Movie Review: The Children's Hour (1961)

Genre: Drama  

Director: William Wyler  

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, Fay Bainter, Miriam Hopkins  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: Best friends since age 17, teachers Karen Wright (Audrey Hepburn) and Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine) now run a private boarding school for girls. Martha has always harboured a secret crush on Karen, and resents her friend's impending marriage to Doctor Joe Cardin (James Garner). Martha's aunt Lily (Miriam Hopkins) and troublesome student Mary (Karen Balkin) both have reasons to gossip about the relationship between Karen and Martha, and Mary's grandmother Amelia (Fay Bainter) expertly spreads the harmful rumours. 

What Works Well: Lilian Hellman co-wrote the script based on her own play (inspired by actual events), and William Wyler directs with an unflinching commitment to the darkest corners of the human soul. Karen loves Joe and Martha loves Karen, but their good intentions are easily victimized by malevolence. Negativity invades the school sanctuary through the evil Mary (one of the screen's nastiest children); the selfish Aunt Lily (still delusional about a stage career); and the influential grandma Amelia (wielding community power like a judge and jury). The final act displays the fearsome destructive capacity of group think when combined with prejudice.

What Does Not Work As Well: The theatrical origins are clear, and translate to a limited number of sets, longish scenes, and unconstrained performances, with Audrey Hepburn alone in maintaining a measure of control.

Conclusion: Hatred thrives in empty chambers.



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Movie Review: The Americanization Of Emily (1964)

Genre: War Drama Comedy Romance

Director: Arthur Hiller

Starring: James Garner, Julie Andrews, James Coburn, Melvyn Douglas

Running Time: 115 minutes

Synopsis: In London of 1944, D-Day preparations are underway. The US Navy's Lieutenant Charlie Madison (James Garner) manages logistics for Admiral Jessup (Melvyn Douglas), who is concerned that the Navy's war efforts are underappreciated. A charming womanizer and admitted coward, Charlie starts a romance with Emily Barham (Julie Andrews), a military pool driver who believes in notions of honour and sacrifice. When the ailing Jessup demands a propaganda film of the Normandy invasion, Charlie and his colleague Lieutenant "Bus" Cummings (James Coburn) are thrust uncomfortably close to the front lines.

What Works Well: The Paddy Chayefsky adaptation of William Bradford Huie's novel is full of sharp intellectual debate, delivered with cynical conviction by characters navigating the turmoil of World War Two. Themes include the contrast between the American and English perspectives on the war; the value and exploitation of service and honor as opposed to practical individual survival objectives; and the preoccupation with optics and finance plaguing the military's leadership. In a sexually liberated milieu, Julie Andrews as Emily is a bright light amidst the uniforms, representing British resilience in the face of personal loss and an American cultural invasion.

What Does Not Work As Well: The multiple competing narrative ambitions result in plot threads being abandoned for long stretches. The tonal shifts between romance, philosophizing, and outright cynicism are often jarring, with several characters recalibrating beliefs according to the whims of the script. Some of the dialogue exchanges are theatrically wordy. 

Conclusion: A whip-smart and well-rounded commentary on war's conundrums.



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Movie Review: 36 Hours (1964)

A clever battle of wits centred on the seminal secret of World War Two, 36 Hours is a twisty and often audacious intelligence thriller.

In early June 1944, final preparations are underway for the D-Day invasion, and Normandy as the location of the landing beaches is the most important secret of the war. The Germans have made the wrong assumption and massed their defences at Calais, and the Allies are doing all they can to maintain the deception. Major Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is one of the few to know the battle plan, but on a trip to neutral Lisbon, he is drugged and kidnapped by the Germans and transported to a remote site in Germany near the Swiss border.

Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) is a German doctor specializing in memory control, and with the help of nurse Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint) has devised an ingenious plan to fool Pike into revealing the invasion details. Otto Schack (Werner Peters) of the SS is sceptical about Gerber's methods and wants to use more brutal interrogation tactics. Gerber has less than 36 hours to extract the information he needs, while Pike has to overcome drug-induced confusion to try and escape his predicament.

Directed and written by George Seaton with Robert Dahl's 1944 magazine story Beware of the Dog serving as inspiration, 36 Hours is an engaging and unique spy showdown. Smart, sharp, and unpredictable, the film is always ready with another bluff. Philip H. Lathrop's black and white cinematography evokes representations of the war era, and the story maintains an edge with deceptor and deceived trading the advantage.

