Tuesday 8 February 2011

2013 Three more John Wayne's. a Gangster movies and one without a title

I am having a lazy lay in day because I felt like it.

I had intended to combine my notes on True Grit with Fort Apache the second John Wayne film experienced once more over the weekend together with the third film The High and Mighty. I came over tired and decided to recommence the following morning. It was only then that I saw that the sequel to True Grit was showing during the day. The ingredients are much the same in that Rooster lives with his cat at the store of the man from China. However his constant state of inebriation has led to losing his main means of employment with the consequence he has to take on commissions.

His job is to track and capture a gang who have terrorised a village in the Indian Territory, killing an aged preacher whose spinster daughter is played by Katherine Hepburn in a reprise of her role in the African Queen. The two assisted by an Indian young man no more than a boy managed to capture a wagon which the gang want because it contains a Gatlin gun and cases of nitro-glycerine. The trio appear to be cornered at their overnight camp but manage to spook the horses of the gang and contrary to expectations are able to use the Gatlin Gun because of the prior knowledge of the missionary’s daughter who is also a great shot.

Their next obstacle is when they borrow a cross river raft to go down stream and they over come the eight men of the gang in three confrontations and also overcome the white water rapids. They persuade the last four to come towards the raft claiming that Rooster is badly wounded and having released some of the cases of nitro in the water ahead of them. These Wayne ignites blowing the remaining men to pieces. This may well seem a great end but Roster had agreed to bring the men back to be tried before bible quoting Judge Parker without killing them if he was to be trusted to be reinstated. Fortunately the Judge is no match for Hepburn who is able quote the bible back at the judge(John McIntire) with greater dexterity but what clinches the argument is when she claims to have been responsible for the killing and not Rooster, subsequently quoting again that the end justifies the means, which of course it rarely does and never if the means are similar to those which the end is seeking to remedy.

Hepburn off with the Indian boy back to help the village recover from its recent trauma and has the last word over Wayne as he goes back to his old job. They both have complimentary things to say to each other but as with the first film words of affection is the closest they get to a relationship. This was the last but one film Wayne was to make before his death.

The third film, Fort Apache is the first part of a John Ford Cavalry trilogy with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande, This 1948 film is reputed to have been the first to begin to show the true story of what happened to the North American indigenous population as the new arrivals exploited, slaughtered, manipulated, deprived and betrayed one way or another the land owners and nationals for their own betterment and greed. What the European settles was no different from the Nazi and Communist occupations in Europe in the last century There was much applause with the election of President Obama to the White House. The real challenge is for a native American to be elected.

The story of the film is the clash between a Captain (John Wayne) as an experienced officer having commanded his own regiment in the civil war, overlooked for the command of an isolated outpost by a northern West Point graduate Lieutenant Colonel and Civil War General (Henry Fonda). The problem is that Fonda has been sent with a mission to get the Indians Apache in the film Sioux in reality to return to their reservation from Mexico where they have taken shelter he has no previous knowledge of their culture and fighting skills. Wayne volunteers to approach the Indians with a Spanish speaking officer as interpreter and persuade them to return offering peace and a negotiated resettlement.

The Indians have left their Reservation because of the corrupt government Indian agent and Wayne promises that their grievances will be addressed. Fonda responds by seizing the opportunity for a take it or leave ultimatum and then charges four abreast into trap which results in his men being slaughtered.
Before then we have the drama of the commander refusing to allow his teenage daughter to marry the young officer son of a Sergeant Major non commissioned officer simply because of social inequality and personal prejudice. There is also the usual boys will be boys drink and fighting and the formal dance arranged by the non commissioned officers at with the officers and their families are invited. The daughter is played by Shirley Temple.

Although stubborn, incompetent to the point of irresponsibility Fonda is a man of honour so when Wayne rescues him, he goes off on a individual charge back into the valley where the remaining men are facing death against what were overwhelming forces. Previously he has ordered Wayne to stay with the supply wagons after his attack plan is questioned but eh also insisting that the Sergeant’s boyfriend accompanies him.

