The term ‘filmed opera’ in no way describes this phantasmagoria. Powell & Pressburger re-envisions the Offenbach work with dance sequences refracted through a cinematic prism. It’s high art made for the movies, without the condescenscion seen in Disney’s Fantasia. The stars are Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann. Powell perfects techniques from Black Narcissus and The…
The edgy screenplay for this flashy, rough-edged ‘lovers, drugs & guns’ saga served to jump-start Quentin Tarantino’s movie career; he’s identified it as his most autobiographical work. Tony Scott slicked up the visuals and ironed out the nonlinear narrative but it’s still a QT epic through and through. And that cast of suspects is phenomenal:…
Ultra HD puts Stanley Kubrick’s second feature film in a new light — his B&W images of New York lend a ‘Weegee’ flavor to the tale of a prizefighter who comes to the rescue of a dance hall girl. Kubrick does better sticking to the urban streets he knows so well; the cast scores via…
What happens the moment gunmen go South of the border in American westerns? Implied foreign policy, that’s what! Updating an old ‘MGM Video Savant’ article from 1999, CineSavant takes a look at a fistful of big Hollywood shoot-out epics that formed less-than-optimal public impressions of international relations. You know, the Friendly Neighbor Policy, only with…
4K discs are selling like hotcakes so it’s only natural for studios to give Home Theater fanatics the biggest vintage blockbusters. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s hyper-efficient, no-loitering juggernaut is a return to the joys of serial action thrills, one ‘did you see that?’ bravura sequence after another. Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is pitted against…
The Film Noir Foundation puts across more impressive rescues in concert with the UCLA Film and Television Archive: a pair of independently-produced noirs released by Monogram in 1947, modest of budget but firmly rooted in the noir style. The Guilty is a Cornell Woolrich ‘ironic twist’ mini mystery involving troublemaking twins and a soldier suffering…
This big screen, big star crowd-pleaser is a whopping entertainment yet too disjointed to satisfy as a gangster movie. It can ignore history to make its points, but what is gained by killing off the only characters we really love? Audiences didn’t feel shortchanged: Sean Connery and Robert De Niro deliver strong characterizations and Ennio…
Vincente Minnelli took a break from musicals to feature Judy Garland in the first movie to show her dramatic acting range, a charming and thoughtful wartime tale in New York: a whirlwind romance goes from nothing to marriage in 48 hours. She’s a working woman and he’s a soldier shipping out for combat; the miracle…
Kino’s Noir boxes offer interesting noir-adjacent crime and mystery pix. This seventh return to the well of darkness brings up the organized crime ‘meller’ Chicago Confidential with Brian Keith and the more ambitious The Boss, starring John Payne and written by Dalton Trumbo. The third show The Fearmakers is a real oddity. Starring Dana Andrews…
Despite its so-so critical reputation John Ford’s cavalry picture is still a superior Civil War drama, making excellent use of a real historical incident. The conflicts between John Wayne’s commander, William Holden’s doctor and Constance Ford’s unexpected prisoner play well — plus Ford manages scores of great images and a handful of classic scenes. Seeing…
Gritty inner city crime pix don’t get any rougher than this — I witnessed the walk-outs personally. Barry Shear and a crack crew filmed in Harlem for this downbeat crime pic that could be called ‘Every Thief For Himself.’ Paul Benjamin just wants to score some mob money and leave the mean streets behind —…
Most noted for its troubled production background, this hospital-set murder thriller turns a doctor into a detective: James Coburn’s medico undertakes an amateur investigation of a crime involving an illegal abortion, and the cover-up thereof. Although tangled up in the crazy James Aubrey-Kirk Kerkorian regime at MGM, Blake Edwards’ film can boast a strong supporting…
Welcome to Ground Zero for ‘Committed Cinema’ Italian style. Director Giuiano Montaldo filmed his dream project on location in Ireland and a bit in Boston, with top stars Gian Maria Volontè and Riccardo Cucciolla. In one of the highest-profile American ‘media’ trials ever the famed immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti were tried for a crime but…
