SCREENWRITER: Michael Crichton, Philip Kaufman, Michael Backes
FILM STARS: Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kevin Anderson, Mako, Tia Carrere, Steve Buscemi, Tatjana Patitz, Tylyn John
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Michael Crichton
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Arrow
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1992
COUNTRY: Australia
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1992
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Crime
WORDS: A slick book and a slick film.
Michael Crichton is one of my guilty pleasures. He writes superior pulp thrillers. Superior because his stories are always (usually) set against new and / or emerging issues and trends in the world which gives them more believability and plausibility than most. Most of his novels have a science sci fi reality bent. Here he tackles global economic power struggles and US / Japanese economic relations Written in 1993 it is a fascinating look behind the scenes of international trade and if written now in the era of US / Chinese economic relations would, perhaps, be even more fascinating.
The thriller elements are all there: shady deals, sex, murder, corporate greed, culture clashes but all against the real world US / Japanese economic power relationships. His grounding of characters in real world issues is what makes his books a great read. This is plane and beach reading but of a most superior kind.
The film is equally slick. Directed by the not so prolific and much underrated Philip Kaufman (Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1977), The Wanderers, The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being). Kaufman seems to always have one foot in indie art and one foot in the mainstream. This is perhaps his most straight mainstream film but it still has enough quirk to make it interesting. The plot has been altered a little – Wesley Snipes is the protagonist, therefore changing the character’s race from Caucasian to African-American. (talk about “Blackwashing in film , errrr colour blind casting. It’s odd, when a Caucasian plays a traditional character of colour in a film it’s called “whitewashing” but when and actor of colour plays a traditionally Caucasian character its not called blackwashing (or any other colour) but “colour-blind casting”. The formers sounds like a negative and the later like a positive … go figure). In any event Crichton argued against it unsuccessfully because “In a movie about U.S.-Japan relations, if you cast someone who’s black, you introduce another aspect because of tension between blacks and Japanese”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(film)
But Wesley Snipes was hot at the time and it’s all about the money and box office return. On top of that some names have changed as has the identity of the murderer (!), though that change didn’t take away from the meaning or implications in the book.
All is almost forgivable when you have Sean Connery in the lead and Harvey Keitel, Mako, Kevin Anderson, Tia Carrere and Steve Buscemi in the supporting cast. Unfortunately, despite having a smart script (David Mamet did a draft but I’m not sure if anything ended up in the final) the films ends up being “a “buddy cop” thriller, albeit a smart (er) one.
FILM STARS: Glenn Ford, Jack Lemmon, Anna Kashfi, Dick York, King Donovan, Brian Donlevy, Richard Jaeckel, Vaughn Taylor, Frank DeKova, Strother Martin
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Clair Huffaker
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Gold Medal Book
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1958
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: Frank Harris
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1930
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: My Reminiscences as a Cowboy
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS: Directed by the great Delmer Daves (who was a screenwriter himself) this was written by Edmund H. North and Dalton Trumbo (who did not receive a screen credit because he was blacklisted at the time) and then novelized by (novelist and screenwriter) Clair Huffaker. It reads as the film plays but with enough western colour to give it the look of a thoughtful novelization.
Based on Irish-American Frank Harris’ semi-autobiographical novel “My Reminiscences as a Cowboy” it is a (quite realistic) greenhorn goes west and fish out of water story, about the growth of a man taking a herd of cattle from Mexico to Kansas. I’m not sure how much Trumbo contributed to the script (some suggest North just fronted for him) but Edmund H North was no slouch. He had done westerns including the thoughtful “The Proud Ones” (1956) and “Only the Valiant” (1950) but he also wrote the science-fiction classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and then later worked on the script (and won an Oscar for) “Patton” (1970). Glenn Ford, popular throughout his 50+ year career had an especially golden 15 years between about 1953 – 1968. He was in great form here as the experienced trail boss though it’s not a stretch for him and it isn’t a role much different to his in “The Sheepman” (1958), “The Violent Men” (1955) or “Jubal” (1956). Jack Lemmon in the 1950s was also on fire, here playing a variation on the (overly) tally Easterner character he played a lot. The supporting cast is populated with western faces like Richard Jaeckel, Frank DeKova, and Strother Martin , stalwarts like Brian Donlevy and King Donovan and in pre-Bewitched large-ish role Dick York. Lead female Anna Kashfi had a a short career and its better known for her even shorter marriage to Marlon Brando.
