Disc Type

"The year: 1187 A.D. The Saracens of Asia swept over Jerusalem and the Holy Land, crushing the Christians to death or slavery."

The Crusades is the name of a 2023 comedy that was recently released, and it's a comedy in the Animal House tradition, and it's what you'll get if you try to do any quick title searches on that name. But buried beneath all of that beer and vomit, you might discover a more obscure (today) film from 1935 directed by the mythic Cecil B. DeMille. And you won't find any frat parties or beer kegs anywhere in this historical epic. The time and place are the Christian Crusades to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslim tyrant Saladin, the onetime Sultan of Islam. While this is far from DeMille's most enduring work, the fact that we're still talking about it nearly a century later says something for its lasting impression. I'm not sure the latest raunchy comedy will be remembered 100 weeks from now, let alone years. It's another in Kino Lorber's efforts to resurrect the classics and not-so-classics from a bygone era. It's the kind of cinematic history that many of us just can't get enough of. So pop the film into your modern player and find yourself transported to some other place ... and time.

This 1975 Burt Reynolds film is nothing like I expected, and for the most part I’d say that is a good thing. When I first picked up the title, I pretty much expected this to be a fun yet somewhat forgettable action film from the 70s, something in the same vein as Stick or Gator, but instead this is a more complex story that takes many strange twists and has an ending that was pretty unexpected. The film was directed by Robert Aldrich, who was fresh off of directing The Longest Yard and also to his credit directed one of my favorite war films, The Dirty Dozen.  Aldrich is one of those directors who I’d put in the same category as Don Siegel who were just fantastic at directing “tough-guy” films that just oozed testosterone in just about every frame.  In other words, directors that Hollywood would try to cancel in a heartbeat if they were working today. That being said, this is one of those films that is a product of the time it was made, and it has enough offensive moments that would make a modern audience want to stand up and protest, and, well, it’s what makes me like this film a little more than I should.

The film opens up with a bunch of kids having a trip to the beach, and they discover a dead girl has washed onto shore. Det. Phil Gaines (Burt Reynolds) is put on the case that at first seems like an open-and-shut suicide case, but instead it’s only the beginning of a complicated case that delves into the seedy and corrupt underbelly of Los Angeles. When Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson) comes in to identify his dead daughter, he’s not willing to accept that she simply committed suicide, and he then decides to embark on an “investigation” on his own.  The storyline with Marty, oddly enough, is pretty similar to the storyline of the 1979 film Hardcore, where we see a father delving into the seedy underbelly of society and uncovering a salacious career his daughter had before dying. Then there is the relationship Phil is having with a call girl, Nicole (Catherine Deneuve) and one of her clients being a corrupt mob attorney who may or may not be involved with Phil’s case.  This has plenty of the hallmarks of being a cool noir film, but it doesn’t quite deliver in that department, and that is one of the film’s problems. It suffers from a bit of an identity crisis where it simply doesn’t seem to know what kind of a film it wants to be; the tone is simply all over the place.

This remake of the 1936 screwball classic My Man Godfrey very much works as a snapshot of the time and how the wealthy as well as the social elite acted.  In many ways we can still see this behavior on display when we look at some of the modern celebrities (looking at you, Kardashian family) we can view it as harmless privilege or simply an abuse of wealth. Either way, when watching this film, though it has plenty of charm, there is plenty to cringe about when viewing the behavior of some of these characters.  When watching this, it’s best to go into it thinking of it as nothing more than a silly story and just ignore how improbable any of this could actually be. The film opens up with a chase taking place. Irene Bullock (June Allyson) is in hot pursuit of her sister, Cordelia Bullock (Martha Hyer) as they speed through the back streets of New York.  Irene is trying to catch up with her sister who has stolen a goat that she intends on using for a scavenger hunt. It’s when the pursuit is taken to a pier where the ladies encounter Godfrey Smith (David Niven) who is posing as a vagrant but in reality has illegally jumped ship when traveling from Austria in search for a new life. Irene is immediately smitten by Godfrey and how he is willing to stand up to her sister, and she decides she’s going to bring Godfrey in as her “animal” in hopes of winning the scavenger hunt. She then offers him a job, to be her butler, which he reluctantly takes, and then of course more screwball hijinks occur.

