It! The Terror From Beyond Space

Thanks to Turner Classic Movie's June scheduling on Thursdays devoted to creature features, drive-in classics and sci-fi gems, I was able to catch up with a lot of movies that aren't readily available in other formats.  Some were really good, genuinely enjoyable, well-made movies -- like Tarantula and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms -- while others were so bad they were good, especially Creature from the Haunted Sea. Maybe they weren't good movies, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.  Fitting then that the last one I watched, 1958's It! The Terror From Beyond Space, was the only one I just didn't like.

There is a certain cheese factor that is to be expected with these movies. We're not talking big budgets at all with movies that were made on shoestring budgets instead.  These were most often movies made on the cheap that audiences ate up. But cheese factor (read = bad but entertaining) doesn't necessarily mean a movie can skip the steps.  This was a movie that had some potential -- if not a lot -- but it never amounts to anything.  It's slow-paced, dull, boring, and still not bad enough to be a guilty pleasure where it is so awful you enjoy it. Bad...bad...and bad.

It's 1973, and astronaut Captain Carruthers (Marshall Thompson) and his crew crash land on Mars, but when the rescue mission arrives months later, Carruthers is the only surviving member of the crew. What happened? Did he kill them all in hopes of increasing his odds of survival? Leading the rescue mission, Van Reusen (Kim Spalding) believes the astronaut murdered his the members of his crew, and now must bring him back to Earth to stand trial. Carruthers can't explain what happened, but he maintains he had nothing to do with the deaths. No one believes him, but after leaving Mars behind with a four-month journey ahead of them, the Carruthers, Van Reusen and the crew start to think they are not alone on-board the ship. Could he be telling the truth? Was something or someone killing the astronauts?  

There were moments as I watched this dud where I thought it was going to amount to something.  A 1958 movie jumping way into the future...sort of, 1973....seemed like a good idea, and exploration to Mars opens all sorts of doors for what space offers.  Which by the way is rarely a positive. Apparently everything in space wants to kill us, eat us, break us for their own benefit.  The journey to Mars was a good idea too because it's not a day trip or even a week. This is a space trip that's going to take three or four months to get back to Earth. In other words, you just can't ignore the monster/creature until you reach safety. It needs to be dealt with NOW!  For all the little things that could have added up to something though, well....they don't add up. They never click into place, into anything interesting.

This could be the most visually dull horror/sci-fi movie I've ever seen. Straightforward enough for you? At just 69 minutes, I'd bet I fast-forwarded through about 40 minutes of this movie. The claustrophobic setting of an Earth-bound spaceship seems like a grooved fastball that any movie/story should be able to bomb away with a home run.  Director Edward L. Cahn must like football or basketball though. Most of the attempts to dispatch the monster have Carruthers, Van and the crew opening a hatch and shooting at the monster or throwing grenades at him. Meanwhile, the pissed off monster starts to bash his way through the hatches, forcing the crew to seek solace in a higher level until finally...there's no levels to run to! One extended interaction has a member of the crew, Calder (Paul Langton), holding off the monster with a flame for several hours just by waving it at him. Calder actually stays in constant communication with the rest of the crew via radio in one of the dullest man vs. monster encounters I've ever seen.

However badly the creature is handled, the monster is actually pretty cool; an immense humanoid that somehow survived on Mars' barren surface. Now in a confined setting, he needs water and some sort of sustenance, turning to the crew for anything he needs. The explanation to his motivations (provided by Dabbs Greer, one of the crew) is feasible if not very realistic. Played by stunt man Ray Corrigan, 'It' is the best thing going for the movie, but even that is mishandled. There was a chance for the monster to be actually scary, but his attacks are usually shadows/silhouettes on walls as he tears his victims apart. With such a short movie, I figured it would be monster heavy, but I was incorrect. Unfortunately there's more time devoted to the mind-numbingly boring crew while the monster walks around in the lower decks.  Too bad because it's not like the movie would have been saved with more monster, but it couldn't have hurt.

One of the more prolific actors in Hollywood in film in the 1940s and 1950s, Thompson was in some gems; To Hell and Back, Battleground, They Were Expendable.  Here as the heroic lead, Thompson is the only even somewhat recognizable face in the cast, but he looks so bored with the proceedings that he doesn't register much at all.  Greer is a relative bright spot, but no one else even makes an impression, good or bad, just boring. Steer clear of this flop which takes itself too seriously and never has any fun with a premise that could have been interesting.

It! The Terror From Beyond Space <---trailer (1958): */****

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

First released in 1997 from author J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter franchise in both literature and film has taken the world by storm. The seven Potter books have sold 450 million copies -- actually think about how many books that is -- and the films to date (I'm writing this before the final film is released) have grossed six billion dollars worldwide. Now partially because I don't like being told to read/watch something, my only experience with the Potter books comes from reading the first story during a college English class.

While there was nothing about the series that turned me off, I just wasn't pulled in like so many of the devoted fans that love everything about the character(s), the series and this whole new world. I enjoyed the first book -- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- but got through it more because I needed to for the class as opposed to wanting to read it.  So now 14 years later as the final movie is about to hit theaters tomorrow, I finally looked into the first movie, watching 2001's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Better late than never, right?

