Category Archive: FILM
The Lost One – A life of Peter Lorre
(Stephen Youngkin) Standard, almost obsessively detailed reference book on the whispering menace. Peter (born: Lazlo Loewenstein) was perfect in the film roles of the 1930s and 1940s, the smartest person in the room but always with a touch of sadness. Peter gets to stroll the green lanes of Paradise for his work in M, Mad Love, Crime and Punishment, Strange Cargo, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca The Beast with Five Fingers, The Mask of Dimitrios, and Beat the Devil. He gets censured for taking work away from actors of certain nations and ethnicities, e.g., Japanese (the Mr Moto films), Chinese (They…
Continue Reading →Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(dir. M Nicholls) (1966) Fortify yourself before attending a party at George and Mildreds’. More Albee-inspired drink and depravity with great overheated performances (a big tick in particular for Sandy Dennis).
Continue Reading →Atlantic City
Image by Bordercolliez
(directed by Louis Malle) (1981) Atlantic City, a style-free Las Vegas with saltwater, is the perfect place for Malle to probe America’s dark corners, with Burt Lancaster (a small time chiseller and errand-boy, seeking an emotional resurgence) and Susan Sarandon (a cocktail waitress down on her luck) playing a great pair of losers. How something so seedy can bloom so sweetly is a tribute to the entire cast and crew.
Continue Reading →The Wages of Fear
(Le Salaire de la Peur) (dir. H.G. Clouzot) (1953) Four men volunteer to drive 2 trucks bearing high explosive over rough terrain to help douse an oil fire. It’s a suicide mission but better than remaining stranded in their no-horse town. Real people and real action, gloriously French and politically incorrect.
Continue Reading →Vertigo
(dir. Alfred Hitchcock) (1958) Hitch’s greatest, weirdest film melds his various obsessions: food, drink, shopping, murder, sightseeing and icy, vacant blondes.
Continue Reading →