Monthly Archives: April 2020

That’s Entertainment (1974)

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That’s Entertainment
Directed by Jack Haley Jr.
Written by Jack Haley Jr.
1974/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Gene Kelly: When you dance with Fred Astaire, you really have to be on your toes. This number from “Ziegfield Follies” was the only time we had a chance to work together. But, I’d change my name to Ginger if we could do it again.[/box]

What a time!  The MGM musical was old enough to be nostalgic but many of the stars were alive and kicking.  I was transported back to my youthful enthusiasm for these old movies.  A lovely destination for Lockdown.

The film was made to celebrate MGM’s 50 year history.  Aside from one episode featuring Clark Gable (we see him do a mean soft shoe to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” as well as in a beautiful photo montage)), the clips are from the MGM dream factory back when Arthur Freed was in charge of Musicals.  Each of the episodes is narrated by a star associated with the star being covered.  For example, Gene Kelly takes charge of Fred Astaire’s clips while Fred covers Gene.

The clips used range from the obvious – Gene Kelly dancing to “Singin’ in the Rain” – to the obscure – Cliff Edwards doing the same number with a bevy of chorus girls in “The Hollywood Review of 1929”.  Other hosts include Bing Crosby, Peter Lawford, Liza Minnelli, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Micky Rooney, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart and Elizabeth Taylor.

The movie is over two hours  long but has plenty of pep to carry it through.  You will never see better singing and dancing.  If you share my fondness for the genre and era, it’s a must-see.

Fred Astaire with ultimate tap partner Eleanor Powell in this incredible clip from Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)

The Italian Job (1969)

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The Italian Job
Directed by Peter Collinson
Written by Troy Kennedy Martin
1969/UK
IMDb link
First viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Charlie Croker: It’s a very difficult job and the only way to get through it is we all work together as a team. And that means you do everything I say.[/box]

This was a very fun caper flick, absolutely perfect for Lock Down.

Charismatic Cockney criminal Charlie Coker (Michael Caine) is released from prison.  He is immediately on the hunt for next new job.  The mob murdered one of his cronies but his widow was left with an elaborate plan for robbing the Fiat payroll in Turin, Italy.  Coker breaks back into prison to get the backing of Mr. Bridger (Noel Coward), a gang leader that lives in palatial luxury there.  Bridger refuses, then changes his mind when he learns the Chinese are sending a large amount in gold to invest in a new plant.

This is not one of those movies where you get the planning stage or successful version before witnessing the flawed execution.  Instead, we get all of it as it happens.  The mob does not get any fonder of the revised edition.  The movie concludes with a spectacular chase scene in which all and sundry pursue red, white, and blue Mini Coopers through Turin and the Italian countryside.  With Benny Hill as a mad computer expert with an unquenchable lust for “big women”.

This has Caine at his most gorgeous and charismatic and showing his talent for comedy.  It also contains beautiful scenery, good jokes, and that exciting car chase.  It’s just a very, solid entertaining picture.  Recommended.

 

Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969) + The Band Wagon (1953) redux

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Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (Du bei dao wang)
Directed by Cheh Chang
Written by Cheh Chang
Hong Kong/1969
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Prime

 

[box] Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance. — Confucius[/box]

Just a fun wuxia movie to distract nicely from Lockdown.

This is a sequel to The One-Armed Swordsman (1967).  At the end of that film, our hero (Jimmy Wang Yu) retired to become a peaceful farmer with his beloved wife.  At the beginning of this one, honor and loyalty compel him to defend his school against a rival gang led by the Eight Demon Swordsmen.  Dozens die in numerous one against many battles spilling gallons of red paint along the way.  Impalements and wire-work are also featured.

I think of these more as fantasies than as violent action films and generally enjoy them

Version I watched was dubbed.

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I needed a large dose of happiness and found it, in spades, in Vincente Minnelli’s The Band Wagon (1953).  My review can be found here.  The different numbers are like children, I couldn’t possibly choose a favorite.  This time around, Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse’s “Dancing in the Dark” seemed extra-exquisite to me.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
Directed by Peter R. Hunt
Written by Richard Maibaum and Simon Raven from a novel by Ian Fleming
1969/UK
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] James Bond: [to the camera] This never happened to the other fellow.[/box]

Well Diana Rigg is the ultimate Bond girl so there is that, plus pretty Alpine scenery and some good action.  The movie kind of goes downhill from there.

