Reeling Backward: "Cleopatra" (1963)

"Cleopatra" is remembered today almost entirely for its largeness -- its budget, its ambition, its length, the ego of its two stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the scope of its fiscal disaster. It was the top-grossing film of 1963 but still nearly put 20th Century-Fox out of business due to spiraling costs: $44 million for production and marketing, the equivalent of $340 million in 2016 dollars.

The film single-handedly killed off the big-budget Hollywood period epic for a couple generations. Many careers were sunk or least laid low for a time, including director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Though not Taylor and Burton, who scandalously carried on a public affair during the shoot while married to other people, eventually leaving their spouses to wed and star in a number of other notable pictures together.

Its name has become synonymous with the term "flop," often mentioned in the same breath as "Waterworld," "Ishtar" and "Heaven's Gate." Taylor's health often delayed shooting, including an emergency visit to the hospital where she received a tracheotomy, resulting in a scar that's visible in many shots. Her weight also fluctuated dramatically over more than a year of shooting as a result of her medical issues -- the London sets were torn down and rebuilt in Italy during the hiatus -- so that Cleopatra's double chin and waistline come and go from scene to scene.

There is in fact so much ridicule associated with "Cleopatra" that people tend to look past its magnificence.

Yes, at four hours and change it is entirely too long (especially with the curious omission of an intermission, direly testing patience and bladders). Things flow well until about the 2½ hour mark, when the brooding romance between the Egyptian queen and Mark Antony sends the film into a torpor, revived only at the end with the pair's dramatic deaths, recalling Romeo and Juliet.

It seems like there is a solid hour of screen time in which Burton does little more than swig from his ever-present flagon of wine and shout ineffectually at those around him.

Yet the grandness of its spectacle cannot be denied. The procession of Cleopatra into Rome should rightly be regarded as one of the most opulent, jaw-dropping moment in cinematic history. The scale of the sets, thousands of extras, Cleopatra's moving sphinx stage -- the mind boggles trying to take it all in at once.

"Cleopatra" may have cost a boatload, but the millions are right there on the screen to behold.

The story actually covers about 20 years of history, and fairly faithfully. Julius Caesar -- played by Rex Harrison in one of his best performances, I think -- comes to Alexandria while fighting enemies on all sides. He had previously installed teenage siblings Cleopatra and Ptolemy as co-rulers of Egypt, but the brother had pushed her out.

The much-older Caesar regards the young Egyptian girl as an impertinent pest, but in time he comes to see her as a prized pupil in the ways of leadership, and eventually something more intimate. Taylor plays Cleopatra as an intensely intelligent and calculating person, who absorbs the wisdom of Caesar and then puts it to her own use.

She bore him a son, Caesarion, and they wed despite Caesar already being married to a proper Roman woman. Upon being named dictator for life -- but still requiring the consent of the Senate to do anything -- he summons Cleopatra to Rome, resulting in the spectacle mentioned above. She is at the height of her powers, and Taylor positively thrums with authority and confidence.

Eventually Caesar is brought down and assassinated, and loyal right-hand man Antony shares leadership for a time with two others, notably Octavian, Caesar's cunning nephew. He's played by Roddy McDowell in a coy turn, clearly presented as homosexual, but a far superior politician and tactician than Antony.

Given stewardship of the eastern portion of the Roman Empire, Antony soon falls into Cleopatra's arms himself. Here, rather than using her wiles to distract a potential conqueror, Cleopatra seems to genuinely fall in love with the complex, proud Antony. Like Caesar he is accused by his peers of "going native," and is later summoned back to Rome and forced into a political marriage to Octavian's widowed sister.

Eventually Octavian, who would go on to become the first Roman Emperor, solidifies his power and maneuvers Antony into war, where his overconfidence undoes him in the naval Battle of Actium. It's an amazing sequence, with full-size ship replicas, flaming ballistas, the works.

Unmanned in defeat, Antony's despondency increases when his troops abandon him before a bold land attack against Octavian's legions. He took his own life and then Cleopatra took hers.

This all sounds fairly incredible, one woman at the center of so much pivotal history, but as I said the movie is actually pretty accurate to the known historical record. The film's major omission is removing any reference to the three children the pair had together, who were spared by Octavian and brought to Rome to be raised by his sister.

