'OPERATION CROSSBOW'......NAZIS, ROCKETS, SPIES AND SOPHIA!

 Operation Crossbow (1965)    Pardon me for gushing, but I could never get enough of this particular 1960's genre.....

             It all kicked off with the 1961 all-star World War 2 high adventure "The Guns Of Navarone", taken from an Alistair MacLean novel.

             Who could resist the basic premise......a disparate team of Allied commandos come together to pull off a true 'Mission Impossible' that will alter the course of the war.  This task requires deep, harrowing infiltration into Nazi strongholds, with danger of discovery and death lurking around every corner. 

            The commandos' desperate quest invariably ended up with huge fiery explosions and numerous, blazing  machine gun firefights with Nazi hordes.      

            Oh YES, please. Keep those rat-a-tat bullets flying through the air until there's mountains to dead German soldiers piled up to the ceiling.......

           Usually these major budgeted movies enjoyed a big push from the studios. But for reasons I still can't figure out, "Operation Crossbow" got tossed into theaters by MGM with little or no fanfare. 

           It's as if they'd already given up on it, and at some point, even tried the always futile useless gimmick of changing the film's title.....(to "The Great Spy Mission"....yikes.)  I can't think of any instance where switching a movie's terse, appropriate title to something corny and obvious ever worked well.

            Very odd......and a damn shame, since the film presents an ambitious, visually lavish depiction of England's stiff upper lip attempts to thwart one of Hitler's most destructive weapons - the V1 and V2 rockets that came flying over the English channel to slam into the heart of London, slaughtering innocent civilians. 

            And yet the film starts off with an almost documentary-like, even-handed depiction of Germany's development of the rockets, starting with their fearless test pilot Hannah Reitsch (Barbara Rutting) agreeing to pilot one of the flying bombs to correct a navigation glitch. 

            Back in London, Churchill's War Minister (Richard Johnson) wants the rocket sites bombed, but clashes with a cranky, disbelieving professor (Trevor Howard) who doesn't think the bombs exist. Nevertheless, three army engineers (George Peppard, Jeremy Kemp and Tom Courtenay) volunteer to go undercover and penetrate the underground Nazi lair where their largest rocket's being prepared to decimate London. 

            True enough, a lot of fact and fiction gets freely mingled up here.... and somewhere in the middle ,things stop cold when Peppard awkwardly finds himself stuck with  the widow of the dead man he's impersonating...played by Sophia Loren. (Her brief but dramatic appearance no doubt came at the insistence of the movie's producer, Loren's husband Carlo Ponti).

            But then we're off the main event (and the really good stuff), with Peppard and Kemp in the midst of the impressively vast German rocket site......and making a valiant, death-defying attempt to alert RAF bombers to the site's location. 

             A spectacular finish is guaranteed and I wasn't the first to notice that in its display of huge sets (very similar to Ken Adam''s work) and the film's finale apocalyptic fireworks, it resembles the climax of a Bond film.......(and since being a rabid Bond fanboy at the time I first saw, this, I didn't mind that at all....)

             And let me not forget to mention that on both sides of the combatants, British and German, you can enjoy spotting dozens of familiar faces in the supporting roles......with the Germans actually using their own language for a change with subtitles.....(a rare technique for big war movies like this.)

            Still and always a BQ favorite, "Operation Crossbow" stands tall as a prime example of this long forgotten genre, and still delivers everything I loved about it.....lots 'o blg blasts and dead Nazis......4 stars (****).

            

'TOTAL RECALL' (2012).....STILL TRYING TO FORGET IT.....

 Total Recall (2012)   Spent years avoiding ever having to lay eyes on this steaming turd of a remake......

              I still can't begin to explain why I finally broke down and suffered through this not long ago. 

              Oh sweet Lord if I could only wish the two precious hours of my life back......

              32 years ago the wild, wild, graphically violent Paul Verhoven sci-fi epic further cemented Arnold Schwarzenegger's status as the premier Hollywood action movie star. And featured a prime role for the formidable, fierce blonde bombshell Sharon Stone. 

             Then 22 years later, along comes Grade C junk director Len Wiseman, then (and still) primarily known for his werewolves versus vampire "Underworld" series, most of them starring his wife Kate Beckinsale

               The perfect guy to make a movie that nobody needs, nobody wants, that doesn't require existence.......a remake of 'Total Recall', only now clogged up with CGI. And with Beckinsale thrown in as part of the furniture, taking Stone's lethal seductress role. 

               A genuine actor, Colin Farrell, takes over Schwarzenegger's role, but in he's clearly overqualified for a cash-grab garbage movie that really deserves a Steven Seagal or someone even worse. Whatever honest performance efforts Farrell makes gets chopped to shreds by Wiseman's typical mincemeat editing of all the action sequences. 

                The action's non-stop but given that the hopeless Wiseman couldn't coherently edit a chase and fight scene even if you held a gun to his head, all the shooting and punching becomes an unwatchable mess, a complete waste of time.

                 Enough. Life's too short. It's a sunny day. Screw this movie. 

