Why the 60s Was the Greatest Decade for War Films

 

 

This is my entry in the 6 from the 60's blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Cafe


"War is man's greatest adventure" - Ernest Hemingway

War movies have been around ever since the invention of movies.  It may not have been among the first subjects. After all, a decent war flick does involve a bit more than some slapdash makeup to create a Frankenstein monster, or even to create the illusion of traveling to the moon.  But take it as fact, once the concept of motion pictures took off, quite naturally the adventure of war became a target to transfer to the screen.

I can't actually tell you what the first war movie was.  I gave up trying to find a website that would tell me.  But as early as 1911, war was depicted on film.  The Fall of Troy, a 1911 short film from the silent era seems to be one of the first, however.

Over the years, war became increasingly a good draw at the box office.  Some of the classics would have to include (regardless of political messages they may have had):  Birth of a Nation (1915), Battleship Potemkin (1925), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Sergeant York (1941), From Here to Eternity (1953), Patton (1970), Platoon (1986), Gettysburg (1993), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Fury (2014).

(Author's Note:  For brevity, I only chose one movie from each decade.  This is not necessarily the best movie, just my choice as a representative of the decade. If a movie you favor was not chosen, it does not mean I think it's less than the one I actually chose. Your opinion may differ.)

You will notice, of course, that the 60's are missing from the above list.  That's because, in my opinion, the 60's were the best decade for war films.  The primary subject for war films during this time period, of course, was for the then fairly recent conflict of WWII.  The one we actually could hold our heads high and proudly state "We won!"

Of course, it didn't hurt that some of the biggest names in show business were associated with these films.  I mean look at the cast listing of the six movies I am using as a representative:  Stanley Baker, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, James Coburn, Sean Connery, Vince Edwards, Henry Fonda, James Garner, William Holden, Trevor Howard, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Donald Pleasence, Anthony Quinn, Cliff Robertson, Frank Sinatra, Rod Steiger and John Wayne, just to name a few.  Plus you had such stalwart directors as Robert Aldrich, John Sturges and Daryl F. Zanuck behind the camera.

Of course, the following six are only a representative of the whole decade, not necessarily the unanimous best.  They are some of my favorites, of course, but as you will see, I also chose these six because I have already reviewed them in depth in other posts on this blog.  Some of the others not included, but well worth checking out from the 60's output of war films are:  The Alamo (1960), The Battle of Britain (1969), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Green Berets (1968), Hell in the Pacific (1968), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Zulu (1964). (Still an incomplete list, but it will get you started.)

My favorite war movie of the 60's is not one that involves actual war action.  I consider The Great Escape  (1963) to be the best of the bunch, however.  It is actually based on a true story about the planning of and escape from a Nazi P.O.W. camp near the end of WWII (based on an account written by one of the P.O.W.s who witnessed the events, Paul Brickhill).  The all-star cast makes this an intriguing movie.  The ending is somewhat of a downer, I warn you in advance.  I won't spoil the ending more than that, but watching the likes of McQueen, Bronson, Garner, Coburn and the like as they plan the escape is rather riveting.  As a side note, I used to call my folks every week when they were still alive, and I would play this movie without the sound in the background as I talked with them. (It helped me focus on the conversations, believe it or not...)

Another great escape movie is Von Ryan's Express (1965).  In this film, Frank Sinatra plays a downed pilot named Ryan who becomes the ranking officer in an Italian P.O.W. camp during WWII.  As such, he makes a general nuisance of himself, earning himself the rather disparaging nickname of "Von Ryan" (insinuating that he has Nazi sympathies).  The ultimate goal at the end is the commandeering of a prisoner train that is transporting the Italian P.O.W.s to a German P.O.W. camp after the Italians have surrendered.

 The Dirty Dozen (1967) is a different animal altogether.  In this film Lee Marvin is an officer given the task of training a dozen malcontents into a crack force of soldiers destined to create havoc at a secret Nazi rest area for officers of the German army.  And the all-star cast of this one has people who have memorable scenes which will stick with you long after you watch it.  Don't miss the great performances of Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, and Donald Sutherland just to name a few.

On the heels of that escapade comes another story about a cadre of men with a goal to disrupt the Nazi's and their nefarious deeds. The Guns of Navarone (1961) involves a group who must somehow disable a couple of devastating guns in a mountain stronghold that is creating havoc with troop movement of the Allies.  Gregory Peck and David Niven are among the stars of this great adventure.

In The Devil's Brigade (1968) William Holden is the leader of a cadre of American and Canadian soldiers with a task to capture yet another Nazi stronghold.  Like the Dirty Dozen, many of Holden's charges are malcontents who must be whipped into shape before proceeding on their mission.

Rounding out this sextet of great 60's war movies is another one that is actually based on fact.  John Wayne heads yet another cast of familiar names staging the historical D-Day invasion of France, then under Nazi control.  The Longest Day (1962) focuses on more than just Wayne, however.  Most of the big names are listed above, but you will recognize quite a few more of them, depending on your movie watching history.  And the fact that it's all pretty much true to the actual conflict is a history lesson that for once you might not mind enduring.

Looking back, the fact that all of these are representative of only one conflict, WWII in Nazi Germany, may seem a bit choosy.  But the fact is there is not a dud in the bunch.  And they were all made during one decade. For more in depth discussion on each entry, please click on the links to see my thoughts on each.  Or better yet, devote a weekend to just watching the movies.  I guarantee you won't be bored.

Drive home safely, folks.

Quiggy

Nuts to You

This is my entry for the Favorite TV Episode Blogathon (2020 ed.) hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts




Nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare you for the bizarre turn that Dick van Dyke and the cast pulled for this second season entry in "The Dick van Dyke Show".  Up until then the show had followed a typical 60's sitcom format of the day, delving into the home life and work life of it's star, Rob Petrie (van Dyke), as he dealt with troubles and misunderstandings in his daily routine.

