gmr-4 Reviews

Glory Enough for All (1988 TV Movie)

From what I know, a reasonably complete rendition of events

[8/10 · 15 August 2005]

I do not like this rank voting because so much can go into a film that to "average out" the features would possibly be unfair. For instance -- and very briefly -- I rated the new THE WAR OF THE WORLDS "spectacular" in recent conversation. But that would be about . . . it.

GLORY ENOUGH FOR ALL actually brought that lump in the throat at one point when I first saw it on MASTERPIECE THEATRE, when they finally knew they Had It. Cooke introduced the movie as a rare departure from British offerings, this Commonwealth, and frankly much more Canadian offerings should find their way to American television. GLORY ENOUGH is an excellent example.

(Sir) Frederick is shown with all his warts. The academic politics involving MacLeod was completely unknown to me, as was the amazing intersection with the famous Hughes family in the United States. I am fascinated with -- or a sucker for -- stories of human creativity, and biomedical research is as dramatic as anything we do. Throw in the elements of the young underdogs struggling with questions abandoned by better-equipped researchers, then the rivalries that can plague academic inquiry (they are personally no better than the rest of us), and you have a story of epic proportions.

Unlike the story of the Dion "quints," you will not see this on gringo prime time television. No use losing your audience with their remote changers during the brief exposition on endocrinology. Warning: there is no gun play or a car chase, and no smash-bang scene cuts. FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

I second the motion but for different reasons

[24 October 2004]

Yes, MOTORCYCLE DIARIES is a right good film (reserving judgment about "superb) but it is more than a "road movie" as fascinating as it is, filmed "on location(s)" most of which I have never visited. The film is a decent attempt to relate an important episode in the young lives of both Granado and Guevara destined for important historical roles.

A few years ago I read the new door-stopper of the latter's biography. All the incidents/ places were in it, although I cannot recall the night time incident in the Amazon. There were so many witnesses that it must be true. The book was also "shy" on Guevara's insecurity with the opposite sex while young, that part no doubt coming from the more wild Granado. A coupe of pretty amusing incidents were left out, one in particular about their accidentally voiding from a second storey window on a farmer's peach drying platform. They bloody well had to run for it!

In any case, this is a fine picture and not just for those consumed with the cult of "Che" or those of tender years who wonder about the man behind the famous revolutionary portrait. They were odd, crazy lads and those males of us far into middle age are bound to be a mite humbled by their adventures and big dreams.

The New People (1969–1970)

Epilogue or is it reprise?

[23 October 2004]

Well it seems THE NEW PEOPLE is back in another, more contemporary, guise. Not by that title, of course, but the young-and-telegenic-people-stranded-on-an-island series which just hit the airwaves is smack dab of that theme, but with to-day's twist: SURVIVOR with monsters.

I do not know the name of this programme which I certainly will never see, but instead of the social commentary ca. 1970 we get "reality t.v." plus PREDATOR or ALIEN. Instead of tabula raza for a speck of mankind (St. Thomas's UTOPIA?), we get sacrifice of the attractive to the evil gods, the Minotaur and all that.

Bring back the old series. I saw so few episodes maybe it will do me good.

Code 46 (2003)

A fine film with the usual "buts" . . .

[2 September 2004]

I agree with the commentator in Sydney that CODE 46 needed "fleshing out," that it was heavy on the atmospheric, impressionistic.

It is bad manners and boring to go into a lot of detail or spoil others' viewing, but there are two and a half things I did not like:

a) At times the dialogue was so subtle, so sotto voce, that I was missing things. My hearing is probably not what it used to be or maybe the print was a tad muddy, but I was in a small house and listening carefully, and this understatement was tough to follow more than once.

b) As said in this site before, I am fed up with injecting skin, and at one point rather a lot of it, to keep Generation X awake in their seats. CODE 46 had three -- count 'em -- three heavy love scenes, about two too many. We know he loved his wife, already!

3) The climax was taken lock, stock, and barrel from a famous "California noir" film. Naturally my lips are sealed.

