Reviews

I never missed a show for the first three or so seasons. I knew all about the men of the squadron, but I had questions the show didn't answer, like how come Lt. Hanley wasn't on every week? Did he have obligations elsewhere that occasionally kept him from leading his men into combat? This meant that, once again, most of the grunt work was done by the sergeant and the other non-coms. Also, why did every French town they went into have a river with a step bridge over it? It's like that TV executive I saw in a movie once who said that the audience wasn't smart enough to notice little things like the above. An eight-year-old noticed it. So much for the intelligence of TV executives, whose IQs haven't risen much some 50 years hence.

The end of "Combat" came as a result, I guess, of the media's turning on the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. The news readers' anti-war stance suddenly made the depiction of fighting men on TV unfashionable. While it was on, it gave me an idea of what it was like for my father to do battle in little French towns like the ones Sgt. Saunders and his men fought in.

The only good thing about this episode is that the outdoor scenes were filmed outdoors, as opposed to, say, in a leaf-strewn cardboard jungle like the set where they filmed "Ramar of the Jungle". And John Russell plays the hero very well. Otherwise, it's just a curiosity piece- with psychological overtones, no less.

The script is the usual stuff- an American couple hires the two "soldiers"- Tim and Tebow- I mean Toubo- to take them through the jungles of Burma. They soon meet up with the local headhunters. This is where credibility exits, stage left. First of all, this is Burma, not Africa. There were no headhunters in Burma back then. Secondly, the Burmese men look mysteriously like Apaches, as if they wandered in from a John Ford western. They look to be dressed for winter on the prairie, wearing long-sleeved tops and buckskins. It's about 90 there, and our American entourage is sweating like pigs, yet here are some local natives who look like they live inside an icehouse. The viewer will have to watch to find out about the psychological drama previously referred to, which has to do with the husband's unfounded insecurity about his wife.

Speaking of curiosity, I, myself, am curious- about how this show lasted two years on the network. Presumably, the scripts got better.

I won't change anyone's minds with this post. A lot of people who are fans of musicals- especially classics like "Singin in the Rain" and "My Fair Lady"- disdain this musical version of "Lost Horizon" because it is an anti-musical. Unlike Arthur Freed, who produced (and co-wrote the songs for) many classic musicals at MGM, producer Ross Hunter hired mostly non-singers and non-dancers to sing and dance. First mistake. Then he gave the actors a script that was a watered-down version of the original. Second mistake. Then he hired a highly-competent British director, but one who had never directed a musical before, to helm it. Third mistake. And so on and so on. Yet the passion displayed by posters on the message boards here suggests that not everyone is put off by the shortcomings of this wretched big-budget movie that plays more like a TV musical. Too bad you supporters weren't around when it first hit the big screen. You might have saved LH from becoming what one critic called "Lost Investments".

Even if you do like this film, you must admit that there had to be some validity to the criticism. Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who respectively wrote the music and lyrics for this epic, never worked together again, even after years of success. The question is- who talked who into taking the money to write songs like "Question Me An Answer"? I'm guessing that is what the post-release estrangement was all about.

Why don't you LH fans see a real musical from the classic period of the 30s to the 50s, when they were made by pros who knew how to "put on a show"? Check out "On the Town", or any of the Astaire-Rogers musicals. That way, even if seeing them doesn't change your opinion about one of the only disaster films of the 70s not produced by Irwin Allen, you'll at least understand why this "forgotten" film holds up so badly when placed along side one of the real classics mentioned above.

This is a rare piece of nostalgia that features the Beatles starring in their own 1964 British TV special. It portrays them as musicians, music fans, and stage performers, as well. The show opens with them singing some of their hits. But the bulk of the next part of the hour consists of performances by artists the Beatles are fans of, though not all of the stars on this special were known in America. So while Millie Small sang her hit, "My Boy Lollipop", Cilla Black, who was known more as a Brian Epstein client than a chart-maker in the US of A, sang a number, as did John Baldry, who was still several years away from fame over here with his "Boojie Woojie" music. The instrumental group, Sounds Incoporated, became more well-known later on as the horn players on "Good Morning, Good Morning", and as a warm-up act on many of the Beatles tours. PJ Proby was, indeed, from the states, but made the charts in England a few years later. A less-knowing British music fan might have asked why Billy Fury and Cliff Richard weren't invited on this show, ditto Adam Faith. The answer is simple- though the Beatles might never had publicly stated it, they had little use for the Brit-pop idols listed above who were making the British charts while the Fab Four were still paying their dues in Hamburg dives. The boys chose, instead, the artists that they genuinely admired. The surprise to me was seeing Baldry here. I had known he had been a blues pioneer in England, along the lines of John Mayall, and that he would later sell a ton of records as a crooner, but I had never before seen him appear as a pop star. Having done so, I'm glad he grew a beard later on; he looks kind of nerdy and awkward here.

The highlight of the evening, besides seeing them play live, was the Moptops' appearance in a skit that featured themselves- plus the British comedy team of Morecomb and Wise- doing a lampoon of Romeo and Juliet, played, respectively. by Paul and John. It was wonderfully dopey and silly, and allowed them to ham it up like crazy.

TV specials like this are worth watching still, some forty-plus years later, because they don't exist anymore, at least in 21st century America. You'll never again see a group featuring young men such as these performing in prime-time for a whole hour. Their audience today would watch them on VH1, the chat shows, and "Saturday Night Live". So "Around The Beatles" is a rarity, and worth searching out by anyone curious to find out what all the fuss was about back in the days of the Invasion. It would illuminate the viewer who is learning about the Beatles, the 60s' most vibrant and influential group, by showing him or her that, yes, they were musicians, but they were also pop fans just like everyone else who, once in a while, also liked to dress up and act silly on stage just for their own amusement- and yours.

I was just old enough to read about and understand the dismantling of MGM not long after this promotional short came out. In retrospect, if the movies featured in it are all the studio had to offer, then I guess it became a fait accompli when most of these pictures were released to mediocre reviews and/or box office, precipitating the fire sale of real estate and studio inventory that took place as a result (the most symbolic act of which being the auctioning of Dorothy's ruby slippers).

I have seen many of the films that were promoted here. The highlight, of course, was "2001: A Space Oddysey." "Point Blank" and "Where Eagles Dare" were both pieces of solid entertainment, as well. On the other end was "The Extraordinary Seaman," a horrible mess of a film that is supposed to be a lightweight story about the ghost of a WWI British naval officer (David Niven), but was weighted down by an albatross of a script penned by someone without a shred of whimsy, and directed the same way by John Frankenheimer, of all people. And "A Man Called Dagger" screams "TV Movie," what with its small-screen/b-movie cast (and budget). Unfortunately, most of the films in "Lionpower" fit either one or both of those moldy molds.

The class productions included "The Comedians," an ironic title, courtesy of the Graham Greene novel, about people living in Haiti during the Papa Doc Duvalier regime. Not a happy movie, but at least the participants- Liz and Dick, plus Lillian Gish and Paul Ford- had a good script to work from. And Roman Polanski directed "The Fearless Vampire Killers," a humorous satire that ought to be viewed again, now that the Transylvania Kids are once again en vogue.

There are a lot of other movies represented here. Unfortunately, even the few good ones mentioned in it couldn't save the studio, and the (mostly) fair-to-middling releases only hastened the demise of the MGM we once knew. So, in the end, "Lionpower" represents the final, throttled gasp of Leo the Lion, symbol of the studio that was once called the "Dream Factory."

Footnote: Ironically, it was another gigantic turkey, "Heaven's Gate," that, a decade later, allowed MGM (and Leo) to rise from the ashes and take over its parent company, United Artists, which had financed that infamous money pit of a film.

If Leonard Pinth-Garnell, the Bad Cinema maven from SNL, ever compiled a list of ten examples of "Truly Bad Cinema," this epic would have to be on it. Now, I usually don't consider films like this one to be worthy of mention on a bad-movie list. Normally, I prefer the grand turkeys like "Conqueror" and "Exorcist II." Still, Linda Blair is Linda Blair, and it was her starring in it that got it made. So I guess we can blame her for this turkey. The fact that these college-age dudes and babes can suddenly shoot like Green Berets is a variation of Roger Ebert's "thirty-second genius" motif. That is where the lead hears the whole plot from somebody in 30 seconds, and immediately knows what to do. In this case, the kids practice shooting for a couple hours, then are ready to do battle with an entire army. My favorite bad moment is when the kidnapped girl is ravaged by one of the enemy soldiers. The Commandante comes along, shoots the soldier, then has HIS way with her. She must have had more Latinos land on her than the Bay of Pigs. My favorite character is the American soldier-of-fortune, played by Richard Lynch. They should have called him Pizza-Face Jones, since a) Lynch's face has more holes in it than the Van Wyck Expressway, not far from where Lynch grew up in Brooklyn and, b) he acts like Harrison Ford on 'Ludes. There's not much more to say, but if you must see it, try to catch it, unedited, on one of the premium movie channels. If you rent it, do so on two-for-one night, along with something that you know is good. A couple beers will help you bear it.

Oliver Reed has kidnapped Gene's wife, Candy Bergen. Gene is a sadistic ranch-owner who goes out with his men to hunt down Oliver and his gang. Why Gene so desperately wants Candy back, I don't know. She offers no hint throughout that she in any way could be any man's epitome of womanhood, excepting Tommy Newsom. Maybe Gene's afraid that, if he doesn't get her back in this one, they'll make a sequel, requiring him to continue his pursuit of her and Mr. Reed across the hot Spanish desert. Can you say "actor's hell"? This is it. No originality, no warmth (from the sun, yes, but not the script or the actors). The money that financed this meatball must have been used as a tax shelter. There can be no other reason for the film's existence.

Speaking of desert, someone should have sent the producer and director of this unexciting-yet-sadistic oater into that same desert with just a bottle of (warm) water between them. What a waste. And Gene should kiss his Oscar every night for allowing him to avoid having to make movies like this epic forevermore, which he mostly has.

Randy Quaid, as has been noted elsewhere, had not been cast as a Chilean military man. What the other reviewer didn't mention was that Quaid's acting coach must have been the Frito Bandito. His accent is right out of Central Casting, Latino Division. His whole performance took away any credibility this film might have had up to that point. In a film this serious, the last thing one expects is a character whose accent is so off-the-wall as to throw the whole film off track. From the time he first appears and starts talking, they could have changed the name of the film to "National Lampoon's Political Assassination Movie." Sometimes it really does take just one apple to spoil the whole bunch.

This movie is far from the dog it's supposed to be. Rex Harrison is wonderful as Caesar- but when he's done in, so is the movie. Too bad Liz and Dick weren't as heated up on the screen as they were off it. Still, there's a lot to be said for this movie, which almost broke the Fox studios, but actually turned a profit.

Yeah, it's around four hours, but if you don't mind literate dialogue- especially when spoken by Henrius Higginus- that's not a problem. It's not Mankewicz's best- I never saw such boring sea battles- but his second-rate is still ahead of many writers of his day.

PS If you want to see a real Roman dog, watch "Fall of the Roman Empire."

The reason Song of Norway is not hailed as a classic like The Sound Of Music is simple- the acting stinks. The music is wonderful, ditto the voices of Florence Henderson (Who backed up Mary Martin in the Broadway version of TSOM) and Frank Porretta. But once they stop singing, and Grieg (Toralv Maurstad(?)) stops playing, the whole thing just sits their like a cold smorgasbord- it looks very good, but it isn't really that appetizing. There is no warmth or rapport between any two of the leads. The bit parts by Mssrs. Robinson, Homolka, and Morley don't last long enough for anyone to forget how uninspiring the whole thing is. It is doubly so when the characters are talking, and there is a shot of the magnificent Norwegian landscape in the background. You'd think the dialogue could at least try to compete with the scenery. As it is, it comes in a distant third, behind the sweeping vistas and the music.

By comparison, TSOM had first-rate actors with a first-rate script, songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and a budget large enough to support them all. If Julie Andrews was a little too sugary, well, at least she could act. And there was nothing sugary about her escape from Austria with the family.

In the end, Song of Norway is dressed up with wonderful location shooting and memorable tunes, but the acting leaves this film with no place to go.

This is another one of those movies that tries to be scary, mysterious, and filled with tension, but doesn't invoke anything but laughter, the unintentional kind.

As in "The Exorcist", an evil something-or-other (Actually, an Egyptian queen, whose spirit was freed by archaeologist Chuck and his minions) is wandering about, looking to create malice. And like the counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, the characters in "The Awakening" are getting bumped off one by one in very creative ways. Actually, this movie could have used Jason, or at least his hockey mask, which the actors could have worn to hide their faces, thus shielding them from ridicule by those who howl at this excellent example of truly bad cinema.

What were Charlton Heston and Susannah York thinking when they signed on to do this epic? Mucho dollars, probably. That has to be the reason- for sure, this ain't art.

