AVS Forum banner
487K views 3K replies 121 participants last post by  ChromeJob 
#1 · (Edited)
I thought we might have a thread for capsule reviews of older titles. I've arbitrarily picked 30 years (from 2009). For more recent titles, see:
1979 does not seem that long ago to me; the summer of ALIEN and APOCALYPSE NOW and "1941" and LIFE OF BRIAN...ah, such, such were the days...

I'm not going to get into Best/Worst/Top 100, etc. I'm also not going to argue the merits of these films; just post some thoughts and move on.

-Bill
 
#677 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by PooperScooper /forum/post/21663076


Cool! If I've ever seen this, it's been so long ago I've forgotten. Every now and then I enjoy watching the movies like this from that era. So, I take it you bought a used DVD?


larry

I borrowed it from a friend who hunts down rarities. He said:

Quote:
I had a lot of trouble and expense with this one.


First, I tried a bootlegger from ebay. It was crap made from a video tape. Next, I tried another bootlegger on the web with a good reputation. Same result.


Finally, I got a copy of the "Collectors Edition" from eBay which came in an elaborate color & embossed metal case with a flyer and cards inside.

-Bill
 
#682 ·
 Decision at Sundown (1957) , directed by Budd Boetticher.


Two cowpokes ride into town hoping to kill a man on his wedding day.


This is the weakest Boetticher/Scott western I've seen so far, having a cheap 1950s look with the standard town, costumes and character actors. The decade was hard on the genre: westerns were so popular that it was possible to crank them out more or less automatically and the look suffered.


On the other hand, this is the first time in these stories the Randolph Scott character has been clearly in the wrong, which makes it more interesting. His wife committed suicide, but that's no reason to take it out on just one of the many men she was with. He's hot headed and unreasonable and shows no talent for actually achieving his goal. He's drunk and belligerent even in the final scene.


The flawed nature of his character has potential, but in the end he's just not that interesting. Plus we get some preachiness about a corrupt town recovering its self respect.


The score is the generic western action music typical of the series. 77m long.




-Bill
 
#683 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by wmcclain /forum/post/21671030

Decision at Sundown (1957) , directed by Budd Boetticher.


Two cowpokes ride into town hoping to kill a man on his wedding day.


This is the weakest Boetticher/Scott western I've seen so far, having a cheap 1950s look with the standard town, costumes and character actors.

I actually enjoy this one. FWIW, the "Bud Boetticher Collection" of 5 movies is dirt cheap at Amazon and Netflix also has the discs. The bonus features are pretty interesting.
 
#684 ·
 Bus Stop (1956) , directed by Joshua Logan.


A boisterous young Montana rancher who has not been much in civilization travels to Phoenix for a big rodeo competition. It's love at first sight when he sees Marilyn Monroe, a country girl singing in a saloon. She can't sing at all and does a comic rendition of That Old Black Magic.


Would you believe she's the first girl he's ever kissed? Her own experience is more...varied. The rest of the plot is his strenuous effort to rope, wrassle, hog-tie and marry her and get her back to the ranch as quickly as possible.


It's more or less a romantic comedy and funnier than I expected. Don Murray yells, yippees and hooraws most of his lines, but that's the character. I wonder about Monroe's makeup; it looks like clown paint sometimes.


The aspect ration is 2.55:1. Whoever wrote the Netflix summary has not seen the film.




-Bill
 
#685 ·
 if... (1968) , directed by Lindsay Anderson.


A satirical portrait of an English boys school with both realistic and fantasy segments, filmed with alternating color and monochrome scenes.


This was like a bomb going off in the UK. Everyone who ran the country -- government, broadcasting and arts, industry, military -- had been through these schools and the presentation hit them where it hurt, either because they agreed or disagreed with the content. Someone said the writers should be horse-whipped. The more working-class audiences mobbed the theaters to have their worst opinions of the higher classes confirmed.


The school is shown operating on snobbery and viciousness, each older boy degrading the younger cohort, and so on down. The student prefects (called "whips" here) are evil vengeful little gods, caning troublemakers with pleasure. The noble sentiments of the teachers and clergy are all phony.