This film is worth seeing even if, as another commentator said, there is the overly heavy influence of BLADE RUNNER and GATTACA. For one thing, crime doesn't pay, especially if you are a small fish. Moreover, note the social implications/ abuse of new technologies, what an emerging global culture will look like (the espanol and francais being thrown around), and the inhuman gigantism which emerged in the twentieth and will be triumphant in the twenty-first century . . . until, one hopes, refinement settles in after that.

The Dreamers (2003)

Soft porn passing as historical fiction

[16 August 2004]

I was quite taken in, the Spring of '68 in one of the epicentres of 1960s revolutionary consciousness -- Paris --(safer than Prague). THE DREAMERS was a "must see," even advertised in THE NEW YORK TIMES on line service as story headers.

A man of principle would have walked out. This is the "innocent abroad" who becomes involved in a menage a trois with French sophisticates. Lots of confused young people wondering what they are about showing a lot of skin where a story might have been. Oh, yes, the barracades: in the final scene and some location shooting at the beginning, so for a story set in an interesting time according to the come-on, it was a sandwich made backward.

I was very much alive in 1968. NO ONE wore white socks with dark shoes, and certainly not a young guy from San Diego. Unless you are young and want what passes for psychological study mixed with skin, give THE DREAMERS a miss.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

As a teen-ager it "blew me away" in the movie house . . .

[8 August 2004]

and was just as gripping when re-released in 1988. The local P.B.S. station showed it a week ago, I think to thumb their noses at the "re-make" if that thing on steroids can be dignified with the name.

The cinematography was stunning, and the black-and-white gave the film a balefulness from which colour might have distracted. There are some small items which even my uneducated eye caught, however:

• Senator Iselin is rather too much the hapless buffoon, why in a moment. I found the depiction of the character so central to the "plot" hard to swallow. True, the director/ writers wanted to make Mrs Iselin a powerhouse, but it was not necessary to create a flaccid man to make her the puissant woman.

-Raymond was so wooden that he was at times unbelievable (note the fine head of hair rarely mussed), again no doubt to set off his dynamic mother. Almost by way of contradiction, Mr Harvey was a good choice. I recall in BUTTERFIELD 8 that when he tried to show emotion, Harvey always looked like he was going to split a gut, so this unpleasant version of a STAR TREK Vulcan was a role made for him.

• Does anyone REALLY think a woman who meets a border-line mental case in a train is going to give him her address and telephone number? (That said, it is one of the most charming scenes in CANDIDATE.)

Returning to Iselin. The novel was published in 1957, the same year Joseph P. "Tail-gunner Joe" McCarthy died. This story is a satire on McCarthyism! "Tail-gunner" was nothing like Iselin, rather as nasty as the Missus. The thesis turns right-wing paranoia -- a salient feature of American political culture -- on its head, to-wit: how to use American political culture against itself. A jab from the "right" is really a haymaker from the "left." The science fiction angle of post brain-washing manipulation is just the vehicle to make larger social commentary. Note how Americans bend over to make themselves vulnerable to a cynical element "within," a story especially for our times.

De-Lovely (2004)

Great (and more than a little sad).

[7 August 2004]

Save for a very few facts about Cole Porter, and obviously his music, I knew nothing of the subject when tucking into DE LOVELY. For anyone of a musical bent this film is must-see, and the same goes for those interested in an important chapter of American culture.

Porter's music is everywhere in this series of flash-backs embedded in a phantasy, even adding some during the credits for extra measure. I noticed how many of the (mainly older) audience stayed for all of them. The personnel are tours de force, cinematography arresting. For a "portrait of an artist," DE LOVELY is a worthy and less dreary companion to POLLACK.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Alright, "upon rehearing" as in court decisions . . .

[19 July 2004]

perhaps I was just a mite harsh. Part of my "problem" is there is SO much science fiction to-day as opposed to when I was young, well, one becomes stuffy.

