Hollywood classics don’t have to be stuffy — this 1940 swashbuckling adventure has style, great action, laughs and one of the most attractive screen couples of their day, Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. And that’s not mentioning a superb fencing match, a great, quaint Spanish dance, and a smart cast directed by Rouben Mamoulian at…
This moody, unsettling whodunnit benefits from sensitive cinematography, fine direction and a perfectly-cast group of players. Stephen Boyd gets a worthwhile starring role, backed by some good names and a nice debut from Judi Dench. What I don’t understand is why Pamela Franklin, possibly the most talented and versatile young English player ever, didn’t become…
All hail the memory of Stanley Donen. We also appreciate the razor-sharp satire of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, whose genius Donen preserved in this hilarious Faustian comedy. Poor pitiful Stanley Moon bargains with the Devil for seven chances to win the woman of his dreams, which naturally turns out to be a big mistake….
Not enough love is set aside for this ambitious, under-budgeted Lost Civilization epic. John Agar and Cynthia Patrick find love in an ancient albino civilization that worships a Death Ray and enslaves a race of Subterranean Humanoid Underground Dwellers — Mole Men, what else? Is it unconvincing? Does the production lack polish? Well, it…
What can you say about a hybrid gangster picture that generates a good feeling about people? We really like this show — Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman and Bill Murray’s characterizations are fresh and surprising — and refreshingly non-PC, with David Caruso, Kathy Baker and Mike Starr providing solid backup. Everything’s in fine form under…
High class Italo filmmaking slips into the ’70s with Luchino Visconti still on top. This handsomely appointed period drama recreates Venice of 1910. Make that a highly stylized recreated Venice. As curiously enacted by Dirk Bogarde, Thomas Mann’s story of a composer’s inner turmoil over a maddeningly attractive teenaged boy becomes a one-man ordeal. Death…
It’s cold-blooded murder, I tell ya! Feisty Ruth Gordon goes undercover to find the evidence of homicide at Geraldine Page’s desert home, where companion-housekeepers keep disappearing. Robert Aldrich produced this marvelous, E-Ticket battle between celebrated actresses, and the result is a creative new solution for retirement finance problems! What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? Blu-ray…
Olinka Berova is as sexy as Ursula Andress, but even with a new woman producer Hammer’s She sequel doesn’t give this new She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed much of a chance — the story just sits there and the kingdom of Kuma is woefully under-produced. Good photography and acting help, but one doesn’t earn high marks for the Boys…
Those scurrilous Italian ‘mondo’ films are difficult to see in original versions; this Something Weird double bill yields an American hybrid of one of the better (?) examples, given the classy touch of a narration by George Sanders. A second oversexed pseudo-docu is a homegrown mongrel (careful, don’t touch) with all the credibility of today’s…
Director Bryan Forbes tries his hand at comedy. His nostalgic Victorian farce features an eclectic choice of Brit stars — established greats John Mills & Ralph Richardson, the freshly-minted Michael Caine, reigning jester Peter Sellers and even a debut for the collegiate pranksters Peter Cook & Dudley Moore. It’s a beaut of a production with…
Fiery dame Susan Hayward carries this far-flung ‘women’s epic’ to delirious romantic extremes, as her Irish heroine defies nature and exploits admirers to claim the hunky Dutchman of her dreams. Using apartheid-ridden South Africa as a background for a cheerful white conquest wasn’t as touchy an idea in 1955 as it is now, but it…
Brigitte Bardot proved her mettle as a dramatic actress in H.G. Clouzot’s strikingly pro-feminist courtroom epic, that puts the modern age of ‘immoral’ permissiveness on trial. Is Bardot’s selfish, sensation-seeking young lover an oppressed victim? Clouzot makes her the author of her own problems yet doesn’t let her patriarchal inquisitors off the hook. La vérité…
Last fall’s audience-pleaser is indeed a pleasant surprise, not because it’s a classic but because it isn’t plain awful. An unnecessary third remake of a Depression-era Cinderella story has been concocted to showcase the special talents of Lady Gaga, who indeed comes off as the most personable and deserving star-to-be-born since Judy Garland. Bradley Cooper…
Make way for the ribald, very non-PC adventures of the GI doofus Private Snafu — demonstrator of the wrong way to do everything. This alternative-press edition of Snafu delights contains all of his adventures and more — they’re mostly animated by irreverent Warners talent. Some have rhyming dialogue and narration by Theodore Geisel, aka Dr….
