Thursday, August 7, 2014 by watchstream
Jeunes filles bien... pour tous rapports (1968)iMDB Rating: 4.7
A young man who disguises himself as a girl in order to gain access to a girl's College.
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The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.2Marshal Flagg, an aging lawman about to be retired, hears that his old nemesis, the outlaw McKaye, is back in the area and planning a robbery. Riding out to hunt down McKaye, Flagg is captured by McKaye's gang and finds out that McKaye is no longer the leader of the gang, but is considered just an aging relic by the new leader, a youngster named Waco. Waco orders Mackaye to shoot Flagg, and when Mackaye refuses Waco abandons both of them. Flagg then takes Mackaye back to town only to find out that he has been "retired", and when he sees how clueless and incompetent the new marshal and the city fathers are, he persuades Mackaye that it is up to the two of them to stop Waco and his gang from ravaging the town.
Good Mitchum western
Better than average fare with a good train chase sequence.Nothing wrong done in this movie but nothing great either.This movie will please most western fans.A better screenplay would have really taken it to a better level.Great performance by David Carradine which helped him in his carreer.....
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 by watchstream
L'arbre de Noël (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.4Since the death of his mother, Pascal, ten years old, spends his holidays with his father, the rich Laurent Segur. One day, when diving near the shores of Corse, an aircraft falls into the sea. The holiday goes on happily with Catherine, the young and pretty girlfriend of Laurent. But soon blue marks appear on the face of Pascal. He has been contaminated by a nuclear weapon carried by the destroyed plane, and he won't survive more than six months. There is nothing Laurent can do, except give his son the best six months he has ever lived.
Still up to date ,to see even if you don't like to cry .
I red the book when I was 11 and wanted to see the film . I liked it the same . Now I am 35 and I still like to see it sometimes . It's a good analysis of the characters . What would you do if a person you love very much have to die en six month . Bourvil is my favourite actor and it is one of his best role .
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Fraulein Doktor (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.6During ww1 the German intelligence sends a team of saboteurs and a woman spy to Scotland to help assassinate Lord Kitchener. Later on the German intelligence sends another team of spies to Allied headquarters in Belgium to steal the secret Allied defense plans. The German female spy, known as Fraulein Doktor, is entrusted with stealing the new mustard gas formula from its French female inventor. Afterward, the German army uses the new mustard gas on the battlefield during its offensive against the Allied armies.
This film really chilled me
I saw this film by chance on the small box. It has a fantastic and chilling scene about poisonous gas. A lot about fanatical patriotism. A bit of eroticism. I can't believe it's still waiting for 5 votes!!
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Jenny (1970)iMDB Rating: 4.6An unwed mother-to-be marries a total stranger avoiding the draft. She now has a father for her child and he doesn't have to go to the Army. But this marriage-of-convenience leads to a romance between the two.
AN example of all the worst things about late '60's film--making
This is a boring mess. It tries to combine cinema verite', neo-realism, artistic montages, reverse camera angles, and improvisation. The two leads are boring and insipid characters that no one could care about -- not even themselves. It pretends to have a bold statement to make about single motherhood. And the statement turns out to be, "Isn't it sad?" Unless you have a mad desire to occupy your life with this mess for two hours, skip it.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014 by watchstream
Don Franco e Don Ciccio nell'anno della contestazione (1969)iMDB Rating: 5.6For the last time, Zooming is not funny
As usual with Franco/Ciccio flicks, the opening credits are more enjoyable then the rest of the picture. Italy's best loved comedy duo play rival priests in the neighboring towns of Roccapizzone and San Antonio. Did Franco crash his bike through Ciccio's new stained glass window on purpose or was he just in town for their mutual confession? Their main beef with each other concerns their opposing football teams and this feud takes up a great deal of the picture. This one does have much better cinematography then most of their collaborations. Dig those frog eye perspective shots. If only they could ease up on the zoom lens already!
