“Below”
is a horror war movie set on a sub. It was directed by David Thowy who also
co-wrote the screenplay. It used the museum sub USS Silversides for exteriors
shot on Lake Michigan.The interiors
were modeled after the WWII sub. The movie was a bomb, making only $3 million
against a budget of $40 million.
A
submarine’s interiors are conducive to horror. “Below” is not the first sub
movie to use the claustrophobic setting to enhance suspense. It’s so easy for
characters to go insane. And, of course, there is nowhere to run if there is a
demon on board. “Below” is a cut above because it throws in a who-dunit as far
as why they are being haunted. Unfortunately, it could have been scarier as it
relies mostly on sound effects and fleeting ghostly images. It does build well
to the conclusion. The pieces fall into place nicely. Just make sure you
suspend your knowledge of WWII submarine warfare. It is far from a documentary.
At least it avoids most of the submarine cliches.
The
cast is good. Greenwood is always reliable. Olivia Williams actually adds to
the film as the sole female. She’s not there just for the movie poster. The
acting is above average for an average flick. The score is effective and the
cinematography is decent. There are lots of closeups, naturally for a sub
movie.
“Below”
is a decent submarine horror movie. You won’t piss your pants, but it is
entertaining. And it is not predictable. It’s not particularly scary, but it is
also not laughable. That’s quite an accomplishment for this subgenre.
“The Train” is a war movie directed
by John Frankenheimer that was released in 1964. It is based on a non-fiction
book entitled Le Front de l’Art by Rose Valland. The film was originally
helmed by Arthur Penn, but co-producer and star Burt Lancaster axed him because
Penn wanted to make more of a character study and Lancaster insisted the action
be revved up. The film was shot on location in France. No models were used.
Those are all real trains crashing and getting blown up. The air bombardment of
the marshalling yard was symbiotic because the French government wanted the
area cleared anyway. (That less than one minute scene required fifty men wiring
TNT for six weeks.) Lancaster (51) did all of his stunts. This included sliding
down a hillside. When he injured his knee stepping in a hole while golfing, it
was written into the script that he would be wounded while fleeing under fire.
One scene where the train races into a tunnel to avoid a strafing Spitfire was
added to have an additional action sequence. Frankenheimer was almost killed
when the helicopter he was filming from came within ten feet of being hit by
the Spitfire.
The movie opens in
Paris on August 2, 1941 (the 1511st day of occupation), just days away from
Allied liberation. A German officer Col. Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) visits an
art gallery where the Nazis have concentrated much of the French masterpieces they
have stolen. The curator Mlle. Villard (Suzanne Flon; based on the author Valland)
thanks him for being a non-typical Nazi in that he admires art. He says “I’ve
often wondered at the curious conceit that would attempt to determine taste and
ideas by decree.” She is stunned when he suddenly orders the paintings to be
crated up to be removed to a “safe place” in Germany. It is unclear
whether he is an art lover or simply a thief. Von Waldheim becomes obsessed
with getting the train loaded with the art out of Paris. He considers it more
important than military trains. We first meet his adversary Labiche (Lancaster)
on a long tracking shot as he tries to flag down a train, slides down a ladder,
runs along the tracks, and jumps aboard the moving train. Labiche runs the rail
yard, but is also a leader in the Resistance. He is visited by Villard who
makes a passionate case for delaying the art train because the art is part of
the glory of France. Labiche is unimpressed and points out that his cell
started with eighteen men and is now down to three. “I won’t waste lives for
paintings.” Besides, their top priority is delaying a military train so it is
still in the yard when a scheduled bombing raid takes place. However, as you
can guess, Labiche eventually comes around and becomes heavily involved in
making sure the train with the art does not leave France.
ACTING:
A
ACTION:
N/A
ACCURACY:
N/A
PLOT:
A
REALISM: C
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
A
SCORE: Csparse
QUOTE:Labiche:There were over a hundred involved in stopping that train.
