THE HEROES OF TELEMARK. Columbia Pictures, 1965. Also released as Anthony Mann’s The Heroes of Telemark. Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson, Michael Redgrave. Director: Anthony Mann.

   The Heroes of Telemark, directed by Anthony Mann, is both a drama and action film about the Norwegian resistance during the Second World War. Filmed on location, it is one of Mann’s (Winchester ’73, El Cid) last movies.

   Film historian Jeanine Basinger, while not oblivious to its flaws, rightly categorizes The Heroes of Telemark as “a grand, epic adventure with moments of incredible tension.” The DVD version, with its widescreen ratio, is perhaps as close as one can get at home to the experience of watching it in a movie theater.

   The film’s plot, loosely based on actual events, centers around two characters, Oslo university physicist and womanizer turned resistance fighter, Rolf Pedersen (Kirk Douglas looking consistently angry and determined) and Knut Straud (a character portrayed by Richard Harris and based on American-born Norwegian resistance leader, Knut Haukelid).

   Assisting them are Pedersen’s ex-wife, Anna (Ulla Jacobsson) and her uncle (Michael Redgrave). Their mission: to destroy a heavy water plant in the Norwegian county of Telemark that the Nazi occupying forces are utilizing in their race to develop atomic weaponry before the Allies are able to do so. The fate of the world depends upon them, and they know it.

   The Heroes of Telemark is not simply an action film. It’s also a character study of Pedersen, a reluctant hero. When we first encounter him, he’s in his laboratory in Oslo engaged in a dalliance with a student. He is initially hostile to the Resistance, blaming Straud and others for provoking Nazi retribution tactics against Norwegian civilians. He only joins the cause when he learns what the German invaders are up to in Telemark.

   Complicating matters are his still strong romantic feelings for his ex-wife (Jacobsson). Pedersen also repeatedly butts heads with Straud over the best methods by which to achieve their goals. Pedersen is much more ruthless than Straud and cares far less about so-called collateral damage. This will change by the time the film ends, with Pedersen regaining some of the humanity he lost in his ruthless fight against the Nazis. Overall, Douglas is successful in this role, even if his portrayal of the hotheaded Pedersen does begin at times to feel a bit one-dimensional.

   Aside from the strong plot, the film benefits from often stunning imagery and visuals. The scenes shot on location in Norway are quite spectacular. There are also numerous shots of bridges, motor vehicles, ships, staircases, and doorways. All of these are, of course, man-made creations that provide stark contrasts to the region’s snow covered natural beauty.

   There’s one scene in particular that merits close attention. This occurs toward the end of the film with a black train is pulling into a station, set to board a ferry. Look, in particular, for the red light shining onto the white snow, the white steam rising from the train’s engine, and the small, but noticeable yellow light at the front of the train. Little details such as these give the film an immediacy that is lacking in all too many contemporary films that rely too heavily upon special effects to deliver visual messages.

   Sound also plays a prominent role in the film, be it the aforementioned train’s whistle, the ticking of bombs, or the dripping of heavy water in the plant (also a strong visual). The buzz of the ferry’s engines, again at the end of the film, is also very noticeable.

   In conclusion, The Heroes of Telemark is worth watching. Those familiar with Alastair McLean’s oeuvre might especially appreciate it. The history of Nazi Germany’s quest to develop the atomic bomb has been largely forgotten. Yet it remains an important chapter in the history of the Second World War, along with the story of the Norwegians who sacrificed their lives and homes to stop the heavy water project.

   The Heroes of Telemark isn’t one of the best war films ever made, but it’s still a very good one.

THE ADVENTURER: THE CURSE OF THE MIDAS CUP. 2013. Anuerin Barnard, Michael Sheen, Sam Neill, Ioan Gruffudd, Lena Hedley, Catherine Hawes, Mella Carron, Xavier Atkins. Screenplay by Christian Taylor and Matthew Huffman, based on the young adult novel Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, by G. P. Taylor. Directed by Jonathan Newman.

   This is a mildly entertaining steampunk juvenile tale based on a series by G. P. Taylor, about a young lad named Mariah Mundi (Anuerin Barnard) who is at that awkward age between man and teen. The plot takes a note from Clive Cussler and James Rollins rather than Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, with the McGuffin a mysterious gold box that has the power to turn anything into gold, and Mariah a reluctant young hero forced into improvising a bit of Richard Hannaying (or should that be David Balfouring?) to find it and save his little brother who has been kidnaped by a ruthless master criminal.

   Evil Otto Luger (Sam Neill) knows the box can give life or destroy it and he wants the power along with the evil mastermind behind him, the mysterious Gomberg.

   All of which leads to London where Mariah is attending a lecture by his father along with his mother and his brother Felix (Xavier Atkins). In short order Captain Will Charity (Michael Sheen) shows up seriously wounded by Luger to warn the Mundi’s of Luger’s quest, seems he and Mariah’s parents (Ioan Gruffudd and Catherine Hawes) are secret agents for the Bureau of Antiquities, and have dealt with ruthless Otto before.

   Charity takes off (he’s always doing that then popping up at convenient times), the Mundis disappear, and Mariah and Felix are fleeing Luger’s men in their robes and night clothes before the night’s over, but not before their mother gives each of them half of an amulet and a mysterious bit of doggerel to remember.

