You would think after making the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy—surely the most gargantuan undertaking in Hollywood history—that Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson could be relied upon to produce a superior remake of the legendary, 101-minute classic adventure movie "King Kong" (1933) than director John Guillerman's 135 minute, modern-day "King Kong" (1976) remake. Sadly, what should have happened does not! "King Kong" (no stars out of ****) the third time around amounts to the biggest pile of monkey shines since the hilariously outrageous Kong parody "The Mighty Gorga" (1969) with Anthony Eisley. Although Universal Studios will undoubtedly recoup their bucks from this blatantly bad banana peel of a movie, they will have to keep their public relations people scurrying like baboons 24/7 to ensure that this time-consuming 3-hour & 7-minute, $300 million slip-up turns a profit. Indeed, Jackson retains the Depression-Era setting of the original, but he wastes at least 90 minutes on stuff that could have been cut without harming the dramatic impact. Worse, the remake does not fix lapses in credibility that the original "King Kong" got away with because audiences in the 1930s were not as savvy as today's moviegoers. Transporting King Kong from Skull Island back to New York was the chief problem that the movie ignored. In the modern-day "King Kong," the oil company locked the giant ape up inside a supertanker and shipped him back to New York. Essentially, the story remains the same: a band of adventurers take a tramp steamer to an uncharted island. They discover primitive islanders who sacrifice virgins to a humongous 25 foot ape. When the islanders catch a glimpse of the nubile white maiden among the while men, they kidnap her, offer her as a sacrifice to King Kong, and our heroes plunge into the interior to rescue her.
Basically, Peter Jackson's "King Kong" collapses under the weight of too many characters, too much plot, and second-rate special effects. Not only do the actors clearly appear green-screened into scenes featuring stampeding dinosaurs and elaborate miniature sets (the integration of live actors with artificial footage is far from seamless), but also the special effects background shots resemble those cheap, paint-by-the-numbers, watercolor kits. While Guillerman's "King Kong" (that starred Jeff Bridges and launched Jessica Lange to stardom) took a critical drubbing, it stands head and shoulders above Jackson's ape-solutely awful rehash. Even the campy Japanese movies: "King Kong Vs. Godzilla" (1963) and "King Kong Escapes" (1967) are more entertaining. Surprisingly, despite several scenes of intense violence, the Motion Picture Association of America gave the new "King Kong" a family friendly PG-13 rating. Mind you, adolescent boys have always loved dinosaurs duking it out. Nevertheless, one scene teems with antennae-twitching, creepy-crawlers that would send anybody off on a super bug-spray shopping spree. The most reviling scene in this mind-numbing marathon of mediocrity occurs when enormous earthworms attack a sailor. These long slimy, egg-roll brown mutants sprout large bubble-gum pink heads wreathed with razor-sharp white fangs. In a graphic long shot, one icky earthworm attaches itself to the head of a man and sucks him up inside its mouth. Nothing like this happened in either the original "King Kong" or the 1976 modern-day remake and its 1986 sequel "King Kong Lives."
Jackson and co-scenarists Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy violate the first rule of remakes: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. First, they convert action hero Jack Driscoll (Oscar-winner Adrien Brody of "The Pianist") into a Federal Theater playwright. Second, they add a surplus of new unnecessary characters. One pointless subplot involves an adult African-American ship's lieutenant and a young white sailor. The new "Kong" also adds matinée-idol movie star Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler of "Mulholland Falls") and turns the Skull Island natives into scary "Lord of the Rings" type cannibals. These bloodthirsty primitives are especially disgusting with their mutilated faces and milky-white eyes. Third, Skull Island itself looks like something from a surreal comic book with giant rocks shaped like gorilla heads while thousands of skeletons litter the landscape like something out of the 1984 movie "The Killing Fields" that depicted the carnage in Cambodia under Pol Pot's murderous regime. Jackson shoots all this in a semi-documentary style to sicken us. The phony-looking mammoth wall that separates the village from the island interior here looks like a poor poultry-wire model. "Ring" horror movie beauty Naomi Watts takes over the role of Ann Darrow created by Fay Wray in the original. Watts has a different kind of relationship with Kong. She cannot figure out whether she fears Kong or pities him. In two scenes, she performs vaudeville routines, juggling rocks and turning cartwheels, to amuse the big ape. Not even the fabulous Empire State Building finale can salvage this overripe remake. Despite its primitive movie-making effects, the original "King Kong" proved a magical experience for bewitched Depression-Era audiences that had never seen anything like it. The long-winded, unwieldy, new remake focuses more on mayhem than magic. The dinosaurs pale by comparison with those in the "Jurassic Park" trilogy. Altogether, you'll have more fun watching the black & white 1933 original or the Technicolor 1976 remake than Jackson's bloated, over-hyped hokum.
This comment refers to the theatrical release.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
FILM REVIEW OF ''LAST OF THE BAD MEN" (1957)
This half-baked horse opera about a gang of murderous villains that spring wanted men from hoosegows and then use them as front men when they commit crimes short-changes a clever premise and a solid cast of western veterans. The first fellow that they liberate from a frontier lock-up turns out to be a Chandler Detective Agency operative posing as a notorious outlaw. Such is their obsession with maintaining secrecy about their identities that these dastards display no qualms about killing either the jailers or anybody for that matter who may later recognize them. When this well-organized gang of thieves and killers stage their robberies, they wear bandannas over their faces, but they force their front men to appear barefaced, so the bounty on their heads escalates with each offense. When the bounty reaches an arbitrary dollar figure, the treacherous villains gun him down and collect the reward. Not only does the Chicago-based Chandler Detective Agency want to avenge the murder of one of their own agents, but they also plan to learn the identity of the criminal mastermind who keeps his identity a closely guarded secret from most of his accomplices.
Squared-jawed George Montgomery of "The Riders of the Purple Sage" is appropriately clean-shaven and virile as intrepid hero Dan Barton who risks life and limb to infiltrate and smash the gang as well as smoke out the criminal genius behind their wickedness. When Allied Artists released "Last of the Bad Men" in 1957, many urban crime thrillers of the late 1940s and the 1950s had relied on the gimmick of a voice-over narrator to enhance the authenticity of the action by supplying audiences with many facts that the filmmakers had previously depicted on screen. The elaborately detailed and wholly superfluous narrator in "Last of the Bad Men" sounds like a sports commentator. Virtually everything that he comments about is self-explanatory. Essentially, "Last of the Bad Men" has a "Dragnet" quality with its overabundance of facts. Unfortunately, while the narrator may bolster the so-called realism, he becomes extremely annoying at the same time. "MST3K" could have had a field day with this standard-issue oater.
