The finale of Operation Crossbow is very GoldenEye pre-credits. It also clashed with the opening of The Sound of Music on the other channel - we had some genius schedulers at the BBC this year. Anyway, we went from one bunch of Nazis to another, all a bit confusing with the stress of Xmas and associated drink and indigestion.
Without the opening of SOM, which frontloads the film with a heck of a lot of goodwill thanks to its stunning aerial Alpine shots, the movie wasn't quite as good. Some stuff seemed different this time round. Of course, it goes to the wire with a daring escape from the Nazis and shoot-outs. I like the bit with the nuns and the missing carboretta but the scene where two of them raise their habits to reveal two sub machine guns with which they mow down the German patrol was still unexpected.
The Von Trapp family escaping over the Alps is stirring stuff, but the coda where they happen upon Hitler's Alpine Lair and engage in a furious gun battle is what makes it. It is signalled earlier in the film - it's clear Fraulein Maria is teaching them ore than just songs and is indeed using it as a cover to train a crack commando troupe, with each Von Trapp family member given a special talent; it's very Magnificent Seven, even down to the same number. They're headed by Christopher Plummer, naturally, whose callous smirk as he guns down his enemies is very distinctive.
Of course, I'm forgetting the shocking scene earlier in the catacombs when young Liesl beckons Rolphe, the Hitler youth, towards her. As she sinks to her knees, the camera stays on his face until his expression changes and the ensuing screams are accompanied by different shots of the cavernous nunnery echoing around. We then see Liesl rise and wipe the blood from her mouth with a determined, contented look. Regarded as shocking in its day, it was the first sign that the film was now taking a different turn. Indeed, some fans of the film only showed up for this last half hour. Anyway, we see young Liesl's talent, while the others turn out to be specialists in knife-throwing, explosives and so on. For my money only the arrival of the Count and the Baroness in their attack helicopter took things a tad too far, but it's clear the whole thing was the inspiration for the Alpine climax of OHMSS a few years later, and quite possibly many of Tarantino's films.
After that, the showing of Black Narcissus with Gemma Arterton on BBC1 was a bit of a downer.
Hitchcock double bill on BBC: To Catch A Thief & North by Northwest, both Cary Grant.
TBF former is lesser Hitch but lightweight and enjoyable. From a Bond perspective, both are almost the perfect Bond films and there are scenes and dialogue that made it into Bond series, they must have made a study.
I mean, To Catch A Thief is really what Never Say Never Again should have been. Just the aerial location work of the South of France is brilliant enough to make it look good though the plot is simply a bog standard version of an episode of The Saint with Roger Moore.
All is lovely though it's a Xmas film so the lack of substance is not missed, it's amiable wallpaper. Grant lets the women come on to him as he's older and didn't want to appear predatory. This may account for Fatima Blush making her inroads into Connery in NSNA where he looks a bit wet, that said when he goes after Domino as a masseur he does seem creepy.
North by... has its charms and I liked Mason's Locke-lilke henchman; we don't see anyone really die in that film though do we? Oh hang on, maybe we do but never at Grant's hands. It's funny how early on we see Grant compensate civilians he's screwed over with some cash in hand. Later he seems more blasé.
Marnie
Hitchcock, 1964
starring Tippi Hedren, last seen in The Birds, and Sean Connery (that name seems familiar, is he one of ours?)
This begins the final run of five Hitchcock movies nobody talks about much. This one turns out to be a slow talky character study, with token thriller elements tacked on near the beginning and end.
Opening thriller-esque scenes are blatantly recycled from Psycho, just two films earlier. Marnie even uses the pseudonym Marion as she embezzles ten grand from her employer and flees town.
Closing thriller-esque scenes are recycled from...
...Spellbound, with the graphic revelation of the repressed memory that explains all. This film probably does the revelation better, but Spellbound is the better film, a proper thriller all the way through with a better actress and Salvador Dali content!
Marnie is a deeper dive into Freudian psychoanalytic theory, which Hitchcock had been exploring at least since Spellbound, and again in his most recent movies. More Mommy issues, more repressed memories to explain everything. So maybe Hitchcock just wanted to do a film that was two hours of pychoanalysis without wasting time on all the exciting suspenseful stuff his audience expected?
Tippi Hedren actually does a good job of playing the mentally ill heroine, with her smooth confident every day persona and her twitchy infantile outbursts when threatened. Wonder what ever happened to her after her two films with Hitchcock? wikipedia shows plenty of films I've never heard of, only one I saw was I Heart Huckabees where her part was a cameo.
