Movie Review: Separate Tables (1958)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Delbert Mann  

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, David Niven, Wendy Hiller, Rod Taylor, Gladys Cooper, Cathleen Nesbitt  
Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is the The Beauregard Hotel in Bournemouth, England. The residents include the gossipy Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) and her obedient and dowdy daughter Sibyl (Deborah Kerr), who has a crush on the talkative Major Pollock (David Niven). The divorced John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) drowns his sorrows at the local pub but promises to marry the hotel manager Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). Medical student Charles (Rod Taylor) is prevented from concentrating by feisty girlfriend Jean (Audrey Dalton). The guests' established rhythms are first disrupted by the arrival of John's ex-wife Anne (Rita Hayworth), a glamorous model, and then by a shocking scandal.

What Works Well: The adaptation of two stage plays by Terence Rattigan (who co-wrote the screenplay) deploys sharp writing to create a rich texture of turmoil churning beneath staid surroundings. Director Delbert Mann teases out a Britain in post-war transition, the older generation holding on to conservative ideals while the younger members frolic and test new boundaries. David Niven (as Pollock encounters the limits of deceit) and Deborah Kerr (as Sybil finally cracks her shell) shine brightest in a stellar cast that allows mannerisms, etiquette, and social norms to collide with secrets, scandals, emotional releases, and new beginnings.

What Does Not Work As Well: The production is strictly stage-bound, and unsurprisingly a few scenes slip into theatrical melodrama. While the emotional untidyness is welcome, a few character decisions in the final act demonstrate genuinely suspect judgement.

Key Quote:

John Malcolm: You know something, Ann? No one I know of lies with such sincerity.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Sea Wolves (1980)

Genre: War Adventure

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Starring: Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, David Niven, Trevor Howard, Barbara Kellerman

Running Time: 120 minutes

Synopsis: In British India of 1943, Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Captain Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) uncover a German transmission station located on a ship anchored in the Portuguese-controlled port of Goa. Unable to mount a military operation in neutral territory, Pugh and Stewart turn to Colonel Grice (David Niven) and his aging Calcutta Light Horse volunteers to coordinate a raid. Meanwhile, Stewart initiates a romance with the alluring widow Mrs. Agnes Cromwell (Barbara Kellerman).

What Works Well: Inspired by the actual events of Operation Creek (chronicled in James Leasor's 1978 novel Boarding Party), this is an old-fashioned World War Two adventure featuring clever allies outfoxing evil Nazis, with a bit of suave sleuthing and dangerous dalliance on the side. The on-location filming ensures plenty of organic local texture, and the climactic raid is decently engaging.

What Does Not Work As Well: Director Andrew V. McLaglen is caught between delivering a spy caper (leveraging Roger Moore's Bond charisma) or a throwback to World War Two movies from the 1950s and 1960s (reuniting Gregory Peck and David Niven). Unsurprisingly the movie falls into the yawning gap. Shallow characterizations and careless inattention to the hairstyles and wardrobes of the 1940s do not help, and the over-long duration succumbs to tedium well before the action finally starts.

Conclusion: These wolves are more bark than bite.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937)

A swashbuckling adventure, The Prisoner Of Zenda is a breezy story of palace intrigue, conspiracy, romance, and one wild coincidence.

British aristocrat Rudolf Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) arrives in an unnamed small eastern european country for a fishing vacation. He carries an uncanny resemblance to king-to-be Rudolf V (also Colman), who is about to be coronated the next day. The future king and his loyal assistants Colonel Zapt (C. Aubrey Smith) and Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim (David Niven) spend the evening drinking with Rassendyll.

Unfortunately, Rudolf V consumes a wine bottle spiked with a sleeping drug, courtesy of his evil brother Duke Michael (Raymond Massey) and co-conspirator Rupert of Hentzau (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Michael will ascend to the throne if Rudolf misses his coronation, with a bonus prize of marrying Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll), who is promised to whoever becomes king. Antoinette de Mauban (Mary Astor) truly loves Michael, and is therefore in danger of losing her man.

