Westworld (1973)

The science fiction thriller WESTWORLD (1973) has a lot of interesting things going for it.  First, it's directed by one of the most popular fiction authors of the 20th Century, Michael Crichton.  Crichton  had written two novels already - THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and THE TERMINAL MAN and both were made into films.  Whereas most novelists would move on to their next book, Crichton chose to write and direct what is in essence a hybrid sci-fi western B film.  I would put WESTWORLD on my list of guilty pleasures to view.  It's such a simple idea. A theme park for adults that offers three choices: Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld. Visitors pay a thousand dollars a day to live out their fantasies whether it be robbing a bank in the 1880's or jousting with the Black Knight or living it up in decadent Rome with human like robots playing most of the roles for the guests to interact with.

I first saw WESTWORLD on television probably in the 1980's.  I don't recall seeing the whole film but I remember Richard Benjamin sleeping with the girl robot and the robots turning on the guests, killing them.  And I remember Yul Brynner as the unstoppable Gunslinger but more about him in a moment.

In the film WESTWORLD, the company that runs this adult amusement park is called Delos.  Their slogan is THE VACATION OF THE FUTURE - TODAY.  Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin), a recently divorced Chicago lawyer, is going to Westworld for the first time with his buddy John Blane (James Brolin), a repeat visitor. Blane's hope is to get Martin some fun and adventure after Martin's bitter divorce.  Westworld is the answer.  If a guest wants a gunfight, they have a gunfight.  If the guest wants to be in a barroom brawl, a barroom brawl it is.  There are even robot western prostitutes to entertain the guests.  Besides Blane and Martin, the film also follows the exploits of a meek banker (Dick Van Patten) who wants to be Westworld's next sheriff and another guest (Norman Bartold) who's fantasy is to woo a medieval queen.

Behind the scenes at  Delos, technicians and programmers in white coats run the park, direct and coordinate the events, and fix the robots each night after their daily gunfights, bank robberies, and jousts.  But the theme park is not running as smoothly as it seems. Delos's Chief Technician (Alan Oppenheimer) is noticing more and more malfunctions from the robots.  He notes that it began in Roman World and like a virus or disease, has worked its way over to the other theme parks.

Crichton builds the suspense nicely, never rushing it. He shows the tourists interacting with the robots and the danger that is possible. Subtle little incidents hint that all is not well in Delos. A robot rattlesnake bites Blane. A medieval wench slaps a guest when she should accept his advances. It's only a matter of time before the black shirted Gunslinger that Peter keeps shooting will have his revenge. When it does happen, the payoff is perfect.  When the technicians try to cut off the robots power and disarm them, that action fails and their control room loses power and oxygen, bringing about their doom as well.

As the robots revolt, all hell breaks loose. As Peter flees the Gunslinger and crosses over from Westworld to Roman World, there's a great shot of a faux Roman bust of some emperor lying in a river bed. Just as Rome fell for its excesses, so too will Delos's theme parks as the robots rebel against their creators.

WESTWORLD touches on a theme that Crichton will explore again and again.  Science gone astray.  In THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), a military satellite bring back a deadly virus. In JURASSIC PARK (1993), dinosaurs cloned from DNA wreak havoc on an island that was planned to be a theme park.  And in WESTWORLD, it's robots that turn on the tourists they are meant to entertain.

Even though WESTWORLD is a  B movie, the directing, editing, photography, and acting is all first rate.  Benjamin and Brolin are likable and Brolin especially has fun playing an Eastwood/Leone like cowboy on his vacation.  I never understood why Brolin never quite made it big in films.  He had the looks and the charisma.  The casting of Yul Brynner as the Gunslinger is probably what makes WESTWORLD so memorable.  Brynner pays homage to his cowboy character in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) and with his perfectly bald dome and clean shaven face, Brynner looks like he could be a robot.

The Gunslinger is an early incarnation of the unstoppable machine that director James Cameron will create in THE TERMINATOR films.  The machine that just keeps coming and coming even after having acid and fire thrown at it. And the theme park Westworld Crichton will revisit later in his novel and the subsequent film JURASSIC PARK which is to be a theme park until the dinosaurs destroy the place.

The story moves briskly, maybe too much so.  We never get to see what happens to the Dick Van Patten sheriff character and Roman World is hardly shown at all which could have been a budgetary limitation.  But Crichton has a lot of fun with WESTWORLD as well.  In a sublime piece of irony, as Peter flees the pursuing Gunslinger, he comes across a white coated technician repairing his golf car out in the desert.  The technician brags about the robot model and how he's unstoppable.  Peter rides on and the technician is shot and killed by his creation - the Gunslinger.

