Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet (1956) 

Notable cast/crew: Walter Pidgeon as Dr Morbius.  Anne Francis as Altaira Morbius.  Leslie Nielsen as Commander Adams.  Warren Stevens as Lt "Doc" Ostrow.  Richard Anderson as Chief Quinn.  Earl Holliman as Cook.  Robby the Robot as Himself.  James Best as Crewman (uncredited).

Running time: 98 minutes

Director: Fred M Wilcox

Plot: The crew of the C-57D goes in search of the missing expedition from the Bellerophon and find a mystery involving a lost, ancient race

Verdict: Loosely based on The Tempest, Forbidden Planet is a landmark sci fi movie that heavily influenced movies and television shows for decades.  It was the first film with an all-electronic score.  It also was the first film depicting faster-than-light travel and the first to take place entirely on another world in interstellar space.

How'd you project her without an R2 unit?

The look of the film is outstanding mixing matte paintings, effects, and sound stage shots.  You can tell that Star Trek was heavily influenced by this from the look of the planets (in space and on the ground) to the look of the ship's interior, even down to the relationship between the commander, executive officer, and doctor (think Kirk, Spock, McCoy).  In fact, Warren Stevens even guest starred on Star Trek.

The plot is pretty standard sci fi, and it would have fit right in as an episode of Star Trek.  Walter Pidgeon is excellent as the dark, mysterious Dr Morbius.  Interestingly, he's not a villain, though you keep expecting him to be.  Anne Francis is fine as Altaira, although she's mainly there to show off her "how's she keeping covered up in that dress?" outfits.  Leslie Nielsen had not yet become a comedian and is in full leading man mode.  The film is sprinkled with several character actors who would go on to greater notoriety later: Warren Stevens, Richard Anderson (Oscar Goldman on The Six Million Dollar Man), Earl Holliman.

A roaring fire, a beautiful girl, all we need now are cocktails and smooth jazz!

I can't convey how surprising it is to see how good the film still looks for a movie made in the mid-50s.  This isn't a low-budget popcorn flick like so much sci fi was in that decade.  It was a big budget film that was wildly successful.  Part of it's popularity goes to Robby the Robot who was used in later films and TV appearances.  Some of the sets were recycled for use in The Twilight Zone.  It would be another decade before Lost in Space re-introduced a companion/servant robot.  Very much ahead of its time, it stands out because so few other sci fi films were made with this level of care.  It's easily one of my favorite sci fi movies.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Galaxy Quest

Dark City

Dark City (1998) 

Notable cast/crew: Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch.  William Hurt as Inspector Frank Bumstead.  Kiefer Sutherland as Dr Daniel P Schreber.  Jennifer Connelly as Emma Murdoch.  Richard O'Brien as Mr Hand.  Ian Richardson as Mr Book.

Running time: 111 minutes

Director: Alex Proyas

Plot: Aliens experiment on humans to determine what constitutes the soul

Verdict: Not a documentary on life in Cleveland, Dark City was a box office flop due to problems marketing it and to problems with the plot.  That Titanic was still dominating the box office didn't help.  This is about as far in the other direction as you can go.  It is an influential movie, though, as the concept of false, manipulated realities was rehashed in later films like The Thirteenth Floor and The Matrix (which even borrowed some of its sets).

The film begins looking like a noirish murder mystery, but it quickly becomes apparent there's more going on than meets the eye.  The twist comes before the halfway point in the film where we discover the city is really part of an alien experiment on humans where the city and people are changed each night to observe human reactions to situations so that the aliens can determine the nature of the human soul.  Why they need to know this, how they got these humans, and what their purpose for doing this is, are never explained, to the film's detriment on repeat viewings.  The movie essentially relies on the plot twist plus stylish setting to drive the film.  If you don't like the twist, the movie quickly falls apart, especially with the second twist near the end of the film.

We can put the pool right here next to the solarium.

The cast is mainly a handful of good actors, but they're given little to do besides push the film to its twists.  The problem being that once the twist is revealed there's no real resolution.  The aliens are defeated, but there's no explanation of where the humans go from here.  How'd they get there?  How will they get home?  How are they going to figure out who they originally were?  Do they even care about any of that?  This is a fairly shallow movie that has a great premise, but doesn't deliver on later viewings when you know what's coming.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Forbidden Planet

Capricorn One

Capricorn One (1977) 

Notable cast/crew: Elliott Gould as Robert Caulfield.  James Brolin as Charles Brubaker.  Brenda Vaccaro as Kay Brubaker.  Sam Waterston as Peter Willis.  O J Simpson as John Walker.  Hal Holbrook as Dr James Kelloway.  Karen Black as Judy Drinkwater.  Telly Savalas as Albain.  David Huddleston as Hollis Peaker.  David Doyle as Walter Loughlin.  Original music by Jerry Goldsmith.

Running time: 123 minutes

Director: Peter Hyams

Plot: NASA is in danger of losing funding so it fakes a Mars landing, but the astronauts involved realize they're expendable and try to escape.

