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Reviews
Miss Marple: 4.50 from Paddington (1987)
Jill Meager is the Highlight
I am not in the habit of writing reviews but the reviewer who took exception to Jill Meager provoked me to rebut his comment. She was the "Highlight" of this episode and the reason I viewed it several times. Being extremely attractive, charming and projecting intelligence are clearly reasons enough for any red-blooded male to crawl on all "fours" for Her.
I confess that I only started watching this series just recently even though I was aware of it for many years. This was partly out of prejudice on my part. I wrongly assumed it would be something very staid; people making exits and entrances between long patches of dialogue.
I was "all wet." This is one of the most memorable Series I have seen.
John Fedinatz, New York, NY
Belyy tigr (2012)
WHITE TIGER (terrifying, invulnerable, powerful)
Hopefully this will clarify one reviewer's dismay about the Tank in WHITE TIGER. The Tank in question was indeed a real tank. Being a German Tiger I Tank, it was terrifying, powerful and, while not completely invulnerable, its vulnerable points were limited. Built for power and heavy armor in mind, it created a quite real fear among Allied Soldiers, known as "Tiger Fever". The Tiger I was conceived upon Hitler's special request. He wanted a "Super Tank" to outshine the Russian T-34, which is shown in the film. This is more of a Tank review than a Film review, but it suggests something that is rarely communicated in war movies: TERROR. Mangled and charred bodies have become commonplace in movies, and the gunplay has become nothing more than elevated pyrotechnics. While not wholly successful in displaying the full terror that men and women in these situations must have felt, WHITE TIGER is still a worthy film.
The Searchers (1956)
annoying reputation as a masterpiece
THE SEARCHERS has an annoying reputation as a film masterpiece. It has too many inaccuracies, embarrassing self-indulgences, and that weary sentimentality of John Ford's that was showing its age by the time this film was made. Monument Valley, a beautiful place and beautifully used by Ford in the past, does not even remotely suggest Texas or Comanche territory. And those studio exteriors are always distracting. John Wayne and Ward Bond as Southerners and veterans of the Confederate Army ring just as false. And what was that medal that Ethan Edwards gives his niece? To the best of my knowledge, the Confederacy did not issue medals. Colt 45 six-shooters did not come on the scene until about 1870, but here, as in so many others westerns everybody is brandishing one, and so adept with them that they can shoot a man off a horse a few hundred yards away by casually fanning them from their hip. John Ford's acclaimed generosity in portraying American Indians is reduced here to a few genuine Navajo extras chanting solemnly in the background while we have to swallow Henry Brandon as the lead. The discovery of the niece Debbie after all those years should have been a jolt but the carefully made up Natalie Wood was just as trying as Ken Curtis' nitwit character, Harry Carey Jr's aging juvenile, and Vera Miles and Jeffrey Hunter as romantic leads. Enough.