Sin City Mercenaries
Las Vegas aka Sin City, the gambling mecca of the world, might be a symbol of capitalism at its worse but it makes an irresistible location for a movie with its dazzling neon lights and nightlife...
View ArticleMusic Can Change Your Life
Group dynamics are always a fascinating topic for stories, especially when the focus is the workplace or some social situation. Consider this scenario, for instance, involving a small traveling band...
View ArticleIn Praise of Tarkovsky
When he died in Paris on July 29, 2012, filmmaker Chris Marker left behind more than 60 short films and features, most of which were experimental cinema essays and documentaries. Many were political in...
View ArticleWho Has the Last Laugh?
By 1978 Burt Reynolds was approaching the peak of his popularity which would begin to taper off in the mid-eighties as he approached the age of 50. He had just completed two huge box office hits,...
View ArticleHead Hunter at Large
A speeding sedan races down a deserted road at night. Suddenly a package is thrown from the vehicle as it speeds away. The next morning two matronly women on bicycles notice the package on the side of...
View ArticleThe Runaway Nuclear Physicist
Often considered alongside Luis Bunuel as one of the most important and influential Spanish film directors of the 20th century, Luis Garcia Berlanga (1921-2010) and his work is still being discovered...
View ArticleWild Child
Prior to the 1960s, it was unusual to encounter more than a few women film directors working in Europe, much less the U.S. One of the rare exceptions was Astrid Henning-Jensen, who is considered one of...
View ArticleSucker Play
After purposely avoiding it for years due to its terrible reputation, my curiosity finally got the best of me when TCM aired Tentacles (Italian title: Tentacoli, 1977) earlier in 2022, and I finally...
View ArticleThe Lost Souls of Sao Paulo
Long Day’s Journey into Night is the title of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize winning 1956 play but it could also serve as a succinct capsule description of numerous movies from the 1960s that were...
View ArticleJohn Wayne in 3-D
Out of distribution for years, Hondo (1953), one of the key Westerns starring “The Duke,” was finally restored by the John Wayne Society in 1995 and made available for viewings again. It was said to be...
View ArticleA Double Dose of Santo and Blue Demon
For American moviegoers weaned on comic books and superheroes like Superman, Batman and The Hulk, the names El Santo and Blue Demon might not be as familiar. But in Mexico, they are major cultural...
View ArticleThe Perfect Yuletide Mix of Schmaltz, Schmerz and Schmutz
That was how Preston Sturges described his screenplay for Remember the Night (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen. Overlooked and underrated for years, this small scale but intimate romantic drama has...
View ArticleThe Mighty Mountain Will Punish the Bad
Many people believe they are masters of their own fates but occasionally mother nature steps in to remind them that there are outside forces they cannot control such as a mountain wilderness or a...
View ArticleKiddie Matinees That Weren’t for Kids
Back in the fifties and sixties it wasn’t uncommon for neighborhood theatres – at least in the South – to run a series of kiddie matinees on Saturday mornings, usually during the early part of summer...
View ArticleThe Feather Gatherers
There have been few, if any, films about gypsies and their culture depicted in Hollywood’s golden age unless they were background figures (The Wolf Man, 1941) or treated in a broad, theatrical manner...
View ArticlePachyderm Love
There are not many, if any, filmmakers who come from a background as a game warden in an African national park as well as being a passionate advocate for wildlife protection but Simon Trevor is a...
View ArticleThorold Dickinson’s Secret People
Though little known in the U.S. today except by movie buffs, Thorold Dickinson is an important figure in the development of the British film industry. A screenwriter, editor, director and producer,...
View ArticleAll the Youthful Days
For many young people, the time period immediately after their high school graduation is a crucial phase in which their lives could take many different paths depending on the decisions they make. This...
View ArticleThe Man with Gunsight Eyes
With his lean, angular features and narrow, piercing eyes, Lee Van Cleef had the sort of presence you didn’t easily forget in supporting roles, especially villainous parts in westerns (Gunfight at the...
View ArticleHeart of Darkness
The Pre-Code era of Hollywood when films were much more explicit, suggestive and racy is generally believed to be that period between 1929 and 1934, the year the Production Code was officially...
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