Michael Meacham Movies
Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures with characters loosely based on actual people, Coppola and co-writers William Kennedy and The Godfather's Mario Puzo create a panorama of love, crime, and entertainment centered on the Club. Among them are cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere, playing his own solos), who escapes psycho gangster "benefactor" Dutch Schultz (James Remar) for a George Raft-type Hollywood career as a gangster film star; Schultz's nubile mistress Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), who loves Dixie against her mercenary instincts; Cotton Club Mob owner Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) and close associate Frenchy Demarge (Fred Gwynne); Vincent (Nicolas Cage), Dixie's no-good Mad Dog Coll-esque brother; Club tap star Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines), who woos ambitious light-skinned Club singer Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee); and cameos by Charles "Honi" Coles and Cab Calloway impersonator Larry Marshall. Complementing the period story, Coppola evokes the style of '30s gangster movies and musicals through an array of old-fashioned devices like montages of headlines, songs and shoot-outs. Conceived by producer Robert Evans as his crowning achievement and directorial debut, Evans had to hand over the troubled production to Coppola, but the budget spiraled out of control as the script was repeatedly re-written throughout the chaotic shoot. By the time it was released, The Cotton Club's epic production story of power struggles, financial bloat, and even a murder overshadowed the "reunion" of The Godfather's creative team. Neither a Heaven's Gate-sized failure nor a wallet-saving hit like Coppola's Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club got some favorable critical notices (although it drew fire for subordinating the African American stories). It did not, however, find a large enough audience to justify its expense and controversy, becoming another mark against 1970s "auteur" cinema in increasingly blockbuster-driven 1980s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, (more)
- 1963
This 1961 adaptation of Shakespeare's magical comedy of errors was performed entirely by puppets. Let's qualify that: the puppets are of the stop-motion variety, expertly manipulated into "humanity" by Czech animator Jiri Trnka. The adaptation is faithful to the text, while the technique allows a wider range of visual delights than any previous movie Midsummer--and an eminently convincing man-to-jackass transformation for vainglorious amateur thespian Bottom. The English-language version of this Czech animated feature was directed and adapted by Howard O. Sackler, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Great White Hope. Richard Burton provided the narration for this version, which was issued in 1963 and is still in circulation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Cornel Wilde co-produces, directs, and stars with his wife Jean Wallace in this uneven version of fabled King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Wilde, a skilled fencer, is Lancelot and appropriately enough, Wallace is his lady-love Guinevere. This time around, their traditionally chaste romance (Guinevere marries King Arthur) takes on a more modern veneer as she and Lancelot become intimate. Aside from their love story, several battles on horseback keep the knights busy as King Arthur struggles to hold onto his throne in the face of a challenge from King Leodogran (John Longdon). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, (more)
- 1955
What was the lady-like Dame Anna Neagle doing in something called Bad Girl -- or, as it was renamed in certain regions, Teenage Bad Girl? In point of fact, the film was originally and more tastefully titled My Teenage Daughter when Neagle signed on. Neagle plays Valerie Carr, the editor of a fiction magazine aimed at the youth market. Though she considers herself "hep" to the world of the young, she has no concept of what her own teenaged daughter, Janet (Sylvia Syms), is all about. When Janet falls into bad company, her mother does what she can to help. But Janet won't pay Mom any heed until her shenanigans land her in jail. Not at all exploitational, Bad Girl is constructed more along the lines of a 1940s "woman's picture" -- tears, renunciations, reconciliations. The film was produced and directed by Neagle's husband, Herbert Wilcox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Neagle, Sylvia Syms, (more)
- 1953
Sadie (Joan Collins) is marooned on a desert island. Stranded along with Sadie are three men; no, not Gilligan, the Skipper and the Professor, but instead Kenneth More, George Cole and Robertson Hare. The two least likely suitors (Cole and Hare) actively pursue Sadie, while the one she's truly interested in (More) ignores her. When the foursome is rescued, Sadie gets to marry the man of her dreams--only to be shipwrecked again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Collins, George Cole, (more)
