The 1976 film, The Eagle Has Landed, takes place during World War II.
The year is 1943 and, with the war turning against Germany, Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence, in a chilling turn) orders Colonel Max Radl (Robert Duvall) to come up with a plan to kidnap Winston Churchill. When Radl learns that Churchill is scheduled to visit a small, coastal British village, he recruits a cynical member of the IRA, Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), to travel to the village and make contact with a Nazi sleeper agent, Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh). While Devlin sets up the operation in Britain and falls in love with Molly Prior (Jenny Agutter), Radl recruits disillusioned Colonel Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) to lead the mission to kidnap Churchill.
At first the village is welcoming to Steiner and his men, who are disguised as being Polish paratroopers. However, it doesn’t take long for the plan to fall apart. Soon, Steiner and his men are holding the villagers hostage in a church while battling a group of American soldiers led by the incompetent Colonel Clarence Pitts (Larry Hagman) and Captain Harry Clark (Treat Williams). Meanwhile, in Germany, Radl learns that Hitler did not actually authorize the mission to kidnap Churchill and that he has been set up as the scapegoat in case the mission fails.
The Eagle Has Landed can seem like a bit of an odd film. For a film that was released in the same year as Network, All The President’s Men, and Taxi Driver, The Eagle Has Landed feels rather old-fashioned and almost quaint in its storytelling. This was the final film to be directed by John Sturges, a director who started his career in the 1940s and whose best-known films included The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. Sturges’s direction is efficient but not at all flashy. (It’s a film that feel like its very much a product of the mid-60s as opposed to the mid-70s.) The story plays out at a deliberate pace, one that leaves no doubt that the film was based on a novel. In fact, it sometimes feels as if the film itself should have chapter headings. The film holds your interest but it’s hard not to feel that a film that should have been an epic action film has instead been turned into something far less ambitious.
Sturges works with an ensemble cast, with no one member of the cast really dominating over the other. (I guess if the film has a main character, it would be Donald Sutherland’s Liam Devlin but, for all the time that’s devoted to him, he actually doesn’t do that much once the action starts.) The cast is full of good actors, though a few of them are miscast. Neither Michael Caine nor Robert Duvall make much of attempt to sound German. As a member of the IRA, Donald Sutherland sounds as Canadian as ever. Fortunately, Caine, Duvall, and Sutherland are all strong-enough actors that they can make an impression even with somewhat distracting accents. Treat Williams is a bit bland as the heroic American but Larry Hagman generates a few chuckles as Williams’s amazingly dumb commanding officer. The important thing is that ensemble is strong enough to hold the viewer’s attention.
The Eagle Has Landed is an old-fashioned but still entertaining film. The actors are fun to watch, the action scenes are fairly exciting, and it ends with a clever twist, one that was apparently historically accurate. It’s a well-done historical melodrama, even if it’s never quite as epic as it aspires to be.
On the set of a popular soap opera, actor Mark Stanton (Sean Kanan) dies after he films a kiss with co-star Kris Buckner (Genie Francis). Kris is accused of intentionally poisoning Mark to get back at him for trying to force her off the show but Kris says she’s innocent. Fortunately, Kris is the goddaughter of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr).
This movie was the last time that Raymond Burr played Perry Mason and it actually aired a few weeks after his death. There are scenes that are hard to watch because it is clear that Burr was not doing well during filming. He rarely stands and when he does, he still leans against the table for support. He’s still great when he’s asking questions and making objections but physically, it’s obvious that he was struggling. He still lights whenever he’s talking to Della, though. The best scenes in the movie are just Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale being Perry and Della. Their affection for each other shines through in every scene. The mystery is routine but the guest cast is full of daytime drama royalty like Stuart Damon, Linda Dano, and Genie Francis.
