Magic Bond, The (Part I) (1955)

★★★★ · One man's kitsch, another man's nostalgia · Stillwaters · 2009-06-04

It was interesting to see the film after reading the other reviews. Though the opening was like a war movie and rest of the film was not, it was the war movie part which surprised me most. The rest was a coherent piece which could have stood alone, though of course I see the purpose of the "bonding" footage at the beginning. I didn't find the piece "all over the map" in an inappropriate way. It tried to be comprehensive and I think it achieved its goal without excess. This conservative American approaching middle age actually enjoys news reels for the historical snapshot of America. I feel a…

★★★ · Altman and Marbles · Wilford B. Wolf · 2003-03-27

The first five minutes of this film is a fascinating preview of Altman's filmic style. The film opens with a group of soliders in a shattered house in Europe talking and taking care of their wounded sargent. Altman's use of an ensemble cast and overlapping dialog here would become his trademark during the late 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, the remainder of the film falls into the didactic mode of 1950s industrial films. A war correspondant talks about how the Veterans of Foreign Wars helps fight juvenile deliquency, apathy, neglect of veterans and "smugness" by sponsoring marble tournements…