ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Good Xmas Family Fun For All

Plop this in front of the brats
and get some shuteye

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)
dir. Tim Hill
Starring: Jason Lee, David Cross

Review By Greg Klymkiw

As far as family-friendly Christmas-themed movies go, Alvin and the Chipmunks is never going to be considered a perennial favourite in the mold of It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol or Miracle on 34th Street, but it does provide solid entertainment for the kiddies (lots o’ laughs from anyone 10 or under) and mild entertainment for anyone older (lots o’ smiles and a few chuckles) – especially anyone old enough to have sentimental memories of the “original” Alvin hit songs and TV series from the late 50s/early 60s and the 80s animated revival.

Alvin, to the uninitiated, is the head of a squeaky-pitched trio of singing chipmunks who are pals with the loser songwriter David Seville who hits the big time when he stumbles upon the furry ear-shattering musical stylists. Seville, in the original cartoons, spends much of his time chipmunk-sitting his charges and keeping those pesky, but warm-hearted little songsters from getting into all manner of troublesome hijinx. He also bellows out the immortal, stern cry, “A-a-a-a-a-a-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-vin!!!!!” whenever he discovers something is amiss and realizes that it’s probably the work of the troublemaking-est chipmunk of them all.

The 2007 big screen rendering of these characters, is pretty much more of the same, only with live-action “adult” characters and digitally animated fur-balls. Within the confines of a simple, predictable feature-length tale, Dave (the mildly offensive, barely palatable Jason Lee) discovers the chipmunks, becomes their surrogate Dad and eventually loses them to smarmy Ian (a very funny David Cross), a dastardly music promoter. The sleaze ball, in familiar fashion, exploits the chipmunks, screws Dave, but gets his ultimate and well-deserved comeuppance when goodness prevails and all are reunited in grand fashion.

It’s quite the emotional whirlwind – for seven-year-olds, mostly.

What makes the movie relatively agreeable to less-discriminating adults (and those, like me, who should know better, but have a soft spot for squeaky-voiced chipmunks) is the genuinely funny and, at times, endearing musical numbers. In fact, that insane, insipid, and utterly insidious “classic” Chipmunks Christmas song “Christmas Don’t Be Late” will never leave my brain. Initially left behind in the fog of my wayward childhood, the song has been reintroduced to me by this movie and is now emblazoned, carved, burned and branded into my very soul. My God, I feel like Barbara Steele at the beginning of “Black Sunday” who receives the mark of Satan from a hooded executioner. My psyche has been thoroughly scarred forever by those trilling chipmunks. The fur-balls and their squealing, while never at the forefront of my thoughts, are lodged in there like an admittedly oxymoronic migraine of pleasure.

In case you’ve forgotten the lyrics, let me inflict them upon you. The tune will come ever so quickly to you and remain there forever. Besides, I shouldn’t have to suffer alone:

Christmas, Christmas time is near
Time for toys and time for cheer
We've been good, but we can't last
Hurry Christmas, hurry fast
Want a plane that loops the loop
Me, I want a hula hoop
We can hardly stand the wait
Please Christmas, don't be late

The brainchild behind the chipmunks was the late actor and songwriter Ross Bagdasarian and frankly, there’s no denying his impact upon popular American culture. As a young man, Bagdasarian appeared in the original (and legendary) Eddie Dowling Broadway stage production of William Saroyan’s Pulitzer-prizewinning play “The Time of Your Life”. Bagdasarian and Saroyan, cousins and fellow Armenian-Americans shared a love of the arts and most importantly, sentimentality and whimsy. (In fact, the cousins actually co-wrote the song “Come on-a My House” which became such a huge hit for the legendary songstress Rosemary Clooney.) Alas, unlike his more celebrated older cousin Saroyan, Bagdasarian won no Oscars or Pulitzers. He did, however, snafu a couple of Grammy awards, and in so doing, entertained and delighted millions of children (and a few of those aforementioned adults who should know better).

This particular legacy, which is nothing to be sneezed at, acquits itself very nicely in this fluffy, harmless feature. And for those inclined, the two-disc DVD version includes a handy-dandy digital copy of the movie suitable for iPods and iPhones. This is especially handy for chipmunk-obsessed kids on long car rides. Just make sure they’re watching with earphones so the journey can be chipmunk-free for the driver.

