christopher-underwood Reviews

The Blood Spattered Bride (1972)

a bit of surrealism

[8/10 · 2 May 2024]

The other evening I noticed the exceptional, Eric McNaughton of We Belong Dead (the magazine and books), saw that he was to watch The Blood Spattered Bride (1972) never having seen it before. I thought it was about time that I see it as well. I eventually found my copy, which was in the extras of the Blu-ray with Daughters of Darkness (1971). As soon it started I loved it. The couple just married and as soon as they get to the hotel she is in trouble and what a sensational opening. They then decide to leave and go to her husband's mansion instead. This place it is still difficult for the bride and I thought we were watching a giallo but gradually I realise this might be more like a vampire film. Soon it is a bizarre mix of reality and fantasy, awaking and dreaming. The splendid forest and church ruins with also a beach we find that this is more than a bit of surrealism and as it slows down I have a feeling that this is rather like a Jean Rollin. This is wonderful and as it gets even more strange there is a lot of nudity, creepiness and blood, rather a lot to do with a dagger.

A Hen in the Wind (1948)

Not one of Ozu's best

[7/10 · 1 May 2024]

It is not one of Yasujiro Ozu's best films. Both just after the war he made Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) and the Late Spring (1949) but this one comes between these two. The others are fine but not this one, it is not terrible but it is that, we know what is going to happen. The husband is away in the war and she is having to sell her clothes so she can feed her toddler. It gets more sad for her when he is unwell and naturally the hospital bills have to be paid. Even she knows what she will have to do and her friend mentions what she can do. We don't see her prostitute herself but we know and of course her husband is soon back home lazing around and has to find out how she had got the money. Raping her and throwing her down the stairs are because he is rather upset and that he felt unmanly. We can't really comprehend this couple, especially because of the war, but certainly in Japan we can just about understand how it is for them.

Stoned (2005)

! saw the Stones at the very beginning

[7/10 · 30 April 2024]

I saw the Stones at the very beginning in Richmond, Eel Pie Island, Twickenham and at the Marquee in Oxford Street. Like this film is okay, obviously it is not the Stones or even their music, but there is some that I liked. I know that many loved Brian Jones but for me I really didn't like him for some reason. He would mess around on the stage and I didn't think he was really serious but maybe he was always stoned, even then. As one of the girls here says in this that lots of people took drugs but that he couldn't really deal with them. It was interesting and I liked the house and garden and the girls, I also thought the Marquee set up was rather good and that when they had the Park concert in '69. Otherwise the Stones are not really in this but we see some them now and again by actors and especially with Jagger who just doesn't seem to get too involved and I think that was true.

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

it must have been thrilling on first viewing

[7/10 · 29 April 2024]

We have to say what a wonderful print this is from MoMA and this 4K restoration of Eureka here in the UK a sparkling Blu-ray. It is not really surprising when we see it here, maybe for the first time, but we have seen something like it many times. Like the scary times, our view of the fantastical mansion and its ghostly goings on, the door banging as people arrive, the will has to be read unsurprisingly, then there will be the secret passage, some lost jewellery, the odd hands appearing a sinister corridor, a lunatic on the loose but then a body or two and a very creepy Doctor. We would have been scared and laughed but it has all happened before as with The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope and even with Honor Blackman in 1978 and also was The Old Dark House (1932) by James Whale with Boris Karloff and so many more. Even after Paul Leni there was The Man Who Laughs (1928) and this maybe looks so fresh because it has not been seen so often before. It is such a shame with this one it has been copied to death, it must have been thrilling on first viewing in 1927.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

dazzling and sparkling

[7/10 · 27 April 2024]

I really enjoyed this although it was a long time since I last watched it. Certainly this Blu-ray is fantastic with dazzling and sparkling images, I have never seen them look as amazing as this. It is great to see Ginger Rogers and Dick Powell at the beginning and we have those leggy girls with those large coins with her singing along 'We're in the Money'. This and all the Busby Berkeley sequences are staggering but I'd forgotten that some of the non dancing, non singing were really not so funny. But of course there are still wonderful moments like the sensational silhouette underwear changing and astounding almost naked shots and the rather happy, 'Pettin' in the Park' and towards the end the clever and sensational, 'Remember My Forgotten Man'.

