Tag: classic films

Film Review: Out of the Past

While it may be true that for some of us, Mamma Mia! or There’s Something About Mary is the best film of all time (Are you sure?), it’s likely that any film aficionado with an eye for quality will draw up a reasonably predictable list of movies that has a certain resemblance to another’s. Of course, there may be the odd obscure title included in there somewhere on account of some personally preferred artistic or inventive merit but generally the same titles will crop up again and again. These lists, and there are countless of them online, are a great way to create a ‘watch-list’.

It wasn’t one of these lists that brought me to watch Out of the Past but rather a moment of web surfing that brought to my laptop screen a poster of Robert Mitchum nonchalantly lighting a cigarette while a demure Jane Greer inspects his ears for wax. The truth is, I’d never heard of this film before but having enjoyed noir-ish revelations with The Killers and Double Indemnity, both of which I watched for the first time a couple of months ago, I felt confident that I was about to view another classic. It came as no surprise to subsequently see all three of these films feature in high positions on numerous lists of best ‘noir’ films ever.

Robert Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, owner of a gas station in a small out-of-the-way Californian town. His romancing local girl Ann Miller (Virginia Huston) is not viewed well by her parents who are mistrustful of him and sure enough, when a tough guy turns up at his gas station, it becomes apparent that Jeff has a past. This henchman, Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine) informs Jeff that his boss, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) wants to see him and after some glorious dialogue, Jeff reluctantly agrees to the meeting. That night, after picking Ann up for the drive to Whit’s lakeside retreat, he tells her all about his past.

The next section of the film is told in flashback with Jeff narrating the story of his mysterious past as a private investigator. Together with his partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie), he was hired by Whit to find his girlfriend Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) whom he claimed had shot him and run off with $40,000 of his dough. Using his investigative talents, Jeff traced Kathie to Acapulco but on meeting her, fell for her charms and her pleads of innocence and decided not to hand her over to Whit, who would likely have punished her for something she claimed she didn’t do. Instead, the two headed north to San Francisco where they attempted to live together as inconspicuously as possible, out of sight and reach of Whit and his henchman. But (isn’t there always a but?), one day they were spotted by Jeff’s old partner, Fisher, who demanded a heavy payoff for his silence. A fight broke out between the two men, which Kathie brought to a sudden end when she shot Fisher dead. She then drove away, leaving poor old Jeff to cover up her crime. In doing so, he came across her bankbook which had an entry for a $40,000 deposit.

Back now to the present where Jeff and Ann arrive at Whit’s home. Before turning the car around to drive back to town, Ann forgives Jeff for his past and hopes he will return safely to her once his meeting with Whit is over. Jeff is surprised to see that Kathie is back together with Whit, who for his part, displays genuine delight in seeing Jeff again and wants to hire him for one more job in order to make things even between them. The job entails breaking into Whit’s lawyer’s office to steal documents that include income tax records proving Whit guilty of tax fraud, a fraud which his lawyer is using to blackmail him. Jeff refuses the job, suspecting a set-up, but Whit insists and so after trying to warn the lawyer, Jeff returns to the man’s office to find him dead. Now Jeff’s job is to locate the documents, which also include an affidavit from Kathie swearing Jeff was the one who killed Fisher, as well as to prove that he is innocent of the killing of the lawyer but with a henchman on his tail and a femme fatale who switches allegiance more times than Lady Gaga changes outfits, he needs to use all his street-smarts to stay alive. It’s all mildly convoluted, as the best crime dramas are, but well worth paying attention to.

Released in 1947, Out of the Past was directed by Jacques Tourneur, a man perhaps better known for low-budget horror films such as Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, rather than hard boiled crime films but he had a great team around him, many of whom had already worked together for RKO on numerous pictures. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes) from his novel Build My Gallows High with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain. This point is clearly evident from the superb dialogue so typical of the genre but here somehow a little less contrived and more natural. Don’t forget, James M. Cain was the genius behind, among others, Double Indemnity.