So feel free to stuff your little nipper’s stocking with the version that includes the Blu-Ray, DVD and digital copy. Whilst Alvin and his chipmunks yearn for a Christmas that does not come late, the rest of us can yearn for a Christmas that comes as early as possible and dissipates as quickly so that life, in all its splendour, can move on.

And maybe, just maybe, with the kids plugged into iPods, it can be a peaceful Christmas for all.

And to all, a goodnight.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **½ Two and a half stars

Alvin and the Chipmunks is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

TARAS BULBA (1962) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - In honour of the Ukrainian opposition and revolutionary forces' recent victory in Ukraine's fight for independence from Yanukovich, Putin and Russia, The Film Corner is proud to present Greg Klymkiw's review of J. Lee Thompson's magnificent 1962 epic film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's great book "Taras Bulba" starring Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis.

Taras Bulba (1962) *****
dir. J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Yul Brynner, Tony Curtis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

“Do not put your faith in a Pole.
Put your faith in your sword and your sword in the Pole!”

Thus spake Taras Bulba – Cossack Chief!
(As played in 1962 by Yul Brynner, ‘natch!)

These days, there are so few truly momentous events for lovers of fine cinema and, frankly, even fewer such momentous events for those of the Ukrainian persuasion. However, film lovers and Ukrainians both have something to celebrate. Especially Ukrainians.

The recent events in Ukraine involving the revolution against Russia are indicative of the events celebrated in the Fox/MGM DVD release of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s Taras Bulba is (and will be), without question, as momentous an occasion in the lives of Ukrainians the world over as the execution of Saddam Hussein must have been to the entire Bush family of Texas.

As a pig-fat-eating Cossack-lover, I recall my own virgin helping (at the ripe age of four) of Taras Bulba with my family at the late lamented North Main Drive-Inn Theatre in the sleepy winter city of Winnipeg. Being situated in the ‘Peg’s North End (on the decidedly wrong side of the tracks), everyone of the Ukrainian persuasion was crammed into this drive-inn theatre when Taras Bulba unspooled there for the first time.

A veritable zabava-like atmosphere overtook this huge lot of gravel and speaker posts. (A zabava is a party where Ukrainians place a passionate emphasis on drinking, dining and dancing until they all puke.) Men wore their scalp locks proudly whilst women paraded their braided-hair saucily. Children brandished their plastic sabers pretending to butcher marauding Russians, Turks, Mongols and, of course, as per Gogol's great book, Poles.

Those adults of the superior sex wore baggy pants (held up proudly by the brightly coloured pois) and red boots whilst the weaker sex sported ornately patterned dresses and multi-coloured ribbons in their braided hair.

All were smartly adorned in embroidered white shirts.

Enormous chubs of kovbassa and kishka (all prepared with the finest fat, innards and blood of swine) along with Viking-hefty jugs of home-brew were passed around with wild abandon. Hunchbacked old Babas boiled cabbage-filled varenyky (perogies) over open fires and slopped them straight from the vats of scalding hot water into the slavering mouths of those who required a bit of roughage to go with their swine and rotgut. I fondly recall one of my aunties doling out huge loaves of dark rye bread with vats of salo (salted pig-fat and garlic) and studynets (jellied boiled head of pig with garlic) and pickled eggs for those who had already dined at home and required a mere appetizer.

One might say, it was a carnival-like atmosphere, or, if you will, a true Cossack-style chow-down and juice-up.

However, when the lights above the huge silver screen dimmed, the venerable North Main Drive-Inn Theatre transformed reverently into something resembling the hallowed Saint Vladimir and Olga Cathedral during a Stations of the Cross procession or a panachyda (deferential song/dirge/prayers for the dead) at Korban's Funeral Chapel.

Everyone sat quietly in their cars and glued their Ukrainian eyeballs to the screen as Franz Waxman’s exquisitely romantic and alternately boisterous musical score (rooted firmly in the tradition of Ukrainian folk music) thundered over the opening credits which were emblazoned upon a variety of Technicolor tapestries depicting stars Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis in the garb of Ukraine’s mighty warriors of the steppes.