Switchmen, brakemen, yard gangs, stationmasters. God knows how many will be
shot, like Jacques. You know what's on that train? Paintings. That's right,
paintings. Art. The national heritage. The pride of France. Crazy, isn't it?
BEST
SCENE:the bombing of the station with
the train rushing through
ACCURACY:The movie is surprisingly
based on a true story. The book is supposedly a real nail-biter, but in reality
the Resistance used paper work and red tape to delay the departure of the train
and then put it on a loop around Paris until the Allies arrived. The Spitfire
attack was also based on an actual incident, but not involving the art train.
The activities of a train station and marshalling yard are authentically
depicted. Other than Villard, all the main characters are fictional.
CRITIQUE:This is a remarkable movie.
Frankenheimer described it as the last great action movie made in black and
white. It is hard to imagine it in color and colorizing it would be a sacrilege
on a par with “Casablanca”. The cinematography is crisp and the railway yard
comes off as appropriately gritty and busy. The long tracking shots are awesome
and you see a lot of the Frankenheimer style (interesting angles and close-ups)
in the way the movie is filmed. There’s lots of deep focus and sweaty faces.
The acting is great.
Lancaster is in top form. He portrays the complexity of Labiche. Labiche is
cynical, yet patriotic. He becomes just as obsessed as Von Waldheim. Scofield
is an effective foil. He is not your typical Nazi. He is cultural, yet ruthless.
He disobeys orders and schemes. The rest of the cast is memorable, especially
Michael Simon as Papa Boule and Jacques Marin as the stationmaster. The trains
do a great acting job as well. The musical score by Maurice Jarre is fine, but
it is overshadowed by the sounds of a working railway and the trains
themselves.
The movie starts as a resistance film, but the
cloak and dagger has some action in it. In
a terrific scene, an air bombardment catches the train in the yard. A crusty
old engineer named Poppa Boule races the art train through the explosions to
save the precious cargo. (This iconic scene used 140 explosions involving 3,000
pounds of TNT and 2,000 gallons of gasoline.)Later, we get an awesome train crash that solidifies the movie’s place
as the number one war movie involving trains. Several cameras were destroyed in
the shoot.
The one flaw in the movie
is it is pretty preposterous at times. The Germans have to be clueless to be
fooled by the changing of the station names. The idea that bombers could avoid
hitting some box cars because they are painted white gives too much credit to
bombing accuracy. Although the French Resistance was probably not as efficient
(or lucky), the movie gives a good look at the dedication of its members and
the incredible risks they took. It is an homage to those brave men.
The theme of the movie is
thought provoking. Is a nation’s cultural heritage worth men’s lives? This is
the question Labiche has to answer. It is unclear, even at the end, what his
answer is. Considering he is the only good guy left alive at the end, the
viewer could come to the conclusion that the art was not worth it.
“Attack!”
is a 1956 film from Robert Aldrich (“The Dirty Dozen”) based on the play
“Fragile Fox”. He bought the rights when he failed to obtain those for Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the
Dead. Aldrich had not seen the play, but read the script. The
movie was low budget ($750,000) and was
shot on the back lot in just 35 days. It made $2 million. Because of the plot,
the Pentagon refused any cooperation. The Army refused to admit there were
cowardly officers.Shame!Aldrich had to rent two decidedly inauthentic
tanks. Theywere modified M3 Stuarts.
This just adds to the “charm” of the film.(First use of the word charm in a review of this movie.)
The
film is set in WWII Belgium before the Battle of the Bulge.A depleted American platoon led by Lt. Costa
(Jack Palance) is assaulting a pill box and gets pinned down.The company commander Capt. Cooney (Eddie
Albert) is a coward who refuses to support the attack.Costas survives and is in a bad mood, to say
the least.It turns out that Lt. Col. Bartlett
(Lee Marvin) is propping up Cooney for future patronage from Cooney’s father
who is an influential judge.Costas is
very cynical and the only thing that prevents him from fragging Cooney is his
friend Lt. Woodruff (William Smithers).Smithers is the buffer between Costas and Cooney.He wants Cooney gone, but doesn’t want his
friend in Leavenworth.
