RED SUN (1971) 

Written by Laird Koenig, Denne Bart Petitclerc, William Roberts and Lawrence Roman

Directed by Terence Young

Link (Charles Bronson) and Gauche (Alain Delon) are outlaws who rob the train carrying a Japanese ambassador and his golden sword, intended as a gift for the President.  Moments after the robbery, Gauche blows up the mail car that Link is on and absconds with the loot. Link and samurai Kuroda (Toshiro Mifune) become uneasy allies in pursuit of Gauche, the American outlaw wanting the gold and the loyal samurai wanting the sword. This Italian/French co-production has everything working against it — stars from multiple countries: America (Charles Bronson), Japan (Toshiro Mifune), France (Alain Delon) and Switzerland; a British director (Terence Young) working from a script by four Americans, with a French cinematographer (Henri Alekan) and a French music scorer (Maurice Jarre) — all of them working on a story set in the Old West. By all rights, it should be a miserable mishmash, but it is, rather, a solidly entertaining, classically structured, revenge/quest movie, that could have been made in Hollywood in the Sixties rather than in Spain in the Seventies.  I’ve liked this movie ever since first seeing it in a theatre sometime in the Seventies, and the print I watched on MoviePlex is beautifully restored by Warner Bros, including several moments of brief nudity that I haven’t seen in over 30 years. Bronson and Mifune work well off each other, with Mifune the steely-eyed hero and Bronson lightly comical as the less capable of the two, totally flummoxed by the samurai’s skills with sword, knife and judo. Andress is gorgeous, as is Capucine in a smaller role, and Delon is effective as “Gauche”, so named for his left-handed gun technique. A solid, classically structured western, rather than a Spaghetti Western, it deserves to be better known. (Warners’ DVD of this is out of print, going for $70 or more on line!)

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941)

Written by John Lee Mahin Directed by Victor Fleming

I haven’t watched this version since first seeing it as a kid; as any kid must be, I was disappointed. Seeing it now, however, I can fully appreciate the subtleties of Spencer Tracy’s fine performance and the brilliantly sympathetic work of Ingrid Bergman as Ivy, who is made even more breathtakingly gorgeous than she actually was (which was pretty darn gorgeous) by the cinematography of Joseph Ruttenberg. The long sequence in Ivy’s apartment during which Hyde torments her with the possibility of going out, only to crush her hopes by deciding to stay in, is beautifully played by both actors and is remarkable for its psycho-sexual cruelty. Also remarkable are the visual images seen during Hyde’s transformation, especially the one depicting Bergman and Lana Turner (who does a good job as Jekyll’s fiancee), naked, as a team of horses whipped by a frenzied Jekyll.  Tracy ‘s Hyde is not as physical as Frederic March’s, but he is even more malevolent, since his cruelty stems from the desire to inflict pain rather than from the unleashed libido of March’s Hyde. Of course, being a big budget MGM feature, the movie looks fabulous, and all its black and white glory is displayed on the double feature DVD from MGM that also includes the March/Mammoulian version.

 — Robert Deveau, The Doomed Farmer