Reviews

It's surprising it has such a low rating as it probably ranks just after The Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark, and The Pink Panther Strikes Again in quality. Begnini captures the essence of Clouseau better than Steve Martin, and defintely better than the dreadful Ted Wass.

The plot is good and the film quality is noticeably better than the two previous films.

"The Brothers", which it is the female side of. I think this is primarily because of the awkward narrative form. Still, the last quarter of the movie rewards those who have had the patience to stick with it. The tubby partner of the character played by Morris Chestnut stands out here.

Sit up straight and pay attention while watching this taut thriller -- there are no wasted lines. I especially enjoyed the attention shown in developing the character of the secondary villain Swan/Lesgate, played by Tony Dawson. In lesser movies, this character would have been a glossed-over stereotype, but not here. Grace Kelley is, as usual, her beautiful self.

This is another good movie that explores the relations between men and women in contemporary Black America. I compare it to "Waiting to Exhale", "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate", "Soul Food", "The Best Man", and "The Wood". It is a worthy successor to these.

There is something odd about the user ratings for this movie. As I write this, 90 of 289 votes are supposedly a "1". In trying to look at the demographics to see what type of person thought the movie so bad, I noticed that these 90 negative votes don't show up elsewhere! For example, if you look at the breakdown by sex, it received 52 1-votes out of 194. A similar discrepancy is found in the breakdown by age and by nationality. I rate it a 7.

Like a number of other people who have commented, I felt this movie to be tremendously overrated. I just couldn't see the appeal. So it is supposed to be a commentary on the McCarthy hearings? How does anyone know that? Did the director or writer let that information out? Was the appeal something like "Hey, I'm a Liberal like you -- please support your fellow Liberal by praising this movie."? I'm sorry, but a bad movie is a bad movie -- I don't care about your politics. Besides, if the writer/director didn't let this information out then you don't know, this could just as well be a commentary on people's reaction to the threat of Communism -- the analogy is the same in either case -- how people react to a perceived threat.

This is a gimmick movie -- like "Rope" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" (with its Odyssey parallels). I'm not opposed to gimmicks -- they're fun to notice and talk about -- but a good movie they do not make.

Frankly, the best thing about this movie is the school marm dress that Grace Kelly wore -- somebody should have received an award for it -- it manages to give the impression that Grace is naked from the waist up!

BTW, the movie makes very clear that the townspeople did not come to the aid of Cooper because they were afraid -- hence no need for Rio Bravo. I thought it obvious that some were personal friends of Miller, others thought the town was a better place before Cooper became marshal, and others thought that Miller wasn't going to be the threat to anyone that Cooper thought.

And that music -- BOOM SHAKA LAKA LAKA BOOM SHAKA LAKA LAKA -- it drove me nuts.

If you want to see a GOOD classic western, rent SHANE.

I was 17 years old when this was originally released and just wasn't in a "place" to see this. I finally watched it for the first time in 1999. Well, it was my loss. This is one of the three best movie musicals ever made -- it actually has an interesting and believable plot -- a rarity!

Oh, okay, the other 2 best musicals are #1 My Fair Lady and #2 West Side Story.

Made for TV, this movie was good enough to get released as a video as well. I think it, along with "Thief of Hearts" are 2 movies that come to mind as being good representatives of life in California in the early 80s -- for the "cool" people anyway. You'll enjoy this movie if you watch it without too-high expectations. The movie has no real message, but does make some points about relationships. I liked the relationship the protagonist, played by Mark Harmon, had with the waitress, or rather, the relationship she had with him. She knew he was "too good" for her to be in a full-time relationship with but she was willing to let him use her sexually (not in a mean way) just to have a piece of his time. And she never complained, nor was she surprised, when he walked away. Such is real life.

This Hitchcock movie is not about suspense. It is about Grace Kelly, Cary Grant and the French Riviera. If you don't worry about the plot and just watch THEM, you will enjoy it immensely. Hitchcock went through what I call his "travelogue phase" which consisted of Dial M for Murder (London), Vertigo (San Francisco), North by Northwest (Mount Rushmore), and, here, The French Riviera. I consider this phase the time of his masterworks (before he became fixated on the macabre) and although this particular movie is the most insipid of the lot, it is his finest travelogue. For Americans of this period, the mention of Europe must have invoked black and white images of war. Not here!! One really wishes he could take a time machine back to this gloriously beautiful time and place. A movie that can enjoyably be watched time and again. However, I do agree with others that Grant was somewhat miscast as a thief -- even a high-class one.

This is one of my favorite war movies. Its strength is not realism (although real recruits were used in the basic-training scenes), rather it is a movie that men and women can watch together and both enjoy. This is accomplished, basically, by filming two movies and then interweaving them, and I think that that is a key to making a movie that goes on to become highly popular. No other film that I can think of does this better. Directed by Raoul Walsh who also directed one of my other war movie favorites -- "Objective, Burma!" Watch for the scene where the crowd of soldiers exhausted from a long hike give the "finger" to other soldiers being trucked by. Highly unusual for a film made in the 1950's, believe me! And also a sign that at the time the director WAS making an attempt at realism.

Although there is some corny dialogue, this is an excellent war movie. Two things that make it so are it's realistic look (maybe this is because it was made right at the end of the war and members of the crew knew what would look authentic due to actual military service) and, it's realistic objective. The military goal is quite simple, just destroy a small radar installation in the middle of the Burmese jungle. Nothing grandiose like "The Guns of Navarone" or "The Dirty Dozen", but, just as in real life, "simple" things are not so easily accomplished.

Errol Flynn performs well as a less swashbuckling, more thoughtful, commanding officer.