theseekerhp Reviews

Wings (1927)

Find a version with a good score :)

[8/10 · 3 May 2024]

If the battle sequences weren't so well-done, this first Oscar-winner wouldn't deserve 8 stars nor the Oscar, but the flying sequences are dazzling; even more so when you consider the state of the art at the time. But the rest of the story is mostly melodramatic nonsense that was old-hat in 1927. And there are plenty of continuity errors. By 1927 Hollywood pretty much had continuity and cinematography figured out and was making very artful films, so it's surprising that a big-budget epic like this had these issues. Although the cinematography is pretty great in the action scenes, especially considering that a lot of the action was filmed by pilots busy flying planes, there are some odd photographic choices made when our boys aren't in battle.

That said, the horror of war is depicted as not pure glory. When someone dies onscreen, the actors are allowed to portray their dying characters' agony rather than just clutch their chests and keel over. This is true whether it's the death of an Allied/American character, or the death of a Central/German character. You don't want to stand up and cheer when the enemy is killed; you are allowed to recognize that a human being has been mutilated, and think about how that feels, regardless of the character's allegiance.

Paramount released a fully restored DVD of Wings in 2012, 12 years and a few months before I watched the version that Tubi had in 2024. Tubi's soundtrack was basically the same jaunty piano tune throughout the movie, regardless of whether it was an exciting scene, a merry scene, a tense scene, or a sad scene. Paramount's restored version from 12 years ago included a newly recorded version of the original score. Although this is basically a silent picture, in 1927 it was released *partially* silent... it included an orchestral score, even though no dialogue was recorded (The Jazz Singer, considered to be the first "talkie" and released the same year, had a musical score that included Jolson's singing, but was only part-talkie... only some of the dialogue was recorded). Only the picture has survived the century since Wings was originally released, so we can't hear the original recording of the film score, but if you can find a version with a true score, whether the original score or not, but not just the same couple of songs repeated ad nauseum, you might add another half-star to my rating.

The Queen of Basketball (2021)

Just a well-done doc

[7/10 · 22 March 2022]

Some documentaries seem to show off, the producers trying to show the world how they have such great new ideas about how documentaries can be made. For me, this detracts from the story; since they're trying to tell me something about real life, when the filmmakers do a bunch of things that distract your attention from the story or the facts, it feels like instead of showing me something, it feels like they're just trying to convince me of a certain point of view. The Queen of Basketball sticks to the facts.

But it tells a story that draws you in: The story of Lucia "Lucy" Harris, whose skill at basketball helped bring attention to Women's basketball before the NCAA was interested, and before there was a WNBA.

Despite Lucy's current habit of twisting her tongue in strange ways during pauses between or at the end of sentences (maybe she has ill-fitting dentures?), I found her to be charming and and not-at-all impressed with her past accomplishments on the basketball court. Very proud of it, but not impressed. It's not false modesty. She played because she loved playing, not because she wanted adulation.

No, the producers aren't worried about impressing with their filmmaking techniques. They trust their audience, and let the record speak for itself.

The Dress (2020)

Film wants to be more than it is

[4/10 · 2 March 2022]

The Dress is a short film in which Julka, a hotel maid with dwarfism, longs for romance, or at least a sexual experience. Julka has dealt with cruelty from strangers, and can be a little defensive about her size, but is capable of friendliness and soon attracts the interest of a truck-driving hotel guest. Things don't go as well as we hoped (actually, pretty awfully), and it would be interesting to know how this affects Julka, but unfortunately the filmmakers already used up the entire running time of the film with things that aren't very interesting.

The Long Goodbye (I) (2020)

Dialogue is mostly unintelligible ***Spoiler alert, but I'll warn you first***

[1/10 · 2 March 2022]

This might be a great short film, but since the way the sound is mixed makes it impossible to understand most of what the characters are saying, who can tell? I'm sure the artsloitation crowd will claim to love it, but I don't just automatically love a film just because it has some attributes that satisfy my intellect; in this case, an admirable sense of social justice.

I generally don't have trouble understanding non-Americans speaking English. In this case, the trouble is the *sound* of the film.