Michael Crichton would direct only a few more films after WESTWORLD including THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1979), COMA (1978), and LOOKER (1981) and he would go on to write many more best-selling novels that mostly involved some kind of science fiction theme.  But I do think one of his best stories he ever told was not a novel but a film and screen play called WESTWORLD.

Batman (1989)

I grew up on the campy BATMAN TV series of the 60's with Adam West as Batman , Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder and a host of over the hill movie stars and comedians as the Arch Villains i.e. Cesar Romero (the Joker), Frank Gorshin (the Riddler), or Burgess Meredith (the Penguin). When I lived in Los Angeles, I even visited the entrance to the Bat Cave somewhere in Griffith Park. But once you grow older, campy isn't quite as interesting. I was excited when it was announced that a new darker, more mature Batman movie was going to be made and to helm this franchise was the perfect director - Tim Burton.

Burton's BATMAN (1989) jump started the whole super hero film franchises that had vanished after Christopher Reeve's SUPERMAN films in the mid-1970's. BATMAN was the event of 1989 as I recall and producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters did a great job of hyping their film, so much so that viewing it recently, it's a bit painful to watch compared to the bigger, badder, even darker THE DARK KNIGHT (2008). The Prince songs now seem very Warner Brothers cross-promotional and Gotham City is just a big, sterile London movie set. So has the THE DARK KNIGHT completed knocked my beloved 1989 BATMAN from super hero film glory?

Not exactly.  The strength of this BATMAN are the actors.  With all the well earned accolades and awards given to the late Heath Ledger for his rendition of the Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT, it's hard to believe 21 years ago we were bestowing similar praise to Jack Nicholson's Joker, believing his was the definitive performance.   Nicholson's Joker is a bit more likable and accessible than Ledger's but he'll still kill an innocent bystander or his girlfriend (Jerry  Hall) in an instance.  Ledger's performance is amazing but Nicholson's Joker is inspired. And Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne/Batman is equally interesting. Usually the super hero plays second fiddle to the more colorful super villain but Keaton holds his own, making Bruce Wayne a delightfully absent minded millionaire and his Batman just a hair less homicidal than the Joker. I give Keaton's Bruce Wayne a slight nod over Christian Bale's  Bruce Wayne in THE DARK KNIGHT.  I do like the look of Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne in BATMAN FOREVER (1995) but I need to see that film to make a final verdict.

BATMAN pits Bruce Wayne aka Batman against his arch-nemesis Jack Napier aka the Joker. Napier/the Joker (Jack Nicholson) works for Boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance), Gotham City's resident crime boss. But Grissom doesn't trust Napier and sets him up to be caught by the police at a chemical factory Grissom owns. Batman (Michael Keaton) shows up, Gotham's new caped crusader, and accidentally knocks Napier into a pool of acid. The acid not only corrodes Napier's face into an unnatural grin, it causes Napier to go insane. Reborn as a white skinned, green haired homicidal criminal, the Joker begins a war on his fellow crime bosses, Gotham City, and Batman.

Bruce Wayne/Batman is haunted by the death of his mother and father, gunned down in front of his eyes by a mugger with the catch phrase, "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" His parents deaths lead Wayne to use his wealth to fight against the forces of evil. Aided by his faithful man servant Alfred (Michael Gough), Batman matches wits with the Joker and his gang as the Joker poisons the city's toiletry products in an attempt to terrorize Gotham City. The two also battle for the affections of photo journalist Vickie Vale (Kim Basinger).

The Batman/Joker/Vale triangle is an interesting element.  All three are touched and affected by violence. Vale photographs images of famine and war for a news magazine and is drawn to Batman in his crusade to stop violence in Gotham City. Wayne's parents were murdered by a gunmen who we will eventually discover was a young Jack Napier. Because of their deaths, Wayne turns to crime fighting and as the Batman, Wayne causes Napier to become the Joker, in essence creating his nemesis. The chemistry between Keaton and Basinger is great too, a connection of two lonely souls I never full appreciated when I first saw BATMAN in a San Fernando Valley multiplex.

BATMAN falters toward its climax as director Burton and writers Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren seem to run out of plot ideas as the Joker tries yet again to harm Gotham City with poison gas from a giant parade balloon and Batman comes out of nowhere with the Bat Jet to thwart him. Action scenes are not Tim Burton's strong suit and most of the action pieces in this film are clunky and not very well staged. BATMAN was only Tim Burton's third mainstream film and over his amazing career, he will get better with action scenes. Burton's strong suit are his flourishes of macabre and his visual and design flair.  Besides the aforementioned bad Gotham city set, Burton hits it dead-on with the Bat Cave and the Gotham Museum and Vale's apartment and even the Hammer film like Gothic cathedral where Batman and the Joker have their final duel. The late production designer Anton Furst (FULL METAL JACKET) deserves some credit as well for the film's look. I forgive them for the poor Gotham City set, probably a casualty due to the actor's salaries and the the high cost of filming outdoors on location. 

