Tag Archives: Burl Ives

1984, ★, Television

The Ewok Adventure (1984, John Korty)

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There’s a strange effectiveness to The Ewok Adventure during Burl Ives’s narration. With his voice, with the lameness of the script, Ewok Adventure feels like a storybook come to life. Much of the movie is exquisitely produced, whether Peter Bernstein’s score, director Korty’s lovely photography or John Nutt’s editing, there’s a definite precision to the film. And some fabulous effects sequences.

But most of the film isn’t Ives narrating the quaint lives of Ewoks and their madcap, gentle misadventures. Most of the film features annoying kid Eric Walker, who learns important lessons from the Ewoks. Not metaphorical lessons, but really obvious ones. Ewok Adventure is obnoxiously didactic. It’s a very strange mix of quest picture–with some of it even feeling like a Western–and children’s film. Then the end rolls around and it’s something else entirely. Still adventure, I suppose, but a lot more annoying.

Korty isn’t good with the kids. He’s not much better with the parents, but with Walker and Aubree Miller, Korty just doesn’t care. There are so many bad deliveries, so many scenes obviously not working… Ewok Adventure has “it’s good enough for kids” stamped all over it.

But the special effects are phenomenal. It’s rather good looking for a TV movie, even if it does feature a stupid giant at the end. It also features a “giggle” fairy, which is an amazingly manipulative scene–it’s just Miller and Walker laughing. Along with Warwick Davis’s Ewok sidekick, of course, but it’s like someone told the filmmakers kids respond well to scenes of kids laughing.

And the Ewok performers are all good.

The big action finale with the giant is awful though. It hurts the picture. It’s technically fine, but it really doesn’t work. There’s not room for giant monsters. Maybe if the effects on it were better, but it’s just a giant.

So with a better finish, a lot less of Walker and a little bit less of Miller (and a lot more Ives narration), Ewok Adventure might be something. The production values are outstanding and Korty does do well with the costumed performers.

It’s just way too tedious to wait for Walker to get through his scenes. He’s bad, his character’s obnoxious and he’s inexplicably the star of the Adventure.

1/4★

CREDITS

Photographed and directed by John Korty; teleplay by Bob Carrau, based on a story by George Lucas; edited by John Nutt; music by Peter Bernstein; production designer, Joe Johnston; produced by Thomas G. Smith; aired by the American Broadcasting Company.

Starring Eric Walker (Mace), Aubree Miller (Cindel), Warwick Davis (Wicket), Daniel Frishman (Deej), Kevin Thompson (Chukha-Trok), Fionnula Flanagan (Catarine) and Guy Boyd (Jeremitt); narrated by Burl Ives.

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1959, ★★★★, Comedy

Our Man in Havana (1959, Carol Reed)

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As Our Man in Havana opened, I couldn’t help thinking of Touch of Evil. Reed uses a cock-eyed angle a few times throughout the film and it looks like Evil. The music doesn’t hurt either. Except, I hadn’t realized it was Reed–the opening titles start a few minutes in to the film–and then all I could think about was The Third Man for the opening titles. The film picks up immediately following, so the preoccupation didn’t last.

Our Man in Havana is a quiet film. A quiet film with a loud music, but a quiet film. It’s hard to explain, or maybe not so much–it’s quiet in the scenes where Maureen O’Hara and Alec Guinness communicate silently and it’s quiet in the scenes where Guinness has to do things and can’t tell anyone, including the audience. It gets even quieter than those two examples, but I don’t really want to spoil anything.

The film is an odd mix of comedy and suspense. Reed handles the mood perfectly, even treating some of Guinness scenes–the early ones–like old Ealing comedies. It all changes when O’Hara arrives, then the film becomes strangely Hollywood–before, with just Burl Ives and Ernie Kovacs, Havana seems small and peculiar, but when O’Hara shows up (in one of those quiet scenes) she signals a change–not just to film’s atmosphere or to the second act accelerating, but to Guinness’s character as well. The small British comedy–albeit in Cinemascope–has all of a sudden gotten out of his hands.

