1974 was ground zero for a 7.0 magnitude shaker on the clumsy, kitschy disaster-movie Richter Scale with Universal’s ambitious, tossed-together epic of Los Angeles torn asunder by ‘The Big One.’ The all-star cast headed by Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner slug and mug their way through a gloppy soap opera of a script, admirably retaining…
As the first wave of ‘adult’ westerns began to fade, 1959 gave us a burst of genuinely adult stories about the famed lawless towns of the frontier. Henry Fonda is at his moody best in a replay of his earlier Wyatt Earp, de-mythologized as just one more self-oriented opportunist in a land where even lawmen…
Hollywood takes a hard look at the mundane horrors of mental asylums, and Olivia de Havilland scores another career high with her portrayal of a housewife experiencing a nervous breakdown. Some people found the show scary and a few felt it was tasteless, but Ms. de Havilland’s performance is riveting, 71 years later. Anatole Litvak’s…
Long AWOL from Home Video — the last time I peeked it was an unwatchable pan-and-scanned laserdisc — this early Charles Band opus came at a time when the purveyor of third-class horror thrills could command a budget. A rather phenomenal list of ’70s special effects hopefuls collaborated to give the show lasting appeal, mainly…
Jumpin’ gingivitis! Vicious microbes from space threaten the world and our only hope is a team of scientists in an underground lab in Nevada. But the sneaky germ from the cosmos is a-mutatin’ faster than a mess o’ jackrabbits, into a form that doesn’t just kill people, it consumes our flesh, too! No, it’s not…
All the world loves Jackie Chan, whose cinematic action pictures bridge the gap between silent-era virtuosity and slick modernity. As light comedy entertainment these first two Police Story smash ‘n’ bash epics of eye-popping jeopardy are suitable as ‘family entertainment’ as well. Jackie is a marvelous hero, while Maggie Cheung is an old fashioned girl…
This favorite animal film takes a half-step sideways out of the cute animal subgenre: the delightful Mij is no super-otter, just an ordinary playful garden-variety otter, as an Otter oughta be. (cough) Champion mellow English couple Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers have put together a film guaranteed to lower your blood pressure. But see it…
Twilight Time goes for a Blu-ray upgrade of the western remake with the all-star cast. Forget that there was ever a John Ford or a John Wayne and it’s a perfectly presentable wild west story, but the mileage may vary for classic western fans inclined to make comparisons to the 1939 classic. Top billing goes…
CineSavant obsesses over yet another obscure bit of cinematic sociology: a glossy pre-Code MGM melodrama about mothers and war, which half-debates issues like pacifism, the losses of world war one, military vigilance, cowardice, chemical WMDs and foolish idealism! But don’t worry, the title statement is the ultimate answer to everything. Oh, it’s also political sci-fi:…
Freshly divorced from American-International Pictures, Roger Corman leaps into the filmic mainstream with a fairly large-scale World War One aviation picture. He competes with the big studios but retains his nonconformist attitude: his retelling of the story of the Red Baron fixates on the theme of the death of chivalry in combat. For his star…
It’s the brightest debut feature of 1970, and perhaps the warmest movie ever about the American race divide. Hal Ashby and Bill Gunn’s work is inspired: rich boy Beau Bridges buys a slum tenement and launches a wonderful ensemble comedy-drama in confrontation with the fantastic quartet of actresses — Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey…
Clever plotting goes into overdrive for this light-comedy proto-paranoid film noir about a magazine publishing empire so organized that it seems a sci-fi invention from the future. Ray Milland’s charismatic fall guy finds himself embroiled in a murder plot filled with false identities, and a manhunt that he must supervise… to catch himself. Maybe Robert…
Why do crime caper films have so much appeal? Are we all closet criminals, eager to watch less timid souls risk life and limb to get the big payout and live happily ever after? Peter Yates’ stylish re-telling of England’s Great Train Robbery makes for an excitingly detailed, nonsense-free heist straight from real life,…
