The Anderson Tapes. Today on TV. This is the first time I have seen this film. It stars Sean Connery. It is a great film and one which I will definitely watch again.
Knowing that I am a fan of Connery, a friend of mine at work is going to lend me 'The First Train Robbery'. Apparently that is also a very entertaining film.
I also saw The Anderson Tapes quite recently and found it a very entertaining film, which builds up some good tension as the robbery unfolds. Connery is on good form, and is surrounded by quite a decent ensemble. Martin Balsam's extremely camp performance is a bit over the top, but funny nonetheless.
One of my most recent films watched was another Sidney Lumet film starring Connery - The Hill. Really top notch prison drama, with an outstanding ensemble of British character actors alongside Connery, who is at his best in this film. Also beautiful stark black and white cinematography, some interesting and unsual editing, as well as a very fine script. Highly recommended for all fans of film, but especially fans of films with a military/prison context.
Chrisno1's recommendation, The Offence, is definitely on my list of films to watch. I hope to get my hands on the Masters of Cinema blu-ray of The Offence soon.
An early 70s film about a love triangle, Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Stars Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson who are both messed about by lithe young lad Murray Head.
Quite ahead of its time but what charms and delights now is the interior decor of its time, it's like a time capsule. The whole thing is wonderfully directed by John Schlesinger who also did Far From the Madding Crowd, also with Finch.
The acting is brilliant throughout and sums up the fag end of the 60s and follow-on disillusionment
Something of it puts me in mind of The Ipcress File, also a time capsule set in London.
This film spawned the phrase uttered by one camp partygoer: 'Here come those tired old tits again....'
Last night I watched on TV the ITV production of Miss Marple. The episode was "Murder is Easy" and it had Benedict Cumberbatch as Luke Fitzwilliam in yellowing houndstooth check.
Just saying....
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
was he already Sherlock Holmes at this point?
thatd be almost like a Doyle/Christie shared universe crossover!
I think that Miss Marple episode was done in 2009, and Cumberbatch may have done the unaired pilot for Sherlock by that point. But the actual series hadn't started yet.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
12 years or so after appearing as Bond, Connery returned in Never Say Never Again, and around 20 years or so after he starred with Connery in The Last Crusade, Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones in this.
It's not far off Never Say Never Again really though it's not fair, it does have more going for it though if anything Spielberg's polish makes his film's flaws more jarring.
Above anything there's an odd sense that this Indiana isn't quite the same as the previous one. I know they're trying to make a point about getting older, and irascible, but still. Ford's hair like Connery's so-called hair in NSNA, varies from tawny brown to grey.
Some nice touches such as when Ford is on the back of La Beouf's bike, his mannerisms are similar to Connery's - looking unimpressed at his son's heroic antics. Later going 'intolerable' like Connery did but the point is artlessly made.
There's.an odd sense this is less an Indiana Jones movie than nods to other things... it starts off like Superman: The Movie and the Clark Kent in Kansas scenes, the scene in the warehouse makes you expect the Ark of the Covenant so it blindsides you a bit, the chase in the town is like Back to the Future.
The scene set in the atomic test site is superb, I don't care about the nuke the fridge thing, it's a highlight.
But ultimately well I guess many of us instinctively believe in the Bible on some level due to our upbringing, not sure we believe in UFOs. The plot just didn't really get me, it's like one or two Bond films just are never going to grip you no matter what they do, because of the plot - DAD or QoS for instance.
Indy doesn't fight Nazis in this, he doesn't ride a horse... he does seem a man out of time somewhat, actually more so than Connery did in NSNA. I'd prefer it if it went for a more low key vibe but this is the film Lucas wanted to make so we had to make do.
I look forward to Ford's swan song as Jones due out next year or whenever - rather like the 'new' Bond film.
Thanks Gymkata, I enjoyed reading that before turning in for the night. -{
I think I know in part why the aliens thing doesn't work for me. Firstly Williams' score doesn't really nod to it. The Last Crusade I now realise had that knightly theme to it, in anticipation of the final scene - even the jousting on the motorbike nods to medieval stuff, Knights of the Round Table and all that, it hangs together well.
But Williams doesn't really have a recognisable theme for this and doesn't produce anything Mayan-sounding or eerie that might put you in that space. The exotic locations all look on the sound stage of course. You don't quite believe they've actually gone anywhere - did they, in fact? Location work is frankly a poor return compared to the other films.
There was another reason for not believing the aliens but I guess it's that somehow the film is a pastiche and it's just hard to take it that seriously, that's all.
They borrow a line from the previous film: 'I've heard that bedtime story before...'
Posted a reply but the internet went down cos of the snow here probably... Anyway, I didn't mind the CGI wasn't the worst of it but home-made effects do have charm, which this film lacks. CGI has a lazy phone-it-in later feel to it.
The co-stars also lack charm. Indy imo isn't that great a hero as Ford tends to be mumble y so it needs Marion in Raiders or Dr Henry Jones in Last Crusade to compensate, as if to point out his reserved nature and take the Mickey a bit. The co-stars in this lack charm, though Marion's return is welcome it's part of an ensemble. Plus, Indiana's bookishness and reserve were a welcome paradox in a young, vile leading man originally, but less so in this one now he's older.
