| Author | Message | ||
     Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I've been inspired to start this thread by watching two old B&W matinee movies (when all the best films seem to be on these days) this last week on the box that really affected me. 'Seance On A Wet Afternoon' (1964) directed by Bryan Forbes - which somehow managed to combine a kidnap thriller with a descent into madness psychological character study and a ghostly supernatural drama, quite brilliantly. Reminded me what a great actor Richard Attenborough was, when he decided to play mentally warped misfits (think 'Brighton Rock' and '10 Rillington Place'), and made me wonder why I didn't know more about Kim Stanley who gave a performance of quite stunning brilliance! The other was a Jimmy Cagney tour-de-force at least the equal of 'White Heat', 'Angels With Dirty Faces' or 'The Public Enemy' that I am quite affronted I hadn't heard of before! If you don't believe me then seek out 'Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye' (1950) directed by Gordon Douglas and gape in awe at a Hollywood legend in his very finest (and most vicious) form. Lord knows what other nuggets of gold lie gathering dust out there... | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.87 |
Stephen - I always harp on about this movie, and whilst it's not b&w, of as valued by film fans as those above, I recommend 'Way of the Gun' by Christopher McQuarrie, starring Benecio Del Torro, Ryan Philipe, Juliette Lewis and James Caan. This is Sergio Leone given a modern reworking with a bit of Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and Taratino thrown in for good measure. A magnificent film, with a magnificent story. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Killing Zoe | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.189.68 |
Let's Scare Jessica to Death Viy Stephen, if you liked Seance on a Wet Afternoon, check out Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Viy is a remarkable film, Huw. I bought it on your recommendation, and was so glad that I did. Thanks, sir!  | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.183.39 |
"The Black Book" aka "Reign of Terror" directed by Anthony Mann. A film noir set during the French Revolution (I kid you not). With Richard Basehart as Robespierre (he's great too, as is the actor who plays Fouchet, Napoleon's secret service man). Great cinematography by John Alton! Just saw part of it again on Turner Classics in the States. Highly recommended! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
The Rules of Attraction. GF recommended this one to me, and it's gone on to be one of my favourite films. | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.214.52.243 |
'My Little Eye' 'The Heist' | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.241 |
Saw SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON - suprisingly, I only liked it, not loved it - I felt it too strained. It was the same with the Japanese remake(ish) SEANCE. I also saw WAY OF THE GUN, and do I remember liking it, a lot... but I'll be damned if I remember one damn thing about it... wow, what went wrong there, in my mind?... the same with THE RULES OF ATTRACTION - I just know I saw this and liked it, but why?!?... For me: THE LONG DARK HALL, 1951, British, starring Rex Harrison, and Lilli Palmer. I was expecting a fairly straight-forward courtroom formula piece... but was surprised at how intense it actually was... thanks mainly to Lilli's amazingly understated performance here... quite good.... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.184.94 |
Glad you liked Viy, Zed! There's a remake (also Russian, but Jason Flemyng's in it) due out this year. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Rolf de Heer's 'Bad Boy Bubby'- not horror, but a bizarre, off the wall classic, blackly funny, grotesque, subversive and finally redemptive. Worth watching for the scene where the main character holds up a petrol station armed only with a dead cat. (Animal lovers take note there are two cat-deaths in the film.) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
>>>GF recommended this one to me, and it's gone on to be one of my favourite films. That's right, folks. You read it right. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.122.166 |
Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges - 1980). Love it. gcw | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.77 |
Zed - Rules of Attraction is quite simply outstanding. And Killing Zoe by Avary is also brilliant. Avary looks like he's going to prison for manslaughter. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Whaaat? Do you have any info on that? | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.91 |
Zed - Avary was drunk when he crashed his car. His friend was killed. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Did anyone else catch that brilliant little Val Lewton horror movie 'The Ghost Ship' (1943) late on Saturday night? Apparently it was the first broadcast in 15 years due to some sort of copyright wrangle. I'm used to the excellence of Lewton's productions but this turned out to be a completely unexpected edge-of-the-seat exercise in pure Hitchcockian suspense and surprisingly gruesome for its time. The title is misleading but not in a disappointing way and I don't want to say anymore than that... this absolute gem, directed by Mark Robson, is now one of my favourite of all the Lewton horrors. One to be sought out and savoured! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.88.181 |
Ah, THE GHOST SHIP. That monstrous black hook flailing abour the deck of the ship is like the Gods fishing for men. I think they mention the island that's in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, so I think of those films being in teh same universe. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
And that look on the captain's face as he watched them battle the hook from above was the first hint of all the horrors to come. A wonderful wee movie with superb performances I thought!! I think of all Val Lewton's films as existing in the same universe. They all share that shadowy atmosphere of melancholy and subtle dread. Just back from my second nautical horror this week - 'Triangle' which I found fairly well done but not a patch on the above. Watching the plot unfold I felt the same sense of deja vu as the main character and I'm absolutely positive I've seen that storyline done before on board a ship (or one so similar as to make very little difference). Some nice touches but in the end all a bit pedestrian and too clean for my taste with way too much use of CGI. That kind of 'Twilight Zone' fantasy/horror needs to be done with far more subtle creepiness and less of the running about screaming and gratuitous bloodletting to be effective imo. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.70 |
You know, I don't think I've seen any of them. Except for Flash Gordan. Arr-aaarrrghhhh. Film 4 showed a bunch of neat noir and black and white films a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed one with a title like Five Days Till Noon or something, in which a scientist threatens London with a suitcase nuke, saying he'll explode it unless there's worldwide nuclear disarmament. Good stuff. Made in the 50s, I think. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.251.162.59 |
