The only good other they don’t make films like they used to film(Les Misérables the exception) of Film week January 7th-14th was the 1950 released American Guerrillas in the Philippines, The is based on the second world war experience of Lliff David Richardson born in 1918 and only died in 2002 aged 82. The son of a Methodist Minister who died when he was 3 his mother moved around a great deal and then after Junior College he left the USA and travelled extensively in Europe, the Middle and near East before returning just before the fall of France in World War I. In 1940 he was commissioned an Ensign in the Royal Navy and assigned to a minesweeper in the Philippines and then became executive officer in boat PT34. After the vessel was sunk he assisted the army in setting off demolition charges in Cebu City and then in party of a dozen attempted to set sail for Australia but the boat is sunk in a storm and to survive he and a number of the others swam for 24 hours to reach the island Mindanao.
In the film rescued by islanders who go out and bring in other swimmers and those who could not swim and clung to the wreckage of their boat. Shortly after recovering the Japanese arrive and they take to the jungle and team up with the local guerrillas. Because he had been a ham radio operator he was able to set up a communications network on the island and with the Allied forces in Australia. He was promoted to Major by “I shall return” Douglas General McArthur holding Commissions in the army and navy at the same time.
After the liberation of the Philippines he told his story to a Pulitzer prize winner writer who created a book of the month success and a Readers Digest condensed book which was to have been made immediately into a film, shelved and then released in 1950. He married in the USA, worked in insurance and created a company selling a shotgun on the basis of models created and used in the Philippines and which despite the American love of guns did not sell well. He was also an adviser on a number of Hollywood War films.
My impression is that in order to create an interesting and entertaining film his story was creatively adapted and my curiosity is such that I have invested £4.69 in purchasing the original first edition hardback copy of the book including postage,
In the film after surviving on the island for an unspecified time he remeets the American wife of a local business man and patriot who he helped previously under the impression she was single, The husband suggests that he should make his way by sea to where an American is known to be organising resistance in preparation for the return of General MacArthur. The carrot is the suggestion that the American Colonel will provide the means for him to get to Australia. After a perilous journey he finds the Colonel who persuades him that his best role is to stay and organise the radio services. After the husband of the woman is killed by the Japanese for his work for the resistance, the woman also takes to the jungle and on a Christmas Day they become lovers.
He is required to slip behind enemy lines to observe and report on enemy shipping movements and shortly before the arrival of MacArthur both with other American and local resistance men( and boys) have a fight with the Japanese in a Christian Church. The Japanese pull out with the invasion commencing. Tyrone Power played Chuck Palmer based on Richardson.
The other they do not make films like they used to is the 7th Cavalry with an aged Randolph Scott. He appear as old as the father of his Bride to be played by Barbara Hale. This is a very different tale.
Scott has been ordered by his boss Colonel Custer to go an get his fiancée whose father Colonel Kellogg (I kid you not) is opposed to the association having discovered that Scott as Captain Tom Benson commander of a 7th Cavalry was a Jack the lad gambler of no background unlike the usual West Point officer class. He returns to find that Custer has taken two units including Benson’s in his misguided attempt to round up the American owners of the land they have occupied and had been defeated and all killed. Left at the fort and a few riff raff and a little later another badly beaten unit who had engaged another group of American land owners.
The surviving officers and most of the men have no time for Scott believing he ran out after learning of Custer’s intentions after his chief had been ordered to stay put, His fiancée father is put in charge of the Board of Inquiry investigating what happened, critical of all those who did not die alongside Custer, a particularly Scott who in charge of the all the worst jobs. Then Washington tells the Colonel they are to go and bury the men and bring back the officers. This is a suicide mission of the land owner have already declared the land sacred, believing that the spirits of the conquered dead have already enhanced the living.
Scot volunteers insisting on taking on other volunteers, the riff raff who he press gangs into volunteering. Scott survives various rebellions and on reaching the site of massacre they find everyone has been buried which makes the task of bring back the officers difficult with digging up all the remains to find out who is what. Meanwhile they are surrounded by the local landowners who politely tell them to they are trespassing and will be killed if they do not go quietly. Then they have a miracle, Five In fact two in quick succession. First a soldier is able to clear Scott from the likely finds of the Board of Inquiry because he was a witness to Custer ordering Scott to go for his fiancée, Then the man decides to go off on his own to tell the glad tidings, then he chooses to ride a horse that looks exactly like that ridden and buried of Colonel Custer, then he get within spitting distance of the stand off to be killed by a sole Brave so that the riderless horse then appears as a sign that the spirit of Custer wants his body to take back with his fellow officers. Scott returns home the hero and is approved of as a son in law. Ho Ho Ho what fun.
