Capra Fights the Good Fight

On Dec 7, 1941 the United States was catapulted into the escalating war with the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy and Japan.  The event that changed what had been previously viewed by Americans as a European War and not worthy of changing the national non-interventionist status was the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.  Prior to that the Franklin Delano Roosevelt presidency had done everything in it's power short of actually declaring war to help the Allied Powers in their ongoing struggle, including the Lend-Lease program, which basically gave aid without actually deploying soldiers to help. Pearl Harbor changed all that.  The U.S. declared war in retaliation and the war was on for the US, both on European and Asian soil as well as on the home front.

Frank Capra joined the fight 4 days later, becoming a major in the United States Army.  At age 44, he was a little too old to be fighting, but he became a prolific help in the battle on the home front.  His major role in said effort was to film a seven part series of films, a sort of counter-effort to the propaganda films that Nazi Germany and the Japanese were creating for their own efforts.  Primarily Capra wanted to counteract the Nazi/Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The Why We Fight films were initially made to educate members of the Armed Forces for the need to fight the "good fight".

But the films were so well made and viewed by the brass as so important that they were released into theaters.  And not just in the US.  Winston Churchill, England's Prime minister, thought they were essentially enough that he decreed they be shown in theaters in the UK.  And the first in the series Prelude to War was honored with an Academy Award for Best Documentary (which it shared with three other films, but still...)

Prelude to War: was the first in the series.  It delved into the rise of the three "slave" worlds of Germany, Italy and Japan and made an effort to compare them to the free world (primarily the US, but also those nations that were fellow fighters in the struggle.) A quote, which was added before it's release to the public, by Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War at the time, sums it up pretty well:

"The purpose of these films is to give factual information as to the causes, the events leading up to our entry into the war and the principles for which we are fighting.”  

 Ultimately the first film focuses mainly on Italian and Japanese aggression, reserving the bulk of Nazi Germany's role in the war for the next film.

The Nazis Strike: The second film in the series and delves into the duplicitous nature of Adolph Hitler, as well as his and Nazi Germany's use of fifth columnists (Traitors inside the countries he sought to conquer.  It reveals the many treaties of non-aggression that Hitler signed with various nations only to tear up those treaties and invade anyway when the time was ripe. There are some inaccuracies within the film, primarily concerning the Soviet and German relations within Poland.  This was primarily because, at the time, the Soviets were allies in the struggle and it was probably a good idea not to make an enemy of a "friend", but to some historians it does have some inconsistencies. 

Divide and Conquer:  Continuing after the fall of Poland from the second film, we are continuing to see that any pact or statement made by Hitler is only just so much bull as he invades other countries with whom he had agreed to leave alone.  This hearkens back to the Heartland Theory, covered in the second film, which basically reveals that the ultimate goal of the Nazis was to conquer the entire world.  As Hitler continues his drive to be a world dictator, he invades the northern countries of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium.  France is next.

The Battle of Britain:  After the fall of France, Britain is left almost solely to fight the war herself.  An early effort by the Nazis to take out military installations and ports is resisted wholeheartedly, so Hitler tries a different tactic; attacking civilians, bombing the city of London.  But this blitzkrieg is also resisted by the determination of the British citizenry.  As Churchill says "never[...] has so much been owed by so many to so few".

The Battle of Russia: represents how hard the Soviet allies have struggled against invasion, not only against the current enemy of Germany, but down through history.  Here again the Soviets are cast in a positive light as the good guys because of their association with the Allies, not mentioning certain factors that would have shed a negative light on them if they had been portrayed; such as the Soviet role in the invasion of it's neighbors prior to the conflict.

The Battle of China:  The series moves east and focuses on Japan's aggressive nature, specifically with it's attempts to conquer China.  