Growing up with his aunt, uncle and cousin after his parents died when he was a baby, 11-year old Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has always been a little different, but he has no idea why. As weird things start happening around him, he gets a strange visitor, an immense man with a gigantic beard, Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), who tells him he should get ready to travel to Hogwarts, a school for young wizards. Not sure what to make of everything, Harry goes along, thrust into a world of oddities, magic, and spells where everyone seems to know him, but he has no idea why. He meets Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), fellow first year wizardry students, and starts to learn the ways of being a wizard. As he learns all he can though, Harry begins to see that there's more to his past than he knows, and he may be destined for bigger and better things.

A whole new crazy wizard world aside, I think a big selling point of these movies/books is actually the simplicity of the Harry character. He's a young kid trying to find out who he is and what he should do to grow up. Granted, he's going to a wizard school and not just grammar school, but what person in the audience can't appreciate that feeling of butterflies as you step into something new?  Over the last 10 years and all the movies that followed, Radcliffe has grown up in front of our eyes, and as a 12-year old here in the opener, he shows what a great actor he can be.  Child actors are incredibly hit or miss, but he shows off his impressive talents.  The same goes for Grint as Ron, Harry's best friend and partner in crime, and Watson as Hermione, the know-it-all who wants to be the best wizard ever. It's this friendship among the three youngsters that keeps the movie grounded in the coming movies because through all the craziness, they're still just three good friends.

On to bigger and better things though, a whole world devoted to being a wizard. Director Chris Columbus has the unenviable task of turning a hugely popular book into a movie that fans will approve of, and more than that, live up to expectations.  Visually, the movie is a stunner, a beautiful story to watch all the way through. Hogwarts looks like an English castle from the Middle Ages as the wizard students are separated by house. It's a clean slate though to create this world because Rowling creates everything from the ground up. We're introduced to the game of Quidditch, a cross-breed of hockey and soccer on brooms, school houses with names like Griffindor and Slyterhin, a school that literally moves around in its architectural form as needed, teachers and professors with all sorts of specialties, creatures and objects that are unique and interesting in their weirdness. It's fun to watch and easy to keep up with, the movie almost serving as a guide for what is to come in the series.

Credit goes to the child (and now adult) actors in Radcliffe, Grint and Watson for making the series what it is over the last 10 years. But one of the things that helped legitimize the series in its film form was the ridiculous talents involved in filling out all these great supporting roles.  Ready to get some serious acting chops dropped on you?  Start with Richard Harris as Professor Albus Dumbledore, the head master of Hogwarts and wisest of all the professors. Some of the other professors include Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, Ian Hart as the squirrelly Prof. Quirrell, John Cleese as Nearly Headless Nick, and Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, head of the Slytherin House. Coltrane is a scene-stealer as the gigantic, somewhat dim Hagrid who is almost Harry's guardian angel, and John Hurt even makes a one-scene appearance as Olllivander, a wand maker. What works though is that these don't feel like unnecessary cameos, instead being little parts brought to life by immensely talented actors and actresses. They're characters, not movie stars.

Having not seen the rest of the movies -- yet -- I've still kept up with the series over the years. It was hard not to keep up even by accident with the wave of media attention devoted to Harry Potter. The series has changed quite a bit in the years since its debut, and mostly for the better. I read a surprising amount of critiques that ripped this movie pretty good because it was aimed so much at kids while the later movies went to a darker, more cynical place. This is the movie that had to be made to introduce the series though, a fun, exciting adventure that introduces all the players and puts everything where it needs to be.  I've tried to keep the review tight and know I missed a fair amount of stuff that I could have mentioned.

What's worth knowing? It's a good movie, and a great introduction to an extremely popular series that has gotten bigger and better since.  A very good start.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone <---trailer (2001): ***/****

Grumpy Old Men

So by all accounts getting old sucks, right?  As I write this I'm 26 and can say honestly that growing up, having more responsibility and in general, being an adult sucks at times.  Wow, that's an uplifting lead to a review if there ever was one, huh?  I've got to write about something though, and that's as good as anything. Growing up -- at whatever age; kids, teenagers, adults, senior citizens -- is an easy start-off point for a comedy because life sure is funny at times, like 1993's Grumpy Old Men.

Maybe more than any other genre, comedies are usually niche-driven movies meaning they're intended for a very specific audience. Your typical R-rated movie? Not intended for the majority of the senior citizen crowd. Your average shoot 'em up action flick? Not meant for the faint of heart.  That was my thought with this 90s comedy that has developed into a fan favorite over the last 18 years, even producing a sequel a few years later. This is clearly a comedy intended for a different audience than most movies I watch. It is called Grumpy Old Men after all, right?  I was only slightly worried I wouldn't get some of the humor, but no worries here. Good comedy is good comedy regardless of how old you are.

