Reviews (44)

The Definitive Cat and Mouse Submarine Movie
This is one of the best duel-of-wits on the high seas between submarine and destroyer ever filmed. Robert Mitchum as the captain of an American destroyer and Curt Jurgens as the captain of a German submarine try to out maneuver each other in a battle of nerves, instincts, intelligence, seamanship and raw courage. The multi-talented Dick Powell directed this taught drama, which remains one of the most memorable and benchmark films of this genre. The interior of the German submarine does not have the realistic or claustrophobic look as seen in DAS BOOT but that's not the point. Powell's focus is on the two captains and how they act and react. This film does not lose sight of the mentality of that era and the psychological makeup of the men at sea above and below. This is classic filmmaking and should not be overshadowed by the recent resurgence of certain World War II films that seem to have lost sight of the reason men fought and died. This film also has an impressive cast featuring David Hedison, Theodore Bikel, Kurt Kreuger and Doug McClure. Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens portrayed true men of honor each dedicated to their duty that they were called upon.

Dive into this good submarine drama
There is a fairly extensive sub-category of war movies - submarine battles - within which movies made in the 1950's are highly regarded. THE ENEMY BELOW is not up to the standards of RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP but is better than TORPEDO RUN. It is also different that both those movies. Where they use a dramatic human interest story as the main plot line, this movie has a narrow focus on what you would expect from a film about a sub battle. The emphasis is on the chase, the strategy, the cunning and wiles of both commanders - US destroyer Captain Murrell (Robert Mitchum) and veteran German U-Boat commander Von Stolberg (Curt Jurgens). The drama is in changing fortunes - now who is the hunter and the hunted? Both of the main characters are well developed, and while there are differences in behavior, motivation, and naturally, stategy, the movie also shows clearly that as professional sailors they recognize and appreciate the good qualities in their opposites. As such this movie is memorable for the fact that Germans are not demonized or simply stereotyped as Nazis.

It's a well directed movie, with excellent moments of suspense, good acting in some key supporting roles - Lt Ware (David Hedison). The only let down is with some very obvious models in some of the battle scenes.

The Definitive Cat and Mouse Submarine Movie
This is one of the best duel-of-wits on the high seas between submarine and destroyer ever filmed. Robert Mitchum as the captain of an American destroyer and Curt Jurgens as the captain of a German submarine try to out maneuver each other in a battle of nerves, instincts, intelligence, seamanship and raw courage. The multi-talented Dick Powell directed this taught drama, which remains one of the most memorable and benchmark films of this genre. The interior of the German submarine does not have the realistic or claustrophobic look as seen in DAS BOOT but that's not the point. Powell's focus is on the two captains and how they act and react. This film does not lose sight of the mentality of that era and the psychological makeup of the men at sea above and below. This is classic filmmaking and should not be overshadowed by the recent resurgence of certain World War II films that seem to have lost sight of the reason men fought and died. This film also has an impressive cast featuring David Hedison, Theodore Bikel, Kurt Kreuger and Doug McClure. Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens portrayed true men of honor each dedicated to their duty that they were called upon.

Enemy Below
Dick Powell had to have had one of the most interesting careers in Hollywood history. He started out as a golden-throated pretty boy actor, made a successful mid-career shift to hard boiled roles like Philip Marlowe and then, for good measure, directed a handful of movies, including the submarine action picture THE ENEMY BELOW.
THE ENEMY BELOW is a 100% action movie, without any distracting romantic sub-plot or comic relief crew members. Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens are excellent as the American destroyer commander and U-boat commander who cross paths in the Atlantic Ocean and engage in a deadly hunt. With a few exceptions the models are realistically rendered and convincing. This is one of the best war movies out there, and maybe the best navy movie available. I strongly recommend it to action fans.

great cat and mouse game by two great actors!
This is not the average sub-film that centers on the crews of the sub and the sub-chaser. This is a two-man cat and mouse film, marvelously done with style and incisive insight.

Robert Mitchum is the man who rises to do what is needed. Not a superhero, but a very human man who goes into war and does what is required. He is the Captain of a U.S. destroyer sent out to track U-boats. Curt Jurgens is his mirror reflection - below - a Captain of the U-Boat that becomes the target of Mitchum's search. He is not a product of the Nazi war-machine, but again, a very likable man just defending his country. This is demonstrated with deft humor when Jurgens very deliberately hangs his jacket over the plaque of Hitler's propaganda.

The script eschews the stereotypical "Nazi monsters", and portrays a German crew with very real - and universal - emotions. They, too, were just men doing their job and what is required. Instead of having us root for the Americans to blow up the evil Germans, you are put in the position of caring equally for both sides. You comprehend that they are men, offering their lives for their command, not in a political way, but in a time-honoured fashion of a man going to war. You understand both sides REALLY do not want to be here, to kill or be killed; they would rather home. No rousing stereotypical propaganda. In the end, they will kill each other if they must, but given the choice, they would rather not. Very different for that period of war films.

A little dated appearance on the boat scenes by today's standards. It's obvious toy models when the boats crash, but easily overlooked and dismissed when balanced with the very impressive lack of finger-pointing and flag-waving for either nationality. Both Mitchum and Jurgens are dead-bang on target in their lead roles, with David Hedison, Theodore Bickel and Doug McClure round out a super cast ... Read more

Reviews (13)

HEAVEN CAN WAIT
Shot in black & white, spanish director Luis Bunuel's VIRIDIANA won the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Festival. VIRIDIANA is the first spanish movie of Bunuel since L'AGE D'OR and UN CHIEN ANDALOU, two Movie History classics.

Silvia Pinal plays the character of Viridiana, a young girl about to take her vows as a nun. Just before taking this decision, she visits her uncle, played by the bunuelesque Fernando Rey, who falls in love with her because of her tremendous resemblance with his own wife who died during their wedding night. He tries to take advantage on her while she is sleeping but abandons this idea at the last minute. Viridiana decides then to stay at the family farm and take care of the poor people of the nearby village.

Unpitiful, the movie shows how Viridiana will be forced to abandon her mystic hopes to bring some good in this world. The beggars she has offered a home to are cheating on her and will almost rape her. The last scene of VIRIDIANA is masterfully ironic, a visual metaphor of the victory of materialism over spirituality only a genial Luis Bunuel has been able to create. Another scene which will stay in our memory and in Movie History is the recreation of La Cena by Leonardo da Vinci with the beggars in the role of the Christ and the Apostles. A great moment.

A movie zone No Respect.

Splendors and Miseries of a Virgin
Exiled from the safety of the convent, Viridiana is forced to see the world in its magnificent perversity and savagery. Since this is a Bunuel movie and even the chaste Viridiana is not entirely innocent. Her religious rituals borders on the sadomasochistic. Is Bunuel suggesting a parallel between religious and sexual ecstacties? And what's up with Viridiana's uncle's morbid fetish? When the camera follows a group of beggars, it finds them violating the space and honor of their benefactress. The scene climaxes into a mock reenactment of the Last Supper. Everyone's a Judas.Viridiana is the work of a Spanish discontent. This film (re)viewer found it the most 'Spanish' of his movies, in which Bunuel statement that 'every one of his films are meant to be pornographic' comes into lucid fruition. What could be more pornographic than seeing an innocent, holy fool degraded into seeing the world as it really is? The final scene explains it all. A masterpiece.