The role of gumshoe fitted Mitchum as comfortably as the raincoat and fedora he wore much of the time and it’s easy to see why he would later go on to portray Philip Marlowe. He breezes through this film with a cool self-assurance and a likability that make you (almost) overlook his potential for violence. Jane Greer’s femme fatale, with her baby face and deceitful eyes, smoulders, like the best of them and Kirk Douglas plays the gangster with controlled intensity – sure, he seems charming enough but you wouldn’t want to be around when he looses his temper.

For a film noir, the locations are worth noting too. Yes, we get the usual nighttime cityscapes and atmospherically lit bar rooms and office interiors, trademarks of the genre, but we also get out into the wide open Californian countryside as well as sunny Acapulco. The way cameraman Nicholas Musuraca captures this variety of locations lifts the film well and truly out of the murky pool where a high number of the genre languor.

In 1991, the film was included in the US National Film Registry as being deemed, “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. Also, it will doubtless come as no surprise to learn that it features highly in many of the American Film Institute’s 100 Years of cinema lists. For me, it’s a recent discovery I’m very thankful for and yet another reminder that the ’40s was an awesome decade for movies. It’s one that has aged extremely well and one that will encourage me to continue scanning the Internet and the lists of films people consider the best ever made.

 

 

 

 

 

The Persuaders! – Classic Action/Adventure TV

In my earlier article, The Invaders – Classic Sci-fi TV, I made the comment that its opening title sequence was unarguably the most atmospheric for any TV show ever made. The way it ominously leads you into the premise of the show and the protagonist’s situation is, to my mind, quite simply perfect. The eerie music, the heavy, monotonous tones of the narrator bringing you up to speed with how the nightmare began for architect David Vincent is a touch of genius and has never been bettered. However, there is another show with an opening title sequence that works in much the same way and, in my opinion, is just as evocative. I’m talking, of course, about The Persuaders! which, with its blend of glamour, action and humour, really was and still is, a thoroughly watchable romp.

Again, the opening titles, this time accompanied by John Barry’s superb theme tune (Did this man write some great music or what?), are pure class and do a great job of informing us what the show is about. Using a split-screen layout they reveal the backgrounds of the two main characters of the show played by Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. Side-by-side, a pair of folders, one red and one blue, labelled Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair narrates their lives via photographs and old film of the two men from childhood through to their current status as international playboys. Live footage and torn newspaper clippings offer glimpses into their lifestyles and explain, in part, their various successes and then the sequence culminates in showing the two men enjoying a life of glitz and glamour in exotic locations surrounded by beautiful women, fast cars, diamonds and Champagne.

The premise of the show is straightforward and fairly typical of television at the time which for the best part of a decade had been churning out one action adventure series after another. Two men from very different backgrounds are brought together by a retired judge and persuaded to team up and solve cases which the courts cannot. Danny Wilde (Curtis) hails from the slums of New York City, a streetwise urchin made good. He escaped a tough neighbourhood and a probable life of crime by enlisting in the U.S Navy and later became a millionaire several times over via Wall Street and the oil business. Brett Sinclair (Moore) was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. An English aristocrat – the 15th Earl of Marnock to be precise – he attended Harrow and Oxford before serving as an officer in a Guards Brigade, then became a Grand Prix racer and race horse owner. The two characters could not have come from different backgrounds and much of the humour of the show plays on this fact as well as the general differences between British and American customs. The two actors’ playful banter and adolescent attempts at oneupmanship are what help make this show so great.

Laurence Naismith plays Judge Fulton, the man who brings this mismatched pair together. Despite being retired from the Bar, he is determined to continue his personal crusade for justice but needs someone to do his legwork for him. So, he arranges for the two men to meet on the French Riviera and coerces them into helping him. Having studied them and deeming them ideal for his purposes, he presents them with an offer they can’t refuse – to be of use to society and to do good for mankind rather than to waste away their lives in Martini hazes and all night parties. Naturally they elect to help him (particularly when they learn a beautiful woman is involved) and voila, a sparkling new crime fighting duo is born!