In the tiny Minnesota town of Wabasha, next door neighbors Max Goldman (Walter Matthau) and John Gustafson (Jack Lemmon) have been lifelong rivals.  Their fighting goes back to the 1930s when they were little kids growing up, and the rivalry has continued all these years since.  Now in their late 60s and early 70s, both Max and John have lost their wives, living in their big houses with nothing to do other than bitch and moan at each other, spending their days drinking beer and ice fishing.  The childish back and forth is nothing though for these two old professionals. A new neighbor is moving in across the street, Ariel Truax (Ann-Margret), a widower and college professor new to the area. If the back and forth rivalry was heated before, it just got taken up a notch. Who can win the babely Ariel first?

I like smart comedies and stupid ones. I like comedies aimed at kids and those aimed at the more adult audience. Smart, silly, stupid, intellectual, slapstick, I'll watch anything.  Then there's this movie which is funny just because it is funny.  It never tries too hard, letting this decades old rivalry produce the humor naturally.  There is a sweetness to this rivalry though that makes it believable and even endearing to these two crotchety old guys. They fight, they bitch, they rip each other constantly, but somewhere in all that arguing is a friendship.  Both Max and John know each others' family and get along with them. They just happen to go back and forth with pranks and jokes that show no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Starring together in 1968's The Odd Couple, Lemmon and Matthau showed what great comedic chemistry they had together as warring roommates Felix and Oscar.  Well, apparently chemistry doesn't go away over 20-plus years because the biggest selling point by far from this comedy is the chemistry between these two comedic legends.  They play off each other like an old married couple, Max calling John a 'putz' (among other things, his first line is 'Hi, dickhead') with John responding with 'moron.' Throw a beautiful woman into the mix, and all bets are off.  It is an easy-going charm between Matthau and Lemmon that carries this movie, making it better than a typical growing old comedy. Definitely stick around for the end credits with a hilarious gag reel showing off all their missteps. If you can't wait, check it out HERE.

Some 15 years younger than Lemmon and almost 20 years younger than Matthau, Margret -- at just 52 years old but seemingly playing an older woman -- is still Ann-Margret.  Her character, Ariel, is still trying to move on after losing her husband some five years earlier, finding friendship and maybe more with Max and John. At the young age of 86, Hollywood legend Burgess Meredith plays Pop, John's father and all-around horndog, always trying to convince his son to keep his love life going. The character is hysterical, but his best part comes in the already mentioned gag reel, just great stuff.  Also starring are Kevin Pollak and Daryl Hannah as Jake, Max's son running for town mayor, and Melanie, John's daughter who is getting a divorce from her husband (Christopher McDonald). As if Matthau, Lemmon and Meredith weren't enough, there are also small parts for Ossie Davis as Chuck, Max and John's friend who always listens to them complain, and Buck Henry as an inquisitive IRS agent.

This is just one of those movies where you're going to like the humor or you're not. It can be dark at times -- Max and John pining about how sweet it would be to die in your sleep -- but most of the time it's just a good, old-fashioned movie. It is in no rush to get anywhere or deliver a message, instead being quite content to tell the story of two neighbors who like nothing more than making the other one's life miserable.  It's a funny, sweet comedy with a great cast and lots of laughs.

Grumpy Old Men <---trailer (1993): ***/****

The Tall Target

Like so many episodes of The Twilight Zone rose above its trippy sci-fi roots to tell some stories that are still around in the pop culture psyche.  One episodes -- "Back There" -- has future Professor from Gilligan's Island time traveling to April 14, 1865, realizing he can try and change history, saving President Abraham Lincoln's life but ultimately failing to do so. It's a great example of 'What if?," a question that can be applied to any and all parts of history -- some better than others. What if Lincoln had lived? What if assassin John Wilkes Booth had missed?

The tragedy of the situation of course is that Booth didn't miss, killing Lincoln with a shot to the head as he watched a play at Ford's Theater just days after the conclusion of the Civil War, the defining moment of his Presidency. Remembered as fondly as he was for helping save the United States from its most bloody conflict, it is easy to forget that Lincoln was not an extremely popular president, even among the Union states, much less the Confederate states who seceded. Were there other attempts on his life that failed? So goes the premise of 1951's The Tall Target.

A sergeant on the New York City Police Department, John Kennedy (Dick Powell) turns in a report explaining his investigation of a coming assassination attempt on the soon to be inaugurated president, Abraham Lincoln. It's 1861, and the country is tearing itself apart, both Northern and Southern opposition wanting nothing of this new Republican president. No one believes him though so he boards a train heading south to Baltimore, finding his partner -- a fellow detective -- murdered on the train. Someone has caught wind of what he is up to and intending to stop.  The train is packed as the passengers head to the inauguration in Baltimore, but can Kennedy find out who's targeting him before the assassination attempt can be made?

As a history buff, I'll watch anything associated with the Civil War, especially a little known story like this one about a failed assassination attempt on Lincoln.  A title card says the story is accurate to history, and attempts like these showed how chaotic and violent the months leading up to the Civil War actually work.  The historical backdrop is just gravy because setting the story on a fast-moving train is always a good jumping off point, especially when we're fully aware the killer is on-board somewhere. Think Murder on the Orient Express mixed with a little Strangers on a Train and a little historical what-if thrown in for good measure.

