The Monster That Challenged the World

Made for an estimated $254,000 budget, 1957's The Monster That Challenged the World is not a very good movie.  Think about how little money that is in putting an entire feature film together. That wouldn't pay for a movie star's assistants today, or even the catering for cast and crew. According to TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, most of that budget went toward creating the titular monster. The movie is low-budget (nice way of saying cheap), the definition of a B-movie, and cheesy from the start. Yeah, I definitely liked this one mostly because of all those things.

The 1950s featured lots of movies like this, science fiction stories made on small budgets designed for drive-in theaters and second-run B-movie theaters. TCM is actually devoting Thursdays in June to many movies like this so hopefully there will be many more reviews to come.  Because of the decade they were in, you can't help but notice some Cold War scares as the world changed into a very nasty place. Nuclear and atomic tests continued around the world as the power countries armed themselves preparing for a nuclear Armageddon. The movies reflected that, a worry and question of how all this testing and development was affecting the world we live in. And according to the movies, it meant abnormally large, vicious creatures intent on wiping us out. Pleasant enough idea, don't you think?

An earthquake in the Salton Sea opens up a seam in the ground, and a creature escapes after years of being imprisoned...possibly as long ago as thousands and even millions of years ago. Several Navy personnel go missing, and reports start to come in of other missing persons.  Navy Intelligence officer John Twillinger (Tim Holt) is called in to investigate with the help of local law enforcement, and a scientist, Dr. Rogers (Hans Conried), to find out exactly what is going on. From a sample found on the water, Rogers deduces that the creature is some sort of immense, voracious mollusk that has an insatiable appetite.  Now, it is a race against time to seal off the area, and hopefully keep the quickly reproducing creatures from spreading. Is it too late though? Has one...or even many...escaped already?

It's clear very little money was spent on this movie, but that's part of the charm. The acting is especially stilted and downright wooden at times.  The scale is small especially when considering that this local incident threatens to spread all over the world. Why call in help when you've got a Navy officer, a local sheriff (Gordon Jones) and his force, and a scientist and his team?  Problem solved. The music score telegraphs everything that is about to happen, and the actual reveal of the creature is hysterical.  Basically all the reveals are hilarious. How does this immense snail/mollusk sneak up on anyone? They're huge, they're slow, just run away.

Through all the ridiculousness, there are these moments of bizarre stuff that you just can't make up. Holt's Intelligence officer starts to date Conreid's secretary, Gail (Audrey Dalton), a single mom who is wary of his intentions. In the middle of the investigation as they search for a runaway snail (you read right), they go on a date, driving into Mexico where Holt is approached by a Mexican boy selling pens.  It's surreal in its weirdness. You're wondering if this is actually happening.  Then there's the oddly eccentric museum curator (Milton Parsons) who is either so blatantly gay that I missed an explanation or I'm just reading far too much into the movie. Gail's daughter almost ends up killing them all because she's worried a rabbit in a lab is cold. No explanation, you've got to see it. All the little things that make you laugh -- intentional or not -- and make a bad movie enjoyable through its badness.

Casting in movies like this ranges from interesting to bad to amateur.  Tim Holt was a star of countless B-westerns (and some A-listers like My Darling Clementine and Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and stars here as the wooden but still smooth Navy Intelligence officer. I don't know what's going on with him because he had some talent as an actor, but he looks like he's reading his lines on cue cards off-screen. Conried's Rogers is the doctor who is always one step ahead of everyone, and Dalton is the hot single mom inexplicably drawn to Holt's officer. Max Showalter and Dennis McCarthy are Rogers' lab assistants with Harlan Warde playing Holt's subordinate officer. The performances are by no means award-winning -- far from it -- and are meant more just to advance the story, get things rolling until the next creature attack. And on we go to the monster.

Of the already not so impressive budget, much of it was spent on creating this monster. Mankiewicz joked in his pre-movie intro that it wasn't spent well, barely holding back his laughter. Watch a clip HERE, and you will see why. There was no CGI in 1957, just people building the creatures.  To be fair, it is a creepy monster, but how this creature (and all its offspring) are supposed to "challenge the world" is beyond me.  Just outrun the damn thing. How does it sneak up on anyone at all?  It's gigantic. That's the fun though, watching the badness develop as the snails some how escape the Salton Sea and move abroad (sort of, I guess).  Created by the radioactive testing done, it's another example of the Cold War scares on people's minds, one more condemnation of what all the world powers were up to.

On to the ending as Holt tries to save his love from certain death. A creature's egg was captured and basically incubated so it won't hatch. Long story short? It hatches, cornering Gail and her daughter in a closet. Holt saves the day throwing beakers and water at the pissed off creature, eventually holding him off with a loaded fire extinguisher.  Cue the army, soldiers shoot him, movie over. It is another in a long line of unintentionally funny scenes, especially when they show Holt walk by an ax on the wall. All I was thinking was 'Use the DAMN AX! Use it!' Eh, a fire extinguisher made for some good comic relief. Bad movie that is really good because it is SO bad.

The Monster That Challenged the World <---trailer (1957): ***/****

Bad Lands

So the timing isn't really good here as I throw remake and reboot one after another out there, but timing isn't everything, is it?  After reviewing 1955's I Died a Thousand Times which was a remake of 1941's High Sierra, I stumbled across another movie that's a virtual scene-for-scene remake of a John Ford classic. Where the previous review at least had a decade in between releases, this one was quite a bit closer.  The Ford version is a 1934 flick called The Lost Patrol, and the remake came out just five years later with 1939's Bad Lands.