Connery is decent enough, but with his cool detached and superior attitude still seems to be playing Bond.
His character becomes less interesting throughout the film though. As introduced, he is a frustrated zoologist who has given up his chosen career to take over the family business, and in his first major scene discusses his studies of predators in the animal kingdom. His interest in Marnie at first seems to be just that, predatorial: he gives her a job knowing she will rob him, and when she does he blackmails her into marrying him. Yet this creepy aspect of his character disappears halfway through the film as he becomes a loving husband whose only concern is curing his wife. so what seems like a possible thriller-esque plot thread (eg Suspicion, 1941) becomes a red herring, and we have to wait another hour til that final scene to finally get our shock ending.
Too bad how these later Hitchcock films worked out:, Connery refused to do a spyfilm for Hitchcock so instead did this dialog heavy character study. A bit of a bore for Bondfans and I can't say he really proved he could act. Then two films later Hitchcock gave us a rather boring spyfilm (Topaz) that desperately could have used Connery!
I thought Connery's character showed interest in Hedren because he recognised HER as a potential predator - not emotionally or sexually but materially. I haven't seen it in a long while. If my memory us correct, Marnie has a recurring problem with the colour red, which rather telegraphed the resolution. It had an ineffective end, stymied by the prudishness of the times, I think.
North by Northwest ... we don't see anyone really die in that film though do we? Oh hang on, maybe we do but never at Grant's hands....
what about that corpse in the U.N. building? dozens of witnesses saw that corpse and Cary Grant standing next to it with the knife in his hand! (one of the single most iconic shots in all of Hitchcock)
Trying to do an image search for this key scene, I found many shots of James Mason's house from the climax. Thatd make a classic Bond villains headquarters, in fact Piz Gloria is pretty similar.
I thought Connery's character showed interest in Hedren because he recognised HER as a potential predator - not emotionally or sexually but materially. I haven't seen it in a long while.
something like that, he sees her as a subject for his research who just happens to be an attractive human female. Her need to steal turns out to have a scientific explanation, a demonstrable cause and effect which the psychoanalysis reveals.
If my memory us correct, Marnie has a recurring problem with the colour red, which rather telegraphed the resolution.
absolutely, her reactions to the colour red are represented by clever Hitchcockian camera tricks and edits, the equivalent to his use of the reverse zoom trick in Vertigo
It had an ineffective end, stymied by the prudishness of the times, I think.
I think it worked better than the psychobabble explanations at the end of Vertigo and Psycho, and much more persuasive than the dreamlike ending of Spellbound. It is graphic enough and disturbing (unless you wanted the deep dark secret to be something different). Three films later, Frenzy, he would get more graphic still.
The Big Sleep
1978 version with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe
produced by Lew Grade, its got the ITC logo
costarring Jimmy Stewart, Oliver Reed and Joan Collins!
turns out I watched this out of order. Like the first filmed versions from the 1940s, Farewell My Lovely was remade first, then this as a sequel (Chandler wrote the two books in the opposite order).
For some reason this is set in England, modern-day England. Prewar Los Angeles was a character in its own right in Chandler's novel, so we're losing much of the story just from that change in context, but perhaps by altering the context we should be better able to appreciate deeper more universal themes? sounds good in theory...
Best thing is plot does follow Chandler's novel more closely and therefor almost makes sense. And they can show us all those aspects of the story that the original film could not because of the Hayes Code. I think they even explain who killed the chauffeur.
I still don't understand why Eddie Mars let Charlotte (aka Vivian) win at the casino, since apparently she's in debt to him (for disposing of a body), not the other way round
Mitchum is too old for the part. So are the two actresses playing the Sternwood sisters. The little one is good though, very nutty and dangerous, just like she's supposed to be. For some reason the older sister has a British accent even though her father and sister are Americans.
Joan Collins doesn't play either sister, for some reason she's got the walk-on role as the lady at the bookstore. Collins is younger than the actress playing the younger sister, and I would much rather have seen her at the photoshoot and then surprising Marlowe in his bed.
Not only do we lose Los Angeles as a character, but some of the assumptions of the plot dont even make sense in 1978-era England. I travelled there as a child round that time: if you wanted to see a picture of a naked lady all you had to do was buy a newspaper and turn to page 3! and prostitutes had their phone numbers and services posted as colourful stickers on every phone booth, so why would anybody need to go to that bookshop to get their overpackaged anachronistic softcore photobooks?
Transposing a prewar plot to a completely different place and time makes it all a bit surreal, and part of Chandler's goal as a detective writer was to make things more realistic (and he hated all that Agatha Christie stuff...)
