OK, not that you care, but I finished watching Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace. The first half depicted the upper crust's every single little mishap, which made them both very human and also pathetically-too-human-while-being-ignorant, which translates to just too-full-of-themselves.

I'm so dumbfounded I'm bordering on speechless. The final four hours of War and Peace is far more cinematic, powerful, and human than the first half. This film is incredible. I'm just sorry that Bondarchuk could do one of the greatest directing jobs of all-time, and then screw the pooch. I saw his Waterloo at the theatre and it seemed poor, but that was about 35 years ago, so maybe I owe one of the best directors a second/third chance.

Either way, everybody watch this Russian War and Peace. I honestly believe your mind will be BLOWN!

Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964, Grade: B)

This dramatic version of a nuclear nightmare followed Dr. Strangelove by a few months, but it still stands as an extrmely-tense, thought-provoking film with a great cast. I'm not going to compare it with the Kubrick film, but it's amazing how similar they are in many ways. This one has Henry Fonda as the U.S. President who is forced to make a horrifying decision to try to stop WW III when one group of American bombers is accidentally sent to bomb Moscow. There are really too many excellent performances to mention, but standouts include Walter Matthau as a civilian hawk who advocates using the mistake to force the Soviets to surrender, Dan O'Herlihy as a general/college buddy of the President who's having weird dreams, and Larry Hagman as the interpretor for the President in his phone conversations with the Russian premier. Frank Overton, Edward Binns, Sorrell Booke, Fritz Weaver and Dom DeLuise also register strongly. The ending really makes the movie, but it's bound to stir up a huge debate.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. I liked, didn't love, this film which is a bio pic of former Uganda dictator and mass murderer Idi Amin. Despite an Oscar caliber peformance of Forest Whitaker as Amin, the film's protagonist was not Amin/Whitaker, but a Scottish doctor who becomes a trusted advisor to Amin. It kind of threw the film off because the film was more about the doctor than about Amin. Rating: B.

LITTLE CHILDREN. A terrific film from actor-turned-director Todd Field. He proved that he wasn't a one-time wonder with IN THE BEDROOM. The film deals with suburban ennui as it features an affair between Kate Winslett and Patrick Wilson, with subplots involving Jackie Earle Haley (remember him from the original BAD NEWS BEARS?) as a paroled sex offender and Noah Emmerich as his foil, an ex-cop. It also features a Greek chorus of housewifes and Jennifer Connelly as Wilson's shrewish wife. An excellent film in the mode of AMERICAN BEAUTY. Rating: A-.

SHORTBUS. I don't know what to make of this film from the director of HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH (use your imagination to figure out what the "angry inch" is). It is borderline pornography that features graphic hetero- and homo-sexual sex. I can't say I really liked it as a movie, but it did have a certain voyeuristic interest and one of the female leads, Soon-Lin Lee I think her name was, is easy on the eyes. Rating C.

RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND. I caught this one as part of a Monte Hellman retro the Brooklyn Academy of Music is mounting and it featured Jack Nicholson in an ensemble Western in a pre-EASY RIDER (or pre-stardom) role. Filmed simultaneously as another western, THE SHOOTING, WHIRLWIND is kind of an existential Western as some vigilantes chase Nicholson and another guy, who are innocent. I say the film is existential in that the ending is open-ended. You never do find out what happens to Jack. Rating: C.

FLIGHT TO FURY. This is another ultra-obscure, low-budget film directed by Hellman in 1964 that also featured Nicholson as part of an ensemble cast that was filmed in the Phillipines. Basically a thriller, sort of, that involves stolen diamonds. It features a plane crash and some tangling with guerillas and was kind of dopey. Rating: D.

BACK DOOR TO HELL. Another Hellman/Nicholson collaboration, this one was filmed simultaneously with FLIGHT TO FURY in the Phillipines in 1964 and is by far the better of the two films. Set during WWII, Nicholson and two other commandos land in the Phillipines just before the U.S. invastion to retake the island. They hook up with some Philipino guerrillas and battle the Japs. Not a bad little film and one real good set piece where Jack & Company must crash a Japanese guard house to borrow some time on their short wave radio. Rating: B.

