The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Second viewing (first one with original audio); previously viewed on or a little after December 29, 1984.

During a tornado, a farm girl appears to be transported to a magic world where she meets some strange characters and is faced with the problem of how to return home.

Musical fantasy which has a poor underlying text but makes up for it with lush visuals, nice musical numbers, and overall formal sophistication. It gets somewhat excruciating towards the end though, mainly thanks to the annoying whining of the protagonist.

Rating: 53 (up from 50)

To Have and Have Not (1944)

 Second viewing (first with original audio); previously viewed on July 3, 1988.

On an island in the Caribbean, a boat pilot who takes tourists on fishing trips gets involved with anti-Nazi rebels.

I'll admit that this was more entertaining on second viewing than it had been on first. I'll also admit it's somewhat absurd that Martinicans should give a damn about the politics of the European rulers of their Central American island; that it is ruled by the French to this very day is a somewhat dismal fact, I think. To make matters worse, this film has the most caricatural Nazi villain of all times; sometimes it seems that Hollywood doesn't really think what the Nazis did was bad enough; they have to make people believe that aside from their actions and ideology, every Nazi or Nazi-supporting functionary had to be a sadistic brute. Putting politics aside, one can quite enjoy the film, and I don't remember being bored at any moment while watching it. Of course, there is no denying that the characters are just a collection of clichés, but the sheer dynamism of the movie and the cleverness of the dialogue makes one more tolerant of its flaws. Incidentally, I was completely shocked when I read the synopsis of the source novel and compared it to the movie. Apparently, they have turned one of the bleakest and most downbeat plots ever written into a tense yet fairly lightweight romantic comedy. The gruesomest it gets is the reference to an off-screen torture session consisting of... enforcing alcohol abstinence!

Rating: 56 (up from 50)

The War Lord (1965)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio and in widescreen; previously viewed on February 24, 1994.

It's the 11th century. A Norman knight is given a village to rule. He takes a local woman for a wife who was engaged to a local man, who then goes for help to the Frisians, who have long had designs on the village, and whose Prince's son is being held captive in the Norman castle.

Although possibly not a great film, there are several awesome things in this historical (or should we say half-historical, half-mythical?) drama. The pagan props (masks, sculptures, etc.) are really cool. The performances are uniformly good. The battle and siege sequences are very well made. The drama is thought-provoking (e.g., is using one's power to take a wife really rape when the woman does not object, and was actually escaping a marriage which was socially enforced?). It does not make for a consistently exciting viewing,  though, perhaps because the situations are somewhat repetitive and the development is somewhat predictable.

Rating: 54 (up from 48)

How the West Was Won (1962)

Second viewing; first viewing in widescreen and with original audio. Previously viewed probably in or a little after September 06 (part 1) and 07 (part 2), 1984.

An American family decides to move westward in the 19th century and then its members go through the several stages of the development of the American West. A more complete summary may be read here.

The episodic narrative tries to present a summarized answer to the film's title. It strives for a balance between realism and melodrama, and avoids the invented elements which became the staple of the Western genre. There is a nice connection between the episodes. There are at least two very exciting sequences: the confrontation with the river pirates near the beginning and the train robbery near the end.

Rating:  60 (up from 54)