Film Reviews by Steve

Unorthodox historical account of Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre’s quest in 1560 to discover the mythic city of gold at El Dorado- supposedly based on the diary of his christian missionary. Inexorably the foolhardy expedition is consumed by lunacy and preyed on by indigenous tribes.

The opening scene of a royal train in a mountain descent, captures the greed borne insanity, the cultural incongruity, and the misguided heroism of Empire. The long ago conquerors seem to emerge out of the sky in their absurd uniforms like ghosts, burdened by the junk of their culture.

There’s a benchmark deranged performance from Klaus Kinski as the hubristic aristocrat who intends to inaugurate a pureblooded dynasty through marriage to his own daughter. Though he hardly seems to be acting at all, but permeating the madness with his presence.

The hallucinatory conclusion with the self-appointed sovereign drifting down the Amazon on a raft of monkeys with the corpses of his men, is astonishing. The hypnotic soundtrack of electro-prog is inspired. It’s not lengthy, but feels like an epic of the imagination. It’s Herzog’s best film and the masterpiece of the New German Cinema.

Nicholas Ray’s drama about the postwar controversy of teenage delinquency is inevitably dated, and probably naive but still works better than any other '50s film on that theme. And it's a memorial to the legend of James Dean who was dead by the time of the release.

He’s the new kid in town with a history of petty juvenile crime who grabs the attention of a disturbed gang of young offenders. Natalie Wood is a valley girl who gets her kicks from hanging out with the slum kids. With a damaged, gay outsider (Sal Mineo) the trio make up an improvised family which none of them can find at home.

Jimmy now seems a little old, but Natalie (17) and Sal (16) look endearingly authentic. The voices of the first teenagers trying make sense of their nascent freedom are quite potent. It's a fascinating period piece which Ray shoots in the style of science fiction; the small town which must get through a long night of crisis in a threatening universe- as evoked by the climax in the planetarium.

The Cinemascope and the inky colour palette are a joy. The clothes create much of the iconic imagery.  But it's the performance of James Dean that dominates and we still believe in his troubled, alienated antihero trying to understand the rules of his confusing and changing times. Which are tearing him apart.

Exuberant and intelligent drama set in the US midwest in the '20s about an itinerant troupe of revivalists working the rural towns of the bible belt, passing the hat around the poor farming families of the depression. After being joined by travelling salesman of the title, they take on the challenge of adapting to new markets in the cities.  

This is the role Burt Lancaster was born to play, as the charismatic preacher: big hearted, generous, forgiving and full of sin. And he delivers a huge, boisterous performance. It is an actors' film: Jean Simmons plays Sister Sharon, the star of the roadshow; Shirley Jones is dazzling as the sex worker from Gantry's past.

Sinclair Lewis' 1927 novel draws on Sister Aimee McPherson's real life showbiz evangelism. It is a curiously American phenomenon which fuses capitalism and protestantism. The film critiques a broad range of themes around the subject of evangelistic faith, some editorialised through Arthur Kennedy's atheistic news journalist. It is cynical of revivalism's provenance and ethics.

It makes a valid point about the preachers' exploitation of their followers, but this is by no means a dissertation. The threadbare locations, the impoverished times, the showmanship and the personalities are vividly brought to life. It is a colourful, sumptuous production which is charged with the magnetism of Lancaster's Oscar winning performance. 

Screwball fantasy about a boxer (Robert Montgomery) who crashes his small aircraft and is assumed dead by the inexperienced clerk (Edward Everett Horton) at the pearly gates. Big mistake. The fighter has to be found a new body by heaven's head of department (Claude Rains) as his own was cremated.

He is billeted in the fresh corpse of a murdered banker. The boxer is just an honest guy who wants the world to be a better place. But he discovers everything is corrupt, whether the stock market or the fight game. His consolation is Evelyn Keyes, who he runs into no matter whose body he is in. It was meant to be.  

Robert Montgomery is a little too much of a dumb klutz. Everything is explained to him three times in case the audience isn't paying attention. And Claude Rains twinkles far too unctuously. But this is a pretty funny story with a fertile premise that would be remade many times. Keyes brings plenty of Hollywood glamour.

What happens is meant to be, and we would understand if we saw the whole picture. Hardly the most progressive of philosophies. But it's easy to see this is intended to be solace to those suffering loss. It was released with the world at war, and America's entry was confirmed a few months later, after Pearl Harbour. Before the end of the year, Montgomery was in the US navy. 

Louis Malle’s debut as director is an unconventional and ultra-stylish crime thriller which borrows from film noir but also trials methods later associated with the French New Wave. While the suspense is unreliable, it looks amazing and made an international star of the photogenic Jeanne Moreau.

Maurice Ronet plays an ex-soldier who murders the rich husband of his lover (Moreau) but gets trapped in a lift on returning for incriminating evidence. Which leaves her to wander around Paris trying to find him. Meanwhile a couple of teenagers (Georges Poujouly and Yori Bertin) steal Ronet’s car and kill some tourists.

The weakness is the amount of time spent watching Moreau search for her accomplice. Though that is hardly a chore! Filmed with handheld cameras in natural light on the streets of Paris accompanied by Miles Davis’ improvised jazz score; what could be more Nouvelle Vague?

