Ross-Durham's reviews

I read the original novel "Drei MŠnner I'm Schnee" many years ago when I was an undergrad at my university and thought at the time it would make a fun movie. To my great delight I watched "Paradise for Three" not knowing it was adapted from that book and was more than pleased when I recognized the story. Frank Morgan was always one of my favorite actors, Robt Young was at his youthful and handsome best and Ms Rice was, as could only be expected, exceptionally beautiful as Tobler's daughter. The manager and butler at the hotel were classic and hilarious -- a more appropriate cast would have been difficult to assemble.

I doubt if today's youth would appreciate such a movie, but those of us who like the old ones definitely would. What a shame to realize that the setting was Vienna in 1938, a city destined to be overrun by Hitler's hordes and its society shattered within 2 years.

that was vastly under-appreciated by both the network and the viewing public. I am particularly angry at the network for dumping it without giving it a chance to catch on. It was written tongue-in-cheek by someone with a delightful sense of humor, and was so classically silly that it was both camp and genuinely funny.

Julia Duffy was particularly good as the goofy princess and the plots were well conceived and singularly well directed. For some reason, the series was never rerun nor were video tapes ever made available to the purchasing public. One gets the feeling that the people who made the decision to cancel Wizards and Warriors were the same people who decided in 1964 that Star Trek would never attract a decent following and determined to dump it after a single season.

The special effects were excellent (but then, what movie made today doesn't have excellent special effects?). The story was also decent, particularly the portions that dealt with his early life in London. The ending destroyed all that was good about the show. First of all, the idea of interfering with 800K years of evolution is an almighty presumption. I suppose it's our personal conceit that there should never be a beast anywhere that would use humans for prey...after all, we are superior to everything are we not? Secondly, the thought of having destroyed a single small zone wherein the Morloks and their super sentient boss dwelt eliminated the entire problem worldwide is asinine. As soon as the empty zone were discovered, another group from some distance away would simply move in and the original problem would reappear. The manner in which it was accomplished was equally ludicrous. If the super sentient were able to read our hero's mind, how in the world would he miss a potential death threat to himself?..it would stand out in the subject's mind like a drum beat at midnight. Furthermore -- assuming our hero gave a little thought to the problem -- why would he want to eliminate the only being that could prevent the Morloks from wiping out the entire human population? He had no way of knowing that killing the superman would not result in just turning them loose and letting them run amok, thus killing every living human on earth within a month or two. The movie had some very good points until the climax approached, at which time I think the writers got carried away with what they fondly believed to be their superior creativity (over H.G.Wells) and decided not to think about what they were writing --- just slap down an ending that seemed ok, and let the special effects and the background music enchant everyone. On the whole, the movie was good but the ending destroyed it. Like a good joke that is wonderfully interesting until you get to a punchline that is neither funny nor sensible. While the special effects were superb, I must say the movie lost all the charm of the book and much of the earlier version made in the 1960's. All-in-all, a promising start and 90 minutes of wonderful realism was destroyed by an ending consisting of just a few minutes of mindless nonsense.