Yes, it was spectacular as they tried for an epic. I was unaware there was a previous story which so many of you liked, and apparently RIDDICK was trying to "do it up brown." Yes, as a European commentator said, there was analogy to 20th century nihilistic totalitarianisms. I also assert there is nothing wrong with "escapism," in fact most of literature great and not so great is just that.

What I insist was hackneyed and tiresome were the cardboard characters and ginned up "action," the only way to keep Generation Y awake in their seats. There are not the most focused people, none yet beyond teen-agers, so movies must imitate their computer games to gain an audience.

Perhaps I should see the prior film. I will certainly not see the third of this series. The mountainous dude in black baggy pants with the comic book lines and the naked theft from Ridley Scott and the lithe, super-resourceful heroine . . . quite enough thanks.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Right good -- for a seventeen year old . . .

[18 July 2004]

too bad I am in my fifties and had an afternoon matinee to tempt me. A previous commentator calls RIDDICK a "mediocre mess," but my own reaction differs, as in pure drivel. Of course, one might actually like non-stop "action" to use the euphemism for violence, running around like nuts, and "effects" phantasmagoria.

Allowing the difficulty of coming up with anything really new in s.f., this film has taken from DUNE, ALIEN (+ progeny), INDEPENDENCE DAY, STAR TREK's Borg, and name any Ah-nold movie. The lead is a monotonic hulk in black, cut in the torso to reveal all that upper body mass. The inevitable very liberated kick-'em-in-the-butt heroine has her long black tresses periodically over her face in the most sickening au courrant style -- not what one expects in a penal colony inmate, thanks.

I too was surprised to see the talented Frau Dench in RIDDICK, but must admit being suckered in when seeing the fine Canadian actor Colm Fiore on the bill. He has come a long, long way since playing Prime Minister Trudeau, but the money is a helluva lot better. His rendition of a cardboard evil imperator made me squirm -- for him.

The commentator, supra, expressed irritation with the ending and I concur, a tawdry come-on to a sequel I will not see.

Two notes of mild approbation, too bad wasted on this movie: a) An Islamic society shaped to memories of Earth is clever, a mite like Dune. b) The diurnal changes on the Mercury-like planet were fascinating, although more the coronal effects by its star than the geology/ meteorology of the surface, done for suspense. Look at Mercury. Even if he were closer to the Sun there would not be all that violent weathering with every turn of the planet, and if so, only for a few million years with the surface completely pulverised. One must admit, however, that such a world is new to science fiction, at least to my knowledge. These consideration do not soften my central thesis, however.

The Reckoning (2003)

Not bad, and do not be put off by a cliche title.

[23 June 2004]

I am a sucker for this kind of film, i.e. historical drama in some exotic place (for a North American). There is a lot going on:

The redemption of a fallen padre as exemplar of a Church in need of reformation, a hypothesis about the beginning of western drama -- after all, SOMEBODY had to come up with the idea -- and the strange paths that the human psyche can take when a man presides over society but also cut off from it. Mix this in with a Europe not recovered economically or psychologically from the after-shocks of the Black Death, possibly three, and you have an interesting situation. Then too, there is the mystery story . ...

The physical setting seems meticulously recreated insofar as I can judge as a non-mediaeval scholar. Certainly more than one good woman practised medicine without a license for the people a physician would not bother to see. A sharp-featured nobleman with a Pan's beard in red leather strikes one as much, but as a type specimen he is fascinating. Dafoe is wonderful. Even though a bit "Hollywood," as foretold by the angry dyer the final scene symbolises what is in store for the whole mediaeval order.

Control Room (2004)

Perhaps the Cambridge fellow layed it on thick(ly) . . .

[22 June 2004]

but I too was somewhat disappointed. Yes, the build-up did not match what unfolded. The best one can say is that it may have been put together in haste with often jejune material to strike when the proverbial iron was hot. If anything this documentary gave that "human face" to an organisation often depicted as the Pravda of the Arab world. I would prefer describing it as the Fox News thereof, but Al-Jezeera is more ethno-centric, whilst Fox and its following are more paranoid.

