Release Date: June 24th, 1964 (London & Los Angeles premieres) Directed by: Roger Corman Written by: Charles Beaumont, R. Wright Campbell Based on:The Masque of the Red Death and Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe Music by: David Lee Cast: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, Patrick Magee, Nigel Green, Robert Brown
American International Pictures, 90 Minutes
Review:
“Somewhere in the human mind, my dear Francesca, lies the key to our existance. My ancestors tried to find it. And to open the door that separates us from our Creator.” – Prospero
While I can’t talk highly enough about all of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations by Roger Corman and Vincent Price, I really can’t talk highly enough about The Masque of the Red Death, which is one of the best of the lot, as well as the most aesthetically pleasing.
Other than a couple quick scenes, the entirety of this picture takes place within the castle walls of the Satan worshiping Prince Prospero. He has entombed his party guests and a few villagers he spared within the structure in an effort to wait out the “Red Death” outside the castle gates.
While trying to avoid the plague, Prospero tries to influence the young girl he feels he saved from death. He shows her his secrets and opens up about his allegiance to the Devil himself. All the while, the reach of the Red Death works its way into the castle to deliver Prospero’s inevitable and unavoidable fate.
There is also a neat side story that was based on Poe’s Hop-Frog. I liked this mini story within the larger story and how it was all tied together.
I also like that this film re-teamed Price with Hazel Court and also threw in Patrick Magee, Robert Brown and Nigel Green. Now it’s not a star studded cast like what Corman delivered in The Raven, a year earlier, but it is a good ensemble of character actors and ’60s horror icons.
This is a pretty imaginative film that is visually stunning and alluring. The big climax is superb, especially for those who are a fan of Corman’s style when it’s rarely at its artistic apex.
Rating: 9/10 Pairs well with: the other Roger Corman/Vincent Price collaborations.
Release Date: May 22nd, 1985 (San Francisco premiere) Directed by: John Glen Written by: Michael G. Wilson, Richard Maibaum Based on: the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming Music by: John Barry Cast: Roger Moore, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Christopher Walken, Patrick Macnee, David Yip, Alison Doody, Dolph Lundgren, Maud Adams (cameo), Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Robert Brown
Eon Productions, United Artists, 1.. Minutes
Review:
“You slept well?” – Max Zorin, “A little restless but I got off eventually.” – James Bond
From memory, this is a cheesy, goofy James Bond film. Having now revisited it for the first time in nearly a decade, this may actually be one of my favorites of the Moore era and of all-time. Quite simply, this is really f’n fun!
But then Moore’s films have always been fun and I am being reminded of that, as I have recently rewatched all of his ’80s era stuff. Something about this movie puts it ahead of the other two ’80s Bond pictures he did though.
This is a really good cocktail that also features the always fantastic Christopher Walken, as the villain, as well as Grace Jones, who commands everyone’s attention whenever she appears in anything. I friggin’ love the duo of Walken and Jones in this and they are one of the best villain tandems in Bond history. They have a strange but amusing relationship that is accented by both actors’ unique personalities. I almost wish they would have survived and been around in more than one movie but unless you’re Blofeld or Jaws, that just doesn’t happen in classic Bond-lore.
Tanya Roberts was far from the most memorable Bond Girl ever but she was really good here. She just fit in well with everyone and did her job, quite solidly. She wasn’t a complete damsel in distress but she also wasn’t some KGB badass either, she just felt more like a real, normal woman when compared to most of the other Bond Girls.
It’s also worth mentioning that this has one of my favrotie title sequences in the franchise. I have just always loved Duran Duran though, probably because I was a kid of the ’80s and heavily under the influence of the pop culture of the time.
Additionally, I really like the scheme in this picture. It’s nutty and ambitious but it just works for a Bond film of the classic era and it was probably the perfect plot on paper in the mid-’80s when the tech industry was blossoming and booming.
Another highlight was the San Francisco setting in the latter half of the film. The Golden Gate Bridge finale was top notch and a high point of the Roger Moore era.
The only thing that really bothered me about the film was that incredibly cheesy moment in the opening sequence, when Bond is trying to evade the Soviet enemies on skis and “California Girls” starts blaring. It’s a jarring moment that pulls you out of the movie and the gag wasn’t that funny.
