Robert Fuest’s 1973 film plays out in the world’s waning hours; Trafalgar Square is dust, the Vatican has disappeared. Jon Finch plays Jerry Cornelius, a playboy physicist with a James Bond complex. His preening self-confidence is tested when the secret of his late father’s invention makes him the target of his own family. Fuest loads…
Along with The Apple and Can’t Stop the Music, The Last Dragon stands at the pinnacle of 80’s WTF movie-making. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, co-produced this jaw-dropping mix of of martial arts and musical numbers that must be seen to be disbelieved. The bizarro plot revolves around a Bruce Lee acolyte who…
Even heavily invested fans of the great director may not have known about this little-seen film from Vittorio De Sica. A multi-storied phantasmagoria about the end of the world (announced from on high in a booming voice) the movie features a psychotronic cast worthy of Irwin Allen’s The Story of Mankind including Anouk Aimee, Jack…
It’s Vincent Price vs. plague-ridden zombie/vampires in a bleakly depopulated urban setting in this surprisingly influential US-Italian coproduction. Although it fell into into the public domain in the US its reputation has risen in recent years and parts of it seem eerily predictive of the coronoa virus situation. It’s available in its full TotalScope glory…
To the roster of forgotten comedy teams (Wheeler and Woolsey, Brown and Carney, Mitchell and Petrillo, etc.) can be added tv/nightclub comics Allen and Rossi, whose brief moment in the sun produced only a single feature film. This laboriously zany spy spoof features the charisma-challenged duo as inept would-be James Bonds with Hitchcock regular John…
The ghosts of Howard Hawks and John Ford hover over film buff/historian Peter Bogdanovich’s first studio movie after the impressive indie Targets. Orson Welles persuaded him to insist on shooting his Oscar winning adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s semi-autobiographical novel in black and white, unusual for the period. He followed it in 1990 with a sequel,…
Pop-eyed Brit comic Marty Feldman directs and stars in this wacky spoof chosen from a list of titles to which Universal owned the remake rights. Taken away from him and completely recut by the studio, it nevertheless ended up a critical and financial success. When the New York Times published a rave review, Feldman wrote…
Lance Guest plays a teen obsessed with an arcade game named “Starfighter” that turns out to be an intergalactic training vehicle. Thanks to his high scores, he’s whisked away by avuncular alien Robert Preston to join other warriors in protecting his home planet. Director Nick Castle (best known for portraying Michael Meyers in Halloween) was one of the…
Written, directed, and edited by TFH Guru Francis Galluppi, The Last Stop in Yuma County is a ’70s noir steeped in that era’s culture—the crooks drive a green Ford Pinto. Set in and around a diner and filling station in the middle of Arizona, Jim Cummings (another TFH Guru!) plays a knife salesman drawn into…
The Shangri-La of war movies, James Clavell’s epic set during the 30 Years War stars Michael Caine as a mercenary and Omar Sharif as a teacher who take haven in an idyllic valley still untouched by bloodshed. The last movie produced in 70mm Todd A-O is gorgeously shot on fabulous locations but despite fine performances and one of John…
Probably best known as the basis for the TV series Petrocelli, Sidney Furie’s 1970 crime drama stars Barry Newman as an ambitious lawyer who makes his name in a high profile murder case. Diana Muldaur co-stars as Newman’s wife and TV perennial Harold J. Stone plays his volatile courtroom rival.
Audacious for 1964, Sidney Furie’s daring take on Kitchen Sink dramas stars Rita Tushingham as a young bride whose husband begins to show more interest in biker boys than herself. Based on Gillian Freeman’s book, the movie benefits mightily from Gerald Gibbs’ streamlined black and white cinematography.