Gerber's elaborate ruse is at the brainy and well-resourced scale of The Manchurian Candidate, and involves creating an illusionary setting for Pike to feel comfortable giving away the invasion plans. Within this tense locale, four distinctive central characters contribute to the cinematic success of the premise. Pike is confident and capable but not beyond being fooled, Gerber is a doctor at heart and not impressed with military buffoonery. In another world Pike and Gerber can be friends and colleagues, their emerging bond adding a layer of disorienting mutual respect to the clinical business of war. Off in the dark corner, Schack combines the characteristics of the consummate intelligence agent with an excellent understanding of careerism.

But Anna emerges as the real catalyst. She is asked to play the most difficult role in deceiving Pike, and also provided with a deep and conflicted backstory revealed in measured increments. Eva Marie Saint rises to the challenge with Anna's multiple layers of stress casting shadows on her face.

Seaton maintains brisk pacing, packing plenty of incident and momentum changes within 115 minutes. The set-up is efficient, Gerber initially seizing the initiative but his rivalry with Schack immediately creating a schism within the German ranks. The outcome remains uncertain, as the three men take turns controlling the psychological upper hand. And while pressure is sometimes applied openly, small and nuanced tricks are just as effective in turning the tide.

The third act is relatively weaker than the preceding material and devolves to a standard escape-and-chase. But the final scene is an unforgettable human connection, capturing in one look why the war needed to be won. With the clock ticking down towards one of history's most important battles, 36 Hours is subterfuge at its best.



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Movie Review: The Notebook (2004)

A romantic drama, The Notebook weaves a lyrical spell with an appealing narrative structure bookending a destined love. Excellent performances and rich cinematography enhance the film's allure.

At a nursing home, the elderly Duke (James Garner) cares for a dementia patient (Gena Rowlands) by reading to her the story of a long-ago romance.

The events he recounts are shown in flashback, starting in the summer of 1940 at the resort community of Seabrook Island, South Carolina. At the carnival grounds, young lumberyard worker Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) is attracted to vacationing rich girl Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) and insists on a date. They eventually fall in love, but with summer ending and Allie's mother Anne (Joan Allen) believing Noah is not good enough for her daughter, the young lovers separate after a bad argument.

Noah heads off to war with his best friend Fin (Kevin Connolly), while Allie volunteers as a nurse and falls in love with recuperating soldier Lon (James Marsden), eventually agreeing to marry him. After the war, Noah embarks on a dream home renovation project with the help of his father Frank (Sam Shepard). Allie and Noah appear destined to remain apart, until she spots a newspaper article and sets out to discover if her first love was true.

An adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks book, The Notebook is well-made old-fashioned storytelling. Directed by Nick Cassavetes with an eye for blazing red skies and picturesque sunsets, the film draws strength from irony-free traditional themes of an everlasting love overcoming all obstacles, while late-in-life physical and mental ailments ensure no shortage of tears.

It's obvious early on that the elderly dementia patient is Allie and Duke is Noah, fanning the flames of their love until the very end. Veterans James Garner and Gena Rowlands bring earnest poise to life's twilight, Allie stranded in a lonely fog having forgotten her life, Noah persisting in sharing their eloquently written history, hoping to spark just a daily moment of remembrance. Combined with the tumultuous travails and separations of their young lives, this is a couple who earned their couplehood.

In the flashback scenes Cassavetes hits all the expected beats of courtship, with Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams contributing oodles of young charisma. Noah is from the rougher side of town, she plays hard to get, and they bring refreshing honesty to their feisty bickering. But there is no denying the certainty of their love nor the usual impediments blocking their road to happiness, from disapproving parents to world wars and rival lovers. Despite being apart they never lose sight of each other, in a soulful definition of a union meant to be.

At 124 minutes The Notebook does go on, although writer Jan Sardi has the excuse of delving deep into both the first and final chapters of an enduring bond. Noah and Allie may be two ordinary people, but they also embody the universality of extraordinary love.



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Movie Review: Marlowe (1969)

An adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, Marlowe is a spry if borderline incomprehensible murder-and-mayhem thriller.

