The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming.

Review #2544: The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming.

Cast: 

Carl Reiner (Walt Whittaker), Eva Marie Saint (Elspeth Whittaker), Alan Arkin (Lieutenant Rozanov), Brian Keith (Link Mattocks), Jonathan Winters (Norman Jonas), Paul Ford (Fendall Hawkins), Theodore Bikel (Captain), Tessie O'Shea (Alice Foss), John Phillip Law (Alexei Kolchin), Ben Blue (Luther Grilk), Andrea Dromm (Alison Palmer), and Sheldon Collins (Pete Whittaker) Produced and Directed by Norman Jewison (#127 - Rollerball, #273 - The Cincinnati Kid, #544 - In the Heat of the Night, #691 - The Thomas Crown Affair, #1484 - Moonstruck)

Review: 

"I realized then that the film, although made primarily for an American audience, [it] expressed the hopes and fears felt by people in both countries at that period in the Cold War. What the Russians of course couldn't believe, and were blown away by, was the fact that I had been allowed to make the film at all."

Vaguely, I remember this movie being on the consideration list years ago. In the old days of Blockbuster (before people decided Netflix was somehow better*), I remember my dad buying the movie for a rental, but I sure don't remember if he saw it all the way through. Anyway, in the dog days of spring, it feels prudent to cover some of the directors that I haven't really given as much attention as I wish I did. After graduating from middle-ground comedies with The Cincinnati Kid (1965), here comes The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), the sixth feature film by Norman Jewison, who also produced the film. In 1963, Jewison was given a book by a friend of his with The Off-Islanders by Nathaniel Benchley. The plot involved a Russian sub accidentally running aground on a New England coast island. Jewison was intrigued about the idea of making a political satire. The Mirisch Corporation and United Artists were interested in financing the film, at least with a good writer behind it. After taking out an option for the novel, Jewison was told by his agent Charlie Baker that the one person who could do the screenplay best was William Rose (writer of such films as The Ladykillers [1955] and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World [1963]). Aside from having to find a proper conclusion point to the film (namely in the catalyst for both sides to see their similarities), the final draft came around with relatively few bumps in the road, at least when compared to having to make a submarine (the U.S. Navy was not giving one away for filming, with Jewison claiming they made one out of Stryofoam and plywood,, although other sources say they borrowed the one that had been used in Morituri [1965]) and turning the Northern California coast into looking like New England. Released in May 1966 with a budget of nearly $4 million, the movie was a solid hit with audiences, and the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, one for Best Picture.* Jewison followed up the film with In the Heat of the Night (1967) with even further audience attention.

So, you've got a comedy about a few good buffoons all alike on an international level that works best for those who love a silly farce. Sure, the Cold War may be dead and buried now, but you can see the appeal that the film had for people who saw something entertaining in its view of human nature that has a few chuckles within mob mentality, misunderstandings, a unifying moment from an unlikely source and so on. You can mostly understand what goes on with the Russian characters (as played mostly by a group of Americans, although the dialogue director was a Russian with Leon Belasco) without really needing subtitles before it crashes along with the island folk and their own offbeat dreams and delusions (order, being a writer, you name it), with Saint and Keith mostly being the normal ones of the bunch (with kids such as Collins, geez...). Not to knock down Reiner much, but you know Arkin is the highlight pretty early, mainly because he has the confidence and charm to carry the film in all of its odd leanings (namely tomfoolery), and he does so it without straining to go along with the dialogue. You get straight-laced neatness from Keith and a good deal of bubbling annoyance from Winters. Sure, the budding romance between Dromm and Law can only go so far beyond "two cats awkwardly looking at each other", but so it goes. I do like that the climax manages to give the folks a way to come together without straining for a corny message or playing to some cheap cop-out, instead making a pyramid of understanding that beyond the odds and ends of paranoia and maneuvering, there are a few things we'll do with others when things get tough. The 126-minute runtime can be one to trudge along with if you don't go along with all of its frantic misadventures, and I get that, in the same way that I can see someone finding their eyes starting to grow tired in madcap mish-mashes such as say, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World. But your milage may vary. As a whole, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming is a solid enough comedy for its time that will probably work just enough for you to have some enjoyment within the time old (and multi-cultural) comedy of understandings.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

It may interest you to know that the San Antonio Spurs are in the NBA Finals. What a nice time :)

*A physical place to rent or buy movies will always be better than a streaming platform. Duh?

