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DVD Kings Go Forth
It comes from Hollywood's era of grown-up "topic" movies, but Kings Go Forth has not left much of a trail. Two GIs, stationed near the French Riviera toward the end of World War II, compete for the love of a local girl (Natalie Wood). Her secret: Her father was black. The guys are Frank Sinatra, in his lost and lonely key, and Tony Curtis, as a spoiled kid breezing by on his looks (this was the same year Curtis did The Defiant Ones, also on race). Director Delmer Daves was very good at this kind of melancholy melodrama (see also A Summer Place), but this movie's non-reputation is easy to understand; it's mild and sentimental at its core. The only character that doesn't seem to be Representing Something is Sinatra's tender portrait of a soldier at loose ends, a far cry from his nervy Maggio in From Here to Eternity. --Robert Horton
Put ol' Blue Eyes in a vehicle where he never sang and usually you got a rather forgettable performance. In such cases, it was best to put him in a role where, as the old country song went, all he had to do was "ack natcher'ly". You'd never know that from this effort, though--where he played an Army officer competing for the love of a beautiful French girl (Natalie Wood) with his dreamboat sergeant (Tony Curtis). Curtis' looks and charm sweep the girl off her feet, but it's clear that Sinatra has more to offer her in what really matters. But the balloon really goes up when Wood's mother reveals to both men that her late husband was African-American, making their daughter a mulatto. This causes Sinatra to do some soul searching centered on the fact that his upbringing had a certain amount of racism in it that he'd never really questioned until now. As for Curtis' reaction, I don't want to give too much away. Except for the fact that this film shows Sinatra--a man whose main talents were in another branch of entertainment, holding his own with two of the American screen's best talents.
One of the finest movies ever!
I had been wanting to see this movie for a long time. I rented it the other day, and I'm so glad I did. This is Frank Sinatra at his best. He is wonderful as the loving, tender Sam. He's so sweet to the beautiful, yet fragile Monique, the girl he deeply loves. This movie is one of honor, character, integrity, and true love- traits all seen in Sam. This is also a very bold movie, especially for the 1950s. Sam's undying love for Monique is lovely, even after she tells him her father was a Negro. He ponders this, but his love for Monique stands strong. This has become one of my favorite movies. It's a touching story about true love, and I highly recommend it.
ONE TOUGH AND EXCELLENT MOVIE
I remember watching this movie when I was a only seven or eight and being totally ticked off that most of the film was set away from all the action I loved. "Hey, we're fighting the Germans. Forget this French chick!"
Now watching this film all these years later I am nearly overwhelmed with how mature and complex Kings Go Forth is. This could have easily sunk to the level of a simple minded morality play; but the interplay of likable and flawed human characters raise this film to be a story for thoughtful adults.
Racism is a theme; but it is only one of several. We have a rich kid/poor kid dynamic. We have sexual jeolousy. We have a central character who struggles to not only to do the right thing but to act with a nobility he knows is not natural for him. We have a irresponsible character who is sauve and socially graceful who knows exactly what he is even though he is a true hero in many ways. We have a French girl who is actually American--very much American in the sense that she is the product of a uniquely American melting pot. But she lives in exile because she is also ahead of her time. She so desparately wants to be worthy of her true homeland and is crushed when she finds out the hope she has set her heart on is false. She also knows that she failed to "dance with the one who brought her" for a golden boy whose promise was untrue.
On top of all this is the larger drama of loyalty and duty in war. How at the end Sinatra comforts and forgives the buddy he promised to kill as death seemingly was about to consume them both. Deaths both Sinatra and Curtis come to accept as a price of the mission.
Sinatra was rarely better than this. Wood breathes live into a role that is quite wooden on paper. While Curtis acts his butt off playing the cad we end up feeling sympathy for. (It has been Tony Curtis' great fortune and curse to be in films where he is overshadowed by actors who were not just good but great. We are dazzled by the performances of these great actors so much that Curtis' own contributions are obscured by the glow. But he also has to be ranked as one of Hollywood's most accomplished and skilled actors.)
Kings Go Forth is an excellent film. It is overlooked and deserves more. It is both complex and subtle. You will think about these characters for a long time.
I'm a huge Natalie Wood fan,and I love this film.She was so sexy in it,and there are so many huge stars in the movie just starting out.Your really going to enjoy this movie if you've never seen it before,and its timeless.It looks like it could have been filmed today. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Sydney Pollack DVD Release Date: Released the 02 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of the most thoughtful films about World War II, this 1958 Edward Dmytryk (The Left Hand of God) drama, based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, tells parallel stories of two American soldiers (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) and one German officer (Marlon Brando), whose war experiences we follow until they intersect outside a concentration camp. Martin plays what he calls "a likable coward," Clift is intense as a Jewish GI, and Brando experiments with the limits of his part as a Nazi reevaluating his beliefs. Legend has it that Clift accused Brando of bleeding-heart excessiveness. Interestingly, the two Method actors share no scenes together. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marlon Brando - Montgomery Clift Director(s): Edward Dmytryk DVD Release Date: Released the 06 November 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Most of the reviews of this film have been rather harsh. I remember watching this movie as a teenager in the 1970s on a black and white television, so I found watching this movie in color without commercial interruption a delightful experience. I think that Wood and Wagner handled a delicate relationship carefully. One must remember that the disability rights movement was in its infancy in the early 1970s, so persons with physical challenges and the social dimensions of living with a disability were not part of mainstream discourse. Wood and Wagner did an excellent job of portraying a number of emotional and social issues regarding the navigation of sexual relationships for a woman with a physical challenge. Many young viewers may also not clearly understand the impact that polio had on... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Natalie Wood - Robert Wagner - Bruce Davison Director(s): Gilbert Cates DVD Release Date: Released the 20 March 2001 Usually ships within 4 to 5 days
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Nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1957, Peyton Place has become synonymous with torrid soap opera. Though the novel by Grace Metalious is even more sensational, the movie provides plenty of tantalizing story turns--secrets, adultery, rape, bitter parents, frustrated teenagers, suicide, and murder. Multiple storylines deftly interweave: Allison MacKenzie (Diane Varsi), an ambitious young girl struggling with the neurotic fears of her mother (Lana Turner, in a career-reviving performance) and the neurotic fears of the boy she loves (Russ Tamblyn), while her best friend Selena Cross (Hope Lange) fights off the brutal advances of her drunken stepfather. The movie had to sanitize the novel's New England town in order to get some of the more unsavory plot turns past the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lana Turner - Lee Philips - Lloyd Nolan - Arthur Kennedy Director(s): Mark Robson DVD Release Date: Released the 02 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly make a cute (if not exactly convincing) couple in this Hollywood soap-opera version of Herman Wouk's coming-of-age romance. French/Russian Natalie Wood is decidedly non-ethnic as Marjorie Morgenstern, the starry-eyed Jewish college girl who falls in love with summer resort small-timer Gene Kelly (who never quite sells himself as a show-biz dreamer with limited talent). A stolid mix of modern, clear-eyed romance and old-fashioned melodrama, it nonetheless manages to slip in some frank (for 1958) discussions of sex and the single girl and sketch out an intriguing portrait of Jewish life in New York's upper crust between the romantic complications. Everett Sloane and Claire Trevor are excellent as Marjorie's success-obsessed parents, pre-Adam 12... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Kelly - Natalie Wood Director(s): Irving Rapper DVD Release Date: Released the 15 January 2002 Usually ships within 24 hours
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