The Departed
Obviously, with the talent pool involved in this movie, you know this is going to be good and it doesn't disappoint..It's taut, terrific and takes it time to build up..Matt Damon is ok, Jack is, well..Jack Nicholson..pity he always plays his characters the same way..But then, who's going to tell Jack Nicholson how to act, right?
For me, the dense script was a standout and having seen the original, I have to give credit to the original Hong Kong movie, Infernal Affairs which blew me away when I saw it a few years back. Ray Winstone's character was amazing, for the short time he was onscreen. However, for me, this was Leo's show, no doubt about it. If you have seen the original, compare the two characters and you'll see what I mean..Leo plays Billy Costigan as a tortured, tormented individual absolutely flawlessly and brilliantly and for my money, so far, deserves atleast an Oscar nomination for this amazing performance..Welcome back, Leo..We lost you for a while, but with Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York and now The Departed, he is truly showcasing his burgeoning talent. I didn't think much of The Aviator, so not including that in his past efforts.
I thought the ending sucked, to be quite honest! And again, if u are a fan of the original movie, you'll understand why..When Leo and Matt are in the lift going down, and Matt Damon's character is begging him to kill him, Leo says, I've already killed you. I think the ending would have been better if Matt Damon's character had lived, knowing that he lost everything and would have faced an empty, lonely existence..don't you think?
Still, the best of the year, closely followed by An Inconvenient Truth and Thank you for Smoking

SHOPPING FOR FANGS. Via a Netflix rental this was an indie from '97 that I don't think received a theatrical run. It was directed by Justin Lin who also directed a film called BETTER TOMORROW that worked hard to demolish the Asian "model minority" stereotype. This film was in the same vein, structured a bit like CRASH where the film focuses on random people who kind of get thrown together. A little like BETTER LUCK TOMORROW in that it fell apart in the third act, the film is not a bad yarn. Rating: B-

OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS. I conflated this film with another film Carol Reed directed, OUR MAN IN HAVANA. Both films were based on high brow literary sources, OUTCAST on a Joseph Conrad novel and HAVANA on a Graham Greene story. The former starred Trevor Howard, with Robert Morley, Ralph Richardson & Wendy Hiller in support while OUTCAST featured Alec Guinness. In any event, when the film started I thought I was going to see Greene's yarn, but it turned out to be Conrad's. Basically another one of those stories where the first worlders collide with the third worlders in their native land to disastrous effect. Rating: B.

WELCOME DANGER. This was a real stinker Harold Lloyd film from '29. This is the silent version that Lloyd redid immediately for sound. One thing about silent films, particularly those featuring Keaton, Chaplin & Lloyd. is how kinetic they are. This film was just static. And it went on and on and on, clocking in at 1 hour and 48 minutes, a half hour (or more) could easily be cut to get the film to move like Lloyd's better films. It felt like two films cobbled together, the first-part a rom-com with Lloyd courting a woman then segueing into a silly comedy/thriller where Lloyd gets tangled up with some tongs in San Francisco's Chinatown. Rating: D.

Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel, 1954, Grade: B)

Dan O'Herlihy shines as the titular slave trader trapped by a storm on a remote island in the Western Hemisphere for most of his life. This was Bunuel's first color film, shot during his Mexican "exile", and yes, it's not that full of surrealism, but it is full of irony. If you have a chance to watch it, make sure you see the English-language version. O'Herlihy (Oscar-nominated) speaks 90% of the dialogue, and even when Friday shows, he speaks his native tongue only a little before learning English. This has got to be the best version I've seen, and it moves along quite nicely and shows both a slavetrader and a cannibal to be just all-too human. Rent it through your mail-order rental company if possible.