THEY WHO INHERIT THE EARTH
When Franco came to power in Spain, Luis Bunuel chose self exile. (After all, they DID shoot Lorca.) In 1959 the Franco government was convinced it would help lighten their fascist image by inviting Bunuel back to Spain & giving him some money to make a movie. They must have breathed a sigh of relif when Bunuel said he would base his movie on the life of an obscure Spanish Saint, Viridiana. But when it was finished the government took one look & was so horrified by what it saw that it threw Bunuel out of Spain permanently & tried to get the rest of the world to ban his movie. The rest of the world, instead, started giving it prizes. Two cousins inherit their uncle's farm. The niece, a pious, convent bred girl about to take vows toward becoming a nun, decides she can do God's work in the world. She collects the local homeless & sets them to work in her fields with hoe & pitchfork. The nephew, a wordly man who likes his creature comforts, hires people adept in the latest in agricultural sciences, moves in modern equipment & the housekeeper into his bed. The film then becomes a study in contrasts: Old vs new, sacred vs profane & superstition vs reason. The climax (literally) comes when the cousins are in town attending to personal business. While they are away the rag-tag band of the blind, the lame & the halt decide to have their own little Festival of Fools up at the big house. And this is when all hell breaks loose. Some people were so appalled by what they saw that they thought all hell really DID break loose. (When you see the movie you'll know what caused the ruckus & why.) Fernando Rey is the goatish uncle with decidedly de Sadean intentions toward his neice. Silvia Pinal as Viridiana seems, as usual, to be in someone else's movie but given her character here perhaps it works. (She's like Judith Anderson's Mrs. Danvers but without the passion.) Francisco Rabal as the nephew who is also an observer (possibly standing in for Bunuel) catches the requisite tone of irony & he gets the last line in the movie which suggests a sort of MARIAGE A LA MODE. The film doesn't have the deftness & flow of the French films which were to follow beginning with Bunuel's very next movie THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID. Instead it is primitive & crude like the Mexican films before it. Still it has all the exuberance of a little boy splashing about in a mud puddle. He knows his betters will think he is being naughty & that eventually he will have to pay a price but for the moment he is having so much fun that he just doesn't care.

Hypocrisy exposed
This is one of the best pictures I have seen in my short life of 75 years. The plot is economical and exellent. The direction of Bunuel is outstanding (hardly news that). The plot exposes the hypocrisy of the devout, the fallibilty of human nature, the hopelessness of poverty and the uselessness of instictive philantropy. It would be difficult to make a better picture on the subject. I have seen it many times and I would see it again and again. Bunuel had to smuggle it out of Spain while Franco was ruling it but Franco loved it too... He would watch it in private...

Bunuel dares you to laugh.
'Viridiana' begins like a mad Spanish variant on Roger Corman's Poe adaptations. Don Jaime is the Vincent Price-like mad widower (his wife died of heart-attack on their wedding night), haunting his crumbling manor, neglecting his decaying lands, mournfully playing an old piano or listening to Bach and Handel records. At night, by a coffin in which is draped his bride's wedding dress, he wears her shoes and corset. In his past is a shameful story of youthful transgression, and an abandoned, illegitimate son. He invites his niece, Viridana, a dead ringer for his wife, to stay with him for the few days before she takes holy orders. In a fantastic ritual, he asks her to wear the wedding dress and proposes marriage; when she refuses, he drugs her, with the aid of his devoted servant - to whose daughter he gives the skipping rope that takes on an importance from the merely symbolic into the fetishistic and violent - and takes the niece to the bedroom for a necrophiliac rape. Prior to this, he had caught her in one of her sleepwalking trances, throwing her knitting into the fire, and pouring ashes on her uncle's bed. Pure Poe.

Poe was one of the acknowledged precursors of the Surrealists, and in 'Viridiana', Bunuel makes use of two Gothic tropes - the Gothic house/castle/manor is often a figure for the disintegrating mind, but also a metaphor for the nation: Don Jaime's madness, his gentility masking a dangerous egotism, his passion perversely and inwardly directed so that it feeds on itself, his neglect of the land, are all tenets of Franco's Spain, a pinched, gnarled, sterile world in this film.

The Gothic was also the genre in which society could dramatise those anxieties - death, sexual deviance, social disruption - not talked aobut in the middle class public sphere. Gothic novels often featured representative, hyper-virtuous heroines who had to negotiate evils such a society would cast out. Such a reading applies to 'Viridiana' also, with the title character, who has spent most of her life closed off from the world, hidden from its temptations, confronted with unpalatable distortions of desire, family, the body, community, class etc.

In 'Viridiana', however, Bunuel conflates these two movements - the Gothic as social allegory, and as site of released repressions. The film's infamous second half - in which Viridiana attempts to atone for a suicide by caring for beggars and outcasts, and her uncle's son's attempts to modernise the home - savagely mixes them up. The beggars, embodying a whole antheap of qualities, desires, realities the Spanish ruling class and bourgeoisie everywhere suppress, take over the mansion, mishandle its possessions, parody its civilising artefacts (food, music, painting, sculpture), a destructive Bacchic frenzy contemptuous of viewers - we may cheer when the meek inherit the earth, but a greater pack of brutal thugs, informing sneaks, loathesome lepers or frothing rapists you'll never see; while Don Jaime, for all his monstrosity, has a quiet grace absent from the other characters. His servants assume their own thuggish hierarchy when faced with the amoral vagrants, asserting their perceived superiority. The celestial Viridiana's initiation into the 'earthy' is not something anyone, whatever their politics, can buy.

It is wholly characteristic that Bunuel should couch this moral dynamite in one of his most visually beautiful films - the recurring Bunuel motifs (feet, ropes etc.; religious paraphernalia as bondage gear); the dense compositions, at once framing characters in their environment and mocking them; and the startling zooms out, from intimate close-ups on parts of the body to the shocking realisation that someone is always watching. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Bunuel's only horror film
If Movies were food, CITY OF ANGELS would be a rice patty and PSYCHO would be a steak. But if nothing else, Bunuel's film THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL is the great saucy enchilada of cinema. Its distinctly Catholic humor could only come from the mind of Luis Bunuel, the most Spanish director of all time. Bunuel's later French films are mostly more subdued, but I like his Mexican films better. This is my favorite Bunuel film. The plot has already been described, so I won't go through that again. But I should say that I think this the closest Bunuel ever came to making a horror film. I think that the only thing that keeps this from being a horror film is the fact that there is nothing to keep these people from leaving... they're just too stupid and self-centered to get out. The only negative comment I have is that the video is of very poor quality. Not much has been done with the master, apparently; this is one movie that could use a subtitle-upgrade. They're hard to see because thay blend into the scenery, and the actors also talk for long periods of time without any subtitles. It's pretty irritating, but they manage to get the point across well enough. But of the film, nothing negative can be said, in my opinion. Bunuel was one of the most consistently creative directors of all time, and with films like this he managed to amass a truly unique body of work. He was the John Huston (AND the Marquis de Sade) of avant-garde cinema, and a true genius whose talents as a filmmaker are on a par with Michaelangelo's as a painter. So there!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
When invited guests arrive for an elegant dinner party and find themselves unable to leave the dining room, Spanish surreal master Luis Bunuel, enters the undeworld of human desires and relations, peeling the crust of the burgoeis thinking and emancipating the subconcious of all the characters. After three days, hunger, thirst and desperation take over, leaving the semi-savage guests to undergo a formidable transformation of both, mind and spirit. After hearing the disturbing news, the social institutions (police, army, politicians, even other citizens) are unable to even enter the house, moved by the same invisible force. Filmed in 1962 and considered by many his greatest surreal film after L'age D'or, Exterminating Angel gives Bunuel a chance to go back to his cultural roots of the French Surrealism, not allowing culture, education, religion or other institutions to interfere with the content of characterization but to allow his characters to roam free like dreams or sometimes nightmares in a world of pre-fabricated emotions.

Arthur A. Sabina New York END

Masterwork
The film's central characters are overcome by their bourgeois sense of propriety and, due to pretense, are seemingly trapped in an opulent parlor room by their incapacity to overcome their own outrageous forms of hypocritical propriety. The inability to leave the dinner party first grows to absurd proportions leading to the inability of all attendees to leave at all. They are psychologically impaired and degenerate, slowly, into their basest elements until they realize, collectively, that escape is possible.

Rejecting rationalism, and accessing the unconscious desires of mankind, is at the heart of this film. The constructs of man, the masks of artifice he appropriates, are fashioned out of rationalism and serve to obfuscate reality. Man becomes pretentious, corrupt, immoral, and despondent because he has lost sense of himself. For Buñuel, the bourgeoisie is ripe for attack, given that they shape and determine the values of their society. If our social leaders reject true humanity, then how can society hope to find truth? For Buñuel, humanity cannot thrive under such conditions. Hell is divestiture from the self.