Though Irene is a bit of a spoiled brat, she is very charming at times, but my biggest problem is we never really get to see just what it is that makes her fall so easily for Godfrey other than it seems she likes the notion that she found herself a stray off the street and wants to be his savior … though it is quite obvious she needs saving from herself with her behavior when things don’t go her way. If it weren’t for Allyson in this role, I feel Irene would simply be an unbearable character. Then there is the continued feud with her sister. You can almost understand why Cordelia is frustrated with Irene’s antics, but she’s just as spoiled and really doesn’t have to face any consequences for her actions, that is until Godfrey calls her out on it.

"There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water."

We've had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog's Father Hood. It's become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it's a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we're not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I'm talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television's darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television. While their two sons were played by actors on the radio, both David and Ricky Nelson joined the television show, and it went on to make television history, breaking records, some still held today. It was the first television series to ever hit 10 seasons, finishing with 14 still a sitcom record. It lasted from 1952 to 1966, with 436 episodes. Until The Simpsons, it was the longest running scripted television comedy and remains still the longest live-action scripted comedy ever on television. And while the stories were, of course, fictional, most aspects of the show were quite real. Their television home was modeled after their real home. Many of the family's life stories found their way to the series. The four family members were quite real, and you just couldn't fake these relationships.

"This is the territory of Wyoming. The year: 1866. On this soft, solitary day of early summer, men from two different worlds have come together to talk. There is bitterness here, suspicion, and distrust. You remember your friends and loved ones who have been killed. You've seen the bleached ribs of their wagons. And still they come, pushing west with a vision, a vision of farms and of towns of land they can call their own. They come by the hundreds to reclaim the wilderness under your protection, the army of the United States."

George Sherman was one of the most prolific filmmakers in American cinematic history. Between 1938 and 1973, he made over 100 such films, including classics like Big Jake (director) and The Comancheros (as a producer), both with John Wayne, as well as episodes of television westerns like Rawhide with Clint Eastwood and Daniel Boone with Fess Parker in the iconic role that made coonskin hats a fad at the time. He was great at using little known locations to squeeze out extra production value with a limited budget and the real skill of making smaller films; he worked fast and usually ahead of schedule. While Tomahawk might not be one of his better known films, it's actually quite a gem and worth checking out.

"In all the bloody pages of history, no bloody chapter was more bloody than the bloody era of the buccaneers. Over the seven seas the Brethren of the Coast, as these bloodthirsty pirates called themselves, roamed at will. Killing, plundering and looting. Writing their names in blood across the bloody record of time. They were a murderous, bloodthirsty crew who feared neither men nor the Devil. But the bloodiest of all these bloodthirsty buccaneers was the bloody pirate: Bloodthirsty Dave."

There's more blood in that prologue than the entire Friday the 13th franchise. Throw in Michael Myers and Freddy Kruger and you still won't get enough blood. But take heart, mates. The film itself is a friendly spoof of the pirate film, and the only casualties are the ones who died laughing. Donald O'Connor was a kind of poor-man's Danny Kaye, and it doesn't take long to see the resemblance, if not in stature, then in technique. What we have here is a rather silly little story with some high seas action and more than a few laughs.

"Till I run up against you, Nazi was just a word in the newspapers to me. Now it's another way to spell cockroach. Well, this place needs cleaning up, and for the next two minutes, I'm a one-man Board Of Health." 

Lucky (Ladd) runs a New York crime gang. He's dealing with two very big problems. His second, Slip Moran (Leonard) is trying to have him killed, so he employs lookalikes and doesn't let on to Slip that he's wise to his efforts. Also, his number has come up, but it's not because of Slip. It's WWII calling, and he's trying to dodge the draft. His lawyer tries one scam after another, but nothing is working. He even hires an old lady, Ma (Paige) to pose as his dependent mother but blows the scam when he gives a grand a week as his payments to her. There's nothing to be done. Lucky is going into the army, and Slip is going to be taking over the mob.