King & Country (Joseph Losey, 1964, Grade: B)

I also recommend a mail rental of this obscure film. Tom Courteney plays a WWI British enlistee, who, after three years of trench warfare, decides ("for no good reason") to take a walk away from all the blood, noise and death. He's caught by the British near Calais and court-marshalled for desertion, which merits a firing squad. Dirk Bogarde, as his defense attorney, gives a tremendous performance as he advocates justice over law in a most-eloquent manner. This isn't anywhere near as awesome as Kubrick's similar Paths of Glory, but it's the best you'll see the other side of Breaker Morant. The stench and inhumanity of the circumstances of WWI are rubbed in your face by the direction and sets, yet the script is beautiful, as is Larry Adler's customarily-affecting harmonica score.

BERNIE: I don't know what to make of this French film from '96 that did not receive commercial distribution in the U.S. Directed and starring Albert Dupontel, who I had never heard of, the film was billed as a comedy, but it has to be the blackest comedy I've ever seen. In fact, it reminded me more of HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER than a comedy, evidenced by the number of people who walked out during the screening and those who stayed for the duration, but loudly complained after the film about how terrible it was. Bascially the story of a 30-year-old idiot savant orphan who leaves his orphanage to find his parents. Done in a cartoon style, the protagonist finds his father, who is homeless, and his mother, who ended up rich. Father and son kidnap the mother, killing the rest of her family long the way. Then the orphan goes on the lam, hooking up with a junkie who was living in the apartment where he was born. I had fun with the film, but to bill this as a comedy is a bit of a stretch. Rating: B.

CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37: An obscure spaghetti western from director Monte Hellman and starring Warren Oates. Basically, a gunfighter in the old west condemned for murder and about to be hanged is given a reprieve if he'll find and kill Oates, who was a former killer for hire employed by the railroad. The hitman, an Italian actor who was dubbed and who couldn't act, finds Oates, but decides not to off him because he likes him. One hiccup, though, he has an affair with Oates' wife, Jenny Agutter. Oates finds out about it and sets off after the killer and then it becomes a chase film. The film was slow moving and static and more of a curio than anything else in Hellman's filmography. Rating: D

Well, last night I started watching Marco Bellocchio's first feature film, the 1965 Fist in His Pocket, a pretty-unique film about a seemingly-inbred family, full of epilepsy, incest, murder and madness. The film follows a path similar to Kind Hearts and Coronets, but it's not a black comedy, even with Ennio Morricone's wicked musical score. I have to admit that I watched it late at night, and although I saw most of it, including the ending, I feel that I missed enough to not give it a rating until I watch it again, but it is out there, and I'd be interested in others' opinions to this disturbing flick.

THESIS/TESIS: I finally had a chance to catch up with Spanish suspense film from director Alejandro Amenabar, who brought us THE OTHERS and CLOSE YOUR EYES, remade in the U.S. as VANILLA SKY by Cameron Crowe. An interesting film about a female film student who is studying violence in film, who stumbles onto some people who make snuff films. She gets into and out of trouble a number of times, helped by a fellow film student who becomes her sidekick. The film, surprisingly, did not get picked up for distribution in the U.S. Rating: B

BALLAD OF A SOLIDIER. A Ruskie classic from the 1950s, this one features a soldier who wins a pass to visit mom for some battlefield heroics and uncounters all sorts of obstacles trying to get home during WWII Russia. A real moving film. Rating: B.

INFAMOUS. The other Truman Capote bio-pic, this film is actually very good and well worth watching, despite last year's CAPOTE and the Best Actor Academy Award Philip Seymour Hoffman won in the eponymous title role. In this case Toby Jones, an actor I've never heard of, is equally good in his very different portrayal of the epicine Capote. The source material for the two films was different as well, with Bennett Miller in the Hoffman version relying of Gerald Clarke's bio and the new version, directed by Doug McGrath, relying on a book penned by George Plimpton. Both movies focus on the time when Capote was writing his masterpiece, IN COLD BLOOD. Unfortunately, I'm afraid INFAMOUS has bombed at the box office because Friday was its second full week and the distributor already has pulled the ads and the film is being pulled from theaters. Rating: B+.