Verdict: This is something of a forgotten classic of the conspiracy genre.  It featured a tremendous cast with numerous Academy Award nominees.  While a bit thin on characterization, it makes up for it in riveting plot.  This was the most successful independent film of 1977 for good reason.  Right from the outset, the bold beats of Jerry Goldsmith's score (which he would pay homage to in his Star Trek film work) set the mood that something is off.

Brolin is easily the best of the astronauts as the other two are given very little to work with.  He and Holbrook carry the first half of the film.  The latter half is mostly Gould with very strong cameos from Doyle and Savalas.  None of the supporting cast are bad, in fact, they all stand out in their brief moments, but aside from maybe Vaccaro, they are peripheral to the rest of the story.

I love the taste of rattlesnake in the morning

The conspiracy aspect is very much of a piece from the late 70s, post-Watergate.  The idea of a faked Mars landing is not that far-fetched, and how it is handled here is a little too plausible given the distrust in government we see today.  It's a little unclear as to how much time elapses from the time the astronauts go on the run, and there is some ambiguity as to whether the plan was always to kill them or if the other two were even actually killed (likely, given how they tried to kill Brubaker on the plane).  That ambiguity feeds into the sense of unease and paranoia and works to the film's advantage.

The stunt work is terrific from Gould's out of control car to the helicopter/airplane chase.  For an independent film, there were no corners cut.  They even wrangled actual equipment from NASA for the Martian soundstage scenes.

They don't make action-packed conspiracy films like this with a big name cast any more.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Dark City

Blade Runner

Blade Runner (1982) 

Notable cast/crew: Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard.  Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty.  Sean Young as Rachael.  Edward James Olmos as Gaff.  M Emmet Walsh as Bryant.  Daryl Hannah as Pris.  William Sanderson as J F Sebastian.  Brion James as Leon Kowalski.  Joanna Cassidy as Zhora.  Soundtrack by Vangelis.

Running time: 117 minutes

Director: Ridley Scott

Plot: Deckard, a blade runner, is assigned to track down and retire a group of rogue replicants.

Verdict: While not a commercial success on release, Blade Runner has become one of the more influential movies of the last 30 years.  The film is fairly straightforward in its plot, but it's the imagery and the philosophical questions it poses that have led to its longevity in the public mind.  Ridley Scott was coming off Alien, and Harrison Ford was in the midst of his highest notoriety having been Han Solo and Indiana Jones shortly before this.  Sean Young hadn't gone crazy yet, and Vangelis had just won an Oscar for his work in Chariots of Fire.

The movie is an adaptation of Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  There are a number of differences between the book and the movie, but the movie did a good job of capturing the essence of what the book was about which led Dick to comment that he felt the movie surpassed the book in taking things further than he had in the questions it posed.  This movie led to a number of other of his books being adapted to film (Total Recall, Minority Report, etc).

The visual depiction of the gritty dystopia of the film is one of its lasting influences seen in other films (Dark City and The Fifth Element, for example) and still influences sci fi depictions today.  SyFy's The Expanse borrows heavily from the look of Blade Runner and even some of it's themes.

Grandma, what big eyes you have!

As it's a by the numbers noir set-up, there isn't much to the characters aside from Hauer's Roy Batty who questions why he cannot become human when his designer intended him to be "more human than human" (which became the title of a well known White Zombie song).  Accordingly, there isn't a lot to the performances.  No one is bad, but very little rises above average.  It doesn't help that Batty goes batty at the end removing any sympathy one might have had for what was a robot slave revolting against its masters.

The book does a better job of explaining the characters' motivations as well as the world the story takes place in.  There are repeated references to the animals shown being synthetic machines, but only in the book is it explained that wildlife was virtually wiped out by a nuclear holocaust.  The significance of having a real pet, life versus facsimile, and even Rachael's relation to Deckard are better explained in the book.

The movie suffers a bit from the chaos behind the scenes.  There were constant rewrites while shooting, and the studio interfered to make changes after Scott had finished filming.  The end result is that there are seven different versions of the film.  Ironically, as the characters in the film question what is the essence of humanity, one can question what is the essence of Blade Runner?  Which is the real film and which the replicant?

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Capricorn One

The Black Hole

The Black Hole (1979) 

Notable cast/crew: Maximilian Schell as Dr Hans Reinhardt.  Anthony Perkins as Dr Alex Durant.  Robert Forster as Captain Dan Holland.  Joseph Bottoms as Lieutenant Charles Pizer.  Yvette Mimieux as Dr Kate McCrae.  Ernest Borgnine as Harry Booth.  Roddy McDowall as V.I.N.CENT.  Slim Pickens as B.O.B.

Running time: 98 minutes

Director: Gary Nelson

Plot: The crew of the USS Palomino encounter a massive black hole and find a derelict, lost ship, the USS Cygnus, somehow stationary just outside the black hole's event horizon.  The Palomino docks with the Cygnus to find the ship is still active and controlled by a mad genius who intends to enter the black hole, believing there is something beyond on the other side.

