Over the past month I have watched two films for the first time since 1959, when I was 14 years old. Neither one of them will make it on the top hundred films of the 20th century, probably not even one I compiled, but both were my introductions to cinema, as well as having a profound impact on my world outlook and psychological development.
The first was “Sailor of the King”, a 1953 British war film about a Canadian sniper concealed in the cliffs of a South Pacific island just west of Argentina holding off Nazi sailors trying to repair a battleship. It didn’t make it to the USA until 1959 apparently. For 54 years that film haunted me. I could never remember the title but just by happenstance a search of the NY Times archives using some combination of words like “Nazi”, “rifle”, “island”, “ship” turned up a 1953 review. Not only did I finally know the name of the film, I was able to track down a DVD from Amazon.com. The film was just as thrilling as when I first saw it even if it was “greatest generation” hooey. The other was “Roots of Heaven”, a 1958 John Huston film based on a Romain Gary novel about a small band of outsiders, as Godard would put it, who conduct nonviolent guerrilla warfare against elephant ivory poachers in French Equatorial Africa. It was the first film I ever saw that gave me a sense of the joy and honor of political resistance. full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/07/07/i-found-it-at-the-movies/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
