Fierce Irish rebels go head-to-head with Brit occupation forces, and James Cagney is first on the barricades. Michael Anderson’s thriller about terror violence in 1921 Dublin has suspense, beautiful cinematography in real Irish locations, and a standout cast: Don Murray, Glynis Johns, Dana Wynter, Michael Redgrave, Cyril Cusack and Sybil Thorndike — plus added-value players…
It’s an animated outer space adventure from Romania, made in the Cold War era but minus political messages. Old-school cel animation techniques conjure colorful futuristic visions, thanks to beautiful background art and a spacey ’80s synth music score. The Bucharest artists bring a novel point of view, populating alien planets with weird flora and fauna,…
“This picture is perfect, end of review.” That may not be 100% true, but Leo McCarey’s unabashed leap into romantic Nirvana really hasn’t been bettered, although his color & ‘scope remake is very good. Never was smart adult dialogue this winning — Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer’s cinematic courtship is a highlight of the Big…
It’s the final theatrical western of the legendary director Budd Boetticher, and he also wrote the screenplay! Ace cinematographer Lucien Ballard was behind the camera, and Audie Murphy produced and plays Jesse James! This disc release is a gift to die-hard western fans that want to see everything, but the film itself remains a…
“I’m filthy — period!” With an ideal cast — Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone — director Douglas Sirk tells a tale with everything the ’50s wouldn’t allow — lust, nymphomania, impotence, the works. It’s perhaps Sirk’s most accomplished, self-contained masterpiece — a glamorous soap with absorbing characters caught in a cycle…
Bert I. Gordon’s career groove of shrinking and bloating various animals and people bottoms out in this trashy drive-in groaner: it’s colorful but nigh-unwatchable. The exploitation target is sci-fi and the teen musical, with incompatible helpings of pre-teen ‘cutes’ and girlie show jiggle for the raincoat crowd. The show apparently did well, but I heard…
Who Shot Barney? Or should we say, who is going to shoot Barney? Chalk up another excellent Noir Rescue by The Film Noir Foundation, the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Flicker Alley: Joan Leslie is a Broadway star in a group of ‘difficult’ actors, writers, lovers and cheats, trying to prevent a ‘repeat’ cycle…
La Llorona and El Fantasma del Convento: conceived as Mexican horror fables for Mexican audiences, these expressionist gems tap indigenous cultural riches and brooding Catholic guilt. The fable of ‘The Wailing Woman’ is told in a three-part story starting with la conquista; the spooky ‘Phantom of the Monastery’ is a moral tale cautioning against carnal…
If discovering brilliant filmmakers appeals, it’s difficult to to better than this five-disc, nine-feature labor of recovery and restoration from Lobster films. Julien Duvivier is well known for a couple of pictures, one of which screened not so long ago on Eddie Muller’s TCM film noir show. But seeing his silent masterpieces may change your…
Righteous propaganda fuels the patriotic fire: Lewis Milestone and Robert Rossen’s blood-soaked ode to Norwegian resistance goes way over the top. These Norsemen and Norsewomen take up arms to fight their Nazi occupiers tooth and nail. Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan star; some of Hollywood’s best partake of the rah-rah celebration of suicidal vengeance: Walter…
Showbiz dynamo Ann-Margret tries on ‘teenage hellion’ for size. She terrorizes the straight, impossibly patient John Forsythe, sending him on a weekend ordeal with razor-wielding hooligans. He can kiss both his marriage and his political ambitions goodbye: who will believe David when Jody claims he took advantage of her? Douglas Heyes’ sordid suspense thriller has…
Devil worshippers are running amuck in Greece, haven’t you heard? This Greek-English horror show stars Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance, so it can claim a built-in fan interest factor whether it’s good or bad. It’s fun to check out just to see what these stars got themselves into for a paycheck, back when Hammer was…
It’s something completely different . . . a genuine obscurity, a Swiss spy fantasy from the 1960s with major appeal to fans keen on (not in this order) art cinema, Fritz Lang, superspy romps, surreal silent serials, Eurocult actors, and visuals with a New Wave-ish flair. Teams of assassins vie for an atom secret held…