This film is for anyone who enjoys an intelligent and beautiful film (Cinematography by Mexican master Gabriel Figueroa). Buñuel is clearly one of the greatest pillars of modern film.

All Time Classic
The Exterminating Angel is a brilliant movie. Luis Bunuel is one of the few directors to be able to create a completely fascinating world with seemingly mundane ideas. The film is about guests arriving at a dinner party and for various reasons are unable to leave. This simple, but interesting premise illustrates how we do not live our lives in any logical fashion and how the situations with which we are faced are what shape our world not anything as ridiculous as free will. For anyone who can see life as it really is and not brainwashed by our societies propoganda this is the most entertaining movie ever made about human nature. This is not a movie to take a date to it is one to be savored the rest of your life as you watch an innocent situation turn into the most thought provoking film you will ever see. The pace is slow, but in the hands of Bunuel it is also very entertaining and yes funny.

A Surreal Experience
Strange, allegoric, surrealistic movie, not for all tastes, especially not for those who're not into Buñuel's films, about a group of upper class subjects who gather at a social meeting, finding themselves unable to leave the house where they are reunited.

For those who need them, the plot has no easy explanations and I'd even dare to say that it's open to a wide range of interpretations, but anyway, after watching the movie, some of its images will linger in your mind, as a result of the "first class" surreal experience the movie is, by its master himself; although I have to note, that "The Exterminating Angel" does not belong into the same type of Buñuel's earlier completelly visually surrealistic films, like "L'Âge D'Or" or "Un Chien Andalou". ... Read more

Reviews (54)

The Story of God's Love
The Robe

An epic in its time due its being the first motion picture in Cinemascope, it remains a great testimony to the values and morals of its producers and director. I remember watching this movie as adolescent. Victor Mature, as Demetrius a Greek slave, stood out for me in this movie and in other movies (Demetrius and the Gladiators, Samson and Deliah) as the epitome of Christian virtue. Ironically, however the story plot was not about him, but he did play a very important supporting role, his story is in the sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators. Given that this film was an epic in its time 1953; it still has not lost the inspiration and awe of the strength of the test of faith, at least for me, that it inspired when I first saw it.

This epic film was directed by Henry Koster, a German who also is known by the name Herman Kosterlitz. His works include A man called Peter (1955), Harvey (1950), and The bishop's Wife (1947). I believe that major premise that Koster was portraying to the public was that faith in Christ is worth both searching and dying for. No matter who you are there is hope for you in finding the Jesus of the Cross.
The Robe is based on a fiction novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. The story is full of life's major issues that most of us have to work through jealousy, anger, betrayal, forgiveness, reconciliation, and the progression of and test of personal faith.

While titled the Robe, the story really evolves around Marcellus (Richard Burton) a tribune in the service of Rome. He was ordered to crucify Jesus. He wins the robe while gambling at the foot of the cross, but when he touches it he becomes tortured in his mind. When overcome, he cries out "Where you there.?" Ironically the best that anyone can do for him is to send him on a quest to find the robe and destroy it, thinking that will bring his mind to rights. When he finds the Robe he finds peace of mind, through reconciliation to God through belief in the Christ who wore the Robe. Instead of destroying the Robe he instead joins the Christians in declaring God's love for humankind. The ending of the movie is magnificent! When brought to trial by Caligula (Jay Robinson) Marcellus is ordered to pledge allegiance to Rome and renounce his faith in Christ on the penalty of death. He does renew his pledge to Rome but refuses to renounce his faith in Christ. He is sentenced to death for his faith.

The beginning of this story starts before Marcellus has to crucify Jesus, yet the cross, signified by the Robe itself is central to the story. Without it there would be no new life and faith in Christ to die for. Some have called it another story of the Crucifixion, yet I would say no. It is the continuation of the reality of the meaning of the crucifixion... i.e. the Love of God for humankind.

Wide Screen Classic
The first film to be released in the CinemaScope process, The Robe is a fairly interesting fictionalization of Roman life after the death of Christ. Richard Burton stars as Marcellus, the centurion in charge of the crucifixion. Marcellus's life is never the same after he wins Christ's robe in a gambling game. Consumed with guilt and the haunting belief that Jesus was perhaps the Son of God, Marcellus almost goes mad. With the help of some Palestinian Christians, he gets his sanity back and charts a new and dangerous course that puts him at odds with the Roman emperor. A beautiful production featuring an all-star cast including the beautiful Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, and Michael Rennie, The Robe is still enjoyable entertainment some 50 years later. The DVD quality is good and if you have a home theater, the surround sound is quite impressive. Too bad they didn't add any extras, like a commentary by Jean Simmons (the only major star still living). You would think a documentary on the development of CinemaScope would have a least been in order. After CinemaScope, all major studio productions were produced for the wide screen, and The Robe's success helped pave the way for this new process.

Jesus Christ Never Existed.
'The Robe' is a famous film some people have seen or at least heard about. Most people fail to realize all of that doesn't matter because Jesus Christ never existed!! Jesus Christ is a mythological figure the church has exploited for hundreds of years and now the film industry has for almost a hundred years. There is absolutely no archeological or historical evidence that Jesus Christ existed. Even if he did exist, it would be highly unlikely he would have received that kind of punishment.
It is a shame that con artists like these filmmakers are using this mythological figure to make millions of dollars. People have to start swaying away from the manipulations of the church and the filmmaking industry and start looking at the hard facts. Jesus Christ and his crucifixion never happened.

"as for me, I have found another king"
A marvelous epic melodrama, with portions that are emotionally stirring, and with two exceedingly attractive stars, this film ranks high in the "sword and sandals" genre.
This is prime-time Richard Burton, at age 27, heavenly to look at and even better to listen to; his crisp enunciation makes the English language shine, and though some of his scenes are a little "over the top", he carries them off with charismatic presence. Jean Simmons is exquisite as Diana, the woman who has loved Marcellus (Burton) since childhood, and their screen romance has a rare depth and spark.
Other notable performances come from Victor Mature as Demetrius the slave, with a mute but moving scene at Christ's crucifixion, and Michael Rennie is grand as Peter. Jay Robinson is wonderfully rotten as the vicious Caligula.

I always like a good fight sequence, and there is a brilliantly choreographed one between Marcellus and a centurion. It is the kind of swordplay great Shakespearean actors have perfected, and it is a delight to watch.
Directed by Henry Koster, it has an exceptional score by Alfred Newman, and vibrant Technicolor cinematography by Leon Shamroy. I like the way the night scenes have a deep blue glow to them, and the costumes are wonderful. Oscars went to Best Art Direction/Set Design (color) and Best Costume design (color). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography (color), and was the first film to be released in CinemaScope.
I saw this film many years ago, and had thought it a little silly, but we have both aged well; I can now watch it repeatedly, and appreciate the depictions of courage, and the beauty and humanity of it. Total running time is 2 hours and 13 minutes.

Great Cinemascope Epic
Richard Burton gives a good performance as his soul contorts his mind after being given divine inspiration. The story and photography are well done. The finale is very moving. Great score by Newman. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

A LOST TREASURE FROM UNIVERSAL
The Spanish version of DRACULA received so much publicity (mainly claiming it's superiority to the Tod Browning/Bela Lugosi classic) that I avoided this archival release for years. Well, I'm happy to say that I was mistaken. This marvel is one last classic from Universal's horror heyday. True, the star is no Bela Lugosi--but the Spanish Renfield rivals Dwight Frye without ever imitating him. Best of all, you get a chance to see what Browning's film could have been like without any cuts. It is impossible to downplay the value of this alternate version. A true treasure for film buffs.

