adrianovasconcelos
Joined Feb 2017
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adrianovasconcelos's rating
I do not know very much about Director Joseph H. Lewis' work, though I am a great admirer of his 1950 film, GUN CRAZY, widely recognized as his masterpiece.
TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (1958) also touches on the subject of mindless violence by individuals pursuing different goals: McNeil (excellent unctuous performance from Sebastian Cabot as the local tycoon looking to mine oil from the farmers' land) and Crale (played by Nedrick Young, who steals the show as cold hitman for McNeil, not because he wants to make a fortune out of killing but because it gives him pleasure to do that "work", and he wants to keep doing it). Carol Kelly does fine as his lover who wants to leave town and get Crale to stop his murderous ways, but she soon sees that he is incorrigible and finally does the right thing by telling the town what is afoot, and who her lover has just dispatched.
I did not find Sterling Hayden exactly convincing as Swedish mariner Hansen, who returns to his town in the hope of reuniting with his father, who Crale iced three days earlier. He becomes more convincing when he drops the Swedish accent, starts trying to identify the assassin and goes out with his harpoon to avenge Dad and restore righteousness and law to town.
The only performance I would rate below par is that of Victor Millan as Mirada. It is not just his fault, the script should have made him tougher. He readily called for unity against McNeil and Crale, ultimately begs for his life. I found that less than credible but the fault has to be shared with uncredited Dalton Trumbo, then suffering the spurns and arrows of Senator McCarthy's communist witchhunt in Hollywood.
An attractive facet: this low budget film runs only for 77 minutes. The downside is that, in spite of the relatively short duration, its characters keep repeating lines and thoughts that are immediately obvious to the audience.
Competent B&W cinematography from Ray Rennahan, editing by Arnsten and Sullivan.
7/10.
TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (1958) also touches on the subject of mindless violence by individuals pursuing different goals: McNeil (excellent unctuous performance from Sebastian Cabot as the local tycoon looking to mine oil from the farmers' land) and Crale (played by Nedrick Young, who steals the show as cold hitman for McNeil, not because he wants to make a fortune out of killing but because it gives him pleasure to do that "work", and he wants to keep doing it). Carol Kelly does fine as his lover who wants to leave town and get Crale to stop his murderous ways, but she soon sees that he is incorrigible and finally does the right thing by telling the town what is afoot, and who her lover has just dispatched.
I did not find Sterling Hayden exactly convincing as Swedish mariner Hansen, who returns to his town in the hope of reuniting with his father, who Crale iced three days earlier. He becomes more convincing when he drops the Swedish accent, starts trying to identify the assassin and goes out with his harpoon to avenge Dad and restore righteousness and law to town.
The only performance I would rate below par is that of Victor Millan as Mirada. It is not just his fault, the script should have made him tougher. He readily called for unity against McNeil and Crale, ultimately begs for his life. I found that less than credible but the fault has to be shared with uncredited Dalton Trumbo, then suffering the spurns and arrows of Senator McCarthy's communist witchhunt in Hollywood.
An attractive facet: this low budget film runs only for 77 minutes. The downside is that, in spite of the relatively short duration, its characters keep repeating lines and thoughts that are immediately obvious to the audience.
Competent B&W cinematography from Ray Rennahan, editing by Arnsten and Sullivan.
7/10.
Director Steve Carver apparently was deeply interested in photography and fascinated by imagery-creating techniques, but none of that is apparent in BIG BAD MAMA, a 1974 film like BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) situated in the early 1930s Depression.
While BONNIE AND CLYDE is a revered masterpiece, BIG BAD MAMA has no such pretensions. It looks cheaper, the characters and script are less developed, and there is a recurrent emphasis on chases and related accidents. Even photography barely rates above TV quality.
On the other hand, it offers other pluses such as wonderful frontal female nudity, with nubile bodies like Angie Dickinson - certainly one of the silver screen's most beautiful goddesses ever - her screen daughters Susan Sennet and Robbie Lee, and stripper Shannon Christie all making it immensely easy on the eye, and distracting you from not so credible developments like the police getting shot up, or their cars totalled every time, and the felons escaping.
