Don Taylor

  • Jack of Diamonds (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) As much as we’d like to pretend that we watch movies for their intrinsic worth, that doesn’t always stay true once you get into classic films and the way they show things according to the standards of their times. Every era has its highlights, and the 1960s remain distinctive for their comedies. Something like Jack of Diamond is not a hidden gem. It is, at best, a perfunctory, competent exercise (thanks to director Don Taylor) in a familiar formula — that of a likable jewel cat-burglar whose only crimes are really against rich insurance companies and spoiled actresses such as Zsa Zsa Gabor. The film quickly sets up a mythology of famous thieves — the titular Jack of Diamond, played by a trim and not-so-tanned George Hamilton, his mentor the Ace of Diamonds, and a mysterious female competitor who quickly becomes as much of a rival as a love interest. As I wrote: familiar formula, but Jack of Diamond has the charming quality of having been executed in the 1960s, right at the cusp of the New Hollywood and mid-century modern class. As such, it still has a classical quality, but its colour cinematography (slightly blurry, as the film hasn’t been seriously restored) that brings it closer to the modern age. It’s not that good and the ending feels like a let-down, but it’s occasionally fun to watch Hamilton as a suave cat burglar, especially when the sparks start to fly with his distaff competitor played by Marie Laforêt. It’s not a great film, but Jack of Diamonds is a good period piece and something that can be watched easily enough.

  • Stalag 17 (1953)

    Stalag 17 (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2017) It’s hard to watch Stalag 17 and not think about the fetishization of history. Like it or not, World War II drama has grown more and more ponderous over the past decades, to the point where a World War II movie is presumed to be all about gravitas and serious considerations of the terrible cost of war. It wasn’t always so, though, whether we’re talking about the blockbuster WW2-themed action adventures from the seventies (The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare) or, even closer to the war itself, a film like Stalag 17 that spends a lot of time in silly comedy before getting down to the thriller business. Early parts of the film, such as the white-line painting sequence, really wouldn’t feel out of place in an Adam Sandler movie. Keep in mind that Stalag 17 is based on the real-life experiences of its writers (filtered through a Broadway play adapted on-screen) and so presents the full range of humour and horror of German POW camps—not the almost idealized portrayal of later writers with an indirect knowledge of events. As such, Stalag 17 uniquely captures in time a historical truth of sorts, then wraps it up in entertaining thriller mechanics about uncovering an informant and helping a marked prisoner escape. William Holden is quite good as the resourceful but unjustly accused protagonist, while Don Taylor plays the other lead engagingly. Writer/director Billy Wilder has a long and varied filmography, and his Stalag 17 is still quite entertaining to watch, even as its closeness to the subject does give it a now-unusual quality.