War Comes to America: The final film of the series, and by far in the opinion of your humble reviewer, the best.  It gives a brief history of the United States up to the early part of the 30's, when the aggressive Axis powers started extending greedy fingers into other countries.  It then shows how the US gradually changed from a staunch non-interventionist society, in 1936 being an overwhelming majority of staying out of the conflict.  But as the tides started to turn in Europe and the East, views, as they will, changed.  The short history of how the US approached relationships with both sides of the war changed as much of the public opinion changed from staying out of the conflict, to helping what seemed to be the correct side.  The true nature of the propaganda portion of the film concludes with the following revealing statements:

German conquest of Europe and Africa would bring all their raw materials, plus their entire industrial development, under one control. Of the 2 billion people in the world, the Nazis would rule roughly one quarter, the 500 million people of Europe and Africa, forced into slavery to labor for Germany. German conquest of Russia would add the vast raw materials and the production facilities of another of the world's industrial areas, and of the world's people, another 200 million would be added to the Nazi labor pile.

Japanese conquest of the Orient would pour into their factory the almost unlimited resources of that area, and of the peoples of the earth, a thousand million would come under their rule, slaves for their industrial machine. Altogether, the German, Italian and Japanese aggressors would undertake a catalystic crisis, one that would enslave most of the world's population and liquidate about 90% of cultural life on Earth.

We in North and South America would be left with the raw materials of three-tenths of the earth's surface, against the Axis with the resources of seven-tenths. We would have one industrial region against their three industrial regions. We would have one-eighth of the world's population against their seven-eighths. If we together, along with the other nations of North and South America, could mobilize 30 million fully equipped men, the Axis could mobilize 200 million.

Thus, an Axis victory in Europe and Asia would leave us alone and virtually surrounded facing enemies ten times stronger than ourselves.

If you are as avid devotee of history as I am, I think you will find this series extremely riveting.  Even if you only watch it to gain a perspective of the times, it will certainly open your mind.  And you can watch Casablanca, the next time in a whole new light.

Quiggy

In the Shadow of the Skull and Crossbones

This is my entry in the Swashathon (a Swashbuckler Blogathon) hosted by Movies Silently.

The pirate of fiction owes a great debt to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel Treasure Island.  That book introduced such memorable tropes of the pirate legend as buried treasure and the charismatic but still cutthroat pirate.  (I honestly don't remember any scene of "walking the plank" in the book, but even that is legendary.)  I mention this because a true history of the pirate reveals that such things were either rare or non-existent in the real pirate world.

The legendary pirate story

According to David Cordingly in his very fascinating and readable history of the pirate, Under the Black Flag, pirates rarely buried their treasure.  In fact, according to his research, they dealt more in trading goods like fabrics and other goods rather than "booty".  They also didn't do such niceties like making a prisoner "walk the plank".  Instead they just chopped them to pieces and threw the bodies overboard.  They were, in contrast to most pirate films, not nice at all.

History of pirates

The film world has had a history of making pirates out to be heroes or at least anti-heroes.  The pirate of film is quite often someone you could be buddy-buddy with, despite his affinity for being on the wrong side of the law.

 And even that is not entirely true about the pirate of history.  Some pirates were actually on the "side of the law", so to speak.  The age of the pirate was also the age of great conflicts among nations, and some pirates of history were actually privateers, which is a nicer appellation, since privateers were pirates who had been given authority by the ruler of one country to attack enemy vessels.  Sort of like a renegade version of a Navy, in that respect.

When Hollywood came to call, however, the pirate was essentially transformed into a charismatic hero.  The pirate was often a misunderstood romantic hero who had a secret past that sent him into piracy.  Even somewhat ruthless pirates were not all that "ruthless".  Case in point, just about every portrayal of Long John Silver in film shows him to be even a likable character, despite his, and his comrades-in-arms', intentions.

Near as I can tell, the first portrayal of a pirate on film was The Pirate's Gold, a D.W. Griffith directed short film from 1908.  It starred, probably, nobody you've ever heard of, and the plot is fairly melodramatic, as was typical of dramas in the early years.  Three pirates come ashore with their booty and end up killing each other.  The last pirate manages to have a local woman hide the booty before he dies, but she is killed by lightning.  So the treasure is lost forever...or is it?

