reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
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409,381 | 2,567,136 | 58,962 | 8 | Cut To The Chase | This is another take on the cat-and-mouse war games that was kick-started by The Enemy Below . The twist is that this time the U-boat commander is on the bridge of the American destroyer in an advisory capacity at the invitation of skipper Richard Widmark . Widmark just knows there's a Soviet sub down there somewhere a... |
409,522 | 2,567,136 | 68,421 | 8 | Here's Looking At You , Kids | On paper this shouldn't have survived the Pitch but on celluloid it metamorphoses into a fine almost folksy film which , like the central cattle drive , succeeds against all the odds . The central premise is simplicity personified ; ageing rancher Duke Wayne needs to get his cattle to market , normally this is no probl... |
409,642 | 2,567,136 | 37,313 | 8 | The Best Room Service In Town | As a lifelong Sinatra fan who has seen all the movies and owns all the CDs I have no hesitation in rating this the best film he made in the 40s , his best in fact until Meet Danny Wilson right at the start of the 50s . In fact it's right up there with the two great musicals he made in the 50s , Young At Heart and High ... |
409,835 | 2,567,136 | 446,755 | 8 | The China Syndrome | Those with a cynical turn of mind may well be tempted to dismiss this as The Rains Came with chopsticks , whilst others may just as easily debate the merits of Louis Bromfield and Willie Maugham , authors of the respective novels even as a third group are comparing this version to one made in 1934 and starring Greta Ga... |
409,044 | 2,567,136 | 217,482 | 8 | Hold The Front Page | Given their open admiration of Hollywood and sometimes slavish imitation , often improving on the prototypes , it's surprising that the French filmmakers were slow to tackle the newspaper pic ; virtually all the Hollywood icons played at one time or another a reporter , editor , photographer and some of the films in qu... |
409,091 | 2,567,136 | 56,921 | 8 | Black Hell | What constitutes noir ? Urban setting , check . Rain-splattered street , check . Larceny , check . Gunshots , check . All the above are present and correct in the opening MINUTES of Chair de poule and a femme fatale isn't far behind . This was Julien Duviviers penultimate movie in a career spanning seven decades and co... |
409,377 | 2,567,136 | 39,556 | 8 | Long Season's Journey . . . | Gene O'Neill set what is arguably his greatest play , Long Day's Journey Into Night , on a day in 1912 in New England . Here we have a piece also set in 1912 and also in New England but Massachussetts rather than Connecticut and the time-span is a tad longer , around six months . That apart the two couldn't be more dif... |
409,372 | 2,567,136 | 154,422 | 8 | Double Six | Danielle Darrieux - still going strong ; she appeared in a TV film this year at the age of 91 - gives a new meaning to the word ' prolific ' . She made her first film in 1931 and had completed seventeen more when this was released in 1935 . This was the first of nine films she made with Henri Decoin whom she married th... |
408,874 | 2,567,136 | 100,747 | 8 | Anti Everything | Looking rather similar to Ruth Gordon Tsilla Chelton who takes the eponymous role here gives us a Master Class in Mischief if stopping short of downright evil . She is an amalgam of every irascible curmudgeon you've ever met and wished you hadn't and although it's difficult to discern a secondary meaning other than a C... |
409,158 | 2,567,136 | 30,100 | 8 | Stage-Door Jeanson | As an admirer of Louis Jouvet I have long coveted this film and now , at last , I own it thanks thanks to the boundless generosity of the Norwegian film buff who has provided so many memorable movies over the years . Jouvet was primarily a man of the theatre who condescended to appear in films to finance his theatre wo... |
408,728 | 2,567,136 | 116,206 | 8 | Family Matters ( So They Say ) | Until someone else posts a comment this one is going to tip the balance in favor of Tonie Marshall's minor gem . I accept the right of the first poster to be negative and it is possible that the film touched a nerve and / or he / she saw it on a bad day . Whatever this IS a great black comedy , trust me , I'm a doctor ... |
409,594 | 2,567,136 | 39,615 | 8 | Sub-Standard ? On The Contrary | If there were such a position as Poet Laureate of the Second World War then Rene Clement would surely be a strong candidate for office . Beginning with La Bataille du rail at the very end of hostilities he returned to it in Le pere tranquil , Jeux Interdits and Paris , Brule-e-til . Les Maudits is arguably the star in ... |
