Alain Resnais’ historical drama of the notorious l’affaire Stavisky is one of his most accessible movies. Producer-star Jean-Paul Belmondo was fascinated by the story of a swindler who conned half of France in the early 1930s, igniting a scandal that almost brought down the government. His Serge Stavisky projects the charisma of a grand conman,…
The movie ratings system experienced a rough beginning. Studios got the notion that America wanted R-rated product, which led to a number of mainstream movies that played like grindhouse smut. A main offender example is Roger Vadim’s unfunny soft-core murder comedy with big stars Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson. With its twisted fantasy of underaged…
This Blu-ray re-premieres a notable Joan Crawford picture that’s been all but unseeable since 1936. It’s romance and murder the way the Rich do it: Crawford’s swank socialite falls in love with the ideal mate played by Robert Montgomery, but she can’t shake a foreign lover who would rather blow up a scandal than give…
The best film of director John Flynn may be this unpretentious crime saga, a Richard Stark adaptation that makes no wrong moves across a hundred minutes of tense mob banditry. Robert Duvall is out of prison and looking to punish the syndicate. Aided by gunman Joe Don Baker and getaway driver Karen Black, he gets…
Richard Fleischer’s dystopian drama takes place in 2022, which makes it four years past its ‘sell by’ date. Is our world beginning to resemble Harry Harrison’s grim tale of overpopulation chaos? Charlton Heston essays another tough-guy Sci-fi hero, a detective who’d rather be paid in scarce grocery items than money. In his final film role,…
The Japanese New Wave strikes — in a challenging, entertaining art picture where all the perversity is in the characters’ heads. Shôhei Imamura’s unflinching view of low-level vice is a full menu of bad behavior — personal, social, legal — that makes us wonder if the problem is consumer society or human nature itself. The…
Whoa … Red Flag Down. We’re so spoiled by improved transfers of Public Domain titles that we forget that poor quality PD releases are still with us. This Sci-fi thriller was never a winner and can’t claim a positive reputation, but that doesn’t stop us completists from wanting to take a look … The cast…
After decades of neglect, George Pal’s history-making Sci-fi breakthrough arrives in a worthy video transfer. The milestone production is as original as Kubrick’s 2001 and arguably more influential, as it spurred the public to believe that space travel was a practical possibility. Filmed in Technicolor, Pal’s moonscapes captured the world’s imagination, and his silver-winged craft…
One of the best combat films of World War II is this MGM ode to the 1942 Dolittle Raid, the strike at the mainland of Japan conducted as a needed morale booster in the early months of hostilities. Some Hollywood films were an outlet for public outrage against the enemy; Dalton Trumbo’s screenplay records honest…
Here’s a rather good picture that’s a tough sell. We especially admire its comic tightrope act … there’s no humor in the Holocaust, but there always is in human nature. It’s a potentially grim story positioned as comedy, or an odd kind of anti-comedy. David Hayman is a cranky old concentration camp survivor living in…
Sans mobile apparent. Star Jean-Louis Trintignant and composer Ennio Morricone dominate this cheerfully attractive serial killer tale, shot in sunny Nice. A mad sniper is nailing Frenchmen right and left, and Inspector Trintignant is fresh out of clues. Philippe Labro directs from a book by Ed McBain, with Dominique Sanda, Carla Gravina, Laura Antonelli and…
I’ll bet that plenty of Russians enjoy this Cold War thriller — Sean Connery charms everyone. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan tale is a real winner, with a a cast that really shines: Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Richard Jordan, Peter Firth, Tim Curry, Stellan Skarsgård and Jeffrey Jones. The seagoing…
Head Against the Wall. Georges Franju’s first feature adapts a novel protesting the French system of mental health asylums — and breathes poetry into every scene, with images that evoke more than what meets the eye. Young star (and screenwriter) Jean-Pierre Mocky is a spoiled punk locked away by a vengeful father. There’s no appeal:…