Treasure Island, of course, has been filmed countless times. The story, in case you didn't know, involves a young boy who comes into ownership of a map, that leads to the hidden treasure of Captain Flint.  Along with Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney, and a bunch of brigands, including Long John Silver who manage to pass themselves off as honest seamen, set course for the island where the treasure is buried.  Hollywood came to call first in 1912, with a very early version of the book.  It was only a short film (which probably means 15 minutes or so), and I think it may be a "lost" film.  I can't find much on it.  But, needless to say, Tinseltown would milk this story for all it was worth over the next 100+ years.  1920 even saw a version with a female, Shirley Mason, in the role of Jim Hawkins.

In 1934, what some believe may be the definitive version of the story was filmed., with Jackie Cooper as young Jim Hawkins and Wallace Beery as Long John.  I think Cooper is a bit over-exuberant in the film, and although Beery is good, I personally don't agree with that sentiment that it is "the best version".  My personal favorite is the one that came a few years later, in 1950.  This one starred Robert Newton as Long John, and I personally love the version he brings to the big screen.  It also starred Bobby Driscoll has Jim.

The Beery Long John with Coogan

Robert Newton's turn as Long John

Coming back to the same well, again and again, the story has been told in animated form with cartoon characters.  It has been done with the Muppets, Muppet Treasure Island,  (featuring a fantastically funny Tim Curry in the role of Long John).  And in places other than Hollywood, it has also been a popular source.  Soviet Russia and Japan both got into the mix.  The Russian version, in particular, is supposed to be rather faithful to the original story.

Tim Curry's Long John

But Treasure Island was not the only well from which Hollywood and the film industry drew inspiration.  Since the pirate was a adventurous hero in several novels, it stands to reason that those same heroes would make their way to the big screen, too.  Rafael Sabatini, an author of Italian descent, wrote two novels that eventually became fodder for films; The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood.  Both of these movies featured Errol Flynn in the title roles.  Flynn pretty much made the character of a dashing devil-may-care pirate a standard for much of the rest of pirate film history.  You can see elements of Flynn in Johnny Depp's portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Flynn

Flynn (again)

Another classic pirate crops up in the numerous versions down through the years of Peter Pan.   Pan is ostensibly the main character in these films, but on several occasions, the actor playing Captain Hook, the pirate nemesis of Pan, shines much brighter.  The story, written by J. M. Barrie, first appeared on stage, but it was Hollywood that really set the bar for Hook.   Peter Pan  was first filmed in 1924 as a silent movie, and again as a Disney animated film in 1953.

Peter Pan

Live action versions didn't really take off until 1991 when Robin Williams (as Pan) and Dustin Hoffman (as Hook) made its way to the big screen in Hook.  As it's title foreshadows, the real star of the movie is Hoffman as the ultimate pirate.  Hoffman really shines in what is otherwise a fairly shoddy production.

Hoffman and Williams

And speaking of animated pirates, besides the aforementioned cartoon version of Peter Pan (and a couple more attempts at animating said same), several more popular series did their turns in the pirate genre.  A popular Christian-themed cartoon series Veggie Tales, took its turn at the pirate theme, albeit to teach kids a Christian message.  There was also film with a futuristic tinge, Treasure Planet, a variation of the previously mentioned Treasure Island story, only in space.

Veggie Tales Pirates

Treasure Island in Space

A movie (actually three movies, but the most commonly remembered one is the 1960 version)  that was filmed from a classic children's story, Swiss Family Robinson, focused on a family who had direct dealings with some rather nefarious pirates.  The pirates in this film are not antiheroes in any sense of the word, but are devilish nemeses for the Robinson family, proving to be the alternative to many of the pirates portrayed in films discussed here.

Pirates of Swiss Family Robinson

Pirates have been the subject of musicals on film, too.  Sometimes really poor, such as The Pirate Movie, (which was loosely based on the classic Gilbert and Sullivan musical, The Pirates of Penzance) which starred Christopher Atkins and Kristy MacNichol.

MacNichol and Atkins

Speaking of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, it has been filmed also, a fairly good version, too, with Linda Rondstat, Angela Lansbury, and a remarkably good (and unexpected, by me) singing performance by Kevin Kline.