Some of the characters integral to the Batman mythology aren't too prominent in this BATMAN. Harvey Dent (Billie Dee Williams) and Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) are very peripheral.  Only Alfred has a key role, acting as a surrogate parent and partner for Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Tim Burton does tip his hat to the BATMAN TV series. Nicholson's Joker owes a slight nod to the TV Joker Cesar Romero with his crazed laughter and theatrical nature. The Bat Mobile is more a muscle car in this film then the 60's TV car. And when the Joker's henchmen wear Joker buttons on their coats, I  smiled to myself knowing that Burton had watched a few BATMAN TV episodes during his research to get the henchmen just right.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised that BATMAN held up a little better than I thought to the more recent and well made interpretations of Bob Kane's original hero. Keaton and Nicholson and Basinger contribute immensely to this comic book film being taken seriously and the choice of a young, imaginative Tim Burton put super hero movies back into our consciousness and paved the way for the likes of SPIDER MAN, IRON MAN, and even the Batman reboot THE DARK KNIGHT.

Dr. Zhivago (1965)

Before there was CGI (Computer Generated Images), there was David Lean. Before filmmakers could create armies of mummies at war with each other or alien spaceships destroying Manhattan with the help of computers, director David Lean was the master of the epic image. Whether it was blowing up a real bridge and destroying a real train in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957) or filming a vast Arabian desert with a singular camel rider in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962), Lean was the visionary filmmaker who did it for real. No computer animation. No Hollywood special effects. If he needed thousands of extras, he used thousands of extras. If he need to film in Sri Lanka or Morocco or Finland or India, he went there.

David Lean made 16 films (he was an editor before he became a director), but he's probably most famous for his three sprawling epics at the zenith of his career.  DR. ZHIVAGO (1965) is Lean's third epic after BRIDGE and LAWRENCE. As much as I loved those two films, ZHIVAGO never really piqued my interest. Maybe it was the Russian history element which always confused me. Maybe I was a film snob and just didn't want to see a three hour historical love story. But Lean made only two more films after ZHIVAGO so if I wanted to see another David Lean blockbuster, this was the one to watch.

Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak and adapted by screenwriter Robert Bolt (who won an Academy Award for ZHIVAGO), DR. ZHIVAGO is big soap opera set against the turbulent Russia in the early 20th century.  It's easy to see why Bolt won an Academy Award for his screenplay as the story is complicated with many interesting characters and stories and subtext.

DR. ZHIVAGO recounts the tragic story of love found and lost against the backdrop of the Bolshevik uprising, World War I, and the Russian Revolution. Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) is a middle-class doctor and poet, married to his adopted parents daughter Tanya (Geraldine Chaplin).  Yuri meets, falls in love and has an affair with a young dressmaker named Lara (Julie Christie). Lara is engaged to a political labor activist Pasha (Tom Courtenay) but involved in a disastrous affair with an older, arrogant Russian official Viktor Komarovsky (Rod Steiger).

Yuri and Lara never meet officially for the first part of the film but Yuri  has chance encounters with Lara, on the trolley and in her mother's studio, that stir something in him.  Both Yuri and Lara will lose their innocence early in the film.  For Yuri, it's watching his beloved snow covered Moscow turn bloody as government dragoons (guards) with swords attack a workers rally, murdering many demonstrators and wounding others including Pasha. Yuri tries to assist the injured but guards force him back. For Lara, she loses her innocence when Komarovsky rapes her. Afterward, she follows Komarovsky to a Christmas party and tries to shoot him with Pasha's gun, wounding him in the hand. Yuri and Tanya are there, mesmerized by this beautiful, fragile creature. Pasha arrives before the police and leads Lara away.

WWI erupts and Yuri and Lara's lives are thrown in disarray.  Lean depicts the horrors of the war in a concise, effective montage.  Returning from the front, Yuri and Lara meet face to face for the first time, he as a military doctor and she a nurse.  Back in Moscow, civil unrest encroaches on Yuri's family life as his home is taken over by the people forcing Yuri, Tanya, and Tanya's father Alexander (Ralph Richardson) to flee Moscow by train and head east, back to their birthplace.

