This Mickey Spillane noir tale has its good points: star Anthony Quinn gives a solid ‘tough guy’ performance, sizing up a quartet of thrill-crazy Spillane dames that promise no end of trouble. The surprisingly clever script dares to exploit the gimmicks of both amnesia and plastic surgery — without insulting our intelligence. Peggie Castle is our new favorite in the glamour sweepstakes, and Gene Evans, Charles Coburn, Mary Ellen Kay, Shawn Smith, Barry Kelley, Jay Adler and Bruno VeSota co-star. And remember: ‘Evil to Him who Evil Thinks.’
The Long Wait 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1954 / B&w / 1:75 widescreen / 94 min. / Street Date March 21, 2023 / Available from ClassicFlix / 39.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans, Peggie Castle, Mary Ellen Kay, Shawn Smith, Dolores Donlon, Barry Kelley, James Millican, Bruno VeSota, Jay Adler, John Damler, Frank Marlowe, Paul Dubov.
Cinematography: Franz Planer
Art Director: Boris Leven
Film Editor: Ronald Sinclair
Editorial Supervisor Otto Ludwig...
The Long Wait 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1954 / B&w / 1:75 widescreen / 94 min. / Street Date March 21, 2023 / Available from ClassicFlix / 39.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans, Peggie Castle, Mary Ellen Kay, Shawn Smith, Dolores Donlon, Barry Kelley, James Millican, Bruno VeSota, Jay Adler, John Damler, Frank Marlowe, Paul Dubov.
Cinematography: Franz Planer
Art Director: Boris Leven
Film Editor: Ronald Sinclair
Editorial Supervisor Otto Ludwig...
- 3/14/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Donat snagged an Oscar for this sentimental crowdpleaser, a Best Picture nominee in Hollywood’s ‘Golden Year’ of 1939. The genteel chemistry between Donat’s shy schoolteacher and the charming personality Greer Garson broke hearts, and made Ms. Garson one of MGM’s top names for the next decade. It’s one of the studio’s English productions, filmed in the shadow of the coming war. A glowing new digital restoration redeems 70 years of not-so-good TV prints.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 115 min. / Street Date January 24, 2023 / Available at Amazon.com/ 21.99
Starring: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills, Paul Henreid, Judith Furse.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Charles Frend
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, Eric Maschwitz from the novel by James Hilton
Produced by Victor Saville
Directed by Sam Wood
No, it’s not about the terrible Chips Ahoy!
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 115 min. / Street Date January 24, 2023 / Available at Amazon.com/ 21.99
Starring: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills, Paul Henreid, Judith Furse.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Charles Frend
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, Eric Maschwitz from the novel by James Hilton
Produced by Victor Saville
Directed by Sam Wood
No, it’s not about the terrible Chips Ahoy!
- 2/11/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer hit the big screen early in the 3-D craze, in a much tamed-down adaptation. The camera legend John Alton handled the lighting and likely called the shots on the camera setups as well. As a detective noir it’s definitely flat-footed, with a bum script, weak direction and a miscast Biff Elliot as the vengeful tough-guy hero. But compensating are the seductive Dran Hamilton, Margaret Sheridan and especially Peggie Castle — the key ‘dame’ in the pulp fiction finale. The United Artists release has been mostly Mia for decades,and this release presents it three ways: flat in both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, plus a beautiful restored 3-D Blu-ray encoding.
I, the Jury
4K Ultra HD + 3-D Blu-ray + Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Special Limited Edition / Street Date November 8, 2022 / Available from ClassicFlix / 34.99
Starring: Biff Elliot, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed,...
I, the Jury
4K Ultra HD + 3-D Blu-ray + Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Special Limited Edition / Street Date November 8, 2022 / Available from ClassicFlix / 34.99
Starring: Biff Elliot, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed,...
- 10/29/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Aldrich promised no-holds barred rough-tough dramas, and his first two Associates & Aldrich productions certainly hit hard. This play adaptation shows its director’s strength (no-flinching full shock impact) and weakness (theatrical overplaying) in full measure, but the unrestrained performances of Jack Palance and Eddie Albert are unforgettable. The main event can’t have pleased the Pentagon: shooting one’s own officer in combat. Plus, Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel get in early innings for their future work in Aldrichs’s The Dirty Dozen.
Attack
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, William Smithers, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, Jon Shepodd, Peter van Eyck, Jimmy Goodwin, Steven Geray, Strother Martin.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editor: Michael Luciano
Original Music: Frank Devol
Written by James Poe from the play Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks...
Attack
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, William Smithers, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, Jon Shepodd, Peter van Eyck, Jimmy Goodwin, Steven Geray, Strother Martin.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editor: Michael Luciano
Original Music: Frank Devol
Written by James Poe from the play Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks...
- 12/15/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It’s pretty scary to think that as late as 1940 both Washington and the American public were sharply divided over Nazi Germany. Poland had been overrun and France was about to fall, but MGM waited until June of that year to release this softened adaptation of a novel written as a warning to the world in 1937. Handsomely produced with MGM’s high-gloss production values, it’s remembered as a valiant and courageous anti-Nazi film. Its all-star cast reunited the potent romantic team of James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan for sentimental fireworks.
The Mortal Storm
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 100 min. / Street Date November 3, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan, Robert Stack, Bonita Granville, Irene Rich, William T. Orr, Maria Ouspenskaya, Gene Reynolds, Russell Hicks, Esther Dale, Dan Dailey, Ward Bond, Rudolph Anders, Brad Dexter.
Cinematography: William H. Daniels
Film Editor:...
The Mortal Storm
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 100 min. / Street Date November 3, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan, Robert Stack, Bonita Granville, Irene Rich, William T. Orr, Maria Ouspenskaya, Gene Reynolds, Russell Hicks, Esther Dale, Dan Dailey, Ward Bond, Rudolph Anders, Brad Dexter.
Cinematography: William H. Daniels
Film Editor:...
- 11/14/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
By John M. Whalen
In “My Gun Is Quick” (1957), Mickey Spillane’s famous private detective Mike Hammer (Robert Bray) meets a sad young hooker named “Red” (Patricia Donahue) in a greasy spoon and rescues her from a goon trying to put the muscle on her. Hammer slaps him around and kicks him out the door and gives her bus fare plus change to go back home and start over. He’s a hardnose but he’s got a tender spot somewhere under that tough exterior. He writes down his name and number on a slip of paper and tell her to call him to let him know she made it okay. Before they part he notices a very ornate ring on the third finger of her right hand. Hammer has been up for 52 hours and just wants to go home and get some sleep,...
By John M. Whalen
In “My Gun Is Quick” (1957), Mickey Spillane’s famous private detective Mike Hammer (Robert Bray) meets a sad young hooker named “Red” (Patricia Donahue) in a greasy spoon and rescues her from a goon trying to put the muscle on her. Hammer slaps him around and kicks him out the door and gives her bus fare plus change to go back home and start over. He’s a hardnose but he’s got a tender spot somewhere under that tough exterior. He writes down his name and number on a slip of paper and tell her to call him to let him know she made it okay. Before they part he notices a very ornate ring on the third finger of her right hand. Hammer has been up for 52 hours and just wants to go home and get some sleep,...
- 6/28/2020
- by [email protected] (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Mike Hammer is in action again! Well, not exactly. Producer Victor Saville’s third go-round with Mickey Spillane’s famed character doesn’t do the franchise justice. Hammer-philes will be astounded by this thriller’s decidedly un-thrilling thrills: there’s little to connect the inexpressive nice guy Robert Bray with the super-popular, super-violent avenger of the books. Spillane’s original is abandoned in favor of a tame ‘who’s got the diamonds?’ storyline, with some compensation in a string of exciting ‘Hammer dames.’ I checked twice — Mike doesn’t shoot Any of them in the stomach.
