FILM REVIEW OF "ICE STATION ZEBRA" (1968)

"The Great Escape" director John Sturges serves up a platter of Cold War paranoia and tension with "Ice Station Zebra" (**** out of ****), his riveting 1968 submarine thriller. Uncle Sam and the British rush to the North Pole to recover the contents of a Soviet satellite that the Russians have lost which contains ultra-classified film of every missile silo both American and Communist on the globe. Brawny Rock Hudson stars as Captain James Ferraday, commander of the U.S.S. Tigerfish (SNN-509), a nuclear sub, who receives his hush hush orders as well as his hush hush passenger, a laconic British Intelligence agent known only as Jones (Patrick McGoohan of "The Prisoner") who wants to beat the Russkies to the prize.

This glossy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer action-adventure blockbuster received Academy Award nominations for David L. Fapp's cinematography as well as its visual effects. Slow-moving in a peasant old-fashioned way, the Douglas Heyes screenplay introduces all the characters as they assemble at different times aboard the Tigerfish, generates some tension as a mysterious saboteur tries to sink the sub, and then breaks out into frigid North Pole frontier during its final hour with a showdown that reveals the identity of the saboteur and a showdown with Russian paratroopers. The Sturges film is based on the Alistair MacLean novel that isn't as epic in scope as the film and future "Dirty Harry" scenarist Harry Julian Fink adapted it with "Little Caesar" scribe W.R. Burnett contributing uncredited portions. Reportedly, Alstair MacLean's novel was partly based on an actual incident that occurred in 1959. If you like your Cold War thrillers with a snap, you'll love this taut 152-minute epic that never deploys a gratuitous minute. "Ice Station Zebra" was not only Rock Hudson's favorite movie, but also millionaire Howard Hughes' watched this movie repeatedly toward the end of his life. Interestingly, Hughes hired Sturges to helm his own subterrean adventure thriller "Underwater" back in
1955.

John Sturges was an old hand at making action films with predominantly all male casts by the time that producer Martin Ransohoff signed him on to helm "Ice Station Zebra." Some of the windy scenes after the heroes reach the eponymous site are reminiscent of Sturges' early work in "The Walking Hills" and the journey to site recalls his western "The Law and Jake Wade." Sturges orchestrates this big, international actioneer without a false turn but that means that it has to unfold at a slow but sturdy pace. Ferraday receives his orders out of uniform in a pub in Scotland from Admiral Garvey (Lloyd Nolan) and back at the naval base a clandestine secret agent, David Jones arrives who casually admits that Jones isn't his real name. Not long after Jones' arrival the Tigerfish receives a platoon of U.S. Marines, all of whom are young, and equally young lieutenant, Lt. Russell Walker (Tony Bill)leads them. The passengers keep piling up with the additional of a Soviet defector, Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine of "The Dirty Dozen"), who Jones smuggled out of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Not surprisingly, Jones trusts Vaslov implicitly. The final passenger who is picked up in route is U.S. Marine Captain Anders (Jim Brown of "100 Rifles") who comes aboard ready to kick ass. The first scene in Ferraday's cabin with Anders and later Lt. Walker is terrific! Anders makes it clear to Walker who the boss is in no time at all.

Once Sturges and Heyes have everybody aboard the Tigerfish and the orders are clear, the tension and suspense sets in the action. Vaslov loves to roam the ship without escort, while Jones worries about their most recent arrival, Captain Anders, who was picked up in transit. About 45 minutes to an hour later, the Tigerfish reaches the polar ice cap and tries to surface, but the ice above is far too thick. Ferraday decides it is time to fire a torpedo through the ice and then surface. Out of nowhere a disaster occurs. Somebody have tampered with the torpedo tube and let water into the tube so that when our guys go to load the fish, water erupts in a flood and fills the torpedo room. Down does the Tigerfish to alarming depths with its hull sure to implode at any moment as the depth gauge dial clicks over numbers rapidly. Miraculously (well they could die this earlier, of course) the Navy sub escapes but Jones is now certain in his suspicions that Anders is the guilty party and a mustache, taciturn Jim Brown convinces us that if he isn't the villain then he is a very sinister dude.

From this point onward, Sturges and Heyes add the man versus nature theme to the action. Once they have broken through the ice—it's intermission time—they encounter an Artic storm that has them bent down and using canes to cross the ice cap. There is one particularly thrilling moment—especially if you're watching this flick during the winter—when three guys plunge into a crevasse and require rescue. It's rather like the "Star Wars" scene where our heroes are trapped in the trash compactor and the walls are gradually closing in on them. The ice gradually closes in on the navy guys. After they reach Ice Station Zebra, they realize that a fire broke out and now it's time for Jones and Ferraday to huddle and cover all the plot's expository points. An entire scene is allocated to the description of the goods that they are scavenging the area for and how its wound up in Soviet hands with no small amount of espionage involved. Again, the weather has kept the Russians from moving, but we learn that once the storm clears, here comes the Russkies!