High on the list of ’60s mainstream movie entertainments is this twist-laden comic-romantic murder thriller, cleverly modeled on the Hitchcock template by screenwriter Peter Stone. The subgenre usually concentrates either on style or the charm of its personalities; with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant we get both. It’s got chemistry and a sense of fun:…
Director Joe Dante’s special skill with actors shines in this overachieving ‘juvenile’ space adventure that overflows with The Sense of Wonder. It is now in crystal 4K clarity. With a boost from aliens unknown, intrepid space cadets Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix and Jason Presson construct a fantastic vehicle; they dare to escape from the petty…
Dennis Bartok brings an oddball film back from obscurity — an unreleased big budget comic Sci-fi musical given a big 1970 premiere, only to drop out of sight for decades. The immediate point of interest is that its star is the late Olivia Newton-John, a full eight years before her big breakout co-starring with John…
Criterion’s reboot of their branded line Eclipse goes in a great direction with a remaster of Carlos Saura and Antonio Gades’ marvelous flamenco movies of the 1980s. The three features together did a lot for flamenco’s international standing. The most popular was the dynamic and sexy flamenco ballet Carmen, a picture that filled art theaters…
It’s glamour time with one of Joan Crawford’s best star vehicles, a core shopgirl-to-Park Avenue saga that’s All About Joan. Clark Gable provides dreamboat chemistry as her Big Apple conquest, but every scene belongs to Crawford. She speaks not only her lines but sometimes Clark’s speeches as well. Being a kept woman has its downside…
A highlight of this year’s awards season becomes a handsome, rewarding Criterion release. Joachim Trier’s drama finds power in the intersection of ‘normal life,’ ambition in the arts, and the way family secrets meld with national history. Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinseve command our attention as a father and daughter split by ‘art and resentment,’…
Spaghetti westerns were the rage in 1969, as long as the action was constant and the body count high. An Italo producer made a lucrative deal with MGM for a ‘Dirty Dozen western’ with the name star Peter Graves. International success was guaranteed with the casting of Japanese star Tetsuro Tanba. The Dario Argento story…
1963’s critics favored this ‘cerebral’ Sci-fi offering but the main draw was its mysterious heroine, a new bride who may be an invader from beyond the stars. Fave actor John Neville is the Think Tank boffin who doesn’t understand why his wife isn’t like other women … just for starters, she doesn’t have a pulse….
Director Richard Fleischer’s crime thriller passed the test with RKO’s new owner Howard Hughes, possibly because of its clever story hook: a mannequin is made of a fugitive serial killer, to better understand the killer’s motives. Otherwise its Fleischer’s creative, snappy direction that raises the picture above the category of ‘B’ filler product. Lady reporter…
George Pal’s production had a hard nut to crack, adapting a highly misanthropic adult novel to serve as a family attraction for all ages. On its own terms it works, with an engaging cast and creative visual effects. Tony Randall’s charm is a huge asset, while Arthur O’Connell and especially Barbara Eden ace their parts….
Nope, it’s not a stealth Karloff horror feature, but another of his underworld roles … actually, a semi-underworld role in a nifty ensemble thriller about a Night Club with connections to The Mob. Karloff is Happy MacDonald, and Everybody comes to ‘Happy’s Club’ — including the drunken Lew Ayres and Broadway sharpie George Raft. Showgirl…
James Garner takes a spin as the world-weary detective Philip Marlowe — “unassailably virtuous, invariably broke.” An updating of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister takes Marlowe to 1969 Hollywood, but the story remains the same: blackmail, gangsters and ice pick murders. Gayle Hunnicutt and Sharon Farrell are the Quest sisters, Bruce Lee a kung-fu hoodlum…
Douglas Fairbanks’ miracle film of the silent era is back in a new restoration from Photoplay Productions, with a bounty of extras; we can marvel that this 102 year-old masterpiece is in such good condition. The physical production was mounted on a massive scale, right in the middle of Hollywood: enormous sets, fantastic designs and…