Reviews Written By: A1SL7CB1TZXORJprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon | |
 | "The Needle to the Last, eh Holmes?" | 2003-11-08 |
| It's one of the paradoxes of Basil Rathbone's wartime anti-Nazi Sherlock Holmes films (Voice of Terror, SH in Washington, and this one) that while the plots and settings are mostly terrible, he is so good in them. Despite a bizarre wind-swept hairstyle meant to make him look younger, he blazes through every scene with so much bite and attack that you hardly register how flimsy the plots are. Here he also has great acting rapport with Lionel Atwill, who makes a wonderfully repulsive Professor Moriarty -- a heavy lidded cockroach with nice hints of sadism and depravity (it may not have been acting, kids). At the climax, changed into a lab coat in order to drain Rathbone's blood "drop by drop," he's as over-the-top sinister as Seinfeld's arch-nemesis Newman. The movie itself is ancient kiddie matinee fare, but it benefits from director Roy William Neill's attention to staging and atmosphere. It also looks fairly sharp in this UCLA restoration -- don't even think of buying any other edition, all of them faded, choppy public-domain prints. | ||
 | Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon | |
| "The Needle to the Last, eh Holmes?" | 2003-11-08 |
| It's one of the paradoxes of Basil Rathbone's wartime anti-Nazi Sherlock Holmes films (Voice of Terror, SH in Washington, and this one) that while the plots and settings are mostly terrible, he is so good in them. Despite a bizarre wind-swept hairstyle meant to make him look younger, he blazes through every scene with so much bite and attack that you hardly register how flimsy the plots are. Here he also has great acting rapport with Lionel Atwill, who makes a wonderfully repulsive Professor Moriarty -- a heavy lidded cockroach with nice hints of sadism and depravity (it may not have been acting, kids). At the climax, changed into a lab coat in order to drain Rathbone's blood "drop by drop," he's as over-the-top sinister as Seinfeld's arch-nemesis Newman. The movie itself is ancient kiddie matinee fare, but it benefits from director Roy William Neill's attention to staging and atmosphere. It also looks fairly sharp in this UCLA restoration -- don't even think of buying any other edition, all of them faded, choppy public-domain prints. | ||
 | Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror | |
| "Find Out What Christopher Means" | 2003-11-08 |
| This entertaining little melodrama does a decent job of moving Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from the Victorian comforts of Baker Street into the WWII London of blitzes and blackouts. I have been watching this movie off and on for over 30 years, and it has never looked as crystal clear as it does in UCLA's stunning print. Sound is sharp and clear, too, with some lines of dialogue understandable to my ears for the very first time. Speaking of dialogue, it's quite an indictment of today's Idiots-R-Us culture that a cheap B-movie from 60 years ago sounds like Shakespeare now. For example, when Basil Rathbone's Holmes reminds Thomas Gomez that the English believe every life has value, the sweaty little Nazi sneers "A quaint notion of an even quainter nation." Not bad. The plot purports to be based on Sir Arthur's wonderful endpaper Holmes story "His Last Bow," but it uses nothing beyond the villain's last name and the great closing lines. In its day, the British were outraged at this movie, with its suggestion of treachery and treason at the highest levels of government, and the country owing its salvation to the noble bravery of a prostitute. Doesn't sound so shocking now, does it? | ||
 | Sherlock Holmes in Washington | |
| "A Big Country, Watson, and a Small Match Folder" | 2003-11-08 |
| When I was a wee lad steeped in Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories, this movie struck me as plain awful. It was painful to see Sherlock as a tourist in a wildly inappropriate DC milieu (the back-projected crazy quilt of Washington monuments on his drive around town makes it seem the chauffeur is on crack), spouting pax Americana patriotism and even paying tribute to the crime-fighting superiority of the FBI (??!!). Nigel Bruce was a particular affront as a doddering Dr. Watson, noisily sucking down ice cream sodas and struggling to read 30 pages on a 10-hour transatlantic flight. But time has been kind to "SH in Washington." This was the first of these movies written by Bertram Millhauser, who always came up with witty dialogue for Rathbone and Bruce and snarky bits of malice for the supporting cast. Basil Rathbone gives a hopped-up performance as Holmes, barking out ludicrously improbable deductions and even reprising his Louis XI imitation as a limp-wristed "eccentric" collector. There is a small gem of a performance from Gerald Hamer (unbilled, sadly) as the master spy who sets the plot in motion -- he gives the movie a few whiffs of danger, intrigue and poignance. And it's hard to dislike a movie with two Moriartys: silky sadist Henry Daniell and glittery-eyed psycho George Zucco. By the way, the suspense hinges on the fate of a fast-dwindling book of matches, so if you're trying to quit smoking, this is not the movie for you. | ||