McGoohan is essentially replicating his "Secret Agent" man persona and Hudson is tall, dark, and monosyllabic as the rock-solid submarine skipper. Borgnine has never been better as a slippery Russian defector and Jim Brown gives his best performance ever. The photography is top-notch and it's cool that Sturges often stages scenes in the submarine from an angle, not entirely shot at normal, eye-level range with everything horizontal. The scenes under the thick ice are simply incredible! Clint Eastwood's "Firefox" and the last Sean Connery James Bond thriller "Never Say Never Again" borrowed some of this spectacular submarine footage. Ferris Webster's editing deserves a nod, especially in the fight between Vaslov and Anders. Although it didn't match the earnings of another MacLean thriller "Where Eagles Dare," "Ice Station Zebra" is still worth catching.

An excellent book to peruse if you are interested in John Sturges, his life, and his films is Glen Lovell's top-notch biography on Sturges entitled "Escape Artist: The Life and Films of John Sturges." Mr. Lovell spent 10 years writing and researching this seminal text about Sturges.

FILM REVIEW OF "UNDISCOVERED" (2005)

“Far From Home” director Meiert Avis’ romantic musical comedy “Undiscovered” (*** out of ****)is a sweetly sentimental fairy tale saga about the obstacle course that young lovers run in their relationships. Lurking within this deceptively lightweight movie is a message about fame versus creativity. People sell their souls for fame, but fame is only the foam, whereas creativity is the bedrock for everything in life. A confused but sympathetic model suffering from love trouble with her cheating rock star boyfriend and an aspiring songwriter collide entirely by accident when a New York subway train disgorges its passengers. She catches one of his gloves on the way onto the train while he stands transfixed on the platform watching her slip away on the departing train. Later, each winds up moving to glittering Los Angeles. He wants to break into the musical scene, while she wants to get into acting. Ostensibly, newcomer John Galt has penned a screenplay that consists of 98 minutes of PG-13 rated soap opera galore not only about the perils of love but also the mercurial music business. Initially, I thought “Undiscovered” little more than a potboiler about twentysomething love (which it is to a certain degree) until I caught it the second time around and discovered its deeper ‘undiscovered’ values. The cast is first-rate with Pell James and Steven Strait making this love story entirely tolerable because of their sincere, soft-spoken performance. Avis displays the right balance that keeps “Undiscovered” from curdling into syrupy sap.

Slinky model Brier Tucket (Pell James of “Broken Flowers”) is boarding the subway when she runs into two brothers, the younger one Luke Falcon (Steven Strait of “Covenant”) and the older one Euan Falcon (Kip Pardue of “Driven”) and she accidentally snags Luke’s glove as they pass. Immediately, Luke realizes that he has allowed the best thing in his life get away from him. Luke gushes to Euan about her as the prettiest girl that he has ever seen, while Euan complains about his brother losing the gloves that he borrowed from him. Brier ponders if it was destiny that Luke and she met or was it simply random chance. She carries on endless conversations with Carrie (Carrie Fisher of “Star Wars”) on the phone about Luke. Eventually, a couple of years afterward, Brier decides that she would like to take a stab at acting. Out in Los Angeles, Brier meets up with another aspiring actress/singer Clea (Ashlee Simpson) in her acting class who treats Luke like a brother and sometimes accompanies him on a song. Luke barely makes ends meet for a while, working at the local humane shelter and later at a yogurt shop. He enjoys himself the most singing and playing music at nightspots around L.A. and has a trained bulldog that rides a skateboard. Actually, the bulldog is the funniest things about this movie.

The screenplay is all about girl meets guy, girl wants guy, but girl has been screwed over by a previous guy and she cannot handle getting screwed over again. Mind you, Luke is obsessed by Brier. Brier and her rock star boyfriend Mick (Stephen Moyer of HBO’s “True Blood”) conclude their long-distance love affair because he loves to cheat on her. Sadly, Brier is the worst for the wear and tear on the soul that she has been exposed to by the horny British rocker. When she meets Luke, she likes him, but she fears their fling will turn into another bittersweet bust. She need not have worried because Luke really doesn’t want to be a rocker. Luke reminds Brier constantly about his aspirations and informs her at one point that he is a one-gal guy. Mick, however, has made Brier skeptical about men in general. Nevertheless, Luke intrigues her enough so that well-intentioned Clea and she, with Carrie’s help, bolster his career. They turn Luke into him a sudden, overnight sensation that brings out the worst in the music business. Namely, Tantra records honcho Garrett Schweck (Fisher Stevens of “Reversal of Fortune”) signs Luke to a contract. Actually, all the hoopla on the Internet that Clea and Brier generated along with their acting friends posing as music executives fooled the opportunistic Garrett into signing Luke. When Garrett discovers that he has been duped, he drops Luke like a hot potato and cancels his contract.

Girls just want to have it their way is what this movie is about. The message is don’t be a flash-in-the-pan rock star; go into publishing and survive for the long haul. Peter Weller gives “Undiscovered” its final quarter-hour boost in a walk-on part he plays Wick Treadway, as a high-profile record company owner, while Fisher Stevens excels as an unsavory album producer. This movie is light as a soap bubble but glistens with substance. Girls attending an all-night pajama party with their stuffed bears would love this semi-music video, while older individuals may find themselves trying to wipe the tears out of their eyes before anybody else catches them. I bought it at a cheap sale at Movie Gallery and couldn’t believe how endearing—yes—endearing that it was. The last minute dash to LAX by Luke in his brother Euan’s colorful retro-Volkswagen bus is surprisingly suspenseful, even though you know Brier and he will solve their problems and live happily ever after.

Indeed, the atmospheric cinematography of Danny Hiele of “Shades” gives Avis’ movie more depth than you’d imagine. The complications in this kind of chick flick drives guys crazy and that only a teenage girl without a boyfriend would enjoy since it has no grasp on reality. Kuma, Luke's Runyon Canyon Dog, steals every scene that he is in with his real ‘live’ skateboarding antics. Dyed-in-the-wool romantics should stock up on Kleenex.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN''

“O’ Brother, Where Art Thou” co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen have created another classic melodrama with their modern-day western, road trip crime thriller “No Country for Old Men” (**** out of ****) about an inexorable killer and his quest to recover millions in illicit drug money. This art-house saga is a simple but powerful tale that involves four primary characters and a host of supporting characters. The action takes place in 1980. Indeed, if you use the zoom function on either your DVD or Blu-Ray player, you can spot the date on the phone bill. Moreover, if you look closely, you will see that the phone bill is $12.18. Ostensibly, the narrator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, spends most of his time dwelling on the psychology of the characters as well as the changing times. “No Country for Old Men” isn’t your ordinary shoot’em up with cut and dried heroes and villains. The Coens have adapted the Cormac McCarthy novel and retained its pervasive sense of irony. Indeed, the moral universe of “No Country” is skewered because the villain survives, the protagonist dies, and the sheriff is so scared that he quits his job. Hired killer Anton Chigurh embodies the essence of pure evil. Despite the fact that he is a flesh & blood character, Chigurh could send shivers up the Terminator’s spine because he never gives up. Although the Coens may not realize it, Chigurh resembles another inexorable killer, the Lee Van Cleef gunman named ‘Angel Eyes’ in director Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Like ‘Angel Eyes,’ Chigurh always finishes the job no matter what the consequences.

The action opens with a sheriff’s deputy arresting Chigurh (Javier Bardem of “Collateral”) and taking him in hand cuffs back to the jail. The unsuspecting deputy leaves the cuffed Chigurh sitting in a chair behind him while he phones the sheriff and discusses the unusual weapon that Chigurh uses to kill people. At the end of the conversation with the sheriff, the deputy promises his boss that “he has everything under control.” Meanwhile, behind him, Chigurh has slipped his cuffed wrists up under his thighs so that he can hold his hands in front of himself. Immediately, he attacks the deputy and they leave boot heel scuff marks galore on the floor while they struggle. Chigurh kills the deputy, confiscates a police cruiser, takes his peculiar weapon that consists of a slim canister, a hose, and a firing mechanism and pulls over a motorist, kills him with this odd weapon and steals his car. Later, at a Texaco gas station, Chigurh takes umbrage when the attendant asks him about the weather. This is quite a chilling scene as Chigurh stares at the attendant with his opaque eyes and forces him to play a game that involves flipping a coin. The attendant–like many characters–isn’t the brightest bulb in the factory and he can never get Chigurh to spell out the stakes riding on the coin flip.

The ostensible protagonist, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin of “American Gangster”), is hunting deer antelope in the desert and wounds one. Setting out to track down the wounded animal, Llewelyn comes across a scene straight out of Hell, a circle of trucks in the middle of nowhere and a number of bullet-riddled bodies strewn about them with a dead dog. Earlier, Moss saw a wounded pit bull limping away the high weeds. He finds one Mexican still alive but bleeding to death. Eventually, Moss figures out that one Mexican got away and he follows him to a ridge clad with two trees and finds the man dead with a satchel and a shiny automatic pistol. The satchel contains $2-million dollars in cash. When Moss returns home to his trailer, his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald of “Trainspotting”) is watching television. She inquires about the pistol but Moss brushes off all questions and threatens to take her to bed and have sex with her. She snorts derisively and quips, “That’ll be the day.” Later that night, Moss decides to return to the scene of the shooting because his conscience has gotten to him about the sole survivor that he found. Earlier, the dying Mexican had pleaded for a drink of water and Llewelyn brings a jug of cold water. No sooner has he set foot on the scene that some other Mexicans wheel up in a truck, slash his tires, pursue him and take shots at him. Moss dives into a river and the Mexicans dispatch a tenacious pit bull dog that leaps into the river and swims after him. Moss barely gets out of the river and clears his pistol before the dog lunges at him and he guns it down. You don’t often see dogs die in modern-day movies. By this time, Chigurh is on Moss’ trail and he rides out to his trailer park. He uses his cattle gun to blow the door lock off. In fact, this is Chigurh’s favorite method of entering a building; he blows the lock off the front door. However, Moss and his wife have already vacated the premises before Chigurh arrives. Chigurh searches the trailer and finds a telephone bill that contains all the phone numbers and he starts calling the numbers. Such is the weird attention to minute detail that the Coens show us the amount of the bill: $17.16.

Chigurh arrives on the scene with two other men later on, studies the site, shoots them and sets out to find the stolen money. “No Country” depicts his pursuit of Moss. These two guys are pretty obstinate characters. Neither one of them gives up, but Moss has no idea about the lengths to which Chigurh is committed to go. Moss sends Carla Jean off to Odessa, Texas, to be with her mother while he heads off in a different direction. Carla Jean has to quit her job at Walmart before she leaves to join her cancer-stricken mother. At the same time, Sheriff Ed Tom and his deputy investigate the killings and Ed Tom is clearly shaken by what he sees of this killer. In a border town, Moss and Chigurh shoot it out in the street after Chigurh storms the hotel where Moss had holed up and kills the night clerk. He wounds Moss, but Moss wounds him, too. Chigurh stages a car fire in front of a pharmacy to get the medical supplies to tend to his wounds, while Moss walks across the border at night and winds up in a Mexican hospital where he recuperates. Eventually, he makes it back across the border, but Chigurh catches up with him and kills him. Surprisingly, in a random act of violence, Chigurh’s car is struck by another car but he survives the accident. Two kids on bikes roll up and Chigurh buys a shirt from one of them to tie up his dislocated arm and then he vanishes as if he were never there. The film concludes with Tom Ed talking about a dream that he had about his father.

“No Country for Old Men” is a chilling tale of crime in the southwest about a killer who will stop at nothing to complete his mission. Nevertheless, this isn’t a run-of-the-mill action shoot’em up clever dialogue and cool characters. These are flesh and blood people who can and do receive wounds and have to take down time to recover. The scene where Chigurh obtains the medical supplies and then nurses himself in a motel room, swabbing his wounds, plucking out the buckshot pellets and injecting himself with shots is rather gruesome but reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone dressing his wounds in the original Rambo movie "First Blood." Nothing goes as it should in a regular crime melodrama. Good loses in the long run and evil wins out in the end. This movie justifiably received four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Bardem netted the Best Supporting Oscar for his killer.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE GHOUL" (1933-British)

The contribution of “The Ghoul” to cinematic history is that this supernatural saga represents the earliest example of a British sound horror movie. According to the British Film Institute, the British Board of Censors added to the historical status of the film, too, when it gave director T. Hayes Hunter’s film an ‘H’ certificate for being horrific. Although it may have been horrific when it was initially shown, this long-lost hair raiser doesn’t do much to make your scalp crawl even with the presence of iconic horror star Boris Karloff. Director Pat Jackson remade "The Ghoul" in 1961 as a comedy "What A Carve Up" with Donald Pleasence, Shirley Eaton, Kenneth Connor, Dennis Price, and Michael Gough.

“The Ghoul” boasts a decent enough budget, but the story is confined presumably to London and the action takes place largely at night in and around a residence, a tomb, and a street. Clocking in at a modest 77 minutes in length, “The Ghoul” never wears out its welcome, but then it doesn’t have that much to make it welcome. Karloff spends too much time off-screen and his second death comes about far too easily. The film is not without a surprise or two here and there, but you won’t suffer from nightmares after watching this melodrama unless you are extremely squeamish. Indeed, apart from the eponymous character, nobody dies, though a couple of people are left the worst for wear. A woman is nearly strangled and another fellow is knocked down.

This atmospheric black & white British horror chiller concerns an Egyptologist Professor Morlant (Boris Karloff of “Frankenstein”) who is seeking immortality by means of an Egyptian artifact known as the ‘Eternal Light.’ Morlant believes that this amulet will throw open the gates of paradise for him and he will live forever. He wallows restlessly on his death bed while his servant informs a kindly minister, Parson Nigel Hartley (Ralph Richardson in his cinematic debut), that the good professor won’t see the light of dawn. Moreover, he adds that Morlant has pagan beliefs and has no use for a man of the cloth. “He will die in his own fashion as he has lived,” the servant states, “He is stubborn and unbending and will be so at the throne itself.”

Meantime, a stranger from Egypt, Mahmoud (D.A. Clarke-Smith”), lurks about in the shadows of London and awaits the arrival of Egyptian Sheikh Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth) at his apartment house. Dragore dresses like a well-heeled Englishman and loves to drink Absinthe. Mahmoud confronts Dragore and explains that he has come to fetch the ‘Eternal Light’ and return it to his native country. He is an expert knife thrower and warns Dragore to not attempt any funny business. Dragore warns him that the British authorities will catch him if he kills him. Dragore explains that he has sold the amulet to Morlant, but Mahmoud and he can get it back once Morlant is dead. Clearly, Dragore doesn’t share Morlant’s belief in the immortality that the ring possesses for its wearer.

The scene shifts to a mansion where the dying Professor Morlant warns his Scottish man servant, Laing (Ernst Thesiger of “The Old Dark House), about the consequences of being buried without the jewel! If the full moon strikes the door of his tomb and he isn’t wearing the jewel, he will rise and kill him. Before Morlant croaks, Laing carries out Morlant’s wishes but bandaging the professor’s hand with the jeweled ring on his finger. The attending physician pronounces Morlant dead from heart failure and plans go forth for Morlant’s burial. Morlant’s estate account Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke of “King Solomon’s Mines”) checks Morlant’s corpse after they have put him in an elaborate crypt and discovers that the jewel has been removed. As it turns out, Laing has stolen the jewel and concealed it in his shoe. Afterward, he hides it in a coffee jar. Morlant’s relatives show up to demand an account of his finances and things begin to happen.

Viennese cinematographer Gunther Kramph deserves the bulk of the credit with his evocative black & white photography that endows “The Ghoul” with a sinister atmosphere. Art director Alfred Junge shares some of the kudos for creating the film’s sinister, somewhat spooky atmosphere with his selection of sets. Indeed, Morlant dies—in movie time—about a quarter hour into the action, but he doesn’t make his spectacular return from the dead until some 48 minutes later. By then “The Ghoul” has lost much of its momentum, primarily because the evil professor is the most important character.

When you let your protagonist languish off-screen that length of time and dwell on supporting characters running about in a tizzy arguing about the existence of the afterlife and the significance of an amulet, you wind up undercutting the zest of the movie. Director T. Hayes Hunter shoulders the blame for this obvious flaw and his scenarists are just as guilty. However, Hunter stages with funeral scene with some aplomb and his use of Richard Wagner’s music from Siegfried's Funeral March gets it no small amount of gravity.

The logic is the usual flawed logic of any horror movie. Morlant threatens to rise from the dead if he doesn’t have the vaunted ‘Eternal Light’ on his finger, but how on earth can an ordinary human resurrect himself without the ring. Indeed, in this instance, why does he need the ring if he can walk after death? Of course, Morlant has got to walk after he dies, but the logic is pretty creaky. Interestingly, for a movie made in an English speaking country, “The Ghoul” gives some status to a pagan religion by allowing the death to walk.

Unfortunately, the details about the ‘Eternal Light’s’ power are too sketchy. We don’t know enough and the scribes are short on exposition. In the end, Scotland Yard lives up to its reputation because it captures the foreigners and gets the ring. Presumably, the film’s poor showing ruled out any chance of a sequel because Scotland Yard retains the ring.

Boris Karloff wears some sloppy looking make-up and later carves a symbol into his chest that presumably has something to do with the Egyptian afterlife. Unfortunately, Karloff is squandered as he is either floundering around in his death bed or shambling about in the mansion searching for the ring. Mercifully, Hunter keeps a tight rein on the comic relief, principally a girlfriend of one of Morlant’s cousins. Altogether, the creepy atmosphere and first-rate performances help, but “The Ghoul” wouldn’t scare a cat.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RIDE HIM, COWBOY" (1932)

Director Fred Allen’s “Ride Him, Cowboy,” a remake of the 1926 Warner Brothers’ Ken Maynard western “The Unknown,” toplined John Wayne in his first oater for the Burbank company as a harmonica playing hero out to break up a ring of range thieves terrorizing ranches. Essentially, “Ride Him, Cowboy” was a B-movie sagebrusher where the star’s horse was smarter than most of the characters and behaved like a resourceful dog rather than a skittish mount. Aside from a cowboy orchestra strumming a tune, “Ride Him, Cowboy” contains no orchestral soundtrack, but this western boasts better than average production values and looks more expensive than Wayne’s later Lone Star westerns that he made after Jack Warner turned him loose some five westerns later. Indeed, this is John Wayne at age 25 looking skinny and rawboned as an upstanding, romantic lead. Predictable from fade-in to fade-out, “Ride Him, Cowboy” is nothing distinguished, but director-turned-editor Fred Allen makes interesting use of dolly shots and there is an interesting point-of-view shot of the sun boiling down on our hero when he is tied to a tree in the desert. Some of the scenes contain really grainy photography because Warner Brothers took scenes from "The Unknown" and inserted them into the story and then dressed Wayne like Maynard to make the scenes work.

“Ride Him, Cowboy” opens during one dark, rainy evening as the notorious outlaw ‘the Hawk’ (Frank Nagney of “The General”) a.k.a. Henry Sims and his henchmen attack the Gaunt ranch to steal money. A fierce horse storms up and drives the henchmen away. Jim Gaunt (Henry B. Walthall of “Judge Priest”) and his granddaughter Ruth (Ruth Hall of “Monkey Business”) check into the disturbance and find one of their ranch hands, Bob Webb, unconscious and in pretty bad shape. Gaunt is surprised to see Sims on his property. Sims explains he just happened to be riding along when he heard the fracas. Sims argues that the horse tried to kill Webb and ought to be destroyed. Meanwhile, the doctor thinks that Webb will pull through without harm, but the ranch hand remains in a coma for three days.

The next day in the frontier town of Cattlelow in Maricopa County around the year 1900, Judge Bartlett (Charles Sellon of “Baby Face”) convenes court to decide whether to destroy Duke or let the horse live. Sims offers compelling testimony against the horse and Duke rears up at Sims. Ruth rushes to Duke’s defense and pleads with the judge not to destroy a horse as gentle as he is. About that time, wandering cowpoke John Drury, late of the Tumblin’ Ace Ranch in Texas, rides into Cattlelow on his horse ‘Buddy’ playing a harmonica without a care in the world. When Drury leans about the impending demise of Duke, he intervenes and persuades Judge Bartlett to let Duke live if he can ride the ornery horse. Sims makes a one-hundred dollar wager with Gaunt that Drury cannot stay aboard Duke and loses. Ruth and Gaunt are overjoyed that Drury saves Duke and a bystander observes that Drury would be a great addition to the vigilantes in their fight against the Hawk. Gaunt invites Drury to their meeting after our hero says that he loves excitement and gives Ruth a loving eye.

At the vigilante meeting, Drury suggests that the best way to handle the Hawk is for one man to tackle the villain. Drury learns that nobody knows what the Hawk looks like, except the man has ridden roughshod over the county for years now. John Gaunt persuades Sims to escort Drury into the Hawk’s bailiwick. One of the best dolly shots in “Ride Him, Cowboy” occurs during this scene when Allen dollies out from a close-up of Sims to show the entire with several western characters seated around a table. The deputy, Clout (Henry Gribbon of “Yankee Doodle in Berlin”), provides top-notch comic relief as a clowning blow-hard coward. Later that evening at the Gaunt ranch, John and Ruth get to know each other and Ruth insists that John take Duke when he leaves to track down the Hawk. At the same time, Duke trots up and strips the saddle off Drury’s horse Buddy. Drury rides off on Duke and meets Sims the following day at Eagle Pass. They ride into the desert and take a breather where Drury explains that his revolver is a 38 caliber gun in a .45 caliber frame dampen the recoil. They compare their ability to make difficult shots look easy and Sims tries out Drury’s six-gun and gets the drop on our hero. He ties Drury to a tree while Duke restlessly pulls at his own reins after Drury has knotted them to nearby tree.

The Hawk gathers his men, attacks a ranch, and kills the son of the owner and wife. He burns down the buildings and frames Drury for the crime by leaving Drury’s harmonica at the scene. Sims informs Ruth that Drury left him without a word in the night and hasn’t been seen since he rode off. The vigilantes and the sheriff catch up to Drury. The only reason that Drury didn’t die from exposure of the sun is that Duke pulled himself loose from the tree and untied Drury’s bonds with his teeth. The authorities take Drury to a nearby abandoned town where Judge E. Clarence 'Necktie' Jones (Otis Harlan of “Dr. Socrates”) convenes a hearing and pretty much railroads Drury into a noose based on Sims’ testimony. Meanwhile, Webb recovers from his coma and informs Ruth that it was Sims as the Hawk who attacked their ranch. Ruth mounts up and rides like the devil to save Drury’s life. Along the way, she runs into the Hawk’s henchmen and fools them into following her to ‘Necktie’ Jones’ courtroom. Ruth arrives in the nick of time to save Drury from an inevitable hanging. A gunfight erupts but the authorities capture the Hawk before either his men or he can escape.

Clocking in at a lean, mean 55 minutes, “Ride Him, Cowboy” moves at a brisk pace and this western adventure never bogs down. Producer Leon Schlesinger is the same individual who supervised the Warner Brothers’ cartoons with Bugs Bunny and company.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BRUNO'' (2009)

Some comedians will do anything for a laugh. Sasha Baron Cohen has already proven his penchant for getting laughs in his previous improvisational mockumentary farce “Borat.” “Borat” (2006) consisted largely of gross-out jokes aimed at exposing racism and religious hypocrisy done guerrilla “Candid Camera” style on clueless, unsuspecting rubes. Cohen repeats the “Borat” formula in “Bruno.” If you thought “Borat” constituted the nadir of bad taste, nothing in “Borat,” including the nude wrestling match between two guys, can compete with the smutty jokes, outrageous sight gags, and flagrant display of genitals in “Bruno.” Indeed, “Bruno” (* out of ****) attacks homophobic rednecks, parochially minded prudes, and nincompoops desperately seeking their 15 minutes of fame in the ubiquitously mediated society. Anybody who doesn’t like to laugh at jokes that are liable to offend them shouldn’t see “Bruno.” Watching “Bruno” is the equivalent of having your friends make a YouTube video of you sticking your finger down your throat to see how far down you can get it before your hurl. Another way to describe “Bruno” would be to think of the last really awful traffic accident that you went out of your way to stare at because everybody else was gawking at it.

Calling Bruno (Cambridge native Sasha Baron Cohen of HBO’s “Da Ali G Show”) conspicuously gay qualifies as a hopeless understatement. Bruno cavorts about in clownishly obvious costumes that leave little to the imagination and takes his gay masquerade to incendiary levels of idiocy. Added to that he utters every word in a falsetto voice that nobody in their right mind would attempt without feeling self-conscious. The thought that Cohen could be taking swipes at Gay Liberation isn’t that difficult to fathom considering the subject matter of “Bruno.” Indeed, Bruno could have stepped off a spaceship from another galaxy with his uber-queer performance that alienates everybody except the most feeble-minded. While Cohen’s cretinous Kazakhstani journalist in “Borat” amounted to a somewhat sympathetic character, nothing about Bruno is remotely sympathetic. At the outset, Bruno stars in a European television program entitled "Funkyzeit." He has to leave his native Austria after he disgraces himself at a fashion show in Milan when he shows up dressed in an all-Velcro outfit. Predictably, every place Bruno turns, he attaches himself to curtains, backdrops, and models and then stumbles out onto the stage in front of the crowd. Afterward, Bruno decides to fly to Los Angeles and to become "the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler."

Bruno takes a stab at producing a reality show called “A-List Celebrity Max-Out mit Brüno” where he interviews luminaries. He invites Paula Abdul to a posh house where Mexicans on their knees and elbows to act as furniture. Abdul looks around suspiciously at the live-action furniture, and she isn’t quite sure what to make it. Bruno invites her to have bite to eat and Abdul decides to exit when Bruno tries to serve her sushi from the body of a naked Mexican. Later, Bruno tries to ambush Harrison Ford for an interview. Yes, the guy actually looks just like Harrison Ford. Ford doesn’t take long to let Bruno know where to get off. Afterward, Bruno’s agent arranges for a focus group to evaluate his show. During the presentation, Bruno twirls his genitals like a cheerleader and the expressions that he elicits from the focus group are horrifying. Predictably, Bruno cannot imagine why they are so repulsed by his program. Later, cornering the recent libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul in a bedroom, Bruno begins to disrobe. The witless Paul realizes his error and exits in a heartbeat. Eventually, Bruno decides that the only way that he can scale the summits of superstardom is to straighten himself out. He visits a minister in Alabama who tries to help Bruno renounce his homosexuality. Along the way, Bruno visits a karate studio where he learns methods of defending himself from gays who might be stalking him. The karate instructor is either the greatest actor in the world or he was in on the joke because he looks genuinely convinced that Bruno is deathly afraid of homosexuals. Finally, at a cage fight in Arkansas, Bruno masquerades as a heterosexual fight promoter inciting brain-dead rednecks for forthcoming fights until he shocks them with a gay love making scene that devastated the entire crowd.

Director Larry Charles, who knows a thing or two about embarrassing people in public, helmed Cohen’s earlier film “Borat” as well as Bill Mahler’s “Religulous.” The biggest problem with “Bruno” is that you know some of the scenes had to have been staged with the participants in on the joke. Indeed, in this respect, because it is so obscene, “Bruno” must have been worked out ahead of time. The most clueless of the clueless is Bruno who never realizes how out-of-place that he is around ordinary, everyday people. Reportedly, Universal Studios deleted a scene with La Toya Jackson where Bruno tried to obtain Michael Jackson’s phone number. Nobody can say that Sasha Baron Cohen lacks nerve, because it takes a lot of nerve for him to serve up some of the sights that appear in this 82-minute mishmash. The karate scene is the best that “Bruno” has to offer. The scenes with the religious figures are far too cruel. Mind you, a lot of what transpires in “Bruno” is deliberately mean-spirited. Not even stupid people deserve the treatment that Cohen gives them. Believe me, nothing you’ve ever seen will prepare you for the sights in the R-rated “Bruno.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''FACE/OFF" (1997)

No, surgeons cannot carve your face off and graft it onto somebody else like they do to John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in “Face/Off,” a provocative, high-voltage crime thriller. Surgeons may eventually perfect this operation, but for now it is impossible. Just because real surgeons cannot cut off faces and slap them onto other people, however, need not deter their ersatz Hollywood counterparts. Face swapping makes for an audacious movie premise, especially when it plays a key part in the razzle-dazzle, bullet-riddled duel of champions from celebrated Hong Kong action helmer John Woo. If you’ve seen the Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller “Hard Target” or the previous Travolta epic “Broken Arrow,” you’ve been Woo-ed. If you’ve never rented Woo’s super-charged video classics, such as “The Killer,” “A Better Tomorrow,” and “Hard Boiled,” you’ve missed some of the coolest thrillers since “Miami Vice” left the airwaves.

Nicolas Cage is cast as the insanely evil terrorist Castor Troy. Troy shoots Federal Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta of “Broken Arrow”), but his bullet passes through Archer and kills Archer’s young son Michael. Archer has made it his crusade to capture Castor Troy. Six year later, Archer catches up with him. Castor has just planted a bomb with a plague that’s “a tad worse than Gulf War Syndrome.” Before Castor can fly away, a task force of choppers, cars, and SWAT sharpshooters converge on the airport. This scene evokes memories of the Bond movie “License to Kill.” Like the Bond villain, Castor finds his jet stopped and the Feds swarming over it. He manages to kill a few before he is trapped in the deadly draft of a wind tunnel.

Everybody cheers Sean Archer. Castor lies in a coma, while his brother Pollux Troy (Alessandro Nivola in an effective performance) rots in prison. When the Feds inspect Troy’s plane, they discover a computer disc and learn about a dedly bomb. Just when Archer thought it was safe to cross the street, BOOM! An initial dragnet of Castor’s accomplices yields a date, but Pollus refuses to talk. At least to anyone other than his brother Castor. That’s when a black bag, super-secret operation is mounted. Hollis Miller (CCH Pounders of “RoboCop 3”) persuades Archer to swap mugs with Troy. With the specter of a devastating plague in L.A., Archer consent to their harebrained scheme.