   Charity pops in to rescue Mariah in time to save him from Luger’s men but Felix is captured, Luger now has half of the amulet, and Mariah finds himself on the way to a remote North Sea island where Luger owns the fabulous Prince Regent resort built right into the mountainous island. Mariah, disguised as a porter, is to seek Felix, and of course Charity takes a hike again. His parents he is told are most likely dead at Luger’s hand, which causes much less angst than you might expect.

   Mariah soon discovers that children on the island have been disappearing and no one ventures out after dark because of a monster. Nor is his job easy what with dodging Luger’s men who know his face, Monica (Lena Hedley) the evil female manager of the hotel, Luger himself, and a flamboyant Russian escape artist who shows up adding to the mystery.

   With Sacha (Mella Caron), a parlor maid who befriends Mariah, he begins to delve into the mystery, and soon learns Luger is looking for the Midas box beneath the hotel in the mountain. The healing waters the hotel is famous for taking their powers from the box.

   Complications pile on: Mariah makes some fair deductions and some narrow escapes with Sacha, a set of magic gypsy cards, and a suit of Midas solid gold armor fit into the plot, two other mysterious men show up also working undercover, and just as Mariah seems about to discover the islands secret Charity appears (two guesses as who) and everything falls apart when he is discovered.

   Mariah finds Felix and solves the mystery of the monster (you should be far ahead of him on most of this), but now Sacha is in danger too, Luger has both pieces of the amulet and the gold box, Felix is trapped in a tomb filling with water. Luger and the manager plan to gas them all and the other children forced to dig for the box in tight quarters, and even though the Bureau of Antiquities shows up they are no match for the mysterious box and the power that once destroyed Midas enemies.

   You know Mariah will defeat Luger seeing to it that he meets an appropriately grisly end with the aid of that bit of doggerel his mother whispered to him, and Sacha’s drunken father will save her, dying with the evil manageress Monica. All is well, Mariah, Felix, and Sacha receive medals, Mariah asks Sacha to live with them, and they are told the Bureau may call on them again.

   For now, Charity informs them, he is hunting Mariah’s living but missing parents and Gomberg, and Mariah has done “very well.”

   Roll the credits — but wait, there is still one revelation left, one so mind-numbingly stupid — I say stupid, but so stupid as to almost be brilliant — as to leave you stunned, but handled quite well, and certainly enough to get you to buy the next book or rent the next movie or at least take a peek in the bookstore.

   It’s all playful and fairly inventive, a bit plot heavy and deliberate for today’s youthful audiences, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence, not until the last scene anyway. Fan’s of the books must have been pleased. It’s another film you will want to Netflix or Redbox rather than buy, but you likely will want to see it.

   Barnard as Mariah is quite good and he fits the books illustrations well; with the right roles he might even develop as a popular actor. Neill has a fine time as Luger in one of his last roles, and Michael Sheen has fun as the extravagant Will Charity though none have more than one dimension or much chance to do more than sketch in their characters. The cast is uniformly good as are the special effects and sets, especially the hotel’s generators. You may wonder why they wasted Ioan Gruffudd (Horatio Hornblower) in such a minor role, but they really didn’t — but that’s for the sequel.

   I may at least check out the books, and the film is entertaining. Though the start was a bit slow I liked it quite a bit, and wouldn’t mind seeing the sequel with the same cast and credits. It’s no match for the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or the Series of Unfortunate Events films, but for what it is it is handled well.

   It’s actually better than this review, but I don’t want to mislead you. It’s an old fashioned adventure story owing more to Stevenson and Buchan than Rowling or Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider, and depending on your taste for that type tale, you will either love it or be entirely indifferent to it. It reminded me of the kind of thing Robert Lewis Taylor (The Travels of Jamie McPheeter and The Treasure of Matacumbe) used to write though not as brilliant or complex, or a juvenile version of some of Macdonald Hastings odder adventure stories. The chief difference being that there is no Alan Breck or Long John Silver character with dubious motives to spice things up. If, like me, you like that future-past genre of steampunk adventure and classic adventure tales, this is right up your alley.

   If not, you may find it formulaic, and old-fashioned. It all depends on your fancy for this genre of adventure films. There is something missing here I can’t quite lay my hands on, but it may be as simple as the film is done by rote, and there is no real passion for the story as in the Harry Potter films.

   It’s not enough to make a good movie of something like this, you have to love the material and the magic of bringing it to the screen. Without that it is basically a minor A or superior B adventure film and nothing more.

   Classics are made when that extra element is present.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC. 2010. First released in France as Les aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec. Louise Bourgon. Mathieu Amalric, Gilles Lellouche, Jean-Paul Rouve, Jacky Necessian, Philip Nahon, Nicolas Giraud, Laure de Clermont. Written and directed by Luc Beeson, based on the comic albums by Jacques Tardi.

   Cartoonist Jacques Tardi is likely best known at this site for his iconic adaptation of Leo Malet’s hardboiled sleuth Nestor Burma to graphic form, but long before that he put pencil to paper to record the adventures of Mam’zelle Adele Blanc-Sec. early 20th century reporter, adventuress, and proto feminist extraordinaire.

   And like the dry white wine she is named for Adele has snap and bite, a tall red haired lovely dreadnought ploughing all before her beneath her wake. She’s a lady on a mission, and nothing and no one will distract her.

   Droll is the best way to describe this charming film which you may compare to The Assassination Bureau and Dinner for Adele (Nick Carter in Prague), two other charming forays in the early 20th century as seen through its popular literature and rose- colored glasses.