On the train ride back, Yuri encounters Lara's husband Pasha, who's now a scarred, revolutionary named Strelnikov. Yuri learns that Lara also has fled eastward.  Yuri eventually finds Lara, working in a library and they consummate their love.  Yuri tries to remain faithful to his wife Tanya but his passion for Lara is too great. As he tries to visit her again one day, Yuri is kidnapped by the Reds and forced to live and fight with them as they attack the Whites. When Yuri finally escapes some time later and returns to his home, he finds Tanya and his kids have left but Lara and her daughter still there. Komorovsky shows up (he's now the Minister of Justice) but this time to make amends by helping to get Lara and her daughter away before the wrong side finds them. The sleigh can only fit three so Yuri stays behind.  He never sees Lara again nor does he ever learn that they had a child together.

DR. ZHIVAGO is first rate from Freddie Young's beautiful cinematography to the editing and production design and the lush score by Maurice Jarre with the mesmerizing 'Lara's Theme' played throughout the film. Once you hear it, you'll be humming it for a couple of weeks afterward. 


The characters in DR. ZHIVAGO all have incredible arcs which only a three hour film can allow to happen. Omar Sharif and Julie Christie are fantastic as the doomed lovers but I really enjoyed Rod Steiger, Tom Courtenay, and Geraldine Chaplin. Steiger redeems himself after assaulting Lara by rescuing her and her daughter. Courtenay transforms from dutiful committed comrade Pasha to bloodthirsty revolutionary Strelnikov. He's too blinded by his ideals to notice what a beautiful wife he had in Lara. And speaking of dutiful wife, Chaplin as Tanya is moving. She loves her husband and still loves him even when she knows he loves someone else too. Even cinematic wild man Klaus Kinski has a nice couple of scenes on the train as Kostoyed, a political activist of some sort.

Lean and Bolt never offer easy answers or explanations in DR. ZHIVAGO. There are no credits at the beginning explaining what year the film begins or a brief tutorial on Russian history. And unless you got your doctorate in Russian history, I'm not exactly sure which side were the Bolsheviks and who were the Mensheviks and later the Whites and the Reds. Did Viktor rape Lara or not? Is the young woman that Yuri's half-brother Yevgraf (Alec Guinness) interviews in the prologue Yuri and Lara's long lost daughter or not? These mysteries may seem frustrating at times but it makes an audience pay closer attention.  In the end, you the audience get to decide.

DR. ZHIVAGO has some visual motifs similar to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Instead of a lone Lawrence against the hot shimmering desert, we have the lone figure of Zhivago isolated against white, frozen tundra. Zhivago has a CITIZEN KANE element as well.  As a child, little Yuri is given a guitar, a balalaika.  He takes the instrument with him to Moscow, nearly hits a man for almost breaking it when his adopted parents home is overrun, and takes it back to the Urals when they flee the civil war.  The guitar represents Zhivago's childhood, his lasting memory of his deceased mother.

DR. ZHIVAGO is not perfect.  I think the latter part of the film drags a bit especially the long train ride from Moscow to Siberia.  Yuri's well known as a poet but we never hear any of his poetry and he's shown writing a bit only toward the end of the film. Yuri's half brother Yevgraf shows up  in the middle of the film (as well as the beginning and end) but I was never entirely sure how he and Yuri were related. As I said, not everything in DR. ZHIVAGO is black and white (or Red and White for you Russophiles).

But DR. ZHIVAGO more than holds up as David Lean's third triumphant epic after BRIDGE and LAWRENCE. It's a shame that he didn't manage to make a few more big pictures but with the critical failure of RYAN'S DAUGHTER (1970), studios weren't as eager to give Lean more money as before. Imagine what David Lean could have done with a good Civil War story or America's push out west.  But Lean's influence can be seen in future directors films like Steven Spielberg's EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) or SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993).

So pick a rainy afternoon (it shouldn't be too hard if you live here in Oregon) and watch DR. ZHIVAGO from beginning to end. It's one of those films that will make you say, "They don't make them like they use to."

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

My love affair with director Alfred Hitchcock began in grade school. I saw his name on some books in my school library. They were anthology books with titles like 'Alfred Hitchcock's Stories of Suspense.' The books were probably offshoots of Hitchcock's successful television shows. Inside were stories of mystery and suspense by the best authors in the suspense genre (Robert Bloch and Daphne du Maurier to name a couple) and there was usually an introduction by Hitchcock (or an editor pretending to be Hitchcock). Hitchcock's famous image would be on the book. Who was this Hitchcock guy, I wondered? Even his name was creepy. Hitch...cock. So then, I grabbed one of the school's Encyclopedia Britannica's and looked him up and discovered he was a film director. The encyclopedia listed some of his film credits and they had strange, macabre titles. VERTIGO, PSYCHO, SPELLBOUND, NOTORIOUS, and FRENZY to name a few. Thus, began my infatuation with Alfred Hitchcock and his amazing films.

