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Reviews
Run for the Sun (1956)
A Glorious Day Takes A Perilous Turn
Viewing this challenging to produce adventure film, you wonder why actors go through such a demanding discipline when they could just take "walk through" film parts like "Cash McCall" and spare themselves the physically-exhausting grind? In fact, Jane Greer subsequently became severely ill with a virus from over-exposure to the perils of the jungle, in tandem with the punishing and wearisome film-shooting regimen.
Greer plays the part of a magazine "spy" journalist, seeking to catch up with a celebrated societal "drop out" author, played by Richard Widmark, a.k.a. "Ernest Hemingway without the beard," which she does in the small Mexican fishing village of San Marcos. Soon enough she falls for this reclusive, charismatic "loner," to the point where she defaults on her "exclusive story" assignment, and begins the trek homeward to New York City.
The first leg of the trip home entails Widmark flying the lady in a small private airplane, to Mexico City. Alas, the result of faulty compass readings, instead of reaching Mexico City, the couple finds itself off-course with a low-fuel crisis over the heart of desolate jungle terrain, where there are forced to crash land.
At first it seems fortunate that, shaken up by the impromptu landing as they are, they are assisted by a combination of two English-speaking "landlords" of the isolated jungle estate where they landed, and some native cohabitants in that setting.
Slowly, Widmark and Greer come to realize that their hosts are not simply Englishmen doing archaeological research, but in fact are Nazi war criminals on the dodge, with one of them (Trevor Howard), being an English "turncoat" who threw in with the Nazi's and married the (late) sister of the one with whom he is in seclusion, far removed from civilization.
As these revelations dawn upon Widmark and Greer, however, their antagonists become aware that their security has been breached, thus the resolution of the film depicting the literal struggle for supremacy and survival pitting the now rival factions, replete with the requirement that the combatants on both sides exhibit "survival school" resourcefulness, as the chase is on and the stakes are high.
The film is well-scripted, certainly well-directed (Roy Boulting, "There's A Girl In My Soup") and superbly acted, with the lush Technicolor production offsetting the pristine surroundings quite lavishly. And Jane Greer, for all her "Out Of The Past" film noir celebrity, never looked more stunningly beautiful, abetted by the strong and complementary magnetism she and Richard Widmark share throughout their collaboration on this film.
Highly recommended suspenseful film - for its visual splendor and for its sustained-interest plot which winds down many arcane twists and turns of fortune for the protagonists.
Les rendez-vous d'Anna (1978)
Where Intellectual Honesty meets Despair
When a single woman, in her early 30's with plain features - starting with expressionless eyes and thin lips unadorned by cosmetics, attempts to deal with people in her professional career world of film-making, in her personal world of family, and with her few, select friends, her inability to ignite a spark of spontaneity in even the most casual social encounters foreordains a shallow, isolated existence from which there can be no respite.
At no time are we given a hint as to why this young woman has become traumatized and de-sensitized to the point where her inter-personal responsiveness is mechanical and roboticized, and to where she is so emotionally-blocked she cannot even return a wave from a man who befriended her on a train trip from Cologne to Brussels, just walking out of his life as though they had not spent several hours in mutual soul-searching for a meaning in life beyond mere existence and attending to business matters. And to where, when her brief visit with her mother at a train station, and overnight in a hotel room, ends with her mother pleading with her to say "I love you," she coldly obliges, but then, instead of the natural follow-up of a shared hug, she just turns around and walks out of her mother's life for another extended period of separation.
Even given Anna's embarrassing lack of social communications skills she does have some redeeming positive qualities, starting with two of the most important attributes anyone can have and outwardly convey - honesty and integrity. This is a real person with inner contentment and the confidence to let the world in and see her as she truly is, which is consistent from the inner soul to the outer countenance, with no cosmetics and no theatrical affectations - just as earthy and unassuming as a human being can possibly be. And while she never projects in dress, speech, or manner the contemporary, overt "sensuality" to which her generation of young women routinely aspires, she seems comfortable with her ample female physical endowments in her two sexual encounters with males she dallies with, one a "ships in the night" encounter with a German man, the other with her current lover who is based in Paris, and who becomes physically ill as a result of her ascerbic verbal rejoinders, at the expense of failing to consummate their fleeting and perhaps final romantic tryst.
Because the protagonist in this film appears completely detached from societal conventions and contemporary behavioral patterns, this film elicits a pallor of honesty and in-depth psychological reflection far beyond the superficial treatment accorded most cinematic leading ladies. It takes guts to produce such a mundane subject matter film without succumbing to the temptation to over-reach and titillate the mature audience this starkly depressing material is intended for.
Well worth viewing on a repeat basis, if simply because Sigmund Freud would have had a "field day" analyzing the eccentricities of such a complex and disturbed soul as this one.
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Jet Pilot (1957)
Comedy Meets The Cold War
Interesting film, in that the contrast of positives and negatives is as glaringly apparent as The Grand Canyon is wide.
First, to get the negatives out of the way, the (mis)casting centers around Jay C. Flippen, a career "character actor," as John Wayne's Air Force Commanding General. John Wayne reporting to Jay C. Flippen is like Humphrey Bogart reporting to Jerry Lewis, as in "Something is amiss, here." Where the John Wayne-Jay C. Flippen seniority debacle is concerned, it makes one wonder, "Where have you gone Dean Jagger?" - who did such a credible job propping up Gregory Peck in "One O'Clock High," filmed in the same year of 1949.
It has already been noted, elsewhere here, the credibility gap of Janet Leigh lacking a hint of a Russian accent. This, of course, is the typical Howard Hughes bravado of just getting his "starlet of the year" up there on the screen, and to hell with the consequences of in-default major details undermining everything else. Ava Gardner, Jean Peters, Jane Russell, and Janet, et al, never complained, we may assume.
Some may think this is strictly an Air Force public relations-type vehicle. However, the real motivation behind this film may have been more subtle, such as putting Janet Leigh's kissy face and contour-friendly mammary gland dimensions opposite John Wayne, to propel her into the national "silver screen" luminary spotlight. And giving John and Janet multiple kissing scenes validates this theory, as John Wayne indulged in few kissing scenes with his leading ladies, over the entire span of his career. And as smiling fate would have it, Janet's career went full bore right into the 60's, complete with "Psycho" shower scene immortality, without so much as a "leg up" from this film, which was finally released in 1957 for political red red tape reasons far in excess of any political statement this film actually makes.
The most compelling question surrounding this film has to do with the V.I.P. treatment this "off course" seductive female Soviet fighter pilot receives, courtesy of the U.S. military, as John Wayne is assigned the task of escorting her on a whirlwind tour of parties, clubs and dances, ad nauseam. This begs the question: at what point does the U.S. Government come to regard her as a spy(?), which is the delayed reaction, two-thirds into the film. So that, if a cold war spy suspect is pretty, she gets a pass? Hollywood script writers are known for their apostasy when it comes to sticking to the facts, but this one is off the chart for script-writing license absurdity.
The saving grace for this film is simply that John and Janet seem a great "opposites attract" pairing, complete with a smoldering physical attraction chemistry. Janet does not seem over-matched as John's intellectual rival when it comes to social banter and as regards discussing the nuances of advanced-technology aviation. She holds her own, in fact.
Call this film entertaining and well worth seeing, so long as you don't take it too seriously. After all, those who produced it didn't make that mistake, either.
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