The Lost Patrol is an interesting film for a lot of reasons, mostly because for a movie released in 1934, it was far ahead of its time.  It was quick, hard-hitting and violent, not playing up to conventions of the war genre.  Above all else, it is different. A small patrol of Foreign Legion soldiers is trapped at a desert oasis and under siege by Bedouin riflemen (almost always unseen). 'Lands' isn't quite an exact remake mostly because the setting is transplanted from the African desert to the American southwest in the 1870s.  Other than the setting though, it's the same movie. Not as good overall, it is still interesting, but mostly as a comparison piece to the better The Lost Patrol.

Leading a posse for a murdering bandit, Apache Jack, Sheriff Bill Cummings (Robert Barrat) is riding at the head of nine men.  They have ridden into the desert after Apache Jack escaped from jail and murdered a Mexican woman. Tracking him, they hole up at a water hole high up the rocky hills. The posse finds a vein of silver though in the rocks, and they begin to think about who can get a claim in first. That night though, an Apache war party steals their horses, stranding them in the middle of desert with nowhere to go. Cummings and his posse have ample water, but the Apaches are gunning for them. Should they send for help, or sit tight and hope they can hold out long enough for some sort of help to arrive?

The rehash of the story isn't as sketchy as it seems mostly because both films came from RKO Studios. Neither movie could have cost much to make with the small cast and little need for any sort of background players, army of extras, or any sets at all other than the desert.  None of this rehash comes as a judgment because in the years since the premise has been used repeatedly, including a very violent Euro-western, Chato's Land.  It is simple, straightforward, and effective. Until the end, we never see more than one Apache, leaving the enemy as more of a presence than an actual scare.  The warriors are everywhere and nowhere at the same time, just waiting for their chance to strike.

Maybe because the cast isn't that well known, but filling out the sheriff's posse isn't as fun this time around as The Lost Patrol. The characters are still more genre archetypes (I think that's the word I'm looking for) than red-blooded characters, but come on, they're basically fodder for the Apache war party. Along with Barrat's Sheriff Cummings, there's Mulford (Douglas Walton), the inexperienced rider from NYC, Eaton (Robert Coote), an amiable Englishman, Chick (Noah Beery Jr.), an unlikable rabble-rouser, Billy Sweet (Guinn Williams), a happy go lucky cowboy, Henry (Andy Clyde) and Garth (Francis Ford, John's brother), two old-timer prospectors with some gay undertones, Rayburn (Addison Richards), a gunslinger gunning for the sheriff, Curly (Paul Hurst), a crotchety cowboy, and Lopez (Francis McDonald), a Mexican looking for revenge for the murder of his wife.

With a movie that barely breaks the 60-minute mark with a 70-minute running time, you would think there would be no time to waste.  Well, you would be wrong.  Before the ambush and siege at the water hole, there's about 10-15 minutes of the posse riding around. Then at the water hole, there are long scenes of dialogue as the posse discusses their lives, their fears, and generally their frustration at the predicament they're in.  Throw in the possibility of vast riches with the silver vein, and you've got a lot going on that is not always interesting.  The Apaches are a presence for a majority of the movie, finally revealing themselves at the end in one last shootout. The fear of an attack is genuine, but the censors and lack of any violence limit the potential. Most of the posse is killed off-screen, and besides, there are only a few characters that are actually likable.

Just like The Lost Patrol, I liked this movie. It's a good movie that could have been great with a few tweaks here and there.  The premise is simple, and that's the beauty of it.  The story is straightforward with no wasted subplots, the hope for survival driving and moving everything along. Shot in black and white with an impressive dark streak for a movie from 1939, there's a lot to offer. It just isn't great, and it could have been better. Still, a western The Lost Patrol isn't a bad thing.

Bad Lands (1939): ** 1/2 /****

I Died a Thousand Times

As summer nears and all the big blockbusters hit theaters in the coming weeks and months, it is time to look ahead and see how many remakes and sequels are heading our way.  Long story short...there's a lot of them, some more necessary than others. As I've mentioned before, it's a huge pet peeve for me.  Why come up with something original or interesting or unique when you can just re-do something that was previously successful?  Remakes have always been made, but it seems like a more recent trend, or maybe there's just more out now.  Well, I can eat my words with 1955's I Died a Thousand Times.

Reading the movie's description at TCM's website, my first thought was 'That sounds familiar.' A simple Google search later, and it was easily figured out why.  It is a straight remake of 1941's High Sierra, a film noir classic from director Raoul Walsh and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Both movies were released by Warner Bros. Pictures although 'Thousand Times' does take advantage of the recent widescreen-processing in production (it looks great, more on that later). It just seems an odd choice for a remake.  The 1941 version is a classic film noir, one held in high regard by reviewers and fans alike. So why remake it? Big pile of cash I'd assume.