The space alien plot in ...Crystal Skull made sense to me, because if the character had his original adventures when the world looked like weekly movie serials and a bit of Universal horror, and he has since aged twenty-odd years, the world around him should now look like 1950s flying saucer invasion sci-fi. The fictional universe in which he lives, a pastiche of the popular films of the time, should age along with him.
Escape to Athena
1979 (a few months before Moonraker)
in which an ensemble cast of zany characters seize control of a Nazi-occupied Greek island during the final days of WWII.
stars Roger Moore, Telly Savalas and David Niven
(thats three of ours!)
also stars Stephanie Powers, who was once a rival 1960s superspy (and that characters name April Dancer was invented by Ian Fleming, so she too is kinda sorta one of ours)
also stars Richard Roundtree (Shaft), Sonny Bono(!!) and last billed Elliot Gould.
our Roger is really stretching his acting chops (a bit beyond the breaking point), as he plays a sympathetic Nazi PoW camp commandant. He really fancies Powers, but cant figure out how to seduce her without Gould pimping for him! Rogers More playing a guy who has trouble getting laid just is non-credible!
Elliot Gould is last billed, but gets the most dialog and is the most interesting character. He gets to indulge in his vaudevillian song-and-dance man skills he used to show off when hosting SNL. And he gets to pursue an escaping Nazi in the big motorcycle chase scene through narrow mediaeval alleyways, best action sequence in the film.
(good thing I'm an Elliot Gould fan, because if I was watching this for Roger Moore I might be disappointed)
Ancient Greek architecture and scenery is the biggest star of all in this film, spectacular establishing shots and lots of fun exploring the buildings. Compare with For Your Eyes Only, two years later: four of the characters (but not our Roger) climb a rocky cliff to an inaccessible monastery at the top. when they get there, what they find is more like the finale of a typical Bond film then the ending of the Bond film which it resembles! imagine if we could somehow splice these monastery scenes into the end of FYEO...
I saw that film a few months back and I loved it! The opening titles with the "one shot" and the fabulous music was wonderful. I also appreciated Telly's Greek dance, and a particular David Niven one shot kill. -{ -{
Last film I saw was the 1954 "The Last Time I saw Paris" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson, and a very fresh faced Sir Roger Moore in his first film role. Taylor stole the film, Moore's role was slight but entertaining, though i feel he wasn't that convincing as a gigolo tennis player champ. It was odd seeing him in such an old fashioned film.
“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. "
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
This Humphrey Bogart classic features two co-stars from Casablanca - Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet and is directed by John Huston.
For all that, it's way too talky and doesn't imo capture the imagination in the first half hour. The characters are all rather reprehensible or behave as if they are. Some of it is a bit preposterous too.
It pulls together a bit for the last half hour and there's a touch of Indy's Holy Grail about the Falcon which draws people into going after it - fyi the Maltese Falcon is a Crusader-era statue made out of all manner of jewels that was destined for King Charles V of Spain I think but the ship was seized by pirates and many have been seeking it ever since.
But it's a long slog before it gets to that point.
The film just didn't convey anything sinister or mysterious to me, the sexual chemistry between Bogarde and his lead Mary Astor isn't really quite there, for me there was something missing all round. I'd go so far as to say that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a far better film!
if you seriously don't like the Bogart film, there were actually two previously filmed versions no-one talks about much.
The first from 1931 included more sexual content from the book, and therefor had to be pulled from circulation once the Hayes Code was a thing.
Then they remade it in 1936 as a "comedy" called Satan Met a Lady. with Bette Davis in the Mary Astor role. About as funny as the "funny" version of Casino Royale, so that wasn't worth anything to the studio either.
Finally they remade it straight with Huston, Bogart et al and film buffs have been studying obsessively ever since.
There is a dvd edition that includes all three versions.
I hadn't made the Indiana Jones connection. The scrolling text at the beginning explaining the ancient history of the Falcon reminds me of Lord of the Rings of all unlikely things, and the statue has the same sort of hold on men's minds as Tolkien's One ring.
Its a weird sort of mystery if you're expecting clues and suspects and a logical solution. More of a psychological study how easy it is to corrupt somebody.
If you were watching it for the first time, did you spend most of the film believing Bogart seriously wanted the Falcon as much as Lorre and his rivals? That he is as bad as them?
I know my first time I was surprised when the movie got to the end, and he was still investigating a murder all along. I'd forgotten about his partner.
And when does he figure that out? The book makes that clearer, but Hammett's writing is tricky: you gotta pay attention to how many cigarettes Sam Spade smokes in one sitting to guess when he solves the real mystery.
That's interesting and looking around on imdb I did notice the earlier version and may watch that, esp if it's on YouTube.
Sorry, the film just didn't work for me, daft because I had seen it before and felt the same way but with the Casablanca stars I figured it was worth another shot. I've looked on the imdb reviews and the one-star ones say pretty much what I thought - that doesn't make it 'true' of course, but y'know.
Yes, I guess it's a twist if you think Spade is after the money and that's all but in fact he's playing detective. But I'd lost interest not least because, well, first half hour or more it's just all over the place. IMO. I didn't care about any of them. 'Hey, I'm sleeping with my partner's wife!' 'Hey. this woman everyone is trying to bump off I'll send her to live with my secretary!'