410,240 | 2,567,136 | 72,080 | 8 | Diminishing Returns ? Pas du tout | Between them the other two posters seem to have got it just about right . In other words this IS a sequel that works as well as if not better than the original . Those who missed the original are quickly brought up to speed with a particularly brilliant precis which concludes with a natural link that enables us to zoom... |
409,627 | 2,567,136 | 204,285 | 8 | The Windmills Of His Mind | This film was shot in three versions , French , Spanish and English but the one I saw was something of a hybrid with dialogue in French and Spanish almost simultaneously . Luckily the stunning visuals more than make up for this ; Pabst was expert at framing scenes , shooting faces , creating effects from shade and ligh... |
409,986 | 2,567,136 | 150,079 | 8 | Bread Alone | This film has the distinction of being the very last film produced and released by Continental , the German-run French film company that turned out 31 of the 220 films produced in France during the Occupation , far and away the lion's share . Following the death by torture of Harry Baur , the first French actor to die ... |
409,596 | 2,567,136 | 39,589 | 8 | More Andy Serkis Than Douglas Sirk | There is quite a considerable distance between the glossy melodramas for which Douglas Sirk has become iconised and this melange of comedy thriller . Perhaps the best reason to see it is the cast which throws the likes of Lucille Ball together with Boris Karloff , Charles Coburn with George Zucco etc . You need to chec... |
408,937 | 2,567,136 | 154,389 | 8 | Squeeze Play | Those who are interested in such things have tended to divide Andre Cayatte's career into two halves ; the first period , what might be termed entertainments , and the second / later period , what might be termed the social conscious phase . Those same people have tended to date the division somewhat later than his sti... |
410,010 | 2,567,136 | 120,001 | 8 | Trench ( and / or Trochaic ) Feet | One can only applaud Production Companies who invest in films like this which hold nothing for the Multiplex set and not even that much for the Art House circuit but in which every single person involved both Above and Below the line gives a hundred and ten per cent . What we have is an excellent adaptation of an excel... |
410,034 | 2,567,136 | 390,808 | 8 | Polar Bears | Cop turned director is a new one on me but there's always a first time I guess . One thing's sure Marchal has a lot of balls in titling his film as he has and so inviting direct comparison with the only other film to employ as its title the address of the Police headquarters in Paris , Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1947 clas... |
409,732 | 2,567,136 | 295,743 | 8 | Hen Night | This is arguably by far the most accessible film yet made by Claire Denis , indeed it's tempting to think that she was persuaded by the money-men to go at least semi-mainstream at least once in order to fund further indulgences like her very next movie L'Intrus , an academics wet dream . Here she opts for two well-know... |
409,751 | 2,567,136 | 67,778 | 8 | Too Young To Cut The Mustard ? Pas du tout | Louis Malle thought nothing of mining his childhood / youth for films such as Au Revoir , Les Enfants and in most cases these quasi-autobiographical entries are among his finest work . This is no exception ; set in Dijon , perhaps best known as the centre of the moutard ( mustard ) industry , it features a family very ... |
409,048 | 2,567,136 | 154,473 | 8 | If Flowers Be The Words Of Love . . . | . . . bloom on , as Shakespeare didn't quite say but might have had he heard Danielle Darrieux sing Les fleurs sont des mots d'amour , one of two numbers she performs in this confection from Continental . Initially she signed for only one movie , Premiere Rendez-vous , directed by her then still husband Henri Decoin , ... |
409,459 | 2,567,136 | 56,838 | 8 | Decibel Points | Pierre Chenal belongs to that band of French directors - though technically he was Belgian - who turned out a solid body of work mostly in the thirties / forties / fifties and are now all but forgotten , think of people like Marcel L'Herbier , Albert Valentin and you'll know what I mean . Personally I've always had a s... |
410,236 | 2,567,136 | 53,050 | 8 | Path Of Least Resistance | This late offering ( 1959 ) from one of the all-time great French directors Julien Duvivier , with a taut script by Henri Jeanson makes for a very entertaining experience . An ex-Resistance member whose code-name was Marie-Octobre ( Danielle Darrieux ) gathers the old Group together several years after the war for a Re... |
410,119 | 2,567,136 | 41,268 | 8 | Swede Smell Of Success | Clifford Odets began his play Rocket To The Moon smack in the middle of a domestic quarrel with no build-up . It's doubtful if Siodmak - who was still in Europe at the time - saw the play but he begins this movie in a similar fashion . The camera swoops over LA during the opening credits then comes to rest in a car par... |
