GeorgeSickler

Finally saw Oppenheimer today on TV, here in Mexico of all places. The actors were fine and well deserving of praise. And, it's an interesting story-line that goes far beyond the work developing the atom bomb.

But that seems to be about it. Well worth watching once, maybe just to see what all the fuss was about. At least watching on TV on a nice set, seemed it was hard to follow with too much emphasis on jumping color to B&W to color, flashbacks to present time, and the current problems sound engineers seem to have with mixing several separate sound tracks if voice, music, and separate tracks of background sounds. They're competing. And with the current trend for actors to just talk softly, it just seems to get buried and can't be salvaged in time for the movie's release.

Just seemed to me too much dialogue was lost because what the actors were trying to say softly in private moments, just couldn't be understood.

To be involved in this turkey, it just seems that Travolta, Lithgow, Franz, Nancy Allen, et. Al., must have needed cash for a balloon payment on their schooner, resort in Switzerland, Gulfstream jet, or something.

The plot just didn't make sense, nor did the reason for the assassination, the attitude of the police from the get-go, the reason for the cover-up as expressed by the victim's chief of staff, the "creation" of evidence by Travolta that was ironclad proof, and just the staging of scenes. Here's the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia just packed with people as it should. Until the bad guy shows up to do harm to a prostitute or Nancy. Suddenly, the hallways are empty of everyone except the two. There's no-one else in the Women's bathroom except the two, there's suddenly no-one else on the train landing but the two. Get real.

And then, to close, there's Allen and Lithgow with him dragging Nancy in a choke-hold up those isolated stairs and through the humongous groups of revelers to meet her doom. And nobody notices but Travolta, who is unable to rescue her and she dies.

And then Travolta uses her recorded, dying screams to FINALLY provide the badly needed dub for the actress's in the B-movie he's the sound man for.

Of, wow. I saw it for the first time today, around 40 years after it was made. This was soon enough. Never again.

Very little can be added to what has been written before, but this production just boils down to a total waste of time and talent. It seems as if there were absolutely no attention paid to the actual story or what would even seem reasonable when landing for the first time on an uncertain shore hundreds of years ago.

As just one example of a spoiler: here Christian, the evil Captain and the crew are landing on an uncertain shore just teaming with a silent mass-gathering of natives. The men are nervous and tentative, not knowing their fate. The music feeds that mood. The tension builds. And so on.

What's obviously wrong with this scenario is that the natives include women mixed in. Absolutely no tribe is going to go to battle without first putting the women in a safe place. Of course it turns out to be a friendly welcome. It's just something the writers and director didn't seem to take the time to figure something out that the viewers knew all along.

Read the book as a kid, and it was great. Or I thought so then. Just have to wonder if the movie were modified to satisfy the Navy for its cooperation?

Even in the movie, the ship was falling apart in the storm. Radar and radio wiped out. No communication with the fleet commander. A stack collapsed. The ship was dangerously rolling over and could go bottoms-up. The Captain refused to disobey orders in the fleet direction, even though he lost all communication and it was dangerous to continue in the same direction because he needs to reverse course to put the bow heading into the wind and waves, not to be slammed from behind. He was paralyzed in fear and wouldn't respond to frequent urging him to order instructions to correct the increasingly terribly dangerous rolling of the ship or even add seawater ballast to the hold.

And yet, none of this came up in Court Marshall testimony. Quite the opposite. The Captain had to fall apart under his responses under testimony. Which I recall he did in the book. But maybe the Navy needed to save face for the movie with the other dialogue.

What a delightful look at vaudeville from the 1920s. With great actors, songs and skits. And Britt!!!! Sorry that Bert didn't make it through; he could have contributed so much more. BTW, just as Kelly McGuiness (sp) in Witness, Amish gals didn't shave their legs. Or under their arms. Lived in New Holland, Pa, for a dozen years, in the heart of Amish country.

Just another Hitchcock disappointment: over- and-stilted acting, sloppy direction, and plot development that doesn't make sense or is predictable.

Just among the many, as has been typical for others in this series, it takes people seemingly forever to stop denying the obvious. The farmer's house being ransacked but nothing stolen, dead birds smashed on the floors and and against the windows, and he's hacked to death, eyes eaten, etc. And the police, and others keep saying "well, maybe this, maybe that, but birds don't do this!"