I know that a lot of people look down on this chapter in the Bond franchise and see it as a low point. I don’t. This movie has a special place in my heart but it also might be that it is hard to push down nostalgia and see things more clearly. This was the second Bond film I ever saw in its entirety and I rented it a lot as a kid.
Rating: 8.25/10 Pairs well with: The other Roger Moore James Bond movies.
Release Date: June 6th, 1983 (London premiere) Directed by: John Glen Written by: George MacDonald Fraser, Michael G. Wilson, Richard Maibaum Based on: the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming Music by: John Barry Cast: Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Steven Berkoff, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Robert Brown, Mark Heap
Eon Productions, United Artists, 131 Minutes
Review:
“You must be joking! 007 on an island populated exclusively by women? We won’t see him till dawn!” – Q
This is a James Bond film that I hadn’t watched for several years. While I love Roger Moore, his era was the cheesiest of the Bond franchise. I’ve never held most of his films in the same regard as I do Connery’s or Dalton’s or the one that Lazenby was in. However, Octopussy, while cheesy, is still a pretty good chapter in the franchise. And like other Moore Bond movies that I’ve revisited recently, it’s better than I remembered.
A lot of this film takes place in India, which is really cool. The series has gone to different parts of Asia but the Indian element enhanced the film. Also, the country felt like a character in this movie. There are a lot of cultural jabs, however, which may seem weird and cringy in modern times, where we live in an overly politically correct society, but it’s not anymore offensive than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But the beauty of the environment and the architecture really gave this film a cool visual aesthetic.
Speaking of which, I absolutely love the set design in this picture. It may have the best set design and attention to detail of any James Bond film before the modern Daniel Craig era. Everything in this film looks great from the villain’s war room, the villain’s palace and every other prominent interior set.
This chapter in the series also has one of my favorite opening sequences in the franchise. The plane through the hangar scene still looks great today.
I also like the Bond Girls in this film. Maud Adams was spectacular and Kristina Wayborn blew me away with her beauty. I was crushing on her hard when I was a kid in the ’80s.
Octopussy may have been a name I was afraid to say in front of my parents in the mid-’80s but it was a film I liked and one of the first James Bond experiences I ever had. My uncle used to rent this thing on VHS constantly.
It is also worth mentioning that 1983 saw the release of two James Bond movies, this one and an unofficial remake of Thunderball, which starred former Bond, Sean Connery. This film is the better of the two and the public and critics agreed at the time.
Rating: 7.75/10 Pairs well with: The other Roger Moore James Bond movies.
Release Date: June 13th, 1989 (London premiere) Directed by: John Glen Written by: Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson Based on: characters by Ian Fleming Music by: Michael Kamen Cast: Timothy Dalton, Robert Davi, Carey Lowell, Talisa Soto, Anthony Zerbe, Frank McRae, Everett McGill, Wayne Newton, Benicio del Toro, Anthony Starke, Priscilla Barnes, Robert Brown, Desmond Llewelyn, Caroline Bliss, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Christopher Neame
Eon Productions, United International Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 131 Minutes
Review:
“Señor Bond, you got big cojones. You come here, to my place, without references, carrying a piece, throwing around a lot of money… but you should know something: nobody saw you come in, so nobody has to see you go out.” – Franz Sanchez
Timothy Dalton was my favorite James Bond. I know that makes me strange and weird but he was the first Bond on the big screen for me and his movies had a bit more gravitas than those cheesy Roger Moore outings. They also had more gravitas than those later Brosnan films because those went back towards the route of cheese and eventually killed the franchise until Daniel Craig came along and stopped smiling.
Licence to Kill is a very divisive Bond film but then Dalton is a very divisive Bond. The film takes a turn for realism nearly two decades before the Daniel Craig starring Casino Royale. In 1989, that rubbed most people the wrong way. This was the first Bond film to get a PG-13 rating due to that realness and its use of violence. Some people also felt that the more violent bits were too much but I felt that it reflected a Bond franchise that was about to enter the ’90s.
The film boasts some solid action sequences. All the Key West stuff was fantastically shot and looks great by modern standards. The Mexico material also looks incredible, especially the Olympatec Meditation Institute scenes, which were filmed at the Centro Cultural Otomi. The cinematography was pretty standard but the locations didn’t need much razzle dazzle. They really only needed explosions, which there were plenty of.
