Movie Review: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Genre: Dystopian Drama  

Director: Michael Radford  
Starring: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton  

Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: In a grim alternative year 1984, Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a Ministry of Truth bureaucrat in the country of Oceania. Under the omnipresent gaze of Big Brother, The Party controls all aspects of society, including history and language. Winston cannot help having forbidden independent thoughts, driven by a turbulent childhood, and he wonders if the unwashed proletariat can initiate an uprising inspired by anti-establishment leader Goldstein. With Oceania in a constant state of war, Winston starts a dangerous affair with fellow Outer Party member Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), and is then approached by Inner Party member O'Brien (Richard Burton).

What Works Well: George Orwell's terrifying vision of communism and fascism combining into the worst case of totalitarianism comes to the screen with dour characters, grim aesthetics, and a morose mood. Admirably, director Michael Radford condenses the book's essence into less than two hours, and cinematographer Roger Deakins creates a visual nightmare where the human spirit is encased in the washed-out grey tones of surrender. A tortured John Hurt conveys Winston Smith as an uncomfortable misfit, testing limits through love, writing, and thinking, but never in doubt about the outcome. Gravitas arrives in the final act with Richard Burton revealing the full dimensions of The Party's control.

What Does Not Work As Well: The downcast disposition becomes overbearing, and for those unfamiliar with the book, the movie may be impenetrable.

Conclusion: 2+2=5



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Movie Review: The Medusa Touch (1978)

A supernatural psychological disaster horror film, The Medusa Touch delves into the human capacity to cause harm through the story of a brain refusing to die.

In London, author John Morlar (Richard Burton) is bludgeoned nearly to death in his apartment while watching live television coverage of a space mission to the moon going wrong. Confined to a hospital bed in a deep coma, his brain remarkably shows continued activity. With London recovering from the shock of a jumbo jet crashing into a highrise causing hundreds of casualties, French police detective Brunel (Lino Ventura), part of an exchange program, starts to investigate the assault and connects with psychologist Dr. Zonfeld (Lee Remick).

Zonfeld had been treating Morlar for years, as he believed himself responsible for multiple deaths through sheer willpower dating back to his childhood. Flashbacks reveal incidents involving his nurse, parents, and schoolmaster. As an adult Morlar practiced as a lawyer and was convinced his mental rage caused harm to a judge and a neighbour. With no shortage of potential suspects seeking revenge, Brunel realizes that as long as Morlar's brain is still active, worse is to come.

An interesting hybrid tapping into multiple 1970s film trends including The Omen-style horror and large scale disaster epics, The Medusa Touch does not quite fit into any one category but nevertheless carries its own impact. The John Briley script adapts the 1973 Peter Van Greenaway book with clarity, allowing director Jack Gold to elegantly balance events between Brunel's investigation and Morlar's troubled past, all set against the context of catastrophes still smoldering and about to occur.

Scenes of brooding, supernatural death build up to satisfying punctuation marks, and intermingle with light psychology, telekinesis and a theme of helplessness and self-doubt. And in the final act the film works its way to a larger scale altogether, the mayhem expanding from personal to brutal.

As a British / French co-production the main detective was rather clumsily changed to a Frenchman, but Lino Ventura takes the role and runs with it, bringing a welcome air of frumpled French pragmatism to the otherwise prim and proper English surroundings. Richard Burton sits in his gloomy comfort zone as John Morlar, Gold deploying plenty of extreme close-up shots of the actor's eyes but thankfully reining in his more bombastic tendencies. Lee Remick is adequate but cold, while the supporting cast includes Harry Andrews, Gordon Jackson and Alan Badel.

The film features decent special effects as detective Brunel's dogged delving into the past reveals the carnage left behind by Morlar's brain willing bad things to happen. A runaway car hurtles down a hill all on its own, a fire burns through a large school, and later on, the death and destruction expand to a larger scale, some of it difficult to watch from the more modern perspective tainted by global terrorism.

