Mission Stardust (1967)

 

MISSION STARDUST  (1967)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Primo Zeglio

    Lang Jefferies, Essy Persson, Luis Davila,

    Pinkas Brown, Daniel Martin, John Karlsen

Four astronauts blast off for the moon on a mission whose true purpose is a closely guarded secret, and find they're not alone up there. Low-impact, low-budget sci-fi with a musical score that couldn't exist anywhere except in a movie from the mid-to-late-'60s. Notable only for the participation of Swedish actress Essy Persson, who made her mark in erotic art-house features like "I, a Woman" and "Therese and Isabelle". She mostly stays covered up in this one, but still looks good in a space suit.

The Brain From Planet Arous (1957)

 

THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS  (1957)  ¢ ¢

    D: Nathan Hertz

    John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller,

    Thomas B. Henry, Ken Terrell, Henry Travis

An evil brain from another planet - a big, double-exposed brain with bright, gleaming eyes - takes over John Agar's body and threatens to destroy the Earth. It's also seriously horny - they don't call the planet "Arous" for nothing. Watch out whenever John Agar's eyes get all dark and crazy. That means something bad's going to happen, for sure. 

Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

 

MESA OF LOST WOMEN  (1953)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Ron Ormond, Herbert Tevos

    Jackie Coogan, Robert Knapp, Mary Hill,

    Harmon Stevens, Allan Nixon, Richard Travis,

    Tandra Quinn, Delores Fuller, Nico Lek

Slow-moving sci-fi about some people who survive a plane crash in an area of Mexico called the Desert of Death, where a mad scientist played by Jackie Coogan has created a race of mutant spider women. One of the women performs a nightclub dance routine that's both sexy and silly, but then she gets shot, which is bad, only she doesn't die, which is good, because she's the best thing in the movie, and there's a giant spider and an escaped lunatic with a gun and portentous narration by Lyle Talbot. 

The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906)

 

THE BIRTH, THE LIFE AND THE DEATH OF CHRIST  (1906)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alice Guy

A series of elaborately staged tableaus depicting familiar episodes in the life of Christ, shot in long takes with a static camera, the staging in each scene meticulously worked out. An ambitious movie for 1906, and at 33 minutes, an exceptionally long one. 

The Human Comedy (1943)

 

THE HUMAN COMEDY  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clarence Brown

    Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig,

    Marsha Hunt, Fay Bainter, Donna Reed,

    Van Johnson, John Craven, Ray Collins,

    Darryl Hickman, Mary Nash, Dorothy Morris

Wartime Americana with a script by William Saroyan, starring Mickey Rooney as a telegram delivery boy, Van Johnson as his brother who's off in the Army, Fay Bainter as his mother and Donna Reed as his sister. Rooney, who could chew the scenery like nobody else, gives a performance that's notable for its relative restraint. (It earned him an Oscar nomination.) Look for an uncredited Robert Mitchum as one of the soldiers who takes Reed and Marsha Hunt to the movies. 

The Holly and the Ivy (1952)

 

THE HOLLY AND THE IVY  (1952)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: George More O'Ferrall

    Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton,

    Denholm Elliott, John Gregson, Hugh Williams,

    Margaret Halston, Maureen Delaney, William Hartnell

When the relatives of an aging parson get together for Christmas, old wounds come to the surface and secrets are revealed. This is funny without really being a comedy, or a comedy that's not entirely funny, a balancing act the Brits seem especially adept at pulling off. Denholm Elliott, whose widest recognition would come as Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies, has an early role as a soldier on a two-day pass.

Bananas (1971)

 

BANANAS  (1971)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Woody Allen

    Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban,

    Natividad Abascal, René Enriquez, Jacobo Morales,

    Don Dunphy, Roger Grimsby, Howard Cosell

Woody Allen plays Fielding Melish, a product tester who falls hard for a social activist (Louise Lasser) and ends up leading a Latin-American revolution. It's one of Woody's silliest, funniest movies, a series of crazy gags that practically trip over each other, as if he can't wait to knock one off and move on to the next. It starts with Howard Cosell doing the play-by-play at a political assassination and ends with Cosell again, broadcasting live from the bedroom on Louise and Woody's wedding night. When Woody's fans in "Stardust Memories" tell him how much they love his "early, funny" movies, this is one of the movies they're talking about. Look for the two goons he confronts in the subway car. You'll recognize one of them.

