Category: Directors He

Chain Lightning (1950, Stuart Heisler)

Both critically and popularly, Chain Lightning gets classified as one of Bogart’s lesser, late 1940s films. While the film certainly is a star vehicle for Bogart, it’s only “lesser” if one compares it to Bogart’s stellar films (basically, the ones everyone remembers). On its own, Chain Lightning is far from perfect, but it’s a fine film. Director Stuart Heisler can direct some good scenes–since the film’s about a test pilot, there’s a lot of Bogart-only scenes, which Heisler handles (he has trouble when it’s a group scene). The special effects are quite good and they’re another thing Heisler incorporates well. I was about to say he didn’t do the romance scenes right, but there’s one scene between Bogart and Eleanor Parker where I can say I’ve never seen the shots before or since, so he does good on that aspect too.

The problems with Chain Lightning come from its lack of prestige. It’s about a test pilot, Bogart’s the only “star,” as Parker probably wouldn’t become a star for another year or two. (Apparently, Chain Lightning’s release was even held up for a year). The film’s got some really dynamic character relationships–between Bogart and Parker (he abandoned her in Europe during the war when he went home for no reason other than laziness), between Parker and Bogart’s rival Richard Whorf, and between Bogart and Whorf. Except none of the relationships are standard–Whorf, for instance, thinks the world of Bogart’s pilot, while never doubting Parker will choose him (even though, obviously, the audience knows different). Bogart gets to come across as petty and mercenary, to degrees I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go before (even in Casablanca, which is probably the best comparison). It’s just too short.

At ninety-five minutes, with multiple special effects sequences and a five or six year present action (some takes place during the war, then in 1950… sorry, 1949), it’s way too short. There’s not enough fat on the script to pad out the film, so it’s just the one straight gesture and the writers can’t quite make it work without hokey voiceovers and narration. For some of it, most of it in the middle, actually, I kept thinking it was so much better than I remembered it being (then the final act came around). Still, it’s certainly not a bad or even mediocre film. It has a lot going for it.

The Three Musketeers (1993, Stephen Herek)

There’s a cruelty of home video. I can watch The Three Musketeers, which I liked as a fifteen year-old, and loathe myself for that previous affection.

What can I say about this film? A lot, actually. One, I had no idea Disney let so many people get killed quite so graphically. Two, Charlie Sheen is good. Who ever thought they’d type a sentence like that? Oliver Platt is appealing and Michael Wincott is a good villain.

The rest is crap. Terrible writing (by the half-wit who wrote Star Trek V) and direction, Kiefer Sutherland tries but at most times he’s trying to be Han Solo or something, Tim Curry is playing one hiss-able villain too many and Chris O’Donnell is a crime against art. Of course, O’Donnell is always a crime against art, so I was expecting that. But he’s bad in this one, even for him.

Since I watched Man in the Iron Mask yesterday, it’s impossible not to make a few comparisons. I’ll spare you those. But something occurred to me about heroism as portrayed in film. Why was it effective in Iron Mask but not in Three Musketeers? Because there’s a beauty to fatalistic heroism. Jumping around in a rip of Empire Strikes Back (though, in hindsight of the prequel trilogy, maybe Three Musketeers had a better conclusion to the son avenging his father scene) is not fatalistic heroism. These guys aren’t straining to do the impossible. This reasoning goes way, way back, to when I first (actually, the only time) saw Con Air and Nicolas Cage announces he’s going “to save the day.” Well, he could have done it the whole time, and the audience knew he could do it and succeed, so why give a shit? That’s what Three Musketeers is like….

Oh, and Rebecca De Mornay sucks too. A lot. But not as much as Chris O’Donnell.