FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
A music student at Radcliffe (Ali MacGraw) falls for a preppy Harvard law student (Ryan O’Neal) whose wealthy father (Ray Milland) disapproves of their marriage and cuts off O’Neal’s inheritance. The beautiful newlyweds live a poor but happy life — until devastating news about MacGraw’s health rocks their world.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Ali MacGraw Films
• Cross-Class Romance
• Death and Dying
• Flashback Films
• Illness
• Newlyweds
• Ray Milland Films
• Ryan O’Neal Films
• Tommy Lee Jones Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that “Erich Segal’s screenplay” — “boy-meets-girl-and-marries-girl-who-then-becomes-terminally-ill” — was turned down by several studios who claimed “it was too superficial, too syrupy, too pure”, but then picked up by Paramount Studios, which “realized those weren’t necessarily negative characteristics” and subsequently “made a fortune”. He notes it’s “more stylish but less substantial than the old-style weepies it emulated”, and asserts that it “strives for honesty and simplicity at the expense of theme or characterization”. He goes on to describe the film’s popularity (it was number one at the box office that year, and broke records) by noting that “the opening line, which tells us that the girl (Ali MacGraw) has died, is enough to start the tissue parade”, with the entire flashback story “pointed toward her dying (from some unmentionable disease).” He writes that “as the ill-fated couple, MacGraw and O’Neal” (inappropriately nominated for Oscars) “seem intent only on building their own images — there is no sincerity in their performances.” He adds that “how their characters fall in love, or why they love each other so much, is unclear”: “they are too dull, arrogant, and full of false humility to be anything but competitors” and “they come across as beautiful people who could have won each other on The Dating Game“. He concludes by assuring us that “the number of tears viewers shed shouldn’t be mistaken for a measure of approval.”

Peary’s review is spot-on, leaving little to add. These characters are good-looking but shallow and unappealing. O’Neal’s rocky relationship with his father (Milland, trying his best with limited material) feels petulant rather than righteous, and O’Neal’s bond with her salt-of-the-earth father (Oscar-nominated John Marley) isn’t explored in any depth. MacGraw’s all-in-fun name-calling (“preppy”) and both characters’ profanity-laced “verbal volleyball” (“Listen, you conceited Radcliffe bitch…”; “Look, it’s not an official goddamned threshold.”) was considered shocking at the time, but now is simply tiresome to listen to. MacGraw’s unnamed illness (referred to as leukemia in the source-novel) leaves her looking infamously hearty, hale, and lovely till the very end. The film’s famous line — “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” — is both incorrect and inane. In his review, Peary neglects to mention Francis Lai’s uber-famous title song, which is lovely but overused to such an extent that it begins to feel manipulative.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Fine cinematography
  
  

Must See?
No, unless you’re curious to check it out given its popularity.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• FilmSite Review
• NY Times Original Review

Synopsis:
When a kind-hearted prince (John Justin) is betrayed by his grand vizier (Conrad Veidt), he befriends a young thief (Sabu) who helps him survive on the streets of Bagdad. Justin quickly falls in love with the beautiful daughter (June Duprez) of a toy-obsessed sultan (Miles Malleson), provoking the ire of jealous Veidt, who wants her for himself. Will loyal Sabu — with the help of a giant genie (Rex Ingram) he rescues from a bottle — be able to help Justin reunite with Duprez?

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Conrad Veidt Films
• Fantasy
• Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Mythology
• June Duprez Films
• Magicians
• Michael Powell Films
• Rex Ingram Films
• Sabu Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that “spectacular special effects and colorful, imaginative sets highlight this wondrous Arabian Nights tale, one of the cinema’s most popular fantasy films.” He notes that “Alexander Korda’s endlessly inventive production” — a “very loose remake of the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks silent classic” — “includes most everything a young fantasy fan desires: a handsome prince…, a beautiful princess…, a clever and incorrigible teenager…, a diabolical dressed-in-black villain…, a flying carpet, a giant genie (marvelously and menacingly played by Rex Ingram) in a tiny bottle, an enormous spider, a dog who was originally a boy, a flower that causes amnesia, a toy horse that can fly, fantasy lands, action and adventure.” He writes that while “halfway through the picture Justin and Duprez kind of fade out”, this is “okay because this lets Sabu and Veidt dominate the screen” as “terrific adversaries”. He argues that the “film is initially slow and a bit complicated” (I disagree), but that “the pace really picks up once Sabu meets Ingram’s scary Djinni” — and he points out it’s “unusual watching a long sequence (the best in the film) in a British production that features characters played by a dark-skinned Indian boy and an American black man.”

