I remember watching this movie on TV — apparently in 1983, when I was 13, which is when it premiered — and finding it completely terrifying, huddling with my mom and hoping Wendy and Danny made it out. And ever since then, I've had a vague voice saying "yeah, that was good, but don't watch it again" in the back of my head. (Made easier because I'm in the "Kubrick's cold genius doesn't do it for me" camp, in general.)
Since then,…
It would be hard find a more clear example of the difference between dance numbers as spectacle and dance numbers as expressions of emotions than comparing Busby Berkeley's "Lullaby of Broadway" number from Gold Diggers of 1935 and "Never Gonna Dance," the last big dance number in this movie.
They're both exquisite, but the former is essentially a standalone piece with no actual connection to the plot of the film it's in (no one in the movie ever gets near…
If Spielberg did not use this film as visual inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark, I'll eat Roy Scheider's sweaty old hat.
Amazingly, I was a little bored up until the bridge crossing scene, which is immediately followed by another amazing bridge crossing scene.
Scheider is solid but I read that Robert Mitchum turned down the role, and that's a version I'd have been even more excited about seeing. (“Why would I want to go to Ecuador for two…
Perfect for so long that it's hard to pinpoint exactly when it slips into just being very, very good.
I'm in the middle of rereading Chandler's original novel* and I suspect this is hobbled a bit by needing to be a "Bogart and Bacall" vehicle. I don't mind them rearranging the already slippery book, but their relationship pales next to the heat that Bogart and Dorothy Malone have in her one scene. (Then again that's one of the sexiest, smolderiest…
