One of the last of the classic Weimar silents, Joe May’s melodrama is only partly expressionist; Günther Rittau’s terrific camerawork tells a ‘street’ story of crime and sex with minimal dialogue. Gustav Fröhlich is the green Berlin street cop and Betty Amman the vamp who sullies his badge; the story takes place in 24 hours…

Something of a missing link in the filmography of Marlene Dietrich, this immediate postwar French production pairs her with one of her great amours, Jean Gabin. Almost forgotten now, it has qualities other Dietrich films don’t, starting with her taking a character role rather than one that plays off her glamorous silver screen image. It’s…

Daniel Petrie and Ellen Burstyn’s excellent film elevates a genre we normally disdain — the Ethereal Cereal do-you-believe Spiritual Awakening picture. Call this one intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, respectful and emotionally extra-effective. It pushes all the right buttons and finds a conclusion that doesn’t make us roll our eyes. Burstyn’s commitment, Petrie’s direction and the input…

Here’s a hard-to-see WW2 real-life drama that holds up rather well. Jeffrey Hunter plays radioman George Tweed, the lone U.S. sailor holdout when Guam Island was taken by the Japanese right after Pearl Harbor. The production is modest but the story is told with a winning honesty — it’s a basic survival tale that avoids…

We never miss an opportunity to see John Heard perform. A ‘difficult’ movie that nonetheless made its mark, Joan Micklin Silver’s adaptation of Ann Beattie’s novel looks at modern romance through a realistic lens, relatable to young adults in the late 1970s: people are problematic constructs with built-in barriers to Happily Ever After outcomes. John…

Frank Capra’s big push to reestablish his exalted pre-war reputation saw him applying ‘Capracorn’ to a Pulitzer-winning Broadway comedy-drama about modern politics. Airplane industrialist Spencer Tracy is groomed to run for the White House by newspaper czar Angela Lansbury and political kingmaker Adolphe Menjou. Tracy’s wife Katharine Hepburn frets to see her husband become a…

What a difference a digital remaster makes!  Marilyn Monroe’s self-produced English comedy leaps back to life with a new restoration of Jack Cardiff’s stunning color cinematography. Monroe’s a delight co-starring with Laurence Olivier, amid the stuffy formal-dress diplomacy and giddy midnight seductions. Adapted from a formal stage play, the farce of manners is far more…

Hal Barwood & Matthew Robbins put everything they had into a medieval sword ‘n’ sorcery epic, filmed in England and finished in California by the best artists at ILM and VCE. It’s basic gee-whiz sorcerer- George vs. The Dragon material, but more brutal than expected. Word of mouth about some unnecessarily gory scenes tipped off…

Here’s the eager New York independent production that snagged Parker Posey for her first starring role — as a Manhattan party animal who eventually finds stable footing as a (gasp) librarian. Life is tough when you can’t make the rent. This latter-day Holly Golightly has problems with flaky instability, but the guy selling falafel downstairs…

John Frankenheimer’s big-scale terrorism conspiracy tale benefits from the director’s no-nonsense attitude to action. Thomas Harris’ first novel spins on a ‘high concept’ gimmick that surely launched a studio bidding war: what if somebody blew up the entire Super Bowl, in mid-game? Robert Shaw, Steven Keats and Marthe Keller play well with the tense effort…

Is it a train wreck or an unrecognized masterpiece?  Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt topline this enormous, enormously profane epic of silent-era Hollywood — that immediately earned the scorn of critics decrying it as a gross distortion of historical reality. Word Of Mouth focused on the film’s blizzard of gross bodily functions, which surely inspired…

‘Washed up’ at MGM, Joan Crawford bounced back with one of the smartest, best-judged career rethinks in Hollywood history. As James M. Cain’s independent housewife-careerist she soars to heights of California success, only to be brought down by runaway maternal blindness. Michael Curtiz guides a pack of indelibly selfish characters — Jack Carson’s slimy business…

This Mickey Spillane noir tale has its good points: star Anthony Quinn gives a solid ‘tough guy’ performance, sizing up a quartet of thrill-crazy Spillane dames that promise no end of trouble. The surprisingly clever script dares to exploit the gimmicks of both amnesia and plastic surgery — without insulting our intelligence. Peggie Castle is…

