I know the thread isn't about "I can't believe you never saw (or heard ) of that movie, Chris"; but, I can't believe you never saw it! The one that I actually re-discovered (I saw it as a kid), is REMEMBER THE NIGHT, which also has a Christmas theme, and also stars Barbara Stanwyck.
Funny but I was going to mention this wonderful movie as a forgotten gem so Im glad you did. Barbara Stanwyck gives one of her best performances- as a hard edged thief who learns some life lessons from Fred MacMurray and his family - great chemistry with him btw-- when he brings her in custody to his hometown for Christmas before taking her to jail.
Because I am doing an episode on old films for my show, I have been watching a ton of B & W classics lately. Here are a few:
Burt Lancaster in Brute Force
Wake Island
Cross Of Loraine
Wake Island is entertaining, but the only standout element in it is William Bendix. However, Brute Force and Cross Of Loraine were both excellent and I highly recommend them.
(From the imdb) "An anachronistic martinet RSM on a remote Colonial African army caught in a local coup d'etat must use his experience to defend those in his care."
Recently watched this. Really good John Gullermin film with an excellent Richard Attenborough performance. Co-starring Jack Hawkins and John Leyton. Movie debut of Mia Farrow. Percy Herbert and Graham Stark are both very amusing in their interactions.
Attenbourough's Sgt, Major Lauderdale is laughed at behind his back for being a martinet-like dinosaur, but when the shit hits the fan, he's the one best able to get the job done.
Just watched this last week, 1960's Hell To Eternity, starring Jeffrey Hunter, Vic Damone, and David Janssen. Liked it quite a bit. Hunter shares scenes in the first part of the film with young George Takei. Just a few years later and they'd be reunited for the Star Trek pilot.
The film is directed by the excellent Phil Karlson, and in reading up on Guy Gabaldon's life, the film stays surprisingly close to what happened to him.
This DVD has been sitting in my "to view" pile, and the Trailers From Hell segment kicked me in the rear to watch it. I bought a copy for my Dad for his birthday.
MANY THANKS FROM ME, TO: dan the man, Morricone, Mark R. Young, Philiperic, Michael 24, riotengine (Greg Espinoza), Joe E., Ray Faiola, PhiladelphiaSon, jackfu, manderley, Nyborg, eriknelson, and Storyteller for all of these great titles! I really appreciate it, folks! You've given me a LOT of great movies to watch this year!
Cry Terror, (1958) with James Mason, Inger Stevens and Rod Stieger (Warner Archive)
I wanted to like this one more, based on the cast. James Mason plays an electronics expert duped by Rod Stieger into making a bomb to blackmail an airline. Stieger's gang includes, Neville Brand, (playing a creepy rapist) Jack Klugman, and Angie Dickinson.
Back from Eternity, (1956) with Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, and Rod Stieger (Warner Archive)
Director John Farrow remakes his 1939 classic, Five Came Back, with an interesting supporting cast including Gene Barry, Keith Andes, Fred Clark, Jesse White, (very good) and Jon Provost. I like this version as much as the '39 film, and it keeps the original ending.
The Fourth Protocol, with Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan.
Recently watched my region 2 UK DVD of The Fourth Protocol, a Frederick Forsythe-written, Day Of The Jackal-like british espionage thriller, with Michael Caine as a Harry Palmer-esque spycatcher trying to prevent a Russian agent, played by Pierce Brosnan, from setting off an atomic bomb near a U.S. air base. Brosnan's part is an atypically villainous one, and he plays one cold, ruthless bastard. Great cast with Julian Glover playing Caine's asshole boss, Ian Richardson once again playing a shifty politician, and Joanna Cassidy as one of Brosnan's associates. Weirdest bit of casting is Alan North (Police Squad) as Brosnan's superior officer. This movie is unfortunately not current available on domestic DVD. Directed by John McKenzie (The Long Good Friday).
Thanks, Greg! I've never seen The Fourth Protocol, and I'm still scolding myself for neglecting it. I ran into Michael Gough while shopping in Georgetown (just outside Washington DC), and he had just finished working on that film. He was in DC doing a play at Lincoln Center with Derek Jacobi at the time. Now that you've reminded me, I must watch it.
The Sniper (D: Edward Dmytryk) and The Narrow Margin (D: Richard Fleischer). Both were made in 1952 and in both(!), film noir favorite gal Marie Windsor gets cold cocked! The Sniper must have seemed extremely brutal and cold at the time.
Always been infatuated with Golden Age film noir, but until up a couple years ago I only knew the "bigger" productions (Farewell My Lovely, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Killers etc). Now, thanks to so many "film noir DVD bundles" I finally get to know the smaller ones that I had only read about in film books previously (my very first film book was "The Big Book of B-Movies, or, How Low Was My Budget").
Also, Detour (D: Edgar G. Ulmer) - the ultra-cheap PRC noir that's probably the noir-est of them all.
Happened to catch the last part of this one day, probably on TCM, and was charmed by it. Despite the insipid title, it has elements of both fantasy and a quirky "You-Can't-Take-It-With-You" tone. Little "Butch" Jenkins, who gives a very naturalistic performance, claims he can talk to horses. Mother Spring Byington does yoga, and serves heathy-centered meals (which was probably meant to be funny in 1947, but seems way ahead of its time now...). And, the whole thing is directed by none other than Fred Zinneman (!), a year before his breakout hit, THE SEARCH (1948).
