The Magic Christian (3 Stars)

I decided to watch this film after it was recommended by Fred Olen Ray. I knew very little about it in advance, except that it's considered a cult film. But still, I was shocked by the content, and not in a good way.

The film begins with a portrait of the Queen while the National Anthem is being played. Then the camera zooms out to show that the picture is a ten pound note. That was a lot of money in 1969. It's the equivalent of 1760 pounds today. The film's message is that people will do anything for money, but there's so much absurd humour that the message is often forgotten.

Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) is a billionaire industrialist. He regrets not having an heir to his fortune, so he adopts a homeless man that he sees in the park (Ringo Starr). Surprisingly, Youngman (that's the man's name) easily fits in with the better social life.

Is this supposed to be London? It's a dank, gloomy town.

Father and son take a journey on a cruise ship, the Magic Christian.

There's a vampire on board.

Raquel Welch is cracking a whip, surrounded by dozens of topless women. It's only a short scene, worthy of a pause and repeat.

Roman Polanski has a cameo as a man sitting in the bar looking bored.

In fact, the film has so many cameos that you need a scorecard to keep up with them. There are famous actors like Richard Attenborough and Yul Brynner, as well as just about every British comedian of the 1960's.

But the film is a mess. I can't understand why it's called a cult film.

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The Four Musketeers (1974) (4 Stars)

This is a sequel to "The Three Musketeers", made a year earlier. Actually, both films were made together. The intention was to release them as a single film, but during production it was decided the resulting film would be too long, so they were split into two.

That's what I've read, but it's not the impression I get when watching the films. They have distinct styles. Both films have a lot of comedy, but in the first film the swordfights are slapstick comedy, whereas the swordfights are more realistic in the second film. The second film also seems to have a bigger budget, based on the extravagant battle scenes and the increased number of extras.

The background of "The Four Musketeers" is a battle in La Rochelle between the Catholics and the Protestants. The Musketeers have divided loyalties. On the one hand, they're servants of the king and faithful Catholics. On the other hand, their friend the Duke of Buckingham is allied with the Protestant rebels. As they mockingly say to one another, "We're at war to decide whether psalms should be sung in French or Latin. But isn't that what all religious wars are about?" 

The Queen of France has ended her affair with the Duke of Buckingham, but she doesn't want him to be killed in a war between France and England. It's common knowledge that she's friends with her dressmaker Constance Bonacieux, who's also D'Artagnan's lover. On the instructions of Cardinal Richelieu, Milady de Winter seduces D'Artagnan to break up the connection, but D'Artagnan rejects her. She feels insulted and wants D'Artagnan dead at all costs.

It's interesting how the film is wrapped around historical events. The Duke of Buckingham was assassinated by an English soldier called John Felton on 23rd August 1628. The film shows that he was persuaded to kill him after being seduced by Milady de Winter, a person who never existed in real life.

I've given both films the same rating, but I think I slightly prefer "The Four Musketeers". There's more action, which appeals to me.

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The Three Musketeers (1973) (4 Stars)

"The Three Musketeers" is one of the most filmed novels ever. Supposedly it's been filmed over 50 times, which makes it second only to Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Which is the best version? I don't know. Ask me when I've watched the other 49 or more versions.

The 1973 version keeps close to the book, but it concentrates on humour rather than action. After years of swordsmanship training with his father, young D'Artagnan goes to Paris to become a musketeer. I have one problem understanding this. A musketeer was a rifleman, and we even see a rifle presented to D'Artagnan when he's accepted, but the so-called musketeers always use swords to fight. Is this explained in the novel?

In Paris hot-headed D'Artagnan gets into arguments with strangers who challenge him to duels. These strangers are the Three Musketeers, who he meets separately: Athos, Porthos and Aramis. When he's about to begin his first duel, they're interrupted by Cardinal Richelieu's guards. Duelling in the streets is illegal. D'Artagnan joins the Three Musketeers in a battle with the soldiers, so the four of them become friends.

The king's wife has had an affair with the English Duke of Buckingham. She tells him they can no longer see one another. She gives him her diamond necklace as a parting gift. That's foolish, because it was a present from her husband, and he tells her he wants her to wear it at the next royal ball. The queen gives D'Artagnan the secret mission to travel to England and retrieve the necklace before the ball takes place.