In Los Angeles, private investigator Philip Marlowe (James Garner) is hired by Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell) of Kansas to find her missing brother Orrin. Poking around Orrin's last known address at a seedy motel, Marlowe meets front desk clerk Haven Clausen and sleazy guest Grant W. Hicks (Jackie Coogan): both are soon dead with icepicks planted in their necks. 

Marlowe uncovers a blackmail plot targeting glamourous actress Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicutt), who is carrying on a potentially scandalous affair with master criminal Sonny Steelgrave (H.M. Wynant). Other suspicious characters include Mavis' personal assistant Dolores Gonzáles (Rita Moreno) and the shifty Doctor Vincent Lagardie (Paul Stevens). After Sonny's goon Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee) tries to buy-off Marlowe's interest in the case, the dead body count multiplies and police Lieutenant Christy French (Carroll O'Connor) starts hounding Marlowe.

In typical Chandler fashion, Marlowe features a dizzying number of characters popping in and out of scenes, many of them falling foul of murder in quick order. Director Paul Bogart, working from a Stirling Silliphant script, just about manages to maintain a basic level of logic, although the threads between all the devious motives are sometimes lost amidst the rush to the next dead body.

Mood may matter more than plot in such thickets of evil, and Bogart unfortunately lives down to his television comfort zone. The film is visually flat, unable to generate an essential sense of place. The action is set in Los Angeles, but may as well be in any generic city. The lighting, shadows and set designs are equally bland.

Which is a pity, because James Garner is surprisingly good as Marlowe. He finds his own niche, grounded in the 1960s, away from undue heroics but still quick with a quip. In support Gayle Hunnicutt is adequate as a blackmail victim and reluctant client, but as a femme fatale her role is underwritten. Bruce Lee gets two scenes and makes a big impression. His introduction into the movie, unilaterally rearranging the decor in Marlowe's office, is hilariously unforgettable.

The pacing is brisk and Bogart wraps up the complexities in 96 minutes. The ending is suitably rushed and clumsy, Marlowe happy to make a quick exit as soon as the final set of corpses hit the ground.



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Movie Review: The Thrill Of It All (1963)

A romantic comedy with a focus on the career versus family dilemma faced by women, The Thrill Of It All is out of step with the times but still offers plenty of laughs.

Beverly Boyer (Doris Day) is a housewife happily married to successful obstetrician Gerald (James Garner). Fully in charge of running the house and raising two kids, she is unexpectedly offered the opportunity to star in a television commercial for Happy soap, and her honest style is an immediate hit with viewers.

The Happy company make Beverly an offer she cannot refuse to become their regular spokesperson, and soon she is appearing on countless television commercials, billboards and in magazines. Her sudden success disrupts the Boyer's family life, Beverly and Gerald barely get to see each other, and he begins to deeply resent her career.

Directed by Norman Jewison and co-written by Carl Reiner, The Thrill Of It All offers an attractive package. The chemistry between Day and Garner is strong, the writing is sharp, the kids are unusually cute, the humour on the sides of the main plot is potent, and the story finds its way to some interesting emotional games between husband and wife.

At the heart of the film are the shifting household dynamics when a woman chooses to pursue a career. Stuck between the traditional 1950s and the turbulent 1960s, the film attempts to find its feet, and does not shortchange Beverly's willingness to try a new role and industry's big-money pursuit of women to represent corporations. But Gerald is the most traditional of traditionalists, and much as he loves his wife he is incapable of elegantly adjusting to her having a career outside the house.

Jewison, in his second directorial feature, surrounds his troubled couple with plenty of wacky animated energy. The two young kids provide wry commentary, a German housekeeper rumbles through the household with tanklike charm, and Gerald's patient Mrs. Fraleigh (Arlene Francis) and her husband Gardiner (Edward Andrews) are fumbling with an unexpected later-in-life pregnancy. Gardiner's old coot of a father (Reginald Owen) owns Happy soap and is still smart enough to recognize a viewers' darling when he sees one. And an overnight swimming pool installation creates opportunities for some good madness.

The film's chosen ending belongs in another era entirely, but does not fully take away from the entertainment value. The Thrill Of It All is a societal relic, but it's a glossy and funny relic.

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Movie Review: Victor/Victoria (1982)

A gender-bending comedy romance with some music, Victor/Victoria finds laughs by poking sharp fun at traditional masculine and feminine roles.

