Tag: Laurence Olivier

Battle of Britain (1969)

BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) One star
Never in the field of motion pictures were so few scenes owed by so few to so many.

— Harry Saltzman

As far as we know, Harry Saltzman never actually said that, nor did Winston Churchill or, for that matter, Yogi Berra and Yogi the Bear.

Anyway, that would-be quote came to mind several times during Battle of Britain and it’s been on my mind preparing this review inside my ripped, twisted brain.

Just look at the cast: Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Curt Jurgens, Ian McShane, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Nigel Patrick, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, Susannah York, Michael Bates. Anyway, we get the point and to fill in the rest of the cast might take every bit as long as Battle of Britain.

Battle of Britain lasts approximately 2 hours, 12 minutes, and yeah, that’s exactly right, very little screen time for each actor since there’s so many of them.

Regardless, the planes get all the good lines in Battle of Britain.

Beyond the planes, though, Michael Caine’s dog gives the best dramatic performance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even find the dog’s name in the seemingly neverending end credits.

Battle of Britain invested so much into the planes that it forgot about the characters, the people, you know, the reason why audiences engage with any successful motion picture spread. They spent so much on the planes, in fact, they couldn’t even afford subtitles for the German dialogue spoken often throughout Battle of Britain, for crying out loud.

I am not always the biggest fan in the world of these cast-of-thousands World War II epics and Battle of Britain joins The Longest Movie, Boring! Boring! Boring!, and A Movie Too Long in the cinematic wreckage of bloated, ponderous war movies.

It especially doesn’t help when the musical score for Battle of Britain has me thinking that’s what it must feel like to be trapped inside a tuba for a two-hour concert.

The Kinks’ incredible, indelible concept album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) came out two weeks before Battle of Britain in October 1969 and coincidentally, I put Arthur on almost immediately after Battle of Britain. Arthur provided the emotional and intellectual content missing from Battle of Britain, as well as a great sense of humor and sharp wit, not to mention tunes out the wazoo.

Arthur lasts all of 49 minutes, 17 seconds, and travels from the Victorian era to World War I to World War II to post-war England to Australia in a mere 12 songs. Ray Davies proved himself once again to be one of the great storytellers in popular music on this album, from opener “Victoria” and “Shangri-La” to “Mr. Churchill Says” and closer “Arthur.”

I get more from one song on Arthur than all of Battle of Britain; for example, these rather cinematic lyrics from “Some Mother’s Son,” Some mother’s son lies in a field / Someone has killed some mother’s son today / Head blown up by some soldier’s gun / While all the mothers stand and wait / Some mother’s son ain’t coming home today / Some mothers son ain’t got no grave / Two soldiers fighting in a trench / One soldier glances up to see the sun / And dreams of games he played when he was young / And then his friend calls out his name / It stops his dream and as he turns his head / A second later he is dead / Some mother’s lies in a field / Back home they put his picture in a frame / But all dead soldiers look the same.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

 

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) Three-and-a-half stars

Harryhausen vs. Harry Hamlin.

That’s what CLASH OF THE TITANS amounts to in the long run for this viewer.

Artist, designer, visual effects man, writer, and producer Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) mastered the dying art of stop-motion animation. His credits include MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C., and CLASH OF THE TITANS, Harryhausen’s final production in which he goes out with a big bang.

Harryhausen is the real star of CLASH OF THE TITANS, and not Harry Hamlin or even big-name actors Laurence Olivier, Ursula Andress, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, and Claire Bloom.

I like CLASH OF THE TITANS a lot because of all them stop-motion creations.

Let’s see, we have scorpions, the Stygian witches, Calibos and his vulture, a two-headed hound of Hell, the Kraken, the mechanical owl Bubo, and, of course, Medusa.

The Medusa sequence is the pièce de résistance of CLASH OF THE TITANS and responsible for at least three stars alone.

Harryhausen himself favored Medusa among his many creations.

The snake-haired Medusa, we all know that she’s deadly with arrows and she can turn a person to stone if you make contact with her eyes. Personally, I pretend that every salesperson in a shopping mall is Medusa and eye contact must be strictly avoided. Perseus (Hamlin) tricks Medusa with his reflection and he lops off her head. Then, our hero uses Medusa’s head to turn the formidable Kraken to stone.

A wide range of filmmakers have been inspired by Harryhausen’s work, including Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, and Sam Raimi.

In 2010, Academy Award winning animator Nick Park talked with the BBC about his three favorite Harryhausen moments. He finished up with Medusa from CLASH OF THE TITANS after picking two from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.

“It was so well done and frightening,” Park said. “It’s all the same technique but going to different heights of intricacy.

“I thought it was a combination of really good lighting and shadow. I do admire a lot of CGI, but there’s something not real about it.

“In the Medusa that Ray did it’s there and it’s grounded, there’s real light hitting real surfaces. Somehow your brain knows it’s not real with CGI.”

I’ll be honest, I am far more interested in Harryhausen’s creatures than the rather convoluted plot involving Perseus, Andromeda (Judi Bowker), Calibos, Cassiopeia, and the gods pulling all the strings.

That’s what I meant by starting this review “Harryhausen vs. Harry Hamlin.”

Most of CLASH OF THE TITANS plays like a soap opera, not helped out by pretty boy Hamlin and Bowker, who seem like they should be on “Days of Our Lives.”

Google is a wondrous invention: With just two magic words and one little click, I found the 1987 People article on Hamlin, “The Sexiest Man Alive” double issue no less, and the opening paragraph of “Last of the Great Romantics” just hooks me in against my better instincts.

“The name seems wrong for The Sexiest Man Alive, Harry is a name for an uncle, or a guy who asks you to the prom because his mother made him. Of course, Harold would be worse. So Harry it is. Harry Robinson Hamlin, to be precise … the Harry everyone’s just wild about.” (Personally, I prefer Harry Truman or Harry Potter, quite possibly since neither will ever be proclaimed “The Sexiest Man Alive.”)

The article comes back around for a swipe at CLASH OF THE TITANS.

“And there’s always the possibility of doing a remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS. ‘I brought my toga home,’ says Harry, raising hopes of another glimpse of those knees. He’s kidding, of course. Frivolous flicks are a thing of the past for The Sexiest Man Alive. Besides, says Harry, laughing, ‘I used the toga to wash my car.’”

Frivolous flicks a thing of the past for Hamlin? Hamlin’s career has included 105 episodes of “L.A. Law,” 21 of “Movie Stars,” 12 of “Veronica Mars,” eight apiece of “Army Wives” and “Shameless,” and 15 of “Mad Men,” as well as a plethora of TV movies and other shows.

Hamlin should count himself lucky to be associated with CLASH OF THE TITANS.

Because Harryhausen trumps Harry Hamlin every single time.