Willy Wonka in Narnia

Those of us who value The Narnia Chronicles have already read enough to be dubious about Netflix's upcoming 2027 version of The Magician's Nephew. It is entirely unnecessary to be a Christian believer to entertain that doubt. The production appears to have made many bad decisions, quite apart from messing with Aslan's gender. From The Telegraph, by someone obviously familiar with the books:

Uncle Andrew and Jadis

As anyone who has read the book will know, the Edwardian setting is crucial to its tone – self-consciously setting it before the First World War at a time England is still innocent and the horrors of the Somme have yet to rise out of some great hellish pit.

That prelapsarian quality is key to the story, which is essentially the origin tale of Professor Digory Kirke, the eccentric owner of the wardrobe which grants access to Narnia in later books. The Magician’s Nephew is in its essence a book set Before The Fall. At the start of the story, the wicked Jadis is trapped in suspended animation in a post-apocalyptic alternative dimension, Narnia has yet to be created by Aslan and Britain is looking forward to a century of peace. But then two children – Digory and his friend Polly – muddle around and everything changes utterly. Jadis is unleashed, evil is free and tranquility is shattered – literally so, when the future ruler of Narnia runs amok in London in scenes that have the quality of a steampunk Grand Theft Auto.

That is in contrast to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which unfolds against the background of the Blitz and where readers can infer that the children are quietly traumatised by the horror of war – one reason why they leap so readily into the great unknown of the wardrobe. But if you shunt The Magician’s Nephew forward to the post-war austerity of the 1950s, then that dynamic is changed utterly: the calm-before-the-storm aspect of the Edwardian period is missing.

If Jadis is the monster in this story, then the part of pathetic villain is played by Digory’s eccentric Uncle Andrew, a self-involved boffin who tricks Polly into disappearing into another dimension by having her touch a magic ring – then blackmails Digory into setting off to rescue her. The “Magician” in The Magician’s Nephew, as written by Lewis, has few redeeming features. Yet in Gerwig’s film he’s played by the charming Daniel Craig; judging by new images, he will be a lovable boffin, a sort of Willy Wonka of the Lewis-verse. .... (more)

Ed Power, "Netflix’s $280m ‘rock opera’ Narnia film is even madder than it sounds," The Telegraph, Sept. 20, 2026.

Aslan

I've been reading and enjoying The Narnia Chronicles for a very long time. They are great children's books and, like all good children's literature, are enjoyed by adults. C.S. Lewis, who authored the Narnia books, once wrote: “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.” There is, of course, Christian allegory in the books, but I once suggested that to a class of 9^th graders, many of whom had grown up with the books, and was greeted with shocked denial. The books are enjoyed by kids whether or not the underlying Christian sensibility is recognized.

I have enjoyed some television and film adaptations of these books. I had been looking forward to the upcoming Netflix adaptations, but am increasingly skeptical. First, a minor objection is that they have chosen the wrong book to adapt first. The first story should be from the first book published, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That is because reading (or watching) The Magician's Nephew first destroys the magic of LWW by, among other revelations, telling the reader who Aslan is. Nevertheless...

A more serious objection for me arose this week when I learned that Meryl Streep will voice Aslan. Aslan is male. He has a mane. Female lions do not, and I am very doubtful that the film will portray a lioness. Aslan has a mane:

"Are you ill, dear Aslan ?" asked Susan.

"No," said Aslan. "I am sad and lonely. Lay your hands on my mane so that I can feel you are there and let us walk like that." ....

“Stop!” said the Witch. “Let him first be shaved.”

Another roar of mean laughter went up from her followers as an ogre with a pair of shears came forward and squatted down by Aslan’s head. Snip-snip-snip went the shears and masses of curling gold began to fall to the ground. Then the ogre stood back and the children, watching from their hiding-place, could see the face of Aslan looking all small and different without its mane. The enemies also saw the difference. ....

“We have a long journey to go. You must ride on me.”

And he crouched down, and the children climbed onto his warm, golden back, and Susan sat first holding on tightly to his mane, and Lucy sat behind holding on tightly to Susan. And with a great heave he rose underneath them and then shot off, faster than any horse could go, downhill and into the thick of the forest. .... (from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, emphasis added)

No doubt I will watch it when it comes, but I am increasingly apprehensive.

The picture is by Pauline Baynes, Narnia's original illustrator.