Filmed on location in the US south west the film was intended to be a more realistic look at a cattle drive in the west. I assume it was a reply to the many standard shoot em up westerns which would then, at the same time distinguish it from them (though in some ways it is similar to the excellent 1951 film “Cattle Drive” with Joel McCrea and Dean Stockwell). It was successful which led of course to more standard shoot em up westerns and any number of cattle and cowboy television shows like “Rawhide” and “Bonanza”.
Delmer Daves is, perhaps, one of the most undervalued and underestimated of post war American directors, probably because he worked in genre movies (albeit A-grade ones), especially westerns. There is, in all his films, more than meets the eye. Under the genre conventions and tropes there are 3D characters and thought of time and place that elevates his films. He is aware of social norms and forces and seems to be progressive as progress, represented by civilization, science, and knowledge, is generally seen as a positive force for Daves, who like director John Ford seems to prefer customs and positive societal and familial groups at the expense of individualism. That’s not to suggest there is no action in his films, there is, they are after all genre films, but the characters aren’t just shooting their way through problems and seem to acknowledge that other people exist on the planet. French film maker and critic Bertrand Tavernier once called him the “ethnical romantic”. I like that. His westerns are some of the best of the 50s, “Broken Arrow” (1950), “Drum Beat” (1954), “Jubal” (1956), The Last Wagon (1956), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Cowboy (1958), “The Badlanders” (1958), “The Hanging Tree (1959).
The book is an entertaining and easy read. The film is wonderful.
FILM STARS: Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates, Florinda Bolkan, Oliver Reed, Tom Bell, Joss Ackland, Christopher Cazenove, Henry Cooper, Lionel Jeffries, Alastair Sim, Michael Hordern, Britt Ekland, Bob Hoskins
COUNTRY: England
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: George Macdonald Fraser
TYPE: Novel PUBLISHER: Pan
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1980
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1970
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Adventure
WORDS: You have to love the Flashman books (or anything by George MacDonald Fraser). Fraser writes faction and occasionally history but where the fiction is rooted in real places, times and historical events (with some liberties taken and a modern (satirical) sensibility). And his is not just a lip service historical backdrop. There is a lot of detail in the historical events. His books are so accurate that my Modern History teacher at school would on occasion read chapters to us in lieu of the regular syllabus. Of course he (the teacher) had a sense of humour as does Fraser who is quite cynical, sharp and able to make you laugh out load.
His central “hero” is Capt. Harry Flashman who is an unapologetic rogue who’ll stop at nothing to advance himself. Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE is a fictional character created by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896) in the semi-autobiographical Tom Brown’s School Days (1857). Fraser took that character and created adventures for him which, perhaps, are very satirically 70s in tone but are historically accurate (with some liberties) in time and place. Here Flashman gets swept up in the revolutions of 1848 and meets Prince Edward, Lola Montez, Ludwig I of Bavaria. Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx and German Chancellor Otto Von Bismark and gets involved in the British war in Afghanistan. The book is loosely based on the plot of The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope. Flashman explains that this is because the story was plagiarised from him by its author, Anthony Hope. Harrr, meta before meta? Harry Flashman appears in 12 of Fraser’s books.
The film directed by Richard Lester, who (as a satirical comedy director not adverse to humorous anachronisms) is a right fit for the subject matter (he had brought Fraser in to write the screenplay to his his enormously successful comedy adventure films based on the Alexandre Dumas novel of the same name, “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and “The Four Musketeers” (1974)). The film stars the always wonderful Malcolm McDowell who again is a perfect fit and unrelenting in his portrayal of Flashman. Lester said subsequently (in “Getting away with it : or, The further adventures of the luckiest bastard you ever saw” (2011) ), “that equivocal anti hero wasn’t easy to take. They wanted a real hero, a hero that was a bounder as well as a hero. And Malcolm McDowell was absolutely 100% bounder – the sleaze was coming through to the film.” I saw the film so long ago I don’t recall the specifics of the film but I do recall laughing and being amused by the mix of history and humour. I was also on a Malcolm McDowell kick at the time (still am though it’s hard work).
Interestingly, Fraser also wrote the non fiction “The Hollywood History of the World: From One Million Years B.C. to Apocalypse Now” (1988). A book that everyone should read as a tonic to the boring overused trope about Hollywood bastardising history and getting it wrong. Fraser concludes that the standard of historical analysis in most movies is a lot better than the popular conception.
FILM STARS: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, William Shatner, Werner Klemperer, Karl Swenson, Edward Binns
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Abby Mann
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Horwitz
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1963
COUNTRY: Australia
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1961
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Courtroom Drama
WORDS: A short novelisation, a long film. A great one, but long.
The story of German judges being tried, after World War 2, for upholding the laws of the Nazi State against German Jews is a compelling one, and one that may provoke discussion.
