Track the Films You Watch (2007) (1 Viewer)

[Bob Turnbull]

I quite liked The Host as well...You pretty much captured my thoughts on it Mario (though I didn't have a problem with the monster being shown that frequently). The director Joon-ho Bong had a similar mix of humour and drama in his previous film Memories Of Murder which was also very good.

Not that there's anything wrong with that either!

 

[PatW]

3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) :star: :star: :star: 1/2

Charming little tale based on the Jonathan Swift classic book. Good special effects for the time. Geared more for children but still a very pleasant watch.

Hallelujah Trail (1965) :star: :star: :star: :star:

A fun movie about soldiers, temperance women, denver miners, irish workers and Indians that all clash hilariously in the little gem from the 1960's. I loved it when I first saw it as a kid many years ago and I love it still.

 

[Mario Gauci]

Mike,


Re: The BLACK EMANUELLE films

As you may recall, I watched a bunch of these last September via edited versions on Italian TV and I wasn’t very enthusiastic about them either; I see that even in all their remastered and uncensored glory, they still don’t amount to much! I certainly won’t be buying Severin’s Box Set but I will eventually get Miss Gemser into my DVD collection once I get the three-part PRIVATE COLLECTIONS (1979).


Re: SHERLOCK HOLMES (1922)

While I obviously haven’t watched the film myself, I can understand how –this being a big-budget production of its day – they wanted to make a “definitive” version of Sherlock Holmes by starting at the very beginning of his career. It may seem hokey and laughable today to “introduce” Sherlock Holmes or to have a 40-year old Barrymore playing a Cambridge student but it was not an uncommon cinematic practice for a long time. I’d love to get an opportunity to watch this, not least because of my own affection for the character (I still have a couple of his “adventures” to watch on DVD) and that splendid cast (John Barrymore, Roland Young, Carol Dempster, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Louis Wolheim, William Powell, Reginald Denny amd Hedda Hopper).


Re: THE SOUTHERNER (1945)

I’m glad you liked this one so much. I think it’s a sin that this masterpiece isn’t available in a better DVD edition (I own it myself via a crappy VHS recorded off local TV) or that it has been somewhat overshadowed by John Ford’s similar THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940); the latter used to be in my all-time Top 5 but I haven’t watched it in ages (despite owning the “Studio Classics” disc for a couple of years). Still, along the years my estimation for Jean Renoir has soared immensely while that for John Ford has cooled off …so it would be interesting to watch them back-to-back just to see how they would stand nowadays.


Re: THE WESTERNER (1940)

I’ve watched this one only once so far and I recall liking it, though certainly not to the extent described by Michael in his review. Incidentally, I should be getting to John Huston’s THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (1972) one of these days and, who knows, if I have the time, I might give my VHS of THE WESTERNER another spin. William Wyler is another director whose films I haven’t watched in a while but there’s little doubt that he was one of Hollywood’s finest craftsmen.


Re: THE MIRACLE WOMAN (1931) and FORBIDDEN (1932)

Frank Capra, too, was a pillar of the Golden Age of Hollywood (although, unlike William Wyler, he imprinted his films with enough personal “vision” to earn him the auteur status) and was one of my favorite directors while I was growing up. Again, I haven’t sampled his films in years but I have sold off my stand-alone Columbia DVDs of some of his best films with the intent of upgrading to the recent “The Premiere Frank Capra Collection” 6-Disc Set. Like most people, I guess, I’m not very familiar with his pre-1933 stuff (I’ve only watched 4 of them myself) but I’m aware that THE MIRACLE WOMAN is supposed to be a good one and I’d certainly relish a chance to watch both of these Stanwyck/Capra collaborations. They went on to make 5 films together including two of Capra’s best – MEET JOHN DOE (1941) and (arguably, his strangest) THE BITTER TEARS OF GENERAL YEN (1933). I know I keep whining about my infinite backlog of unwatched DVD but I really ought to make some time and watch a few more of my once-viewed VHS titles like GENERAL YEN...


Re: CRAINQUEBILLE (1922)

Granted that you weren’t emotionally involved by the film but I think you were sufficiently impressed with it to earn a slightly higher rating.

Although, I’m only vaguely familiar with Jacques Feyder’s work (albeit aware of his considerable reputation), I was overjoyed when Home Vision recently released their 3-Disc Set as the films included are all highly-regarded ones…but I was dismayed at the hefty price tag which has so far kept me from purchasing it! Do you happen to have the other two – L’ ATLANTIDE (1921) and FACES OF CHILDREN (1925) – as well, by any chance?

 

[Michael Elliott]

I've got them in my queue but the other film was viewed on TCM.

 

[PatW]

Just My Luck (2006) :star: :star: 1/2

Mediocre comedy with Lindsay Lohan as a lucky young woman who transfers her luck to a young man that she kisses. Rather shallow but I stuck with it courtesy of my niece.

Desperate Hours (1955) :star: :star: :star: 1/2

Frederick March plays a businessman held a gunpoint along with his family by three convicts. Bogart is great at playing this type of ruthless character.

 

[Michael Elliott]

04/03/07

Vice Squad (1953) :star::star:

Boring crime drama about the day of a police Captain (Edward G. Robinson), which starts with a cop killing that could be linked to a bank robbery. This film really comes off as a poor man's Detective Story and if you've seen that film then you'll probably find yourself pretty bored here. Robinson sleepwalks through his role and there's none of that usual energy from the actor. The supporting cast, including Paulette Goddard and Lee Van Cleef in a small role, are equally dry. None of the various stories are of any interest and the comedy attempts with the harassment of a witness falls flat on its face.

Tampico (1944) :star::star:

Standard spy yarn has Edward G. Robinson playing a skipper of an oil rig during WW2 when the German's are trying to sink all the rigs. He saves a beautiful woman (Lynn Bari) from the sea and marries her but when his ship gets hit by a torpedo his men think the new wife was a spy. This film only runs 75-minutes but there's not really enough story for a twenty-minute movie. Robinson is pretty good in his role as is Bari but the supporting cast, including Victor McLaglen, doesn't add much spice to the story. The direction is pretty uninspired throughout and some of the dialogue is quite laughable.

