MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1962)

Posted on December 3, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Lewis Milestone

SCREENWRITER: Charles Lederer

FILM STARS: Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith, Richard Haydn, Tarita Teriipaia, Matahiarii Tama, Percy Herbert, Duncan Lamont, Gordon Jackson, Chips Rafferty, Noel Purcell, Ashley Cowan, Eddie Byrne, Tim Seely, Frank Silvera, Henry Daniell, Torin Thatcher.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1962

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1934

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Pitcairn’s Island

NOTES

GENRE: Historical

WORDS:

One of those movies I grew up with but didn’t really fully appreciate till much later because of technology.

Hear me out.

My mother loved this film. Partially because of the film and partially because my father took her to see it when they were dating. She loved my father, and said she fell in love with Marlon Brando after seeing this film. She married my father.

The film, not without fault, is an “experience” as only old Hollywood could do. Lots of money, name actors, real locations (not all the actual locations but close enough real ones (French Polynesian islands of Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Moorea)), hugh sets (the ship), no CGI.

It is hard not to be impressed by the film.

The first time I saw it back in the 80s on TV I liked it and then I saw it on a big screen TV in hi-definition DVD. It was twice as good.

Perhaps seeing it on the big screen would double my pleasure again.

Talking to normal people over the years the general malaise to old films you find  I believe largely comes from the fact that contemporary films are either seen on the big screen whilst “old” films are seen on a TV. It will never be a fair race. I recall seeing a remastered Casablanca (1942) on the big screen as well as the remastered James Stewart – Alfred Hitchcock films some time in the 80s when they were re-released for mainstream (as opposed to art house) release. People were cheering and clapping like they were watching a Die Hard film. Okay those specific ol films are superior but even an average old film will look better on the big screen and will, I think, out shine newer films. There was more care in the craft.

Granted we have access to big screen TVs nowadays but unless you search out the remastered DVD you are watching an old film blown up to fit the screen. It doesn’t compare well in clean images to modern films. Sure, it shouldn’t matter, and matters ZERO to me, but to most people it puts the older films on a back foot.

And, though it matters zero to me, Mutiny on the Bounty looked better to me when I rewatched it on a bigger screen. Maybe I was older, maybe I was in a better mood, maybe I had a glass of wine with me, or maybe it’s just better on a bigger screen with a cleaner image.

The story of the Bounty mutiny may be well known within English naval history but I suspect it was Hollywood that made it into a well known story.

Putting aside the 1933 Australian film In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) with Errol Flynn in his first role which is largely unseen and almost unwatchable because of a small budget and a Flynn who hadn’t learnt to be Flynn yet, there are three major Hollywood versions (There was also an obscure (now lost) Australian silent version The Mutiny of the Bounty (1916) with Wilton Power (as Fletcher Christian) and George Cross (as Captain Bligh)).

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), directed by Frank Lloyd, starring Clark Gable (as Fletcher Christian) and Charles Laughton (as (Captain Bligh) and with Franchot Tone, Eddie Quillan and Donald Crisp in support (James Cagney (then on a hiatus from Warner Bros. during a contract dispute) and future stars David Niven and Dick Haymes were uncredited extras in the movie.) was a BIG box office hit (the highest grossing film of 1935) and won the Best Picture oscar for the year

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), directed by Lewis Milestone, starring Marlon Brando (as Fletcher Christian) and Trevor Howard(as (Captain Bligh) with Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith, Gordon Jackson and Richard Harris in support was a popular box office failure. The film was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1962 grossing $13,680,000 domestically,earning $7.4 million in US theatrical rentals. However, it needed to make $30 million to recoup its budget of $19 million. It didn’t, meaning the film was a box office flop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty_(1962_film)

The Bounty (1984), directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson (as Fletcher Christian) and Anthony Hopkins (as Captain Bligh) with Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson in support was also a box office flop.

When the films were made affects their outlook. The 1935 version ended with a positive patriotic scene for the British Royal Navy in the days of sail (Rule Britannia! was popular in Hollywood in the mid-late 30s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Lives of a Bengal lancer (1935), Gunga Din (1939), Clive of India (1935), Wee Willie Winkie (1937), The Sea Hawk (1940) etc). The 1962 version ended with the romantic death of Fletcher Christian and the 1984 version ended with the nuts and bolts trial and legal exoneration of Bligh.

The 1935 film may strike modern viewers as dated and unrealistic. Bligh is depicted, at least on the Bounty, as a raving sadist, although he was in fact far from that (apparently). It’s entertaining though it’s simplistic in its good vs. evil storyline and there are many historical inaccuracies.

The 1984 film is the most realistic and accurate but it doesn’t have any emotional highs or the leading man charisma of the other versions. Mel is good but a bit overwhelmed (it was his first big budget international film).

The 1962 film, is for my taste the best version. Not without its inaccuracies it is balanced by good storytelling and adventure that the first version succeeds in doing so well and the nods to realism and nuance that the third version does well.

It is also the most epic, captivating and compelling version. The photography (by Robert Surtee) is stunning, the period costumes great, the pageantry and colors of the pacific take your breath away. They built a replica of the Bounty from the keel up, a feat truly remarkable (it is an exact copy in scale 90% the size of the original HMS Bounty and can be toured every summer in Marina del Rey Harbor in Los Angeles, CA). The music by Bronislau Kaper is superb and can measure up to the epic scores of Lawrence of Arabia (1962), El Cid (1961), King of Kings (1961) and Doctor Zhivago (1965) any day, especially “The Love Theme” which is haunting and beautiful. The film is long (178 minutes, the other two versions are both 132 minutes long) but the pace of the film flows very well and it doesn’t drag much. Well, once they reach the island (Pitcairn) and the love story kicks in it slows a little. Brando and Howard play well off each other and Richard Harris gives a fine performance (for me this is a true bonus – these three actors I love and actively watch everything they are in … and that can be hard work).

History:

The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their Captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship’s open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.

After Bligh reached England in April 1790, the Admiralty despatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers. Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora, which then searched without success for Christian’s party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island. After turning back towards England, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty. The ten surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court-martialled; four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged.

Christian’s group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808, by which time only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive. Almost all of his fellow mutineers, including Christian, had been killed, either by one another or by their Polynesian companions. No action was taken against Adams; descendants of the mutineers and their accompanying Tahitians live on Pitcairn into the 21st century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty

The source material for the 1935 and 1962 film was the novel Mutiny on the Bounty (1932) by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall in which Christian is a major character and is generally portrayed positively (more positively than in the 1982 film). The authors of that novel also wrote two sequels, one of which, Pitcairn’s Island (1934), is the story of the tragic events after the mutiny that apparently resulted in Christian’s death along with other violent deaths on Pitcairn Island. (The other sequel, Men Against the Sea (1933), is the story of Bligh’s voyage after the mutiny) This series of novels uses fictionalised versions of minor crew members as narrators of the stories.

Charles Lederer (who mainly wrote comedies (I Was a Male War Bride (1949), Monkey Business (1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), the much underrated Elvis Presley film Follow That Dream (1962)) also dabbled in hard crime dramas (Kiss of Death (1947), Ride the Pink Horse (1947), Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957)), sci fi (The Thing (1951)) and big budget entertainments (Ocean’s 11 (1960), Can-Can (1960)) wrote a balanced screenplay. Superior English spy and thriller novelist Eric Ambler had originally had a crack at writing the film based on all three novels. I assume he was chosen because he had written a number of good screenplays on all things military naval (The Cruel Sea (1953), Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst (1957)), military men under stress (The Purple Plain (1954)), sea based (A Night to Remember (1958)) or sea based with trial (The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)).

Ambler says his brief was to make Fletcher Christian’s part as interesting as Bligh’s. MGM executives were unhappy with Ambler’s script, although the writer estimated he did 14 drafts. John Gay was signed to write a version in July 1960. Eventually, William Driscoll, Borden Chase (writing in August 1960), Howard Clewes and Charles Lederer wrote all the scripts. According to one report, Ambler did the first third of the film, about the journey, Driscoll did the second, about life on Tahiti, and Chase did the third, about the mutiny and afterwards. Gay wrote the narration. Lederer was included before filming was to begin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty

Only Lederer received on-screen credit. I doubt others would not have received a credit if the contributions were substantial

In any event producer Aaron Rosenberg said “the film would focus more on the fate of the crew after the mutiny, with Captain Bligh only in a minor role and the mutiny dealt with in flashback. “It was Brando’s idea”, said Rosenberg. “And he was right. It has always been fascinating to wonder what happened to the mutineers afterwards.” “The mood after the mutiny must be one of hope”, said Reed. “The men hope to live a different sort of life, a life without suffering, without brutality. They hope for a life without sick ambitions, without the pettiness of personal success. They dream of a new life where nobody is trying to outdo the next person.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty_(1962_film)

Marlon Brando eventually signed to play Christian (though he apparently considered playing Bligh) for a fee of $500,000 plus 10% of the profits. The stories of Brando being difficult on set, and not sure even, if he wanted to play Christian or Bligh, are famous but his Christian is the pinnacle of doomed romanticism. Brando plays him like some of his other film characters: a mid-century loner or rebel. The first half of the film he is Lt. Christian Diestl (The Young Lions (1958)) but English, before becoming Terry Malloy (On the Waterfront (1954)) but with good breeding, before becoming Napoleon (Desiree (1954)) with his lost love. He knows his duty but is not sure if the British navy the place for him, and he is conflicted between love and duty and honour. The films failure stalled Brando’s career but he is wonderful.