Like Casino Jack The Falcon and the Snowman is based von a true story on the extent of the CIA involvement in over throw of a legitimately elected Prime Minister in New Australia accidentally uncovered by a young man appointed a classified communications centre operated by an aerospace company with spy satellites for the USA government.
Christopher Boyce was born in 1953. He was intended for the priesthood but left having reached the conclusion the church was not for him. The Falcon in the title of the film comes from ownership of a Falcon.
He accidentally received internal CIA communications(how this arose is not explained) on the successful plot to get rid of the elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlem with the help of the British Governor General Sir John Kerr recruited by the CIA, or at least regarded as their man. His concern grew when he realised the CIQA was involved in spying and influencing government in other democratic and rejected going to media because nothing appeared to have changed given the media reporting of the involvement of the CIA in bringing down the elected Chilean Government shortly beforehand. However what he then decided to do is beyond rational explanation.
He had become friends in High school with a young man adopted into an affluent middle class family- Andrew Daulton Lee. He became a successful drug dealer known as the Snowman and he agreed to act as a courier to trade the documents obtained by Boyce to the Russians at the their Embassy in Mexico City and where in the film his contact is played by David (Poirot) Suchet. Boyce eventually also travels to Mexico City to meet the Russians after they press for information on the Satellite codes and Lee becomes a drug user again according to the film.
Lee is arrested outside the Embassy who according to the film were refusing him entry because the police believed he was the individual who had killed a police officer. He had a microfilm with USA secrets on him at the time and in order to convince that he was not the cop killer he admitted he was spying for the Russians and implicated Boyce
In the film he is given the choice of seeking asylum in Russia or returning to the USA to be arrested at the border. He chooses the latter and Boyce is subsequently arrested. Boyce was convicted and sentenced to 40 years, He escaped in 1980 and while on the loose committed 17 bank robberies and attempted to become a flyer with a view of getting to the Soviet union. He was captured on a tip off from a bank robber. He was released from prison in 2002 having served 34 years, He was released from parole in 2008, having married the woman who has successful gained parole for Lee in 1998. Lee has written two books about his role as a Spy and then as a Bank Robbery.
Setting aside the infamy of the CIA, presumably with political approval, There are no redeeming features about this traitor and thief. I regret the films attempt to justify action for which I am not clear he has regretted his behaviour. I have not read his books or propose to do so.
I do not know what was worse in the behaviour of Lee. His deadly trade ruining countless lives in selling drugs or national secrets for money. He was given life on sentence because of previous convictions in relation to drug trafficking. He has also attempted to sell the same information to the Chinese.
The interesting aspect about Lee is that he is portrayed the film made in 1985 by the actor Sean Penn who hired Lee as his personal assistant on his parole in 1998. He had become a recovered drug addict. I have no information on the current position of either men.
One of my favourite films of all time is Get Carter, a dark film set in Tyneside. Until last night I resisted the temptation to view the 2000 USA version of the 1971 film. It was not as bad as I feared because it attempted to retain the main characters and the central plot.
Jack Carter played by Sylvester Stallone returns home for the funeral of his brother with whom he has had no contact for a number of years. He is father of his brothers daughter. Jack is convinced his brothers death is no accident and his suspicions are fuelled when everyone he meet presses him to go back to where he works as an enforcer from a criminal gang. His boss is also keen for him to return, in part because of information that Jack is having an affair with his bird. Almost by accident Jack discovers the truth. His teenage daughter of around sixteen years was the subject of a filmed sexual seduction which has been shown at one the parties of a local villain. Jack then embarks on a revenge which sees a number of people killed. In the original work a contract on Jack is successful completed to end the film.
The 1971 film pushed the boundaries in several ways revealing on screen phone sex which was later translated into Internet sex, first verbal and then visual and audio. It also revealed he links between London and North East Crime which became one of the core features of the Film and stage Drama Our Friends in the North which also involved local political corruption. In the original film there is an important scene when local personalities are involved in a house party at the home of the local crime boss which includes excessive drinking and drug as well as sex and which was also a featured in the film Oh Lucky man and the book and film Room at the Top although set in other parts of Northern England. The extent to which personality, including the police “enjoyed” watching pornography collectively was also a revelation at the time together with the exploitation of vulnerable young women in which in effect was the heyday of the Jimmy Saville, rock and pop sexual cultural revolution brought about by the Pill and swinging sixties. Most of all it portrayed professional criminals factually in terms of their brutal violence towards each other after which professional criminals and street police were portrayed mainly as morons or to provide comedy such as The Lady killers, The Lavender Hill Mob, In fairness Jack Warner and the Blue Lamp had attempted to redress the imbalance for street police.
