Imitation of Life (1959)

A struggling young actress with a six year-old daughter sets up housekeeping with a homeless black widow and her light-skinned eight year-old daughter who rejects her mother by trying to pass for white.

Beauty! Romance! Betrayal!

12 February 1999 | by Doug Phillips (janabro@aol.com) (Seattle, Washington) – See all my reviews

This Five Hanky Weeper is a classic Lana Turner vehicle. She never looked better.

This is a remake of a 1934 Claudette Colbert movie of the same name from a popular Fannie Hurst novel.

The 1934 version is more true to the original story but it is difficult to find and is seldom shown on television.

The story has been rewritten to take full advantage of Ms. Turner’s luminescent beauty. Now, instead of a restaurant owner she is a glamorous star of stage and film.

But the underlying pathos is the same — two women, each with a daughter that does not appreciate the sacrifices their mothers have made.

Before I saw this film I had no idea who Susan Kohner was. She turns out quite a performance and I wonder why she didn’t do more films.

Sandra Dee as Ms. Turner’s daughter is Sandra Dee playing a daughter — you’ve seen it before.

In the final scences when Susan Kohner’s character does her “That’s my momma…” piece you can hear sobs coming from the people in the audience…

Do not be surprised if some of them are yours.

You Can Feel the Soap Coming Right Out of the TV.

Author: nycritic
17 March 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Douglas Sirk did not do subtle romances; he embellished his stories with interesting yet vaguely exploitative elements more suited to the soap opera genre and then amped the melodrama to eleven.

IMITATION OF LIFE, basically a romantic potboiler by Fannie Hurst that would not be out of place in an Oprah’s Book of the Month, is here given the grand Technicolor treatment and stars Lana Turner — not particularly known for warmth or romantic heroines. This for the most part, is her movie and even as a struggling actress (hard to believe given her icy beauty) she is dressed impeccably and seems quite well-to-do despite her character being a waitress. That she improbably forms an alliance with Juanita Moore and her daughter Sarah Jane in tow (who cries at the drop of a hat and later has what seems to be a moment when she quietly cracks as she says “White, like me”) is only to set the stage for the “racial confusion” that develops later on (and drives the majority of events) and would color the film with “controversial elements”.

That Turner’s success as an actress seems as forced as her romance with daughter’s love interest doesn’t detract the soapy elements of IMITATION, but Susan Kohner, playing Sarah Jane all grown up, steals the show and is the only one who rises above the drivel that surrounds her, carrying a lot of the film’s weight in its second half. In playing her racial trauma and need for survival at least her story fits the times; light skinned blacks admit that they did have to “pass for white” in order to move on up, and with Kohner being half white, half Mexican only hammers the point home even more and exposes a lot of hypocrisy that at the time a light-skinned African-American actress would and could not be cast for this part.

The best scene comes when Kohner’s beau, on discovering she is actually black, all but rapes her in a dark alley. It’s the only sequence that doesn’t reek of soap, and although Kohner’s storyline eventually becomes muddled with her melodramatic interaction with Moore and her later appearance at her mother’s funeral, it’s really the most poignant part of this film and manages to reveal its soul. This was the cornerstone of Douglas Sirk movies: tell a good, tissue-friendly yarn that in its second half and conclusion would punch the audience with a strong moral and in this he succeeded, with followers in Herbert Ross’ STEEEL MAGNOLIAS and James L. Brooks TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.

Douglas Sirk, after this film, would basically retire and leave behind a collection of overblown melodramas that have quite a following..

A Real Tear Jerker

26 December 2003 | by smrhyne (North Carolina) – See all my reviews

I have seen this movie a countless number of times and know the dialogue by heart. Each time I watch it, I say, “I’m not going to cry this time”. Sometimes I almost make it, but then Mahalia Jackson starts to sing and I lose it. My children don’t understand why Sarah Jane wanted to pass for white. I tried to explain to them that in that day and age, it was sometimes necessary. The beautiful Susan Kohner steals the film. It’s a shame that she only made a handful of movies. To me the most heart-wrenching scene is where Annie visits Sarah Jane in her hotel room. She says’ “I want to hold you my arms one more time. Just like you were my baby.” I puddle up just writing about it.