Van Dyke costarred with Mary Tyler Moore as his wife, Laura, and Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie (as Buddy and Sally), who were his co-writers on a variety show,"The Alan Brady Show".  A typical episode might include Laura getting jealous of Rob because he has to spend a lot of time with a beautiful guest star on the TV show he writes for, or a ne'er-do-well brother of Buddy showing up and hustling Rob in a game of pool.

But in the middle of the second season, which was during they heyday of another hit show The Twilight Zone, a script came across the desk of the producer, Sheldon Leonard, that turned the van Dyke show on it's ear.  Although Leonard initially didn't like the concept and thought it wasn't all that funny, he gave the go ahead to film it, later admitting he was wrong about his initial reaction.

The show is basically a Zone parody.  And just to home in that concept, the aliens come from a planet called "Twilo".  The bizarre nature of the episode makes it stand out among the rest of the shows oeuvre.

The Dick van Dyke Show: "It May Look Like a Walnut" (original air date: February 6, 1963):

The show opens with Rob and Laura in bed.  Rob is watching a horror movie on late night TV.  (Late night?  The clock on the nightstand reads only 9:00)  Laura keeps whining to Rob to turn it off as she is frightened.

Sadistic Rob not only insists on watching it to the end, but he insists on torturing Laura by describing in detail what went on in the movie, despite her objections.  And scaring the hell out of her.

To wit:  It seems that aliens from the planet Twilo are trying to invade the Earth.  These aliens have an affinity for walnuts and are distinguished from humans by the fact that they have no thumbs.  And they have four eyes, two in the back of their head.  And the leader of the Twilo invasion, Kolak, has an uncanny resemblance to Danny Thomas.  (Danny Thomas being a very popular TV show host and actor of the day).

Additionally there are these strange walnuts which, when cracked open, reveal not a nut, but some weird glowing thing that causes the human who opened it to transform from a human to an alien from Twilo, complete with missing thumbs and extra eyes.


The next day finds Rob waking up to walnuts scattered all over the place and Laura acting like nothing is peculiar.  Rob is convinced that Laura is setting him up for an elaborate practical joke which includes hints that Kolak was not just a character he saw in a late night film but a real person.

Laughing it off, Rob heads to the office and tries to tell Sally and Buddy about his troubles that morning with Laura.  But apparently, at least to Rob, Laura has convinced his co-workers to join in on the gag.  Both swear that they know Kolak is real, and they apparently have been transformed into aliens themselves.  This even includes Mel (Richard Deacon), the boss of the three.  They even tell Rob that the guest star for the week's show is none other than Danny Thomas

After Buddy and Sally leave, who appears but Kolak himself (or maybe it's Danny Thomas trying to convince Rob that he is Kolak...)  As Rob descends further into madness, he becomes convinced that all this is a dream, but attempts to force himself to wake up from the nightmare are fruitless.

Rob goes home where this madness continues as he finds Laura in the living room closet with a mound of walnuts.  And she and the rest of his friends (and Danny Thomas) closing in on him, sans thumbs and the extra eyes.

Of course, it won't come as a surprise that it all is a dream.  (Geez, hope that wasn't a spoiler).  Rob wakes up and then wakes Laura to tell her about his weird dream.  It turns out that due to Rob's shenanigans with relating the movie to her that Laura too had been in a nightmare.  They decide they are too scared to go back to sleep so the turn on the TV. Only to find that the late late movie is

"THE WEREWOLF FROM OUTER SPACE!!!!"

(Guess who's not getting any more sleep tonight...)

Dick van Dyke himself ranks this episode as one of his top five favorites of the series' run.  It also ranks in TV Guide's list as one of the best TV show episodes of all time.  (And that's not just best comedy show episodes... the list covers the entire spectrum of offerings.  An episode of The Sopranos, one of Mad Men and one of 24 are all in the 2009 version of he list.)

Pleasant dreams, folks, if you can.

Quiggy

Love on the Rocks

This is my entry for the Sex! Blogathon hosted by Movie Movie Blog Blog

Bridget Bardot was the sex goddess of her day.  Admittedly she didn't have the acting chops of, say, a Bette Davis or a Katherine Hepburn, but she was hotter than a 3 dollar bill on screen.  Contempt (or it's French title Le Mephis, which actually translates as "doubt") was a film by Jean-Luc Godard.  It was based on a novel by Italian author Alberto Moravia (who also gave us the inspiration for two other classic movies, Two Women and The Conformist). It is the story of a deterioration of a marriage, and yet, somehow, is one of the sexiest movies every made.  (And not just because Bardot has a couple of scenes in the all-together...)

Contempt (1963): 


The film opens with a scene with Camille (Bardot) and her her husband, Paul Laval (Michel Piccoli), lyting in bed.  Camille, beginning with her feet, enumerates her various body parts and asks Paul if he loves them.  Paul eventually confesses that he loves every part of her, individually and as a whole.

Paul has recently acquired the job of doing rewrites on  a movie set.  The movie is being directed by Fritz Lang (playing himself), but the producer, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), doesn't like the direction the movie is going.  (Given that the movie is an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, one would think sticking to the original story would be logical, but this is the French version of Hollywood, so...)

 Prokosch is an arrogant bastard, a man who thinks his way is right and will do anything to get his way.  He belittles Lang because Lang's version of the movie is not what he wants.  (For one thing, he wants more naked bodies in it.) 