A middle-aged woman regains her youth by way of a magic potion that has lethal consequences. Colleen Moore plays the vain dowager and Grant Williams is the unlucky lothario who catches her eye. Directed by Edward Dein and co-starring preeminent scream queen Gloria Talbott, The Leech Woman is emblematic of Universal’s sci-fi horror films of…
The second of Bette Davis’ three collaborations with William Wyler (the first was 1938’s Jezebel boasting a brilliant Davis performance), this 1940 melodrama features a somewhat convoluted plot mixing betrayal and revenge while playing out in an overheated Malaysian setting. The theatrical hijinks are grimly effective and Davis and Wyler are near their peak, not to mention the underrated Gale…
This late career John Huston comedy-western seems to have been an attempt to hitch a ride on the Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid train to boxoffice glory, but it was a critical and financial misfire. Paul Newman is back, this time as a highly unlikely incarnation of frontier hardass Roy Bean, the self-appointed “judge” known as “the…
After years of increasingly cartoonish shenanigans, producers Albert Broccoli and Michael Wilson got back to 007’s no-nonsense roots with this 1987 entry directed by John Glen. Timothy Dalton makes the first of two appearances as a dour but no-less daring Bond and the plot itself—about a defecting KGB agent—is certainly more reminiscent of Ian Fleming’s…
Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp don’t just push the envelope, they light it on fire in this anti-nostalgic look at the masked avenger and his faithful Indian partner—in other words, don’t expect a return to “those thrilling days of yesteryear”, this is a defiantly post-modern (some would say comical) take on The Lone Ranger and…
Knighted in 2001, Tom Courtenay shot to stardom in 1962 as Colin Smith, a troubled teen who finds redemption in long-distance running. Tony Richardson directed while screenwriter Alan Sillitoe based the script on his own short story. Though Britain’s “kitchen sink” dramas usually took place on the wrong side of the tracks, they had their…
Someone save Judith Hearne, for she can’t save herself. Jack Clayton’s film of Brian Moore’s novel has stunning performances by Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins — but whew, for many of us its social cruelties will feel like traumatic emotional abuse. Not enough nasty people and clueless victims in your life? … this show will…
Inspired by an overture from Hell’s Angels’ Sonny Barger to President Johnson offering up his boys as “gorilla fighters”, director Jack Starrett and screenwriter Alan Caillou serve up quite the grindhouse mish-mash in this 1970 rarity. A brave biker gang plows into Vietnam on a rescue mission – straddling specially rigged motorcycles with armor and special weaponry,…
Roger Corman-esque in its spirit but mainly in its bottom line, director/writer Larry Blamire’s low budget spoof is a valentine to the cash-poor horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s. Like the best independent producers of that time, Blamire got his movie made by calling in favors and stocking his cast with friends and family (his wife…
One of the lesser lights in the Screen Gems Shock TV package that helped initiate the Monster Kid boom in the late 50s. These lurid, cheap but slickly produced double feature items, usually running between 60 and 75 minutes, were ideal for programming in 90 minute time slots with commercials. At least this one has…
Based on a novel by Sloan Wilson and directed by Nunnally Johnson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit follows the lead of The Best Years of Our Lives as it traces the trajectory of a troubled World War II vet while at the same time explicitly addressing the effects of PTSD (referred to in…
Based on Victor Hugo’s 19th century novel, Paul Leni’s The Man Who Laughs is one of the most influential achievements in film history, if for no other reason than as the inspiration for The Joker. A soulful Conrad Veidt stars as Gwynplaine, a circus clown whose permanent grimace is a mocking reminder of his miserable…
Originally titled The Man Who Changed His Mind, this nimble and witty British film about a scientist specializing in mind transferals deserves a much bigger audience. Robert Stevenson directs in an energetic style that belies the occasionally stage bound work found in his later studio blockbusters and a premium band of screenwriters, including John Balderston…
For better and for worse, John Ford understood tall tales helped shape America as much as the truth—The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is the director’s tribute to the lies we tell ourselves about our heroes. James Stewart is the country lawyer who gains fame and fortune thanks to John Wayne’s selfless act and Lee…