In Lana Turner’s biography, she writes about the making of this movie. It was made shortly after her daughter stabbed Lana’s gangster boyfriend to death. She said that when you see her crying in the funeral scene, those tears were real. When Mahalia started to sing “Troubles of the World”, all of her troubles started to come back to her and she got up and ran out of the church. They had to run after her and bring her back to complete the scene.

Annie Hall (1977)

Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. Produced by Allen’s manager, Charles H. Joffe, the film stars the director as Alvy “Max” Singer, who tries to figure out the reasons for the failure of his relationship with the film’s eponymous female lead, played by Diane Keaton in a role written specifically for her.

Principal photography for the film began on May 19, 1976 on the South Fork of Long Island, and filming continued periodically for the next ten months. Allen has described the result, which marked his first collaboration with cinematographer Gordon Willis, as “a major turning point”, in that unlike the farces and comedies that were his work to that point, it introduced a new level of seriousness. Academics have noted the contrast in the settings of New York City and Los Angeles, the stereotype of gender differences in sexuality, the presentation of Jewish identity, and the elements of psychoanalysis and modernism.

Annie Hall was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in March 1977, before its official release on April 20, 1977. The film received widespread critical acclaim, and along with winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, it received Oscars in three other categories: two for Allen (Best Director and, with Brickman, Best Original Screenplay), and Keaton for Best Actress. The film additionally won four BAFTA awards and a Golden Globe, the latter being awarded to Keaton. Its North American box office receipts of $38,251,425 are fourth-best in the director’s oeuvre when not adjusted for inflation. Often listed among the greatest film comedies, it ranks 31st on AFI’s list of the top feature films in American cinema, fourth on their list of top comedy films and number 28 on Bravo’s “100 Funniest Movies.” Film critic Roger Ebert called it “just about everyone’s favorite Woody Allen movie”.^[3] The film has been named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the “101 Funniest Screenplays.”

The comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is trying to understand why his relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) ended a year ago. Growing up in New York, he vexed his mother with impossible questions about the emptiness of existence, but he was precocious about his innocent sexual curiosity.

Annie and Alvy, in a line for The Sorrow and the Pity, overhear another man deriding the work of Federico Fellini and Marshall McLuhan; McLuhan himself steps in at Alvy’s invitation to criticize the man’s comprehension. That night, Annie shows no interest in sex with Alvy. Instead, they discuss his first wife (Carol Kane), whose ardor gave him no pleasure. His second marriage was to a New York writer who didn’t like sports and was unable to reach orgasm.

With Annie, it is different. The two of them have fun making a meal of boiled lobster together. He teases her about the unusual men in her past. He met her playing tennis doubles with friends. Following the game, awkward small talk led her to offer him first a ride up town and then a glass of wine on her balcony. There, what seemed a mild exchange of trivial personal data is revealed in “mental subtitles” as an escalating flirtation. Their first date follows Annie’s singing audition for a night club (“It Had to be You“). He suggests they kiss first, to get it out of the way. After their lovemaking that night, Alvy is “a wreck”, while she relaxes with a joint.

Soon Annie admits she loves him, while he buys her books on death and says that his feelings for her are more than just love. When she moves in with him, things become very tense. Eventually, he finds her arm in arm with one of her college professors and the two begin to argue whether this is the “flexibility” they had discussed. They eventually break up, and he searches for the truth of relationships, asking strangers on the street about the nature of love, questioning his formative years, until he casts himself in Snow White opposite Annie’s Evil Queen.

Alvy returns to dating, but the effort is marred by neurosis, bad sex, and finally an interruption from Annie, who insists he come over immediately. It turns out she needs him to kill a spider. A reconciliation follows, coupled with a vow to stay together come what may. However, their separate discussions with their therapists make it evident there is an unspoken divide. When Alvy accepts an offer to present an award on television, they fly out to Los Angeles, with Alvy’s friend, Rob (Tony Roberts). However, on the return trip, they agree that their relationship is not working. After losing her to her record producer, Tony Lacey (Paul Simon), he unsuccessfully tries rekindling the flame with a marriage proposal. Back in New York, he stages a play of their relationship but changes the ending: now she accepts.

