[image file][giallo] MARIO BAVA -- SIX WOMEN FOR THE MURDERER (1964)

STARBLACK (1966) Written & directed by Giovanni Grimaldi

Western all'italiana meets giallo, via a masked avenger:

Captures the spirit of Zorro ...The Lone Ranger..Robin Hood..... Clark Kent...Batman...yes, even Mighty Mouse...

THE GIRL WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1979) Written & directed by Dario Argento

Taglines: "A stunning portrait in psycho-terror! All the screaming in the world won't help!"

GUY Madden -- COWARDS BEND THE KNEE AUDITION (2003) Directed by Guy Madden

It's time for hockey! There's no telling what will happen when the Winnipeg Maroons' own star player Guy becomes embroiled in the twisted lives of Meta, a vengeful Chinoise, and her hairdresser/abortionist mother Liliom. Innocent Veronica, caught in the middle, is treated to both services! Meanwhile poor, dithering, cowardly Guy can only stand by and watch.
Written by Anony-Moose

LEE MARVIN'S DEATH IN "THE KILLERS" (1964)

"The Killers (1964) Lee Marvin plays a hit man - here is that man's last stand.
The Killers is also the last movie Ronald Reagan played in. Reagan plays the role of a gangster who slaps Angie Dickinson around.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK on "Tomorrow" Show with Tom Snyder Fall 1973

Shutter Island Poster

[review] SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)

In 1967 Martin Scorsese's picture 'I Got First' (later release as Who's That Knocking at My Door) played the Chicago Film Festival. A young writer named Roger Ebert would immediately write, "'I Call First' ... a work that is absolutely genuine, artistically satisfying, and technically comparable to the best films being made anywhere," he would even dare to put epiphany to print , "I have no reservations in describing it as a great moment in American Movies."

More than forty years later Mr. Scorsese delivers his twenty-first feature film, 'Shutter Island'. This is an accomplished work of art that shows an unwavering strength of vision, the determination of an athletic aesthete, and an entirely uncommon passion for what he does. Mr. Scorsese's artistic tenacity has not only exceeded every other "great" American director from his own generation but he continues to operate with the same artistic and technical class of the best filmmakers working anywhere in the world today. How? His loving commitment to the art of motion pictures, perhaps even more than as his professional experience, allows for his perception to remain relevant.
A friend of mine recently made this astute comment "Most musicians today, and when I say most I mean most, don't sound or even look like they enjoy doing what they're doing." Maestro Scorsese loves what he does, and he does it for an audience that loves the cinema. He remains mindful of yesterdays audience, the audience of today, and the audience of tomorrow. Why was "Shutter Island" put off from being released in the fall along along with the other premium pictures? I like to think it's because this picture wouldn't have found it's full audience. This may not be the type of picture that would matter most to the academy, and that certainly isn't what matters most to Scorsese and his producers -- viewers matter. This picture does better by not competing with ambitions of other films and evading the feeding frenzy. 'Shutter Island' opened at the perfect time. The R rated thriller opened at number one in the box office, earning 40.2 million it's opening weekend.

'Shutter Island' stars Leonardo DiCaprio, as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, Mark Ruffalo, as his partner Chick Aule, and Ben Kingsly, as the prison medical director. The picture starts kneading your mind from it's opening scene with the dense tone clusters of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki grafted over Scorsese's swooping and circumscribing shots. Teddy Daniels is fevered from the get go. He enters the film carrying the cuts, bruises, and white knuckled anxiety of a conflict pre-existing outside the frame. Apparently, Marshals Daniels and Ruffalo are on their way to Shutter Island, a remote and craggy island off Boston, the foundation of a prison for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a child murderer. It doesn't take long before we discover that something else is afoot and suddenly the story takes the shape of cries for reason against the gales of a torrential storm. The action runs the gauntlet through an awfully dark labyrinth that moves between collapsing passages in the mind and the rough-hewn chambers of a most wretched prison.
As I mentioned earlier, this picture begins by immediately commencing on your brain. As a mystery it calls upon your intelligence, but when the expertly crafted mania of this story slips beyond all mental facilities it becomes a full-out drill on the senses. At one point I was actually trying to mentally hold onto something, anything, for a piece of security - be it an horrendously ugly neck tie. But even that went up in flames. This is a picture that works fully from beginning to end without ever letting up on one's need to reason.
Like a good noir we never know more than what the 'Robert Mitchum' type investigator does. The protagonist is always a beat or three ahead of the delighted popcorn popper, allowing for the pleasure of being led by the singular badass to the final conclusion. When you've arrived, you've arrived after taking the fantastic ride together. In a 1964 one-on-one interview with director Fletcher Markle for the Canadian program "Telescope" Alfred Hitchcock described being a good film maker as being "like a good architect for roller coasters." Scorsese has created a very ingenious thrill ride wherein the big drop twists and corkscrews without ever really letting up to the forces of gravity. Teddy is warned, "You will never leave this island", and we remain strapped in with him.

[review] Laura (1944)

Otto Preminger's 1944 classic mystery 'Laura' stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and Vincent Price.

Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is your typical 1940s hard-boiled detective investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). He starts by interviewing the wealthy Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and then moves on to Laura’s half polished bumpkin fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Through these interviews Laura’s story is told by a series of personalized narrative flashbacks. Through the series of vignettes we begin to uncover how Lydecker fell for Laura, how Laura began to fall for Shelby, and how the obsessions her two suitors result in her apparent death.
The screen play is as masterfully crafted as Preminger's direction. But apparently Preminger was not the first director on board with this picture. But when the material had become a disater in another man's hands Mr. Preminger came in to create one of noir's great pictures.

Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt adapted the best selling 1943 detective novel by Vera Caspary. The story is filled with intrigue and mind bending plot twists. Continually conclusions that fall apart in just the blink of an eye. Late in the third act of the picture you find yourself scrutinizing a room full of people gathered at a social party thinking "Is it him? Is it her? Or are those two over there co-conspirators." You will never know until the very last moments of this picture.

[review] Le Boucher (1970)

Le Boucher (1970), written and directed by Claude Chabrol.
Many cineastes consider French director Claude Chabrol to be a master of the mystery genre; though, perhaps his most recognized picture, "Le Boucher", is hardly a mystery at all. One third of the way into the picture you will be quite certain of the killer's identity, however, and this is where exquisite craftsmanship comes to bare, you will also be persuaded to harbor some doubt. That doubt, against all reason, is earned by the way Chabrol develops the story's characters from the inside out.




The greatness of this film has little to do with the narrative, but instead with an attention to detail which conditions a steady sense of unease. Matters of sociological concern are more important to Chabrol's story than the issue of "who done it". The terror of Le Boucher comes from Chabrol’s deliberate direction, his sense of observation, and most importantly his deep interest in character.
The real think piece of Le Boucher is a scene where Héléne takes the children for a tour through the caves of cro-magnon man and then a picnic on a cliff's edge. A sense of subdued horror builds and rather than being manifest in an immediate tragedy it is revealed in fresh drops of blood that fall onto a young girl's sandwich. As if the tension contained within the scene is allowed to bleed out, just a bit, not too much, before we then see the ghastly vision of another victim's body.

It’s a small town, murders are being committed, and the conventional rhythm of a thriller is done away with for a more vivid exploration of violence, its effects on the person, and on a whole community.