Maestro-15

Released in 1962 a week after Lawrence Of Arabia, Taras Bulba, was not a thinking man's epic like Lawrence or any of the other epics of the time, such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, El Cid, King Of Kings – it was more of a grand adventure yarn and critics and audiences of the time were just not that interested, despite the film having two big stars in Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis, and a director, J. Lee Thompson, who'd just come off a huge smash hit with The Guns Of Navarone. What Taras Bulba did have was an absolutely brilliant score by the great Franz Waxman.

For me the Best Sequence in the film is the Ride to Dubno where the various Cossack legions meet up with each other in long extended gallop march sequence.

This film is largely overlooked now despite some broadcasts on TCM where I had the privilege of seeing it for the first time. It appears to be a throwback to that epic film-making style in the 1950s and 1960s but appears to be a bit truncated in its length to retell the Gogol story. The subplot love story between Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Christine Kaufmann is uninspired to say the least. The one interesting fact to note is that Tony Curtis married Christine Kaufmann after meeting her on this film.

For those of you too young to remember---African Killer Bees were considered a real threat to US populated areas and US crop. Looking back now it was popular fodder for a disaster/horror films to be made...Also to put things into perspective a bit, Irwin Allen was riding the zenith of his career during the production of this film having just come off the success of both the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno...Both of those films are on the Top 10 list of box office champions of the 1970's so it was not difficult for Allen to assemble such an myriad of A-list stars and even convince some legends like MacMurray and DeHavilland to sign on for the project. Without going into the specifics of the film since most of the previous comments have done that...Its interesting to note that this film and Concorde Airport 1979 had pretty much closed the lid on the big disaster film genre in Hollywood...Producers were focusing on the big stars and budget and not the script since this was not considered serious drama...For disaster film buffs - Check out the early Airport films, Earthquake, or Poseidon and Towering Inferno...Allen directed here due to an implausible script so this film is just recommended as a curiosity now..And this film was meant to be taken straight and not camp.

I will underscore what has been said here on this 1974 remake of the 1947 Classic. The 1947 was such an original classic with wonderful performances by all the leads and supporting. Here Sebastian Cabot is probably the best choice to play the Santa but just cant compare to Edmund Gwenn's twinkle in the eyes..First the Miracle song in the Main title appears so "hokey" today but it does set the tone for the rest of the movie. The film in general does a credible job in updating the story for the 1970's but it has an impossible task to overcome as the world has changed and we have grown even more cynical of the Santa Claus story. I recommend it for curiosity only and I suppose there is a reason why this version hasn't really survived in the collective memory of repeated television broadcasts.