The producers apparently didn't think that whatever they're trying to say is important. When Riz goes into his a cappella rap (it actually took me several lines before I realized it was a rap, since there's no beat or any accompaniment), no more concepts come through (not that many had come through before this), just a few words here and there. Enough to know that he's rapping about racial hatred, but I already know that exists in the world; I'm more interested in ideas that change my perspective. Maybe the ideas are there, but the producers apparently don't care whether the audience hears them. That's just contempt for the audience.

Another quibble is that I didn't know where the film was supposed to be set. In the last half of the film, you see men with uniforms that say "POLICE" across their chests, so I thought maybe it was a dystopian United Kingdom that they were showing. I'm pretty sure now that that's the case.

***Spoiler alert: I will say that the image of authorities pulling innocent people from their homes for immediate execution struck a chord. 10 years ago it didn't seem possible, but nothing seems stable anymore. It seems now like it could be possible in the not too distant future.

Ala kachuu (2020)

Eye opening

[7/10 · 2 March 2022]

A well-done piece about a form of human trafficking of which I was perhaps naively ignorant.

Sezim is young Kyrgyz woman who hopes to receive a scholarship to attend university, and consequently escape the life of household drudgery that her family is setting her up for. She gets a job at a bakery, and one day small group of young men with a sinister vibe come in asking about her coworker. She tells them her coworker has gone home sick, and therefore she doesn't know when she'll return. The men leave, but after she locks the store, they reappear and kidnap her. It soon becomes clear that, since her coworker wasn't available, they decided to take Sezim, in order to force her to marry one of the men.

I find the discovery of the details of a movie add to my surprise and enjoyment (I don't watch previews because of this, and only one-paragraph capsule reviews). While what I'm about to say doesn't rise to the level of spoiler, I would skip the next paragraph unless you *do* watch previews.

Apparently this is a still-accepted practice in some parts of rural Kyrgyzstan, of which I was unaware (as I previously mentioned). So accepted, in fact, that none of the relatives of Sezim's new husband, nor even Sezim's parents, have any reservations about the practice.

The filmmakers have done a great job of storytelling. I found myself engrossed in the story and strongly rooting for Sezim to escape her situation. I also felt grateful that they showed me, not just that bride-napping happens, but how it happens, how Kyrgyz society reacts to it, and how Sezim feels to be going through it.

One quibble. For me it's a big one, but may not be for you. It is never clear during the film where this is happening. They mention Bishkek, but until I got home and looked it up, I didn't know that it's the capital of Kyrgyzstan. I'm sure that there are other places in the world where it's culturally acceptable to kidnap women to be brides. As a terrifying reality, I would think that the filmmakers would want their audience to know where their story was set, and where else in the world the same story happens. The way they tell the story, I'm sure they want the free world to be aware of it. But for it to change, I would think they would want people to know *where* the change needs to happen.

On My Mind (2021)

Meh. ***Spoiler alert (but I'll warn you before I get there)***

[5/10 · 2 March 2022]

Although I predicted the denouement of On My Mind about 1/3 or the way through, I really hoped for the filmmakers to find a way to make it powerful. With few exceptions, I find extremely annoying the current trend of filmmakers making their viewers guess what's going on until at least half-way through the film, but I didn't find this film quite as annoying; perhaps the filmmakers intended for their audience to have figured out the entire film so soon, but if so, I'm just annoyed that they didn't get on with it. The conflict with the bar owner during the first 3/4 of the film did nothing to build any kind of emotion for the denouement. There is some nice symbolism with the protagonists breath fogging up his drinking glass, but it for me it came off as film student pretention.

***Here comes the spoiler:

Perhaps the reason I figured out the denouement 1/3 of the way through the film is that I was in the room several years ago when they pulled the plug after my brother suffered a stroke, and it was clear that his brain was gone. Since people who have been in coma (albeit rarely) awaken with a few memories of visits from loved ones while they were out, many caregivers suggest that you talk to loved ones in coma.

Suspense: Goodbye New York (1949) Season 1, Episode 0

This episode doesn't hold a candle to the radio series

[3/10 · 11 January 2022]

This episode functioned as a pilot for the series that began a month or so later. And despite what another reviewer states here on IMDB, it is a filmed performance (when it went to series, it was shot live). I haven't seen any other episodes of the Suspense TV series, but as a lover of the radio series that it's based on, I sure hope it got better. Also, I haven't seen a lot of embryonic 1940s television, but it seems to me that there were better things to be seen even then. But these pioneers were still trying to figure out what worked.

