clanciai Reviews

The Night Runner (1957)

Love among the ruins of a wrecked life

[8/10 · 18 April 2024]

This is psychologically interesting, since it delves into the mind of a recently released mental hospital patient, who was reluctantly released by his psychiatrist who didn't consider him cured well enough, but his colleagues insisted on the release, so our man got his chance. Did he succeed in becoming a normal person again? He probably would have if the jealousy of a blundering father hadn't interfered, when he fell in love with his daughter. A case like this needs some delicacy in handling, which the father was incapable of. He didn't get what he deserved, but our over-sensitive nervous patient of some liability might have cured himself in taking responsibility for his consequences. It is a beautiful low-budget film with a booming sea and exquisite music all along, so it deserves being considered as something more than just a B-melodrama.

Sea Fury (1958)

Waiting for the storm that finally breaks out with a vengeance

[9/10 · 17 April 2024]

The final sequence of this film, of saving a ship in distress with very dangerous high explosive cargo, is very reminiscent of Powell-Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death" ten years earlier, where the final sequence was the dismantling of a booby-trap. It's the same supreme tension here, while here many lives are depending on getting the explosive cargo out of the ship, which is a very risky operation demanding very hard work under full storm. I always liked Stanley Baker's films, he always made them better than they really were, although he certainly was no dashing good-looking film star crushing any hearts but rather a grim silent tough die-hard with nothing attractive about him. Victor McLaglen gives a final bow here and makes a full brilliant show of it more often with bottles than without. Among the others you notice Robert Shaw offering some rivalry, Rupert Davies and a very young Barry Foster with no red hair, since this is in black-and-white. It's a magnificent adventure film with authentic north Spanish sceneries and exquisite guitar music all the way, but the best scene is when Victor McLaglen can't really hold back when his intended bride is changing clothes for something risqué. Especially in that scene McLaglen demonstrates the full scope of his uniquely personal art of acting.

Beyond Betrayal (1994 TV Movie)

A terrorist in marriage

[7/10 · 17 April 2024]

Richard Dean Anderson makes a very gruesome part here as a police officer totally obsessed by his wife, whom he cannot leave in peace although she goes at any length to shake him off her life. There are bothersome lacks in coherence in this horror thriller which includes some random murders that are not logically explained. Susan Day as the harassed wife constantly brought to the brink of nervous collpase is pretty and has to fight hard to withstand all the horrible trials brought upon her by her desperately loving husband. No happy ending and they lived happily ever after here, on the contrary, the abyss constantly broadens and gets worse, and then the ending does not quite make sense either. The script is a bit thick, the atrocities keep mounting, and you don't want to watch all this again.

Il cielo è rosso (1950)

Survival in a Tarkovsky-like landscape of war

[9/10 · 17 April 2024]

This is a very stylistic and almost surrealistic Italian neo-realistic drama from the last days of the war. The city without a name is bombed out, all you see of it is ruins, but in these ruins the remnants of people try to survive by any means possible. An American jeep picks up a boy who has run away from his seminary in a desperate search for his home among the ruins, but all he finds is death. A large part of the ruined city is out of bounds because of the infection risk since there are too many corpses still lying around. But even here people risk their lives for anything to eat. The boy is taken care of by a small company of outcasts, Anna Maria Ferrero in her first role as a delicate sickly girl, the company being supported by a burglar and a prostitute who plan to marry, but he is killed. There is a small girl also who never says anything as she is in a constant state of shock. The boy is played by Mischa Auer Jr, he is only 16 years and makes a gripping performance of a very young man who is faced by the facts of life in the ruins of the war. The story is by Cesare Zavattini, who wrote most of the scripts for Vittorio de Sica, and his name is a definite warrant for a noteworthy film. The music is very peculiar. The female lead is the beautiful Marina Berti.

Thicker Than Blood (1998 TV Movie)

Can you ever trust a lady again after having fooled you over and over again?