Robert Davi plays the villain and I can’t think of another actor that could have played the role as well as he did. He had the right look, the right level of intensity and had a predatory presence like a reptile. His top henchman was played by Benicio del Toro in only his second film role.
We also get to see Wayne Newton in a role greater than just a cameo and honestly, I love Newton in this. The film also boasts a collection of other talented actors in supporting roles: Frank McRae, Everett McGill, Anthony Zerbe, Anthony Starke and Priscilla Barnes.
I thought that the Bond Girls were a mixed bag in this film. Carey Lowell was pretty badass and held her own. I liked her a lot and think that she doesn’t get enough credit as one of the great Bond Girls. She certainly had more to offer than the standard “damsels in distress” of the classic Bond pictures. Talisa Soto, however, was more like a useless damsel but to the nth degree. I thought Soto was fine with the material she was given but she didn’t serve much purpose other than being a pretty gold digger that probably deserved to be in a drug kingpin’s web. I don’t think that she was a character that anyone could relate to and really, wouldn’t care about because she’s a greedy woman that lays around all day.
The thing is, I love Timothy Dalton’s Bond. This is the better of his two pictures but sadly, we wouldn’t get anymore with him. Not because no one else liked him but because the James Bond franchise went into a state of limbo for six years, as the rights to the material were being battled over in court. By the time things were settled and GoldenEye was slated for a 1995 release date, Dalton decided to step away.
Licence to Kill is rarely on people’s lips when naming favorite Bond movies. But when someone else mentions it, it usually comes with a fist bump and a stoic, confident nod of admiration because I know that I just met someone with real taste.
Rating: 8.75/10 Pairs well with: The only other Timothy Dalton James Bond movie, The Living Daylights.
Release Date: June 29th, 1987 (London premiere) Directed by: John Glen Written by: Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson Based on: characters by Ian Fleming Music by: John Barry Cast: Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Joe Don Baker, Art Malik, Jeroen Krabbé, John Rhys-Davies, Robert Brown, Desmond Llewelyn, Caroline Bliss
Eon Productions, United International Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 131 Minutes
Review:
“Believe me, my interest in her is purely professional.” – James Bond
I tend to go against the grain. I usually say things about movies or other pop culture stuff that leaves people baffled. For instance, Timothy Dalton is my favorite James Bond. Yes, he is. And yes, I loved every other actor that played the character and especially have a soft spot for the Connery and Moore chapters in the franchise but Dalton was and always will be my James Bond.
Maybe my love for Dalton is because he was the current Bond when I really got into James Bond movies. The Living Daylights was the first Bond film that I saw in the theater and as a kid, a year later, I was on the set of Licence to Kill in the Florida Keys. I didn’t get to meet Dalton but I got to see him standing around, as James Bond in the flesh.
Unfortunately, due to lawsuits in the early 1990s, Timothy Dalton only got to play James Bond twice: in 1987’s The Living Daylights and in 1989’s superb Licence to Kill. This film is my least favorite of the two but I still thoroughly enjoy it.
The thing that brings this chapter in the Bond franchise down a notch or two, is that it still carries over some of the cheesiness from the Roger Moore era. While that stuff worked for Moore, it really wasn’t a beneficial approach to Dalton’s style as the character. And frankly, it feels as if the movie was written with Roger Moore in mind, before Dalton was cast as the British super spy.
However, some of the hokey bits are still amusing, like the cello case sled scene, for instance.
Another weak point with this film though, is the villains. While I like Joe Don Baker and always have, he just doesn’t feel like a Bond villain. He plays more like a one-off baddie from a show like Magnum P.I. and doesn’t truly feel like someone worthy of Bond’s attention like members of SPECTRE, Francisco Scaramanga, Franz Sanchez, Raoul Silva, Alec Trevelyan, Hugo Draz or hell, even Max Zorin. At least Baker would get a second go in the series when he appeared in two of the Pierce Brosnan films a decade later: Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
I did enjoy Maryam d’Abo as the Bond girl in this film. She was a departure from the overly glamorous women of previous movies. Not to say that she wasn’t beautiful and classy but she played a musician, a real artist type. She was cute and sexy but not a supermodel out trying to marry a rock star. She was also sweet and innocent, even though the first time you encounter her, she’s wielding a sniper rifle.
