Celluloid Heroes

That is precisely the reaction I would have expected from a man of your obvious limitations.

Back when I was a kid, this movie used to play on the Saturday afternoon movie about every third week and, being a boy with a jones for all things aviation, I ate it up. Of course, back then I simply got off on the idea of turning a crashed airplane into a new smaller airplane. As I got older, I came to appreciate the movie for what it was: a deeply insightful drama about men under crisis, couched in the format of an action adventure.

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I thought she was a sandwich ‘til she went spare on me hand.

With the first Beatles movie, A Hard Day’s Night, they had the good sense not to saddle the lads with anything that closely resembled a plot. Their 1965 follow-up is similarly devoid of a storyline but saddled with the unnecessary appearance of having a plot. The alleged narrative ends up accomplishing nothing but diverting attention away from the music and scenes of the Beatles doing what they did best: being the Beatles. There are a few moments in which the four boys get the chance to cut loose and in those scenes, Help! does manage to come to life. Alas, there are not enough of those.

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Before, he was evil and my enemy. Now, he is evil and my friend.

Released at the height of the James Bond heyday, this sober, gritty adaptation of John le Carré’s novel seems like a deliberate antidote to the increasingly fanciful adventures of Ian Fleming’s superspy. There are no outlandish gadgets or glamorous locations and the only significant female character dresses like a librarian (Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she’s a librarian). For those who like their espionage somewhat grounded in reality, this movie is a three-course meal.

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I want everyone under my command to be drunker than a fiddler’s bitch by nightfall.

Major Dundee is one of Sam Peckinpah’s early works, a highly stylized Western that fits perfectly the outsized performances of its stars, Charleton Heston and Richard Harris. Neither the story, the dialogue or the acting can be called realistic, but it is what it claims to be, a rousing entertainment.

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