The Best Dracula movie of 1931 even with subtitles
If you are a fan of the Bela Lugosi "Dracula," you owe it to yourself to check out this Spanish version, shot at night by George Melford on the same shots Todd Browning was using during the day. Granted, Lugosi is a better Count than Carlos Villar, but the two things that really sell this alternative version of the tale are the cinematography and production values, decidedly more creative and eerie than the English version, and the wickedly vamp out women, led by Lupitar Tovar. Endure the subtitles and screen these two 1931 "Dracula" movies as a double-feature.

good if you're spanish
I bought the dracula legacy collection and watched the spanish version with english subtitles.I thought it was OK,but seemed too much of a remake of the first one.But if you are Spanish you'll love it!In this film there are things that weren't in the original but it also doesn't have stuff that wasn't in the original.

Average
i just got done watchin this The VHS just came in my mail today and popped it in ..... to me This movie is missin a lotta links... it is Atmospheric at times but as i reviewed the Reviews below some of the reviews actually said this film was more atmospheric then The english version .... which id have to disagree .... i think Tod Browning's version is more atmospheric then this.... and i think Dwight Frye is more up to the act of Reinsfield then Pablos whatever his name is Lol.... but it is a good movie.... i think The english version is better but this is as well a must watch classic horror film... if u ever have a chance to watch it .... then do so its a rareity so Enjoy

ps.... another thing is (dracula didnt say I Bid you welcome) at the first THATS NOT COOL DOOD thats my fav line in the english version!!!

Not great, but worth viewing for the hardcore vampire fan
True, Carlos Villar's performance as Dracula is this movie's greatest fault. I disagree with the statement that Villar's acting improved as the movie wore on. In earlier scenes I felt he was actually pretty impressive. Villar's approach to Dracula was very different from Lugosi's. Bela's Dracula had a magisterial, imposing presence. It was easy to believe this man had been a king, a general. Lugosi's Dracula was so smooth it was shocking when he'd display anger. Villar, by contrast, plays Dracula as much more feral. When he's not around others - on his own time, so to speak - his facial expression is animal-like. The polished aristocrat is only a facade, used when necessary, whereas in Lugosi we see a true aristocrat with a - usually - well-controlled feral aspect to his personality. Villar's is an interesting take on the character, and to start with it worked well for me, especially as a contrast to Lugosi's interpretation. Unfortunately there's a certain unfinished cast to Villar's features, an almost childlike softness and roundness, and later in the movie, when he's attempting to look intense and dangerous, what he really looks like is a pouting, sulky child.

One major gripe I had with this film concerns the first time we ever see Dracula. An important moment to get right, one would think. Scene: the interior of Castle Dracula, the Count's coffin sits in the middle of a gloomy, expansive room - which we will see again in the closing scenes. The coffin lid raises slightly, a hand moves out into the air. So far, so good. If it had been left at that, this would have be an underplayed, very effective scene. Apparently this was thought to be too boring - we actually needed to SEE Dracula here - so immediately is spliced in a scene, obviously taking place in completely different room (Carfax Abbey from later in the film), Dracula rises from his coffin. Only now it's not a coffin, it's a wooden packing crate, as it will be later in the film. Obviously different room, obviously different "coffin." I wanted to scream. Continuity, Melford! I'll give the director the benefit of the doubt this film splice was done or forced by the studio, but it's still shockingly amateurish editing, during one of the film's pivotal moments.

The special effects in the movie are better than Lugosi's Dracula. The bats are much more convincing and well-done that the famous - and beloved - rubber-bat-on-a-string of the English language version. Unfortunately the Spanish movie is ungodly slow, much more so than its more famous counterpart. It does, after all, take over 30 minutes longer to tell the same story. It's very talky. The acting, depending on the actor, comes in two varieties: stilted or totally over the top. All in all, a boring viewing experience.

I recognize the Spanish language 1931 Dracula for the important cultural curiosity it is. Every true vampire aficionado should have a copy of this movie in their library. As for me, I'm glad I saw it - once. ... Read more

Reviews (337)

The happiest sound in its best version yet!
Reviled by some, beloved by many, consistently referred to as the most popular movie musical ever made, THE SOUND OF MUSIC more than fulfills the promise of its beautiful visuals and expert song numbers on home video via DVD. This edition tops the 1995 laserdisc by allowing the sparkling, exemplary design of its 70mm. Todd-AO frame to be exhibited with increased sharpness and resolution. The 4.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is powerful and clean, but since this film was originally mixed for six-track magnetic stereo, it's curious why the effort wasn't made by Fox to split the surrounds! Nonethless, the film sounds terrific. The extra features make this package a bargain at the price. Full length commentary by director Bob Wise, with the musical numbers presented sans vocals, is a great touch. And the two documentaries are beautifully presented; full of facts and bits of arcane information that any fan will truly enjoy. A great movie, and a great DVD rendition. More like this, PLEASE!

Wonderful!!! One of the Best Musicals Ever Made!!!
First of all, I'd like to confess that I've probably watched this movie more than one hundred times in my lifetime.

"The Sound of Music" is such a popular movie that people can't enough of making fun of it, which is understandable: I mean, a nun, seven children, songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Austrian landscape. In reality, most of these people probably haven't sat down and watched this movie, because it is an absolutely unforgettable experience.

Julie Andrews is absolutely magical as Maria. When she runs on the mountaintop and starts singing the famous lyrics "The hills are alive...," it sends chills down my spine to this day. Christopher Plummer cuts a good figure as the captain but gave a rather stiff performance: he doesn't bring anything extra to the role. Eleanor Parker, as the Baroness, was wasted--a role like that was far beneath her talents. But the children were all wonderful, especially Charmian Carr who was charming as Liesl.

This movie is ultrasentimental and proud of it. But I'll stick with this rather than some of those one-dimensional slasher flicks which are in fashion these days. It has a plausible story, some of the world's most remembered songs, and the glorious Austrian and Swiss Alps in the background. Overall, I can't say anything other than I loved it.

The Hills Are Alive...Now and Forever
No matter how many times you've seen this 1965 musicalization of the 1959 stage classic, it's still a joy to behold. For me, there are many reasons. On location filming in Saltzburg heightens the story's magnitude. The casting of Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp was a coup for both 20th Century Fox and director Robert Wise. She's magnificent and ever so professional. Back then, this was only her third Hollywood movie. But she's a pro from start to finish. Everything she does it fraught with such emotion and conviction, you'd swear she was Maria Von Trapp. Opening up the stage play with several new scenes, sub plots, songs, characters and dialogue also benefits what could have been a very sticky situation. Finally, there's the DVD itself. This is the widescreen version that was shown back in theaters when the film first opened. It includes the intermission and the Act II opening music. With no formatting for television, you get to see everything in all it's technicolor glory. On video, half the Von Trapp children didn't fit on the televsion screen. Musical numbers lost there scope as did scenes where you had 13 characters in one room and only saw 7 on the screen. I highly recommend this DVD. But wait, there's more. The 87-minute documentary is awesome. So are segments showing scenes that were cut and up dates on how the kids look today.

Incredible movie, must see, but don't buy the one disc
First off. Think you have seen the Sound of Music? Well you haven't. I thought I had, many times. Of course it was always around Xmas with the commerical breaks. But that is a much edited version. There are small but significant cuts everywhere in that version. So this is a great thing to have. My 3 stars relates directly to the lack of extras on the one disc. The movie is 5+ stars, but the lack of extras warrants the 3 stars.

So this is a must buy. Also the commentary is very good here. But given the price for this on Amazon, just buy the 2 set version. I got the one disc version at a very good price so it is not a bad buy. But for $6 more, why not enjoy the double DVD? This is a must get for any movie fan, and if you are not into the extras, by all means buy this one. This movie, like all of Rogers and Hammerstein's work is emotional without ever being fake or sentimental. It is full of sentiment and completely honest sentiment at that, but never sentimentality. It totally puts to SHAME almost every director and producer and writer working in Hollywood today. Complete and total shame and disgrace. Nothing coming out of Hollywood today can hold a candle to this. Entire director's careers with academy awards can't even begin to even compare to just this one movie. So get some version, especially if you have young ones. Sit them down, and let them experience what a real movie can be.

