MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: ISLAND IN THE SKY (1953)

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

ISLAND IN THE SKY (1953)

This moderately effective rescue pic has John Wayne & his airplane crew downed in frozen Nowheresville as various teams of aviators go out looking for them. Ernest Gann’s script gives all of the juicy character stuff to the rescue squads which leaves us stuck for long periods of screen time with the rather colorless core group. Well, colorless except for Wayne, who’s very good here. He even gets to say "sitting on your tukcus," surely his one & only Yiddish utterance. William Wellman’s films hardly ever meet your expectations, but in this one a big cast filled with unlikely suspects (Andy Devine, James Arness, Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer) turn in some tasty perfs and hold your attention.

Insider Fun: Listen as Leonard Maltin shills like mad in the intro, then look up his less than glowing original squib.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

ISLAND IN THE SKY (1953)

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A last thought before we go.

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