My Gun Is Quick
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / available through Kino Lorber / Street Date March 24, 2020 / 24.95
Starring: Robert Bray, Whitney Blake, Patricia Donahue, Donald Randolph, Pamela Duncan, Booth Coleman, Jan Chaney, Genie Coree, Richard Garland, Charles Boaz, Peter Mamakos, Claire Carleton, Phil Arnold, John Dennis, Terence de Marney, Ray Kellogg.
My Gun Is Quick
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / available through Kino Lorber / Street Date March 24, 2020 / 24.95
Starring: Robert Bray, Whitney Blake, Patricia Donahue, Donald Randolph, Pamela Duncan, Booth Coleman, Jan Chaney, Genie Coree, Richard Garland, Charles Boaz, Peter Mamakos, Claire Carleton, Phil Arnold, John Dennis, Terence de Marney, Ray Kellogg.
- 3/3/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The closing gala of this year's Hippodrome Silent Film Festival, held in in Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema in the sleepy town of Bo'ness, was a real highlight. Hindle Wakes (1927) is not only a smart adaptation of a celebrated 1910 stage play (from the "Manchester school" of socially committed Northern realism that also gave us the source for David Lean's Hobson's Choice), it's proof positive that there was more to British silent cinema than Hitchcock—though there are strong connections, since the movie features character actress Marie Ault, the landlady from The Lodger, John Stuart, the staunch detective from Number 17, and was photographed in part by Jack Cox, Hitchcock's regular cinematographer at this time. The story is set among the cotton mills of Lancashire in what was the U.K.'s industrial heartland. The young mill workers depart for their annual week's holiday in Blackpool, a sort of combination of...
- 3/27/2019
- MUBI
Hard-boiled Hammer
By Raymond Benson
As 2018 is the official centenary of Mickey Spillane, we at Cinema Retro thought it would be a good idea to examine this excellent digest of the author’s works on the silver screen and on television.
Author and filmmaker Max Allan Collins (probably best-known for writing the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the basis of the 2002 film, but also author of 100+ other books) is the literary executor for the estate of Mickey Spillane. Not only has he co-written this excellent “bedside companion” on Spillane’s big-and-small screen adaptations, Collins has co-authored/finished manuscripts originally begun by Spillane before his death in 2006 at the age of 88. Co-author James L. Traylor has also had a long career of writing critical analyses on crime authors and novels. One can be confident, then, that in Mickey Spillane on Screen, the authors know what they’re talking about.
Mickey Spillane...
By Raymond Benson
As 2018 is the official centenary of Mickey Spillane, we at Cinema Retro thought it would be a good idea to examine this excellent digest of the author’s works on the silver screen and on television.
Author and filmmaker Max Allan Collins (probably best-known for writing the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the basis of the 2002 film, but also author of 100+ other books) is the literary executor for the estate of Mickey Spillane. Not only has he co-written this excellent “bedside companion” on Spillane’s big-and-small screen adaptations, Collins has co-authored/finished manuscripts originally begun by Spillane before his death in 2006 at the age of 88. Co-author James L. Traylor has also had a long career of writing critical analyses on crime authors and novels. One can be confident, then, that in Mickey Spillane on Screen, the authors know what they’re talking about.
Mickey Spillane...
- 2/27/2018
- by [email protected] (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
How did Kiss Me Deadly come to be restored? The real question should be, how did filmdom lose track of its original ending in the first place? Savant uncovers evidence that may explain when, and why, United Artists mutilated the finish of Robert Aldrich’s apocalyptic film noir.
(Note: The images below with text can be enlarged for reading, just click on them.)
Before home video the final home for Hollywood films was Television. Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Kiss Me Deadly never saw a theatrical reissue, and it dropped out of major TV visibility in 1962. I saw the documentation in United Artists’ legal folder on the film. To secure capital to launch more movies, Robert Aldrich sold all of his ‘Associates and Aldrich’ pictures back to UA after their original releases were concluded. More papers showed Kiss Me Deadly being included in at least two TV syndication packages, and then each time pointedly removed.
(Note: The images below with text can be enlarged for reading, just click on them.)
Before home video the final home for Hollywood films was Television. Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Kiss Me Deadly never saw a theatrical reissue, and it dropped out of major TV visibility in 1962. I saw the documentation in United Artists’ legal folder on the film. To secure capital to launch more movies, Robert Aldrich sold all of his ‘Associates and Aldrich’ pictures back to UA after their original releases were concluded. More papers showed Kiss Me Deadly being included in at least two TV syndication packages, and then each time pointedly removed.
- 5/13/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Dirty cops were a movie vogue in 1954, and Edmond O'Brien scores as a real dastard in this overachieving United Artists thriller. Dreamboat starlet Marla English is the reason O'Brien's detective kills for cash, and then keeps killing to stay ahead of his colleagues. And all to buy a crummy house in the suburbs -- this man needs career counseling. Shield for Murder Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1954 / B&W / 1:75 widescreen / 82 min. / Street Date June 21, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Edmond O'Brien, Marla English, John Agar, Emile Meyer, Carolyn Jones, Claude Akins, Herbert Butterfield, Hugh Sanders, William Schallert, Robert Bray, Richard Deacon, David Hughes, Gregg Martell, Stafford Repp, Vito Scotti. Cinematography Gordon Avil Film Editor John F. Schreyer Original Music Paul Dunlap Written by Richard Alan Simmons, John C. Higgins from the novel by William P. McGivern <Produced by Aubrey Schenck, (Howard W. Koch) Directed by Edmond O'Brien, Howard W. Koch
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Here's the kind of '50s movie we love, an ambitious, modest crime picture that for its time had an edge. In the 1950s our country was as blind to the true extent of police corruption as it was to organized crime. Movies about bad cops adhered to the 'bad apple' concept: it's only crooked individuals that we need to watch out for, never the institutions around them. Thanks to films noir, crooked cops were no longer a film rarity, even though the Production Code made movies like The Asphalt Jungle insert compensatory scenes paying lip service to the status quo: an imperfect police force is better than none. United Artists in the 1950s helped star talent make the jump to independent production, with the prime success stories being Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. But the distribution company also funded proven producers capable of putting out smaller bread 'n' butter movies that could prosper if costs were kept down. Edward Small, Victor Saville, Levy-Gardner-Laven. Aubrey Schenck and Howard C. Koch produced as a team, and for 1954's Shield for Murder Koch co-directed, sharing credit with the film's star, Edmond O'Brien. The show is a smart production all the way, a modestly budgeted 'B' with 'A' ambitions. O'Brien was an industry go-getter trying to channel his considerable talent in new directions. His leading man days were fading but he was in demand for parts in major films like The Barefoot Contessa. The producers took care with their story too. Writers Richard Alan Simmons and John C. Higgins had solid crime movie credits. Author William P. McGivern wrote the novel behind Fritz Lang's The Big Heat as well as Rogue Cop and Odds Against Tomorrow. All of McGivern's stories involve crooked policemen or police corruption. Shield for Murder doesn't tiptoe around its subject matter. Dirty cop Detective Lt. Barney Nolan (O'Brien) kills a hoodlum in an alley to steal $25,000 of mob money. His precinct boss Captain Gunnarson (Emile Meyer) accepts Barney's version of events and the Asst. D.A. (William Schallert) takes the shooting as an open and shut case. Crime reporter Cabot (Herbert Butterfield) has his doubts, and lectures the squad room about the abuse of police power. Barney manages to placate mob boss Packy Reed (Hugh Sanders), but two hoods continue to shadow him. Barney's plan for the money was to buy a new house and escape the rat race with his girlfriend, nightclub cashier Patty Winters (Marla English). But a problem surfaces in the elderly deaf mute Ernst Sternmueller (David Hughes), a witness to the shooting. Barney realizes that his only way forward is to kill the old man before he can tell all to Det. Mark Brewster (John Agar), Barney's closest friend. Once again one of society's Good Guys takes a bite of the forbidden