Richard Burton and Lana Turner in “The Rains of Ranchipur” (1955)

Because Richard Burton is my favorite actor, and I have committed myself to the goal of seeing as many of his movies as I possibly can, I have seen many terrible movies. “The Rains of Ranchipur” is one of them. Set in India, and released in 1955, it was not a hit at the time. It was a remake of 1939’s “The Rains Came,” starring Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy. So why remake a movie that was only 16 years old? Good question. I have no idea. As far as I can tell from reading about the film, the only reason for making the film was to showcase the disasters of the rains in the glories of CinemaScope. The picture was rushed into post-production, as it was shot during August and September of 1955, and released in December, 1955.

The first thing wrong with “The Rains of Ranchipur,” besides the fact that it’s a rather unnecessary remake, is that Richard Burton plays a Hindu doctor. Yes, really. And he does a pretty bad job; it’s really just watching Richard Burton with a tan. Despite the help of a voice coach, Burton was not able to imitate an Indian accent, so he just gave up. Burton was a very talented actor, but he was certainly not a character actor.

Burton plays Dr. Safti, a doctor in the town of Ranchipur, who is doing all he can to help the sick and the poor in post-independence India. The gorgeous Lana Turner plays Lady Edwina Esketh, who is unhappily married to Lord Esketh, played by the hulking actor Michael Rennie. The Eskeths are in Ranchipur to buy some horses. You know, just making a trip to India to get some horses, doesn’t everyone do that? Probably my favorite part of the movie is a scene at the very beginning. There’s a long scene with Turner and Rennie in a train on the way to Ranchipur, and they simply discuss their empty marriage. It’s a long scene, probably 4 or 5 minutes with no breaks, no cuts, and no edits. I love seeing long scenes unfold in real time. To me it’s always been a hallmark of old movies. There’s no fancy camerawork, you just have to listen and watch, and be pulled in by the story. And I was.

Burton and Turner meet at a party, and there is an immediate spark of attraction between them. But Edwina is a totally spoiled, selfish person, and Dr. Safti is totally selfless. Eventually they acknowledge their feelings for each other and start having an affair. There’s a climactic scene where Lord Esketh and Dr. Safti go tiger hunting, and, as you can probably guess, bad things happen. Esketh gets attacked by the tiger; Safti has to shoot the tiger and in the process wounds Esketh. Dr. Safti then has to nurse Esketh back to health, an awkward situation for the two men. I found Lord Esketh to be an interesting character, he and Edwina have a very complicated relationship, and Lord Esketh comes off as a rather sympathetic character. Rennie does a good job playing a man who is somewhat lost in his own life, blessed with money, but still not happy.

Another plot in the film involves Fred MacMurray, who plays Tom Ransome, a rich alcoholic American who is romantically wasting away. A young girl, Fern Simon, played by Joan Caulfield, starts hanging around Ransome and tries to persuade him to become interested in life again.

And then the rains come, there’s both an earthquake and a flood, and Dr. Safti has to rush off and save lives, leaving Edwina behind. She becomes very ill herself, and Ransome takes care of her while also trying to get to Safti to let him know how sick she is. This is the part of the movie where we get our magnificent CinemaScope disasters, which seem to take too much pleasure in the tragedies we are seeing. Ransome, who is an architect/designer by trade, risks his life to blow up a dam and thus saves Ranchipur from further disaster. (Don’t ask me how blowing up a dam is good, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.) Ransome does not admit to the deed, but Dr. Safti cleverly lets Fern know that it was Ransome. I’m paraphrasing what Safti actually says, but it’s something like, “It must have been someone who had a great deal of knowledge on how dams are built and constructed, to have put the dynamite in exactly the right place. And someone who cares a great deal about the people of Ranchipur.” Anyway, Fern knows that Ransome is once more engaged with life, and they are paired off at the end of the film.

After she recovers, Lady Edwina has decided that she actually does care about some things in life other than herself, and she leaves Dr. Safti, knowing that Ranchipur needs him more than she does. In her first selfless act, she leaves Ranchipur with her husband.

