Having just seen this very great picture of the beloved 1050s, I can just declare that this picture is one of the best I´ve seen in the last years. What a script, including so many tear-jearking one-liners. Brillant directing!!! Wonderful actors and actresses, being at the peak of their artificial ailities. Brynner is so much wonderful. Heston even the better, portraying a General who has become a legend many - or at least - a few years ago. One must admire Bloom and Stevens. Congrats - from Vienna, Austria, to the American people and artists: At that time, you were at your best!!!
Reviews
10 Reviews
An Affair to Remember
(1957)
One of the great masterpieces of the 50ies
9 April 2020
How much I am sad that my English is not strong enough to express how much I adore this motion picture. I´ve seen it only two times in my lifetime but both times I was so much touched that I had to cry 1000 tears. What a genius this man Leo McCarey was - the way he directed his actors, his timing, the way he brought intense and warm emotions to his audience. His way of directing the camera - as Hitchcock told: do not show what has not to be shown. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in brillant performances!!! THX from Vienna!!!
City Lights
(1931)
Chaplin's masterpiece
15 January 2017
How tender and touching is the last, wonderful scene of this all-time classic - the girl telling the tramp "Yes, now I can see." "City Lights" will remain one of the best, most inspiring and funniest movies in the memory of audiences as long as at least one person will love cinema. Both Chaplin's directing and score are marvelous. The way Chaplin brought the character of the tramp to the canvas once more can hardly be topped, presenting such a precise yet relaxed kind of acting to the viewers. Virginia Cherrill, his love interest, is just wonderful. Hard to believe that she and Chaplin could not stand each other, as the story goes. A movie to be watched again and again and again...
The Wasp Woman
(1959)
Corman at his Worst
7 January 2017
Genre-addicts are and still will be happy enough to find treasures as well as garbage on the search for all kind of horror-, scifi- and fantasy-pics in our time - thanks to the 1950ies and the following decades having produced enough material to satisfy the fans. Corman's "The Wasp Woman" can undoubtedly be regarded as one of the worst movies of the decade and of the genre as well. Guinea Pigs turning into rats, bees appearing as wasps or vice versa, terrible performances of actors and actresses in even more terrible set designs. Annoying for all people with a lack of good humour, still entertaining for an open-minded audience.
Torn Curtain
(1966)
One of Hitchcock's Most Brilliant Later Works
6 January 2017
I've learned that the master himself did not like this movie at all. He was wrong - it is, in my opinion, one of his best. Wonderful cast, somehow old fashioned set design, lovable score - all this creates a wonderful, very much exciting atmosphere. The German actors in the cast are just brilliant, first of all Wolfgang Kieling as menacing STASI officer. The whole movie presents Hitchcock's idea of suspense at its best: Just remember the bus-scene or the moments at the countryside, when Dr. Armstrong is confronted with the Kieling-character. The set design in combination with explicit scenes of violence culminate to a perfect example of mid-Sixties American cinema: Looking back an looking forward at the same time. One can just enjoy this movie!!!
Knife in the Water
(1962)
great first feature
22 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Polanski's first feature-length movie offers great black-and-white cinematography, superb directing and a wonderful score. As in many of his later films, Polanski gives a portrayal of only a small group of persons who are locked within a narrow space - there they will have to suffer, there they will have to fight. Quite macabre seems to be the circumstance that the artist was confronted with similar conditions in real life - his youth in the ghetto is just one example. In "Knife in the Water" two man and a woman are confronted with aggressions on what the main character calls a "yacht", in later films ("Repulsion", "Rosemary's Baby", "Frantic",...) terror and fright have their beginning and/or find their culminating peak in flats or hotel rooms. At the end of the 1960s, Polanski's wife Sharon Tate and several of her friends were murdered by some members of the Manson-gang at their new home...
"Knife in the Water" is one of Polanski's masterpieces, it is one example of the high level of European cinema around 1960. Just a calm, clear, intelligent film. Just enjoyable!!!
"Knife in the Water" is one of Polanski's masterpieces, it is one example of the high level of European cinema around 1960. Just a calm, clear, intelligent film. Just enjoyable!!!
The Last Man on Earth
(1964)
really an outstanding picture
17 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This movie was hardly known to movie-addicts in my home-country until released on DVD in 2008. Of course many "cineasts" liked Price's performances in the Gothic Roger-Corman-films of the early 1960s. So this title was really a surprise: First of all comes Price's superb performance as the tragic hero who tries to survive in a sad, hopeless world. This was far away from his (great) overacting in the Poe-vehicles of the time, giving the audience a portrayal of a human being under the influence of threatening and traumatic experiences. Second comes this movie's artificial influence. It might be interesting to know if George Romero had seen "Last man on earth" before starting his work on "Night of the living dead". The wonderful black-and-white-cinematography reminds one of Romero's picture as well as the whole atmosphere of the Price-film, presenting us the idea that nothing is safe, that the safety we mostly seem to live in is nothing more than an easily-destroyed illusion. Altogether: a really outstanding movie of the early 1960s.
a piece of good entertainment
15 December 2008
Not a masterpiece, maybe, but still probably the best of the whole famous "Pink-Panther"-series. The strange story about Dreyfus becoming sort of a mad scientist or James-Bond-villain doesn't content too much sense - who cares? This is (and wants to be) just fun and pure slapstick. Some scenes of this Saturday-or-Sunday-afternoon-classic can really make you laugh again and again, especially the entrance when Herbert Lom is visited by Clouseau/Sellers in the asylum. One might also like the scene in which Peter Sellers is confronted with the wonderful Leonard Rossiter, two actors who had the privilege to star in two films of the great Stanley Kubrick (Rossiter in "2001" and - of course - "Barry Lyndon", Sellers in "Lolita" and "Dr. Strangelove"). Also contains a nice cameo of Omar Sharif. Altogether: a piece of quite good entertainment.
3 Godfathers
(1948)
touching beloved Christmas movie
14 December 2008
A really touching, naive, heart-warming Christmas movie, even if it may be quite a tear-jerker, especially at it's end: great cinematography - watch out for the wonderful impressions of the desert (the director of cinematography started with documentaries) -, great direction and one of John Wayne's best performances - this man was not only a big star, he was a wonderful actor, too!!! Between the end of the forties and the end of the fifties Ford knew how to lead Wayne to an artistic peak. And, not to forget of course: Hank Worden, Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey jr, ... what an ensemble did Ford build up around himself!!! Highly recommended to all those who want their hearts to be touched in rough times during a cold winter evening ...
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1939)
Touching performance
23 June 2007
One of the most touching performances, maybe, in cinema's history: Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. These (this) eye(s): looking for help, full of joy, filled with desperate tears of sadness or anger ... Hardly to believe that such astonishing portrayals of totally different characters like Captain Bligh, Rembrandt and Quasimodo could be given by the same actor within just a few years!!! This man delivered further superb performances in movies directed by Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick or Sir Alfred Hitchcock. The same man also directed a masterpiece like "The Night of the Hunter" (1955) - so Laughton should not be missed on a list of the all-time's greatest actors as well as on one of the all-time greatest directors. Just remarkable!!!
Tell Your Friends