Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

Paths Of Glory, 1957. Co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. It stars Kirk Douglas as Col Drax.






The title of Cobb's novel came from the ninth stanza of Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751).[9]

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.

In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently criticized the film—and its portrayal of the French Army—after it was released in Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European distributor) not to release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in 1975 when social attitudes had changed.
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining relations with France; it was not shown until two years after its US release.
In Spain, the right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
The film was banned by Switzerland as "incontestably offensive" to France, her judicial system and her army, until 1970.
The film was banned in all United States military establishments, both at home and overseas, due to its content.

[struth]

Bend of the River, 1952. Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, and Rock Hudson.





Stewart took a percentage of the profits. In 1953, William Goetz estimated that Stewart had earned $750,000 from the film.

The movie holds a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[struth]

The First Great Train Robbery, 1978. Directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, and Lesley-Anne Down, with Michael Elphick and Wayne Sleep.







The film's plot is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, in which a cracksman named William Pierce engineered the theft of a trainload of gold being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War. The gold shipment of £12,000 (equal to £1,129,671 today) in gold coin and ingots from the London-to-Folkestone passenger train was stolen by Pierce and his accomplices, a clerk in the railway offices named Tester, and a skilled screwsman named Agar. The robbery was a year in the planning and involved making sets of duplicate keys from wax impressions for the locks on the safes, and bribing the train's guard, a man called Burgess.  Crichton, the author of the book and the screenplay, was inspired by Kellow Chesney's 1970 book The Victorian Underworld, which is a comprehensive examination of the more sordid aspects of Victorian society.

[walpurgis]

The First Great Train Robbery, 1978.

Good movie, clever and funny.

[struth]

another classic, this time from big Clint... The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976. Clint Eastwood directs and stars... co stars are with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Sam Bottoms, and Geraldine Keams.






Upon release in August 1976, The Outlaw Josey Wales was widely acclaimed by critics, many of whom saw Eastwood's role as an iconic one, relating it with much of America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. The film was pre-screened at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities in Idaho in a six-day conference entitled Western Movies: Myths and Images. Academics such as Bruce Jackson, critics such as Jay Cocks and Arthur Knight and directors such as King Vidor, Henry King, William Wyler and Howard Hawks were invited to the screening.Time magazine named the film one of the year's top 10. Roger Ebert compared the nature and vulnerability of Eastwood's portrayal of Josey Wales with his "Man with No Name" character in the Dollars Trilogy and praised the atmosphere of the film. On The Merv Griffin Show, Orson Welles lauded the film, calling Eastwood "one of America's finest directors".

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively gave the film a 90% approval rating based on 41 reviews.

[struth]

Ministry of Fear, 1944. Directed by Fritz Lang and stars Ray Milland. Based on the 1943 novel by Graham Greene, the film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring and pursued by Nazi agents after inadvertently receiving something they want.





In a review at the time of release, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote positively of Ministry of Fear stating: "Mr. Lang has given the picture something of the chilling quality of some of his early German shockers—a strangely arch and maniacal surge that comes through suggestive use of camera and morbid pace in more critical spots. The clammy and numbing sensations of fear are thereby conveyed in a manner that is quite unusual for our generally overworked screen."

This is the region A bluray from Criterion,

[struth]

Man in the Vault, 1956. The film was the directorial debut of Andrew V. McLaglen, and stars William Campbell.

[struth]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, 2011.

[struth]

El Dorado, 1966. directed by Howard Hawks(the second of 3 hawks films on subject) and starring John Wayne, James Caan and Robert Mitchum.





Barring ensamble film 'the longest day' this was only film the two major stars, wayne and mitchum did together

[struth]

Saturday matinee... Jack the Ripper, 1959, produced and directed by Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker. It stars Lee Patterson and Eddie Byrne and co-stars Betty McDowall, John Le Mesurier, and Ewen Solon.





There are 2 versions on this bluray, USA and UK.. this is the UK version.