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Reviews
Across the Pacific (1942)
flimsily entertaining
"Across the Pacific" should be called "Across the Atlantic" as there is no single part of the film that actually takes place in the Pacific Ocean as the title implies.
This film follows a flimsy story of pre-war espionage and conspiracy with a sense of linear inevitability. There is not too much depth to the plot, and the intrigue is not that intriguing. It's almost as if this would have made a really great 2 hour movie, but they slashed out the meat and left an anemic 1:38 movie.
It suffers from that fatal flaw of action/spy-thriller type movies in that people and characters seem to ALWAYS be in the right place at the right time. You know, the way a character gets shot with a poison dart precisely 1 second after he's been given important instructions and precisely 1 second BEFORE he's able to carry them out. It's this method that causes a film to wander into a completely different genre. Suddenly a noir thriller is a can't-take-it-too-seriously James Bond with a fedora movie.
Mary Astor may have worked in Maltese Falcon, but she was an awkward fit in "Across the Pacific". As Bogart's on-screen love interest, she just never quite fits the part of the smoldering younger Ilsa, nor of the dignified standoffish older Ninotchka type. She falls in the middle and I couldn't help but keep thinking to myself "c'mon Bogey, you can do better than her, just wait till you get to Panama"
In spite of the weaknesses, Bogart carries the movie adequately on his shoulders. He dominates the screen enough to make it interesting, and there's some nice snappy dialogue to get you over the slow spots (of which there are many).
Plus it's never not interesting to watch movies like this as a time-capsule of the way things were done not so long ago. So be prepared for sunbathing in slacks, war-era rendering of Japanese characters, smoking in bed, and judo chops on the shoulder that knock you out cold.
Gallipoli (1981)
Set in Turkey...(Appropriately)
Well, ok, it wasn't a complete Turkey, but I couldn't resist. This movie is not bad, but I didn't think it was all that good either. It is too slow, sometimes painfully slow in parts. The Aussie accents are thick and they talk fast, so be prepared to rewind, eh?
I thought this film got lost in the limbo between being a story about the relationships between the two leads (with the war as scenery) AND being a war movie with the Aussie mates as the backdrop.
This is two soldiers' story about the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in the Spring and Summer of 1915 that resulted in approximately 565,000 casualties between both sides, all for the failed purpose of opening a new front in Sourtheast Europe and Asia Minor to break the deadlock of the trenches in the West.
Anyway, back to the movie. About the first half takes place in Australia, then there is a training sequence in Egypt where the Allies had a staging area prior to crossing the Med to the forward area on the Gallipoli Peninsula. So that means if you are looking for a gritty, consuming military epic - this is not it.
The Australian sequence provided a nice snapshot of life Down Under in the early 20th century. Some interesting moments, but altogether too slow.
Then it seemed like the Egypt sequences were nothing more than varying anecdotes taken from any number of WW1 vets' diaries and mashed together for the benefit of filling out the main characters with ...well... vet-like anecdotes.
Finally, the Gallipoli sequence adequately portrayed a general feeling of futility of the war and the action. The effects were lame-even for 1981- and altogether it seemed a litle too clean. There was something that didn't quite mesh between the attitude of the characters and the reality of war. I know that WW1 was a 'grand adventure' that young men undertook in the 19teens...but I always assumed that these romantic notions of war evaporated during the first night under an artillery barrage. In spite of that, the characters seemed to act like it was more of a field trip or summer camp than an assignment to charge into a machine gun nest.
I would have like to have seen more context to what was going on. I will grant that there was so much ignorance even among the soldiers about what they were doing there and how it mattered that it made sense that the movie didn't want to paint a crystal clear picture of the whole strategic situation. You know...fog of war and all that. The problem is that without it, the movie isn't able to instill a sense of history and scale. While it is clear that the charge over the trenches went badly, there is little indication that the entire Allied initiatives was one that has gone down in history as a monumental blunder.
By the way - the two leads, Mel Gibson and the guy that played Archie were both very good
Kiss Them for Me (1957)
a weak effort, but not a total waste of time...
This movie comes off as a half-baked Jane Mansfield / Cary Grant vehicle, but there are some reasons not to immediately turn it off. The plot meanders and the chemistry between the characters is practically non-existent, particularly between Grant's Crewson and Suzy Parker's Gwinneth. It feels as if even the 'war buddies' had just met when shooting began (the movie, not the war). If you've ever wondered why Jane Mansfield was considered the poor-man's Monroe, this film says it all. She has not half of the charm, comedic instinct, or for that matter sexual magnetism of Marilyn.
Having said all that, I found myself actually chuckling out loud at some of Cary Grant's slick lines. Would that we were all as quick-witted and smooth. For younger viewers, it's fun to see Ray Walston (Mr. Hand from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"...aloha!) in his very first big-screen role. And it is my understanding that Suzy Parker was universally panned for this performance; call me unsophisticated, but I didn't think she was that bad (although her voice was later dubbed out). What do you think?