 | Sherlock Holmes Faces Death | |
 | "Ghosts Don't Stab People in the Neck, Do They?" | 2003-11-07 |
| This was the first of the Universal Sherlock Holmes movies that returned the detective to traditional mystery plots, after three wartime anti-Nazi adventures. It's also one of the best... and in fact it was voted the 2nd-best Holmes movie of all time in one poll (after Rathbone's "Adventures" or "Hound," I forget which). The entertaining opening has Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson, who has a bit more on the ball than usual, bringing Holmes into the case-which itself is a clever improvement on Conan Doyle's rather dull short story "The Musgrave Ritual." The cast features almost all of the usual stock company featured in this series (Dennis Hoey, Gerald Hamer, Vernon Dowling, Frederic Worlock, Gavin Muir), playing assorted cretins, rotters, weaklings, and twitching neurotics. Various sets from "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" turn up as well, and the plot abounds with bloodthirsty ravens, bolts of lightning, mysterious passageways, and a clock that strikes thirteen on the nights that evil is afoot. Rathbone strikes a nice balance between his earlier, more wired Sherlock and his later jaded style, but the excellent UCLA restoration also reveals him as a bit older and more ravaged than I recall. Maybe there's something to be said for a "soft" transfer after all. | ||
 | Inherited Risk: Errol Flynn and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam | |
 | "Two Stars for Sean" | 2003-06-02 |
| I have to agree with Mr. Hurst's eloquent review, and I'll put it more succinctly: this is a lousy book. Why write a biography of Errol Flynn, of all people, if you're going to do it with no humor and with lordly disdain? It's like a biography of Tom Sawyer written by his half-brother, the tattle-tale goody-goody Sid. Like many, I guess, I picked it up in order to read about Sean Flynn, since there is so little out there about him. But as noted, Sean is reduced to three chapters presented as endpapers. One might conclude there wasn't enough to his short life to make a full book... if there weren't so much other evidence of the biographer's tendency to stop researching once he has enough evidence to support his (rather ugly) pre-determined thesis. | ||
 | American Beauty | |
| "A Dissenting Opinion" | 2000-11-02 |
| This smug satire makes its tired little points against all the obvious targets - middle class hypocrites, homophobes, and uptight squares of all ages. Filmed in a slow, narcoticized rhythm that gives it the appearance of being deep and artistic, it predictably won a slew of Academy Awards. But there's more wit, insight, and true satire in any 10 minutes of "The Simpsons." p.s. One major scene involving weightlifting and a bong has to be the single stupidest plot twist in movie history. | ||
 | GoldenEye | |
 | "Farewell, Mr. Bond" | 2000-11-02 |
| After Tina Turner growls the tuneless title song, the movie begins with Pierce Brosnan's James Bond getting away in his Aston-Martin with yet another luscious babe... only now, in the politically correct '90s, she puts him down for his smoking, drinking, and womanizing. Sean Connery would have given her the ejector seat, but poor Pierce just sits there and makes his standard I've-just-bitten-a-lemon face. It only gets more incomprehensible as this pathetic, pure plastic attempt at a Bond movie grinds on. | ||
 | John Lennon - Mind Games | |
| "I'm Sorry" | 2000-10-30 |
| After the resounding flop of "Some Time in New York City," one of the most hated and reviled albums of the rock era, John Lennon beat a hasty retreat with "Mind Games." On this record, gone are "Some Time's" naive agitprop lyrics and radical left cliches; gone is any trace of Yoko Ono as co-writer or duet partner (?!!); and also gone, sadly, are the great musicianship and exhilirating production. This is the worst set of songs Lennon ever recorded -- one limp, whining apology to Yoko after another. And the production, as my friend Sean MacFalls used to say, sounds like glue. If you're getting into solo Lennon, then stick with "Plastic Ono Band," "Imagine," and yes, even the notorious "Some Time in NYC." | ||
 | The Beatles - Abbey Road | |
| "The Beatles Break Up" | 2000-10-08 |
