WarGames (1983)

Directed by John Badham; produced by Harold Schneider

High school slacker David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) lives for computers. He’s recently discovered the pleasures of hacking into others’ systems. Along with his new friend Jennifer Mack (Ally Sheedy), he attempts to cut into the computer of a game company, in order to play their new game ahead of its public release. While group-dialling a large collection of telephone numbers through his modem, in order to find the company’s number, he accidentally connects with an unidentified computer that offers a selection of games. He chooses the exciting-sounding Global Thermonuclear War. What David doesn’t realise is that he has hacked into NORAD’s master computer. What no one realises is that the computer doesn’t know the difference between games and reality.

An exciting and fun thriller from the early days of personal computers, WarGames holds up very well as a movie, despite depending on technology that rapidly became dated. The story has a good anti-war message and, though one of its central characters is a computer, it is not really about technology and its take-over of decisions that should come from humans. This isn’t The Forbin Project. Rather, the computer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), is a stand-in for a completely unemotional entity who looks at war objectively and remorselessly. This makes both the tension and the conclusion more forceful.

The story is better than the script. The characters the latter creates are not deep, though the two leads are given greater scope than the adults. The latter are fairly stock, especially David’s parents, who are the dummies that parents seemed to have been reduced to in movies aimed at adolescents in the 1980s. As well, the conflict between McKittrick (Dabney Coleman), who believes electronics can replace people in decision-making, and Beringer (Barry Corbin), the general who is dubious of computers, gives an acceptable but black-and-white debate, though, except for some language, it is no different than what one might find in young adult fiction.

More thought is put into the character of Stephen Falken (John Wood), the inventor of WOPR, though his decision to help David and Jennifer, after first expressing acquiescence in a possible nuclear war, is sudden, and its cause can only be surmised.

David’s escape from custody in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex looks to be rather too easy, beginning with breaking out of a locked room á la McGyver, then slipping out of the base all together. This too is on the level of a story aimed at fun-loving young adults.

These criticisms might suggest that there is more wrong with WarGames than there is that’s right; this would be erroneous. The direction is very good and keeps the pace going. The climax is invigorating and satisfying, and the lesson given is both fitting and sensible.

The acting makes up for a lot. Broderick and Sheedy are convincing as teenagers basically wanting a good time but rather scared of the consequences of their actions once they see what has occurred. It’s not always easy to show people on the watershed between two phases of their lives, but the performers do well. Coleman is the sort of impatient, snide character he claimed as his own in the ‘80s and Corbin started working on his stock character about this time, too. Also appearing in small roles are John Spencer, Michael Madsen, James Tolkan, Maury Chaykin and an uncredited William H Macy.

Though the story of WarGames is slight, the execution and the resolution are successful, and contribute to making the film a thriller aimed at younger people, but enjoyable for their elders as well.

(For those who like trivia, it may be noted that the characters Falken and Beringer were inspired by (rather than based on) the physicist Stephen Hawking and General James Hartinger, respectively. At one time NORAD used a computer for war-game strategies; its acronym was BRGR. WarGames’s computer was called WOPR, which, after all, is a brand of BRGR.)

The Wages of Fear (a.k.a. Le Salaire de la Peur (1953))

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot; produced by R Borderie and H G Clouzot

In an isolated South American village dominated by an American oil company, four men are seeking ways out. Mario (Yves Montand) is a French ex-patriate, dreaming of Paris; Jo (Charles Vanel) is a big talker with big plans; Bimba (Peter Van Eyck) ekes out a living as a driver; Luigi (Folco Lulli) is a dying man who wants to go home to Calabria. For a small fortune each, they are hired by the oil company to transport nitro-glycerine in trucks over crumbling mountain roads, decrepit bridges and treacherous mires, a route of which every mile could be their last.

The Wages of Fear is a fine cinematic work on a number of levels. The most obvious is that it is an exciting, often tense, drama. It can’t really be called an action movie, since much of the suspense comes from inaction, or at least, slow action. It’s also a drama of characters, showing their personalities despite giving very little information about them. Lastly, and fittingly most vaguely, it is a cynical essay on life.

The direction is first-rate, though that is not immediately apparent. The beginning is slow, as it depicts the characters and their desperate situations. But the viewer sees story-telling in the direction. For instance, in a scene in which Mario and Jo are discussing conditions in the village, they walk and talk through searing heat, downpours, dust-storms, all illustrating what they must put up with, while narrating their predicament with words.

But when the journey to the wells begins, Clouzot’s talent becomes more evident, because he has to show that the men are constantly in danger, yet cannot stress it all the time. Indeed, such is the journey that there are numerous hazards aside from the obvious, and these are handled so well that one forgets that there is still the nitroglycerine to worry about.

The script makes clear that none of the four men is safe; when Bimba hits on a plan to use the explosives to blow away a huge boulder blocking the road, the audience has no idea whether it will succeed or, if it does, if someone will be killed anyway. In this, the writing takes a fatalistic approach: a man’s skill can help him only so far. Luck plays a bigger part, and random chance the biggest. Some events occur the causes of which are never known. This isn’t contrivance; it’s the way life is sometimes.

