(Review originally written at 19 September 2009) Well, this is not the most likely of love-stories but it's one of the more original ones from its era. The movie is a rather enjoyable one, which story perhaps doesn't out as well as was supposed to but remains a good one to watch nevertheless. Problem is perhaps that the love-story isn't worked out to its full potential. The right chemistry isn't always there, mostly since its two main characters are such diverse ones. The same goes for the George Sanders character. It's hard to believe that the nice Gene Tierney would fall for such a slick guy, who obviously doesn't have very noble intentions, as can be seen pretty much already the first scene they are together in. But enough complaining. The movie still remains a good one to watch, due to its pleasant original story, that combines its drama with its romance and fantasy quite well, as well as the right amount of required humor. Main reason why the movie remains a good one to watch are its acting performances. Throughout the actors all give away some fine performances, especially Rex Harrison who impressed as the ghostly captain. The movie also has a young Natalie Wood in it, who started out her career as a child-star. This wasn't her first role and she already had 4 years of movie experience under her belt. All in all it's a nice movie to watch and above also a quite original one from the '40's. It provides a different- and welcomed, take on the genre. 7/10 Watch trailer
(Review originally written at 24 October 2008) Not that this movie is horrible but it just also doesn't exactly lives up to its reputation. This is not the only Hitchcock movie with this problem and even though I absolute love most of Hitchcock's movies and he was an absolutely brilliant and a one of a kind director, he doesn't get a critical free pass from me. Needless to say this movie disappointed me even though it had plenty of redeeming qualities, which in the long run still makes this a perfectly good movie. Problem to me is the movie its story and then especially the pace its being told in. Mostly the middle part of the movie is just a complete bore. Nothing interesting or mysterious enough is happening in it. From an Hitchcock movie you would at least expect some suspense but there is actually very little of that present here. You can say that this movie is not really being enough 'Hitchcock' like. Perhaps this was because this was Hitchcock's very first Hollywood movie and he was kept more on a short leach by the studio's and the movie its producers? A redeeming quality is the movie its last halve hour or so, when your whole view of the movie its main character suddenly changes when you learn about the truth. You really don't like sympathize for the man at first but once you know what really happened this suddenly all changes for you and he becomes actually a tragic character you start to care for. The movie is also being innovative by using some real dynamic and experimental camera-work at times, as you basically always can expect from an Hitchock movie. It also makes good use of miniature and while watching this movie I couldn't help wondering if this movie didn't somewhat inspired "Citizen Kane". Some of the effects and camera handling seems to be the same and of course the Manderlay estate can also be seen as Xanadu, you don't need a lot of imagination for that. The movie tries to create a good dark and mysterious atmosphere but when there is not an awful lot happening in the movie, atmosphere is not really enough to make a movie with. It suits the movie that its being shot in black & white and all but the atmosphere is just not as good, moody and horror Gothic like as everyone tries to make you believe it is. The story just simply doesn't allow this. The movie has a typical solid '40's cast, with popular actors such as Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and popular supporting actors such as George Sanders, Nigel Bruce and Gladys Cooper involved. It was especially nice to see Laurence Olivier in an Hitchcock movie, two Hollywood legends working together. The acting is overall good in this movie though it tends to become a bit overly melodramatic at times. Give credit where credit is due. This is a good movie but no way a classic, or among Hitchcock's best work. Oh well, seems that just not a lot of people agree with me on this, also considering that this movie won an Oscar for best picture in 1941. It won as well for its cinematography by George Barnes and was nominated in 9 more categories. 7/10 Watch trailer
Director Richard Thorpe made some good and entertaining movies in his days but never anything too remarkable or great. In that regard "Ivanhoe" is a typical Richard Thorpe movie. It's a good and well made one but by no means among the greatest or most entertaining one's, out of the genre.
It's a rather enjoyable movie, that features all of the usual swashbuckler elements from the good old days! So, expected stereotypical villains, a charming hero, a love-story and lots of sword fights and other action.
It's a well made movie, that is good looking, although it all of course by todays standards look terribly outdated. The movie shows some definite parallels to the movie "The Adventures of Robin Hood" from 1938, starring Errol Flynn. It has the same style, colors and settings. Even some of the characters are the same. Prince John, King Richard the Lionhearted and Robin Hood himself all appear in this movie again. And John has taken over the thrown again, while King Richard is being held captive. Needless to say that both stories show similarities as well.
Hard to imaging these days that this movie was even being nominated for the Best Motion Picture of the year Oscar, back in '53. It's just a bit too much credit for this movie. The movie was even being nominated for 2 more Oscar's; Freddie Young's color cinematography and Miklós Rózsa's musical score.
The dialog was absolutely great at parts, although I have the feeling that the best lines were directly copied from the Sir Walter Scott novel. Nothing wrong with that of course! It's some typical old fashioned writing, that suits the movie its time period.
The story is good and solid, although perhaps also confusing since it features many different characters, that look a like and all have different motivations. When watching this movie it's just all to clear that the story was based on a novel, rather than that it was an original script, specifically made for the screen. It also shows in its complicated triangular love-story.
Because of its story the movie isn't really non-stop paced action and fun but it has some great remarkable sequences in it. Some of the action is really grand, such as the assault on the English castle by Robin Hood and at least an hundred of his merry men. It's a surprisingly big battle sequences (at least for '50's standards of course) that almost is in contrast with the rest of the movie, in terms of its size. The movie further more also features some great jousting competition sequences and of course the usual good versus evil sword-fights, that aren't that special really and are perhaps a even a bit clumsy looking.