Scenarists David T. Chantler and David B. Ullman penned the formulaic screenplay and it gets off to a decent enough start, but the plot unravels in the third act after the gang has broken out yet another jailbird, Kramer (Michael Ansara), a genuine owl-hoot unlike either Barton or his unfortunate predecessor. Chantler and Ullman were writing partners who specialized in television, but they collaborated on "Face of a Fugitive" (1959) a Frank MacMurray western. Principally, things go awry when the suspicious desperados try to flush out our hero after they have captured another Chandler Detective Agency operative, Roberts (Keith Larsen of "War Paint"), who had been keeping tabs on our cool-headed protagonist while the villains are holed up between jobs on a ranch behaving as if they were law-abiding cowboys. Once the wily outlaw gang takes Barton as their quasi-prisoner, they keep him on a short leash. He isn't allowed to retain his revolver after a crime. Meaning, he cannot go anywhere without arousing their suspicions. Barton tries to contact a fellow Chandler Detective one evening and is nearly caught. Meanwhile, he sets about cultivating a friendship with another gang member who the others have come to regard as their weakest link. James Best of "The Dukes of Hazzard" stands out as a hapless cowboy-gone-bad by poor economic conditions that prompted him to turn to rustling cattle. Why the bad guys recruited him as a member of their elite gang is never sufficiently explained, just another of the flaws in the Chantler & Ullman screenplay. Meanwhile, director Paul Landres tries to generate suspense as the price on Barton's head rises while the gang frees yet another felon from jail. Indeed, as Barton's fate hangs in the balance, the Chandler Detective Agency grows even more alarmed. Nevertheless, we know there isn't chance Barton will bite the dust. Eventually, the bad guys discover Roberts is a Chandler Detective, and they offer Barton a chance to prove that he isn't a detective himself if he will gun down Roberts in cold blood. Suffice to say Barton wiggles out of this corner far too easily. A variety of veteran western character actors flesh out of the cast, among them Douglas Kennedy, John Doucette, Robert Foulk, Willis Bouchey, and Michael Ansara, later of TV's "The Westerners." Decked out in a pink dance-hall dress, Meg Randall is the only female in sight, and she is strictly a supporting cast member.Squared-jawed George Montgomery of "The Riders of the Purple Sage" is appropriately clean-shaven and virile as intrepid hero Dan Barton who risks life and limb to infiltrate and smash the gang as well as smoke out the criminal genius behind their wickedness. When Allied Artists released "Last of the Bad Men" in 1957, many urban crime thrillers of the late 1940s and the 1950s had relied on the gimmick of a voice-over narrator to enhance the authenticity of the action by supplying audiences with many facts that the filmmakers had previously depicted on screen. The elaborately detailed and wholly superfluous narrator in "Last of the Bad Men" sounds like a sports commentator. Virtually everything that he comments about is self-explanatory. Essentially, "Last of the Bad Men" has a "Dragnet" quality with its overabundance of facts. Unfortunately, while the narrator may bolster the so-called realism, he becomes extremely annoying at the same time. "MST3K" could have had a field day with this standard-issue oater.
Scenarists David T. Chantler and David B. Ullman penned the formulaic screenplay and it gets off to a decent enough start, but the plot unravels in the third act after the gang has broken out yet another jailbird, Kramer (Michael Ansara), a genuine owl-hoot unlike either Barton or his unfortunate predecessor. Chantler and Ullman were writing partners who specialized in television, but they collaborated on "Face of a Fugitive" (1959) a Frank MacMurray western. Principally, things go awry when the suspicious desperados try to flush out our hero after they have captured another Chandler Detective Agency operative, Roberts (Keith Larsen of "War Paint"), who had been keeping tabs on our cool-headed protagonist while the villains are holed up between jobs on a ranch behaving as if they were law-abiding cowboys. Once the wily outlaw gang takes Barton as their quasi-prisoner, they keep him on a short leash. He isn't allowed to retain his revolver after a crime. Meaning, he cannot go anywhere without arousing their suspicions. Barton tries to contact a fellow Chandler Detective one evening and is nearly caught. Meanwhile, he sets about cultivating a friendship with another gang member who the others have come to regard as their weakest link. James Best of "The Dukes of Hazzard" stands out as a hapless cowboy-gone-bad by poor economic conditions that prompted him to turn to rustling cattle. Why the bad guys recruited him as a member of their elite gang is never sufficiently explained, just another of the flaws in the Chantler & Ullman screenplay. Meanwhile, director Paul Landres tries to generate suspense as the price on Barton's head rises while the gang frees yet another felon from jail. Indeed, as Barton's fate hangs in the balance, the Chandler Detective Agency grows even more alarmed. Nevertheless, we know there isn't chance Barton will bite the dust. Eventually, the bad guys discover Roberts is a Chandler Detective, and they offer Barton a chance to prove that he isn't a detective himself if he will gun down Roberts in cold blood. Suffice to say Barton wiggles out of this corner far too easily. A variety of veteran western character actors flesh out of the cast, among them Douglas Kennedy, John Doucette, Robert Foulk, Willis Bouchey, and Michael Ansara, later of TV's "The Westerners." Decked out in a pink dance-hall dress, Meg Randall is the only female in sight, and she is strictly a supporting cast member.
Veteran TV director Paul Landres keeps the action moving along swiftly enough (it's only 79 minutes) with the inevitable western town shoot-out at the end that reveals the identity of the chief villain. If the earlier scene where Barton got out of a tough spot weren't mediocre, the ending where the bad guy gets revealed is unintentionally awful. Anybody in their right mind would have cleared out of town long before he got caught in a lie by his fellow townspeople. At least, Chantler and Ullman plant a minor red herring, but savvy moviegoers will spot the dead giveaway moment long before the chief villain receives his comeuppance. "Last of the Bad Men" is at best fair as westerns go, but inferior as a mystery. Ellsworth Fredericks' Deluxe Color, widescreen Cinemascope photography makes this drab dustraiser look better than it really should have. Fredericks' credits include the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Seven Days in May."
Squared-jawed George Montgomery of "The Riders of the Purple Sage" is appropriately clean-shaven and virile as intrepid hero Dan Barton who risks life and limb to infiltrate and smash the gang as well as smoke out the criminal genius behind their wickedness. When Allied Artists released "Last of the Bad Men" in 1957, many urban crime thrillers of the late 1940s and the 1950s had relied on the gimmick of a voice-over narrator to enhance the authenticity of the action by supplying audiences with many facts that the filmmakers had previously depicted on screen. The elaborately detailed and wholly superfluous narrator in "Last of the Bad Men" sounds like a sports commentator. Virtually everything that he comments about is self-explanatory. Essentially, "Last of the Bad Men" has a "Dragnet" quality with its overabundance of facts. Unfortunately, while the narrator may bolster the so-called realism, he becomes extremely annoying at the same time. "MST3K" could have had a field day with this standard-issue oater.
Scenarists David T. Chantler and David B. Ullman penned the formulaic screenplay and it gets off to a decent enough start, but the plot unravels in the third act after the gang has broken out yet another jailbird, Kramer (Michael Ansara), a genuine owl-hoot unlike either Barton or his unfortunate predecessor. Chantler and Ullman were writing partners who specialized in television, but they collaborated on "Face of a Fugitive" (1959) a Frank MacMurray western. Principally, things go awry when the suspicious desperados try to flush out our hero after they have captured another Chandler Detective Agency operative, Roberts (Keith Larsen of "War Paint"), who had been keeping tabs on our cool-headed protagonist while the villains are holed up between jobs on a ranch behaving as if they were law-abiding cowboys. Once the wily outlaw gang takes Barton as their quasi-prisoner, they keep him on a short leash. He isn't allowed to retain his revolver after a crime. Meaning, he cannot go anywhere without arousing their suspicions. Barton tries to contact a fellow Chandler Detective one evening and is nearly caught. Meanwhile, he sets about cultivating a friendship with another gang member who the others have come to regard as their weakest link. James Best of "The Dukes of Hazzard" stands out as a hapless cowboy-gone-bad by poor economic conditions that prompted him to turn to rustling cattle. Why the bad guys recruited him as a member of their elite gang is never sufficiently explained, just another of the flaws in the Chantler & Ullman screenplay. Meanwhile, director Paul Landres tries to generate suspense as the price on Barton's head rises while the gang frees yet another felon from jail. Indeed, as Barton's fate hangs in the balance, the Chandler Detective Agency grows even more alarmed. Nevertheless, we know there isn't chance Barton will bite the dust. Eventually, the bad guys discover Roberts is a Chandler Detective, and they offer Barton a chance to prove that he isn't a detective himself if he will gun down Roberts in cold blood. Suffice to say Barton wiggles out of this corner far too easily. A variety of veteran western character actors flesh out of the cast, among them Douglas Kennedy, John Doucette, Robert Foulk, Willis Bouchey, and Michael Ansara, later of TV's "The Westerners." Decked out in a pink dance-hall dress, Meg Randall is the only female in sight, and she is strictly a supporting cast member.Squared-jawed George Montgomery of "The Riders of the Purple Sage" is appropriately clean-shaven and virile as intrepid hero Dan Barton who risks life and limb to infiltrate and smash the gang as well as smoke out the criminal genius behind their wickedness. When Allied Artists released "Last of the Bad Men" in 1957, many urban crime thrillers of the late 1940s and the 1950s had relied on the gimmick of a voice-over narrator to enhance the authenticity of the action by supplying audiences with many facts that the filmmakers had previously depicted on screen. The elaborately detailed and wholly superfluous narrator in "Last of the Bad Men" sounds like a sports commentator. Virtually everything that he comments about is self-explanatory. Essentially, "Last of the Bad Men" has a "Dragnet" quality with its overabundance of facts. Unfortunately, while the narrator may bolster the so-called realism, he becomes extremely annoying at the same time. "MST3K" could have had a field day with this standard-issue oater.
Scenarists David T. Chantler and David B. Ullman penned the formulaic screenplay and it gets off to a decent enough start, but the plot unravels in the third act after the gang has broken out yet another jailbird, Kramer (Michael Ansara), a genuine owl-hoot unlike either Barton or his unfortunate predecessor. Chantler and Ullman were writing partners who specialized in television, but they collaborated on "Face of a Fugitive" (1959) a Frank MacMurray western. Principally, things go awry when the suspicious desperados try to flush out our hero after they have captured another Chandler Detective Agency operative, Roberts (Keith Larsen of "War Paint"), who had been keeping tabs on our cool-headed protagonist while the villains are holed up between jobs on a ranch behaving as if they were law-abiding cowboys. Once the wily outlaw gang takes Barton as their quasi-prisoner, they keep him on a short leash. He isn't allowed to retain his revolver after a crime. Meaning, he cannot go anywhere without arousing their suspicions. Barton tries to contact a fellow Chandler Detective one evening and is nearly caught. Meanwhile, he sets about cultivating a friendship with another gang member who the others have come to regard as their weakest link. James Best of "The Dukes of Hazzard" stands out as a hapless cowboy-gone-bad by poor economic conditions that prompted him to turn to rustling cattle. Why the bad guys recruited him as a member of their elite gang is never sufficiently explained, just another of the flaws in the Chantler & Ullman screenplay. Meanwhile, director Paul Landres tries to generate suspense as the price on Barton's head rises while the gang frees yet another felon from jail. Indeed, as Barton's fate hangs in the balance, the Chandler Detective Agency grows even more alarmed. Nevertheless, we know there isn't chance Barton will bite the dust. Eventually, the bad guys discover Roberts is a Chandler Detective, and they offer Barton a chance to prove that he isn't a detective himself if he will gun down Roberts in cold blood. Suffice to say Barton wiggles out of this corner far too easily. A variety of veteran western character actors flesh out of the cast, among them Douglas Kennedy, John Doucette, Robert Foulk, Willis Bouchey, and Michael Ansara, later of TV's "The Westerners." Decked out in a pink dance-hall dress, Meg Randall is the only female in sight, and she is strictly a supporting cast member.
Veteran TV director Paul Landres keeps the action moving along swiftly enough (it's only 79 minutes) with the inevitable western town shoot-out at the end that reveals the identity of the chief villain. If the earlier scene where Barton got out of a tough spot weren't mediocre, the ending where the bad guy gets revealed is unintentionally awful. Anybody in their right mind would have cleared out of town long before he got caught in a lie by his fellow townspeople. At least, Chantler and Ullman plant a minor red herring, but savvy moviegoers will spot the dead giveaway moment long before the chief villain receives his comeuppance. "Last of the Bad Men" is at best fair as westerns go, but inferior as a mystery. Ellsworth Fredericks' Deluxe Color, widescreen Cinemascope photography makes this drab dustraiser look better than it really should have. Fredericks' credits include the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Seven Days in May."
FILM REVIEW OF ''LAST OF THE COMANCHES'' (1953)
Director Andre De Toth's cavalry versus the Indians western "Last of the Comanches" (*** out of ****) with Broderick Crawford and Lloyd Bridges qualifies as a first-rate remake of the classic World War II propaganda war film "Sahara" (1943) that starred Humphrey Bogart and Lloyd Bridges. Calling "Last of the Comanches" a carbon copy of "Sahara" stretches the resemblance between the films almost to the breaking point. There is nobody in "Comanches" that looks like the Italian soldier and the German soldier that ride on the tank with Bogart and company. Further, "Comanches" is more realistic in terms of what happens. Everybody in this western could have been there, but there is some question that an American tank and its crew played the role that they did in what was essentially a British theatre of operation. For example, Columbia—the same studio that produced "Comanches"—never explained how the crew of the U.S. Army tank 'Lulu Belle' landed in North Africa six months before the U.S. actually landed in Morocco. In fact, scenarist Kenneth Gamet of "The Stranger Wore A Gun" goes to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the date—1876—in the opening credit narration where tough Sgt. Crawford compares their holding exploits against the Indians with Custer's Last Stand that occurred in 1876. The other major difference is that no African-Americans appear in "Comanches" while there was one in "Sahara." However, "Comanches" sticks to the same basic plot—a survival saga set in inhospitable surroundings with a numerically superior enemy force waiting to massacre the good guys.
"Last of the Comanches" opens with Sergeant Matt Trainor (Broderick Crawford of "Born Yesterday") and five other cavalry troopers who survive a massive Comanche attack led by the infamous Chief Black Cloud (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") on the isolated frontier town of Dry Buttes. No sooner has the action unfolded than our heroes find themselves in peril. There is a really nice looking matte painting of Dry Buttes in ruins after the savages stampeded a horse herd through the town, incinerated everything in sight, and left most everybody for dead. Low on water, Sgt. Turner rallies his soldiers—among them "Sea Hunt's" Lloyd Bridges and "Adam-12's" Martin Milner--by reminding them that they are still soldiers and the maintenance of military discipline is the only thing that will ensure their survival. They set out on a 100 mile journey to the closest settlement, Fort Macklin, through craggy terrain thriving with redskins and low on water.
Along the way, they encounter a stagecoach—nicknamed 'Buttercup'—with a lone female, Julie Lanning (Barbara Hale of TV's "Perry Mason"), whiskey drummer Henry Ruppert (Chubby Johnson of "Gunfire at Indian Gap"), former cavalry scout Satterlee the Prophet (Milton Parsons of "That Hagen Girl") and stagecoach driver O'Rattigan (George Matthews of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") and catch a ride on it. Later, they discover a suspicious white man in the desert Denver Kinnaird (Hugh Sanders of "The Last Command") for no apparent reason. Eventually, they discover that Kinnaird has been running guns to the redskins and Sgt. Trainor has Jim Starbuck (Lloyd Bridges) keep his eye on him. Starbuck doesn't have much use for Kinnaird because he cheated a fellow trooper out of money during a gambling hand. The last passenger that our heroes come across is a young Kiowa Indian boy, Little Knife (Johnny Stewart of "Boots Malone"), with whom they initially want nothing to do, but in a fit of conscience they let him join their ranks because Black Cloud is his enemy, too. Our heroes prospect for wells unsuccessfully until Little Knife appears, and he takes them 30 miles out of their way to a mission with a well. Black Cloud attacks them, but his superior numbers are no match for the lack of water. Trainor offers Black Cloud a deal, a cup of water for every repeating rifle, but the Indians refuse. Meanwhile, Turners sends Little Knife off to deliver a help message. Non-surprisingly, Little Knife gets through in the nick of time and our heroes are saving, but not before several of them bite the dust.
"Play Dirty" director De Toth does an outstanding job with "Last of the Comanches." Everybody emerges as a tangible character, not like the poorly drawn characters in De Toth's "The Stranger Wore A Gun." Broderick Crawford is at his commanding best, and it's interesting to see Martin Milner at this early stage in his Hollywood career. De Toth pulls off some cool looking visuals, such as Crawford and Bridges conferring with each other in silhouette during the last moments of sunlight. The camera-work when the cavalry excavate the well at the mission looks great, too. We are shown it from the perspective of the well as the troopers break through it. The multiple explosions that Crawford sets off when the Indians attack looks truly spectacular! Barbara Hale holds her own among the all male cast with expert marksmanship. Clocking in a 85 trim minutes, "Last of the Comanches" doesn't waste a moment on needless material. It's a cliché that the cavalry ride to their rescue at the end, but our heroes are pretty close to the end at that point. Surprisingly, for a 1950s western, "Last of the Comanches" piles up a rather high body count, something that most westerns held to a minimum.
"Last of the Comanches" opens with Sergeant Matt Trainor (Broderick Crawford of "Born Yesterday") and five other cavalry troopers who survive a massive Comanche attack led by the infamous Chief Black Cloud (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") on the isolated frontier town of Dry Buttes. No sooner has the action unfolded than our heroes find themselves in peril. There is a really nice looking matte painting of Dry Buttes in ruins after the savages stampeded a horse herd through the town, incinerated everything in sight, and left most everybody for dead. Low on water, Sgt. Turner rallies his soldiers—among them "Sea Hunt's" Lloyd Bridges and "Adam-12's" Martin Milner--by reminding them that they are still soldiers and the maintenance of military discipline is the only thing that will ensure their survival. They set out on a 100 mile journey to the closest settlement, Fort Macklin, through craggy terrain thriving with redskins and low on water.
Along the way, they encounter a stagecoach—nicknamed 'Buttercup'—with a lone female, Julie Lanning (Barbara Hale of TV's "Perry Mason"), whiskey drummer Henry Ruppert (Chubby Johnson of "Gunfire at Indian Gap"), former cavalry scout Satterlee the Prophet (Milton Parsons of "That Hagen Girl") and stagecoach driver O'Rattigan (George Matthews of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") and catch a ride on it. Later, they discover a suspicious white man in the desert Denver Kinnaird (Hugh Sanders of "The Last Command") for no apparent reason. Eventually, they discover that Kinnaird has been running guns to the redskins and Sgt. Trainor has Jim Starbuck (Lloyd Bridges) keep his eye on him. Starbuck doesn't have much use for Kinnaird because he cheated a fellow trooper out of money during a gambling hand. The last passenger that our heroes come across is a young Kiowa Indian boy, Little Knife (Johnny Stewart of "Boots Malone"), with whom they initially want nothing to do, but in a fit of conscience they let him join their ranks because Black Cloud is his enemy, too. Our heroes prospect for wells unsuccessfully until Little Knife appears, and he takes them 30 miles out of their way to a mission with a well. Black Cloud attacks them, but his superior numbers are no match for the lack of water. Trainor offers Black Cloud a deal, a cup of water for every repeating rifle, but the Indians refuse. Meanwhile, Turners sends Little Knife off to deliver a help message. Non-surprisingly, Little Knife gets through in the nick of time and our heroes are saving, but not before several of them bite the dust.
"Play Dirty" director De Toth does an outstanding job with "Last of the Comanches." Everybody emerges as a tangible character, not like the poorly drawn characters in De Toth's "The Stranger Wore A Gun." Broderick Crawford is at his commanding best, and it's interesting to see Martin Milner at this early stage in his Hollywood career. De Toth pulls off some cool looking visuals, such as Crawford and Bridges conferring with each other in silhouette during the last moments of sunlight. The camera-work when the cavalry excavate the well at the mission looks great, too. We are shown it from the perspective of the well as the troopers break through it. The multiple explosions that Crawford sets off when the Indians attack looks truly spectacular! Barbara Hale holds her own among the all male cast with expert marksmanship. Clocking in a 85 trim minutes, "Last of the Comanches" doesn't waste a moment on needless material. It's a cliché that the cavalry ride to their rescue at the end, but our heroes are pretty close to the end at that point. Surprisingly, for a 1950s western, "Last of the Comanches" piles up a rather high body count, something that most westerns held to a minimum.
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE LAW AND JAKE WADE" (1958)
The John Sturges western "The Law and Jake Wade" (*** out of ****) is a solidly made, entertaining 1950's era oater that stands out as one of the earliest 'take-me-to-the-buried-treasure' plots. Indeed, Robert Taylor is rather wooden as Jake Wade, but after all, Taylor is the hero and Wade is a lawman who represents the status quo. Richard Widmark said in an interview that he thought the movie was bad but he enjoyed the character of villainous Clint Hollister. The cast is uniformly excellent,especially De Forest Kelly with his Southern drawl and Henry Silva as the crazed kid Rennie. Aside from one obvious studio bound scene around a night camp fire, this western was filmed in the rugged outdoors at Lone Pine, California, and in Death Valley.
"The Law and Jake Wade" opens traditionally with a lone horseman riding through scenic terrain until he enters a clapboard western town and reins up in front of a marshal's office. Quietly, Jake Wade (Robert Taylor of "Quo Vadis") dismounts and walks into the office and thrusts the muzzle of a shotgun into the lawman's back. Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark of "Kiss of Death") is lounging in the calaboose when he spots Jake with a shotgun in the marshal's back. "Well, who'd have thought," he marvels as his old friend forces the lawman to unlock the cell. Hollister complains about the terrible food that he has been served and slugs the lawman, knocking him out cold. As he is buckling on his gun belt, two deputies walk in unexpectedly, and he cuts loose on them with lead. Jake Wade, who has been trying to get them both out of town with the least amount of commotion, knocks the gun out of Clint's hand. They ride out with the townspeople firing shots at them. As it turns out, Jake and Clint once rode together as partners in crime. Their lawless days came to an end when Jake thought that he had gunned down an innocent child during a daylight robbery. Jake took the loot from the robbery and never looked back. Indeed, he rode away and buried the money and then created a new life for himself. Now, he serves as a lawman himself with a prospective bride-to-be, Peggy (Patricia Owens of "Seven Women from Hell"), awaiting marriage. Jake rides with Clint for a ways then decides to split up. Clint is happy to see Jake but he feels betrayed by Jake's stashing the loot and leaving the gang. Jake explains to Clint that he saved his old outlaw buddy from a date with the noose because Clint had rescued him from being hanged in the old days. Clint wants to shoot it out now with Jake, but Jake refuses to give him a gun.
When Jake returns to town, he spots a suspicious cowboy, Rennie (Henry Silva of "Sergeants Three"), loitering on front street. Later, Jake dresses up in his best suit and rents a buggy to visit Peggy. They quarrel because Jake wants her to move with him away somewhere else. Peggy doesn't want to leave and storms away from a dinner table. Jake rides back to town and an inquisitive Rennie visits him at the jail. Something about Rennie spooks Jake, and he slugs the kid without warning. Before he realizes it, another old friend Ortero (Robert Middleton of "Cattle King") pulls a derringer on him. It seems that Jake's deputy had locked up Ortero for sleeping off a drunk in the gutter, but he forget to frisk him. The rest of Clint's gang arrive, including Wexler (De Forest Kelly of "Star Trek"). Wexler isn't too happy with Jake either for pulling out on them and taking the money. Jake explains that he took the money, buried it, and refused to look back. Clint wants Jake to take them to where he buried the loot. Initially, Jake says no until Clint takes Peggy hostage, and Jake has to lead them to the loot.
"Bad Day at Black Rock" director John Sturges doesn't waste a moment in this character-driven epic. Everybody has that tough leathery look and these are no-nonsense characters. No sooner have they left for the badlands where the loot is buried than they learn that the Indians are on the warpath, adding to their woes. Jake tries to escape at one point, but Clint is just too sly for him. Eventually, when they reach the ramshackle ghost town where Jake buried the money, we learn he stashed it in the local cemetery, anticipating a similar burial of stolen gold in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
Three-time Oscar winning lenser Robert Surtees of "PT-109" and "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo" photographed this western in widescreen and it looks terrific! Some of the long shots will just blow your mind, but then anybody who watches Sturges' westerns will know that the director loved to shoot really long, long shots. Ferris Webster, another Sturges' favorite, edited "The Law and Jake Wade." The screenplay by William Bowers of "Support Your Local Sheriff" provides some flavorful dialogue. Widmark excels as the villain. The last shoot-out seems to prematurely end, still "The Law and Jake Wade" ranks as one of those memorable, widescreen western from the 195os. Okay, "The Law and Jake Wade" isn't the greatest western ever made, but it is competently-down, suspenseful and a wonderful way to burn 86 minutes.
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.
"The Law and Jake Wade" opens traditionally with a lone horseman riding through scenic terrain until he enters a clapboard western town and reins up in front of a marshal's office. Quietly, Jake Wade (Robert Taylor of "Quo Vadis") dismounts and walks into the office and thrusts the muzzle of a shotgun into the lawman's back. Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark of "Kiss of Death") is lounging in the calaboose when he spots Jake with a shotgun in the marshal's back. "Well, who'd have thought," he marvels as his old friend forces the lawman to unlock the cell. Hollister complains about the terrible food that he has been served and slugs the lawman, knocking him out cold. As he is buckling on his gun belt, two deputies walk in unexpectedly, and he cuts loose on them with lead. Jake Wade, who has been trying to get them both out of town with the least amount of commotion, knocks the gun out of Clint's hand. They ride out with the townspeople firing shots at them. As it turns out, Jake and Clint once rode together as partners in crime. Their lawless days came to an end when Jake thought that he had gunned down an innocent child during a daylight robbery. Jake took the loot from the robbery and never looked back. Indeed, he rode away and buried the money and then created a new life for himself. Now, he serves as a lawman himself with a prospective bride-to-be, Peggy (Patricia Owens of "Seven Women from Hell"), awaiting marriage. Jake rides with Clint for a ways then decides to split up. Clint is happy to see Jake but he feels betrayed by Jake's stashing the loot and leaving the gang. Jake explains to Clint that he saved his old outlaw buddy from a date with the noose because Clint had rescued him from being hanged in the old days. Clint wants to shoot it out now with Jake, but Jake refuses to give him a gun.
When Jake returns to town, he spots a suspicious cowboy, Rennie (Henry Silva of "Sergeants Three"), loitering on front street. Later, Jake dresses up in his best suit and rents a buggy to visit Peggy. They quarrel because Jake wants her to move with him away somewhere else. Peggy doesn't want to leave and storms away from a dinner table. Jake rides back to town and an inquisitive Rennie visits him at the jail. Something about Rennie spooks Jake, and he slugs the kid without warning. Before he realizes it, another old friend Ortero (Robert Middleton of "Cattle King") pulls a derringer on him. It seems that Jake's deputy had locked up Ortero for sleeping off a drunk in the gutter, but he forget to frisk him. The rest of Clint's gang arrive, including Wexler (De Forest Kelly of "Star Trek"). Wexler isn't too happy with Jake either for pulling out on them and taking the money. Jake explains that he took the money, buried it, and refused to look back. Clint wants Jake to take them to where he buried the loot. Initially, Jake says no until Clint takes Peggy hostage, and Jake has to lead them to the loot.
"Bad Day at Black Rock" director John Sturges doesn't waste a moment in this character-driven epic. Everybody has that tough leathery look and these are no-nonsense characters. No sooner have they left for the badlands where the loot is buried than they learn that the Indians are on the warpath, adding to their woes. Jake tries to escape at one point, but Clint is just too sly for him. Eventually, when they reach the ramshackle ghost town where Jake buried the money, we learn he stashed it in the local cemetery, anticipating a similar burial of stolen gold in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
Three-time Oscar winning lenser Robert Surtees of "PT-109" and "Thirty Seconds over Tokyo" photographed this western in widescreen and it looks terrific! Some of the long shots will just blow your mind, but then anybody who watches Sturges' westerns will know that the director loved to shoot really long, long shots. Ferris Webster, another Sturges' favorite, edited "The Law and Jake Wade." The screenplay by William Bowers of "Support Your Local Sheriff" provides some flavorful dialogue. Widmark excels as the villain. The last shoot-out seems to prematurely end, still "The Law and Jake Wade" ranks as one of those memorable, widescreen western from the 195os. Okay, "The Law and Jake Wade" isn't the greatest western ever made, but it is competently-down, suspenseful and a wonderful way to burn 86 minutes.
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 ''THE LAST OUTPOST'' (1951)
Ronald Reagan and Bruce Bennett play brother versus brother in "The Last Outpost" (**1/2 out of ****), an entertaining but old-fashioned Civil War western set on the historic Santa Fe Trail. Reagan has charisma to spare as Vance Britten, a Confederate cavalry captain dispatched from Virginia by General Robert E. Lee to raise hell in the heart of Union territory, and raise hell he does with style and wit. Opposite him in Union blue is his brother Colonel Jeb Britten (Bruce Bennett of "The New Adventures of Tarzan") who wears an occupational stiff-upper lip and displays less sympathy since he represents law and order.
Happily, director Louis R. Foster keeps the tone of "The Last Outpost" as light-hearted as possible for most of this western's nimble 89-minute running time. Veteran western character actor Noah Beery, Jr., who wears his trademark Stetson more like a construction foreman than a cowboy, flanks Reagan as a good ole boy CSA sergeant, while Bill Williams rides at our hero's other side. Matters come to a boil when an unscrupulous white Indian agent Sam McQuade (John Ridgely of "The Big Sleep") demands that Washington intervene in the conflict and arm the Indians, so that the Native Americans can help the strapped Union troops weed out the Confederate raiders. Actually, all that McQuade wants is an excuse to agitate the redskins, so that he can sell them more guns and liquor. McQuade gets hoisted on his own petard when hostile Indians kill him and burn his supply wagon. The Indians didn't appreciate the inferior firearms and the rotgut whiskey that McQuade pedaled to them. Caught up in the middle of this fracas is McQuade's beautiful, red-haired wife Julie (Ronda Fleming of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") who has few friends and is unhappy out west. Before he dies as the price for his own perfidy, McQuade tries to play a trick on Julie by inviting Jeb over for supper. Years earlier Julie had made plans to marry a Britten, but not Jeb. Instead, Vance abandoned her, and she hasn't sufficiently recovered from his bad manners. Meanwhile, Vance intercepts the Union officer sent from Washington with orders to negotiate with the Indians, takes his uniform, and visits the Indian camp to sue for peace. He learns about the death of McQuade and others at the hands of Geronimo (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") and two braves. He also learns to his chagrin that these warriors are rotting in a white man's jail. The Indian chieftains are neither pleased with Geronimo's precipitate actions nor do they approve of the white man's reprisal against Geronimo. Vance decides to maintain his masquerade as the Union officer. Not only does he plan to free Geronimo and his braves before the territory explodes into Indian warfare, but also he plans to relieve the Federals of a payload of gold coins. Things do not go as Vance plans, because he finds himself face-to-face with Julie, his former sweetheart who he abandoned without so much as goodbye. Julie still smolders with rage at this slight, and she warns Vance that she won't tolerate either his presence or his disguise for more than 24 hours. Predictably, when Vance cannot spring Geronimo and company from the town's hoosegow, the Indians go on the rampage and try to burn the town down. Things are looking mighty bad in the last ten minutes for the out-numbered Union troops and the beleaguered settlers when Reagan rides to the rescue with his Confederate cavalry.
Ironically, this Paramount Pictures release reunites Reagan, Bennett, and Ridgely who were once worked on the Warner Brothers backlot in the studio's heyday. What "The Last Outpost" lacks in stature, this solid little but unsurprising sagebrusher makes up for with its swift, sure pace and its exciting battle scenes.
Happily, director Louis R. Foster keeps the tone of "The Last Outpost" as light-hearted as possible for most of this western's nimble 89-minute running time. Veteran western character actor Noah Beery, Jr., who wears his trademark Stetson more like a construction foreman than a cowboy, flanks Reagan as a good ole boy CSA sergeant, while Bill Williams rides at our hero's other side. Matters come to a boil when an unscrupulous white Indian agent Sam McQuade (John Ridgely of "The Big Sleep") demands that Washington intervene in the conflict and arm the Indians, so that the Native Americans can help the strapped Union troops weed out the Confederate raiders. Actually, all that McQuade wants is an excuse to agitate the redskins, so that he can sell them more guns and liquor. McQuade gets hoisted on his own petard when hostile Indians kill him and burn his supply wagon. The Indians didn't appreciate the inferior firearms and the rotgut whiskey that McQuade pedaled to them. Caught up in the middle of this fracas is McQuade's beautiful, red-haired wife Julie (Ronda Fleming of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") who has few friends and is unhappy out west. Before he dies as the price for his own perfidy, McQuade tries to play a trick on Julie by inviting Jeb over for supper. Years earlier Julie had made plans to marry a Britten, but not Jeb. Instead, Vance abandoned her, and she hasn't sufficiently recovered from his bad manners. Meanwhile, Vance intercepts the Union officer sent from Washington with orders to negotiate with the Indians, takes his uniform, and visits the Indian camp to sue for peace. He learns about the death of McQuade and others at the hands of Geronimo (John War Eagle of "They Rode West") and two braves. He also learns to his chagrin that these warriors are rotting in a white man's jail. The Indian chieftains are neither pleased with Geronimo's precipitate actions nor do they approve of the white man's reprisal against Geronimo. Vance decides to maintain his masquerade as the Union officer. Not only does he plan to free Geronimo and his braves before the territory explodes into Indian warfare, but also he plans to relieve the Federals of a payload of gold coins. Things do not go as Vance plans, because he finds himself face-to-face with Julie, his former sweetheart who he abandoned without so much as goodbye. Julie still smolders with rage at this slight, and she warns Vance that she won't tolerate either his presence or his disguise for more than 24 hours. Predictably, when Vance cannot spring Geronimo and company from the town's hoosegow, the Indians go on the rampage and try to burn the town down. Things are looking mighty bad in the last ten minutes for the out-numbered Union troops and the beleaguered settlers when Reagan rides to the rescue with his Confederate cavalry.
Ironically, this Paramount Pictures release reunites Reagan, Bennett, and Ridgely who were once worked on the Warner Brothers backlot in the studio's heyday. What "The Last Outpost" lacks in stature, this solid little but unsurprising sagebrusher makes up for with its swift, sure pace and its exciting battle scenes.
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE LONGEST YARD'' (2005)
The Adam Sandler remake of the classic, bone-crunching, Burt Reynolds' football comedy "The Longest Yard" (***1/2 out of ****) captures the rowdy Three Stooges spirit of its 1974 predecessor in virtually every respect, except that director Peter Segal doesn't stage the gridiron exploits with the virtuosity the late Robert Aldrich did, with Reynolds calling plays opposite veteran Green Bay Packers linebacker Ray Nitschke and former Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike Henry. Nevertheless, this crowd-pleasing, slam-bang rendition of "The Longest Yard" ranks as the best Adam Sandler farce since "The Waterboy." Freshman scenarist Shelton Turner succeeds where most scribes fail in that his inspired update of writer Tracy Keenan Wynn's original screenplay sticks with the previous game plan, smooths out the rough spots in some instances, but deviates only when necessary to conjure up fresher gags. Long-time Sandler fans will spot some of these alterations, especially when Sandler's comic pal Rob Schneider's shows up to perform his 'you can do it' shtick from the sidelines, and Cloris Leachman's hilarious football prison secretary upstages anything Bernadette Peters did in the first time out. The casting here is bullseye perfect, smack down to the smallest detail, specifically perennial villain David Patrick Kelly as the jealous pyromanical inmate who torches one of the team players. Quiet, unassuming "Babe" star James Cromwell turns in a top-notch performance as the sleazy warden that the late great Eddie Albert (he stole the show as the warden in the original) would stand up and cheer from the grave. Although the new "Longest Yard" doesn't surpass the first "Longest Yard," you'd need a chain marker and a committee of officials to tell the difference.
Like the original "Longest Yard," the Sandler version opens in the bedroom with a drunken Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler of "50 First Dates") appropriating his girlfriend's sports car for a joy ride and winds up receiving a three year sentence in the can at Allenville Federal Penitentiary in Texas. Warden Hazen (James Cromwell of " ") pulls strings to get Crewe into his correctional facility, because Hazen dreams of running for governor and believes his prison guard football team will put him into the political end zone. Hazen approaches Crewe and asks him for his help in straightening up his team that hasn't clinched a championship in several years. Initially, Crewe refuses to give Hazen the benefit of his experience because prison guard Captain Knauer (William Fichtner of "Armageddon") has beaten him repeatedly with his baton and warned him to refuse the warden. After a week in solitary sweating it out in a shack with no amenities, Crewe capitulates and suggests that Hazen schedule a tune-up game between the guards and the convicts. Unlike the original where the guards were just guards, in the remake the prison warden has recruited his guards from college players who missed out. A several familiar faces flesh out these plug-ugly prison guards, notably former Seattle Seahawks linebacker Brian Bosworth, two-time, NFL Pro Bowler Bill Romanowski, and wrestling legend Steve 'Cold Stone' Austin. At first, Crewe appears at a complete loss until he meets Caretaker (Chris Rock of "Head of the State") who clues him into who is who behind bars. Initial attempts to recruit team member falter because pro-football banned Crewe from playing because of his alleged point-fixing schemes. Nevertheless, Crewe comes up with players who make the guys in the Burt Reynolds version look like pygmies.
Director Peter Segal, who has helmed two previous Adam Sandler comedies: "Anger Management" and "50 First Dates," never lets the action lag and manages to convey important exposition (story ideas) in a more streamlined fashion. Clearly, he must have seen the first "Yard," because his use of split-screen is patterned after what Aldrich did in the original. Wisely, funnyman Adam Sandler doesn't try to one-up Burt Reynolds whose real-life college football career helped his physical performance enormously in the original. There is no scene where the hero tosses a pass through a tire swinging at the end of a rope. No where near as cool and charismatic as Burt was in 1974, Sandler sticks to the game plan that he knows best: wiseacre humor. Sandler's scenes with the glorious Cloris Leachman will be hard to top for any comedian who takes on this project. The repartee between Sandler and a short, conch-eared San Diego traffic cop is fantastic. Everything up to the big showdown on the gridiron is either perfectly rehashed by director Segal, writer Turner, and a strong cast or taken to the next level. Notably good is the way that Segal introduces each player as they join the team for practice. Particularly funny is the inclusion of a Hispanic Hercules whose accent isn't thick enough to require subtitles but the subtitles add to the hilarity of the moment. The only two things that this "Yard" fumbles are the tension crackling plays, the sports car from the first movie, and the infamous F-word line that surprisingly has been toned-down and rewritten for this PG-13 movie. While PG-13 movies lack the profanity levels of their R-rated counterparts, the Motion Picture Association of America allows on F-word for every PG-13. However, the gag in the original had the cast using the F-Word in the same sentence three times. All quibbles aside, Adam Sandler and company score a touchdown with "The Longest Yard," not only as first-rate entertainment but also as homage to the Robert Aldrich original.
Like the original "Longest Yard," the Sandler version opens in the bedroom with a drunken Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler of "50 First Dates") appropriating his girlfriend's sports car for a joy ride and winds up receiving a three year sentence in the can at Allenville Federal Penitentiary in Texas. Warden Hazen (James Cromwell of " ") pulls strings to get Crewe into his correctional facility, because Hazen dreams of running for governor and believes his prison guard football team will put him into the political end zone. Hazen approaches Crewe and asks him for his help in straightening up his team that hasn't clinched a championship in several years. Initially, Crewe refuses to give Hazen the benefit of his experience because prison guard Captain Knauer (William Fichtner of "Armageddon") has beaten him repeatedly with his baton and warned him to refuse the warden. After a week in solitary sweating it out in a shack with no amenities, Crewe capitulates and suggests that Hazen schedule a tune-up game between the guards and the convicts. Unlike the original where the guards were just guards, in the remake the prison warden has recruited his guards from college players who missed out. A several familiar faces flesh out these plug-ugly prison guards, notably former Seattle Seahawks linebacker Brian Bosworth, two-time, NFL Pro Bowler Bill Romanowski, and wrestling legend Steve 'Cold Stone' Austin. At first, Crewe appears at a complete loss until he meets Caretaker (Chris Rock of "Head of the State") who clues him into who is who behind bars. Initial attempts to recruit team member falter because pro-football banned Crewe from playing because of his alleged point-fixing schemes. Nevertheless, Crewe comes up with players who make the guys in the Burt Reynolds version look like pygmies.
Director Peter Segal, who has helmed two previous Adam Sandler comedies: "Anger Management" and "50 First Dates," never lets the action lag and manages to convey important exposition (story ideas) in a more streamlined fashion. Clearly, he must have seen the first "Yard," because his use of split-screen is patterned after what Aldrich did in the original. Wisely, funnyman Adam Sandler doesn't try to one-up Burt Reynolds whose real-life college football career helped his physical performance enormously in the original. There is no scene where the hero tosses a pass through a tire swinging at the end of a rope. No where near as cool and charismatic as Burt was in 1974, Sandler sticks to the game plan that he knows best: wiseacre humor. Sandler's scenes with the glorious Cloris Leachman will be hard to top for any comedian who takes on this project. The repartee between Sandler and a short, conch-eared San Diego traffic cop is fantastic. Everything up to the big showdown on the gridiron is either perfectly rehashed by director Segal, writer Turner, and a strong cast or taken to the next level. Notably good is the way that Segal introduces each player as they join the team for practice. Particularly funny is the inclusion of a Hispanic Hercules whose accent isn't thick enough to require subtitles but the subtitles add to the hilarity of the moment. The only two things that this "Yard" fumbles are the tension crackling plays, the sports car from the first movie, and the infamous F-word line that surprisingly has been toned-down and rewritten for this PG-13 movie. While PG-13 movies lack the profanity levels of their R-rated counterparts, the Motion Picture Association of America allows on F-word for every PG-13. However, the gag in the original had the cast using the F-Word in the same sentence three times. All quibbles aside, Adam Sandler and company score a touchdown with "The Longest Yard," not only as first-rate entertainment but also as homage to the Robert Aldrich original.
FILM REVIEW OF ''ROCKY BALBOA'' (2006)
Everything that made the best "Rocky" movies ("Rocky," "Rocky III," and "Rocky IV") blissfully entertaining appears conspicuously absent in Sylvester Stallone's new movie "Rocky Balboa" (** out of ****), reputedly the last hurrah for "Rocky." Chiefly, "Rocky Balboa" lacks spontaneity and surprises. Indeed, actor/athletic Sylvester Stallone looks—for a man in his sixties—like he could go the distance in the ring, but writer/director Sylvester Stallone virtually recycles the original without anything that made it Academy Awarding material. In "Rocky," Stallone created a charming Brando-esquire misfit, surrounded by other larger-than-life misfits, who slugged his way to the top of the American dream. Each sequel eroded the title character's charisma, and you knew that "Rocky" could never go down for the count. Worse, Stallone's trademark aphoristic dialogue yields few quotable lines.
Another element woefully amiss is a solid villain. A third of what made "Rocky," "Rocky III," and "Rocky IV" engaging on a visceral level were the opponents. Carl Weathers established the baseline for Rocky's rivals in the first two "Rocky" movies, while a pugnacious Mr. T raised the bar in "Rocky III" and Goliath-like Dolph Lundgren took it one punch further in "Rocky IV." Not surprisingly, "Rocky Balboa" should take the bad taste of "Rocky V" out of the mouth of "Rocky" fans. "Rocky V" featured the least intimidating contender of the series. Unfortunately, as much as "Rocky Balboa" surpasses "Rocky V," Rocky's latest adversary is bland to his boxers. Mason Dixon emerges as more vulnerable than vicious. You won't care if Rocky beats him to a pulp, gets beaten to a pulp himself, or they fight to a draw in "Rocky Balboa." This painfully predictable punching bag of clichés never generates the blood, sweat, and cheers of the original.
Anybody who remembers the forgettable "Rocky V" knows that the doctors warned Rocky that if he ever climbed back into the ring that he could possibly die from one blow to the brain. In "Rocky Balboa," Rocky's physical ailments never impair his potential. Aside from a brief bout with the Pennsylvania boxing commission, Rocky obtains a license to box again. During the first hour of the action, our world-weary hero revisits his past on a sight-seeing trip to his old stomping grounds where he grew up and met his wife Adrian. Adrian has followed in the footsteps of more memorable "Rocky" characters, such as Apollo Creed and actor Burgess Meredith's Mickey Goldmill. We learn in "Rocky Balboa" that Adrian died from cancer back in the 1990s, and Rocky supports himself with a Philadelphia restaurant named after her. He recounts his pugilistic exploits for the entertainment of his customers. Meanwhile, in the ring, the latest heavyweight boxing champ Mason "the Line" Dixon (ex-light heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver) finds himself tangled up in the ropes of his own troubles. After 30 knock-out fights, the undefeated Dixon cannot find anybody to go toe-to-toe with who can match his merciless barrage of blows. Worse, just about everybody in the fight game hates him. Sure, Dixon sounds like a terrific adversary, but Stallone gives Tarver nothing to do or say that makes his character remotely dangerous. He never attains the flamboyance of the egotistical Apollo Creed in the first three "Rocky" epics. He doesn't present a challenge like the sadistic Clubber Lang in "Rocky III." Physically, he is no match for towering Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV." Instead, Mason Dixie emerges more as misunderstood than merciless.
During his tour of his old neighborhood, Rocky runs into a local girl from his past. Marie (as played by the original "Marie" Geraldine Hughes) told him to bug off in the original when he offered her advice about her friends. Marie and Rocky get friendly this time around and the ex-champ shows an interest in her fatherless son. Unfortunately, the romance between Marie and Rocky ignites no sparks because the chemistry between them is wrong. At the same time, Rocky's own son Rocky, Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia who plays Peter Petrelli on the NBC/SCI-FI Channel TV show "Heroes") has his own selfish issues. Rocky overshadows him. At one point, Rocky confides in his boorish brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young of "The Killer Elite") that he still has his own unresolved issues. Paulie thinks Rocky has lost his mind when he proposes to put the gloves back on for one more bout. The inevitable fight between Rocky and Mason Dixon occurs as a result of an ESPN computer generated boxing match that prompts Mason's managers to approach Rocky about a match. Mason Dixie derides it as a publicity stunt, but Rocky sees it as a place in the sun. "Rocky Balboa" boasts too much soul and not enough heart. Cue "Rocky" composer Bill Conti to bring on the music from the original as Rocky jogs around Philadelphia in his sweats training.
Sylvester Stallone looks more muscle-bound than ever, but he does not have the underdog charisma of the best "Rocky" movies. Clearly, Stallone has gone into the ring one time too often. The Rocky character has never looked so out of place and his actions do little to endear him. Stallone's worst mistake in "Rocky Balboa" was sacrificing Adrian from his screenplay than his obnoxious, cigar-chomping brother-in-law Paulie. The first hour of the new "Rocky" drags and the last forty minutes doesn't make up for it. Stallone stages the boxing match without flair. Amazingly, the hand-held photography doesn't add energy to the fight. Despite some moments that remain too far and few between, "Rocky Balboa" has no clout to flout.
Another element woefully amiss is a solid villain. A third of what made "Rocky," "Rocky III," and "Rocky IV" engaging on a visceral level were the opponents. Carl Weathers established the baseline for Rocky's rivals in the first two "Rocky" movies, while a pugnacious Mr. T raised the bar in "Rocky III" and Goliath-like Dolph Lundgren took it one punch further in "Rocky IV." Not surprisingly, "Rocky Balboa" should take the bad taste of "Rocky V" out of the mouth of "Rocky" fans. "Rocky V" featured the least intimidating contender of the series. Unfortunately, as much as "Rocky Balboa" surpasses "Rocky V," Rocky's latest adversary is bland to his boxers. Mason Dixon emerges as more vulnerable than vicious. You won't care if Rocky beats him to a pulp, gets beaten to a pulp himself, or they fight to a draw in "Rocky Balboa." This painfully predictable punching bag of clichés never generates the blood, sweat, and cheers of the original.
Anybody who remembers the forgettable "Rocky V" knows that the doctors warned Rocky that if he ever climbed back into the ring that he could possibly die from one blow to the brain. In "Rocky Balboa," Rocky's physical ailments never impair his potential. Aside from a brief bout with the Pennsylvania boxing commission, Rocky obtains a license to box again. During the first hour of the action, our world-weary hero revisits his past on a sight-seeing trip to his old stomping grounds where he grew up and met his wife Adrian. Adrian has followed in the footsteps of more memorable "Rocky" characters, such as Apollo Creed and actor Burgess Meredith's Mickey Goldmill. We learn in "Rocky Balboa" that Adrian died from cancer back in the 1990s, and Rocky supports himself with a Philadelphia restaurant named after her. He recounts his pugilistic exploits for the entertainment of his customers. Meanwhile, in the ring, the latest heavyweight boxing champ Mason "the Line" Dixon (ex-light heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver) finds himself tangled up in the ropes of his own troubles. After 30 knock-out fights, the undefeated Dixon cannot find anybody to go toe-to-toe with who can match his merciless barrage of blows. Worse, just about everybody in the fight game hates him. Sure, Dixon sounds like a terrific adversary, but Stallone gives Tarver nothing to do or say that makes his character remotely dangerous. He never attains the flamboyance of the egotistical Apollo Creed in the first three "Rocky" epics. He doesn't present a challenge like the sadistic Clubber Lang in "Rocky III." Physically, he is no match for towering Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV." Instead, Mason Dixie emerges more as misunderstood than merciless.
During his tour of his old neighborhood, Rocky runs into a local girl from his past. Marie (as played by the original "Marie" Geraldine Hughes) told him to bug off in the original when he offered her advice about her friends. Marie and Rocky get friendly this time around and the ex-champ shows an interest in her fatherless son. Unfortunately, the romance between Marie and Rocky ignites no sparks because the chemistry between them is wrong. At the same time, Rocky's own son Rocky, Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia who plays Peter Petrelli on the NBC/SCI-FI Channel TV show "Heroes") has his own selfish issues. Rocky overshadows him. At one point, Rocky confides in his boorish brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young of "The Killer Elite") that he still has his own unresolved issues. Paulie thinks Rocky has lost his mind when he proposes to put the gloves back on for one more bout. The inevitable fight between Rocky and Mason Dixon occurs as a result of an ESPN computer generated boxing match that prompts Mason's managers to approach Rocky about a match. Mason Dixie derides it as a publicity stunt, but Rocky sees it as a place in the sun. "Rocky Balboa" boasts too much soul and not enough heart. Cue "Rocky" composer Bill Conti to bring on the music from the original as Rocky jogs around Philadelphia in his sweats training.
Sylvester Stallone looks more muscle-bound than ever, but he does not have the underdog charisma of the best "Rocky" movies. Clearly, Stallone has gone into the ring one time too often. The Rocky character has never looked so out of place and his actions do little to endear him. Stallone's worst mistake in "Rocky Balboa" was sacrificing Adrian from his screenplay than his obnoxious, cigar-chomping brother-in-law Paulie. The first hour of the new "Rocky" drags and the last forty minutes doesn't make up for it. Stallone stages the boxing match without flair. Amazingly, the hand-held photography doesn't add energy to the fight. Despite some moments that remain too far and few between, "Rocky Balboa" has no clout to flout.
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