There is quite a lot of social commentary concerning equal rights for factory workers and (to a much lesser extend) women. This is surprising for a F&C feature until you realize that the two comics have absolutely nothing to do with this part of the story. We sometimes loose them for ten minutes straight to focus on the big strike, Fabio the policeman (who looks exactly like Captain Kirk in disguise on that Nazi planet) and young Anna (Edwige Fenech in a rare fully clothed appearance). She in turn has a 'hillarious' fascist granddad who hates Bolsjewiks. Third billed Edwige is wasted as window dressing, playing the thankless part of the love interest to a bland hero who has nothing heroic to do. The two Don's only intrude into this half of the story once before the two plot strands separate ne'er to cross paths again.
Finally the all important football match arrives to take over one third of the picture (or at least it seemed that way to me). How many times can we take the sight of Franco's assistant (Lino Banfi) falling of the bench? The two priests end up in opposite goals for a reasonably funny Good, Bad and Ugly spoof. Having played their parts, they went of to shoot parts of the other 15 films they had coming out that year and are completely absent for the finale in the factory. Banfi has to carry this part of the film but the writers still felt the need to bring in some hippies from the Rhythm of Life Tabernakel for good measure (Aquarius!) We have just enough time left for a reprise of the stained glass bit and after the script ran out, more frantic zooming.
3 out of 10
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The Desperados (1969)iMDB Rating: 4.5During the Civil War, Josiah Galt, a former parson, and his sons David, Jacob and Adam, become a gang of bandits who plunder, rob and rape for pleasure. Disgusted by the massacre of the whole population of St. Thomas, Kansas, David drops out of the gang and joins his wife Laura. After their son Pauly was born, David and Laura settle down in Chilon, Texas. A few years later, Galt's gang come there with a view to robbing the local bank.
Desperate
This 1969 western gives an early take on a dysfunctional family,
and almost works on its incredible action scenes alone.
Jack Palance is the father and leader of a bunch of Confederate
guerillas modelled after Quantrill's Raiders. He and his sons and
men invade towns, stealing money, raping women, and burning
the town to the ground. In one Kansas town, eldest son Vince
Edwards decides the killing needs to stop. Edwards kills one of
his own men by accident during the raid. He is arrested and
sentenced to death in a family run court. With family like this, who
needs in-laws? Anyway, Edwards escapes after kicking little
brother George Maharis' butt, and goes to Texas, changing his
name and living the good life with a wife and son.
In Texas, only marshal Neville Brand knows Edwards' secret.
Soon, Palance's gang sets their sights on Texas, specifically
Edwards' new town. After a deadly raid, some of the gang is jailed.
They escape, and the town finds out their new neighbor is in fact a
cold blooded killer, and a necktie party is thrown for Edwards. He
escapes with Brand, finds Palance's gang, then escapes from
them, knowing when the gang will strike next. Sure is a lot of
escaping going on.
Edwards thwarts a train robbery, killing Maharis. Palance kidnaps
Edwards' son, kills Edwards' wife, and the final showdown
between the two looms. It also turns out completely opposite from
what the viewer may expect.
Levin's direction is very good, and his action scenes are great. The
scenes aboard the flaming runaway train are very exciting. David
Whitaker's musical score is perfect, with bombastic stuff during
the action, pumping the adrenaline and setting the perfect mood.
The main problem is the two leads here. Vince Edwards as
Palance's son? Palance is only nine years older than Edwards,
and they do look the same age. Jack Palance is awful here,
playing the part way over the top and constantly stepping into
unintentionally hilarious melodramatics. Edwards is the opposite,
holding the same constipated look on his face throughout the film,
showing as little emotion as he possibly can. Despite some good
stunts, the fact that these two are in almost every scene brings
down any technical achievements. Even the normally reliable
Neville Brand seems at a loss here.
"The Desperados" is gritty and violent, but Levin's inability to get
control of his actors weighs down the action. I cannot recommend
this film.
This is unrated, and contains physical violence, strong gun
violence, some sexual violence, some gore, some profanity, and
some adult situations.
