La Notte (1961)

La Notte (1961; aka The Night) is the middle of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s trilogy including L’Aventura and L’Eclisse, and the one I’d always wanted to see. Antonioni’s slow, dispassionate style is intentionally alienating and difficult to wrestle with; I completely understand those who get bored by his work. Yet I do find something of […]

The Train (1964)

A friend, Daniel St. Vincent, recommended checking out The Train (1964), a black-and-white WW2 action drama directed by John Frankenheimer (Seconds, Ronin) and starring Burt Lancaster. For some reason, with that title, I thought the majority of the movie took place on a train like Runaway Train or Unstoppable. Rather, the train is like a […]

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Watching a few Burt Lancaster movies recently and I was contemplating him as an actor, how he fills up a frame with his tall, athletic physique and his garrulous, charismatic, confidence. Lancaster won the Oscar for Best Actor for playing the title role of Elmer Gantry (1960), based on the Sinclair Lewis novel, and it […]

Underworld USA (1961)

I was in the mood for a classic black-and-white film noir that I hadn’t seen and selected Underworld USA (1961) because it was a Samuel Fuller film (of Pickup On South Street and Shock Corridor), which he directed, wrote and produced. On a New Year’s Eve in the back alleys of a city, a young […]

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965)

I’m a fan of Halloween and spending October watching horror movies, and Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) was a great place to start – what a title! This British horror anthology film comes from Amicus Studios and naturally stars both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors starts in a train […]