Savage Justice (1988)

 

SAVAGE JUSTICE  (1988)  ¢ ¢

    D: Joey Romero

    Julia Montgomery, Steven Memel, Ruel Vernal,

    Chanda Romero, Esther Chavez, Millicent Bautista

The Americans are being kicked out of some unnamed country where they probably don't belong, anyway, and one who doesn't escape in time is a diplomat's daughter named Sarah, who's kidnapped and tortured by a gang of rebels, and joins them like Patty Hearst did with the SLA. The guerrillas teach her to fight and kill real good, but that comes back to haunt them when Sarah joins forces with the good-guy villagers the rebels are out to destroy. Which is way more than you really need to know about this movie's plot. It was made in the Philippines. It's loaded with gun-battle action and many people are killed, but it doesn't add up to much. I could swear that as Sarah and her heroic band of commandos motored away from the pirates after they found the boat with the guns, the pirates were chanting "Hey, Diddle Diddle" at them. over and over. Really. What's up with that?

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

 

MR. MOTO TAKES A VACATION  (1939)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Norman Foster

    Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill,

    Virginia Field, John King, Iva Stewart, 

    Victor Varconi, Honorable Wu, George P. Huntley Jr.

When the newly discovered Crown of the Queen of Sheba goes on display in a museum in San Francisco, a world-famous detective with impeccable manners and bad teeth undertakes its protection from a master thief he knows will try to steal it. A whodunit with elements of slapstick (and traces of period racism), plus an excruciating performance by George P. Huntley Jr. as a would-be Scotland Yard detective whose crime-fighting skills rank somewhere below the Three Stooges. This was the last of Lorre's Mr. Moto movies. He joked later that he grew tired of playing a character who solved murders instead of committing them, but with war on the horizon and Japan a potential threat, it was time for Mr. Moto to take a long vacation, anyway.

The Mouse That Roared (1959)

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED  (1959)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jack Arnold

    Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell,

    David Kossoff, Leo McKern, Austin Willis

The tiny and impoverished Duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the United States and sends over an invasion force of 20 men wearing chain mail and armed with bows and arrows, the idea being that they'll lose the war and then cash in on American foreign aid. Inexplicably, they win, and come into the possession of an experimental bomb that could wipe out half the planet. A loony, low-key satire on the nuclear arms race, a prototype of "Dr. Strangelove" (but more warm-hearted), with Peter Sellers, coincidentally, in three roles. Maybe it's just me, but watch the scene in the conference room at the Pentagon, and see if one of the generals at the table doesn't remind you a little of Jimmy Stewart.

So Proudly We Hail (1943)

 

SO PROUDLY WE HAIL  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Sandrich

    Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake,

    George Reeves, Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton,

    Walter Abel, Mary Servoss, Ted Hecht

Heroic Army nurses (who hate to be called heroic) dodge bombs and bullets while patching up the wounded on Bataan and Corregidor. In their spare time, which isn't much, head nurse Claudette Colbert falls for Superman, while party girl Paulette Goddard finds she kind of likes Sonny Tufts. Like John Ford's "They Were Expendable", it's a movie about courage in the face of defeat. Unlike Ford's movie, it was made when the outcome of the war was still uncertain. A rousing wartime propaganda piece with effective performances by all the women and exciting battle scenes. Lake is especially good as a nurse with a surly disposition and a bitter personal hatred for the Japanese. 

Not With My Wife, You Don't (1966)

NOT WITH MY WIFE, YOU DON'T  (1966)  ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Panama

    Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott, 

    Carroll O'Connor, Eddie Ryder, Donna Danton

An underwhelming sex farce starring Scott and Curtis as Air Force fighter pilots who fall for the same woman, an Italian nurse played by Virna Lisi. The leads are attractive. The script is lame. The film-within-a-film, a black-and-white melodrama in Italian, also starring Curtis, Lisi and Scott, is pretty amusing. 

Never Say Goodbye (1946)

 NEVER SAY GOODBYE  (1946)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: James V. Kern

    Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, Patti Brady,

    S.Z. Sakall, Peggy Knudson, Forrest Tucker,

    Donald Woods, Lucille Watson, Hattie McDaniel

Errol Flynn didn't play many husband-and-father roles, and it figures that when he did, his character would be a boozing, womanizing pinup artist who's still charming enough to be irresistible to both his young daughter and his ex-wife. The movie's a routine comic romance, except for two scenes - one in which Flynn and Donald Woods, both dressed as Santa Claus, recreate the Marx Brothers' mirror routine from "Duck Soup", and the other in which Flynn impersonates Humphrey Bogart. (It's not Flynn doing Bogart's voice. It's Humphrey Bogart.)

The African Queen (1951)

 

THE AFRICAN QUEEN  (1951)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: John Huston

    Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley,

    Theodore Bikel, Peter Bull, Walter Gotell 

Down the river with Bogey and Kate. The rain, the heat, the flies, the leeches, the reeds, the rapids, the gin, the Germans, the broken propeller and a cracked plan to blow up a gunboat if they ever get to the lake. Can you make a torpedo, Mr. Allnut? Classic adventure/romance.

