This great-looking (especially now) musical splits opinions right down the middle. It charms many who love the songs and the rustic comedy; others find it an overlong departure from the original stage musical. Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood sing, which for some invalidates the whole show. Yet after a few viewings we can see that…
She said she preferred to play ‘bad’ women because they were more interesting than virtuous characters, but it’s tempting to speculate that Joan Crawford, the ultimate Hollywood survivor, was expressing her own conflicted personality. With the help of two trusted directors, one of them her lover, Crawford ruled the roost in a pair of indictments…
Düsseldorf is ground zero for a superior Deutscher Kriminalfilm that never made it to the U.S.. Heist mastermind Götz George guides a bank hostage standoff from afar, stage-managing the details of an amorous inside job. Director Dominik Graf winds up the tension for this precise ‘puzzle-crime:’ Only ‘The Cat’ knows the full plan, and he’s…
This Golden Turkey embarrassment is far too entertaining to be dismissed as a mere Bad Movie — Howard Hughes’ ode to Mongol barbarians does have perhaps the worst-cast star role of all time, and every third dialogue line is fall-down hilarious, but it’s great fun. John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Pedro Armendariz give it their…
Donald Cammell’s collision of gangster brutality and drug-soaked decadence steps up to 4K clarity. Excellent extras properly credit the writer-director, whose name is sometimes omitted in favor of co-director Nicolas Roeg. Mick Jagger’s first dramatic role is as a recluse who interrupts his drugs ‘n’ sex lifestyle to shelter a mobster on the run; James…
Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature is a mini-masterpiece that revitalized the Mexican fantastic film. Inventing his own macabre horror concept, Del Toro envisions a bizarre fountain of youth with an unforeseen side effect that’s akin to vampirism without supernatural powers. Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman and Claudio Brook star in a beautifully designed and directed scare…
This movie sat on a shelf for 5 years, and was shown on TV only when Burt Reynolds became a big star. A romance heats up on a movie location in Utah, between a local guy and an assistant editor. It’s a ’70s ‘new Hollywood’ slice-of-life character study, but 5 years too early … and…
Kurosawa’s witty samurai classics are back, in 4K Ultra HD. The master of cinema greeted the 1960s with American pulp cynicism in Japanese period costume, creating what was essentially a Japanese western. Toshirô Mifune is a riot as an amoral sword for hire in Yojimbo, promoting a turf war for fun and profit. In the…
Is it exploitative junk or a radical feminist manifesto? Or just an out-of-control genre mashup between Sci-fi and a skin flick? It’s Denis Sanders’ final feature and Nicholas Meyer’s first script, but the real auteur may be the producer who put voyeurism above all other concerns. Scores of males in Peckham are dying in the…
With the economy in collapse and millions out of work during the Great Depression, a few Hollywood thrillers proposed radical political changes. William Randolph Hearst was the impetus behind this bizarre tale of a President ‘possessed by an Angel’ who assumes dictatorial powers. The Cabinet and Congress are pushed aside, labor camps are set up…
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…