Film Reviews by Steve

Febrile southern melodrama (from William Faulkner) about the barnstormers of the 1930s who toured shabby exhibitions of hazardous flying stunts around the impoverished towns of the depression. Robert Stack plays a traumatised WWI flying ace who can only sustain himself through the habit of danger, while spurning his sexually frustrated wife (Dorothy Malone).

Into their orbit comes a poetic, drunken reporter (Rock Hudson) who is empathises with the reckless flyer while regretfully falling in love with his wife. Hudson is subdued and melancholy. Malone is blindingly sexy. Stack steals the film in a support role. They are all human wreckage. Stack conveys his reckless pessimism mutely, with his haunted thousand-yard stare.

The flying scenes in b&w Cinemascope are exciting, but Douglas Sirk is far more interested in the psychology of his characters, the living debris of war and economic futility. The grinding, tawdry poverty of the travelling carnival and its exotic, fatalistic performers is palpable and pitiful and seductive.

It's the kind of breathy melodrama that Sirk directed better than anyone, full of sex and pessimism. And disillusion with American capitalism. Hudson's scene when he drunkenly explains an airman's death to his editor is a classic. He and Malone prowl around each other like jumpy cats. It all ends quite cheerfully, but that's Hollywood.

Heartbreaking drama about pitiless military justice on the western front in WWI and the corrupting insanity of war. This is one of the great anti-war films, but it isn't talky, or worthy. It is a fascinating, brilliantly acted polemic that burns on the energy of its anger.

It is based on a real life incident. A senior French officer is offered promotion if he will order his men across no man's land to take and hold a heavily defended German stronghold.  The men fail against impossible odds, so three low ranking soldiers are tried and shot for cowardice, to encourage the others.

Many Kubrick classics have an epic quality, but this is the opposite. It dissects a single episode from conception to conclusion in forensic detail and indicts institutionalised cruelty and bigotry. We are shown that the trenches were an extension of civilian life gamed to protect those with privilege and to facilitate their advancement.

Its genius is that it works as an allegory for any hierarchy. It is brilliantly shot by Kubrick, particularly the long crane shots of the futile assault on the enemy positions. Kirk Douglas is incredibly intense as the lawyer defending his men. It is a classic of political cinema and Kubrick's best film. Prepare to be horrified.

This transfers the conventions of the sport film to a circus. Burt Lancaster plays an embittered, alcoholic former trapeze flyer who was grounded after an accident attempting the ultimate, the triple somersault. Tony Curtis is the young gun who arrives in Paris to learn the triple off the master, and perhaps save him from self destruction.

They are joined by another archetype. Gina Lollobrigida is a hot tempered Italian acrobat who wants to break into their team. She gets between the two men and threatens the purity their act with her showbiz glamour. They become a threesome in the air and on the ground. The implication of homosexuality between the men is subdued, but still present.

It's the best circus film there is. While it is full of genre clichés (we don't get a sad clown) these are made fun by great star performances, and spectacular action photography, in Technicolor. Carol Reed captures the flaking exoticism of the ring and the seediness of their assignations in trashy Parisian hotels. It's a sexy melodrama.

Gina is fabulous in her sequinned leotards. The sassy dialogue uses the ecstasy of the high wire act as ominous innuendo for sex, which makes the film feel quite noirish. Maybe not one of (former trapeze artist) Burt Lancaster's more prestigious roles, but it's entertaining and a reminder of his imposing physicality and athleticism.

During the 1960s WWII films typically became big budget action blockbusters and began to seem less real. The Train has that kind of scale and spectacle but manages to remain plausible. It is expanded from a real incident about the French Resistance preventing the Nazis from removing priceless art to Berlin as the Allies closed in on Paris.

 Burt Lancaster is a railway worker, one of the army in the shadows. This star billing risks undermining credibility, but Lancaster seems completely at home in the grime of the machine shop. This is a conflicted hero, who places little value on the masterpieces but is driven to oppose the similarly obsessive but degenerate SS officer (Paul Schofield) who seizes them.    

The Train is an impressive looking film with the deep focus, widescreen photography lending it an epic feel. It feels authentic. The heavy black engines have an imposing physicality, a weight. The soundtrack of the clang and clank of metal (and the percussive score) and the ubiquitous shading of grease create an environment of heavy, sooty industry.