Just watched THE OMEN III. By no means a classic, but it's got one of Goldsmith's most glorious scores. The most interesting thing is how the film shows how malleable society's morals are. What was shocking back in 1981 (e.g., extreme gore) is accepted today and vice versa (I'm thinking of the series of off-screen baby murders in the film that simply wouldn't make it into a mainstream horror film today). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.237.140 |
See POSSESSION - from the very same year(!) - starring Sam Neil as well (in a bizarrely similar role, hence the !) - shocking everything there.... Not small, not underrated, but rather than start a whole thread: I saw BLUE VELVET again, and marveled yet again at how beautiful and horrifying at once this film is. It speeds by, and its two hours feel like one. I think the reason why it's so frightening still, still retains its power to inspire fear as well as fascination in me, is that David Lynch made a non-ironic, non-satirical, non-jaded/cynical movie, despite how one might be tempted to take it otherwise - or how others today are only capable of that kind of movie-making, and POV. The film's denouement, with its perfectly manicured lawns and waving neighbors and white-picket fences and mechanical birds with bugs in their mouths and the hokey wooden "golly-gee" dialogue - that's all Lynch being perfectly sincere. And it works, somehow. In my longing for the full 4 hours of this film to be restored, I went surfing on the internet again, hoping maybe it's finally been discovered somewhere while I was sleeping... nope. There are some tantalizing stills turned into a montage, on the special edition dvd, but I find those almost more painful for their promise, than having not seen them at all. I did stumble across the shooting script, which seems to have all the deleted scenes in it, and seems authentic as well - I'm going to read that one. I also found this http://stalepopcornau.blogspot.com/2008/03/100-greatest-movie-posters-40-blue.ht ml which I'd never seen before myself, the Italian poster at the time, for VELLUTO BLU, as it's called. It's deliciously giallo, oh so deliciously so... and it's fascinating for depicting a scene from the film that never made it into the final cut... alas... or not?...  | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.3 |
THE HORLA by Reginald Le Borg. Not a great movie but the looming presence of Vincent Price endorsing the ticket. Maybe I had not matured in criticism but I was impressed by the "rosary cross mirrored in the knife blade" sequence. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Just watched THE OMEN III. By no means a classic, but it's got one of Goldsmith's most glorious scores. Oh yes! That music's always been a favourite of mine. It was several years before it finally made it to CD. You can now get an expanded version which is even better. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 137.191.240.163 |
I have it. It's amazing how much the score propels otherwise mundane material. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
THE OMEN III has one of the most effective suicide-by-shooting scenes I've ever seen. Still makes me wince. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I love the 'Omen Trilogy' and while 'The Final Conflict' is easily the weakest of the three I still find it streets ahead of most modern day horror films. In my world (as with Romero's 'Dead Trilogy') everything came to a neat conclusion after the first three films... I try to pretend the rest don't exist. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
My favourite death in the series is still the "lift cable slicing the bloke in half" sequence from 'Damien : Omen II'. I'd heard mates describe it for years before I actually saw it and the night I finally did I swear the suspense nearly killed me. Marvellous stuff!! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Damien : Omen II is one of the bests equels of all time, IMHO. Up there with The Godfather 2. It's brilliant: overly-serious, cheesy, frightening, crass, stupid, oddly intelligent, genuinely engaging, well acted...everything I want from that kind of film. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Couldn't agree more Zed!!  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Yes - Damien Omen II is amongst the best part 2s ever, and sometimes I prefer it to the original - a wonderful over the top popcorn rollercoaster horror movie with excellent pacing and everyone, cast and crew, just the right side of manic | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
The first one has the best slo-mo decapitation and head roll in film history. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.161.235.186 |
Best death in the series for me has just got to be the decapitation sequence in 'The Omen'. Superbly shot and utterly convincing effects. The way the audience is reeled in by being fooled into thinking that the run-away vehicle is the instrument of death and is going to hit David Warner's photographer. Then,just as Gregory Peck shouts a warning and we wince expecting the thud of impact,the hand brake pops on,the vehicle screeches to a halt, "the likeable photographer is saved"! We cry. But our relief is momentary. We have been hoodwinked. The forces of hell are far more ingenious. No mere traffic accident for this character! Off slides the unsecured pane of glass. Glass, that forbidden material we were told hundreds of times not to play with as children. It's dangerous, you'll cut yourself, it's sharp. We watch in a childish awe and respect as the glass sheet slices the head clean off the photographer. We watch in fascination as it spins in slow motion above the pane now separating it from the slowly crumpling torso. We become Gregory Peck's character,riveted, horrified by the simple cruelty of this death. The presence of evil is palpable. For me this whole sequence is a work of art from the music to the effects to the double bluff. One of my top sequences in all of horror. The BEST 'demise engineered by unseen forces' EVER. Better than all the other Omen deaths and all the 'Final Destination' rip off's since. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
The first one has the best slo-mo decapitation and head roll in film history. I disagree. The one in The Extermintor is much better. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I may have to watch that to find out. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.23.139 |
Talking about gore for a second. I don't think it was a great idea to watch Final Destination 3 last week before going on the rides at Alton Towers - yesterday. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Weber - make sure you get the uncut version. The truncated version removed all the explicit violence, including the decapitation. It's the most realistic decapitation I've ever seen on film - truly horrible. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Amazon seems to be selling a "Directors cut" - would that be uncut? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Weber, just for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KVuMa1kSHA&feature=related | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Great film - one of my favourite sleazy vigilante epics. I think the director's cut is intact (it may be the one I have). The scene involving the "chicken" is simply horrific. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.222.227 |