If you watch an Alfred Hitchcock film in 2010, they may seem a bit dated, but during his long and illustrious career, Hitchcock pushed the limits in story, sound, editing, special effects, and set design. One of his first films in the United States after early film success in England was the the spy thriller FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940).  Written by Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison, Hitchcock seems to swing for the fences in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, his first of two World War II thrillers he would make (1942's SABOTEUR being the other). It has all the Hitchcock motifs and themes that he started to show in his early career and would explore and use over and over during his American period. Set during the brink of England's involvement in World War II, the story opens with American newspaper publisher Powers (Harry Davenport) sending inexperienced but ambitious reporter Johnny Jones (Joel McCrae) to London as a foreign correspondent to dig up news on the impending war in Europe. Powers gives Jones a new pseudonym (Huntly Haverstock) and a lead regarding a Dutch politician named Van Meer (Albert Basserman) who is one of two signers on a treaty with Belgium that could prevent war.

As film fate happens, reporter Jones catches a cab with Van Meer in London on his way to a speaking engagement and almost lands his scoop but Van Meer isn't biting. Jones tries again when he follows Van Meer to Amsterdam but instead witnesses Van Meer's apparent assassination. Jones jumps into a car driven by an English reporter Scott ffolliot (George Sanders) and his friend Carol Fisher (Lorraine Day) and chases the assassins to a windmill hideout outside of Amsterdam. The killers escape but Jones and his new friends stay on the hunt, uncovering a nest of murderous spies, led by the leader of a peace organization (Herbert Marshall), bent on bringing war to England.

In FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT Hitchcock gets to unleash all his favorite themes: the innocent hero who stumbles into a nefarious situation; the suave villain; a bad guy falling from a very high place; and the MacGuffin, a plot device to move the story but that really has no payoff. In CORRESPONDENT, the MacGuffin is the clause in the treaty that has never been written down, just memorized by Van Meer. CORRESPONDENT also has amazing set pieces: the windmill hideout; the assassination sequence in a rainy, crowded Amsterdam square; and a terrifying plane crash in the North Atlantic. CORRESPONDENT is Hitchcock's practice run that he will fulfill beautifully with a somewhat similar NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959).

Actors Joel McCrae and Lorraine Day are decent as the leads but they aren't the big Hollywood stars that Hitchcock wanted (Gary Cooper turned down the reporter role). FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is Hitchcock's initiation to the Hollywood studio system (he made REBECCA the same year but with actors that producer David O. Selznick had hand picked).  McCrae is better suited in comedies like Preston Sturges THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942) but he grows on you in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT as the naïve American reporter. As Hitchcock became a bigger director in America, he would work with the likes of Cary Grant, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Montgomery Clift, Eva Marie  Saint, Henry Fonda, and Ingrid Bergman.

However, the supporting cast more than makes up for the lack of star quality. Herbert Marshall as Stephen Fisher, leader of the Fisher Peace organization (and ironically the bad guy trying to incite war with England) is the blueprint of Hitchcock villainy. Sophisticated, polite, and a good father yet not against hiring killer Rowley (Edmund Gwenn who would later play Santa Claus in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) to kill his daughter Carol's reporter boyfriend Johnny Jones. George Sanders overwhelms Joel McCrae as ffolliot, a fellow reporter helping to find the real Van Meer and stop the spy plot. At one point in the film, Sanders actually becomes the lead as he infiltrates a hotel where the bad guys are interrogating Van Meer (in a chillingly brutal scene for 1940) while McCrae disappears from the screen for about 20 minutes. For whatever reason, Sanders never reached Cary Grant or James Stewart stardom but he's fun to watch in this. Lastly, for comic relief, Robert Benchley (author Peter Benchley's father) as Stebbins, an American reporter working with Jones, provides laughs between the suspenseful scenes.

For me, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is a showcase for Hitchcock to American studios to show what he would be capable of. It's an ambitious film with special effects and visual tricks that still amaze me with their verve and ingenuity even today. I also like the pace of the film. Screenwriters Bennett and Harrison jam an awful lot of plot and action into two hours so the coincidences keep the film speeding along. Jones bumping into Van Meer immediately upon arriving in London; the villain Fisher's daughter Carol being in the chase car that picks up Jones after the assassination, and all of the major characters on the same plane to New York and subsequent plane crash may be coincidence but Hitchcock and his team do such a great job of telling this thriller that we the audience are happy to go along for the ride.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

In the early 80's, Walt Disney's film department was hurting. Their animated cartoons weren't doing very well, their comedies were beginning to seem outdated, they needed a kick start. Touchstone Pictures, a branch of Disney Studios, was formed, a place where Disney could make more mainstream films with adult themes and even R-rated comedies. It saved Disney. Touchstone films like SPLASH (1984), TIN MEN (1987), and DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS (1986) were both critically acclaimed and financially successful.