This has been a great thing to share with my daughter.
I grew up with this video and watched it on TV every year. The songs have always stuck in my head. I even did the Sound of Music Tour when I was in Austria. But now I've got my daughter introduced to this beautiful music. This and the Wizard of Oz are her favorites.

I bought the easy piano scores for her to play the songs on the piano, and singing lessons on CD "Voice Lessons TO GO", by Vaccarino (They're great and a lot cheaper than private voice lessons!) for her, (even though I use them when she's at school). So she is confident to sing along while she plays her Edelweis and Do a Dear. We love it. ... Read more

Reviews (179)

I'll Write A Review You Can't Refuse
Francis Ford Coppola does something with this movie many filmmakers are unable to do. Coppola makes us feel as if we're part of the"FAMILY". We feel as if were behind the scenes watching the Corleone's up's and down's. A one of a kind screenplay written by Mario Puzo and Coppola,and as we all should know by now,the film the based on Puzo's novel. Truly desevering of the Oscars in won. Brando's performance in this movie,is in my opinion,the best of his career. And the same goes with the rest of the cast:Al Pacino,Diane Keaton,James Caan,Robert Duvall,and Talia Shire. Everyone in this movie delivers a powerhouse performances. Many unforgettable lines and characters that will stay with us forever. Terrific music score by Nino Rota,beautiful camerawork by Gordon Willis,and top notch directing Coppola. Truly one of the greatest films ever made! If there's anyone who hasn't seen this movie,you have no idea what your missing. A must for anyone's video collection.

The Greatest Movie of All Time.
A movie of such size, influence, and power as "The Godfather" isn't simply a movie. It's a life-altering experience. Francis Ford Coppola, barely into his thirties, would team up with author Mario Puzo to create the greatest period gangster epic whose influence remains incalculable. It all begins with the performances. Take a look at the opening scene, in which the undertaker Bonasera comes to Vito (Marlon Brando) for "justice" following the brutal assault of his daughter. That scene is brilliantly played and wonderfully directed, and Brando's portrayal as the Don is nothing short of perfect. The public perception of a Don of this magnitude is someone who is loud, brash, and emotional. Not this one. Brando's Vito is calm, soft spoken, and rarely raises his voice, which makes his character even more intimidating. But while Brando shines in this film, the heart of the movie (and indeed the entire trilogy) belongs to the then-newcomer Al Pacino, who playes Vito's youngest son, Michael. Michael's transformation from a mild-mannered college grad to a ruthless Mafia thug is one of the greatest performances you will see. James Caan as the hotheaded Sonny, John Cazale as the dim Fredo, the suave Robert DuVall as attorney Tom Hagen, and Talia Shire as the troubled newlywed Connie all shine in their supporting roles. Reviewing a movie like "The Godfather" is a bit overwhelming, as it has already been studied by other, more experienced film geeks. But if there's one movie you see in your lifetime, it has to be this verified, straight-up classic. Give three hours of your life to this movie, and what it will give in return will reward you richly.

LOUSY TRANSFER OF A CLASSIC
I can only add my voice to the many who were disappointed by the DVD transfer. How can you mess up one of the best movies of the last half century? Looks very grainy in some indoor scenes...in fact, some scenes looked like they were filmed with an old, cheap video camera. That said, the story, acting, editing and music are just about perfect. The only thing that rings false is the carelessness the family exhibits after Don Corleone's attack. They act a bit like amateurs. This begs for a DO-OVER (maybe they're waiting for another anniversary year to roll around to release a definitive edition). I refuse to buy the box set as it includes the inferior Part 3. Hopefully, when they release Part 2, they pay more attention to the quality of the transfer.

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
I never saw the movie before because I have no interest in "the Mob", New York, or gang politics. It took Brando's death, plus all the great reviews here and the #1 ranking at IMDB to prompt me to get this movie to add to 400 movies I have. The only thing I knew about it going in was there was a horse head in a bed, and Brando mumbled and played with a cat.

The movie has a long list of big name actors including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall, and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It seems to be filmed rather darkly with muted colors, though many posts here complain about the transfer.

I had big expectations for this movie, but at the one-hour mark I was so bored I turned it off. Later I started over with the commentary, which was a bit more interesting. I took a nap in the middle, then came back to finish this 3-hour exercise in tedium.

Mostly OK acting. Good photography. Famous theme. I liked 2 lines of dialog, but that's about it.

Okay, but not great. Poor DVD Transfer.
I have just viewed this movie for the first time, and for the life of me, I don't know what all the hype has been about. The acting is at most, mediocre (with some roles just downright poorly acted). The plot seems to come and go throughout the movie, and the violence is by today's standards very cheesy. I also kept wondering how Marlon Brando's character became so tied to this movie, as his role seemed very minor.

I give it three stars because, I'm sure when this movie was originally released, it was "Epic", but it just hasn't stood the test of time. Some of the scenes are well acted, but are overshadowed by lack of plot and some particularly bad acting as well.

Aside from the movie itself, Francis Ford Coppola should be embarrassed about the quality of this DVD transfer. It has several flaws (scratches, flickering, low lighting, etc.) and really looks bad on a large screen television. Perhaps he should let George Lucas have a go at a Special Edition version of his movie to "clean it up" and bring it up to date (Whatsa Heesa Deesa Meesa?) - of course I'm joking. ... Read more

Reviews (82)

I know it was you Fredo
Director Francis Ford Coppola does the impossible with this film. He creates an original piece better than its wonderful predecessor! After the phenomenal success of the GODFATHER, Coppola didn't have the studio watching every move he made like a hawk, and the results are a better, more diverse film. He lifted a concept he was saving for another movie, one where a father's story and his son's story are intermingled, comparing them both at the same age. Robert DeNiro won an Oscar for his mostly silent portrayal of the soft-spoken Italian, Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando in the first film. This was the first time in history that two people were both given an Oscar for portraying the same character. Running parallel with Vito's story is the continuing saga of Michael Corleone, Al Pacino returning to play the crime boss. His Michael has grown into a man bent on his own fate, battling hubris like a Shakespeare character. The production design and music are once again wonderful, Vito's past is a gorgeous pastiche of immigrants at the turn of the previous century, while Michael now rules an empire that extended into the sleazy world of gambling. Coppola uses some of the same tricks as the first film (If it ain't broke...). The result is a three-hour plus tragedy that is sure to make a hit with you. The first 2 films together make for interesting viewing. On occasion, they have even been needlessly presented chronologically. Followed by an unfortunate third film.

The apex of American film making
To call The Godfather 2 a sequal would be a travesty and an unfair conclusion on what a stunning achievement the film was. Not only is it the greatest sequal of all time (the only one to receive the best film oscar, at the expense of the brilliant Chinatown) but perhaps the greatest movie of all time.

It's an even more towering achievement than it's predecessor with Coppola now telling in parallel the rise of Vito Corleone from a seemingly harmless kid fleeing Sicily at the turn of the century to a fully fledged Mafia Don(now De Niro)in his twenties, contrasted with his son Michael carrying on the Sicilian legacy in 1950s New York.

The intricacy of the flashback sequences is suitably stunning as is the flawless design of both time periods, especially that of 1910s New York. The costume design and focus on detail are simply immaculate with De Niro delivering an electrifying portrayal of the young Vito(speaking Italian for much of his part) as he becomes a player with a gun wrapped under a towel and hoarsely imitates Brando at one stage "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

Both won Oscars for their portrayal of Vito but i believe it is De Niro who excels more, not relying on the heavy makeup Brando was employed with for the first film but again proving his versatility of being a method actor and a natural gift of playing gangsters. However, it is often argued that Panino tops De Niro's peformance. He delivers a masterfully cold and distant performance as Michael, carrying on the family business after his father's death (much to his brother Fredo's disapproval).

He moves scrupulously and speaks with rivetting conviction as he attempts to protect his family from the corruption and threat of the era. While being corrupt himself, Michael is also a caring family figure, doing all he can to end this power struggle for the sake of protecting his children. At one stage his wife Kay Adams(Diane Keaton) threatens to take his children away from him but Pacino makes his feelings clear "You know that could never be possible. You know i would do anything in my power to stop that from happening."

