Four Sons (1928) August 19, 2006
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Action-Adventure , 2 comments
This is a very good movie, just a pity Fox don’t restore it and put it properly on DVD, there are a lot of marks on the print though it certainly didn’t spoil my enjoyment.
This to me is the best of the early John Fords. Basically it tells the story of a German family with a mother and four sons. One of the sons doesn’t like the regimentation of the country and goes to live in the US. This gets interesting when the Great War breaks out. I thought the idea of splitting the family having one son in the US was very clever it gave it an extra dimension as an anti-war or even anti-authority movie.
Nice touch though possibly a little convenient for the US brother to discover his brother Andreas (fighting for Germany) dead on the battlefield but this was beautifully acted.
After the war the mother is invited to the US by the one surviving son. I liked the depiction of Ellis Island and the mother blundering around New York in a daze in the subway etc. Fascinating to see what the mother had to do to enter the US and how this is almost sent up in the movie.
I’m not an expert on these things but I’m unsure was Ellis Island still in existence as a gateway for immigrants in 1928 ? Whatever this was really interesting to see so close to the peak period of immigration from European countries. Lovely Movietone score with great song to accompany the heart warming ending. On the whole a fine film. (3 stars out of 5)
The Window (1949)
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Entertaining noir produced by RKO. Bobby Driscoll borrowed from Walt Disney plays a boy who is always making up stories to the extent that when he witnesses a murder nobody the police, his parents will believe him. His mother even tells him to apologise to the couple he witnessed committing the murder alerting them to the fact that the boy knows something. Stupid woman and she’s not the only thick adult here. It can be slightly irritating that Bobby is only one who is right and there is no build up to believing him. It does keep the film very suspenseful and a tense finale when the boy is creeping gingerly along a beam which could fall at any time. The parents are played by Arthur Kennedy and Barbara Hale. The murderers are played by Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Jolson Sings Again (1949) August 17, 2006
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Musical , add a commentLarry Parks again played the World’s Greatest Entertainer in this sequel to The Jolson Story (1946).
The film covers Jolson’s life roughly from 1939 (his divorce from Ruby Keeler (named Julie Benson in the movies) till 1947 (when he started a new starring radio series). Parks is once again fine as Jolson adroitly miming to the great man’s singing voice. It is slightly more nasal and even deeper than in the first biopic but sounds great.
Back from the first movie are William Demarest as Al’s manager Steve Martin (an imaginary amalgam of a few real people), Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne as Cantor and Mama Yoelson and Bill Goodwin as Tom Baron (a Shubert substitute?) Myron McCormick pops up as a movie producer Al meets while entertaining troops during the war who of course is instrumental in making The Jolson Story (1946). The new Mrs Jolson, Ellen Clark based on real life Erle Galbraith is played by Barbara Hale who I believe later appeared in the Perry Mason TV series.
This is an interesting biopic as it actually depicts the making of The Jolson Story (1946) and the revival of interest in Jolson the film generated. This is a bit weird to watch and also involves watching chunks of the first biopic. Al himself is softened as he was in the first movie and his reaction to somebody else playing him is downplayed. It has been suggested that Jolson might have played himself in the second movie (screen test footage survives) but apparently remarked : “this guy Larry Parks plays me better than I play myself.” The real Jolson would definitely have been too old (62 though he looked older) but Parks at times almost looks too young though years where the prinicipals hardly age a day is hardly unusual in biopics. Parks almost looks the right age as Jolson in the weirdest scene in the movie. In this scene Parks playing Jolson meets Parks playing Parks : this is somehow achieved by having “Jolson” look like his hair is covered with whitening while “Parks” has his all vaselined. Songs include : Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody, Is It True What They Say About Dixie ?, For Me and My Gal, Back In Your Own Backyard, Give My Regards To Broadway, I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover, When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bobbin’ Along, Chinatown My Chinatown, I’m Just Wild About Harry, Baby Face, I Only Have Eyes For You, Sonny Boy, Toot Toot Tootsie, Pretty Baby, Carolina In the Morning (3 stars out of 5)
The Best of Abbott and Costello ? August 5, 2006
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Comedy , add a commentI used to love Bud and Lou as a child but their antics don’t connect with me the same way now. I have the first set of the Best of Universal DVD series : 8 OK films though they are all really three times as long as they should be : Bud and Lou’s best routines are set amidst quite a lot of dross. Some of those musical numbers in their early films are though delightfully typical of the time.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) was their best film because of the extra attraction of the universal monsters : it was really good the way the threat was taken seriously and it has a great musical score. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
I have never been able really to warm to Abbott and Costello as characters, they are very cartoonish, Lou Costello could be very funny, Bud Abbott though is not sympathetic, he comes across as actually rather nasty at times, too much the straight man simply not believable.