This version of Get Carter I was confused by the roles of the villains with the same names as those in the original production. The relationship between Jack and the woman of his boss is different. There are no plans to go off to Brazil for a new life and she backs out of the relationship as soon as the affair is brought to the attention of the boss. The henchman of the boss come for jack as much because of the affair as a request from villains in the home town. There is no contract placed on Jack’s head.
His brother is also still happily married whereas in the original story, the marriage broke up and the brother has a sexual relationship with a tart who does not carry out the role of a mother and in fact was instrumental in the girl being seduced and appearing in a porn film. In the original the girl appears a willing participant in the film and behaves normally afterwards Whereas here she is drugged, raped and has no recollection of the specific accept feeling physically abused and full of guilt. Revealing what happens to Jack is cathartic and later she and her mother comfort each other. In the original film Gloria now the wife, is taken to the grounds of the local villain leader, undressed and given a lethal dose of drugs to the incriminate local villain after the police have been called and the house party raised in the dawn. Gloria is played by Miranda Richardson
There is a similar character to villain’s chief assistant who plays the role of chauffer and general fixer, Cyrus Paice, in this instance played by Mickey Rourke. Both wear dark glasses and the relationships between Jack and this man has a past. The character in both films appears to have carried out the murder of the brother. The man who participates in the porn film is killed but the woman involved Geraldine, who recruits the local girls appears to commit suicide rather than drowning unintentionally when the villains from London push the woman’s car in the Tyne with the woman locked in the boot by Jack. The local villain appears to be replaced by a young drug taking multi millionaire who has made his money from the Internet, including porn channels. In the original he goes to prison while in this Jack lets him off with a severe warning. Miranda Richardson plays the mother.
The aspect which interests is that Michael Caine , the original Jack Carter also has a role in the film, this time Cliff Brumby the business partner of the brother, a club owner who claims ignorance of why the killing took place. It emerges that he was responsible for the porn film production and the brother is killed because he won‘t give up the master DVD given to him by the woman participant when she finds out the girl is his daughter. Carter kills Brumby when he finds out the truth. However Carter does not die at the end but goes off for a new life after gaining revenge.
If made today as an original version the 2000 version ahs some merit with some good acting performance and some insight into contemporary villainy associated with the porn industry. In fairness it is not the remake disaster of another cult film of the past, The Wicker Man. However those to love the original will still find the remake difficult to take and regarded it as an unnecessary. I enjoyed the Caine performance though.
Now for a film only released last year. Safe House is a USA production made in South Africa and where a depressing picture of the national Secret Services of the USA, the UK, Israel, Germany and other European countries is painted as riddled with corruption, illegal practices and attempted cover ups.
Matt Watson played by Ryan Reynolds has joined the CIA full of enthusiasm and is trained as a field agent but for his first assignment sent to South Africa to run a Safe House and communications centre Tobin Frost played by Denzil Washington was a former CIA agent who has been working freelance for ten years and has obtained a file on an electronic device which he injects into his body for safe keeping. What the file contains stretches all credulity in that it includes the details of the corrupt actions of individuals in the various national security services already mentioned. How the information has been collated is not explained, unsurprisingly. When he is being hunted down he approaches the USA consulate in Cape Town. For some unexplained reason this master spy does not calculate that the men chasing him are from one the security services about whom the file reveals their dark dealings. Back at CIA headquarters using all the latest gismos they quickly establish who he is and determine to move him with an extraction team from the Consulate to the Safe House for interrogation .
At the Safe House Watson is upset about the use of Water suffocation torture but before he can express any concern about the matter the alarm signals that the security system has been breached and the cameras reveal that about a dozen heavily armed men are approaching. The extraction Team are all killed, but Watson has removed the prisoner just in time and although untested in the field he is able evade capture by the top men after them. He goes on the run to a small hotel and makes contact with his employers.
We are introduced to three key member of the National CIA headquarters. In addition tot eh man overall ion charge, the Deputy Director of the CIA, Brenden Gleeson plays the chief field manager called David Barlow who knows Watson and trusts him and who is responsible for the extraction team now all killed. Caroline Linklater played by Vera Farmiga appears to have Operational Control at the centre and is concerned about how the assassins were aware of the location of the Safe House and that Tobin would be taken there. She speculates Watson is working with him all along. Barlow tells Watson to attend a National Stadium football game and go to a public access locker where there will the information of another Safe House to take the prisoner. Tobin creates a scene and escapes, pursued by Watson but both men are captured by the stadium police. Tobin escapes killing/wounding those taking him the stadium First Aid area. Watson also escapes but kills/wounds a policeman in self defence.
