This is an accurate account of the famous (infamous, more likely) Dreyfus affair, a scandal that nearly drove France to civil war at the turn of the century. And it could have been a good movie too, if director Ken Rusell hadn't overdone it miserably by pretending "the whole thing was a comedy"!
The film manages to get its facts right (a rare acomplishment for a Hollywood movie), features an elaborate production, with fine costumes and sets (although its 'Paris' resembles London), and boasts a great cast led by Richard Dreyfuss, who gives an above-his-usual performance as the officer trying against all odds to save Dreyfus, while disliking him personally for being a Jew.
Why, then, spoil it with all those cartoonish "comic" details that serve no purpose whatsoever, except to ruin the whole picture?: A French general, at work, dresses as Zeus for a portrait (its painter complete with pointy moustaches and a red beret!) later on display in his office. Another general (a fat, grumpy, bearded lout who looks a lot like Bud Spencer, and sinks every scene he's into) sings child-like racist songs with his junior officers at an elegant military club that seems to accept all ranks inside its halls, for one sees in one room the entire French army, from maréchales to privates, getting drunk, pounding tables and shouting at each other in their messed up uniforms. There's a War Minister serving cake to his subordinates, a chanteuse lampooning 'La Marsellaise' (the French applaud!), a German officer -pickelhaube and all- dancing with a male spy in drag, and a sinister meeting inside a church, with generals sniggering as they cross themselves. My, oh my! Aren't these the bad guys!
Seems to me, the director tried so hard to stress the point, he completely missed it. ....
Philip Roth's novel of Jewish identity and assimilation in the suburbs of New York gets a spirited comic reading in this 1969 film, which marked the acting debut of model Ali McGraw (and who thought that was a good idea?). Actually, she's pretty good as the Jewish princess whose father has made a fortune in plumbing supplies. Richard Benjamin, who went on to become an odd sex symbol of the '70s, had just the right comic twist as the young man who can't overcome McGraw's middle-class morality with his sense of passion and romance. Jack Klugman is outstanding as her hard-driving and unyieldding father. A touchstone film. --Marshall FineMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Benjamin - Ali MacGraw Director(s): Larry Peerce DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
Without a Clue is an underrated comedy featuring stellar teamwork by two great actors, Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. This Sherlock Holmes pastiche with a twist stars Kingsley as physician, writer, and self-effacing super-sleuth Dr. John Watson, who channels his genius for deduction into lucrative stories about Holmes. Watson wants the world to believe the fictional private eye actually exists, posing a problem when a steady stream of troubled souls come seeking Holmes's help. The doctor's prescription: hire a two-bit, drunken, skirt-chasing actor (Caine) to portray the Great Detective, an arrangement that causes Watson consternation whenever "Holmes" tries to improvise his way through a case. Wonderful comic timing and tension make Without a Clue a delight; Caine,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Michael Caine - Ben Kingsley Director(s): Thom Eberhardt DVD Release Date: Released the 02 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.95 Your Price: $13.46YOU SAVE $1.49!
Buy it
Otto Preminger's 1960 adaptation of Leon Uris's novel is a sprawling 220-minute tale of the founding of modern Israel, starring Paul Newman as a Resistance leader. The film works best as an example of Preminger's estimable skill with all levels of drama and action, but as a reflection upon history it is compromised by stereotypes, unpersuasive relationships, and a certain moral ambivalence about issues related to the subject. There are good and exciting sequences, however, particularly one involving an effort to break through a British blockade and get to the homeland. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Paul Newman - Eva Marie Saint Director(s): Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 October 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.94 Your Price: $13.45YOU SAVE $1.49!
Buy it
After winning consecutive best director Oscars (for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve), Joseph Mankiewicz turned his attention to this extremely curious social comedy. Cary Grant plays a famous, idealistic gynecologist whose mysterious past is questioned by a vindictive colleague (Hume Cronyn). Meanwhile, the doctor falls for a pregnant patient (Jeanne Crain), whose unmarried status is daring for a movie of 1951 vintage. The title is an all-too-apt description of Mankiewicz's chatty style, but it also carries sinister echoes of the McCarthy era--specifically, an attempted right-wing purge of the Director's Guild, I which Mankiewicz was the main target. This subtext lends interest beyond the movie's rather tame romance. The Grant character, named Doctor Praetorius (no... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Jeanne Crain Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $11.98YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