High Sierra (1941)

 

HIGH SIERRA  (1941)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Raoul Walsh

    Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Leslie,

    Arthur Kennedy, Alan Curtis, Henry Hull.

    Henry Travers, Cornel Wilde, Barton MacLane

Humphrey Bogart plays Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, a gangster who goes free after eight years in prison and gets involved in a plan to rob a hotel safe. One of two breakout movies - the other was "The Maltese Falcon" - that put Bogart on top in Hollywood, both with scripts by John Huston and both released in 1941. A classic noir thriller in which the good girl (Joan Leslie) isn't entirely good, the bad girl (Ida Lupino) isn't entirely bad, and the criminal protagonist shows signs of wanting to go straight, but only after he pulls off one last big job. There's a moral, too. Never take a dog along on a heist. It's bad luck.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

 

THE MALTESE FALCON  (1941)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Huston 

    Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre,

    Sydney Greenstreet, Lee Patrick, Gladys George,

    Ward Bond, Elisha Cook Jr., Barton MacLane

I remember seeing this movie once a long time ago at a hole-in-the-wall theater called the 812 Cinema on Monterey's Cannery Row. The place was an old storefront that had been converted into a movie house, and instead of seats, there were cushions on the floor, and it was warm and comfortable and I was tired and fell asleep. I don't remember much about the movie from that screening, but I've seen it a few times since, and for all the machinations of the plot, here's the only thing you need to know: Everybody's after the black bird. That includes private eye Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), a devious dame named Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), a refined young man named Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), who carries a cane and smells of gardenias, and a rotund adventurer named Casper Gutman (Sydney Greensteeet), the appropriately named "fat man", who likes good conversation, good liquor and good cigars. Throw in a gun-toting weasel named Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.), a hard-nosed cop named Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond), and Spade's loyal and efficient secretary Effie (Lee Patrick), and you've got most of the key players covered. It's a swell time, as long as you don't obsess over all the narrative details, and as long as you don't watch it lying on some cushions on the floor of a tiny theater where it's warm and comfortable and you're tired enough to go to sleep.

Screen Test / Take 16

 Match the following women with 

the movies they appeared in:

                                     1. Katharine Hepburn

                                     2. Essy Persson

                                     3. Daryl Hannah

                                     4. Brigitte Bardot

                                     5. Edna Purviance

                                     6. Gal Gadot

                                     7. Lily Tomlin

                                     8. Bo Derek

                                     9. Gena Rowlands

                                   10. Shirley MacLaine

                               a. "Woman Times Seven"

                               b. "A Woman of Paris"

                               c. "And God Created Woman"

                               d. "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman"

                               e. "Woman of the Year"

                               f. "I, a Woman"

                               g. "The Incredible Shrinking Woman"

                               h. "Wonder Woman"

                                i. "Another Woman"

                                j. "Woman of Desire"

         Answers:

1-e / 2-f / 3-d / 4-c / 5-b / 6-h / 7-g / 8-j / 9-i / 10-a

Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)

 

SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST  (1960)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Terence Fisher

    Richard Greene, Peter Cushing,, Niall MacGinnis,

    Sarah Branch, Richard Pasco, Jack Gwillim,

    Nigel Green, Vanda Godsell, Dennis Lotis,

    Derren Nesbit, Desmond Llewelyn, Oliver Reed

Robin Hood and his merry band of outlaws take on the evil sheriff of Nottingham one more time in a lively, colorful storybook adventure from Hammer. Greene had played Robin Hood in a long-running television series, and this movie's a followup to that. The sheriff would run out of men pretty quickly at the rate Robin's boys pick them off. Their arrows never miss.

The Rhythm Section (2020)

 

THE RHYTHM SECTION  (2020)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Reed Morano

    Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown,

    Daniel Mays, Max Casella, Raza Jaffrey

A hooker living in drug-addicted squalor finds her true calling in the revenge business. Yet another variation on "La Femme Nikita", a little more downbeat and gritty than some, with location work all over the place and a tough, strung-out performance by Blake Lively. Who knew that junkie prostitutes make the best assassins?