During their time together Tobin attempts to explain how dark, self protective and disregarding of international and national laws and regulations the agency has become. He went on the run after attempting to expose the fact that he was ordered to kill an innocent man so the CIA could replace the individual with one of their operatives. Watson remains distrustful of Robin but nevertheless is concerned about the ability of the enemy to find and enter the Safehouse. He begins to trust no one.
After losing control of Tobin he accesses records from an Internet Cafe on the location of a former CIA contact known for providing false documentation in a shanty town on the outskirt. He is accurate in his assessment that Washington has made for the man, now a family man, for documents to get out of the country, However his arrival coincides with that of the enemy who kill the man and his wife although their children may have been saved. Tobin goes on the run along rooftops with Weston following in an open truck and rescues Washington and they go the second Safehouse out of town in an isolated farm dwelling where Washington is the prisoner but Reynolds also treats with suspicion the Safehouse keeper, with justification as it transpire.
In exchanges back at eh CIA headquarters the film appeared to indicate that the woman Linklater is the most likely high level traitor but when she and Barlow are told to go to South Africa and then meet up at Cross roads approaching the Safehouse Barlow kills Linklater and we known he is the traitor, or is he? It is only when both Tobin and Weston Reynolds are wounded, Tobin dies that along with Barlow and the Safehouse man that Weston is told the nature of the information on the electronic device. This is high level CIA cover and mass murder.
Although badly wounded we next see Reynolds recovered and the Deputy Director reading his written report. The Deputy explains that sections of the report will have to be edited in the national interest and they eh will expect discretion on the part of Reynolds. He also quizzes Reynolds about the information file but Reynolds denies any knowledge of this. This reveals that the attempt to kill Tobin and recover the incriminating evidence goes all the way to top.
For his good work and agreement over his report Watson accepts promotion as a senior case officer and a posting to Paris. After leaving the CIA headquarters we see him transmitting an electronic file from his phone. There is the newspapers and media coverage about the anonymously circulated file disclosing corruption and illegal practices on the part of several secret services with Parliament and Senate inquiries in the UK and USA noted and the apparent arrest of the CIA Deputy Director.
Before all these events Reynolds was in a loving relationship which a Frenchwoman working in South Africa who was unaware off the nature of his work. As soon as the safe house is raided and he goes on the run he makes his way to the woman and persuades her to return to France, after admitting his role and that problems had arisen. The film ends with him watching the girl at a street cafe and she looks up and see him. Now which film did IO see the same situation recently? What happens next is ambiguous but as with Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol a sequel is promised.
Now for two they do not make films like they used to. The first is 7th Cavalry with an aged Randolph Scott. He appear as old as the father of his Bride to be played by Barbara Hale.
He has been ordered by his boss Colonel Custer to go an get his fiancée who father Colonel Kellogg ( I kid you not) is opposed to the association having discovered that Scott and Captain Tom Benson commander of a 7th Cavalry was a Jack the lad Gambler of no background unlike the usual West Point officer class. The return to find that Custer has taken two units including his own in his misguided attempt to round up the American owners of the land they have occupied and had been defeated and all killed. Left at the fort and a few riff raff and a little later another badly beaten unit who had engaged another group of American land owners.
The surviving officers and most of the men have no time for Scott believing he ran out after learning of Custer’s intentions after his chief had been ordered to stay put, His fiancée father is put in charge of the Board of Inquiry investigating what happened, critical of all those who did not die alongside Custer, a particularly Scott who in charge of the all the worst jobs. Then Washington tells the Colonel they are to go and bury the men and bring back the officers. This is a suicide mission of the land owner have already declared the land sacred, believing that the spirits of the conquered dead have already enhanced the living.
Scot volunteers insisting on taking on other volunteers, the riff raff who he press gangs into volunteering. Scott survives various rebellions and on reaching the site of massacre they find everyone has been buried which makes the task of bring back the officers difficult with digging up all the remains to find out who is what. Meanwhile they are surrounded by the local landowners who politely tell them to they are trespassing and will be killed if they do not go quietly. Then they have a miracle, Five In fact two in quick succession. First a soldier is able to clear Scott from the likely finds of the Board of Inquiry because he was a witness to Custer ordering Scott to go for his fiancée, Then the man decides to go off on his own to tell the glad tidings, then he chooses to ride a horse that looks exactly like that ridden and buried of Colonel Custer, then he get within spitting distance of the stand off to be killed by a sole Brave so that the riderless horse then appears as a sign that the spirit of Custer wants his body to take back with his fellow officers. Scott returns home the hero and is approved of as a son in law. Ho Ho Ho what fun.
