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…

Notorious envelope-pusher Otto Preminger was the first to produce an adult movie about drug addiction, based on Nelson Algren’s novel about a heroin addict’s desperation to kick the habit. Released without an MPAA seal, it helped liberate subsequent films from the rigid strictures of the production code. Elmer Bernstein’s jazz score and Saul Bass’s title…

Perfectly cast down to the smallest roles, director John Frankenheimer’s stunning satirical thriller was part of his remarkable run of quality hits during the 1960s. Oddly, this one was not a box office success and its classic status only kicked in when it was reissued in 1988, after being pulled from distribution following the Kennedy…

Lawrence Turman’s film stands alongside Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Blume in Love and other films of the late 60’s/early 70’s that found middle class Americans fed up and frustrated in their search for marital bliss. Carrying on in that tradition, Stockbroker zeroes in on one man’s attempt to patch up his empty union through the fine art of…

John Landis was the natural choice to talk about this middling post-Thalberg Marx Bros. movie. Can you guess why? Because it has Charlie Gemora in a Gorilla Suit! Groucho introduces the now iconic, W.S. Gilbert-inspired song “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”. This is the one where the boys save a circus from bankruptcy. Kinda topical, except…

Julian Roffman’s The Mask, Canada’s first horror film, alternates a routine 2-D horror story with trippy psychedelic fantasy sequences centering on a haunted Aztec artifact. Viewers were given Magic Mystic Masks to see the dreams in anaglyphic 3-D (no, they didn’t look anything like the clunky mask seen in this odd trailer). Reissued repeatedly over the years as Eyes…

The Wachowski Sisters’ genre bending thriller plays more levels of 3-D chess than perhaps Spock himself could have handled. The directors tapped into some mind-meld with moviegoers as well; The Matrix was a smash hit making way for two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Stylistically innovative and much copied, the film starred Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and…

This theatrical mashup of TV’s The Virginian comes with a heavyweight pedigree—Sam Fuller is one of the directors and the stars include Charles Grodin, Lee Marvin, and Charles Bronson. Pity the poor movie editors, they were working with material from two separate episodes, 1962’s It Tolls For Thee and Reckoning from 1967.

A wild night on the town with departing soldiers leaves small town girl Trudy Kockenlocker with child–but she can’t remember who the father is, so the lovestruck schnook Norval Jones is recruited to protect her honor. Although it was Paramount’s biggest hit of 1944 (after being held on the shelf for a year), Preston Sturges’…

Blithely thumbing his nose at the Hays office, Preston Sturges’s wartime farce concerns a virginal young woman who goes a little too far in her support for the troops – the fact that her name, Trudy Kockenlocker, is not the movie’s most outrageous element should tell you all you need to know. Starring Eddie Bracken and…

Low rent but affectionately made by professional monster movie fans, this  modest Creature imitation didn’t garner many theatrical playdates but had a long afterlife on tv Double Chiller programs. The well constructed Monster is considerably less sympathetic than his Black Lagoon compatriot. The producers missed a bet by not hiring their lead actor, radio star Les…

Reuniting the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Wolfman and the Mummy for the first time since Paul Naschy’s Assignment Terror, director Fred Dekker’s affectionate horror comedy simultaneously salutes the classic Universal Monsters and the nostalgia for our own childhoods. Though the box office was initially meager, the film engendered the good will of critics and has endured as…

Too close for comfort, Frank Borzage’s 1940 drama reunites the stars of The Shop Around the Corner, James Stewart, Margret Sullavan and Frank Morgan, in far more ominous circumstances – the overthrow of Germany by fascist rule. One of the first Hollywood “resistance” films, the movie features Father Knows Best star Robert Young as an up and…