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“A box office failure in its heyday, 1968’s The Swimmer has since attained status as a cult film. Based on John Cheever’s short story of the same name, The Swimmer is an odd exploration of suburban malaise, the ennui of one man who has since been closed off from his privileged lifestyle, or a hal” read more
“The cinema is filled with collaborations between directors and their handsome proxies reuniting and exploring, if not refining, their individual and collective images. Behold the collaboration between director John Frankenheimer, one of cinema’s most sensitively masculine directors, and star Burt ” read more
“Anatole Litvak finally does something with his camera besides plop it down and film his actors as though they were performing on a stage. He pushes it into star Barbara Stanwyck’s face so we can count every drop of sweat that forms across her brow and upper lip while she lies in bed and franticall” read more
“Iron-jawed Burt Lancaster plays a tortured prisoner aching to get out to reunite with his ailing wife (Ann Blyth). We understand and sympathize with him, but not just with him but all the men in his cell block. When they riot against the despotic guard (Hume Cronyn), we understand their motivating f” read more
“Film noir is dependent upon a palpable sense of atmosphere, of a world going to rot, covered in grim and thick with smoke. There’s a sense of erotic energy and danger, often intertwined, and everyone seems morally pliable, if not bankrupt or seeking salvation. What separates the best from the mere” read more
“If you had a story set during the Great Depression in a sleepy, dusty little town suitable for the conning by a charlatan and the spinster daughter ripe for a sexual awakening by the same, who would you cast in those roles? Well, if we’re talking about the studio era of films, then the answers wou” read more
“If there’s any completely realized and executed masterpiece in Danny Kaye’s filmography it is 1956’s The Court Jester. Not only is it a goof on the Errol Flynn medieval swashbucklers but it maintains a perfect balance of the songs, narrative, comedic bits, and characters to build something spe” read more
“A musical-comedy remake of Ball of Fire from Howard Hawks, A Song Is Born is a film that I probably enjoyed more than the average viewer. By no stretch of the imagination is it an improvement on the original, or even a worthy successor, but it is harmlessly entertaining. And it is fascinating to wat” read more
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
“Here is the film where Danny Kaye’s career begins to transition away from near shapeless excuses for his typical bag of tricks and towards something that gives him more character and structure. While The Secret Life of Walter Mitty still finds plenty of time, a bit too much in my estimation, to hi” read more
“The Kid from Brooklyn casts Danny Kaye as a meek milkman who somehow becomes a boxer. That’s it, that’s the entire premise of this one. Many of the usual parts are here again, Vera-Ellen, Virginia Mayo, the Goldwyn Girls, songs and dances, bits of slapstick comedy. It’s pure Kaye formula by th” read more
“Danny Kaye pulls double-duty in Wonder Man playing twins, one a nebbish type and the other a nightclub sensation that runs afoul of some gangsters. The ghost of the extrovert possesses the nerd and causes all sorts of shenanigans along the way. Of course, there’s a love triangle adject plotline in” read more
“Danny Kaye’s film debut, Up in Arms, is a case study in his (now stale) musical-comedies of the mid-40s. There’s a very basic premise and structure, hypochondriac gets drafted into the army, that merely exists as an excuse to get Kaye to perform various bits of song-and-dance, pull faces, and co” read more
“Lina Wertmüller returns to her oldest obsessions – sexuality and politics and where/how they converge – in Ferdinando and Carolina. Yet Wertmüller’s film is malformed and various maneuvers are poorly explained to the audience so the narrative remains indecipherable. It’s quite simple, Ferd” read more
“Summer Night plays like a spiritual sequel to Swept Away in which the couple get something akin to a happy ending, or as happy an ending as Lina Wertmüller is capable of crafting, which is more elliptical than emphatic. A wealthy industrialist (Mariangela Melato) kidnaps a Sicilian renegade (Michel” read more
“A make-or-break film or the make-or-break film for whether the cinema of Lina Wertmüller is for you? Swept Away is a combination of her rebellious treatment of sexual politics, class politics, and regional differences populated with her two favorite actors, Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato.” read more
“Coming off her first masterpiece, Love & Anarchy, Lina Wertmüller dropped the stars and more playful tone for this scattershot glimpse on modern living in Milan viewed through the prism of recently arrived citizens of southern Italy. The film is essentially an assembly of various pieces struggl” read more
“A perfect sampler for the cinema of Lina Wertmüller, one of Italian cinema’s biggest provocateurs. The Seduction of Mimi not only unites the director with her two best stars, Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, but offers an accessible primer on her artistic outlook and prevailing themes. W” read more