What makes a great courtroom thriller? A mesmerizing and clever plot that draws viewers in immediately. Three-dimensional characters that keep you guessing if they are the guilty party and twists and turns that leave audiences gasping and gob smacked.
Justine Triet’s dazzling French thriller “Anatomy of a Fall” has all the qualities and then some that make it a classic of the genre. Since winning the Palme D’or last May, “Anatomy of a Fall” has continued its winning ways receiving several critics’ honors, as well as two Golden Globes, a Critics Choice honor and seven BAFTA nominations including best film, best director, screenplay and best actress for Sandra Huller’s powerhouse performance. One can’t forget that Messi, the border collie ,who plays the family pet Snoop, received the Palm Dog at Cannes.
Huller plays a bisexual woman with a troubled marriage and a young blind son. When...
Justine Triet’s dazzling French thriller “Anatomy of a Fall” has all the qualities and then some that make it a classic of the genre. Since winning the Palme D’or last May, “Anatomy of a Fall” has continued its winning ways receiving several critics’ honors, as well as two Golden Globes, a Critics Choice honor and seven BAFTA nominations including best film, best director, screenplay and best actress for Sandra Huller’s powerhouse performance. One can’t forget that Messi, the border collie ,who plays the family pet Snoop, received the Palm Dog at Cannes.
Huller plays a bisexual woman with a troubled marriage and a young blind son. When...
- 1/18/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we examine a few flicks from the peerless Otto Preminger, with a wine pairing for each.
I should comment on the title of the column this week. The Peerless Otto seems to be a bit of wordplay on the “Peerless auto,” a British car company that went belly up after only a few years of production. The great director, who is the subject of our snark, was successful for quite a bit longer.
Otto Preminger was one of a handful of celebrities who achieved the rarified air of being included in my impersonation repertoire as a kid. It wasn’t very good, but it delighted the friends of my parents in southeast Texas, who sometimes commented that Jimmy and Mary’s son “didn’t have hardly no ayukcent at awul!
I should comment on the title of the column this week. The Peerless Otto seems to be a bit of wordplay on the “Peerless auto,” a British car company that went belly up after only a few years of production. The great director, who is the subject of our snark, was successful for quite a bit longer.
Otto Preminger was one of a handful of celebrities who achieved the rarified air of being included in my impersonation repertoire as a kid. It wasn’t very good, but it delighted the friends of my parents in southeast Texas, who sometimes commented that Jimmy and Mary’s son “didn’t have hardly no ayukcent at awul!
- 10/12/2022
- by Randy Fuller
- Trailers from Hell
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
“Our Town With Unions”
By Raymond Benson
This is a little-known gem of a film from producer Louis de Rochemont, the man best known for introducing The March of Time documentary newsreels to cinemas that ran from the 1930s until the early 1950s. He also produced several mainstream pictures, and one of these from 1951, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, is an underdog-battles-severe-odds tale of the highest caliber.
Directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Whistle might be described as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, only with unions. Yes, this is a union drama along the lines of On the Waterfront or, much later, Norma Rae.
In a tight 96 minutes, Siodmak brings us a riveting story—the kind that gets an audience riled up against the injustices thrown at a protagonist. The suspense builds to a breaking point as we wonder how it...
“Our Town With Unions”
By Raymond Benson
This is a little-known gem of a film from producer Louis de Rochemont, the man best known for introducing The March of Time documentary newsreels to cinemas that ran from the 1930s until the early 1950s. He also produced several mainstream pictures, and one of these from 1951, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, is an underdog-battles-severe-odds tale of the highest caliber.
Directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Whistle might be described as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, only with unions. Yes, this is a union drama along the lines of On the Waterfront or, much later, Norma Rae.
In a tight 96 minutes, Siodmak brings us a riveting story—the kind that gets an audience riled up against the injustices thrown at a protagonist. The suspense builds to a breaking point as we wonder how it...
- 4/19/2022
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
TCM premiered a welcome restoration of this honorable Louis de Rochemont drama last year, and now it’s on a pristine-quality Blu-ray. Almost an ‘anti- film noir,’ the story of a labor conflict in a tiny New England hamlet is a docu-drama that actually has a positive, if not Utopian, ending. Fine direction by Robert Siodmak breathes life into the thesis that Yankee ingenuity and ethical fair play can still save the day. A superb underdog cast — Lloyd Bridges, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan, Russell Hardie, Helen Shields, Doro Merande, Diana Douglas, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine, Arthur O’Connell and even Dorothy Gish — bring this odd ‘Pepperidge Farms’ neo-realist tale to life.
The Whistle at Eaton Falls
Blu-ray
Flicker Fusion
1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date March 15, 2022 / Richer Than the Earth / Available from Flicker Alley / 24.95
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan,...
