The athleticism in this Warner Brothers swashbuckler is shown to be of a dubious character when Eugene Pallette, built like an egg, outmaneuvers Errol Flynn in a five-minute stick fight on a foot-wide plank. From that moment, it is plain that the memorized moments in the Robin Hood legend are …
Rather a conventional historical epic by Eisenstein, about a 13th-century Teutonic invasion of Russia. (The patriotic trumpetry undoubtedly was more stirring in 1938, with Hitler situated right next door.) Much of the work seems quite handsome and intricate, and much seems lifeless and overcalculated. Everything else aside, the climactic battle …
Screwball comedy involving, among others, a paleontologist, a society girl with an uncorrectable high opinion of herself and an unstoppable word flow, a fox terrier who has stolen and buried a priceless brontosaurus bone, a big-game hunter, and a pet leopard whose temper can be soothed by the singing of …
Zola novel transformed by Renoir into some strong documentary material about trains and trainyards and some overwhipped, mushy histrionics from the leading man, Gabin. Later remade, and bettered, by Fritz Lang, under the title Human Desire.
Bette Davis's broad-stroke portrait of a carefully named Southern belle: spoiled, destructive, finally penitent, and stereotyped all down the line. The manipulation of light and dark, by director William Wyler and cameraman Ernest Haller, looks a lot more skilled, inspired, high-spirited, than the assembly-line plot construction. With George Brent, Henry …
Mystery-comedy on a continental train, with rather too heavy an emphasis (if this isn't a contradiction in terms) on the comedy element — namely on Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the stereotypical Englishmen Abroad. The Hitchcock "touch" is in evidence (the slight irregularity in the nun's garb), but the …
Renoir's celebrated WWI reverie on the vanishing aristocracy of blue-blooded military officers and the invincible fraternity of common fighting men. The film is constructed out of some of the most enduring and sentimental truisms about war; it achieves a fair number of unforgettable scenes (a smooth-cheeked young soldier dressing up …
This two-part documentary on the 1936 Berlin games, varying from straight news reportage to poetic montage on athletic grace, established several marks still unsurpassed in sports-movie history. The genius behind it is Leni Riefenstahl, better known for her Nazi propaganda piece Triumph of the Will. Out of the fierce nationalism …
Walt Disney's first feature-length cartoon has the wonderful sense of a pool of talents working at the top of their bent, holding nothing back. There is some canny borrowing of what works well in live-action movies, particularly the stuff on the Bloody Mary queen -- her shadowy Gothic castle (in …
Walt Disney's first feature-length cartoon has the wonderful sense of a pool of talents working at the top of their bent, holding nothing back. There is some canny borrowing of what works well in live-action movies, particularly the stuff on the Bloody Mary queen -- her shadowy Gothic castle (in …
One of cinema's absolute anomalies and curiosities of celluloid is this "all-midget" western. Watching a bantam buckaroo tie off his Shetland pony and walk under the hitching post and swinging saloon doors is amusing the first three times. It takes about fifteen minutes for the novelty to wear thin. When …
Fritz Lang lightens up a bit after the oppressive gloom of his first and second Hollywood films, Fury and You Only Live Once. Amusing notion of a department store staffed exclusively by ex-convicts in need of second chances. Charming scene of Sylvia Sidney acting the schoolmarm to a classroom of …