No, this isn’t the (not really very famous either) Billy Crystal comedy from 1986, but the very underrated and virtually unknown hyper-real 2006 thriller from director Wayne Kramer set in New Jersey but shot in Prague. It’s one of many such currently obscure action films that have yet to penetrate the dwindling home video market due to a plethora…
The success of Dr. No proved to be no fluke when its more adventurous followup became one of the biggest international box office hits of the decade and set in motion a worldwide avalanche of 007 imitations. John F. Kennedy’s favorite spy went on to spearhead the longest lasting movie franchise in history, though Kennedy…
Director Alexander Sokurov’s camera leads us through the rooms of Russia’s Hermitage Museum in a single unbroken Steadicam shot for 96 minutes. The effect grows increasingly hypnotic as it becomes apparent that this non-stop march is in fact an escape through time with the onscreen narrator (Sergey Dreyden) playing the time-traveler, rubbing elbows with the…
Alan Arkin made his film debut as a Soviet submarine commander who runs aground off the coast of a rustic New England island that thinks it’s being invaded. The large ensemble cast recalls It’s a Mad Mad etc. World (also written by William Rose), but the story is more nuanced and satirical under the direction…
Blake Edwards’ film is best remembered as “Mary Poppins Gets Naked” but Julie Andrews’ toplessness aside, this 1981 satire is one of the most scathing critiques of Hollywood in movie history and features a fearless band of actors who know where all the bodies were buried. Among those classic stars who threw caution to the…
Look up “sordid” in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture from William Wellman’s Safe in Hell next to it. A New Orleans prostitute accused of murdering her pimp escapes to a Caribbean island where she encounters something far worse than a Louisiana jail. Dorothy Mackaill is the unlucky hooker and Morgan Wallace plays her…
The feel-bad movie of all time. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini updated the Marquis de Sade’s scandalous The 120 Days of Sodom from 18th century France to Fascist-era Italy, where the degradation of a group of teenagers serves as a political metaphor. Banned for years throughout the world, it calls into question the entire concept of…
Ken Russell’s shoestring production consists primarily of a spiritedly ribald performance of Oscar Wilde’s banned 1893 play Salome as enacted for the author by an enterprising troupe of prostitutes in his favorite brothel. Dan Ireland shares some of the secrets behind one of the director’s least-known films.
This 1968 film is just one in an ignoble line of un-hip hipster comedies of the late 60’s and early 70’s that included such clueless farragoes as Otto Preminger’s Skidoo and Lee Katzin’s The Phynx. Past-their-prime lotharios Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford star as club owners who back into a murder mystery and set…
Sampo Blu ray Deaf Crocodile/Vinegar Syndrome 1959 / 2:35:1 / 91 Min. Starring Anna Orochko, Andris Ošiņš, Eve Kivi Written by Väinö Kaukonen, Viktor Vitkovich, Grigori Yagdfeld Directed by Aleksandr Ptushko Mosfilm’s Sampo, a Russian fantasy from 1959, and Paramount’s White Christmas, a Yuletide bauble released in 1954, were both state of the art…
Roadshow epics were going the way of the dinosaur by the time Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles appeared in 1966, particularly in the wake of the small films (like that year’s Alfie and Georgy Girl) that were speaking to younger ticket-buyers in a way the stodgy blockbusters were not. More’s the pity because Wise’s film,…
This 1936 production is the second film to have been based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 The Maltese Falcon and although the names have been changed, the crimes remain the same… though this time the object of interest is not a jewel-encrusted falcon but a ram’s head filled with gems. Warner Bros. assigned Bette Davis to this right after The Petrified Forest and…
Ken Russell’s 1972 bio-pic about the fiery french sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (played by Scott Antony) whose brief and bright career positioned him as an important figure in the Cubist movement. There’s nothing cube-like about ravishing co-star Helen Mirren whose long and distinguished career was just beginning to take off. Featuring the venerable Michael Gough as…
Director Stan Lathan’s 1973 film documents a concert held during Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH exposition. Like Woodstock, it’s long for a concert film but with over 25 acts it needed to be. Featuring a once in a lifetime lineup of Motown greats including Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett, Issac Hayes, and the Jackson 5.
“WARNING! This motion picture depicts UXORICIDE!” (look it up). A phone prank gets two teen girls in big trouble with the murderer next door. The seat-belt gimmick depicted in this trailer is pretty half hearted; William Castle would soon give up on these adornments altogether.
“10 Seconds: The Pain Begins. 15 Seconds: You Can’t Breathe. 20 Seconds: You Explode.” Heads exploded at Avco Embassy Pictures when David Cronenberg’s Canadian telekinetic thriller grossed an unexpectedly hefty $14 million, setting the company on a course of profitable genre pix throughout the early ’80s. Two sequels (The New Order, The Takeover) and two…
There’s a heapin’-helpin’ of palace intrigue in this 1952 swashbuckler starring underrated action hero Stewart Granger (the role was a gift from MGM for his bang-up job in King Solomon’s Mines made two years earlier). Though it lacks the Boy’s Life adventurism of King Solomon, the movie is still brightly colored fun, shot by Charles Rosher (The…
The sinister presence of Bela Lugosi at his skulkiest (though he’s hardly in this trailer) adds the only layer of distinction to this disjointed poverty row “mystery” which at times seems like an unfinished feature stitched together in editing. Still has some delirious moments for die-hard fans.
Brian de Palma and Oliver Stone’s ultra-violent, over the top remake of the 1932 Howard Hawks classic moves the action to 1980s Miami and provoked a wave of negative reaction to its boisterous excesses. It had to be submitted three times to the MPAA before being cut to qualify for an R rating. Yet today…
John Landis spills on what he thinks (not much) of the ridiculous reissue trailer for his first movie, Schlock! — which, as John has reminded us over and over on Trailers from Hell, has to be Great because it stars a guy (John!) in a (Rick Baker!) gorilla suit! Nuff said!
Top-lined by David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and Drew Barrymore, Scream is the perfect horror film for Gen X’ers; full of slyly self-referential humor, Wes Craven’s 1996 meta-slasher flick came out of nowhere during that year’s Christmas season and assumed Godzilla-like proportions in the number of sequels it has spawned. It also ignited Kevin Williamson’s…
“Psycho” spawned a cottage industry of twist-ending killer-thrillers, and this modest Hammer entry is one of the best. Psycho’s unconventional ad campaign also led to gambits like this one, pretending the movie was just too scary to show any actual footage in the trailer!
Reputedly a favorite of Fritz Lang, this is an oddly structured sci-fi horror spy movie that anticipates a number of later horror trends. Fans tend to either love it or hate it, but it does provide a welcome break from the increasingly formulaic genre films of the period. Peter Cushing is misidentified in this trailer….
Directed by Bryan Forbes, this haunting film—a psychological thriller bordering on horror—deserves a bigger audience. Kim Stanley plays a medium desperate for fame and fortune, and Richard Attenborough is her much-too-compliant husband. Their scheme: kidnap a schoolgirl and use Stanley’s so-called psychic ability to help police “find” the child. Forbes wrote the screenplay based on…
John Frankenheimer’s chilling adaptation of David Ely’s sci-fi novel is one of the last classic works of his prolific 60s period before a dry spell and comeback in the 90s. A great score by Jerry Goldsmith and probably Rock Hudson’s best performance.
Nobody’s favorite Joseph Losey film, this strange, dreamlike melodrama found little audience reception and is more famous today for the hatchet job Universal did on it to broadcast it on network tv. Elizabeth Taylor, playing a prostitute in the original, became a woman “who tried on wigs for a living”!