There is an interesting film somewhere in all of this, but it didn’t quite make it to the screen. Dr. Safti is pretty much a saint, and he is not a very interesting character. His only flaw is that he’s attracted to Lana Turner, and I think just about every man would have been attracted to Lana Turner in 1955. There are a lot of things that happen off screen that might have made interesting scenes. Edwina talks at one point about Dr. Safti showing her the slums where the poor people live, but that all happens off-screen. It might have been a good scene to show Edwina’s gradual change of heart. Lana Turner is gorgeous in the movie, and parts of the story are interesting, but it doesn’t add up to a successful film. Apart from the first few minutes of the film, I don’t know that any of the movie was actually filmed in India, which is a shame. And IMDB lists the only filming location as being in Pakistan, so maybe what I thought was India at the beginning isn’t even really India.

The lack of realism in this film leads to the next problem with it. Apart from some of the extras, I don’t think that anyone in the cast is actually Indian. Of course, the unspoken reason for casting someone so totally unsuitable for the part of Dr. Safti is because in 1955 you could not have shown a romance between an Indian man and a white woman on screen. I’m pretty sure that no Indian actors were even considered for the part of Dr. Safti. This racism dates the film quite badly, and the utter ridiculousness of casting someone who was English/Welsh to play someone from India is insulting. The other major Indian character in the movie is the Maharani, the woman who basically runs Ranchipur. She is played by Eugenie Leontovich, who was born in Russia! Hollywood still had a long way to go when it came to portraying people other than Americans and Europeans.

In all of the Richard Burton biographies I consulted for writing this post, (yes, I really do research these movies before I write about them!) they all basically say that Burton and Turner had a pretty frosty relationship. All except for Michael Munn’s 2008 book, “Richard Burton: Prince of Players.” Munn was a close, personal friend of Burton’s, and according to him, Burton says he had a relationship with Turner. In the book, Burton is quoted as saying, “She was not someone I loved. She was just incredibly attractive and remarkably good in bed.” Well, okay, good to know! It’s not that surprising, given the romantic histories of both Burton and Turner, that they might have had an affair. (Between the two of them, they were married 13 times!) They were two remarkably attractive people, and Burton was well-known for trying to bed all of his leading ladies. (I think that Burton’s first wife, Sybil, whom he left for Elizabeth Taylor, deserves some kind of medal for putting up with him for so long!) By all accounts, Burton was supremely bored with the film, and he wrote it off by saying, “It never rains but it ranchipurs.”

It’s interesting to compare the careers of Burton at Turner in 1955, as they made this film. Burton turned 30 in 1955, and he was regarded as a promising young actor. His most successful films to date were 1952’s “My Cousin Rachel,” and “The Robe,” the 1953 religious epic that introduced CinemaScope to audiences. Turner was only 4 years older than Burton, yet she was a movie veteran by 1955, and was past the peak of her popularity, which occurred in the 1940’s. After “The Rains of Ranchipur” Turner still had a couple of hit films, like 1957’s “Peyton Place,” and 1959’s “Imitation of Life,” but after she turned 40 in 1961, her filmography is rather undistinguished. By contrast, nearly all of Burton’s most famous movies were made around the age of 40. Of course, it’s a bit unfair to compare them because Turner and Burton were very different kinds of movie personalities. Turner was discovered by Hollywood because she was gorgeous. She was a movie star who didn’t really need to be a great actress as long as she was still beautiful. Although his good looks undoubtedly helped, Burton was signed by Hollywood because of his raw talent on the London stage. But I still think it’s interesting to contrast how Turner’s career as a leading lady was basically over as she started to age, whereas Burton was still playing leading roles until he died at age 58. I think it’s generally true that it’s easier for male actors to keep playing leading parts as they age, and it’s more difficult for female actors. This gender inequity is still visible in movies today, as there are fewer and fewer parts for actresses once they start to show their age.