[8/10 · 16 April 2024]

True stories are always invaluable when they are reconstructed on film. The great actuing qualities of both Peter Strauss and Rachel Nicotin add to the convincing authenticity of the story, which must touch the hearts of any viewer, especially parents. There is not much drama here, no violence, only emotional passions, especally on the part of the father, and the general mood of the film is rather languid and soft. The one contrast in the drama is the surprise entrance of the biological father, who makes a rather bizarre supporting figure bordering on the ridiculous, underlining the obvious syndrome of an unnatural mother. The question is how the husband could trust such a mother at all, with her cocaine fallacy and spurious past, and who never told her husband anything, but he still gave her a chance with very interesting consequences.

Black Widower (2006 TV Movie)

An incredible way of disposing of one's wives

[7/10 · 14 April 2024]

Who could believe anything bad about this brilliant businessman, an executive at General Motors, a golden boy admired by everybody and who had an amazing way with women, but when his third wife dies by just dropping off after a night of orgies there has been one dead wife too much, since all of them brought him lots of very much desired money by their demission. But how did he do it, if he did it? That's the object of the investigation here, and there are a lot of flashbacks into his past and his past wives, and two of those cases were never resolved or even reopened. But the third one was just one too many.

Il mondo dei miracoli (1959)

An odyssey into Italian cinema life in th 50s

[8/10 · 14 April 2024]

This is like a panoramic documentary of contemporary Italian cinema in 1959. Almost all the leading actors of the day have a part in the film , they are like on parade one after the other, and they almost all play themselves. The story is commonplace: a local actor tires of the humdrum routines of his home town and goes to Rome to do something about his career, where he meets Vittorio de Sica as a director, Yvonne Samson as a film star with whom he embarks on a relationship, Amedeo Nazzari as another important man in Cinecittá, and many others. There are many comic instances, as this is a comedy, especially in the beginning before the Roman venture, but finally he gives it all up and returns to his girl at home, Virna Lisi, very young and beautiful. There are many social activities on the way but no drama, but the value of the film is the thorough and very spiritual insight into the sparkling Italian cinema life of that time.

The Survivor (1981)

Spooks of an aircraft disaster

[9/10 · 13 April 2024]

There is an explosion, the airplane has to make an emergency landing, it seems to succeed, everything comes to a standstill, almost all the passengers are unconscious from the shock, and then everything explodes - 300 casualties, everyone dies, but one man emerges from the plane alive, the pilot, Robert Powell, who always made highly interesting roles, and this is another of them. A girl on the ground who witnessed the whole aircrash gets in touch with him, and they try to work out what caused the accident together. She is very much troubled by the spirits of the casualties, mostly screaming women and children, and she thinks he can help them out. They reconstruct the whole incident and finally arrive at some answers, far too late but anyway. The casualties have been added to in the meanwhile, there is an insolent paparazzo and his girl friend, and finally we arrive at the motive and the source. I have never experienced David Hemmings as a director earlier, but he managed to untie this clot of mysteries rather well in the end, and the old Joseph Cotten appears as a reasonable priest - he was 75 at the time. On the whole it's a good metaphysical-parapsychological film, although slow and meditative, but it does get the airplane flying.

The Garment Jungle (1957)

Brutality taking over the most innocent business of all

[9/10 · 13 April 2024]

The interesting thing here is that it is a seemingly perfectly innocent business of ladies' clothes which however opens an abyss of playing dirty, extortion and violence, murder and intrigue and an utterly unscrupulous inhumanity. When Lee J. Cobb's son comes home from the war he asks his father to join the business, but the father is reluctant to let him in. That's the moment when you start wondering why and begin to suspect some dirty work. The son also wonders and starts to look into the business. He is faced by a possible murder of his father's closest associate, who wanted all the workers to join the union, which his father resisted, but why was he murdered? The film is introduced by the murder scene, which appears as a shocking eye-opener from the beginning with all the appearances of an undoubtable accident as a violent opening of the curtain. The drama that follows displays all the aspects of a classical noir, Robert Aldrich's dramatic hand is behind it all, and all the acting is superb, Lee J. Cobb heading the list in one of his best roles, Gia Scala making an unforgettable performance as the young mother and widow, and Richard Boone as convincing as ever as the spider in the web. It's a great film of brutality and ruthless greed with many casualties which all makes a shocking contrast to the innocence of the ladies' apartment of clothes.