That was what was so great about Oliver Hardy he was more than a straight man, he could be genuinely funny and there was a warmth and humanity between him and Stan you simply don’t get with Bud and Lou. Of course their best routines are still funny, they were sound professionals but once they exhausted them Abbott and Costello were on a slippery pole downwards.
Looking at their Forties features I wonder how they would have got on making shorts like Laurel and Hardy, developing their comedy style on film, some fans swear by their 50s TV show.
Here are my reviews of the first Universal set.
Lets start with the best and work down :
Pardon My Sarong (1942) : really quite enjoyed this one, nice to see William Demarest as a foil though he disappears apparently drowned ! I think it would have been neat to have him pop up on the island at the end ! I think this works as well because there is a sense of threat with Lionel Attwill after a rare jewel. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Hold that Ghost (1941) : holds up quite well and like Sarong the boys are at the centre of the plot. In quite a lot of these films the dull romance seems to take over and Bud and Lou seem like a vaudeville turn interspersed into the action. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
In The Navy (1941) : Best of the forces’ comedies I would say which are quite fascinating historically. The romantic subplot involving Dick Powell is better than the others and there is a wonderful routine where Lou becomes the captain of the ship ! Pity its just a dream ! (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Buck Privates (1941) : Some great routines but the love story is awful. Some good numbers with the Andrews Sisters though. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
One Night In The Tropics (1940) : A fairly forgettable musical which in true Hollywood style throws away its best song : Remind Me (Ella Fitzgerald did a great recording years later). It comes to life though for two great Abbott and Costello routines : Who’s On First ? and a bit where Bud not for the first time does Lou out of his money. (2 stars out of 5)
Keep Em Flying (1942) : The forces’ films were wearing a bit thin by this third run around. Only fun really is when Lou doesn’t realise he’s flying ! (1 1/2 stars out of 5)
Ride ‘Em Cowboy (1942) : Oh dear, I thought this was a real dull one until the final chase. The print though is crystal clear and a young Ella Fitzgerald sings. Typical Hollywood its a silly nursery rhyme and not something better. (1 1/2 stars out of 5)
Who Done It ? (1942) : A film with a mixed reputation : according to Leonard Maltin one of their best, according to Halliwell lacking atmosphere and good jokes. I think I agree more with the latter : the idea has potential but it seems a bit botched to me. I think it would have been better along the lines of a true whodunnit with a proper detective out of town. (1 1/2 stars out of 5)
A bit of a mixed bag I feel. Perhaps the extra element of the horror stars worked better for Bud and Lou than these early efforts I don’t know. They did I think lack the consistency to be truly great film comedians but they were funny, professional and very popular.
Citizen Kane (1941)
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Drama , add a comment 
Like all the great movies it is perfectly possible to sit down and watch Citizen Kane (1941) and enjoy it as simply a cracking piece of entertainment. Forget the film’s reputation and what it is trying to say just get carried along by the storyline which to me is perfectly clear and incredibly cinematic.
It is a movie that uses all the techniques of film up to that time and invents new ones but to me the virtuosity is invisible because I’m caught up in this incredible biopic of a great American told in a revolutionary but totally natural way.