The Films of Warren Beatty: "The Only Game in Town," starring Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by George Stevens (1970)

Warren Beatty became a full-fledged movie star after producing and starring in "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967. The movie helped usher in the "New Hollywood" era of films, and it also made Warren Beatty a very rich man. Warner Brothers had such little faith in "Bonnie and Clyde," thinking that it would merely be a "B" movie, that they gave Beatty 40% of the profits. According to imdb.com, "Bonnie and Clyde" cost $2.5 million to make, and grossed about $50 million in the US alone. Good job, Warren. So, what movie did Beatty choose as his follow-up? Typically for Beatty, he waited and waited, and turned down a classic movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Beatty then accepted the offer to replace Frank Sinatra in director George Stevens' last movie, "The Only Game in Town," where he would co-star with Liz Taylor. Beatty was a huge admirer of Stevens's work, and basically said yes to the movie just so he could work with him. Stevens directed many great movies like "Gunga Din," "A Place in the Sun," with Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, "Shane," and "Giant," with Liz, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Unfortunately, "The Only Game in Town" is not one of his great movies. Ever polite, Beatty defended his decision, saying, "I always thought that it was probably one of the most sensible decisions I had made because I got the chance to work with George...ultimately it was more rewarding to me to have made a sort of an unsuccessful picture with him." Beatty soaked up everything from Stevens, who was a perfectionist with a tendency to over-shoot. (Just like Beatty would be as a director.) Beatty was amazed by Stevens's calm demeanor, and remarked that he never once heard Stevens raise his voice on the set. Beatty tried to handle himself the same way as a director.

"The Only Game in Town" is set in Las Vegas, but it was mostly filmed in Paris. Why, you might well ask. Well, because Richard Burton was a tax exile from England and could only spend a small number of days a year in the UK. So Burton's latest movie, "Staircase," though set in London, was being filmed in Paris. (In "Staircase" Burton and Rex Harrison play gay hairdressers. Really.) And Liz wanted to be in the same city as Richard. Therefore, extremely expensive facsimiles of Vegas casinos were built in Paris to accommodate Liz. Ah, show-biz!

"The Only Game in Town" was actually a play before it was a movie, running on Broadway for 16 performances in 1968. Frank D. Gilroy, the playwright, must have clicked his heels for joy when 20th Century Fox bought the film rights for $500,000 before the play even opened! It's basically a two-person character study, as the film focuses on chorus girl Fran meeting cocktail bar piano player Joe. Fran has been in Las Vegas for five years, and Joe is planning to leave for New York City as soon as he can save $5,000. Joe soon hits a lucky streak and wins $8,000 at the casinos. He tells Fran he wants to have one more nice night on the town before he leaves the next day. In an excruciating scene, we watch as Joe gambles away all $8,000. Which explains why he's been in Las Vegas for 5 years trying to save $5,000. Just as Joe is waiting for the perfect time to leave Vegas, which may never come, Fran is waiting for her lover, married and living in San Fransisco, to finally divorce his wife and marry her. In the meantime, Fran invites Joe to move in with her. No strings attached, free to leave whenever either one pleases. Eventually Fran's lover comes back with what seems to be the perfect news: he's gotten a divorce, and now they can get married. He's booked them tickets for a honeymoon starting that night. But after saying goodbye to Joe on the phone, Fran realizes that she is in love with Joe, and doesn't leave with her lover. (In a very un-Liz Taylor like moment, Fran even gives him back the ginormous ring he bought her!) So, what happens at the end? Well, I won't spoil that for you.

"The Only Game in Town" is actually a pretty good movie, it's certainly better than I thought it would be, and better than it's reputation would suggest. It was a flop when it was released in January 1970. The movie cost about $10 million to make, took a very long 5 months to shoot, and only grossed $1.5 million in the US. But it's an interesting story, and it features a very good performance from Beatty. Like many other Beatty characters, Joe is a charmer who is very adept at reading people and getting his way. His dreams are less grandiose than most of Beatty's characters, as his only real goal seems to be making it to New York. Joe is actually a well-written character, in part because he is very sarcastic and ironic, which makes his character seem much more modern. You could give Joe's lines to a character in a contemporary romantic comedy with no trouble at all. Sinatra actually would have been quite good for this part, the only problem is that he was about 20 years too old for it. (A piano player in his early 50's who is trying to make $5,000 to get to New York? Um, no.)

