Reviews

Come on, folks. This movie isn't that bad. Forest animals taking vengeance on the employee of a real estate developer? Why not? I have to say that I sympathized with the little (and big) creatures in the woods that are trying to protect their home from the encroachment of a housing development.

Dan Sanders (Brendan Frasier) suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune in this kind of cute and kind of silly venture. I found myself chuckling as animals discharged their bodily fluids on Sanders and used a Rube Goldberg contraption to hurl large stones at his vehicle.

I even felt sorry for them when Sanders and company exacted their own revenge. All in all it's a funny and lovable movie, and Frasier gives a bravura performance as the put-upon salesman/pitchman.

At the time this program was broadcast I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, so, naturally, I was intrigued by the subject. I knew many gay people, and the gay community was by that time well integrated into the city's social, political and business structure.

The program started off with what seemed like a well-balanced presentation. Then, after about 20 minutes, the show charged drastically in tone. Every group -- religious, ethnic, social, economic and political -- has been stereotyped and characterized in negative ways in books, articles, plays and others forums and media.

But rarely before had I seen or read such a concentration of dirt and muck. For 40 minutes gay people were smeared, slandered, stereotyped and pulverized to such a degree that by comparison the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" looked like a puff piece.

I don't know what producer George George Crile's motivation was in creating such a hit piece, but the program should be used in broadcast journalism classes as an example of how not to make a news program.

As a former newspaper copy editor myself, I would have tossed it in the trash. It violated every rule concerning fairness, balance and structure. There were so many factual distortions and biases that I would have "spiked" the story as unsalvageable.

CBS should forever stand in disgrace for airing this monstrosity.

Rob (Dick Van Dyke) gladly agrees to serve on a federal jury in a criminal case involving a comely exotic dancer, Marla Hendrix (Sue Ann Langdon), who's accused of smuggling jewelry into the United States. Without being aware that wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) is in the courtroom observing the trial, Rob puts on an embarrassing display of "oogling" the defendant. Laura is not amused by Rob's partiality, and neither are his fellow jurors.

This hilarious takeoff on "12 Angry Men," in which Henry Fonda played a holdout juror, is notable for its supporting cast, which features such familiar faces as Dabbs Greer, Howard Wendell, Herbie Faye, Patsy Kelly and Herb Vigran.

An American scientist of dubious qualifications builds a device for communicating with life on Mars. The centerpiece of his homemade lab is a "hydrogen valve," the plans for which he discovered in postwar Germany.

After sending a message to Mars, his TV monitor indicates that he has received a response. Several messages reveal that the Martians have an advanced civilization that can produce food and energy with only a fraction of the resources required on Earth.

Let's not quibble with the fact that there is no independent scientific verification of these Martian chats. Apparently, the world's leading scientists are conveniently asleep.

When the news get out, the world goes into a state of panic and economies collapse. Even the president of the United States comes under the spell of the Martian achievements. I hate to ruin the fantasy, but Earth has no trade with Mars and hundreds of Martian ships aren't descending on Earth to deliver, free of charge, the achievements that will supposedly put millions of Earthlings out of work.

While this is going on, the Communists are listening in and collaborating with the Nazi scientist who developed the hydrogen valve. Their goal is to pull the rug right out from under the West by creating chaos.

Even more startling is the news that the Martians are Christians, which leads to a worldwide revival of religion. Citizens of Communist countries are digging up religious paraphernalia and the Soviet government is replaced by the patriarch of Moscow. I suppose that the KGB and the Soviet Politburo are so awed that they have given up without a fight. One might suppose that Joseph Stalin has just erected a 75-foot cross over his Kremlin office. Yeah, right! Moreover, the fact that Biblical story of creation and dozens of prophesies have just been severely compromised doesn't raise the slightest peep from Bible scholars. They, along with the world's scientists, are asleep, too.

We discover at the end that the Nazi scientist has been perpetrating a hoax. The American scientist and his wife don't want the world to be let down by making the hoax public. Just as they are about to blow up the lab by lighting a cigarette while the lab is filled with hydrogen, a signal appears on the monitor that supposedly indicates that the Martians really are in contact with Earth.

However, because suicide is unacceptable, the Nazi fires a bullet at the TV, igniting an explosion. The world is thus saved being shaken from its delusions.

This film, born in an atmosphere of McCarthyism and Cold War hysteria, defines the word drivel. The only emotion it inspires in me is a feeling of contempt directed at those who are so desperate and naïve as to give it any credence.

This could have been a true classic. However, it strays far from actual events and abridges the period between the outbreak of the Great War and the killing of the royal family.

The three Barrymores -- Lionel, Ethel and John -- are fine as Rasputin, the Empress and Prince Paul, a fictional character who assassinates Rasputin (the real assassin was Prince Feliks Yusupov, who was distressed by the damage that Rasputin was doing to the public image of the royal family).

The film correctly shows how Rasputin was interfering with the government and the execution of the Great War. But we don't actually see any sign of the February and October revolutions and the abdication of the czar. In the movie, the royal family is taken by train to a house where they are shot by the Bolsheviks. All of these events happen so suddenly in the film that a casual viewer would lose sense of the chronology.

Moreover, the direction is poor and many scenes last too long, making the movie drag.