The Professionals (1966)

I've always listed this film as one of my top ten Westerns. So, the question I keep asking myself today is why don't I own it and why haven't I seen it in the last fifteen-twenty years? The answer is because I'm stupid. It's still in my top ten, easily, and I love love love this movie more than ever. It was even better than I remembered it, because I don't think I paid all that much attention to the cool dialogue back in the day, whereas now, it just made me grin and grin. Perfect combo of actors: Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, and Jack Palance. This was one of the first movies I saw Robert Ryan in, and now I remember why I always thought he was a solid, dependable, and rather sweet guy. I love him and his horses in this movie. The story is cool and slightly twisty, the action is fabulous - trains, dynamite, mine cars, horses, can't ask for more than that!, and the desert and canyon scenery is beautiful and beautifully filmed.

My sister and I were watching the beginning of "The Cassandra Crossing" the other night and she asked me if Burt Lancaster was ever happy in a movie. I said are you kidding? He's so much fun in this movie, flashing that patented grin and blowing things up and losing his pants and doing his own stunts as he almost always did.

"You're going to have to get over this nasty habit of always losing your pants. It's not dignified." - Rico (Lee Marvin)
"It's drafty too." - Bill (Burt)

Hee.

And then there's Lee Marvin, who is never less than awesome and gets the single best line in the movie:

"You bastard." - Mr. Grant (Ralph Bellamy)
"Yes sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir -- you're a self-made man." - Rico (Lee Marvin)

I watched it twice in a row, making up for lost viewings. Must pick up on DVD asap.

Right-this-moment W.I.P.s

Novels:
1. Synopsis for DTD and revisions
2. P.O.W. -- for which I've somehow lost the outline for the last half. Grrr.

Shorts:
3. Five incomplete short stories mostly in the idea stage, but ones that appeal to me right now:
"GwtVoW"
Last Full Measure/Infantry/Cold
"Recognition"
Shark/dream keepers/gangs
Egg Angel

Fanfic (because it won't leave me alone and I need it out of my head)
1. MM
2. ILS

There are no happy endings in WWI movies

It's been WWI movie week over here, with "The Trench" and "Paths of Glory." The former is a modern film (1999), with Daniel Craig, and was mostly a character study watching the young British soldiers on the eve of what we know from history will be a battle of devastating loss. You know from the get-go no one's going to cross the end credits alive, though that didn't stop me from hoping and hoping and hoping. The lead character Billy, (played by Paul Nicholls) and Beckwith (Anthony Strachan) were particularly fantastic, not that Daniel Craig isn't, it's just that he's a known quantity, and it was fun to have unknown actors to root for. DC makes a particularly fine don't-mess-with-him but caring sergeant. Loved his strawberry jam scene and trying to get whiskey from the lieutenant.

This DVD had an excellent special feature on WWI narrated by Robert Ryan and filled with footage. It made me cry at several points, just the sheer wasteful loss of life endured on all sides. I didn't realize that it was in WWI that the Germans introduced flame throwers, I assumed that was later. Just one more nastiness in a war of bloody nastiness. I learned a lot more about trenches and trench warfare than I had known, and more about the whys and wherefores of Verdun.

I've seen "Paths of Glory" before, once back in my teenage years. I remember my family watched it because of Kirk Douglas, and I remember being bored because it was not a battle/adventure war movie and, consequently, I wrote it off. Well, there's a prime indicator of silly youth for you. I watched it this morning, and this movie is great; however it was also as stomach-wrenchingly hard to watch as "Ox-Bow Incident," and for similar reasons. Three innocent men there, three innocent men here. Gah! Dana Andrews there, Ralph Meeker here. No more! I'm through! I can't watch any more of my men go through false charges/sham trials, lynching/executions/death again! At least in this one, instead of too-little, too-late Henry Fonda for defense, we've got Kirk Douglas and he is wonderful and awesome here. He's got some fabulous scenes with great dialog. Love love LOVE his scene giving the true cowardly lieutenant the firing squad duty. Pure love! But ultimately, Kirk can't do anything either, and I came *this* close to stopping the movie before it ended. Damn it. Damn damn damn. I'm going to be wrecked the rest of the day now.

