mmegiraldi

When this movie was made, most part of the world was a colony of another part, there were moral and ethic values given support to this situation, and the general notion was that the European based civilization was 'better' than the others. When the remake was made in 2002, the world has changed a lot, so they decided to change the story, opening it to modern PC values.

Why?

The Kordas made a timeless opus of courage and friendship, about a man who is wrongly turned down by his three best friends and fiancée who misunderstood him for a coward. Instead of move on, let it go and rebuild his life, he decides to prove them all wrong.

Not for revenge or any sad emotion. He is still fond of their friendship and the girl's love, and that's what motivates him.

So he goes to the very same battlefield he supposedly was too scared to go and there he saves his friends one by one, without identifying himself, and giving back the white feather he received from each one.

Pure and simple that.

So why did the producers of the 2002 version thought that 'explaining' (and in the end failing in doing so) the reasons of the hero's resigning, and adding scenes about the 'cultural shock' between the British, the Maadi followers and the Sudanese black population, would add anything to the story?

Fortunately, the Kordas brothers never tried to explain anything, justify anything or criticize anything. They had a good story, and gave a good movie. One of the best action movies ever!

John Clements is particularly notable for his performance as the hero Harry Feversham. Harry's determination in clearing his name and honor, and gaining back his lost love and friendships is well depicted by Clements. And the other actors give good support to his drama.

I will not say anything about the end of this good movie, except that it doesn't "fit" with the rest of it, and it's sort of a sudden downturn.

Richard Widmark is great, George Matthew's character last less than 20 minutes and you do think that was more than enough, the survivors are a solid and heterogenous group of characters, albeit a little stereotyped (Daddy's little girl, Daddy's Other little girl, etc) and even the Indians (Apaches if I'm correct) had their reasons (instead of the usual 'let's kill the palefaces because we do exist for that').

But the end of the movie do seems to be imposed by a VIP of the studio who didn't cared about a more logic, honest and dramatic finale and had his own version of 'Happy End' imposed on the story.

Anyway, the tale of a group of teenagers having to trust a renegade 'indian lover' wanted for three murders (and after he had committed a brutal fourth under their noses) is well delivered, and is a good entertainer.

While I was growing up, I used to hear about this series on television shows and I always find amazing it's unlikely end; the leading actor (Carlos Miranda) became himself a Highway Patrolman (the English translation of the title) after the series end! (He did made some movies while on leave years later)

Through television series collectors I managed to see about ten episodes of the series, and I understood why, even 30/40 years after its end people still talked about it. It was good, albeit simple.

They didn't have too much money, so the scenes have to be shoot once, twice only if (by luck) they had enough film for it. The extras (and some of the week's supporting cast) were all amateurs and the show has no stuntmen, so sometimes the fight between the hero and the villain's thugs were real or the closest to it. Even with all this and many other odds against them, they delivered a new episode every week, in which Carlos brought justice to those who needed it.

True the plots couldn't be more plain, but so what? The kids back then wanted bad guys doing their villainies, some fights and pursues, and the good guy arriving in the end and saving the day. And they had it.

Hilarious movie based on the friendship/antagonism of Totó and Fernandel's characters. In a small village which is located right in middle of the border of France and Italy (therefore half its inhabitants is French and the other half is Italian), the law-abiding French custom officer Ferdinand (Fernandel) keeps trying to arrest the Italian smuggler Giuseppe over and over. Otherwise than that they have an almost friendship relation. Ferdinand was born in a house that is located on the borderline, but he always believed that it was on the French side. Giuseppe finds out that it was on the Italian side and, as an Italian can't be a French custom officer, he tells it to everybody. But Giuseppe's plan backfires miserably when his wife is forced to live with Ferdinand (she was Ferdinand's wife but they divorced, as the divorce didn't existed in Italy in 1958, they are still married by the Italian law). And Ferdinand legal ordeal is only in the beginning. After all, he was a perfect citizen in France, but never did anything in Italy, and this soon send him into a lot of problems. Now it's up to Giuseppe finds a way to undo everything that happened due to his bigmouth strategy before the maddened Ferdinand hurt someone or himself. Funny, irreverent and very critic. Unfortunately, Totó and Fernandel never repeated this partnership.

I admit it, it's been over twenty years since I saw this movie, I was 7 or 8 years by then and never saw it again. But I still like it a lot! Basically because Fernandel is, as usual, really funny while depicting a character whom you laugh about his misadventures but still you're with him, till the end. Fernandel and another guy enters a theater to watch a western, they left their raincoats side by side and, after the movie ends, they take each other's raincoat. As the other guy is a dangerous man (the Public Enemy no. 1) and was just doing time before he robs a bank, there's a gun in one of his raincoat's pockets. When Fernandel finds it he's in the subway, panic erupts and he is arrested. Problem is that the bad guy's gang decide to help him evade the jail, it seems that they don't who is their 'mysterious boss'. Now Fernandel have to deal with a gang of dangerous men, their real boss (who decides that as long as the police believes that Fernandel is him it's good for his plans), the cops and Lola (Zsa Zsa Gabor).

Even considering that I saw many other Fernandel movies since then, this is one of my favorites.