Trevor Howard (perhaps because he had worked so well and often with Carol Reed) was brought on as Bligh and his Bligh snarls and is vicious but perhaps no more than any Naval sea captain of the era. Interestingly though, after all this Bligh ended up as Governor of New South Wales in Australia and was involved in another mutiny, the Rum Rebellion, when in 1808, 400 soldiers of the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and placed Bligh under arrest, as a result of him trying to regulate the rum trade in Australia that the military corps were involved in. He was imprisoned until 1810 before all but retiring to England and dying in 1817). Howard is, perhaps, one the most underrated of English actors and is, far better than his stage to screen contemporaries.

The rest of the cast was cast with, at least in the talking roles, with Irish (Richard Harris, Noel Purcell, Eddie Byrne), British (Richard Haydn, Tim Seely, Percy Herbert, Henry Daniell, Duncan Lamont, Torin Thatcher), Scottish (Gordon Jackson, Duncan Lamont), Welsh (Hugh Griffith) or Australians (Chips Rafferty, Duncan Lamont) … actors whose nationalities would have made up the ship’s crew at the time. Apart from American (Jamaican born) black actor, Frank Silvera, the natives are played by polynesians. The female romantic lead was played by a local Tahitian French Polynesian, Tarita Teriipaia. Allegedly Brando personally Tarita, to play his love interest. They married in 1962 and divorced in 1972. She never made another film. Marlon wanted her at home to raise the kids (allegedly).

British director Carol Reed (Odd Man Out (1947), The Third Man (1949), Outcast of the Islands (1952), Trapeze (1956). The Key (1958), Our Man in Havana (1959), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) ) was hired to direct.

After three months of filming on location Reed left because of gallstones and heat stroke apparently. It seems though that Reed was fired (or left) over shooting schedules, concerns about where the story was going, and on set tensions. (The great) Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front(1930), The Front Page (1931), Rain (1932), The General Died at Dawn (1936), Of Mice and Men (1939), The Purple Heart (1944), A Walk in the Sun (1945), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), The Red Pony (1949), They Who Dare (1954), Pork Chop Hill (1959), Ocean’s 11 (1960)) was brought on board. Milestone was towards the end of his career (this proved to be his final film) but he could handle spectacle, big casts and sets, deal with temperamental actors and could bring things in on budget or reign things in (ultimately the film went went over budget)

“Reed was used to making his own pictures” said Milestone. “He was not used to producer, studio and star interference. But those of us who have been around Hollywood are like alley cats. We know this style. We know how to survive.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty_(1962_film)

Milestone later said he took it on as he thought it would be an easy assignment because they’d been on it for months and there couldn’t be much left to do. He subsequently found that they had only shot, with actors, only one seven-minute scene, where Trevor Howard issues instructions about obtaining breadfruit.

Despite all this what emerges is a a large, epic and engrossing film a testament to the benefits Hollywood studio film making.

The film tie-in here is the second part of the trilogy after the mutineers arrive on Pitcairn Island. I assume the first part (about the actual mutiny) was also released in a movie edition. The third part which concerns Bligh’s voyage which isn’t (largely) in the film I assume wasn’t. I haven’t read Pitcairn’s Island but it is what it is a fictional narrative history of the event and I assume it would be reasonable as authors Nordhoff and Hall wrote many books, together and separately, on the sea and the military.

The only thing left is to watch the film again … especially now that I have an even bigger big screen TV.

LINKS

TRAILER

Music from the film

Posted in Adventure, Historical, Novel | Tagged | Leave a comment

TERMINATOR 3 – THE RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)

Posted on November 19, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jonathan Mostow

SCREENWRITER: John Brancato, Michael Ferris

FILM STARS: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes, David Andrews, Mark Famiglietti, Earl Boe, Jay Acovone

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: David Hagberg

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Tom Doherty Associates Book

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2003

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2003

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS:  Which Terminator was this?

Like all franchises based around a very defined narrative premise the films start to look the same after a while and, usually, decrease in entertainment quality as familiarity sets in. Producers try to offset this but making things “bigger” (more action, more explosions, more elaborate set pieces) but, ultimately despite their efforts you get less bang (sic) for you buck.

The protagonists and antagonists are the same even if some of the characters are different. It’s same old same old with updated clothes.

The first Terminator (1984) was excellent. The second Terminator, Terminator 2 (1991), was perhaps (unusually for a sequel) even better. The story should have finished there, but there was more money to be made and so on it went.

Worse still what were essentially action films became more and more serious until the filmmakers (and their hardcore bolted on believer audience) were ultimately exploring philosophical concepts whilst pulling lint from their navels. It happens to many franchises, and usually sci-fi ones. I mean, most sci-fi is, rarely, based on anything remotely real. Even near future which I like but near future my ass – Just Imagine (1930) set in 1980, 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) set in, errrr, 2001, and Blade Runner (1982) set in 2019 were way off base. And where is my hoverboard (Back to the Future II (1989)?) The world can’t figure out what’s going to happen tomorrow let alone what the “near” future will look like. The ball float toilet cistern is the best toilet system we have (OK, the most common) and they are forever leaking and, worse still, they are a farker to fix unless you have a plumbing degree so don’t talk to me about any dystopian future run by robots, cause I can hear the toilet leaking in the background. Until I have a replicant that can fix, and clean, my toilet I say fark off!

In any event, as audiences “grow up” they want to distance themselves from the youthful fun they had as young people watching these action movies (why, I don’t know ..people of all ages can enjoy well done but ultimately mindless action). So they add layers of meaning to the original premise which become so convoluted (probably because the original premise did not envisage philosophical layers and extra storylines being dumped on it) that one’s enjoyment is lost. If you want philosophy and meaning read a book written by a Greek scholar or a monk let the movies entertain

This strained seriousness has affected many franchises … Star Wars (1977) (a western crossed with a swashbuckler in space), Alien (1979) (a monster movie in space), Tron (1982) (OK more thoughtful than normal but how a guy transported into a video game led to the stupidities of Tron Legacy (2010) I don’t know), and any of the superhero franchises (for fark sake – they are just people in capes (the capes is a generalisation) doing good deeds). All these and more have been compromised or ruined by increasing seriousness or the need to be “dark” (because “dark” means “serious “and “grown-up”). No doubt some of the audience want this … because as they grow older they want people to think of them as serious adults. These are the same people who call comics “graphic novels” (which also have been largely compromised by increasing seriousness). I’ve read a few “graphic novels” and the meaning and darkness is only impressive because it’s being done as a comic .. you think “wow that was good … for a comic”. How can a comic ever say as much as a novel (or a film)? Books explain everything long hand, and films, entirely separate, work on a visual and emotive level by tapping into our memories of what we have seen and heard. I mean a tracking shot up a city street, a vista of mountains or a wide shot of a city are not easily described in a book and have their own (visual) language. Comics are both but not as much as either and neither here nor there.

I’ve strayed.

19 years had elapsed between the first Terminator film and Terminator 3 … yes, the original fans were 19 years older and many of them wanted more meaning. You have to keep them happy because the lovers of any franchise are the backbone to ticket sales … but you have to attract the kids.

Terminator 3 did that. It earnt $433.4 million worldwide and finished its theatrical run as the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2003 but there were diminished returns in quality (and legacy). Is anyone of any generation going today Terminator 3 was the best terminator film?

Terminator 3 was the terminator film which rehashed the first two but also set up the universe for the others that follow. What is particularly unsatisfying is it’s not a standalone film like the first two. You need to have seen the earlier films to be truly invested in what is going on.

What’s going on? Evil corporations, misguided individuals and smart robots lead to a worldwide catastrophe … and more sequels.

Pfffft.

It is what it is. Entertaining as long as you don’t think about it too much. You won’t be offended but you won’t be thrilled (despite some impressive set pieces) and you are unlikely to hold the film as high as the first two films.

James Cameron who directed the first two films is a better director than Jonathan Mostow who directed T3. Mostow’s films are slick and well made but Cameron, equally slick, has a little madness amongst his slickness.

Arnie is good but he isn’t giving us anything new … but then again should a cyborg give us anything new?