I enjoyed this film, which I saw today for the first time, but it seems dated in comparison with the 1993 version, which I've seen a few times.

Success Rate:  + 0.2

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One Million Years B.C. (4 Stars)

I'm watching this film again today because I just heard about Raquel Welch's death. As I write these words, the cause of her death hasn't yet been made public.

The film was made by Hammer Studios in 1966. At the time there was a lot of hype about Raquel. She was called the world's sexiest woman. I never agreed with this description of her, not even when I was younger, but I still liked her. In the 1970's Playboy called her the world's most desired woman. Maybe it just meant that she was the woman Hugh Hefner desired the most. But let's put it into perspective with a little example. Let's say there are ten women, Raquel Welch and nine others. Ten men have to vote who they desire most. Raquel gets two votes, one woman gets no votes, and the other eight women get one vote each. In this hypothetical example, Raquel Welch is voted the most desired woman, even though 80% of the votes are against her.

The film begins with a serious voiceover, sounding like the film was made as a scientific broadcast for the Discovery Channel. We're told that the world is inhabited by dinosaurs and primitive human tribes. The tribes are small, and none of them know anything about one another. This is strange, because the two tribes we see in the film are close to one another. One tribe has dark hair, the other tribe is blond. Let's call them the Darkies and the Blondies.

Tumak is the son of the leader of the Darkie tribe. After an argument with his brother Sakana he leaves the tribe and walks aimlessly through the desert. He collapses from exhaustion and is rescued by Loana from the Blondie tribe.

This is the first glimpse we get of Raquel Welch as Loana.

She's catching fish with the other women of her tribe. She seems to be having fun.

Tomak is accepted into the Blondie tribe, despite his hair colour. Those were the good old days before racism was invented. Maybe people weren't so primitive a million years ago.

Tomak's main interest is in Loana. A million years ago she was the world's most desired woman.

The decision was made to have the people speak in a prehistoric language. I wouldn't have minded them speaking English. I can suspend disbelief. The vocabulary is very limited. Most conversations are made up of the people saying one another's names. The sentences are all one word utterances. "Nakon" means "Kill". "Krast" means "Go away". Other words are "Nian", "Nedi" and "Akita", but I haven't been able to figure out what they mean. I could make guesses, but I'd rather not. Maybe the studio's production notes include a word list.

The film is an example of Ray Harryhausen's skills in special effects. While not up to Jurassic Park standards, it's still amazing how realistic he could make dinosaurs look without the use of computers. He was a genius, far ahead of his time. If you want to see how good he was, just compare him with films made by other special effects artists of his day. Nobody even came close.

Raquel Welch
September 5, 1940 – February 15, 2023

Farewell to Raquel Welch. She was a beautiful actress who will never be forgotten.

Success Rate:  + 17.0

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Hannie Caulder (4 Stars)

A British spaghetti western? Is that a contradiction? Let's put it differently: "Hannie Caulder" is a British western made in the style of spaghetti westerns. It was even filmed in the Spanish region of Almeria.

The film takes place on both sides of the border between the USA and Mexico. The date isn't stated, but in a cemetery we see a tombstone dated 1874, so I assume it's the late 19th Century. A gang of inept bank robbers, the Clemens Brothers, botch a bank robbery in Mexico, killing people but not taking any money. They flee across the border and arrive at the horse farm where Hannie Caulder lives. They shoot her husband, rape her and set her house on fire. She swears revenge, but how can she do anything by herself?

A bounty hunter called Thomas Price passes her farm, asking if his horse can have water from her well. She tells him what happened and asks him to teach her how to shoot. At first he refuses, but when he sees how determined she is he's worried that she'll get herself killed if she isn't trained.

Price travels with her to Mexico to visit a gunsmith called Bailey, played by Christopher Lee. He lives by the sea with a Mexican wife and his children. His only visitors are men who want to have their guns repaired. He makes a new gun specially adapted to Hannie's size and strength, a light gun that still has enough power to kill at close range.

When they return to America they find the Clemens Brothers in a small border town. Price wants to capture one of them to claim the reward. He kills him, but he's badly injured in the fight, so Hannie has to tackle the other two brothers by herself.

