High and Low

Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1963, bw (9.0*)
Excellent crime thriller from the Japanese master director Kurosawa, in the tradition of his excellent police procedural Stray Dog (1949). A millionaire factory manager, played by Tashiro Mifune, has mortgaged everything to buy just enough stock to take control of his shoe company in order to maintain his high quality standards while other greedy board members insist on putting out a flimsy cheap shoe that will not last a year and forcing their customers to rebuy shoes more often.

That very day, the executive's son is playing with his chauffeur's son and they change cowboy and outlaw outfits, and a kidnapper abducts the wrong child by accident, but still demands a hefty ransom or he'll kill the child. So now Mifune must weigh the dilemna of losing his company by paying the money he needs to save the child, or sacrificing a child, who's not his own anyway, to save his career.

This film also becomes a police procedural as they try to narrow down the kidnappers location in a race against time, as they feel the child is likely to be killed in either case. Other than his classic masterpiece Seven Samurai, my favorite films of Kurosawa's are these gorgeous crime films in black and white, which are detective stories filmed like 40's film noir. His film Stray Dog caused a huge wave of popularity for these films in Japan in the 50's.

This is now # 449 on our 2011 Edition of Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net (all polls)

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A Boy Ten Feet Tall

Alexander Mackendrick, 1963 (8.6*)

aka Sammy Going South (the novel and original film title)
A young British boy living in Port Said, Egypt, played by Fergus McClelland, narrowly escapes a bomb from an air raid during the 56 Suez crisis that destroys his apartment block, killing both his parents. With little alternative, he decides he has to travel (on foot and any other way he can) to Durban, South Africa, to be his only remaining living relative, an aunt. During his 4500 mile journey from north to south africa, which mirrors his transition from boy to man, he experiences firsthand the varied cultures of the dark continent, such as the slave trading, animal poaching, and criminal smugglers.

One smugller he meets along the way is Edward G. Robinson, in one of his last film roles (Cincinatti Kid followed in 65) as a man who takes the kid under his wing, saves his life, and adds to his self-confidence as he makes his way down the continent. This was a perfect chance for the academy to give Robinson his first Oscar® nomination and first win; it's hard to believe he was never even nominated.

This was very inspirational to me as a kid of 12 when it came out, and features some stunning views of colonial Africa. It's hard to believe that it's not on dvd in the U.S. (just a PAL version in England under it's original title), and that only 213 people (now 214) have voted for it at IMDB, with an average rating of 6.9 - this is a much better children's film than 95% of the G-rated animated pablum being produced nowdays.

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Bye Bye Birdie

George Sidney, 1963 (7.0*)
I recently saw this again in widescreen, first time since it bored me as a child. This time I understood it, and the ws format allow you to see the dancers rather than imagine them offscreen! It’s basically a campy satire of bad Elvis musicals, the story is even about every girl’s favorite heartthrob rock star being drafted! (when I was a kid, only girls liked Elvis, at least after his Sun Records rockabilly days). The music is really all over the map, a little rock, even more ‘boogie woogie’, a little jazz, some of that a little bluesy, and some typical Broadway-style songs. In that regard, it loses a star for not having a very cohesive score; after all, it’s a musical comedy.

The ‘not quite rock’ star is Conrad Birdie (Jessie Pearson, in the film’s weakest performance, too bad they didn’t get George Chakiris from W.S. Story) but before going into the army, he’s making a farewell appearance on Ed Sullivan, and giving a good-bye kiss to high schooler Ann-Margret, head of his fan club. Dick Van Dyke, who does some of his typical silly/stiff dancing (a la Mary Poppins), has written a song for Conrad to sing on tv that he hopes will save his sagging composing career, while his lady, Janet Leigh, in a rare musical dance performance, can’t pry Dick away from his mother, Maureen Stapleton, in a hilarious role that also includes singing.

Meanwhile, star Ann-Margret’s boyfriend Bobby Rydell, added as the only pop music star of the group, is freaking with jealousy over Conrad getting to kiss his girl on national tv. Some of the songs are worth the fast forward, but the musical play introduced the pop hits “Kids (what’s the matter with kids today?)”, sung by the hilarious Paul Lynde, and “Put On a Happy Face”, which is done on film with animation overlays. There also ground-breaking special effects in the opening number, “Telephone Song”, in which gossip gets around the whole town in a musical minute.

The real dazzler, however, is the eight-minute “I’ve Got a Lot of Livin to Do” (photo right), which begins with Conrad singing, then slows to a jazz-blues rhythm for Ann-Margret’s section, then goes uptempo into a jazzy boogie-woogie for Rydell’s comeback to her. It all ends with the whole chorus doing an exhuberant yet goofy modern jazz ‘bunny dance’ - it looks like Jerome Robbins (West Side Story) meets early Bob Fosse, and was so good that I played it three times in a row. It's also a clever parody of the gym dance from West Side Story, even copying the lighting used!

Her dancing and singing garnered Ann-Margret a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress; she kinda steals the movie, but there’s not much musical competition. This works if you don’t expect much, and get into the ‘campiness’ of the take-off on Elvis’ bad musical movies. Ironically, after this, Ann-Margret starred with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas!, and of course, stole that film as well. See my post on her here, at: Film Goddess. She was actually born in Sweden, and came to the U.S. at an early age.

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The Great Escape

John Sturges (1963) (7.6*)
Veteran director John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven) made a WW2 pow film that’s enjoyable by injecting a little humor, likeable characters, and providing a variety of heroes, especially the Americans (!). This is a glorified big budget, big cast, Hollywood version of a real Allied pow escape from a German prison for US officers, mostly downed airmen, and we don't mean 2-3 men either, but hundreds, so Sturges used a big and varied cast of popular actors, both British and American. We see, in painstaking detail, how the escape tunnel is dug and what happens afterwards to each character, which makes the film more accurate but a little lengthy.

Steve McQueen (don't be misled by the dvd cover, he's just one actor of many here) would only take his part if he could “do something heroic”, so he gets to not only escape just to get info and come back, but also make a daring getaway on a motorcycle, complete with stunts. James Garner, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, and Charles Bronson all get to play likeable characters (only Nazis had jerks in some films). Entertaining and fun, especially when compared to dark films like Stalag-17.

Down one star for slow pacing and length, needs a half hour trim..

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From Russia With Love

Terence Young, 1963 (8.3*)The second James Bond film is the best of the Sean Connery ones, with a more realistic plot, and with Robert Shaw as the best assassin of all, also classy Italian Daniela Bianchi as the only "Bond girl" in the whole film. Veteran European actress Lotte Lenya also sparkles as Russian assassin Colonel Rosa Klebb (who made the ET list of top 20 Bond women!), who deals her injustice with a poisoned blade in her shoe!

We get introduced to organizations of initials, in this case S.P.E.C.T.R.E., a group of criminals outside the KGB even, beyond anyone’s control, but we only see the hands and cat of its leader, Blofeld, later parodied by Mike Myers as Dr. Evil in Austin Powers, who also parodied Klebb.

The plot involves SPECTRE orchestrating the British Secret Service into stealing a decoding machine from Instanbul with the hopes of getting it and Bond themselves in a two-in-one operation. This movie rolls from Instanbul and across Europe in a terrific road film on a train, then a boat, perhaps Ian Fleming’s homage to Hitchcock. Many say this is the best 007 film.

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Lord of the Flies

Peter Brooks, 1963, bw (8.6*)
Based on William Golding's famous novel, Peter Brooks' beautiful black and white film has remained faithful to the book. A planeful of British school boys survive a crash on a remote and deserted island. What begins as an adventure turns into a parable of civilization, as the boys split into two rival factions, one is more civilized and organized, the other wilder and more natural; each survives his own way. Eventually of course, the two inevitably clash in this statement on the nature of mankind. The amateur acting was superb.

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Hud

Dir: Martin Ritt, 1963, bw (8.3*)
This was Larry McMurtry’s first book, called "Horseman, Pass By", which was a tribute to his grandad, last of the ‘old-style’ ranchers, who did things the right way. Oscar winner Melvyn Douglas plays the grandad in this, but the focus was shifted to the ne’er-do-well uncle Hud (just look at the poster!), played by Paul Newman, to capitalize on his box office. Patricia Neal also won an Oscar® who hit perfect tones as the family’s jaded cook, as did Jame Wong Howe’s terrific, innovative black and white cinematography. Not as artistically successful as the book but any film of a McMurtry book is going to be very good, and far above the average screen story. If you're a reader, by all means read his novels, beginning with this one; it's a small masterpiece. The nearby town of Anarene was later featured again in The Last Picture Show, a "town sequel", with none of the same characters reappearing. 7 nominations, 3 Oscars®

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