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Latitude Zero (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.3Sushi Sci-Fi with an American Twist
As was the norm in the 60's, Japanese filmmakers used old-time American actors to help market their films in the US and Europe. Such Hollywood classics such as Raymond Burr ("Godzilla"), Nick Adams and Robert Horton ("The Green Slime") made a second career by appearing in Japanese sci -fi.
Joseph Cotton ("Citizen Kane"), Cesar Romero (TV "Batman's" original Joker) and Richard Jaeckel ("The Dirty Dozen", "Spenser:For Hire", "The Green Slime"), were another three who appeared in this offbeat blend of sci-fi and fantasy.
Cotten has his hands full as a Captain Nemo-esque commander of the super sub Alpha (an odd coincidence, since he later played the famous submariner in MGM's "Captain Nemo and the Underwater City"), fighting against a mad scientist (Romero) with a penchant for splicing together mutant creatures to rule the world. Jaeckel plays the reporter tossed into this crazy conflict, which has little or no plot or character development, but is just your average no-brainer popcorn flick perfect for the fanboy in all of us.
A strange twist was the marketing of this film as a sequel to the live action version of the anime movie "Atragon", another super sub movie that bears absolutely no resemblance in design or plot to "Latitude Zero".
Monday, August 4, 2014 by watchstream
Una sull'altra (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.8The wife of a doctor (Jean Sorel) is murdered. He had a mistress a long ago, since his wife (Marisa Mell) always begged herself out of engagements because she is a asthmatic. On the other hand, she enjoyed a part time job as a stripper. Did the doctor kill her?
Well made erotic thriller
This is not a giallo film, nor is it in the lines of the fun but more exploitative Fulci film THE DEVIL'S HONEY. Nor is it a horror film, though you should watch fast for a Fulci cameo as a doctor in the film's one very gruesome moment. It has some nice well thought out plot twists and a fun 1960's San Francisco atmosphere. It's a very well made film on all levels.
This deserves a decent release as most copies look like crud. The film is well staged in and around San Francisco and features ample but appropriate nudity.
The whole things builds momentum and suspense with an especially cleverly done ending. Also watch for the use of mirror and mirror images throughout the film. Unlike many Euro films from this era it is also well acted and decently dubbed into English. It actually looks like it was all shot in English as there is none of the usual rubbery lip sync.
Fulci was not a one trick pony director (as the better known Dario Argento definitely is) and if you're interested in seeing his diversity, see this film. If all you want is horror look elsewhere.
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Her and She and Him (1970)iMDB Rating: 5.3Greta, a Swedish student comes to Paris with a view to making it there. But comely and friendly as she is, she soon becomes the prey of all the rutting males around. To run away from their horde she finds refuge in the arms of Claude, a rich educated lesbian girl. Happy at the beginning she gradually feels oppressed on account of the possessiveness of her mistress. One day she meets Jean and falls in love with him. But Jean is a bisexual and is at present the model and lover of a celebrated homosexual artist, Mathias Decas...
An X-rated church homily
"Because Paris is Paris," Swedish art history student Astrid Frank thumbs her way to the City of Lights with nothing more on her shoulders than a guitar case and a pair of blonde braids. When her friendliness is interpreted by a series of sexual predators as an open invitation to Swedish "free love," Greta retreats into a lesbian relationship with the affluent but lonely Nicole Debonne – but eventually tires of the older woman's possessiveness ("It disgusts me!") and sets her sights on the boytoy (Frederic Sakiss) of a celebrated gay painter (Yves Vincent) – with calamitous results.