Paroled early after serving part of a armed robbery sentence, well-known and feared gangster Roy Earle (Jack Palance) heads west, a new job already waiting for him. An old friend and partner, Big Mac (Lon Chaney Jr.), has set up a heist at a lavish resort where the end result could be almost a half million bucks.  He meets his inexperienced cohorts, Babe (Earl Holliman) and Red (Lee Marvin), as they wait for the signal from their inside man (Perry Lopez) to pull the job. Roy kills time with a poor family from Ohio, including their clubfooted daughter, Velma (Lori Nelson), and also with a dance hall girl, Marie (Shelley Winters) who tags along with Red. Going stir crazy just sitting and waiting around, the call finally comes to pull off the job, but even with an experienced crook like Roy along, nothing goes as planned.

Without a specific way of explaining it or putting it into words, there is a look to 1950s films that just appeals to me.  Movies were still in the early stages of taking advantage of that new widescreen process, especially here with CinemaScope. Even watching the film on TV, it looks gigantic, and I can only imagine what it looked like on a big screen in theaters. Director Stuart Heisler filmed his movie with cinematographer Ted D. McCord in Pine Hills, California, and it looks gorgeous. The Sierra mountains never looked better, and even some studio inserts for outdoor shots can't ruin it. The picture is BIG and the California desert and the tiny resort towns and stops along the highway provide a great, stark setting for this heist remake.

If there is anyone you don't want to follow in their footsteps as an actor, Humphrey Bogart has to be at the top of the list. His High Sierra performance is one of his best; a likable, sympathetic bad guy.  Stepping into the role, Jack Palance is a more than solid option to take over the Roy Earle character. Palance was an always intense actor who just by giving a look can intimidate.  Adding that sympathetic edge to his character, Palance's Roy is that tragic, doomed bad guy (whether you've seen the original or not, it's obvious from the start). This is supposed to be his last job, and through Winters' Marie and Nelson's Velma, he is looking for some sense of normalcy. Neither woman is the right choice for him, but he doesn't know that.  Roy wants to settle down, and even though he has a mean streak a mile wide, I genuinely liked this character. An underrated Palance performance.

As for the supporting cast, it is a case of the names being more impressive than the actual performances. That's not necessarily the fault of the cast, just a script that doesn't give the actors and actresses a lot to do. Instead, there's too many characters. Holliman and Marvin are generally wasted as Babe and Red, Roy's partners in the heist.  Winters is at her clingy, annoying best as Marie, a young woman who has to be around a man. She seems to play this part a lot. Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez plays Chico, a helpful hotel attendant similar to the character he played in 1959's Rio Bravo four years later. Chaney Jr. isn't around much as Big Mac, but his quick scene with Palance is memorable.  Nelson is the surprisingly dark character, Velma, with Olive Carey and Ralph Moody playing her parents. Even look for very young Nick Adams and Dennis Hopper in small parts.  Dub Taylor has a quick appearance too as a gas station attendant.

Watching a remake when you're familiar with the original is tricky because you're basically watching the same movie. The 1955 version of High Sierra is virtually identical with nothing new or different really thrown in. The story lags some after the heist goes down, almost like some time needed to be killed before the finale.  The ending is the same and works just as well, mostly because it is an appropriate ending.  So watching the same movie, there has to be something to recommend for anyone who's seen High Sierra.  The cast -- especially Jack Palance in the lead -- makes this one worth watching. Check out High Sierra too, and compare.

I Died a Thousand Times <---TCM trailer (1955): ***/****

The Odessa File

Even knowing that they are true, it can be hard to comprehend the actions committed by the German SS in World War II involving the Holocaust, the concentration camps, and in general, war crimes on an epically large scale. Literally millions of people died at their hands in hopes of creating a master race of Aryans, and no matter what was said, they knew they were doing something wrong. As the war turned and a German defeat became inevitable, many of the highest ranking SS officers made preparations for new lives, leaving their old, highly checkered pasts behind them. What did they do with their new lives? Author Frederick Forsyth went into the topic with a 1972 novel that two years later was turned into a feature length film, 1974's The Odessa File.

I'm a huge fan of movies (if you hadn't figured that out), and an equally big fan of any sort of reading. I think one of the great treats is reading a book/novel, and then finding out that it was turned into a movie, especially a book you enjoyed a lot. You wonder how will it translate? Will it live up to expectations? What changes were made?  Does the visual in your head while you read match the screen version? Unfortunately in the examples I can think of, the film rarely lives up to the novel.  Just too much has to be sacrificed, and the movie suffers because of it. That was my biggest complaint with The Odessa File, and one odd example of bad casting.

A young German freelance journalist, Peter Miller (Jon Voight) stumbles into the diary of a concentration camp survivor at the camp at Riga. Living in 1963 Germany, Miller has seen the horrors of the war brushed out of the public view too often and is horrified at what he reads about Riga's commandant, dubbed 'the Butcher, Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell). Convinced there's a story in the diary, Miller begins to investigate, seeing if he can find any trace of the long since disappeared SS officer. He begins to find clues that point to Roschmann still being very much alive, but has he dug himself into a hole? Someone seems very interested in keeping Roschmann's identity safe, and the life of one journalist isn't enough to stop them.

Like the other Forsyth novels I've read -- Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War -- I very much enjoyed The Odessa File. It's the kind of low-key thriller that picks up momentum and intensity along the way, building to something you can't quite put your finger on.  When the reveal/surprise does come, it doesn't disappoint either. The premise is great, a well-organized and well-funded group protecting the identities of former SS officers and soldiers in a worldwide network that boggles the mind. Stumbling into this, Miller is almost immediately in over his head, and it is his head on the chopping block if something goes wrong.  Director Ronald Neame certainly has his work cut out for him because Forsyth's style isn't always movie-friendly, but he makes a go at it.

