Change Your Image
clanciai
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Devil's Cargo (1948)
Not an easy murder trail to follow
This is great entertainment from beginning to end mainly because of its brilliant dialog that works like cross fire all through in a labyrinth of constant bewildering complications of a murder case, in which the murderer immediately confesses to the murder and then is poisoned to death in jail. His reason for the murder was jealousy over his wife, who was seeing a certain racketeer called Lucky Conroy - the film begins with his murder. More will follow. The detective called upon to resolve this mess of amassing murders is a magician who constantly plays wonderful tricks on everyone around which certainly amuse the audience, especially the trick with the duck, called out from nowhere. It's a delightful thriller reminding of the best days of William Powell, Myrna Loy and Asta, the 'Falcon's dog Braintrust would have matched Asta perfectly. In the end there is one murder too much and even by mistake, but it's a long way before you get there through all the intricacies of a goofed up criminal intrigue.
South of St. Louis (1949)
Three Texas musketeers
They stick together and separate occasionally, taking opposite stands, sometimes with the confederates and sometimes with the unionists, but in spite of wide gulfs of differences they always end up together again, Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott and Douglas Kennedy, they are bound together by a ranch which they share called "Three Bells", and that's why they attach small bells to their spurs to make them tinkle more distinctly wherever they go. Two dames are also involved, the lovely and adorable Dorothy Malone, who is marrying Joel McCrea, and Alexis Smith as a saloon entertainer, singing occasionally and sticking her fingers into their business occasionally. She is the best acting performance here, with great nuances making her character the most intriguing, occasionally (when no one sees it) wiping off a tear or two. There is a great villain also, Victor Jory at his most unpleasant, a thoroughly vicious sadist who likes to burn ranches, kill people and steal any kind of loot. The frame of the drama is the civil war and how it affects Texas, being torn apart by unionists and confederates and ultimately in the hands of the Texas Rangers, and the political shifts of the drama add to its interest. Joel McCrea never gets his Dorothy Malone as another gets her instead, but he finds someone else, or perhaps she is the one who finds him, after having looked for him throughout the film.
Blaze of Noon (1947)
When flying is in your blood you just can't help going too far
The most memorable part here is Anne Baxter as Lucille, a nurse, who marries the eldest of the four brothers, William Holden, while that practically makes her the wife of all of them, since they stick together, live together and work together and even risk their lives together. That's the problem. In such a risky business there has to be some casualties, and they are devastating. In the 20s it was definitely risking your life challenging the weather if it was fog or rains or storms or snows or any rough weather, and unfortunately these daredevil flyers were not sensible enough to back down and refuse the challenge, especially if it gave you a bonus. So actually three of the four brothers end up badly, one of them survives but as a cripple, and one simply disappears completely. The fourth one was sensible enough to stick to the earth while he was still alive and got an ordinary humdrum job on the ground. But the other three had lives worth living.
Raiders of the Seven Seas (1953)
Standard Hollywood swashbuckling virtuoso show, all totally unrealistic
It is all very well made but hardly convincing. Tom Payne is always good but seldom gets the opportunity to demonstrate any depth of character. Donna Reid is always lovely and charming and a good actress, but here her talents are rather wasted on superficial Caribbean intrigues so often repeated in other swashbuckling features. Lon Chaney makes a sympathetic performance, actually the most sympathetic character in the film, but he gets nothing for it. The boy helps the entertainment. The intrigue is muddled and complicated, there is no clarity, motives are banal and selfish, and the story is Caribbean pulp fiction. In brief, you have seen it all before and in better films than this.
Nine Miles to Noon (1963)
Two fathers and a child chasing each other for a right fatherhood
Carol Reed could have made something of this, but Herbert Leder is no Carol Reed. There is nothing wrong about the story, but a thriller including children like this without any psychology becomes very thin. The best actor is Renato Baldini, and he makes almost every scene in which he acts interesting. Dolores Sutton as the mother is the only good person of any psychological insight, she knows her former husband, can read him and sees through his wicked intentions, while the main asset of the film is the great sequences around the monuments of Athens, when they are all chasing each other, one to carry through a murder, another to stop that at any cost, two fathers vying for fatherhood, and policemen all over the place without knowing what they are chasing or for what, while at least they know they have to rescue lives. As a Greek thriller drama about a child it is fairly realistic, while the child should not talk to strangers.
Port Afrique (1956)
Cherchez la femme!
