Nick Zegarac

Houseboat is a real hot mess. Not a rom/com unless you prefer yours tinged in sanctimonious sadness for three orphaned children whose father is too busy trying to get in the pants of his newly hired maid who can't cook or clean but looks amazing in costumes by Edith Head. Production values are A-1. And the film certainly has star power in Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. But virtually NO chemistry between them. Odd too, since Grant was actually chasing after Loren behind the scenes and had had a notorious affair with her the year prior to shooting this dud. Not all children are a blessing and this movie proves it. The kids are precocious, but cloying. And the plot just meanders through some silliness to connect the dots and make gumbo from the precepts and cliches of the standardized rom/com. Not a great film. At times, not even a competently made one.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service happens to be one of the most involved, longest, and most credible Bond movies in the franchise. Lazenby's a bit rough to handle as Bond, only if you compare him to Connery. Setting aside that bias, he's more than serviceable, and really has great fun. I also can't imagine either Connery or Roger Moore, his successor, handling the tragic 'death' that concludes the film with as much sincerity and warmth. It really is Lazenby's tour de force. Diana 'The Avengers' Rigg is a valiant Bond girl - our first proto-feminist in the Bond franchise. Very authoritative without being emasculating. And she's exceptionally nuanced in her performance. Similar praise for Gabriele Fersetti, and Ilse Steppat, a superior villain to Telly 'who love's yah, baby?' Savalas' Blofeld. Production values could scarcely be better and the score by John Barry is among his best. It all works - spectacularly well. One of the best Bonds ever - period.

Grandly amusing tale of 'the other woman' and 'wife' - what happens when ladies meet!!! Expecting sparks? This unusual she said/she said full of dramatic surprises, and exquisitely tricked out in true MGM glamorous style to boot. Garson and Crawford are at the very top of their game. Odd, that Crawford's star did not retain its luster at Metro after this. This picture, unlike her previous 4, actually turned a tidy profit. The performances are solid. Dir. Clarence Brown gives it everything a blue-chip dramedy ought to have, and Cedric Gibbons art direction here creates a veritable fairy-land of the cozy little cottage, complete with its own water wheel. Lots to admire here. A really good show.

A battle royale from the word go, Bette Davis and Errol Flynn spar with regal finesse in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Davis had desperately wanted to be in Gone With The Wind. She was well compensated for falling out of the running by a spate of pictures all released in 1939, to include Dark Victory, The Old Maid and Juarez. But Davis despised Flynn throughout the shoot, whom she regarded strictly as a pretty boy with no acting talent. At one point, a scene called for Davis' Queen to slap Flynn's paramour on the cheek. Instead of throwing her punch, Davis hauled off and bashed Flynn full in the face, wearing a faux jewel-encrusted ring, no less. The ring left a welt. The shot stayed in the picture and you can see Flynn's brutal, startled reaction to the slap. Decades later, with Flynn dead and gone, Davis elected to re-run the movie at Warner Bros. with costar Olivia DeHavilland at her side. When the screening was over, Davis declared, "My God I was wrong about him. He is marvelous!" The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex is a glossy adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's brilliant stagecraft. It sports a powerhouse score by Eric Korngold and sumptuous sets and costumes - a real entertainment in the grand ole tradition, with excellent turns from Donald Crisp and Vincent Price. Lots to admire here. A great Hollywood classic, in desperate need of a full-blown restoration effort. Let's sincerely hope it gets one soon.

Shockingly good performances from Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole mark Becket as one of the finest 'historically inaccurate' epics of its generation. Great bro-mantic chemistry between these two stellar thespians at the pinnacle of their powers. O'Toole's manic monarch is counterbalanced by Burton's restrained performance, resigned to serve God, the law and his corrupt King in tandem. We need more movies like Becket and more actors like this today.

A truncated attempt to extol the virtues of a young woman about to be Queen under duress. Emily Blunt is utterly magnificent as Victoria, and, Rupert Friend, as her beloved Albert, almost as vibrant. The two have genuine chemistry. Spectacularly filmed by Hagen Bogdanski, at an hour and forty-five minutes, this one just seemed rushed at the end - a genuine lost opportunity to give the sumptuous production design the true girth of a Hollywood epic. It could have easily gone on for 2 hrs. more and still have held us spellbound in the dark.