410,192 | 2,567,136 | 41,259 | 8 | Conn . Man | Some of the posters seem less than gruntled because this is neither Mark Twain nor Rodgers and Hart but clearly it doesn't pretend to be either . You'll look a long time to find a greater Rodgers and Hart fan than me but Burke and Van Heusen weren't exactly chopped liver in addition to which they knew Der Bingle inside... |
408,959 | 2,567,136 | 102,465 | 8 | Oh ! Mein Papa | A forgotten gem that was remade in Hollywood within a couple of years , using the same lead actor Gerard Depardieu but substituting Katherine Heigl for Marie Gillain in the co-leading role of Depardieu's daughter . Whilst both are good - if you've only seen the Hollywood version , My Father The Hero , you'll probably l... |
409,060 | 2,567,136 | 39,661 | 8 | Beware Of Geeks Sharing Grifts | Some like it black and it doesn't get much blacker than this . Ty Power and Eddie Goulding had hit one out of the park the previous year with The Razor's Edge and students of irony will relish the fact that in the first movie Power epitomized ' goodness ' and dedicated his life to a search for truth whilst in the secon... |
409,898 | 2,567,136 | 67,588 | 8 | Slipped Disc | This was a sure-footed directing debut for Clint Eastwood which still holds up close to forty years on . At least one other poster has noted the mood-destroying sequences - the Jazz Festival footage and the lyrical lovers sequence cut to the Roberta Flack recording of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - but , hey , t... |
409,243 | 2,567,136 | 33,727 | 8 | In This Case DO Bug Me | This is a very modest , very lovely movie with a great score by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser with a standout number , We're The Couple In The Castle , that is totally evocative of the period and harks back to Penthouse Serenade just as the opening premise ( Hoppity's coming ) may well have inspired Fred Saidy and... |
409,184 | 2,567,136 | 60,802 | 8 | Parallel Lines That Meet | It's almost certain that as an English person with no Czech to speak of I missed a good two thirds of the satire here so it's probably just as well that the one third I DID understand is so good . I missed it first time around so it's even more possible that any satire that was pertinent then no longer obtains but even... |
409,711 | 2,567,136 | 10,307 | 8 | The Silent Treatment | With this movie full of stunning imagery and stylish technique Abel Gance proved that he need take a back seat to no one when it came to mastery of the medium , in other words he forms a triumvirate with Sergei Eisenstein and David Wark Griffith , a triumvirate in which all are equal . The First World War was barely co... |
409,105 | 2,567,136 | 424,338 | 8 | Royal Flush | Those of us who found the much-vaunted albeit slightly dubious charm of Princess Diana terminally elusive will revel in this delicious satire in which writer-director Valerie Lemercier captures perfectly that faux demureness and all too real touch of the retard about Diana . Lemercier , who is much more lovely and desi... |
409,099 | 2,567,136 | 384,177 | 8 | Other People's Babies | Once again having seen and enjoyed a fine film I turn to these pages and find it inexplicable that no one has seen fit to offer an opinion . Despite a slew of good reviews ( The French tend to favor a nought to three star system ) , three maximums , six ' very good ' , in four weeks in Paris it's only racked up one hun... |
410,044 | 2,567,136 | 154,509 | 8 | Hardy Annual | In a career spanning 46 years Claude Autant-Lara directed some fifty movies several of which - Le Ble en herbe , L'Auberge Rouge , Fric Frac , Douce , Sylvie et la fantome , Le Diable au corps - are indispensable to any collection of French film classics and no two titles cover the same areas because versatility was a ... |
409,464 | 2,567,136 | 32,143 | 8 | Mad Donnas | I'm guessing you'll go a long way to find a negative opinion of this minor classic which tended to get lost in the shuffle on its initial release due to the fact that as we all know 1939 was a vintage year for Hollywood movies . Be that as it may it had hardly dated when I caught up with it at the NFT , the thick end o... |
409,823 | 2,567,136 | 35,609 | 8 | First Tango In Paris | This tale of a crook who is rumbled and then blackmailed to off a third party also served Patrice Leconte years later when he fashioned Tango out of it . This time around it's the great Carette - established brilliantly as an inept robber in the first sequence where his intended victim easily disarms him and then , add... |