Philip Carey comes home from the war with a damaged leg and finds his wife dead with a fired gun in her hand. The police reports it as suicide but is very well aware that it is murder, but in order to bring out the murderer, who must make some mistake, he makes it official that it was suicide. Many are involved in the plot - Dennis Price, Christopher Lee, James Hayter and Pier Angeli as the star, singing at a night club. With some threads of the intrigue in her hand, but she says nothing. This muddled up murder mess ends up in a chase for a couple trying to get away, and here is perhaps the most interesting acting performance - Anthony Newley, still quite young, as the artful pilot chasing the fugitives by air and managing a miraculous landing in the Atlas mountains. Philip Carey has a hard time being driven out of his wits by this murder with several attempts on his life as well, but no one can guess the real story behind this intricate jealousy intrigue, while everyone lands safely after all.
Fortune Defies Death (2018)
Intriguing gathering of a dysfunctional family
One of them is a psychologist, and he claims to be the expert on fishy family business. The main plot of the story is the reading of a will, written by an old man of 20 million dollars ten years ago with the order that it should not be opened until after ten years. The family gather after ten years, but the main heir, an adopted daughter, has been missing for many years, no one knows where she is or what happened to her, and the lawyer reading the will suggests the others will vote that she is dead or not. All votes except one think she is dead. And then her death is investigated. This is very much like an Agatha Christie mystery, all gathered together to solve a mystery murder, but this is America, so there is not only poison but also guns are pulled and used, so there will be more deaths before anything is solved. Some may like it, others may not. The music is excellent though, and that's what kept up my interest the whole way. The actors are all good enough but no one especially outstanding. On the whole, it is good for not being Agatha Christie.
A High Wind in Jamaica (1965)
A remarkable feat of direction
I would call this an impossible film to direct, with all those children and pirates playing around, the pirates getting more hysterical than the children because of their pranks, while Alexander Mackendrick actually keeps the whole polyphonic drama in very firm hands in spite of all its diversions and violently upsetting turnings, just the introductory storm scene when the tempest actually blowing the whole mansion of the family to pieces, is a masterpiece of cinematic innovation. At the same time it is a psychologically extremely interesting drama, especially for child psychologists, as the film shows exactly the natural reaction of the children to everything that happens to them. The pirates were not willing to get all those children on their hands, but once they had them they had to mind them with a vicious circle of consequences to handle, which finally brought them all down. Anthony Quinn is brilliant as captain Chavez, and he does get the last laugh.
The Night Runner (1957)
Love among the ruins of a wrecked life
This is psychologically interesting, since it delves into the mind of a recently released mental hospital patient, who was reluctantly released by his psychiatrist who didn't consider him cured well enough, but his colleagues insisted on the release, so our man got his chance. Did he succeed in becoming a normal person again? He probably would have if the jealousy of a blundering father hadn't interfered, when he fell in love with his daughter. A case like this needs some delicacy in handling, which the father was incapable of. He didn't get what he deserved, but our over-sensitive nervous patient of some liability might have cured himself in taking responsibility for his consequences. It is a beautiful low-budget film with a booming sea and exquisite music all along, so it deserves being considered as something more than just a B-melodrama.
Sea Fury (1958)
Waiting for the storm that finally breaks out with a vengeance
The final sequence of this film, of saving a ship in distress with very dangerous high explosive cargo, is very reminiscent of Powell-Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death" ten years earlier, where the final sequence was the dismantling of a booby-trap. It's the same supreme tension here, while here many lives are depending on getting the explosive cargo out of the ship, which is a very risky operation demanding very hard work under full storm. I always liked Stanley Baker's films, he always made them better than they really were, although he certainly was no dashing good-looking film star crushing any hearts but rather a grim silent tough die-hard with nothing attractive about him. Victor McLaglen gives a final bow here and makes a full brilliant show of it more often with bottles than without. Among the others you notice Robert Shaw offering some rivalry, Rupert Davies and a very young Barry Foster with no red hair, since this is in black-and-white. It's a magnificent adventure film with authentic north Spanish sceneries and exquisite guitar music all the way, but the best scene is when Victor McLaglen can't really hold back when his intended bride is changing clothes for something risqué. Especially in that scene McLaglen demonstrates the full scope of his uniquely personal art of acting.
Beyond Betrayal (1994)
A terrorist in marriage
Richard Dean Anderson makes a very gruesome part here as a police officer totally obsessed by his wife, whom he cannot leave in peace although she goes at any length to shake him off her life. There are bothersome lacks in coherence in this horror thriller which includes some random murders that are not logically explained. Susan Day as the harassed wife constantly brought to the brink of nervous collpase is pretty and has to fight hard to withstand all the horrible trials brought upon her by her desperately loving husband. No happy ending and they lived happily ever after here, on the contrary, the abyss constantly broadens and gets worse, and then the ending does not quite make sense either. The script is a bit thick, the atrocities keep mounting, and you don't want to watch all this again.
