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…

1985’s Teen Wolf flips the similarly themed I Was a Teenage Werewolf on its head. Instead of the heavy breathing psychodrama of Michael Landon’s tortured teen, we’re treated to a family-friendly comedy where Michael Fox’s lycanthropic curse is used as a metaphor for self-empowerment. Director Rod Daniel’s film was a modest success leading to a…

The sole directorial effort of cinematographer Jacques Marquette (A Bucket of Blood, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Burnt Offerings) came about when the intended director backed out, reducing the 8 day schedule by one, and DP Marquette took over.  It’s an odd but entirely conventional amalgam of monster movie and sagebrush saga. Shot for…

Lightning in a bottle: AIP’s penchant for making bargain- basement movies based on title and poster research paid off in spades with this hugely influential amalgam of juvenile delinquent and monster genres. The surprise hit of 1957.

Indie filmmaker Tom Graeff, inspired to make his own movie after completing a grip job on Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth, convinced monster maker Paul Blaisdell to design the dime store ray gun mirror-reflective gags and the beat-up spray-painted flying saucer shell with the visible crack in it for his magnum opus, which has…

Although MIA for several years, we’ve recovered our 600th trailer commentary which was Epic in every way. Larry Cohen extemporizes 10 MINUTES of stuff to say about this extended promo for C.B. DeMille’s last religious spectacle– which isn’t really so much about the Bible as it is about Anne Baxter’s breasts. Seems like every ten…

Director George Pollack shepherded four Agatha Christie thrillers into theaters between 1961 and 1964, each starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple and each a model of lighthearted moviemaking deftly mixing comedy and chills. In 1965, Pollack took an international cast including Hugh O’Brian, Shirley Eaton and Stanley Holloway to Ireland where he tackled Ten LIttle Indians,…