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Robert Parrish (2) (1916–1995)

Author of Casino Royale [1967 film]

For other authors named Robert Parrish, see the disambiguation page.

16 Works 307 Members 8 Reviews

About the Author

Image credit: Robert Parrish (1)

Works by Robert Parrish

Casino Royale [1967 film] (1967) — Director — 199 copies
Growing up in Hollywood (1976) 27 copies
Cry Danger [1951 film] (1951) 6 copies
Fire Down Below [1957 film] (2004) — Director — 3 copies
Duffy [1968 film] (2011) 2 copies
My Pal Gus [1952 film] (1952) — Director — 2 copies
The Mob [1951 film] — Director — 2 copies
Assignment Paris [1952 film] (2011) — Director — 1 copy
Mississippi Blues [1984 film] — Director — 1 copy

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1916-01-04
Date of death
1995-12-04
Occupations
film director

Members

Reviews

This first excursion into live action features by Supermarionation supremo Gerry Anderson (known as 'Doppelgänger' in its UK release) has his trademark mix of jaw-droppingly good model effects for its time (1969) and utterly bonkers science.

A duplicate Earth is detected in the same orbit as our world, only so placed that it is always hidden by the sun so no-one knows it's there. Roy Thinnes and Ian Hendry pilot a mission to the duplicate planet, but only Thinnes survives the journey. He finds that it is a 100% duplicate of the Earth, including the people, organisations and relationships. His first clue that things are not as they seem is that all text appears as mirror images. Slowly, he pieces together what has happened; oddly, everyone believes him. He attempts to return to his mothership, in orbit over Earth 2, but the shuttle, although otherwise completely identical to his own (destroyed in landing), cannot successfully dock because their electrical positive is our negative and vice versa. (I said this was bonkers.) He tries to return to the ground but crashes on the space launch site. All die. O the embarrassment.

The film ends with Thinnes' irascible boss, played by Patrick Wymark, as an old man in a home for the bewildered. (We have no idea if it's Earth Wymark or Earth 2 Wymark.) Yup, that bonkers quotient stays at full tilt to the end of the film.

On the other hand, it's interesting to see Gerry Anderson's production team punching well above their weight. Barry Gray's music hits all the right cinematic buttons; Derek Meddings' effects are scaled up considerably and look highly convincing. Everyone upped their game for this potential breakthrough movie; sadly, this never happened. Anderson's next three excursions into big screen releases were all based on the 'Thunderbirds' franchise and were not live action. His eventual excursions into live action shows - 'UFO', 'Space:1999' and (much later) 'Space Precinct' - were all tv ventures only. Indeed, given the presence of such British film and tv bit player stalwarts such as Ed Bishop, George Sewell, Philip Madoc and Vladek Shaybal, the overall impression that the seasoned Anderson viewer gets is that we are looking at some sort of 'UFO' prequel, especially as that show also re-used some of the props from this film. Herbert Lom has a walk-on as a spy with a particularly clever yet unpleasant concealed camera, but he is disposed of early on.

Certainly an interesting curiosity, but this will never be counted as great science fiction or great cinema.
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2 vote
Flagged
RobertDay | Aug 1, 2018 |
Something to do with James Bond, kind of.

So completely terrible, it made me want to cry a little. I guess it was meant to be a comedy? It has the tone of a comedy (so far as it has a tone at all), and the synopsis says it's a spoof, and there's a joke every ten minutes or so. The first thing I could definitely say was meant to be funny was a little over fourteen minutes in. Nearly halfway through the movie, I still couldn't say what the plot was. Most of the time I either didn't know what was happening, or didn't know why it was happening; the rest of the time, I didn't know what it had to do with anything else that had happened. I'm fairly confident that this movie's quality-of-product-to-talent-involved ratio is lower than any other movie.

Enjoyment: F

estimated GPA (I only watched the first hour): 0.9/4
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½
 
Flagged
comfypants | 3 other reviews | Nov 12, 2015 |
Rating: well, why not? 3* of five

Oops! Forgot one. This is 1967's film version I'm discussing, not the book, which was *awful*. That's not fair...it's not horrid writing, it's just so very very very dated and not in a good way. Kind of a time capsule of what was wrong with 1954.

Ya know...this film version was pretty damn lame, too. What redeems it is the sheer balls-out what-did-I-just-watch comedic pace of the thing. David Niven is LUDICROUS as Bond, but good as this character who isn't Bond but is called Bond. The return of Ursula Andress, this time as superspy Vesper Lynd (not to be mistaken for 2006's Vesper, completely different character), is notable; but the turn to the comedic and ridiculous is signalled by Bond having a child by Mata Hari, yclept Mata Bond.

It was one of the many moments where I rolled my eyes so hard I think I saw my brain. There's a bit with a flying saucer in London that convinced me I was having an LSD flashback.

Don't go into the film thinking it's a Bond flick and maybe it's okay...but frankly, it feels a little too Sixties-hip-via-Hollywood for me to do more than smile faintly.

Why watch it, then? Because David Niven is very good at being urbanely nuts. It's a meta-performance. If he arched his eyebrow any higher, he's lose it in his receding hairline. Because Ursula Andress is classic as Vesper. Because Orson Welles is endearingly baffled as Le Chiffre, seeming not to have seen a script before being shoved in front of the camera. It's like a Warhol-movie moment. If you're a straight guy, Jacqueline Bisset and Barbara Bouchet are pneumatically endowed. But Peter Sellers was a major disappointment to me. Clouseau was his only character at that point, I guess. Blah.

Fun. Not Bond, but fun. Sort of.
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Flagged
richardderus | 3 other reviews | Dec 11, 2013 |
Lighthearted crime drama.
½
 
Flagged
paulsikora | Dec 2, 2006 |

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Works
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