Reviews

I just had to look--- KENT SMITH as Quanah Parker???? I mean, the guy was always wooden, but jeeze! Utterly unconvincing in every way. And big Mike Mazurki as his right-hand goon--whew. Henry Brandon's Black Cloud, with his ice-blue eyes and bad wig, is another howler. You can even see the wig coming loose when he's struggling with Dana Andrews, himself looking seriously out of place. Diehard fans may or may not care to see him in this role. But at least Iron Eyes Cody is in there, though his presence only points up how fake those redface 'red men' look.

The script is well-meant, and deserved better. But this was the 50s, and the production decisions were what they were. As the gratuitous Girl, Linda Cristal contributes exactly what was intended-- and in a cantilevered bra, too. If you like shoot-'em-ups and can overlook the casting limitations and other snags, you might find this acceptable entertainment.

This episode strays dangerously into soap opera territory, and come on, guys-- we don't watch Mary for soap. Ted Bessell was right at home with Marlo Thomas' Ann Marie on the lightweight That Girl, but seems positively alien to the world of Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards.

And then there's his rather chillingly true pronouncement on being hurt-- this injects a sour, even bitter taste into what was always a sweet show. It would have been more typical to convey the point on a wise and whimsical note. Bessell's character ends up being both too light and too heavy to belong with Mary. The script didn't serve him well, and it's easy to see why he wasn't kept on as a recurring cast member.

Of course, Mary could never really be allowed to meet her match; possibly the only candidate the fans would ultimately have approved would be Dick Van Dyke-- or perhaps someone else strong and likable enough to have carried his own show.

Well, mistakes happen.

Firstly, Perry Mason simply doesn't work in color, and especially not those bright crisp sunny tones, where something muted and shadowy would have been closer to the mark. But the mark is still black and white!

This has a certain novelty value as a somewhat cheesy updated Oliver Twist, but can't exactly be called compelling. Victor Buono, of course, has the requisite panache for a modern Fagin, and that helps to hold the thing together-- somewhat. As an attempt at making Perry Mason a NOW show it was ill-advised. Guess they had to try.

I couldn't quite make sense out of casting Lisa Pera, a blonde blue-eyed Russian, as the shady Senorita. What, they couldn't find any real Latina actresses in LA? She did a decent job, but I wasn't quite convinced-- and boy, those blue eyes really popped! Sure, there are blue-eyed Mexicans-- but with that too- obvious black wig and dark foundation it was glaringly plain that this was an ethnic makeover.

Overall, the Twice-Told Twist made it clear that the show had outlived its era. In October the word went out: "CBS may bring back Perry Mason in color, and with a new star in the role. The network is holding discussions with Gail Patrick Jackson, producer of the original series. Raymond Burr says he has other things to occupy him and won't be available to make the new films." So Burr had had it with playing Perry. Have to wonder who was being considered to step into the role -- not that the fans would accept any replacement--, maybe another solid dramatic actor, not too much younger, or hey! A complete switch to a really NOW hip Mason with a snappy mod wardrobe and a new miniskirted Della Street. The mind boggles.

It's obvious that converting this filmed-as-silent opus to synchronized-score-& effects was an afterthought. The synched sound required a constant speed, and 24 frames per second was the new sound standard. Unfortunately, the picture was shot at a slower silent rate, and the speeded-up sound presentation has jerky and unnatural movement that detracts from the artistry and grace of this handsome production and makes the drama less effective. Many of us have become so accustomed to seeing silent films run at the wrong speed that "Don Juan" can be taken in stride, but I for one find it almost unwatchable. Don Jose's death, and the climactic swordfight with Count Donati later on are positively grotesque at this speed. Fortunately, as with many silents available on YouTube, one can adjust the speed to 75% and the music doesn't really suffer by it.

I mostly liked Arnold's first Conan outing, once I got past all the reimagining of Robert E. Howard's character. Having read Conan in the original Weird Tales pulps when I was 13 --an ideal age for it-- I had definite ideas about the Hyborian Age hunk Robert Bloch once dismissed as a "Cimmerian chipmunk"-- professional jealousy, I expect.

