Reviews

Certianly not the worst Eurotrash thriller to hit theaters in the1970s but Antonio Margheriti's thriller has little to offer. A wacky blend of heist thriller and eco-horror featuring Lee Majors, Karen Black, Margaux Hemingway and Roy Brocksmith sounds like camp heaven, but it's done in by near complete inertia. Majors' minor talents as an actor do not translate to the big screen and the supporting cast, which also includes James Franciscus and Marisa Berenson could easily lead one to believe that the casting director was the doorman from Studio-54. Alberto Spagnoli did the photography but very little of the Brazilian location shoot is fully exploited as much of the action takes place in a piranha invested lagoon.

A grim film to be sure. Anthony Perkins is a recently released mental patient who falls under the spell of murderous Tuesday Weld in Noel Black's bleak drama. Weld and Perkins have dynamite chemistry (explored further in "Play it as it Lays" a few years later) and both give terrific performances. In fact, Weld, who until this point in her career had only occasional chances to show what she was capable of as actress, has one of her best roles. Perkins, so adept at playing off-kilter characters, does just that here, plotting to blow up a factory until Weld gets her clutches on him. Black's direction is first rate and the excellent supporting cast includes John Randolph, Dick O'Neill and the always interesting Beverly Garland as Weld's mother. Lorenzo Semple Jr cid the script. Filmed in scenic Great Barrington, MA.

Frank Capra's' penultimate film is immensely enjoyable. Frank Sinatra is in top form as a Miami Beach hotel owner with serious money problems seeking help from judgy older brother Edward G. Robinson. Sinatra has his hands filled trying to keep his hotel, realize a Disney-like dream of opening a resort as well as attempting to raise his son as single father. There's a lot thrown at the hero, but as this is a Capra film, that's to be expected. It's so well handled that sappiness only occasionally seeps in. Sinatra has excellent chemisty with Robinson as well Eleanor Parker as a widow in search of a husband. The film belongs though to Sinatra and Eddie Hodges (the wunderkind entertainer seen here at his most appealing). Capra keeps things moving swiftly and the location filiming helps a lot. Featuring the now classic tune "High Hopes" performed by Sinatra and Hodges. The supporting cast includes the great Thelma Ritter, Keenan Wynn & the always unusual Carolyn Jones as a bongo banging beatnik smitten with Sinatra.

One of many Euro-thriller Carroll Baker appeared in the late 60s/early 70s. This time she's a disillusioned sports car racer (!) seeking refuge in Majorca after a particularly nasty crash. The villa she recuperates at is owned by her ex-husband and his new wife. Mayhem ensues as Baker realizes that her hubby's new wife is bent on murder. Jean Sorel is the no-good ex and a very angry Anna Proclemer is the new wife. A game of cat-n-mouse (or cats and mice as the case may be) takes place as Proclemer's sexy daughter Mania Coffa shows up to start even more trouble. Umberto Lenzi's stylish direction and minimal amount of real camp keep this potboiler a notch above others of its kind and the stunning cinematography by Guglielmo Mancori helps a lot. Baker is terrific and the supporting cast including Luis Davila and Alberto Dalbes is first rate.

William Grefé directed this silly horror film about an ancient burial site in the Florida Everglades protected by the shape-shifting title character. Bad sound, bad acting and bad direction conspire to create a very bad movie. The frequently out of synch dialog does the actors no favors as their hysteria comes off as laughably awkward. Unsurprisingly, the cast of unknowns remained mercifully unknown. As it's filmed on location, this is one of the sunniest zombie films imaginable. Given the excessive use of beautiful nature footage and bargain basement fake blood, it's easy to believe that if Marlin Perkins & Herschell Gordon Lewis collaborated on a film, it might look like this.

You'll be hard pressed to find a worse movie in 2022. Idris Elba and his two brutally annoying daughters are hunted by a rogue lion. There is nary a single move made by the two hapless actresses playing Elba's daughters that is not intended to aggravate Elba, the lion and/or the audience. A talented actor like Elba deserves a lot better than to be saddled with trying to lend any amount of dignity to junk like this. Directed in such a dull manner by Baltasar Kormákur that the film is devoid of any suspense or sense of dread for the eponymous animal. Lapses in logic abound, beginning with the fact that while Elba is playing a doctor, he seems wildly incapable of helping with even the most superficial wounds inflicted on many of the characters. Shockingly, the cinematography is by the great Philippe Rousselot!

