"The Disney version" of "Peter Pan" clearly demonstrates what is so wrong with "The Disney version" of too many classic stories. It turns Barrie's play into a simple adventure tale, in which the dramatic and (dare I say it?) psycho-sexual elements at the center of Barrie's fantasy are discarded wholesale.

There are defensible reasons for this, I suppose. Drama requires talking, but characters who stand around gabbing bring an animated film to a dead stop. I also suspect that Disney simply didn't understand the story in the first place. It wasn't until the Ashman/Menken era that Disney films finally developed any dramatic focus.

It's unfortunate, because "Peter Pan" starts off well enough. The late Sammy Fain's "Second Star from the Right," played over the title cards, has one of the most-ravishing melodies in the history of American popular music. (Look for the albums "Bibbidi Bobbidi Bach" and "Heigh-Ho! Mozart" for superb "classical" arrangements of Disney tunes.) The "You Can Fly" sequence is inspired (and can you name any other pop song with an accelerando passage?). But everything quickly bogs down thereafter, with Captain Hook's machinations providing the only fun.

There just aren't enough good things in the Disney "Peter Pan" to make up for its failure to treat the source material in an honest and serious fashion.

In a remarkable coincidence, the same day I saw "How the West was Won" at the Seattle Cinerama (03/01/03), the History Channel aired a program on the history of the wheel. One of the talking-head experts opined that the wheel's invention marked a fundamental change in human thought -- not only was there a technological solution to every problem, but nature could be bent to human will, forced to reveal her secrets and serve us.

This is the theme of "How the West was Won." It starts with the title, and extends to nearly everything in the film. The narration tells us that the land had to be wrested from nature and from the "primitive people" who inhabited (and by implication, infested) it. The chorus is continually singing about how "we're headed for the promised land" and those who are willing to work hard will be richly rewarded (except the Chinese railroad laborers, of course). We were justified in overrunning the continent because we are actually "doing something" with it -- as opposed to the Indians, who merely lived there in harmony with nature. Not having invented the wheel, they saw no further possibilities.

James Webb's script <does> acknowledge the culture clash between the Americans and the native peoples, recognizing that the latter will have to eventually change or be destroyed. But this is peripheral to the celebration of the industry, hard work, and sacrifice of the Americans, who "tamed" the wilderness. The film ends with a nausea-inducing flyover of the California freeways (I sat next to a guy who'd taken Dramamine in anticipation of such scenes), followed by a flight under the Golden Gate bridge, firmly and unambiguously driving the point home.

"How the West was Won" is social propaganda, plain and simple. It's the kind of film that could change Osama Bin Laden's mind about destroying the US. (Maybe the State Department could arrange a screening...)

As a movie, there's no denying "How the West was Won" is wildly entertaining. Simply as cinematic spectacle, it works magnificently. There are films (such as "2001" and "Lawrence of Arabia") that even the finest video transfer cannot do justice to, and this is one of them. Sitting in the first few rows, you're so close to the screen that you can't take in all of it at once. When the camera tracks into a scene, the sense of physical motion is uncanny. (Can you say "stimulation of peripheral vision"? Sure you can.) And if you haven't seen a buffalo stampede, or a train crash, or a row of cannons firing in sequence on a (roughly) 30' by 90' screen -- well, you haven't lived, cinematically-wise.

Story-wise, there's so much material to cover the script cannot begin to do it justice, even in a film lasting 2 hours. Characters are more types than individuals, and almost every performer is cast to type. (Eli Wallach, in particular, gets to do his "crazy Mexican outlaw" shtick, though without an accent.) It's only the efficiency and focus of the script that keeps the actors from looking altogether foolish. Other than (perhaps) Karl Malden, no one gives what would be considered a "real" performance.

The plot (which follows the Prescott family and its descendents over 50 years) is concocted to make Debbie Reynolds' character the sort of farm girl who wants to run off to the big city to become rich, so we're treated to several (mercifully brief) song-and-dance numbers. Her sister is played by Carol Baker, who falls head over heels in love with Jimmy Stewart's "aw-shucks" mountain man, and later "tames" him (as the film's conceit requires). The rest of the film rehashes just about every cliché of westerns and Civil War movies -- though entertainingly. The final sequence posits the "conquest" of the West as occurring when "the law" (in the form of George Peppard's marshall) arrives, to establish justice. But Peppard -- who says he wants to bring the bad'un to justice in court -- shoots him to death, anyway.