                 I'm applying for a Nobel Peace Prize for siting through this in its miserable entirety......considering I'd decided on the rating even after 10 minutes into it. 

                  An A-F-H.....an ABOMINATION FROM HELL. 

                 .....where it never should have left....

WEEKEND MADNESS UPDATE.....SPECIAL 'GOP FAMILY VALUES' EDITION

 The DOJ thinks Trump is hiding even more documents......the missing documents possibly include the ex-President's actual physical exam results, which revealed him to possess the cognitive skills of  a fully grown head of cabbage.....

Attorney Alan Dershowitz argued during that Trump's first impeachment trial that Trump had the power to do anything he wanted.....because he's President.....GOP senators felt uncomfortable with Dershowitz also claiming Trump could, in the national interest, declare himself Emperor of The United States....

GOP Trumpanzees line up to support Herschel Walker, the abortion-ban candidate who paid for his girlfriend's abortion......said a Republican spokesperson, "Oh come one, give us a little bit of credit, will ya....at least we never tried running a Georgia child molester for the Senate........oh, wait a minute,,,,ooops...."

'FAIRY TALE'...THE SANDY QUILL BLOG HAS A NEW REVIEW OF THIS SEASON'S HOTTEST BOOK!

 Fairy Tale by Stephen King (2022)

         Our brother blog The Sandy Quill just posted a hot off the presses review of the new epic Stephen King book every reader's dying to get their hands on.....

          You want to know.....is "Fairy Tale" any good?  Worth reading?  What's about anyway?

          All answers await you.....you've only to click on to:

             www.thesandyquill.blogspot.com

         .....and you'll know everything you need to know about "Fairy Tale'.

           (Not to mention you can also dive into a bunch of other wonderfully perceptive book reviews.....pardon me, I'm biased....)

           Don't wait for 'once upon a time', check out The Sandy Quill now! See you there......

                       

'LET ME IN'......A TWEEN VAMP WHO'LL NEVER COME OF AGE......

 Let Me In (2010)   I can hardly believe I'm just getting around to posting a Halloween season review on this one, considering it's one of my all time favorite horror films......

                 As much I admire "Let The Right One In",  the 2008 Swedish film that "Let Me In" is a remake of, I still prefer this Americanization by director Matt Reeves ("Cloverfield", "The Batman").

                  The performances, the visual craft shown in the filmmaking and the startling moments of sheer horror stay with me still......for reasons I'll now outline.....

                    Very few film directors attempt walking a perilous tightrope between horror and heartbreak.....creating scenes and characters you fall in love with while at the same time scaring the crap out of you. 

                    No easy task. That's why today's horror movies keep it simple and safe.....give 'em a gore-drenched geek-fest fit for a Friday night at the multiplex.  Load 'em up with jump scares (the laziest of all techniques), and gallons of blood gushing out faster than in that elevator from "The Shining".  And don't forget to throw in the wink-wink meta jokes......

                    "Let Me In", however, doesn't do any of that. Like a precursor to those celebrated horror art-films like "The Witch", "Hereditary" and "The Babadook", it's dead serious in its story and the atmosphere of dread surrounding it.  The film sucks you into it and proceeds to work you over. 

                    The storyline's simple and primal...... Owen, a terribly lonely, bullied 12 year old boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) befriends Abby, a new neighbor who looks about the same age. She can walk barefoot in the snow, her stomach growls with hunger and she urges Owen to fight back against the trio of vicious school bullies who've made his school days a living hell. 

                     But Abby's been Owen's age for decades since being turned into a vampire. She travels around the country with 'The Father',(Richard Jenkins) an adult protector-enabler who's only posing as a father figure while he goes about the business of cutting fresh throats to feed Abby's thirst. 

                    The surprisingly touching and tender development of the Owen-Abby friendship coincides with the 'The Father's coming undone from his years of  blood procuring. (He's been Abby's companion since his own adolescence.) When his attacks on further innocent victims go terribly awry, Abby's forced to do her own human hunting, touching off a chain reaction of death and horror. 

                   None of this story could even remotely work for an audience unless it had two gifted young actors playing the kids. And did it ever have them. 

                    McPhee's Owen takes pathetic vulnerability to new hurtful levels. And Moretz, who's gone on to become a major star among young adult actresses, pulls off  a near impossible task - she makes your heart ache for her and then scares you senseless.....sometimes all within the same scene. 

                   And as I pointed out earlier......no easy task. 

                    Matt Reeves direction maintains a continuous aura of crushing gloom and impending carnage and Michael Giacchino's score, filled with low ominous pounding, accentuates the images with the same dexterity of Bernard Herrmann's Hitchcock music. 

                     'Tis the season for horror films and BQ says anyone looking to start off their fright-fests with a 5 star (*****)  Find Of Finds.....let in "Let Me In.".

'DO REVENGE'......CRUEL DETENTIONS......

 Do Revenge (2022-NetFlix)    Naturally I watched this with BD (Beloved Daughter), the masterful authority on all things Young Adult. And yes, I'll admit to finding it mostly entertaining.......except for it being painfully overlong and exhausting in its attempts to reference and pay homage to God only knows how many other teen movies.......

