Skip to main content

Films I want on DVD

In no particular order, these are a few films I’d buy in a heartbeat if they were on DVD.

Five Came Back (1939) – Lucille Ball in a very serious film. I haven’t seen this in decades, but I still remember the chilling conclusion, an ending where silence invokes a sense of horror and dread. This film must have had some subliminal influence on me because it wasn’t until I was discussing it one night that I came to realize how close it comes, in several ways, to my one published book, right down to the number of survivors. I had pitched Derelict as sort of a haunted house in outer space, a variation on an Alien theme, but in retrospect it was also influenced by this film.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) – An early film by Billy Wilder, an excellent little World War II thriller. Franchot Tone is a British soldier, fighting Rommel’s Afrika Corps. The sole survivor of a disastrous engagement, he is saved from death by the owner of a small hotel in the middle of the Sahara. Before he can get too settled in, Rommel himself arrives, setting up base at the hotel. Now Tone must survive by impersonating a member of the hotel staff, a man killed during a bombing raid. Matters go from bad to worse as he discovers that the man he is impersonating was a spy for Rommel.

Tone is excellent. Anne Baxter, as a French woman working at the hotel, is excellent. Famed German director Erich von Stroheim, as Rommel, is excellent. The directing is excellent. The suspense is excellent. Am I being redundant? If you see and don’t like this film, well, two steps back!

Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972) – The sequel to Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), which is already out of DVD. I’m not a big fan of Cotton, but I remember Come Back as all sorts of awesome. Godfrey Cambridge (as Gravedigger Jones) and Raymond St. Jacques (as Coffin Ed Johnson) are just fantastic. C’mon, how can you have the first one available and not the sequel? It’s just not right!

The 27th Day (1957) – An under-appreciated science fiction gem. Just saw this the other day on TCM and I still enjoy it. Five people are brought aboard and alien space craft. The aliens give each of them a weapon capable of destroying all life on Earth. After being returned to Earth, the five believe that all they have to do is remain quiet until the weapon self-destructs, after 27 days, but the aliens then tell the world who they are and what they have. Now they have to run, or risk having that terrible power unleashed.

Certainly it’s a little moralizing and maybe it’s simplistic, but really, wouldn’t you just like to be able to, well, eliminate all men of ill will?

The Satan Bug (1964) – A deadly virus, capable of destroying all life on Earth, is stolen from a research lab. Now, government agents must race to recover the virus before the thief can release it.

From the novel by Alistair MacLean. A lovely little thriller filled with smart characters. This really is about one person trying to out-think the other. It was also a bit of a shocker at the time of its release, as everyone was so focused on the threat of nuclear annihilation, they never considered that a simple glass flask could be just as lethal. Also notable for an excellent soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith.

I was going to add Stairway to Heaven (1946), but I just discovered it at Netflix under its original title, A Matter of Life and Death. It’s already on its way to my greedy hands. Like Five Graves to Cairo, I saw this on PBS in San Francisco and found it to be delightful. The amazingly great David Niven plays a British aviator who bails out over the English Channel without a parachute. Next thing he knows, he’s walking onto an English beach, utterly confused as to why he’s still alive. Seems his angel missed him while he was falling through the fog. Now Heaven wants him, to correct for the error, and Niven has to stand trial before God in order to win a second chance at life.

Lovely film, beautifully done. No where near as sentimental as the plot implies. I can hardly wait to see it again.

(And yes, yes, I know that the entire Netflix thing undercuts the “buy in a heartbeat” claim, but I was being rhetorical. I at least have to wait until payday....)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Wick: Chapter 4

No sense in playing coy, this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and while I don’t quite love it in the way I love the first, original John Wick , it’s my #2. It’s a little overlong, has some wasted space and time, has one absolutely pointless and useless character, and generally ignores the realities of firefights, falling, getting shot, hit, etc. All that notwithstanding, it’s a great action flick, has a genuine emotional core, and is well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Like I am. Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves), last seen saying he was fed up with the High Table, goes to war to obtain his freedom. Some of the most incredible action scenes ever filmed ensue, culminating in a very satisfactory finale and a devastating post-credit scene. The first Wick film was a surprise hit. It was a simple, straight-forward tale of vengeance told in a simple, straight-forward manner. Where it stood out was its devotion to human stunt work, on exploiting long camera shots that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

The Dark Knight is the best film I’ve seen in years. Not just the best “superhero” film, but the best film of any type. It’s not perfect, not quite a masterpiece, but it’s flaws are, to me, tiny and overwhelmed by the time the film ends. While relatively bloodless, it is consistently brutal, not just in what it depicts but in the themes that drive it. TDK is a film for adults, please leave the kids at home. Let’s deal with those “flaws” first, the largest being the character Rachel Dawes . In Batman Begins , I blamed Katie Holmes . Her acting was weak, to say the least, which is regrettable in that who she is and what she says and does are important to the film. Critics agreed and either for that or other reasons, Katie was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who is a better actress. Yet here she’s weak, real weak. Maybe it’s the character, not the actress, which is frustrating because Rachel is a pivotal character. The film,...
1 comment
Read more

Dune Part 2 (2024)

I have come not to praise Dune but to bury it. I am in a distinct minority. So be it. To explain why, there will be some minor spoilers ahead; sorry. The short version is #NotMyDune. Summary: Picking up where Dune Part 1 left off, we find the young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) hanging out with the Fremen. Plots to overthrow rival houses and empires ensue. Go here to see what I thought about Dune Part 1 (2021) . Overall, I found it to be technically brilliant, but lacking a human heart, an exercise in frenetic slow motion. D2 is more of the same, though with far more action. Acting-wise, everyone is doing a fine, more than adequate job. Absolutely no one or nothing stands out. The way the characters are written (adapted, actually), their back and forths and interactions, are all weak and unengaging. I generally hate when they speak. I've read the novel a ridiculous number of times, and these films are prompting me to read it again. I understand that trying to translate the n...
1 comment
Read more