Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Just got the word that this streaming service is getting the axe as of November 29.  Probably a quarter of my viewing is done there.  I hope The Criterion Collection will find another forum for streaming its films.  Any way, we will take a slight break from regularly scheduled programming to see how many films I can knock off in the next month.

The Skull  
Directed by Freddie Francis
Written by Milton Subotsky from a story by Robert Bloch
1965/UK
Amicus Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Sir Matthew Phillips: [to Maitland] All I can say to you is keep away from the skull of the Marquis de Sade! [/box]

A genuinely scary little film from Amicus – though most of the chills are provided by the screechy score.

The eccentric Maitand (Peter Cushing) is a collector of the bizarre and macabre.  As the film begins, he is outbid on a lot of grotesque gargoyles by fellow connoisseur Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee).  Then creepy Anthony Marco approaches Maitland with a volume, bound in human skin, containing the writings of the Marquis de Sade. <Shudder> Maitland snaps that offer up paving the way for his acquisition of the Marquis’s skull.

Maitland soon discovers that the skull was stolen from Sir Matthew.  Far from wanting his property back, though, he warns Maitland to stay far, far away.  But it’s too late.  Maitland is already possessed by the skull’s evil spirit.

The film does an admirable job at creating thrills with smoke and mirrors.  The skull takes on a real malevolence without moving and the score builds to nail biting crescendos.  Peter Cushing is always so good!

Five Came Back
Directed by Laurent Bouzereau
Written by Mark Harris
2017/USA
Amblin Television/IACF Productions/Netflix/etc.
First viewing/Netflix Instant

[box] If anybody doubts my loyalty to my country, I’ll punch him in the nose, and I don’t care how old he is. – William Wyler[/box]

Excellent documentary about five great American directors and their experiences  in WWII.

Five living directors – Guillermo del Toro, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Lawrence Kasdan, and Paul Greengrass – discuss the experiences of five great American directors – John Ford, John Huston, Frank Capra, William Wyler, and George Stevens – who served in the Armed Forces during World War II and documented the conflict.  Discussion also includes studio pictures made by the directors during and immediately after the war.  Narrated by Meryl Streep.

This Netflix Original three-part miniseries is loaded with wonderful clips and behind the scenes footage.  I love all the films covered and learned a lot.  The experience scarred a lot of these men for life but that didn’t prevent them from doing some of their best work after the war.  Recommended to any one interested in flim history and if you’re not what are you doing here?

Dr. Terror’s House of Horror
Directed by Freddie Francis
Written by Milton Subotsky
1965/UK
Amicus Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Dawson: Schreck? That’s a German word isn’t it? Means fear or horror.

Dr. Schreck: A more exact translation would be terror. An unfortunate misnomer for I am the mildest of men.[/box]

Amicus Productions seems to have bit off more than it could chew in the effort to shoehorn 5 stories into one average-length movie.

The gimmick holding the whole together is the character of Dr. Schreck (Peter Cushing) who comes into the train compartment shared by five students and offers to read their fortunes in the tarot cards.  Christopher Lee plays a skeptic and Donald Sutherland has one of his first big screen roles as the student engaged to a girl who just might be a vampire.

I think 5 stories are one or two too many to fit in a 98 minute movie.  Omitting a couple of stories would have given the filmmakers some room to add depth to the remaining stories.  As it is much of this feels rushed.  Cushing and Lee are, needless to say, fantastic.

Ten Little Indians
Directed by George Pollock
Written by Peter Yeldham and Harry Alan Towers from a novel by Agatha Christie
1965/UK
Tenlit Films Ltd.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Ilona Bergen: He’s dead drunk!

Dr. Edward Armstrong: No, Miss Bergen. Not drunk. Just dead.[/box]

Those who have seen And Then There Were None (1945) will find no surprises but it’s pleasant viewing with a cast including some of the best British character actors.

The setting of Christie’s whodunnit has been changed from an island to a snowed-in and isolated Alpine ski resort.  A mysterious man named U.N. Owen (get it?) has invited a diverse group of people to a house party.  Oddly enough, none, including two servants hired for the occasion, has ever met the man.  Before the first evening is over a recording informs the guests that they are all guilty of unpunished crimes and as a result will lose their lives before the weekend is over.

The rest of the film proceeds as one guest after another bites the dust.  Eventually, it becomes clear that the killer must also be one of the guests.  Will anybody survive? The victims/murderers include: Leo Genn, Wilfred Hyde-White, Dennis Price and Stanley Holloway among others.

This is a good story and relatively well told.  It has something of a 60’s TV vibe to it.  Just don’t expect anything new if you are already familiar with the plot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KobbZ8VDI00

A Patch of Blue
Directed by Guy Green
Written by Guy Green from a novel by Elizabeth Kata
1965/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Selina D’Arcy: I didn’t want you to come back to Earth. I wanted you to make love with me. [/box]

First-rate performances raise a touching, if predictable, story a notch.