apple and tries to buck the system. Shield for Murder posits an logical but twisted course of action for a weary defender of the law who wants out. Barney long ago gave up trying to do anything about the crooks he can't touch. The fat cat Packy Reed makes the big money, and all Barney wants is his share. Barney's vision of The American Dream is just the middle-class ideal, the desirable Patty Winters and a modest tract home. He's picked it out - it sits partway up a hill in a new Los Angeles development, just finished and already furnished. Then the unexpected witness shows up and everything begins to unravel; Barney loses control one step at a time. He beats a mob thug (Claude Akins) half to death in front of witnesses. When his pal Mark Brewster figures out the truth, Barney has to use a lot of his money to arrange a getaway. More mob trouble leads to a shoot-out in a high school gym. The idea may have been for the star O'Brien to coach actors John Agar and Marla English to better performances. Agar is slightly more natural than usual, but still not very good. The gorgeous Ms. English remains sweet and inexpressive. After several unbilled bits, the woman often compared to Elizabeth Taylor was given "introducing" billing on the Shield for Murder billing block. Her best-known role would be as The She-Creature two years later, after which she dropped out to get married. Co-director O'Brien also allows Emile Meyer to go over the top in a scene or two. But the young Carolyn Jones is a standout as a blonde bargirl, more or less expanding on her small part as a human ashtray in the previous year's The Big Heat. Edmond O'Brien is occasionally a little to hyper, but he's excellent at showing stress as the trap closes around the overreaching Barney Nolan. Other United Artists budget crime pictures seem a little tight with the outdoors action -- Vice Squad, Witness to Murder, Without Warning -- but O'Brien and Koch's camera luxuriates in night shoots on the Los Angeles streets. This is one of those Blu-rays that Los Angelenos will want to freeze frame, to try to read the street signs. There is also little downtime wasted in sidebar plot detours. The gunfight in the school gym, next to an Olympic swimming pool, is an action highlight. The show has one enduring sequence. With the force closing in, Barney rushes back to the unfinished house he plans to buy, to recover the loot he's buried next to its foundation. Anybody who lived in Southern California in the '50s and '60s was aware of the massive suburban sprawl underway, a building boom that went on for decades. In 1953 the La Puente hills were so rural they barely served by roads; the movie The War of the Worlds considered it a good place to use a nuclear bomb against invading Martians. By 1975 the unending suburbs had spread from Los Angeles, almost all the way to Pomona. Barney dashes through a new housing development on terraced plots, boxy little houses separated from each other by only a few feet of dirt. There's no landscaping yet. Even in 1954 $25,000 wasn't that much money, so Barney Nolan has sold himself pretty cheaply. Two more latter-day crime pictures would end with ominous metaphors about the oblivion of The American Dream. In 1964's remake of The Killers the cash Lee Marvin kills for only buys him a patch of green lawn in a choice Hollywood Hills neighborhood. The L.A.P.D. puts Marvin out of his misery, and then closes in on another crooked detective in the aptly titled 1965 thriller The Money Trap. The final scene in that movie is priceless: his dreams smashed, crooked cop Glenn Ford sits by his designer swimming pool and waits to be arrested. Considering how well things worked out for Los Angeles police officers, Edmond O'Brien's Barney Nolan seems especially foolish. If Barney had stuck it out for a couple of years, the new deal for the L.A.P.D. would have been much better than a measly 25 grand. By 1958 he'd have his twenty years in. After a retirement beer bash he'd be out on the road pulling a shiny new boat to the Colorado River, like all the other hardworking cops and firemen enjoying their generous pensions. Policemen also had little trouble getting house loans. The joke was that an L.A.P.D. cop might go bad, but none of them could be bribed. O'Brien directed one more feature, took more TV work and settled into character parts for Jack Webb, Frank Tashlin, John Ford, John Frankenheimer and finally Sam Peckinpah in The Wild Bunch, where he was almost unrecognizable. Howard W. Koch slowed down as a director but became a busy producer, working with Frank Sinatra for several years. He eventually co-produced Airplane! The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of Shield for Murder is a good-looking B&W scan, framed at a confirmed-as-correct 1:75 aspect ratio. The picture is sharp and detailed, and the sound is in fine shape. The package art duplicates the film's original no-class sell: "Dame-Hungry Killer-Cop Runs Berserk! The first scene also contains one of the more frequently noticed camera flubs in film noir -- a really big boom shadow on a nighttime alley wall. Kino's presentation comes with trailers for this movie, Hidden Fear and He Ran All the Way. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Shield for Murder Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Trailers for Shield for Murder, Hidden Fear, He Ran All the Way Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5115murd)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: [email protected]
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Here's the kind of '50s movie we love, an ambitious, modest crime picture that for its time had an edge. In the 1950s our country was as blind to the true extent of police corruption as it was to organized crime. Movies about bad cops adhered to the 'bad apple' concept: it's only crooked individuals that we need to watch out for, never the institutions around them. Thanks to films noir, crooked cops were no longer a film rarity, even though the Production Code made movies like The Asphalt Jungle insert compensatory scenes paying lip service to the status quo: an imperfect police force is better than none. United Artists in the 1950s helped star talent make the jump to independent production, with the prime success stories being Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. But the distribution company also funded proven producers capable of putting out smaller bread 'n' butter movies that could prosper if costs were kept down. Edward Small, Victor Saville, Levy-Gardner-Laven. Aubrey Schenck and Howard C. Koch produced as a team, and for 1954's Shield for Murder Koch co-directed, sharing credit with the film's star, Edmond O'Brien. The show is a smart production all the way, a modestly budgeted 'B' with 'A' ambitions. O'Brien was an industry go-getter trying to channel his considerable talent in new directions. His leading man days were fading but he was in demand for parts in major films like The Barefoot Contessa. The producers took care with their story too. Writers Richard Alan Simmons and John C. Higgins had solid crime movie credits. Author William P. McGivern wrote the novel behind Fritz Lang's The Big Heat as well as Rogue Cop and Odds Against Tomorrow. All of McGivern's stories involve crooked policemen or police corruption. Shield for Murder doesn't tiptoe around its subject matter. Dirty cop Detective Lt. Barney Nolan (O'Brien) kills a hoodlum in an alley to steal $25,000 of mob money. His precinct boss Captain Gunnarson (Emile Meyer) accepts Barney's version of events and the Asst. D.A. (William Schallert) takes the shooting as an open and shut case. Crime reporter Cabot (Herbert Butterfield) has his doubts, and lectures the squad room about the abuse of police power. Barney manages to placate mob boss Packy Reed (Hugh Sanders), but two hoods continue to shadow him. Barney's plan for the money was to buy a new house and escape the rat race with his girlfriend, nightclub cashier Patty Winters (Marla English). But a problem surfaces in the elderly deaf mute Ernst Sternmueller (David Hughes), a witness to the shooting. Barney realizes that his only way forward is to kill the old man before he can tell all to Det. Mark Brewster (John Agar), Barney's closest friend. Once again one of society's Good Guys takes a bite of the forbidden apple and tries to buck the system. Shield for Murder posits an logical but twisted course of action for a weary defender of the law who wants out. Barney long ago gave up trying to do anything about the crooks he can't touch. The fat cat Packy Reed makes the big money, and all Barney wants is his share. Barney's vision of The American Dream is just the middle-class ideal, the desirable Patty Winters and a modest tract home. He's picked it out - it sits partway up a hill in a new Los Angeles development, just finished and already furnished. Then the unexpected witness shows up and everything begins to unravel; Barney loses control one step at a time. He beats a mob thug (Claude Akins) half to death in front of witnesses. When his pal Mark Brewster figures out the truth, Barney has to use a lot of his money to arrange a getaway. More mob trouble leads to a shoot-out in a high school gym. The idea