Dickinson has never looked better or sexier, William Shatner has never looked as smug, and Tom Skerritt just about steals the show as Fred Diller (sounds like a shorter version of Dillinger), the bank robber who fires away his pistol, machine gun, and what have you faster than you can wink.
Yes, the film's moral standing is dubious, the finale more than a trifle convenient, but I really enjoyed it, and it certainly had me excited (and not just because of the ladies' physical beauty).
It warrants watching. 7/10.
While BONNIE AND CLYDE is a revered masterpiece, BIG BAD MAMA has no such pretensions. It looks cheaper, the characters and script are less developed, and there is a recurrent emphasis on chases and related accidents. Even photography barely rates above TV quality.
On the other hand, it offers other pluses such as wonderful frontal female nudity, with nubile bodies like Angie Dickinson - certainly one of the silver screen's most beautiful goddesses ever - her screen daughters Susan Sennet and Robbie Lee, and stripper Shannon Christie all making it immensely easy on the eye, and distracting you from not so credible developments like the police getting shot up, or their cars totalled every time, and the felons escaping.
Dickinson has never looked better or sexier, William Shatner has never looked as smug, and Tom Skerritt just about steals the show as Fred Diller (sounds like a shorter version of Dillinger), the bank robber who fires away his pistol, machine gun, and what have you faster than you can wink.
Yes, the film's moral standing is dubious, the finale more than a trifle convenient, but I really enjoyed it, and it certainly had me excited (and not just because of the ladies' physical beauty).
It warrants watching. 7/10.
Baltasar Kormarkuk is the Reykjavik-born Icelandic director of BEAST, a film purportedly shot in Africa featuring an African-American US family on safari, with Martin Munro as the white South African guide who enjoys cuddling it up with lions.
Inevitably, for the story to make any sense and keep the viewer interested, you need to usher in an evil element, and in this case it is a male lion that likes to attack humans.
Unfortunately, you can tell immediately that the lion is a CGI creation, which blows realism right out of the observation car, as the feline and his massive, furry paws walk all over the sunroof, to the hysterical fear of the family. I suppose in Iceland you only see a lion in the Reykjavic zoo. Had he been born and bred in Africa, good relatively young Baltasar would have known that a lion would not miss hitting/eating his marks so many times, especially if it became as annoyed as I was by the attendant hysteria.
In light of the above, Jaime Sullivan's script is as far-fetched and fake as CGI, and - what's worse! - in a very predictable and pedestrian way.
Munro, Gongo, and company are all bottomline poor actors, which further hurts believability. In the predictable tradition of any film relating to Africa these days, there is a band of evil whites who want $5,000 cash to save Munro from the BEAST.
Well, the whole opus is so bestial that not even Philippe Rousselot's efforts to convey Africa's natural beauty manage to save this dud. Still, it is the cinematography that earns my star (not that I could award it a highly deserving fat ZERO!, the system does not allow it)
BEAST feels much longer and tiresome than its 93 minutes. Best avoided! 1/10.
Inevitably, for the story to make any sense and keep the viewer interested, you need to usher in an evil element, and in this case it is a male lion that likes to attack humans.
Unfortunately, you can tell immediately that the lion is a CGI creation, which blows realism right out of the observation car, as the feline and his massive, furry paws walk all over the sunroof, to the hysterical fear of the family. I suppose in Iceland you only see a lion in the Reykjavic zoo. Had he been born and bred in Africa, good relatively young Baltasar would have known that a lion would not miss hitting/eating his marks so many times, especially if it became as annoyed as I was by the attendant hysteria.
In light of the above, Jaime Sullivan's script is as far-fetched and fake as CGI, and - what's worse! - in a very predictable and pedestrian way.
Munro, Gongo, and company are all bottomline poor actors, which further hurts believability. In the predictable tradition of any film relating to Africa these days, there is a band of evil whites who want $5,000 cash to save Munro from the BEAST.
Well, the whole opus is so bestial that not even Philippe Rousselot's efforts to convey Africa's natural beauty manage to save this dud. Still, it is the cinematography that earns my star (not that I could award it a highly deserving fat ZERO!, the system does not allow it)
BEAST feels much longer and tiresome than its 93 minutes. Best avoided! 1/10.