Each episode is an adventure in itself, sometimes set in a glamorous European locale but more often based out of Sinclair’s London home (just around the corner from St. James’s Park tube, if you’re interested). By today’s standards, the stories are rather simplistic but they always look terrific and are great fun to watch. The show also has certain signatures. There are always pretty women, there are always punch-ups and there is always humour even when the heroes are at gunpoint – fortunately both actors had wonderful comic timing. And then, there are the cars they drove – a handsome Aston Martin DBS for Sinclair and a gorgeous Ferrari Dino 246 GT for Wilde. A testament to the cachet the show was expected to carry was that both cars were given to the show’s producers courtesy of the manufacturers. I mean, come on, what’s not to like. This show had it all, it had to be a success. Right?

The series was released in the autumn of 1971 and was a big hit pretty much everywhere except the US, which was a vital market for the show’s producers. American audiences however, were not persuaded to switch over from Mission: Impossible, which aired on an opposing channel on Saturday nights and because of this, the ABC network pulled the plug even before all 24 episodes were shown. This resulted in the show not being commissioned for a second season.

Despite some speculation about the working relationship between Moore and Curtis, you cannot help but surmise that they had an absolute blast making this series. Both men appear to be in their element throughout and for me, their on-set chemistry was simply wonderful. Roger Moore was directly involved in the production of the series and already had a good relationship with Robert S. Baker and Lew Grade, having achieved great success in another ITC production, The Saint. Apparently, the three of them sealed the deal of this new series with a simple handshake and no contracts were signed. Curtis was actually Moore’s third choice for the role of Danny Wilde after Rock Hudson and Glenn Ford passed on the offer – luckily for us. At the time, The Persuaders! was the most expensive British TV show produced with each episode costing on average £100,000 (that’s almost £2,000,000 in today’s money) but with the locations and the general high quality of filming, it’s no surprise as few television shows offer quite the spectacle of The Persuaders!

Both stars were of similar age during filming although, where Curtis had enjoyed great success in Hollywood throughout the 1950s and ’60s his star was waning. His work would become less significant and he appeared often as a special guest star on series and movies made for TV but Moore’s stardom was about to go supernova with his donning of James Bond’s tuxedo in 1973. Moore has often said that prior to the filming of Live and Let Die, the Bond producers asked him to cut his hair and to lose some weight and seeing how trim he appears in his first Bond outing compared to his appearance in The Persuaders!, it’s obvious he succumbed to their request. He reportedly gained 20lbs over the course of filming The Persuaders! and he attributes this to the use of real Champagne during filming. And I for one, quite believe it.

So, if you’ve never caught this show, I recommend you give it a try. To witness these two great charismatic stars having an absolute hoot together is a wonderful thing to behold and one that we may never see again. Yes, I’m aware of the rumours of a movie remake, but in all honesty, will a Starsky and Hutch style remake ever live up to the twenty four classic hour-long episodes? I think not.

 

Film Review: The Night That Panicked America

The recent spectacle of a meteor shower tracing fiery trails across many parts of the UK’s night skies brought to my mind another group of meteors crashing into Earth in that wonderful H.G.Wells story, ‘The War of The Worlds’. This in turn induced me to seek out and listen to the original radio broadcast from 1938 (isn’t the Internet an amazing resource?), when Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre on the Air created history with their dramatisation of the story.

Now, I’m sure the majority of us have seen either the 2005 Spielberg blockbuster starring Tom Cruise or the much cooler (in my opinion) 1953 movie featuring Gene Barry. Of course, it goes without saying that neither film compares to Herbert George’s 1898 novel – for me, one of the most significant science fiction stories ever written – however, the earlier film benefits from being simpler and less overblown but no less impressive visually. It also tapped into that whole ‘red (communist) scare’ thing that was gripping America at the time of its release.

To really allow the genius of Wells’ writing to stir up your imagination though, turn off the TV, switch off your phone and lay back in a darkened room and listen to the radio broadcast that went out on CBS on the eve of Halloween almost seventy five years ago. It was such a spellbinding play that of the approximate six million who tuned in to the broadcast, over a million believed it to be a true Martian invasion and many of them actually fled from their homes in hysterical abandonment. And this brings me rather neatly to the film I’m recommending this time round – The Night That Panicked America.

