Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• The Narrow Margin

  

  One of Richard Fleischer's best movies, The Narrow Margin (1952) is a top notch thriller. Resembling Anthony Mann's The Tall Target (1951), it's a crisp, tense... Read more

  Posted on 14 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• D.o.a. (1950)

  

  Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. (1950) offers an innovative film noir. Oft-imitated, its well-conceived race-against-time plot gives a boost to shaky storytelling. Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Wild in the Streets

  

  (1968) is the sort of odd cultural artifact that could only have come from, and doesn't really work, outside of its time. Barry Shear's bizarre... Read more

  Posted on 10 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Brass Target

  

  Produced at the tail end of the '70s conspiracy craze, Brass Target (1978) is a muddled thriller with its share of grace notes. Lavish production values and a... Read more

  Posted on 07 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• History: Richard Nixon's Deplorables

  

  From the start, Watergate married tragedy to farce. There was the "third-rate burglary" itself, botched by a team of inane adventurers too dumb to cover their... Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

  

  (1946) is a delectable noir melodrama. Adapted from Jack Patrick's story Love Lies Bleeding, it perfectly renders an improbable intersection of tawdry lives... Read more

  Posted on 02 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Storm Warning

  

  Made in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, Storm Warning (1951) is your typical cockeyed message picture. Stuart Heisler tries a shocking expose of th... Read more

  Posted on 02 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Black Sabbath

  

  Mario Bava delivers a classy anthology with Black Sabbath (1963). Appropriately, it bridges his earlier period horror films and modern-day slashers in an... Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Blood and Black Lace

  

  Strange that I've rarely cottoned to Mario Bava's horror films. One can respect his exorbitant style and genre innovations, yet for me he's always been a poor... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Black Cat (1934)

  

  marked the first collaboration of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and what a collaboration! The stars chew scenery and battle each other, redeeming a rather... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Mummy (1932)

  

  A year after playing Frankenstein, Boris Karloff brings another horror icon to life. The Mummy (1932) ranks among Universal's best horror pictures, well-acted,... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Eyes Without a Face

  

  Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1959) is a striking work of stylized horror. Along with the writing team Bouileau-Narcejac, whose novels inspired Les... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Confessions of a Nazi Spy

  

  "Force is the only language you will understand! And we'll speak to you in your own language soon enough!" Hollywood tiptoed around Nazi Germany for years,... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

  

  Dario Argento launched his long, sporadically brilliant directing career with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). It provides a template for future... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A Bay of Blood

  

  Mario Bava kick-started Italian horror films with gothic gore fests like Black Sunday (1961) and Blood and Black Lace (1964). Even more extreme is A Bay of Bloo... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Inferno (1980)

  

  Nobody watches Dario Argento movies for lucid plots or nuanced characters. Inferno (1980) shows Argento at his fever dream best, a supernatural slasher film mor... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Walked With a Zombie

  

  (1943) marks Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's second collaboration. As usual, they enrich a chintzy B Movie set-up with remarkable depth and ambition. Zombie... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Big Sleep (1946)

  

  "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!"Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made a dynamite couple, onscreen and off. Read more

  Posted on 16 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

  

  Charles B. Pierce made a B Movie hit with The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), a docudrama about a Sasquatch stalking the Arkansas swamp. Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Scarecrow

  

  Despite its dynamite star pairing, Scarecrow (1973) has been lost in the shuffle of '70s road movies. Gene Hackman and Al Pacino enrich an aimless drama, more... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES