Reviews

This is not a movie I would have normally paid to see, but my buddy was paying, so I said OK. The advertising campaign is misleading. Bruce Willis is NOT 'a co star', nor is 'the Governator' Arnie Black Plowman, they both have mere 2 to 5 minute cameos near the beginning of the film. It was fun to see old farts kick some serious booty. 64 year old Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed and stars here. The Expendables is typical male ego 'my d--k is bigger than yours' stuff. Not an Oscar worthy film, but a fluffy 'no-brainer' action flick that says 'let's blow sh-t up and kill the bad guys'. Typical macho stuff. I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it, but I did. Seeing crap like this in a theater is so much more fun. I usually wait to see the DVD or I frequently ignore films like this.Bombs, bullets, bodies....! I am NOT a prude when it comes to movie violence, but wow, this film is seriously violent and freaking LOUD! I guess I am too damned old at age 45.

I cannot even begin to guess the 'body count' in this film. It reminds me of 'The Dirty Dozen' a lot, story-wise. I guess that there are only so many original story ideas left in movie land. The body count reminds me of Sam Peckinpah's film, 'The Wild Bunch'. Old Sam brought the bullet hits squirting/spraying blood and brains in slow motion to a fine art. We as a society have been bludgeoned over the heads with all the blood, gore and Gut splattering in movies for quite a while now. Video games bring that 'kill as many bad dudes as you can and f--k people up' attitude as well. We think all people who are shot will get up and walk again because gee, in the movies & games it's all pretend, right? How many soldiers have a rude awakening on the battlefield realizing it's NOT a video game or a movie?

The Expendables has some 'Ultra Violence', most of which was CG. I HATE what CG has done to film. It's ruined it for me in a lot of ways. Now I know why I don't go to see films in the theater much anymore. Now I know why I love classic films made 'pre-CG' so much! Most of the stuff being released today is forgettable garbage, in my opinion. Maybe about 30-40 % of films released these days are any damned good. I really love the indie films, documentaries & foreign films being released these days.

The Expendables is a 'guys night out' sort of flick, a male YEAAAHHHHHHHHH! A Giant Testosterone fest! 6 of 10 possible stars. NOT FOR KIDS under 13.

I always liked this episode a lot and especially for the Backus and Hale appearances and Alan Hale's character telling Jim West at the end about having a dream about being stranded on a desert island and the Gilligan's Island theme plays briefly, wink wink, nudge, nudge...they were filmed at the same studio on the Desilu/CBS later Paramount lot along with Gunsmoke. Gilligan's Island had a dream sequence where Gunsmoke's sets were sued, I think. Star Trek was another series filmed on the same lot and they too used elements of Gunsmoke's sets, as did Wild Wild West, most likely.

CBS/Desilu/Paramount got a lot of use out of their sound stages and indoor and outdoor sets for all the many now classic series of the 50's 60's and 70's. Believe it or not, Gunsmoke was almost 100% indoors. the main street of Dodge was a sound stage! So was Gilligan's Island. The Lagoon was outdoors next to the freeway, though. Gunsmoke eventually did location shooting though, as did Wild Wild West. Malibu State Park and the Paramount studios ranch were often used as location settings.

I love most everything I have seen Paul Newman and Lee Marvin in, and I was intrigued at the thought of seeing them in the same movie. This story really did have potential. It's entertaining until about 2/3rd of the way through. It's kind of a dumb ending and Lee and Paul's characters really could have kicked Wayne Rogers & Strother Martin's character's butts for the money, but I guess the way it turns out is the way real life is. Sometimes you just have to let it go and leave and learn from your mistakes. Don't mess with shady characters to begin with, and you won't get burned in the end.

This is a rather mediocre film. How sad. It had such potential.

It's cool that Paul Newman worked with Director Stuart Rosenberg again.They did a total of 4 films together. They did so well with 'Cool Hand Luke' in 1967. Those of you who follow the careers of character actors will also note that Strother Martin and Wayne Rogers were both in 'Cool Hand Luke' with Newman.

Newman obviously liked Strother Martin's acting and they worked on 6 films together, including the classic 'Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid', 1969.

OK, I knew what this was going to be like before I saw it after reading the reviews here on IMDb. The first sentence out of my mouth was 'I can't believe Paramount green lighted this!' And yet I know why. A huge part of the movie going audience was under 25 and Otto Preminger was trying to make sense of the whole hippie/free love/drug scene by making an over the top, absolutely outrageous kook fest with some of the biggest stars in the movies and on TV. I have always wanted to see this movie, mostly because it is Groucho Marx's last film. He is obviously reading his lines from cue cards, but hey, he was almost 80 years old when he made this movie, so I have to cut him some slack. Otto Preminger apparently 'forced' him to blacken his hair, wear a bad toupee and wear the old Groucho Greasepaint mustache..it was pretty tacky, and very ugly in Groucho's closeups. The thought of Groucho dropping acid and trying pot in real life has my mind reeling! I hope somebody had a tape recorder rolling during that acid trip! There IS a book about this supposed LSD trip with Groucho out there...

An unbelievable roll call of big stars and character actors: Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, Carol Channing, Robert Donner, Slim Pickens, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin. Richard Keil, Peter Lawford, Fred Clark, Frankie Avalon (this film was SILLY like his beach party films, except rated PG!),Arnold Stang,George Raft,Cesar Romero, who went on to star as a villain in tons of Disney flicks in the 1970's. Before this, he was of course the Joker on Batman on TV and before that he had had a career as a Latin lover in movies in the 1940's. If you don't know who a lot of these old time movie actors are, look them up here on IMDb. I'm amazed at who pops up in this movie. I can't forget a then-young Austin Pendleton, who is now a highly regarded actor on stage and screen. This film is yet another made when the big change came to the U.S. M.P.A.A. movie rating system around 1968 that had been in place since 1933. Brief flashes of nudity, a few 'dirty' words and more 'sex'! It had to have been quite shocking to many American film goers in the late sixties and early 70's. Whoo Hoo! Jackie Gleason's 'acid trip' is crazy! Yet another reason to just say NO to dope! HA HA!

The multitude of stars reminds me of the now classic 'It's A Mad, Mad Mad, Mad World'. 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World's' director Stanley Kramer is number two in line when it comes to the cameo roles in films. What I mean by that is he didn't 'invent' the movie cameo role. 'Around The World In 80 Days' in 1956 is credited with 'inventing' the cameo appearance by having a large roster of famous actors and actresses in small roles in the movies.

This is a film that tried to cash in on the late 1960's youth revolution. I agree that there are MUCH better 'establishment' vs. 'hippie' films out there, namely 'I Love You Alice B. Toklas'& 'The Party', both starring Peter Sellers.

There so many films that are way better than this one, but I like the cheesy, kooky, pop culture aspects, and I collect some of the 'worst' movies (for example, all of the 'beach party series' and many of the horror flicks released by American International Pictures) ever made as well as 'cult' films, mostly stuff released before 1975.

You gotta LOVE Carol Channing singing the movie's hippie theme song at the end! WOW! I can tell she probably loved it! She has always seemed very enthusiastic as a performer in everything I have seen her in. She is just plain GREAT! Harry Nilsson wrote the film's score!

To sum up, I have to say that this is another movie in the annals of film history that goes into the WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING? file.

I bought this film because it's pretty cool to see Elvis and Mary Tyler Moore working together, and the few songs that are in this film are not as cheesy as most E.P. movies. The big 'hit song' from this one is 'Rubber Neckin', which has a cool remixed version out now, by the way. Most of Elvis' later films are crappy, but this one is worth checking out. He's an inner-city Dr. taking care of the poor, and Mary is the leader of a trio of 'undercover nuns' who go to the clinic to help out Dr. Presley, except they are in 'modern civilian clothes and hair', so nobody knows that they're nuns except the parish priest. He's played by the curmudgeonly character actor Regis Toomey, who had been in a lot of movies in the 1930's and 1940's. This film was part of Mary's 4 film post-Dick Van Dyke Show contract with Universal Studios. The only other film of the four that is worth watching is the now-classic 'Thoroughly Modern Millie', from 1967 with Julie Andrews and Carol Channing as her co-stars.

An interesting side note: Look for Mary's future 'Mary Tyler Moore Show' co-star Ed Asner as the neighborhood cop. They don't really have any scenes together in 'Change of Habit', but it's still cool to see him in this movie.

If you like Elvis, If You like Mary, you might just like this film. Cool, Baby!

Thank You, Thank you very much...

OK, the portrayal of the stereotyped 'indians' in this story is just plain WRONG. I do agree that Elvis looks rather good here, but yeah, his skin color does seem to change during the movie. I was thinking, OK,...he was never THAT tan in real life. It's some of the most obvious brown 'indian' makeup that I have ever seen. It's as bad as the 'indians' on 'F-Troop' and the old Hollywood westerns who were played by Jewish and Italian American actors and not real Native Americans!

This movie is o.k., but typically lame story and mediocre songs, like in all of Elvis' later films. He just did them because Colonel Parker had him tied down to long term movie contacts to squeeze as much money out of Elvis as possible! I keep thinking 'thank God' that Elvis stopped making movies forever not long after this movie came out. It is cool to see character actors Joan Blondell, Katy Jurado, L.Q. Jones, Henry Jones and Burgess Meredith in this movie, though.

Burgess Meredith's 'indian' makeup is absolutely AWFUL. It's The worst of the bunch for sure. What were the filmmakers thinking? Was Mr. Meredith doing this one just for the money or what? I do love certain Elvis movies, though. For example: 'Love Me Tender', 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Viva Las Vegas'. I can even stand to watch his movie with future TV co-stars Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner,'Change Of Habit' in which Elvis plays an inner-city doctor.

Oh well, at least Elvis made a FEW good films, but the mediocre and bad ones overwhelm the decent and good ones.

I'll always love ELVIS! Thank you, Thank you very much!

Okay, this is a good movie, a decent story, but from the opening credits of the movie and Jose Feliciano's song about Turkey Buzzards, I knew this would be an interesting movie.

A few technical issues and other stupid things that bug me about this movie: For you young movie fans, 1.This film was made well before the days of computer graphics. The Special Effects are 'old fashioned' by today's standards.

If you don't know what old fashioned 'process' photography is, here is brief simple explanation, to the best of my knowledge. This technique was often used in movies when actors are shown driving, with the road behind them, which is rear screen projection, a film is being run on a giant screen behind the 'car' on a set on a sound stage, they are not actually driving, or in westerns, the actors are riding horses and they aren't actually out in the desert, the background is a projected film as well. Another example of process photography is the use of hand painted matte paintings, to give depth to fake indoor sets or actual filming locations, such as the desert in this movie.

OK, now that I sort of explained what I am talking about here....

2.There are many scenes filmed on a sound stage. I understand why they did this. It's expensive to film 100% on location, I get it, OK? But...The 'desert' sets that are obvious fakes look cheesy by today's standards. Yeah, I know,... it was the 1960's.

3. I am trying to figure out why a certain couple of medium shots of Omar Sharif and Gregory Peck switch from the actual desert location to rear screen projection and back again. I am wondering if the light wasn't so good on location for these medium closeups or something? This happens in older films a lot! It's a bit odd, but maybe a film historian who knows a bit more about the technical side could explain this to me.

4. Actors: I always think that white Jewish/German/Irish/Polish/Italian/ actors playing ethnic parts, especially Native American parts look really lame and is disrespectful and stereotypical to real Native Americans, or 'Indians'. Again,... yes, I know it was the 1960's. But, watch Arthur Penn's 'Little Big Man' from 1970, one year after this film was released to see real Native Americans playing real 'Indians'. Also 'A Man Called Horse' is another great example of honest to god 'Indians' playing 'Indians'!

But Ted Cassidy as an Indian? C'mon, Hollywood! I don't think that there were that many 6 foot 9 inch tall Indians in the old west!

Julie Newmar as an Indian?

Bad wigs and brown makeup on all! Yikes! Also, Omar Sharif as a Mexican? OK,....Creative License by Hollywood, maybe?

There is also a scene where Gregory Peck is being taken across an old decrepit rope bridge tied to a horse, and in the long shots, it is the lamest 'fakest' looking miniature set I have ever seen! Ay Yi Yi!

Maybe the quality of the picture for DVD brings out visual detail in the film that nobody could see when this came out in 1969, or unlike me, nobody gave a crap!

I am a major film buff, not just your casual fan, and I just HAD to comment on this movie.

Good film,...with flaws, like many good movies of yesterday and today.

If you love (or even like) Judy Garland at all, you will like/love this episode and the entire short-lived Judy Garland Show series. This is an incredibly well done, well staged and a very cool show to see.

Those of us who were not alive at the time of the original airings of this wonderful variety show really missed out. I thank the creators/producers of this DVD series for making these programs available to the public for the first time in over 40 years.

A mere 26 weeks on the air, Judy and her wonderful guest stars really shine in the presentations of the programs. The original Video Tape has obviously been well preserved in a vault somewhere since 1963-1964, because the picture and sound are among some of the best quality I have ever seen from programs of this era!

A super sharp clear picture and audio that is remastered to Dolby 5.1. stereo--It may look and sound better than when it first aired!

