Starring: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki, Miles Mander, Douglas Walton, Donald Douglas, Ralf Harolde, esther Howard
Tagline: A night of murder the police won't let him forget! The only key to his safety... a woman's face he can't remember!
Plot: After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe
is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Yeah.
Is it me or is this a little too complicated for its own good? I dig the flick and it's fun. The dialogue, acting and such is right where you want it to be for a noir crime picture but sometimes it feels like a copout when all the information you need to figure out what's going on isn't given until the massive exposition dump near the end. Sometime it works great like in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) and sometimes it feels like cheating as in this movie. Maybe I'm getting too worked up about it. I don't know. Dick Powell is always fun to watch but I do like my noir detectives to be on the darker side than wise-cracking. Moose (played by 6'5" Mike Mazurki) was a tough and fun character. It's still a fun ride despite my bitching about being in the dark until the end.
Tagline: For these nine young women, opening the door that night meant ending their lives!
Plot: A disturbed American war veteran arrives in Belfast during the Northern
Ireland conflicts, and proceeds to terrorize a household of female
nursing students.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Maybe.
Good flick. The first half of the picture sets it up and the second half is the home invasion. Before the horror begins, we get to see both Cain's (played by Carriere) situation and we get to spend some time with the nine girls; all of this happening in Belfast, Northern Ireland, against the backdrop of a country torn apart by extreme violence. For the most part, Cain is handled pretty well although I think there could've been a few more subtleties to give it a bit more nuance. The filmmakers aren't giving Cain excuses but rather show you how this man, in his mental state, was able to find himself in a self-created situation that led to the murder of eight women over the course of one short night. And with the set up involving the girls, that was handled masterfully, giving the audience enough information to know a little about each one to get a sense of who each are. That was splendidly handled.
Once Cain makes his way into the girls' home, it gets ugly fast. Cain's slippery slide to murder starts with an impulse that makes each subsequent murder easier to the point of being as natural as breathing.
The ending delivers something unexpected and still somewhat satisfying, insofar as Cain's fate is concerned. I'm rather surprised at the low IMDb score. I don't care to read the reviews on this one. It's a good, well-made film, made at a time when edge was all the rage but this came from Europe whose filmmakers had a different sensibility and one that likely kept this from being the depraved exploitation film it would've been had it been made in the US.
I do have one last observation. The version I watched was an English dub. The dub itself was good which worked as it was set where English was spoken but the problem was with the sound levels for the music which often drowned out the dialogue. What's more, the music, which is uncredited on IMDb, often didn't fit well with the visual. There is one theme that did and it had a strong John Barry ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1968) vibe and it was great. It had the right tone and unsettling vibe about it that fit well but the other cues were problematic. Add to that the music would often stop quickly, unfinished. I can see how that could be used as a technique to set the viewer on edge but it happened so much that, if that were the case, it ceased being effective after the umpteenth time. I'm curious as the mixing levels and the music in general on any of the non-English versions. Please let me know if you've seen one of them. Fixing these issues alone would've boosted my score another point. The print I watched had no title card.
Starring: Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate, Conny Van Dyke, G.D. Spradlin, Bobby Hall, Steve Sandor, Sonny Barger, Terry the Tramp, Clifford Workman, Tiny Walters, Charles Tinsley, and the Oakland Hell's Angels
Tagline: This was the RUMBLE that ROCKED Las Vegas!
Plot: Chuck and his brother Wes are wealthy siblings who plan to rob Caesar's Palace more for fun than profit. Oh, yeah, they're going to use the unsuspecting Hell's Angels to pull it off!
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? Yes.
Well goddamn this was different! Biker flicks are nearly always predictable and they follow a similar pattern. This one's very different. The fact that a couple of wealthy brothers use the Hell's Angels (without the knowledge of the gang) to help them knock off Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas is a very unusual idea. It's not hard to see how this got made by any studio. Sure, it's AIP, a studio known for it's low budget drive-in movie fare, but it's still a studio with budget and a crew and not some max out your credit cards to get it made kind of a deal. Hell, they even got a soundtrack album released on Capitol Records! Nice going, fellas!!!