(Caesarion and Antony's other son by a previous marriage did not fare so well, literally dragged screaming to their executions.)

The cinematography, sets, special effects and costumes are lavish beyond imagining. The film won Oscars in all four categories, setting industry standards that could only be achieved today through the extensive use of CGI. "Cleopatra" also earned Academy Award nominations for best picture, sound, editing, music score and best supporting actor, for Harrison.

I was surprised by how much flesh there is in the film. Taylor appears nude twice, obscured by a towel during a massage and by the water of a bath. Various servants and such in the background are often scantily dressed. A dancer during the procession appears wearing only a thong and pasties over her nipples, which must have made quite an impression in 1963.

Martin Landau and Hume Cronyn are solid in supporting roles as cagey advisors to Antony and Cleopatra, respectively. Carroll O'Connor turns up as Casca, one of Caesar's leading murderers, and I admit encountering Archie Bunker in a toga was disconcerting.  Andrew Keir is a stalwart presence as Agrippa, a longtime foe of Antony's.

I'd been meaning to get to "Cleopatra" for several years, and am pleased by what I found. Like "Gone With the Wind," it's a terrific movie that got swallowed by a much longer film. The difference being that while the former is lavishly overpraised, "Cleopatra" deserves much better than to be regarded as a cinematic punchline.

Here is Hollywood moviemaking teetering at the end of its golden age, grand and gaudy, its flaws inseparable from its many virtues.

Reeling Backward: "The Night of the Iguana" (1964)

James Garner was offered the lead role in "The Night of the Iguana" but said it was "too Tennessee Williams for me." I understand what he was talking about.

Stage-to-screen translations are often handicapped from the get-go. There's the feeling of being severely bookended -- both with locations and the number of characters. It's OK for a play to stay stuck in one place with a handful of people for a couple of hours, but movies tend to get claustrophobic if they aren't on the move.

Then there's Williams himself, whose plays tended to focus on lost, pitiable souls who struggle to articulate their own despair. Sometimes the film versions, some of them scripted by Williams himself, soared on the strength of the cast and direction -- "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Streetcar Named Desire." But with "Iguana" it often feels like the story is caught in an eddy, swirling about itself without ever going anyway.

The main character, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton), is a youngish man of the cloth whose ability to withstand temptations of the flesh is, shall we say, lacking. In the two decades since he was ordained he was without a parish to call his own for all but a single year, and his one stint as a pastor comes to a crashing end when he diddles with an underage girl of his flock. In the opening scene he suffers a near-breakdown from the pulpit, denouncing the worshipers for judging him, and literally chases them out of the church.

Flash to two years later, and Shannon is now working in Mexico as a guide for Blake Tours, a bargain-basement outfit catering to religious types. His current gig isn't going so well. As they pull into the coastal town of Puerto Vallarta -- a name made famous by this film; a statue of director John Huston still resides in the village square -- Shannon is being henpecked by Miss Fellowes, the domineering head of a group of Baptist women teachers.

Fellowes doesn't like Shannon because she senses the lecherous personality beneath Shannon's gentle facade. Her suspicions aren't unfounded -- her winsome teenage niece is played by Sue Lyon, who had the title role in "Lolita," and plays a similar part here as a teenage temptress. Shannon tries to hold off the girl's advances, but not very hard.

Fellowes is played by Grayson Hall, who earned an Oscar nomination for the role, though I find this style of screechy, google-eyed overacting hard to swallow. Late in the going it's suggested Miss Fellowes is a "butch" who secretly desires the girl for herself, though the harridan is too self-deluded to admit this to herself.

This is notable in of itself, to have a fairly overt reference to homosexuality in a mainstream 1964 film. There's also an explicit reference to smoking marijuana, though it's not depicted.

Anyway, Shannon's dalliance is discovered and Fellowes declares her intention to have him fired. So he hijacks the bus and takes them to the Costa Verde Hotel, a rundown little place up the beach run by an old friend of his, Fred. He confiscates the bus' distributor cap and dumps the old biddies there, since he thinks there is no phone and thus now way to contact his employer.

