SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (not to be confused with Superman: The Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Spread) is an important movie. It was the first big comic book super hero picture, and an early entry in the world of post-STAR WARS blockbusters that shaped today’s generation of filmatists. By casting Marlon Brando as Joe L. Superman (plus Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and Glenn Ford as Pa Kent), director Richard (LETHAL WEAPON) Donner set the precedent, still in place today, that big respected actors in supporting roles can add credibility to a super hero picture. And by casting only-one-movie-under-his-belt Christopher Reeve as Kal L. “Clark Kent” Superman he showed that sometimes a fresh face is better than a familiar veteran to play an iconic character. That later worked for Wolverine (whose first movie was executive produced by Donner), Thor and two subsequent Supermen. (Other actors who were supposedly on the producers’ wish list: Al Pacino, James Caan, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman and [why not?] Muhammad Ali. Any one of those would’ve automatically been a completely different movie.)
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Posts Tagged ‘Glenn Ford’
Superman: The Movie
Wednesday, July 23rd, 20143:10 to Yuma (1957)
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
(Note: I will be reviewing both 3:10s to Yumas in two separate posts)
It’s been a couple years that I wanted to see that Bale vs. Crowe version of 3:10 TO YUMA, but I told myself I had to see the original first. And the truth was I wasn’t that excited to see the original. I’m not that well schooled on the pre-spaghetti westerns and I didn’t know anybody that swore by this one. So it took me 3 or 4 years to get around to it.
Glad I did, though, because director Delmer Daves’s black and white take on the Elmore Leonard short story is a real gem. A small, valuable gem, not a big gaudy one like a rapper would wear. It’s just putting great characters in a tense situation and seeing what kind of conversations and relationships develop.
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Day of the Assassin
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
My Brian Trenchard-Smith studies continue with this 1979 picture, not an Australian one but a USA-Spain-Mexico co-production. And you know with that many countries cooperating that it’s gotta be amazing. It stars Chuck Connors as a jovial freelance agent hired to retrieve a mysterious document from a South American dictator’s blown up yacht. There also might’ve been some money on that thing so the world’s best agents and assassins, including Richard Roundtree, are all in the area competing with him. Also Henry Silva is the head of police who has jurisdiction over the area, but he’s just in a couple scenes doing press conferences. He doesn’t reveal himself to be evil, but I don’t buy it.
It seems like everybody involved in this movie is just doing it for a quick paycheck, but that’s okay. It’s still cool to see them all together in this weird little movie. Glenn Ford plays the guy who hires Connors, and he looks like he’s either retired or on vacation. He’s wearing shades and a white Adidas track jacket, and he’s only in a few scenes, sitting next to the swimming pool. I bet whenever Trenchard-Smith called “cut” he jumped in. (read the rest of this shit…)
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