The key scene is when Prokosch invites Camille to ride to his villa with Paul left to catch a taxi.  Paul does not demand that his wife ride with him; instead he lets Prokosch take her in his two seater sports car.  Paul arrives late, claiming there had been an accident on the road.  Of course, Camille doesn't believe him. Apparently Camille comes to the conclusion that Paul is essentially trying to prostitute her to Prokosch in order to advance his career.  (Note: in the novel, the accident really does happen, but apparently Godard wanted to have his audience unsure of what really happened on the road.)

The middle of the movie is the breakdown of the relationship between Paul and Camille.  Paul turns out to be a whiny insecure twit, one who constantly badgers Camille to explain her reactions; i.e. why she seems to have fallen out of love with him.  His ego refuses to let him be a sensitive sort and just take her in his arms and tell her his love has never failed for her.  Which is probably what she really wants.  Thus her attitude with him changes from love to outright disgust.

This is not a romantic movie, it's not even really a sexy movie, to put it rightly.  So why do I think it's sexy?  Because I tend to put myself in Paul's shoes and can see that what I would do would be different.  In the movie that I would make with Bardot, we would reconcile our differences tout suite, and instead of Camille leaving Paul in the dust, we would leave the studio and Prokosch and Lang behind, and find another way to get the money.

But then I am a romantic at heart.   So I think I have the solution to every marital difficulty I see on the screen.  Not that Camille is not without her own faults.  If Paul is to be believed, Camille may be a bit on the greedy side.  He thinks she wants to live in luxury, which is why Paul took the scriptwriting job in the first place.

Drive home safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

A Race to Madness

This is my entry in the What A Character! Blogathonhosted by Paula's Cinema Club, Once Upon A Screen and Outspoken and Freckled.

Stanley Kramer was a well-known director in his day, one who specialized in "message" films- meaning that there was usually a sub-context to the film, addressing issues of the day.  He made some of the classics we all know and love, including On the Beach, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, each one addressing social issues of the day.

In 1963 Kramer tackled a genre that he had never before tried; comedy.  And he did on an epic scale.  Virtually every comedic actor in Hollywood that could get out of bed to go down to the studio was cast in the film.  The core group of actors and actresses who had primary roles were the basis of he story, but a cast of a hundred or so other well known comedic stars had brief (and sometimes not so brief) cameos.

The original movie was almost 3½ hours long, but the studio made many cuts to the film, reducing it to a more manageable 2½ hours, to Kramer's consternation.  The good news is a crack team of restorers found the cut footage and managed to fix it up, so now you can actually see the  original version that Kramer made (or at least most of it), on a release that was issued about 3 years ago.  Unfortunately I don't have access to that cut so this review only covers the standard theatrical release.

The main gist of the story is a group of seven people who happen to witness an accident on a mountain road and are given directions to where a stash of stolen money is buried.  The main cast includes a married couple and their mother-in-law, Russell and Emmeline Finch, and Mrs. Marcus, Emmeline's mother (Milton Berle, Dorothy Provine and Ethel Merman),

a young married couple, Melville and Monica Crump (Sid Caesar and Edie Adams),

a pair of friends on their way to Vegas, Benjy Benjamin and Ding Bell (Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney),

and a truck driver taking a load of freight to Yuma, Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters).

As each group battles the rest of the gang to try to get to the money first, they encounter a variety of other characters (both literally and figuratively...some of the cameos are pure comedic genius).

An added bonus is there is a police chief who is also after the money, ostensibly to return it to the bank from which it was stolen and retire with accolades and commendations from it, but we soon find out that's not entirely the truth.

Spencer Tracy plays the not-so-goodnik police chief and gets just as many laughs as the rest of the cast.  The plot stems from there and it's just madcap jaunt into the world of greed as the eight main members (and a few more hangers-on) try to get the hidden money.

That's all you really need know to watch the movie.  I would note that I think Merman should have gotten at least an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but she was edged out by nearly every supporting actress in Tom Jones (three actresses nominated, neither of which won...).

Since this post is about the secondary cameos, I won't delve too much into the story.  Following is just some of the funnier sequences that make the movie such a classic comedy.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963):

Setup is important.  Our initial cast of characters are tooling down a curving mountain road when they are all passed by a motorist who is driving exceedingly fast.  Just as he passes the first car in line his car goes careening off the road and crashes.  The men in the four vehicles go down to check out the damage and find Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante) in a heap and dying.  Smiler tells them about the hidden money  just before he "kicks the bucket".  (Literally.  See the video clip.  It's one of the first really funny clips in the movie.

Dick Shawn plays Merman's son (Provine's brother), Sylvester.  The man is a maniac and a dimwit who is totally devoted to his mother.  Instead of going after the treasure as mom wants him to do, he instead races to rescue mom, and in the process decides that Russell must pay for treating mom bad.

Early in the movie Culpepper loses his hat out the window and it lands in the middle of the street.  A passerby (Jerry Lewis) spots the hat and intentionally swerves his car to crush the hat.  Sounds like just the kind of thing I might do...

Many of the cameos are just as brief.  At one point, the Finches are pulled over as Merman argues with Berle.  A passing motorist stops to ask if they are "having trouble" and Merman tells him to basically go fly a kite.  The passing motorist?  Jack Benny.

The major cast is joined by others who find out about the dash for the money and deal themselves in.  The highlight just has to be Phil Silvers as Otto Meyer.  Meyer picks up Pike, who has been stranded and is trying to ride a tricycle in the chase.  After hearing the details, Meyer distracts Pike and takes off in search of the treasure by himself.  Some great scenes with Silvers includes a scene where he tries to navigate a back-desert road, ending up in a river.

The second best additional character is Terry-Thomas as Lt. Col. Algernon Hawthorne.  Terry-Thomas made a career playing the quintessential stiff upper lip Brit in movies over the years, most memorably, for me, in a movie I reviewed earlier this year as the butler to Jack Lemmon's character in How to Murder Your Wife.  Here he plays a character who happens to pick up the Finch women after Russell has ditched them on the side of the road.  He joins in the chase, initially reluctantly, but greed takes over him just as easily as the other characters.

