Lisa (1962)

In 1946 Holland, a policeman (Stephen Boyd) takes it upon himself to rescue a Jewish concentration camp survivor (Dolores Hart, WHERE THE BOYS ARE) from a pimp and take her to Palestine. In this manner, he hopes to redeem himself as he did nothing when the Nazis took his Jewish fiancee to the death camps where she was put to death. Based on the novel THE INSPECTOR by Jan De Hartog and directed by Philip Dunne. Tthis is a touching but restrained romance filtered through a thriller sensibility with an excellent performance by Hart in the title role. The scenes set on a Dutch barge as the pair travel from Holland to France have a tranquil yet adventurous quality that are the best portions of the film and as Hart's character says, "I wish it would go on forever". The movie loses a bit of its charm when it reaches Morocco and the dream is over and we're dealing with realities. Arthur Ibbetson did the CinemaScope photography and Malcolm Arnold the subdued underscore. With Leo McKern (who steals the film) as the barge captain, Hugh Griffith, Donald Pleasence, Marius Goring, Harry Andrews, Robert Stephens, Finlay Currie and Jean Anderson.

Big Jim McLain (1952)

Two investigators (John Wayne, James Arness) from the House Of Un-American Activities are sent to Hawaii to uncover Communist cells and expose them. Perfectly awful! So bad that it can't even qualify as "camp" (whatever that is!). It's entirely possible to make a good propaganda film, from either the right or the left, but this is one dull affair. This goes to ludicrous extremes like the Japanese woman (Soo Yong) who becomes a nurse in a leper colony to "atone for her crimes against humanity", i.e. she was a Communist! Not even an official with any power mind you, just a plain ole party member. Since the U.S.'s obsession with uncovering communists in the early 50s was a homegrown thing, when this film played in Europe, the film was titled MARIJUANA and the plot changed (mostly by the dubbing) to hunting down drug smugglers. Curiously the film doesn't take advantage of its lush tropical Hawaiian setting by shooting it in Technicolor and we get a B&W paradise instead. Directed by Edward Ludwig. With Nancy Olson as Wayne's love interest, Alan Napier, Hans Conreid and Veda Ann Borg, the liveliest performer in the film.

Week-End At The Waldorf (1945)

A varied group of people cross paths during a weekend at the posh Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York: a film actress (Ginger Rogers), a stenographer (Lana Turner), a war correspondent (Walter Pidgeon), a pilot (Van Johnson), a shady businessman (Edward Arnold), a reporter (Keenan Wynn), a young bride (Phyllis Thaxter) and a gossip columnist (Robert Benchley). If this sounds familiar, it's probably because this is a loose remake of the Oscar winning GRAND HOTEL. Your tolerance for this carbon copy may depend on your affection for the 1932 film, I can take it or leave myself. On its own terms, it's a glossy soaper given the full MGM treatment though it never rises above competence. MGM boasted that it had more stars than there are in Heaven and this film serves as a sampler of why they knew a thing or two about the "star" business. The film acknowledges its predecessor when Pidgeon utilizes some dialog from it and Rogers catches him, "Why, that's from GRAND HOTEL!". Directed by Robert Z. Leonard. With Leon Ames, Rosemary DeCamp, Xavier Cugat, Warner Anderson, George Zucco, Lina Romay and Jacqueline DeWit.

Mud (2013)

Two young boys (TREE OF LIFE's Tye Sheridan, newcomer Jacob Lofland) living off the Alabama river encounter a murderer (Matthew McConaughey) hiding in the swamps. He befriends them and uses them to contact his lady love (Reese Witherspoon) into running away with him. A disappointment. Not a bad film by any means but a major disappointment coming off director Jeff Nichols last film, the compelling TAKE SHELTER. Using Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as a jump off point, Nichols creates a primitively rustic preciseness that's a marvel to behold and his two young actors are a joy to watch. But he attempts to cram too much when one of the film's three storylines would have been enough. Nichols doesn't seem to trust his audience and though I warmed up to the movie immediately but I became uncomfortable when the two boys watched some venomous cottonmouths in the muddy water and it became obvious he was telegraphing to us that those snakes were going to bite one of the major characters before the movie was over. Add an unintentional strain of misogyny ("Don't trust women, they'll hurt you, deceive you") reinforced by several of the female characters and top it off with a laughable shoot 'em up finale and well ... as I said, a disappointment. Marvelous cinematography by Adam Stone and a first rate score by David Wingo though. With Sam Shepard, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Roy McKinnon and Joe Don Baker.

