1950 - RIO GRANDE, John Ford, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, soldiers on horseback

John Ford's western film made before The Quiet Man is what would be called a "typical" John Ford western.  Ford as usual indulges himself with scenic compositions of soldiers on horseback, military honor and lots of unspoken domestic drama at an army post in the southwest.

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara are the estranged husband and wife.  During the Civil War, Wayne's character Kirby York, (a continuation of his character from Fort Apache) burned down his wife's family plantation.  Throw in a subplot about fighting Indians who can escape to Mexico, which was an unsubtle reference to the cold war.  Oh yea forgot about The Sons of the Pioneers, a country group who show up occasionally to warble a song or two.

Ford as usual loaded the cast up with cronies from his previous film.  Victor McLaglen plays his usual boisterous Irish Sergeant.  Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr are also present for Ford to kick around.

Ford was one of the masters of scenic black and white compositions so the film looks very good.  Overall, this is a good if typically overindulgent John Ford western.

105 minutes, written by James Kevin McGuinness.

1971 - TWINS OF EVIL, Hammer vampire stuff this time with Playboy centerfolds

One of Hammer's attempts to stay relevant and popular into the 1970's.  Twins of Evil is the usual vampire stuff with the added attraction of seeing twin sisters romp around half or in some cases not even half dressed.

Mary and Madeleine Collinson were apparently the first set of identical twins to romp around nude in a Playboy centerfold spread.  There seems to be something a little distasteful about posing naked with your twin sister for college students and middle aged men to slobber over but I guess I'm showing my middle class small mindedness.

Anyway, the story does move along a quick 90 minutes.  There are the usual witch hunts and vampire biting scenes.  Peter Cushing shows up as some sort of Puritan religious fanatic the sexy twin sisters have to live with.  Cushing is reliable as usual savings these kinds of films. 

The bottom line, lots of cleavage shots of the twin sisters, the usual vampire stake through the heart stuff and bright garish color that Hammer studios was so good at.  It could have ended up a lot worse and in fact it did as Hammer moved into it's lesbian vampire phase with The Vampire Lovers.

87 minutes.

1955 - THE QUARTERMASS XPERIMENT or THE CREEPING UNKNOWN

The first of three Hammer "Quartermass" films.  This one features the American actor Brian Donlevy as the very American head of England's space program!  The plot is about the first flight into space of a rocket ship with three astronauts.  When the ship returns only one of the astronauts remains

Nigel Kneale wrote the original science fiction serial for British television and he was mighty unhappy with Hammer's film version of his story.  The serial was condensed and the ending was changed.  Kneale was also not amused with the casting of Donlevy as Professor Quartermass

Still for a 1950's science fiction film and in particular a British 1950's science fiction film it's not too bad.  The director/co-screenwriter Val Guest might be a little stiff with the story telling but he gets the job done.  For a film which is essentially an alien invasion story, nobody seems particularly worked up about the situation.  Well that's the "stiff upper lipped"  British way.    

Let's face it the British film industry during the 1950's and early 60's weren't especially known for science fiction films or musicals for that matter.  With the exception of the never ending Dr. Who serial which was primarily targeted at children, The Quartermass Xperiment must have seemed like mighty high brow science fiction drama. 

82 minutes

1959 - THE INDIAN TOMB, part 2 of Fritz Lang's Indian adventure epic

The second part of Lang's Indian epic, picks up where part one left off with the lovers, exotic palace dancer Seetha and German architect Harold Berger attempting to escape Prince Chandra the ruler of Eschnapur.  As you can see from this one sentence plot description we are not exactly in the world of documentary realism here.  

As in part one The Tiger of Eschanpur, Lang is playing this extremely old fashioned adventure story absolutely straight.  Lang was working with better budgeted films than he had been given in quite a while.  The result was this two part film that deliberately courted the story lines and situations of the old fashioned adventure epic.

A major highlight of this film is the bizarre cobra dance with a nearly nude Debra Paget dancing in an underground Indian temple which features a gigantic statue of a woman with enormous breasts.  We are now in a strange fantasy film world which is about as fantastic as Lang's Nibelungen Saga.

Fritz Lang's Indian films are probably just to "out of it" and plain weird to appeal to a modern audience used to a Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson spectacle.  However these Indian films are interesting pieces of narrative by a major artist who probably knew more about the art of storytelling then those three could ever begin to understand. 

102 minutes. Screenplay by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou and Werner Jörg Lüddecke.

1964 - THE COMEDY OF TERRORS, horror comedy from American International Pictures

The Comedy of Terrors is the writer Richard Matheson's idea of mixing horror and comedy together in one film.  The veteran director Jacques Tourneur did an excellent job directing this film.  The four iconic actors Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff are fun to watch.  The problem is that this film is more amusing than funny.