As I said when I started reviewing these movies at the start of the month, my Aunt Kate loved watching these movies. I know she watched them when they first aired and later, when they started re-airing them on Hallmark or MeTV, she loved rewatching them even though she already knew who the murderer was going to be. I would watch with her sometimes. We agreed that Perry and Della were in love and that Paul Drake, Jr. was Della’s son, even if he didn’t know it.
Rewatching all of the movies this month, what struck me is that most of them are still a lot of fun. Sure, there’s a few clunkers. But the majority of the 27 Perry Mason films are still entertaining to watch. Raymond Burr as Perry Mason and Barbara Hale as Della Street? Nobody did it better.
“The world isn’t run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It’s run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It’s all just electrons.” — Cosmo
Sneakers is one of those early-’90s studio thrillers that feels oddly cozy for a movie about global surveillance and information control. It plays like a hangout movie that just happens to revolve around a world-breaking black box, and whether that balance works for you will pretty much decide how much you click with it.
Set in San Francisco, Sneakers follows Martin Bishop (Robert Redford), a one-time radical hacker now leading a boutique team that gets paid to break into banks and corporations to test their security. When a pair of supposed NSA agents lean on him about a skeleton in his past, they strong-arm him into stealing a mysterious “black box” from a mathematician, which turns out to be a codebreaker capable of cracking pretty much any system on Earth. From there, the crew gets pulled into a bigger conspiracy involving shady figures and high stakes, with Martin confronting echoes from his activist days.
The first thing that jumps out about Sneakers is the cast, which is frankly stacked even by modern standards. Redford brings an easy, weathered charm to Bishop; there’s a low-key joke baked into the movie that this legendary leading man is now playing a guy who looks like he spends more time worrying about his back pain than saving the world, and it works. He’s surrounded by a motley crew: Sidney Poitier’s ex-CIA operative Crease, Dan Aykroyd’s conspiracy-addled tech nut Mother, David Strathairn’s blind audio savant Whistler, and River Phoenix’s eager young hacker Carl. Mary McDonnell rounds things out as Liz, Martin’s ex, who gets roped back into his orbit and ends up doing some of the film’s most memorable social-engineering work.
What makes this lineup click—and really shine—is how effortlessly the ensemble works together, especially with Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier anchoring it as the team’s leaders. Redford’s Bishop is the steady, pragmatic brain, always one step ahead but grounded by his regrets, while Poitier’s Crease brings that sharp-edged authority from his CIA days, barking orders with a mix of gruffness and loyalty that keeps everyone in line. Their dynamic is electric: you get these moments where Bishop’s quiet scheming bounces off Crease’s no-nonsense intensity, like when they’re coordinating a break-in and trading barbs mid-scheme, and it sells the years of trust they’ve built. It elevates the whole group, giving the younger or quirkier members—Mother’s wild theories, Whistler’s uncanny ears, Carl’s fresh energy—a solid foundation to riff off, turning what could be chaos into a tight, believable unit. Phil Alden Robinson directs the film almost like an ensemble comedy interrupted by bursts of espionage, so the banter and the little grace notes between jobs end up being as memorable as the heists themselves. There’s a looseness to the way the team bickers, teases, and riffs on each other that sells the idea they’ve been doing this for years, long before the plot kicked in. You feel that especially in scenes where they’re all huddled around some piece of tech or puzzling out a clue; the script allows them to overlap, crack side jokes, and be fallible instead of treating them like slick super-spies who never misstep.
Tonally, the movie walks an interesting line. On one hand, this is very much a tech thriller about the power of information, with the ominous “Setec Astronomy” anagram (“too many secrets”) tying it all together. On the other, this is a film where an extended sequence revolves around tricking a socially awkward engineer on a date so they can steal his voice patterns and credentials, and the whole thing plays like a romantic caper more than anything. Robinson leans hard into suspense in key stretches—most notably toward the end, where tension builds through clever set pieces involving motion sensors, improvised skills, and closing threats—but even then the movie never loses its sense of mischief.
