Category: Directors Gu

Sheena (1984, John Guillermin)

Deconstructing Sheena could probably be its own intellectual pursuit. The film’s so many terrible perfect things in one. It’s inverted misogyny, it’s colonial racism, it’s misapplied camp. It’s bad acting from actors with no business in film so it’s this example of bad Hollywood trends. It’s also a notorious box office bomb, so there’s taking its rejection into account. Especially with acknowledgment of the era, politically and culturally. But it’s probably not worthwhile to fully deconstruct Sheena. After all, you leave the film on a positive note.

It didn’t go on one more minute. It stopped when it did. Its fourth or fifth ending, each more insulting–both morally and narratively–than the last, eventually ended and it stopped. Ted Wass stopped being onscreen and Tanya Roberts stopped talking. Because Sheena isn’t just a terrible movie with extremely bad acting and writing, it’s also exhausting. Sheena knows it’s too late. It knows it’s a bad idea. Yet it keeps going, because apparently someone thought pacing out Roberts’s topless scenes for maximum effect was a good idea in a PG-rated action movie ostensibly for a female audience. I mean, Roberts is the lead, right? She gets to be the white savior.

Oh, right. No. She doesn’t. Because Wass, who’s a sports reporter in search of his breakthrough to Dan Rather, doesn’t just save the day, he saves the world. The movie opens with Sheena as a child–a prologue running roughly twenty minutes of just awkward badness in 1984, and some lousy photography from Pasqualino De Santis (which is surprising as the crew is otherwise excellent)–and it’s about her dad saving the world. Except it’s going to be Ted Wass, who actually gives worse of a performance than Roberts. Wass doesn’t try. He just acts badly. The script is bad, his character is bad, his sidekick–Donovan Scott–is even worse in every way, but Wass also is completely inept. He can’t even sell not being able to light a Zippo.

And Roberts is running around almost naked, frequently doused in sweat, made to be docile to Wass even though she’s been Queen of the Jungle–meaning she has to run behind him–riding a zebra or an elephant, doing bit work with chimps, standing in front of an African village and pretending to be their spiritual leader? Roberts is not good. She’s not good once. She does try sometimes. But this movie puts her through awful plot developments.

Then there’s the political intrigue, involving pro football player and African prince (Trevor Thomas) plotting to assassinate his brother, the king. France Zobda plays the woman they both want. It ties into Wass curing cancer.

Thomas even has a Great White Hunter for a mercenary, played by John Forgeham, who’d have the movie’s one good line delivery but director Guillermin wasn’t paying attention. Because director Guillermin really isn’t paying attention to much in Sheena. There’s some decent direction, but none of the action works. Ray Lovejoy’s editing is fantastic in everything except the action scenes. Guillermin gets more than enough footage everywhere else, but the action’s rushed and weak.

Maybe because Sheena’s supposed to have this army of awesome animal sidekicks helping out but they get no personality. They occasionally have a moment, but it’s like no one wanted to shoot any scenes with the animals. Sheena’s not for kids, after all, it’s for twelve year-old boys who want to see Roberts’s multiple bathing scenes. But Guillermin isn’t enthusiastic about it. De Santis is, however.

Guillermin’s enthusiastic about the Kenyan location shooting and he’s sort of enthusiastic about Elizabeth of Toro as Roberts’s adoptive mother and mentor. It’d be nice if he’d been enthusiastic enough to get her a name better than just “Shaman.” Sheena is written campy, acted badly, directed for location, and produced for gaze. It’s a mess and it’s awful.

Okay music from Richard Hartley–which almost gives Guillermin the one great action sequence of the film, before he chokes on it–excellent editing from Lovejoy, fine production design from Peter Murton.

But Sheena’s a crappy movie.

Give Us the Moon (1944, Val Guest)

Even though Give Us the Moon ends up going exactly where I expected it to go, the film’s not predictable at all. It opens with Peter Graves’s post-war layabout. He was a war hero, his father (Frank Cellier) is a rich hotelier, he wants to do nothing with his life except enjoy it. Through coincidence, he meets a woman (Margaret Lockwood) who similarly wants to do nothing with her life except enjoy it–this idea of being idle following the war never gets a lot of attention, but many of the film’s characters share the thought–so Give Us the Moon will inevitably be a romantic comedy.