Made in 1975 for the ABC Television Network this TV movie, starring Vic Morrow, Tom Bosley and Paul Shenar, recounts in docudrama style the broadcast from the point of view of Orson Welles (Shenar) and his Mercury Theatre associates as well as from several fictional groups of listeners from varying locations and social classes who all believed the broadcast to be a real Martian invasion.

The depiction of the broadcast itself makes this film worth watching just to see how radio professionals put together a show – actors in front of mics reading lines from pages of script while foley artists use the tools of their trade (and often some clever improvisation) to create the sounds to bring the story alive. To witness each and every one of them coming in right on cue is a pure joy. And once the broadcast is under way, then we get to see the poor, misguided listeners, the believers, those who had missed the broadcast’s opening line announcing the evening’s dramatisation of a novel. If they had heard this, they would have realised it was not real news bulletins they were listening to. There’s no doubt that the ‘on-the-spot’ reporting style of the radio play helped convince many that an invasion was actually happening and together with fact that in 1938, Americans were living in an atmosphere of tension and anxiety as Adolf Hitler steered the world towards its second global conflict, the play’s frightening premise simply fuelled the paranoia that was already running high in the country’s stream of consciousness. Indeed, some listeners thought the invaders were the Germans on a vanguard attack.

While this TV movie may exaggerate some of the panic (for entertainment’s sake, you understand), it’s not difficult to imagine just how wildly people might have reacted on that night. Remember, this was a time when news wasn’t as instant as it is today and with the radio being the only source of finding out what was going on in the wider world, hearing (never mind seeing) was believing. So, when we see a pair of farmers arm themselves with shotguns and head out into the surrounding countryside in search of the invaders and a wealthy household flee their dinner party with the family silver we can pretty much understand their actions even though we know they’re mistaken.

Another note of consequence – the Mercury Theatre on the Air was an unsponsored show at the time, and therefore there were no advertisement breaks during the play. The audience would have heard an uninterrupted report of a Martian invasion in real time with no clue that they were listening to a work of fiction. Naturally, it wasn’t long before the CBS studio started receiving calls from concerned listeners but the switchboard operators simply couldn’t believe that people thought that what they were hearing was real.

In the days following the broadcast, CBS was on the receiving end of a fair amount of flack over the incident with several newspapers and public figures describing the play’s ‘news-bulletin format’ as cruelly deceptive. The network was sued by many listeners claiming ‘mental anguish’ and ‘personal injury’ but all suits were dismissed save for one – a man from Massachusetts claimed for a pair of shoes he had bought to escape the Martians. Orson Welles apparently insisted the man be paid.

All in all then, this is an interesting little film made all the more remarkable for being a true story. The fact that the story revolves around one of the greatest sci-fi tales ever written, makes it, while not quite a classic, most definitely worth watching.

 

 

 

Film Review: Black Narcissus

Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced numerous films of note, many of them rivalling anything that came out of Hollywood. Their collaborations began in 1939 with the First World War thriller The Spy in Black, which Powell directed and Pressburger wrote the screenplay for. A couple of years later they co-founded their production company The Archers and made One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942). The two would go on to share a writer-director-producer credit until the partnership ended in 1957 and along the way they gave us such classics as A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Red Shoes (1948) and The Battle of the River Plate (1956).

Arguably their most memorable offering was Black Narcissus (1947), a wonderful psychological drama set within a convent in an isolated Himalayan valley. The stunning Technicolor photography alone is enough to imprint this movie forever on your mind and if you’ve never seen, I urge you to do so at your nearest convenience. The use of matte paintings and scale models has rarely been used with such skill and majesty and despite the fact that the landscape is clearly fake, it is lit and coloured so magnificently, that it’s all the more awesome for being so. Costumes too, seem to take on a symbolic relevance and whether it’s the godliness of white robes, the devilishness of a red dress or the honesty and frankness of being semi-naked, there’s a depth to be found in every detail we see.

