Ronnie Rating:

Interested in purchasing today’s film?  If you use the handy link below a small portion will be donated to this site!  Thanks!

Two-Disc DVD

Cleopatra (50th Anniversary Limited Edition 2-Disc + Book) [Blu-ray]

Two-Disc Blu-ray

Cleopatra (50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]

Henry Brubaker (Redford) is the new ward of Wakefield Prison in Arkansas.  Masquerading as an inmate, Brubaker discovers a living hell cloaked in a shroud of discipline with beatings and deteriorating conditions being de rigueur.  When he tries to instill reformation, Brubaker comes up against a wall of opposition from those who seek to benefit, and those who believe the harsh way is the only way to handle prisoners.

Idealistic; that’s the word to describe the entire trajectory of Brubaker.  The plot is fairly formulaic showing the audience how terrible prisons were “back in the day,” the day being sometime in the 1960s, and how one man wanted to change things for the better but is told to stick to “tradition.”  Of course, with the 1980s being a clash between family values and radicalism, it makes sense that Brubaker is the lone voice of compassion for the world’s worst prisoners.  While he agrees that these men shouldn’t be coddled, any man who tries to escape will be shot, that doesn’t give the guards and wardens leeway to commit murder or atrocities.  I wasn’t aware of the plot of the movie, so while I didn’t believe Robert Redford was a prison inmate – the man sticks out like a Christmas present in the city dump – from the minute he steps over a half-dead inmate you, and him, understand the world to be entered; and by the way the inmates respond to the body, this isn’t the first time this has happened.  It’s a succinct set-up and a solid introduction regardless of whether you believe Redford in the role.

With that, Redford is the eyes and ears for the audience as the first half of the film explores the daily grind that the inmates are subjected to – a series of random attacks and work where the men can only catch snatches of sleep in-between.  When men are abused, the others simply stand there and bear witness to it, feeling completely helpless, or numb to it all.  The problem is this cycle starts to wear thin with little progression or proper introduction to the characters.  I understood Redford’s character, so far as he’s a prisoner, but I knew that because he was the lead; who are the other characters?  There’s the guard in a relationship with a woman, who I was never sure whether she was a prostitute, or not; he did keep her in a shack on prison property.  We also meet a few of the convicts, specifically Richard Coombes (Kotto) and Bullen (David Keith).  However, I never felt drawn to them because, outside of their names, they have no personality.  As for Redford himself, the first 25 minutes see him entirely mute, taking in events but never participating or speaking!  The slowness does allow the film to open up and breathe, but I couldn’t connect with any of the other characters outside of knowing their life is so horrible.

Thankfully, the first 25 minutes goes away and the rest of the movie is a vast improvement, although it never truly rises above anything more than formulaic.  The best work is in the script, which got nominated for an Oscar and rightfully so.  There’s several moving pieces throughout that are interesting, although given short shrift in a few cases; the hierarchy between the guards and the inmates is further broken down into whites and African-Americans, which adds a whole other layer of tension on top of a powder keg situation that Brubaker walks into.  Speaking of, once Brubaker reveals himself and actively takes over as warden, he’s given more to chew on that works for him.  He’s a commanding presence and when he’s placed at a board meeting with a group of anti-prison reformists (including Murray Hamilton who played the disinterested mayor from Jaws), he’s determined to get things done.  For Redford, what’s important is that you see him as one of the boys, although with a touch more authority.  He’s not a warden, but a man who wants to rehabilitate the men by treating them like human beings; again, admirable although it makes Redford come off a bit too saintly at times.  The bright spots are when Redford and Kotto are acting in conjunction with each other, as they do present two totally different experiences.  Kotto’s character, Coombes, is given a position of authority, but it’s degraded by the racist views of the white guards who leave Coombes to deal with the “coloreds.”  Brubaker and Coombes must work together, and while it’s not shown on-screen, Coombs is the one who gets things accomplished; in an epilogue, it is revealed that Coombes successfully sued Wakefield prison for violating inmates’ Constitutional rights.  The Blu-ray looks and sounds good, although the only bonus content are television spots and trailers, so the movie will be the main selling point; that, and the film début of Morgan Freeman who plays a deranged prison inmate and gives a bravura performance in about three minutes of screentime.