That gormless henchman Wilmer had a real career acc to imdb, and I did recognise him from the madcap Hellzappoppin!
That gormless henchman Wilmer had a real career acc to imdb, and I did recognise him from the madcap Hellzappoppin!
Elisha Cooke, he's a great character actor from that period, sort of the William Macey of his generation.
He also has a small role in the Big Sleep, and big roles in Shane and Kubrick's The Killing
He even plays Kirk's lawyer in an episode of Star Trek!...
"Really darling? It is amazing all these tidbits you store away..."
IMDB says a sequel was due to The Maltese Falcon but the author quickly pointed out that he owned the rights to the characters so it got nixed. It went ahead anyway with the names changed, as The Three Strangers with Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet again, no apparent Sam Spade character though.
008: Operation Exterminate
Yet another lo-budget Italian spyfilm cranked out in 1965.
Starring Ingrid Schoeller as Agent 008, and Alberto Lupo as Agent 006.
I had recently seen Schoeller in an episode of the Saint, looking up her bio is what led me to this...
So, why did the Italians mass produce such a glut of James Bond ripoffs at the time? something to do with money-laundering perhaps? If other countries' film industries were also trying to cash in at such a scale, I don't stumble across their product so easily. These Italian made Bond-ripoffs are ubiquitous!
Mostly filmed in Egypt, some very nice location shots, with finale in Switzerland.
Schoeller plays the American spy who does most of the work, disguised as a nightclub chanteuse. Lupo is the British agent assigned to team up with her, kinda sorta looking like a more slope-browed Connery. He's basically her sidekick.
Get this: there is a dangerous anti-radar mcguffin that has been stolen and come up for sale in the black market. The spies of two countries are in Egypt, rivals teaming up to recover the technology. The villain traps them in the back of a truck, and drives them out deep into the Egyptian countryside and strands them there. At one point the sexy lady spy drugs her British male counterpart even though they're supposed to be working together. and so on...
I know when EON finally filmed The Spy Who Loved Me they couldnt actually use Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me for plot ideas, but who woulda guessed they borrowed so much of the plot from this Italian obscurity?
So I got round to seeing this at last and it's perfect lockdown viewing! Good fun, low-key rubbish yet not really bad at all and Potts does a great review of it that I don't need to add much to.
Bond ripoffs of the time seem to owe most to FRWL, maybe Dr No but less of GF because it was so distinctive and maybe less exotic featuring mainly American and British locations. This film does head out to Switzerland but does it in a way that makes you appreciate what they did in Goldfinger all the more, by avoiding making it too touristy and kitsch.
The main secret agent is a woman and it's hard to watch her male spy companion do the whole 'Ah, a woman!' thing - not that it's so different to what Moore did over 10 years later. Her lead looks a bit like Steve Carroll or Leslie Nielson's Frank Drebin (he's even called Frank, and the woman spy owes a bit to Priscilla Presley so it starts to get a bit Naked Gun at times) then latterly due to his casual garb - white jacket, black shirt - looks a bit like Dalton in TLD, even with slight receding hairline.
It's good fun and you can enjoy spotting all the other Bond references yourself. It does make you appreciate the Bonds were a cut above the rest - and also why they went big with You Only Live Twice; it's the way to outstrip the opposition, esp setting it in Japan, where it's likely the competitors couldn't have made it out to.
The ending of this film lets it down a bit, it sort of undoes a lot of it on two counts, but it sort of needed a punchline. I'll watch Bulldog Drummond from 67, that was recommended back on page 402 or thereabouts!
BTW the film is typically for an Italian film dubbed into English - tbf they often do a decent enough job of it.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,651MI6 Agent
That gormless henchman Wilmer had a real career acc to imdb, and I did recognise him from the madcap Hellzappoppin!
Elisha Cooke, he's a great character actor from that period, sort of the William Macey of his generation.
He also has a small role in the Big Sleep, and big roles in Shane and Kubrick's The Killing
He even plays Kirk's lawyer in an episode of Star Trek!...
..and actually wins for once!
I mainly know him as Wilmer, a two-bit punk in thw Maltese Falcon and as Ice Pick in the original Magnum P.I. series, who was a retired mob boss type and a surrogate father for Rick Wright, Thomas’s close friend.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Going back to 008: Operation Exterminate and Italy's Bondsploitation movies, something occurs to me. In 1983's Battle of the Bonds, the only market in which Never Say Never Again bested Octopussy was Italy.
You can sort of see why, because NSNA is the ultimate Bondsploitation movie! Rather than hiring Bond supporting cast members like Adolpho Celi or Bernard Lee, it goes one further and hires former Bond Sean Connery!
Seen in that light, I wouldn't want to see an EONised version of this flawed film but take it in the other direction - how I'd love to see a Bondsploitation version! First, you'd rough up the print so it's low-res. Then cut the running time down to an hour and a half - frankly all this skanky remake requires, it's not an ambitious film like OHMSS or SF.
Then overdub all the voices, to make it like all those dodgy but entertaining guilty pleasure Italian movies! Even chuck in better jokes. Watching something like that on YouTube would make the film far more entertaining.
