Accents

Over the weekend I watched Contagion - really good film, tense, genuinely moving and surprising and any movie which has the nerve to kill off both Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet deserves respect. The only thing which bothered me during the film (apart from the fact that my wife had a cold!!) was Jude Law's bizarre accent. I have no idea what he was aiming for. At times it was Australian, drifted into South African occasionally with a hint of Dick Van Dyke cockney. The annoying thing was that there seemed to be no need for it. His character could have been English, American or Mongolian - it was not relevant to the story. What it did was distract attention from an engrossing story and remind you that that was Jude Law doing a daft accent rather than believing in him as a character in a story.
I felt the same thing watching Russell Crowe in Robin Hood (which also committed the previously unheard of crime of making one of the oldest stories in English literature boring) and, going back a few years, Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty.
Directors, and actors, should remember that audiences are ready to suspend disbelief. It is part of the deal we make when we sit down to watch a film. We will go along with a 'wrong' accent if it is consistently wrong - it is when it varies so much we lose interest. That is why Kevin Costner, with a broad MidWestern accent was more believable as the Sherwood outlaw than Crowe. Sean Connery was Scottish whether he played an Irish cop, an English agent or a Russian submarine commander. I also re watched Te Hunt for Red October and remembered how good a film it was. Connery was totally convincing because his accent was the same all the way through. Consistency leads to congruency.

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Two Rode Together

I have just watched John Ford's Two Rode Together for the first time in many years.  One of Ford's later Westerns (only The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Cheyenne Autumn came after it), it is not one of his best - but even a sub-standard John Ford western is better than most other people's best.
It starred James Stewart and Richard Widmark and follows a similar theme to Ford's own classic The Searchers - rescuing white captives from Indian tribes.  Stewart and Widmark are sent by the army to negotiate the release of a number of white captives from the Comanche.
The film is uneven in pace and style lurching from moments of broad comedy provided by Andy Devine's hugely overweight cavalry seargeant to moments of dark intensity as the families of captives react angrily to the young man and woman rescued from the Indians.  It is in the darker moments that the film works best as it questions the difference between the Comanche and the whites and asks who is more civilised.  As usual Ford portrays the Indians (particularly the men) as savage brutes but does acknowledge the dignity of Indian women and at times the film is a precursor to his much more forcefully pro-Indian Cheyenne Autumn.
The best performances come from Stewart enjoying his amoral role; Linda Cristal as the white girl rescued from the Comanche and Shirley Jones who blames herself for the abduction of her 8-year old brother by the Indians.  The biggest disappointments are Widmark who's role is too strait-laced (he is always better when there is a sense of danger and ruthlessness to his character), Woody Strode is wasted as a Comanche despite having a fantastic Mohawk and there is surprisingly little action for a Ford western - only 1 short gunfight and a brawl which is played more for comedy.  This is a shame because the film needed a big dramatic set-piece to lift it up higher and make it live longer in the memory.
Two Rode Together isn't a bad movie - it just isn't as good as it could have been.  Maybe Ford's best days were behind him by 1961 -only The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance really stands out of the films ahead of him.  The film does have 1 fantastic line in it though.  Annelle Hayes playing Stewart's lover at the start of the film says to him: "I can read men's minds (pause) - it's not that hard and it doesn't take too long!"

Shalako

Rewatched one of my all-time favourite Westerns this week: Shalako from 1968. This had a cast which certainly defined 'eclectic': Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Hawkins, Honor Blackman and, most bizarrely of all, Eric Sykes. With a cast like that you could be forgiven for dismissing the film as merely a curiosity as many critics have
- but I think it stands up as a really good, and surprisingly gritty, adventure. Connery fits the title role well and comes across as a believable cavalry scout (even if his Scottish accent remains unexplained). I always liked the basic premise of wealthy Europeans 'on safari' in the Wild West and coming unstuck through their own arrogance. The best of these Europeans is undoubtedly Honor Blackman, thoroughly enjoying her role as the no-good wife of Jack Hawkins. The one disappointment is that having reunited the stars of Goldfinger, Connery and Blackman share almost no screen time - a shame given their thrilling chemistry as Bond and Pussy Galore.
Woody Strode is a menacing Chato and I was fascinated to learn recently that he was part Blackfoot and Crow.
The pace moves along well in this movie and there are some good interactions between Connery, Bardot and Peter van Eyck as the leader of the aristocratic hunting party.
I will have to hunt out a DVD version of this though. The version I saw this week was shown mid-afternoon on a Sunday so Honor Blackman's gory murder at the hand of the Apaches (forced to swallow her own pearl necklace) was cut entirely.
The film isn't perfect but I still love it - partly it reminds me of late-night treats as a kid when my dad would let me stay up late with him on a Friday or Saturday to watch stuff like this or the Dirty Dozen.

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Forthcoming Attractions

This blog is about me finally fulfilling a childhood dream - being a film critic. I can remember clearly lying in bed as a kid late at night watching Barry Norman on Film 76 and thinking that that man has the best job in the world: he gets paid to watch films all day. To a 10-year old who saw the cinema as a place of magic, there could be nothing better.
I think many people have a soft spot for their childhood cinema. For me, it was the Abbey Cinema on Wavertree Road in Liverpool - a huge 1930's cathedral of film fantasies and I loved it. It had 2 levels: the Stalls and the Circle and we always went in the Circle. Going to the 'pictures' was almost always a 'me-and-dad' thing - although he was known to fall asleep or, when I was a bit older, nip over to the Coffee House pub opposite - especially if it was a Sinbad movie.
I can remember seeing so many films there: my 1st Bond - Live and Let Die; The Professionals (the 1st time I saw a Western on a big screen); Zulu - a delight because I went in knowing nothing at all about the film; Star Wars - the best film I had ever seen at the age of 11; Jaws - truly terrifying - the list goes on and on.
These days I still go to the cinema when I can and fortunately my wife and kids also love the cinema. This blog gives me the chance to write about some of the films I have been watching either in the cinema or on TV - so there will be a real mix of new films and oldies and my taste in films is somewhat eclectic. The blog will be about whatever I have watched each fortnight or so.
So - reviews coming soon of Apaloosa, Twilight Breaking Dawn, Hombre, Eraser and Cool Hand Luke. Now it's the interval and I'm off to get a Choc Ice.

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