   Bear with me as I try to describe the plot, though it is no easy task. In Paris Professor Esperandieu (Jacky Necessian) is experimenting with his power to project his mind when he awakens a pterodactyl in an egg in a museum in Paris. The new born escapes and promptly tries to eat the newly named Foreign Minister, who dies with his showgirl mistress in the Seine when his car is attacked.

   Across town Inspector Caponi (Gilles Lellouche) is assigned to the case of the Minister and the pterodactyl and young scientist Zborowsky (Nicolas Giraud), who has a crush on reporter and author of Le Monstre du Glaces, Adele Blanc-Sec, and his mentor Professor Menard (Phillipe Nahon) have discovered their pterodactyl egg has hatched, a fact they would just as soon not share with Caponi so they put him onto Esperandieu as an expert in the Jurassic era.

   Adele is busy in Egypt where she is stealing the mummy of Rameses II’s physician Patmosis despite double crossing native partners and her ruthless nemesis Professor Dieulveult (Mathieu Amaric). She won’t be deterred though, her sister Agathe needs care only the physician Patmosis can provide, and she is determined to return to Paris with his body where Esperandieu will awaken him to cure Agathe.

   Adele outwits her greedy partners and escapes Dieulveult with the mummy in spectacular manner while piloting his coffin down the Nile.

   Back in Paris as Adele is returning home with Patmosis, the government has summoned big game hunter Saint Hubert (Jean-Paul Rouve) to dispatch the pterodactyl and Esperandieu has been arrested and is about to be executed for his role in the minister’s death.

   Still with me?

   Now Adele has to rescue Esperandieu, awaken Patmosis, and save Agathe, who has a hat pin skewering her head and is in a trance-like state, thanks to a particularly savage return by Adele in a heated tennis game five years earlier.

   While Saint Hubert and a reluctant and hungry Caponi seek the pterodactyl, Zoborowski lures the pterodactyl back to the museum, and a frustrated Adele attempts time after time to help Esperandieu escape.

   One false move or note, and this kind of froth can fall completely apart, but writer director Luc Beeson (The Professional, La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element among others) keeps it moving like a clockwork and gets more than able support from his flawless cast, including his lead, Louise Bourgon — the image of Tardi’s Adele, if even more formidable.

   And if she can’t rescue Esperandieu any other way she will break him out with the help of the pterodactyl as she rides it across the Paris skyline.

   Even awakening Patmosis turns out to be less than helpful when it turns out he is nuclear physicist and not a physician, but a tour of Rameses II’s mummy and his court is at the Louvre, and the power Esperandieu used to revive Patmosis before he died (he was psychically linked to the pterodactyl who suffered a fatal wound from Saint Hubert) may have awakened Rameses and his court including the physician.

   All she has to do is break into the Louvre with Agathe in a wheelchair and Patmosis re-animated mummy in a bowler hat and suit.

   This clever and playful film walks a fine line between farce and fantastic adventure , by turns dime novel, silent serial, and gentle satire without ever murdering the delicate mood that calls for with a false move or step. Bourgon, in particular, as our heroine manages a fine balance between outspoken modern woman, brilliant adventuress, and vulnerable sister who only wants to atone for her mistake.

   This won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoyed The Assassination Bureau, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Great Race, or Dinner with Adele, you will likely be delighted by this one.

   And there is one joke, as dry as Adele’s name, that is worth the whole film when the awakened Rameses, admiring the courtyard of the Louvre notes it could use a pyramid.

   Now why didn’t the French think of that?

   The film ends on a perfect note as the lovestruck Zoborowski meets the revived Agathe and finds a new romance, and an exhausted Adele prepares to sail on a well deserved vacation — pursued by Dieulveult’s assassins — as her ship — the Titanic — sails …

   Granted the CGI is a bit rocky here and there though more realistic would likely have ruined the look and character of the film. The special effects aren’t there to take away from the story anyway, but only to enhance it. Whatever else, this film, dedicated to Tardi, is tribute to his talent as artist and storyteller.

   I warn you though, I haven’t done it justice, I don’t think any review could.

ISLE OF MISSING MEN. Monogram, 1942. John Howard, Helen Gilbert, Gilbert Roland, Alan Mowbray, Bradley Page. Screenplay by Richard Oswald and Robert Chapin from a play by Ladislav Fodor. Directed by Richard Oswald.

   An unexpectedly classy thing to come from Hollywood’s second-most-beggarly studio of the 1940s, thanks mainly to a literate story from Ladislav Fodor (who gave us Tales of Manhattan and Kiss Before the Mirror), evocative camerawork from Paul Ivano (of Universal’s Sherlock Holmes series), and a surprisingly sumptuous cast for a Monogram film.

   John Howard, from Paramount’s “Bulldog Drummond” series headlines as the governor of a prison island somewhere in the tropics returning to work from vacation who meets a lovely woman (Helen Gilbert) on board the ship taking him back and persuades her to stop over on the island for a few days so they can get to know each other.

   Turns out the lady in question has an agenda of her own and has deliberately wangled the invitation to the island prison to help her husband (Gilbert Roland, then at the nadir of his career) escape. Dramatic complications ensue when she discovers that he is no longer the gentle, loving man she married, and, later, that he never was, really.