I couldn't get on with THE OMEN II. The snatches I'd seen on telly over the years made a much better film in my head than when I saw the whole thing. Poor William Holden trying to act like he's grieving on the ice while wearing a bright yellow woolly hat. Ghastly stuff. I love Richard Donner. His commentary on THE OMEN is hilarious. His interpretation, (along with Peck's and Lee Remick's) is that Damien isn't the Antichrist. The film is about how a series of coincidences can drive a couple insane. Of the beheading, Donner said that audiences normally look away for a count of three if they can't bear to look at something. Which is why the beheading lasts 4 seconds. I love that guy. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
What's the problem with the colour of a character's hat? He's hardly likely to go out on the ice in his full grieving black suit just in case his son falls through the ice so he'll be dressed approprately when it happens. You find the oddest things to be wrong with films. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Small, pointless details like that make me love films. Holden's woolly hat. Sutherland's flares. George C. Scott's big hair. Robert Ginty's bouffant. (Guess the films) | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Sutherlands flares - Don't look now? George C Scott's Hair - Firestarter? Robert Ginty's Bouffant - the exterminator? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I was thinking of The Changline - Firestarter would be Scott's ponytail. Incidental period detail: I love it. :-) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
ChangeLING! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Totally agree with Sean - the decapitation by glass in 'The Omen' is the greatest sequence in the entire trilogy for all the reasons he said. However, the slicing in half sequence in 'Omen II' is my "favourite" because of the personal circumstances under which I first saw it. The first two Omen movies are both in my Top 10 horror films of the 1970s which, as that decade was the most fertile and greatest in horror cinema history, means I like each them a hell of a lot! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.196.230 |
My fave bit of the trilogy is probably the photograph David Warner took of himself in the mirror. Brr. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.196.230 |
I can't figure out how to start a new thread, so I'll just set this here. It might be of interest for the season - five hours long! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c13hl | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.196.230 |
Back to the thread - and Lewton - I strongly recommend THE SEVENTH VICTIM. A more doom-laden piece is hard to find. Thomas Ligotti would enjoy it. THE OMEN III's shotgun scene: the only thing missing from that scene I felt was that the Ambassador while waiting at his desk for the press to arrive should have had a last look at the newspaper, all the turmoil in the world that he was never able to do anything about. To its credit, a sequence that begins with a man being hypnotised by a dog (!) ends potently with the startling image of the seal of the United States dripping with blood. Why the dogs in THE OMEN? Even the writer isn't too sure. Is it because they're the opposite to "god"? | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.64.240.232 |
I come late to the thread. Anyway, here's my suggestion: Tremors | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.64.240.232 |
and also: Mimic | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.196.50.157 |
I love Mimic. The third one had some interesting ideas as well- but not part two- terrible. Mimic also has a fantastic opening title sequence made by Kyle Cooper- who did the title sequence for seven. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.231 |
Going back to borrow from the time-period of Mr. Walsh's original post, here's a very odd little gem: THE MAN WITH A CLOAK, 1951, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joseph Cotton. Now, those are two heavy-hitter actors; so as expected, though the film is bizarrely small in scope and feel, it's characterized by an extremely literate script, that has some wonderful DOUBLE INDEMNITY-esque exchanges (Stanwyck: "Well, we've broken the ice." Cotton: "Good. Now we can drown."). Though the film is set in 1848, and centers around C. Auguste Dupin - and Poe too! Odd echoes of Poe throughout, but not a horror movie by any means... barely a mystery... an odd, unclassifiable film, that whisks by in 80 minutes, but proves to be a strange little gem for all that. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.188.65 |
Hooray, more Mimic fans! Now, let's hear it for C.H.U.D.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I'll second that, Huw. as you well know, I share your fondness for both of these films. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.188.65 |
Watching anything special this Halloween, Zed? My C.H.U.D. DVD is still in my old apartment, alas, so I can't watch that, but I have a few things lined up: rewatches of Bava's Black Sabbath and Black Sunday, and the films I haven't yet seen from Six Films to Keep You Awake. Which was the one you said was really good, by the way, aside from The Baby's Room? I remember you raving about one in particular - was it Regressa a Moira (I forget the English title)? I watched another Larry Fessenden take on the wendigo lore recently - Skin and Bones, from the series Fear Itself (which seems to be a continuation of Masters of Horror. It was okay, but nothing like as good as The Last Winter or Wendigo. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.133 |
Here's another Mimic fan. Agreed, the first instalment is the best one (Gawd, that lone figure on the subway platform!), but I don't think parts two and three are total losses. I like the way the little boy befriends the monsters, it's one of my all-time favourite scenes. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Huw - my next door neighbours are having a barbeque (with sodding fireworks) so I'm afraid whatever I watch I won't be able to hear. :-/ | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.0 |
WHATEVER WORKS, by Woody Allen, was consistently underrated by the critics, but I found it a wonderful pic. Even poor Woody is better than 95% of fine other films, in any given year. And often, Woody isn't poor, he's merely unappreciated, undiscovered as yet (I mean, film-by-film). This film has overt themes, but there are subtle ones at work here too, that are never pointed at - Woody's an artist too good to reveal his hand completely - he understands that some elements are best left discovered by his viewers without his explicit help. I just recently re-saw MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, which I actually disliked when I first saw it, but now see it as Woody again near his best. Diane Keaton's "fantasies" are spurred by her intense fear of a collapsing marriage - every time she vexes or worries about this sudden fear or dissatisfaction that has entered her life (the real inciting incident [redundant?]), she "sees something" - the mind is creating diversions for her, that turn out to be... well, anyway, another underrated gem, as are many of Woody's films.... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Mimic and CHUD are both favourites of mine as well. Not sure if any of these will turn out to be gems but I'm going to be watching some really obscure British stuff post-Halloween: The Frozen Dead (1966) Crucible of Horror aka The Corpse (1970) Tam Lin (1971) The Vulture (1966) | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Craig, don't tell me you're a Woody Allen fan as well!! I'm beginning to think your taste in movies may not be as "questionable" after all. Fav for me is 'Crimes And Misdemeanors' or then again 'Manhattan' or perhaps 'Take The Money And Run' although 'Zelig' is hard to beat and what about 'Deconstructing Harry' or.. yadda yadda blah... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.6.29 |