Which only serves to highlight The Medusa Touch's main theme. Morlar's remarkable story is a metaphor for the capacity to imagine and then act upon the worst possible outcomes through the red mist of rage, a fatalistic stance on humanity's ability to ever evolve past solving conflicts by violent means. One man may die, but the deep-seated readiness to cause death and destruction lives on.

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Movie Review: The Night Of The Iguana (1964)

A drama about life's dead-ends, The Night Of The Iguana aims for profound but lands on the wrong side of laborious.

Reverend Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) suffers an emotional meltdown and is locked out of his own church. He re-emerges as a cut-rate tour guide in Mexico, escorting a group of women unfortunate enough to find themselves on his cheap bus. He clashes with the prim Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall), the stressed chaperon for the underaged but oversexed Charlotte (Sue Lyon), who in turn is intent on seducing Shannon and re-triggering the cause of his downfall.

With Judith starting to make long distance phone calls to probe into Shannon's background, he leads the group to the Puerto Vallarta hilltop villa hotel operated by his earthy friend Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner). They are soon joined by penniless sketch artist Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), who is traveling with her delipidating grandfather Nonno (Cyril Delevanti), a presumed poet. Shannon, Maxine and Hannah engage in discussions about life and love, while Charlotte and Judith continue to pursue their own agendas.

An adaptation of the 1961 Tennessee Williams play, The Night Of The Iguana explores the downfall and potential salvation paths of one man as he tangles with the consequences of succumbing to temptation, argues against himself, and surrenders to the charms of a young women and the more potent influence of the bottle. The film placed Puerto Vallarta on the map, and the congregation of Hollywood superstars and their entourages at the remote Mexico location, with Elizabeth Taylor joining her lover Richard Burton on-set (they were both married to others), has entered Hollywood folklore. The movie itself, however, is a largely insufferable excuse to wallow in self-imposed misery, despite dripping with displays and discussions of sexuality.

Shannon's inability to control his impulses represents a short-cut to ignominy, and four unmarried women offer the disgraced Reverend opportunities for either further debasement or redemption. Judith looks down upon him as filth as she desperately tries to protect Charlotte's reputation in a case of apportioning all blame in completely the wrong direction. Maxine is pragmatically engaged in a hedonistic lifestyle and enjoying the on-demand company of two perpetually maracas-shaking virile and much younger locals. She understands Shannon's weakness in front of the flesh all too well.

Hannah is touring the world riding the generosity of others, although she offers her amateur artistry and her grandfather's tottering talent in return. She connects with Shannon as another soul peddling culture to cover up abject failure. And finally Charlotte has embarked on an unconstrained expedition of sexual discovery, the presence of her chaperon a minor and inconsequential inconvenience.

Despite the potential for intrigue residing within the characters, director John Huston gets bogged down in static, long, and mind-numbingly talkative scenes. His script is unable to expand the material into a meaningful cinematic format and particularly in the second half settles for dialogue that would sound hopelessly artificial even on stage. The cast members don't help much, Burton (resigned), Gardner (jaunty) and Kerr (perceptive) appearing to be in different movies but all of them marginally overacting just the same.

An iguana spends a long time on a leash as Reverend Shannon is also roped to protect himself from his own worst tendencies. For both man and lizard, The Night Of The Iguana is tightly tied to the deep malaise of failure.

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Movie Review: Anne Of The Thousand Days (1969)

A historical epic drama, Anne Of The Thousand Days delves into the politics and passions that shaped history in the English royal court.

It's the early 1500s, and England's King Henry VIII (Richard Burton) is desperate to have a son, but stuck in a loveless marriage with Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas) who can no longer have children. The much younger Anne Boleyn (Geneviève Bujold) catches his eye, and he pursues her incessantly. Anne's sister is already pregnant with the King's child, and Anne has no intention of becoming another of his illicit lovers bearing him illegitimate children: she insists that she will only sleep with the King if he makes her his Queen.

