge, his wife and fellow magistrates and the inevitable romance between Cantell and
Miss Beecher.
Nevertheless Ford tells his story well. The ending may seem contrived but it's more about how he gets there than the final surprise outcome. There are fine performances by Hunter and Towers but special mention must go to Woody Strode in the key role of Rutledge whose muscular nobility and sense of duty define the movie.
Less starry than many of his other films, I count this one of the best Ford movies I've seen.
Two Rode Together (1961)
Model Z Ford
John Ford famously decried this movie as one of the worst he ever made. Yes, it was made in the twilight of his career, but it stars two of my favourite actors, James Stewart and Richard Widmark so I thought I'd give it a chance.
But do you know, old Pappy wasn't wrong. The plot borrows liberally from "The Searchers" in that the two stars are riding together to again seek out and bring back a couple of youngsters previously kidnapped by those pesky Comanches. For once Stewart's character is an avaricious and ornery marshall, name of Guthrie McCabe who only agrees to travel with Widmark's co-opted Yankee officer Jim Gary, once his price is met. Widmark by contrast is the principled voice of reason pricking at his old mate's conscience.
Each I would say is cast against type, but for me it just doesn't work. Stewart isn't credible as a drunken mercenary and you just know Widmark would be better in his part if he shed his good-guy persona too. Both of them also wind up in improbably whirlwind romances with much younger women, Shirley Jones and Linda Cristal respectively, further straining credibility.
Not famous for his sympathy to Native Americans in almost all of his features, Ford is particularly brutal here with the Comanche rebel chief who's admittedly forcibly coerced a young Latin American girl, Cristal, to be his wife and especially the young white boy kidnapped years before and brought up as a brave who's portrayed as little more than a savage and whose forced repatriation goes terribly wrong, both portrayed in very cliched fashion.
I just found the whole movie an awkward mix of supposed action, sentimentality, humour and misplaced social commentary. Quite what Ford was trying to say here about miscegenation or discrimination, I couldn't fathom.
So with a second-hand story, mismatched leads and really, for Ford, some rather uninspiring cinematography, I can't see this as one of his major works.
DH Lawrence once said "Don't trust the teller, trust the tale" but in this case he was wrong. Take heed of what its maker said and ride well past this one.
Caprice (1967)
Bored Caprice
I love the story about Richard Harris storming off an airplane in which he was due to travel when he learned that this effort of his was set to be the in-flight movie. I tell you, he wasn't wrong.
One of many mid-60's features trying to catch the 007 wave, it goes with a hip single-word title and even cheekily mentions Bond, the Beatles and Batman at different points as if to validate its own coolness, but it fails to deliver at every turn. One of her horrible husband's get-rich-quick plans to put Doris Day into what he thought were money-making opportunities it was instead a rare flop for its star and it really is easy to see why.
Frank Tashlin should really be renamed Trashlin as he overloads the screen with one empty, flashy technique after another and yet still resorts to clunky back-projection work to show Doris on the snow-slopes or employ very obvious stand-ins for Day and Harris when the going gets tough.
The plot revolves around two fashion houses competing for a new formula hair-shampoo which instantly dries after use, an idea borrowed from the sublime Ealing comedy "The Man in the White Suit". Naturally our Doris is caught slap bang in the middle of it all. Harris meanwhile is always around as a double-double agent as well as being Day's unlikely love interest. He actually makes a good case for the real James Bond part given that Sean Connery gave it up about this time, but in this, he and Day just seem odd together and never spark each other at all.
Meanwhile Doris does what Doris does, which means she simpers and squeals her way through the movie the way she'd been doing for years. They try to dress her up in the voguish fashion trends of the time, but in more ways than one she just seems too old to be running around aimlessly in thin fare like this. Even her title song is forgettable.
To do her credit, I understand she didn't rate the script either when she first read it and like Harris she does throw herself into the part but this film is more deep-freeze than caprice and one for which I'd rather do my hair than sit down and watch this drivel.
Grace (2021)
Grace Notes
Join Simm is a TV actor I have liked for some time ever since I first saw him on *Life on Mars". I've not followed everything that he's done but he seems to me to be one of those actors who picks his projects carefully which will, I hope, confer some kind of quality to them. That said, I have completely missed this recent series which features him as yet another TV 'tec with problems. I see that there have been four series to date each comprising 90 minute self-contained episodes and while there was nothing startlingly original about the show, I liked this first episode just about enough to think I'll return to it again in the future.
We learn quickly that he's the latest in a long run of maveeick cops, methodical yet instinctive, procedural but offbeat in his work. All we really get about his personal life is that he's a loner, his wife having inexplicably disappeared without trace some six years before. Currently working cold cases he, like seemingly every other lead cop of his type has a frosty relationship with his superior officer who seems to take umbridge at his unconventional approach to policing, which includes consulting a medium when looking for missing persons.
As the action gets underway, he's called into help a younger black colleague investigate the disappearance of a young man on his stag night. The victim of an outrageously stupid practical joke, he's left in a life or death situation after his chums then crash their vehicle, killing most of them. From there, the narrative grows faster than Topsy the rabbit, taking in, here gors, a black widow with a previous history of murdering her new husbands, blackmail, mutilation, the murder of an innocent party of low intelligence, another two murders one carried out with a harpoon gun and Grace in singke-handed life or death races to not only save the innocent man but also catch the culprits in the act of escape.
Set in Brighton, this certainly isn't one of your slower-paced methodical mystery-dramas like "Inspector Morse". Over-plotted to the extent that you may, like me lose track of all the connecting links in the narrative. Nevertheless, it did at least tie up all its loose ends within its 90 minutes running time, even if it left my head spinning at times. Sim and his supporting cast just about hold it together and like I said I got just about enough from it to encourage me to resolve to bring myself up to date with the programme by watching the subsequent episodes.
That said, I didn't really detect anything very much different here to any number of similar police procedural dramas I've occasionally looked in on in.recent years. Time will tell if it improves both in its writing and its various characterisations in future episodes but personally speaking, I can't help but feel that Sim is selling himself a little short in taking on this particular gig, when he's obviously capable of more challenging roles.