I mean, Lockwood’s got an assortment of fellow layabouts who provide wonderful support and she’s got an adorable, if troublesome little sister (a fantastic Jean Simmons). It’s got all the pieces for romantic comedy, only director Guest takes it in an entirely different direction. Eventually. Graves and Lockwood have immediate chemistry, which their characters recognize in one of the script’s most efficient moves, and for a while Moon stays on its predictable course.

Until Guest deviates, sort of demoting Graves from his position as protagonist, then even demoting Lockwood as his replacement. Instead, the film becomes this wonderful situational comedy involving all her sidekicks, led by Vic Oliver. Oliver’s a con artist, whether he’s trying to get a pound off would-be saviors or getting into a hotel suite, and he’s an absolute delight. The film introduces him, brings him back, starts lingering more on him and then realizes he’s the one to follow. Well, him and Simmons. She’s got a phenomenal arc, even managing to stay relevant when she’s off-screen for some of her character’s best action.

Graves is a charming lead; Lockwood gets some great material towards the beginning before joining the supporting ranks. Cellier’s good as Graves’s disappointed father and there’s wonderful support from everyone, especially Roland Culver, Eliot Makeham and Gibb McLaughlin. Guest’s direction is solid–though filming restraints are a little obvious (although it’s set after the war, Moon was made during it)–and it’s all technically fine. Maybe Phil Grindrod’s photography could be a little better, but it all works out.

It’s a delightful comedy, full of marvelous performances. It’s simultaneously fortunate and unfortunate Graves and Lockwood don’t have a better story arc. It’d be nice to have seen more of them, especially in the second half, but the film doesn’t really need them. There’s so much good stuff going on anyway; Guest’s wrangling of it all is most impressive.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Val Guest; screenplay by Guest, Caryl Brahms, S.J. Simon and Howard Irving Young, based on a novel by Brahms and Simon; director of photography, Phil Grindrod; edited by R.E. Dearing; music by Bob Busby; produced by Edward Black; released by General Film Distributors.

Starring Peter Graves (Peter Pyke), Margaret Lockwood (Nina), Vic Oliver (Sascha), Jean Simmons (Heidi), Frank Cellier (Mr. Pyke), Roland Culver (Ferdinand), Max Bacon (Jacobus), Iris Lang (Tania), George Relph (Otto), Gibb McLaughlin (Marcel) and Eliot Makeham (Dumka).

margaretlockwoodblogathon3

THIS POST IS PART OF THE MARGARET LOCKWOOD CENTENNIAL BLOGATHON HOSTED BY TERENCE TOWLES CANOTE OF A SHROUD OF THOUGHTS

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Guardians of the Galaxy (2014, James Gunn)

Guardians of the Galaxy does something splendid and director Gunn never really acknowledges it, which just makes it more splendid. The Rocket Raccoon character–beautifully voice acted by Bradley Cooper–is easily the most successful CG film creation to date. And Cooper gives the film’s best performance; whoever directed Cooper in the sound booth, be it Gunn, Cooper himself, someone else, does a great job.

Gunn directing the actual actors? Not a great job. Not great enough to notice Chris Pratt’s vanishing accent, Pratt and Zoe Saldana’s shocking lack of chemistry, Saldana’s more shocking lack of presence or the not even soap opera nefarious villainy of Lee Pace. So not a good job.

The less said about Glenn Close, Djimon Hounsou, Karen Gillan, John C. Reilly and Benicio Del Toro the better.

Tyler Bates’s musical score combines plagiarism and ineptness (like much of the film’s visual design, actually).

Guardians is mean-spirited “fun,” with the audience always asked to laugh at someone or other’s suffering. The scenes where Gunn and co-writer Nicole Perlman try to confront it–usually between Pratt and Saldana–stop the film cold. Then the raccoon or his walking tree (who gets all the wonderment, which is silly) come along and save things.

Or even Dave Bautista, who’s not exactly good, but he’s sincere. And sincerity goes a long way in Guardians because there’s so little of it.

Gunn exhibits apathy, cruelty and an utter lack of imagination. Guardians is far better than it should be.

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, Val Guest)

“No character development, please, we’re British.”

