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You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
Mystery of the 13th Guest (1943, William Beaudine)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 29, 2010
About two minutes after I finished watching Mystery of the 13th Guest, I realized no one ever solves the titular mystery. There’s a mysterious thirteenth guest in the first scene; the guest is absent and his or her identity is never revealed. Tim Ryan’s police lieutenant is supposed to read more
Blind Fury (1989, Phillip Noyce)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 27, 2010
I’ve been meaning to see Blind Fury again for twenty-one years or so. For a while, I assumed it would be pretty good (not entirely trusting my opinion at age ten) because Phillip Noyce directed it. Unfortunately, Noyce directs it with all the enthusiasm of a cologne commercial. It’s not read more
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984, W.D. Richter)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 17, 2010
Buckaroo Banzai‘s greatest contribution to cinema–well, if it didn’t get Peter Weller the Robocop role at least–is as a warning against trying to adapt authors like Thomas Pynchon to motion pictures. Banzai goes out of its way–the Pynchon references are well-known, to read more
Phantasm II (1988, Don Coscarelli)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 29, 2010
The first Phantasm wasn’t just an exercise in inventive low budget filmmaking, it dealt with the cultural fear of cemeteries. The second film has no such allusions. In fact, it’s just an example of bad low budget filmmaking. Clearly–and one can just google for more informationR read more
Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (1939, Walter Forde)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 26, 2010
Gordon Harker was fifty-five when Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday came out. It’s very strange to see a film from this period with someone his age the lead in a comedic mystery. I’ve never seen him in anything and I can’t remember seeing Alastair Sim in anything but I know Sim’ read more
A Shriek in the Night (1933, Albert Ray)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 22, 2010
For the first twenty minutes or so–it runs just over an hour–A Shriek in the Night seems like it might be a decent, b mystery. Ginger Rogers is appealing as the reporter undercover as a murder victim’s secretary and Purnell Pratt is great as the police inspector on the case. Unfor read more
Revolt of the Zombies (1936, Victor Halperin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 19, 2010
What an unmitigated disaster. It takes a lot for me to open with such a statement–well, maybe not, but certainly for a film I finished watching, even if it only does run sixty-two minutes. But Revolt of the Zombies might be one of the worst things ever and really shouldn’t be. Okay, wor read more
The Trollenberg Terror (1958, Quentin Lawrence)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 17, 2010
The importance of the director, in cinema, used to be a topic of discussion for me. It hasn’t been lately, because it’s hard to find good examples of well-scripted, well-acted, but terribly directed motion pictures. Thank goodness for The Trollenberg Terror and Quentin Lawrence. Lawrenc read more
The Speckled Band (1931, Jack Raymond)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 8, 2010
I think The Speckled Band is a period piece but maybe not. There aren’t any exterior establishing shots in London, so no automobiles. It’s a question because the Sherlock Holmes in this film isn’t some recluse… he’s got an office and three secretaries. The film has a v read more
Before Midnight (1933, Lambert Hillyer)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 5, 2010
Ralph Bellamy gets top billing here, but he doesn’t deserve it. I’m always stunned when, with a reasonably early feature motion picture like Before Midnight, the filmmakers are clearly exhausted with the genre. Midnight‘s a big house mystery (enclosed setting, certain number of su read more
White Zombie (1932, Victor Halperin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 3, 2010
For a while, I almost thought White Zombie was going to feature a good Bela Lugosi performance. It does not. However, it does feature one of the best Bela Lugosi performances I’ve ever seen. He plays a zombie master who controls his helpless zombies (who mostly do manual labor for Lugosi at h read more
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987, Sidney J. Furie)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 15, 2010
Roughly a third of Superman IV is missing, so it’s a little difficult to really form an opinion of the filmmakers’ intentions. I mean, it was an anti-nuclear proliferation movie… which suggests they were well-intentioned, but it’s impossible to know what they were trying to read more
Superman III (1983, Richard Lester)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 8, 2010
Superman III–deservedly–gets a lot of flak, but it’s actually the most faithful to the comics in a lot of ways. It plays out like a late sixties, early seventies Superman comic–”The Man Who Killed Superman,” turning out to be a bumbling, generally well-meaning gu read more
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955, John Sturges)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 4, 2010
My reaction to Bad Day at Black Rock is a guarded one. It runs eighty-one minutes and is frequently long when it should be short and short when it should be long. The conclusion, for instance, is something of a misfire. Ironically, after abandoning him for fifteen minutes near the beginning, the fi read more
Superman II (1980, Richard Lester)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 1, 2010
There are, now, three versions of Superman II. The theatrical, an extended television version (not officially released) and original director Richard Donner’s take on it. Unfortunately, Superman II is–as a narrative and a sequel–rife with problems. Drawing attention to these probl read more
In the Heat of the Night (1967, Norman Jewison)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 29, 2010
Warren Oates can be affable. I had no idea. In the Heat of the Night is a bit of a disappointment–not the acting, not the directing, just the script. The film plods as the script tries to come up with excuses to keep going. Stirling Silliphant’s dialogue is good, there’s no problem with it read more
Manhattan Tower (1932, Frank R. Strayer)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 27, 2010
Manhattan Tower opens with the Empire State Building and closes with it. I’m not entirely sure they ever call it by name in the film but it’s not supposed to be “real,” I don’t think. Tower‘s Empire State is a world onto itself, so much so, it’s a shock peo read more
Superman (1978, Richard Donner), the director’s cut
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 24, 2010
If watching Richard Donner’s director’s cuts have taught me one thing, it’s Donner probably shouldn’t have final cut. His director’s cut of Lethal Weapon, for example, is atrocious. He adds about nine minutes to Superman and, much like Coppola’s revision of Apoca read more
Murder at Glen Athol (1936, Frank R. Strayer)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 22, 2010
Murder at Glen Athol should be just a little bit better. The script has a number of twists, with Strayer handling them ably, but it’s just too short as it turns out. The film runs under seventy minutes, which would be fine for a B mystery, but Glen Athol (the title is problematic–Glen Athol read more
The Mummy’s Curse (1944, Leslie Goodwins)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 15, 2010
The Mummy’s Curse feels like a Universal attempt at a Val Lewton picture. It’s from 1944, so Lewton’s modern horror pictures had already come out. It’s hard to believe Universal changed their approach to monster movies so radically between this picture and the previous Mummy read more