Coming of age

From another essay in The Free Press series, "Things Worth Remembering." I do remember a time when my parents didn't really care what I was doing so long as I turned up for meals. I also remember the time in my adolescence when our parents were perfectly willing to let a bunch of us high-school-age guys take the train down to Chicago without any adults going along. We wandered around the Loop, took the "El" to the Science and Industry Museum, visited some bookstores, and returned by train that evening. About Stand by Me and times already gone before the movie was made:

Three adolescent boys are gathered in a ramshackle tree house—the kind you might have built yourself as a kid, if you were born before 1990, using scrap wood and a bucket of nails; the kind that would get you an unpleasant visit from your homeowners association were your own kids to attempt the same thing today.

This, the opening scene of Rob Reiner’s film Stand by Me, is the first indication that this story takes place in a very different time; the second, in case you missed the first, is that the boys are smoking cigarettes, playing cards, and listening to Bobby Day on a transistor radio. But this is only the setup for a punch line that arrives moments later, as another boy bursts into the tree house with a breathless question that will alter the trajectory of the rest of their lives:

“You guys want to go see a dead body?”

The answer, obviously, is yes. ....

This was a world in which it was still possible for a group of kids on the cusp of 13 to simply disappear for a period of 36 hours, during which their parents were not just unaware of but also not even curious as to their whereabouts, and if they got into trouble somewhere along the way, they would simply have to get themselves out of it. More than that: The act of extricating yourself from a mess of your own making was understood to be valuable, even essential, fueled by an unspoken consensus that growing up is a thing kids could only truly do in moments when they were on their own, out of adult view. Your upbringing was your parents’ responsibility, sure, but your coming-of-age? This was none of their business. You knew it, and so did they. ....

In hindsight, 1959 was the beginning of the end for this boundless, archetypal American adolescence. If it had been set just a decade later, this same story might have come to an abrupt conclusion after the boys’ parents were reminded of their existence by one of those by then standard public service announcements on the evening news: “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?!” Ten years after that, the kidnappings of Etan Patz and Adam Walsh ushered in an era of skyrocketing anxiety over the safety of children and with it, far less freedom for wanderlust-afflicted preteens. ....

Meanwhile, this year, a poll from the Institute for Family Studies revealed that a majority of 14-year-olds aren’t allowed to leave the street where they live without adult supervision. .... (more)

Kat Rosenfield, "A Time Capsule of Free-Range Childhood," The Free Press, August 14, 2026.

"Something more than nostalgia"

From Ben Mankiewicz in "Hollywood’s Golden Era Still Has Lessons for America":

Think of Hollywood’s Golden Age as the era from 1930, when the full takeover of sound technology in movies made silent films essentially obsolete, to 1959, when the collapse of the studio system became inevitable.

To call this a critical three-decade era in our collective history is a vast understatement. It encompasses the Depression and World War II; the postwar reentry into civilian life of more than a million men who’d seen combat; the creation of the economic engine that transformed American life in the back half of the 20^th century; the start of the Cold War; the seismic shift into Dwight Eisenhower’s America and the expanse of a suburban society; and of course, the dawn and rapid ubiquity of television. And it’s fair to say that most Americans, certainly tens of millions, came to frame what all this meant to us by what they saw in the movies. ....

Everybody like me who loves these movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age knows they’re flawed. The pervasive racism—both in the depiction of black characters and the denial of opportunity to black actors—was grotesque. The sexism—narrowing women to, in broad terms, characters who needed either to be saved for their virtue or slayed for their villainy—was an embarrassment (and we’re not even discussing what happened if actresses had the audacity to turn 40).

While we need to be open about those cracks in the framework of classic films, we should never lose sight of what continues to make these movies so relevant, so watchable, whether they’re 50, 75, or 100 years old. In addition to giving us a desperately needed sense of our civic responsibility to the nation and to each other, they function, I believe, as vitally important hybrid documentaries. ....

Their documentary-adjacent status rests in the details surrounding the characters: their clothes and hats, their manner of speech, the cadence of their humor, the cars they drive.

You want to know what it looked like to leave Oklahoma during the Depression and drive your family to California? Watch The Grapes of Wrath. How did a U.S. senator orchestrate a filibuster to make a point about decency and honesty in 1939, and what did the chamber look like? Watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. How did small-town America react as the country let out its collective breath after World War II? Check out It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’re interested in the same thing but in a bigger city, then see The Best Years of Our Lives. That’s our shared history, right there in black and white, and sometimes in color. ....