Liz is good, but her voice drives me nuts sometimes, as she has a tendency to screech her lines when she yells. She can sound so shrill and harsh. And whoever designed the wardrobe for Liz should have been fired. It's obvious from the way Liz is dressed that she must have gained some weight around the middle, as all of her clothes are really big and baggy on her, which just makes her look larger than she really was. She was only 36 when the movie was filmed, and still had a gorgeous figure, but you'd never know it from this movie.

And how did Richard Burton feel about his wife making a movie with Hollywood's new Don Juan? According to his journals he was a bit jealous. (Personally, Richard Burton and Warren Beatty would both be on my list of guys I would not want my wife to make a movie with.) Burton was on the set when Liz and Beatty filmed their love scene, and he played some George and Martha-like mind games, saying to them, "I say Elizabeth, don't you think you should be a bit closer to your lover? And Warren, you look a touch bashful. Is my presence making you nervous?" According to everything I've read, nothing happened between Liz and Beatty. I would think that Beatty would have tried to do everything he could to impress Burton, as the young Beatty had a pattern of seeking out friendships with older men who were more established in their careers, but I can't find any evidence of this from biographies of Burton or Beatty.

"The Only Game in Town" is certainly a curio, and it's not good enough for me to recommend it without reservations. It's not available on DVD, but I caught it on the Fox movie channel. But if you like old movies that are somewhat talky, or if you want to see two amazingly pretty people go gambling, or if you want to see Warren Beatty be incredibly snarky, this is the movie for you.

Richard Burton in "Bluebeard"

Over Halloween weekend I watched the incredibly campy 1972 movie "Bluebeard," in which Richard Burton stars as the titular character. It's a slight updating of the old legend/fairy tale, where a man with a blue beard keeps murdering his wives. It's a typical Euro-pudding production, with a cast of winsome international starlets, who all have topless scenes. (Except for Raquel Welch, humorously cast as a nun with an amorous past.)

"Bluebeard" was directed by Edward Dmytryk, who was actually a well-respected director back in the 40's and 50's. His most notable films are probably "Crossfire," "The Caine Mutiny," "Raintree County," and "The Young Lions." Dmytryk was actually one of the infamous "Hollywood 10," a group of screenwriters and directors who were blacklisted because of their Communist sympathies. After going to jail and refusing to name names, Dmytryk reversed course, and ended up naming names to HUAC. (The House Un-American Activities committee, who were investigating Communist influences in Hollywood.) Somehow, this does not seem to have hurt Dmytryk's career, as this all happened in the early 50's, and by 1954 he was directing "The Caine Mutiny," a prestige picture any director would have been happy to helm.

By 1972, Richard Burton's star was beginning to wane. His first marriage to Elizabeth Taylor would come to a close soon, and the public seemed to have tired of reading about him buying her another ginormous diamond. Burton's career had soared in the 1960's, and he ended the decade starring in two very successful films, "Where Eagles Dare," alongside Clint Eastwood, and "Anne of the Thousand Days," in which he played Henry VIII, and for which he was nominated for an Oscar. (He didn't win, of course.) After that, Burton took a well-deserved year off. What was his first project after his break? A low-budget World War II flick called "Raid on Rommel," made only because there was leftover footage from Rock Hudson's World War II flick "Tobruk." Yeah, it's a turkey. And who did Richard Burton have to fight to get the role in this illustrious movie? Robert Stack! I'm sorry, Robert Stack was great, but he's not in the same league as Richard Burton. Richard Burton should not have been fighting Robert Stack for parts! (Although I've heard that Burton needed to make some quick money to insure Liz's diamonds.) So, Burton's career was on a downward path, and it would soon become a downward spiral. From what I can tell, it seems like he was taking pretty much any part that came his way during this period.

Anyway, now that we've established the past of the director and leading man, on to the film itself. "Bluebeard" is a self-aware campy horror flick, featuring lots of female nudity, a garish color scheme, and probably the ugliest interior decoration ever seen in a castle. Burton's character was a famous World War I flying ace whose face was disfigured/damaged in a plane crash, hence the blue beard. Which actually is blue, and is totally pasted on. (It almost falls off in the scene where Burton's rowing a boat!) We see him marry his first wife, (Nathalie Delon, ex-wife of French movie god Alain Delon) and she is "accidentally" shot while hunting. Burton's character becomes a Nazi, and we see him burning down Jewish ghettos. (Look for the young violinist, he will be important later. The opening credits told me this, because the actor was given the billing, "and so and so, as The Violinist.") There is a nice parallel between the Nazis hunting down the Jews and the hunting party slaughtering animals in the next scene. But it's extremely heavy-handed and incredibly brutal, as we actually see the animals get killed. It's one of the more disturbing things I've seen in a film, if you're an animal lover, you will be sickened. And I'm pretty damn sure it was real.

