Aldanoli Reviews

The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)

Quirky but Enjoyable Mystery with Surprises Galore

[9/10 · 30 April 2024]

This film became notorious not long after it was released because it has a handful of the biggest names in Hollywood -- including Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, and Tony Curtis -- appearing in the film in disguise. This fits with the modus operandi of the chief villain of the piece, played by Kirk Douglas, who has a diabolical plot that George C. Scott, as ex-MI5 agent Anthony Gethryn, is called upon to disentangle.

The film, smartly directed by John Huston, hews closely to Philip Macdonald's 1959 novel, his last to feature the Gethryn character. Gethryn had figured in a number of Macdonald's novels written during the 1930s, and then, after more than 20 years, Macdonald resurrected him for this one last appearance.

Gethryn is initially brought into the case to puzzle over the eponymous list given to him by writer Adrian Messenger, a long-time friend, who asks Gethryn to check up on the men on the list to find out if they still live at the addresses shown on it. Then a spectacular murder occurs, and Gethryn finds himself drawn ever deeper into the mystery. Its unraveling is a tale worthy of Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, set against 1960s England, with -- surprisingly -- a heavy element of fox hunting.

That Kirk Douglas is the villain, often slipping into and out of disguises that would fit well into the classic television series "Mission: Impossible," is not really a spoiler, because Douglas' role is revealed relatively early in the film. But as noted in the "Trivia" section on this site, many scenes supposedly featuring Douglas in disguises (using latex masks, bald caps, and wigs -- and in one memorable sequence, contact lenses that nearly covered his entire eye, which he casually plucks out) actually featured uncredited work by character actor Jan Merlin, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Douglas.

Merlin was apparently hired as a stand-in for Douglas to spare the star from having to wear the (undoubtedly very uncomfortable) makeup so often. There are only a couple of scenes where it's clear that it's Douglas on-screen, as his voice is unmistakable. Whatever they paid Merlin for his troubles, it doubtless wasn't enough.

Gethryn gets able support from a Frenchman named Raoul Le Borg, played by a relatively little-known French actolr named Jacques Roux, who -- surprisingly -- also had a long and varied career on American television, appearing numerous times on the series "Combat!" and many other shows, everything from "The Man from U. N. C. L. E." to "Batman." Although many of Roux' lines were clearly in his own voice, some of them were dubbed by voice artist Paul Frees (whose talents were also put to use in some other dubbing during the movie).

Despite having the most prominent role in the film, George C. Scott is sixth-billed, after Douglas and all of the other stars who barely make appearances themselves. He gives a surprisingly subtle, understated performance, with a passable British accent yet still showing, just below the surface, the kind of energy he usually brought to his work. It's a stark contrast to the role he would play next, as eye-popping, fanatical Gen. Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." Scott was only about 35 when this film was made, but for most of his career he played older than his true age, and he's convincing as the supposedly retired former agent called upon to help with one more case.

Director Huston keeps the proceedings moving briskly, and even manages a brief cameo himself as a participant in a fox hunt. The frequent use of the disguises and the often unrecognizable movie stars could have come across as gimmicky, but it actually enhances the charm of the movie, lending it a quirky air that only adds to its enjoyment. The script is also spiced with some delightfully droll humor -- perfectly in keeping with the British setting. It's an endearing film that perfectly encapsulates the early 1960s in an England that still had the long shadow of World War II hanging over it, as the war touches on a number of the plot points in this absorbing tale.

The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance (1959) Season 1, Episode 5

Some Laughing Ghosts that Would Cross a Man's Mind

[10/10 · 31 March 2024]

"Walking Distance," only the fifth episode of "The Twilight Zone" to be broadcast (the day before Halloween, 1959) is easily one of the finest of Rod Serling's contributions to the series. Although it lacks the surprise ending typical of later episodes, it's a personal favorite - precisely because it is more than just another "Twilight Zone" installment whose most memorable characteristic is a twist ending.

Martin Sloan (Gig Young), age 36, is "vice-president in charge of media" for an advertising agency. He pulls up at a rural-looking gas station in an expensive roadster and rudely honks for the attendant. After asking for some routine maintenance, and realizing that he is only about a mile and-a-half from "Homewood," where he grew up, he decides to hike there because it's just "walking distance."

Martin, so overwhelmed by the weight of his successful but high-pressure life, then somehow finds himself catapulted back to the summer of 1934 in Homewood when he was 11 - exactly 25 years before the time of the episode's broadcast. Like many of us, Martin has been longing for the halcyon days of his youth, when the only concerns were where to ride his bike or to play with his friends. That time looks simple and desirable to a man who needs to escape the treadmill of his adult life.

Martin Sloan's own father (in 1934) eventually has to break the news to the adult Martin that he can't remain in the past - that he'll have to try to escape from his oppressive job and adult life in another way - and in his own time period. Martin is not happy about it, but he accepts it.

Martin is, in so many ways, a surrogate for Serling himself. "Homewood" is clearly a stand-in for Binghamton, New York, the small city where Serling was born and raised. Like Sloan, by 1959 he had enjoyed financial rewards and the status of being a successful television writer, but he also undoubtedly felt pressured to produce scripts on a tight schedule. The character of Martin is 36; Serling himself was 35 when he wrote "Walking Distance." He even acknowledged that he was inspired to write the story because he was strolling across the backlot where Twilight Zone was filmed and was struck by its resemblance to the town where he was grew up.

Indeed, Martin is a character Serling seems to have known well. Similar characters appear several times in his oeuvre, beginning with a different "Sloan" - Andy Sloane, the aging executive relentlessly pounded by his boss in Serling's first great success, "Patterns, in 1955. (There was a different character more like Serling himself, Fred Staples, who has to watch Sloane being belittled by their mutual boss.) Martin Sloan also resembles Gart Williams, the executive who likewise seeks an escape from his crushing job in "A Stop at Willoughby," another first season Twilight Zone episode - only Williams wants to escape all the way back to a town in the nineteenth century.

And as Marc Scott Zicree pointed out in "The Twilight Zone Companion," "Walking Distance" is really the middle of a trilogy, along with "Patterns" (which made Serling nationally famous in 1955, when he was just 29) and one of his last great scripts, "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar," which he wrote in 1970 for "Night Gallery" (though it aired in January, 1971). The first story is about a young, ambitious man on his way up; "Walking Distance" deals with a successful man who nevertheless discovers that life at the top can be stressful and sometimes dispiriting; and the final story is about a man at the end of his career, now on the verge of being jettisoned by his employer and able to find solace only in the bar where he and his friends celebrated the end of World War II.

"Walking Distance" succeeds mainly because all of us, like Martin, at some point turn our minds to nostalgic moments in our own past. Homewood, in high summer 1934, certainly seems like such a place, at least as depicted here. The episode is unusual in that it actually has three snatches of narration by Serling: a brief introduction, and then a highly unusual second one after the act break: "A man can think a lot of thoughts and walk a lot of pavements between afternoon and night. And to a man like Martin Sloan, to whom memory has suddenly become reality, a resolve can come just as clearly and inexorably as stars in the summer night. Martin Sloan is now back in time. And his resolve is to put in a claim to the past."

And it is at that point that he tries to find his parents and to convince them that he is, somehow, their son now grown to adulthood. And this leads to his father's eventual gentle but firm rejection of the adult Martin, telling him that he must leave, and seek satisfaction in his own timeline.

The acting is top notch, especially Gig Young (who always seemed to convey a certain sadness) and Frank Overton as Robert Sloan, Martin's father - quietly authoritative with his deep voice and calm demeanor. If there is a problem, it was in casting of Irene Tedrow as Martin's mother. She was past 50 when the episode was filmed, and seems a tad elderly to be either Martin's mother or Robert's wife. (She was, in fact, more than a decade older than Overton.) But that's a minor quibble in such a finely crafted work.

Still, the best part of the episode is Serling's beautiful, poetic closing narration - full of longing and nostalgia, yet painfully wise, especially for someone just 35, noting that Martin was successful in most things, "but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives - trying to go home again." And also that, "perhaps there'll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there'll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth."

To "hear the voices and laughter of the people and places of his past" is actually an interesting bit of foreshadowing of "Tim Riley's Bar," when Randy Lane - the Serling surrogate in that tale - likewise envisions those people who, for him are all now also 25 year-old memories (in that case, of V-J Day, 1945). Still, perhaps the saddest thing to recall in seeing those episodes today (especially, of course, "Walking Distance"), is that Serling himself never did get "to become old," instead dying in 1975 at just age 50.

Testament (1983)

Deserve the Children

[10/10 · 29 February 2024]

Jane Alexander and William Devane play Carol and Tom Wetherly, a couple with three children living a comfortable middle-class life in a San Francisco suburb. They have three children - an oldest girl, Mary Liz, who is about 15 and two younger boys, Brad (about to turn 13) and Scottie, who is about 6. Tom commutes to work in San Francisco. One day Tom calls to say that he'll be coming home early, but then the news is interrupted by a report that communications with several East Coast cities have ceased amid reports of nuclear attacks. And from the direction of San Francisco there is a blinding flash of light.

Initially, Carol, tries to maintain the fiction that Tom is just on his way home and will arrive soon, but as time passes it becomes clear he's never going to return. She and the remaining survivors find themselves in a world without clean running water, electricity, or anywhere to obtain food. One of their neighbors has a generator-powered ham radio which he uses to try to contact any other communities of survivors, but over time such contacts dwindle as well.

Slowly, the lack of food and radiation poisoning begin to take their toll. As characters die, there is a brief clip of them in an 8 mm home movie in times before the attack. Eventually, they take in Hiroshi, a mentally handicapped boy whose parents have died. Some neighbors take their own lives by using the last of their gasoline to asphyxiate themselves with car exhaust. Carol initially wants to take that way out, but is unable to go through with it.

At the end, with food running low, the makeshift family gathers for Brad's 13th birthday. Instead of a cake, Carol has only small squares of graham cracker with a dollop of peanut butter on each to hold a candles.

In a scene lit only with the light of the birthday candles, she tells Brad, "Make a wish." When he asks what he should wish for, she responds, "To remember everything . . . The good and the awful. The way we finally lived. That we never gave up. That we will last . . . To be here. To deserve the children." They each blow out the one candle in front of them, and we see another brief 8 mm film clip of the whole Wetherly family at an earlier, happier birthday party.

Carol's last line may seem a bit perplexing, telling Brad to "deserve the children." The origin of the line may be hard to place, but it hearkens back to a school play based on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin that Carol was directing at the time the bomb dropped. (The play was chosen because the town in the legend, Hamelin, has almost the same name as the town where they live, Hamlin.) Shortly after the attack, the people of Hamlin decide to have the children perform the play as a way of building community and keeping up everyone's spirits.

In the story, the Pied PIper is hired to rid the town of rats, which he does by charming them with his pipe and leading them into a river where they drown. But the town reneged on its promise to pay him, so he then the Piper used his pipe to lure away all of the town's children into a cave where they disappeared -- all but one lame child left behind because he couldn't keep up with the others. Because this was an elementary school play, though, the lame child -- played in their play by Carol's son Scottie -- stands before the audience to say that the children will be returned one day when the townspeople are ready "to deserve them."