My absolute favorite Woody film is HUSBANDS AND WIVES, which I've seen many times. But CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is a close second. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS probably third... but like you, Stephen, it's hard to pick... Woody Allen films have different feels, he's gone through different phases... his straight dramas (INTERIORS, MATCH POINT) are equally excellent... Woody is just one of the great ones. My film tastes are only "questionable," by definition, to questionable people....  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've actually yet to see any of his "straight dramas" and have missed many of his more recent films because nowhere seems to show them anymore or if they do only for one or two nights - most annoying! Another favourite director of mine, and the only one I've come across who is any way comparable to Woody, is Eric Rohmer - both men make genius look effortless. | ||
| Alexicon (Alexicon) Username: Alexicon Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 88.106.116.143 |
Remember 'Razorback'? The SFX animal was laughable,but the settings were sublime. Nobody can beat the Aussies for on-screen sleaze and squalor. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
The animal looked great for thre SFX of the time, I thought. Terrific film. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
THE EXORCIST III. It was my Hallowe'en movie this year and I was amazed by how well it has aged. Even in its studio-hobbled form, it's alive with ragged edges and non-sequiturs. The character moments are very David Lynch. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.152 |
I agree, Proto, it's an excellent film. George C. Scott's 'carp in the bathtub' speech never fails to amuse me. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
"Up. And down. And I hate it. Can't stand the sight of it." I LOVE the chain-smoking doctor rehearsing his dialogue to himself before the scene. I think it's profound. And bloody funny. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 83.24.166.186 |
Razorback or Highlander, which one was RM's finest hour? Or was it a pre-porker Alec Baldwin in 'The Shadow? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I quite liked "Ricochet", too. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Just watched "Colin", the UK zombie film allegedly made for $45. What a gem. It's filled with dread, pathos, wit and intelligence, and manages to transcend the contraints of its budget limitations by way of a great script, some very good acting and make-up effects, and a focus on character. Loved it. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.210 |
With all the talent and imagination on this board, we should get together and make a film. If everyone chipped in, say five pounds each, we'd have more than the budget of Colin! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
 It's an extrordinarily affecting film. Give me something like this rather than Michael Bay's latest cinematic afterbirth any day of the week. | ||
| Alexicon (Alexicon) Username: Alexicon Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 88.106.120.2 |
Mention of 'Colin' brings on the following. Need some info.Can anyone assist please? 10 - 15 years ago (maybe longer):series of very late night shorts by new British film makers on Channel 4. One film in particular,sticks like a razor in the gullet.I'd really like to get hold of a copy. Running time was around 15 minutes and the outline goes like this: Young couple have bought dilapidated country house.On moving day,man is delayed by business in the City,so woman has to spend the first night alone in the house.Evening arrives and she keeps hearing things in different parts of the draughty old house:creaking floorboards,flapping window shutters;doors banging... She's quite tense as she goes to investigate each event,but is relieved to find that they're due to 'natural causes'.Then she hears pipes knocking and squealing upstairs in the bathroom - which, because of her restored confidence,she now finds annoying rather than frightening. Thus,she trudges up to the bathroom and opens the door.. In the final few frames,from her POV,we see what is crouching under the washbasin. It's seriously creepy,guys,and if anyone knows of it,perhaps you'd be kind enough to let me know.Without a title,I can't source a copy. | ||
| Alexicon (Alexicon) Username: Alexicon Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 88.106.120.2 |
Wow,guys! Thanks for that. I knew I could rely on you for the answer. Based on your info I think I'll,erm...go down the chippy. | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.231.152.180 |
(Donald speaking) Craig, that could almost be me speaking re: Woody Allen, though I would put CRIMES at the top. SEPTEMBER is widely overlooked; it's possibly his bleakest film. As for overlooked gems in general, Hal Hartley's TRUST springs to mind. Came across a great Allen bit the other day: "More than at any other time in history, humankind stands at a crossroads. In one direction lies despair and utter hopelessness, in the other total extinction. Let's pray we have the wisdom to make the right choice." | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.77 |
That's Woody Allen speaking?! Sure don't sound like him... not that I don't agree with the sentiment.... I vary between CRIMES and HUSBANDS, Donald - different moods, and it's hard to pick between those two - Woody's golden period, when he did a triple of fantastic flicks (including HANNAH). For all his humor, the tragic, ultimately unsettling story in CRIMES, starring Martin Landau (in maybe his best ever performance), is one of Allen's most memorable and haunting.... CRIMES, as a whole, might be Allen's darkest film. In fact... yes, I do think it qualifies as a dystoian movie. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.77 |
"dystopian", i.e. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
That quote sounds like the elderly philosopher in 'Crimes And Misdemeanors'. His demise is one of the funniest/bleakest moments in any Woody film imo. Kinda disproves: "If it bends it's funny, if it breaks it ain't funny." | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.231.152.180 |
SEPTEMBER may be darker than CRIMES. (Donald) | ||
| Steve Jensen (Stevej) Username: Stevej Registered: 07-2009 Posted From: 82.0.77.233 |
Woody Allen's Play it again, Sam. Love it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
JENNIFER 8 - the film that made me fall in love with Uma Thurman, and with a suprb performance from Andy Garcia. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.2.144 |
And John Malkovich as the awful, brilliant lawyer. That film caught me completely by surprise. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
You know 'Play It Again, Sam' (hilarious!) was directed by Herbert Ross based on the stage play by Woody Allen. He was also responsible for three other of my favourite adult comedies of the era: 'The Sunshine Boys', 'The Goodbye Girl' & 'California Suite'. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.51 |
Gary, I watched Jennifer 8 about four times in a row when I rented it back in... whenever it came out (early 90s?). Great movie. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Sounds like you're a big Neil simon fan Stephen | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Well he did make his name on 'Sgt Bilko'... nuff said. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.204.111.246 |