You even have the right poster already done for it:
You could probably keep the score as it is, it's trashy enough! )
This...wasn't terrible. A lot of the flying sequences are actually really well done and engaging, and making the decision to have the actors actually in the planes themselves and filming them doing their scenes was smart...it adds to the immersion to a significant degree. Reading up on the film, the lead actors all actually learned the basics of flying to the degree that they could take off and land on their own for certain sequences.
Historically, a lot of it is pure fiction or speculation. There are enough nuggets of fact in there to carry you along and make you feel like you're watching a biography, but there's a lot of BS in there as well. Regardless, what's there is engaging enough on a superficial level to get you engaged in what's going on.
The acting varies in quality. John Phillip Law is von Richtofen and he's...adequate. More successful is Don Stroud as Roy Brown. Everyone else is kinda there, not really all that noteworthy.
I had low expectations but found myself enjoying this for the most part. When the film concentrates on flying, it's actually decent. If it's on and you've got the time, you can do far worse than watch this movie.
I'm curious: anyone here ever see the RED BARON film from 2006? Apparently it flopped hard.
I've watched Von Richthofen and Brown several times and agree with your assessment of the film. I think the acting isn't great, and I find John Phillip Law below-par as a leading man. Stroud is okay - I may be biased because of his Bond connection though. I seem to recall liking the actor who played Goering the most. My memory could be playing tricks on me though.
The flying scenes are certainly very well done, making use of a fine collection of replica WWI aircraft, although the British Se5a's are not the most convincing replicas. There is some daring flying going on in those scenes, giving an authentic feel of the desperate maneouvers of air combat in those days. Many of the shots from this film were recycled in other movies over the years - some good ones (Aces High is a film well worth watching) and some downright disastrous (Revenge of the Red Baron should be avoided at all costs).
I've also seen the German Red Baron from 2008. I had high hopes for that film after seeing a VFX reel before the film's release. The flying scenes promised to be the best CGI dogfights yet seen in a war film, and to a large extent they are really well done. I was also excited by the age-appropriate casting of the German pilots (Til Schweiger excepted) but alas the drama is tepid and historically I think it was just about as much BS as Von Richthofen and Brown. So worth watching to see some decently rendered CGI WWI air combat, but the rest is forgettable. I first saw it online, and then I did buy a DVD copy for my collection. The DVD version was quite a different cut though, about 30 minutes shorter and the aerial scenes had been badly chopped up and re-edited. I'd try and avoid that version, even though the longer cut requires you to sit through another 30 minutes of tepid drama.
This excellent and lovely looking and sounding movie becomes more problematic as one gets older. It starts when you begin to feel more sympathy for the Mrs Robinson character.
Other than that, Hoffman's Benjamin seems quite autistic - he's on the spectrum, for sure. It's almost a precursor to Rain Man.
You notice in the opener where he's on the conveyer belt at the airport and looking blank and expressionless though the way it's directed and the S&G song makes it brilliant and cool.
But you get it at other times - when he's renting a room near Berkeley College and is being shown it by the live-in landlord - Benji is just a bit too close behind him, there's a lack of spatial awareness.
At the time, you just think, well this is a young lad who doesn't quite know how to behave, it's quite charming. Being younger, you might also relate to it a bit and enjoy seeing all this up on the screen.
It's amusing to see him go for Mrs Robinson and then.... well, I won't do spoilers for the younger among us. But latterly you sort of feel sorry for all the people he interacted with really. This ambivalence was noted at the time but you pick up on it later on in life. I mean, his parents buy him a flash car and he doesn't even thank them. Okay, so it's the era of She's Leaving Home by the Beatles and Money Can't Buy You Love but all the same...
But as with some Bond films where there's a moral equivocation the production values, comedy and flair gloss over all this.
This excellent and lovely looking and sounding movie becomes more problematic as one gets older. It starts when you begin to feel more sympathy for the Mrs Robinson character.
Other than that, Hoffman's Benjamin seems quite autistic - he's on the spectrum, for sure. It's almost a precursor to Rain Man.
You notice in the opener where he's on the conveyer belt at the airport and looking blank and expressionless though the way it's directed and the S&G song makes it brilliant and cool.
But you get it at other times - when he's renting a room near Berkeley College and is being shown it by the live-in landlord - Benji is just a bit too close behind him, there's a lack of spatial awareness.
At the time, you just think, well this is a young lad who doesn't quite know how to behave, it's quite charming. Being younger, you might also relate to it a bit and enjoy seeing all this up on the screen.
It's amusing to see him go for Mrs Robinson and then.... well, I won't do spoilers for the younger among us. But latterly you sort of feel sorry for all the people he interacted with really. This ambivalence was noted at the time but you pick up on it later on in life. I mean, his parents buy him a flash car and he doesn't even thank them. Okay, so it's the era of She's Leaving Home by the Beatles and Money Can't Buy You Love but all the same...
But as with some Bond films where there's a moral equivocation the production values, comedy and flair gloss over all this.