This screening and the overwhelming feelings infused in those who were there could only be described as an epiphany. Like me (and ultimately, my kind), I can only assume there wasn’t a single Ukrainian alive who didn’t then seek each and every opportunity after their respective virgin screenings to partake – again and again and yet again – in the staggering and overwhelming cinematic splendour that is – and can only be – Taras Bulba.

All this having been said, barbaric garlic-sausage-eating Ukrainian heathen are not the only people who can enjoy this movie. Anyone – and I mean ANYONE – who loves a rousing, astoundingly entertaining, old-fashioned and action-packed costume epic will positively delight in this work of magnificence.

The source material for this terrific picture is the short novel Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol, a young Ukrainian writer of Cossack stock who is often considered the father of Russian fiction. He was a contemporary of Pushkin and the two of them were both friends and leaders of the Russian literary scene in St. Petersburg over 150 years ago. Prior to writing Taras Bulba, Gogol (this is the popular Russified version of his name which, in the original Ukrainian would actually be Hohol) dabbled in narrative poetry, held some teaching positions and worked in the Russian bureaucracy.

Gogol’s early fictional works were short satirical stories steeped in the rural roots of his Ukrainian Cossack background. Evenings On A Farm Near The Village of Dykanka (Vechera Na Khutore Blyz Dykanky) was full of magic and folklore in the rustic, yet somewhat mystical world of simple peasants and Cossacks. The material is, even today, refreshing – sardonically funny, yet oddly sentimental. It even made for an excellent cinematic adaptation in Alexander Rou’s early 60s feature made at the famed Gorky Studios and a recent Ukrainian television remake starring the gorgeous pop idol Ani Lorak. Gogol’s vivid characters, sense of humour and attention to realistic detail all added up to supreme suitability for the big screen.

Taras Bulba is no different. The material is made for motion pictures. Alas, several unsatisfying versions pre-dated this 1962 rendering. Luckily, this version is the one that counts thanks to the team of legendary producer Harold Hecht (Marty, The Crimson Pirate and Sweet Smell of Success in addition to being Burt Lancaster’s producing partner), stalwart crime and action director J. Lee Thompson (Cape Fear, The Guns of Navarone) and screenwriters Waldo Salt (who would go on to write Midnight Cowboy, Serpico and Coming Home) and the veteran Karl Tunberg (Ben-Hur, Down Argentine Way, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and fifty or so other scripts).

This, then, was the dream team who were finally able to put Gogol’s Taras Bulba on the silver screen where it ultimately belongs.

For Gogol, Taras Bulba (in spite of the aforementioned literary qualities attributable to his rural stories) took a decidedly different turn than anything that preceded it or followed it in his career as a writer. Bulba sprang, not only from Gogol’s Cossack roots and familiarity with the dumy (songs and ballads of the Cossacks), but interestingly enough, he was greatly inspired by the great Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, of whom he was a big fan.

This, of course, makes perfect sense since Scott’s swashbuckling adventures often dealt with Scottish pride and history at odds with the ruling powers of England. And so too with Taras Bulba.

The film (while deviating slightly from the book) maintains much of the structure, characters and spirit of Gogol’s work. It tells the story of Cossack chieftain Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner) and his desire to make Ukraine free from the oppression of the ruling nation of Poland. Though the Poles subjugate Ukraine, the Cossacks are willing (for a price and booty) to fight alongside the Poles against Turkish invaders. In addition to the pecuniary rewards, the Cossacks also get to use the Poles to help fight one of their enemies. When it comes to paying allegiance to the Poles, Taras steadfastly refuses to do this and, after committing a violent act against one of the Polish generals, the Cossacks all scatter into the hills to regroup and prepare for a time when they can go to war again – but this time, against the Poles.