Jim Backus (later famous as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island, but already familiar to radio listeners and TV and movie fans), plays a hilarious role as the alcoholic owner of an airplane who helps Benjy and Ding get to the money site.  (Well, sort of... He passes out while the plane is in the air leading to a great scene with the clueless pair trying to fly themselves, but Backus is funny in his appearance as a drunken version of Thurston).

In one scene, Phil Silvers' character, who has managed to ditch Pike, has gotten a ride with a nervous man (played by Don Knotts, with typical fidgety demeanor for which he made his name).

One of the best scenes involves two service station operators, Ray and Irwin (Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang) who try to detain Pike.  First thing, these guys have a service station out in the middle of nowhere; where were they expecting to get business?  And second, I highly doubt the building inspector gave a write off to the construction of this building because it isslap dash to the max.  But then if it wasn't the scene wouldn't work.

There are dozens of other great character cameos in the film.  This post would become entirely too long if I covered every single one.  I will mention that some of the others include a whole raft of familiar faces, including  the then current lineup of The Three Stooges, Andy Devine, Jesse White, Eddie Anderson (Rochester from the Jack Benny Show), William Demarest (Uncle Charlie on My Three Sons), Buster Keaton,  Carl Reiner, Norman Fell (Jack Tripper's landlord on Three's Company), Leo Gorcey (one of the Bowery Boys), Mike Mazurski (a recurrent hood in a lot of classic film noir movies) and Selma Diamond's voice (she was the first bailiff on Night Court).

If you have a family night with three hours to kill, you can't go wrong with this one.  It's entertaining to the max. Lots of sight gags, and you will have fun spotting the plethora of guest cameos that appear throughout the film.  I'll leave you with just one last clip to entice you to just WATCH THE MOVIE!

Well, folks, I'm off to see if I can get in on the treasure trove these guys are trying to get.  Drive home safely.

Quiggy

See the Light

This is my second entry in the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

Ray Milland was an academy award winning actor.  (He won an Oscar for his role as Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend.)  It seems odd, therefore, that late in his career he  was involved in several low-budget sci-fi and horror movies.  In the 60's, after having left Paramount, he worked in TV and with such entrepreneurs of cheapjack movies like Roger Corman.

Sure, Milland did a few major studio roles during this time; he was Oliver Barrett IV's father in Love Story and the sequel Oliver's Story, he appeared in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon.  But also he was in such grade B drive-in flicks like Frogs, The Thing with Two Heads, another Roger Corman movie The Premature Burial, and Panic in the Year Zero!, which he also directed, all for American International Pictures which catered to the drive-in crowd. 

It seems odd, therefore, that according to Corman on his commentary on my DVD, that Ray Milland said in an interview once that two movies of which he was most proude were The Lost Weekend and X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes. (you really should watch a movie with the commentaries if they are avaliable, at least once.  For one thing, SOMEONE thought it was worth the trouble to do it, and second you get some fascinating nuggets of trivia you may not have heard otherwise.)

To be honest, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes is a cut above the standard low-budget fare usually associated with AIP, and I think Milland is one of the reasons this picture is better.  

X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963)

The problem with altruistic science is that sometimes it can go bad.  (and with low-budget science fiction movies, that's a relatively frequent thing.)  Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland)is a doctor who is not satisfied with the normal range of vision that a human has.  He wants to be better at his job, and as a result, has been experimenting with a drug that enhances the eyes.

In a demonstration to an associate,  Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van der Vlis), he shows how a monkey with the drops in its eyes can see through several boards and see the colors of each board behind the first one.  But the monkey dies in the experiment.  Not from the drugs itself, it seems; it dies because it can't comprehend what it sees beyond the boards.

Despite this, Xavier experiments on his own eyes.  And as a result, his first tests reveal he can diagnose a patient that his fellow doctor has misdiagnosed.  But doctors in movies being ego-driven people, the fellow doctor refuses to accept Xavier's diagnosis and proceeds to operate on his own diagnosis.  Xavier causes the fellow doctor to be unable to perform and proceeds with his own operation instead.  Although successful, the fellow doctor tells Xavier he will see to it that Xavier is brought under malpractice charges.

Xavier continues his experiments on his eyes, and at one point goes to a party.  It turns out that one of the early effects is that he can see through the clothes of everybody.  But don't get your hopes up, this was made in 1963, so you only get to see naked people from the shoulder up and the knees down... :-(

During a scuffle, Xavier accidentally knocks his adversarial doctor out the window, and the doctor plunges to his death.  Realizing he will be accused of murder, even though it was an accident, Xavier goes on the run.  He takes a job with a carnival, where he is billed as a psychic.  His promoter is a real sleazeball played to perfection by Don Rickles.

 finds out the truth and induces Xavier to become a low-rent doctor who gives people advice on their medical condition.  And through these people he is eventually found by Diane.

When Xavier tries to dissolve the partnership with the promoter, the promoter tells him he knows his secret past and will reveal it to the police.  Xavier leaves anyway, and the promoter shouts out the truth, which conveniently just happen to be heard by the entire state of police, apparently.  Xavier steals a car and a long sequence of a chase occurs as he careens down highways trying to escape.

I won't reveal how the movie ends so you can have something to look forward to if you decide to watch it.  One final note on the character, though.  It seems that Corman's original idea had been to have the character be a jazz musician who took too many drugs, but abandoned that idea because of the need, at the time, to make characters who took drugs be destroyed by their "lack of intelligence", so to speak, in using drugs in the first place.  Ah, the old Hays code...

