I have a soft spot for Leonard because his book, *Movie Comedy Teams* back in the early 1970's lead me to descover a lot of wonderful films. However, I have lost a lot of my respect for him over the years because a: he has often "adjusted" the reviews in his book when pressured to outside forces such as an overbearing fan base (for *Star Trek: the Motion Picture *about which he said that a big screen version of Gilligan's Island woould have been better) or a film's overwhelming box office success (for *Smokey and the Bandit* which he originally called "embarassingly bad"). Both those films magically went from one and a half star ratings to two and a half and three stars from one edition of Maltin's Guide to the next, and I find it hard to believe that Leonard just magically changed his mind about those two films in such a brief period of time. Especially since there are many other films that he dismisses in his book which have seemed to weathered the test of time far better than those two, and yet they continue to recieve pans in Maltin's book. If you believe something to be true and write it down -- fine, but if you change your opinion just because someone else tells you to, rather than having a true reassesment of the work, then you are not being a critic or historian, you're just being another cog in Hollywood's publicity machine. And maybe that's what Leonard thinks he is now. But even more unforgivable is b: Leonard has printed several "facts" in some of his books which are flat out WRONG! For example: in his book *Movie Comedy Teams* he describes a whole scene in the 1931 film *Fifty Million Frenchmen* where he says the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson try to insult an American tourist with some risque French toys. So it was a big surprise when I finally saw the film on TCM a few years ago; oh, the scene is there all right, but Olsen and Johnson are nowhere in sight (it's the film's leading man who is in the scene). The point it that if Leonard is willing to print something so flagrently incorrect, it leads me to believe that he either has never seen the film (which is hard to see even now -- still, if he hasn't, he shouldn't be commenting on it), or is just unbelievably sloppy. And that's unfortunatly become the standard for most film reviewing in this country. It's sad, because I believe that Maltin really does love movies, but has just been overwhelmed by the fact that he has become something of a brand name in the review business.
Maltin: On the money or off-target?
in General Discussions
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I have a soft spot for Leonard because his book, *Movie Comedy Teams* back in the early 1970's lead me to descover a lot of wonderful films. However, I have lost a lot of my respect for him over the years because a: he has often "adjusted" the reviews in his book when pressured to outside forces such as an overbearing fan base (for *Star Trek: the Motion Picture *about which he said that a big screen version of Gilligan's Island woould have been better) or a film's overwhelming box office success (for *Smokey and the Bandit* which he originally called "embarassingly bad"). Both those films magically went from one and a half star ratings to two and a half and three stars from one edition of Maltin's Guide to the next, and I find it hard to believe that Leonard just magically changed his mind about those two films in such a brief period of time. Especially since there are many other films that he dismisses in his book which have seemed to weathered the test of time far better than those two, and yet they continue to recieve pans in Maltin's book. If you believe something to be true and write it down -- fine, but if you change your opinion just because someone else tells you to, rather than having a true reassesment of the work, then you are not being a critic or historian, you're just being another cog in Hollywood's publicity machine. And maybe that's what Leonard thinks he is now. But even more unforgivable is b: Leonard has printed several "facts" in some of his books which are flat out WRONG! For example: in his book *Movie Comedy Teams* he describes a whole scene in the 1931 film *Fifty Million Frenchmen* where he says the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson try to insult an American tourist with some risque French toys. So it was a big surprise when I finally saw the film on TCM a few years ago; oh, the scene is there all right, but Olsen and Johnson are nowhere in sight (it's the film's leading man who is in the scene). The point it that if Leonard is willing to print something so flagrently incorrect, it leads me to believe that he either has never seen the film (which is hard to see even now -- still, if he hasn't, he shouldn't be commenting on it), or is just unbelievably sloppy. And that's unfortunatly become the standard for most film reviewing in this country. It's sad, because I believe that Maltin really does love movies, but has just been overwhelmed by the fact that he has become something of a brand name in the review business.