On the positive side the Sternwood mansion is magnificent, and supports the St George imagery from Chandler's first page with the suits of armour in the lobby. Film begins and ends with a realtime drive down the endless private road into the estate, very nice. And that anachronistic Gentlemen's Bookstore is pretty classy looking too.
Unintended outcome of the transposition: halfway through, when Marlowe delivers a prisoner to Scotland Yard and a police chief there deliver a chunk of exposition in a posh accent, I almost expected Marlowe to go downstairs to Q's lab before returning to his mission!
Also with posh accents and oldworld architecture, the scene where Carmen (aka Vivian) wins at the casino looks very familiar now, similar to scenes in OHMSS and especially tWiNE
I absolutely love this film, I think it's a great film , not just superhero movie but a great film. -{
It's absolutely one of the very best of the MCU films, probably in the top 3 for me.
Which one was this?
Agh, I really dont really care.
Forced my family to watch THE SOUND OF MUSIC as none of us had ever seen it before. It's nothing like how Napoleon described it. Cant imagine why....
A slow musical which pitches up fast with four songs and good sweeping photography in the first 20 mins, then goes all sugary and child friendly. All those kids. Jeez. Occasionally enlivened - for instance, we loved the puppets in The Lonely Goat Herder song - finally made sense of a dance routine we saw on Strictly a few years back. It ends on a moment of tension too easily resolved. The real Von Trapp family had a slightly less extravagant life and a less dramatic one.
Interestingly, the original show had songs in different places and more of them. This one suffers from regular musical repetition. Neither show nor movie was particularly well received on release, but the public loved them. Narrative-wise it shares many similarities with Rogers & Hammerstein's THE KING AND I : a governess, kids, overbearing father, an entourage of women, a desire filled dance at a fancy ball, a slimy cameo-part villain, young illicit lovers, a non-singing finale. IMO The King and I outstrips it. Or maybe I just prefer Yul Brynner to Julie Andrews.
@Chris: In case you're being serious, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is the one with Robert Redford in it as a major supporting character.
Yeh, deadly serious. Is that the one where the Cap's best mate comes back all nasty and tries to kick everyone's butt? I dont pay much attention as you can tell. They could call it Marvel 17 for all I care. If it is the one, then it's certainly a cut above the Cap's introductory effort - but that isnt saying much IMO I'm afraid. Maybe I'm too long in the tooth.
Olsen gang crime comedies from 1969-84 then a final one in '99......14 films total
Main cast :
Egon : the gangs leader , stubborn and obsessed with his schemes & plans....unfortunately he spends most of his time behind bars
Benny : whimsical and silly
Kjell : the gangs scape goat (not to mention his wife Valborgs scape goat too)
Lt Hermansen : bufoonish police , often mocked by the gang
Dynamite Harry : drunken explosives expert
officer Holm : thinks Hermansen is a fool but goes along with him
Biffen , danish rent thug : the Jaws of Olsen films
Olsenbanden : Operation Egon 4.5/6 (in the first movie the gang is after a golden statue kind of object , which is on loan from W Germany. Unusual that Bjerre is not the composer and the famous jazzy theme song is not used here)
Olsenbanden og Dynamitt-Harry 5/6 (the Olsen gang meets drunken Dynamite Harry for the first time , they are also up against an american gangster similar to Blofeld , even the way hes filmed : at first you only see his feet. Egon , the gangs leader also falls in love with prison shrink and tries to go straight - easier said than done)
Olsenbanden og Dynamitt Harry går amokk 4.5/6 (Harry tries to stop drinking , Egon and his gang is about to commit their biggest heist - stealing 6 million krones from an under cover operation at a freight company , which the police also follows closely. The safe is both guarded by alarm and the company thugs. Benny is also engaged and Kjell also wants to stop his life of crime , this upsets Egon as the plan is already underway and he has no choice but to ask Harry for help)
Olsenbanden på sport 4.5/6 (the gang uses norwegian rail system to heist gold but danish rent-a-thug Biffen tries to sabotage their plans , Blunck plays liutenant Hermansens sidekick officer Holm for the first time & a sober Harry helps the gang too)
Besides TB last xmas marked 55 anniversary Leone's FAF$M
40 anniversary Superman II
60 anniversary Two Women (also 60 yrs since Gable died)
Yep, Ipcress File is a great film. It's dated, yet it hasn't dated if you see what I mean.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The Ian Fleming short story given the Roald Dahl treatment, as outlandish as You Only Live Twice.
