Pete's Dragon 1977

Pete's Dragon ~ Even with my interest in Disney, I doubt I would have seen this one any time soon if it wasn't for the remake in theaters recently. Even when I was a kid, it seemed kinda juvenile and just a bit silly. And that is just based on the images of Elliott the dragon and the television commercials I had seen. As I watch it today it's definitely meant for younger kids.

Based on an unpublished short story, a boy comes to town with his invisible dragon protector while pursued by his evil hillbilly parents. A live action film with only Elliot the dragon animated, presumedly his shadow being state of the art animation for the time, it's no Mary Poppins, despite its trying desperately to be. Elliott is cartoonish, pink and green, and voiced by Charlie Callas, an unfunny comedian best known to me for his silly noises and ruining Sinestro.

The musical antics feel like they might be better set on a stage than a movie, notably the score as well as one song were nominated for Oscars. Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, and especially Shelley Winters are all fun, but seem out of place here. The whole time the movie feels like it's just trying too hard. And I really wanted to like it, I tried, but couldn't get there.

Good for the kids maybe, but not for me.

RIP Mickey Rooney

This weekend we lost Mickey Rooney at the grand age of 93. The man was a Golden Age Hollywood legend - an award-winning actor, singer, dancer, comedian, star of stage and screen - like I said, a legend.

I was first introduced to Mr. Rooney by his not small part in the mega comic opus It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Soon I discovered Andy Hardy and the rest. The man was at home on the screen, silver and small, and on the stage. I most recently discovered his performance in Quicksand.

Always entertaining, and someone I thought would always be around, as he was, from the silents to today. We have lost another legend, Mickey Rooney will be missed.

Quicksand!

Quicksand ~ I bet you never knew Mickey Rooney made a film noir, did you? This lost flick from 1950 stars Rooney as a good old American kid, almost a grown up Andy Hardy without the smarts who wants to take a flashy girl, played by Jeanne Cagney (Jimmy's sister), out and impress her. He sneaks twenty bucks from the register at work, fully intending to return it the next day, and chaos ensues. She's not the innocent girl she seems, and is involved in shady dealings, including the creepy and fearsome Peter Lorre who runs the local arcade.

Though for the most part forgotten, this is a pure example of film noir, as our mostly innocent protagonist falls deeper and deeper into a criminal whirlpool of quicksand, thus the title. Taken from Cornell Woolrich story and deftly played by the cast, this film was also one of the first to feature product placement - keep an eye out for Pepsi and Bit-O-Honey.

Quicksand does have two failings, and they're not all that bad, and of course I'm excluding the, er, intriguing fashion of the time. It suffers from the Woody Woodpecker syndrome of "None of this would have happened if only he'd gone to the police in the first place." Also, it's hard to ever forget that Mickey Rooney is anybody other than Mickey Rooney. Still, it's an intriguing time capsule, and a great lost film noir.