unlikely duo: Edmund Goulding's "Mardi Gras" & Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water"

Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water," arguably the most impressive film of 2017, is a willfully defiant hybrid - an adult genre movie and one with an R rating, no less - that secured the support of a major Hollywood indie, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and seemingly without much compromise.

This hugely creative reboot of Jack Arnold's "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954), replete with a creature almost identical to the one designed for Arnold by Milicent Patrick (*), could have easily been aimed at the family crowd, given its holiday release.

But del Toro's vision is singular and not at all derivative. It is driven by a grown-up love story involving an odd woman without voice, affectingly played by Sally Hawkins, who works at a research facility in 1962 Baltimore, and the strange aquatic creature from the Amazon (Doug Jones), equally silent, who is being held captive there, the subject of a government experiment.

This amphibian-humanoid is referred to as The Asset by the vicious men who want to cut him apart and study him for the advancement of space travel. He is a Cold War victim, tangled in America's rivalry with Russia. 

del Toro keeps his fable dark and fearlessly introduces sex to the mix.

His decisions as a filmmaker are never less than fascinating, particularly his filmic references and use of movie clips (all from Twentieth Century-Fox features, of course). For purely personal reasons, I was struck by the double-bill that del Toro selected for The Orpheum, the movie house beneath the apartments were Hawkins and neighbor Richard Jenkins live.

The Orpheum's brightly-lighted marquee rather breathlessly announces:

"The Triumphant Return of 'The Story of Ruth' and 'Mardi Gras.'"

Henry Koster's "The Story of Ruth" is a Biblical epic starring Elana Eden in the title role that Fox released in the summer of 1960. I allegedly saw it about a dozen times that summer but actually saw the film only once.

Instead, I was going to repeat showings of Billy Wilder's "The Apartment," decidedly not a film for children. I lied to my parents and let them think that I was seeing "The Story of Ruth" over and over again. My parents weren't particularly religious but I knew that they'd be a problem if they knew that I was obsessed with an adult film filled with bad role models.

Edmund Goulding's terrific "Mardi Gras" from 1958 is something else - a clean-cut Pat Boone vehicle that remains one of my all-time favorite movie musicals. Back in the day, it played in syndication on television regularly but disappeared when local TV stations stopped airing movies altogether.

The old Fox Movie Channel aired it several times in 2009 and, about a  year later, Fox released the film on DVD, its first-time ever on home entertainment, along with other titles from the 1950s and '60s. Most were awful pan-and-scan versions, including "Mardi Gras," versions made to accommodate the old box TV sets.

Fox took the lazy way out with these transfers, ignoring the films' CinemaScope legacy - odd, given that the widescreen process was a Fox trademark. At the time, Dave Kehr addressed Fox's antiquated (and embarrassing) pan-and-scan DVDs in his invaluable column for The New York Times and on his site, "reports from the lost continent of cinephilia."

del Toro uses two or three clips from "The Story of Ruth" in his film but only one brief bit from "Mardi Gras." But it's in CinemaScope. Which gives me hope that a widescreen DVD may be in the offing. (A guy can dream.)

"Mardi Gras" is Boone's third film but it is less a Pat Boone movie than an ensemble musical - and a full-fledged movie musical at that, with a varied Sammy Fair-Paul Francis Webster song score performed by the entire cast (not just Boone) and some terrific choreography by Bill Foster.

The plot is about four Virginia Military Institute cadets - played by Boone, Dick Sargent, Tommy Sands and Gary Crosby - who aim to attract a French movie starlet (Christine Carère, a delightful, if sadly fleeting, screen presence at the time) to their end-of-the-year ball. Everyone converges in New Orleans, where the movie queen is promoting her latest movie and where the VMI cadets are participating in the Mardi Gras festivities.

Lionel Newman (brother of legendary composer-scorer Alfred Newman and uncle of composers Randy, David and Thomas Newman) orchestrated the nimble score, which includes the title song, "I'll Remember Tonight," "Bourbon Street Blues," "That Man," "What Stonewall Jackson Said," "Just Like The Pioneers," "Bigger Than All Of Texas" and "Loyalty," a showstopper sung by the four cadets and cleverly staged in a locker-room shower. The traditional "Shenandoah," sung by Sands, is also utilized.

