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Reviews
Prince of Players (1955)
Burton 1, Yanks 0
Richard Burton has fun portraying a somewhat pretentious and stolid actor who speaks, off-stage as well as on, in the 19th-Century grand manner -- in other words, someone like himself. He doesn't try to be American, and we don't really expect him to be. The other Brits and Canadians leave us a nice record of scenes they've been hearing or doing all their lives.
Maggie McNamara has no fun as a lovely but subdued American -- which she is -- and delivers her Shakespeare in the standard classroom-recital style which Gwyneth Paltrow also favors.
The Very Thought of You (1944)
Dear John, from the Home Front
This is an impressive drama about the other side of the familiar "Dear John" plot in World War II movies -- that is, what the women back home went through in fear, loneliness, and temptation while their boyfriends and husbands were far away, perhaps never to return. If you think of 40's movies as prudish, you'll be surprised by lines like, "I can't remember anymore the way it felt when we made love."
Sidebar: A supporting actress, the later-famous Faye Emerson, had just married FDR's son Elliott when this film was released. Also, if you live in L.A., you'll enjoy scenes on the Cal Tech campus and on Mt. Wilson.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Still Terrific
I'm watching it right now on AMC, for maybe the fifth time. Wasn't Leslie Parrish lovely, as always? Watch for her in the opening montage of "Mannix", now in reruns on TV Land, and in one episode starring Robert Conrad as an action-movie star.
Previous remarks about Raymond's accent overlook the fact that he's the son of a woman with a distinct English accent, so once he's back from the Army, then the more time he spends with her, the more he will revert. Even adult children do that, you know.
By the way, Khigh Dhiegh also played a Red Chinese brain-washing expert in perhaps the best-ever episode of "Hawaii Five-O". And isn't it odd that his fellow New Jerseyan, Frank Sinatra, made two films in eight years involving political murder by long-range rifle -- this film and "Suddenly".
As for double bills, try another assassination film based on another Richard Condon novel, "Winter Kills". Or, turn off your TV and read all 15 or 20 of Condon's novels; in your mind, you'll be watching better movies than most of IMDB's Top 100.