Reviews

There have been many recreations of this great novel, but I believe that this version is the best and the truest to the original. Sir Carol Reed made an Oscar winning version based on the Broadway musical but no film has succeeded in conveying the grim tale that Dickens was telling in this work.

It is in essence an horrific tale of child abuse and the crushing poverty of the early Industrial Revolution. As a boy Dickens was a witness to and a victim of this and he never forgot.

Lean created a number of stunning scenes to bring the novels's world to life: the scene where Oliver's mother struggles through a terrible storm to a dim refuge where she can bring her baby to life, the brutal beating of Nancy, the horrific slum where much of the action takes place, and the pursuit of Bill Sykes through that slum by the outraged citizens.

Robert Newton is unforgettable as the murderous Sykes. Young Anthony Newley does a great job as the Artful Dodger, and Alec Guinness's is the epitome of evil as the always scheming Fagin. Since Reed's film there has been an attempt to portray Fagin as a charming con man. The Disney cartoon tried to make him into almost a protector of the boys. But Lean has none of this. He sticks to Dickens. Fagin is the worst of the worst an abuser of children, a. Tutor in crime who if unchecked would lead the boys to ruin for his own profit.

But it is not even Fagin who is the worst of all. It is the society that created him, merciless, pompous, unforgiving.

A matchless film with a great director leading a stellar cast,

An abuser of the boys introducing them to a life of crime. Even Sykes has a moment of conscience or at least of guilt. Fagin has none.

Two outstanding British Directors each made his own film about an a classic novel by the greatest British novelist, Charles Dickens. Both movies were highly acclaimed at the time of their respective release dates. The Oliver Reed version won the Academy Award for best picture.in 1968. David Lean's 1948 film was a huge critical and popular success. I believe that Lean's film was much stronger.

Reed's picture had a strong cast and was based on a successful musical. I believe that the decision to make Oliver as a musical with catchy tunes and impressive choreography was a mistake. Maybe a grim Andrew Lloyd style musical would have worked, But this perky 60's version ultimately betrays the story.. The decision to portray into a charming rogue is to me a disaster. The story of Oliver Twist is ultimately one of shocking child abuse and Fagin is at the heart of the nightmare. Fagin in the Dickens tale is worse than the murderous Bill Sykes. Carol Reed use all of his considerable skill to try and pull this off, but it leaves me feeling unsatisfied.

This is a fun movie. It does not deserve a less than 6 rating. Yes, it has the staunch hero ( Roger Moore) the noble, courageous working man foreman, (Simon Sabella) the beautiful heroine (appropriately blonde Susana York) and the scurrilous greedy capitalist villains. But it is perfectly cast. The story moves, the script is good as far as it goes, one it tells a lot about the gold mining industry and how dangerous mining is. Also the theme song was great

The reason we have cliches is that they are quite effective crowd pleasers when they work. I saw it in the moves in '74 and saw it recently on TV. Liked it both times.

My father came from a sulphur mining town in Sicily. It was dangerous work, But I don't think that A movie called "Sulphur" would have had the seem initial drawing power.

Because Stanley Kubrick created so many masterpieces some viewers tend to overate this movie. It's pretty good but it is almost a remake of John Huston's "Asphalt Jungle'. Perhaps some reviewers are unfamiliar with the earlier classic. Huston film had a better sense of character and a much grittier story. Kubrick certainly did a credible job and of course Stirling Hayden, brilliant in the Huston film was very effective here. Kubrick's ending seems a little rigged but I will not disclose it for obvious reasons.

Perhaps Kubrick intended this as an homage. To me he didn't seem to add much. On the other hand, standing on its own it remains an entertaining movie.

Start with the positive. The acting is quite good the scenes are beautiful. There was in fact a rivalry between Baroness Abigail and Lady Sarah Churchill. Yes Lord Marlborough and his wife were the historic ancestors of Winston Churchill. Marlborough was one of the great generals of his era, but his wars nearly bankrupted Britain.