I do think this is the kind of film that got made in the late 60s, a bit stodgy and long-winded. It's two and a half hours, like OHMSS and also the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie went on too long, despite all mentioned having classic moments, it's just too much imo.
The child catcher is a right bastard isn't he? Credit to the actor Ralph Helphman (sp?) as he probably put off a load of kids from getting into cars on the offer of a sweetie.
It's a Bond vehicle of course, with Gert Frobe and even old Q popping up at the beginning. Two knock out scenes/songs where Frobe tries to bump his wife off while proclaiming his undying love for her, then the one where Dick Van Dyke and Truly Scrumptious (a Bond-style name) pose as toys to infiltrate the castle.
The film otherwise lacks a certain charm imo, it's hard to put your finger on it, but I cite OHMSS and TMM as falling in the same bracket.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
PPK 7.65mmSaratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,253MI6 Agent
Watched My Cousin Vinny (1992) on Blu Ray with the family last night. Not only is one of my father's favorite movies, it was also the favorite film of my grandfather on my mothers side of the family. Having seen it for myself I can understand why, two New Yorkers get misidentified as murders in a small town in Alabama and the cousin of one of them a personal injury lawyer with no trial experience has to help them from going to the electric chair if found guilty. Joe Pesci is great as the fish out of water title character with no idea of what he has gotten into. Plus Marisa Tomei is really fun as Pesci's put upon girlfriend and the late Fred Gwynn(of Car 54 Where Are Your? and The Munsters fame) as the orderly Judge presiding over the trial is in top form. Many one liners abound from the famous "Two Yutes" and "You where serious about that?" Plus Vinny has tons of funny things happen to him when he is not in the court as well.
The film . . . lacks a certain charm imo, it's hard to put your finger on it. . .
I used to love CCBB when I was a kid. Several months ago it was on TV and I watched a bit of it for nostalgia's sake. Ugh: what's that about not going home again? The special effects even by late '60s standards are terrible. But what I can see now that I couldn't see as a child is that Broccoli & Co. were hellbent on ripping off Mary Poppins--Edwardian setting, Dick Van Dyke (at least they told him not to do a Cockney accent), Sherman Brothers score, Sally Anne Howes a suitable stand-in for Julie Andrews. And Flemingist that I am now can't forgive them for tossing about pretty much every word Fleming wrote. So there's my finger on (or to) the film.
Watched My Cousin Vinny (1992) on Blu Ray with the family last night. Not only is one of my father's favorite movies, it was also the favorite film of my grandfather on my mothers side of the family. Having seen it for myself I can understand why, two New Yorkers get misidentified as murders in a small town in Alabama and the cousin of one of them a personal injury lawyer with no trial experience has to help them from going to the electric chair if found guilty. Joe Pesci is great as the fish out of water title character with no idea of what he has gotten into. Plus Marisa Tomei is really fun as Pesci's put upon girlfriend and the late Fred Gwynn(of Car 54 Where Are Your? and The Munsters fame) as the orderly Judge presiding over the trial is in top form. Many one liners abound from the famous "Two Yutes" and "You where serious about that?" Plus Vinny has tons of funny things happen to him when he is not in the court as well.
Last night I watched 'Get Carter' starring Michael Caine. I have not seen this this film before. Given that it is very violent and contains several adult themes, I can only wonder how the people who saw it when it was first shown reacted in 1971?!
Gymkata:
Clearly you like your Marvel. I recrntly spent a week with a Marvel crazy dude who had the complete box set. We started at IRON MAN and I managed to escape just before GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. After about 4 movies I was having to ask Joe to stop the DVD and explain what people were talking about as they already seemed to be crossing-storylines. I enjoyed IRON MAN, but as the series progressed R.D.Jr got on my wick too much. I preferred the films which could be watched without prior knowledge: IRON MAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THOR (1 & 2), that was about it.
Lady Rose:
I agree. Pacino in THE GODFATHER (1) is outstanding. It is a superb film.
Thunderpussy:
I love THE IPCRESS FILE - dated or not. A consummate espionage thriller for me.
Napoleon, Hardyboy:
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG was better than I expected it to be, but yes, it is a little Poppins- lite. Some of the songs and song staging are very good, but it takes a long time to get anywhere. Loved The Old Bamboo.
My last watch
ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968)
Based on Alistair MacLean's novel, itself taken from actual events, a John Sturges thriller which looks lovely and has moments of suspense without perching one on the edge of a seat. Rock Hudson is a submarine Commander charged with rescuing the inhabitants of an Arctic drift-ice meteorological station, Zebra, apparently consumed by fire. Along for the ride are special agents Patrick MacGoohan and Ernest Borgnine, who each have secrets they are not telling, and whose real mission is the recovery of a lost spy satellite - conveniently downed near Ice Station Zebra. Cue underwater high-jinx beneath the pack ice and some studio bound fun at the snowy rendezvous.