Hundreds of birds flying down the chimney and attacking everybody at the outset in Rod Taylor's home. Well, maybe they were provoked. Maybe they were attracted by the light. Birds don't attack people.

Or the schoolhouse episode where the adults, with hundreds and hundreds of birds gathering outside, decide evacuate the safe building to have the kids run into town a short distance away. The kids are attacked, they're screaming, they're running down Main Street. They're getting bloody.

Next scene is inside the cafe right in town. Nobody noticed it; everyone is in denial that it happened, and suddenly this bird lady expert shows up there to buy cigarettes to insist that birds harm no-one, they don't have the brains to organize a coordinated attack, they're harmless and what's being claimed is repeatedly false. She says that emphatically because she's an expert. More denial.

Ugh! And then the gas pump scene where a man pumping gas for his car is attacked by a bird, he falls to the ground, and the nozzle - instead of automatic shut-off that WAS standard back then, has fallen and is still flooding the ground with loads of gasoline.

And, of course, what happens next? Another car just pulls up but not at a pump, away from the island. But, of course, his car is stopped over the river of gasoline. He gets out, and sure enough, he pulls out a cigar and matches to light it. Apparently, he never smelled gasoline before. The folks inside the cafe see what he's about to do, open a window to yell to stop. Of course, startled, he drops the match and everything explodes.

Ohhhh, what's next. Well it just goes on.

Back at Rod's home, the birds are attacking, and actually beginning to peck through the wood doors and boards over the windows. It's really looking bleak. They're doomed!

But then, it gets quite outside again. They've regrouped, as usual, and preparing for their next attack, as they do.

So it's all quite inside. Then Tippi Heddren is all by herself in the living room for some bizarre reason. And she hears "funny noises" somewhere upstairs. So she decides to investigate all by herself, slowly climbs the stairs, finds a closed door with the sounds behind it - that happen to sound just like birds.

So, what does she do? Of course! She slowly enters the room to investigate. Sure enough, she's attacked by hundreds of killer birds. Plenty if blood. She finally collapses and is gonna die!

But, of course, she's saved at the last minute. But she's in total shock. Rod decides they all need to evacuate and get Tippi to a hospital in San Francisco. In spite of how Tippi was attacked during the "quite period" upstairs, he decides to slowly and slowly safely walk through the many hundreds of birds resting just outside, get the car, they all get away, and the scene fades as the car drives away. Which he successfully did; no real problems except for a few pecks to excite the audience.

With no conclusion about anything. Does he get the girl? Does she even survive? What resolved the birds overtaking the world? Or did they?

The movie gets high marks for the plot, actors, direction, etc., but kinda tanked at the very end.

So, Sister Sarah is actually the best darn hooker in disguise for a noble purpose. Clint takes her on as just that but has the hots for her if she weren't, but behaves himself. All goes well, Sarah finally reveals herself by putting on a large red scarf. They hook up.

Final scene, Clint riding out, back on the desert. Camera pulls back, and then, we see Sister Sarah all decked out in flowing red garb, a floppy red hat, a red sun parasol - still keeping up on the same burrow.

Sorry, just a tad too much.

Just a delightful series when it first came out on PBS way back then. Exceptional in acting, writing, direction, and the actors were perfect for the parts they played. Plus, the English Midlands. Then, the series just kinda disappeared.

But the series just started again (May 2022) from the get-go on the U. K. "DRAMA" network. It's on right after "Lovejoy," another great U. K. series from yesteryear. The TV has become useful again!

As a kid wayyyyyyy back then, this show was both exciting, funny and spellbinding. Great characters, actors, directing and writing for these early days of TV that still hold ip reasonably well today. Especially how much more difficult it was back then for special effects and a half-hour story line.

Parents watching didn't typically agree, but they at least didn't change to another of the three channels in Dallas!

This turkey got a "Gentleman's 5" solely because everybody must have needed fast money to make a mortgage payment, or a gambling debt, or alimony or something. Just one laughable, incredulous scene after another.

