Reviews

Among other sequences, notice The Seventh Victim starts with the same vocal scaling heard throughout the courtyard of Rear Window, which was in Greenwich Village, which was where both films took place. Also notice the shower scene, which was obviously seen by Hitchcock prior to filming Psycho. And The CatPeople, the scene of Irene with the bird cage is eerily similar to Melanie Daniels in The Birds.

From a talented film maker comes a very respectable and concise documentary on one of the "Masters." In 50 minutes, Cox is able to paint a beautiful portrait of this Master's career and family life, and his body of work. While the length of the documentary is constrained, it still compels the average moviegoer to see all of Kurosawa's films. After all, that is the way it should be - that the viewer do the work. But Cox's documentary provides great motivation to do so. And as an aside, it is extremely interesting to hear some inside stories from the people who worked with Kurosawa. The Last Emperor is a great and important achievement. One would hope for another documentary by the people at Exterminating Angel.

"The Hellbenders" is Corbucci's predecessor to his genre defining "Django" of the same year. Initially, the film can be dismissed as a low-budget mess because of poor audio and cinematography, but there are redeeming qualities which make this film a landmark in the overall Western genre. It was one of the first to use Almeira, Spain as a backdrop. It follows the adventure of a gang of ruthless Conferates (three brothers and their father, Joseph Cotten) fleeing the Union cavalry, Mexican outlaws, a local sherrif, and a vengeful Indian tribe. They carry a coffin filled with booty, and a permit stating that the coffin contains the body of a dead lieutenant. Corbucci pulls in a femme fatale (Norma Bengall) to foil the gang's money heist. Along the way a Mexican bandit is backstabbed, so to speak, by Cotten, and the bandit proclaims that they will meet again in hell. I'll leave the plot twists for you to discover, but note that "The Wild Bunch," released two years later, has a similar plot and twists. Also note Corbucci's more refined and improved spaghetti western, "Django," employs the use a mysterious coffin, which houses a Gatling machine gun, just so conveniently used again in "The Wild Bunch." Ol' Peckinpah sure did his homework.