562. PAPILLON (1973)

Running Time: 150 minutes
Directed By: Franklin J. Schaffner
Written By: Dalton Trumbo, Lorenzo Semple Jr., from the novel by Henri Charriere
Main Cast: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon, Anthony Zerbe
Click here to view the trailer

WORST PRISON MOVIE EVER!?

Since my last writing, I've seen two very good, NON-BOOK movies: Purple Noon (which I'd rate around 7.5/10) and Mary and Max (call it 8/10). I figure instead of doing monthly recaps, which I've proved I simply don't have the time for, I figure just mentioning my other viewings within my reviews will suffice. Anyway, "Papillon" has been sitting on my DVR for months now, as I caught it off TCM some time back, trying to save myself from having to get it delivered from Netflix. I also have "Z" and "Forbidden Planet" nabbed from TCM and waiting for me.

The film is long and begins with Henri Charriere (McQueen) a.k.a. Papillon (nicknamed for the butterfly that is tattooed on his chest) arriving at a French Guiana prison, wrongfully accused of killing a pimp. From the get go, he is dead set on escaping, mentally refusing to spend the rest of his life in prison and seeks out the help of Louis Dega (Hoffman), a forger who is worth millions and has much of his fortune stowed away in his insides. Papillon strikes a deal with Dega: he'll protect Dega from getting his stomach cut open (the guy literally has his loot stashed inside himself), if Dega will finance his escape, which will cost whatever it takes to bribe a guard and secure a boat, since they're imprisoned on an island. Meanwhile, the men are informed of the penalty for attempted escape: first attempt equals two years in solitary confinement, second attempt equals five years in solitary and further attempts will result in execution. Attempt number one for Papillon goes off unsuccessfully and thus he's sentenced to two years in the hole. When his new found friend Dega gets the news, he begins sending him extra food, which Papillon is eventually caught with. Not willing to give up Dega, his rations are cut in half and he nearly starves to death in solitary, but leaves with honor and the loyalty of his friend still intact. However, life alone and in the dark doesn't persuade Papillon to become a model prisoner, as he continues to hatch his scheme to be set free.

I'd have to stick this one up there with The Hustler, in the list of biggest disappointments to come out of THE BOOK. One of the reasons I saved Papillon for the final season was because I was almost sure it would be a hit with me. I mean, my God, it's a prison movie for pete's sake and I love prison movies just as much as I dislike sci-fi movies. I figured, we got Steve McQueen who I loved in The Great Escape and this will be a nice reminder of how great that movie was, but instead a whole new movie with him trying to do basically the same thing. I figured we also had Dustin Hoffman co-starring and you can never go wrong with the original Hoff (the current "Hoff" being David Hasselhoff, of course). And finally, I figured IT'S A FREAKIN' PRISON MOVIE!! But the thing is, is that it's really not - not entirely, anyway. It's more of an adventure or as THE BOOK puts it, a man vs. nature movie. And I'm not really that big on man vs. nature movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling Papillon a BAD movie, I'm just saying that as far as escape/prison movies go, it's down there, which isn't saying much, because I've rarely seen an escape/prison movie I disliked (this is the first, if memory serves...and again, I wouldn't even go so far as to say "I disliked it").

Perhaps, my hopes were just TOO HIGH - that can happen. Actually, I think I just was expecting a different movie. I think I was expecting The Great Escape 2 and what I got was Papillon 1. Despite having the same leading man and both being about escapes, they're two very different films. While The Great Escape is more up my alley - an up and up ESCAPE flick, with much of the films plot dedicated to the intricacies of the escape plan - while Papillon is more up someone else's alley, obviously. It's more about a man's will to do himself his own justice. Papillon is innocent and rather than spend his life wrongfully paying a price that he doesn't owe, he becomes determined to just be free. Notice that when Dega suggests that his case could be appealed and that he could be set free in three years, Papillon refuses to even consider the idea of spending another three years of his life locked up, when maybe, just MAYBE he could get himself out. Papillon is a bit deeper, while most other prison/escape films are just good fun, intricate in showing us how these guys get out of their jam, amusing as we watch to see if they can actually get away with it or not. Papillon is about human emotion and a bond between two men. I didn't care as much for it, but more viewings could sweeten my current sour taste against the movie. Again, not bad, just disappointed really. I DID love the scene where Papillon is being held in solitary, easily the best bit of the whole picture. Oh and the other notable aspect of the film is the comedy - specifically Hoffman. I actually can't remember a movie where he was funnier than he was here. I actually laughed out loud multiple times and actually, it takes a lot to get me to actually LOL. I'll leave you with a line Hoffman's Dega delivers near the end of the picture, when he's clearly losing his mind, as he yells at his pet pigs, while feeding them:

To Adam, the pig: "Now that's not yours - now you get away! I'm not going to tell you again!"

