Category Archive: Classic Film
Five Easy Pieces
(dir. Bob Rafelson) (1970) The great American film about class, a road movie with style and not much plot; towering performance by Jack Nicholson, and others. Jack is from a high-born musical family but he is on the run from them, marking time as a blue-collar guy, spending his beer money on sweet but simple girlfriend (a sublime Karen Black). Then his Dad gets badly ill, he has to head north, and all his class consciousness comes embarrassingly to the fore. Along the way, they pick up two hitch-hikers who act their way into film legend. And remember: “No substitutions”.
Continue Reading →Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans Visage)
(dir. by Georges Franju) (1960) Necrotic facial tissue was never so fascinating. Brilliant (well, in theory) plastic and reconstructive surgeon wants to fix his daughter’s face, ruined in an accident – but he needs replacement skin. That does not bode well for the the pretty young students of Paris…. TVC knows of no scene more chilling than when the callow student is treated to a handkerchief soaked in chloroform…
Continue Reading →Escape From New York
(dir. John Carpenter) (1981) L considers this the best ‘B’ movie ever; P prefers The Boys From Brazil, but it is certainly in the top rank. An auteur effort from Carpenter (also contributing to script and the futuristic Wurlitzer soundtrack) with legendary, over-the-top sneering performance by Kurt Russell as the perverse Snake Plissken (‘Call me Snake’ – ‘OK, Snake’ – ‘The name’s Plissken’) and a great cast including Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Lee Van Cleef, Harry Dean Stanton and Donald Pleasance as the extremely odious POTUS. The ‘sequel,’ Escape from LA, is pretty much Escape from New York with a change…
Continue Reading →Elmer Gantry
(dir. Richard Brooks) (1960) Dr Gantry sets aside his unwanted toasters and vacuum cleaners and returns to where he belongs, in the evangelical business. A sprawling, gargantuan rendering of Sinclair Lewis’ novel, with giant performances, particularly Lancaster as Elmer, Jean Simmons as Sister Falconer, Shirley Jones as Ms Baines and Arthur Kennedy as the journalist following the big tent. “It wasn’t really acting” quoth Burt Lancaster of his performance, “It was me”.
Continue Reading →Edge of Darkness
(Dir. Martin Campbell) (1985) Northern copper Ronnie Craven has picked up his daughter Emma from college and taken her home to eat ratatouille when a loony ex-con and informer jumps out of the bushes and shoots her dead, presumably meaning to kill the father. After (whilst still in?) the shock of this outrage, Craven starts to manifest numerous delusions, probably stemming from post traumatic stress disorder. For example, he thinks he’s a tree! He still converses with Emma. He thinks the murder-gone-wrong was nothing more than a front for a vast, labyrinthine conspiracy by the dark forces of global nuclear…
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