Colin Maitland Movies
Director Robert Aldrich took what he considered a hopelessly old-fashioned script by Lukas Heller and Nunnally Johnson and fashioned The Dirty Dozen into one of MGM's biggest moneymakers of the 1960s--and the sixth highest-grossing film in the studio's history. Lee Marvin plays Major Reisman, assigned to coordinate a suicide mission on a French chateau held by top Nazi officers. Since no "normal" GI can be expected to volunteer for this mission, Reisman is compelled to draw his personnel from a group of military prisoners serving life sentences. This "dirty dozen" includes a sex pervert (Telly Savalas), a psycho (John Cassavetes), a retarded killer (Donald Sutherland), and the equally malevolent Charles Bronson, Trini Lopez, Jim Brown, and Clint Walker. On the dim promise of receiving pardons if they survive, the criminals undergo a brutal training program, then are marched behind enemy lines dressed as Nazi soldiers, the better to overtake the chateau and kill everyone in it--including the innocent wives and mistresses of the German officers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, (more)
The Bedford Incident was an attempt by Columbia Pictures -- which had previously made Dr. Strangelove and released Fail-Safe -- to tap the well of public anxiety surrounding nuclear weapons and the Cold War one more time. Reporter Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) is allowed aboard a navy ship on patrol near the Arctic Circle, under the command of Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark). His job is to observe the ship in action and do an article on Finlander, a hard-as-nails sailor and a dedicated anti-Communist with a patriotic zeal that's extraordinary even in a man of his rank and position. Finlander's main problem, however -- when he's not sparring with the reporter -- is tracking and hunting a Soviet sub that he knows is patroling the same waters. What alarms Munceford (and the audience) is that Finlander acts like there is an actual "hot" war going on; he drives his men mercilessly, up to and past the breaking point, trying to hunt down the submarine and force it to surface, and nothing -- not the questions of the reporter, the angry protests of the newly-arrived medical officer (Martin Balsam), or the quietly voiced concerns of retired U-Boat commander Commodore Shrepke (Eric Portman), aboard as an observer, can get him to relent. Then, when it looks like Finlander has been proved right and has gotten away with his provocation of the "enemy," a mistake by one over-tired young officer (James MacArthur) suddenly unleashes all of the destructive power with which Finlander has been flirting. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, (more)
- 1963
An epic and unusual anti-war drama about WWII, writer-director Carl Foreman's heavily ironic saga is loosely based on the novel The Human Kind by Alexander Baron. It follows the adventures of an American infantry platoon based in Sicily that participates in the invasion of France, marches into Germany, and remains there for the Allied post-war occupation. Interspersed during the nearly three-hour film are vignettes of silly newsreel scenes from the home front. These are contrasted with disturbing incidents from the war. George Peppard plays Corporal Chase, who has an affair with a woman who wants him to desert to help her run a black market business. He visits the wounded Sergeant Craig (Eli Wallach) in the hospital and finds that most of his face has been blown away. Sgt. Trower (George Hamilton) takes up with a woman who turns out to be a prostitute The plot is highly episodic, with characters coming and going. Originally released at 175 minutes, the picture was withdrawn from distribution and edited down to 156 minutes to place greater emphasis on onscreen action. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Hamilton, George Peppard, (more)
- 1962
In this WW II psycho-drama, a wounded and traumatized American flyer becomes so obsessed with losing his virginity--lest he end up like his colleague who was castrated during a mishap on their last mission--that he goes AWOL. He eventually finds an obliging young streetwalker, but unfortunately the stress and fear render him impotent. He tries again with a kindly young woman, but at the crucial moment the MPs arrive and arrest him. He willfully resists in hopes that they will kill him for desertion. Unfortunately they don't. Instead they get him help from a caring chaplain and in time he begins to heal. Romance blooms after he returns to the young woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
"How did they make a movie out of Lolita?" teased the print ads of this Stanley Kubrick production. The answer: by adding three years to the title character's age. The original Vladimir Nabokov novel caused no end of scandal by detailing the romance between a middle-aged intellectual and a 12-year-old nymphet. The affair is "cleansed" ever so slightly in the film by making Lolita a 15-year-old (portrayed by 16-year-old Sue Lyon). In adapting his novel to film, Nabokov downplayed the wicked satire and sensuality of the material, concentrating instead on the story's farcical aspects. James Mason plays professor Humbert Humbert, who while waiting to begin a teaching post in the United States rents a room from blowzy Shelley Winters. Winters immediately falls for the worldly Humbert, but he only has eyes for his landlady's nubile daughter Lolita. The professor goes so far as to marry Winters so that he can remain near to the object of his ardor. Turning up like a bad penny at every opportunity is smarmy TV writer Quilty (Peter Sellers), who seems inordinately interested in Humbert's behavior. When Winters happens to read Humbert's diary, she is so revolted by his lustful thoughts that she runs blindly into the street, where she is struck and killed by a car. Without telling Lolita that her mother is dead, Humbert packs her into the car and goes on a cross-country trip, dogged every inch of the way by a mysterious pursuer. Once she gets over the shock of her mother's death, Lolita is agreeable to inaugurating an affair with her stepfather (this is handled very, very discreetly, despite the slavering critical assessments of 1962). But when the girl begins discovering boys her own age, she drifts away from Humbert. One day, she leaves without warning. This is humiliation enough for Humbert; but when he discovers who her secret lover really is, the results are fatal. We are prepared for the ending because the film has been framed as a flashback; what we are not prepared for is Stanley Kubrick's adroit manipulation of our sympathies and expectations. An incredibly long film considering its subject matter, Lolita is never dull, nor does it ever stoop to the sensationalism prevalent in the film's ad campaign. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Mason, Shelley Winters, (more)