Il cielo è rosso (1950)
Survival in a Tarkovsky-like landscape of war
This is a very stylistic and almost surrealistic Italian neo-realistic drama from the last days of the war. The city without a name is bombed out, all you see of it is ruins, but in these ruins the remnants of people try to survive by any means possible. An American jeep picks up a boy who has run away from his seminary in a desperate search for his home among the ruins, but all he finds is death. A large part of the ruined city is out of bounds because of the infection risk since there are too many corpses still lying around. But even here people risk their lives for anything to eat. The boy is taken care of by a small company of outcasts, Anna Maria Ferrero in her first role as a delicate sickly girl, the company being supported by a burglar and a prostitute who plan to marry, but he is killed. There is a small girl also who never says anything as she is in a constant state of shock. The boy is played by Mischa Auer Jr, he is only 16 years and makes a gripping performance of a very young man who is faced by the facts of life in the ruins of the war. The story is by Cesare Zavattini, who wrote most of the scripts for Vittorio de Sica, and his name is a definite warrant for a noteworthy film. The music is very peculiar. The female lead is the beautiful Marina Berti.
Thicker Than Blood (1998)
Can you ever trust a lady again after having fooled you over and over again?
True stories are always invaluable when they are reconstructed on film. The great actuing qualities of both Peter Strauss and Rachel Nicotin add to the convincing authenticity of the story, which must touch the hearts of any viewer, especially parents. There is not much drama here, no violence, only emotional passions, especally on the part of the father, and the general mood of the film is rather languid and soft. The one contrast in the drama is the surprise entrance of the biological father, who makes a rather bizarre supporting figure bordering on the ridiculous, underlining the obvious syndrome of an unnatural mother. The question is how the husband could trust such a mother at all, with her cocaine fallacy and spurious past, and who never told her husband anything, but he still gave her a chance with very interesting consequences.
Black Widower (2006)
An incredible way of disposing of one's wives
Who could believe anything bad about this brilliant businessman, an executive at General Motors, a golden boy admired by everybody and who had an amazing way with women, but when his third wife dies by just dropping off after a night of orgies there has been one dead wife too much, since all of them brought him lots of very much desired money by their demission. But how did he do it, if he did it? That's the object of the investigation here, and there are a lot of flashbacks into his past and his past wives, and two of those cases were never resolved or even reopened. But the third one was just one too many.
Il mondo dei miracoli (1959)
An odyssey into Italian cinema life in th 50s
This is like a panoramic documentary of contemporary Italian cinema in 1959. Almost all the leading actors of the day have a part in the film , they are like on parade one after the other, and they almost all play themselves. The story is commonplace: a local actor tires of the humdrum routines of his home town and goes to Rome to do something about his career, where he meets Vittorio de Sica as a director, Yvonne Samson as a film star with whom he embarks on a relationship, Amedeo Nazzari as another important man in Cinecittá, and many others. There are many comic instances, as this is a comedy, especially in the beginning before the Roman venture, but finally he gives it all up and returns to his girl at home, Virna Lisi, very young and beautiful. There are many social activities on the way but no drama, but the value of the film is the thorough and very spiritual insight into the sparkling Italian cinema life of that time.
The Survivor (1981)
Spooks of an aircraft disaster
There is an explosion, the airplane has to make an emergency landing, it seems to succeed, everything comes to a standstill, almost all the passengers are unconscious from the shock, and then everything explodes - 300 casualties, everyone dies, but one man emerges from the plane alive, the pilot, Robert Powell, who always made highly interesting roles, and this is another of them. A girl on the ground who witnessed the whole aircrash gets in touch with him, and they try to work out what caused the accident together. She is very much troubled by the spirits of the casualties, mostly screaming women and children, and she thinks he can help them out. They reconstruct the whole incident and finally arrive at some answers, far too late but anyway. The casualties have been added to in the meanwhile, there is an insolent paparazzo and his girl friend, and finally we arrive at the motive and the source. I have never experienced David Hemmings as a director earlier, but he managed to untie this clot of mysteries rather well in the end, and the old Joseph Cotten appears as a reasonable priest - he was 75 at the time. On the whole it's a good metaphysical-parapsychological film, although slow and meditative, but it does get the airplane flying.
