CineSavant
An Angel at My Table
Here's the story of a woman who overcame adversity -- not the dramatic, historical kind, but the sort of mundane discriminatory issues…
Articles by Glenn Erickson
CineSavant
Moonfleet
It's Fritz Lang versus CinemaScope, for the first and last time. The format suited to snakes and funerals effectively hamstrings the great…
CineSavant
4D Man
An old monster formula props up this fantastic film but at its heart is a brilliant premise that excites the imagination. Jack…
CineSavant
Alice, Sweet Alice
This unique proto-slasher is not a rip-off of The Exorcist and for my taste is more meaningful, despite associating innocent children with…
CineSavant
A Foreign Affair
If you like Billy Wilder but haven't seen everything he's done, this is the film for you, a sparkling but typically sharp-tongued…
CineSavant
The Last American Hero
All-American race car mania is alive and well in this excellent Jeff Bridges movie, a true biographical story researched by Tom Wolfe.…
CineSavant
Quatermass 2
What ought to be appreciated as one of the most prescient of 1950s suspense films holds a place among the best science…
CineSavant
Behold a Pale Horse
Here's a highly suspenseful thriller with fine characterizations, set in a grim but meaningful place -- Fascist Spain in the late 1950s,…
CineSavant
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Someone save Judith Hearne, for she can't save herself. Jack Clayton's film of Brian Moore's novel has stunning performances by Maggie Smith…
CineSavant
Lust for a Vampire
Courageous disc boutique Scream Factory takes on one of Hammer's biggest embarrassments, that almost everyone connected to it would like to disown.…
CineSavant
Death in the Garden (Mort en ce Jardin)
Finally out on Blu-ray in Region A, Luis Buñuel’s beautiful color adventure is a worthy jungle tale shot through with his signature…
CineSavant
The Reptile
Hammer's attempt at a budget monster romp for 1966 isn't quite as good as its sister film Plague of the Zombies, but…
CineSavant
Merrill’s Marauders
Is this Samuel Fuller's biggest production? He tries to convey the harrowing reality of a military campaign that tested the limits of…
CineSavant
Weird Science
Woo Hoo! We're girl-starved teen nerds, and we're cooking up our own living sex toy with our home computers! John Hughes turns…
CineSavant
Pin Up Girl
Personality is everything in the movies — even in the Golden Age, plenty of film performers ‘clicked’ for reasons having nothing to…
CineSavant
Alphaville
My teenage introduction to art film culture was something of a science fiction auteur detour (R2-D2?). I discovered Alphaville at a tiny…
CineSavant
This Island Earth
"The supreme excitement of our time! Challenging the unearthly furies of an outlaw planet!" Big-budget space opera finally came to movie screens,…
CineSavant
Jet Pilot
John Wayne! Janet Leigh! Nifty jet-age flying sequences! Goofy, bad-taste sex jokes! Hans Conreid as a chortling Russian army officer! Howard…
CineSavant
The BRD Trilogy
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's national epic tells the story of Germany's 'economic miracle' recovery through the experiences of three strong women, each resilient…
CineSavant
Footlight Parade
This amazing Busby Berkeley extravaganza is the best choice to impress newbies to pre-Code musical madness: it is absolutely irresistible. James Cagney's…
CineSavant
Mothra
Toho's fabulous, kid-safe Kaiju spectacle about the super-moth from Infant Island might be a stealth Cold War fairy tale. Kids respond to…
CineSavant
Gone to Earth / The Wild Heart
Classic cinematics from first-rank filmmakers. No ballet or heroism, so not a crowd pleaser, but Michael Powell's original version of Gone to…
CineSavant
These Are the Damned
"Kinder der Eisigen Dunkelheit!" If those words don't give you a chill, you may be one of 'The Damned.' Joseph Losey's fascinatingly…
CineSavant
Hold Back the Dawn
All hail Olivia de Havilland, America's longest living movie star. The more de Havilland pictures we see, the more we admire her…
CineSavant
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Hidden behind the membership-only barrier of The Disney Movie Club is a long-delayed, long-missed key feature from The Mouse, Walt's masterful super-production…
CineSavant
Le Doulos
Auteurist film books from the early '70s touted the crime pictures of Jean-Pierre Melville, a Yankeephile Frenchman who chose a new name…