Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 6th, 2007
Synopsis
Gary Cooper is a writer who hit it big with his first book, but has been mechanically producing more of the same ever since while he and his wife booze it up in New York high society. When his publisher rejects his latest tossed-off effort, Cooper and wife (now dead broke) retreat to his old family home in the country. There he gradually falls in love with the daughter (Anna Sten) of his Polish neighbour. She herself is engaged (unhappily) to another man. The budding relationship is thus fra...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 3rd, 2007
Synopsis
Groundbreaking is often a word that is simply used too much. People tend to sling it around whenever they find a movie or tv show that is just simply different. However, this is not the case with the groundbreaking show: Cagney & Lacey. It was to show two women in leading roles as police officers solving crimes and getting the bad guys. The show in its first season alone would explore such controversial women's issues as date rape and burnout (which a lot of women du...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 31st, 2007
Synopsis
I’m one of the few who hasn’t experienced the magic of Robert Cormier’s novel “The Chocolate War”, and I was surprised to hear that it was the most banned book for a time (and still might be). When the film came out, not only did I not hear about it, but in 1988 I was in the middle of high school, and I (along with many other people) sure as hell could have used this film back then, not to say that all the John Hughes films weren’t a welcome breath of air into my life.
For those unfamilia...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 31st, 2007
Synopsis
After a whirlwind romance leads to a quick marriage, Gary Cooper’s introduction to his new in-laws ends in fiery catastrophe. The marriage annulled, he returns to his small town home and an earlier romance despite the best advice of father-in-law-to-be Frank Morgan, who wants to save his friend from the horrors of marriage. But when a critical number of months later, Cooper receives word that he is to be a father, and that his former wife (Theresa Wright) is planning on giving the baby up fo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 30th, 2007
Synopsis
Gary Cooper plays the title character, sent by his father on a perilous journey to the Far East to open up trade relations with China. Once in the court of Kublai Khan, he becomes involved in the palace intrigue, falling in love with the emperor’s daughter, and running afoul of evil councillor Basil Rathbone.
Cooper is hardly Italian, but in a film that offers us the spectacle of Alan Hale having his eyes narrowed by make-up to play a Chinese warlord, and Rathbone in shoe polish to...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2007
Prior to Top Gun with Tom Cruise and long before The Guardian with Ashton Kutcher, An Officer and a Gentleman was the film about a hot-headed hotshot military trainee headed for glory or self-destruction.
Starring a youthful Richard Gere (Chicago), An Officer and a Gentleman follows the journey of Zack Mayo, a young man looking to find his place in the world, and to prove he can defy his chaotic, depraved upbringing. His avenue of choice is to become a navy jet pilo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 25th, 2007
Synopsis
Gary Cooper and seven colleagues are introverted academics working on a new encyclopedia. When Cooper realizes this his slang entry is hopelessly out of date, he bravely ventures outside the ivory tower to learn what the new lingo actually is. The most fluent slang speaker he encounters is nightclub performer Barbara Stanwyck. When her gangster boyfriend (Dana Andrews) is wanted for murder, she hides from the police by moving in on the professors, ostensibly to help them with their project. ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 23rd, 2007
Thieves Like Us was never one of Robert Altman’s better known films. It did rather poorly at the box office in 1974, and I suspect it will fare little better on DVD. Certainly there is a bit more interest in Altman’s films with his recent passing, but Thieves Like Us is not a great representation of his work. It is a wonderful period piece, but there isn’t anything worthwhile happening inside that marvelously created world. Altman admits there were extreme cuts, over 45 minutes, made to the film. Perhaps that foota...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 22nd, 2007
Synopsis
Cord (Jeff Cooper) is a martial arts expert in a mythical land who competes for the right to go on a quest to confront a legendary master (Christopher Lee) who protects a mystical book. Cord cheats and is disqualified, but heads out on the quest all the same. Along the way he encounters various threats (all played by David Carradine) and a supernaturally talented blind man (also Carradine), not to mention oddities such as Eli Wallach sitting in a barrel of oil as part of long-term project to...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 21st, 2007
Synopsis
To Catch a Thief has a lot going for it. For starters, two of the most marketable faces of their time playing opposite one another, in a film directed by one of the greats of cinematic history. What’s so wrong about that? John Michael Hayes (Peyton Place) adapted David Dodge’s novel, which Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho) directed.
John Robie (Cary Grant, North by Northwest) is a well-known cat burglar who lives in the French Riviera. However, he had left the business...