Verdict: This film has largely been forgotten, but it was a big budget film for its time (the most expensive movie Disney had made to that point).  The special effects are still impressive for the time, although slightly less so than Star Wars or Alien.  They were all done in-house at Disney and not farmed out to an effects studio (the last movie made this way).  It was the first Disney film to garner a PG rating due to a few scenes containing mild swearing and Perkins' violent death.

This was one of the last movies to be made with an overture, and it hints at Disney intending this movie to be taken more seriously than normal Disney fare.  The movie is only 98 minutes long, though, so the 2:30 overture comes off a bit pretentious.  However, the score is fantastic and one the best things about the film.  It sets the mood that this is something ominous and that doom will come to the Palomino crew.  It was the first digitally recorded soundtrack.

The biggest problem is this film can never figure out what it wants to be.  The first third has a very 2001 or Space:1999 feel (some of the ship designs clearly were influenced by them).  This encompasses the discovery and investigation of the Cygnus.  Once Reinhardt is introduced, the middle third of the film is drawn from much older literary works like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Moby-Dick, or The Sea-Wolf.  It's here we find the madman is intent upon entering the black hole, and he has murdered most of his crew by turning them into cyborg-automatons.  The final third incorporates elements derived from Star Wars, The Poseidon Adventure, and A Descent into the Maelstrom.  The final sequence clearly draws from 2001 and tries to add on a suggestion of Heaven and Hell.  Up until that final sequence, the film largely works as a dark, action drama, but the brief scenes of Reinhardt entombed inside Maximilian overlooking what appears to be Hell followed by what appears to be an angelic figure in a cathedral of white light are so open-ended and subjective that they invite confusion more than provide resolution to the story. 

They even get Sunday Ticket up here!

This is where the film clearly intends to be more than it ultimately is which results in a feeling that it failed to reach that goal.  Although paced well for most of the movie, it's too much for a film that has spent 95 minutes slowly building from sci fi horror to an adventurous escape from a madman to a disaster flick to suddenly leap into the metaphysical and suggest something more beyond what has been discussed.  There are multiple references throughout the film linking the black hole to hellish imagery: Dante's Inferno, the devil, the reds and blacks used in the color scheme of the robots and imprisoned crew.  There has been little discussion, though, to set up that final metaphysical leap, and we are left to only speculate what it means.  The Palomino survivors apparently make it through the black hole and emerge from a white hole approaching a planet while Reinhardt is trapped in Hell inside the black hole.  It is an interesting ending but not a satisfying one.  The movie might have worked better with an ending closer to the works it borrowed from with a few survivors and no metaphysical imagery, or it may have been better to explore what lay on the other side in more detail.  The brevity of the ending detracts from it and leaves the viewer looking for something more from the film.

Anthony Perkins is too stiff, displaying none of the easy charm from his role in Psycho, although there is a nice homage to that film when he turns the "robot" around in the chair and pulls off the mask to reveal the human corpse trapped inside.  Schell is excellent as Reinhardt in the same vein as James Mason as Nemo in 20,000 Leagues or Walter Pidgeon as Dr Morbius in Forbidden Planet.  The rest of the cast is solid but unremarkable.

Ultimately, the film tries to be too many things and winds up falling short of all them.  That said, it's still an entertaining film and worth seeing.  There are wonderful effects and stylish imagery that show the care and effort put into it.  It definitely doesn't deserve to be forgotten.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Blade Runner

The Warriors

The Warriors (1979) 

Notable cast/crew: Michael Beck as Swan.  James Remar as Ajax.  Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Mercy.  David Patrick Kelly as Luther.  Lynne Thigpen as DJ.

Running time: 93 minutes

Director: Walter Hill

Plot: Representatives of a New York City gang attend a meeting of  the larger gangs of the city where Cyrus lays out a plan for the gangs to take over NYC.  Cyrus is murdered, the Warriors are framed, and they are forced to make it back to Coney Island on their own while crossing through enemy territory.  Loosely based on Xenophon's "Anabasis", the account of an army of Greek mercenaries who, after aligning themselves with Cyrus the Younger in the battle of Cunaxa (401 BC) in his attempt to seize the Persian throne, found themselves isolated behind Persian enemy lines.

Verdict: This movie is why the word craptacular was coined.  The acting is hammy, the dialogue is cheesy, but you can't help but enjoy it.  It's one of those movies that if you're flipping channels and see it's on, you stop and watch the rest of it no matter how much is left.  Shot in NYC, it is a picture of a city that had fallen into decay.  We forget, now that NYC has become a safe tourist destination, but the NYC of the 70s was quickly becoming what Detroit is today.  This is still the romanticized NYC in my mind when I think about the city.

It's become a cult classic partly based on how cheesy it can be, partly based on its reputation.  It's funny now to think this movie was controversial, but at the time it was wildly popular with gangs which led to some gang fights breaking out at several screenings.  That added to the film's notoriety and caused the studio to briefly pull advertising for the film.

The director's cut added comic book style transitions, and in truth, the film does have a comic bookish feel to it.  Clearly NYC gangs weren't running around in baseball uniforms and KISS-style makeup (that band's influence was everywhere in the late 70s!), but it doesn't require a massive suspension of disbelief. 