The plot revolves around a group of nuns – lead by the Sister Superior Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) – who are sent to the abandoned Palace of Mopu, near Darjeeling in the Himalayas to establish a school and hospital in order to help civilise the local community. Their mountainside convent is a former harem complete with sensual mosaics and images on its walls, and making it habitable is the nuns’ first hurdle to overcome. Sister Clodagh is forced to accept the help of local British agent Dean (David Farrar) to achieve this and Dean immediately makes a hurdle of himself but in a different way. His deep-voice and hairy-chested masculinity affects the nuns to varying degrees and seems to remind several of them that they are, after all, women and as if that wasn’t enough, Jean Simmons, in a very early role, has a memorable part as a mischievous local dancing girl, who with her flowing silks and flirtatious demeanour, presents a stark contrast to the nuns’ chaste way of life.

Dean warns Clodagh from the outset that the palace is no place for a convent and later credits the high altitude as capable of playing havoc with one’s senses. It’s not long before the isolation and the atmosphere unsettles the nuns while Dean’s bullish machismo begins to affect Sister Clodagh and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron). Clodagh finds herself dwelling on the failed romance that drove her into the Sisterhood several years prior while Ruth becomes pathologically jealous of Clodagh’s growing friendship with Dean. The climate, the mystique of the local culture and the nuns’ own fallibility all play a part in this story and each of these adds to the tension as it rises like the mountainous peaks that surround them.

If this might sound less than exciting, do not be fooled. This film is a masterpiece. Full of psychological suspense and sexual desire Black Narcissus is, in Michael Powell’s own view, the most erotic film he ever made. “It is all done by suggestion,” he said, “but eroticism is in every frame and image from beginning to end. It is a film full of wonderful performances and passion just below the surface, which finally, at the end of the film, erupts.”

The climax is a riveting pastiche of music and image on a truly epic scale with no dialogue, just a mesmerising operatic symphony of sound that will turn your knuckles white. An interesting note here is that the music for this scene was scored before the scene was shot which meant the actors’ motivations and movements were choreographed to the music just as they would be on a stage. Truly, truly wonderful stuff.

The film collected two Academy Awards at the 1958 Oscar’s ceremony for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Deborah Kerr won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Sister Clodagh.  It holds number 44 in the British Film Institute’s greatest British films of the 20th century and number 16 in Time Out’s 100 best British films list.

The 65 years that have passed since the film’s release hasn’t diminished its impact. The haunting beauty of the painted landscapes and backdrops and the film’s vivid colour simply adds to its lasting appeal. To see it once, is to never forget it.

 

 

 

The Best Bond?

In his new book entitled Bond On Bond, Sir Roger Moore says that not only is Daniel Craig the best actor to play the world’s greatest fictional spy but that he also has the best build of any Bond to boot. Is he right? Is he wrong? Does it matter? Do we care? We are talking about an actor and an imaginary character after all and the nights will continue to draw in and our taxes won’t change depending on our verdict.

Of course, there is no real answer to the question because, like a ‘best’ meal or a ‘best’ holiday destination, everyone has a favourite based on their own individual tastes. One person’s Lobster Thermidore will be another’s cheeseburger and curly fries. Paradise for some would be relaxing on an island in the Indian Ocean while for others it would be trekking across the American northwest. It’s all relative you see. Likewise, can it truly be said that John Wayne’s portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit was better than that of Richard Burton’s King Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days? Wayne did win the Academy Award that year, after all. Or was it simply two great artists doing what they do extremely well but being pointlessly compared to one another in a competition where only one can triumph?

Surely then, this is the same pointless comparison for the six actors who have so far played Bond. Each one different, each one bringing something new to the role, each one interpreting the role in their own way from their own prospective. While it’s true that some of the films are better than others, generally a result of a more rounded script, can the better films be accredited solely to the actor in the lead role? Probably not. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the strongest stories in Fleming’s series of novels but was made with a relatively inexperienced actor in the lead role and a fast-paced editing style, making for a slightly wooden Bond and a different looking movie overall. But in spite of this, with a script that leaned more towards plot than full on action while keeping remarkably true to the original story, it remains one of the more intelligent films in the franchise and a firm favourite with fans.