But the rest is just an excuse to tell a pornographic joke. It is very unlikely that poor Queen Anne after 17 miscarriages and wracked by disease had the energy, or desire to carry on two torrid lesbian love. Also she was reputed to be a woman of conventional morals.

By the way her husband Prince George was still around and lived with his wife, Where was he when all this was going on?

Also Sarah's husband Marlborough had strong politcal opposition, but he after the "events" depicted in the film he did manage to build Blenheim Palace, the ancestral Churchill home, Alright maybe no-one cares about 18th century history, but this is just modern trash attempting to normalize a cynical hyper sexualized Hollywood world view . I'm just tired of it no matter how pretty the package is.

A lot of fun. Even dead serious Star Wars or Star Trek should enjoy this fun remake of The Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven. The cast is first rate. George Peppard, Robert Vaughn, Richard Thomas, John Saxon not to mention Sybil Danning. Too bad Corman didn't build one of his patented schlock low brow space epics around her to rival Caroline Munro in Starcrash or Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Although his one is actually good.

The thing I like about it is that it doesn't take it self too seriously. It shows that when he has a mind to Corman is up to making solid if not classic films. His Edgar Allen Poe films particularly with Vincent Price were serious attempts at horror.

They recently did a Honey West marathon on the "Decades" .channel. It brought back memories. I was 15 years old when when the series premiered and I fell in love with Anne Francis immediately. She was so alluring yet tough and daring too. She wasn't affraid to use her sex appeal, but she was quite capable of taking out a male tough guy if the game got rough. Her co-star amd on screen partner John Ericsson was also very good. He and Honey gave the impression that they might be having a relationship, but you sensed that he was looking for a more a more exclusive one.

The show did have problems though. Anne's spectacular blonde good looks cried out for a color version rather than a black & white one. The format should have been an hour rather than 1/2 hour to build up the villains and create an atmosphere of danger. The stunt work was fair but not great. Sometimes you could see that stunt doubles were working. The fight scenes were okay, but those scenes were done better in the Diana Rigg version of the British series "The Avengers". Despite this the scripts were good at first, but but became weaker as the series continued. What saved the show was the beautiful and talented Ms. Francis I believe the show was almost renewed ,possibly with an Improved format, but mediocre ratings against tough competition, and more importantl the fact that the British "Avengers" with better scripts, could be gotten moore cheaply doomed renewal. Too bad.

This show just didn't make it. Being in the legal profession for nearly 50 years I try avoid carping criticism based on legal technicalities. For example, I think "The Verdict" with Paul Newman was a great drama, although it was not without inaccuracies in terms of its portrayal of the litigation process.

Anatomy is another story. Its problems relate to the plot devices that lead to a ridiculous ending. The first three episodes started well enough. Typical of British Productions the acting was top notch and the dialogue was witty. After that it was all downhill. Without giving away the details, it turns out that the story turns on a ridiculous twist that is impossible to accept. The ending was simply ludicrous. Oddly enough there were a few simple changes in the plot twists that could have rendered the whole story acceptable and believable.

Anyway if you wish to see a legal drama that starts with the word Anatomy I suggest Otto Preminger's great "Anatomy of a Murder" with Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, George C Scott et al.

As a boy of about 10 I watched this show. I still remember the players - Sammy Snead, Arnold Palmer etc. My personal favorited was Dr. Cary Middlecoff. We lived in an apartment building in Queens. Behind the building there was a driveway with a row of garages. This was the 50's and people lived on a very regular schedule. The men used the cars to get to work in the morning. If their wives had cars they parked them in the street. So the driveway wasn't used much during the day. I set up a golf course in the driveway that ran from 203rd to 204th street. Their were covered drains on each end of the driveway. These served as the holes. For a year golf was big. The boys played it when we didn't have school. There was no course membership fees. (I should have thought of that). Oddly enough after my brief career I never played golf again.