There is something worth recalling about that time. Something more than nostalgia. Something magical. We understood there was a foundation to what we were, what we stood for, what we were willing to fight for. That foundation is still there, but I think we all feel it giving and hear it creaking.

I’m not saying watching Casablanca, Sullivan’s Travels, The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, 12 Angry Men, Out of the Past, The Narrow Margin, and Letter to Three Wives is the solution. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt. (more)

Ben Mankiewicz, "Hollywood’s Golden Era Still Has Lessons for America," The Dispatch, June 26, 2026.

Melodramatic schlock?

Kyle Smith didn't much care for Pressure, a film about the preparation for D-Day which I had been hoping to like. Not so much, now.

A sharp intake of breath greeted the news that Brendan Fraser had agreed to play the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in the D-Day drama Pressure. Brendan Fraser? As Dwight David Eisenhower? ....

Mr. Fraser, the Canadian-American star of George of the Jungle and The Mummy, and an Oscar winner for The Whale, shares top billing with the man playing his chief meteorologist, the recently commissioned RAF Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott). ....

The commander of ground troops, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, tries to bigfoot [Stagg], insisting the attack must go ahead at all costs. The normally sturdy Damian Lewis (who, at the other end of events, was among the first Americans to parachute into Normandy years ago, on Band of Brothers) plays Monty as an almost comically out-of-touch figure who is prepared to sacrifice thousands of lives on the altar of his vanity. ....

If Mr. Lewis’s portrayal is wince-inducing on one end, Mr. Scott’s is almost equally unfortunate. I’ve never seen the latter give a weak performance before....

For anyone with a passing acquaintance with military ways, the movie is eye-gougingly painful, with senior officers lounging around half out of uniform, ties askew or missing, their headgear AWOL when they go outdoors. Capt. Stagg treats Lt. Col. Krick like a private and rarely addresses Eisenhower himself as “Sir.” When Montgomery pops in, Stagg doesn’t even stand up, let alone treat him with one-tenth of the deference due a man who was by then one of the most revered figures in the history of the British military.

It’s as if every actor on hand were told to behave like a vain, semi-insolent millennial. ....

The mushy score, absurdly pompous speeches, and Victorian staginess harmonize with Mr. Fraser’s conception of his role as the emoter in chief. Eisenhower, the very model of quiet composure amid unfathomable stress, this time comes across as a petulant, often rageful ninny who has to be told, again and again, that the weather near the English Channel is volatile. Ike had lived in England for two years by this point.

Today our historical memory of the 1940s stands in severe jeopardy, given that hardly anyone living remembers the war years. For decades thereafter, though, people who knew them well made the war pictures. If Pressure is any indicator, we might be in a new era when what Ike dubbed the Crusade in Europe will be reimagined as melodramatic schlock. (more)

Kyle Smith, "Pressure Review: Brendan Fraser Isn’t Like Ike," Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2026.

A pretty good guide for decent behavior

Gene Autry's "Cowboy Code" for his young fans:

1. 
   The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9. He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws.
10. The Cowboy is a patriot.

What did Lincoln say at Gettysburg?

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) is available on Amazon Prime for a modest rental fee and on YouTube, also for a fee. If you've never seen it, you probably should. It stars Charles Laughton and is a comedy, but has one scene that always gets to me. I watched that scene again recently:

I read it as a kid

The most recent Five Books interview is about the "best books" about the sinking of the Titanic. One of the selections is A Night to Remember (1955). I read it a long time ago. I really disliked the relatively recent film, Titanic, partly because I knew a lot about what actually happened. I tend to get annoyed when historical events are unnecessarily fictionalized. On the book:

It’s hard to imagine anybody producing a more thrilling account of the Titanic than Walter Lord’s book from 1955. The Titanic has never really gone away, but between 1912-13 and 1955 there wasn’t a lot of sustained interest. Then Walter Lord came along and published A Night to Remember. It was a bestseller that has never gone out of print.

