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DVD The Wind and the Lion
The up-and-down career of director John Milius had no finer moment than The Wind and the Lion, a dandy adventure tale. It's based on fact: An American (played by Candice Bergen) and her two children were kidnapped in 1904 Morocco by a Berber tribe, an international incident settled by President Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" military muscle. The film's sweep and swagger are unabashedly old-fashioned, even as Milius occasionally pokes fun at the grand characters. Some of the peripheral material is sloppy, but as long as Milius keeps his sights locked on the two powerful protagonists, he's dead-on: Brian Keith makes a gutsy Roosevelt, and Sean Connery is in splendid form (with Scots accent in place--got a problem with that?) as the dashing Berber chieftain. Perhaps overshadowed by John Huston's The Man Who Would be King the same year (Huston plays advisor John Hay in this one), Wind makes a marvelous companion piece. --Robert Horton
One of my favorite movies: partly fact, partly fiction, and completely enthralling. Sean Connery has one of his more unusual roles as the Raizuli, a Berber chieftan in 1904 Morocco who kidnaps an American woman, Mrs. Pedicaris (Candice Bergen in one of her best screen roles), and her two children, starting an international incident. President Theodore Roosevelt, played to the nth degree by Brian Keith, wants to send in American troops to rescue the woman and her children. But doing so could provoke an international incident, since the French and the Germans have carved out spheres of influence in Morocco. Without giving the whole movie away, let me just say that this is a fascinating movie in several respects. Since 9/11, it's taken on a new relevance, and its depiction of American imperialism in its early stages has an eerily prescient quality to it. But this isn't a movie just about politics. It has a magical quality to it that's hard to describe. Connery is just as charming in a turban as he is in a tuxedo, so much so that you don't even care that he plays an Arab warrior with a Scottish bur. Mrs. Pedicaris' children play a key role, because a lot of the movie is seen through their eyes. They meet the kind of hero they've read about in books, and he's the real thing. A wonderful movie!
I am the Rizuli...
Candice Bergen and Sean Connery make a fantastic combination in this movie, and the actor who portrayed T.R. was perfect. It was interesting to see how alike Roosevelt and the Rizuli were in all honesty.
An American woman and her children are kidnapped by a Berber/Arab chieftan for political reasons involving the Sultan of Morocco. Naturally, Teddy Roosevelt and his "big stick" diplomacy get involved. Meanwhile, the captor and captive, while they may not actually bring it to any kind of physical relationship, fall in love in a fasion, and the Rizuli ends up being her saviour rather than her kidnapper, and a truly honorable person.
Some great scenes in this movie, especially (and forgive me if I ruin it) the storming of the bashaw's palace by U.S. Marines. I highly recommend this movie and I have personally watched it again and again.
Last of the Barbary pirates
Review of the dvd:
Grand adventure told on an epic scale. Sean Connery plays Berber chieftain Mulay Achmed Mohammed el-Raisuli the Magnificent, who in 1904 Morocco kidnaps plucky Eden Pedecaris (Candice Bergen) and two young children. The dashing and indomitable Raisuli makes substantial ransom demands as he roams the desert with Pedecaris and her gallant brood.
Connery is simply outstanding in the lead role. It's impossible to imagine this movie without him - his character is brutal, demanding, philosophical, funny. Brian Keith, brilliant as President Theodore Roosevelt, is just about as indispensable to THE WIND AND THE LION. To writer and director John Milius's credit both characters, easily caricatured, are complex, complete, and sympathetic individuals.
The only weak link is the Candice Bergen character. She simply doesn't generate enough warmth, never had and never would, to sustain a romantic subplot. On the commentary track Milius tells us Faye Dunaway was the first actress hired to play Eden Pedcaris, but she fell ill and the role went to Bergen. I'm not sure Dunaway would have been much of an improvement as far as communicating warmth goes. Still, the sexual tension he wrote into the characters isn't much there.
If you're a fan of grand adventure, THE WIND AND THE LION is highly recommended.
A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Huston DVD Release Date: Released the 19 November 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco's highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what's left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sean Connery - Christian Slater Director(s): Jean-Jacques Annaud DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Set in the expanse of the Sudan desert in the midst of holy war, Khartoum (1966) plays like an attempt to work the Lawrence of Arabia magic on the (mostly) true story of eccentric British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon in 1884 North Africa. The magnificent opening desert battle suggests David Lean's epic sweep, at least until the film settles into a more modest story of political games, military standoffs, and a battle of wits and wiles between two fierce leaders. Charlton Heston plays the wily Christian soldier as cocky, unconventional maverick, and Laurence Olivier (behind heavy make-up and a thick black beard) is almost as good as his cagey nemesis the Mahdi, the Islamic holy warrior on a mission of annihilation. More talk than spectacle, the film falls short of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Laurence Olivier Director(s): Eliot Elisofon - Basil Dearden DVD Release Date: Released the 07 May 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Sentries have come in from the hill, sir.... They report Zulus to the southeast. Thousands of them." One of the best pure action movies ever made, this rousing adventure recounts the true story of a small 18th-century regiment of British troops (including a very blue-blooded turn by a young Michael Caine) endlessly besieged by an seemingly unceasing number of fierce attackers. Although the basic premise has since been executed with more technical skill and panache (most notably by Aliens and Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans), it's unlikely that anything will ever top the utter spectacle and, above all, sheer unbelievable size of the combat scenes that almost wholly comprise the last half of this film. A gloriously exhilarating essential for anyone looking to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Stanley Baker - Jack Hawkins Director(s): Cy Endfield DVD Release Date: Released the 20 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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