"Destroyer" lifts its title from a Conan story, but then mostly goes its own way. There's some real goofiness, plus decent sword-and-sorcery story elements, though it lacks the solid heart of Conan #1, and the special effects-- whew! That cartoon bat-bird was like something from the fifties (think "Forbidden Planet). This is where 'willing suspension of disbelief' comes in.

As far as creating the feel of a setting remote in time and space, any of this is dispelled when that little princess comes onscreen. She's like a chain tethering the thing to the 1980s, and seems like nothing more nor less than a Hollywood high school girl, though Olivia d'Abo is in fact English. Well, it was her first film. Whaddaya want?

All of this goes to show that whatever your take on Conan is, "Destroyer" is best enjoyed with your brain in neutral. Wouldn't hurt to be 13 or younger, either.

Not too many people in the US have seen this opus from director Mikhail Bogin, and it's really quite a lovely piece of work. Its title variants are bewildering: The Russian title "Dvoye" (or less correctly "Dvoe") means "Two", but the title frame translates it as "Boy and Girl". Germany and France have it as "We Two" (Dei Zwei, Nous Deux). In Hungary it became "Two of Us" (Ketten), in Poland "Two" (Dwoje), and in the UK "Two in Love". In the US it was presented as "A Ballad of Love".

The Mikhail Bogin film "O Lyubvi" (About Love) from 1966, again with Viktoriya Fyodorova, apparently also used the English title "A Ballad of Love", resulting in occasional confusion. In fact, when I acquired a 16mm print of "Dvoye" as "A Ballad of Love" the seller had mistakenly indicated "O Lyubvi" as the Russian title.

Here are some press quotes from US screenings in the 1960s, as "A Ballad of Love":

The San Francisco Examiner, Mon, Oct. 23, 1967: "...a tender yet unsentimental treatment of a romance between a young musician and a deaf-mute circus student ...haunting and poignant. Bogin's work, obviously influenced by western cinema, shows little trace of the social realism which sometimes dominates contemporary Russian films. The music, dance, dress and demeanor of the young people suggest London, Paris or Rome as easily as Moscow. Therefore, the universal impact of the uncertainties and delights of young love is never dissipated."

The Baltimore Evening Sun, Thurs, Sep 08, 1966: "The director, Mikhail Bogin, employs very close close-ups, fuzziness of photography and a gimmick or two such as having the sound track go silent when we are with the girl. "A Ballad of Love" may be short but not on poignancy or beauty. Those, it has plenty of."

New York Daily News, Sun., Feb 20, 1966: "The stars are expertly cast in difficult roles. Victoria Fyodorova, daughter of the famous actress, Zoya Fyodorova, looks like Audrey Hepburn. She is simply and smartly dressed and plays her part with sincerity and sensitivity. Valentin Smirnitsky, a handsome young actor whose talent matches his looks, plays his role with conviction."

The two principals were both natives of Moscow, but the film was actually shot in Latvia, probably in Riga.

I didn't mind at all that this was predictable and formulaic-- I like the sappy stuff. Who's a better Irish cop than Pat O'Brien? And it's a treat to see early Ann Sheridan and Bogart. The Production Code guaranteed that justice, and not just the letter of the law, would be done.

I noticed that Father Patrick was played by Father Sheridan, but it appears that he was no relation to the lovely Ann. He had quite a long career in films, beginning with silents in 1915.

It was really a cheap shot for Warners to release a publicity tagline such as "a Hot-Headed Irish Cop Comes to Grips with a Cold-Blooded Killer..." to rope in audiences who'd be expecting a crime thriller instead of a heart-warming tale of a mean cop's redemption.

Heart-warming is fine with me.

Publicity for this bit of fluff confused Bluebeard, the legendary Turkish polygamist (who was accustomed to murdering all his wives) with the famous pirate Blackbeard, a documented historical character.

Polygamy having been established as the theme, it's actually polyandry we get, and the premise is decidedly thin, since Bebe doesn't knowingly marry more than one man, only one standing in for another so that she's sort of technically married to the same man twice.

Thus our tale builds upon this fragile foundation to arrive at a fairly slim bit of comedy, but if you're a fan of the lovely Bebe, who the year before had played opposite Valentino, you'll be glad to see her. Everyone agrees that Raymond Griffith livens up the proceedings.