In the film rescued by islanders who go out and bring in other swimmers and those who could not swim and clung to the wreckage of their boat. Shortly after recovering the Japanese arrive and they take to the jungle and team up with the local guerrillas. Because he had been a ham radio operator he was able to set up a communications network on the island and with the Allied forces in Australia. He was promoted to Major by “I shall return” Douglas General McArthur holding Commissions in the army and navy at the same time.
After the liberation of the Philippines he told his story to a Pulitzer prize winner writer who created a book of the month success and a Readers Digest condensed book which was to have been made immediately into a film, shelved and then released in 1950. He married in the USA, worked in insurance and created a company selling a shotgun on the basis of models created and used in the Philippines and which despite the American love of guns did not sell well. He was also an adviser on a number of Hollywood War films.
My impression is that in order to create an interesting and entertaining film his story was creatively adapted and my curiosity is such that I have invested £4.69 in purchasing the original first edition hardback copy of the book including postage,
In the film after surviving on the island for an unspecified time he remeets the American wife of a local business man and patriot who he helped previously under the impression she was single, The husband suggests that he should make his way by sea to where an American is known to be organising resistance in preparation for the return of General MacArthur. The carrot is the suggestion that the American Colonel will provide the means for him to get to Australia. After a perilous journey he finds the Colonel who persuades him that his best role is to stay and organise the radio services. After the husband of the woman is killed by the Japanese for his work for the resistance, the woman also takes to the jungle and on a Christmas Day they become lovers.
He is required to slip behind enemy lines to observe and report on enemy shipping movements and shortly before the arrival of MacArthur both with other American and local resistance men( and boys) have a fight with the Japanese in a Christian Church. The Japanese pull out with the invasion commencing. Tyrone Power played Chuck Palmer based on Richardson.
The other they do not make films like they used to is the 7th Cavalry with an aged Randolph Scott. He appear as old as the father of his Bride to be played by Barbara Hale. This is a very different tale.
Scott has been ordered by his boss Colonel Custer to go an get his fiancée whose father Colonel Kellogg (I kid you not) is opposed to the association having discovered that Scott as Captain Tom Benson commander of a 7th Cavalry was a Jack the lad gambler of no background unlike the usual West Point officer class. He returns to find that Custer has taken two units including Benson’s in his misguided attempt to round up the American owners of the land they have occupied and had been defeated and all killed. Left at the fort and a few riff raff and a little later another badly beaten unit who had engaged another group of American land owners.
The surviving officers and most of the men have no time for Scott believing he ran out after learning of Custer’s intentions after his chief had been ordered to stay put, His fiancée father is put in charge of the Board of Inquiry investigating what happened, critical of all those who did not die alongside Custer, a particularly Scott who in charge of the all the worst jobs. Then Washington tells the Colonel they are to go and bury the men and bring back the officers. This is a suicide mission of the land owner have already declared the land sacred, believing that the spirits of the conquered dead have already enhanced the living.
Scot volunteers insisting on taking on other volunteers, the riff raff who he press gangs into volunteering. Scott survives various rebellions and on reaching the site of massacre they find everyone has been buried which makes the task of bring back the officers difficult with digging up all the remains to find out who is what. Meanwhile they are surrounded by the local landowners who politely tell them to they are trespassing and will be killed if they do not go quietly. Then they have a miracle, Five In fact two in quick succession. First a soldier is able to clear Scott from the likely finds of the Board of Inquiry because he was a witness to Custer ordering Scott to go for his fiancée, Then the man decides to go off on his own to tell the glad tidings, then he chooses to ride a horse that looks exactly like that ridden and buried of Colonel Custer, then he get within spitting distance of the stand off to be killed by a sole Brave so that the riderless horse then appears as a sign that the spirit of Custer wants his body to take back with his fellow officers. Scott returns home the hero and is approved of as a son in law. Ho Ho Ho what fun.
Like Casino Jack The Falcon and the Snowman is based von a true story on the extent of the CIA involvement in over throw of a legitimately elected Prime Minister in New Australia accidentally uncovered by a young man appointed a classified communications centre operated by an aerospace company with spy satellites for the USA government.