   Meanwhile, other complications are busy ensuing, including Howard’s officious lieutenant (Bradley Page) who feels duty-bound to check up on Miss Gilbert’s background, and Alan Mowbray’s delightful comic/pathetic drunken doctor, compelled by his love of beauty to help her in what he knows is an ill-advised scheme.

   All this spins out in a little over an hour, and if the ending seems to lack punch, the surprising depth of characterization makes the trip worthwhile. Director Oswald (father of Gerd Oswald, of the old Outer Limits show) did some interesting work back in pre-Hitler Germany, then fled to the U.S. where his career never got out of the “B” picture rut. His work here shows genuine sensitivity.

   Similarly, Bradley Page was a perennial second-string movie bad-guy who deserved better; in fact his easy-going outlaw in The Outcasts of Poker Flat (RKO, 1937) deserves a place in Western Movie lore that somehow slipped between the hoofprints.

   John Howard was forever stuck in place as the low-budget Ronald Colman, and Gilbert Roland ended up a respected character actor, but the real treasure here is Helen Gilbert. Miss Gilbert (whose many husbands included composer Mischa Bakaleinikoff and gangster Johnny Stompanato) simply radiates a sensuality that even a low-wattage movie like this cannot dim, the sort of thing one sees in actresses like Dietrich and Moreau, who had big studio resources to back them up. Her luminous presence here is just the foremost pleasure of a film that deserves seeing.

YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON. China Film Co-production / Huayi Brothers Media, 2013. Original title: Di renjie: Shen du long wang. Mark Chao, Feng Shaofeng, Angelbaby, Lin Gengxin, Carina Lsu, Kim Bum. Screenplay: Kuo-fu Chen, loosely based on the historical Judge Dee. Director: Tsui Hark.

   Judge Dee, the historical 7th century Chinese magistrate brought to the western world by Robert Van Gulik, was a figure of myth and folklore in Chinese literature, though nothing quite like the Detective Dee we see here and in Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, the 2010 film this is a prequel to.

   The Dee of Chinese folklore is a cross between Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, Uncle Abner, James Bond (he’s quite a ladies’ man), Daniel Webster, and Abe Lincoln. Detective Dee is closer to Ellery Queen as played by Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan as Charlie Chan. (*)

   Here Dee Renjie (Mark Chao replacing Andy Lau in the first film) has been dispatched from the province of Bing to join the Dai Lisi, the imperial investigative service in Luoyang, the holy city of the Tang Dynasty in 665 AD, and it’s an inopportune time to arrive with Empress Wu Zeitian (Carina Lau returning from Phantom Flame) wrapping the Emperor around her little finger, a war with a far off province, trouble being stirred by the Dondo islanders, and the Imperial Fleet at the bottom of the Pacific thanks to a sea dragon.

   Then there is Yin Ruiji (Angelbaby, and well named), the beautiful courtesan wanted by every nobleman in China, hated by the jealous empress, chosen by the people to fast and pray for deliverance from the sea dragon, and incidentally the target of two different kidnap plots and a mysterious sea creature that appears to be half man, half fish.

   She is also in love with a commoner Mr. Khen (Kim Bum) who owns an exclusive tea shop that caters to the imperial court with a tea blend made only for the nobility, and who disappeared six months earlier.

   Just a typical day in a great detective’s life.

   If you know the films of Tsui Hark (A Better Tomorrow, A Chinese Ghost Story, Once Upon A Time in China) you know they well be hauntingly beautiful to watch, the action will be relentless, the camera work and photographic effects spectacular, the wire work exceptional. Tsui Hark’s films are extraordinary visions, thought the plots are sometimes as complex as a Chinese puzzle box.

   Young Dee has no learning curve, he is introduced fully blown watching a procession by the locals to enthrone Yin Ruiji to drive away the sea dragon. It is also the first time he spots the Chief Minster of the Dai Lisi, Yuichi Zhenjin (Feng Shaofeng) whose life and career are on line with the Empress if he does not solve the mystery of the sea dragon. The friendship/rivalry between Dee and Yuichi is the basis for much of the films inner tension as Yuichi’s skill, rank, and experience are more than matched by Dee’s brilliance and audacity.

   When Dee uncovers an attempt to kidnap Yin and foils it he finds himself fighting two sets of kidnapers, ordinary criminals, and a water creature of incredible power. Joined by Yuichi Dee ends up imprisoned where he meets Shatuo Zhong (Lin Gengxin) a young surgeon apprenticed to the Imperial Dr. and soon to be Watson to Dee’s Holmes.

   Dee’s escape to prevent a second attempt on Yin will team him with a reluctant Yuichi as they fend off Dondo islanders behind the attempt, and Dee recognizes that it is not Yin, but the creature they are after. When Yin reveals the the monster is really her lover, Yuan Dee must capture him and try to cure him to solve the mystery.

   Yuan was poisoned by a parasite that made him into a monster, and the parasite has been placed by the Prince of the Dondo into the special tea made by the tea master. All of the court including the Emperor have been poisoned.

   The plot grows more complex as the empress dislike of Yin, who comes from a warring province, leads to her life being endangered, and it becomes clear the Dondo prince has created and trained a mighty sea dragon and plans to invade and crush the Tang Dynasty. Dee and Yuichi must race to find the island fortress of the Dondo and destroy them or the empress will execute Yin.