Screenwriters John Brancato and Michael Ferris were a American screenwriting duo, whose notable works include Watchers II (1990), Bloodfist II (1990), Femme Fatale (1991), The Net (1995), The Game (1997), Catwoman (2004), Primeval (2007), Terminator Salvation (2009), Surrogates (2009) and others, none of which are a recommendations. You don’t need two people to paint by numbers.

The franchise got worse.

There is no need to read the novelization. That is for the hardcore …. assuming they read.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novelization, Science Fiction | Tagged | 2 Comments

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDIATE (1962)

Posted on November 12, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: John Frankenheimer

SCREENWRITER: George Axelrod

FILM STARS: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, Henry Silva, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, James Edwards, Douglas Henderson. Whit Bissell

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Richard Condon

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Pan

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1960

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1959

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Action Thriller, Cold War

WORDS: Richard Condon wrote the novel in 1959. It is a cleverly plotted cold war thriller that doesn’t rely on surprise so much as it does on “what if”.

The book is permeated with cold war atmosphere but not the in your face militarism or  covert spy shenanigans of Europe. Here the cold war has come to the US and invaded public institutions and appearances and words are no indication of anything.

Brainwashing, covert spies, ambition, greed, political corruption … no one is what they seem.

The story about US soldiers in Korean who were captured by the enemy (the enemy being the North Koreans, the Chinese and the Russians) and who have been brainwashed, and sent back the the US, with one of their group programmed to kill (assassinate) and then forget. It is quite chilling. Interestingly, the book was, perhaps, the first to introduce “sleeper agents” to the world, certainly the film was the first in in the film world). Brainwashing was a big thing in the 1950s. At the time the military of both sides (I believe) conducted experiments in brainwashing. As a pejorative expression it was also used often especially when applied to the left. It was assumed that anyone who accepted that the communist system was a better alternative to mid-century American capitalism was “brainwashed”. How many times have you heard that as a slander against the left? Depending on the person there may be some truth to that.

Here the brainwashing is conducted by the Chinese on American POWs. Sergeant Raymond Shaw (played by Laurence Harvey in the film), because of his background and personality type (and for other reasons I won’t give away)  is more likely to respond to the brainwashing.  Major Marco (played by Frank Sinatra) is also brainwashed but figures his way out of it and tries to get Shaw to do the same. Essentially it’s the two characters who drive the narrative.

The book is a great read though Condon loves (with a capital L) metaphors which make his sentences long and unwieldy sometimes. He throws in trivia and asides (and black humour as well) but nevertheless he keeps the pace up. This book (and all his books, apparently) ultimately has (political) corruption and (the abuse of) power at its heart and it is fun because he is so focussed and unrelenting.

George Axelrod (with John Frankenheimer) took the book and followed it relatively closely. He (screen) wrote the witty comedies Bus Stop (1956), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Paris When It Sizzles (1964), How To Murder Your Wife (1965). Lord Love a Duck (1966), The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968) … the last two he also directed. Yes, he mainly wrote lightly satirical comedies which placed him well to adapt the book which has some dark humour.

But the real genius is John Frankenheimer and his direction. He has made a 1970s film in 1962. The violence (including one of the first martial arts fights in a western film apparently), the bloodshed, and the cold calculation of the killings (well he is brainwashed) are all designed to jar the viewer rather than scare them. You wince rather than hold your breath. Frankenheimer’s direction is raggedy and jumpy as if he had watched some French new wave film though it is largely, I assume, a result of his background in television (including live television) and making the most of the camera.

He is probably one of the best modern American directors and made many many excellent or underappreciated films All Fall Down (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), The Train (1964), Seconds (1966), The Gypsy Moths (1969), I Walk the Line (1970), The Horsemen (1971), The Iceman Cometh (1973), Black Sunday (1977), Prophecy (1979), 52 Pick-Up (1986), Year of the Gun (1991), Ronin (1998).

Harvey and Sinatra are both magnificent in their roles. Laurence Harvey because of his personal life (and probably because he wasn’t authentically English) is often underrated though, for my money he is one of the best and most interesting of the post war English (by way of Lithuania) actors and he captures the stand offish, not likable and cold character of Shaw in the book perfectly (though naysayers will say Harvey playing a blank faced brainwashed automaton is not acting) . The beauty is that though his character is not sympathetic he shows a vulnerability that reveals something deeper.

Sinatra, had proven his non-musical acting chops in From here to Eternity (1953), Suddenly (1954), and “The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and does so here though he only has to react to Harvey and look comfortable next to Janet Leigh as his girlfriend Rosie. I would look comfortable (and very happy) next to Janet Leigh. What a babe. If I were Marco I would forget about Shaw, the Chinese and brainwashing and spend some quality time with Rosie.

James Gregory, always solid and always underrated, plays the weak blow hard senator and step father of Shaw wonderfully. He is both funny and a fool and based on, at his nastiest perhaps, Senator Joseph McCarthy (apparently Shaw’s mother is based on McCarthy’s counsel Roy Cohn). Gregory played military officers and politicians regularly as well as quite a few authoritarian fathers in the 1960s, both comical (as Elvis’ dad in Clambake (1967)) and dictatorial (as Dennis Hopper’s dad in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)).

Angela Lansbury gets all the kudos and perhaps rightly so. She is magnificent as Shaw’s mother. At first comic and then darker she is driven, manipulative and cruel and there is even a hint of incest (in the book the incestuous attraction was much more clear). It is hard to believe that she played this role here (she was three years older than Harvey) and Elvis Presley’s scatterbrained southern belle of a mother in Blue Hawaii the same year (she was 10 years older than Elvis). Utterly convincing in both.

Henry Silva, of Italian and Spanish descent was alay playing minorities including many “orientals”. he has the face of a villain and works it here. Familiar faces, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, James Edwards, Douglas Henderson and others give support.

The book has a lot more back story to each of the characters.

In the novel, Eleanor Iselin’s father had sexually abused her as a child, she was more of a gold digger, and she actively used sex to get what she wants. The love affair between Shaw and Joelyn is explored in detail (Shaw is also more sexually active in the book (all the sex is quite frank, though not explicit), as is the relationship between Marco and Rosie, though a little less so.   The book also spends more time (too much perhaps) describing the brainwashing at the facility in Manchuria where the Americans were held. The film however sticks to the plot and gives us only as much detail as is required for us to know who they are.  Which it does. But that’s the job of a good writer (and director) – to condense the words that describe a characters personality down to lines of dialogue (and images).

The movie has only a few minor alterations that primarily seem to serve the interest of speeding the action along which is understandable, though it’s a pity because in the book Angela Lansbury’s Mrs. Eleanor Iselin is given lots of little nasty events … like breaking up her son’s relationship by telling the girl’s father he is “not normal” (a homosexual), taking advantage and manipulating him, especially whilst he is in a brainwashed state, and sleeping with other politicians to advance her husbands career

Interestingly the film ends with Shaw making things right through a violent act. In the film Marco deprograms Shaw who sees the evil that has been done and then consciously takes the action he did (though we don’t know whether the deprogramming is successful till the end). In the novel Marco reprograms the still brainwashed Shaw (though there is ambiguity as to whether he was brainwashed at the end) to commit the acts he does … at least that’s how I recall it.

The book is both an anti-communist tract and a satire which has something critical to say about American power institutions. The film seems to be a Red Scare movie, but it casts a critical eye on “extremism”. The extremism here as a result of brainwashing but it could equally apply to just generally extremist behavior as we seem to suffer from today.

A wonderful film and a great read

An updated blackwashed (changing the race of a character that was was otherwise a role originally written for a white person) version The Manchurian Candidate (2004) was directed by Jonathan Demme, and starred Liev Schreiber (who is excellent) as Shaw, Denzel Washington as Marco (maybe there was no backwashing … maybe Denzel was playing a white person … think about it … now I’m trying to be satirical) , and Meryl Streep as Eleanor. The fim does not suffer from the blackwashing but it does suffer from loss of the cold war hysteria and maybe it is a little one note.

TRIVIA

“Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life”. 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056218/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novel, Thriller, War | Tagged | 2 Comments

THE HORSE SOLDIERS (1959)

Posted on October 22, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: John Ford

SCREENWRITER: John Lee Mahin, Martin Rackin

FILM STARS: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers, Judson Pratt, Hoot Gibson, Ken Curtis, Althea Gibson, Willis Bouchey, Bing Russell, O.Z. Whitehead, Hank Worden, Chuck Hayward, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Basil Ruysdael, Russell Simpson

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Harold Sinclair

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Pan

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1959

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1956

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Western

WORDS: The Horse Soldiers is not considered one of John Ford’s best films, and it’s not, but it is very good John Ford which makes it better than most other people’s best films.

