Big budget westerns from the past are looking better than ever — the fine cinematography and big-star casts dazzle as contemporary films never do. Steve McQueen took a leap to stand-alone action stardom in Henry Hathaway’s prequel to The Carpetbaggers, telling a western backstory. The film’s violence is extremely rough for 1966, and an impressive…
Let’s pop back once again to take in an old-fashioned Lone Samurai saga — this one’s worth it. Preceding the Lone Wolf and Cub series but sharing a creator and some of the same violent stylistics, it’s a hero-on-the-road tale with creative, original touches, including a spy-ninja angle that enlists what looks like magic at…
Stylish and energetic, this gangster saga from Brian De Palma and David Koepp is solid both in characters and genre action. It’s a crime tragedy set in Spanish Harlem, with a fine perf from Al Pacino as a former kingpin trying to go straight. He’s sprung from a long prison term by Sean Penn’s mob…
The legendary Jim Thompson strikes again: director James Foley’s spin on this intense, character-driven crime piece may be the movies’ truest expression of Thompson’s jaundiced world view. It’s a top title for its players Jason Patric and Rachel Ward, with Bruce Dern sealing the deal. The low-rent margins of Palm Springs are the setting for…
Out of the legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll ‘fifties comes another story that ends on The Day the Music Died. Luis Valdez’s account of the rise and sudden silencing of the great Richie Valens avoids exaggeration to instead celebrate the young man’s positive potential. This is the show that put Lou Diamond Phillips on the map,…
Perhaps the strong women characters got this William Wellman movie chosen for Blu-ray, but it indeed ranks up there with the best of wagon train epics. Robert Taylor plays opposite a large cast of actresses that we see doing the hard work on rugged distant locations. Realism isn’t compromised — the unusually violent story is…
A filmmaker with a genuine vision: Nicolas Roeg’s first solo directing effort is a masterpiece of images and montage, excellent storytelling with intimations of natural forces at work. Abandoned with her brother, Jenny Agutter’s Sydney schoolgirl is helped in survival by David Gulpilil’s aboriginal youth on a wilderness rite of passage. It’s a credible loss-of-innocence…
A happy cult of disc collectors aches for titles from the dawn of sound; the Warner Archive gifts them with this much-improved remaster of what’s known as the actual first all-singing, all talking Hollywood musical. It looks so good, we can feel the footlights burning hard on the talent straight from the stage, while the…
The two-word title for this thriller demonstrates real Truth in Advertising — it’s all about the ba-a-d bear, and everyone else is Special Supporting Snack Food. This 2023 equivalent of an old-fashioned Creature Feature generated positive buzz last February. It’s just your average gore horror thriller with some big talent, that’s also an irreverent comedy…
No CGI allowed! Adventure film fans dote on Real Action happening with real stuntmen, and John Frankenheimer’s Resistance epic has more physical action than almost anything. Burt Lancaster and others risk their necks on moving trains as they derail and explode; the timing of some shots is worthy of applause. The drama about national art…
Croatian animation wizard Dušan Vukotić co-wrote and directed this Sci-fi comedy that gently elbows the genre. It unspools like a children’s film for adults, teasing nudity, exaggerated violence, etc.. The Fun and Games play with a Philip K. Dick idea — the fertile mind of a frustrated Sci-fi writer can morph reality. The aliens he…
Strikingly original & endlessly creative, Charles Laughton’s solo directorial effort continues to stun audiences with the expressive power of pure cinema. It’s an ‘American Primitive’ mix of storybook candor and nightmare imagery; the performances are styled after an earlier era of direct drama. Davis Grubb’s theme is more relevant than ever — the conflict of…
Spaghetti westerns are are still popular, especially with high-quality releases like this available. This 1967 pseudo-Django oater is from the boxed set Blood Money – Four Western Classics Vol. 2. It’s concocted to appeal to the fans of Sergio Leone. Gianni Garko is a handsome if colorless bounty hunter hero, and the notorious actor Claudio…