Vincent Price is a down on his luck undertaker who has Peter Lorre as an assistant coffin maker who's coffins fall apart.  Price is really pretty good at spinning Matheson's dialog to make it seem funnier than it is.  Price is married to a big breasted blonde who happens to be the daughter of Boris Karloff.  Price has no sexual interest in her a joke that kind of misfires for the film. 

Anyway, Price gets the idea to speed up the deaths of some of the citizens of the town to make some money but meets his match in Basil Rathbone.  Rathbone suffers from some sort of condition that makes it look like he is dead when he actually isn't. 

Richard Matheson was a good writer but even he had some misfires in his career.  It's depressing to see a great director like Jacques Tourneur getting assignments like this towards the end of his career.   

Comedy of Terrors is a pretty good looking production for a cheap AIP picture that was shot in about 10 days.

84 minutes.

1949 - LES SANG DES BETES or BLOOD OF THE BEASTS, a short documentary about a slaughterhouse

Franju's documentary about a couple of slaughterhouses in the suburbs of Paris is oddly intense and poetic.  Franju doesn't look away from the animal killings or the processing of the carcass by the workers in these factories.  The film acknowledges that if the human race wants to eat meat this is the manner in which we will get it, violent, gruesome and very messy.

Sheep are tipped over and placed on a table while workers walk along and slit their throats open one at a time.  The reflexive nerves of their bodies shake while the workers hold these creatures down to finish the job.  Calves get their heads cut off so as not to contaminate the meat with blood for veal. Horses at a rendering plant are stunned to death prior to be skinned and eviscerated.  I might have to rethink this meat eating thing.

I suppose Blood of the Beast could be making some allusions to The Holocaust or the World Wars with their massive destruction of human life, but what I came away with was the almost technical precision that the human race has achieved in killing any living creature.

20 minutes

1959 - THE TIGER OF ESCHANPUR, part 1 of Fritz Lang's Indian adventure film.

Probably one of the oddest things I've seen.  Fritz Lang, towards the end of his career returned to Germany to film this exotic adventure story that he was to have originally shot in the early 1920's.  Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou, prepared the film but for whatever reason Lang was removed from the project.  Forty years later Lang was hired to remake The Tiger of Eschanpur based on Harbou's original script.  Lang's approach was to have his actors play the material absolutely straight with no campy stuff allowed.

The result was an old fashioned pulpy adventure story without a sense of irony.  The critics were completely dumbfounded and gave the film very poor reviews.  However audiences in Europe ate it up and film was a big success.  Lang's decision to treat the material seriously instead of with his tongue in his cheek paid off.

You probably have to be an admirer of Fritz Lang to fully appreciate this film.  All of his themes are present in this film.  Characters fighting against an unseen destiny.  A central figure, in this case the ruler of Escanpur, who is not unlike Lang's famous criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse, controlling the fate of the main characters.  A strange eroticism also runs throughout the film.  The overall result is one really weird piece of cinema.

Filmed in bright rich colors, one can only conclude that Fritz Lang knew exactly what he was doing when he made The Tiger of Eschanpur but was very deep into his only psyche particularly the adventure stories he wrote and grew up on.  The Tiger of Eschanpur has a lot in common with Lang's silent classics with it's deliberate pace and somewhat stilted performances.  A fascinating film.

101 minutes, written by Fritz Lang,Werner Jörg Lüddecke and Thea von Harbou.

2013 - FROM ONE SECOND TO THE NEXT, Werner Herzog's texting while driving documentary is good but mighty harrowing

Apparently the major cell phone providers approached Herzog about directing a PSA about the dangers of texting while driving.  They certainly picked the right man, This is a very good documentary and really tough to watch short film.

Herzog focuses on four different stories the two middle stories in particular are extremely moving.  Herzog is one of the masters of the modern documentary form although I can't recall him making a film which delivers a real "in your face" message about texting while in a moving vehicle.

Here's the YouTube link.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqFkRwdFZ0

Film making as a manipulative emotional teaching tool, extremely well done.

35 minutes.

2013 - A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, 5th in the series

Bruce Willis is back as that Die Hard guy again.  This time Die Hard has to save his son in Russia from some Russian bad guys.  In the last Die Hard movie Die Hard had to save his daughter.   Die Hard's son is really a secret agent working for the CIA.  They have a strained relationship but manage to work together to shoot a lot of Russians.

Lots of stuff gets blown up, people get shot with various guns and automatic weapons.  This is standard action film stuff.  It's getting hard to remember what was special about the very first Die Hard film as Willis rolls into number 5.

The Russian locations are all filmed in very muted and drab colors because everyone knows that the sun never shines in Russia.  The film is a competently made action film with shooting or blow stuff up sequences at pretty regular intervals.  You can almost set a timer since they occur about every 15 minutes or so.

A Good Day To Die Hard made a lot of money in the overseas market.  A film like this doesn't require a lot of dubbing since it is basically Bruce Willis killing very bad people all the time.  This movie doesn't have to worry about translating the unimportant plot or character building stuff.