Biased I am but I notice, and it’s telling, that Ford is often compared to himself when it comes to films rather than to other similar films but when you look at this film in comparison to others similarly themed (civil war theme), others at the time (1950s) or just classic action oriented. The Horse Soldiers rides high (sic).

Having said all that Ford apparently didn’t like the film much (we’re told that John Ford loved this project but was never happy with the screenplay).

Who knows. Ford was always difficult to interview, and difficult when it came to his own work.

What we have is on the screen and there are many beauties in this film … the march of the boy soldiers, the ambivalence of participants in war, the charge of the defeated, the nature of patriotism and heroism.

The Confederate Southerners have been depicted every which way in film, often as racist psychos, buffoonish clowns or gallant heroes but usually one note. Here Ford fits in most of the types without causing offence to either side or either side of history. There is the old-world southerner (Basil Ruysdael), the moral honest old sheriff (Russell Simpson), the degenerate soldiers (Strother Martin & Denver Pyle), the gallant officer (Carleton Young) the loyal slave (Althea Gibson), the seemingly scatty but sly Southern Belle (Constance Towers). The Union soldiers are a ragtag bunch: there is the non-professional soldier leader played by Wayne, the cynical but humanist doctor (William Holden), the officer with his eye on a political career (played brilliantly by Willis Bouchey who seemed made for such roles), the Irish sergeant (Judson Pratt), the ordinary soldiers (Ken Curtis, Ron Hagerthy)

The characters, or types move through a story that is quite fascinating in being so even handed and perhaps even aa touch cynical for 1959.

Defeat, as is normal in Ford films, is dwelt on and the further the men go on their mission the more weirdness they witness (the boy march, the last charge) and the more their casualties mount, and as they mount the more they question the mission though never to the point of disobedience. Wayne’s character was a railroad builder, now he is sent to destroy a railroad, Holden a surgeon who knows his duty but is forever agonised in the patching up men who won’t make it back. The film casually and quite realistically depicts the medicine of the mid-19th century: no anaesthesia and little understanding of germs or the need for cleanliness as Holden himself washes the blood off his operating tables. As the mission progresses the more the leads turns on each other until neither side emerges unsoiled by their descent into what Col. Marlowe calls “this insanity”… and with that phrase the film is striking as a precursor in some ways to Apocalypse Now (1979)  … though a less dark, family friendly version.

The mission is detailed with Ford’s humanism through framing, lingering shots and those little “grace notes” (scenes, looks, asides) he adds to a film which aren’t in the script. Ford (like many of his generation) was notorious for using a script only as a coat hanger from which he could insert all his philosophy and humour. He surrounds his story and world view with an understanding of history. His films are realist, not in look but in understanding of time and place.

Though concessions are made to the time when his films were made, his characters, largely, reflect the time and place of the story. He places them in a cultural milieu and, where appropriate, ennobles them within their circumstances, as much as he can. So, the Afro American characters here, circa 1864, aren’t Django Unchained (2012) type gunmen dispensing one liners and retribution. Likewise his native Americans in his westerns may be the villain protagonist of the film but they are rarely less than noble and there is always a hint that they were the ones who were deprived and dispossessed. Accordingly, despite haircuts, his characters, black, white or otherwise, are rarely anachronistic. They may fit in with his world view, but they fit into their times. To modern audiences they seem less emancipated and as a result less exciting perhaps but to anyone who reads they are more satisfying.

And you see that in this film. There are all sorts of bits and pieces of little detail …. how different social classes in the military and public are depicted, the divergent attitudes of northerners and southerners, the role of slaves, the encroachment of technology (photography is given a nod).

Don’t get me wrong Ford isn’t making docudramas, he is a poetical realist. Visually, he directs the camera to photograph beautiful images, but ones framed and composed to make us empathise with the emotions of the characters caught up in historical events. Events that he has made more real by attention to the culture, customs, and habitat of the time.

Here those events happen to be wrapped around a real story.

The screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Martin Rackin was loosely based on Harold Sinclair’s 1956 novel of the same name, a fictionalized version of “Grierson’s Raid” in Mississippi where Union soldiers go behind enemy lines to destroy railroads supplying supplies to the front.

In April 1863, Colonel Benjamin Grierson led 1,700 Illinois and Iowa soldiers from LaGrange, Tennessee to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, through several hundred miles of enemy territory, destroying Confederate railroad and supply lines between Newton’s Station and Vicksburg, Mississippi. The mission was part of the Union Army’s successful Vicksburg campaign to gain control over boat traffic on the Mississippi River, culminating in the Battle of Vicksburg. Grierson’s destruction of Confederate-controlled rail links and supplies played an important role in disrupting Confederate General John C. Pemberton’s strategies and troop deployments. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman reportedly described Grierson’s daring mission as “the most brilliant of the war”.

Though based loosely on Grierson’s Raid, The Horse Soldiers is a fictional account that departs considerably from the actual events. The real-life protagonist, a music teacher named Benjamin Grierson, becomes railroad engineer John Marlowe in the film. Hannah Hunter, Marlowe’s love interest, has no historical counterpart. Numerous other details were altered as well, “to streamline and popularize the story for the non-history buffs who would make up a large part of the audience.”

Dr. Erastus Dean Yule, the real-life surgeon counterpart of Major Hank Kendall, actually did volunteer to stay behind and get captured by the Confederates with the casualties who were too wounded to continue. The raid actually took place about a year before the notorious Andersonville POW camp was built, and he was eventually exchanged after several months as a POW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horse_Soldiers

As it turned out Grierson’s Raid worked. Troops were pinned down as supplies stopped. Not only did Benjamin Grierson and his brigade destroyed Confederate rail tracks, trains, bridges, storehouses and warehouses, the brigade but they also freed slaves apparently. I do not recall any slaves being emancipated by Marlowe’s forces in the film, but the film does not ignore the topic, thanks to presence of Lukey’s the slave maid and the doctor’s snide comments about the South’s dependence on slavery. Contance Tower’s Hannah Hunter, initially comes off as a caricature of Scarlett O’Hara but her character develops throughout most of the film as she is exposed to more outside her safety bubble.

The book, which I read a long, long time ago reads like what it is, a fictional historical narrative, much like what Upton Sinclair was doing. And I must say I do prefer reading about fictional figures and all their personal dramas in historical settings with real historical characters dipping into the story rather than giving real historical figures personal lives based on guesswork.

I note that Ford perhaps lost interest in the film after one of his stuntmen died. Then as now the director is the captain of the ship. And ford having served, took that especially seriously so when …

During filming of the climactic battle scene, veteran stuntman Fred Kennedy suffered a broken neck while performing a horse fall and died. “Ford was completely devastated,” wrote biographer Joseph Malham. “[He] felt a deep responsibility for the lives of the men who served under him.” The film was scripted to end with the triumphant arrival of Marlowe’s forces in Baton Rouge, but Ford “simply lost interest” after Kennedy’s death. He ended the film with Marlowe’s farewell to Hannah Hunter before crossing and blowing up the bridge.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Horse_Soldiers

The cast is uniformly excellent.

John Wayne and William Holden (the producers originally wanted Clark Gable for the leading role apparently) were at the top of the game. Wayne and Holden were very close personal friends and friendly rivals at the box office. That’s part of the reason that The Horse Soldiers is so good … the chemistry between them. In fact when Wayne died in 1979, Holden was said to have gone on one legendary drinking binge. Constance Towers (in a role that looks like it could have been for Maureen O’Hara) has the right amount of Southern arrogance and. She went on to have a spotty but interesting career (she was also in Ford’s great Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and anyone in Shock Corridor (1963) Fate Is the Hunter (1964) or The Naked Kiss (1964) is worthy of attention). Althea Neale Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the colour line of international tennis. This is her only role in an era when it was common to drop sports stars into supporting roles every now and then. There is good support from Judson Pratt (also in Ford’s Sergeant Rutledge (1960)), Bing Russell (Kurt’s father) and Denver Pyle and Strother Martin great as a some white trash deserters, and of course, there is a list of Ford stock company O.Z. Whitehead , Hank Worden, Chuck Hayward, Carleton Young, William Henry, Anna Lee, Russell Simpson, Hoot Gibson, Jack Pennick, Stan Jones, Bill Borzage, Danny Borzage, Gertrude Astor. I note William Wellman Jr. – later in surf movies (and the son of director William Wellman) is a bugler.

The script is literate and thoughtful, melancholy and occasionally funny in that way Ford had of injecting humour into dramatic situations, and drama into humorous situations. This wasn’t always in the script (scripts he had an uncredited hand in) but just Ford’s temperament and perhaps more real life … real life isn’t one note.

Miss Hannah Hunter pretending to be a scatterbrained southern belle uses her feminine assets soften up the Union officers and extract information from them:

Hannah Hunter [bending over with a plate of chicken, revealing ample cleavage] asks

“Do you prefer the leg… or the breast?”