Forty Guns (1957) :star::star::star:

Samuel Fuller's Western about a rancher (Barbara Stanwyck) who travels around with a posse of 'forty guns' but also has her hand in everything but this changes when a new Marshall (Barry Sullivan) shows up. Fuller's directorial touches rises this film a few notches because deep down it's really nothing more than your typical "B" Western. There are plenty of wonderful scenes including a tornado but you've also got a story that gets bogged down in a few cliche moments. I could never buy Stanwyck in her role but Sullivan was very good and clearly steals the film. The scope cinematography is top-notch but what on Earth is up with those songs? The violence is another thing that really stands out due to how mean spirited it is. I wonder if the body in the window was an influence on Eastwood's Unforgiven?

Show Boat (1936) :star::star::star:1/2

James Whale's version of the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein musical mixes great songs with melodrama and zanny comedy. I'm not the biggest fans of musicals but this one here had several great moments even though the film is way too long at 110-minutes. Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson all deliver great performances but this is Whale's picture all the way. The more non-horror films I see from Whale just goes to show what a genius this man was. His style of comedy that only he can create makes for a lot of great laughs here and his touch of social commentary also comes off quite well. The highlight is certainly Robeson doing 'Old Man River'. It was also fun seeing Marilyn Harris who played Marie in Whale's Frankenstein.

After Midnight with Boston Blackie (1943) :star::star:1/2

Fifth film in Columbia's series is still going pretty well with Chester Morris returning as Boston Blackie. In this film, Boston tries to help out a friend but when that friend is murdered and his diamonds stolen, Blackie is the lead suspect by the always dimwitted Captain Flannigan (Richard Lane). This is no great masterpiece but if you enjoy the series then you should get enough kicks out of this entry even though there isn't anything new here. As usual, Morris is highly entertaining in the title role and he acts wonderfully well with Lane. The two of them add a lot of comedy to the mix, which is good since the actual case isn't all too strong. Ann Savage adds nice support as the friend's daughter. Lew Landers (The Raven) directs once again.

04/04/07

Homicide Bureau (1939) :star::star:1/2

Fun and fast paced Columbia 'B' film has Bruce Cabot playing a homicide detective who wants to use force to get confessions from some gangsters trying to take the city over. If you're a fan of 'B' films then you should get a kick out of this one since there's never a dull moment within its 57-minute running time. There's plenty of fast action as well as a nice shoot out at the end that makes this one a tad bit better than most in its field. Cabot is always worth watching and he does a nice job here. Rita Hayworth has a small supporting role as a forensic expert.

Juvenile Court (1938) :star:1/2

Columbia "B" film is a poor man's version of The Dead End Kids. A public defender (Paul Kelly) wants to clean up the slums by building a recreational center for poor kids so that they'll stay off the streets. This film runs 60-minutes and if you've seen one Dead End Kids flick then you've pretty much seen every second of this movie. The kids here are even more annoying than The Dead End Kids and the supporting players really don't do too much. Rita Hayworth has a small, thankless role as one of the kid's sister. David Gorcey, a Dead End Kid member, has a small role as well.

Renegade Ranger, The (1938) :star:1/2

A couple Texas Rangers (George O'Brien/Tim Holt) are hired to bring in a ranch owner (Rita Hayworth) who is raging a battle against the government over land stolen from ranchers. She's painted as a murderer but really she's just acting as a Robin Hood type. Even at 60-minutes this RKO Western is deadly dull without any excitement. There are your typical fist fights and shoot outs but all of them are deadly dry as is the relationship between O'Brien and Hayworth. The only saving grace is Holt in his supporting role and Hayworth is somewhat interesting.

Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, The (1939) :star::star::star:

The Lone Wolf made his film debut in 1917 but it wasn't until this film and Warren William stepped into the role that the character really took off. The former safecracker, Michael Lanyward, aka The Lone Wolf, has spies chasing him around Washington D.C., hoping that he'll help them get some government secrets dealing with an anti-aircraft gun. This is the first film I've seen of The Lone Wolf and it wasn't too bad of an experience. The film runs a fast paced 67-minutes and William is always worth watching. Ida Lupino steals the film as a woman who keeps hoping the Wolf will marry her. Some might find her annoying but that's part of her charm. Rita Hayworth plays the femme fatale with Ralph Morgan as a villain.

 

[Bob Turnbull]

I just watched Meet John Doe a few weeks ago and really took a dislike to it. I love Barbara Stanwyck, but even she couldn't save this cloying sappy mess for me. It's put me off Capra for awhile I think...

 

[Malcolm R]

Mission: Impossible III

Very pleasantly surprised by this one. Maybe a little too much handheld camera movement, but that seems to infect every action film today. Nice villain turn by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames is great as usual, and somehow they even made Tom Cruise tolerable. My only real complaint was that the sound mix didn't seem very well done. It was very front-heavy and there didn't seem to be much LFE, especially when stuff blew up.

Now if only JJ Abrams could bring a little of that suspense and excitement back to "Lost".

 

[Mario Gauci]

03/30/07: TITANIC (Herbert Selpin and, uncredited, Werner Klinger, 1943) :star::star::star:1/2

I’ve long known of this movie but I only now got to watch it and what a welcome surprise it turned out to be! Once one gets past the oddity factor of having a German hero and hearing these“Britons” talking in German, the end result is a very interesting version of the Titanic disaster: my rating veered between
:star::star::star: and :star::star::star:1/2 all the way through the film and, though it definitely has its faults, I decided to go with the higher rating because of its undeniable artistic qualities – not to mention the singular and decidedly fresh viewpoint offered for this oft-filmed ship-set drama.

The characterizations offer a microcosmic dog-eat-dog world in which various financiers (and other upper-crust members of British society) teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and are further tensed up by petty jealousies, a theft of jewelry and, finally, the sinking of the ship itself; the stock market element (a major plot point) recalls another disaster film, THE END OF THE WORLD (1916), which I’ve just watched. Still, the most interesting character is perhaps the female lead played by the beautiful and tragic Sybille Schmitz – she had appeared in Carl Dreyer’s VAMPYR (1931), and her life story would eventually be fictionalized in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s VERONIKA VOSS (1982).

To get now to the cons I mentioned earlier: the ship only sinks at the very last minute (although, while one shouldn’t expect much spectacle, the special effects are very well handled for the period) and the courtroom epilogue is somewhat anti-climactic as it reveals that many of the despicable protagonists survived the tragedy (which was perhaps a mistake). The overt critique of the British as snobbish, egocentric and money-grubbing (and especially the concluding statement) seems fairly hilarious now - but one wonders if it was actually so unrealistic given the unmitigated and misguided optimism that was clearly felt by all back in the day, with respect to the entire Titanic venture!

