SABOTAGE AGENT. MGM-UK, 1943. Aka The Adventures of Tartu. Robert Donat, Valerie Hobson, Walter Rilla, Glynis Johns, Phyllis Morris, Martin Miller. Director: Harold S. Bucquet.

   The title of this movie is so generic that when I taped this from the TCM channel last week, I didn’t know that this is the one I was taping. I had, in fact, never heard of Sabotage Agent before, that Robert Donat was in it didn’t register with me, and except for the title, I had no idea what it was about. Which stretches the truth a little, if not a lot, because what the movie’s about, the title says it all.

   But with all that as a lead-in, I have to tell you that watching the movie last night was both a pleasure as well as a surprise — even while fully realizing its built-in limitations and how high a rating I could honestly give it. I’ll get back to this in a minute; let me tell you about some of the pluses first.

   It’s a propaganda film for the British home front, that seems obvious, but how stirring it must have been to see one man, a British officer (Robert Donat as Captain Terence Stevenson), disguise himself as a Romanian long enough to infiltrate the Nazi occupation force in Czechoslovakia long enough to blow up a chemical plant that was in the process of building a deadly arsenal of poison gas about to be delivered to England in the next wave of bombs to be dropped?

   If you were to say “whew” to that last sentence, then deservedly so, as neither does the story in Sabotage Agent allow the viewer to sit back and recognize all of the flaws of the plot, and how unlikely it all is, as it roars on by.

   Donat, who won an Oscar as “Mr. Chips,” wasn’t about to win another one for this film, but he manages to stay balanced on a keen edge between being charming and sincere and ostentatiously flamboyant, only to turn visibly discouraged and disheartened at seeing the excesses (and sheer brutality) of the Nazi rule.

   If his career hadn’t been suppressed by his own frailties (asthma), I think he could have been his generation’s equivalent of Charlie Chaplin.

   Valerie Hobson plays a Czech woman who finds life with the Nazis is far more palatable by fraternizing openly with them, a game that Donat soon sees through, but making contact with the entire Czech underground proves more of a challenge. A young Glynis Johns probably hardened many a British heart against the Nazis, as her character shows what patriotism is all about.

   Unfortunately for the film, Captain Stevenson’s job is made all the easier by the sheer stupidity of the Nazi occupiers, both in the particular and in general, as overall strategists. That plus the fact that none of them seem to be able to shoot straight, in a ending straight out of the B-western or Saturday serial genre, keeps this film from being better known than it is, a curiosity out of the dark days of World War II.

BETRAYAL FROM THE EAST. RKO Radio Pictures, 1945. Lee Tracy, Nancy Kelly, Richard Loo, Regis Toomey, Philip Ahn, (Victor) Sen Yung, Drew Pearson. Based on the non-fiction book by Alan Hynd. Director: William Berke.

   This wartime almost-pure propaganda movie is no longer easy to find. It was released on video cassette but not (so far) on DVD, and the now out-of-print VHS tape (shown) seems to command high prices. I taped my copy from American Movie Classics, sometime B.C. (before commercials), but maybe, just maybe, its staunch anti-Japanese sentiment is part of the reason it seems to have slipped out of sight.

   Drew Pearson, one of the most famous newspapermen of the day, appears as himself at the beginning and end of the film, warning heavily against fifth columnists in general and Japanese spies in particular. Considering the relocation camps that Japanese-Americans were forcibly moved to during World War II — but later repudiated in 1980 as “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” — it is difficult to view this movie in an purely entertainment mode today.

   And in fact, it wasn’t intended to be then, and with the passage of years, it’s certainly not meant to be today. Which is not to say that this movie doesn’t have moments that are worth watching. Nearly ninety minutes long, the film’s production values are a step above the B-movies being made at the same time, and with a little tweaking of the story, dropping Drew Pearson’s role, and tweaking some more, it could have been another Across the Pacific. But they didn’t, and it isn’t.