There’s nothing to recommend The Quatermass Xperiment. Walter J. Harvey’s black and white photography is fantastic, but it can’t recommend the film. Xperiment is so stupid, it appears screenwriters Richard H. Landau and director Guest don’t even know the definition of experiment.

The titular Quatermass is Brian Donlevy, who’s one of the dumbest scientists in film history. More than being a dumb scientist, he’s an incompetent one. Donlevy just stands around and spouts exposition; there’s no indication he actually knows anything. His lackeys, David King-Wood and some other guy who doesn’t even get a credit, do all the work.

Donlevy’s awful. But he’s not worse than Margia Dean, whose incompetence infects the first half of the picture.

About the only good regular performance is Jack Warner. He brings some humor to his role of police inspector.

The second half of Xperiment is a monster on the loose picture, which means less sustained Donlevy (and no Dean). It helps somewhat, but Guest’s direction is pretty lame and the script’s still inept so the film isn’t better… just less annoyingly bad.

As the monster in question, Richard Wordsworth does all right. Guest gives him some Karloff (from Frankenstein most obviously) moments and Wordsworth, silently and in what must have been oozy makeup, is good.

James Needs’s editing deserves a special callout. Needs is an atrocious editor; every cut seems to jump. He actually makes Guest worse.

I can’t resist… the Xperiment is an abject failure.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Val Guest; screenplay by Richard H. Landau and Guest, based on a teleplay by Nigel Kneale; director of photography, Walter J. Harvey; edited by James Needs; music by James Bernard; produced by Anthony Hinds and Robert L. Lippert; released by Exclusive Films.

Starring Brian Donlevy (Prof. Bernard Quatermass), Jack Warner (Insp. Lomax), Margia Dean (Mrs. Judith Carroon), Thora Hird (Rosemary ‘Rosie’ Elizabeth Wrigley), Gordon Jackson (BBC TV producer), David King-Wood (Dr. Gordon Briscoe), Harold Lang (Christie), Lionel Jeffries (Blake), Sam Kydd (Police sergeant questioning Rosie) and Richard Wordsworth (Victor Carroon).

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Death on the Nile (1978, John Guillermin)

I’d forgotten John Guillermin directed Death on the Nile. The opening credits, a static shot of the river, suggest a much different experience then the film delivers–between Guillermin directing, Jack Cardiff shooting it and Anthony Shaffer handling the adaptation. I suppose I should have remembered Shaffer also adapted Christie’s Evil Under the Sun to similar result.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the wondrous Nino Rota score, which starts as the titles identify Guillermin as the director.

Unfortunately, Guillermin does very little with the direction here. I suppose he presents a fantastic travelogue of Egypt–how could he not with Cardiff photographing it–but, otherwise, the direction is little different than if he’d been shooting for television. In fact, Death on the Nile often reminded me (when inside) of a British television drama from the seventies.

But the point of these Poirot films isn’t necessarily the filmmaking or the writing, it’s the all star cast–it must be the cast, since relatively nothing happens for the first hour. And the cast is decent, but somewhat unspectacular, as the roles don’t give any actor much to do.

Mia Farrow is best, since her role gives her a lot of range, and Maggie Smith and Bette Davis are amusing as they bicker. But young lovers Jon Finch and Olivia Hussey? They’re genial, pointless additions.

Particularly–and sadly–useless is David Niven, who plays sidekick to Peter Ustinov’s tepid Poirot. Ustinov plays him here without flair, which is, like everything else, disappointing.

King Kong Lives (1986, John Guillermin)

Is calling a redneck hateful redundant? All other problems (acting, script), the biggest problem with King Kong Lives is how unpleasant the film is to watch. With the exception of the good guys (there are three of them), everyone else is a really bad person… it’s incredibly simplistic in its portrayal of cruelty (I doubt the filmmakers even realized it), which makes it a rough viewing.

Getting past a sequel to King Kong being pointless, one has to wonder how a presumably savvy producer like Dino De Laurenttis, who made lots of populist movie hits, ended up setting the film in rural Georgia. Sure, miniatures look all right, but it’s… it’s a terribly stupid idea.

But, is it more stupid than Kong surviving a fall off the World Trade Center with nothing more than a bad heart? Maybe… maybe not.

The acting, both good guys and bad, is often terrible. John Ashton as the army colonel after Kong (the U.S. Army is portrayed as a gang of ignorant, vicious thugs here) is awful. Peter Michael Goetz is lousy as an evil academic. Linda Hamilton is terrible (though she gets better halfway through the film) as Kong’s doctor.