The supporting cast are also great, with maestro Lee Strasberg, Robert Duvall also picking up Oscar nominations. At 3 hours and 20 minutes the movie doesn't seem overlong at all. It's an emotional powerful study in family loyalty, betrayal, corruption and greed and the apex of American filmaking. Movies don't come more accomplished or perfect than The Godfather 2. An oustanding piece of showmanship and one of the most important forms of art in any medium.

Even better than the first!
I watched this version first and I've always liked this movie more than the first because it ties up loose ends and it gives you a better understanding of who the family is, where they came from, the origin of the Corleone name (The family name is Andolini, the town he comes from is Corleone.), etc. I wished Richard Castellano was in this one (He wouldn't because of a contract dispute.). His replacements were classic. Michael V. Gazzo & Lee Strasberg give outstanding performances in their roles. This is an epic tale never to be forgotten.

A VERY AMAZING SEQUEL TO A VERY AMAZING MOVIE
THE STORY CONTINUES AS MICHAEL CORLEONE [AL PACINO] CONTINUES HIS DECEASED FATHER'S BUSINESS. THIS SEQUEL SUCCEEDS IN BEING WHAT MANY OTHER SEQUELS COULD NEVER BE, A GOOD MOVIE, MATTER OF FACT, AN OUTSTANDING MOVIE. ALONG WITH ITS PREDECESSOR, THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. THIS SEQUEL IS VERY AMAZING, AND I RECCOMEND ALL GANGSTER MOVIE BUFFS GET THIS AND ITS PREDECESSOR ON TAPE OR DVD AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. LIKE THE 1ST MOVIE, THIS WON SEVERAL OSCARS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE.

great character study, great acting
I love this movie even more than Part I, because I love the way you can see Michael's character disintegrating over the course of the story. You watch him strip away all human connections in order to protect the "family." He finally asks his mother "Can you lose your family?" She doesn't understand the question, but of course Michael has lost his family, as well as his own soul. The paradox in this--killing your family in order to protect the "family"--is wonderful.
As in Part I, Diane Keaton is kind of a weak link--just not a credible Mafia wife. De Niro gives one of the greatest performances ever--channeling Brando. I also love the young versions of Don Corleone's sidekicks when they first go into business doing things like stealing rugs. And Robert Duvall has had to work very hard ever since to equal this performance.
The only disappointment is that we don't get to see Sonny (James Caan), since he was killed in Part I. His role was so wonderful that it's a pity Coppola couldn't work him into the flashbacks of Part II, except in the brief final scene. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Entretenida
Esta es una película muy ligera, comica y divertida. Casi no se ve la mano de Luis Buñuel en ella, lo que demuestra que este director puede adaptarse a sus películas y no gozaba de complejo de exibicionismo. El fime es adaptado de una obra de teatro y se nota mucho en los chiste de bote pronto. "El mantequilla" esta en el mejor papel que le he visto. Es una película que deberia tener mas reconocimento del que tiene, aunque perderia un poco de encanto. Recomendable. ... Read more

Description

Perhaps Jean Delannoy's (The Eternal Return) best-loved film, La Symphonie Pastorale remains one of France's greatest contributions to cinema.This sensitive adaptation of Andre Gide's introspective novel is precisely constructed, brilliant ... Read more

Reviews (1)

La Symphonie Pastorale
La Symphonie Pastorale depicts the tale of a pasteur who takes in a young blind girl (Gertrude). The story concerns the ramifications of his involvement in her education and her life. The film sides on the melodramatic and certain physical qualites of both the Pasteur and Gertrude make their roles difficult to believe. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

cult movie in the making
Who the hell would remake the 1960's turkey starring Allison Hayes? HBO, that's who!

Daryl Hannah makes for the perfect new giantess in this fine update of ATTACK OF THE 50FT WOMAN.

In the tiny Western town of Archer, Nancy Archer (Daryl Hannah - SPLASH, STEEL MAGNOLIAS) lives under the thumb of her wealthy father, Hamilton, and her philandering husband Harry (Daniel Baldwin - KNIGHT MOVES, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY). For years they have chipped away at her self-esteem, making her feel very small, but all that's about to change...

A chance-encounter with a UFO leads to Nancy growing into a 50-ft giantess, and she goes on a mission of delicious revenge against her louse of a spouse.

Needless to say, the material has not aged well. The creaky plot is slow-moving and only gets going during the last 15 minutes during the "killing spree" sequence. But no doubt this little film has it's appreciative audience, who love the film for what it is....a fun little piece of fluffy schlock!

With Frances Fisher, Cristi Conaway and William Windom.

They made 'em better in the 50s...
So I was browsing through the TV guide when I came upon a listing for ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN. Could this be that 50's science-fiction film that I've always been meaning to see but never got the chance? Well, turns out it was an HBO made-for-TV remake and, having just seen it, I can almost guarentee that I'll never watch it again...

The main problem with it is that the film is way too short on action and heavy on uninteresting soap-opera rubbish. Daryl Hannah does what she can with the material but I never at once felt sorry for the her, which is what the script tried to keep hammering in. In fact, for the first half of the film, we only get two brief glimpses of a flying saucers (both not very impressive... I still prefer Ed Wood's paper plates on strings). Finally, when Hannah's character starts growing, the narrative is given a brief jolt, but not enough to make it that interesting... It's basically just more of the same old but with Hannah getting increasingly bigger.

When the action finally does kick in near the end, it's not particuarly satisfying... I'm not sure how this compares to the 50s original but I doubt it's as ineptly staged and dull as this remake... Despite the title, the 50-foot woman here never really does any attacking... she just strolls down the street and we get a bunch of close-ups of people screaming and running around blindly... I'm not expecting her to act like Godzilla and smash the place up (although that would have been appreciated) but the way that these climactic scenes were handled were pretty disappointing. There's also a brief encounter with a pair of helicopters that produces similarly mundane results... Perhaps the best scene in the movie is when Hannah peers over a Drive-in movie theater where they're showing clips from the original ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN... It's a shame that I wasn't watching that one instead...

And that's the real problem with this film... There's nothing really all that satisfying about it, except for the novelty of watching a 50-foot tall scantily clad woman cause a curiously restrained amount of havoc, if you could even call it that... Daniel "the forgotten" Baldwin is fairly amusing as the slime-ball husband, but that's about it. Right before the credits at the end of the film, we get a few brief paragraphs on the characters and what happened to them after the film ended... The fact that I could care less about what was written there speaks worlds about my indifference to this film...

Better than the original.
Remakes can never compare to the original film. This one is the exception. I found the 1993 Attack of the 50ft woman to be much more entertaining and funnier than the original. Plus a lot of women can relate to the characters in this movie. The movie is mostly a statement about how mistreated women are around the world, yet it doesn't go too far and totally attack men and make them all villans like other feminist movies. Hannah who plays Mrs. Archer does a great job as a cheated and mistreated wife who never gives up on trying to save her relationship with her low life husband played by Daniel Baldwin. Hannah has an encounter with a UFO and then grows giant and eventually realizes that she is tired of being pushed around. There are many funny situations and characters in this remake. In my opinion, I thought that VICTORIA HAAS stole the show as she played a cute, tom boy, deputy named Charley. The most funniest scenes in the movie involved Haas(i wonder why she never came out with any more films). Well, this film is wildly entertaining. The ending was a little disapointing and didn't explain the scene in the beginning, but I still recommend this film.

