Category: Movie Reviews

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (II Corinthians 6:14)

If you have ever had any doubts as to the meaning of the Bible verse above, here is a movie that ought to make it crystal-clear: The Ship That Died of Shame (1955). You can buy it from amazon.com or watch it on IMDB here ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048611/ )–and if that link doesn’t work, well, I tried. A few years ago this movie was extremely hard to come by; but not anymore.

In this gritty postwar crime drama, a young and handsome George Baker (Emperor Tiberius in I, Claudius) is left widowed and adrift after World War II and can’t get his life on track again. He chances to meet his wartime buddy, Richard Attenborough, who talks him into a scheme to buy their old Navy patrol boat and put it to use doing some illegal but surely harmless smuggling. Really, what’s so terrible about bringing in Belgian chocolates or fine wines that people really want? And in no time at all, the boys are making good money–and having the kind of excitement they grew accustomed to during the war, only without the gunfire.

But there’s a problem that eventually wrecks everything: Attenborough’s character has no morality whatsoever. His criminal activities, because he craves higher and higher rewards for them, become increasingly wicked–there really is no line he won’t cross. And here’s poor George Baker yoked to him, and can’t get away! That goes for mechanic Bill Owen, too (later to be the star of The Last of the Summer Wine, the longest-running TV comedy ever): he only joined up for old time’s sake, and now he’s trapped.

It isn’t every day you can learn good Christian doctrine from a worldly movie–but of course Christianity is all about how to live in this fallen world.

If you’re not interested in becoming any wiser, this is still a film well worth watching–superb performances, and a tight, suspenseful story. You’ll find it’s worth going to some trouble to see it.

Last night Patty and I watched the opening episode of The Fall, a new BBC  Two police drama starring Gillian Anderson, the enviro-fascist who was so good as Agent Scully in The X-Files. This turkey can be viewed on youtube or via Netflix–not that you should view it.

Okay, a serial killer is loose in Belfast and superstar detective Anderson is brought in to deal with it. We didn’t see her smile once during the whole broadcast hour–I guess because she’s supposed to be a two-fisted feminist. In one scene she spots a tall, handsome cop working a crime scene; so she has her car stopped and orders her driver to introduce her to the hunk, to whom she immediately gives her hotel room number. If she were a man, this would be sexual harassment. But the whole scene is just a lot of bilge.

The action whizzes by like a snail, a tree sloth, or a glacier. We have that legendary Belfast scenery to entertain us, a landscape on a par with that of Newark, NJ. We get to watch the murderer actually torturing and killing one of his victims–at which point we turned it off. Believe me, you don’t need this show in your life. Avoid The Fall.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like stories that point us toward a better place than the one we’re stuck in now. In Agatha Christie’s stories, for instance, murder is always a great wrong that must be punished, even if the victim is a loathsome toad who encumbers the earth. And meanwhile her lead character, Hercule Poirot, is kind to humble people and impeccably polite to all. So we wind up getting a glimpse of something better. The world does not have to be Obamaland.

The Fall leaves us stranded in a graffiti-covered killing ground.

They’re welcome to it, whoever they are. Self-congratulating liberals, probably. If that’s the world they want, that’s the world they’ll get.

One of the gems of our video collection is The Secret Garden (1993), directed by Agniezka Holland and based on the 1910 children’s literature classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

It’s a simple story. A little girl whom nobody wants takes over an abandoned garden that nobody wants, and shares it with a little boy whose widowed father is afraid to want him. Out of this comes love, and healing, and redemption.

Those are the things that God does. Throughout the Gospels, most of the actions performed by Jesus are acts of healing. In time, the Bible teaches us, God through Jesus Christ will heal this entire fallen world. We are privileged that, in many cases, God allows us to work with Him and for Him.

This film yesterday brought me to tears. The cinematography is gorgeous, the music score gentle and soul-stirring. Although there is no overt mention of Jesus Christ or Christianity, and even some bits of mumbo-jumbo or “magic” engaged in by the children, the message of the story could hardly be more Christian if it tried.

We are all in need of healing, many of us more than we know. All of Creation is in need of it–and will get it. God has so promised. Meanwhile, there are smaller healings and redemptions all around us. These are, as it were, small down-payments on the larger project: signs that God is nigh, that God is working in His world. He has not forgotten us. He never will.

It’s a rough ride, a lot of the time; but the day of regeneration is at hand and will not be delayed. God has already marked it on His calendar.

Yesterday we watched Dragonwyck (1946), starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price. It’s one of those films that’s hard to pigeonhole. Is it a Gothic romance, or a psychological thriller? A historical story, or a mystery? It contains elements of them all.

