Midori Movies
As part of Carnegie Hall's 100th anniversary season, violin virtuoso Midori performs in this live concert recording with pianist Robert MacDonald accompanying her. Compostions performed include Ludwig von Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano no 8 in G major, Op. 30 no 3, Richard Strauss' Sonata for Violin and Piano in E flat major, Op. 18, Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne for Piano in C sharp minor, B 49, Claude Debussy's Beau soir, Maurice Ravel's Tzigane for Violin and Piano, and many more. It's a musically lush video filled with vibrato from the masterful Midori. ~ Forrest Spencer, All Movie Guide
- 1977
While on a luxury cruise, a crew member investigates the individual murders of the passengers. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
The inept Ensign Garland (Robert Morse) battles a trio of jewel thieves in this Walt Disney comedy. Garland starts by spilling paint on the lovely Kate Fairchild (Stephanie Powers). Harry (Phil Silvers), Max (Norman Fell) and Charlie (Mickey Shaughnessy) try to recover the jewels accidentally dumped by Garland into a picnic basket. Garland's superior is Commander Taylor (Don Ameche), who hounds the harried ensign for being a constant bumbler. Jason Bennett (Wally Cox) is the playboy who has replaced his yacht engine with a wine cellar. Character actors Joe E. Ross and Al Lewis witness the sight gags and react to the seafaring shenanigans. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Morse, Stefanie Powers, (more)
- 1967
After he rescues native girl Midori (Kilani) from drowning, Gilligan (Bob Denver) finds himself saddled with the girl for life: out of gratitude, she has vowed to be his eternal slave. This does not sit well with the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) or the Professor (Russell Johnson), both of whom are quite smitten by the toothsome Midori. Even worse, the girl's native boyfriend Ugandi (Michael Forrest) shows up and challenges Gilligan to a "duel a mort" (that's "duel to the death" for those of you monolinguists out there!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Midori, Michael Forrest, (more)
John Wayne and Kirk Douglas spend half of The War Wagon trying to knock one another off and the other half working shoulder to shoulder. Settling an old score with avaricious mine owner Bruce Cabot, Wayne plans to steal a $500,000 gold shipment from his enemy. Douglas, at first hired by Cabot to kill Wayne, goes along with the robbery scheme. Also in on the plan is Howard Keel, superbly cast as a world-weary, wisecracking Native American (it's the sort of part that nowadays would go to Graham Greene). The titular war wagon is the armor-plated, Gatling-gun fortified stagecoach wherein Cabot's gold is transported. Thus the stage is set for a slam-bang finale, and director Burt Kennedy isn't about to disappoint the viewers. Best bit: after Kirk and The Duke gun down Cabot's henchmen Bruce Dern and Chuck Roberson, Douglas quips "Mine hit the ground first"--whereupon Wayne replies "Mine was taller." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, (more)
John Ford's last film to deal with World War II, Donovan's Reef is an alternately comical and sentimental look back on the fighting Navy men from that war, and how and where -- in Ford's eyes, and Frank Nugent and James Edward Grant's script -- they should have ended up. Michael "Guns" Donovan (John Wayne), Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), and Dr. William Dedham (Jack Warden), a trio of navy veterans who fought on the Pacific island of Haleakalowa during the war, now live on the island. Donovan and Gilhooley, biding time and enjoying themselves, engage in rough-house hijinks among themselves, and are both part of the doctor's extended family, enjoying the good will of the islanders for whom they fought during the war. While Dedham is away on a call to a neighboring island, his grown daughter, Amelia (Elizabeth Allen), from his first marriage, whom he has never seen, announces that she is arriving from Boston to determine Dedham's fitness of character to inherit the majority shares in the family shipping business. Donovan contrives to present Dedham's three Polynesian children, whom the doctor had with the island's hereditary princess, as his own, and also squires Amelia around the island in her father's absence. In the process, the cold Bostonian woman discovers a whole world -- of passion, joy, heroism, and a life among men and women whose lives have been about something other than making money -- that she's never known. She also understands all of the good that her father has accomplished away from Boston, even though it entailed abandoning her. Sparks and even a few fists fly between Donovan and Amelia (and between Donovan and several other characters), in the usual Ford rough-house manner, before their eventual reconciliation and a romantic clinch at the end, in this sweet, sentimental comedy-drama. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Lee Marvin, (more)