With Rudolf V incapacitated, Colonel Zapt thinks quickly and convinces doppelganger Rassendyll to show up at the coronation, disrupting Michael's plot. Rudolf V is captured and imprisoned by Hentzau, and Rassendyll now has to pretend to be King. He starts to fall in love with Flavia and is thrust into a ruthless battle for the crown.

The adaptation of the classic Anthony Hope novel is given lush, high-quality treatment in this David O. Selznick production. As a story The Prisoner Of Zelda may operate best at an almost childlike level of thrills and wonder, but the movie just powers ahead, fully committed to the absurd tale of an Englishman asked to fool an entire foreign nation and getting away with it for much longer than makes sense.

With eager pacing, director John Cromwell somehow packs the multiple characters, twisted agendas, numerous double-crosses, and convoluted but internally logical events into just the 101 minutes. The actors help by appearing resplendent in their outfits, the men convincing as they partake in a joust for dominance, the ladies leaning heavily towards theatricality and heavy breathing. The impressive set designs, featuring hundreds of extras, create a bountiful ambience. A few athletic sword and dagger battles add punctuation marks.

The stellar cast is deep in talent, and Colman is in fine form playing dual roles and overcoming a few incidents of clunky editing when Rassendyll and Rudolf V appear together. Surprisingly C. Aubrey Smith overshadows almost everyone else as Colonel Zapt, a wily veteran patriotic officer with a singular mission to protect the throne's reputation.

Slicing its way through any scrutiny of rationality, The Prisoner Of Zenda is an exuberant escape to exotic exploits.



All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Escape To Athena (1979)

A World War Two comedy thriller, Escape To Athena is lazy, hazy, and tonally uncoordinated.

It's 1944, and on an occupied Greek island Germany's Major Otto Hecht (Roger Moore) oversees an archeological dig. The forced labour is provided by assorted Allied prisoners of war including Professor Blake (David Niven), Sergeant Judson (Richard Roundtree), and Rotelli (Sonny Bono). Hecht is content sitting out the war and keeping some treasure for himself; Blake obliges by recycling the found artefacts to keep the dig going.

In a nearby village SS commander Major Volkmann (Anthony Valentine) is ruthlessly suppressing the population, while Zeno (Telly Savalas) is leading the local Greek resistance using the whorehouse run by Eleana (Claudia Cardinale) as his HQ. The arrival of talent show performers Charlie Dane (Elliott Gould) and Dottie Del Mar (Stefanie Powers) as new POWs at Hecht's camp adds a new dynamic. Charlie has his eyes on ancient treasure hidden at a local monastery, while Zeno is anticipating an allied invasion and has his orders to move against the occupying Germans.

Emitting the strong stench of a group vacation for underemployed Hollywood stars, Escape To Athena develops ugly blisters in the Greek sun. The Lew Grade production directed by George P. Cosmatos attempts to recreate the classic vibe of movies like The Guns Of Navarone but falls embarrassingly flat. While the setting, uniforms and vehicles hold promise, Cosmatos is never able to assemble them into anything other than settings, uniforms and vehicles waiting in vain for a breath of inspiration. Lame humour rubs against context-free action and plenty of explosions, but all momentum is lost in a stupefyingly bland opening hour.

As the parade of stars galavant across the screen, none are properly introduced or provided with anything resembling a backstory, creating an  emotional void that devours the film. And so the actors default to importing luggage from other projects. Roger Moore continues with the worst of his Bond womanizing mannerisms; Elliot Gould believes he is recreating MASH; Richard Roundtree has no idea what he is doing and gets maybe 10 words of dialogue; and Sonny Bono reads his lines off the nearest tree. Telly Savalas was not told this was a semi-comedy and plays the Greek resistance leader absolutely straight, adding to the tonal confusion.

The second half is marginally better and features three action set-pieces, slapped together but still decent: the mish mash of Allies first attack the German troops in the village; then destroy a submarine refueling depot; and finally assault a monastery high up in the mountains. And still Cosmatos' grip on the material is ghastly. At one point a group of unidentified underwater divers surface to join a battle, just because. Then for no apparent reason a massive intimidating rocket is rolled-out mid-battle complete with mirror-helmeted starship troopers in attendance. The rocket plays no meaningful role in the movie.