Secured in their respective mountain hideaways, the Cossacks bide their time. Taras raises two fine and strapping young sons, Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Ostap (Perry Lopez). He sends his boys to Kyiv (the Russified spelling is “Kiev”) to study at the Polish Academy. The Poles wish to tame the Ukrainians, so they offer to educate them. Taras, on the other hand, orders his sons that they must study in order to learn everything they can about the Poles so that someday they can join him in battle against the Poles. At the Polish Academy, the young men learn that Poles are vicious racists who despise Ukrainians and on numerous occasions, both of them are whipped and beaten mercilessly – especially Andrei (because the Dean of the Academy believes Andrei has the greatest possibility of turning Polish and shedding his “barbaric” Ukrainian ways). A hint of Andrei’s turncoat-potential comes when he falls madly in love with Natalia (Christine Kaufmann) a Polish Nobleman’s daughter. When the Poles find out that Andrei has deflowered Natalia, they attempt to castrate him. Luckily, Andrei and Ostap hightail it back to the mountains in time to avoid this unfortunate extrication.

Even more miraculously, the Cossacks have been asked by the Poles to join them in a Holy War against the infidel in the Middle East. Taras has other plans. He joins all the Cossacks together and they march against the Poles rather than with them. The battle comes to a head when the Cossacks have surrounded the Poles in the walled city of Dubno. Taras gets the evil idea to simply let the Poles starve to death rather than charge the city. Soon, Dubno is wracked with starvation, cannibalism and the plague. Andrei, fearing for his Polish lover Natalia secretly enters the city and is soon faced with a very tragic decision – join the Poles against the Cossacks or go back to his father and let Natalia die.

Thanks to a great script and superb direction, this movie really barrels along head first. The battle sequences are stunningly directed and it’s truly amazing to see fully costumed armies comprised of hundreds and even thousands of extras (rather than today’s CGI armies). The romance is suitably syrupy – accompanied by Vaseline smeared iris shots and the humour as robust and full-bodied as one would expect from a movie about Cossacks. Franz Waxman’s score is absolutely out of this world, especially the “Ride to Dubno” (AKA “Ride of the Cossacks”) theme. The music carries the movie with incredible force and power – so much so that even cinema composing God Bernard Herrmann jealously proclaimed it as “the score of a lifetime”.

The movie’s two central performances are outstanding. Though Jack Palance (an actual Ukrainian from Cossack stock) turned the role down, he was replaced with Yul Brynner who, with his Siberian looks and Slavic-Asian countenance seems now to be the only actor who could have played Taras Bulba. Tony Curtis also makes for a fine figure of a Cossack. This strapping leading man of Hungarian-Jewish stock attacks the role with the kind of boyish vigour that one also cannot imagine anyone else playing Andrei (though at one point, Burt Lancaster had considered taking the role for himself since it was his company through Hecht that developed the property). The supporting roles are played by stalwart character actors like Sam Wanamaker as the one Cossack who gives Bulba some grief about fighting the Poles and George MacCready as the evil Polish rival of the Cossacks. Perry Lopez as Ostap is so obviously Latin that he seems a bit uncomfortable in the role of Ostap and Christine Kaufmann as Natalia is not much of an actress, but she’s so stunningly gorgeous that one can see why Curtis cheated on Janet Leigh and had a torrid open affair with Kaufmann during the shoot.

Taras Bulba is one stirring epic adventure picture. And yes, one wishes it took the darker paths that the original book ventured down, but it still manages to have a dollop of tragedy wending its way through this tale of warring fathers and their disobedient sons. And yes, as a Ukrainian, I do wish all the great Cossack songs had NOT been translated into English – especially since Yul Brynner would have been more than up to singing them in the original language. But these are minor quibbles. It’s a first rate, old-fashioned studio epic – big, sprawling, brawling and beautiful.

It’s definitely the cinematic equivalent of one fine coil of garlic sausage. So rip off a chub or two and slurp back the glory of Ukraine.

Taras Bulba is available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber.

SPELLBOUND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Zaniest Collaboration Twixt Alfred Hitchcock, David O. Selznick and, for good measure, Ace Screenwriter Ben Hecht, Genius Production Designer William Cameron Menzies, Floridly Overwrought Composer Miklos Rozsa and the biggest WTF in movie history, Salvador Dali.

Spellbound (1945) *****
dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck,
Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, Michael Chekhov

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Of the four official collaborations between producer David O. Selznick and director Alfred Hitchcock, I've always considered The Paradine Case the worst, Notorious the most romantic, Rebecca the best and Spellbound the most utterly insane. The latter description of the latter film is entirely appropriate since it's a murder mystery set in an asylum wherein psychoanalysis is utilized to discover deep meaning in a recurring dream (designed, no less, by surrealist Salvador Dali) in order to find out exactly whodunit.