Lillian Gish: The Actor's Life For Me (1988)

 

LILLIAN GISH: THE ACTOR'S LIFE FOR ME 

    D: Terry Sanders                                    (1988)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 

Lillian Gish talks about her life and the movies, with lots of great clips, mostly from the early days of film. Gish was in her mid-90s when this turned up on public television, and she's as sharp and opinionated as ever, looking back on a career that at the time pretty much spanned the history of cinema. There are a handful of pioneers without whom silent films in particular would be unimaginable, and Gish is one of them. She was shrewd and strong-willed (a contrast to the waifs she sometimes played onscreen), and an outspoken advocate for film preservation. She outlived all of her contemporaries and died at 99 in 1993.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

 

THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES  (1976)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sam Bottoms, 

    John Vernon, Sondra Locke, Will Sampson,

    Bill McKinney, Paula Trueman, Geraldine Kearns,

    Matt Clark, Joyce Jameson, Royal Dano, John Quade,

    Woodrow Parfrey, Sheb Wooley, William O'Connell

A Confederate outlaw refuses to surrender at the end of the Civil War and heads west into Indian Territory and then Texas, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. He picks up a surrogate family along the way, this being a Clint Eastwood road movie, and eventually the cutthroats dispatched to enforce Yankee justice track him down. There is a reckoning. This is one of Clint's great westerns - long, episodic, violent, comical and full of memorable characters, some of them on screen for only a minute or two. There are shots straight out of John Ford, a brilliant Civil War montage, and a distinctive way of ending scenes with a character in closeup moving slowly off the edge of the frame. The Eastwood stock company figures prominently in the supporting cast, and getting Native Americans - Will Sampson, Geraldine Kearns and Chief Dan George - to play Native Americans is a definite plus. The pace is almost leisurely, but there's a point to that, and nothing in the movie feels wasted. Somewhere in here is where craft becomes art. Also, Josey Wales chews tobacco. You don't want to be within range when he spits.

The Island Monster (1954)

 

THE ISLAND MONSTER  (1954)  ¢

    D: Roberto Montero

    Boris Karloff, Franca Marzi, Renato Vicario,

    Patrizia Remiddi, Jole Fierro, Carlo Duse

A lifeless, low-end thriller about a narcotics agent trying to take down a drug-smuggling ring on a resort island off the coast of Italy. Not even Boris can save this one, and like everybody else in the cast, his lines are dubbed, in his case by another actor doing a bad Boris Karloff imitation. Karloff gamely goes through the motions, but he was miserable working on the picture, and it's widely considered to be the worst movie of his career.

No Time To Die (2021)

 

NO TIME TO DIE  (2021)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Cary Joji Fukunaga

    Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek,

    Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris,

    Ana de Armas, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz

Daniel Craig's tour of duty as James Bond ends with a bang, as Bond takes on yet another diabolical madman (Rami Malek), whose deadly new biological weapon could wipe out the human race. Bond fans might want to see this before they find out too much about it. A couple of key plot points concern things the Bond films haven't dealt with before. The story could stand to be tighter, and at 2 hours 43 minutes, the movie's a little long. It's rarely dull, however, there are numerous references to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and it leaves you with a renewed appreciation for the skill with which Craig's Bond films as a package have revitalized the franchise. The end title promises, as always, that Bond will return. How the writers will manage that, and what 007 will look like when they do, will be interesting to see. 

Celebrity (1998)

 

CELEBRITY  (1998)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Woody Allen

    Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Joe Mantegna,

    Winona Ryder, Charlize Theron, Famke Janssen,

    J.K. Simmons, Michael Lerner, Allison Janney,

    Dylan Baker, Kate Burton, Leonardo DiCaprio,

    Bebe Neuworth, Hank Azaria, Gretchen Mol

Smart, sophisticated, self-absorbed New Yorkers cross paths, hook up, break up and treat each other badly in an apparent race to find out which of them is the most pretentious and superficial. Is that being too harsh? I don't know. Maybe. Kenneth Branagh plays the Woody surrogate, and to whatever extent it reflects the director's own behavior and personality, it'a a scathing self-portrait. There isn't a character in the film you'd really want to know, and maybe that's the point. Branagh's character doesn't learn a thing and ends up right back where he started. Judy Davis, playing his estranged wife, finds something like true happiness by evolving into the exact sort of person she loathes. Donald Trump makes a cameo appearance and fits right in. It leaves you feeling grateful not to be living in Woody Allen's New York.

Only the Valiant (1951)

 

ONLY THE VALIANT  (1951)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gordon Douglas

    Gregory Peck, Barbara Payton, Gig Yong,

    Ward Bond, Lon Chaney, Neville Brand,

    Jeff Corey, Warner Anderson, Steve Brodie,

    Dan Riss, Terry Kilburn, Michael Ansara

Captain Gregory Peck rides out with a small patrol to defend a narrow pass against an army of Apaches. The cavalry-vs.-the-Indians stuff is pretty routine - which does not bode well for the Indians - but the movie really stands out as a character study, each misfit member of Peck's patrol clearly defined, and each with a different reason to want to kill their commanding officer. Ward Bond lays it on thick and overpowers his scenes as a booze-loving corporal, and Chaney gives a frightening performance as a hulking head case who's not a monster as much as he just acts like one. 