Under the Olive Tree (1950)

Local rivalry between shepherds reaching critical levels

[9/10 · 10 April 2024]

Why was this film not as successful as de Santis' previous film "Riso amaro" ("Bitter rice" with Silvana Mangano)? She was booked also for this film but got pregnant which made her appearance impossible. This is a similar story about simple local people working hard for their daily bread, but the three leading actors are all professionals, and their performances are not quite natural. They try to appear convincingly local, but there is something stilted about their over-acting. The cinematographic character of this film is very like the technique of the silent films, the characters being given unnecessarily monumental emphasis, while the great merit of the film is the many various local scenes of dancing and making merry, the bother about all the sheep, there are goats also adding to the confusion, the local colours are excellent and oustanding, but the melodrama is exaggerated - you miss here the Vittorio de Sica human touch, to make the drama gripping. Instead there is just a provisional happy ending.

Immortal Sergeant (1943)

Bitter memories in worst heat of the war turning out unexpectedly well

[9/10 · 8 April 2024]

It is not as good as "An Ice Cold in Alex" but next to it. It's the same kind of desperately desolate desert with no hope, no water, only the constant peril of the Germans, all lives constantly at stake, and some occasional actual fights. Most of the action takes place in the night, so you don't see much of the arid landscape, fortunately, and there are some moments of relief. The acting is superb by everyone, Thomas Mitchell above all as the sergeant, and Henry Fonda, as the corporal, while Maureen O'Hara sparkles in all her beauty only in flashbacks. These flashbacks actually constitute the main cinematic attraction of the film, because they show the ideal life dreamed about in times of wine and roses from the utter darkness of the abyss of the desperate war situation. It's a Great War film, and the last film Henry Fonda made before enlisting for the war himself.

Island in the Sun (1957)

Life in the tropics at its best and its worst

[9/10 · 5 April 2024]

James Mason and Harry Belafonte are the best actors here, leading the drama in different ways as each other's opposites and political opponents, James Mason foundering on his own fallacy and temptation to jealousy, and Harry Belfonte stuck in his role as a coloured man. Joan Fontaine tries to release him from that self-limitation and -isolation, but in the end she fails. Michael Rennie is the tragical figure here, a veteran from the war with a tragic love story constantly present in his head, and he becomes the only loser, quite unintentionally and as far from being by a fault of his own as possible, while James Mason is the psychologically interesting role here, a typical border line case on the verge of a psychosis, and he actually almost commits suicide. There are other lovers also, Dorothy Dandrige as ravishing as ever and doing quite well, Stephen Boyd not quite convincing as a British noble, Patricia Owens as a perfectly innocent wife in spite of secret meetings, and Diana Wynyard, perhaps the most impressive acting part of all, as the mother with a too well buried secret. It's a wonderful film graced by splendid photography all the way, Harry Belafonte at home contributing an original Caribbean song, the local people also playing an important part, even Dostoyevsky is given some room with his "Crime and Punishment" parallel case, so this could be the best of Caribbean films.

Curse of the Demon (1957)

The peril of engaging the devil

[8/10 · 4 April 2024]

Whatever you may think about this kind of mumbo-jumbo involving demonology, devil worship, the magic of runes, hypnosis, a seance, necromancy and magical books and all sorts of parapsychological phenomena of some unexplainable character, this is well and professionally made, and Tourneur was known for making reliably efficient films. The story here is about a certain cult master who manipulates his victims into anything and more often than not inspires them with unspeakable terror, so that one actually jumps out of a window and kills himself out of sheer terror. Naturally there are karmic laws even governing such occult prophets, and his own demon finally catches up with him. Maurice Denham only introduces the film but most effectively, while his niece Peggy Cummins carries on the plot and tries to convince the American lecturer Dana Andrews of the facts of the occult used as a menace, while he is stubbornly rational and hard to convince. Jacques Tourneur never wanted to show the demon himself, and the film would certainly have been more efficient if its presence only was developed gradually, but the producers as always had to think of the box office.

My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story (1998 TV Movie)

The struggle for justice beyond the grave

[9/10 · 4 April 2024]

This is a murder mystery from real life, which after forty years still hasn't been satisfactorily solved to all parts. A successful surgeon happily married with a son one morning finds his wife brutally murdered with blood all over the place in 1954, and everything points to him as the murderer. He is prosecuted and condemned for life in prison, but after ten years a high court declares the trial invalid and he is released. He tries to get back to his work, but nobody wants him, since he is branded by the fact of his ten years in prison, and declines to baser activities and to drinking. Gradually he drinks himself to death.