The issue is that for a series named Suspense, there is none of it. Basically the story relies on encounters with strangers to create the suspense, because the main characters fear that those strangers might know about their crime. But instead of using those characters to build tension, they pretty immediately make it clear that those characters aren't any kind of threat. The climax, which is intended as a mild twist, is just silly and completely falls flat; if you were paying attention, you had already figured it out.

Ultimately, this episode is of interest only as a curiosity for fans of the radio series, or for those interested in early TV.

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971 TV Movie)

Very good but a few lapses in realism

[7/10 · 9 January 2022]

Don't worry, I'll warn you before I get to the spoilers :)

This is the original Waltons TV movie, with a few different actors in adult roles offering a slightly different interpretation of those characters. Patricia Neal plays Olivia here, and she plays her a little flintier than Michael Learned did in the series. But perhaps one could see this as being due to Olivia being worried about her husband making it home after a snowstorm. Edgar Bergen as Grandpa isn't given much to do compared to Will Geer in the series; I assume he still had the talent to have done more with the role if he had been given more to do (he really was a great performer). But with a large ensemble, and only 100 minutes running time, it's understandable that his role was somewhat limited. Everyone, including 4-year-old Kami Cotler (a wonderful child actor, but not quite as good yet as she was just one or two years later when the series began), needed to contribute in order to give the film the feeling of a large, rambunctious family.

A minor quibble is that Andrew Duggan is a bit too old to play Ellen Corby's (Grandma's) son, John Sr. Ralph Waite (John Sr. In the series) was maybe a little too old, but at the turn of the 20th Century, it certainly would not have been uncommon for a girl in her later teens to have married and begun a family.

Long story short, if you can accept a few different actors than the ones you may have gotten used to if you grew up with the television series, this TV movie has a lot to offer.

The Homecoming provided a fully-formed introduction (though I don't believe it was intended as a pilot) to the series; the house in the series is nicer, making it seem like a family that wasn't poor until the depression, and the series exuded a little more warmth, but both this TV movie and the subsequent series offer sentimentality without being trite or maudlin. There's just enough toughness to give some richness to the sentiment, so that it doesn't just feel manipulatively saccharine. In much the same way as adding a little fat to a recipe gives food a little richness of flavor, giving the characters some realistic adversity enriches this story.

That said, there are a couple of scenes that are kind of half-baked, or that should have been a little more developed. For example (very minor spoilers coming up), when John Boy borrows a car from a friend at the general store, he doesn't bother to check the gas tank before leaving. In an era when cars broke down pretty regularly, and when there still would have been some older cars on the road that had no fuel gauge, even a teenager wouldn't have departed onto snowy roads without at least making sure he had enough gasoline. And later, when visiting the Baldwin sisters, Cleavon Little as Pastor Dooley doesn't let John Boy ask if he can borrow their car (the whole reason they're there), and doesn't explain why. It felt like a scene from Three's Company. My guess is that writer Earl Hamner, Jr. Knew that he needed to have some difficulty at these points in the story, but didn't have enough time (or, perhaps, take the time) to come up with anything better, or with legitimate reasons for the difficulties. If these quibbles would take away from your enjoyment of this film, subtract a star from my score.

A side note: Another reviewer mentions that the movie has an anti-Christian bias that people wouldn't have had in the 1930s. It doesn't have an anti-Christian bias; it's a Christmas movie, for Pete's sake! In reality, God is very important to all the characters who bring it up. But Christian people have had issues with certain things professed by Christian religions since way before the 1930s; as a matter of fact, since way before the Reformation in the 1500s. Perhaps during the Puritan era (which was itself a disagreement with certain Christian religions), a person who didn't go to church every Sunday would be seen as a heretic, but by the 1900s not being a regular churchgoer may have been unusual, but it wouldn't have been seen as anti-Christian. And some characters (including his wife and his mother) do not approve of John Sr. Skipping church, though they tolerate it. Most characters seem to have a deep faith, regardless of how religious they are. It's funny that someone who is intolerant of the way others express their faith, calls those people intolerant. The writer and narrator of this movie and the subsequent series was Earl Hamner, Jr., a Baptist. Hardly anti-Christian.