Rounding out the cast are the wonderful Sheree North, Barrie Chase (Fred Astaire's TV dancing partner who does a comic striptease), Jennifer West and ace character actors Fred Clark and Geraldine Wall. Jeffrey Hunter and Robert Wagner, who were making "In Love and War" with North at the time (also on the Fox lot) put in cameo appearances.
.

Carère made her American film debut in Jean Negulesco's "That Certain Smile" (1958) and would appear in one more American film - Raoul Walsh's "A Private's Affair" (1959), also with Gary Crosby - before heading back to France. All three were Fox films. 

Christine Carère died in 2008, age 78.

"Mardi Gras" is one of several Boone films that Fox never bothered to release on home entertainment in any form. So where's the gratitude?

An early contract player at the studio, Boone was a major cash cow for Fox during the 1950s. What's odd is that all of the films of Elvis Presley, Boone's polar-opposite counterpart, have long been available on home entertainment and have been shown endlessly on Turner Classics.

And let's face it, most of Elvis' titles, with the exception of two or three, are fairly bad. As a performer, I always preferred Elvis but Boone actually made better movies - and his first three titles for Fox are more than deserving of a boxed set. Those three would be "Bernadine" and "April Love," both directed by Henry Levin and released in '57, and 'Mardi Gras."

Boone made a credible film debut in "Bernadine," based on the Mary Chase play and augmented by some popular songs (the title tune and "Love Letters in the Sand," among them) that became breakout hits at the time. It's about a group of high-school guys who invent a fictitious girl named Bernadine - the "perfect girl" - and then try to prove that she really does exist. Such veteran film actors as Janet Gaynor, Dean Jagger and Walter Abel are on hand to fortify the inexperienced Boone, and the younger cast includes Terry Moore, James Drury, Dick Sargent (billed as Richard) and Ronnie Burns (son of George Burns and Gracie Allen).

The affable "April Love" is a remake of Henry Hathaway's 1944 film, "Home in Indiana" (based on the novel by George Agnew Chamberlain and utilizing the same screenplay by Winston Miller), about a delinquent city boy forced to do time with relatives in a rural area, stirring things up. (Actually, Herbert Ross's "Footloose" of 1984 could have easily come from the same source.) 

Boone plays the bad boy and he's effectively teamed opposite Shirley Jones. Again, there's an ace supporting cast here - Jeanette Nolan, Arthur O'Connell, Matt Crowley (not to be confused with playwright Mart Crowley) and the sublime, criminally neglected Dolores Michaels.

Both "Bernadine" and "April Love" are modest, diverting entertainments, as is Norman Taurog's "All Hands on Deck" which Boone made with Barbara Eden and Buddy Hackett in 1961. But "Mardi Gras" remains his best.

And, for me, it's a childhood favorite whose status in my mind has never budged. And I'd like to think that Guillermo del Toro appreciates it, too.

(*) Notes in Passing: No, I didn't misspell Milicent Patrick's name. There's only one L in Milicent. Needless to say, a large team worked on the creature for "The Shape of Water," although Antonio Loza is credited with the "creature prosthetics."  

And my favorite Presley films? Easy.There are three: Philip Dunn's "Wild in the Country" (1961), with three terrific leading ladies (Tuesday Weld, Hope Lange and Millie Perkins); Phil Karlson's "Kid Galahad" (1962), with Gig Young and Lola Albright, and Gordon Douglas' delightful "Follow That Dream" (also '62), with Arthur O'Connell, Anne Helm and Joanna Moore. 

Regarding Comments: All comments are enthusiastically appreciated but are moderated before publication. Replies signed "unknown" or "anonymous" are not encouraged. Please sign any response with a name (real or fabricated) or initials.  Be advised that a "name" will be assigned to any accepted post signed "unknown" or "anonymous." Thank you.