Rondstadt and Kline

Not all pirates have been of a historical nature.  One of my favorite childhood movies was Blackbeard's Ghost, in which a modern day man, while futzing around with a spell book he find's in an old inn, raises the ghost of Blackbeard, played by Peter Ustinov.  This pirate was strictly for laughs, as was usual with the Disney movies of old.  He plays a drunken, inept character who constantly gets Dean Jones' character, Steve,  in trouble, emphasized by the fact that only Steve can see him.

Ustinov and Jones

And comedy plays a part in a few other entries in the pirate genre.  The comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet a notorious pirate in the historical setting of the late 18th century in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd.  In this entry, the two play tavern workers who inadvertently come to loggerheads with the infamous captain, played by Charles Laughton,  when Costello switches a love letter he has with the captain's treasure map.

Abbott and Costello (and Laughton)

To be sure, there have been quite a number of missteps in the pirate tradition.  One of the worst is Cutthroat Island, in which Geena Davis is cast as the daughter of a famous pirate seeking out a fortune with a competitor in her uncle, played by Frank Langella.  Everything you've heard about this movie is true, but it's worth mentioning because it has a rather unique place to put a portion of a treasure map.

Geena Davis (with Matthew Modine)

Down through the years, pirates have been an inexhaustible well of inspiration.  In 2006, director Gore Verbinski and oddball actor Johnny Depp created probably the most well-known pirates in recent history with a film based on the Disney theme park ride Pirates of the Caribbean.  Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow brings full circle the pirate as he was first popularly portrayed in the 30's as a romantic yet morally flawed antihero.  The original, subtitled The Curse of the Black Pearl, has spawned four sequels, two of which continued the Verbinski/Depp pairing while the other two, although still including Depp. lacked Verbinski's vision as a director.

The "Depp"-finitive pirate?

This is only a smattering of the tales of pirates that Hollywood has produced thus far.  To be sure there are hundreds I have left out.  Nor will this be an end to the movie pirate.  At the time of this writing a film version of a novel published posthumously in 2009 by the great Michael Crichton, Pirate Latitudes, is in development.  And I feel certain within the next year or so another Pirates of the Caribbean will be forthcoming.  And someone is bound to try another hand at one or both of the classic box-office pirate draws of Peter Pan and/or Treasure Island.

Until then, happy sailing, kiddies.

Quiggy

D-Day in Memorium

Today marks the 73rd Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion which signaled the beginning of the end of WWII.

I was a history major when I attended college.  I found my most abiding interest in military history, especially in the major conflicts in what became known as World War II.  WWII was a direct result of the devastation, both economic and political, that resulted from the impositions made on the defeated countries of Germany and it's allies after what was then called "The Great War".  Without these harsh restrictions it is questionable whether the rise of Adolph Hitler would have been necessary, much less likely.

Be that as it may, Hitler did come to power, and the result was a conflict that involved almost every nation on the face of the Earth embroiled in a conflict that extended from September of 1939 until the surrender of Japan as the final combatant in August of 1945.  The war was fought on three fronts, the Japanese being the Eastern Axis power and Germany, along with Italy, fighting on the Western front.

The beginning of the end for Germany began with the invasion of the Normandy coast in France, then a part of Germany's conquests, on June 6, 1944.  Today marks the 73rd anniversary of that event.  Cornelius Ryan wrote the phenomenal book that inspired this movie (also titled The Longest Day) and it was immediately scarfed up by Darryl F. Zanuck who had dreams of making the big book into an even bigger movie.

In an effort to do that, not just one, not just two, but three directors had a hand in the movie.  Ken Annakin directed the British and French scenes, Andrew Marton directed the scenes invoplving the American soldiers, and Bernhard Wicki directed the scenes from the German point of view.  To add verisimilitude to the film, those scenes with either French or German characters were filmed with the characters actually speaking French or German.  (Not to worry, the movie provides subtitles so you can follow along...)

The film was helped along by many of the actual participants in the invasion and, on the side of the Germans, in the defense, as advisers to make sure the historical aspects were true to the actual events. Because of this, the action of the evens and the actions of the actors participating are more or less true to the real story. (In other words, you don't get a dramatic death scene of one of the main characters just because the director or the actor wanted one.  True, some of the headliner actors do die, but not any of the ones who portray real people who didn't actually die in the D-Day landing.)