As an author, Forsyth is obsessed (in a good way) with the details, the little things that make a story feel authentic. That doesn't always work in a movie where the details are the first to go.  Even at 130 minutes, 'Odessa' is both a little long and too short.  What's there isn't always very interesting, and what was cut out could probably have done a good job of fleshing the movie out some.  Instead, there's little sense of urgency or fear. An organization of former Nazis is hunting you down, and this is the best you can do in terms of making an audience feel uncomfortable? Because of the cuts to the story, Voight's Miller hops around too much with too many things going unexplained.  I read the book just a week before watching the movie, and at times felt lost.

When reading a book, my head just naturally starts imagining what certain characters look like.  That's typically one of my biggest problems with film versions; the stars never match up with the image in my head. So goes Jon Voight as German freelance journalist Peter Miller in a case of miscasting.  I'm not a huge fan of Voight to begin with, but he just wasn't the right choice to play this character. Physically, he doesn't look anything like the book's protagonist, and his attempt at a German accent is just bad.  Worst of all though, he turns an interesting character into a bland one. Schell as Roschmann doesn't have a big part, but he certainly makes it memorable in his brief but effective scenes. Also look out for Derek Jacobi as an Odessa forger, Mary Tamm as Sigrid, Peter's girlfriend, and Shmuel Rodensky as famed Nazi hunter Simon Weisenthal among many others in an ensemble cast.

Both the novel and the movie claim that the story is based in the truth with a real-life ODESSA organization helping former Nazis and SS create new lives for themselves (certain names and places changed obviously). The novel's ending (including a great twist delivered by Miller) is appropriate and authentic to the real-life and fictional characters if not exactly a happy ending. The movie rewrites history somewhat in an ending that disappointed me, mostly because it ties everything up nicely when the effort just wasn't needed. The film version on the whole makes some odd choices, handicapping an otherwise interesting set-up and premise. Not horrible at all, but stick with the book.

The Odessa File <---trailer (1974): **/****

A Generation

A guide to war movies I read years ago had a perfect list of stereotypes and staples of the genre.  Each specific example had been used several times before, some of them repeated over and over again. One of my favorites discussed French resistance fighters. The women would always be beautiful and wear very tight black sweaters. The men would always have a thin mustache and wear a beret. The reality of course concerning resistance fighters was that it was a horrific, fear-filled life that so often ended in death.

Making his directorial debut, Polish director Andrzej Wajda told his story of the Polish resistance in 1955's A Generation. It was part of an unofficial trilogy about Poland in World War II that has now been released through the Criterion Collection. All of the films are held in high regard as much for their brutal honesty as their impressive film-making. Telling the story of resistance fighters is almost always interesting, but seeing foreign films and their perspective is more interesting. You're going to get a different perspective, and as is the case here with Wajda's debut, an understated honesty that is so often missing in war movies.

It is early in World War II, and the German army is occupying Poland. Life moves on for most under their German occupiers, including young Stach (Tadeusz Lomnicki), who finds a job in a small factory making furniture and doors with his friend, Sekula (Janusz Paluszkiewicz). Stach begins to see other workers and supervisors working and moving around secretly, and finally he meets a young resistance leader, Dorota (Ursula Modrzynska). Stach is intrigued -- partially by the conflict and partially because of a crush he has on Dorota -- and joins up. He recruits his own small squad of fighters, helping to slow down the German war effort in any way they can. But as time passes, Stach begins to climb through the ranks. His reputation might grow too much though as the Germans (especially the Gestapo and the SS) are closing in.

Is it possible to get spoiled by the polished films that are released from American studios? And no, I don't intend that as some elitist dig at other countries' films.  I can't say I've seen many Polish films, much less those released over 50 years ago in 1955.  Wajda films in black and white, and the years haven't aged his movie well, producing a grainy, even washed out look at times.  The movie was shot on location in Warsaw, but not in any glamorous, pretty locations. Wajda shoots in the slums, the run-down housing, the dark back alleys and claustrophobic factories and buildings. The Polish people are struggling to get along under their German occupiers, and visually, it is easy to see their plight.

Call it a romantic portrayal or mental picture, but resistance fighters -- regardless of nationality so this isn't exclusive to Poles -- often did tasks that had no major impact on the war effort. They shot individual officers, they threw coal from trains bound for German troops, and they transported guns in small quantities, not grosses of guns. That is the brutal honesty of Wajda's resistance film. Stach's group, and Dorota's on a bigger level, will not change the course of the war through their actions. Instead, they make smaller efforts. On their own, maybe those events meant little. But combined over the course of weeks, months and years, it would add up. All the while, their efforts put them on watch lists of the Gestapo and the SS. So often, it ended with individuals being dragged away never to be seen again, almost certainly dying after hours and days of painful torture.

