Forget the ‘famous book’ doldrums — this exciting seagoing drama will take your head off. Criminally unseen and unheralded, Allied Artists’ classic is an impressive feat by director-co-screenwriter and star Peter Ustinov. It introduced Terence Stamp and provided Robert Ryan with a deserved career highlight. Billy Budd Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1962 / B&W /…
Inquiring minds want to know — why you’re thinking about a BRICK WALL. John Wyndham’s diabolically clever alien invasion fantasy is taken straight from nature: children fathered by who-knows-what are found to possess a hive mentality and brain-powers that we puny Earthlings cannot oppose. Is it simply Us against Them, or was this perhaps a…
Is this show still as daring as it once seemed? How does it fare in this year of #MeToo? Where are the personal boundaries in relationships, when nobody can risk being entirely honest? We discover a man who wants to relate with women solely through the recordings he makes of them talking about sex —…
The wonder movie of 1946 sees the Archers infusing the ‘Film Blanc’ fantasy with amazing images and powerful emotions. Imagination and resourcefulness accomplishes miracles on a Stairway to Heaven, with visual effects never bettered in the pre-CGI era. Michael Powell’s command of the screen overpowers a soon-obsoleted theme about U.S.- British relations. A Matter of…
What could go wrong? Alfred Hitchcock directs Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten in a mysterious tale of marital intrigues and social bigotry in a land populated by ex-convicts. Bergman is the long-suffering wife and Jack Cardiff is behind the Technicolor camera, which swoops through several amazing unbroken moving camera master shots, one fully five minutes…
Inflato-faced Jô Shishido is at it again, here in a typically precocious, spoofy crime adventure by Japan’s playful Seijun Suzuki. If the eccentric color scheme doesn’t do the trick, the antic comic relief and wild musical numbers will. Shishido dances the Charleston, and the nightclub rocks with a terrific twist number. The music under Nikkatsu’s…
What, another docu about Nazis? Rüdiger Suchsland’s show tells the entire story — with many rare clips and interesting actor and filmmaker profiles — of the hundreds of state-produced German films made during the Third Reich. It’s the most thorough, informative and eye-opening show on the subject I’ve yet seen. It comes with revelations about…
We’re still waiting for the role that will prove that Jon Hamm has a future after Mad Men. This middling hostage negotiation drama doesn’t insult our intelligence yet is still not that much more impressive than an average ‘let’s go to a war zone!’ episode of NCIS. Rosamund Pike plays an intrepid diplomat/agent who chooses…
Delirious silver-screen glamour never disappoints! Marlene Dietrich’s six Paramount pictures for Josef von Sternberg arrive in a beautifully annotated disc set. The most creative director-muse relationship of the 1930s created an all-conquering German siren-goddess, a screen icon vom kopf bis fuss. Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood Blu-ray Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The…
It’s a Brit sex comedy that addresses the basic facts about boy-girl petting — and not much else. A noted ‘adult’ role for Hayley Mills, it pairs her with an unlikable Oliver Reed, trying his damnedest to affect natural charm. Was Reed the reason Hayley chose as her next picture a story about a lady…
Watch out – a bloodsucking fiend is stalking the highways and by-ways of lower Manhattan… and she has a PhD! Abel Ferrara’s vampire mini-epic puts Lili Taylor through an ordeal that’s harrowing, transformational and either profound or pretentious depending on how you roll with existential philosophy. We acknowledge that Ferrara is a good judge of…
Luchino Visconti’s national epic looks and plays better than ever. A Southern family relocates to Milan, and each of the sons reacts differently to life in the big city. It’s one of Italy’s most emotional film experiences. Rocco and His Brothers Blu-ray Milestone Cinematheque 1960 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 177 m. / Rocco…
Lively stars, good music and Bob Fosse-grade dancing favor Columbia’s forgotten-yet-rediscovered original musical remake, which turns the adventures of two sisters in Manhattan into an all-romantic gambol. Janet Leigh and Jack Lemmon are young and fresh, but MGM alumnus Betty Garrett steals the show. My Sister Eileen Blu-ray Twilight Time 1955 / Color /…