But Ralph Meeker was great in all his scenes. He hit it all just right, emotionally, from bravery through bravado to fear and back again. Sigh. (And I got Bert Freed as a sergeant for extra cast bonus!)

Fall of the Roman Empire

So it's taken me at least two weeks, in 15 minute segments to watch "The Fall of the Roman Empire," but I finally made it! The best part of watching this movie was that I did it mostly in little chunks while I was babysitting my 5 1/2 mo. old nephew. He's got an eye for the ladies already, and the funniest part was that he loved Sophia Loren. Loved her. I'd be holding him in my arms, facing outward, while he's "bicycle riding" in the air. When she would appear, the legs would stop churning and he was just stare and smile and, occasionally, talk to her. When she would leave, he'd go back to bicycle riding and just watching in general. But when she was there, she had his absolute full attention. Hee. He cracks me up.

So, this film could have been great... and it sucks mightily. Okay, it's not really that bad. It just suffers from a weak script. Epics need strong plots to hold together, and this one isn't tight enough to be really effective. It covers basically the same territory as "Gladiator," only with Christopher Plummer as Commodus and Stephen Boyd as Livius (the Maximus role). Sophia Loren is Lucilla and Alec Guinness is Marcus Aurelius. Plenty of other famous actors rounding out the cast (I think Anthony Quayle was my favorite supporting actor in this). It's really too bad, because this movie has awesome sets and great outdoor locations (the winter scenes are the best!!) that I would truly love to see on the big screen. The cast is fine in their roles, and there are parts that are quite entertaining. But overall, it just doesn't hang together right. Not bad, exactly, just not right. So close... It also suffers from having a lousy score. Dimitri Tiomkin is just one of those composers (like Alex North and Bronislau Kaper) that just doesn't cut it for me.

But there is much chariot driving (and Stephen Boyd was probably going "only two horses? piece of cake..."), chariot driving in the snow -- gotta love that!! And the wild chariot duel between Commodus and Livius, which just might be my favorite scene... except it just trails off, doesn't end with any real consequences for either party. Hmph. Wasted plot opportunities. And someone please tell me why they dyed Stephen Boyd's hair that godawful unnatural blond color?? There're some lovely special features on the disk. There's a make-up test of him with natural- colored hair and it looks so much better. Oh, and one making-of program shows it was -10 degrees outside and snowing, and Stephen Boyd saunters out of his trailer mostly in costume (I don't think the bright blue heavy pants were standard Roman issue), casually climbs into a four-horse chariot, and drives off alone towards the set on the icy/snowy roads in the middle of a snow storm. Very cool!

Yeah, I'm going to write a letter...

So, I really loved the first half of season one of "Route 66," couldn't wait for more eps... and now the second set is out. Hurray! Except... And it's a huge except that has me absolutely FUMING. The company putting out the DVDs has made the eps "widescreen." These eps weren't filmed widescreen of course, so to bring us this lovely supposed enhancement, they've cropped off the top and bottom of the image. Yes, you heard me right. They #$@&*%# trimmed the natural image into widescreen aspect ratio. What the--?? Get me a firing squad, because whoever decided to do this needs to be shot. It's bloody awful. I haven't been able to get past the first ep. People's heads get chopped off, and the proportions are all bloody wrong on the shots. No director would frame things this way and it's just... words for this travesty fail me. It looks completely unnatural and it's driving me insane. I really don't want to sit through this. Not now, not ever.