Now, onto episode 10: Guests : Ray Bolger, Jane Powell and series regular Jerry Van Dyke.

Highlights: 1. Ray and Judy reunite and reminisce about their work in 1939's 'The Wizard Of Oz' and sing a couple of the tunes from the film. Then, Jane Powell, Judy and Ray and the shows' dancers perform 'The Jitterbug', a tune cut from 'The Wizard Of Oz' in 1939.

Very Cool!

2. Judy Judy and more Judy belting out the great standards, like 'Zing! Went The Strings of My Heart', 'A Lot Of Living To Do', and so many more.

3. Ray Bolger's dancing! He was 59 years old when they taped this episode in November, 1963, and he was in AMAZING shape as a dancer, doing kicks as high as his head like when he was 30 years younger!

Overall, A dynamic episode, highly recommended!

If you love classic TV shows of the great variety show era, This series is for you! And.... you can buy individual DVD's with two to three shows per disc!

There are a few extras included in the form of show outtakes.

I have seen 5 episodes so far, and I really do highly recommend this short-lived, fabulously wonderful, superbly cool series!

OK, this is not your typical movie musical theme, what with Chinese thugs running a white slavery ring headed by a Chinese speaking white woman with chopsticks in her hair, but the music and comedy and acting are simply just 'slapsticky' wonderful.

What the story lacks in depth, it makes up for with the great musical numbers, and I am so glad the producers and Universal Studios teamed up the fabulous Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing! The use of the vintage 1920's music and the 'new' tunes penned by Cahn and Van Heusen, etc. are pretty cool.

Julie Andrews defies a proper adjective. She is just superb in anything she did, does or will ever do.

This was Mary Tyler Moore's 1st post-'Dick Van Dyke Show' project, and she had just signed a contract with Universal. She didn't have much success with Universal other than this movie, if I recall? Maybe someone can correct me on that. Mary is another wonderful musical comedian. She can do anything!

Carol Channing is simply mah-vlous, dahling as Muzzy. What a trouper! She is simply divoon! A dizzy, daffy silly character! --Raspberries!

I just love the use of the great costumes by designer Jean Louis, and the settings are vintage 1922. All filmed in Lovely Classic Technicolor.

Three great Asian character actors are in this one: Jack Soo, Philip Ahn and Pat Morita--If you don't know who they are, look them up here on IMDb. Bravo to the filmmakers for using real Asians and not white people with slanty-eyed 'Oriental' makeup playing Chinese!

And to paraphrase a friend of mine: this movie is such a HOOT, it's like a fun late 1960's happy tappy rollicking acid trip! (Ok, LSD was never this much fun!) I highly recommend this movie,... especially if you only know of the musical play that was made from the movie.

4 Oscar winners, Karl Malden, Sally Field, Shirley Jones, Michael Caine. Great character actors Telly Savalas and Peter Boyle. 1 hour 54 minutes of sheer tedium, melodrama and horrible acting, a mess of a script, and a sinking feeling of GOOD LORD, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Irwin Allen was just trying to cash in on the popularity of the original classic disaster film with a grade D minus script, the actors were obviously just in it for the paycheck as well,... the horror, the horror!

How insane are the characters that Caine, Savalas, Malden and Field are playing? Go into a potentially deadly sinking ship that's 1. on fire 2. Hot from steam 3. Slippery from water and oil, 4. boilers that are exploding every 5 minutes, etc., all for the love of money? Greed? 5. They have very little equipment, not even a pair of gloves or work boots in sight, much less a grappling hook, rope, etc.

Stupidity!

What were they thinking?

Peter Boyle overacts so much that I just wanted to smack him! Stop it! And what's the deal with the bad toupee? Also, there is no way you can believe his character was a WW2 veteran.

Caine, Field and Malden find all that gold and money and they are happy--whoopee! We're rich! (We may not live to spend it, but hey...)

And yee haw, it's the great character actor Slim Pickens!

Survivors galore! Jack Warden and Shirley Knight, too!

The final dramatic sub plot about that scary plutonium never really went anywhere, it's like they forgot, sort of? Lots of holes in the script.

This film has an illness that the strongest pill couldn't cure. I'm surprised Alan J. Smithee's name wasn't on the script, I'd be embarrassed to have penned this one!

Oh the insanity, Oh The humanity! Oy Vey!

The Horror, The Horror!

It's like a bad two hour TV movie.

At least the sets were made from recycled material from the first movie.

The script needed to be on the compost heap...