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By Fred Blosser
We moviegoers are a caring, law-abiding community, or at least we’re assumed to be, but regardless of how timid or tender-hearted we are, producers know that we’re usually pushovers for movies about Big Heists. As long as the crime is perpetrated against an institution like a bank, a multinational corporation, or a casino, and no person is threatened or injured, the protagonists’ antisocial behavior becomes an abstraction. We’re free, vicariously, to admire their ingenuity and tenacity as they carry out their complicated scheme. But what if the story is based on a big payout that directly endangers an innocent person? Then it becomes harder to sell the concept as escapist entertainment, as journeyman filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Hubert Cornfield discovered in the mid-1950s, when they both became interested, independently, in a 1953 novel by Lionel White.
By Fred Blosser
We moviegoers are a caring, law-abiding community, or at least we’re assumed to be, but regardless of how timid or tender-hearted we are, producers know that we’re usually pushovers for movies about Big Heists. As long as the crime is perpetrated against an institution like a bank, a multinational corporation, or a casino, and no person is threatened or injured, the protagonists’ antisocial behavior becomes an abstraction. We’re free, vicariously, to admire their ingenuity and tenacity as they carry out their complicated scheme. But what if the story is based on a big payout that directly endangers an innocent person? Then it becomes harder to sell the concept as escapist entertainment, as journeyman filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Hubert Cornfield discovered in the mid-1950s, when they both became interested, independently, in a 1953 novel by Lionel White.
- 5/22/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Hubert Cornfield’s smoothly directed, moody kidnapping story is mysterious, engaging and well acted, but opts for an anti-thriller vibe with a curiously unsatisfying ending. Was this really the plan, or did the irksomely capricious Marlon Brando just not want to cooperate with the director? Brando is terrific anyway. The well-cast Rita Moreno, Richard Boone and Pamela Franklin are short-changed by directorial and editorial decisions that don’t give us enough of a purchase on the characters. The overcast weather on the French coast is a plus, but not the director’s choice of a downbeat, arty finish.
The Night of the Following Day
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date May 25, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Marlon Brando, Richard Boone, Rita Moreno, Pamela Franklin,
Jess Hahn, Gérard Buhr, Hugues Wanner, Jacques Marin, Al Lettieri.
Cinematography: Willy Kurant
Film Editor: Gordon Pilkington
Art Direction Jean Boulet
Original...
The Night of the Following Day
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date May 25, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Marlon Brando, Richard Boone, Rita Moreno, Pamela Franklin,
Jess Hahn, Gérard Buhr, Hugues Wanner, Jacques Marin, Al Lettieri.
Cinematography: Willy Kurant
Film Editor: Gordon Pilkington
Art Direction Jean Boulet
Original...
- 5/1/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
In the realm of failed art exists a select category of cinema so terribly conceived those deserving of its distinction are worthy of timeless praise. While there are generally celebrated and beloved camp classics, one obscure behemoth of softcore exploitative Eurotrash is Jean-Marie Pallardy’s 1984 gem White Fire.
Filmed in Istanbul and set, for unknown reasons in a futuristic Fascistic Turkey, diamond smugglers, plastic surgery, switched identities, a gigantic radioactive diamond, a lesbian utopia and Fred Williamson are all lavish distractions for a disturbing incest narrative all set to an addictive vintage title track from the band Limelight.
Two children who witnessed their parents murdered in front of their eyes become jewel thieves twenty years later in Istanbul while under the tutelage of their savior, Sam (Jess Hahn).…...
Filmed in Istanbul and set, for unknown reasons in a futuristic Fascistic Turkey, diamond smugglers, plastic surgery, switched identities, a gigantic radioactive diamond, a lesbian utopia and Fred Williamson are all lavish distractions for a disturbing incest narrative all set to an addictive vintage title track from the band Limelight.
Two children who witnessed their parents murdered in front of their eyes become jewel thieves twenty years later in Istanbul while under the tutelage of their savior, Sam (Jess Hahn).…...
- 8/25/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Stars: Robert Ginty, Fred Williamson, Belinda Mayne, Jess Hahn, Mirella Banti, Diana Goodman, Gordon Mitchell | Written and Directed by Jean-Marie Pallardy
White Fire, also known as Vivre Pour Survivre (the on-screen title of this new Arrow Video Blu-ray release) is a 1984 action film made in Turkey, by a French man, and features two superstars of exploitation cinema: Fred Williamson and Robert Ginty (The Exterminator). If that’s not a recipe for success I don’t know what is!
White Fire tells the story of brother and sister Bo (Ginty) and Inga (Belinda Mayne), two orphans turned jewel thieves who target the legendary ‘White Fire’ diamond — a priceless rock so hot it actually burns those who try to lay their hands on it! When tragedy strikes, Bo undertakes an outrageous plan involving plastic surgery and explosives to infiltrate the mine where the diamond awaits. Bo’s plan hits an unexpected snag...
White Fire, also known as Vivre Pour Survivre (the on-screen title of this new Arrow Video Blu-ray release) is a 1984 action film made in Turkey, by a French man, and features two superstars of exploitation cinema: Fred Williamson and Robert Ginty (The Exterminator). If that’s not a recipe for success I don’t know what is!
White Fire tells the story of brother and sister Bo (Ginty) and Inga (Belinda Mayne), two orphans turned jewel thieves who target the legendary ‘White Fire’ diamond — a priceless rock so hot it actually burns those who try to lay their hands on it! When tragedy strikes, Bo undertakes an outrageous plan involving plastic surgery and explosives to infiltrate the mine where the diamond awaits. Bo’s plan hits an unexpected snag...
- 5/29/2020
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
In conjunction with La Furia Umana, Notebook is very happy to present Ted Fendt's original English translation of Luc Moullet's "Le masque et la part de Dieu," on the films of Eric Rohmer. Moullet's original French can be found at La Furia Umana.
Cecil summed up the difference between him and his brother, William DeMille, like this: “I show a thousand camels and you show one camel and you psychoanalyze it.” Eric Rohmer is a lot more like William than Cecil, minus Freud.
What is fascinating, foremost, in his work is his obstinacy to not go beyond his only or main subject, often summed up, in a somewhat misleading way, by its title: Béatrice Romand wants a good marriage, or, at least, to help her friend have one (A Tale of Autumn), Brialy wants to caress Claire’s Knee (meaning, to be sure that she is practically consenting), Lucchini,...
Cecil summed up the difference between him and his brother, William DeMille, like this: “I show a thousand camels and you show one camel and you psychoanalyze it.” Eric Rohmer is a lot more like William than Cecil, minus Freud.
What is fascinating, foremost, in his work is his obstinacy to not go beyond his only or main subject, often summed up, in a somewhat misleading way, by its title: Béatrice Romand wants a good marriage, or, at least, to help her friend have one (A Tale of Autumn), Brialy wants to caress Claire’s Knee (meaning, to be sure that she is practically consenting), Lucchini,...
- 1/3/2012
- MUBI
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