*That year, the nominees were: Alfie, The Sand Pebbles, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the winner...A Man for All Seasons. All four nominations (Jewison for Best Picture, Arkin for Best Actor, Rose for Adapted Screenplay, Hal Ashby & J. Terry Williams for Editing) lost but each ended up being nominated for future efforts, with Ashby, Arkin, and Rose all eventually winning an Academy Award.

Hooper.

Review #2011: Hooper.

Cast: 

Burt Reynolds (Sonny Hooper), Sally Field (Gwen Doyle), Jan-Michael Vincent (Delmore "Ski" Shidski), Brian Keith (Jocko Doyle), Robert Klein (Roger Deal), John Marley (Max Berns), James Best (Cully), Alfie Wise (Tony), Adam West (himself), and Terry Bradshaw (Brawler) Directed by Hal Needham (#033 - Smokey and the Bandit, #034 - The Cannonball Run, and #945 - Smokey and the Bandit II)

Review: 

The stuntman does not get enough respect, if you think about it. They work hard in a profession where the danger can be apparent for any type of stunt, especially in the old days (Shark (1969) saw a stuntman get attacked and killed by a great white shark and then the producers put the footage in the film and change the title to reflect that...and that film had Reynolds as star). Yakima Canutt was the first stuntman to win an Academy Award, you know, being awarded an honorary one in 1967; it was he who performed the famous drop stunt in Stagecoach (1939). Of course, I mention this because of the fact that I am talking about a movie made by a former stuntman in Hal Needham with a star in Reynolds that was known for doing his own stunts. It was the second film in the career of Needham, who I'm sure we all know and well from Smokey and the Bandit, released one year prior to this film in 1977. The original basis for the film was set in 1975 with Lamont Johnson (best known for TV productions more than his films, which included The Last American Hero (1973)) slated to direct it for Warner Bros., but delays related to the dispute over the original title (The Stuntman) eventually led to Needham becoming involved (incidentally, that film that caused the name dispute, named The Stunt Man, was released in 1980). The screenplay was done by Thomas Rickman and Bill Kerby, while the story was done by Walt Green and Walter S. Herndon. This was the second film with Needham and Reynolds, who were such good friends with each other that it served as one of the inspirations for the dynamic in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). After the film, Needham would direct seven further feature films (with a handful of TV productions, but we are only talking about his run that ended with Rad in 1986), four of which had Reynolds as a star, albeit with mixed returns.