   Lee Tracy as Eddie Carter, now out of the army and low on funds, is tempted by a Japanese friend into making a few dollars, but when he discovers that what’s wanted are plans for defending the Panama Canal, he has second thoughts about what he’s gotten himself into.

   Also taking an interest is Peggy Harrison (Nancy Kelly), a slim and pretty brunette who manages to work up an acquaintance with Carter, an acquaintance that quickly becomes more than that.

   Tracy was much older than Kelly at the time, 47 to her 24 (and pudgier) and the love affair doesn’t set off any sparks as far as I was concerned, although I could see the attraction she has for him. Even with a couple of nifty plot turns, the whole affair is about as ham-handed as this, made with good intentions at the time, perhaps, but in retrospect, no.

THE SECRET WAYS. Universal Pictures, 1961. Richard Widmark, Sonja Ziemann, Charles Régnier, Walter Rilla, Senta Berger, Stefan Schnabel, Hubert von Meyerinck. Based on the novel The Last Frontier by Alastair MacLean (published in the US as The Secret Ways). Screenwriter: Jean Hazlewood (Mrs. Richard Widmark). Producer: Richard Widmark. Director: Phil Karlson.

   One note about the credits before I begin the review itself. Unhappy with the way things were going, Widmark is said to have fired Karlson and directed the last few weeks of filming himself. In one sense this may have been a good idea, since Karlson later directed Dean Martin in two of the Matt Helm movies. It was his idea to go in that direction even earlier with The Secret Ways, but apparently Widmark put his foot down and said no.

   On the other hand, whichever hand was at the helm, this is not a very good movie, and in some ways it is downright bad. I have not read Alastair MacLean’s novel, but it had to have been better than the filmed version of it. If not, I submit to you that the novel would never have been published – and therefore no movie, and this review is about to disappear itself.

   It isn’t the acting – top notches should be awarded to everyone involved all the way around, starting with Widmark himself as Michael Reynolds, who’s neither a spy nor an espionage agent, but only a slightly disreputable gent forced by gambling debts to take on a task by Swiss banker Hermann Sheffler (von Meyerinck). The job? Only to rescue a charismatic political figure named Jansci (Walter Rilla) from behind the Iron Curtain.

   Posing as a journalist, Reynolds’ only lead is Jancsi’s daughter Julia (Sonja Ziemann) who has recently survived an escape attempt herself. One of the sources Reynolds uses to find Julia, by the way, is Elsa (Santa Berger), the latter an actress who proves that beautiful women can also act, Hollywood preconceptions to the contrary, which explains why most of her films were not made in this country.

   The only problem is, Julia wants to go with Reynolds back into Hungary, and Jansci himself does not want to leave. (It takes a lot of effort to reach him and eventually convince him.)

   The acting, as I said, is of high caliber, the outdoor shots (Vienna, I believe) are as authentic as they could be, and so what goes wrong? The story. Individual scenes are perfectly done. They just don’t combine together in any coherent way you can think of. Things happen, you (the viewer) wait for an explanation, and the explanation never comes.

   Reynolds get beaten up early on – so, OK, his cover is blown. He’s rescued by Elsa – and if you are male, how would you like to wake up in the morning being nuzzled by Santa Berger after being rescued by her the evening before? But why? To what purpose? Why does she have the address for Julia that he needs? Why does she give it to him? How did she happen to meet him earlier in the restaurant in the first place?

   Yeah, I know. Motivations are murky in all the good spy movies, but if MacLean’s novel was the basis for this movie, you get the idea that it far too complicated for them, and they stripped away all of the non-essentials and simply went with what was left.

   Later on, Reynolds and Jansci have been caught, drugged, beaten up by the Communist authorities, and in as sad shape as they’re in, they … Or, as they say in the vernacular, aw, come on.