MARIE ANTOINETTE. This film was the first of 7 movies that opened this week that I want to see that I did see. It played at Cannes to very mixed reviews and also screened at the recently concluded New York Film Festival. I didn't know what to expect, having disliked Sofia Coppola's first film, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, and liking her second, LOST IN TRANSLATION, the film that made Scarlett Johansson a full blown movie star and featured Bill Murray's finest performance on celluloid. They were even split about this film on Ebert's show, with guest critic A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" giving a thumb's up and Richard Roeper giving a thumb's down. The film is based on a revisionist -- and sympathetic -- take on Ms. Let 'Em Eat Cake and I found it interesting enough regarding the court rituals and background, but just found the film to be a bit of a dud. The film focuses on the period before the French Revolution. Rating C.

RIPOUX 3. This is the third film directed by Claude Zidi that pairs the dissolute cop -- by now retired cop -- Philip Noirot with anal cop Terry L'Hermitte. All done with a twinkle in the eye, Noirot gets into trouble and L'Hermitte gets Noirot out of trouble. This time Noirot loses some money owned by Chinese gangsters and must get it back. I saw the first Le Zidoux back in the 80s and liked it, but the first sequel was barely released in the U.S. and didn't get good reviews so I skipped it. This film never did find commercial distribution in the U.S. Rating: B.

REQUIEM. The second of seven films that opened this week on my "want to see list", this is the same story as last year's EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, which I didn't see and which was castigated by critics. This is a German film and deals with a mentally disturbed woman. Doctors and drugs don't work so she turns to the church. Based on a real life story, the protoganist in real life actually did die when she was being exorcised, believe it or not. And that occurred in 1976. I found the film, which received strong reviews, to be interesting enough, but I just felt the actor was mentally ill and the whole exorcism was hogwash. Rating: B.

GANGSTERS. This French policierwas made in '02 and I remember reading a good "Variety" review, but it never popped up in the U.S. until now, albeit not in a commercial movie house. Basically a cop yarn about uncover cops trying to ferret corrupt cops who have infiltrated a major crimes squad in Paris. I found the film confusing, poorly directed and even poorly written. I don't know the lead actor's name, but he looked a lot like Daniel Autieul and Anne Parrillaud, from LA FEMME NIKITA fame, pops up as his partner and lover, but really isn't given much to do except strip and get beaten up. Big disappointment considering the "Variety" review, rating: C-.

THE SCARLET LETTER. This is the silent, MGM version starring Lillian Gish and directed by Victor Seastrom, this 1926 film holds up very well as does the Nathanial Hawthorne classic tome about the Puritans, religious intolerance and rigidity. The book has special resonance today. Rating: B.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. I've a big John Carpenter fan, but skipped this one on its original release a decade or so ago because of poor reviews. The film starts off alright as kind of a psychological thriller, but falls completely apart in the third act. Sam Neill, sent to find an author who disappear with an advance for a book, finds out that he becomes a character in the author's novel. Rating: D.

It has only been in the last year that I started to tackle the silent films. Yesterday I caught two more:

GERMINAL. This was a surprisingly technically accomplished French film from 1913. Based on the Zola novel, it deals with coal miners, a strike and a cave-in. A French-language film was released in the 1990s to very mixed reviews, but I kind of liked it. I respected the silent version more than I liked it. For one thing, the silent version was way, way overlong at 2.5 hours. Rating: C.