The Joey Bishop Show: Follow That Mink (1961) Season 1, Episode 14

Worse farce than Three's Company

[2/10 · 28 November 2021]

I think I like the 2nd season of The Joey Bishop Show better than the 1st. This episode, like many first-season episodes, is the kind of poorly-executed farce where, if the characters would just open their mouths and explain things, all would be resolved. Instead, the viewer watches all the stupid blunders, and rather than being funny, it's just anxiety-inducing. At several points, rather than just explaining things, Bishop's character keeps saying, "Let me explain something," just as he gets interrupted. After this happens a couple times, most people would just spit out the explanation; but not Joey! All he explains is that he wants to explain something.

When done well (such as a good production of something like Noises Off), farce can have you rolling in the aisles with laughter. But even most episodes of Three's Company are better than this episode of The Joey Bishop Show.

Flash Gordon (1954–1955)

2020-03-18: "Watch on Prime Video" link is not for this series

[17 March 2020]

As of March 2020, the "Watch on Prime Video" link takes you to the 1996 animated series, not the '50s live action series. However, at least the first episode of the animated series isn't bad, and it features Paul Shaffer (former Saturday Night Live and David Letterman music director) as Dr. Zarkov!

Edith+Eddie (2017)

Touching, infuriating, but what's the rest of the story?

[4/10 · 25 February 2018]

I'm not going to get deep into what other reviewers have already said about this film about an elderly couple who have their lifestyle and lives taken from them. The couple is very sweet, and seem somewhat capable, considering their advanced age. But they don't seem to be capable of being very articulate about their predicament. They are aware of what is happening, but don't seem to understand the complexity of the situation... maybe they do, but if so, it doesn't make it onto the film. One of Edith's daughters is present in the movie (and their lives) the other is not. The daughter who is present seems to be strong and articulate, and to be acting in Edith & Eddie's best interest. She did have power of attorney for Edith, but it isn't clear why she lost it. If she were present, why was power of attorney taken from her?

Also, there is no explanation of why the other daughter, the one who has Edith moved away from Eddie, is not on screen. Did she turn down offers from the filmmakers to be part of the film? Was she not given the opportunity to participate?

In the end, we can only speculate about the other side of the story. The perspective of the film is that the daughter who does not appear in the film has only self-interest in mind. But we do have some information that can inform our speculation:

• The film states that the attorney acting as Edith's advocate never met Edith. We are not given any perspective as to why that might be, but I can think of no good reason for this. How can anyone make decisions for someone without consulting with them to learn about what their needs and desires are? Or what their true situation is?
• Edith is removed from her home and placed in care of the daughter who is not represented in the film, with the promise that it is only temporary, and with the promise that Eddie may speak to her every day. The film doesn't even ask why she isn't placed in care of the local daughter, who has apparently been caring for Edith and Eddie for years. But back to those promises: Both of them are broken. Eddie is completely cut off from communication from his wife, and his wife is not returned after the two weeks.

In the end, my take is that the filmmakers probably have the correct perspective, but I am unsatisfied that so much of this story is left out. I left the film feeling infuriated that these happy, mostly healthy people were forced apart. But because they didn't tell the whole story, the part of the story that disagrees with their perspective, I feel manipulated. I feel that the filmmakers think that the public might draw a different conclusion than their own, and therefore left out any information that did not support their point of view. Perhaps they would have included the other perspective if they had more time, but it doesn't feel that way... it feels like they began with the perspective that the other point of view was just wrong, and therefore didn't deserve to be voiced.

One Terrible Day (1922)

An entertaining but not outstanding entry for the series

[5/10 · 5 September 2016]

Perhaps it's the poor video quality of the print that can be seen on Youtube, but there are many far better Our Gang films out there. H.M. Walker's titles are great, as usual, and the kids are fun to watch. Mickey Daniels exudes his usual enthusiasm, Jackie Condon is perfect as usual in the role of the unwanted tagalong, and Farina is cute as the toddler fascinated with geese. But there aren't many jokes here, just cute goings-on. Perhaps some frames are missing from the print I saw; the timing of many of the gags was thrown off by poor splicing (I'm sure that the original film was not edited so haphazardly). I'm just guessing, but my guess is that at this point, the producers knew they had struck gold, but hadn't quite figured out the best way to present these kids to the public.

Les infortunes d'un explorateur (1900)

Explorer steps inside a sarcophagus and is surprised

[9 March 2013]

It's difficult to judge the quality of this short Melies film; I viewed it on Youtube, and only about 13 seconds exist there (it's a 19-second clip, but 6 seconds of that are a more recent title card). Most films in 1900 were about a minute long, so I'm guessing it's missing 40 seconds or so. Apparently set inside a pyramid, an actor in explorer's garb (complete with pith helmet) enters, sees a sarcophagus, opens it, and steps inside. He gets a surprised look on his face, and it appears that there may be an image of some kind behind him in the sarcophagus, but the clip ends there. Knowing Melies' style, I'm guessing that a mummy appeared out of thin air and scared off the explorer. I don't know if more of the film is still in existence, or if the clip on Youtube is all that's left of it.

Mr. & Mrs. North: Two Faced (1953) Season 1, Episode 36

Manicurist blackmails bad guy!

[4/10 · 27 January 2007]

A jealous barber argues with his wife about her watching his customer after he walks out his door. He mentions that the man's skin is too tight for his age, and notes scars behind his ears. The wife figures out that the customer is a criminal who has had plastic surgery, and decides to blackmail him so she can use the money to leave her husband. Things don't necessarily go as planned, and it's up to Mr. and Mrs. North to figure out what REALLY happened. Barbara Britton and Richard Denning are good, as usual, but as usual with this series there's always at least one sub-par actor. This time it's Peggy Knudsen as Elsie Dargon, mugging as she watches the aforementioned customer leave. That said, this is better than most episodes in the series, and ends with a decent twist.

Mr. & Mrs. North (1952–1954)

Beware of cheap DVD versions by TV Guide/Genius Entertainment

[3/10 · 27 January 2007]

Mr. and Mrs. North had a great run on the radio, but in the early days of television, production companies didn't spend much money on such silly things as cameras, directors, or editing. Barbara Britton and Richard Denning are good as the leads, but the guest stars are mostly of the quality of your typical high school production. As a matter of fact, the two stars are what make the series watchable. To be fair, compared to most of what was on TV at the time, this is actually a decent show. Really this can only be recommended for fans of the radio series, the novels by Richard and Frances Lockridge, or old-time TV in general. Please beware of the cheap DVD versions released by TV Guide through Genius Entertainment. They overdub horrible, newly recorded theme music over the opening sequence and closing credits that does not fit at all. I'm sure the original music was much more enjoyable... at least it had to be less annoying!

Mr. & Mrs. North: Till Death Do Us Part (1952) Season 1, Episode 2

Murder by doll.

[2/10 · 13 January 2007]

It's Mr. and Mrs. North's 5th anniversary, and they are dressing for an elegant evening of romance to celebrate. The doorbell rings. Mrs. North answers to find no one there; only a small package. She opens the package to find two dolls dressed as bride and groom... but the bride has a knife in her back! This is the best part of a rather silly episode, in which Mr. North at one point tells an intruder, "Don't move, or I'll shoot!" But he has no gun, and his hands have been in plain view of the intruder for some time. This series was based on a very good radio program of the same name, which was based on the series of books by Richard and Frances Lockridge. Beware the TV Guide/Genius Entertainment DVD of the show; they replace the main title music with cheesy, newly recorded music that doesn't match the title sequence at all. Only for die-hard fans of the novels, the radio show, or classic TV in general.

Mr. & Mrs. North: Weekend Murder (1952) Season 1, Episode 1

The Norths take a weekend getaway in the country but spend the weekend solving a murder.

[3/10 · 10 January 2007]

Mr. & Mrs. North was a great radio program. But perhaps television hadn't developed into a quality medium yet when this, the first episode of its TV run, was broadcast in 1952. Although Richard Denning and Barbara Britton are fine as the title characters, the supporting cast seems to have been culled from the worst community theatres. Rita Johnson as Lily Storm is perhaps the worst; like most amateurs, she never seems to know what to do with her hands. The story is OK: Mr. & Mrs. North leave for a weekend in the country. When they arrive, their hostess seems to have vanished. Only for die-hard fans of the stars, the radio program, or classic TV. If you search for this on DVD, beware the TV Guide/Genius Entertainment copies. They substitute new music over the titles, and it's a poor fit. The same is true for their Dragnet and Sherlock Holmes DVD's. How do you justify dubbing over the Dragnet theme?