It's a "portrait" because we just don't know much about any of the characters. At the center is Malcolm McDowell (film debut) and two pals who are troublesome malcontents. They yearn for war, revolution and murder, but their actual rebellions are pretty minor gestures. In fantasy segments McDowell goes to town, steals a motorcycle, gets a girlfriend, shoots the padre and finally leads the massacre of a school assembly.


That final bit has always been controversial but it's obviously meant to be a comical fantasy: we have clergy and crusader knights and mothers with big hats picking up machine guns and firing back. The film does not cue us as to what is meant to be real and what fantasy, but it's not too hard to figure.


They used real schools for filming and it's curious how shabby are the dorms, studies and bathrooms. It's not quite the Hogwarts of Harry Potter.


Anderson was another in the long list of directors who idolize John Ford. He tended to fall in love with the leading men in his films, all of whom were straight and unobtainable.


There are a couple of gay subplots. We contrast the perverse interests of the padre and a guilty prefect with the innocent involvement of a couple of other boys. Nothing very explicit. By comparison, McDowell and Christine Noonan grapple like tigers and roll naked on the floor. Definitely a fantasy.


That reminds me of stories from Stephen Fry's autobiography. He went through the system a few years later and confirms what we see here: although they all condemn homosexuality, the older boys make lascivious comments about the younger ones. He also notes that, whatever is wrong with him, boys school and being caned there were not the cause, although I doubt if he was beaten as viciously as is shown here. Finally: school was the perfect preparation for those few months he spent in prison for credit card theft.


Brief nudity. McDowell says he personally went into the editing room and excised all shots of his penis.


He also describes the hidden camera scene on a city street where he and a pal were pretending to have a knife fight. A truck driver stopped, ran over and hit him in the back of the head with a hammer.


The studio hated the film and weren't going to release it, but Barbarella was a flop in the UK and they need a replacement.


Criterion Blu-ray, not available at either Netflix or Classicflix. Netflix has the Criterion DVD. The commentary track has McDowell and a film critic, intermixed and done at different times.




-Bill
 
#686 ·
 Conflict (1945) , directed by Curtis Bernhardt.


Humphrey Bogart has fallen in love with his wife's sister and decides to kill the current Mrs (starting a trend he continues in The Two Mrs. Carrolls , also with Alexis Smith). After he makes her vanish strange things begin to happen: she seems to be lurking just out of sight and leaving clues. Is she not dead? A ghost? Is he cracking up, or is someone playing elaborate tricks on him? (Sounds a lot like the later film, Diabolique , doesn't it?)


This is a minor thriller but has a nice dark tone and intimations of insanity and suppressed desires. Sydney Greenstreet is an affable shrink who keeps dropping suggestive hints to trouble a guilty conscience. The plot mechanics are beyond improbable, but we try not to worry about such things.


My earliest memory of a scene from a movie is from this film. I was 4 or 5 years old, up late in a pitch black room with a boxy black-and-white TV set, fighting to stay awake. I remember the final scene where Bogart comes down the slope on a foggy night, using a flashlight to inspect the wrecked car, looking to see if a dead woman is still inside. She isn't.


Warner Archive title, available for rent from ClassicFlix.




-Bill
 
#687 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by wmcclain /forum/post/21560905

The Nickel Ride (1974) , produced and directed by Robert Mulligan.


Jason Miller, last seen in The Exorcist (1973) , is great as a moody mid-level manager in a crime organization. He's responsible for a specific street and operates a warehouse block. He's been doing it for years and is a well-liked capo in his neighborhood. But the area is shabby and business is declining. He has a boxer who won't take a dive, police who want more money, and new management who don't care about old loyalties. Now he's been saddled with an irritating kid from Tulsa (Bo Hopkins, last seen -- briefly -- in The Wild Bunch ). Is the kid dumb, or too smart to show how smart and dangerous he is?