That playfulness can be both a strength and a limitation. The upside is obvious: Sneakers is fun. It’s easy to watch, easy to rewatch, and it rarely drowns you in jargon for the sake of sounding smart. Instead, it abstracts the tech into clear stakes—this box breaks codes, this system controls money and power—so you always understand the “why” behind every scheme even if you don’t follow every “how.” The downside is that, for a movie nominally about the terrifying implications of a universal decryption key, it doesn’t dig as deeply into the horror of that idea as it could. It gestures at themes of privacy, state overreach, and the weaponization of data, but it’s more interested in using those ideas as a playground than as something to rigorously interrogate.
Viewed from 2026, the tech is obviously dated—landlines, old terminals, magnetic cards—but that almost works in the film’s favor now. There’s a retro-futurist charm to seeing characters talk about “ones and zeroes” and the power of information as if they’re whispering forbidden knowledge, when today that conversation is basically the nightly news. At the time, the film was praised for being ahead of the curve on the idea that whoever controls data controls everything, and you can still feel that prescience. The irony is that what was once cutting-edge has softened into a kind of warm nostalgia, which might be why the movie has quietly settled into cult-favorite status rather than staying in the mainstream conversation.
On a craft level, the movie is sturdy across the board. John Lindley’s cinematography keeps things bright and clean rather than shadow-saturated, which reinforces that lighter tone; San Francisco looks lived-in and slightly mundane, not like a glossy cyber-noir playground. James Horner’s score is a big asset: a jazz-inflected, airy sound that gives scenes a sense of cool rather than danger, which again nudges things toward caper more than hard thriller. It’s the kind of soundtrack that sneaks into your head and quietly sets the mood without demanding too much attention, and a lot of fans single it out as one of his more underappreciated efforts.
If there’s a major weak spot, it’s probably in how the film handles its big ideas and antagonists. The central conflict draws on ideological clashes from the characters’ pasts, but it mostly serves as a charismatic foil rather than a fully fleshed-out debate. The story doesn’t push too hard on challenging cautious pragmatism versus radical change, or probe deeply into who benefits from the status quo. For a tale built on “too many secrets,” the moral landing feels predictable rather than revelatory.
The film also shows its age in how it uses certain characters, especially Liz and Carl. McDonnell gets moments to shine—her date with Werner Brandes is a highlight—but Liz is often pushed to the side once the plot machinery gets going, which is a shame given the sparks between her and Redford. River Phoenix’s Carl is similarly underused; he’s the young blood in a team of older pros, and you can see hints of a more emotionally grounded arc there, but the film keeps him mostly in comic-relief mode. It doesn’t derail the movie, but it does contribute to the sense that Sneakers is more interested in being a breezy ensemble hang than in fully developing everyone it introduces.
Still, it’s hard to deny the movie’s overall charm. The central heist beats are cleanly staged, the reversals are satisfying without being overcomplicated, and the script gives almost every member of the team at least one clutch contribution so it feels like a true group effort. The later stretches cleverly tie together the tech setup and character dynamics, ending on a light coda that underscores the film’s affection for its quirky crew over global intrigue.
As for how it holds up, Sneakers isn’t an untouchable classic, but it’s a very easy film to recommend if you have any affection for ’90s thrillers, ensemble casts, or tech-adjacent stories that don’t drown you in circuitry diagrams. Some of its politics feel glib, some of its gadgets are charmingly antique, and its big questions about Information Age ethics are more backdrop than deep dive. But the film’s mix of laid-back humor, light suspense, and grounded, slightly rumpled characters gives it a distinct flavor that a lot of modern, hyper-slick hacker movies lack.
If you go in wanting a serious, hard-edged exploration of cyber-warfare and state power, Sneakers will probably feel like it’s only skimming the surface. If you’re in the mood for a smart, lightly twisty caper that lets you spend two hours with a killer cast tossing around clever dialogue amid escalating capers, it’s still a very satisfying watch.