That is a major reason I enjoyed this movie. Stach almost gets in trouble because he stole a pistol. That's singular. Just one pistol. His squad accomplishes little, or at least little to what we see.  Dorota continues to try and recruit new members to the cause, the young people coming out more and more. The one slightly Hollywood touch comes in one of their few attempts at resistance. One of Stach's men, Jasio (Tadeusz Janczar), has already shot a German officer and struggles with his actions, the guilt tearing him apart. He's separated from the other fighters and leads his pursuers on a chase through the ruined city. It  is a chase that cannot end well because eventually the pursuers will corner him. Uncomfortable and exciting all rolled up into one scene, it is a remarkable sequence with an incredibly moving ending. You can watch it HERE with obvious SPOILERS. 

Almost always a positive watching lower budget foreign films is little background or experience with the actors and actresses. The acting here is incredibly natural, nothing forced or over the top. Lomnicki's Stach is the heart of the movie, a quiet but determined fighter who joins the cause. Janczar also delivers a great performance as Jasio, the emotionally torn fighter, and Modrzynska as Dorota ends up representing so much more to the cause, more than just a leader. Even look for a young Roman Polanski as one of Stach's squad. All the performances are like that, understated and effective. No stagey, nothing flashy, and nothing theatrical. Just a bare bones, moving story of individuals fighting a doomed battle.

A Generation <---TCM clips (1955): ***/****

48 Hours

By 1982, Eddie Murphy had become the biggest, most popular member of the Saturday Night Live cast, bringing the show out of its first slump after the original cast had all left.  He was riding high and in the 1980s would make classic 1980s flicks like Beverly Hills Cop, The Golden Child, Coming to America, and Trading Places.  I always think of BHC cop as his star-making movie turn, but his first movie role came in 1982's 48 Hrs.

With this 80s comedy, we revisit one of my favorite genres of movies, the buddy cop movie.  It can be difficult looking back on these without thinking 'Been there, seen that' because in the years since, the buddy cop movie has been used to death. The 1980s seemingly had one released every week or so.  At the time though, they were original and hadn't been overused repeatedly.  The setting? San Francisco, always a good start for a cop movie. The director? Tough guy master Walter Hill. The cop pairing? Comedian and funnyman Murphy with gravelly-voiced Nick Nolte. The story and driving force is criminally simplistic, relying on its stars and their chemistry (of which they have plenty) to carry the movie.

Tagging along on a routine credit card fraud questioning, San Francisco detective Jack Cates (Nolte) is the lone survivor of a shootout when the investigation proves to be much more.  The suspects are Ganz (James Remar), an escaped convict, and Billy Bear (Sonny Landham), his former partner who busted him out. Cates comes under fire for his actions and wants to get revenge in bringing these two cop-killers to justice. He figures Ganz and Billy are looking for something in the city, and comes up with a way to figure it out. One of their old partners, a former accomplice, Reggie Hammond (Murphy), is in prison locally with six months to go on a 3-year sentence. Cates convinces Reggie to help him but with one catch; he has to have him back at lock-up within 48 hours.

Like any buddy movie, the key is the chemistry of said buddies. Newman and Redford, Gibson and Glover, any number of flicks.  Murphy and Nolte are great together, the complete polar opposites working together.  Murphy's Reggie Hammond is the fast-talking crook who agrees to help Cates, but basically he just wants to get laid and make sure his hidden away stash is in fact, hidden away.  Nolte's Jack Cates is the stereotypical grizzled, worn down cop with problems at home while constantly fighting with his girlfriend (Annette O'Toole). The nature of the relationship is that they will fight, clash, feel each other out, and end up bonding, forming some sort of genuine working/personal friendly relationship.  Follow the formula and let the actors do the rest, and you've got a winner.

The humor from the movie comes from the interactions between Murphy and Nolte.  The story itself is dark and violent, following their investigation throughout San Fran in hopes of catching the two killers.  Hill co-wrote the script with three other credited writers has some great one-liners (read IMDB's Memorable Quotes HERE) and some memorable set-pieces.  The opening hotel shootout is choreographed nicely, and Murphy's posing as a detective in a very white, very redneck bar (in San Francisco?) is priceless.  What I enjoyed most though was the banter between the stars, Murphy pushing and pulling and prodding his detective handler while Nolte growls and mutters through his lines.

Starting directing in 1975 with Hard Times, Walter Hill has carved out a great little niche for himself, especially in the 70s and 80s.  He has a reputation for hard-hitting, tough movies that don't pull any punches. Think a more manageable, not so crazy Sam Peckinpah.  Because of Hill's taut directing (and a fair share of blood squibs), the movie never really slows down. It clocks in at 96 minutes and never stays in one place too long. Setting a cop story in the home of Bullitt and Dirty Harry is never a bad idea mostly because San Francisco is just a cool place to base a story. Throw away the humor and the chemistry, and what you've got here is a police procedural.  Nothing flashy, no bigger schemes at play, just a cop and a convict in his charge trying to get their hands on two cop killers.

Groundbreaking it is not, but Murphy and Nolte look to be having a lot of fun together, and a Walter Hill-directed movie is rarely a bad thing.  Solid and entertaining with the right mix of action, humor and a never-ending stream of talk about sex.  How can you go wrong?  It also produced a sequel some years later, review to come at some point.

48 Hrs. <---trailer (1982): ***/****

49th Parallel

One of the greatest actors of his time, Laurence Olivier was in countless classics, almost always turning in performances that are still remembered today. While I can appreciate his ability as an actor, I've never been a huge fan of his.  Truthfully, I just haven't seen him in much even though he has been in over 60 films.  Held in high regard, 1941's 49th Parallel is one of those films, and oddly enough, one that fans and critics alike seem to watch. It's a prime example of a WWII propaganda film, but not in a good way.