          The film first draws on two primary inspirations......Patricia Highsmith's classic 'you-do-my-murder-and-I'll-do-yours' thriller "Strangers On A Train" and "Cruel Intentions", the corrosive teen update of "Dangerous Liaisons"........

          Therefore the film presents a teeming cast of wealthy Miami high schoolers who inhabit vast mansions completely devoid of parents.  Oh wait, there is an adult authority figure, the 'Cruel Intentions' harpy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

           Two of the students, Drea (Camila Mendes, the longtime "Riverdale" vixen) and Eleanor (Maya Hawke of "Stranger Things") have suffered soul crushing humiliations.....and the girls thirst for payback on the fellow students who wronged them. 

             So in the great tradition of Guy and Bruno's murder swap from "Strangers On A Train", the girls commence a revengeful  campaign of equal destruction upon each of their despised humiliators.  And to render themselves blame free for the results of their enemies downfall, each targets the other's nemesis. 

             Like all of the previous teen movies it bows down to (and I'll make no tiresome attempts here to catalog  them all) "Do Revenge" stays witty, sharp as a knife in its dialogue and unfailingly cruel and merciless in its treatment of  teen angst among its spoiled beyond rotten characters. 

             And I also won't waste any time bemoaning the usual casting of well-worn looking 20-somethings playing 12th graders.....uh.....what else is new? 

            What does set this film a cut above is the unleashing of a genuine killer plot twist halfway in.....the sort of "Say what now??" surprise that mystery thriller novelists so love to spring on their readers.

            A swift, concise 90 minute length would have done wonders for "Do Revenge" to keep it from wearing out its welcome........but it plows on for another half hour......and on and on and on. (To the point where I had terrible visions of this thing turning into a never ending series......

           Mendes and Hawke fully engage and enjoy all the nasty deviltry - they're truly a stunning, charismatic pair to watch, even when the movie's overbearing plot turns threaten to grind on into eternity. 

             Just know what you're getting into here.......an endless long safari through an adolescent heart of darkness. 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

'THE ODESSA FILE'.....A REPORTER HUNTS A REICH WING CONSPIRACY

 The Odessa File (1974)  remains a film I fondly embrace because it's the kind of production that no longer exists....a big budget, high profile studio adaptation of a best-selling thriller novel.....and top-lining a freshly minted young star in the prime of his career.

             And it's hard to resist any movie that involves hunting down and killing off Nazi war criminals....always a guaranteed crowd pleaser, (except maybe for Trump's MAGA mob who see them as role models and 'very good people'.....)

            First thing we love......the only Nazi-hunting movie that kicks off with the old crooner Perry Como warbling a cheerful catchy Christmas song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.....(who, in a rare task for him, also wrote the film's music score.)

            Next plus.....a young Jon Voight as Peter Miller, a freelance journalist who's given the diary of an elderly concentration camp survivor who just committed suicide.  The old man's horrific memories, depicted in flashbacks, show the atrocities of  the camp's commander, S.S. Captain Roschmann (Maximillian Schell), who not only slaughters Jewish prisoners but in a fit of temper even murders a decorated German army officer who dared to cross him.

             Believing Roschmann's still alive and well, Miller embarks on a dangerous investigative hunt for him. This puts the nervy young reporter directly in the crosshairs of  O.D.E.S.S.A., a mafia for ex-Nazis still panting for world domination and extermination of Israel.  

              Miller's harrowing quest gets him beaten up at an ODESSA rally,  then barely dodging their assassins. Along the way, he also can't help crossing paths with agents of the Israeli secret service MOSSAD, who enlist him in as an undercover agent.....all of this leading up to Miller's finale confrontation with Roschmann and a startling twist revelation.

             British director Ronald Neame, fresh off his success wrangling Irwin Allen's blockbuster "The Poseidon Adventure", smoothly handles all the suspense and action with a steady, professional hand. Though not particularly known for propulsive action, Neame turns Miller's desperate battle with a formidable Nazi thug into a well staged Hitchcockian duel. 

             Jon Voight, sporting a credible Germanic accent, provides the required intensity and likability to make an audience care about what happens to him.....and he's more than equal to task of a dramatic showdown with an Academy Award winning veteran like Schell. 

              "The Odessa File" does its best to stay firmly rooted in reality......(Roschmann was indeed a real life war criminal in hiding, later found dead after release of the book and film, and there's a scene that introduces real life Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, played by Israeli actor Shmuel Rodensky).  It stays grounded in the era's current events, as it has ODESSA planning to gift Egypt's President. Nasser with a missile guidance system to aid in his 1967 war on Israel  (the war Israel won in less than week.....)

               So in this movie, you won't find the gaudy, bloody, over-the-top, downright bizarre theatrics of 'Nazis among us'  films like "The Boys From Brazil" or "Marathon Man". Strictly a meat-and-potatoes sturdily built thriller.......but in this new age of over-hyped, overrated cinematic sludge, that's still a good thing. 4 stars (****). 

                And don't blame me if from time to time, you hum Perry Como's Christmas song in the shower........that damn Andrew Lloyd Webber........