Paris, 1934. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is an unemployed and starving classically trained soprano singer in a city looking for edgier and more decadent entertainment. An accidental meeting with recently-fired and openly gay nightclub host Carroll "Toddy" Todd (Robert Preston) results in a brainstorm: Victoria will pretend to be the exotic Polish Count Victor Grazinski, an expert female impersonator and cross-dresser performing as the sultry Victoria. The ruse works and soon Victoria is the toast of the town.

American nightclub owner and businessman King Marchand (James Garner) is visiting Paris with his girlfriend Norma (Lesley Ann Warren). King has gangland contacts and so travels with bodyguard "Squash" Bernstein (Alex Karras). King catches the glitzy show featuring Victoria and is hopelessly infatuated, and just as stunned when she is revealed to be Count Victor. King refuses to fully believe that Victoria is a man, and sets out to find out the truth, unleashing a knock-on series of sexually confused events.

Written and directed by Blake Edwards and featuring one of his wife Julie Andrews' finest roles, Victor/Victoria celebrates love across gender divides. With a lovingly recreated Gay Paree between the two wars providing the perfect backdrop, the film dives headfirst into murky waters where inner souls attract and traditional gender roles are hopelessly muddled.

The premise of a woman pretending to be a man who impersonates women in order to launch a successful cabaret act tests the limits of what a movie can explain. Edwards just about gets away with it, although Andrews passing herself off as a man rarely carries conviction. But beyond the labels, this is a story of connections and friendships, and Edwards' message is one of love. The heterosexual Victoria and homosexual Toddy form a strong bond based on a business partnership, the very hetero King jettisons the over-sexed Norma and is hopelessly attracted to Victor whether or not she is Victoria. Before all emotions are sorted, even the bodyguard Squash will get in on the act.

Surrounding the central theme is some cheap Clouseauesque comedy, and Edwards is unable to exercise the necessary restraint to trim the fat, especially in the second half as the film extends to a flabby 132 minutes. The few musical routines are serviceable but also repetitive and far from memorable.

Julie Andrews helps the movie through the rough patches and is laser focussed on keeping Victoria a rational character through the comic sexual mayhem. Robert Preston gets the showiest role, and revels in the freedom of portraying a man who could care less about what others think. Lesley Ann Warren is also humorously flamboyant, but disappears from the film for a long stretch.

Victor/Victoria is a fun frolic through the weird world of human magnetism. Whether you come as you are or as you want to pretend to be, Cupid's arrow is pointy.

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Movie Review: Move Over, Darling (1963)

A lame bedroom comedy, Move Over, Darling over-stretches a flimsy premise to excruciating extremes.

In the courtroom of eccentric Judge Bryson (Edgar Buchanan), lawyer Nick Arden (James Garner) applies to have his wife Ellen declared dead. She has been missing for five years after her flight ditched in the Pacific Ocean. Bryson agrees, and Nick immediately marries his new sweetheart Bianca (Polly Bergen).

As soon as Nick and Bianca set out on their honeymoon, Ellen (Doris Day) reappears, having been rescued off an island by the Navy. She reconnects with her two daughters and her mother-in-law Grace (Thelma Ritter), and chases after Nick and Bianca at their Monterey Hotel. Nick is shocked but also happy to see his wife again, but is also very reluctant to break the news to his new bride Bianca.

Directed by Michael Gordon, Move Over, Darling is the salvaged remains of Something's Got To Give, after that troubled production was abandoned following Marilyn Monroe's death. Day eventually replaced Monroe, Garner stepped in when Dean Martin wisely stepped aside, and Gordon took over the reins from George Cukor. None of them need to have bothered. A re-imagining of 1940's Too Many Husbands, Move Over, Darling is bereft of laughs, strains to no avail, and chews away at a single idea long after all the juice is gone.

The film's central conflict can be resolved within minutes of Ellen's unexpected reappearance, but Nick artificially and repeatedly contrives to avoid facing his new facts, and the comedy wilts and dies along with his dithering. No amount of overacting, arm waving or running around can obscure the fact that these are supposedly smart characters acting in an incredibly stupid manner for the sole purpose of prolonging a movie.

Once the one-man-with-two-wives joke is beaten to death, the film introduces a second, even flabbier source of jealousy between Nick and Ellen, this time involving her behaviour while marooned on the island for five years. Again Ellen could resolve her predicament in seconds, but instead this revelation is an excuse for the likes of Don Knotts and Chuck Connors to make appearances in a further series of scenes choking on protracted misunderstandings.

