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633 Squadron (1964)
Boys' Own Style Flying Movie with Classic Theme Music
I used to love watching this movie when I was a kid. It is real Boys' Own stuff, just like those British booklet-sized war comics that Baby Boomers loved to read as boys. That's why it may not stand up well to audiences today: stereotypical stiff-upper-lipped characters not to mention pretty basic special effects. As other reviewers have said, it takes a few historical liberties. It doesn't pretend to be a docudrama like Dambusters. Despite all that, it's still good enough to keep you awake on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I don't think it deserves the really poor reviews given by some contributors and aviation purists.
I was crazy about flying way back when, and the sight of all those magnificent de Haviland Mosquitoes flying flat out in formation at tree top level dodging fjords etc was quite thrilling. The theme music was very exciting too, and still is. When I hear it, I still see those Mosquitoes roaring along. It's so evocative, full of movement and aerial daring-do. It remains a classic movie theme, just like the ones from The Magnificent Seven or A Big Country. Maybe a case of a movie theme that is much more memorable than the movie it was written for. At the very least, check it out on Youtube.
The lead actors do an uninspired but workmanlike job though the young "Norwegian" pilot looks about as Scandinavian as Victor Mature. He was more convincing as a Greek member of Gregory Peck's raiding party in The Guns of Navarone. If you're looking for deep characterization and Shakespearean insights, you'll be disappointed. And being made for the American market too, there's the obligatory romantic complication shoehorned into the plot.
The only really silly thing about the movie is the ending. Air Vice Marshal Davis, played by Harry Andrews, waits for 633 Squadron to return from its near suicidal mission. Waiting in his staff car at the airfield, one of his underlings announces the terrible truth, that the entire squadron has been shot down with all crews probably dead. (Incidentally, did this EVER happen to an RAF squadron anywhere?) He pontificates with, "You can't kill a squadron." The viewer is tempted to shout, "Well, they bloody well have!" Then he is chauffeured off, with exaggerated gravitas, presumably to attend a "please explain" meeting with his superiors that may end in early forced retirement. Or maybe he's wondering where the dickens he's going to find twelve new Mosquitoes and crews. Don't you know there's a war on, Air Vice Marshal!
If you've never seen this movie and you feel like a bit of uncomplicated, old-fashioned entertainment with some thrilling aerial photography and great theme music, you won't be disappointed. Just don't expect a winged Lukas or Spielberg production.
Yûsei ôji (1959)
So Bad It's Good: Baby Boomer Late Night Nostalgia
I won't waste space repeating what other reviewers have so ably said already. This movie is dear to me as it is pure nostalgia for a Baby Boomer. In the 1960s, my brother and I would use our reel-to-reel audio tape to record the soundtrack of those dreadful Japanese movies they would play late at night on Sydney TV. (Channel 10, I think.) Those were the days well before VCR recorders. One night, we recorded Prince of Space and never tired of playing it back, howling of course at the ridiculous lost-in-translation dialogue. I don't remember a lot of the movie but certain lines and situations stand out strongly:
1. How absurdly timid Professor Macken was after being kidnapped by the Phantom of Krankor - always cowering. Whoever played him must have excelled at the Tokyo Academy of Overacting. 2. How long the fight scenes dragged on between Prince of Space and the bad guys. 3. The manic, sadistic look of glee on the Prince's face as he knocks the bad guys around; he's really enjoying the biff and pain he causes! 4. How the Prince king hits a bad guy who flies into the wall,when it is actually a limp dummy and the guide wire is laughably visible. 5.Professor Macken (cowering): "Where's my chauffeur?" Phantom: (disdainfully) "You can't expect me to keep track of your worthless servants. I shot him out of an air lock about an hour ago. By now, he's probably on a star!" (followed by sadistic false laughter) 6. A house-proud Phantom showing Professor Macken over his home planet: "I have many wonders to show you: my castle, cut from the living rock, my Giant Guardian, and so forth." (My brother and I still use that line when we want to show anything new.) 7. How the "giant guardian" looked like a punch drunk sumo wrestler needing a bit of extra cash, even appearing in a turkey like this. 8. The insufferable kids,dubbed with such squeaky annoying voices, and their immortal lines at the conclusion: Kid 1:"One day, I'll drive a car as fine as the one he drives". Kid 2: "And I'll make clothes that glow." Kid 3: "Big foe(?) too!"