Of course the stuntmen do all the work, and all the explosions do not obscure Escape To Athena as a collection of random scenes cobbled together in the futile hope that the editors can create sense out of nonsense.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Wuthering Heights (1939)

A drama and romance, Wuthering Heights is an engrossing story of personal trauma wrapped in a visual feast, but cannot escape the source material's overclocked emotions.

On the storm-swept Yorkshire moors, traveler Mr. Lockwood (Miles Mander) takes shelter at the secluded estate known as Wuthering Heights. He finds the owner Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) dour and barely welcoming. After Lockwood encounters a woman's ghost, the long-serving housekeeper Ellen (Flora Robson) recounts the history of the family.

Heathcliff was an orphaned young boy living on the streets of Liverpool when he was brought to the estate by the owner Mr. Earnshaw (Cecil Kellaway). Heathcliff bonded with Earnshaw's young daughter Cathy, but had a strained relationship with her brother Hindley. They grow up together, and when Hindley (Hugh Williams) becomes master of the house he badly mistreats Heathcliff, whose relationship with Cathy (Merle Oberon) blossoms into a full-fledged romance.

But she is caught between her genuine affection towards the untamed Heathcliff and her desire to join upper-class society, with wealthy neighbour Edgar Linton (David Niven) offering his love and the opportunity for a lush life. Cathy wishes for Heathcliff to make something of himself, and then she makes a life-altering decision with far reaching consequences.

Lavishly produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by William Wyler, Wuthering Heights adapts the front end of Emily Brontë's classic novel. This is a story of a love so intense it starts rubbing shoulders with enmity. Jealous possessiveness, revenge and careless disregard for others are among the weapons deployed in a scorched earth struggle. The overheated fervor is a large part of the romantic sizzle, but the behaviour of both Heathcliff and Cathy often suggests bipolar disorders.

With sterling black and white cinematography courtesy of Gregg Toland and dazzling sets recreating a harsh corner of the English countryside, the film looks magnificent. Both the exterior landscapes and household interiors create immediate and transformative moods. The contrast between Wuthering Heights' increasingly ramshackle condition and the sparking Linton mansion, hosting eloquent balls with fashionable gowns and swish music, brings Cathy's existential dilemma into sharp relief.

Alfred Newman's music score is grand with Cathy's theme particularly evocative, although towards the end it is overused to distraction.

Wuthering Heights was Laurence Olivier's debut in Hollywood. He delivers a performance full of menace, whether as a lumbering stable hand brooding through the household or in his later incarnation as a man determined to claim what he believes is his. Olivier's Heathcliff only projects happiness when Cathy expresses her love to him, which she does frequently only to also push him to be something he is not.

Merle Oberon is less impressive, and in her more dramatically emotive scenes retreats into wide-eyed expressions more suited to the silent area. The cast also includes Geraldine Fitzgerald as Edgar's sister Isabella who gets caught up in the impulsive crossfire, Donald Crisp as the local doctor and Leo G. Carroll as a loyal family servant.

Wuthering Heights explores the tension between genuine organic affection and tempting societal status, and the price of pursuing personal change and forcing change in others. The outcomes are as jagged as a countryside exposed to blustery winters.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Murder By Death (1976)

A whodunit comedy satire, Murder By Death offers laughs aplenty but also runs out of ideas rather quickly.

The world's best detectives are invited to a spooky mansion for an evening of dinner and death. The detectives include Sidney Wang (modeled on Charlie Chan, and played by Peter Sellers), Dick and Dora Charleston (Nick and Nora Charles, brought to life by David Niven and Maggie Smith), Milo Perrier (Hercule Poirot, portrayed by James Coco), Sam Diamond (representing Sam Spade, played by Peter Falk) and Jessica Marbles (Miss Marple, interpreted by Elsa Lanchester). They need to overcome a rickety bridge and falling gargoyles just to make it into the mansion, where they are greeted by the blind butler Jamesir Bensonmum (Alec Guinness). Deaf-mute maid Yetta (Nancy Walker) is supposed to be helping to get dinner ready.