Gene Tierney plays a Connecticut farm girl who, in 1844, goes to live with her distant cousin Nicholas (Price), a great patroon of the Hudson valley, in his ancient mansion, Dragonwyck. Nicholas is trying to hold on to a tradition of feudal privilege that is fast passing away; meanwhile, his wife and little daughter don’t seem quite the ticket. By and by the wife dies under puzzling circumstances, the little girl is sent abroad, and Nicholas, obsessed by the desire to have a son, sweeps his Connecticut cousin into marriage. And from that point on, things get very pear-shaped.

You’ll never guess who steals the show. She only has one major scene, in which she exhibits suppressed evil, subtle malice, and perhaps a hint of deep-seated madness. I mean, she really creeps you out! And it’s all the more effective for being underplayed.

Yup, you guessed it–Spring Byington, that’s who. You know her best from old TV sitcoms; she was the star of December Bride and popped up in countless other shows. You won’t believe what she does in her role as Nicholas’ housekeeper. Her performance alone is worth several viewings–although Vincent Price is well worth watching, too. (Come to think of it, there weren’t very many actors who could have inhabited the wide spectrum of characters played by Price in his career. He really was a unique artist.)

Dragonwyck is not an easy movie to get your hands on, but if you ever have a chance to see it, go for it. You’ll want to see it more than once, so perhaps it belongs in your film library.

The best special effects scene ever: Ray Harryhausen’s skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts

“Nobody goes to the movies to see a sinkful of dirty dishes.”

This quote, maybe apocryphal, is attributed to Ray Harryhausen, the special effects wizard who died this week at 92. He was a giant in the field of fantasy, an inspiration to many (including myself). And boy, did you not get a sinkful of dirty dishes when you went to a Harryhausen movie!

Mighty Joe Young was his first feature film, in 1949; his last was Clash of the Titans, 1981. In between, he cranked out masterpieces like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Mysterious Island, and my own favorite, Jason and the Argonauts. I have asked my crack technical support staff–her name is Jill–to post some video samples, if possible.

Harryhausen was a master of the painstaking stop-motion process–you film models one frame at a time, subtly adjusting their positions with every shot, and when you speed it up, the models appear to move: not unlike the old-fashioned way of making an animated cartoon. He made some refinements to the technique and called it “Dynamation.”

Stop-motion has largely given way to computer-generated effects. Most of those look like they were spat out of a computer. But even compared to top-of-the-line computer effects that don’t look crappy, Harryhausen’s work is magic. To this day, in my opinion, no one has ever created a special-effects scene to top the fight with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts–a movie that is now some 50 years old.

Harryhausen was much more than just a techie. He had an artistic vision. He was determined to create fantasy that really was fantasy. To that end, he consciously avoided what we might call excessive realism.

“If you make things too real,” he said, “sometimes you bring it down to the mundane.”

Zingo! Bull’s eye! In a mere 14 words he describes the whole challenge to the fantasy film-maker; and to the fantasy writer, too. If it’s not real enough, you’ve got nothing. But if it’s too real, you’ve got a sinkful of dirty dishes.

We have discovered the “Miss Marple” TV movies starring Joan Hickson as Agatha Christie’s harmless little old lady who solves the most perplexing crimes. You can watch them on youtube for free.

These are simply wonderful. If you’re worn out with watching America get torn down by the very people who are supposed to be building it up, if you just can’t stand your balky drains anymore, if the gossiping neighbor is giving you a headache–well, here’s a welcome, albeit temporary, escape.

I read somewhere that Joan Hickson–who was not, at the time, anywhere near being an old lady–was Agatha Christie’s personal choice to play “my dear Miss Marple.” That was a little stroke of genius. Hickson brings the character to life: not only that, but somehow even invests her with a subtle kind of nobility. Hickson’s Miss Marple is someone we’d love to tell our troubles to.

I love the Miss Marple stories because they’re so bold in their conception. Here is a detective who cannot beat up the bad guys, who is not a master of disguise, and who, in fact, is always very vulnerable: you sometimes get the feeling that her health might not last out the case. Indeed, in one of my favorite Marple novels, A Caribbean Mystery, this harmless little lady’s only ally against a ruthless multiple murderer is an old man confined to a wheelchair with a terminal illness!

These Hickson movies are remarkable in the producers’ and writers’ determination to stick as closely to the actual plot as possible: and so the novels are truly brought to life.

Now, if only I could get Miss Marple to take a look at my drains…

The last time I went to a movie theater my ticket cost $11, and that was with the senior citizen discount plus the mid-day matinee discount. I thought about that this morning as the talking heads on the radio chattered about the “hot blockbuster” (is there such a thing as a lukewarm  blockbuster?) movies headed our way.

Can you imagine paying $15 to see any of these?

—The Great Gatsby, with a rap “music” soundtrack. The very thought of it makes me wake up screaming.

—Iron Man III. Based on a comic book. I grew out of comic books 50 years ago.

