New Reviews of Noel Coward, Elia Kazan, Ron Howard Films
A Star Wars prequel about a scoundrel, an Elia Kazan movie about an East Coast town prejudging as individual as guilty and an Oscar-winning Best Picture about a London romantic couple from the last day of the 19th century to the early Thirties comprise three new movie recommendations this month. I had never even heard of director Frank Lloyd’s Cavalcade, based on the Noel Coward play, for 20th Century Fox. But the movie, which earned an Academy Award for 1933’s Best Picture, surprised me with its fresh visual approach to an epic about the sanctity of human life. Read my review of Cavalcade here.
On the other hand, I fully expected to enjoy director Elia Kazan’s second motion picture, Boomerang!, starring Arthur Kennedy as an accused murderer, Dana Andrews as the prosecuting attorney and Jane Wyatt as his wife. The 1947 film, which was made following Kazan’s sterling 1945 adaptation of Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is as involving as I’d had every reason to believe it would be. Though it’s film noir, strictly speaking, with hard-boiled naturalism and cynicism embedded throughout the movie, the Forties drama contains Kazan’s quietly glorified idealist, too. I’ll never think of Wyatt just as the housewife and mother on Father Knows Best again. Read the Boomerang! review here.
As I recently wrote about on the blog (here), I gained new hope when it was reported that Disney’s Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy had hired Ron Howard to direct the new Star Wars picture, which debuts in movie theaters this weekend.
I am not a huge fan of the series, which I’ve seen in total, though I enjoyed the 1977 original when I saw it on opening weekend with my father. The Last Jedi was awful, as I wrote in the review. This new movie, a spinoff based on a scoundrel character I’ve liked the least, is a decent B movie. I think that’s thanks to Ron Howard, who puts the central points together in a way which I compare to his 1976 Western with John Wayne, The Shootist. Read my new movie review of Solo: A Star Wars Story here.
It’s neither too soon nor too late to join my Writing Boot Camp and social media courses in LA this summer. They both start soon and enrollment is limited, so go here for details and registration links. If you’re unable to attend but want me to read, review or audit your manuscript, screenplay or web site or social media, let me know and I’ll see if I can help. Have a meaningful and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend in the meantime.