Despite the repetitious nature of Brubaker finding something horrific, being told not to investigate, etc., Brubaker is a fascinating movie.  Redford is cliché, but he makes cliché work to the hilt and is a formidable presence in a film that places him against the equally stellar Yaphet Kotto.  The prison reform movie is a difficult model to screw up, because it’s always intriguing to see how horrific prison conditions once were, and there is an intriguing story to be discovered; once you get past the slow 25 minutes, the film is an entertaining ride.

Ronnie Rating:

Interested in purchasing today’s film?  If you use the handy link below a small portion will be donated to this site!  Thanks!

Brubaker [Blu-ray]

Major Amos Charles Dundee (Charlton Heston) leads a group of Confederate prisoners, Army regulars, and thieves into Mexico to hunt down a vicious Apache leader whose been raiding and pillaging villages in Texas.

It’s been well-documented that I’m not a fan of Westerns, so as always, this film was challenging.  However, despite it’s flaws the movie is a sprawling story of expansionism, prejudice, and obsession that’s worth it for fans of Sam Peckinpah.  The story of Major Dundee and his men is reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia – Peckinpah’s direct inspiration – as well as Moby Dick with Dundee as the staunch Ahab figure.  Peckinpah assembles another ragtag group of disparate people and puts them on an adventure in which all their personal faults are revealed; shades of the Wild Bunch are apparent despite that being off by another four years.  I will admit my favorite Peckinpah film is the emotionally disturbing Straw Dogs, but there’s definitely comparisons that can be made between that film and this; both focus on obsessive men losing their footing in a land they once owned.

The director’s noted for his machismo, and here the men are men; and by that I mean they’re lacking in sympathy.  Heston is the fearless leader who ends up losing his way in the third act, while James Coburn (I cannot escape Coburn of late) is the one-armed  tracker with his shotgun at the ready.  Heston is the man you’re meant to sojourn with, and while I never cared for him as a person, he’s reliable as the man of scruples.  He starts out the film with an ideal, to take down Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate) as a way of rectifying his failures during the Battle of Gettysburg.  As events unfold, Dundee loses his way and becomes a drunken lout who has further to go on his way to redemption.  When he declares, “My executioners will have to stand in line,” he means it!  Heston is tough, and yet he presents his vulnerability throughout.  He’s well put together but I found him outshined at every turn by Richard Harris as Dundee’s frenemy Benjamin Tyreen.  The animosity between the two men moves beyond friendship into a weird obsessive love, complete with Harris rocking eyeliner throughout.  Tyreen is the one who doesn’t mess around, and understands that Dundee is playing the game all wrong.  He mocks the leader, “When are we gonna stop fighting this Indian on his own terms?”  You understand Tyreen was once a leader, and as the story progresses he starts to look like a better leader than Dundee.

The strongest theme in Major Dundee is that of isolation.  The men are dwarfed by the vast expanse of land as they start hunting down Sierra, and by their own antagonism towards each other.  When Dundee recruits for his mission he’s gathering men who aren’t just convicts, but Confederate convicts; thus kickstarting a series of hostilities before the men even leave for Mexico.  While Peckinpah wasn’t commenting directly on the Vietnam War yet, there’s certainly claims to be made regarding the Civil Rights Movement and the growing divide between Americans.  You don’t sympathize with the Indians, who come off as the definition of the word “savage.”  Unfortunately, Peckinpah wasn’t able to film the opening massacre, so the movie confusedly starts with two lone scenes of Indian savagery and that’s your establishing shot.  The Indians are as stereotypical as it gets, but the men in Dundee’s outfit aren’t any better, proof that it’s not an inherent difference between races, it’s humanity itself.  Each man has his own motives to go out and fight, whether it’s for money or Dundee desiring a promotion (“Are you pursuing the Apache, major?  Or a promotion?”).  When the group rides out the Confederates and Union soldiers solidify their ranks by singing their own regimental ballads (“Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic“).

