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Reviews
A Step Out of Line (1971)
Better than the average TV movie
I saw this movie exactly once, when it first aired in 1971. The next day, in a campus dining hall, several foreign exchange students & I talked about it; they were all suitably impressed with an American made-for-TV movie.
What I remember is that the Peter Lawford character admits that, unlike the Falk & Morrow characters, he's fairly well off & is taking part just for the adventure of committing a crime!
Danger Man (1960)
Sly, wry, & very absorbing!
Long before I saw all these original half-hour episodes on the cable network "Z Living," I saw many of the one-hour, 2d iterations of Danger Man, which here in the States was called "Secret Agent." In the late 1960s, a local Chicago station ran episodes of the latter at 1:30 in the morning: Shows engaging enough to keep me up the last hour of babysitting assignments.
But the half-hour shows, from 1960 to early 1962, are incredibly hip & timely. Many deal with the growing pains of African nations in the throes of independence. How timely?: Algeria did not gain full independence from France until 1962.
& The guest star actors are a veritable who's who of latter day big names: Donald Pleasance (Halloween), Charles Gray (Seven Percent Solution, Rocky Horror), & Robert "Quint" Shaw, William "Heywood Floyd" Sylvester. Women make repeat appearances: Lisa Gastoni, Zena Marshall.
Steely eyed Patrick McGoohan is a NATO operative & impersonates arms dealers, chefs, drunks. He is alternately overbearing & understated. The story lines are complex, & so are the characters.
The Fighting 69th (1940)
Romantic WWI yarn about an incorrigible soldier (Cagney) who redeems himself in the movie's last minutes.
Street tough Jerry Plunkett never ducks a fight until the shooting starts & in the trenches in France is responsible for the deaths of several of his comrades (by foolishly setting off a flare that draws enemy fire), including the brothers of Sgt. "Big Mike" Wynn (Alan Hale) & Joyce Kilmer (Jeffrey Lynn). CO "Wild Bill" Donovan (George Brent) has Plunkett court-martialed, & he is due to be executed.
During intense shelling of the bivouac, Father Duffy (Pat O'Brien) releases Plunkett from confinement & counsels him about the two roads he can take: escape or back into the fray. Plunkett rescues Fr. Duffy from beneath some fallen timbers & takes off for the front, where he hooks up with a wounded Big Mike.
Cagney's Plunkett is fictional, but there are several real-life 69th soldiers represented: Fr. Duffy, Joyce Kilmer, & Maj. Donovan. Lotsa big screen stars of the day: Brent, Hale, John Litel, Frank McHugh, Dennis Morgan, O'Brien. Movie also features off-screen friends Frank Wilcox (Mr. Brewster in the early episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies) & future "Superman" George Reeves.
5 Steps to Danger (1956)
Restrained Cold War drama
Low-budget but suspenseful Cold War yarn, with Sterling Hayden & Ruth Roman. Hayden is gruff John Emmett, whose car breaks down in California on his road to nowhere (supposedly en route to visit his folks in Texas). The suspiciously friendly Ann Nicholson (Roman) offers Emmett a lift, as long as he'll drive some. She's going to New Mexico.
Along the way, her psychiatrist (the future Col. Klink, Werner Klemperer) & his nurse pop up; with sundry likewise suspicious characters: cops, a university dean, CIA, FBI (Ken "Festus" Curtis), & hired killers. Ann's carrying missile secrets, which are carved into a ladies' mirror. There's a fine sudden twist to the showdown with the guy for whom the missile secrets are meant.
For a low-budget thriller, the acting's surprisingly low-key. Hayden does restrained bewilderment very well: quite contrary to his lead role in "The Killing," a couple years before. Roman is also restrained in her role as a suspected spy, with secrets of her own culled from both sides of the globe. As our Dad used to say, "A goody to see again!"
Good Night Valentino (2003)
A Good Man in a Bad Trade
Much of the narrative here is quoted from Mencken's essay (a Baltimore Sun column) that appeared a few days after Valentino died. Mencken wrote that he was puzzled by Valentino's request to meet with him; the dinner was arranged by an actress (Aileen Pringle, who had actually appeared in a couple of early Valentino movies) of the men's mutual acquaintance. The maid here is an artistic addition, not mentioned in the essay, & Ms. Pringle was not cited by name.
This short gives a fair account of their encounter, & we are watching two very fine actors at work. (John Rothman, who appears as Mencken, is in fact from Baltimore.) Mencken described the evening as infernally hot & Valentino as essentially an honorable man & even his clothes as not those "of his horrible trade." I'd always thought that Mencken's description of the dinner would make an excellent albeit brief stage play & found this short film only recently.
The Outer Limits: Second Chance (1964)
Critique of Pure Camp
Sure, there're hokey special effects, enough over-acting to power a small city for a month, & a plot picked out of a hat, but there's the usual questionable activity of those earthlings & some powerhouse TV regulars of the day.
& I'd wager that this is the only American A/V production in any form, mainstream or experimental, in which a character is chided for reading Kant's Critique of the Pure Reason in the original German.
OTOH, I wonder whether the plot wasn't picked up by an O.L. staffer at the 1964 NY World's Fair, as the spacecraft interior looks an awful lot like the centerpiece of one of the big exhibits my dad & I rode in that summer. & In a variation on the old plot twist, it's the earthlings that compel the alien to see the error of his ways.
Spy Game (2001)
I didn't see any "plot holes" here ...
Because the plot is covered plenty of other reviewers ... Not sure from whence some reviewers (including reliable old Roger Ebert!) acquired the notion that this movie covers 25, 30, or 40 years: Muir meets Bishop some months before the final U.S. exodus from 'Nam (1975); Bishop leaves w/ that exodus. Present day is 1991: that's about 16 years.
& Maybe we should take into account that people aged more quickly in 'Nam; whether covert or no. In any case, what's really far-fetched is Bishop as a sniper from 1965 thru 1975.
There're also complaints about the superficial nature of the plot & the characters. Well, there's a superficial nature to clandestine ops.: you ingratiate yourself into the bosom of your opposing number, but unless you've developed suicidal ideations, you don't make friends w/ him. This is shown admirably in the case of the traitor Schmidt.
The movie's style is a metaphor for the style of the people it portrays: if your job is declaring your brethren expendable, you are indeed shallow. Look @the task force: careers devoted to expediency won't soon extend serious consideration to morality.
Muir may be smart, but he's superficial too: he views every phone call in terms of what it'll produce 6 rounds hence. All that's between him & Bishop is the new yuppie establishment: one suspects if the task force were composed of Troy Folger types, Muir wouldn't think twice about letting the Chinese have their way w/ Bishop. But you have to be cold & calculating to betray your superiors while standing in their midst.
As an aside, it's genius casting when the protégé is played by a guy (Pitt) whose star quality is on par w/ where that of his mentor's (Redford) was 40 years ago. A further irony: Harry Duncan ("Harry's a friend!" "Aren't they all!") is played by (now late) David Hemmings, who cut his teeth playing dashing fashion photogs (Blow Up) & knights (Alfred the Great) back in "that 60s" era.