BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Wordiezett So much average

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

clanciai Graham Greene generally had problems with films made on his books. In the beginning the situation was hopeless - the film companies would distort his plots and make a film of his story that would be anything but what he had written, like for instance " A Gun for Sale" ("This Gun for Hire") with Alan Ladd, but alerted on this problem he started to work on it, and already "Brighton Rock" (1947) was fairly much of what he had intended. In "The Third Man" Carol Reed made the end of the film the direct opposite of what Greene had written, but the author had to admit that Carol Reed's ending was better. They also collaborated on "The Fallen Idoll" with gratifying success, but in "The Comedians" Greene finally was allowed to have all the say, and it's a triumph both for the author,the director and everyone involved in it. The book is the author's last great novel, he was past 60 at the time, and a novel couldn't be more truly Greene, with a hotel owner stuck on a hopeless spot in the world's most corrupt regime, with a phony American politician naïvely believing only the best of the dictatorship until people are murdered in front of him, and a pathetic remnant from the colonial days trying to sell arms to the dictator with deplorable results, finally even bungling his escape. Well, well, the film is absolutely perfect all the way, also Peter Ustinov married to Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones as the doctor couldn't do better, but the main credit goes to the director, for actually paying homage to Graham Greene by for once being as true as possible to a literary work of art, which possibly has never happened before. The novel is great, maybe Greene's greatest in its subtle understatement of a universal protest against the very idea of any dictatorship, the film is great, and it is carefully done with absolute professionalism. Best is Alec Guinness, but he had filmed with Peter Grenville before in the very memorable "The Cardinal" more than ten years earlier, a bold effort to analyze the very essence of the brainwash procedure and mentality based on the breaking down of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary. Alec Guinness was a catholic himself and here actually portrayed a saint, while in this film he tops it by making the opposite… Just wonderful. One must wonder what happened to Richard Burton afterwards. He was still on the top here, afterwards there would be some divorces with Elizabeth Taylor, some constantly lesser films and a lot of booze… also a very appropriate character for any novel by Graham Greene. I love them all.

orde wingate Readers of Graham Greene will fall for this movie, and in particular the portrayal of Brown by the late Richard Burton, who may well play the perfect Greene anti-hero. Burton brings a subtlety to the role which may well be beyond the skill level of any actor working today. His is a haunting, yet totally convincing performance of a cynic, sinner, and dissolute sort searching for an excuse to remain alive, and initially finding that excuse only in pleasures of the flesh.The film seems to have been lost in the shuffle, and that is unfair. While not easy to grasp---at least for those unfamiliar with the works of Greene---it is full of outstanding performances by some of the industry's former greats. Amongst Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov, James Earl Jones, Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the only one who comes up short---delivering a wooden and uninteresting performance that makes an elicit romance unattractive out of boredom rather than sin--- is Taylor. Everyone else is superb, including the sidebars played for both a touch of humor and moral rectitude by Paul Ford and Lillian Gish.Action junkies will be unimpressed with the pace of the film and its low key approach to the violence, but anyone who has experienced a land where brutality and oppression rule the day will find the seeming banality of evil, as portrayed in the film, remarkably realistic and properly underplayed.

Bill Slocum Haiti has been suffering like no other part of the world for decades. "The Comedians" takes aim at one of its most awful periods, the late-1960s misrule of "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The heart is in the right place, but the film suffers from its commitment to bear witness to unrelieved misery and hopelessness at the expense of story or believable characterization.Brown (Richard Burton) is trying futilely to offload his Haitian hotel and make a clean break from a life spent in furtive sex with Martha Pineda (Elizabeth Taylor), wife of a foreign ambassador (Peter Ustinov). Brown doesn't care about politics, but politics has a way of caring about him. Soon he finds himself pressed for help by noble rebels fighting a hopeless cause, as well as a shady arms salesman (Alec Guinness) who bites off more than he can chew.One of the more misleadingly titled films ever, "The Comedians" has barely a laugh on offer, except for the risible sight of Guinness in drag and blackface somehow sneaking past a couple of suspicious black policemen. Its dire tone is a weight, and so is its 150-minute running time. With such a great cast and a script by Graham Greene adapted from his own novel, the film is never a complete bore, but it doesn't engage, either. As other reviewers here note, it comes off as a kind of muddy replay of "Casablanca," without that classic's snappy dialogue or sense of hope.Burton and Taylor were of course the couple of the moment when "The Comedians" came out, and the film plays to this shamelessly. The film's first half focuses on their pathetic relationship. Burton's Brown is so jealous of Martha he can't even bear the thought of her spending time with her husband and son. Martha struggles with his growling idiocy because, well she's Taylor and he's Burton and it's what audiences were supposed to have wanted.He seems to be coasting on his sullen, broody charm, while she wrestles with a dicey accent and lack of motivation. Poor Ustinov is reduced to a few moments of cow-eyed impotent sympathy. At least the film looks great, thanks to Henri Decaë's sharp cinematography and the sun-drenched splendor of Dahomey, today Benin, which stands in for Haiti rather well. Director Peter Glenville likes too much shots of people talking to each other for long stretches, but he works in some sharp transitions which cut the torpor factor down somewhat.The main problem with the film is Greene. He does change the story up some from the novel, but leaves in a silly subplot about a couple staying at Brown's hotel who plan to export their vegetarian ideals to Haiti ("This could be the beginning of our greatest achievement" Greene has the husband say to the wife as they step off their ship, apropos of nothing) only to discover Haiti is a place where dreams go to die. Paul Ford and Lillian Gish add luster to the sterling cast, but they slow down the story for more grief about poor Haiti, a point the film presses at every turn.Graham also saddles his cast with some bad lines in furtherance of this point. "Haiti means hate, hate!" yells one grieving widow when her husband's body is stolen by some Tontons Macoutes. "He lives for them, and they die for him," Brown muses about Papa Doc.Guinness's character, H. O. Jones, is another odd duck. "If you can't be good, be careful," he tells Brown at the outset, before proceeding to be neither. We discover in time that he's a bit of a fraud as well as a cheat, yet for a globe-trotting bounder he has no apparent survival skills other than calling on Brown to bail him out on the basis of their shared Englishness. When he begins to win Martha's affections, Brown naturally finds new cause for his jealousy.The best part of the movie, like others say here, is a scene late in the movie where Brown and Jones have a heart-to-heart and Jones shows real remorse over a misspent life. Here both actors manage some memorable work, and Glenville also keeps things interesting in an understated way by making us wonder about Brown's motives, which involves some clever misdirection. It's not quite enough to save the film, but it makes it feel like less of a waste.Roscoe Lee Browne and Raymond St. Jacques are also notable in minor roles, Browne so minor as a journalist you might miss him except for the way he seems to gracefully speak for a better Haiti without committing himself to anything dangerous. St. Jacques, with his crisp bearing and hard glare, steals every scene he's in as a nasty captain, Concesseur, so much so you wish Greene gave him a bit of ambiguity. Instead, he just kills a lot and tells Brown white people disgust him because their skin reminds him of "a toad's belly."You get the point long ago. Haiti is a bad place. Unfortunately, "The Comedians" never advances much from that position, and the result is too often labored, if never entirely as hopeless as its message.

