MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT (1953)

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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT (1953)

The third go-‘round for this saga of sea-faring siblings has little but its memorable title going for it. The qualities that worked for Bessie Love & Lon Chaney in 1923 and for Ramon Novarro, Joan Crawford & Ernest Torrence in ‘28 (under the title ACROSS TO SINGAPORE) are nowhere to be found in this flat telling. Producer Pandro Berman & his regular megger Richard Thorpe seem completely uninvolved, running the show as a stopgap vehicle for some costly contract players. Ann Blyth gets the worst of it as a dewy bride to a tired-looking Robert Taylor, while Stewart Granger, at least, goes thru the motions of swash & buckle. The basic outline isn’t without promise -- missing scapegrace brother turns up alive in the tropics with a fortune in pearls -- but the story construction fumbles over multiple plotlines and the production values are shockingly poor. M-G-M management was going thru a shakeup which may explain, if not excuse, the economies, but the film remains a dud.

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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!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT (1953)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE