johnaquino Reviews

Macbeth (2024)

Great perforamnces, interesting technique

[6 May 2024]

This is a live performance production of Macbeth that sometimes makes you forget there's an audience. With inventive camera work from all angles that makes it look like characters are exiting up stairways or through hallways. I wasn't made aware of the audience except for an occasional laugh and towards the end when the cast started coming down the stairs from the back. The performances, especially Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Macduff, were excellent, with Macbeth becoming almost bestial and Lady Macbeth portrayed as younger and sexier than usual. The scene when Macduff hears about his wife and children's murder was prolonged and very affecting. The banquet scene with the ghost of Banquo was exceptionally well staged. Fiennes has a powerful voice, but his complex performance, goes beyond that. It made me remember a production of the play with Christopher Plummer and Glenda Jackson. Plummer later admitted that the only reasons for the production were to pair him and Jackson and to have him recite Shakespeare's verse with his beautiful voice. (I remember when Jackson came out for the curtain call she looked angry that we were applauding.) This production is about more than voices and offers a unique interpretation.

Screen Directors Playhouse: A Midsummer Daydream (1955) Season 1, Episode 3

Wonderful Saroyan Tale

[9/10 · 30 March 2024]

This is a worthwhile addition to Saroyan's work. Known for "The Human Comedy" (film and book), short stories, and the play "The Time of Your Life," he was also considered someone who never fulfilled his initial promise. Rodgers and Hart's song "Zip from "Pal Joey" includes the stripper's questions and observations while she is stripping, which include, "Will Saroyan ever write a great play?" This is a slight, whimsical story that has charm. If television had been invented earlier, it would have been Saroyan's medium. It's fun to see him introducing the show. Hunter, Wynn, and Hammer are all good.

Get Yourself a College Girl (1964)

Last Movie of Joan O'Brien

[23 January 2024]

The premise of tis is better than most of the "Beach Party" movies. The guest performers are an interesting mix--Stan Getz, the Dave Clark Five. But the most interesting aspect of the film is that it was the last film of Joan O'Brien. She was an incredibly gifted performer. Her performance in "Operation Petticoat" (1959) as the comedic klutz who accidently sets off a torpedo and yet still attracts Cary Grant is a gem, as is her work in "It's Only Money" (1962) as the funniest romance partner Jerry Lewis ever had. But she also gave memorable dramatic performances, including two in John Wayne movies--The Alamo (1960) and The Comancheros (1961). She was a singer who was seldom allowed to sing in movies--Elvis and Colonel Parker did allow her to join Elvin in the final song in "It Happened at the World Fair" (1963). Here, the is cast as just a third of a trio of beautiful girls. She's under-utilized, but still a welcome presence.

Two Sisters from Boston (1946)

Surprisingly Enjoyable

[9/10 · 8 October 2023]

Here you have a film that has two female leads, mo male lead, one male romantic interest (Peter Lawford) who is not top billed, and it's set at the.turn of the 20th Century. Not the usual recipe for a successful 1940s film. And yet according to MGM records, it was a hit and It Happened in Brooklyn, starring Frank Sinatra and Grayson with Lawford, made the following year with a contemporary, even timely story and three great songs, was not. And yet I liked Two Sisters. It was well produced, had a good supporting cast, and there was an effort to reflect the period. A thing that impressed me was that the girls in the chorus at the saloon where Grayson is performing were not displaying 1940w sexy legs and rehearsall shows but were covered up, which made sense for a story set in 1900. Grayson displayed more comic timing than usual and, in addition to her usual singing of classical music, seemed at home with the saloon numbers. And her scene in which she breaks out of the ensemble to sing high notes to impress her family in the audience was well done--she even got to take a bow--and made me laugh. Lauritz Melchior seemed more relaxed than usual, perhaps enjoying, as Grayson seemed to, the chance at broader comedy. And Jimmy Durante, always funny, had a more substantial part than MGM usually have him. It is not a well known film, which is sad. It is worth a look.

Playhouse 90: The Last Tycoon (1957) Season 1, Episode 24

A Superior Adaptation of Fitzgeralds Novel

[9/10 · 24 September 2023]

I watched this 1957 television version of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's unfinished novel after seeing the 1976 film version starring Robert DeNiro, directed by Elia Kazan, and written by Harold Pinter. The Kazan version is more polished and begins well. But it hasn't dealt well with the ending, which, obviously, needs to be supplied since Fitzgerald's novel has no ending.

