A Queen for Caesar (1962) is one of those badly dubbed ancient-history Italian movies. There is not much to say about it except that it’s about Cleopatra and is fun and sexy. And this: in my view, Pascale Petit—initially a hairdresser discovered for the movies—enacts Cleo better than Elizabeth Taylor does in Cleopatra and is even slightly more beautiful than Taylor. She appears in nearly every scene (good), whereas Gordon Scott, who is atrocious as Julius Caesar, appears in only a few scenes (also good). Akim Tamiroff, however, is effective as Pompey. (Available on Tubi.)
Author: EarlD Page 25 of 316
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The commercial Western novels from earlier decades usually had their cowboy heroes fall in love with a young woman who had not yet married. The 1956 Western movie, Seven Men from Now—it too is commercial, of course—offers a hero with a sure liking for a young woman who is married, but he staunchly refuses to start anything. A man of principle, he is played by Randolph Scott, and the seven men of the title are the gold robbers who murdered Scott’s wife and are now being pursued by him.
‘Tis strange that Ben Stride, Scott’s character, doesn’t appear to be suffering much over his wife’s death, and neither does the aforementioned young woman (Gail Russell) seem devastated by the vile murder of her husband (Walter Reed). It’s as though the producers opposed any big-deal, negative emotion (and if they hadn’t, could Scott have delivered?).
All the same, this Budd Boetticher Western, written by Burt Kennedy, is dramatically piercing. A perfect, and not strident, performance comes from Lee Marvin with his big personality. Russell, Reed and others provide a handful of not-bad performances. . . In more ways than one, Seven Men is colorful, another ’50s picture proving how well literal color works for Westerns. Above all, it is just as entertaining as those Western novels from earlier decades—those I have read, anyway.
The nocturnal robber in the 1948 He Walked by Night ends up murdering a police officer and thereby brings down on himself a load of professional energy for his seizure. Played by Richard Basehart in what is supposed to be a true story, Roy The Killer is a loner obsessed with electronics, for, after all, he himself is an alienating machine. No emotion, no conscience. He even shoots and leaves paralyzed a second cop.
He is L.A.’s public enemy no. 1 (so it seems) and gets his comeuppance in the huge dark city sewers. The pursuit there is a visually striking scene, with direction by Alfred L. Werker and an uncredited Anthony Mann. Crane Wilbur is the main writer for this filmic procedural with good gunfights.
Unlike his Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg‘s Amistad (1997) has no bona fide sense of the tragic, but is simply a work of uncomplicated pro-freedom moralism. Here, pro-freedom means anti-slavery—something everyone embraces anyway. The flick features a court trial where it must be determined whether mutinous slaves were illegally transported on the ship Amistad. It glorifies the agitated African leader, Cinque (Djimou Hounsou), who comes to have an emotional connection with the film’s noble whites. Cue the sentimental idealism.
But, oh, these whites! One of them, John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins), avers in the courtroom, “The natural state of mankind is freedom!” Freedom from what? The man speaks nonsense. And Matthew McConaughey‘s Roger Baldwin, a defense lawyer, is so superficially created he is a sheer nonentity of a character. Then again, the other figures are superficially created as well. David Frazoni’s screenplay is virtue-signaling non-art. Amistad was a mistake right off the bat—the kind of mistake to which Spielberg is regularly blind.
(All reviews are written by Earl Dean)
Water has many good uses, but it can also drench you and drown you. In the South Korean film Innocent Crush (or Innocent Thing) water is a symbol for a psychic drenching—with something bad—and death. An unstable high school girl, Young-eun, is hard on the emotions of her gym teacher, Joon-gi, and his pregnant wife. She obsessively loves Joon-gi and starts an affair with him. Joon-gi is driven to quiet despair, and must finally fight for his betrayed wife’s life.
The material is familiar, the film melodramatic—and a trifle wobbly. But it’s riveting. It was impeccably directed by Tae-gyun Kim, and the actors are strong. Young-eun may be unstable but Jo Bo-ah, who portrays her, is far from unsubtle. The sex scenes, I’m inclined to mention, are done without graphic nudity. This 2014 feature is available on Tubi (and Pluto?). Get drenched by it.
(In Korean with English subtitles)