Edna Ferber insanity about Alaska during the first half of the twentieth century. Richard Burton, extremely uncomfortable sans his Welsh accent, opens a cannery with salmon fisherman Robert Ryan. Silliness ensues. A high gloss soap opera in the guise of a historical epic directed by Vincent Sherman. Though released in 1960, it's so old-fashioned it's difficult believe this melodrama wasn't made in the 1930s. Sherman, a marginally talented studio director with no talent for anything that should be done on a grand scale, brings very little to this type of film. The supporting cast is far more colorful than any of the studio-bound scenery. Carolyn Jones is terrific as the woman caught between Burton and Ryan. Jim Backus, Ray Danton and Martha Hyer are in it too.

A stunner for sure. Directed in 1931 by stage maestro George Abbott, THE CHEAT stars Tallulah Bankhead as a society girl who gets in way over head with an investment she cannot afford. She takes a loan from wealthy Irving Pichel and plenty of pre-code unsavoriness ensues. Bankhead, who gives one of her finest film performances, is great and she's well matched with Harvey Stephens as her husband. Stephens has the perfect blandness that the impossibly colorful Bankhead had a field day with. At 75 minutes, it's never dull and given the relatively small list of films that Bankhead appeared in, it's very worthwhile. Abbott and Bankhead also teamed for the equally melodramatic MY SIN the same year.

Melodrama reigns supreme. Tallulah Bankhead is Carlotta, a nightclub "hostess" in Panama accused of killing a man...Fredric March is a drunken lawyer who defends her. Redemption ensues for both as they make their way (on different tracks) to New York, where Bankhead becomes a successful interior designer and March continues a career as a corporate lawyer. Coincidence throws the together several times. Bankhead is terrific in a pretty understated performance and March (always capable of hamminess) is pretty low key as well, at least when he's not drunk. George Abbott directed in New York (and takes his camera to the street a few times). The supporting cast includes Anne Sutherland, Scott Kolk (as Bankhead's persistent romantic persuer) and Harry Davenport, who nearly steals his scenes as a titan of industry who knows everyone's secrets. Cinematographer George Folsey teamed up with Bankhead and Abbot for the equally entertaining film THE CHEAT the same year.

Byron Haskin directed this wicked tale of greed and bloodlust and it's a doozy. Lizabeth Scott and hubby Arthur Kennedy come into a stash of dough (the way people in the movies come into a stash of dough!) and she wants to keep it, he wants to turn it over to the authorities. She gets her way. Or does she? She's soon up to her eyeballs in one greed fueled predicament after another. She's dogged by ruthless Dan Duryea who wants the money back as well as by deceptively nice Don Defore. Scott, who mastered the role of film noir bad girl in the 1940s, is perfect here too. She's unrelenting. Duryea is excellent (who was better at playing shifty eyed creeps?) and Kristine Miller is the sole decent character (as Kennedy's suspicious sister). Look fast for Denver Pyle toward the end of the film. The tightly wound script is by Roy Huggins from a Saturday Evening Post serial.

Camp value of seeing Faye Dunaway chew the scenery as the demented villain aside, this movie is pretty godawful. The story of Superman's cousin, who must get to Earth to find her planet's energy source, is well know to comic book afficianados. As the titular character, Helen Slater has some appeal but certainly not enough to carry a big budgeted film. The plot has supergirl trying to stop loony "witch" Dunaway trying for total world domination. There are cameos from the likes of Mia Farrow & Peter O'Toole and Brenda Vaccaro and Peter Cook appear in more substantial roles. Hopefully they, along with Dunaway, were paid well for debasing themselves in this needless money grab of a film. Directed, blandly, by Jeannot Szwarc.

A landmark "blaxploitation" film stylishly directed by none other than Gordon Parks. Richard Roundtree, redefining swagger, is John Shaft, a private eye hired by an uptown mobster to find his missing daughter. It's a no-holds barred action film carried by Roundtree, abetted greatly by Parks's particularly fetid view of 1971 New York. The street garbage and head- scrambling barrage of movie marquees are given hefty supporting roles. Moses Gunn is terrific as Bumpy Jonas and the cast also includes Charles Cioffi & Lawrence Pressman. The iconic music score and dynamite theme song is by the legendary Isaac Hayes. The film spawned two decreasingly entertaining sequels.