There of course is some background with the propaganda machine that produced this movie. Director Michael Powell was approached by the British government in 1940 to make a film about mine-sweeping, but instead he decided to make a film that he hoped would "scare the pants off the Americans." Still a year away from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was very much a neutral country. World War II was hanging in the balance as Germany swept across Europe, swallowing up countries at a lightning pace. Powell's motivations were legitimate, but now watching this movie over 70 years later, the effort is almost laughable.

Patrolling and attacking along the Canadian coast in the Atlantic, U-37 (a German U-boat) is gaining notoriety for attacking every ship it comes across.  Hiding out in Hudson Bay from patrolling ships and planes, the submarine is attacked and sunk, leaving only a small landing party alive on-shore to fend for themselves.  As the ranking officer, Lieutenant Hirth (Eric Portman) takes charge, searching with five other survivors for some sort of safety. With little options of where to go or what to do, Hirth decides to head for the U.S./Canadian border (the 49th Parallel) and seek asylum in the still-neutral United States. Thousands of miles stand between them though, and the countryside is alive with people looking for the escaped Germans.

I'm not quite sure what I expected heading into this movie. Maybe I confused it with another movie. Maybe I misread the year. I do know that I didn't expect such an obvious, sometimes painful effort at a propaganda film.  The story is an episodic one broken up by long fades to black.  The survivors make their way across Canada in hopes of reaching freedom. They attack a far-off, lonely trading post. They rest at a village of German farmers, and even come across a pacifist (Leslie Howard) living in the wilderness. The whole purpose of the film is to show how evil, how despicable, how cutthroat these Germans are, doing anything they need to survive. All sides in WWII were capable of atrocities, but the effort here falls short...or far maybe, depending on how you look at it.

Trying to convince neutral Americans that their country should join the war, Powell and the screenplay deliver one of the most heavy-handed attempts I've ever seen at propaganda. The Germans are perfectly evil, reveling in the cold-blooded murders of Canadian shipping, admitting they're killing women and children somewhat proudly. Portman's Hirth and his fellow survivors open fire into a crowd of innocent people, and later he orders the execution of one of his own men, Vogel (Niall MacGinnis), for questioning why they're doing what they're doing. It is a frightening performance for Portman, and a strong one, but it is too exaggerated, too stereotypically and cartoonishly evil to register.

In his efforts, Powell does a somewhat funny thing in demonizing the Germans. He humanizes some of them during their travels. Raymond Lovell plays Lt. Kuhnecke, a capable officer who is killed off almost immediately. MacGinnis' Vogel seeks solace in the farming community, becoming a popular baker and wanting to leave Hirth and the others behind. Instead, Hirth orders his execution at the hands of his most loyal followers/survivors (including Peter Moore, John Chandos, and Basil Appleby). The thought process is an interesting one, showing that all Germans aren't obsessed, driven Nazis, but wouldn't that work against Powell's intentions? Or does it do just the opposite? I guess it does show that the most extremist Nazis were capable of horrific acts, even against their own. It may make sense, but it gives the film an odd two-way feel that never quite clicks into place.

The episodic nature of the story allows for some interesting casting as I mentioned earlier in the intro.  Nominated countless times for Academy Awards and winning several over the course of his career, Olivier's performances are legendary, but this ain't one of them. He plays Johnnie, a French-Canadian trapper who incurs the wrath of Hirth's squad. His attempt at an accent will assuredly produce some chuckles, and the performance is basically one big stereotype to begin with. Howard is more interesting as Philip Armstrong Scott, a pacifist who questions everything about the war.  Raymond Massey saves the best for last, an AWOL Canadian soldier who Hirth meets on the road as he nears the border. The posters push Olivier, Howard and Massey as the stars (even giving Olivier a love interest that doesn't actually exist), but don't be confused. The performances from that trio are more of the cameo nature than leading roles.

This is a movie that is almost....almost...saved by its ending. It is the type of ending that has a mean streak in it a mile wide, the Allies showing the Axis forces who's really the boss.  It delivers a nice little twist, but leading up to it, the movie's flaws are just too much. Visually uninteresting with long monologues, preachy and heavy-handed in its approach (even for a propaganda film), I struggled mightily to make it through this one.

49th Parallel <---trailer (1941): **/****

Seven Angry Men

One of the most controversial people in American history was a driven, even obsessed abolitionist who made a name for himself in the years before the Civil War, John Brown. I have always been fascinated by Brown mostly because his belief that all men should be free. The only problem was his extreme execution of these beliefs. His actions were those of an extremist, an individual who was going to get what he wanted no matter the cost. His reasoning was sound, but his actions bordered on the insane.

Complete hogwash in terms of historical accuracy, 1940's Santa Fe Trail is the only movie I can even think of that has Brown playing a major role. He played a huge role in starting the Civil War -- the bloodiest conflict in American history -- but has generally been forgotten in the pages of history books over the last 150-plus years. At the height of his popularity, actor Raymond Massey played the infamous abolitionist in a movie that while entertaining, is about as accurate as saying that the sun is green and the moon is made of cheese. It is a performance that is downright terrifying at times. Some 14 years later, once again bearing a striking resemblance to the real-life Brown, Massey reprised the role of John Brown in 1955's Seven Angry Men.