| This final Beatles album is the most moving of all, since you can clearly feel that the Fab Four have already confronted and accepted their inevitable split. They're already halfway into their solo careers: John's songs are raw and basic, Paul's are exquisitely produced little noodlings, and George's are prime examples of the brief period when he looked like the band's emerging hero. Grief, division, and bitterness lie just below the high polish of George Martin's lush production; even Ringo's childlike "Octopus' Garden" is really about wanting to hide from all the bad feeling (he admitted later). What's moving about it is that despite all this, they managed to Come Together one last time to make the magic happen... their playing together at the end of the album says more about their love for each other than 30 subsequent years of interviews. | ||
 | Paul McCartney - Tug Of War | |
| "Get It" | 2000-10-08 |
| This is not a great album, but it contains one truly great song: "Tug of War." Though "Here Today" is more famous, "Tug of War" is Paul's real message to John -- a moving and bittersweet elegy to the mutual dependency and pain of their relationship. It could be the best song he ever did. Beyond that, the album has several other excellent songs ("Someone Who Cares," "Wanderlust," "Get It") and a few inoffensive throwaways. The widely hated "hit" song "Ebony and Ivory" was a big nail in the coffin of Paul's career as a hit-maker, so it's ironic that "Tug of War" marks the beginning of a more mature phase of Paul's career, which would culminate in his best album "Flowers in the Dirt" at decade's end. | ||
 | Topper (Modern Library (Paperback)) | |
| "High and Low Spirits" | 2000-09-07 |
| The movie and TV versions of "Topper" have always emphasized the trick of ghosts appearing and disappearing... but the novel is really about Mr. Topper's love/hate relationship to middle-class conformity, and how he's drawn toward love and death. As with many of Smith's books, there's an undertow of sadness about how brief and unsatisfying life can be, and a true satirist's rage at hypocrisy and repression. Set in the same period as "The Great Gatsby," this is almost a companion piece -- another story about longing and belonging, fast driving and fast living, and dropouts living a very different life than those around them. | ||
 | Dodge City | |
 | "Rootin Tootin" | 2000-09-03 |
| Errol Flynn didn't want to be a Western hero, but this Technicolored super-epic made him one anyway -- "the rich man's Roy Rogers," as he put it. The dud script plods from one cliche to another (it's very depressing after the superb scripts of Flynn films like "Captain Blood,""Robin Hood" and "They Died With Their Boots On"), but the attractive cast and professional direction keep it moving painlessly. It's best watched on a big screen, where the exhilarating color photography of trains crossing the prairie, and the train-on-fire climax, have their maximum impact. | ||
 | Virginia City | |
| "Pure Tin" | 2000-09-03 |
| Errol Flynn's first Western, "Dodge City," was all pretty Technicolor photography and no script... so for this, his second, Warners made it up to him. This one is all shadowy black and white photography and more plot than you can possibly make sense of. It also features two classic bad performances -- uptight Miriam Hopkins as a showgirl Mata Hari, and sneering Humphrey Bogart as a muy menacing Mexican bahndeeto. To paraphrase Hemingway, any movie where Randolph Scott is the best actor is a bad movie. | ||
 | Gentleman Jim | |
| "Knockout" | 2000-09-03 |
| Glossy Warner Bros. comedy-melodrama mainly designed to show off Errol Flynn's impudent charm and youthful athleticism -- which it does beautifully. The movie features a typically professional recreation of the turn of the century, though as usual they lay the period detail on thick (Flynn's roistering Irish family may have you lunging for the remote). But the fight scenes are great, especially a very atmospheric match at the waterfront, complete with huge old ships docked just beyond the ring. Flynn has a nice scene with Ward Bond at the end, too, showing the sensitive actor he could be when he had the chance. | ||
 | The Island of Dr. Moreau | |
| "House of Pain" | 2000-09-03 |
| It took Marlon Brando 45 years to become a murmuring, bloated self-parody... and Val Kilmer only 12. In this endless, misshapen mess, they have the roles (you can't say they "play" them) originally and brilliantly acted by Charles Laughton and Arthur Hohl in the wonderful 1932 version, which is highly recommended. As Dr. Moreau, Laughton was creepy and quite terrifying -- the same could be said of Brando, but not in admiration. As for Kilmer... well, he's no Arthur Hohl. | ||
 | Return of the Fly | |
| "Buzz and Buzz Off" | 2000-08-28 |
| The original "Fly" is in widescreen and in color, and when Bad Things begin to happen, the creamy production values and posh suburban settings give the horror a disturbing power. What's really creepy about "The Fly" is watching the hero Andre trying to hang on to his humanity as it slowly ebbs away. "Return of the Fly," the pissant sequel, was obviously filmed quickly on a "B" budget and goes in for obvious horror movie effects: thunderstorms, funerals, and really big spider webs in the old abandoned la-bore-a-tory. When you think about it, you can't blame those spiders, though, can you? The plot has son Phillippe attempting to vindicate Andre's work by attempting The Exact Same Experiment... naturally The Exact Same Thing happens. By the time Phillippe is lumbering through the countryside looking for payback (and maybe a Dunkin Donuts), the movie has moved firmly and forever into high camp; Vincent Price obliges with a truly outrageous last closeup. "The Fly" is almost a masterpiece, but you'll want a swatter handy for the sequel. | ||