Col. John Marlowe replies 

“I’ve had quite enough of both, thank you’.

Martin Rackin (The Enforcer (1951), Hell on Frisco Bay (1956), Santiago (1956)) teamed up with John Lee Mahin. Both men wrote and produced The Horse Soldiers (1959) and North to Alaska (1960) for Wayne. Both are no slouches at action films with a little colour with Mahin especially notable for films going back to the early 1930s (He was a writer and producer, known for Scarface (1932), Captains Courageous (1937) Ford’s Mogambo (1953), and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)).

The love interest between Wayne and Towers is a little unbelievable given her allegiance to the South, not to mention the large age difference between the two but it is the 1950s and a love interest is required.

The music is wonderful … from rousing themes to sad little reflections with the cavalry chorus songs being favourite “sing in the shower” songs of mine for a while. Ford (who must have had a say) makes marvellous use of music, weaving traditional Civil War era songs with the song written by Stan Jones for the film, “I Left My Love”, a catchy and infectious ballad. Incidentally Stan Jones makes a brief appearance in the film as Ulysses S. Grant and does well by him. Both the soundtrack (David Buttolph His Orchestra And Chorus) and an album of (trad pop) songs by Constance Towers (with the leads sitting around a campfire admiring her on the sleeve) are worth getting.

Did the movie make money?

Holden and Wayne both received $750,000 for starring, a record salary at the time. The film opened at number one in the United States and made good money, but apparently, was ultimately a commercial failure, due (allegedly) largely to Wayne’s and Holden’s high salaries and the complex participation of multiple production companies. I’m not sure about that. I’ve read it did good box office elsewhere in the world. In any event it was a tough year with much competition from Ben-Hur, The Shaggy Dog, Some Like it Hot, Operation Petticoat, Pillow Talk, Imitation of Life, North by Northwest, The Nun’s Story, On the Beach, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Rio Bravo and others for the box office.

Watch it.

BOOK PAGES

 

when books were cheap second hand …30 cents … and you could return them and get 10 cents back.

Constance Towers album – United Artists (1959)

LINKS

TRAILER

ANOTHER VERSION

PUBLISHER: Dell

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1959

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

 

MUSIC

Soundtrack Album

 

 

 

Posted in Historical, Novel, Western, WITH MUSIC | Tagged | 8 Comments

EARTHQUAKE (1974)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Mark Robson

SCREENWRITER: George Fox, Mario Puzo

FILM STARS: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal, Walter Matthau, Monica Lewis, Gabriel Dell, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Lloyd Gough, John Randolph, Kip Niven, Scott Hylands, Tiger Williams, Donald Moffat, Jesse Vint, Alan Vint.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: George Fox

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Signet

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1974

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1974

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Disaster

WORDS: Every era seems to come up with disaster films though some thrive on them.

The 70s were awash (sic) with disaster films:

In the air – the Airport films (Airport (1970), Airport 1975 (1974), Airport ’77 (1977), The Concorde … Airport ’79 (1979)), Concorde Affaire ’79 (1979), Skyjacked (1972), SST: Death Flight (1977 Made for TV)

At sea – Gray Lady Down (1978), The Neptune Factor (1973), The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

From outer space – Meteor (1979)

And on land:

From disease – The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

From man made vehicles – rollercoasters in Rollercoaster (1977), runaway trains in Runaway! (1973 Made for TV), The Cassandra Crossing (1976) (the film has a double disaster bonus – a lethal germ on board a runaway train), cars in Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976 Made for TV)

From bugs – The Swarm (1978), The Savage Bees (1976 Made for TV), The Bees (1978)

From fire – The Towering Inferno (1974), City on Fire (1979 film), Fire! (1977 Made for TV film)

From natural calamity – Avalanche (1978), Flood! (1976 Made for TV), Hurricane (1979), When Time Ran Out (1980 – a volcano), Condominium (1980 Made for TV – a storm)

I suspect the masses at the time were becoming more aware of the world we live in with pollution, environmental degradation, ecological destruction, urban sprawl, disease, famine, overpopulation all being televised with whatever natural or manmade calamities were going down that week.

And, earthquakes were in the news with severe ones with big losses of life in Peru (1970), Iran (1972), Nicaragua (1972), and China (1974) not to mention Californians knowing they were sitting on the San Andreas fault

Earthquake is a melodrama with a big epic disaster film dumped on it which is normal. Disaster films must ground themselves on the human otherwise they just become a series of scenes of buildings falling down, dams collapsing, fires burning, lava flowing, asteroids hurtling, tidal waves crashing, storms and tornadoes thumping, etc. All this is fine if the disaster films look for the “humanity” in the relationships between people trying to evade the disaster or escape from the after affects of the calamity or otherwise save people who have been affected. But some films also bring melodrama to the mix and look at the personal relationships between people who have been inconvenienced by the disaster. Inevitably that means setting up the relationships, or rather the tensions in the relationships, followed by a disaster, followed by a working through emotions as they struggle against the obstacles created by the disaster.

This melodrama and disaster mix goes back to the earliest of sound era disaster films, San Francisco (1936), The Hurricane (1937), In Old Chicago (1938), and The Rains Came (1939).

Of course you can’t set the characters up and be invested in them without backstory.

And, backstory combined with physical action means disaster films are usually long,

When it comes to ticking the boxes Earthquake (1974) has it all, melodrama, buildings falling down, dams collapsing, fires burning … and length (123 minutes cut down from 161 minutes which makes the melodrama a little choppy).

Earthquake has many strengths and many flaws. There are a half dozen stories going on, which all, more or less, converge after the earthquake. Central is college football star (Charlton Heston), in a dysfunctional marriage to Ava Gardner, his mistress (Genevieve Bujold), and his father in law (Lorne Greene) (note – Gardner was only eight years younger than Lorne Greene). The usual absurdities follow.

But, it’s fun (and cornball) because the actors play it straight (maybe too straight at times). The cast is, as was the case in the 70s disaster films, packed with stars, former stars and up and coming stars but no one is taxed acting wise. (Spoiler ahead) Heston was in his dying gloriously stage … it seemed as if he died in every second film in the 60s and 70s, and he is perfect in a role which he has played a variation on many times before and many times since. Director Mark Robson, not averse to “big” action films (Von Ryan’s Express (1965), Lost Command (1966), Avalanche Express (1979)) or small tight drama films (Champion (1949), Home of the Brave (1949), The Harder They Fall (1956)), keeps the film chugging along from one emotional drama or disaster set piece to the next. The special effects are as good, and sometimes better than you would expect (this was a big budget film) in pre CGI days (CGI being more of a curse than a blessing) though there are a lot of people pretending to hold on to things and falling in all sorts of directions during the quake.

The film was a big hit … it grossed $79.7 million domestically ($450.5 million, adjusted for inflation in 2023 dollars) being one of the highest-grossing films of the time.

Is it fun?  Yes, watch it but don’t think about it.

The book is a synopsis of the film with a series of “making of” articles. Nothing here that you would need outside of trivia titbits. Interestingly novelist Mario Puzo (The Godfather) wrote the early draft screenplay (in 1972) and then George Fox was brought in to finish it off / work on it.

Trivia:

  • Walter Matthau was cast in a cameo role, for which he was credited as “Walter Matuschanskayasky”. Matthau was born Walter John Matthow though his family name is Milton Matuschansky. As part of a lifelong love of practical jokes, Matthau created the rumours that his middle name was Foghorn and his last name was originally Matuschanskayasky.
  • The film was filmed (or rather screened in) in “Sensurround” – in select cinemas a series of large speakers would pump in sub-audible “infra bass” sound waves equivalent to a jet airplane at take-off, giving the viewer the sensation of an earthquake. Sensurround was used again for the films Midway (1976), Rollercoaster (1977), and Battlestar Galactica (1979)

BOOK PAGES

 

 

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Disaster, Novelization | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974)

Posted on September 10, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Kevin Connor

SCREENWRITER: Michael Moorcock, James Cawthorn

FILM STARS: Doug McClure, John McEnery, Susan Penhaligon, Keith Barron, Anthony Ainley, Godfrey James, Declan Mulholland, Roy Holder, Andrew McCulloch, Ron Pember, Brian Hall, Peter Sproule, Steve James

COUNTRY: GB / USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Edgar Rice Burroughs

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Tandem

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1975

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1918

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS: While the term “science fiction” had not yet been coined in the days before the First World War there were authors beginning to write works that would clearly fit into that genre: Frenchman Jules Verne (1828-1905), Englishman H. G. Wells (1866-1946), and American Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). All three would set the boundaries of science fiction.

All three would write adventures with various degrees of fantasy and science fiction in them.

Though I have read mostly the last two, the charm in their storytelling comes from the application of the then known science to an adventure narrative.

So why can’t you have dinosaurs on an island in the 20th century who don’t know they are supposed to be extinct?