The Hammer film "Taste of Fear' (AKA Scream of Fear). Great atmosphere. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.91 |
Mistress. A much better film about the movie industry than the over-rated 'Swimming With Sharks'. And Hurly Burly. More a play than a movie, but with Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey you just can't go wrong. Kinda like Mammet on prozac. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.178.83.10 |
The Hammer film "Taste of Fear' (AKA Scream of Fear). Great atmosphere. A real favourite, that, Steve - got to see it again recently, this time at the NFT, with the director present and interviewed after the film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Got a great old classic to signpost if anyone fancies sitting up till 1.55 tonight - I know I do. An all too rare screening of Fritz Lang's film noir crime thriller, and last American made film, 'Beyond A Reasonable Doubt' (1956) starring Dana Andrews in his 'Night Of The Demon' prime. This is one of those acknowledged noir classics, with a killer twist, that has always escaped me up until now. It's on BBC2... be there or be square. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
I saw that some months back for the first time in many years, Stevie - great little film, and well worth the staying up! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
...another one that appears occasionally is "The Upturned Glass" starring James Mason; an excellent thriller. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I saw that one, Mick, a few years back, and loved it! Indeed, a great Brit-noir, excellent thriller. I'll have to catch BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT someday, but I don't get BBC2....  And another superb true-story political thriller Dana Andrews did some years previous to that one?... THE IRON CURTAIN (1948), worth catching too. Most of it shot/set in Toronto. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
It was a brilliant pulp crime thriller with more than a hint of Highsmithian cynicism about it. An up-and-coming crime writer is coaxed by a crusading liberal newspaper editor into a plot to highlight failings in the judicial system, with an aim to having capital punishment abolished, that involves the concoction of circumstantial evidence all pointing to the guilt of an innocent man they can prove didn't do it - after the fact. But the best laid plans of mice and men... A suprisingly topical thriller, given recent high profile murder cases warped beyond fair judgement by media manipulation, that draws the viewer remorselessly into its death-trap set-up without ever appearing as far-fetched as the synopsis would imply. Great stuff with a killer denouement! | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.141.71.190 |
A forgotten little TV movie from the 1970s called FEAR NO EVIL which was a stylish horror story featuring a demon in a mirror. Never seen it since or noticed that it was being shown on TV anywhere. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.58.156 |
TRAITEMENT DE CHOC (1973), a great French film with two of France's greatest actors, Annie Girardot and Alain Delon. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
...unfortunately the English title is "Doctor in the Nude", which makes it sound more like a 'Carry On" film, Hubert! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.58.156 |
omg. Pity, for it's a great little film. Nothing to do with conventional vampirism either, as some reviews seem to suggest. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
It may not belong here but certainly sounds interesting... I'm about to watch an obscure British pulp horror film from the golden era of such things that I taped in the early hours: 'Devils Of Darkness' (1965) directed by Lance Comfort and starring William Sylvester. It came out of the short lived Planet Film Productions - responsible for such all-time classics as; 'Island Of Terror' (1966) & 'Night Of The Big Heat' (1967). So fingers crossed... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
I watched BOLT last night and loved it. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
Bolt's a good laugh - we saw that at the NFT with Lasseter introducing it. It was in 3D but thankfully they didn't do much of that "sticking stuff so far out of the screen you get a headache" stuff... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
As a dog lover, it was irresistable for me. Even if his voice was Travolta. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
The hamster in the ball is a laugh too... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Yeah, Bolt os good. I've seen most of the recent kiddie flicks - having an 8 year-old in the house means we get them all on DVD. It's amzing how many good ones there are...that's why I was so dissapointed with the Tin Tin film. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
Stop using the kid as an excuse, man. We know you love them all. Yes, Mick, he was a star. I like the De Niro-esque pigeons, too. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
'Devils Of Darkness' was a thoroughly enjoyable piece of straight-faced horror hokum that has brightened my Sunday up no end. A colourful and entertainingly cliched 1960s set vampire potboiler, with Hubert Noël as the glowering Count Sinistre, that exists somewhere between the gothic grandeur of Hammer's 'Dracula' (1958) and the swinging nonsense of 'Dracula AD 1972'. Great stuff if hardly great cinema. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
Two films I always love to watch but when I talk about them people look at me as if I am speaking in ancient Egyptian. These movies are: American History X Citizen X | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Haven't seen 'Citizen X', Skip, but 'American History X' is one of those films that I like and agree with 100%, for its humanistic message, but that was just too showy and worthy and pleased with itself to be considered great cinema. I have similar problems with technically great films like; 'The Outsiders', 'Born On The Fourth Of July' or last year's 'Drive'. They shout too loud their greatness to be considered Art, imho. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
Watching RUN A CROOKED MILE tonight - it has a good rating on imdb (yeah, I know) but I don't think I've ever seen it. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
'Citizen X' is absolutely superb- grim, moving and darkly funny at unexpected moments. Stephen Rea as a detective in the Soviet Union, hunting down a serial killer most of his superiors refuse to admit exists. Add Donald Sutherland, Jeffrey DeMunn, Joss Ackland, Imelda Staunton and Max von Sydow and what's not to love? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Fuck me! Now that's what I call a cast!  | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
One of those HBO 'Serial Killer of the Week' movies, Stevie, but it was about Andrei Chikatilo, the so-called 'Rostov Ripper'. Now and again, that subgenre of film produced something really very fine. This was one of them. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Yep, Citizen X is excellent. Anyone remember a similar European-funded film with the guy out of Hi-De-Hi as a child killer and him with the mad hair out of Reeves and Mortimer who says "Donkey! as a grizzled cop? Sounds bizzare, I know, but it was excellent. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Citizen X, the true story of Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, has been filmed twice, with Malcom McDowell as Chikatilo. I've not seen it, so I can't say if it's any good. But I thought Citizen X is a vastly overlooked film. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Zed, which bloke from Hi-De-Hi? This one sounds interesting... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.126.98 |