"Testament" is so powerful precisely because it is understated. There is no devastation -- no wrecked buildings and no mushroom cloud. Instead, it is a bleak portrayal of a community trying to hold together until, finally, all hope breaks down and the people are left to ponder their little time left -- and perhaps to ask whether, in a world that allows such things to happen, they "deserve the children" who will never grow up.

All of the actors provide competent performances -- except, perhaps, a young and clearly inexperienced Kevin Costner in an early role. (Indeed, at roughly the same time, his part in "The Big Chill" as the suicidal character, Alex, whose death brings his college friends together for his funeral, had just been left literally on the cutting room floor.) His acting here is fairly wooden, but he would go on to much bigger things.

Still, the anchor that holds this movie together is Jane Alexander's performance as Carol. She is sensitive, resolute, and in the way of so many women with children, does what she can to hold her family together in the face of an increasingly desperate, and finally hopeless situation. She earned the film its only Oscar nomination, and it's easy to see why -- she is gentle with her children and those around her, yet she projects a flintiness and resolution that carries the others to the film's bleak, yet unforgettably moving conclusion.

Star Trek: The Doomsday Machine (1967) Season 2, Episode 6

One of the Series' Best Episodes, Anchored by its Greatest Guest Performance

[10/10 · 29 January 2024]

"The Doomsday Machine" is one of Star Trek's finest episodes, introducing a menacing adversary while also setting up a fascinating duel of wits between guest star William Windom and Mr. Spock (temporarily in command of the Enterprise while Capt. Kirk is on Windom's old ship trying to get it operational). Indeed, it's impossible to think of anyone else in Windom's role: more than any other guest star, he anchors this episode and gives what is easily the finest guest performance in the history of the franchise.

The story is also remarkably simple. Windom, as Commodore Matt Decker of the Starship Constellation (a sister ship to the Enterprise), is found aboard what is initially his mysteriously wrecked (and otherwise abandoned) ship, which shows scars of a titanic battle and is barely functioning. The Enterprise also finds planetary debris in a solar system that should have more planets than it apparently does.

Decker is initially almost catatonic, but under Dr. McCoy's ministrations he quickly recovers at least enough to tell Capt. Kirk that a terrifying device destroyed other planets in the solar system, including the one where Decker's crew had taken shelter. This "planet killer" used the same beam to wreck his ship and is moving toward the most heavily-populated part of the Milky Way galaxy. Capt. Kirk theorizes that the "planet killer" was once a "doomsday machine" -- a device created to intimidate the other side in some long-forgotten conflict without the intention it would ever be used, lest it destroy both sides.

But now that "doomsday device" is on the loose and destroying planets in this galaxy. Spock, initially in command in Kirk's absence, intends to make a strategic retreat and warn the rest of Starfleet. But then Decker, as the ranking officer, takes over, insisting that the Enterprise attack the "planet killer" in what is likely going to be a rerun of his own ship's fruitless (and suicidal) battle with the device.

Science fiction writer Norman Spinrad, the episode's author, described it as a retelling of the struggle between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick, and that is at least partly true. The plot moves relentlessly forward and the men of the Enterprise quickly realize that they are overmatched -- but then they are, at least initially, overruled by the monomaniacal Decker, who happens to outrank everyone else.

But as good as the story is, nothing in this production is quite as compelling as Windom's multi-layered turn as Matt Decker. Sporting a three- or four-day growth of beard, hollow-eyed and unkempt, Windom effortlessly portrays a man who was pushed past the breaking point . . . And, then having been brought back, is still haunted by the death of his entire crew. At first he is barely coherent and apt to lapse into uncontrollable sobs; later, recovering, he turns flinty and unyielding in his desire for revenge. Windom's portrayal is the backbone, the rock on which this episode is built.

He, and perhaps the episode's director Marc Daniels, add many interesting touches to Decker's characterization. As he sits in Kirk's command chair, Decker fiddles almost unconsciously with two of the rectangular library tapes that were used on the bridge, one yellow and one green -- perhaps personifying the struggle between Decker and Kirk, while also suggesting not Captain Ahab, but a different irrational ship's commander, Capt. Queeg of The Caine Mutiny.

He also goes out of his way to humiliate Mr. Spock. At one point he orders Spock to speak to Kirk only through the intercom on the command chair, forcing a subservient Spock to leave his station to come down to where Decker is sitting. And at another point, Decker refuses Kirk's request to speak to Spock at all, saying that, because he is now in command, Kirk can say anything he has to say only to him.

There's also a delightful interchange among Decker, Spock, and McCoy, as McCoy eagerly tries to assert his authority to relieve Decker as psychologically unfit, only to be blocked by Spock's suggestion that McCoy cannot do so unless he's given Decker a full examination. It recreates the "Bickersons" triumvirate that producer Gene Coon had constructed among Kirk, Spock, and McCoy -- the rational Spock, the emotional McCoy, and Kirk trying to balance their often-conflicting opinions. Decker listens to the exchange between the other two with something close to amusement, taunting McCoy's inability to act in the face of Spock's calm recitation of the pertinent regulations.

A final note: this episode is raised to an even greater level thanks to Sol Kaplan's remarkable score -- mournful when the Enterprise first encounters the seemingly burned-out hulk of the Constellation, later building to a pulse-pounding climax during the final confrontation between the starships and the planet killer -- and even a tad whimsical during the arguments among the crew. Sadly, Kaplan scored only one other episode (the first season's "The Enemy Within") -- but along with Windom's remarkable performance, Kaplan's music is an unforgettable part of this unforgettable episode.

Maestro (2023)

Marvelous Tale of the Life and Loves of Leonard Bernstein

[10/10 · 31 December 2023]

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that when the young Leonard Bernstein informed his father that he planned to pursue a musical career, the elder Bernstein was sorely disappointed. He ran a successful cosmetics business, and had hoped his oldest son would follow him into the business; initially, he actively discouraged his son's musical pursuits. In later years, his father struggled to explain: "You have to understand . . . How did I know he would become . . . Leonard Bernstein?"

The term "genius" is overused in popular discourse, but if there have ever been any American musical geniuses, surely Bernstein was one. As that story illustrates, his very name was synonymous with music. And though he was most famous as a conductor, he was also a composer (both of classical and popular pieces), an arranger, a gifted pianist, and a music educator (renowned for his early use of television for his Young People's Concerts). Bernstein himself once noted that some critics denigrated his role in each of those fields -- he was not "really" a conductor because he composed so much, and not "really" a classical composer because so much of what he composed was for musical theater, etc.

Indeed, his talents roamed over so many musical landscapes that he was hard to categorize; perhaps the best examples is when he describes himself in an interview with Edward R. Murrow as a "musician." But Bradley Cooper's beautifully directed and acted tour de force "Maestro" (Cooper directed, co-wrote, and plays Bernstein himself) makes a game try, exploring his talents and contributions to American music while lavishing equal attention on Bernstein's complicated personal life.

"Lenny" (as he was known to friends and family) was a force of nature -- when we first see him, it's on the morning of the now-legendary day in 1943 when he received an early call to substitute that same afternoon to conduct the New York Philharmonic because its guest conductor, Bruno Walter, had taken ill. At a time when almost no conductors were under 40, twenty-five year-old Bernstein stepped into the role with gusto, and without a rehearsal, gave an acclaimed performance that set him on a road that he would travel for nearly the next 50 years.

But that morning also finds Bernstein awakening with his bedmate, the choreographer Jerome Robbins -- just one of Bernstein's male lovers, at a time when being gay was still illegal in much of the country. But while the film does not shy away from Bernstein's sexuality, it reserves most of the tale of his personal life for the most important person in it -- Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), whom he would wed in 1951. Felicia ultimately becomes just as prominent in the story as Lenny, with the depiction of their courtship and early life framed in particularly romantic scenes (mostly shot in black-and-white) that will come back to have a poignant resonance later in the film.

It's remarkable is that the film is so frank about such elements as Bernstein's sexual orientation and his infidelities with young men, especially given that Cooper had the full cooperation of the three Bernstein children -- allowing at least some of the film to be shot in original locations where the events took place. And though he was directing and starring as Lenny, Cooper generously (and rightly) gives Felicia as much or even more attention as the film progresses.

The movie is blunt about how Lenny's desire to live according to his own rules eventually caused the couple to separate (though never to divorce). And then, when she is diagnosed with what will become terminal cancer, Bernstein finally recognizes how much he loved this woman, and cares for her tenderly.

As compelling as this story is, the film succeeds because of the performances. Cooper inhabits his character so much that, for those of us who remember "Lenny" in life, makes it feel as if he has been reincarnated. Cooper put enormous effort into his performance, mimicking Bernstein's voice, learning to conduct, and in an astonishing scene lasting 5 or 6 minutes (apparently without cuts) recreates a 1973 performance of a Mahler symphony at Ely Cathedral. It is the high-point of his performance -- Cooper replicates the symphony's finale gesture-for-gesture -- sweating, hair flying, arms swooping, and gyrating on the podium just as Bernstein did in the original.

Still, Carey Mulligan is with him step-for-step as Felicia. Though she required far less makeup and no prosthetics, and did not have to give as flamboyant a performance, she too seemingly brings Felicia back to life. Initially tentative, apparently amazed that she drew the attention of this irrepressible public figure, her Felicia ultimately turns flinty, criticizing her husband's lack of discretion in his assignations. And at one point, she orders him (over his objections) to shield the truth from their oldest daughter, Jamie (who, as a teenager, began hearing rumors about her father's lifestyle). Finally, as Felicia's health fails, Mulligan gives a tender, vulnerable performance that is never mawkish.

The film clocks in at barely over 2 hours, and perhaps in three or four hours, or a mini-series, Cooper could have delved far more into Bernstein's musical and gone down other byways of his personal life. But he and co-writer Josh Singer manage to strike just the right balance between Bernstein's career and personal life, depicting just how much they intertwined, while acknowledging that his family life eventually suffered precisely because, well . . . Because he was Leonard Bernstein. Such a man could not have achieved as much as he did without sacrificing somewhere -- and that sacrifice, sadly, was often made by his family.

The Front (1976)

Still-Relevant Film Depicting the Corrosive Blacklisting Era

[8/10 · 31 December 2023]

The Front, now almost 50 years old as this is written, was Woody Allen's first appearance since 1967 in a film he neither wrote nor directed. (He had appeared in the original version of Casino Royale, a strange mishmash of multiple directors and writers that was, allegedly, a James Bond movie). It was also the first time Allen appeared in a non-comedic role. There are some laughs in this film, but it's mostly a drama about the victims of the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era, and specifically the practice known as "blacklisting."

Blacklisting came about beginning in 1950 when a publication known as "Red Channels" identified actors, writers, and other performing artists as communists. Someone could be listed because (as one character in The Front candidly admits) they actually adhered to communist doctrine -- but also for everything from supporting labor unions, or having donated money to leftist organizations, or supporting the Loyalist cause in Spain in the 1930s. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of these artists were fired or found themselves unable to work in the entertainment industry.

In the film, Allen's character, Howard Prince, is approached by an old friend named Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy) who had been writing for a hit television show when he finds that he cannot get his scripts read, let alone purchased by the show's producers. So Alfred asks Howard, a cashier in a restaurant, to lend him his name (and his physical presence) as a "front" -- that is, to pose as a scriptwriter then and split the fees with him. Fortunately, in those early days of television, it was much easier for an "unknown writer" like Howard to sell scripts for television shows. Indeed, Howard is so successful (and finds the practice so lucrative) that he begins to front for other writers' work, too - the better to multiply his income.