The guessing game comes from the passengers as Powell's Sgt. John Kennedy (interesting choice of name looking back on the 1951 movie now) goes about his investigation. There are a handful of characters, some obvious choices, others coming as a twist, and others serving as a red herring to the real identity of the plotters.  A mix of Northern and Southern passengers keep you guessing. Paula Raymond and Marshall Thompson play Ginny and Lance Beaufort, Southern brother and sister heading home, Lance a recent graduate of West Point. Ruby Dee is memorable as Rachel, Ginny's slave/maid, who may know something that will help Kennedy out. Adolphe Menjou plays Col. Jeffers, a Union militia officer heading to the inauguration, Florence Bates is Mrs. Alston, a well-known abolitionist writer, and Will Geer is the train conductor who finds his train caught up in a twisting, confusing murder investigation.

Having heard his name several times but never having seen in him anything, I've now seen Dick Powell in two different movies in as many weeks.  For a guy who made a name for himself on musicals and on stage, this is another part for the actor where he seems like a less than ideal choice to play a tough lead character. In Station West, he was a government agent investigating two murders, and here again he plays an officer who no one believes, albeit involved in something much, much bigger. I don't know much more about Powell than what I've been able to take away from these two roles, but I like him. He's got kind of a snobby side to him, but he's still personable and a likable lead (if that makes sense). Song and dance man, maybe, but he's good here.

The 1950s were the high point of director Anthony Mann's career, but because he had so many successes over a 10-plus year span, some get lost in the shuffle. This is one of them unfortunately which hasn't gotten the credit it deserves. It is a movie that qualifies in my 'different so it's good' category of rating a movie. Mann brings his typical strong hand directing, keeping the mystery going with a hard edge to Kennedy's investigation. Anyone and everyone is a suspect as the bodies start to mount up. A cool, little historical murder mystery....oh, and Lincoln makes it.

The Tall Target <---TCM clips (1951): ***/****

Zarak

When I think of Victor Mature, I think of a lot of different things. I think of his far from accurate but highly enjoyable performance of Doc Holliday in John Ford's My Darling Clementine. I think of an accurate who was most at home in big pictures, historical and biblical epics where his on-screen presence was given a chance to shine. His biggest successes though came in the late 1940s and early 1950s so by the second half of the decade he was taking movies that just aren't that good, including 1956's Zarak.

There I go again contradicting myself, saying Mature was most comfortable in historical epics -- The Robe, Samson and Delilah, Demetrius and the Gladiators -- which he usually was. This qualifies then as a quasi-epic...I guess.  It certainly has some impressive scale with a considerable budget spent filling out a cast of thousands (okay, maybe a couple hundred), but Zarak is such an obviously over the top attempt at an epic that it doesn't quite work. The scale is there, but at the sacrifice of story and character if that means anything to you. The best epics, the ones that stand the test of time are those that blend all three. Maybe it isn't fair to judge Zarak on that level because it doesn't aspire to be a classic, but some effort would have been appreciated.

The eldest son of an Afghan chieftain in the 1860s, Zarak (Mature) is caught kissing Salma (Anita Ekberg), his father's favorite and most beautiful wife. Instead of killing him for the betrayal, his father banishes him, forcing him to leave the tribe where he quickly becomes a notorious outlaw who becomes a huge thorn in the side of the country's British rulers.  His gang of bandits continues to grow until finally a high-ranking, highly respected British officer, Major Ingram (Michael Wilding), is called in to deal with the issue. Zarak thinks little of the new challenge, joining forces with a powerful chief, Ahmad (Peter Illing), to take the attack to the British. All the infamous bandit's plans may go for naught though as betrayal lies around every corner as the bounty on his head increases with his growing notoriety.

Because I'm a fan of Mature, let's start there. A role is a role, especially when your star isn't as bright as it once was.  A few years later in 1961, he would play a Viking, but this is one of the oddest choices I've seen. A very Italian looking Mature playing a young Afghan warrior/prince? It just doesn't work. That's the least of the problems here. The script never really decides what it wants to do with this character. Is he a wrongfully punished and banished son looking for redemption and forgiveness? Is he the notorious, murdering bandit he's made out to be? Is he both? Whoo, lots of questions, none of which are answered when they really need to be. As a viewer, I don't mind figuring things out for myself, but some help is appreciated. The movie needed to make a stance on this character and to whether we should side with him or against him. You can only chalk up so much of the blame to Mr. Mature.

Physical differences aside, Mature's acting is the least of the movie's problems. Swedish beauty Ekberg, God bless her little heart, was one beautiful woman, but she just could not act. Her character also does a two or three minute stripper's routine, even grinding on a pole and two lucky court attendants and is usually in various stages of undress.  Check out part of her dance routine HERE. Like Mature, she doesn't exactly look like a woman who lived in 1860s Afghanistan with her immaculate hair and make-up. Her scenes that require acting and not sexy dancing fall far short too. The rest of the cast is okay if underused or underutilized. Wilding is dull as Major Ingram, Eunice Gayson unnecessary as Ingram's wife, Bonar Colleano and Eddie Byrne not used enough as Zarak's treacherous brothers, and Bernard Miles making the most of a smaller part as the loyal Hassu, Zarak's right hand man. Look for a young Patrick McGoohan as a British officer in Ingram's command, making an early appearance in one of his first speaking film roles.