The Whistle at Eaton Falls
Blu-ray
Flicker Fusion
1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date March 15, 2022 / Richer Than the Earth / Available from Flicker Alley / 24.95
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan,...
- 4/5/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
72 544x376 Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
By Fred Blosser
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “There Was a Crooked Man . . .” debuted in theaters on Christmas Day 1970, a disruptive year for Hollywood as the moviegoing audience continued to fracture along the Vietnam War divide. Studios were desperate to retain their core demographic of older, conservative viewers while courting younger, affluent ticket-buyers who wanted stronger fare. “There Was a Crooked Man . . .” tried to offer a little something for everybody. For the older guys at the Vfw Hall, it was a Western starring Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas, supported largely by a cast of other well-established, middle-aged actors. For the “Easy Rider” crowd, there was plenty of nudity, cussing, and innuendo about weed that you’d never encounter on “Gunsmoke” or “Bonanza.” In Mankiewicz’s cynical, R-rated Western, now available from the Warner Archive Collection, outlaw Paris Pitman Jr. (Kirk Douglas) and his partners rob a wealthy banker,...
By Fred Blosser
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “There Was a Crooked Man . . .” debuted in theaters on Christmas Day 1970, a disruptive year for Hollywood as the moviegoing audience continued to fracture along the Vietnam War divide. Studios were desperate to retain their core demographic of older, conservative viewers while courting younger, affluent ticket-buyers who wanted stronger fare. “There Was a Crooked Man . . .” tried to offer a little something for everybody. For the older guys at the Vfw Hall, it was a Western starring Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas, supported largely by a cast of other well-established, middle-aged actors. For the “Easy Rider” crowd, there was plenty of nudity, cussing, and innuendo about weed that you’d never encounter on “Gunsmoke” or “Bonanza.” In Mankiewicz’s cynical, R-rated Western, now available from the Warner Archive Collection, outlaw Paris Pitman Jr. (Kirk Douglas) and his partners rob a wealthy banker,...
- 8/18/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
It’s another CineSavant Revival Screening Review of a show not presently available on disc: not an old favorite, but something we admittedly never heard of … a marvelous 1951 film that’s seemingly been hiding under the carpet for sixty years, despite being directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, Diana Douglas, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine and Arthur O’Connell. At first we fear it will be another angry midcentury indictment of free enterprise … but it becomes something else entirely. The unusual near- neorealist picture was filmed on location in a New Hampshire mill town; it is newly restored and hopefully destined for Blu-ray soon.
The Whistle at Eaton Falls
CineSavant Revival Screening Review
Not on Home Video
1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Richer Than the Earth / Not Yet On Home Video
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan, Russell Hardie,...
The Whistle at Eaton Falls
CineSavant Revival Screening Review
Not on Home Video
1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Richer Than the Earth / Not Yet On Home Video
Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan, Russell Hardie,...
- 5/15/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Four of the featured fellows in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” — Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance — made the BAFTAs longlist of 15 contenders for Best Supporting Actor. We are predicting that Cohen, who also reaped Golden Globes and SAG bids, will earn a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Rylance, who won this award in 2015 for “Bridge of Spies,” is jockeying for the fifth slot.
Four-time Tony winner Langella and Redmayne, who took home the Best Actor Oscar in 2014 for “The Theory of Everything,” are longer shots than another of the supporting actors in the film: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II makes our Top 10 for his searing portrayal of Bobby Seale.
Since the supporting acting categories were introduced in 1937, 19 films have reaped bids for at least two of their male featured players. As you can see from the list below, it took till the ninth time that this...
Four-time Tony winner Langella and Redmayne, who took home the Best Actor Oscar in 2014 for “The Theory of Everything,” are longer shots than another of the supporting actors in the film: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II makes our Top 10 for his searing portrayal of Bobby Seale.
Since the supporting acting categories were introduced in 1937, 19 films have reaped bids for at least two of their male featured players. As you can see from the list below, it took till the ninth time that this...
- 2/8/2021
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
Once upon a time, MGM launched a big spectacle Western remake with the top star Glenn Ford and the bright import Maria Schell — and then second-guessed the whole production, cutting back on everything so severely that director Anthony Mann ankled the set for Spain and El Cid. The storytelling is a mess — after starting big, the show soon falls into pieces. But many of individual scenes and set pieces are exemplary, especially Mann’s re-run of the Oklahoma Land Rush, staged in Arizona and augmented by classy special effects. The large cast rounds up some big talent — Mercedes McCambridge, Russ Tamblyn — to tell Edna Ferber’s multi-generational story about ambition, intolerance and dreams of glory on the frontier.
Cimarron (1960)
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1960 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 147 min. / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow,...
Cimarron (1960)
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1960 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 147 min. / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow,...