THE WONDERFUL LIES OF NINA PETROVINA. This was a German slent film made in '29 that could be considered a melodrama. Nina is living with a general, but falls for a junior officer and dumps the general. The general catches the junior officer cheating at cards and makes him confess, in writing, to the transgression. The general still has the hots for Nina and shows his ex-lover the confession and blackmails her into coming back to him. If she doesn't, the general will ruin his rival. Nina, out of love for the junior officer does so and the general destroys the confession, but Nina offs herself before she goes back to the general. At 80 minutes, a taut, well directed and acted melodrama. Rating: B.

little children ***** ( best movie so far)
marie antoniette ***** ( its charming beautiful and kristen in prefect in the role)
shortbus ****
flags of our fathers ***
babel ***** ( this film will get a nom for sure at the oscar and probably win is perfect but still i preffer little children )

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: Well, Clint Eastwood's late career renaissance as an auteur continues as he's hit a trifecta with MYSTIC RIVER, MILLION DOLLAR BABY and now FLAGS, his take on the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. Basically three story threads: one set in contemporary times where a son tries to find out the story about the raising of the flag from his dying father, who was one of the soldiers who raised; a second story that focuses on the three soldiers who survived the carnage on Iwo Jima who were called back to the U.S. to sell war bonds; and the bulk of the story shot in desaturated colors that focuses on the fighting on Iwo Jima and the true story about that iconic photograph showing the soldiers raising the flag. With the stylized colors and the fact that the Iwo portion of the film was shot in Iceland gives the landscape a moonscape effect. My one quibble with the film is that other than the three soldiers who go on the bond drive, I found it difficult to distinguish the other soldiers from one another. They kind of blended together. Rating: B+.

The World's Fastest Indian (Roger Donaldson, 2005, Grade: B)

Solid entertainment about real-life New Zealander Burt Munro's first trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in the mid-1960s to try to set a land speed record with his extremely-modified 1920 Indian Scout "motorsickle" which won't blow you away, but it should keep a smile on your face for about two hours. Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as the sixtysomething Burt, who suffers from angina and partial deafness, but his overall attitude and way with people is refreshingly upbeat and helps you to cheer him on in his dream.

Cloak & Dagger (Richard Franklin, 1984, Grade: B)

Right after he made a surprisingly-good Psycho 2, Franklin makes another Hitchcockian flick, although this time it's from the perspective of a young boy (Henry Thomas) who witnesses a murder and gets hold of a key piece of evidence, yet nobody believes him, except for the murderers and his imaginary secret agent friend Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman) who bears a strong resemblance to his single father. This is a fun, fast-paced film which plays out at least twice as well as Spy Kids. This film has some real bite to it.

Son of Monte Cristo (Rowland V. Lee, 1940, Grade: B-)

This swashbuckler has all the key ingredients for a good one: a hero (Louis Hayward) who has to pose as two completely-different characters to achieve his purpose, a gorgeous noblewoman (Joan Bennett) who tries to fight for her people, and a super evil villain (George Sanders) who's still quite charming and educated. I've seen this movie several times, so it follows a perhaps predictable, but still highly-entertaining arc. You don't really have to know anything at all about The Count of Monte Cristo, but it's a worthy successor if you do.

Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940, Grade: B)

Leisen hasn't the reputation of Billy Wilder or Preston Sturges, but in the late 1930s and 1940s, he was often their equal in crafting sophisticated comedy-dramas with wonderful characters. In this warm, witty film, perhaps his best, Leisen directs from a Sturges script and delineates one of the best Christmas films ever made. When it looks like she might get off, New York Assistant District Attorney Fred MacMurray makes sure that thief Barbara Stanwyck's trial gets continued over the Holidays, but later he feels guilty about her having to stay in jail, so he arranges for her $5000 bail. The bailbondsman mistakenly delivers her to his apartment, but he's about to make a 750-mile car trip to spend Christmas and New Year's with his family in Indiana. They find out that they're both Hoosiers, and he decides to take her home to see her mama, who she hasn't seen for many years. Eventually, a romance occurs during the most idyllic Christmas ever presented on film, but that doesn't make things any easier for the characters. There are beautiful performances by Beulah Bondi as McMurray's mom, Elizabeth Patterson as his aunt, and Sterling Holloway as his cousin. Plus Willard Robertson is absolutely insane as Stanwyck's defense attorney. MacMurray and Stanwyck prove to have plenty of chemistry four years before Double Indemnity. With the holidays approaching, I highly recommend this flick, but unfortunately it's not on DVD, so you'll have to keep an eye out for it on TCM.

