Cool Hand Luke (1967)

The best thing about Cool Hand Luke (Deluxe Edition) is what audiences won't see on the screen.

There's a constant tension about what could happen in this prison work camp.

The surroundings seem peaceful enough. Blue skies. Lots of sun. Quiet country roads. But the baying of the bloodhounds and guards toting rifles are ever present. Step out of line and nasty repercussions are not far away.

Luke (Paul Newman) isn't much for rules. His choices are often not the best ones. Here's a guy who gets jail time for taking the tops off parking meters when he's drunk. He's stubborn too. Luke soon crosses paths with Dragline (George Kenney), the top dog in the prisoner barracks. Dragline beats the stuffing out of Luke during a boxing match. Luke won't stay down. He keeps getting up and pummeled some more.

Luke's the one who vows he can eat 58 eggs in an hour and cooks up a scheme to get road work done pronto so the inmates can get some down time.

He earns the respect of his fellow inmates. Some of the guards seem to take a shine to him too. But Luke goes off the rails after his mother dies. Arletta (Jo Van Fleet) visits him shortly before her demise. She still loves Luke, despite all the lousy choices he's made. She misses the girl Luke was seeing and who left him. Prison boss Captain (Strother Martin) has Luke dumped in 'the box' for a spell after his mother's death, expecting inmates in such a situation are a flight risk.

For me, Cool Hand Luke works really well up until this point. We see life on the road gang and the different ways inmates spend their time after hours. Gambling is big. Plenty of quick cuts add to the excitement of the egg eating contest. Luke's repeated attempts to bolt are short lived and stir up animosity among prison guards. If it's a game of wits, they have the numbers and the weapons. Luke is outgunned.

Newman is great as Luke. He's helped out by a stellar cast with a bevy of stars as fellow inmates including Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Donner and Wayne Rogers.

Funny how one of this film's four Oscar nominations is for best music. I found the score for Cool Hand Luke (Deluxe Edition) to be way over-the-top in several scenes and detracting from the action on the screen.

RATING: 7.5/10

FUN FACTS: George Kennedy won a best supporting Oscar. He's still working. The Gambler is in post-production as of this writing.

Strother Martin appeared in other films with Paul Newman including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Slap Shot.

Wow. Robert Donner as Exidor alongside Robin Williams in television's Mork and Mindy.

Joy Harmon is The Girl who catches the attention of inmates while she washes a car. She appeared in two episodes of The Monkees and made her debut with Gregory Peck in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.

Wayne Rogers died in January 2016.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Rebel Without A Cause, what a depressing film.

The kids are unhappy. Their parents are unable, or unwilling, to help them.

For teens from families with very nice homes - bullying, knife fights, dares, death.

The adults fight, want to avoid problems or skip town for good.

Jim Stark (James Dean) is tired of running. His parents pack up when he hits a rough spot. Stark gets picked up by police for public intoxication in the latest community he calls home. He's not the only one from a supposedly good home who's in trouble with the law.

John 'Plato' Crawford (Sal Mineo) shot puppies. "Nobody can help me," he tells police. His mother is seldom home. Dad is long gone.

Judy (Natalie Wood) wants to be loved by her father, but he doesn't believe in showing affection to his oldest child. He called her "a dirty tramp." She's out in the early morning hours. Police ask if she was seeking company. Is that 1950s speak for soliciting sex?

Stark experiences what appears to be the worst first day of school known in human history. He's not even in the door of his new high school when he's taken to task for walking on the school's emblem. School tough guy Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen) and his crew aren't impressed with the new kid. They square off in a knife fight after a visit to a planetarium. A further challenge is given to Stark. Show up for a game of chicken with Buzz using two stolen cars.

The consequences of that dare are far-reaching. Stark wants to come clean with police about what happened. His parents want him to keep his mouth shut. Buzz's buddies figure the new kid has confessed what everyone else wants to keep hush hush. They want revenge. Plato, with his fragile psyche, gets pushed over the edge when he sees a letter from his absent father.

I've heard a lot about this film given it's one of only three features screen legend Dean made.

I wasn't overly impressed. Given Buzz's fate, it seems odd that Judy would want anything to do with Jim - at least for a while. Stark is affected by what happens, but doesn't dwell on the incident. Odd. Police fire more shots at Plato when he goes off the rails than have been discharged in my hometown in the last 30 years.