And what's really stupid about it? Your television can format any show to widescreen if you so desire -- not just by stretching it, but zooming to do the equivalent of what these @#&*#$* did to it. At least my television has all those picture options. And just exactly what do they hope to gain by ruining the original picture? Who's watching this show anyway? Do they really think this fake widescreen is going to attract more people to it? It's the SHOW and actors that attracts an audience, not some DVD company's manipulation of it. All it's doing is driving away people like me who would have spent good money to purchase the season, and it might just look weird enough to new people to turn them off too. Who wants to see a cropped image? Bloody hell.

Gee, I'm a bit angry, can you tell? And I so wanted to see more of this show too. Damn them. The reviews on Amazon and Netflix are laying into them for doing this to the show too, so it's not just me they've pissed off.

"Aw, loosen up. It's spring!"

So, I've been getting up around 6 every morning lately. Shocking for me, but since my evenings are usually spent at my sister's, it lets me get some stuff done. Either writing, or even watching movies.

"The Naked Spur" has been in my queue awhile. Goes with my whole string of Jimmy Stewart westerns I've been watching. ("Bend of the River" is next in that list.) I just sorta happened to bump this one up to the top this week because it also has *cough*Ralph Meeker*cough* in it. Yeah, I got it bad. And he keeps getting cuter in each successive film I've been watching.

I really liked this film a lot. I thought I'd seen it before, but it didn't match at all what I was remembering, so now I wonder. I think I was confusing it with one with Randolph Scott. Plot was tight and a lot of fun. Jimmy Stewart is after outlaw Robert Ryan because he wants the $5000 dollars reward for turning Ryan in so he can buy his ranch back. He gets two unwanted partners, an older broke gold miner and a dishonorably discharged cavalry lieutenant (RM!). Naturally, no one quite trusts the other to split the reward at the end of the road.

The unexpected part? Robert Ryan. Now he's always a solid and dependable actor, but I don't particularly like him. He's usually such a stick in the mud. But here? Wow! He finally gets to relax, and he just goes to town in this role. He plays his captors against each other, sits around smirking when the infighting starts, schemes some more, talks a great line.... he was great! This role is marvelous for him. Just a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever seen him smile or laugh so much in all the other movies I've seen with him combined. And, of course, the fact that he's a nasty, cold-blooded killer beneath the exterior just makes it even better. Color me impressed!

And Ralph Meeker... mmmm, Cavalry uniform suits him well. So does the moustache. He's a crack up in this, unrepentant of his past, and almost as smirky as Robert Ryan at some points. He's got the Arthur Kennedy role here. The guy who's not entirely bad, not quite good, has his moments of bravery, but is mostly just a selfish bastard. Dig it! He goes nicely toe-to-toe with both Jimmy Stewart and Robert Ryan and more than holds his own.

"I like livin'..."

How sad is it that I pop into my own blog a couple times a day just to look at the picture I put in the previous post? But it's a pleasant interruption from work, which is threatening to overwhelm me, so I'll take all the distractions I can. I showed my sister part of "Jeopardy" yesterday for the Dirty Dozen connection, and she was quite shocked and delighted that he was such a hottie in his 30's. But she and I like mostly the same look in our men, so I knew she'd dig him too.

I have a rough outline of the last half of POW done now, and more new words on a fanfic story. I have two fanfic stories left to write (well, two and a half), and then I'm done. They're pressing stories, stories that are driving me crazy to get them down. Don't think I've ever had that with any of my previous stories. I just wrote them for the fun of it. These last two, I have to write. Unfortunately, I also have to write the conclusion to Murder's Melody. Or maybe I'll just pull that story for good and let it die a hard and painful death in the incomplete files. I know what happens, I just can't get motivated to work on it with these other stories horning in.

What I'd really like to do is just sit down on a Sunday and finish off the second draft of "In Little Stars." Turn off the internet, stop watching my weekend movies with hot, drool-inducing actors, and finish the damned thing. Then finish "Blood of the Air." Because both are eating up valuable brain cells that I could be spending on POW and the DTD rewrites, but they won't go away no matter how hard I try to shove them into the cellar. If anything, they get stronger in my head each day I delay working on them, and my focus even simply working on an outline for POW was sketchy. I haven't been grabbed by stories this hard in ages. And it's a perfect pair of stories to end my C! fanfic career on, too, particularly BotA. I dig that!

