Kino keeps finding noir thrillers for its Dark Side series; classic-era stars decorate collection Number 23. Paul Henreid tortures Burt Lancaster for diamond secrets in Rope of Sand, witnessed by Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and sultry Corinne Calvet. Ruthless crook James Cagney woos Helena Carter and foolishly doublecrosses Barbara Payton in Horace McCoy’s Kiss Tomorrow…
Italian neo-realism and humanitarian sentiment meet in writer-director Ermanno Olmi, whose docudrama style wins over all that see it. In Il posto (The Job) a meek Milano goes through the humiliating process of applying for a career as a civil servant; in I fidanzati (The Betrothed) we witness the long-distance suffering of a young engineer…
It’s the notorious slasher horror noted for ‘starring’ Brooke Shields … although she exits the picture very quickly. New York filmmaker Alfred Sole turns in one of the better psychodrama efforts of the 1970s, a bloody murder tale in a Catholic context. Awful events on a First Communion day point suspicion toward a surviving daughter….
The Warner Archive Collection comes through with a splendid restoration of this great pirate picture. Paul Henreid is a superb Dutch colonial-turned buccaneer, Maureen O’Hara devastating in Technicolor, and Walter Slezak a marvelous villain, given dialogue by Herman J. Mankiewicz. Errol Flynn may still be king but he’s also not missed; every frame of this…
The 3-D Archive continues its quest to revive our heritage of stereoscopic features with Arch Oboler’s obscure romantic travelogue. That the movie falls short of most of its aims won’t make a difference to connoisseurs of the process. Two Americans in Japan fall in love while seeing the sights, but the real interest is in…
Clark Gable and Doris Day shine in an overlooked, bright romantic comedy: Kay and Michael Kanin’s elegant screenplay gets in some punches for education and good journalism, and overcomes most dated story aspects. A crusty news editor is forced to attend night school, and discovers that his teacher knows things about newspaper work he didn’t…
Katharine Hepburn gets one more first-class filmic go-round, in James Goldman’s highly entertaining story of home life with those wild and crazy Plantagenets … how do three angry sons, one imprisoned Queen, the King of France and a frustrated paramour decide who gets the throne? Peter O’Toole is likewise excellent under the fine direction of…
While gearing up to take on the hypocrisy of the Production Code, producer-director Otto Preminger hired out for Milton Sperling & Gary Cooper’s ode to an aviator-warrior who fought against the War Office. To air his grievances and promote Air Power, General William Mitchell forced a military trial that destroyed his career; his superiors almost…
Los Angeles bursts into flames, total disaster, no mercy …. but it’s not a firefighting problem. Steve De Jarnatt’s classic apocalyptic thriller comes back in a remastered edition, with an entire disc devoted to the writer-director’s career story. Anthony Edwards’ and Mare Winningham’s ill-fated 24-hour romance in the City of the Angels is more poignant…
Whoa — RKO’s wartime hit is a bright spot for mainstream filmmaking: major studio talents turn an unpromising idea into a sweetheart film everyone loved. Cary Grant has total control of his ‘bad’ gambler-grifter, while the unsung but wonderful Laraine Day gives him a reason to reform. The Damon Runyon-inflected tale is frequently hilarious, with…
What at first seems a plain-wrap generic western is actually anything but; Borden Chase’s circular storyline pulls in a bit of every theme the genre had going before 1950. This first James Stewart – Anthony Mann collaboration is one of their toughest; something violent or despicable happens in every reel. Mann gets to adapt Shakespearean…
It’s an excellent ‘thinking man’s safari picture’: Bob Rafelson’s beautifully produced epic examines the partnership of two of the 19th century’s greatest explorers. They jointly found the source of the Nile, but after their amazing adventure, London politics and malicious interference broke them up. Patrick Bergin and Iain Glen are the truly intrepid explorers and…
Wow, this time we review a picture just a couple of months old. Good director Edward Berger guides some fine performances in a drama about backroom deals and dark secrets in the voting to elect a new pope. The movie looks lavish in 4K — entire Vatican chapels were duplicated at Cinecittà — and the…