The following organizations are listed in the credits: the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures, Inc., Black Stuntmen’s Association of Hollywood, Stuntwomen’s Association, Society of Professional Stuntwomen and Stunts Unlimited. It is definitely a movie made by someone that wants to show perspective in the stuntman in all of the strange ways possible: fun, if not painful when handled incorrectly. At his best, Reynolds had the charisma to make whatever he said come off with wonderful timing, and for the most part, it is true here in a film that is probably more charming than funny, a good ole' boy movie that one is already familiar with if they like stuff such as W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) or Smokey and the Bandit. But beneath the humor is a movie that has one thing stick out among the stunts: everything is but a fleeting moment, and it always helps to take care of oneself when something of us (whether that involves a profession of risk-taking or say, being a teacher) reaches its end. So yes, it is a movie that hones what Needham seems to like most in filmmaking when it comes to staging crashes in quality spectacle while having the backdrop of moviemaking drama that would be right at home with something like, say, Souls for Sale (1923). Reynolds is self-deprecating and self-aware enough to make charm count double more than if it was a random actor told to play the role to generic macho levels. Inside the freewheeling spirit of a man who cracks jokes with a younger presence meant to take the place of guys like him is someone who has to grasp with just what he is going to do at the moment where everything he cares about goes in a flash being more than just "away in the distance". So yes, beyond the timely instances of people playing games on the highway and having goofball barfights to go with rocket cars is a movie that has the semblance of caring about the stunt person with some sort of heart on its sleeve. Reynolds, who would know more than anyone about having to learn for years what it really meant to be an presence in demand, handles things in the purest sense of charm, is what I am saying. Sure, the dynamic between him and Field is probably not as involving as their last pair-up in a film (the aforementioned Bandit), but they are still ideal in the winning sense of looking like people you would believe could share a room together without straining for words. Vincent is not so much a hotshot newcomer as an inevitability, one who seems totally fine with the idea of seeking the thrill of stunt performance to make himself a name in a town that will use him as they please until the end (if you think about it, Reynolds trying to make his mark with Vincent as basically living the last part of his dream through him seems familiar to those who like to live their fantasy through an actor they see in film). Evidently, the character Klein plays is based on Peter Bogdanovich, who directed Reynolds in At Long Last Love (1975) and Nickelodeon (1976), and Needham worked on the latter film as a stunt double for Reynolds. There is a story that Needham told once about a planned stunt where he would fall through a tree and Bogdanovich asked if he could go any higher, with Needham responding with "I can go as high as you like. You just have to keep adding zeroes to the number on that cheque." Needless to say, it is evident where Klein is coming from as the heel, and he does fine with it. Keith and his old rascal persona makes for engaging support when it comes to seeing how age treats the old hellraisers, while Best (a regular presence in television and film for a handful of decades) provides an amiable dynamic in parts with Reynolds. The film labors itself to relative familiarity by the time you are at the end of its 99 minute runtime, but there are plenty of familiar films that turn out pretty good because of the showmanship displayed in making it seem fitting to watch without waving away what you could see coming (in other words, a punch in the face is only as fun as how much it seems earned to watch play out). If the aforementioned Bandit film was like a deep-fried entree, Hooper is basically dessert, one that has a suitable conviction of showmanship to go with a few charming moments for classic Reynolds fun, which means one's enjoyment of it will basically ride on how much they roll with the stunts that Needham and company wish to pull off.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Deadly Companions.

Review #1685: The Deadly Companions.

Cast: 

Maureen O'Hara (Kit Tilden), Brian Keith (Yellowleg), Steve Cochran (Billy Keplinger), Chill Wills (Turk), Strother Martin (Parson), Will Wright (Doctor Acton), Jim O'Hara (Cal, General Store), Peter O'Crotty (Mayor of Hila City), and Billy Vaughan (Mead Tildon Jr) Directed by Sam Peckinpah (#590 - Ride the High Country, #591 - The Wild Bunch, #944 - Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and #1439 - Straw Dogs)

Review: 

"It wasn’t the best deal in the world: I wanted to make a picture and this guy wanted to push me around. The script needed lots of work, but I’d get told to go back in my corner. Brian knew we were in trouble, so between us we tried to give the thing some dramatic sense. The result was that all of his scenes worked, while all of hers were dead. I found out about producers, all right."

