Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)

Morton: Not bad. Congratulations. Tell me, was it necessary that you kill all of them? I only told you to scare them.

Frank: People scare better when they're dying.

When it comes to Westerns the first person that most probably comes to mind is either John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, and no I’m not referring to the Michael J. Fox’s version of Eastwood in Back to the Future III!  Again if someone was to mention Director’s in the Western genre it would likely come down to John Ford or Sergio Leone.  These four names go virtually hand in hand with this genre and have produced a string of hits.  This time however the only name in the list that is associated with this film is Sergio Leone who had a huge hit on his hands with Clint Eastwood in the Dollar Trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the most famous of them all The Good The Bad and The Ugly.  Once Upon a Time in the West is the start of what would end up being another trilogy with the remaining two being Duck, You Sucker (aka A Fistful of Dynamite) and Once Upon a Time in America which is not a Western but more of a 20’s gangster movie.

In this film we have a wonderful cast being Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Richards and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale.  Having a female as one of the main characters was a first for Sergio but it certainly paid off cause the four get on perfectly and complement each other.  For those who have seen these characters in other movies, I don’t want to spoil the surprise of who is who except to say that this is generally a story of revenge, land and life.  Jill (Claudia Cardinale) comes out to the West by train to meet her husband but finds out that everything has suddenly taken a turn for the worst. At a similar time, one of the male characters (sorry…no spoilers!) also arrives on a train but meets up with some nasty characters who don’t really like him, another escapes from custody and tries to cause a bit of trouble and finally the third character is working for the boss of the railway who wants land to continue laying the tracks.  Naturally the paths of these four cross several times and unfold a fantastic story of the West.  This would truly be in the top 10 best Westerns of all time.  

The music score is done by Ennio Morricone who has done a range of fantastic hits like the The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Battle of the Algiers (a fantastic war movie), the superb Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Untouchables and more recently The Hateful Eight.  I cannot rave more about the soundtrack, it’s just absolutely brilliant and it really suits the style of film and it’s setting.

Perhaps I haven’t said enough about this film and to be honest I’m one of those people who really dislikes ruining the story for others so my description is usually kept to a minimum, but this is one that should be on your “Must See” list.

The Bluray used for this review is available locally and can be bought for less than $15 and is well worth the purchase.  The image quality is fantastic for a 60’s film and the only lack of sharpness that I can see is due to the original film elements (focusing is off etc), the sound is presented in DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 which is also fantastic with clear dialogue.  The following extras are also included on the single disc:

• Audio Commentary
• Four featurettes about the film
• A “then and now” locations feature
• Production Gallery
• Theatrical Trailer in HD.  

Overall an impressive package for a very impressive movie that comes very highly recommended.

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Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)

Larry Rayder:  You know what a man would do right now if he were smart?
Deke Sommers:  What?
Larry Rayder:  I don't know, I thought you'd know.

There comes a time in a guy’s life where he seeks a movie with some good car action in the form of a solid chase.  The car chase idea within movies has been around for a long time, but come 1968 a new level of realism was introduced with the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt where the engines were real, the tires really screeched and the drivers fought that steering wheel hard.  The chase only lasts about 7 minutes but its real, its gritty and it’s a blast.  You can almost feel those cars and drivers working hard as those black donuts squeal.  

Most of today’s car action in movies is (to quote a friend who now lives in the country) “pasteurised and homogenised”, meaning that it’s been faked or watered down.  A great example of this is the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds”.  We have the original 1974 (with its cheesy acting – but hey, it’s the car chase that matters!) and the 2000 remake with Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie.  The 2000 remake has a final chase lasts for about 9 minutes with a nice CGI car flying through the air at the climax of the chase whilst the original has a final chase lasting about 40 minutes, with no CGI (in fact the driver almost died in a nasty stack during filming).  Then there is The Fast and he Furious franchise, but hey we won’t go down that watery path.  A notable exception to this modern watered down car chase theory is The Bourne Identity from 2002 where the director wanted a real gritty feel to the chase and to be frank, he succeeded where many others in this modern time have failed.  

Yes, the 70’s in particular was a good era for car action films.  That decade gave us Smokey and the Bandit, Vanishing Point, Gone in 60 Seconds, The French Connection, The Seven-Ups, Mad Max and our movie today Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.

The movie itself isn’t really one you would call deep and meaningful when it comes to a story and character development but at its heart it’s a chase movie with realistic car action and that’s what really matters here.  It’s simply about a heist and the getaway that goes on afterward which consumes most of the movie.  

