Reviews

Showing how out of touch some people can be in the 1970s, myself included, I was assigned to see that "Russian Blimp" film and tell the guys who made the Warner flick "Zeppelin" producers Ownen Krump et al exactly what our "compeition" was up to.

I was at a loss to begin. Sean Connery vs. Michael York? Elke Sommer vs. Claudia Cardinale? Model ships vs. Russian Atomic Icebreakers using burning tires to simulate coal streaked sky trails. A twenty two foot fiber model vs. an actual flying reduced scale one? The Irish AirForce stunt pilots vs Soviet test pilots? $1.5 million dollar flick vs $10 million

Most importantly,

..a boorish Hollywood product vs. the philosophical Slavic outlook on life...

Naturally, I exaggerated the unhappy conclusion to the Russian EPIC... and.... broke down and admitted that the Red Tent was possibly one of the most beautiful film I had ever seen....

Owen, Arthur and the rest looked at me as if I had sung "The Internationale".

Owen was still smarting over the disastrous "Darling Lili" that tossed him off the Paramount Lot... Ron looked so strange - was daddy (J. Paul)Getty right about the biz and his abilities? Arthur glared so intently - as if I was blowing his only shot (and it practically was) in the feature film world.

But I still loved the Red Tent....

The film "V for Vendetta" is based upon the same-titled comic book written referring to a real-life event: the assassination of one of the most honorable English protesters of his time Guy Fawkes, who sacrificed his life in the name of peace and human dignity. Remembering the persecution of the Church during the English assent to it's new liberalism with the manifestation of Parlement and to the excesses of Throne at the time.

A very political film since it demands the audience place themselves not in the Edward Gibbon ("Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire") Senatorial mindset but one of the world - and in this case the futuristic English society - drone Babbits in the guise of Natalie Portman's character.

In a time when political discussion is forbidden in the workplace, in religion (outside rubber stamping each and every authority), in entertainment (again outside bitchy comments on SNL or Comedy Central)it was probably too much to hope the general public would - or even could - assimilate this motion picture.

Each segment has a reference to today's political, economic and social hierarchy - and would in a fair world would be picked apart by high school teachers like they do other populist entertainment.

But it is not useful to any cause that is currently embraced by the social order so that's not likely. -- We'll have to wait until there is yet another challenge to the status quo in twenty years for the film to suddenly be discovered for use as a battering ram against "convention" as was done in 1960s with "King of Hearts" and later with "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest".

But I'm patient - in time it will be enthroned as a poster child for another generation that it missed in ours.

Aaron wanted to cast Donny Osmond as the sternWW2 American fighter ace who poses a "Most Dangerous Game" themed episode. But who would believe him as a killer? Protests to Spellings people amounted to nothing so a decision was made to have them toast with Champaign to this "game." See Donny was then an icon for the Mormons and the depiction of a glass of Dom would conflict him. Donny's people countered that he might have given up the stuff so we went along and inserted a line about him being a former alcoholic – which the Osmond camp really recoiled from. It is the story of the Dresden fire bombing. Look for nifty WW2 Army air corps COLOR bombing footage.