Change Your Image
richardchatten
1. Plenty of the movies I see are so obscure it eventually dawned upon me that I really ought to describe some of them for the benefit of other researchers.
2. Having hit the age of 60 I can tell that my recall of films I've just seen is developing a shorter and shorter half-life; and as mortality beckons feel that it will from now on be wise to set down any impressions worth recording fairly promptly.
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Days of Heaven (1978)
Magic Hour
Central to the legend surrounding Terrence Malick this ironically titled production is accorded almost mythical status due to the subsequent disappearance of its creator. Much of the discussion of this film - whose visuals in the style of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, 'The Night of the Hunter', 'Giant' and 'The Big Country' - concentrates upon its visuals. But personally I feel that the film's greatest impact comes from its soundtrack; it always makes me smile when during Dan Perri's haunting title sequence I see the name of Ennio Morricone prominently credited while we actually hear the unmistakable music of Saint-Sains.
Although the story itself is a rather simple and squalid triangle drama with characters basely motivated by jealousy and greed the film does gain considerable impact from the performance of the unique Linda Manz.
The Jackal (1997)
Assassin for Hire
It comes as little surprise that Frederick Forsyth disowned this flashy thriller supposedly based on his novel but the derivative nature of which is immediately apparent from the title sequence based on the credits for '7even'.
Forsyth's original intention to make the hired assassin a blank sheet has been thrown overboard in favour of creating a glossy vehicle for Bruce Willis, with The Jackal's chameleon ability to merge in simply becoming an excuse for making him a rather tiresome master of disguise.
As The Jackal's nemesis in place of Michel Lonsdale's attractively dishevelled detective we instead get Hollywood hunk Richard Gere; but the incisive presence of Diane Venora as a KGB major provides compensation.
Císaruv pekar - Pekaruv císar (1952)
The Baker's Emperor
Western audiences not familiar with the individual nature of the counties of Eastern Europe are probably unaware that each country has a very distinct character: Czech cinema, for example, has an understated whimsy quite unlike its neighbours.
While the prospect of a lavish version in colour of the old Czech legend of the Golem made in the town where it originated is promising, the Golem itself - although in close up it certainly emits a fearsome red glow - sadly takes a back seat to the veteran comedian Jan Werich and is absent for much of the film's considerable length until finally (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) brought on for the finale.
Bitter Harvest (1963)
Diary of a Lost Girl
A morality tale for the early sixties by the ever-enterprising Anglo-Amalgamated anticipating the journey taken by that year's headliner Christine Keeler.
This glossy Eastmancolor adaptation of the book by Patrick Hamilton is usually overlooked, and not without reason. But it provides a chance to savour the youthful beauty of the late lamented Janet Munro, who sadly like the heroine of this fable never lived to experience the fate she so feared of losing her youthful lustre as Miss Keeler certainly did.
John Stride plays the simple young lad with whom Munro might have found have found lasting happiness had she not unwisely favoured Alan Badel who smoothly portrays the louche patrician who uses Munro (SPOILERS COMING:) and then simply discards her, while Stride is last seen courting good girl Anne Cunningham.
Behind the Mask (1958)
The 21 Year Old Vanessa Redgrave
One of the more ambitious of the medical dramas then popular, 'Behind the Mask' boasts superior production values - with Eastmancolor photography by Robert Krasker - and despite its overall subdued tone contains some remarkably detailed scenes of heart surgery - fortunately in black & white - while the infighting between senior surgeons Michael Redgrave and Niall MacGinnis splashes plenty of blood on the carpet.
Seen today possibly the film's most notable feature is the presence of Redgrave's young daughter Vanessa - receiving an 'Introducing' credit - who later dismissed the film as "a stinker" and speaks with a patrician accent she plainly later found it politic to lose.
Skyhook (1958)
Victory Through Airpower
In this early promotional short by director James Hill for BP we're taken on location in a
Papua New Guinea filmed in pristine Eastmancolor with emphasis on the contribution made by the use of a helicopter. First seen arriving in a packing case the copter is shown breezing through the establishment of a drilling station in the middle of a clearing in the jungle.