Henry turns to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (Anthony Quayle) to convince the Pope to annul his marriage to Catherine, but to no avail. Henry's chief lawyer Thomas Cromwell (John Colicos) then convinces Henry to break away from Rome and install himself as the head of the church in England. He does so, paving the way to marry Anne. But their long-desired union is hugely controversial, and Henry's increasingly erratic behaviour causes more trouble ahead.

Directed by Charles Jarrott as an adaptation of the Maxwell Anderson play, Anne Of The Thousand Days is two and half hours of lavish historical drama and court intrigue. Handsomely staged with elaborate sets and costumes to recreate a long gone era, the film is a remarkably engaging story of a passionate clash driving politics and reorienting the course of history.

Aided by deliberate pacing, the story carries enormous potency, and indeed the liaison between Henry and Anne sowed the seeds for a major religious realignment and conceived one of England's most influential rulers. But at the personal level the film is about a man who cannot be denied meeting a woman who will yield only after extracting an extraordinary price. The private battle of wills spills into far-reaching matters of church and state, and the film traces the ripple effects from the palace to the courts, prison cells and guillotines.

Henry is portrayed on the margins of madness, the lack of a male heir driving him to the edge, his proclaimed love for Anne representing a yearning for any attractive young woman who may yield a son. The role perfectly suits Richard Burton, who maintains quiet control most of the time and unleashes Henry's frustrated rage only at strategic intervals.

Anne emerges as a most provocative character, a determined and intelligent woman who parlays her brief period of influence over a king into a potential dynasty for her future child. It's an exceptional display of burgeoning feminine power built on self-confidence and a refusal to acquiesce, and Geneviève Bujold pulls off the role with intense relish.

The supporting characters are vivid and add plenty to the unfolding drama. Cardinal Wolsey in his infernal red robes, the conniving Cromwell, the dour and set-upon Catherine, Anne's avaricious parents and the cerebral Sir Thomas More (William Squire) all play their role in animating the court and influencing crucial events.

Anne Of The Thousand Days is a colourful recreation of political machinations, the fierce desire for a male ironically unleashing the power of a female to control the present and rule the future.

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Movie review: Cleopatra (1963)

A mammoth historical epic, Cleopatra is a mind-numbing and emotionally frigid four hours filled with grand sets, numerous colourful costumes and endless but hollow spectacle.

Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) chases his defeated rival Pompey to Egypt, where he quickly gets embroiled in the raging civil war over control of the throne between the immature Ptolemy and his conniving but alluring sister Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor). Keen to re-establish stability to ensure the continued flow of natural resources from Egypt, Caesar sides with Cleopatra. She has grander plans, and proceeds to seduce Caesar and bear his child with ambitions for them to jointly rule the world.

Cleopatra makes the grandest of entrances on a state visit to Rome, during which she catches the eye of Caesar loyalist Mark Anthony (Richard Burton). But Caesar's ascension to absolute power is rudely interrupted on the Ides of March, forcing Cleopatra to retreat to Egypt. Rome is plunged into a civil war from which Mark Anthony and Caesar's appointed successor Octavian (Roddy McDowall) emerge victorious. Mark Anthony arranges a meeting with Cleopatra to re-establish ties, triggering a steamy affair as again she plots to expand her powers through the art of seduction.

One of the most troubled and expensive productions in Hollywood's colourful history, Cleopatra almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox. No shooting script, a change in filming location from England to Italy, a change in director with Joseph L. Mankiewicz taking over from Rouben Mamoulian, and extensive delays caused by Elizabeth Taylor falling severely ill resulted in an out-of-control fiasco.

But all the public cared about were reports of a scandalous on-set affair between Taylor and Richard Burton, both married to others at the time. Cleopatra became a must-see event for the notoriety of its stars, and despite ending the year as the box office champion, it still lost enormous amounts of money due to the massive (at the time) $33 million production cost.