Simon - that'll be THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY with Simon Cadell:- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110125/ I saw him in on stage in BLITHE SPIRIT back in the 'eighties. His second wife was played by Jane Asher, his first by Joanna Lumley. That was a nice evening out! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
That's the one, Mick - it's a suprisgly good film. Haven't seen it in years, but it stayed with me... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.50 |
Where Danger Lives - I hadn't seen it for about half a century, but it's a decidedly quirky bit of noir, sometimes almost dreamlike. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.25.141.120 |
"The Black Book" (aka "Reign of Terror") is favorite gem of mine. An historical noir about the French Revolution of all things, directed by Anthony Mann and photographed by John Alton. A truly magnificent looking, atmospheric and suspenseful movie with Richard Basehart making a fiendish Robsepierre. Turner Classics shows it over here fairly often. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 92.40.253.105 |
Jacques Becker's Le Trou (1960) is definitely one of the most brilliant films I've ever seen. I'm not sure it's underrated so much as just hugely unknown. At any rate, it's the one I'll always cite if someone asks me to recommend them a film. I've never been so horribly gripped by a movie as I was the 2+ hours I spent, with a knotted stomach, completely fascinated, watching this. Its long takes, its starkness and realism give this film special power. I could go on about the finer aspects of this but won't. Just trust me and see this.You'll pick it up for peanuts on Amazon. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.35.191 |
Thanks for the recommendation, Patrick - ordered! I've heard of it but never seen it. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.9.248.146 |
Indeed, Thomas, The Black Book is terrific (however historically questionable). The DVD transfer is very fine but the source copy is somewhat jumpy. Le Trou is very fine as well. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I saw Lady in the Lake (1946) again, for probably the 3rd or 4th time, though only the 1st time since actually reading Chandler's source novel. It's less underrated, than infamous; and it's certainly flawed, no need to say that. It's also certainly ahead of its time by decades, and for all the clumsiness of its 1st person POV, there are strengths. It's also singular for being one of the few non-Xmas (and non-horror-non-Xmas) Xmas movies made (are there even any others?...). Christmas is the theme of the film, but not as Christmas, if that makes sense. Xmas is the constant ironic commentary on the story and characters; and it hovers in the background everywhere, as corrupted as the characters and their world. In fact, if you didn't know anything about it beforehand, you'd see the opening credits, and think: ah, a lovely Christmas movie! The carolers sing Xmas songs during the card credits... but their singing is furiously paced, rushed, chaotic; skipping halfway from one Xmas carol to another, and back again... and so, quickly becomes unsettling, disturbing.... The soundtrack has these phantom carolers returning, their voices like sinister ghosts, throughout the film: they certainly lend to it an eerie, unsettling feel. Just staying on the Xmas angle: Xmas is presented throughout the film as corrupt (e.g., decorations and a Xmas party in the magazine publishers office, where lurid bloody 'zines are promulgated). There's a lot of examples, but there's an odd throwaway moment, seemingly there for comic relief, where the Police Captain of Bay City, angry at Marlowe and wanting to throw him out of town, gets a call on Xmas Eve from his young niece (or daughter, blanking). the Captain recites with her, over the phone, part of "The Night Before Christmas." When St. Nick is mentioned, he laughs, and tells the clueless niece, "Why, that's Santa Claus!"... the niece doesn't know the Christian/holy side, she apparently only knows the Santa-gift-giver side (who we've already seen in the body of the magazine publisher [called "Santa" by Marlowe], handing out gifts to his salivating employees). The call returns, and the Police Captain tells his wife, yes, he'll be Santa again... a lie that's been ongoing, apparently, compounding the child's corrupt notions... she will someday, somewhere in Bay City, become another Audrey Totter.... Again, little moments like this, and one could go on, punctuate an actually quite literate script, and penetrating film - too bad it has the flaws it does, it might be better remembered now.... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.9.250.175 |
Would Die Hard count as another unchristmassy Christmas film? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.84.72 |
It certainly should. As would Die Hard 2 - also set at Christmas. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Yeah, those two definitely would! (And at least that first one, is an excellent film indeed.) | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.25.141.120 |
Hey Ramsey: I never look to fictional films for history lessons, anyway. They made some good World War II movies ("Objective Burma" for one), but I never learned anything about that conflict that I didn't pick up from a good history book or documentary. Always interesting to compare the fictional version with the real events, though. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.32.96 |
"...one of the few non-Xmas (and non-horror-non-Xmas) Xmas movies made (are there even any others?" BRAZIL. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.192.94 |
Psycho is set in the Christmas season but must be the most unChristmassy film ever. It's like it was made by Jehovah's witnesses. The Likely Lads the movie was played over so many Christmas eve midnights it became one to me, too. I really like the ramshackle, meanderingness of it. It suits Christmas down to a t, watching it when the lads were nicely tucked up in their beds, the eye of the storm. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.192.94 |
RE The Exterminator - it looked like that man's head would have come off if he'd bumped it anyway, it was clagged on so loosely. And btw nice seeing Paddy Considine looking no different in a very early role. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Going deep into my dvr, this one from last November.... DOWN THREE DARK STREETS (1954), starring Broderick Crawford. An angels-and-demons pro-FBI b-flick; still, sadly, they don't make 'em like this anymore. Three stories interweave themselves, as a determined FBI agent (Crawford) must solve his partner's three open cases, to find out which one holds the clue to his murder. The best story is the whodunnit about a widow being extorted for her dead husband's insurance money, but all are gripping and intense; the film ends right beneath the famous Hollywood sign, with amazing panoramas of the still (back then) sparsely developed Hollywood area. Funny, the bit actors you see, whose names you don't even know—who don't even get screen credit—but whose faces are so indelibly familiar to so many, usually from TV (Claude Akins; William Schallert [still acting to this day!]; and Stafford Repp, whom later generations growing up would recognize instantly as Chief O'Hara on the classic 60's "Batman" series). A great companion piece to this kind of anthology/"portmanteau" film is one I've mentioned before, Edward G. Robinson's small but strong b-flick from one year earlier, VICE SQUAD (1953). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
