#33 Chinese Super Ninja, aka Five Elements Ninja

Chinese Super Ninja (1982)

directed by 

Chang Cheh

screenplay by

Chang Cheh and Ni Kuang

Another movie from Hong Kong's over-the-top director of somewhat fetishized bare male chests and arms, Chang Cheh. There are some splendid moments when the various elemental ninja forces fight, and Lo Mang is always a welcome presence in a kick flick, but overall the movie is meh. The plot involves Japanese martial artists who believe they've been wronged by a Chinese martial arts school and connive with another Chinese school to destroy the first. There's spying and killing and lots, and lots and lots (and lots!) of very vibrant blood splashed all over the place and a few fantastic fight scenes, but overall, the movie isn't worth our keeping it.

Lo Mang

#32 All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

directed by 

Lewis Milestone

written by

Maxwell Anderson (adaptation & dialogue)

George Abbott (screenplay)

Del Andrews (adaptation)

C. Gardner Sullivan

It was only a few years ago that I learned All Quiet on the Western Front author Eric Maria Remarque only spent six weeks on the front before being wounded and invalided out of service. The result was one of the most well-known anti-war novels. On the other hand, Ernst Junger spent years four years at the front, was wounded seven times, and from his diaries wrote Storm of Steel. While not exactly pro-war, it's about as near as any book I've ever read has come. It's a fascinating contrast and I recommend both books completely.

I never saw this movie in my younger years, coming to it only as an adult and after I'd seen its lead, Lew Ayres, in Holiday. That's a Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn predecessor to The Philadelphia Story and Ayres is very funny and absolutely heartbreaking. When I learned he was in All Quiet as the lead, Paul Bäumer, I tracked it down. I'm glad I did; dated as it is in some parts, it's a gripping and emotionally effecting epic. The production involved thousands of extras, many of whom were WW I veterans, hundreds of acres were used to recreate the Western Front trenches, and tons of explosives were used. The battle scenes are amazing, all these years later. The film's greatest power lies in those huge scenes, but also in several more intimate battlefield scenes; the wounded French soldier in the shell-hole and Bäumer's reunion with Katczinsky especially.

Ayres is fine if a little too indistinguishable from some of the other young actors in the cast. Much of the script is overwrought and a little too stagey, but there's real power there. His confrontations with teach and then the old men of his town while on leave are great. In his interactions with his fellow company members, there's a believable sense of camaraderie.

The best cast member is Louis Wolheim as Katczinsky. Thickset, with a broken nose, he exudes incredible power and charisma in every one of his too few moments on the screen. I don't think I've seen him in anything else before, but this viewing of All Quiet has convinced me I need to track down some of his other movies.

Years ago, I was trying to put together a collection of the best war movies. Many of them haven't held up well - I'm thinking of The Big Red One, a movie we couldn't finish the other night - but this one does.

verdict: a keeper

Lew Ayres and Lewis Wolheim

#30 and #31 The Alamo and The Alamo

The Alamo (1960)

directed by 

John Wayne

written by 

James Edward Grant

The Alamo (2004)

directed by 

John Lee Hancock

written by 

John Lee Hancock

 

We watched both of these last year, so skipped this time around. We're keeping both, as each is a solid movie, flaws and all, about a pivotal point in American history. They could both be more accurate about the root causes of the war - slavery as much as Santana's centralizing dictatorship - but there's no getting around the brutal, heroic stand of the Texican defenders.

Wayne's is the lesser of the two - it's more sentimental and rose-tineted - , but it's got gloriously epic pageantry and makes a surprising effort to honor the Mexican soldiers as brave. It's also filled with patriotic speeches, Mexican dancers, and a fun, but terribly out of place Laurence Harvey as Col. Travis. Wayne as Crockett is simply Wayne, as he too often was. Widmark is always good, but there's little sense of the shady speculator or killer in his version of Jim Bowie. Still, as big war movies go, it's solid enough (and Dmitri Tiomkin's score is excellent).