For me, Connery defined the role. He was tall, dark and brutally handsome. His Bond oozed masculinity, had an intrepid sense of fun and an over-stimulated libido, things that quickly became trademarks of the character. Under Cambridge alumnus Terence Young’s direction, Connery was able to portray a man who had had a university education at, among others, Eton (albeit cut short by unruly behaviour) as well as having enjoyed European adventures during his formative years. Connery’s Bond was well educated, had a certain continental exuberance and a graceful British refinement. His wardrobe was simple yet stylish, tailored perfectly to his athletic physique with an elegance no subsequent Bond has managed yet. Certainly Brosnan and Craig are well-decked out in their expensive tuxedos and assorted outfits but by comparison they are starched and look over-dressed. A case perhaps of the wardrobe department trying too hard.

There was a glamour that surrounded the character in those early ’60s films, something exotic that is no longer there. Remember, this was a time when a large majority of us had probably never been abroad (save for those servicemen and women who were stationed overseas during and after WWII) and so Jamaica, Turkey, etc would have been incredibly exciting locales to cinema-goers. Today, a much greater number of us have travelled abroad, experienced far-flung destinations like those places visited by 007 and consequently a part of the mystique of this man’s world has been removed. The same could be said of the exotic car associated with the character as well because the chances of seeing a DB5 (of which just over a thousand were built) around in the mid ’60s was much lower than catching sight of a Vanquish today. Indeed, I’ve no doubt a huge proportion of the younger (and not so younger) generation have probably even driven a Vanquish, if only via a PlayStation console. The mystery, the intrigue of the world that this most secret of men inhabits is all but gone.

The majority of us would likely admit to preferring the James Bond actor that we grew up watching. It’s that age when our minds are most fertile and impressionable and nostalgia often affects a strong influence too. Roger Moore was Bond when I grew up and as much as I enjoyed his 007 (The Spy Who Loved Me being my personal favourite of his) he never threatened to replace Connery’s face in my mind as I re-read Fleming’s novels. I loved Moore’s acting though, it was glib and humorous and highly entertaining (as it was in all he did save perhaps The Man Who Haunted Himself, which I recommend anyone to see) but his Bond didn’t seem as dangerous as Connery’s, or as real. And suddenly we get to the heart of the matter. Realism. Sure, the novels are fiction, we all know that, but they were written by a man who worked for British Naval Intelligence, a man who experienced the world of espionage and managed to translate that experience onto the pages of his novels via his writing style.  And those first two movies, Dr No and From Russia With Love, were respectfully true to the writing, hence, they retained a certain realism. Particularly From Russia With Love, which involves a somewhat low key plot that concerns the acquisition of a decoding machine and the revenge assassination of Bond. Simple stuff by today’s standards but no less entertaining and thrilling for it. As for action, the fight between Bond and Grant in the train compartment is surely one of the best choreographed punch-ups in movie history. Connery and Shaw really do struggle with each other as they smash into the wooden doors and wardrobes. And they make it look so real. By contrast, today’s Bond seems to bulldoze his way over his enemies like a Terminator, showing no emotion and barely any effort as he leaves broken necks in his wake. The editing and pace of modern movies is such that a choreographed fight is less of a scene and more of a splicing together of lots of different moves.

Something else that came to define Bond’s screen character (if not his literary one) was the dry wit, the humour, the witty one-liners. Connery started it, Moore expanded it, Dalton removed it, Brosnan resurrected it and now, Craig has totally overlooked it. But wait a minute, isn’t this humour an integral part of 007’s screen persona? Take that away and you removed a part of the man. We have come to expect Bond to deliver some daft tongue-in-cheek remark after despatching a bad guy from a rooftop. However, let’s not assume that these witticisms are easy to deliver, for it takes a certain ability, a certain (dare I say it) X-factor that an actor either has or doesn’t have and some, perhaps even most, actors just don’t have it. Sometimes a joke can be seen a mile off and come across as simply too obvious, as it did on numerous occasions in the Brosnan films. Yes, they make you chuckle but they come across as having been carefully placed into proceedings by a scriptwriter rather than a flippant off-the-cuff remark by the character himself, something Connery and Moore did so well.