The Miracle of the Bells (1948)

 

THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS  (1948)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Irving Pichel

    Fred MacMurray, Alida Valli, Frank Sinatra,

    Lee J. Cobb, Harold Vermilyea, Philip Ahn,

    Charles Meredith, Veronica Pataky, Frank Ferguson

When an actress dies of tuberculosis the day after finishing a picture about Joan of Arc, a cynical press agent takes her body back to the coal-mining town she grew up in to be buried. He meets some local resistance at first, but he's in luck, because Father Frank Sinatra is there to help out. Frank playing a priest. You don't see that every day.

Malta Story (1953)

 

MALTA STORY  (1953)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Brian Desmond Hurst

    Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Steel,

    Muriel Pavlow, Flora Robson, Renée Asherson,

    Ralph Truman, Nigel Stock, Gordon Jackson

In 1942, an RAF reconnaissance pilot on route to Cairo gets stranded in Malta, where the siege is going on and the local commander has him reassigned and puts him to work. Efficient storytelling. Exciting aerial combat scenes. Stiff upper lips all around.

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

 

FORD V FERRARI  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: James Mangold

    Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Caitriona Balfe,

    Jon Bernthal, Josh Lucas, Ray McKinnon,

    Noah Jupe, Tracy Letts, Remo Girone

A movie about gearheads and cars that go real fast, starring Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby, who designed a machine to compete at Le Mans (bankrolled by Henry Ford), and Christian Bale as Ken Miles, the hot-wired, foot-t0-the-floor driver who knew how to win. The script's mostly functional and the suits for both car companies come off looking like dicks, but the racing scenes are a rush and the picture won Oscars for its editing and sound.

Vampyr (1932)

 

VAMPYR  (1932)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Carl Theodor Dreyer

    Julian West, Maurice Schultz, Rena Mandel,

    Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gerard

A man checks into an isolated inn, where the first thing he sees out the window is a figure with a scythe getting into s boat, like Death about to cross the River Styx. An omen? Well, yes, and it's only the beginning. A one-of-a-kind vampire movie, eerie and dreamlike, shot as a silent and dubbed into various languages. Most of the actors were amateurs. Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, who plays the lead role under the pseudonym "Julian West," appears to be sleepwalking. (He never made another film.) The vampire is not the elegant, caped figure played elsewhere by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. And what happens to the vampire's chief disciple, a doctor, is truly horrifying. Based on a couple of stories by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, but the creative sensibility behind it was definitely the director's. This was Dreyer's followup to "The Passion of Joan of Arc", and he was hoping for a hit. (Lugosi's "Dracula" had come out the previous year.) But the picture lost money, and Dreyer's reputation for being demanding and difficult made him unemployable. He went back to journalism for a while, and didn't make another movie for ten years. 

TRICK OR TREAT

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)

 

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL  

    D: Rob Garver                                                 (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢

These are the words I wrote down to describe Pauline Kael while I was watching this documentary about her on TCM: cruel, caustic, controversial, full of herself, a snob. Kael was also, without a doubt, the most influential film critic in America in the last decades of the 20th century. (Her review of "Bonnie and Clyde" in the New Yorker in 1967 helped turn a flop into a landmark.) She comes across like a brilliant little kid who demands attention and evolves into a grownup who knows how to get it. She doesn't mind it when her reviews are admired, but she loves it when they're despised. She picks fights, antagonizes other critics (like Andrew Sarris), and always seems happiest when she's pissing people off. The movie is mostly Kael in her own words, and along with a passion for film, she always had plenty to say. Others who turn up to talk about her include Paul Schrader, John Boorman, Robert Towne, Camille Paglia and Quentin Tarantino. David Lean, Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis and Peter Bogdanovich appear in archive footage. 

For Love of the Movies (2009)

 

FOR LOVE OF THE MOVIES: THE STORY OF AMERICAN FILM CRITICISM  (2009)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gerald Peary

A documentary on the first century of film criticism, from the early silent era to the digital age. Witnesses include some of the best reviewers around, and (like a good movie review) what they have to say is both accessible and informative. For anybody with an interest in the subject - and who doesn't like movies? - these people are worth listening to. Kenneth Turan, Roger Ebert, Elvis Mitchell and Michael Wilmington are among those who appear. 