My five-star rating acknowledges this is a classic film -- not necessarily a great one.

I can't pass up the opportunity to trash Pauline Kael, who was not so much a hard-nosed-but-movie-loving critic as she was an empty-headed, loudmouthed [female canine]. Note how she uses the artistic limitations of a single sentence to craft a thoughtful, insightful commentary that will help the reader better understand this film...

"'How the West Was Lost' would be a more appropriate title for this dud epic, since, as conceived by the writer, James R. Webb, the pioneers seem to be dimwitted bunglers who can't do anything right."

Hello? Were we watching the same movie? "How the West was Won" might be politically incorrect, dramatically shallow, and little more than agit-prop -- but it's no dud. The Seattle audience -- which included many people sporting "No Iraq War" buttons -- just ate it up. "How the West was Won" is Hollywood middlebrow-populist entertainment at its best.

One final question... Where did they find a stunt man who looked like Agnes Moorhead?

Four caveats...

1. This edition is complete, but not "compleat." Though it includes all the syndicated strips, it doesn't include several classics that never made it to syndication -- eg, the panel that shows husband-and-wife beetles with the caption "I'm leaving you, Ralph, and I'm taking the grubs with me." was originally two _flies_ -- "I'm leaving you, Ralph, and I'm taking the maggots with me." The original is notably superior -- but it's not included. Don't toss out your "Prehistory of the Far Side."

2. Incredibly, there is no caption or subject index! You'll have to manually locate your own favorites, then make up your own index -- or insert PostIt bookmarks.

3. The temptation to read 100 pages at a time is overwhelming, but resist it. The ironic weirdness of "The Far Side" is blunted by excess exposure.

4. Gary Larson's interpretation of the infamous "cow tools" panel is incorrect. It's really about the fact that cattle view the world differently from humans, and would therefore create different sorts of tools -- if they made tools at all. (It is indeed possible for a critic to understand an artist's work better than the artist. So there, Mr. Larson.)

Don't believe it? Read the book. The reviewer who said "...every screen production I have seen comes across as a cartoon or at best, 'an animated feature'," wasn't paying attention.

Robert Louis Stevenson's pirate story _is_ a children's fantasy. (Stevenson - whose grandson would later become one of Disney's "house directors" -- says as much in the book's introduction.) The principal characters are well-drawn and believable, but the story is 98% adventure. There is no _dramatic_ thrust to events. And it's told from the view of a 20-year-older Jim Hawkins, which tips off the reader that Jim is never in any real danger.

The emotional focus of the story is Jim's attraction to / repulsion by Long John Silver. In the novel, the adult Jim briefly acknowledges that he was attracted to Long John Silver as a surrogate for his recently deceased father, but turned away, because Silver is plainly untrustworthy. Stevenson fails to develop the relationship any further.

Not the screenwriters -- they bring it front and center. The story is now properly focused where it should be -- can Jim _really_ trust Long John Silver?

Silver is also worried about Jim, who plainly doesn't need "Piracy for Dummies" to recognize Silver is not altogether on the up-and-up. In a scene not in the book, Long John attempts to sweet-talk Jim -- one might even call it a seduction -- ending with the presentation of his parrot as a gift. The effect is subtly erotic -- especially as the gift comes from someone with such an obviously phallic name. (One is tempted to think Stevenson's name choice was deliberate -- he must have known how cabin boys were "mistreated.") And though Silver is married in the novel (to an unseen wife), the movie leaves his marital status unstated.

Long John Silver is a morally ambiguous character, and the film plays up this ambiguity. Silver alternates between protecting and threatening Jim, and you believe his sincerity in both instances. At the end, Jim is forced into deciding whether he should let Long John escape or be turned over to justice, completing the film with a solid dramatic "bang!" (The novel simply peters out -- Silver is taken captive, later wandering off with some of the loot.)

Robert Newton's interpretation of Long John Silver has always been controversial. There's no question it's totally "over the top." But that's how we expect pirates to behave, and it's how Stevenson wrote the character. I've seen "Treasure Island" several times -- Newton isn't simply chewing the scenery. His is a conscious interpretation, and he's in full control at all times. It's a great performance.

If ever there were a film that took a silly idea and milked every possible gag out of it, this is it. Four stars as a film, but five stars for being a classic.

