Force 10 from Navarone

Today we're looking at:

Force 10 from Navarone (1978).

This is a sequel to The Guns of Navarone and is also based on a novel by Alistair MacLean. When I say based on, I really mean that. The script is so different from the novel that MacLean modified it into another novel, that's how different the novel and the movie are.

Like in Guns, we again have Mallory and Miller, then played by Gregory Peck and David Niven respectively. There was some thought given to having the original actors return but since they were already too old seventeen years earlier, they recast the roles for Robert Shaw and Edward Fox.

This time they are on a new mission to kill a double agent in Yugoslavia. A US Army Ranger, Lieutenant Colonel Barnsby (Harrison Ford) is on his way there anyway for a different mission and is ordered to give the British commandos a ride. They accidentally pick up a US sergeant played by Carl Weathers and the heroes are off!

Things go wrong, people get killed, stuff blows up and it is a dramatic roller coaster of a ride through the war!

Force 10 is directed by Guy Hamilton, who also directed Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun. Besides these four Bond films, he made a few Agatha Christie movies and a bunch of other stuff. I think you can recognize the Bond style here, even though it is a very different kind of movie. It's something in the way he made adventure/action movies.

Actor wise, this is pure gold. Robert Shaw (From Russia With Love, Jaws), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal, Ghandi), Harrison Ford (Star Wars, Indiana Jones), Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me), Carl Weathers (Rocky franchise, Predator), Richard Kiel ( The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) and the list does not end there. Brilliant cast and everyone does a good job. Richard Kiel is even scarier here than in Bond, and that's without his metal teeth.

In fact, I have nothing technical to complain about. It is a beautiful movie from beginning to end. My biggest gripe is the lack of continuity from Guns. Especially the fact that in the previous movie, Mallory is said to “speak German like a German”, but in Force 10 he doesn't speak a lick of German. I have a real problem with that since the book keeps this skill intact. For some reason, they decided to change that when there was no need to! Very annoying, but not a deal breaker.

Force 10 is almost two hours long, but so much happens, and the locations change so much that you don't really notice it. There are so many exciting and tense scenes, dramatic fights and clever plans that you simply don't have time to get bored.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, of course! I would say that anyone who likes war or adventure movies should see Force 10 and any general movie fan could enjoy it. With a cast like that, you can't really go wrong. You don't even have to see The Guns of Navarone first, but it is the smart thing to do.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Starfield

I wanted to jot down some early thoughts about Starfield. This is in no way a review, just an early impression.

This it the first new IP for Bethesda Game Studios in over 25 years, and as of writing this, I have 25 hours played so I have barely scratched the surface. The numbers are a happy coincidence.

Looking at basic gameplay, BGS has not reinvented the wheel, and why should they? With a few thousand hours in Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and Skyrim, I immediately knew how to play. Movement, guns, melee, using items etc are all the same. Some things like the inventory is partially different, but keep an eye on the tooltips, and you'll be fine. This feels and plays like a Bethesda game and I'm very happy about that. I feel comfortable playing, since the character moves and reacts in a way I'm so familiar with. 

The graphics are in my opinion very nice. There have been complaints online, but I wonder if that is just a matter of taste or if the complainers are forced to turn the graphics down due to hardware issues. Starfield is pretty demanding on the PC, needing 16gb RAM and it wants to be installed on an SSD. get all that and it looks phenomenal.

Looking at the not so basic gameplay, it is quite a bit more complicated. Since this is sci-fi and we're in space, there is space flight and space combat. The flying is fine, at least so far. Nothing is too complicated, although it takes time to learn the new controls. Space combat is somewhat mixed for me. At one point I jumped back in to the system where my quest giver was and found her engaged with three other ships who immediately targeted me. After dying seven or eight times, I adjusted the difficulty from Normal to Very Easy and barely survived the fight. My ship is still completely basic so there was no way of surviving that fight unless you are a very accomplished gamer in the area of dog-fighting, which I'm not.

I don't know that much about crafting yet, but it seems fine. You do need to collect a lot of different materials from different planets and that takes time. You have a scanner that helps you do that, and you can even use the scanner to take and edit pictures which will become load screens. A small but awesome idea.

The character generator is good if a bit fiddly. With a bit of trial and error you can make an awesome looking character for you to play with. Unlike Fallout 4, the main character is not voiced, so unless you go looking at them, you won't see your characters faces all that much. A part of me misses the back and forth dialogue, but in Starfield we at least have more speech options, and the role-playing options are back. Loosing the voiced protagonist is a small price to pay for that.

Some players of the 1 million+ that were playing at the same time have experienced bugs, and so have I, but nothing too nasty. A glitching companion and a status effect that won't go away is about it. I'm sure BGS will fix a bunch of them soon enough.