Meanwhile his son grows up and decides to do everything he can to solve the murder mystery and get his father exonerated, although he is already dead. By new evidence of the DNA technique he succeeds, but it is well too late after forty years. This spectacular case made history and a breakthrough in the use of DNA at difficult trials, but the son is still struggling to get his father acknowledged as innocent by all parts. It is a wonderful story of a relationship between a father and a son, and the film has succeeded very well in finding the right touch. It's almost a documentary tragedy, as nothing can bring back the father and his lost honour, but this is a criminal case of almost universal significance.

Alvarez Kelly (1966)

Cattle thieves on a monumental scale

[9/10 · 26 March 2024]

It is 1864 and towards the later part of the civil war, and both sides are starving and have to eat. William Holden as Alvarez Kelly gets a commission to bring 3000 cattle from Mexico to Virginia, a well paid job, but there is a complication: the transport is intercepted by the confederates, who also badly need something to eat, led by Richard Widmark with one eye. He kidnaps Kelly and forces him to cooperate in bringing all that cattle to Richmond instead, an impossible enterprise, as Richmond is practically surrounded by Grant's troops. So this is a grand adventure all about cattle. The most interesting detail of the film is the interplay between Holden and Widmark - by this film they ended up best friends, and you can follow how their friendship slowly is developing during the film, mostly at gunpoint. Although a major part of the film is rather slow, you have to wait patiently for some action, but when it fires off you will have too much of it. Poor cows. There will be many casualties among both cows and men, but the enterprise is actually carried off against all impossible odds, even president Lincoln being so impressed by it that it made him crack a joke.

Fury of Achilles (1962)

Homer rewritten for the cinema: "That scoundrel dog Agamemnon..."

[9/10 · 24 March 2024]

There have been many films made on Homer's Iliad, they are all generally excellent, but this one is different, and the most interesting thing about it is that it actually perhaps better than any of the others succeeds in capturing the Homeric spirit off the Iliad, with all its ruthless battles and bloodsheds, giving perhaps a truer picture of the drama than any of the others, especially concerning the psychology. Gordon Mitchell is excellent as Achilles, perhaps the best ever, and so is Jacques Bergerac as Hector, for once they here actually appear as each other's' equals. Homer's original has been severely tampered with of course, much is missing of the most important parts of the tremendous drama, but as a cineastic interpretation of Homer it is outstanding. I felt inclined to give it 10 by the final scenes of Hector's and Achilles' combat and the gripping last rites of the funerals, but the film ends before the whole story is told: we never see Achilles' death by Paris bow, the wooden horse does not enter, and so the film actually recognises Homer's own limitation of the drama. The cavalry scenes, the horse riding, the battles, everything is perfectly homeric, and the music adds to it, making it a feast for all senses.

The Lorelei (2016)

Another murder around Oxford

[8/10 · 24 March 2024]

This is all totally unrealistic and a mere fantasy speculation inspired by the old German folklore about a deceitful fairy siting up on a rock on the Rhine and cheating sailors and fishermen to founder and sink into the waves, where she takes doubtful care of them. It takes more than just beautiful ladies to make a good film, here the ladies are lovely enough, especially Lorie-Lanie Shanks as Rebecca, but every thing else is missing. The story is absurd and does not hold, the love intrigues are confusing, there is no logic and nothing really makes any sense, and yet it is fascinating and worth following to the end, because that's where things start to happen. It is not much though, and the leading lady just vanishes and leaves everyone behind in confusion. The murder intrigue could have amounted to something, but as the daughter of the lost father who asks the detective to investigate her father's death, proves not to be his daughter at all, the murder intrigue loses its way. There is plenty of sex and provocations of nakedness, but also the horror element is lost in the general wash. The underwater photography is fascinating and impressive, like the whole film photographically, but most people would nod off and find it a waste of time. Well, it certainly is original and should be given a chance.

