It’s rare the day that I see a new horror film, particularly an older one, that I fall in love with, but such is the case with a very low-budget, very strange, very surreal little movie called Carnival of Souls. Directed by Herk Harvey (who had previously only made industrial short films), the movie tells of a young woman who apparently survives a car crash, then starts to have visions of a ghost as she moves on with her life in a now town where she takes a job as a church organist. Time and space seem to spiral out of control at moments when people start to ignore that she exists and she becomes drawn to an isolated, abandoned carnival. I knew about ten minutes into the movie that I had stumbled upon something special, and I knew by the end that I had just witnessed an instant classic. A much more famous horror film from the 1960’s is the black-and-white ultra-low-budget Night of the Living Dead, directed by George A. Romero and released in 1968, but Carnival of Souls has a ton of the same qualities (in terms of the tone, look, and, yes, mediocre acting) and was released a whopping six years earlier (more…)

Throughout the 1950s and particularly the 1960s there was a renaissance of big epic musicals, many of which went on to win Academy Award nominations or even the big prize of Best Picture themselves. While a handful of 60s Disney musicals have managed to take hold of my imagination, most notably Mary Poppins, a few big titles have somehow passed me by, including My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and, thankfully (so I hear), the original Doctor Dolittle. One that I also hadn’t seen that I was really looking forward to finally taking a look at was West Wide Story, starring Natalie Wood, and despite a little bit of slowness and repetition here and there, I enjoyed it immensely. The film cheats a little bit in the end with an ending that’s a little bit more Hollywood happy ending than William Shakespeare’s tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, but such a finale was to be expected. Robert Wise, who would next go on to direct a completely different kind of movie in The Haunting (!), blows through this material like a musical master, staging one ingenious number after another (more…)

Before he would go on to make such classics as Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, and The Shining, Stanley Kubrick was just a hired director, taking over for Anthony Mann by the recommendation of star Kirk Douglas on the big, bloated, but ultimately pretty fun Spartacus. It’s probably the least “Kubrick” kind of movie ever made, as there is very little of his later styles seen in the movie. It’s long, and a little bit sporadic, but there are also moments of greatness, and strange moments where you go, “huh?” A particularly memorable scene involves Spartacus having to battle an African-American man in front of various up-scale voyeurs, who relish in watching two men destroy each other. (It’s basically their version of reality television.) And then there are really bizarre moments, like when Tony Curtis’s character Antoninus is seduced by Marcus Licinius (Laurence Olivier), and we hear dubbed lines from an older Curtis and Anthony Hopkins, of all people, over this extremely homoerotic scene (more…)

To watch a movie with James Stewart is to spend time with an old friend. He has the warmest voice and personality to have possibly ever appeared on the silver screen. In looking at his impressive filmography, I was surprised to see I haven’t seen too many of his films. Of the major ones he did over his entire career, I’ve seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Harvey, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, plus, of course, the four films he did for Alfred Hitchcock. If he had been in half the classics he was in, he’d be considered a legendary star today. The fact that he’s in all these movies is astounding. And there’s another great one to add to the list. Anatomy of a Murder is famous for having the longest trial ever played out on film. At nearly three hours at length, this is not a brief picture by any means. It’s a very good film, although watching it so soon after the brilliance of 12 Angry Men brought it down in quality for me a little. I just wasn’t as compelled with the case as much in this film, dealing with a rape and a murder. But the good pacing and terrific performance by Stewart keep things moving (more…)

I’m just now beginning to look at the astonishing career of the late Paul Newman, but there’s no need to see a lot to know we have just recently lost one of the greats. I’ve taken a look at Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the Hustler recently, and I have previously seen Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid among a few others. His striking good looks and mesmerizing screen presence makes for one memorable performance after another (my favorite being his terrific work in The Hustler, so far). His break-out role in this stage adaptation, co-starring the lovelier than ever Elizabeth Taylor, showcases his great talent immediately, and he by far has the most interesting role, playing a guy who’s a mere shell of the ambitious football player of old who had his whole life ahead of him. Taylor, who is one of the few actors of this time period whom we really got to see grow up on screen (starting with National Velvet in 1944 and continuing into the 50s and 60s), is really great in this too, especially considering she was going through a loss at the time (one of those husbands of hers died during production). While I didn’t find this adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play to be nearly as memorable or incendiary as the 1951 film production of A Streetcar Named Desire (more…)