Their host is erratic millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote), who promises them that one person in the mansion will be dead by midnight, and offers a reward of $1 million to whichever detective can solve the crime. In fact, by the time midnight rolls around two people appear to be dead, the rooms of the mansion are playing tricks of their own, and deep dark personal secrets about all the guests will soon be revealed. The detectives not only have to solve the crimes, but also fight to stay alive as they all come under personal attack.

Written by Neil Simon and directed by Ray Stark, Murder By Death is a good idea with mediocre execution. Making fun of the Agatha Christie-style detective genre is a promising premise, and the gathering of great minds in a stormy mansion to match wits with an evil schemer does set the stage for plenty of zingers, one-liners, and obvious convolutions. The great cast, spooky mansion setting and a clear sense of lighthearted self-depreciation create an agreeably entertaining film.

But the momentum only goes so far, and Simon surprisingly seems to have trouble developing the concept. The running time is about 90 minutes, and the first 30 minutes are fully occupied with the detectives arriving at the mansion. They all encounter the bridge, they all encounter the falling gargoyles, and they all encounter the blind butler, in what amounts to dullness by prolonged repetition. The remaining hour has an unexpectedly high number of flat patches. Too much time is invested in a limited number of gags, for example opening and closing the dining room door to find the room alternatively full and empty. This seems to go on forever and is repeated ad nauseam (and never properly explained).

To tide over the rough patches, there are jokes aplenty to keep things sort of humming along. Alec Guinness as a haplessly blind butler generates the most laughs. Peter Sellers mangling the English language with his eastern morsels of faux wisdom and trite traditional sayings adds plenty of fine comic timing. Peter Falk goes all-in as hard-boiled detective Sam Diamond. Less successful is James Coco as the food-obsessed Perrier, while Elsa Lanchester as Jessica Marbles is under-written. The cast also includes Richard Narita as Wang's adopted son, Eileen Brennan as Diamond's assistant, and James Cromwell as Perrier's driver.

Simon navigates the story towards his punchline, poking fun at detective stories that reveal key information in the frantic last few pages simply to try and outwit the audience. He probably carries that joke too far, as the rushed ending disintegrates into a muddled anti-climax of anything goes.

Murder By Death is a passable satire, and at the end, the butler maybe did it. Or maybe not.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Eternally Yours (1939)

A rather bland romantic comedy, Eternally Yours is the story of a magician pursuing his girl, but the film suffers from an obnoxious central character, a plodding pace and an absence of wit.

Tony "The Great Arturo" (David Niven) is a magician and hypnotist popular with the ladies. As soon as he sets eyes on Anita (Loretta Young) they fall in love. She breaks off her engagement to Don (Broderick Crawford), marries Tony, and becomes his assistant. They live a life of travel and touring, but Anita eventually longs to return to some stability and a quiet life in a dream rural home. But one drunken night Tony promises a journalist that he can jump out of an airplane in handcuffs and free his hands in time to activate the parachute. To Anita's horror he goes ahead with the stunt, and this makes him even more popular.

When Tony commits to another long international tour to capitalize on his airplane jump trick, Anita decides that she has had enough. She leaves him, secures a divorce and marries Don. But Tony realizes that he cannot find happiness without Anita, and he starts a long pursuit to win her back.

Directed by Tay Garnett, Eternally Yours is a formulaic romance only marginally brightened by the world of magic and trickery occupied by Tony. The film has some promising raw material to work with, and refreshingly treats magic as almost just another profession. The secrets behind most of Tony's deceptive tricks are casually revealed, and the special effects deployed for the airplane jump are rudimentary although passable for the era.

Niven and Young offer decent star power, and they generate good heat as a couple very much passionately in love but also operating on different frequencies. She wants stability, he wants to capitalize on fame, and as much as she can tolerate his womanizing, she reaches a breaking point with his broken promises and lack of sensitivity. The central characters do remain quite shallow, with barely any background context, and their love-at-first-sight encounter is laughably unconvincing. The willing supporting cast includes C. Aubrey Smith as Anita's Grandpa, Zasu Pitts and Eve Arden.