I didn't see all of this one, but the mix of old and new footage is a good device. The ending was pretty satisfying, and the update on the government's shameful subsequent treatment of the Apache (business as usual) lent a responsible note to the production.

When I first saw Joe Lara as Wolf, I thought-- ah, this is one of those white-guy-raised-by-Indians-and doesn't-belong-in-either-world things. Nope. He's an Apache. A blue-eyed Apache with wavy brown hair and white features. At least they could have dyed his hair and given him brown contacts. Evidently the producers couldn't credit the public with enough taste to find Wolf appealing unless he was a standard-issue Handsome Hunk. A sad loss to some qualified Indian actor, and a sad loss to the viewer, for it definitely compromises credibility.

The year before Gunsmoke: The Last Apache, Lara first played Tarzan-- the white guy who makes good in Africa. Sadly, Joe Lara was killed in a plane crash in 2021. He did a lot of good work, and one can't fault his acting-- but one can fault casting him in an inappropriate role.

Can't believe I'm the first to leave a review for this, but the show has only been back on the air a little while. Really a delightful episode, and why worry about stretching things a bit as to the sensory limitations of virtual reality of nearly 30 years ago. Just consider it science fiction. Absolutely not to be missed. Usual great chemistry by the cast. Every couple should be this cute together. Well-- maybe that would be too much cuteness. The VR choices are fun: mountain climbing (yeah, okay), David Brinkley (for stimulating conversation?), Christie Brinkley, Sean Connery (this was the nineties, remember)... A favorite Mad About You-- trust me.

From the Los Angeles Times of May 22nd, 1927:

COMPLETE FIRST OF EIGHT FEATURETTES.

Production has just been completed at the California studio on the first series of eight three-reel featurettes being made by Cardinal Productions for Weiss Brothers release. The first picture is adapted and directed by Leon de La Mothe, from the Grimm's Fairy Tale "Snow White." Little Bonnie Jeanne De Bard, the radio artist of KHJ and KFW, whom many have heard over the air, plays the role of Snow White as a child, and while this was Bonnie Jeanne's first picture, her work was so excellent that she has been engaged to appear in all of the remaining pictures made by this company.

Others in the cast were Tiny Sandford, B. Wayne Lamont, Renee Marvelle and Thais Valdemar. Bert Baldridge was responsible for the camera work.

It's been a while since I watched this, but I wouldn't mind seeing it again. The footage of Europe in the late sixties is a treat, as is the very pro cast, and a chance to see them young and (with many) to see them still living.

What sticks out in my memory is the scene in the youth hostel where we look in on what that wild younger generation was supposedly up to. And there's Donovan, out-Donovanning himself with the supremely fey "Lord of the Reedy River"-- "She fell in love with a swan/ And her eyes were filled with feathers..." Yow! I followed his sixties albums, but there was nothing to top that swan song.

Most viewers will find this film very watchable. Catch it!

"Brigadoon" is a lovely thing, though i hadn't been aware till recently that so many songs had been dropped to accommodate Gene Kelly's conversion of the show into a more dance-oriented interpretation. If watched as a filmed stage production, the obvious artificiality of the soundstage becomes a stellar achievement in theatrical settings instead of a less impressive cinematic lack of actual locations. So why worry? It's a fantasy, after all.

But even fantasy needs internal logic. Without having read the original book it's hard to be sure, but the technicalities of the Brigadoon premise don't seem like much of a miracle. For one thing, we're told that if JUST ONE of Brigadoon's residents leaves, the enchantment will be undone. That doesn't put the place back into temporal sync with the outside world-- the whole place disappears forever! That's a pretty precarious existence for those folks.

More significantly, if one day in Brigadoon equals a hundred years in the outside world, then one year in Brigadoon years means 36,500 outside years, and ten Brigadoon years would be 365,000 years! Who knows what the Outside World would be like after all that time? Since the village doesn't exist except on one day every century, the entire area could change completely hundreds of times; Brigadoon could materialize in the midst of nuclear or other major disasters; would the enchantment protect it then? The air might not still be breathable, the Highland hills flattened. It seems to me that two days/centuries --even one-- would be more than adequate to eliminate the threat of witches that inspired this poorly-thought-out 'miracle'.