“Judgement at Nuremberg” began as a television play made for the Playhouse 90 (an anthology television series) in 1959, directed by George Roy Hill and written by Abby Mann. It was such a success (and controversial) that it became a natural for someone like Stanley Kramer (who loved edgy subject matter) to bring it to the big screen in 1961. (later, in 2001, Abby Mann took it to Broadway). The television play had a great cast with Claude Rains, Melvyn Douglas, Paul Lukas and the magnificent Maximillian Schell as the defence counsel. The film had a greater and more powerhouse cast with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland,. Montgomery Clift, William Shatner and Maximillian Schell reprising his earlier role (as did Werner Klemperer). Schell also appeared in the later Broadway production albeit in a different role.
The film is a courtroom drama and most of the the stars play various defendants as long cameos. The film is long (three hours) but always compelling with come pointed speeches and surprisingly, notwithstanding the inevitable results, there is a lot even handed insight into the position of the accused. Kramer, despite all good intentions, wasn’t a great imaginative director. His strength came from the material and his casts (which is why, perhaps, he always produced his films). Apart from Mann’s multilevel insightful script the film is kept afloat (and is made great) by all the actors, but especially Maximillian Schell (who went on to went to win the Oscar for Best Actor and (the magnificent) Montgomery Clift (Spencer Tracy was also nominated whilst Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift were nominated for Best Supporting actors (Kramer and the film were nominated for Best Director and Best Film but didn’t win. Mann won Best Screenplay)). Perhaps, because of the Cold War (and wanting to keep the Germans on side from a filmmaking point of view as the exteriors were filmed in then West Germany) the Germans are portrayed more sympathetically than they would have been if the film had been made immediately after World War 2. Interestingly, the screenplay smartly acknowledges that the Cold War had some bearing on the trials.
Abby Mann was a American Jewish screenwriter and had written much for various anthology drama series on US television in the 1950s (an anthology series (radio, television, or film) spans different genres and presents a different story with different set of characters in each different episode. They usually have a different cast, writers and directors for each episode, but not as a rule). He went on to write another “big cast” film about Jewish Peoples and the Nazis (and also directed by Stanley Kramer), Ship of Fools (1965) as well as (the great) The Detective (1968). He created the Kojak television crime show in the 1970s. He was a screenwriter who dabbled in fiction, normally novelising his own screenplays. And, Mann’s book reads like a transcript of the of the film. He is unsparing in his opinion that the German civic leaders and judiciary bore as much blame as the Nazi hierarchy for the injustices, but he is also careful to show how much the whole world contributed to Hitler’s rise. There is a bogeyman but we are all complicit. Mann wrote the original screenplay for Judgment at Nuremberg in 1957, at the tail end of McCarthyism, and the parallels of those persecutions were not lost on him. People losing their jobs, or being jailed for failing to answer questions will never be as bad as forced sterilisations and , imprisonment in concentration camps and executions but it is a slippery slope. And, parallels can be drawn to invents today in the west as social media, the media generally and governments chasing votes, all implement sanctions on transgressors … though ironically, calling anyone a fascist who disagrees. What was black is white, and what is white ions black.
Mann received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In his acceptance speech, he said, “A writer worth his salt at all has an obligation not only to entertain but to comment on the world in which he lives.”
That Hollywood is gone.
Interestingly, despite its best intentions, a question the film doesn’t address (or, rather, doesn’t answer) is the jurisprudential question over the actual legality of the German judges decisions during the Nazi State era. I assume it would get in the way of the “this is what we stand for” speeches but also the film is not about jurisprudence. The question is an interesting one. When applying positivist law (legal positivism) , the judges are duty bound to uphold the laws of the State (and follow, I assume, precedent). The film (and history) seem to argue that the judges should have followed Natural Law (which suggests there is a fundamental moral law the precepts of which are knowable and which should be applied to create just outcomes). The film lands firmly on the side of Natural Law. Despite the legal philosophies being incompatible the Nuremberg Trial reality, however, is mixed. The judges were found guilty (Natural Law) but the relatively light sentences indicate, perhaps, that the court acknowledges they were following the rules of Legal Positivism (applying the laws of the State). All well and good because the West before Nuremberg and after Nuremberg have always applied Legal Positivism. When was the last time you heard a judge say “this law is not just and I’m not going to hear this matter or sentence this person”? Importantly, I assume the repercussions on a judge saying that in 1935 would be worse than on one saying it now. But, we still don’t hear it. Perhaps we don’t have any unjust laws? Well, we don’t have ones akin to the Nazi State laws in relation to Jews but, again, a slippery slope? This is perhaps an oversimplification but jurisprudence was one subject many years ago – I will let others argue, if they wish.