may have been for the star O'Brien to coach actors John Agar and Marla English to better performances. Agar is slightly more natural than usual, but still not very good. The gorgeous Ms. English remains sweet and inexpressive. After several unbilled bits, the woman often compared to Elizabeth Taylor was given "introducing" billing on the Shield for Murder billing block. Her best-known role would be as The She-Creature two years later, after which she dropped out to get married. Co-director O'Brien also allows Emile Meyer to go over the top in a scene or two. But the young Carolyn Jones is a standout as a blonde bargirl, more or less expanding on her small part as a human ashtray in the previous year's The Big Heat. Edmond O'Brien is occasionally a little to hyper, but he's excellent at showing stress as the trap closes around the overreaching Barney Nolan. Other United Artists budget crime pictures seem a little tight with the outdoors action -- Vice Squad, Witness to Murder, Without Warning -- but O'Brien and Koch's camera luxuriates in night shoots on the Los Angeles streets. This is one of those Blu-rays that Los Angelenos will want to freeze frame, to try to read the street signs. There is also little downtime wasted in sidebar plot detours. The gunfight in the school gym, next to an Olympic swimming pool, is an action highlight. The show has one enduring sequence. With the force closing in, Barney rushes back to the unfinished house he plans to buy, to recover the loot he's buried next to its foundation. Anybody who lived in Southern California in the '50s and '60s was aware of the massive suburban sprawl underway, a building boom that went on for decades. In 1953 the La Puente hills were so rural they barely served by roads; the movie The War of the Worlds considered it a good place to use a nuclear bomb against invading Martians. By 1975 the unending suburbs had spread from Los Angeles, almost all the way to Pomona. Barney dashes through a new housing development on terraced plots, boxy little houses separated from each other by only a few feet of dirt. There's no landscaping yet. Even in 1954 $25,000 wasn't that much money, so Barney Nolan has sold himself pretty cheaply. Two more latter-day crime pictures would end with ominous metaphors about the oblivion of The American Dream. In 1964's remake of The Killers the cash Lee Marvin kills for only buys him a patch of green lawn in a choice Hollywood Hills neighborhood. The L.A.P.D. puts Marvin out of his misery, and then closes in on another crooked detective in the aptly titled 1965 thriller The Money Trap. The final scene in that movie is priceless: his dreams smashed, crooked cop Glenn Ford sits by his designer swimming pool and waits to be arrested. Considering how well things worked out for Los Angeles police officers, Edmond O'Brien's Barney Nolan seems especially foolish. If Barney had stuck it out for a couple of years, the new deal for the L.A.P.D. would have been much better than a measly 25 grand. By 1958 he'd have his twenty years in. After a retirement beer bash he'd be out on the road pulling a shiny new boat to the Colorado River, like all the other hardworking cops and firemen enjoying their generous pensions. Policemen also had little trouble getting house loans. The joke was that an L.A.P.D. cop might go bad, but none of them could be bribed. O'Brien directed one more feature, took more TV work and settled into character parts for Jack Webb, Frank Tashlin, John Ford, John Frankenheimer and finally Sam Peckinpah in The Wild Bunch, where he was almost unrecognizable. Howard W. Koch slowed down as a director but became a busy producer, working with Frank Sinatra for several years. He eventually co-produced Airplane! The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of Shield for Murder is a good-looking B&W scan, framed at a confirmed-as-correct 1:75 aspect ratio. The picture is sharp and detailed, and the sound is in fine shape. The package art duplicates the film's original no-class sell: "Dame-Hungry Killer-Cop Runs Berserk! The first scene also contains one of the more frequently noticed camera flubs in film noir -- a really big boom shadow on a nighttime alley wall. Kino's presentation comes with trailers for this movie, Hidden Fear and He Ran All the Way. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Shield for Murder Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Trailers for Shield for Murder, Hidden Fear, He Ran All the Way Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5115murd)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: [email protected]
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/11/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Mitchum all but snoozes through this promising war-espionage thriller that pits lazy Gestapo agents against clueless partisans in occupied Greece. It's got great locations and a good cast, but director Robert Aldrich seems off his feed -- there's not a lot of excitement to be had. The Angry Hills DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1959 / B&W / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Elisabeth Mueller, Gia Scala, Theodore Bikel, Sebastian Cabot, Donald Wolfit, Marius Goring, Jocelyn Lane, Kieron Moore, George Pastell, Marita Constantinou, Alec Mango. Cinematography Stephen Dade Film Editor Peter Tanner Production Design Ken Adam Original Music Richard Rodney Bennett Written by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel by Leon Uris Produced by Raymond Stross Directed by Robert Aldrich
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Director Robert Aldrich had come through with successes for Burt Lancaster's production company (Apache, Vera Cruz...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Director Robert Aldrich had come through with successes for Burt Lancaster's production company (Apache, Vera Cruz...
- 5/31/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman: The 'Notorious' British (Hitchcock, Grant) and Swedish (Bergman) talent. British actors and directors in Hollywood; Hollywood actors and directors in Britain: Anthony Slide's 'A Special Relationship.' 'A Special Relationship' Q&A: Britain in Hollywood and Hollywood in Britain First of all, what made you think of a book on “the special relationship” between the American and British film industries – particularly on the British side? I was aware of a couple of books on the British in Hollywood, but I wanted to move beyond that somewhat limited discussion and document the whole British/American relationship as it applied to filmmaking. Growing up in England, I had always been interested in the history of the British cinema, but generally my writing on film history has been concentrated on America. I suppose to a certain extent I wanted to go back into my archives,...
- 1/5/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...
- 11/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'San Andreas' movie with Dwayne Johnson. 'San Andreas' movie box office: $100 million domestic milestone today As the old saying (sort of) goes: If you build it, they will come. Warner Bros. built a gigantic video game, called it San Andreas, and They have come to check out Dwayne Johnson perform miraculous deeds not seen since ... George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, released two weeks earlier. Embraced by moviegoers, hungry for quality, original storylines and well-delineated characters – and with the assistance of 3D surcharges – the San Andreas movie debuted with $54.58 million from 3,777 theaters on its first weekend out (May 29-31) in North America. Down a perfectly acceptable 52 percent on its second weekend (June 5-7), the special effects-laden actioner collected an extra $25.83 million, trailing only the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Statham comedy Spy, (with $29.08 million) as found at Box Office Mojo.* And that's how this original movie – it's not officially a remake,...
- 6/9/2015
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
James Garner movies on TCM: ‘Grand Prix,’ ‘Victor Victoria’ among highlights (photo: James Garner ca. 1960) James Garner, whose film and television career spanned more than five decades, died of "natural causes" at age 86 on July 19, 2014, in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. On Monday, July 28, Turner Classic Movies will present an all-day marathon of James Garner movies (see below) as a tribute to the Oscar-nominated star of Murphy’s Romance and Emmy-winning star of the television series The Rockford Files. Among the highlights in TCM’s James Garner film lineup is John Frankenheimer’s Monaco-set Grand Prix (1966), an all-star, race-car drama featuring Garner as a Formula One driver who has an affair with the wife (Jessica Walter) of his former teammate (Brian Bedford). Among the other Grand Prix drivers facing their own personal issues are Yves Montand and Antonio Sabato, while Akira Kurosawa’s (male) muse Toshiro Mifune plays a...
- 7/25/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Here is a list of May's additions to Warner Archive Instant's streaming video service. If you aren't a subscriber, you can sign up for a free two week trial at instant.WarnerArchive.com.
