Movieline Online

One of the lesser-known filmmakers to emerge from the '70s USC generation, John Milius was never destined for the sort of career his contemporaries like Spielberg and Coppola enjoyed. His fascination with historical figures, military history and weaponry of all sorts just didn't jibe with an audience that grew out of the hippie generation. But as a counter balance to the fading counter culture, his scripts for macho icons like Dirty Harry, Jeremiah Johnson and 1973's Dillinger (which he also directed) improbably found purchase in the rocky crags of Hollywood. Shooting from the hip, Milius mixes fact with plenty of outrageous fiction in his story of Public Enemy #1, John Herbert Dillinger (Warren Oates), and his gang of colorful bank robbers whose depression era escapades turned them into populist heroes. FBI Chief Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson) is the man charged with bringing Dillinger, along with notorious gangsters like Baby Face Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Pretty...

One of the lesser-known filmmakers to emerge from the '70s USC generation, John Milius was never destined for the sort of career his contemporaries like Spielberg and Coppola enjoyed. His fascination with historical figures, military history and weaponry of all sorts just didn't jibe with the audience that grew out of the hippie generation. But as a counter balance to the fading counter culture, his scripts for macho icons like Dirty Harry, Jeremiah Johnson and 1973's Dillinger (which he also directed) improbably found purchase in the rocky crags of Hollywood. Shooting from the hip, Milius mixes fact with plenty of outrageous fiction in his story of Public Enemy #1, John Herbert Dillinger (Warren Oates), and his gang of colorful bank robbers whose depression era escapades turned them into populist heroes. FBI Chief Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson) is the man charged with bringing Dillinger, plus notorious gangsters like Baby Face Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Pretty Boy Fl...

The story of Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas of Russia, long rumored to be the only survivor of the 1918 revolution that left the rest the imperial family dead, had slowly blossomed into the stuff of legend. So it was only fitting that a legendary actress should take on the role when it came time to adapt it to the screen. But, as film historian Julie Kirgo explains her liner notes, 20th Century Fox's casting of Ingrid Bergman was anything but a safe bet, re-introducing the actress to American audiences after a string of scandals that kept the Casablanca star overseas for over a decade. In Hollywood, 10 years is a lifetime...maybe two if you're a woman pushing 40. But real talent is timeless. Anastasia (1956) finds Bergman playing opposite Yul Brynner (who was having quite a year starring in both The King and I and The Ten Commandments ), here as former Russian General, Sergei Pavolvich Bounine, working with a shady group of his fellow countrymen under th...

Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter has become the modern standard for fictional serial killers on film, his character's monstrous tendencies hidden beneath a disguise of wit, intelligence and, above all, good taste. In 10 Rillington Place (1971), Richard Attenborough dons a disguise as well to portray the all-too-real John Reginald Christie who raped and murdered at least eight women in post-WW2 London (including his wife), hiding their bodies in various shallow graves and secret rooms within his modest flat. But unlike the grandiose stylings of Hannibal the Cannibal, Christie hid in plain sight, passing himself off as a harmless, balding everyman who lured his victims in with a soft-spoken but oh-so-false sense of security. Director Richard Fleischer's film respectfully approaches the material from a procedural point of view; not that of the investigating officers (who barely make an impression), but Christie's own clever machinations that shifted the b...

Horror films are particularly prone to sequelization. It seemed like only moments after Frankenstein's Monster dropped out of sight in that burning windmill in 1931 the genre discovered its own secret to eternal life: by recombining those pre-owned parts into and endless parade of spin-offs, reboots and re-imaginings. But very rarely do those sequels deviate from the successful formula established by the original. Bride of Frankenstein was the early exception to the rule, toying with audience expectations for another serious shocker but delivering a whip-smart spoof instead. Director Tobe Hooper does much the same with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part Two , inserting a copious amount of inside-jokes, capitalistic commentary and a loopy Lone Star State sense of humor that matches - and often overwhelms - the expected blood and gore. To be honest, the original TCM had very little onscreen violence; but the film's intensity made it a grueling experience nonetheless. It...

No matter which particular "Bond" is your favorite, a good villain is essential. Ernst Blofeld and Auric Goldfinger are just as responsible for making their respective films memorable as 007...while duds like Hugo Drax and Eliot Carver don't even merit a mention. So producer Harry Alan Towers was on the right track when he elevated Sumuru to leading lady status in a pair of Bond rip-offs based instead on the writing of Sax Rohmer, better known for creating the now-politically incorrect master criminal Fu Manchu. A classic case of feminism run wild, Sumuru (played by Shirley Eaton, Goldfinger's first painted victim) has assembled an army of sexy sleeper agents at her command. And we're not just talking about making sure the toilet seat stays down, this femme fatale commits acts of terrorism with the goal of conquering the known world in the name of women everywhere! Rohmer crafted five books in the Sumuru series; Towers managed to eke out two films - The Mil...