After the first wife is shot, we see Burton marry Joey Heatherton, one of those cute, sort-of-talented starlets of the 60's and early 70's. Here "Bluebeard" starts stealing from the "Psycho" playbook, as it turns out that Burton's maid has kept the corpse of Burton's mother, and obsessively combs the dead mother's hair. (In one of the best lines, Burton deadpans, "Mother did so like having her hair combed.") So Joey discovers the freezer in which Burton keeps the corpses of his previous dead wives, and then we flashback as Burton tells Joey about his dead wives. (If this movie were a Robyn Hitchcock song, it would be "My Wife and My Six Dead Wives.") Joey doesn't seem too terribly shocked that he's killed all these women, she's more interested to know why. It turns out that every time Bluebeard marries a new woman, he likes her, until she wants to have sex with him. At the moment she finally offers herself to him, he kills her. (I think he might have some issues...) It's all treated strictly for laughs, like the proto-feminist who discovers she likes it when Bluebeard hits her. Burton is actually surprisingly good in the role, although he was never known for comedy. It's rather amusing to see him find reasons for not sleeping with these women. And although the movie itself is totally over the top, Burton's performance doesn't go over the top, which is nice. The screenwriters thankfully did not decide that because they had one of the world's greatest actors, they should write him pages and pages of dialogue. Even though Burton is the only real actor in the film, they don't make him carry it all on his shoulders.

So we go through wife after wife, the most amusing being Raquel Welch as a nun, who tries to get Burton to sleep with her in a church. After all this, Burton locks Joey in the freezer and goes off to the train station to meet some incoming Nazi buddy. Which brings us to the Nazi point. Even though there are swastikas all over this movie, they don't really look like the Nazi swastikas, they look squashed, more like a fat cross. I assume the reason for this is that "Bluebeard" was filmed in Hungary, and they must have had some law prohibiting swastikas from being displayed, even in trashy, Euro-pudding horror movies. It's just another bit of weirdness in this odd film. So, Burton is at the train station, where he is shot and killed by...wait for it...yes, the violinist whose parents were killed by Burton! (I told you he would be important later!) The violinist rescues Joey, who then gets to marry her vaudeville dancing partner. All's well that ends well.

But being the Richard Burton scholar that I am, I have more tidbits about the making of the film. Burton, who was one of the great readers of the 20th century, was disappointed to find out there wasn't much literature on modern Hungary. Thanks to Melvyn Bragg's excellent biography of Burton, we have excerpts from Burton's notebooks, here's Burton preparing to leave for Hungary:

"Tomorrow to Hungary. I am looking forward to it with excitement. The very name Budapest smacks of romance and tragedy and wild Magyar music. It cannot, simply cannot be dull, regardless of friends' warnings that it is the most depressing capital in Europe...I went to the Lion bookshop yesterday and bought yet another pile of books for the ten-week stay in Buda and Pest. Cadogan's diaries, A.L. Rowse's two vols, The Early Churchills and The Later Churchills, Solzhenitsyn's Full Circle, Chosen Words by Ivor Brown. Two dual-language Penguins on Mallarme and French poetry of the 19th century. A book by Auberon Waugh-son of Evelyn. Isaac Deutscher, Red China, Russia and the USA-I think it's called. A Hungarian grammar. And a handful of thrillers. So we should have more than enough to get through ten weeks."

The above is exactly why I like Richard Burton so much, and why I would have been fascinated to have had a conversation with him.