Listomania / Take 12

 

Some women whose movie careers 

have lasted more than 50 years:

                                     Charlotte Rampling
                                     Geraldine Chaplin
                                     Vanessa Redgrave
                                     Sophia Loren
                                     Helen Mirren
                                     Jane Fonda
                                     Claudia Cardinale
                                     Faye Dunaway
                                     Eva Marie Saint

                                     Catherine Deneuve

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

 

BRINGING UP BABY  (1938)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Howard Hawks

    Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles,

    Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson,

    Fritz Feld, George Irving, Virginia Walker

The screwiest screwball comedy ever. A golf ball, a leopard and a dinosaur bone. The dizzy self-assurance of Katharine Hepburn and the flustered perfection of Cary Grant.

The Song Remains the Same (1976)

 

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME  (1976)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Peter Clifton, Joe Massot

Led Zeppelin takes the stage at Madison Square Garden, and art and pretension get all mixed up. A music doc that combines concert footage with fantasy sequences featuring the members of the band. A must for Led Zeppelin fans. More iffy for everybody else. At 2 hours and 16 minutes, it's a whole lotta Led Zeppelin. Highlights: three teenaged boys who can't believe their luck when a security guard lets them into the hall for free, and Jimmy Page playing an electric guitar with a bow.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES  

    D: Terence Fisher               (1959)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Peter Cushing, André Morrell, Christopher Lee,

    Maria Landi, David Oxley, Francis De Wolff

Sherlock Holmes investigates a murder out on the moors in one of the Hammer Studio's best movies. Peter Cushing makes a great Sherlock.

Clue (1985)

CLUE  (1985)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jonathan Lynn 

    Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Lesley Anne Warren,

    Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Martin Mull,

    Michael McKean, Colleen Camp, Lee Ving,

    Bill Henderson, Jane Wiedlin, Kellye Nakahara

Six characters in an old dark house in search of a murderer, who could be one of them. The year is 1954 - a television in the background is tuned to the Army-McCarthy hearings - and everybody in the room works in some capacity for the government. They're also all being blackmailed. The clues keep piling up, along with the bodies, and the butler seems to know more than anybody. Did he do it? A frantically paced, farcical whodunit, and an energized workout for its keyed-up cast. The odds of making sense of all the evidence are low, but for a movie based on a board game, this is pretty good. Just pile the corpses on the couch in the study.

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

 

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Jacques Tourneur

    Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison,

    Edith Barrett, James Bell, Christine Gordon,

    Teresa Harris, Sir Lancelot, Darby Jones

Val Lewton's deal to make horror movies at RKO in the 1940s had two key provisions: No movie could cost more than $150,000 to make, and the studio provided the title. Beyond that, the creative process belonged to Lewton and his moviemaking team. Lewton's first movie under the agreement was "Cat People" in 1942. The second was this, a shadowy melodrama about a Canadian nurse who goes to Haiti to care for a woman who appears to have joined the living dead. Voodoo's involved, and a pair of brothers who were rivals for the affection of the zombified girl. The plot's lifted partly from "Jame Eyre", and the subtext is slavery and the suggestion that Africans should never have been brought to this island, and white people shouldn't be there now. It's an eerie, atmospheric 69 minutes, an inventive return on an investment of $150,000.

Mississippi (1935)

MISSISSIPPI  (1935)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: A. Edward Sutherland

    Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Joan Bennett,

    Queenie Smith, Gail Patrick, Claude Gillingwater

The Great W.C. pilots a showboat down South, past plantations where happy darkies sing "Swanee River" and Bing croons along with them. Fields and Crosby divide the screen time about equally, and while the results are all right, it's not the best thing either of them ever did. The racial stereotyping might be a product of its time, but the time is long gone. At least there's nobody in blackface.

The Whole Town's Talking (1935)

THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING  (1935)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Ford

    Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Arthur Hohl,

    Wallace Ford, Etienne Girardot, Donald Meek

An amusing but predictable comedy starring Edward G. Robinson in a dual role as a timid advertising clerk and a vicious gangster who looks just like him. Nicely played by Arthur and Robinson. 

Two Rode Together (1961)

 

TWO RODE TOGETHER  (1961)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Ford

    James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones,

    Linda Cristal, Andy Devine, John McIntire,

    Willis Boucher, Henry Brandon, Olive Carey,

    John Qualen, Ken Curtis, Harry Carey Jr.,

    Jeanette Nolan, Woody Strode, Mae Marsh

In a story that has some distinct parallels to "The Searchers", Marshall Jimmy Stewart and Army Captain Richard Widmark ride out into Comanche territory to try to secure the release of some white captives living with the Indians. They find what they're looking for, but the captives, who were kidnapped years before as children, don't want to go back, or they've gone insane. Ford wasn't happy working on the picture - he called it "a piece of crap" - and it has a misanthropic edge. When Widmark identifies one of the captives in the Comanche camp, damaged beyond recovery, he refuses to take her back, and then notifies her distraught family that he didn't see her. Stewart's character shifts from crusty but sympathetic to a total bastard and back again in a way that doesn't quite make sense. When vigilantes seize one of the returned captives, determined to hang him, they do. Nobody's there to prevent the lynching. And the racism exhibited by both the settlers and the soldiers is ugly. (It'a interesting to note how many of Ford's later movies - "The Searchers", "Sergeant Rutledge", "Cheyenne Autumn" and this - are obsessed with race.) At the same time, the movie coasts along, especially at the beginning, on the easy chemistry between Widmark and Stewart. (The scene with the two of them talking on the riverbank, much of it improvised, is famous.) Which makes the whole thing kind of uneven. And a movie no Ford fan should miss.