Lord’s book is a moment-by-moment telling of the events of the night of April 14 and the morning of April 15. What’s most skillful about it is the way that it moves around in space as it recreates these moments in time. From the outset, you get phrases like ‘meanwhile’ or ‘on the boat deck.’ He moves you around the ship, creating a sense of simultaneity, even as he’s conveying a sense of the vastness of the Titanic and all of these different experiences happening at the same time, from calm to panic. He also plays around with the pacing so that it’ll slow down to have Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, reflect on his career, or Isidor and Ida Straus reflecting on their marriage. And then the pace speeds up as the danger becomes clearer, the lifeboats are being loaded and launched, and the water is rising. It becomes a complete page turner by the time the ship is going down.

It’s also held up incredibly well in terms of accuracy. That’s in part because of the advantages he had writing this book in 1955 as opposed to later, because he could interview or correspond with 60-plus survivors. He was a meticulous researcher. He used newspapers, the British and American inquiries, the published survivors’ accounts, as well as his interviews and correspondence with survivors. He was careful about not reporting some of the more dubious stories that were told about the disaster at the time. .... (more)

Steven Biel, "The best books on The Titanic," Five Books, Feb. 22, 2026.

"Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies"

Robert Duvall has died.  He was a great actor and was in several of my favorite films. Some years ago, at the beginning of Lent, John Nolte suggested several films appropriate to the season. One he recommended:

Tender Mercies(1983) - Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, an alcoholic has-been country and western star who wakes up hungover in a rundown motel run by a widow and her young son. The great Horton Foote’s exquisite, Oscar-winning script understands faith like few others. Sledge doesn’t come back to life through rediscovering music; he rediscovers music after coming back to life. And what brings him to life is the love of a kind and simple woman, her young son, a difficult reconciliation with the past, and in the film’s most touching scene, a gentle dunk in baptismal waters.

Tender Mercies seems to be about a very troubled and messed-up life. It is really about God's grace. I saw the film in a theater on its first run, and I've watched it on videotape and DVD many times since. It isn't a "message" film. It isn't propaganda for the faith. It simply shows how, even when we focus on the drama in our lives—on the terrible and stressful things—we are still surrounded by blessings.

Tolerance for country music is necessary if the film is to be enjoyed. If you haven't seen it, it is worth at least renting (it is available on Blu-ray and, last time I checked, can be watched on Prime). If you haven't seen it for a while, this is a good time to revisit.

Duvall was given "Best Actor" and Horton Foote "Best Original Screenplay" for the film—back when that still meant something. Foote was also responsible for the screen adaptation of Duvall's first film, To Kill a Mockingbird (for which Foote also received an Academy Award). Duvall famously objected to delivering lines that no real person would utter. Foote didn't write any dialogue like that.

Rear Window

Hitchcock is the director whose films I rewatch most often. I enjoy some of the early British movies, especially The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Lady Vanishes, but even more those made at the height of his American career: Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, To Catch a Thief, and North by Northwest. And that list isn't exhaustive. The most important not listed is Rear Window. From "Looking Back at Rear Window" reviewing a recent, apparently flawed, book about the film:

Released in the summer of 1954 to general acclaim and impressive box-office receipts, Rear Window endures as a genuine pop-art achievement, its big-budget Hollywood approach—glamorous stars, enviable costume design, blazing Technicolor, and studio-system craftsmanship—enlivened by a restless intelligence behind the camera. By mixing suspense, comedy, romance, and mystery, Hitchcock delivered a rousing if incongruous tour de force, its lighthearted tone occasionally contrasting wildly with its sordid subject. After all, if any film featuring (off-screen) murder and dismemberment can be considered lighthearted, Rear Window would be it. With a witty screenplay, an appealing star with longstanding box-office prowess (Jimmy Stewart), a promising young actress of striking, almost numinous beauty (Grace Kelly), and a talented supporting cast (including Raymond Burr as the villain and the irrepressible Thelma Ritter), Rear Window offers new delights with every viewing. ....

Though Rear Window was his third film with a restricted setting (after Lifeboat and Rope), Hitchcock seemed to relish the scale of the challenge this time around. Rear Window takes place entirely in a single room: where Jefferies watches the action across the courtyard (first with binoculars, then with a camera/telephoto lens combination), forcing the audience to share his subjective point of view. To realize his bravura vision, Hitchcock had one of the most elaborate sets since the days of Cecil B. DeMille constructed. At a cost of “$9,000 to design and $72,000 to build,” Paramount erected a life-size model of a Greenwich Village apartment complex. .... (more)

Carlos Acevedo, "Looking Back at Rear Window," City Journal, Jan. 9, 2026.