Crossfire (1947)

Hate is like a loaded gun

[8/10 · 25 April 2024]

This is an unusual and splendid noir. Hardly any location filming, or even cars or much fighting. Although there is a great one at the start, partly in the dark and then shadows only after a fallen lamp. Edward Dmytryk knows the way to deal with dark and light and here only in a set. With the G. I.'s in the bar there is conversation but it is really only the main man a little crazy, or the Detective his gentle questioning also the odd room with the people standing around and then part so that we can see the body. But It seems there is some discrimination, 'Hate is like a loaded gun' we understand. Robert Ryan is really good and we would keep out of his way, he can be friendly, happy and funny but also really nasty. Robert Young is one of the nicest Detective we have ever seen but he gradually gets his way. Robert Mitchum is the best chum in this one and he doesn't put a foot wrong and we're not sure whether he is right or wrong. As soon as Gloria Grahame comes onto the set we surely have eyes on her, sharp talking as well and a great way she just puts her arms around our drunk while into a dance. She may not be the centre of the action but she is certainly impressive.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

Holmes and Freud

[7/10 · 23 April 2024]

I wasn't really expecting this to be wonderful but I got it cheap and thought it was odd being released by 88 Films. They had usually been interesting and I had many of them on my shelves, like Asia thrillers, Gialli and slashers but this one is about Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. Odd indeed, but it is fine. There is some humour and some detection from Holmes and a little dreaming with Freud and there is rather a lot of cocaine. It of course has a splendid cast with a weird but lovely part by Nicol Williams as Holmes, and great with Alan Arkin as Freud and good as usual with Laurence Olivier as Professor Moriarty and a small bit of Vanessa Redgrave. The Doctor is by Robert Duvall with a rather strange voice. Based on the book by Nicholas Meyer it is rather good although it does slow down but picks up with Freud and his hypnotism and just before the last twenty minutes it looks as if it is far too long and then come the trains. The last section towards the end and with several locomotives they are spectacular and first-class with some great action.

The Big Chill (1983)

the soundtrack is rather splendid

[5/10 · 21 April 2024]

Lawrence Kasdan was known as a writer, such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) but I loved him as a writing and director of Body Heat (1981). With this one only a couple years later and I'm sure he loved it and many do but here there was no story. Maybe he thought it would be fun to make a film about someone who was already dead with a funeral and his supposed friends taking a weekend together. The funeral is not very funny despite the stream of cars like a police send off, is amusing. But it doesn't get any better because they just make the beds together and have meals and talk, and talk. I thought that Jeff Goldblum was okay but rather odd, Tom Berenger also okay but odd as well. It was a very sad part for Glenn Close although I liked Meg Tilly as also rather odd but quite funny. And that's it really, oh there is also the soundtrack and it is rather splendid.

You'll Like My Mother (1972)

at the beginning it is rather good

[5/10 · 19 April 2024]

Patty Duke is the young girl and she may find that, 'You'll Like My Mother' or maybe not. At the beginning it is rather good with her the last customer in a splendid little bus in the snow. At the end of the line the driver helps her get some of the way and then she walks through the deep snow until she reaches a rather big house near the woods. The girl's husband has died in Vietnam and she was there to see his mother. The door opens and it all goes wrong. There are some good moments and the mansion is really great. We find that things are not the way they should have been so surely it will be a ghost house. There is something really bad there and then we also find that the girl is about to give birth and I hadn't noticed. It is rather silly and although there are those good close-up moments but there are not that many good ones and it can be so poor that just makes us laugh instead of it being terrifying.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)

sad ending

[8/10 · 17 April 2024]

It's a slightly odd film even for the Japanese but it was Yasujiro Ozu's first after a gap of five years after the war. A poor young boy follows him back to another home as he seems be have been abandoned by his father who it seems was looking for work. Back at his tenement housing he hopes that someone will look after him. Sees nobody keen and then they get a widow to take him on. Clearly she is not happy and several times she 'shoos' him away just like she might a pigeon. She reluctantly gives him the night but as he wets the bed and in the morning she puts his bedding on the line but amazingly, she simply gives him a fan and has him stand there to dry it. There is no talk about the war although there is talk of 'orphans' and she doesn't really want the boy but gradually she is not as hard on him but it is strange that she doesn't wash him, even though he clearly has fleas. There is a sad ending and we see the Saigo statue in Ueno Park where orphans play beside their popular hero and his dog.