The last meeting for them is a wistful coda on New York’s Upper West Side, when they have both moved on to someone new. Alvy’s voice returns with a summation: love is essential, especially if it is neurotic. Annie sings “Seems Like Old Times” and the credits roll.

Several references in the film to Allen’s own life have invited speculation that it is autobiographical. Both Alvy and Allen were comedians. His birthday appears on the blackboard in a school scene; certain features of his childhood are found in Alvy Singer’s; Allen went to New York University and so did Alvy. Diane Keaton’s real surname is “Hall” and “Annie” was her nickname, and she and Allen were once romantically involved However, Allen is quick to dispel these suggestions. “The stuff that people insist is autobiographical is almost invariably not,” Allen said. “It’s so exaggerated that it’s virtually meaningless to the people upon whom these little nuances are based. People got it into their heads that Annie Hall was autobiographical, and I couldn’t convince them it wasn’t”. Contrary to various interviewers and commentators, he says, Alvy is not the character that is closest to himself; he identified more with the mother (Eve, played by Geraldine Page) in his next film, Interiors. Despite this, Keaton has stated that the relationship between Alvy and Annie was partly based on her relationship with the director.

The role of Annie Hall was written specifically for Keaton, who had worked with Allen on Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975). She considered the character an “affable version” of herself—both were “semi-articulate, dreamed of being a singer and suffered from insecurity”—and was surprised to win an Oscar for her performance. The film also marks the second film collaboration between Allen and Tony Roberts, their previous project being Play It Again, Sam.

Federico Fellini was Allen’s first choice to appear in the cinema lobby scene because his films were under discussion,but Allen chose cultural academic Marshall McLuhan after both Fellini and Luis Buñuel declined the cameo. Some cast members, Baxter claims, were aggrieved at Allen’s treatment of them. The director “acted coldly” towards McLuhan, who had to return from Canada for reshooting, and Mordecai Lawner, who played Alvy’s father, claimed that Allen never spoke to him. However, during the production, Allen began a two-year relationship with Stacey Nelkin, who appears in a single scene..

Allen saw the Coney Island Thunderbolt when scouting locations and wrote it into the script as Alvy’s childhood home.

Days of Heaven (1978)

A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.

Quiet passion, quiet beauty

5 September 2000 | by Caledonia Twin #1 – See all my reviews

“Days of Heaven” is a beautiful film with fantastic panoramic cinematography. It’s hard to say what it is about this film that captivated me from the start. I didn’t expect to enjoy it when I read about the plot. Farm workers? How could that be interesting… But oh, the haunting, heavenly silence of the fields undulating in the wind, a silence not sundered by any garish music. Everything about this film is tangible, real, alive. The dialogue is sparse, believable, the bond between Bill and Abby is one of quiet passion that needs no dramatic proclamations to fuel it. And Sam Shepard’s farmer is touching. I don’t use that word very often, but I’ll venture it here. I have watched this film now several times, and it is a delight each time when the farmer first sees Abby. This perhaps the strongest and most believable love triangle ever put to film, and in my opinion, the most compelling.

Production began in the fall of 1976. Although the film was set in Texas, the exteriors were shot in Whiskey Gap, Alberta, a ghost town, and a final scene was shot on the grounds of Heritage Park Historical Village, Calgary.

Jack Fisk designed and built the mansion from plywood in the wheat fields and the smaller houses where the workers lived. The mansion was not a facade, as was normally the custom, but authentically recreated inside and out with period colors: brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors. Patricia Norris designed and made the period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes.

To film the scene with the locusts, where the insects rise into the sky, the film-makers dropped peanut shells from helicopters. The actors had to walk backwards while running the film in reverse through the camera and achieve the effect. When it was projected, everything moved forward except the locusts.

According to Almendros, the production was not “rigidly prepared”, allowing for improvisation. Daily call sheets were not very detailed and the schedule changed to suit the weather. This upset some Hollywood crew members not used to working this way. Most of the crew were used to a “glossy style of photography” and felt frustrated because Almendros did not give them much work.