All but inventing the ‘new liberal exposé’ suspense format, James Bridges’ smart and effective thriller began as a star showcase with a political message. Its fictional nuclear accident hit screens just before a similar real nuclear accident happened in real life, at Three Mile Island. Historical synchronicity? Box office serendipity? One thing is certain —…
Wow … pre-Code pictures frequently offended conservative values, but this saucy ‘n’ sinful big business exposé is guaranteed to bring #MeToo advocates to their feet, demanding that the negative be burned. Loretta Young stars as a rather inconsistent modern maid, trapped between three less-than-scrupulous men. No, make that three total pigs. She Had to Say…
Movies about the blacklist aren’t common, probably because as Robert Vaughn wrote, the period produced no happy stories, ‘Only Victims.’ Robert de Niro, Annette Bening and George Wendt give a bite of immediacy to the way the blacklist upset careers and blighted lives. Few of us would like to be publicly branded an Enemy of…
Near the top of the list of movies we do not recommend as a date picture, no way no how, Wes Craven’s gut-wrencher presented a real problem for critics. Whose movie exactly is this? The producer wanted a commercially daring pornographic gore shocker. The writer-director envisioned a political scream of rage against America he considered…
Ingmar Bergman’s tale of murder, retribution and God’s forgiveness may be the perfect entry point for art-film appreciation — it’s immediately accessible yet genuinely profound. It’s also a compelling miracle story. Max Von Sydow is the proud father who fills himself with a spirit of vengeance that contradicts his newly-adopted Christianity. The Virgin Spring Blu-ray…
Fritz Lang and Nunnally Johnson take a deep dive into Psych 101 and come up with a winner: a milquetoast-meets-murderous-femme tale that pays off marvelously, even with its trick ending. Entranced more by his own gentle dreams than the allure of Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson imagines a perfect dalliance, and follows it up with…
This strange blend of French série noire and English Brit noir was filmed in glowing Technicolor on location in Holland and Paris. Runaway bookkeeper Claude Rains teams up with the highly fatale Märta Torén, evading the law in pursuit of the good life promised by a valise packed with money. Georges Simenon’s crime tale has…
A quick Jet-set ride takes us to Rome of 1962, which for a couple of years was the movie capital of the world. Washed-up actor Kirk Douglas reinvents himself amid the vipers of his past — an abusive director (Edward G. Robinson), a medusa-like ex-wife (Cyd Charisse) and a parade of show-biz creeps that want…
It’s a CineSavant guest reviewer debut for journalist Sergio Alejandro Mims. In its first ever 2-disc set Twilight Time makes a bold statement with a domestic release of an important U.K. restoration. It’s without question extremely influential as filmmaking — techniques used in The Avengers: Infinity War can be traced back to D.W. Griffith’s classic….
Ya know, “It’s a Big Country!” Westerns and pacifism are like oil and water, but William Wyler, Jessamyn West and three other top writers found a way for Gregory Peck to surmount eight showdowns and never fire a pistol in anger. Jean Simmons and Charlton Heston win top acting honors, while Burl Ives earns his…
Norman Lear’s Cold Turkey is preferred by 4 out of 5 doctors, and the other doctor is a fool that doesn’t smoke cigarettes. Lear’s triple-threat writing, producing and directing effort is by no means a lazy comedy, with its twenty featured actors dashing around like asylum inmates for ninety minutes. It’s not the show to…
Do you miss the Stooges? Miss Edgar Kennedy? Here’s a bizarre bill of goods for committed film fans in search of retro fun. Will Ryan and Nick Santa Maria perform as a madcap ’30s comedy team in a series of imaginatively re-created short subjects, all designed to fit the broad style of the era. It…
MGM wasn’t the most current studio in 1957, as can be seen by this throwback to another era, a semi-screwball romantic comedy with big stars and directed in high style by Vincente Minnelli. Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall party like it’s 1939, and with the musical-comedy help of the irrepressible Dolores Gray, almost pull it…