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…
Sidney Lumet directs his first on-location New York crime picture, giving the escapist heist thriller a taste of paranoid cinema to come. Released after ten years in stir, thief Sean Connery launches into an immediate raid on a swank 5th Avenue apartment building, not realizing that a Brave New Surveillance World is watching and recording…
Those joyous School Days of intimidation, threats, and Murder! The helpful extras on this new Blu release explain how this tale of cold-blooded malice in a British ‘public school’ ( = a private school with a steep tuition) is deeply rooted in UK culture. This film version brilliantly directed by John Mackenzie reflects a restrained,…
As his career wound down Akira Kurosawa found new champions among Hollywood’s young ‘film student’ generation, several of whom helped him secure financing for important film projects. Warner Brothers backed this utterly personal film of poetic expression, containing several ‘short stories’ illustrated with fanciful visuals. Kurosawa’s ‘dreams’ include a mythical fable, a haunted tale of…
William Wyler’s perennial charmer is 100% undiluted entertainment: Gregory Peck and the new star Audrey Hepburn share a Roman fairy tale that’s also a tourist’s dream. A runaway Princess takes in the town like a galavanting Cinderella, not realizing that she’s being set up for an image-damaging photojournalism exposé. The show is a hands-down joy…
Robert Wise’s Italy-filmed epic looks better than ever on Blu, showcasing a fine cast and imaginative special effects. It’s a straight telling of Homer’s The Iliad with just a drop of Cold War attitude — this time the Greeks are the unreasonable aggressors. Neither Rossana Podestà nor Jacques Sernas excited the critics of ’56, but…
James Coburn’s starring film career began with projects he deemed ‘far-out’ — and writer-director Bernard Girard promptly hooked him on this eccentric thriller about an infallibly seductive con-man. It’s a low-key, non-violent puzzle picture about a perfect heist, and also a guessing game that skips from San Francisco to Denver to Boston to Los Angeles,…
Elia Kazan hits 4K with an extras-lean but visually stunning edition of this early CinemaScope feature, now rated ‘PG.’ It’s James Dean’s first and best starring role, and with Kazan in charge the actors push the ‘drama’ accelerator to the floor. It still holds up, with top-billed Julie Harris doing everything Dean does, but effortlessly…
Terry Gilliam’s fantasy epic is back in the super 4K Ultra HD format, which makes his achievement look all the more spectacular. Two hours of unceasing visual miracles, delightful personalities and wickedly civilized humor begin when a pack of cosmic workers purloin a celestial map and become time-traveling thieves. A young hero joins them and…
‘Fate’ is a frequent player in classic noir, but this spooky 1948 charmer crosses noir atmosphere with a semi-supernatural vibe — enforced by a top performance from Edward G. Robinson, plus the eerie presence of Gail Russell, She Who Possesses the Saddest Eyes in Hollywood. A showbiz mentalist suddenly experiences foreshadowings of deaths to come,…
Sky High + The Big Diamond Robbery. The top cowboy star of the silent era and his wonder horse Tony were once the idol of a million kids — and now they’re back again in remastered editions. SKY HIGH is mostly filmed around, over and deep inside the Grand Canyon — in 1922. THE BIG…
A domestic Blu-ray arrives of Mark Robson’s Korean War rumination, from the pen of James Michener and fleshed out 100% by Paramount’s crack visual effects team. Superstar leads William Holden and Grace Kelly illustrate a hard lesson of modern warfare — even in ‘asymmetrical’ high-tech combat there is no guarantee of survival. Charles McGraw, Fredric…
We can hardly believe this — a nearly perfect 4K encoding of this all-time favorite monster epic has arrived, with only a few weeks’ notice. The sharp, brightly colored image finally reflects Freddie Young’s rich textures, returning the word ‘artful’ to writer-director-designer Eugène Lourié’s family-friendly yarn about a city-smashing ‘Irish sea fairie.’ Talk about childhood…
Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter shake up the notion of English propriety, as butler Dirk Bogarde ‘invades and subverts’ the life of his employer James Fox, through subtle psychological manipulation and the seductive power of his supposed ‘sister,’ a very young Sarah Miles. Wendy Craig is the confused fiancé in this serious, sinister and fascinating…
Howard Hawks presents ancient history as a lavish spectacle: tens of thousands of extras build a giant pyramid on the extra-wide CinemaScope screen, aided by the excitement and mysticism of Dimitri Tiomkin’s exotic music score. So convincing is the recreation, we almost believe the tomb-sealing sci-fi mechanics that shift stone blocks weighing tons, in just…
Roger Donaldson’s smartly scripted and produced 1984 remake of history’s most famous high-seas mutiny gets a lavish treatment on this two-disc Blu-ray set, with hours of extras about its filming and the shifting historical consensus about what took place down Tahiti-way in 1789. You just can’t keep the swabbies below decks eating hardtack, when they’re…
Are doors finally opening for the remaining hold-outs in classic Eurohorror? All-Region fans can rejoice at the availability of Mario Bava’s La frusta e il corpo in a Blu-ray encoding that finally reflects il maestro’s fine color lighting design. Christopher Lee puts in a stellar appearance and the sleek & expressive Daliah Lavi brings a…
Gaumont has done right by this orphaned opus from France’s silent film genius Abel Gance — his follow-up to Napoléon is a supremely hubristic science fiction epic that’s half social hysteria and half mystical insanity. Gance casts himself as a Christ figure who reunites the world in the face of an impending astral collision; his…
When does ‘tough and brassy’ become ‘camp and kitsch’? No longer a Gorgeous Young Thing, Joan Crawford walked a narrow line when reinventing her screen image. Her best noir after Mildred Pierce is this underworld pastiche that turns the notorious Virginia Hill into Gangland USA’s most glamorous, high-toned mobster girl. The extreme histrionics never stop,…
Finally, a chance to review this deserving suspense thriller. Incredibly realistic scenes on the high seas are a highlight of Richard Lester’s docudrama-styled tale of a mad extortion plot against an ocean liner with 1200 passengers. Forget Disaster Movie clichés and dumb dramatics — it’s a fast-paced struggle to save lives by bomb specialists Richard…
When does a comedy of manners stop flattering the audience, and begin criticizing it? Jean Renoir’s acknowledged masterpiece was rejected on its premiere in 1939, when France society was too nervous to find humor in its satirical needling. It remains one of the most genuinely sophisticated movies of its kind. Everyone shares in the same…
There’s a new name for ‘Murder’: Diane Tremayne. Few noirs put the blame on Mame more firmly than Otto Preminger’s All-in-the-Family tale of cold-blooded killing. RKO’s star Robert Mitchum is excellent as a mellow guy blinded by romance, but Jean Simmons’ warm / icy performance brings it all to life. The behind-the-scenes production story surely…
This one is reviewed ‘just for the record’ — we have a soft spot for train-wreck science fiction losers. ‘What went wrong?’ ‘Did anybody even care?’ Accomplished director Pietro Francisi has the two classic Hercules movies to his credit, but this artless exercise would demolish anybody’s reputation . . . it must have been a…
Warners’ prestigious adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer-winning novella gives Spencer Tracy an actor’s showcase. His Cuban fisherman Santiago engages in an existential ordeal, a one-man battle with a giant marlin. Credited director John Sturges made sense out of a confused production, retaining much footage shot by uncredited Fred Zinnemann. The result is a little messy,…
Orion’s smart, sharp action thriller compresses ‘Manchurian Candidate’ and ‘Day of the Jackal’ into a 24-hour race to prevent a political assassination. Director Andrew Davis gets a chance to lead big stars through a convincing paranoid nightmare: Gene Hackman is still action-ready at 59, while Tommy Lee Jones impresses as a formidable bruiser; Joanna Cassidy…