Selina D’Arcy (Elizabeth Hartman) is an 18-year-old blind girl who lives in squalor and chaos with her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and grandfather Ol’ Pa (Wallace Ford).  She lost her sight at age 5 in an accident caused by Rose-Ann.  Since then, the two have completely isolated her from the world and treat her as a virtual slave who must earn her way by stringing beads.  She has never been to school and not been taught such basics as how to cross a street or make a telephone call.

The kindly man she works for offers to take her to the park.  There she happens to meet Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), who takes pity on her and begins to show her the ropes. The joy of finally having a friend quickly turns to love on Selina’s part.  But the racial divide raises its ugly head when Rose-Ann discovers the relationship.

I enjoyed this very much.  It suffers a bit from some tentativeness in its attitude to the interracial relationship but that could be expected from the time.  The performances are all excellent.

Shelley Winters won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Inside Daisy Clover
Directed by Robert Mulligan
Written by Gavin Lambert from his novel
1965/USA
Park Place Productions/Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Wade Lewis: For we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against powers of this world. But… but don’t worry, here we meet, in this castle of lost souls. In the land of the black Swan, the Prince of Darkness. Welcome little captive, to the waterfall of sweet dreams. Malora says it washes all our cares away, but I… I need stronger stuff. [/box]

The concept of this movie sounds a lot better than the mess that was made of it.

It is the 1930’s.  Teenage tomboy Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) lives in a trailer with her nutty mother “The Dealer” (Ruth Gordon).  She is nearly as eccentric as Mom and at war with the world, in particular her bourgeois older sister.  She records herself singing and submits it in to a studio’s talent contest.  [Although this movie has enough singing to call itself a musical, the same song – “You’re Gonna Hear from Me” – will be performed over and over].  Master manipulator studio head Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer) decides Daisy has what it takes to make a child star and takes her forcefully under his wing.

Neither Hollywood nor Swan are kind to Daisy Clover.  Her mother is rapidly institutionalized and declared dead.  Eventually, Daisy meets up with fellow studio victim Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) who is alternately her hero and villain.  Can Daisy stand up to the strain?  With Roddy MacDowell as Swan’s assistant.

It’s hard to know where to start.  In the first place, the movie makes no sense as a period piece.  Daisy is clearly a child of the 60’s and so is the sensibility of the movie.  Secondly, though this hardly seems possible, Wood’s performance lacks the charisma or the singing chops that would cause anybody to pick her out as a star.  The relationship between Redford and Wood doesn’t know what it wants to be.  At 128 minutes, the story seems as interminable as the songs.  It’s a talented cast but only Gordon is really utilized to advantage.

Inside Daisy Clover was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Supporting Actress (Gordon); Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; and Best Costume Design, Color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh4xiDxO294

In

It turned into a glorious summer day later yesterday.  We spent most of our time in the Figge Art Museum.  The highlight was a Maurice Sendak exhibition but the museum’s collection is also very nice.

Due to a “mechanical delay” we are having another river cruising day instead of seeing Dubuque.  It’s Lionel Atwill day on TCM so maybe I’ll score a new old movie at least.

Spent a relaxing day and managed to snag a new-to-me movie, Richard Whorf’s musical It Happened in Brooklyn.  Frank Sinatra thinks he will find all the confidence he lacks when he comes home from War to his beloved Brooklyn.  He does eventually but it takes the help of equally disheartened Jimmy Durante, Kathryn Grayson and Peter Lawford to do it.  Movie is uneven in the extreme but the good parts are good enough to make it a winner.  These include the lovely ballad “Time After Time” and every moment Durante appears on screen.  Who decided Lawford could sing and why did they insist on making him do it?

Hoopla 
Directed by Frank Lloyd
Written by Bradley King and J.M. March from a play by Kenyon Nicholson
1933/USA
Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

[box] [when asked what “It” was, replying in her perfect Brooklyn accent] I ain’t real sure.– Clara Bow[/box]

The “It” girl’s final film is a pleasing mixture of the tawdry and the tender.

Lou (Clara Bow) shakes her booty as a belly dancer in a carnival sideshow.  Nifty Miller (Preston Foster) manages the sideshow and does the busking for Lou and her hula dancer associate Carrie.  Nifty has spent much effort and money ensuring that his son Chris (Richard Cromwell) will have a better life.  When Chris comes to visit Nifty during his summer vacation, he insists on staying and working on the carnival.  Chris’s presence distracts Nifty from paying attention to girlfriend Carrie.  She goes into a rage and promises Lou $100 if she can seduce the naive Chris.  This, of course, is a piece of cake but Lou soon finds herself in a predicament when she falls in love for real.

Although she was only 28, years of hard living make Bow look positively middle-aged next to Cromwell, who was five years her junior. Despite that, she still had plenty of sex appeal and charm and ended her career on a high note.  I loved the sweet romance as well as the behind the scenes glimpses of life on the road during the period.  Currently available on YouTube.

Tribute – montage of clips