Also in the cast is a young Stephanie Zimbalist, who plays Chuck's daughter. She becomes possessed by the queen's spirit and turns into an evil, sexy royal. The third act alone, where she really starts raising Cain, is worth a rental (only if you have a freebie- don't plunk down real money for this one). If you liked Stephanie in "Remington Steele", then see what propelled her to do TV- the sooner people could forget her in this horrid film, the better for her career.

I used to get Cinemax. They used to show Andy Sidaris's trashy, low-budget, sexy-girl-detective films. They were perfectly awful. The action scenes were not well-done, and the Playmates -er- actresses who played the snoopers couldn't act their way out of a phone booth. The women were boring even when they took off their clothes, which was often.

"Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" is what those movies could have been like if only they had a) women who could act, b) smart stunts, and c) a well-rounded script full of both humor and action.

It is a male fantasy come to life, this sequel. The Angels are hot as hell, yet they could each be the girl next door. Their boyfriends are not GQ posers, but regular guys. The Angels are really the Three Musketeers with bods to die for (or from).

The action scenes defy description. A couple of them rival those of the Bond films in terms of grandeur and effect. Very few non-Bond movies dare to aim that high. This one does and pulls it off in spectacular fashion.

What holds CA:FT together, though, is not its flash, but its heart. These women really like each other (so do the actresses; you can't fake the sincerity of their mutual on-screen affection). They would do anything for their comrades. They even hang out together when they are not on a case. In fact, one of the plot points involves one of the Angels walking away for a time, fearing that someone from her past may do harm to the others. There is a total lack of cynicism in the script; maybe the cuddliness wouldn't have been there if this had been another Lethal Weapon film, but that is the point- the Angels can get a little more emotional because they ARE women, which adds a whole other dimension to the character development.

Those who don't like this film shouldn't have been expecting "Masterpiece Theatre." To paraphrase another IMBD poster- it's not brain surgery you're looking at here. It's a first-rate Hollywood action movie, but one that stars three women- maybe you have a problem with the fact that they could kick your butt without breaking a nail.

So rent it once- it's the version of "Malibu Express" where the actresses are more talented the more they leave their clothes ON.

(Note: If you are a guy, buy it, but don't watch it with your mate unless she is open-minded about you drooling all over the sofa at the sight of the Angels dancing at a strip club).

Simple. He was sitting in an office at RKO and the script was just laying there. He started reading it and imagined himself in the role. He decided it would be a good part for him, and when Duke Wayne says he wants to make this movie, no one says no, a la Tom Cruise today. The fact that this role was totally not him, no matter how good an actor he was, did not faze him.

The rest is- er- history. Unfortunately, so were many of the actors and crew, who eventually died from radiation poisoning as a result of being on location in Utah not too far from nuclear test sites. When Howard Hughes sold RKO soon after, his only request was that he keep the rights to two movies- "Jet Pilot" and this epic. Legend has it that he kept playing them over and over again in his room. If he got as tetched as they say he did in his later years, you can blame his malady, in part, on the adverse effects of seeing "The Conqueror" one too many times.

For further review, see the Medved Brothers' book, "Golden Turkey Awards," which has a lot of additional information about this movie that is rightfully included within its pages. One of my favorite lines: "We'll pull your fingers out jernt by jernt." Spoken by Ted DeCorsia, Brooklyn-born bad-guy actor.

As another poster has stated, John Gilbert had taken to heavy drink after his dismissal from MGM for having a less-than-adequate speaking voice, at least according to Louis B. Mayer. Director Milestone convinced irascible Columbia Studio chief Harry Cohn to hire Gilbert for this movie, promising Cohn that he would keep Gilbert sober by shooting at sea, away from bars and nightclubs. Problem was, many of the other actors in this film also had tremendous thirsts- Victor McLaglen and Leon Errol, to name a couple- and they found ways to hide their bottles even while filming on water. It wasn't long before the drinking began holding up the shooting, prompting a telegram from the studio: "What's holding up production? The costs are staggering." To which Milestone replied: "So is the cast."