He's started to worry about survival, and after a vivid dream sequence of death and disaster we're no longer sure of our ground. Fine mid-70s scruffy real streets ambience.


I don't know what the title means, unless it is a carny reference.


-Bill

Glad you liked this one, Bill. Just finished watching it myself and loved it. Miller and Hopkins (who was in line for his own detective series at one point, spun off from The Rockford Files) were both great.

I'm not sure I realised just how good and varied Robert Mulligan's career was - he did To Kill a Mockingbird as well as The Stalking Moon. There's a three-part overview of his films over at the TCM Movie Morlocks blog that's well worth a look: http://moviemorlocks.com/2012/02/28/...lligan-part-3/

Weirdly enough, I also took a quick look at Silent Running last night. Got the MoC Blu from Amazon UK for the absurdly cheap price of £3.99 thanks to an Amazon mistake. I can't recommend Eureka MoC Blu-rays enough - they're beautifully-produced discs. I just pre-ordered Lifeboat directly from their site - where you can get free worldwide shipping on all their releases.
 
#688 ·
 Man's Favorite Sport? (1964) , produced and directed by Howard Hawks.


Rock Hudson is the fishing pro who hates fishing and has never actually done it. His boss orders him to enter an annual competition and several women drive him nuts. Paula Prentiss is the chief offender.


As an attempt to recapture the screwball magic of previous decades it's pleasant enough, if awfully silly in spots: after a scooter collision with a bear the bear rides away. The war of the sexes comedy is sometimes forced.


Hudson isn't bad in the role, but when we understand that it was intended for Cary Grant we have to imagine him in it. No one else could do romantic comedy as well.


We can't help seeing a subtext here with Rock Hudson and his then secret private life. For "fish, fishing, camping" substitute "women, sex with same, familiarity with same" and it all seems terribly revealing.


Lazy score by Henry Mancini.

Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content



-Bill
 
#689 ·
 The Mummy (1932) , directed by Karl Freund.


The first Mummy picture is quite a bit different from the rest: we never see a shambling bandage-wrapped figure, and there is no slow but unstoppable creature. It is instead a tale of love (or at least obsession) that outlasts millenia of death: "No man ever suffered for a woman as I suffered for you."


A 1921 expedition discovers the mummy of Imhotep, a priest who was entombed alive for sacrilegious acts. A young archaeologist foolishly reads from a sacred scroll. We get only glimpses of what he sees, and he dies in a straitjacket, laughing madly. The mummy and scroll disappear.


Ten years later another expedition is assisted by the mysterious Ardeth Bey, tall, gaunt and leathery, giving an impression of great dignity and both physical frailty and psychic power. He commands powerful ancient magic and directs them to the tomb of Ankh-es-en-amon, a princess loved by Imhotep who he hopes to resurrect. (The commentary track pronounces her name "anak-soon-a-moon" in the modern fashion).


His plans are disturbed when he finds that the princess has been reincarnated as a young woman at the current time. She becomes confused by his magic and it is a fight for her body and soul.


Boris Karloff is, as usual, very fine in an exotic role. The Egyptian sets and costumes are rather good, and as you can see from the thumbnails, the princess's outfit is kind of skimpy.


As is often the case from this period we have stagey dialogue in static drawing room scenes, but it moves along nonetheless.


The theme of reincarnated lovers destined to find and lose each other through the ages is a feature of H. Rider Haggard's She stories. The Mummy screenwriter was working on a treatment of She at the same time as this film. William Hope Hodgson's science fiction epic The Night Land has similar elements. Must have been something in the water back then.


The DVD commentary track spends a lot of time narrating what we are watching, but also has some information on the earlier development of the script and some deleted scenes.




-Bill
 
#690 ·
 Klute (1971) , produced and directed by Alan J. Pakula.


Small town private eye Donald Sutherland goes to NYC to hunt for a missing friend who is suspected of stalking and harassing call girl Jane Fonda.


