Movie Review: The Bravados (1958)

A routine western exploring a quest for revenge blinded by rage, The Bravados mixes beautiful scenery and dogged convictions in a bowl of genre cliches.

Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) rides into the small border town of Rio Arriba to witness the hanging of four men (played by Stephen Boyd, Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva and Albert Salmi) who have been convicted of a violent bank robbery. Douglas has been tracking the criminals for six months, believing they raped and killed his wife. In town he rekindles a relationship with his ex-lover Josefa Velarde (Joan Collins), and meets banker Gus, his daughter Emma and local Sheriff Sanchez.

On the evening before the hanging most of the townfolk congregate at a church service, and the four criminals make their escape, taking Emma with them as a hostage. A posse is organized and Jim emerges as a leader in tracking the bandits. As he corners each of the criminals individually they all plead ignorance about his wife's murder, but he anyway doles out his version of frontier justice.

With most of the action consisting of Douglas and the posse hunting down the escapees, the filming locations in Mexico infuse The Bravados with a cinematic majesty. The CinemaScope production features stunning landscapes, director Henry King and cinematographer Leon Shamroy capturing imposing vistas of waterfalls, gorges, cliffs, trails and impressive plains.

The alluring imagery and visual splendour compensate for an ordinary story and stiff performances. The stock stranger-seeking-justice narrative remains exceptionally shallow, the Philip Yordan script deploying awkward silence instead of providing context. Gregory Peck aims for stoic but is surprisingly awkward in the central role, and the supporting characters on the good side of the law are featureless.

But with the help of good casting, the four criminals add zesty colour. Boyd, Van Cleef, Salmi and especially Henry Silva provide a welcome edge and emerge as the more interesting group compared to the bland justice-seekers.

The story serves as an obtuse beware-of-assumptions critique of McCarthyism, with religion playing an intentionally exaggerated role as an alternative moral compass. The dusty small town of Rio Arriba boasts an ostentatious church more appropriate for a city ten times the size, complete with a heavenly all-boys choir. The divine gloss reorients Jim's perspective, from an initial reluctance to enter the church doors to a final moment of reckoning when the church is the only place he can turn to.

With a decent twist in the tail, The Bravados follows a crooked but still largely familiar trail.

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Movie Review: Fantastic Voyage (1966)

A unique science fiction adventure about a group of miniaturized scientists traveling through a human body, Fantastic Voyage is full of bright ideas brought to life with energetic execution and admirable special effects.

The US is embroiled in a secret race with the Soviet Union to master miniaturization technology for military purposes. Scientist Jan Benes defects to the US, but suffers a brain injury in the process and slips into a coma. Benes has key knowledge that could help in overcoming the 60 minute limit currently hampering miniaturization efforts. At the secret Combined Miniaturized Deterrent Forces facility, General Carter (Edmond O'Brien) recruits agent Grant (Stephen Boyd) to provide security on-board the experimental submarine Proteus, which is about to be miniaturized and injected into Benes' bloodstream to find and remove the damage affecting his brain. The rest of the submarine team consists of Captain Owens (William Redfield), human physiology expert Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence), laser surgeon Dr. Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and his assistant Cora (Raquel Welch).

Carter and Grant suspect that there is a traitor within the group, and once the journey starts inside Benes' body, little goes according to plan. Michaels suffers from claustrophobia, the submarine is buffeted by turbulence and knocked off course. The laser surgery tool is sabotaged, and the sub suffers an air supply leak. A re-route requires a dangerous trip through the heart, forcing Carter to order that Benes' heart be temporarily stopped. With time running out, the crew decide to take a hazardous short-cut through the inner ear to the brain, but again there are problems, as the mission is jeapordized by the unknown traitor and Benes' own body working to defend itself against the foreign objects floating within it.

Combining a 1950s sci-fi mentality with 1960s special effects, Fantastic Voyage is visionary kitsch. With the space race in full swing and the cold war at high heat, there is no denying the inventiveness of turning the exploration theme inwards, and transforming the concept of flying through endless space into navigating the smallest capillaries of the human body. The Harry Kleiner screenplay (with four others sharing story and adaptation credits) efficiently introduces the set-up, and cleverly integrates the not-yet-perfect miniaturization science into the cold war tension, with secret military labs and threats from saboteurs thrown in to create numerous opportunities for drama.

Director Richard Fleischer and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo then weave together the visuals, and create a creditable environment with a succession of stunning backdrops mostly inspired by ocean depths. For the most part, the special effects have held up remarkably well.

