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Reviews
Amadeus (1984)
Great movie - rotten history
This is indeed a very well-made movie but it is based on the extremely dodgy fiction that Salieri somehow caused Mozart's death. Most of it is absolute hokum including the portrayal of Mozart. Of course he was not the heavenly boy of a legend but neither was he the character portrayed here. He was of course a highly sophisticated man of the enlightenment. Scheffer appears to have thought that because Mozart wrote crudities into his letters to friends, he was like that with everyone. A totally absurd assumption. At least the film does not go as far as the play in that regard. So while there is much to enjoy here, there is also much that is total rubbish. For example, the implication that Salieri was celibate is complete nonsense as the man was married. He was a very respected composer in his day even though his music went out of fashion. Even as his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most important and sought-after teachers of his generation, and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's musical life. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his pupils. Not a bad legacy. Rather than being bitter rivals, Salieri and Mozart had a respectful relationship. The other point of the film which is ridiculous is the portrayal of Joseph the Emperor. He was actually a very fine amateur musician. So although it is a very entertaining movie it is rotten history and the problem I have this many people will take it as true. It is hokum.
Nice Girl? (1941)
Nice girl? Deanna tries hard!
If this film tries to cast Durban against type it singularly fails. She couldn't be anything else but nice and catch the boys, what with her looks and her voice. Still her father has enough to do with three good looking girls to keep in-line with home spun wisdom and a firm hand. Typical Durban. Enough said.
The Girl Who Couldn't Quite (1950)
A movie that isn't quite
This movie certainly has potential going for it - Bill Owen for a start. But it is dreadfully let down by pretty indifferent acting and a muddled script which can't make up its mind what it is. Is this serious or comic? It deals with a serious theme - mental illness. Then throws in some comic bits that are beyond the point presumably because Owen is in it. Then the acting is so wooden. I mean we know Henson is frigid, but after being put over Owen's knee and soundly spanked, would she act as if nothing has happened? The movie adds unlikely scene to unlikely scene till a not very convincing ending.
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Great movie!
A really great movie with a director and the three principals at the top of their game. The scene where Laughton is drunk by moonlight is stunning. Just watch and be amazed at some fantastic character acting.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Classic opening
The movie with the classic scene of the invasion of Omaha Beach and the carnage that took place there. One of Spielberg's great contributions as a director. If the rest of the movie doesn't live up to it, being a somewhat stilted rescue story, it is still worth seeing for the opening sequence which changed the way war movies were filmed.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Print the legend
This really is John Ford's farewell to the west as only Cheyenne Autumn followed. It is pretty slow with the stars a little elderly for the roles they are playing in the main part of the movie, but it is absolutely gripping. Great performances by all the cast and the classic, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," at the end. This is of course the very root of the western in that it's not how the West was but how it was in legend and especially in John Ford's mind. Most of us do not want to see the west as it was as it is too uncomfortable for us so the legend will do
The Searchers (1956)
One of the great westerns
There is very little one needs to say that could be added about this great film. This is John Ford at his peak directing John Wayne in a character which is ambivalent and interesting. True Ford can't resist some slapstick moments, but the sheer sweep of the movie and the moments of sheer genius make it memorable.
Donovan's Reef (1963)
Not one of Ford's best
This isn't one of the great John Ford's best movies. It is stunning visually but is hampered by a very silly script that is full of drunken brawling or dated, misogynist humour such as women falling on their behinds or getting thrown in a fountain. This is emphasised in the last scene where Elizabeth Allen gets a spanking from Wayne but of course acts as the catalyst for her to embrace him. It was a bit dated even for 1963 and now it is a real dinosaur. Maybe a casualty of John Ford's alcoholism.
The Iron Maiden (1962)
Great idea that doesn't work
Remake Genevieve with traction engines? Build up to a great display at Woburn Abbey to show the best of British! Great idea! Then why the disappointment? The problem seems to me to light first in the lumpy script, which appears to have been cobbled together from spare 'Carry On' films. Then the leading man who is played by Michael Craig has got no charm whatsoever. He just comes across as a bit of an obsessive, boorish control freak. Therefore you cannot see what the pretty Anne Helm can see in him and when she crashes his wretched engine and gets a spanking over his knee our sympathies are entirely with her. That is actually the most chemistry between the two leads which is a pity as the original idea was splendid and the rest of the cast is mainly first rate.