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Reviews
Springfield Rifle (1952)
de toth's humor
andre de toth was a remarkable jewel in hollywood....perhaps possessing the most relentlessly savage humor of anyone in the history of that town....any movie he ever got his hands on were almost obsessive in his pursuit to put in his sharp jabs to the eye and ear....and springfield rifle is no exception....forget the plot and sit back and enjoy Cooper doing what he did best...being himself with that real western accent that only somebody who has spent more time on a horse than he should have owns.....and then get ready for a couple of de toth's unique moments.....the first coming when Cooper is talking to David Brian after stealing the horse out from under Lon Chaney Jr. and Chaney comes riding up sees Cooper and knocks him to the ground=====without mind you even a look by Brian over in Cooper's direction, but just giving Chaney a slightly narrorer pair of eyes as he kind of snarls....Pete i thought i told you never to ride a horse like that....................no other director in the history of hollywood ever ignored Cooper or their stories hero so gloriously.....and in film after film by De Toth, from House of Wax to Ramrod you get these moments..... but done so fast and laconically that you have to keep a sharp eye or they go right past you.............
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
a long way from average
this movie is so good probably the people making it didn't even know what they were doing....for a stalled subway train nothing in the history of movies ever moved faster.....and probably primarily because of the editor....if it was all in the script that would be verrrrrrrrry surprising....but unless and until a dvd comes along with commentary we'll never know and probably not even then...... ] sir walter was never better, not even in charlie varrick, this is THE definitive performance for him, he so subtle that even his gum chewing is revealing practically down towhether its on the left or right side of his mouth....every pause and inflection of his moves at JUST the right level.....and robert shaw is almost and maybe even dead level equal with him the way he handles his prop glasses and plays with his crossword puzzle while the hour runs out for the new yorkers on the train who comprise the best single cross section take on new york in the 70s ever.....
but remember, joseph sargeant , the director, was seemingly a
private before that, and apparently got his stripes cut shortly after that, and the writer looks like got exiled to some gulag in the desert outside l.a. so more and more this is beginning to look like just about the happiest accident in the history of Hollywood or err....new york......
Vertigo (1958)
spiral bound
probably the best hitchcock...overall...but what is that scene doing near the beginning with the bra designer...totally stupid... but from that point on as relentless and dreamlike as it is unbelievable....but maybe the most dreamlike movie ever made... even considering Bunuel....and the last 8 minutes just might be the greatest in all movies, even better than citizen kane.... when stewart takes her up the stairs he is just about as frightening a psychopath as mitchem in cape fear....
Red River (1948)
the best
even better than my darling clementine....an immortal western.... and yes the ending is flawed but more from the mechanics and actress Hawks was saddled with rather than anything else... neither man could have killed the other with anything like a satisfactory The End....so it pretty much has to end the way it does....but otherwise it has so many rich scenes and so deeply conceived that it is entirely possible that there will never be a better western.....in fact it just may be the greatest movie ever made, pound for pound...and certainly is Hawks best....and forget Wayne in the Searchers....as fantastic as he is in that, this is even greater.....he and the western had been moving to this movie ever since sound....and the wait was worth it
My Darling Clementine (1946)
join the crowd
yep, anyone who likes this one has got it right....it is pure myth and a can't miss...so many things are absolutely the best....all in all maybe the tightest western ever made...moving straight, though a good deal slower than a bullet to the final shoot out...just a fabulous opening with the cattle, then rather stupid campfire scene with the little brother...but after that nearly flawless.... from the drunken indian in town right on through with scene after scene of the best photographed movie perhaps of all time...and then the gunplay with no background music whatsover...never been a shootout like that in all cinema....just the wind and dust until the guns go off....anybody who doesn't like this one needs a new set of eyes and ears
Citizen Kane (1941)
a much over raided as well as over rated movie
no doubt about it....a must see movie....but once thompson gets to the thacker memorial it slows to a crawl and the whole business about the newspaper business is borrrrring....in fact the movie does not pick up again until xanadu and the marraige to susan alexander but then it is just as advertised terrific.....and the opening images leading to the light in the castle (no wonder that welles wanted to film kafka's castle rather than the trial) are as ballyhooed, just the greatest beginning of any movie ever made or ever likely to be made.................they, the wonderful bass horror music to kick things off, most of the march of time, though its about 3 minutes too long and the superb newsroom scene, absolutely seminal stuff.... very seductive and, in fact, my guess is so overwheliming good that lots a folks get sucked into the rest of most of what follows just like chickens following a trail of grain................. but.....i would not even rank it as one of the 20 best movies.... it ultimately is too shallow....but what a beginning...and what an ending, absolutely fabulous....and the xanadu stuff with susan is when it really comes alive.......