I enjoyed it. There's a reasonably simple plot, a twist or two which keeps the audience interested and just enough tension and intrigue to belie the lack of genuine pace. There are quite a few improbables and some of the editing is a bit lame, making us scratch our heads, but generally it's one of the better MacLean adaptations. Good score from future Bond orchestrator Michel Legrand.
Last night I watched 'Get Carter' starring Michael Caine. I have not seen this this film before. Given that it is very violent and contains several adult themes, I can only wonder how the people who saw it when it was first shown reacted in 1971?!
It is a very dark, bleak film.
There was a remake in 2000 with Sylvester Stallone.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,762Chief of Staff
Last night I watched 'Get Carter' starring Michael Caine. I have not seen this this film before. Given that it is very violent and contains several adult themes, I can only wonder how the people who saw it when it was first shown reacted in 1971?!
It is a very dark, bleak film.
There was a remake in 2000 with Sylvester Stallone.
The 1972 film Hit Man starring Bernie Casey is also based on the book Jack’s Return Home - just as Get Carter is...
Last night I watched 'Get Carter' starring Michael Caine. I have not seen this this film before. Given that it is very violent and contains several adult themes, I can only wonder how the people who saw it when it was first shown reacted in 1971?!
It is a very dark, bleak film.
There was a remake in 2000 with Sylvester Stallone.
The 1972 film Hit Man starring Bernie Casey is also based on the book Jack’s Return Home - just as Get Carter is...
I'm not sure how audiences reacted at the time. The seventies was quite permissive in terms of sex and violence, so they probably didn't bat an eyelid. Yes. It is very bleak. The movie was X-rated so it would not have reached a wide audience in the UK. Interestingly IMDB doesn't feature any contemporary reviews. Wiki suggests it was critically more popular in the US than the UK. It has definitely become feted over the years. I can't agree with those pollsters who voted it the Greatest British Film of All Time. That it certainly is not.
Try to grab a look at Mike Hodges & Michael Caine's follow up PULP - a more interesting film and a much less well known one.
Comments
The finale of Operation Crossbow is very GoldenEye pre-credits. It also clashed with the opening of The Sound of Music on the other channel - we had some genius schedulers at the BBC this year. Anyway, we went from one bunch of Nazis to another, all a bit confusing with the stress of Xmas and associated drink and indigestion.
Without the opening of SOM, which frontloads the film with a heck of a lot of goodwill thanks to its stunning aerial Alpine shots, the movie wasn't quite as good. Some stuff seemed different this time round. Of course, it goes to the wire with a daring escape from the Nazis and shoot-outs. I like the bit with the nuns and the missing carboretta but the scene where two of them raise their habits to reveal two sub machine guns with which they mow down the German patrol was still unexpected.
The Von Trapp family escaping over the Alps is stirring stuff, but the coda where they happen upon Hitler's Alpine Lair and engage in a furious gun battle is what makes it. It is signalled earlier in the film - it's clear Fraulein Maria is teaching them ore than just songs and is indeed using it as a cover to train a crack commando troupe, with each Von Trapp family member given a special talent; it's very Magnificent Seven, even down to the same number. They're headed by Christopher Plummer, naturally, whose callous smirk as he guns down his enemies is very distinctive.
Of course, I'm forgetting the shocking scene earlier in the catacombs when young Liesl beckons Rolphe, the Hitler youth, towards her. As she sinks to her knees, the camera stays on his face until his expression changes and the ensuing screams are accompanied by different shots of the cavernous nunnery echoing around. We then see Liesl rise and wipe the blood from her mouth with a determined, contented look. Regarded as shocking in its day, it was the first sign that the film was now taking a different turn. Indeed, some fans of the film only showed up for this last half hour. Anyway, we see young Liesl's talent, while the others turn out to be specialists in knife-throwing, explosives and so on. For my money only the arrival of the Count and the Baroness in their attack helicopter took things a tad too far, but it's clear the whole thing was the inspiration for the Alpine climax of OHMSS a few years later, and quite possibly many of Tarantino's films.
After that, the showing of Black Narcissus with Gemma Arterton on BBC1 was a bit of a downer.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
TBF former is lesser Hitch but lightweight and enjoyable. From a Bond perspective, both are almost the perfect Bond films and there are scenes and dialogue that made it into Bond series, they must have made a study.
