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The Good German (2006)
Old Warner Bros. Lives Again
I didn't expect this movie to be so satisfying, but it was. Maybe old studio films were satisfying because they tied everything up at the end. All of the questions were answered. You knew what would become of the characters after the camera stopped. This movie reminded me of a number of post-war films, The Big Lift and The Third Man in particular. Blanchett, who is not a great beauty but plays one magnificently in movies, is unforgettable as the ultimate surviver. No act is too repulsive, as the opening sequence testifies. (Screenwriting 101 - an early scene should encapsulate character, a short-cut to audience intimacy. Yes, I'm a former screenwriter. I confess.) Clooney, the reluctant movie star, is dead-on as the man who knows nothing, but thinks he knows everything. Can any character be beaten up this often and retain his balls? Clooney can. And then there's Tobey MaGuire's Corporal Tully, the "little picture" guy who can barely see past his "excitement". MaGuire delivers a glove-on-hand performance no one from the golden age of film noir could match. And for film buffs there's even a tip of the hat to Chinatown just follow the water, Jake. This movie floats in your mind like an after-image long after the DVD has ceased to play.
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
A Good Western, A Great Score
It was hard for John Wayne in his later years to play the action hero. After Red River, he rarely got the girl. In the sixties, he often had help in the form of a teenage heartthrob and usually a middle-aged leading man. This film bears the weight of Big John as a non-action star, so it's down the list from some of his better films. It's still a good movie, though, best remembered now for its wonderful Elmer Bernstein score. Bernstein wrote two great western scores, The Magnificent Seven, and The Sons of Katie Elder.
Elmer Bernstein is gone now, but his music will live as long as there are people to listen.
The same can be said for Big John Wayne two hundred years from now, if there is two hundred years from now, people will watch his best work.
The essential John Wayne includes:
True Grit, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, Rio Grande, The Horse Soldiers.
Wonderful stuff.
Prince of Foxes (1949)
Prince of Swashbucklers!
I first saw PRINCE OF FOXES on The Fabulous 52, a movie TV premier series, on KNXT-TV back in the 1950s. The film made such an impact on me I later searched for the source book, Samuel Shellabarger's novel, and read it and his other historical adventures. The movie is better than the book. Power, Welles and in particular Everett Sloane excel; only Wanda Hendrix disappoints. She is by far too shallow and light for the role of the Lady Dona Camilla. Filmed where it would have happened, with money trapped in Italy after the war by Italian monetary policy that wouldn't allow Fox movie profits to leave the country (there was enough money for the movie, but not for color, alas), PRINCE is evocative of a real place and a real time.
Sloane's betrayal of Power, and reversal, is one of the best moments in film. When Sloane plucks out Power's eyes with his thumbs "Scream! Scream, I tell you!" it's one of the great moments in adventure film. And later, when Belli (Sloane), who posed for painter Power as Judas, laughs at his revolving duplicity, you can't help but laugh with him.
If PRINCE OF FOXES has weakness (excepting those already mentioned, the absence of color and the leading lady's absence of presence), it's that there isn't enough of it. The film is too quick, the afterimage too fleeting from the eye. I'm always left wanting to see more.
PRINCE OF FOXES is the best swashbuckler I've ever seen. It should be available on DVD for everyone to enjoy.
Encrypt (2003)
EnCrypt
Guys,
As the author of the EnCrypt screenplay that was the basis for the Sci Fi Channel movie of the same name, I must point out that writers receive no credit when a film is good (because it's the result of the 'director's vision'), and often all of the blame when it's bad ("Man, this was a piece of crap! What was that writer thinking?")
The EnCrypt film is not the spec screenplay I wrote, which, after all, was shiny enough to sell to strangers at the Sci Fi Channel. Another writer was brought in behind me and extensive changes were made resulting in the film you saw. If anyone is interested I'll email them the original spec screenplay. Judge for yourself what EnCrypt would have been in a perfect world.
The world is not perfect.
-- Richard Taylor