It's also singular for being one of the few non-Xmas (and non-horror-non-Xmas) Xmas movies made (are there even any others?...) Well what a coinky-dink! In chipping away at my dvr, I stumbled across another non-Xmas Xmas movie from the same era, Max Ophüls' THE RECKLESS MOMENT (1949). Okay, it's not as saturated with Xmas as LADY IN THE LAKE, but it is set 1 week before Xmas, and there's Xmas references/decorations throughout... and it's thoroughly not a Xmax movie. Starring Joan Bennett and James Mason, the film was remade in 2001 as THE DEEP END, starring Tilda Swindon (imo, the remake is better in many ways). I know this movie's been rediscovered as a lost "classic," but just comparing it to LADY simply for it's already being mentioned... RECKLESS MOMENT doesn't compare: there are too many flaws, in story and character development, frankly, for it to really rise to the level of classic noir. But Joan Bennett and James Mason, they push any film they're in up a few notches; and it's beaming from its era, which if you love golden age late-40's L.A. noir, has more than enough to satisfy during its fast-paced 80 minutes.... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.115.204 |
I watched Fritz Lang's SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1947) last night - good solid melodramatic fun! I'd not seen it before as far as I can recall so that made it even more enjoyable. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.254 |
I'd say The Reckless Moment was a masterpiece - a great film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I totally agree with that assessment, Ramsey, and seem to recall us discussing the movie on here at some point in the past (must do a search). A rare example of film noir from the female perspective that deconstructs the standard thriller format to deliver a doomed love story with all the power and depth of Shakespearean tragedy about it. 'The Reckless Moment' is one of Max Ophüls' undoubted masterpieces. Watch it again, Craig, it grows in stature with each viewing. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I knew it had cropped up before. Check out the thread called "This Week's Perfect Movie", Craig, for further discussion on Max Ophüls and 'The Reckless Moment'. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Mick, I greatly liked SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR—another fine Bennett film, and again, just by accidentally being here, I'd say is too superior to RECKLESS MOMENT.... I also dvr-ed LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, Stevie. I just thought that RECKLESS MOMENT's characters were relatively ill-developed. Bennett's determination to hide the truth was less potent, for there being no strong force of law on her heels... maybe it was determined it would conflict with the other force against her, James Mason & his boss, but her actions felt 2- rather than 3-dimensional. Mason arcs, suddenly wanting to do something honorable, too quickly: we don't see that development, or what he sees in emotionally-staid Bennett really; it's a relatively weak role for Mason, I felt. There's a bit of a soggy second act, too; Bennett, for example, goes through this big rigamarole to get a loan, then grabs her jewelry from a safe-deposit box, then pawns it... only to have Mason refuse to take it: end of film thread. The result is a feeling of wasted time, of padding in an already overly short film that could have gone to actually develop/deepen these main characters somehow. Not a bad film, and great moments, like the final confrontation in the boat house. But perhaps it rewards re-viewing.... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.16.202 |
Lord! Padding? In Video Watchdog I called it (I think) a miracle of succinctness. I don't think there's a wasted frame in the film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
The force after her was that of social propriety, Craig, the one thing men have used to keep women down for millennia and a far more insidious force than that of merely The Law. That's what makes the film such a brilliant deconstruction of your typical noir thriller. It plays with the conventions of the form and subverts them completely to present a near perfect feminist parable and a damn fine love story. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
It's certainly a quick watch, Ramsey. And a good film, overall. Maybe I need to see it again, as Stevie suggests.... I see on the imdb board, they discuss the odd element of the shopping list, which I too was a bit confused about - it's made a bigger deal of in the film than its presence warrants, and leaves the feeling of a missing element. One reviewer mentions that in the source material, the shopping list is found by the police on the body, the police who suspect the main character, and keep questioning her about it... the movie then gives a nod to that vital element, without really incorporating it into the film. One wonders what else was lost?... I think it did a fine job of portraying the cloying "decorum" of suburban life: everyone around Bennett is extremely polite, neighborly, willfully ignorant... love affairs and such unseemly things as blackmail are things of far, far away, let alone murders... Bennett is trapped in this world herself, having been bred to the bone in it, which accounts for her struggles against any public display of emotion, be if fear, even love... her final emotional breakdown at the end, is a satisfying climax for that thread. But I'm always so damn demanding, I guess, from my classic noir. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.9.241.182 |
Well, I think the film is actually a Sirkian melodrama as much as a film noir. Interestingly, Todd Haynes cites it and All That Heaven Allows as equal influences on Far From Heaven. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
You know, Far From Heaven does, now that I think about it, contain some of the melodramatic grandiosity of The Reckless Moment... and I've always loved that one. That must be it - I went into it as noir, not seeing it was more than that. Hmm.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I absolutely loved 'Far From Heaven' and had one of my most irritating experiences while watching it in the cinema. Everyone else in the audience seemed to be in fits of laughter (including my date) while I was swept up in the whole melodramatic whirl of the story. As I've said on here before, I'm a big fan of OTT cinematic melodrama, 'Random Harvest' is one of my all-time favourite films and I've loved anything I've seen by Douglas Sirk, particularly 'Magnificent Obsession' & 'Imitation Of Life'. That was a very astute observation, Ramsey, and one that hadn't struck me before. 'The Reckless Moment' now seems all the richer and that was without having to watch it again! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Wow, how is it I've never heard before of Talk About A Stranger (1952)? Starring a 13 year-old Billy Grey, it's about a small California orange-grove town... there's a stranger that's moved into an old home owned by a doctor that moved away long ago, but the movie first steers us away, to focus firmly on "bad" boy Billy, befriending a poor stray Benji-looking mutt. The movie is soaked in sunlight and you're just positive that, well, this'll just end up being a mawkish for-kids "Ozzie & Harriet"-ish boy's tale (Nancy [Reagan] Davis as the mother doesn't help sway that notion)... until the film takes an incredibly dark left turn, and you find yourself right in the middle of a noir nightmare. The film, in retrospect, does indeed have the feel of a short surreal nightmare, in fact (it's a brisk 68 minutes); and it doesn't just go dark in tone, but in photo-/cinematography (shot by John Alton, who did He Walked By Night, Raw Deal, etc.). Billy Grey is wonderful in the lead, as a boy who's every bit as frenzied, vicious, ruthless, as any world-weary and damaged noir anti-hero. Never released on dvd, it appears; I'm glad I dvr-ed it in a late-nite rerun... well worth viewing! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.147 |
