1972 - FRENZY. HItchcock at 73 years old.

 After a series of not so great to pretty bad films for Universal Studios, Hitchcock managed to put together a fairly decent film.  For a man in his 70's and not in particularly great health this was a considerable achievement.

With a fairly decent British writer in Anthony Schaffer and a very good British cast, Hitchcock returned to London to film it away from the interference of Universal Studios.

 

The film is one of Hitchcock;s "run for cover" films something he had done successfully before, about a serial murder running around London strangling women.  Hitchcock pulled it together for a couple of okay Hitchcockian scenes and the London locations did seem to invigorate his storytelling.

 

Frenzy is not up to some of Hitchcock's greatest films but it is a fairly good film to wrap up his career with,  Family Plot excluded in this case. Running time 116 minutes.

1957 - SWEET SMELLL OF SUCCESS - a classic film.

 A film classic directed by former Ealing studios director Alexander Mackendrick. The film was a commercial failure probably because of all the unlikable character in it particularity the ones played by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.  Audiences weren't used to seeing such nastiness on the screen.

Burt Lancaster is J.J. Hunsecker a columnist based on Walter Winchell a legendary gossip columnist.

The film was shot on location in NYC by the legendary Warner Brother's cameraman James Wong Howe.

Tony Curtis is the manipulative press agent Sidney Falco not above pimping his girlfriend Rita out played by Barbara Nichols.

Among a great cast is a personal favorite Emile Meyer as corrupt cop Harry Kello.

The film was written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, it runs 96 minutes.

1975 - NIGHT MOVES - the end of the private eye genre

 Critics usually cite The Long Goodbye as the end of the private detective film, but I would argue Arthur Penn's Night Moves is really the end of this genre.

Gene Hackman is Harry Moseby an independent investigator who is searching for a missing teenager played by Melanie Griffith who is basically a piece of jail bait in some of the film's most uncomfortable scenes.  Moseby is a smart guy but he gets involved in a case where he is in way over his head.  The film also spends a lot of time on Moseby's troubled marriage.

 

Arthur Penn was a theatrical director who made some interesting films chiefly Bonnie and Clyde.  He never had the big commercial success after that film but his resume has some very quirky stuff on it. This film is certainly one of them. 

 Alan Sharp wrote the screenplay and the film runs 99 minutes. 

1963 - FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE - the 2nd James Bond film.

 The second in the Sean Connery James Bond series, and the film that locked in the series and the character for a while until the later films with Roger Moore became more outlandish.

The film for the most part closely follows the plot of the Ian Fleming book with the addition of adding the criminal organization SPECTRE to the mix. This at times makes for a rather confusing narrative, but the performances of the cast and in particular Sean Connery keep things entertaining.

The film also has the first scene of Bond getting introduced to his "gadgets."  In the case the tricked out attache case from Q branch.  As the series progressed this became a major trope from film to film as the gadgets became more outrageous.

 

Terence Young directed with a lot of the film shot on location in Istanbul.  Richard Maibaum wrote the screenplay.  The film runs 115 minutes.