Things take on a darker tone, however, after Howard in introduced to Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel), the star of one of the shows for which he's supposedly writing scripts. Like Alfred and the other writers, Hecky is eventually blacklisted too -- but as another character puts it, unlike a writer (who can at least hide behind someone else's name), actors cannot have anyone "front" for them, leading Hecky into a slow, painful, downward spiral.

Anyone who has read the "Trivia" section on this film will know that Hecky Brown is loosely based on Philip Loeb, a former Broadway actor whose nascent television career was cut short when he, too, ended up in "Red Channels." Though ironically he was one of the few actors who was *not* fired, he came under such serious pressure and unwanted attention that he eventually resigned anyway. He would commit suicide in 1955.

In many ways, despite the film's focus on Howard, it is Hecky's predicament that is the heart of this story. Though much of its tension (and what humor there is) comes from situations like Howard being unable to fake it when he's brought in for an "emergency re-write," Hecky is already long past this point. His career is gone, his bills are mounting, and he cannot even get far less profitable work as a stand-up comedian. The Front demonstrates viscerally just how destructive the blacklist was.

Allen brings much of his familiar persona to Howard, and does a competent job portraying him -- but once again, it is Zero Mostel's performance as the slowly-disintegrating Hecky that provides the film's heart and central tragedy. Also noteworthy are Murphy as Alfred Miller and Andrea Marcovicci (in her first motion picture role) as Florence, Howard's girlfriend who is initially attracted to him because she believes he has written the scripts.

Still, perhaps the most poignant part of the film comes only with the closing credits, which note that director Martin Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and four of the principal actors, including Mostel, were all blacklisted between 1950 and 1953. For many of them, even though the blacklist eroded by the early 1960s, many of them were unable to work in television or motion pictures for as much as half a decade later. For a nation that had defeated one kind of tyranny in the 1940s, it all too quickly allowed a different kind to flourish on this side of the Atlantic just a few years later.

The 25th Hour (1967)

A Film More Relevant Now than When it was Released

[9/10 · 31 December 2022]

If anything, "The 25th Hour" is more relevant today than when it was made. In 1967, it was mostly a look backward at the injustices visited upon the previous generation. Today -- in a world with new wars, new atrocities, new technology for killing, and new terminology like "ethnic cleansing" -- it really offers a timeless commentary on man's inhumanity to man.

Surprisingly, many contemporary reviews were quite negative -- none more so than that of Bosley Crowther in The New York Times. Of course, Crowther himself was mostly rooted in the past; he would likewise attack "Bonnie and Clyde" in much the same tone he did "The 25th Hour," and would be replaced the following year. But some critics at that time saw the film differently. Judith Crist, who surveyed upcoming films for TV Guide, wrote in 1971, "The 25th Hour, dealing with deportees and slave laborers during World War II, is a powerful drama, with Anthony Quinn memorable as a Romanian peasant survivor."

Her opinion is much closer to the mark. As the film opens, in 1939, simple Romanian peasant Johann Moritz (Anthony Quinn) and his wife Suzanna (the lovely Virna Lisi), are celebrating the baptism of their second son, with almost everyone dressed in colorful peasant costumes. But threatening clouds are on the horizon. When someone puts on the radio to let classical music lull the child to sleep, the infant is awakened and driven to agitation when the station switches to the rumblings of Adolf Hitler announcing the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

And then Moritz' life becomes a long, slow descent that, in many ways, stands in for the experiences of millions during those dark years. He and Suzanna simply wanted to eke out a peaceful existence raising their children, crops, and livestock; but the world outside had other ideas. First, the local police chief, Dobresco (Grégoire Aslan), takes a lustful interest in Suzanna, and gets rid of Moritz by claiming he is a Jew. As it happens, most of the local Jews (almost universally dressed in suits and hats, most carrying a suitcase) were being rounded up by the Romanian authorities for forced labor on a canal to defend against a possible Russian invasion.

And it is a moment soon after this that perhaps best encapsulates the entire movie, in an exchange between Moritz and his friend Marcou, whom he spots among the other deportees:

Moritz: Marcou! What am I doing here?

Marcou: What am *I* doing here?

Moritz: Well, with you it's -- it's different.

Marcou: What? Because I'm a Jew?

Moritz: Marcou, for you it's an injustice -- I agree! But for me, it's a mistake! A stupid mistake!

Marcou: The distinction escapes me.

And indeed, both are ordinary men, torn with no warning from their former lives and forced to work, more or less as slaves, with little hope of release. In the meantime, Suzanna, baffled by her husband's sudden disappearance, is forced to survive without him, raising their sons on her own and fending off the advances of Dobresco as best she can. Eventually, to save her home, she is forced to divorce Johann, while both of them are unable even to write letters to one another to help fill the long gap in their lives.

More strange twists are ahead for Moritz (who is forced to change his name several times as he is passed from one set of captors to another). Late in the film he is reunited with an old friend, Trajan Koruga (convincingly played by Italian actor Serge Reggiani), a novelist who once owned the only automobile in Moritz' home village. It is he who comes up with the phrase used for the title: the "25th hour" is a metaphor that, for those born at this time, in this place, the "normal" 24-hour day is over -- and a new, terrifying day has dawned.

The film's ends with two contrasting scenes. One is a haunting courtroom scene when Michael Redgrave (riveting in his brief appearance as Moritz' attorney) reads a letter from Suzanna detailing the horrors she underwent in her husband's absence. And then there is a final scene, at a supposedly happier moment for the characters, that is actually as dehumanizing and shattering as anything that has gone before. It will burn into your memory like nothing else in the film.

NOTE: This film has also fallen into obscurity in part because it has been overshadowed by an otherwise unrelated 2002 Spike Lee film starring Edward Norton, which shares the same title.

A Clear and Present Danger (1970 TV Movie)

Worthwhile Introduction to a Rare Political Drama

[8/10 · 31 December 2022]

Back in 1957, Rod Serling complained that he was prohibited by the "standards and practices" folks at a television network from depicting real legislative issues when he wrote "The Arena," a "Studio One" drama about the U. S. Congress: "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem. To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited." And so, Serling said, he had to have senators standing around arguing about whether to "move the previous question," which was to say, babbling about nothing.

Whatever else one might say about "A Clear and Present Danger," this two-hour television movie that became the pilot for the 1970-71 series "The Senator," it was definitely about something. It was broadcast in March, 1970 and introduced the character of future U. S. Senator Hays Stowe, played by Hal Holbrook.

Stowe works for the U. S. Attorney General's office, and is the son of a sitting U. S. senator (played by E. G. Marshall) who announces that he will not run for re-election. The younger Stowe decides to try to seek his father's Senate seat. His primary motivation is that his former law professor and mentor has just died of emphysema - a condition that his doctor (played by Jack Albertson, in an unusual role for him) says was exacerbated by air pollution. And pollution, especially air pollution, was a hot topic in 1970 - the first Earth Day, for example, was held a month after this film debuted that spring.

Though it was created on a television movie budget, director James Goldstone tries to compensate for that with some unusual choices in editing. Besides some aerial footage of what is clearly Los Angeles (though the story is set in a fictional town called "Chamberton"), the movie has lots of lengthy shots of Stowe just . . . Walking around, while footage of smoking factory chimneys and other sources of air pollution are superimposed over these shots of him, in a kind of double-exposure. It's a rarely-used technique; one of the few other films to employ it was that tale of foreboding and dread, "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (1975), which likewise spent a fair amount of time simply trying to create a mood.

Stowe makes himself a figure of controversy when he supports the apocalyptic warnings of an impending air pollution emergency provided by a university science professor, played with scenery-chewing relish by Mike Kellin. The professor's histrionics, of course, only alienate everyone except for Stowe himself.

Curiously, the warnings of the dangers of air pollution are based on some real events, one of them cited in the film -- the so-called "killer smog" that enveloped Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948, ultimately killing 20 people and caused thousands respiratory problems. (A similar event, not mentioned in the movie, was a 1952 pollution emergency in London that was recently depicted in "The Crown.") Naturally, Stowe finds himself blocked at every turn as he tries to get people to take the professor's warning seriously; most serious politicians (including Stowe's senator-father) consider the professor a crank, and Stowe's father is outraged that his son appears to be throwing away his political career over a non-issue.

Besides the sober, thoughtful Holbrook and E. G. Marshall, the film boasts many other familiar faces. Joe Campanella is Stowe's closest political consultant who wants him to run for his father's seat, while Sharon Acker has a thankless part as Stowe's wife; and a 12 year-old Cindy Eilbacher plays their daughter. As already noted, the film succeeded in launching the television series "The Senator" as a part of the rotating series "The Bold Ones" that coming fall, where both Acker and Eilbacher continued playing those roles. (Curiously, Campanella and Marshall both were also on "The Bold Ones," but in other rotating segments, and other actors replaced them once "The Senator" was picked up.)

Unfortunately, because the series rotated along with those otherwise unrelated segments (a lawyer show, a doctor show, etc.), only eight additional segments were produced. They were certainly "ripped from the headlines" -- like this film's emphasis on air pollution, episodes of "The Senator" included a two-part story dealing with a campus shooting of protestors by National Guardsmen, a physical threat to Sen. Stowe, ethical lapses by politicians, and the problems of the welfare state.

The show is notable for winning five Emmys, including one for Holbrook and another as the best drama on television, almost simultaneous with its cancellation. Its failure is likely attributable to viewers not wanting to "escape" to a drama strongly echoing much that they had just seen on the news every night. A pity, because like "A Clear and Present Danger" itself, the whole series is worthwhile. At least it's available on DVD.

NOTE: This film also has fallen into obscurity in part because it has been overshadowed by an otherwise unrelated 1994 Harrison Ford film that shares the same name.

The Missiles of October (1974 TV Movie)

Odd Little Curio about the Cuban Missile Crisis

[9/10 · 31 December 2021]

In December, 1974, ABC Television broadcast a highly unusual teleplay: "The Missiles of October," a dramatization of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. What made it unusual was that, first, ABC preempted an entire Wednesday evening lineup to show the drama. Such "television events" were usually reserved for Sunday nights (when at various times the networks would show a "Sunday night movie" anyway). And second, at that time, it was rare to have anything like the fictionalization of a real-life event, especially with so many real-life figures being portrayed.

The film covers the Missile Crisis with a realism that shows what it must have been like for the actual participants. As it opens, Pres. Kennedy (William Devane) is mainly focused on the upcoming mid-term elections, when he expects that his party will lose seats. Then high-altitude photography drops the Crisis into his lap: the Russians are constructing nuclear missile sites in Cuba, which when completed will put the entire East Coast within seconds of a Russian strike during a nuclear attack.

And so, in great secrecy (at least initially), Kennedy assembles a team to advise him on the best course of action, which comes down to just two options: a preemptive air strike on the missile bases followed by a ground invasion; or a blockade of the island. Either course carries with it the risk of a nuclear exchange with the Soviets. In real life, of course, the two sides came terrifyingly close.

Looking back from perspective of nearly half a century (and more than that from the real-life event), certain things stand out. The production had an enormous cast, and was shot on videotape, which gives it an immediacy, as if the viewer was in the room with the participants; live television and the videotape of that era are indistinguishable. Unfortunately, tape is also a less stable medium than motion picture film, and now even seen on DVD or streaming, it shows its age.