Richard Zanuck and David Brown reeled off a string of major hits like Jaws , The Sting and Cocoon . But their very first production in 1973 was Ssssss ! ("Don't say it, hiss it!" explains the trailer), a TV-friendly mad scientist story about a herpetologist who injects his assistant with a secret formula in hopes of creating a race of highly evolved snake-men. It's an idea as corny as anything produced in the mutated monster craze of the '50s. But the final product actually rides the wave of Animal Attack! films that would peak with Spielberg's toothy blockbuster. Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin) and his daughter Kristina (Heather Menzies) are struggling to keep their research afloat, their only income derived from selling venom and putting on a dangerous snake charming show for tourists. Out of necessity, Stoner recruits David Blake (Dirk Benedict) as his new assistant from the local college. But his motives are much more sinister than his daughter ...

Re-Animator was the poster-child for success in the VHS era. Released in 1985 in just 129 theaters, it really came to life on home video where it competed with hundreds of other horror titles that overpromised and under delivered. Director Stuart Gordon's film, though, was the genuine article: a twisted, gory, hilarious take on the writing of H.P. Lovecraft that was embraced by the critics just a wholeheartedly as it was by fans. Stuart and producer Brian Yuzna quickly collaborated on another successful Lovecraft adaptation, From Beyond (1986), but a sequel to Re-Animator didn't develop until 1989. By that time, Stuart's studio aspirations (he wrote the story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids ) kept him off the project, so Yuzna moved forward with a rushed script and tight budget in attempt to keep the franchise alive. If it's not obvious enough from the title, Bride of Re-Animator (1989) owes a much bigger debt to the Universal horror films than Lovecraft's...

Earning star Sidney Poitier a Best Actor Oscar in 1964 (the only African American man to win until Denzel Washington 38 years later), Li lies of the Field (1963) gave the actor one of the few roles in which he didn't have to carry the weight of America's race relations on his shoulders. As Homer Smith, a drifter just looking to make a quick buck who winds up helping a gaggle of nuns build a chapel in the middle of the Arizona desert, Poitier is allowed to play a character rather than an archetype...and to deliver a performance rather than a message. Shepherded by producer / director Ralph Nelson, hot off a string of TV successes including Requiem for a Heavyweight , the film is brilliant in its simplicity, disguising its ambitions with a small-screen sense of cinematic scale (almost all the action takes place in two locations) that pleasantly pushes personalities to the foreground. And though the plot centers on religion, Nelson deftly delivers his sermon through actions r...

Arrow's Outlaw: Gangster VIP Collection is the sort of box set you don't see many companies taking a chance on these days. A relatively unknown series of youth / yakuza films cranked out in quick succession by Nikkatsu studios in 1968, all six films are presented together for the first time in the west, introducing us to Goro the Assassin (Tetsuya Watari), a gangster with a heart of gold whose wanderings inevitably end up in entanglements of the violent and romantic kind. All six films are ridiculously interchangeable, with every actor except Watari swapping roles from installment to installment. The format is as follows: Goro, an ex-yakuza running from his past, winds up rescuing a love interest (or old friend) from the clutches of some rival clan. With the best of intentions, our anti-hero is forced to draw his blade and mow down an army of underlings before facing off against the top dog...only to stagger away in a hollow victory. The repetitive nature of each film do...

At this point I think we can skip the brief history of the Italian giallo genre, in all its twisted, seedy, sexy, blood-drenched glory. If you're unfamiliar with the specifics, check out Troy Howarth's 2015 book So Deadly, So Perverse which will not only introduce you to the major and minor titles, but inspire you to spend a small fortune tracking them all down. At least Arrow Video saves you a couple of bucks by packaging Death Walks in High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight together in a beautiful new box set under the clever moniker Death Walks Twice . Both films are from producer-turned-director Luciano Ercoli and both are beautifully entangled in conventions of the genre. If Argento’s work is the zenith of dream-logic creative excess – all style and fury, signifying nothing – then Ercoli should at least earn notoriety as the giallo antithesis, connecting his convoluted plots with so many clues, suspects, detectives and dead-ends your head will be spinning for days a...

At this point I think we can skip the brief history of the Italian giallo genre, in all its twisted, seedy, sexy, blood-drenched glory. If you're unfamiliar with the specifics, check out Troy Howarth's 2015 book So Deadly, So Perverse which will not only introduce you to the major and minor titles, but inspire you to spend a small fortune tracking them all down. At least Arrow Video saves you a couple of bucks by packaging Death Walks in High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight together in a beautiful new box set. Both films are from producer-turned-director Luciano Ercoli and are beautifully entangled in conventions of the genre. If Argento’s work is the zenith of dream-logic creative excess – all style and fury, signifying nothing – then Ercoli should at least earn notoriety as the giallo antithesis, connecting his convoluted plots with so many clues, suspects, detectives and dead-ends your head will be spinning for days afterward. Made in 1971 and 1972 respectively, both film...