Pretty much, only Brian Kerwin is any good. The guy’s on a soap now, apparently. He deserves far better. He actually makes the frequently absurd dialogue acceptable.

Guillermin’s direction is more than capable here.

Between his composition and Peter Scott’s excellent score, King Kong Lives occasionally (in fifteen second increments) seems all right.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by John Guillermin; screenplay by Steven Pressfield and Ronald Shusett, based on their story and a character created by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace; director of photography, Alec Mills; edited by Malcolm Cooke; music by John Scott; production designer, Peter Murton; produced by Martha De Laurentiis; released by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.

Starring Brian Kerwin (Hank Mitchell), Linda Hamilton (Amy Franklin), John Ashton (Lt. Col. R.T. Nevitt), Peter Michael Goetz (Dr. Andrew Ingersoll), Frank Maraden (Dr. Benson Hughes) and Jimmie Ray Weeks (Major Peete).

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The Towering Inferno (1974, John Guillermin)

For a disaster movie to succeed, I suppose all it really has to do is keep you interested for its running time. The Towering Inferno runs almost three hours and manages that task, so much so, the ending seems a little abrupt. It’s not like the first act breezes by, either. In fact, it only makes it through the first act because of the goodwill the opening credits–with an amazing John Williams piece–earn. There’s maybe five minutes of setup they could have done without, to get to the fabulous first death sequence a little earlier.

The worst performance in the film is probably Richard Chamberlain, but even he’s solid. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman are good, Jennifer Jones, Robert Wagner–Norman Burton’s excellent in a small part. Faye Dunaway and William Holden appear busy. Even O.J. Simpson is good–the film’s treatment of race is particularly interesting, as Simpson plays the chief of security (and Felton Perry later shows up as a senior fireman).

The mattes all hold up and the action sequences, until the fire’s put out at the end (why do the flames recede before the water hits them?), do too. It’s well-made nonsense, with the majority of the cast managing not to look embarrassed.

Of particular interest is how Gullermin and cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp shoot the dramatic scenes. It’s not like a seventies movie at all, instead aping Cinemascope methods.

It’s a shame the genre failed. The Towering Inferno is a fine diversion.

King Kong (1976, John Guillermin)

In 2001, the Academy awarded Dino De Laurentiis the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial award. The clips ran from the beginning of his career to the present–I can’t remember if Body of Evidence got a clip–and I kept waiting to see how they’d deal with Kong. The De Laurentiis produced remake is either forgotten or derided, probably most well-known as the background clips at the Universal Studios attraction. When they got to Kong, they used the scene where Kong attacks the elevated train. They used a pan and scan clip. I was mortified, but only because it was stunning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was going to not only use a pan and scan clip… but pick a mediocre scene to showcase. It was, I suppose, a clip on loan from the Universal Studios attraction.

John Guillermin’s King Kong has one bad sequence. When the island natives kidnap Jessica Lange off the ship, it doesn’t work. It’s not the writing, it’s the visual. Guillermin shoots it wrong (which seems impossible, given the rest of his direction in the film). It just doesn’t work. It seems too hackneyed. Otherwise, Kong‘s filmmaking is impeccable. There’s some iffy composite shots, but also some amazing ones. The editing for the scenes with miniatures is fantastic–whenever it’s a little doll standing in for Lange, the shot cuts about a frame before it’s too much.

The film’s a little strange in its uselessness. It’s not a remake intending to improve on the original or even retell it. This Kong is just a modernization–the whole oil company angle all of a sudden relevant again–and Lorenzo Semple Jr.’s script is deceptively good. There’s some great dialogue in the film, particularly from Jeff Bridges, particularly during his scenes with Lange. The film’s approach to their pseudo-romance is fantastic.

There’s also a bunch of jokes in the script–apparently written to be of the “wink-wink” variety (Semple did script the Adam West Batman movie after all). Except every one of those lines goes to Charles Grodin and Grodin’s playing a jackass oil executive; in other words, all the lines work coming from Grodin, especially given how well he plays the jackass. The character is never likable, but he’s never entirely unlikable either–though he’s always despicable.