We also get the great John Rhys-Davies in this and I kind of wish that his character would have returned to the series later on. I feel as if he would have been an ally to Bond again, had Timothy Dalton’s run as the character lasted longer than two films. But the man got to team up with James Bond and Indiana Jones in his career, not to mention being a pivotal member of the Fellowship in the The Lord of the Rings movies.
The Living Daylights is a better than average James Bond outing, enhanced by the charm and gravitas that is Timothy Dalton. Plus, the followup to this film would be one of the best in the entire series. The Living Daylights was a good introduction to a really good Bond that we unfortunately didn’t get to see much more of.
Release Date: September 2nd, 1949 (UK) Directed by: Carol Reed Written by: Graham Greene Music by: Anton Karas Cast: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli (credited as Valli), Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Robert Brown
London Films, British Lion Film Corporation, Selznick Releasing Organization, 108 Minutes
Review:
“Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.” – Harry Lime
It is sad to say that I really didn’t know much about The Third Man until a friend recently told me about it. Having now watched it, I remember seeing a trailer for it long ago and I had the intention of seeing it but never did. I clearly remembered the visual of the Wiener Riesenrad, Vienna’s famous giant Ferris wheel.
That being said, the visuals throughout the entire film are captivating and mesmerizing. The picture captures the film-noir aesthetic and emphasizes a high contrast. Between the streets of post-War Vienna, the famous landmarks and the cavernous and ominous sewer system, the director and cinematographer turned Vienna into the main character of the picture. There is just a mysterious allure that draws you in and doesn’t release you until the film fades to black after 108 minutes.
The film re-teams the duo of Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles, who first worked together on CBS Radio’s The American School of the Air and would be most known for staring together in Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane. The two would go on to have a great working relationship in several films. Both men are studious actors who have both reached legendary status and for good reason. Their ability to play off of one another is magnificent and each brings out the best in the other. This film showcases what the duo can do when put together. Not to say that both men weren’t great on their own.
The cast also features Alida Valli (credited as just Valli). She was a great Italian actress who was in more than a hundred films. I grew to appreciate her work in films like Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno. She was also featured in a lot of giallo pictures by Mario Bava and Argento, as well as Italian horror films throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
There is also the appearance of Bernard Lee as a British police sergeant. He is probably best known as the original version of M in the James Bond franchise.
The Third Man is written by accomplished novelist Graham Greene and directed by auteur Carol Reed, who would later win an Oscar for Oliver! and who also directed the classics Odd Man Out and The Fallen Idol. This is probably Reed’s best work however, even though it didn’t capture the Academy Award for Best Director. It did win for Best Cinematography, however, which went to Robert Krasker, whose work can also be seen in Odd Man Out, as well as Brief Encounter and Another Man’s Poison.
As the story beings, we learn that the main character, a novelist named Holly Martins (Cotton), has arrived in Vienna at the invitation of his dear friend Harry Lime (Welles). However, we soon discover that Lime has died. As the plot rolls on, Martins comes to learn that Lime may be alive, probably faked his own death and there is a big mystery that needs to be solved.
The film’s plot is very layered but it plays out like a standard noir plot structure, even though it doesn’t follow the traditional subject matter of a noir and is missing some key elements. While Valli is quite the beautiful accompaniment to the men in the film, she isn’t a traditional femme fatale and the film breaks from the noir norm in other aspects too. However, The Third Man still encompasses the noir style and spirit but it is the product of a natural evolution within the genre and thus, isn’t a stale or derivative picture by any means. It is very much its own thing while giving a proper nod to its inspirations.
From a musical standpoint, the picture utilizes zither music. It really sets the narrative in the proper time and place and gives the movie a sense of authenticity and a sort of exotic charm.
The Third Man is a masterpiece. While not quite Citizen Kane, it is just about perfect in every way. Being a Welles fan, I wish he was in it a bit more but the scenes we get are of the highest quality. Plus, the big crescendo, as Welles’ Harry Lime runs through the labyrinth of Vienna’s sewers in an effort to escape a massive police force, is probably my favorite motion picture moment that involves Welles. It is a stupendous climax that has great suspense and looks stunning on the screen.
Films don’t get much better than this and The Third Man completely encapsulates the term “movie magic”. It isn’t often that a film feels like a living, breathing intelligent being of its own. The Third Man is one of these motion pictures. It is truly exceptional and may be in my personal top twenty of all-time.
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