Alas, Fred has died, and one of his last acts was getting telephone lines run up the steep hill to the hotel. Shannon responds by getting good and drunk and waiting for the axe to fall.

The Costa Verde is now run by Maxine (Ava Gardner), Fred's widow, who is a real piece of work. She espouses a carefree attitude but has a short temper and plenty of vim left in her. An aging beauty, Maxine felt abandoned by her much-older husband the last few years, and took to openly consorting with her two cabana boys -- a pair of shirtless, perpetually smiling young studs who constantly hang around, rarely speaking, occasionally helping out the guests or the proprietress with luggage, or any other needs.

Maxine never wears any shoes or seems bothered by anything, but it soon becomes clear she's carried a torch for Shannon for a long time. She finds him pathetic but adorable, a man-boy who has regular crack-ups about twice a year, and clearly needs someone to look after him. And this is a woman who desperately needs some fun in her life.

Some unexpected competition for Shannon's attention arrives in the form of Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr), an English portrait artist who travels the globe with her 97-year-old grandfather, whom she calls Nonno (Cyril Delevanti) and introduces as the world's oldest practicing poet.

Of course, it's been 20 years since Nonno last composed a poem, and the two are essentially well-bred vagabonds who fritter around, peddling their artistic services -- her portraits and his recitations -- in exchange for food and lodging.

If Maxine is a piece of work, then Miss Jelkes is an even odder bird. Her prim manners and reserved disposition resemble those of a missionary, and in some ways that is her role in the film -- to show up and minister to the troubled heathens. Jelkes has a very firm grip on who she is and what her shortcomings are, and seems not at all troubled by her current hardships.

"Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it’s unkind or violent," she says.

Things go on from there. Miss Fellowes and her flock of biddies, having successfully detached Shannon from Blake Tours, depart for more sightseeing, and we're left with Shannon, Maxine and Jelkes to figure out the dynamic between them. Jelkes offers counsel to the suicidal Shannon -- though, as Maxine correctly surmises, it's halfway playacting; the man has an inveterate theatricality about him.

There's some splendid acting in "The Night of the Iguana," particularly Kerr and Gardner. I found Burton to be a twitchy, sweaty mess, a whole lot of behavior substituting for a character.

Hanging around with this crew is like being trapped at an annoying party you can't leave. You might wander into a semi-interesting conversation or two, but in the end it feels like time wasted.

Reeling Backward: "The Wild Geese" (1978)

"The Wild Geese" is just an aggressively bad piece of crap. It was part of the "war adventure" pictures that seemed to have a heyday during the 1970s and early '80s, often idolizing the mercenaries and spies who had so often played cinematic heavies. In many ways these movies, largely exploitative escapist fantasy, were a reaction to the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era.

The hook here is that it's four old mercenaries having another go. I'd call it the proverbial "one last job," except that while half the four main characters have to be lured back into the game, the other two see it as just another in a series of missions.

Stars Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Roger Moore and Hardy Krüger were, respectively, 53, 48, 51 and 50 when the film came out in 1978 -- though Burton, long beset by ailments self-inflicted and not, looked closer to 70 than 50. I don't know if their chronological ages qualify as "old," though maybe that's a self-defense mechanism on my part, since I'm not much younger than that.

The set-up is that Allen Faulkner (Burton), a former colonel in the British army, is hired by Sir Edward Matherson (Stewart Granger), a powerful banker and nobleman, to rescue a deposed African president named Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona). Limbani is a true reformer, a force for good in a continent that has often known despotic rulers who only wish to exploit their own people and natural resources.

But Matherson is not in it for altruistic purposes, nor indeed is Faulkner. The bankers want him back in power because they think he'll be better for business that his autocratic usurper. And Faulkner, who has fought on the behalf of clients both noble and not, sees a big paycheck -- as well as a taste of the adventure he craves.

That's a recurring theme among the 50 or so ex-soldiers Faulkner recruits for the mission: a desire to return to a life that had meaning, even if it was very dangerous. Most of the men are over 40, a few out of shape, but mostly still fellows in their prime who want to hold a gun again and make a difference -- while collecting a huge paycheck, of course.