The Garment Jungle (1957)
Brutality taking over the most innocent business of all
The interesting thing here is that it is a seemingly perfectly innocent business of ladies' clothes which however opens an abyss of playing dirty, extortion and violence, murder and intrigue and an utterly unscrupulous inhumanity. When Lee J. Cobb's son comes home from the war he asks his father to join the business, but the father is reluctant to let him in. That's the moment when you start wondering why and begin to suspect some dirty work. The son also wonders and starts to look into the business. He is faced by a possible murder of his father's closest associate, who wanted all the workers to join the union, which his father resisted, but why was he murdered? The film is introduced by the murder scene, which appears as a shocking eye-opener from the beginning with all the appearances of an undoubtable accident as a violent opening of the curtain. The drama that follows displays all the aspects of a classical noir, Robert Aldrich's dramatic hand is behind it all, and all the acting is superb, Lee J. Cobb heading the list in one of his best roles, Gia Scala making an unforgettable performance as the young mother and widow, and Richard Boone as convincing as ever as the spider in the web. It's a great film of brutality and ruthless greed with many casualties which all makes a shocking contrast to the innocence of the ladies' apartment of clothes.
Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi (1950)
Local rivalry between shepherds reaching critical levels
Why was this film not as successful as de Santis' previous film "Riso amaro" ("Bitter rice" with Silvana Mangano)? She was booked also for this film but got pregnant which made her appearance impossible. This is a similar story about simple local people working hard for their daily bread, but the three leading actors are all professionals, and their performances are not quite natural. They try to appear convincingly local, but there is something stilted about their over-acting. The cinematographic character of this film is very like the technique of the silent films, the characters being given unnecessarily monumental emphasis, while the great merit of the film is the many various local scenes of dancing and making merry, the bother about all the sheep, there are goats also adding to the confusion, the local colours are excellent and oustanding, but the melodrama is exaggerated - you miss here the Vittorio de Sica human touch, to make the drama gripping. Instead there is just a provisional happy ending.
Immortal Sergeant (1943)
Bitter memories in worst heat of the war turning out unexpectedly well
It is not as good as "An Ice Cold in Alex" but next to it. It's the same kind of desperately desolate desert with no hope, no water, only the constant peril of the Germans, all lives constantly at stake, and some occasional actual fights. Most of the action takes place in the night, so you don't see much of the arid landscape, fortunately, and there are some moments of relief. The acting is superb by everyone, Thomas Mitchell above all as the sergeant, and Henry Fonda, as the corporal, while Maureen O'Hara sparkles in all her beauty only in flashbacks. These flashbacks actually constitute the main cinematic attraction of the film, because they show the ideal life dreamed about in times of wine and roses from the utter darkness of the abyss of the desperate war situation. It's a Great War film, and the last film Henry Fonda made before enlisting for the war himself.
Island in the Sun (1957)
Life in the tropics at its best and its worst
James Mason and Harry Belafonte are the best actors here, leading the drama in different ways as each other's opposites and political opponents, James Mason foundering on his own fallacy and temptation to jealousy, and Harry Belfonte stuck in his role as a coloured man. Joan Fontaine tries to release him from that self-limitation and -isolation, but in the end she fails. Michael Rennie is the tragical figure here, a veteran from the war with a tragic love story constantly present in his head, and he becomes the only loser, quite unintentionally and as far from being by a fault of his own as possible, while James Mason is the psychologically interesting role here, a typical border line case on the verge of a psychosis, and he actually almost commits suicide. There are other lovers also, Dorothy Dandrige as ravishing as ever and doing quite well, Stephen Boyd not quite convincing as a British noble, Patricia Owens as a perfectly innocent wife in spite of secret meetings, and Diana Wynyard, perhaps the most impressive acting part of all, as the mother with a too well buried secret. It's a wonderful film graced by splendid photography all the way, Harry Belafonte at home contributing an original Caribbean song, the local people also playing an important part, even Dostoyevsky is given some room with his "Crime and Punishment" parallel case, so this could be the best of Caribbean films.
Night of the Demon (1957)
The peril of engaging the devil
Whatever you may think about this kind of mumbo-jumbo involving demonology, devil worship, the magic of runes, hypnosis, a seance, necromancy and magical books and all sorts of parapsychological phenomena of some unexplainable character, this is well and professionally made, and Tourneur was known for making reliably efficient films. The story here is about a certain cult master who manipulates his victims into anything and more often than not inspires them with unspeakable terror, so that one actually jumps out of a window and kills himself out of sheer terror. Naturally there are karmic laws even governing such occult prophets, and his own demon finally catches up with him. Maurice Denham only introduces the film but most effectively, while his niece Peggy Cummins carries on the plot and tries to convince the American lecturer Dana Andrews of the facts of the occult used as a menace, while he is stubbornly rational and hard to convince. Jacques Tourneur never wanted to show the demon himself, and the film would certainly have been more efficient if its presence only was developed gradually, but the producers as always had to think of the box office.
