1986 - BAND OF THE HAND, another forgotten action film

This film has the distinction of having Michael Mann as the executive producer who was the next big thing thanks to his trend setting TV series Miami Vice.  Well when you're that hot you can get a film, the chosen film was this under performer, Band of the Hand.  

The story is basically a rehash of The Dirty Dozen this time it's juvenile delinquents instead of convicts who need to be rehabilitated. Apparently law enforcement needs them to kill a lot of Miami underworld tough guys instead of Nazis.  Since Mann filmed his series Miami Vice in Miami he had the facilities to shoot this story in the same style he used on his TV show.

 

The end result was actually kind of tepid the movie seems stylish enough but the cast of young nobody actors doesn't make much of an impression and this seen it before plot doesn't help matters.

 

The film was directed by actor turned director Paul Michael Glasser.  White guy actor Stephen Lang is the leader of the group playing a Native American.  James Remar who played lots of bad guys plays the head bad guy.  Laurence Fishburne is the jive talking drug dealer.  You the picture.

Written by Leo Garen and Jack Baran.  The running time is 110 minutes. 

1987 - STAKEOUT, popular comedy thriller from the 1980's.

This buddy cop film was very popular at the time of release.  The critics gave it fairy decent reviews and it made good money for Disney Studios.

The plot is sort of a mash up of Hitchcock's Rear Window. Two cops played by Richard Dreyfuss and Emilo Estevez are on a stakeout at the home of a former girlfriend of a dangerous escaped convict.  The girlfriend just happens to be a real knockout and the Dreyfuss character manages to meet her and eventually sleep with her.  The last part of the film is an action climax with the cops taking on the escaped convict.

Richard Dreyfuss was at the peak of his career as a movie star.  He essentially played a cocky smart ass in film after film.  Emilio Estevez was probably at about the height of  his popularity and was considered a member of "The Brat Pack," a group of young actors that the press usually heaped scorn on.  In this film they both wear what can charitably be called "porno star mustaches."  The female lead was played by an actor named Madeline Stowe who naturally has to show some skin.

The film was produced by Disney's Touchstone division which released mildly R rated films without the Disney label on them.  A clever trick.  The director John Badham was a good studio craftsman who had bailed out Saturday Night Fever a film that was in chaos during production.  Needless to say Saturday Night Fever was very popular.

 

Stakeout is what you could call a crowd pleasing somewhat contrived studio production.  It has action, comedy and some leering sex jokes but it's all presented in a way so as to not offend the 80's audience.  It's kind of dated and really not that good, a time killer of a film for the most part.  Nothing special to see here.

The film was written by Jim Kouf, the running time is 117 minutes.

2006 - THE BLACK DAHLIA, extremely disappointing film from Brian De Palms

Considering the expensive look of this film, the impressive photography and the involvement of Brian De Palma, this film is a major disappointment.

The film is based on the true murder of a woman called Elizabeth Short in 1947 Los Angeles a still unsolved crime.  The author of the novel James Ellroy took the factual aspects and wove them into a fictional narrative of a couple of LA PD homicide cops who attempt to solve the crime. The director Brian De Palma was clearly trying to make a 1940's crime thriller along the lines of Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep or Out of the Past, but something seemed to go completely wrong the pacing and storytelling is all off.

The screenplay is a convoluted mess extremely difficult to follow.  The casting is completely wrong.  Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart may look like 1940's characters but they seem completely unable to get a handle on their characters, the writing certainly doesn't help them.  Even De Palma who is a technically brilliant filmmaker good at mixing eroticism with violence seems constrained.  The film has a few standout scenes but for the most part it's just a matter of setting up the shots and letting the confused story roll out.  Hate to harp on the screenplay but it does seem to be the major issue with this film.  It's hard to believe an experienced filmmaker like DePalma didn't recognize the problems with the story.

 

Apparently the original cut of the film was three hours which according to the author James Ellroy played very well.  However the studio financing the film insisted that it be reduced to a running time of two hours.  It's hard to know the truth since I doubt anyone will ever see the original three hour version of this film.  

 

The Black Dahlia kind of represents the end of the line for Brian De Palma.  He makes a couple of indifferent films in Europe after this, but this film puts him in what film critics like to call "directors jail."