Tagging Carl Franklin’s superb crime thriller as a neo-noir isn’t enough; it’s practically perfect despite being made at a direct-to-video production level. Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams and Billy Bob Thornton give some of the best performances of the 1990s. We also marvel at Thornton and Tom Epperson’s screenplay, which advances some good thinking about race…
Ruthless spy thrills, big-star glitz plus pretensions of political importance: Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway find career-sustaining momentum in this slick, top-talent espionage tale on the fashionable end of post- Watergate paranoia. It’s a box office winner for director Sydney Pollack, who gives the show his special energy — he was Robert Redford’s most consistent…
The old TV Guide blurb nailed it: “Hidden in a radioactive cloud, a creature from outer space awaits its next victim.” CineSavant braves the freezing heights of the Trollenberg to wildly over-analyze this curiously fascinating bit of Brit Sci-fi, made on the cheap yet an over-achiever for imaginative suspense and jolting Jump Scares. Forrest Tucker…
“Anything Goes in Wichita!” In the second half of his starring career Joel McCrea turned to westerns, favoring ‘kinder and gentler’ scripts when possible. This civilized telling of part of the Wyatt Earp story was McCrea’s first collaboration with producer Walter Mirisch. It’s an Allied Artists ‘A’ picture right down the line, and a special…
Jacques Deray’s Yankee-style Buddy picture was a smash in France, with its stellar pairing of Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The expensive epic is a gangster picture suitable for James Cagney, but set in 1930 Marseille and stressing elaborate period costumes, automobiles and fancy décor. Our boys take turns admiring the attractive female stars, punching…
This 2016 restoration helps Eugene O’Neill’s seagoing story retake its place as one of John Ford’s most accomplished pictures. John Wayne stars as part of an ensemble — Ford’s direction and Gregg Toland’s cinematography are the stars. A crew of ordinary merchant seaman must sail into wartime waters. O’Neill provides the ironic character studies, and…
All hail the lowly output of Hollywood’s Poverty Row, where mediocrity ruled and good work was rarely rewarded. This potboiler about an avaricious slayer of ‘inconvenient’ suitors is memorable for its low-rent charm and rather vague performances — although glamorous leading lady Leslie Brooks is quite capable with both gun and knife. We celebrate this…
“Terrific as all Creation!” Wesley Ruggles’s film adaptation of Edna Ferber’s epic novel won the Oscar for Best Picture, helping to establish the RKO studio. Noble Richard Dix and beautiful Irene Dunne’s complex characters span 40 years of Oklahoma history — the oil wells arrive, the wild west fades, and Dix’s heroic Yancey Cravat never…
A William Friedkin fan favorite reaches 4K — the reputation of this thriller has risen over the years, along with the career of its cultured villain, Willem Dafoe. On the trail of a murderous counterfeiter, William Petersen’s elite Secret Service agent goes rogue, running wild and putting lives at risk. His callous use of informants…
They said ‘We’ll always have Paris,’ but for three weeks in 1944 the survival of the City of Light was in grave doubt. This gigantic all-star national epic didn’t please everyone yet will dazzle viewers willing to accept the city itself as the star. Working from a screenplay by two Americans, director René Clément shows…
Everyone’s favorite gun-down & sing-along John Wayne western is also Howard Hawks’ cagy comeback in an industry that had left him behind. Hawks stitched together favorite ‘pieces’ of his 1940s hits and imposed the structure of an impromptu TV sitcom. Accompanying the box office powerhouse Wayne is a comedian-crooner still proving his worth as an…
Abraham Polonsky’s ode to corruption in the American success story is one of film noir’s most artistic achievements as well as John Garfield’s best film. It’s realistic in tone, yet its dialogues are stylized almost to the level of poetry. A hotshot lawyer goes too far while lobbying for a ‘slightly illegal’ racket. Blinded by…
Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher. “Pure western heaven” is the catchphrase for Budd Boetticher’s perfectly-scaled ruminations on ethics and actions in an imperfect wilderness. The five RANdolph-brOWN features here present Randolph Scott’s range rider as an icon of masculine nobility. The new 4K encodings transport home theaters to a lost era of horse-opera…