Poirot and twelve suspects

In the mail yesterday arrived a 4K Blu-ray of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1974) from Kino Lorber. Watched it last night, and it was a completely enjoyable experience. My favorite Poirot is David Suchet, but an almost unidentifiable Albert Finney (fat suit, waxed mustache, etc.) was fine. The rest of the cast included Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, and Michael York. A remarkable gathering of film stars — none got top billing. Another star in the film was the train itself, looking very much like the actual train as presented in documentaries. I saw another such documentary the other day about the food served on that train during the 1930s, and enjoyed seeing what appeared to be some of the same in the movie. The plot is well presented. And the photography is beautiful. Whether the 4K version looks better than a Blu-ray, I can't say. I haven't read the book in years, but it is one of her most famous plots and the movie seemed faithful. If you like Christie, I recommend this film version. I also have the PBS Mystery version with David Suchet as Poirot and like it, too.

Decency and kindness

At NRO, Giancarlo Sopo recommends "What to Watch on the Fourth of July." I really like this one and I think I'll watch it tonight:

The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)

Though Lynch is often drawn to the darkness beneath American life, The Straight Story stands apart as his quiet tribute to its goodness. Based on a true story, it follows elderly Alvin Straight (an extraordinary Richard Farnsworth), who, upon learning that his estranged brother is gravely ill, sets out to cross 240 miles of Midwest farmland on a lawnmower that crawls along at three miles per hour. At its heart, it’s a film about fraternal reconciliation, but what holds the story — and Alvin’s journey — together are the decent Midwesterners he meets along the way: among them a bus driver who gives him a ride, a preacher who offers him food, and a fellow WWII veteran who buys him a round. In Farnsworth’s gentle performance and the kindness of strangers lies a reminder that sometimes the grandest American odysseys unfold at a pace slow enough to watch the fields go by.

Giancarlo Sopo, "What to Watch on the Fourth of July," July 4, 2025.

Frederick Forsyth, RIP

I did enjoy his novels, especially Day of the Jackal and Dogs of War (both made into excellent films). He also narrated the BBC series Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle. I used the first episode of that as an introduction to a unit on the military in an international relations class. From the Washington Post obituary:

Frederick Forsyth, a mega-selling British novelist of political thrillers, cunning spy craft and globe-trotting intrigue who used his own background as a foreign correspondent to inspire such page-turners as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, died June 9 at his home in Buckinghamshire, a county in southeast England. He was 86. ....

For a half-century, Mr. Forsyth was one of the most successful authors of the cloak-and-dagger circuit. He wrote more than 20 novels, short stories and other works, reportedly selling more than 75 million copies in more than a dozen languages. ....

.... Mr. Forsyth, who had mulled for years the attempted assassination of De Gaulle as scaffolding for a novel, spent a little over a month at the typewriter and finished the manuscript for The Day of the Jackal with the aid of many packs of Rothmans cigarettes.

The book was about a French paramilitary outfit that hires a remorseless British hit man known only as “the Jackal.” The tensions build on a collision course between the hired killer and an unassuming French police detective racing to stop him. The first four publishers who were pitched “Jackal” didn’t understand the book, Mr. Forsyth later told The Washington Post: “The point was not whodunit, but how, and how close would he get?” ....

In 1972, Mr. Forsyth won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. An acclaimed 1973 film, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starred Edward Fox as the Jackal and Michael Lonsdale as the French police official. .... (more)

Brian Murphy, "Frederick Forsyth, thriller writer of ‘Day of the Jackal,’ dies at 86," The Washingtyon Post, June 9, 2025.

"Cooler than Cool"

I'm not sure when I first discovered Elmore Leonard, but it was after the time he was writing Westerns (but I do have DVDs of some films based on his Westerns). I believe I own copies of all of his crime novels, all eminently re-readable. I once gave old paperback copies of several of Elmore's books to a graduate student who aspired to be a screenwriter. A new biography of Elmore was reviewed in The Wall Street Journal today. From that review:

“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”

So reads the 10^th of “10 Rules of Writing” (2007) by Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), the New Orleans-born, Detroit-raised, Hollywood-savvy author who changed the nature of crime stories (in print and on screen) while becoming one of the most successful and highly regarded writers of his genre and generation. ....