On a daily basis, he asked them to turn off the lights they had prepared for him. Some crew members said that Almendros and Malick did not know what they were doing. The tension led to some of the crew quitting the production. Malick supported what Almendros was doing and pushed the look of the film further, taking away more lighting aids, and leaving the image bare.

Due to union regulations in North America, Almendros was not allowed to operate the camera. With Malick, he would plan out and rehearse movements of the camera and the actors. Almendros would stand near the main camera and give instructions to the camera operators.

Almendros was gradually losing his sight by the time shooting began. To evaluate his set-ups, “he had one of his assistants take Polaroids of the scene, then examined them through very strong glasses”. According to Almendros, Malick wanted “a very visual movie. The story would be told through visuals. Very few people really want to give that priority to image. Usually the director gives priority to the actors and the story, but here the story was told through images”.

Much of the film would be shot during magic hour, which Almendros called: “a euphemism, because it’s not an hour but around 25 minutes at the most. It is the moment when the sun sets, and after the sun sets and before it is night. The sky has light, but there is no actual sun. The light is very soft, and there is something magic about it. It limited us to around twenty minutes a day, but it did pay on the screen. It gave some kind of magic look, a beauty and romanticism.”

Lighting was integral to filming and helped evoke the painterly quality of the landscapes in the film. A vast majority of the scenes were filmed late in the afternoon or after sunset, with the sky silhouetting the actors faces, which would otherwise be difficult to see. Interior scenes that feature light coming in from the outside, were shot using artificial light to maintain the consistency of that intruding light. The “magic look”, however, would also extend to interior scenes, which did occasionally utilize natural light.

For the shot in the “locusts” sequence, where the insects rise into the sky, the film-makers dropped peanut shells from helicopters. They had the actors walk backwards while running the film in reverse through the camera. When it was projected, everything moved forward except the locusts. For the close-ups and insert shots, thousands of live locusts were used which had been captured and supplied by Canada’s Department of Agriculture.

While the photography yielded the director satisfactory results critically, the rest of the production was difficult from the start. The actors and crew reportedly viewed Malick as cold and distant. After two weeks of shooting, Malick was so disappointed with the dailies, he “decided to toss the script, go Leo Tolstoy instead of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, wide instead of deep [and] shoot miles of film with the hope of solving the problems in the editing room.”

The harvesting machines constantly broke down, which resulted in shooting beginning late in the afternoon, allowing for only a few hours of light before it was too dark to go on. One day, two helicopters were scheduled to drop peanut shells that were to simulate locusts on film; however, Malick decided to shoot period cars instead. He kept the helicopters on hold at great cost. Production was lagging behind, with costs exceeding the budget $3,000,000 by about $800,000, and Schneider had already mortgaged his home in order to cover the overages.

The production ran so late that both Almendros and camera operator John Bailey had to leave due to a prior commitment on François Truffaut‘s The Man Who Loved Women (1977). Almendros approached cinematographer Haskell Wexler to complete the film. They worked together for a week so that Wexler could get familiar with the film’s visual style.

Wexler was careful to match Almendros’ work, but he did make some exceptions. “I did some hand held shots on a Panaflex”, he said, “[for] the opening of the film in the steel mill. I used some diffusion. Nestor didn’t use any diffusion.

I felt very guilty using the diffusion and having (sic) the feeling of violating a fellow cameraman.” Although half the finished picture was footage shot by Wexler, he received only credit for “additional photography”, much to his chagrin. The credit denied him any chance of an Academy Award for his work on Days of Heaven. Wexler sent film critic Roger Ebert a letter “in which he described sitting in a theater with a stop-watch to prove that more than half of the footage” was his.

Radio Days (1987)

Directed by	Woody Allen

Cinematography	Carlo Di Palma

A nostalgic look at radio’s golden age focusing on one ordinary family and the various performers in the medium.