–Some goofy business with Robert DeNiro and Diane Keaton pretending to be a happily married couple at their son’s wedding, ’cause he somehow doesn’t know they’re divorced and they hate each other, and I think I’ll go out and watch paint dry now.

–A new Superman movie. Based on the comic book. Without Christopher Reeve.

—Hangover III. What’s the limit on sequels? Can you imagine Casablanca III: Play It Again and Again and Again, Sam?

—Wolverine something-or-other, based on a comic book. What would Hollywood do if they weren’t allowed to make movies about comic book characters?

I love movies. That’s why I hate these.

Blog visitor “LadyWiz” and I have shared fond memories of a bygone avenue of pleasure known as “Million Dollar Movie.” The way things are going with our country, someday fond memories might be all we have left.

When I was a kid, we had only seven TV channels: the three major networks, Public TV, and local channels 5, 7, and 9. Channel 9 was (and still is) WOR-TV, and from 1955 through 1966, one of their showpieces was “Million Dollar Movie.”

Twice a night on weekdays, and twice a day on Saturdays, except during baseball season, “Million Dollar Movie” ran classics from the RKO movie library. The theme music was from “Gone With the Wind” (“da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM”), and there was an announcer who regularly reminded the audience, “If you missed any part of [Title], or wish to see it again, the next showing is at such-and-such a time.”

Ah, how wonderful it was! “King Kong,” “Son of Kong,” and “Mighty Joe Young”–a thrilla with a gorilla. “Gunga Din.” And such beloved classics as “Attack of the Crab Monsters,” “Prehistoric Women,” and “Queen of Outer Space” with Zsa Zsa Gabor and poor Eric Fleming, the star of “Rawhide.” Not to mention “Godzilla,” “Gorgo,” and “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”

All right, I was a 10-year-old boy. I wasn’t going to sit around watching a lot of kissing movies, was I? They did show a “Blackbeard” movie (with William Bendix in a supporting role) which scandalized me because I had just read all about Blackbeard the Pirate in one of those glorious old stamp-and-coloring books–remember them?–and the story told by the movie wasn’t a bit like the real thing. I was fit to be tied! My mother tried to explain, “That’s called poetic license,” but I wasn’t buying it. Little did I dream that eventually poetic license would be taken with history, current events, and the economy, too. I guess Solon was right when he predicted that would happen… circa 500 B.C.

I don’t know about anybody else, but my imagination was ignited by those hokey movies and the fire still burns today.

I’ve got to stop writing about public education and politics for a day or two. It’s playing the devil with my blood pressure. In a bid to unfrazzle myself, I offer this list of five favorite science fiction movies.

1. The Time Machine (1960), one of George Pal‘s best efforts, has always fascinated me. I don’t know what aspect of it I like best: the introductory scenes, which never fail to arouse my imagination; the eerie sets and scenery; the acting, in which we encounter tenderness, of all things; or the story itself. A time traveler hurls himself 800,000 years into the future to find what looks like a world given over to Obama-ism run wild. He finds the Eloi, a race of passive, no-information nebbishes totally dependent upon an elite class of monsters, the Morlocks, for all the necessities of life. In return, the Eloi get to be lunch for the Morlocks–literally. The only thing the screenwriters got wrong was their estimation that it would take the human race 800,000 years to reach this point.

2. Jurassic Park (1993). Overlooking the fact that I’m a dinosaur freak, what tickles me about this movie is its treatment of the illusion that scientists and businessmen “know what they’re doing” and are “in control” at all times. As events roll out, we soon see that they haven’t got the foggiest idea of what they’re doing and have no control of it whatsoever. The sooner the rest of us wake up to that truth, the better.

3. Forbidden Planet (1956). I watched this many times on “Million Dollar Movie” (“If you missed any part of Forbidden Planet, or wish to see it again, please tune in at such-and-such a time…”). This was another one to ignite a young imagination. I’ll never forget Walter Pigeon, once the mystery of the planet has begun to be unraveled, shaking his head and lamenting, “My poor Krell!”

4. The Blob (1958). Seeing this again, fifty-odd years later, this movie is a lot cooler than I remembered it. Steve McQueen became a star, for his work in this unassuming little thriller. You’ll be surprised at how good The Blob still is.

5. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965) Betcha never even heard of this one! One of Roger Corman’s early films, it features an aged Basil Rathbone in a minor part and supposedly rips off a Soviet science-fiction classic I never saw or heard of. The story is about the first expedition to Venus (this was before we knew that underneath all those clouds, Venus is considerably hotter than a sauna). The special effects are as cheap as you’d expect, but never mind–in what can otherwise be called nothing but a clunker of a movie, the payoff comes at the very end. It’s worth waiting for, trust me: surprisingly poetic, unexpectedly beautiful and oddly moving. You won’t forget it.

OK, I’ve left a lot of great movies off this short list–but only so that you, dear readers, can nominate some of your own favorites.