While on vacation, James Bond (George Lazenby) saves beautiful Tracy Draco (Rigg) from suicide by drowning.  Her father, Marc-Ange, is a mob boss.  He wants Bond to continue to protect his daughter by marrying her. He says he will repay by revealing the location of Ernst Blofeld (Telly Savalas)  Bond of course is the world’s most marriageable bachelor and both he and Tracy are tentative at the start but they gradually fall in love.

In the meantime, Bond journeys to Blofeld’s alpine lair.  He learns that Blofeld plans to achieve world domination through experiments on beautiful women in his “allergy clinic”. Blofeld kidnaps Tracy and uses her as a pawn in the inevitable conflict to come.  All the regulars at MI6 are on the job.

George Lazenby has absolutely no twinkle in his eye, takes himself much too seriously, and has minimal acting talent.  A Bond film rises or falls on its Bond and this one was a dud.  The film is also at least 30 minutes too long for this kind of thing.  Still I’ve spent 2 1/2 hours in worse ways during Lockdown,

The song for the movie, “We Have All the Time in the World”, is the only one that does not share its name with the movie. It was the last thing Louis Armstrong ever recorded. He died a couple of years later. RIP Louis, the world is a poorer place without you.

The Wild Bunch (1969)

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The Wild Bunch
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Written by Walon Green, Sam Peckinpah, and Roy N. Sickner
1969/US
First viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Pike Bishop: We’re not gonna get rid of anybody! We’re gonna stick together, just like it used to be! When you side with a man, you stay with him! And if you can’t do that, you’re like some animal, you’re finished! *We’re* finished! All of us![/box]

This bloody, violent Western holds out little hope for humanity.  Maybe not the thing for the disgusted during Lockdown.

The year is 1913.  The place is somewhere near the Mexican border.  Pike (William Holden) leads a gang of railroad and bank bandits.  The most prominent members of the gang are played by Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, Ernest Borgnine and an unrecognizable Edmund O’Brien who steals every scene he is in.  After a botched attempt to “do one last” job on a train, they take off for Mexico with Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) and his gang of bounty hunters hot on their trail.  Their plan is to hijack a train carrying guns and ammunition and sell the loot to a corrupt revolutionary general’s army.

Pike and his men have nothing but trouble in Mexico.  Thornton is still after them and the Mexicans they deal with are drunken, whoring, sadists who can’t be trusted.

This movie is famous for its violence.  That it definitely has in spades.  I cannot stand the way Peckinpah shoots massacres in slow-motion.  I wasn’t a fan of the ethic stereotyping either.

Those niggles aside, it is clear why it was an “important” film for its time.  The action is beautifully choreographed.  The film also benefits from its superb cast.  Holden and Ryan showed they were still at the top of their game.  Once is enough for me but I’m glad it is on the List and that I have finally seen it.

The film is usually classified as in the “death of the Old West” category.  In many prior films this is symbolized by encroaching “civilization”- families, farms, churches etc.  In this one, the death of Holden and his gang is caused by corruption and debauchery.  The New West looks a lot worse than the Old West in this version.  I should have waited until after Lockdown.

The Wild Bunch was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced and Best Music, Original Score

Muhammad Ali, The Greatest (1969)

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Muhammad Ali, the Greatest
Directed by William Klein
Written by William Klein
1969/France
IMDb link
First viewing/YouTube

 

[box] I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick. – Muhammad Ali[/box]

[box] It’s not bragging if you can do it. – Dizzy Dean[/box]

The only time I watched boxing in my life was when Muhammad Ali fought.  I just loved to watch him dance around the ring.  So this was nostalgia and thus perfect for Lockdown.

The version that I watched spanned Ali’s career from his first heavyweight champion win against Sonny Liston in 1964 through the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” fight against George Foreman in Zaire.  We see highlights of several fights and classic Ali mouthing off as no one before or since.