And, lets face it what a great title … The Land That Time Forgot.

The title is a synopsis of the book and it has a bum bum bum dramatical musical quality to it.

The “lost world” story was popular at the turn of the last century when science was banging on the door of tall tales and superstition for ordinary folk – with novels such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912) and Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island (1874) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), H. Rider Haggard She: A History of Adventure (1887), A. Meritt’s The Face in the Abyss (1931), Dwellers in the Mirage (1932), The Moon Pool (1918), and H. P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1931).

It’s fun and plausible and it’s only a short hop from here to Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (1990)

I’m more of a Tarzan man and I love author Burroughs. He is less scientific than H.G. Wells but he nevertheless wrote adventures (like Tarzan – a baby is raised by apes in Africa) and sci fi (like the John Carter novels – a Civil War veteran who gets transported to Mars or another planet called Barsoom) with a basis on the real, or the plausible.

He was quite happy to mix the known with the knowable with the plausible and potential.

They read well and are a lot of fun even though the “science” is no longer accurate or even “science’ anymore … and Burroughs likes the setting (or can make easy use of it) because he returned to the “lost world” idea with dinosaurs on Tarzan the Terrible (1921) and then again without dinosaurs in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929).

Here the story starts out as a wartime sea adventure, before hitting the lost world where dinosaurs and people exist side by side. It’s fun.

And so is the film from 1974. I first saw it as a kid in the 70s (I have a recollection they showed it to us in school on a projector – but I could be wrong) but as a kid in the 70s it was cheer out loud fun. As an adult I watched it with my young kids and it is still fun though the rubber monsters, fake backdrops, puppets and other assorted pre CGI effects are noticeable (to me, kids don’t notice) but I don’t care because there was effort put in.

What I like best is by the time I had become an adult I had become a Doug McClure fan. Interestingly, another favourite of mine, Stuart Whitman, was to have starred: “Amicus originally wanted to cast Doug McClure in the lead, but he refused, so they signed Stuart Whitman. Then Samuel Z. Arkoff of American International Pictures came on board as co-financers, providing the bulk of the budget, but would only make the film if McClure was cast. He changed his mind and agreed to do the film”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_That_Time_Forgot_(1974_film)

McClure is great because in most of his roles he is committed but never seems to take anything too seriously. He is professional but with  a knowing wink to the audience as he does here which is the perfect position to take when your character is on an island with British and German sailors, primitive man and dinosaurs all competing with each other.

The film’s director Kevin Connor said: “Doug was a great asset. In fight scenes he was especially good due to his hours of American TV action films. He knew exactly where the camera was at all times and threw punches precisely where the effect would work for the screen. He was always co-operative and came up with many ideas”. No amount of stage work will give you that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_That_Time_Forgot_(1974_film)

The rest of the cast are British (a UK-US co-production) with pretty Susan Penhaligon standing out, though everyone looks 1974 groomed for a film set around 1918.

The screenplay was co-written by English sci-fi author Michael Moorcock (The Fireclown, aka The Winds of Limbo (1965), The Ice Schooner (1966), The Black Corridor (1969), The Final Programme (1969) A Cure for Cancer (1971)The Alchemist’s Question (1984)).

He was perhaps a good fit for the material giving it a little more science meat for the 70s but maintaining the fantasy elements. Moorcock who writes in heroic fantasy fiction a lot has mentioned that “The Mastermind of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the first non-juvenile books that he read before beginning primary school.

He said this about the film: “I was very lucky in being given the authority by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc to write a movie as close to the first part of the book as possible, but even then the producer managed to stick a volcano in, which I had insisted not be in the movie (making it difficult to continue the series according to the books!). Jim Cawthorn broke the book down into scenes and I wrote the script. We used the German submarine commander as the biologist on board who could explain the theme, rather than have a stereotypical U-boat German of the period (WW1) when the books were written. Even then his dialogue had to be overdubbed by Anton Dolin (I think) who had a rather more convincing voice than the actor who played the commander. Given the budget, I thought they did pretty well, using glove-puppet dinosaurs mostly. They got the atmosphere of the sub finding the secret way into the island very well, I thought. My main trouble with the dinosaurs was the fixed wing pterodactyl and there was also a certain amount of dimensional problems here and there. All things considered, however, I thought it came out pretty well. Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc for some reason didn’t exercise the same control over the sequel. After learning what the producers intended, Jim and I left the project, whereupon one of the producers took it over”. https://www.michaelmoorcock.net/forum/q-a/q-a-%E2%97%A6-questions-for-mike-news/1793-the-land-that-time-forgot

Co author James Cawthorn (1929–2008) who was also a fantasy illustrator and comics artist often collaborated with Moorcock.

The film was a big enough hit for the production company Amicus (distributed in the United States by American International Pictures) was to make two more Burroughs adaptations, The People That Time Forgot (1977), a direct sequel to this film starring Patrick Wayne, Sarah Douglas and McClure in a cameo, and At the Earth’s Core (1976), also with McClure (in a different role), Peter Cushing, and Caroline Munro.

Will I watch it again? yes, with a bottle of red at my side.

TRIVIA

  • The film (or book) was remade in 2009 under the same title though sometimes called Dinosaur Island and it is no fun. Still low budget but all CGI.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Adventure, Book Type, Novel, Science Fiction | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954)

Posted on August 27, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: William A. Wellman

SCREENWRITER: Ernest K. Gann

FILM STARS: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, Jan Sterling, Phil Harris, Ann Doran, Robert Newton, David Brian, Paul Kelly, Sidney Blackmer, Julie Bishop, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, John Howard, Wally Brown, William Campbell, John Qualen, Paul Fix, George Chandler, Douglas Fowley, Regis Toomey, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, William Hopper, William Schallert, Doe Avedon, Karen Sharpe, John Smith

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Ernest K. Gann

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Hodder

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1956

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1953

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Disaster

WORDS: This will be a long haul …

The film was, for many years, unseen. It was owned by Batjac, John Wayne’s own production company co-founded by him (and Robert Fellows) for him to both produce and star in movies. Most production companies formed by stars are done so they can star in (or produce) films they want to be made, do roles they don’t get offered much, make more money, or all of the above. Originally called Wayne/Fellows Productions Wayne renamed the corporation after a fictitious trading company mentioned in his film Wake of the Red Witch (1948) though in the movie it was spelled Batjak (Wayne’s secretary misspelled it as Batjac on the corporation papers, and Wayne let it stand). The first Batjac production was Big Jim McLain (1952) released by Warner Brothers. Many of John Wayne’s subsequent films were produced by Batjac who also produced films for stars other than Wayne.

Wayne’s company certainly produced westerns for him (especially later) but also put him into action, adventure and cop movies as well as a pair of films with him as a pilot, the modest hit and Island in the Sky (1953) and this film which was a big smash at the box office (the sixth most popular film of the year in North America).

Most of the Batjac films in the 50s were released by Warner Brothers, meaning there was money in them, and you could see it on the screen (I wish I saw it on the big screen). This is A budget filming 1950s style.

All the films, Wayne’s and one starring other actors, are all superior entertainments. They are well made action and adventure films which are quite literate within the confines of their genres.

Why all this talk?

Well for many years The High and the Mighty was a “lost film”

I recall only twenty or so years ago VHS copies (taped from TV in the 70s I assume) exchanging hands for $70 or $80 US … and apparently the quality wasn’t all that good. I might be a John Wayne fan (and I am) but I wasn’t going to pay that (all the more reason to read the source novel, which I did)

The film was ‘lost” because of a production/distribution deal with Warner Bros giving Batjac the rights to three Wayne films — The High and the Mighty (1954), Hondo (1953), Island in the Sky (1953). McLintock! (1963), distributed by United Artists and produced by Batjac was another “lost” film. Batjac also held full copyright ownership in several non-Wayne movies which were considered lost – Seven Men from Now, Man in the Vault (1956), Ring of Fear (1954), Plunder of the Sun (1953), Track of the Cat (1954), China Doll (1958), Escort West (1958), and Gun the Man Down (1956).

Batjac, not being a major studio, didn’t have the means to actively re-release the films quickly which means the films weren’t on TV much and weren’t released during the initial video craze or the initial DVD craze when all the big companies were racing to get old product out.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t want to, they just had less resources and had to do deals to get the films out, which meant delays.

“After Wayne’s death in 1979, his son Michael Wayne gained full ownership and managed the company until he died in 2003. He meticulously managed the release pattern of his father’s films and restored Hondo and McLintock! in the early 1990s for release on VHS and television. His passion was to restore the other two films, but water damage to the original elements made it impossible during his lifetime. Taking advantage of the new digital restoration processes, Michael’s widow Gretchen restored these films in 2004 and released them through a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures in 2005” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batjac_Productions

Once they were remastered and released on DVD I was excited but had some trepidation. After waiting for something for a long time will it meet my expectations, will my excitement look over the films flaws or will I be let down?