409,544 | 2,567,136 | 35,608 | 8 | Re-Action In The South Of England | Frankly I wasn't expecting much from this flag-waver which I've never seen until today's screening as part of a Bogie retrospective at the NFT . I was aware that it formed part of Bogie's war-time CV and I had also read the oft-repeated story of how Bogie and Massy made an on-set wager as to whose stunt double was the ... |
410,113 | 2,567,136 | 47,171 | 8 | Moulin d'Or | Theoretically any first-rate director should be able to tackle any genre and emerge with a worthwhile product and there are those - like Howard Hawks - whose careers illustrate this but on the other hand a producer toying with the idea of remaking say , The Lower Depths or Crime and Punishment would not automatically t... |
408,800 | 2,567,136 | 57,058 | 8 | Malle de Vie | Louis Malle is on record as finding this the first of his early films with which he was fully satisfied . I choose not to argue with him although I didn't find too much wrong with the others . What is indisputable here is that director and leading actor ( Maurice Ronet ) were in complete accord with both being entitled... |
409,861 | 2,567,136 | 72,053 | 8 | Let's Party | Tavernier hit one out of the park with this , his second At-Bat . With the not inconsiderable help of Jean Aurenche , his co-writer , he offers one of the most accurate and dazzling evocations of French History ever put on film . The trio of heavy-hitters , Philippe Noiret , Jean-Paul Marielle and Jean Rochefort are ou... |
409,239 | 2,567,136 | 926,759 | 8 | The Song's Zabou | What attracted me to this one was the billing . Jacques Gamblin who I have yet to see give a bad or even mediocre performance plus Zabout Breitman who directed one of the finest French films of the last few years , Se Souvenirs des belles choses , and is an equally fine actress plus Deborah Francois , the very promisin... |
409,020 | 2,567,136 | 50,997 | 8 | Witch Report | Notable left wing sympathizers Yves Montand and Simone Signoret read Arthur Miller's The Crucible in bed nightly and determined to play it in France , which they did on the Paris stage and a little later on film . Roulou directed some 23 mostly undistinguished films - though he fared better as an actor - and he makes l... |
408,816 | 2,567,136 | 43,265 | 8 | Two For The Reeds | Bogie was one lucky guy ; in the space of three years he got to romance BOTH the wonderful Hepburns , respectively Katherine and Audrey ( Sabrina , 1954 ) . These two pros virtually carry the entire movie and run a slightly larger gamut than the celebrated A to B which , according to Dorothy Parker , encompassed Hepbur... |
408,910 | 2,567,136 | 477,348 | 8 | Where's Charley | Way back in 1973 Don Sigel made Charley Varrick in which Walter Matthau made a reasonable living knocking over small mid-West banks til one day he hit the jackpot and unknowingly targeted the small , nondescript bank used for laundering mob money . After that we were into a chase movie with Joe Don Baker pursuing Matth... |
410,102 | 2,567,136 | 827,713 | 8 | Loaded For Baer | This is a slightly uneven entry with one standout sequence involving an over-the-hill gang reminiscing in the diner that once - thirty years previously - was their hideout ; one ho-hum duologue between two ageing rock musos ; a noirish kidnap turned on its head and an opening sequence ( plus epilogue ) involving heist ... |
409,584 | 2,567,136 | 50,976 | 8 | Righters Block | I don't know about you but there are still several films that everyone and his Uncle Max seems to have seen but me . On the other hand I am gradually making headway via DVD , revivals , festivals , etc . Time was I felt deprived because I hadn't seen Citizen Kane , Casablanca , It's A Wonderful Life , The Wizard Of Oz ... |
409,517 | 2,567,136 | 39,501 | 8 | Bridging The Gap | During the forties it seemed that MGM in particular had something of an obsession about offering classical and popular music in one package so that Jose Iturbi was almost as at home on the lot as Arthur Freed . This is yet another example and re-teams Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson who had already blended their respective... |
410,105 | 2,567,136 | 70,133 | 8 | Barnstormers | If all you knew about this prior to watching it was that the title translates as The Burning Barns you might be forgiven for anticipating a touch of the Southern Gothics , especially if you were on nodding terms with Faulkner and Tennessee Williams both of whom have written about barn burning as if it were a minor Art ... |
409,370 | 2,567,136 | 20,112 | 8 | The Kingdom And I | It's Lubitsch , it's got songs , what more do you want . Alas , it's also got Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier but you can't have everything . It's actually quite good , especially for 1929 ; okay , the songs could be better but the idea of integrating song and story was innovative and though Mamoulian did it b... |