After a post-production process during which he was fired and then re-hired (the script only existed in his head), Mankiewicz delivered a 6 hour cut and pleaded for the release of two separate three-hour films: Caesar And Cleopatra to be followed by Anthony And Cleopatra. Aware of public desire to see Taylor and Burton together immediately, the studio insisted that Mankiewicz deliver one four-hour film.

The result is a bloated mess. Extraordinarily talkative and exhaustively long, the film lumbers forth sometimes incoherently at a plodding pace. Characters come and go sometimes at random, important events appear to be skipped entirely or barely explained, characters are vacuous, and the few action scenes consist of colossal build-ups followed by limp and clumsy execution.

What survives are the lavish sets that serve as backdrops to all the talking, and the parlour game of Taylor changing outfits (and especially wigs and hairdos) every few minutes. For followers of fashion, hairstyles and cleavage, there is always something to see, and on a few occasions the film gets distracted with circus-like interludes, dancers, performers, and general merriment taking over the screen and killing off whatever narrative momentum may have been building.

With creaky and overwrought lines of dialogue, Cleopatra's seductive powers and the passion between her and two powerful men never make it onto the screen. The loosening of censorship restrictions allowed Mankiewicz to ensure Taylor and her maidens are always alluring, but then the talking kicks in and any sense of enticement and adoration is lost in the suffocating verbiage.

With the exception of Rex Harrison, the performances are best described as vacant. The actors don't appear invested in what just happened previously and what will happen next (either because they did not know or it was all lost in the editing) and so every scene is a tedious stand-alone melodramatic piece, emotionally detached from every other scene.

Harrison is a notable cut-above, inserting an edge of confidence and sardonic humour in his performance as Caesar, and the film's second half without him is much the poorer. Roddy McDowall as Octavian is the only other standout performer, perhaps over-the-top but suitable as an impressively calculative leader.

Cleopatra's entrance into Rome is an admittedly impressive piece of cinematic extravagance. But like the rest of the film, it's a display of indulgent pageantry without soul.

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Movie Review: The Sandpiper (1965)

A romantic drama, The Sandpiper sets out to examine the mid 1960s generational divide but is excessively talky, stodgy and melodramatic.

In the Big Sur coastal area of California, Laura Reynolds (Elizabeth Taylor) is a free-spirited artist and single mom homeschooling her 9 year old son Danny. When the child's innocent mischievousness gets him into trouble with the law, Judge Thompson (Torin Thatcher) orders him into a religious boarding school run by Dr. Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton) and his wife Claire (Eva Marie Saint), despite Laura's protests.

Edward and Laura immediately clash about morals, values and perspectives on life, but gradually an attraction develops. Edward starts to find excuses to pass by Laura's beachside house, where he tangles with her friend, outspoken sculptor Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson). A full fledged passionate extramarital affair blossoms between Edward and Laura, causing him enormous feelings of guilt. The reemergence of Ward Hendricks (Robert Webber), one of Laura's former lovers, further complicates matters.

Featuring the celebrity couple of the era at the peak of their fame, The Sandpiper has good intentions to explore the shifting sands of society. Director Vincente Minnelli and a team of writers including Dalton Trumbo deserve credit for attempting to craft a cerebral love story, where the dialogue skips past the inane and engages weightier topics of guilt, personal freedom, and the movement away from traditional, religiously-dictated values and towards personally-defined beliefs.

But the problems are many and start with Taylor and Burton unable to convince in their roles or help the premise succeed. Taylor as a hippie who has turned her back on societal norms just does not wash. The actress is too glamorous for the role, and apart from delivering the lines written for her she never captures what it means to be a free spirit, neither in mannerisms nor looks. Too often Taylor appears in stunning outfits, hair made-up, full make-up on, hat sitting just so, a superstar awkwardly playing at being a hippie.

Meanwhile Burton is reserved and one-dimensional, Edward professing his love for Laura through clenched teeth. As a real life couple rocking the world with their love affair, it is remarkable how little of that chemistry makes it to the screen.

Charles Bronson as a beach artist is miscast, and Eva Marie Saint as the suffering wife is underused.