The film ends with Wayne un charge of the fort with Fonda’s daughter now married and with a child adn the slaughter men replaced by new recruits, A number of journalists are present as Wayne is about to go off to try again an negotiate a settlement with the Indians. The newsmen noting a painted portrait of Fonda above the fireplace in the Commander’s office comment that he had become a national hero. Wayne does not refute the popular view uttering sentimental nonsense about the regiment always living on. Among others in the cast is Victor McLaglen

A film that was also something of a first, is The High and the Mighty, with a specially create opening tune which became a best seller and where I carry the notes in my head although unable to reproduce tunefully! The Oscar winning score was created by Dmitri Tomkin. This was one of the first, if not the first, suspense potential plane disaster movies and guess who stars as the hero?
You are right it is none other than John Wayne.

He is the second in command to flight captain played by Robert Stack. Robert Newton, he of Long John Silver, plays a calming philosophical passenger and other well known names are Clare Trevor and Jan Stirling.

The first part of the film introduces us to all the passengers which includes a school boy returning home on this trans orient pacific Douglas DC4 from Honolulu to San Francisco. There is the Jewishman with a large family waiting for him and a business full of bluster and threats to mask his fear; An actress in decline and an experienced woman looking for a long term relationship has pretended through the use of make up to be at least ten years younger than she is. A couple where the wife is terrified and in a panic worries about her preschool children at home and so on so that we cover all the passengers on board as well as the crew

Then after the plane has reached the point of no return in severe weather conditions, one of the engines catches fire and there is a loss of fuel. At first the navigator believes they have enough fuel to get home without having to ditch in the sea but then realises he has made a mistake using kilometres rather than mile or vice versa. This is discovered only when they have not reached the contact position with a USA aircraft which comes out to meet and escort them back in the event of trying to make a landing in the sea. They have prepared for the ditching by jettisoning luggage including on board food. This involves reducing height and speed to be able to open the door in mid air flight. It is also hoped that by this action to reach land by conserving fuel. However it is a gamble with the risk of crash on land and killing those on the ground as well as themselves.

I missed if it was revealed why Wayne had become second in command having been a captain in the past. It is however evident that he is more confident and experienced than the captain who panics and wants to ditch without trying to make land. However he gets his act together as do passengers and crew and guess what the plane reaches the airport safely and the passengers disembark hounded by reporters to be greeted by their friends and families. This includes a man in a wheel chair who has made friends with a stewardess and the passenger in the seat, an oriental woman who have both accepted his invitation to go immediate for meal with him.

The crew look at the damaged aircraft in wonderment and respect together with the airline boss who indicates to Wayne that they must have a chat about his future. The plane used in the film had previously been the personal aircraft of Juan Peón and was named the Argentine Queen. A similar aircraft experienced a similar in flight problem later and was lost with no survivors thus revealing the difficult of a craft being able to land safely in high seas to launch the life raft. Many leading actors of the day were offered parts but refused because of ensemble nature of the story, including Barbara Stanwyck, Dorothy McGuire, Dorothy McGuire, Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino and Joan Crawford. Jan Stirling was awarded the best supporting actress Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar together with Claire Trevor. The film is based on the book by Ernest K Gann who had flown a commercial airline from Honolulu to Portland in Oregon.

Putting a group of widely different characters together in a challenging situation is also a major ingredient of a film I watched because of the promise of the sight and sounds of Greece and where although hotel based in Athens I participated in several coach trips to the main sites including the Oracle at Delphi. the site of the battle of Marathon, a boat trip to nearby islands, a couple of days on the beach, a visit to a tourist night club, to the Acropolis and to Sounion. I remembered one American couple where the wife mentioned to all who cared to listen the virility of her middle aging husband and the English couple returning only for the second time after their honeymoon where the wife was distraught at the changes that had taking place including the mixed bag of tourists in our party.

She would have hated the fellow travellers in the film, the loud Americans, teh just as loud Australians, the older woman in a couple who spent her time stealing souvenirs which then distributed around the coach gaining popularity and he bored teenage daughter who I thought was Scarlett Johansson and would lead me to the film title from her flexography. The star of the film is a young woman who had come to Greece because of her academic enthusiasm of the history and historical sights. Unfortunately she is considered boring boring by the majority of the participants on previous trips so she is warned her days are numbered. She is given the worst passengers and the worst coach and the worst overnight accommodation in order to hasten her departure, assisted by an obnoxious male courier who plans to make this the last trip by playing to the worst instincts of her group and giving his group what they want. The film is silly and absurd because fo the contrast between the two coaches and accommodation and the basic premises that people who enjoy the Spanish costas with drunken beach parties and night clubs and visits to the bullfight will also sign up for historical cultural trips.