But much of the casting was spot-on. William Devane had a short resume at the time and therefore didn't dominate the proceedings; with his hair styled like Kennedy's and affecting a Boston accent, he is about 85% the real article, and after a while you forget he's not the real JFK. (Surprisingly, one person *not* impressed by Devane was then-U. S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was quoted as saying he preferred Cliff Robertson's portrayal of his late brother in "PT-109" (1963).)

Robert Kennedy was played by Martin Sheen, who ironically was more well-known at the time. Some have criticized his accent for not being steady, but he does a good job at mimicking RFK's rapid, clipped speech. (Sheen has the distinction of later playing JFK himself in a 1983 miniseries, and for seven seasons, a fictional president on "The West Wing.") James Olson as Spec. Asst. McGeorge Bundy, and Michael Lerner as Press Secretary Pierre Salinger look surprisingly like their real-life counterparts, which enhances their portrayals. And Howard Da Silva looks convincingly stricken as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who set the Crisis in motion, but then tries desperately to put the genie back into the bottle.

On the other hand, Ralph Bellamy, sporting a full head of hair, was an odd choice to play Adlai Stevenson, who was famously the nearly bald politician for whom the term "egghead" was coined. Likewise, Ron Feinberg, an obscure character actor, was chosen to play Charles De Gaulle. He apparently looked so little like the real article that he's shot almost entirely in shadow and from behind.

Another odd decision: Lyndon Johnson, although then the vice-president and a member of Kennedy's "executive committee" that advised him during the Crisis, isn't portrayed at all. Yet Jackie Kennedy makes a brief appearance to provide a moment of comic relief when she drops a pair of tongs at an elegant White House dinner, creating a brief embarrassment. Like Feinberg, she's shot without ever showing her face, and the actress who played her is uncredited; it's even possible her identity was not preserved.

The story was told again in 2000 as the feature film "Thirteen Days," with a much bigger budget. Surprisingly, in the later film, Kevin Costner, though the biggest "name," did not play the president. Instead, Costner was White House aide Kenny O'Donnell, yielding the Kennedy role to Bruce Greenwood, who did a competent job despite resembling JFK less even than Devane. Watching the two films back-to-back would be a worthwhile exercise given that they cover almost exactly the same ground. But even so, "The Missiles of October" is itself a worthwhile film if you can find it; unfortunately, it's not being streamed, and the DVD is pretty hard to find.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Almost Forgotten Sci-Fi Chiller that's Still Relevant Today

[10/10 · 31 December 2021]

"The Andromeda Strain" fits in well with the many films of the 1970s that seemed to say we should distrust not just technology, but also the government that increasingly controlled and wielded a lot of it, often in secrecy. Viewing it now, exactly 50 years after it was released, it produces oddly mixed feelings - of something quaint and obsolete, yet oddly familiar and, almost counter-intuitively, still quite relevant today.

The film opens with a military party sent to retrieve a satellite that has come down in a tiny New Mexico hamlet. But the soldiers find that everyone in town has apparently died - and then they, too, succumb to whatever it was. And so a new team, this time wearing bio-hazard suits, is hastily assembled to retrieve the object, and to figure out what has gone wrong.

But in doing so, they discover that not quite everyone has died: a grizzled old alcoholic and a baby who cried herself into a lather have somehow survived. And so the team, and we, proceed to "Wildfire," a five-story underground laboratory with odd, color-coded levels, as the team members try desperately to figure out, first, what killed most of the town and - more importantly - why those two utterly dissimilar "patients" survived.

The quaint part is that, while advanced for the early 70s, the technology today seems almost laughable. Almost all the computers have character-based interfaces, like the old Colossal Cave Adventure, and data entry is done exclusively using a keyboard. Secure communication is done through a single workstation with one of those endless tractor-feeds of spreadsheet-sized printouts - which apparently can be fouled by a scrap of paper. Given that they also do communication using two-way screen hookups, one wonders why the printouts are nevertheless still being used.

But viewed from the perspective of 50 years that have also seen the rise of AIDS, Ebola, and now COVID, the fear of catastrophic disease and the possibility that this kind of plague could be conjured in a lab or because of environmental destruction - or both - seems eerily prescient. The paranoia is part of the background of our lives, too; everyone seems to distrust someone, whether it's activists on the left, or the right, or the military, or scientists, or "elites." Fearing one's neighbor seems to have become the reflex of our time.

Still, the oddest resonance one gets from the movie is a gnawing sense of familiarity. Michael Crichton wrote both the source novel for this (he makes a brief cameo in one scene) and also for one of the great blockbusters of all time, "Jurassic Park." Indeed, because he was the author of both novels, there are parallels here you might not immediately recognize: both films have a four-person team, two insiders (here, Arthur Hill and David Wayne) and two wisecracking outsiders (Kate Reid and James Olson) who bring an immediate distrust of the harm big institutions can inflict. Reid, in particular, is a delight: she gets most of the best lines, and at times seems the least "scientific" despite her credentials.

But one must also not forget the fifth "character": the underground "Wildfire" lab itself. At least a third of the film is spent explaining what each level is for, how the members of the team are being progressively decontaminated (as Hill's character says, they have to try to sterilize the human body, one of the "dirtiest" things known), and all of the attendant gadgets used to do so. And thus, despite the film's overt distaste for high tech, in a different sense it's treated lovingly - almost obsessively.

The film does set up one completely contrived plot point: "Wildfire" has a nuclear device with a five-minute timer to make sure that a dangerous pathogen doesn't escape into the outside world. Olson is given a key to deactivate it, but only by reaching a special lock-station in the five-minute window. It's a pretty flimsy setup for a melodramatic countdown that is as illogical (Olson, a complete outsider, is the only one who can shut the thing off?) as it is easy to see the countdown coming as soon as it's introduced. But that's the only flaw in an otherwise chilling film that, despite the obsolescence of the gadgetry, is as pertinent today (or perhaps even more so) than it was five decades ago.

White Orchid (2018)

Not the Destination, but the Journey

[9/10 · 31 December 2021]

Years ago, the estate of Margaret Mitchell hired the late Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel to "Gone with the Wind." To prepare for her attempt to imitate Mitchell's prose, one of the things Ripley did was to write out 100 pages of the original novel, in longhand, to try to submerge herself fully into Mitchell's writing style.

That story came back to me as I thought back on "The White Orchid," an elegant neo-noir/thriller about a young woman, Claire Decker (Olivia Thirlby), an investigator who contracts with the San Luis Obispo County Department of Social Services. She is usually hired to look for heirs of people who died without a will or left no clue to next of kin. Claire is good at what she does, and her supervisor (Jennifer Beals) offers her a big case: to find information about a dead woman has become known as "the White Orchid" because of her predilection to dress only in white and her fondness for that particular flower. Her murder became a local sensation because her body was found missing hands and head, making physical identification impossible.

Claire takes the case reluctantly, but soon finds herself drawn into clues left behind at the dead woman's house. And she begins to find herself drawn not only into the mystery of the woman's identity, but also her distinctive manner of dress and disguises, finds evidence that the woman was more than just a random crime victim. As she does so, Claire starts making her investigation more personal than she should, while also starting to lose herself a bit in the mystery woman's persona.

The story is rather clearly based on one of the most notorious criminal cases in history - the still-unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, whose horribly mutilated body was found in a Los Angeles front yard in 1947. The press dubbed her "the Black Dahlia," either in association with the then-popular film, "The Blue Dahlia" (itself a Raymond Chandler noir mystery), or because she allegedly had a fondness for an all-black wardrobe, including her underwear.

"The White Orchid" has a definite sense of place. It's not only set in San Luis Obispo County, but in Morro Bay, a small town away from the freeways and located on the curving coastal highway. It's most noteworthy feature is an ancient volcanic mound, Morro Rock, that dominates the town's small harbor. It's remote from both Los Angeles and San Francisco - yet because of the Short case and some scenes that take place in the latter, the film is linked, at least indirectly, to both.

And as in many films, one of the pleasures here is not just the scenic backdrop or vicariously following the clues, and but also the great cast. Beside Thirlby, who brings a striking look to the part of Claire, we have Beals (who, sadly, isn't given enough to do), John Carroll Lynch as the county sheriff, and even a couple of scenes that feature Nichelle Nichols as a blind woman who may have information about the dead woman's identity. Some reports claimed that Nichols (famed for her role in the original "Star Trek") has been suffering from dementia - but despite being in her mid-80s, shows no sign of debility here. And Lynch, who memorably played a prime suspect in "Zodiac" (2007), provides another of his long resume of character performances.

Because Elizabeth Short's death has been dramatized in both movies and television, writer-director Steve Anderson here makes everything the exact opposite: so we have "the White Orchid" instead of "the Black Dahlia," with most of the details also set up to mirror that case. Some viewers seem to be bothered that the film may leave some questions even at the end; it certainly seems to scream for a sequel. But this is one of those films in which the solution isn't nearly as important as the journey - in following Claire's immersion into the dead woman's world, and what she finds there.

Mission: Impossible: Zubrovnik's Ghost (1966) Season 1, Episode 11

A "Mission" Like No Other

[4/10 · 8 May 2021]

"Zubrovnik's Ghost," an early outing for "Mission: Impossible," is a highly unusual, if not unique, episode. It was the first of several "spook" stories, but unlike all the others, in which anything supernatural was orchestrated by the Impossible Mission Force's trickery, this one displays an astonishing credulousness about séances, communication with the dead, and paranormal phenomena.

Of course, this was a *very* early show - it was only the 11th episode broadcast. One gets the sense that producer Bruce Geller approved the script before few other episodes, except perhaps the pilot, were available for screenwriter Robert Lewin to use as a guide. The plot is fairly straightforward: a scientist, Dr. Martha Richards (Beatrice Straight) is doing largely unspecified, but "important," work in Europe. A year earlier, her husband, Zubrovnik, died in a fire. Because she is already near the Iron Curtain, a foreign government is attempting to lure her across it to defect, using one of their operatives posing as a medium who can communicate with Dr. Richards' deceased husband.

Because this script was written so early, it still relied on one of Geller's weaker concepts: that team leader Dan Briggs would "shuffle the deck" of the agents each week, and only select some of the four series regulars for the mission. (Indeed, because Martin Landau had not signed a contract, despite frequent appearances, he was always billed as a "special guest star" this season.) This made the "dossier scene" more important than later on, and Season One had some interesting "slimmed down" teams - Briggs, Rollin, and Willy in "The Trial"; Cinnamon and Rollin in "A Spool there Was"; or just Rollin and a guest agent in "Elena."

In "Zubrovnik's Ghost," for the only time in the series, the "regular" team is only Rollin and Barney, plus Ariana, a psychic played by guest star Martine Bartlett, who spouts what seem to be genuine beliefs in "spirits." As in other episodes, we're told that Briggs can't participate because he's "too well known" by friends or foes, so Steven Hill draws a full paycheck for just the tape scene, dossier scene, and apartment scene. Hill's contractual right to leave the set for Jewish services early on Friday evenings was likely already causing headaches for the producers, and Geller undoubtedly was beginning to regret agreeing to this clause in Hill's contract.