All in all, I should thank the actors, writers and crew who brought us this delightfully awful and side-splittingly silly movie. Arigato!!
Ninja butai gekkô (1964)
So Unintentionally Funny: Low Budget Howler
Even as kids, we thought this Japanese TV series was a laugh. Just so cheap and hokey. We changed the opening sequence to, "You shouldn't have shot him. Always remember, bullets cost two yen a piece". And their Leader, Phantom Agent Fantar, became Phantom Leader Fat Arse. 'Nuff said. Almost.
What do I remember? The crew of Phantom Agents, complete with the token female and apprentice child agent, (the latter being taught the gentle art of garroting, shooting, knifing etc.), their cheesy commando uniforms making them look like drop outs from the Israeli Army, motoring around Japan in their huge, lurching open top Yank Tank convertible. Lots of scenes shot in cold, flat, gravelly wilderness areas that looked like Tokyo garbage dumps. Clumsy in and out camera shots. (Maybe caused by frozen photographers' hands.)Interior shots (usually cheap,easy-to-find warehouses)where you can see the frost on the hapless actors' breath. Obviously heating was not in the budget. Nor a real studio. I wonder how many actors and extras had to be treated for hypothermia and frostbite.
If you want to see what a big budget home movie looks like, watch Phantom Agents. But unlike Peter Jackson's funny but ridiculously shoestring budget "In Bad Taste", this one actually tries to be taken seriously.
And the hokey theme tune that sounded like it was plagiarised from Paul Anka's theme for "The Longest Day". La la la, la la la la......
And who came up with the organization of evil called "Snig Zee", and its minions, the "Black Flags".
"The Samurai" TV series on Channel 9 attained cult status with us Aussie baby boomer kids, and it inspired a whole generation of us to fashion star knives from bottle tops, and fantasize about being ninjas. Eger ninjas, that is, not the evil Koga ninjas. But Phantom Agents? It came later when Channel 7 tried to cash in on "The Samurai"'s success, but even kids have standards.
Captain Midnight (1954)
See the TV show that inspired Roger Ramjet
As an Australian baby boomer kid in the early 1960s, Jet Jackson was eagerly watched after school on Channel 9. Yes, we too noticed how the actors' lips were out of sync whenever they said, "Jet Jackson". The myth sprang up that this was because it was too close to the 19th Century Australian bushranger (outlaw), Captain Moonlight. Now we now the truth - all about ownership rights to the original name after the show lost its original sponsor.
Now of course, Jet Jackson's adventures would be a great source of amusement,with its ra-ra Cold War rhetoric, and its earnest hand-on-heart patriotism that amuses us irreverent Aussies. Well maybe irreverent Americans too - I'm sure Jet Jackson inspired that great cartoon satire, Roger Ramjet. Jet had the Secret Squadron; Roger had the American Legion.
Jet Jackson's plane was definitely called The Silver Dart, and one of the oft-repeated lines was, "Icky, warm up the Silver Dart!" Sometimes they headed for the jungle but it was never shown quite how Ickabod Mudd (with two Ds) and Jet Jackson landed their jet/rocket powered plane in aforesaid jungle. Nor was it ever explained how just three people, Jet Jackson, the comic relief Ickabod Mudd and Tutt, the nerdy, bespectacled scientist, were able to run their secret base high on a lonely hill, nor what business or legacy allowed Jet Jackson to be the mega-wealthy, patriotic citizen defending our freedom against the enemies of America and the Free World. Same as how the Daily Planet, "a great metropolitan daily newspaper", was run by just four people: Clarke, Lois, Jimmy the kid,and cranky old editor Perry White.
Some Jet Jackson scenes will remain with me forever: I remember that the word "Russia" was taboo. In one scene, Jet Jackson was warning his listeners at a meeting that they were under grave threat from "a certain country, and I don't have to tell you what that country is." Lichtenstein? Burkina-Faso? Costa Rica? Of course, no one at the meeting says, "Oh, you don't mean Russia?"
