The Wings of Eagles (1957)

I could not finish watching this movie about a Navy pilot played by John Wayne. He's a maverick who likes to take risks and drive his wife crazy. There's a lot of stuff about the need to fund the Navy's airplanes and pilots and the politics surrounding that which I didn't care enough about to follow.

I plan to come back and finish it, but I might not. John Wayne is ALWAYS playing John Wayne and I guess I'm not as interested in how the Navy learned to land planes on boats as I thought I might be.
UPDATE: Well I did go back to this and skipped to the end to see what happens. Seems he ends up a big hero (surprise) and retiring with some impressive war wounds. At least I thought they were war wounds until I skipped around and discovered they were caused by a domestic accident. Also his long suffering wife is LONG-suffering.
I guess bio-pics tend to be like this: long and rambling and not making much sense or necessarily paying off the way you think they will.
One star, not planning to watch again.

Fire Over Africa (1954) aka "Malaga"

Two stars: one is for Maureen's wardrobe and the other is just for a movie about a femme fatale spy. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did.



A female spy is left out on a limb in Tangier when her only contact with the agency she works for (the OSS, precursor to the CIA) is assassinated. She carries on with her mission while trying to discover who killed her contact. This is the kind of film that leaves you with more questions than answers.

Question 1: Who is MacDonald Carey and why is he the lead in any movie? According to IMDB, he wound up on Days of Our Lives, which is strangely comforting since this movie does nothing to suggest that he is capable of rising above melodrama.

Question 2: Why is an apparently American movie with American stars about an American spy called by the British name in IMDB? And why would they need to change the name to Malaga in the first place when Fire Over Africa is so delightful and meaningless all at once.

Question 3: Why does the hero have to save her in the end? I liked her as the spy who might seem like an arm charm but could fend for herself against some of the nastier characters in Tangiers.

Kim fell asleep during this one and I went out and took a quick dip in the pool while she was dozing. The witty repartee isn't too witty and the plot is hard to follow, even if you care, which I didn't, really.

Maybe I was just too tired for a romantic spy thriller action adventure dramedy.
Will never watch again.