I'd say that the minister who excluded himself from Brigadoon as a 'sacrifice' when praying for the salvation of the village was well out of it. Wouldn't you think that someone who had that much pull with the Almighty could come up with a better plan for foiling those pesky witches?

Well, we can just enjoy the film on its own terms and not be concerned about applying logic to a somewhat lopsided but certainly charming fairy tale.

I once visited Ayrshire in Scotland, where the River Doon runs out to the Firth of Clyde. There in Robert Burns' former haunts is an old brig (Scots for bridge) over the Doon known as the Brig o' Doon, and it was this picturesque crossing that inspired the story, though it's not located in the Highlands. Burns used the Brig in his poem Tam O'Shanter, which did involve witches... And thus the seeds were sown.

I always look in on this picture when it comes on, though mostly to watch my favorite parts-- of which there are many. Garner is so perfect for the role and so appealing that she's a pleasure to watch; really, all the casting is spot-on.

There are just a couple of elements that don't quite ring true for me, though the picture is so well-crafted that minor points are forgivable and didn't dissuade me from posting a "10". Having been 13 once myself, it's hard to imagine a 13-year-old seriously wishing to be 30-- at 13 that seemed like being totally over the hill. At 13 the target ages would be 18 and no longer underage, or 21 and no longer a minor. For a teenage girl to reject her teen years entirely is quite a sacrifice, and then to skip her 20s as well would be like throwing away half her life. But hey, willing suspension of disbelief, right?

Jenna spends a lot of time preparing to go to that party (in a limo!), and we see her hair in rollers, but then nothing comes of that; the hair hasn't been curled at all. Simple inexperience? Doesn't matter, though; Garner would shine with any kind of hair.

She's a charmer, and the picture is a charmer, and it's one that pretty much anyone can enjoy.

This one is just spot-on mega-wonderful and hilarious! Guaranteed. And you don't even have to like football. Do not, repeat, do not miss this one, a top showcase for all the cast members, plus as a bonus it has one of Mike Ditka's appearances as the Badgers' coach. Dick's conversion to football super-fan is of course way over the top, as is Harry's transformation into super-cop, complete with doughnuts. Mary shines as a rabid Badger booster, Sally shines as the answer to a coach's prayer, Tommy shines in his misfire romance, Nina shines as the cool foil to them all-- just a treasure from start to finish. Whew!

"I Love My Wife, But Oh! You Kid"...

Of course the Production Code limited depiction of the more lurid elements of this story, but it was largely due to Evelyn's participation as Consultant that "Red Velvet Swing" turned out as a nearly G-rated version of a very R-rated, even X-rated, story. We see Stanford White and Evelyn presented as something like star-crossed lovers-- oh, if only he'd been younger and single! Quite a fairy tale. Still, the picture makes it pretty clear that they made whoopee; watch for White's swing hanging empty, still gently swinging...

White was a dissolute roué with a taste for Young Stuff, and didn't scruple to drug the winsome Evelyn and 'have his way' with her while she was unconscious. Yuck. Nice start to a relationship. But after all, he was such a brilliant architect that such minor foibles could be overlooked, right? Milland's Nice Guy portrayal doesn't even include any attempt at a physical resemblance; the real White sported an enormous mustache. Possibly if a 'stache was tested, it may have been concluded that it made him look too much like a melodrama villain. In the 50s screen good guys were cleanshaven, no matter how historically inaccurate that might be.

As I understand it, White's hedonist lifestyle had so run down his health that at the time Thaw killed him he may have had only about six months to live. But Harry had the satisfaction of taking him down personally. We trust that it was worth the subsequent whirlwind... At least in the movie Evelyn permitted Farley Granger to play Harry Thaw as the unstable and abusive creep he was. It's rather chilling when his mother provides a tragic back story to excuse Harry's nasty nature-- but somehow it's still hard to feel much sympathy for him.

We see White trying to do the Right Thing by little Evelyn in sending her away to school. He actually did so, but not out of any noble motivation; he was getting her away from impossibly handsome John Barrymore, with whom she was having a torrid affair.