The second story is that all that is wrong with the female guide is that is not having an adult relationship and this is the cue for the hairy coach driver to shave and cut his hair and reveals an English speaking and understanding man of her own age who before the film does his duty and helps to achieve her transformation. However the catalyst is another passenger, a familiar actor who if could remember his name should enable the identification of the film. He is the joke a minute traveller masking the fact that after a lifetime of making holiday coach trips with his wife he has become a widower. His role is to become the glue which bonds he party together and leads to sorting out the opposition and ensuring that their courier gets rave reviews in the end of holiday assessment forms. I will not be satisfied until I found out the title so to be able to say you have been warned unless this kind of alleged comedy is your kind of fun.

The provision of entertaining fun is not the intention of the film about the St Valentine’s day Massacre selected for showing along with the start of the Boardwalk Empire here in the UK. The massacre involved the shooting of five members of the Irish North side Chicago gang led by Bugs Moran by other gangsters working on behalf of Al Capone’s Italian Mafia. Two others were murdered. One a self employed mechanic who accepted jobs with the gang to feed his wife and seven children and someone who can be described as a gang groupie. The intention of the raid had been to kill Moran after Capone lost his temper with the intrusion of the North side gang in what he regarded as his territory.

One of the historical mysteries is the identities of two men who posed as policemen to gain entry to the location where the those murdered were assembled in preparation for an attack on Capone. The film creates two individuals who remain unknown, The film also shows Capone personally executing a Mafia senior after he had connived in the murder of a top Mafia boss in Chicago because he was a friend of Capone. Joe Aiello was turned by Moran in his attempt to take over Capone before Capone took over him. It was Capone’s men who did the killing and the event occurred after the massacre. The massacre took place in a Canadian nightclub and not against the wall of a garage in Chicago.

The film does recreate Moran’s attempt to kill Capone as he was dining at his favourite restaurant when a score of cars went by the front of the restaurant in groups of three or four from which gunmen with Tommy gins showered the entrance doors and widows with bullets. Amazingly no one is shown to have been killed in the film. There is also one of those amazing funeral scenes in which their huge banks of flowers including one from Capone who had arranged the killing. A voice in the background tells the cinema goer basic facts about the various gangster what happened to them with the exception of two whose details were removed at the request of surviving family members(Wikipedia).

I watched the film despite my reservations about such films and the glorification of murderers and their criminality for entertainment purposes because of making my assessment of the first two episodes of the award winning Boardwalk Empire and where the third episode, reduced to one hour including adverts, was shown on Saturday evening.

When Nucky finds out that one of the New York’s mob’s men killed by his protégé Jimmy has been found alive he arranges for the man to be killed by his police chief brother. The killing is stopped as Federal agents arrive and bluff their way to taking the man with them out of the clutches of the locals. The man initially refuses to “rat” on his killers, a feature of era when the law was the common enemy and the gangsters preferred to settle their disputes themselves. However the information is provided which enables Jimmy to be identified but when the information is communicated upwards it is sat on passed back to Nucky who arranges for Jimmy to leave his “wife” and children and go West. The information is also passed on to the New York gang led by Rothstein. Rothstein shares the information with Lucky Luciano that it was Jimmy and one other who killed the nephew of his sister in law and suggests that Jimmy is captured and made to reveal the other individual.

Before this Jimmy had become incensed on finding that while he was away in the way his wife and son had become friendly with a photographer and his wife and she had taken an alluring photo which had been sent to him. He now goes off as instructed by Nucky without explaining to his wife and children why or giving her the money for her care. Instead of going West Jimmy heads for Chicago.

Nucky has also arranged for the Irish widow he fancies to get a job in a French dress salon. She is required to wear the dresses and aid he customers in trying them on and this enables shots of underwear and flesh. Nucky’s current show girl/actress whore cones for a fitting and realises that her man has a new interest. The man who ran the funeral home whisky diluting scam goes to see his bosses to say that Nucky gave away their racket to his black friend. They say that the man remains financially accountable.

Nucky has been forced to strike a hard deal with the new owner manager of the scam. They then find one of the employees killed in what appears to be a race murder. However they do not want an escalating race in election year so the hanged employee is shot and the situation made to look that he was killed by a jealous husband. Nucky unintentionally leaves a potential damaging set of footprints behind. . As before does anyone care about any of this? I do not but will continue to at least flip through in the hope of finding out its critical popularity.

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