409,413 | 2,567,136 | 118,201 | 8 | Not Only That . . . | . . . but it'll still be snowing in July , metaphorically at least , for this mother and her seven children . By pure coincidence I saw this film within days of Au Hasard Balthazar so that I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities , both feature , for example , the abuse of dumb animals but in the former Baltha... |
408,947 | 2,567,136 | 60,908 | 8 | Magic Town | The lunatic asylum as a metaphor is not of course original and has been employed in films as diverse as The Balcony and Folle Embellie but this one has an added element of charm that works heavily in its favour . Initially it's hard to accept Adolfo Celli as a Scottish officer or indeed Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier... |
409,342 | 2,567,136 | 39,536 | 8 | Information Please | As a student of irony I relish the fact that the outstanding stage actress Mildred Dunnock was uncredited despite being the subject of a focal scene - she is , of course , the lady in the wheelchair who Richard Widmark pushes down a flight of stairs . Actually there was quite a bit of fine acting on display here not le... |
409,357 | 2,567,136 | 17,925 | 8 | Arching Through Georgia | It's difficult enough to write comments for films around fifty years old but when were talking ' silent ' there's another dimension of difficulty inasmuch as one is moving into a world of title cards and 26 frames per second . On the other hand a truly great film will suffer comparison with the best of later eras and s... |
409,245 | 2,567,136 | 53,125 | 8 | Getting There | This has to be one of the better Hitchcock movies despite inconsistencies . I find Hitchcock vastly overrated which is not the same as incompetent ; basically he's a first-rate journeyman with a first-rate press agent but here he wisely cast Cary Grant in the lead and supplied him with a worthy villain in the talented ... |
409,724 | 2,567,136 | 431,827 | 8 | In Like Flynn | Little new here story-wise so if the cast make a mess of it there's nowhere left to go . With the likes of top-billed Gerard Jugnot there's not much chance of that but British viewers may find it hard to reconcile Jean Dujardin's facial resemblance to and adoption of the mannerisms of Leonard Rossiter to give credence ... |
408,801 | 2,567,136 | 367,089 | 8 | Wails Of Loneliness | I have a feeling - though I hope I'm wrong - that this is one of those films that are hugely enjoyable on an initial viewing but somehow don't always hold up if seen later . I'd include in this group Ordinary People , The Station Agent , Garden State and Sideways . Apparently this movie is seriously autobiographical , ... |
409,414 | 2,567,136 | 39,823 | 8 | Something To Shout About . . . | . . . but in the accepted meaning of the phrase , meaning something to praise from the rooftops rather than the meaning with which Truffaut invested it , which might better be termed something to rant about , for this is exactly the kind of ' quality ' film or ' film du papa ' that got right up Truffaut's nose and led ... |
408,876 | 2,567,136 | 398,883 | 8 | Love Forty + | Someone on these Boards has predicated that the whole thing is being dreamed by the best friend of the protagonist , albeit a friend he hasn't seen for some 20 years . I'm reluctant to dismiss this out of hand but it does raise some viable questions . Why WOULD a telephone engineer - or a shoe salesman or butcher for t... |
409,155 | 2,567,136 | 57,163 | 8 | Bum Steers | By one of those fortuitous coincidences that punctuate life I watched Ninotchka for the umpteenth time twenty four hours before watching this equally fine albeit totally different Melvyn Douglas entry and one for which he deservedly won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar . This was the first Larry McMurty novel ( Horseman ,... |
410,080 | 2,567,136 | 100,496 | 8 | Best Of The Badmen | It is a fact universally acknowledged that a movie that makes a noise at the box-office is apt to beget a sequel whether it originates in England ( Carry On , Sergeant ) or The US ( Police Academy ) , sequels which in turn beget sequels ( Carry On . . . , Halloween . . . ) growing progressively inferior . Occasionally ... |
410,199 | 2,567,136 | 62,883 | 8 | Sing A Rainbow | Frank Sinatra's film career is fairly easily compartmentalized ; the forties musicals in which he was expected merely to sing and play shy ; a handful of ' serious ' roles in the fifties and sixties in which he revealed what a fine actor he actually was when he put his mind to it and the self-indulgent years in the six... |