The premise is great although I knew nothing of the plot going in so the heist caught my completely by surprise. The acting serves the film well enough and the lead actors (the brothers) do a very nice job. Take a look at their credits, they are impressive. Usually in a biker flick there'd be a ton of padding with the gang riding around everywhere and while that's here, it's just enough and it doesn't feel like it's there to eat up some time. There's a variety of camera angles and other things you just don't expect to find with this genre. And this is from a first-time director!!! I'm going to have to see what else Lee Madden has done. This picture is 96 minutes and I was left wanting more. And HOLY FUCKING SHIT! That ending!!!
Starring: Matthew Sweet (host), Sheri Chinen Biesen, Neil Brand, Sarah Churchwell, Roger Deakins, John Mathieson, George Pelecanos, Paul Schrader, Adrian Wootton
Plot: Documentary that shows the characteristic traits of film noir and their historical context.
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? Nah.
This near one-hour BBC documentary does a great job at condensing the style and what makes a film noir movie a good primer for someone who has little to no knowledge of the genre. The language used (from writer/host Matthew Sweet) is often in the style of the films their discussing which adds to the fun. There are the usual clips from the greatest hits of the genre and the standard bases covered from the dialogue, to lighting/shadows, music, bad news broads, doomed heroes and so on. For longtime fans of the genre, you've probably seen everything discussed but if not, it's definitely worth checking out.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling, Virginia Maskell, Kenneth Griffith, Raymond Huntley, David Davies, Maudie Edwards, Meredith Edwards, John Le Mesurier, Richard Attenborough
Tagline: Peter Sellers' Newest Record-Breaking Comedy That's Rocking All England With Laughter!
Plot: John Lewis is bored by his librarian's job and henpecked at home. Then
Liz, wife of a local councillor, sets her sights on him. But this is
risky stuff in a Welsh valleys town - if he and Liz ever manage to
consummate their affair, that is.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Probably not.
As a big fan of British comedy TV and movies, I find a majority of the films to be amusing while the TV shows are often knee-slappers. This is especially true with Peter Sellers pictures. I don't think I laughed out loud once at this picture but it was charming and amusing. Sellers is in fine form here as John, a conflicted family man whose eyes stray frequently with all the pretty girls that surround him. It's cute at first until you get some hints dropped by his wife, Jean (wonderfully played by Virginia Maskell), that he's cheated on her several times before. With that new information, I'm looking at John a lot less favorably and I don't like him. It's a Peter Sellers flick so you're expecting some slapstick and he delivers. The physical gags are pretty run of the mill and don't add all that much to the entertainment value. What I did enjoy from Sellers was watching him work his way into and out of awkward situations. He's masterful at that.
It's also a joy seeing Sellers simply being a charming person. He was a talented actor that rarely made movies that truly showed his abilities. Anyway, Mai Zetterling (as Liz, the object of John's affection) is delightful and fun. Always the optimist, she knows what she wants and she always gets it. Her and John are well-written characters and they have the benefit of being handled so beautifully by Zetterling and Sellers. I've got to get back to Virginia Maskell as John's wife, Jean. She's fabulous and she plays Jean with such depth and character. She's not just playing what would usually be a thankless role. There's some genuine chemistry between her and the camera. At an hour and forty-six minutes long, you'd think it would wear out its welcome after a while but it doesn't. It's exactly as long as it needed to be. It also didn't hurt to show a little skin to break up, uh, the, um, amusement. Yeah, that's it. Amusement!
And there's just one more thing to mention that MUST be mentioned and that's Richard Attenborough as the annoying artist playwright, Gareth L. Probert. He's fucking hysterical and the tit-for-tat between he and John is worth the price of admission.