Stephen Freer's film is shamelessly misleading. The title 'The Queen' suggested a delicious expose on Elizabeth II. Instead, we get a rehash of the brutal demise of Princess Diana with so much out of focus TV footage inserted, one sincerely wonders what the point was in hiring a brilliant actress like Helen Mirren, merely to ape the Queen for several choice scenes, interminably book-ended by dull-as-paint drama and a lot of conjecture and some backstory to a tale most of us know too well. Very unoriginal - if occasionally played with affecting aplomb.

Hardly a fitting conclusion to the TV franchise, and quite obviously mounted with either a sequel or reboot of the show in mind, Downton Abbey - the movie, pursues two winning narratives - the primary, focused on the arrival of the King and Queen for a night's respite on their royal tour, the other, embroiling the dashing Tom Branson, first in an assassination plot, and later, in an unlikely romance with the winsome 'servant' girl who will one day inherit the estate. How Cinderella can you get? The movie works, both as a stand-alone piece, as well as to further the tale of the Crawley clan. Discarded in the shuffle, time-honored favs, Lady Rosamund, Mr. Mason, cousin Rose and her husband. Since season 3 of the TV series, when writer/director/producer, Julian Fellowes killed off two of his most beloved characters - youngest daughter, Sybil, and then, Matthew Crawley - moments following the birth of his son, Downton struggled from a dearth of baddies to hold our interest - especially after the departure of evil lady's maid, O'Brien. The movie inveigles a few of the remaining stalwarts in a series of machinations slavishly devoted to the royal visit, but without any staying power. There is no point to Tony Sellick's sudden appearance as the hunky plumber who arrives twice to fix an ailing boiler, only to stir kitchen maid, Daisy's heart, much to her boyfriend, Andy's chagrin. And Sellick never does return after tickling her fancy once or twice. So, what was the point. Also, too much time spent on Thomas' exploration of London's alternative lifestyle clubs, comes to not - if only - the fleeting promise of a bromance with the King's gay valet. The main characters we've come to know and love are mostly underutilized. Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern, as the Earl and Countess of Grantham are basically reduced to token figures in their own house. Ditto for Brendan Coyle and Joan Froggatt's ever devoted Anna and Bates. And what exactly was the point to delaying the arrival of Henry Talbot's arrival to the manor house until barely 8 min. before the final fade out? Why bring him back at all. He had nothing to do with the story. I did appreciate the Tom Branson storyline, which takes precedent and outweighs the superficial Royal stay-over story line. But we really don't become engaged to any of our other favs from the TV show - Fellowes giving us too much of the side order without ever serving up the main course. It's all lavishly produced, with magnificent production values to boot. Some of the cinematography was too dark. I mean, the Downton cellar looked like something out of Madam Defarge's Bastille in A Tale of Two Cities. Overall, A+ for effort. B- for results.

Exceptional stagecraft brought to the movies by Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Mills; two of England's imminent actors of any generation. The exceptional joy of watching these two time-honored thespians at the top of their craft is matched only by the exemplary screenplay from James Kennaway - cribbing from his own superb novel. The drama is exquisite as Guinness' flaming-haired and fiery Scot spars with Mills' restrained gentleman on the manly art of being a soldier. A perfect film with perfect performances to boot - and not to be missed, Tunes of Glory will endure as a sobering social critique with few equals.

Slightly stilted musical, with Edmund Purdon taking the place of Mario Lanza, who was judged too 'fat' to partake of this Sigmund Romberg operetta, costarring Ann Blyth and Louis Calhern. MGM kept Lanza's vocals, with Purdon lip-syncing the tracks in full magnetic stereo. Actually, he's quite convincing here, and his dramatic performance is as good, if not better. One of the cinema's true treasures, S.Z. Sakall is also on tap as the father of a barmaid who has hopelessly fallen in love with the Prince of some long-lost Ruritanian principality. After the maid slaps the Prince's face, the Prince's counsel - played by John Williams, suggests such an outrage cannot go unpunished. "Do you know what this means?" he asks Sakall. "It means he was fresh!" Sakall suggests. "But do you know what this means?" to which Sakall sardonically replies, "He won't get fresh anymore!" Romberg's score features iconic ballads, capped off by the stirring 'I'll Walk With God' and the beer garden anthem, 'Drink, Drink, Drink'. Wonderful fluff in Cinemascope. Should be on Blu-ray by now.