Like so many movies of this ilk, the first half has to do with recruiting the team and putting the pieces into place, and the second half is the mission itself, which always starts out smooth as whipped butter and soon turns to disaster. In this case, it's because Matherson pulls his support at the last minute, choosing Limbani's successor over the man he's just paid to have rescued. Their plane literally leaves them at the airstrip.

Faulkner's first recruit is Rafer Janders (Harris), a logistical whiz and military tactician. A man of conscience, he regrets having used his skills at the behest of unworthy dictators, and has settled into a contented life as an art dealer, raising a young son, Emile, alone after his much-younger French wife abandoned them. So beneficent is Rafer, he refuses to speak an ill word about his former lover. He's convinced to join because of Limbani's status as "the real thing" who will help his nation.

Moore turns up as Shawn Fynn, a rakish ladies' man who has fallen onto working for the local mob -- or "mah-fia," as they pronounce it in the British lilt. Other than a sequence where he kills a mobster's jerk kid and then briefly has a contract put out on his head, Fynn doesn't really serve much purpose in the story.

There's a ridiculous part where the hitmen, in the midst of trying to take out Fynn, Rafer and Faulkner, learn the contract has been lifted and suddenly flee away from the scene. Because those sorts of guys would hate to kill someone by accident.

Last, and least, is Krüger as Pieter Coetzee, a white South African who wants to use the money from the job to buy a farm in his homeland and settle down. Pieter has worked for a lot of despots to keep the black man down, and delights in calling Africans "kaffir," which is the roughly the American equivalent of the n-word.

After the rescue has been effected -- in a tightly wound action sequence that is probably the movie's best -- Pieter and Limbani start sniping at each other, with the African eventually convincing the Afrikaner that there are some things worth fighting for. Of course, this epiphany arrives just in time for Pieter to sacrifice himself for Limbani.

Director Andrew V. McLaglen (son of actor Victor) and screenwriter Reginald Rose, who adapted the then-unpublished novel by Daniel Carney, seem intent on creating an old-school "adventure film" with some modern themes. That's all well and fine, but they ended up with a straightforward, downbeat piece that plays out like a geriatric swan song.

The film did well overseas but flopped in the U.S., partly due to some studio troubles and partly because of the lack of an American star in the cast. It did spawn a 1985 sequel, which is even more lightly regarded than this film.

The Simbas, the force of supposedly elite African soldiers whom the Wild Geese fight -- I should mention this term is never used during the movie -- end up as a faceless bogeymen who fall down when the good guys shoot them. This is one of those pictures were the villainous bullets rarely (though eventually) find their mark, but the machine guns of the hero can take out four or five of the enemy in one deluge.

"The Wild Geese" has been criticized as racist, mostly because the film shot in South Africa during Apartheid, but also because of the way the Simbas are portrayed. Normally I resist this sort of politicized critique of movies, though here it's rather hard to avoid. 

I would swear that in several shots they used non-African actors or stunt men done up in blackface. And during one scene where they kill the mercenaries' homosexual medic with knives, I clearly heard the cries of chimpanzees on the soundtrack.

About that gay medic: Witty, played by Kenneth Griffith, somehow manages to be both a progressive and regressive icon in one depiction. On the one hand, he's a fairly stereotypical mincing fag, seemingly attracted to every straight man he comes in contact with. He even makes out his will to a beloved proctologist. But he's completely accepted by the other men of the mercenary unit, and he proves himself a brave and capable soldier.

Reeling Backward: "The Desert Rats" (1953)

"The Desert Rats" is a quasi/sorta sequel to "The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommell" with James Mason reprising his role as the famed German military tactician. I didn't care for the first film, as described in a previous column, but the follow-up is quite a ripping good war picture, as the old-timers are wont to say. (They are also wont to use antediluvian terms, like "wont" and "antediluvian.")

Instead of being a sympathetic, heroic figure, this time Rommel has a supporting role as the arrogant German commander, speaking mostly German and inspiring terror in all those around him. The focus, rather, is on the Australian troops who defied him during the long siege of Tobruk, a turning point in the World War II African front.

The film was directed by Robert Wise, one of Hollywood's most successful genre-hopping directors, and it was just Richard Burton's second American film, released when he was age 27. Burton was one of those actors who always seemed older than he really was -- when I first started watching the film I thought it was made in the mid-1960s, when in fact it came out in '53.