Is this any way to treat a lady? Lovely Nina Foch just wanted a job, but she instead becomes the fall-gal in a psychologically perverse plan to deny her very identity. Cult director Joseph H. Lewis makes deft use of cinematic suspense techniques to compel our involvement in a bizarre conspiracy: not just convincing a…
It’s a spooky, snowy train ride across thousands of miles of Siberian rails — trapped on board with a victim-possessing creature from outer space, with eyes that kill! Actually, ‘Pánico en el transiberiano’ is a fine show for Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, a Spanish-made chiller with a smart script and some effective shocks. Horror…
Murder strikes a private college. In the new security guard’s efforts to find the killer, he uncovers sordid secrets and multiple unsavory conspiracies. Triple-threat Burt Lancaster boasts directing and screenwriting credits here, and heads a large, exemplary cast of suspects in a mystery that implicates practically all of them in something illegal. The Midnight Man…
Retitled from The Honorary Consul and sold in America with one of Paramount’s sleaziest ad campaigns, John MacKenzie and Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of a Graham Greene novel features a fine Michael Caine performance, but prefers to stress sex scenes between star Richard Gere and Elpidia Carrillo. Just call it ‘Lust in the Argentine Littoral’ —…
A million American GIs are bivouacked in the English countryside, awaiting debarkation to France… and the green fields are loaded with young English women, whose own men have been off fighting for years. John Schlesinger puts together a good drama, with an excellent cast; he also avoids the expected ‘please wait for me!’ clichés attendant…
John Cassavetes springs forth as a major 1950s talent in these two ‘Primetime Special’ dramatic plays broadcast live on ABC and CBS. Crime in the Streets is the Reginald Rose classic directed by Sidney Lumet; No Right to Kill is a ‘culture for the masses’ adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Cassavetes’ co-stars are Robert Preston,…
Francis Coppola’s get-out-of-debt directorial assignments may not be his most personal movies, but this one is satisfying just the same, with its marvelous, mellow ensemble cast. It’s a movie to admire, as it’s not easy to attract an audience to a show about the Army’s burial detail. Gardens of Stone Blu-ray Powerhouse Indicator 1987 /…
Wow — a good Audie Murphy movie. Clair Huffaker’s screenplay should take credit, as well as the workmanlike direction of former Hitchcock assistant Herbert Coleman. Even John Saxon comes off well, plus the film can boast good work from favorites Zohra Lampert and Vic Morrow, and fine support from Rodolfo Acosta, Royal Dano and Lee…
War no longer recognizes ‘innocent bystanders’: a married couple seeks to sidestep ‘civil disturbances’ by relocating to a rural island, only for the war to descend on them from all sides. Forget escapist post-apocalyptic fantasies: Ingmar Bergman demonstrates how the terror of war obliterates human values at the personal level. Human trust and morals fall…
“Brace Yourself For A SHOCK!…200 Feet of Living Burning Horror!” Eugène Lourié’s second feature about an irate sea monster wrecking a city features sober eco-preaching, good performances by Gene Evans and André Morell, and several minutes of exciting stop-motion animation nirvana. One just needs to overlook a few lunkhead effects scenes and concentrate on the…
The murky crimes of sordid characters come to the fore in the wide-open Nevada spaces… producer Hal Wallis’ Technicolor noir concentrates on the possessive and perverse competition for Lizabeth Scott’s luscious blonde — the mother that wants to corral her, the gangster who thinks she’s an escape and the local hunk who wears a badge….
The star lineup sparkles in this witty, lighthearted tale of a gang of international schemers and cutthroats trying to — well, what they’re trying to do is all but irrelevant. John Huston throws his picture together like a party, for a droll ‘thriller’ that yields off-kilter comic riches. It’s Bogart, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and…