David Robel Movies
- 1965
A Very Special Favor stars Rock Hudson as a notorious romeo and Leslie Caron as a prudish psychiatrist. At the urging of Caron's lawyer father Charles Boyer, Hudson begins a seduction campaign. Caron resents this intrusion in her private affairs and builds up a wall of resistance against the ardent Mr. Hudson. Still, the film ends with Hudson and Caron happily married, with plenty of children underfoot and another one on the way. Roundly panned for its alleged smarminess in 1965, A Very Special Favor is offensive today not for its sex talk but for its "pregnant, barefoot, in-the-kitchen" mentality. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rock Hudson, Leslie Caron, (more)
At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, (more)
- 1955
This last remake (thus far) of the Jean Webster novel Daddy Long Legs was extensively revised to accommodate the talents of Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron. Fragments of the basic plot remain: American millionaire Astaire is the unknown benefactor of French orphan girl Caron, financing the girl's education on the proviso that his identity never be revealed to her. Moved by Caron's letters of thanks, Astaire's secretary Thelma Ritter advises Astaire to go to France to visit the "child". When he arrives, he finds that his ward has grown up rather nicely, and the two fall in love--though Caron never knows until the very end who Astaire really is. The old story has been updated to allow for an elaborate "cowboy" number and a couple of Eisenhower jokes. Highlights include a solo ballet by Caron and a wonderful Astaire routine involving a set of drums. The score for Daddy Long Legs is unremarkable save for Johnny Mercer's hit "Something's Gotta Give". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, (more)
- 1955
- Add The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing to QueueAdd The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing to top of Queue
Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, the real-life personality so brilliantly (albeit briefly) portrayed by Elizabeth McGovern in Ragtime (1981), is given the full biopic treatment in 20th Century Fox's The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. Since the real Mrs. Thaw served as technical advisor for the film, it isn't surprising that the controversial Evelyn comes across as being more sinned against that sinning. Joan Collins stars as Evelyn, the gorgeous chorine and original "Gibson Girl" who becomes the romantic bone of contention between ageing architect Stanford White (Ray Milland) and slightly unbalanced young millionaire Harry K. Thaw. Setting up Evelyn in a plush apartment, the lecherous White insists that she "perform" for him on the red velvet swing of the title (allegedly, Evelyn swung naked above the slavering White, though she's fully clothed in the film). Eventually, Thaw marries Evelyn, but cannot prevent White from continuing his romantic overtures. Things come to a head in 1906, on the roof of Madison Square Garden. As Evelyn sings and dances in a stage musical, the insanely jealous Thaw walks up to White, pulls out a pistol, and, in full view of the audience, pumps several bullets into the older man. Though Thaw manages to avoid the gallows by pleading insanity (he was eventually released), Evelyn's reputation is permanently besmirched, leaving her little choice but to capitalize upon her notoriety on the vaudeville stage (actually, Evelyn pursued a moderately successful film career before losing all her money to bad investments in the 1920s). By purifying the character of Evelyn Nesbit and thoroughly vilifying Stanford White, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing is hardly 100 percent accurate; still, the film is immensely entertaining, thanks to the enthusiastic performances of the three stars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ray Milland, Joan Collins, (more)
Films set during America's colonial era seldom did well at the box office, and Allegheny Uprising was no exception. John Wayne and Claire Trevor, stars of the recent western hit Stagecoach, are reteamed herein as 18th
century adventurer James Smith and his spitfire sweetheart Janie. Taking every opportunity to defy the edicts of the King of England, Smith and his ragtag followers, "The Black Boys," undermine the despotic regime of provincial governor Captain Swanson (George Sanders). To quell Smith's uprising, Swanson arrests nearly half the colonists and holds them without trial or recourse (he doesn't sport a black mustache and shout "Seig Heil", but audiences in 1939 knew exactly who Swanson was supposed to be). In depicting the English in an unsympathetic light, RKO Radio Pictures committed a major political blunder, inasmuch as the British were then engaged in their own struggle against Nazi tyranny. Fearful that the film would offend English viewers, RKO president George J. Schaefer consulted British producer Herbert Wilcox, who suggested a number of judicious cuts and line alterations in the film. Even so, Allegheny Uprising (originally The Last Rebel, also the title of the Neil H. Swanson novel on which it was based) failed to make a dent in the box-offices on either side of the Atlantic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
century adventurer James Smith and his spitfire sweetheart Janie. Taking every opportunity to defy the edicts of the King of England, Smith and his ragtag followers, "The Black Boys," undermine the despotic regime of provincial governor Captain Swanson (George Sanders). To quell Smith's uprising, Swanson arrests nearly half the colonists and holds them without trial or recourse (he doesn't sport a black mustache and shout "Seig Heil", but audiences in 1939 knew exactly who Swanson was supposed to be). In depicting the English in an unsympathetic light, RKO Radio Pictures committed a major political blunder, inasmuch as the British were then engaged in their own struggle against Nazi tyranny. Fearful that the film would offend English viewers, RKO president George J. Schaefer consulted British producer Herbert Wilcox, who suggested a number of judicious cuts and line alterations in the film. Even so, Allegheny Uprising (originally The Last Rebel, also the title of the Neil H. Swanson novel on which it was based) failed to make a dent in the box-offices on either side of the Atlantic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Trevor, John Wayne, (more)
- 1936
It was standard operating procedure at MGM to cast their favorite singing team of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in new versions of old operettas, then retain only the music, drastically altering the plotlines to conform to popular tastes. This was the treatment afforded the Rudolf Friml-Herbert Stothart-Oscar Hammerstein-Otto Harbach musical Rose Marie--and thank heaven that MGM decided to jettison the original's creaky libretto about a woman who offers her body to the villain to save the hero from a trumped-up murder charge (this chestnut seemed old-fashioned even in 1928, when Joan Crawford starred in the silent version). In lieu of this wearisome storyline, the Eddy-MacDonald version casts MacDonald as a spoiled, temperamental Canadian opera star who learns that her uncontrollable brother (James Stewart), serving a prison sentence, has escaped to a cabin in the North Woods and needs someone to tend his wounds. MacDonald travels to northern Canada incognito, where in a hilarious sequence she tries and fails to pass muster as a dance-hall girl. Upon meeting likeable mountie Nelson Eddy, who unbeknownst to her has been assigned to locate her brother, MacDonald fabricates a story about needing an escort for a rendezvous with her lover. Such latter-day parodies as Dudley Do-Right notwithstanding, the Eddy-MacDonald sequences are often deliberately played for laughs, even when Nelson is uttering such lines as "Heavy? Why, I could carry you for hours!" Gradually, Nelson and MacDonald fall in love, only to fall out of love when Nelson tracks down and captures MacDonald's brother. Despite this rift, a happy--and logical--ending is not long in coming. It might be hard to watch such Eddy-MacDonald duets as "Rose Marie" and "Indian Love Call" with a completely straight face; it is reassuring, however, to find out that the filmmakers knew that "Rose Marie" was ripe for ridicule, and decided to laugh at themselves first in order to disarm the audience. To avoid confusion with the 1955 remake, the 1936 Rose Marie was retitled Indian Love Call for TV showings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, (more)