Man From Atlantis (1976-78)
It all begins with a storm and a man washed up on shore. A man with gills... Before he shot to superstardom in Dallas playing Bobby Ewing, Patrick Duffy donned swim trunks for a super-heroic turn as Mark Harris, Man from Atlantis. Debuting in a series of Sci-Fi movies-of-the-week, the adventures of the amnesiac Atlantean so captivated audiences that the movies spawned a weekly TV series. Eschewing the TV movies' more cerebral approach for more light-hearted action fare, the series took a more campy turn only to sink into the depths of TV history (but not before becoming the first American TV import to Communist China!). Now's your chance to explore below the...
Man From Atlantis (1976-78)
It all begins with a storm and a man washed up on shore. A man with gills... Before he shot to superstardom in Dallas playing Bobby Ewing, Patrick Duffy donned swim trunks for a super-heroic turn as Mark Harris, Man from Atlantis. Debuting in a series of Sci-Fi movies-of-the-week, the adventures of the amnesiac Atlantean so captivated audiences that the movies spawned a weekly TV series. Eschewing the TV movies' more cerebral approach for more light-hearted action fare, the series took a more campy turn only to sink into the depths of TV history (but not before becoming the first American TV import to Communist China!). Now's your chance to explore below the...
- 5/3/2014
- by [email protected] (Victor Medina)
- Cinelinx
Vivien Leigh: Legendary ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ star would have turned 100 today Vivien Leigh was perhaps the greatest film star that hardly ever was. What I mean is that following her starring role in the 1939 Civil War blockbuster Gone with the Wind, Leigh was featured in a mere eight* movies over the course of the next 25 years. The theater world’s gain — she was kept busy on the London stage — was the film world’s loss. But even if Leigh had starred in only two movies — Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire — that would have been enough to make her a screen legend; one who would have turned 100 years old today, November 5, 2013. (Photo: Vivien Leigh ca. 1940.) Vivien Leigh (born Vivian Mary Hartley to British parents in Darjeeling, India) began her film career in the mid-’30s, playing bit roles in British...
- 11/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...
- 8/31/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...
- 8/11/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cinelinx chooses wisely while watching the classic Holy Grail epic The Silver Chalice, Paul Newman's first film!
This Warner Archive release is a Manufacture-On-Demand (Mod) DVD. It is made to be played in "play only" DVD devices, and may not play in some DVD recorders or PC drives. This disc, however, played fine in the Toshiba DVD recorder used for this review. This title is available directly from WBShop.com by clicking here.
The Set-up
A freed slave (Paul Newman) is chosen to cast the Holy Grail in silver, but his efforts are thwarted by enemies out to claim the grail for themselves. In addition, a magician (Jack Palance) uses his magic to convince Rome he is a Christ-like Messiah. Also stars Pier Angeli, Virginia Mayo, and Lorne Greene.
Directed by Victor Saville
The Delivery
The 1954 film The Silver Chalice may not be a classic along the lines of...
This Warner Archive release is a Manufacture-On-Demand (Mod) DVD. It is made to be played in "play only" DVD devices, and may not play in some DVD recorders or PC drives. This disc, however, played fine in the Toshiba DVD recorder used for this review. This title is available directly from WBShop.com by clicking here.
The Set-up
A freed slave (Paul Newman) is chosen to cast the Holy Grail in silver, but his efforts are thwarted by enemies out to claim the grail for themselves. In addition, a magician (Jack Palance) uses his magic to convince Rome he is a Christ-like Messiah. Also stars Pier Angeli, Virginia Mayo, and Lorne Greene.
Directed by Victor Saville
The Delivery
The 1954 film The Silver Chalice may not be a classic along the lines of...
- 6/21/2013
- by [email protected] (Victor Medina)
- Cinelinx
The Berlinale has come and gone so quickly, so intensely. Everyone was catching the flu or a cold, and I was left with the sniffles. My last two days I was lucky to be able to catch some films. Before that I only saw Don Jon’s Addiction which I was charmed by. Scarlett Johanssen played the best role of her life, she is a great comedienne. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt was delightful. Upstream Color bit off more than it could chew. The reviews express my feelings about it better than I can.
A quick list of films seen by me and by other discerning women:
Concussion, starring Catherine Deneuve, a bored house wife story has been told before. This time, the two protagonists were attractive lesbian women and it was beautifully filmed, but nothing beats Belle de Jour also starring Catherine Deneuve.
The Weimar Touch is a series of films from the Weimar era in Germany which preceded the Nazi era and films which were influenced by filmmakers of the Weimar era. MoMA Chief Curator of Film, Rajendra Roy and Laurence Kardish, the former Senior Curator of Film at MoMA were members of the Curatorial Board (along with Rainer Rother, Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek, Connie Betz (Deutsche Kinemathek, Programme Coordinator Retrospective, and Hans-Michael Bock (Cinegraph, Hamburg). Maybe I could catch more of these fantastic sounding films in New York.
Hangmen Also Die! by Fritz Lang sounded so great. I got the ticket, but damn I missed the film because of a meeting. The notes written for Hangmen Also Die by Rainer Rother of the Deutsche Kinemathek, "Prague 1942. Following the assassination of Nazi Reich Protector Heydrich...a professor’s daughter hides the culprit in her parents’ apartment…sadistic, elegant and effeminate." Doesn’t that sound great? The gender bending in Vicktor Viktoria was charming and funny. Julie Andrews saw this actress and copied her style perfectly. They look like twins. Other films in the Restrospective had me going to the Film Museum to ask for the boxed set, but the prints are from so many places, the clearance on them would be nearly impossible I guess…no boxed set. Other films in The Weimar Touch were so enticing! I had seen A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Max Reinhardt himself and William Dieterle, (U.S. 1935) the last time when I was in high school and then didn’t know who Max Reinhardt was. Car of Dreams was a favorite of those who saw it. Casablanca in which Victor Lazlo and Ilse Lund play out their doomed love was directed by Hungarian born director Mihaly Kertesz (Michael Curtiz) and Humphrey Bogart is almost the only “real” American in the ensemble. I had never been aware of how The Weimar Touch formed that film. Others: The Chase, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Le Corbeau – what a great film that is, a film that was saved only by Sartre and Cocteau’s speaking out in favor of director Henri-Georges Clouzot. This is a film Michael Haneke saw when he created The White Ribbon. A Dutch film, Somewhere in the Netherlands by Ludwig Berger in 1940, Gerhard Lamprecht’s Einmal Eine Grosse Dame Sein, British film, First a Girl, by Victor Saville, Fury by Fritz Lang, Gado Bravo from Portugal 1934, Gluckskinder from Germany in 1936, The Golem, The Mystery of Moonlight Sonata, Hitler’s Madman, How Green Was My Valley by John Ford in 1941 which was influenced by his friend F.W. Murnau, Max Ophuls’ Comedy About Gold, Letter from an Unknown Woman by Max Ophuls, M by Joseph Losey, Mollenard by Robert Siodmak, None Shall Live by Andre de Toth, Out of the Past by Jacques Tourneur, Peter, Pieges, The Queen of Spades, The Small Back Room, Some Like it Hot, To Be or Not to Be by Lubitsch, Touch of Evil by Orson Welles, Cabaret by Bob Fosse, Dial M for Murder, On the Waterfront, The Student of Prague, Tokyo Story were all touched by The Weimar Touch. What a collection!
Tokyo Kazoku (Tokyo Story) by Yoji Yamada was sweet and sad as the parents travel from their hometown of Hiroshima to visit their grown children in Tokyo – different from Ozu’s Tokyo Story, but “the story of family estrangement and the isolation inherent in modern society” as expressed in the story notes of Rainer Rother along with the reminders of the recent tsunami and its losses make this story deeply touching.