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 ~images~
(from top)

~The poster art for "Mardi Gras"

~Ben Chapman as The Gill Man in "Creature from the Black Lagoon"
 (Chapman played the character on land; Ricou Browning in water)

 ~photography: Universal-International 1954©

~Doug Jones as The Asset (aka, The Amphibian Man) in "The Shape of Water"

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 2017©

~Christine Carère and Pat Boone on the set of "Mardi Gras"
~Geraldine Wall, Fred Clark and Carère in a scene from "Mardi Gras"
~Carère and Sheree North in a scene from the film 

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 1958©

~Shirley Jones and Boone in a scene from "April Love"

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 1957©

two rude questions about "christmas" movies

First Question:

When did "A Christmas Story" become "an iconic film"?  I guess I could ask the same about the equally lacking "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" which has also experienced that elevated status. I remember both films as being eminently forgettable and actually quite disposable.

But "A Christmas Story," released in 1983, comes immediately to mind because of the Fox channel's recent staging of the film's 2012 stage musical adaptation - an event that had been preceded by endless media coverage and promotions in which the word - yes - "iconic" was invoked.

I recall when that word was reserved for something of the stature of "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Vertigo," but "A Christmas Story"? Really?

Directed by Canada's Bob Clark from the Jean Shepherd novel, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," the nostalgic movie was one of those works that is only a modest success theatrically but is discovered - and takes on a new life - in another medium. In this case, it was repeat showings on the cable channel TBS (or is it TNT?), becoming something of a television cult movie. Some people couldn't get enough. I don't get it.

When the musical version opened on Broadway, it was with little fanfare and was presented only as a "limited engagement."  It snagged a Tony nomination as best musical after it closed but didn't win. And it didn't matter because the show, like the film, would find its success far away from the usual limelight - this time, in regional theaters in the middle of the country. Again, people - the good denizens of the hinterlands - couldn't get enough of it.

But why? I got my answer when I caught a production number on a telecast - most likely The Tony Awards of 2013 - that involved a chorus of little boys brandishing toy rifles and singing about the glory of guns.

Wow. A right-wing musical. The material's appeal as both a film and a stage musical, which had evaded me, suddenly made sense.

I tried watching Fox's telecast - I'm a movie-musical  freak, after all - but couldn't take it. After about an hour, I switched over to Turner Classic's screening of Albert Brooks' "Real Life." Much better. Instant relief.

"A Christmas Story Live!," as it is urgently titled, takes the flimsy plot of the movie and stuffs it with overbearing. mediocre songs. Nothing's worse than an unctuous child actor with a trained singing voice and most the songs were sung by unctuous child actors with trained singing voices.

Everything they trilled sounded like "Tomorrow" from "Annie."

As advertised (and as the new title implies), "A Christmas Story" was played and aired "live," although it didn't feel or look "live" at all.

Dead would be more like it.

Second Question:

When did "The Sound of Music" officially become a Christmas movie? It has nothing to do with Christmas. There's not even one throwaway holiday scene in it. And yet, it's become ABC's annual holiday showing, with the network scheduling it in a whopping four-hour - 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. - slot.

It wasn't that long ago when ABC (which seemingly has lifetime TV rights to the film) routinely butchered the three-hour movie (actually, two-hour-and-54-minutes) to fit into a three-hour time slot that included at least a half-hour (probably more) of commercial breaks. Of course, this was before someone upgraded the film from merely iconic to sacrosanct.

How the film, which had a rather inauspicious start, became iconic/sacrosanct is interesting. When "The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway in 1959, its composers Rodger and Hammerstein were winding down and clearly needed one last big fat hit before they called it quits.

Their ploy was to slavishly reboot a previous hit, "The King and I." If you look closely, you'll notice that "The King and I" and "The Sound of Music" are the same show. But R&H shamelessly went a step further with a surefire formula that few people could resist - Nuns, Nazis and kids.

Despite at best respectable reviews (Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times was "disappointed that it succumbed to the clichés of operetta"), the show was an audience hit and somehow won the Tony for best musical of the season (besting "Fiorello" and "Gypsy"). Fox purchased the film rights and turned the property over to director Robert Wise (fresh off "West Side Story"), writer Ernest Lehman and music consultant Saul Chaplin. They Disney-fied the material, giving it a big - nay, an elephantine - contour.