Director Terence Young -- later of the early James Bond films -- does not skimp on the scale of this attempted epic filmed in Morocco.  The battle sequences are just that; epic, with hundreds of riders and soldiers doing battle on the Moroccan/Afghan landscape.  For an otherwise moderately budgeted movie, the battles are well choreographed and don't disappoint. But in his zest for scale, Young goes overboard. His movie is just 99 minutes long, and I watched it in a little over an hour. Thank you fast forward button. Repeated scenes of a long column of riders making their way across the land is impressive the first two or three times before it quickly gets tedious. The actual story is so disjointed and all over the place that I wondered what had happened to put characters in these spots (I'm sure the fast forwarding had something to do with it). Young wants to 'Wow!' you with the scale of Zarak, but it comes at an expense.

For all the big, sweeping shots accompanied by composer William Alwyn's obnoxious, blaring and overbearing score, there are quick shots to clear examples of indoor studio shots. One second a stand-in is attacking a rider in a big wide open, and then the next, Mature is in a studio pulling someone off a horse. Painfully obvious, and one of my biggest pet peeves. Nowhere is it more evident than the ending, Mature's mysterious and still undecided folk hero/mythical bandit deciding whether to go through with a difficult decision. The ending doesn't come as much of a surprise -- it's been telegraphed half the movie -- but not much does surprise here. Any entertaining if not particularly well made historical epic. Decent, worth a watch, but that's it.

Zarak (1956): **/****

The Rainmaker (1997)

The name John Grisham is synonymous with courtroom dramas and legal thrillers. There is A Time to Kill, The Firm, Runaway Jury, Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker and The Client to name a few. I've only read one Grisham novel -- A Painted House, his departure from the courtroom ironically enough -- but his stories translate well to film. There is a natural drama to courtroom proceedings that just works well, especially with 1997's The Rainmaker, a drama that isn't flashy or showy, just a well-made, polished story.

The different elements that are all over the place here somehow find a way to click and gel together. Some of that can no doubt be chalked up to Grisham's familiarity and ease with his story and characters which smooth out any number of rough patches. The director here is Francis Ford Coppola, he of The Godfather series, who I wouldn't picture in a courtroom story. Rising star Matt Damon is aided by a pitch-perfect supporting cast with Elmer Bernstein providing a somewhat odd, blues/jazz mix for his soundtrack. It isn't a great movie, and maybe it isn't even a very good movie, but it is GOOD from the get-go.

Fresh out of law school in Memphis, Rudy Baylor (Damon) takes a job with ambulance chasing lawyer Bruiser Stone (Mickey Rourke) while he waits to pass the Bar exam. Working with insurance agent and attempted lawyer, Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), Rudy sees the writing on the wall and knows Bruiser is about to get taken down by the FBI. With Deck, he starts his own small firm. Their only case comes from a lower classic family, the Blacks, including mother Dot (Mary Kay Place) and son, Donny Ray (Johnny Whitworth), who is dying of leukemia. The Blacks' insurance company is denying their claim, but Rudy takes on the case -- his first -- in hopes of bringing the suffering family some peace. He's forced to learn on the fly, especially with his opponent, Leo Drummond (Jon Voight), an experienced, smart, tricky and veteran lawyer looking to take him to pieces.

So we can all agree lawyers suck, right? Okay, that's harsh. Maybe only like 96% of them. Movies have a chance and a way of humanizing them, especially here in the eyes of young, inexperienced lawyer Rudy. You need an underdog in a story like this, and Damon's Rudy supplies it in spades. While intelligent and book smart, he doesn't necessarily know the ins and outs of being a lawyer, the courtroom basics an experienced lawyer would take for granted. Damon's narration is at its best in its simplicity, a young man questioning the system he so wants to be a part of. For all the good it is intended to do, the judicial system is flawed in countless ways, something Rudy finds out quickly. It isn't just right and wrong anymore. It's about winning and losing plain and simple with plenty of money on the line. Innocent and even a little naive, Damon does a great job with this character, a sign of the acting ability we've come to appreciate in the years since.

How good is the cast here? Danny Glover plays the judge trying the case, a civil rights supporter and opponent of big business, and the man isn't even credited. DANNY GLOVER! DeVito gets a showier part -- if a background one -- as Deck, the almost-lawyer who still has a slimy veneer to him even when you can't help but like him and his nose for getting in and out of trouble. Voight is perfect as Leo Drummond, the snake oil lawyer who knows every trick in the business. Place, Whitworth and Red West give the movies its heart as the Black family, their scenes touching and heartbreaking as the story develops. Not enough for you? There's also Rourke, Virginia Madsen as a key witness, Dean Stockwell as an old school judge, Teresa Wright as Rudy's client and landlady, Roy Scheider as a CEO who could make or break the case, and even country singer Randy Travis in a great bit part as a potential juror. Good enough for you?

