Mel Brooks' 1974 spoof western isn't a patch on The Producers or Young Frankenstein, due to a lacklustre script. What memorable moments there are come courtesy of Cleavon Little's hip black sheriff, Gene Wilder's alcoholic gunfighter, Madeline Kahn's faultless Marlene Dietrich impression and Slim Pickens busting up that infamous campfire farting scene.
Robert Aldrich's most profitable movie presents war as mean-spirited farce: Major Lee Marvin offers a bunch of jailed WWII Gls—including John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson and Donald Sutherland—the chance to join him on a suicide mission into Occupied France. The movie wastes its greatest actor, Robert Ryan, but it's a relentless work—violent, funny and deeply cynical.
Kurosawa's bold take on King Lear, with the action relocated to 16th-century feudal Japan, still packs a punch 19 years after its original release. DVD transfer showcases the master's lush visual palette to great effect and, while the pace flags over 160 minutes, the two major pre-CGI battle sequences have to be seen to be believed. Glorious stuff.
Vincente Minnelli's heart-breaking, life-affirming 1944 musical. It's 1903, and as the World's Fair unfolds in their rosy little town, young Judy Garland's family face moving to the Big Apple. One of the great musicals; and as a movie about childhood, it's up there with The Night Of The Hunter and, as a lament for changing times, ranks alongside The Magnificent Ambersons and... The Wild Bunch. Kind of.
Luchino Visconti's kitsch allegorical melodrama is set in Germany in 1933 and describes the corruption of the wealthy Von Essenbeck family in the face of the Nazi menace. And so, within a few short scenes, they go from fireside home recitals to transvestitism, rape, murder, same-sex orgies, massacres and motherfucking (literally). Made in 1969, it's clearly very political. But that's no excuse.
Ted Turner's pet Civil War projects, both directed by Ronald F Maxwell. 1993's Gettysburg tells the tale of the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil while its prequel, 2003's Gods And Generals, recounts three earlier battles (Manassas, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville) through the eyes of Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Robert E Lee (Robert Duvall). Solid, stirring stuff, if you can sit through the three hours-plus running times of both these films.
Walter Hill's terrific 1978 thriller about a cop's obsessive pursuit of a seemingly uncatchable criminal clearly anticipates Michael Mann's Heat, for which it may have provided an unacknowledged template. It's a much leaner picture than Mann's portentous epic, however, but just as stylish and a lot more exciting, with a series of stunningly orchestrated car chases, a satisfyingly complicated plot and a couple of instances of eye-popping violence.
Nobody wants a painfully slow death: do you want to watch one, even if it's set against the crumbling beauty of Venice? Visconti's '71 adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel is a classic no one dares question, but its study of ageing composer Dirk Bogarde falling in unrequited love with a golden, fey young boy is stately and overwrought, and so enamoured of itself it forgets the audience. Perilously sluggish.
Jack Lemmon is the boozy PR man. Lee Remick is the teetotal secretary. He buys her a brandy. They're hooked! They lose their jobs, have an unwanted baby and get stuck into the hard stuff. He reforms. She doesn't. "You and I were a couple of drunks on the sea of booze, and the boat sank!" Hysterical yet Oscar-worthy stuff from Blake Edwards.
To explode a myth: in 1966 Antonioni's first English film was pitched not on the Italian director's vision or its meditations on the interface between reality and fantasy, but on its 'unflinching' portrayal of Swinging London—ie, much nudity. The original trailer, included here, makes that perfectly clear: it was popular because of breasts, not because it asked what 'meaning' meant.
And photographer David Hemmings' romps with models and Vanessa Redgrave remain icons of "yeeeah, baby" wish fulfilment for lensmen everywhere.