The kinescope quality of the 1957 version is a drawback. But it is amazing work for a live television show. It has amazingly inventive direction by John Frankenheimer before his films The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train, and Ronin. Jack Palance may seem an odd choice to play Monroe Stahr, but he was also an odd choice to play the lead in the 1955 film version of Clifford Odets' The Big Knife. John Garfield had originated the part on Broadway, and I think Palance, who had a lot of Garfield's touch guy, boxer style of acting, was fine in the film. As Stahr, Palance's saturnine appearance lends authority and a bit of menace. Peter Lorre is effective as a washed up director that Stahr saves. The bid difference between the 1957 and 1976 versions is that the latter just has Starh battling the New York office while the former has him pitted against the New York office and his own mortality. The 1957 version was written by Don Mankiewicz, whose father was Herman Mankiewicz, the co-writer of Citizen Kane. Mankiewicz appears to have taken the Hollywood lore he picked up from his father and used it to fill in the gaps Fitzgerald left. I recognized Stahr's assertion that he knew the film was too long because his butt started hurting as something Fritz Land reported hearing Darryl Zanuck say after a screening.

The 1957 version is well worth seeing.

Smart Girls Don't Talk (1948)

Actually Pretty Good, Even Without Bogie or Ladd

[6 September 2023]

It's an interesting film and entertaining. The plot keeps moving, and there is an unexpected death. What makes it unusual is that, except for Mayo, it doesn't have any big stars. They have some solid supporting actors like Bruce Bennett and Tom D'Andrea.. But on a bigger budget there would be Cuddles or Jack Carson or Alan Hale. What this does is give lesser known actors bigger roles, like Bennett, who plays a bad guy in contrast to his loyal good-guy husband in Mildred Pierce, and Helen Westcott, who a year later had a marveous moment in the Adventures of Don Juan playing one of Don Juan's previous lovers whom he doesn't remember but she seizes the opportunity to reignite with him. Two years later, she would have the prime role of Gregory Peck's estranged ife in The Gunfighter. There's even Phyliss Coates, the first Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman TV series, in her first role as a cigarette girl. It is norish and has a romantic ending that does come out of nowhere. But it's worth a look.

Easy to Love (1953)

Busby Berkelley on Power Skis, Tony Martin in Good Voice

[7/10 · 7 June 2022]

A likeable enough film. A treat for the eyes. I must admit that, knowing Busby Berkeley was ijnvolved, I was actually frightened for those in the final water number, even though this all happened 70 years ago. It was dangerous to let him play with motorized vehicles. Interesting to read that this was Esther Williams' favorite film. I'm not a fan of Tony Martin, and he looked a little old to be involved in these highjinks. But he was in very good voice, especially with the song about a rainy day.

Forever, Darling (1956)

Interesting attempt to be different

[6/10 · 23 February 2022]

I haven't been a big fan of The Long, Long Trailer. It has some funny bits, but there's a lot of yelling at the end, it goes from funny to yelling, and that whole thing about her collecting big rocks! Forever Darling actually begins as a fairly witty and sharp film--it had been written for someone else--and Desi gets to play someone different. James Mason is a good sport--playing a guardian angel, doing a parody of himself (maybe in Botany Bay) in a parody of Mogambo film-within-the film. He's not really adept at situation comedy, although he did well in a few comedic films like Touch of Larceny. The film switches gears at the end, with a lot of slapstick yelling in a swamp. And the reason they took an old script was to quickly capitalize on the success of Trailer. Its failure ended their joint film career. But it's faster-paced than Trailer and it's a reasonable time-passer.

Girl Crazy (1943)

Faithful to the Original for a Change but Berkelized

[10/10 · 15 August 2021]

Unlike many if not most Hollywood versions of Broadway musicals of the 1920s and 1930s, Girl Crazy retains the plot and most of the wonderful Gershwin songs and doesn't jazz up the story or interpolate songs from other musicals and songwriters. The added pluses are Garland and Rooney at their human and Busby Berkeley's direction, which is somewhat less frenetic than what he did for his Warner Brothers musicals, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This is also, perhaps, the best, most fully realized of the Garland-Rooneys.

The Fuller Brush Girl (1950)

A Lot of Against-Type Casting in this Comedy

[7/10 · 2 January 2021]

Lucy was meant for the small screen. She had dramatic skills--The Big Street--and comic timing. But she couldn't sing or even dance very well, and MGM didn't know what to do with her. The broader slapstick she later exploited to become a television legend is explored in this film. It's very broad, as a Frank Tashlin script usually is, although her spinning around the rails of the ship as a bar between two tires is over the top. What is exceptional is a very strong supporting cast--Eddie Albert as he love interest; John Litel, who played Nancy Drew's father in the movies, cast against type and surprisingly willing to become involved in the horseplay; Jerome Cowan and Gail Patrick, who appeared in The Maltese Falcon and a host of other Warner Brother mysteries and costume dramas, reunite for this mystery send-up; and Gale Robbins, also cast against type, although beginning to be the unlikeable diva she became in Calamity Jane, and actually singing "Put the Blame on Mame," which Rita Hayworth didn't do in Gilda four years before. Funny a lot of the time.