There’s a cute ending, but as a thriller this is uneven. Yet, as a vehicle for a fresh cinematic approach, it’s stunning. Malle is a quality film maker who always engages the eye. There’s some politics and reflections on Americanisation, but it’s really all about the bebop soundtrack, and the novelty of the look.

Hollywood biopic of a real life mountain trapper in the time of the Frontier Wars. A look around the internet suggests this is a fairly approximate account; there’s no suggestion of his cannibalism of Native Americans! Robert Redford represents a very ‘70s idea of the old west which is liberal and inclusive.

So it’s a revisionist western. What we get is a tribute to the stoic resilience of the isolated pioneers who endured the cold of the Rockies, gloriously photographed on location around snowy Utah. And though the politics are updated, the impression of their hardship and native tribal customs is persuasive.

There’s a rugged star performance from Redford who leads a strong ensemble cast of unfamiliar character actors playing the sort of eccentrics who can’t tolerate human society and so seek out the most inhospitable surroundings. It focuses on the psychology of those living on the edge of the extreme frontier.

Occasionally it gets a bit whimsical, particularly the soundtrack of acoustic ballads and the folksy voice over. But mostly, this an intelligent and fascinating insight into a very alien existence. There was a minor wave of frontier survival westerns in the early '70s- like A Man Called Horse (1970)- and this as good as any. 

Charming, leisurely comedy-drama elevated way above the standard by excellent performances from Timothy Bottoms as an alienated teenager from a rich American family and (especially) Maggie Smith as a nervous, rather austere middle aged spinster.

Of course they fall in love, while travelling through beautiful, rural Spain in the last years of Franco and before the age of mass tourism. So it feels like undiscovered country, almost feudal. While the lovers are separated by age and background, they are both lonely introverts.

And it’s a sweet tale of romantic serendipity and odd couple comedy, at least until the late (predictable) twist. Bottoms seems to channel Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) while Smith is serenely magnificent as a kind of vinegary lonely-heart; a dependable carer experiencing unexpected freedom.

The peaceful, touristic locations are a wistful setting for their improbable encounters on the road with Spanish eccentrics. The comedy is muted but really quite adorable. The script (Alvin Sargent) is sensitive and compassionate and directed with warmth by Alan J. Pakula. A cult film which might be better known. 

Pleasant though patchy Sherlock Holmes spoof from Billy Wilder which is a case of what might have been. Much of this unevenness is surely due to the studio editing out 90 minutes of (now lost) footage from the final release in the director’s absence. There's a superior period production, but it's a disappointment.

Wilder has a pedigree for adapting classic crime literature, with Double Indemnity (1944) and Witness for the Prosecution (1958). The main difference here is this is not a version of a story by Arthur Conan Doyle. And the mystery presented- of the appearance of the Loch Ness Monster- just isn’t all that interesting.

Of course, the title tells us that this is something else. It is principally about Holmes' sexuality, including why two middle aged bachelors are living together. There is nothing particularly original, though we get an impression of the immortal Victorian sleuth's personal sadness which leads to his use of the legendary 7% solution.

This was obviously made with love, though we can only wonder at the original cut. There’s a colourful support cast, with Irene Handl an ideal Mrs. Hudson. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely are fine as Holmes and Dr. Watson, but hardly definitive. There’s not much here for admirers of the great detective, or the great director.

Alfred Hitchcock's second purely comic film- after the screwball of Mr. & Mrs. Smith in '41- is a farcical black comedy about an inconvenient corpse who the eccentric inhabitants of a small village in rural Vermont have alternating reasons for burying and digging up again.

The macabre premise (from a novel by Jack Trevor Story) is played for laughs, principally through the deadpan reactions of the characters' to the absurd situations. It's very understated, very dry, and that's always been very Hitchcock. And it is funny, with many big laughs.

As ever, Hitchcock's support cast adds so much to the humour, particularly Edmund Gwenn in his fourth and final collaboration at the age of 82, having started with The Skin Game in '31. Shirley MacLaine makes her screen debut, and what an inspired choice! She is instantly the Queen of Kook.

One of the main pleasures is the picturesque setting of autumn in New England, filmed in Technicolor. Another is Bernard Herrmann's first soundtrack for the Master, which the director said was his favourite. Not a typical Hitchcock suspense thriller of course, but entirely successful.

This is the peak of Sergio Leone’s development as an auteur through the 1960s. It must have been startling at the time just how lavish it is, with his budget inflated by a few dollars more from Paramount. There is a location shoot in Monument Valley, Utah and elaborate sets and a bigger cast of Hollywood names than before.

Though what is most ostentatious is how far he has travelled as a stylist. His personal signature is all over the film, most famously in the long introduction when Charles Bronson encounters three gunmen at a desolate railway station. The pacing is leisurely, but that’s part of the aesthetic.

The revenge plot could be taken from a thousand Hollywood westerns. Bronson tracks down the evil gunman (Henry Fonda) who killed his brother as the railway and justice come to the west. What is unique is the imaginative detail that Leone brings to the dreamy, narcotic ambience, backed by Ennio Morricone’s haunting score.