Minnelli does well to capture the jagged beauty of Big Sur, but otherwise allows the film to drag on for two hours. The plot, from a story written specifically for Taylor and Burton by producer Martin Ransohoff, is simply not strong enough to sustain the running length, and scene after scene of endless gab slow the drama down to a sleepwalking pace. Ironically the film perks up the most in a scene unrelated to the romance, when Edward confronts his professional life and admits that he is a sell-out who has strayed far from his principles.

The Sandpiper is a love story without the requisite passion, the momentum of the ocean crashing onto rocks far surpassing the energy of the central romance.

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Movie Review: Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

A talky drama about a marriage in turmoil, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? breaks new ground in frank discourse and features astounding acting performances. It is also over the top and tiresome in its obsession with shouty drunkenness.

Middle aged married couple Martha and George (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) walk home at 2am, after attending a party at the house of Martha's father, the president of the college where George teaches history. Once home Martha and George bicker continuously, his passive aggressiveness a response to her continuous agitation. She then announces that despite the late hour, she has invited another couple for a visit to continue socializing.

Nick and Honey (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) soon arrive. He is a young and ambitious biology professor at the same college, while she is mousy, loves to drink and gets sick easily. The visitors are at first astounded by Martha and George's incessant war of words, and the night gets weirder when Martha reveals that she and George have a 16 year-old son, conspicuous by his absence. With the alcohol flowing, Martha then proceeds to humiliate George, expressing her disappointment with his lack of ambition. But George has tricks up his sleeve as well, and extracts information out of Nick that he will use to his advantage as the night progresses.

An adaptation of the Edward Albee Broadway play sensation, written for the screen and produced by Ernest Lehman and directed by Mike Nichols, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (the title refers to a silly song) is at once intolerable and irresistible. Featuring what at the time was considered scandalous and borderline profane dialogue, the idea of spending more than two hours with four distinctly unlikable characters humiliating each other is almost tortuous. But the performances and the appeal of watching a marriage disappearing into a mushroom cloud of carnage turn the experience into a must-see psychological case study.

The union between Martha and George has disintegrated into a combative relationship that feeds on its own poison, an example of love's extension snapping into hateful dependency. The acrimony serves as the film's fuel, but is also carried several steps too far. Even for this couple the gamesmanship on display steps into fantasy territory, and the final 30 minutes run on vapours, Martha and George stepping over the cliff and into the domain of the ridiculous.

Taylor and Burton do their best to keep a hold of the material, and in many ways Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is only watchable thanks to the two legendary stars and real-life combustible couple. Yes, of course they are theatrical, but they are also commanding, and Taylor and Burton make it impossible not to be drawn into the tumultuous life of Martha and George.

Taylor won her second Best Actress Academy Award, while Sandy Dennis won the Best Supporting Actress trophy. Hers is a well written role, but also much less difficult: Honey spends most of the film in a drunken haze, from where confused but impactful quips are easy to deliver. George Segal suffers from the least convincing of the four lead roles, his biology professor too easily falling into Martha and George's lair, neither his ambition nor his naivete ever convincing enough to justify his actions.

The film's almost total reliance on alcohol consumption gets quite laborious. Every two minutes drinks are being offered, conspicuously consumed or discussed. Drama dependent on drunken incoherence is cheapened, and the film errs on the side of piling on cruelty based on artificial lubrication.

In an astonishing big screen directorial debut, Nichols moves his cameras and perspectives in a remarkable display of agility in confined spaces. The film is more often about reactions than actions, and Nichols plays with focus and placement, highlighting characters in the background and sometimes in entirely other rooms listening in to heighten the drama of not just what is being said, but also how it is being received by the intended and unintended audience.

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is less than perfect but also an unmistakable milestone, vicious manipulation achieving new levels of intended and collateral psychological damage.