Woody Allen’s own “Amarcord”

21 August 2006 | by Galina (Virginia, USA) – See all my reviews

Radio Days (1987)- written, directed, and narrated by Allen:

What a beautiful, kind, gentle, ironic, warm, sentimental (in a very good way and yes, I am talking about Woody Allen’s movie, that’s right) yet perfectly balanced delight. It is a series of sketches about young Joe (young Allen, of course, played by Seth Green – that was a surprise), an adolescent in Brooklyn, NY during 1930s-1940s who was passionately in love with radio which was a king.

The film is a tribute to the magical radio days and the myths and legends about radio personalities, the memory of a grown man who never forgot where he came from, the love letter to his always fighting and arguing (“I mean, how many people argue over oceans?”) but loving relatives and a very funny comedy (the way only Allen’s comedy can be). It is the film where pretty like a doll and painfully naive Sally (Mia Farrow) asks who Pearl Harbor is? Where gorgeous Diane Keaton sings and Diane Wiest, his beloved Aunt Bea never gives up hope of one true love. He never told us if she found it…

“I never forgot that New Year’s Eve when Aunt Bea awakened me to watch 1944 come in. I’ve never forgotten any of those people or any of the voices we would hear on the radio. Though the truth is, with the passing of each New Year’s Eve, those voices do seem to grow dimmer and dimmer.”

The Radio days are gone but thanks to Allen, the voices of the times passed are still clear and sound and they always will be.

A Masterpiece. Amazing.

Author: Kieran Kenney from California
16 June 2003

Radio Days has got to be one of my absolute favorite films of all time. To me, it’s a film that balances story, characters and atmosphere better than just about any other. It’s truly a great work of art, and a very, very underrated one. The best thing about it is how Allen’s love for his subject, the romantic nostalgia he feels, translates so eloquently to the screen. You’ve also got to hand it to the cast. Diane Weist, Julie Kavner, Mia Farrow, Josh Mostel, a briefly-glimpsed Jeff Daniels, and a young Seth Green all give great performances that are right out of the period, yet instantly recognizable. Allen had Santo Loquasto, his art director, do a bang-up job on creating the world of early-1940s Rockaway, New York, and Jeffrey Kurland’s costumes help immensely.

Particularly note-worthy is Carlo Di Palma’s stunning cinematography. The colours, the smoky nightclubs and soundstages, the dimly-lit nighteries and the dazzling rooftop set come to life like few sets do in films. And then there’s the music. That dazzling array of classic music, from one of the best periods for it in American history. Allen’s decision to use only music from that time might sound cliche, but he’s definatly justified here. And there’s always the Radio Show Themes piece by Dick Hyman (I’m always by that name) that accompanies many of the scenes. That piece of music alone is worth seeing the film. As you can probably tell, I love this film simply for the fact that it’s such a charming, enchanting, beautiful film. It’s one I’d show my children, even the nude dancing scene, had I any children to show it to. Woody Allen’s turn in the films he’s made lately (as of 2003) are, to me, pretty depressing and perverse, with none of the charm, life and humor that works like Radio Days symbolize, Sweet and Lowdown notwithstanding. Hopefully, more films like this gem are on the horizon.

Recollecting Can Be Meaningful

Author: canadude
6 August 2004

I thought I was being original when I made the connection between Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” and Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord,” but I was being naive. The parallels are so transparent it is of no surprise that most of the IMDB reviewers (and I imagine those others as well) caught the similarity.

And it’s a good similarity – “Radio Days” is as successful in transporting the viewer to a different place and time as “Amarcord” was. It also cements my conclusion that Woody Allen is the only director who “spoofs” great art films and artistic styles, confirmed by his tributes to Ingmar Bergman and German Expressionists.

All that aside, “Radio Days” is, second of all, a look at Allen’s childhood memories weaved together by radio. It’s the story of his family (his large and extended family and neighborhood personages), their likes, dislikes, relationships and favorite radio shows. They are inextricably connected as genetic members of a family, but also more intangibly linked by radio broadcasts, to which they listen to individually as well as collectively. They have favorite songs and shows – each favorite reflecting the personality of a given character. They also share great love for one another, though they quibble like all human beings do. In fact, that tender quibbling, love and loss and understanding is what makes Allen’s characters come to life so successfully – no wonder he speaks of them with warmth.

