degatesjr

Kim Novak is of course terrific (she rarely phoned one in), and it's an interesting pre-star turn, meaning before PICNIC and VERTIGO, but the rest of the cast is pretty interesting, and particularly Brian Keith---Keith did a lot of 50's B-picture work that's worth watching, if you can find it. The real reason to see this picture is because it's a Phil Karlson. Karlson is one of those guys like Don Siegel, who came up in the studio system just before television. Early live TV produced people like Frankenheimer and Arthur Penn and Paddy Chayevsky, but there were already guys in the trenches like Siegel and Karlson, who got the chance to direct because they could do it quick and cheap, but make a picture look like it didn't come from Poverty Row. (See, for example, Clint Eastwood's PLAY MISTY FOR ME. Eastwood got his shot by rock-bottom budgeting, a lesson he might have learned from Siegel.) Karlson is due for a re-evaluation, along with, say, Budd Boetticher and Burt Kennedy. Siegel seems to be getting his due, not that he couldn't use an occasional boost. But watch this, and maybe THE PHENIX CITY STORY (not a misspelling), and tell me Karlson can't do it tense.

I submitted a comment about Seven Against the House, suggesting Phil Karlson was a director worth retrieving from the forgotten, but I should clarify that Gunman's Walk and Rampage are pretty bad, whereas The Brothers Rico and Hell to Eternity are pretty good; in fact, Hell to Eternity is a real eye-opener, for those of us who remain ignorant of the internment of the Japanese in the early days of World War Two. Guy Gabaldon was a real guy, and Jeff Hunter is actually convincing in the part. He was of course in the original Star Trek pilot and played second fiddle to Wayne in The Searchers, but has he ever really been your favorite male ingenue? (Okay, Temple Houston, but as far as I'm concerned, that was Jack Elam's show.)

This picture had a lot of buzz, and I went to it with more than a little goodwill. Ridley Scott has directed THE DUELLISTS, ALIEN, and BLADE RUNNER, among other pictures, and he has one of the best camera eyes in the business. The first 45 minutes or so are extraordinary, the snow in the German forest, a bunch of guys in leather skirts and bronze armor chopping each other up, flaming arrows flying into the trees, and the cinematography is to die for. You forgive the weak spots in the characterization, or the laborious way the plot points are laid in. But then it collapses of its own weight. It reminded me a little of John Boorman's EXCALIBUR, which was also way over the top, but in the end XCALIBUR's operatic qualities worked. GLADIATOR just ends up being preposterous. Russell Crowe doesn't embarrass himself, and Oliver Reed is terrific, but THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS it ain't. If you're going to make a costume picture, either pay attention to history and character, or do STAR WARS. GLADIATOR is good for guys between the ages of, say, eight and thirteen (and I'm not putting that audience down, either), but it's basically the same plot as FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. The hero gets mangled, and then he gets revenge. But Sergio Leone didn't put you to sleep between the fight scenes.