It’s been quite a while since I watched A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958) and I’ve yet to check out the 1953 glossy Hollywood version; still, even in comparison with the latest ‘definitive’ (though actually overblown and exceedingly commercial) version, the 1943 film practically covers all the various angles – including the plight of the second-class voyagers, the robbery and even the impossible central romance – in less than half the running-time! Alarmingly, director Herbert Selpin was arrested (and subsequently executed) by the Gestapo sometime during production and Werner Klinger (who went on to dabble in Edgar Wallace Krimis and the revamped DR. MABUSE films in the 1960s) stepped in - but the results are quite seamless! Ironically, while the film was intended by the Nazi regime as anti-British propaganda, TITANIC was eventually banned in its native country because of the intensity of its scenes of panic and terror!


03/31/07: ATLANTIS (August Blom, 1913) :star::star:1/2

The first time I ever heard of this movie was while reading a lengthy online interview with noted film preservationist David Shephard wherein he named it as his favorite film but, having now watched it for myself, frankly I was quite disappointed. ATLANTIS is inspired by a book which had anticipated the Titanic tragedy – although, as depicted here, the shipboard section only takes about half-an-hour (occurring mid-way through the proceedings) of this 114-minute film; essentially. these scenes aren’t badly done but the static camerawork muffles much opportunity for suspense and excitement!

The film opens in decidedly unusual fashion with a moving depiction of a mental case, but this is soon followed by what has to be one of the silliest dance numbers ever put on film, as the husband of the aforementioned patient goes around the world to rethink his situation and bafflingly falls for the resistible charms of the chubby ballet performer, ending up with her on a ship that collides with a wrecked vessel due to thick fog! The husband is, understandably perhaps, a rather morose fellow, going from place to place – Berlin, Paris, New York, and eventually ending up holed up in a mountaintop cabin – and from woman to woman without ever acquiring happiness; as it turned out, some of the film’s best scenes are those depicting the bustling N.Y.C. life of the the 1910s. ATLANTIS is, however, full of even more irrelevant bits, none more so than the exhibition of a real-life ‘armless wonder’ (14 years prior to THE UNKNOWN, I might add!) which, while in itself would make for a fascinating short subject, here it proves merely an overlong distraction. What’s more, the title of the film is misleading because, while the main character supposedly dreams himself in the famed underwater city (prior to the sinking of the ship), the scenes take place above ground and are extremely brief to boot!

Thankfully, the occasional visual aestheticism of the film is preserved by the generally good quality of the print on hand and its transfer to DVD and one only needs to take a look at the ragged excerpt from a Japanese print included as a supplement to appreciate the sheer amount of work that went into restoring the film. Other supplementary features on this Danish Film Institute disc are an alternate tragic ending devised for the Russian market, an excerpt from a 1914 film co-directed by Blom and Holger-Madsen (two individual sci-fi films by these directors – THE END OF THE WORLD [1916] and A TRIP TO MARS [1918] respectively – were subsequently paired on DVD by the the same outfit and which I’ve just watched myself.


04/03/07: FIVE SAVAGE MEN (Ron Joy, 1970) :star:1/2

This would-be “with-it” revenge story in Western garb is notable only for having a female protagonist thus anticipating the cult item HANNIE CAULDER (1971). Still, Michele Carey’s terrible central performance and her squeaky voice basically sink the film entirely as she projects little emotional scars from her ordeal; in fact, she seems to get back into a happy mood way too soon after her rape! The sadistic cast of characters are led by notorious bandit Keenan Wynn and Henry Silva is surprisingly cast as the Apache good guy who helps Carey carry out her retribution (interestingly, he had previously appeared in a similar – and much superior – tale, THE BRAVADOS [1958]). Another nail in the film’s coffin is the sheer poverty of the direction which generates no suspense whatsoever as Silva and Carey are merely seen to effortlessly stumble upon each of the rapists’ new hideout, kill them off without much ado and exit the scene; add to that the puerile fast-cutting technique employed intermittently which grows tiresome before too long. The trebly ironic ending, then, is a valiant attempt at resurrecting the movie but by then it is too late and only a fairly decent score saves the whole thing from a BOMB rating.


04/03/07: DOGORA, THE SPACE MONSTER (Ishiro Honda, 1964) :star::star:

After my positive reaction to GOJIRA (1954) and the promising fact that it was not going to be yet another kiddie Godzilla film, I was rather looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, I was still let down by it because, while not quite as inane as the 1960s Godzillas, it’s nowhere near as good as the original film from that popular and long-running series. For starters, the jellyfish monster is silly and not at all scary and while the gangster subplot is a welcome distraction at first, it eventually unbalances the film and, in any case, the underworld antics depicted here are pretty dreary and indifferently staged. Like MONSTER ZERO (1965) from the same director which I also recently watched, what little the film has going for it is down to the colorful visuals on display.


04/03/07: GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON (Vittorio Cottafavi, 1960) :star::star:

I had previously watched this in Italian during a pretty disastrous screening at the B-movie retrospective at the 2004 Venice Film Festival where the whole audience howled with laughter; in hindsight, I have to say that watching it on the big screen certainly magnifies its inherent faults tenfold. Actually, now that I’ve given it another look, it’s not worse than most other peplums – though certainly not up to Cottafavi’s best work, THE 100 HORSEMEN (1964) but his offbeat framing and vivid sense of color enlivens several sequences to be sure. For the record, Cottafavi also made that which is arguably the best Hercules film of all, HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961), whose shortened US version (alas) has just been released on R1 DVD.

Anyway, the plot kicks into action immediately as Mark Forest (playing the titular he-man, named Hercules in the original Italian-language version) goes to recover a diamond from a monster-infested cave which includes a hilarious large cat creature with bat wings which I clearly recall sending the Venice Film Festival audience in hysterics! The villain of the piece is Broderick Crawford who naturally chews up the scenery and approaches the role as if he were playing a gangster; at one point he even puts down his equally crooked, if actually brighter, henchman by calling him a “moron”...after which Crawford is apparently revitalized and inspired into devising newer and more ingenious traps to spring for Hercules…er…Goliath!

The busy plotline, of course, involves several action set-pieces, court intrigues, much invoking of the Greek gods, women threatened with torture…and more laughable monsters (the dragon of the English title is so cheap that only his head ever makes any significant appearance). There is the usual coterie of maidens in these mythological epics who, thankfully, are very easy on the eye here especially Leonora Ruffo (as Goliath’s wife; she went on to repeat the role in Mario Bava’s HERCLUES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD [1961]) and Gaby Andre` (as a duplicitous slave who also falls for Goliath).