The film was written by Josh Friedman, the running time is 120 minutes.

2017 - LOGAN LUCKY, an amusing heist film

The director Steven Soderergh must have a thing about making heist films, because he has sure done enough of them.  Oceans 11, Oceans 12, and Oceans 13 are the three that come to mind and Logan Lucky would be on a list with those films.  However Soderbergh manages to tweak the heist genre with  some amusing ideas.

The film is set in West Virginia as I recall and the plot involves two southern brothers played by of all actors, Adam Driver and Channing Tatum. The brothers conceive of a plan to rob a NASCAR racetrack during an actual race.  They recruit a convict called Joe Bang played by of all people British actor Daniel Craig to help them execute their plan.  Joe Bang has a couple of goof ball red neck brothers who also get involved in the heist as well. Also a quick shout out to Riley Keough (Elvis Presley's granddaughter) playing a hair dresser who appears to specialize in big hair styling at her beauty salon. The overriding joke in this film is that these supposedly stupid red necks are actually a lot smarter than they seem. 

Soderbergh is good at setting up the mechanics of the NASCAR heist and he has his cast play the whole thing in an amusing deadpan southern style.  Soderbergh is also a good director and a great story teller.  He never lets the camera get caught up in stylistic tricks at the expense of the film's story.  The film is very entertaining.

 

The film was written by Rebecca Blunt, the running time is 119 minutes.

1047 - BORN TO KIll, film noir with one fascinating performance

A lot of critics and film buffs are fascinated with this rather violent noir film.  It is an unusual film for gentleman director Robert Wise and looking over his filmography it does stick out as something different in his career. 

However for this viewer I found the film's plot ridiculous and the dialog rather stilted. Wise's direction isn't much to behold except for a couple of murder scenes when he rises to the occasion otherwise it's point and shoot for the most part.  Only in these kiling scenes does Wise show much enthusiasm for what he's doing and it could be argued that they are are very influenced by his former producer, Val Lewton.

Let's get to the cast, Claire Trevor is once again the femme fatale scheming to steal her step sister's inheritance.  Her step sister has married Lawrence Tierney who is a very bad guy to put it mildly, he kills a couple of people at the beginning of the film almost as a whim.  The great character actor Elisha Cook Jr shows up and you know he's gonna be toast.  There is a private detective played by Walter Slezak running around blackmailing everyone.  Slezak gives the best performance in the film.

 

I honestly don't think this is a very good film but it what it has going for him it is the performance of Lawrence Tierney who is as scary on the screen as he was in real life.  The guy is simply compelling to watch and considering his violent off screen shenanigans you almost expect him to attack and kill the cast and for that matter the production crew.  His performance alone in Born to Kill makes it worth having a look at.

 

The film was written by Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay, the running time is 92 minutes.

1947 - RAILROADED, early Anthony Mann film

 An early film made near the start of Anthony Mann's career.  The film was shot at the PRC studios (Producers Releasing Corporation), one of the cheap-o studios in the Hollywood that churned out second feature films.

 

Railroaded is apparently based on the same story that was filmed in 1948 as Call Northside 777 at 20th Century Fox.  The film has a very small budget but a fairly decent cast.  John Ireland is the unredeemable bad guy who robs a bookmaking operation and frames an innocent man for the crime.  

Hugh Beaumont is the cop on the case.  Beaumont didn't really gain popularity in the entertainment business until television took over as the public's major outlet for entertainment. Beaumont was chiefly remembered for playing the father, Ward Cleaver on the Leave It To Beaver series.  

  

Anyway Anthony Mann directed and if you are looking for some signs of his talent as a filmmaker you will have to look real hard.  The film isn't anything special and Mann probably had his hands full just getting the scenes filmed considering the next to nothing production budget.

The film was written by John C. Higgins and Gertrude Walker, the running time is a quick 72 minutes.

2015 - VETERAN - a great Korean cop film

Well every one who has watched a cop film has seen this plot before.  An innocent man is almost killed by a vicious crime lord who wields so much power he is able to stop the police and the media from investigating it. But a loner cop who doesn't mind breaking the rules is on the case and through hell or high water he's gonna solve it.

Veteran is almost a throwback to the American police actioner films of the 1980's and for that matter the 1990's.  Films like Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, To Live and Die in LA etc.  Hollywood just doesn't seem to be able to make these films anymore for whatever reason.