- 1/7/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The 1961 MGM Western A Thunder of Drums has been released by the Warner Archives. The film was regarded as a standard oater in its day but has since built a loyal following who have been eager to have the movie available on the home video market. What sets A Thunder of Drums apart from many of the indistinguishable Westerns of the period is its downbeat storyline and intelligent script, which was clearly geared for adults as opposed to moppets. There's also the impressive cast: Richard Boone, George Hamilton, Charles Bronson, Arthur O'Connell, Richard Chamberlain and Slim Pickens among them.The film opens with a sequence that was very unsettling and shocking for its day: an Indian attack on a tranquil homestead. A little girl is forced to witness the gang rape and murders of her mother and teenage sister. The plot then shifts to the local fort where commandant Boone is overseeing an understaffed cavalry contingent that has to find and defeat the marauding tribe, which has already slaughtered numerous settlers and soldiers. The Indians are window dressing in the story: nameless, faceless adversaries who are not given any particular motivation for their savagery. (These was, remember, far less enlightened times and such conflicts were generally presented without nuance.)
George Hamilton is the by-the-book West Point graduate assigned to the fort as Boone's second-in-command. He gets a frosty reception from minute one. Boone tells him he doesn't meet the requirements of a seasoned officer who can survive in the hostile environment. The two men spend a good deal of their time in a psychological war of wills. Adding to Hamilton's discomfort is the discovery that his former lover, Luana Patten, is not only living at the remote outpost, but is engaged to one of his fellow officers. The two rekindle their own romance and this leads to scandalous and tragic results.
The film is based on a novel by popular Western writer James Warner Bellah and probably represents the career high water mark of director Joseph Newman, who was destined to toil for decades helming B movies. He gets vibrant performances from his cast. The ever-watchable Boone is in his predictably crusty mode, cynically second-guessing his officers and men, tossing out insults and sucking on an omnipresent stogie. Boone was so dominant in every role he played, one wonders why he never reached a higher status as a reliable box-office figure. Hamilton is in his standard pretty boy mode, but holds his own against macho men Boone and Charles Bronson, who is cast against type as a somewhat dim-witted character of low scruples. Singer Duane Eddy, who was a teenage pop star at the time, made his film debut here with a degree of fanfare, but it was obviously last minute stunt casting as Eddy is given virtually nothing to do except strum a few chords on his guitar. The film boasts some magnificent scenery and some rousing action sequences that are more realistic than those found in most Westerns of the time. A Thunder of Drums isn't art or even a great or important Western - but it is fine entertainment and the Warner Archive edition looks terrific. An original theatrical trailer is included.
Click Here To Order From The Cinema Retro Movie Store...
George Hamilton is the by-the-book West Point graduate assigned to the fort as Boone's second-in-command. He gets a frosty reception from minute one. Boone tells him he doesn't meet the requirements of a seasoned officer who can survive in the hostile environment. The two men spend a good deal of their time in a psychological war of wills. Adding to Hamilton's discomfort is the discovery that his former lover, Luana Patten, is not only living at the remote outpost, but is engaged to one of his fellow officers. The two rekindle their own romance and this leads to scandalous and tragic results.
The film is based on a novel by popular Western writer James Warner Bellah and probably represents the career high water mark of director Joseph Newman, who was destined to toil for decades helming B movies. He gets vibrant performances from his cast. The ever-watchable Boone is in his predictably crusty mode, cynically second-guessing his officers and men, tossing out insults and sucking on an omnipresent stogie. Boone was so dominant in every role he played, one wonders why he never reached a higher status as a reliable box-office figure. Hamilton is in his standard pretty boy mode, but holds his own against macho men Boone and Charles Bronson, who is cast against type as a somewhat dim-witted character of low scruples. Singer Duane Eddy, who was a teenage pop star at the time, made his film debut here with a degree of fanfare, but it was obviously last minute stunt casting as Eddy is given virtually nothing to do except strum a few chords on his guitar. The film boasts some magnificent scenery and some rousing action sequences that are more realistic than those found in most Westerns of the time. A Thunder of Drums isn't art or even a great or important Western - but it is fine entertainment and the Warner Archive edition looks terrific. An original theatrical trailer is included.
Click Here To Order From The Cinema Retro Movie Store...
- 6/11/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
'7 Faces of Dr. Lao' with Tony Randall. '7 Faces of Dr. Lao' movie: 'Things are not as they seem' Director George Pal's 7 Faces of Dr. Lao surprises on multiple levels: its witty screenplay by Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, an odd assortment of well-defined characters, a bravura performance by Tony Randall, and some of the best special effects of that time. In the film, a strange traveling magician drifts into a small western American town, announcing that he is bringing with him a “Magic Circus.” Calling himself Dr. Lao, the eccentric Chinese character places an ad in the local newspaper and makes friends with the editor. But things are not as they seem. When the Magic Circus magically appears, Dr. Lao changes appearances and personalities, interfering in the lives of everyone in the community. Love with the properly repressed widow John Ericson plays the handsome newspaperman who rebels...
