Old Movie Classics: Intrigue

Showing posts with label Intrigue. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Great Locomotive Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase (1956)

This is based on a true story. During the Civil War, a Union spy, Andrews, is asked to lead a band of Union soldiers into the South so that they could destroy the railway system. However, things don’t go as planned when the conductor of the train that they stole is on to them and is doing everything he can to stop them.

During the American Civil War, the Union knows that weakening the Confederate’s transportation networks will greatly increase the chances of an attack being successful. James Andrews has been undercover within the South for some time so he is tasked with leading a group of men in as spies to get to the main railway bridges and burn them down. Things are edgy but going well until a zealous conductor on a train spots the men and plans to head the alarm. With no choice but to act, Andrews seizes the train and steals it to get quickly to his target blocking the track and chopping down telegraph lines along the way. However William Fuller is not to be put off and sets out in pursuit.

Supposedly a true story this Disney film is a basic but entertaining adventure that is more about getting a simple chase going than it is about painting an educational historical piece. However this is not a major criticism because it is rather interesting and fun despite being a pretty base piece of film-making. The chase is never that exciting but it does provide some energy into the film, while the solid characters are engaging enough for what is essentially a film aimed at older children. The lack of tension or danger was a problem for me because I didn’t think the mission should feel like the jolly jape that most of this makes it out to be – I imagine many viewers will struggle with the bright colourful pictures that this is presented in.
The cast are solid enough; few so anything special but most of them fill their roles well and make reasonable fists of the job. Parker has a big strong chest and a big square jaw and my God does he use them at every chance he gets – hardly a performance but good enough for the type of film. Lupton is more interesting in a smaller role. Hunter is fun as Fuller although I would have liked a bit more humour in his performance. Support from York, Firestone and a few others is good but none of them are anything that special. Much like the film itself, the actors all do the minimum but generally do OK.

Source; Movie mega upload

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Chase

The Chase (1946 Classic Movie)

This dream-like film noir is about Chuck Scott, a World War II vet now a penniless drifter tormented by bizarre dreams, who takes a job as driver to Eddie Roman (Cochran), a vicious gangster. Roman tests his new driver, Scott, by taking control of his car in the back seat, unbeknown to the driver. Roman has an accelerator in the back seat of his car so that he can "take over" total control whenever he wants. This bizarre trick not only unnerves his new driver but Roman's right hand man, Gino (Peter Lorre). Scott passes the test and gets the job. Things get tough for Scott when he falls in love with the gangsters wife, who has attempted to kill herself. They run off together to Cuba and a bizarre chase begins.

Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style by Alain Silver, and Elizabeth Ward notes: "Phantom Lady excepted, The Chase is the best cinematic equivalent of the dark, oppressive atmosphere that characterizes most of Cornell Woolrich's best fiction."

Film Noir Double Feature, Vol. 2: The Chase/Bury Me Dead

Watch Movie Classic; The Chase

Cast
Robert Cummings as Chuck Scott
Michèle Morgan as Lorna Roman
Steve Cochran as Eddie Roman
Lloyd Corrigan as Emmerich Johnson
Jack Holt as Cmdr. Davidson
Peter Lorre as Gino

Fail-Safe

Fail-Safe stars Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Dan O'herlihy, Larry Hagman and Fritz Weaver.
When a military computer error deploys a squadron of SAC bombers to destroy Moscow, the American President (Fonda) tries to call them back. But their sophisticated fail-safe system prevents him from aborting the attack...so he must convince the Soviets not to retaliate and bring us back from the brink of World War III.

Warren Black is a brigader general in the US Air Force who is troubled by a nightmare about a matador. Walter Groeteschele is a professor with some audacious theories about nuclear warfare. Carl Cascio is an Air Force Colonel ashamed of his low-class upbringing and is XO of Strategic Air Command's commanding general Frank Bogan. Jack Grady is an old-school Air Force Colonel who leads a squadron of Vindicator nuclear bombers. Gordon Knapp is head of a defense electronics contractor. Hubert Raskob is a visiting Congressman. Peter Buck is translator to the President of the United States. And all of these men become enveloped in the ultimate accident; when a malfunction damages SAC's fault indicator, the system is changed routinely, but it causes a malfunction in the mainframe that launches Jack Grady's squadron on an attack mission to obliterate Moscow.

When the full horror of the accidental attack order becomes clear, SAC and the President must work to recall or stop the bombers, but all efforts are frustrated by the skill and working orders of the pilots involved as well as the power of their planes, and when they penetrate Soviet airspace a running sky battle erupts. But the bombers press on, and through negotiations with the Soviet premier, the President is left with but one hope of averting Armageddon, an order so audacious it even shocks the Soviet premier and leaves the President's subalters speechless.