It's not that he appeared prematurely aged, despite his life of hard drinking and smoking; rather, his manly bearing and clipped line readings tended to make him seem more authoritarian and older.

Burton and Mason share one great scene together, where both men are wounded and being treated in a German medical tent, after Burton's character has been captured. Both actors taunt and sneer at each other, a mano-a-mano combat of words by two bloodied but proud men. It's also practically a contest to see which thespian can display better diction.

As far as historic fidelity goes, "The Desert Rats" is a total wipeout. Start out with the fact that the title got its nickname from an entirely different British outfit. In the film the Australian 9th Division holds the seaside base of Tobruk against Rommel for over eight months, allowing time for a newly-formed Allied army to forum up in Egypt and head west to oppose him. The real Aussies began referring to themselves as "the rats of Tobruk" in defiance of German propaganda that labeled them so.

Virtually everything that is depicted, from the personnel to the military tactics, was a fabrication by screenwriter Richard Murphy. The key sequence in which the British commanders allow Rommel's Panzers to penetrate their outer defenses as a trap is a concoction, as is the daring commando raid undertaken to blow up a German ammunition dump. And in actuality, the Australians were withdrawn after five months and the latter portion of the defense held by British troops.

In the best Hollywood tradition, Murphy, having taken a real, dramatic event and made up virtually everything about it for his script, was rewarded with an Oscar nomination.

And he deserved it. "The Desert Rats" is a war adventure, not a historical drama, and its allegiance is to its own semblance of truth, not a factual one.

Burton plays "Tammy" MacRoberts, aka Mac, a British infantryman captain who's given lead of an Australian outfit when their commander buys it. Over the course of the long siege, he is promoted to major and then a field promotion to lieutenant colonel, and placed in charge of several battalions.

The Aussies are naturally distrustful of having a British officer command them, and the resentment grows to near-mutiny level when Mac orders the Australian lieutenant (Charles Tingwell) court-martialed for leaving his post during a barrage to rescue a fellow officer. After getting a talking-to by both an Australian confidante and the British general, he agrees to withdraw the charges.

Eventually, Mac garners the respect of his troops and does them proud. His main access point in this endeavor is Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton), a middle-aged private who turns out to be an old schoolmaster of Mac's. He is deferential to his old teacher, repeatedly referring to him as "sir" despite their wide distance in rank and showing favoritism toward Bartlett in terms of cushy assignments.

Bartlett is an interesting character to have dropped into the middle of a film like this, and despite a fine performance by Newton -- best remembered for playing Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island" -- the character never really quite fits in. A self-confessed drunk, failure and coward, Bartlett moved to Australia to start a new life and enlisted while intoxicated when war broke out.

Near the end Bartlett volunteers for the most dangerous assignment there is, manning the forward sentry post where soldiers last about four hours before being killed. In movies of this sort, it's virtually a requirement that a character such as his die a noble death, but here Bartlett survives and is cheered by his fellow soldiers, becoming the unofficial mascot of their defiance.

As a footnote, I'd like to point out that "Rats" is one of those testosterone-laden movies in which no women have speaking roles, or are even seen. At one point we see a photograph of Mac's wife, as he comments that he's only seen her for a week since they got married in 1939 (the events take place in '41) and he's never met his son.

Wise and Murphy keep the action focused on the men and the military strategy, rather than making the mistake so many war pictures do of bringing in a bunch of mushy romance and secondary plots to distract us. At a crisp 86 minutes, "The Desert Rats" is all business.

Reeling Backward: "Where Eagles Dare" (1968)

"Where Eagles Dare" is a substandard World War II action/adventure film with a few notable qualities.

Clint Eastwood had just become an American film star, after the Spaghetti Western trilogy was released here in 1967. He'd also had modestly successful turns starring in "Hang 'Em High" and "Coogan's Bluff." This movie was an opportunity to play a supporting role opposite a huge international star like Richard Burton in a big-budget extravaganza.

Eastwood's role, and performance, are both rather flat, since the script doesn't really give him much to do other than execute action scenes and occasionally grunt out one-liners in response to Burton's wittier quips. It would be a long time before Eastwood played a supporting role again.