But otherwise, the script gets bogged down in routine territory, and fails miserably to make Tony a sympathetic character. And once Anita dumps Tony, life steadily seeps out of the entirely predictable back half of the film. Don as the replacement romantic interest is a wooden doofus, and Tony's single-minded attempts to win back Anita border on cruel. Garnett's directing is generally pedestrian and does nothing to overcome the lacklustre dialogue exchanges.

While not a total loss, Eternally Yours tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but finds an ungainly chicken instead.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of David Niven

All movies starring David Niven and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Mutiny On The Bounty (1935, uncredited extra)

The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)

The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937)

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Eternally Yours (1939)

Separate Tables (1958)

The Guns Of Navarone (1961)

55 Days At Peking (1963)

The Pink Panther (1963)

Murder By Death (1976)

Escape To Athena (1979)

The Sea Wolves (1980)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)

Long on rousing action and short on historical accuracy, The Charge Of The Light Brigade uses the actual battle of 1854 as a climax but constructs an entirely fictitious narrative as a lead up story. The film is nevertheless a wildly entertaining and lavishly produced spectacle.

In the tribal areas of India in the mid-19th century, the 27th Lancers of the British Army under the leadership of Major Geoffrey Vickers (Errol Flynn) are tasked with keeping the peace in the Suristan territory, controlled by local leader Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon). The nearby British presence is centred on a fort in the remote town of Chukoti. Vickers saves Khan's life during a hunting expedition. But there is unexpected trouble for Geoffrey when he discovers that his fiancée Elsa (Olivia de Havilland) has fallen in love with his younger brother Captain Perry Vickers (Patric Knowles).

With regional tensions rising Khan decides to betray the British and align himself with the Russians, and orders his men to commit a massacre at the Chukoti fort, murdering women and children who were under the protection of the 27th Lancers. Khan repays his debt by sparing Geoffrey's life. War breaks out in the Crimea, and both Vickers brothers are reassigned to augment the British forces waging battle. With Khan's men deployed on the front lines but protected by Russian cannons, Geoffrey spots an opportunity for the Lancers to gain a measure of revenge and turn the tide of the war, but this will involve a daring raid against superior forces.

An early example of a big production action epic loosely inspired by British military history, The Charge Of The Light Brigade is filled with scenes of mounted armies mobilizing, marching and charging. The action is frequent, intense, and enjoyable, as director Michael Curtiz captures what it means to be a hot and sweaty mounted brigade ordered to battle the unforgiving terrain and the hardened local tribes at the far flung edges of empire.

Between the combat scenes, there are plenty of costumes, parties, dances, politicians, impressive sets and a large number of lively extras to provide the context for the battlefield exploits. At almost two hours in length, The Charge Of The Light Brigade maintains breathless momentum, and builds a powerful story of military alliances, betrayal and the intrigue that forces armies into motion.

Less impressive is how far the story veers away from the historical record. The charge itself is stunningly recreated in the final twenty minutes of the film, but all the events leading up to it are manufactured out of the Hollywood dream factory. The outcome is not uninteresting; just an unnecessary divergence to the land of fiction as an alternative to an already compelling reality.

Working with the script that they do have, the stars help to make it all work. This is a film made for Errol Flynn, his charismatic attitude overflowing with panache, and he is always watchable as the confident, determined and professional Major Geoffrey Vickers. Olivia de Havilland is less convincing but still adequate, the role of Elsa underwritten into a box of love and affection for two brothers, but with insufficient meaningful scenes to bring the character to full life. David Niven makes a good impression as Captain Randall, one of Vickers' trusted subordinates. Patric Knowles, C. Henry Gordon, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp, and Henry Stephenson provide sturdy support.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade carries an unintended legacy related to animal cruelty. The filming of the raucous battle scenes resulted in the death of dozens of horses injured in falls caused by trip wires. The subsequent outrage reached all the way to the political sphere; horse trip wires were banned and the industry moved towards more humane treatment of animals on film sets.