The film was made rather early to consider the effect on the environment but the scene in which the staff create the clearing by cutting down trees to make the space to erect the derrick shows an early awareness of environmental consequences.
Gigot (1962)
Hubris
Anybody who ever gagged at the seemingly limitless capacity of Americans for blubbering, lip-trembling, self-pitying sentimentality should see this film that sorely tested my rule never to stop watching a picture before it was over.
When it turned up on television a few years ago I asked a friend if he'd bothered to watch it, to which he replied: "Every time I looked the screen was filled with Gleason's face with tears in his eyes".
Although allegedly an outsider Gigot is continuously the centre of attention in this excruciating example of a vanity production in which a successful celebrity indulges in pretending to be one of life's losers.
All those involved plainly thought they were making what was going to be an enduring classic. They weren't.
Return of the Fly (1959)
Competent But Plodding Sequel
Vincent Price has been promoted to top billing for this quickie sequel to 'The Fly' but that isn't really reflected in the amount of footage he gets.
Brett Halsey, however, is far more plausible as Andre's son than Charles Herbert had been; but knowing what had happened to his father he should have been more careful when once again he noticed a fly buzzing about the laboratory.
Clearly every expense has been spared, a fact reflected in the loss of Karl Struss's sumptuous colour photography, and with a score totally lacking the lyricism of Paul Sawtell's earlier work; while rather than the heartbreaking intensity of the relationship between the husband and wife in the original and the bleak nihilism of the final instalment of the original trilogy five years later we instead get rather commonplace gunplay.
Team America: World Police (2004)
"Fight Canada!!"
The perfect treat for Hallowe'en.
Since the songs were one of my favourite features in 'South Park' and there are so many in 'South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut' - some sung by Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein - that possibly qualifies it as a musical.
The crude innuendo of the title is at odds with the sophistication of the concept, which resembles 'Canadian Bacon' and 'Wag the Dog'. Depicting Saddam and Satan as gay lovers - with Satan being the sensitive, clinging one - is an audacious idea well executed and when Hussein was later captured by the American he was reputedly regularly subjected to screenings so he was probably relieved when (SPOILER COMING:) he was finally executed.
Blood Feast (1963)
Bon Appetite
What better time than Hallowe'en to celebrate this groundbreaking work breathlessly described as "The 'Citizen Kane' of gore movies by Serial Mom's son?
Carlos Clarens in his seminal book on horror movies showed remarkable prescience in 1967 by managing to include at such an early date two of the original slasher movies in the form of both 'Blood Feast' (which he dismissed as "a reactionary attempt to bring to films the obsolete trickery of theatrical Grand Guinol") and 'Blood and Black Lace'.
Seen today the deranged caterer played by Mal Arnold bears a disconcerting resemblance to Rowan Atkinson, while the early Eastmancolor photography renders the thing incongruously pretty when not regaling you with groo.
Giuseppina (1960)
The Day of the Fair
A truly international film in pristine colour with a British director, a Czech cameraman and an Italian cast.
Director James Hill was presumably familiar with the films of Jacques Tati of which this seems a more benign version. Like Tati it explores the possibilities of colour, notably in the use of BP's green & yellow colour scheme of the petrol station, complete with two canaries in a cage, at which an enormous green & yellow petrol tanker arrives to fill it up.
The only language we hear spoken is Italian, but the subtitling is largely unnecessary since the dialogue as in Tati serves predominately as sound effects.
Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)
Piracy on Skull Island
This curiosity bears a title liable to raise eyebrows when discerning viewers notice it among Charles Laughton's credits and are too squeamish to investigate any further; the knowledge that Laughton made it simply so that he could afford to purchase a painting increasing their trepidation. But if you are rash enough to actually watch it Laughton seems to be actively enjoying himself.
Although every expense has plainly been spared, it was the top grosser of 1953, benefits from being photographed in colour by veteran cameraman Stanley Cortez; while Laughton is well matched by Hillary Brooke giving a lusty, thigh-slapping portrayal of Anne Bonney in tight britches and principal boy boots.