The "science-fiction comedy" is a movie genre with few entries. (I'm thinking of films in which an SF premise and its development is the film's focal point. "Back to the Future," for example, doesn't count.) I can think of only two significant others -- "It Happens Every Spring," in which Ray Milland synthesizes a chemical that repels wood (don't ask), and "The Man in the White Suit," the classic-but-not-really-very-good Alec Guinness vehicle in which his invention of an indestructible, never-needs-cleaning fabric threatens to ruin the clothing industry.

Disney continued the genre with "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones" and "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," but none of them is remotely as good as "The Absent Minded Professor." It's a classic of visual humor. Not only is there the famous flying Model T, but the professor's attempts to woo his ex-fiance by dancing in flubber-heeled shoes, and a flubber-enhanced basketball game that's an encylopaedia of "What can you do with flying basketball players?" gags. Style-wise, this classic sequence looks as if it were lifted directly from MAD.

Bill Walsh's smart script has some good satirical jabs ("I hear Medfield's athletes make as much as their teachers") and they hold up. One of the best anticipates Congress's destruction in "Mars Attacks!" And the professor's attempt to prove he's a loyal, patriotic American cuts even more sharply today than it did 40+ years ago.

One of the few good things about Disney comedies is that almost all the secondary roles are populated with talented character actors -- Keenan Wynn (who'd repeat his Alonzo Hawk villain in other Disney flicks), Ed Wynn (his father), Elliott Reid (at his greasy, pompous best). Special kudos go to Belle Montrose (Steve Allen's mother! -- note the resemblance) as the professor's housekeeper.

Nancy Olson -- an Oscar-winner for "Sunset Blvd." -- delivers a smart, heads-up performance that falls apart only when she stops being mad at Fred MacMurry and becomes a bit of a bubble-head.

Robert Stevenson (grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson) had a directorial career ("Jane Eyre") before he became a Disney house director, but I've never thought much of his talent ("Mary Poppins" is slack and sluggish). "The Absent Minded Professor" shows him at his best -- brisk and light, almost as weightless as flubber renders the Model T.

"The Absent Minded Professor" was shot in B&W, because the special effects were too difficult (and too expensive) to do well in color. Had Disney known what a major hit TAMP would be (it played first-run for months), he might have sprung for color. The previous attempt to colorize it was a disaster.

We finally have this little gem in its original form -- an exquisite B&W enhanced-widescreen transfer. (Amazon editor -- please have the negative reviews for the awful colorized version moved or removed. These are fundamentally different releases.) The rich blacks and sharp detail are outstanding -- far superior to even the old LV release. This is close-to-demo-quality B&W.

Last night (3/24/04), while editing a novella I'm polishing, I watched "Dirty Harry" on The History Channel. THC (hmmm...) had invited John Milius, Hollywood's best-known anti-pinko fascist, and the uncredited writer of "Dirty Harry"'s final script, to comment on the film. Which is rather like having an arsonist discuss his skill at starting fires.

"Dirty Harry" isn't drama, it's propaganda. It isn't an intelligent consideration of the issue involved -- how do you maximize the police's ability to apprehend criminals while curtailing the legal system's tendency to trample the rights of the innocent? -- it's nothing more than an attempt to agitate its audience, for all the wrong reasons.

The plot is obvious, the characterizations crude and implausible. The villain is a sub-human degenerate anyone would loathe, the sort who, as the joke goes, murders his parents, then begs for mercy because he's an orphan. He isn't merely psychotic -- he not only enjoys killing people, but turning the law against itself. He even pays a man to beat him up and then puts the blame on Harry.

He's so impossibly evil that even the most fuzzy-headed bleeding-heart liberal would approve of Harry smashing the guy's skull to pulp with a tire iron -- and then condemn Harry for letting him off easy.

Both Harry and the audience _know_ the guy is guilty. There is no moral issue when there is no question of guilt. Harry's actions are morally (if not legally) justifiable, because they seem necessary to save someone's life, and there is no legal alternative to them.

But Harry is the "cause" of this particular problem, because his failure to follow proper procedures allows the villain to go free since, as the script so crudely and unsubtly states it, "He has rights."

The film's message is simple -- and simple-minded: If "the justice system" can't protect us from such obvious monsters, how it can it protect us from the less-obvious ones? It can't, of course.

