In 1966 the consensus was that Dean Martin’s Matt Helm films were spoofs of the James Bond franchise—but Dino’s real inspiration was Derek Flint, the preposterously cool secret agent played to a T by James Coburn. When Our Man Flint scored big at the box office a sequel was fast on its heels: In Like…
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger star in this incendiary drama about a Black detective tasked with solving a murder in the still-segregated Mississippi of 1967 – times being what they are, Norman Jewison’s film continues to pack a punch. And speaking of punches, Poitier’s then-shocking retaliation against a supercilious old bigot upended movie theaters both…
Steve Buscemi plays Aldolfo Rollo, a screenwriter at his wit’s end who finds an unlikely production partner in Joe, an avuncular mobster played by Seymour Cassel. Director Alexandre Rockwell co-wrote the script with Sollace Mitchell. Jennifer Beals shows up as Aldolfo’s dream girl while Jim Jarmusch embodies the movie’s independent nature in a bit part…
The meeting of Indiana Jones and James Bond in the third installment of the Indy trilogy didn’t prove as combustible as many had hoped but the comraderie between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery (as Indiana’s father) is winning and once again the production is impeccable (not counting some sub-par matte work). The critics were mixed on…
In his 1984 sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg takes his satirical approach to adventure movies and dials it up to 11. The result is one of the most propulsive action-comedies ever made with one head-spinning set piece after another. Its lighthearted approach aside, the film is faithful enough to its grisly…
The adventures of Infra-Man, a bionic superhero created to do battle with Princess Dragon Mom, a 10 million year old demon determined to destroy the earth with her army of skeleton ghosts, must be seen to be disbelieved. Uproariously funny and charming, it’s as if someone spiked Sid and Marty Krofft’s breakfast cereal with a…
A die-hard believer in the power of film (in particular 35mm), Quentin Tarantino reimagines the end of World War II with the Third Reich trapped inside a burning movie theater. The cast is typically Tarantinian, including turns from Brad Pitt as the Southern-fried squadron leader Aldo Raine, Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill (!) and TFH’s…
No, the movie star Ingrid Bergman was never a starlet with a seven-year contract, and her stellar career didn’t begin opposite Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. It all happened in Sweden, where she turned herself into a screen sensation in just a couple of years. Eclipse’s six-disc set shows the immediate success of the daring Bergman,…
1960 audiences who saw Stanley Kramer’s film version of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s fictionalized 1955 theatrical treatment of the 1925 Scopes monkey trial assumed that its pro-Darwin evolutionary stance was theoretically accepted by the broad population. But over 50 years later we find, incredibly, that the argument is still not settled. A 1988…
“What if Dean Martin got shrunken down and put inside Jerry Lewis?” That was writer Jeffrey Boam’s clever take on his comedy-fantasy rewrite of a straight spy-fi script conceived by producers who had seemingly never heard of Fantastic Voyage. It attracted director Joe Dante, looking to make a commercial hit after the box office failure…
John Landis’ 1992 film is a noiresque hybrid of vampires and mobsters with Anne Parillaud as the conflicted bloodsucker with a heart of gold and Robert Loggia as the ethically challenged mob boss who winds up sprouting fangs. The late, great Don Rickles brings some Casino-esque humor to his role as a crooked lawyer.
Jack Clayton’s masterpiece, one of the greatest cinematic ghost stories, is ill-served by this lowbrow trailer that sells it like a cheap Eurotrash import. Although not a commercial success at the time, it has since been hailed as one of the best British films of the 1960s, with a powerhouse performance by Deborah Kerr as…
Judy Geeson is a universe away from to Sir With Love as an astronaut abducted and inseminated by a yucky alien who causes her to start slaughtering and devouring her fellow crew members before giving birth to slimy muppet-like baby aliens. Laudably unashamed of its own trashiness, Norman J. Warren’s intergalactic gorefest was trimmed a…
Say what you will about Inserts, John Byrum’s 1975 film about a director reduced to manufacturing porn in his own living room—Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper and Veronica Cartwright, give it their all and then some. Harper plays a doe-eyed schemer not as innocent as she looks, and Cartwright, as usual, nearly steals the show as…
The long-vanished 1930s tradition of feature-length parades of vaudeville and radio acts reaches its zenith with this racy pre-code vehicle for performers both famous and forgotten. What we wanna know is, where can we find more of Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd??!
In 1961, Roger Corman took a flyer from his exploitation roots and made one from the heart, from Charles Beaumont’s angry novel inspired by the rabble-rousing exploits of Southern racist John Kasper. When exhibitors refused to book it, Corman returned to Edgar Allan Poe and the movie disappeared into grindhouse hell under titles like Shameand…
His 1935 Things to Come is more prestigious, but famed production designer William Cameron Menzies reached his directorial zenith with this deliberately unreal “B” that has creeped out several generations of kids. The great Art Gilmore narrates a classic trailer for a seminal movie. In SuperCineColor! Glenn Erickson of CineSavant provides a terrific analysis of…
The filmmakers were hoping for a classier title (Sleep No More), but under any moniker it’s proved to be one of the most influential of all science fiction movies. Remade in 1978, 1993 and 2007, not counting the various ripoffs throughout the years. Each has its points, but Don Siegel’s spare, psychological original remains a haunting,…
Generally considered at least the equal or maybe (!) the better of Don Siegel’s influential 1956 classic, Phil Kaufman’s 1978 update transposes Jack Finney’s paranoid original to a new age San Francisco setting. Some have pointed out that a story based on people becoming suspicious of their neighbors’ unusual behavior might be better set somewhere…
No, really–not B-Girls, but BEE Girls! BZZZZZZ! “They’ll love the very life out of your body!” A bevy of sultry sirens turned mutated insect women prey on the male population in this gonzo sci fi epic, the last feature from usually sober-minded director/documentarian/Oscar winner Denis Sanders. Reissued as Graveyard Tramps(!).
Edward L. Cahn directed and monster-maker Paul Blaisdell built the little aliens with the great big heads for this lighthearted sci-film film released in 1957. As usual in an AIP picture, it’s teenagers to the rescue when a flying saucer sets down in the middle of lover’s lane. Steven Terrell and Gloria Castillo play the…
Lest America become overrun with Commie hordes, this urgent warning from Al Zugsmith in the form of a mass hallucination of stock footage destruction puts us on the right path to stockpiling armaments. It’s actually lots of fun and it features both Lois Lanes from the tv Superman series in small roles.
A haunted Bela Lugosi prowls his mansion and lurks in shadowy doorways as houseguests bite the dust in this 64 minute tangle of mind control, mysterious doubles and dual-personalities. Nascent noir specialist Joseph H. Lewis contributes moody atmosphere to the best-directed of Bela’s poverty row Monogram horror entries– eight years before Lewis’s triumph, Gun Crazy.
“Earth Given 24 Hours to Surrender!” It’s those darned aliens again! This time they’re reanimating dead people that they killed in the first place. Luckily for us, sci fi stalwart John Agar is on the job. But a lot of years have passed and who knows how many of these unseen creatures are currently running…
Len Deighton’s nameless working class spy becomes Harry Palmer, “the thinking man’s Bond” in the first of three downsized Harry Saltzman productions (star Michael Caine revisted the character in two ’90s entries). Many personnel from the Bond films contributed, but it’s director Sidney Furie’s off-center compositions and clever use of Techniscope that makes this one…
Gaspar Noé uses all the tricks in the book to make a standard grindhouse thriller seem like an art film. The plot is simple, two men set out to avenge the brutal rape of a woman—but the events are shown in reverse and seemingly in one continuous shot. Noé even brings back Sensurround to amp…