Accept no substitutes! Aleksandr Ptushko’s fairy-tale folk hero saga is the real deal in medieval spectacle. When the nation calls, warriors rise from the steppes to defend against invaders, even if they have to defy royal authority. The first Soviet film in anamorphic scope and stereophonic sound, Ilya Muromets is an eye-opening series of fantastic…
George Seaton connected an ideal cast to this true-life WW2 story so good that a lazy script and slack direction can’t sink it. William Holden is the American-Swede who spies for the Allies, ruining his own reputation and schmoozing with Nazis that will kill him if he slips up. Wonderful Lilli Palmer is the patriot-agent…
It’s back and Criterion’s got it, so be prepared for sharp-talking insights on Billy Wilder’s nearly flawless, cinema-changing ode to cold-blooded murder, Los Angeles style. Edward G. Robinson wants Fred MacMurray but Barbara Stanwyck has him wrapped around her trigger finger. James M. Cain tapped into our city’s domestic malaise — who doesn’t know somebody…
The good news is that Kino’s new 4K encodings of Sergio Leone’s first two Italo ‘Dollars’ oaters look terrific, with Fistful showing a lot of improvement: the basic restorations are from prime Italian film elements. And the packages are collector / home theater enthusiast friendly — standard Blu-ray encodings are part of the deal. As…
What a great title to revisit — John Ford’s ‘Kabuki’ western is less about action and more about form and tradition — especially the way the truth gets plowed under in ‘the West,’ which is of course America reduced to a mythological keepsake. John Wayne, James Stewart and Lee Marvin’s characters seem to know they…
In just her fourth American movie the Swedish import Ingrid Bergman proves herself the most sensual creature in Hollywood, running away with Spencer Tracy and Victor Fleming’s remake of Mamoulian’s pre-Code classic. The morals are cleaned up and the sex angle tamed down (except for Fröken Bergman) and the acting is less stylized — overall…
Expatriate blacklistee Joseph Losey is the perfect director for this excellent, strange tale, a big award winner in France. The terrible Occupation-era victimization of the Jewish citizens of Paris is told tangentially from the viewpoint of a jackal-like opportunist who buys art and valuables cheaply from Jews desperate for cash. But Klein has a little…
This knockout comedy rates as one of Hollywood’s funniest ever — although it could be ‘cancelled’ any day now, so get ready to deny ever having laughed at it. Ultimate movie star glamour meets the apex of screenwriting hilarity: liberated by 101 cross-dressing jokes Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond jam sly sex innuendo into almost…
Peter Yates’ excellent war-movie follow-up to Bullitt landed in the wrong year: the beautifully produced and directed action thriller was barely seen in America. Royal Navy mechanic Peter O’Toole swears vengeance on the U-Boat commander who sunk his ship and murdered its entire crew. Locals in a Caribbean backwater help him to strike back: he…
Here’s one that really benefits from its 4K upgrade — Terry Gilliam’s dense visuals look great with Roger Pratt’s exacting cinematography. Is this really a thinking man’s science fiction hit, or did audiences mainly want to get a look at Brad Pitt in a new mode, playing a weird motormouthed eccentric? Bruce Willis and Madeleine…
Steve McQueen’s final film is an action-comedy compromise that will satisfy his fans even if it barely hangs together. The thrills are kinder & gentler, with plenty of hair-raising stunts but less gunplay and gore. McQueen’s eccentric bounty hunter collects toys and can barely drive a car, but he always gets his man. Kathryn Harrold…
The Cohen Film Collection brings to Region A its beautifully remastered disc of American fringe filmmaking’s weirdest, most obsessively arty shock-fest — a loving return to silent expressionist horror. The New York censors scuttled its commercial chances, and it wound up as a movie-within-a-movie footnote for Steve McQueen. We never thought we’d see the show…
Yasuzo Masumura amazes us with yet another sensual stunner. This period way-of-all-flesh tale is almost a horror film, but the supernatural shivers are far outpaced by the daily Evil that Men Do. Japanese superstar Ayako Wakao blazes across the screen as a self-decreed avenger of the female sex, who allows men to destroy themselves and…