Bartlett
orders Cooney to capture the next town.Cooney decides a full-scale effort (which would involve him facing
flying metal) is uncalled for and orders Costas to lead a squad into an Alamo
on the outskirts of the town.Before
leaving, Costas tells Cooney that if he leaves him hanging again, “I’ll shove
this grenade down your throat.”He
forgets to add “sir”.It’s “last stand”
time.Costas is shocked, shocked to find
that Cooney pulls a Cooney
It’s
Hitler’s last great counteroffensive time as the Battle of the Bulge hits the
company.Bartlett arrives and literally
slaps Cooney into defending the town at all costs.Cooney does not have the cowardice slapped
out of him.Instead, he snaps and is
psychiatrist couch-bound.Unless Costas
has survived the Alamo.Indeed, Costas
arrives in a friggin’ fraggin’ mood, but is distracted by having to take out a
German tanks with a bazooka.He then
suffers one of the best woundings in war movie history.The final scene takes place in a basement
with Germans rampaging above.Things are
said, things are done.Issues are
resolved.Not a happy ending, but
satisfying.
ACTING:
A
ACTION:
A6/10 in quantity
ACCURACY:
C6/10 quantity
PLOT:
A
REALISM: B
CINEMATOGRAPHY:
A
SCORE: C
QUOTE:PFC Bernstein:When you salute them two, you have to apologize
to your arm.
BEST SCENE: when Costa
tries to kill Cooney
Talk
about getting bang for your buck.The
only thing low budget is the tanks.This
was Aldrich’s seventh movie and he is definitely showing his style and
panache.The film does have the stage
vibe you often get when plays are transferred to film, but he uses cinematic
touches to negate that.His camera
shoots through barriers and doorways.There are shots from above and diagonal views and deep focuses.It’s a bit showy, but adds to the appeal of
the movie.The score gets attention with
sometimes discordant piano music. But some of the music is inappropriately patriotic.
The film is one of the most anti-war
films. Aldrich:"My main anti-war
argument was not the usual 'war is hell,' but the terribly corrupting influence
that war can have on the most normal, average human beings, and the terrible
things it makes them capable of that they wouldn't be capable of otherwise."
The
acting is outstanding with Palance successfully treading the line between
scene-chewing and scene-stealing.It is
a remarkable performance with tremendous energy.Costas is one of my favorite war movie
characters.The rest of the cast is
perfect.Marvin is loathsome and
Smithers (in his first big role) is solid.Kudos to Eddie Albert (a war hero, as were Palance and Marvin) for
daringly playing against type.John
Wayne would have never accepted a role like that and he was not even a veteran.The supporting cast includes Buddy Ebsen,
Robert Strauss, and Richard F’in Jaeckel (of course).If you are of my generation, you will feel
very comfortable watching this movie.
The
combat scenes are fairly good for a play, but you’ll remember the dialogue more
than the action. The combat is realistic and the deaths are random. The movie
blends violence and exposition well.There are some good lines.There
is some good comic relief in the film, mostly from Strauss. None from Palance.
If
your heart goes out to the officers instead of the enlisted men, you might not
enjoy this movie.It is not so much
anti-war as it is anti-brass.It tends
to be moralistic in its anti-authority theme.Other themes include;the
military is like politics, the higher up you go the more corrupt the officers
are, and following orders can really suck.This movie makes you wonder if blind obedience to orders is a good policy.
But it also shows that American soldiers would sometimes take matters into
their own hands.Contrast that to the
relationship of German soldiers to their officers. The movie anticipates “fragging”
in the Vietnam War. Released in 1956, it was a harbinger of the 60’s wave of
modern war films like “The War Lover” and “Hell Is For Heroes.”
Check out that poster. Pulling a grenade pin with your teeth is an unrealistic cliche, but Jack Palance was definitely capable of doing that.