It would be impossible to recommend THE CONTROL ROOM to anyone but the most ardent students of the "mass media." Even then, I am not sure what even undergraduates could take away.

Bon Voyage (2003)

What a rich, energetic film!

[11 June 2004]

I have little to add to the raves and cogent analysis of the Briton below, and I will certainly not re-tell the story. What is there to say?, but there is a multiplicity of characters (incl. cameos of historical figures), all kinds of situations . . . set in a historical events that most people with (my) cursory knowledge of French history would be hazy about.

BON VOYAGE is great film. WHY can I not be cultured like everyone else and know French? To understand this movie, MAN ON THE TRAIN, TIME REGAINED, WIDOW OF ST. PIERRE . . . and on. Yet more evidence of a jejune life, just an intellectual roue.

Run, don't walk. See it.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

I just saw this on the big screen . . .

[10 June 2004]

already in my twenties in 1971. Imagine a plank who had NEVER seen this movie! That would be me, but I was not at my best thirty years ago.

WILLY WONKA is marvellous, a combination of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, DOCTOR WHO, and WIZARD OF OZ. It is a morality tale. It is an eyefull in the best sense before phanstasy movie-makers thought they could -- and should -- carry a film with "effects." As with many lash-up musicals, most of the songs are quite forgettable with the exception of two which make up for it. (The chewing gum song has much to teach the present day.) More or less the theme, the opening number has rightfully entered into popular music. If you can see this performed without a smile, leave the theatre straightaway.

The story operates on two levels, a)for the kinder, b) for the elders.

a) Help your mother. Love and befriend your grand-parents. Play straight with people. (I did ruddy little of the first two, so it hurt a little to watch.)Then, of course, there is the Ultimate Trip of winding up in a candyland!

b) The one-liners and sotto voces. Amid the wit, however, there is a grim note and admonition: Adults as clowns and boors, poor examples. Parents in the post-war era who have raised a race of over-indulged barbarians who deserve to be banished into some Deep Six -- notice who is left standing at the conclusion of the quest, and even he is not without sin. The fabulously self-confidant Herr Wonka is almost undone with disappointment at the poor specimens in whom he had placed his hopes.

The final scene did something to this commentator now far into middle age: it made me wish I had had children. WILLY WONKA is a triumph for Wilder, recently graduated from THE PRODUCERS, something boys and girls ought to see. They should duly bring their parents.

Paycheck (2003)

I too am an "unemployed critic," but . . .

[9 June 2004]

am far less impressed. It is only fair to say, however, that Dick has been getting a lot of cinema credit lately, and that is good.

Too bad PAYCHECK has been reduced to teeny-bopper fare. Affleck was advertised and "smart and sexy," but as a male I am unimpressed. The character is totally unbelievable. Moreover, the knock-out who inevitably becomes his girlfriend, Ph.D. in biology who looks like a cover of COSMOPOLITAN and acts like a Vegas tart -- and really comes through super-liberated in a fight -- is likewise.

I know: what an old foof, you say. He wants his geniuses to look like Jeremy Brett and his heroines to look like Helen Mirren. Well, not quite, but it would be an improvement. This software genius, collar ad, hell-bent motorcycle jockey (for the INEVITABLE car chase) and martial artist is simply too much. The most believable character, not, sorry to say the fine Canadian actor Colm Fiore, is the goofy bearded side-kick and comic relief.

This is pure Generation Y stuff. It is built upon a clever premise and loused up in the delivery and exploiting of "sexy" principals.

Young Adam (2003)

When all else fails . . .

[9 June 2004]

show a lot of skin.

Set in a time and place not usually the stuff of legend, it has its moments, especially cinematically. This North American found the location shooting often arresting and the historical setting relevant to the kinds of people depicted.

Please note, however, that the characters range from the pathetic to the disgusting, no insult to the capable cast. What is annoying -- and I got a belly full with the much ballyhooed THE DREAMERS a few months ago -- is that to be "realistic," or to use the Americanism "gritty," there has to be a LOT of explicit sex. If the story is slow or pointless and the characters unlovable, then throw in lurching orgasms and pubic hair. It at least keeps Generation X awake in their seats. In sum, not for a first date and only for those most devoted to "noir."