In another scene, the baddies have Jet trapped in an ice works, and he is flapping around, desperately staving off freezing to death. He notices that blocks of ice are being dispensed by a vending machine outside. He takes out some wire and breaks it into pieces. What on earth is our hero doing? (Is this what inspired McGyver?)He fashions these into three characters, "SQ1", his code sign (naturally No. 1) in the Secret Squadron, and places it on the ice block. Outside, a little old lady who looks like Tweedie Pie's mother puts her nickel into the machine. To her astonishment, the ice block comes out with "SQ1" on it. Then she whips out her mini radio, and pulls out the aerial. You see, Granny is also a member of the Secret Squadron! Putting 2 and 2 together, (or rather S and Q and 1), like a trooper, she barks out,"SQ674 (or similar) calling SQ3!" SQ3 is Tutt and the old girl saves Jet, and Icky too, I think.There were no problems with coverage in those pre-transistor days.
It got a bit racist too. In one episode, Jet is flying in the Silver Dart next to his passenger, a Chinese gent whom our hero trusts as a freedom loving ally. However, it turns out that he is a dirty Commie who pulls out a gun and demands Jet fly him to his dirty Commie masters. Jet then pushes the stick forward and puts the Silver Dart into a vertical dive. The gun-toting Commie rat, either by virtue of his Commieness or Chineseness, or perhaps both, goes into overacting panic, then conveniently has a massive heart attack and dies. What a woos. Jet literally scares the yellow, spineless rat to death. The steely jawed Jet then pulls the Silver Dart out of the dive, a victor in this game of playing Chicken with the Dirty Commies, and thus demonstrating his moral, physical and perhaps racial superiority. Heady stuff.
The star Richard Webb certainly took himself very seriously. I wasn't surprised to learn that many years later, he had a bit too much to drink on an airliner and insisted to the flight crew that one of the other passengers was a Commie agent and must be arrested. Poor old Dickie was restrained and taken off the plane by police. "This way, Mr Webb. Those dirty Commies won't bother you any more!" Even as a kid, I got the impression that the actors who played Icky and Tutt must have found him difficult to work with. They were there for, respectively, comic relief and scientific credibility. Like the Professor in Gilligan's Island, Tutt was there to give a scientific explanation when needed. Perhaps he added credibility as well: "See Mum and Dad, this show IS educational! It's not just about flogging Ovaltine."
Poor old Tutt must have been lonely, with good old Jet and Icky being away most of the time saving the world. What did this white-coated boffin get up to when he wasn't beavering away in the lab? A jet base high atop a mountain can be a lonely place, especially at night. And no internet.
With Icky, I could never figure out why Jet chose this Lou Costello character to be his trusted right-hand man, nor how Icky had the wherewithal to maintain and co-pilot a piece of hi-tech kit like the Silver Dart. Maybe Jet wanted someone who was just smart enough to be useful but not too smart to threaten his job as Supreme Leader of the SS (Secret Squadron, of course.) Or maybe he picked him for his dress sense: dark tweed jacket,bow-tie and one-liners.
If anything, "Jet Jackson" or "Captain Midnight" is ample proof that brainwashing and marketing to kids while entertaining them is not just the preserve of one side of the political fence. It wasn't alone then, nor is it now.
Citizen Soldier (1956)
A great series that has unfortunately gone missing in action
UPDATE: Since writing this review in June, 2014, I finally contacted the chief archivist at Channel 10 in Sydney, a Mr Paul Perigo, in May, 2018. He told me that Channel 10 no longer has any tapes of 1960s shows, and unfortunately, was unable to give me any leads on the series Citizen Soldier.
However, I note that another Australian IMDb reviewer, Paul Svenson, said in July 2017 that he could remember the theme clearly, and was planning to ask a pianist to play and record it. If you read this Paul, please go ahead and post on Youtube. I'd love to hear that stirring music again. Unlike you, I can't remember how it went but I'm sure I'd recognize it in a second. For the record, the theme music was written by the German composer, BERT GRUND, who wrote a string of other TV and movie themes and soundtracks during his illustrious career. I remember his name on the Citizen Soldier credits very clearly.
***My original review is below:
This was the unheralded forerunner to "Saving Private Ryan" and Band of Brothers. Like that movie and series, it had an honest and unsentimental credibility to it. I clearly remember watching this series when I was a kid. Channel 10 in Sydney (Australia) showed this in the late 1960s, when I was in Year 9 or 10 of high school. (Who knows, Channel 10 may still have the original reels in their archive vaults.) I assume it was shot in black and white, notwithstanding the fact that colour TV didn't come to Australia until about 1974.