I love Don Knotts. I’m one of those people who have watched every episode of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW (1960-1968) multiple times. And while it’s true that there are good episodes in the last three seasons, the series was at its best when Sheriff Andy Taylor and his sidekick Barney Fife were serving the townsfolk of Mayberry, North Carolina during the first five seasons. In Barney Fife, Don Knotts created one of the best characters in television history, earning five Emmy Awards in the process. When Don Knotts left the series at the height of its popularity, the first movie he made was THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN!
In THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, Knotts plays Luther Heggs, a meek typesetter at a small-town newspaper in Rachel, Kansas, who dreams of being a serious reporter but is treated like a joke by nearly everyone around him. When the town prepares for the 20-year anniversary of an unsolved murder at the supposedly haunted Simmons Mansion, Luther unexpectedly gets a chance to prove himself. He volunteers to spend the night alone in the mansion to see if it really is haunted. As you might expect, Luther is scared out of his mind as he hears banging on the walls, discovers secret passageways, and observes blood-stained organs playing themselves. The night culminates with Luther seeing a portrait of poor Mrs. Simmons with gardening shears piercing her throat! By surviving the night, and then telling the truth about what he experienced, Luther just may uncover a real crime being committed behind all of this “supernatural” activity!
Since Don Knotts left THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW to pursue a movie career, I’m glad to report that his decision to star in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN was a really good choice. His performance is a masterpiece of physical comedy. Sure, Knotts trembles, shakes and delivers his lines in his awkward, nervous way for a lot of laughs, but he also provides a vulnerability that really makes you root for him. Knotts knew how to play lovable losers in a way that shows a quiet decency. He may actually be scared, and he may seem like a real pushover, but he also finds the courage to do the right thing even when it’s not easy. This was true for Barney Fife, and it’s also true for Luther Heggs in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN.
Aside from Don Knotts, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN has a solid supporting cast! Joan Staley is very beautiful as Luther’s love interest, Alma. Staley was a Playboy Playmate in 1958, so I can definitely see why Luther is in love. I like the fact that her Alma is more than just a pretty face. Rather, she’s one of the few people who sees Luther as more than a joke, which makes her even more appealing. Meanwhile, Luther’s newsroom boss (Dick Sargent) and office rival (Skip Homeier) never miss an opportunity to be condescending. The director Alan Rafkin directed 27 episodes of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, so he definitely knows how to get the best comedy out of Knotts and the rest of his cast. He also keeps the tone light, with the haunted house set pieces playing out like gentle, kid-friendly chills rather than anything truly scary. The blood-stained organ / garden shears sequence in the mansion is especially effective, with Don Knotts perfectly walking the line between raging fear and slapstick comedy. Signaling that there was a big audience for Don Knotts in the movies, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN proved to be a box office hit, taking the number one spot during its first week of release, and grossing about eight times its budget!
Ultimately, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN endures because it understands the special qualities of its star. Don Knotts is funny, and he’s also human. He may be scared out of his mind, but he also has decency and an ability to find courage when he must. In that way, it’s a comfort movie, a should-be Halloween staple, and finally, a reminder that sometimes the bravest person in the room is the one who can’t quit shaking.
Shot on location, the 1981 film of the same name takes place in one of the toughest police precincts in New York City. The film opens with a prostitute (Pam Grier) walking up to a police car in the middle of the night and promptly gunning down the two cops inside. (The scene emphasis on the blood splattering in the squad car makes it all the more disturbing and frightening.) As soon as the cops are dead, people come out of the shadows and immediately start going through their pockets, collecting everything that they can.
Why were the cops killed? There is no real motive, beyond Grier’s prostitute being high on drugs and enjoying the kill. Indeed, we know from the start that Grier is the killer but the cops investigating the case continually ignore her, despite the fact that she’s always wandering around in the background. (Grier is perfectly frightening in the nearly silent role.) The new captain of the precinct, a by-the-book type named Dennis Connolly (Ed Asner), assumes that the killing must have been an organized assassination and he is soon ordering his cops to arrest and interrogate almost anyone that they see. If someone jaywalks, Connolly wants them in the back of a squad car so that they can be interrogated. He offers to give the men two weeks of extra vacation time for every lead that they find. When veteran detective John Joseph Vincent Murphy III (Paul Newman) says that the reward is going to do more damage than good, Connolly dismisses his concerns. Connolly is convinced that he knows how to run the precinct. He views the people who live in the Bronx as being enemies who have to be tamed and controlled. Murphy, who comes from a long line of cops, believes in working with the community as opposed to going strictly by the book.
It’s an episodic film, following Murphy and his partner, Corelli (Ken Wahl), as they try to keep the peace in a neighborhood full of empty lots, abandoned buildings, and horrific poverty. (The film is all the more effective for having actually been shot on location. Looking at the scenery in which everyone is living and working, it’s easy to understand why tempers get so easily frayed.) Corelli is ambitious. Murphy is cynical. When Murphy meets a nurse (Rachel Ticotin), it seems like love at first sight. They’re both survivors of the toughest city in America. But the nurse has a secret of her own. There’s a lot of stories that are told in Fort Apache, The Bronx but few of them have a happy ending.
It’s an effective film, though the structure is occasionally a bit too loose and the generic “cop music” on the soundtrack sometimes makes it seem as if the viewer is watching a cop show on one of the nostalgia channels. The film works because it allows the Bronx itself to be as important a character as the cops played by Newman, Asner, and Wahl. There’s a grittiness to the film that overcomes even the occasional melodramatic moment. In the end, the film suggests that, while cops come and go, the precinct will always remain the same. Killing two drug dealers just allows two more to move in. Reporting on a bad cop, like the one played in the film by Danny Aiello, will only lead to the ostracization of a good cop. To the film’s credit, neither Newman nor Asner are portrayed as being totally correct or totally wrong in their different approaches to police work. Newman is correct about Asner’s heavy-handed tactics creating mistrust and resentment in the community. Asner, however, has a point when he says that a cop killer cannot be allowed to go unpunished.
Paul Newman gives a great performance as Murphy, a role that a lesser actor would have turned into a cliche. Murphy is the latest in a long line of cops and he’s on the verge of abandoning the family business. Newman does a good job of portraying not only Murphy’s burnout but also how his affair with the nurse briefly inspires him to believe that he still might actually be able to make a difference in the world. The film ends on an ambiguous note, one that leaves you with the impression that Murphy couldn’t stop being a cop if he tried. The job may be burning him out but it’s still the only thing he knows.
Fort Apache, The Bronx is not an easy movie to find. Though it did well at the box office (and reportedly inspired shows like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue), the film was also controversial because of the way the Bronx was portrayed. While it’s not currently streaming or even available to rent on any of the major sites, I did find a good, age-restricted upload on YouTube. Look for it before someone takes it down.
In 1969’s Winning, Paul Newman plays a race car driver.
That’s certainly not a surprise. Newman was very much a fan of racing and owned a few race cars himself. In Winning, he looks totally comfortable and believable behind the wheel. There’s not a moment that you look at Paul Newman and think to yourself that he couldn’t be exactly who he’s playing, a very successful and very ambitious race car driver. At its best, the film is a visual love letter to the sport of racing and the thrill of driving fast. When Newman is on that track, Winning is an exciting film.
Unfortunately, Winning doesn’t spend nearly enough time on the track. Instead, we spend way too much time examining the bad marriage of Frank (Paul Newman) and Elora Capua (Joanne Woodward). Frank meets Eulora at a car rental place, where she’s working behind the counter. After a whirlwind romance, they get married and Frank becomes a stepfather to Elora’s annoyingly sensitive son, Charley (Richard Thomas). (The film doesn’t necessarily mean for Charley to be annoying but he most definitely is.) Still, Frank remains obsessed with winning. He remains so obsessed with winning that Elora has an affair with Lou Erding (Robert Wagner), another race car driver. With his marriage in shambles, Frank throws himself into preparing for the Indianapolis 500.