Speaking of companions, they are a mixed bag. Useful to have around, but also prone to charging ahead and engaging enemies that you are not ready for. You also get the small talk which ranges from funny to please-shut-up-already-I'm-going-as-fast-as-I-can. I usually prefer playing without companions, and there are quests where you have to have one along. Somewhat frustrating, but not a deal breaker.

The space map is awesome and looks great, the ground map is terrible and I hope someone develops a mod for that soon.

To end this first impression: If you like Bethesda's open world games and you like sci-fi, then there is no real reason why you wouldn't like this. Some call it Fallout in space, but that is misleading. Starfield feels nothing like Fallout except for the controls. This is a new game and should be judged as such. So far I'm having a blast playing, and beyond some minor things, nothing to complain about. Just make sure you're PC is able to handle this beast of a game.

I may do another post at a later date giving my opinion then, but until then, that's that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Those are some Big Cannons!

I found a movie called Force 10 from Navarone and the cast list looked pretty good. Then I found out that it is a sequel to:

The Guns of Navarone (1961), which I hadn't seen, so I sat down and watched it. Can't start with the sequel after all.

This WWII epic is based on a novel by Alistair MacLean and is directed by J. Lee Thompson. In a nutshell the story is this:

2000 British soldiers are trapped on a Mediterranean island, and Germany intends to wipe them out in order to intimidate Turkey into joining the Axis. The Royal Navy could easily get them to safety but for a heavily fortified artillery emplacement on the (fictional) island of Navarone. The RAF has tried to bomb the artillery, but to no avail, so it falls to a small commando group to destroy it. The group is led by Major Franklin (Anthony Quayle) with Captain Mallory (Gregory Peck), Greek Colonel Stavros ( Anthony Quinn), Corporal Miller (David Niven) who is also a professor of chemistry and an explosives expert. The rest of the team is less well known today but all solid actors as well.

First off, The Guns of Navarone is 2 hours and 38 minutes long, which is on the extreme end of a movie that is comfortable to watch in one sitting. The reason for this length is that it shows pretty much every step of the way. Early planning, later planning, travel, rock climbing, hiding from the Germans, sneaking into town... etc etc.

The benefit of this is that you get to know the characters very well, and that you don't always see things coming, but it also drags the movie a lot. A lesser director with a worse script would have made a movie that is impossible to sit through. As it is, The Guns of Navarone is something of a masterpiece so it works, but only barely.

Naturally I won't spoil anything, so I won't go into any detail as such, but a lot of the story is easy to guess from the start. After all, no one makes a movie where the Nazis win, let alone back in 1961. Things turn out alright, but of course, at a price. The excitement comes from seeing who makes it and who doesn't. But enough about that.

The Guns of Navarone is the kind of movie that they don't really make anymore, it's just too expensive. It cost $2.000.000 back then and even though it made a hefty profit, I shudder at what it would cost today.

Fun trivia time!

• Gregory Peck portrays a British officer, even though he refused to do a British accent. He also felt he was miscast for the role.

• This is the only war movie David Niven ever did where he didn't play an officer, which he was in real life.

• Niven caught a nasty infection and was hospitalized for a month. This set production back so badly they considered re-shooting all his scenes with another person. He went AWOL from the hospital, finished his scenes, but relapsed and spent seven more weeks in hospital.

• The story is loosely based on the real Battle of Leros.

• All the German tanks were actually American and the Royal Navy destroyers were Greek, as are all the German extras.

• The artillery set was refurbished and reused as cable car terminus in Where Eagles Dare, also written by Alistair MacLean.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely! Any fan of war film that hasn't seen it should see it. Even those who don't care much for war could find this fascinating. There are no big battles, no, but it is no less hard hitting for that. All the acting is superb and it is extremely well done. There are tons of day shots with a night filter, which is annoying after a while, but that is how it was done back in the day. This is an old school epic in the best sense of the word. Well worth it despite the length.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Black Belly of the Tarantula

More Giallo, this time:

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971).

The plot in this Paolo Cavara directed Giallo is this:

A killer paralyzes his victims with a long needle to the neck before disemboweling them while still alive and conscious. Inspector Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) is on the case, leaving nothing to chance as he chases the deranged killer. He also finds the time to handle some incidental drug smuggling until we get a tense climax.

The reason I can't go into any more detail then that is that it would go straight into deep spoiler territory. There are several things I'd like to go over but that would give away important plot points, so I'll do what I can. Maybe consider this a mild spoiler warning, just to be safe.