I mean, To Catch A Thief is really what Never Say Never Again should have been. Just the aerial location work of the South of France is brilliant enough to make it look good though the plot is simply a bog standard version of an episode of The Saint with Roger Moore.
All is lovely though it's a Xmas film so the lack of substance is not missed, it's amiable wallpaper. Grant lets the women come on to him as he's older and didn't want to appear predatory. This may account for Fatima Blush making her inroads into Connery in NSNA where he looks a bit wet, that said when he goes after Domino as a masseur he does seem creepy.
North by... has its charms and I liked Mason's Locke-lilke henchman; we don't see anyone really die in that film though do we? Oh hang on, maybe we do but never at Grant's hands. It's funny how early on we see Grant compensate civilians he's screwed over with some cash in hand. Later he seems more blasé.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
a remake of the 70s disaster movie, the capsizing sequence is fantastic.
US President Harrison Ford saves the day when the presidential airplane is hi-jacked by terrorists.
Good action as Gary Oldman leads the terrorists against a still tough war veteran President.
It’s great fun in a Die Hard way, if you can look through the potholes it’s very enjoyable.
and just be entertained {[]
@ !!!"
Hitchcock, 1964
starring Tippi Hedren, last seen in The Birds, and Sean Connery (that name seems familiar, is he one of ours?)
This begins the final run of five Hitchcock movies nobody talks about much. This one turns out to be a slow talky character study, with token thriller elements tacked on near the beginning and end.
Opening thriller-esque scenes are blatantly recycled from Psycho, just two films earlier. Marnie even uses the pseudonym Marion as she embezzles ten grand from her employer and flees town.
Closing thriller-esque scenes are recycled from...
Tippi Hedren actually does a good job of playing the mentally ill heroine, with her smooth confident every day persona and her twitchy infantile outbursts when threatened. Wonder what ever happened to her after her two films with Hitchcock? wikipedia shows plenty of films I've never heard of, only one I saw was I Heart Huckabees where her part was a cameo.
Connery is decent enough, but with his cool detached and superior attitude still seems to be playing Bond.
His character becomes less interesting throughout the film though. As introduced, he is a frustrated zoologist who has given up his chosen career to take over the family business, and in his first major scene discusses his studies of predators in the animal kingdom. His interest in Marnie at first seems to be just that, predatorial: he gives her a job knowing she will rob him, and when she does he blackmails her into marrying him. Yet this creepy aspect of his character disappears halfway through the film as he becomes a loving husband whose only concern is curing his wife. so what seems like a possible thriller-esque plot thread (eg Suspicion, 1941) becomes a red herring, and we have to wait another hour til that final scene to finally get our shock ending.
Too bad how these later Hitchcock films worked out:, Connery refused to do a spyfilm for Hitchcock so instead did this dialog heavy character study. A bit of a bore for Bondfans and I can't say he really proved he could act. Then two films later Hitchcock gave us a rather boring spyfilm (Topaz) that desperately could have used Connery!
Trying to do an image search for this key scene, I found many shots of James Mason's house from the climax. Thatd make a classic Bond villains headquarters, in fact Piz Gloria is pretty similar.
I absolutely love this film, I think it's a great film , not just superhero movie but a great film. -{
1978 version with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe
produced by Lew Grade, its got the ITC logo
costarring Jimmy Stewart, Oliver Reed and Joan Collins!
turns out I watched this out of order. Like the first filmed versions from the 1940s, Farewell My Lovely was remade first, then this as a sequel (Chandler wrote the two books in the opposite order).
For some reason this is set in England, modern-day England. Prewar Los Angeles was a character in its own right in Chandler's novel, so we're losing much of the story just from that change in context, but perhaps by altering the context we should be better able to appreciate deeper more universal themes? sounds good in theory...
Best thing is plot does follow Chandler's novel more closely and therefor almost makes sense. And they can show us all those aspects of the story that the original film could not because of the Hayes Code. I think they even explain who killed the chauffeur.
Mitchum is too old for the part. So are the two actresses playing the Sternwood sisters. The little one is good though, very nutty and dangerous, just like she's supposed to be. For some reason the older sister has a British accent even though her father and sister are Americans.
Joan Collins doesn't play either sister, for some reason she's got the walk-on role as the lady at the bookstore. Collins is younger than the actress playing the younger sister, and I would much rather have seen her at the photoshoot and then surprising Marlowe in his bed.