The film does have weaknesses. The needless sub-plot, if it can be termed that, featuring Mario’s apathetic relationship with his girlfriend, Linda (Véra Clouzot), is a distraction more than anything else, and was likely included to give a rôle to the director’s wife. (His brother also contributed, more productively, by co-writing the script under the pseudonym Jérôme Géronimi.) The denouement is more ironic than realistic.

The faults in The Wages of Fear are few, and are amply overwhelmed by the merits of the movie. A film filled with slow, creeping tension, rather than overt scares, The Wages of Fear is rightly considered a superb thriller.

The Naked Prey (1965)

Directed and produced by Cornel Wilde.

In 1890s Africa, a hunting party encounters a group of natives who demand a small payment for passage through their territory. The party’s guide (Cornel Wilde) sees it as a reasonable and customary request, but his client refuses, treating the natives with contempt. Offended, the natives attack the party at camp, and inflict punishments on the hunters and their bearers. The guide, saved for the last, is given the chance to run for his life, hunted like the animals his clients had killed.

The Naked Prey is a very literal entry in the man on the run genre, which pits an intelligent character against equally intelligent characters. It’s the best of the eight movies directed by actor Wilde, and, despite some slow sequences, manages to keep a good level of tension and excitement throughout. This is assisted by the rather horrifying tortures inflicted on the hunting party, and by the time and effort devoted to the personalities of the guide’s pursuers. Though their language is not accompanied by sub-titles, the acting and direction makes clear their own stresses and conflicts.

Also to be noted are the director’s messages depicted in scenes of nature. Numerous sequences show the brutality and ruthlessness of nature, animals fighting each other for survival. Interestingly, though the hunters are ‘shooting ivory’, the director makes it clear what he thinks of such activities, even using just a single still image to get his point across.

The acting is commendable. Wilde was a long-established player by this time, and well-respected. Ironically, therefore, though his performance is good, the actors who play his pursuers are the more interesting, particularly their leader (Ken Gampu, near the beginning of a long and successful cinematic career). His obsession with catching his prey becomes as dangerous to his fellows as does their quarry.

The dialogue is kept to a minimum, restricted mainly to the opening scenes featuring conversations between the guide and his client (Gert van den Berg), to show what they are like. There is also some talk between the guide and a little girl (Bella Randles); the two save each other’s lives but can’t communicate through words because each doesn’t comprehend the other’s language.

Also shown are the differences in native culture between the primitive interior tribe and the more advanced villagers closer to the coast. That disparity brings its own drama, inadvertently involving the fugitive in added danger. (It’s clear too that Wilde performs his own stunts; just running shows that he was in excellent condition for a man in his early fifties.)

A simple story, along the lines of The Most Dangerous Game, The Naked Prey is a straightforward, exciting movie, with surprising character development.

(Though the opening narration suggests the story takes place in the 1860s, the clothes, rifles and headgear of the Europeans indicate a later decade, and the British fort, Arab slavers, and the mention of Swahili place it in eastern Africa, though it was filmed in southern Africa.)

Hunt the Man Down (1950)

Directed by George Archainbaud; produced by Lewis J Rachmil

A heroic defence of his work-place during an armed robbery puts a diner’s dish-washer (James Anderson) on the front page. Unfortunately, his picture is recognised as that of Richard Kincaid, a man put on trial for murder twelve years previously. He had escaped custody before the trial’s completion. Now re-captured, he insists that he is innocent, and it’s up to the public defender, Paul Bennett (Gig Young) to make the jury see that.

An enjoyable aspect of choosing to watch a movie based on nothing more than a one-sentence synopsis, or on who acts in it, is the chance of finding an unexpectedly good film. Hunt the Man Down is one of them. Despite the title that makes it seem like an entry in the ‘fugitive’ category of film noir, the subject of the story is already in jail. What needs hunting is the real killer, one of seven suspects from a dozen years before. Thanks to a good script and direction, Hunt the Man Down delivers a lot of entertainment in its 69 minutes.

The running time is one of the few complaints the audience may have with the movie. Usually, a short and lean length is an asset to a b-movie. In this case, another twenty minutes or so would have been an advantage. The seven suspects, first seen in flashback, are a diverse lot and might confuse the viewer since little time is devoted to the characters. We get to know them better in the present, but, not having the luxury of being able to match in every case name to face - and some having changed subtly in the meantime - the audience has to catch up with recognition as the movie goes.

This is really the only difficulty with Hunt the Man Down. A minor problem is that during the flashback scene, taking place in 1938, the characters’ clothes are no different than those of the present.

Gig Young, future Oscar-winner, is very good as the public defender, though one doubts that such an official would, in real life, have the time to play detective, even if his department’s investigators are already fully occupied. To help, Bennett brings in his father (Harry Shannon), a one-armed former cop. Their interaction is natural and, at times, humorous, and they would have made a good pairing in a tv series.

James Anderson’s most noted rôle would be that of the nasty Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird, by which time Anderson’s face had become fuller and he resembled a later generation’s Robert Loggia. Also in the cast of Hunt the Man Down is his actress sister, Mary Anderson. Contrastingly, James died at 48, an end described variously as being due to a heart attack or to barbiturate poisoning. Mary lived to be 96. Both give creditable performances here. In fact, given the relatively short extent of their time on screen, most of the cast provides fine vignettes of their characters, a poignant one given by Willard Parker.

The French-born director keeps the pace going, his conversations - and in a mystery like this, most scenes largely comprise talking - concise and to the point, though he manages to throw in a short car-chase that is relevant. Archainbaud, who was responsible for some very good work, later turned to westerns and television, being associated with Gene Autry.

Hunt the Man Down is a low-budget winner, another example of how talented people can make the most out of the least.

The Black Tent (1956)

Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst; produced by William Macquitty

Charles Holland (Donald Sinden), a retired British Army colonel, receives a letter at his country estate, telling him of information received by the Foreign Office suggesting that his brother, David (Anthony Steel), believed killed in the World War, might be alive. Charles travels to Libya, and meets with a Bedouin sheikh (Andre Morell), who is polite but suspiciously unhelpful. When he leaves, Charles is given a roll of papers that holds the key to his sibling’s whereabouts.

A handsomely mounted motion picture, The Black Tent falls in between the categories of war movie and romantic drama, never really succeeding in either due to trying to be both. Certainly, the look of the film is impressive, for which those responsible for cinematography and location-casting are to be commended.

Filmed largely on location, the golden sand and the blue sky, the colourful Bedouin attire and, very interestingly, the Roman ruins of Sabratha - not famous these days - stand out, and give the picture a beauty that is probably more Hollywood - or, rather, Pinewood - than Libyan.

The look of The Black Tent is the best thing in the movie. The story, as stated, divides itself poorly, with too little action for a good war movie, and too much predictability for a good romance. There is nothing that persuades the viewer that David and Mabrouka (Anna Maria Sandri), the sheikh’s daughter, are really in love. He is handsome and she is pretty, and that is all the audience is really shown of their reasons for wanting to be together.

The characters are not involving. The Holland brothers are rather bland, the sheikh suitably dour, and Mabrouka as ordinary as the men. It is the minor character of Ali (Donald Pleasence), the town-bred Arab, who is the most entertaining.

The acting, too, is nothing outstanding. Certainly, Sinden has given better performances,  though he usually had more to work with; here, he plays more a sounding board for exposition than a major character. Steel is competent, while Sandri, in her only English-language film and her final film (she appears to have retired at the age of twenty), had her voice dubbed by an uncredited Nanette Newman, due to the Italian-born Sandri’s difficulty with English. (Newman was then married to Bryan Forbes, who co-wrote the screenplay and played a dying soldier, though his scene was cut.)

A mediocre movie that is rather beautifully shot, The Black Tent doesn’t really have enough of anything to be a winner.

Edge of Eternity (1959)

Directed by Donald Siegel; produced by Kendrick Sweet

A man, previously found nearly incoherent near the Grand Canyon, is murdered. Deputy Sheriff Les Martin (Cornel Wilde) a former detective in Denver, is assigned to find the killer. Martin figures that it can’t be a coincidence that this murder, and then another, has occurred near abandoned gold mines which might still be worth a fortune to an enterprising individual. Whether that individual is willing to kill for that potential fortune is something Martin must investigate  - even at the risk of his life.

What might be seen as a contemporary western is in fact a murder mystery, though, due to the writing, it is not an entirely satisfying one. It starts off strong, with a puzzle that leaves the viewer wondering not only about the victim’s identity, but about the killer’s motive. The uncovering of both of these mysteries is well-handled, but the solution is determined just by chance, rather than deduction, which makes for a weaker ending to the story.

While the story has a weak ending, the movie does not, which highlights the disparity between the writing and the direction. The latter is in the hands of Don Siegel (here, credited as ‘Donald’) and both the opening and closing scenes are exciting and interesting; the climax, featuring a fist-fight over the Grand Canyon itself - with stuntmen, not computer graphics, of course - is thrilling.

Siegel makes excellent use of the scenery - and yes, a bad or mediocre director can waste even the Grand Canyon. The opening images are typical of that use: a wide-angle view of a car driving up to a cliff, and a lone figure running to hide from the car’s occupant. It invites curiosity and participation in what will happen next.

The acting is good, with Wilde a likeable and believable protagonist, Edgar Buchanan as his boss, the county sheriff, and Victoria Shaw as the love-interest. Mickey Shaughnessy provides a well-performed diversion as a bar-owner. Jack Elam plays a foreman at a guano-mine, though whether or not he is taking a break from playing the villains he often portrayed at this time is a question for the viewer.

Aside from the ending, the script is commendable. It credibly creates characters that fit as much in 1950’s Arizona as they would have sixty or seventy years before, contributing to the feel of the contemporary western. It benefits from being set in a real place - Mohave County - and shot on location. The smouldering feud between the county’s attorney and sheriff gives some additional tension to the plot. As well, the developing relationship between Martin and his new girlfriend seems realistic, rather than the contrived circumstances that propel many movie romances.

Edge of Eternity is a good, if not outstanding, adventure/crime movie, with enjoyable work from all concerned.