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cvonfresin-1
Reviews
Fighting Tommy Riley (2004)
An Overlooked Gem!
Found this film for $5.50 in a bin of hundreds of DVDs in Walmart who tried to get rid of them because they did not sell well. Never even heard of this film before. What a bargain find and what a surprise. By the cover you think that it is just another so so boxing film with a muscular stud on it. The big surprise was the excellent acting of the cast, the sensitive and deep script written by J.P. Davis and the top flight direction of Eddie O'Flaherty who managed to top off this film with only a $200,000 budget. Unfortunately this film was overlooked by the Academy and fell between the cracks since it did not have any big bankable commercial names in it. The soundtrack and photography was also top notch. Apparently there was not enough money left to include any kind of Bonuses or Subtitles on the DVD. As said by another reviewer, Hollywood should be waiting on the doorstep of J.P. Davis who still hasn't done much in films. Don't miss this film even if you are not a boxing fan, which I am not.
Claudio von Fresin
The Searchers (1956)
Regarding "The Searchers" soundtrack.
Enjoyed the film tremendously especially the Vista Vision color photography.
What puzzles me is that they spent so much money with this new technology but nothing on the soundtrack which is only in Mono with a lot of background noise and some crackling. They could at least have recorded it in Hi Fi Mono. It was especially disappointing with such a great score by Max Steiner. Stereo technology was already around way before this picture was made. The new DVD release could have maybe improvised that with Simulated Stereo as an alternative sound track.
Claudio von Fresin