The version I watched this time around, via Alpha’s DVD, was the AIP English-dubbed and rescored one (by the ubiquitous Les Baxter); surprisingly, it was a widescreen print – but the colors were way too much on the red side so that I had to tone down the colors on my TV set to make the whole thing viewable!


P.S. Amusingly, my father and I attended a multi-part course on film appreciation some 10 years ago and when the lecturer mentioned such peplums in a positive light, my father, knowing the man to be a University professor, exclaimed loudly: “Don’t tell me you appreciate that stuff?”


04/04/07: DOMINIQUE (Michael Anderson, 1978) :star::star:

To call a film about a crippled ghost taking revenge from beyond the grave lame and lifeless would be too ironical but this here is an undeniably undistinguished combination of GASLIGHT (1939 & 1944) via LES DIABOLIQUES (1954); while still watchable in itself, it’s so cliché-ridden as to provoke chuckles instead of the intended chills. However, thanks to the dire straits in which the British film industry found itself in the late 1970s, even a mediocre script such as this one was able to attract 10 star names – Cliff Robertson (as the conniving husband), Jean Simmons (in the title role), Jenny Agutter (as Robertson’s artist half-sister), Simon Ward (as the enigmatic chauffeur), Ron Moody (as an ill-fated doctor), Michael Jayston (as Robertson’s business partner), Judy Geeson (as Simmons’ best friend and Jayston’s wife), Flora Robson (as the housekeeper), David Tomlinson (as the notary reading Simmons’ will) and, most surprisingly perhaps, Jack Warner (as a gravestone sculptor) – although most of them actually have nothing parts, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Mario Gauci]

04/03/07: I PROMESSI SPOSI (Mario Camerini, 1941) :star::star::star:

Alessandro Manzoni’s celebrated novel “The Betrothed” is to Italian literature what “War and Peace” is to Russian or “Gone With The Wind” to American. For the record, a 9-hour adaptation for Italian TV made in 1989 attracted an all-star cast featuring Alberto Sordi, Franco Nero, F. Murray Abraham, Burt Lancaster, Helmut Berger, Valentina Cortese, Fernando Rey, etc.!

Anyway, the film version under review is the third cinematic adaptation and it was a lavish affair for its time. Being the only version I’ve watched and not having read the original novel, I can’t judge how faithful it is to the text but it is understandable that contemporary reviews complained that it was compromised by a too-condensed second half; even so the latter stages did indeed feel choppy to me despite the film being fairly long at nearly 2 hours! The elaborate plot – taking in numerous characters and set in several cities over a period of years, covers court intrigues, the persecution of two lovers, the renunciation of love, an outbreak of pestilence (the best sequences in the film) and culminates in a miracle – is meticulously brought to life and the good performances enhance the film’s every mood through romance, drama, comedy and action.

Director Mario Camerini previously handled the Vittorio De Sica series of “white telephone” films throughout the 1930s and would go on to make the enjoyable (but hardly definitive) international film version of ULYSSES (1953) with Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. On the other hand, leading man Gino Cervi, best-known as the Communist antagonist to Fernandel’s Don Camillo in a popular series of comedies, is a handsome hero here (worlds apart from the gruff and tyrannical monarch in THE IRON CROWN, made the same year!).


04/04/07: THE IRON CROWN (Alessandro Blasetti, 1941) :star::star::star:1/2

A huge still from this film on a book of my father’s on Epic movies had long intrigued me but when I had tried to watch it one afternoon several years ago (almost to the day) on Italian TV, I was put off by its utter daftness. Now that I’m on a mini-marathon of filmed epics in time for Good Friday, I thought I’d give this celebrated Italian wartime spectacle another look.

And what a look it turned out to be: this must certainly belong among the most sumptuous and ornately mounted fantasies ever put on film and, in hindsight, it’s interesting that each major country involved in the ongoing struggle up to that time invested in a splendidly escapist (but not apolitical) extravaganza – the others being, of course, England’s THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) and Germany’s MUNCHHAUSEN (1943), which I had rewatched last year.

Anyway, the plot is a convoluted mix of The Nibelungen (its Teutonic visuals), William Tell (the protagonists’ prowess with weapons), Macbeth (the doom-laden prophecies of a soothsayer in the forest) and even Tarzan (the son of a slain king, abandoned in the woods as a child, is eventually raised by lions and reappears after many years donning a loincloth!) but, thankfully, it moves at such a lightning pace that what one remembers most is not the court machinations but the splendid pageantry and impressively-staged action and crowd scenes, never more so than during the remarkable, extended jousting sequence.

The performers are also notable: Massimo Girotti as the afore-mentioned “Tarzan” figure (who is also prone to giant leaps a` la The Incredible Hulk!), Elisa Cegani (as a princess imprisoned in her own castle by her despotic father), Osvaldo Valenti (as a seemingly unbeatable knight at the joust whose winner will take the princess for his wife), Rina Morelli as the omnipresent soothsayer, famed wrestler Primo Carnera as a long-suffering he-man and, most of all, the larger-than-life villainy of Gino Cervi (as the illegitimate ruler, having killed his own brother to claim the throne, and calls everyone around him “beast”!) and Luisa Ferida (as Tundra, a sort of blood-thirsty Jungle Girl who is eventually reformed by her love for Girotti); it’s worth noting here that the three leads each have dual roles playing the parent of the character they portray later on in the film.

Surprisingly enough for such a commercial (if undoubtedly artistically valid) venture, the film emerged the winner of the Venice Film Festival where, ironically, it was greeted with contempt by the guest of honor, the Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. Josef Goebbels! Surprisingly enough, another person who was unimpressed with the film was director Riccardo Freda – who should know a thing or two about fantasy film-making, being the helmer of several “sword-and-sandal” epics in his time.

