Liv Ullman stars as real-life Russian Jewish dissident and astronomer Ida Nudel, who was denied permission to emigrate and then sent to a labor camp after protesting in Moscow in 1980. Starting off as a romance, turning into a grim political thriller, and then veering into tragedy, director Mauro Bolognini’s melancholy film offers another one of the director’s portraits of strong-willed women who are persecuted by history. The film isn’t particularly well-known, and it’s almost never seen nowadays. But any Ennio Morricone fans will immediately recognize the film’s haunting score, one of the composer’s greatest works.Read More »

Munich in the late Sixties must have been the coolest place on earth. At least when you look at some of the movies that were made around that time. “Detektive” is Rudolf Thome’s feature debut, one year before he shot “Rote Sonne” (Red Sun) Link , and naturally it was a movie about girls and guns (and two cool dudes, proto slackers). The story is almost forgettable, it’s all about the style. And, of course, Uschi Obermaier, the star of “Rote Sonne”, whom Thome had discovered for “Detektive”. (Consequently, for most of the time, Uschi runs around in her undies) The dialogues are hilarious, super deadpan, the crime plot is ridiculous, the cinemathography (b/w and scope) beautiful. Heavily indebted to the French Novelle Vague and Hollywood’s classic gangster films, “Detektive” is miles away from the German New Wave around Wenders, Kluge and Fassbinder. That’s what makes this little flic, shot with friends on weekends (and between tours through the bars in the Schwabing district), so special.
In the lead, the great Marquard Bohm, something like the German Belmondo (a face like no other) and Uli Lommel, who went on to direct the German serial killer film “Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe” and numerous Hollywood b movies. Nuff said. Enjoy this very special gem!Read More »

Quote:
A man leaves his bourgeois comfort and wife for a life of adventure and for a girl involved in smuggling, leaves his name Ferdinand for a nickname, Pierrot, leaves his boredom for crazy love, society Paris for “wild” France… to eventually tune himself up with his visions and ideals.Read More »

Plot:
The law is the law. No exceptions. So Sheriff Sam Barrett saddles up a deputized posse and rides in pursuit of an accused outlaw: his son Logan. Meanwhile, Logan is on the run, living by his wits and attempting to clear his name of murder. Justice rides hard in Return of the Frontiersman, a shoot-’em-up filled with horseback chases, raging gun battles and men who know how to take – and deliver – a swift sock to the jaw. Gordon MacRae plays Logan, heading a cast that includes Rory Calhoun and Julie London. MacRae adds a couple tunes for good measure. And when he offers London a buggy ride at picture’s end, it’s hard not to recall the “surrey with a fringe on top” that awaited MacRae in the smash musical Oklahoma! From Warner Brothers!Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Entertaining fantasy-based peplum, starring American actor Roger Browne as the God of War.

The king of Telbia defeats an African army through the intervention of the war god Mars. Remaining on Earth, Mars falls in love with the human girl Daphne, but she is forced to become a priestess in the temple of Venus. Mars tries to free her, but falls under the spell of Venus, who keeps him prisoner. Daphne, meanwhile, having violated the sanctity of the temple, is condemned to be devoured by a monster.

Director Marcello Baldi composes his shots to make full use of the Totalscope image, making this picture a must in widescreen. Highlights include the opening battle between the Greek and African armies and a Little Shoppe of Horrors-type plant monster to whom maidens are sacrificed.Read More »

“Frauen sind keine Engel” was made on a moderate budget and has generally found not as much attention as that which has been rightfully accorded to his ‘Viennese trilogy’ made at about the same time. Please don’t expect the outward splendour of some other Forst films, even though script, acting and direction leave nothing to be desired. However, like many of Forst’s more important films this one not only provides great entertainment, but is also a thorough examination of the relation of fiction/art and reality.Read More »

Quote:
“Dans la ville blanche” was a turning-point in Tanner’s career as a director. Bringing him renewed public acclaim, it’s most striking aspects are silence, stark poetry and sombre melancholy.
It also marked a change in his aesthetic approach. Although escape and the desire for solitude had always been key Tannerian themes, they had previously been developed on a left-wing foundation and characterised by conversation and playful fantasy, a paradise of puns and facetious remarks in which his characters were at home. There is nothing of the kind in this film.
The Swiss director must have been inspired by his younger days in the merchant navy in imagining this portrait of a sailor (sublimely acted by Bruno Ganz) who abandons everything to merge body and soul into Lisbon. At the beginning of the film, Ganz remarks to a barmaid that the clock in her bar is not indicating the right time. She replies: “The clock is right. It’s the world that is wrong.”
An ode to Lisbon and the pursuit of freedom, the film won a César award for Best French Language Film in 1984.
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Noir of the Week review
Don Malcolm

What has Laura got that The Unsuspected hasn’t? All the romantic, mid-range melodramatic elements that make for an essentially safe, polished, none-too-threatening entertainment experience—a dynamic, exceptionally attractive couple in Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews; a marvelously b*tchy homme fatale in Clifton Webb; a celebrated score and theme song from David Raksin.Read More »

Plot:
A dramatic account of three women and their lives, seen through the looking glass of sex, words, madness, death, and family, Guilty of Romance — the new crime noir from the award-winning director Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Cold Fish) — tells the tale of three women entangled in a mystery…a mystery that is the gate to a hell-bound love like no other!

Set just before the turn of the 21st century, a grisly murder occurs in Maruyama-cho, Shibuya — a love hotel district — a woman was found dead in a derelict apartment in the pouring rain. Whilst the police investigate, the story interweaves with that of Izumi, the wife of a famous romantic novelist whose life seems just a daily repetition without romance. One day, to break away from the loveless monotony, she decides to follow her desires and accepts a job as a naked model faking sex in front of the camera. Soon she meets with a mentor and starts selling her body to strangers, whilst at home she hides behind the facade that she is still the wife she is supposed to be.Read More »