The cast of the movie was surprisingly big and great, though perhaps not all actors were rightly cast in their roles. Robert Taylor just never has been the greatest swashbuckler hero. At the time of this movie he was already too old looking for his role, even though he was only just barely 40 at the time. He just wasn't the sort of person that aged very well and on top of that he doesn't look to professional in his fight sequences. No denying that he's a good actor though. I wouldn't had cast him but he still is sort of OK in this movie. Joan Fontaine plays the sort of role in this movie, her sister (Olivia de Havilland) became legendary with. She is not as good or charming as her older sister but at least she still has got the right good looks for it, so she suits the role fine. A still very young Elizabeth Taylor also plays a fine and big role in the movie. Other great actors in this are George Sanders and Guy Rolfe, among others.
A good, enjoyable movie that is very well worth watching, as long as you don't expect the Errol Flynn kind of classic swashbuckling action/adventure.
Of course Fritz Lang was one of the greatest directors in the '20's and '30's, with movie classics such as "Metropolis", "M" and "Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit" but the movies he made later in his career, from let's say the '40's on are hardly on par with his work from his glory days. You see a lot of directors that were great and brilliant in the earliest days of cinema ('10's/'20's/'30's) take a deep nose dive with their later movies. So far the only director that I know of that has remained consistent throughout the decades, from the '10's till the '50's has been King Vidor. Seems like Fritz Lang was stuck somewhere in the '20's or '30's with his directing. The directing and compositions for this movie are very old fashioned, which makes the movie now days feel quite outdated. It's quite static all but perhaps this was also due to the obviously restrained and limited budget of the movie.
Still good to see that the sort of signature dark, uneasy atmosphere by Fritz Lang also is present in this movie. However you can wonder if this type of atmosphere is really suited for a movie like this. At times I even expected the movie to turn into an horror movie, which was purely due to its atmosphere!
Lets face it, the swashbuckling genre was quite death and dried up already in the '50's. There were some attempts to revive the genre at that particular decade but all failed. This movie is no exception, although you can debate about it if this truly is a swashbuckler. It just lacks the much required action, even though by the ending the movie finally starts to take pace and takes some adventurous forms but by that time it's already quite to late to still make this movie an highly entertaining or exciting one. There just isn't enough happening in the movie!
The movie could had gone into some interesting directions (such as with the 'Redbeard'-plotline) but it just doesn't ever does so.
It's always risqué to tell a story almost completely from the view point of a child. It's an approach that rarely ever works out in a movie. Frtiz Lang, perhaps over confident with the success by him from the past, makes an attempt to pull it off with this movie. At first the movie still concentrates on the child but soon he makes room for the Stewart Granger character, who also soon but slowly starts to turn in the true main character of the movie. Good move, since this movie is too dark and fun enough to watch for children and adults won't find it interesting to watch a movie such as this one completely from the view point of a naive young boy.
The movie features some good and fairly well known actors in it but they fail to give the movie a real heart and make the characters come to life, at least not to a point that they're interesting, entertaining or good enough to care about. It doesn't help that the main character played by George Sanders is character that starts off as a bad guy and just nothing becomes really a good guy throughout the movie. He always remains a sort of a betraying and heartless scoundrel. You just never really start to care about him.
Perhaps the only thing that surprised and impressed in this movie was the musical score by Miklós Rózsa. It was really beautiful and perfectly adventurous. The sort of score that really suits the swashbuckling genre. The score only deserved a better movie! It's a soundtrack worth searching out!
In the end its a fairly enjoyable movie, that's however too old fashioned and not exciting enough to consider this a real good- or true adventurous movie.
(Review originally written at 25 February 2007) This is a great and better than anticipated early disaster movie, set aboard an ocean liner. Of course disaster movies were at an all time high during the '70's. I have to admit that, that genre isn't really my favorite one but I can appreciate how well they are made most of the time. It's funny and interesting to notice how many elements featured in this movie were all also standardly featured in later '70's movies. Elements such as an highly ranked character who is in denial of the whole disaster and its size, lots of different characters, an annoying little kid who can't act and an adventurous way of storytelling, in which the problems always get bigger and bigger. "The Last Voyage" isn't the first disaster movie but it obviously is one of the more influential ones, for later genre movies. The movie chooses an interesting approach, involving many different characters aboard the ocean liner. The main characters of the movie are an average every day family, of which the wife gets stuck in the wreckage of their cabin, after the first explosion, while the boat is beginning to slowly sink. It works good for the tension and works well around the story of a sinking ship. The movie of course further more features characters such as the captain and his crew and the engine room crew. The one character or plot line does never distracts from the other. The movie is really well build up and it takes its time for the disaster to unfold. Nothing ever gets hasted, which of course always had been the case with basically any other movie from the '60's. It makes both the story and the tension of it work out well. It especially makes the ending a great one, though it in fact really isn't anything that impressive. Nevertheless the movie and the size of it all was better looking than I expected. It's refreshing and impressive to see that they used an actual boat for the sinking sequences, without the use of miniatures and such things. Some of the floating sequences aboard the ocean liner are also good and convincingly looking. It provides the movie with some good action sequences. Obviously this movie was inspired by the events on the Titanic and this movie tries to be a 'modern day' variation of the Titanic disaster. It's obvious that the most impressive thing about this movie are not the actors. They used some very little known and meaningless actors for the movie. They all serve their purpose well enough though, so it in no way downgrades the movie. The movie features some of the flaws that early movies from the '60's often features, such as a needless voice-over. Nevertheless the movie still remains perfectly to watch this present day and features some actual tension and is good looking, with effects that still hold up this present day. In my opinion better than the 'comparable' 1997 movie version of "Titanic", surprise, surprise! 8/10 Watch trailer