She's an intriguing figure: she's smart and wants to be an actress or model but can't get away from prostitution. Partly it's the money but also because in that work she's in control and is desired by her customers, whereas no one seems to want her otherwise. At home she smokes dope and sings a little hymn. She's afraid of the dark and of whoever is stalking her: feelings of being watched, mysterious callers breathing on the phone. Maybe it's that client who beat her up? The cold-fingers-on-the-spine music is very good in these moments.


The private eye is the pest in her life and she eventually gives in and takes him around to her contacts. This could have been a long tedious segment of PI-procedural, but is really a fine display of what's in store for her, and we see it slowly sinking in: prospects of drug addiction, abusive pimps, all those morgue photos.


To their mutual dismay they start falling for each other. But can he trust someone so good at selling the illusion of love? Can she trust herself? Need I mention that the investigation brings them to a murderous psycho, both smart and scary?


Several scenes of Fonda confessing to her shrink seem ad-libed and go on a bit long, although frank sex talk is of perennial interest. We get some of the surveillance paranoia also used in The Conversation and The Anderson Tapes around the same time.


"Klute" is the detective. The movie should be called Bree or Daniels but that wouldn't have the same kick. At least they didn't call it [ Fatal | Deadly ] [ Passion | Attraction | Instinct | Sin ].


Brief nudity. Best Actress Academy Award for Fonda.




-Bill
 
#691 ·
 Giant (1956) , produced and directed by George Stevens.


A multi-generational family epic. In the 1920s a Texas rancher with a half million acres goes East to buy a horse and returns with a bride. It takes her a while to fit in but she has grit and over the years becomes her own peculiar kind of Texan. After the babies are born we jump ahead 20 years to see how the elders cope with the travails of the younger generation.


Liz, in bed, to her husband, standing: "Come on, partner. Why don't you take off your spurs?"


At 3 1/4 hours I wouldn't call it slow, but it is deliberately placed. There is no big dramatic arc, just the usual "life happens" developments common in every family. The major themes:
  • The green and refined East vs dry, barren and coarse Texas.
  • An independent and willful woman contrasted with more dutiful ranch wives.
  • Old money vs new, cattle vs oil.
  • Anglos vs Mexicans, or more exactly: how are the Anglos going to treat the Mexicans?


None of the three leads were the first choice, but it worked out well, particularly with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean (his third and final film). Both were 23. Rock Hudson is ok, but his job is to be stolid and always flustered by change, which is limiting.


For the younger generation we have Dennis Hopper, Carroll Baker, Sal Mineo and Earl Holliman. Baker was older than Taylor who played her mother.


Dimitri Tiomkin score.


The DVD commentary track reveals how they got the babies to cry on cue: they gave them toys then took them away and broke them.


The DVD is 4:3 letterboxed but that is less of a problem with 1.66:1 aspect ratio titles. It looks like all of the PAL editions are similarly non-anamorphic. No Blu-ray.




-Bill
 
#692 ·
 The Lady Vanishes (1938) , directed by Alfred Hitchcock.


Fun, intricate romance/comedy/suspense film, a must-see for Hitchcock fans or anyone who enjoys the genre. Truffaut used to see it twice a week in Paris.


The first 30 minutes has plenty of comic material in the overcrowded hotel, but honestly seems a bit slack. It picks up and moves along nicely after we board the train, culminating in a big shoot-out. The illusion of being on a moving train is really very good for the period. The plot: plausibility is the least of the director's concerns.


Michael Redgrave was not much interested in his own performance at first, but after Paul Lukas convinced him the movie was worth taking seriously he reapplied himself. The chemistry between the leads is just starting to cook by the time the film is done.


Mentally fuzzy but ultimately stalwart cricket fans Charters and Caldicott , in their first appearance, are the best thing in the movie. They return in the somewhat similar Night Train to Munich (1940) , also with Margaret Lockwood. This disc includes their own feature film, Crook's Tour (1941), which I remember as being just so-so.


Criterion Blu-ray, available for rent from ClassicFlix. Netflix has it on DVD; I'm not sure from what label.


