You couldn’t tell from this trailer, which completely obscures the plot, or the obfuscating ad campaign (“Veronica Lake is on the take”(!)), but Preston Sturges’ brilliant Hollywood satire, which inspired the Coen Bros.’ Oh Brother Where Art Thou and has been the target of decades of aborted remake attempts, is one of the finest movies…

Olivier Assayas channels New Wave master Éric Rohmer in this drama about a family whose reunion stirs some awkward conversations about the ties that bind. Juliette Binoche stars along with the legendary Édith Scob as the family matriarch. Cinematographer Eric Gautier conjures up a sun-drenched tribute to Nestor Almendros.

Canada’s isolated countrysides are fertile territory for thrillers like John Trent’s Sunday in the Country where Ernest Borgnine fends off a trio of  violent thugs before revealing his own bloodthirsty tendencies. Michael J. Pollard plays the lead psychopath and Hollis McLaren is Borgnine’s granddaughter. Trent wrote the screenplay with Robert Maxwell (TV’s Adventures of Superman!).

Three champions of Italian cinema, Vittorio De Sica, Sophia Loren, and Marcello Mastroianni, join forces to make a movie in… Russia. Not as incongruous as it sounds, Loren and Mastroianni play lovers separated by World War II only to reunite in the Soviet Union. The film extends its continental approach to the crew: the great…

Billy Wilder royally p.o.’d most of the Hollywood establishment with this devastatingly dark yet moving take on the tragic decline of silent movie queen Norma Desmond (an unforgettable Gloria Swanson), pushed aside by an unfeeling industry. One of the all-time greats. “I AM big! It’s the PICTURES that got small!”

Although not widely distributed theatrically, Sergio Corbucci’s little-known Italian-Spanish superhero comedy has a tremendous fan base of kids who saw it on HBO in the early 80s. Terence Hill (Mario Girotti), who usually made comic westerns with partner Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli), is Dave Speed, telekinetic flying supercop, who makes life tough for his bewildered…

Maverick meets Yojimbo in Burt Kennedy’s raucous horse opera about a confidence man working both sides of a small town feud. James Garner plays the conniving charmer and Suzanne Pleshette is the fiery belle determined to corral his worst instincts. Hollywood’s golden age is represented by a formidable duo, Marie Windsor and Joan Blondell.

Burt Kennedy’s comic western couldn’t decide if it was slapstick or satire but the inherent appeal of James Garner grinning his way through his role as a reluctant gunslinger made this 1969 release an eventual hit (it stalled at the box office till Garner arranged an extra week in theaters). The movie gallops by with…

Edgar has his own thoughts on the very different American trailer that accompanied the US release of Argento’s classic.

Taking up the lurid mantle of Mario Bava, former film critic Dario Argento rocketed to international prominence with this highly influential giallo which spawned countless imitations. This is the international trailer made for export.

Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s corrosive look at Power in America as typified by an unscrupulous and possibly insane Broadway columnist modeled on Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell. Brilliantly directed by the underrated Alexander Mackendrick. A must-see. Sweet Smell of Success: The Fantastic Falco | The Current | The Criterion Collection

“The searing sting of the whip burned the brand of hate into her heart!” Narrator Paul Frees (at his sleaziest) hawks the dubious charms of this sub-New World imitation chicks-in-chains nudity-fest from Dimension, the Avis of drive-in suppliers. It’s hard to believe anything could look cheaper than the Doll House movies that inspired this, but…

“Rated X by an all-white jury” was the tagline for Melvin Van Peebles’ incendiary, groundbreaking 1971 indie. It grossed $15 million on a 150k budget and spurred a blaxploitation craze that lasted throughout the 70s. Dedicated to “all the Brothers and Sisters who are tired of being held down by the Man,” it spoke indelibly…

Jack Hill tells us the story behind his fast and funky drive-in perennial, a sort-of follow-up to the 1973 hit The Cheerleaders. The fact that the trailer reuses the same cheerleading shot several times is an indication of how far the budget had to be stretched.

Quentin Tarantino personally resurrected the street cred of Jack Hill’s teen gang deb quickie to the point of an unheard-of 2005 theatrical reissue. Jack kinda sorta thinks of it as his version of Othello!

Most of the archival footage you’ve seen of seminal rock acts comes from this groundbreaking musical documentary, shot In “Electronovision” and a huge hit for AIP in 1964.

Herbert Ross directed and Peter Hyams wrote and produced this comedy/drama about a small town girl’s sordid adventures in the Windy City circa 1971. Starring Candice Bergen as an office temp-turned-hooker and James Caan and Peter Boyle as the men in her life, the film would have qualified as a pre-code cautionary tale in the…

There was a remake of Joe Sargent and Peter Stone’s quintessential New York subway heist movie, but it was hard-pressed to match the economy, ambience and wit of the original. Every role, down to the smallest bit, is perfectly cast.

Roger Corman takes us behind the scenes of his fourth Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, a three-story omnibus written by Richard Matheson. Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone seem to be having a swell time.

New Jersey native Alfred Sole caught some critics’ eyes with his creepily Hitchcock-influenced but poorly distributed Alice Sweet Alice (a.k.a. Communion), and soon gave up directing for a more productive career as a production designer. His penultimate directorial effort was Tanya’s Island, an even more obscure and bizarre pseudo-sexploitation fantasy starring sexy model Vanity (billed…

Universal was the leader in slickly produced 50s genre pix, and here’s another eerie desert-set chiller from Jack Arnold with good special FX and creepy makeups. Leo G. Carroll, one of Hitchcock’s favorite actors, classes up the joint as the scientist whose serum results in big buggery.

Before Robby and The Terminator, movie robots tended toward the bulky and box-like. One such vacuum-hosed menace stands in for offscreen hordes in this cheap but fun alien invasion saga, circa 1954.

Peter Bogdanovich’s harrowing directorial debut was made independently and sold to Paramount, becoming an effective calling card for his career in the majors. In the wake of the rash of 1968 political assassinations the studio got cold feet and slapped on a misjudged gun control card at the beginning. Bogdanovich plays a film director named…

Generally regarded as the pinnacle of MGM’s Tarzan series, this pre-code entry is the second in the 12-picture Weissmuller series, spectacularly produced and unexpectedly violent considering the kid-friendly tone of later episodes. Though credited to veteran art director Cedric Gibbons, most of the film was directed by Jack Conway and James C. McKay.

Probably the last creditable Dracula sequel and one of the better Hammer productions of the period, despite the fact that the vampire Count himself was a late addition to the mix. Ralph Bates as the fiendish Lord Courtley was intended to take over the reins from Christopher Lee as the continuing menace but the US…

Bernard Herrmann’s pulsating final score propels one of the great New York movies which brilliantly captures a time and place that has largely disappeared. But the dark corners of Paul Schrader’s disturbing screenplay are illuminated by Martin Scorsese’s intensely affecting collaboration with star Robert De Niro in perhaps his greatest role. This lost the Best…