Three of the show's better songs were dropped, replaced by a couple non-entities written by the complicit Richard Rodgers. (Oscar Hammerstein, long gone by now, had no say in the matter.) Like the play, the film opened to less than enthusiastic reviews, a few downright scathing.

Bosley Crowther, of The New York Times, devoted his initial review and a subsequent Sunday column to complaining about the corniness of the film and its pervasive mawkishness. Not good. Pauline Kael was famously fired by McCall's when she called the film "The Sound of Mucous." Kael referred to “the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat. We have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs.” Fired? She deserved a bonus.

By the way, Kael's catchy retitle of the film, "The Sound of Mucous," has also been attributed to the film's embarrassed star, Christopher Plummer, although in recent years, he has exhibited only the highest regard for the movie whenever it celebrates an anniversary of its release.

Not surprisingly, despite the carping by what the filmmakers called elitist critics, the film managed to snag a whopping 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture - and actually won (!).  Of course, this was an era when roadshow musicals dominated the Oscars, often triumphing - "Gigi,""West Side Story," "My Fair Lady," "Oliver!" and "Funny Girl."

Even "Doctor Dolittle."

Yes, times have changed. And so has The N.Y. Times, whose capsule for the movie in its TV listng doesn't quote, or even reflect, Crowther's opinion of it - ★ Recommended Film: "Splendid all around, from scenery to score."

And before it took on the status of beloved film (and then iconic film and finally sacrosanct film), it also became a joke among moviegoers, to the detriment of star Julie Andrews' career. After making "Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie," she was abandoned by her audience. Her other collaboration with Wise, "Star!," was a huge financial and critical flop (despite being excellent) and she experienced a period when she was considered persona non grata among audiences and box-office poison for studios ("The Tamarind Seed" and "Darling Lili").

In the late 1960s-early '70s, both she and "The Sound of Music" were decidedly uncool.

Andrews had a good supporting role in husband Blake Edwards' "10" in 1979, but she really didn't bounce back until "Victor/Victoria" (also by Edwards) in 1982, 15 years after "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

At the time, it was called "The 'Sound of Music' Curse." No one remembers any of this now. And "curse" is one word that would never be attributed to the film these days. No, the word would now definitely be "sacrosanct."

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu and ... Merry Christmas!

Note in Passing: The stage versions of "The Sound of Music" and "A Christmas Story" share a common fact. Both played the Lunt-Fontanne Theater when they opened on Broadway. Fifty-five years apart.

Regarding Comments: All comments are enthusiastically appreciated but are moderated before publication. Replies signed "unknown" or "anonymous" are not encouraged. Please sign any response with a name (real or fabricated) or initials.  Be advised that a "name" will be assigned to any accepted post signed "unknown" or "anonymous." Thank you.

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 ~images~
(from top)

~Robert Wise directing (from Left) Angela Cartwright, Duane Chase and Charmian Carr in "The Sound of Music," while make-up artists attend to the young stars; Carr looks none-too-happy as she seemingly glares at Wise.

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 1965©

Peter Billingsley with his Red Ryder B.B. gun in the film of "A Christmas Story"

 ~photography: MGM 1983©

cinema obscura: Anne Bancroft's "Fatso" (1980)

Films fail for a variety of reasons, the most recurring one being neglect - by the studio that produced it, the critics who review it and a public that just doesn't care. Neglected films are what drives this site.

Case in point: Anne Bancroft's soulful "Fatso," her only directorial/writing credit. Released (half-heartedly) by 20th Century-Fox in 1980, the small, very small, taciturn film offered Dom DeLuise one of his few noteworthy film roles ("The End" is another) as Dominick DiNapoli, an unassuming guy with a weight problem and, by extention, body-image issues.

Two women come to his rescue - his sister, Antoinette (played by Bancroft herself), who tries to nudge him towards a healthier diet and lifestyle, and Lydia (the singular Candice Azzara), a neighborhood woman who is just the distraction that Dom needs. Bancroft's sure hand with her actors and the material is impressive. She handles both with the simplicity of a silent film; the DeLuise-Azzara courtship is like a tiny duet out of Chaplin.