One False Move (1991)

a splendid neo-noir

[9/10 · 15 April 2024]

It's an amazing opening with an unfocused view of LA, gradually we see what looks like a taxi and completely sharp view as a dark girl gets out and goes towards someone's home. They let her in and there is a couple dancing, a guy is using a video camera and it is showing on the TV. She says she will pop out for a moment and then it all goes wrong. This is Cynda Williams known as Fantasia and with Billy Bob Thornton as Ray and Michael Beach as Pluto, these three are desperate enough for killing with drugs and money. A splendid neo-noir and although there is a racist element but there is more that we will uncover. In the LA locations are good but the one's in Arkansas these by the eerie woods are wonderful. Here is Bill Paxton played as Hurricane and we get a very different kind of sheriff unlike the two LA people coming in to sort it out. It is a thrilling and very interesting of the good and the bad and the black and the white and after six killings there is more to come and all the three dwellings there are children inside and Fantasia has her own story.

Desire (1936)

Dietrich good all the time

[9/10 · 13 April 2024]

What a splendid film. I have never seen it before and have hardly ever seen Gary Cooper before. Marlene Dietrich is wonderful here, doesn't put a foot wrong and looks lovely all the time, it must be Ernst Lubitsch helping here especially with the lighting. She just looks amazing every frame and of course her costumes are gorgeous. At the beginning with the stealing of the pearls is great, she looks fine in white or black and funny as well. The scenes later with the cars in Paris and on with the old roads in Spain it is amusing and romantic. The last part in the hotel it is not quiet as fantastic but is still fine because Dietrich good all the time and John Halliday is fun. For me, Gary Cooper looks to be more like a cricketer but he is just okay and at least the right age. It is great but I think that the very slight story just begins to go on a bit towards the end but I just loved it all anyway.

The Revenant (I) (2015)

impressive

[8/10 · 11 April 2024]

It is so beautiful with the forest, the trees so high and wonderful, the rivers so quiet and lovely and other crashing and thunderous. There are splendid sunrises and even better as the sun sets. The mountains are amazing and the snow, almost all the time it is clearly so very cold. Also there are the fights. So many of them, with arrows and guns and knifes and even the odd axe. So many people have to die and the horses, it is as constantly brutal as it is so difficult for us to watch. There are not many birds or animals but there is the bear and the most awful fight that surely we have ever seen with Leonardo DiCaprio even if it is not real but with cgi it is still impressive. Clearly we know that the bear is not real but that everything else is supposed to be and certainly it is thrilling and as when DiCaprio almost dies and then crawling through the snow without much food we just hope as he goes on and on that he will make it (even if it is a little too long).

Blue Bayou (2021)

sad and happy moments

[7/10 · 8 April 2024]

Not usually the sort of film I might watch but there was something about it that it would be good. And it was almost as soon it started that I knew what was going to happen, and it did but there are up and downs, sad and happy moments but rather splendid. I was surprised that the director, Justin Chon, was outstanding, even if his water scenes are rather arty, he was so good most of the time and rather good with the actors, especially with the young girl, Sydney Kowalske, was wonderful. He also did the writing which is fine and of course was the star and also great. Also very much liked Alicia Vikander and thought she was rather impressive. I noticed later that she was married to Michael Fassbender and she had been the star quite amazing in Ex-Machina (2014) by Alex Garland.

A Story Written with Water (1965)

rather slow and unpleasant

[6/10 · 6 April 2024]

It is well shot, some beautiful sections and good dialogue but it is rather slow and unpleasant, and the subtitles can be too fast. The couple are getting married but we learn that the husband is still very close to his mother who has had a long affair with his fiancee's father. Much of the action is in the past when the man is still a child and his father is dying. There is some confusion as to who is his real father. Even if it is rather complicated, although very well done, but there is also more than a suggestion of incest and in the end it is a rather long melodrama for really just four people and I found them unlikable.

