Murder on the Orient Express (1974): adapted by Paul Dehn from the Agatha Christie novel; directed by Sidney Lumet; starring Albert Finney (Hercule Poirot), Lauren Bacall (Hubbard), Martin Balsam (Bianchi), Ingrid Bergman (Greta), Jacqueline Bisset (Countess Andrenyi), Sean Connery (Arbuthnot), John Gielgud (Beddoes), Wendy Hiller (Princess Dragomiroff), Anthony Perkins (McQueen), Vanessa Redgrave (Mary), Michael York (Count Andrenyi), Colin Blakeley (Hardman), Richard Widmark (Ratchett), Rachel Roberts (Hildegarde), and Jean Pierre Cassel (Pierre):
The producers brought the 'so many stars in head-shot boxes on the poster!' approach normally used by Hollywood for disaster movies and historical epics at the time to this adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's most famous Hercule Poirot novels. With a twist!
Frankly, it's a bit... soporific in its first half, as various clues are laid out prior to the eponymous murder. And Albert Finney is a honking, sputtering, too-jolly-by-half Hercule Poirot. The high-powered cast goes through its paces, nabbing a sympathy Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Ingrid Bergman along the way (even though Bergman had already won two deserved Oscars and should have nabbed a third for Notorious). It's an interesting movie, and something of a departure for Sidney Lumet. Lightly recommended.
Never Say Never Again: written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the story by Ian Fleming, Jack Whittingham, and Kevin McClory; directed by Irvin Kershner; starring Sean Connery (James Bond), Kim Basinger (Domino), Klaus Maria Brandauer (Largo), Barbara Carrera (Fatima Blush), Max von Sydow (Blofeld), Bernie Casey (Felix Leiter) and Rowan Atkinson (Nigel) (1983): Thanks to some bizarre copyright issues, the rights to the James Bond novel Thunderball were never completely held by the traditional Bond production team.
Thus, another movie or movies could be made by another company with a screenplay based on Thunderball. Never Say Never Again was the result in 1983, with Sean Connery returning as James Bond 11 years after he had last played the role in Diamonds are Forever.
Roger Moore's tenure as Bond was winding down in 1983, though that year's official Bond entry, Octopussy, still outgrossed this movie. Connery looks game but a little tired here, and the pacing seems off, and the movie overlong by about 20 minutes and one too many changes of locale. Klaus Maria Brandauer does make for a surprisingly sinister Bond villain, while Barbara Carrera and Kim Basinger do OK work as Bond girls evil and good, respectively.
The tone shifts even more abruptly than usual for a Bond film, from parodic to serious and back again. That may partially be because of the screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple, who helped turn both the Batman tv series of the 1960's and the 1980 Flash Gordon film into smirking parodies of themselves. It's not quite Camp here, but it's close. M and the rest of the Bond hierarchy take the most severe beating, though Rowan Atkinson's first big-screen appearance, as an MI6 operative played solely for laughs, also grates. Bernie Casey is fine as CIA agent Felix Leiter, and actually has something to do other than supply exposition.
The prime oddity of Never Say Never Again is that the first thirty minutes or so play like a dry run for the recent Bond movie Skyfall, as a rundown James Bond faces suspension and the Double-O program itself faces termination in the wake of political changes. An historical oddity, Never Say Never Again also acts as a weird psychological test -- viewing a James Bond movie without the familiar soundtrack never feels entirely comfortable. That the score for this movie, and the title song, are both unremittingly terrible doesn't help things. Lightly recommended.
House on Haunted Hill: written by Robb White; directed by William Castle; starring Vincent Price (Frederick Loren), Carol Ohmart (Annabelle Loren), Richard Long (Lance Schroeder), Alan Marshal (David Trent), Carolyn Craig (Nora Manning), Elisha Cook Jr. (Watson Pritchard) and Julie Mitchum (Ruth Bridgers) (1959): Producer-director William Castle famously tried 'gimmicks' with many of his horror movies. This one featured a skeleton model jumping out at the audience at the right moment. Oh, Hollywood!
House on Haunted Hill features Vincent Price as a henpecked, possibly homicidal husband who invites five strangers to a house he's rented to see if they can survive a night in a haunted house. Each survivor's reward will be $10,000. Why is he doing this? And why do he and his wife hate each other so much?
There's a lot of charm here, much of it on the Camp side of the equation. Also, some extraordinary screaming from two of the three female leads. The shock ending left me a bit disappointed -- it really seems as if there should be one further reversal because of the goofiness of what we've witnessed.
The acid-filled pit really didn't help my suspension of disbelief either. Maybe it was different in the 1950's. Maybe the audience members nodded and thought, 'Yeah, I've got one of those in my basement too!' Still, Price is his usual silky presence, and Elisha Cook sweats bullets throughout. Lightly recommended.
Dr. No: adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather, Wolf Mankowitz, and Terence Young from the novel by Ian Fleming; directed by Terence Young; starring Sean Connery (James Bond), Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), Jack Lord (Felix Leiter), and John Kitzmiller (Quarrel) (1962): More than 50 years after its debut, and about 30 years since I last watched it, Dr. No still seems pretty refreshing.
In this first movie of the series, the Bond mythology hasn't accreted around the central concepts yet. Connery is young, though already in a toupee. And the movie is fairly faithful to the original novel, though it replaces Dr. No's fertilizer factory with one of the most ridiculous nuclear reactors in the history of cinema.
Well, I can see why the fertilizer factory -- the Jamaican front for No's nefarious enterprises -- was dumped. After all, it involved the collection of an awful lot of bat guano for the fertilizer, bat guano which would assume tremendous importance by the end of the novel.
Bond teams up with the CIA and the first of a seemingly endless array of actors to play CIA operative Felix Leiter (here it's Hawaii 5-0's Jack Lord) to thwart shenanigans aimed at disrupting America's space program. Bond romances three women, including the stunning Ursula Andress as this movie's main Bond girl, Honey Ryder.
And Bond's universe is nastier here than it would be again until Daniel Craig's first outing in Casino Royale. One sequence in which Bond empties his gun into an already dead man lying on the floor was trimmed to accommodate censors. And one Bond compatriot (it never pays to be a Bond compatriot) meets with a truly gruesome and abrupt death, one we hear but don't see.
As to the nuclear reactor...well, generations of Bond viewers with a modicum of reactor knowledge have noted that the reactor operates contrary to normal reactor protocols, as lowering the control rods into Dr. No's reactor somehow causes it to blow up rather than cool down. True. But my question is, why did Dr. No put the computer control room for his entire enterprise inside the actual fission reactor? He sure is crazy! He probably lost his hands from radiation exposure while typing!
Dr. No also sets the early standard for changing the villains from Soviets to the criminal agency SPECTRE because the producers wanted the Cold War to end and thus didn't want to irritate the Soviets by making them the villains in 90% of all Bond adventures. The more you know. Recommended.