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) was another Touchstone hit that I don't think I was overly impressed with when I first saw it. I found it too sentimental. I wasn't a huge Robin Williams fan. Maybe I wasn't far enough removed from school to be able to reflect on the pressure and angst students feel from their parents and peers that DEAD POETS is about. But a second viewing has me finding plenty to like about the film.

First of all, it has one of the coolest movie titles. DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Imagine Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Robert Frost, and Percy Shelley hanging out together, playing chess, sharing a good cigar, swapping stories about past girlfriends. A good title hooks you right away.

Another plus is that Australian Peter Weir is the director of DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Having already made a film about the mysterious disappearance of school girls in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), Weir is very much at ease with the universe of teachers and students. Many of Weir's favorite themes pop up in DEAD POETS as well. Instead of young men going off to war in GALLIPOLI (1981), it's younger men going off to private school. Weir also likes having his characters be outsiders in the environments they must inhabit such as police detective Harrison Ford undercover in the Amish community in WITNESS (1985) or reporter Mel Gibson covering political unrest in Jukarta in THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1981). With DEAD POETS SOCIETY, it's Robin Williams as the new, unorthodox poetry teacher in the rigid college prep school institution.

The film opens with another school year beginning at Wilton Academy, sometime in the 1950's, somewhere in the East (Delaware to be precise). We're introduced to the boys we'll be following throughout the year, each with their own doubts and dreams. Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) dreams of acting while his father (Kurtwood Smith) bullies him to be a doctor. Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) can't live up to his older brother's scholastic reputation. Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles) yearns for the unrequited love of an older high school girl. These young men and their classmates are all plodding toward careers as physicians, lawyers, and engineers.

But their relatively normal school lives are forever changed by new poetry teacher, John Keating (Robin Williams), a former student himself of Wilton. Keating's unusual teaching methods and his mantra "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the Day" inspire the young students to release themselves from the constraints of conformity. When Neil discovers Keating's yearbook photo and the name Dead Poets Society, he brings it to his classmates attention and they question Keating about it. He explains what the club was and the boys form their own Dead Poets Society, finding a cave in the nearby woods to smoke, read poetry, play the saxophone, even bring girls. As the boys begin to flourish in their new found freedom, a terrible tragedy occurs that reverberates through Wilton Academy and finds Mr. Keating the scapegoat.

My favorite sequence in DEAD POETS SOCIETY is opening night for Neil in the school's production of A Midsummer's Night Dream. He's clearly having the time of his life as Puck and then his father Mr. Perry shows up to destroy his dream and pull him out of school, a decision that will have dire consequences. Director Weir captures the exhilaration and anguish perfectly. This sequence haunts me even today.

DEAD POETS was Williams first serious role and he stays restrained for most of the film, occasionally reverting into comedic Williams but director Weir keeps him in character for the most part. There is nice camaraderie between the boys and Williams and Williams does a fine job of letting the young actors shine. Williams has definitely grown as an actor since DEAD POETS but this film got his dramatic side off to a decent start.

I use to get actors Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke mixed up as they looked quite similar to me so it's ironic that they are paired together in the film. Both are excellent as is Josh Charles. Leonard has a face almost to beautiful to be a student. He's leader to his classmates yet subservient to his father and plays both wonderfully. Hawke is equally good as the introverted and awkward young man who's parents give him the same birthday present two years in a row. And Charles gets the one romantic part and carries it off with youthful aplomb. All three actors, now in their early 40's, have continued to shine in films and TV - Leonard is a regular on the TV show HOUSE; Hawke in films like TRAINING DAY (2001) and SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (1999), and Charles currently in the TV drama THE GOOD WIFE. It's refreshing to see that not all young actors overdose or end up on reality TV shows.

Watching DEAD POETS SOCIETY 21 years later got me reflecting on my formative years. I didn't go to a college prep school, just a nice public education but there is much to be said about a good teacher like John Keating and the role teachers play in our lives. I was reminded of past teachers I had like my 10th grade history teacher Mr. Swofford who taught me that classical art and music can be cool. Or Mrs. Floberg who let my creative side flourish on essays and journals that I had to write. Or Mr. Copley who introduced me to Supply-Side economics. Or Mr. Schuman who gave me a Super 8 film camera. Teachers can make a difference.

The Pirate (1948)

When movie lovers think of MGM musicals of the 40's and 50's, two of the biggest names of the genre are Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. While watching SINGING IN THE RAIN one time on DVD, one of the special features was a documentary on producer Arthur Freed who produced many of MGM's greatest musicals. One of the clips they showed was his film called THE PIRATE (1948). Since I'm a fan of both pirate films and musicals, the combination of both whetted my curiosity.