Because CLAUDE ET GRETA (filmed as LES LIAISONS PARTICULIÈRES, it opened in Paris in 1970 as CLAUDE ET GRETA, but is now available on video as HER AND SHE AND HIM) was distributed by Radley Metzger, it begs comparison to a Radley Metzger production. Although director Max Pécas displays a painterly eye and occasional erotic gusto, his characters lack the depth that Metzger reliably brought to both his high living and lowdown sensualists. Worse yet, his script (co-written with Michel Ressi) depicts its homosexual characters as neurotic and borderline psychotic, while the two young innately hetero lovebirds are etched as innocents turned away from their destiny at the altar by the decadent allure of same sex relationships. Despite the abundant nudity and X-rated insert shots, CLAUDE ET GRETA doesn't advance any thinking that would be out of place in a Sunday sermon.
Rent THE LICKERISH QUARTET instead.
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Futz (1969)iMDB Rating: 5.0Sexual satire about a young farmer who has had many bad experiences with women. He showers love and affection upon his pet pig, Amanda, saying she alone is worthy to be his wife. His "marriage" to Amanda causes a scandal in the community, almost mass hysteria.
Too Absurd to be Comprehensible or Enjoyable
Story of a man who has unnatural feelings for a pig. Starts out with a opening scene that is a terrific example of absurd comedy. A formal orchestra audience is turned into an insane, violent mob by the crazy chantings of it's singers. Unfortunately it stays absurd the WHOLE time with no general narrative eventually making it just too off putting. Even those from the era should be turned off. The cryptic dialogue would make Shakespeare seem easy to a third grader. On a technical level it's better than you might think with some good cinematography by future great Vilmos Zsigmond. Future stars Sally Kirkland and Frederic Forrest can be seen briefly.
Sunday, August 3, 2014 by watchstream
Trusting Is Good... Shooting Is Better (1968)iMDB Rating: 5.0too slow, too boring, everything takes too long to happen
I like Hilton and Gordon Mitchell so I gave this one a try. The DVD I saw is an ugly, full-frame transfer, probably from VHS. English dub. It's a "funny" story of a man (Hilton) that runs afoul of a gang of three bank robbers (Mitchell, John Ireland, Piero Vida). The robbers are busy trying to double-cross one another and Hilton joins the party. A pretty blond (Sandra Milo) takes her turn at tricking each of the men also. The story is very reminiscent of double-cross pics like ONE DOLLAR TOO MANY or ANY GUN CAN PLAY. However, this film is a little tedious, a little boring. Some of the comic scenes are pretty well-done but the action sequences are slow-moving, boring, very poorly staged. Generally the pacing of the film is too slow, too boring, everything takes too long to happen. Music is an annoying carnival-style motif which is supposed to sound whimsical but features too much acid rock-style organ and guitar. Mitchell's part FWIW is basically a cameo, he is dead after 15min of the film. Hilton is charming but can't save the film on his own. As of this writing the full film is available on YouTube. 5/10 stars.
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Cateto a babor (1970)iMDB Rating: 5.0En este "remake" de Recluta con niño (1955) tenemos a Miguel Cañete, un rústico pueblerino de la localidad de Viñuela. Para su disgusto, Miguel es llamado al servicio militar por la Marina de San Fernando, debiendo acudir a filas sin remisión, ya que agotó todas las prórrogas posibles. El problema es que no tiene con quién dejar a Quique, su hermano pequeño. Se compromete con Jacinta, una paisana, simplemente para que ésta cuide de Quique a cambio de la promesa de casarse con ella cuando él termine el servicio. Pero Quique se siente muy mal entre aquellas personas y se escapa de polizón en el tren en el que viaja su hermano. Cuando llegan a San Fernando, lo único que se le ocurre a Miguel es dejar a Quique en casa de la única persona de la familia que vive allí: la tía Enriqueta, la cual ahora se codea con "gente importante" y lo que menos desea es tener a dos "pueblerinos" yendo y viniendo a su casa. Bajo la amenaza de delatar sus orígenes, Miguel logra dejar a Quique en casa de la ...
Good remake. Not better nor worse than the original, but different.
We could call this film 'a time-updated remake of Recluta con niño (1956)'. Basically, we find just the same elements in both films, but there are several different points:
- This film is filmed in color, while the former one was in black and white.
- The place where the plot is developed is the Navy, while in the former one it was the Air Forces.
- In the flight scene, a helycopter has replaced the former plane.
- The actors are different: Alfredo Landa plays the former role of José Luis Ozores, José Gálvez plays Manolo Morán's, Laly Soldevila plays María Isbert's, Florinda Chico plays Julia Caba Alba's...
All in all, it's a film worth the time spent to watch it. It's funny, moving and entertaining. Of course, Spanish viewers will enjoy it best.
My rating: 7 out of 10.
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Flareup (1969)iMDB Rating: 5.2Psycho stalks go-go dancer from Las Vegas to L.A.
My Life Is Ruined
***SPOILERS*** Requel Welch in one of the most demanding roles of her film career as Michele a Las Vegas Go-Go dancer. Michele is stalked throughout the movie "Flareup" by a crazed killer Alan Morris, Luke Askew, who holds her as well as her friend and fellow Go-Go dancer Iris, Pat Delaney, responsible for the breakup of his marriage to Go-Go dancer Nikki, Sandra Giles.
Trying to get Nikki to reconsider at an outdoor café in Vegas, where she's with both Michele and Iris, she tells the hurt and despondent Alan to get lost where he pulls out a gun and shoots her! Alan then turns his gun on Nikki's fellow Go-Go dancers, Michele and Iris, as they run for their lives and escape.
Later Michele and Iris going to the hospital to find out how Nikki is doing, she died from her wounds, Alan runs down Iris and her police escort with his car as Michele escapes again. Michele is sent to L.A by the manager of the club that she dances in, the Pussycat, to work at the "Losers" nightclub in order to get away from the vengeful Alan.
At "The Losers" Michele meets Joe, James Stacy, the clubs parking attendant who changes her hose, car tire, and then gives her a sip of coke, the soft drink, from a bottle that he's drinking out of. This impressed the beautiful Michele so much that by the time the day was over she was shacked up with Joe in his apartment in L.A! I should be so lucky.
Alan gets the bartender at the "Pussycat" nightclub Silor,Ron Rifkin, to tell him where Michele is and then carjacks Mr.Willows, Tom Feddon, killing him and driving off with his car to L.A to murder Michele. Finding both Michele and Joe at the beach Alan is interrupted in his attempt to kill them by the police and runs down and kills a biker as he makes his escape.
Alan then tracks down Michele at a gas station as she out runs him, on wheels and on foot, to a zoo. It's at the zoo where she's rescued by the police with Alan again getting away and is put into a police guarded hospital room for her own protection.
Michele breaking out of the hospital goes to Joe's place only to be held hostage by Alan who was there waiting for her. After being held alive by Alan in order for Joe to come home; Alan plans to murder him so Michele can see it. Suddenly Michele breaks away from Alan and locks herself up in the kitchen and when Alan breaks in she pours a can of gasoline on him and lights a match setting him on fire thus the title of the movie "Flareup".
Luke Askew who's a pretty good actor seemed so embarrassed in the movie that he played it straight and tried to keep his emotions in regards to the part that he was paying under wraps. Especially in that incredibly unintentional hilarious last sequence with Miss. Welch, when he looked like he was either hypnotized or on drugs.
Saturday, August 2, 2014 by watchstream
La femme infidèle (1969)iMDB Rating: 7.5Charles Desvallées has good reasons to believe that his wife is cheating on him and hires a P.D. in order to prove himself right. Once he knows the lover is writer Victor Pégala, he drives to his apartment, calmly presents himself as the husband, starts a conversation and then kills him cold-bloodedly. The police trace the wife but when she discovers by accident a picture that could incriminate her husband she decides to remain silent.
Brooding and meditative piece exploring trouble in proposed upper-class paradise as love; disenchantment and ill-felt notions spawn chaos and frayed morals.