Major Dundee isn’t without its flaws.  I’ve mentioned how savagely racist the Indians are written; you’ll be taken aback to hear one of the Indian scouts declare himself “a tame Apache, a camp dog” to prove his loyalty.  Also, it wouldn’t be Peckinpah without a few women characters who show up to be lovely, and big-bosomed, set decorations.  Senta Berger is gorgeous as Teresa Santiago but she’s only there to be a love interest to Dundee and to be heart-broken when he cheats on her.  The extended cut adds fourteen minutes on top of the theatrical cut, and the biggest addition is a sequence introducing Tyreen who just shows up in the original cut; the rest of the scenes flesh out character development.  The problem is that while time feels like it’s progressing through the epistolary format of Lieutenant Graham’s (Jim Hutton) diary, events feel scattershot and assembled by chance.  The extended cut cements sequences better, but you can feel the studio tampering and things could have been tighter had Peckinpah been allowed to film a few more sequences.

The Twilight Time Blu-ray is a two-disc set that gives you your money’s worth.  I’ve mentioned that the series comes with both the extended and theatrical cuts; I recommend watching the extended to get the full breadth of Peckinpah’s vision, so much as it is.  The extended cut also has a thundering new score composed by Christopher Caliendo, which comes as an isolated track on the disc (a Twilight Time staple).  There’s also an audio commentary track with film historians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle that I urge you to listen to.  The men are all Peckinpah scholars and considering the convoluted history of the making of the film, each man has their own perspective on how events played out.  If you want a grander understanding of the movie, watch this alongside.  Disc one also has a 2005 trailer for the extended re-release.  On disc two you have the original cut which is a muddled mess; it’s worth watching for the sake of comparison.  You also have the isolated score that accompanies the original cut.  Composer Daniele Amfitheatrof creates a bizarre amalgamation of sounds that are nowhere near Western.  As mentioned with the theatrical cut, it’s worth listening to for comparison’s sake.  There’s also an exhibitor’s promo reel, an extended scene, an incomplete scene, and the trailer; these are all rather short and while interesting have little rewatch value.  And let’s not forget the fantastic Julie Kirgo who crafts an essay about the tortured history of filming the movie, as well as exploring why it deserves a place as one of Peckinpah’s best, or at least most beautiful failures.

Major Dundee is a magnificent experiment in the strengths and weaknesses of the Western genre in the 1960s.  The acting, particularly from Heston and Harris is exemplary, and the violence is certainly on the weaker side for Peckinpah.  The story is lengthy and hard to grasp, but the extended cut has smoothed out much of the rough edges.  If your dad is a classic film fan, it’s worth getting a copy of this from Twilight Time!

Ronnie Rating:

Interested in purchasing today’s film?  If you use the handy link below a small portion will be donated to this site!  Thanks!

http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/24455/MAJOR-DUNDEE-1965/

If I told you to list some of the staples of motion pictures what would you include:  stars, a good script.  Would you mention sex?  Whether explicit or implied, the act of making love is always portrayed on-screen (even when the Code removed it from film there were still ways to imply that people were getting down).  With that, I’ve always found books about the history of sex on film to be fascinating, so I had a lot of fun with author Simon Sheridan’s Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema.  I wouldn’t have guessed that some of the more explicit sexual acts were being film across the pond.  The exploitation cinema in Britain throughout the fifties and into the seventies is detailed in this coffee table book that’s not for the prudish.

