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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The last on my "Western" themed movie, "High Noon" with Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges and a very young (and underutilized Villain) Lee Van Cleef, whom you'd recognize as the Villain from "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" Trilogy.
The hook for this one is that it's filmed in "Real Time", or rather, the action of the film is supposed to be the hour and half leading up to the showdown. A Marshal gets married (Middle aged Gary Cooper, Young Grace Kelly), and when about to leave for his honeymoon is forced to stay back and deal with some outlaws arriving on the Noon train.
OK, the hook of "real time" is of course a little overstated, while the clocks in the movie keep pace with the time, action is condensed to fit the narrative.
Better than "The Searchers", but I'm rather done with the Western Genre...
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Had been looking for this for a while, trailer, reviews looked good, great even. About a mild mannered and boring professor who ends up inadvertently appearing in random people's dreams.
It had a great deal of potential, a curious premise, but it devolved down every predictable pathway into a commentary on Celebrity and Cancel Culture.
So, a "Meh" and give it a miss. There are surely better films coming.
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Yet another movie to look forward to that will be yet months away from the local cinemas...
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This pretty much completing my "Western Binge" - a neo-noir thriller starring Nicholas Cage, Dennis Hopper, others you'd know from the era.
It was good, of a type reminiscent of David Lynch, the "neo-noir" elements reminding me of Mulholland Drive and other movies of the era, a young and dashing Nicholas Cage, Dennis Hopper as Lyle or hired assassin or pretty much just being himself, an increasingly tangled plot and - rarity of rarity - a rather or somewhat unpredictable ending.
I didn't mind it, but not a "Canon" film, not necessary, no new insights, but that cozy Xmas feeling of familiar celebrity faces.
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I did not enjoy this. Not a little bit.
A few notes: First of all - John Wayne couldn't act.
Second of all: John Wayne couldn't act.
I could go on this tangent for a while, but you get the idea.
In the scene with the Cavalry taking the Comanche prisoners if you look close you can spot an automobile driving in the background.
But that's trivial. What's more to the point is that the movie introduces ideas that are genuinely interesting and complex, only to abandon them in the service of an entirely unworthy plot and absolutely banal character development. Politically incorrect in the extreme - how did this even fly then? I mean the scene where "One Who Follows" kicks his newly acquired squaw-bride down the hill, not funny. Not at all. Or the depiction of the Comanche as "children", and the "back story" given to "Scar" - he's on the warpath avenging the death of his sons, or John Wayne's character of an Indian Hating vengeful uncle, the implied horrors of Indian Captivity, the finding of the girl to discover that she wants to continue living with the Comanche - "her people now" - I mean, there were an abundance of morally complex themes that were brought up and then completely ignored. There were the ideas of the greatness - and vastness - of the undiscovered West, the final frontier, yet it was not filmed as such, moments of grandeur - such as when they reach the winter territories - are almost accidental, dialogue, irrelevant and frequently idiotic, characters, stock types every one. I could go on.
SO, for a movie with some reputation I was offended beyond measure, it certainly has a place in the history of American prejudice and bigotry but is more a model of how NOT to make a film.
That said, like James Cameron's "The Titanic", seldom has such a mediocre film so inflamed me. So there's something.