Le combat dans l'île (1962)

a noir or maybe some Nouvelle Vague

[8/10 · 4 April 2024]

At the beginning we are not really sure what is going on although we are sure that the cinematography of Pierre Lhomme is wonderful and the dialogue and directing by Alain Cavalier is great. Starting in a car with Jean-Louis Trintignant one of his colleagues and Romy Schneider we imagine that there is something going on with the men. It is a small space but we think that something terrible is going on and that she is a little drunk and tries to work it out, the same as us. Just in those little moments and the three together it is sparkling. Is this a noir or maybe some Nouvelle Vague? Further on we find that maybe these are right-wing terrorists and Trintignant in the middle of it and later on it is Henri Serre his old childhood friend but a pacifist. At the same time Schneider is wonderful and jolly and sad, in love and out and on as Trintignant can be rather nasty. This is like a thriller and the narrator will tell us about the political turmoil of the 60s and there will be violence but then there will even be some sort of duel and eventually some romance.

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

a nod towards Exorcist and Amityville

[7/10 · 31 March 2024]

I have to say that this is a rather original and really good effort of making a thrilling horror, with a nod towards Exorcist and Amityville. We're surprised we are straight in with a 70s late-night talk show very much like Johnny Carson and this is rather long before we get into this brilliant part of the horror. I realise that we are being drawn into this and it is rather clever and we have almost forgotten about the horror. Of course we enjoy the way the program is made and with all the advert breaks, the short music introductions and the unfunny jokes. David Dastmalchian is brilliant, he doesn't put a foot wrong also Ingrid Torelli is almost even better. She is a young Australian girl with her first film and amazing although I understand that she was had a wonderful run in 2016 with Matilda the Musical in Melbourne but she certainly had a different role in this one with a lovely look in her eye, she is a bit of a devil.

The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)

delightful and painterly

[8/10 · 26 March 2024]

As the film begins it is wonderful, even during the opening credits it is delightful and painterly. The action is so beautiful, so colourful like a series of paintings, every word of the dialogue is thoughtful and there is even something amusing. At the start we have the details of the draughtsman's contract and soon he is on his way and starting to get on with his drawings. These are fine and there seems some fun going on and as the pictures seem to change and we realise that not only that there are some puzzles and that in this there is a mystery. After about half way through I had something of a problem and it is clear that every picture and sound of dialogue there is something for us to watch and listen because for Greenaway it all has some meaning. For the gardens and trees and the fruit and the paintings are all there and even if there were to be 12 drawings in the contract there is then a 13th was maybe the murder although he never completed number eleven. I found it all rather difficult that I did not understand everything but I will try again because it is fun anyway and of course with Michael Nyman there is the music and it is splendid.

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

James Cagney is great

[7/10 · 24 March 2024]

It roars on but not quite as thrillingly as we expected. Released in 1939 and set in the 20s but it seems to be really what it was going to be in the 40s. The songs and music and costumes not as good as they could have been although Priscilla Lane is okay. The gangsters, after the war are finding their way and in this one James Cagney is great but is getting bored and will go on with some different films. Humphrey Bogart is fine, sometimes overacting, some not at all and then especially towards the end he is amazing and maybe even better than Cagney. Obviously he will go on to star only a couple of years later and the crime films in the 40s will really become the noir classics, and many with Bogart.

Azor (2021)

not like The Heart of Darkness

[4/10 · 22 March 2024]

I realised that that this was going to be the world of finance of Buenos Aires but I hoped we would see something more of the City or more of Argentina. Instead this is really just about the wealth, the swimming pools, the horses and the racing, the big posh houses and a private plane. The bankers here are really rich and they talk and drink and smoke and talk again. I noted that it was supposed to be in the 80s and about their dirty war but we do not really get much of what is going on except talking during for the most of 90 minutes out of an hour and forty. In the last ten minutes there is some action, then they go in the evening on a boat as if we are finally going to meet the big man, I thought surely this is not going to be like The Heart of Darkness. Of course it's not but I think they just wanted us to think that as if it was, but then, nothing at all.