Galloping full speed ahead and consequences be damned, The Charge Of The Light Brigade kicks up plenty of dust and holds nothing back.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: 55 Days At Peking (1963)

A historical drama chronicling the siege of the foreign compound at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, 55 Days At Peking is a rousing epic, combining commanding action with compelling characters and potent politics.

It's the year 1900, and foreign powers are busy carving up China's natural resources, each nation backed by it's own small troop detachment protecting the diplomats in Peking's International Legations compound. The experienced and wily Sir Arthur Robinson (David Niven) leads England's diplomatic mission, and is the defacto leader of the compound. Major Matt Lewis (Charlton Heston) arrives as the head of a Marine force to bolster the US presence. There are also Russian, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese and Austrian contingents. Lewis is immediately attracted to the sultry Baroness Natalie Ivanoff (Ava Gardner), who is hanging around the Russian delegation. But her fellow-nationals are cold and almost hostile towards her, for reasons not immediately clear to Lewis.

Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi (Flora Robson) is powerless to stop the foreign asset grab, but her nationalistic senior adviser fans the flames of the Boxer Rebellion, a seemingly spontaneous and violent uprising against the foreigners by mysterious elements of Chinese society. With the tacit support of the government, the Boxers are emboldened and the rebellion spreads. When Sir Arthur convinces all the other foreign powers to ignore a final warning to leave China, the International Legations compound is surrounded by the Boxers and placed under siege. As supplies of medicine and ammunition run out, the few hundred foreign troops have to fend off thousands of Boxer attackers, while hoping that a relief army can fight its way to Peking and lift the siege.

Strongly grounded in the real events of 1900 but featuring mostly fictional characters (who may have been inspired by real-life counterparts), 55 Days At Peking is a reflection of the politics of the day, with western powers convinced of their superiority and moral rights to control China's resources, and the Chinese rulers too weak to offer much in the way of resistance either at the negotiating table or on the battlefield. Notwithstanding the colonial context, the film is at its best in recreating an example of rare international cooperation towards a common purpose.

55 Days At Peking was the last full-length feature film directed by Nicholas Ray. By now drowning in alcohol and frazzled by drugs, he needed the help of uncredited co-directors Andrew Marton and Guy Green to complete the movie. Nevertheless, the result is grand entertainment in sumptuous colours, the Samuel Bronston production recreating the spectacle of a tense international siege without losing sight of key characters at the heart of the conflict.

The film comfortably moves between elaborate banquet halls hosting large parties for Peking's elite, the threateningly dark throne hall of the Empress, backrooms where foreign diplomats squabble and make history-altering decisions, the milling streets of Peking (recreated on the outskirts of Madrid), elaborate scenes of battle with thousands of extras, tense conversations between soldiers debating the purpose of their mission, and one well-executed commando raid. The 150 minutes of running time are effortlessly consumed.

Gardner, just 41 years old in 1963 but looking at least 10 years older, never convinces in her role as the Baroness. Not sexy enough, not glamorous enough, and when the going gets tough, not comfortable enough caring for the wounded, she is the one annoying element in the film.

Much better are Charlton Heston and, particularly, David Niven. While Heston delivers his dependable, resilient, lead-from-the-front, no-nonsense hero in Major Matt Lewis, Niven shines as the statesman Sir Arthur. Conveying an intellect several steps ahead of both his friends and his foes, Niven's Sir Arthur is the perfect ambassador for the British Empire, stoic, resourceful, diplomatic, and with an unmistakable glint in his eye hinting at the ability to deploy sharp connivance as needed.

Wars are fought by soldiers, but it is diplomats who have to win the peace. In 55 Days At Peking Sir Arthur is a diplomat with the inner steel of a soldier, a formidable man thrust into an extraordinary circumstance.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Pink Panther (1963)

An attempt at suave comedy, The Pink Panther is a plodding, mostly unfunny farce. A caper involving the attempted theft of a large diamond quickly skids off the road into antiquated flat jokes and an unconvincing romance.