High Tide (1987)

A back up singer (Judy Davis) touring with a third rate Elvis impersonator (Frankie J. Holden) finds herself stuck in a small seaside town after she's fired. By chance, it's also the residence of her mother in law (Jan Adele) who's raising the daughter (Claudia Karvan) the woman abandoned as a child after her husband's death. There was a time in the 1980s when Judy Davis seemed on the verge of becoming one of the premier actresses of her generation (not unlike another famous Davis). It's superb performances like the one she gives in HIGH TIDE that gave the indication that she would be one of the great actresses but, for whatever reason, it never happened. But as a woman who lived her life on her own terms only to find she's come up against a wall, Davis gives an intense complex performance. The screenplay by Laura Jones has an indigenous feel to it, a look at an Australia that we Yanks rarely get to see. An essential "slice of life" film. Neatly directed by Gillian Armstrong (LITTLE WOMEN). With Colin Friels (Davis's real life husband).

Yellow Submarine (1968)

80,000 leagues under the sea, the citizens of the country of Pepperland lead an idyllic existence where music and love dominate. But when they are attacked by the blue meanies, who hate music, they are turned to stone by the apple bonkers and it's up to Old Fred to escape in the yellow submarine and travel to Liverpool where he persuades The Beatles to return with him and restore Pepperland to its former state. One of the most visually striking animated films ever made, one doesn't need to be a Beatles fan to appreciate the adventurous Pop Art animation, the droll puns and visual jests but it's a double treat if you are. The animated interpretations of some of the Beatles' songs are so arresting that don't be surprised that when you hear the songs again, the film's images are conjured up all over again, notably Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and Eleanor Rigby. The film features 16 songs by the Beatles and there's a lovely underscore by an uncredited George Martin. Directed by George Dunning. The Beatles themselves are voiced by other actors in the animation sequences but pop in during the closing credits.

Winter Kills (1979)

19 years after the assassination of the President of the United States, his younger half brother (Jeff Bridges) hears the deathbed confession of a man (Joe Spinell) who claims to have been the second gunman in the assassination. Since the official conclusion was that the assassination was the act of a lone gunman, the brother attempts to uncover the real culprits behind the killing. Based on the novel by Richard Condon (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE), this absurdist black comedy is a satire of conspiracy theory movies. The paranoia of conspiracy theorists is ripe for satire but as a comedy, it's pretty feeble (the book took the plot a bit more seriously). The movie itself ran into major problems taking some three years between shooting and a release. The film stopped shooting because of bankruptcy (the director had to shoot another movie so he could get the money to finish this one) and two of the film's producers met bad ends (one was rubbed out by the mafia, the other got a 40 year prison sentence for drug smuggling). It's a great looking movie though with expert wide screen lensing by the great Vilmos Zsigmond and Maurice Jarre contributes one of his better scores. The huge cast includes John Huston (parodying his Noah Cross role), Anthony Perkins, Toshiro Mifune, Sterling Hayden, Eli Wallach, Dorothy Malone, Richard Boone, Ralph Meeker, Tomas Milian, Belinda Bauer, Brad Dexter, Camilla Sparv and as a madam, Elizabeth Taylor.

The Slender Thread (1965)

A graduate student (Sidney Poitier) volunteers at a crisis clinic monitoring phone calls in Seattle, Washington. Alone in the office in the evening, he receives a phone call from a woman (Anne Bancroft) who's just swallowed a bottle of barbiturates. As he attempts to keep her talking on the phone, a race against time begins to trace the call and get to the woman before she dies. The feature film debut of director Sydney Pollack, he does an admirable job of keeping up the tension quotient as the film switches back and forth between her backstory and the events that lead up to her suicide and the struggle to locate her. The film's problem is in its screenplay by Stirling Silliphant. Silliphant was responsible for much of the writing on such early 60s TV shows like THE NAKED CITY and ROUTE 66. Those shows don't hold up well today because of the contrived writing, artificial sounding dialog and mouthpiece moralizing of its writer. What makes those shows watchable today depends on the quality of the acting and the same applies here. Fortunately, Poitier and Bancroft deliver strong performances that mostly (but not always) overrides the unnatural dialog. The wiry score is by Quincy Jones. With Telly Savalas, Steven Hill, Dabney Coleman, Indus Arthur and H.M. Wynant.