If this isn't insane, then I don't know what is.

Spellbound also has the distinction of being wildly, deliciously melodramatic, almost crazily romantic and when it needs to be, thanks to the genius of the Master himself, nail-bitingly suspenseful.

Selznick was responsible for bringing Hitchcock to America and signing him to a longterm talent contract. For much of their association, Hitchcock was lent out to other studios, which suited him just fine as he was able to do his own thing without having to tolerate (what Hitchcock perceived to be) the constant interference of the famous auteur producer of Gone With The Wind. Of the four aforementioned collaborations, Notorious was eventually sold outright to RKO in the midst of production while the other three proved to be one of the most dynamic producer-director battlefields in movie history.

Hitchcock and Selznick detested each other. Hitch thought of Selznick as a meddling vulgarian whilst Selznick viewed the portly Brit as a mad genius who needed his sure and steady hand (or psychoanalysis, if you will).

The Chilly Ice Goddess Must Melt.

To this day, Rebecca, a virtually flawless film that more than ably sets the stage for Hitchcock's extremely mature latter work (notably Rear Window and Vertigo) is casually (and sadly) dismissed by the Master of Suspense in the famous interviews with Francois Truffaut as not really being "a Hitchcock film", but rather, "a David O. Selznick film". In many ways, it seems to me that Spellbound might well have been the most ideal collaboration between the two men. Selznick wanted desperately to make a film that extolled the virtues of psychoanalysis (which he felt had been an enormous help to himself - though there appears to be no proof he ever really "got better" as Selznick's maniacal megalomania followed him to the grave). Hitchcock wanted to make a great suspense film and was certainly drawn to the notion of psychoanalysis being used to unravel a mystery.

Add to this mix, the magnificent talent of Hollywood's best screenwriter Ben Hecht (The Twentieth Century, Nothing Sacred, Gunga Din, The Front Page, Scarface and among many others, Wuthering Heights) and Salvador Dali to design the dream sequences and you've got a picture that guaranteed success. (And yes, it was a multi-Oscar-nominee/winner, though not for Hitch, and a huge hit at the box office.)

Hitchcock, purportedly refused to have anything to do with Dali's dream sequences (other than adhering to their imagery as scripted for purposes of the plot) and they were ultimately directed by the ace production designer/director William Cameron Menzies (Gone With The Wind, Things to Come). The hearty cinematic stew that is Spellbound also features a most flavourful ingredient, a great over-the-top score by the legendary Miklos Rozsa - replete with plenty o' theremin usage. Gotta love the theremin!

NYMPHOMANIAC - Hubba Hubba!

What this ultimately yielded was a wonky, intense, romantic and thoroughly engaging murder mystery wherein the director of an asylum in Vermont, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll), is being forced into an early retirement to make way for a younger, more vibrant head head-shrinker Dr. Anthony Edwardes (the handsome, sexy, stalwart Gregory Peck). The asylum's ace psychoanalyst, Dr. Constance Peterson (the mouth-wateringly gorgeous Ingrid Bergman) is so committed to her work, that most of her colleagues view her as an impenetrable Ice Goddess.

This chilly demeanour, however, stands her in good stead in the results department and she's probably the only person who can adequately handle the asylum's most over-the-top nymphomaniac (Rhonda - "hubba hubba" - Fleming).

But even ice is susceptible to eventually melting and soon, Constance gets definitely hot and bothered and drippingly wet as she succumbs to the rugged, manly charms of Dr. Edwardes. Even more tempting is that on the surface, this stiff rod of manhood is the sort of gentle pansy-boy Constance needs.

Deep down, he is sensitive and most importantly, he is… wait for it - in pain.

Yes, pain!

He needs a good woman for more than amorous attention, he needs her to PSYCHOANALYZE him. When it becomes plain he's not all he's cracked up to be and might, in fact, be a murderer and impostor, it's up to the head-over-heels healer of heads to solve the mystery lodged in Dr. Edwardes's mind.

