Tora, Tora, Tora

Tora, Tora, Tora (1970) dir. Richard Fleischer
Starring: So Yamamura, E.G. Marshall, James Whitmore, Martin Balsam, Jason Robards, Tatsuya Mihashi, Joseph Cotton

****

By Alan Bacchus

What a terrific picture this is despite being considered a failure in its day, perhaps because of the concerted attempt to de-heroize the era and create a realistic portrait of war from both sides of the battle. If anything, the matter-of-fact modus operandi at play here reminds me of Paul Greengrass’s procedural approach to 9/11 in United 93. This picture is utterly believable and because of the hefty budget the production values are virtually invisible to its age.

The title, which Hollywood execs probably fought the filmmakers on, refers to the Japanese code word for the green light given to attack on that fateful day of December 7, 1941. Under the meticulous research efforts and strong adherence to historical credibility, Tora Tora Tora by proxy represents an antidote to the shameless tragedy-turned popcorn entertainment Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay version a few years ago.

Among other things, what separates Michael Bay from Richard Fleischer here is the fact that Fleischer and company believe wholeheartedly in the drama and power of the event, as opposed to manufactured character-based dramas injected into the story. Without the distraction of a brotherly battle between troops, a black cook who overcomes racial prejudice to become a hero on the day or a romantic dalliance between a pilot and a nurse, the riveting day-by-day, minute-by-minute details leading up to the attack is pure cinema, as tense and thrilling as any genre film can create.

The film goes back months before the attack to the planning stage from the Japanese point of view and the systematic piecing together of details by the Americans. If anything, the dual storylines feel like the cat and mouse chase in the Day of Jackal. In that picture, the Jackal and his pursuers begin far apart, but gradually become closer together as the picture goes along. Unfortunately, we can't fictionalize an ending in this case. In the magnificently staged action climax, a 45-minute long attack sequence, it's Hollywood destruction at its finest.

With that said, there is something missing in the emotional detachment. In United 93, it was the fine editing work that created a singular moment of pain and triumph felt by the audience in the very last frame. Of course, in this film WWII has just started for the United States, so closure would have been impossible without such Bruckheimer dramatic manufacturing.

The producers famously recruited Japanese directors Kinji Fukasaku (who would go on to direct Battle Royale in his older age) and Toshio Masuda to direct the Japanese sequences. This is more than a gimmick. Admirably, the Japanese side is humanized as much as possible. Sure the Imperial army and its commanders are certainly made out to be power-hungry strategists looking to expand their control of the ocean, but the rationale for the attack is sufficiently justified. And the doubt expressed by many of its leaders creates a powerful inner conflict from this opposing side.

The American side of the story focuses on the various generals, chiefs of staff and other officers piecing together the Japanese plan. Accurately, the attack is never portrayed as a true 'surprise' attack, nor is there any embellishment of conspiracy theories about the Americans' pre-conceived knowledge of the attack. Again, the filmmakers always land on the side of realism and the truth.

Sadly, Tora Tora Tora is rarely ever spoken of in terms of the great war films in history. Perhaps it’s because of lingering effects of the film's perceived failure and its budget overruns. But discard these notions and discover this terrific picture.

Tora Tora Tora is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Soylent Green

Soylent Green (1973) dir. Richard Fleischer
Starring: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotton, Brock Peters

*1/2

By Alan Bacchus

This uniformly awful sci-fi semi-classic based on the 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison still clings to pop cultural significance because of its phenomenal twist at the end. Spoiler alert: I will try hard not to reveal the twist, but I guarantee I won’t drop the p-bomb.

Yes, that 'twist' at the end is fantastic. I still remember seeing the film as a kid, and indeed the significance of that reveal (a more appropriate word to use) on the overall impact of the movie was enough for it to stick in my mind. What didn’t stay in my mind was the rest of the film, which is laughably bad. Charlton Heston is at his worst, and director Richard Fleischer destroying potentially lethal source material with bone-headed directorial decisions.

Ok, the story – it’s NYC in a typically 1970s dystopian future. The population has overrun to 40 million people in that city. As a result, food has become scarce, which results in mass shortages of even basic sustenance. Government via third party corporations have stepped in to supply people with mass-produced soy-based food products. When a wealthy businessman is murdered, Richard Thorn (Heston) is called in to investigate. Clues and evidence lead him to the Soylent Corporation, where he discovers a particularly shocking secret ingredient in Soylent Green, the newest food product on the market.