So Rollin and Barney pose as paranormal investigators who are supposedly investigating whether Dr. Richards' late husband, Zubrovnik, is appearing to her through the supposed medium who works for The Other Side. They're permitted to quite openly rig a variety of "ghost detecting" gizmos in the room where a séance will take place. The only one of Barney's usual "magic gadgets" that the IMF plans to use is a black light projector that can make a ghostly face appear on command. But it soon becomes clear that the team has only the vaguest notion of how it will to use this device.

Indeed, this is the major problem with the whole episode. If this story had been produced later, perhaps when William Woodfield and Allan Balter were supervising the scripts, Barney would undoubtedly have hidden his black light projector among the devices to create the "spook effect" and thereby discredit the fake medium. But instead, the IMF seems to have gone on this mission without any carefully constructed plan, and most of what we see is Rollin and Barney (without much help from Ariana) making it up as they go along - at one point having to ask for a "do over" séance because they didn't have the projector set up the first time!

Tight plotting was usually "Mission's" greatest strength, so the IMF's abysmal planning here is disorienting. And speaking of disorienting, as the show moves on, the team increasingly relies on Ariana's "visions" and, most bizarrely, her apparent "possession" by the spirit of a dead beekeeper (don't ask) to figure out that Zubrovnik's death may have been faked. But later, Ariana suddenly tells Rollin and Barney she "senses" that he's "just been killed" - and they go along with this without complaint!

Perhaps even more remarkably, at one point she refuses to cooperate with Rollin's and Barney's plans for the second séance because it "offends" her to fake something supernatural. In this, she violates two cardinal rules of the show: the team's utter loyalty to one another, and their duty to the mission above all else.

So, to sum up: this episode relies on "tell us, don't show us" (because many important events happen off-screen); much of what does happens is attributed to the paranormal; and there is unprecedented dissension within the team. As a result, most of "Zubrovnik's Ghost" feels more like an episode of "Twilight Zone," or "One Step Beyond." What it doesn't feel like is an episode of "Mission: Impossible."

The Holly and the Ivy (1952)

Bitter as Any Gall

[9/10 · 1 January 2021]

"The Holly and the Ivy" is an unconventional, thoroughly British Christmas movie (sadly, largely unknown except to cinephiles). Released in 1952, but set in 1948 (as shown on the postmark of a mailed invitation we're shown in the opening moments) it takes viewers to the Christmas gathering of a clergyman's family at a Norfolk parsonage. The parson himself, the recently widowed Martin Gregory, is played by Ralph Richardson, made up to look a touch older than his actual 50 or so at the time.

His three children are Michael (a young, fit Denholm Elliot), home on leave from a stint in the army; successful but deeply unhappy Margaret (a fashionable Margaret Leighton); and stalwart Jenny (Celia Johnson), who has taken over running her father's household since her mother's death. Rounding out the get-together are the parson's maiden sister, cold and endlessly complaining Aunt Bridget and his effervescent sister-in-law, Aunt Lydia, herself a widow. Also invited to the gathering is a distant cousin, Richard, apparently a successful businessman following his own army career.

In some ways, "The Holly and the Ivy" is a dramatic counterpart to 1983's "A Christmas Story," which that movie's director, Bob Clark, noted was created by linking together a number of Jean Shepherd stories, almost none of which were about Christmas (except for the story of Ralph's desire for a Red Ryder BB gun). This movie likewise has no Santa Claus (or, given its English setting, Father Christmas), no Christmas miracle, and no angels. It could have taken place during any family gathering - except that, because it is set during Christmas, the snow and other Yuletide accoutrements form the background of the film, especially the Christmas carol from which it derives its title.

Parson Gregory admits that, though he must excuse himself to write his Christmas sermon, he finds the whole Christmas season tedious. He notes that the commercialization of the holiday is a powerful distraction to his parishioners, and that most of them fidget in their seats hoping for an early end to the Christmas service so that they can be home opening gifts or readying Christmas dinner.

Still, the most significant exchange in the whole film is drawn from that eponymous Christmas carol itself. Jenny notes during dinner that she hadn't realized until recently that holly has a bitter scent. When someone expresses surprise at this, she points out that it does so when one breaks open the holly's bark, something written into the carol itself: "The holly bears a bark/ As bitter as any gall." And to that, her father responds (as one might expect a clergyman to do) with the carol's succeeding line: "And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ/ For to redeem us all."

The importance of this bit of dialogue is that the parson's family, like the holly bark, has bitterness hidden just below the surface. Each of Parson Gregory's three children harbors his or her own secret. Margaret, though making a good living in the world of fashion in London, mourns the child she bore out of wedlock with an American serviceman who died in the war; the child also has recently died of meningitis. Unable to discuss any of this with her father, she finds refuge in the bottle instead.

Michael, though his father wants him to go to university, doesn't fancy himself a student, and has also lost his faith - and like Margaret, doesn't believe he can discuss these things with his father. And Jenny, though she cares for her father and runs the parsonage, has privately become engaged to a young Scottish engineer, who will shortly leave for a five-year position in South America. She would prefer to wed and go on his adventure with him, but feels duty-bound to stay with her sometimes dotty father now that her mother is gone. And eventually, like a broken holly branch's bitter scent, all of these resentments break through to the surface during this holiday gathering.

The story of these family dynamics are interesting enough, but the film is enhanced by the flawless acting. Ralph Richardson plays the parson with just the right touch of eccentricity and brittleness, yet shows surprising tenderness toward his offspring when the storm finally breaks. Celia Johnson, having starred in some of the most noteworthy British films of the mid-century (including 1945's "Brief Encounter," which still appears on many 10-best or 100-best lists) was, sadly, already withdrawing from her acting career (she would appear in only 3 more motion pictures during the 1950s), but she invests Jenny with poignance. Denholm Elliot and Margaret Leighton likewise evoke the pain of children who have always felt that their father's career came before they did, and who consequently had to keep their private demons to themselves.

Of course, viewed from the perspective of 70 years, it's interesting to note the assumptions underlying the conflicts among these characters. No one, for example, questions why a grown man needed a female relative essentially to dedicate her life to taking care of him. Jenny blithely accepts that unless she, Margaret, or one of her two aunts can come to the parsonage to run things, her father will be unable to function. Equally noteworthy is that no one even hints that, if the parson is so in need of assistance, Michael might step into that role. Oh no - he's off to university and a career, of course; a man would apparently never "waste" his life as it's so readily accepted a woman might have to.

Still, perhaps it's unfair to view these characters and the easy roles they fell into in 1948 (or 1952) through the lens of the early twenty-first century. It's nevertheless an enjoyable hour or two to spend with a family adjusting to life in postwar Britain, the troubling dynamics of a family who have too long stayed silent with one another, and a gifted and marvelous group of actors portraying them. So - perhaps - there is a bit of Christmas magic at work in there, after all.

Born Free (1966)

Enjoyable Animal Drama, Though also Mired in its Time Period

[8/10 · 7 March 2019]

This gentle 1966 drama, about the raising and repatriation to the wild of Elsa the Lioness by Joy and George Adamson, is an enjoyable family film -- part Disneyesque, part family drama, and partly an interesting window into the time period depicted. The Adamsons lived in the newly-independent Republic of Kenya, where George was a game warden and his wife was a painter and writer.

It's not really a spoiler to say that George unintentionally orphans three lion cubs when he kills a lioness in self-defense, leading him and his wife to decide to hand-raise the trio. Joy Adamson becomes particularly attached to the runt of the litter, whom she names Elsa after a school acquaintance, but finds it increasingly difficult to accept that she will have to part with the growing cub as she reaches maturity. And, as the saying goes, thereby hangs the rest of our tale.

Contemporary viewers, especially adults, are likely to be somewhat jarred by some aspects of the film that seem quite dated today. With one exception, the Adamsons' native staff are interchangeable figures with no role except to provide -- well, one is almost tempted to say "local color." At one point George is even referred to as "bwana," which sounds like a term one would associate with a movie of the 1930s, not the 1960s. One also wonders why the lion that attacked a woman at the beginning of the film wasn't darted and relocated to a more remote area instead of being hunted down and killed, which (one would hope) would be done today. It's important to remember, however, that although this was filmed in 1966, it's based on Joy's 1960 memoir about raising and then trying to return Elsa to the wild; that publication date confirms that these events occurred even earlier, in the mid-1950s.

Still, the most enjoyable part of the film is undoubtedly the animal antics involving the three cubs, especially when they are young and still manageable. Disney, in particular, used to spool out films reminiscent of this part of "Born Free" almost effortlessly during this same time period -- think of "Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar," "Joker, the Amiable Ocelot," or "An Otter in the Family." But any notion that this might have been a Disney film is soon dispelled -- how many Disney films, after all, depict a human killed by a lion, and two great wild animals shot to death, all in the first 10 minutes?

The two main actors nevertheless do a fine job, abetted no doubt because Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna were a real-life married couple when this was filmed. They have great chemistry together, and their relationship seems almost too good to be true; indeed, when George turns on Joy angrily at one point, it's a jarring moment because it's unlike anything that's come before.

Things were not quite so idealized between the actual couple -- although they never divorced, the real-life Adamsons drifted apart toward the last decade of their lives. And Joy (which was a nickname) was actually Austrian, not British, and one suspects that she might not have spoken with Virginia McKenna's clipped British accent. Indeed, according to this very website, the real Joy Adamson did not live up to her nickname, becoming such a problem during filming that she was banned from the film set.

The movie has an interesting legacy. During the 1970s, it became an annual "television event," almost like "The Wizard of Oz." There were several follow-up films -- some documentaries, some scripted -- based in part on later memoirs by Joy Adamson. The real Ms. Adamson, sadly, came to a bad end, as she was murdered in 1980 by a disgruntled former employee. George, too, met a violent death, killed by a poacher (although he saved a woman's life in the process). The happiest consequence were the remaining lives of Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who became animal activists, making other animal-related films, and trying among other things to save animals kept in appalling conditions in cheaply-run zoos. They established a foundation, named after the film, that continues their work under the direction of one of their children.

Penelope (1966)

Delightful, if Insubstantial, Bit of Mid-Sixties Fluff

[7/10 · 1 January 2019]

"Penelope," a Natalie Wood vehicle from 1966, is a pleasant, breezy little film that in some ways fits into the rash of caper movies ("Topkapi," "Kaleidoscope," "Gambit," "Arabesque," etc.) that populated movie screens in the mid-1960s. While it, too, has a one-word title, it differs from those others in that it's more of a character study than a clever "howdunnit" procedural, focusing instead on the title character and her marital relationship with her bank president husband (Ian Bannen).

It's not really spoiling anything to say that Penelope disguises herself as an old woman and makes off with a large haul of cash -- if only because that event happens in the first few minutes. She then cleverly makes her way out of the bank unrecognized, and heads directly for her psychiatrist's office, where she is undergoing heavy psychoanalysis for her kleptomania. Penelope eventually figures out that the reason she decided to knock off her husband's own bank was to get her workaholic husband's attention -- though the audience likely will have figured this long beforehand.

Penelope eventually attracts the attention of a dogged police detective played by Peter Falk. Some reviewers have suggested (after the fact of course) that this was in some ways a pilot for Falk's later role as Lt. Columbo. Falk's characterization here does have some of the, "Oh, excuse me, excuse me -- one more thing . . ." that came to embody his "Columbo" role. But no one knew that in 1966 (the pilot for the TV series was still a couple of years away) -- and Columbo operated out of Los Angeles, and there's nary a rumpled raincoat nor a dilapidated car in this New York City-based motion picture. So while it's possible that the producers of the later TV series were inspired by this movie, it's likely more a coincidence than anything else.

The "twist," if one can call it that, is that eventually when Penelope decides to come clean and admit her culpability in the bank heist (and in various other thefts over the years), no one (including her hubby) will believe her -- which is also the opposite of the conceit in every episode of "Columbo," where the villain usually gets his or her comeuppance in the final scene. How she makes her way out of that little problem is the nail on which the rest of the film hangs.

In a film of this vintage, though, what's almost always as interesting is the supporting cast, all of whom are now no longer with us. In addition to Peter Falk, there's Dick Shawn as her psychiatrist, who carries his own dark secret that he's smitten with his patient (and that he apparently keeps his own shrink sequestered in a back room on a lifetime retainer). Those who know Ian Bannen only from his late works as a white-haired elder (in "Waking Ned Devine," "Braveheart," or "Hope and Glory") might be surprised to find him here as a dark-haired Louis Jourdan-lookalike, very much the ladykiller (which is one of the problems that Penelope has with him).

Sadly, Jonathan Winters, though fourth-billed, is wasted in a single 3-minute scene that plays more like a fantasy scene, literally kangaroo-hopping around a college classroom trying to manhandle the young Penelope, eventually tearing off her dress. Any number of unknown actors could have played the part without wasting the time and talent of one of the great improvisational actors of all time.

So, what one really finds with this movie is a charming, if insubstantial, confection -- occasionally dated by the notions of its time, as when a detective watching footage of bank-robber Penelope exiting the bank notes that she has a pleasant "wiggle." She does . . . But then, it's hard to imagine that line of dialogue ever making its way into a motion picture today -- unless it's about the sexist attitudes of the mid-1960s. More substantial, perhaps, are the movie's two songs, the title song by Leslie Bricusse and a folk song written by Gale Garnet that's sung by Wood herself -- allowing her to demonstrate, if nothing else, that she had a lovely singing voice.

The Dick Van Dyke Show: The Great Petrie Fortune (1965) Season 5, Episode 7

Clever, Amusing Entry Despite the Show Being in its Final Season

[9/10 · 1 September 2017]

By its fifth season, one might have thought that "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would be growing tired. This was, in fact, one of the reasons that Carl Reiner announced at the end of 1964 that the fifth season would be his last. Though he had given up writing almost all of the scripts during the second and third seasons, and had even briefly passed on his producing duties to others while he was off filming "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," he and his two stars, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore were all eager to do other things. The two lead actors were receiving lucrative movie offers, and Reiner wanted to become a movie director.

But despite everyone knowing that the show was coming to an end, the fifth season was still one of its best. Episodes like "The Great Petrie Fortune" allowed everyone to acknowledge that, for better or worse, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" went off the air when it was still on top, while also leaving CBS, some of show's other cast members, and its viewers wanting more.

The episode begins with one of those scenes that rarely if ever happened in real life, at least by 1965. Attorneys no longer gathered the people named as heirs by a deceased relative for a dramatic reading of the will, even though it's a staple of movies and television, whether in the Disney picture "The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin" or "The Lincoln Letter," a 1970 episode of Bill Cosby's original situation comedy. (In fact, "The Lincoln Letter," which also involves a search for a valuable heirloom, may owe something to "The Great Petrie Fortune" in several of its plot points.)

Here, the episode begins with Rob and Laura being greeted at an attorney's office by a variety of Rob's greedy, distant relatives, some of whom are disappointed that they didn't get even more valuable property than they were left by Rob's Great-Uncle Hezekiah. It's a brief showcase for some familiar character actors of that era, including Amzie Strickland and Herb Vigran.

This scene leads to one of Dick Van Dyke's chances to dip into his paint pot to actually play Uncle Hezekiah in old-age makeup, in a short movie supposedly filmed before Hezekiah's death -- borrowing a page from Van Dyke himself, when he played a very similar double-role as Mr. Dawes Senior in "Mary Poppins" to sing, "Fidelity Fiduciary Bank." The two portrayals have a lot in common, except that here Van Dyke got to keep his own hair, touched up with a little grey, instead of a bald cap with a white mop in "Poppins."

Uncle Hezekiah has left Rob (and Laura) an old roll-top desk wrapped up in a bit of mystery -- he tells Rob that he's bequeathing him "riches beyond compare" and then sings him a chorus of "Me and My Shadow" as a clue to what those "riches" might be. The rest of the episode is a series of very funny scenes of first Rob and Laura going through the desk hoping to find those "riches" but not wanting to emulate Rob's greedy relatives; then their inability to solve the mystery leads them to invite Buddy and Sally over to help with the sleuthing, though that's mostly an excuse for the two second bananas to trade one-liners.

Rose Marie gets to utter two lines that likely slip by most viewers today. First she suggests that maybe Uncle Hezzie "left you Ted Lewis," a reference to a singer and band leader (still alive in 1965) who often closed his shows with "Me and My Shadow." And then when Buddy asks, "shadow, shadow . . . what does that mean?" Sally cracks, "Lamont Cranston" and even does a little impression of The Shadow's laugh from the old-time radio show -- another joke that most viewers at the time would have understood, but almost no one today (except aficionados of old radio) would.

And then, after another false lead involving some old coins turns out to be a dead end, the show comes to its gentle climax, in which Rob and Laura solve the mystery almost without trying to. And in the process, they get a lesson in what Uncle Hezekiah really valued . . . and what a real treasure can be. And perhaps, in the process, viewers can discover another treasure here, too -- namely, "The Great Petrie Fortune" itself.

The West Wing: Five Votes Down (1999) Season 1, Episode 4

Sausages and Laws

[10/10 · 24 December 2016]

"Five Votes Down" gets "The West Wing" into the nitty-gritty of the legislative process for the first time -- but certainly not the last. In some ways, the episode's theme is revealed in the opening scene, as President Bartlet regales a supportive dinner crowd with jokes and political promises -- especially to pass gun control legislation -- while standing beneath a banner proclaiming "Practical Idealism." It's the introduction to an excellent episode that reveals much about both politics and the lives of the main characters.

While some have taken the banner behind Bartlett as a political "sliding scale" -- that sometimes one must be practical, while at other times idealistic -- the slogan can also be read as a hopeless oxymoron, somewhat like the political motto in "Veep," namely, "Continuity with Change." The late Mario Cuomo (who knew a thing or two about politics) put it more gracefully: "We campaign in poetry. We govern in prose." It's the paradox of democratic politics: to get elected, one must take out mortgages with factions and special interests. Getting elected that way, however, leaves little political capital to accomplish the causes and goals for which one presumably got elected in the first place -- something the White House staff learns in this episode.

And so, even as Pres. Bartlett is charming the crowd, word comes that they are actually five votes short to pass that gun control bill. So, over a 2:00 a.m. late dinner/early breakfast of Chinese food in take-out cartons (something that, apparently, never happens in the real White House -- for security reasons), the senior staffers try to figure out who the defectors are and what it will take to get them back in line.

The first of two subplots line is equally gut-wrenching -- even as Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) deals with the possible consequences of losing this vote, he discovers that the enormous commitment to his job (especially the many, many late nights) has cost him his marriage. And in the second subplot, Toby Ziegler's annual financial disclosure reveals that he made a 2,500% profit on a stock purchase that could violate federal securities law.

Toby's financial problems are played mostly for comic relief, but the first two stories entwine in some interesting ways. Leo admits that, if forced to choose between his marriage and his job, he'll (regretfully) pick the latter. And then, having twice clashed with Vice-President Hoynes in earlier episodes, Leo finds himself needing the vice-president's help to get that fifth vote. Seeing Leo's stricken face just moments after Leo has learned that his wife wants a divorce (and, truly -- no one ever did "stricken" better than John Spencer), Hoynes doesn't exact retribution for Leo's earlier mistreatment of him; instead he's gracious and supportive.

This also gives Hoynes, who knows of Leo's alcoholic past, the chance to invite Leo to Hoynes' own, special AA meetings -- provided discreetly for politicians whose attendance at regular AA would be impossible. It's a lovely scene that allows some of the characters' back-stories to be revealed without fanfare, while also giving new perspectives on both characters. (And indeed, despite his genuine concern for Leo, Hoynes has a political trick still up his sleeve, adding yet another layer to his characterization.) But perhaps it's Leo himself who best summarizes this episode, in a line usually attributed to Otto von Bismarck: "Sausages are like laws. It's better not to see them being made."

Practical idealism, indeed.

My Favorite Martian: Martian Report #1 (1965) Season 2, Episode 18

Excellent Script from Blanche Hanalis, Though Marred by a Silly Sight Gag

[9/10 · 30 April 2016]

Blanche Hanalis was easily the finest writer who worked on scripts for "My Favorite Martian," demonstrating time and again that the show could rise above its "out of this world" premise with characters who came to life. Along with "Nothing But the Truth" from early in Season 2 and "We Love You, Miss Pringle" from near the end of this season, "Martian Report #1" fills out a trilogy of Ms. Hanalis' best work. This episode just misses being as good as the other two, however, because it is marred by a silly sight gag at the end that undermines some of the good will that the script had theretofore earned.

The premise is quite simple: Martin suggests that earth children should be "deep frozen" until adulthood to avoid the difficulties of childhood. He explains to Tim that Martians have no childhood, and being "frozen" would spare them the difficulty of not fully understanding the world around them until they are fully grown. (Some of this premise was undermined near the end of the series when the producers introduced Martin's real nephew, Andromeda, in perhaps a vain effort to revive interest in the series, but . . . Never mind.)

Spurred on a bit by Tim's skepticism, Martin decides to "study" a real earth child, named Doris (Katie Sweet), whom he and Tim agree to foster from an orphanage. At first, Martin treats her like a lab rat as he compiles the eponymous report -- and Doris responds as one might expect, with defiance and endless mischief. But as he spends time with her, and begins to treat her not just as the subject of an experiment but as a child, Martin softens up and discovers, as most parents do, that the wonder is not the influence that parents have on children, but that which children have on parents. The scene between Martin and Doris in her bedroom after Martin gives her a piggyback ride to bed is a surprisingly poignant moment in what was supposedly a silly comedy series -- though all of Ms. Hanalis' episodes featured at least one moment like this.

The episode's crisis comes when Doris stumbles upon Martin's report. Even though Martin has had second thoughts about both its premise and the whole idea of "studying" a little girl, there's enough of the cold scientist in the report to break her heart, and she runs away. This sets the stage for another moving scene, when Martin has to confront her and apologize for his thoughtlessness.

But along the way, this episode has one of those special effects moments upon which "My Favorite Martian" too often relied. Searching for Doris in an old house during a thunderstorm, an electrical jolt supposedly turns Martin (and later Tim) into see-through skeletal figures. It's an effect that is at once mildly amusing and deeply cringe-inducing -- it adds only a little to the story, but the special effects are particularly bad for "Martian" -- and that's saying something. The skeletons that are supposed to be Martin and later Tim look like the producers borrowed a couple of ape skeletons from a museum -- the skulls in particular are not remotely the same size as Ray Walston's or Bill Bixby's, and there are painfully obvious threads holding them up like the marionettes that these skeletons, in effect, really were.