Move Over, Darling is comedy at its worst, flat humour as a toxic byproduct of imbecilic behaviour.

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The Movies Of James Garner

All movies starring James Garner and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Children's Hour (1961)

The Great Escape (1963)

The Thrill Of It All (1963)

Move Over, Darling (1963)

The Americanization Of Emily (1964)

36 Hours (1964)

Grand Prix (1966)

Marlowe (1969)

Victor/Victoria (1982)

Murphy's Romance (1985)

Maverick (1994)

Twilight (1998)

Space Cowboys (2000)

The Notebook (2004)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Space Cowboys (2000)

A bizarre geriatric space action drama, Space Cowboys brings together four veterans of the screen and launches them into a ridiculous premise without a parachute.

In 1958, base commander Bob Gerson announces that Air Force ace pilots training to join the space program are being replaced by monkeys. The sidelined men include the reckless Colonel William "Hawk" Hawkins and the more circumspect Colonel Frank Corvin, and they never forgive Gerson. In the present day, Gerson (James Cromwell) is a senior administrator working for NASA, and facing a crisis. A Cold War era Soviet communications satellite is malfunctioning and dropping to Earth. Its now-obsolete navigation system was designed by Corvin (Clint Eastwood). Gerson reluctantly agrees with Corvin's plan to reassemble his crew, consisting of Hawk (Tommy Lee Jones), Captain Jerry O'Neill (Donald Sutherland) and Captain "Tank" Sullivan (James Garner) and embark on a space shuttle mission to fix the satellite.

The four elderly men undergo a compressed one month training program, and are joined by young astronauts Ethan (Loren Dean) and Roger (Courtney B. Vance). Hawk starts a romance with NASA scientist Sara Holland (Marcia Gay Harden). Finally the six men take off and rendezvous with the stricken satellite, and find more than they bargained for.

Sloppily directed by Eastwood, Space Cowboys does offer the enjoyment of watching four classic actors having some fun, and features some decent spacey cinematography in its final half hour. But otherwise the movie fails in almost all aspects. Even after allowing for the high concept of four old men being entrusted with a critical space mission, the film never finds a groove. It cannot be taken seriously although it appears to want to be, it's not funny or tongue in cheek enough, the science is preposterous, the romance unbelievable, the pacing stodgy and the action limp. The plot surprise, if that is what it was, is repeatedly telegraphed light years in advance, and only serves to make the film's fundamental premise more absurd.

As a minimum the one aspect that the film should have made work is an engaging dynamic between the four men, but the script again fails to deliver. Sutherland and Garner are effectively reduced to back row spectators, and the tension between the characters of Eastwood and Jones is established in the first scene and barely evolved.

With more careful treatment Space Cowboys may have had some interesting things to say about second chances, the wisdom of veterans, never giving up on far-fetched dreams, and old astronauts as celebrities. But with the good ideas squandered into so much space dust by lazy writing and lackadaisical execution, Space Cowboys disappears into the black hole of unmet expectations.

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Movie Review: Twilight (1998)

A neo-noir with a sturdy cast of veterans, Twilight is only partially successful. The stars shine bright, but the plot and execution are unable to weave the necessary spell.

Harry Ross (Paul Newman) is an ex-cop, an ex-private investigator, and an ex-drunk. He helps his friend Jack Ames (Gene Hackman), a former Hollywood star now suffering from cancer, by retrieving Jack's runaway daughter Mel (Reese Witherspoon) from Mexico where she is on the loose with lover Jeff (Liev Schreiber). The unfortunate chapter results in Harry being accidentally shot perilously close to his private parts. Jack and his wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon), another once-glamorous movie star, allow Harry to live on their property in return for miscellaneous favours.

For his next task, Jack asks Harry to deliver an envelope to a woman called Gloria Lamar (Margo Martindale). The transaction smacks of a blackmail plot, and Harry's suspicions are confirmed when he stumbles upon a fatally bloodied but still shooting private detective Lester Ivar (M. Emmet Walsh) at Gloria's apartment. Police Lieutenant Verna Hollander (Stockard Channing) starts breathing down Harry's neck, but he gets help from former cop Raymond Hope (James Garner), another of Jack's fix-it men. Harry's sleuthing uncovers a 20 year old Hollywood mystery involving the disappearance of Cartherine's first husband, and the more he delves into the the past, the more people die in the present.