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?

Beck and Remar are the most memorable Warriors with Swan's stoic authority contrasting with Remar's fiery braggadocio.  The best performances, though, come from members outside the gang.  Thigpen as the radio DJ serves as a Greek chorus commenting on the story with only her mouth ever seen on camera.  Kelly as Luther seethes with arrogance and hatred, ready to explode at any moment at anyone who gives him offence.  His sing-song, "Warriors, come out to play!" taunt is one of the most memorable scenes in the film.  Roger Hill is charismatic as Cyrus.  You could believe all of the gangs of New York would follow this guy.  I was ready to run out and join him myself.  His, "Can you dig it?" line is the capstone to a riveting speech and one of the best remembered lines from the movie.  He's also a dead ringer for the Rock so if there's a remake, we just need to find him a wig and a robe.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Black Hole

Family Plot

Family Plot (1976) 

Notable cast/crew: Karen Black as Fran.  Bruce Dern as George Lumley.  Barbara Harris as Blanche Tyler.  William Devane as Arthur Adamson.  Ed Lauter as Joseph Maloney.  Katherine Helmond as Mrs Maloney.  Original Music by John Williams.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 121 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A fake psychic and her cabbie boyfriend are hired to find a missing heir who turns out to be a career criminal in the middle of a kidnap for jewels caper.

MacGuffin: The diamonds

Hitchcock cameo: In silhouette behind the door at the registrar of births and deaths

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain
• Blondes
• Stairs

Verdict: Lighthearted at times with a touch of menace describes both William Devane's performance and Family Plot.  The movie balances four lead roles with what initially appear to be unrelated plots.  It ties in nicely upon our finding out William Devane's crook is the missing heir.  There's a bit of a twist here on Hitchcock's usual theme of a man wrongfully accused.  This time, it's a man who doesn't want to be recognized because he is guilty trying to thwart the "heroes" who only want to tell him he's heir to a fortune.  The couples are played off as opposites: Devane and Karen Black as well-to-do, cunning, cool, dark; Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris as scraping to get by, clever but not sharp, volatile, and sunnier.

Roy Thinnes was originally hired to play Arthur Adamson, but Hitchcock's first choice, William Devane, became available so Hitchcock fired Thinnes without a reason and hired Devane.  Some key scenes had been shot prior to this. Everything that had been shot was re-shot except for long shots which to this day remain as Roy Thinnes and not William Devane like the bishop being carried out of the church.

This is Hitchcock's final film.  Its final shot, the final ever shot in all of Hitchcock's 53 movies, is Barbara Harris breaking the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera and winking at the audience.  Bruce Dern had almost convinced Hitchcock that Alfred should come down the stairs and do the wink, but they stuck with this instead.  It's a sly acknowledgement that she's letting the audience in on the joke that Dern's character didn't get, but it also is unusual for a Hitchcock film where everything was normally so tightly controlled to never break the mood of the picture nor to take you out of the world the film had created.  It was not a planned end to Hitchcock's career (he has working on another movie script, The Short Night, before he died), but it ended up being a fitting one.  It's not his best film, but it's interesting and fun, and he hadn't really done a fun film since North By Northwest.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Warriors.  We've covered all of Hitchcock, so we'll be switching gears and jumping around between genres.  With my travel schedule picking up, I'll also be cutting back to one post per week.  See you next time!

Frenzy

Frenzy (1972) 

Notable cast/crew: Jon Finch as Richard Ian Blaney.  Alec McCowen as Chief Inspector Oxford.  Barry Foster as Robert Rusk.  Billie Whitelaw as Hetty Porter.  Anna Massey as Babs Milligan.  Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Margaret Blaney.  Bernard Cribbins as Felix Forsythe.  Jean Marsh as Monica Barling.  Clive Swift as Johnny Porter.

Running time: 116 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A sexual psychopath is terrorizing London by raping and strangling his victims.  The police think they have the right man, but do they?

MacGuffin: Bob Rusk's tie pin

Hitchcock cameo: Standing in the crowd at the start of the film

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain
• Hero falsely accused

Verdict: Frenzy was Hitchcock's "comeback" film.  His previous three films (Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz) had been flops, and critics were beginning to think he was tired, that film-making had passed him by.  Hitchcock decided to return to Britain to film for the first time since 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much.  He ended up making a surprisingly modern film; one that still feels current today, and certainly more current than his other films.  The ratings system had been implemented after the removal of the Hays Code in 1968.  Hitchcock uses more vulgarity than before, and he uses nudity for the only time in his film career.  Unfortunately, the latter detracts from the film as it is entirely gratuitous.  There's no reason to show it, and it feels like he does it simply because he can in an effort to be "current".

Frenzy finds Hitchcock returning to ideas that recur in his movies.  The man wrongfully accused on the run (The 39 Steps, North By Northwest), the misogynist killer (Psycho), the detective who searches for the real killer after the innocent is convicted (Dial M for Murder), all things we've seen before, but there's a welcome familiarity to them.  These are ideas Hitchcock knows well and knows how to do well.  If this was his answer to the young, rising auteur directors of the 70s, it's a good one.