 

Veteran picks up the slack.  If has lots of smart and exciting action set pieces along with some clever comedy bits.  The film also has a very hissable bad guy who you know will get what's coming to him.  The film even has an exciting car chase and when was the last time anyone saw a good recent car chase?  The Koreans have been producing excellent cop films like Memories of Murder, Mother and I Saw the Devil, maybe time for Hollywood to step it up a bit. Again a very enjoyable crime/action film.

 

The film was written by the director Ryoo Seung-wan who apparently specializes in these types of films. In fact he sticks in a tribute to Walter Hill's The Warriors.  The running time is 123 minutes,

1973 - THE LONG GOODBYE, Altman does Chandler

Quirky and mostly noncommercial director Robert Altman takes on the detective genre.  Altman was always game to try something different, so why not a Raymond Chandler mystery set in Los Angeles. Altman and his screenwriter Leigh Brackett updated the Chandler novel from the 1940's to the 1970's but kept Philip Marlowe as a more of a 1940's character rather than a contemporary private detective.

As always with Altman there was the usual cast of his favorite characters, Elliot Gould, Henry Gibson, Nina Van Pallandt and in a rather small part, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The director Mark Rydell played a very scary crime boss named Marty Augustine and Sterling Hayden an interesting actor was cast as an alcoholic writer which was apparently typecasting when it came to him.

The screenwriter Leigh Brackett had started her career working for Howard Hawks on 1946's The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart playing Philip Marlowe.  Brackett had been around quite a while but apparently she got along very well with Altman. 

This is a typical Robert Altman film with lots of improvisation, his famous multilayered dialog, an interesting visual style from the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and music from mister Star Wars composer himself John Williams One of the best jokes in the film is the title song constantly repeating itself in different versions throughout the film.

 

This is one of Altman's best films.  The mystery is actually fairly easy to follow as long as you pay attention to the overlapping dialog in the soundtrack and it's probably as authentic a picture of 1970's Los Angeles that you are going to get.  But as usual with an Altman film it was a commercial failure. With the exception of MASH, Altman was never a guy you could count on to for a money making feature film.

The running time is 112 minutes.

1968 - DUFFY, journey back to the swinging 60's

A couple of actors that would probably be identified as charter members of the swinging 60's, Susannah York and especially James Coburn show up in one of those elaborate heist films that were kind of the rage for a while.  

The swinging 60's, particularly swinging 60's London probably only existed in the minds of entertainment reporters and TV and movie executives.  The era was frequently marked by a contempt for all things and members of the establishment, especially the older generation. Never mind that this group of 20 and 30 somethings were going to eventually age out and join their elders.

 Duffy has Coburn at his most zany, living in a hipster pad in Tangiers that is decorated with lots of weird artwork and stuff.  Duffy gets involved with a couple of brothers who want to rip off a bunch of money from their father played by the always reliable actor James Mason who in a lot of ways is really the most interesting character in the film.

 

Susannah York is one of the "birds" slang for a woman, of the brothers.  York was always a likable performer and exuded an appealing English sex appeal.  She turns up in a lot of films during the 60's and if you needed an English "hottie" you would hire her.

 The big caper takes place on Mason's yacht and it's reasonably clever the way they get the money off the boat.  The film has one of those twist endings that were popular.  I write it a lot in my posts but this is basically a decent time killer of a film.

Written by Donald Cammell and Harry Joe Brown Jr., the running time is 101 minutes.

1994 - PULP FICTION, still very entertaining

I probably haven't seen since Pulp Fiction since it was first released around Christmas time in 1994.  That was back when after spending the Holidays with your family you were desperate to get away from them for a couple of hours by running out to a movie.

Pulp Fiction was Tarantino's follow up to Reservoir Dogs a film which got him attention from the critics and the audience.  Pulp Fiction really cemented his reputation as the preeminent maker of cool guy films.  In spite of a few slow moments the film still holds up and is still incredibly entertaining.

Tarantino put together an impressive cast anyway you cut it.  Samuel Jackson is great as the philosophy spouting killer.  John Travolta's career was revitalized with this film.  Uma Thurman went on to work with Tarantino in Kill Bill Vol's 1 & 2.  Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer all contribute amusing bits to this film.  It's kind of like the actors sensed they had good roles for a change and really ran with the parts when they showed up in film.