Winning is very much a film of the late 60s. There’s really not much of a story so the film tries to get by on frequent jump cuts, intentionally skewed camera angles, and frequent montages. It’s one of those American films that desperately wants to be mistaken for the type of movies that were coming out of Europe at the time. I tried to count all of the jump cuts during the first few minutes of the film and I quickly gave up. While there’s nothing wrong with a good jump cut, the frequent cuts in Winning feel more like an affectation than anything else. Basically, someone in production said, “The kids like jump cuts so toss them in whether they’re necessary or not.” The film’s attempt to be arty only further serve to remind us that there’s very little actually going on.
Paul Newman had charisma to burn and, in Winning, he looks like he’s enjoying himself whenever he’s behind the wheel. The marriage of Newman and Woodward was one of Hollywood’s great love stories but that doesn’t come across in the marriage for Frank and Elora. A lot of that is because there’s really not much that can be said about who Elora. She’s a blank. Paul Newman had the screen presence and the cool confidence to get away with playing an underwritten character. Woodward, however, can’t overcome the shallow script. (Though Robert Wagner was nowhere near as good an actor as either Newman or Woodward, he has the right look for the role and his stiff line delivery actually works well for the character. For whatever reason, Wagner often seemed to do his best work in Paul Newman films.)
Really, I shouldn’t be surprised that Winning turned out to be stylish but empty. The film was directed by James Goldstone, who also directed the painfully portentous Sidney Poitier-as-Jesus film, Brother John. Eventually, Goldstone straightened up and gave us enjoyably bad films like Rollercoaster and When Time Ran Out. Newman is in When Time Ran Out as well. Just as with Winning, he’s the best thing in the movie. That’s one of the benefits of being one of the great actors. Even when they’re appearing in a less-than-impressive film, you just can’t stop watching them.
In 1963’s Hud, Paul Newman plays a monster named Hud.
Hud Bannon is the son of rancher Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas). Hud lives in a small Texas town, where he’s known for his pink Cadillac, his heavy-drinking, and his womanizing. When we first meet him, he’s leaving the home of a married woman and narrowly escaping the rage of her husband. Throughout the film, he mentions that he’s heading into town to meet “Mrs.” So-and-So. Hud’s father fears that Hud might be incapable of caring about anyone but himself. Hud’s nephew, Lonnie (Brandon deWilde), at first looks up to Hud but, over the course of the film, he comes to see his uncle for who he truly is. Though Hud is quick to defend Homer from others, he himself views Homer with contempt and even plots to have the old man declared incompetent so that he can take over the ranch. His flirtation with the family housekeeper, Alma (Patricia Neal), soon crosses the line into something much more dangerous. Hud is charming and handsome in the way that only a 30-something Paul Newman could be. But he’s also a complete monster.
In Hud, Newman gave one of his best performances and director Martin Ritt and cinematographer James Wong Howe captured some haunting images of the most barren parts of the Texas panhandle. Howe’s black-and-white imagery not only captures the harsh landscape but also the harsh outlook of the people who live there. Hud’s ruthless personality as is much a product of the demands of the land as his own narcissism. The characters in Hud live in a land that doesn’t allow sentimentality. It’s a land that’s allowed Hud to become the monster that he is.
At least, that’s the way that Paul Newman saw Hud. That was also the way that the film’s director, Martin Ritt, viewed Hud. They viewed him as being about as villainous and unlikable as a character could be but, to Newman’s surprise, audiences actually walked out of the film embracing the character and making excuses for him. Newman was shocked to learn that teenagers were putting posters of him as Hud on their walls.