The story is simple in concept but convoluted in the telling. An American general with secret war plans is captured by the Germans after his plane crashes, and held in a remote base, Schloss Adler (actually Hohenwerfen Castle), which sits on a high peak and can only be accessed by cable car. A crack team of British agents, with Eastwood as the token Yank, are sent in to disguise themselves as German soldiers, infiltrate the base and rescue the general.

At 154 minutes, the movie is overlong and pedantic. Once the mission gets started, the action unspools in more or less real time. That's a fine technique if it's used to build tension, but here director Brian G. Hutton and screenwriter Alistair MacLean focus too much on the minutia -- getting in and out of vehicles, donning or doffing disguises, setting explosive charges, etc. It reads more like a primer on how to infiltrate a WWII German base than a dramatization of a team doing it.

Incidentally, Alistair wrote the book and screenplay together, both becoming hits. This was his first screenplay; he'd had a number of his novels turned into movies, most notably "The Guns of Navarone" and "Ice Station Zebra." A producer asked him to come up with an original idea, and he delivered the script six weeks later. This is interesting in that movies had been made before based on books that were not yet published, but this was an early, rare case where the book came after the script.

The film's stunts and special effects were, for 1968, pretty impressive stuff. Hutton and cinematographer Arthur Ibbetson employed front-screen projection effects -- a progenitor of the modern green screen technique -- to depict the scenes where the spy team infiltrate the base by riding on top of the cable car, plus the daredevil fight scene on the way back down. Burton and Eastwood spent so much time waiting in the wings while stand-ins and stuntmen took their place that they took to referring to the production as "Where Doubles Dare."

I found it hilarious that the filmmakers made absolutely no attempt to shift from English to German as the team infiltrates behind enemy lines. Usually movies of this ilk will do a single scene in the other language, then show some sort of transition to let the audience know that English will stand in for whatever. Here, everyone just speaks English all the time -- except for a few gunfights where the German officers yell commands in their own language.

But probably the thing that makes "Where Eagles Dare" stand out -- and not in a good way -- is its unnecessarily twisty and occasionally incomprehensible plot. Hutton and MacLean take their good time clearing the air. For a long while we're not sure of the motivations of Burton's character, Maj. John Smith. Once they get into the German town below the base, he meets up with a beautiful woman spy named Mary (Mary Ure) with whom he apparently has a long-standing romantic relationship. She appears to be a member of the team that Smith has not even told his commanders back home about.

Other members of the team start dying mysteriously, one by one. The clear implication is that one of their own operatives is doing the dirty work -- perhaps even Smith himself? Maybe the stoic American (Eastwood), Lt. Morris Schaffer?

Things finally come to a head in a sprawling, ridiculous scene inside the castle's great hall. Smith and Schaffer, having been separated from the three remaining members of their squad, burst in on the German general (Ferdy Mayne) and colonel (Anton Diffring) interrogating the captured American general (Robert Beatty).

Here's where things get really hinky, and absurd. It would seem that everyone is trying to double-cross everyone else. The result is a rambling sequence that goes on for nearly 15 minutes, with Burton as the mastermind pulling all the strings. He appears to change sides several times, resulting in what I believe is the exceedingly rare and dramatically unhinged quintuple-cross:

1. Smith reveals that the American captive is in fact a thespian corporal selected to impersonate the general.
2. The other three NCO members of Smith's team, who supposedly were "captured" while infiltrating the base, turn out to be German double agents. They've been killing the other Brits and have been trying to ensure the mission's failure.
3. Smith claims that in fact he is the double agent working for the Germans, while the NCOs are actually triple agents who really work for England. He makes Schaffer drop his weapon and has the German colonel phone up another German intelligence officer to confirm his identity. In order to prove that the NCOs are not who they say they are, he has them write down the names of every German spy stationed in London, to compare to his own original list.
4. Smith hands his original to the German colonel, who is enraged to find it is blank. It turns out it's Smith who's really a triple agent, and the NCOs are who they say they are, double agents. Smith has spent the last two years feeding false information to his German counterpart to set up the identity of a double agent. Really, he's been working for the Brits all along. Schaffer is allowed to retrieve his gun again. Smith announces that the entire operation, including planting the false general and infiltrating the base, was a scam to allow them to expose the German double agents in the U.K. and obtain the names of their collaborators.
5. A German Gestapo major bursts in on them, demanding to know what is going on. Smith bluffs that he has just uncovered a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer and placed everyone in the room under arrest. Sufficiently distracted, it allows Schaffer to get the drop on him and shoot the Gestapo officer. The German colonel and General get bullets, too.