Heston is simply laughable as the disreputable cop Thorn. He saunters from scene to scene like a lazy John Wayne impersonator and sports the queerest cap ever worn by a straight man in film. His dialogue is the stuff drinking games are made of – unintentionally hilarious – and definitive of this part of Heston’s career, which slowly eroded his former Hollywood star-value.

But there are two things to savour from Soylent Green. The first is Edward G. Robinson playing Sol, Thorn’s father figure. The movie is billed as Robinson’s 101st film, and indeed some 40+ years into his career he’s still magnetic. Unlike Heston, Robinson embodies the humanism in Harry Harrison’s original writing and trumps Fleischer’s blockhead direction.

Secondly, on the page, Soylent Green could have been a memorable and haunting sci-fi film. The themes of environmental destruction, the overuse of the planet’s resources and extreme free market capitalism feel wholly relevant today. The final scene featuring Sol, who decides to commit suicide after he learns of Soylent’s cover-up and who can’t bear living in a world that has devolved to the most extreme form of social dysfunction (cannibalism), offers a glimpse of how resonant this film could have been. In this moment, in exchange for his death and his body, he is treated to a spa-like, pampered assisted-suicide set to calming classical music and images of Earth’s once plentiful natural resources.

This is a profound existential moment for Sol, Thorn and the audience, which makes for the best scene in the movie. However, it also shows what Fleischer righteously bungled up.

Of course there’s also the famous final line of the film read by Heston, repeated several times actually with the same grandeur as he exclaimed, “Damn you all to hell!” in Planet of the Apes. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities between these two films end.

Soylent Green is available from Warner Home Entertainment.

Armored Car Robbery

Armored Car Robbery (1950) dir. Richard Fleischer
Starring: Charles McGraw, William Talman, Adele Jergens, Douglas Fowley

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Old Hollywood b-movies were never shy about using extremely literal titles to tell audiences exactly what to expect. This one is perhaps the most literal of noir pictures I’ve seen. It’s just one of eight, count ‘em eight, film noirs movies included in the latest Warner Bros Film Noir Vol. 5.

Despite including pictures from Don Seigel, Anthony Mann, Edward Dmytryk and Vincent Sherman I chose this one, because well, it was listed as 63mins, and thus could sneak it in fast, and well, the title was just too intriguing to ignore. And Richard Fleischer is no slouch either, but more on that later.

Indeed Armed Car Robbery is about an armed car robbery. William Talman is Walter Purvis the mastermind of a new heist job which, if all goes right, will make he and his buddies rich. Purvis is tough as nails and clockwork in his method, but the job doesn’t go quite right, and one of the gunmans, Benny, is shot and injured. Despite Benny’s pleas he can’t go to a hospital, and after a confrontation is shot and killed.

With Benny found for dead it gives the cops the one lead to track down Purvis and the money. A cat and mouse chase between cops and robbers ensues with a buxom stripper named Yvonne Le Doux at the centre of it all.

Armored Car Robbery works best as an iron clad procedural in the traditional of the crime work of Michael Mann. In fact the rhythm and construction of the police investigation with the perps' escape recalls the Pacino/De Niro dynamic in Heat. On the side of the cops is the equally ruthless hardliner Lt. Cordell (Charles McGraw) who, like Pacino’s character, commands his troops and analyzes the evidence with workmanlike efficiency.

But let’s not aggrandize this film too much though, Heat this is not, nor is it M, or High and Low, the two essential classics of the procedural genre. In Robbery we never quite sure who to root for. Most often in heist films we cheer for the robber, who often steals for a purpose other than just money, or for the fact that they are charming or charasmatic. Purvis is no hero, not even an anti-hero, and thus we never really feel any warmth or attraction to him. Is it the cops? Do we want the cops to catch the thief? Unfortunatly Lt. Cordell is thinly drawn, not much deeper than a mere characterization of a cop instead of a hero with a journey.

As such this noir is simply an exercise in style – a series of crafty set pieces choreographed and directed with considerable flare by director Richard Fleischer, who is certainly no hack – a director who would go onto a successful career of populist entertaining classics such as the Fantastic Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Soylent Green and even all the way up to 1984’s Conan the Destroyer.

Armored Car Robbery is available in the Film Noir Collection Vol 5. from Warner Bros Home Video.