Time marches on, and more reviews keep coming. It's like a disease, but a pleasant one. Today I have a 70s comedy, and a chopped-up masterpiece from John Huston.

Warners' The Red Badge of Courage was once a courageous film - a straight version of the Civil War novella that didn't enlarge the scope of the story or add a female love interest to spice things up. It's peculiar that Hollywood often initiated projects like these, only to butcher them, and then perversely serve them up as the proud work of the studio. It's all here to be seen. With Audie Murphy (he's actually very good) and Bill Mauldin, and a little bit of what was supposed to be Royal Dano's greatest role.

Fox's Claudine is a winning romance / comedy / family film where the mom is shacking up with her boyfriend, while her family dodges the welfare workers. It's a serious show with some good points to make, and made its mark as an antidote to the blaxploitation product of the time. With Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones.

February is grinding on, work-wise, but I have to admit my thoughts are straying toward the big titles coming out from Fox and others this spring - mainly bigtime Science Fiction and War spectacles. The top two Jules Verne adaptations and the most-loved Sci Fi film of the early 50s .... there's going to be some happy review writing here in Savant-land. Back in a couple of days, Glenn Erickson