LINKS
TRAILER
SCENES
Maximillian Schell as the defence counsel Hans Rolfe
FILM STARS: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin, Paolo Stoppa, Mildred Dunnock, Christian Marquand, Carlo Angeletti, Daniela Rocca, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Lonsdale
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Emeric Pressburger
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Fontana
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1964
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1961
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Killing a Mouse on Sunday
NOTES
GENRE: Thriller
WORDS: Author Emeric Pressburger is Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer who occasionally wrote fiction. He wrote this book, after years of “communal” creativity in film with Michael Powell (together they did The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947), Stairway to Heaven (1946), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and many others) to prove he could do something on his own. The book is a thriller but not a conventional page turner thriller. Its subplots and moralising make it more of a character story with thriller elements.
The story takes place shortly after the Spanish Civil War. It’s the story of an aging leftist revolutionary who wants to sneak back into Spain from France to see his gravely ill mother, but the dying mother asks a priest to tell her son that he will be killed by the Francoist rightist Guardia Civil police if he comes. Simple enough and the priest feels duty-bound to go and tell the man, even though the mother doesn’t believe in God and the son hates priests. Thoughts on religion, conscience, love, loyalty, law, duty are at the back of this story. Interestingly it’s told from four different points of view – those of a former leftist revolutionary, a policeman (who has been hunting the leftist), a priest, and a small boy. It sounds serious, and it is though it is essential an adventure with tragedy and even comedy interjected , much in the style of Hemmingway.
The original title of the novel, “Killing a Mouse on Sunday”, is intriguing,. I’m not sure who changed the title though “Behold a Pale Horse” is more what I would expect from something by director Zinnemann.”Behold a Pale Horse” is a phrase taken from the biblical Book of Revelation. A reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of a pale horse is Death … “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”.
I saw the film many years ago. I recall it being well made but one note and lacking heart or soul and slightly “important” (like many Fred Zinnemann films – yes, all well made very watchable films, but with characters that seem a little cold and one dimensional (much like Kubrick’s human characters). You may get caught up in their plight but you are never going to hold your breath, or cry or cheer ecstatically with or for them). For me the joy was of seeing Quinn and Peck in another film together, I recall it being an odd film, dark and ambiguous (which seems the intention of the filmmakers). Influenced by Hemmingway and others I liked my Spanish Civil War black and white then though I suspect I would enjoy ambiguity and grey more so now. I do recall being more sympathetic with Quinn’s “fascist” character, though that I put down to as much as I like Peck I like Quinn more. Interestingly Quinn wanted Peck’s sympathetic role but to avoid typecasting (apparently) they gave him the role of the police captain. Quinn would play a variation on the Peck role in The Passage (1979). The film was written by the great J.P. Miller, a novelist and screenwriter and another of the great writers who came through the golden age of US TV drama in the 1950s to write feature films.
The film was banned in Spain. “Incensed by scenes showing Viñolas with a mistress, and taking bribes, the government of Spain denied filming as well as distribution in Spain, causing problems for its distributor, Columbia Pictures, which had all of its films denied distribution in Spain, and was compelled to sell its distribution arm in Spain. Columbia Pictures remained closed in Spain for several years, until agreeing to release several Spanish films outside of Spain. Months prior to the release of the film, Columbia Vice President M. J. Frankovich estimated that the studio had lost “millions” in the year since it had decided to go ahead with production against the wishes of the Spanish government”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behold_a_Pale_Horse_(film)
The film was a flop at the time, Zinnemann said in 1966 (in an article “A Man for All Seasons’: Less Pomp, More Circumstance” for The New York Times), “The reaction to that was a disappointment, but it was justified. The point simply did not get over. I took too much for granted. I thought the Spanish Civil War was still with us, but apparently it is dead, in spite of all those refugees. There were other troubles too – with the Franco government. I was to blame for playing the Spanish Civil Guard as ‘heavies.’ They are sacred cows. Columbia suffered heavily through the Franco ban on their films because of ‘Pale Horse’ but they were wonderfully good about it”.
I must watch the film again. As cold as Zinnemann may be, his films can be repeat viewings.
FILM STARS: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, John Dall, Nina Foch, John Ireland, Herbert Lom, Charles McGraw, Joanna Barnes, Harold J. Stone, Woody Strode, Robert J. Wilke
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Howard Fast
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Panther
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1959
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1951
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Historical
WORDS: Spartacus is highly regarded. And, by that, I mean, the novel, the film, and the historical character. Much has been written on all three.