- 12/15/2015
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...
- 8/12/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ben Gazzara, who was featured on Broadway in the original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and in movies by the likes of John Cassavetes, Otto Preminger, and Peter Bogdanovich, died earlier today at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center as per the New York Times. Gazzara, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, was 81. Although Gazzara (the son of Italian immigrants, born Aug. 28, 1930, in New York City) is probably best remembered for his films directed by Cassavetes — Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Opening Night (1978) — he was remarkably effective elsewhere. Arguably, much more effective elsewhere. Gazzara delivered a first-rate performance in Otto Preminger's cynical look at the American justice system, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), in which he played a military man on trial for killing a man — he claims — was attempting to rape his wife (Lee Remick, replacing Lana Turner). James Stewart is his somewhat shady defense attorney,...
- 2/4/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Lee Pfeiffer
Joshua Logan's 1955 screen adaptation of William Inge's Broadway sensation Picnic has been released on Blu-ray by the excellent Twilight Time label as a 3,000 unit limited edition. The play helped boost Paul Newman to stardom but amazingly he was excluded from the film version, along with most of his fellow cast members. Inge's play presented an unusually frank examination of repressed sexual frustration in a small Kansas town. That tension boils over with the arrival of Hal Carter (William Holden), a charismatic drifter whose arrival in town sets off a combustible tinderbox of emotions among the residents. Hal is a magnet for women of all ages, but he sets his sites on Madge (Kim Novak), a vulnerable teenager from a broken home who is looking for a white knight to deliver her from the boredom of her small town life. Hal fills the void but brings...
Joshua Logan's 1955 screen adaptation of William Inge's Broadway sensation Picnic has been released on Blu-ray by the excellent Twilight Time label as a 3,000 unit limited edition. The play helped boost Paul Newman to stardom but amazingly he was excluded from the film version, along with most of his fellow cast members. Inge's play presented an unusually frank examination of repressed sexual frustration in a small Kansas town. That tension boils over with the arrival of Hal Carter (William Holden), a charismatic drifter whose arrival in town sets off a combustible tinderbox of emotions among the residents. Hal is a magnet for women of all ages, but he sets his sites on Madge (Kim Novak), a vulnerable teenager from a broken home who is looking for a white knight to deliver her from the boredom of her small town life. Hal fills the void but brings...
- 1/22/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Marlene Dietrich on TCM Pt.2: A Foreign Affair, The Blue Angel Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am The Monte Carlo Story (1957) Two compulsive gamblers fall in love on the French Riviera. Dir: Samuel A. Taylor. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Vittorio De Sica, Arthur O'Connell. C-101 mins, Letterbox Format. 7:45 Am Knight Without Armour (1937) A British spy tries to get a countess out of the new Soviet Union. Dir: Jacques Feyder. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, Irene Van Brugh. Bw-107 mins. 9:45 Am The Lady Is Willing (1942) A Broadway star has to find a husband so she can adopt an abandoned child. Dir: Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Fred MacMurray, Aline MacMahon. Bw-91 mins. 11:30 Am Kismet (1944) In the classic Arabian Nights tale king of the beggars enters high society to help his daughter marry a handsome prince. Dir: William Dieterle. Cast: Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, James Craig.
- 9/1/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Filed under: Movie News
Deadline reports that director Shawn Levy has his eye on Hugh Jackman to star in Fox's remake of Richard Fleischer's 1966 'Fantastic Voyage,' a film that has encountered some obstacles to production.
First Darren Aronofsky dropped out as director, then there were script issues, and finally the earthquake and tsunami in Japan -- where the story is set -- pushed back production.
The film -- in which a group of doctors in a submarine are miniaturized and injected into a dying man's body to travel through his arteries to find and fix a deadly blood clot -- is being produced by James Cameron as a 3D tentpole.
The original film starred Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasance, Arthur O'Connell, William Redfield and Arthur Kennedy, and had some pretty spectacular effects for its time. This one, of course, will be all-cgi once the...
Deadline reports that director Shawn Levy has his eye on Hugh Jackman to star in Fox's remake of Richard Fleischer's 1966 'Fantastic Voyage,' a film that has encountered some obstacles to production.
First Darren Aronofsky dropped out as director, then there were script issues, and finally the earthquake and tsunami in Japan -- where the story is set -- pushed back production.
The film -- in which a group of doctors in a submarine are miniaturized and injected into a dying man's body to travel through his arteries to find and fix a deadly blood clot -- is being produced by James Cameron as a 3D tentpole.
The original film starred Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasance, Arthur O'Connell, William Redfield and Arthur Kennedy, and had some pretty spectacular effects for its time. This one, of course, will be all-cgi once the...
- 5/4/2011
- by Harley W. Lond
- Moviefone
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.