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

All the technicalities and exact circumstances of a very comprehensive robbery

[9/10 · 22 March 2024]

The technical exactness of this extensive thriller is impressing in all its details of surveillance, safe-breaking, long term planning of precision and the very smooth and efficient procedure of this apparently impossible criminal mission, which is carried through none the less, and like in all thrillers of robbery crimes like this you just sit and wait for what has to go wrong, since that's what's has to happen every time. They happen to overlook the smartness of a small invalid boy, who can't move being a cripple in bed, but he has a wheelchair. And as soon as the gang is out of his room he goes by his wheelchair to a secret cupboard where he keeps an emergency telephone, by which he calls the police. That settles it. There will be fighting, there will be casualties, there will be hysteria all over the place, and everything is caught admirably in its minutest detail without omitting anything. It's a wonder of detailed technical work to make an advanced burglary thriller, and you will stay amazed all the way. This was one of several interesting changes for Sean Connery after his parade of James Bond adventures, but this is no adventure with a happy ending and a lovely bride, but something of a formidable contrary.

The Unforgiven (1960)

Audrey Hepburn and Burt Lancaster as brother and sister, finding out that they aren't.

[10/10 · 21 March 2024]

The great John Huston does it again proving himself an enduring and die-hard heavy-weight among directors, and he made many masterpieces to prove this over and over again. It is difficult to single out any one of them for the best one, since they are all so generally first class, whether they be westerns, biopics, African or Indian exotics, noirs or gangster dramas, yet he had to finish his career by returning to his roots in Ireland to make one of the finest Irish films of old Dublin. He tended to lose his tempo by the years, but even his slowest and last films still show that great human interest and passionate engagement in wild human affairs. Here Audrey Hepburn is mated with Burt Lancaster, and they go perfectly well together. Joseph Wiseman as the crazy old cavalier makes one of the most important roles, since he is the one who intentionally triggers the drama. Lillian Gish is another die-hard, one of the greatest veterans of Hollywood and the only female one, and Charles Bickford is always a fine ornament to any film. In brief, this film deserves nothing but the highest rate, and you will enjoy it more for each time you'll see it.

Hour of Glory (1949)

The constantly urgent necessity of dismantling booby-traps and any bombs.

[10/10 · 20 March 2024]

This is not one of the most spectacular films made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, but it is still up to their best standard and perhaps more of a noir than any of the others. David Farrar makes one of his finest performances as a war invalid with an operated leg, good for nothing more in the war but as a scientist in the back room of a laboratory experimenting with explosive stuff. He is seconded by Kathleen Byron, a few years earlier they made "Black Narcissus" and here they meet again but on quite different terms, he being on the verge of tipping over as an alcoholic and she something of a rescuing angel - this is one of her very rare sympathetic roles, while she made herself famous for the opposite kind. There is a bunch of other fine actors as well, Jack Hawkins and Cyril Cusack both still very young here, Michael Gough in one of his first roles and even Bryan Forbes appearing as a young dying soldier and casualty of a booby-trap. The film is especially famous for two great scenes, David Farrar's extreme anguish as he is left alone at home with a bottle which he knows he must not touch, and the final scene, the nerve-racking dismantling of a booby-trap by Portland Bill. An earlier scene also brings us to Stonehenge, and the film is handsomely spiced with generous glimpses of the humour which was typical for Powell and Pressburger. The film is admirably well written, the camera work is as fantastic as in most of their films, the acting is superb, so there is nothing wrong with the film, which almost has the character of a documentary of a crucial instant at the turning point of the war in the fall of 1943, when things finally turned from disadvantage to advantage for the allies.

Arizona (1940)

Pages from the Arizona annals when it was all a wild frontier

[8/10 · 19 March 2024]

William Holden usually made every film he took part in well worth seeing, but this one is most of all worth watching for the sake of Jean Arthur in a role that usually Barbarta Stanwyck used to be brilliant in, but Jean Arthur is almost one inch more impressive although smaller. She shines throughout the film, while William Holden, early in his career, plays the second fiddle but does it according to his his usual maximum honesty. The photo is brilliant, the early stages of the construction of Arizona, Tucson is here but a ghetto of random shanties, but the character and mood of the place is admirably captured and reconstructed. And there is Victor Young's music, mostly endearing arrangements of "Geeny with the light brown hair".