Right from the opening scene it seizes your attention in a way few films do with the death of its title character then that incredible recreation of the March of Time. A biopic that starts at the end and then pieces together his life from the memories of those who knew him : very few non-linear movies have been made, even fewer have tried to recreate a man’s life in this way, providing all these viewpoints : I find that fascinating and compelling : what it all adds up to is up to you, the film’s incredible technique and innovative story-telling are enough to enjoy it.
It is fairly obvious Hearst was Welles’ target : there are too many resemblances to Hearst’s life to make it a coincidence. Susan Alexander is very different from Marion Davies though : the comparison was of course always going to be made. Hearst had huge power back then and was most furious I believe about the Susan Alexander character. He damaged the film quite badly with boycotts and ruined any chance it had of winning the Academy Award for Best Film of 1941 : it should have been a certainty.
Welles was damaged too : it is significant I think that Kane was the only American film he ever made which wasn’t tampered with by studio bosses. He never made a better film for me anyway. In a sense Orson eventually won when the movie was elevated to the high critical reputation it now IMO deservedly enjoys.
I think it is a little simplistic to blame Kane (1941) as well for labelling Marion Davies as a no talent actress. She was a delightful comedienne but had made films as recently as the mid 30s, one film didn’t obliterate her legacy.
As for the “message” I basically think it is about the dangers of becoming obsessed by power and money. The ROSEBUD sled is a symbol of Kane’s lost childhood when he was loved by his mother. His inheritance and the guardianship by Mr Thatcher deprived him of a mother’s love and off the ability to make a life of his own back of merit. His attempts to make the New York Inquirer a champion of the people tried to achieve this but the movie shows quite clearly that power corrupts and principles go out the window because of privilege.
Yes there is politics in the movie and I admit I’m interested in the subject but I’m also cynical about it. Citizen Kane (1941) is too : it is not championing politicians or their lives it is blatantly critical of them : their hypocrisy and sleaze.
Hope that helps you to enjoy and make sense of it. To me it is one of the great movies : incredibly visual, great music which swells to a crescendo at the end as ROSEBUD burns : one of the great movie moments.
(5 stars out of 5)
Taxi Driver (1976) August 3, 2006
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I generally like Scorsese’s work but I’m not a big fan of Taxi Driver (1976). It is a very well made movie with an excellent score and great mounting tension. The acting is also excellent particularly De Niro but my main problem with it is that there is little positive to hold onto here, it is unremittingly grim and depressing. The character of Travis Bickle is certainly very interesting but he also to me has no redeeming features. A lot of Scorsese movies feature environments/ characters we’d rather sweep under the carpet but I find myself drawn into their world, I can feel for the gangsters in Goodfellas (1990), I don’t feel any kinship with Travis Bickle. The cinematography too in the main pales next to Raging Bull (1980) though the shot of the blood soaked room near the end is great. I’m not squeamish about the violence, to the film’s credit it really makes it pretty obvious Travis is a psychopath, he’s an anti-hero, a guy on the edge he could be pushed over at any time. The other characters are also not heroes in any shape or form but I baulked a little at the end which seemed to glorify Travis’ killing spree that it had freed Jodie Foster from a life of vice, on the documentary on the DVD they say its a comment on the media, fair enough but I felt Travis deserved something to happen to him. It could be that this is real life, that this is the point, it is movie which defies convention with no real heroes or villains, the morals of it are very ambiguous, it certainly makes it interesting and exploration of people like this who do exist shouldn’t be censored but it is on the edge of glorifying violence though of course many worse films went far further. If you can take quite graphic violence one film you definitely have to see, it can be found very cheaply on DVD in the UK too, the documentary on the making of the film is worth it alone. So a very good film but not to me at least a great one.
Still worth (3 1/2 stars out of 5)
Star Wars : Episode III Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy , add a comment 
I’m not sure I would go as far as saying Revenge of the Sith is the best of the recent Star Wars trilogy. It is difficult to say, in some respects it was better than Episode I and II but these strengths at times turn into weaknesses. Basically after seeing this I was quite disappointed. As I really expected it was very depressing and I left the cinema with an empty feeling. So why did I put myself through it, well I feel I’ve been on a 28 year journey to complete the saga and like most people wanted to see how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.