Daryl Hannah finally hits the big time in this HBO remake
"Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman" finds Daryl Hannah in the titular role of this HBO remake of the 1958 exploitation cult classic. Director Christopher Guest goes whole heartedly for a retro Fifties look in this 1993 which tries to take the best parts (so to speak) of the original and enlarge the rest into a feminist allegory. Once again the story is about poor little heiress Nancy Archer (Hannah), who has been abused all of her life by men from her father, Hamilton Cobb (William Windom) to her swarmy husband, Harry (Daniel Baldwin), who is devoting his limited attention to local bad girl, Honey Parker (Cristi Conaway). Out driving around in the desert to relieve her sexual frustration, Nancy encounters a flying saucer that zaps her, thereby starting the growth process that will level off at the 50 ft. level (note: the original is "Foot" but the remake is "Ft."). The teleplay by Joseph Dougherty (who did his first script for "thirtysomething") borrows as much from "The Feminist Manifesto" as it does from "King Kong." What becomes important is that not even the U.S. military is going to stop Nancy from getting some much needed attention from hubby Harry. Sure, she could do a lot better than Harry, but that is not suppose to be the final payoff of this little feminine fantasy.

This remake does not have the same sort of tacky charm that makes the original so compelling. But there is still the great unanswered question from both of these films as to how the giant woman's underwear manages to keep up with her growth spurt. Daryl Hannah is a lot angrier than Allison Hayes was in the original, and it was the latter's decided sense of disinterest during the final rampage (along with the cloth bikini) that made it one of the enduring images of Fifties science fiction. Ultimately, this is more Guest's film as director, because the entire art direction and visual style of the film is as much a homage to the genre in the Fifties as the original storyline. The remake does not stand alone because there is too much that works off of the original to allow that to happen, so you have to have seen the 1958 version to fully appreciation this one. The main thing is that "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman" does not take itself seriously, and that makes up for a lot of the film's shortcomings.

Attack of the 50ft. Woman
Nancy Archer (Darryl Hannah) is a rich but troubled young woman, who is married to a cheating lowlife who only stays with her for her money. One night, she is driving home by herself, when an alien spaceship lands on the road. She is irradiated by the ship and over the next few days, starts to grow taller and taller, until she reaches a height of 50 feet. She uses her newfound height (and power) to take revenge on those who have wronged her - especially her sleazy husband Harry (Daniel Baldwin) and the trashy, gold-digging bimbo (Christi Conaway) he has taken up with.

This HBO made-for-cable remake of the 1957 cult classic of the same name is updated with an even more feminist slant and has a more thoughtful (and clever) script. The effects and acting are still every bit as cheesy though. ... Read more

Reviews (96)

Like Coors Dirty Harry's an Original
It was a great idea taking the soft deliberate speaking, Western King, Clint Eastwood and placing him in society as San Francisco police inspector Harry Callahan. Harry is a maverick cop fighting bank robberies, handling suicides and finally chasing a crazed killer known as Scorpio. The only thing we can determine that really drives Callahan besides Good vs Evil is that his wife was killed by an alleged drunk driver. It's the pre prozac and therapist era and Callahans controlled rage is only adressed through the mishaps of his villanous prey and his by the book department. In a sense this movie is timeless as hostage situations still affect our urban areas but with this cutting edge cinematic view we become somewhat disconcerted by our own laws and policies. The line made popular here DO YOU FEEL LUCKY? will last forever. Villan Andrew Robinson is still working today as he did a great job making us hate him in 1971. Four sequels follow this one Magnum Force 1973, The Enforcer 1976, Sudden Impact 1982 and The Dead Pool 1988. All worth watching but you can flip flop Dirty Harry and Magnum Force as the best of the bunch!

It'll blow you away
"Dirty Harry" made Clint Eastwood a star. Yes, there was the Italian westerns that made him famous, but this is the one that made him an American icon. Harry Callahan is the man every man wants to be.
The story is that a roof top sniper is killing the citizens of San Francisco. He is a cold, vicious murderer who wants a huge ransom to stop. Harry Callahan is the cop assigned to the case. Harry is a loner, he's the type to shoot first (with his massive, now infamous, Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum) and ask questions later. At first he goes along with police procedure, until the killer starts a new MO. When Harry tries to arrest him, he violate some of the killer's civil rights, and then is released. Harry begins stalking him as the killer is now trolling for new victoms.
This movie is not a mystery, it is more about social issues. Some people say the movie is dated. Maybe, maybe not. I think that rights of the accused are still highly sensitive issue today. Dirty Harry just did what any one of us in those extraordinary circumstances would have done.
On top everything it is an excellent action thriller. The pace is tight and it is just great to see someone just doing what's right, not nessesarily what's leagle.

CONSERVATIVE VIEWPOINT
This movie is about conservatives and how they must battle against the oppressive forces of communism. It was written by the greatest screenwriter and director ever, because he is a conservative.

This movie makes me wonder if somebody saw a screenplay I wrote a few years ago and stole my idea. It was called "A Savage Campaign." In it, a politician and a murder take care of the daughter, whose wife finds out about the plan. The democratic senator is corrupt and goes to the KKK. When the plot is revealed, it is finally stopped by Barry Bonds, who I consider to be baseball's Superman. When I pitched this idea to many Hollywood executives they thought it sounded great, but they wanted me to change the democrat to a republican.

All men yearn to be free.

This movie is about how the system does not care for law and justice. But the American people do. God bless you all.

'GOD'S LONELY MAN."
John Milius is the greatest screenwriter you never heard of, not to mention a terrific director. He describes the "Dirty Harry" Callahan character as "God's lonely man." Milius is that rarest of rarities, a Hollywood conservative. He herein wrote a film for the Republican Clint Eastwood that spoke to the hopes and fears of an America yearning for justice, law'n'order in a world dominated by overarching liberalism in the 1960s and '70s.

Picture America at that time: Vietnam, the streets and campuses exploding in riot, and a new social ethos that was willing to blame a racist white establishment for the crimes of this nation's increasing population of criminals.

In the 1960s, the Supreme Court became activist to the hilt. The most obvious of these cases was the famous Miranda ruling from Arizona, in which a criminal was allowed to go free because he had not understood his rights, not understanding the English language spoken by the arresting officer. His subsequent confessions were thrown out. The Court spoke of the "forbiddeen fruit" of evidence gathered by overzealous officers who "failed" to inform criminals that they were being searched just before they discovered their weapons, their drugs, their evidence. A police officer who found evidence of crimes was unable to make the case unless he had probable cause ahead of time to find the evidence.

In "Dirty Harry", a character (Andy Robinson) based on the never-caught Zodiak killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area at that time, goes on a murder rampage. Eastwood catches him at Kezar Stadoium. A little girl is lying in a hole some place. She has a limited amount of air left. Eastwood knows the guy did it. We know it. God knows it. The scene is worth watching in light of Abu Ghraib and the concept of the "ticking time bomb" theory of interrogation that the terror era has brought upon us.

Eastwood knows that if the man is arrested and booked, he will not talk, hiding behind a lawyer, and that the girl will suffocate. He applies a little bit of torture to Robinson, the Scorpio killer. What he wants is to know where the little girl is, so she can be saved. Scorpio wines about having rights and wanting a lawyer. Eastwood extracts the information from him. The girl, however, has died before she can be found by the cops.

Eastwood is confronted by the D.A., who tells him not only that the killer had rights, but that he will walk as soon as he is healthy, and he has brought in a Berkeley professor to detail to Clint how he violated the criminal's rights and, in essence, is worse than the Scorpio killer.