   This leads to a terrific vertiginous four-way fight between Dee, Yuichi, and Shatuo against the armored Prince hanging from cliffs far above the hideout where the sea dragon is hidden. The death of the prince isn’t the end though, as they have to survive the voyage home and an attack by the giant beast, a sort of giant flying manta that previously sank the entire Chinese fleet.

   This epic is entertaining, and mystery fans will enjoy Dee’s Holmesian moments when he gets to display his talents as sleuth with brilliant deductions. There are some nice photographic effects illustrating how Dee’s mind works in observing and deducting.

   Other than the name, this has little to do with the historical Dee or Van Gulik’s version of the tales, but is an entertaining, full color, and apparently 3-D epic in and of itself. Some of the CGI isn’t all that good, but it is made up for by the imaginative camera effects and director Tsui Hark’s skilled hand at this sort of thing. The wire work is well choreographed, and the actors easily recognizable.

   The film ends with the Emperor presenting Dee with the mace of justice, the symbol that he is the the sword of justice for the kingdom, even to the misbehavior of the imperial family (a fact not appreciated by the ambitious Empress Wu).

   The film is fast-paced, action-filled, intriguing, and an interesting blend of summer blockbuster and detective story — replete with dragons, monsters, a tender beauty and the beast story, and two mad scientists. Both this and the first film are worth seeing for the spectacle and the sheer fun. Depending on how you feel about Hark’s better known work you will almost certainly enjoy this one.

(*) If anything, this reminded me a little of Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandor novels, though more fantastical.

SUBMARINE. Columbia, 1928. Silent film with sound effects. Jack Holt, Dorothy Revier, Ralph Graves, Clarence Burton, Arthur Rankin. Director: Frank Capra. Shown at Cinefest 26, Syracuse NY, March 2006.

   Ace deep-sea diver Jack Dorgan (Jack Holt) marries a woman he meets at a dancehall (Bessie, played by Dorothy Revier). When he’s called to work, Bessie, bored, goes out and meets Bob Mason (Ralph Graves), who, unknown to her, is Jack’s best friend.

   Jack returns unexpectedly, finds the two together and throws Bob out of the house. When Bob is trapped in a sunken submarine, Jack, the only diver who might be able to reach the sub, sulks at home, unwilling to help the man who betrayed his friendship. A chance discovery reveals Bessie’s duplicity and Jack races to the rescue of the crew.

   According to the program notes, this was Columbia’s first “A” picture, and Capra was brought on after Harry Cohn fired the original director. Capra obtains the assistance of the Navy, shooting on location in San Pedro with 100 Navy seamen as extras.

   The last third of the film keeps cutting from the trapped seamen to the rescue attempt, with the tension building until the final minutes of the film. Capra’s skill with actors makes the shopworn triangle believable and Holt, one of my two favorite actors when I was a kid (the other was Buck Jones), is every boy’s idea of a resourceful hero.

   Graves, hardly remembered today, is almost as good as Holt, and Revier is perfect as the girl you love to hate.

NORTH WEST FRONTIER. The Rank Organisation, UK, 1959. US title: Flame Over India. Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White, I. S. Johar, Ian Hunter. Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

   Set your movie on a train and you already have my attention. Make one of the classic action films of all time with a first rate cast and superb tension from an expert at directing action and suspense (Cape Fear, The Guns of Navarone) *, and you have a first rate film shot in gorgeous color and on location.

   Kenneth More is a British officer in command of a small troop of Sikhs in an isolated kingdom on India’s rugged outlaw ridden northwest frontier. A rebellion has broken out against the local Maharajah, and the British consul (Ian Hunter) wants More to get a group of Europeans trapped in the palace out safely — and along with them, the Maharajah’s young son and his American tutor (Lauren Bacall).

   Among the European’s are a Dutch journalist with Indian blood (Lom), a garrulous older man (Hyde-White), a gun runner, and a redoubtable older Englishwoman. Their only means of escape an aging train engine, her Indian driver (I. S. Johar), one coal car, a flat car, and a passenger car.

   Film goers used to today’s frenetically paced films will find the fact this one bothers to stop to develop character, build an intriguing relationship between professional soldier More and doubting American Bacall, and establish the other characters as well, a bit slow, but even they will be impressed by the action sequences beginning with the breakout from the surrounded palace in the train and including running gun fights, a perilously damaged bridge across a precipitous gorge, and a final full out assault by hordes of tribesmen on horseback while a traitor in their midst pins the passengers and soldiers down with a .50 caliber machine gun he has taken over.

   More and Bacall have real spark together, Lom provides both menace and depth, and Hyde White is his usual charming self, but the real surprise of the film is Johar, who takes what could be a stereotyped local and gives him both real courage, strength, determination, and character. Both he, and through him the aging train engine he loves, become compelling characters in the film.

   He takes what could be an embarrassing and potentially racist stereotype and gives him dignity and humanity.

   The film isn’t an old fashioned paean to the Raj though, in the Gunga Din or Lives of the Bengal Lancers tradition. It asks questions, and while it is unstinting in its admiration for More’s professional soldier, it, and Bacall’s character, bring up the question of what right he or the British Empire has there. And More is no superman, but a tough wry professional, limited perhaps in his devotion to his duty, but also human, canny, good humored, and courageous.

   This is a stunningly photographed film with an intelligent script and a real sense of the time and the place.