Hancock's movie strives for greater accuracy, making the three central characters more interesting through their flaws. Jason Patric is good as the drunken and increasingly debilitated Bowie, dreaming all the time of his dead wife. Patrick Wilson is solid as the wife-deserting Travis. Billy Bob Thornton is the best, though, as Crockett. He's good at portraying Crockett's effort to live up to the heroic aspect of his reputation without succumbing to its lures. Unlike Wayne's hagiographic version, Thornton's Crockett is a man caught up in a fight he definitely didn't plan on. He brought his men to Texas hoping to make a dollar and not have to fight any battles. As to Crockett's final moments, it's been a matter for debate since 1836, and it seems most likely he went down fighting, but I like how it's done here and drives home the brutality with which Santa Anna handled the rebellion. The music by Carter Burwell is alright but definitely suffers in comparison to Tiomkin's.

verdict: a pair of keepers

Widmark, Wayne, and Harvey

Wilson, Thornton, and Patric

#29 - 7 Men from Now

7 Men from Now (1956)

directed by 

Budd Boetticher

written by 

Burt Kennedy

The first of seven Westerns Boetticher made with Randolph Scott. As much as I love most of them (The Tall T and Ride Lonesome are two of the best Westerns), 7 Men from Now is a disappointment on rewatching. Scott is great as a man hunting the seven men responsible for his wife's death. Lee Marvin is very good as a man of unclear loyalties. As is true of all these movies, it's tight and economical, but unlike the others, it's saddled with a soggy love story and a poor score. The ending is soft and detracts from the hardness the film otherwise strives for.

I never "got" Randolph Scott until I saw him in Sam Peckinpah's magnificent Ride the High Country (1962). I'll write about that one down the line, but suffice it to say, Scott retired after filming it, supposedly considering it a perfect way to end his career (he was also worth a reputed $100 million).

When I discovered the Boetticher movies, I really got Scott. He's the strong, silent Western hero apotheosis. Pushing sixty and still looking like he could snap most men in half, he's got power and dignity on the screen that makes his performances as strong-willed, driven men of experience completely believable.

Walter Reed is fine as the eager Easterner making his way with his wife to California. As his wife, Gail Russell is a little too teary-eyed and comes across as way too eager to jump Scott's bones the first chance she gets. It's all very cheesy and really detracts from the rest of the film.

verdict: we're going to keep it so I have all the Scott-Boetticher films, but it is flawed.

Randolph Scott

#28 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

directed by 

Richard Fleischer

screenplay by 

Earl Felton

I have no idea when I first saw this. I might have been only four or five and I loved it. Every other time I watched it I loved it, as well. At first, the obvious star was Captain Nemo's ship-sinking submarine, the Nautilus (and maybe the squid). As I got older, James Mason as the enigmatic Captain Nemo came to the fore. Peter Lorre and Kirk Douglas (!!) as the comic relief, I always found funny, Douglas' song is goofy, but it works in keeping him comical. When Hallie and I belonged to the Disney Movie club for a little bit, it was one of the first movies I bought on Blu-ray.

We're going to keep it - Mason is still one of the great screen villains and Kirk Douglas is still, well, Kirk Douglas (as is Peter Lorre), but overall, the movie just isn't quite great as my memories make it.

Jules Verne's novels always defeated me because they're filled with long dull sections and the movie mimics that. There's an undersea harvesting scene, turtle-catching, a tour of the Nautilus and an explanation of its power source. It may not take up a lot of the film, but it sure feels like it does.

The action set pieces are still exciting. Douglas and Lorre being chased by natives and, of course, the squid attack are good boys-adventure fun. Coupled with the cool design of the Nautilus, all jagged and goggle-eyed, they're a large reason the movie remains enjoyable, if not as great as my memory wants it to be.

Leading man-era James Mason is the perfect decoction of unamused contempt for world and its conceits. When Nemo speaks dismissively of Ned's (Kirk Douglas) concerns for the sailors on the ship the Nautilus sinks it's chilling. There were few actors who be as cold and heartless sounding as Mason could. Eddie Izzard did a routine where God sounded like James Mason and it makes perfect sense. That Mason is also stunning with his short beard and white-streaked hair doesn't hurt.