Mogambo (1953)

 

MOGAMBO  (1953)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: John Ford

    Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly,

    Donald Sinden, Philip Stainton, Eric Pohlman,

    Laurence Naismith, Denis O'Dea

A visibly aging Clark Gable plays a safari guide who finds himself juggling two hot young women (a wild one played by Ava Gardner and a prim one played by Grace Kelly) in a remake of 1932's "Red Dust", which also starred Clark Gable. The earlier version had Jean Harlow famously taking a pre-Code bath, and while this one has Ava Gardner taking a jungle shower, the results are a lot less steamy. The stars and the African locations enhance a predictable script, and the gorilla footage is a definite plus.

Mars Needs Women (1967)

 

MARS NEEDS WOMEN  (1967)  ¢ ¢

    D: Larry Buchanan

    Tommy Kirk, Yvonne Craig, Byron Lord,

    Roger Ready, Neil Fletcher, George Edgley,

    Pat Delany, Sherry Roberts, "Bubbles" Cash

. . . and they've come all the way to Earth to find them. Tommy Kirk plays one of the Martians. He used to be a Mouseketeer. Yvonne Craig plays one of the women. She used to be Batgirl. It seems that females like her are in short supply on Mars (who knew?), and that's why (spoiler alert!) Mars Needs Women.

[Bonus feature: Some viewers would argue that's not much of a review, and they'd be right.To help make up for that, here's a special bonus "Mars Needs Women" trivia question. Besides Yvonne Craig, the other women in the movie include an actress called "Bubbles" Cash. Which character do you think "Bubbles" plays in the film? 

                                 a) the flight attendant

                                 b) the scientist

                                 c) the stripper

                                 d) the homecoming queen

The answer is probably the one you'd expect. It's a widely recognized fact that in the whole history of low-budget movies about rocket ships and men from Mars, no actress named "Bubbles" has ever played a scientist.]

Tommy Kirk

(1941-2021)

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

 

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI  (1947)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Orson Welles

    Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane,

    Glenn Anders, Ted de Corsia, Erskine Sanford

An adventurer played by Orson Welles meets a siren played by Rita Hayworth on a late-night coach ride in the park and hires onto a yacht, sailing in the company of the woman, her crippled husband (Everett Sloane) and his obnoxious legal partner (Glenn Anders). The climax takes place in an amusement-park funhouse, a metaphor that really applies to the entire film. There's enough deception all around to doom everybody. True to film noir, Welles' protagonist is smart, but not smart enough to stay out of trouble. He's enough of a sailor to know when he's swimming with sharks, and he is. He's a sap and he knows it. It's his nature. It's his fate. Welles was working on some personal issues, too, back then, which helps explain the casting of his soon-to-be ex-wife as the femme fatale. Watch any scene featuring Sloane and Anders and see which one you'd be more willing to murder yourself. 

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

 

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS  (1967)  ¢

    D: Roman Polanski

    Jack MacGowran, Roman Polanski, Ferdy Mayne,

    Sharon Tate, Alfie Bass, Ronald Lacey,

    Terry Downes, Iain Quarrier, Fiona Lewis

Roman Polanski's eccentric, unfunny vampire spoof looks like a movie that was pitched, shot and cut without a script, or maybe there was a script and somebody sucked all the blood out of it. Like, you know, vampires. Cool-looking titles, eye-catching set design, ear-catching music, and the vampires' ball at the end is playfully bizarre, but when a movie lasts an hour and 47 minutes and you're at the 25-minute mark thinking, isn't this thing ever going to end, I'm not sure that's a good sign, you know what I mean? Original title: "Dance of the Vampires".