Tagline: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Greatest Human Drama
Plot: A well-bred young English lad living in lower Manhattan tries to gain acceptance from his not-so-well-bred peers at school.
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? Maybe.
Man, can these kids act! All three of these guys (Bartholomew, Cooper and Rooney) were three of the top male child actors of the 30s and with good reason. Check out Cooper's early work with the OUR GANG shorts and you'll see what I mean. It's incredible seeing these three in the same picture together. I'll admit it, I was bawling my eyes out at the end. There's no shame in that, no sir-ee. I also choked up a few times when some of the characters did nice things for other people. I know, THAT was weird. My emotions were running pretty high for some reason. The acting skills of these kids fucking sold it. What these kids were going through is akin to something I experienced way back when so maybe there was that connection. Claude's (Bartholomew) home life seemed like a fantasy world that most kids would never be able to relate to but you take that kind of storytelling in stride. You don't find out how much of an asshole his mother is until the end and it plays heavily on the plot.
The story moves pretty quickly but somehow it felt like it was longer than the 92 minutes it was. Watch out for that last act because it's a doozy and an emotional one at that. That's in stark contrast to the overly happy and upbeat note the picture starts on. The ending is earned. Enough can't be said about the three lead kid actors. They are magnificent and a stark contrast to what we see today. I couldn't help but feel that I'd seen Bartholomew in something before until it hit me. The very next year after this picture he starred alongside Spencer Tracy with another wonderful performance in CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (1937). If I remember right, that's another one that had me crying at the end. They made some great shit back then.
Tagline: The greatest story of the sea by today's greatest storyteller!
Plot: In 1940, Canadian sailor Andrew Brown is prisoner on a battle damaged
German raider and he plans to delay the raider's at-sea repairs until a
British naval task-force can destroy it.
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? YES!
SNIPIN' SPOILERS AHEAD!!! YARRRRRRR!!!
The film starts out during WWI with a sappy romance when a soldier (Rennie as Richard Saville) meets a girl (Hiller as Lucinda Bentley) before going abroad with the two falling in love in the hours/days before his departure. They speak of marriage but it never happens. Did they do the nasty? It's possible but not all that hinted at. This happens in the first fifteen minutes and it's pretty by the numbers lovey-dovey stuff of its time. Cut to more than twenty years later and Saville is an admiral commanding a fleet in WWII. This is where the film kicks into gear and gets interesting. Saville is hell-bent on sinking a German warship, the Essen, and he makes the call for one of his ships to hold their position until the fleet arrives. That ship is destroyed, leaving only two survivors that end up as prisoners on the Essen in sick bay, Earnshaw (Maddern) and Brown (Hunter). The Essen is damaged and seeks shelter in a small cove, hidden from the sea and Brown gets the crazy idea to steal a rifle and an inflatable boat and secure himself on the cliff overlooking the Essen, shooting those who attempt at repairing the ship in an effort to delay them long enough for the rest of the fleet to find them. THIS is pretty damn intense and makes for one hell of a show!
The first, short, act is by the numbers romantic BS. Get past that and you've got yourself a pretty damn good action thriller. The performances are very good, especially from Hunter (who goes shirtless and hunky from the time he ditches the German vessel).
The direction during the standoff is tight and tense. This is some really good shit and well worth a watch. It is weird, though, with the first act feeling tacked on considering the rest of the movie ALMOST has nothing to do with it. The ending is upbeat and only slightly hints at something possibly relating to Hiller as it's said by Brown that he has a mother and Hiller was in the beginning of the film which are the only two time a woman is either shown or spoken of. Are we supposed to draw the conclusion that Brown is Saville's son? Yeah, I think so. It's really driven home (and emotionally so) when you watch the alternate ending found on the DVD which changes Brown's fate. Yeah, I choked up a bit. The alternate ending at least ties her to the story in such a way that more so justifies the first fifteen minutes. Without it, you're left scratching your head a little bit wondering what the point was except either it was bad writing, filler or studio intervention. All of those things are still possible but it makes more sense that there's a bigger, more intimate story here. Regardless, the action/standoff portion is well-handled and worth watching. Drop the opening BS and this is easily an 8/10.
