Blind Spot: The Producers (1967)

Posted on January 26, 2016 by jaycluitt

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) used to be a hit Broadway producer, but a string of flops have left him hard up, forced to woo old rich old women to fund his latest endeavours. That is until easily agitated accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) shows up to go over his books, and strikes upon the idea that a devious producer could make a great deal of money raising funds for a show that is bound to flop. This sends Max on a mission to produce the worst show in town.
Continue reading →

Rashomon

Posted on December 31, 2015 by jaycluitt

Whilst waiting out a storm in a run-down gate, two men who have recently appeared as witnesses in a case before a court recount the case to a third stranger as they attempt to make sense of the various contradicting accounts.
maxresdefault Continue reading →

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Posted on December 31, 2015 by jaycluitt

In the town of Shinbone, Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) have returned for the funeral of Tom Doniphon, a man who evidently meant a great deal to them. When asked by the local press, Ransom recounts a tale of his youth, which began when he arrived at Shinbone an idealistic young lawyer intent on bringing a sense of law and justice to the west, a quest intensified after he is assaulted by vicious bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Continue reading →

Brazil

Posted on December 31, 2015 by jaycluitt

Somewhere in the 20th Century, the world has become an Orwellian dystopia of farcical proportions. In a world where no mistakes are acknowledged, a random swatted fly falling into a typewriter causes a man named Buttle to be arrested in place of rogue terrorist heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). Tasked with tying up the error’s loose ends is Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a menial yet essential worker within the Department of Records who his boss Mr. Kurtzmann (Ian Holm) would be lost without if he were ever promoted. Sam finds his quest to rectify the situation exacerbated by the likes of his plastic surgery-obsessed mother (Katherine Helmond), less than efficient government-employed heating technicians (Bob Hoskins & Derrick O’Connor), executive desk trinkets and his own dreams which see him flying around saving his literal dream girl (Kim Greist) from monstrous demons.
Continue reading →

Shaft (1971)

Posted on December 31, 2015 by jaycluitt

John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is a private detective in New York City. Apparently he’s cool, tough, a sex machine with all the chicks, he doesn’t take orders from anybody, but he’d risk his neck for his brother man. People talk about him, and ask others if they can dig it. I’m not entirely sure what “it” is in this scenario, but whatever. A Harlem crime boss named Bumpy (Moses Gunn) tries to recruit Shaft to track down his kidnapped daughter, whilst the police, primarily Lt. Vic Androzzi (Charles Cioffi), needs Shaft to get information on a burgeoning gang war between the African American gangs and the Italian mobs.
Shaft_062Pyxurz Continue reading →

The Last Metro

Posted on December 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

In Nazi-occupied France, Jewish theatre director Lucas Steiner (Heinz Bennent) has apparently fled the country to South America, but is in fact living in the cellar of his theatre, with only his wife Marion (Catherine Deneuve) knowing of the situation. The theatre keeps running, with Marion as the lead actress in the last play Lucas wrote before exile. Lucas listens to the play rehearsals during the day and gives Marion notes in the evening, which she passes on to the new director Jean-Loup Cottins (Jean Poiret) the next day. They have a rising star lead actor in Bernard Granger (Gerard Depardieu), who in turn has a roving eye on all the women in the company, including the costume designer (Andréa Ferréol) and a younger actress (Sabine Haudepin). The film follows the play’s production from casting through rehearsals into opening night and beyond, tracking the lives of the players and the impact of the Second World War.
Continue reading →

Network

Posted on December 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

The life and career of long-serving news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has taken a downward slide recently after his wife left him and he sank into drink, and his once high ratings have fallen to the point where his network, UBS, is forced to let him go. After being told he has just 2 weeks left on the air Howard broadcasts that in a week he will kill himself, live and during his show. Understandably he is immediately taken off the air by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), a rising executive surreptitiously taking over UBS from the inside, however Howard’s best friend and manager Max Schumacher (William Holden) is able to allow Howard one last show, for a chance at a dignified farewell, which Howard takes and runs with, instead offering up some frank and hard truths the general public eats up. Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), UBS’ new head of programming, sees potential in Howard’s popularity, and adapts his news show to suit, but what is more the important, the ratings or their host’s sanity?
Continue reading →

It Happened One Night

Posted on December 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is a poor little rich girl running away from her father (Walter Connolly) in order to be with her fiancé Westley (Jameson Thomas), whom her father disapproves of. She aims to take a bus from Florida to New York, but has never had to travel alone in the outside world before. Peter Warne (Clark Gable) has just been fired from his job as a newspaper reporter and happens to be taking the same bus as Ellie, who is trying to travel incognito, without the press getting wind of her situation. Ellie and Peter strike up an uneasy agreement wherein he’ll help get her to New York if she gives him the exclusive rights to her story once she gets there, but of course that’s not how it’s going to play out in the end.
Continue reading →

The Thin Blue Line

Posted on December 28, 2015 by jaycluitt

On Thanksgiving weekend, 1976, policeman Robert W Wood pulled over a car for driving at night with no headlights on in Dallas, Texas. The car was stolen, which Wood had no knowledge of, and sadly he was shot and killed, with the car peeling away as Wood’s partner, one of the first female officers in Dallas, fired shots after it. The police investigation led to 16-year-old David Ray Harris, who had reportedly stolen the car from his neighbour and later bragged to his friends about committing the crime, but he pointed the finger at 28-year-old Randall Adams, a man new in town planning to start a new job, whom Harris had given a ride to and spent the day with.
Continue reading →

Spellbound (1945)

Posted on December 27, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip for French Toast Sunday.

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a brilliant psychiatrist, but is lacking in bedside manner. She works at Green Manor amongst some quite sexist male colleagues and has never found love, until the new hospital director, Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck, and I’d love it if in E.R. Anthony Edwards played a Dr. Gregory Pecke, but alas life isn’t perfect) arrives to take over from long-term serving director Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll). Constance and Edwardes become close but his behaviour concerns her, particularly his outbursts whenever he sees dark parallel lines against a pale background and, in digging into his past, Constance discovers that Edwardes may not be quite who he seems. 12518_55 Continue reading →