Imagine Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, walking through a German hospital ward tent in the Sahara in Summer wearing a tightly-belted full-length shiny black leather German trench coat.

Or how about a caravan of German trucks holding British POWs, German men and officers, and a beautiful Italian mistress to an Italian general - being strafed by a British fighter.

But, except for the British insignia on the side, this British aircraft had the emblems and markings of The Flying Tigers, under command of Claire Chennault of the First American Volunteer Group assigned to help the Republic of China Air Force fight the Japanese invasion of China pre-Pearl Harbor. This was the angry sharks head, open snarling mouth and teeth on the nose of the plane.

Someone definitely made a wrong turn somewhere, and it wasn't just this Flying Tiger. And so it goes.

Agreat action piece, full of well-developed story line and performances by all. Especially showing Angelica's skills in self-protection.

At the end, though, they seemed to forget that the President was still alive and had first-hand knowledge on who was really responsible. Not Agent Salt. And even Salt never brought it up in her defense on the FBI helicopter. She could have said, "Just ask the President." And then, she just got inside and tried to stop the launch when the rescue party arrived and quickly shot her just after she stopped the launch. .Everybody was dead, except the President. And there should have been a record somewhere with time code when the launch sequence was started.

The only message the agent got on the helicopter just stated Salt's fingerprints were allover where the bad guys were when they were eliminated. Didn't mentioned that the President is alive. Salt didn't kill the Russian or anybody else.

Still a great, well-done action adventure. Until the end.

Great production values and acting. But just way too many side "love stories" and historical inaccuracies that bogged down what could have been a really good story line.

Without giving away too much detail, my Dad didn't bring home out first TV until 1948-'49 or so, in Chatham Township, NJ. Tiny B&W screen in a huge cabinet. The only TV station was in New York City, just for a few hours a day. No store windows full of small TVs with larger screens showing FDR giving speeches, with onlookers outraged and one throwing throwing a rock at the window, smashing it.

You won't find too many U. S. Army Air Core transport planes with USAF markings under the wings. Very unlikely that one of the two men assigned to get to the new radar station by 4 a.m. That Sunday, Dec. 7, still didn't understand how it worked and needed training from the other. And the list goes on, with all of the embellishment of side stories along the soap opera lines. And so on.

If it weren't for all of these known historical inaccuracies and contrived plots, this mini-series would have received a much higher rating.

For sooooooo many top actors and personalities to sign-on for this tongue-in-cheek spoof, they didn't do it just because they needed to make a boat payment, or a mortgage payment was due on their 10th vacation home around the world, or the kids' need braces, or whatever.

Seems they did it just for the fun. Great production values, direction, the script, the plot special effects, and the list goes on.

Just fun to watch . And Silvia Sydney with her " Indian Love Call" record was especially terrific. She/they saved the world!

Just pure entertainment for the joy of entertainment.

All cast members are perfectly matched and well-suited for believable performances in their roles. The script is well-written and highly creative. No ho-hum predictable what happens next monotony. The direction, special effects, camera work, you name it are all spot-on. Well worth watching again and recommending it to friends and family.

Simply stated: This is a thoroughly enjoyable science fiction flick from the outset.

Just a great plot and story line. Outstanding writing, direction. And the actors were outstanding in their roles. I particularly liked the unexpected but highly entertaining dialogue, twists and turns, and the continuous "fun moments."

That's increasingly hard to do these days when the audience is often two or three steps ahead of the storyline just because we've seen the"set-up" sooooooooooo many times before.

Sadly, the only annoying distraction was Chris Tucker as Ruby Rhod. He did a fine job acting as he was asked to do, but the role just totally disrupted the flow in a negative way. But he was just following his direction.

A number of folks have opposing points of view. Just seems to me the rave reviews are from distant family members to help make sure they're still remembered in the actors' Last Wills.

An exceptional cast of characters thrown into a plot that just doesn't make sense. And when things do happen, they seem so contrived and phony that it's entirely appropriate to just slowly shake your head and sigh with a long "oh, mannnnnnnn! This, too?!"