When Timothy Dalton took over the reins in 1987, he said he wanted to take 007 back to the books and the grittiness of Fleming’s writing. He did this and his portrayal was a great departure from Moore’s, which was perhaps no bad thing at the time, when the series was losing momentum but he took a step too far and made Bond dull, boring, sensible, unsexy. The story lines of his two films were not necessarily at fault but in his portrayal of Bond, he lacked that certain something that made him at once deadly and yet likeable and charming.

Like Dalton, Brosnan lacked that undefinable quality to be a great James Bond although he did at least bring the fun back to the series. But by this time the films were nothing more than globe-trotting blockbusters with little of the essence of the novels in evidence, save an Aston Martin and a dry Martini. The story lines were fantastic and the stunts totally unreal simply because the cinema-going public had grown used to all of Hollywood’s heroes escaping from enormous explosions with their shirt tails on fire while riding a high-powered motorcycle one handed through a plate glass window. Nowadays, the cinematic world is full of Jason Bournes and Frank Martins, riveting audiences to their seats with high octane action. So, is James Bond still unique among contemporary movie characters?

Casino Royale was a great film and according to polls, one of the most popular Bond films to date. Again though, do we credit the lead actor with this success or the screenplay, which was pretty darn close to the original story? Daniel Craig certainly redefined the role to fit him as an actor but if we are going to attempt a pointless comparison with the previous five actors, then I think it’s a little premature to label him the best Bond ever. For my money, he completely lacks the charm, the wit and the elegance of Fleming’s creation and as I said earlier, he tends to trample his enemies like a Terminator. He’s more of a well-dressed thug than a suave secret agent and despite his tuxedo, he exudes the qualities of a man who’d prefer a beer than a Martini. Yes, he may have set female pulses racing around the world with his emergence from the ocean in a scene precariously reminiscent of Hally Berry in her orange bikini from Die Another Day, but he’s made the character a lot less likeable and consequently, less fun to watch. The films themselves have become too big, too spectacular, too fantastic and because of this, the stunts and the story lines become ever more unbelievable. How wonderful it would be for the producers to return to Fleming’s roots and give us an intelligent espionage thriller once more instead of another saving-the-world mega blockbuster that is nothing more that a series of death-defying stunts strung together by an unbelievable story line.

So, is Sir Roger merely fanning the flames of the series after the relative disappointment of Quantum Of Solace or does he have a point? Is Daniel Craig a better actor than those who preceded him in the role and does he have the best build of any of them? Being the only one to come in under six feet, he’s certainly the shortest and stockiest but the best? Personally, I think Daniel Craig needs to lighten up a little and let us see that he’s enjoying the role of the world’s coolest secret agent before he gets anywhere near Connery’s portrayal. But that’s just my opinion. And we all have one.

Skyfall will doubtless make millions of dollars and ensure that Bond returns once more but at the end of day, the difference between today’s Bond films and the early ones will be explicated by the historians. Critics and fans alike already view Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger as ‘classic’, genre-defining moments of cinema. The rest of the titles in the series, well, however much we love them, they are less likely to garner such acclaim and will probably be spoken about in the same way as the majority of rip-roaring blockbusters that Hollywood churns out.

 

 

 

Film Review: The Tin Star

Well, I don’t know about you but my weekend was wet and windy and, compared to of late, pretty darn chilly. At least for August. Had it been more clement, I would probably have busied myself with one or two little jobs that are awaiting my attention outside. Or I might have taken a languid stroll around the park. Alas, Hey Ho! the weather kept me indoors. So what better way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon than to watch an old sun-drenched western, particularly one directed by Anthony Mann whose CV includes some of the finest of the genre ever made.

While it may be easier to recall the more famous Mann westerns starring James Stewart, of which there were five (starting with Winchester ’73 in 1950 and ending with The Man From Laramie in 1955), The Tin Star, made two years later, stars Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins. This time, instead of one main protagonist – the emotionally tortured soul that Steward embodied so well – here we have two main characters – Fonda’s laconic and sagacious bounty hunter and Perkins’ young and inexperienced town sheriff. There are no sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains, beautiful pine sided valleys or white-water gorges here either, an element that Mann captured so beautifully in those earlier films. Indeed, in complete contrast to the Stewart films, there is no travel at all involved for the characters here, not in a geographical sense anyway. The only journeys undertaken are in the characters of the characters, if you get my drift.