This is all, of course handled with Hitchcock's trademark semi-expressionistic aplomb and untouchable knack for rendering suspense of the highest order. There isn't a single performance in the film that isn't spot-on (Leo G. Carroll is suitably and alternately sympathetic and malevolent, whilst Peck acquits himself admirably as the troubled leading man), but it's Ingrid Bergman who really carries the picture. Her transformation from Ice Queen to a sex-drenched psychiatrist with a delightful blend of matronly and whorish qualities is phenomenal. She's mother, lover and doctor - all rolled into one magnificent package. And she's never looked more beautiful. Selznick knew this better than anyone and Hitchcock himself knew all too well how to compose and light for beauty.

In one of Selznick's delightful memos from when he first brought Ingrid Bergman to America he wrote:

"...the difference between a great photographic beauty and an ordinary girl with Miss Bergman lies in proper photography of her – and that this in turn depends not simply on avoiding the bad side of her face; keeping her head down as much as possible; giving her the proper hairdress, giving her the proper mouth make-up, avoiding long shots, so as not to make her look too big, and, even more importantly, but for the same reason, avoiding low cameras on her...but most important of all, on shading her face and invariably going for effect lightings on her."

Damn!

They don't make movies like this anymore! And, sadly, they don't make producers like Selznick anymore.

Some things, however, never change. How Ingrid Bergman was nominated the same year for an Oscar for her luminous, but limp-in-comparison performance in The Bells of St. Mary's over Spellbound is yet another mystery of the Oscars we all must put up with.

Not to put too fine a point on it - but, I must - Spellbound is, indeed, spellbinding and it's easily one of the great pictures by both Masters - Selznick and Hitchcock.

"Spellbound" is now available on Blu-Ray via 20th Century Fox/MGM. The copious extras are a mixed bag. A commentary with film historians Thomas Schatz and Charles Ramirez Berg is a real disappointment compared to the great Marian Keane commentary on the Criterion DVD. These guys are all over the place with spotty info and critical analysis bordering on the, shall we be charitable and say, rudimentary. There are a series of docs including one on the film's place as the first to deal with psychoanalysis, a backgrounder on the Salvador Dali sequences, a cool interview with Hitchcock conducted by Peter Bogdanovich and a really delightful doc on Rhonda Fleming. There's a Lux Radio play version of the movie with Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli and a trailer. The movie looks wonderful on Blu-ray, but I have to admit to preferring the care taken with the Criterion DVD transfer which ultimately has a better grain structure and seems closer to 35mm without all the over-crisp qualities that high definition adds/detracts when it comes to older films. I, of course, continue to be in the minority in this belief. That said, I am very happy with the few Hitchcock Blu-Rays that have been released to Blu-Ray. The transfers are impeccable and genuinely maintain the "film" look without too much digital interference (of the aesthetic kind).

SOUTH PACIFIC - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of the GREAT movie musicals of all time !!!

South Pacific (1958) ****
dir. Joshua Logan
Starring: Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi,
Ray Walston, Juanita Hall, John Kerr, Tom Laughlin, France Nuyen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

South Pacific is a great movie musical. Its detractors will have you believe it’s clunky, theatrical to a fault, hampered by poor casting choices and a waste of actual locations on the Hawaiian island of Kauai because of the aforementioned. It is none of those things.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite and I daresay it might well be one of the great movie musicals of all time and as thrilling and stunning a MOVIE musical as the best work of Vincente Minnelli, Rouben Mamoulian, Rene Clair and Busby Berkeley.

Based upon the huge Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II Broadway success (first launched onstage in 1949 and recently afforded a highly acclaimed remount) and in turn taken from James Michener’s bestselling “Tales of the South Pacific” (recounting his own experiences in the Eden-like setting of the title), South Pacific charts the love lives of several characters who find themselves in a paradise on Earth. The main love story involves a vivacious female Navy Ensign and nurse, Nelly Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor), who is stationed, along with hundreds of other military personnel on an American island during World War II in order to prepare for an offensive upon the Empire of the Rising Sun and to keep an eye on the nearby Japanese-controlled islands.

A local French landowner and man of mystery, Emile De Becque (Rossano Brazzi), is courted by the U.S. navy to assist them with gaining access to one of these islands, the enchanting Bali Ha’i. The island, bearing two volcanoes and a bevy of beauties (male and female) and fresh fruits (edible, I would argue, in more ways than one) acts as a magnet for all these sailors, but is, alas, off-limits to them.