While in Budapest, Liz Taylor turned 40, and Burton threw an immense birthday part for her. However, because of Liz's jealousy, he was forced to disinvite his nubile co-stars! (Liz punched one of the actresses when she got a little too into her kissing scenes with Richard.) Princess Grace, Ringo, David Niven, and Michael Caine were among the guests. According to Bragg, "Burton promised to give the equivalent of the price of the party to a good cause." He then gave Peter Ustinov, an ambassador for UNICEF, a check for $45,000! Bragg says that Burton had decided to move back to England, ending his status as a tax exile, and teach at Oxford. His life was coming together. And then his brother Ifor died. Ifor was really more like a father to Richard, he was Richard's role-model. (Burton was the 12th of 13 children, and Ifor was quite a bit older than Richard.) Ifor had been paralyzed four years earlier when he slipped on a step at Burton's house in Switzerland and broke his neck. Burton never forgave himself for the accident, and Ifor's death plunged him into an abyss of alcoholism, from which he just barely extricated himself. At one point in 1973-74, he was given just six weeks to live. Burton replied, "I'm amused you think I can be killed off that easily." He was somehow able to pull himself together personally, but his career was in a shambles, until his comeback on Broadway in Equus in 1976. But that's another story.

Mmmm...Candy

The 1968 sex farce "Candy" is one of those movies that must have seemed dated about six months after it came out. Based on the scandalous novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, it starred the unknown Swedish teenager Ewa Aulin, in her Hollywood debut. (Given the content, it's a bit disturbing that she was just 18 when this was made.) Candy is basically a version of Candide, but with a female protagonist, and updated for the swinging 60's, baby. The film follows Candy on a picaresque series of adventures with a number of men, who all want to sleep with her. John Astin, most famous of course as Gomez Addams on the Addams Family, gives a good dual supporting performance as Candy's father and uncle.

The first man in question is Richard Burton as the drunk poet McPhisto, who has a wind machine constantly blowing his hair, even indoors. Burton's performance is the best in the film, as he effortlessly sends up his own reputation as a boozy ladies' man with a penchant for poetry. It's one of the few times Burton actually got to be funny on screen.

Then Ringo Starr shows up as, yes, you guessed it, a Mexican gardener! Oh boy...talk about total miscasting! It's just painful to think that Ringo actually took time away from the Beatles to do this! But he quickly disappears, and next up is...Walter Matthau as a gung ho Army leader, very similar to Keenan Wynn's Col. Bat Guano in Dr. Strangelove, also by Terry Southern. Matthau's performance is another highlight, as he nails the blustery demeanor of the John Wayne-like military commander. But the story starts to lose steam, and it's all downhill from here...as we see James Coburn as a doctor with a bit of a God complex...and how can you not like James Coburn? But the sequence is overly long, although Rolling Stones fans should be on the lookout for Anita Pallenberg as Coburn's nurse. She was Brian Jones's girlfriend, and then Keith stole her from Brian. Keith and Anita had a son together, Dandelion, aka Marlon. Apparently some people in the Stones' camp thought that Anita was a witch...anyway...back to the film...

Charles Aznavour has a pointless role as a hunchback...and then, finally, as our reward for making it this far into the film, we get...wait for it...Marlon Brando as a fake guru! Brando's performance caps off the film. His performance is indulgent, eccentric, and knowingly self-aware, which of course means that it's a perfect late-Brando performance. Using these qualifications, late Brando is just about anything after Guys and Dolls. Seriously, Brando is great, and you'll be amazed at how thin he was! He's tiny! How did he ever get so big??? Brando had such a reservoir of goodwill stored up from his early roles that he never quite extinguished it in his lifetime, try as he might to do so. It was always enjoyable to see him, no matter what he did or how weird he was.

The ending of Candy makes no sense, of course, and why should it? Candy is led to an underground temple, and the man who led her there, who is obscured by white body paint, starts to caress her. In the creepiest moment of the film, the man is revealed to be none other than Candy's father. Ick! What that's supposed to mean, I have no idea, other than ick! Gross! Anyway, after that, Candy frolics on a grassy hill with all the members of the cast, whilst some "groovy" music plays in the background...all of which bears an uncanny resemblance to the ending of the 40-Year-Old Virgin! I'm not kidding, see for yourself! Also, watch for Brando's crucifixion pose at the end, which was something of a trademark for him, (see One-Eyed Jacks, when he gets whipped, and the Young Lions, when he's shot) it's typical Brando self-indulgence, and probably a small clue as to how he saw himself.

