Word: films
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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PROMISES, PROMISES is a Neil Simon musical to remember other musicals by: it is slick, amiable and derivative. With a plot line borrowed from the Wilder-Diamond film The Apartment and a structure copied from How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the show is not so much viewed as deja...
...FIXER is a relentless parable of a modern Job, based on Bernard Malamud's prize-winning novel. Under the inventive and often brilliant direction of John Frankenheimer, the actors-especially Alan Bates and Dirk Bogarde-bring to the film a truly Dostoevskian resonance and moral force...
...Toole fights hard, beneath padding and a gruff bark, and makes some of it work: "Oh God, I do love being King!" But John, the son he is supposed to love, love enough to risk kingdoms and wars, is portrayed as a slobbering cretin; their relationship, central in the film's setting of alliance and ambition, is implausible. Henry's mistress, his "true love," is played by high-bosomed but wooden Jane Merrow--another problem for O'Toole...
...camera doesn't help the actors out of their predicament. This is the first major film in a long time with noticeably bad editing--too fast in the action scenes, too slow and repetitive during the interminable quarrels. The Panavision closeups are appealing, especially O'Toole's leonine face and downcast eyes, but there are far too many. Had the camera roamed somewhat it might've caught more of the period feeling, as in Welles' Chimes at Midnight. As it is, the few long shots are obtrusive reminders that we are outside the whole story--like a piece of scenery...
...dialogue ("You're like a democratic drawbridge, going down for everyone"--"At my age, there isn't much traffic.") It occasionally has some clever shots (Henry II kicks aside dogs and chickens to formally greet the King of France.) It even has some clever acting. The problem is, the film has no purpose. A movie like this, a cultural spectacular, with respected stars, cleaning up Oscars as it no doubt will, ought to have some reason for being done. The Lion in Winter just brings to mind James Thurber's epigram: "The world is full of such a number...