Early this morning a friend sent along his “top ten films of the 1960s” list, and it’s certainly a decent roster for the most part. Okay, better than decent. But he put The Guns of Navarone (’61) in his third-place slot, and that, I replied, is a definite no-go.
The first 45-50 minutes of J. Lee Thompson‘s WWII adventure thriller are terrific (the main title sequence + Dimitri Tiomkin’s score are bull’s-eye), but after the commandos reach the top of the cliff the film becomes rote and lazy and even silly.
How many Germans do they kill? Four or five hundred?
Two scenes are top-notch during the second half — (a) the S.S./gestapo interrogation scene with Anthony Quinn moaning and rolling around all over the floor and (b) the killing of Gia Scala for treachery. But the believability factor is out the window.
The more I watch this film, the more I’ve resented Anthony Quayle‘s “Roy” and his idiotic broken leg. Mission-wise Roy is a total stopper — an albatross around everyone’s neck. I don’t agree with Quinn’s assessment — “One bullet now…better for him, better for us” — but I almost do.
And the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve become sick of David Niven‘s demolition expert, who’s mainly an effete selfish weenie and a huge pain in the ass. Gregory Peck: “And what about the men on Keros?” Niven: “I don’t know the men on Keros but I do know Roy!” God, what an asshole!
A crackpot is a person whose views and philosophy are regarded as way too eccentric or fantastical to be taken seriously. A crankpot, according to Manhattan gadfly and all-around smartass Bill McCuddy, is a fellow who’s regarded as overly influenced by a skeptical sourpuss attitude about life and movies and whatever else — i.e., too Andy Rooney-ish.
Which, of course, is nowhere close to being a fair description of yours truly. For years I have claimed with a certain degree of sincerity to be a 21st Century incarnation of Klaus Kinski’s anti-Bolshevik in Dr. Zhivago — “the only free man on this train.” Okay, perhaps that’s putting it too strongly but it’s a reasonably close assessment, especially considering the general fanaticism out there.
“It serves as not just a personal look at Klein, but as something larger,” Showbiz 411‘s RogerFriedmanwrote on 4.20.16. “It’s a real piece of history. What Fine and Klein have done here is make an excellent companion piece to the very good Joan Rivers doc of a few years ago, A Piece of Work. Since Alan King died rather young and abruptly, and nothing’s been done on Stiller and Meara, there is very little documentary record of the great Jewish comics who launched from the Ed Sullivan Show era.
“The doc is also very funny. Klein is incredibly endearing and corny, while at the same time maintaining an edge. That’s why he made 40 appearances on Letterman. I hope The Weinstein Company can give Still Can’t Stop His Leg a good release in major markets before VOD or Netflix. Like a Robert Klein show, the film is intimate and hilarious.”
In the late ’70s a smart Jewish friend and fellow cineaste told me I had more Jewish guilt than he. That was the beginning of my honorary Jewhood, which thrives to this day.
Like any stable, decent, caring parent, Marcia Gay Harden, 63, recently emphasized her support of her three kids, and particularly their orientation or persuasion or however you want to put it.
This is what I would say if my kids had chosen this path. Compassionate, fair-minded parents have no choice but to embrace their children and show respect for their preferred orientation and/or identities.
Harden: “My eldest child is non-binary, my son is gay [and] my youngest is fluid.”
Harden’s Wiki bio reports that daughter Eulala Grace Scheel (born September 1998) is her eldest, and that twins Hudson Harden Scheel (born a bio-male) and Julitta Dee Scheel (born bio-female) were born on 4.22.04. Harden and the kids’ father, prop master Thaddaeus Scheel, divorced in February 2012.
All queer, in short, and yet Harden seems to be drawing distinctions between non-binary, gay and fluid. I honestly wouldn’t know how to define those distinctions.
For decades I never felt the slightest affection for Terner's Liquor (SW corner of Sunset and Larrabee). It was always just a common, overlighted liquor store with clerks who'd absolutely never been to college. I visited from time to time, but I always wanted to bolt as soon as possible. (I've been in liquor stores that had nice settled vibes...places that I felt vaguely soothed by.) Terner's was a soiled establishment.
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A couple of nights ago I was sitting through (i.e., not exactly watching) The Towering Inferno, and the truth of it hit me. When you break that film down there are three basic elements that make it work -- the lead performances by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman and the score by John Williams. Every other element is weak or annoying in some way. Too many explosions, unlikely complications, You could even call the film tawdry, but Williams score gives it a veneer of class. Williams had to know that The Towering Inferno was pricey pablum, but he pulled himself together, manned up and did the job. He sold it.
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