Articles by Glenn Erickson

CineSavant

The Thomas Crown Affair

Hollywood glamour strikes the crime genre, with a bank robbery tale that concentrates on high living and high fashion. Superstars Steve McQueen…

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The Diabolical Dr. Z

Engaged to direct by a reputable producer, Jesús Franco takes yet another stab at conventional B&W horror. The pulp thrills get a…

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Charley Varrick (Region B)

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…

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Blade Runner 2049

After 35 years Philip K. Dick's brainstorm returns in a film sequel worthy of the original; Denis Villeneuve does right by the…

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The Hanging Tree

"To really live, you must almost die," sings Marty Robbins, a lesson learned by Austrian import star Maria Schell. Delmer Daves' best…

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Bend of the River (Meuterei am Schlangenfluss)

The second Anthony Mann / James Stewart western displays excellent direction and impressive Technicolor location photography high in the high mountains of…

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Raw Deal (1948)

Style can be the star in Classic Noir, making a less prestigious film more entertaining than one with bigger names. Dennis O'Keefe,…

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Not as a Stranger

What? Doctors aren't perfect? And some practicing doctors are incompetent? Stanley Kramer's All-Star medical soap opera takes two unlikely students (Robert Mitchum…

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Young Mr. Lincoln

Viewers looking (desperately) for American leaders to admire can't do better than to reflect on John Ford's folksy, at least partly authentic…

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Legend of the Lost

America’s top box office star John Wayne sneaks away to a remote corner of the Sahara Desert with the top Italian sex…

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The Hospital

A story of murders in the ER becomes, courtesy of writer Paddy Chayefsky, either a preview of social breakdown or an impassioned…

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Matinee

A scary monster movie comes to Key West just as a nuclear crisis breaks out! Joe Dante's incomparable paean to monster kid…

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Cadillac Man

The irrepressible Robin Williams is Joey, a trash-talking Cadillac salesman with three women on the line, who becomes an involuntary hero when…

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The Apartment

Savant's vote for the best romantic comedy ever goes to a sordid fable about problems in the big city Rat Race: keeping…

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Forever Amber

Meet the lusty Amber St. Clare, a 17th century social climber determined to sleep her way to respectability. Gorgeous Linda Darnell gets…

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The Whales of August

This look at the 'adjustments' of old age and the pain of nostalgia is a prime opportunity to admire a pair of…

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The Garden of Allah

One of the first full Technicolor features is a romantic fantasy about an innocent beauty's encounter with an equally innocent fugitive monk…

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Still looking sharp 26 years since its premiere, James Cameron's picture completely masters the mass audience thriller while pushing the effects envelope…

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Ruby

A significant horror hit from '77, Ruby surprised all that made it including its director Curtis Harrington, who struggled with an interfering…

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Dunkirk

A huge summer hit and a righteous blow struck for positive, non-comic book entertainment, Christopher Nolan's account of a WW2 crisis is…

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Pulp

A spoof? A black comedy? Michael Hodges and Michael Caine's hardboiled 'foreign intrigue' comedy lays on the movie references and clever dialogue,…

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Four Faces West

Westerns are all about values: good and bad, law and lawlessness, etc. Joel McCrea and Frances Dee's 'bad man' saga isn't faith…

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Night Passage — Die Uhr ist abgelaufen

It's the great Anthony Mann-James Stewart western that Mann didn't direct: Stewart goes it alone, over-filling a good western idea with 'cute'…

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Letter from an Unknown Woman

This devastating romantic melodrama is Max Ophüls' best American picture -- perhaps because it seems so European? It's probably Joan Fontaine's finest…