The title of Richard Brooks’ 19th feature film as director infers a story with a classic alls-well-that-ends-well finale, but The Happy Ending proved to be something that goes against the grain of a classic Hollywood saga of bored privileged housewives boozing and bed-hopping and clothes shopping to their hearts’ content before hitting sleazy lows…
Richard Brooks’ extremely fluffy bank robbery flick $ (“dollars”) borrows elements from the best while remaining very tongue-in cheek in spite of some mean behaviour and bursts of violence.
Shot entirely on location in Hamburg, Germany…
Reviews of two parables in which their makers starkly criticized the Vietnam War: Michael Winner’s Chato’s Land (1972) on Blu from Twilight Time, and Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) from Lionsgate.
Written by Michael Winner’s frequent scribe, Gerald Wilson’s minimalist western is a strange rumination on racism, with a posse comprised of a post-Civil War captain, assorted thugs, a butcher, gleeful hard-drinking adventurers, and the amoral Hooker brothers hunting half-Apache Chato for killing the local sheriff in an armpit town…
Soldier was reportedly advertised as a glaring anti-war statement / Vietnam War parable, and there are chunks of dialogue that slam the U.S. Government for being hypocritical in professing fairness, civility, and moderation while hate for another culture is swirling around like vicious dust devils. It’s also a film that’s known for a graphic finale that both earned it high box office revenues for executive produce / exploitationeer Joseph E. Levine and heavy criticism, making it a cult film whose core story became overshadowed by its mystique…
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