The Longest Day (1962)

John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and a cast of thousands came together in the early sixties to create one of the most intriguing historical epics to ever come out of Hollywood.  The movie runs almost like a documentary.  Interchanging between the Allied front as the Allies prepare for the invasion of the Axis powers hold in France, and, on the other side, as the Axis powers prepare their defense against an invasion they are sure is imminent.

The movie is filmed almost documentary style.  Standout performances are too numerous to mention, but there are some that are memorable.  In the tradition of previous entries to this blog for ensemble cast movies, I have chosen to address specific characters instead of doing an encapsulation of the movie.  (For greater clarity, you should watch the movie, and even read the book. It's fascinating and imminently readable even for people who find history boring).

John Wayne as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort

Wayne has always been a favorite of mine, despite the fact that many of his characters are pretty much played the same way.  This one is not much different, even though he is cast as a real person.  Vandervoort was one of the instrumental characters in the landing.  The real Vandervoort survived the war and passed away in 1990 (at the age of 73), making him the longest lived American survivor of the main real participants that were portrayed in this filming.  Wayne does a pretty decent job of it.  I wonder how Vandervoort reacted to Wayne playing him.  However, my feeling is that the best performance by an actor playing one of the real participants was...


Robert Mitchum as Brigadier General Norman Cota

Mitchum plays a cigar chewing gung-ho soldierr, willing to do whatever it takes to make the landing successful.  Cota himself also survived long past the invasion, passing away in 1971 (he was 78).  I probably would rank Mitchum as my second favorite actor, behind Wayne.  The expanse and scope of this movie being what it is, Mitchum is on screen for far less time than I would like, but every time he does get the screen time, he dominates it.  There are other actors who play real characters.  One of them who stands out is...

Red Buttons as Private John Steele

The scene where Steele, as a parachutist, gets hung up in a church steeple and watches in horror as the rest of his comrades get slaughtered by the Germans during a parachute drop is a true event.  Buttons actually had a conversation with Steele prior to his playing the role.  On my DVD commentary he talks about how terrifying it was for Steele.  Steele lived through the was and died in 1969 (at age 56).  The city in France where this occured now has a tavern, the Auberge John Steele, named in his honor.  Buttons is one of the standout characters in the film.   But we can't leave out some of the "fictional" characters, especially...

Richard Burton and Roddy McDowell as Flying Officer David Campbell and Private Morris, respectively.

Burton and McDowell were in the middle of filming Cleopatra at the time, but if you know some of the history of that filming, it will come as no surprise that the two showed up on the set of The Longest Day, just itching to be productive, because the other film was bogged down in its own production.  Burton in particular, is memorable because he delivers the penultimate line in the movie:  "It's funny.  He's dead, I'm crippled, you're lost.  I wonder if it's always like that.  I mean war.  I wonder who won..."  This line is spoken to another of my favorite "fictional" characters...

Richard Beymer as Private Schultz

Beymer is well known to many as Tony in West Side Story, or from Twin Peaks (if you were into that).  Beymer excels as a happy-go-lucky character who seems lost in the actual fighting.  In the scene with Burton, Schultz claims he has not even had to fire his gun, but he still seems shell shocked by what he has witnessed.  But we can't forget there were some standout performances by the actors playing Germans, either.  One of my favorites is...

Heinz Reincke as Oberstleutnant Josef Priller

How Reincke did not receive a credit in the casting list at the end of this movie is a mystery to me.  I think Reincke's preformance as Priller is the most memorable.  Priller, by the way, was also a real combatant on the German side. passing away in 1961.  He is honored in Augsburg with a street named after him.  Two future James Bond villains also appear as chacters on the Germn side...

Curt Jurgens  and  Gert Frobe  as General Gunther Blumentritt and Unteroffizier "Kaffekanne"

Frobe's only scenes involve him as a fat officer deliver coffee to soldiers on the beach in Normandy, thus his character's name "Kaffekanne" ("coffee pot").  On the other hand, Jurgens plays the real Blumentritt, one of the officers frustrated by the lack of sufficient forces to combat the invasion which had been expected, but due to poor communications was not adequately addressed in its efforts.