The film, hastily dismissed upon release, seems downright prescient nearly 40 years later. Ahead of its time? Has its time finally come? Perhaps. Almost impossible to see, the affecting "Fatso" surfaced occasionally on HBO and, in its former incarnation, the Fox Movie Channel. But no more. And it had a brief DVD life, courtesy of Anchor Bay, in 2006. But no more. 

Note in Passing: Dom DeLuise directed his own film, for producer Ray Stark, a year earlier - "Hot Stuff," in which he co-starred with Jerry Reed, Suzanne Pleshette and Ossie Davis. Also lost and also appealing.

Regarding Comments: All comments are enthusiastically appreciated but are moderated before publication. Replies signed "unknown" or "anonymous" are not encouraged. Please sign any response with a name (real or fabricated) or initials.  Be advised that a "name" will be assigned to any accepted post signed "unknown" or "anonymous." Thank you.

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 ~images~
(from top)

~The poster art for "Fatso"

~Dom DeLuise with Anne Bancroft on the set of "Fatso" 

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 1980©

critical quackery

Hollywood's season of unquenchable avarice officially kicked off early this morning - at 5:15 (pst) / 8:15 (est) - when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced its nominees in the 2017 Golden Globe race.

It's also a time when working professional critics (mostly in print) become more self-important and petty than usual, exploiting the popularity of the Golden Globes telecast by making derisive, left-handed comments about the Hollywood Foreign Press, questioning the group's "integrity" (or lack thereof) and identifying its members as mere "journalists" (or, worse yet, glorified "fans"), not bona fide critics like the snarky group on the attack.

But wait... A professional movie critic is as much a "mere journalist" as an HFP member from Norway and, the fact is, your average movie critic is no more qualified to comment on film than that HFP writer or, for that matter, some nerdy film buff pontificating on a computer in his parents' basement.

I use the gender identification "his" because most nerdy movie buffs are usually guys.

In a case of misplaced pride, a print movie critic thinks that he/she is somehow genetically superior to everyone else - the Hollywood Foreign Press, bloggers, the average moviegoer or anyone who dares to have an opinion on films - when the fact is, the only real difference is that someone (a newspaper or magazine editor) was smart (or stupid) enough to hire that person to cover the movie beat specifically and pay them. That's all.

But, of course, there's also a difference between an educated opinion and a casual one - and an educated opinion is invaluable and is what a good critic has to offer. I've met and become friends with dozens of movie critics during my years reviewing films and I can say with confidence that most of the ones whose work I admire (if not all of them) had no formal training in film or critical analysis of any sort. We all came from different scholastic backgrounds, we had different majors in college but we shared a passion for film that's been lifelong. We each started life as movie buffs and were blessed that someone was smart (or stupid) enough to hire us.

Our "educated opinions" on film were the result of obsessive moviegoing, repeat moviegoing (way before it became acceptable), reading reviews and books on movies, and "reading" movies themselves rather than just sitting there, passively, watching them. Nope, no "formal training" here.

It was self-education, pure and simple, and it continued on the job as one refined one's writing style and continually (and with much excitement) discovered elements in movies that one's readers might otherwise miss.

Anyone with a deep interest in film (and with the luck of the draw) could accomplish this. Timing is important (and, again, luck). I've known several writers, committed to film, who have dreamed for years - nay, decades - about becoming professional movie critics, a dream that's been evasive.

Sadly.

On the other hand, I've known more than a few newspaper writers who have landed the gig accidentally - plucked from somewhere else in the newsroom (the rewrite desk or sports section) to fill in occasionally and review a film or two - and who ended up with the title, "movie critic."

The good ones may already have had an interest in film or developed one while on the beat. The bad ones simply string adjectives around a movie synopsis - easy, lazy reviewing - and the reader learns ... nothing.

But they get hooked because, hey, movie criticism is a (seemingly) glamorous beat. Pauline Kael once complained that the danger of a bad critic is that, if he/she reviews movies long enough, the readers become accustomed to the critic's byline and writing style and, when this happens, editors are subsequently apprehensive about making a change.

