Reviews

I cannot believe how good this film is

You will not see Ethel Waters nor Julie harris better recorded on film. Every moment is pure ecstacy.

A good reason to live

If they did not make films like this I would commit suicide

Ethel Waters sang Stormy Weather but her acting is even better

If you are a guy it is not so easy to watch a girl film like this, julie harris is a tomboy and Waters is a wise black mammy, and it is not very contemporory.

Nobody could do a film like this today

Much has been said about the clockwork precision of the acting and directing of this film. I do not think it would fit together without Gerald Fried's driving score.

This film composer is not so well known as Bernard Herrmann or Alfred Newman, and I was surprised to see how many Star Trek Episodes he did. But then Herrmann did some of the best Twilight Zone music too.

I note that others mention how exhilarating this film is, even if it is a depressing film noir story. It marches straight to a rather downbeat conclusion, but with horns blaring in a way I never heard. the music is not subtle but it is raw and triumphantly grim, and this music could have made a crude but powerful symphony.

I cannot drive Fried's music out of my mind, but then I would never want to -- it is that perfect, and it is part of Stanley Kubrick's genius that he knew the right music for his films.

If the same film had used mediocre music, I would not even notice it.

This earns extra coolness points just for, uh, being cool. I could live in the bitter ambiance presented here. In fact, I probably do, considering the place Angry Young Men play in cultural history as predecessors to the Beat Generation and today's circle-A Anarchists.

Sometimes British films rule.

You have to be cynical to like films like this. Burton is over the top as usual. Why he is so cynical never comes across, but who cares? I wonder if Burton&Taylor enjoyed marital bliss as depicted in this film or others like Who's Aftaid of Virginia Woolf or Boom (one of the few film I actually walked out of when it first showed to an empty house.

I probably could not have tolerated this film when I was a teen, but then I notice that it is popular enough among IMDb's teenagers. That tells a lot about how times have changed since the in 50 years.

You do not even have to pay attention to this film to love it, just soak up the ambiance.

My favorite Pressburger/Powell film. I'm surprised it is not better known. Maybe better than Black Narcissus or Red Shoes

A modern materialistic woman visits an obscure celtic island with castles and bagpipes where they speak gaelic and wear kilts. Maybe such places do not really exist as depicted in this film but they ought to.

This could have been a cheapo celtsploitation film but it is not. Everything is just perfect -- photography, music, acting, script. Not much action or drama, except for a scary boat ride through a storm and ocean whirlpool. I wonder how they found such strange water as appears in this film.

The kind of film I could live with in the background forever.