409,046 | 2,567,136 | 27,951 | 8 | A Shot In The Light | As another poster has pointed out neither version of Mayerling is based on the actual events but on those events as distorted through the prism of the novel . Nevertheless both the principals and the situations did exist and Anatole Litvak , Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux burn THIS version of the story into our re... |
409,814 | 2,567,136 | 62,873 | 8 | Demy Paradis | It's probably pure chance that I saw this film for the first time - in the restored version by Agnes Varda - a few days after I was leafing through Demy's Collected Lyrics which have recently been published in France . It's clear from Frame # 1 that this is a film to which you either have to surrender as the credits ro... |
409,860 | 2,567,136 | 57,187 | 8 | In The Market For Love | Irma La Douce began life as a French musical - a species fairly thin on the ground compared to Broadway and Shaftesbury Avenue - with a great score by Marguerite Monet , who composed several ' signature ' songs for Edith Piaf . In the fullness of time it transferred to London and Broadway and then Billy Wilder got hold... |
409,337 | 2,567,136 | 37,691 | 8 | Slowly But Surely | Probably the most negative thing one can say about this fine movie is that it was directly responsible for Alice Faye walking away from Hollywood . Rightly or wrongly Darryl F Zanuck decided that the film should be tilted towards Linda Darnell , a comparatively fresh face whereas Faye had been around for a good decade ... |
409,435 | 2,567,136 | 154,139 | 8 | Champagne For Cesar | With this brilliant film Henri Decoin skirts the territory practically patented by Marcel Pagnol and moves it from Provence to the banks of the Rhone where he subjects his Pagnol-like village to microscopic scrutiny where Pagnol was content to view his merely through a normal lens . There's a lot of healthy cynicism on... |
408,796 | 2,567,136 | 31,762 | 8 | High Flier | Probably more so than any other director Howard Hawks had a knack of coming in at the tail-end of a genre , reinventing it and more often than not turning in the definitive movie in that genre . He did it with screwball comedy with Bringing Up Baby , with Westerns in successive decades via Red River and Rio Bravo , thr... |
410,237 | 2,567,136 | 416,320 | 8 | Love Match | Anyone who missed the opening credits may be forgiven for thinking they had wandered into the wrong auditorium by mistake given that they had paid for a Woody Allen movie on the strength of others they'd seen which , as is his wont , had been sprinkled with one-liners . Here we get a virtually straight story in which W... |
409,086 | 2,567,136 | 1,068,632 | 8 | My Coloring Book | If , during a game of Trivial Pursuit , you're asked to name a Broadway Musical in which one of the characters , a racist , turns black overnight , the chances are you'll answer Finian's Rainbow , the hit show of 1947 , so , yes , it HAS been done before but NOT with Valerie Lemercier who is a Great actress , a Great w... |
409,003 | 2,567,136 | 910,911 | 8 | Whose Is | The talented Marie Gillain makes her second appearance in the salles in this charming effort . This time around she's a blonde married schoolteacher who runs across a childhood friend in a supermarket ; Gilles Lellouche has just broken up with his girl friend and returned to live with his parents but soon he and Marie ... |
409,789 | 2,567,136 | 431,975 | 8 | Don't Give This The Brush | This is a movie that just begs for someone to observe how FRENCH it is , the implication being that other countries somehow can't get their celluloid souffles to rise quite like the Gauls . Be that as it may this IS , I suppose , typically French , whatever that means . Sabine Azema and Daniel Auteuil are a well-heeled... |
409,380 | 2,567,136 | 43,137 | 8 | You CAN Get A Man With A Gun | By 1955 , five years after this one was released James Stewart and Anthony Mann had completed another six films together , four of them Westerns . Their rapport was obvious from the outset and what was intended as little more than a Universal progrmmer became both a cult and a classic . Buffs of the period will revel i... |
410,067 | 2,567,136 | 97,884 | 8 | May Wine | Malle made only two films after this one , Damage , and Vanya On 42nd Street and it's tempting to view Milou en Mai as a rehearsal for Vanya though in the end the differences outweigh the similarities . It IS set on a country estate that is running to seed and there IS a ' Vanya ' figure in Milou himself ( Michel Picco... |
409,650 | 2,567,136 | 431,979 | 8 | Trouble Every Day | This may be one of the most realistic Police Procedurals ever made . It's low-key to the point of virtually creating an H-minor . No prizes for guessing that Nathalie Baye is outstanding as a Commandant returning to duty after detox - she lost a son and found the sauce , not very original but very human - on the same d... |