I see by the clock on the wall that there's a spider behind, so I must leave.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

The Bond Age (Part I)

 

2017 marks 55 years of James Bond on the movie screen.  To celebrate this momentous year, I am undertaking to review the entire oeuvre of Bond films, all 24 of them (at this juncture in history), two at a time.  These will appear on the 7th day of each month  (Bond's agent number being "007").  At the beginning of each entry I will give my personal ranking of each movie and of each movie's theme song.  (These are subjective rankings and do not necessarily agree with the view of the average Bond fan, so take it as you will).  I hope you enjoy them, nay, even look forward to the next installment.  As an added note, I am deeply indebted to Tom DeMichael, and his book James Bond FAQ,  for tidbits of information I with which I am peppering these entries.                                                                                                                                                                                                  -Quiggy



Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, was an ex-intelligence officer for Britain and based his character, James Bond, on his experiences in Naval Intelligence, as well as some of his own likes and dislikes.  Essentially Bond was Fleming, and vice-versa.  In 1953, Fleming published the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, and the legend was born.  Whether or not the legend would be remembered today had it not been for Hollywood calling is a matter of speculation.  It was a huge success in the UK, but outside the UK, sales were not so dramatic...

However, one thing is true.  Americans, who were blissfully unaware of a secret agent 007 just outside the door, so to speak, immediately made Fleming and his creation a huge hit after John F. Kennedy claimed that the book From Russia with Love was one of his favorites.  (It is a tribute to how popular Kennedy was as a President that his saying this made Bond a hit in the US.)  Thus a case could be made that Jack Kennedy was responsible for putting the whole Bond phenomenon into motion.

It wasn't long before Hollywood came (always knowing a good thing when they saw it).  Dr. No, which was actually the sixth Bond novel, became the first one to be translated to the big screen.  Many actors were considered for what was to become the iconic role of James Bond.  The part went to Sean Connery, a former runner-up in a Mr. Universe pageant, and an actor with some small roles.  It is on record that the suggestion to cast him as Bond came from producer Albert Broccoli's wife who saw him in Darby O'Gill and the Little People.  Connery almost turned it down because he foresaw that it would be a recurring role and was reluctant to be tied up in a series.  Fortunately for him and us, he did accept the role.

The first Bond novel chosen to be filmed was actually the 6th novel in the Fleming output, Dr. No.

Note: This was actually not the first representation of the James Bond character on film.  In 1954, the CBS TV show Climax! made its third episode center around the story of Casino Royale, but although this does count as a precursor to the Bond phenomenon as we know it, I don't think it really should count.  For one thing, they changed his name from "James" to "Jimmy", and for another they cast him with an American actor, Barry Nelson.  The most egregious thing about it was they changed him from a British Secret Service officer to a CIA operative, and made Felix, now called "Clarence",  Leiter, whom in the books was a CIA operative, into a British operative.  The saving grace of this TV episode was the casting of Peter Lorre as Bond villain Le Chiffre.  It won't kill you to watch it, but it is a pretty shoddy production.

Additional note:  Over the course of this series I will only be reviewing the legitimate Bond movies.  At some other time I may do a solo review of the Connery helmed semi-remake of Thunderball, the aptly named Never Say Never Again, but this series will not deal with it except in passing.  And if you ask real nice, I may do one of the Peter sellers spoof Casino Royale.  (On the other hand, if you ask real nice I can adopt an attitude of ignoring it... your choice...)

Dr No (1962)

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the movie: #13

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the theme song: #1  (It is the thing that defines a Bond movie after all...)

Best Bond Quote:  "I think they were on their way to a funeral." (referring to a hearse full of villians he just caused to crash)

Best Bond Villain Quote:  Dr. No:  "The successful criminal brain is always superior.  It has to be."

Best Weapon:  Walther PPK.  (I only include this category for the first movie just to be consistent, since I intend to add it to every movie..  But since Bond only exchanges his favorite Berretta for the Walther, there's no real cool weapon to note:  Unless you count his car.  But it was only used to run someone off the road, it wasn't actually a sophisticated weapon like some of the later movie cars.)

Three blind men tap their way across Kingston. Meanwhile Commander Strangways (Timothy Moxon) and three other friends are engaged in a card game, but Strangways has to break off to report in to HQ in London.  As he gets to his car, the three blind men (who are not so blind after all) kill him.  Shortly thereafter they also kill his secretary and make off with secret files marked "Crab Key" and Dr. No."

The movie cuts to a private gambling club in London where a man and a woman are facing off in a high stakes game of baccarat.  The women introduces herself to her opponent as "Trench.  Sylvia Trench."  To which her companion introduces himself as "Bond.  James Bond."  (That's right, folks, the first time Bond introduces himself in that iconic way is in response to a woman upstaging him by introducing HERSELF that way...) Sylvia Trench, by the way, was played by Eunice Gayson, who only had a chance at the part because it was turned down by none other than Lois Maxwell, who picked the role of Miss Moneypenny instead, and thus history was made.  The Trench character, which was going to be a recurring role, got ditched after the first two movies and Maxwell continued on for the next 22 years as Moneypenny.

Bond gets called into MI6 offices, where M (Bernard Lee) assigns him to find out was has happened to Strangways and his secretary.  (See, the "blind" men carried off the bodies, so no one knows what has happened for sure.)  He is also told that Strangways was investigating some mysterious goings-on for the Americans, that were interfering with attempted rocket launches from Cape Canaverel.  M makes Bond trade in his favorite Berreta for a Walther PPK, courtesy of Maj. Boothroyd (Peter Burton), the character who would eventually later become known as Q (although not with Burton in the role since he was unavailable to reprise the role in the second outing.)

Bond catches a plane to Jamaica where he is picked up by a driver to take him to the Government House.  The car is followed by another car and Bond gives the driver orders to ditch the tail.  He then reveals he is on to the ruse; that the driver is an agent of Dr. No, not a government employee, but the driver commits suicide rather than talk.

