Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)

Google: “In this fact-based film, distinguished U.S. Army Col. David Marcus (Kirk Douglas) is enlisted by the Israelis to perform the difficult task of preparing their fledgling nation for battle against the Arabs. Before long, he feuds with the local leaders, quits his post and goes back home to his pregnant wife (Angie Dickinson) in the United States. However, Marcus, who is Jewish himself, soon has a crisis of faith and decides to return to duty to help the untrained Israelis form an army.”

The film is slow and laboured. The sound quality is poor and the dialogue isn’t synchronised quite right. There’s a disjointed, awkward feel. 

John Wayne, Topol, Frank Sinatra and Yul Brynner all appear, but no amount of star charisma can make the script work. I do like Senta Berger as Magda Simon. She has a certain warmth and charm that is lacking elsewhere. Kirk Douglas is watchable, too, but seems much too chirpy most of the time, adding to a feeling that the whole affair is rather shallow.

On the plus side, there are a few good lines. For example, when David asks his wife why she’s up so late, she replies: “I worry better when I’m awake.”

The Heroes of Telemark (1965)

During World War II, members of the resistance sabotage the Germans’ attempts to create an atomic bomb at the Vemork Norsk Hydro plant in Telemark, Norway. 

Probably the worst lighting I’ve ever seen in a film. It lurches from dim and grainy, with a “glow” around objects on the screen, to brighter but still somehow “wrong”-looking, and then back again.

It’s supposedly based on real-world events, but it’s very difficult to believe some of these episodes are true, especially when cartoonishly stupid Nazis are so easy to evade and outwit. None of the guards ever seem to look round. 

Kirk Douglas does his best with the material, and his charm just about survives, but there’s no character for him to explore. 

Too many scenes consist of our heroes running about in the snow – and for far too long, with minimal dialogue – as if the script was never actually completed. Likewise, there are lingering, ponderous scenes of them setting up a bomb, fiddling with wires, applying tape and generally pottering around. These go on and on, without dramatic tension, and end up being unintentionally funny. 

Richard Harris is appallingly wooden as resistance leader Knut Straud. Michael Redgrave is completely unnecessary as a seemingly random uncle: I knew his character would die because he had no dramatic function in the story whatsoever. Ulla Jacobsson is passable as Kirk Douglas’s ex-wife, but she’s still given minimal personality and even less function in the narrative. 

Despite this somehow appearing on lists of the greatest war films, it’s a long way from essential. But it might give you a good chuckle.

Young Man with a Horn (1950)

Kirk Douglas stars as a gifted trumpet player in search of the mysterious “high note” of life that eludes him. It’s based on a novel by Dorothy Baker, which was inspired by the life of Bix Beiderbecke.

Hoagy Carmichael (who was real-life friends with Beiderbecke) and Doris Day play a pianist and singer who befriend him and also perform with him. And Lauren Bacall plays the trumpeter’s restless, troubled wife who cannot decide what she wants and envies his focus and sense of purpose.

It’s engaging and moving. On the down side, some important moments are glossed over: Douglas meets and marries Bacall so quickly that their mismatch seems inevitable from the beginning and it’s never clear what they saw in each other.

The ending feels particularly rushed and superficially resolved, but there’s still much that’s good about this drama. Harry James’ music is a delight. Doris Day may be as squeaky-clean as ever, but there’s a noir-ish element to the film that gives it an edgier dimension.

Spartacus (1960)

I had never seen this Stanley Kubrick classic, so was curious. It deserves all the hype, pretty much. Kirk Douglas is shiny and reasonably charismatic in the lead role. Jean Simmons is appealing as his delicate love interest, often shown in soft focus. The smouldering scenes in which the pair fall in love at the gladiator training centre are remarkable because almost no words are exchanged between them. Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov make up what is the very definition of an all-star cast. They are all on excellent form, but Curtis seems weirdly underused despite being built up as important because he’s different to the others.

At over three hours – and with amazing crowd scenes with hundreds of extras amassing for battle on huge landscapes – it’s epic in every sense.

Like many classics, it’s odder than you might expect. The lighting is all over the place, with some strangely illuminated interior scenes jarringly placed amid the exterior locations. There are also some peculiar scenes showing “ordinary life” within the slave camp. The senate is surprisingly small and low-key for a film that specialises in grand gestures. But it works because it keeps the themes of idealism (the idea of Rome) and political corruption (greed for power) on a scale you can relate to.

There’s a fascinating scene in which bisexuality is alluded to. Crassus says to Antoninus: “It is all a matter of taste, isn't it? And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals. My taste includes both snails and oysters.” Strong stuff for a “PG”, as are the gory moments and the points at which Jean Simmons tastefully de-robes.

Tackling big issues of freedom, democracy and class, it’s a rich film. There’s a moving finale that manages to offer both a happy and a sad ending.