Not only do we lose Los Angeles as a character, but some of the assumptions of the plot dont even make sense in 1978-era England. I travelled there as a child round that time: if you wanted to see a picture of a naked lady all you had to do was buy a newspaper and turn to page 3! and prostitutes had their phone numbers and services posted as colourful stickers on every phone booth, so why would anybody need to go to that bookshop to get their overpackaged anachronistic softcore photobooks?
Transposing a prewar plot to a completely different place and time makes it all a bit surreal, and part of Chandler's goal as a detective writer was to make things more realistic (and he hated all that Agatha Christie stuff...)
On the positive side the Sternwood mansion is magnificent, and supports the St George imagery from Chandler's first page with the suits of armour in the lobby. Film begins and ends with a realtime drive down the endless private road into the estate, very nice. And that anachronistic Gentlemen's Bookstore is pretty classy looking too.
Unintended outcome of the transposition: halfway through, when Marlowe delivers a prisoner to Scotland Yard and a police chief there deliver a chunk of exposition in a posh accent, I almost expected Marlowe to go downstairs to Q's lab before returning to his mission!
Also with posh accents and oldworld architecture, the scene where Carmen (aka Vivian) wins at the casino looks very familiar now, similar to scenes in OHMSS and especially tWiNE
Which one was this?
Agh, I really dont really care.
Forced my family to watch THE SOUND OF MUSIC as none of us had ever seen it before. It's nothing like how Napoleon described it. Cant imagine why....
A slow musical which pitches up fast with four songs and good sweeping photography in the first 20 mins, then goes all sugary and child friendly. All those kids. Jeez. Occasionally enlivened - for instance, we loved the puppets in The Lonely Goat Herder song - finally made sense of a dance routine we saw on Strictly a few years back. It ends on a moment of tension too easily resolved. The real Von Trapp family had a slightly less extravagant life and a less dramatic one.
Interestingly, the original show had songs in different places and more of them. This one suffers from regular musical repetition. Neither show nor movie was particularly well received on release, but the public loved them. Narrative-wise it shares many similarities with Rogers & Hammerstein's THE KING AND I : a governess, kids, overbearing father, an entourage of women, a desire filled dance at a fancy ball, a slimy cameo-part villain, young illicit lovers, a non-singing finale. IMO The King and I outstrips it. Or maybe I just prefer Yul Brynner to Julie Andrews.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The proper one was on tonight on ITV 4 with Gene Hackman, closely followed by 'Get Carter' which I am watching as I type.
Films are really quite soulless these days
Yeh, deadly serious. Is that the one where the Cap's best mate comes back all nasty and tries to kick everyone's butt? I dont pay much attention as you can tell. They could call it Marvel 17 for all I care. If it is the one, then it's certainly a cut above the Cap's introductory effort - but that isnt saying much IMO I'm afraid. Maybe I'm too long in the tooth.
Main cast :
Egon : the gangs leader , stubborn and obsessed with his schemes & plans....unfortunately he spends most of his time behind bars
Benny : whimsical and silly
Kjell : the gangs scape goat (not to mention his wife Valborgs scape goat too)
Lt Hermansen : bufoonish police , often mocked by the gang
Dynamite Harry : drunken explosives expert
officer Holm : thinks Hermansen is a fool but goes along with him
Biffen , danish rent thug : the Jaws of Olsen films
Olsenbanden : Operation Egon 4.5/6 (in the first movie the gang is after a golden statue kind of object , which is on loan from W Germany. Unusual that Bjerre is not the composer and the famous jazzy theme song is not used here)
Olsenbanden og Dynamitt-Harry 5/6 (the Olsen gang meets drunken Dynamite Harry for the first time , they are also up against an american gangster similar to Blofeld , even the way hes filmed : at first you only see his feet. Egon , the gangs leader also falls in love with prison shrink and tries to go straight - easier said than done)
Olsenbanden og Dynamitt Harry går amokk 4.5/6 (Harry tries to stop drinking , Egon and his gang is about to commit their biggest heist - stealing 6 million krones from an under cover operation at a freight company , which the police also follows closely. The safe is both guarded by alarm and the company thugs. Benny is also engaged and Kjell also wants to stop his life of crime , this upsets Egon as the plan is already underway and he has no choice but to ask Harry for help)
Olsenbanden på sport 4.5/6 (the gang uses norwegian rail system to heist gold but danish rent-a-thug Biffen tries to sabotage their plans , Blunck plays liutenant Hermansens sidekick officer Holm for the first time & a sober Harry helps the gang too)
Besides TB last xmas marked 55 anniversary Leone's FAF$M
40 anniversary Superman II
60 anniversary Two Women (also 60 yrs since Gable died)
I haven't watched this in a while. Obviously a classic and I love the look of the film.