Bond finds out two people might be able to help him in his quest.  One is Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson), one of the three other companions present at the game from which Strangways disappeared.  The other is a ship's captain, Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), who had taken Strangways out on trips into the Carribbean.  When Bond goes to see Quarrel, he is accosted, but once his identity is revealed, he meets Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), a CIA operative.

Quarrel tells Bond that Strangways had been on Crab Key inspecting rocks and took some samples.  But when Bond goes to Prof. Dent, Dent tells him the rocks were worthless.  Bond is suspicious, and finds out the rocks were radioactive.  He makes a date with Dent's secretary, who lures him to her apartment.  Along the way, a hearse filled with the three "blind" men give chase, but Bond manages to help them get to their own funeral.

Dent's secretary, Miss Taro (Zena Marshall), of course is surprised to see him and manages to try to delay him until Dent can show up, but Bond turns the tables on her and has her arrested before he arrives.  Bond then kills Dent after Dent had tried to kill him first.  Then Bond and Quarrel and Leiter go to check out Crab Key.  It is owned by a mysterious Chinese man named Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) who is very secretive and has his island highly guarded.

On the island Bond meets up with a shell seeking woman in a bikini (and I feel cheated because when he finds her in the book she is naked...)  The women is Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress).  She and Bond are captured by Dr No's henchmen and taken to his secret lair.  It appears that all is lost for Bond, since he is beaten up and left in a cell, but you know that won't keep a good man like Bond down (at least not in the first movie of a series anyway...)

How Bond gets away and what he does to Dr. No's operation I will leave for you to find out for yourself.  This being the first of the series, they didn't have the budget to make it as exciting as it could have been, and Wiseman is not the best Bond villain ever, hence the #13 ranking.  But a completist couldn't pass it up without at least one viewing.

From Russia with Love (1963)

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the movie: #7

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the theme song: #20

Best Bond Quote: "Yes, she had her kicks." (referring to Klebb and her poison dagger shoe.)

Best Bond Villain Quote: Blofeld:   "Let his death be a particularly unpleasant and humiliating one."

Best Weapon:  Gotta be the aforementioned dagger shoe.

Several firsts for the Bond movies came into the fray on this, the second outing.  At the beginning of the movie we are treated to three of them.  One: FRWL is the first to have a pre-credits sequence  This one not exactly involving Bond, as it turns out, but a look-alike who is destined to be the victim of our villain Don Grant in a training exercise.  Two:  It is the first to have a legitimate theme song written expressly for this movie.  Admittedly you don't get a version with lyrics until the end credits, but it still counts.  Third:   The titillating shadows sequences on which the opening credits were run was also a first.

As stated in the previous paragraph, the opening sequence involves someone who looks like Bond (but the audience is fooled until the very end of the sequence, I might add).  The faux Bond is being tailed through a courtyard by assassin Donald Grant (Robert Shaw), and is eventually killed by Grant.  It is then revealed that it was a training exercise and that Grant had been timed on his success.

Rosa Klebb (Lotta Lenye) comes on the scene looking for an assassin of Grant's caliber.  Unbeknownst to almost anyone, she has defected from Russia and is now working exclusively for SPECTRE.  This movie also has the first appearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.  He assigns both Klebb (referred to as #3) and Kronnstein (Vladek Sheybal), a chess champion, (but also referred to as #5) to develop a plan to smuggle a Lektor decoding device out of Russia.

A complicated plan is initiated, in which a Russian secretary who works for Klebb (but does't know she is no longer a trusted comrade), will approach the British Secret Service with the ruse that she is planning to defect to the West, and will bring with her a Lektor device.  The ruse involves James Bond, because she will only turn the device over to him.

Meanwhile, back in M's office in MI6, M (Bernard Lee) briefs Bond on his mission.  Again we are treated to a couple of new traditions to the Bond story.  One: Q (Desmond Llewelyn) makes his first appearance, although he is credited as "Boothroyd", the same name used by the quartermaster in Dr. No.  Also we get to see the ingeniousness of the writers at work, as this is the first appearance of any trick weapons (in this case, among others, a trick valise that explodes tear gas if not opened properly.)

The trade-off is scheduled to happen in Istanbul, and a majority of the movie was shot on location.  In Istanbul Bond hooks up with his contact, Kerim Bey (Pedro Armandariz).  Bond and Bey spy on the Russian consolate, where Bey notes that one of the people in the room is Krilinku (Fred Haggerty), a thorn in Bey's side who has attempted to kill Bey twice, once by a bomb in his office, and later at a gypsy camp to which Bey has taken Bond.  Bey enlists Bond's help to kill Krilencu before the other can succeed in the same endeavor.

 Bond meets up with his contact, Tatiana Romanova (Daniella Bianchi), who appears in his room, ready for fun. They then arrange for a transfer of the Lektor device.  Bond is followed by a Russian agent, but the agent is killed by Grant, who, working for SPECTRE, has his agenda to see that the transfer is successful.  Meanwhile Tatiana has actually fallen in love with Bond and wants the transfer to the Brits of the device to succeed.

With the Lektor, Bond and Tatiana board a train with Bey, where they are followed by Grant.  Grant poses as a fellow British Secret Service agent, having actually killed the real agent, and  getting Bond to accept his ruse.  Eventually, after drugging Tatiana, Grant captures Bond and takes ownership of the Lektor, revealing himself to be an agent of SPECTRE.  In a grapple for supremacy on the train, Bond kills Grant, and he takes the Lektor and Tatiana and they jump from the train.