 | The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Six Napoleons | |
| "A Pearl of Death" | 2000-08-14 |
| Fairly good video version of one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories, with a particularly nice ending showing Holmes and Lestrade in a rare moment of rapport. The story, which features a very dramatic device that keeps the plot moving with some urgency, was imaginatively adapted into one of the best Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone, "The Pearl of Death." | ||
 | Sherlock Holmes - The Last Vampyre | |
| "Put a Stake Through It" | 2000-08-12 |
| Waxy, bloated and speaking in a nasal murmur, Jeremy Brett looks far more like a "vampyre" (to use this episode's overly cute spelling) than he does like Sherlock Holmes in this episode from this series' declining years. Conan Doyle's story wasn't much to begin with (his series declined, too) but at least it had some logic; this video version adds Roy Marsden as a suspected vampire and then has a devil of a time working him logically into the story. It would be maddening if it weren't so stupifyingly boring. | ||
 | Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Mazarin Stone | |
| "The End" | 2000-08-12 |
| From the short story generally agreed to be Arthur Conan Doyle's worst -- ta-da! -- it's the worst (and last) of the Jeremy Brett series. In fact, you should be warned that Brett, clearly a dying man, only appears at the end of this episode to cry out "Bravo, Brother!" or some such nonsense, after an hour of lame deductions and absurd melodramatics from Charles Grey as Mycroft and Edward Hardwicke as Watson... A travesty and a sad note to end a fine series on. | ||
 | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia | |
| "Super" | 2000-08-06 |
| Although it later declined into sentimentality and melodramatic excess, Jeremy Brett's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes was a revelation back in the '80s. This might be the best of his Granada series (tied with "The Speckled Band"). It's a solid, extremely well-acted version of the first and maybe greatest Sherlock Holmes short story -- crisp, witty, and entirely wonderful. | ||
 | Klondike Annie | |
| "The Censors Triumph" | 2000-07-22 |
| This is the movie in which Mae West finally lost her battle with the censors. Constantly pushing the envelope, she wrote a script about a whore disguised as a missionary. They cut it to ribbons, and this rather pointless melodrama is the result. Throughout the film, Mae rolls her eyes in silent frustration, and is finally forced to utter some pathetic shopworn sentiment at the end. It was 34 years before she could be herself on screen again -- as the lusty talent agent in "Myra Breckenridge," sashaying into her office with the words "all right boys, get out your resumes." | ||
 | Klondike Annie | |
| "The Censors Triumph" | 2000-07-22 |
| This is the movie in which Mae West finally lost her battle with the censors. Constantly pushing the envelope, she wrote a script about a whore disguised as a missionary. They cut it to ribbons, and this rather pointless melodrama is the result. Throughout the film, Mae rolls her eyes in silent frustration, and is finally forced to utter some pathetic shopworn sentiment at the end. It was 34 years before she could be herself on screen again -- as the lusty talent agent in "Myra Breckenridge," sashaying into her office with the words "all right boys, get out your resumes." | ||
 | Go West, Young Man | |
| "Tamed" | 2000-07-22 |
| After the failure of "Klondike Annie," Mae West tried something different: an adaptation of someone else's material. "Personal Appearance" was a stage play about a big star stuck in a small town, and in the early scenes of the film, she is fairly funny as she plays the star as vain, ignorant, and self-obsessed. This brief bit of satire is promising, but the film soon becomes the usual West vehicle, with various slickers and studs after the irresistable heroine. This is the rare West film with a strong supporting cast, and it passes fairly pleasantly, but the censors were at their strongest -- and Mae without double entendres isn't really Mae. | ||
 | She Done Him Wrong | |
| "You Can Be Had" | 2000-07-22 |
| Mae West's first starring film, and her best -- nominated for an Oscar as best picture, and it should have won. It's a surprisingly serious and absorbing portrait of New York City's Bowery at the turn of the century, with Mae as a kept woman who develops a yen for Salvation Army captain Cary Grant. It won't spoil the surprise to tell you he turns out to be a Government Man, and at the end he takes her away in handcuffs, with the comment that many men would have been better off if she had been born wearing them. "I dunno... hands ain't everything," she purrs. A huge hit in its time, and a true classic of American cinema. | ||