I'm giving this six stars instead of fewer, because (despite flaws) the colorful turn of the century period re-creation is enjoyable (how about those watermelon petticoats in the cakewalk? Whew!), and it can be appreciated as a 1950s period piece as well. But it's largely fictional, and as others have mentioned is clearly overdue for a new treatment, and not just a remake. Now, who should play the principals this time around?

I thought this made for an intriguing mystery, with plenty of texture to the cast. The 'wrong side of the tracks' loser defendant really looked like a goner, with an open and shut case against her. Enter Perry Mason and new evidence was sure to follow..

Allison Hayes as "Cho Sin" was rather puzzling, though-- she was obviously supposed to be exotic, but were we to think she was really Chinese, or a Caucasian who liked to do up as Chinese? But then there's her resemblance to Constance Towers' Leona, who isn't supposed to be Asian.

Oh well, why worry? Perry's on the case. And with espionage technology, yet. Watch that cocktail olive! Who's really in charge here? Follow the money... Lots for the big guy to sort out.

For me, the hard 'G' pronunciation of the Italian 'Cagliostro' really jarred --never heard it before--, and I see it was included in Goofs. However, it appears that like many mispronunciations, it has become accepted American usage. Tsk! It's like pronouncing lasagna 'la-sag-na' instead of 'la-zan-ya'. It makes the learned mystics sound ignorant.

Another gaff is the pronunciation of 'primer', which is anyone's earliest school book. While it's spelled 'primer' as in other applications, it's pronounced with a short 'I' as though spelled 'primmer'. It's a somewhat antiquated term, so is not common in conversational English; thus someone reading it may have no clue that it should sound differently from other 'primers'.

People certainly went to town on technical errors for this flick! It goes to show that filmmakers can't do too much research when presenting medical and scientific details.

As far as the overall quality of this picture, the special effects are of course dazzling, and the humorous element is definitely welcome. I found it excessively violent, and soon wearied of battle after battle after battle-- but that's what Marvel appears to be all about, after all. I remember reading a few Dr. Strange comics in the late sixties, when Strange stood out refreshingly from the muscle-bound superhero crowd. It was disappointing when they took away his baggy trousers and put him in tights like the rest, but I wasn't really paying attention to Marvel comics at that point and read the underground variety when I read comics.

But it's interesting to see what's being presented now that Marvel comics have been made so big and real on the screen. Nowadays anything that can be imagined can be made real for the moviegoer, though not all of us care to see all of it!

The wolf-girl concept is a welcome departure from the usual captured-and-brought-up-by-Indians routine, but quite beyond Wagon Train's limited means. For one thing, the 'wolves' are plainly German shepherds. They bark! The off-camera 'wolf' howling sounds like coyotes. The 'Indians' are at an equal level of authenticity, but pretty much typical of the time. One needs to be very young and naïve for all this to be convincing. The premise had potential, and the girl is good; this could have been a haunting tale, but the whole thing comes across as cheap, muddled and inept. A missed opportunity.

Like most British musical productions of the time, this can be a tad quaint; it's more semi-operetta than musical and lacks much in the way of memorable songs you'd find yourself humming afterward. Of course the music was nearly twenty years old when CCC made it to the sound screen and much of it didn't age well. But what the heck-- just go with it. "Ali Baba" is a good yarn, and this expands on it entertainingly. Dear old George Robey injects a light-hearted element into a sometimes dark and brutal tale. The sets and cinematography leave little to be desired except possibly color. This was such a sumptuous spectacle onstage that I'd be willing to set aside my objections to colorization in this instance. But one can imagine the color!

The original story (set in Persia) had only the one slave-girl, the formidable Marjanah, who out of devotion to her master singlehandedly killed off the thieves and their chief. Working this with two slave girls, one good and one bad, is a pretty good device, since a nice virtuous slave-girl doesn't go about performing mass murder, while a ruthless bad slave-girl is capable of just about anything. Lots of ruthless people in this opus, and Fritz Kortner's odious Abu Hassan is an especially nasty piece of work.