My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story (1998)
The struggle for justice beyond the grave
This is a murder mystery from real life, which after forty years still hasn't been satisfactorily solved to all parts. A successful surgeon happily married with a son one morning finds his wife brutally murdered with blood all over the place in 1954, and everything points to him as the murderer. He is prosecuted and condemned for life in prison, but after ten years a high court declares the trial invalid and he is released. He tries to get back to his work, but nobody wants him, since he is branded by the fact of his ten years in prison, and declines to baser activities and to drinking. Gradually he drinks himself to death.
Meanwhile his son grows up and decides to do everything he can to solve the murder mystery and get his father exonerated, although he is already dead. By new evidence of the DNA technique he succeeds, but it is well too late after forty years. This spectacular case made history and a breakthrough in the use of DNA at difficult trials, but the son is still struggling to get his father acknowledged as innocent by all parts. It is a wonderful story of a relationship between a father and a son, and the film has succeeded very well in finding the right touch. It's almost a documentary tragedy, as nothing can bring back the father and his lost honour, but this is a criminal case of almost universal significance.
Alvarez Kelly (1966)
Cattle thieves on a monumental scale
It is 1864 and towards the later part of the civil war, and both sides are starving and have to eat. William Holden as Alvarez Kelly gets a commission to bring 3000 cattle from Mexico to Virginia, a well paid job, but there is a complication: the transport is intercepted by the confederates, who also badly need something to eat, led by Richard Widmark with one eye. He kidnaps Kelly and forces him to cooperate in bringing all that cattle to Richmond instead, an impossible enterprise, as Richmond is practically surrounded by Grant's troops. So this is a grand adventure all about cattle. The most interesting detail of the film is the interplay between Holden and Widmark - by this film they ended up best friends, and you can follow how their friendship slowly is developing during the film, mostly at gunpoint. Although a major part of the film is rather slow, you have to wait patiently for some action, but when it fires off you will have too much of it. Poor cows. There will be many casualties among both cows and men, but the enterprise is actually carried off against all impossible odds, even president Lincoln being so impressed by it that it made him crack a joke.
L'ira di Achille (1962)
Homer rewritten for the cinema: "That scoundrel dog Agamemnon..."
There have been many films made on Homer's Iliad, they are all generally excellent, but this one is different, and the most interesting thing about it is that it actually perhaps better than any of the others succeeds in capturing the Homeric spirit off the Iliad, with all its ruthless battles and bloodsheds, giving perhaps a truer picture of the drama than any of the others, especially concerning the psychology. Gordon Mitchell is excellent as Achilles, perhaps the best ever, and so is Jacques Bergerac as Hector, for once they here actually appear as each other's' equals. Homer's original has been severely tampered with of course, much is missing of the most important parts of the tremendous drama, but as a cineastic interpretation of Homer it is outstanding. I felt inclined to give it 10 by the final scenes of Hector's and Achilles' combat and the gripping last rites of the funerals, but the film ends before the whole story is told: we never see Achilles' death by Paris bow, the wooden horse does not enter, and so the film actually recognises Homer's own limitation of the drama. The cavalry scenes, the horse riding, the battles, everything is perfectly homeric, and the music adds to it, making it a feast for all senses.
The Lorelei (2016)
Another murder around Oxford
This is all totally unrealistic and a mere fantasy speculation inspired by the old German folklore about a deceitful fairy siting up on a rock on the Rhine and cheating sailors and fishermen to founder and sink into the waves, where she takes doubtful care of them. It takes more than just beautiful ladies to make a good film, here the ladies are lovely enough, especially Lorie-Lanie Shanks as Rebecca, but every thing else is missing. The story is absurd and does not hold, the love intrigues are confusing, there is no logic and nothing really makes any sense, and yet it is fascinating and worth following to the end, because that's where things start to happen. It is not much though, and the leading lady just vanishes and leaves everyone behind in confusion. The murder intrigue could have amounted to something, but as the daughter of the lost father who asks the detective to investigate her father's death, proves not to be his daughter at all, the murder intrigue loses its way. There is plenty of sex and provocations of nakedness, but also the horror element is lost in the general wash. The underwater photography is fascinating and impressive, like the whole film photographically, but most people would nod off and find it a waste of time. Well, it certainly is original and should be given a chance.