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Movie Review: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

A Cold War drama, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a grim, ground-level view of the foot soldiers caught up in the great game between global secret services. The film is a gripping, low-key human story of thrust and counter-thrust, where every move could be the last and few combatants, if any, can see the end game.

Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) is the British head of the Berlin station, and he has just lost another of his spies, uncovered and killed by his nemesis Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter van Eyck). Leamas is getting very tired of the spy game, but his boss Control (Cyril Cusack) activates a high-risk mission to try and turn the East Germans themselves against Mundt. Leamas will pretend to quit the service, and then offer to sell secrets to East Germany's agent Fiedler (Oskar Werner) that will implicate Mundt as a British spy.

The plot kicks into gear, and as Leamas waits in London for the enemy to take the bait, he starts a relationship with librarian Nan Perry (Claire Bloom), an idealistic communist. Soon the East Germans do recruit Leamas, and he makes contact with Fiedler's men in Holland. All seems to be going well, but when Leamas finds himself whisked to East Berlin and treated more roughly than he expected, he realizes that the mission is more dangerous and the stakes higher than he could have ever imagined.

An adaptation of the John le Carré novel directed by Martin Ritt, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold captures all that is depressing about the Cold War. The film depicts the world of front line trench coats, where the game of spies, as fought with words, lies, accusations, incrimination and intimidation, has become an end onto itself. This is a spy story where there are no secrets to be uncovered, documents to be exchanged or great state-sponsored plots to be stolen and revealed. Spies like Leamas, Mundt and Fiedler are reduced to guarding against each other, the equivalent of pawns expending energy stalking each other while the kings and queens are oblivious.

Filming in a most appropriate glum black and white, Ritt focuses on Leamas as an experienced but weary spy who thinks he has most of the angles covered. But as in most le Carré stories, there are always others who really pull the strings and know much more, and Leamas will only gradually learn, and at great cost, the full extent of the subterfuge surrounding him. Leamas is a hero only insofar as a single foot soldier can ever be in control of a complex battlefield, and the sense of helplessness in the face of greater forces dictating the outcome is the film's pervasive and engrossing theme.

Richard Burton creates in Leamas a complex character, still dedicated to the cause but undoubtedly exhausted, agreeing to one last mission but also ready for a tender relationship with Nan. Ritt contrasts Leamas with the vigorous Fiedler, all intellect and wit, and Mundt, more experienced, oozing confidence and evil intent. Fiedler represents Leamas from years past, Mundt is more his contemporary, but perhaps not yet as drained. Control and Smiley (Rupert Davies) have relatively minor screen presence, but of course in le Carré's world, influence and visibility are two different things.

The story of a war fought in the shadows, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is intelligent, fascinating and suitably disheartening.

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Movie Review: Raid On Rommel (1971)

A derivative second-rate World War Two action adventure, Raid On Rommel arrives late in the cycle of films about the global conflict, and offers nothing new.

It's 1943 and in North Africa the bitter conflict drags on. Rommel's tanks have just seized the strategic port city of Tobruk. In the open desert, Captain Heinz Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty) is in charge of a small German platoon that has captured some British prisoners of war. The POWs including a medical unit headed by Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn), and a few undercover commandos including Sergeant Allan MacKenzie (John Colicos). Schroeder is also reluctantly escorting the fiery Vivianne Gagliardo (Danielle De Metz), the girlfriend of an Italian general.

British Commando Captain Alex Foster (Richard Burton) allows himself to be captured by Schroeder, and with the help of MacKenzie and the other prisoners they overpower their captors. The British soldiers disguise themselves as Germans and drive behind enemy lines, with a mission to destroy German guns protecting Tobruk from a naval assault. On the way, they stumble upon Rommel himself (Wolfgang Preiss) and two tank divisions resting at a fueling depot, and Foster spots an opportunity to cripple German armour by attacking the secret fuel supplies.

