'Under the Volcano' screening: John Huston's 'quality' comeback featuring daring Albert Finney tour de force As part of its John Huston film series, the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be presenting the 1984 drama Under the Volcano, starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, and Anthony Andrews, on July 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Los Angeles suburb of Westwood. Jacqueline Bisset is expected to be in attendance. Huston was 77, and suffering from emphysema for several years, when he returned to Mexico – the setting of both The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Night of the Iguana – to direct 28-year-old newcomer Guy Gallo's adaptation of English poet and novelist Malcolm Lowry's 1947 semi-autobiographical novel Under the Volcano, which until then had reportedly defied the screenwriting abilities of numerous professionals. Appropriately set on the Day of the Dead – 1938 – in the fictitious Mexican town of Quauhnahuac (the fact that it sounds like Cuernavaca...
- 7/21/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
(Luis Buñuel, 1951; 1952, 12, Mr Bongo)
After his two avant- garde collaborations with fellow surrealist Salvador Dali – Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930) – Luis Buñuel disappeared below the radar in Mexico until reappearing at Cannes with Los Olvidados in 1951. He continued working there until re-establishing himself in Europe in the 1960s as one of the great directors. His mostly little-known Mexican films – rough-hewn, low-budget melodramas for the most part – are always interesting, and these two early ones complement each other as they explore characteristic themes of lust, cruelty, class, hypocrisy and corruption. In Susana, a satanic femme fatale offers up successful prayers for escape from her hellhole of a reform school and proceeds to ingratiate herself into a wealthy bourgeois family where she proceeds to destroy everyone around her. In El Bruto, a violent, ox-like abattoir worker (the great Pedro Armendáriz) is hired to do a slum landlord's dirty work and is...
After his two avant- garde collaborations with fellow surrealist Salvador Dali – Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930) – Luis Buñuel disappeared below the radar in Mexico until reappearing at Cannes with Los Olvidados in 1951. He continued working there until re-establishing himself in Europe in the 1960s as one of the great directors. His mostly little-known Mexican films – rough-hewn, low-budget melodramas for the most part – are always interesting, and these two early ones complement each other as they explore characteristic themes of lust, cruelty, class, hypocrisy and corruption. In Susana, a satanic femme fatale offers up successful prayers for escape from her hellhole of a reform school and proceeds to ingratiate herself into a wealthy bourgeois family where she proceeds to destroy everyone around her. In El Bruto, a violent, ox-like abattoir worker (the great Pedro Armendáriz) is hired to do a slum landlord's dirty work and is...
- 3/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.