“You crazy rat you croaked him!” Yes, you’ve probably heard better hardboiled dialogue, but this British imitation of American gangster pictures takes the cake for screwy line deliveries. It’s derived from a book and play that’s already derived from a salacious William Faulkner story. Jack La Rue and Linden Travers try to make a kidnapper-rapist…
MGM’s gigantic silent sci-fi extravaganza took three years to make, by which time the talkies arrived and everything went to pieces. Lionel Barrymore emotes (EMOTES!) in his early sound footage, and terrific effects take us to the bottom of the ocean where monsters and a race of Donald Duck creatures menace our heroic adventurers. And…
I don’t know if Garland fans still go around chanting ‘Judy Judy Judy’ at her every appearance, but they do have a timeless song ‘n’ dance number to celebrate here. Her last MGM movie is only a so-so vehicle but Gene Kelly and the studio’s top music & dance talent work hard to put it…
The prize for best direction of 1991 ought to have gone to Alex Cox, whose visual economy in this show is to be applauded. Cox’s camera is fluid, expressive yet technically invisible and unencumbered with fancy tricks: the frame never goes static, yet the film has only a couple of hundred cuts! Filmed in Spanish…
Gill(ian) Armstrong’s breakthrough feature does a leapfrog over stories like Little Women, with heroines that prevail even when adhering to the Meek Sex role of their time. Judy Davis’s Sybylla Melvin knows that she’s a freckle-faced pain in the neck: despite being proud that she’s attracted the local male catch, her every sinew is committed…
There’s no movie quite like Robert Rossen’s adaptation of the J.R. Salamanca book: mental illness and disturbance is neither simplified nor jammed into a preconceived pattern. There is a strong mythical element to Jean Seberg’s enigmatic Lilith, who at times seems the breathing incarnation of elemental human forces — I would imagine the Greeks believed…
Ah, yes — it’s a hot day in 1954, so what could be better than a cool movie theater projecting beautiful Italian scenery onto an Eee-Nor-Mous CinemaScope screen, with Frank Sinatra warbling an Oscar-winning tune. The simple escapism of Fox’s ‘three girls find love’ epic makes Rome look like a welcoming haven for carefree Americans…
What does the American dream mean to you? Hardworking folk just want the job and the house and the family as promised in the ‘old’ Contract With America that began to slip out of reach in the 1970s. To examine the social absurdities at the tacky end of the consumer divide, Bo Goldman and Jonathan…
“Behind A Barrier Of Antarctic Ice…A Paradise Of Hidden Terrors!” Universal-International laid out a pretty penny to film this elaborate spin on The Lost World, modernized to take in discoveries at the South Pole. It’s a showcase for fancy B&W opticals and traveling mattes … but the featured monster stars are a big letdown —…
Alec Guinness transfers an acting challenge from the stage to the screen, in this account of a Cardinal forced to knuckle under to a Communist regime — instead of extracting a confession with torture, Jack Hawkins’ Inquisitor uses psychology to find his prisoner’s weakness. The picture is uneven but its key performances are choice, with…
William Wyler and a trio of fantastic actors make indelible movie history from a grim story by Henry James. How much of love is bald opportunism? How many successes married their way into money? And what’s a lovesick woman to do when a beau may not be true? This may be the key Wyler picture,…
Elia Kazan never stopped making great pictures, but much of his output after 1952 was politically defensive in nature. This powerful indictment of American media madness is a genuine classic, but it also points up the need for ‘good folk’ to sometimes betray their associates. The target this time around is the most kill-worthy monster…
A plug for commercial exterminators everywhere, William Alland’s titanic hairy spider provided plenty of chills for 1950s drive-ins, delivering exactly the naïve monster thrills teenagers craved. John Agar and Mara Corday do what they can with the clunker script and Jack Arnold’s direction, while Leo G. Carroll saves face by retreating below a rubber mask…