A near-flawless masterpiece. Since I started watching classic films in May of 2007, I’ve been treated to some truly great films but absolutely nothing has affected me the way that 12 Angry Men did. For about 98% of the film, we’re in the presence of twelve men in a jury room debating a case that starts with eleven men saying “guilty” and ending with something entirely unexpected as these men deliberate back and forth with convincing argument and passionate debate for an hour and a half. Henry Fonda was the one “star” of the film back in the day, but it’s difficult to watch the movie now without recognizing at least a few others in the cast. Martin Balsam (Psycho), Jack Warden, and E.G. Marshall were familiar faces, to name a few. Every single actor in this movie is absolutely superb, but it’s the sparkling script by Reginald Rose that makes this movie so memorable. I was happy to learn that the case that these men debate is a lot more interesting than I thought it may be, concerning a young 18-year-old and a possible murder. The moment when Fonda (more…)

Pure bliss. This is a really fun movie. The first one, that is. I think this film has been re-made about 27 times, seemingly once a decade. There’s a sense of terror and awe in the thought of everyone around you being taken over by outside forces. An alien is your best friend but on the exterior he or she looks exactly the same. The slow, burning paranoia that takes over the film for the first hour works beautifully, and the execution, with an awesome last-minute twist, is one that I should’ve seen coming but unfortunately didn’t. This is the second of two 50’s sci-fi movies I’ve watched, and while The Day the Earth Stood Still is by far the more classy of the two, I was definitely more entertained by Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I look forward to seeing a couple of the re-makes, specifically the one made in the 70’s that I’ve heard is pretty solid. My introduction to this story was through a scene of Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty, whose story is basically the same but with teachers, and I’m happy that all these years later I’ve finally gotten to discover (more…)

How could I possibly look through a bunch of classic films and not discuss one of James Dean’s legendary movies? A couple years back I got the complete collection of East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant, and while there are definitely great aspects to both East of Eden and Giant, Rebel Without a Cause is the ultimate James Dean movie. It’s difficult to watch this film knowing just how much further his acting career would’ve taken him. What kinds of movies would he have made in the 60’s and 70’s? He would be 78 years old if alive today. Isn’t that the weirdest thought ever? That if he hadn’t have died in that car accident, he could potentially still be alive today making movies? He’s such an iconic figure that his image supersedes the quality of his performance at times, but he’s so excellent in Rebel Without a Cause, it’s a bit confusing to note that he was nominated for Oscars for his other two movies (more…)

Following my semi-disappointment with Audrey Hepburn’s film debut Roman Holiday, I was delighted to pop in her second film Sabrina into the DVD player just days later. Now this is a great movie. Funny, charming, and very entertaining from beginning to end, the film has a lot to offer. Billy Wilder assembled a terrific cast for this, with Audrey Hepburn feeling a whole lot more natural and comfortable in this than she did in Roman Holiday. She plays the title character, ignored by her rich neighbors and thought of as a dismissable little “girl” by the men. When she returns from Europe a few years later, however, she clearly has gained new confidence and radiant beauty, as playboy pretty boy David (Sunset Blvd’s William Holden) instantly begins to fall for her. His more solemn and serious older brother (Humphrey Bogart) has practically given up on love, but he too finds a lot to admire in Sabrina, and the two brothers begin to realize they’re both in love with the same woman. I hate to keep comparing this movie to Roman Holiday, but I just found Sabrina to be superior in essentially all departments (more…)

I hate being a cynic when it comes to sweet, innocent motion pictures like this, beloved by many for over fifty years, but I flat-out didn’t find much to love in Roman Holiday. The most pleasure comes in the form of watching Audrey Hepburn, in her film debut, as she’s more beautiful and radiant than ever. But more often than that, I found myself a little bit bored by the scenes on-screen. William Wyler directed the film, but it was my friend and roommate William Hyler who got me through it. His running commentary on the movie still cracks me up weeks later after taking place. What’s not to make fun of? While Gregory Peck is admirable as an actor, he feels completely out of place here. He’s not what I would call the most charismatic romantic lead, especially paired with Hepburn, who looks young enough to be his daughter. For all the people who love the movie, please answer me this. Why does Audrey Hepburn spend so much time in the beginning asleep? She works hard to escape her privileged life, all to go to bed. A little odd, if you ask me. There are small joys to the movie, brief scenes that work on their own (including a chase scene on a motorcyle), and an ending that puts a nice capper on the events, but I find it odd this film (more…)