Legend of the Muse (2020)

The weirdest art thriller you have ever seen

[10/10 · 18 March 2024]

There is very much in this that directly reminds you of Roman Polanski's unsurpassed psychological thriller "Repulsion" from 60 years ago, it's the same kind of moods and spooky capriciousness that suddenly explode into horrifying nastiness, and many problems remain when the film is finished. What about all those bodies? There are a number of them, and although you never see them quite dead they just don't disappear. The performances of Elle Evans and Riley Egan are terrific, at first you suspect that the whole movie will just consist of effects, but fortunately there is more to it than superficial artifice, as the legend behind the story is of vital importance and bears heavily on the film. It is gradually revealed by Jennie Fahn as the art gallery owner, who is the only one why understands what everything is all about, which makes her part as important as Elle Evans and Riley Egan. It is a weird story indeed that constantly grows in weirdness to over and over again reach great moments of unexpected turns and shocks. This is a film to remember and grant the same status as Polanski's "Repulsion", but this is all in colour. And being an art film, the red colour of blood is red indeed.

The Swordsman (1948)

Swashbuckle splendour in the glorious beauty of the Highlands

[9/10 · 16 March 2024]

This equals the best of all those Errol Flynn and de Havilland romantic films of spectacularly romantic settings, and although the actors are none of the dominating Hollywood film stars, they do well enough, and James Macready as the villain never played more dirty. The main asset of the film is not the plot or the actors but the overwhelmingly marvellous outdoor scenery mainly with horses racing through one of the most beautiful landscapes ever displayed on film. Larry Parks is dashing enough, and Ellen Drew actually cuts a lovelier figure than de Havilland, while Ray Collins as an old fighter and Edgar Buchanan as an old die-hard also grace the film. Hugo Friedhofer's music finishes the touch of a magnificent entertainment all the way through, a feast for the eyes and a delight for the romantic mind.

Chopin: Desire for Love (2002)

Chopin getting mixed up with a lady with a number of skeletons and passions in her wardrobe

[8/10 · 14 March 2024]

A few films have been made about Chopin, they are all excellent, since the subject demands serious honesty; but they are all American or English. This is entirely Polish, there are only Polish names in the cast, and the crew also seems to be entirely Polish, and it is all filmed on location. As a Polish film about their greatest son it is naturally of great interest, and it is a pleasure to observe that all the actors live up to the challenge: Piotr Adamczyk and Danuta Stenka are quite convincing as Chopin and George Sand, and for once here is a film that includes her children, especially Adam Woronowicz makes a great performance as her son Maurice but also Bozena Stachura as her daughter Solange manages well. You could object to all the sleazy details about their private lives, there might be some exaggerations here, although the film shows a great ambition to stick as closely as possible to the truth. Only Michal Konarski as Franz Liszt is not convincing but is made something of a caricature of, while several important parts are missing, most of all Chopin's teacher (made so prominent by Paul Muni in the 1945 film) and Alfred de Musset (made so real by Andy Patinkin in the 1991 film), and you might object against the lack of coherence in the film, which is rather like a collage of impressions, but the flashbacks are wonderful, and the music, which is all Chopin's, saves the film.

Time Out of Mind (1947)

A pianist forced the wrong way and then finding difficulties getting back on track again

[8/10 · 12 March 2024]

Phyllis Calvert makes a great performance, and so does Ella Raines and actually all the actors, but not only Robert Hutton as the pianist but also the entire film and story seem slightly out of tune - nothing is quite convincing. It triers to be romantic and smotheringly beautiful, but the bell doesn't quite chime. It is difficult to pinpoint what is missing, because Robert Siodmak the director seldom missed a point which he pears tro do here. Maybe he was disgusted by the apparent purpose of the producers to copy the British Gainsborough style of romantic melodramas, as a copy never can match or equal the original. The music by Miklos Rosza is also exaggerated, overdoing pompous melodramatic effects, which adds to the general idea of artificial construction, or maybe the novel behind the film is responsible for this whole story making a stuffed up impression. Or maybe Robert Hutton just isn't convincing enough as a virtuoso pianist going down the drain in alcoholism and then getting up miraculously up again, but at least Phyllis Calvert is convincing as the rescuing angel, which performance is memorable.