It’s a top-rank war movie, the best of its kind. The Ealing Studios, writer Eric Ambler and director Charles Frend transpose Nicholas Monserrat’s best seller to the screen with honesty and realism. Little-known now, the show was a hit in America, too. It made a star of Jack Hawkins and raised the profiles of Donald…
Having an LSD flashback? Can you really remember every controlled substance you regularly imbibed in your wild days? Freaky homicides figure in Jeff Lieberman’s horror thriller, but the uneasiness builds on everyday fears we all understand: why is my hair suddenly falling out? Am I losing my mind? Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard and…
John Ford and John Wayne’s best ‘old man’s movie’ is deceptive — on the outside it’s as square as can be, an easy-chair comedy vacation for all concerned. But Ford imbues the proceedings with poetic formalism, and a nostalgia for a generation in retirement. John Wayne was never so at-ease charming, Lee Marvin does some…
Glamorous Joan’s screen image is now fully defined, and her improved acting carries her pictures with grace and assurance. Director Clarence Brown makes a soapy story play like high drama. It’s rags to riches again, as one woman captivates the three men in her life. Sexy Sadie elopes with one man, marries another and resents…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we salute another great actor who has shuffled off this mortal coil. Use our wine pairings to raise a glass to Richard Chamberlain. The Last Wave is a 1977 Australian thriller…
Known to Tarzan fans and almost nobody else is this four-hour serial filmed parallel with MGM’s series, and officially produced by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. The one-movie Tarzan is Herman Brix, later known as Bruce Bennett; his interpretation of the role is solid and his physical presence is excellent. Filmed in Guatemala, it’s…
The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent A Missing on Blu Review 1958 – 66 Min. Starring Abby Dalton, June Kenney, Susan Cabot, Richard Devon Cinematography by Monroe P. Askins Written by Lawrence L. Goldman Directed by Roger Corman An epic adventure seen through the wrong end of a telescope, Roger Corman’s bargain-basement monster fest…
It’s the best detective movie of the 1970s, now on 4K. Arthur Penn and Alan Sharp give us a ‘Southern California Sordid’ tale of a sleuth doing his best to return a missing girl, not knowing that her delinquency touches on larger crimes and vices by Hollywood fringe folk. It’s a superb performance from Gene…
A heist caper classic just got a new lease on life — after languishing in so-so encodings for 50 years, Jules Dassin and Melina Mercouri’s colorful escapist thriller dazzles once more. Peter Ustinov, Maximillian Schell, Robert Morley and Akim Tamiroff help Melina knock off the Topkapi museum in Istanbul, in a breathtaking midnight raid involving…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we chew up some scenery with three films starring Al Pacino. Also, say hello to my little wine pairings for each movie. I once took a picture of Al Pacino into…
From the Canadian branch of exploitation filmmaking comes this quirky stab (and chop, and bite) appetizer, an early production by Ivan Reitman. Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin are the cute couple that wander into the wrong snowbound hamlet, too innocent and trusting to recognize a horror setup when they see it. The future maker of…
Murder by Decree 1979 – 124 Min. Kino Lorber – 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray 1:66 Widescreen Starring Christopher Plummer, James Mason, Genevieve Bujold Written by John Hopkins Directed by Bob Clark There’s a reason Buckingham palace was built like a fortress: to keep the lower classes out and the family secrets in. Murder by…
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s suspense ordeal is back, with additional minutes of footage and remastered in flawless 4K. Few films express such a poisonous attitude about humanity: for four desperate men, the only way to escape a South American backwater is to volunteer for a veritable suicide mission, driving truckloads of nitroglycerine up a punishing mountain road….
This is the movie with the spiky bra that doubles as a gun. Pop Art meets progressive social Sci-fi in a wicked satire about a future where wars are replaced with an organized murder game. Contestants alternate the role of hunter or victim; the goal is to score ten kills. Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week our trio of films is for those who sleep with a nightlight on. Don’t worry, we have wine pairings for each movie. And, we’ll leave the light on for you. Darkman,…
It’s Chlorophyll in Motion, writ large: in Godzilla’s most interestingly stylized franchise entry, the mean-tempered monster faces off with a colossal surrealist vision, a gene-spliced amalgam of a rose plant, high-vitamin Godzilla cells, and the genetic-spiritual essence of a scientist’s daughter. Director Kazuki Ômori’s frenetic thriller is all over the map, with industrial assassins, more…
The territorial imperative gets a curious workout: English planters in Malaya defend their homesteads against ‘bandits’ with undefined aims. Ken Annakin contributes deft direction to a ‘colonial conflict’ story with the postwar politics filtered out, and replaced with domestic anxiety. Will planter’s wife Claudette Colbert look for love somewhere else, or will hubby Jack Hawkins…
How can such a tiny production be so noteworthy? Roger Corman’s cleverly-assembled monster romp has simplicity and sincerity going for it, not to mention Floyd Crosby’s handsome cinematography and a winning leading lady in Anne Kimbell. It’s a producer’s picture, made on a shoestring just as the studios’ domination of the industry was on the…
Two-Way Stretch 1960 – 87 Min. Kino Lorber – Blu ray 1:66 Widescreen Starring Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins, Lionel Jeffries Written by John Warren Directed by Robert Day “Dodger” Lane, “Jelly” Knight and “Lennie the Dip” have been living large in Huntleigh Prison for several years; their Runyonesque nicknames all but guarantee they’re an amiable…
Who rules? That’s often the question in life, isn’t it? Whether it’s concerning a job, a religion or a government, the important thing to know is who’s actually running things. Is that person moral with good intentions or are they a narcissistic sociopath content to watch everything burn? It’s useful to know these things, because…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, Let’s get crazy. Let’s get nuts. Let’s pair wine with some films from the fringe. From the crazy ‘60s, 1969 actually, Coming Apart stars Rip Torn as a psychiatrist with mental…
Juan López Moctezuma’s bizarre Edgar Allan Poe adaptation gets new life in a new 4K transfer with a correct widescreen aspect ratio. An entire corps of Mexican artists and actors designed and staged this macabre happening, the old tale of maniacs that take over the asylum. It stars Claudio Brook and sounds good in both…
Late-cycle noir introduces us to Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole, a new kind of polite psychotic menace who kills because, ‘sigh,’ people just don’t give him a choice. Wendell Corey is a fugitive seeking revenge against cop Joseph Cotten … and determined to take ‘a wife for a wife’ justice. Rhonda Fleming and Michael Pate co-star in…
We love the handful of fantastic Soviet-bloc space pictures from the Yuri Gagarin era; this exacting disc release gives us two East German space operas from the 1970s, heavily influenced by Kubrick’s 2001 and TV’s Star Trek. Polite cosmonauts investigate a missing spaceflight in Signals: A Space Adventure, a visual effects showcase filmed in 70mm….
Universal’s second 3-D picture of the classic era has an edge on its competition: direction that takes full advantage of the depth effect in almost every shot. It’s not a bad whodunnit, either, with Edward G. Robinson in a tailor-made part and John Forsythe sweating out the hours as an innocent man framed by his…