It's a British cast, and Jon Finch does a fine job glowering through the film.  He's down on his luck, and the juxtaposition of his volatile personality with the exposition provided by other characters initially sets us up to think he might be the killer.  However, it's made clear early on that Barry Foster's Bob Rusk is the real villain.  Michael Caine was Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Rusk, but Caine thought the character was disgusting and said, "I don't want to be associated with the part".

The film and its source book, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", were inspired by the real-life unsolved crimes of the serial killer known as "Jack the Stripper".  Unlike in the story, the real killings (which terrified London in the early 1960s) mirrored elements of "Jack the Ripper" in that the killer attacked prostitutes and that the killings mysteriously stopped.

Henry Mancini was originally hired as the film's composer. His opening theme was much darker than the final music composed by Ron Goodwin.  Goodwin's final music is good in places, but his opening theme is too bright, too triumphant, for what is a dark film.  Hitchcock thought Mancini's theme sounded too much like Bernard Herrmann's music.  According to Mancini, "Hitchcock came to the recording session, listened awhile and said 'Look, if I want Herrmann, I'd ask for Herrmann'".  Mancini was fired, never understanding the experience, insisting that his score sounded nothing like Herrmann.  The irony was that Mancini was now being second-guessed for being too dark and symphonic after having been criticized for being too light before.

Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river.  A dummy was even constructed to do the shot.  The plans were changed, and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead.  Hitchcock instead became one of the members of the crowd who are listening to the speaker on the river bank.  The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.

There is a great Hitchcock moment when Babs is murdered.  The camera moves away from the door, backwards down the stairs, out into the street.  The pullback is one continuous motion with only one cut hidden as a man passes in front of the camera.  This was due to the interiors being shot with an overhead track in a studio and the building exterior being an actual location.  The silence of the shot until the street noise comes in adds to the unsettling feel of the shot.  We know what is occurring in the apartment, but the rest of the outside world goes on about its business oblivious to the evil living in its midst.

Taking a foot fetish to extremes

A second sequence set in the back of a delivery truck full of potatoes provides the usual suspense for the murderer as Rusk, after realizing he's lost his monogram pin, attempts to retrieve it from the corpse of Babs.  Rusk struggles with the hand and has to break the fingers of the corpse in order to retrieve his tie pin and try to escape unseen from the truck.  The sound effect is morbidly played for humor later when the inspector's wife breaks breadsticks as her husband recounts the incident.

This doesn't rise to the level of Hitchcock's greatest works, but it is easily the best film from the last decade of his career, albeit flawed by going too far in an effort to shock the audience.  He was better when he used the visual medium of film to suggest action rather than explicitly showing everything.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Family Plot

Topaz

Topaz (1969) 

Notable cast/crew: Frederick Stafford as Andre Devereaux.  John Vernon as Rico Parra.  Karin Dor as Juanita de Cordoba.  Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois.  John Forsythe as Michael Nordstrom.  Forsythe had previously been in The Trouble With Harry.  Original Music by Maurice Jarre.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 143 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A French intelligence agent becomes entangled in the Cold War politics of the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and is later involved in the breakup of an international Russian spy ring in France.

MacGuffin: The spy ring

Hitchcock cameo: Seated in a wheelchair then standing to greet a man he walks off with

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain

Verdict: Topaz is probably Hitchcock's largest failure from his American films.  The frustrating thing about it is that there is buried in it the possibility of a great film, but it is too laden down with plot dead ends and a colossal failure to end the movie.  The film was forced on him (he wanted to do Frenzy which the studio wasn't interested in yet), and it resulted in the script being written as the movie was filmed.  The result is a very disjointed movie that doesn't seem to go anywhere.  In fact, the first 100 minutes are largely irrelevant to the title of the film.  Imagine The 39 Steps where the first 2/3 of the movie are about something other than foiling the spy ring's plot.  It gets even worse in that we don't even know what Topaz is (aside from a brief mention of the word early in the movie) until after the entire affair in Cuba has been wrapped up.  We aren't introduced to the villain until the final 30 minutes of the film.

The cast is largely foreign and unfamiliar to American viewers which also hurt the box office.  John Forsythe is solid in one of the larger roles, but he is given little to do other than transition the narrative from one area to the next.  Roscoe Lee Browne is excellent (as he is in everything) in his brief role as a French operative infiltrating the Cubans' hotel in Harlem.  John Vernon (better known for playing Dean Wormer in Animal House) is outstanding playing a high-ranking member of Castro's revolution.  The rest of the cast is serviceable but unremarkable.