Spartacus (c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian former Roman gladiator and slave who became one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about him outside the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory. He has become hero to many the symbol of a stand against oppression and politically oppressive regimes. Christians, Communists generally (starting with Karl Marx who called him a personal hero), and many individuals, like the novelist Howard Fast, have held him high as a symbol of freedom from tyranny of government, nations, or political systems. Interestingly, historians are divided as to the motives of Spartacus. Freedom, wealth, philosophy? None of Spartacus’s actions overtly suggest that he aimed at reforming Roman society, creating a new society or even abolishing slavery.
Howard Fast, the novelist used Spartacus as an analogy for his (and others) experience during the anti-communist McCarthyist witch-hunt in the early 1950s in the US. Fast had been in the American Communist Party in the 1940s and was imprisoned for three months in 1950 for contempt of Congress for refusing to disclose to Congress the names of contributors to a fund for a home for orphans of American veterans of the Spanish Civil War. (Yup, the more times change the more they remain the same). He commenced writing (apparently) the novel whilst in prison. What sources he relied on (whilst in prison) I don’t know. His novel is not the first on Spartacus. There have been a few including “Spartacus” (1931) by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon and “The Gladiators” (1939) by Arthur Koestler. Whether they influenced him I don’t know though Koestler had been in the (English) Communist party in the 1930s and was quite well known in leftist circles (he had written an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, “Spanish Testament ” in 1937). Koestler had left the Party in 1938. His novel, unlike Fast’s is a little more cynical about whether the end justifies the means. Koestler went on to write much more and become a fervent anti- communist. Fast, in 1951, was not. He places his hero up front, relatively uncomplicated and Jesus like. The book is narrated by a narrator/s outside the timeframe of the book and with knowledge of subsequent events . So, it’s a sort of a historical book, without much history, disguised as a novel, about a person who represents an ideal, which is a statement on contemporary (1950) society.
Author Howard Fast (1914-2003), born in NYC, was the son of Jewish immigrants (his mother a British Jewish immigrant and his father a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant (who shortened his name from Fastovsky)). He wrote many novels, many with historical settings which comment on contemporary events. He was well known by the time of writing “Spartacus” having written some 20 novels and many short stories, essays and non fiction. He was certainly prolific for a non pulp writer. Or perhaps, he is historical pulp, though pulp of literary quality. He was the champion of the “progressive novel” in the US and the heir to Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Genre was second to message and he wrote crime, historical, family drama, western, and sci fi novels. He eventually (as many of his contemporaries did) broke with the communist party in the mid 1950s. He didn’t become as anti communist as John Dos Passos and Koestler though he denounced the same and “freedom” remained central to most of his novels. He is easy to read though his heroes are, often, noble and with message. Perhaps, propaganda disguised as historical novel.
Kirk Douglas, brilliant and with ego (“ego is not a dirty word” – Greg Macainsh), was of the centre left politically. He loved the novel (and was miffed (apparently) he didn’t get the lead in Ben-Hur (1959)) and what it represented. His production company produced the film and he used that to push his specific ideas about the film and what it was to say. He had blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo write the script (Otto Preminger had used (and credited) Trumbo was for the screenplay of the film Exodus (1960), and then Kirk announced Trumbo had written the screenplay for film Spartacus. These two actions by Preminger and Douglas helped end the power of the blacklist). At the same time, Yul Brynner was planning his own version of Spartacus so time of the essence and Trumbo apparently wrote the script in two weeks. meaning Douglas won the Spartacus “race”. Trumbo as a screenwriter in much like Fast as a novelist. The message is everything and there aren’t many shades of grey. There is nothing wrong with that especially when you are as smart as Trumbo. And Trumbo was smart enough to bookend the film with references to Jesus. It made the target audience bigger. People liked historical epics, but hey liked historical biblical epics more. Then Douglas assembled a stellar cast (to secure funding) and (eventually) hired Stanley Kubrick (who he had worked with before on “Paths of Glory” (1957)) to direct.
I’m no great Kubrick fan (yes, he has made some fine films) but when people refer to this as a Kubrick film they reach too far. There are Kubrick touches but this is the only film (I think) where Kubrick did not have total artistic control. So, it’s a film directed by Kubrick rather than being a Kubrick film And, accordingly, it is perhaps one of his best films. For all its Hollywood epic-ness it dates a lot better than other Kubrick. And, generally, audiences that aren’t highbrow enjoy it more than other Kubrick films. Certainly the characters aren’t as alienated or as marionette like as others in the Kubrick film world. Kubrick, unsurprisingly, battled with Douglas on set as well as with veteran photographer Russell Metty and Dalton Trumbo. He didn’t always win or win very often (he apparently didn’t like the now pop culture famous “I’m Spartacus” moment and wanted it taken out) which led him to later dismiss the film. The real vision of the film remained with Douglas who had also argued with the original director, Anthony Mann, who, I think, would have been an even better better director for this film and is a better director generally.