Starring: Paul Gross, Sienna Guillory, Dustin Milligan, Tyler Mane, Callum Keith Rennie, Graham Greene, Jay Brazeau, Michael Eklund, Alex Zahara, Jody Racicot, Shawn Campbell, Paul Coeur, Melody B. Choi, Tseng Chang
Plot: A hardened American gunslinger is repeatedly thwarted in his attempts to
mount a showdown in a friendly town in Canada where no one seems to
understand or appreciate the brutal code of the American Wild West.
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? Yes
Well this was refreshingly fun! The tone is set as soon as The Montana Kid opens his mouth. He sounds menacing and talks the tough talk but it's when no one around him gives a shit that he's disarmed of being a badass. Brilliant! The cast does a fine job all the way around, especially Gross.
So who is this guy? I'd never heard of him but he's charismatic, likable and fun. Looking at his credits I didn't see but one thing I recognized and that's the 90s show, DUE SOUTH. I remember it being a thing 25 years ago but I never saw it. Now I'll have to and just because of him. He's wonderful.
Writer/director William Phillips does a wonderful job with the characters and their dialogue. The scenes flow together nicely and there didn't seem to be any fat on the bone. It's a lean story the nicely sees The Kid transform from his gruff, killer persona to where he ends up. I would've liked the villain of the picture, Ben Cutter (Rennie), to be something more than a stock bad guy who does mean things to animals and people to show us in as little time as possible that he's a bad man and must be stopped.
Boo, hiss!
The romance between The Kid and Jane (Guillory) is nicely handled without much of the romance-y crap that sometimes bogs down these pictures. It's not subtle by any stretch but it's also not a drag on the story by focusing too much time on it. I really appreciated that. The picture feels like it slows down a bit during the social dance but it gives a lot of the characters moments to flesh themselves out enough to make a difference to the picture as a whole which is a good thing. There aren't too many Western comedies that work for me but this one does and in a big way. I'm so glad I took the time out to give it a shot.
Tagline: Come children of the universe, let Donovan take you away, far far away.
Plot: In 1349, while the Black Plague threatens Germany, the town of Hamelin
hires a wandering pied piper (Donovan) to lure rats away with his magic
pipe, but then refuses to pay for his services, causing him to lure the
town's children away.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? No.
I really need to read Grimm's fairy tales because I LOVE dark tales involving bad things happening to children largely because, for as long as I can remember, that subject is a big taboo that Hollywood doesn't dare tread (you know, killing children and such). As I watched this I started to remember bits and pieces of the story from when I read it as a kid forty or so years ago. This flick looks great and it's well-acted. For a non-actor, pop music sensation Donovan does pretty well. Naturally, this being the early 70s and written and performed by Donovan, the songs are all of their time and not sounding hundreds of years old, so hearing 70s folk tunes in a movie set in the mid-1300s is weird. Michael Hordern kills it as local doctor/wizard-type. I enjoy a good picture set in Europe way back when. The Plague is near, people are on edge and bad people continue to do bad things. I liked the last half hour the most, probably because that's when it's at its darkest. I would've preferred a much darker ending but you can't have everything. There are lots of known actors which are worth watching this for. It's a good watch.
Plot: The extraordinary odyssey of a U.S. musician of Cape Verdean ancestry to
Tannu Tuva, in central Asia, where nomadic people throat sing more than
one note simultaneously, using vocal harmonics. A bluesman, Paul Pena,
blind and recently widowed, taught himself throat singing and was by
chance invited to the 1995 throat-singing symposium in Kyzyl. Helped by
the "Friends of Tuva," Pena makes the arduous journey. Singing in the
deep, rumbling kargyraa style, Pena gives inspired performances at the
festival, composes songs in Tuvan, washes his face in sacred rivers,
expresses the disorientation of blindness in foreign surroundings, and
makes a human connection with everyone he meets.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? No.