I know this film is not to everyone's taste but I regard it as a masterpiece. Nevertheless I understand why many critics panned the movie. Some found the cameo appearances of major stars in small roles as disturbing. John Wayne's part as the Centurion at the crucifixion was particularly criticized. The pace was regarded as too slow. The casting of Scandinavian star Max von Sydow as the Semetic Jesus was also criticized, as was the use of spectacular locations from the American West instead of the more drab authentic Middle East. I am more taken by the visual nature of the film. George Stephens was clearly trying to emulate the great tradition of Western Art surrounding the Gospels, and I believe he succeeded. The framing, the color, and lighting were among the most beautiful in movie history. Many scenes left an unmatched impression as if we were walking through a moving fine arts museum. As the film grows older the star cameos will be less disturbing. (They never bothered me). Younger movie goers won't recognize many of the stars of my era anyway. I thought von Sydow was excellent even though he wasn't wasn't the right ethnic type. I found the overall treatment appropriate to the sacred theme. I prefer it Nicholas Ray's more popular King of Kings with equally blue eyed Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. But I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea. So while I loved it I would recommend it particularly to someone prepared to enjoy a slower film of great artistic beauty.

On seeing it again I have come to the conclusion that this film is an underrated masterpiece. The location shooting is marvelous. Post WWII New York is not merely the backdrop for the movie it is the principle character. I mean by that that for instance the Lower East Side with its crowded streets and colorful residents, the austere gun metal majesty of the Williamsburg Bridge, children playing now forgotten street games, the various tradesmen, icemen, street sweepers, old Essex Street Market, the row houses of Jackson Heights, etc., all lend a character and authenticity to the story of two brutal murders connected to a jewelry theft ring. The location shooting has an archeological quality. The film was made around the time of my birth, I can remember the last of the vendors with the horse drawn wagons and the other incidents of City life from that era, many of them now gone. Barry Fitzgerald's performance as the wise old Lieutenant in charge of a homicide squad whose experience has given him a melancholy and even sympathetic understanding of the foibles of the human character. The memorable performance by the parents as they come to identify their dead daughter. The mother in particular is a brilliantly drawn character. A number of walk-ons went on to greater success. Look for James Gregory, who went on to have important parts in The Manchurian Candidate,and the TV police/comedy series Barney Miller and countless other roles, as the beat cop in Long Island City, Paul Ford detective, later the Colonel in the Phil Silvers Sgt. Bilko series, the great character actor Arthur O'Connell (Anatomy of a Murder, Picnic, Bus Stop) in a part so brief you might not even notice him. Nehemiah Person whom I did not even see. All with uncredited parts. The young co-star Don Taylor as Detective Halloran went on to become a director, you might remember him as Elizabeth Taylor's fiancee Buckley in Father of the Bride. There are even two Janes form the Tarzan series, Enid Markey from the silents, and Dorothy Hart the female lead who would co-star with Lex Barker. In my mind just a great film.

If you are not a baseball fan or if you are familiar only with the legends surrounding Ty Cobb you may enjoy this film. As a film I found it tiresome. I felt that Tommy Lee Jones, a great actor, was over the top playing an admittedly outlandish character.But the real problem with the film is it just isn't true. It's really not the director's or script writer's fault. The problem lies with the source material. Mr Stump spent aome time with Cobb but a lot of his work written after Cobb died is a pack of lies. Ty Cobb was a tough perhaps over the top competitor and a lot of his contemporaries resented that. Also he was jealous of some of his rivals particularly Babe Ruth who changed the game from the style which Cobb had excelled in, but he was not nearly the racist that he appeared in the film. He stated that talented black athletes should be allowed to compete with whites. He greatly admired Willie Mays and Roy Campanella. Before integration he frequently went to Negro League games and occasionally threw out the first ball. Stump had a bad reputation among other writers for plagiarism, historical inaccuracy, and was even accused of forging or stealing Ty Cobb memorabilia. Much of his work was discredited in a much better book that came out recently "Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty" by Charles Leershen. Cobb was no saint. He was certainly a "wild child" from Georgia. But he wasn't the monster depicted in this film.

