One of Philippe de Broca's sticky confections. Music-box melodies, fairy-tale costumes, and prance-y performances are enlisted to demonstrate that war is not nice and that the inmates of a funny farm are saner than the people wheeling and dealing in the real world. With Alan Bates.
George Axelrod's nihilstic, often hysterical demolishment of California — and teenagers in general, parents in general, sex education, beach party movies, and any other topic that floats into his head. For the first time since directing one of his own scripts, Axelrod is either extremely ironic or uncomfortable about the …
With this, his sixth feature, the previously unknown Claude Lelouch became the Grand Prize recipient at the Cannes festival, an Oscar winner in the Foreign Film category, one of the most financially liberated of filmmakers, and a stylist — shooting quickly, mobilely, on the road, and from the hip — …
Heavy robes, stone palaces, esteemed actors, and melodious voices — all in the service of some facile debates on the subject of justice and personal integrity. Paul Scofield is a too saintly Thomas More, Robert Shaw is a too noisy Henry VIII, and the issue is too settled to stir …
“Situated on precipitous peaks above yawning canyons,” bellers our off-camera guide, “San Francisco thrusts itself into the bosom of the Pacific.” The cadence of the eloquent voice-over suggests ersatz Ed Murrow, but the salacious syntax is unmistakably that of Russ Meyer. After five minutes, all semblance of documentary realism is …
Perhaps it was my aversion to a certain tendency in British cinema that kept me at bay. Who wants to watch The Munsters run through a de-humorizer and be given the "Carry On" treatment? I didn't realize as a child that the British supporting cast was already residing in America …
A group of strangers — Ann-Margret, Alex Cord and Red Buttons — share a stagecoach to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
An American scientist's feigned defection to the Soviet Union in hopes of acquiring the solution to his own Physics problem is replete with Alfred Hitchcock's mannered, overdesigned "set pieces," most of which fail to rise up, full-bodied, from the drafting table. Now and then a nice feel for character brings …
Jean-Luc Godard plays around with prostitution as a metaphor for life in contemporary capitalist society, and the ever-faithful, ever-game Raoul Coutard provides him with vividly colored, wide-screen images of the materials of that society -- sweaters, high-rise apartments, Mobil gas stations, fashion magazines, etc. The images are dazzling, always; the …
The frankness of the dialogue no doubt marks a forward plunge for commercial American cinema, ca. 1966, although this advance is made rather safely behind the stout reputation of the Edward Albee stage play, a witty and withering view of the home life of college professors and wives. Richard Burton, …