Directed by Robert Benton from a script he co-wrote with Richard Russo, Twilight assembles some of Hollywood's finest aging talent. A movie with Newman, Sarandon, Hackman and Garner is bound to be eminently watchable, and all four deploy their weight to create and sustain a platform of quality that pushes Twilight towards respectability. Newman is never less than compelling, acknowledging his age as he creaks his way through modern dangers to uncover the ghosts of the past. Hackman, Sarandon and Garner do the best that they can with the rather thin material afforded to their characters.

While the attempt to recreate the grim tones and dark aura of noir films from decades ago is laudable, the story lacks the strength to properly engage. There are fundamental missing elements that leave the experience adding up to less than the sum of its parts. The central missteps include a rather unconvincing and bland blackmail plot, and the poorly developed characters of Jack and Catherine Ames. They are supposed to be at the core of the mystery, their passion and influence from 20 years ago triggering evil that still surrounds their lives. But as written, Jack and Catherine are more amiable than conniving, with Sarandon particularly victimized by a script that utterly fails to bring out any genuine sparkle of maliciousness or deadly seductive talents.

The stylistic shadings are superficial at best, and mostly consist of plenty of smoking and drinking, but little else to evoke the noir aesthetic. Other weaknesses include the lack of any authoritarian threat from Verna, her closeness to Harry undermining the menace that detectives are supposed to represent to the likes of Harry and Jack. The riffraff characters get in the way without contributing much, Gloria, Jeff and ridiculous wannabe sidekick Reuben (Giancarlo Esposito) come and go without much impact.

More work should have been given to Reese Witherspoon as Mel, a potential underage sexpot who could have driven the plot towards The Big Sleep territory. Also underused is M. Emmet Walsh as Lester Ivar. His one scene is the absolute highlight, and Lester is exactly the dishevelled and dangerous type of character who lives and dies to enliven noir films. Here he just gets to die, helping Twilight to register as a good idea that doesn't quite work out.

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Movie Review: Grand Prix (1966)

An ambitious journey into the soul of elite motor racing, Grand Prix finds the heartbeat of Formula 1 deep within the majesty of roaring machinery.

Several top drivers are in competition for the 1966 Formula 1 title. Among them is American Pete Aron (James Garner) of the BRM team (and formerly with Ferrari), who is fast but prone to mistakes. At the Monaco race, Aron's refusal to give way causes a serious collision with his teammate Englishman Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). Stoddard, who races in the shadow of his deceased brother, is injured and misses several races, His headstrong wife Pat (Jessica Walter) is fed-up with loving a man living on the edge and leaves him while he is still in hospital. Meanwhile, Aron is fired from the BRM team for reckless driving.

The Ferrari team are BRM's closest challengers. Veteran driver and two-time champion Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) is still the fastest man on most days, but he is starting to lose his motivation. Sarti is stuck in a loveless, distant marriage with businesswoman Monique (Genvieve Page), and starts a relationship with American journalist Louise (Eva Marie Saint). Sarti's team mate is young Italian Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato), who lives the fast life on and off the track.

Aron hooks up with Pat, is hired by the fledgling Yamura team financed by tycoon Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune), and finally finds his winning form. Stoddard returns to racing despite the pain of his injuries, and more determined than ever, goes on a winning streak. With Sarti and Barlini also picking up victories, all four men enter the final race of the season in the hunt for the coveted championship.

Director John Frankenheimer creates a three hour masterpiece celebrating both the men and the machines involved in the international pinnacle of motor racing. Large segments of Grand Prix consist of action from races at the legendary Monaco street circuit, the dangerously fast and incredibly scenic Spa in Belgium, Zandvoort in Holland, Clermont Ferrand in France, Silverstone in England and the final showdown at the imposing Monza in Italy, with its intimidating steeply banked corners.

Other than playing with split-screen imagery, Frankenheimer uses no tricks, and just mounts his cameras at every possible angle on the cars, capturing the pure raw speed, incredible danger, and classic beauty of racing in the mid 1960s. This was the era of rudimentary safety protocols, with drivers facing the risk of serious crashes, injury and death at every corner. The visuals are stunning, with the cars blasting at top speed past unprotected poles, trees, spectators, and structures.