The idea of who or what is a "movie critic" has morphed over the years, first with the advent of the home computer and then with the social-media blitz. Amateur movie critics who churn out opinions (sometimes educated, but mostly casual) on their sites can attract a following and think they're on par with professionals (sometimes they are, but mostly they aren't).

The movie-rating site, Rotten Tomatoes, provides exposure to what seems like thousands of "critics" (I've never had the patience or the time to count) and a wide majority of them are nobodies sharing the same stage as the somebodies, who are clearly in the minority. But there's a chance that some of these nobodies are better reviewers than the somebodies.

This movie-review madness can be traced directly to Siskel and Ebert and the various shows they hosted. There was a time when reviews of film attracted only a small, select group of newspaper readers - people interested in the arts in general and movies in particular. And critics were seen as stuffy professorial types, miserable and unpleasant and deserving of their misery (think Addison DeWitt or Anton Ego). This impression changed rather dramatically with Siskel and Ebert who were two regular guys sitting around talking about movies the way most men talk about sports. Roger and Gene popularized movie reviewing, bringing the profession out of the closet, so to speak.

Suddenly, everyone was an expert on movies and, with the internet providing a bottomless pit of resources, people who were limited previously to verbal opinions were now documenting them on-line as self-described "movie critics" or "film historians," titles never truly earned.

This trend watered down the importance of professional movie critics, exacerbated by Rotten Tomatoes which has legitimized a host of amateurs. Adding tension to the situation is the historic scarcity of movie-beat jobs at daily newspapers (which are the only full-time reviewing jobs where one can earn a living wage and live well). And it's become more acute as papers have reduced the beat from two or three working critics to one - or simply terminated the beat altogether, opting for wire reviews.

Because of the limited number of movie-reviewing positions, there have always been few opportunities for a newcomer to gain entry, largely because the people who held these positions stayed in them until they literally keeled over. Case in point: Roger Ebert, who was at the Chicago Sun-Times for 40-plus years and was still writing days before he passed.

Now, it's almost impossible. There have been no fresh faces among movie critics for a long time, only the usual suspects who have been at it for decades now and will remain in place (until they start keeling over one by one). So, perhaps, their snarkiness towards the HFP is understandable.

Movie critics - cognizant of the rarity of their jobs and the presence of those more than eager to replace them (often frenemies) - have always been insecure creatures. Only it's worse now, with critics having to:

• feign enthusiasm about the latest unreviewable franchise drivel,

• keep negativity in check (or run the risk of being accused of not really "liking" movies),

• exhibit to editors one's "connection" with the readership,

• demonstrate that connection with examples of hefty reader feedback/emails. 

• or pray for a myriad of clicks via the paper's tracking, and

• prove that no one else could possibly do the job as well as you, certainly no fraud with a blog or that unctuous new copy boy.

And, by all means, maintain an acrid, droll writing style that produces acceptable quotes for the display ads. Which, like critics, have dwindled.

Note in Passing: The title of this essay is a used one. On my first day as a movie critic - back in the late 1960s when I was in my early 20s - my editor handed me a slim volume titled "Critical Quackery (Why  Critics Are Guilty of It and How to See Through It)" by Theodore L. Shaw. Which was, at once, intimidating and demoralizing, given that Shaw accused all critics of "humbug," but also inspiring. It leveled me. High from being hired for my dream job, and at such a young age, it was promptly sobering.

Thanks to that editor, Al, and to Shaw.

Regarding Comments: All comments are enthusiastically appreciated but are moderated before publication. Replies signed "unknown" or "anonymous" are not encouraged. Please sign any response with a name (real or fabricated) or initials.  Be advised that a "name" will be assigned to any accepted post signed "unknown" or "anonymous." Thank you.