I recall on first seeing the High and the Mighty and I was not let down though it is not without some minor flaws.

Because it had been out of action many critics (like Leonard Maltin in his seminal annual books “Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide”) recall it from their youth and praise it, not having seen it as an adult they probably forgot its flaws. Leonard probably did not second guess himself as he would do a documentary on the film that came with its initial DVD release.

I say all this, but in reality the flaws are minor.

This is superior soap with action sequences.

The film about a plane load of passengers in danger is a trope but this film invented the trope. This is the first of the “Airport” type films, the grandfather of the “can the plane make it back to earth safely” story. Here, as per the requirements of the subgenre all the characters on the plane flying between Honolulu and San Francisco have their back stories, and they react differently to the catastrophic engine failure event. It’s up to the pilots, including co-pilot Wayne who has his own demons (as a result of an earlier air crash he was a pilot on that also killed his wife and child) to overcome the obstacles. The beauty here is that being a DC-4 with 17 passengers and a crew of 5 just about all the characters’ back stories can be explored. By the time we got to the Airport films with their 707s and 727s and crew and passengers in the hundreds this was no longer possible so they would pick out a cross section to drive, as they do here, the human element of the narrative.

This is a mixed blessing. The film’s only noticeable flaw (if it is a flaw) are the many flashbacks which are surprising (given the director is William Wellman who likes zip and action), and which slow down the action and increase the running time. Having said that they increase the “human element” and soap qualities (there is also some speechifying and religious symbolism) of the film making it, as it was called by some critics at the time, the “Grand Hotel in the sky”, referring to the famous 1932 film soap opera Grand Hotel whose many characters, with many stories intersect at a hotel in Berlin. Some of the flashbacks in The High and the Mighty are a little hokey but necessary (it’s interesting to think what would have happened if superior soap director Douglas Sirk directed this film).

But there is a fair bit of action. Perhaps a better name for it would have been “Stagecoach in the air” … referring to the John Wayne John Ford film from 1939 – a small group of characters, with different stories in a confined mobile space facing an external threat.

It’s a thoroughly entertaining film and Wayne is wholly convincing (though he never liked his performance, and only did it when they couldn’t get Spencer Tracy for the role) as the tortured though professional pilot. There are so many good bits with Wayne – as he snaps at pilot Robert Stack or comforts the passengers. His mannerisms and asides are gold but all the cast are great, especially Wayne’s co-star from Stagecoach and Allegheny Uprising (both 1939) Claire Trevor (in a role turned down by Barbara Stanwyck who thought the role was too small). Trevor was nominated for the best supporting actress oscar (as was co-star Jan Sterling who is excellent) … neither won. Also, anything with William Campbell has to be good (his role is bigger than his cast position would suggest) and it’s good to see Laraine Day, Robert Stack (who parodies this sub genre later in Flying High (1980)), scenery chewing Robert Newton, future TV star (Laramie) and John Wayne co-star (Circus World (1964)) John Smith in a small support, the babaceous Karen Sharpe and Doe Avedon, and John Wayne friends Pedro Gonzales Gonzales, John Qualen, and Paul Fix in roles.

Director William Wellman (himself an ex-pilot) made quite a few aviation films and had already made Island in the Sky (1953) with John Wayne (who played an army pilot on a transport plane) which was also based on a novel by Gann. That film was a modest but effective, black and white film about men fighting the elements after crash landing. Here he shows what he can do with a lot of dialogue. The film is long and for the most part limited to a plane but it’s a hoot. The characters riff off each other but there is no doubting the central story is Wayne’s.

Legendary composer Dimitri Tiomkin scored the film and composed the theme song “The High and the Mighty”. The song was also called “The Whistling Song” because John Wayne whistled the tune during the film. Tiomkin’s music topped hit parade charts and remained there for weeks, increasing the film’s profile. He also won an Academy Award for his original score, while the title song for the film also was nominated for an Oscar.

The song has become an exotica standard. The first release of the title tune was by Leroy Holmes and His Orchestra (Whistling by Fred Lowery) in 1954 released even before the version by Dimitri Tiomkin and His Orchestra. Many versions (80+) have been done since by all the usual orchestra leaders, Marty Gold, Franck Pourcel, Les Baxter, as well as combos headed by Arthur Lyman, Jimmy Smith and instrumentalists like Roger Williams, Ferrante & Teicher and the Shadows. There was even a vocal version released with lyrics by Ned Washington. The tune was just that catchy. For me, one of the best versions is Los Indios Tabajaras from 1966.

The film was a big hit at the time and solidified Wayne’s run at the top as a #1 box office star (and it has to be remembered that Wayne was in the Top 10 from 1949 – 1974 and in the 50s, when he was at his peak, he made relatively few westerns ( 5 out of 19)).

A long time prior to seeing the film I had read the book. I found the book in an op shop and though it doesn’t mention the film specifically (as you can tell from the cover) it’s pretty clear John Wayne and Robert Stack are depicted. I bought it and read it immediately. I loved it and it kicked off my reading anything by Ernest K. Gann. Gann was an interesting character … a pilot (commercial, army transport, and private), and a sailor, and he wrote about both. He had a Hemingwayesque style with action and philosophising. His characters are more than one dimensional and there are whole passages of prose that read like poetry (with a touch of melancholy and memory in a Rod McKuen-esque way – and that’ a good thing) which is all anchored by a generous amount of technical detail for fiction (which doesn’t get in the way of the story (or screenplay which he also wrote)), so much so that after having read his books, you feel like you could fly a plane or captain a boat. Its been awhile since I read the novel but I recall the suspense and action not being overshadowed by the whys and hows of flying a plane in potentially disastrous circumstances.

It is a thoroughly entertaining read.

See the film, read the book.

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MUSIC

Les Baxter title theme song (cover) – 1954

Los Indios Tabajaras title theme song (cover) – 1965

Posted in Disaster, Drama, Novel, WITH MUSIC | Tagged | Leave a comment

THE DROWNING POOL (1975)

Posted on August 20, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Stuart Rosenberg

SCREENWRITER: Tracy Keenan Wynn, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Walter Hill

FILM STARS: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Richard Derr, Anthony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton, Gail Strickland, Melanie Griffith, Richard Jaeckel, Paul Koslo, Joe Canutt, Andrew Robinson, Coral Browne, Helena Kallianiotes

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Ross Macdonald

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Fontana

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1975

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1950

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Crime

WORDS: I love the Ross Macdonald “Lew Archer” private detective novels …. err “Lew Harper” novels. In 1966, a film starring Paul Newman, called Harper, was made of a Macdonald novel, “The Moving Target” (1949) which had as its lead cynical private eye Lew Archer. Why the change from Archer to Harper? Rumour has it that Newman wanted a “H” film name after the character after his success in The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963) (and he did Hombre in 1967). So “Archer” became “Harper”. Well, “Harcher” doesn’t work. Harper was  big hit … and after much toing and froing this is its sequel.

It wasn’t a hit. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the lack of a “H” title.

Though watchable, in that everything from the 70s is watchable way, I’m not sure why the film wasn’t better. Director Stuart Rosenberg is good and much underrated director, one of the films early draft screenplays was written by the great (later director) Walter Hill, and the cast is good. Newman (an excellent Harper / Archer) and wife Joanne Woodward supported by (the the always reliable) Tony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton, Gail Strickland, (a young) Melanie Griffith, (the always good) Richard Jaeckel, and (the wonderful) Paul Koslo. In a support is Andrew Robinson who played the psychotic serial killer Scorpio in Dirty Harry (1971).

Perhaps the the problem with the film is they moved it from California to Louisiana, and from 1950 to 1975 (though that they had to do as the first film was set in 1966). Lew Archer is (largely) a product of southern California just before the counterculture revolution and looks out of place elsewhere (though the fish out of water theme is (a small) part of the narrative in the film).  It’s not bad but the book is better.

The novel is an excellent entertaining read. I read a lot of Ross Macdonald as my clear the head, stimulate but don’t over exercise the brain late night reads (I also read John D MacDonald (both Ross and John were crime writers writing at the same time – yes unfortunately, from time to time, I attribute one novel to the other in my head) and western writer Louis L’Amour late at night for the same reason). Some will throw “pulp” at these authors. I’m not sure if that is pejorative term anymore but even if it was these writers are a cut above. The stories don’t change greatly from book to book, and the characters only have occasional deep insight but they all usually have a wonderful sense of time and place, or at least they conjure up a time and place I can instantly visualise. And that is, to me, gold.

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THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964)

Posted on August 13, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Nathan Juran

SCREENWRITER: Nigel Kneale

FILM STARS: Edward Judd, Martha Hyer, Lionel Jeffries, Miles Malleson, Norman Bird, Peter Finch (uncredited cameo)

COUNTRY: England

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: H.G. Wells

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Fontana

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1964

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1901

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS: H.G. Wells adaptations are always a hoot, especially when they are set in their period trappings, which (admittedly) are rare.