I hated it when I saw it as a teenage adolescent - especially the music - and hated it when I re-watched it in my late thirties. As you say, I struggled with the Hoffman character, who is very odd, self-obsessed, socially dysfunctional and distinctly uncool. I identified more with Mrs Robinson the second time around, having been dumped by a university-age girlfriend when I was 37 - she ran off with some kid in medical college. I can't quite put my finger on why I dislike it, but I think having a central character who is so selfishly impulsive doesn't help. Nor does having an actor way too old to play a startled, rabbit-in-lights youngster. Nor does that bloody music.
opening credits by Maurice Binder (one of ours), written by Lorenzo Semple (kinda sorta one of ours)
Binder's credits are just some text on the screen, but the image beneath them is a slow pan up our heroines bod from toes to top. Film gets off to an exciting start!
Fathom Harvill is a member of the American parachuting team, on tour in Spain. (Special credit is given to the designer of her skintight onepiece parachute costumes.) Lots of swell scenery in the parachuting scenes, and the Spanish geography below isn't so bad too look at either!
Welch is recruited by one group of spies to use her parachuting superpowers to infiltrate another group of spies, something something about a nuclear trigger mcguffin lost in the waters off the coast.
After half an hour there is a costume change to a pale green bikini that contrasts dramatically with her deep olive tan. Gosh this spy epic has taken a dramatic turn!
After a while we learn there is no nuclear mcguffin, but instead it's some sort of ancient Chinese jewel that various rivals are fighting over, and nobody except Fathom is quite who they claim. Suddenly this isn't a spyplot at all, its a variation on the Maltese Falcon (see discussion earlier on this page).
For those that don't like the actual Maltese Falcon, maybe this variation on the plot would be more to your tastes?
Of related interest: in What's New Pussycat, 1965, Ursula Andress makes her big entrance parachuting into the passenger seat of Peter O'Toole's convertible, and in later scenes she's wearing a snakeskin patterned skintight onepiece jumpsuit, with a zipper she pulls much lower than Welch ever does. So that films got some nice scenery too.
Always have a lot of time for your reviews, Caractacus.
Fathom is a cute, cheerful spy thriller. A pet favourite of mine chiefly because of Miss Welch's stunning good looks. A pity she doesn't get top billing given she has all the best aspects in the movie.
My parents have a flat in Nerja, Andalucia, where this movie was partly filmed. The Balcon Hotel is still there and my folks' apartment looks onto the beach Raquel walks down to in a tiny bikini swying along to Johnny Dankworth's jazzy score. During the airplane chase the camera pans over a Tio Pepe advertising sign shaped like a bull. It's still there. One scene was filmed on Nerja's main street which has barely changed. A lot of locations were also in nearby Malaga. It's a beautiful relaxed town. I recently showed Fathom to my Mum & Dad and they were quite agog at how little the place has altered.
I just watched Fathom - thanks for the tip! IMDB says it was one of the few movies to get zero stars from Robert Ebert. I don't see why. Fathom is no masterpiece and it knows it. The movie wants to be a fun spy movie and light entertainment and it succedes. Obviously Raquel Welch is a natural masterpiece ;% ;%
Not exactly the last film I have seen, but I watched 'Callan' last week. It's a great film which I recommend to everyone interested in 'spy' type movies.
Callan isn't a spy but more of an assassin in this film and more Harry Palmer than James Bond. It is available to watch on You Tube.
Comments
I also saw The Anderson Tapes quite recently and found it a very entertaining film, which builds up some good tension as the robbery unfolds. Connery is on good form, and is surrounded by quite a decent ensemble. Martin Balsam's extremely camp performance is a bit over the top, but funny nonetheless.
One of my most recent films watched was another Sidney Lumet film starring Connery - The Hill. Really top notch prison drama, with an outstanding ensemble of British character actors alongside Connery, who is at his best in this film. Also beautiful stark black and white cinematography, some interesting and unsual editing, as well as a very fine script. Highly recommended for all fans of film, but especially fans of films with a military/prison context.
Chrisno1's recommendation, The Offence, is definitely on my list of films to watch. I hope to get my hands on the Masters of Cinema blu-ray of The Offence soon.
I wrote a review for The Hill a few weeks (pages!) back. Yes. Definitely worth a look. A superb film with great performances all round.
I've read your review and I think your analysis of the film is spot on!
Stars Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson who are both messed about by lithe young lad Murray Head.
Quite ahead of its time but what charms and delights now is the interior decor of its time, it's like a time capsule. The whole thing is wonderfully directed by John Schlesinger who also did Far From the Madding Crowd, also with Finch.
The acting is brilliant throughout and sums up the fag end of the 60s and follow-on disillusionment
Something of it puts me in mind of The Ipcress File, also a time capsule set in London.
This film spawned the phrase uttered by one camp partygoer: 'Here come those tired old tits again....'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Just saying....
-Mr Arlington Beech
thatd be almost like a Doyle/Christie shared universe crossover!
I think that Miss Marple episode was done in 2009, and Cumberbatch may have done the unaired pilot for Sherlock by that point. But the actual series hadn't started yet.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
12 years or so after appearing as Bond, Connery returned in Never Say Never Again, and around 20 years or so after he starred with Connery in The Last Crusade, Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones in this.
It's not far off Never Say Never Again really
Above anything there's an odd sense that this Indiana isn't quite the same as the previous one. I know they're trying to make a point about getting older, and irascible, but still. Ford's hair like Connery's so-called hair in NSNA, varies from tawny brown to grey.