Jane Campion's brutal revisioning of the classic Henry James novel. Nicole Kidman is a young American in England to stay with her wealthy aunt and uncle circa 1872. Wealthy suitors take notice but Kidman, determined to be a free spirit, rejects any thoughts of marriage. Left wealthy by her uncle, she finds herself and her newfound fortune caught up in the duplicitious web of the mysteriously friendly Madame Merle (brilliant Barbara Hershey). Duped into a loveless marraige to layabout fop artist John Malkovich, Kidman's life becomes a horror show. Revelation after revelation leads her to take drastic steps. Campion directs a real masterpiece of horror here. The horror of course is in how people are capable of being absolutely miserable to one another. Kidman is excellent and the large supporting cast includes Christian Bale, Martin Donovan, Shelley Winters, and Mary Louise Parker as Henrietta Stackpole, Kidman's free thinking friend. Shelley Duvall is great as Malkovich's deceptively insightful sister. Also with John Gielgud (with one of the best death scenes) and Richard E. Grant.

A lazy movie with absolutely zero style or intrigue. John Travolta, donning a wig that looks laquered to his head, is woefully miscast as John Gotti, the famed "teflon don." It's difficult to imagine what was intended here. The film offers no insight into the inner working's of Gotti's criminal empire and even less into his personal relationships with his family. Kelly Peston, Travolta's real-life wife, plays his wife here and her role is unformed, it has the feel of a bunch of out-takes cobbled together to create a character. A shame as Preston has actually stolen her scenes in a bunch of other films (JERRY MAGUIRE, A VIEW FROM THE TOP).

Terrific sword and sandal stuff from Mario Bava! Reg Park is Hercules who finds himself sucked into a netherworld trying to rescue a fair maiden from the clutches of evil Christopher Lee. The special effects are not particularly special, but that only adds to film's fun. Lee is suitably nasty and Park is suitably wooden. Bava, who also did the dynamite cinematography, brings his demented sensibility to the Hercules franchise and the addition of Lee is a real plus. Surely this is one of the most enjoyable films of its ilk. Leonora Ruffo is very fetching as Princess Deianira.

Mario Monicelli's screwy comedy features the delightful Monica Vitti as an unbelievably resilient would-be bride who will stop at nothing to get her louse of a groom to actually marry her. Chasing him from Italy to England and running into one loony situation after another, Vitti gives the role her all. When doctor Stanley Baker crosses her path, mayhem ensues. A terrific featherweight comedy that somehow managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. Corin Redgrave and James Booth co-star and there's great cinematography by Carlo De Palma, who also shot Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni's first color film RED DESERT a few years earlier.

Alternately grim and funny expose of the "average" American family circa 1970. Eli Wallach & Julie Harris find out their darling teenage daughter is on drugs and their would-be rock star son knows way more about LSD than he should. Chaos ensues, doctors are consulted, and the neighbors prove to be as unhelpful as possible. Although Wallach's anger comes across as a bit grating, the performances are largely first-rate. Harris is excellent and the supporting cast includes Cloris Leachman, Rue McClanahan and Hal Holbrook.

A lightning paced noir from Richard Fleischer featuring another tough as nails performance by Lawrence Tierney. As a cop recently drummed off the force, Tierney reluctantly takes a job as bodyguard to the head of meat packing company and uncovers plenty of shenanigans. Fleischer, who excelled at putting together excellent hard boiled thrillers during the early part of his career, does not disappoint here. This slender noir gives Tierney a great opportunity to do what he does best...snarl and toss off nasty one-liners. He's always entertaining. He's also well paired with the terrific Priscilla Lane. Always full of spunk and game for anything, it's a shame that the very talented Lane did not have a more substanative film career.

Nicolas Roeg's very impressive solo directorial debut (he co-directed PERFORMANCE with Donald Cammell) is truly a singular film. Two children are abandoned in the Australian outback after their father commits a horrifying suicide. Their subsequent adventure awakens them to a lot of wonders and to a lot of scares. Jenny Agutter is the older of the two children and Roeg's own son Luc plays her young brother. They're terrific in difficult roles, there is a lot of silence. As the aborigine the two encounter, David Gulpilil is outstanding. Roeg also did the stunning cinematography and the brilliant, haunting music score is by John Barry.