Leonard’s style was Hemingway-like in its economy and reveled in the unexpected delights of the American language. His stories often began in the middle of a scene, and where they went after that was anyone’s guess. His opening lines, such as this one from 1980’s Gold Coast, were collectible: “One day Karen DiCilia put a few observations together and realized her husband Frank was sleeping with a real estate woman in Boca.”

His crime stories, filled with oddball crooks and moody cops, were hard to pigeonhole, but Leonard’s audience grew to bestseller proportions, boosted by screen adaptations and near-idolatrous reviews. Many of his later works—among them LaBrava (1983), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), Out of Sight (1996) and Tishomingo Blues (2002)—have been reverently republished via the Library of America. Martin Amis would write that Leonard’s prose rang with the “American rhythms” of Robert Frost and Mark Twain. Ann Beattie compared his fiction, in its moral complexity, to Flannery O’Connor’s. .... (more)

Tom Nolan, "‘Cooler Than Cool’ Review: Elmore Leonard’s Life of Crime," The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2025.

"Romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress..."

Occasioned by a new release of Richard Lester's Three Musketeers comes a review of a film I thoroughly enjoyed in a theater when it was first released, and have owned in some form ever since home video became affordable. The review reminded me that the screenwriter was one of my favorite authors. I just ordered Criterion's new edition, coming next week.

Few works have sparked the cinematic imagination as routinely as Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. A hasty count indicates some 40 movie versions (the first and latest from France, in 1903 and 2023) and many more made just for television. But by common consent, the best yet is Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), originally conceived as a single film with intermission but ultimately released as two separate pictures. ....

Three seasoned actors in their prime—Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay—were cast as the world-weary musketeers: Athos, Aramis and Porthos. Michael York, fresh from his central role in the soon-to-be Oscar-winning Cabaret, nabbed the plum part of the callow D’Artagnan (ultimately, the fourth musketeer)....

Raquel Welch, the very essence of feminine sexuality at the time, so her participation—as Constance, the queen’s dressmaker and the object of D’Artagnan’s ceaseless affections—was non-negotiable. Who knew then that this screen goddess, often as not wooden in dramatic parts, had talent as a comedic foil? ....

Landing Faye Dunaway after Bonnie and Clyde but before Chinatown and Network was a coup, and she portrays the ruthless Milady de Winter, an agent of much misery, with such unforgettable hauteur that it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting the role. Christopher Lee lends her lover, the fearsome one-eyed Comte de Rochefort, exactly the kind of menace that made him irreplaceable on screen for so many decades. ....

...[T]he real casting masterstroke was placing Charlton Heston, one of Hollywood’s leading leading men, in the pivotal role of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the throne and the figure discreetly controlling most of the saga’s action. Heston plays Richelieu with a welcome light touch, giving just the right weight to sotto-voce comments, asserting authority by never raising his voice and letting an arched eyebrow or a sidelong glance serve his character’s needs. ....

...[T]he Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, whose early “Flashman” novels, with their outlandish bounder protagonist, served almost as dry runs for his spirited condensing of Dumas’s massive chronicle into two efficient pictures, each running less than two hours. It was Fraser who, when Mr. Lester asked how a particular scene should look, said, “like a Breughel painted by Rembrandt”—a comment the director clearly took to heart.

None of this makes these pictures high art, but they are consummate entertainment. Few of us want a meal of Bergman and Bresson every night. Sometimes, the menu calls for romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress, and, of course, sexy women and dashing men. And when you want to dine out on that, Mr. Lester is happy to serve you. (more)

David Mermelstein, "‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘The Four Musketeers’: Richard Lester’s Spirited Swashbucklers," The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2025.

“Whistle While You Work”

Comparing the 2025 Snow White to the one released in 1937, Disney's first full-length animated film:

.... The 2025 film brazenly removes the heart of the original film’s princess. It was dead on arrival.

The 1937 Snow White is the only Disney princess film that includes a literal depiction of prayer. Many age-old stories contain allegories for divine intervention (fairy godmothers, for instance), but in the original Snow White, the princess kneels at her bedside and prays. She prays for the seven dwarves, for Grumpy to like her, and for her dreams to come true—namely, that someday, her “prince will come.” (Lest we forget, the prince was a man she knew and liked from her time at the castle, not a complete stranger.) She prays for safety.