That was this film’s job really to set up the original Trilogy, we know what happens though the hero turns bad, in order to really hook you into that it has to be done well, it has to surprise the audience (assuming they know) and it has to be convincing. I think that the problem really with the Star Wars prequels, ultimately it isn’t surprising enough and the journey to the Dark Side isn’t convincing. Anakin comes across as a petulant youth really with few brains who turns against his friends based on an obscure myth from a thought culture he knows nothing about which he embraces really for no compelling reason. In the end it is fairly poorly done though the scene where they lower the Vader mask on him is worth seeing.
As for the rest when the film is just a sci-fi fantasy adventure it is quite entertaining with great special effects and exciting sequences. Unfortunately I suppose this could never be like the original Star Wars films in that we really pull for the characters but it certainly looks spectacular. Acting wise Hayden Christensen is certainly better here than in the last film but Natalie Portman does little, their scenes together lack the cringeworthy dialogue of Attack of the Clones but come across as flat. There seems to be no real passion, maybe we’re meant to notice this ? I’ve never been a big Ewan McGregor fan and he is merely OK. Ian McDiarmid really steals the movie as the eventual Emperor.
Watching the orginal films last Xmas I remarked at how incompetent the Empire seemed to be. Here it is the Jedi that are incompetent, they make so many mistakes in this movie. I suppose that is the nature of the drama but possibly Anakin’s conversion to the dark side might be more convincing if the whole thing didn’t seem so rushed. Even though there were hints in the previous two films and both have to work as stand alone stories these could have been more explicit in terms of the Emperor slowly gathering power. Basically here we have the Jedi in control then half an hour later everyone is a traitor and most of them are getting massacred.
A bit more build up to that in the previous films might have been better though Star Wars films are entertaining rollercoaster rides of exciting action sequences not really about long exposition of emotional journeys. The compromise is here, first really keep the angst to the last film and still pepper it with space battles etc, a diffficult balance to achieve. It makes for a fairly interesting completion of the saga but nothing more.
(2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Wings (1927) July 31, 2006
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Wings (1927) certainly impresses with its action sequences both on the ground and particularly up in the air. They are among the finest in any war film I would say, the depiction of World War I is excellent and exciting. What would have made those dog fights even better would have been a few sound effects, they were I believe in many release prints and in clips in the Hollywood series (A Celebration of American Silent Film, Thames TV, 1979). Not all theatres would have been equipped for such a soundtrack in 1927 but I really believe it would add a lot to the impact of this film though the battle scenes are excellent as they are.
Unfortunately once we get out of the plane the movie I believe hasn’t aged all that well. It’s not headed for a spread-eagled crash but its not really too good. The main problem is the love stories : the love triangle between Buddy Rogers, Dick Arlen and Jobyna Ralston (Harold Lloyd’s leading lady in six features) just isn’t very interesting. Poor Jobyna gets so little to do, she looks delightful but she could really have walked off the set of Girl Shy (1924) its Miss Buckingham all over again. The end of her part of the story is rounded out with a shot of her crying, that’s all.
Clara Bow fares a lot better : it was definitely her presence that kept my interest in the early reels : the lady had sparkle and bounce. I don’t understand how Rogers can’t see that Clara is the girl of his dreams, if I could go on a date with any silent actress I would ask for her phone number. The best bits apart from the combat scenes are definitely those in which she appears though she looks a bit weird dressed up as a soldier. I love the section in Paris and at the Folies Bergere, then Clara being caught in a state of undress in Buddy’s room ! Pity she then disappears for most of the rest of the movie.
As to a comparison with the most famous silent war film : The Big Parade (1925) this didn’t move me in the same way as that did, possibly because I found the back story less believable and Rogers and Arlen are simply not John Gilbert.
For most of the time this appears a bit more hawkish than The Big Parade (1925) though they certainly show the harsh realities of war clearly enough. Still an important film as the first Academy Award winner, I’m delighted to have seen it. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Ziegfeld on Film
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Musical , add a commentMGM made three tributes to Broadway’s greatest showman.