You can't help but like Paul. He's humble and talented as hell. Seeing him on his trip to Tuva and his being among their people is just special. It's something he never expected and his journey from when he first heard Tuvan throat singing on ham radio to being in Tuva performing at a throat singing competition is just remarkable. I got a little choked up a few times. It's a beautiful country, with beautiful people and beautiful music. I am glad to have spent time with them and Paul.
Starring: Tony Randall, Senta Berger, Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Terry-Thomas, Gregoire Aslan, John Le Mesurier, Klaus Kinski, Margaret Lee, Burt Kwouk
Tagline: Strange girls in his room...Loaded guns in his back...Looks like it'll be a bang-up vacation!
Plot: One of six travelers who catch the bus from Casablanca airport to
Marrakesh is carrying $2 million to pay a local operator to fix United
Nations votes. But which one?
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Probably not.
This was cute in a fun way. This US / UK co-production was filmed in Morocco. Tony Randall's Andrew Jessel is the comedic relief. There's very little about the film that suggests it's a comedy besides him. Achmed (the driver Andrew and Kyra hitchhike with, played by Aslan) has the biggest laugh with the timing of one of his lines in a conversation with the pair. Everybody else plays it straight which works wonderfully. It would've been nice had Randall toned down the antics a little more, but it's not a deal killer by any stretch. He just stands out because he's the only one doing it. I didn't find him annoying because he doesn't go full ridiculous, thankfully. I liked the budding romance between Andrew and Kyra. It was handled well by letting it play out more smoothly and naturally than what you'd usually get in a major motion picture.
The cast is fantastic. Just having any of these big names is enough to get my attention. I loved how the rest of the cast played their roles seriously and didn't resort to anything resembling going even a little overboard. Herbert Lom kills it as the big villain of the piece, Mr. Casimir. He's not cartoonish in any way and that's a fucking blessing. So often when he played the heavy in comedies he'd go over the top. Here he's an intelligent man on a mission solving unexpected problems on a dime, as they occur. What's even better is the way he treats his girlfriend, Samia (Lee). She adores him and she's genuinely rooting for him to win and wants to be helpful even though she's a borderline young, dumb blonde (or maybe she's not, yet another well-written and performed part). The beauty of their relationship is that he doesn't seem to mind her piping up with ideas. He digs her and he's looking forward for this transaction to be complete so they can be off. This type of dynamic is incredibly rare in popcorn movies like this. I loved it and I want more of characters behaving like this! Here's Samia in action where Andrew introduces himself...
And here's a little something for those looking for some beefcake...
Day-um, Tony! Who knew?
It's also nice to see Senta Berger in a beefier role that doesn't rely on her looks as much as her intellect. She's got the biggest role in the picture along with Randall and she's great. Besides leaning a little too heavy on the comedy (and it's not really bad at all), and being how it's great that this was filmed in Morocco, the locations aren't all that special but they are varied. The movie mostly takes place in Marrakesh. I'm not saying all spy movies have to have location shooting like on a Bond picture (let's face it, few spy movies had the budget of a Bond movie) but maybe having a little more exotic spots would've been nice. If this is all I have to bitch about then it's not a bad movie at all. Look, I really enjoyed this and I would've loved to have seen this on the big screen. It's not a great movie but it's fun and charming. Get the widescreen version and play it on the biggest screen you can. It's not going to bring anything new to the genre but it succeeds in what it wants to be and that's entertaining.
Man, I watched this back to back with another mid-60s Eurospy flick that I liked. That's two good ones in a row. Should I chance it with a third? Fuck it! Why not?!
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