Garland and Kelly had made a previous film together in 1942 called ME AND MY GAL so THE PIRATE was their second pairing together. Although Garland gets top billing in the film, it is really Gene Kelly who is the rising star in this film while Garland's luster begins to fade due to her personal issues. Besides two fantastic stars, the film is directed by Vincent Minnelli (Judy Garland's husband at the time) who had directed her in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) and the film's songs are by the legendary Cole Porter.


THE PIRATE, based on a play by S.H. Behrman and adapted by screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich is set on an unnamed Caribbean island (the beautiful MGM back lot) where a young sheltered woman Manuela (Judy Garland) reads and day dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. In reality, her Aunt Inez (Gladys Cooper) has arranged a marriage for Manuela with the town's rotund mayor, Don Pedro Vargas (Walter Slezak). During a trip to Port Sebastian to see the ocean , Manuela and Aunt Inez come across a musical troupe led by the talented and charming troubadour Serafin (Gene Kelly). As he gives a performance in the town square, Serafin hypnotizes Manuela into singing a song for the crowd and convinces her that he is Macoco, the Black Pirate.

Manuela returns to her village to wed Don Pedro. Serafin and his traveling show follow. Serafin continues to impersonate the notorious pirate, causing grief for her fiance Don Pedro who suspects Serafin is not who he says he is. Thus begins a series of comic scenes and musical interludes as Serafin/Macoco woos Manuela while insulting Don Pedro. Soon, the Viceroy (George Zucco) comes to town with his army and captures Macoco/Serafin with the intention to hang him. But with the help of his talented group of performers and acrobats, Serafin escapes the noose and wins the heart of Manuela.

Kelly is wonderful as the roguish Serafin. His comic timing is impeccable and his dancing prowess is showcased in two bravura dance numbers. The first is a fantasy dream sequence in which Manuela imagines Serafin as Rococo, fighting off soldiers and hoarding a chest of jewels. Director Minnelli shoots the scene against a blood red sunset backdrop and with lots of fire pyrotechnics. Kelly's choreography showcases his athleticism. It's also the only true pirate moment in the film.

The second dance number near the end of THE PIRATE is more comic and Kelly shares the stage with the Nicholas Brothers (members of his troupe) in a dance performance worthy of Cirque du Soleil.

Judy Garland is the star of THE PIRATE but that star quality is beginning to fade. According to Robert Osborne on TCM's (Turner Classic Movies) introduction to the film, Garland's physical and mental health took a toll on the production. What was to be two months of filming stretched to six months. Garland's performance suffers as she's a bit uneven from scene to scene. Her close-ups sometimes seem disjointed as if shot later and you get the feeling Minnelli is covering for her absence in other scenes.

But despite her personal problems, Garland has great chemistry with Kelly in THE PIRATE. The scene where Manuela discovers Serafin is not the flamboyant buccaneer and nearly destroys a room to get at him is well-staged and hilarious. She still has one of the greatest voices in film (only Barbara Streisand and Julie Andrews come close) and demonstrates it on "You Can Do No Wrong." Kelly is no slouch in the singing department as he sings and dances himself away from the gallows with "Be A Clown."

Director Minnelli also gets a lot of credit for THE PIRATE'S success with his visual style, great use of color, and superb staging of both musical numbers and comedic scenes. The film has many humorous moments and comic jabs about actors as well as some nice twists and surprises that I didn't expect.

Gene Kelly would continue his string of successful musicals with AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) and SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952) while Judy Garland would make EASTER PARADE (also 1948) and A STAR IS BORN (1954) before moving into television. THE PIRATE is a great opportunity to see these two musical talents at a crossroads in their careers. Gene Kelly on the way up and Judy Garland's star starting to fade.

Dr. No (1962)

My first encounter with James Bond was in the early 70's when ABC would advertise their upcoming Sunday Movie during the week and I would glimpse a 15 second teaser for FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE or DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. The images were always the same. An explosion, a brief fight, a beautiful Bond girl, and some clever retort by James Bond to the villain of the film. I was hooked.


Author Ian Fleming's character James Bond first appeared on American television in 1954 in CASINO ROYALE but to little fanfare. But Bond was always meant for the big screen. And yet, if DR. NO had not been a success, it may have faded from our memory as quickly as it's brief appearance on television.

Thankfully, DR. NO was an enormous hit (President John F. Kennedy was no less a fan of the books) and so began our relationship with James Bond, his secretary Miss Moneypenney, his boss M, the gadget man Q, the evil crime organization SPECTRE, and the countless Bond villains and girls we've come to love from 1962 to 2008.

