The Rare Review - Movies, books, music and TV

Movin’ On Up? “The Fiances”

On April 28, 2026

Italy’s The Fiances (I Fidanzanti) is not a religious film, but was made by a man with a Catholic sensibility. This is the devout Ermanno Olmi, a director who loved and was gentle with his characters, religious and otherwise. The fiances of the title must separate for 18 months after the man, Giovanni, moves to Sicily for some higher paying work. Olmi creates the impression that Giovanni becomes neglectful of Liliana, his betrothed, before discreetly mistreating her. He goes back to loving her, though, but will it make a difference?

A master of film art, Olmi died in 2018, long after releasing The Fiances in 1963. The movie is devout in its own way as well as clever and poetic.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

And Oil There Was: “Sarah’s Oil”

By EarlD

On April 26, 2026

In Movies

Born in 1902, Sarah Rector was a black woman under whose private Oklahoma land there was oil, thus paving the way for a millionaire’s status. Cyrus Nowrasteh‘s film Sarah’s Oil (2025) is loosely based on this interesting story, yielding some inaccurate detail, and it’s moving and tasteful and Christian. All the same, it has limited authenticity about rural life and racial relations in the 1910s. Newcomer Naya Desir-Johnson is fine as 11-year-old Sarah* but her likable character is too precocious to be believable. The film is unconvincing, its Christianity, in point of fact, rather remote.

*Sarah, then, started getting rich at an early age. Unfortunately, she lost most of her wealth in the Great Depression.

Biden Greed: “My Son Hunter”

By EarlD

On April 22, 2026

In Movies

The Robert Davi-directed My Son Hunter (2021) proffers an engagingly true performance by Laurence Fox as Hunter Biden. It fits perfectly a ferocious satire on political malfeasance and techno-age conniving. John James is also comically strong as Joe Biden. As amusing as it is barbed—very barbed about the laptop affair—the film eventually fails because of a changing tone and moments of agitprop. It’s a necessary piece which could have been good. Incidentally, if President Trump has been unprincipled about acquiring money, a film about this too would be necessary.

Again, Wayne Is “Tall in the Saddle”

By EarlD

On April 17, 2026

In General

In the John Wayne Western from 1944, Tall in the Saddle, land seizures are interrupted when a man threatens to tell the authorities about the sell of marked playing cards. The man, never shown, is killed. John Wayne plays the newly hired worker and good shot who, naturally, discovers the truth.

Wayne plainly attracts the haters here, including an insufferable biddy. A saucy cowgirl (Ella Raines) believes Wayne has made a fool of her, and she intends to fire him from his ranch job, but—aw—she becomes infatuated with him. There is a pleasing little moment in Saddle when a fellow female looker, Raines’s competition, praises the cowgirl’s prettiness and Raines gives a verbal indication that she knows about her looks and intends to use them to her advantage.

Tall in the Saddle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Director Edwin L. Marin‘s movie is a fun romp in which Wayne’s character is refreshingly less contemptuous of certain people than some other Wayne characters. The cast is not wholly effective but it comes close, especially with the admirable fire of Ward Bond and Miss Raines.

Up And Away: “Ceiling Zero”

By EarlD

On April 12, 2026

In General

I saw the Howard Hawks film, Ceiling Zero (1936)—or let me say I saw a particular print of it—on YouTube. It was the best I could do since the pic was never released on DVD.

Director Hawks did even better with airline workers in Zero than he did, years later, with cowboys in Red River. He organizes his scenes of active crews admirably, although this is in truth scriptwriter Frank Wead‘s show, for he adapted his own play.

Aviation technology of the Thirties is (to me) fascinating, and here we get that as well as a surprising amount of aircraft destruction. And death. There is no happy ending. Still, I was happy to be seeing the forgotten Ceiling Zero.