Director Blasetti would go on to make another celebrated milestone of Italian cinema, the even more elaborate FABIOLA (1949) and, unfortunately, given their considerable reputation, both of these marvelous films are as yet unavailable on DVD even in Italy – although, the same can be said of several other little-seen but equally outstanding Italian epics including LA NAVE DELLE DONNE MALEDETTE (1953) and VIVA L’ITALIA! (1961)…


04/04/07: LA CENA DELLE BEFFE (Alessandro Blasetti, 1942) :star::star::star:

Another classy wartime adaptation of a popular historical piece whose title roughly translates to THE DINNER OF PRACTICAL JOKES and deals with a couple of rowdy brothers who have a penchant for bullying their fellow-men; when the younger of the two has to leave town, one of their frequent victims decides to avenge himself on the other one (played by Italian heartthrob Amedeo Nazzari – here bearing a striking resemblance to Errol Flynn) by playing a trick on him. But, what starts as a jest soon takes a serious turn and, inevitably, it all ends in tragedy…

As had been the case with both I PROMESSI SPOSI (1941) and THE IRON CROWN (1941; also directed by Blasetti), the film is stylish and handsomely mounted – though its stage origins are betrayed by being mostly filmed in interiors. Still, the highly intriguing plot – with its many twists and turns (particularly towards the ironic, even Shakespearean, finale) – keeps one compelled to watch and the performances are all quite good with the most impressive being that of Osvaldo Valenti as the slighted and revenge-seeking nobleman. The film is also notorious for being the first mainstream Italian movie to feature full topless nudity during a brief but startling scene where luminous leading lady Clara Calamai’s blouse is ripped off of her by the lusty Nazzari (an action which would certainly have shocked his then legion of fans); Calamai herself achieved perhaps her greatest fame much later when she played the murderess in Dario Argento’s DEEP RED [1975]). Having said that, both the aforementioned I PROMESSI SPOSI and THE IRON CROWN had previously featured a discreet amount of nudity in one sequence although not by their main character…

A chilling footnote: Fascist Valenti and his then-pregnant wife Luisa Ferida (who also appears in the film as one of three alleged mistresses of Nazzari’s – the other being Elisa Cegani, as with Ferida herself from THE IRON CROWN, and a very young Valentina Cortese) were executed by a group of partisans on the last day of WWII, one of whom went on to become President of Italy!

 

[Ted Lee]

title: casino royale
rating: b
comments: i'm liking the new bond. hopefully this more straight-forward serious-ish bond will take the franchise in a much-needed new direction.

 

[PatW]

We had my brother over to watch some movies that he missed, so I ended up re-watching The Departed, Babel and Children of Men. My brother was at first disappointed in the Departed but then ended up loving it and didn't like Children of Men. I myself ended up loving the latter even more. I gave it 41/2 stars the first time around. Though not perfect it's certainly close to being so. Clive Owen who I sometimes find too intense was perfect in this role. Loved the movie and can't wait to watch it again.

 

[Joe D]

Some thoughts on recent films I've watched.

Thank you For Smoking :star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star:

Great movie, great script, great acting, very funny, what's not to like.

The Descent :star: /:star: :star: :star: :star:

What a disaster.

Flushing Away :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star:

Pretty good overall, not great but worth watching.

Over the Hedge :star: :star: :star: 1/2 /:star: :star: :star: :star:

Very funny all the way through, the best part is the at the end with the squirrel.

Badlands :star: :star: 1/2 /:star: :star: :star: :star:

My first Mallick movie that I've liked. Good pacing throughout and good acting.

The Asphalt Jungle :star: :star: 1/2 /:star: :star: :star: :star:

John Huston released this in 1950 but the film feels like it was made before The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of Sierra Madre. The film doesn't flow very well and feels "stiff". Once it gets going it is good, but the film could use some editing.

Double Indemnity :star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star:

What a great film, this was a complete knockout for me.

 

[PatW]

Now Voyager (1942) :star: :star: :star: :star: 1/2

A spinster woman emerges from her shell courtesy of a kind doctor and finds love on a cruise. A simplified sentence of what the movie is really about. I really felt for the Davis character and her shipboard romance though I was hoping for a romance between her and the doctor. The scene where she comes upon Tina the troubled young girl and sees herself in the girl was quite touching. Bette Davis gave an excellent performance as the heroine of the story as did all the other actors in the movie. Great screenplay.

Moby Dick (1956) :star::star::star:1/2

A fine adaptation of a man's quest for a giant white whale that took his leg years before.
I can't believe I've gone this many years without seeing this movie. Great script - thanks Bradbury, and great acting.

 

[Michael Elliott]

For the past three months I had planned on going to see GRINDHOUSE since I knew I'd be off work for Good Friday. However, last Tuesday I came down with the flu so I was too sick to go. I did get to catch up with a couple Bob Clark films, which I had been meaning to watch for quite sometime but I finally pushed them up due to the director being killed earlier in the week.


04/05/07

His Last Game (1909) :star::star::star:

A rather strange baseball flick has an Indian pitcher planning his final game, which just happens to be the championship. Before the game, gamblers from the other team try to make him throw the game but when he refuses, the gambler pulls a gun, which leads to a deadly confrontation. This is a very strange little film due to the subject matter and how the violence is played out. There are a couple twists, which I won't spoil here but they certainly wouldn't pass in today's time. The baseball footage is nice but the real key here is, as I said, the strange violence. It's also worth noting that there are four scenes in the film and each of them are filmed as one long take so there's no break in the action. From Kino's Reel Baseball: Baseball Films of the Silent Era.

Ball Player and the Bandit, The (1912) :star::star:1/2

A star college pitcher can't afford tuition so he travels out West for a job. Once there, a few of the ranchers give him a hard time including one bandit who eventually holds up the former baseball star but a gun is no match for a baseball. There's nothing too overly special about this but it remains entertaining throughout. It's certainly predictable that the bandit is going to use a gun while the baseball player is going to use a baseball in defense. Directed by John Ford's older brother Francis.From Kino's Reel Baseball: Baseball Films of the Silent Era.

04/06/07

My Brother's Wife (1966) :star:

Doris Wishman sexploitation flick about a bored woman who marries an older, boring husband only to end up having an affair with his much younger, low-life brother. If you want nudity and sex then you've come to the wrong film. This film runs a scant 61-minutes but it felt like the movie went on for days because there's really not much that goes on. The entire film runs around the idea that the younger brother is going to take the wife to Mexico and we hear them discuss it throughout the flick and that's pretty much it. As is normal with this type of film, the movie was made without sound and had dubbing go back over it so this here is pretty distracting even though Wishman does a nice job in mixing this with the film. If you want sexploitation then try something else.