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 ~images~

~George Sanders demonstrating his smirk as Addison DeWitt in "All About Eve"

 ~photography: Twentieth Century Fox 1950©

~The critic Pauline Kael 

~Anton Ego in "Ratatouille"
 ~photography: Pixar/Disney 2007©
 

~The critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert

cinema obscura: Joseph Sargent's "Colossus: The Forbin Project" (1970)/redux

Influenced by Glenn Erickson who referenced it recently on his CineSavant site, I felt compelled to dig my 2010 review of Joseph Sargent's fabulous "Colossus: The Forbin Project" out of the mothballs and re-run it (replete with original reader comments). Not coincidentally, I've been nagged by a proposed Ron Howard remake of the film, which was originally announced a decade ago, in 2007. Will Smith signed on as star, per 2010 reports, and in 2013, Smith brought his "Men in Black" scenarist, Ed Solomon, on board to do the adaptation. At that point, there was no indication whether Howard was still actively involved. Frankly, it's unclear if the remake is still a go.

Got that?

Sargent (1925-2014), born Giuseppe Danielle Sorgente (albeit in Jersey City), has been a hugely neglected filmmaker. He was something of an adjustable wrench among directors, given that he could handle just about any genre effortlessly and without narcissistically stamping his name on it.

As a filmmaker, he tended to disappear within his subject matter, as evidenced by his output which includes the original (and superior) "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974), Burt Reynolds' pleasing "White Lightning" (1973), the solid war flick "The Hell with Heroes" (1968), Gregory Peck's "MacArthur" (1977), Susan Anton's underrated "Goldengirl" (1979) and the Robert Blake-Dyan Cannon lark "Coast to Coast" (1980).

And there were several impressive TV films - "Hustling" (1975) with Lee Remick and Jill Clayburgh, the incredibly popular "Sunshine" (1973) with Cristina Raines and "The Man" (1972), which was was detoured into theaters before actually playing on network TV. And with good reason.

Adapted by Rod Serling from Irving Wallace's novel, "The Man" stars James Earl Jones as the first black President. A tad ahead of its time.

But my favorite Sargent film remains 1970's juicy "Colossus: The Forbin Project," a title that has always been available on home entertainment but is honored here because, despite enthusiastic reviews, this terrific movie has never been given its due - by either its studio or the viewing public.

Adapted by filmmaker James Bridges from the D.F. Jones novel, the preternaturally observant movie details - in an immensely entertaining fashion - how a sophisticated computer, named Colossus, designed ostensibly to control the country's nuclear defense network, goes berserk with power, turning on its creator, Dr. Charles Forbin.

Colossus ultimately joins forces with its Soviet counterpart, Guardian, to become a single Super Power bent on taking over the world from humans. Not unexpectedly, Sargent's film is effectively creepy, but also unexpectedly witty.

Eric Braeden is commanding as Dr. Forbin in a performance that should have led to bigger and better things. For one, Braeden would have made a terrific 007. Instead, this fine actor has enjoyed a lengthy, lucrative run as the willfully evil patriach, Victor Newman, on NBC's excellent (and compulsively watchable) daytime drama, "The Young and the Restless."

Braeden's daily performances on the show come with an effortless grace and a wicked sense of humor, so much so that I still continually fantasize about what a wonderful Bond he would have been. Inarguably.

His co-stars in "Colossus" are Susan Clark, as the thinking man's love interest, and Canada's Gordon Pinsent as the Kennedy-like President of the United States. Both provide atypically combative support as each one spars with Braeden over his beloved demon child.

Universal, alas, exhibited limited interest in the film which had the working title "Colossus" in production, was released initially as "The Forbin Project" and then as "Colossus: The Forbin Project" for a half-hearted reissue.

Funny thing, all three titles are fine. The movie itself is better than fine.

Note in Passing: This review was originally published on November 22, 2010. 

Regarding Comments: All comments are enthusiastically appreciated but are moderated before publication. Replies signed "unknown" or "anonymous" are not encouraged. Please sign any response with a name (real or fabricated) or initials.  Be advised that a "name" will be assigned to any accepted post signed "unknown" or "anonymous." Thank you.

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~images~

(from top)

~Eric Braeden in a scene from"Colossus: The Forbin Project"

~The cover page of James Bridges' script for the film when it was simply titled "Colossus." 

~ Braeden in a scene from the film

~Photography: Universal (1970)©