Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• Isle of the Dead

  

  "The Greek gods are more powerful than my science."Most moviegoers dismiss Isle of the Dead (1945) as lesser Val Lewton. Indeed it's rough around the edges,... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Ghost Ship (1943)

  

  "There are some captains who would hold this against you!"For decades, The Ghost Ship (1943) became Val Lewton's most obscure film. Two writers sued RKO for... Read more

  Posted on 16 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Seventh Victim

  

  Val Lewton scored his biggest artistic success with ;The Seventh Victim (1943). Freshman director Mark Robson replaces Jacques Tourneur for a Lewton film even... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Lawrence of Arabia (and Val Lewton) Updates

  

  The LA Times reports that the remarkable editor Anne V. Coates will receive a career achievement award from the LA Film Critics. Ms. Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Leopard Man

  

  After two masterful horror films (Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie), Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's last collaboration is an underwhelming thriller. Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Black Mass

  

  Whitey Bulger's Boston criminal empire, alliance with the FBI, decades-long disappearance and dramatic arrest are tailor-made for Hollywood. Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• October

  

  As my readers know, blogging's slowed to a trickle in 2015. More than anything else, some inner ailment - stress, depression, malaise, whatever - is afflicting... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Ugly American

  

  "The only thing that is clear is that there's no clarity at all."The Ugly American (1962) is an earnest but tin-eared drama. Director George Englund boils Eugen... Read more

  Posted on 26 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Life of Emile Zola

  

  "Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it."Paul Muni had a remarkable string of films in the 1930s, mixing socially conscious dramas (I Am a Fugitive fro... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Accuse!

  

  Critics and audiences dismissed I Accuse! (1958), director-star Jose Ferrer's rendering of the Dreyfus Affair. Comparisons to the Oscar-winning The Life of Emil... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hannie Caulder

  

  "There are no hard women... only soft men!"Burt Kennedy's Hannie Caulder (1971) is a curious seventies artifact. Part Spaghetti Western, part feminist revenge... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Never Sang for My Father

  

  There's no greater human tragedy than the failure to communicate. Gilbert Cates' I Never Sang for My Father (1970) conveys this in a heart-wrenching father-son... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Apocalypse Now

  

  "I see no method at all, sir."Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) is legendary, from its nightmarish production to the mystifying end product. Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Il Divo

  

  "Power wears out those who don't have it."Italian politics strikes outsiders as a wild, inscrutable circus. Perhaps that's why Il Divo (2008) is such a bizarre... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Mississippi Burning

  

  Alan Parker built his career on overwrought dramas that boil "important" issues into high-gloss exploitation. Today, Midnight Express (1978) is less shocking... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The China Syndrome

  

  The last great '70s thriller, The China Syndrome (1979) earned immortality by coming out twelve days before Three Mile Island's near-meltdown. Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Go-Between

  

  "We can't expect to be happy all the time, can we?"The Go-Between (1971) marks Joseph Losey's final collaboration with Harold Pinter. After The Servant (1963)... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Quorum Call: The Godfather, Part II's Senate Committee

  

  A major portion of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974) involves Michael Corleone's interrogation by the United States Senate. Read more

  Posted on 23 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Brotherhood

  

  Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde inspired a new wave of gangster films, which The Brotherhood (1968) nearly whacked. Martin Ritt's crime saga was a notorious flop... Read more

  Posted on 22 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Go Tell the Spartans

  

  "That's the way the US kicks ass, Charlie!"1978 saw the Vietnam War belatedly exploding onscreen, with Coming Home and The Deer Hunter competing for box office... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES