You Can’t Win ‘Em All (1970) ***
Charles Bronson travelogue. Slowest action picture you will ever come across. Director Peter Collinson forgets all he learned about tension from The Penthouse (1967) and action from The Italian Job (1969) and in trying to create a Turkish version of the visual delights of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) comes a cropper, not least…
Mosquito Squadron (1969) ****
Surprisingly somber, unusually reflective and exceptionally well-constructed. Except for taking the easy way out at the end, could easily have found itself in the classic finale stakes in the same league as Casablanca (1942) or The Third Man (1949) where true love is thwarted. More than enough aerial action for aficionados and an excellent battle…
A New Kind of Love (1963) ***
Just about scrapes by, small thanks to Paul Newman’s atrocious Texan accent, Joanne Woodward’s frightful blonde wig – more Lady Penelope than classy Parisian – and Maurice Chevalier serenading a horde of drunken women. Maurice Chevalier? Well, of course this is Paris and Chevalier always sings regardless of being peripheral to the story. Suffers, too,…
Behind the Scenes: United Artists’ Mea Culpa: Why Flops Flopped, 1969-1971, Part Three
Box office hits like Never on Sunday (1960), La Dolce Vita (1960), Zorba the Greek (1964), A Man and a Woman (1966) and Z (1969) gave Hollywood the wrong idea. Studios believed they could take advantage of the cheaper costs of shooting in Europe, set up alliances with critically acclaimed French, Italian, Greek, German and…
Behind the Scenes: United Artists’ Mea Cupa, Why Flops Flopped, 1969-1971 – Part Two
The United Artists strategy was to forge alliances with directors. The studio tended not to finance one-off projects, instead focusing on building long-term relationships. In part, this was a safeguard. Cross-collateralizing eliminated some of the risk between balancing out profit and loss. So a director could not waltz off with profits from a hit leaving…
Behind the Scenes: United Artists’ Mea Culpa – Why Flops Flopped, 1969-1971 – Part One
United Artists – one of the biggest box office hitters of the 1960s – should have emerged relatively unscathed from the financial tsunami of the end of the decade. While pictures like its The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) certainly hit the buffers, it wasn’t in the position of having to swallow the titanic…
Hang ‘Em High (1968) ****
Clint Eastwood didn’t waste much time capitalizing on the unexpected success of the Dollars Trilogy. But the first was not released in the United States till 1967 and despite the success of the series across Europe was generally dismissed as a fluke, until American audiences suggested otherwise. The following year Eastwood appeared in three pictures,…
Tarzan Goes to India (1962) ***
Helluva fillip for reissue and credibility purposes to be able to point to the picture being helmed by the director – John Guillermin – of The Towering Inferno (1974), not to mention King Kong (1976) and The Blue Max (1966) – which suggested top-notch skills if not the budget to match. Guillermin, who also had…
The Third Alibi (1961) ***
Sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than a well-plotted narrative that doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes with a sting – or two – in the tail. And in the B-picture world we can accommodate all sorts of venal characters and even hope – or at least wonder if – they will get away with their…
The Swinger (1966) ***
As chosen by my readers, this is the most popular movie on the Blog, so I thought I’d check back and see how it stood up. Having seen it before, of course, I knew what to expect. And despite the star’s acting abilities being better showcased in items like Once a Thief (1965) and Stagecoach…
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