It's a great film about trains. But it's principally a tribute to the heroism, bravery and sacrifice of the proletariat fighters of the Resistance. It stops being about the paintings, or national identity, or patriotism and becomes about the need to fight oppression as a principle. It's entertaining and suspenseful; and one of the very best WWII films.

Released a year after, this is clearly modelled on Little Caesar. They are similar because both draw on the life of Al Capone, and are shaped by the same pressure of censorship. Scarface stops the action for a couple of minutes while support actors representing public bodies discuss the social damage caused by organised crime.

But Scarface differs from other early gangster films in its style. Ben Hecht's script features much more comedy, usually at the expense of the idiot mobs. Howard Hawks creates an expressionistic look, rich with raw symbolism, like the shadowy crosses that foretell each death. And there is more spectacle, with car chases and epic shootouts on large sets.

Paul Muni delivers a potent, unsubtle performance as the uninhibited killer who wages a one man war on his rival gangs and the police. There's a great moment when he gets his first Tommy gun: 'Outta my way. I'm spittin'! Ann Dvorak is Muni's equal as the sister who is tortured by his incestuous jealousy. Karen Morley lacks fizz as the mercenary moll.

The big weakness is the reactionary sermonising. Its solution is... to send in the army, rather than finding cause in prohibition and America's economic crash. It scores with Muni's weird charisma and Hawks' atmospherics. This is a visually stunning film which shows evidence of the studios emerging from the inertia of early sound.

A majestic production which is convincing in its period look but also epic in scope, which pitches the brawny action against the vast landscape of the Californian desert. The costumes, the weapons, the authentic steam train... the film is dense with evocative detail which is artistically photographed.

It is a landmark action film for its once in a lifetime cast of tough, dirty, rawboned soldiers of fortune who are sent into revolutionary Mexico to retrieve the kidnapped wife of a filthy rich cattle merchant: Burt Lancaster (explosives), Woody Strode (tracking), Robert Ryan (horses) and led by Lee Marvin (weapons/strategy).

When they arrive in Mexico, the wife is the improbably beautiful/sexy Claudia Cardinale who further illuminates the screen. The weakness (though it has advocates) is the script which lacks wit. The actors really struggle to bring it to life. There is too much philosophical diversion which takes a fair while to say not much.

This is all about its vision of mythic, transient heroes captured against a prodigious, timeless panorama. Oh, and the groundbreaking action sequences. A lot of scenery gets blown up for sure, but with finesse. The Professionals has often been copied, but even if the ultra-lavish production can be matched, there will never be a substitute for these stars.

Supernatural western obviously influenced by Clint Eastwood's past association with Sergio Leone, but not as stylish, artistic and intelligent which is why it hasn't aged as well. There is also a problem with the presentation of a revenge rape which is especially difficult to accept because the tone of most of the film is comic.

Eastwood's mysterious man with no name turns up in a remote mining town to avenge the death of the Marshal. This drifter may be his brother, but there's a more intriguing possibility that he is the spirit of the dead lawman returned from hell to kill the three hired guns who whipped him to death, and to terrorise the citizens who hired them.

The ghost story is satisfying and there is a nice frisson to be had from watching the avenger turn the town into an inferno before taking his revenge. Eastwood's star persona is of its time, and while views will differ on his mute brutality, the aggressive misogyny is hard to tolerate.

This is a parable, a mythic western. It is derivative but there is still plenty to enjoy: the trio of grotesque killers are memorable; the story is vivid and haunting; the direction might be an inferior copy of Leone, but it still works. Eastwood gives his charismatic, laconic macho performance which was so popular back then, but it is this which most dates the film.

Pioneering early sound gangster film. Credit to WR. Burnett who wrote the source novel, based on Chicago mafia boss Al Capone, which shaped the genre for the next ten years. It's a rags to riches story. A crime empire is built through violence, which is destroyed by violence- and the anti-hero's hideous flaws. This is the dark side of the American dream.

It invented the look of the mob film: the loud, expensive clothes; the big black sedans; the platinum moll in silver lingerie; the Tommy guns. But it is dated. Scenes with dialogue are static and most of the support performances are creaky. A weeping Italian mother is unbearable. There's not nearly enough of Glenda Farrell, as a pugnacious, fast-talking night club dancer.

There are the thumbprints of the studio lawyers all over this. Rico (Edward G. Robinson) can't be a charismatic figure, so he is the worst man possible: vain, disloyal, stupid, arrogant. And just in case the audience doesn't get the message there is a written homily scrolled down the screen before the film starts. The moralising is too intrusive.