Based on the 1967 Cold War novel "Topaz" by Leon Uris, the story is closely based on the 1962 Sapphire Affair, which involved the head of French Intelligence, SDECE, in the United States and spy Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli who played an important role in helping the U.S. discover the presence of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba.  This film was Hitchcock's biggest financial failure. It cost approximately $4,000,000 to make and received only $1,000,000 at the box office.  Running at 143 minutes, this is Alfred Hitchcock's longest film.  However, this is edited down from the original, longer running time that tested negatively with audiences.  Realistically, the idea of the spy ring should have been worked into the story much earlier to make it more relevant to the plot.  The result is what feels like two movies that were stuck together: one about the Cuban Missile Crisis, the other about a French spy ring leaking NATO secrets to the Soviets.  The spy ring plot could have been removed entirely (while also requiring a title change to the film) and made into a sequel continuing with Devereaux as the main character, and it would have resulted in two better films.

The major failing of the movie was the inability to come up with an ending that made sense and was satisfying.  In the original ending, there was a duel between André Devereaux and Jacques Granville in a French football stadium, shot by associate producer Herbert Coleman when Hitchcock had to return to the U.S. for a family emergency.  This ending was panned by audiences during test screenings.  It made no sense: after foiling the spy ring, why would the hero then accept a duel from the head of the ring who has already been defeated?  Under pressure from the studio, Hitchcock shot an ending he actually liked better with Jacques escaping on an Aeroflot flight to the Soviet Union just at the same time as André and Nicole are boarding their Pan Am flight to the States.  This ending was also controversial as after two and a half hours the bad guy gets away unscathed.  As a compromise, Hitchcock used existing footage to create a new ending: Granville is exposed and expelled from a NATO meeting and commits suicide behind his drawn curtains.  This was necessitated by the fact that it was too late to reshoot so they did a zoom-in freeze frame on the house as a gunshot rings out.  While better for wrapping up the plot, it was obviously rushed and feels like the movie ends abruptly just for the sake of getting it over.  Eventually, the studio decided to release different endings in different countries: the suicide in the U.S. and France, and the airport ending in Britain.  The duel ending was thought lost until Patricia Hitchcock found it in her father's garage after his death.

Death in Cuba

There are a number of good scenes and shots in the film: the zoom-in on the house to a man's reflection in the mirror, the hotel in Harlem scene, Devereaux looking to Jarre at lunch.  The film is best known for the shot of Juanita's execution.  We see her, terrified, in Parra's arms as he describes what will be done to her for betraying the revolution, and then the gun fires, unseen.  After cutting to the gun being lowered in Parra's hand (which had been on the other side of her body where we couldn't see it), the scene cuts to an overhead shot looking down on her as she slowly slides to the ground.  Her robe slowly spreads out under her giving the impression of a pool of blood flowing out of her.  This was done with several strings being attached to her robe which were pulled by stagehands and results in a striking image.  You feel as if you've seen a very bloody death, but there is no blood to be seen unless you look closely at Parra's hand as he lets her body slip to the floor.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Frenzy

Torn Curtain

Torn Curtain (1966) 

Notable cast/crew: Paul Newman as Professor Michael Armstrong.  Julie Andrews as Sarah Sherman.  Lila Kedrova as Countess Kuchinska.  Wolfgang Kieling as Hermann Gromek.  Ludwig Donath as Professor Gustav Lindt.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 128 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Professor Armstrong defects to East Germany.  Not knowing this was his intent, his fiancee, Sarah Sherman, follows him there.  He is defecting because the US abandoned his anti-missile research.  He is going to collaborate with Professor Lindt to devise a defensive weapon that will make the threat of nuclear war obsolete.

The Big 50

Armstrong isn't really defecting.  He's seeking out Lindt because he thinks Lindt has cracked the solution that eluded him.  Once he has that, Armstrong is going to escape back to the West.  He ducks his East German handler, Gromek, and meets up with his contacts who are arranging his escape, but he's tracked down by Gromek at a farmhouse where his contacts live.  After Gromek threatens to report them, Armstrong and the woman kill him.  The cab driver who drove Armstrong to the farm recognizes Gromek in the news when he is reported as missing and alerts the authorities.

The security service doesn't want Armstrong talking to Lindt while there is suspicion of what Armstrong was doing, but Lindt is due to leave for Leningrad at any moment and needs to know what Armstrong was able to do in his testing in America.  Armstrong tricks Lindt into revealing his discovery, but the police are closing in.  They have found Gromek's body.  After securing the formula, Armstrong begins his flight to the West with Sherman.

After an elaborate escape involving decoy buses, post office rendezvouses, and stowing away on a ship in a ballet company's equipment, they are able to make it to Sweden.

MacGuffin: Professor Lindt's secret formula

Hitchcock cameo: Sitting in the hotel lobby with a small child

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes

Verdict: Torn Curtain marked a break with Hitchcock's old movie-making team due to retirement, death, and disagreements.  The last four films of his career suffered for it as the quality is not there that had marked the run of films he'd made from the early 50s to the early 60s.  It was Hitchcock's 50th film.  It is a decent enough story, but there are some glaring plot problems.  The film was also poorly cast.  Most of the problems are rooted in the studio forcing Hitchcock to use their choices.  Hitchcock wasn't satisfied with the script (a problem that would also plague his next movie, Topaz), and the studio forced him to use Julie Andrews and Paul Newman because they wanted bankable stars.  The script couldn't be reworked partly because Andrews had a narrow window to film this as she was a hot commodity having just come off of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.  She's miscast, and although Newman does a decent job, they have no chemistry together.  It was reportedly one of Hitchcock's most unhappy directing jobs due to the studio interference and disagreement with Newman over how certain scenes should work.  Hitchcock was so unhappy with this film that he decided to not to make a trailer with his appearance in it.