Harry's contradictory nature - he wants to make the world a better place by being a cop, but doesn't want to play by the rules - is only briefly touched on. His self-inflicted "martyrdom" at the end (discarding his badge in a pit) is actually a veiled condemnation of the police -- what good are they when we "need" people like Harry to establish justice?

Milius's smirking remark that "some people consider the film fascist," without contradicting the claim, shows where his feelings lie. "Dirty Harry" implies we should just let cops do their duty, using whatever means necessary, without restraint, and that justice is attained only when _every_ guilty person is punished, regardless of how many innocent people are swept up in the process. If that isn't fascism, I don't know what is.

Should Mr. Milius be reading this, let me explain to him _why_ the Constitution includes protection of habeas corpus, against unreasonable search and seizure, et al. It isn't to protect the criminal; it's to protect the innocent against the likes of John Milius, who would have the police do whatever was "necessary" to bring someone to "justice."

Sorry, no. I believe the best interests of society are served by occasionally letting the guilty go free.

Considered only as a movie, "Dirty Harry" is worth four stars. My two-star rating is for its pandering politics.

There was a time I didn't much care for Whitman's poetry -- what seemed to me its self-conscious pretentiousness was a turn-off. (Whitman himself acknowledged that his style was all-too readily parodied.) It was only when, 30 years ago, I heard Rip Torn read it, I began to acknowledge its power and originality. Nevertheless, I was still bothered by an overly self-aware, "straining for effect" quality -- until I found this collection.

Gary Schmidgall has done what should have been done a century ago. His collection, comprising half of Whitman's poems (about 80% of the total number of lines he wrote), restores them to their first versions in the correct chronological sequence.

We now hear Whitman speaking to us with his original animal vigor. Whitman himself admitted this: "...there was an immediateness to the 1855 edition, an incisive directness, that was perhaps not repeated in any section of poems subsequently added to the book: a hot, unqualifying temper, an insulting arrogance (to use a few strong words) that would not have been as natural to the periods that followed. We miss the ecstasy of statement in some of the after-work..."

More significantly, Whitman's subsequent emasculation and de-sexualizing -- to confuse and obscure the issue of his sexuality -- is removed. Whitman's originals are often more graphic, more-bluntly sexual. It's easier to see why most critics were offended. It's unfortunate Whitman's changes to "Leaves of Grass" made it less controversial. Perhaps the Schmidgall edition will encourage libraries that ban "Huckleberry Finn" to also ban "Leaves of Grass."

If you haven't read the original, 1855 edition of "Leaves of Grass" -- as well as Whitman's unsigned (and bluntly meretricious) reviews, and the contemporary reviews of academic critics -- you haven't read Whitman. I was especially moved by the last few pages of "Song of Myself," which I had never read.

Schmidgall includes a copious quantity of notes, excerpts, and reviews. The material from Whitman's notebooks make it clear he knew exactly what he was doing -- creating a new, original, wholly American poetry not modeled on Classic, European, or British forms -- and why. If America is the land of self-definition, Whitman was the first American poet to make that self-centeredness the focus of his works.

This edition is a must-own for anyone with the least interest in Whitman. Or dis-interest, for that matter. You might change your mind.

"People Will Talk" used to be one of my favorite movies. Watching it again reveals that -- dramatically -- it's as sterile and antiseptic as Dr. Praetorius's operating room.

"Talk" -- and I deliberately selected "Talk" rather than "People" as the shorthand -- was Joseph Mankiewicz's follow-up to "All About Eve." He'd no doubt had this project on the burner, and "Eve"'s huge success gave him the clout to get it produced.

The story (from a German play) must have looked nice on paper -- an idealistic doctor keeps an out-of-wedlock pregnant woman from committing suicide, while successfully defending himself from unjust charges of medical impropriety -- but it doesn't play well on film. Not in Mankiewicz's adaptation, anyway.

Mankiewicz is more interested in being clever than humane, and in a story about what it means to be humane, he fails to make a sincere connection with the characters' inner lives. Even when the characters are forced to confront their situations, Mankiewicz's penchant for witty dialog overrides believable dramatic interaction. Issues are resolved in a "verbal Band-Aid" fashion, merely by the application of clever words.

"Talk" seems more a reflection of Mankiewicz's personality than anything else. The characters are spokespeople for his views rather than fleshed-out human beings. When Shunderson says he's reached the point where music is just about the only thing he enjoys, you suspect you're hearing Mankiewicz himself. (At the age of 57 -- and, like Mankiewicz, a Brahms freak -- I know what he means.)

