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Reviews
Lord Love a Duck (1966)
Disillusions the Disillusioned
When I first saw this flick in 1966, I was prepped for it. Just one year beyond my college graduation, I was already disillusioned with almost everything I had learned at my Alma Mater.
Yes, I'll admit that Tuesday Weld's appearance in this film accelerated my fall--God, even in memory, how she looked back then is STILL so attractive!--but my empathic identification with Roddy McDowell's character in the movie helped me slide down the slippery slope, too.
Looking back, after almost forty years, I have to say this is a better than average movie. And it certainly played an important role in my Bildungsroman.
Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)
Too Much Street Fighting
As a fan of 1930s-1940s movies with an "Oriental" protagonist, I have collected all of the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, and Mr. Wong movies. However, this movie would have been much better had the all-too-frequent, painfully annoying, and downright noisy cat-fights between Captain Bill Street and Reporter Bobbie Logan ended up on the editor's cutting-room floor.
Another problem with this film is that Mr. Wong plays a much too passive role. All he seems to do is follow the lead of either the Captain or the Reporter. Bottom line: one quickly begins to wonder why Mr. Wong is in this movie, because he doesn't seem to be necessary to the plot.