I liked this movie, but as I write this review I'm struggling to come up with reasons why. Thanks to shows like Law and Order and its countless spin-offs, the courtroom drama is far from original anymore. It seems stupid to be critical of a movie released almost 15 years ago for things that have happened since, but there it is. This Coppola-directed courtroom drama is the equivalent of comfort food. You have a good sense of what's going on, the semi-twists that will eventually be revealed, and in the end...well, let's not go there.  The movie and story are in their comfort zone in the court scenes with an easygoing sense of where they want to go and what they want to accomplish. Damon and Voight play off each other nicely with Glover and DeVito making their impact known as needed. The out-of-court scenes tend to meander a bit, but the movie always rights itself when needed.

The only real complaint I have for the movie, and the one part I genuinely didn't like was a subplot with Damon's Rudy and a client of his, Kelly (Claire Danes), a young wife married to an abusive husband (Andrew Shue). Rudy instantly develops feelings for her, wanting to save her from almost certain doom at the hands of her husband. In an effort to develop Rudy more as a character (unnecessary if you ask me), I felt like the story went down an easy path that Grisham is just better than. The story doesn't dwell too long on these scenes, but the damage is done early. Not a deal breaker, but it does bring the movie down a notch or two.

I'm struggling here. I don't know what else to say. I liked this movie if I didn't love it. Not bad at all, but it never reaches that level of courtroom drama classic. Solid if not so flashy directing from Coppola, and an all-star cast that does not disappoint, but it's just missing something overall. Still worth checking out though.

The Rainmaker <---trailer (1997): ***/****

Desperate Search

Locked away in the vaults for years, 1953's Island in the Sky is a great example of a movie focusing on a bid for survival and those left behind trying to find said survivors before time runs out.  It's tense, it's emotional, and you're rooting for the search and rescue effort to work. This is by no means the first movie to deal with a similar story, but it is one of the best ones. Just a year earlier, 1952's Desperate Search did the same thing, albeit in a much worse movie. We're talking real bad here.

Vince Heldon (Howard Keel) is a divorced father of two children, Don (Lee Aaker) and Janet (Linda Lowell), who lost the custody battle with his ex-wife, Nora (Patricia Medina), and now only gets to see his kids six weeks out of the year. Vince has remarried, his wife, Julie (Jane Greer), bonding immediately with the kids. At the end of their six week visit, they put the kids on a plane back home only to hear that the plane crashed somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. Vince, a pilot, undertakes the rescue mission with friend and co-pilot, Brandy (Keenan Wynn) to find the crash site, hoping to find his kids if they survived. The search radius is immense though, and the search is made more difficult when Nora arrives on-site, wanting to take over. Out in the wilderness, Don and Janet struggle for survival, coping with dwindling supplies and a marauding mountain lion.

There is no way this movie should have been as bad as it actually is, but somehow and some way, it ends up being truly bad.  Let's get the few positives out of the way early because it won't take long. Keel and Greer are very good together with a genuine chemistry between them. Keel is most well-known for his singing ability in MGM musicals, but he shows he is more than capable of playing a leading role without actually singing. Above all else -- especially his past demons rooted in his marriage with Nora -- he puts everything on the line to find his kids. Greer too as the stepmother delivers a good performance, a woman in a tricky spot who does what's best for the family as opposed to what's best for her. That's about it in the positives though so let's get to the roasting!

With a movie that doesn't even reach a length of 75 minutes, one might think you're heading into an action-packed, tense, adrenaline-pumping movie that never slows down. Of course, director Joseph H. Lewis might not have gone along for that line of thinking. With just 73 minutes to work with, Lewis finds a way to make this movie boring, mostly with a fascination of planes flying around, taking off, landing, stuff like that. At least a half hour has to be long shots of planes flying over the Canadian wilderness, repeated over and over again. The scenery is gorgeous, but there's a limit as to how much you could and should show, especially in an already short movie.

Then there is the soap opera aspect of this MGM gem. The search and rescue mission for two little kids seems like a natural enough jumping off point for a highly dramatic story, doesn't it? I thought so. Even Keel's Vince and Greer's Julie seem to think so. The Nora character on the other hand....well, she forgot. Their failed marriage obviously tore both people apart, but Nora came out on top as Vince retreated into the bottle, losing custody of his kids. From the second she arrives to "help" the rescue mission, Nora seems more concerned about her ex-husband than the safety of her own two children.  Maybe this is just a poorly written character, but her motivations seem ridiculous. What mother in her right mind is more worried about putting their ex in their place than rescuing the children from certain death?