The cast is magnificent. They look contemporary with all sorts of accents but who cares, Douglas, Tony Curtis, Woody Strode, John Ireland, Charles McGraw, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, John Gavin. (Robert Fuller, Aron Kincaid, and Gordon Mitchell are extras also). And, the film is Epic with a capital “E”.
The film was picketed at the time by various right wing and centre right organisations but entertainment counts more than politics (as it should) and after JFK crossed a picket line to see the movie it became a big (big) box office hit. Oddly, the film was partially made in Franco’s fascist (small f) Spain (I’m not sure what Fast and Trumbo made of that). The big battle scenes were filmed there and the production paid the government directly for the uses of the Army. So Spartacus is one of those symbolically-upholding-freedom-while-paying-cash-money-to not so free regimes (and there were many filmed in Spain). History would suggest that it seems if you are going to make an epic it’s easiest to make them in totalitarian (or centralised) regimes (left or right) where you can have cheap (er) access to extras, soldiers, landscapes and hardware if necessary. Well, at least until CGI came along.
The famous phrase “I’m Spartacus!” is not in the book from what I recall and it sounds like something specifically Dalton Trumbo. He like the big dramatic moment with relevance to contemporary events . Trumbo and the other writers and directors who refused to testify HUAC in the early 1950s about their or anyone else’s political affiliations were affectively saying “I’m Spartacus”.
FILM STARS: Richard Gere, Valérie Kaprisky, Art Metrano, John P. Ryan, Robert Dunn, Lisa Persky, James Hong, Georg Olden, Miguel Pinero, Sunny Ade
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Leonore Fleischer
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Dell
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1983
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1983
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Crime
WORDS: As much as I love the original French version of Breathless (À bout de souffle, lit. ’Out of Breath’) from 1960, and I do, this 1983 version I (and this will be heresy to some) like a little more. Goddard’s original (based on a story by François Truffaut and an uncredited Claude Chabrol) was innovative and influential (one of the films creating the French New Wave in cinema) but this American remake resonates (or, resonated) with me (at the time I even wore a chequered pair of trousers similar to the one Gere wears).
Perhaps because I saw it first in the cinema at the time (I saw the French film in the cinema later at a revival) and discovered Richard Gere (actually I “discovered” him earlier in “American Gigolo” (1981). Gere’s (anti) hero is different to the one played by Jean Paul Belmondo in the original. The earlier protagonist is Michel, a Frenchman who is cool, pensive and obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. Gere in the latter is Jesse Lujack a American Slav looking like Elvis (who is on the soundtrack) and who is kinetic, flamboyant and obsessed with Silver Surfer comics, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the 50s (all good things). He is the loud American as opposed to the (slightly) alienated Frenchman. Both characters are nihilistic though Gere’s character amps up the boorishness of the protagonist and also the obsessive love for the heroine. Both are petty criminals on the fringes of society. Both look to the past for inspiration but the earlier is nostalgic and the latter is punk. Both actors inhabit their roles.
The female lead Valérie Kaprisky in the later film is no Jean Seberg from the first version though in a nice twist, in the French film the American Seberg plays an American in Paris while in the American remake the French Kaprisky plays a Frenchwoman in America.
Director Jim McBride, hasn’t had a large feature film output and despite this and a few others, especially his memorable first film, David Holzman’s Diary (1967), he never quite lived up to his potential. His films are too arty and trashy (yes both) around the edges. What is unusual is his America (especially here) is a melting pot of ethnicities, where their ethnicity has little bearing on events (ie: WASPs do not dominate his American landscape). He is a East Coast product of the 1960s and grew up on French art house and American pop culture.
I haven’t read the novelisation (based on the screenplay by McBride and the equally fascinating L.M. Kit Carson (he starred in David Holzman’s Diary)) so there is no comment here though I will say that Leonore Fleischer is fascinating and she wrote many novelizations under her own name and a variety of pseudonyms tackling most contemporary genres though at home, it seems, in urban settings, especially crime ones.