Most film critics don't like the film, but it has one big fan: Quentin Tarantino. He says that it was one of his main inspirations for "Kill Bill". The relationship between the Bride and Pai Mei is based on Hannie Caulder and the bounty hunter. There's also a parallel between the gunsmith and Hattori Hanzo.

But what do I think about the film? I have mixed feelings. It's a good story, but it's spoilt by the comic elements. The Clemens Brothers are stupid, and whenever we see them we have to laugh. The film would have been better if the Clemens Brothers had been efficient cold-blooded criminals. It would have made Hannie's victory over them more meaningful.

Raquel Welch is beautiful as Hannie Caulder, but she doesn't dress as sexily as she looks in the poster at the top of this post. She's always wearing tight leather trousers.

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Legally Blonde (5 Stars)

I decided to watch this film today after discussing it with a friend. If you're reading this, you know who you are. I'm always willing to take suggestions from friends on what to watch next. That doesn't mean I'll automatically watch whatever's suggested, but I'll seriously consider it. In this case, I was glad of the suggestion. It's been almost 10 years since I last watched it, and I gave it five stars at the time, so why have I waited so long?

I shoved the film into my Blu-ray player, sat back in my comfy armchair, waited... and what happened?

"Disc cannot be played. Wrong region"

That is absolutely disgusting! I never knew the disc was locked to Region A, because my last Blu-ray player, which I bought in England, was multi-regional. The 4K player that I bought last Bonfire Day only plays Region B discs. Maybe I can recode it to multi-regional, but that's not the point. Region-locked DVDs are awful. Region-locked Blu-rays are even worse. I understand why the region thing was invented. It was so that cheap discs in one country couldn't compete with expensive releases of the same film in other countries. That's silly. International postage is so expensive that it would have to be a very big price difference to make it cheaper to buy abroad. Apart from that, why lock a disc to Region A (America) if it's not planned to release the film in Europe?

In this case, I bought the American release of "Legally Blonde" for the simple reason that it's only available on DVD in Europe. Oh! They never thought of that, did they? Region-locked discs are an abomination. The region code on "Legally Blonde" is telling me I'm only allowed to watch the film on DVD, not Blu-ray. That's something I don't accept.

Okay, I could still watch the film in my computer, because I have software that removes the region code. I'm still angry though. I want to punish the company that released the Blu-ray. I'm opposed to film piracy, but I'd like to distribute this film in full HD just to tell them that if they insist on region locking their films they'll lose money. I'm probably too late though. It's an old (-ish) film, released in 2001, so the pirates are probably already distributing the film. That's a shame.

After that rant I hardly have any energy to describe the film itself, but I'll do my best.

Elle Woods is a student at the City University of Los Angeles, studying fashion. She has a boyfriend from a rich, influential family. He boasts that his family has had five generations of senators. He dumps her, because he says he has to think of his image. If he wants to become a senator, he needs a respectable wife.

This inspires her to apply for Harvard Law School to win him back. She has a 4.0 average and an LSAT of 179. I'm not acquainted with the American education system, but I assume that's something good. She's accepted, and then we have the humorous theme of the whole film. She's a colourful girl in the midst of a drab, grey university. Despite her high intelligence, she walks around campus in bright pink clothes, talking like an air-headed bimbo.

Elle even has the most colourful laptop in the university.

After a bumpy start, Elle's intelligence and hard work pays off. A professor makes her an intern in his law film, and she helps defend a fitness instructor accused of murder. Does she get her boyfriend back? Yes and No. He wants her back, but she no longer considers him good enough for her.

This film is a masterpiece on so many different levels. It can be seen as a chick flick comedy, but it also deals with serious themes. It shows that women can be both beautiful and intelligent. They can compete in a men's world and come out on top. It's a film that's empowering for women, and not just aspiring lawyers.

Success Rate:  + 5.9

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One Million Years B.C. (4 Stars)

This film tells a version of prehistoric times that you didn't learn in school. One million years ago there were small human tribes scattered over the Earth at different stages of cultural development. They had to protect themselves from the dinosaurs which wandered around the wastelands looking for food.

The film's hero, Tumak, is the son of his tribe's leader, Akoba. There's no social justice in the tribe. When a wild animal has been cooked the strongest eat first, and the weakest have to fight over the scraps. Just because a man is strong now it doesn't mean he'll always be privileged. While he's at his physical peak he can do whatever he wants, but when he gets old the younger men bully him and don't give him enough food.