Portrait in Black (1960)
Paint it Black
After falling into the clutches of Ross Hunter - for whom she'd recently returned with a bang in his glossy remake of 'Imitation of Life' - here she finds herself once again suffering in mink married to an elderly bedridden jerk who then comes over all dead, which is when her troubles really begin and we then come to probably the film's comic highlight with a scene (SPOILER COMING:) when she has to drive the car home she came in home after dumping hubby's body and only then remembers that she can't drive with results that bear comparison with the scene with Roger Thornhill filled with bourbon in 'North by Northwest'.
Ocean's Eleven (1960)
A Drop in the Ocean
Probably the unlikeliest film to bear the name of the director of 'All Quiet on the Western Front', and the closest the Sinatra clan ever came to making a genuine film rather a just a glorified home movie.
Remarkably downbeat in places with Richard Conte's scenes in particular belonging in a far better film. In the title role Sinatra is in his element running the show, while the veteran cameraman William Daniels manages to provide at least one of Milestone's signature lateral tracks in a brief sequence depicting a trail of fluorescent footprints crossing the floor of a darkened casino seen through night vision glasses.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Two Hours to Doom
If you can take your eyes for a moment off Peter Sellers at the the conclusion of 'Dr Strangelove' you can see the Russian ambassador straining to keep a straight face; which has the effect of actually making the scene even funnier than it already was.
While filming 'Strangelove' Kubrick would ask George C. Scott to play each scene two different ways: first calm and rational and then rolling his eyes and waving his arms about. Scott only discovered when he finally saw the completed film that Kubrick had invariably used the take where his acting was over the top and he'd been tricked into a completely different performance from the one he that he thought he was giving.
It's stories like this that explain why actors prefer working on stage rather than in films.
Thunderball (1965)
Glug Glug
Growing up in the sixties I well recall the gimmicks used to the publicise each new Bond movie, and in the case of 'Thunderball' it was the jetpack.
Although the most financially successful Bond to date, it was far from the best. Domino has got to be one of the blandest Bond girls of all time, while Largo is a colourless villain, even with that rakish eyepatch.
But Fiona Volpe amply compensates and is easily the meanest Bad Girl of the lot; too bad (SPOILER COMING:) she didn't last enough to participate in the final underwater battle or it was her that Domino killed with a harpoon ("I'm glad I killed her!").
The film also boasts one of the wittiest topical gags of the entire franchise when at SPECTRE's annual directors' meeting, among the proceeds of the previous financial year is "our consultation fee for the British train robbery".
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Alone in the Sahara
Clever dicks often sneer that film is all artifice and nobody is ever at risk. The death of veteran pilot Paul Mantz - to whom this film is dedicated - staging what had seemed a routine stunt refutes this.
One of that growing number of classics accorded the back-handed compliment of an unnecessary remake, 'The Flight of the Phoenix' is made in a relatively key low for a film directed by Robert Aldrich; an entertaining lapse being a vision of a belly dancer seen as a mirage.
The cast acts well, the variety of nationalities always at loggerheads reflecting Aldrich's usual cynicism about human nature.
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
"Lead Us Not Unto Temptation"
Too often one hears people whine "It's in BLACK & WHITE!!" when presented with a halfway decent film on TV. John Huston however later himself admitted that he should have yielded to producer Martin Ransohoff's wishes and made 'The Night of the Iguana' in colour.
One evening my mother and I were watching this film together when one us exclaimed "Good Lord! Burton's actually acting for once!"; and seen today, 'The Night of the Iguana' comes as a salutary reminder that when not making glossy nonsense to keep Liz Taylor in fur coats and jewellery Burton still remained capable of stirring from his torpor and making films in black & white for grownups worthy of his reputation.
A Kiss Before Dying (1991)
The Coward Does it With a Kiss
Ira Levin's novel was already the subject of a memorable film version in 1956, but as remakes go James Dearden's later version wasn't too bad.
Inevitably Matt Dillon fails to be as creepy as the blandly handsome Robert Wagner was in the original as what Anne Billson described as an "upwardly mobile psychopath" but he's perfectly serviceable as the ambitious heel who if possible proves even more ruthless and self-centred than Wagner was; and if Sean Young can't begin to approach Joanne Woodward's heartbreaking vulnerability as the waif he cruelly takes advantage of but it's fun to see her play twins.