Sabrina (1954)

Another original I refuse to see in, uh, . . . "upgrade"

[1 December 2003]

After MANY years gone by, I saw SABRINA last night on a local station's Sunday night classic movie offering. Delightful. You may stop reading here.

There inevitably are some addenda to show how clever I am:

Bogart was working hard, but frankly was seriously mis-cast. His age did not work against him, not at bit of it, but his personality, even his face. I doubt he could smile without looking hardened or sinister, important in much of his work, but not wanted here in romantic comedy. There was the scene coming home in the open car -- his sad line about being ten years younger -- when he looked not like a greying fuddy-duddy wishing he could charm the young beauty next to him, but a thug.

Holden looked much more comfortable than in the more celebrated role in SUNSET BOULEVARD. He also was able to display his athletic prowess.

The title character displayed her considerable charms in costumes daring, if improbable, for the mid-'50s. Those SHORT shorts and the one piece outfit more dance costume than street clothes. Accordingly . . . I could not take my eyes off her.

This is a fine period piece, but allow some social commentary. Bogart's character speaks for the Good Corporation, a philosophy which arose after the Second World War as reaction to the piratical reputation, businessman as callous heavy, that reached apogee in the 1930s. Did he want money? No. He had always had plenty. Power? Rather too vulgar. No, he wanted to use the might of his capital to create a better world. He got to me, this pug-ugly little guy in his plush office. He definitely deserved to Get The Girl.

Invasion, U.S.A. (1952)

Please forgive an aging teen-ager's impressions.

[4 September 2003]

I saw INVASION USA first in theatre in, I think, 1958, a Saturday [Afternoon] Special, and slightly later on television. Boy! Did it blow a thirteen year-old's hair back! America unprepared. Atomic bombers coming over the Pole. The R.C.A. Building sliding into ruin. Street fighting. "Enemy soldiers in American uniforms." A screaming woman with most of one mammary showing leaping to her death to escape . . . you know what. And that ENDING -- blow the [boy] down! The whole week-end I was in a daze.

It is a pity that one compares the enormity of two years ago to a cautionary "message" in this propaganda film. Perhaps if the United States were not spilling so much unnecessary blood in Korea, as she would in the next decade in Indo-China, the unnamed Enemy would not have gotten a leg up so easily. Please do not compare INVASION USA to 11 September, an insult to the latter, the least of which is that this S.F. story tells a frontal assault, while the Tragedy was pure and simple subversion.

This film is a pathetic attempt by "Hollywood" to show how much of a Team Player the industry was -- after coming apart like wet cardboard for the previous five years under Government scrutiny. I understand there was a 1980s movie of the same name which I will not see, a celebration of the Cold War revival of that heady decade. America under the heal. See the N.R.A. paranoia in RED DAWN. Check into Grenada, or Panama, anyone?

Final non-cinema note: Want an excellent 1950s anti-commie thriller? WHEN THE KISSING HAD TO STOP by Constantine FitzGibbon. It was all set up for a film in the early '60s, but the project fell through to the disgust of the talented British novelist.

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

Unlike "Columbus," I am not an anglophile.

[29 August 2003]

Strike it up to Irish ancestry.

In any case, this strangely titled film is excellent. I do not believe this space is appropriate for in extenso relation of plot as do so many other users, but yes, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS is a skillful combination of love story and a "thriller." (There is only one point which leaves me a mite confused from early in the story.) It is also more, a dual commentary important for our time: a) the "immigrant question." b) the implications of a runaway technology.

In "a" we routinely make use of -- as in Use -- people who are otherwise unwanted. DIRTY PRETTY gives such blokes face and a sympathetic hearing. As for "b," before 1970 this would be solid science fiction, called "gritty" per that silly term meaning grim. Hello twenty-first century! Fiction no more . . ..