Joan Crawford as Vienna becomes bi-polar in almost every scene. And she really isn't a very nice person. Sterling Hayden as Johnny "Guitar" Logan is a former, reformed gunfighter. He can't seem to decide whether he loves her or wants to have nothing to do with her, we never know why they got together in the first place, or why he has been avoiding her for several years and suddenly decided to come back. And she mostly treats him like dirt, he pushes back, and it just keeps going on back-and-forth.

Mercedes McCambridge as Emma Small is such an out-of-control psychopath throughout that all the men still followed her faithfully. Or will they, or won't they, back and forth? Even to the point of hanging Vienna and the kid for robbing a bank, that Velma had nothing to do with. And even in the Old West, bank robbery wasn't a hanging offense by law or by a lynch mob, and the sheriff is in charge.

(Stealing a man's horse; even stealing a man's water, were hanging offenses. In the 1950s, the Dallas Morning News reported a man was arrested and charged with tampering with his water meter to slow the reader down to pay less for his water. This was a new one for the Dallas district attorney. When he checked the laws, he discovered the 1870-or-so law was still in effect: it's a hanging offense.)

The cabin behind the waterfall in the secret hideaway looks like it could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's ancestor. And it even has lace curtains and is spotless for a bunch of rough, or onary men. You'd think the place would have been both expensive and time-consuming to construct. Yet, nobody in town knew anything bout it, who built it, iwhere this secret place was - just outside of town.

The dynamite segment to "close the pass" just went on and on and on and on. Who had time to set all of this up when they were on the run? Why were they blowing up EVERYTHING that has nothing to do with "closing the pass?" Trees, flat land, etc.

And, I guess, one of the early laughables is when Johnny and Vienna were riding in a one-horse buggy for a jaunt. They're just driving along and chatting normally. The rear-screen projections of the trees and other foliage on the road as they're trotting along, however, are flying by so fast that they'd get pulled over for grossly exceeding the speed limit on an Interstate Highway.

Just incredibly unbelievable. Again, fine actors in proper roles. But this is a travesty.

Who knows? Maybe Nicholas Cage had an unexpected balloon mortgage payment on his super-yhat. Nicole was looking at more vacation property in Switzerland, or Bali, or somewhere.

Both are great actors, and the acting was fine by all. But the story line just stinks, The twists and turns to the plot are ridiculous. The things they all had to say or do while stying in character is a tribute to their abilities to stay in character. Just hope the check didn't bounce when they were through.

The same plot, or close variations of it, have been done before. Still good acting, but a much better story on telling it.

Sorry to say, but this movie is just an outrageous and farcical depiction of the work and hardships to follow-through and build the Canadian Pacific.

Just saw it this morning on a TV channel in Mexico, of all places. Randolph Scott in love with a girl at least 25 year's younger? And she is desperate for him? Indians accepting sticks of dynamite thinking they're cigars and dancing around while the fuses are lit and they're still in their mouths? And they keep prancing around as if they're really cigars? And they all get blown up so the good guy can escape?

Randolph on a buckboard entering an Indian village. The buckboard stops, he gets off, and just from the ground surface he instinctually whipes his foot over it to expose a box of dynamite? And he meets the Chief in very short walking distance, the chief and his tribal leaders follow Randolph to the buckboard and he uncovers several more boxes. And the chief and his party just didn't know, as if they were not paying attention when somebody brought in all those boxes and dough a big pit to bury them in, right in front of everyone's noses?

And a woman doctor as the only female with a railroad construction in the middle of nowhere? Sure, women doctors are fine, but in this environment?

And the opening scenes of Randolph Scott on foot climbing on a treacherous mountain with a huge waterfall in the background that has nothing to do with his finding a route? Entirely staged?

And how about Randolph unloading the several boxes of dynamite.? The bad guy puts a bullet into a box and all of them explodes. A HUGE explosion. Randolph is right there, but survives.

The way the Indians are depicted in this movie, I can only they were well paid.

I just can't believe that there would be a legitimate, Hollywood movie with decent actors, expensive special effects - the works - that could be such a gross and reckless distortion of one of the most tragic moments in the history of America. Lousy acting, lousy writing, absurd directing and apparently all done with an attitude of "oh, what the hell. Why even bother following the facts, the truth and events if it interferes with with this love story that's contrived, anyway." The director actually had Jap planes flying low between ships, with sailors on both ships firing deck weapons horizontally at the Japs. Which also meant the sailors were strafing each other. Absolutely no thought to such simple things as this.