 

The film had a unique structure like chapters in a book,  Tarantino boldly jumped back and forth in time something audiences never really saw in a mainstream film. I enjoyed revisiting this film again.

 

The running time is 154 minutes, the screenplay was by Tarantino with a story assist from Roger Avery.

1968 - BLACK LIZARD, a strange Japanese crime film

A very strange crime drama from Japan, this is a an odd ball film if ever there was one.  Black Lizard is one of those master criminals doing a battle of the wits thing with the police, in this case detective Akechi.  The film's plot involves a rich jeweler who's daughter has been kidnapped by Black Lizard who demands a ransom of a diamond worth about one million dollars (1968 money). Black Lizard also likes to take her victims and turn them into statues for or own private museum.

But probably the strangest thing about this film is the casting of the actor Akihiro Maruyama in the role of Black Lizard.  Maruyama was a famous female impersonator, a drag queen if you will.  Absolutely no mention is made of Maruyama as a female impersonator and in fact there is kind of a love duet played between detective Akechi and Black Lizard.  This is a strange film.

 

The film is based on a play by the writer Yukio Mishima who's life was dramatized in the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.  Mishima was quite a character himself.

The film was written by Masashige Narusawa and the director Kinji Fukasaku, the running time is 86 minutes.

1960 - THE HUMAN VAPOR, oddball science fiction stuff

 Ishiro Honda, Toho's original Godzilla director took on this strange hybrid of a film.  The Human Vapor is as the title says, about a man who is given the ability by a scientist  to turn himself into a gaseous cloud.  He uses this vapor power stuff to rob a a series of banks in order to bankroll a performer of ancient Japanese dance. Simultaneously, the police are after this vapor guy as they try to figure out a way to stop him. So what we have here is a film that combines science fiction with a love story and a crime thriller.

Ishiro Honda directs and I guess he gets the job done in his own way.  Honda never brought a lot of  so called directorial touches to his film.  Honda was a very pedestrian filmmaker, no fancy angles or editing for him.  Honda was always the good company man.  The strange mix of these different genres would probably have intimidated any director.  But Honda soldiers on and gets the job done I guess.

 

Since this is a Toho film, the colors are bright, the special effects are interesting and the love stories between the various characters are very chaste.  The Human Vapor is mostly for Toho science fiction film fans, a regular viewer will probably find the film kind of boring for the most part.  

 

The screenplay was by Takeshi KImura an old hand at writing Toho science fiction films, the running time is 91 minutes.

1968 - THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS, one of those elaborate heist films.

One of those elaborate heist films like Ocean's 11, Rififi, the remake of Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12, Ocean's 13 etc. They Came To Rob Las Vegas was filmed by a Spanish director in the United States and Spain.  The cast is certainly very eclectic, Gary Lockwood, Elke Sommer, Lee J. Cobb, Mr. Rififi himself Jean Servais, Jack Palance and Lee J. Cobb.

The story is about a revenge heist where our antihero played by Gary Lockwood decides to steal an armored truck right under the noses of the police and some American gangsters.  Frankly the plot is rather preposterous but just watching how the writers work it out is rather entertaining.

The movie has decent location work, the acting isn't bad, even Elke Sommer gives a fairly decent performance for a change.  The action and the gun play is fairly decent.

 

All and all this is a fairly good 1960's crime film set in Las Vegas but with a kind of weird European vibe to it which I guess isn't surprising since it's an international film production.

The running time is 129 minutes, the film was written by Antonio Isas, Lluis Josep Comeron, Jorge Illa and Jo Eisinger. 

1989 - PETER GUNN, at first you don't suceed try again.

This is the pilot for a revival of the old Peter Gunn TV series from the late 1950's.  The writer/director Blake Edwards had gone to this well once before with a movie version of his old series called Gunn, with very mixed results.  Here Edwards plan was to revive the series for a 1980's audience

Peter Strauss takes up the role of Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams is his girlfriend/mistress Edie Hart.  Peter Jurasik is Peter Gunn's friend Lt. Jacoby who is basically in the story to provide Gunn with information that will move the plot along.  Edwards also cast his daughter Jennifer Edwards as Peter Gunn's ditsy secretary in a lot of pointless and rather tiresome attempts at humor.

