Reviews

Casablanca Express assumes an almost historic docu-drama style from its start ... but picks up a good intellectual interest and suspense which Hitchcock would savor for its subtle 'dry' approach. The plot entails a special American and Allied military intelligence detail escorting PM Winston Churchill to his wartime casablanca Conference with pres. Franklin Roosevelt. Not gimmicky - but highly realistic for its time period-set in French colonial North Africa - then still wavering for & against Vichy France. Good cast with Glenn Ford as an American General in US Army Intelligence; and Donald Pleasance as his British counterpart. Found out from IMDb that the two male actors as the US intelligence agents aboard Churchill's secret train - Jason Connery & Francesco Quinn .. are the sons of film stars Sean Connery & Anthony Quinn. Directed smoothly in a verismo style & produced/released in 1988 .. the film will hold with suspense & entertain the mind as if an historic archive. Its realism exudes the director's style as if performed by non-actors (ie. actual agents & military).

As a viewing note -- the edition I saw was Family Treasury DVD classics -- these are also being discounted inexpensively in units apart from the Family Treasury group buy (perhaps as over-runs) at $1 to $5 for two -- they are not pirated -- worth the higher price & a good deal at the discount.

Another viewer evidently missed the point of the production style and also translated too literally ... "Llovisna" ... or "Misty" not 'Drizzlily Rains".

Set in Venezuela in the late 1930's or 40's ... "Llovisna " romantically portrayed the transition of post-Gomez dictatorship Venezuela in the midst of greater post-oil discovery and industrialization in that country's Saar-Ruhr basin .. the Orinico basin; and metropolitan Caracas population explosion. The telenovela virtually made the career of "Ms.Hevci Scarlet Ortiz" -- establishing the former Miss Venezuela contestant as a fine actress ... and through the use of the cim=nematic style of 'verismo' & richly used location scenery and the occasional 'cinema verite' of the style (interlacing footage) to portray lives in the rising working and middle class of Venezuela. As a television production -- good stage craft were used to portray an intimate family - mother and her daughters sustaining a cafe-bar in an old hotel, a padrone like 'god-father' with his shadowy telepathic like influence .. his desire for the truth - for both 'he' and - of his daughter 'Llovisna'.

It has always been a favorite of mine for its verismo portrayal of themes of crime - crooked business or excessive economic power ... passion & love -- and the interlacing of urbanism (a 30's style boxing or sporting scene is remembered) -- and as a production especially breaching the excessive segregation appearance of some Colombian & Venezuelan exports from those mostly 'mixto' nations.

Adapted for the television from a good novel - set in the 30's .. because of its time period -- 'verismo' was a most appropriate style for this production.

[Seen on "Telemundo" Network - just then becoming a subsidiary of the part Italian invested Apollo Group]

While Snadine olt ... "Rapa Nui" & "Black Robes" is older than the historical Pocahontas (probably a young Indian woman entering womanhood - childbearing age - ...she convinces in a sensitive portrayal of the young Powhatan Indian Princess. Miles O'Keefe is well cast as John Smith playing the Elizabethan-Sturat era warrior well somewhat subdued .. and eager to establish England's first North America Colony.

Holt's Pocahontas intreprets with her father .. her destiny and her tribes with the white man's settlement.

Fine historical romance ... worth the time and visual history by a viewing. Filmed with a partial Indian cast in Ontario Canada.