Aulin is actually pretty good as Candy, although the role really calls for more reacting than actual acting...she doesn't have even a trace of a Swedish accent, so casting her as an American teenager was not a stretch. Aulin was certainly attractive enough to play the part, she wears her miniskirts well.

So what is the point of Candy? I suppose the message is, don't trust authority, man, cause it will use you for your hot Swedish body, man. Authority will always try to screw you, haha? Don't trust drunken poets, Mexican gardeners, the military, doctors, hunchbacks, avant-grade filmmakers, and gurus, I guess. Hey, wise words. Oh, another of the hideously dated aspects of Candy is the intro and outro, which are outer-space shots, as we slowly pan into and back from the Earth. Which might be cool if it weren't a total rip-off of 2001: A Space Odyssey, released earlier in 1968.

Alexander the Not-So-Great

I finally watched my copy of "Alexander the Great," from 1956, starring Richard Burton this week. And I was disappointed. Robert Rossen, the man who directed "The Hustler," wrote, produced, and directed Alexander, and he has a lot to answer for. How did he turn Alexander the Great's life story into a boring hodge-podge? Why are there so many ludicrously short scenes? Why did he make Burton wear a ridiculous blond wig? (It's seriously bad, it's in kind of a pompadour-looking style, it looks like a squirrel crawled on his head and died.) Why are the battle scenes so amazingly unimpressive? Okay, the last battle scene was decent for a 50's spectacle, but the two others are so bad! All we see are about 50 guys on one side of a river charging towards 50 guys on the other side...boring!

The story makes the mistake of following Alexander literally from the cradle to the grave, all in 2 hours and 15 minutes. (Which will feel like 3 hours plus, trust me.) Alexander doesn't even gain power until halfway through the movie. And then in the last half hour, the pace picks up and we zoom through the rest of his life. (Some of this speeding up is achieved through a graceless voiceover and montage, kind of a like a Movie-Tone News for the B.C. era. "And then he conquered all of the known world!") So the beginning of the film is too slow, and the end is too fast. What Rossen really should have done was pick a key time in Alexander's life and focus on that, instead of trying to cram everything in. It feels like Rossen ran out of time and money and suddenly realized he still had 10 years of Alexander's life to cover.

Burton, one of my all-time favorite actors, gives a good performance, but he's not given much to work with. Alexander seems curiously friendless, no character follows him through the whole movie, which doesn't help the disjointed feeling. But Burton was a kind of loner on screen, an existentialist, if you will. In all of his films, Burton's characters are almost always on their own. They have very few male friends, and almost never have any family that appear on screen. (An exception is "The Robe," where Burton actually has a father.) He was always somewhat aloof, remote, in his own world, just as Claire Bloom tells Alexander in the movie. Burton is commanding as Alexander, and towards the end, when Alexander is convinced of his own Godliness, quite compelling.

Burton and Rossen seem to have gotten along well, Burton did tons of research for the role, and they spent many hours discussing the age of Alexander. (You'd think Burton would have talked him out of the wig...) Burton loved The Hustler, and apparently quoted liberally from it whilst playing pool. Now that would have been something to see! Another Burton moment I wish I could have witnessed was Burton regaling Ringo Starr with a dramatic delivery of "I Am the Walrus," when Starr visited Burton's yacht. Another good one was the poetry contest he got into with Bobby Kennedy. They started quoting Shakespeare at a party, and challenging the other with various soliloquies and sonnets. Kennedy matched Burton line for line, but Burton finally "won" by reciting a sonnet backwards! Can you imagine any politician now being able to quote Shakespeare line for line? Somehow I think that George W. Bush might lack this ability...

I forget how striking Burton's eyes were until I see him in a color film. Alexander was filmed in Spain, and as Burton stands against the brilliantly blue Spanish sky, I noticed that his eyes actually match the color of the sky! Wow.

Anyway, unless you're a Burton fanatic, like myself, Alexander the Great is really nothing special, unfortunately.