jasonhurd Reviews

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Superb and unjustly maligned film

[31 July 2004]

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

I'm not sure I have the ability to adequately praise this film. The original short story(rather unremarkable, actually)has been expanded into a magnificent example of Hollywood entertainment at its best. In addition to perhaps the finest line-up of character actors ever assembled(next to Cukor's David Copperfield, that is), we get Laughton and Dietrich at the top of their form. The person who criticised Lanchester's performance as "annoying" missed the point entirely. Miss Plimsoll is meant to be annoying! Also, what's with all the bad-mouthing of Tyrone Power? "Hammy"; "terrible"; "worst performance ever". These are the perceptive IMDb reviews? Only one of you got it right: it's hammy because Leonard Vole is the one acting, not Power! For 95% of the film, the character is dissembling, only showing his true colors at the end. Of course it looks hammy: Vole isn't a born actor like his wife. And to all those know-it-alls who called this film mediocre and predictable, I look forward to your upcoming film projects which I'm sure will be paragons of excellence and worthy to be set alongside classics of the golden age.

The Driver's Seat (1974)

One of a Kind

[6 July 2004]

Those sadly uneducated critics who dub this Liz' worst film have evidently never seen Boom!, based on Tennessee Williams' play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. I don't believe Boom! has ever been released in any video format; it is unbelievably horrendous. Compared to it, Identikit (or The Driver's Seat) is a work of genius. Liz' rant at the saleslady in the very first scene is worthy of comparison with Mink Stole's opening sequence in Desperate Living. I'm also fond of the scene at the airport, where she shouts at the security people, "You're all so suspicious! SUSPICIOUS! SUS-PI-CIOUS!" Her wardrobe looks like it was designed by a clown(her landlady asks derisively if she's off to join the circus), her hair must be seen to be believed, and I give this piece of vintage Liziana three out of four stars.

Sleeping Beauty (1955)

Magic and Poetry triumph over crass cynicism

[8/10 · 6 February 2004]

If you can overlook the bad dubbing and sometimes barebones production values (a dragon toward the end is particularly unfortunate), this is a completely charming version of the familiar tale. It was filmed on the grounds of an actual palace in Austria, and the director also plays the King. All of the actors are convincing and committed to their roles,never "playing down" to the material or snickering at it in a shared joke with the audience, as so often happens in our more cynical era. Among the more atmospheric scenes: the young queen's meeting with the wicked fairy early on; the exodus of the twelve good fairies from the depths of the lake; the wicked fairy putting the whole palace to sleep, and so on. This film manages to capture a naive sense of "long ago and far away" that is wholly and distressingly absent from more recent attempts at live-action fairy tales, like Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre and the lamentable Golan-Globus productions, which substitute modern-day smart-aleckiness and prosaic scripts for the true magic that films have always been capable of. This film was one of a series based on the better-known Grimm's tales that was filmed in West Germany in the 1950's, which perhaps accounts for the less-than-sumptuous settings; post-war Germany was not exactly overflowing with "filthy lucre". For those who like a little magic and poetry with their fairy tales, however, these films are just what the doctor ordered. They are available from amazon deutschland on Region 2 DVDs, but I don't think they are subtitled.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Just desserts?

[24 January 2004]

Warning: this review contains spoilers.

You know, for 33 years now I've been reading reviews of this film that deplore the terrible fates that overtake the naughty children. Forgive me, but this is political correctness run riot. Is Augustus pushed into the river? Is the gum forced into Violet's mouth? Is Veruca picked up and thrown bodily into the furnace? Of course not! All the awful things that happen to characters in this film are brought on by their own hideous behavior. It's an eternal truth: for every action, there is a consequence. Eat too much? You'll get fat. Drink too much? Alcoholism looms. And if you over-indulge your children, they will torment you until they're 18, then torture the rest of the world for the rest of their lives. The warnings in this film are similar to the ones seen in Grimm's fairy tales, and just as valid. This movie is not Walt Disney; it's much darker, more textured and, frankly, more interesting. So if you're the type who believes 'there's a little bit of good in everyone', don't watch this film. As one of Oscar Wilde's characters says, "The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what 'fiction' means."