Pearl Argyle makes a winsome and courageous slave-girl Marjanah, beloved of Ali Baba's son Nur-al-Din (John Garrick), who regales her with excruciating love ballads. Much is made of the barrier of class distinctions standing in the way of their union. Supposedly only the Caliph has authority to 'free' her and make her available for marriage, when as family property a female slave could be handily made a wife-- in fact slaves were preferred, since they were so much more submissive than free-born women. But Marjanah was the property of Ali Baba's wealthy merchant brother Kasim Baba, who was not a generous man. Luckily that obstacle is removed...

Things heat up when Anna May appears. As Zahrat, also a slave in the household of Kasim Baba, at first she seems the expected go-to girl for Treacherous Oriental Temptress; however, there's more to her than just slinking about looking inscrutable. She gets in some real acting, and even half of a song: the haunting "Cleopatra's Nile", to charm robber chief Abu Hasan. Alas, she should have been dubbed-- and I suspect that's why the second verse is lost in the scene's fade-out (to see what you're missing, go to YouTube and search on "Cleopatra's Nile" "Chu Chin Chow" for a gorgeous version, remastered in 2005). Zahrat has had the misfortune to fall in love with that villainous creep of a bandit (go figure), a heartless monster if ever there was one. But even she has her limits!

Sydney Fairbrother has the thankless role of Ali Baba's shrewish wife Mahbubah, whose disposition is however much improved by their sudden affluence after hubby raids the treasure cave. She'd probably always dreamed of a pet monkey! 'Mahbubah', by the way, isn't Arabic, but a Hindi or Urdu name meaning 'Beloved'. It's easy to see how she became an embittered hag, since she, her husband and son are kept in rags and no doubt worked like slaves by Kasim Baba, who cares for nothing but accumulating more riches. Doesn't even give them a place to live. But Ali Baba is cheerful nonetheless, for he is obviously a fool, and it takes wiser heads and bolder hearts to save him from a dreadful fate.

As Kasim's plump and indolent wife Alcolom, Thelma Tuson comes into her own when Ali Baba virtually inherits her from his rash and ill-tempered brother. Her delightful giggle launches their musical tête-à-tête-- and after all, quoth Ali Baba, "what can Mahbubah say? Hath not the Prophet ordained that a man shall marry four wives?" As he points out, Alcolom, being of such ample proportions, will be equal to three. Poor Mahbubah! But perhaps she too will become fat and jolly in time.

Francis Sullivan's bloodthirsty Caliph seems a bit bland and could have at least used more makeup; the Visier is a more impressive presence. But they serve their purpose in the story, so one needn't quibble. The lavish banquet mounted by Ali Baba to please the Caliph makes a fitting climax to the story, with dancing girls in (rather western) frilled chiffon and Anna May as the star dancer, in an Egyptian-styled costume. Zahrat ensures that the blasé Caliph finds this entertainment stimulating!

Curiously, the Asian actor who portrays Mandarin trader Chu Chin Chow is not mentioned in the credits, although this is the TITLE ROLE. Tsk! Surely he could have been included, even if his character is early on eliminated and then impersonated by the bandit chief. Perhaps someone can identify him.

To begin with, the supposed image of Lola so prominently featured in this piece, the photo with long crimped curls (an excellent ambrotype in the collection of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley), has now been officially discredited, but having been widely published for some decades it will no doubt continue to be trustingly circulated for some time. It was identified --erroneously-- at a time when there was less awareness of Lola's actual appearance, but the lack of any similarity in the features, coloration, style of clothing or hairstyle to Lola's has become ever more apparent over the years. There are numerous misidentified images in use, which nowadays are more easily spotted.

Of course an authentic celebrity photo is worth a great deal more than an image of an unidentified person, so those holding pictures they thought to be of Lola are loath to surrender the greater status and value of their treasures by conceding that these are not really Lola after all. It's understandable; they may have paid a pretty penny for an item that actually has much less historical or market value than was represented. Victorian images of attractive or arrogant-seeming brunettes dressed either in black, in anything vaguely or overtly Spanish or in a riding habit (especially with whip or crop) have been freely labeled 'Lola'.

