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Category Archives: Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Les Seins de glace (1974) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
On Friday I reviewed Richard Matheson’s debut novel Someone is Bleeding (click here to read it), a pretty decent whodunit spiced up with some less convincing post-war cod Freudian psychologising. The novel was filmed in France and released there in … Continue reading
Garde à vue (1981) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Also released in some English-speaking territories as either The Inquisitor or The Grilling, this was the first cinema adaptation of John Wainwright’s 1979 novel Brainwash (click here to read my review). The second, Under Suspicion (2000), was in effect a … Continue reading
Side Effects
The thriller genre can be so capacious and seductive that filmmakers often use the form to smuggle in less commercial content on its coat-tails. Successful examples of this include the debate on Britain’s antiquated homosexuality laws found in Victim (1961), … Continue reading
Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
John Ford was one of the great directors of the studio system, winner of four Oscars, a tyrant on the set, and maker of many classic Westerns – but he also made dozens of films in other genres including comedies, … Continue reading
The Big Sleep (1978)
Michael Winner, the pugnacious British filmmaker (and restaurant critic), died in January at age 77. He dabbled in almost every genre (Westerns, musicals, horror, costume melodrama, war movies etc.) though was most at home with ironic comedies during the 1960s … Continue reading
Stalag 17 (1953) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Christmas Mystery
Now, I know what you’re thinking – isn’t this the Oscar-winning war movie starring William Holden, the one that got ripped off and turned into that silly 1960s sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes? Wasn’t this film a big hit in its day? … Continue reading
The Spiritualist (1948) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Also known as The Amazing Mr X, this beautifully shot and gently mocking ’Gaslight-meets-Rebecca‘ mystery melodrama also has a Noir style all its own. It also sports a charming performance from the late Turhan Bey who, in what appears to … Continue reading
The Mind Benders (1963) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Dirk Bogarde is the troubled scientist at the centre of this suspense drama combining espionage, brainwashing, sensory deprivation chambers and domestic navel gazing that often feels like a rich inverted pudding, light on the bottom and heavy on top. This … Continue reading
Telefon (1977)
This adaptation of the 1975 spy novel by Walter Wager has a great central gimmick and features the unlikely pairing of granite-faced action hero Charles Bronson and high-class beauty Lee Remick under the take-no-prisoners direction of Don Siegel. It often … Continue reading
Posted in Amnesia, Cold War, Espionage, Los Angeles, Moscow, Scene of the crime, Spy movies, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged Charles Bronson
34 Comments
Two O’Clock Courage (1945)
Something of a forgotten semi Noir, this mixture of comedy and thrills marked the RKO debuts of director Anthony Mann and Jane Greer (here billed with her full name, ‘Bettejane’). The leading man is Tom Conway, already established at the studio … Continue reading
The Blake Edwards mysteries
In a career spanning six decades, writer-director Blake Edwards (1922-2010) really mixed it up, making almost every conceivable type of film. There were westerns (Panhandle and Wild Rovers), musicals (Darling Lili and Victor Victoria), dark drama (Days of Wine and … Continue reading
The Perry Mason movies (1934-37)
Before the hugely popular TV show of the 1950s and 60s starring Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale (not to mention the long running reunion TV-movies they embarked on two decades later), the cases of Erle Stanley Gardner’s ultra-sharp defence attorney … Continue reading
The Last Page (1952)
Released as Man Bait in the US, this story of blackmail and murder in the London book trade was adapted from a 1947 play by James Hadley Chase, a writer still best-known for the pulp shocker No Orchids for Miss … Continue reading
The Last of Sheila (1973)
This Edgar-winning murder mystery challenges a group of Hollywood players to solve a series of riddles while on the French Riviera – but just what is the prize and who is playing who? This fabulously elaborate movie was co-written by … Continue reading
Spaceways (1953)
An engaging if curious genre hybrid, this is a patchwork movie combining Cold War espionage, a murder mystery and two love triangles in a science fiction setting – and all on the tightest of budgets. Unpretentious and fun, this British … Continue reading
Wings of Danger (1952)
Zachary Scott stars in this British aviation mystery directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Studios. It was based on the 1951 book Dead on Course by ‘Mansell Black’, a name used here by journalist Packham Webb and prolific novelist Elleston Trevor. … Continue reading
Posted in Elleston Trevor, Hammer Studios, Terence Fisher, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged robert lippert, terence fisher
34 Comments
Mantrap (1953)
Paul Henreid stars in this fast-paced British whodunit, an adaptation of Adam Hall’s Queen in Danger, my review of which you can read here. In the US the film was released as Man in Hiding and was one of dozens of … Continue reading
Posted in Adam Hall, Hammer Studios, London, Terence Fisher, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged robert lippert, terence fisher
20 Comments
Dying Room Only (1973) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
In 1953 Richard Matheson published ‘Dying Room Only’, a vanishing spouse variant on the Paris Exposition story. Like in his Twilight Zone episode ‘Nick of Time’, a young couple stop at a cafe and find their lives unraveling as unexpected … Continue reading
That Woman Opposite (1957) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Phyllis Kirk stars as the eponymous young woman in peril in this unpretentious British whodunnit (released in the US as City After Midnight). Eve Atwood is a wealthy American divorcée living in the small town of La Bandalette in France. She … Continue reading
Posted in France, John Dickson Carr, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged dan o herlihy, petula clark
20 Comments
John Carpenter’s The Ward
Writer-director-composer John Carpenter set the tone for anti-establishment genre pictures in the 70s and 80s. His hits included Halloween (1978) and Escape from New York (1981); even better was the 1982 version of The Thing, though my favourite is the … Continue reading
Posted in Giallo, John Carpenter, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
10 Comments
Running on Empty (1988)
There are films that you love unconditionally and irrationally, ones so bound up in your own personal circumstances and psyche that it is impossible to truly convey to others why this is so – it simply is. Then there are … Continue reading
Posted in New Jersey, Sidney Lumet, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
21 Comments
Vertigo (1958) – Best film ever?
Is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo the greatest film of all time? The 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll thinks so. And even if this is not true (some don’t even think it’s the best of the director’s thrillers), how well do people … Continue reading
Clue of the Twisted Candle (1960)
The Edgar Wallace Mysteries were a series of roughly four dozen hour-long B-movies made to sit on the lower birth of a cinema double bill, originally released in Britain at a rate of roughly one-a-month between 1960 and 1965. For a … Continue reading
Hickey and Boggs (1972) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
A train arrives and a woman in sunglasses gets off and quickly walks away. She passes through LA’s Union Station, still looking largely as it did since it opened in 1939. We dissolve to a street scene – it is … Continue reading
Edgar Wallace Mysteries (1960–65)
Between September 1960 and October 1965 cinemas in the UK screened 47 films produced by Anglo Amalgamated as part of their Edgar Wallace Mysteries series. These low-budget movies, more or less based on the works of the celebrated mystery author, … Continue reading
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
After Sergio Leone, Italy’s best known genre filmmaker probably remains Dario Argento, even though his heyday was a good three decades ago. He had already worked on several films as a screenwriter when he collaborated with Bernardo Bertolucci on a … Continue reading
Rollercoaster (1977) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
After the hugely successful ’Sensurround’ processed Earthquake (1974) and with The Hindenburg (1975) and Two Minute Warning (1976) already in various stages of completion, Universal Studios decided to further exploit the burgeoning disaster genre by quickly packaging another high concept movie … Continue reading
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
A topical satire and a crackerjack suspense movie, this still stands up among the cream of 1970s crime movies, especially when compared with its two inferior remakes. The plot remains the same in all three versions: a New York subway … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, New York, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
36 Comments
Dead Bang (1989)
I saw this movie at a sparsely attended screening in Berkeley, California in the Spring of 1989 but it has stuck with me as a superior manhunt thriller that deserved a better commercial fate. It has a compelling subject – … Continue reading
Dangerous Crossing (1953)
This is one of the surprisingly few films derived from the work of the great mystery writer John Dickson Carr. It was adapted from ‘Cabin B-13′, his celebrated radio drama originally broadcast in 1943 but subsequently repeated and adapted several … Continue reading
No Way Out (1987)
This movie was hit in its day but 25 years after its initial release I’m still not convinced it has received the critical respect it deserves. A smart Cold War thriller – with 80s heartthrobs Kevin Costner and Sean Young … Continue reading
Town on Trial (1957) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
John Mills is the hardboiled Superintendent of Police with a serious chip on his shoulder trying to crack a series of stranglings in this highly entertaining whodunnit made for Columbia at Shepperton Studios in the UK. It imported two Hollywood … Continue reading
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
Imagine a 40s Hollywood movie shot in gorgeous black and white, backed by a swelling Miklos Rozsa score and costumed by Edith Head. Add a dream cast featuring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Lana Turner, … Continue reading
Keeper of the Flame (1943)