What immediately stands out is the presence of Inspector Tellini. In the majority of Gialli movies, the police are in the background investigating, but it is usually an involved civilian who solves the mystery. The police are either too obstinate or incompetent to get the killer, but they sometimes show up in the end to do the heavy lifting. Not so in Black Belly of the Tarantula. Inspector Tellini is intelligent, diligent, competent and sensitive. So sensitive in fact that he contemplates leaving the force as he dislikes the violence and sheer nastiness of it all.

The movie is competently filmed with occasional stand out shots. The music is by Ennio Morricone and suits the movie just fine. The other actors beside Giannini are good, but what irked me is that they bothered to get both Barbara Bouchet and Barbara Bach and then sidelining them both a great deal. With a lesser actor than Giannini, Black Belly of the Tarantula would have been a disaster. Luckily this is not the case.

The biggest problem Black Belly of the Tarantula has is the script. It is pretty messy with odd sidelines that make little sense. Busting a scientist for drug smuggling has no bearing on finding the killer, but we waste time on it anyway. One of the victims is killed off camera and beyond seeing the gloved hand of the killer grabbing her, we wouldn't even know she was dead until later when Tellini talks about it in a depressed, almost offhand manner. There is also a blackmailing plot woven into the story and it all becomes too busy. What is there is pretty good, but it gets muddled by adding too much to the story,

So, do I recommend this movie? I guess I do. There is nothing horribly wrong with Black Belly of the Tarantula, but there are numerous small annoyances. On two occasions a person tells Tellini “I'll talk to you tomorrow” and then they get killed. Once is fine, but using the same ploy twice is sloppy. Things like that. There is no way to solve the mystery as the viewer, it is all down to guesswork. I had the killer on my list of suspects, but that was more because I had no reason to not have that person there. If you are on a Giallo journey do give this movie a shot, it is worth it, but put it lower on the list and give your attention to better movies first. It's okay but it could be a lot better.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Bloody Iris...

This week we jump back into Giallo with:

The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972).

Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo and written by Ernesto Gastaldi, this slick movie takes place somewhere in a large Italian city, I don't think it is ever mentioned exactly where.

The movie begins with a woman being murdered in an elevator on her way up to see a client. Soon enough another woman dies in the same building. All we see of the killer are a black overcoat, a black mask and an equally monochrome hat. Unusually for a Giallo, the killer wears thick translucent rubber gloves instead of the normal black leather.

Anyway, we meet Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paola Quattrini), both models who do risque shoots. By chance they meet architect Andrea (George Hilton) who becomes enamored with Jennifer. Thanks to his influence, the ladies manage to rent the apartment where the second woman was killed. Soon they are also stalked by the killer while the police bumble around, collect stamps and make fools of themselves.

The Case of the Bloody Iris has no shortage of suspects. First there is Jennifer's old lover who runs a sex cult and is furious that she left them and is willing to anything to get her back. Then there is Jennifer's neighbors; a strange old conservative lady who buys gory horror magazines and the taciturn music professor who lives with his elegant lesbian daughter. Of course there is also Andrea, the architect and Jennifer's lover. On the surface he isn't much of a suspect since he is afraid of blood, but in Giallo that means very little. After more death and frantic running around, the movie ends with a pretty satisfying wrap up.

The Case of the Bloody Iris is one of those movies that I like but I'm not sure why. Sure, it has great tension and the general atmosphere is great, but the police are pretty much comic relief which I usually dislike in Giallo. The cinematography is alright with a couple of great shots. Besides Fenech and Hilton, the actors are fine but not that remarkable. The sound is functional to good but not great. Nothing really stands out as noteworthy, but somehow they managed to pull off a better than average Giallo.

This isn't the kind of movie where you can follow the clues and deduce the killer, but I was down to two suspects and my theory of how it could be one of them turned out to be true. That is of course always satisfying, but I don't think that is why I like this movie. Overall there isn't anything really new here, but it is all nicely put together.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. The Case of the Bloody Iris is definitely above average though not one of the great Gialli. Genre fans need to watch it, and thriller fans should like it. It is on the harder side of gruesome at times and there is a good bit of nudity so if that isn't your bag stay clear. Then again, if that isn't your thing, you should probably avoid the Giallo genre in general. The Case of the Bloody Iris is 94 minutes that just fly by.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Hands of the Ripper

This week I was in the mood for some Hammer Horror so I watched;

Hands of the Ripper (1971).

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.

Doctor Pritchard (Eric Porter) and his son Michael (Keith Bell) attend a séance, possibly to expose the medium as a fraud. Shortly after they leave, the medium is murdered, and the police suspects one of the guests, MP Dysart (Derek Godfrey). The doctor, who is a disciple of Freud, suspects that the culprit is the young ward of the medium, sweet but mentally ill girl, Anna (Angharad Rees). It turns out that Anna is the daughter of none other than Jack the Ripper, and due to past trauma, she becomes possessed by him when certain things triggers her. The doctor is unwilling to give up on her as well as his own theories, but things quickly spiral out of control.