   I see that I haven’t mentioned Sonja Ziemann. Slim and brunette, and her character naturally attracted to Reynolds in spite of a bad start between them, she’s quite a beauty, with a long career in the German film industry, which explains why I hadn’t heard of her before. Perhaps you have.

   I’ll close by adding some screen shots here at the end. I may have gotten into the bad habit of trying to squeeze too many of them into the reviews themselves, but in this case, they’re too good to not use them at all.

(1) Reynolds being guided by Elsa to her apartment after getting beaten up:

(2) Reynolds with Julia as they begin to realize what they are up against:

(3) Reynolds and Jansci in their interrogation room:

(4) On their way to the airport and safety!

THE LIQUIDATOR. MGM, 1965. Rod Taylor, Jill St. John, Trevor Howard, Wilfred Hyde-White. Song over opening credits: sung by Shirley Bassey. Based on the novel of the same name by John Gardner. Director: Jack Cardiff.

   Anti-hero secret agent Boysie Oakes has come up before on this blog, back when I read and reviewed Understrike, a later book in the series. That’s when I also listed all of the books in the series, so I needn’t do it here.

   But I will repeat myself a bit by describing how I saw Mr. Oakes back then:

   I also wondered about how Mr. Oakes got into the spy business in the first place, if he’s that inept and that much of a coward. Well, wonder no more, Mr. Lewis. The opening scene of the movie version of The Liquidator, filmed in black-and-white (with the rest of the movie in color), tells us exactly that. In the closing days of World War II, during the liberation of Paris, Boysie Oakes (Rod Taylor) accidentally saved the life of a British agent named Mostyn. See below and to the right:

   Mostyn (Trevor Howard), never one to forget favors like that, but also not knowing how accidental his rescue was, calls on Boysie much later on to fill a new position in his Department, that of assassin, to eliminate those embarrassing people (double agents and the like) who would provide the press with more scandals, either by defecting or being arrested before they could defect.

   Tempted by the promises of a mid-60s Hugh Hefner life of luxury when not working, even before he knows what “working” actually means, Boysie accepts. Bad move. How does he get out of actually doing the work? In the most delightfully engaging way – assuming of course you agree that the victims actually need to be, um, liquidated.

   There is some satire involved here, as well as a slight touch of spoofery, and by this time half the movie is over. Of course there is another hour to fill, and with beautious Jill St. John (as Iris, Mostyn’s right-hand assistant) on hand to accompany Boysie on a strictly unauthorized trip for two to the Riviera, you’d think it would be filled most handsomely.

   Not so. The people who put out the film thought they needed a plot, but the plot they give us is pure pap. Things do not go nearly as well as Boysie had planned. First he’s kidnapped (amusingly before anything serious happens in the bedroom), then released and/or allowed to escape, then sent off on a fool’s mission to do some serious damage back in the UK.

   I’ve not read The Liquidator, the book, but at least one source says the movie people actually followed the book fairly closely. Perhaps they did, but they missed something, that something perhaps being that in spite of the movie being largely a spoof – which it definitely is until the shooting starts …

   That’s it. That’s exactly when things started going wrong. Right then, when the movie people began to make a straight (but still more than a little goofy) action picture out of what until then was a mild and gentle satirical poke at Mr. Bond.

   One other note. In the book I read, as you may recall from the review excerpt above, Boysie was described as being a coward.

   That’s hard to play on the screen, so that part was downplayed, or so it seems to me. Rod Taylor simply plays Boysie as a good-natured chap, a fellow who’s rather inept (as also previously described) and gets sick in airplanes (and you know where that will lead) but this is about as far into that direction the movie goes.

   This was the only film version of the character that was ever made.

THE DIAMOND OF JERU. Made for cable TV (USA), 2001. Billy Zane, Paris Jefferson, Keith Carradine, Jackson Raine. Based on a story by Louis L’Amour. Teleplay by Beau L’Amour [also co-executive producer]. Directors: Ian Barry, Dick Lowry.