What a great picture to see bumped to 4K … when that grinding Elmer Bernstein cue launches the titles, we know we’re in for a hardboiled experience. Roy, Lilly and Myra are highly attractive ‘poison’ people in their own cheap rackets — hooking, fixing racetrack odds and grifting, aka practicing petty con-man ripoffs on unsuspecting…
It’s another intense film noir with a strong woman dealing with a weak man. Ann Sheridan comes through with a great performance in her most promising Warners star vehicle. ‘Accidental Homewrecker’ Nora is the anti-femme fatale, who can only watch as her doctor-lover Kent Smith throws away his practice, his family, his upscale lifestyle and…
It’s one of Tarantino’s best: Arrow Video repackages his celebration of absurd wartime action thrillers with a battery of new featurettes and interviews. We take the opportunity to revise a review that still gets mail. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger star in a genre wish-fulfillment fantasy that…
Whoa! What was once ‘raw adult’ fare now plays as quaint — yet still hot. Voyeurism becomes entertainment — America’s mammary-obsessed independent filmmaker Russ Meyer did as much for naughty male daydreams as did Hugh Hefner. The entire ‘Vixen trilogy’ is being released, but we concentrate on Meyer’s breakthrough picture with Erica Gavin, the one…
aka Le faille. Radiance comes up with yet another exotic Eurothriller. Author Antonis Samarakis’ first-person experience informs this sophisticated study of the psychology of detectives operating in a police state. An apparently ordinary guy is snatched from the street and accused of being a subersive; two cops take him ‘for a ride’ in hopes that…
Where has this one been? The excellent war drama features Humphrey Bogart in one of his most satisfying roles, as a get-it-done tank commander surrounded by Germans on the African Sands. It’s solid storytelling with something of a United Nations appeal. Bogie’s tank crew is Bruce Bennett and Dan Duryea. Rex Ingram’s Sgt. is a…
Joseph E. Levine’s multi-star WWII epic is one of the last Road Show blockbusters: Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Kruger, Ryan O’Neal, Laurence Olivier, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullmann carry substantial roles in a detailed re-enactment of an ill-fated Allied attempt to break…
The Warner Archive Collection’s first 4K Ultra HD release is a glowing digital restoration of John Ford’s unequalled western classic, considered to also have one of John Wayne’s best performances. The movie is remarkable in that it embraces so many different tones: tragic drama, buffoonish comedy, and a full examination of racial hatred as a…
One of the strangest American films of the ’60s is Leslie Stevens’ occult thriller starring William Shatner — who speaks all his dialogue in Esperanto. A ‘once upon a time’ country has a healing well, but its forest and beaches are overrun by female demons that harvest wicked souls through seduction and murder. The weirdness…
An 1861 plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln is smartly styled as a ‘film noir in costume.’ Southern secessionists want Abe dead, and many in the Union hate him as well; detective Dick Powell races ny train to Baltimore to stem the murdereous conspiracy. The tension now feels topical …. only in the Civil War era…
The Coen brothers’ modern classic adapts Cormac McCarthy’s book about drug violence on the border. Welcome to supply & demand economics at its most basic: human values are absent in a bloody scramble for a cache of drug money. Tommy Lee Jones is the old lawman with a defeatist outlook and Josh Brolin is a…
William Friedkin whips up some terrific action and nasty knife-fighting with solid input from Tommy Lee Jones and Benecio Del Toro. Despite delivering on that promise, the characters and storyline never rise above trite clichés. So this one’s for fans of hairy chases and gritty one-on-one combat. Friedkin’s fast pace is enhanced by the cinematography…
The living dead didn’t hunger for brains back in the 1940s, but they did walk with Frances Dee, elect a King and perform on Broadway. Monogram’s second microbudgeted Zombie opus gives John Carradine one of his first mad doctor roles. The fine actor dignifies inconsequential plot complications, mixing chemicals to create Zombie storm troopers for…