So many fantastic images, and camera angles. -{
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The Ian Fleming short story given the Roald Dahl treatment, as outlandish as You Only Live Twice.
I do think this is the kind of film that got made in the late 60s, a bit stodgy and long-winded. It's two and a half hours, like OHMSS and also the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie went on too long, despite all mentioned having classic moments, it's just too much imo.
The child catcher is a right bastard isn't he? Credit to the actor Ralph Helphman (sp?) as he probably put off a load of kids from getting into cars on the offer of a sweetie.
It's a Bond vehicle of course, with Gert Frobe and even old Q popping up at the beginning. Two knock out scenes/songs where Frobe tries to bump his wife off while proclaiming his undying love for her, then the one where Dick Van Dyke and Truly Scrumptious (a Bond-style name) pose as toys to infiltrate the castle.
The film otherwise lacks a certain charm imo, it's hard to put your finger on it, but I cite OHMSS and TMM as falling in the same bracket.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I used to love CCBB when I was a kid. Several months ago it was on TV and I watched a bit of it for nostalgia's sake. Ugh: what's that about not going home again? The special effects even by late '60s standards are terrible. But what I can see now that I couldn't see as a child is that Broccoli & Co. were hellbent on ripping off Mary Poppins--Edwardian setting, Dick Van Dyke (at least they told him not to do a Cockney accent), Sherman Brothers score, Sally Anne Howes a suitable stand-in for Julie Andrews. And Flemingist that I am now can't forgive them for tossing about pretty much every word Fleming wrote. So there's my finger on (or to) the film.
A film that cannot be bettered in my opinion.
Al Pacino's performance was so understated in the first two films that he spent the rest of his career shouting and being OTT
This one funny film this is one of the best scenes in the cell I cried laughing when I first watched it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-FvDteymnM
Clearly you like your Marvel. I recrntly spent a week with a Marvel crazy dude who had the complete box set. We started at IRON MAN and I managed to escape just before GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. After about 4 movies I was having to ask Joe to stop the DVD and explain what people were talking about as they already seemed to be crossing-storylines. I enjoyed IRON MAN, but as the series progressed R.D.Jr got on my wick too much. I preferred the films which could be watched without prior knowledge: IRON MAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THOR (1 & 2), that was about it.
Lady Rose:
I agree. Pacino in THE GODFATHER (1) is outstanding. It is a superb film.
Thunderpussy:
I love THE IPCRESS FILE - dated or not. A consummate espionage thriller for me.
Napoleon, Hardyboy:
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG was better than I expected it to be, but yes, it is a little Poppins- lite. Some of the songs and song staging are very good, but it takes a long time to get anywhere. Loved The Old Bamboo.
My last watch
ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968)
Based on Alistair MacLean's novel, itself taken from actual events, a John Sturges thriller which looks lovely and has moments of suspense without perching one on the edge of a seat. Rock Hudson is a submarine Commander charged with rescuing the inhabitants of an Arctic drift-ice meteorological station, Zebra, apparently consumed by fire. Along for the ride are special agents Patrick MacGoohan and Ernest Borgnine, who each have secrets they are not telling, and whose real mission is the recovery of a lost spy satellite - conveniently downed near Ice Station Zebra. Cue underwater high-jinx beneath the pack ice and some studio bound fun at the snowy rendezvous.
I enjoyed it. There's a reasonably simple plot, a twist or two which keeps the audience interested and just enough tension and intrigue to belie the lack of genuine pace. There are quite a few improbables and some of the editing is a bit lame, making us scratch our heads, but generally it's one of the better MacLean adaptations. Good score from future Bond orchestrator Michel Legrand.
It is a very dark, bleak film.
There was a remake in 2000 with Sylvester Stallone.
The 1972 film Hit Man starring Bernie Casey is also based on the book Jack’s Return Home - just as Get Carter is...
I'm not sure how audiences reacted at the time. The seventies was quite permissive in terms of sex and violence, so they probably didn't bat an eyelid. Yes. It is very bleak. The movie was X-rated so it would not have reached a wide audience in the UK. Interestingly IMDB doesn't feature any contemporary reviews. Wiki suggests it was critically more popular in the US than the UK. It has definitely become feted over the years. I can't agree with those pollsters who voted it the Greatest British Film of All Time. That it certainly is not.
Try to grab a look at Mike Hodges & Michael Caine's follow up PULP - a more interesting film and a much less well known one.