The reason I placed the spoiler warning is Anna's heritage, but pretty much every blurb I saw leads with that fact so I don't feel too bad.

Hands of the Ripper is directed by Peter Sasdy who also directed The Stone Tape, Countess Dracula and Taste the Blood of Dracula for Hammer, two of which are some of my favorite Hammer movies. This gave me hope for something really good, but I was a bit disappointed.

Two things keep this movie afloat; the actors and the cinematography, everything else is good enough but nothing special. Prop wise this is typical Victorian studio work, fine but nothing out of the ordinary. The gore, what little there is, is quite tame. For having Ripper in the title and being a Hammer movie, I was expecting a lot more but it is what it is.

Speaking of Victorian, they refer to “Our Queen Victoria” but they also mention that “The Ripper was fifteen years ago”. That places the movie in 1903, which makes it the Edwardian era, not the Victorian since Queen Victoria died in 1901. Not a deal breaker by any means, but a bit sloppy to be sure.

The actors do a good job, particularly Eric Porter and Angharad Rees. Even though Anna is pretty catatonic for a good part of the movie, they have good chemistry and pull you into the story. No one stands out as subpar, which is a plus.

The shot composition ranges from good to really good, particularly the end. Many horror movies are good but ends up with disappointing endings. Hands of the Ripper is the opposite. Tame start, alright middle and an excellent ending. There are even some scenes that makes you sit up and take notice.

All this said, do I recommend this movie? Fans of Hammer, Amicus and that style of movie making should enjoy Hands of the Ripper, but general horror fans will probably be a bit bored. If you set your expectations to the right level, this is a good movie. Not one of Hammers stand out productions no, but good enough to put 95 minutes on.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have great week!

 

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

I finally got my hands on a movie I've been itching to watch:

The Strange Vice of Mrs.Wardh (1971)

This is Sergio Martino's first Giallo, predating all the others I've written about to far. The story is this:

Mrs. Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech) arrives back in Vienna with her neglectful diplomat husband Neil (Alberto de Mendoza). On her way home, she learns that a razor wielding maniac is killing women, mostly prostitutes. Through her friend Carol, Julie meets Carol's cousin from Australia, George (George Hilton) and they soon develop a romance. Julie is also tormented and stalked by her ex-lover Jean (Ivan Rassimov), with whom she had a stormy relationship. It turns out that Julie likes it very rough in bed, something Jean was more than willing to supply. It was to escape from Jean that Julie married Neil, but sadistic Jean is not a person that takes no for an answer. Things get tenser and tenser as Julie struggles to keep it together while trying to survive.

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is also known as Blade of the Ripper and The Next Victim, depending on where you are. It marks the start of Martino's Giallo career, and the start of a collaboration between him and a small group of actors. He knew who he liked to work with and had no problem doing so. This means that the movie is full of faces that you will see time and time again in his other movies.

Last week in my write-up of The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, I mentioned that one can see the development of Martino's style in it's early stages. This is still true in my mind, but what's fascinating is that The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is much better shot than Scorpion's Tail. Some of the shots are superb and much more artistic than the average Giallo.

The sound is fine to good. A lot of the music sits in the background, where it belongs. However in several scenes there is heartbeat or a kind of dull roar placed over the music that really elevates the tension to a new level.

What really shines are the actors. All the actors do a fine job, but Edwige Fenech knocks it out of the park. In the other roles that I've seen her, she has been collected and in control or more of a side character. Here, as Julie Wardh, she shines in her ability to display paralyzing terror with little more than her eyes. Anyone can scream, cry and run around, but to stand still and show the fear coursing through you with only subtle expressions is impressive.

As for blood and sex, there is a fair amount in The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, particularly sex. The blood should have been more prominent. If someone gets their throat cut, blood doesn't tastefully drip a bit, it gushes. Not a deal breaker by any means, just an observation.

As I was watching, I found plot hole after plot hole, or so I thought. It turns out that, like in Scorpion's Tail, Martino pulls in all the strings and ties them off in a neat little knot by the end. Everything I was going to complain about is sorted and taken care of. Fun fact: the extra H in Wardh was added because a real Mrs. Ward threatened to sue for ruining her reputation. Also a fun fact: throughout the movie, Julie gets red roses with hand written notes. I google translated them all and one states that “Your Vice is a locked room and only I have the key”. This is funny as Martino used that as the title of one of his later movies.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. This is one of those Giallo that should work for all fans of thrillers, not just Giallo fans. It doesn't go too far in any direction and the story is actually really good. It also does something that I can't remember any other Giallo doing, but telling would be spoiling. Can't have that...

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!