Movie Review Roman Polanski’s black comedy thriller, Cul-de-Sac is at last available on DVD to American audiences thanks to Criterion. I had wanted to see this movie for many years and finally got the chance recently. This visually riveting black and white exploration of comedic cruelty and the absurd within tense suspense takes place on Lindisfarne Island, Northumberland (it’s actually Holy Island) and revolves around a mismatched trio. George (Donald Pleasance) is a retired businessman who has sold his factory and escaped to a secluded castle with his younger French wife Teresa...

Movie Review Evocative of a Raymond Chandler mystery populated with sleazy characters and the troubled offspring of the wealthy, Tony Rome is an entertaining whodunit set in sunny Miami Beach. Frank Sinatra stars in the lead role as a former cop turned private investigator who lives on a houseboat (when he’s not placing bets with his bookie) in the first of a series of retro hardboiled detective movies filmed in the late 1960’s. Daughter Nancy sings the title track. When his former partner Ralph Turpin (Robert J. Wilke) calls in a favor to remove a drunk and unconscious Diana Pines nee Kosterman (Sue...

Movie Review   John Frankenheimer’s chilling masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate was the first and remains the best political thriller ever produced by Hollywood. Adapted from Richard Condon’s controversial novel (which I regret to admit not having yet read but intend to very soon), the Manchurian Candidate takes place in the early 1950’s. On the heels of the Korean War, this was a time when the country was in the grip of the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings. While it’s true that there was a certain amount of paranoia and deplorable political witch hunting at this time, it’s also true that...

Movie Review Directed by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause, Johnny Guitar) and dramatically narrated by Orson Welles, King of Kings is a reverent telling of the life of Christ while providing a historic context of the Roman occupation of Judea. Almost three hours long this 1961 version is a perennial holiday favorite. While some critics have pointed out or criticized Jeffrey Hunter’s too pretty blue-eyed Nordic Jesus, Hunter’s performance also comes across as more compassionate and sensitive than perhaps some of the other interpretations by various actors on the same theme. Beautifully shot in...

Movie Review I’m not even sure how to describe this surreal film by Spanish director Luis Buñuel other than as  Buñuelesque  Surrealism. Simon of the Desert was shot in black and white and was the last film in which Buñuel used Mexican actors or collaborated with the great Mexican cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. The protagonist is a Christian ascetic named Simon (Claudio Brook) who does penance and hopes to achieve worthiness in the eyes of God by spending his life atop a column in constant prayer and meditation subsisting wholly on lettuce and water. The character is modeled on Saint Simon...