When a Hawaiian Earth Mother named Bloody Mary (the brilliant Juanita Hall) beckoningly sings of the island’s virtues to the young Lt. Cable (John Kerr) he, not unlike the other American seamen and women, is drawn to the “special island [where] the sky meets the sea”. And of course, before you can sing “Cockeyed Optimist” (one of the immortal Rodgers-Hammerstein songs in this musical), love begins to blossom between Nelly and Emile as well as Lt. Cable and Bloody Mary’s gorgeous daughter Liat (France Nuyen).

Bring on the bare-chested hunks and grass-skirted babes, please.

Volcanoes were made for erupting, mais non?

And eruption of the most pleasurable kind is what happens to me whenever I see this musical. Aside from the fact that it’s a pretty agreeable narrative with great characters and terrific tunes, what really get my juices flowing are Joshua Logan’s stunning and brave visual choices as a director.

Logan gets a bad rap from most film critics. Originally a stage director (and yes, he mounted the original Broadway production of South Pacific), Logan is often criticized for not using the medium of film in a “cinematic” fashion and that his attempts to do so are mistakenly labeled as clunky.

Here’s where I really have to disagree with my colleagues on the matter. In fact, the knee-jerk negative reaction to utilizing a proscenium-styled frame in film adaptations always gets this fella’s yarbles in a wringer. I love the use of proscenium, the tableaux approach if you will, as much as I love the dipping, whirling shots of Mamoulian and Clair, the kaleidoscopic, only-in-a-film stylings of Berkeley, the stunning splashes of colour in Minnelli (and most of the pictures out of Arthur Freed’s unit at MGM). The proscenium is only wrong if it’s done without passion and imagination. That’s not Logan’s problem at all.

Using the stunning 65-millimeter TODD-AO widescreen process he manages to create one of the strangest and I daresay imaginative visual hybrids ever created for a motion picture. Perhaps it’s the hybrid effect that stymies critics, but for many viewers, myself obviously included, the effect is always a treat – more so because it is rooted in the emotion of the narrative, the characters and the truly magical settings.

First of all, you get the intense clarity of the huge 65mm negative that delivers a truly widescreen image without anamorphic compression. Shooting on location, one gets all the real-thing backdrops instead of theatrical backdrops or, for that matter, the studio-bound backdrops of other musicals. Then, utilizing a variety of coloured filters, Logan brings movie magic to the proceedings wherein we can feel the filmmaker’s hand applying a wash of colour to transport us to a realm of Never-Never-Land so that we ALWAYS feel we’re watching a movie, and most importantly, a world within the movie that feels like a world unto itself. Blending this with stationary chorus line compositions, we get to see the beauty of the choreography and enjoy the various bits of business without a barrage of cuts and cutaways that purportedly move us emotionally through the action using a variety of shots at different lengths.

We get to experience all the action in as pure a form as the dance numbers in the RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals. Logan lets the action occur WITHIN his frames. He uses theatrical convention as one piece of his extremely rich visual palette. Logan makes us feel like we’re watching something we’ve NEVER seen before. Ultimately though, we have. By distorting the reality of the on-location settings with both cinematic and theatrical techniques, Logan ventures boldly into the world of expressionism that, frankly, feels perfectly apt for a tale that examines love and magic against the backdrop of war.

This directorial decision is a stunner. Then again, for anyone who loves Logan, it makes perfect sense. His occasional forays into the world of movies almost always yielded strange, uncompromising work. Picnic, his film adaptation of William Inge’s play still has the power to move and provoke while Bus Stop, also from Inge, is as funny and heartbreaking as any of Marilyn Monroe’s great work and Sayonara, a straight-ahead examination of American-Japanese relations and racism taken from writing by James Michener is one of the great dramas on these themes. Even his tremendous flop, Paint Your Wagon, is not without the expressionistic qualities of his best work – the mere thought of juxtaposing Harve Presnell’s outstanding vocal rendition of “They Call The Wind Maria” and Clint (I kid you not!) Eastwood half-singing, half-whispering, semi-rasping out “I Talk To The Tress” delivers the kind of satisfying gooseflesh very few movies are capable of.

