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Poll

What's your favorite film by John Sturges?

Mystery Street
0 (0%)
Kind Lady
0 (0%)
The People Against O'Hara
0 (0%)
Jeopardy
0 (0%)
Escape from Fort Bravo
1 (5%)
Bad Day at Black Rock
4 (20%)
Backlash
0 (0%)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
0 (0%)
Saddle the Wind
0 (0%)
The Law and Jake Wade
0 (0%)
The Old Man and the Sea
1 (5%)
Last Train from Gun Hill
0 (0%)
Never So Few
0 (0%)
The Magnificent Seven
6 (30%)
Sergeants 3
0 (0%)
The Great Escape
6 (30%)
The Satan Bug
0 (0%)
The Hallelujah Trail
0 (0%)
Hour of the Gun
0 (0%)
Ice Station Zebra
0 (0%)
Marooned
0 (0%)
Joe Kidd
0 (0%)
Chino
0 (0%)
McQ
0 (0%)
The Eagle Has Landed
0 (0%)
other (please specify)
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
2 (10%)
don't like any
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 19

Author Topic: Sturges, John  (Read 3340 times)

1SO

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Re: Sturges, John
« Reply #20 on: January 02, 2019, 11:41:18 PM »
Updated Rankings
 
The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
★ ˝
Sturges is not someone I think of for broad comedy and the tone here gets the broad part, but the script is critically short on laughs. That would be merely disappointing, but at 165 minutes it becomes numbing. Burt Lancaster finds a way to keep his scenes amusing as a macho military man constantly upended by the people around him who stubbornly refuse to follow his orders.


Joe Kidd (1972)
★ ★ ˝
Much as I think of Sturges as a lesser Western director, I now see how his approach influenced Eastwood the director as much as Siegel and more than Leone. The story is so lean and no-nonsense it goes from the beginning right to the end. There’s a sniper fight Smirnoff would appreciate where the images travel faster than the sound of the rifle shots, and a great bit of over-the-top nonsense when Eastwood derails a train and it crashes through a bar. Aside from that, very forgettable except for whatever fun you get watching Clint Eastwood’s badass Western persona.


The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
★ ★ ★ - Okay
Sturges final picture is an old school war adventure, like those great mission films from the 60s. This one involves a fictional plot by the Germans to kidnap Churchill. Stars Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland are in excellent form with great supporting work by Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Treat Williams and Larry Hagman. It's all very familiar to other films of its type - exteriors and some small moments also remind me of Inglourious Basterds - and there are few standout moments, but it's well made.

 

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