adrianovasconcelos
Joined Feb 2017
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Reviews922
adrianovasconcelos's rating
THE FEARMAKERS immediately interested me for two reasons: 1) Jacques Tourneur, a director I have long admired for his simplicity of style, classy and sensitive story telling even when crime (OUT OF THE PAST, to me the best film noir ever), the supernatural (CAT PEOPLE), or voodoo (ZOMBIE) provide the backbone. 2) Dana Andrews, one of the most underrated actors in the Hollywood golden age, and certainly one of the best actors never to receive the best actor Academy Award.
Andrews and Tourneur had worked together in CURSE OF THE DEMON, which came out one year earlier, in 1957 - to me the better of the two films, though THE FEARMAKERS is a good film in its own right, riding on typically excellent B&W cinematography by Sam Leavitt, solid acting by Andrews, Dick Foran as the heavy McGinnis, the luscious Veda Borg as the wife of lower grade baddie Kelly Thordsen.
The reason I only rate THE FEARMAKERS 7/10 has to do with the screenplay. Though on the unusual subject of opinion poll corruption, in the end the film is much more about about good, PTSD-affected US Army Captain Andrews returning to find that McGinnis has taken over his opinion poll company and bumped off his best pal and associate.
Interesting to note how in 1958 a sharp mind like Tourneur's already could smell a rat in that domain. Sadly, the situation has not improved and these days there is a great deal of news items about how Russia has bankrolled US presidential candidates, including the current incumbent. So, time passes, we are increasingly artificially intelligent, but the basic problems of corruption, deception, and deepening distrust in all things political simply do not go away.
Andrews and Tourneur had worked together in CURSE OF THE DEMON, which came out one year earlier, in 1957 - to me the better of the two films, though THE FEARMAKERS is a good film in its own right, riding on typically excellent B&W cinematography by Sam Leavitt, solid acting by Andrews, Dick Foran as the heavy McGinnis, the luscious Veda Borg as the wife of lower grade baddie Kelly Thordsen.
The reason I only rate THE FEARMAKERS 7/10 has to do with the screenplay. Though on the unusual subject of opinion poll corruption, in the end the film is much more about about good, PTSD-affected US Army Captain Andrews returning to find that McGinnis has taken over his opinion poll company and bumped off his best pal and associate.
Interesting to note how in 1958 a sharp mind like Tourneur's already could smell a rat in that domain. Sadly, the situation has not improved and these days there is a great deal of news items about how Russia has bankrolled US presidential candidates, including the current incumbent. So, time passes, we are increasingly artificially intelligent, but the basic problems of corruption, deception, and deepening distrust in all things political simply do not go away.
Director Terence Young I remember best for the first two - and best, in my view - James Bond films: Dr No and From Russia With Love.
In RED SUN he is nowhere near the good form he showed in those two Bond films, but he has the advantage of working with a solid cast: the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, the typically dour Charles Bronson going through the ups and downs of a cultural clash with the samurai portrayed by Mifune, and Alain Delon, the best of the lot in a much smaller part: the unfeeling left-handed Gauche (Left in French) who shoots for pleasure whilst enjoying life in the West.
Why the samurai sword ends up on a line at the end of the movie eludes me. RED SUN is a movie about a time when Japanese films, especially by Akira Kurosawa, were beginning to make a mark, and Bruce Lee was helping with his ENTER THE DRAGON and the like.
Not memorable but worth a watch. 7/10.
In RED SUN he is nowhere near the good form he showed in those two Bond films, but he has the advantage of working with a solid cast: the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, the typically dour Charles Bronson going through the ups and downs of a cultural clash with the samurai portrayed by Mifune, and Alain Delon, the best of the lot in a much smaller part: the unfeeling left-handed Gauche (Left in French) who shoots for pleasure whilst enjoying life in the West.
Why the samurai sword ends up on a line at the end of the movie eludes me. RED SUN is a movie about a time when Japanese films, especially by Akira Kurosawa, were beginning to make a mark, and Bruce Lee was helping with his ENTER THE DRAGON and the like.
Not memorable but worth a watch. 7/10.
After Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci is probably Italy's best known spaghetti Western director. Most of his films - that I have watched, some I have not - are quite dour, even gory. In contrast, "Bianco, il giallo, il nero" has some wonderfully comic moments, with Thomas Milian as a Japanese sword-bearing samurai rocking up in the middle of the West to engage in such diverse activities as putting sheriff Eli Wallach to sleep, and giving Giuliano Gemma a lesson in fighting with a sword. The saloon scene with Eli, Giuliano and Thomas dressed as tarty can can dancers is one of the movie's finest slapstick highlights.
It seems to me that the three must have had a great time, notably during the inevitable bar room fight sequence.
Not that the story makes much sense, but the photography is more than adequate for a spaghetti Western, and Milian gets to deliver the most memorable line in the movie when they arrive in an inexplicably empty town. Thinking that it might be due to a religious holiday, Milian points out that "America is full of prostitutes"... meaning Protestants, of course.
The self-parodying approach runs right through the movie. I found it refreshing and at times quite inspired. 7/10.
It seems to me that the three must have had a great time, notably during the inevitable bar room fight sequence.
Not that the story makes much sense, but the photography is more than adequate for a spaghetti Western, and Milian gets to deliver the most memorable line in the movie when they arrive in an inexplicably empty town. Thinking that it might be due to a religious holiday, Milian points out that "America is full of prostitutes"... meaning Protestants, of course.
The self-parodying approach runs right through the movie. I found it refreshing and at times quite inspired. 7/10.