Would you believe that this is the directorial debut of Sam Peckinpah? One might find themselves in for a bit of a surprise with how the film career of this esteemed director began, because it started in the realm that he was already quite familiar with: the western. In the sixty years that has followed the film's release, it is likely the least known of his fourteen directorial efforts for the man soon to be known as "Bloody Sam". One doesn't have to repeat themselves in describing the background of one of the most polarizing directors to come out of the Western landscape to just say that he was a man who lived on his own terms, hard but fierce in his vision that matched a Marine background and a childhood spent on the ranch. When asked what type of movies he liked, he once stated that the only movies he wanted to like are his own movies, one that detested every good filmmaker (of course, Peckinpah also stated that Ross Hunter was his idol because he matched the innocuous directors he didn't detest, so there's that). The Fresno native had drifted between film and television in minor but key roles before getting into the writing circuit in 1955 with Gunsmoke, the definitive television series of the Western that ran for 20 years. At any rate, Peckinpah wrote the gamut in the era of the Western television series (Have Gun - Will Travel, The Rifleman, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, you get the idea), and he even submitted a script that would be cobbled together into One-Eyed Jacks (released the same year as this film and one that Peckinpah blamed Brando for messing it up). However, it all came to a head with a show that he would create with The Westerner in 1960, which came from an episode that Peckinpah had directed and written for the aforementioned Theatre show (essentially serving as a pilot). The show starred Brian Keith, who dabbled in television alongside character roles in film (interestingly, his most famous roles wound up being family affairs with The Parent Trap (1960) and Family Affair (1966-71)). He would direct six of the episodes while also writing for five of them. The series would last thirteen episodes (two months), killed due to bad ratings, but he received good notices for his efforts (when recommended for Ride the High Country, the producer watched the show and liked what he saw). At any rate, it was the good word that Keith put in for him that helped the 36-year old Peckinpah when it came time for the production of this film. Enter O'Hara. This was a family affair for O'Hara, since her brother Charles B. Fitzsimmons served as producer. He was the younger brother of O'Hara (who in that Hollywood tradition had gone another name) that dabbled in acting for a decade after having studied law and acting in the theatre in his native country before deciding to go into producing, with this being his debut. The source material used for the film was a novel called Yellowleg by A. S. Fleischman (he was born Avron Zalmon Fleischman before changing his name to Albert Sidney Fleischman), for which Flesichman adapted to the screen himself. He was familiar with Hollywood ever since his work Blood Alley (1955) was turned into a film, for which he wrote for. Technically this is an adaptation, as the novel had been written during pre-production, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in a few months.

The easiest thing to get out of the way is that this is widely available to watch because it is in the public domain, because the copyright notice was somehow not put onto the film. Making sure to find a good quality copy is always key, so imagine how that feels for a Western. The next thing to say is that this was one of the few films the director would make where he had no say in the writing (a process he was quoted later as hating) or final cut privilege. O'Hara, the last surviving actress of the cast, noted in her autobiography about the strange time she had with the director, calling him "one of the strangest and most objectionable people I had ever worked with." It certainly seems like the kind of unassuming kind of movie to think about briefly in the careers of its main stars and group, but one might find something worth diving into when it comes to a movie that is fairly solid in building a tense little thriller with a quartet not usually put together like this for the kind of film seen in its day. This is of course a film that involves a trip to bury a child in native territory that died because of a failed bank robbery. Peckinpah was quoted as loving outsiders, ones that are independent to the frontier, a sort of "weakness for losers on a grand scale", if you will. There are shades of that present within what you see from each of the four main actors to focus on, whether that means a man with quiet guilt and a ulterior motive, or a deserter with grand delusions, or a offbeat gunslinger, or a widow that is stubborn enough to persist through to the end goal. For a film that was basically a low-budget O'Hara + Keith vehicle, the latter seems to have a bit more to do when it comes to generating presence beyond something you might read in a short novel, but each do what they need to do as the main duo that spend quite a bit of time with each other. Wills was a regular character presence for numerous years, but it is interesting to see him with a adversarial role here, one that has odd designs for an army of his own to go with Freedonia, but he still seems like a good threat when paired with the showy Cochran (who made just three more movies before his life was cut short at the age of 48 in 1965), who makes for a worthy ooze presence. It doesn't play for any obvious clichés when it comes to adversaries (whether threats from internal strife or natives), so one shouldn't expect any sort of fantastical movements or rapid pacing. It takes its 93 minutes carefully for a look into the lives of flawed people in the West that Peckinpah would hone to greater results within his career. It may not be a great understated gem, but it certainly merits a look into what makes a director come into their own, if not at least before one goes on to see just what Sam Peckinpah could do when he had the freedom to tell the story he wanted to show. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Meteor.

Review #1204: Meteor.

Cast: 
Sean Connery (Dr. Paul Bradley), Natalie Wood (Tatiana Donskaya), Karl Malden (Harry Sherwood), Brian Keith (Dr. Alexei Dubov), Martin Landau (General Adlon), Trevor Howard (Sir Michael Hughes), Richard Dysart (Secretary of Defense), Henry Fonda (The President), and Joseph Campanella (General Easton) Directed by Ronald Neame (#673 - Scrooge)