   This movie has come up once before on this blog. It was back here, when I reviewed Off the Mangrove Coast, the Louis L’Amour collection where you can read the story the film was based on.

   Here’s the relevant portion of what I had to say back then:

   This one’s the latter. Billy Zane plays Mike Kardek, the guide first hired by Helen and John Lacklan (Paris Jefferson and Keith Carradine), only to be fired when Mr. Lacklan thinks something is going on between Kardek and Mrs. Lacklan. (Eyes only, nothing more. Nor anything less, for that matter, and sometimes it does.)

   Paris Jefferson, by the way, played the goddess Athena in the Xena television series just before her role in this movie. She has one of those faces that seems to change when viewed from different directions and in different contexts and scenes. I’ve found a number of shots taken from the movie to help illustrate. I do not know why this is the last movie she seems to have made.

   Kardek is an American adventurer down on his luck and stranded in Borneo with no funds to make the trip back home. The year is 1955. I was going to say “rugged American adventurer,” but he’s too good-looking to be able to say that with a straight face.

   Mr. Lacklan is an atomic scientist from the lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the kind of guy that thinks that saying he is an American will pave his way into being allowed to do anything he wants anywhere in the world.

   Mrs. Lacklan is too much of a restless spirit to stay cooped up in such an isolated community, and boredom has begun to creep into their marriage. One solution: a trip to Borneo to find a diamond to fit the (deliberately) empty spot in her wedding ring. She also reads books, one way perhaps to get the romance in her life that’s also missing.

   As I say, Kardek is fired, and the Lacklans tie up instead with a gang of natives Kardek is sure is connected with Jeru, the chief of a tribe of headhunters in the interior of the island. Sure enough he is right, and hence the story.

   Which is beautifully filmed, I must tell you. Equally beautifully recreated are the scenes of the open marketplace along the wharf, where small boats come in to drop off visitors such as the Lacklans. Linen suits for the non-native men, sarongs for the native women, hustle and bustle – totally authentic.

   The story line is exactly the same as that of L’Amour’s original tale, apparently never published and found in a trunk only after his death. Certain aspects are built up – of necessity, as the original, in print, is only 50 to 60 pages long – but the core of the story does not really involve diamonds, as suggested by its title. This is really a tale of love and romance. A hidden, sublimated one in this case, but a romance, none the less.

   And a tale of a marriage that is in trouble, too, and by the story’s end, it is in even more trouble, since of the two, Mr. and Mrs. Lacklan, it is the latter who had …

   And a good tale because of it, but about which I will not say more. The fact remains, this is no The African Queen, no matter how many times the cast and crew refer to it in the interview tidbits provided as a bonus on the DVD. Nor is it Key Largo, or Casablanca.

   As a movie made for cable TV, it’s one of the better ones. Nonetheless and overall, it’s little more than a rousingly good pulp adventure tale, and it’s quite unfair to the film for what it is to make comparisons such as the ones above, even if it’s the people involved who are making them.

Hi Steve,

   Regarding your recent posting, in the interests of perhaps useless footnotes and trivia, I’d like to add some further film and TV notes to the following names:

      Stephen COULTER

Film: Embassy (UK, 1972) d. Gordon Hessler. Screenplay by William Fairchild, based on the novel by Stephen Coulter. Story revolves around the efforts of a U.S. diplomatic mission in Beirut to smuggle out Max Von Sydow’s Russian defector. For followers of the absurd, this Mel Ferrer production cast Chuck Connors as a KGB assassin impersonating an American Air Force colonel.

      Ian MACKINTOSH

TV: Warship (BBC, 1973-77) co-creator with Anthony Coburn of this 45 eps x 50 mins. drama about Royal Navy life onboard a frigate.

TV: Wilde Alliance (ITV, 1978) producer and occasional scriptwriter of the 13 x hour comedy-thriller featuring the amateur sleuthing adventures of a thriller novelist and his busybody wife (the latter in the Pamela North, Jennifer Hart vein).