And now we come to the portion of the review where I feel bad for ripping a child actor, but as one performance here shows, it needs to be ripped. Just nine years old at the time, Lee Aaker is a strong point for the movie, the brave, resolute and protective brother who's going to do whatever he can to save his little sister. God bless little Linda Lowell, but she could be the most excruciatingly annoying child I've ever seen in a movie. It's not just that she whines, but how she whines; a high-pitched, gravelly, sobbing whine that goes right up your back. I tried to rationalize, thinking a little girl just survived a plane crash and is alone in the woods. But she screams, whines, and screams some more, never delivering a line that is not screaming. On the positive, Aaker at one point delivers a line so perfect it was almost as if the screenwriters knew his little sister would be that annoying. As she complains and whines, he mutters "Now why wasn't I born an only child." I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

Which brings us to the finale as Vince says 'Screw it all' to his ex-wife and the air official who's grounded him from flying.  That pesky mountain lion is back, chasing the two kiddies up a tree, Don holding off the advances with a tree branch. Vince arrives in time to save them, literally getting involved in a fight with the mountain lion, one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes I've ever seen.  Oh, and the kids are rescued, Vince ends up with the family he deserved, and Nora is resigned to a life of being a complaining shrew when Wynn's Brandy puts her in her place. Bad movie that just keeps getting badder.

Desperate Search <--- TCM clips (1952): * 1/2 /****

Station West

A singer, actor, producer, director and studio head over a cancer-shortened career, Dick Powell did it all in his short time in Hollywood.  He made a name for himself in the 1930s in musicals but made the jump to more and more genres over the 1940s and 1950s. Of all his roles though -- film, television, radio, stage -- Powell only did one western as an actor, an interesting gem from 1948 called Station West.

Interesting is a nice way of saying here that I was very skeptical going into this movie because of all the different (even weird) elements that needed to work together for it to be successful.  As is so often the case with my overthinking anything and everything, the joke was on me because my worries were unfounded. I still maintain it is a very different western -- atypical to just about any other western I can think of -- but somehow it works.  Actors not associated with the genre, a story full of twists and turns, and the feel of a film noir as opposed to a western oater.  Sounds like the makings of an interesting western now, don't it?

An undercover government investigator assigned to investigate the murder of two cavalry troopers guarding a gold shipment, Lt. Haven (Powell) arrives a remote western outpost trying to piece everything together. The nearby fort is brimming with gold shipments that need to be moved, but bandits keep hitting the shipments. Haven works his magic and gets a job with a woman who rules over everything in the area, Charlie (Jane Greer), working to rebuild her stagecoach line. He is sure she is somehow involved with the gold robberies with her right hand man, Prince (Gordon Oliver), and henchman, Mick (Guinn Williams), but he can't prove it just yet. As he investigate the case though, Haven starts to fall for Charlie so can he find the culprits before he gets too involved?

A day after watching this movie, I keep coming back to a thought that popped up time and time again as I watched it. While it has all the fixings of a western, I feel more comfortable calling it an anti-western...if that makes any sense. 'Station' more has the feel of a murder mystery that happens to be based in a western setting as opposed to a western with a murder mystery. Director Sidney Lanfield shoots his movie like a film noir, full of shadows and darkness as Powell's Haven investigates who is stealing gold and killing U.S. cavalry troopers. This is not a down and dirty western that you might expect. Everyone is immaculately dressed -- nice, pressed suits for the guys and Greer always wearing ball gowns with perfect hair -- and the saloons look like some pretty classy establishments. None of this counts against the movie. It isn't trying to be a gritty, hard-edged realistic western. It's a murder mystery film noir western, a first in my mind.

Working against the typical conventions of the western hero and the lead female character, enter Dick Powell and Jane Greer. None of this is intended as a complaint, instead it ends up being a ringing positive endorsement for the movie. Nothing about Powell screams WESTERN HERO! His Haven character drinks champagne and wine, smokes a pipe, and generally has an easygoing way about him. He's especially smooth with Greer's Charlie and puts his own spin on the typical western hero. When I think of Greer, I think film noir, the femme fatale like in 1947's Out of the Past. She would seem to be out of place in a western, but as the kingpin in the area who pulls all the strings, she's perfect in the part. Her Charlie is beautiful, intelligent and another new one in the western genre; a bad guy...um, lady. Well, sort of, she wants to go straight, but she might be too far gone. Two strong leads -- with some great chemistry -- that set the tone for the whole movie.

As for the murder mystery aspect of the story, Lanfield keeps the viewer guessing and up on their toes if they want to keep up. It's pretty clear from the start that Greer's Charlie is heavily involved with the continuing gold robberies, but as for how, that's kept in the dark for awhile. Throwing you for a loop, we get a list of possible suspects, some more inclined to shenanigans than others. Working with Greer are Oliver and Williams, two solid henchmen that immediately incriminate her just because they're clearly henchmen. There's also Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Caslon, a rich woman working with Haven, who you immediately think is up to no good because Moorehead always played shady characters. Tom Powers plays Captain Iles, the shady commander of the post with Raymond Burr making a good impression in a smaller part as Bristow, a weasel of a lawyer trying to play all sides. Christmas crooner Burl Ives is also good as a hotel owner who sings and knows everyone in town, quite a help to Haven.

I went along for the ride on this one, enjoying it for all the little different things that make it an atypical western. Some parts drag as Powell's Haven investigates -- long scenes of a man walking around, looking through things tend to that -- and other scenes have stagecoaches or Powell on horseback riding across the rocky desert. Beautiful to look at in smaller doses, they get a little tedious at times. No movie is perfect though, right? Casting and story, this one just works because it does try to be different. Not particularly well known, but a hidden gem in the film noir western category (if there is that category).