At an exclusive ski resort in Europe, expert jewel thief Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven), better known as The Phantom, has set his sights on stealing the famous and massive Pink Panther diamond owned by the deposed Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale). The diamond has a flaw that resembles the image of a panther, but is nevertheless worth a fortune. Sir Charles gets close to his target by attempting to romance the Princess.

Also at the resort is inept French Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers), tasked with putting an end to the Phantom's crime spree. A bungling idiot, Clouseau's speciality is walking into fixed objects and knocking things over, mostly himself. Clouseau's wife Simone (Capucine) is The Phantom's silent partner and lover, helping to plan and pull off the thefts. With Sir Charles' nephew George (Robert Wagner) making a surprise appearance and adding to the reigning chaos and raging lust, the theft of the Pink Panther will not be an easy task.

The Pink Panther climaxes with a wild costume party, a favourite plot device for director Blake Edwards, with various cast members decked out as gorillas or knights in clunky armour, and blundering attempts to break into a safe and steal the diamond. Earlier, there is an interminable scene with Sir Charles and his nephew George simultaneously caught in Simone's hotel room and having to hide under the bed and in the bathtub as Inspector Clouseau unexpectedly barges in on his wife. It's all supposed to be hilarious, but the script by Edwards and Maurice Richlin causes the odd chuckle at best. The timing is slow, the actions and dialogue a lot more dull than smart, and the shenanigans contrived rather than calculating.

The romance between Sir Charles and Princess Dala is warmed-over rather than spicy, with Niven and Cardinale unable to generate meaningful heat. The bed-hopping escapades centred on George are best described as infantile, Robert Wagner never appearing sure as to his role in the movie.

Peter Sellers as Clouseau induces the most sympathy and a few good laughs, but tripping over every conceivable object gets old fast. In his first movie appearance, Clouseau is missing the supremely bloated self-importance that would become key to his character in future outings. Here, Clouseau is just a dim police inspector seemingly unable to stay on his feet, and wrapped tightly around the finger of his devious wife.

The humour and the romance may be flat, but at least the Henry Mancini score brings some stylish respect to the film. As the actors fall all over themselves, the gracefully drawn panther sneaks his way to fame, moving to a magically languid tune.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Guns Of Navarone (1961)

The fictional World War Two story of an Allied commando mission to blow up two massive German canons on the Greek island of Navarone, Alistair MacLean's novel receives expansive screen treatment. More than two and half hours of engrossing film-making feature human drama with sometimes harrowing, always tense action.

A flotilla of Allied ships needs to rescue 2,000 stranded men from the island of Keros. The entrenched German guns will decimate the naval rescue mission unless they are first knocked out by Captain Mallory (Gregory Peck), a rock climbing expert, leading a team that includes explosives ace Corporal Miller (David Niven) and Greek Army Colonel Stavros (Anthony Quinn).

The commandos have to land unnoticed on Navarone; scale vertical cliffs; infiltrate the island with the help of the Greek resistance; survive the treachery of a traitor; gain access to the fortress above the gun emplacement; and find a way to destroy the guns; all in a limited time-frame and despite the presence of German troops throughout the island.

With the never ending challenges of the mission more than capable of overwhelming any exploration of men at war, The Guns Of Navarone succeeds because the central characters are equally as strong as the surrounding events. What could otherwise have been a routine war movie is dramatically enhanced with a rounding out of the tension in two relationships: The mission-focused Captain Mallory clashes with the war-weary Corporal Miller; and Mallory also has an unfortunate and lingering history with the family of Colonel Stavros.

All three men emerge from behind the uniforms as human beings, and producer Carl Foreman's script gives each enough screen time to become a person rather than a role. Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn grab the opportunity to shine, and are helped by a more than capable supporting cast including Stanley Baker, Anthony Quayle and Irene Papas, with Richard Harris in a small role.

The Guns Of Navarone is one of the brightest moments in director J. Lee Thompson's otherwise checkered career. He allows the action to breathe and the characters to develop, with long stretches of the movie proceeding without dialogue, demonstrating confidence in the unfolding story and the strong cast to drive the narrative.

The Guns Of Navarone is war adventurism at its best, entertaining, complex, heroic and classy.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.