97 minutes

1989 - BATMAN, first revamping of the comic book character

This film looks a lot more conventional 14 years after its initial release.  Warner Bros. studios hired at the time weirdo director Tim Burton who had made a couple of interesting films like Beetlejuice and Pee Wee's Big Adventure.  Watching the film now it's clear that the studio was calling most of the creative shots not the director.  The film is tailor made for a summer popcorn audience.  It has songs by Prince, lots of larger than life actors like Jack Nicholson and a semi campy tone that almost teeters over into comic book stupidity.

The film tries for the gothic look but the photography is fairly conventional.  This version of Batman actually has a "stop the presses" newsroom which could have come straight out of an old movie. 

The casting is kind of interesting.  Michael Keaton was an unconventional choice for the Caper Crusader but the rubber Batman suit helped bulk him up.  Besides Nicholson there is scenery chewer Jack Palance played a crime boss who tries to give Nicholson a run for his money hamming it up.  Some comedian named Robert Wuhl plays a reporter right out of The Front Page.  Billy Dee Williams and Pat Hingle had nothing parts as Harvey Dent and Commissioner Gordon.

However most amusing is Kim Basinger cast as Vicki Vale a supposedly world famous photographer.  Basinger is fun to watch, she changes her hair style and clothes in almost scene she appears in and it seems like she is constantly screaming, her performance is a real piece of work.

This version of Batman looks positively quaint these days and is probably of interest as an example of a movie studio going to the proverbial well repeatedly with the same character and usually hauling in a lot of money every time.

126 minutes, written by Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren.

1970 - KELLY'S HEROES, very confused genre film

A confused mess of a film if ever there was one.  Kelly's Heroes is maybe a war film or an antiwar film.  Maybe a comedy or maybe some sort of bank heist film.  In any case it all mashes together somewhat uncomfortably.  

The cast is certainly an eclectic bunch,  Clint Eastwood is the leader of a group of soldiers rushing behind the enemy lines during World War II to get their hands on a bank full of gold.  Telly Savalas is the loud mouthed sergeant.  Don Rickles is the supply sergeant feeding them weapons and fuel.  Rickles is playing on his Las Vegas insult comic persona.  The wild card in the bunch is Donald Sutherland playing a late 1960's hippie somehow dropped into a 1940's war movie.  Sutherland is so completely out of character it would be interesting to know who had the idea for him to go down this odd character path.

The director Brian G. Hutton can't seem to figure out the right jokey tone for the film so he resorts to some large scale battle scenes staged by the famous 2nd unit director Andrew Marton  who was always good at blowing up stuff.   

Overall this is a very cynical film somewhat funny at times.  It gets it's entertainment value from being a big production with excellent photography from the legendary Gabriel Figueroa a cinematographer usually associated with Luis Bunuel

146 minutes, written by Troy Kennedy Martin.

1963 - IKARIE XB-1 aka VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

This is a surprisingly good science fiction film from Czechoslovakia based on a story from Stanislaw Lem.  The Ixarie XB-1 is on a mission to seek out life on a distant planet.  The story involves the effects of the voyage on the crew of this spaceship.  

As usual with an early 1960's science fiction film, the special effects are kind of obvious.  I won't say I can see the wires holding the space ship up but the flying through space stuff is a little cheesy. 

The film focuses on the effects of the journey on the crew of men and women and the film is about their interactions with each other.  

Overall well worth the time.

86 minutes, screenplay by Pavel Juracek and Jindrich Polak.

1943 - EDGE OF DARKNESS, very poor World War 2 propaganda film

Class "A" talent in a very bad World War 2 film.  Set in Norway, this film is about the Norwegian resistance in a small town during Nazi occupation.  The film was extremely well directed by Lewis Milestone.  Robert Rossen, one of Hollywood's best writers and future director wrote the screenplay.  Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan two of Warners top stars have the leads and the supporting cast has very good actors like Walter Huston, Judith Anderson and Ruth Gordon.  With all of the talent involved this film is a complete mess.  

Probably the biggest offender is the horrible jingoistic script from Robert Rossen.  The Nazi's are a complete bunch of caricatures, no evil deed is too little for this bunch.  The resistance fighters mouth one freedom fighter cliche after another.  At one point Ann Sheridan is raped by a particularly nasty Nazi and instead of being traumatized by this event she finds time to make a speech about the Norwegian resistance movement.

Edge of Darkness has some impressive camera work and some of Milestone's skillful tracking shots.  The final battle sequence is exciting and extremely well done but can't redeem all of the jingoistic speeches from Errol Flynn, Walter Huston and Ann Sheridan.  Too bad, because they all give pretty good performances.

If you are looking for a well made World War 2 propaganda check out Howard Hawk's Air Force instead.

119 minutes.