Why did viewers embrace Hud?
Some of it is due to the fact that Brandon deWilde gives a remarkably bland performance as Lonny. We first see Hud through Lonny’s eyes and we are meant to share Lonny’s growing disillusionment with his uncle. But Lonny comes across as being such an empty-headed character that it’s hard to really get emotionally invested in his coming-of-age. When Hud eventually dismisses Lonny and his concerns, Lonny really can’t defend himself because there’s not much going on inside of Lonny. On the other hand, Paul Newman gives such a charismatic performance as Hud that we find ourselves continually making excuses for his bad behavior. When he talks about how he was raised and his difficult relationship with his father, we have sympathy for him even though we know we shouldn’t. The viewer makes excuses for Hud because that’s what we tend to do when it comes to charismatic bad boys who don’t follow the rules.
Indeed, Hud is proof of the power of charisma and screen presence. As a character, Hud does some truly terrible things and yet, because he’s Paul Newman, we want to forgive him. We want to try to figure out why someone who is so handsome and so charismatic would also be so angry. Lonny may be the “good” character but Hud is the one who we want to get to know. When Lonny flips through a paperback to read the sex scenes, he comes across as being creepy. When a drunk Hud flirts with a woman who he has just met, we ask ourselves what we would do if Hud ever tried that with us. The truth is that we all know what we would do. That’s what makes Hud both a dangerous and an intriguing character.
In the end, Hud is an excellent film that features Paul Newman at his best and which uses the downfall of Homer’s ranch as a metaphor for a changing American society. Though Hud was not nominated for Best Picture, it was nominated for almost everything else. Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal won acting Oscars. James Wong Howe’s cinematography was also honored. Paul Newman was nominated and perhaps would have won if not for the fact that Sidney Poitier was nominated for playing the exact opposite of Hud in Lilies of the Field. Hud was meant to be a picture about Lonny discovering his uncle was a monster. Instead, the film became about Hud’s refusal to compromise. It turns out that people like good-looking rebels who do what they want.
Even if viewers missed the point, Hud was one of the best films of the early 60s and Paul Newman’s powerful performance continues to intrigue.
1961’s Paris Blues tells the story of four Americans in Paris.
Ram (Paul Newman) and Eddie (Sidney Poitier) are expatriate jazz musicians. Ram has come to Paris to try to find success as a musician. He’s a little cocky. He’s a little arrogant. However, he’s talented and he believes enough in his talent that he takes it a little bit personally when he’s told that he should just focus on being a composer instead. Eddie is Ram’s best friend and someone who has no interest in ever returning to America. In America, he’s judged by the color of his skin. In Paris, no one cares that he’s black. In Paris, they just care about his talent.
Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll) are best friends who are spending two weeks in Paris. They love jazz and eventually, Lillian comes to love Ram while Connie comes to love Eddie. Connie tries to convince Eddie to marry her and come back to America with her but Eddie tells her that “the struggle” in America is not “my struggle.” Ram also finds himself torn over whether he should stay in Paris or return to America with Lillian. In the end, one man leaves and one man stays. It’s not really much of a surprise who does what.
Paris Blues was directed by Martin Ritt, a director who had been blacklisted during the 50s and whose career was revived by several films that he made with Paul Newman. (Newman and Joanne Woodward first met on the set of Ritt’s The Long Hot Summer.) Ritt was one of those reliably liberal directors who made message films that dealt with political issues but were never quite radical. Paris Blues features a lot of talk about the civil rights movement and it makes an attempt to be honest about why two Americans would chose to live in a different country. And yet, as was so often the case with Martin Ritt’s films, the film presents itself as being far more daring than it actually is. Yes, Ram initially hits on Connie but he loses interest once he sees Lillian. Though the film is based on a novel that featured an interracial relationship, there’s never really any doubt that, in the film, Ram is going to end up with Lillian and Eddie is going to end up with Connie. And while the film makes it clear that Ram and Lillian sleep together within hours of first meeting each other, the relationship between Connie and Eddie is romantic but chaste. Paris Blues may be a mature film for 1961 but it’s still definitely a film of 1961.