sol (There are Spoilers) Set in the brutal and impoverish dictatorship of 1960's Haiti where President Papa Doc Duvaliers notorious secret police the Tonton Macoute had eyes and ears in every wall and under every rock in the country.British Major Jones, Alec Guinness, thinking that he's in with the Haitian government gets the surprise of his life as he's grabbed beaten and humiliated by the Tonton as soon as he stepped off the boat. His crime? having received some $300,000.00 back in Miami for arms from the Haitian military and not delivering the goods. It turned out the major had no idea that his contact back in Miami a brigadier Pike took off with the cash. Yet he like the Haitian Col. Bische, who was the Majors contact here on the island, had to pay for Pike's crimes.While Jones in cooling off in a hot Tonton prison cell Brown, Richard Burton, who came off the same boat with the Major is back on the island to run his bankrupt hotel in downtown Port-au-Prince. Brown had been away on business in New York for three months and now can't wait to get back to Martha Pineda (Elizbeath Taylor), his not so secret love. Martha just happens to be the wife of the America Ambassador Mr. Pineda, Peter Ustinov, to Haiti. Brown is a bit taken up when he comes back home to his hotel to find the dead body a a friend and local politician Philipot in the hotel's empty swimming pool. Brown is told by the butler Joseph that he was murdered by the Tonton for saying unkindly things about Papa Doc after he got himself drunk in a seafront bar.The movie goes into a number of unrelated and boring stories with an elderly American couple the Smiths, Paul Ford & Lilian Gish,showing up at the hotel. They turned out to be the only guest there with Mr. Smith now trying to get the Papa Doc regime to buy his natural and healthy food products that he's pushing . There's also a number of bloody and stomach churning Voodoo ceremonies including the biting off the head of a live chicken and some of the people present drinking themselves blind drunk on 150% plus proof rum. This drinking orgy is done in order to conjure up the ancient spirits to do battle against the brutal Papa Doc regime.Brown even though he's having an affair with a married woman, Martha, is extremely jealous of anyone who as much as even talks to her, even Martha's Teddy Bear husband the ambassador. Which makes him anything but likable or sympathetic but a low down and creepy sleaze-ball to the audience. Even Major Jones is later seen selling out by going along with the Papa Doc boys to gain his freedom. It takes the bravery of young Henri Philopot, George Stanford, and his good friend and the Brown and Pineda family physician Dr. Magiot, James Earl Jones, to bring whatever good and courageousness there's still left in both Brown and Jones out into the open to get them to take off in the hills and mountains to do battle.Overly long, two and a half hours, movie with a lot of meaningless scenes in it that if cut out would have actually improved the film instead of water-logging it. Dick & Liz, Burton & Taylor, try to get it on all throughout the film without any real sparks flying in the some half dozen scenes that they were in together. Brown was so psychotic in his jealousy of Martha having an affair, with anyone but himself, even fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Martha's lying to him about having an affair with that stuffy and obnoxious BS artist Major Jones, hardy her type of man to spend a evening in bed with. This was done just to snap that cranky nut-job out of his self-induced depression.Major Jones gets high on rum and drives out into the hills, with Brown behind the Wheel, to join the anti-Papa Doc Haitian resistance tells Brown, not knowing that Martha is his main squeeze, that he had it on with Martha which was just harmless juvenile-like or locker room boasting on the Major's part. It almost cost both his and Brown's life as the insanely jealous Mister Brown, hearing of the Major's imaginary conquest, stepped down hard on the gas peddle as if he wanted to drive his car off a cliff and almost ended up doing so!