To Freddie, the pig: "Here you are Freddie"

To Adam, the pig: "Freddie's not feeling well today and you should appreciate that fact!"

GOLD!

RATING: 6.5/10  Can't really get it into '7' territory, considering my disappointment level, but it was good enough to get really close. Tomorrow is my last day of vacation, so here's hoping I can knock out at least one more movie before I have to head back to work, preferably The 400 Blows.

MOVIES WATCHED: 928
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 73

June 23, 2015  10:39pm

480. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Running Time: 112 minutes
Directed By: Franklin J. Schaffner
Written By: Michael Wilson, Rod Serling, from the novel La Planete des singes by Pierre Boulle
Main Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore
Click here to view the trailer

THE TWILIGHT ZONE GONE APE

With every film my personal excitement mounts, as we draw closer and closer to yet another TOP 20 list and another milestone in my journey. Next up for me was "Planet of the Apes" - a film that I had seen a couple of times prior and one that always tends to make me a fan of sci-fi, if only for a short while.

The main character is Taylor (Heston), who along with three other astronauts has engaged in an 18 month exploration in deep space. However, that's 18 months moving at light speed - in actual Earth time they've been away for thousands of years. When they are awakened from a deep, hibernation-like sleep, they find that their spacecraft is about to make a crash landing. Glancing at the control panel of the ship, Taylor notices that the year is 3978 A.D. and judging by his scientific determinations, he feels they've landed on an unknown planet in an entirely different solar system from that of Earth. Taylor, along with his two astronaut cohorts (one of them dies in the spacecraft, due to a crack in her hibernation terminal), abandons the sinking spacecraft and wanders onto the soil of, what is to be their new home planet. After a bit of walking, the three spacemen come across a group of people, all of whom don't speak and resemble cavemen and women. Soon, the sound of galloping horses breaks the peaceful setting and Taylor and crew soon realize an attack is oncoming. An attack indeed, as Taylor and crew can't believe their eyes when they realize they're being chased down by apes, on horseback and wielding shotguns! It seems that on THIS planet, apes rule and humans are the animals!

SPOILER ALERT!

When I was younger - probably somewhere in the vicinity of 17 or 18 - my brother introduced me to "The Twilight Zone". Now, I'm not talking about the 80s version or the crappy 2000s version, but rather, the classic 1950s/1960s version. I think "Planet of the Apes" appeals to me because 1) It's co-written by Rod Serling, creator of "The Twilight Zone" and 2) It's pretty much set up just like an episode of the classic TV show. It provides us with a sci-fi based premise, gives us a decent hook (three astronauts landing on an unknown planet, 2000 years after they're mission has begun) and shocks us a couple of times throughout. However, my one big problem when it comes to "Planet of the Apes" is that it lasts about ninety minutes longer than an episode of "The Twilight Zone" lasted and at times it does tend to drag. Really the points that you need to hit here, aren't many. The entire plot is basically three astronauts traveling through space and crashing in the year 3978 A.D., only to discover that this "mysterious" planet is ruled by apes and that the humans are treated as animals. Tack on the surprise ending, and that's really all the bullet points that this film needs to hit. Everything else is just filler, really. When you start talking about evolutionary theories and having Taylor befriend a couple of the apes and that those apes may or may not stand trial for heresy, you really start to bog down the whole basic plot.

Granted, I realize that you have to have something to fill in the gaps between the bullet points, but it's really a shame, because the bullet points are gold and the filler really didn't do much for me. However, it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be and I think most sci-fi nuts will easily look past (or welcome) all of the stuff that I call filler. I really can't comment too much on the cast, at least positively. Heston was decent, but the rest of the actors were busy transforming into monkeys, so their skills weren't as obvious. One has to wonder if this was originally meant to be simply a vehicle for Heston to run around half-naked and play Tarzan for a couple of hours, but I quickly brushed that notion aside. One also has to wonder about the intentions of the original writers of the story and the point that they were obviously trying to make about they way humans treat animals. I mean, they were trying to make that point weren't they? There were a lot of points in the film where it was seemingly screaming, "See, what if we were the animals, it wouldn't be so fun, would it!?".