 Got all that straight? I seriously doubt if audiences back in 1968 did.

The sequence inadvertently turns into a total laugh fest, as Smith jumps from one side to the other and back again, and concocts one outlandish tale in succession. In the end it felt like an "Austin Powers" spoof -- "I'm on your side!" "Actually, I was fooling you!" "No I wasn't!" "He's the triple agent!" "No I am!"

After having executed such (in his mind) brilliant espionage moves, Smith then spends the last hour of the movie behaving like a numbskull as they attempt to fight their way out of the base. For some reason, Smith takes along the three NCO double agents, who have to be kept covered and inevitably fight back -- on top of that cable car, of course.

Why would he bring them? He's already gotten the information he needed out of them -- what could possibly be gained from keeping them around? Well, because somebody has to be left for that dramatic cable car melee.

"Where Eagles Dare" is one of the most bone-headed and turgid spy thrillers I've ever seen. Other than the primitive use of green screens and some cool stunts, this bird falls to earth with a thud.

1.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Becket" (1964)

"Becket" is a terrific example of the historical play or novel turned into a cinematic drama crackling with whip-smart dialogue. I imagine actors must go mad with delight when they read a script that has page after page of dialogue this good. This sort of film was very popular mid-century, though it's fallen out of favor with studios and audiences over the last 40 years.

Peter O'Toole is King Henry II of England, and Richard Burton is Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. It's based on a French play by Jean Anouilh, adapted for the screen in an Oscar-winning screenplay by Edward Anhalt, and directed by Peter Glenville, who also helmed the original stage version.

Despite a nearly three-hour run time, the plot is extraordinarily straightforward and simple. Henry is the power-mad king who wants to subjugate the mighty Church of England to his will. His greatest ally in this is his friend Thomas Becket, whom he appoints Chancellor to enforce the king's will in wresting property taxes from the church.

When one of the bishops points out that this has never been done before, Henry bellows, "I've never been this poor before!!"

This exchange is typical of O'Toole's performance, whose Henry has a slithery charm that can suddenly erupt into volcanic expulsions of blind fury. Henry is a boor who loves drinking, hunting and wenching more than ruling. But he's smart enough to recognize that Becket is smarter than himself, and all of his enemies.

In one scene Henry muses that Becket, if he were on the side of his opponents, would be just as ruthless and efficient in his political maneuvering. Becket concedes the point, saying that he takes pride in performing his duties, whatever they may, to the best of his capabilities.

This proves Henry's undoing, when the Archbishop dies and he picks Becket to be his successor -- despite not even being an ordained priest. As soon as the miter is upon his head and the silver cross in his hand, Becket becomes a thorn in the king's side, opposing him on a point of principle that will lead to the verge of the entire country of England being excommunicated.

Henry loves Becket, as perhaps he adores no other human being in his life, and it hurts him to the core that Becket chooses honor over their friendship.

As played by Burton, Becket is a self-aware man who is cognizant of his own limitations. As a Saxon who serves and befriends a Norman monarch, he is man apart with no home of his own. Henry's barons dismiss him as a "Saxon dog," and a young Saxon monk tries to assassinate him for betraying his people.

He believes himself incapable of loving or being loved, which is why he throws himself with such zeal into whatever endeavors are placed before him. When Henry takes Becket's mistress, Gwendolen, as his sexual plaything, the rift between them takes root. She stabs herself through the heart rather than be separated from Becket.

Glenville directs with an ostentatious hand, and his scenes inside the grand churches and castles occasionally drag on as he lingers too much over processions in ornate costumes passing before stunning sets. But mostly he lets these two amazing actors have free rein, and the results are often glorious.

The only downside of watching "Becket" is realizing how impossible it would be to get such a movie made today.

As is often the case with historical fiction, much of the actual record is muddied or altered.

