Reviews

"The Last King of Scotland" has a wonderful performance by Forrest Whitaker. Absolutely Academy Award worthy. the subject matter is inherently interesting, also.

It would, nonetheless, have been a more powerful film with a more moral Scottish doctor-hero. In his own way, he, also, is an immoral man. His transgressions are minor indeed compared with Idi Amin's.

Since emotional engagement is a proper aim of filmmakers, would one not have been more affected by Dr. Garrigan's plight if he had not immediately, and without any discernible compunction, tried to betray his doctor colleague by attempting to make love to his wife, and later, while he still admired him, betrayed Idi Amin with Amin's wife? It's not to compare with Amin's moral turpitude, but it lessens my sympathy for Dr. Garrigan, the film's hero. Have I so outlived my era that younger people do not feel a bit this way, too?

I saw "Roman Scandals" as a small child. I loved it.

I saw it again as an adult, and it held up beautifully.

This is the film I'd recommend to give one a sense of what made Eddie Cantor a great entertainer.

My earliest memories of a radio show was his show -- every Sunday. He had Deanna Durbin and Dinah Shore as guests (at different periods) every week long before their heydays.

Also, "Roman Scandals" shows Eddie Cantor looking youthful. His stage/screen persona depended on a sense of innocent youth. That's why his later screen efforts didn't work as well.

But "Roman Scandals" is a delightful early sound musical comedy.

Bill Gumbiner

The speculation about and anticipation of "Gone With the Wind" was greater than for any other film of my lifetime (at least over the age of 10).

Everyone was talking about the novel earlier, and David O. Selznick exacted the maximum interest in the movie. It had better be good; it had better be epic, and it was.

A great success story.

It was perfectly cast, and wonderfully directed. One might not think so, since two directors were involved, with a change to Victor Fleming from George Cukor early on. Usually this doesn't work, but this time it did. It also worked for "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938 with Errol Flynn) -- although in that case two directors were credited.

Thomas Carter shows us swing at its most exciting. These kids were swing fanatics. Their dancing shows it, and today's young people just might be astonished by it.

AND he has captured the chill of the most mesmerizing period of 20th century history.

Teresa was one of several marvelous 1951 films that fell off the radar screen.

Others were 'Night and the City', Jules Dassin's best film and possibly the best "film noir" ever made; 'Bullfighter and the Lady' (forget the "B" picture title, it was far better than the more famous 'The Brave Bulls'; and 'The Sound of Fury', titled also later the same year 'Try and Get Me'.

Teresa joins this list of scarcely seen gems. It was John Ericson's first film, but also his best. It does (as your reviewer says) resemble, in its depiction of parental smothering, 'Rebel Without a Cause'. However, Teresa was better. It does Fred Zinnemann proud. It was more sensitive than his touching film of two years earlier, 'The Search'.

What a year 1951 was for forgotten films that were better than many well-known, fondly remembered ones.