Indecent Desires (1967) :star::star:

Doris Wishman sexploitation film mixed with horror elements features the same badness but this one here is just weird enough to make it somewhat entertaining. In the film, a dorky man finds a plastic doll in a trash can and takes it home because he's sexually turned on by it. One day while walking he notices that there's a secretary who looks just like the doll. Before long, this dorky man is touching the doll to get off and, through some sort of voodoo, the secretary gets the sexual pleasure from it. Technically speaking, this is just like every other Wishman movie in the fact that it was recorded with no sound and later all the dialogue was dubbed in. What separates this film from others in her filmography is the lead actress who is rather hot and constantly taking off her clothes. Yes, the nudity helps the film. The story is pretty good as well but Wishman's lack of directing skills really keeps the film from being as good as it could have been.

Christmas Story, A (1983) :star::star::star::star:

This is one of those somewhat legendary movies that I never got around to watching even though it plays on television a couple hundred times a year and has been since I was a little kid. It's a shame I waited until director Bob Clark's recent death to finally view it but I'm certainly glad I did. I'm sure everyone knows the story so there's no point of me going into that. The four-star rating is certainly being kind since the film has several flaws but who cares? I thought the film had so many great moments that I can easily overlook the flaws and add this to one of my holiday favorites. I think what I loved most is the nostalgia factor Clark uses, which is pretty remarkable. The film has a nostalgic look and feel, which makes it hard to believe that the film was made in 1983. It has brought back many nostalgic moments for me because Clark did a terrific job in making the viewer identify with the kid and his various thoughts and feeling about Christmas. The fantasy sequences were brilliantly done as was the Christmas morning stuff. The ending with Ralphie in bed holding his gun was certainly something a true beauty and the way Clark shows off his happiness was quite touching. Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin and Peter Billingsley are all wonderful in their roles. The film is full of such small, genuine moments that it's easy to see why it's so loved after all these years. It could be the school bully, Santa's mean elves or sticking your tongue on a frozen pole. Another great thing was the laughing done by the cast. I can't recall a movie that has more genuine laughs coming from the characters, which just warms you up when heard.

Murder By Decree (1979) :star::star::star:

Bob Clark directed thriller has Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and Dr. Watson (James Mason) trying to figure out who is doing the Jack the Ripper killings. For the most part I think this film works best as an actors showcase because we get some really good performances from the very strong cast. Plummer is very good as Holmes, although I wouldn't call him the best I've seen. Donald Sutherland, David Hemmings, Susan Clark and Anthony Quayle are all good in their supporting roles but it's James Mason who really steals the film. I liked that Mason played Watson as a smart guy that doesn't go for any cheap laughs (although the scene where he gets arrested is quite funny). Clark's direction is pretty good throughout, although he lets the film drag in certain spots. The director manages to get some nice suspense out of the final battle between Holmes and the Ripper. I thought this film was slightly better than the overrated From Hell, which comes off as a major rip.

 

[Mario Gauci]

Bob,


Re: THE HOST (2006)

I've been meaning to rent MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003) for some time as it's been pointed out to me by a local friend who's an Asian cinema nut, and I have some more stuff on VHS - THE ISLE (2000), SAMARIA (2004), TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER (2000), A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (2003), THE CURE (1997), etc. - but with all the unwatched stuff I have on DVD, who knows when I'll get to them! Even so, I keep telling myself not to rent anything for a long while but I always get suckered back in due to all the "new' titles coming in practically every week!


Re: MEET JOHN DOE (1941)

Frank Capra is as mushy as John Ford when it cimes to corn and sentimentality but, on a purely technical level, I still admire the hell out of both directors; the subject matter of, say, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) is pure wish-fulfillment fantasy but, scene-by-scene, it's one of Hollywood's finest achievements from its Golden Age.


Mike,


Re: SHOWBOAT (1936) and FORTY GUNS (1957)

Ironically, both my frst attempts at watching these movies was botched: at the time the Whale film was shown on late-night Italian TV (in its original language, no less), my video recorder was acting up and kept "munching" the tape of each cassette I tried to record on! Obviously, there was little point in trying to watch the resulting recording of the film and, being shown at 01:00, I obviously couldn't watch it there and then as a) back then the only TV set in the house was in my parents' room and they were asleep obviously and b) I had to wake up early the next day for school. Anyway, I still haven't watched the thing and, even though I know it's been shown on TCM, I have so far resisted asking for it because of that long-promised SE DVD from Warners but who knows when that will eventually materialize?

As for the Fuller film, it was shown one Sunday afternoon on local TV but the transmission for some reason started a half hour too late but, no problem, the brainiacs at the TV channel decided to lop 30 minutes off of the film so that their schedule would get back on track!! I was so hysterical at their arrogance that I wrote a vitriolic letter to the head of programmes immediately after but, by the time I received their reply, they said that they no longer had the print in their hands and therefore could not show the film again! Luckily, I got the barebones Fox DVD during one of Deep Discount DVD's occasional "Buy 2-Get 1 Free" deals!


Re: MURDER BY DECREE (1979) and A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983)

I too will be watching the Sherlock Holmes movie next week and, if they are in, I guess I'll bite the bullet and finally rent the first two PORKY films from the DVD rental outlet...

Like you, I've only recently got acquainted with A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) - via an Italian TV Christmas Day screening a couple of years ago - and I loved it! I haven't acquired the Warners 2-Discer yet but I'll make it a point to do so this year in tribute to the sad loss of Mr. Bob Clark.

 

[george kaplan]

I had some internet connection problems, so I'm behind posting, and I'm going out of town for a week, so won't be watching any movies.

Nanny McPhee

This is not bad, but it did drag in places, and without the music of Mary Poppins (and no one approaching either Julie Andrews or Dick Van Dyke in charm), it just doesn't quite make it for me.

Penthouse

Myrna Loy does her best, but she can't elevate this film by herself above so-so.

The Full Monty

I kept waiting for the comedy, but we got the full monty (which happens at the very end of the film) before we got any comedy. Disappointing.

Long Fliv the King

I'd never seen a Charley Chase film before, and all I can say, is that if this is what passes for comedy in his films, then I'll pass. Oliver Hardy is misused to no comic effect whatsoever in a small role in the film.

A Tale of Two Cities (1958)

A well-done version of the story, but while I wasn't completely uninterested in what happened, these actors never made me really care either.

I, Robot

I do think that this would have been better if they'd given it another title, and said in the credits "inspired by". Given the nature of I, Robot (9 short stories), I'm not sure you could really be faithful to the book, but why keep the title if you're not going to be?

Having said that, they did do a good job of creating a film inspired by I,Robot, even if that title isn't ideal. A very good film that will be added to my dvd collection.