The first and best was probably The Great Ziegfeld (1936) with a great performance from William Powell holding it together. A Best Picture winner in its day this film has its moments : the Pretty Girl Is Like Melody number is stupendous, also You Never Looked So Beautiful Before must have cost a fortune in ostrich feathers. A few of the other big numbers are a bit boring though particularly when compared with say Busby Berkeley, the worst one is about the circus which features Harriet Hoctor, a not very exciting dancer who appeared to little effect in a few Thirties musicals.
Its great to see a few performers who actually worked for Ziegfeld : Fanny Brice singing My Man (which they ruin by cutting away) and Ray Bolger but its a pity they had to draft in a lookalike for Eddie Cantor. The rest of it is pretty standard showbiz biopic stuff that would have been much better if it had been subjected to the editor’s scissors. Frank Morgan is of course Frank Morgan (did he play any other part in any of his movies !) and Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for chewing the scenery. (3 stars out of 5)
Five years later MGM treated us to Ziegfeld Girl (1941) in which the great showman doesn’t appear. Another rather overlong film which steals a few choice musical numbers from the original : more dramatic this one with Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr and Judy Garland. Judy is in pretty good form. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Then we had Ziegfeld Follies (1945) in preparation for years, a sort of 20 year anniversary film for MGM : really a plotless revue film presented by Powell from heaven. The best stuff had Fred Astaire dancing with Lucille Bremer to This Heart of Mine and with Gene Kelly in The Babbitt and the Bromide. (2 1/2 stars out of 5)
Ziggy was portrayed in a few other films including The Jolson Story (1946) and Funny Girl (1968) : here looking rather old and distinguished in the form of Walter Pidgeon opposite Barbra Striesand’s Fanny Brice.
Sherlock Junior (1924)
Posted by derek in : Reviews, Comedy , add a comment 
This is a very good film and very cinematic. It almost sums up Buster Keaton’s attitudes to his art. The fact that he was so interested in using “cinema” and the mechanics of it in his films. He didn’t resort though to camera trickery for its own sake as some lesser comedians did. The sequence in which he walks into the cinema screen is incredible even today. Keaton’s cameraman Elgin Lessley had to film the theatre set and cinema shots which cut to exteriors as two separate negatives on the same strip of film, matching them precisely. The dream movie sequence also feeds into Keaton’s love for satirising dramatic films of the period. On that level it works very well, it is quite exciting and dramatic how Buster defeats the bad guys and avoids being blown up by the fake pool balls. Some scholars have suggested that there may be footage missing from the film though I can’t confirm if this is true.
The framing material around the dream sequence isn’t quite as good in my opinion though I suppose that is hardly surprising. I found the leading lady Kathryn McGuire and the villain Ward Crane fairly dull in the real world footage. Keaton generally isn’t a laugh out loud comedian either, this film tends to impress me more than make me laugh. It is funny but Buster never rated on the laughometer as high as Chaplin,Lloyd or Laurel and Hardy did for me. Still there is much here of interest and still sequences which astonish like the famous story of Buster breaking his neck while doing one of the stunts. This occurred in the sequence where a train comes out from under him and he rides a giant water tower down to the track. The water had a huge force and forced Buster’s neck down on the railroad track. He was off work for a few days but didn’t find out till years later that he had fractured his neck.
At the time the film wasn’t very popular, the next feature The Navigator (1924) was more successful. While that is a good film it does drag a bit, the short running time makes Sherlock Junior a better film overall though Kathryn McGuire is a bit more lively and interesting in The Navigator.
In the Keaton canon I would rank Sherlock Junior (1924) quite highly because it definitely shows Buster as an innovative filmmaker and inventive comedian. I prefer The General (1926) and Our Hospitality (1923) because I believe they have more interesting characters, stories and are stronger comedically but Sherlock Junior (1924) is my choice for Buster’s third best feature.
(3 1/2 stars out of 5)