The commentary track points out that Hitchcock had a hard time getting male leads in the 1930s. Robert Donat was who he wanted, but he was available only for The Thirty Nine Steps. The commentator also notes that the women are stronger and more aware than the men here.




-Bill
 
#693 ·
 Dracula (1931) , directed by Tod Browning.


Count Dracula relocates to England where he plans to bite every lovely young woman in the neighborhood. That's a plan? Aren't people going to talk?


Adapted from a successful stage play also starring Bela Lugosi and other cast members. The movie opens it up a bit, but it is still stagey, typical of an early talky. All biting and staking is off-scene.


Despite that it is nicely atmospheric and has unsettling moments: our loved ones transformed, subjected to fates worse than death.


Lugosi's performance made a big splash at the time but is harder to take now. He has definite menacing presence but his lines are all dreadfully overblown. Imitation began immediately: one of the young women mocks his flowery Hungarian speech. His perpetual evening dress and opera cape clash with the otherwise fine grubby settings. How did he get his laundry done in that isolated Transylvanian castle?


Renfield is creepier: bitten and now in an asylum, craving flies and spiders, tittering a loathsome yearning giggle. This is Dwight Frye, Fritz the assistant in Frankenstein . Demented horror film minion was a small domain, but he was king of it.


One good scene has Harker trying to chase away a large troublesome bat. He's talking to Mina but we don't realize for a while that she's answering to the bat:

Quote:
John: There's that bat again.


Mina: Yes?


John: Look out, he'll get in your hair!


Mina: Yes?


John: My, that was a big bat.


Mina: I will.


John: You will what?


Mina: Oh, I didn't say anything.

Said to be a disorganized production. Cinematographer Karl Freund (who soon directed The Mummy ) did quite a bit of the directing, Browning being MIA.


The DVD includes an alternate score by Philip Glass, performed by the Kronos Quartet. It's flavor is both antique and dynamic, similar to his music for The Illusionist (2006).


The commentary track has points I hadn't considered: the story as dread of foreign corruption of women (why are our women acting so strangely?), blood contamination as a metaphor for syphilis, Dracula's wives as stylized prostitutes, and the Count's easy aristocratic domination of the working classes.


Also on the disc is the Spanish language version made at the same time.




-Bill
 
#694 ·
 Thunderball (1965) , directed by Terence Young.


SPECTRE hijacks two NATO A-bombs and will sell them back or it's bye-bye Miami.


Bond #4 has always seemed to me the quintessential film in the Connery series, although I only dimly remember the ones he did after this. He's tactically very quick, as violent as required and good at hand-to-hand fighting. Indefatigable lover, as always.


Gorgeous Bahamian locations and beautiful women, with Miss France as Domino. Exciting bomber hijacking and ambitious underwater segments, including a battle between two small armies. This is the first Bond film in Cinemascope aspect ratio.


On the down side, the series silliness cannot be denied. Instead of just shooting Bond they continue to try and kill him with motorized traction machines and by dunking him in a shark tank. He delivers painfully leaden quips. Too many gadgets. The sparring with villain Largo and carnivale bits go on too long.


We see the SPECTRE offices this time, very rich and business-like, although the performance reviews can be murder. The British Secret Service meeting rooms are equally lavish.


John Barry score with lush aquatic themes.


Available on Blu-ray.




-Bill
 
#695 ·
 Drácula (1931) , directed by George Melford.


This is a Spanish version made on the same sets as the English one, with the same costumes and (translated) shooting script, but with different cast, crew and director. They would watch the English rushes from the day, then try their own interpretation when shooting at night.


The English version is a bit better, although this one has its virtues: it is quite a bit longer -- they retained scenes cut from the other one, but made cuts of their own. We get to see the vampire attack on the ship's crew during the storm. The women are dressed a bit sexier.


The lead lacks Lugosi's sinister charisma. He seems affable and smiles too much, although now and then he gives a good twist to a line, for example: "A worse fate than death awaits man." With Lugosi it is a veiled threat, here it is a somber self-reflection.


This is on the same DVD as the English version. Spanish language with selectable English subtitles. Some of the surviving film stock is better, some worse. Sparse score.