Directed by Henry Hathaway, Raid On Rommel started life as a made-for-television project to re-use footage from 1967's Tobruk. With talent like Hathaway and Burton involved, the film found its way to cinematic release, but despite some reasonably exciting set-pieces, it is a relatively poor effort. The plot borrows heavily from both Tobruk and 1961's The Guns Of Navarone, as Richard M. Bluel's script struggles to find original ideas. The best that he can come up with is a smouldering Italian woman somehow traveling with German troops in the middle of the North African desert. Danielle De Metz sweats a lot and raises the men's temperature, but is then sedated into irrelevance.

Exciting as they are, the patched-on borrowed action scenes from Tobruk are easy to spot, and the rest of the material is generally limp. The same piece of music is looped endlessly, there are interminable scenes of transport trucks rumbling through the desert. Burton is dependable if rather tired, while the other performances are routine. Wolfgang Preiss emerges with some credit as an intellectual Rommel interested in debating stamp collections.

Hathaway inserts some weird psychedelic voice-over and flashback snippets late on, perhaps in an incomprehensible attempt to introduce some anti-war depth. This adds to the film's curiosity quotient but for the most part Raid On Rommel is running on empty.

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Movie Reviews: The V.I.P.s (1963)

An ensemble cast multi-story drama set in and around a London airport, The V.I.P.s maintains a steady level of interest thanks to the numerous stars on display, but never manages to properly take off.

A group of rich travellers gather at a London airport in preparation for a flight to New York. Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor) is dropped off at the airport by her preoccupied businessman husband Paul (Richard Burton) to travel to a presumed vacation, but she is secretly planning to abandon her marriage and elope with international gigolo Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan). Australian businessman Les Mangrum (Rod Taylor) is financially stretched to the limit, and must make it to a meeting in New York to salvage his business. He is accompanied by his loyal assistant Miss Mead (Maggie Smith). Pompous actor Max Buda (Orson Welles) must make it out of Britain by midnight, or otherwise face a hefty tax bill. He is accompanied by aspiring starlet Gloria Gritti (Elsa Martinelli). And the Duchess of Brighton (Margaret Rutherford) carries a big title but has no financial means to keep up her estate. She is hoping to land a job in Florida to help pay the bills.

When thick fog descends on the airport and delays the flight, the travellers have to face their crises. Things get worse when they are forced to stay overnight at an airport hotel. Frances is torn between Paul, who pays her little attention but is passionate in his love, and Marc, who seems to love her but may be an opportunist. Les risks everything by authorizing a bad cheque while remaining oblivious to Miss Mead's feelings towards him, and Max's accountant has to come up with an innovative, but awkward, solution to his client's tax problems.

Directed by Anthony Asquith and written by Terence Rattigan, The V.I.P.s has an intriguing premise, tapping into the growing fascination with the emerging jet set of rich people worried about money and relationships within their world of privilege. Adding real-life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor into the mix helps the glamour quotient despite rather pedestrian execution.

Asquith brings to life an airport buzzing with activity, the V.I.P. lounge a crossroads of the rich and powerful acting all rich and powerful, and fawned upon by dedicated airport staff. When the drama moves to the hotel the film loses steam and becomes more stagebound, as what is essentially a talkfest is deprived of the surrounding energy generated by a major transportation hub.

Understandably focussing on Paul and Frances Andros, The V.I.P.s spends a long time on Frances' dilemma, exposing in the process the couple's frivolity. She can't decide whether to give her husband another chance to demonstrate genuine affection, or abandon him and tie her fate to a recognized playboy. Her hesitation becomes tedious, and is not helped by Paul running around with a handgun and a short temper, while Marc oozes smarm from every pore.

A bit more interesting is Maggie Smith as Miss Mead, the phenomenally efficient and equally devoted assistant to the jovial Les Mangrum. In just her fourth screen role, Smith combines secretarial capability with secretly held love and delivers the film's most sensitive performance. At the other end of the scale are Welles, Martinelli and Rutherford, who grab onto the broadest definitions of their characters and delve no further. Rutherford somehow won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for a monotonal and ill-defined turn as the dotty Duchess of Brighton.