Hollywood’s postwar shift to social consciousness addressed familiar issues like bigotry and discrimination. On his way to making his gargantuan, serious epics, famed director George Stevens paused for this almost entirely forgotten contemplation of American anxiety in the business rat race, with a side order of alcoholism and potential adultery. Ray Milland is the troubled…

François Truffaut is back with another Hitchcock-influenced adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich murder thriller, with stars Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo as lovers – criminals – fugitives, and partly filmed in a remote French island in the Indian Ocean. It’s a tale of a mail-order bride, larcenous deception, and irrational amor fou run amuck. The…

Third Man on the Mountain 1959 / 105 Mins. / 1.66: 1 Starring Michael Rennie, James MacArthur Written by Eleanore Griffin Directed by Ken Annakin CineSavant Revival Screening Review From Newbery Medal to amusement park thrill ride, James Ramsey Ullman’s Banner in the Sky climbed the ladder as deftly as the men who scaled the…

Richard Widmark reportedly used his clout to amp up this revisionist western, but the result seems forced at best, and hampered by Universal’s TV-grade production values. The sober screenplay brings in good ideas but the execution can’t quite hold its own with the more progressive westerns of the genre-changing years 1968-’69. A cast of familiar…

This very traditional chamber murder mystery starring David Farrar and Geraldine Fitzgerald has been beautifully restored by Studiocanal and bears the original U.K. title The Late Edwina Black. When the sickly wife Edwina dies in bed the bitter housekeeper accuses the husband and another very attractive servant; all the Scotland Yard Inspector need do is…

Wow, a ‘new’ Sam Peckinpah western!  While we await the rumored Blu-ray of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to surface (or was Alex Cox misinformed?), correspondent Darren Gross has come across a watchable web encoding of a Peckinpah TV drama that seems to be more or less ‘lost.’ Good star performances (Jean Simmons, Bradford…

Thrillers from the Vault – 8 Classic Films Blu-ray Mill Creek Entertainment 1941, 1942, 1943, 1951 / B&W / 1.33: 1 / Blu ray Starring Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi Written by Robert Andrews, Edwin Blum, Randall Faye, Arch Oboler Directed by Edward Dmytryk, Lew Landers, Arch Oboler This is part two…

Thrillers from the Vault – 8 Classic Films Blu-ray Mill Creek Entertainment 1935, 1939, 1940 / B&W / 1.33: 1 / Blu ray Starring Boris Karloff, Ann Doran, Evelyn Keyes, Written by Arthur Strawn, Karl Brown, Robert Andrews Directed by Roy William Neill, Nick Grindé In 1934 Boris Karloff was an unhappy actor, he was one…

The French Alps in VistaVision and Technicolor really sell this inspirational thriller. Spencer Tracy stars is the utterly ethical mountaineer, and young Robert Wagner his venal, verminous, just plain no damn good younger brother. Make that MUCH younger. Edward Dmytryk directs for big dimensions and strong emotions, and Paramount’s remaster makes the special effects of…

François Truffaut goes deep and morbid adapting a Henry James story about a man who chooses to ‘devote himself to his beloved dead.’ He builds an altar-shrine to a departed bride and comrades that didn’t survive the Great War. A sympathetic woman considers aiding him, but his obsession keeps choosing life-negating directions. It’s a weird,…

Mill Creek’s latest disc collection gathers three Columbia Sci-fi faves and throws in a Blu-ray debut for a fourth. It’s a good selection: two giant Ray Harryhausen monsters, one marginal bad-taste Sam Katzman zombie epic, and a quirky Lou Costello comedy with Dorothy Provine doing a wholesome take on Allison Hayes’ biggest role. Do these…

What makes Franco-era Spanish horror so horrible?  The unnecessary cruelty and emphatic nastiness, a combination that’s led to more than a few essays about political repression. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s shocker puts psycho headmistress Lilli Palmer in charge of a twisted girl’s boarding school. Get ready for ice-cold Women-In-Prison intrigues, with macabre carnage for a chaser….

Franco Zeffirelli apprenticed to Luchino Visconti, stage directed operas and directed several movie hits, the biggest of which was this exuberant, attractive Shakespeare adaptation, filmed like an opera with sumptuous sets and sunswept Italian locations. The novelty for 1968 was casting the Bard’s star-crossed young lovers with actual teenagers. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are…