And her prayers are answered. The evil queen is vanquished by a lightning strike from the heavens. Divine help is integral in the 1937 film; the dwarves, the prince, and the princess just participate in it.

In the live-action film, there is no prayer for love and marriage. Not only that, desiring such things is ridiculed. ....

In the classic, Snow White sweeps while singing “Whistle While You Work.” In the remake, she noticeably offloads the broom to one of the dwarves. The filmmakers are clearly trying to remove any insinuation that cooking and cleaning are women’s work. But the Snow White in the original is defined by cheerful acceptance of such duties—performed in gratitude for the dwarves’ hospitality—and hopeful optimism in the face of hardship and persecution. In the new version, Snow White is despondent and worn down by injustice. The impression one is left with is that the filmmakers rewrote the character because they simply do not like Snow White. .... (more)

The illustration is from the 1937 version. I do have the '37 Snow White on Blu-ray. I should watch it again.

Mary Rose Somarriba, "How Disney Killed Snow White," First Things, April 4, 2025.

Drowned in noise and nonsense

I loved this, on Oliver Stone's film:

Stone’s film — one of the great cinematic achievements of the 1990s — has a grasp of history that’s about as loose as David Ferrie’s wig in a hurricane. It doesn’t merely twist New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s botched investigation; it hog-ties the truth and dumps it on Bourbon Street to get pancaked by a sousaphone section and a guy in a gator suit.

.... Who killed Kennedy? Stone’s answer: Who didn’t? The CIA, LBJ, the Mafia, the Secret Service, the Pentagon, right-wing wackjobs, crazy Cubans (my peeps), angry Texans, oil tycoons, “Tricky Dick” Nixon, and — why not? — even the Caddyshack gopher was spotted behind the picket fence, cheeky little rascal.

Mechanically, Stone’s three-hour Gish gallop mirrors how social media influencers lobotomize their audiences: it drowns you with a barrage of noise and nonsense that you can’t possibly untangle, so you surrender — and paranoia sets in. It’s one of the greatest movies ever made about conspiracy theories because it is a conspiracy theory....

By the time you realize that there’s no way Julia Ann Mercer could have seen Jack Ruby near Dealey Plaza, you’re already sitting across from Donald Sutherland’s “X” spinning a monologue for the ages. Next, you’re knee-deep in the debunked “magic bullet” theory — which rests entirely on the fallacy that Kennedy and Texas Governor Connally were seated at the same height (they weren’t) — right before Kevin Costner, channeling Jimmy Stewart, pleads, “It’s up to you.” ....

JFK was a warning, but, instead of heeding it, we turned it into a business model. Minutes after Tuesday’s JFK files dropped, Twitter lit up like one of Ruby’s neon signs outside his strip joint: we saw Ramparts clippings sold as fresh intel, antisemitic bile disguised as “just asking questions,” and even a forged JFK memo about UFOs. .... (more)

Giancarlo Sopo, "From Camelot to Clickbait: America’s Dealey Plaza Syndrome," National Review, March 20, 2025.

Mr. Belvedere

Clifton Webb was one of the actors I really enjoyed from the studio era. He starred in several very good films, including Laura, one of the best films noir, another noir I liked was The Dark Corner, there was a World War II thriller, The Man Who Never Was (based on the Mincemeat plot), and he starred in many others. I also enjoyed him in his Mr. Belvedere comedies. The first of that series was Sitting Pretty (1948), and then Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell (1951), and Mister Scoutmaster (1953). Each of them can provide an undemanding, enjoyable, afternoon or evening.

Wikipedia's description of the plot of Sitting Pretty (which I intend to watch again tonight):

In the suburban Hummingbird Hill, lawyer Harry King and his wife Tacey have trouble retaining a nanny for their three young, rambunctious boys: Larry and Tony, both of whom get into frequent mischief with the family dog Henry; and baby Roddy. When the latest in a string of servants (all women) quits, Tacey advertises for a replacement and hires Lynn Belvedere sight unseen. However, she discovers that Lynn Belvedere is actually a man upon his arrival, a mysterious one with many skills and achievements – and who declares himself to detest children. Nonetheless, the Kings reluctantly agree to a trial period during which Belvedere quickly wins over the boys. However, his mysterious nature intrigues both of their parents, and Harry becomes annoyed by his condescending attitude. ....

