I wish I could pin down exactly what it is that makes Charlton Heston's walk so distinctive, but I guess it may not be unique. He walks like a lot of tall men -- Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood. There's a certain seven-league-boots quality to their slow strides. A tall man's step bespeaks self confidence. Just the opposite of Joe Pesci, Mickey Rooney, Charlie Chaplin, and Danny DeVito, who always seem to be rushing somewhere. Come to think of it, though, Alan Ladd didn't seem to be in a big hurry. Maybe he wasn't short enough.
Okay. Now take Charlton Heston, a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced kind of guy with a face hewn out of a mountainside, dress him in leather boots and riding breeches, strap a gun around his waist, accesorize his neck with a casual scarf, top him with something that looks like a cowboy hat, make him a rich and powerful plantation owner somewhere in the middle of the Amazon basin, and you've got every woman's dream.
At any rate, Eleanor Parker found it appealing enough to marry Heston's Leiningen sight unseen, as a mail-order bride who comes to his empire. I'm surprised they kept the name Leiningen from the original story because the usual tactic is to turn the hero's name into something like Steele (it was good enough for Stalin), Armstrong, Masters, or something equally suggestive and simple. Leiningen is three syllables long. One can imagine the producers wringing their hands over whether an American audience would find that congeries of alien-looking consonants and vowels too hard to chew on. "LEAN-again"??? (Vladimir Nabokov had the same problem when he tried to market his memoirs under the title, "Speak, Mnemosene.")
Well, never mind all that. The movie is divided into two parts, like the USA today. First part -- the arrival of Heston's bride and her introduction to life on the old plantation, complete with the usual staff of slaves, servants, headshrinkers, wise Jivaro elders, and whatnot. Second part -- the arrival of the irresistible army ants ("maribunta" -- always spoken in a voice hushed and saturated with awe).
The first part is hilarious and the second part is thrilling. Overall it's a very diverting film.
The dialog between Heston and Parker will induce spasms of laughter. Heston is disappointed -- no, MORE than disappointed -- to find that Parker has been married before, and you know what that means! "The piano is a little out of tune," Parker comments after playing some Chopin. "That piano is brand new. I only have things shipped to me that are new. The piano has never been USED before." Angrily, Parker repostes that obviously he doesn't know much about music because if he did he'd know that a piano is BETTER after it's been PLAYED BEFORE.
Heston doesn't have a smart reply for that. Who could? But as they're sitting silently at the table after dinner, a cockatoo on a perch squawks, Heston turns a sullen face to the bird and says, "Shuddup." Heston here is a self-made man who worships his creator. Similar gems crop up in Heston's other 1954 jungle movie, "Secrets of the Incas." Both films share a screenwriter, Ranald MacDougal, who must have laughed himself into a fit. It's helped because Heston plays it perfectly straight, as he does everything. I doubt that in "Ben Hur" he realized that he and Massala had been lovers when they were boys.
Not to neglect Part Two, in which Heston decides to stick around and defend his property and Parker stays by his side, but the limits of available space are being nibbled away, so to speak. He uses all sorts of weapons -- fire and water -- but the ants are an unstoppable tide, cutting a swath through the jungle and his plantation is in their way. He escapes with his life but it's a close call, I'll tell you. Whew. En fin, he may lose his colossal empire but he gains a loving wife. We all pray that she continues to love him after she finds out what it's like to be living in the middle of the jungle with some guy who is still tall but newly broke .
You miss this one at your own expense. It's really enjoyable.
Okay. Now take Charlton Heston, a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced kind of guy with a face hewn out of a mountainside, dress him in leather boots and riding breeches, strap a gun around his waist, accesorize his neck with a casual scarf, top him with something that looks like a cowboy hat, make him a rich and powerful plantation owner somewhere in the middle of the Amazon basin, and you've got every woman's dream.
At any rate, Eleanor Parker found it appealing enough to marry Heston's Leiningen sight unseen, as a mail-order bride who comes to his empire. I'm surprised they kept the name Leiningen from the original story because the usual tactic is to turn the hero's name into something like Steele (it was good enough for Stalin), Armstrong, Masters, or something equally suggestive and simple. Leiningen is three syllables long. One can imagine the producers wringing their hands over whether an American audience would find that congeries of alien-looking consonants and vowels too hard to chew on. "LEAN-again"??? (Vladimir Nabokov had the same problem when he tried to market his memoirs under the title, "Speak, Mnemosene.")
Well, never mind all that. The movie is divided into two parts, like the USA today. First part -- the arrival of Heston's bride and her introduction to life on the old plantation, complete with the usual staff of slaves, servants, headshrinkers, wise Jivaro elders, and whatnot. Second part -- the arrival of the irresistible army ants ("maribunta" -- always spoken in a voice hushed and saturated with awe).
The first part is hilarious and the second part is thrilling. Overall it's a very diverting film.
The dialog between Heston and Parker will induce spasms of laughter. Heston is disappointed -- no, MORE than disappointed -- to find that Parker has been married before, and you know what that means! "The piano is a little out of tune," Parker comments after playing some Chopin. "That piano is brand new. I only have things shipped to me that are new. The piano has never been USED before." Angrily, Parker repostes that obviously he doesn't know much about music because if he did he'd know that a piano is BETTER after it's been PLAYED BEFORE.
Heston doesn't have a smart reply for that. Who could? But as they're sitting silently at the table after dinner, a cockatoo on a perch squawks, Heston turns a sullen face to the bird and says, "Shuddup." Heston here is a self-made man who worships his creator. Similar gems crop up in Heston's other 1954 jungle movie, "Secrets of the Incas." Both films share a screenwriter, Ranald MacDougal, who must have laughed himself into a fit. It's helped because Heston plays it perfectly straight, as he does everything. I doubt that in "Ben Hur" he realized that he and Massala had been lovers when they were boys.
Not to neglect Part Two, in which Heston decides to stick around and defend his property and Parker stays by his side, but the limits of available space are being nibbled away, so to speak. He uses all sorts of weapons -- fire and water -- but the ants are an unstoppable tide, cutting a swath through the jungle and his plantation is in their way. He escapes with his life but it's a close call, I'll tell you. Whew. En fin, he may lose his colossal empire but he gains a loving wife. We all pray that she continues to love him after she finds out what it's like to be living in the middle of the jungle with some guy who is still tall but newly broke .
You miss this one at your own expense. It's really enjoyable.