soccermanz

Thirty six year old Westerns seem to be on television every week but few directed by Henry Hathaway with Gregory Peck taking the lead. As usual I was working with just the picture and no sound and it seemed to be so slow to build up until the little girl appeared - no Shirley Temple she and sassy enough to get under anyone's craw. But the superb scenery eventually got to me and on came the sound. There is one scene which eventually backfires on the troublemaker which is worth the entry price alone - I won't spoil it with another hint. I just felt it needed a bit more credit as I enjoyed it enormously - both the silent and the talkies version.

This film should be compulsory viewing for all of those of either sex who want to be taken seriously by a talented artist whether a musician, stage, film or television actor, professional sports player and so on. Elizabeth Taylor is quite excellent as the rich, indulged young lady who still thinks that she can be the focal point of her chosen man's world in this case a self obsessed violinist who was still infinitely preferable to so many of her other male co-stars. And his fingering and bowing was quite superb - I only wish that I could have heard the sounds that he actually made and who actually made the beautiful music that forms the solid foundation of what was a thoroughly enjoyable film ? I agree that Louis Calhern as her father was superb - it is a pity that she listened to so little of what he said and in her case beauty was not even skin deep.

The original story had all the ingredients to make a thoroughly gripping Film. But failed miserably in this version as even Cherie Lunghi was a pale imitation of what she was to become - so much so that I suspected that she must turn out to be an accomplice right to the end. Sherlock Holmes was turned into a warrior quite unlike anything every suggested by Sir Arthur Conn Doyle ? In fact it was Doctor Watson who showed what little common sense that was going. The boot blacked midget from the Andoman islands looked as though he could not fight his way out of a paper bag and what the villain was doing taking tea in Baker Street for a denouement was beyond anything that the old Scotland Yard could ever have dreamed up. So consign this TV Film to their Black Museum please.