It's 1856 and brothers Owen (Jeffrey Hunter) and Oliver (Larry Pennell) are traveling to Kansas to work with their father, John Brown (Massey), in his efforts to help the territory enter the United States as a free state. Four other Brown brothers are already waiting as the family is reunited, all in hopes of making Kansas a place where slaves are illegal.  Their father, John, though is willing to do anything necessary to ensure that with the coming vote.  Sticking with his father through thick and thin -- even going against his wife, Elizabeth (Debra Paget), and her intentions -- Owen quickly realizes how obsessed the man really is. John has bigger, grander plans than just Kansas though. He has his sites set on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and the U.S. Military arsenal there where he hopes to arm an army of freed and escaped slaves.

The Civil War is one of the most interesting times in American history, but the build-up to the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil is just as interesting.  In the five years before the war, Kansas was dubbed 'Bleeding Kansas' as abolitionists fought pro-slavers over the future of the state, whether it would enter the United States as a free or slave state. Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (read about it HERE) is similarly one of the most fascinating chapters in American history (to me at least). However miserably the raid failed, Brown's intentions are amazing when you think about it. The topic can be a touchy one (Kansas and Harpers Ferry) so it's easy to understand why movies have generally steered clear of it, but the history is incredibly interesting.

The tone of the two movies -- Santa Fe Trail and Seven Angry Men -- are basically polar opposites, but the positive you can take from both movies is Raymond Massey's acting performances as John Brown. As I mentioned earlier, he bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Brown. His acting though is so much more, bringing this obsessed, completely and blindly driven man to life. His intentions were genuine -- all men should be free regardless of color -- but his actions were deplorable, believing in an Old Testament form of justice. Making him more interesting/believable/frightening is that Brown (an ultra religious man) believes God is using him as his vessel on Earth to do what he needs to get accomplished. Scary much?

So director Charles Marquis Warren has those two great things working for him -- interesting history, more interesting historical person -- and what does he focus his story on? The budding relationship of Brown's son, Owen, his right hand man, and a fellow abolitionist, Elizabeth, who believes John's actions are despicable. Do you think there's a chance they might put their differences aside and get hitched? They talk about these problems a lot, and then share some very passionate 1950s movie kisses and some scandalous embraces. Because of that, Massey's John Brown gets pushed to the background far too often.  In the rest of the cast is Dennis Weaver, James Best, John Smith and Pennell as the brothers who actually make an impression. Also look for James Edwards as Green, a freed black man fighting with the Browns, and Leo Gordon in heavy mode as pro-slaver leader gunning for Brown.

I wanted to like this movie more than I did, but it just has so many things working against it. A B-movie or even an A-level movie on a smallish budget can overcome a lot with some basic things; avoid overacting, don't get too exaggerated, keep the music in a non-blaring mode. 'Angry' misses on all counts. Carl Brandt's score is painfully obvious, almost willing you to feel certain emotions. The love story is equally bad, and I can't decide if that's on the actors, the script or the director. Maybe worst of all is that the movie just doesn't know what it wants to say. Is John Brown a hero or a traitor? The ending has the Battle Hymn of the Republic playing over Brown's execution just minutes after vilifying the man. Which one is it? Massey is great, and the relatively forgotten history is interesting, but otherwise this one is worth passing on.

Seven Angry Men <--- TCM clips (1955): **/****        

The Great Escape

I have two favorite movies, neither of which I'm able to pick one over the other.  I love them both, and all other movies come after it, first is 1960's The Alamo which I've reviewed before and then there's 1963's The Great Escape. Introduced to it at a young age when I showed an interest in history, I've probably seen it 25 or 30 times straight through, and another 75 or 100 catching bits and pieces. For me, it is that rare perfect movie. Great story, impressive cast, exciting action, and one of the best soundtracks ever. You can't ask for much more.

In World War II, both the Allies and Axis forces had to deal with how to handle prisoners of wars. In Germany, the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, was placed in charge of these Allied prisoners, placing them in P.O.W. camps all over their occupied territory. These prisoners -- as was their sworn duty -- tried countless escapes over the length of the war in typically small groups, sometimes getting as many as a dozen out. But one true story set the bar for heroism and courage among the prisoners, the true story of 76 prisoners escaping Stalag Luft III in March 1944. Literally hundreds of prisoners were involved in the effort as the escape even had an impact on D-Day some three months later.

It's 1943, and a new prison camp has been built. The German Luftwaffe has taken the worst prisoners from all their camps and thrown them in this new camp that features all the security aspects they've learned from previous camps.  In this "perfect" camp, the Germans (Hannes Messemer is the commandant) intend to watch these men very carefully. Leading the prisoners is Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough), dubbed 'Big X' for his leadership at the top of the 'X Organization,' a team of prisoners working together to bust out as many captured soldiers as they can. Bartlett has bigger plans though this time around. Instead of just getting two or three prisoners out, he intends to get 250 out of the camp with a large-scale plan that includes three extremely long tunnels under the barbed-wire fence. The plan seems impossible, but the prisoners go to work, slowly working their way toward escape.