The Court Jester

I have so damn many films, that it's going to take me many, many years to show them all to my son. I'm actually making a concerted effort to show him as many as possible that I think will appeal to him while he's young. My first showing of this to him, and of course, he enjoyed it tremendously.

 

[Ted Lee]

title: stranger then fiction
rating: a
comments: i almost gave this a b, but decided i liked it more then that. hands down, my favorite will ferrel performance, which is saying something cuz i pretty much don't like the guy. i loved emma thompson's quirkiness. i loved maggie's performance as well. visually and story-wise, very fresh. just a great flick all around.

 

[Malcolm R]

Great film!

 

[Mario Gauci]

04/04/07: FATHER BROWN (Robert Hamer, 1954) :star::star::star:1/2

I had always wanted to catch this classic British film, but it hasn’t been shown in my neck of the woods since the early 1980s! As a matter of fact, some time ago I purchased “The Complete Father Brown” volume – collecting all the stories of the sleuthing cleric by G.K. Chesterton, just because I didn’t think I was ever going to watch it! Though the character has been featured in at least one other film (in 1934) and several TV adaptations (one starring Kenneth More and another, made in Italy, directed by Vittorio Cottafavi and featuring Renato Rascel), Hamer’s version remains the most substantial outing of Chesterton’s creation.

The film itself, featuring a superbly witty script and deft direction, is a thoroughly delightful and occasionally hilarious gem – made by and with several exponents of the famed Ealing style, it’s admirably served by a splendid cast. Alec Guinness is at somewhere near his best in the title role (unassuming, accident-prone but uncommonly shrewd and entirely amiable, his influence on future Peter Sellers characterizations – such as the priest in HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963) and Inspector Clouseau – is very evident); Joan Greenwood is somewhat underused here, but she’s quite good as an aristocratic widow and Father Brown’s confidante; a young Peter Finch impresses as the gentleman thief Flambeau, engaged in a battle-of-wits with Guinness throughout in which the two clearly respect and admire one another – but the rogue is averse to the priest’s attempts to redeem him! Other familiar – and welcome – British faces grace the supporting line-up: Bernard Lee as a cop; Sid James as a ne’er-do-well small-time crook; Cecil Parker as Guinness’ flustered superior, a bishop; and Ernest Thesiger as a dotty ancient librarian who appears in only one scene, but it turns out to be one of the film’s comic highlights. Other memorable moments involve the various disguises Flambeau adopts in his attempts to outwit Guinness, such as in the lengthy catacombs and auction sequences.

Despite Hamer’s reputation, this particular film seems to have been somewhat neglected – or, at least, has had its importance downplayed – over the years; in my opinion, along with KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949; undeniably his masterpiece) and IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY (1947; which I only first watched a couple of months back), it stands as the director’s finest work. At the time, it was deemed worthy of representing Britain at that year’s Venice Film Festival, where it competed against such cinematic heavyweights as Federico Fellini’s LA STRADA, Elia Kazan’s ON THE WATERFRONT, Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI, Kenji Mizoguchi’s SANSHO THE BAILIFF and Luchino Visconti’s SENSO – except that Renato Castellani’s little-seen version of ROMEO AND JULIET (featuring Laurence Harvey) emerged the overall winner!!

FATHER BROWN was also Robert Hamer’s second of four collaborations with star Alec Guinness: I own THE SCAPEGOAT (1959), an interesting film co-starring Bette Davis, on VHS and had watched it many years ago; however, I missed out on TO PARIS, WITH LOVE (1954) – which, by all accounts, is a disappointing trifle and easily the least of their films together. A sidenote regarding Guinness: according to the IMDB, he actually converted to Roman Catholicism soon after the release of FATHER BROWN!


04/05/07: BEATRICE CENCI (Riccardo Freda, 1956) :star::star::star:

There’ve been many cinematic versions of the famous medieval tale; most notable were the ones directed by two “Euro Cult” masters, this by Freda and Lucio Fulci’s 1969 film. Besides, Bertrand Tavernier’s LA PASSION BEATRICE (1987) was inspired by Freda’s take – Tavernier being an admirer and personal friend of the Italian film-maker.

The title role is played by Mireille Granelli, whose film career didn’t prove very prolific – though she does well enough here. The plot involves a girl’s mistreatment at the hands of her tyrannical father – feared and hated by all and, again, played by Gino Cervi (from THE IRON CROWN [1941]); eventually accused and tortured as an accomplice in his murder, she ends up beheaded for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of her lover (Fausto Tozzi). Besides, the father is incestuously drawn to his daughter, and there’s a similar relationship going on between his weakling son (latter-day “Euro-Cult” star Anthony Steffen) and his stepmother (Micheline Presle)!

It’s not quite as sordid as it sounds – at least not in Freda’s film, which I would call the “Hollywood” version of the tale: a lavish melodrama which is almost operatic in treatment and presentation (Franco Mannino’s full-blooded score, the elaborate sets and the vivid color scheme certainly attest to this), it’s basically the Italian equivalent of the contemporaneous work of Douglas Sirk! The film also makes full and careful use of the widescreen frame: characters are often positioned on the sides and separated by an object – usually a window – to give the whole a sense of depth. Unfortunately, the ratio in the version I watched has been somewhat compromised because the right side of the frame is evidently cropped during several scenes; I also experienced a continuous and distracting echo on the soundtrack, not to mention slight picture loss during the crucial final scene (the ironic aftermath of innocent Beatrice’s tragic execution)…

I’ve watched all three films – 1956, 1969 and 1987 – in pretty close proximity and they’re all excellent, but also quite different stylistically: Fulci’s, unsurprisingly, is the most visceral (with considerable attention devoted to the torture scenes – which here are also aimed at the lover, played by Tomas Milian) but giving vent, too, to the director’s much-publicized anti-clericalism; Tavernier’s – concentrating on the psychology of the characters amid a painstaking if distinctly cheerless recreation of the Middle Ages – is, then, clearly the most realistic i.e. least stylized one.


P.S. Incidentally, I had intended to precede the film with a viewing of an earlier historical effort by Freda – IL CONTE UGOLINO (1949) – recorded off late-night Italian TV; however, during the first couple of minutes, the battered print involved featured so many missing frames – and, consequently, lines of dialogue – that it was impossible to follow…and maddening to experience, to say the least! An impromptu research on the Internet suggested that this unfortunate deficiency was a constant throughout the entire broadcast – so I thought it best to let go for the time being, even if I’ll keep the recording and maybe summon enough courage to give it another try somewhere down the line…


04/05/07: SAMSON AND DELILAH (TV) (Nicolas Roeg, 1996) :star::star:

This is the third version of the Biblical tale that I’ve watched – or fourth, if you include the peplum SAMSON (1961); the best of the lot, clearly, remains Cecil B. De Mille’s 1949 spectacular.

Since this is part of a series of made-for-TV films highlighting famous stories from the Bible, one is surprised to find a celebrated and talented director such as Nicolas Roeg involved – though they all managed to attract a vast array of international and upcoming stars. That said, Roeg’s career has been steadily on a downhill slide ever since the mid-80s – surely one of the saddest declines in recent memory! This film was actually written by the director’s frequent collaborator Allan Scott (including the masterpiece DON’T LOOK NOW [1973]), but the magic is seldom in evidence on this particular occasion – and the end result is as bland as its TV origins suggest…

Even so, it’s not entirely worthless if clearly overly-padded at a length of nearly 3 hours: while the look of the film is curiously drab, the star cast offers compensations – best of all, perhaps, are Dennis Hopper (as a prescient Philistine General), Michael Gambon (the Philistine ruler) and Daniel Massey (as a learned Jewish elder). Still, though Liz Hurley is ideally cast as Delilah, her performance is too modern – and, consequently, the character’s ultimate redemption lacks conviction; as for Eric Thal’s Samson, the script may have made him more conflicted than Victor Mature’s take in the De Mille version – but again, rather than evoke the traits one should associate with this Biblical character, the actor’s boyish looks merely bring to mind the pumped-up heroes of juvenile sword-and-sorcery films and TV series of recent vintage…

Incidentally, I only rented this because my father had been whining about “The Bible Collection” on DVD for months (I brought him MOSES [1995] at the same time but, even if it featured Ben Kingsley, Frank Langella and Christopher Lee, opted not to watch it myself); eventually, he too – who had caught many of Hollywood’s classic historical epics when new – was ultimately unimpressed, and readily admitted that these newer incarnations offered no competition!


04/06/07: FRANCIS OF ASSISI (Michael Curtiz, 1961) :star::star:1/2

I had seen bits and pieces of this one some 22 years ago on Italian TV, while I was convalescing from an operation! Again, this is a highly popular filmic subject: there are at least 6 versions, half of which I’ve watched, including Roberto Rossellini's sublime THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS (1950).

Bradford Dillman gives a sensitive portrayal of the beloved saint, and the supporting cast is equally well chosen: Dolores Hart and Stuart Whitman complete a fictional romantic triangle; Finlay Currie and Cecil Kellaway play high church officials; Pedro Armendariz is a sympathetic Arab ruler; while Mervyn Johns appears as Francis’ most loyal disciple.

The initial display of pageantry – with which director Curtiz is clearly more at home, being an expert in the field – is a welcome counterpoint to the mostly turgid solemnity of the film’s second half. Generally workmanlike rather than inspired, it does have the occasional moving passage (I also happen to share the character’s affection for animals); besides, the film is buoyed by a fine Mario Nascimbene score and the advantage of location shooting.

No worse or better than many contemporaneous religious epics, the film is still worthier of consideration than Leslie Halliwell’s two-word dismissal (“tedious biopic”) would suggest…


04/07/07: ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES(Arthur Lubin, 1944):star::star:1/2

The Alexander Korda production of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) – still the quintessential Arabian Nights movie – led to a spate of colorful romps made by Hollywood studios to escape the grim everyday realities of WWII; this may not be the best or even the most enjoyable of the lot but is reasonably representative of this fantasy sub-genre.

Actually, I had intended to watch this over last year’s Christmas period as it was shown on Italian TV very early one morning but the transmission started even earlier than expected and consequently I had to abort the viewing; therefore, I am grateful that (in spite of some deficiencies which I’ll get to later) I remedied this through a copy of the Asian DVD I’ve just gotten hold of.

The film obviously deals with the famous tale of the title but here Ali Baba (Jon Hall) is the son of a deposed (and subsequently murdered) Caliph who as a boy (played by Scotty Beckett) found refuge in the thieves’ hide-out inside the cave and was raised by their leader (Fortunio Bonanova) as his own son. Meanwhile, Ali’s childhood friend grows up to be Maria Montez and is naturally coveted by the evil tyrant now in power at Bagdad (Kurt Katch). Andy Devine is also on hand to provide some mild comic relief as Baba’s “nursemaid” and Turhan Bey (like Hall and Montez, also a regular in such diversions) is Montez’s only male slave and sympathetic to Ali’s cause.

As I said, the film is fairly entertaining and, as can be expected from a grade-A Universal production, handsomely mounted but it mainly survives nowadays on its high quotient of nostalgia both to people of my father’s generation (who were around when this subgenre was still in full bloom) and to others who, like me, grew up on these things when they played during the summer holidays on TV. To get back to the DVD presentation of the film on the disc I watched: while the all-important colors were not as vibrant as a full-blown restoration job would have made them look, the print was serviceable all around…were it not for the very odd fact that it omitted the opening and closing credits completely!

In any case, this satisfactory viewing has brought back fond childhood memories of similar costume pictures and has certainly whetted my appetite for more; I also received a bunch of Sinbad pictures at the same time that this disc arrived and I ought to purchase the recently released DVD of ARABIAN NIGHTS (1942) one of these days – although, frankly, I think Universal missed the boat when they didn’t release it as part of an Arabian Nights franchise collection which could have also included, apart from ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES itself, any of the following: BAGDAD (1949), THE DESERT HAWK (1950), FLAME OF ARABY (1951), THE PRINCE WHO WAS A THIEF (1951) and SON OF ALI BABA (1952). This is not to mention many other such extravaganzas made by other film studios which are still unreleased on DVD like ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS (1945), SINBAD THE SAILOR (1947), THIEF OF DAMASCUS (1952), SON OF SINBAD (1955), THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1961; an Italian remake with Steve Reeves supervised by ALI BABA helmer, Arthur Lubin), THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN (1961; another Italian production which utilized the now legendary and multi-faceted talents of Mario Bava), etc. One final thing: I once missed out on a TV screening of the 1954 French version of ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES starring Fernandel and directed by Jacques Becker and, even though it doesn’t have much of a reputation (especially within its director’s considerable canon), I’d love to watch it for myself one day…