The Beatles visit Ali’s training camp in 1964

Given the 1974 footage, the release date for this seems odd.  I can only assume that the color footage in Zaire was added later for a re-release.  I’m glad it was included as this part is particularly fascinating.   If you have any affection at all for Ali, this is a must-see.  If you weren’t born while this was going on, find out what it was all about.  Recommended.

True Grit (1969)

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True Grit
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Written by Marguerite Roberts from a novel by Charles Portis
1969/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

Rooster Cogburn: You can’t serve papers on a rat, baby sister. You gotta kill him or let him be.

John Wayne certainly did have true grit until the end.  Just what we all need during Lockdown.

The story takes place in the 19th Century Old West.  Mattie Ross’s father goes to town and is killed by Tom Chaney, who he was trying to help. Mattie (Kim Darby) is determined to track Chaney down and bring him to justice.  She has a small selection of U.S. Marshalls to help her and picks Rooster Cogburn who has a nasty reputation as a drunkard but is also known for his grit.  She makes a down payment payment.  Soon enough Rooster is also visited by La Beouf (Glenn Campbell), a Texas Ranger who is tracking Chaney for another crime.  Rooster and Le Beouf have no intention of taking Maddie along on their quest.

Maddie has no intention of being left behind and catches up with them.  The trio learns that Chaney will likely be found in the company of outlaw Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and eventually they catch up to him and his gang.  There is a fair amount of gunplay along the way.

I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable blend of action and adventure.  I have always wondered where people talked like the literary dialogue in this story but it is amusing enough.  I last saw this on original release when I disliked Wayne for his politics.  I seem to have forgiven him because I found him wonderful in this.  (And in so many previous movies).  Very fun film.  Recommended.

John Wayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor.  The title tune was nominated for Best Music, Original Song.

 

 

The Oblong Box (1969)

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The Oblong Box
Directed by Gordon Hessler
Written by Lawrence Huntington and Christopher Wicking from a story by Edgar Allen Poe
1969/UK
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Prim3
They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They?

[box] N’Galo: We have knowledge of things you know nothing of.[/box]

When horror movies are a suitable exchange for worry, it must be Lockdown.

The story takes place in 19th Century England or at least that’s where it settles.  The beginning takes place in Africa.  The Markham family has made a handsome fortune on the backs of Africans.  The elaborate opening sorcery/voodoo scene is quite intriguing.  Eventually the witchdoctor draws Edward Markham to the ceremony where he is made hideously ugly and insane by magic.  His brother Julian (Vincent Price) takes him home and locks him in the attic.  Julian then proceeds with his courtship and marriage to the much younger Elizabeth.

Edward’s lawyer Trench and the sorcerer come to England to spring him.  Unfortunately, their scheme accidentally sees Julian buried alive.  Julian once again escapes.  He forces local doctor J. Neuhartt (Christopher Lee) to shelter him while he carries out his revenge plans.

Well, the ending didn’t come as a surprise and Christopher Lee is wasted in much too small and straight a part.  But we do get Price who is always fascinating to watch and a bunch of the salacious and cruel set ups that are typical of this era of British horror.  Not great but quite watchable.

The Cow (1969)

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The Cow (Gaav)
Directed by Dariush Mehrjui
Written by Dariush Mehrjui from a play by Gholam-Hossein Saedi
1969/Iran
IMDb link
First viewing/YouTube
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Masht Hassan: I’m not Hassan. I’m his cow.[/box]

This movie, if not exactly upbeat, is an excellent escape into a little-known culture and is therefore appropriate for Lockdown.

Hassan, a simple man treats his beloved pregnant cow as a pet.  It is the only cow in a village that is constantly preyed on by livestock rustlers from a neighboring village.  One day Hassan needs to go to the city.  While he is gone, the cow is found dead in her shed. The villagers know that this will devastate Hassan and attempt to conceal the reason for the cow’s absence.

Hassan comes home and is not fooled for long.  He gradually descends into madness. The villagers try to break the spell while simultaneously battling the thieves that descend on them almost every night.

I liked this very much. The best parts for me were the glimpses of folk customs and the beautiful score.  Available on YouTube for free in a good print.  Recommended.

Clip – print quality was much better in full version on YouTube