In broad social commentary this story is depressing. Personal triumphs rising from the mess, however, give us hope.

Seabiscuit (2003)

I cannot compete with Mr. Knipp . . .

[24 August 2003]

who obviously knows film and how to express himself. He even used a word I have never encountered, which is rare. A pleasant aspect of reading comments for works like SEABISCUIT is the insight and true erudition one encounters -- not your standard-issue boob tube zombies.

So said, let me second his motion. This is a fine motion picture which I saw as an after-thought. Speaking as no one's idea of a sports fan, it ranks, or should rank with CHARIOTS OF FIRE. I can think of no point of criticism, but perhaps my sour personality was too carried away, but no, this will not make it with younger people: not enough profanity, tin-pot masculinity, and phantasmagoria to keep them awake. We are after all speaking of Generations X and Y.

This is a time when the "American spirit" has been so cynically twisted that it actually seems suspect. SEABISCUIT is most timely.

1984 (1984)

Could not agree more with poe426

[17 August 2003]

I saw NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR at the last showing of the last day in the theatre, nearly empty. Why? Perhaps by the time this definitive version was made, cinema-goers had been subjected to far more spectacular and exciting stories of the future -- more puissant heroes, more alluring heroines -- with more uplifting endings. Perhaps too by the pregnant year, this film was alternate history made dreary, nastily laid on, and Americans like things sweet.

The 1956 version with, of all actors, Edmund O'Brien as Winston Smith, a movie that fired me up as a teen-ager, really suffers by comparison. It "told the story," and that was all.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR was filmed on location and with a touching eye to authenticity, art imitating the reality we missed, the very springtime when Orwell set his novel, real hommage. I am certain the master would have liked it, and had he as a very old man seen the Hurt and Burton interpretations of his classic characters, the fallen socialist would have said, "Spot on!"

No one does anything alone . . . anymore . . ..

Marcel Proust's Time Regained (1999)

I cannot match many of the other commentators . . .

[10 August 2003]

who seem to know their Proust, their film, or both. That said, I found the film excellent, and the fellow who said it was about boring people leading boring lives, well! How boring can it be when you hear the sounds of ordinance whilst turning out in evening clothes trying to keep a sense of civilisation? Although it might seem disjointed, I am given to understand that Proust's writing was hardly linear, so a motion picture presenting his point of view must perforce be somewhat tangled.

TIME REGAINED, which I had the pleasure of seeing on big screen at the Detroit Institute of Arts, is truly beautiful. One gives not a sou whether it looks "expensive" as another (otherwise thoughtful) commentator says.

Speaking of my fellow reviewers, I just got off the Comments list for 28 DAYS LATER. It is striking how seeming intelligent and articulate the people are who went out of their way to see a French film, trusting in sub-titles, as opposed to those who saw another foreign product because it was going to be scary or a "zombie" movie. One can learn from the TIME REGAINED lot, the same as the motion picture.

I am not that well-read. Maybe when I finish reading that Zola novel I have been working on for over ten years, Proust will be next!

Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

I will not detract from the general approbation.

[10 August 2003]

When this film came out my family would not see such things, but I caught it a long time afterwards on television -- and have the sinking feeling it was cut (naturally). I too think Milland's creation was good, at least as good as NO BLADE OF GRASS eight or nine years later. The premise of YEAR ZERO is more probable, although one might be tempted with naivete au courrant to call it "dated." In a world still armed to the teeth even after the great bi-polar confrontation, never under-estimate the possibility of some ghastly mistake.

What no one seems to have caught in the credits, is that YEAR ZERO is based upon a classic short story which I read as a teen-ager, "Lot's Daughter." The story is substantially different, taking place perhaps ten years after the Ragnorok. The family has been in hiding most of that time living very rough, the mother long dead, and it is mostly a psychological study of father and daughter. The former is part of the old society, still shaken to the bottom of his soul, while the latter is a young woman now and eager to find a new life that does not cower in the bush. The ending is symbolic and sad, unlike the fairly positive close of YEAR ZERO.

