Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 19th, 2007
Synopsis
In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Robert De Niro may have taken on some more famous roles (like The Deer Hunter and Raging Bull), but he wasn’t shy to experiment in roles with directors like Bernardo Bertolucci (1900), to name a few. And in his first film after playing Jake LaMotta, De Niro plays Des, a monsignor who runs into his brother Tom (Robert Duvall, The Apostle), a police homicide detective.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 15th, 2007
Synopsis
Here we go: all 30 episodes of the first season, wherein we follow the adventures of Flipper, a dolphin owned by youngsters Bud and Sandy. All three are watched over by their father, Chief Ranger Ricks of Coal Key Park. The formula for each episode generally sees either someone who needs rescuing (from drowning, shark attack, that sort of thing) and Flipper must help out, or the boys and the dolphin wind up in trouble after poking their noses somewhere they shouldn’t. It’s all very familiar,...but damn if the show doesn’t still generate a certain degree of suspense with its cascade of predicaments. Also fun is the behind-the-scenes talent. Co-creator and director of many episodes is Ricou Browning, who played the Creature from the Black Lagoon in the underwater sequences of that film. He gets to recreate that role in the final episode of the season, as a monster movie is being shot at Coral Key, and Browning plays the monster (the costume appears to be repurposed version of the one used in The Monster from Piedras Blancas). There are moments in this episode which are deliberate, happier echoes of the original Creature. Curiously, the Creature was played in the land scenes by Ben Chapman, and that name shows up in the credits too as production supervisor, though in this case the name is a coincidence.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 10th, 2007
Synopsis
Produced under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum, Stuart Cooper’s unusual film tells the story of a young private (Brian Stirner) undergoing basic training and experiencing premonitions of his death in the days and weeks leading up to the D-Day invasion. This narrative is intercut with extensive archival war footage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 4th, 2007
When Just Jaeckin's glossy exercise in softcore, Emmanuelle, earned boffo box office in 1974, imitators piled on, and no imitators anywhere were as shameless as the Italians, who began the Black Emanuelle series (note the missing "m"). Laura Gemser starred, and Joe D'Amato directed many of the entries (though not the first). This set offers three.Both the double-"m" and single-"m" series were characterized by the heroine having sex in exotic locales, and the travelogue aspect is most dominant in Emanuelle in Bangkok (1977). Plot here is almost nonexistent. Photojournalist Emanuelle begins to run afoul of political skullduggery in Thailand, but before anything really develops there, she leaves town. The film is little more than pretty landscapes interrupted by frequent nudity.
Emanuelle Around the World (1977) has a bit more of a storyline, though it is still very picaresque in nature. Picturesque as well. Our heroine becomes outraged by the sex traffic of women, and so travels from location to location, exposing the evildoers. D'Amato (who also directed the previous entry) here rather unconvincingly dons a pseudo-feminist stance, but there are moments actually approaching suspense. The sex scenes of both these films are, for the most part, laughable, though occasionally well shot. Any sense of eroticism is thanks to Laura Gemser, whose ethereal beauty and grace are such that she moves through the films as an almost divine presence, above and untouched by the events around her.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 1st, 2007
Synopsis
After serving ten years as a galley slave for having stolen a loaf of bread, Jean Valjean returns to the outside world a bitter man. He is transformed by the saintliness of a bishop who gives him shelter and the gift of the very items he was trying to steal. Starting his life over again, he becomes Mr. Madeleine, highly respected pottery plant owner and eventually mayor. He even adopts young Cosette, whose mother is dying. But the relentless Inspector Javert feels he recognizes Madeleine as ...he parole-evading Valjean, and so begins a pursuit that will take all three characters to a Paris about to erupt in an uprising.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2007
Synopsis
Robert Francis is a wet-behind-the-ears naval officer whose first posting is aboard the Caine, a ramshackle minesweeper. He is dismayed by the rough-looking crew and captain, and when that captain is replaced by Bogart, a by-the-book commander, Francis is initially relieved. But Bogart’s fixations on minutiae are tyrannical and obsessive, his refusal to admit error dangerous, and his behaviour increasingly erratic and paranoid. Francis and fellow officers Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson reali...e that Bogart is unfit for command, and one stormy night, Johnson (the first mate) is forced to take action. The consequences are serious.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 22nd, 2007
Synopsis
The first thing that surprised me when I did some minor research on The Addams Family was that as a show, it was barely on for a cup of coffee, lasting two seasons. Maybe because it was on around the same time as The Munsters shortened its shelf life. However three decades later, the film (and its sequel) helped propel it into fan appreciation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 18th, 2007
Synopsis
Anna Karenina (Vivien Leigh) is married to a rigid and boring politician (Ralph Richardson). Despite herself, she falls in love with the dashing young Kieron Moore. Richardson retaliates by cutting her off from her son. And though having an affair is tolerated by upper class Russian society, the couple wind up challenging convention too far, and Anna finds herself completely ostracized.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 16th, 2007
Synopsis
A young Jane Eyre thinks she is escaping Hell when she is sent from the home of her unloving aunt to a boarding school, but she has simply traded one Hell for another. Despite the attempts of sadistic Henry Daniell, she survives her years at the school with her spirit intact, and, now a grown woman (Joan Fontaine), she goes to work as a governess at the gothic home of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles). She perceives something good behind his forbidding extrior, and finds herself falling in lov... with her haunted employer. But what is the secret in the locked tower?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 12th, 2007
Synopsis
Lloyd Nolan stars in this quartet of films about Michael Shayne. Less hard-boiled than he was in other media, here he’s an inveterate wisecracker and the films are sometimes more comedies than thrillers. Our boy takes his first bow in <>i>Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1941), where he’s hired to keep an heiress (Marjorie Weaver) out of trouble. But when one of the dubious people she’s been hanging out with turns up killed, apparently by Shayne’s gun, the detective must stay one step ...head of the police while he works to solve the crime. Good thing there’s an eccentric, mystery-loving aunt about. Shayne is such a joker and so unflappable that there is no real suspense here, but the entertainment level is high. The box copy implying that these films are noirs is clearly shown up for a lie here.