FILM STARS: Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland, Charles Durning, Ed Lauter, Bill McKinney, David Huddleston, Sally Kirkland, John Mitchum
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Alistair Maclean
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Fontana
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1976
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1974
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS: A fun read, a great film, though not a majority position in either case. Scotsman and contemporary (or relatively contemporary) thriller writer Alistair MacLean goes west (to the Sierra Nevada of the American West in the late 1800s) but the story is a familiar Maclean thriller with secret agents, big action sequences, murder and mystery to keep you guessing. MacLean doesn’t really evoke the west or capture the authentic tone of the western frontier so the book could be set at any time, on any train, over any terrain. The west is a backdrop, just as Yugoslavia was in “Force 10 from Navarone” (1968) or Provence, France was in “Caravan to Vaccarès”. But you don’t read MacLean to soak up the local flavour and understand the customs and society of a time and place (you read, perhaps, fellow Scotsman George MacDonald Fraser for that). You read MacLean to be taken on a ride. Here, one that is always fun, even if it may be a little familiar (perhaps too familiar as the book didn’t sell as well as some of his previous).
Thriller and adventure films set on trains hold a fascination for me (and many others) … not sure why. Perhaps because a train, like a ship or a plane confines the action and forces the characters to make decisions within the limitations of their space. Everyone becomes part of the action because no one can leave (well, technically you can but … in this case if you jumped off the train, you would be stranded in hostile Indian territory, in the snow, in the middle of nowhere. It’s not really an option). There are many films with train settings including (my) favourites (off the top of my head) Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Runaway Train (1985), The Narrow Margin (1952), North West Frontier (1959), Avalanche Express (1979), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), Emperor of the North Pole (1973), Unstoppable (2010) and the great comedy adventure The General (1926). This film (with a script written by MacLean which follows the book fairly closely) turns out to be better than the novel. Why? Charlie Bronson.
Bronson was a childhood favourite of mine and my Uncle Ivo who I used to watch movies with. Those memories are hard to shake. Having said that, I watch Bronson films today and I think, still, despite a lot of rubbish, he is much underrated. Put him in a film with good production values, with a director like Tom Gries (another very undervalued director – Will Penny (1968), 100 Rifles (1969), Breakout (1975), Number One (1969), Lady Ice (1973), The Hawaiians (1970), Breakout (1975)(also with Bronson) and much good television work), and with a cast that includes Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland (not surprisingly), Charles Durning, Ed Lauter, Bill McKinney, David Huddleston, the great Robert Tessier (as well as familiar western movie faces Roy Jenson, Rayford Barnes, Eddie Little Sky, John Mitchum, Read Morgan, Casey Tibbs) and you have a winner.
Well, I would have though so. The film didn’t do that well in the US at the time. Bronson had become a big (big) star in the US finally (after many years of superstardom in Europe) with Death Wish in 1974 so I’m not sure why, then, this (well made) film didn’t do better. Perhaps, in a year that had Jaws, The Towering Inferno, Three Days of the Condor, Dog Day Afternoon and the The Godfather Part II (still playing over from 1974) it was, perhaps, one thriller too many. You also had One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shampoo, The Return of the Pink Panther and Funny Lady. It was a crowded market. And Breakheart Pass was a western which were decreasing in popularity. The film did do good business in Europe though where everything with Bronson sold tickets.
A western, set on a train, with Charles Bronson … nice.
FILM STARS: Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, Tom Berenger, Polly Walker, Colleen Camp, Amanda Foreman, Martin Landau, Nina Foch, Nicholas Pryor
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Ira Levin
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Bantam
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1993
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1991
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Thriller
WORDS: I have always had a thing for Ira Levin though, mainly, because many of his books have been made into films: A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Stepford Wives (1975), The Boys from Brazil (1978), Deathtrap (1982), A Kiss Before Dying (1991) etc. He writes thrillers with a point.
Here we have a murder mystery set in a building where everyone is being watched by the owner, a modern day high tech peeping tom. It’s readable and it does have a point (“surveillance’ and “privacy “in the modern world) but it seems a little like Levin is writing with a view to sell the book as a movie quickly.
The film is a slick “erotic thriller” … a generally awful sub genre which was prevalent in the 80s and 90s. Look, either watch make a thriller or make a porno. Erotic thrillers are not enough of either and are usually naff as a result. “Sliver” the film is slick as you would expect from (Australian director) Philip Noyce (Dead Calm (1989), Blind Fury (1989), Patriot Games (1992), Clear and Present Danger (1994), The Saint (1997)) and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Jagged Edge (1985), Hearts of Fire (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), Nowhere to Run (1993), Showgirls (1995) etc). This film is not either of their best work. The “thriller” elements are barely there but, there is some glossy, stupid fun amongst the substantial eroticism (supplied by Sharon Stone and others) that makes us “peeping toms” as much as the protagonist.