The two characters primarily involved in Claude Chabrol's 1969 French thriller The Unfaithful Wife have, at least at the beginning, rather an idyllic and somewhat pleasant set up in their lives. When we first encounter them, we see both the husband and titular wife with their rather extended family in a large garden on a warm, sunny and welcoming day; the tone of the exchanges polite, the activity nothing out of the ordinary nor needlessly extravagant. The opening shots of such imagery are quite crudely broken up by a blurred effect which drowns the screen of its focus, the ideal family unit itself thus becoming difficult to firmly latch one's eyes onto; the credits begin, some rather harsh and somewhat official looking credits that scroll upwards in a military manner whilst some distorting piano music plays overhead. It's a fleeting few minutes or so of idealism in-between such a sequence, the film going on to form a superior mediation on human behaviour masquerading as a causality thriller as paradise is rendered corrupt and peeking beneath the surface of the upper-classes reveals deception and titular unfaithfulness.
The film is unrelentingly fascinating, a piece never for more than a few seconds ever in the slightest bit uninteresting; a grim and somewhat bleak study how love, anger and victimisation brew together to create a cocktail of violence and anguish and how that in itself can come to forge a relationship which was never initially set in stone. The film's methodical lead is Michel Bouquet's Charles Desvallees, a lawyer with his own office located in a small enough building amidst the bustling Parisian streets away from the large, more ruralised country house in which he lives with his family. The family, of which, is made up of the titular wife, a certain Hélène (Audran) who's about the same age as her husband and is the mother to young son Michel (Di Napoli). The warm and welcoming day in the garden spent with Charles' mother and Hélène's in-law turns into evening, Charles' verbal illustrating of various plans he would like to have happen the following day involving both he and Hélène out and about doing things are shot down with casual reasons which excuse Hélène from attending. As they sit and observe a television broadcast later on during the evening, the signal begins to break up and the machine ceases to function as well as it might, thus further insinuating a breaking down of communication of an operative item and echoing their marriage.
At work, and aside from Charles' rich circle of friends and busy schedule, he observes through young female secretary Brigitte (Turri) the very essence of temptation. His suspicion brought about by his wife's behaviour, and Chabrol's own channelling onto the audience of signs and notions towards an upsetting of a paradise-like set up or the malfunctioning of a working order, beginning to resonate. Desperate, as thoughts; feelings and drama all at once clinically escalate, Charles darts to the nearest payphone to call a place of business Hélène said she'd be; the piano music from earlier only suggesting at something seriously wrong with what idealism we were seeing beginning to pipe up again to form the overlying soundtrack to the news she is not where she said she'd be.
The painful inevitable is confirmed when a private detective Charles hires reveals to him the truth; that Hélène is, in fact, having an affair and with a writer named Victor Pégala (Ronet) based not so far away. The film allows Charles a moment you sparsely see in today's age of thrillers; a moment of contemplation that has him stand beside a river flowing through the urbanised locale in which the reveal was announced so as to merely look across to the other side of it, digesting what it is has been exposed to him. It is around about here in the film that Chabrol applies a gear change so dramatic and so effective that it propels the piece beyond its combined brooding roots of paranoia and suspicion and into an echelon of unpredictability; horror and human emotion in its some of its rawest forms. In short, the switch in tone and content works remarkably; the film coming to have Charles journey to the man and see him.
The film's causality infused thrills and scares following the venturing into the territory it goes near does nothing to distract the film from its overall tract; it is a film that is able to evoke just as much an on-edge reaction from its audience following a character's glance or nervous facial reaction as it can from a minor car accident. Chabrol's capturing of some of the interplay towards the conclusion as two people are forced into hiding varying secrets from both one another and the police is fascinating, and the film does not loose sight of son Michel's role as the picturesque representative of innocence caught up amidst all this and made to suffer out of others' ill-gotten decisions. Chabrol's overall ending is decidedly bleak, but his conclusion that the two we examine whom previously appeared to fall away from each other only to reconnect when some sort of duality was established, is dangerously uplifting given the sorts of events which aided in this and the actions the lovebirds undertook; all of it combining to form a superior thriller of an immensely sophisticated ilk.
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