Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Best version ever!

I agree...best version of The Three Musketeers with an absolutely amazing cast. Even Raquel Welch was good.

Since I like trivia:
Queen Anna was played by Geraldine Chaplin - daughter of Charlie Chaplin. The real Anne of Austria was born in Spain and, being a member of the House of Habsburg, was actually Spanish royalty. Geraldine Chaplin married a Spaniard, and her daughter, Oona Chaplin, was born in Spain.

The movie was shot at the same time as its sequel The Four Musketeers released in 1974.

Planchet is played by Roy Kinnear - the filmmakers could not find a stunt double for Roy, so he did his own riding stunts in the first movie. Ironically he died as a result of a horse riding accident in 1988 while filming The Return of the Musketeer.

Originally conceived as a vehicle for The Beatles by veteran Beatle director Richard Lester. The filmmakers decided against this because they did not want the Beatles personalities overshadowing the characters.

Rochefort was played by Christopher Lee - who referred to himself as the best swordsman in Hollywood, and felt he held the record for most sword fights on film.

Porthos played by Frank Finlay actually played two parts: he also plays O'Reilly, the jeweler tasked by Buckingham to reproduce to two missing diamond studs. (Personal note: as much as I enjoyed Finlay's performance, I always felt he was miscast as Porthos, who classically was very large, gluttonous and overweight, while Finlay was physically short and slim in stature.)

Director: Otto Preminger
Writers: F. Hugh Herbert (screen play & stage play), F. Hugh Herbert
Cast: William Holden, David Niven, Maggie McNamara
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance

Banned in Boston! That's why Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicutt of M*A*S*H* decided to go to great lengths to get this movie for the 4077th. And that's why I watched this movie because I heard about it on the episode of M*A*S*H* "The Moon is Not Blue"...As Hawkeye and B.J. find out this wasn't as naught of movie as they hoped for. On the other hand it was really banned in Boston for being the first film to say the words: virgin, seduce and mistress. It does have a rather naughty theme, well at least for 1953.

Based on the stage play of the same name, director Otto Preminger serves up a very play like movie. The screen play is written by the stage playwright and that lends itself to feeling like you're watching a play. The Moon is Blue is very dialogue heavy and the sets are sparse, mostly taking place in just a few locations in a couple of apartments.


The cast is sparse too, mainly it's William Holden pictured on left, who's good in a lighter role. Holden plays one of two older bachelors. David Niven on the right side plays the other bachelor and he has some witty lines and livens up the film. In the middle is Maggie McNamara, who starred in the Chicago version of the stage play. This was her first movie and she really reminds me of a young Debbie Reynolds.

In fact everything about this movie reminds me of the Frank Sinatra movie, The Tender Trap (1955).

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I always preferred Robinsons as a bar.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

It's also my fav one

This is an immensely enjoyable comedy, with some of the biggest laughs going to David Niven. But it was Maggie McNamara who was adorable in her role as a "virtuous actress" who stole the film. She was doing "Audrey Hepburn" before Audrey did.. She followed this with a good performance in Three Coins in the Fountain the following year.

Sadly McNamara developed psychological problems, and faded away to eventually become a temp typist in NYC. She committed suicide at age 50. I wish we could have seen a lot more of her.

~Doc

She gave a very fine performance in The Moon is Blue. I especially liked her character in Three Coins in the Fountain. And that's all I've ever seen of her, she didn't make many feature films. I didn't know about the rest of her life, sad She seemed so vivacious in this movie too.

Director: Charles Chaplin
Writer: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie
Genre: Comedy Satire


I knew that Charlie Chaplin often took on social issues in the films he wrote, directed and starred in. But I had no idea that this film was so potent....all while being so funny.


The opening act, set in WWI was fun in a comical way. At that point I thought the movie would be just, fun prat falls, but then the film takes a serious turn after Hynkel rises to power as dictator of Tomania.

Chaplin the writer/director puts the viewer at ease with the simple WW1 scene. Then when we are off guard and expecting a fun little movie, Chaplin throws the seriousness of Nazism squarely in our faces. And that is something that was needed in America in 1939, as it was all too common to turn a blind eye to what Hitler was doing in Europe at the time.

Hollywood itself at the time refused to make films that took a stand against the rising threat of fascism. In the years before WWII Louis B. Mayer head of MGM studios actually conferred with the Nazi Consulate, showing them films and agreeing to remove scenes that the Nazi's found objectionable....all so MGM could sell the movie rights to Germany. I mention that to show what kind of personal courage Charlie Chaplin had to make The Great Dictator, a film he paid himself to have made, as no studio would finance him.


I wasn't prepared myself for how serious the film is. Amid the antics of Chaplin, we see the fate of the German Jews who are being targeted by the Storm Troopers. Even more ominous than the action scenes are the 'quieter' speeches, that speak volumes of the real horrors to come:

I was chilled to the bone when Henry Daniell as Garbitsch (based on Joseph Goebbels) tells the Dictator...."We've just discovered
the most wonderful poison gas. It will kill everybody..."

I mean wow, talk about a prophetic script. The movie pulls no punches, it clearly lays out Hynkel/Hitlers evil plans:

We'll invade Osterlich(Austria) first.
After that we can bluff.
The nations will capitulate.
The world will be under your thumb

Chaplin tried to warn the world of the threat at hand, but America was complacent until after Pearl Harbor. Chaplin's effort alone makes this the most important movie in this Hof and one, if not the most important movie I've seen.

What touched me most was the speech at the end of the film given by the Jewish Barber, who's been mistaken for Hynkel the Dictator. As I looked at Chaplin's face and listened to the words he had wrote, I realized I wasn't watching a character in the movie anymore...I was hearing Charles Chaplin's own plead to the world to stop the madness and embrace humanity and kindness.

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This review gets 5 stars, too.

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@Citizen Rules, I need to think of an older film for you to watch.. I haven't suggested something to you in a long time.

Cool. Did you see The Lost City of Z? if so what did you think of it?

No I havent seen it yet.. I have to many things I want to do and want to see.. I dont have all the time I need.

It is on my watchlist on Letterboxd

Love the Dictator review CR. Well done.

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Letterboxd

Director: Stephen Frears
Writers: Lee Hall (screenplay), Shrabani Basu (book)
Cast: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Pigott-Smith
Genre: Biography, Drama, History

About: Set in 1887, the elderly Queen Victoria and her unlikely friendship/infatuation with a much younger clerk from India, Abdul Karim. Initially Abdul travels to England to present a small gold coin medallion from India to the Queen for her Silver Jubilee. Much to everyone's surprise the Queen takes a real shining to Abdul and makes him her personal spiritual teacher a Munshi.

Judi Dench made a good, older Queen Victoria, she was quite cranky which I could image the real Queen was like in her later years. This is based on a true story and one that was not well known until a journalist visited the Queen's summer home in 2003 and uncovered some writings by the Queen that told of this unique relationship that proved to be very scandalous in it's time.


This 2017 British movie is done as a biographical comedy-drama, so the general feeling is light, which I found enjoyable as it fit the film's motif. It was certainly beautiful filmed with gorgeous sets and costumes, just a joy to look at. The actor who played Abdul (Ali Fazal) did a fine job of not over playing it which easily could have been a problem. I liked him, and Judi Dench too.

Truth it seems is indeed stranger than fiction.

+

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The Great Dictator was one of the films they had us watch in Art School (first time I saw it).

I'll just link the trivia for this film... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/trivia

My own addition is that Chaplin and Hitler were born the same year, same month, and same week. (It's almost as if they were born philosophical arch enemies!)

That's a film that can make me melancholy, and yet it's funny too. I really have to explore Chaplin's films, I've only seen a few but liked what I've seen.

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: Gerard Soeteman (screenplay), Gerard Soeteman (story)
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson
Genre: Adventure, Drama

Ugh, this was silly....Sorry to say that, but I have to call it, like I see it...and there wasn't much to see here! Or wait a minute! there's a lot to see her if debauchery is what you're after. The movie is ripe with tawdriness and blood letting and all sorts of medieval naughtiness.

I kept waiting for the movie to get interesting and I thought at some point the movie would have a point, but nope! it never did. It had only the vaguest idea for a theme...and the acting was pretty bad too.

Jennifer Jason Leigh who I use to like, was just out right bad in this, and so was her prince boyfriend. What a dunce character he was. But nobody was as annoying as the pregnant red hair lady, ugh, I hated her. I suppose the best of the bunch was Rutger Hauer who leads the merry ban of mutinous crew.

This kind of movie could have used some dry humor or clever wit, it had neither and it needed something. The only good thing I can say is, I wasn't bored, but I wasn't entertained and I certainly wasn't engaged.

I remember liking this... BUT, I caught it somewhere in the middle at a friend's house (and he probably had his bong loaded up for company!)
I remember being shocked that somebody was catapulting plague-ridden raw meat into somebody else's fortress... and thought that was "so cool!"