-Bill
 
#696 ·
From Russia with Love and Thunderball are the only 2 JB BR I owned from the Connery era; love the actions, women, stories and John Barry's soundtracks.


The other I owned is Casino Royale by Craig.
 
#697 ·
 The Ten Commandments (1956) , directed by Cecil B. DeMille


Every now and then I say to my wife "About time to watch The Ten Commandments again, eh?" She always responds by doing a breathy, spot-on Anne Baxter imitation: "Oh, Moses, Moses!" Then we watch something else.


No more stalling: the Blu-ray is gorgeous, one of the finest I have seen. Beautiful color.


Watching DeMille requires some mental adjustment: it's like a children's church pageant blown out to a tremendous, cast-of-thousands scale. (According to the commentary track, he was going for a retro-epic look, evoking the pageants of his youth). Although I can be moved by Bible films (see David and Bathsheba and Ben Hur ) this one is just too stiff and pompous to be more than spectacle. But as such there is nothing like it. I don't know how many of the subplots are mined from the midrash or other ancient texts.


Much as I like Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner gives a blazing performance, one of the few actors who looks like he belongs there. It makes me like his character more: Rameses is born to be pharaoh and is obviously built for the job. The pesky Hebrews are messing up his life, as is troublemaker Moses (both as prince and prophet), and his wife turns out to be a real piece of work. You can't help but feel his grief for the death of his son. He's also the ancient rationalist, explaining away the plagues, and the skeptic saying "You priests made the gods." Brynner never worked out or dieted, final proof that life is unfair.


I never noticed how much lascivious sexuality is used here as a mark of wickedness. Even though obviously meant to be family-friendly, they slip in some adult innuendo:

Quote:
Nefretiri: I could never love you.


Rameses: Does that matter? You will be my wife. You will come to me whenever I call you, and I will enjoy that very much. Whether you enjoy it or not is your own affair. But I think you will...

Every Bible movie has dancing girls. It takes a while to accept Edward G. Robinson and Vincent Price in ancient costumes. I notice the blue screen scenes more now than I used to. The Angel of Death during the first Passover is quite eerie, and the voice of God on the mountain awfully dull.


Elmer Bernstein score.


ClassicFlix has the Blu-ray and sent both discs together as one rental. Netflix doesn't have it.


The commentary track by a film historian gives extensive detail on who and what is on the screen. Lots of stories. Audrey Hepburn was considered for the princess, but they thought those diaphanous robes would not hang well on such a thin frame. Anne Baxter is more of a full-figured gal.


"Moses, Moses": everyone says it, even the Voice from the burning bush.




-Bill
 
#699 ·
 Monte Walsh (1970) , directed by William A. Fraker.

Quote:
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.

An elegy to the cowboy. The jobs are vanishing and after a hard winter kills the cattle and closes the ranches, we have just the rag-tag few remaining, just for a short while.


They're poor and hard-working, but more or less happy. The setup is often funny with lots of practical jokes and recreational brawling. But without work some will turn to rustling and bank robbery, some to killing. It becomes melancholy and tragic.


Monte is very fond of a decent French prostitute. He calls her "Countess". Do they have a chance? It's hard. He's not suited to other work and too obstinately proud to even try.


I've never seen Lee Marvin give a bad performance. As his partner Jack Palance has a more easy-going role than is usual for him, although only a fool would push him too far.


Much of a town is demolished in a wild bronco-riding scene.


John Barry score, more intense than usual for westerns at the climax. Mama Cass sings the theme song. Remade for TV with Tom Selleck.


This has been in print on DVD for a long time, but Netflix only recently added it, a sign they are making some attempts to improve the disc catalog after long neglect.




-Bill
 
#700 ·
Thanks for reviewing this, I've added this film to my Netflix DVD queue although at this time it says 'Very long wait'. Of the 100+ movies Lee Marvin made the first three movies that come to mind are Cat Ballou, The Dirty Dozen and Paint Your Wagon.
 
Top