This short bit speaks admiringly of Lola as a feminist and a radical, making repeated use of the Bancroft ambrotype, along with authentic images. Lola in fact denied any great interest in Women's Rights; she was mainly interested in Lola's Rights. An attempt at a portrayal of Lola and her dance by an actress who obviously knew little about either --and who appears to be a blonde-- is included. Referring to her political pretensions in Munich, we are informed: "But she was really in step with the people's mood at the time." In fact the people of Munich detested her, but she hadn't the sense to behave herself, relying on King Ludwig's protection. For a full account, I recommend Bruce Seymour's excellent 1996 biography, "Lola Montez, a Life"-- but in the paperback, not the first-edition hardback, because new information surfaced after first publication and is included in the paperback.

At least "Lola Montez, 19th Century Radical" only runs five minutes, and was clearly intended as respectful. Unfortunately it was poorly researched.

The Countess continues to baffle and fascinate even after all this time...

Pretty good premise and treatment of the science aspect, but guys, it's a virus and NOBODY puts on a mask? Sisko cuddles his afflicted son Jake, when as a leader he needs to avoid infection. As-yet unaffected personnel don't practice distancing. What-- are we to infer that people in the future have outgrown or forgotten such basic precautions?

Still very watchable, though the suspense is somewhat dulled by the certainty that as in all medical mystery Treks, the cure will be found in under 50 minutes screen time-- unless it goes to a two-parter.

This is a very decent thriller, and while it's New Orleans' loss that there wasn't budget to shoot there, the real San Francisco locations are fabulous, a tour of the City As It Was almost on a par with Hitchcock's "Vertigo". It's not as well-crafted as could be, but that's easily forgiven.

Sheridan is in fine form and looks great, despite a rather dorky hairstyle. As has been pointed out, she's not exactly 'On the Run', but on a hunt for her troubled hubby. We can't help rooting for her all the way, and the Production Code will guarantee that a Good Wife will get her man.

For those of us with fond memories of Playland-at-the-Beach, this picture is an especial treat. If there was any temptation to set some of the ongoing chase in the wonderful Funhouse (Orson Welles had covered that three years before in "The Lady from Shanghai"), it was resisted in favor of roller coaster suspense. But we do get a shot of the Funhouse's iconic mechanized mannikin Laughing Sal, who always seemed rather alarming to me as to most children. There she was in the window, a demented red-headed gap-toothed monster! It's a relief to have the camera switch back to Sheridan.

Plenty to like in this little-known opus.

Pleasantly mild, about sums up "The Cricket on the Hearth," the screen adaptation of the Dickens novel. A simple, old-fashioned story is told with none of the tricks of of "modern screen advancement" that would in this case prove detrimental. Probably the pace is too leisurely to suit everyone, but for the main the film has accomplished Its mission.

Its chief merit lies in its faithful absorption of much of the quiet charm characterizing Dickens. Only in one respect does it fall down in this. Its characteristic humor is not played up. Tillie Slowboy, the maid-of-all-work, is the only character illustrating the droll types of Dickens to be introduced and she is not so crafty as she might be.

Both Paul Gerson, the producer, and Lorimer Johnston, director, appear in important roles. Johnston is particularly effective as a snuff-sniffing heavy with a petrified heart. The role of the old toymaker, played in the stage version by Joseph Jefferson, is handled sincerely if not brilliantly by Josef Swickard. Three pretty women --Virginia Brown Faire, Fritzi Ridgeway and Margaret Landis-- provide an unusual assortment of feminine pulchritude for one picture.

Miss Ridgeway (currently in vaudeville at the Palace, New York) plays the blind girl around whom the story centers. Fortunately she is not guilty of super-sentimentalizing the role as so often has happened with others of the rather weepy Dickens characters. The settings are restful and expressive of mid-Victorian England, with all its quiet beauty. All in all the picture should prove gratifying to the majority of Dickens' disciples, but film fans seeking thrills may keep away.

Ooh! Is that really Judi Dench in the leafy bikini? Look, it's Diana Rigg! David Warner! Helen Mirren! And on and on-- major names, often so young then it's hard to recognize them. Some serious skimping on the wardrobe budget here: not merely 1967 modern dress, but the adult fairies go about largely in the buff, with green makeup all over and some well-placed bits of foliage. Slinky Titania's little fairies are the grubbiest sprites ever put on film, I'm sure. Marvelous "Pyramus and Thisby"!