Still, that silliness is nevertheless redeemed by the rest of the script. Katie Sweet, who played the little girl, does a good job for a child actress -- she conveys the sense that she's a real little kid and not acting. There's also an amusing scene that, unlike the skeletons later on, works very well, involving familiar character actor Olan Soule as a social worker checking on Doris' welfare -- when Martin grabs onto Mrs. Brown to make it look like she's much more involved in Doris' care than Mrs. Brown really is. So, all things considered, it's a worthwhile episode that that one scene in the old house doesn't damage too much.

The Twilight Zone: Number 12 Looks Just Like You (1964) Season 5, Episode 17

A High Point of Twilight Zone's Final Season

[10/10 · 29 February 2016]

By its fifth (and what would become its final) season, Rod Serling's landmark series had grown a bit tired. Many of the season's episodes are either retreads of what had gone before, or are almost unwatchable (think, for example, of "I Am the Night -- Color Me Black," in which a good idea about the spread of evil is rendered hopelessly didactic). The subtlety Serling showed in the early years too often gave way to on-screen homilies.

Yet, there were a surprising number of bright spots -- "In Praise of Pip," "The Masks," "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," "Living Doll." And there is this episode, which has lost none of its thought-provoking power more than 50 years after it was produced.

The show is set, somewhat amusingly today, in the year 2000 -- although the date is less important than the society that writer John Tomerlin has constructed. (The episode is credited to Charles Beaumont, but at the time Beaumont was already overwhelmed by too many writing commitments, not to mention the onset of a frightening mental ailment that could have been a variation on Alzheimer's Disease, even though Beaumont was only in his mid-30s. Beaumont farmed out the script, based on his own short story "The Beautiful People," to Tomerlin, who shared credit with Beaumont even though the script was entirely his.)

In the society depicted in the episode, the main character, Marilyn, brilliantly played by the late Collin Wilcox, is surrounded by people almost too good-looking to be true. Everyone who turns nineteen can undergo a "Transformation" to make them as handsome or beautiful as every one of their friends and neighbors. This sounds like an improvement over the usual dystopian worlds depicted in science fiction (such as in "Logan's Run," where everyone gets killed after a certain birthday) . . . but the effects of a society that places such a premium on good looks is corrosive in subtler ways that are only hinted at for most of the episode.

To save money on actors with speaking parts, the creators cleverly had each actor or actress play several parts, differentiated by name tags; this not only saved money, but had the added benefit of making it seem as if there were only a limited number of "body models" to choose from. So, while one can become "beautiful" after the Transformation, you'll likely end up -- as the title implies -- looking just like your best friend or neighbor.

Wilcox, although hardly unattractive, is still what might be called "plain" compared to the other players, from whom she gets great support. All of the male parts, including her late father as depicted in a photograph, are played by Richard Long, who would go on to "The Big Valley" and "Nanny and the Professor" before his untimely death in 1974. Her best friend Valerie is portrayed by sometime model and occasional actress Pam Austin, who certainly came closer to what might be called an ingénue than Wilcox. And in a clever bit of casting, producer William Froug had the bright idea to hire Suzy Parker. Parker is largely forgotten today, but in the early 1960s was the highest paid model in the United States, typically earning $200 an hour for her work -- which, as the saying goes, was serious money back then.

As the story progresses, Marilyn, who is on the verge of 19, resists undergoing the Transformation, because she was schooled by her father to resist pressure from society -- including the pressure to become beautiful merely because it's what everyone else is doing. Marilyn also suspects that the Transformation will change more than her appearance, and so fights for her right to remain as she was born -- much to the consternation of her mother, her best friend, and her doctor, all of whom cannot understand why a young woman would not want to become stunningly beautiful.

Unlike some episodes that relied on now-primitive-looking special effects, what makes "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" special is that it really relies on no special effects at all (except for a few split-screens that allow the same actor or actress to appear to be in the same scene twice). The story is all in the dialogue and the psychology, as Marilyn resists this supposedly wonderful Transformation, while everyone around her seems to believe that she must simply be a little addled, and just needs to "see the light."

And unlike some of the series' later episodes that descended into preaching, the message here comes across quietly, allowing the viewer to reach his or her own conclusions. It also brings up some disturbing questions about the ongoing importance of personal appearance in our real world -- a message more pertinent today than in 1964, with ever more effective means of plastic surgery, botox, hair restoration, and the like, the better to "improve" what nature has given you.

My Favorite Martian: Nothing But the Truth (1964) Season 2, Episode 4

Another Fine Script from the Show's Best Writer

[10/10 · 31 January 2016]

"Nothing but the Truth" is another episode demonstrating that the first two seasons of "My Favorite Martian" were its best. And it is also one of the three finest episodes of the series, along with "Martian Report #1" and "We Love You, Miss Pringle," both from later in the second season. What all three episodes have in common is that they came from the pen (or typewriter) of a remarkable writer, Blanche Hanalis, who sadly is mostly forgotten today (her listing in IMDb, for example has no biography except for her dates of birth and death) even though she had a hand in many memorable television productions.

Hanalis had already written one episode for "Martian" the previous season and would eventually submit eight scripts, but she never did better than in this episode and in the two named above. What all three episodes share is a light use of Uncle Martin's Martian powers and instead an emphasis on character development and interpersonal relationships. In "Martian Report," Uncle Martin coldly writes about a little foster child whom he and Tim take in for a time, failing to realize -- until it's almost too late -- that she's still a person with feelings. "Miss Pringle," arguably the show's high point, is about an old teacher of Tim's who is about to be forced into early retirement. She's one of those people who would rather be right than well-liked -- even though she often does good that goes unseen.

And then we have this episode, in which Mrs. Brown's sister Dulcy, brother-in-law Henry, and nephew Stanley come for a visit. Their sheepdog George tells Martin (don't ask) that the boy's father, an early computer engineer/programmer, doesn't want to let Stanley have a real childhood. So, Stanley is permitted nothing that comes from the imagination -- only facts, figures, and what can be perceived by the senses.

In many ways, this episode resembles the 1947 Christmas comedy-drama "Miracle on 34th Street," in which Macy's employee Doris Walker similarly prohibits her little girl from any fantasy life whatsoever. While that might not be a bad philosophy for an adult, it's terribly confining for a child, and in both stories someone with magical powers -- Kris Kringle in "Miracle" and Uncle Martin in this episode -- encourages the child to explore that part of life, too.

And maybe not just for kids: Ray Walston has a lovely scene in which he points out to Stanley that Isaac Newton's imagination led him to see beyond the apple that fell onto his head, instead picturing great objects whirling in space, and eventually coming up with the theory of gravity. Or that Ben Franklin's imagination led him to fly that kite in a storm, leading to confirmation that lightning was a form of electricity.

The Franklin story is likely just a myth, but Henry certainly treats it as a fact -- scolding Martin for filling Stanley's head with rubbish, and telling him that Franklin caught a terrible cold in the storm and almost died. Henry is played with just the right touch of brittleness by the late Don Keefer, who also is remembered as the fellow who stood up (at least for a while) to the monstrous, conscienceless child played by Billy Mumy in the "Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life." Of course, like Kris Kringle in "Miracle," someone has to set both Stanely -- and Henry -- right, and Martin is just the person to do it. It's here (and only here) that Martin's talents as a Martian comes into play, a welcome relief from the many episodes in which the entire plot revolved around Martin's powers creating havoc that then had to be undone.

Besides a well-written human interest story, the episode features the only appearance of Mrs. Brown's sister, played by Yvonne White. She and Pamela Britton have a lot of fun acting like two variations on Mrs. Brown's usual ditsy personality, to the point that Martin's mind-reading seems to have gone haywire when he picks up similar readings from both of them at the same time. Another bonus is a comical turn by Stafford Repp (later to play Chief O'Hara in "Batman") -- already playing a police officer!

A final note: besides her contributions to "My Favorite Martian," writer Hanalis also had a role in developing "Little House on the Prairie" for television, wrote the scripts for the two nuns-and-schoolgirls comedies "The Trouble with Angels" and "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" from later in the 1960s, and wrote many memorable television movies -- such as "The Children of An Lac" about actress Ina Balin's effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans before the fall of Saigon, or a biography of activist Margaret Sanger played by the late Bonnie Franklin. What these all had in common with her three best "Martian" scripts was that Hanalis managed to create sympathetic characters and stories that gently conveyed a message while being neither preachy nor cloying. More than 50 years later, her best "My Favorite Martian" screenplays stand like redwoods among much of television's forgettable scrub brush of those days.

The Dick Van Dyke Show: The Man from My Uncle (1966) Season 5, Episode 27

The Van Dyke Show's Foray into the Spy Craze

[10/10 · 31 December 2015]

Comedian Fred Allen once quipped that "Imitation is the sincerest form of television." His observation certainly held true through the mid-to-late 1960s, when "Dr. No" begat "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," and the success of "U.N.C.L.E." in turn inspired dozens of imitators. Sometimes they were whole new series (think "Mission: Impossible," "I Spy," or "Get Smart"), and frequently a "spy" episode of other series that were not oriented that way, whether "My Favorite Martian" or "Please Don't Eat the Daisies." Not wanting to be the last on the block to go down that path, "The Man from My Uncle" was the "spy episode" of the "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and it's one of the series' high points.

Though in its fifth season, the Van Dyke Show was showing no signs of strain, and this episode has as much or more to say about the fantasies of middle-aged men as anything about intrigue and skulduggery. The rather down-to-earth premise is that the U.S. Government has information that a relative of the Petries' neighbor may have returned to the U.S. following deportation, and they want to use Ritchie's bedroom as an observation post on the man's house. When the federal agent lets it slip that his people are aware that Ritchie is away with the cub scouts, and Laura indignantly wants to know how they're aware of that, Rob -- who of course finds the whole situation exciting -- stiffly informs her that "they have ways of knowing those things." Ah, the days when folks just assumed that the government's keeping tabs on them was for the common good!

Laura, of course, recognizes the real reason for Rob's keen desire to cooperate with the government -- pointing out that while he talks about being a good citizen, inside he's a little boy jumping up and down saying, "Goodie, goodie, cops and robbers!" Though Rob denies this, when Laura gives her assent, his immediate reaction -- "Swell!" -- betrays exactly what she anticipated.

When the agent actually arrives, of course, this interplay is only heightened as Rob can't keep his hands off the gizmos that Federal Agent Harry Bond ("Please -- no jokes") brings with him, including a walkie-talkie, camera, and an innocent-looking banana that turns out to be . . . a banana. (Long about midnight on a stakeout, of course, one is likely to get mighty hungry.)

Still, the real gem in this episode is the casting of Godfrey Cambridge as Harry Bond. Cambridge, who was a stand up comedian in addition to being an actor, had the best timing in the business, and could project both high energy and somberness. When Rob encourages Bond, who has a bad toothache, to stretch out in a rocking chair, Rob later has to confess that he accidentally has taken a picture of Bond reclining when he was supposed to be on the job. Cambridge delivers the responsive line, "Mr. Petrie, why did you do that?" in a mournful tone that only Cambridge could have come up with. Later in the episode, Bond again has to ask Rob to please "stop playing with our equipment," stretching out "equipment" in a world-weary way to what seems like a lot more than three syllables.

Cambridge would soon bring this same mixture of dedication and sadness to a different kind of spy satire in Theodore Flicker's 1967 "The President's Analyst." But his talents are on full display here, and remind us what a loss it was when he died just a decade later at only 43.