The final reel contains some decent material still.  A stolen truck in which Bond and Tatiana try to escape, a helicopter with SPECTRE agents tries to stop them, and a motorboat chase on the sea, and Klebb and her poisoned dagger shoe fill the final minutes of the film.  Bond, of course, succeeds (would it have been any other way?) and the credits roll with the vocal version of the theme song, sung by Matt Munro, at the end.



Well, folks, gotta fire up the old Plymouth and head home.  It's not an Aston-Martin, and I would gladly accept any castoffs from Bond, but it will have to do.

Quiggy

We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Note:  I originally intended for this piece to be a double feature with Von Ryan's Express, but after watching the movie again (for about the 20th time) and watching all the special features that came with my DVD, I decided to devote the whole entry to just one movie.

There are two kinds of war movies that really get my juices flowing.  One is the shoot-em-up, lots of explosions, gritty down-and-dirty soldier action movie, like Patton,  The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far or Battle of Britain.   The second is one in which prisoners of war deal with the day-to-day life behind the barbed wire and guards of the enemy.

One of the absolute best of the second type is a 1963 movie based on real WWII events called The Great Escape.   The Great Escape  was based on a book by Paul Brickhill which described the attempts by a group of Allied P.O.W.s being held in a German P.O.W. camp.  The Allies, which consisted of mostly English Air Force officers, with a smattering crewmen of other nations, banded together to dig a tunnel from Stalag Luft III.

When published in 1950, it became a sensation, and came to the attention of John Sturges, a very respected director in Hollywood.  He had a rough road convincing anyone to film the movie because it was not an overwhelmingly successful escape attempt in the first place.  (Only 3 of the prisoners were successful in escape and 50 of the recaptured prisoners were executed by the Gestapo).  Many bigwigs in Hollywood turned it down, too, because they thought it was unfilmable.  Sturges finally got the go-ahead from the brothers Mirisch, who had found the Mirisch Company a few years earlier and were willing to back it.  Based on a budget of $4 million dollars, Sturges and company began production.

The movie, despite the misgivings of people in Hollywood, was a success.  It made over $11 million on it's initial investment, not the numbers created by It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (a fellow film from the same year), but still a respectable return.  And it continues to be a popular movie even today.  It starred an ensemble cast, which included Steve McQueen, James Garner and (Sir) Richard Attenborough above the title, with co-stars such as James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, David McCallum, Jud Taylor, and a host of others.

This will be a rather different style of entry from previous blog entries.  Rather than tell you the entire story from start to finish, I decided to focus on each actor and their character individually.  Note that these entries will occur in the order that they appear on screen at the beginning, not necessarily how important they are to the movie.

Angus Lennie:  as Archibald Ives, "The Mole

Ives is by far the shortest of all members of the camp.  He states early on that before the war his job was as a horse jockey.  Since he is an airman, it makes one wonder how he got in, since shorter people were generally not accepted into the Air Corps.  But that's American standard, so perhaps it was different in the RAF.  Ives is known as the "Mole" because of his many escape attempts underground, including a key one he plans with Hilts at the early part of the film.  Ives puts on an excellent front for the Nazis, but the truth is he is on the verge of a mental breakdown due to his long incarceration in the P.O.W. system.  When the Nazis discover the main tunnel and it looks like his hopes of escape are dashed, he finally does have that breakdown.

For more Lennie:  Oh! What a Lovely War, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing

Steve McQueen:  as Virgil Hilts, "The Cooler King"

Hilts is, what von Luger refers to as a "hotshot pilot".  This is the quintessential McQueen character, someone who refuses to buckle under, refuses to kowtow to his captors, and has a "never say die" attitude towards his many escape attempts.  Never without his baseball and glove, he almost cheerfully welcomes each session in the "cooler" (the isolation chamber which is probably anything but "cool" especially in the summer).  Hilts is one of three Americans (although, technically, Hendley was in the RAF before his capture) in the camp.  It is noted by the special features section of my DVD that by the time of the actual escape, there were no longer any Americans in the camp; they had all been transferred to a different camp.  But this being Hollywood, it was understood that without any American soldiers in the movie, it would not sell well in the U.S.  And, in fact, most of the P.O.W.s from the original camp who were still alive gave their assent, saying that without American help in the early stages, the tunnel may not have been built.  It's a sure bet no one escaped by using a motorcycle as Hilts does here, but here again concessions were made.  McQueen only agreed to do the movie if he could show off his skills on the motorcycle.

For more McQueen:   The Blob, Bullitt, Papillon, The Getaway.

James Garner: as Robert Hendley, "the Scrounger"

Garner plays an American, but one who was a flier in the RAF Eagle Squadron, apparently having enlisted there before the Americans entered WWII.  He plays a wily and quick-witted ne'er-do-well who uses his charm and cunning to acquire many of the tools and copies of papers that need to be forged for the escapees.  He has a couple of great scenes with Robert Graf who plays an enemy soldier, one of the few German soldiers we get to see fleshed out as bonafide characters.

For more Garner: The Rockford Files (TV Series), Support Your Local Gunfighter, Victor/Victoria

Nigel Stock:  as Dennis Cavendish, "The Surveyor"

Stock has Cavendish has an important duty for the building of the tunnel, but his main purpose in the movie appears to be providing comedy relief.  Some of the funniest parts of the movie involve Cavendish being the butt of the joke in the scene.  This is all well and good as many of the movies I have seen Stock in he plaqyed comedic characters.

For more Stock: Young Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes (BBC Series)

David McCallum:  as Eric Ashley-Pitt, "Dispersal"

McCallum, probably best known as Illya Kuryakin in the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., her plays a Royal Navy officer who is significant to the story as having found an ingenious way to get rid of the dirt being brought up from the tunnel.  Ultimately he sacrifices himself to try to help Bartlett get away after they have made it out of the camp into the railway station nearby during the crucial scenes after the escape attempt.