That Midnight Kiss (1949)

When a doyenne (Ethel Barrymore) of Philadelphia society sponsors a new opera company, she has hopes that it will jump start her granddaughter's (Kathryn Grayson) singing career. But when a truck driver (Mario Lanza) turned opera singer replaces her temperamental leading man (Thomas Gomez), romantic sparks fly. What can one say? If Grayson's shrieking and Lanza's bellowing tenor are your cup of tea, you'll have a grand old time. It's a harmless slice of MGM cheese beautifully wrapped in Technicolor with Preston Ames and Edwin B. Wlllis' handsome art and set direction and Helen Rose's striking costumes. It's a nostalgic relic of the days when Hollywood was attempting to bring its idea of "culture" to the unwashed masses. I don't mean to be too hard on it, for what it is, it's quite watchable. This was Lanza's film debut and he's quite likable, you can see why audiences took to him. Directed by Norman Taurog. With Keenan Wynn, Marjorie Reynolds (MINISTRY OF FEAR), J. Carrol Naish, Jules Munshin, Arthur Treacher and Ann Codee.

復讐するは我にあり (aka Vengeance Is Mine) (1979)

After a serial killer (Ken Ogata) is caught, in a series of flashbacks we see the story of his 78 days on the run from the first murder to his eventual arrest. Shohei Imamura's brilliant, chilly look at an abnormal homicidal mindset is one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. Imamura is dispassionate to the extreme, never tipping his hand or our sympathies, leaving us distanced and filling the film with so many perverse and twisted characters that the murderer seems the only honest person in the movie. We never discover the why of his killing spree, it just seems impulsive and he shows no remorse. But his father (Rentaro Mikuni) pimps out his daughter in law (Mitsuko Baisho) the killer's wife and later, the father and daughter in law torture and kill a dog, the ex-con mother (Nijiko Kiyokawa), who's also a voyeur, of an inn keeper calmly watches her daughter (Mayumi Ogawa) being raped. Surely a testament's to Imamura's talents that he's able to hold us in in thrall in spite of (or because of?) these repulsive characters. Grisly and cruel, it's not a pleasant film to sit through but there's no contravening its power. Loosely based on a true story of the serial killer, Akira Nishiguci.

Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)

During the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century, after successfully completing a secret mission in Central America, Naval Captain Horatio Hornblower (Gregory Peck) finds himself obligated to carry a British lady (Virginia Mayo) and her Spanish maid (Ingeborg Von Kusserow) back to England despite the dangers of attack by the French war vessels. Based upon the Horatio Hornblower novels by C.S. Forester, director Raoul Walsh gives us a pleasing vigorous Technicolor sea going adventure. Peck strikes an imposing figure as the sea captain and Mayo is all peaches and cream though neither even remotely attempts an English accent while surrounded entirely by a British supporting cast. But this isn't about authenticity, it's about entertainment and on that level, it succeeds. A nice balance of action and romance. Guy Green gets the credit for the vivid cinematography and Robert Farnon for the rousing score. With Stanley Baker, Robert Beatty, James Robertson Justice, Christopher Lee, Alec Mango and Diane Cilento as Hornblower's wife, who we never see, just hear.

Star Of Midnight (1935)

A Manhattan attorney and man about town (William Powell) is asked by a friend (Leslie Fenton) to help locate his missing girlfriend. A gossip columnist (Russell Hopton) has a vital clue to the girl's disappearance but before he can reveal it ... he is murdered. Assisted by his marriage minded girlfriend (Ginger Rogers), the lawyer attempts to track down the missing girl and solve the murder. Buoyed by the success of the previous year's THE THIN MAN, RKO thought they'd try a hand at a sophisticated mystery/comedy with Powell as a cocktail loving slumming amateur detective. It's minor (very minor) fun but the mystery isn't handled very well and some of the plot's conceits seem far fetched. For example, it's highly unlikely someone could be a big Broadway star by wearing a mask and never letting the public see her face. While Powell and Rogers have a certain chemistry, it's not as strong as their chemistry with their regular screen partners (Loy and Astaire). Directed by Stephen Roberts. With Paul Kelly, Ralph Morgan, Gene Lockhart and Vivien Oakland.