As with the original making in colour means it doesn't resemble a conventional film noir but makes it attractive to watch and certainly shows up the blood.
Teacher's Pet (1958)
Top of the Class
Although the plot bears similarities to 'Pillow Talk' - with which it shares a deceptively cute title - the treatment is very different. Lacking the glossy colour of most Doris Day vehicles, the film is shot in austere black & white and is almost documentary in its creation of a plausible working environment; it also boasts a remarkable teaming of two formidable talents from two different generations.
Made in the days when she still wore her hair short in one of her earliest roles as a career woman Day is subject to the devious wiles of Clark Gable as a wolf in sheep's clothing who insinuates himself into a teaching class she's running without letting on he's actually her mortal foe.
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
Jack Goes to Atlantic City
Rarely seen today 'The King of Marvin Gardens' is an authentic cult movie that marked the third collaboration between Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson; Nicholson having already scripted Rafelson's debut as a director, the Monkee film 'Head' and Rafelson directed Nicholson in 'Five Easy Pieces'.
Prefaced by an virtuoso radio monologue by Nicholson filmed in one continuous take, the film represented a characteristically bold departure, with Nicholson giving one of his most restrained performances; passively looking on as Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn provide the melodrama.
The concluding murder (SPOILER COMING:) is probably one of the most realistic ever filmed: voices are raised, a gun is picked up and suddenly someone is dead.
Das singende, klingende Bäumchen (1957)
Grimm Fairy Tale
The GDR did a good line in children's films during the fifties & sixties and like many of my generation I grew up on this macabre little tale televised in three parts under the banner 'Tales from Europe'.
I well recall being pleasantly surprised when I saw it again in the seventies and discovered that it had originally been in colour, and even more pleasantly surprised when it was screened at the 1990 London Film Festival and only then realised it had originally been a film.
Ironically it was generally agreed that the beautiful princess was greatly improved (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) by being made ugly by the evil dwarf with results that made her look like a kindly Vampira, while the most distressing aspect was probably the fate (ANOTHER SPOILER COMING:) of the giant fish.
The Flag Lieutenant (1927)
Ripping Hokum
Directed by the justly neglected Maurice Elvey, and a great popular success in its day, this second version of the prewar stage success by Lt. Col. Drury & Leo Trevor starts promisingly enough in a fashion reminiscent of 'Beau Geste' with Henry Edwards seeing off the enemy single-handed.
So far so good, but when the others arrive like an idiot (SPOILER COMING:) for absolutely no logical reason he claims it was nothing to do with him and he was simply taking a nap round the back.
At this point the film has barely reached the halfway mark, and drags on interminably amid endless recriminations before he finally admits he was a hero after all.
The end.
Noche de duendes (1930)
"Que Passa?"
The main difference of this Spanish language version of 'The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case' is that Fred Kelsey no longer plays the detective; although its also considerably longer than the American original since it also includes the sleeping car sequence from 'Berth Marks' - complete with a preCode shot of a young lady in her scanties - before it even reaches the old dark house that provided the setting for the original.
The English version had already contained much more slapstick than usual and the boys show more belligerence to each other than usual, with their difficulties in getting comfortable in the sleeping car on the journey repeated when they attempt to retire for the night upon their arrival.
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
The 47 Year Old Sharon Stone
I seldom bother with numbered sequels, especially as I was never very impressed with 'Basic Instinct' in the first place, considering it glossy trash in which screenwriter Joe Esterhaz simply rehashed his script for 'Jagged Edge', itself a blatant plagiarism of 'Play Misty for Me'.
However, since in Hollywood nothing succeeds like success, a sequel was always on the cards; fortunately without the egregious original hero played by Michael Douglas. Since production was so delayed Sharon Stone - who in the intervening years had demonstrated her resilience by recovering from a stroke - was fast approaching fifty when it finally went before the cameras. The final result benefited from being made in Britain and provided the satisfying novelty of a lady of mature years playing a sexy villainess; a fact underlined by the additional presence in the cast of Charlotte Rampling.