The V.I.P.s are reasonably engaging characters, but their stories include some bothersome turbulence.

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The Movies Of Richard Burton

All movies starring Richard Burton and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Robe (1953)

The Longest Day (1962)

Cleopatra (1963)

The V.I.P.s (1963)

The Night Of The Iguana (1964)

The Sandpiper (1965)

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Anne Of The Thousand Days (1969)

Raid On Rommel (1971)

The Medusa Touch (1978)

The Wild Geese (1978)

California Suite (1978, uncredited cameo)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

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Movie Review: The Robe (1953)

A Biblical epic, The Robe packs the power of belief into a movie experience, but also suffers from taking itself too seriously.

In Roman times, military tribune Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton), the son of an idealistic Senator (Torin Thatcher), antagonizes future emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson) by outbidding him for the slave Demetrius (Victor Mature). Marcellus also wins the heart of Diana (Jean Simmons), who reverses her decision to marry Caligula. In retaliation, Caligula arranges for Marcellus to be deployed to Palestine, considered a destitute and crime-infested corner of the Roman Empire.

Marcellus follows orders and as a seemingly routine assignment commands the soldiers who carry out the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, despite Demetrius having fallen under the influence of Jesus, like many other locals. Marcellus then wins Jesus' robe in a game of dice with other soldiers. But as soon as he puts on the robe, he is struck by an inexplicable illness that renders him unable to function. Demetrius disappears with the robe.

After recuperating in Capri with Diana, Marcellus is allowed to return to Palestine on a mission to look for Demetrius, find the robe, and understand its powers. Instead he meets the growing number of Jesus followers, preaching a life of love and forgiveness. Local leader Justus (Dean Jagger) takes Marcellus under his wing, eventually introducing him to Peter (Michael Rennie). Marcellus is tempted to join the Christianity movement, putting him at odds with Caligula, who is now Emperor.

Rich in incident and built on the sturdy foundations of faith, The Robe is undoubtedly engrossing and does achieve moments of pure drama and eerie transformations. The first CinemaScope production, The Robe matches screen size with narrative ambition. The Crucifixion is stunningly recreated, director Henry Coster finding his best character dynamics in the shadow of the crosses. The set designs are lavish, Coster giving his actors seemingly massive locales to explore in Rome, Capri and throughout Palestine. The numerous costumes and hundreds of extras add to the film's outstanding depth.

Based on the 1942 Lloyd C. Douglas best-selling book of the same name, the film features Marcellus as a microcosm of his Empire, his journey from dismissively crucifying Jesus to wholeheartedly accepting his message foreshadowing Europe's fate. The appeal of the story is easy to grasp, and while the film captures the enormity of the change about to sweep across the land, it does so with unrelenting studiousness.

Everything about The Robe is thoroughly earnest. The story of Marcellus resembles a solemn religious service, with no room for any levity or humour. All dialogue exchanges and incidents are shrouded in austere sombreness, and even the love story between Marcellus and Diana takes on the holy airs of a divine union. For a film that goes on for 135 minutes, the unyielding solemnity is ultimately aggravating, and culminates in an unfortunately ridiculous climax as Marcellus and Diana meet their fate with a childish flourish.

Despite the film's single tone, Richard Burton is memorable as Marcellus, as he crosses the line into theatrical over-acting early on and stays there, delivering most of his lines in a harsh, commanding staccato. Given the subject matter and the film's righteous attitude, his performance is surprisingly fitting. Jean Simmons is given little to work with, and her Diana fades out of the story for long stretches. When she is on screen, Simmons tends to be swallowed by all the drama and adds little to the movie. More prominent is Jay Robinson as Caligula, going the full hammy route into grandiose theatrics, a display of scenery chewing that almost succeeds in adding unintentional comic relief. Dean Jagger and Michael Rennie stay within themselves as dignified early Jesus believers.

The Robe delivers its message on impressively robust tablets. A few human-scaled distractions from all the lofty exhortations would have been welcome.

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