The idea behind Torn Curtain came from the defection of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to Russia in 1951.  Hitchcock was particularly intrigued about Maclean’s life in the Soviet Union and about Melinda Marling, Maclean’s wife, who followed her husband a year later with the couple’s three children.

Bernard Herrmann wrote the original score, but Universal Pictures executives convinced Hitchcock that it needed to be more upbeat.  Hitchcock and Herrmann had a major disagreement, the score was dropped, and they never worked together again.  The resultant score is too lighthearted for what is a rather serious film and is at times jarring in the context of what is occurring on-screen.  It's hard to believe Herrmann wouldn't have provided a better, and more appropriate, score.

In the shot in which Alfred Hitchcock's cameo occurs, the music briefly changes to "Funeral March of a Marionette" by Charles Gounod, which is best known as the main theme for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

According to the book It's Only a Movie, Hitchcock said: "There was an ending written which wasn't used, but I rather liked it.  No one agreed with me except my colleague at home [his wife Alma Reville].  Everyone told me that you couldn't have a letdown ending after all that.  Paul Newman would have thrown the formula away.  After what he has gone through, after everything we have endured with him, he just tosses it.  It speaks to the futility of it all, and it's in keeping with the kind of naivete of the character, who is no professional spy, and who will certainly retire from that nefarious business."

There are a few distinctive sequences/shots.  The scene where Newman is being chased through the museum by an unseen man is done with long shots of Newman walking through the empty halls with nothing but the echo of his footsteps and the echo of the footsteps of his pursuer.  The suspense builds until Newman exits onto the street, and we think he has gotten away.  The suspense resumes when we find Gromek has somehow followed him which leads to the scene the film is most known for: murder by oven.  Hitchcock prolonged the scene to show how difficult it can be to kill someone quietly who is resisting.  There is also a subtle twist of having the German authority getting gassed that echoes the Nazi gas chambers.

Unfortunately, these scenes display some of the sloppy writing.  How did Gromek track him down when he clearly leaves before Gromek has exited the museum?  Not only did he not see where he went, he arrives only minutes later so we can't even assume he tracked him down through the cab company.  How did he suffocate in an open oven in a largely empty room while Armstrong and the woman were unaffected six inches from him?  Why didn't she just brain him with the shovel she hit his kneecaps with?  Why did Gromek never yell for help with the cabbie right outside?  We're also required to make some leaps of faith in how the ballerina figured out they were hiding in the luggage or how they moved through the streets of Berlin undisguised and virtually unrecognized with a widely publicized manhunt looking for them.

In a minor role, Lila Kedrova shines as the Countess Kuchinska.  She is a very sympathetic figure as a woman needing only a sponsor in America to be allowed to leave East Germany.  She is a reminder of how desperate people were to flee from behind the Iron Curtain, and the film does serve as a depiction of the daily paranoia of living in a closed society where everyone is a potential informant to the secret police.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Topaz

Marnie

Marnie (1964) 

Notable cast/crew: Tippi Hedren as Marnie Edgar.  Sean Connery as Mark Rutland.  Diane Baker as Lil Mainwaring.  Martin Gabel as Sidney Strutt.  Louise Latham as Bernice Edgar.  Alan Napier as Mr Rutland.  Mariette Hartley as Susan Clabon.  Bruce Dern as Sailor.  Costumes Designed by Edith Head.  Original Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 131 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Mr Strutt has been robbed by a former employee.  The thief is Marnie.  She takes some of the money and buys gifts for her mother in Baltimore.  Marnie has deep mental problems stemming from her mother's coldness towards her going so far as refusing to even touch her.  Marnie becomes catatonic at the sight of the color red.

I do my most serious acting in the stalls

She applies as a payroll clerk for Rutland and Co, not knowing that Mark Rutland, who owns the firm, is friends with Mr Strutt and knows of the description and mannerisms of the woman who robbed Strutt.  Rutland has her come in on Saturday to work and notices her complete terror at a thunderstorm.

After spending time with Mark at the track and his home, she makes her move to rob his office.  After everyone else has left, she gets the combination to the safe.  Mark is there to meet her when she thinks she's gotten away.  Mark gives her an ultimatum: marry him or he turns her in to the police.  They wed and go on a honeymoon where Mark determines to get to the root of her psychological problems.  Mark also begins working on finding out about Marnie's past.

Mark's former sister-in-law, Lil, concerned for what Mark has gotten himself mixed up in invites Strutt to a social function at Mark's house.  Rutland decides to ask Strutt and the others Marnie has robbed to not press charges if he will pay them back.