Some nice touches such as when Ford is on the back of La Beouf's bike, his mannerisms are similar to Connery's - looking unimpressed at his son's heroic antics. Later going 'intolerable' like Connery did but the point is artlessly made.
There's.an odd sense this is less an Indiana Jones movie than nods to other things... it starts off like Superman: The Movie and the Clark Kent in Kansas scenes, the scene in the warehouse makes you expect the Ark of the Covenant so it blindsides you a bit, the chase in the town is like Back to the Future.
The scene set in the atomic test site is superb, I don't care about the nuke the fridge thing, it's a highlight.
But ultimately well I guess many of us instinctively believe in the Bible on some level due to our upbringing, not sure we believe in UFOs. The plot just didn't really get me, it's like one or two Bond films just are never going to grip you no matter what they do, because of the plot - DAD or QoS for instance.
Indy doesn't fight Nazis in this, he doesn't ride a horse... he does seem a man out of time somewhat, actually more so than Connery did in NSNA. I'd prefer it if it went for a more low key vibe but this is the film Lucas wanted to make so we had to make do.
I look forward to Ford's swan song as Jones due out next year or whenever - rather like the 'new' Bond film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I think I know in part why the aliens thing doesn't work for me. Firstly Williams' score doesn't really nod to it. The Last Crusade I now realise had that knightly theme to it, in anticipation of the final scene - even the jousting on the motorbike nods to medieval stuff, Knights of the Round Table and all that, it hangs together well.
But Williams doesn't really have a recognisable theme for this and doesn't produce anything Mayan-sounding or eerie that might put you in that space. The exotic locations all look on the sound stage of course. You don't quite believe they've actually gone anywhere - did they, in fact? Location work is frankly a poor return compared to the other films.
There was another reason for not believing the aliens but I guess it's that somehow the film is a pastiche and it's just hard to take it that seriously, that's all.
They borrow a line from the previous film: 'I've heard that bedtime story before...'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The co-stars also lack charm. Indy imo isn't that great a hero as Ford tends to be mumble y so it needs Marion in Raiders or Dr Henry Jones in Last Crusade to compensate, as if to point out his reserved nature and take the Mickey a bit. The co-stars in this lack charm, though Marion's return is welcome it's part of an ensemble. Plus, Indiana's bookishness and reserve were a welcome paradox in a young, vile leading man originally, but less so in this one now he's older.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
1979 (a few months before Moonraker)
in which an ensemble cast of zany characters seize control of a Nazi-occupied Greek island during the final days of WWII.
stars Roger Moore, Telly Savalas and David Niven
(thats three of ours!)
also stars Stephanie Powers, who was once a rival 1960s superspy (and that characters name April Dancer was invented by Ian Fleming, so she too is kinda sorta one of ours)
also stars Richard Roundtree (Shaft), Sonny Bono(!!) and last billed Elliot Gould.
our Roger is really stretching his acting chops (a bit beyond the breaking point), as he plays a sympathetic Nazi PoW camp commandant. He really fancies Powers, but cant figure out how to seduce her without Gould pimping for him! Rogers More playing a guy who has trouble getting laid just is non-credible!
Elliot Gould is last billed, but gets the most dialog and is the most interesting character. He gets to indulge in his vaudevillian song-and-dance man skills he used to show off when hosting SNL. And he gets to pursue an escaping Nazi in the big motorcycle chase scene through narrow mediaeval alleyways, best action sequence in the film.
(good thing I'm an Elliot Gould fan, because if I was watching this for Roger Moore I might be disappointed)
Ancient Greek architecture and scenery is the biggest star of all in this film, spectacular establishing shots and lots of fun exploring the buildings. Compare with For Your Eyes Only, two years later: four of the characters (but not our Roger) climb a rocky cliff to an inaccessible monastery at the top. when they get there, what they find is more like the finale of a typical Bond film then the ending of the Bond film which it resembles! imagine if we could somehow splice these monastery scenes into the end of FYEO...
Last film I saw was the 1954 "The Last Time I saw Paris" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson, and a very fresh faced Sir Roger Moore in his first film role. Taylor stole the film, Moore's role was slight but entertaining, though i feel he wasn't that convincing as a gigolo tennis player champ. It was odd seeing him in such an old fashioned film.
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
This Humphrey Bogart classic features two co-stars from Casablanca - Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet and is directed by John Huston.
For all that, it's way too talky and doesn't imo capture the imagination in the first half hour. The characters are all rather reprehensible or behave as if they are. Some of it is a bit preposterous too.
It pulls together a bit for the last half hour and there's a touch of Indy's Holy Grail about the Falcon which draws people into going after it - fyi the Maltese Falcon is a Crusader-era statue made out of all manner of jewels that was destined for King Charles V of Spain I think but the ship was seized by pirates and many have been seeking it ever since.
But it's a long slog before it gets to that point.
The film just didn't convey anything sinister or mysterious to me, the sexual chemistry between Bogarde and his lead Mary Astor isn't really quite there, for me there was something missing all round. I'd go so far as to say that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a far better film!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
if you seriously don't like the Bogart film, there were actually two previously filmed versions no-one talks about much.
The first from 1931 included more sexual content from the book, and therefor had to be pulled from circulation once the Hayes Code was a thing.