However, even with intense internet searches over the years, I haven't been able to find out a lot about this series. Just some mentions in US Army catalog lists is all I could find. No wonder some people might think it's only a figment of some people's imagination!
I really looked forward to watching it after I got home from school around 1968.Because it was shot relatively soon after the Second World War, and shot on locale outdoors, it had a very authentic look, and definitely not with a staged, studio hue to it. Many of the episodes were filmed in winter, and it certainly looked very raw, muddy and chilly. The snow looked cold and totally uninviting, and the frost on everyone's breath was real! It made me feel frozen and miserable just looking at it.
I remember the whole series having a semi-documentary look. (Unlike "Combat!" starring Vic Morrow, which was and certainty looked like it was shot in sunny California, complete with "French" eucalyptus trees, and very co-operative Germans who always seemed to shoot too early, and obligingly stood up in the open to make excellent targets of themselves for the taciturn Chip Saunders and his platoon. Oh, and the Germans were always shouting either "Raus, raus!" or "Schnell!" Not much range there.)
Citizen Soldier had a certain honesty, as from memory, it didn't glamorize the 1944-45 war in northern Europe. It lived up to its title - the experience of ordinary men, only shorty before civilians, caught up in extraordinary circumstances. The fact that there were no big name actors or regular cast members added to its credibility. Of course, so much time has elapsed that I can't remember how much Ra-Ra American patriotism it had, but probably no more than "Saving Private Ryan".
I can remember only scenes, not whole plots. For example, there was one scene, based on a true event, where an American soldier is "shot" by a German sniper and plays dead in the snow, while carefully keeping his walkie-talkie next to him so he can keep directing artillery fire. In another episode, also supposedly based on fact, an American chaplain is captured. Just before some hardline Germans are about to execute him, he is saved in the nick of time by the arrival of a superior German officer who insists on observing the rules of war.
I particularly remember the great opening theme music as the titles rolled. It was written by BERT GRUND. Unfortunately, I can't remember it well enough to hum it, but I do remember it was quite stirring, in the same way that William Rogers' theme music for "Victory at Sea" is. I can still remember the theme leading into opening scenes of men and tanks advancing into the snow and cold of a European blizzard a la "Patton". I wish someone would locate it and put it on Youtube, or perhaps put on a whole episode. Why not, as there are so many openings of other old TV series on Youtube now. If only I could just hear the theme music and opening credits once more, it would bring back so many memories, making me a VERY happy Baby Boomer!
The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten (1960)
Memories from the vault
It was fascinating for me to see how kids in far off Canada and England related to what I assumed was purely Australian Baby Boomer nostalgia. I used to watch "Ten Town" as I knew it when I was growing up in Sydney. I was eight years old in 1960. To be honest, I can't remember much of the details of individual episodes. What I can remember is the first episode when one of the kids' dads, a laconic, no-nonsense Aussie farmer, drops off a huge load of building materials (mostly timber off-cuts and old crates from memory) for the kids to start building Ten Town. He then says, "Get on with it" or words to that effect. He leaves and the kids are left to let rip with hammers and nails and saws to construct their own town, which ended up like looking like a country town from Australia's 19th Century past. (Not just America had "old west" towns!) No wonder I thought it was a great series. What kid of my generation wasn't excited about building their own cubby house? But a town? That was just SO cool! (I suppose if they made it today, the parents would have bought them a town, then tried to wrestle the kids away from their Play Stations and iPads. It would probably end up like a pre-teen Big Brother, complete with a Super Nanny to taxi in to sort out their emotional problems. "Katlin won't let me be mayor!I want her and Harrison evicted!" The other incident in another episode I remember well was when the resident bad-guy kid (McGurk?) and his gang tried to raid Ten Town. The Ten Town kids repelled them with secret weapons such as catapults spewing forth flour bombs and other such "deaddly" puerile ordinance. Of course, it all ends with McGurk and his crew, utterly defeated and crestfallen, covered in flour and water. Wa wa wa wa waaaaa! Of course, this was all pure kids' stuff but that's exactly what the target audience was - kids. I'm not sure how I would react to it today - cringe or rejoice in the innocence of a childhood long past. Maybe a bit of both. If were available on DVD, I'd buy it just for nostalgia value. I'm sure my granddaughter would like it. It couldn't be any worse than a lot of the sudsy Barbie-based fairy story DVDs she watches.