The best way to describe Keeping the British End up is cheeky.  Since the cinema detailed skirted line between hilarity and sexuality, it makes sense that Sheridan recounts the history and movies with his tongue firmly in cheek.  While the book is meant to titillate, particularly with its images of naked people who litter almost every page, it also seeks to educate those who actually want to learn about the history it describes.  The British film industry has commonly been considered “classy,” with its reliance on period dramas.  Sheridan dispels all of that by focusing on the exploitation market that cropped up and started to claim the box-office and entered popular culture via Benny Hill and the Carry On films.  I have little knowledge about the British film industry, outside of their classy productions, so I was learning everything fresh.

Divided into sections with naughty chapter titles like “Comings,” and “Doings,” Keeping the British End Up is part history and part encyclopedia.  The first half sets up a chronology of the industry, starting from its origins in the fifties and culminating in changes and its eventual fall in the late seventies.  The British censors were a far cry from American censors, and would allow nudity, but only if  it was considered necessary (and educational) to the story.  Thus, the first British sex films were exposes on things like nudist camps, or sexual education films that ended up frustrating audiences expecting to see unadulterated nudity.  Despite all the excessive T&A placed on-screen, producers and directors found it easier to get away with things if it was under the guise of humor: the British sex film was born.  The bulk of Sheridan’s text is in presenting an encyclopedia of every British sex film made.  The mini-reviews discuss the plot, the acting, trivia, and possible information on shooting.  While a few are worth reading, it is really for those who want a comprehensive knowledge of every film made.  I did appreciate Sheridan defusing a touchy subject with humor, connecting back to the era of time he’s focusing on.  Some of the plot summaries are filled with funny jokes that made me chuckle.  However,  I found myself reading the ones that had the sauciest titles, and wishing there was more history.

On its own, Keeping the British End Up is a beautifully put-together coffee table book, if you don’t have children.  The cover, sans book jacket, has lovely painted pictures of the various women of the films, and if you want to display the book I’d do so like this (it’s less risqué than the dust jacket itself).  Inside there are several photos of bare-breasted women although that is it.  It’s a niche market, but if you’re looking for a unique historical critique on British film, with a wry sense of humor, look no further than Keeping the British End Up.

Interested in purchasing today’s book?  If you use the handy link below a small portion will be donated to this site!  Thanks!

Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema

Jean Harlow (Baker) wants to be a movie star, not just for herself but to keep her freeloading parents afloat.  With the help of a benevolent agent (Red Buttons), Harlow becomes synonymous with A-list stardom.

Harlow is based on the book (now out of print) by Irving Schulman which has some pretty heinous reviews on Amazon.  It’s described as “pulpy,” which can be good for a book, but translates into exploitation on-screen. If you’ve been following this series you remember the worst biopic I ever watched: the 1976 Marilyn Monroe film Goodbye, Norma Jean; a sickening story depicting Monroe being consistently raped for 90 minutes.  While Harlow isn’t as bad, there’s a thick sliver of smut that runs underneath the entire movie.  For some reason, biopics about blonde bombshells who died young are highly interchangeable and always have to focus on how they simply didn’t get enough sex.  You can take Baker’s Harlow, and place it next to the countless Marilyn biopics or The Jayne Mansfield Story (or go all the way back to the Thelma Todd Story) and every beat/character trait is the same.  Jean Harlow led an interesting life that was nothing like Norma Jean Baker‘s, yet Hollywood creates them  the same.