Wonderful film. The locale and time frame of this modern crime film/western is similar to "No Country for Old Men", but, despite the fact that I admire the work of the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy, I think it is a much better movie. It is less contrived and Jeff Bridges is allowed to remain true to his character. Although actually filmed in nearby Eastern New Mexico it presents a moving portrait of the realities of West Texas. The poor white working class, which never heard of "white privilege", the predatory lending practices of local banks, the resentment of the descendants of the Comanches "lords of the plains",and the ethos of the Texas Rangers. At the same time it manages to spin an excellent action adventure yarn without drowning the movie in car chases and gunfights. Jeff Bridges is excellent as the old Texas Ranger, as is his partner a half Mexican half Comanche played by Alberto Parker. Chris Power and Ben Foster are terrific as the two brothers one desperate, the other crazy who come up with a pretty smart but very risky plot to right an old wrong. Two cameos by a couple of tough waitresses are wonderful. The script is understated, witty, and deals with a panoply of social issues without being wordy or preachy. The direction is crisp and focused. The cinematography make great use of the spare dry Southwestern landscape. I believe you will enjoy this exciting and moving film.

By way of movie criticism I have little to add. The film is well acted, edited and directed. The script does its best to explain complicated stock market transactions to the average intelligent viewer. I am hardly an expert in the field, but there is one item not emphasized enough in the film. I am a resident of Bronx Count, New York. My job led me to dealt with mortgage foreclosure in the Bronx. The typical victims were somewhat naive people who were first home buyers. (Not all some were just crooks). Unscrupulous mortgage brokers who talk people into over mortgaging their new homes. A strong force encouraging this was the Federal Government. With the goal of increasing "minority" (word "minority" has little meaning in the Bronx where the white population is about 10%). home ownership. FANNYMAE other federally controlled financing vehicles encouraged the banks and mortgage financiers to make very risky loans. In one case I handled a broker got a mortgage for an individual for $200,000.00, which was barely covered by the equity in the home. When the owner had trouble making payments the broker obtained a mortgage for 350.000.00. Wiping out the previous mortgage debt. When that loan was in trouble, he obtained a mortgage for $450,000.00. These loans were actually bought by two major banks and financing was assisted by the Feds. They were bundled by them into a toxic security package. Finally the bubble burst and the loan went into foreclosure, The home turned out to be worth the initial $200,000.00. The point is that the Feds weren't just asleep at the switch, as the movie shows. They actively made the problem worse through their "good intentions".

Wonderful little film from post WW2 Britain. After the World War Europe and America were exhausted, It became the era of the "little film". In the US there was "film noir", in Italy "neo realism", France and Britain shared in the movement. Beyond the crime pictures there were the slice of life films that focused on the lives and problems of ordinary people. "It Always Rains on Sunday" combines both themes. There is the criminal element and there is the focus on day to day living in a mixed industrial/ residential neighborhood, the East End of London, reminiscent of neighborhoods in post war New York. It manages to tell a story involving inter related lives. Every character is treated sympathetically but the film is by no means sentimental. Even the ostensible villain, Tony Snow becomes a sympathetic character. Amoral, but ultimately more sinned against than sinning, only at the end do we see the depths of his desperation. We come to understand and empathize with all the characters as we view them trying to deal with problems of existence in a tough unforgiving world. The two leads in particular give wonderful performances. that can be overwhelming. A must see for film lovers.

I was totally charmed by this film particularly by the performances of Jane Fonda and Lois Nettleton. Then I thought the style sounded familiar and I saw that it really was a Tennessee Williams play. It was not anything like his great dark masterpieces "Glass Menagerie", "Streetcar Named Desire" etc., and yet i saw a theme consistent with his other works. Although Williams' sexual orientation was famously opposite, he never ceased to explore the power of heterosexuality and its strength as the source of creation. Even in "Streetcar" it is apparent that Stanley Kowalski and Stella really love each other. In the play (but not the movie) they are eventually reconciled as the baby asserts it's presence. Submission to that strong urge is really the theme of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". The performances are top notch. Tony Franciosa from my old Italian neighborhood of East Harlem was quite adept at playing Southerners as was my fellow Fordham University alumnus John MciIver. Serious issues are confronted and us poor males, trying to live up to the demands of machismo are shown sympathy by the truly admirable young women characters who reveal that love and understanding are what they truly expect.

