Psycho
Hitchcock’s classic showed all the masters usual flair for suspense but with a touch of the macabre not found in his previous work. Anthony Perkins is so good as Norman Bates he’ll be forever remembered for the role.
This was the first film to take its inspiration from real life ‘Psycho’ Ed Gein but far from the last.
The Barbarian and the Geisha
One of John Wayne’s most underrated films; he plays Townsend Harris, the first US consul to Japan. While certain liberties are taken with the real life events (the Geisha Harris falls in love with was only 17 for one) it has has an authentic air thanks to its predominantly Japanese cast. This was unusual for the time, only two years before we had Marlon Brando made up to look oriental in The Teahouse of the August Moon, and it says a lot for director John Huston that he didn’t go down that route.
Wayne and Huston apparently didn’t get on, even coming to blows but that in no way impacted on what appears on screen. It’s an epic love story beautifully filmed and superbly acted. It’s told from the perspective of the Geisha played by Eiko Ando who does a terrific job, hard to believe she never made another film.
The Longest Day
This is a film about big stars and big spectacle and when it sticks to that it works well. However, its attempts at small-scale human drama fall mostly flat although there is one moment at the end that works extremely well (although that’s thanks to one of the aforementioned big stars.)
John Wayne and Robert Mitchum make the most of their parts but Richard Burton steals the film with that scene at the end. It adds a much needed ‘war is insane’ touch to the otherwise gung-ho proceedings.
You can also play The Longest Day game – how many stars can you connect to Duke via other films. I managed seven.
McLintock!
Wayne’s best comedy performance ably assisted by Maureen O’Hara and Chill Wills. This western reworking of The Taming of the Shrew works brilliantly thanks to James Edward Grant’s witty screenplay and the superb comic timing of the cast.
The larger than life role of George Washington McLintock is perfect for the larger than life actor who plays him. He’s the ultimate nice guy, buying drinks for the town drunks, helping the Indians, even hireing a widow and her son, and Wayne is clearly having a lot of fun. The legendary mudslide brawl is the most famous scene but there’s lots more to enjoy as well.
This may not be an important western but it’s a damn fun one.
The Hired Hand
Peter Fonda’s first film as director has not only left me wanting to see his other two but also wondering what Easy Rider would have been like if he been behind the camera instead of Dennis Hopper.
It’s a simple tale of a drifter who decides to return home to the wife he left years before. She’s mistrustful at first, thinking he will run off again but he slowly wins her over. However, there’s more than one relationship at the heart of the film, the other is between Fonda and his best friend played by Warren Oates and it’s their bond that leads to the films violent finale.
The film has two major things going for it, the first is the stunning look of the film. Fonda is quite simply a genius, coming up with one incredible shot after another. It’s a pity he didn’t spend more time behind the camera as, on this evidence, he’s a far better director than he is an actor.
Not that he gives a bad performance here, in fact he’s great. Still, when you’re up against Warren Oates (the films second big plus) you have to be. Oates made some superb films and this ranks among the best of them. Here he says more with a look than most actors could with a page of dialogue.
I have to confess that until this was released on DVD I’d never heard of it and I’m sure there are others in the same boat. Yet this is a film every western movie fan should see.
The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery
An early role for Steve McQueen as the college dropout who falls in with a gang of career criminals planning a bank job.
The film is far better than its low budget origins would suggest and not just because of McQueen. Writer Richard T. Heffron would go on to better things, most notably the pilot episode of The Rockford Files, and he captures the group dynamics of the gang perfectly. He even hints at the gang boss, played by Crahan Denton, having homosexual tendencies and an attraction to young Steve.
As for the soon to be star he does a fair job as the innocent kid who starts out as just the getaway driver only to be drawn deeper into things. He saves his best work for the big finish in the bank. The same year he made Never So Few with John Sturges and that led to superstardom.
Hellraiser
Clive Barker’s adaptation of his own short story still stands up as an effective horror film. It was also the start of a successful franchise that ranks alongside Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street for longevity.
It’s a tale of lust and desire and the penalties that can result. Andrew Robinson gets to play a good guy (for most of the film anyway) and does a credible job although it’s hard to shake memories of psychopathic killers and dodgy Cardassian tailors. Clare Higgins is effective, if very 80′s, as the ‘wicked stepmother’ but Ashley Laurence fails to impress as the films heroine, Kirsty. Still, it’s the Cenobites who steal the show and as their leader, Doug Bradley gives life to a horror icon in Pinhead.
The effects are a mixed bag. The gory makeup still looks good and Uncle Frank’s resurrection has stood up well. The visual effects when the Cenobites are sent back haven’t fared so well, looking like something out of a video game.
With Barker about to go behind the camera again, for the first time in over ten years, to make Tortured Souls: Animae Damnatae I hope he can recapture some of the energy from this his first and for me still his best film.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Continuing directly from the end of the first film this takes huge liberties with both continuity (the location is now the USA!) and the rules established in the first film (when Frank takes his brothers skin he looks like his brother, yet here when the same thing happens to Julia she looks like…Julia!)
The film is full of big ideas but Tony Randel lacks the vision of Clive Barker and Ashley Laurence is even weaker here than she was in the first film.
Thank god (or Leviathan) for the Cenobites as this would be devoid of entertainment without them. Pinhead steals the film again although he’s given a run for his money by Kenneth Cranham as the new Cenobite on the block.
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Better than part two (although I didn’t think so when I originally saw it at the cinema in ’92) this moves the story away from Kirsty, who only makes a cameo appearance.
This time the Cenobites are free in our world and only Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) can save us. We get a new group of Cenobites that fail to live up to the originals and Doug Bradlry gets to be both good and bad as Pinhead and the ghost of the man he used to be.
The scariest thing about the film is that all the female characters have huge Brooke Shields eyebrows. Sod the Cenobites, that’s my idea of hell!
Horror and Western film buff, Marvel comic geek, music lover and occasional gamer. 