   One scene in particular in a crowded engine room while a rickety and dangerously open donkey engine runs the pumps to water the train’s engine while Lom is left alone with the prince is splendidly shot and guaranteed to get you on the edge of your seat.

   Within the confines of an action packed thriller it takes on questions of race, fanaticism, duty, freedom, and individual courage without ever faltering in the line of suspense and action or brushing the questions it asks off with simple answers.

   In relation to what has been happening in the Middle East in recent years it may be as pertinent as ever.

   Granted, despite the best efforts of all concerned there isn’t a lot of doubt who the villain proves to be, but that said, he is given both dignity and depth. You may be pulling for him to fail and cheering for the heroes to escape, but you can’t ignore his points or his own plight. All the major characters are presented as real humans rising or failing to rise in a crisis, not as mere plot points.

   And the film manages to end on a nice note of irony — a recognition that an era was coming to an end and a new world being born. It’s the perfect coda to a first class adventure film and a fine study of people caught in desperate circumstances and showing grace under pressure.

    * Sadly Thompson did not live up to his early films and ended up hacking out some tired and unimpressive Charles Bronson films late in his career.

JACK REACHER. Paramount Pictures, 2013. Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, Robert Duvall, David Oyelowo. Based on the novel One Shot by Lee Child. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie (also screenplay).

   Who was that masked man?

   Actually he’s Jack Reacher, hero of a series of books by British television writer Lee Child, a cross between Travis McGee, Mike Hammer, and. yes, the Lone Ranger. Here he’s played by super star Tom Cruise. Reacher really isn’t a hero, he’s a sociopath gone off the grid out of paranoia and what fits every definition of schizo effective disorder ever penned, whose tarnished armor should be replaced by a strait jacket.

   Unlike both McGee and Hammer Reacher has no self recognition, no dark nights of the soul when he questions himself or his motives. He’s a sociopath incapable of examining his own motives, actions, or morality. Showtime’s Dexter is better balanced and he’s a serial killer.

   Confession time before I go any farther. I find the Reacher books appallingly written, inauthentic, badly researched, and universally stupid. I don’t like them much either. Child is the type writer who thinks he sounds like an American if he uses “guy” twenty to thirty times on the same page.

   He makes huge gaping mistakes like putting a military base in Dallas (save for the Naval Air Station, Dallas never had a base — ever — not at all — not even in WW II), and going on for an entire book about how ineffective a .38 caliber gun is and then praising the 9mm automatic. The .38 and the 9mm are damn near the same thing (9 mm is .35 inches — you would think a Brit would know the metric system), he also seems ignorant of the fact that the .38 revolver is one of the most efficient hand guns ever made.

   If he thinks getting shot by a .38 is nothing he should recall what a .22 did to President Reagan. In another book the Secret Service hires him to stalk the Vice President like a real assassin — this despite the fact he is homeless loner living off the grid. No trouble buying that plot. These things add up over time.

   I’m not a gun nut, and better writers than Child have made such mistakes (Ian Fleming for one), but they don’t rant for three hundred pages about it, and they didn’t have the Internet at their fingertips.

   This is symptomatic of the problems I have with Child and the movie made from his book. There is nothing original, nothing new, nothing period. This isn’t up to the level of the generic paperback series of my youth or the later Men’s Action series.

   I promise you Mack Bolan knew what gun he was using whether he knew syntax or not. This isn’t as good as run of the mill series television from that era either. The plot pretty much is run of the mill television.

   In addition Reacher is a huge pain in the ass, always right, always the smartest, toughest, most ‘perfectest’ hero in the game. He’s so perfect he gives me dyspepsia. Casting Tom Cruise in the role didn’t help things much, humility is not one of his stronger acting skills.

   Confession Part deux, I’m no Cruise fan. I particularly don’t like him when he tries to play a flawless hero, but he can be great when he either laughs at himself (Knight and Day) or allows his hero to be human.

   He’s much better in films like the Mission Impossible series (his character in these films differs from Reacher in that he is usually fighting great odds with his life or that of his loved ones at stake), Minority Report, Risky Business, Rain Man, or Born on the Fourth of July playing fallible humans often battling huge odds, heroes struggling to reclaim their lives, or men struggling with difficult moral problems with a flawed character.

At least in Top Gun his character had something to be arrogant about in a profession that calls for more than a little over confidence, and it was only a little exaggerated about what personalities make great fighter pilots.

   As Jack Reacher he doesn’t make the ‘guy’ heroic or iconic, he plays him as a horses rear, a rude creepy loner who has watched too many James Dean movies without noticing the humanity under Dean’s cool. You’ll be excused if you root for the villain.

   At the point where the great Robert Duvall comes in as a colorful aging gun dealer playing Tonto to Reacher’s Lone Ranger in a terribly written role, the patter between the two actors will make you remember the Bowery Boys fondly. God awful is the only description I can give of it. I hope at least Duvall got a bundle for it. Something good should come from this movie.

   Joe Kraemer’s score did win an award and the trailer was great, but the movie, not so much. It had a great opening weekend in theaters, but in the end didn’t bring in that much more than it cost ($20 million is not considered a profit in Hollywood these days, not the way they calculate it), so audiences do have taste and word of mouth lives.

   The plot is incredibly cliched, obvious, and plain silly. The screenplay and book were apparently written by Marconi, because every twist and turn is telegraphed with the subtly of a hammer on an anvil.

