Reviews

I am a Doris Day fan and have been for fifty some years but this special which was like many made at the time to counteract the revolutionary music and feelings of the sixties is much too syrupy. If you want to see her sing her songs rent her movies and you'll get much better production values. I am also a Perry Como fan and they sing well together but look closely when they sing together. Doris is always trying to look Perry in the eye and kiss him and he is always avoiding her gaze and her kisses. He has never been demonstrative that way and is clearly uncomfortable with her advances whether they were for fun or more serious. In other words you are uncomfortable for him. I wonder if they even had a live audience. It is well known that Doris did not like to perform before a live audience and much of the laughter and applause does sound canned. Watch the set pieces and you can see that they are suddenly transported from sitting on the grass to Perry sitting on a pillow or something. So it was not shot live even and was stitched together later by a poor editor. If you want to learn more about Doris from this DVD you won't. Better to read the new book about her, that I am reading and watch her movies.

I expected a traditional romantic comedy here and I suspect many men will not even tune in to what's going on when their girlfriends/wives drag them to it but I loved this movie. The trailer was kind of misleading. It seemed as if the two women (Winslet/Diaz) were switching boyfriends but what they switched was houses. Diaz moves from California to England and Winslet from England to California. The movie has lots of nice little plot twists and it was a real joy to see Eli Wallach playing a retired screen writer that I suspect was based on Ernst Lehman. Elis friends get together with him one night to talk with Kate Winslet's character and we see Bill Macy from Maud and Shelly Berman who was one of my most favorite comics from the sixties. Jack Black has a nice roll as a digital musician who talks to Kate about movie scores. There is even a little scene in a movie store where Jack is talking about the score of the graduate and the star Dustin Hoffman does a cameo. There are a few movie cliché's here but all in all the movie is a winner and who could not love Jude Law's children and the "napkin man". I was thinking while watching this that Kate Wnslet should be doing more romantic comedies and has the range of another favorite of mine Emma Thompson. They were in Sense and Sensibilty together. Another movie I loved. So if you're a guy give it a chance if your a gal you can't miss here.

I've seen this movie several times, most recently on DVD with an additional DVD that includes the premier and a documentary about James Dean. Each time I see this movie I see it from a new perspective. I learned from the DVD and from reading Elia Kazan's comments that the character Cal (played by Dean) is really Steinbeck in many ways in his youth and Kazan also identified with him. I learned that there was real friction between Dean and the man who played his father, Raymond Massey and that Dean deliberately provoked Massey to get angry with him to bring out the moment in the film of the father's feelings towards his son. I also marvel each time i see this movie at the outstanding performance of Jo Van Fleet. She deserved her best supporting actress academy award. This movie resonates on many levels as do most of Kazan's films. It is modern retelling of the garden of eden story and it is the story of the troubled youth of the fifties fighting against the conservatism of the Eisenhower years. It is a story of the confusion and conflicts in a family with a war approaching and it's a story about a woman (Van Fleet's character) who doesn't like being bottled up in a controlled religious setting. Many things to enjoy here and one wonders where the artists of Kazans stature are in this day and age. I only wish that all of Kazan's films were on DVD, such as Baby Doll and Wild River. I wonder if anyone but me notices that on the extra DVD where there is an interview with John Steinbeck that he shifts and contorts his mouth in a manner very like Dean in the movie. It was said that neither Steinbeck nor Kazan originally liked Dean but both agreed that he was perfect for the part and both identified with him very much.

I have seen this version several times and it gets better the more you watch it. I also loved the 1959 version which was directed by William Wyler, who was a first assistant director on this version and cannot say which I like better. The story closely follows a book that i loved as a child. The action scenes are quite astounding for the level of special effects at the time. The tinting adds a certain surreal quality to the film at times and the color sequences when Christ is in the scene are very beautiful. I was moved by this film because it creates an otherworldly atmosphere that I've rarely seen in any film. The acting at times is a bit stagy but it does not interfere with the story line. The soundtrack is quite good and adds much to the mood of the film.

If you would like an inspiring film of the time of Christ you can hardly do better than this one.

I liked this film a lot because it's a rare movie where Joan Crawford doesn't overshadow her male co-stars and here she is pitted up against two fine male actors who match her emotions and intelligence. Dana Andrews was never better stepping out from his usual good guy roles to play a heel with compassion. Mr Andrews acting is both subtle and emotinaly strong. Coming off his strong performance a year earlier in the Best Years of Our Lives he was clearly at his peak at this time. There is a lot going on in this film from suggestions of child abuse on the part of Ruth Warrick to an interesting spin on the theme of infidelity where the most sympathetic character is the "other" woman Daisy Kenyon. I can see why this role would have appealed to Ms. Crawford having played variotions on it in "The Women" and "Rain" among others throughout her career. She is the wise one here and it makes the movie very interesting for that reason. I won't say who wins her in the end but it leaves a nice smile on your face and you have a little laugh to boot.

I think that this is one of Glenn Ford's best performances. He plays against type cast as a tough rancher with not much heart. Jack Lemmon provides the heart for the film. The film is realistic in it's portrayal of western life in the ninteenth century and is based on the Writer Frank Harris's real story. Frank Harris was a hotel clerk who wanted to be a cowboy so bad that he gave his own money to buy a piece of the stock from Glen Ford's ranch with the condition that he could ride the trail. Glen Ford loses his money gambling and has to take Harris(Lemmon's) deal in order to buy more cattle. Along the trail Lemmon finds the work hard and the men that he associates with harder. Harris becomes tough but learns a lesson and in the end teaches something to Glen Ford along the way. The only problem with the dvd version is that it is in pan and scan format and it should be in wide screen as this is an epic western that needs the wide screen. I recommend that the viewer who really wants to see this in widescreen request it on turner classic movies as that is the only place where you can see it that way. Enjoy this movie any way you can see it however. It is like a good novel.