Reviews

Probably pro-Kojak sentiments coupled with the courageous story line led to my exaggerating a "fair" rating for this movie. Probably a fair rating of this movie should be 8. But the inexplicable weighted average by others of 5.3 is neither fair nor understandable.

The action and style is classic Kojak; even "Styros" (Terry Salvalas' real life brother) acts in this movie. I think Salvalas and Susan Pleshet did a good job of carrying the story of a Nazi concentration camp survivor tracking down aging Nazis to execute them by taking justice into his own hands. The one glaring flaw is that Pleshet's character (an ambitious State Department attorney on her way up ... who is supposed to derail Kojak's murder investigation) is not likely to have faced a lifetime prison term by handing over to Kojak "Top Secret" files ... just to prove to Kojak that she can be trusted. But otherwise, I think the movie made its point that mass murderous Nazis were (and continue to be) protected by various branches of the United States government. So making an action-adventure "crimmie" about it takes some guts and deserves some glory.

This movie is worth seeing for entertainment and for educational values.

When INHERIT THE WIND first came out in 1960, I saw it in my native New York City as a college senior. Having majored in science as a pre-med student, I naively supposed this was an excellent movie about the 1920s. How could I imagine that it would be a harbinger of 2000? Now, we have the Kansas state board of education excluding evolution from public school science classrooms. So then Stanley Kramer's movie was a futuristic film in an early 20th Century setting. Considering his film was made during the communist witch hunting McCarthy era, and now Evil-utionists (using Matthew Harrison Brady's pronunciation) are in season, INHERIT THE WIND is even politically relevant (I almost wrote "correct" but today that word has lost its meaning) today. Now, I am a medical school professor who purchased two video cassettes of this movie right here. I can't stop watching this movie because the excellence of the acting and filmmaking is timelessly exciting. I certainly encourage all of my students and children to see this film for two reasons. The script provides a balanced insight into the personal issues associated with conflicts between scientific and religious (fundamentalist? extremist?) viewpoints; and also these are, even now, contemporary issues playing out in the theopolitical system that American democracy has become. And so Drummond's point to Brady is well taken: " ... does a man have the same right to think as a sponge?" This is still a valid question raised by a truly great, thought provoking and most entertaining American film. [Footnote criticism: Gene Kelly an otherwise good actor (and certainly great Hollywood dancer), seemed a bit out of place as the cynical newspaper man.]

Kostner gives a pretty flat performance in a movie with an absurd premise. His "character development" seemed limited to getting a girl pregnant (in this new world most males are sterile). He spends the rest of the movie referring to this woman as "weird" ... in pseudo-cool dude asides. Making it a perfect(ly awful) flick is the sucaryl sentimental ending dedicating a statue to the make believe postman who single-handedly saved American civilization.

Gimme a break!

Expensive glitz isn't better glitz.

Perhaps most people don't know, the original script for JFK was based on (partly written by) attorney Mark Lane's book "Plausible Denial." The book describes in blow-by-blow, minute detail the actual trial in a Miami Federal Court in which a jury agrees that JFK was murdered in a conspiracy. [Isn't it "funny" that YOU haven't heard much about that trial and its outcome?]. Naively, Mark Lane assumed the federal trial (which featured subpoenaed witnesses who were CIA officials at the time of JFK's assassination) would settle the issue of JFK's murder. I said, "naively."

Oliver Stone and Lane disagreed on content and certain characters. Lane insisted on complete accuracy while Stone insisted on artistic control. Stone won. Lane did not wish his name to appear in the credits to preserve his credibility (but Lane and Stone still parted friends).

Having said that, JFK is after all a brilliantly made film. Also, the bad press received by the film was more of the American journalistic Establishment covering its self-righteous collective ass; taking offense at an effectively executed in-your-face conspiracy movie. Perhaps not so oddly, when the movie was first released the Establishment attacked the film's premise (based on "Plausible Denial") rather than its art ... which SERIOUS and impartial critics had to agree was good.

If nothing else, The Warren Commission Report is clearly a conspiratorial work. As far as the men who murdered Kennedy in Texas... obviously they got away with it. Stone's movie is rather mild on that score. But it is excellent theater and a good suspenseful mystery.

This is indeed a very well hidden film which should be up there with North By Northwest, Citizen Kane, and the like. For its time, People Will Talk took on the most controversial topics of the day (even of TODAY) including: abortion, unintended pregnancy, HUAC and McCarthy-style witch hunting, taxpayer-subsidized farming not to grow food ... and the list goes on. Perhaps most up front is the defending of American individualism that was then (and is perhaps more than ever now) under attack. All of this was presented very cleverly, often with wholesome comedy. A great film with top actors, writing and direction. Only the very ending is a bit soppy ... not the least of which is the dopey expression on Carey Grant's face of imbecilic ecstasy while conducting his university's orchestra. Otherwise, it was a nearly perfect film.