Robinson dominates the screen and he creates one of the defining visual images of thirties Hollywood. There's some punchy tough guy talk but we don't see much of the prohibition or how the mob makes its money. There is fascinating social history and it's a groundbreaking film but limited by censorship and primitive technology.

This remains a classic because of the pugnacious script, William Wellman's pacy, artful direction and James Cagney's dynamic, star making performance as an ambitious Irish gangster who rises on the prohibition crimewave only to crash into a spray of rival bullets. And then dumped in a bloody parcel on his mothers doormat.

Cagney delivers the tough guy dialogue brilliantly, and he is on a different level from the rest of the cast. He is utterly believable. He turns many startling, offbeat scenes into film legend: when he steals his first gun; when he shoots his boss' racehorse; and most famously when he pushes a half grapefruit into the face of his moll (Mae Clarke).

This is one of the great early sound films. The pacing is slick, the camera moves and the frame is filled with exciting action. The main weakness is the stiff acting of the support cast. In particular, the strange performance of Jean Harlow as the high maintenance good time girl the public enemy aspires after. She seems to be in a trance.

One of the surprises is how frank this is about how the gangs make their money. The film looks like a guide for how to get into prohibition crime! And it's unusually liberal. OK, Cagney plays a psychopath, but the film implies that crime is a product of poverty and the slums. It blames prohibition for organised crime. It's a miracle how candid it is, despite the censorship.

Maybe Fritz Lang's best Hollywood film, with the atmosphere of despair and malign destiny which would influence film noir. After a stretch inside a two time loser marries one of his legal team. But going straight in the depression is a luxury he can't afford. When he's framed for murder and armed robbery, they go on the run, supporting themselves through crime.

Like Bonnie and Clyde. The film also excels thanks to the star performances. Henry Fonda plays the ambiguous ex-con. He is sympathetic because he struggles to provide for his family, but he is marked by his past. He is also resentful, threatening and deceitful. Lang doesn't entirely rule out that he might be guilty of the heist.

Sylvia Sidney is outstanding as a good girl who falls for the wrong guy. The impression she gives of unconditional love is frightening. Her liquid eyed beauty is haunting. She is all emotion. Together, they are heartbreaking because of the seeming impossibility of them having even the most basic dream of life: a home, a job, a child.

This is liberal social protest which holds poverty, prejudice and inequality accountable for criminal activity. It is critical of the prisons and the legal system. But it's Fonda and Sidney who resonate, stripped of hope and fleeing down the dark highways of rural California, sticking up gas stations, holed up in truck stops as they inexorably run out of road.

The first (and only non-musical) version of the durable backlot classic. The story won the Oscar, even though it's a rip off of the 1932 film What Price Hollywood? And they also share a sharp satirical edge aimed at Hollywood life. Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is the small town girl who makes it on the big screen as the American sweetheart, Vicki Lester.

She is given a break, then a wedding ring, by an alcoholic has-been (Fredric March) who must then watch as her career eclipses his own. Gaynor, a legend of silent cinema, was only 31 when she made this but feels a little old fashioned for a star of the late thirties. The Oscar she accepts in the film, is the one she won in real life a decade earlier.

Ironically, she is overshadowed by her co-star. March pulls of the trick of being the egotistical drunkard who crashes and burns, and also the husband that Vicki is plausibly in love with. No other Norman Maine quite manages that. His charm penetrates through the self-destructiveness. We feel the poignancy of damaged people.

There's an attractive production in Technicolor with a fine, sentimental score from Max Steiner. And there is the interest of a glimpse behind the scenes in golden age Hollywood. Like the skit when Gaynor does rapid fire impressions of Hepburn, Garbo and Mae West at a party. It's my favourite version.

This sequel to Dirty Harry is usually considered inferior. There is a less auspicious director, with Don Siegel replaced by Ted Post who came from tv. But I prefer Magnum Force, mainly for the interesting premise; if the public wants the pragmatic, instant justice of Harry's 44. Magnum, how far are they willing to go? Fascism?

A death squad of 'Frisco motorcycle cops is executing the Mafia bosses that the liberal courts are unable to touch, because... the law protects the crooks. Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is their hero, but he has changed. The bigoted lone gun is buddied up with an African-American sidekick and has a Japanese girlfriend. The iconoclast now defends the system.  

