The star-crossed life of Polly Hamilton, erstwhile girlfriend of doomed mobster John Dillinger, is dramatized in a low-budget but nevertheless engrossing dustbowl drama courtesy of director Lewis Teague. The exemplary cast and crew include Louise Fletcher as a bordello madam, music by James Horner (his third score) and John Sayles who contributes a typically imaginative and…
Like some other gurus, Brian Trenchard-Smith got his start in the movie biz by cutting trailers. Here he wryly dissects his own work on the jazzed-up trailer for a middling Euro Western sporting arguably the greatest action score by Morricone collaborator Bruno Nicolai.
As menacing as “The Great” Edward G. Robinson could be, he starred in more than a few comedies disguised as gangster pictures. Lloyd Bacon’s 1942 film is one of them—a Runyonesque satire brimming with holiday cheer; as the racketeer who wants to go straight, Robinson gets to dress up as Santa Claus. With a fairly…
In spite of terrific reviews this small indie directed by Dan Zukovic and featuring an early appearance by Mark Ruffalo, remains relatively unknown. Director Zukovic cast himself as Simon Geist, an angry young man who produces a bogus publication called “The Next Big Thing”, dedicated to eviscerating pop culture in all its forms. Zukovic, still…
Sergio Leone was an (uncredited) second unit director on this epic potboiler directed by Robert Aldrich whose own appetite for lurid scenarios is on full display (it was released the same year as WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE). This was the last of the great Miklos Rozsa’s truly magisterial scores (he replaced Dimitri Tiomkin and…
Many epics crumble under the weight of their own plus-sized intentions but thanks to the virtuoso skill of director Bernardo Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, 1987’s The Last Emperor, the remarkable story of Pu Yi who reigned over the Forbidden City and fell from grace, becomes a soulful epic with the sensuous pageantry of a…
Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris inspired several parodies but this is the only one to feature Lenny Bruce’s mom (Sally Marr). The 1973 film is a note for note spoof of the Brando vehicle starring omnipresent character actor Michael Pataki (as Michael “Loveman”) and with editing performed by future director John Carpenter. There were two…
“Keep repeating, It’s Only a Movie….” Wes Craven’s notoriously nasty, some say degrading, Vietnam-era reworking of The Virgin Spring expanded the envelope for shocking depictions of depravity onscreen. Shot for peanuts in 16mm and originally relegated to grindhouses and drive-ins, it has since emerged as something of a classic and was remade in 2009.
Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins deservedly won the mystery writers’ Edgar Award for their witty screenplay to this clever 1973 puzzler based on a series of actual real-life scavenger hunts they organized for their friends. An all-star cast plays an amusing assortment of sybaritic showbiz types whose dark sides get darker as the whodunit progresses.
Frank and Eleanor Perry’s disturbing look at dysfunctional teens on Fire Island has a dedicated fan base that has pushed for years to get it released on dvd, to no particular avail. One of the first films rated X, it was later cut to an R, although the uncut version has popped up now and…
Aiming to contrast the dichotomies of Love and Lust, director Bernardo Bertolucci originally hoped to star Jean-Louis Trintignant with either Dominique Sanda or Catherine Deneuve, but when those plans fell apart he went with Marlon Brando and 19 year old unknown Maria Schneider. Its graphic but simulated sex scenes garnered a scandalous X rating in the…
One of the best yet least seen of John Sturges’ westerns couples a fine screenplay with strong star perfs and superb direction: the straightforward story builds tension throughout. Kirk Douglas is a sheriff out for both justice and revenge and Anthony Quinn is the he-bull rancher who stands in his way: the guilty party is…
Another semi-documentary style thriller from Andrew Stone, who stressed real locations in his movies. This time he sinks an actual ocean liner for your viewing pleasure. Irwin Allen must have blanched with envy.
Martin Scorsese’s incandescent celebration of The Band’s last performance‚ was the first rock documentary to be shot in 35mm. It’s rock concert as art film. And very few rock concerts‚ had the good fortune to be‚ photographed by the likes of Michael Chapman, Vilmos Zsigmond and Laszlo Kovacs.
A hypnotic achievement from Peter Weir’s Australian mystical period. He claimed got the idea when he asked himself, “What if someone with a very pragmatic approach to life experienced a premonition?” Richard Chamberlain gives one of his best performances as a lawyer whose bad dreams lead to his representing the great Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil in…
Directed by Alain Resnais and written by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Last Year at Marienbad plays out in a palatial German hotel that feels more like a haunted house. Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, and Sacha Pitoëff play the hotel’s ethereal inhabitants, a ghostly lover’s trio whose memories mingle with real life. Sacha Vierny (Belle de Jour) did…
Art Carney is a cantankerous over-the-hill gumshoe in Robert Benton’s sadly obscure comedy noir that pairs him with Lily Tomlin and recalls the Raymond Chandler mysteries of the 1940s.
Leon Shamroy’s lush, Oscar-winning Technicolor photography has caused some to question the Noir status of John Stahl’s classic melodrama. The missing link between Stahl’s ’30s domestic melodramas and Douglas Sirk’s ’50s remakes. Fox’s top-grossing film of the 1940s.
An elaborate hodgepodge of fairy tale romance and mythological mumbo-jumbo, Ridley Scott’s big-budget fantasy is high-gloss kitsch, beautifully photographed by Alex Thomson and brought to life by Rob Bottin’s stunning makeup effects which are worn by the majority of the—very large—cast. Star Tom Cruise naturally foregoes any masks, leaving it to Tim Curry to steal…
Former AIP head James Nicholson formed Academy Pictures to produce his own projects and this one, of only two released after his death, validates the difference between former partner Sam Arkoff’s aesthetic and his own. Richard Matheson’s popular haunted house novel, transposed to England, receives a classy production with A-level promotion, although the sexuality is…
Dustin Hoffman has the jazzy delivery of the ill-fated comedian down to a tee and Valerie Perrine gives a touching performance as his hapless wife but the real star of Lenny might be director Bob Fosse himself. His electrified portrayals of the seedy strip joints of the fifties, filmed in luminous black and white by Bruce Surtees,…
Classical movie making of the highest order, Luchino Visconti’s sweeping 1963 epic set during the Italian revolution plants Burt Lancaster at the center of a long form feast for the senses embodied by the late Claudia Cardinale who is exquisitely photographed by the great Giuseppe Rotunno. The music is by Fellini’s longtime collaborator, Nino Rota. Surely…
Retitled Bolero for its American release in 1981, Claude Lelouch’s Les Uns et les Autres is a musical multi-family saga spanning five decades. Starring Robert Hossein and Geraldine Chaplin, Lelouch’s screenplay follows the travails and triumphs of four households of different nationalities—it’s their shared love for music that unites the characters and the film.
The hangman Albert Pierrepoint (of Pierrepoint – The Last Hangman) makes a small but important appearance in Peter Medak’s 1991 film about the controversial 1953 execution of Derek Bentley for the murder of a policeman (even though Bentley merely egged on the actual shooter with the phrase, “Let him have it.”) The film stars Christopher…
The great Nigel Green brings a delicious patina of sardonic menace to one of his few lead roles as the cheerful would-be assassin of his newly rich nephew. One of William Castle’s later efforts, it’s gimmick-less and shot pretty much like a tv show, but its uneasy mix of fun and child murder has a…
Director John Hancock’s debut feature stars the mercurial Zohra Lampert as a former mental patient terrified she’s losing her mind when she sees apparitions at a Connecticut farmhouse–or does she? It’s scary comfort food for hordes of horror fans who first encountered it on Creature Features, and enjoys a fan following larger than its so-so…