PATTON (1970)

Whether you like the real life General George Smith Patton, Jr. or not, I think most movie lovers will agree this is one hell of a movie.

Completely skipping his younger years and centering solely on the years 1943 - 1945, PATTON opens with the now iconic scene of Patton, in full dress uniform, standing before a huge American flag and making a speech to his offscreen troops. After that we're taken to Northern Africa 1943, where he's placed in charge of a disorganized group of soldiers.  He soon whips them into shape and wins a battle against the Nazis.  During all of this we learn that Patton believes in reincarnation and that he has lived many times before and has been present at different wars throughout history.  This will be a reoccurring theme through out the film.  After securing Northern Africa, Patton moves on to Italy.  It's a joint-campaign with the British with the British suppose to lead the way.  Frustrated by the slow progress, Patton disobeys orders and smashes through to the port city of Messina.  His aggressive assault pisses off his men and he's eventually relieved of command after slapping a shell-shocked soldier and threatening to shoot him.

Meanwhile, the Nazis believe that this is all a ploy to trick them into not believing that Patton is actually going to be the one to lead the Allied invasion of German-occupied Western Europe.  The American leadership took advantage of this and made Patton the commander of a fictitious Army group that was going to invade at Pas-de-Calais.  Of course, we all know the Allied forces actually landed in Normandy.  After D-Day, Patton was given a real command.  Patton's Third Army then charged from August 1944 to May 1945 far into Nazi territory and claimed (according to Wikipedia) to have killed, wounded, or captured 1,811,388 German soldiers.

To make a detailed film about Patton's World War II years would be impossible, but with a running time of only 172 minutes PATTON does an amazing job.  The movie is over 40 years old and it still looks breathtaking.  Massive battle scenes with tons of extras, European locations (mostly Spain), zero CGI, genuine WWII-ear military vehicles and even planes!  And thanks to an amazing script by Francis Ford Coppola and a legendary performance by George C. Scott the viewer is truly transported to another time and place.  The first time I saw PATTON I don't think my mind wandered for a second.  Scott's performance is one of the best in movie history.

NORTH TO ALASKA (1960)

John Wayne and Stewart Granger (along with kid brother Fabian) strike it big panning for gold in Alaska.  Now that they're rich Stewart sends Wayne back to Seattle to fetch his fiancee.  Wayne goes, but soon learns that she's already married.  Nervous to go back to Alaska empty handed, he finds a prostitute (Capucine) and persuades her into returning to Alaska with him...for Stewart, but naturally she's in love with the Duke.  Meanwhile, back in Alaska some lowdown claim jumpers (lead by the hilariously evil Ernie Kovacs) are trying to get in on Wayne and Granger's gold strike.

NORTH TO ALASKA is one of my most watched John Wayne films.  What makes it so entertaining is how energetic everything is.  Right from the beginning it's non-stop yelling, screaming, fighting, shooting, furniture crashing, jumping and so on.  It never slows down for a minute.  Also the slow-burn romantic story between is Wayne and Capucine is really fun to watch.  I love the scene where she and Stewart try to make Wayne jealous.  It's too funny.

Fun story, beautiful scenery (I don't think any of it was actually from Alaska though), great crowd scenes, title song sang by Johnny Horton, excellent pace, strong supporting cast including some funny dude who keeps sneezing during the final scene.  One of the funniest of Wayne's comedic films.

Highly recommended.

THE IMPATIENT YEARS (1944)

Opening in a divorce court Jean Arthur and Lee Bowman was a divorce...right now!  The judge is willing to grant them their wish, but when Jean's father Charles Coburn tells the judge (via flashback) what really happened and then devises his own plan to make them work for their divorce the judge agrees.  See, during the flashback we learn that Jean and Lee met a year and a half ago while he was on a four day furlough in San Francisco.  It was love at first sight so they immediately got a marriage license, but then they had to wait two days to get married.  They do and on their wedding night they had an out of this world fuckfest.  So much so that she got pregnant.  Now nearly a year and a half later Lee comes home on a 30-day furlough only to find that the woman he married is a total square!  Plus she lives with her father and some sniveling boarder who's secretly in love with Jean.  The initial meeting works out horribly, so they wanna call it quits and get a divorce, but the plan Coburn sells the judge is to force them to go back to San Francisco and retrace their steps for that entire four days.  I'm sure you can guess how it ends.

From what I've read the idea for this movie was to reunite the three stars of the previous years hit THE MORE THE MERRIER: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn.  Now that would make a lot of sense, since TMTM is a delightful wartime romantic comedy that's still great even now. Arthur and Coburn both signed up, but McCrea didn't.  I don't know why, but if I had to wager a bet he probably got a whiff of that lame script and went running for the hills.

I love Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn, but you've got to have a script that works and chemistry between the two leads.  This one has neither.  With McCrea there would have been chemistry, but that still leaves the weak story.  The idea of a couple getting to know each other in a home environment after they've already been married and had a child is full of possibilities, but unfortunately everything in this possibility comes off as lazy, too convenient and forced.  Also the side story about the boarder a complete waste of time because first off it's never built up properly (the dude is a total wiener and Arthur isn't interested in him at all) and secondly it's never resolved!  One moment he's there, then boom movies over.

Lame story, zero chemistry between Lee and Jean, poor attempts at humor, interesting supporting cast with lots of familiar faces (including Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen), slow pace.  The film had its moments (I got a good giggle out of the military guy at the dance club), but there's so much better stuff out there I wouldn't really worry about it.