The sequel has plenty of what gave Dirty Harry its salacious clout. There's the scuzzy funk-noir of Lalo Schifrin's theme music; the squalid, nocturnal, neon lit urban decay; and Eastwood, without ever threatening to put in a performance is still charismatic. Like the Man With No Name slept through basic training and now has a license to kill.

The main deficit is that in the attempt to exploit the realities of the naked city, it spills over into voyeuristic sadism. Changing Harry into a babe-magnet says more about the star's contemporary box office appeal. But that's the early '70s, and it's actually that period aesthetic which is a major part of the film's enduring attraction.

Eccentric update of Raymond Chandler's best novel met with critical contempt for apparently mocking his legendary detective, Philip Marlowe. Robert Altman called him Rip Van Marlowe, and imagined him going to sleep in the '50s, and waking up in a '70s LA of hippies and goofball gangsters. His identity as a knight in dirty armour is even more incongruous.

Chandler's satirical trick was to portray his hero as a man of integrity who gets into trouble because his environment is so corrupt. In Altman's contemporary parlance, that makes Marlowe a 'loser'. He has no wife, and he has a crappy car/apartment. He is adopted by a cat which the PI goes to extraordinary lengths to satisfy. Much like his clients.

Altman isn't faithful to Chandler's complex narrative; the first 12 minutes are about Marlowe buying his cat its favourite food. In the book, he doesn't have a cat! And yet, there is still a lot of Chandler here and any fan should find this adaptation at least interesting because Altman has obviously thought about him very deeply, even if unconventionally. And about film noir.

Elliott Gould's Marlowe is likely to remain unique as he is so much of its time. He brings depth to the role. Humphrey Bogart and and Dick Powell were wisecracking cyphers, however enjoyable. There's a rich nocturnal atmosphere and a fine score. There's even a first person narrative typical of classic noir as Gould constantly mumbles to himself! It's the best neo-noir of the decade.

With the revolution of the the arrival of sound, Morocco- like many early talkies- imparts a sensation of a medium in shock. The performers speak slowly, leaving pauses between lines. There is no music. Other than the lighting and smoking of cigarettes the impassive actors do nothing while they talk. The imperative is to speak clearly so the microphone picks up the dialogue.

This feels slow and soporific; an aesthetic imposed by the limits of technology. But in films about exotic escapism, this actually works. The studio built Morocco of von Sternberg's film allied to the strange pacing, elaborate shadows and fanciful, expensive decorations create an opiated trance to which the languorous, woozy characters plausibly belong.

Gary Cooper is too prosaic an American to assimilate into this curious dreamworld. But Marlene Dietrich- in her American debut- is ideal. Partly this is because she is young and still so beautiful. There's her exotic accent, and her background in cabaret. Famously she performs in male drag and kisses a girl in the audience, a legendary moment of screen sexual ambiguity.

The film conveys the fascination of pre-censorship values in a medium which hasn't quite worked out what is possible. It is flawed; the plot is perfunctory and the comedy is misfires. Dietrich hasn't quite arrived as the ultimate glamour star of early sound but it is mainly she who makes Morocco a place still worth visiting.

Critics knock this for its deviation from historical events, but it triumphs as an example of late sixties social realism. This is a fascinating and clever film. For the first hour, the Boston police search for the psychopathic killer of women who live alone . Detectives instigate and respond to a backlash of prejudice and ignorance. They also expose a pandemic of neglected mental illness.

Tony Curtis doesn't make his appearance as Albert DeSalvo until the second hour and while it's obvious that liberties have been taken with real psychiatry, the scenes between Curtis and Henry Fonda, as the cop leading the investigation, are compelling. Curtis is convincingly banal as the blue collar family man who lives in unconscious fear of his other, suppressed personality.

Richard Fleischer uses split screen, which offers alternate ways of observing the killer's psyche. It feels a bit gimmicky now, but it doesn't detract from the impact. Otherwise, the hand held cameras produce that jerky documentary look which eventually became standard in docu-drama. And it works. There's intimacy, as well as a sleazy portrayal of the naked city.

The film pleads for more proactive treatment of the mentally sick. The pinched public purse of the Boston police department shown here implies there isn't much hope for progressive public health initiatives. But still, the film makes wider political points with some subtlety, even if inevitably the frank depiction of some of the city's subcultures looks a little dated.