TV: The Sandbaggers (ITV, 1978; 1980) creator and main writer (until his death in 1979) of this tightly made and occasionally grim espionage saga.

TV: Thundercloud (ITV, 1979) creator/writer/executive producer of the 13 half-hour comedy series featuring a group of sailors operating on a shore-based station that the Admiralty thinks is a destroyer in the North Sea.

      William MARSHALL

TV: Yellowthread Street (ITV, 1990) was a 13-episode series adapted from the novel by William Marshall focusing on British detectives in the Hong Kong force; a costly, on-location production attempting Miami Vice on the seemingly Triad-ridden streets of steamy Hong Kong. Marshall also scripted the episode “Spirit Runner.”

      James MAYO

Film: Hammerhead (UK, 1968) d. David Miller. Screenplay by William Bast, Herbert Baker, based on the 1964 novel by James Mayo. Features Vince Edwards as U.S. secret agent Charles Hood. The Variety review in July 1968 suggested that it ‘might be dubbed a junior edition of Goldfinger without any of the sock elements of the James Bond film’.

      Alfred MAZURE

Film: Secrets of Sex (UK, 1969) d. Antony Balch. Screenplay by Martin Locke, John Eliot, Maureen Owen, Elliott Stein, Antony Balch; ‘Lindy Leigh’ segment based on the story by Alfred Mazure. Exploitation sex film featuring a collection of titillating stories connected by the view that sex is less often fun than funny (with truckloads of 1969 nudity for the furtive front-row viewer).

   Mazure’s story tells of Agent 28 Lindy Leigh’s assignment by the British Home Office to rob the safe at the Moravian Embassy; she succeeds in her mission to enter the safe, only to discover that it’s a harem housing female agents who have failed in the same mission. The topless Maria Frost plays the topless Lindy Leigh.

      Alan WHITE

Film: The Long Day’s Dying (UK, 1968) d. Peter Collinson. Screenplay by Charles Wood, based on the 1965 novel (US: Death Finds the Day) by Alan White. Men trained in the art of killing, in this instance three British paratroopers somewhere in occupied Europe during the Second World War, as skilled practitioners in nothing more than a competitive game (war) is the core of this film, starring David Hemmings, Tom Bell and Tony Beckley. The director takes some 95 dreary minutes to make his point.

   Now, if only Secrets of Sex was available on DVD (for research purposes, of course)…

               Regards,

                  Tise

>>> Thank you very much, Tise, and do I have news for you. Secrets of Sex is available on DVD in this country, subtly disguised as the following:

MR. MOTO’S LAST WARNING. 20th Century-Fox, 1939. Peter Lorre, Ricardo Cortez, Virginia Field, John Carradine, George Sanders. Based on the character created by John P. Marquand. Screenwriters; Philip MacDonald and Norman Foster. Director: Norman Foster.

   I’m told that Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, the sixth of eight Mr. Moto films – see below – is the only one that’s in the public domain. This explains two things. First, why I was able to buy a copy on DVD at this evening’s local library sale for only $2.00, and secondly why I paid too much, as I discovered later: You can watch the entire movie for free online. Click here.

   Disclaimer: I have not watched the free version all the way through, but it appears that it’s the entire film that’s available.

   Here’s a complete list of the Mr. Moto films:

         * Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)
         * Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)
         * Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1937)
         * Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938)
         * Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)
         * Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939)
         * Danger Island (1939)
         * Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

   As you see Peter Lorre and 20th Century-Fox stopped making them well before the US became involved in World War II, a wisely-taken cautionary move, as by nationality, Mr. Moto was very definitely Japanese. By profession, he was a secret agent for the “International Police,” and since he was very proficient in either judo or ju jistsu (I imagine there’s a difference) his movies were a lot more action-oriented than either Mr. Chan’s or Mr. Wong’s.