Great as the racing sequences are, the Robert Alan Aurthur script goes looking for the lives and loves of the men inside the cars, and finds a cross-section of drivers at various career stages. The most prominent role goes to Montand as Jean-Pierre Sarti, the ex-champion who has won it all, and who has learned to close his heart to the agony of others as he drives even faster to take advantage of serious crashes on the track. Louise awakens in Sarti emotions he had forgotten actually mattered, accelerating his demotivation from the sport, although he can't help being better than most other drivers anyway.

James Garner as Pete Aron takes centre stage early in the film, a driver seemingly heading backwards in his career. Aron used to know how to win at Ferrari but is struggling at BRM, unsatisfied with the machinery and unable to cope with a faster teammate. Bounced out of the sport and rejected by Ferrari, Aron has nothing left to lose by joining the unproven Yamura, where he discovers an unlikely mentor to reignite his passion.

Stoddard's story is the most compelling, the driven Englishman trying to live up to the legend of his brother, racing against a dead ghost rather than his modern competitors. Stoddard overcomes his injuries, the loss of Pat, and his own demons to make a winning return to the track, an encapsulation of the mental strength required to dance with death. Barlini is at the opposite end of the curve from Sarti, young, care-free, and indestructible, enjoying the jet-setting single life with no second thoughts.

The women of Formula 1 learn quickly not to care too much about what happens to their men. Monique is an absentee wife, living her own high-flying life and perceiving Sarti as one element in her business empire. Pat's reaction to Stoddard's crash is one of selfish detachment, and she abandons him in his hour of greatest need, jumping into the arms of Aron. Only Louise, a newcomer to the circus, falls into the dangerous territory of a serious and committed relationship with Sarti. The Formula 1 world is rounded out with rich secondary characters played by Adolfo Celi as the Ferrari team boss, Mifune representing the new breed of Japanese industrialists bent on conquering the world with technology, and Jack Watson as the BRM team manager.

Frankenheimer finds the right balance between the racing scenes and character development, and as the season heads to a climax at the monstrous Monza, the four leading drivers all have reasons to win and plenty to lose. Grand Prix is an exhilarating celebration of men addicted to the thrill of racing with an unknown destiny, speeding into magnificent madness.

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Movie Review: Murphy's Romance (1985)

A simple love story, Murphy's Romance delivers vanilla entertainment in a wholesome package that alternates between old-fashioned and trite. Sally Field and James Garner are more about comfort than passion, two pros delivering proficient performances without ever stretching.

Thirty-something single-mom Emma (Field) and her son Jake (Corey Haim) have been buffeted by life, and drive up to a small rural Arizona town to attempt another new start. Resourceful and independent but struggling to secure a bank loan, Emma meets widower Murphy Jones (Garner), nominally the local grocery store owner but also the heart and soul of the town. Full of wisdom and edgy serenity, Murphy lives according to his own rules, and everyone respects him for it.

Murphy, who is much older than Emma but never reveals his age, gives her a helping hand to launch a business caring for horses, and they start to get close. But when Emma's ex-husband Bobby Jack (Brian Kerwin) shows up broke and looking to leech off Emma's fledgling success, Murphy realizes that he has competition in his languid pursuit of Emma's heart.

Murphy's Romance is nothing if not pleasant, an amiable Winter - Summer relationship that builds up at a slow but enjoyable pace. But despite all the personality offered by Field and Garner, there is no hiding how thin the material is. The humour is mild, the drama lukewarm, and for long stretches the movie resembles Norman Rockwell paintings set in slow motion, the polite folks of small town America witnessing a couple falling in love, and not much more.

Director Martin Ritt looks around to find tension but finds little to work with. The introduction of ex-husband Bobby Jack as a disruptive elements is too predictable, and even then the search for feel-good charm wins out: Bobby Jack's more unsavoury traits are balanced out by his earnest efforts to make a good impression. Any potential for a down and dirty fight over Emma's heart is abruptly resolved as Bobby Jack is unceremoniously shuffled out of the movie.