The performers, including Claudia Cardinale as the tough/beautiful frontier survivor are well chosen. Fonda is famously cast-against-type as a cold eyed murderer. They are not cyphers. And there is far more thematic content than the Dollar trilogy. This is a mythic, epic landmark and the greatest western ever made.

Plotless arthouse favourite which meanders as the films of Michelangelo Antonioni often do, yet is also interesting and accessible. There are his usual themes of social alienation and cultural atrophy set among a feckless elite. But this looks very different.

It’s his first colour film and there is a gaudy and sickly palette of unnatural, fluorescent shades. It’s mostly a conversation between Monica Vitti as a wealthy housewife who has been discharged from hospital after a mental breakdown, and Richard Harris as a pragmatic business manager.

And they wander around the toxic industrial heartland of northern Italy which reflects her psychological disease. And is indeed a cause of her deep inner anxiety. Because modern life is poisonous. The director even painted and dyed the scenery to enhance its insidious, ominous malignancy.

The director claimed there is no environmental message, but presumably this is disingenuous. The industrial habitat is ostentatiously hostile. The electro-prog soundtrack just deepens the sense of unease. Hell, so does the bad dubbing! This is avant-garde, and there are longueurs. But it’s not obscure.

After Onibaba (1964) was an international success, Kaneto Shindô returned to the mythology of medieval Japan with this similar ghost story. Again, there is the mother (Nobuko Otawa) and wife (Kichiemon Nakamura) of a conscripted soldier left to fend for themselves during a civil war.

This time they inhabit a forest of bamboo, rather than a meadow of tall grass. And the supernatural element is more integral to the story. After the two isolated women are raped and murdered by samurai warriors, they return as malevolent cat-spirits to avenge themselves on the soldiers who pass through their enchanted domain.

Which is complicated when the son/husband returns from the war as a samurai. The mythic tale is interesting though would suit an anthology rather than feature film length. The main difference from Onibaba is there is so much more arcane Japanese theatricality in the staging of the story.

For some this will feel exotic, and for others it will be esoteric, and alien. Why does the mother perform an improvised dance while the wife rips out the throat of the samurai with her teeth? It’s beautifully photographed and performed, but arguably doesn’t cross over to a western audience as successfully as Onibaba. 

Profound allegory which is both philosophical, and ultimately heartbreaking. A travelling entomologist finds himself trapped with/by a passive, submissive widow who seems to have accepted her life, endlessly digging out the deep pit of sand which serves as her home.

And inexorably, the academic conforms to his new reality in reduced circumstances. Within this premise is the whole of the human condition; it is impressively pliable. And we observe how perspective and proximity transform our understanding.

But this isn’t really a head movie. The shifting emotional relationship between the cohabiters is central. The actors are exceptional, including Eiji Okada as the captured male. And especially Kyôko Kishida as the lonely, pragmatic woman of the dunes. Among the greatest screen performances.

Slowly she engages our empathy. And pity. The expressive images of the sand, the sensual closeups of the lovers and the weird atonal soundtrack combine to make it a unique sensory experience. This is an astonishing Japanese art film; once seen, never forgotten.

Critically adored neorealism about the 1954-62 nationalist uprising in Algiers against the French colonial occupation. This was shot with an amateur cast in the real locations- including extensively in the Casbah- and is so authentic that its posters were tagged with the warning that this is not a documentary.

It was banned in France for many years, but was celebrated enough to be nominated for three Oscars. Surely this influenced the popular insurgencies of ’68, and certainly inspired other film makers. It portrays the bombing of civilian targets and the retaliatory torture by the military.

So it’s realistic and disturbing. Though it is balanced, as atrocities on either side are represented as well as contrasting political discourse. It describes the organisation of the terrorist cells and the political pressure applied by public opinion. But this is most celebrated for the astonishing authenticity of the action sequences.

It is put together like a thriller, with moments of suspense which evoke Alfred Hitchcock, and a nervy jazz-rock soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Eventually, it starts to feel like watching the uprising actually take place. And then, all the subsequent wars in which a colonial power has suppressed nationalist groups. It is that subversive.

After A Fistful of Dollars was a huge success in Italy, Sergio Leone’s producers demanded a sequel to cash in; which inspired the cynicism of this title. It is more sumptuous, with elaborate sets, imaginative use of locations, and there is a big leap forward in the quality of Ennio Morricone’s mythic spaghetti western score.

And there is a second Hollywood actor, with Lee Van Cleef as a foil to Clint Eastwood’s laconic, phlegmatic Man With No Name. And they are great together as the relentless bounty hunters each with a secret motive for gunning down Gian Maria Volontè’s intractable psycho-killer.

This is where Leone’s direction gets that pop art panache that the Dollar trilogy is famous for with the crazy angles, and particularly the montages of the actors squinting at each other in anticipation of another shoot out. There is an improved script with extra humour.

And the violence is more pitiless. It’s possible to miss the concise, lo-fi feel to A Fistful of Dollars. And both will be outclassed by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But this is still a fine, transitional western in which the director’s personal signature becomes defined.