 | I'm No Angel | |
| "Classic Farce" | 2000-07-22 |
| Once she conquered Hollywood with "She Done Him Wrong," the film version of her latest stage success "Diamond Lil," Mae West concocted this good-natured farce in which her carnival entertainer conquers high society. For the rest of her (brief) film career, she alternated melodramas with farces; this and "Goin' to Town" are the best of the comedies. Cary Grant seems much more at ease than he did in "She Done Him Wrong" -- he's still not the polished farceur he would become, but he manages to hold his own with her... no small achievement. This movie features more classic one-liners than seems possible; my own favorite is this little exchange: MAE: I like sophisticated men to take me out. CARY: I'm not really sophisticated... MAE: You're not really out yet, either. Seventy years later, she can still make you laugh in disbelief. It's a great movie. | ||
 | The Bride of Frankenstein | |
| "We Belong Dead" | 2000-07-22 |
| The greatest horror film ever made, "Bride" is also the screen's purest expression of gay sensibility. From the amazing prologue with a fruity Lord Byron rrrrrolling his R's while the thunder and lightning rage, to the creepy effeminacy of the evil Dr. Praetorius, it's a parade of homoerotic archetypes and themes -- equating gayness with the horror of "the unknown." In the end, the poor martyred monster finally goes on a date... only to wave his hands helplessly as even his specially created bride rejects him (with hisses, yet). "We belong dead," he growls at Praetorius. It's politically incorrect (though not much more than "Gods and Monsters," made six decades later) but that doesn't matter. It's exhilirating, funny, and as alive as the day it was made. | ||
 | Captain Blood | |
| "Classic Swashbuckler" | 2000-07-22 |
| An amazing movie... gripping and entertaining despite the sometimes rather primitive production. Errol Flynn was fresh off the boat from England and had only about two years of professional experience behind him, yet he takes over the film and delivers one of his best performances. He was incredibly lucky to begin his star career with his best leading lady, Olivia de Havilland; his best antagonist, Basil Rathbone; and his best director, Michael Curtiz. And it should be noted that Casey Robinson, one of Warner's best screenwriters, is largely responsible for the film's sustained intelligence and drama. Technically, there are better Flynn swashbucklers: "Robin Hood,""They Died With Their Boots On,""The Sea Hawk." But this one has its own special freshness and sweetness. | ||
 | Son of Frankenstein | |
| "The Original Young Frankenstein" | 2000-07-16 |
| The great Basil Rathbone strides into the Frankenstein series as the eager, friendly young Baron... only to become increasingly paranoid and high-strung as the monster prowls again. Rowland V. Lee directed Rathbone four times (most memorably in "Love From a Stranger") and knew how to bring out the madness in him better than any other director. His battle of wits and wills with Bela Lugosi (fabulous as Ygor) and Lionel Atwill are the heart of the film. Maybe that's also part of the problem with it: the monster is no longer a character, as he was in the first two films, but just a roving bogeyman threatening Rathbone's wife and repellent young son. These bourgeois family values are no substitute for the creepiness and real terror of the (pre-Code) "Frankenstein" and the wonderful campiness of "Bride." However, the great cast, cool sets, and dynamic direction raise it pretty high. | ||
 | Kiss Me, Stupid! | |
| "Dazzling Hour" | 2000-06-21 |
| A truly odd movie, "Kiss Me Stupid" is half masterpiece and half mess. The video version opens with the credits in widescreen, behind which we see Dean Martin in concert in Vegas, casually interrupting Gershwin's lovely "S'wonderful" to make lewd and unfunny jokes. You can feel Wilder's deep disgust seeping through the crisp black and white images. And yet he does the same thing he's chastising Dino for: though his story is a lovely portrait of people finding each other despite society's hypocrisy, he fouls his own movie with smutty jokes, leering, and crude overemphasis. Part of the problem is the substitution of Ray Walston for Peter Sellers; the latter might have made it a sweeter and more moving film, but Walston is helplessly grating and obnoxious. However, Kim Novak gives a memorable performance -- not as great as the one she gave in "Strangers When We Meet," but she's touching and funny as the whore longing for domesticity. As for Dino, the joke's on him, but as usual he couldn't care less. | ||
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