Tumak thinks it's his time to step up. He rips the food out of his father's hand, but he soon finds out that he underestimated his father. Akoba wins a fierce battle, so Tumak is banished from the tribe. Tumak almost perishes, but he's found by the women of a blond-haired tribe. They have different ways. They share their food fairly. They even bury their dead, instead of leaving their bodies as food for wild animals.

There's a love story. Dark-haired Tumak falls in love with blond-haired Loana, played by Raquel Welch. Was this the world's first interracial marriage?

"One Million Years B.C." was made in 1966, four years after "Dr. No", which I watched yesterday. Compare the pictures of Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch, both screenshots from the respective films.

There's an uncanny resemblance. Actually, they should be even more alike. Raquel Welch's skin is darker. She only looks pale because of the film's lighting.

But the similarity doesn't stop there. They sound the same in the two films. When "Dr. No" was filmed Ursula Andress's Swiss accent was too strong to be easily understood, so her voice was dubbed by the German actress Nikki van der Zyl. It's no good checking the voice with other films. Nikki dubbed Ursula's voice in her other English language films.

Raquel Welch's Latin American accent was also considered too strong, so Nikki dubbed her voice in "One Million Years B.C." I have difficulty understanding why. The film's dialogue is all in a primitive language which seems to have a vocabulary of less than 10 words, so it shouldn't have been a problem for Raquel to speak her own lines. Ah, the mysteries of cinema!

Nikki Van Der Zyl

There's another curiosity about the film. Among the promotional stills released for the film there was a photo of Raquel Welch hanging on a cross. She's wearing an outfit similar to the cloth bikini she wears in the film, but I can guarantee you that she isn't crucified in the film. It's a very sexy photograph, delightfully sacrilegious, but otherwise totally irrelevant.

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One Million Years B.C. (4½ Stars)

Forget what you learnt in school. This is the way the world really began. There were scattered cavemen tribes in the desert hunting for food and fighting with dinosaurs to survive. Turok is expelled from his tribe after fighting with one of the leaders. He wanders through the desert until he finds a new tribe, in particular the beautiful Loana.

This was a film made in England by Hammer studios in 1966. The main focus of the advertising campaign  was Raquel Welch, who plays the blonde cavewoman Loana. In the 1960's she was being promoted as the world's sexiest woman. (I admit it, knowing I would watch this film next was one of the reasons for my last post). I found this strange. Sure, she was attractive, but I didn't find her exceptional. There were many actresses in the 1960's who were sexier, such as Wendy Padbury, Imogen Hassall and Ingrid Pitt. Even more beautiful than those is Yutte Stensgaard, but she didn't become popular until the early 1970's. But my point is that Raquel Welch looks plain compared to any of these actresses. I admit I've only seen a few of her films, but none of them could convince me to change my mind.

Of course, I didn't watch this film today because I'm interested in getting another view of Raquel Welch. The special effects were made by Ray Harryhausen, who died on May 7th. I felt that it was appropriate to watch one of his films to remember him. Though not up to today's technical standards it's amazing how good the special effects could be created without the use of computers. I said it already, he was a giant of cinema who will never be forgotten.

Legally Blonde (5 Stars)

This is a chick flick. Chick flicks suck. Right? Wrong! Not this one. While targeting a young female audience, this is a film that anyone of any gender or age can enjoy. Reese Witherspoon plays the ditzy blonde to perfection. It's been said that you have to be very intelligent to convince people you're stupid. If that's the case, Reese's IQ must be off the scale. She plays a fashion student who decides to go to Harvard Law School to pursue the man she loves. Predictably, once there she goes from success to success. While there is nothing deep about this film, it's so enjoyable that it can be watched over and over again.

Oh yes, I need to add something to my thoughts about the English language in my post on "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" two days ago. As every English school child knows, a billion is a million million, i.e. 1,000,000,000,000. For some reason Americans think a billion is a thousand million, i.e. 1,000,000,000. I don't know the reason for this. It's probably just a blunder two hundred years ago that was never corrected. Nevertheless, it's an unforgivable mistake, and would mean a failure in any English school.