If Edwards had cribbed a lot of his plot for the Gunn movie from his TV series, in this version he actually uses scenes from the Gunn movie in this TV pilot, this is getting a little confusing.

 

Peter Strauss is actually pretty good as Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams does the smoldering girlfriend part about as well as can be expected.  The plot is the old corrupt cops story line with Peter Gunn sorting out who is killing who. 

 I'll give Edwards credit in this version of Peter Gunn he went back to the original series's 1950's setting.  He also loaded enough action to keep the viewer watching.  However ABC decided not to pick up the pilot for a TV series.  There have been no more versions of Peter Gunn since.

The running time for this film is 90 minutes.

1967 - GUNN, attempt to revive an old TV show

The writer and director Blake Edwards decided to bring his Peter Gunn character back from the late 1950's TV graveyard with very mixed results.  Craig Stevens who had played private detective Peter Gunn was as one critic called him the poor man's Cary Grant.  Several of the characters from the original television show notably Herschel Bernardi and Lola Albright didn't return.  In the case of Albright, she was deemed to old to play Peter Gunn's girlfriend.

Blake Edwards mostly known for his comedies had pretty good luck with his noir film Experiment In Terror so tacking a private eye mystery shouldn't have been to hard for him.  However the film is very lazy.  Edwards clearly cribbed a lot of plot points and situations from his old series.  Edwards fascination with cross dressing also shows up in the film.  Edwards was clearly going for a noir feel to Gunn.  Many scenes are filmed at night and with everyone running around in dark suits, at times it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Gunn is an OK time killer from a director who is coasting with this picture.  Perhaps there was an interesting idea for a film rolling around here, maybe something like having a 1950's character trying to adapt to the changing 1960's.  But clearly this wasn't explored.

 

Henry Mancini as usual provided the score for this film, he can be seen performing at a piano in a nightclub scene.

The film was written by Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty, the running time is 93 minutes.

1986 - RUNNING SCARED, standard buddy cop film stuff.

There's nothing particularly wrong with this buddy cop film from the 1980's but it's not that special.  Comedian Billy Crystal and dancer Gregory Hines are the usual buddy cop team running around Chicago busting heads.  After taking a vacation down in Key West, Florida they decide to retire from the Chicago PD and run their own business in Florida.  The film deals with the two cops trying to finish out their time as cops before they retire without getting themselves killed.  Hence the title Running Scared.

This film was directed by Peter Hyams and per usual photographed by him as well.  It's one of Hyams rare films where he doesn't have a story or screenplay credit. The action scenes are fairly well staged particularly a chase on the famous Chicago "L" line and a shoot out in a high rise towards the end after Crystal's ex wife played by former model Darlanne Fluegel, is taken hostage by some (what else) evil drug kingpin.

 

Crystal and Hines seem like an odd pair to be playing cops but I'm going to assume the thought was to cast against type.  The actor Jimmy Smits early in his career is in the cliched role of the Hispanic drug dealer, it's all fairly standard stuff when you get right down to it.  However the actors do a fairly decent job with their roles.

No great shakes as a film but not bad.   It was written by Gary DeVore and  Jimmy Huston,  the film runs 107 minutes and was moderately successful.

1990 - QUICK CHANGE, a funny crime comedy

A film tailor made for Bill Murray's deadpan comedy talents.  Quick Change tells the story of a disgruntled city employee in New York who pulls off a bank robbery with his best friend and girlfriend. As he tries to get out of New York with the loot he is pursued by a police chief played in this case Jason Robards Jr., and thwarted at every turn by the residents of New York City

This is a funny film with clever situations and a good cast of supporting actors to play off of Murray.  Robards an actor not always known for comedy ( he performed in plays written by Eugene O'Neill for god sake) matches Murray as the harassed Chief of Police.

 

This comedic nightmare version of New York was photographed by Michael Chapman who had previously shot another nightmare film about New York, a little film called Taxi Driver.

 

Murray co-directed the film with the screenwriter Richard Franklin.  The running time is 89 minutes.  The film didn't do very well at the box office, but it is a funny film.

89 minutes.