Then they remade it in 1936 as a "comedy" called Satan Met a Lady. with Bette Davis in the Mary Astor role. About as funny as the "funny" version of Casino Royale, so that wasn't worth anything to the studio either.
Finally they remade it straight with Huston, Bogart et al and film buffs have been studying obsessively ever since.
There is a dvd edition that includes all three versions.
I hadn't made the Indiana Jones connection. The scrolling text at the beginning explaining the ancient history of the Falcon reminds me of Lord of the Rings of all unlikely things, and the statue has the same sort of hold on men's minds as Tolkien's One ring.
Its a weird sort of mystery if you're expecting clues and suspects and a logical solution. More of a psychological study how easy it is to corrupt somebody.
If you were watching it for the first time, did you spend most of the film believing Bogart seriously wanted the Falcon as much as Lorre and his rivals? That he is as bad as them?
I know my first time I was surprised when the movie got to the end, and he was still investigating a murder all along. I'd forgotten about his partner.
And when does he figure that out? The book makes that clearer, but Hammett's writing is tricky: you gotta pay attention to how many cigarettes Sam Spade smokes in one sitting to guess when he solves the real mystery.
Sorry, the film just didn't work for me, daft because I had seen it before and felt the same way but with the Casablanca stars I figured it was worth another shot. I've looked on the imdb reviews and the one-star ones say pretty much what I thought - that doesn't make it 'true' of course, but y'know.
Yes, I guess it's a twist if you think Spade is after the money and that's all but in fact he's playing detective. But I'd lost interest not least because, well, first half hour or more it's just all over the place. IMO. I didn't care about any of them. 'Hey, I'm sleeping with my partner's wife!' 'Hey. this woman everyone is trying to bump off I'll send her to live with my secretary!'
That gormless henchman Wilmer had a real career acc to imdb, and I did recognise him from the madcap Hellzappoppin!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
He also has a small role in the Big Sleep, and big roles in Shane and Kubrick's The Killing
He even plays Kirk's lawyer in an episode of Star Trek!...
IMDB says a sequel was due to The Maltese Falcon but the author quickly pointed out that he owned the rights to the characters so it got nixed. It went ahead anyway with the names changed, as The Three Strangers with Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet again, no apparent Sam Spade character though.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
So I got round to seeing this at last and it's perfect lockdown viewing! Good fun, low-key rubbish yet not really bad at all and Potts does a great review of it that I don't need to add much to.
Bond ripoffs of the time seem to owe most to FRWL, maybe Dr No but less of GF because it was so distinctive and maybe less exotic featuring mainly American and British locations. This film does head out to Switzerland but does it in a way that makes you appreciate what they did in Goldfinger all the more, by avoiding making it too touristy and kitsch.
The main secret agent is a woman and it's hard to watch her male spy companion do the whole 'Ah, a woman!' thing - not that it's so different to what Moore did over 10 years later. Her lead looks a bit like Steve Carroll or Leslie Nielson's Frank Drebin (he's even called Frank, and the woman spy owes a bit to Priscilla Presley so it starts to get a bit Naked Gun at times) then latterly due to his casual garb - white jacket, black shirt - looks a bit like Dalton in TLD, even with slight receding hairline.
It's good fun and you can enjoy spotting all the other Bond references yourself. It does make you appreciate the Bonds were a cut above the rest - and also why they went big with You Only Live Twice; it's the way to outstrip the opposition, esp setting it in Japan, where it's likely the competitors couldn't have made it out to.
The ending of this film lets it down a bit, it sort of undoes a lot of it on two counts, but it sort of needed a punchline. I'll watch Bulldog Drummond from 67, that was recommended back on page 402 or thereabouts!
BTW the film is typically for an Italian film dubbed into English - tbf they often do a decent enough job of it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I mainly know him as Wilmer, a two-bit punk in thw Maltese Falcon and as Ice Pick in the original Magnum P.I. series, who was a retired mob boss type and a surrogate father for Rick Wright, Thomas’s close friend.
You can sort of see why, because NSNA is the ultimate Bondsploitation movie! Rather than hiring Bond supporting cast members like Adolpho Celi or Bernard Lee, it goes one further and hires former Bond Sean Connery!
Seen in that light, I wouldn't want to see an EONised version of this flawed film but take it in the other direction - how I'd love to see a Bondsploitation version! First, you'd rough up the print so it's low-res. Then cut the running time down to an hour and a half - frankly all this skanky remake requires, it's not an ambitious film like OHMSS or SF.
Then overdub all the voices, to make it like all those dodgy but entertaining guilty pleasure Italian movies! Even chuck in better jokes. Watching something like that on YouTube would make the film far more entertaining.
You even have the right poster already done for it:
You could probably keep the score as it is, it's trashy enough!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I've watched Von Richthofen and Brown several times and agree with your assessment of the film. I think the acting isn't great, and I find John Phillip Law below-par as a leading man. Stroud is okay - I may be biased because of his Bond connection though. I seem to recall liking the actor who played Goering the most. My memory could be playing tricks on me though.