When she tries to flee again, Mark takes her to Baltimore to get the truth from her mother.  There they learn Marnie's mother was a prostitute.  One night during a storm, Marnie's mother attacked a sailor she thought was molesting Marnie.  Her mother was injured during the fight, and Marnie killed the sailor with a poker.  She had repressed the memories since.  Mark will take care of her now.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Leaving a hotel room

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Identity

Verdict: It's a decent movie, but after the run of films Hitchcock had made prior to this, it's a bit of a letdown.  Sean Connery has great presence and seems completely in command throughout the movie, but Marnie is such an unlikable character that it's hard to root for her to get off clean.

This was intended to be a Grace Kelly comeback vehicle, but between problems in Monaco and dissatisfaction from her citizens in having her return to the screen, she backed out.  Hitchcock went with Hedren again after doing The Birds with her despite her not being up to it as a model turned actress.

When Louise Latham came onto the set in her "young" makeup to film the film's climactic flashback, she looked so different that the cameraman began to ask around to find out who the new actress was.  Latham, who played Tippi Hedren's mother, is in reality only 8 years older than her.

To film real horses riding without having to work outdoors, Alfred Hitchcock came up with the idea of running the horses on a gigantic treadmill.  Crew members objected to the idea because it was considered highly unsafe and because they simply didn't think it would work.  Still, Hitchcock wanted to at least try it, and when they did, it worked without a problem.  Originally, a harness was attached to Tippi Hedren during these shots for safety reasons, but it was removed when it was found to impede shooting.

Marnie became a milestone for several reasons.  It was the last time a 'Hitchcock blonde' would have a central role in one of his films.  It was also the final occasion when he would work with several of his key team members, who had figured so prominently in his films: director of photography Robert Burks who died in 1968; editor George Tomasini, who died soon after Marnie's release, and music composer Bernard Herrmann, who was fired during Hitchcock's next film, Torn Curtain (1966), when Hitchcock and Universal studio executives wanted a more contemporary 'pop' tune for the film.  Hitchcock had noticed a strong similarity between Herrmann's score for Joy in the Morning and Marnie and believed Herrmann was repeating himself.

Alfred Hitchcock put Edgar Allan Poe references throughout this film.  Marnie's last name is Edgar.  In the novel, Marnie's last name is Elmer.  Like Poe's characters, Marnie Edgar is subject to psychological terror.  Unlike the film, the novel takes place in England.  The film takes place in New York (Strutt's office), Virginia (Garrod's Stables) and Philadelphia (Rutland Publishing and Wickwind).  These are the three places that Edgar Allan Poe lived throughout the better part of his life.  The film's climactic scene takes place at Marnie's mother's home in Baltimore, the city where Poe died under mysterious circumstances in 1849.  Tippi Hedren played Marnie.  Both Tippi Hedren and Edgar Allan Poe were born on January 19.  In the novel, Marnie's mother's name is Edith Elmer.  In the film, Alfred Hitchcock changed Marnie's mother's name to Bernice Edgar.  "Berenice" was a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.  In a 1960 article called "Why I Am Afraid of the Dark", Hitchcock noted this information: "...it's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films."

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Torn Curtain

The Birds

The Birds (1963) 

Notable cast/crew: Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels.  Suzanne Pleshette as Annie Hayworth.  Rod Taylor as Mitch Brenner.  Jessica Tandy as Lydia Brenner.  Veronica Cartwright as Cathy Brenner.  Costumes Designed by Edith Head.  Sound Consulting by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 120 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Birds attack the seaside town of Bodega Bay without warning.  Why are they doing this?  Will they stop?  Will anyone survive?

MacGuffin: Why are the birds attacking?

Hitchcock cameo: Walking his dogs out of the pet shop

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Birds

Verdict: This is an entertaining film if you don't think too hard about a lot of the characters' decisions.  Rod Taylor looks the part of the rugged hero, but Tippi Hedren remains pretty annoying throughout the film.  In fact, most of the women throughout the film are pretty annoying with the exception of Suzanne Pleshette who unfortunately gets killed off.  All in all, not Hitchcock's best film, but still enjoyable for suspense, cheap thrills, and fine special effects for its time.

The technical aspects are particularly impressive.  The movie features 370 effects shots. The final shot is a composite of 32 separately filmed elements as well as painted elements.  The shot filmed above the town as the gas station burns is again a mixing of a central shot of the people and fire which is composited with a second painted matte.  The entire town surrounding the activity in a strip in the center of the screen is a painting.  The angle was considered a "God's eye view" shot by Hitchcock because it is a done from an objective angle looking down on the town that no person could have.  The shot looking back on Bodega Bay from across the bay is all done with matte paintings of the town composited with film of the bay.

There is no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the mixtrautonium, an early electronic musical instrument, by Oskar Sala, and the children singing in the school.  The sound of reel-to-reel tape being run backward and forward was used to help create the frightening bird squawking sounds in the film.

Rod Taylor claims that the seagulls were fed a mixture of wheat and whiskey. It was the only way to get them to stand around so much.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Marnie