Tuesday 26 May 2009

Hildalgo and The Executioner

I saw two films over the past couple of days. Hidalgo pleased with two fine actors Viggo Mortinson, a cowboy and the army despatch rider who delivered the authority for the Wounded Knee massacre. His secret is that he had a native American mother. Omar Sharif replays his Lawrence of Arabia role, this time as an aging head of a race whose passion is breeding horses and winning with his entry in a 3000 miles across desert race to the ocean. Hearing about the boast that the Cowboy is best rider in the world he sends an emissary to invite him to be a competitor in the race. He meets two individuals who are to have a major influence on the outcome of his visit. The first is an Englishwoman who is also a competitor but in league with a relation and rival to the Sheik and who willing to do anything to win including killing the horses of leading rivals as well as their riders.

He also meets the daughter of the Sheik who wants to break with traditions and from a forced marriage for political reasons. She is kidnapped as a way to blackmail the Sheik to give up his horse and the secrets breeding such animals. The Cowboy who under threat because of being found in a misleading comprising situation with the daughter is sent to rescue her and he then triumphs over various obstacles to winning the race.

The film is beautiful photographed and with excellent acting progresses beyond the usual fare. The conversations between the cowboy and the daughter appear authentic about both trying to breakout from the social and traditional confines of their cultures. While is social intimacy and adult conversation about life there is no romance. Their destinies are different. He returns to the USA where following his ordeal in the desert he has accepted his native American background and culture. He releases his horse back to the remaining wilderness and the company of other wild horses..

The second film was very different. A 1970 spy film with George Peppard and Joan Collins called the Executioner. The story has the makings of a good film such as “the Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton and TV series Smiley’s People. The Spy suspects treachery when a ring he controls in a Russia state is killed or are missing and in particular he suspects a colleagues with whom he has a vendetta as the man steals his lover who becomes his wife. Although he still loves the woman, he has a new girlfriend who is able to gain access to closed records of previous situations which have caused concern and where the common denominator is the colleague who seduced his lover. When the spy is contacted by a friend who appears to confirm that the man is a traitor he kills him and with the help of the friend dumps the body in the channel from a light plane. When he is captured by the Russians they convince him that the friend was innocent. Later he learns that the man was a double agent and that his superiors knew and had been feeding him false or misleading information for years. They want to promote Peppard but he feels the whole basis of his beliefs and work has been undermined. They could have stopped the destruction of his colleagues and friends in the Russian state. My problem with the film is George Peppard and Joan Collins who are George Peppard and Joan Collins.

I enjoyed my roast chicken and tined vegetables so much on Sunday that I had a chicken salad for the evening meal after the match and a bottle of Peroni. There was strawberries and melon I enjoyed a sausage sandwich with Branson pickle out in the sunshine on Monday and a prawn salad in the evening with melon. There was smoked salmon on toast as treat at tea time. I also had a Pecan flake pastry twist in the sunshine.

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