Now, I just need to stop talking about it and get writing so they're outta my head already! Go! Shoo! Shoo!

"Honest!"

Hee hee. Continuing my Ralph Meeker fling, I watched "Jeopardy" today. 1953, with Barbara Stanwyck. Quite a fun little thriller. I wouldn't mind owning this one at all. Some improbabilities, but still quite fun. And what made it so much fun was Mr. Meeker. Once he arrives on the scene, the movie jumps into high gear. Yowza, he's even better looking here (scruffy and disheveled), and he's got all the plum dialogue. His lines made me grin throughout. He's a fugitive from the law whom Ms. Stanwyck tries to recruit to help rescue her husband, who's trapped by a piling on the beach with the surf coming in. He's so very snarky and sexy and smug in this movie, and all in a carefree and careless way that make him even more appealing, and more dangerous, at the same time.

And Barbara Stanwyck is always an interesting actress to watch. I like how rather ruthlessly she decides to accept what she needs to do to get Ralph Meeker's help. I like how you can see the wheels turning. There's one funny scene where the front tire blows, and she waits around all casual and lets him discover on his own there's no jack in the trunk. Cracks me up. Then he gets to figure how to change the tire without a jack. And I like his solution... quite simple, but clever. And it cracks me up how proud he is of himself whenever he does something he thinks is cool. And where some may roll their eyes at the ending, it worked for me because both characters had changed because of their encounter, not just him. I like that a lot.

Eureka!

So, on the plane ride home, I did some POW thinking... and finally -- finally! -- things fell into place for the last half. I have the last line (which made me grin and grin), I understand what the other main character is doing, I figured out it's more of a noir mystery than anything else, and that let me pace the events I had more evenly and with purpose. Me very pleased. Me ready to continue writing on it now.

Only thing I haven't light-bulbed on yet is the setting. I want it to be cars and hats and trench coats and all 1940's, because I just can't envision it in another setting. And yet I cannot seem to explain such a thing logically within the context of the story. Is it an alternate 1945 with magic? Is it some random fantasy world and that's just where thing's have developed? I can't bear to change it to some more medieval-ish setting, I desperately want that 40's look and feel. I just can't figure how to explain it in the novel.

Kiss Me Deadly

I'm under the weather, and so finally had a moment to watch this movie. Suh-weet! Totally dug it. This is one I knew little about, other than Ralph Meeker was in it, and I only know him because he's Captain Kinder in The Dirty Dozen. He's so very nice and unassuming in Dirty Dozen; here, 12 years younger, he's totally my type of good-looking. He reminds me of an odd cross between Bill Paxton and Vic Morrow and a dash of a young William Holden thrown in for good measure. His character is selfish, arrogant, determined, and quite vicious when pushed. I was originally wondering how he'd carry a movie, but he's just fine, and he suits the sleazy dark underworld of this movie perfectly. His half-defeated, half-desperate line, "I didn't know," followed by the lieutenant's bitter observation: "You think you'd have done anything different if you had known?" totally sums up who he is. Absolutely love it!

This is quite the dark noir film. But it gives me many of the things I do so love in noir. Detective ignoring police advice and doing his own thing, femme fatale, cool cars, more stairways than a stadium, shadows and more shadows and creepy camera angles, opera, a few fights, a few guns, a few kisses, a few deaths, more than a few drinks, a protagonist who dishevels nicely and actually spends time in a hospital when injured. And best of all? I had no idea what everyone was after the whole film! How cool is that? I had my own (wrong) ideas that revolved ultimately around similar themes, but the reality was much much cooler. I'd say more but it'd be spoilerific and might ruin the fun.