The Blu-Ray release of “South Pacific” is a mixed bag. It features both the theatrical and Roadshow versions of the picture. Alas, the Roadshow version is presented from a solid, but definitely standard definition transfer – which is a real shame, since it adds footage that is not in any way, shape or form extraneous. That said, the shorter theatrical version is still a mind-blower and to see it in a high definition transfer is to experience a lifetime of orgasmic pleasure in one huge dollop. Also, the extra-features – including a terrific feature length documentary – are magnificent supplementary materials to an already magnificent motion picture. “South Pacific” is available in a special Blu-Ray release on the 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment label.

CHARLIE CHAN'S MURDER CRUISE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Old Chan Magic Blends Humour with Darker Tone

Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940) ***
dir. Eugene Forde
Starring: Sidney Toler, Sen Yung, Lionel Atwill, Leo G. Carroll and Cora Witherspoon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Most years saw 20th Century Fox releasing three feature-length Charlie Chan mysteries annually. After several pictures with Warner Oland in the role of the famous Honolulu-based Asian detective created by Erle Derr Biggers, the torch was passed to character actor Sidney Toler after Oland’s death. Toler acquitted himself magnificently and by the year 1940, he had created – what some might argue – the definitive Charlie Chan. Most importantly, Fox, as the studio generating the series, were able to keep the creative juice going so that the films, in many cases, got better and better.

By 1940, rather than succumbing to the usual law of diminishing returns, the Chan series saw three of the best released all in the same year.

Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise is as entertaining and engaging a Chan picture as one could imagine. Directed by one of Fox’s prolific B-and-small-A-picture stalwarts, Eugene Forde, the movie opens with the grisly strangulation of Chan’s best friend Duff, a Scotland Yard inspector who meets his fate in Chan’s office no less. Duff has been investigating a murder amongst a group of passengers on a round-the-world cruise. Chan joins the tour for its final journey from Honolulu to San Francisco where, in typical fashion, he not only solves the murder, but also in so doing, avenges his friend’s death.

The tale is a tad familiar (beyond the successful Chan formula) as the picture borrows a very significant item from Charlie Chan in Paris. It is also, most notably a remake of the earlier Warner Oland Chan vehicle Charlie Chan Carries On (one of the lost Chan pictures that hopefully will one day turn up) and both the original and the remake are based upon the hard-boiled Biggers novel. A Spanish-language version filmed simultaneously with the Oland version, entitled Eran Trece remains extant and can be seen on Volume One of the Fox Charlie Chan DVD series. Murder Cruise is, possibly because of its relative adherence to the Biggers novel, reasonably hard-boiled. The murders are not only pretty intense and almost serial-killer-like, but the first on-screen murder includes the dead character possessing the killer’s curious calling card – thirty pieces of silver. This becomes a tale of both betrayal and retribution.

In spite of the darker tone, the film is still imbued with the wonderful sense of humour that became a hallmark of the Toler Chan pictures. Many of the laughs come from the delightful interplay between Chan and his Number Two Son, the bungling, wide-eyed, prat-falling Jimmy (the always delightful Sen Yung), but there’s also a magnificent comic turn from the daffy Cora Witherspoon as a scatterbrained socialite whose ludicrous, confused descriptions of various suspects raise more than a few eyebrows.

And as always, the Chan films would not be complete without a clutch of sinister supporting performances and Murder Cruise provides not one, not two, not three, but four such great actors. Claire Du Brey and Charles Middleton are on hand as an American Gothic-styled couple (resembling a cross between funeral home owners and bible thumpers). The great Leo G. Carroll appears as a seemingly benign archeologist and rounding things out is the astoundingly perverse Lionel Atwill (whom will forever be remembered as the wooden-armed inspector from Son of Frankenstein so gloriously parodied in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein). Atwill portrays the somewhat Franklin Pangborn-like cruise director. This, I assure you, must be seen to be believed.

Ultimately, though, like most of the Fox Chan pictures, Murder Cruise simply has to be seen.

“Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise” is available on DVD as part of Volume 5 of the Charlie Chan Cinema Classics Collection from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.