A wild part of 20,000 Leagues is Nemo's motivation and goal. When torture at the hands of the English failed to uncover his secrets, his wife and children were killed and he was imprisoned. He and other prisoners escaped and set out to strike a blow against the colonialist empires of the world. That's a pretty radical premise for a Disney movie, especially in 1954.

verdict: as I said, a keeper

James Mason

#26/#27 - 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

directed by 

Stanley Kubrick

screenplay by

Stanley Kubrick

Arthur C. Clarke

2010 (1984)

directed by Peter Hyams

screenplay by Peter Hyams

We just rewatched these a few months ago so felt no need to do so again. They're both keepers. 2001 is the story Kubrick wanted to tell; one focused on aesthetics, design, and special effects. There's a veneer of intellectual depth that hides a paucity of story, and nonetheless, I've come to like it. Better than almost any other sci-fi movie, it gets at the vast, emptiness and loneliness of space and the strangeness of any real aliens we might meet. The design work is absolutely brilliant and all these decades later the effects still look realistic. Though the main actor on screen, Keir Dullea isn't real star - the real stars are Daniel Richter as Moonwatcher, the main monkey man, and Douglas Rain as the voice of the computer, HAL 9000.

2010 is the story Arthur C. Clarke, writer of both movies' underlying stories, wanted to tell; a tale of the endless possibilities for humanity among the stars, of the need, and possibility, of humanity uniting to avoid destroying itself, and the nuts and bolts of space travel. Again, it's a movie I like a lot. Not being directed by Kubrick, it's a much more human and emotional movie. Roy Scheider, Bob Balaban, and John Lithgow are all great as the American crew, and Helen Mirren and Elya Baskin are equally good as Soviet crew members. I find the anti-war, peacenik stuff overdone and dated, but the sentiment is noble. It's the hard science-fiction stuff I love best in the movie. The portrayal of the Soviet ship Leonov and its arrival and flight is the sort of real science I'd like to see more often on the screen.

verdict: both keepers

   Daniel Richter                            -        Natasha Shneider and Roy Scheider

#25 Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

directed by 

Alfred Hitchcock

Written by

James Hilton (dialogue)

Robert Benchley (dialogue)

Screenplay by

Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison

  

If I have a favorite director, it's Hitchcock. His movies, across the decades, are original, brilliantly put together, smart & clever, filled with amazing performances, and all, even the least ones, worth watching. I remember hearing two store clerks rave about Kubrick but dismiss Hitchcock as a mere master of gimmickry. I had to get out of that store fast. There's simply no comparison. Too many of Kubrick's movies are cold, soulless That's why I own thirteen Hitchcock (actually, more. I have a boxed set somewhere of all his early films) movies and only two Kubrick.

Foreign Correspondent, I think, often gets overlooked, coming as it does right after his first American movie, Rebecca, and that's a shame. Mechanically, it's a smashing thriller, replete with memorable set pieces, most notably the umbrella scene and the windmill. The plane crash over the ocean is pretty harrowing, too (It was designed by the brilliant William Cameron Menzies).

Joel McCrea is great fun as the American crime reporter dispatched to Europe in August 1939 to cover the looming war. He becomes entangled in a plot involving a Dutch diplomat (Albert Basserman), Nazi spies (Herbert Marshall, Eduardo Cianelli, and Edmund Gwenn), a beautiful girl (Laraine Day), and a charming (and scene-stealing) British reporter (George Sanders). Marshall and Sanders are just damn cool, uttering every one of their lines with a dryness and wryness that is just perfection.

I can't remember when I first saw this. It might have been as long ago as elementary school. Whatever, it's a movie I've always loved, for the action, for the laughs (of which there are plenty), and for it's potent recreation of a feeling of impending catastrophe as Germany edges the world toward chaos.

The movie, written by Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison, with dialogue by James Hilton and Robert Benchley (who makes a fun appearance as a bored US reporter in London). Hitchcock went to London after the movie was completed just as the Battle of Britain was about to begin and quickly had a scene written and filmed reflecting the imminent bombing of London. Release a year and half before Pearl Harbor, the movie is a magnificent call to arms for America, practically demanding we come to grips with the Nazis.

verdict: a keeper of the first rank

George Sanders, Laraine Day, and Joel McCrea