   Exemplified quite well, thank you, by Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, in which any number of people are killed or very nearly so, including (surprisingly enough) some of the good guys, one in rather gruesome fashion. Because of a partially muffled sound track at the beginning, it took me a while to figure out what the story was about, but eventually all became clear, except for one question: what country were the bad guys (Cortez and Sanders, primarily) working for? Forthrightly, it is never stated.

   Scene: Port Said, Egypt. Plot: To create an incident involving the incoming French fleet that will break the bonds of friendship between France and England. Mr. Moto, working undercover as an antiques dealer, gets wind of the plans and sends out the warning that’s stated in the title.

   The movie is surprisingly well done. The actors are all pros at this sort of game, the script makes sense (not surprisingly, considering the hand of Philip MacDonald at the helm), and the comedic interludes are only a trifle overdone.

   For the most part, the story takes itself seriously. I especially liked the bad girl to good girl transformation of Virginia Field as Connie, lover of Fabian (Ricardo Cortez), the ventriloquist (yes) behind the entire scheme.

   That’s her in the lower right corner of the lobby card, the best I’ve been able to come up with. I’m also not sure how well the Peter Lorre image will come out. It looks not quite in focus to me, but it’s the best I can offer so far. Coming directly from the film, I think it should give you a better idea of how he appears in the movie, as compared to the DVD box or even the lobby card.

JOHN GARDNER – Understrike.

Corgi; UK paperback reprint, 1966. Hardcover editions: Muller, UK, 1965; Viking, US, 1965. US paperback reprint: Fawcett Crest d1126, 1968

   I didn’t purchase too many paperbacks at last weekend’s Windy City show, and only four pulp magazines. Most of the paperbacks I bought came from one dealer very early on, the lot consisting of British espionage thrillers from the 1960s and 70s and written by authors such as James Leasor, James Mayo, Colin Forbes, Alan Williams and so on, all of them pretty much hard to find in this country.

   The author most highly represented in this assortment was perhaps also the one most known in the US, John Gardner, his reputation here most likely based on the James Bond books he wrote in 1980s and early 90s. For a complete checklist of his novels and story collections, see Jim Doherty’s obituary for him here when he died in August 2007.

      Gardner’s earlier series character was a fellow by the name of Boysie Oakes, a most reluctant spy extraordinaire, and I’ll get back to him in a moment. First, however, here’s a chronological list of the novel length fiction that he appeared in:

BOYSIE OAKES – The Novels.

      o The Liquidator. Muller, 1964; Viking, 1964. US pb: Fawcett Crest d856, 1965.

      o Understrike. Muller, 1965; Viking, 1965. US pb: Crest, 1968.
      o Amber Nine. Muller. 1966; Viking, 1966. US pb: Crest R1173, 1968.
      o Madrigal. Muller, 1967; Viking, 1968. US pb: Berkley, 1969.
      o Founder Member. Muller, 1969. No US edition.
      o Traitor’s Exit. Muller, 1970. No US edition.
      o The Airline Pirates. Hodder, 1970; U.S. title: Air Apparent, Putnam, 1971. US pb: Berkley, 1973.
      o A Killer for a Song. Hodder, 1975. No US edition.

   The first of these was made into a film starring Rod Taylor as Boysie, and Jill St. John as his leading lady. The comments on IMDB are fairly positive, and in fact Variety says “Peter Yeldham’s screenplay and Jack Cardiff’s direction combine plenty of action and some crisp wisecracking,” but it doesn’t appear to be available on DVD. I’ll have to see if I can’t track down a copy, maybe on VHS.

   The gimmick in the Boysie Oakes books, as I alluded to earlier, is that as a spy, he’s supposedly inept, a coward who’s wracked with fear and stomach cramps at the thought of confronting the enemy, and a consummate womanizer. Or in other words, the direct opposite of Bond, save maybe the last category, although Bond usually stuck to one girl per book (didn’t he?). In Understrike, Oakes strikes up dalliances with two, neither being Elizabeth, his girl friend back home.