Christopher Boyce was born in 1953. He was intended for the priesthood but left having reached the conclusion the church was not for him. The Falcon in the title of the film comes from ownership of a Falcon.
He accidentally received internal CIA communications(how this arose is not explained) on the successful plot to get rid of the elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlem with the help of the British Governor General Sir John Kerr recruited by the CIA, or at least regarded as their man. His concern grew when he realised the CIQA was involved in spying and influencing government in other democratic and rejected going to media because nothing appeared to have changed given the media reporting of the involvement of the CIA in bringing down the elected Chilean Government shortly beforehand. However what he then decided to do is beyond rational explanation.
He had become friends in High school with a young man adopted into an affluent middle class family- Andrew Daulton Lee. He became a successful drug dealer known as the Snowman and he agreed to act as a courier to trade the documents obtained by Boyce to the Russians at the their Embassy in Mexico City and where in the film his contact is played by David (Poirot) Suchet. Boyce eventually also travels to Mexico City to meet the Russians after they press for information on the Satellite codes and Lee becomes a drug user again according to the film.
Lee is arrested outside the Embassy who according to the film were refusing him entry because the police believed he was the individual who had killed a police officer. He had a microfilm with USA secrets on him at the time and in order to convince that he was not the cop killer he admitted he was spying for the Russians and implicated Boyce
In the film he is given the choice of seeking asylum in Russia or returning to the USA to be arrested at the border. He chooses the latter and Boyce is subsequently arrested. Boyce was convicted and sentenced to 40 years, He escaped in 1980 and while on the loose committed 17 bank robberies and attempted to become a flyer with a view of getting to the Soviet union. He was captured on a tip off from a bank robber. He was released from prison in 2002 having served 34 years, He was released from parole in 2008, having married the woman who has successful gained parole for Lee in 1998. Lee has written two books about his role as a Spy and then as a Bank Robbery.
Setting aside the infamy of the CIA, presumably with political approval, There are no redeeming features about this traitor and thief. I regret the films attempt to justify action for which I am not clear he has regretted his behaviour. I have not read his books or propose to do so.
I do not know what was worse in the behaviour of Lee. His deadly trade ruining countless lives in selling drugs or national secrets for money. He was given life on sentence because of previous convictions in relation to drug trafficking. He has also attempted to sell the same information to the Chinese.
The interesting aspect about Lee is that he is portrayed the film made in 1985 by the actor Sean Penn who hired Lee as his personal assistant on his parole in 1998. He had become a recovered drug addict. I have no information on the current position of either men.
One of my favourite films of all time is Get Carter, a dark film set in Tyneside. Until last night I resisted the temptation to view the 2000 USA version of the 1971 film. It was not as bad as I feared because it attempted to retain the main characters and the central plot.
Jack Carter played by Sylvester Stallone returns home for the funeral of his brother with whom he has had no contact for a number of years. He is father of his brothers daughter. Jack is convinced his brothers death is no accident and his suspicions are fuelled when everyone he meet presses him to go back to where he works as an enforcer from a criminal gang. His boss is also keen for him to return, in part because of information that Jack is having an affair with his bird. Almost by accident Jack discovers the truth. His teenage daughter of around sixteen years was the subject of a filmed sexual seduction which has been shown at one the parties of a local villain. Jack then embarks on a revenge which sees a number of people killed. In the original work a contract on Jack is successful completed to end the film.
The 1971 film pushed the boundaries in several ways revealing on screen phone sex which was later translated into Internet sex, first verbal and then visual and audio. It also revealed he links between London and North East Crime which became one of the core features of the Film and stage Drama Our Friends in the North which also involved local political corruption. In the original film there is an important scene when local personalities are involved in a house party at the home of the local crime boss which includes excessive drinking and drug as well as sex and which was also a featured in the film Oh Lucky man and the book and film Room at the Top although set in other parts of Northern England. The extent to which personality, including the police “enjoyed” watching pornography collectively was also a revelation at the time together with the exploitation of vulnerable young women in which in effect was the heyday of the Jimmy Saville, rock and pop sexual cultural revolution brought about by the Pill and swinging sixties. Most of all it portrayed professional criminals factually in terms of their brutal violence towards each other after which professional criminals and street police were portrayed mainly as morons or to provide comedy such as The Lady killers, The Lavender Hill Mob, In fairness Jack Warner and the Blue Lamp had attempted to redress the imbalance for street police.
