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greenygal, ipleasance and A to see Muppet Treasure Island and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) today.
Muppets Treasure Island was a delight -- from Billy Conolly as Billy Bones, through Kermit as Capt. Smollet and Miss Piggy as Benjamina Gunn, to Tim Curry's star turn as Long John Silver. Also, just imagine how difficult it must be to do the fight choreography for a sword-fight with Muppets! Also, Gonzo's occasionally Star Trek jokes! The opening song! The Hans Zimmer score!
The Manchurian Candidate was also quite enjoyable, and I need to see more of Angela Lansbury playing villains -- this and The Court Jester are the only two times I can recall seeing her really get to be evil, and she's so good at it. Also, all of us were suspicious of Janet Leigh's character Eugenie Rose Chaney, mainly because her sudden attachment to Frank Sinatra's Maj. Bennett Marco came out of nowhere and was inexplicably fast and dedicated -- we suspected she was another agent, actually, though apparently not.
Laurence Harvey's Raymond Shaw was very pretty, very charismatic, and quite often a jerk. Also, his accent slipped noticeably during some scenes, which threw me off. Otoh, I definitely sympathized with the character and found Harvey's performance excellent.
The most conspicuous problems I had with the film is the use of non-Asian actors to play Asian characters -- Henry Silva was very obviously not Korean, for example -- and the black & white film stock flattening out the black characters, which is a known problem in a lot of movie history.
I'm really glad the movies were shown in that order, because I don't think it would have worked nearly as well to see The Manuchurain Candidate first.
greenygal, ipleasance and A to see Muppet Treasure Island and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) today.Muppets Treasure Island was a delight -- from Billy Conolly as Billy Bones, through Kermit as Capt. Smollet and Miss Piggy as Benjamina Gunn, to Tim Curry's star turn as Long John Silver. Also, just imagine how difficult it must be to do the fight choreography for a sword-fight with Muppets! Also, Gonzo's occasionally Star Trek jokes! The opening song! The Hans Zimmer score!
The Manchurian Candidate was also quite enjoyable, and I need to see more of Angela Lansbury playing villains -- this and The Court Jester are the only two times I can recall seeing her really get to be evil, and she's so good at it. Also, all of us were suspicious of Janet Leigh's character Eugenie Rose Chaney, mainly because her sudden attachment to Frank Sinatra's Maj. Bennett Marco came out of nowhere and was inexplicably fast and dedicated -- we suspected she was another agent, actually, though apparently not.
Laurence Harvey's Raymond Shaw was very pretty, very charismatic, and quite often a jerk. Also, his accent slipped noticeably during some scenes, which threw me off. Otoh, I definitely sympathized with the character and found Harvey's performance excellent.
The most conspicuous problems I had with the film is the use of non-Asian actors to play Asian characters -- Henry Silva was very obviously not Korean, for example -- and the black & white film stock flattening out the black characters, which is a known problem in a lot of movie history.
I'm really glad the movies were shown in that order, because I don't think it would have worked nearly as well to see The Manuchurain Candidate first.
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1) The first conversation between Rose and Marco is taken straight from the book, non sequiturs about Delaware and all, except Marco has a lengthy poetic bit about a particular tribe of Arabs and how she makes him think of an amazing historical beauty they had. It's genuinely beautiful and is admittedly the sort of thing that often makes fictional people fall in love. Also, in the book Rose definitely has a fiance that she dumps after that conversation.
2) Marco is less criminally careless in the book; the first time he loses Raymond he was supposed to be under surveillance and they lost him at the critical moment, and the second time Chunjin hits Marco with a car and grabs Raymond. That bit I wish they'd kept.
3) But it's less important in the book anyway, because in the book Marco programs Raymond to kill the Iselins, and probably also to kill himself. (Marco's last line is "No electric chair for a Medal of Honor winner.") That I'm glad was changed; at least in the movie Raymond is allowed some measure of revenge for what was done to him, instead of being a tool straight to the end. But it's a bleak, bleak story either way.
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2) That would have been a lot better, though they would have had to add a possibly technically complicated scene for Marco being hit with a car.
3) Yeah, the movie does do a better job there, with Raymond getting to make a decision about something.