   It must be a British thing, the sense of humor that enjoys spoofs like this, as there never was a second movie, and many of the books never had US editions. I read The Liquidator, the first in the series, long ago, so I’m relying only on the book at hand, Understrike, and no, the book didn’t quite jell with me, either.

   Oakes is a pitiful creature on one page, then (sometimes accidentally) fully capable and in charge on the next. Not having read the first one in so long, it was also never clear to me how he became a secret agent in the first place. It doesn’t seem as though it would to be a position that he’d actively seek out. There’s a story there, obviously, but without it being told in this second tale, there’s something actively missing.

   Plot line: The Russian spy apparatus has created an exact double of Boysie, down to the fear and cowardice, as it turns out, with a switch planned to be made shortly before a demonstration of a new US submarine missile off the coast of San Diego, a show of rocket power that Boysie is traveling (under some duress) across country to attend and bear witness to.

   Much hilarity is intended to follow, which sounds more sarcastic than I mean to be, but it’s a dry hilarity, British-style, and I do not mean Benny Hill, even though one hugely fortuitous bedroom switch has a large role in the proceeding. Let’s put it this way. I smiled a lot, but I did not burst out loud in guffaws.

NEXT. 2007. Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore; Peter Falk. Director: Lee Tamahori. Based on the short story “The Golden Man,” by Philip K. Dick.

   When I was growing up in the middle to late 1950s, my favorite SF author was Philip K. Dick. I was way ahead of my time, I think, because nobody I knew had ever heard of him. Then I learned of SF fandom, that would have been in the early 60s, and suddenly I wasn’t alone any more. He wasn’t everybody’s favorite author then, but in that crowd at least he was read, and his stories were talked about.

   And now, ever since the movie Blade Runner, I would imagine – I’m talking now 1982 – everybody who goes to the movies and pays attention to the authors that wrote the stories that movies are made of has heard of Philip K. Dick. He had ideas – many of them solidly paranoiac and/or hallucinogenic – ideas that no one ever had then and no one seems to have now, and often questioning the meaning of reality itself. Is the world a stage, our surrounding only sets? And so on and et cetera.

   The premise of Next is that its hero, an obscure and not very successful Las Vegas stage magician named Cris Johnson [Nicolas Cage], has the ability to see exactly two minutes into his future. Now you know and I know that this can’t be done, but given the premise, how might a man having such a ability deal with it? Superheroes, says Stan Lee, have great responsibilities. Is it not so?

   Cris Johnson tries to hide his behind the facade of his magic act, performing before small audiences in rundown clubs. So far, up to the time the movie begins, he has succeeded. But this is a crime film, a top notch action thriller – some of it choreographed so well that I had to stop the DVD, backtrack and watch it again. [Insert a small “heh” here.] The second premise at work is that a very sophisticated gang of terrorists going to set off a nuclear bomb somewhere in the Los Angeles area.

   It is difficult to know exactly what they hope to gain from this – or maybe it was explained and I missed it – but that’s OK. I have an imagination, and I can use it. It is federal agent Callie Ferriss’s job – she’s played by Julianne Moore – to convince Cris Johnson to use his ability to save the lives of eight million people. Cris Johnson is sympathetic, of course, but he knows that once he does, his life as he knows it is gone forever.

   Not only is this an action thriller, but it is also a romantic film. Jessica Biel – oh so beautiful, and he, Nicolas Cage, such a magnificent scarecrow of a man – plays Liz Cooper, and somehow she is part of Cris’s future. He knows it, and he doesn’t know how, but of course she is… Have you seen the previews? Should I tell you? No, but keep in mind that this is also an action thriller, and she is very much a part of the action…

   …as an innocent victim. I just simply have to tell you that. No one as young and innocent and beautiful as Liz Cooper is could be anything but an innocent victim in a movie.