This version of Get Carter I was confused by the roles of the villains with the same names as those in the original production. The relationship between Jack and the woman of his boss is different. There are no plans to go off to Brazil for a new life and she backs out of the relationship as soon as the affair is brought to the attention of the boss. The henchman of the boss come for jack as much because of the affair as a request from villains in the home town. There is no contract placed on Jack’s head.
His brother is also still happily married whereas in the original story, the marriage broke up and the brother has a sexual relationship with a tart who does not carry out the role of a mother and in fact was instrumental in the girl being seduced and appearing in a porn film. In the original the girl appears a willing participant in the film and behaves normally afterwards Whereas here she is drugged, raped and has no recollection of the specific accept feeling physically abused and full of guilt. Revealing what happens to Jack is cathartic and later she and her mother comfort each other. In the original film Gloria now the wife, is taken to the grounds of the local villain leader, undressed and given a lethal dose of drugs to the incriminate local villain after the police have been called and the house party raised in the dawn. Gloria is played by Miranda Richardson
There is a similar character to villain’s chief assistant who plays the role of chauffer and general fixer, Cyrus Paice, in this instance played by Mickey Rourke. Both wear dark glasses and the relationships between Jack and this man has a past. The character in both films appears to have carried out the murder of the brother. The man who participates in the porn film is killed but the woman involved Geraldine, who recruits the local girls appears to commit suicide rather than drowning unintentionally when the villains from London push the woman’s car in the Tyne with the woman locked in the boot by Jack. The local villain appears to be replaced by a young drug taking multi millionaire who has made his money from the Internet, including porn channels. In the original he goes to prison while in this Jack lets him off with a severe warning. Miranda Richardson plays the mother.
The aspect which interests is that Michael Caine , the original Jack Carter also has a role in the film, this time Cliff Brumby the business partner of the brother, a club owner who claims ignorance of why the killing took place. It emerges that he was responsible for the porn film production and the brother is killed because he won‘t give up the master DVD given to him by the woman participant when she finds out the girl is his daughter. Carter kills Brumby when he finds out the truth. However Carter does not die at the end but goes off for a new life after gaining revenge.
If made today as an original version the 2000 version ahs some merit with some good acting performance and some insight into contemporary villainy associated with the porn industry. In fairness it is not the remake disaster of another cult film of the past, The Wicker Man. However those to love the original will still find the remake difficult to take and regarded it as an unnecessary. I enjoyed the Caine performance though.
Now for a film only released last year. Safe House is a USA production made in South Africa and where a depressing picture of the national Secret Services of the USA, the UK, Israel, Germany and other European countries is painted as riddled with corruption, illegal practices and attempted cover ups.
Matt Watson played by Ryan Reynolds has joined the CIA full of enthusiasm and is trained as a field agent but for his first assignment sent to South Africa to run a Safe House and communications centre Tobin Frost played by Denzil Washington was a former CIA agent who has been working freelance for ten years and has obtained a file on an electronic device which he injects into his body for safe keeping. What the file contains stretches all credulity in that it includes the details of the corrupt actions of individuals in the various national security services already mentioned. How the information has been collated is not explained, unsurprisingly. When he is being hunted down he approaches the USA consulate in Cape Town. For some unexplained reason this master spy does not calculate that the men chasing him are from one the security services about whom the file reveals their dark dealings. Back at CIA headquarters using all the latest gismos they quickly establish who he is and determine to move him with an extraction team from the Consulate to the Safe House for interrogation .
At the Safe House Watson is upset about the use of Water suffocation torture but before he can express any concern about the matter the alarm signals that the security system has been breached and the cameras reveal that about a dozen heavily armed men are approaching. The extraction Team are all killed, but Watson has removed the prisoner just in time and although untested in the field he is able evade capture by the top men after them. He goes on the run to a small hotel and makes contact with his employers.
We are introduced to three key member of the National CIA headquarters. In addition tot eh man overall ion charge, the Deputy Director of the CIA, Brenden Gleeson plays the chief field manager called David Barlow who knows Watson and trusts him and who is responsible for the extraction team now all killed. Caroline Linklater played by Vera Farmiga appears to have Operational Control at the centre and is concerned about how the assassins were aware of the location of the Safe House and that Tobin would be taken there. She speculates Watson is working with him all along. Barlow tells Watson to attend a National Stadium football game and go to a public access locker where there will the information of another Safe House to take the prisoner. Tobin creates a scene and escapes, pursued by Watson but both men are captured by the stadium police. Tobin escapes killing/wounding those taking him the stadium First Aid area. Watson also escapes but kills/wounds a policeman in self defence.