Interesting was Dark Blood by George Sluizer. It was not as spooky as The Vanishing, but to see River Phoenix, so beautiful in this role with such a sexy Judy Davis was a treat, if a bit dated. Elle s’en va with a Catherine Deneuve, aged after Umbrellas of Cherbourg and perhaps the same character takes a funny tour through rural France that I enjoyed. I missed Pourquoi Israel, part of the Homage to Claude Lanzmann but got to see Sobibor, 14 Octobre 1943 which was astounding. The bravery of the hero who was on screen the entire time, Yehuda Lerner, looked like a movie star. The entire story was so unexpected for me; how did it happen that I had never heard the story of the uprising at Sobibor before? I know Shoah and sat through it without a minute of disinterest – but that was in college. Claude Lanzmann justifiably said that this story was too unique and special to include in Shoah.
An odd Romanian film, the comedy A Farewell to Fools directed by Goodan Dreyer and starring child actor Boodan Iancu, Gerard Depardieu, Harvey Keitel and a cruelly beautiful Laura Morante, (and dubbed!) it is being sold in the market by Shoreline. It stands out in contrast to the Golden Bear Winner, the Romanian film Child’s Pose directed by Calin Peter Netzer and produced by Ada Solomon. This feisty portrayal of the nouveau riche seems like a fictional continuation of the doc her husband directed and which she produced in 2010: Kapitalism: Our Improved Formula.
Ada Solomon’s speech at the Awards Ceremony Closing Night deserves an award itself. Starting with the comment that she is more used to fighting than to winning, she pointedly thanked not only those who helped her but also those who did not help her whose resistance to her making this film made her stronger and more powerful. She pointed out the great need to have equal representation of women in the ranks of directors and producers as well, a theme which has been expressed repeatedly during this festival in many forms. (Read Melissa Silverstein’s blog on the joint meeting of women's films festivals initiated in Berlin by The International Women's Film Festival Dortmund|Cologone and the Athena Film Festival entitled "You Cannot Be Serious" in which women from many countries discussed the statistics and the status of women directors and other positions in the industry and continued the creation of a worldwide network pushing towards a more level playing field. Check out The International Women's Film Festival Network for more information).
Child's Pose, good in the vein of Separation, went head to head with the Chilean critic's choice, Gloria whose star Paulina Garcia, won the Best Actress Award. Could have gone both ways. The two older women were both great.
By the Way, Gloria was produced by Fabula, the Chilean company of the Lorrain Brothers who produced No as well as Crystal Fairy and director Sebastian Silva’s other films.
Jay Weissberg of Variety describes Child's Pose best as a "dissection of monstrous motherly love" and a "razor-sharp jibe at Romania's nouveau riche (the type is hardly confined to one country), a class adept at massaging truths and ensuring that the world steps aside when conflict arises."
I would like to suggest to the festival event planners that next year the Awards Ceremony’s onscreen presentation (which goes on simultaneously with the announcements of the prize winners) post the name of the winner along with the film title in its own language and in English as well as the country of origin. It’s difficult enough to follow the film with simultaneous translation in English via earphones; at least put the film titles in English for us foreigners.
A friend of mine remarks that the 2 most prestigious prizes at the festival went not to American or West European films, but to those from smaller countries with developing film cultures, Child’s Pose from Romania and Denis Tanovic’s Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker from Bosnia/ Herzogovina.
She goes on with her commentary of what she saw:
"Competition film Gold by Thomas Arslan provoked mixed response, but I liked it – Nina Hoss as the lead is excellent, plus there are long passages of the group on horseback trekking thru Alaska to the Klondike amidst spectacular landscapes. And the camerawork is wonderful. So that’s enough to keep me in my seat.
Night Train to Lisbon has been panned by virtually every trade publication critic as boring at the least. Nevertheless I enjoyed all the famous actors –Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, and yes Bruno Ganz. It is a story about the oppressive regime and a secret resistance group of in 1970s Portugal. Circles is a powerful and tough film by Srdan Folubovic about the revelations amidst survivors of a terrible event 12 years after the end of the war in Yugoslavia. Terrific performances support a complex and tough tale of how history permeates memory and behavior down thru the generations. Cold Bloom is the 4th feature of Atsushi Funahashi, who made last year’s powerful Nuclear Nation documentary about the effects if the tsunami. A drama about how the tsunami affected young workers and small businesses in the region is told thru the tragedy of a young couple. The title refers to a fantastic closing sequence under the cherry trees at night illuminated by street lamps, at once beautiful and bizarre. Gloria winner of the Golden Bear was clearly everyone’s favorite (although I could not get into the screening). Portrait of a middle aged woman in Chile (and winner of Best Actress award) it will hopefully make it across the ocean to these shores.
And finally, it is worth noting that the Forum Expanded section was extensive this year, showing diverse kinds of work including off site installations from every corner of the globe. Probably it is the single most important showcase for artists work in the film festival world. Kudos to the curators and the artist/filmmakers for keeping this exciting new work in front of the public year after year!"
Another friend who can’t decide whether to be credited here, a transplanted Los Angeleno who was born in Germany and lives in Berlin now had a very interesting insight into Two Women, wondering out loud if the two women and the two boys were transferring their homosexual feelings upon their cross parental lovers and likewise whether the two mothers were not actually acting out their lesbian affinities.
She also noted the sexual complexities of many of the films was of great interest to her. Examples she sites are the homosexual (But Not) pedophiliac feelings of a priest as depicted in In The Name Of; Gloria – not breaking news that a 58 woman is sexually alive – this film has a popular crowd pleasing charm which almost disqualifies it from the “festival” seriousness of a film like Child’s Pose, but both women are stellar.
My unnamed friend also said that, Camille Claudel failed to engage as did The Nun.
I would like to take this further, but it is very late for Berlin and now on to Guadalajara, a fascinating city and the seat of international, Iberoamerican co-productions which I think will become my obsession for the rest of the year.
Adios!
A quick list of films seen by me and by other discerning women:
Concussion, starring Catherine Deneuve, a bored house wife story has been told before. This time, the two protagonists were attractive lesbian women and it was beautifully filmed, but nothing beats Belle de Jour also starring Catherine Deneuve.
The Weimar Touch is a series of films from the Weimar era in Germany which preceded the Nazi era and films which were influenced by filmmakers of the Weimar era. MoMA Chief Curator of Film, Rajendra Roy and Laurence Kardish, the former Senior Curator of Film at MoMA were members of the Curatorial Board (along with Rainer Rother, Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek, Connie Betz (Deutsche Kinemathek, Programme Coordinator Retrospective, and Hans-Michael Bock (Cinegraph, Hamburg). Maybe I could catch more of these fantastic sounding films in New York.
Hangmen Also Die! by Fritz Lang sounded so great. I got the ticket, but damn I missed the film because of a meeting. The notes written for Hangmen Also Die by Rainer Rother of the Deutsche Kinemathek, "Prague 1942. Following the assassination of Nazi Reich Protector Heydrich...a professor’s daughter hides the culprit in her parents’ apartment…sadistic, elegant and effeminate." Doesn’t that sound great? The gender bending in Vicktor Viktoria was charming and funny. Julie Andrews saw this actress and copied her style perfectly. They look like twins. Other films in the Restrospective had me going to the Film Museum to ask for the boxed set, but the prints are from so many places, the clearance on them would be nearly impossible I guess…no boxed set. Other films in The Weimar Touch were so enticing! I had seen A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Max Reinhardt himself and William Dieterle, (U.S. 1935) the last time when I was in high school and then didn’t know who Max Reinhardt was. Car of Dreams was a favorite of those who saw it. Casablanca in which Victor Lazlo and Ilse Lund play out their doomed love was directed by Hungarian born director Mihaly Kertesz (Michael Curtiz) and Humphrey Bogart is almost the only “real” American in the ensemble. I had never been aware of how The Weimar Touch formed that film. Others: The Chase, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Le Corbeau – what a great film that is, a film that was saved only by Sartre and Cocteau’s speaking out in favor of director Henri-Georges Clouzot. This is a film Michael Haneke saw when he created The White Ribbon. A Dutch film, Somewhere in the Netherlands by Ludwig Berger in 1940, Gerhard Lamprecht’s Einmal Eine Grosse Dame Sein, British film, First a Girl, by Victor Saville, Fury by Fritz Lang, Gado Bravo from Portugal 1934, Gluckskinder from Germany in 1936, The Golem, The Mystery of Moonlight Sonata, Hitler’s Madman, How Green Was My Valley by John Ford in 1941 which was influenced by his friend F.W. Murnau, Max Ophuls’ Comedy About Gold, Letter from an Unknown Woman by Max Ophuls, M by Joseph Losey, Mollenard by Robert Siodmak, None Shall Live by Andre de Toth, Out of the Past by Jacques Tourneur, Peter, Pieges, The Queen of Spades, The Small Back Room, Some Like it Hot, To Be or Not to Be by Lubitsch, Touch of Evil by Orson Welles, Cabaret by Bob Fosse, Dial M for Murder, On the Waterfront, The Student of Prague, Tokyo Story were all touched by The Weimar Touch. What a collection!