I'd never heard of it either, Craig! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Indeed, a true underrated (and lost) little gem, Ramsey. Based on Charlotte Armstrong's short story "The Enemy." I'd say more, but I don't want to ruin it.... Thank god for TCM (Turner Classic Movies) here in the States, the cable channel that often reruns great old long-forgotten films. I don't know what I'd do without it. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.25.141.120 |
I'll keep an eye out for "Talk About a Stranger" on TCM. Not surprised they'd find it! Another gem: A spaghetti Western called "The Big Gundown" ("La Resa dei Conti"), with a solid Lee Van Cleef, excellent Tomas Milian,a great Ennio Morricone score and excellent set and costume design by Carlo Simi and punchy direction by Sergio Sollima; maybe the best non-Leone spaghetti western, it was one the "Zapata" spaghetti westerns; it also nocely resembles a Boetticher-Scott western; not available on DVD in the U.S.and only in cheap VHS copies; the Westerns channel in the U.S. show it on occasion, cut down and panned and scanned. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
If we're talking underrated lost gems of movies then almost anything that came out of Italy during the 60s & 70s in the fields of horror, westerns and crime would fit the bill. Their B-movies during that era are the ultimate proof that Italian cinema - taking quality over quantity - pisses all over that produced by any other nation and that cinema itself was the Opera of the 20th Century! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.21.94 |
At least most of those are showing up on DVD, Stevie, but all the sword and sandal films remain in limbo... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Ah, to see all those long fabled giallos, spaghettis and poliziotteschis at last, Ramsey. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.19.180 |
Another one for the list: Jacques Tourneur's Stars in my Crown - up there with the finest of John Ford's small-town films and in some ways superior to them. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
That's one I'm not familiar with, Ramsey, but Tourneur was the guvnor alright. I've yet to see anything by the man that wasn't absolutely first rate and I don't think he ever had a decent budget to work with. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.19.180 |
...but did wonders with the budgets he had, do you think? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Exactly. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.89.192 |
Now and then one catches up with a film that one initially avoided because because bad reviews gathered around it like a forest of briars when it opened. But THE BROTHERS GRIMM (2005) is an utter delight, and one of Gilliam's best, I feel. It has visual wit, beauty, originality and both deep respect and irreverence for its source material. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.147.142.153 |
My least favourite Giliam personally. Still better than most of the rubbish made today but not up to his usual standards. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.114.102 |
Another one: the remake of DOA (1988) with Dennis Quaid. Even the intolerable Meg Ryan can't sink this silly but smart piece of bittersweet noir. {It counts as another of those films set at Christmas, but Christmas isn't a theme.) I keep spotting new grace notes every time I watch it. Last time it was a difficult-to-hear line by a drunk Dennis Quaid while looking closely at a huge Pollock-like painting, a riot of paint splashes: "Ha! A mistake..." | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Agreed, Proto - I always liked that one. Here's another, also featuring Quaid: The Big Easy. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Zed- hell yes, The Big Easy is fantastic. The chemistry between Quaid and Ellen Barkin is incredible. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 220.138.167.73 |
I have fond memories of DOA and The Big Easy as well. Didn't Quaid and Meg Ryan make Innerspace around the same time? Proto - you're not the only one who actually rather enjoyed The Brothers Grimm - I did, too. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Not sure if this count's as underrated or not, but I'd never been aware of it. Ingmar Bergman's Anskitet (The Magician) (1958; starring an Academy Award nominee from this year, Max Von Sydow) is just a beautifully-shot, rich, funny, and unsettlingly eery little film. The "magic" is all heavily telegraphed, all along the way, as being no more than a big sham/con... but of course, it's not that at all, either. The police chief's wife is on screen for like 2 minutes max, but she steals the whole film. Wonderful! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Yep, The Magician is brilliant. So is just about everything else Bergman directed (everything I've seen, anyway). I rather liked The Brothers Grimm, too... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Bergman was a magician of cinema. His films chill me to the bone, when they aren't delighting the senses, and everything - light and dark - of his that I've seen has been touched by that eerie quality you speak of Craig. 'The Magician' is one I've long wanted to see. One of these days I'm going to start collecting the complete works. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.130 |
Neither underrated (except by me) nor little, but I saw Avanti for the first time in forty years and thought it completely delightful. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Always loved that film and have happy memories of watching it with my mum as a child and enjoying her reaction to Lemmon's befuddlement. There are moments in that movie that are truly hilarious. You know Billy Wilder is my Number 3 after Hitchcock & Bergman and is the only other director I know who came close to rivalling Hitch's achievements in popular cinema. So consistently strong a filmmaker over such a long period of time. My personal favourite of his is 'The Apartment' (1960). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.17.162 |
Just saw Black Moon (1934, and banned here ever since, though I'm sure it would pick up a PG now). Unexpectedly similar to (though not as fine as) I Walked with a Zombie, and of interest - it's Roy William Neill, director of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.153.34 |
And of course Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man! Apparently Neill had no sense of humour, at least according to Curt Siodmak, who I don't think was renowned for being funny, either! |