There’s not a false step in the film, from the first few moments with Noel Coward’s small role as Guinness’s recruiter. It’s an Ealing comedy about British people abroad, mixed with a spy thriller, but the result is … obviously, quiet. It’s a quiet film about expatriates and the friendship among them. For some of it. Towards the end, it shaves off even the expatriates part and just becomes about friendship. (Quietly, of course).

Guinness is perfect and Ives and O’Hara are both great–their scenes together, Guinness and Ives and Guinness and O’Hara, are wonderful–but the most surprising performance is Kovacs. He brings this humanity and a sadness to his performance, in a role those traits would seem to be incompatible and creates a lot of beautiful moments in the third act.

Our Man in Havana is shamefully unavailable in region one (it’s out in the UK). It’s certainly a reason for one to investigate as a region-free DVD player.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Carol Reed; screenplay by Graham Greene, based on his novel; director of photography, Oswald Morris; edited by Bert Bates; music by Frank Deniz and Laurence Deniz; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Alec Guinness (Jim Wormold), Burl Ives (Dr. Hasselbacher), Maureen O’Hara (Beatrice Severn), Ernie Kovacs (Capt. Segura), Noel Coward (Hawthorne), Ralph Richardson (‘C’), Jo Morrow (Milly Wormold), Grégoire Aslan (Cifuentes) and Paul Rogers (Hubert Carter).

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1982, ★★★½, Drama

White Dog (1982, Samuel Fuller)

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I kept getting sad during White Dog, probably for a few reasons. First, the film is effective: it’s about people faced with a reality (a racist training his dog to attack black people) they can’t fix, but they’re going to try. I have a bootleg from Denmark (everyone’s bootleg is from Denmark), but hadn’t watched it. Only the end.

Second, because White Dog is a different Sam Fuller. It’s an early 1980s Fuller telling a contemporary story, using more advanced filming technology (location cranes and steadycam), with an Ennio Morricone score. I kept getting sad because White Dog‘s Fuller had a lot of interesting films in him and folks ran him out of the country without even seeing his film.

And White Dog has a lot going for it. The only Paul Winfield-lead I’m aware of–he’s so good. Unless black guys star in action movies, they never get any recognition… Kristy MacNichol proves cutesy actress icons used to be able to act. Burl Ives is good. White Dog is a good film. It’s not a great film, however, because it’s too short. It runs about ninety minutes and there are two ideas never developed on–MacNichol’s boyfriend, played by “Simon and Simon” star Jameson Parker–yeah, he’s good too–was supposed to write something about her and the dog and some tranquilizers got replaced with regular darts but never showed up again. The tranquilizer scene probably was lost when Fuller absconded with a print over to France. With the writer part, I’m just correcting it in my head–ol’ boy writes an article, brings out the dog’s proud owner (who shows up in the third act for a second, letting MacNichol show why “son of a bitch” can be a great descriptor), and lets the characters get some sort of closure. I made up all of the parts past the darts. Fuller never intended of those–that I know of. Maybe I’m sitting here eating chocolate cake, drinking soymilk and channeling him, but I doubt it.

Before the film started, the college kid introduced White Dog as criminally under-seen and criminally unreleased on DVD. He was right on both parts, even though they’re really the same thing. I always hate seeing films about race in America and realizing that things have gotten worse. No one talks about it anymore, but there’s more division than there was when I was a kid. White Dog tries to talk about it. In contrast, Crash tries to tell you about it….

As for White Dog and you good people getting to see it–there’s always shitty Danish bootlegs and there’s always a chance the French will save it.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Samuel Fuller; screenplay by Fuller and Curtis Hanson, based on a story by Romain Gary; director of photography, Bruce Surtees; edited by Bernard Gribble; music by Ennio Morricone; production designer, Brian Eatwell; produced by Jon Davison; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Kristy McNichol (Julie Sawyer), Paul Winfield (Keys), Burl Ives (Carruthers) and Jameson Parker (Roland Gray).