Tokyo Kazoku (Tokyo Story) by Yoji Yamada was sweet and sad as the parents travel from their hometown of Hiroshima to visit their grown children in Tokyo – different from Ozu’s Tokyo Story, but “the story of family estrangement and the isolation inherent in modern society” as expressed in the story notes of Rainer Rother along with the reminders of the recent tsunami and its losses make this story deeply touching.
Interesting was Dark Blood by George Sluizer. It was not as spooky as The Vanishing, but to see River Phoenix, so beautiful in this role with such a sexy Judy Davis was a treat, if a bit dated. Elle s’en va with a Catherine Deneuve, aged after Umbrellas of Cherbourg and perhaps the same character takes a funny tour through rural France that I enjoyed. I missed Pourquoi Israel, part of the Homage to Claude Lanzmann but got to see Sobibor, 14 Octobre 1943 which was astounding. The bravery of the hero who was on screen the entire time, Yehuda Lerner, looked like a movie star. The entire story was so unexpected for me; how did it happen that I had never heard the story of the uprising at Sobibor before? I know Shoah and sat through it without a minute of disinterest – but that was in college. Claude Lanzmann justifiably said that this story was too unique and special to include in Shoah.
An odd Romanian film, the comedy A Farewell to Fools directed by Goodan Dreyer and starring child actor Boodan Iancu, Gerard Depardieu, Harvey Keitel and a cruelly beautiful Laura Morante, (and dubbed!) it is being sold in the market by Shoreline. It stands out in contrast to the Golden Bear Winner, the Romanian film Child’s Pose directed by Calin Peter Netzer and produced by Ada Solomon. This feisty portrayal of the nouveau riche seems like a fictional continuation of the doc her husband directed and which she produced in 2010: Kapitalism: Our Improved Formula.
Ada Solomon’s speech at the Awards Ceremony Closing Night deserves an award itself. Starting with the comment that she is more used to fighting than to winning, she pointedly thanked not only those who helped her but also those who did not help her whose resistance to her making this film made her stronger and more powerful. She pointed out the great need to have equal representation of women in the ranks of directors and producers as well, a theme which has been expressed repeatedly during this festival in many forms. (Read Melissa Silverstein’s blog on the joint meeting of women's films festivals initiated in Berlin by The International Women's Film Festival Dortmund|Cologone and the Athena Film Festival entitled "You Cannot Be Serious" in which women from many countries discussed the statistics and the status of women directors and other positions in the industry and continued the creation of a worldwide network pushing towards a more level playing field. Check out The International Women's Film Festival Network for more information).
Child's Pose, good in the vein of Separation, went head to head with the Chilean critic's choice, Gloria whose star Paulina Garcia, won the Best Actress Award. Could have gone both ways. The two older women were both great.
By the Way, Gloria was produced by Fabula, the Chilean company of the Lorrain Brothers who produced No as well as Crystal Fairy and director Sebastian Silva’s other films.
Jay Weissberg of Variety describes Child's Pose best as a "dissection of monstrous motherly love" and a "razor-sharp jibe at Romania's nouveau riche (the type is hardly confined to one country), a class adept at massaging truths and ensuring that the world steps aside when conflict arises."
I would like to suggest to the festival event planners that next year the Awards Ceremony’s onscreen presentation (which goes on simultaneously with the announcements of the prize winners) post the name of the winner along with the film title in its own language and in English as well as the country of origin. It’s difficult enough to follow the film with simultaneous translation in English via earphones; at least put the film titles in English for us foreigners.
A friend of mine remarks that the 2 most prestigious prizes at the festival went not to American or West European films, but to those from smaller countries with developing film cultures, Child’s Pose from Romania and Denis Tanovic’s Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker from Bosnia/ Herzogovina.
She goes on with her commentary of what she saw:
"Competition film Gold by Thomas Arslan provoked mixed response, but I liked it – Nina Hoss as the lead is excellent, plus there are long passages of the group on horseback trekking thru Alaska to the Klondike amidst spectacular landscapes. And the camerawork is wonderful. So that’s enough to keep me in my seat.
Night Train to Lisbon has been panned by virtually every trade publication critic as boring at the least. Nevertheless I enjoyed all the famous actors –Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, and yes Bruno Ganz. It is a story about the oppressive regime and a secret resistance group of in 1970s Portugal. Circles is a powerful and tough film by Srdan Folubovic about the revelations amidst survivors of a terrible event 12 years after the end of the war in Yugoslavia. Terrific performances support a complex and tough tale of how history permeates memory and behavior down thru the generations. Cold Bloom is the 4th feature of Atsushi Funahashi, who made last year’s powerful Nuclear Nation documentary about the effects if the tsunami. A drama about how the tsunami affected young workers and small businesses in the region is told thru the tragedy of a young couple. The title refers to a fantastic closing sequence under the cherry trees at night illuminated by street lamps, at once beautiful and bizarre. Gloria winner of the Golden Bear was clearly everyone’s favorite (although I could not get into the screening). Portrait of a middle aged woman in Chile (and winner of Best Actress award) it will hopefully make it across the ocean to these shores.
And finally, it is worth noting that the Forum Expanded section was extensive this year, showing diverse kinds of work including off site installations from every corner of the globe. Probably it is the single most important showcase for artists work in the film festival world. Kudos to the curators and the artist/filmmakers for keeping this exciting new work in front of the public year after year!"
Another friend who can’t decide whether to be credited here, a transplanted Los Angeleno who was born in Germany and lives in Berlin now had a very interesting insight into Two Women, wondering out loud if the two women and the two boys were transferring their homosexual feelings upon their cross parental lovers and likewise whether the two mothers were not actually acting out their lesbian affinities.
She also noted the sexual complexities of many of the films was of great interest to her. Examples she sites are the homosexual (But Not) pedophiliac feelings of a priest as depicted in In The Name Of; Gloria – not breaking news that a 58 woman is sexually alive – this film has a popular crowd pleasing charm which almost disqualifies it from the “festival” seriousness of a film like Child’s Pose, but both women are stellar.
My unnamed friend also said that, Camille Claudel failed to engage as did The Nun.
I would like to take this further, but it is very late for Berlin and now on to Guadalajara, a fascinating city and the seat of international, Iberoamerican co-productions which I think will become my obsession for the rest of the year.
Adios!
