Monthly Archives: March 2021

Dead “Letter”

Posted on March 22, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” Ordinarily any movie with an “original script” by noir novelists David Goodis (“Shoot the Piano Player”) and James Gunn (“Deadlier Than the Male”) would rank high on my “best of” list, but the problem is that their … Continue reading →

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The “B.H.P.” Hammer

Posted on March 21, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” John Gilling’s “The Shadow of the Cat” (1962) should have been, with Terence Fisher’s “The Curse of the Werewolf,” part of the first all-Hammer double-bill released by Universal-International, but for reasons that I’m not all that clear … Continue reading →

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Blobs and Blobs

Posted on March 20, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” Back in 1958 Irving S. Yeaworth, Jr. (and Russell S. Doughten, Jr.) made a nice filmed-in-Downingtown, PA science-fiction film. It was strictly Drive-In fare: some nice teen-agers (played by not-so-teenaged actors) encounter an alien life-form and save … Continue reading →

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Thinking Man’s Apocalypse

Posted on March 19, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” With the same no-frills cinema verite approach that he used for “The Quatermass Xperiment” and “Quatermass II,” director Val Guest brought to “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” a chilling sense of immediacy. By situating his film … Continue reading →

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The Earlier “Maltese Falcon” Films

Posted on March 19, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” Pity the earlier versions of films that are re-made when the re-makes become classics. Roy Del Ruth’s 1931 version of “The Maltese Falcon” isn’t a bad film in its own right. It’s an earlier “talkie”–made the same … Continue reading →

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Where’s Miranda?

Posted on March 19, 2021 by amangr

CAUTION: Contains “spoilers.” I think a large part of the appeal of Peter Weir’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock” is what infuriated some viewers when it was a new release. It poses a mystery to which there is no solution. Each … Continue reading →

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