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn starring in a murder mystery, produced by MGM and directed by George Cukor – really? Oh yes, though there is no denying that this is perhaps one of the more unlikely of the nine Tracy … Continue reading
Posted in Orson Welles, Spencer Tracy, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
13 Comments
Violent Playground (1958) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This story of juvenile delinquency in 1950s Liverpool was one of a series of topical dramas made by director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph from subjects ripped from the headlines. Since the 1940s they had alternated more commercial fare … Continue reading
Rynox (1932) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Rynox is writer-director Michael Powell’s earliest surviving film and a fine adaptation of Philip MacDonald’s eponymous novel (also known as ‘The Rynox Murder’). In 1928 the out-of-work Powell arrived in London to find the British film industry in a state … Continue reading
The Case of the Curious Bride (1935) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This stylish and fast-paced thriller, adapted from the eponymous Perry Mason novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, was just one of the fifty movies made in the 1930s by Warner Bros. auteur Michael Curtiz, a director still under-appreciated despite regular periods … Continue reading
The End of the Game (1975)
In 1950 Swiss novelist and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt published his existential crime classic The Judge and His Hangman, which I previously reviewed here and which I have also listed in my ongoing list of Top 100 Mystery Books. Twenty-five years … Continue reading
The Phantom Light (1935) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
The work of Michael Powell, the director of such classics as Peeping Tom and The Red Shoes, falls into several distinct phases. During his ‘apprentice’ period in the 1930s he made two dozen low-budget movies in many genres. Often dismissed … Continue reading
Femme Fatale (2002) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
This supremely seductive thriller – part cine-literate film essay, part heist movie – offers the possibility of redemption for even the unlikeliest past offender, which seems entirely appropriate because Femme Fatale was a box office bomb, but it really does … Continue reading
Plunder of the Sun (1953) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This is one of a small number of films produced in the early 1950s by John Wayne’s company (originally ‘Wayne-Fellow’, later ‘Batjac’) in which the star did not himself appear. Some became unavailable for several year and fell into relative … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, Jonathan Latimer, Mexico, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
33 Comments
Fear in the Night (1972)
Joan Collins plays a sexy sculptress with a taste for blood and the grotesque in this ‘old school’ thriller from Hammer productions. The star though is topbilled Judy Geeson as Peggy, a mentally fragile newlywed who plans to join her … Continue reading
Stolen Face (1952)
Hammer Films came to prominence thanks to the series of bold horror films they made in colour from the late 1950s and throughout the next decade, the best of which were directed by Terence Fisher. But they both got their … Continue reading
Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Hammer Studios, London, Terence Fisher, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged robert lippert, terence fisher
23 Comments
Twilight (1998) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Originally shot under the title ‘Magic Hour’, this low-key murder mystery has probably received extra attention since the release of the Stephenie Meyer books. If so, some may have been a tad disappointed by the lack of teenage supernatural activity … Continue reading
Crescendo (1970) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Hammer made a return to the thriller genre after a break of several years by dusting off an old script by Alfred Shaughnessy that originally had been intended as a possible vehicle for Joan Crawford with Michael Reeves to direct. … Continue reading
The Nanny (1965) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Bette Davis gives a subtle and nuanced performance as the title character in this small-scale suspense movie that deserves to be much better known. It is easy to succumb to the temptation to lump it together with What Ever Happened … Continue reading
Touch of Evil (1958) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
For many, Orson Welles’ 1958 film Touch of Evil marks the end of classic Film Noir. It certainly marked the end of Welles’ Hollywood directing career, though it had to wait some forty years before it could finally be seen … Continue reading
Tequila Sunrise (1988) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Is it possible for a big budget Hollywood movie to be too thought-provoking or even too original? Aren’t mainstream movies, by definition, positioned to reinforce rather than question viewer expectations? Odd as it may seem when discussing a glamorous 80s … Continue reading
The Dark Mirror (1946) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Okay, it’s quiz time – what do Bette Davis, Jeremy Irons, Elvis Presley, Bette Midler, Yul Brynner and Arnold Schwarzenegger all have in common? Would it help if I added Nicolas Cage, Danny Kaye and Hayley Mills? Yes, they all played … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, New York, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
22 Comments