Larry (Peter Fonda) is ex NASCAR racer who teams up with Deke (Adam Roarke) his mechanic, to pull off a robbery at a local store however they get more than they bargained for when Mary (Susan George) decides to come along for the ride and of course the Police are hot on their tail.  The very interesting thing about the movie is that there was quite a bit of improvisation when it came to the script.  There wasn’t really much rehearsal because they were in a car at high speed often with the sound man in the boot.  There were also times when the Director, John Hough, was also in the back seat of the car filming whilst they were speeding along.  So what we have here is acting that is reflective of “on the edge” high speed driving with some stunts thrown in, so the anxious voices in some scenes, especially from Mary, is simply because they were travelling at high speed or were having another car ram into theirs.  You don’t get that these days, most probably for safety reasons and it often shows in modern movies.  But here people are almost run over, cars are on the edge and the climax of the chase scene involving a Helicopter is simply jaw-dropping especially when you consider the risks that were involved both to the car’s occupants and the Helicopter’s.

This film also made the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 440 popular in a similar way to how Vanishing Point made the 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 popular.  Yes, these classic 70’s movies could never be remade again the same sort of way and for that reason they will stay in the top 20 car chase films of all time, so stay tuned cause some more of these will be reviewed in time.  

The Bluray used for the review here is a dual layered double feature with the second movie being Race with the Devil (a good thriller also with good driving action involving a Winnebago).  The film, to my knowledge, is only available from the USA and currently brought out by the “SHOUT Factory”.  Its region free so it will work on Australian Bluray players and it’s also available in DVD form.  

The movie is shown in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio so it will fill up your widescreen tele and apart from a few scenes in lower light where it can appear a little washed out, the Bluray looks really good and the audio is in 2 Channel DTS HD Master which sounds clear.  There are also a few extras as listed below that are worthwhile.

• Audio Commentary with Director John Hough
• Ride the Wild Side – A 30 minute featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV and Radio Spots

Overall the movie gets a 4 out of 5 (taking into account the good car action) along with the same rating for the Bluray but only 3.5 for the image quality.  

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What's Up Doc? (1972)

What’s Up Doc? (1972)

   

After a long week at work or a busy weekend, a good laugh is often just what the doctor ordered and a good old screwball comedy fits the bill. These really kicked off during the depression era with most being made between 1931 and 1949 but there were however a few made later between the 50’s and 70’s and a handful or so up to 2016.  But our review for today is from 1972 and as one of the movie posters reveal, it was made like they used to be made.  There is even a car chase which consumed about 1 quarter of the movie’s budget just to film, so we have something for everyone.  A love story, great comedy and a top car-chase that also includes a sequence down Lombard Street in San Francisco (the crookedest street in the world)!  Does it get any better?

The Peter Bogdanovich directed movie starts off with the written one-liner “Once upon a time there was a plaid overnight case….” And then begins to set the scene where there are four of these plaid bags owned by different people each of them containing something of importance.  One bag is owned by Howard Banister (Ryan O’Neal) that contain his igneous tambula rocks.  He also has a very annoying fiancée Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn).  The second bag belongs to the rich Mrs Van Hoskins (Mabel Albertson) and is filled jewels.  The third bag is owned by a “Mr Smith” (Michael Murphy) and it contains top-secret government documents that he wishes to reveal to the world.  And finally the fourth bag is owned by Judy Maxwell (Barbara Streisand) which contains her personal belongings….and a dictionary.  Judy gets the hots for Howard, hotel staff want Mrs Van Hoskins jewels and another agent wants to get the top-secret documents back in the governments possession.  As you could imagine this is going to be a blast as bags get mixed up and identities get confused.  On top of this, Howard is a bit of a disorganised cluts who is often in a world of his own and Judy seems to be one of those people whose middle name is trouble!  So all up you have a movie that is bound to bring a good ol laugh to your day.

As mentioned above there is a car chase at the end which is really funny, extremely well done and original with the vehicles used.  Ryan O’Neal and Barbara Streisand are perfect in their roles and really could not get any better and in fact all the other characters are perfectly suited as well which combined with the great script makes for a wonderful movie.

The Bluray reviewed here was imported from USA through Amazon (as with virtually all Warner Bros. Bluray's it's region free so it can be played outside of USA without the need for a special multi region player) as the DVD or Bluray doesn’t appear to be readily available within Australia however there is a Barbara Steisand collection that contains two of her movies including this one so you may find it on eBay but it looks like the below however the quality of the image is unknown.

The image quality of the Bluray is sharp, clear and contrasty with little to complain about.  The audio is DTS HD Master Audio Mono and is clear and pop/crackle free.  The disc also has the following extra’s:

• Scene Specific commentary by Barbara Steisand
• Movie Commentary by the Director Peter Bogdanovich
• A featurette on Screwball Comedies
• Theatrical Trailer

I can’t recommend this movie enough and is a personal favourite of mine from even my younger years when I first saw it and would sit in my top ten comedies.  Overall it’s just a blast from the past with its classic screwball comedy, great actors and a fantastic car chase!  

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