Reviews

This was the first Star Trek episode I ever saw, as an 11 year old. I wasn't even supposed to be out of bed. I became hooked on science fiction based on realistic science.

But the real value of this episode is to demonstrate that Lt. Uhura was not just the simple 'switchboard operator' as posited by the more brainless feminists. Uhura was a communications engineer, capable of performing repairs and adjustments to the electronics of her equipment -- just as in the episode "The Naked Time", she took over the navigation station from Reilly, showing that all bridge officers were cross-trained for various duties.

Not sure who the target audience was supposed to be here. A movie starring minors, yet the cursing, references to sex and drugs were certain to garner an R rating.

Beyond that, the only funny part in this was that these tweeners couldn't open a child-proof drug bottle.

I saw the 1979 version first, and recently both this and the Redux version. The original is a much more powerful film so I'll address it first.

First off, this is not a movie about the grunt experience. It's a sweeping overview of the entire war, filtered through the experience of one airborne Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen), assigned to a special mission to off a renegade Special Forces colonel (Marlon Brando).

This film covers in short vignettes many of the contradictions of Vietnam: 1. The opening scenes deal obliquely with the difficulties of Vietnam vets in dealing with life back home. 2. The contradiction between bombing peasants out of their homes and relocating them while telling them that "we are here to help you!". 3. The distinction between the US forces bringing massive firepower onto positions against guerrillas that bring down expensive helicopters with suicide attacks with grenades. 4. The relative luxury of US soldiers in the field (with radio, tapes, dope, motorcycles, booze, flown-in steaks, surfboards, and Playboy centerfold shows) vs. the Viet Cong R&R consisting of "cold rice and rat meat". 5. The refusal of American military and political leadership to recognize that the conflict could only be settled by total war or political settlement, or that the Viet Cong movement was not linked seriously to either Soviet or Chinese Communism.

"Apocalypse Now" delivers these messages in a series of powerful visual montages: the opening scene with the 'thwock-thwock' of chopper rotors melting into the sound of an overhead fan; quiet, peaceful looking rainforest exploding under a napalm attack; the exquisite charge of an airborne unit descending on a VC village in a hail of bullets and Wagner; a quiet boat ride upriver interrupted by hell breaking loose in gunfire, or the sight of the tail section of a downed B-52 rising up out of the fog.

But the key line of the movie is the one delivered by Brando: "You're neither (an assassin or a soldier). You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill." A brilliant summary of the US Army brass at that time.

The movie leaves open the question of whether Kurtz was truly insane, or whether he simply went beyond his purview because he recognized that the only way to defeat the Viet Cong was to be as brutally committed as they were -- that is, total war and obliteration, which would have been politically unacceptable to the US public.

The 1979 version is one of my favorite movies of all time.

The Redux version is an excellent example of why movies are edited. It includes a couple of sexually-based episodes, one with the Playboy girls in an abandoned medevac unit, the other with a group of French colonists. I'm as much of a fan of seeing female nudity as the next guy, but neither scene advances the story, so it was wise to delete them.

There is also an extended scene involving a funeral for 'Clean' and a dinner with a group of French plantationers expounding on the pre-history of the US involvement. I can see that it also would have been a distraction from the feel of the movie, which is a shame because I suspect even now that few Americans know about what happened prior to US entry and how the US supported the Viet Minh (later Viet Cong) to fight against the Japanese in WW II. (Sound familiar?)

The one real mistake in the movie was including Dennis Hopper as the spaced-out photojournalist hanging out with Kurtz. I love Hopper, but his character was totally unnecessary here. Laurence Fishburne is remarkably unrecognizable as the skinny boat gunner Clean. And Robert Duvall chews up the scene as the AirCavalry colonel.

How to review a motion picture that was produced 75 years before I first see it? Other reviewers have covered the main points and flaws of this film in previous posts, so I'll just go with a few perceptions that haven't been discussed already.

For those expecting a rousing musical, this film will disappoint. The musical numbers, while visually flashy, are mostly static, lacking the energy of a Busby Berkeley number, for example. The most dramatic is the "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" sequence near the midway point. The visuals for the numbers are spectacular, but the development is very slow compared to other musicals. Ray Bolger has the best individual dance number, an impressive display of physicality. Fanny Brice has a disappointingly short, but spirited role.

Some have called the movie excessively long, but covering the 40-year career of a Broadway legend is a lengthy exercise. Only a couple of scenes (such as the reunion with the grown-up little girl who took piano lessons from Ziegfeld's father) could have been deleted safely.

Was Ziegfeld a mad genius or a foolhardy dreamer? The film leaves that question up in the air. We know that he had a knack for finagling his way out of tight situations, as well as an eye for talent and for beautiful women. His philandering is dealt with obliquely (thanks to the Hayes code). Most telling was a meeting between Aubrey Daniels (Virginia Bruce) and Anna Held (Luise Rainer) in which Daniels shows off the jewelry given by Ziegfeld; Rainer's reaction to the similarity between the jewelry and that bought for her by Ziegfeld is a lesson in awareness and emotional finesse. (The bracelet shown in this scene in fact appeared on the wrists of Held, Daniels, and Billie Burke (Myrna Loy) ) in different parts of the film.)

The end of the film must have held some significance to viewers at the time. Ziegfeld's financing of his last productions was undermined by the 1929 stock market crash. This must have had some resonance with the audience. One might ask if the end of the film was meant to evoke sympathy from the audience for some of the wealthier victims of the crash.

Given that we probably know a bit more about Ziegfeld's life now than the typical moviegoer in 1936, this was probably a very satisfactory review of his life then. I don't think it really merited a Best Picture Oscar, but we know how show biz people love movies about themselves.