Peary doesn’t spend much time in his GFTFF discussing the film’s production design or history, but he goes into much greater detail in Cult Movies 3, where he expresses admiration that this film (helmed by no less than six directors) was completed at all, given Britain’s emergent involvement in WWII. But he also complains more about its weak points, writing, “I assume the critics who were so generous to the film judged it mostly on its appeal to kids. You can forgive its flaws, but it’s impossible to deny their existence.” I don’t really feel the same way. Sure, the special effects are at times clunky compared to modern-day CGI, but this is to be expected — and the overall magical feel surpasses any visual glitches. Regarding the film’s narrative structure — Peary argues it “opens clumsily” and “barely recovers from this awkward beginning” — I think it serves the nature of this material well: One Thousand and One Nights was infamously told as a series of interwoven tales that wouldn’t necessarily proceed in linear fashion. Ultimately, though, it’s the special effects sequences from this movie which linger in one’s memory: Ingram rising as a swirl of gray smoke from his bottle (what a clever initial trick Sabu plays on him!); Malleson attempting to embrace a many-armed “Silver Maid” statue; Sabu fearlessly doing battle with a giant spider; Sabu flying to the rescue on a magic carpet… This is a tale for the ages, and most certainly must-see viewing at least once for all film fanatics.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Sabu as Abu
  
• Conrad Veidt as Jaffar
  
• Rex Ingram as the Genie
  
• Fabulous set designs and art direction
  
  
• Georges Perinal’s cinematography
  
• Lawrence Butler and Jack Whitney’s special effects
  
  
  
• Miklos Rozsa’s score

Must See?
Yes, as a still-enjoyable classic.

Categories

• Genuine Classic

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• NY Times Original Review
• Moria Review
• TV Guide Review
• Q Network Review
• DVD Savant Review
• Spinning Image Review

Synopsis:
A deeply disturbed sociopath (Karlheinz Boehm) who kills women in order to film the look of fear on their face as they see themselves dying shares cinematic footage of his abusive childhood with a kind tenant (Anne Massey) whose blind mother (Maxine Audley) senses that Boehm is dangerous. When a stand-in (Moira Shearer) on the movie set where Boehm is employed is found murdered and stuffed in a trunk, detectives begin to hone in on Boehm as a suspect.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Child Abuse
• Horror Films
• Michael Powell Films
• Movie Directors
• Peeping Toms
• Serial Killers
• Shirley Anne Field Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that director “Michael Powell’s once damned but now justifiably praised cult film” is “sleazy-looking — after all, the subject is sordid — but [an] amazingly provocative picture” — one that’s nonetheless “not for all tastes”. He notes it was and is controversial in part because Boehm’s “violent acts corresponded to sexual gratification” — and “Powell doesn’t try to be subtle” given “the long, sharp, hidden knife that is attached to Boehm’s camera [which] emerges just before his murders”. He further adds that Boehm’s case is “peculiar” given that killing is not enough; instead, he must project “the woman’s dying expression on the wall in his room” in order to seek satisfaction. Peary (like many critics) points out that Powell “is making us identify with Boehm because we share his voyeuristic tendencies — like him, we are entranced by horrible images on the screen: murders, rapes, even mutilation,” and thus “we are in complicity with filmmakers who place brutal, pornographic images on the screen for our gratification.”

Hold it right there: I most definitely do NOT enjoy seeing such things on screen, and while I know many do, it’s sloppy to lump together all movie lovers (indeed, all humans) in this fashion. Peary adds that “if the voyeur is guilty of violating one’s privacy, then Powell sees the filmmaker as being guilty of aggressive acts not unlike rape (where you steal a moment in time, and a person’s emotions, that the person can never have back).” I’m ultimately more in agreement with Vincent Canby’s 1979 review of the re-released film (restored by Martin Scorsese), in which he states:

What seems to fascinate Peeping Tom‘s new supporters is Mr. Powell’s appreciation of the idea that the act of photographing something can be an act of aggression, of violation (of the object photographed), an idea shared by some film makers (including Alfred Hitchcock in portions of his classic Rear Window, made in 1954), professional thinkers and members of certain other primitive tribes … As interested as I am in films, the properties of the movie camera are not, for me, a subject of endless fascination. The movie camera is not magical. It’s a tool, like a typewriter.