Station West <---Youtube clip (1948): ***/****

Creature from the Haunted Sea

For years growing up I watched Svengoolie on late night Saturday television, reveling in the badness of the movies the show broadcast each week. They would poke fun at really awful, poorly made and typically sci-fi and horror movies that look to be made for about $12.60 (give or take a couple bucks). Much of the time, these movies were intended to be awful, and that's the fun of watching them. The opening credits sequence each week showed one shot from a movie I'd never been able to find until recently, a genuinely funny and bad movie, 1961's Creature from the Haunted Sea.

The movie comes from master of schlock himself, director and producer extraordinaire Roger Corman who handles both duties this time. At a brisk 63 minutes, this is one of the most ridiculously fun movies I've watched in awhile. Corman famously titled his autobiography 'How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime,' and it is easy to see why. These were movies that were meant to be fun to watch, not ones you leave the theater or drive-in talking about how good the acting was or how strong the script was. You leave laughing about the wooden, hammy acting, the poorly made 'creature,' and as was the case here, the amazingly bad narration. A bad movie that knows it is bad, and it is better for it.

It's Cuba in 1959, and the Batista regime has collapsed (didn't think that was going to be in this review now, did you?), leaving army and government officials to flee the country. Exiled American mobster Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone) has cut a deal with some of these officials to help transport the Cuban treasury out of the country. On board is his gang -- including babely girlfriend Mary-Belle (Betsy Jones-Moreland) -- and a FBI agent deep undercover, code name XK150 (Robert Towne), working to stop the mobster. Capetto has a plan though, start killing off the Cuban officials and the soldiers with them, blaming the killings on a mythical sea creature in the Gulf of Mexico. Everything seems to be going along swimmingly, but even Capetto couldn't have planned on this happening. The monster he made up? It's real, and it's gunning for them.

I think I should point something out before I get into anything. There are bad movies, and there are bad movies. Some have all the right intentions -- workable budget, good cast, promising story -- and just end up being awful, like Battlefield Earth. Others have none of the right intentions. Lowly budget, bad cast, and mind-numbingly stupid story. That's where this movie falls, but it rises above the schlock because it is trying to be that bad. It wants to be stupid. So because it seeks to be intentionally bad -- and therefore a lot more entertaining -- it is actually smart if you ask me. You have to work at being this bad, this stupid, without going too far and just being obnoxious. Who better to tread that fine line than Roger Corman? I can't think of a director/producer better suited to do it. He made a career of doing just that.

Let's start with the "creature" which has to be the most ridiculous movie monster ever. Cast member Beach Dickerson said it was made from a wetsuit, some moss, lots of Brillo pads, tennis balls for the eyes, ping pong balls for the pupils, and pipecleaners for the claws with black oilcloth applied to make him look slimy. You know what? It is a monster that looks like it is made of a wetsuit, moss, Brillo pads, and oil, probably all for about eight bucks. He's just a killing machine, going about randomly taking all these bad guys out. Capetto's creation is hilarious because the actual monster kills in exactly the same way the mobster dispatched the Cubans. So in the water, Capetto has a plunger and a rake, swimming after these unlucky Cuban exiles and taking them out. The best is saved for last so keep reading, I don't want to spoil it just now.

As was par for the course with the ridiculous story was the ridiculous casting, bad acting for the sake of bad acting. Carbony's Capetto is the straight man to it all, the "diabolical" mind behind it all.  Monahan gets to sex it up as Mary-Belle, the girlfriend and gun moll along for the adventure. Capetto's gang includes Mary-Belle's younger brother, a dim-wit named Happy Jack (Robert Bean), and an oddball who became unhinged at some point and communicates via animal noises, Pete (Dickerson). Towne as Agent XK150 is the stupidest secret agent I've ever seen, hiding his radio in raw hot dog pieces and a relish jar, telling his superiors they're heading to Bali when they're heading to Puerto Rico. His narration is a scream, describing in idiotic detail everything that's happening, including my favorite "I knew it was dusk because the sun was setting." There are other characters -- an island mama who likes animal Pete, her slutty daughter, and the Cuban general, appropriately named General Tostada -- but it doesn't matter. They're there to get eaten or attacked in some gruesome fashion.

There are countless priceless scenes I could mention here. XK150 falls for Mary-Belle who wants nothing to do with him, even when he tries to woo her, all but telling her he's a secret agent. Capetto killing Cubans with a plunger and rake. XK reads off a list of aliases, all of them virtually identical. That's probably the best thing in the whole movie, Towne's narration. He delivers it in straight-fashion, completely dead pan, letting the humor still hit you like a brick wall.  The final shot is spot-on perfect too, the creature having killed everyone but XK150 and his new love interest. XK's narration states "I got the girl, and the monster got the gold" at which point we see the creature chilling on the chest of gold/money/treasure at the bottom of the ocean. Sublimely perfect is you ask me. I loved this movie, and laughed at it more than I have a lot of comedies.  So awful, so mind-blowingly stupid that you can't help but like it.

Creature from the Haunted Sea <---trailer (1961): ***/****