Movie Review: Chinatown
Year of Release: 1974
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
Plot outline: A private detective investigating an adultery case stumbles on to a scheme of murder that has something to do with water (IMDb).
Chinatown may be Roman Polanski's best movie. It may be Jack Nicholson's best movie as well, better than Five Easy Pieces or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It starts out seemingly an ordinary detective story and murder mystery. However, the plot gets thicker and thicker as Nicholson unravels a massive real estate scheme and learns who is behind it. Nothing is as it appears, not the wife, the affair, or the suicide. Nicholson knows he has been duped, and is determined to learn the full story, which involves murder, real estate fraud, and an artificial water shortage. His investigation also uncovers terrible family secrets involving the murder victim's wife (Faye Dunaway) and her cantankerous, powerful father (John Huston). Nicholson is well cast as the cynical and hard-working private eye. His character has similarities to Humphrey Bogart's in The Maltese Falcon, but Nicholson's is not as sharp, and is more willing to con his way into gaining information. Likewise, Dunaway's character is similar to that of Mary Astor's in The Maltese Falcon. Both characters seem unwilling to tell the full truth, and claim to love their hired detective, but Dunaway's is much softer and better intentioned. John Huston, more noted as a director than as an actor, gives a great performance as the grasping schemer who also wants the daughter he doesn't deserve to have. Roman Polanski has a great cameo as the enforcer with a knife. He will always be known more for his off-camera life than for the movies that he has directed, but perhaps that isn't as it should be. Chinatown is an outstanding movie, perhaps even the best movie of the 1970s. (BK)
My judgement: **** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Caesar and Cleopatra
Year of Release: 1945
Country of Origin: UK
Director: Gabriel Pascal
Cast: Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger, Flora Robson
Plot outline: Julius Caesar gives the famed Egyptian queen lessons in government (IMDb).
Caesar and Cleopatra is a little part history, a considerable part George Bernard Shaw, and a big part Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh. Rains is Shaw's vision of Julius Caesar: wise but jocular, clear-eyed even though amused by Cleopatra's transparent maneuvers and lies, and eager to avoid shedding any more blood than is necessary to secure control of Egypt (a major source of grain for imperial Rome). "Murder begets murder," Shaw's Caesar points out to the impetuous Egyptian queen. (The historical Caesar recurrently offered clemency - at least to Romans who had fought against him.) Leigh is Shaw's vision of Cleopatra: kittenish and uninhibited, especially not inhibited by any commitment to telling the truth. Rains is delightful as Caesar, manifesting with arch and polished grace all of the humour and tolerance and understanding that Shaw saw in the man. He also handles with sympathy and moving delicacy the poignant and fleeting intimations of a middle-aged man's yearn toward youth. Leigh gives what must be termed a perfect picture of the youthful Egyptian queen - at least, as Shaw perceived her. She is timid and electric as a girl and drenched with a hot, aggressive nature as the woman whom Caesar inspires. Slim and elastic in rare costumes, she looks every bit the one to catch the fateful fancy of a man with a cultivated taste. Fine, too, are other performances. Basil Sydney is robust and blunt as Rufio, Caesar's old lieutenant; Stewart Granger is handsome and suave as the dandy, Apollodorous, and Flora Robson is dour and hard as Cleopatra's maid. Francis L. Sullivan and Raymond Lovell play court intriguers with shrewd finesse and Cecil Parker gets much sly amusement out of Shaw's satirized British slave. (SM, BC)
My judgment: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Barefoot in the Park
Year of Release: 1967
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Gene Saks
Cast: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Charles Boyer, Mildred Natwick
Plot outline: A free-thinking bride and her conservative groom have trouble adjusting to married life (IMDb).
Neil Simon wrote primarily for the stage, but his plays have been successfully adapted to film many times. Barefoot in the Park is a worthy member of a club that includes The Odd Couple and The Sunshine Boys, though not quite up to their marks. The movie takes a comic look at the early stages of marriage and how quickly young lovers can become disillusioned. The challenge of starting a life together brings them quickly back to reality and exposes the potential down side of their rather impulsive nuptials. A ramshackle apartment, wacky neighbours, pressures at work and a lonely mother-in-law only add to the stress of blending two rather different personalities and life philosophies into one happy couple. Barefoot in the Park is a gentler movie that takes an honest look at life after the wedding bliss fades away, less cynical, but not without a razor sharp wit in the dialogue. The stars, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, neither known for comedies, turn in impeccably timed performances.
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Easter Parade
Year of Release: 1948
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, Ann Miller
Plot outline: On the day before Easter, Don Hewes is crushed when his dancing partner (and object of affection) Nadine Hale refuses to start a new contract with him. To prove she is not important to him, he acquires innocent new protegee Hannah Brown, vowing to make her a star in time for next year's Easter parade (IMDb).
Easter Parade is a decent musical that is winsome only in its many Irving Berlin numbers. Fred Astaire was a replacement for Gene Kelly, who broke his ankle playing ball with his family while the movie was in production. Astaire uneasily teams with Judy Garland (they seemed awkward together, though the much older Astaire said he enjoyed working with her). The music is not great but it's spirited and agreeable, with such lively numbers as the curious show stopper "A couple of Swells." The others include Astaire's "Steppin' Out with My Baby," his engaging opening number "Happy Easter" which is followed by his inventive "Drum Crazy," and finally there's Ann Miller's flashy "Shakin' the Blues Away." Even Peter Lawford sneaks by with his barely acceptable attempt at singing in tune "A Fella with an Umbrella." The title song is gloriously sung by Garland in the finale, and presents a nostalgic picture of a New York back in 1912 when the wealthy carriage-crowd paraded up and down 5th Avenue in their finest outfits. (DS)
My judgement: ** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
Year of Release: 1986
Country of Origin: USA, Austria, Italy
Director: Marvin J. Chomsky
Cast: Amy Irving, Olivia de Havilland, Jan Niklas, Nicolas Surovy
Plot outline: Story of Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, the only surviving daughter of the Czar and Czarina of Russia (IMDb).
Though the film is entertaining (in a soap-opera sort of way), the fact that it's loosely based on the story of Anastasia and the book by Peter Kurth, means it doesn't really live up to it's potential. The real characters of the Romanovs, the uprisal of the Bolsheviks, imprisonment and execution, royal conspiracies, and in general, an accurate portrait of Anna Anderson's life, all take secondary place to beautiful setting, pretty costumes, an attractive cast (most of the acting is quite good) and an unfortunate 80's tinge (too many perms). The film goes off on a tangent, eventually delving into the realms of fantasy and sickly Mills & Boon-style romance. It's a fun film to watch, but had it been more intelligent, more accurate and more sinister and mysterious, it would have been so much more captivating and entertaining. (A)
My judgement: ** out of 4 stars
Year of Release: 1974