The flying scenes are certainly very well done, making use of a fine collection of replica WWI aircraft, although the British Se5a's are not the most convincing replicas. There is some daring flying going on in those scenes, giving an authentic feel of the desperate maneouvers of air combat in those days. Many of the shots from this film were recycled in other movies over the years - some good ones (Aces High is a film well worth watching) and some downright disastrous (Revenge of the Red Baron should be avoided at all costs).
I've also seen the German Red Baron from 2008. I had high hopes for that film after seeing a VFX reel before the film's release. The flying scenes promised to be the best CGI dogfights yet seen in a war film, and to a large extent they are really well done. I was also excited by the age-appropriate casting of the German pilots (Til Schweiger excepted) but alas the drama is tepid and historically I think it was just about as much BS as Von Richthofen and Brown. So worth watching to see some decently rendered CGI WWI air combat, but the rest is forgettable. I first saw it online, and then I did buy a DVD copy for my collection. The DVD version was quite a different cut though, about 30 minutes shorter and the aerial scenes had been badly chopped up and re-edited. I'd try and avoid that version, even though the longer cut requires you to sit through another 30 minutes of tepid drama.
This excellent and lovely looking and sounding movie becomes more problematic as one gets older. It starts when you begin to feel more sympathy for the Mrs Robinson character.
Other than that, Hoffman's Benjamin seems quite autistic - he's on the spectrum, for sure. It's almost a precursor to Rain Man.
You notice in the opener where he's on the conveyer belt at the airport and looking blank and expressionless though the way it's directed and the S&G song makes it brilliant and cool.
But you get it at other times - when he's renting a room near Berkeley College and is being shown it by the live-in landlord - Benji is just a bit too close behind him, there's a lack of spatial awareness.
At the time, you just think, well this is a young lad who doesn't quite know how to behave, it's quite charming. Being younger, you might also relate to it a bit and enjoy seeing all this up on the screen.
It's amusing to see him go for Mrs Robinson and then.... well, I won't do spoilers for the younger among us. But latterly you sort of feel sorry for all the people he interacted with really. This ambivalence was noted at the time but you pick up on it later on in life. I mean, his parents buy him a flash car and he doesn't even thank them. Okay, so it's the era of She's Leaving Home by the Beatles and Money Can't Buy You Love but all the same...
But as with some Bond films where there's a moral equivocation the production values, comedy and flair gloss over all this.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I hated it when I saw it as a teenage adolescent - especially the music - and hated it when I re-watched it in my late thirties. As you say, I struggled with the Hoffman character, who is very odd, self-obsessed, socially dysfunctional and distinctly uncool. I identified more with Mrs Robinson the second time around, having been dumped by a university-age girlfriend when I was 37 - she ran off with some kid in medical college. I can't quite put my finger on why I dislike it, but I think having a central character who is so selfishly impulsive doesn't help. Nor does having an actor way too old to play a startled, rabbit-in-lights youngster. Nor does that bloody music.
spy thriller staring starring Raquel Welch
opening credits by Maurice Binder (one of ours), written by Lorenzo Semple (kinda sorta one of ours)
Binder's credits are just some text on the screen, but the image beneath them is a slow pan up our heroines bod from toes to top. Film gets off to an exciting start!
Fathom Harvill is a member of the American parachuting team, on tour in Spain. (Special credit is given to the designer of her skintight onepiece parachute costumes.) Lots of swell scenery in the parachuting scenes, and the Spanish geography below isn't so bad too look at either!
Welch is recruited by one group of spies to use her parachuting superpowers to infiltrate another group of spies, something something about a nuclear trigger mcguffin lost in the waters off the coast.
After half an hour there is a costume change to a pale green bikini that contrasts dramatically with her deep olive tan. Gosh this spy epic has taken a dramatic turn!
After a while we learn there is no nuclear mcguffin, but instead it's some sort of ancient Chinese jewel that various rivals are fighting over, and nobody except Fathom is quite who they claim. Suddenly this isn't a spyplot at all, its a variation on the Maltese Falcon (see discussion earlier on this page).
For those that don't like the actual Maltese Falcon, maybe this variation on the plot would be more to your tastes?
Of related interest: in What's New Pussycat, 1965, Ursula Andress makes her big entrance parachuting into the passenger seat of Peter O'Toole's convertible, and in later scenes she's wearing a snakeskin patterned skintight onepiece jumpsuit, with a zipper she pulls much lower than Welch ever does. So that films got some nice scenery too.
Always have a lot of time for your reviews, Caractacus.
Fathom is a cute, cheerful spy thriller. A pet favourite of mine chiefly because of Miss Welch's stunning good looks. A pity she doesn't get top billing given she has all the best aspects in the movie.
My parents have a flat in Nerja, Andalucia, where this movie was partly filmed. The Balcon Hotel is still there and my folks' apartment looks onto the beach Raquel walks down to in a tiny bikini swying along to Johnny Dankworth's jazzy score. During the airplane chase the camera pans over a Tio Pepe advertising sign shaped like a bull. It's still there. One scene was filmed on Nerja's main street which has barely changed. A lot of locations were also in nearby Malaga. It's a beautiful relaxed town. I recently showed Fathom to my Mum & Dad and they were quite agog at how little the place has altered.
Callan isn't a spy but more of an assassin in this film and more Harry Palmer than James Bond. It is available to watch on You Tube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cdMH9q1JP0