Hollywood Movie Reviews......... Options

[Reeth]

Please review and express your feelings about the Hollywood movies old and new ,that you have watched,liked & would recommend to the other members ......

I start off with an all time favourite film of my entire family....i have lost count of the number of times
i have watched this since the time.....

The Ten Commandments (1956)






It is one of the Greatest movies ever made in the history of World Cinema...
The film covers the life of Moses from his discovery in a basket floating on the Nile as a baby by
Bithiah, a childless young widow and daughter of the then-Pharaoh, Rameses I, to his eventual
departure from Israel in the wake of God's judgment that he not be allowed to enter the Promised
Land. In between, the film depicts the early adulthood of Moses as a beloved foster son of
Pharaoh Seti I (successor of Rameses I and brother of Bithiah) and general of his armies, his
romance with Throne Princess Nefertari and rivalry with the Pharaoh's own son,
Prince RamesesII.

Critics have argued that considerable liberties were taken with the Biblical story, affecting the film's
claim to authenticity, but this has had little effect on its popularity.....

Aside from winning the Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects, it was also nominated for
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color, Best Cinematography, Color, Best Costume Design,
Color (Edith Head, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins and Arnold Friberg), Best Film Editing,
Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording







Cecil B DeMille’s swan song is a movie for the ages. At 75 the legendary director was at the
peak of his fame, his name a house-hold word and his voice recognized by millions. He probably
knew The Ten Commandments would be his last film it almost killed him. He certainly knew it
would be his most important.

Shot in widescreen Technicolor, The Ten Commandments remains the standard by which
Biblical epics -- and many epics in general -- are measured
When Moses turns his staff into a snake and back again, the effect is seamless. His turning of the Nile
into blood is an impressive camera trick, but his parting of the Red Sea is one of Hollywood's most
famous stunts. It's worth sitting through the 220 minutes of movie for this alone....

MAIN CAST

#Charlton Heston as Moses
# Yul Brynner as Pharaoh Rameses II
# Anne Baxter as Nefertari
# Edward G. Robinson as Dathan
# Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora
# Debra Paget as Lilia
# John Derek as Joshua
# Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Pharaoh Seti I

But the Ten Commandments isn’t about God alone.... It’s about a woman, Neferteri the beauty of
Egypt, and whom she marries will become Pharoe and rule the Earth...she prefers Moses who races
chariots and saves old women from being crushed under the monumental obilisk he is raising in honor
of Neferteri’s father — and helped by the fact he’s played by manly-man Charlton Heston who looks
great,She does not want Ramses, the delicious Yul Brenner who wants Neferteri because of the
wealth and power that comes with her.
Moses is banished and Neferteri is forced to marry Ramses instead.
History might know about Moses and Ramses, but DeMille knew about
scorned women.....




It remains one of the five most successful films of all time.It is Cecil B. DeMille’s last and arguably
greatest film.....Definitely worth watching....

[Faraaj73]

Show Boat (1936)
Show Boat has virtually slipped into oblivion and any recognition of it would be as a splashy 1950's Technicolor big-budget production. This film version, a true American treasure even if its not recognized as such, is based on Edna Ferber's epic novel of 1926. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein turned it into a musical which was filmed first as a mostly silent version in 1929. Show Boat, as presented at Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies, revolutionized the musical. In fact, the starting point of the modern Broadway musical is Show Boat. The epic story spanning 47 years covers the lives and loves of three generations of a showboat family. The play was a very frank depiction of race relations at the time and included an important sub-plot (entirely omitted in the 1951 film version) around miscegenation (white-black marriages).

This film version has many of the original stage actors reprising their original roles and apart from not compromising on the themes explored in the original and controversial production, it does not compromise of the authenticity of either the show boat or the look of the Mississippi towns through which the show boat passes. Charles Winninger, a forgotten little actor, is sensational as Capn Andy, the father of little Magnolia. He is the moral epicenter of the film and gives a fine comic turn. Little Noli is played by Irene Dunne and she is lovely and carries the bulk of the film. Her little dance in Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man is celluloid magic. I've rewound and watched that song a dozen times in the past 24 hours!!! The tragic Helen Morgan, a front-runner to Judy Garland, died a few short years after this film which was to be her comeback vehicle. She had cleaned up her alcoholism to get this role and she is a lovely singer and true entertainer. There is a tragic beauty to her that is quite haunting.

Finally, there is Joe, played by Paul Robeson. Almost no Robeson films are available and he spent many years outside the US so his film roles were limited. Like The Manchurian Candidate, many of his films were suppressed deliberately because he was 'undesirable'. In fact, his passport was canceled and he wasn't allowed to leave the US for several years. Exceptionally handsome and educated, Robeson was a true scholar (scholarship to Rutgers University as the third African-American to be accepted, Columbia Law graduate, student at SOAS in London), a noted athlete, fluent in 12 languages, a recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize and a leading civil-rights activist. A front-runner to Martin Luther King and Sidney Poitier, he had it tougher and fought harder. Its because of the barriers that he brought down that Sidney Poitier even had a chance at being a leading man and Denzel Washington is a star today. Under surveillance for over two decades because he openly supported the Soviet Union for giving him full dignity regardless of his skin color, his passport was revoked because of "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries" — it was a "family affair." Till after his death, his recordings and films were simply withdrawn from circulation which makes his small role here all the more valuable.

The songs in this musical, while not to the standard of a My Fair Lady or King and I, are uniformly lovely. The two stand-outs for me were Ol' Man River (Jerome Kern's finest moment) and Can't Help Lovin Dat Man. Ol' Man is performed by Robeson in the beginning of the film and its enough to hook you till the end. Can't Help, a lovely tune, is performed by Helen Morgan with some support from Hattie MacDaniel and Paul Robeson and a lovely dance from the enchanting Irene Dunne.

Its funny how this ground-breaking musical is today criticized for being racist! The argument is that the depiction of blacks and the way they speak is inaccurate. Show Boat had a pivotal role to play in the early years of the civil rights movement and its sad to see how some people have forgotten that. Some of the criticism just doesn't make sense to me. For example, in Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, Queenie sings:

My man is shiftless, An' good for nothing', too. He's my man just the same. He's never 'round here When there is work to do, He's never 'round here when there's workin' to do.

That's apparently unacceptable since 1966 and has been replaced with:

My man's a dreamer, He don't have much to say He's my man just the same Instead o' workin, He sits and dreams all day, Instead o' workin', he'll be dreamin' all day.

I appreciate some aspects of political correctness, but others don't make sense. True, Show Boat is dated, but this is the only case I know where being dated works to the films advantage. We do get a true perspective on an era instead of a glossy, modern-day interpretation. A cinematic treasure, Show Boat is one for the discerning viewer.