This is only a smattering of the participants in the movie.  In honor of the D-Day invasion, which was the beginning of the end of World War II, I present this piece.  I hope you get a chance to take time out today to honor those who fought, and especially those who sacrificed their lives to ensure the freedom we have today.


Quiggy

Go ahead, make my day!

This is my entry for the Great Movie Quotes Blogathon hosted by The Flapper Dame.

Harry "Dirty Harry" Callahan, a character who was essayed by Clint Eastwood in 5 movies, is the ultimate "I don't give a rat's ass about the rules" character, and one of my heroes of the cinema.  Dirty Harry was always at odds with his superiors, never taking bull**** lying down.  Never taking bull****, period, for that matter.  The Dirty Harry series were rife with memorable lines, like "Do you feel lucky...PUNK?"  (Which has been misquoted actually...The tail end of the actual quote is "You gotta ask yourself a question...'Do I feel lucky?'...Well, do ya, PUNK?")

In 1983's Sudden Impact, early in the movie, Harry goes in to the Acorn Cafe to get a cup of coffee, where he discovers a robbery in progress.  Harry takes out all but one of the robbers, the sole robber then takes a hostage and threatens to shoot her.  Harry utters the immortal line, which basically encapsulates his "screw it all" attitude.  The scriptwriter, Charles Pierce, pulled the line from his own childhood.  According to him, his father used the same threatening line on him when he was a kid.

The line gained a new life of it's own when at a business conference, then President Ronald Reagan used it to emphasize his intention to veto any tax increases from Congress

People have a love for the underdog and the buckers of the system.  "Go ahead, make my day" has been honored as one of the greatest movie quotes of all time, ranking #6 on the list.


Quiggy

Dumb and Dumber? Meet Stupid and Stupider

Before the meteoric rise of one of the most recognizable actors of the 90's and beyond, a virtually unknown actor was cast as a dimwitted high school metal head, teaming up with another virtually unknown actor in a buddy movie franchise that has spawned one sequel, and continuous rumors of another sequel in the works. That actor was...Alex Winter (who???)... I mean Keanu Reeves.

Both actors had been on the scene for a few years, but both were still fledgling artists in 1989.  Winter, for his part, was most prominently known as one of Keifer Sutherland's cohorts in The Lost Boys, and Reeves had a role in the teen drama River's Edge. This would prove to be the launching pad for Reeves as a box-office draw.  Unfortunately, Winter did not see the same success, at least not in the theater, but his career took a different tack, working mostly behind and in front of the TV camera.

The first Bill and Ted movie arrived in theaters in early 1989.  Pitted against such blockbusters of the year as Tim Burton's first Batman, Ghostbusters II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the movie still managed to find an audience and made enough of a profit that a follow-up was green-lighted.  That movie too managed to garner a profit.  Over 20 years later, in 2011, a rumor began circulating, one which Reeves and Winter both acknowledged, that a third movie was in the works, to catch the two as they approached their 50's, but this has yet to come to fruition.

The Bill & Ted franchise concept was the brainchild of  Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, and, as near as I can tell, with the exception of a couple of the later series episodes of Laverne and Shirley, neither had any writing credits to their name.  They seem to have hit at just the right time with this, however.  That happens in Hollywood, sometimes.  One or a group of people just hit on something that connects with people on a certain level.  I must admit, however, that the crowd that this one hit with was a good 10-15 years younger than I was at the time, but yet I still got a kick out of it, especially the first one.  And every time Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" comes on the radio, I find myself imitating the two vocalizing the lyrics as if they were profound quotes from a philosophical guru.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

In the future, 500 years from now, the world is a liberal's wet dream.  People live in peace and harmony.  And it's all because of two teenagers from 1988 who are the saviors of the planet through their music.  But it wouldn't be that way without the intervention of a future mentor, Rufus (George Carlin), who goes back in time in a time machine in the form of a telephone booth.  (Shades of Doctor Who!)

