Brudnoy's Film Index
Brudnoy, David
David Brudnoy Brudnoy's Film Index ^ A Boy and His Dog: Not the latest Disney kiddie flick, this is a hugely muddled but fitfully intriguing sci-fi tale set fifty years in the future. Following...
...The two, she a passenger and he a crewman on a luxury yacht cruising the Mediterranean, are, plausibly, shipwrecked together, and implausibly fall madly into whatever, following upon a predictable switch of roles, she from haughty grande dame to sniveling servant, he from outraged servant to outrageous lord and master...
...In the (ho hum) post-Watergate morality period in which we are forced to live, everything is suspect, every American institution is presumed guilty unless proved clean as Caesar's wife, and the CIA is thus a comfortable whipping boy...
...and on and on...
...A very unpromising beginning sweeps eventually to a most ingratiating climax...
...The two, she a passenger and he a crewman on a luxury yacht cruising the Mediterranean, are, plausibly, shipwrecked together, and implausibly fall madly into whatever, following upon a predictable switch of roles, she from haughty grande dame to sniveling servant, he from outraged servant to outrageous lord and master...
...Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: Depression era revived via film clips taken from life—mainly FDR and various luminaries of the decade—and Hollywood flickers...
...and on and on...
...Harry as President, smalltime Missouri businessman, World War I doughboy, in high dudgeon and high spirits, chewing out MacArthur, cowed by Bess (The Boss), fawning over Herbert Hoover, chewing out unkind critics of his singing daughter—all the cherished parts of Trumaniana, with none of the warts...
...The Russian-Jews still await that treatment...
...Politically it is unlikely but not impossible —is G. Gordon Liddy possible?—and as a thriller it is only so-so, but Redford is lovely and Dunaway is very handsome...
...Journey Into Fear: Eric Ambler's suspense classic now quite boringly filmed with Sam Waterston, Zero Mostel, Shelly Winters, Vincent Price, Yvette Mimieux, and some of the most flaming deaths on celluloid...
...A worthy story unworthily filmed...
...Following World Wars III and IV, personkind is reduced to two states: constant primitive warfare aboveground, and a type of maniacal Middle America gone honkers in vast subterranean fantasylands...
...Dog Day Afternoon: Al Pacino playing the desperate fellow who, in 1972, held up a bank in Brooklyn, to get money for a sex change operation for his boyfriend...
...Following World Wars III and IV, perso...
...As usual, Bronson acts with his biceps, and Coburn with his teeth, but the movie is unassuming, restrained in its violence, in no way prurient or vicious, an admirable achievement of a modest but worthy end: the portrayal of yet another slice of seedy Americana...
...A very unpromising beginning sweeps eventually to a most ingratiating climax...
...Harry as President, smalltime Missouri businessman, World War I doughboy, in high dudgeon and high spirits, chewing out MacArthur, cowed by Bess (The Boss), fawning over Herbert Hoover, chewing out unkind critics of his singing daughter—all the cherished parts of Trumaniana, with none of the warts...
...Robert Redford plays a terrified but resourceful potential victim of some sort of bizarre murder plot, aided by Faye Dunaway, and hunted by Max von Sydow...
...But some of the moments are wonderful: That Man in the White House demagoging for all he was worth...
...No aid is given the viewer as to the time sequence of the various shots, which unnecessarily removes the movie from the average filmgoer's range of historical understanding...
...The dog gets the best lines...
...the inevitable bitch (female, not canine) is luscious...
...Give 'Em Hell, Harry: James Whitmore recreating his one-man stage tour de force as Truman seen through a one-prism glass...
...King Kong getting acrophobia...
...A timely nostalgia trip...
...she has an older lady friend, ensnares Jack ("Yack"), and they all romp merrily together forever...
...Dog Day Afternoon: Al Pacino playing the desperate fellow who, in 1972, held up a bank in Brooklyn, to get money for a sex change operation for his boyfriend...
...The dog gets the best lines...
...The dialogue is shrieked at the usual Italian level, and revolves mainly around how wonderful/awful Communists/capitalists are/ aren't...
...Fields doing Fields...
...this isn't it...
...Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: Depression era revived via film clips taken from life—mainly FDR and various luminaries of the decade—and Hollywood flickers...
...One-sided as all get out, but very finely done...
...But some of the moments are wonderful: That Man in the White House demagoging for all he was worth...
...The premise is appealing, as are the leads...
...King Kong getting acrophobia...
...Hearts of the West: The finest of the new comedies, a naif s progress from Iowa bucolic to Hollywood tinsel, starring Jeff Bridges, with the splendid Alan Arkin and others working out a young man's quest for glory as cowpoke, star stud, and 1930s bigshot with the fans...
...Fields doing Fields...
...Politically it is unlikely but not impossible —is G. Gordon Liddy possible?—and as a thriller it is only so-so, but Redford is lovely and Dunaway is very handsome...
...It is offbeat, funny, sad, tender, wry, and wholly winning...
...A sleeper, this...
...Hester Street: America's Russian-Jewish immigrants, who fled tyranny and found freedom here in the late nineteenth century, deserve a splendid film treatment to equal that of Jan Troell's two-part masterpiece (The Emigrants and The New Land) concerning the Swedish newcomers to America...
...Following World Wars III and IV, personkind is reduced to two states: constant primitive warfare aboveground, and a type of maniacal Middle America gone honkers in vast subterranean fantasylands...
...but the whole thing collapses of its ponderous weight resting atop a fragile reed of a story...
...Naked Came the Stranger: A bunch of jokers set out a few years ago to prove that the sort of trash Jacqueline Susann did could be done by committee...
...A fool's errand shrewdly portrayed, with modesty, debonaire wit, and captivating ease...