The adventures of Proteus within the human body are never dull, the incredible obstacles and dangers of traveling through the human body becoming a thrill ride heightened by the subversive attempts to sabotage the mission. Fleischer constructs the film in the form of an obstacle course with a surprise around every corner. The scientists are forced to rely on their ingenuity to problem solve on the fly, including frequent excursions out of the submarine to circumvent, fix, or innovate their way through the latest crisis.

Slightly less successful are the goings-on back in the secret lab as anxious military and medical types monitor the mission's progress. Some of the buffoonish attempts at tension and humour in the control room do not work, and fully deserve the parodies that they inspired in films like Airplane!.

The performances are generally bland, and this is a good thing, since there is enough stimulation in the premise, backdrops and special effects not to require flashy acting. Stephen Boyd, Donald Pleasence, Arthur Kennedy, Raquel Welch and William Redfield maintain an even keel. For the most part Welch remains subdued and is surprisingly convincing as a scientist's assistant. She stays under the wraps of her mundane submariner outfit, although late in the film she starts forgetting to fully zip up her top. Kennedy's Dr. Duval attempts some clunky philosophizing inspired by the journey through the human body, at regular intervals spouting weighty but meaningless musings about humanity, life and the order of things.

Innovative, audacious and sometimes campy, Fantastic Voyage lives up to its name.

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Movie Review: Ben Hur (1959)

A colossal film dwarfing most other epics, Ben Hur is a towering cinematic achievement with enduring power.

The fictional story of Judah Ben Hur (Charlton Heston) takes place against the background of Jesus Christ emerging as a young man to spread his message of love among the Jews in Judea. Ben Hur is a wealthy and influential Jerusalem merchant, living with his mother and sister, and suppressing his desire for a relationship with his servant's daughter Esther (Haya Harareet).

Ben Hur's boyhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) has fully accepted Rome's domination of the world, and after rising through the ranks of the Empire, Messala returns to command the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. The two men soon have a falling out: Ben Hur refusing to help Messala identify influential Jews who may be plotting against Rome's rule in Judea. To establish his authority among the population, Messala takes the first opportunity to arrest Ben Hur, while his mother and sister are thrown into the dungeon and left to rot.

The prisoner Ben Hur is marched in the desert. Passing through Nazareth, he collapses but is revived when a stranger, who is actually Jesus, ignores the Roman guards and gives him water. The mysterious encounter galvanizes Ben Hur, but as he serves for years as a galley slave on a Roman ship, he is single-mindedly filled with hate for Messala.

During a horrific naval battle against a Macedonian fleet, the slave Ben Hur saves the life of the Roman commander Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins). Arrius frees Ben Hur and takes him to Rome, adopts him as his son, and trains him as an expert charioteer. Once again wealthy and powerful, Ben Hur travels back to Judea to learn the fate of his mother and sister and to seek revenge, but the spreading influence of Christ also awaits.

The glamorous MGM studio bet its entire future on Ben Hur. A staggering budget of $15 million was deployed to finance 300 sets (including the largest movie set of all time for the chariot race scene), 15,000 extras, new widescreen technology, and a running length of three and a half hours. The gamble paid off: the result was a massive achievement that garnered $90 million in revenue and a record eleven Academy Awards.

Working from a script by Karl Tunberg based on the best-selling novel by Lew Wallace, director William Wyler expertly keeps the movie in control, and maintains a good focus on the human scale. As grand events are unfolding, the personalities of Judah Ben Hur, Messala, Quintus Arrius, Esther, and Sheik Ilderim allow history to be experienced through the perspective of Christ's fictional contemporaries. Wyler is helped by a cast strong enough to shoulder the weight of the movie. While neither Heston and Boyd demonstrate too much emotional range, they both bring the necessary stoic strength to handle history's drama.

Despite the film's length, Wyler never allows interest to wane, using the time wisely to add texture to his characters and events. He steers Ben Hur to three shattering climaxes: the naval battle, the chariot race, and the crucifixion. The first two are gloriously enthralling action sequences, with the chariot race in particular unmatched in its captivating drama as two men wage an individual battle in the grandest arena ever put on the screen. The crucifixion scene packs a thunderous emotional punch as Ben Hur demonstrates the courage needed for man's less refined instincts to come to terms with humanity's spiritual potential.

Ben Hur is one of the brightest highlights in the history of the movies, an example of extraordinary storytelling through the prism of a remarkable character.

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