I should warn you at the beginning, if you approach this movie with any hope of having it adhere to the concept of time travel and its inherent potential for paradoxes, you are doomed to disappointment.  The film plays fast and loose with the scientic part of the theories.  (And there are some legitimate theories out there, even if the possibility has yet to be proven concretely).

In the present of 1988, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are two brain dead slackers who are on the verge of failing history.  Their teacher, Mr. Ryan (Bernie Casey), tells them in no uncertain terms that they must get an A+ on their final exam, an oral presentation, if they are to have any hope of passing his course.

The two are approached by Rufus, who has come from the future to give them use of his time machine to help them pass history and thus save history as he knows it; a future in which the music of Wyld Stallions, their wannabe band, is actually a profound influence.  The two go back to France in the 1800's where they encounter Napoleon, and through an accident bring the French icon into the present.  Leaving Napoleon in the care of Ted's little brother and venture into the past where they abduct Billy the Kid and Socrates.  They also end up in medieval England where they fall in love with two princesses, the daughters of the king.

Seeking "extra credit", they venture back and get several more historical figures; Joan of Arc, Sigmund Freud, Ghengis Khan, Ludwig van Beethoven and Abraham Lincoln.  Bringing them to the present, they unleash them on the local mall, and try to track down Napoleon, whom Ted's brother ditched because he was too annoying.  The historical figure wreak havoc on the mall, and Napoleon, who has found his way to a water park called Waterloo is doing the same thing.

Finally gathering them all together, the two slackers manage to do a presentation at their history exam, which wows the assemblage.  Rufus congratulates them and presents them with the princess from the past as a present.  But they are still incompetent musicians.  One can only hope that they "do get better"  as Rufus promises to the audience, "breaking down the fourth wall", as it is known in the argot of film.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

It is a couple of years later.  The boys and their girlfriends (the princess from medieval England) have formed a band.  But the boys are still losers and haven't got a clue, how to play their guitars or anything else for that matter.  Meanwhile, a renegade from the future, De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) has engineered a plan to change the future by killing Bill and Ted before they can be the influence they eventually become.  He commandeers his own time machine and sends two Bill and Ted look-alike robots to do the job.


The two robots (which Bill and Ted call the "evil robot usses"), kill Bill and Ted.  The two seek out a way to return to the real life.  Along the way they manage to garner the help of the Grim Reaper, who is obliged to help them because they manage to defeat him in a game (or games, since the Grim Reaper is a sore loser...)

On their "bogus" journey they end up in Hell, where they find that Hell is rather personal, each of them forced to endure their own personal nightmare.  Bill has a granny, (played by Alex Winter with tons of makeup), ugly as sin, that wants a kiss and Ted has to escape a military school leader who wants him to drop and give him infinity in pushups).  They eventually escape Hell and get to Heaven, where the big guy in charge gives them the services of the best scientists in the universe (a couple of aliens) to help them defeat the evil robot usses.

In a showdown at the "Battle of the Bands" (in which Wyld Stallions were to perform, don't ask how they managed that...), Bill and Ted and their creations,  the good robot usses, battle the evil robot usses to try and save the day.  Of course, if they defeat the evil robot usses they will still have to deal with De Nomolos who is flat out determined to change the future, at whatever cost.

One can only wonder what happens in the future that causes these two to become the prophets of peace and harmony, when it's obvious they probably couldn't even SPELL "peace and harmony" without a spell check.  But since this is just goofy Hollywood time-wasting, its probably better not to dwell on it.

Well, folks, the screen has just darkened and a phone booth has materialized in the parking lot, so your humble reviewer may be off on an adventure for himself.  Have a safe drive home.

Quiggy

Debacle in the Desert

This is my entry in the "Movie Disasters" section of the Classic Movie History Blogathon being sponsored by Movies Silently, Once Upon a Screen, and Silver Screenings. 

John Wayne plays an Oriental cowboy!