Lone Star (1996)

murder mystery

[8/10 · 17 March 2024]

Almost 25 years ago when I saw this in the cinema and yet I don't think I had seen it again until now with this splendid Blu-ray from Criterion. In the notes there is a suggestion that this wonderful film might be a mixed genre of the western, the film noir, a murder mystery and romance so there may be something in this. Although I have to say that it really has something of a western about it, set on the Texas and Mexico border, the baddie as Kris Kristofferson (brilliantly) and the goody Chris Cooper (almost as well done) and although there are one sided gun fights but no horses. Not quite a noir, certainly not black&white because the cinematography colour is great although I think that the Joel and Ethan Coen with their low budgets created own classic noir and with this one there is something about the hard boiled dialogue about it. I could say this is a murder mystery because it starts at the very beginning in the desert and only finishes at the very end. There is some romance towards the end but there is of course some history (surely not about the Alamo) and rather a lot of racism. Thrilling throughout but there are the tensions of black, white and Hispanic.

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

extreme horror

[8/10 · 13 March 2024]

I first saw this more than twenty years ago and it was only a copy and the subtitles were poor and I hardly knew what was going on but it was very scary. Even with this splendid blu-ray for the very first time in the UK it is still not really clear what is happening, something is going on and it is amazing and still scary. It is unfortunate that it is a bit too long but we are reminded of Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento with the maggots in the ceiling and a women impaled with spikes coming out of the wall, the bravura death scene with a woman tied on a chair, a complicated multiple crossbow and an opening door which comes too late. Some of the music is either the German industrial noise or even with the Goblins but it is still very good. There is so much going on, there is never a moment for us to breath during the frightening scenes and with the sound and with Miyuki Ono all the time with her screaming and her wide eyes. We can probably do without the Alien scenes at the end but it is certainly a thrilling, fascinating and electrifying, terrible extreme horror.

Party Girl (1958)

almost all of Nicholas Ray's

[9/10 · 11 March 2024]

There is something about almost all of Nicholas Ray's films that makes them so different from everybody else's but is hard to define. Intentionally or not there is usually a sense of theatre, an element of artifice that makes it clear that realism is not the goal. We enjoy the spectacle, indeed, enjoy the film, knowing all the time that this is a glorious cinematic event. In Party Girl, Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse are both fine in their roles and Lee J Cobb, nicely over the top in his but they all struggle to compete with the sheer magic of the audacious direction and cinematography. The film is most compelling but at times almost bursts with its exuberance. The first of two dance sequences is a sensation of colour and movement and the great spurt of violence towards the end both a surprise and a delight.

Cuadecuc, vampir (1971)

good seeing Christopher Lee

[8/10 · 10 March 2024]

An extremely interesting documentary although not usually quite like this. It relates to a film being made by Jess Franco of Count Dracula (1970) during General Franco's regime, by Pere Portabella which is a mix of footage and other angles, also of his own bits along the way. He often uses surrealist like solarised images by overexposure shots. Especially in the woods with the horse and coaches most affective, also with the dry ice used for the mist and plays around with it. The sound, but no dialogue, is rather clever although rather annoying near the end as if the sound has been stuck. It is really good seeing Christopher Lee here in black & white and silent with a lot of age added. It was also good to see Herbert Lom here but of course it is really great to see Soledad Miranda, and the odd smile for us, and then killed in a crash weeks away.

Black Tight Killers (1966)

first film

[5/10 · 9 March 2024]

I thought this would be wonderful but unfortunately it is just not as good as I expected. A tongue in cheek spy spoof and there are some great moments especially with the girls dancing routines and the colours and music rather splendid. I didn't think that Akira Kobayashi was really into this but went on with some 140 and he wanted more serious films like Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973). The lovely, Chieko Matsubara really captured the mood and she was even better later that year with the Tokyo Drifter, she went on to make more than 150 films and still working. This was Yasuharu Hasebe's first film and even if it wasn't splendid he would go on with his next one with Massacre Gun (1967) a really cool, jazzy yukuza crime drama. He made Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701's Grudge Song (1973) and considered the creator of the violent pink sub genre like the Stray Cat Rock series in 1970 and then some even more violent like the amazing, Assault! Jack the Ripper (1976). So you can't chuck this film away but it's just not as great as it might be, but will be just round the corner.