We may not have film of the legendary actresses Lily Langtree or Sara Bernhardt to enjoy, but now we can see the famed Anna Pavlova dance and act, in an epic-length revolutionary saga inspired by a Grand Opera. In conjunction with the BFI and the New York Public Library, The Milestone Cinematheque gives us the…
Secure one major book with a serious subject, sign up a wagonload of stars (including a legend or two) and make sure every cookie-cutter character repeatedly explains themselves to the camera in close-up. That formula worked well for Stanley Kramer in 1965; his film hasn’t much of a reputation but the cast is gold. A…
Director Jim McBride puts retro magic into a rock ‘n’ roll bio about a big talent who was probably more fun on stage than in person. Dennis Quaid hits the right note of insanity for his portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis’s rise to fame and fortune. Winona Ryder’s hilarious, almost scary bobby-sox Lolita becomes Jerry’s…
More mysterious than ever, Sergio Leone’s ode to (condemnation of?) revolution is said to be the centerpiece of his three ‘Once Upon a Time’ movies linking western violence to the modern age of brutal politics and ruthless gangsterism. Crudeness rubs shoulders with sad and beautiful images as Leone takes on a theme he claimed not…
Here’s something odd: the formative feature in Roger Corman’s proto- career. Roger gets credits for Story and Associate Producer, and learned what he needed to learn to produce two movies of his own in the same year. The modest crime thriller sees Richard Conte involved with three women during a chase on dusty desert roads:…
This nearly forgotten Sci-fi masterpiece should have been a monster hit. For some reason Universal didn’t think that a computer menace was commercial — the year after 2001. The superior drama sells a tough concept: the government activates a defense computer programmed to keep the peace. It does exactly that, but by holding the world…
Louis Malle’s French thriller is cooler than cool — his first dramatic film is a slick suspense item with wicked twists of fate and images to die for: 1) Jeanne Moreau at the height of her beauty 2) walking through beautifully lit Parisian back streets 3) accompanied by a fantastic Miles Davis soundtrack. Murder in…
Blown up to Road Show spectacular dimensions, a fairly modest idea for a comedy western became something of a career Waterloo for director John Sturges. But it’s still a favorite of fans thrilled by fancy 70mm-style presentations. A huge cast led by Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin leads the charge on…
Louise Brooks once said that the movies were invented to enable rich men to own desirable women. The Outlaw is the stuff of legend less for itself than for Howard Hughes’ creation of the sex star Jane Russell, and his battle with the censors and Hollywood itself. We’ve always gotten the impression that nobody has…
New Yorkers of two centuries ago surely complained loudly about rampant street crime, but in the 1960s the media really ramped up the reportage paranoia. Had a new age of senseless violence begun? A New York play about terror on the subway is the source for this nail-biter with a powerful cast, featuring an ensemble…
Of all the ‘depressed relationship’ dramas of the early ’70s, this may be the most rewarding. It also sports one of the longest titles on record. Paul Zindel’s award-winning play gets a marvelous adaptation for the screen, thanks to Alvin Sargent, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. There’s also the stealth input of the star couple’s…
Some movies attempted to change social attitudes from the very beginning, and director Lois Weber made that goal her specialty, with a great many enormously popular films of the ‘teens and ‘twenties. Milestone’s disc of a Dutch restoration of this 1916 gem is a major find in terms of film culture: it helps write women…
Devotees of crime and film noir will get a kick out of this Brit attempt to capture the American style, that now comes off as screamingly funny. It was both a huge hit and a big scandal in London, 1948, where the censors came down hard on the film’s flagrant immorality and over-the-top violence. Former…
A cinematic puzzle and a filmic detective piece, Serge Bromberg’s examination of a world-class filmmaker’s catastrophic, never-finished production fascinates and dazzles. If the particulars of H.G. Clouzot’s experimental epic of internal torment remain clouded, the astonishing visuals he created are a total knockout. Working with hours of uncut dailies and precise collaborator memories, Bromberg gives…
Talk about Zombies We’ve Known and Loved — this famed shocker is now worshipped as the father of the modern horror film. It’s no museum piece but a taut thriller that hasn’t diminished one wit — it still pays off in real chills. When it came to inspired independent filmmaking George Romero was a genuine…
Talk about staying power — Jonathan Demme’s riveting, ultimately humanistic horror thriller raked in a full house of Oscars and is still scaring new viewers. Even those that chose to avoid it know what it’s all about. My review bows to the film’s superiority and remarks on some of its finer points of cinematic splendor….
Caroline Link’s wonderful, woefully obscure Best Foreign Film winner is an entertaining story of the perils of wartime emigration. It hits hard right now, with our own immigration crackdown underway. A Jewish family smartly escapes Nazi Germany at the 11th hour, only to find themselves imprisoned in detention camps by the British — who ironically…
There’s a point where unnervingly harsh and disturbingly irrational movies become more trouble than they’re worth. This groaner is two hours of jeopardy to children and perversely cruel storytelling that never rewarded this viewer. And director Yorgos Lanthimos chooses a style of performance and presentation that all but bypasses recognizable human values. I hold the…
Hey kids! Learn about the great time we’ll be having if the world powers plunge us into a nuclear winter! This post-atomic horror show traumatized England in 1984, and thanks to the liberal media magnate Ted Turner, even saw some airings in the U.S.. The most extreme prime-time response to Ronald Reagan’s heating up of the…
Ross Macdonald’s Cool Cat detective — originally Lew Archer — comes alive in Jack Smight’s smart SoCal kidnapping mystery, thanks to a charismatic Paul Newman and a hot cast of bright, smart actors. It’s the first screenplay sale for the celebrated William Goldman, and the crisp cinematography by ace cameraman Conrad Hall doesn’t hurt either….
The strangest Italian portmanteau picture of the sixties features glorious Silvana Mangano in dozens of costume changes, directed by big names (Visconti, De Sica, Pasolini) and paired with a woefully miscast Clint Eastwood. The other major attraction is a delightful music score by Piero Piccioni, with an assist from Ennio Morricone. The Witches Special Edition…
Tony Richardson’s look at corruption in the border patrol service is both sensational and insightful, and Jack Nicholson gives a committed performance as a downtrodden functionary who finds himself in a major moral and humanitarian catastrophe. The problem is still there today, with no consensus on the right diagnosis or solution. The action melodrama costars…
Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s mine disaster saga is both a stirring social drama and a remarkable feat of technical engineering — the underground cave-ins and gas-fed fires are still frightening in their realism. Criterion’s extras offer critical and historical context for a pacifist statement filmed during a tense political time in France and Germany. Kameradschaft…
Hollywood glamour strikes the crime genre, with a bank robbery tale that concentrates on high living and high fashion. Superstars Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway play a coy game of thief and investigator. This expensive show is not really in fashion anymore, but in 1968 it was high-class filmmaking, with Norman Jewison solidifying his position…
Engaged to direct by a reputable producer, Jesús Franco takes yet another stab at conventional B&W horror. The pulp thrills get a boost through the contributions of talented collaborators: excellent camerawork flatters the idiosyncratic obsessions of a writer-director in search of his own dream-world sensibility. Although it’s not saying much, this might be the best…
It’s the loose-censored early 1970s, and screen bandits shootin’ up the American movie landscape are no longer suffering the once-mandated automatic moral retribution. Walter Matthau launched himself into the genre with this excellent Don Siegel on-the-run epic, about an old-fashioned independent bandit who accidentally rips off the mob for a million. It’s great, wicked fun….