Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) ****
I’m still trying to work out why I enjoyed the Rat Pack’s last hurrah so much. Sure, it’s the knockout debut of “My Kind of Town,” the last tune Frank Sinatra performed on the big screen and one that would have epitomised Ol’ Blue Eyes had it not been supplanted a few years later by…
Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) ***
Not a direct sequel to Brides of Blood (1968) but in today’s vernacular this would be taking place in a “Bloodverse”. Swap human sacrifice for erotic ritual, eliminate the man-eating trees and giant insects, throw in buckets of green blood and women who can’t pass a waterfall without diving in naked, a voyeur, add a…
What’s New Pussycat? (1965) ***
Being this was the age of the Lothario, what with James Bond and Matt Helm and Co surrounded by adoring women, you were hardly going to find many males in the audience feeling that sex addiction was a bad thing. Nor was commitment phobia likely to be high in the agenda of the females in…
The Sting (1973) *****
There was a time when movies had charm. An easy grace. A fluidity. The ability to hold an audience in the palm of their hands with the simplest of narratives. Sadly, that time is long gone. I doubt if any Hollywood director – so raddled now by self-indulgence and self-importance – would even know how…
Behind the Scenes: “Gray Lady Down” (1978)
Producer Walter Mirisch could have afforded to rest on his laurels – he’d won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night and been responsible for classics like The Magnificent Seven (1960) – and three sequels – and The Great Escape (1963). The 1970s had proved tougher, resulting initially in a string of pot…
Gray Lady Down (1978) ****
The best of the late 70s disaster pictures and possibly the best of the whole short-lived genre, mixing technology, hair-rising tension and restrained emotion on top of a belter of a concept, sailors trapped in a submarine on the seabed with oxygen running out. But what lifts this above the norm is that it doesn’t…
Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) **
Lightning didn’t strike once never mind three times as with Monte Hellman’s predecessor The Shooting (1966) and all the flaws of that picture are multiplied without either the free pass of being classed as existential or a central performance such as that of Millie Perkins to give it an boost and, as importantly, to provide…
The Shooting (1967) ****
Director Monte Hellman struck lucky three times. In the first place French critics took such a shining to this disjointed elliptical western that they tabbed it a work of existential genius. Then Jack Nicholson, who only has a small part, became a global star and it picked up a second head of steam. And now,…
The Penthouse (1967) ****
Visceral home invasion thriller that ignited the genre and triggered later more controversial offerings like The Straw Dogs (1971) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). Made virtually on one set for the indescribably minute sum of £100,000, it is charged with Pinteresque dialog and aberrant philosophy. The genre splits into those pictures where the occupants have…
Behind the Scenes: Charles Bronson USA Box Office Bust, 1967-1972
That Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami (1968) was a smash hit in France did nothing for Charles Bronson’s Hollywood career. Hollywood had form in disregarding U.S.-born stars that Europe had taken to its box office bosom. Example number one of course was Clint Eastwood, ignored by the big American studios until four years after his…
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The Magnificent 60s 