...Its force is its characterizations, and these are superb...
...No aid is given the viewer as to the time sequence of the various shots, which unnecessarily removes the movie from the average filmgoer's range of historical understanding...
...Swept Away By An Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August: Lina Wertmuller, the remarkably talented Italian Marxist director of The Seduction of Mimi and Love and Anarchy, checks in with her latest, a wonderfully parodic romance between a rich bitch and a Communist sailor...
...A ludicrous but lovely stab at high-class porn...
...A fool's errand shrewdly portrayed, with modesty, debonaire wit, and captivating ease...
...A timely nostalgia trip...
...A ludicrous but lovely stab at high-class porn...
...Flossie: Flossie's very glossy, a Swedish miss with wide-ranging sexual tastes...
...Cagney tough-guying...
...Flossie: Flossie's very glossy, a Swedish miss with wide-ranging sexual tastes...
...Hard Times: Charles (one-expression) Bronson as a pick-up fighter in Depression-era New Orleans, managed, poorly, by James Coburn as an engaging conman named Speed...
...Swept Away By An Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August: Lina Wertmuller, the remarkably talented Italian Marxist director of The Seduction of Mimi and Love and Anarchy, checks in with her latest, a wonderfully parodic romance between a rich bitch and a Communist sailor...
...but the whole thing collapses of its ponderous weight resting atop a fragile reed of a story...
...One-sided as all get out, but very finely done...
...Three Days of the Condor: The CIA done it...
...Hester Street: America's Russian-Jewish immigrants, who fled tyranny and found freedom here in the late nineteenth century, deserve a splendid film treatment to equal that of Jan Troell's two-part masterpiece (The Emigrants and The New Land) concerning the Swedish newcomers to America...
...The dialogue is shrieked at the usual Italian level, and revolves mainly around how wonderful/awful Communists/capitalists are/ aren't...
...whence came "Penelope Ash," a consortium of these fellows, from whose composite pen there emerged this perfectly hideous, perfectly witless, perfectly money-making bit of kinky porn, read by millions of (presumably) sex-starved hausfraus, and now filmed with the same attention to verisimilitude that the Russians give to treaties...
...As usual, Bronson acts with his biceps, and Coburn with his teeth, but the movie is unassuming, restrained in its violence, in no way prurient or vicious, an admirable achievement of a modest but worthy end: the portrayal of yet another slice of seedy Americana...
...32 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 David Brudnoy Brudnoy's Film Index ^ A Boy and His Dog: Not the latest Disney kiddie flick, this is a hugely muddled but fitfully intriguing sci-fi tale set fifty years in the future...
...Journey Into Fear: Eric Ambler's suspense classic now quite boringly filmed with Sam Waterston, Zero Mostel, Shelly Winters, Vincent Price, Yvette Mimieux, and some of the most flaming deaths on celluloid...
...the inevitable bitch (female, not canine) is luscious...
...whence came "Penelope Ash," a consortium of these fellows, from whose composite pen there emerged this perfectly hideous, perfectly witless, perfectly money-making bit of kinky porn, read by millions of (presumably) sex-starved hausfraus, and now filmed with the same attention to verisimilitude that the Russians give to treaties...
...Hearts of the West: The finest of the new comedies, a naif s progress from Iowa bucolic to Hollywood tinsel, starring Jeff Bridges, with the splendid Alan Arkin and others working out a young man's quest for glory as cowpoke, star stud, and 1930s bigshot with the fans...
...Don Johnson is the boy, some talking mutt is his dog, and Jason Robards is chairperson of the Committee ruling the madhouse below...
...Three Days of the Condor: The CIA done it...
...A sleeper, this...
...The robbery flops, abysmally, but the characterizations are wonderfully delineated, from Pacino's "Sonny" to his mother, his gross female (legitimate) wife, his drugged transsexual lover, his terrified partner, the cops, the bank hostages, and virtually everyone else down to the lowest extra...
...It is offbeat, funny, sad, tender, wry, and wholly winning...
...Its force is its characterizations, and these are superb...
...Give 'Em Hell, Harry: James Whitmore recreating his one-man stage tour de force as Truman seen through a one-prism glass...
...Hard Times: Charles (one-expression) Bronson as a pick-up fighter in Depression-era New Orleans, managed, poorly, by James Coburn as an engaging conman named Speed...
...32 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 David Brudnoy Brudnoy's Film Index ^ A Boy and His Dog: Not the latest Disney kiddie flick, this is a hugely muddled but fitfully intriguing sci-fi tale set fifty years in the future...
...Robert Redford plays a terrified but resourceful potential victim of some sort of bizarre murder plot, aided by Faye Dunaway, and hunted by Max von Sydow...
...The Russian-Jews still await that treatment...
...this isn't it...
...The premise is appealing, as are the leads...
...The robbery flops, abysmally, but the characterizations are wonderfully delineated, from Pacino's "Sonny" to his mother, his gross female (legitimate) wife, his drugged transsexual lover, his terrified partner, the cops, the bank hostages, and virtually everyone else down to the lowest extra...
...Don Johnson is the boy, some talking mutt is his dog, and Jason Robards is chairperson of the Committee ruling the madhouse below...
...A worthy story unworthily filmed...
...she has an older lady friend, ensnares Jack ("Yack"), and they all romp merrily together forever...
...In the (ho hum) post-Watergate morality period in which we are forced to live, everything is suspect, every American institution is presumed guilty unless proved clean as Caesar's wife, and the CIA is thus a comfortable whipping boy...
...Cagney tough-guying...
...Naked Came the Stranger: A bunch of jokers set out a few years ago to prove that the sort of trash Jacqueline Susann did could be done by committee...
Vol. 9 • December 1975 • No. 3
