Showing posts with label Ava Gardner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ava Gardner. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 July 2022
Saturday, 7 May 2022
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
A seductive woman falls in love with a mysterious ship's captain.
From memory: Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is an over-the-top romantic fantasy that amazes with an exuberant, almost surrealist visual style verging on kitsch (Man Ray actually designed some of its sets); the love story itself is silly.
Halliwell*: "Pretentious,humourless, totally unpersuasive fantasy of the kind much better done in Portrait of Jennie. The writer-director wears Omar Kayyam's moving finger to the bone, and the actors look thoroughly unhappy; even the colour is a bit thick."
Maltin**: "Sorry to say, a big Technicolor bore, one of writer-director Lewin's misfires...Intriguing but unconvincing tale...Only real attribute is Gardner's breathtaking beauty."
Sunday, 6 March 2022
Friday, 24 September 2021
Friday, 13 August 2021
Monday, 28 September 2020
Tuesday, 8 October 2019
Thursday, 1 November 2018
Monday, 15 October 2018
Thursday, 27 September 2018
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Earthquake (1974)
Various stories of various people as an earthquake of un-imaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles.
Risible and bad disaster movie, the advertised "Sensurround" sound probably installed to drown out the ridiculous 'special effects'.
On renewed viewing: pretty bad, trashy entertainment.
Halliwell*: "Dreary drama with very variable special effects, gimmicked up by Sensurround. A box-office bonanza."
Maltin BOMB: "...hackneyed disaster epic..."
Thursday, 13 July 2017
The Killers (1946)
Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and an investigator uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly woman.
Film noir classic with extraordinary b/w photography and excellent performances, Ava Gardner, however, is not quite convincing as femme fatale; the plot is more an imagination about Ernest Hemingways story than an adaptation.
On renewed viewing: Hemingway's famous short story is merely the trigger for an intriguing, complex Noir crime story, arguably one of genre's best; both Lancaster as the 'innocent' cuckold and Gardner as the inscrutable femme fatale set standards with their performances.
Halliwell***: "Elaborate tale of cross and double-cross, stunningly executed."
Maltin****: "Compelling crime drama...Film provides fireworks, early success of Lancaster (in film debut) and Gardner."
Thursday, 1 October 2015
Sunday, 23 August 2015
Saturday, 23 May 2015
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
A seductive woman falls in love with a mysterious ship's captain.
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