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Reviews
The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961)
Madame Butterfly influence
Spoiler Alert! After the heroine is stuck an ocean away from a man she loved and thought loved her back -- and left her with a child and doesn't return -- and then, one fine day, he finally returns, I kept thinking that this movie (and book) was influenced by the opera Madame Butterfly, with the location moved from Japan to the Congo -- and Pinkerton the naval officer replaced by Paul the RAF pilot. I actually thought that Rachel Cade would give her son up to Paul so that he might grow up in the USA with all the advantages of the son of a doctor. But she didn't. She kept the boy. I guess melodrama is needed in opera, but that ending wouldn't play well with movie audiences. Pity. That said, a decent yarn and well photographed. Roger Moore looks lovely as does Angie. Woody S. is almost wasted. See "The Last Voyage" for how good he can be. And Rafer Johnson looks impressive, but does little and says even less.
The Prisoner (2009)
Absolute Junk! Monsters of The id!
Hard to believe I was sucked into this, for this is 6 hours of my life I will never get back. Yes, Ian was magnificent, and yes, seeing him read the phone book would be awesome, but my gosh, what were they thinking when they wrote and directed this mess. It simply did not make any sense whatsoever. I guess it was all a "bad" dream, induced by the powers that be...and they eventually got to "him" (number 6). Somewhere Patrick M. is smiling, thinking that his version trumps this. Take my advice and watch the British mini-series, "State Of Play", which was wonderful, or go rent the original 17 episodes of The Prisoner. And you do rent or watch this after reading this review, don't say you weren't warned. And yes, I was curious and then wanted to see how it ended. I won't get fooled again.