When you get right down to it, "Planet of the Apes" is a lot of fun. For the most part it's pretty engaging, but there are a few spots where you just want to get to the ending. Speaking of the ending, it's also a film that once you've seen the ending, the film never has that same shock value again. It's also a film that will get the scientific part of your brain running a little bit and even if you're not a "sci-fi guy", I think this is a film that easily appeals to all types of audiences.

RATING: 7/10 Hey, how 'bout that Linda Harrison huh....huh! For the curious, I'll be starting my four-film salute to Robert Wise sometime next week. I have a few loose ends that I want to tie up first, so expect randomness till then.

MOVIES WATCHED: 358
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 643

December 2, 2011 11:19pm

516. PATTON (1970)

Running Time: 170 minutes
Directed By: Franklin J. Schaffner
Written By: Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North
Main Cast: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong, Michael Bates

"...NO BASTARD EVER WON A WAR BY DYING FOR HIS COUNTRY..."

Seeing as how "Patton" will be leaving the instant stream portion of Netflix this Saturday, I figured I'd catch it before it left and get it knocked out for the book. While I thought George C. Scott certainly transformed himself into a cutthroat army General, I'm all in all glad that I got this one done and over with.

The movie begins with a famous speech given by Gen. George Patton himself, in what I thought was a great way to introduce us to the character and giving us quite a bit of insight into who Gen. Patton really was and what he was all about. From there we're plummeted into World War II and the Americans have suffered a great defeat at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass. Gen. Patton is called in to whip the soldiers into shape and teach them how to win a war, which is to make the opposition die for their country. He gets them ready and leads them to victory at the Battle of El Guettar and it's on to Sicily, where we learn that George is a bit of a glory hog. He makes it known that he wants to be the one to secure the port of Messina, and not Gen. Montgomery, the General of the British Army. He's given his orders, which state that Montgomery will be the first to land in Messina and defies those orders when he arrives first, capturing Messina and stealing the glory from Montgomery.

Later, while visiting the Army hospital, Patton slaps a shell-shocked soldier and accuses him of cowardice, an act that would get him relieved of his duties, something that eats Patton alive. After he commits a second act of defiance, by insulting Russia, when failing to mention them as an ally at a press conference, he is even further demoted and is used for nothing more than a decoy during the infamous D-Day landings at Normandy. In a last ditch effort to catapult himself back into the thick of the war before it's all over, he makes a plea to his former subordinate Omar Bradly (Malden) to let him take command of the Third U.S. Army. Bradley reveals that those very plans have already been put into motion by Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower. The film winds down with Patton leading his Third Army to great victory, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of German soldiers.

As always, I never give away the endings to movies, but suffice it to say that this one doesn't end with the bang that would be only fitting for a man who was full of bang. But lets start at the beginning and lets first start with the good. I shouldn't even have to mention George C. Scott, as I think all film fans agree that his performance is legendary and as cliche as it may sound, he truly brought the character of Patton to life. I also really enjoyed Malden, who held his own on the same screen with Scott and provided a great level-headed character in the form of Gen. Omar Bradley. Some scenes ARE really engaging, but for the most part I found this film to be really quite boring. The running time of three hours is much to much when you really think about the big events of "Patton". The only real events that take place are the introduction of Patton, the Battle of El Guettar, the soldier slapping at the Army hospital and Patton's reinstatement as head of the Third Army. That's it! Sure, there's the invasion of Sicily at Messina and the events surrounding the Battle of the Bulge, but all in all the few events that I mentioned are plenty to fill a standard two-hour film, and in my opinion three-hours just sends this one into a very stale state.I'm not one for war films in the first place, but USUALLY well choreographed battle scenes dull the sting for me, and "Patton" doesn't even have those.

But why would it, because this isn't your typical war film, this is a biopic and while we are talking about World War II, we're more so talking about Gen. George Patton, who I will agree was a prime candidate for a biopic, but in the end, it's a biopic that just isn't for me.

RATING: 4.5/10 That's just about as high as I can go, as the good elements were inferior to the bad and giving it a '5' would be calling it average, which in my opinion, it isn't even that.

MOVIES WATCHED: 138
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 863

September 8, 2010 4:40pm