Burl Ives

The Big Country (1958)

The Big Country (1958)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, August 2020) In theory, there’s a lot that I should like about The Big Country – big expansive colour vistas of the American wild west, an undercurrent of how civilization tames the excesses at the frontier, a legendary feud between two grander-than-life characters, the unusual sight of Charlton Heston reduced to a supporting role, and a wealth of subplots to choose from. Alas, in practice The Big Country is often excruciatingly dull – the wealth of subplots turns out to be an issue when the film can’t effectively pick which one to develop, and still ends up at an excessive 166 minutes in length. I’m not saying it’s bad – The film noticeably perks up whenever Burl Ives makes an appearance, the last half-hour finally gets going with some action, leading to a few scenes that I really don’t mind. But it’s a lot of work to get there, and a better filmmaker would have found a better way. Certainly, a more economical one… although considering the mood of the time (during which Hollywood wanted to bring audiences back from the TV screen through widescreen colour epics worth the trip to the theatre), I’m not sure that this twenty-first century criticism of The Big Country would even have been a possibility during the film’s production.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, February 2019) Christmas classics don’t always age as well once you remove the nostalgia factor. While I think that The Charlie Brown Christmas Special remains a timeless classic, I was quite disappointed by How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Fortunately, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is closer to the first than the second—it has aged better than many other classic Christmas TV specials. Much of it has to do with its chosen stop-motion style: it has a wonderfully tactile feel, and the felt creatures are too cute for words. Burl Ives narrating also adds a lot. Plus there’s the thematic underpinning, digging into discrimination and coming out of it with a positive message. (Yes, I’m aware of the controversy in conflating a happy ending with “being useful for something”. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.) The songs a good, headlined with the omnipresent title number. Oddly charming and sympathetic today, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer still deserves its regular rotation in the holiday schedule.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, December 2017) There’s something oddly satisfying, in theatrically-inspired movies, in seeing the way the script piles on a series of interpersonal conflict in the first half, only to detonate them all in the second. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof does it better than most, helped along by terrific dialogue from playwright Tennessee Williams, the dramatic intensity of Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in the lead roles, and some able assistance from Burl Ives as the patriarch whose impending death forms the catalyst of all conflicts. Despite some surprisingly comic moments, this is a fairly heavy film, especially when all the emotional bandages are removed at the big conflicts within the small cast of character are allowed to explode. Despite some glaring coyness (the homosexual themes of the relationship between the lead male character and his mourned friend hay not be expressly mentioned, but they’re glaringly obvious), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof hits its dramatic peak in time for its third act, punctuated by a thunderstorm. Taylor is in fine form here, showing the extent of her dramatic range even as illness and personal tragedy befell her during the film’s shooting (her husband died in a plane crash midway through production, which had to be halted to accommodate her grief). The result is still worth a look sixty years later as a good example of what fifties dramas could be, even when hobbled by the Hays Code and social conventions of the time.