The Killers (1964)

 

THE KILLERS  (1964)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Don Siegel

    Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes,

    Clu Gulager, Ronald Reagan, Claude Akins,

    Norman Fell, Robert Phillips, Burt Mustin

Robert Siodmak's 1946 version of "The Killers" had the distinction of being Burt Lancaster's first movie. Don Siegel's 1964 version has the distinction of being Ronald Reagan's last. It stars the Gipper as a gangster who plans a mail-truck robbery and hires an auto racer (John Cassavetes) to help with the driving. The heist nets over $1 nillion, and others with an interest in the loot include Reagan's two-timing girlfriend (Angie Dickinson) and a pair of ruthless hit men (Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager). The movie's tough, hard-boiled and wildly misanthropic, especially the opening sequence, in which the hit men, wearing dark shades, invade a school for the blind, rough up the blind receptionist, and gun down a teacher at point-blank range. And it's got Reagan, for once showing the malice that always existed beneath the affable, slicked-down surface. It's too bad more voters weren't paying attention. 

Manpower (1941)

MANPOWER  (1941)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 

    D:Raoul Walsh

    Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft,

    Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, Barton MacLane,

    Eve Arden, Ward Bond, Walter Catlett

Raft and Robinson play utility linemen and Dietrich plays the hard-luck dame who comes between them. Who do you think will get the girl in the end? Spoiler Alert: It's probably not Edward G. Robinson.

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

 EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY  (1988)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Julien Temple

    Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, 

    Damon Wayans, Julie Brown, Michael McKean,

    Charles Rocket, Larry Linville, Rick Overton

A sci-fi musical comedy about three space aliens whose art-deco rocket ship touches down in a California swimming pool. It's awfully silly (and compulsively superficial), but there are some amusing bits, too, like the way the aliens pick up language by mimicking everything they hear on TV. Geena's tiny pink bikini gets plenty of exposure, and Julie Brown's vacuous beach-bunny anthem, "'Cause I'm a Blonde", is a scream.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

 

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL  (1951)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Robert Wise

    Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe,

    Sam Jaffe,Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, Lock Martin,

    Drew Person, Elmer Davis, H.V. Kaltenborn

Classic sci-fi starring Michael Rennie in his most famous role as an extra-terrestrial messenger who drops down on Washington in a flying saucer, bringing with him a giant robot and a warning the human race had better pay attention to. Gort, Klaatu barada nikto! And cue the theremins.

Listomania / Take 11

 

Some actors whose careers have lasted more than 50 years:

                                      Michael Caine

                                      Clint Eastwood

                                      Donald Sutherland

                                      Robert Duvall

                                      Dustin Hoffman

                                      Alan Arkin

                                      Robert Redford

                                      Warren Beatty

                                      Harrison Ford

                                      Bruce Dern

The Long Haul (1957)

THE LONG HAUL  (1957)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ken Hughes

    Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Patrick Allen,

    Gene Anderson, Peter Reynolds, Liam Redmond

The Great Victor plays an ex-G.I. who lands a job driving a truck out of Liverpool. He doesn't want to be there to begin with, and there are complications in the form of a mean, mousy wife played by Gene Anderson, a mobster played by Patrick Allen, and the mobster's girl, a platinum bombshell played by Diana Dors. As melodrama, this goes right over a cliff, but there's some good stuff, too, most notably a long sequence toward the end where Victor drives a truck over a treacherous mountain road, kind of like those four guys did in "The Wages of Fear" in 1953. And speaking of mountains, Diana Dors.

Nuns With Guns (2011)

NUNS WITH GUNS  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ike Henry 

    Tracy Stewart, Bethany Fang, Frank McFarland,

    Carolyn Chaney, Sonia Gomez, Fanny Bishop,

    Bingo Suzuki, Felix "Flagpole" Brown

When a psycho with a legally purchased arsenal shoots up their school, and the country's most powerful gun-rights organization reacts by declaring that more weapons in more hands can only make us safer, the good sisters of St. Mordred's lead a group of singing, praying six-year-olds in a peaceful march on the national headquarters of the NRA. Knowing a threat to the Second Amendment when they see one, the bastard sons of Charlton Heston open fire, unaware that the nuns and their underaged charges are packing heat, too. Body parts and rosary beads fly, and while I wouldn't want to give away the ending to something like this, it's safe to say that when a kid with an Uzi meets a goon with a grenade launcher, somebody's going to get splattered. And you can have Sister Mary Columbine's Bushmaster when you pry it from her cold, dead hand.

Mark of the Vampire (1935)

 

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE  (1935)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Tod Browning

    Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill,

    Jean Hersholt, Elizabeth Allan, Donald Meek, 

    Carol Borland, Holmes Herbert, Leila Bennett

A sound remake of Browning's lost silent, "London After Midnight", with Lionel Barrymore in the old Lon Chaney role as a detective investigating a suspected murder, and Bela Lugosi in the other Lon Chaney role as (what else?) a vampire. It ends with a twist that Lugosi, among others, did not entirely appreciate, but horror fans with a sense of humor probably won't object. Carol Borland makes a famously eerie impression as Lugosi's vampire accomplice.