- 3/10/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Conrad Veidt on TCM: The Hands Of Orlac, Casablanca, Nazi Agent Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Above Suspicion (1943) A honeymooning couple are asked to spy on the Nazis in pre-war Europe. Dir: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, Conrad Veidt. Bw-91 mins. 7:45 Am Contraband (1940) While held up in a British port, a Danish sea captain tussles with German spies. Dir: Michael Powell. Cast: Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Hay Petrie. Bw-87 mins. 9:30 Am All Through The Night (1942) A criminal gang turns patriotic to track down a Nazi spy ring. Dir: Vincent Sherman. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Kaaren Verne. Bw-107 mins. 11:30 Am Jew Suss (1934) A Jewish businessman using his wealth to benefit his people discovers he's not Jewish. Dir: Lothar Mendes. Cast: Conrad Veidt, Frank Vosper, Cedric Hardwicke. Bw-104 mins. 1:...
- 8/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Conrad Veidt is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" performer of the day. An international star since the 1920s, Veidt worked in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Hollywood — twice. [Conrad Veidt Movie Schedule.] In the late '20s, Veidt was the star of unusual Hollywood fare such as Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs (1928), in the title role as a man with a grin-like scar where his mouth should be, and Paul Fejos' The Last Performance (1929), as a magician in love with pretty Mary Philbin — a Universal star who also happened to be Veidt's leading lady in The Man Who Laughs. With the arrival of talking pictures, Veidt returned to Germany, but with the ascent of the Nazis he fled first to England and later to the United States. In the Hollywood of the early '40s, Veidt became everybody's favorite Nazi in movies such as Nazi Agent, Escape, and Casablanca.
- 8/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Woman to Woman Despite some confusion in various reports, the 1923 melodrama The White Shadow, half of which was recently found at the New Zealand Film Archive, is not Alfred Hitchcock's directorial debut. It isn't Hitchcock's first ever credited effort, either. That honor apparently belongs to Woman to Woman, which came out earlier that same year. The White Shadow, in fact, was a Woman to Woman afterthought. Both movies were directed by Graham Cutts, both were produced by future British film industry stalwarts Victor Saville and Michael Balcon, both were based on works by Michael Morton (the earlier film was taken from a Morton play; the later one from a Morton novel), and both starred Clive Brook and Hollywood import Betty Compson. (Compson plays two parts in both films as well; but whereas in The White Shadow she plays two actual characters, in Woman to Woman...
- 8/3/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Producer Victor Saville made movies out of three hardboiled Mike Hammer novels by Mickey Spillane, but this is the only one, thanks to director Robert Aldrich, that transcended its potboiler origins. Spillane hated it, and told screenwriter A.I. Bezerrides so. Ralph Meeker plays Hammer as a nihilistic, blackmailing sadist--and he's the hero. Cold war atomic paranoia at its finest. This trailer (which is unfortunately textless, without title cards) features numerous shots of the apocalyptic ending that was only recently restored to prints.
- 4/10/2011
- Trailers from Hell
24-Hour Tribute to Include Taylor.s Academy Award®-Winning Performances in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who.s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), Plus Memorable Roles in Nine Films
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember the life and career of two-time Academy Award®-winning actress and beloved humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10. Ms. Taylor died at the age of 79 at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Hospital on March 23, 2011. The 24-hour memorial tribute, which is set to begin at 6 a.m. (Et/Pt), will include both of Taylor.s Oscar®-winning performances, with Butterfield 8 (1960) at 8 p.m. (Et) and Who.s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) at 10 p.m. (Et).
TCM.s tribute will also feature Taylor in such memorable films as the family classics Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944); the delightful comedies Father of the Bride (1950) and Father.s Little Dividend (1951); the historical epic Ivanhoe (1952); and the powerful dramas Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957) and...
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember the life and career of two-time Academy Award®-winning actress and beloved humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10. Ms. Taylor died at the age of 79 at Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Hospital on March 23, 2011. The 24-hour memorial tribute, which is set to begin at 6 a.m. (Et/Pt), will include both of Taylor.s Oscar®-winning performances, with Butterfield 8 (1960) at 8 p.m. (Et) and Who.s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) at 10 p.m. (Et).
TCM.s tribute will also feature Taylor in such memorable films as the family classics Lassie Come Home (1943) and National Velvet (1944); the delightful comedies Father of the Bride (1950) and Father.s Little Dividend (1951); the historical epic Ivanhoe (1952); and the powerful dramas Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957) and...
- 3/24/2011
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Earlier today screen legend Elizabeth Taylor passed away due to congestive heart failure. She was 79. People deal with death in different ways. If you’re one of those people who needs to wallow in good memories afterward, or it you are just woefully undereducated when it comes to the career of the late actress, then TCM is putting on a marathon of Taylor movies that should be essential viewing. The marathon will begin April 10th, starting at 6 am Et, and it is set to run for a full 24 hours. Over the course of the marathon many of Taylor’s best remembered performances will be aired, including the two that won her Oscar statues, her sexy portrayal of femme fatale Gloria Wandrous in BUtterfield 8, and her tortured performance as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The marathon in tribute of the great actress will run as follows: 6:00 a.m...
- 3/23/2011
- by Nathan Adams
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
I’m sure we’ve all heard the sad news by now… I stumbled upon this 2007 Turner Classic Movies (TCM) video tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, narrated by none other than Paul Newman, who also passed away in recent years.
And by the way, TCM will remember the life and career of the two-time Academy Award-winning actress on Sunday, April 10, in a 24-hour retrospective tribute. The full press release announcing the tribute follows underneath.
TCM Remembers Two-Time Oscar®-Winning Actress and Beloved Humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10
24-Hour Tribute to Include Taylor’s Academy Award®-Winning Performances
In Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966),
Plus Memorable Roles in Nine Films
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember the life and career of two-time Academy Award®-winning actress and beloved humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10. The 24-hour memorial tribute, which is set to begin at 6 a.m. (Et...
And by the way, TCM will remember the life and career of the two-time Academy Award-winning actress on Sunday, April 10, in a 24-hour retrospective tribute. The full press release announcing the tribute follows underneath.
TCM Remembers Two-Time Oscar®-Winning Actress and Beloved Humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10
24-Hour Tribute to Include Taylor’s Academy Award®-Winning Performances
In Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966),
Plus Memorable Roles in Nine Films
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember the life and career of two-time Academy Award®-winning actress and beloved humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor on Sunday, April 10. The 24-hour memorial tribute, which is set to begin at 6 a.m. (Et...
- 3/23/2011
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Turner Classic Movies announced a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor that will include 24 hours of movies from the late star’s career.
The tribute will begin Sunday, April 10 and will include Taylor’s Oscar-winning performances in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), as well as screenings of Father of the Bride (1950), Father’s Little Dividend (1951), Ivanhoe (1952), Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Full schedule below:
Read more:
Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79
All About Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor: 11 Roles for the Ages
Elizabeth Taylor: What’s your favorite role?
Elizabeth Taylor: The unpublished photos from Life.
The tribute will begin Sunday, April 10 and will include Taylor’s Oscar-winning performances in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), as well as screenings of Father of the Bride (1950), Father’s Little Dividend (1951), Ivanhoe (1952), Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Full schedule below:
Read more:
Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79
All About Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor: 11 Roles for the Ages
Elizabeth Taylor: What’s your favorite role?
Elizabeth Taylor: The unpublished photos from Life.
- 3/23/2011
- by James Hibberd
- EW - Inside TV
Vivien Leigh, one of the greatest performers of the 20th century, is Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month in September. That’s the good news. The bad news: TCM won’t be showing rarities such as 21 Days Together (1939), Leigh’s second and last screen pairing with Laurence Olivier, or The Deep Blue Sea (1954), the rarest among her post-Gone with the Wind film appearances. And don’t expect to finally be able to see Leigh’s earliest film work in the 1935 British releases Things Are Looking Up, Look Up and Laugh, The Village Squire, and Gentlemen’s Agreement. That’s a major letdown from TCM, which usually does a great job in digging up rare movies. This evening, TCM will be showing Gene Feldman‘s 1990 documentary Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond, in addition to three pre-gwtw, British-made movies in which Leigh has sizable roles: Victor Saville‘s very...
- 9/7/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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