Do you know the line 'They don't make them like they used to?' This movie applies. Director John Sturges (one of my favorites and an underrated filmmaker overall) turns in his all-time best film, one that stands at or near the top in the lexicon of World War II movies. It is based in fact, sticking to the details and truths in the story, without getting bogged down.  There is action, humor (never overplayed, just natural humor arising from the situation), and characters you love and are generally rooting for. Composer Elmer Bernstein turns in a score that is one of the greats, especially the main theme, listen HERE. Bernstein's score both drives the story as needed and keeps it grounded in the quieter, emotional scenes (including one where a tunnel is discovered and its tragic consequences).  Sturges filmed in Germany -- as his assistant said, 'Germany looks like Germany.' An entire camp was built, an exact duplicate of the actual camp, bringing this 1963 epic up another notch in terms of realism and authenticity.

Sturges' movies were famous for their male-dominated ensemble casts, but this may be his most impressive. Start with Steve McQueen as Hilts, the motorcycle-riding 'Cooler King,' the role that shot him to international stardom. Then there's James Garner as Hendley, the scrounger, and Attenborough as Bartlett, the prisoner's top man, a brilliant mind who comes up with this improbable plan. Not bad, huh? Oh yeah, there's also James Donald as Ramsey, the senior British officer, Charles Bronson and John Leyton as Danny and Willie, the tunnel kings, James Coburn as Sedgwick, the manufacturer, Donald Pleasence as Blythe, the forger, David McCallum as Ashley-Pitt, "dispersal," and Gordon Jackson as MacDonald, the intelligence officer. Other prisoners include Nigel Stock, Jud Taylor and Angus Lennie in a small but essential part as Ives, Hilt's progressively wire-happy partner. A more impressive cast could be impossible to assemble.

What is amazing is that even with all those stars -- some on the rise, some already established -- is that they all register, they all make a lasting impression in a positive way. More on McQueen later, but Attenborough delivers a career-best as Big X, the driven even obsessed leader who wants to take the war back to the Germans, not sitting out the war comfortably as his captors intend. Garner's Hendley bonds with Pleasence's Blythe in some of the movie's most touching scenes, two very different people forming a friendship. Bronson and Leyton as the tunnel kings certainly make an impression, carving three tunnels out of the Earth 30 feet below the surface. Bronson is at his best, a Polish flyer with claustrophobia who hides his fear of small, enclosed spaces and digs. Coburn doesn't get a ton to do compared to the others, but is his usual, laconic self. There is not a weakness in the cast from top to bottom.

When movie fans think of The Great Escape, they usually go right to Steve McQueen, a rising star who got his crack at the big time here and didn't disappoint.  His Capt. Virgil Hilts is one of his most iconic roles, the loner, trouble-making American prisoner who attempts escape attempt after attempt.  What's funny is that his character basically disappears for vast stretches of the movie, only to reappear after a stint in the cooler and steal every scene he is in. This is McQueen at his laid back, scene-stealing best. With all the notable actor's actors around him, he is the unquestioned star thanks in great part to the finale, a motorcycle chase across Germany with his captors in hot pursuit. It is one of the greatest chases sequences ever, caped with one of the most impressive stunts ever, a 7-foot jump by stunt man Bud Ekins over a high-strung barbed-wire fence. McQueen is my favorite, but this is always his best to me.

With a final run-time of 2 hours and 53 minutes, Sturges' true story doesn't have to rush along at a lightning pace...but does anyway. The first 105 minutes or so focus exclusively on the escape attempt, putting all the little details together that need to happen. The first and biggest of course is the digging of the tunnels, 30 feet down and over 300 feet straight out. A track is built to transport prisoners/diggers, and wooden boards are needed to shore up the entire length of the tunnel. Up above, forgers create documents, tailors make clothes, Intelligence gathers information, all part of an elaborate system of security and watchmen to make sure nothing is discovered by their ever-vigilant German guards. It would have been easy for this movie to get bogged down in these details, but The Great Escape revels in them, making the mundane and possibly boring, exciting at a breakneck pace.

It is a movie called 'The Great Escape' though, and it is at its most exciting once the prisoners do escape, 76 of them in the dead of night spread out all over the German countryside. The escape attempt covers the last hour of the movie, an incredible extended sequence that is hard to top. It is almost entirely dialogue free, Bernstein's score playing over the action the whole way. Finally free of their camp, the prisoners make their efforts to hopefully reach freedom, some by train, some by bikes, others by planes, and in Hilts' case, a stolen German motorcycle.  Sturges was an action master, and this may be his tour de force sequence.

I could go on and on with this movie, and I've already sort of done so. My head is full of little tidbits of information that I've picked up over the course of repeated viewings.  Above all else through the drama, the facts, and the action is that Sturges gets the tone right from Paul Brickhill's source novel, and most importantly, the true story it is based on. These men did the impossible in an impossible situation. Knowing their chances of escape back to freedom were slim, they plodded on when they could have just as easily quit. If you didn't know and just read the details -- check out the Wikipedia entry HERE for more details -- you would say there's no way this happened, but somehow, some way, it did. The ending hits you square in the stomach as it should, but the movie ends on a positive note; McQueen's Hilts once again in the cooler, bouncing his baseball off the wall.  You may capture him again, but you'll never stop him from trying.

A perfect movie, one of the best around, and one of my two favorite movies.

The Great Escape <---trailer (1963): ****/****