The supporting cast is solid–Rene Auberjonois, John Randolph and Ed Lauter especially. Bridges’s assured leading man performance is almost an anomaly in his career. Not many actors can make the giant monkey movie seem real, but Bridges does.

As for Lange, she’s real good. She got a lot of flack for the role–I remember reading somewhere All that Jazz saved her career and she only got that part because she was dating Fosse–but she’s good. She’s playing a narcissistic twit who turns out to have some emotional depth (but not enough to overpower the egoism). Lange’s even got one of the film’s great monologues and she delivers it well.

It’s strange to think of this Kong as having great monologues, but it does have a few. Semple’s a good screenwriter.

Kong‘s a prototype genre event picture, but it’s not a genre picture. It’s pre-genre. Guillermin doesn’t make a single reference to the original and the script only makes a couple, both early on. The sweeping, lush John Barry score frequently saves the picture. It makes scenes work.

But King Kong is sort of lost. It’s a Panavision event picture made before event pictures were released–pan and scan–on VHS to buy. It’d be another twelve years (Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kicking it off) before event pictures became home video attractions too. Kong is meant to be a theatrical, uncontrolled by remote control, viewing experience. It’s peculiarly paced, deliberate and assured and visually stunning. Even when the composites are bad–it’s inexplicable why they didn’t shoot the final scene, with Kong versus the helicopters, with miniatures–the film still works.

King Kong will never get its due. For whatever reason, derogatory remakes get better notices than respectful ones. But it’s a fine night at the movies (about ten minutes in, I had to kill all the lights to get the experience going fully–with an overseas HD-DVD no less) and it’s great looking.

For Your Consideration (2006, Christopher Guest)

Apparently, when Christopher Guest doesn’t do pseudo-documentaries, his films simply don’t work. I didn’t realize For Your Consideration was different in that approach until a lot further in than I should have, probably fifteen minutes or something. As it opens and introduces the set-up (I guess that part would be called the first act, which is an odd thing for one of these Guest and Levy improv films to have), the film’s interesting and sort of funny. Giggling funny. Audible laughter. Then it starts going places–there’s a story and it moves. Instead of being about a movie being made, it’s a narrative about the cast and their Academy Award dreams. Guest takes a mocking approach to the characters, then lays on syrup to make the audience care. It really feels like they started making a movie and realized it wasn’t working, so they made For Your Consideration.

Obviously, there are some good performances. Guest himself, as the director of the movie in the movie, is excellent. Except he’s barely in it. At first I thought he was doing a German director, then I thought maybe Woody Allen, then he disappeared so it didn’t really matter. Eugene Levy plays an annoying agent and he’s only interesting because it’s Eugene Levy. It’s not good because it’s Eugene Levy, but somehow, Levy has become someone who is cast for who they are, not what they can do. Very interesting, but it doesn’t make for a good performance. Harry Shearer is fine. Half of Catharine O’Hara’s acting is good, but when she turns into a silicone Sharon Stone, the film really loses her and she loses her. She starts making fun of the character too, just because there’s nothing else to do. Fred Willard’s kind of funny as the annoying entertainment “reporter,” but even he’s nearing Levy territory. Only Parker Posey is great, but I’m more and more frequently coming to the conclusion she’s always great. Posey’s even good in the scenes where she’s supposed to be poorly acting. Some of it she does get the bad acting down, but there’s a little bit when she’s actually good in this horrible scene.

For Your Consideration is either the end of Guest for a while or he’ll come back real strong next time. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Though, obviously, if it has Parker Posey, I’ll see it.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Christopher Guest; written by Guest and Eugene Levy; director of photography, Roberto Schaefer; edited by Robert Leighton; music by Jeffrey C.J. Vanston; production designer, Joseph T. Garrity; produced by Karen Murphy; released by Warner Independent Pictures.

Starring Bob Balaban (Philip Koontz), Jennifer Coolidge (Whitney Taylor Brown), Christopher Guest (Jay Berman), John Michael Higgins (Corey Taft), Eugene Levy (Morley Orfkin), Jane Lynch (Cindy), Michael McKean (Lane Iverson), Catherine O’Hara (Marilyn Hack), Parker Posey (Callie Webb), Harry Shearer (Victor Allan Miller), Fred Willard (Chuck) and Ricky Gervais (Martin Gibb).

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