Claude Lanzmann's unmitigated masterpiece. A very rare documentary on the Holocaust that relies on no archival footage. Rather, through interviews with survivors, perpetrators and camp neighbors, Lanzmann takes the famous Hannah Arendt quote about the banality of evil and shows it in all its horror. There is simply no document like this. It is long, it is grave and it is unmissable. You cannot have a complete cinematic take on this horrible era in recent history and not see this landmark film.

1000% inaccurate but still wildly entertaining. It's a standard Hollywood biopic (albeit one whose subject was still very much alive) that sticks closer to feel good fiction than anything approaching reality. Ray Danton is George Raft and he's terrific in the film's first half, fighting and hoofing his way to the top of the New York rackets. When the film shifts to Hollywood, it skirts camp as it attempts to portray Raft as some sort of acting wunderkind when in fact his talents were pretty much limited...to fighting and hoofing. The direction by Joseph M. Newman is pretty pedestrian, but the colorful supporting cast really livens things up: Julie London; Frank Gorshin; Robert Strauss; Barrie Chase. Jayne Mansfield steals her scenes as a sort of wise-cracking Greek chorus, calling out Danton on his inflated ego and meager talents. She's priceless. Neville Brand pops up briefly as Al Capone.

A sultry noir with Sterling Hayden & Gloria Graham directed by Jerry Hopper and written by several writers...it's 86 breakneck minutes of hard-boiled melodrama. Hayden is a cop with a record of brutality that costs him his job but not his determination to nail nasty Gene Barry, whom he is sure is a cop killer who's been terrorizing the city. Hayden is excellent in a role he was born to play and Grahame is, as always, great as a bad/good girl (though her singing is dubbed and dubbed poorly...Hollywood always had a problem with that!). Hopper's direction is fine with the pacing so fast you forgive the film if its not particularly stylish. One can't help but wonder what a Nicholas Ray or Robert Wise would have brought to this.

Pierre Granier-Deferre's tightly wound drama set in the French countryside features some great acting from stars SImone Signoret and Alain Delon. Delon, a fugitive on the run, is hired by widow Signoret to work her farm. Signoret's awful in-laws cause a lot of problems...wanting Delon gone and wanting Signoret's land. Mayhem ensues. Signoret portrays pent up frustration like nobody else and Delon is both oily and undeniably attractive. They're very good together. Granier-Deferre keeps the tension high as these two tangle, falling in and out and in out of lust. A much unheralded film based on a novel by Georges Simenon. With Ottavia Piccolo as a very unstable nymphomaniac.

Gillo Pontecorvo's inflammatory masterpiece remains one of the very best political films ever made. Filmed on the streets of Algiers, guerilla style, the film has a the feel of an extended newsreel. It's brutal and in-your-face film-making. Following several Algerians as they attempt to pull from beneath French rule, the film wastes little time on character development, instead focusing on the big picture. These people are desperate in their quest to get away from colonialism. Pontecorvo makes no bones about his leftist slant, even inserting a scene of a French police officer blowing up an entire neighborhood, for no real reason other than to let the audience know that the French deserved the death and destruction caused by the constant barrage of bombing, shootings and stabbings that have been plaguing the streets. The film is a landmark and definitely an essential. Pontecorvo also contributed to the stunning muisc score (along with Ennio Morricone). The script is by Franco Solinas.

It's tempting to call this forgotten Nicholas Ray film a buried treasure but it's simply not. It's certainly not as well known as the director's landmark films REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE or JOHNNY GUITAR and that may have to due with the fact that it's not a successful film. Attempting to meld film noir with cinematic pathos is a noble effort that Ray does not pull off. Robert Ryan is a very burnt-out city cop sent to the country to help capture the killer of a small girl. He meets up with Ida Lupino, the sister of the murderer, and learns a lot about himself and patience and understanding. The fact that Lupino is blind is symbolism at its most obvious as she becomes the only person to soften Ryan's hardness. While it's not sentimental, it's also not particularly dramatic. The acting is good with Ray getting the most out of a very reliable cast (Ed Begley and Ward Bond are also in it). The film is nearly stolen by Sumner Williams as Lupino's emotionally troubled brother. He's a mess. The music score by Bernard Herrmann is a stunner.