I liked the movie. I thought Denzel Washington was excellent until I shut it off in disgust in the middle. Why? Because the film makers lied in the middle of the movie. They purport to show that Hurricane Carter was robbed of the middleweight title by racist judges. The problem is I saw the fight. It was against a tough Italian American boxer from Philadelphia - Joey Giardello, the reigning champ. There was a head butt, probably unintentional, in one of the early rounds. It opened up a cut over Giardello's eye. Nevertheless, for the rest of the fight Giardello gave Carter a boxing lesson. The decision in favor of Giardello was clearly correct and not controversial at the time. I have no gripe against Carter, when asked about the fight he said without hesitation that Giardello won the fight. I believe that the producers had to make a settlement in Giardello's favor. Why does liberal Hollywood not just stick to the facts when recounting recent history. They are obsessed with racism whether real or imagined, I lost all respect for the producer, director and all parties involved except for Carter who remained true to the code of the athlete and gave proper credit to his opponent.

I believe this is a great film, one of Don Siegle's best. Some reviewers did not appreciate the two plots. They thought the Henry Fonda story line was soapy. Actually the contrast between the two plots was the central theme of the movie. The first shot is of the old New York Central train (now Metro North) emerging from the underground to the elevated tracks. It sets the tone. You're still on Park Avenue but you're leaving the wealthy Upper East Side and entering East Harlem which in those days was a tough Italian American neighborhood (my old neighborhood) now known as Spanish Harlem. Fonda, once a street cop is now Police Commissioner his world is among the elites of the City. Widmark and Harry Guardino are two hard nosed detectives who were embarrassed by a psycho who took their guns and then killed another officer. Now they have to track him down. The difference between the two worlds and the different types of decisions that have to be made is what the film is about. The cast is excellent Fonda, scrupulously by the book, Widmark who throws the book away to do what's required of him James Whitmore. the more human Chief of Department, Guardino and the luminous Inger Stevens, the brilliantly filmed final gunfight all make for an unforgettable film.

This movie could have been much better,but I don't agree with the critic who called it a bomb. Celeste Yarnall was the best "jungle Girl" since Irish McCalla as the 1st TV Sheena, and Robert Walker Jr. was a nice choice to play the young male lead. Herbert Lom could have made an excellent villain if they had let him ham it up more. but Christopher Lee was more or less wasted as her grandfather. THe cast was good and the basic plot had been used before to good effect. The problem was that the middle of the movie was a waste of time. Odd because based on the ending they had obviously planned a sequel. Some good scenes and Ms Yarnall was far superior to Tanya Roberts in the big budget "Sheena", but if you aren't a fan of this kind of thing maybe you should pass it by.

Since I've reviewed a couple of Grade B Jungle Movies I'll try my hand at this one. I liked it a lot. The Gorceys and Huntz Hall always cracked me up. I regard this as one of their better late outings. Leo Gorcey's malaprops are there in all their glory. My favorite, "Africa, the dark condiment". Louie Dombrowski (Leo's dad Bernard in real life) from the sweet shop bringing his luggage on safari, jungle girl Laurette Luez' ridiculous fight with the stuffed lion to save Satch, most of all the wonderful chemistry between Slip Mahoney (Leo) and Satch(Hall). The thing moves. It doesn't let you think. They paid attention to little things, particularly casting. Laurette Luez is a vision as the Jungle Girl Onata and Clint Walker's cameo as a Tarzan type is priceless. Too bad they didn't make a real Tarzan movie with those two in the lead. Also look for the great Woody Strode as one of the native bearers. Apparently not all of the reviewers were crazy about the flick. It's a matter of taste, but it certainly works for me for me.