A lot of energy went into the making of this film. Too bad it only shows up in the action sequences, and not where it should- in the chemistry between the stars. Stephen Boyd has zero magnitude as a star. He is best remembered in "Ben-Hur" for his scenes with Charlton Heston. Too bad they couldn't continue their -er- relationship in this film, 'cos Boyd and Sophia Loren just don't connect as a couple. Maybe Sophia would've done better if she had someone meatier to play against. As it is, she just pouts (perhaps she is slowly discovering just what kind of soup she got herself into here, plus the fact that she got top billing for this epic). Sir Alec Guinness's part was the only one that added any humanity to the film. But, just as in "Cleopatra" -following Rex Harrison's demise- as Alec goes (poisoned by an apple), so goes any further dramatic credibility.

"Fall" is a precursor of sorts for big-budget films of the 80s and 90s. Many action films of this recent era put the bulk of their budgets into screen F/X, but forgot to script in characters you could either believe or identify with. The result was a passel of big, lumbering, highly impersonal screen spectacles (Millennium, et al), whose only interested viewers now are hard-core action fans and Skywalker Ranch technicians looking for ideas to emulate in their next movie. If "Fall" has any historical significance of its own, it is to show modern filmmakers how to turn a potentially profitable genre film into a dinosaur- create a large body, then put in a small brain. The only "Fall" cast member doing any real acting throughout is Christopher Plummer, but he is way over the top in that regard, playing another Demented Roman Emperor along the lines of Jay Robinson as Caligula in "The Robe." The rest of the cast is just about punching the clock. Don't blame them too much, though; the dialogue isn't much better than the dubbed soundtrack of the average Steve Reeves muscleman film.

"Fall" is the film that ended Samuel Bronston's reign as a producer of screen spectacles. Too bad, 'cos he used to put every dollar he spent up on the screen, and some of the battle scenes here are impressive. The problem with "Fall," though, is that it also points out where he didn't spend ENOUGH- on the script. Others should learn from his mistakes.

Maybe it's because the setting of the movie- New England- is where I spent many an idyllic vacation with my family, but to see this creepy-looking mutant bear running around in the forest is really terrifying. John Frankenheimer directs a nighmarish film that should not be seen alone.

I saw "Prophecy" on a double bill with the original "Friday the 13th," another bloody romp in the forest. The Jason film was second on the bill, and would've been unimpressive on its own, but was rendered especially impotent to this viewer after having all the bejeezus scared out of me by "Prophecy."

Highly recommended!

I didn't realze that Cole Porter fans who frequent the IMDB were such a desperate lot as to praise this travesty of a film to the high heavens.

And it's not as if this movie has only minor flaws to it. It has major flaws from the get-go, such as a pair of non-singing, non-dancing leads who are suppose to sing and dance. Credibility ends right there. Overlooking the fact that Burt and Cybill shouldn't be singing or dancing on film is like Max Bialystock telling Leo Bloom to overlook the fact that Max's chosen director for "Springtime for Hitler," Roger De Bris, is wearing a dress. I'm with Bloom- there's something definitely out of place here.

This cartoon is one of my favorites for a lot of reasons, one of them being that it's a showcase for the sound F/X that were created by Robert Clampett and used throughout in the WB cartoons, even the ones that he didn't direct, such as this one. There is the "bee-whup," the singular "boit," and the most famous one, the "yada-yada-yada." There may even be a couple more I can't think of, but those three are instantly recognizable to long-time Bugs Watchers as Clampett's own.

"His Girl Friday" is described in one newspaper review as "fast, fast, fast." That is an understatement. You have to see this one several times in order to get all the priceless dialogue, some of which overlaps, a phenomenon that hardly ever happens in movies from this era. Grant, Russell, and company are still funny sixty years later. This classic is one of the reasons I so often choose witty comedies over slapstick, ie, the Marx Brothers over Jerry Lewis.

One of the little things I picked up on after repeated viewings is how Billy Gilbert, playing the guy with the governor's reprieve for Earl Williams, steals both scenes he is in. Gilbert can be seen in dozens of other movies in which he blows his stack, especially when he is working with Laurel and Hardy. Here, though, he hardly raises his voice at all, yet you watch his expressions when he is on screen with the other actors, and he becomes the center of attention without speaking a lot of dialogue.

"Beany & Cecil" first aired on Sunday mornings nearly forty years ago (!). Their major sponsor was Mattel toys, whose icon at the time was a young animated boy named Matty, hence the name of the show (there was no sign of Matty when the series was brought back for a short run on cable about six years ago). I seem to remember Matty as having a crown on his head while he repeated the company slogan, "You can tell it's Mattel- it's swell!"