The Blob (1958)

Now speaks the consummate politician.

[4 August 2003]

There is no issue so big I cannot straddle it.

Like a previous commentator I too saw THE BLOB as a double with MARRIED A MONSTER just before Christmas 1958. A sensitive child even at thirteen, it scared the hell out of me, and more so my younger tag-along brother. Ten years later I saw it on television -- understanding the marked difference in setting -- and wondered, bemused, why my early adolescent self found it so terrifying.

Part of the effect, as one Hitchcockian commentator said, was not knowing when it would "jump" out at one, what it was up to. Yes, suspense is more potent than always having the horror rubbed in one's face. See ALIEN (1979). Some of the "action," as it is politely called to-day, was shown indirectly, indistinctly. All of the banalities, the drag race, the fussing with parents, somehow heightened my fear. (Yes, a timid boy.)

I make no judgement about the "effects," not being an "effects" zombie. The acting was serviceable for a 'teen movie of the 1950s, at least to my recollection from 1967 or '8, but at that latter day Steve(n) McQueen definitely did carry it off as a teen-ager.

THE BLOB is a good period piece, a horror film with a s.f. gloss to give it legs. In recent decades the very last scene would have been a naked pitch for a sequel.

Suddenly (1954)

Others have discussed SUDDENLY pretty well . . .,

[3 August 2003]

in fact some rather too well with unnecessary plot descriptions. My reactions were mixed, but SUDDENLY is worth seeing for three reasons:

1) Early Sinatra, of course. This is the kind of role he would not, to the best of my knowledge,repeat. My mother has long had a crush on him, an infatuation undimmed when she saw the film with me on P.B.S.

2) This movie is a study of the ideals and point of view of mid-1950s America. SUDDENLY was made after the Hollywood investigations of the later 1940s and whilst the McCarthy Paranoia was still going on. None of the other commentators have noted that item, but one should take note that the studio big-wigs had had the bejaysus scared out of them. American film was not only to refrain from social criticism, but was going to be a cheerleader for the essential rightness of the American Way of Life and character. SUDDENLY oozes this point of view, and I note with amused contempt the very last scene and what the two protagonists say to one another.

3) The film is a foreshadowing of what is to come in a country so sure of its social and political stability, quite accidental to be sure. Yes, the head bad guy is a nutter, but he is not the comfortable one-lone-nutter. This plot is highly organised and obviously well-financed. The unspoken They have turned to a pool of violence that is highly American -- organised crime -- to do the deed. Baron and his plotters are not ill-shaven Marxists or slanty-eyed types. They are as American as the Colt 45, and they are willing to do the unthinkable for enough money, and in the leader's case, the simple thrill of bagging someone.

I do not know whether SUDDENLY "rises" to the level of Film Noir, but it had some disturbing things for postWar Americans. Perhaps that is why it is not well known in the Sinatra gallery, and indeed I had never heard of it until about six years ago.

Northfork (2003)

Please understand . . .

[2 August 2003]

I see a number of "off beat" films for one who does not live in one of the cultural poles or a university town. The term of art nowadays is "indie." So unsophisticated am I that "indie" left me initially mystified. Please know too that I am not some attention challenged specimen of Gen X -- or worse Y -- who needs steamy sex, car chases, and multi-coloured phantasmagoria to make me part with the price of admission.

Drawn to NORTHFORK on slender knowledge but an interest in the purported subject, I was left ossified with boredom, annoyed with the patent attempts, mostly successful, to "weird me out," and the anti-colour whilst filming in colour for exaggerated effect. One should not dismiss the beautiful relationship between priest and sick boy for its instructional value. (Nolte, fine actor, needed a haircut desperately for 1955, if you please.) That plot line aside, the rest could politely called "surreal," but as I said upon arriving home, "I would give my worst enemy my life savings to shoot me in the head, rather than see this film again."

Perhaps if I watched again . . . slowly . . . it might yield more as second viewings often do. See the paragraph above, however. Sorry if I gave offense. We need more films without Bruce Willis or the like.