Michael-Douglas Movie Reviews

The film version of A. B. Guthrie, Jr.'s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is scenic but uncompelling. Reading the book, which is the middle volume of the Big Sky Trilogy (between _The Big Sky_ and _Fair Land, Fair Land_), the reader feels that he or she has been along on the first (1843) wagon train on what was to become the Oregon Trail. Watching the 1967 movie, the viewer sees a trio of highly competent male stars who appeared in many westerns--Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark--and the first movie appearance of Sally Field (already hammy). The movie (directed by the undistinguished mostly tv director Andrew McLaglen) shows various difficulties of the trip and some spectacular western scenery, but it's hard to care very much what happens to anyone on the trek.

The soap opera aspects, particularly a vengeful harridan widow, Mrs. Mack (Katherine Justice) are played up and the movie's plot is less epic, considerably more melodramatic than the book. I guess that it's redundant to say the book is better, but this is a considerable understatement. The book is moving and engaging. The movie is neither. The cinematography of William H. Clothier is impressive, but the viewer does not know where on the way the travelers are, how far they have gone, how far they have yet to go.... or much care if they get there.

Based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, and starring the mightily impressive trio of Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark, this epic western should be a lot better than it is. Despite the endless parade of cliches, stereotypes, and the soap opera mentality that permeates the script, those three stars make this an entertaining, if slow, ride. What really calls attention to the film these days is the presence of Sally Field in her film debut. In 1967, the year the film was released, who would have ever thought that Field, then still known primarily as TV's "Gidget," would go on to bag two Oscars, while only one of the superstar trio that heads the cast would take home the gold (and Kirk Douglas's Oscar was an honorary one at that).

In 1900, a corrupt timber baron Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions of Dollars off the California redwood ( trees as you can imagine ). Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but Jim Fallon wants the sequoias the most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The movie is a remake of VALLEY OF THE GIANTS with stock footage from that earlier color movie.

If you like Kirk, and particularly his earlier work you should like this one! This is a great DVD to have in your collection! It comes in its original Aspect Ratio!

In 1900, a corrupt timber baron Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions of Dollars off the California redwood ( trees as you can imagine ). Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but Jim Fallon wants the sequoias the most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The movie is a remake of VALLEY OF THE GIANTS with stock footage from that earlier color movie.

If you like Kirk, and particularly his earlier work you should like this one! This is a great DVD to have in your collection! It comes in its original Aspect Ratio!

In 1900, a corrupt timber baron Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions of Dollars off the California redwood ( trees as you can imagine ). Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but Jim Fallon wants the sequoias the most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The movie is a remake of VALLEY OF THE GIANTS with stock footage from that earlier color movie.

If you like Kirk, and particularly his earlier work you should like this one! This is a great DVD to have in your collection! It comes in its original Aspect Ratio!

In 1900, a corrupt timber baron Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions of Dollars off the California redwood ( trees as you can imagine ). Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but Jim Fallon wants the sequoias the most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The movie is a remake of VALLEY OF THE GIANTS with stock footage from that earlier color movie.

If you like Kirk, and particularly his earlier work you should like this one! This is a great DVD to have in your collection! It comes in its original Aspect Ratio!

In 1900, a corrupt timber baron Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions of Dollars off the California redwood ( trees as you can imagine ). Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but Jim Fallon wants the sequoias the most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The movie is a remake of VALLEY OF THE GIANTS with stock footage from that earlier color movie.

If you like Kirk, and particularly his earlier work you should like this one! This is a great DVD to have in your collection! It comes in its original Aspect Ratio!

Gosh! It's been a while since I last saw this made-for-t.v. movie, so I'll give it the old college try with the review. Journeyman actor extraordinaire Robert Urich stars in an unusual role. Urich's usually casted as a smarmy cop or as the sensitive everyday man in extraordinary situations. But this time he's in the title role as a blind man whose friends and collegues are turning up dead around him. He goes from bystander to ameteur sleuth to prey. Trouble is, he's blind. Makes for a nice twist on the whodunnit routine. Ron Perlman and Lisa Eilbacher are okay as a couple of Urich's close friends who may be next on the killer's hit list. The most impressive thing I remember about Blind Man's Bluff was its unusually good production values (for a t.v. movie). I believe it was shot in and around Vancouver, British Columbia (a lovely city you don't see everyday). And the music was good too. But it was a made-for-t.v. flick, and I remember being bored with the pacing of the story and the number of cannon fodder extras. All in all, I thought it was an above average, but not superior, whodunnit.

Raquel is a go-go dancer in Vegas who runs for her life when a disgruntled husband of a co-worker blames HER for his bad marriage! Ingenious use of locations from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in a stark, engrossing thriller with nice support from the underrated James Stacy as a nice guy who gets involved. As for Welch: she's over-the-top in a movie that requires it. Sexy, smoky, occasionally hysterical. Get this one while it lasts(word has it that it's already fallen out of print).

I've been of fan of Sonja Heine since she stared making movies. Since this was her last film and the only color one that she did. I'm glad that I have it. I think that they could have had a more likeable leading man. Did not care for M.O'Shea . The rest of cast was just so so.

"Maverick" had suffered a steep decline from its glory days by the time this episode was filmed, but it's still a good show. Roger Moore replaces the absent James Garner as Maverick in this one, a task about as enviable as his replacing of Sean Connery in the role of James Bond years later. Moore did some extremely good episodes, though, one in particular written and directed by Robert Altman, but this isn't one of them and this isn't it. Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick and Moore as his cousin Beau work hard at it but the script in this one just isn't quite up to snuff, and Kelly plays the material a bit too broadly, something that would have been inconceivable in his work with Garner. It's worthwhile to dyed-in-the-wool Maverick adherents (like me) and Roger Moore admirers (you won't believe how young he looks in this, shot long before his later series "The Saint"), but this one should only be ordered after you've experienced the classic earlier episodes with Garner and Kelly. It's easy to see why Moore was chosen to replace Garner, though, since the resemblance between the two actors throughout the 60s is eerie. Later in the same season the studio went that one better, though, by hiring Garner lookalike Robert Colbert, dressing him in Garner's signature black outfit, and calling his character "Brent."