The Conqueror (1956)  

Considered one of the worst movies of all time, and definitely the worst movie in which John Wayne was ever  involved, but John Wayne cannot carry the blame for this movie solely on his shoulders.  Sure, Wayne as a Mongol chieftain {surrounded by such luminous other "Oriental" stars of the day, like Pedro  Armendariz as Jumuga (a blood brother), William Conrad as Kasar (his real brother), Lee Van Cleef as Chepei (his aide-de-camp), and Agnes Moorehead as Hunlun (his mother)} was a horrible miscasting, but probably no more so than Susan Hayward as the Tartar woman for whom he lusts.

The most stupendously horrible mistake of the whole movie however, is the script.  Some guy named Oscar Millard must've channeled William Shakespeare while high on acid.  The language, as written, will make you think of the worst production you ever saw of a Shakespearean play.  Somewhat of a conundrum, if you ask me, since only 5 years earlier Millard had been nominated for an Oscar for his script for The Frogmen.  (Haven't seen that one, nor even heard of it until I was researching this movie.  But surely the Academy saw a different writer then...)  Even the eras most accomplished Shakespearean actors would have had trouble with this script, though.

The film has, to it's credit, some fairly decent music by Victor Young.  And Dick Powell as director pulled off some fairly decent horse battle scenes.  But hardly anyone in front of the camera, Wayne included, measured up to anything even remotely worthy of the spectacle that was attempted.  Rumor has it that Howard Hughes, the financial backer of the film, was so embarrassed by it that he bought up and tried to destroy every print of the film, yet, according to his biographers, during his last days he watched it over and over again.  Wayne was hoping to garner some backing from Hughes for his project to film The Alamo, but that didn't pan out.

It is well known that the movie was filmed in Utah, downwind as it were, from the nuclear testing site in the same state.  An inordinate number of people involved in this movie developed and died of cancer.  (Of course, a number of them, Wayne included, were heavy smokers, but that is sometimes overlooked in the zeal to lay blame on nuclear weapons...)

On a positive note, whether or not it was a result of this adventure, John Wayne teamed up with John Ford for his next project, which many deem the greatest Western of all time, The Searchers.

The movie begins with a caravan crossing the desert.  In the caravan are Targutai (Lesley Bradley) and Bortai (Susan Hayward).  Bortai is the daughter of Kumlek (Ted de Corsia), a rival clan leader and the wedding of Bortai and Targutai will serve as a unity point for the two tribes.  Temujin (John Wayne), clan leader of the Mongols,  and a cohort ride up to confront Targutai, who is crossing Mongol territory.  Temujin is smitten (thats S-M-I-T-T-E-N) by Bortai.

He goes back to his camp and rounds up a raiding party to go descend upon the infiltrating caravan.  He and his clansmen overrun the caravan and Temujin takes Bortai prisoner, intending to make her his wife.  When Hunlun (Agnes Moorehead) , Temujin's mother, hears that her son has taken the daughter of a hated rival clan leader, one who incidentally had killed Temujin's father, she expresses her outrage.

Temujin will not be swayed, even when Bortai, who is not exactly pleased with her new predicament tries to kill him.  She even tries to enlist the help of Temujin's blood brother, Jamuga (Pedro Armendariz).  Jamuga is tempted but he proclaims his undying love and respect for his blood brother.
Temujin makes plans to try to take over the clan of his rival, Kumlek, ad tries to enlist the help of a fellow rival Wang Khan (Thomas Gomez).  But Wang Khan does not entirely trust Temujin (as well he shouldn't) and sends his shaman (John Hoyt) to try to divulge the truth.  This being a movie about clan rivalry, in addition to the love story, there is much skullduggery involved and you may not know who is really on whose side.

Eventually Bortai is recaptured by her father, as is Temujin.  Conveniently for the movie, Bortai has fallen in love with Temujin and helps him escape.  The two clans end up in a epic battle, in which, finally, Temujin exacts his revenge upon Kumlek.

OK this is not entirely a horrible movie as I would have expected.  In fact, if you turn off the sound and just watch it as a silent movie, its not really that bad.  (You could make up your on dialogue if you want, and it might even be an improvement.)  The final battle of two horse armies is worth a watch at any rate.

Quiggy