   The men who made this film did an absolutely smashing job of making the first part of it, the first two or three acts or so. It could not have been easy task in figuring out ways to make the science-fictional premise understandable to mainstream audiences, but they did.

   Unfortunately premises such this one lead easily to all kinds of unanswered questions, and I will not bore you with mine, largely because I do not have answers to them. If you watch the movie, I suspect you will come up with as many of yours as I did, and there may not even be any overlap.

   There is another “unfortunately” coming up here in my comments on the film, and unfortunately I am running out of wind, if not space. And this one involves the ending. All movies have to have endings. I wish this one didn’t, in one sense, and in another, I wish it didn’t have the ending it has. I have the feeling that I am not alone in feeling this way.

   [LATER ON THE SAME DAY.]   I have been thinking the ending over, and feeling an inch (perhaps a foot but probably not a yard) more positive about it, I think I would like to revise my comments a bit, or add to them in this fashion. If I am right, and I now believe I am, the ending of the movie is really rather clever.

   I am naturally reluctant to say that I was wrong before, of course. The fact remains that for the kind of audience who would be most attracted to this movie, I am sure the ending will disappoint them greatly. Action-minded audiences do not enjoy being taken lightly.

   [EVEN LATER.]   I was right. After posting my comments, I went to read what some of the people on IMDB had to say. I didn’t get far. Here are three. You can go read the rest for yourselves.

    “I DON’T WANT TO IMAGINE A FILM, I WANT TO WATCH IT!!!!!”

    “I see 4-5 movies a month in a theater, but when Next ended tonight, it was the first time I’d ever heard a crowd ‘BOO’ a movie.”

    “This is the kind of movie that doesn’t seem so bad until you find out that there are people who actually liked it.”

HIGH RISK. 1981. James Brolin, Anthony Quinn, Lindsay Wagner, James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine, Bruce Davison, Cleavon Little, Chick Vennera. Written & directed by Stuart Riffill.

   Some of the people leaving comments on IMDB after viewing this film — and quite a large number of them liked it a lot — felt that the reason it did not do well at the box office at the time of its theatrical release was because of its competition. Soon after High Risk was in the theaters, along came its nemesis — Raiders of the Lost Ark.

   Hmm. On a scale of 100 for Raiders of the Lost Ark, I’d rate High Risk as a 5. No comparison. Raiders was brisk, inventive, innovative and vastly entertaining. In spite of cast of well-known names, Risk is (e) none of the above.

   The pace is sedentary in comparison; the plot rewarmed and stale; and only entertaining enough to keep me watching, which is hardly a recommendation. It does have Lindsay Wagner in it, for whom I have always kept a figurative light on in the window, but it also has Anthony Quinn. When the latter’s usual chewing of the scenery begins, it’s all but lights out for me.

   Plot: Four suburban “mercenaries,” amateurs all, led by James Brolin take a risky trip to an unnamed South American country to relieve a drug warlord (James Coburn) of some misbegotten gains, to the tune of five million dollars. In on the deal are a black (Cleavon Little), a Hispanic (Chick Vennera) and a dork (Bruce Davison), not to mention a small fluffy white dog. (Yes, certainly you may ask.)

   Of course things go wrong, and very quickly. In an adjoining jail cell is a lovely American woman convicted of smuggling drugs (Lindsay Wagner). A gang of revolutionaries turned bandits also on their trail is led by Anthony Quinn, and of course they too want the money. There is an engaging light-hearted tone to the caper until the revolutionaries appear, but once they do, you get the feeling that the people responsible for the story had run out of ideas at just about the same time.

   And lots of gunfire erupts. Lots and lots. To no avail. There’s no Indiana Jones in this bunch. Maybe they should have made Lindsay Wagner’s part larger. They really should have. And yes, I know. I’m not being fair. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest movies of all time, regardless of genre.