I'm making another post, mainly because I forgot one of my other recently-viewed films, and it certainly isn't forgettable, but also because I see a theme, and I wonder if anybody else does (or cares), so I thought I'd add a little editorial too. Feel free to answer here, and if it ends up meaning anything to anybody, we can start a new thread.

Little Lord Fauntleroy (John Cromwell, 1936, Grade: B)

I know, I know. The title probably puts some people off, but this is just a wonderful film, every bit as good now as 70 years ago. The story of a Brooklyn boy (Freddie Bartholomew) who finds out that he's in line to become an Earl in England, due to his late father's lineage, still packs an emotional wallop. This film is full of honest sentiment. In that way, it reminds me of Capra's Lady For a Day, although this film has fewer cynical moments. The thing which really makes this film and story shine is that it's not phony, and the acting is actually very honest.

The gist of the story is that Lord Fauntleroy's grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith) wants him to live with him at his castle, but he doesn't want to see his mother (Dolores Costello, Drew Barrymore's grandma) and sets her up in a different house, even though she and her son are allowed to visit almost daily. The old man takes an immediate liking to his grandson because the boy has been raised beautifully and he makes friends easily and wants to help everybody. The old man is known to be a curmudgeon, but the young Lord quickly shows him the error of his ways. Later, another heir turns up to complicate things, but all's well that ends well. There are other great performances, including Mickey Rooney as the Brooklyn bootblack buddy of the young Lord and Guy Kibbee, wonderful as ever as Hobbs, the boy's best friend in New York, who often says that the young man "would be a shining light in the grocery business."

The comment I wanted to add was that nowadays the term "sentimental" seems to be a dirty word, although honest sentiment seems to be the best way to actually try to share your life in a kind, helpful way. I worry that generations are so cynical that they cannot even begin to trust people who truly want to do good. I mean, these last five films I've watched are mostly full of people you would want to be your friends, parents, children, etc., but does that mean that they don't merit any attention or even a film viewing because they just aren't nearly as "cool", "realistic" or "cinematically-popular" as people like Travis Bickle, Noah Cross or Hannibal Lecter? I'm not dissing those characters; I'm just wondering if people only seem to want to watch films with bad guys winning because they think it's more real. I'm as cynical as anyone, but I think that old, "sentimental" movies have a place in modern life. Maybe actually, they're necessary for "cleansing". For sure.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

Well, as one wag said "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Sentimentality is tricky to convey and Hollywood, being Hollywood, usually gets it wrong. It usually devolves into treacle and becomes maudlin or mawkish. That was my problem with THE INDIAN RUNNER, a bit too twee for my tastes.

I don't remember much about the Leisen film you saw, other than the fact that I thought it was silly. I haven't seen it in a while, but off the top of my head Leisen's best film is probably MIDNIGHT. And Leisen had a hand in pushing the great Billy Wilder from screenwriting into directing. Wilder, as acerbic and cynical as anyone ever to get behind a camera, said he was tired of Leisen screwing up his scripts so he decided to take matters into his own hand and direct.

Meanwhile, I caught two more foreign films yesterday.

SANTA CLAUS IS A LOUSE is a French film from 1981 that as far as I know didn't get distributed in the U.S. It was too broad and too silly for me to really like. Basically set on Christmas Eve, the film focused on the hi-jinks of employees and clients of a "lonelyness" (i.e., suicide) hotline. It had its dark moments, but way, way too broad & silly for my tastes. Rating: D.

I had better luck with THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE, a Swedish silent classic from 1921 directed by the formidable Victor Sjostrom, who also played the lead actor. Part of the Janus Film Collection of classic films, it is structured much like Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, where a man dies, the grim reaper comes and forces the man to look back over his life. Really eerie and very well done. Rating: B.

