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…
Pearl S. Buck and Leo McCarey give it to ya straight: Red China is BAD. This strange mix of Cold War truth-telling and mawkish, ethics-challenged church sentiment may have meant well, but it overstates everything. A top-flight cast works hard to make it compelling: William Holden, France Nuyen and in his last film, Clifton Webb….
Screaming, flying ‘Autonomous Mobile Swords’ have decimated the enemy in a war on a far-off planet, but now the pesky smart weapons are self-evolving into ever more cruel and deadly new iterations. Peter Weller and Jennifer Rubin head a cast of desperate soldiers in this adaptation of an early story by Philip K. Dick —…
The ‘other’ Hollywood studio version of the Alamo story is quite good, with strong production values, exciting stunt battle action and something Republic Pictures didn’t manage very often, a solid screenplay. Sterling Hayden is Jim Bowie, this version’s central hero, with great backup from Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ernest Borgnine, J. Carrol Naish, and Ben Cooper….
Cult favorite Samuel Fuller explodes the mid-range Hollywood oater with elements we can all appreciate: a ritualistic fetishizing of the gunslinger ethos, and a reliance on kinky role reversals and provocative tease dialogue. It’s as radical as a western can be without becoming a satire. Playing it all perfectly crooked-straight is the still formidable Barbara…
Roger and Gene Corman’s first ‘The Filmgroup’ production is a slick little programmer that belies its drive-in monster movie heritage: the trim tale is no minimalist effort, but a well-developed drama sourced in the twin drives to succeed and stay young. This deluxe edition contains both the Theatrical and TV versions, plus a Tom Weaver…
Too edgy for the mainstream, Martin Sherman’s influential play is nevertheless transformed into an admirable, well-crafted show. In Hitler’s Berlin of 1934, being gay means death, or a living death in a ‘protective custody’ camp. Clive Owen, Lothaire Bluteau and Brian Webber find themselves on the way to Dachau, a new Circle of Hell. Yet…
Already eclipsed by James Bond and sexier European films, Paul Newman does his best to energize this derivative but lively spy-chase thriller set during Nobel season, in a Stockholm populated by the glamorous Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Micheline Presle and Jacqueline Beer. Toss several Hitchcock pictures into a blender, and what comes out is reasonably…
Here’s something I never expected to see: I ran to the blaxploitation attraction Willie Dynamite because I like actress Diana Sands, and it’s her last picture in a too-short career. But the main character on view, a gaudy fur-wearing pimp, is played by none other than Roscoe Orman, well known to a couple of generations…
Jane Russell heats up an Arizona mining town but she’s just trying to help her new husband with his ethnic identity issues, Jeff Chandler. Superb color cinematography (forget the B&W photos here) and beautiful desert locations help, but the real appeal is seeing Russell and gorgeous co-star Mara Corday in all their glory. Foxfire Blu-ray…
For directing skill and sensual sophistication this psychologically intense murder tale equals or betters the most sophisticated American noirs. Julien Duvivier gives us Michel Simon as Monsieur Hire, a strange man loathed by his neighbors. Entranced by the woman he spies through his bedroom window, Hire doesn’t realize that she’s helping to frame him for…
Just when we thought the world was doomed by the rejection of scientific rationalism, this lecture docu about the theories and discoveries of researcher Lynn Margulis gives us hope again. Formerly denounced as a scientific radical, Margulis’ ideas supplant the established ‘Neo-Darwinism’ notion of natural selection through competition, with the idea of cooperation on the…
Secret agent Michael Caine must take on both the kidnappers of his son and his own suspect Army Intelligence colleagues in Don Siegel’s efficiently filmed, curiously tame suspense thriller. Delphine Seyrig is enticing and Donald Pleasance an unlikeable security bureaucrat, while the capable Janet Suzman and John Vernon fill out a top-flight cast that performs…
CineSavant 2018 Favored Disc Roundup Savant picks The Most Impressive Blu-rays and DVDs of 2018 Welcome again to the most self-indulgent list of 2018, accompanied by personal photos of limited interest! * The CineSavant brain trust once again convenes to peruse a year’s worth of Blu-ray releases, searching for the wisdom to cull out…
A movie for people who don’t normally like costume dramas about kings and queens, this adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play is great entertainment from head to toe. Richard Burton gives one of his better late-career performances, and Geneviève Bujold is a dynamo in a tiny package. It’s an impressive portrait of male power run amuck….
Alfred Hitchcock’s nearly perfect romantic spy thriller teams Cary Grant with Ingrid Bergman to yield just what audiences wanted in 1946, an adult drama with menacing political themes… and an unusually adult approach to a perverse sex relationship! Notorious Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 137 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 101 min. /…
How to shake up a mid-sixties slump at Hammer Films? It’s back to basics time, with Christopher Lee returning in a most unusual way, because there wasn’t much left of him at the finish of his first outing as the number one supernatural public enemy. Terence Fisher is also back, enlivening the third film in…
Nicholas Ray’s CinemaScope detour into outlaw Americana is yet another sincere artistic effort muffled by studio interference. Ray sought to examine a legend in terms of folklore and celebrity. Fox just wanted a cheap remake of its 1939 hit and undermined the director all the way. It’s a potentially great film marred by clumsy reshoots…
Grand action entertainment bursts forth on the high seas, showing us how much production value Golden Hollywood could lavish on an exciting, artful swashbuckler. Errol Flynn is at his glorious best, backed by greats like Flora Robson, Henry Daniell and Claude Rains in fine form. The special effects and full-sized ship sets impress in ways…
Hollywood’s most tragic ‘mangled masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this special edition of what could have been Orson Welles’ greatest film, had RKO not intentionally destroyed it to sully the stature of the unlucky Boy Genius. The movie can’t be reconstructed but its reputation can be restored — the story of the…
Duck and Cover! And while you’re down there, enjoy a Flaming Atomic Cocktail! Loader, Rafferty & Rafferty’s influential documentary-satire uses authentic ’50s films and songs to illuminate the lies and myths about Cold War civil defense. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be like children in the face of a horror being characterized as an inconvenience…