Director Larry Peerce’s 1969 adaptation of Philip Roth’s 1959 debut novella stars Richard Benjamin as the librarian lucky/unlucky enough to fall into an affair with nouveau riche Ali McGraw (also her debut in a lead role). With the help of Arnold Schulman’s (Oscar-nominated) script and a solid supporting cast (including Jack Klugman) the film offers up…
Those Mondo Cane guys are back with an astoundingly non-P.C. farrago purporting to expose the history of black subjugation in pre-Civil War America. Gorgeously mounted but stunningly exploitative, it was rated X when first released in the States in a considerably reworked version. NSFW!
Martin Scorsese’s most acclaimed film after Raging Bull was considered a return to form but in fact showed the director stretching himself toward new cinematic heights. Alongside The Godfather it is now regarded as the definitive gangster movie. Scorsese envisioned the style of the piece, based on Nick Pileggi’s true crime best seller, as lightning-paced, “almost…
George Clooney directed and acts in this period drama that documents newsman Edward R. Murrow’s nightly clashes with Wisconsin’s demagogic senator Joe McCarthy. Set in 1953, Robert Elswit’s potent black and white cinematography recalls 60’s political thrillers like Seven Days in May and Fail Safe.
The third time’s the charm for production designer turned director Eugene Lourie’s final entry in his dinosaur trilogy, which benefitted from a massive MGM ad campaign that made it a must-see for the moppet trade in 1960. Unlike The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and The Giant Behemoth, this is a man-in-suit Godzilla style epic with…
Talk about descriptive titles! This generic little indie, set in a Long Beach amusement park terrorized by an escaped gorilla, was one of only three 3-D productions released by 20th Century-Fox in the fifties. It benefits from an unusually good cast including Oscar nominee Lee J. Cobb (the same year he made On the Waterfront!)…
Jean Renoir’s humanism is on full display in this 1937 film about a World War and a class war. French POWs and the Germans that imprison them are treated with equal compassion, an approach that would be unthinkable just a few years later. Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, and Marcel Dalio are memorable brothers-in-arms, and Erich…
Ron Howard’s smashing, crashing directorial debut is a family affair with relatives, friends and co-workers pitching in to provide producer Roger Corman with one of his most successful car crash drive-in movies ever. Allan and Joe worked behind the camera on this one, along with a lot of other New World regulars both on and…
James Whale escapes Frankenstein’s lab for a jaunt in the jungle with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Bennett, all in search of Incan treasures in South America. The supporting cast included George Sanders and Vincent Price, who called it “one of the funniest films ever shot.” The actors may have struggled to keep a straight…
Perhaps to save on dubbing costs, this tacky Japanese-produced space opera features an entirely non-Asian cast (it certainly wasn’t Occidental). Most of the background players are US military personnel. Opinions on its not-very-slimy jello monsters vary, but one thing everybody agrees on: the funky title song is Outta This World! G-R-E-E-E-E-N-S-L-I-I-I-I-I-M-E!!!!!!!
John Ford replaced William Wyler as director of this multi-Oscar nominated‚ saga about a turn of the century Welsh coal mining family‚ which walked home with five awards and beat out The Maltese Falcon, Sergeant York, Suspicion, and Citizen Kane for Best Picture. Nathan Juran’s reconstruction of a Welsh mining town built in the Malibu…
TFH Guru Joe Dante’s off the wall sequel to his 1984 smash (which he often refers to as “a medley of my hit”) moves its Looney Tunes action from the small backlot town of the original to The Big Apple, where the titular monsters overrun a futuristic (for 1990) office building and end their occupation…
Bill Murray finds the quintessential Bill Murray role in Harold Ramis’ 1992 comic morality play about a shallow, egocentric reporter forced to repeat the same 24 hour day till he gets it right. The gently acerbic script, by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, is equal parts Woody Allen and Preston Sturges with a little Frank…
Sexy B-movie icons Beverly Garland and Allison Hayes enthusiastically enact a Johnny Guitar-like enmity in Roger Corman’s offbeat feminist western-cum-Greek tragedy. The climax is a sort of a mini-budget Duel in the Sun.
A compelling mix of low-down genre thrills and indie-style quirkiness, actor/director Larry Fessenden’s 1995 Habit uses traditional vampires as a metaphor for more contemporary concerns with intriguing results. Though decidedly low-budget the film won raves at the Los Angeles International film festival and has garnered a small but vocal legion of fans.
Directed by Taylor Hackford, this revealing 1987 documentary celebrating Chuck Berry’s 60th birthday turns into an exploration of the great rocker’s curdled world view as much as a tribute to his music; by film’s end we realize the two are inexorably intertwined. Along with signature performances from Keith Richards (who conceived the event) and Eric…
It took the Age of Aquarius at least a decade to make it to the screen. The creators of the popular 1968 Broadway musical were not pleased with Milos Forman’s 1979 adaptation, which jettisons numerous songs and a lot of the peace movement politics, reshaping the characters and story to avoid datedness. But the reviews…
Ishirō Honda’s atmospheric 1955 thriller about a race of snow creatures holed up in Nagano’s Japanese Alps is on the short list of “holy grails” for Kaiju film fans. An English version which cut some of the original material and inserted a new plot with John Carradine was released in 1958 and even that iteration…
The sleeper of the century and the first of the modern horror franchises. John Carpenter’s low budget suburban slasher movie lurched out of nowhere to become one of the most influential pictures of all time, changing the face of the genre for decades. Followed by ten sequels and a Rob Zombie remake series.
CineSavant reviews a (gasp!) DVD release. UK correspondent Lee Broughton returns with coverage of a low budget comedy-horror flick from Florida about a seemingly harmless old lady who displays psychopathic tendencies every Halloween. The humour is crude at times but the show’s knowing horror elements, spirited performances and decent production values result in a curiously…
John Agar plays a careless scientist whose experiments with nerve gas backfire, turning him into a lumbering beast whose touch can kill. Floyd Crosby’s widescreen cinematography lifts Gene Nelson’s 60 minute programmer about as high as it can go, though the sight of the creature stalking suburbia in a trench coat and fedora is memorable….
From director Michael Winner’s early unpredictable period comes this curate’s egg of a WW II movie aimed, apparently, at families and counterculture fans of Bonnie and Clyde second banana Michael J. Pollard. Escaped POW Oliver Reed rescues an elephant from a bombed-out Nazi zoo and tries to get her to Switzerland in a scenario based…
Bullets fly and so does John Woo’s camera in the aptly named Hard Boiled, perhaps the apex of the director’s films. The movie made a permanent stateside star of Chow Yun-fat who plays a ruthless police inspector tracking down a brutal triad syndicate. The frenzied assault on a hospital is one of the great set-pieces…
In 1964 the widespread teenage lament was, “What?! The Beatles movie is in black & white?!” But this was no fly-by-night Sam Katzman musical quickie, — this was a bona fide cultural event. Richard Lester brings his new-wave Goon Show stylistics to the greatest rock & roll vehicle of all time and helps drag the…
Bare-knuckle boxing in 1933 New Orleans with a buff Charles Bronson in the ring and James Coburn as his sleazy (what else?) promoter. Writer Walter Hill’s directing debut is gritty, brutal and riveting. Great support from the always reliable Strother Martin. At some point this film was recut from an R rating to a PG.
Director Hal Ashby’s quirky comedy about the May-December romance of a death-obsessed young man and his 79-year-old inamorata was shunned by critics and crowds alike upon its 1971 release but has since gained traction as a memorable cult item. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon (still coasting on her newfound popularity in Rosemary’s Baby) are fine…