One thing you can say about Rod Cameron character (Rex Bennett) in this serial, boy did he had to fight! All the episodes had a minimum of three fights each, and guess who was in the middle of most of them? That's right Rex Bennett. The second serial with the character was better than the first (G-Men Vs. The Black Dragon) due mostly to fights and cliffhangers but that doesn't mean that the first serial was boring, it was very good, but they made this one better. After dealing with saboteurs in the US, Bennett is sent to Northern Africa to stop the (very stereotypical) Nazi's schemes against the Allies. His main adversary is a certain Baron von Rommler, who's impersonating the local chief and friend of the Allies Sultan Abou Ben Ali. Nothing new, even for those days, true. But starting from this cliché the writers developed a series of creative and good perilous situations for Bennett and his friends (Joan Marsh and Duncan Renaldo as Janet Blake and Cap. Pierre). Plus when the fights ensued not only the stunts wanted to bring up something new, but even the cameramen! All in all, a good way to spend some hours in front of a TV.

In it's good days (1937 to 1947), the Republic serials were everything that kids wanted to see in the theaters. A good hero, a dastardly villain, lots of bad guys supporting the second and standing in the way of the first (which means lots of fights) and, eventually, a good or bad girl to show that this was not an all man's territory.

Near the end of the good days, they produced this action-packed feature. In the first scene in which the villain appears, there's a murder. In the first scene the hero appears, he rescue the good girl from the clutches of the bad one and kills (in self defense) a thug. And so it starts the fight between both parties; in the evil corner, plotting schemes to gain money by illicit ways... Jim Belmnont and Rita Parker (played by George J. Lewis and Adrian Booth, both had worked in other serials as members of the good party)! And in the corner of the law, trying to stop their plots... Jerry Blake and Joyce Kingston (pity that was Marten Lamont only serial - he did worked in two others serials years before but his roles were so minor that he was uncredited - while Helen Talbot would be the only female interest in 1946's King of the Forest Rangers)!

Simple like that. But how they did manage to create inventive cliffhangers between each 'Case' (as the episode are named), to have good fights and tie it all in twelve episodes. One of the best they made!

High noon had such an impact here on Brazil that motivated the production of this (aparently) spoof. Kid Bolha is everything that Will Kane isn't, coward, chickenhearted and with few regard for himself. But he accidentally manages to put the nefarious Jesse Gordon in jail, and becomes the Sheriff. And when Jesse Gordon is back in town, he have to face him again, even if he can't stand the idea of it. Oscarito plays with all the situations Gary Cooper's character had to endure and delivers not a parody but an homage to the proud Marshall. Plus he's not the only good reason to see this movie, Grande Otelo as Ciscocada have his moments as Kid Bolha's deputy. And José Lewgoy as Jesse Gordon deliver his usual "I'm the born rotten villain" performance. During many years this movie was considered almost as an insult to High Noon by western fans but, gradually, even those had to admit that it's a movie with a light of it's own, and a big one. One last thing, in Brazil 'High Noon' is called 'Matar ou Morrer' (To Kill or Die), and 'Matar ou Correr' means 'To Kill or Run'.

This was the first blockbuster in the Chanchada Movie gender. Spoof of Samson and Delilah (1949 version), it's actually a funny criticism on the Brazilian populist government. Horácio travels through time to Gaza where he meets Samson. Impressed by Horacio 'magic powers', Samson exchanges his hair for Horacio's cigarette lighter. With Samson's powers Horacio recreates the Brazilian government in the Gaza kingdom. With all of its defects. Of course, the former Gaza governors are not happy with the situation, but they can't do anything as long as Horacio has Samson's hair. And that's where Dalila enters of course...

Oscarito's performance is great (as usual), and everybody else does a good job. Plus every cent invested in the production was put in good use.

The Sputmik is missing and a hillbilly thinks that it had just fell in his backyard. He becomes famous and he and his wife are introduced to the 'High Society' while the CIA, the KGB and the French wants to lay their hands in the Sputnik, by all means necessary. That's the plot. What happens in the movie in fact is a series of jokes about the Brazilian High Society and how the world perceives the Brazil. It's plenty of stereotypes, true, but this is also part of the fun (Jô Soares as a CIA agent who can't stop chewing chewing gum and Norma Bengel as B.B., sexy French agent, are memorable). Lots of funny moments all along the way including its purposely 'open end'.

I first saw this movie when I was 11 or 12 years old. Since then I've seen about nine or ten times. So what if the good guy is a pirate? A real proud one? Tyrone Power give one of his best performances, George Sanders is pure evil, Maureen O'Hara is more than just the pretty damsel-about-to-be-in-constant-distress and Laird Cregar gives life to a good portrait of Henry Morgan. And the other actors gives good performances as well. Plus the story is good (I never read Sabatini's book, shame on me), a fine example of the Pirate Movie (like Douglas Fairbanks's The Black Corsair). All in all the kind of movie that you can see many and many times.

Chanchada was a very popular class of movies in the middle of the XX Century in Brazil. Think about a simple idea for a comedy, put some musical numbers (mostly samba), don't care too much about the quality of the acting and remember, the good is always good and the bad is always bad (and is caught by the Justice in the end).

Simple isn't? The best chanchadas were from a studio called Atlântida and if Oscarito was in one you knew that good laughs, and memorable moments of the comedy in the cinema, were ahead.

As in this movie, Oscarito (as Barnabé) becomes the target of everybody else in the movie; the police, the crooks, the press AND an oriental princess who wants to marry him. The translation of the tittle is 'Barnabé, You're Mine'. After a good one hour and a half of fun (alright there are some moments that are not really that fun but they are very few), you understand why Oscarito was the king of the chanchadas.