Take the characterization and introduction to Harlow, herself.  All you need is platinum blonde hair right?  Because that’s all that’s given to the audience for you to understand that this is HARLOW (and they never call her Jean Harlow so I hope you know her first name).  Carrol Baker is beautiful, but I can grasp as to why this film ruined her career.  She looks beautiful in the Edith Head gowns, but the script does her a disservice by turning Jean Harlow into a screeching shrew; Baker has to say every line through gritted teeth, as if it’s the most important thing in the history of the spoken language.  If you’ve studied Harlow’s career, you’ll be disappointed, of course.  Similar to the other Harlow biopic, this one doesn’t include the titles of any of her movies nor does it use real actors names; so Harlow works for “Majestic Studios,” aka MGM, and her love for  Jack Harrison (Mike Connors) I’m assuming is a stand-in for William Powell.  Outside of her parents (played by Angela Lansbury and Raf Vallone), her second husband, Paul Bern (Peter Lawford), is the only other character cited under his real name.  The lack of accuracy is frustrating because there’s no basis what’s changed.  Bern kills himself because of his impotence; a theory that has been thrown out for Bern’s death although I’m waiting for the biopic that alleges Harlow killed him (I’m REALLY surprised that wasn’t touched in either movie).  Don’t even get me started on how Harlow dies here; okay, I’ll tell you…pneumonia!  I’ll get into the background on that in a second, but why change that one thing?  Whether she dies of pneumonia or what she really died of, uremic poisoning, why is it important to change the one, irrefutable item that we have established about Harlow’s life?

In lieu of accuracy, director Gordon Douglas and screenwriter John Michael Hayes want to focus on Jean Harlow’s quest for sex!  It’s a tired trope established in the various Monroe biopics: Actress couldn’t find sexual satisfaction, which she equates to love, and thus her life is doomed from the start.  The problem is, by the end of the story Jean is so sex-obsessed she openly propositions her stepfather!  Keep in mind, prior to this she accused him of wanting to molest her, and during her wedding to Bern the camera lingers on Marino Bello’s face in a profession of love.  Yet the script wants to make him pious by not having sex with his daughter, something he apparently didn’t want all along?  Then why set events up as such?!  It makes as much sense as Jean seducing him because she’s out of work (yes, the script equates sexual frustration with unemployment).  There’s just a disturbing connection to sex – incest specifically incest – that continues to crop up throughout the boring two-hour runtime.  We’re meant to understand that Mama Jean (Lansbury) and Marino have an active sex life, and that really the only reason the two are married is because of sex.  Cut to one unsettling conversation where Jean praises Marino’s sexual prowess and Mama declaring that’s the “first nice thing” her daughter’s said towards her stepfather!  See why I place this next to Goodbye, Norma Jean?  I’ve never understood screenwriters’ obsession with blonde bombshells and sex?  Is it because they see these stars flaunting their sexuality, and it must be ironic that their sex lives were less than active?  In the case of Jean Harlow that makes little sense, and it simply creates an excuse for a sleazebag screenwriter to degrade a woman for 120 minutes.

Mired in the exploitation are terrible production values and ridiculously slow pacing.  Over thirty minutes of the movie is devoted to Jean deflecting unwanted sexual advances (one of which comes from Leslie Nielsen!).  After that, over an hour focuses on Harlow’s early career where she gets hit in the face with pies and thrown into water fountains.  Can anyone tell me if that is true, because I don’t believe it is?  While her manager tells her “You won’t be doing this forever” it feels like she has because over an hour goes by of zero progression in her career.  Once she hits it big it comes with a whimper and disappears, only to be replaced by Jean having a career as a burlesque dancer complete with Mae West one-liners.  Again, any authenticity?  Don’t forget the horribly misplaced music cues that end up being hilarious; one sequence has Jean showing up at her manager’s doorstep after being beaten by Paul Bern.  When the manager opens the door I swore the music cue was from Frankenstein.  Instead of a battered (if you call a few makeup smears “battered”) Jean Harlow, I expected a hulking monster.

The movie ends with the ominous declaration that Jean “didn’t die of pneumonia, she died of life.”  Well, any idiot could tell you she didn’t die from pneumonia, but what are we supposed to take away from this?  Life didn’t kill Harlow, her kidneys did!  Oh, you want me to believe that because she wasn’t sexually satisfied, and thus had to start prostituting herself (which does happen), that life broke her?

Ronnie Rating:

Interested in purchasing today’s film?  If you use the handy link below a small portion will be donated to this site!  Thanks!

Harlow