During their time together Tobin attempts to explain how dark, self protective and disregarding of international and national laws and regulations the agency has become. He went on the run after attempting to expose the fact that he was ordered to kill an innocent man so the CIA could replace the individual with one of their operatives. Watson remains distrustful of Robin but nevertheless is concerned about the ability of the enemy to find and enter the Safehouse. He begins to trust no one.
After losing control of Tobin he accesses records from an Internet Cafe on the location of a former CIA contact known for providing false documentation in a shanty town on the outskirt. He is accurate in his assessment that Washington has made for the man, now a family man, for documents to get out of the country, However his arrival coincides with that of the enemy who kill the man and his wife although their children may have been saved. Tobin goes on the run along rooftops with Weston following in an open truck and rescues Washington and they go the second Safehouse out of town in an isolated farm dwelling where Washington is the prisoner but Reynolds also treats with suspicion the Safehouse keeper, with justification as it transpire.
In exchanges back at eh CIA headquarters the film appeared to indicate that the woman Linklater is the most likely high level traitor but when she and Barlow are told to go to South Africa and then meet up at Cross roads approaching the Safehouse Barlow kills Linklater and we known he is the traitor, or is he? It is only when both Tobin and Weston Reynolds are wounded, Tobin dies that along with Barlow and the Safehouse man that Weston is told the nature of the information on the electronic device. This is high level CIA cover and mass murder.
Although badly wounded we next see Reynolds recovered and the Deputy Director reading his written report. The Deputy explains that sections of the report will have to be edited in the national interest and they eh will expect discretion on the part of Reynolds. He also quizzes Reynolds about the information file but Reynolds denies any knowledge of this. This reveals that the attempt to kill Tobin and recover the incriminating evidence goes all the way to top.
For his good work and agreement over his report Watson accepts promotion as a senior case officer and a posting to Paris. After leaving the CIA headquarters we see him transmitting an electronic file from his phone. There is the newspapers and media coverage about the anonymously circulated file disclosing corruption and illegal practices on the part of several secret services with Parliament and Senate inquiries in the UK and USA noted and the apparent arrest of the CIA Deputy Director.
Before all these events Reynolds was in a loving relationship which a Frenchwoman working in South Africa who was unaware off the nature of his work. As soon as the safe house is raided and he goes on the run he makes his way to the woman and persuades her to return to France, after admitting his role and that problems had arisen. The film ends with him watching the girl at a street cafe and she looks up and see him. Now which film did IO see the same situation recently? What happens next is ambiguous but as with Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol a sequel is promised.
Now for two they do not make films like they used to. The first is 7th Cavalry with an aged Randolph Scott. He appear as old as the father of his Bride to be played by Barbara Hale.
He has been ordered by his boss Colonel Custer to go an get his fiancée who father Colonel Kellogg ( I kid you not) is opposed to the association having discovered that Scott and Captain Tom Benson commander of a 7th Cavalry was a Jack the lad Gambler of no background unlike the usual West Point officer class. The return to find that Custer has taken two units including his own in his misguided attempt to round up the American owners of the land they have occupied and had been defeated and all killed. Left at the fort and a few riff raff and a little later another badly beaten unit who had engaged another group of American land owners.
The surviving officers and most of the men have no time for Scott believing he ran out after learning of Custer’s intentions after his chief had been ordered to stay put, His fiancée father is put in charge of the Board of Inquiry investigating what happened, critical of all those who did not die alongside Custer, a particularly Scott who in charge of the all the worst jobs. Then Washington tells the Colonel they are to go and bury the men and bring back the officers. This is a suicide mission of the land owner have already declared the land sacred, believing that the spirits of the conquered dead have already enhanced the living.
Scot volunteers insisting on taking on other volunteers, the riff raff who he press gangs into volunteering. Scott survives various rebellions and on reaching the site of massacre they find everyone has been buried which makes the task of bring back the officers difficult with digging up all the remains to find out who is what. Meanwhile they are surrounded by the local landowners who politely tell them to they are trespassing and will be killed if they do not go quietly. Then they have a miracle, Five In fact two in quick succession. First a soldier is able to clear Scott from the likely finds of the Board of Inquiry because he was a witness to Custer ordering Scott to go for his fiancée, Then the man decides to go off on his own to tell the glad tidings, then he chooses to ride a horse that looks exactly like that ridden and buried of Colonel Custer, then he get within spitting distance of the stand off to be killed by a sole Brave so that the riderless horse then appears as a sign that the spirit of Custer wants his body to take back with his fellow officers. Scott returns home the hero and is approved of as a son in law. Ho Ho Ho what fun.
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