In the meantime, we learn that Belvedere has spent the past few weeks secretly researching and writing a salacious account of the goings-on among the residents of Hummingbird Hill. In fact, the book's blurb describes it as "a screaming satire on suburban manners and morals". The published tome becomes a national bestseller, upsetting everyone in the community. ....

Alec Guinness’s George Smiley

Alec Guinness is one of my favorite actors. Not the Alec Guinness of Star Wars, particularly, but the Guinness of the Ealing comedies, or the films he made with David Lean, and especially his role as George Smiley in the television series based on the le Carré books. I revisit those at least once a year. I like the BBC version far better than the 2011 film with Gary Oldman. From someone who, apparently, hadn't seen the 1979 version before:

The thing about spy shows is you can’t do anything else while you’re watching; to miss a micro-expression is to miss the plot. Such is the case with 1979’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries based on the le Carré book of the same name, which I recently watched in full. As in the case in real-life espionage, the series features very little in the way of action. Only one episode features gunfire; occasionally, a man jogs. It was, sincerely, riveting. ....

...Alec Guinness’s George Smiley, a dour, droll cuckold and high-ranking intelligence officer whose devotion to England is only superseded by his commitment to social propriety. Smiley, recently and unjustly fired from his position as second in command of the Circus—the nickname for the cadre of top officers within the UK’s intelligence services—is tasked with ferreting out a mole leaking British secrets to the Soviets. It’s believed that the mole is one of the remaining members of the Circus, so Smiley and his few allies can’t let anyone know what they’re up to. (Rather, being professional spies, they can’t let anyone know even more than usual.) For his part, Smiley has to pretend to still be in forced retirement. Not the easiest way to go about an extremely high-stakes mission set at the height of the Cold War.

Even bearing these constraints in mind, Smiley sets about his mission with extreme delicacy. You could be forgiven for mistaking the setting of Tinker Tailor as an alternate-reality London where any act of rudeness sets off the offender’s exploding ankle monitor and blasts their component atoms into the mesosphere. Most of Smiley’s conversations with his various sources and suspects are comprised of intimation, allusion, and tactical civility. ....

Throughout this process Guinness’s Smiley never raises his voice; not once does he rise from his seat. By weaponizing formality, he’s obviated the need for blunter instruments. Why steal secrets when you can ask politely? (more)

 Calvin Kasulke, "Tinker Tailor Soldier... Shifgrethor," CrimeReads, Feb 24, 2025.

T.E. Lawrence

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was one of those films—spectacular, but (more or less) based on history—that enthralled teenage me (another was A Man for All Seasons). I did learn more of the actual history as time passed. The movie was directed by David Lean who also directed my favorite films of Dickens' novels, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, as well as the film of Doctor Zhivago, another wide-screen spectacle. The Telegraph reports today about a re-creation of one of Lawrence's most heroic WWI feats:

It was a journey immortalised by Peter O’Toole in the epic 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia – and now four military veterans have become the first people to recreate T.E. Lawrence’s 700-mile (1,126km) trek across the sands of the Middle East.

Howard Leedham, James Calder, Craig Ross and Martin Thompson spent 25 days on camelback crossing the Nafud desert in Saudi Arabia to mark 90 years since Lawrence’s death.

The four men, who served in the British special forces, endured 37C (98F) heat, sandstorms and sheer cliffs on the trek from Al Wajh in Saudi Arabia to the Aqaba in Jordan.

They collected sand from four significant areas on the journey to spread on Lawrence’s grave in Moreton, Dorset.

Lawrence was a First World War hero who led the Arab Revolt against German-supporting Turkey. In 1916 he swept across the desert to Jordan and rewrote the map of the Middle East.

His remarkable feat was described in his autobiographical account Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the classic film Lawrence of Arabia. ...

On the penultimate day, the group, with 40 locals, re-enacted Lawrence’s attack on an Ottoman train that was transporting friends and family who had travelled to celebrate the end of their journey. The staff on the train were aware of the attack, but the tourists were “somewhat startled”. ....

Lawrence was killed in a motorcycle accident near his home at Bovington, Dorset in 1935. He is buried in the graveyard of St Nicholas Church in Moreton. (more)

Telegraph Reporters, "Veterans retrace Lawrence of Arabia’s epic 700-mile trek across Middle East," The Telegraph, Feb. 13, 2025.