His novels (and short stories) almost always make good films – The Invisible Man (the 1933 film with many spinoffs), War of the Worlds (1953, 2005 and many spinoffs), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1932 (called Island of Lost Souls) 1977 and 1996), The Time Machine (1960, 2002), and the schlocky entertaining The Food of the Gods (1965 (called Village of the Giants)) and 1976), Empire of the Ants (1977), as well as non-sci-fi – The History of Mr. Polly (1949), Kipps (1941), The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937), The Passionate Friends (1949).

And he proves adaptable – the musical Half a Sixpence (1967) was based on his novel “Kipps” and rock opera (Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds (1979)) and radio (Orson Welles’ famous 1938 radio adaptation broadcast of The War of the Worlds) gave him a shot.

Wells, himself, is so well known he becomes a character in a spinoff of one his own adventures in Karl Alexander’s novel and Time after Time which was made into a (excellent) film in 1979, and where Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.

Most of the films update his novels to contemporary times but like Jules Verne I like Wells best when he is done in period and The First Men in the Moon is (largely) set in Victorian times

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His thought was scientific (his earliest specialised training was in biology) rather than fantasy and he thought in a Darwinian context. He was also an outspoken socialist, progressive, and often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. He wrote social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography but it’s his pre-World War 1 science fiction novels which led him to be called the “father of science fiction”.

“The First men in the Moon” is an entertaining read, and read today fuels anyone’s imagination (especially if you are of the steam punk bent). The protagonists (an English scientist and his neighbour) go to the moon and discover an underground empire with an insectoid population.

I saw the film before I read the novel. It is perhaps, the second Wells film I saw (War of the Worlds 1953 the first) when I saw it as a kid on TV in the 70s. It appealed to me then (I tracked down the book and read it shortly after), and I have watched it since a few times including once with my kids and it still holds up as an entertaining romp with some science and morality thrown in.

The film follows the book closely though with some notable differences. The increased knowledge of the moon in the 60s years since the novel’s publication required changes for 1964 audiences. The protagonists (still British though they are accompanied to the moon with a female romantic interest (a turn of the century “feminist freethinker” but the kind of woman Wells would have approved of) wear suits whilst on the surface (there was air in the novel), and the plant life that erupts across the lunar surface at sunrise has been done away with. Otherwise, the film has had to accommodate the moon race of the 60s and this is done effectively as a prequel, with the Americans landing on the moon and finding a British flag (now that’s funny) and a note leading to someone on Earth, and a story told in flashback.

As a kid the film was mildly frightening (human size ants! …come on that would scare the crap out of you as a kid) but all encompassing and as an adult it is a well-paced adventure with great special effects from Ray Harryhausen and directed by Nathan Juran (a expert in sci fi – The Deadly Mantis (1957), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and adventure The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), Jack the Giant Killer (1962)). It didn’t hurt that he had worked as an art director before becoming a director. Written by Englishman Nigel Kneale (and expert in sci fi having done the Quatermass films and TV shows in the UK).

The film looks good. It may be an English film but clearly American money and input (American special effects master, director, and female lead) and produced by Columbia pictures, who made a lot of films in the UK in the 60s, give it gloss.

The screenplay contains quite a few confronting questions about human nature and colonialism as well as some light satire (all Wellsian), a nod to science (the moon creatures have solar power) and a unusual (though not unexpected) abrupt ending. There is also a melancholia as the old man looks back at his youthful adventure with his now deceased love which is endearing.

The cast (essentially three of them) are great: American female lead, spunky Martha Hyer, Lionel Jefferies as the manic eccentric inventor, a long way from the boring seriousness of modern movie scientists, and Edward Judd as the not invincible hero.

Not everything has to be Interstellar (2014), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Ad Astra (2019) … please, less of them. Of course, not everything has to be Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) or Star Wars (1977). There is a place where science and fiction, fact and fun, can intersect, but so rarely do, but it does here. Importantly, there are enough pauses in the action for the wonder of the adventure to sink in and make an impact on the imagination.

You have to watch this and unless you are an overly serious and pretentious type, or like your action with no pauses, you will enjoy this film.

NB: it was remade in 2010 as Made for TV movie in England. I have not seen that.

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Posted in Book Type, Novel, Science Fiction | Tagged | 2 Comments

RAIN MAN (1988)

Posted on August 6, 2023 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Barry Levinson

SCREENWRITER: Ronald Bass, Barry Morrow

FILM STARS: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Jerry Molen, Ralph Seymour, Michael D. Roberts, Bonnie Hunt, Beth Grant, Lucinda Jenney, Barry Levinson, Bob Heckel

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Leonore Fleischer

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1989

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1989

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: Rain Man was one of those films the Academy Awards loves. It has a linear told familiar script with drama and comedy, a moral heart that will leave you uplifted at the end, and by good acting, good direction, good photography.

It is smart enough to throw up seemingly hard questions which are resolved or at least addressed by the end. Everything in it clicks and works like a fine oiled machine.

It is also a film were the script never really answers any questions or explores any moral questions in any depth (as opposed to resolving plot situations), where the drama isn’t uncomfortable, the comedy isn’t alienating, the emotion isn’t deep, where the actors are acting, where the direction is slick and anonymous, and where the photography is sharp.

It is all clean lines with nothing to make you squirm in your seat which the Academy loves (and love it they did – it won Best Picture, Director, Actor (Hoffman) and Screenplay)

Just like many of the recent Oscar Best Picture winners it is also very middle brow.

And maybe the world was middlebrow – the film was a hit worldwide and the highest grossing film in 1988 in the US.  To appeal to that many people you have to have something for everyone. And, don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with big box office appeal, but, big box office plus Oscar wins, usually, but not all always, end up in the worst of middle brow entertainments.

The films are big and banal though with some minor message thrown in. They are films that can be watched, enjoyed (sometimes), and then forgotten.  All big box office and best Picture winners : Ordinary People (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), Terms of Endearment (1983), Out of Africa (1985), The Last Emperor (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Forrest Gump (1994), The English Patient (1996), American Beauty (1999), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Million Dollar Baby (2004), 12 Years A Slave (2013), Spotlight (2015), Moonlight (2016), Green Book (2018), CODA (2021).

Rain Man is (a better) one of those.

The film is a old buddy road film with the buddies being two brothers (Cruise and Hoffman – unlikely as there is 25 years difference in ages). The younger brother is confronted with an older brother he did not know about who is some sort of Savant syndrome, autistic type. His hostility and cynicism grow to love as they travel across America. The film is basically a riff on Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” but the characters in Rain Man live in a vacuum with a pot of gold (the inheritance) at the end and don’t confront the hard issues of humans dealing with each other and accepting each other as they come.

I recall I enjoyed the film (when I saw it in the 90s) but haven’t seen it since, nor need to see it again (but maybe I will). Hoffman pulls out another good performance in a role which was always going to win accolades for whoever played it, and Tom is eager (and annoying), in that early Tom Cruise way. The film boosted his (already on a roll) career immeasurably. Levinson’s direction is slick as it always is (there are no rough edges on his films (he is like the Spielberg of drama), but like Fred Zinnemann he is a good craftsman and master puppeteer as long as you don’t mind seeing the strings. His best film is his first film, the wonderful Diner (1982).

Writers Barry Morrow (the not dissimilar Bill (1981), and Bill: On His Own (1983), Gospa (1995), Mercy of the Sea (2003)) and Ron Bass (Black Widow (1987), The Joy Luck Club (1993), When a Man Loves a Woman (1994), Swing Vote (1999), Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) … and, his best Gardens of Stone (1987) which isn’t that different to the others though it does have Francis Ford Coppola as director)) write thoughtful dramatic entertainments.

The film also has one of those awful Hans Zimmer 1980s scores which seriously date it, or would, I suspect, date it if I watched it again now.

It’s the type of dramatic feel good film which lends itself to potential excess which we see in many of the woke uplifting films of recent years. If remade today it would, no doubt, win many awards all over again, and not be nearly as good.

On the plus side the film was such a success that it increased awareness of people with autism and savant syndrome.

No need to read the novelisation.

Writer Leonore Fleischer is one of the giants of novelisations. She has written 40 plus novelisations under her own name or under pseudonyms

She said in 1977, “I paint by numbers, I confess it. I pad out, supply background, impute motivation, invent gestures. I ride on the coat-tails of somebody else’s creation. But work is work and I’m as good as the best of the rest – just ask my agent. Ask the kids who read Benji. Ask Stephen Sondheim and Tony Perkins; I novelized The Last of Sheila. They loved my book; I never saw their film. I never see any of the films. I’m lucky if I get to see stills.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonore_Fleischer

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