What grabbed this movie fan was how the parents of each leading youth actor was treated. Frank Stark (Jim Backus) is wearing a frilly woman's apron at one point. This guy can't stand up to his snippy wife Carol (Ann Doran). She in turn faces withering comments from her mother-in-law Mrs. Stark (Virginia Brissac). "It's a zoo (at home)," the young Stark tells police officer Ray Fremick (Edward Platt).
Rebel Without A Cause is filled with angst, anger and rebellion. The teen years still have a lot in common through the generations.

RATING: 6/10

FUN FACTS: Jim Backus started voicing cartoon character Mr. Magoo in 1949. He was also part of the castaways on Gilligan's Island.

Edward Platt was Chief on television's Get Smart. He was also in two other Hollywood classics - Cape Fear and North By Northwest.
Rebel Without A Cause looks like a career highlight for William Hopper. He had a small role in Stagecoach.

Rebel was Dennis Hopper's film debut.

Ann Doran was a secretary in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

James Dean received Academy Award nominations for best actor for his work in Giant and East of Eden. He was killed in a collision.

Director Nicholas Ray appears in the film's final scene.

Speed (1994)

Oh, Sandra Bullock, the places you'll go after Speed.

I'll be honest, Sandra. I don't even remember, let alone buy a ticket, to your first films such as Hangmen (1987) and A Fool and His Money (1988). Religion, Inc. and Who Shot Patakango (both 1989)? Ditto. Did these releases even play in St. Catharines when I was attending Brock University? What kind of wide release did they get? Were they released?

The American remake of The Vanishing and Demolition Man (both 1993) I'm thinking, must have been definite step ups for you.

But, Sandra, do you have a special place in your Academy Award-winning heart for summer blockbuster Speed?

Sure, there are gaps in logic and common sense you could drive, well, a bus through, but Speed is still great fun. You're a big part of that enjoyment, even though I doubt you could handle a speeding bus with such dexterity.

And how about you, Keanu Reeves? Do you have good memories of this film? Surely it's a career highlight for you along with the original Matrix and Ted and Bill's Excellent Adventure.

I admit, it's kind of funny to hear you do your best Clint Eastwood impression growling your lines as Los Angeles police officer Jack Traven. You're buff in this film, Keanu. Love the close cropped hair.

Jeff Daniels and you don't make typical police buddies, but there's some neat problem solving going on when you get called to an office tower to help folks caught in an express elevator. That's when we get to meet Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper), a former police bomb expert with a huge grudge against men and women who walk the thin blue line. He wants $3 million to not kill the people in that lift, until Traven and Daniels' Harry Temple figure out a way to save the day.

Their life-saving efforts irk Payne, who bounces back a few months later with a new ploy. Give him marks for creativity. He's stashed a bomb on a city bus. It'll activate once the bus hits 50 miles an hour. If the bus odometer drops below that mark, it blows up.

Annie Porter (Bullock) is a regular commuter on that bus after her licence was suspended for speeding (nice touch). "I miss my car," notes Porter. She ends up in the driver's seat after driver Sam (Hawthorne James) is shot.

Travern wants to save everyone on the bus. Payne will kill them if he doesn't get his ransom in three hours. Temple, recovering from an injury from his first encounter with Payne, works from the office and the field to pinpoint the bomber's identity and defuse the bomb.

Screenwriter Graham Yost, in his feature-film debut, keeps throwing in wrinkles to challenge Annie and Traven. A punctured gas tank, pedestrians, a freeway not completely built and bus passengers fearing death all help keep tension high.

There's some good zingers and jokes along for the ride.

Payne to Traven: "Do not attempt to grow a brain."

Bus passenger Stephens to Traven: "Did you have any luck with the bomb?"

Traven: "Yeah, it didn't go off."

Don't think too hard when watching Speed. It'll spoil the fun.

Sandra, I like to think of Speed as an early run of Gravity. The tension is cranked up even more for that great film. Congratulations on going from films no one saw to becoming a Hollywood superstar.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: Billy Idol sang the title song. Lyrics include "Speed, speed, give me what I need."

Yes, Alan Ruck was Matthew Broderick's buddy in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Jumpin'! He was 29 when he made that film in 1986.

Hey, that's Joe Morton, from The Brother From Another Planet as Capt. McMahon. Didn't recognize him at all.

Hawthorne James made his film debut in Disco Godfather.