For example, the central conceit of the film -- that Becket was a Saxon who became the king's confidante -- is false. All historical evidence indicates he was a Norman. Playwright Jean Anouilh were supposedly told of his massive inaccuracy before the play opened, but essentially shrugged his shoulders and decided he liked the story the way it was.

Also, the movie portrays the previous Archbishop, Theobald, as being appalled at Becket's appointment as chancellor. In point of fact, he was Becket's mentor and the one who recommended him to the king.

Interestingly, the roles of Becket and Henry were originally played by Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn onstage. But when it came time for the film, the producers decided they were too old. The younger, more handsome pair of Burton and O'Toole were brought in to pretty things up. In actuality, Olivier and Quinn were much closer to the actual ages of the real men in question.

O'Toole would go on to play Henry II again in 1968's "The Lion in Winter," set years later in his life when the aging king is beset by his ambitious sons. (Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, then whippersnappers, portrayed Richard the Lionheart and King Philip, respectively.) O'Toole received Oscar nominations for both turns as Henry -- part of his pool of eight nods without ever winning (though he did receive an honorary statuette).

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: Berlin Spy Sagas

I'm trying something a little different here for the classic film review -- I'll be comparing two Cold War spy films set in post-WWII Berlin. The films are "The Man Between" from 1953 and 1965's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold."

Both movies feature a protagonist who's cynical and world-weary, yet finds a way to do the right thing. They both end with thrilling climaxes at the East/West Germany border. And both star Claire Bloom.

"Spy" was directed by Martin Ritt from the novel by John le Carre; "Man" was directed by Carol Reed, best known for "The Third Man," which covered similar ground.

Richard Burton played the "Spy," while James Mason was the "Man." Both men's characters carefully cultivate a sense of self-loathing, which in each case is pierced by their relationship with the Claire Bloom character. She plays the innocent, or at least naive, woman who falls for a man knowing full well he is rife with faults.

In "Spy," Bloom plays Nan, an English member of the Communist Party. She works in a library and quietly agitates for her beliefs. Then one day Alec Leamas (Burton) comes to work as an assistant librarian. He's approaching middle age, a disgraced spy, and a drunk. Little does she know that this is a carefully orchestrated ruse to make the East Germans think he is a turncoat.

After Leamas goes over the wall -- in this case, the Berlin Wall -- he is quickly caught in a bit of subterfuge between his Marxist counterparts. There's a battle of wills between the number two spymaster, Fiedler, and his boss, Mundt. Leamas has been sent over to discredit Mundt, but when Nan is brought in as a witness, she unwittingly becomes a pawn in a complex game of spy intrigue.

"Man" is set earlier, in the days before the Berlin Wall was built. But the border is no less forbidding. Still, Susanne (Bloom), a young English girl visiting her brother and his German wife, finds that she can cross over to the East German side without too much trouble. There she meets Ivo Kern (Mason), a shadowy charmer who has some nefarious hold over Susanne's sister-in-law.

In short order she learns that Ivo is the man working both sides against each other, with his own skin his primary concern. In a thrilling extended chase sequence that occupies the last 45 minutes or so, Ivo and Susanne are caught on the wrong side of the border with all the Communists on the lookout for them. It's during these scenes, where Ivo repeatedly attempts to dissuade Susanne from any amorous feelings toward him, that we see what's really in his heart.

Both films are shot in grim black-and-white that lends a gritty, cinema verite feeling. It's interesting how in "Man" there is Communist propaganda all around, especially images of Joseph Stalin, while in "Cold" the backgrounds are drab and cramped, without ornamentation.

Each films ends with a showdown during an attempted border crossing, as Bloom and her paramours attempt to flee back over to the West German side. I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say they both end in tragedy.

This is the third Claire Bloom film I've featured recently in this space -- she played Hera in "Clash of the Titans" -- and I must say I've enjoyed discovering her as an actress. She's had a long and productive career, and at age 78 she's still going with regular television appearances.

She had her first major role the year before "Man," playing the ingenue who steals Charlie Chaplin's heart in "Limelight," his last movie -- well, his last good movie, anyway. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of her work.

Both films: 3.5 stars

(Programming note: I couldn't find a trailer or a current DVD available for "The Man Between.")