Mission: Impossible: Submarine (1989) Season 1, Episode 18

The Old Formula Still has Some Life

[8/10 · 26 April 2014]

"Submarine," the penultimate episode of the first season of the 1988-1990 "Mission: Impossible," is credited on-screen only to Australian writer David Duguid. Anyone familiar with the original series, however, will immediately recognize one of its fondest-remembered episodes, also named "Submarine," produced during that series' fourth season and broadcast in November, 1969. As updated for the new version, it demonstrates that the formula that made the original series so enjoyable still had some life in it.

The original version was the only contribution to that series by Englishman Donald James, but his solo effort showed a deep understanding of what made that series work. Both episodes involve what became known as the "false journey" -- that is, the IMF needs information of some kind from its target, and therefore isolates that person by making him think that he's taking a trip somewhere, usually with his collaborators -- via train, aircraft, truck, or -- as hinted by the title -- submarine. Then, using the deception that became the series' hallmark, the target is tricked into revealing his most deeply held secret for what seems, at the time, the most logical of reasons. At the end, the "journey" is itself usually revealed to be a deception.

In the original, Nazi war criminal Kruger Stelman was about to be released from an East German prison after serving 25 years for war crimes. Stelman knew the location of millions of dollars in gold that could be used to spark a neo-Nazi coup, so the IMF "rescued" him and bundled him off to what appeared to be a submarine populated by his allies. The Nazi angle had little believability in 1989, so in the new version the IMF is after a man selling an underwater device that spreads a computer virus to modern ships, including those of the U.S. Navy. That their adversary, Edgar Sheppard (Mitchell Ryan), is himself a U.S. Navy admiral willing to use this device on his own men just makes him seem all the more evil.

Viewed from the perspective of an additional 25 years, the most noticeable thing about the remake is how quaint its technology seems. Sheppard's cohort carries what appears to be a late-1980s version of a laptop that looks almost as large as a manual typewriter. At one point Sheppard waives around a 1.4" floppy disc (anyone seen one of those lately?), and later the IMF captures important information on a VHS cassette. Electronics expert Grant Collier is even given a few lines to explain that a "computer virus" is not the same thing as the biological kind that infect people; there was apparently some concern the audience might not understand this in those pre-Internet days!

Those issues aside, the newer "Submarine" is still great fun today. The sets, both exterior and the false submarine, look great, Ryan is as nasty an adversary as any with whom the IMF grappled, and his descent into their trap seems logical each step of the way -- unlike some later episodes in which the villains seem to fall prey to their own stupidity as much as anything the IMF set up for them. Still, the quality of this episode undoubtedly derives as much as anything from its lineage to one of the best that the original series had to offer.

Mannix: Climb a Deadly Mountain (1973) Season 7, Episode 3

Fine Episode with a Touch of Adventure

[9/10 · 13 March 2013]

"Climb a Deadly Mountain," the third episode of the penultimate season of "Mannix," is a rousing adventure story that must have blown the location filming budget for most of the season. It starts with Joe Mannix boarding a private plane for a trip to an undisclosed destination -- on the strength of a $5,000 retainer. But that's all that we learn of Joe's assignment, because his plane is downed in rugged mountain terrain somewhere on its way to Albuquerque. From there, most of the story turns into a cross between "The Defiant Ones" and "The Most Dangerous Game," as Mannix teams up with Luke Whitney, an escaped convict who claims to have been framed, and to have eminently good reasons for his escape.

Filming this episode must have been particularly uncomfortable for the actors, as they struggle over steep terrain, slog their way through mountain streams, and clamber over boulders -- mostly in the hot sun. Luke initially helps Joe by proxy -- staying out of sight and guiding him with notes and trail markers, leaving him a canteen of water, and then, in a critical moment, returning Joe's gun. All of this, coupled with Luke being played by Greg Morris (former electronics wizard Barney Collier of the then-recently canceled "Mission: Impossible") helps make him a sympathetic figure, so that both Joe and the audience will eventually accept his story about how he became a convict and why his former captors are the real villains of the piece.

It's somewhat of a change of pace for the series -- though not entirely, as there had been other stories about Mannix ending up in the wilderness, especially Season Four's "Figures in a Landscape" and "Sunburst." Like those segments, except for a few early scenes when Peggy worries at the office about first Joe's silence and then his disappearance, this episode was filmed almost entirely on location (i.e., not on the studio back lot). Eventually, Mannix and Luke stumble upon a cabin where an old couple live, leading to a showdown with Luke's (and, by then, Mannix's) pursuers.

Part of the fun of an episode like this is finding out that the guest star is Greg Morris, or that the local sheriff is played by Edward Winter, who is best remembered today for more than a half-dozen appearances as the paranoid, over-the-top spook Col. Flagg in "M*A*S*H." Winter could chew the scenery with gusto in a part like that, so it's a rewarding change of pace to see him in a straight role like this. Gail Fisher also deserves praise for her anguished performance as Peggy, whose deep affection for Joe could never be depicted as more than just feelings; but at least she's allowed to let her emotions boil over in the episode's denouement.

Mannix: The Crimson Halo (1972) Season 6, Episode 3

The Return of "Lew Wickersham"

[6/10 · 26 March 2012]

Joseph Campanella, who co-starred in the series' first season, makes his one return appearance in this episode, more than four years after his last bow as "Lew Wickersham," Mannix' boss at the private detective firm "Intertect." As the head of Intertect, Wickersham/Campanella had a fondness for state-of-the-art electronic gizmos (well, 1967 vintage, anyway, like tracking devices), including a bank of closed-circuit televisions with which he could spy on his subordinates' offices, including -- especially -- Joe Mannix.

This could have provided an opportunity to have a trip down memory lane, re-visiting the wonders of Intertect's electronic wizardry, and once again contrasting it with lone wolf Joe Mannix' preference to eschew those devices in favor of his fists and his easy charm. It also would have given the series a sense of continuity by bringing back the one continuing character besides the rotating police officers played by folks like Larry Linville, Robert Reed, Jack Ging, or Ward Wood.

But it was not to be. Unfortunately, Campanella is instead cast here in the role of an arrogant, trail-blazing surgeon named Graham Aspinall, who apparently survives an attempt on his life by a prowler, prompting his attorney to ask Joe Mannix to find out why anyone would want the good doctor dead.

Sadly, the story is also riven with lots of plot points that don't hold up well under even cursory examination, and Campanella has some odd encounters with Joe Mannix -- beginning with a confrontation at his tennis club where Mannix, dressed in his usual sport coat and tie, follows Aspinall into the locker room -- and even tries to interrogate him while he's taking a shower! You couldn't wait outside until the poor guy had a chance to get showered and dressed, Joe?

Equally odd are the conversations Mannix has with two of the women in Dr. Aspinall's life -- one with his research assistant played by Laraine Stephens, who trades barbs with Mannix while garbed in a slinky orange dress and then disappears from the episode for good; and one with Irish actress Fionnuala Flanagan as Aspinall's secretary, who offers to let Mannix look at the doctor's patient records apparently because the script calls for it. Weren't medical records confidential back in the 1970s?

Still, if the episode has a redeeming feature (apart from seeing Connors and Campanella together one last time, even in such a disappointing episode), it's that old warhorse Burgess Meredith playing Aspinall's lawyer, who summons Mannix to his office -- which is large enough to play basketball in -- where Mannix finds the leprechaun-sized Meredith hunched over his desk wearing a gold vest. On anyone else the outfit would look pretentious, but Meredith carries it off. Sadly, he's only in the episode for three or four brief (though important) scenes, but his scenery-chewing is reason enough to see this episode, even if Campanella weren't in it.

Hawaii Five-O: Up the Rebels (1977) Season 10, Episode 1

Unintentionally Elegiac Episode Opens the Tenth Season

[8/10 · 29 May 2011]

By its tenth season, Hawaii Five-O was beginning to show its age, as there are only so many criminal syndicates, communist spy rings, and serial killers to go after on an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific. But in this season's premier, the show's writers and producers at least made a game try at playing out the string a bit longer, with an unexpected enemy -- terrorists from Northern Ireland.

The episode opens with a heist reminiscent of many others on the show -- a military squad that has just received a new kind of high explosive is ambushed by a group of frogmen, who disable the soldiers long enough to escape with the cache of munitions by boat. But a soldier who is farther away manages to read the craft's registration numbers, giving McGarrett and Co. a solid clue to the hijackers. Then a commander from Naval Intelligence informs McGarrett that among all of the possible places the ordnance could go, it's probably been stolen by a splinter group of Irish Catholic terrorists.

Most of the episode thereafter focuses on the relationship between Casey Fogarty (Elayne Heilveil) an heiress from Boston whose father is reputed to be funneling money to this group, and her contact in Honolulu, Fr. Daniel Costigan, aka Sean O'Rourke, played by Stephen Boyd. Boyd excelled at playing rogues and doesn't disappoint here, investing the character with his usual charm even as he dispatches his former partners one by one, eventually leaving the naive Fogarty in the lurch, too. And he also manages to catch Steve McGarrett off guard when he rattles off the occasional Latin or Gaelic phrase.

Though the episode is well-done and enjoyable to watch, there's a sense of sadness hanging over it today because of two things that wouldn't have been known when the episode was filmed. First, Boyd died of a heart attack less than a month after filming this episode, making this his final filmed appearance. (Indeed, it wasn't broadcast until three months after his death.) Boyd had had a moderately successful career, usually in second leads in major motion pictures (e.g., as Messala in 1959's "Ben-Hur"), as well as leading roles in smaller films during the 1960s (the brooding mystery "The Third Secret" in 1964, 1966's "Fantastic Voyage," or the delightful 1967 heist film, "Caper of the Golden Bulls"). His career had declined somewhat by the late 1970s, however, but it seemed to be coming back thanks to roles like this one, when he died suddenly at only 45.

It was, however, a fitting last role for Boyd who, though effortless at playing an American, actually *was* from Northern Ireland (raised, ironically for this role, as a Protestant), and in his first motion picture had played a similar character, in 1956's "The Man Who Never Was." In that film, Boyd's Irish character is sent to wartime England to determine whether a ruse the British concocted to mislead Germany is real or not. And just as in this episode, he isn't above romancing a young woman to get what he wants.

The other sad point about "Up the Rebels" is that it marks the end of Harry Endo's long run as Che Fong, the master criminalist who aided Five-O during the middle years of the series. During that run, Che Fong demonstrated skills in metallurgy, chemistry, ballistics, bacteriology, acoustics, electronics -- or just about whatever other field of scientific inquiry McGarrett needed. Endo originally played a bank employee in an episode of the second season (amusingly, his real-life job) -- at one point whipping out what would become his trademark telescoping pointer to describe a security diagram.

Once assigned to the part of Che Fong, however (which had been played by other actors to that point), Endo's natural charm elevated what could have been a potentially dull role into more than just a guy in a white lab coat. Like several other continuing roles during those years, his presence gave viewers the sense that this universe wasn't populated just by the three or four regulars. Sadly, unlike District Attorney John Manicote (Glenn Cannon), who was wounded in a shootout trying to save his daughter in his last appearance the previous season, Endo had just a couple of scenes in this episode, a too-brief swan song for an actor who made the role his own, and whose face had become as familiar as many of the show's nominal stars.