410,238 | 2,567,136 | 33,357 | 8 | Stompin ' In The Savoie | This has the dubious distinction of being the first release of the infamous Continental Films and top-billed Harry Baur also has a distinction but one I feel sure he would have been happy to waive , that of being the first major French actor to be tortured to death by the Gestapo within months of shooting this fine mov... |
409,472 | 2,567,136 | 120,202 | 8 | Sammy Glick in Punkin Crik | It seems that at one time or another everyone and his Uncle Max wants to make a film about Hollywood and in my case , as a viewer , I welcome them whilst acknowledging that the best novel about Hollywood , Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run , has yet to be filmed - unless you know something I don't - though Ervin Dr... |
409,974 | 2,567,136 | 24,115 | 8 | Villains Come Free | There are echoes of Dos Passos here , especially the USA trilogy , perhaps most notably in the ' wobblies ' sequences though strangely for such a factual hard-hitting film the Industrial Workers Of The World are never mentioned by name nor is Gene Debs , whose philosophy runs through it . Like The Roaring Twenties at t... |
409,890 | 2,567,136 | 161,836 | 8 | The Wages Of Virtue | On a superficial level this could be described as Guys and Dolls without the Frank Loesser score and an unhappy ending , Beautiful Salvation Army Girl Saves Sinner's Soul And He Enlists but that approach would do justice to neither . Very few , if indeed any , actresses did ' goodness / sadness ' better than Michele Mo... |
409,231 | 2,567,136 | 25,878 | 8 | Slim Pickings ? Yes And No | Okay , we're talking 73 years so , to paraphrase Linda Loman , allowances must be made . What shines out like a beacon is the chemistry between Powell and Loy and their deft handling of both dialogue and situations . Such is the charisma / charm of Bill Powell that he can state categorically that he is living off his w... |
410,226 | 2,567,136 | 45,537 | 8 | Symphony Cyd | This is a largely satisfying musical in the old tradition - with the exception of That's Entertainment the score dates from the 1930s - with the only weak link the Book by the vastly overrated Comden and Green . Maybe in 1953 no one was wincing at sloppy writing but seen today it leaves a lot to be desired . Three exam... |
409,945 | 2,567,136 | 50,815 | 8 | Heels On Wheels | The amazing thing here is that a movie that has so much wrong with it could be so good . Consider : In 1957 it was still unnacceptable to make a film without a single decent character so non-talented Kim Novak had to play an ingenue role in a story that didn't allow for one ; some of Larry Hart's lyrics - especially ' ... |
408,942 | 2,567,136 | 239,237 | 8 | Lawsome Foursome | I'm not familiar with the Georges Simenon novel which forms the basis of this highly entertaining film but if Henri Decoin was faithful to the original in his adaptation then it is far from the usual Simenon fare and more the territory of Sacha Guitry who actually tackled a similar subject in Quadrille . Set in Cannes ... |
409,598 | 2,567,136 | 1,135,968 | 8 | Dog Days | One can only applaud production companies willing to bankroll films as non-commercial as this . I'd be hard put to say exactly who its target audience is but I hope it finds it . It's something that could only be English despite strong elements of Hungary and Australia . It's probably just as well that the title is suf... |
408,965 | 2,567,136 | 410,445 | 8 | Small Talk | We've been in this adult - thrown - together - with - child territory before and not that long ago with Le Papillon and La Belle Marthe , both excellent examples of the genre . This has elements of both but is closer in locale and for want of a better expression meet-cute to Le Papillon inasmuch as the protagonists in ... |
409,087 | 2,567,136 | 1,206,478 | 8 | Believe Me , You'll Want To Make It Your Business Too | Three years after the first outing for the Beresfords , By The Pricking Of My Thumb , Pascal Thomas brings back the impeccable Catherine Frot and Andre Dussollier for Crime Is Our Business , his third and best adaptation of Agatha Christie . This is our old friend the murder without a corpse - there IS a corpse , of co... |
409,323 | 2,567,136 | 404,802 | 8 | Page-Turner | This will probably appeal to Nostalgia buffs as much as the dirty-raincoat brigade who would do well to save their money . As someone who had never heard of Bettie Page prior to seeing the film I was ' sold ' on it by those reviews which emphasized the period feel and stated clearly that the titillation content was vir... |
410,018 | 2,567,136 | 52,942 | 8 | Summertime And The Livin ' Is Easy | Looking at the reviews already posted it appears that some of the negatives are from purists looking for the perfect jazz film which , by definition , doesn't exist . As someone who tends to favour ' modern ' as opposed to ' trad ' jazz I can live without the Big Maybelles and Mahalia Jacksons of this world thank you v... |
