Tag: Roald Dahl

by Robert C. Cumbow, Contributors, Essays

Erasable Bond

Written by Robert C. Cumbow September 12, 2016

[Originally published in Movietone News 29, January-February 1974]

Watching the last three James Bond films in close succession, one constantly sees contrasts. Not so with the first two films of the series, Dr. No and From Russia with Love, which frequently play together as a double feature. They invite comparison rather than contrast, their parallels in plot and style having established a “James Bond formula” with which viewers quickly became familiar, expecting its recurrence in subsequent films. Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice fulfilled the expectation.

But the juxtaposition of the next two films, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever, which also have circulated as a double bill, impresses the viewer more with differences than similarities, provoking one to redefine his notion of exactly what a James Bond film is, or is supposed to be. And the most recent offering, Live and Let Die, compared with its two immediate predecessors, comes off decidedly third-best.

Review: The BFG

Written by Robert Horton June 30, 2016

Ruby Barnhill and Mark Rylance in ‘The BFG’

Just after we’ve first seen the Big Friendly Giant—teased in a series of shadowy glimpses as he lurks about a London street at night—he must flee the city and return to Giant Country. We watch this creature, as tall as a small building, as he lopes through town and country, full steam ahead, his long skinny legs galloping across an acre at a time. It’s a thrilling sight. Perhaps many filmmakers could make this moment soar, but when you see it you will know that this particular flourish could come only from Steven Spielberg. The way the distance of the camera allows us to see the BFG from head to gnarly toe, the predawn light barely glimmering on the horizon beyond, the everyday touch of power lines whipping past—everything in this brief shot suggests Spielberg’s talent for amassing details so that they generate giddiness across your eyeballs.

In The BFG, a new Disney production, Spielberg mines Roald Dahl’s 1982 kid-lit classic. It’s the adventure of an orphan girl named Sophie (spunky Ruby Barnhill), plucked from her unhappy orphanage by the Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance).

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by Ken Eisler, Contributors, Film Reviews

Review: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Written by guest April 18, 2012

[Originally published in Movietone News 50, June 1976]

by Ken Eisler

It just so happens that I was one of that lonely number who actually liked Mel Stuart’s One Is a Lonely Number some five years back. Couple of Sundays ago I caught up with Stuart’s children’s-pic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, made at about the same time, and I like this one even better. It was fun, too, being part of an audience this time (at a children’s matinee) which patently appreciated the strengths of Stuart’s style. Both One and Wonka are characterized by a peculiar blend of sentiment and acerbity. At times, the sentiment in One tipped over into sentimentality. It was the acerbity, according to report, that got out of hand in Stuart’s contemporaneous feature, I Love My … Wife, a vehicle for the too-busy Elliott Gould of that time. Willie Wonka, a few cloying patches apart, strikes an admirable balance, it seems to me. It’s Gene Wilder, at the top of his form, who makes this uneasy amalgam work, but Stuart must surely deserve some of the credit for setting off and perhaps controlling this actor’s talents. He got an exceptionally good performance from Trish van Devere in One,plus a hilarious character bit from Janet Leigh. Wilder, cast as chocolate factory owner Willie Wonka in this one, doesn’t appear until the movie is at least half over, but his star turn more than repays the long wait.