DR. NO is a pretty straightforward spy adventure. On the island of Jamaica, a British secret service employee Strangways and his secretary are murdered and their files stolen. Strangways had been working with the CIA trying to locate the source of some interference that had wrecked havoc with a U.S. missile launch. England sends it's best secret agent James Bond (Sean Connery) to investigate.

No sooner has Bond landed on the island then he's being pursued by henchmen and lethal femme fatales. With the assistance of CIA agent Felix Leiter (played by Jack Lord who would eventually play Detective Steve McGarrett on television's HAWAII FIVE-O) and Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), a local fishermen and operative for Leiter, Bond discovers that all clues point to the small island of Crab Key and a mysterious Chinese man known as Dr. No who owns the island.

Bond and Quarrel sneak over to the island where they encounter a beautiful local shell collector Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress). Soon, Dr. No's men capture Bond and Ryder and take them to Dr. No's lair where he reveals his next diabolical plan is to disrupt a U.S moon launch. It's up to Bond to stop the good doctor's plan, blow up his fortress, and kiss the girl which Bond accomplishes in a quickly moving finale.

But why did James Bond's second resurrection succeed? I give you 007 reasons why DR. NO became a bona fide hit and catapulted Ian Fleming's character James Bond into our cinematic consciousness for 21 more films.

001 - Sean Connery. Producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman got it right when they selected Sean Connery to play James Bond. If Connery doesn't command the screen, there is no sequel. Connery was a risk, a fairly unknown young actor at the time (you remember him in 1959's DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE, right?) but his portrayal of Bond as one part suave and sexy and one part cold, brutal secret agent with a dash of humor wins us over. Whether he's ordering a martini shaken not stirred or shooting the traitorous Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) in the back, Connery shows us that he was destined to be 007.

002 -- The Bond Girl. She may not have known it at the time but Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder had just as huge a weight on her lovely shoulders as Connery did as Bond. If we don't find Honey appealing, then much of the film's sex appeal is gone. Luckily, when Andress steps out of the surf in that white bikini, the Bond girl is born. I became an Ursula Andress fan at that moment. Unlike many Bond girls, Honey is not as sophisticated, a bit of a wild child, hunting for sea shells on the off-limits Crab Key, willing to thrust a knife into Bond to protect her day's work. But Bond's charm finally wins her over.

003 - The Villain. DR. NO does an excellent job of keeping the villain off camera until near the end of the film making him even more sinister. When Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) is revealed, he doesn't disappoint. He will be the first of many Bond villains to be both urbane (like Bond) yet psychotic. Another nice touch is Dr. No's metallic hands, the unfortunate result of handling radioactive materials. Jaws and his metal teeth from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME or Oddjob and his lethal bowler hat from GOLDFINGER will follow in future films. We remember the Bond baddies. If Dr. No is not memorable, neither is the film.

004 - The Director. Terence Young sets the tone for all future Bond movies with DR. NO. Exotic locations, beautiful women, spy gadgets, and nicely staged action scenes will become the norm. Young introduces filmgoers to the Bond mythology in DR. NO as we learn double O means Bond is licensed to kill and Bond's first gun , a Baretta, gets replaced by a Walther PBK. This kind of movie trivia will make James Bond an international icon.

005 - The Location. Films were just beginning to go on location in the 50's and 60's. Jamaica plays a role in DR. NO and as the Bond series continues, the filmmakers utilize more and more exotic and distant locales around the world. Jamaica's waterfalls and pristine beaches and islands are as sexy and dangerous in Bond's world as Honey Ryder and Dr. No. If DR. NO takes place on the north side of London, would we be as interested? Location, location, location.

006 - Production Design. Ken Adam, the Production designer for DR. NO and 6 other James Bond films creates two memorable sets on Dr. No's island hideout that again, set the bar for future Bond films: a domed room with spider web like bars and an underground apartment with convex aquarium and priceless stolen art. Adam's brilliant work would be seen in 1964 in Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE. His masterful and bold designs further compliment the Bond villains and stick in our subconscious.

007 - The Music and Titles. Music can sometimes be the strongest component to a film's success and there's no doubt that John Barry's catchy Bond theme with the guitar reverb as Bond faces down an unseen assassin through a gun's barrel is one of a kind and a hook we the audience won't soon forget. Maurice Binder's title design for DR. NO, although not as psychedelic nor sexy as future Bond title sequences will become, introduces us to the montage of silhouettes and color. All that DR. NO is missing is a good theme song but that will be fully realized in the third installment of the Bond series in GOLDFINGER (1964).

If James Bond had never made it past his first film DR. NO, now that would be a scenario that only Dr. No could dream up. But thanks to director Terence Young and actors Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, and Joseph Wiseman, DR. NO sets the stage for a series that has become more famous than author Ian Fleming ever could have imagined. In future essays, I hope to explore the best and worst Bond girls and Bond villains.