   Former army sniper James Barr (Joseph Siroka) stands accused of a killing spree and calls on Reacher, a former MP who once proved Barr murdered four people in Afghanistan but couldn’t nail him because the army needed a hero. Reacher would be perfectly happy to see Barr dead, but he agrees to work with Barr’s lawyer Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) who just happens to be the prosecutor’s daughter and has daddy issues.

   She and Reacher semi flirt, but it is so lead footed there is never any question of them getting together. Pike is attractive, and shows a bit of cleavage, but it’s not enough to keep you sitting through this. She does what she can with nothing much to work with. A better movie would have dropped Reacher and focused on her more interesting character, but then you have to explain the title.

   David Oyelowo isn’t bad as the assassin Reacher battles, but he has nothing to work with. Maybe in a later movie we’ll see what he can do. Werner Herzog does creepy great, but it’s too little too late.

   Reacher is of course devastating with women, and a devastating wit. as this little exchange will show.

            Girl (Alea Fast): Mind if I share your table, I’m Sandy.

            Reacher: “So was I last week at the beach.

   What Shavian wit. James Bond will have to retire his Bond mots. How can you top wit like that? I don’t know how Cruise delivered the line without laughing — or crying. That is pitifully bad, but then most of this film is.

   John Gardner, the American one, wrote in an essay about what he called Dis-Pollyanna, an unearned cynical pose assumed by people with no life experience to base that cynicism on. That’s Child. It’s second hand life picked up from books, television, and movies not experience. It’s imitative of people who earned that voice like his models John D. MacDonald and Mickey Spillane, but theirs was real coming from their lives. Child’s is coming from episodes of Magnum P.I. (but not as well written or directed, much less acted). Peter Cheyney’s Lemmie Caution was more authentic, and Lemmie was at least funny. Reacher is just depressing.

   I won’t give away the plot save to say it is incredibly hackneyed, a plot device so old Street and Smith would have hesitated to put Nick Carter through it in the Nickel Library. Worse still, it is ineptly done. The second hand action scenes have been done better on television and the car chases were better choreographed on Rockford Files and Mannix.

   There is one line that defines the film perfectly: “It’s grassy knoll ridiculous.”

   As played by Tom Cruise in this disaster of a film Jack Reacher lacks the substance of corrugated cardboard.

   Reacher even puts down his gun when he has the bad guy dead to rights to fight him hand to hand when Helen Roden is still hostage to a man who has orchestrated countless murders.

   Didn’t these people learn anything from Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Who is he, Roy Rogers? No, I apologize to Roy, he never pulled a boner like that while there was a gun at Dale’s head.

   This cost me $1.20 to rent from a Redbox kiosk. I was cheated. Don’t you be, this was even worse than the last Die Hard movie, and that was one of the worst blockbusters of the year.

   Flat, cliched, obvious, poorly written, with no real action, drama, or characters to root for, this is a painfully bad movie with a plot they would have rejected for an episode of The Dukes of Hazard.

   And it is exactly the movie Jack Reacher and Lee Child deserved, but not their fans who deserve much more than this cynically made half-hearted effort at starting another franchise for Cruise. Nothing much happens in the film and what does happen is pretty inept.

   I can’t even recommend this as a good bad movie, it’s not enough fun to even laugh at.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. RKO Radio Pictures, 1932. Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Leslie Banks, Noble Johnson. Based on the story by Richard Connell. Directors: Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Schoedsack.

   I caught Danger: Diabolik a week or so ago and enjoyed it but wasn’t overwhelmed, despite all the talk about it being just like a comic book on film. If you want a movie that looks like a 60s comic book, try Deadlier Than the Male, with Richard Johnson as Bulldog Drummond battling Elke Sommer. Some real Batman-sty!e visuals here.

   Anyway, the extra features on the Diabolik DVD said a lot about making the movie look like a fumetti, which rang a bell, so I pulled out my tape of The Most Dangerous Game, and I have to say every frame looks like it was ripped from the cover of an old pulp magazine, dyed Black & White, and flung across the screen.

   Splendid sets, atmospheric lighting, fast pace, and as I say, the constant lurid imagery. There’s a bit where Joel McCrae is in the dungeon freeing Faye Wray when a Chinese guy comes at them with a hatchet and McCrae turns and shoots him in one smooth motion. That image, of Wray in bondage, McCrae blasting away at the hatchet man amid the Gothic surroundings … well, it’s just one of thousands in this pulp-cover film.

   I also want to add a word about Leslie Banks as the villain. Brilliant. It would have easy to play Count Zaroff as just suave and sadistic, but Banks adds a subtle layer of Twit. His Zaroff boasts and preens and leers, but there’s a hint of insecurity in his shifty eyes, a nervousness in the mouth…

   It’s the same look one used to see on those pathetic and obviously chemical-dependent play-actor “sadists” in the old bondage films, or the face one saw on former President Bush when he talked about executions, and it adds a dimension to the part that goes way beyond its pulp-paper charms.

THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER. General Film Distributors, UK, 1950; Eagle-Lion Classics, US, 1951. Trevor Howard, Anouk (Aimée), Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Walter Rilla, Miles Mallenson, Jacques Sernas, Peter Copely Screenplay: Ronald Neame, Leslie Storm & Victor Canning, based on the latter’s novel. Cinematography: Oswald Morris. Director: Ronald Neame.