The principal performances are ineffective. Dr. Praetorius -- who has a history he doesn't want made public -- must have appealed to Cary Grant, who was similarly hounded by rumors about his private life. But his doctor is more charming than deep. There is rarely the sense of "gravitas" you would expect from a person so concerned about the welfare of others. He comes perilously close to expressing a light, almost patronizing attitude towards the problems of human existence. You do, however, get to see the unique "Grant sidle" in the barn scene.

Jeanne Crain's performance is terrible. She's not only miscast -- there's no chemistry whatever between her and Grant -- but the script requires her to be both intellectually strong _and_ vulnerable enough to attempt suicide, while possessing the mental agility and wit to win a verbal fight with Dr. Elwell (Hume Cronyn). Even Bette or Kate would have had trouble handling all that. Poor Jeanne isn't remotely up to it. *

But the supporting players are a delight. Hume Cronyn is at his peak, playing the weaselly Dr. Elwell as a flawed human being, rather than a caricatured villain. Then there's Walter Slezak as a self-absorbed physicist, and marvelous Margaret Hamilton as Dr. Praetorius's ex-housekeeper. She's typecast, but brings far more to the role than you'd expect.

"Talk" is more than a half-century old, and shows it in many ways. The thought that an unmarried pregnant woman would even _consider_ suicide seems alien, even to someone (like myself) born before the film was made. The Code-enforced treatment of attempted suicide is delicate (we don't see Crain lying on the floor, only the people gathered around her), while Mankiewicz's reference to abortion -- without actually saying the word -- is a model of brilliant writing any would-be screenwriter should study.

So, with all this nay-saying, is "Talk" worth a look? Yes. Mankiewicz's dialog is always fun to hear. (His 1983 biography is titled "Pictures will Talk.") And the story _does_ have much to say about professional integrity and respect for other people's private decisions. It also presents the older view that medicine is not about treating symptoms, but treating people -- "Helping sick people get well," as Dr. Praetorius puts it. In an era when motion pictures are rarely "about" _anything_, it's a pleasure to watch a film that -- though it does so in a pompous, even self-righteous manner -- is not embarrassed to say something worth hearing.

The DVD (which I purchased 12/09/03) is sharp, finely detailed, with excellent contrast, but a lot of film grain (or is it coding artifacts?) visible in many scenes.

* The fault is at least partly Mankiewicz's. There is a lot to be said for Hitchcock's approach of letting the actors find their own way.

I've never cared for Richard Lester's direction. My initial reaction to AFTHotWttF when it premiered almost 40 years ago (can it be _that_ long?) was similar to Pauline Kael's -- it was irritatingly -- even embarrassingly -- frenetic and unfocused.

Times change. Lester's brisk pace and quick cutting can now be seen as ushering in a new style that's not only acceptable, but appropriate. * When Zero Mostel blackmails Jack Gilford by threatening to reveal his collection of obscene pottery, he goes through a jump-cut sequence of the poses and postures that appear on the pottery (alliteration intentional). Each is only a few frames, and they whip by in less than two seconds. It's funny, in a way it could never be if it were done in real time.

Only five of the original songs remain, but they're well-integrated. Neither the story nor the camera come to a stop when people start singing. And is it just my imagination, or does Marni Nixon sing "I'm Lovely" for Philia? It sure sounds like her.

An entertaining bit of fluff. Doctor Who fans should note Jon Pertwee as Crassus.

* Though it sometimes seems out of place in a film that tries to be historically accurate in every detail, even to showing older women in heavy white makeup. I'd have let Phil Silvers wear his trademark glasses as a comic anachronism. After all, Miles Glorious demands that his bride be delivered in two minutes -- and minutes weren't defined for another 1600 years.

Grafting new dialog onto an existing movie wasn't new when Woody Allen did it to an inept Japanese spy thriller. Jay Ward had already done it with "Fractured Flickers." Firesign Theater trashed Saturday-matinee serials in "Hot Shorts." And Spike network's "MXC" twists and tweaks a goofy Japanese game show.

"Tiger Lily" is showing her age -- what was novel 30 years ago no longer is. We've seen better movie send-ups ("Airplane!", MST3K). And Woody chose a film that doesn't have enough dialog to smother with jokes, so we're too-often stuck with watching a boring, derivative film.

Not in any way bad (there are a few great lines), but not funny enough to watch more than once or twice.