Indeed, filming someone is not rape, and watching filmed images does not equate taking away anything from the person on screen, especially not in a violent fashion.

Back to Peary’s review (excerpted from his lengthier essay in Cult Movies), he points out that “the villain of the picture is not Boehm but Boehm’s dead scientist father (played by Powell in a flashback) who used his young son as a guinea pig, terrifying him and filming him to study the effects of fear on the boy’s nervous system.” (Ick; the fact that this is openly put forth in a film from this era is remarkable.) Peary reasons that Boehm “figures that since his scientist-filmmaker father in effect ‘murdered’ him, his guinea pig, then he, also a filmmaker-scientist, has a right to kill human beings when continuing Dad’s experiments.” This psychoanalytical explanation makes as much sense as any other; what’s indisputable, however, is how badly damaged Boehm is — which leads one to wonder why all the women around him (other than blind Audley) aren’t better at picking up on the rather obvious creepiness he projects from every pore. He lacks even Norman Bates’ attempts at charm and wit, and one can’t help feeling like the women he’s imperiling (specifically Massey) are out of their minds for hanging out with him.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Powerful direction by Powell
  
  
• Otto Heller’s cinematography
  
  
• Brian Easdale’s score

Must See?
Yes, for its cult status.

Categories

• Cult Movie

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TV Guide Review
• DVD Savant Review
• TCM Article
• Spinning Image Review
• NY Times 1979 Review

Synopsis:
A bumbling, socially awkward Indian actor (Peter Sellers) accidentally invited to a Hollywood party causes increasing havoc — with support from a drunk butler (Steve Franken) — while developing a romantic friendship with an aspiring French musician (Claudine Longet) .

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Actors and Actresses
• Blake Edwards Films
• Comedy
• Get Togethers and Reunions
• Peter Sellers Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that “Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers teamed up for this almost forgotten non-Pink Panther comedy that contains some of the most hilarious sight gags in either’s career.” He adds that “in one of his greatest roles, Sellers is perfectly cast as the well-meaning but destructive Hrundi V. Bakshi”, who “can never take a hint…, is a mix of Hulot and Clouseau, and takes a back seat to neither”. He argues that “this would be a genuine comedy masterpiece if it didn’t fall apart about two thirds of the way through when the subtle humor suddenly becomes stupid and sloppy” — but he urges film fanatics to “by all means give it a look”. I’m mostly in agreement with Peary’s assessment of this film, which I was pleasantly surprised by during my revisit. One should be appropriately wary of white actors embodying people from other cultures and races, but Sellers does so respectfully and respectably, giving us a somewhat naive (though not stupid) man who may cause inadvertent chaos but simultaneously emanates genuine good-will. I agree that the “subtle humor” in the first two-thirds of the film are the best by far, with particular highlights the unexpected outcome of Sellers clinging a bit too closely to his cowboy-idol (Denny Miller), and Sellers having challenges with a toilet.

(I’m not a fan of the ongoing scenes involving Franken’s stupidly tippling manservant, which are are simply predictable.) The final act of the film, as things get increasingly wild, is surreal (check out the walking advertisement for a Flat Earth Society!):

… but an appropriate way to culminate this zany evening — and I love how musicians will keep playing no matter what…

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Peter Sellers as Hrundi V. Bakshi (nominated by Peary as one of the Best Actors of the Year in his Alternate Oscars)
  
• Sellers’ star-struck interactions with a cowboy actor (Denny Miller)
  
• Colorful sets
  
• Henry Mancini’s score

Must See?
Yes, for Sellers’ performance, and as a mostly enjoyable comedy.

Categories

• Noteworthy Performance(s)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Roger Ebert’s Review
• Spinning Image Review
• TCM Article