Murphy's Romance is left with two agreeable if unspectacular central performances. Field tones her girl-next-door sweetness in favour of some appreciated world weariness. Garner is easily the best thing in the movie, the character of Murphy Jones having long since sorted what matters from what does not in his life, and Garner is a perfect fit to dispense Murphy's wisdom in small, unobtrusive drops. Murphy's Romance may be a bit dull, but at least Murphy's insight is sharp.

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Movie Review: The Great Escape (1963)

An epic World War Two adventure, The Great Escape is based on an actual 1944 mass prison break from a German prisoner of war camp. Director and producer John Sturges goes big with an all-star cast and a running length close to three hours, and succeeds in delivering a stirring spectacle.

Tired of repeated and disruptive escapes by Allied prisoners, the German Luftwaffe build a new, theoretically escape-proof prison to hold captured air men. But by concentrating all the escape artists in one location, the Germans create a dream team of the best breakout men. Dedicated to tying up enemy forces by causing the biggest possible distraction, the prisoners organize themselves under the leadership of master escape plotter Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough), who devises a bold plan to liberate 250 prisoners by digging three tunnels (codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry) under the prison camp's fences and into the forest beyond.

Bartlett does not just want the men to escape, he wants to supply them with civilian uniforms and forged documents to give them the best chance of melding into the landscape and avoiding recapture, thus creating the need for a large German man-hunt that diverts critical resources from the front lines. His key escape team members include scrounger Hendley (James Garner), tunnel king Danny (Charles Bronson), master document forger Blythe (Donald Pleasence), manufacturer Sedgwick (James Coburn) and dispersal expert Ashley-Pitt (David McCallum). They get to work under the noses of the Germans guards, collecting the necessary equipment, digging three mammoth tunnels, and manufacturing, stealing or forging the necessary clothes, identity documents and maps to survive on the outside.

Also at the prison camp is brash American Captain Hilts (Steve McQueen), who independently insists on trying various solo escapes, all of which end in his recapture and incarceration in the solitary confinement "cooler", where he kills time bouncing a baseball off the wall. With the Germans beginning to suspect that something is up and then discovering one of the tunnels, Bartlett finally recruits Hilts to help in the great escape plan, as the men target a moonless night for the mass break-out.

Based on the 1950 book by Paul Brickhill, who lived through the real event at Stalag Luft III, The Great Escape faithfully recreates the escape details while creating composite characters inspired by actual escapees. Sturges dedicates the first two hours to life at the prison camp and the gradual development and implementation of the escape plan. The deliberate pacing provides plenty of time for character development and delving into the breakout details.

From the gallery of superstars, Donald Pleasence as Colin Blythe emerges as the most memorable, a tweedy intelligence officer who chose to board the wrong flight and ended up as a prisoner of war, now entrusted with creating forged documents for 250 escapees. Blythe starts to lose his eyesight, and in one of many examples of poignant human-scale stories triumphing in a grand film, James Garner's Bob Hendley takes Blythe under his wing as the escape approaches its climax.

Hendley himself is a memorably smooth prisoner, able to scrounge up the most difficult of items (including a camera) mostly by getting the psychological upper hand over the prison guards. Charles Bronson gets one of the other leading roles as Danny the tunnel king, a grimly determined expert tunnel digger dedicated to the hard physical labour until confronted by sudden claustrophobia after one too many cave-ins.

Steve McQueen adds undoubted star power and charisma, plus he gets the showy and prolonged motorcycle chase scene and a rightfully famous motorcycle jump courtesy of stuntman Bud Ekins. But there is equally little doubt that McQueen's role as Hilts is almost artificially appended to inject a dose of cool for American audiences. The actual escape was a predominantly British, Canadian and Australian affair, with limited involvement by any Americans.

The final one third of the movie is dedicated to the escape and its aftermath, and while the drama and tension increase to exquisite levels, here Sturges and the screenwriters (James Clavell and W.R. Burnett are credited, but others also contributed) also expand on the liberties. In addition to Hilts' mythical motorcycle chase, another fictional embellishment has Hendley and Blythe taking to the skies in a light aircraft. But the movie does gather up the strands of reality in portraying the number of escapees who actually made it all the way to freedom, as well as the tragedy that befell others.

Adding immeasurably to the impact of the film is the iconic Elmer Bernstein theme music, addictive in its nimble military march simplicity and setting an enduring standard for war movie soundtracks. The Great Escape is great movie-making, Hollywood at its best celebrating history with just a dash of artificial horsepower.

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