No one makes films like this anymore. Sometimes they attempt to, all made-for-TV, but the results end up insipid and heavily sentimental.
This attempt worked, and is worth seeing. Not the greatest film ever made, and supposedly made by Zinneman under duress, for contract obligations, but the result is well-made, and, for me at least, works beautifully.
Saw the original Cat People for the first time just a few months ago. It was interesting. The infamous pool scene was very well executed, and loved the use of light and shadows. Horror films are not really my genre, so I can't judge it based on similar films.
Many years ago as a kid, I saw the Don Siegel film, Edge Of Eternity, on TV and the film's climax stuck with me all these years. I just ordered and watched the Columbia Classics MOD DVD.
The 1959 film stars Cornel Wilde as a deputy sheriff investigating a series of murders in an Arizona mining town. Siegel's direction is no-nonsense as usual, with a swell opening and nail-biting climactic fight on a mining bucket high above the Grand Canyon. The stuff that happens between is somewhat routine, but there are some really great scenic shots in Cinemascope of the Grand Canyon. Parts of the film reminded me of Siegel's later film, Coogan's Bluff. The opening shot is an impressive unbroken 360 pan around the Grand Canyon.
The film also starred Victoria Shaw, Mickey Shaughnessey and Jack Elam.
In anticipation of checking out the new post-apocalypse film, "How I Live Now," next week, I watched the Warner Archive MOD DVD of director Cornel Wilde's post-apocalypse film, No Blade Of Grass, based on the John Christopher novel, The Death Of Grass.
Nigel Davenport plays a man trying to get his family to a safe haven after a worldwide ecological disaster, and what moral lines will he cross to do it? Very similar to the 1962 Ray Milland directed film, Panic In Year Zero.
I did not know Milland went to the same source. No Blade Of Grass has some effective moments, but is uneven. Wilde hits you over the head with the environmental stuff at the beginning, then the movie gets down to business. Some of the music is rather dated and undermines one of the darker sequences. I agree with Joe Dante that Panic In Year Zero is the superior version.
I've been watching Carroll Ballard films for the first time recently: The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, Wind, Fly Away Home, and now Duma later this week. I wish I had seen these on the big screen - but I'm surprised that, with the exception of Black Stallion, none of these had 70mm blow-up or IMAX versions.
I don't know whether people consider it a "classic" or not, but I hadn't ever seen "BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S" until a few days ago. I rather enjoyed it. (Well, except for Mickey Rooney's over-the-top character.) I thought the score was nice as well.
I've been watching Carroll Ballard films for the first time recently: The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, Wind, Fly Away Home, and now Duma later this week. I wish I had seen these on the big screen - but I'm surprised that, with the exception of Black Stallion, none of these had 70mm blow-up or IMAX versions.
BLACK STALLION was a dolby Stereo film - no 70mm blow-up. I remember because it premiered at tht Northpoint theater in San francisco which was the Dolby showcase house. APOCALYPSE NOW opened there in 70mm as well as SUPERMAN, EMPIRE etc. One suspects Zoetrope/MGM didn't want o spend the bucks on what was predicted to be a minor release. Th e big box office was a huge surprise to everybody including FFC! brm
PS if i am wrong, please tell me where it showed in 70mm (Radio City Music Hall?)
Also saw "THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE" for the first time just a few months ago (at the recommendation of a few fellow FSM Message Board posters). It was an excellent movie!! Thoroughly enjoyable...
BLACK STALLION was a dolby Stereo film - no 70mm blow-up. I remember because it premiered at tht Northpoint theater in San francisco which was the Dolby showcase house. APOCALYPSE NOW opened there in 70mm as well as SUPERMAN, EMPIRE etc. One suspects Zoetrope/MGM didn't want o spend the bucks on what was predicted to be a minor release. Th e big box office was a huge surprise to everybody including FFC! brm
PS if i am wrong, please tell me where it showed in 70mm (Radio City Music Hall?)
Thank you for the correction. It played at the Crest 70 theater - which was set up for 70mm presentations - in Seattle in 1979, but I see from double-checking that I mixed up the "70" in the cinema's title for a 70mm notice.
Back in the 60s and early 70s I dreamed of seeing the only screen versions of various super heroes there had been besides Batman which I lived through as a kid and got totally hooked on the comics. The old serials never got shown in the UK, and The Adventures of Superman were never rerun in my early years.
So it's only in recent years I've managed to get hold of the two Superman serials starring Kirk Alyn, and The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Now, I haven't made it further than the first couple of 'chapters' of TAoCM, I have enjoyed the Superman serials, complete with animated flying scenes!
Great fun. And I know I'll do Captain Marvel eventually.
Maybe not a classic but a darn good little ghost story BACK FROM THE DEAD-57- ARTHUR FRANZ PEGGY CASTLE, thanks to YOU TUBE, where else are you going to find thousands and thousands of films you will never see again, because of greedy hands.