It is dialogue that drives this movie forward more than an cross-country pursuit peppered with gunfights, that and the influence that Fonda’s age and experience has on Perkins’ naivety. Apart from a couple of forays out into the surrounding dusty countryside, the action takes place in a little old town in the middle of nowhere. It’s shot in black and white too which seems to add to the film’s parched appearance. Also worth noting is that the film opens with a shot of the town’s main street as Fonda trots in on his horse and closes with exactly the same shot with him riding out in a buggy. Whether Mann meant anything by this is down to one’s interpretation.

And so to the plot. Morgan Hickman (Fonda) rides into town with a dead outlaw slung over his pack horse. He goes to the sheriff’s office to claim the bounty on it. The townsfolk don’t want him around because bounty hunters are bad news. Ben Owens (Perkins) has been appointed temporary sheriff by the townsfolk (the last one having been killed) on account nobody else wants the job. Nobody that is, but the town bully Bogardus (Neville Brand) who would use the post as a licence to kill.

Owens is a likeable young man with a rather unconfident manner and a sweetheart who won’t marry him while he’s wearing a star and Bogardus is a distinctly nasty piece of work who has the townsfolk standing behind him because they’re all afraid of him. He is a racist bully and it’s not long before he shoots an Indian in the back claiming it was self-defence. Owens swallows hard and steps forward to do his job but Bogardus resists arrest, prompting Hickman to step forward and lend an experienced hand.

Hickman has to stick around a day or two while his bounty claim is processed and gets lodgings with widow Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer), a young woman who lives just outside of town with her son, a half-Indian boy named Kip (Michael Ray). Strong feelings rapidly develop between Morgan and Nona and Kip is thrilled to have a father figure around.

With Bogardus released from jail after witnesses claim he did indeed act in self-defence, the young sheriff asks Hickman for some coaching on how to become a better sheriff. Hickman, at first reluctant, telling Owens to quit while he still can and go marry his girl, has a change of heart when he admits to having once been a lawman himself before turning bounty hunter. For all his naivety, Owens is a decent, upstanding man but simply lacks the basic knowledge of being a lawman. He has the heart but not the tools. So Hickman begins to advise the younger man.

Later, the town doctor is murdered by two brothers and the town demands justice. Owens is adamant he wants to bring the perpetrators back alive so they can face a fair trial but Hickman is certain that filling them with lead is the only way the brothers will allow themselves to be brought in. Bogardus takes off with a large posse to capture them, his intention to string them up from the nearest tree.

With Hickman’s help, the brothers are taken alive by the sheriff and thrown in jail. But the rowdy posse – headed by Bogardus – threatens to storm the jail and hang the brothers in the street. Owens, having learned much from Hickman in the last few days, faces the crowd and Bogardus and soon earns the respect of the town. He is now the competent lawman he wanted to be. The film ends on a happy note with Hickman riding out of town to start afresh somewhere else a changed man, with a new woman and a young boy beside him.

Overall this is a very good film and an often overlooked western gem. The acting is terrific from a strong cast, particularly from the two leads. Fonda, who in my opinion, is always worth his fee, plays the jaded hero figure with just the right blend of cruelness and compassion. Sure, he’s as mean as hell, he’s got to be, it’s a tough job and someone has to do it. Perkins, who was only twenty five and in one of his first roles portrays being wet behind the ears at the outset with real honesty but by the end of the film, he’s grown in stature and maturity. A great performance from him.

The screenplay written by Dudley Nichols from a story by Joel Kane and Barney Slater was nominated for an Academy Award, something that very rarely happened to low budget westerns at the time (or ever). There are words of wisdom in Hickman’s dialogue as he tries to instruct Owens in the art of staying alive and in return for this, by collaborating with the younger, idealistic man, Hickman manages to re-find the virtues that he lost years ago through personal tragedy. The movie deals with racism, friendship, romance and the ways of the old west in an intelligent and subtle way that few of the genre ever did and whether you like ‘cowboy’ films or not, the penmanship is such that it’s simply a great story well told. Definitely worth seeing.