t.mcparland-2

This originally-filmed 3-D pot boiler features a darkly gorgeous Donna Reed partnering an equally handsome Rock Hudson- the latter displaying the macho charisma he hid behind for most of his career. But the thing is, he's good -and so's Donna. They play an engaged couple about to settle in California at the end of the Civil War. Rock has the odd good line 'Bullets are democratic- they don't only kill badmen' -no doubt an orphan from scriptwriter Kathleen George's novel TEN AGAINST CEASAR on which movie was based and a concept which would have found an echo in post-Korean and WWII veteran audiences.

Ex-Confederate Army cronies' embitterment and discontent is the excuse for stagecoach robbery, murder and kidnapping. Ben Warren [Hudson] is left for dead and his fiancé Jennifer Ballard [Reed] snatched under the unlikely pretext that gang leader Frank Slayton [Phil Carey] fancies her. The later elemental suggestion of suppressed carnality is best left as it was -suppressed. Donna Reed, despite torn blouse -is Rock's girl, and she remains so. Doesn't the Phil Carey know how things in Westerns work out? The plot of George's novel, TEN AGAINST CAESAR has been uncomplicated to a degree where an orangutan, given five seconds and a paintbrush, could have written the subsequence and denouement.

But credibility is not what this movie is all about.

It's about how parted Rock and Donna are re-united and triumph over -albeit manufactured -adversity ; it's about searing Arizona desert; the magnificence of 1950 Technicolor Western-making, and perhaps most of all about the making of desolation beautiful. I remember its flat screen release as a kid, was dying to see it but couldn't afford the admission. Had I seen it then I know how I would have reacted - I would have considered it good value and left the cinema, six-gun at the ready, seeking a showdown.

Lord Alfred Douglas's ‘love that dare not speak its name,' has become English Literature's most prolix subject, his, Wilde's descendants' and others' writings about ‘what Oscar did' dwarf Wilde's humble literary output. Lord Alfred Douglas alone picked over the corpse through no less than six volumes –the last in 1940.

This Brian Gilbert regurgitation, from bad ‘great-idea' western opening to lisping children's inane responses to being told the greatest fairy tales in the English language, supposedly portrays artistic libertinism through a mere anxst-riven, selfconscious depiction of homosexuality. It is a movie spawned by the worst objectives.

Given the subject's previous bibliography and filmography this abysmal treatment of the Wilde debacle is as unforgivable as forgettable. What's wrong with this portrayal of male homosexuality is what was perceived wrong with the Victorian original: It is aberrant, devoid of human love.It smugly contents itself that mere depiction of 20th century depravity furthers understanding of the 19th century human condition. It does the opposite; it repels. It is no more than a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, indulgent gay peep show with en-famile and other relationships relegated supports for its loveless carnality.

This Wilde is an imposter. Are we really expected to believe that this Wilde wrote anything, let alone THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST in three weeks? Such crucial miscasting renders WILDE a dead-in-the-water turkey. Stephen Fry's, unwitty enounciation of Wildean witticisms lacks charm and sparkle. Fry's a prop, propping up Victorian sets; having a physical- as opposed to emotional- relationship with a pouting, ‘aren't I immature?' Bosie [Jude Law]. Stephen Fry is poseur in a TV sketch directed by TV director Brian Gilbert in a well below par TV sketch of the Peter Finch original. We never hear Wilde's

‘…golden voice, nor mark[ing] him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace And conjure wonder out of emptiness…'

because the cadaver in Wilde's weeds is inherently incapable of reproducing it.

Robbie Ross, Wilde's lifelong friend and literary executor is a mere gay foil to the rarely smiling Lord Alfred Douglas whilst Vanessa Richardson's clever Speranza, Tom Wilkinson's Queensberry and other distinguished British cast members are contextually devalued to sad caricatures.

This movie- let alone failing to conjure anything - is full of emptiness; it is filing clerk's veracity; fact bereft of truth; perverted actuality. To use Queensberry's crudity –this movie ‘poses as a somdomite' -somehow for once sounding poetically apt.

English Literature's most prolix subject, others' writings about 'what Oscar did' dwarfing Wilde's humble literary output. Lord Alfred Douglas alone picked over the corpse through no less than six volumes -the last in 1940.

This Brian Gilbert regurgitation, from bad 'great-idea' western opening to lisping children's inane responses to being told the greatest fairy tales in the English language, supposedly portrays artistic libertinism through a mere angst-riven, self-conscious depiction of homosexuality. It is a movie spawned by most odious objectives.

Given the subject's previous bibliography and filmography this abysmal treatment of the Wilde debacle is as unforgivable as forgettable. What's wrong with this portrayal of male homosexuality is what was perceived wrong with the Victorian original: It is aberrant, devoid of human love.It smugly contents itself that mere depiction of 20th century depravity furthers understanding of the 19th century human condition. It does the opposite; it repels. It is no more than a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, indulgent gay peep show with en-famile and other relationships relegated supports for its loveless carnality.

This Wilde is an imposter. Are we really expected to believe that this Wilde wrote anything, let alone THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST in three weeks? Such crucial miscasting renders WILDE a dead-in-the-water turkey. Stephen Fry's, unwitty enunciation of Wildean witticisms lacks charm and sparkle. Fry's a prop, propping up Victorian sets; having a physical- as opposed to emotional- relationship with a pouting, 'aren't I immature?' Bosie [Jude Law]. Stephen Fry is poseur in a TV sketch directed by TV director Brian Gilbert in a well below par TV sketch of the Peter Finch original. We never hear Wilde's

'.golden voice, nor mark[ing] him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace And conjure wonder out of emptiness.'

because the cadaver in Wilde's weeds is inherently incapable of reproducing it.

Robbie Ross, Wilde's lifelong friend and literary executor is a mere gay foil to the rarely smiling Lord Alfred Douglas whilst Vanessa Richardson's clever Speranza, Tom Wilkinson's Queensberry and other distinguished British cast members are contextually devalued to sad caricatures.

This movie- let alone failing to conjure anything - is full of emptiness; it is filing clerk's veracity; fact bereft of truth; perverted actuality. To paraphrase Queensberry's crudity -WILDE 'poses as a somdomite' -somehow for once sounding poetically apt