Busby Berkeley’s musical comedy extravaganza not only gets away with a social message, it makes one of the best cultural statements ever about the Great Depression. Social upheaval suddenly being a real thing these days, we understand. The story is a romantic backstage musical but The Wolf at the Door is present in the dialogue,…
It’s a manhunt South of the Border — Niven Busch’s drama has violence and murder but is really a novelistic character study that goes against the typical rules of Hollywood. Lew Ayres tries to atone for mistakenly killing a man, by coming to the aid of the victim’s widow. But he doesn’t realize that Teresa…
They’re after you, and your wives and children! This Corman/VeSota/Ed Nelson shocker with the excellent poster is a Robert Heinlein knockoff that can’t quite sustain the paranoid pitch of other ‘parasitic possession’ sci-fi horror epics. One of the cheapest of the drive-in cheapies, it remains a must-see title just for the audacity of its ad…
Orson Welles in fine form! This lavishly produced costume drama, beautifully cast and directed, was filmed on location in gorgeous Italian palazzos, churches and villas. Welles is cast to type as the literally mesmerizing mountebank Cagliostro, who aids Madame du Barry in a scheme to seize the throne of France. Welles almost certainly ‘helped’ the…
Alfred Hitchcock puts Jane Wyman in harm’s way, as she tries to rescue her unworthy boyfriend Richard Todd from a murder charge. Is Jane proving her love, or are both of them being manipulated by a scheming actress, Marlene Dietrich? This is the movie in which Hitch inflicts a ‘frump complex’ on Ms. Wyman —…
This creepy-crawly epic enjoyed a strong reputation on my grade-school playground. Does George Pal’s man-versus-the-elements saga hold up 68 years later? The ‘exotic’ special effects get the point across but the real appeal is the suppressed lust between Charlton Heston and his mail order bride Eleanor Parker — all heavy breathing and stern reproaches. I’m…
It’s the ‘other’ version of Dickens’ terrific novel, an English film that few Americans have seen. This Australian DVD is in the PAL format and from a rather outdated transfer, yet I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a favorite story enacted by a great batch of UK talent. Dirk Bogarde stars and the many character roles go…
One of the best yet least seen of John Sturges’ westerns couples a fine screenplay with strong star perfs and superb direction: the straightforward story builds tension throughout. Kirk Douglas is a sheriff out for both justice and revenge and Anthony Quinn is the he-bull rancher who stands in his way: the guilty party is…
Burt Lancaster and Edward G. Robinson are excellent in this adaptation of Arthur Miller’s award-winning Broadway play, about a family torn apart by the denial of dark secrets from the WW2 homefront. Mady Christians is the mother who refuses to accept her son’s death, and Louisa Horton and Howard Duff the brother and sister trying…
Every once in a while a movie studio would ruin what might have been a masterpiece — and Preston Sturges’ last-released Paramount comedy suffered exactly that. “Triumph Over Pain” was supposed to be something new, a daring blend of comedy and tragedy. Studio politics intervened and tried to turn it into a straight comedy. Disc…
The Fab Four’s first and biggest movie hit comes to 4K Ultra HD! The Beatles brought something new and exciting to 1964 and the world embraced it. This United Artists release was a major event in the first wave of Beatlemania, setting the standard for Swinging London cool; thanks to Richard Lester’s flip approach and…
For this perplexing British production Peter Sellers fronts a solid cast (Charles Aznavour, Jeremy Kemp, Per Oscarsson and Peter Vaughn) in a numbingly literal tale of seven men buried alive in a wartime warehouse of supplies and foodstuffs — and who are forced to stay there for years, praying for rescue. Stories of this kind…
Small thief and parolee Max Dembo is pinned in a parole system that all but guarantees he’ll go back to robbing banks and jewelry stores. Dustin Hoffman has one of his best and most unusual roles, taken from the story of a real bank robber. Directed by Ulu Grosbard, the docu-drama look at the seedy…