Reviews

It was interesting to see the interior of this ancient cave, and learn about the occupants and paintings. Too bad they just didn't stick to the facts. Too much Herzog narration and his dreamy eyed view of it all.

He really went off the deep end at the end with the nuclear power heated water and the albino sharks. Even Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air questioned what that was about. I do not recall a coherent response.

The two older interpreters added a little more oomph, but one of them got a little muddled about art and spirituality. The female narrator who followed the French scientist through the cave did a really good job of evenly interpreting French into English.

Then there was the droning violin music. I kept hoping they would get to another instrument.

The movie can be forgiven for some of the shots that dwelled on the drawings. The interior of the cave will unlikely be see by the public at all.

Get the DVD and FF through some of the lesser parts. Maybe turn down the music too.

An oldie, but a good one. Tracy shines as usual. I found the statement during the court trial about the total number of mob lynchings in the US back then surprisingly high, but convictions low. The book that's the basis of the movie probably would reveal more about that. Undoubtedly the majority of lynching cases involved the lynching of blacks.

As I understand it, the ending was controversial for its weakness, or possibly incompleteness. The controversy was mostly amongst the studio heads and film makers. The story began seemingly devoid of complexities, but that changed after the Tracy character's arrest.

I noticed this move on TCM the other night as part of the Richard Widmark tribute to his career. I watched about 5-10 minutes wondering why they did a cinemascope movie in b/w. Very odd. Widmark was equal to the task, and seems to have handled comedy quite well. Definitely a good actor. I see I need to chatter on for a total of 10 lines to submit this. What can I say? It's certainly a far cry from his first movie, a Kiss of Death, I believe. His star quickly rose after his portrayal of a sadistic killer. Day was her usual bubbly self. The movie was based on a hit play. Maybe some day it will be explained as to why it was b/w.

On cinemascope, TCM had a one hour feature a few nights before this about Merian Cooper who created the movie King Kong and invented Cinemascope. He had quite a life of adventure, and spent a considerable time commanding and flying planes in WWII.

I always try to catch this movie when it shows up on TV, usually TCM. Leonard Maltin calls the hurricane scenes unequaled and he's right. Quite impressive even by today's standards.

Well, I guess I need to continue with this review. I didn't meet the quota on lines.

I would agree with the assessment above that Lamour and John Hall are in their prime physically. Impressive that they got top billing despite the appearance of Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, Carradine, and Thomas Mitchell. Of course, John Ford, the director went on to even more successful action movies, and won numerous awards. As many know, he teamed with John Wayne for a number of award winning westerns.

I see dogbowl thought these explorers were wimps. I believe they traveled 700-1000 miles in seven months, three people died, they were near starvation several times, several people had to be air lifted to the hospital near the end of their journey, they were lost many times, ran out of supplies (eventually resupplied from the air), among head hunters many times, endured high and low temperatures with rain and wind (and mud), and bitten by leeches and flying insects for days at a time. The territory they went through had never been explored by anyone other than some native tribes, and I doubt some of them had even explored much of the isolated and wild jungle traveled in this story.

New Guinea is the second largest island on the planet. Yes, they had help from bearers, and were funded by the Dutch government. I don't see how they could be called rich. The support was necessary. It was a large and bold scientific exploration. They did receive air support of food and supplies, which were delivered at the peril of the pilots on several occasions. It's a very good story, which is probably the last of such adventures of its type. Yes, the story is missing the modern cinematography touch, and the narration is somewhat matter of fact, but it's still quite an impressive story.