Le Jour se lève (Marcel Carné, 1939, Grade: B-)

French superstar Jean Gabin plays a factory worker who kills his older romantic rival (Jules Berry), and after he barricades himself in his top-floor apartment, we see how this predicament came to be. Gabin has been having an affair with a neighbor woman (Arletty), but when he finds that the rival isn't happy about the attentions he's paying to a pretty younger woman (Jacqueline Laurent), the Gabin character begins a sort-of macho/romantic cat-and-mouse game with the older man. I can't really give away anymore, but things proceed in a way you might not expect, especially the street scenes involving his other "friends and neighbors".

Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937, Grade: B-)

Jean Gabin plays the titular character here, as the infamous French gangster hiding out in the Casbah. The police keep tabs on him but are unable to arrest him in the exotic, labyrinthine part of Algiers. The plot is mostly another cat-and-mouse game between Pépé and a police inspector (Lucas Gridoux), who deduces that the only way to arrest him is to lure him out of the Casbah, and he attempts to do that by introducing him to a visiting Frenchwoman (Mireille Balin). The most striking thing about the film is the innovative, brightly-lit camerawork and the sets used to recreate the Casbah.

The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953, Grade: B+)

This is a classic suspense film which will have you yelling out at the screen, several times, "No F***ing Way!!" In a remote South American town, a group of international drifters congregate, even though there is absolutely no work for them. That is, until an oil well, in an even more-remote area, blows and the American oil company needs volunteers for a suicide mission to transport nitroglycerine (to "blow out" the fire) over mountainous jungle roads. The four drivers "lucky enough" to get the job are played by Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli and Peter van Eyck. This is a tremendous suspense thriller/macho adventure which ranks as one of the greatest of those genres. I enjoyed Billy Friedkin's remake Sorceror, but this remains much-better and is probably Clouzot's best film, even though anyone who's seen his later Les Diaboliques knows that is really something.

Boy, someone's being working overtime watching TCM. You are indeed a tough marker Mark F. I'd go higher on PEPE, though. It is much better than the Hollywood remake ALGIERS with Charles Boyer & Hedi Lamar. And WAGES OF FEAR is a nail biting classic, which I would give an A+. I've seen LE JOUR SE LEVE, but can't remember much about it. I did tape it -- actually burnt it onto a DVD -- and will watch it again soon.

Meanwhile, I caught two more films in the Janus series the Film Society of Lincoln Center is running at the Walter Reade Theatre:

DAY OF WRATH. This a classic yarn from Carl Dreyer made in 1943 that is set in the 17th century. A witch is burned at the sake and she puts a curse on the minister who leads the effort. The minister has a young, second wife. His adult son comes home and wife and son fall in love under the eyes of the minister and his prunish mother.. Real stark, spartan and austere from Dreyer: Rating: B+.

DEATH OF A CYCLIST. This is a Spanish film made by the uncle of actor Javier Bardem. Made in the fifties a man and his mistress run down a bicyclist and flee the scene without reporting the accident. The rest of the film focuses on the psychological toll the incident has on the two characters' lives. Lucia Bose, a drop-dead gorgeous actress who I am unfamiliar with, played one of the leads. Rating: B.

RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE. Via a Netflix DVD this was the first of two sequels to A MAN CALLED HORSE. The film has a good reputation, but I thought it was mediocre, at best. Richard Harris, the eponymous title character, is now back in England but has a hankering to come back to the wild west and frolic with the Indians again. He gets there, but the Yellow Face tribe have been slaughtered by another tribe of Indians acting at the behest of white trappers. Those Yellow Face left are forced to flee and leave their ancestral lands. Harris arrives and saves the day. The great white fatha rallies the Yellow Face and they defeat both the other Indian tribe and the trappers, lead by Geoffrey Lewis as the baddie. Maltin praises the film's score, but I thought it bombastic and called attention to itself. The film was directed by the mediocre Irvin Kershner, most famous for directing -- if you call what he did direct -- the second STAR BORES film. Rating: C-.