I was able to visit Pearl Harbor, including Ford Island, a few years back. My DVD of "Tora, Tora, Tora!!!" had finally worn out. ( I saw the movie when it came out back in the 1970s. ) The Visitor Center had sold out. But I did get a copy at the gift shop on Ford Island.

Neither one even had a slot on the rack among other relevant DVDs for this abomination.

But pleazzzzzeeee! Way too many incredibly absurd coincidences and circumstances happen in an hour and 15 minutes or so. And a noisy next door neighbor working at the same spot doing the same thing for the duration with an incredibly hot heatwave going on - and she's not even wearing a hat? And the list goes on and on.

As a kid watching back then, cool! An adult watching it today would have to grin and wonder, "and this is what got box office revenue in 1951?"

Still, fun to watch just for that. But once is probably enough.

Oh, wow! Just a marvel in scripting, directing, casting and acting.

Nathan Lane once again is outstanding in even another different role as an aging, perhaps insecure, gay headliner in a gay nightclub. Robin Williams as his equally aging gay partner and owner of the nightclub.

And, ya just have to see it if you haven't already, who would even think who would appear in drag at the end just to avoid being spotted by the media.

Just a great off-beat movie. So, just sit back and enjoy!

I saw this when it came out. And my jaw dropped!

I had just known Elizabeth Montgomery as "Samantha" in "Bewitched." She was great in a light comedy every week. OK, but a lightweight comedienne who looks really great.

And then this TV movie came out. HOKEY SMOKES! Elizabeth Montgomery can REALLY act! What a chilling, out-of-the "Samantha" character and believable, performance. And the writing, the other actors, the direction, the production qualities, the editing are just OUT-standing.

Just wish it were re-broadcast occasionally so we could watch it again, or maybe the first time for some. Don't have a clue why not.

Most likely, the main reason this Italian movie was finally dubbed in English and shipped to the United States was with the simple hope that it might just begin to make a profit.

And that's just because this was the golden era of the drive-in movie theaters across the U.S. This one would be a natural for an all-night marathon where there's typically more action in the car than on the screen.

Finally, forget the dumb plot. There is a classic 1949 film called D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival) The cast includes Edmond O'Brien, Neville Brand and Beverly Garland.

Adam Age Vampire also qualifies as D.O.A. But in this case it's Death from Over Acting. But most likely, nobody in the back seat of the car cared and the drive-in was making a lot of money at the food/beverage pavilion.

. . . . it kinda fell apart at the end.

It was well-acted by all concerned and very nice plot development. But it's hard to believe that, once Brad's wife and mother of his child was proven to be a German Nazi operative now based with him back in the U.K., that he would be ordered to execute her. Or face mega consequences. No arrest as a Nazi plant and perhaps getting valuable info from her, but it was Brad's task to kill the woman he loved and leave his child motherless.

Huh? Even the convicted Nazi war criminals in the "Judgement at Nuremburg" didn't serve their full sentences. Just a disappointing resolution and conclusion.

For 1958, this was a decent movie towards the end of the era when the movie industry was still finding ways to compete with television. They were terrified of the thought that families would stay home and watch the tube for free rather than pay money to go to the theater. They hadn't yet learned that there was a profitable aftermarket for a movie after it's theater run expired. They never believed anybody would want to see a movie again on TV, or even for the first time, by making profitable deals with the networks.

So, Hollywood came up with 3-D movies, color movies during the B&W TV era, Cinnerama (sp?), Cinnmascope wise-screen, etc. (Let TV compete with THAT!)

Anyway, Carol Ohmart was screaming, and screaming, and screaming in the basement in the final scenes. The TV audience today might be wondering why. In many theaters during the theatrical release, there was a wire strung from the theater balcony to the top of the screen. Someone had the job of winding-down a full-size skeleton from the balcony, across and above the audience, to the top of the screen. The spotlight went off, the skeleton got yanked up in time with the movie skeleton to appear on the screen.

Sure, it's "hokey" by today's standards. But in 1958, Hollywood was saying, "Let's see them do THAT on television!"