Arabesque

(1966)
Directed by Stanley Donen
Written by Julien Mitchell & Stanley Price & Peter Stone, from a novel by Gordon Cotler.
Starring Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel
IMDB Entry

After the success of Charade, Stanley Donen decided to do something that is all-too-familiar these days: film a sequel. But it wasn’t that easy back in the 60s and after a script was written for him, he declined. Donen was going to give up on the project when he learned that both Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren had gotten a  script and wanted to film it.  The result was Arabesque.

Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck), an expert in hieroglyphics, is asked to translate a message that has been rendered into that ancient script as a cypher.  Pollock reluctantly takes the job at the behest of shipping magnate Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) and soon discovers that quite a few people are interested in the contents of that message. He also runs into Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), who, of course, he is attracted to. But they start to get into trouble as Pollock deciphers the message and finds himself caught in a web of intrigue.

Peck is no Cary Grant,* but handles himself well enough, and .Loren is a fine femme fatale. 

Donen didn’t really care for the script, so he tried to shoot it in interesting ways.  The result is visually inventive, though perhaps a little too much so. And I think that’s the big flaw of the film: everyone was trying to hard to be Charade (and Alfred Hitchcock).

Still the result is an entertaining spy spoof with plenty to recommend it.

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*Something he admitted to many a time while filming.  If you imagine Cary Grant saying his lines, you’ll find they are much better.

Lone Star

(1996)
Written and Directed by John Sayles
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Miriam Colon
IMDB Entry

John Sayles is one of America’s top independent filmmakers, especially in the 80s and 90s, when the wrote and directed a series of small films that focused on strong characters and unspectacular (though fascinating) situations. Lone Star was one of the best.

Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper)  is the county sheriff in a small town in Texas, following in the footsteps of his father Buddy (Mathew McConaughey). Sam had serious conflicts with his father and isn’t happy that the town is planning to name the courthouse for him. Buddy was universally regarded as a great man in town, who replaced the corrupt sheriff Charley Wade (Chris Kristofferson) after he disappeared with departmental funds.  Sam also reconnects with Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Pena), who he had been in love with, a union vehemently opposed by Buddy and Pilar’s mother Mercedes (Miriam Colon).

Things get complicated when a skeleton is found, leading to a long-ago murder that still affects the town today.  As Sam investigates, he begins to uncover the seedier side of life in the town.

The acting is excellent.  Cooper, of course, won an Oscar several years later and stands out as the cop with baggage who is trying to get to the truth in a town where people don’t want it discovered. Kristofferson is a spectacular presence as the swaggering and dangerous Wade and McConaughey is also memorable*.   Elizabeth Pena also makes a strong character and it’s kind of refreshing to see a love plot featuring who aren’t in their twenties.

Sayles is a tremendous screenwriter, and it shows here. All the characters are well-drawn and the story keeps surprising.  I especially liked the ending, which flies in the face of anything you might have expected.

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*Despite their prominence in the advertising, they are both relatively small roles. No doubt they took it to work with Sayles.

A Christmas Carol (TV)

(1971)
Directed by Richard Williams
Written by Charles Dickens
Starring Alastair Sim, Michael Redgrave, Michael Hordern
IMDB Entry
Full Movie on Youtube

A Christmas Carol has shown up on the screen more than practically any other film. I count 43 entries with that name alone, and there are plenty of movies that used the plot under a different name, not to mention countless TV versions. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when the great Chuck Jones was willing to produce* another version in 1971.

Two things make this stand out. Director Richard Williams used Ken Harris, a top animator for Warner Brothers, and who animated Jones’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas and gave him carte blanche. The result was a fantastically rich visual style that avoided completely any cartoony elements.  The people looked like people, the backgrounds like real places.

The second bit of genius was to cast Alastair Sim as Scrooge. Sim was the greatest of all Scrooges from his performance in the 1951 version of the story.**

I don’t have to tell you the story; it sticks pretty closely to Dickens’s original tale (and the 1951 version). But it has rarely been visualized so sumptuously. Michael Redgrave’s narration manages to keep the story going, though it has to be cut down quite a bit.

The version of the story was originally made for television, but was so well regarded that Williams decided to show it in theaters to make it eligible for the Oscar, which it won in 1973.***

Despite everything, though, the special did not make it into the Christmas Special canon. It is a fascinating adaptation with great visuals.

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*Jones didn’t direct, though.

**Michael Hordern also reprised his role as Marley.  

***The Academy didn’t like the idea of something made for TV winning the award and changed the rules to prevent it from happening again.