The DuPont Show of the Month: Wuthering Heights (1958) Season 1, Episode 9

Fascinating to Finally See

[8/10 · 8 December 2019]

For the Golden Age of Television, this was an exceptional production--starring Richard Burton--late of the Old Vic in London and a 20th Century Fox contract, Rosemary Harris, Denholm Elliott, Cathleen Nesbitt, Barry Jones, John Colicos, and a young Patty Duke; Adapted from the Emily Bronte novel by James Costigan, who two months earlier had written Little Moon of Alban and years later would pen the miniseries Eleanor and Franklin and Love Among the Ruins starring Laurence Olivier and Kathrine Hepburn, it was well mounted for a live television production. This kinescope record was thought lost and only rediscovered this year (2019). Burton sometimes overacts, but so did most stage actors on live television. Acting live without breaks except for commercials was much like acting for the stage and unlike acting for films which was done in short scenes sometimes lasting seconds with the results projected on a large screen that could show an actor's pores in closeups and so required under-acting. Television performers were not projected live but rather shrunk to a 12-inch screen, which made under-acting unwise. So it was a dilemma. Even in his quiet moments, such as when he tells Cathy's husband, recalling their childhood fantasies, that he had become rich by recalling that he was the son of the emperor China, his powerful voice booms so much that the fragile sets appear to shutter and the sound engineer probably winced. Burton had been dubbed "the next Olivier." Olivier played Burton's role of Heathcliff in the 1939 movie, and he too overacted. This brutish, wild young man is just that kind of part. But it's fascinating to see Burton at age 34, fresh from Broadway and London stage triumphs, fit and younger than we are used to. This is one of the few extant examples of his television work. Others--The Fifth Column and the Subject of Scandal and Concern, for examples--are either lost or their re-broadcast has not yet been authorized. This is a fascinating film to finally see, for Burton's fans but also to those who enjoy superior actors tackling strong roles in adaptations of a classic literary works.

The Story of Mankind (1957)

A Film of Its Time

[6/10 · 22 October 2019]

I remember reading the classic comic version of this film contemporaneous with the release of the film. When I finally saw the movie, its trial of humanity with the Spirit of Mankind and the Devil walking through time to tell humanity's story appealed to my young imagination. It is, on the one hand, an efficient film--the story of mankind in 100 minutes, using stock footage from other movies, with cameos by stars who were getting up their in years and were anxious to appear in a film financed by a major studio again. As a film, it is hokey, with bad dialogue and cardboard sets through which the Devil and the Spirit of Mankind are obviously filmed at a separate time from the actors in their cameos. But I take pleasure in its being Ronald Colman's last film, giving him abundant screen time to use his melodious voice, although he does it in a far from meritorious vehicle. I enjoyed seeing him in scenes with Vincent Price and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, also of a beautiful voice. And I am intrigued that it was one of the last theatrical screenplays of Charles Bennett, who wrote classic films with Alfred HItchcock. The structure of the screenplay, which he co-wrote with the director is intriguing, although the poor dialogue appears improvised. It was a film of its time--audacious in that it did not shy away from including Hitler in its showing of recent history just 12 years after the Holocaust ended and having an actor portray him and that its story reflected the then-current fears of the atomic destruction of the world. It was just on Turner Classic Movies, and my wife watched it for the first time. She smiled at 43-year-old Hedy Lamar playing 19-year-old Joan of Arc and at Virginia Mayor playing a brunette Cleopatra as if she were Lucrezia Borgia. But my wife seemed captivated by some scenes--such as Agnes Moorehead as Queen Elizabeth I with Reginald Gardiner as William Shakespeare inspiring her by quoting the last lines of his play King John. It was an influential movie for its time. It seems silly and dated now, but evidently it can still entertain in spots.

Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935)

Excellent Sidney, Surprising Donlevy

[5 August 2019]

Forgotten, well written and acted, gritty crime drama. Sidney is excellent as usual. The big surprise is Brian Donlevy, soon to be typecast as western villains until attaining bigger starring or co-starring roles in the 40s, playing Spike, a soft=spoken gangster, devoted to his boss Alan Baxter, menacing in his quiet.

The Bull of the West (1972 TV Movie)

Not as Bad as Some

[22 January 2019]

I actually thought they did a pretty good job of melding two different episodes of the Virginian into one film with two concurrent stories. They didn't run one episode after another but interwove scenes from the two episodes to make it seem like they were occuring at the same point in time. I was impressed how they took brief clips of Charles Bronson riding and shooting and standing and made it look like he was joining in the attempt to divert a cattle stampede and standing with others watching Brian Keith die when Bronson wasn't in that episode. Others commenting here say the acting is bad, but it was the acting of the day and the cast, including Lee J. Cobb, Bronson, Keith, George Kennedy, Lois Nettleson, Doug McClure and James Drury is pretty impressive.

Betrayed (1954)

Wonderful Gable-Turner Bookends

[30 November 2018]

I've always been very found of this movie. As another reviewer wrote, the screenwriters did a good job of blending the facts of Operation Market Garden with the fictitious story. I liked the role of the dashing "The Scarf" and Victor Mature's portrayal. Most of all, I like this as the last paring of Gable and Turner. Their first was HONKY TONK in 1941 when he was still the sassy, scowling rascal of GONE WITH THE WIND and IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and she was young, soft, delicate and alluring. By 1954, his scowl and sass were long gone as the result of the loss of his wife, Carole Lombard, and of the war which had made sass seem frivolous. He was older and thicker, but still a commanding screen presence. She was older, more experienced as a character and as an actress, and still alluring. When they slowly walk arm and arm, going in the wrong direction, through a line of soldiers singing "Bless Them All," this older and wiser pair had come full circle.

The Happy Thieves (1961)

A Wonderful Caper Film

[7/10 · 16 October 2018]

I've always had great affection for this film, for its whimsical score by Mario Nascimbene , for being able to see both Joseph Wiseman and Rita Hayworth play comedy at all and in the same film, for being able to see Rex Harrison play the same character but pulled back a bit that he did in THE HONEY POT a few years later, for the affection and attention it gives to the museum scene, and for its ingenious art theft. Most of all, I admire it for the surprising and yet convincing ending and Hayworth's reaction.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

A dfferent type of MI

[8/10 · 16 August 2018]

I loved the stunts--especially driving the wrong way toward the Arch d'Triumphe--the cast (although I really missed Jeremy Renner), and the tremendous production values. So I enjoyed seeing it. But it struck me that this was a radial departure from the other five MIs. In those, Ethan was always one step ahead. Here, he's sometimes behind, confused, struggling. The scene with Henry Cavil in the bathroom where neither one of them was up to the fight was funny (neither Ethan or Superman can take him!). But there is a subtext that Ethan is actually getting older. Cruise is fit, still handsome, but for the first time he is starting to look his 50+ age.

Black Magic (1949)

Surprising Orson Welles Movie!

[7/10 · 13 July 2018]

Black Magic surprises on many levels. For a non-Hollywood film, it's suprisingly well produced. You have Welles, who, except for the louder moments of Citizen Kane, usually underplays, being big and bold and involved. He struggled with his weight, and here he is thin, wears tights, and engages in an extended Errol Flynn-like final swordfight. Some have noted here that those who want to extend Welles' body of directorial works include this film, even though Gregory Ratoff is credited as director. I recall that Welles said that he could have taken an associate producer credit on this film. But the final duel and fall does evoke memories of Welles' The Stranger and another film that Welles starred in and is said to have co-directed, Journey Into Fear.

Whiplash (1948)

Tests the screenwriters creativity

[26 April 2018]

I agree with others that the story is not terribly new and that it's a variation on GOLDEN BOY through HUMORESQUE through BODY AND SOUL. The cast has also done these types of roles before--Alan Hale as the trainer, Alexis Smith as the outspoken, tough-minded, idealized object of the hero's affections, Eve Arden as a wise cracking friend/secretary/whatever, and Zachary Scott as the villain. But, given these, I have always liked the inventiveness of the writers--the undercurrent of impotence and SPOILER how Zachary Scott's wheelchair leads to his demise. and how even he performs a random act of kindness to a punch-drunk ex-fighter that he could just as easily have humiliated.

Carol for Another Christmas (1964 TV Movie)

Not As Good As I Remembered It

[5/10 · 31 January 2013]

I remember seeing the film when it came out and then saw it again in late 2013 on Turner Classic Movies. In 1964 I was excited that it represented the pairing of a noted film director, Joseph Mankiewicz, fresh off his frustrating experience directing the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton Cleopatra (1963), and Rod Serling, fresh from the CBS TV series, The Twilight Zone (1959-1963), which he had created, wrote for, and hosted. As the title suggests, it was a modern version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

It had an all-star cast: Sterling Hayden as the Scrooge character called Grudge, Pat Hingle as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Steve Lawrence as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Eva Marie Saint as an nurse from Grudge's past, Robert Shaw as the Ghost of Christmas Future, and Peter Fonda, son of Henry Fonda, as Grudge's nephew. Fonda's scenes were cut to just glimpses of him, and in five years he would have an iconic role as a biker in Easy Rider. The actor who received the most press was Peter Sellers, who had debuted his character of Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther the year before and then had a heart attack. Carol marked his return to work. He would then co-star with Hayden in Dr. Strangelove.

The filmmakers even went to the trouble of reuniting the Andrew Sisters to re-record their 1942 hit number "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree," which is only heard in the film when a ghostly record player suddenly starts playing the recording, until Grudge pulls the needle off after a few seconds.

On its website, Turner Classic Movies invites you to tell it what little-seen films you would like them to show, and I kept writing in Carol for Another Christmas. Others must have too because they finally broadcast it.

I guess I was in love with the idea of it in 1964. On my re-seeing it, I felt Carol doesn't play well.The idea of pairing Mankiewicz and Serling was not a good one. They both had their preachy sides. Some of the Serling's Twilight Zone scripts represent the most searching and, sometimes, the most disturbing science fiction dramas ever made. But he did use the show to comment on issues such as racism, McCarthyism, and other isms that troubled the 1950s and 1960s, and his characters do seem to like the sounds of their own voices. Serling's screenplay for Seven Days in May the same year as Carol also has long stretches of dialog, but it was propelled forward by director John Frankenheimer, who plays with images within images, especially by showing television monitors all around, and a really top-notch cast.

Mankiewicz loved to hear his characters talk too, as his screenplays for All About Eve, Letter to Three Wives, and certainly the four-hour Cleopatra show. With Serling and Mankiewicz together, Carol goes on and on without seeming to move forward. It ends when the characters stop talking.

Part of the problem is the source material. A Christmas Carol has demonstrated that it can be remade and rethought again and again. This version was sponsored by the United Nations, who had its own story to tell about its role in the world. And so Serling had to tell the story not only of a man who hated Christmas but of a man whose war experience--and the death of his nephew on Christmas--caused him to become an isolationist and to resist the idea that nations and peoples can come together by talking. The two different concepts--I hate Christmas because I remember sad Christmases of my past, and I hate Christmas because it reminds me of war and I think our country should just stay to itself--do not really mesh.

The film only comes to life at the end in the apocalyptic landscape Serling was familiar with from The Twilight Zone, with Shaw as a well-spoken specter and Sellers as a crazy leader of the survivors of nuclear war. But overall, Carol is just a curiosity, a side-note to the careers of Serling and Sellers.

Wild Is the Wind (1957)

Wild Is the Wind

[6/10 · 16 January 2007]

I finally saw it too in a copy that appears to have been made from American Music Classics on cable at the time they were running movies uncut.

It's a well-acted film. The plot recalls O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms (filmed in 1958) and Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted (filmed in 1940 with Charles Laughton and musicalized by Frank Loesser in The Most Happy fellow in 1956)--older man, mail order bride, affair between wife and younger man.

Very slow in the 1950s style but powerfully acted. Not the sort of film you'd expect from Cukor. Interesting facet to his career.

Also interesting to compare this film and Secret of San Vittorio which re-united Magnani and Quinn after 12 years--older and maybe toned down just a notch, with the Irish/Mexican Quinn again playing an Italian.

As Young as You Feel (1951)

Thin film with mighty writing talent

[15 March 2005]

This film was indeed a mildly amusing comedy and one's acceptance of it will depend on one's affection for Monty Wooley. But I was fascinated by the credits. It's part of the feel-good type of movies of the early 1950s. The story is by a young Paddy Chakevsky, who would later write Marty, A Catered Affair, The Goddess, The Americanization of Emily, Hospital, Network, and Altered States, and the screenplay is by Lamar Trotti, who wrote the screenplays for John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk, for Ox Bow Incident, and won the screenplay Oscar for Wilson in 1944. A lot of talent in a thimble. It might be interesting to compare this screenplay to their other works for similarities. Chakevsky's work later became sharp and hard and even bitter. But his Marty, Catered Affair, and maybe even this show a gentle, humorous side. Trotti would die the next year, so this is one of his last screenplays