The ingenious Mike Werb and Michael Colleary screenplay piles on absurdities galore with the same reckless abandon that some fast food restaurants heap on the lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. “Face/Off” (***1/2 out of ****) spins itself off of the well worn plot when the good guy has to go so deep undercover that the only people who can help him are the first ones who the villains slay. If you’ve seen Burt Reynolds in Joseph Sargent’s “White Lightning” (1973), or Paul Newman in John Huston’s “The MacKintosh Man” (1973), or Johnny Depp in the recent Al Pacino caper “Donnie Brasco,” you know the plot basics. “Face/Off” is an unbelievable thriller that dresses itself up with realism. Even if half of the stuff in “Face/Off” couldn’t happen, director John Woo stages it so that it looks not only pictorially possible but visually splendid. The idea that John Travolta and Nicolas Cage can swap bodies is hokum of a clever but far-fetched nature. So the moviemakers rely on the indulgence of the audience. Of course, Travolta cannot become anything like Cage. But it’s fun to see how their characters change in this out-of-body experience. And the moviemakers go a step further when they include a surgical scene that is an homage to those old Hammer horror movies when Dr. Frankenstein dunked everything in a fish tank!

If you like movies where the heroes spend a lot of time trading shots with each other, “Face/Off” should be the right caliber for you. The arsenal of weapons is impressive; especially Castor Troy’s matched brace of gold-plated automatic pistols. Werb and Colleary chart the vendetta between Archer and Troy in a series of deliriously poetic shoot-outs that resemble a Sergio Leone extravaganza. You see bullets after they have been discharged leaving the barrel. Whenever it looks like it’s going to run out of plot, “Face/Off” loosens a burst or two of ammo in a gunfight. You get to see a lot of reloading close-ups. Every time a bullet hits anything, whatever it struck erupts into a fountain of shards. And then you have the cameras gliding through all of this mayhem with stunt people jerking and tumbling, shell casings flying, and guys dodging bullets. Woo surprisingly keeps blood and gore to a minimum.

The heroes and villains in “Face/Off” want to destroy each other. Archer is the straight-arrow hero and Troy is the villain. It’s a classic example of the struggle between good and evil. As villains go, Troy is mean to the marrow. He drips evil in a slinky, malignant way. He revels in violence for fun and profit. “Face/Off” tampers little with this image, except where Troy shows concern for his younger brother Pollux by constantly tying his shoes. When Castor gets his comeuppance, you want to cheer because he grows increasingly slimy as the plot thickens.

John Travolta alternates between jaw clenched expressions of rage and soul searching displays of agony. He allows his commitment to the law drive him beyond it. His heroism is tainted by grief for his dead son and his desire to kill Castor. This is one of Travolta’s more toxic performances, especially when he absorbs Castor’s personality.

The undersea prison in “Face/Off” is straight out of a sci-fi movie and another subtle hint about what director John Woo faced if he had remained in Hong Kong. In this prison, which is constructed of steel, the convicts wear steel boots. When a riot breaks out, the guards magnetize the convicts’ boots and zap them with cattle prods. The symbolism of “Face/Off” is fundamental. Woo shows us that there is a little good and evil in us all. When Travolta’s Archer agonizes about the plastic surgery, he says he’s being forced to break the laws that he has been sworn to uphold. He changes more than his face literally to crush evil. He proves this when he uses Castor’s henchmen against his own FBI agents who surround Castor. The filmmakers have a field day with the face symbolism here. The Archers’ use—both husband Sean and his wife—of a hand swipe over their respective faces to restore cheer to themselves in a pre-duel showdown is an example. Castor and Archer in different bodies aim their guns at each other with only a mirror standing between them. The subtle irony that they are going to shoot the evil in the mirror that each reflects but that their bullets may kill the real source of evil on the other side is pretty heavyweight stuff for a summer Hollywood blockbuster.

The worst thing you can say about “Face/Off” is that it never knows when the break it off. There are about five ballet-like staged shoot-outs between Travolta and Cage. Each gunfight resembles pyrotechnical pistolero polkas complete with fireball explosions. Everybody sprays hail storms of lead and everything get the confetti shot out of it. As the reigning maestro of movie violence, Woo has few equals. “Face/Off” emerges as an acrobatic ode to male violence. There is a frantic boat chase with a subsequent fireball explosion, and a prison riot and their portrayal are so fanciful that you forget that you’re watching a crime thriller.

For those who demand happy endings, “Face/Off” features a happy ending. The film also contains some socially approved messages which right-wing critics will no doubt overlook. Characters in “Face/Off” who smoke cigarettes are warned that tobacco products will kill them. A little boy is reprimanded for playing with a gun. Finally, “Face/Off” bristles with that signature John Woo image that seems to be plastered over every movie rental video box: a Mexican stand-off where two guys point guns at each other. If you don’t think that John Woo’s actioneers haven’t influenced Hollywood, you should now!