The soundtrack (#23 in the US) of songs by pop bands deserves a special mention, as special mainstream rubbish with Neneh Cherry, Massive Attack, Enigma, Shaggy, Heaven 17 and an especially awful version of the Elvis classic “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by UB40 (which was of course a hit everywhere – #1 US, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) … never underestimate the amount of electrical goods salesmen and secretaries in little black dresses with limited horizons).
A sliver building is a tall slender (usually residential building (pioneered in (space limited) New York City (where the film is set)) constructed on a lot with a narrow frontage, typically 14 meters or less, and usually tower over their neighbours becoming visual eye sores.
FILM STARS: John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, Ben Johnson, Patric Knowles, Geoffrey Deuel, Pamela McMyler, Glenn Corbett, Andrew Prine, Christopher George, Bruce Cabot, Richard Jaeckel, Lynda Day, Robert Donner, John Mitchum, John Agar, Ray Teal, Edward Faulkner, Christopher Mitchum, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Sam Bowie (Todhunter Ballard)
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Ace
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1970
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK (Short Story)
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: Andrew J. Fenady
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: unknown
ORIGINAL SHORT STORY TITLE: “Chisum and the Lincoln County War”
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS:
This is a (very) loose history of Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, land baron John Chisum and the bloody Lincoln County War.
As short story and screenwriter Andrew Fenady said:
“Well, when somebody would say something (was inaccurate), Duke would say, ‘Damn it, we’re not making a documentary, we’re making a movie!’ I took some liberties. (laughs) Matter of fact I took quite a few liberties. But the basic characters were all there: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and Henry Tunstall, L.G. Murphy and all the rest of them, they were all involved in the Lincoln County War, and so was Chisum”. http://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2012/04/aj-fenady-pt-2-john-wayne-and-chisum.html
Director (a John Wayne regular) Andrew V. McLaglen called the film one of his favourites and said: “I wanted Billy the Kid to just be Billy the Kid, a human being, not a bad little boy. Fenady was sort of a scholar about the Lincoln County Cattle War, which was a conflict over water and cattle—trading cattle—and John Chisum actually became a very powerful landowner. It was an American story”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisum
Because of Billy the Kid’s involvement (though on its own the story is compelling) the Lincoln County War has featured in a few films – Billy the Kid (1930), The Kid from Texas (1950), The Left Handed Gun (1958), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), Young Guns (1988), Young Guns II (1990), The Kid (2019).
McLaglen’s direction is certain, with enough asides to the scenery to give you an idea of the size of the cattle country. William Clothier’s photography is superb and and the action driven narrative make it entertaining. It’s not going to be on any “best of” lists but it is thumping fun and set the pattern for most of Wayne’s 70s westerns … ie 7os westerns rather than any truthful recreation of an era past. The fist fight between the 50 year old Forrest Tucker and the 62 year old Wayne is fun, clunky and not as stunt man choreographed as the fights you see nowadays between “older” men. A great cast (Wayne, Tucker, Christopher George, Andrew Prine, Glenn Corbett, Chris Mitchum, Patric Knowles, Richard Jaeckel) with a lot of John Wayne’s friends (and regulars) in smaller roles – Ben Johnson, Bruce Cabot, John Agar, Ed Faulkner, Pedro Armendariz. What’s there not to like?
The left would read it (correctly) as a right wing “law and order” film but by the same token you can read it as a attack on monopoly capitalism. OK, I might be reading too much into it but Wayne’s rancher goes up against Forrest Tucker’s who is trying to vertically monopolise all the industry and uses hired thugs to do so.
There is a respect for the Native American, whose lands have been appropriated by Chisum, and a disrespect for the government who enforce the dispossession and treat the original inhabitants poorly. This is, perhaps, a double standard given both (historically) benefitted from the dispossession but, here, on film, there is an acknowledgement of native rights, which was, of course a major social movement at the time (1970). Interestingly Wayne’s cattle baron, John Chisum, is played, by Wayne perhaps as a sequel to his Thomas Dunson from Red River (1948). Both men are single minded in their goals and ambitions.
The music (by Dominic Frontiere) is re superb as are the two highlighted songs , the title theme narrated by William (Cannon, Jake and the Fatman) Conrad (it’s one of those songs that sounds great in the shower with a beer … if you drink beer in the shower) and “Turn Me Around” sung by Merle Haggard.
The novelization follows the film closely, naturally enough, I can’t recall what the differences were , if any. It’s been a while.
Author Sam Bowie is Todhunter Ballard (who wrote under many names … mainly westerns and crime). This is no nonsense stuff. Bowie, err Ballard, also novelized John Wayne’s “The Train Robbers (1973).
The TTSS movie is inferior to the Alec Guinness tv series. Gary Oldman holds the movie together, he really is…