For more McCallum: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV Series), NCIS (TV Series)

James Coburn:  as Louis Sedgewick, "The Manufacturer"

Although Coburn was an American actor added as a draw to American audiences, here he plays a New Zealander.  He is a likable character who insists on carting a suitcase with him every where he goes.  You never get to see what's in the "steamer trunk", as others in the movie call it, but it is hinted that he had a whole camping gear set up inside it, scenes of which never got filmed due to time and budget constraints. Coburn and Bronson have one of the best tete-a-tetes in the movie, IMO.  Early in the movie Bronson and Coburn are trying to pose as Russian prisoners in order to walk out of the camp.  Sedgewick asks Danny if he speaks Russian:

Velinski: Yes, but only one phrase.
Sedgewick: Well, let's have it.
Velinski: Ya vas lyublu.
Sedgewick: (repeating) ya vas lyublu, ya vas lyublu.  What's it mean?
Velinski: "I love you."
Sedgewick: I love you...what bloody good is that?
Velinski:  I don't know. I wasn't going to use it myself.

For more Coburn:  The Magnificent Seven , In Like Flint, Cross of Iron, Affliction.

Charles Bronson:  as Danny Velinski, "The Tunnel King"

Velinski is a Polish refugee who escaped Nazi held Poland and went to England to join up in the fight against the Nazis.  He is the main "tunnel king", but suffers from claustrophobia, which is not revealed until the second half of the movie.  Bronson's character is by far the most intriguing of the characters aside from Hilts.  He and Dickes are the ones most often seen when scenes of the tunnel being dug are shown.  Along with Dickes, Velinski is one of the three characters who are shown to have been successful in the escape.

For more Bronson:  Death Wish, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Mechanic.

John Leyton:  as William Dickes, "The Tunnel King"

Dickes, a buddy to Velinski, the other tunnel king, really doesn't have that much of a meaty part in the film compared to the rest of the cast.  His main pupose in the film, it appears, is to keep Velinski focused and help keep him from himself and his ghosts involving his claustrophobia. At one point he has to talk Velinski out of trying to escape through the wire (which is sure to get him killed) and join in the tunnel escape occuring the next day.   Dickes' character is also one of the three prisoners who succeeds in the escape attempt.

For more Leyton: Krakatoa, East of Java, Von Ryan's Express, Was also a singing sensation in the UK.

James Donald: as Capt. Ramsey, Senior Officer

Ramsey is the authority figure of the piece.  The authority within the camp that is.  He serves as the final say in any judgments that need to be made concerning how the main escape is being planned, as well as any extra-curricular escape attempts (see above).  Because of his limp, more than anything else, I would guess, he is not one of the prisoners who are lined up to attempt the big escape.

For more Donald: Lust for Life, Cast a Giant Shadow

Gordon Jackson:  as Andrew MacDonald, "Intelligence"

MacDonald is, in essence, 2nd in-command behind Bartlett in the digging of the tunnel.  He is in almost every scene when Bartlett finally appears on the scene, and is in charge of developing the system by which the camp can be alerted whenever the guards are near so they can prevent the tunnels from being discovered.  As a Scotsman, he is also a boon companion to Ives.  You don't see much of the character in the movie, but his influence remains, due to his planning of the "system of stooges" as her calls it.  And he also makes a good presence when on screen.

For more Jackson:  Jackson was in a lot of movies before and after this, but never as much of a presence as here.

Hannes Messemer:  as von Luger, the Kommandant

von Luger is the head of the P.O.W. camp.  It is very interesting to watch Messemer essay the character.  Often he seems rather exasperated, wanting dearly to have things go smoothly, despite the fact that he has a bunch of hardened escapees trying to make a run for it at every turn.  You get the feeling that von Luger does not side with the ruthless Nazi that the image of cinema has given us over the years, and that he would be much happier relaxing with a pipe and a schnapps at his villa in the Rhine valley than having to exert his officer status at the camp.  Of all the German officers in this film, his is the most sympathetic, making much more a shame to watch him as he has to reveal to Captain Ramsey the truth about 50 of his fellow P.O.W.s.

For more Messemer:  If you speak or understand German, be my guest...

Donald Pleasence:  as Colin Blythe, "The Forger"

Blythe is the most unoffensive person you'd ever want to meet.  A good natured fellow, he would prefer to be bird watching.  He went out for a joy ride, and got shot down and has been a P.O.W. ever since.  His job is creating forged documents for all the escapees.  He goes blind towards the end seriously threatening his place in the line for being one of the escapees.

For more Pleasence:  Halloween (I, II, IV and, V), You Only Live Twice, THX 1138.

Richard Attenborough:  Roger Bartlett, "Big X"

Bartlett, code named "Big X", is the planner of the escape tunnels.  Attenborough plays him with a passion to create havoc, although he states it is not for revenge for what they have done to him.  Bartlett, course, is one of the escapees in the film.  He has one hell of a time trying to evade capture, but his face is recognizable by every Gestapo agent he has ever met, and so as a result is re-captured, not albeit without some entertaining suspenseful scenes of his pursuit and attempts to avoid familiar faces.

For more Attenborough:  The Sand Pebbles, A Bridge Too Far, Jurassic Park .  Gandhi (director)

Even though I've given away the ending (and it's not like you probably couldn't figure it out on your own) I think I've left enough out to make it well worth checking out this movie.  Each character is wonderfully well played, even many of the Germans.  (BTW, the production company cast mostly real Germans for the major German parts, some of which had actually been on the other side during the war.  The special features on my DVD says many of them were gung-ho about doing it as a catharsis for the remaining guilt they felt as being enemy soldiers).

Well that's all for this time, folks.  Be sure to show your passes to the guards at the gates as you leave.

Quiggy