The Rifleman: The Sharpshooter (1958) Season 1, Episode 1

Lucas and Mark McCain arrive in North Fork, looking to settle there. Lucas enters a shooting contest, but the town big-shot wants him to lose.

[8/10 · 1 November 2006]

A good episode of a great series, including some future (and former) big names. Names like Dennis Hopper, R.G. Armstrong, Leif Erickson from the series High Chaparral, Tony Award-winner Sidney Blackmer, and very busy (though not very famous) character actor Charles Arnt. Perhaps the biggest name of all is series creator and episode writer Sam Peckinpah, director of The Wild Bunch and many other highly regarded films. What brings the Rifleman series above the typical Action/Western series of the time was the relationship between Lucas & son Mark McCain: The respect they had for each other, as well as the elder McCain's attempts to teach his boy how to be a man. This episode doesn't really show that. Like most series, the producers probably developed the show a lot during its first year or so. Yet it's a compelling story, told quickly (in a half-hour). That, plus the great cast of supporters, are what makes this such a good episode.

Dragnet: The Big Phone Call (1952) Season 1, Episode 12

Embryonic Dragnet (mild spoiler)

[6/10 · 20 August 2006]

This is a good episode if you're interested in watching how a show develops from its inception, or if you like early TV in general. Typically these early TV shows have poor picture quality, and sometimes poor sound, but if you can get past those issues, these early episodes are a real treat.

The early episodes of Dragnet are quite interesting, though some, like this one, have flaws. The most serious flaw with this episode can be explained quickly, so I'll start there.

I have read elsewhere on the internet that when Actor/Director Jack Webb brought Dragnet to the small screen, he brought along most of the crew from the radio version of the show that had already seen several years of success. Few shows did so when making the leap from microphone to camera for fear that radio people couldn't work in a visual medium. Webb seems to have proved them wrong for the most part, but the failure of this episode stems from the maddening distraction of watching the actors' eyes follow cue cards. Almost all interactive shots are in close-up, and it's clear that the actor on screen is not actually looking at his costar; rather he is reading a cue card, and the producers apparently hoped that, given the perspective of the camera, they could make it appear that the actors were actually interacting. Perhaps given the poor quality of TV reception of the day, viewers wouldn't have been able to see the actors eyes moving back & forth.

Also the acting of the main suspect is, well, suspect.

Now that we've gotten the negatives out of the way, let's talk about what works in the episode. For a show that tried its best to keep "acting" to a minimum, with actors directed to keep voice inflection to a minimum, the first seasons featured some very arty camera work: close-ups of the suspect's hands nervously tapping a pencil on the table before him (the sound of which also appears on the tapes used to incriminate him), intriguing shots taken of the actors through the moving reels of the tapes, and overhead camera angles.

It's not surprising that Webb would show a flair for working behind the camera. On the radio, he was also on the cutting edge, as far as the production of the show went. He demanded the best scripts, and the best sound effects. As much as possible, he wanted the action to happen in the mind of the listener, rather than having a character describe what they see, which created awkward dialog (that's why the Lone Ranger had Tonto... so he wouldn't always be talking out loud to himself, so listeners could follow the action). On the radio Dragnet, I once heard a character walk into his office with the police officers, sit down at his desk, open the desk drawer and remove something, offer a cigarette to the officers, light his own, replace the cigarettes and matches to the drawer, close the drawer, put his feet up on the desk, and take a drag from the cigarette. The only dialog clue was, "Smoke?", "No, thanks" when he offered the cigarette to the officers. I didn't realized until after I had heard it that I had a complete movie going in my mind, and it all came from the sound effects.

The story for this episode is decent enough, and typical of the series of the time. The reason for the crime: a demanding wife who wanted to live beyond the means of the husband's current job... similar motives were occasionally given by confessing wrong-doers on the show during this period.

Compared to TV fare of the era, this episode rates much higher than a 6; but compared to the quality you're used to seeing from Dragnet, it's hard to give it much higher than that.