It's interesting because I was just having a debate about mysteries the other day, and about how I'd started running into books that kept things a mystery and it pissed me off. This movie was the opposite. It did the mystery right, and kept me wanting to find out what was going on, and not turn it off in frustration (as happened with the book). This rather fascinates me, the what works, what doesn't, and gave me a better idea what to avoid in my own writing.

And the ending sound effects? Freaked! Me! Out! Thank goodness I never saw this when I was young. I don't think I'd have slept for weeks. I still might not.

I'm really curious to read the book now, see if it explains a little more.

Et voila!

And so, I finished off the rough draft of a fanfic story tonight. It wasn't the one I'm supposed to be working on (MM), alas. But I don't care. I finished the draft! It's a remarkably short fanfic story for me, so once I got going and realized how close the end really was, I just pushed on. It was one of those times where I didn't let myself stop typing, just kept going until I had it all down.

The coolest thing was that this was mostly out of the blue writing. I've written nothing on this story for nearly three weeks, and the last session was a couple hundred words or so, that's it. But I got about 700 words last night, and tonight, another couple thousand and that was that. Story over.

Now, of course, it needs some major revisions, mostly to flesh things out, but I'm very happy with it overall. It's solid action and suspense and strategy and... tanks! Did I mention the tanks? Dig it. (train dodge) For such a small story, I packed a lot into it. I'm not sure it ever lets up.

And amazingly, I don't think it'll take long to do the second draft either; everything's there and in place. It's just a matter of immersing in the characters and running with it.

This is all build-up to kicking into gear on the second half of the POW novel. I worked out the next couple of scenes in it, so I'm basically ready to go on it. This just makes me bounce up and down in my chair. Cuz being stuck on it just sucked. Now, I haven't solved my bigger dilemmas, but each step forward might take me closer to the answer I'm looking for

Genghis Khan

Ever have those movies you see once and they stick with you? Genghis Khan was one. I saw it once sometime during early high school years when I was home with the flu and it was on tv during the long miserable day. I watched the entire thing, avidly. Could have been the fever. Could have just been Stephen Boyd's presence. Anyway around, it stayed with me. It never seemed to come on TV again and I haven't seen it in twenty-five years.

I just finally watched it again yesterday. The beginning was nearly exactly as I remembered it, Stephen Boyd as handsome and ruthless as I remembered, and then the main titles kicked in, and what I found I really remembered was the music. I couldn't have sung it to you in the interim years, but it was sitting there lurking in my memory ready to be recalled.

The rest of the film came back as I watched. Mostly Boyd's sections, naturally. He's always had a very special place in my heart. But I'd completely forgotten both Telly Savalas and Eli Wallach was in it. Eli Wallach amused me greatly. "Somehow I don't feel they've come to surrender." LOL! Unsurprisingly, I'd forgotten almost entirely about the girl. I remembered her at the end, standing by Genghis Khan, but that was about the extent of it. Didn't even remember the violence around her. This is one of the few movies I liked Omar Sharif in. The movie was still entertaining, had some good parts, beautiful scenery, great costumes, but was a bit shallow and bloated.

What surprised me the most, is that I've had a scene in my head, that's been associated with this movie forever -- and it wasn't in this movie. Er...um... if it's not here, where is it?

It was a rather gruesome scene. I've sort of always been cursed with having movie death scenes stay with me. Some of them scar me for life (like The Green Berets), some just sort of linger with me (like Lawrence of Arabia) and when I can't tell you anything else about the movie, I can tell you about those deaths. I thought Genghis Khan was one of those films. I distinctly remember at the end of the movie, them laying rug/blankets over a man and then riding horses over him until he was broken and dead. And I remember my mom saying how difficult it was to get horses to step on things. I couldn't actually remember who it was who got trampled -- I vaguely assumed over the years that it had to be Stephen Boyd, even though that never felt quite right. Which means that nasty trample death is in some other movie. Hmph. So much for my memory! Maybe it's from some forgotten Western? Or another historical epic?