Review: 
What is a meteor? One definition (at least according to a cursory Google search) is that it is a " small body of matter from outer space that enters the earth's atmosphere, becoming incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light." Perhaps the definition doesn't give the movie's big threat proper credit, since this is a disaster film released to ride on the popularity of films of its ilk released in the 1970s such as the Airport films (1970, 1974, 1977, 1979), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and countless others  - with this one being distributed by American International Pictures and funding from Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers. This was one of numerous AIP films in the 1970s that differed from the usual fare they had delivered in previous decades, with less focus on horror and more focus on other genres (whether it involved kung fu, blaxploitation, or something else), with an increase in budgets. This film, unlike others released by the studio, proved to be a failure, making less than $10 million on release with a budget over $15 million. This led to the demise of AIP, which soon merged with Filmways, Inc and stopped distributing films by 1980. In any case, the hands that attempted to guide the film might have seemed promising. Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North were the writers for the film, with the latter being responsible for writing films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Patton (1970). Much like the disaster films mentioned already, this one also boasts a collection of big-name actors of its time to supplant the roles.

With all of that in mind, it sure is strange that this film turns out to be a dud. How does one make a film racked with only the bare minimum of suspense and mild special effects? How does one make a film where the energy of the cast and the people they are playing fight blandness? By the time the actual meteor shows up for its climax, the level of excitement jumps up a percentage point, since it means it's almost over, even if the tension levels by this time are nearly non-existent. This probably would've fared better as a comedy, actually. Imagine a bunch of people flailing around talking about a giant rock hitting the Earth in your driest voice, and you have this movie basically summed up. As nice as it is to see Connery be pulled into this ridiculous mess, he isn't too particularly interesting - whether that it is due to the script or due to being on autopilot waiting to get done with this mess (and the check to clear) is up to you. Him and Wood don't have much chemistry with each other, but it really is more because it just feels like filler before scenes of exposition/meteor stuff take the stage again. Keith is fine, and he does provide a bit of humor to a film that is practically begging for some action. Malden proves okay with his gruff if not stock kind of role. Landau goes over-the-top for a role without any real sort of depth to it besides being adversarial to the others. The other members of the cast make brief appearances that come and go as they please. The effects are okay, but they don't really elevate this material to any real sense of enjoyable spectacle, with one sequence utilizing footage from Avalanche (1978) alongside tons of artificial snow for background shooting. The sequence involving the subway and the mud surely must've proven interesting to think of as effective in concept - but it just seems more of a waste of money and time (along with a pain for any actor having to act in mud). This mish-mash in quality for the effects can be attributed in part because numerous visual effects teams came and went during production due to being fired for the quality of effects delivered on a small budget (no doubt due to the budget focus on the actors) - the shots involving building collapsing near the end was actually just re-used footage from building demolitions. Ultimately, it is the lack of any interesting characters or situations that prove fatal to the film. It becomes evident quickly that there isn't much in the way of tension, since the idea of the meteor actually hitting the Earth never really seems all that likely. The film actually ends with a notation about a report named "Project Icarus", a student project done in 1967 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that involved students in a systems engineering class to make a plan to use rockets to deflect or destroy an asteroid in the event of a possible collision with Earth, which led to a book release the following year. One would likely be better off reading the report than watching the film, actually. It disappoints on a basic level as entertainment with its actors and it disappoints on a level of spectacle that makes this a chore for all but people with nothing better to do.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: With Six You Get Eggroll.

Review #412: With Six You Get Eggroll.

Cast
Doris Day (Abby McClure), Brian Keith (Jake Iverson), Pat Carroll (Maxine), Barbara Hershey (Stacey Iverson), John Findlater (Flip McClure), George Carlin (Herbie Fleck), Alice Ghostley (Molly), and Jamie Farr (Jo Jo) Directed by Howard Morris.

Review
This is a irony in away, my first review of a film with Doris Day, and this film happens to be the last film she ever did. And with that, if Day wanted to go out with a bang, she goes out with a courteous taking of a bow, with a smile. This is a decent with decent length and fine characters that do at least develop with some comedy that does works, this being a family comedy that does have some warmth to it. The actors are alright, not too bad, with Day being the best of them all, having a certain warmth along with a bit of depth. It's a fairly decent family flick that works alright and could feasibly be watched by families any time, any day, without much trouble.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.