Buñuel's rascally subversions and perversions seem, in a way, more precious in the period prior to when they were expected of him (him, the Sovereign Surrealist), when instead they had to be smuggled out furtively, nervily, when they came from under the counter only. And there is hardly a better …
Hollywood stands in front of a mirror, and is not displeased. A power-hungry producer (Kirk Douglas) does dirt in turn to a director (Barry Sullivan), an actress (Lana Turner), and a writer (Dick Powell). The three-part narrative structure -- stop and restart, stop and restart -- makes the movie seem …
An "experienced" woman tries to settle down to conjugal contentment with a Monterey fisherman, but is cruelly tempted toward a new, extramarital experience. Sordid domestic drama, with a whole-souled belief in man's capacity to sink to the level of beasts (and below), from a couple of long-time castigators of the …
One of Luis Buñuel's raw made-in-Mexico melodramas, given teeth and a wicked grin through the rude, and sometimes sadistic, humor. It describes, in gloating detail, jealousy's consumption of a glamorously mustached, morally unimpeachable aristocrat, after he takes a sweet young bride. The English title is This Strange Passion, not as …
Effete Gallic swashbuckler, with the unathletic Gérard Philipe, sloppily choreographed swordfights, and an air of insufferable archness. The wide-ranging black-and-white photography of Christian Matras can be taken seriously. As can the cleavage of Gina Lollobrigida: "There's a lovely valley between those hills." Directed by Christian-Jaque.
For many, the worst movie ever to take home a Best Picture Oscar, but you'll never prove it by me. The circus acts do drag on, but the sight of Jimmy Stewart as a sawbones, wrongfully accused of murder and hiding beneath clown makeup for the entire picture, is infinitely …
The thinking man's Western by Carl Foreman, writer, and Fred Zinnemann, director, rounds up a basic unit of stereotypes — the legendary aging lawman, his pale-skinned pacifist wife, the dark-complexioned shady lady from his past, and a band of desperadoes with a score to settle — and nearly paralyzes them …
Akira Kurosawa's lengthily spun-out anecdote, telling of a dying man's solo crusade to leave his mark and to accomplish something worthwhile in his lifetime, balances its philosophic appeal, diplomatically, between heroic individualism and servile altruism. Takashi Shimura's tragic mask of grieved humility becomes wearisome at this length, but the director's …
Chaplin's sentimental salute to himself, in the role of an aging vaudevillian still bursting with creativity, charity, sagacity, and dignity. Astoundingly self-glamorizing, voluminously talky, almost totally unhumorous. Its chosen vein is pathos, and it is undoubtedly pathetic in one sense or another. Made in 1952, but it looks closer to …
Howard Hawks's slapstick treatment of the Jekyll-and-Hyde mad scientist, in particular Rouben Mamoulian's reverse-evolutionary version of him in 1932, where Hyde was explicitly linked to the apes. Here an elixir of youth -- perfected by a laboratory chimp! -- transports its imbibers back to adolescence and all the way to …
Not just a song, but a whole movie as well. John Huston recreates fin-de-siècle Paris, and drags poor Jose Ferrer through it, on his knees, on a dolly (or roller skates or something). The latter is playing Toulouse-Lautrec, and he is getting clobbered. This, despite the "help" of Huston's literal-mindedly …
Not just a song, but a whole movie as well. John Huston recreates fin-de-siècle Paris, and drags poor Jose Ferrer through it, on his knees, on a dolly (or roller skates or something). The latter is playing Toulouse-Lautrec, and he is getting clobbered. This, despite the "help" of Huston's literal-mindedly …
Orson Welles's second Shakespearean film and first European one. It was shot over a period of three years, with Welles taking time off for fund-raising appearances in things like The Third Man and The Black Rose. The soundtrack particularly suffered, and it still sounds dreadful after its "refurbishment" of 1992: …
It begins quite slyly as a boisterous domestic comedy, with the prosaic and huffy Mr. Darling rummaging around after the cufflinks that his fanciful children, playing pirates, have appropriated as "buried treasure." Then it leaps to the fantasy realm, with the beautifully timed, thief-in-the-night appearance, on the rooftops of Victorian …
Stewart Granger learns how to handle a sword, with maximum dash and flourish. George Sidney directs in a related style, playing around with the MGM sets and costumes.