408,938 | 2,567,136 | 35,336 | 8 | Is It A Plane , Is It A Bird . . . | . . . no , it's Fernandel who THINKS he's a bird ( Don't ask ) . By now we are used to hearing orchestras strike up to accompany someone who feels moved to start singing in the street , or even in the rain , but this is arguably the first and only time an unseen orchestra has been on hand to accompany a man who bursts ... |
408,776 | 2,567,136 | 41,090 | 8 | Briefs Encounter | Though I've yet to see all the films Tracy and Hepburn made together of those I have seen this is the best which makes me lean toward agreement with those who have seen them all and nominate this as the finest . There weren't too many movies advocating Women's Lib in the late forties , or even the fifties if it comes t... |
409,806 | 2,567,136 | 35,446 | 8 | A Fellow Of Infinite Jest . . . | . . . as Shakespeare didn't say of Ernst Lubitsch but may very well have had he lived in the 20th century . This was one of his last films and one of an unbroken string of ' classics ' including Bluebeard's Eighth Wife , Ninotchka and Heaven Can Wait . At least one person writing about To Be Or Not To Be here wondered ... |
409,936 | 2,567,136 | 58,450 | 8 | Hello Brolly | Okay , here's a superficial smart-ass take on this entry : We're in a French port , there's a guy who loves a gal and a gal who loves him right back , arguably she loves him just a tad more than he loves her . He goes away for a couple of years but not without leaving her pregnant . There's an older guy , richer guy in... |
409,956 | 2,567,136 | 45,478 | 8 | An Affair To Forget | In case there are any Literalists out there let me begin by saying that my summary merely refers to the fact that nearly everyone concerned wants to forget the Maurizius Affair but for various reasons are unable to do so , what the summary is NOT saying is that this is a forgettable film . Anyone who's read my comments... |
409,278 | 2,567,136 | 80,415 | 8 | Banker's Draft | Films as innovative as Citizen Kane inevitably have a lot to answer for as other - often inferior - talents divide up the techniques like relatives dividing house and contents of their late family member so no prizes for guessing what gave Francis Girod to punctuate the story of Romy Schneider's banker via newsreels wh... |
410,154 | 2,567,136 | 83,219 | 8 | Wheel Of Fire | Though he does have three daughters it may be stretching things to compare Yves Montand to King Lear , for one thing the Cordelia counterpart would be the eldest , Isabelle Adjani , and not the youngest and though they come close neither father nor daughter actually dies so that Lear's great speech " thou art a soul in... |
408,798 | 2,567,136 | 35,417 | 8 | Shaw Thing | Irwin Shaw was highly accomplished writer in most genres ; only John O'Hara equalled / eclipsed him as a novelist and writer of the finest short stories in 20th century America . Over the years several stories ( The Girls In Their Summer Dresses , Tip On A Dead Jockey , In The French Style ) and novels ( The Young Lion... |
409,999 | 2,567,136 | 33,485 | 8 | Honey , He Shrunk The Id | Apart from anything else this is a wonderful chance to savour not only two of the finest French actors in Raimu and Pierre Brasseur but also some of the mainstays of French Cinema , names like Saturnin Fabre , Blanchette Brunoy and Gabrielle Fontan who I sometimes think has been in every French film I love whilst leadi... |
409,804 | 2,567,136 | 35,415 | 8 | Tuxedo Junction | I think it's fairly safe to say that this is the finest film that Julien Duvivier made outside France , let alone made in America ; Anna Karenina which he made in England doesn't really compete with the Don Camillo films he shot in Italy - in fact on reflection The Little World Of Don Camillo may tie Tales Of Manhattan... |
409,863 | 2,567,136 | 83,260 | 8 | Song Of Songs | Lelouch doesn't do bijou or minimal , even what was essentially an intimate love story , Un Homme et une femme was played out against a broad canvas of movie making and Formula 1 racing . If nothing else one has to admire not only the ambition but also the logistics involved in Les Uns et l'autres , a tapestry that wea... |
408,928 | 2,567,136 | 209,223 | 8 | Happy Families | Among the cognoscenti the Great Crested Vedette doesn't come any greater or more crested than Isabelle Huppert and in this entry she could be said to welcome two previously Lesser Spotted Vedettes in the shape of Vincent Lindon and Fabrice Luchini to the higher echelon . All three are members of our old friend the dysf... |
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