   â€œWe are given eyes, but not without the wisdom to keep them shut.” : Aribe (Peter Copely) to archaeologist David Redfern (Trevor Howard).

   David Redfern is a British archaeologist sent to Tunis to recover Etruscan art treasures washed ashore years earlier in a storm, and now in the cellar of Serafis (Walter Rilla), a wealthy man who lives in the villa Ben Negro in the small village of Kabarta on the coast. For Redfern it promises to be a nice trip, an interesting job of cataloging and repacking the treasures, and a few weeks of sun and fishing in between.

   His arrival is none to promising though, in a driving rain storm and on a narrow rocky road, he runs into a rock-fall blocking the road. Nothing for it but to foot it to Kabarta in the driving rain and the cafe/inn where he has a reservation. But on the other side of the rock-fall he spies a wrecked lorry — and carrying a cargo of Browning automatic pistols. Gun runners.

   When he hears another lorry coming Redfern decides not to get involved and watches from a grove of cork trees near the road. Two men get out of the lorry, Herbert Lom, and Jacques Sernas. Redfern decides to stay out of it though. A little gun running is none of his business. He hikes to the cafe where he meets piano player Agno (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and the beautiful French expatriate owner, Anne Tabu (Anouk) to whom he is immediately attracted. It promises to be a good trip after all.

   The next day he meets Serafis (Walter Rilla), a charming type happy to be rid of the treasures he has been guarding, and Douvet (Miles Mallinson) the local police chief. He has almost forgotten the lorry and the guns until the two men come in the cafe — one Rankl (Lom) and the other Max (Sernas), Anne’s brother.

   There were many fine writers of adventure and suspense in the late forties and well into the eighties, names like Hammond Innes, later Gavin Lyall, Alan Williams, Alistair Maclean, but there was always something more to Canning, a weight, almost a gravity, to his grounded professional heroes, reluctant perhaps, but capable and when needed ruthless.

   Though Canning’s novels became darker, especially about the security services, his capable and professional heroes only grew deeper. Even the hapless vicar in The Great Adventure turns out to be adept at crime and skullduggery. Eric Ambler and Graham Greene’s trapped and often foolish heroes weren’t for him. A Canning hero is always a professional man, engineer, archaeologist, reporter, ships captain, private detective, spy …

   And perhaps because Canning began as a novelist rather than a thriller writer his books had something more, an indefinable quality that you could distinguish in only a few pages. His books were vivid and cinematic, but never at the expense of character or style.

   David Redfern is a typical Canning hero, and facing a typical Canning dilemma: are we responsible to confront evil, or only spectators who should, as Aribe the Arab worker suggests, keep our eyes shut. Among the Etruscan artifacts is a golden salamander and on it engraved: “Not by ignoring evil does one overcome it, but by going to meet it.” The two sides of the coin, alpha omega, become part of the evil by denying it exists, or confront it and risk the consequences.

   Falling for Anne and admiring her brother’s art and devotion to his sister is the difference for Redfern, the weight on the scale, he offers Max a way out — passage to France, and work as an artist, and Max accepts.

   Small actions have big repercussions. A few days later David and Anna spend a day fishing and swim at the beach — where they find Max’s weighted body, murdered by Rankl.

   Guilty and angry David decides to go to the authorities, but Douvet is a pawn of the conspiracy, the phone lines are down to Tunis, and even the mail is controlled By Douvet’s mistress. Finally he goes to Sernas for help, only to find Sernas is the leader of the criminals and plans for David to have an ‘accident’ at the towns big yearly boar hunt the next day. With only Anne on his side he’s hopeless. Even Agno is part of it.

   But Agno has weakness other than absinthe — he loves Anna and Max.

   Location shooting, Neame’s sure hand directing suspense films (David Lean was once his editor), the cinematography by Oswald Morris, camera work by cinematographer and director Freddie Francis, and a fine cast combine for a truly enjoyable adventure, slow to build, but with a fine chase at the end. This is the traditional adventure film, not an endless concussive assault of constant action, but actual characters with inner lives and difficult choices to make.

   Lom is at his slimy best, and manages to even slip a hint of an unhealthy obsession about Max into his meaningful glances, Rilla, always a smooth villain in the Claude Rains mode brings a fine sinister streak to Serafis bluffing a playing up to the last moment, and Hyde-White, different than you usually see him as Agno, the absinthe addicted piano player who observes even participates in conspiracy, but will only go so far, gives a fine little performance looking quite different than you likely picture him.

   Anouk is a revelation here. Wearing little makeup and playing as a sensual innocent she has something of the freshness and promise of a young Ingrid Bergman. You can see why Redfern falls in love with her innocent rather melancholy Anne, and why a man would confront dragons for her — or even salamanders. She is well matched with Howard whose presence as a leading man was as assured as his later character roles.

   Howard did several films in this vein in this period, Malaga (with Dorothy Dandridge), They Made Me a Criminal, the Archers The Adventuress, and the legendary The Clouded Yellow. Neame’s experience in this genre dates back to the fine thriller Take My Life based on Winston Graham’s novel in the thirties and he was adept in other genres as well. It was a natural collaboration.

   This solid entertaining thriller isn’t all that well known, but deserves better. You can watch it online at several movie sites (most requiring a paid subscription), and the print is a good clean one. Catch it and see how effortless they used to make it look. This is a fine example of the British thriller at its near best, and a fine adaptation of one of Victor Canning’s best.