That said, the music’s great (Louis Armstrong shows up to jam with Ram and Eddie) and Newman and Woodward’s chemistry is off the charts. Ram is like a lot of the characters that Paul Newman played in the 50s and 60s. He can be self-centered and he can be petulant and he can be self-destructive. But he’s never less than honest and the fact that he refuses to compromise or give into self-doubt makes him very appealing. While Poitier struggles with a script that refuses to allow him too much personality (he’s affably pleasant, even when he’s explaining why he doesn’t want to live in America), Newman dominates the film in the role of an artist determined to share his vision.
Paris Blues is never the masterpiece that it tries to be but Paul Newman makes it more than worth watching.
I knew they were in love! Obviously, Della (Barbara Hale) was also in love with Paul Drake, Sr. but with Paul gone and Paul Drake, Jr. doing his own thing, she and Perry (Raymond Burr) can finally be together. It was about time, too. Even though Perry comes across like he would be too work-obsessed to really be a good husband or even boyfriend, it has also been obvious that Perry and Della were in love ever since Perry Mason Returns.
As for the mystery itself, it’s a really simple one and I was able to guess who the killer was from the start. I know that Raymond Burr was terminally ill when he shot this film (and it was the last time Perry Mason movie to ai during his life time) and maybe that’s why the plot isn’t as complicated as usual. The guest cast is really good, though. Regis Philbin plays the owner of a talk radio station who is murdered by one of his hosts. Every host is a suspect and they’re all strange enough to be fun to watch. Both Montel Williams and G. Gordon Liddy are in this thing!
Knowing this was the last of the films to air during Burr’s lifetime made watching The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host feel a little sad. As sick as he was, Raymond Burr still dominated the courtroom. That was one reason why the kiss made me so happy. Perry (and Burr) didn’t have much time left but he made sure we all knew how he felt about Della.
In this slow but amiable film, Paul Newman plays Jim Kane. Kane is a down-on-his luck cowboy who finds himself in Arizona with nearly a dollar to his name. Because Kane’s a likable sort, he has people who are willing to help him out but eventually, he finds himself with no choice but to accept a job offer from Stretch Russell (Wayne Rogers) and shady rancher Bill Garrett (Strother Martin). Kane agrees to Mexico to round up a heard of cattle. Helping Kane out on the job is an old friend by the name of Leonard (Lee Marvin).
Pocket Money was the last script to be written by Terrence Malick before Malick began his own directing career and the script’s dialogue shows off Malick’s skill at capturing the unique dialect and sound of the Southwest. It’s an episodic film, where the emphasis is more on the journey than the destination and it could be argued that the movie never really reaches its destination. The plot is far less important than the way Kane and Leonard talk to each other and view the world around them. Pocket Money is not for everyone. It’s the type of movie that will inspire some to complain that nothing really happens. For fans of Newman and Marvin, though, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be found. Newman and Marvin reportedly did not get along during shooting but that didn’t do a thing to harm their chemistry in their scenes together. This film reunites Paul Newman with Cool Hand Luke director Stuart Rosenberg and and also with two co-stars from that film, Strother Martin and Wayne Rogers. Newman gives a relaxed and likable performance. Lee Marvin gets to show his skill with comedy. If you’ve ever wanted to see Lee Marvin ride a horse while wearing a suit, this is the film for you.
Pocket Money was the first film to be produced by First Artists, a production company that was started by Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Barbra Streisand, Steve McQueen, and Dustin Hoffman. The company closed its doors in 1980 but not before giving the world not just this movie but also The Getaway, Straight Time, The Gauntlet, An Enemy of the People (starring Steve McQueen), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and The Gumball Rally, amongst others.
Through the Shattered Lens 