The end? We've all seen it a million times on TBS's "Movies For Guys Who Like Movies." Eastwood gets his man. He receives zero gratitude from the authorities. Millions of ordinary American citizens appreciated him in theatres and TVs since then, however.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"

STWRITES@AOL.COM

BEST ACTION MOVIE OF ALL TIME!
IN THE ONE THAT STARTED EVERYTHING, ''DIRTY'' HARRY CALLAHAN [CLINT EASTWOOD] GOES AFTER A SERIAL KILLER [ANDREW ROBINSON]. STILL THE BEST OF THE DIRTY HARRY SERIES. HAS A SUSPENSEFUL PLOT, TOP OF THE LINE ACTION, EXTREMELY CLEVER PACING AND IT HAS A NOT-TO-MISS FINALE. EVERY COP MOVIE THAT CAME OUT AFTER THIS EITHER TRYED TO COPY ITS PLOT OR ITS MAIN CHARACTER. THIS IS ARGUABLY CLINT EASTWOOD'S GREATEST MOVIE EVER. I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE, EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT A FAN OF CLINT EASTWOOD, OR EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT A FAN OF ACTION MOVIES, YOU NEED TO MOST DEFINITELY SEE THIS IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T SEEN IT BY NOW. A TREAT FOR ALL. FOLLOWED BY FOUR SEQUELS, BEGINNING WITH MAGNUM FORCE. ... Read more

Reviews (73)

The original Natural Born Killers!
Rarely has a film been as widely influential as director Arthur Penn's crime spree masterpiece. Single-handedly spawning the psychotic-lovers-on-the-run sub-genre (Badlands; Natural Born Killers; True Romance; SFW etc.) and simultaneously breaking the envelope in its frank, realistic depiction of violence - see this movie for a pre-Wild Bunch usage of exploding blood satchets in an equally elegiac gunshot death sequence - Bonnie and Clyde decisively consigned all vestiges of 50's Hollywood to the scrapheap of the 60s and signaled the start of the most creative, daring and satisfying decade in Hollywood history, the Seventies. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are at the peak of their powers as actors and pop culture icons and blister across the screen with their volatile, unpredictable and ill-fated relationship. One of the first movies to be decidedly anti-Establishment, its jaundiced view of family, town, country and violent confrontation with authority and tradition is obviously not for the Norman Rockwell crowd, although the authenticity of time and place is impeccable. With gorgeous golden rural landscapes, gorgeous golden Faye Dunaway and some of the best costume design ever put to screen, this is one film you need to have on DVD. Even the best VHS version is too grainy to do this movie aesthetic justice. An essential for collectors of crime movies and those interested in historically significant movies. But it also works on the simplest level as well: a well-paced exciting story, skillfully and violently told.

"We rob banks!"
Criminals became a whole lot more glamorous with the release of Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde." They were now slim and fit and not hunchbacked or overweight. They had beautiful faces that were not marred by scars or eye-patches. This was Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway looking their best and being as bad as they could.

Clyde Barrow (Beatty) rescues Bonnie Parker (Dunaway) from her uneventful life back home and promptly plunges her into a life of crime. In a country where despair has become a way of life thanks to the Depression, the bank robbers become heroes to the common folk who have been victimized by the instruments of capitalism. Relying on their wits and a touch of good fortune, the young lovers evade the law while basking in their newfound fame but their luck eventually runs out and they meet their end in a hail of bullets.

"Bonnie and Clyde" is infamous for introducing a new level of graphic violence to cinema by way of its final shoot-out. However, that one aspect of the film tends to overshadow its other accomplishments. The moral ambiguity running throughout the film distinctly separated it from the "white-hats-and-black-hats" characterizations of past Hollywood heroes and villains. This problematic approach to morality was a byproduct of the upheaval society itself was undergoing in the late-Sixties as it was discovering how difficult it was to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys in the real world. The film also went to great pains to appear as realistic as possible. Difficult themes in film were often satirized or exaggerated to soften its impact on the audience, but Penn created such an authentic feel to "Bonnie and Clyde" that the line between fantasy and reality became uncomfortably blurred. Throw in solid supporting work by Estelle Parsons, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard, and Gene Wilder to complement the film's other aforementioned accomplishments and what you have is milestone work whose impact on the medium has been far-reaching.

More Hollywood garbage
Hollywood has a track record of turning vile, murdering cowards and criminals into folk heroes. This piece of trash is among the winners. What a load of pure hogwash. When it first came out, the critics went into ecstasy about the sexual message all through the movie, using handguns as a phallic symbol. More Freudian dribble!!! The police are the villians here while the gang are the heroes. (The scene with Denver Pyle playing Texas Ranger Frank Hamer sneaking up on the bloodthirty duo is pure bilge. If the real Capt. Hamer had had his way, B&C's crimewave wouldn't have lasted any length of time.) The real Bonnie Parker was absolute trash. She blew a policeman's head off point blank with a sawed off shotgun! And she's a HEROINE ? More like she was on HEROIN. If you think this is a "Robin Hood" tale of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, you live in a fantasy world. The small businesses that Barrow and Parker robbed were "mom and pop" stores. And the poor certainly didn't benefit. The only redeeming part of this film is seeing these two thugs riddled by gunfire by the law. A fitting end.

We Rob Banks!
To me, the best film of 1967 (above the other landmark film of that year, The Graduate), and one of the most startling films ever made. I think that the "modern era" of moviemaking begins with Bonnie and Clyde." It's really about a "family" of bankrobbers who owe much of their success to the press; the newspapers make it seem as if they intend to terrorize every small town that has a bank to begin with. And so the Barrow gang becomes legendary during the depression, and heroes to some because they are against the government that is taking so much away from the "little people." Although much praised, "Bonnie and Clyde" was controversial in its day, partly because of the considerable bloodshed and partly because audiences felt bad for the two criminals. As one character says, "they're just a bunch of kids!" This is one of the rare films in which the violence punctuates the story--it makes the viewing experience more powerful. Because of it, one watches much of the film in a state of apprehension.

Natural born killers
Trust Hollywood to turn two common criminals into two American folk heroes. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were two small-town young people drifting aimlessly during the Great Depression of the 1930's; she's bored out of her gourd, and he's a felon who had killed fourteen men by the time he met his end at the ripe old age of twenty-four. They meet, fall sort of in love, and embark on a petty crime spree. At first it's all good-humored fun; they steal a couple of cars, hold up a couple of stores, and in a moment of hilarious insanity, Clyde attempts to rob a bank that went bust a week before, much to the amusement of the banker and Bonnie, who's collapsing with laughter over the steering wheel. But then a storekeeper takes offense at Clyde attempting to hold him up, and is pistol-whipped by Clyde in his frantic efforts to escape. Once the batterer storekeeper ID's Clyde's photo to the cops, things turn serious.

As Clyde's posse expands to include a lowlife neer-do-well named C.W. Moss and Clyde's brother Buck and his sister-in-law Blanche, their crimes get bolder and the violence spirals out of control. A bank robbery in broad daylight (while C.W. manages to get their getaway far stuck in a too-tight parking space) goes off almost without a hitch; but when Clyde shoots a pursuing cop in the face and his head explodes all over their back windshield, the fun stuff is over. They're wanted criminals being chased from Arkansas to Oklahoma and back to Louisiana. As their notoriety spreads, so does their audacity. In one of the funniest scenes in the film, they capture a sheriff who was about to sneak up on them and handcuff him while Clyde snaps pictures of Bonnie holding a gun on him. But their fame comes at a terrible price; they're wanted outcasts, alienated even from their own. When Clyde meets Bonnie's mother and tells her they'd like to live within three miles of her, Mrs. Parker tells her daughter, "You try to live three miles from me, and you won't live long, honey."

From the scene where Buck expires in a hail of police bullets to the slow dance on the killing ground in Louisiana, the film takes on a somber tone in stark comparison to the lighthearted opening sequences. Once the cascading violence has turned brutal, the movie becomes darker and more foreboding as well. But as bad as they are, we can't help but like them. Maybe that's the difference between Hollywood and real life. One wonders how many people who came across Bonnie and Clyde actually liked this pair?

The tension between Bonnie and Clyde helps keep the movie on edge. Arthur Penn's superb direction, assisted by knockout performances from the cast, helps keep the movie on a razor edge balanced between laughter and revulsion. Warren Beatty was never better than in his title role as Clyde Barrow, and Faye Dunaway makes a perfect Bonnie to his Clyde. Michael J. Pollard is winning as the doofus C.W. Moss and Gene Hackman is wonderful as Buck, torn between his loyalty to his brother and his love for his ditzy wife. But Estelle Parsons, as that ditzy wife, almost runs off with the film; her hysterics during the shootout between Clyde's gang and the cops has the viewers in equal hysterics rolling in the aisles. The cinematography is great; we feel all the heat, dust, and emptiness of Depression-era America, and the foot-stompin' banjo music by Flatts and Scruggs helps anchor the movie to its time and place. "Bonnie and Clyde" has become an American classic, one of the best films to come out of the 1960's. ... Read more