What “Radio Days” is about first of all and foremost, is nostalgia. The film would only be a heartwarming family tale and nothing more if it were not “recollected” by Woody Allen, the narrator. His role in the film (in which he never physically appears) is that of a story-teller. He transports the audience to his memories consciously, mixing present reflections with the unadulterated spirit of his memories. And it is he, not the characters in the film as much, who experiences the nostalgia, the central theme of “Radio Days.”

In narrating his memories, Allen is able to distance himself from them temporally. He is telling a tale that borders on fantasy, such as that on whose form nostalgic memories take place. There is a bittersweet yearning for the past and a realization that memories must inevitably fade, change, yield to time’s destructiveness. Re-telling them not only reveals how one thinks life once was (usually painted over with warmth and pleasantness), but also oneself and the knowledge that these times are no longer physically accessible. How we recollect our past tells us of us as much as it does of the past. In “Radio Days” that past is warm and Allen’s yearning for that warmth and childish innocence is what pervades the film so well giving it its nostalgic quality.

And nostalgia, the film seems to suggest, is a feeling worth experiencing. If one can glance back at his life and feel a longing towards the past, a warmth emanating from his memories, then he remembers life as having been kind to him. Even if the details flee from the mind (as they inevitably do) and only the feelings inspired by hazy memories remain. And that, if nothing else, is not only comforting, but also meaningful.

Everybody’s Family

Author: annmason1 from Bellingham, WA
11 August 2006

This is a wonderful wonderful movie that exemplifies the phrase, “misty watercolored memories.” It is a joy to watch and listen to. The era before and during WWII, however, was anything but wonderful. Radio Days presents a time when America was dealing with the Great Depression and its after effects and the horrible event that was World War II. Since the man narrating the memories was only a boy then, it is altogether fitting and proper that he see things as a child; for as he states in one scene, “our conversation turned from Nazis to more important things,like girls.” No movies, except this one, that I recall, are able to deal with this critical age in American history without conveying the tragic time that it was.

I would like to think this family was really Woody Allen’s, but it is probably a work of fiction, like his other pieces. But how tremendous that he can create (or remember) these people. As I watched it, one thought that kept recurring was that these were not “beautiful” manufactured people like we see in the media today; they had big hips and were fat and poor and… and none of that mattered. They were real. They were believable. You can’t watch this movie without wondering what happened to them, did Aunt Bee find a husband? You cared about this family and personally, I wished they were mine.

The vignettes were sad and sweet. My favorite was poor departed Kirby Kyle; at least he had heart! And Leonard; and “donations for the promotion of a state in Palestine.” So many memories that make us a part of a family most people never had. The viewer belongs to this warm and loving group.

Something has been lost with the concept of “nuclear family,” with the lonely big houses and empty hours and unshared hopes and sorrows. Radio Days reminds us that having someone to experience life with is a treasure and a blessing, despite whacks on the head, martians, and fish, “That man always brings home fish!”

And oh, the music!

This is Woody Allen’s masterpiece.

Well, waddaya know, Woody does have a heart after all . . .

Author: Paul Dana (crystalseachurch@juno.com) from San Francisco, CA, USA
19 April 2001

In preface, let me say that I was born at the tail-end of the “golden age of radio,” but just in time to experience a touch of its magic and the hold it had on households night after night in that pre-TV era. Add to that a favorite aunt who had worked in radio for years on the West Coast and who regaled her nephew with story upon story, which in turn led to the years I later spent in radio (luckily, prior to the “formula radio” days). It all adds up to my absolutely having to go see “Radio Days” when it first came out, despite the fact that I’d never been the world’s foremost Woody Allen fan. Too much of his work, for me, lacked that indefinable but oh so recognizable element of “heart.”

Well, I was wrong about Woody. This film shows it.

Autobiographical — or perhaps semi-autobiographical — in nature, “Radio Days” evokes the time when people returned “to those thrilling days of yesteryear,” and for whom, quite probably, it was equally thrilling to contemplate the magic of a box in their living room that could cause them to “watch” the stories unfold in their minds. “Remotes,” or on-the-spot broadcasts transported them to the scene of unfolding tragedies or triumphs in a way that newspapers never could (and which TV, for all its advantages, rarely matches).

And yet the film, for all its authenticity in recreating studio practices (watch, for example, how the actors drop completed script pages onto the floorrather than turning them and risking a tell-tale rustle of paper), isn’t really so much about radio itself as it is about the people who listened, as personified by one raucous, cantankerous and loving Brooklyn family. Beautifully evoked, particularly by Julie Kavner (Mother), Michael Tucker (Father), and the incomparable Dianne Wiest (as the perenially lovelorn Aunt Bea), it is their reactions to what they hear on the radio — whether listening breathlessly to the war news (at a time when the end result was anything but certain) or Bea’s abandonment in the middle of nowhere by a panicked suitor as Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast takes hold — that bring to life the era and the power of that medium.

Standouts? The whole cast is perfect, but for me, in addition to those previously mentioned, I have to cit Mia Farrow’s portrayal of the dim-bulbed Sally White, who transforms herself with the aid of speech lessons into a radio personality. (For that matter, catch Danny Aiello as a less-than-brilliant hitman, particularly his scenes with Dina DeAngeles as his mom.)

Criticisms? One: At the end of a poignant scene in which young Joe has finally discovered what his dad does for a living, Allen insists on falling into some standby “schtick” in his voiceover. (I guess he couldn’t resist; thankfully, it doesn’t ruin the moment.)

Ultimately, of course, it is the era itself that this film celebrates. Faithfully, and lovingly, it is recreated with a skill that points up its absurdities at the same time it makes one hopefully nostalgic. And, if you’re not very careful, you wind up falling hopelessly in love with this funny, obscure Brooklyn family.

And to the end of my days, I’ll always wonder whether poor Aunt Bea ever did find her “Mr. Right” . .

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Midnight Cowboy (1969)

A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.

An all-time favorite of mine.

10 June 2002 | by capkronos (capkronos00@hotmail.com) (Ohio, USA) – See all my reviews

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest movies ever made in America and it deserved every single award it won and it’s place on the AFI Top 100 list (though it’s shamefully too low on the IMDB Top 250 list, at only #183 as of this writing).

If you enjoy acting of the highest calibre (Voight and Hoffman are a superb match), well-drawn characterizations and inventive direction, editing and cinematography, you’ll love this just as much as I did. Schlesinger paints a vivid, always credible picture of the late 60s New York City scene and it’s many victims struggling to overcome personal demons and survive amidst the amorality, poverty and hopelessness of 42nd Street, New York City.

The filmmaking techniques employed here brilliantly capture the feel of the underground New York film movement (and of the city) and are nothing less than dazzling. I’ve seen many ideas (including the rapid-fire editing, the handling of the voice-over flashbacks, the drug/trip sequences and the cartoonish face slipped in during a murder scene to convey angst and terror) stolen by other filmmakers.

The relationship between Joe and Ratso is handled in such a way as to be viewed as an unusually strong friendship OR having it’s homosexual underpinnings. I think the director handled this in a subtle way not to cop out to the censorship of the times, but rather to concentrate his energies on the importance of a strong human connection in life, whether it be sexual or not.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY is a brave, moving film of magnitude, influence and importance that has lost absolutely none of it’s impact over the years, so if you haven’t seen it, you’re really missing out on a true American classic. I recommend this film to everyone.

Unique

Author: Trimac20 from Australia
23 December 2004

The only reason I knew of Midnight Cowboy was because it was in the AFI Critic’s Top 100. For a top 100 it is not a very well known movie; indeed, I had to look hard to find a copy, I got the DVD version for about half-price. Surprisingly it was only rated M15+ (the uncut version).

I doubt many will take notice of this review (more like comment) so I’ll make it brief.

This is perhaps one of the strangest movies I’ve seen, partly because of the use of montages, artistic filming (very art-house) and the unusual theme. There are many things in the film I still don’t understand (I’ve seen it twice), and it makes for an emotionally confusing film.

The filming and acting were very good, and it is the larger than life characters which make this film memorable. The main character is Joe Buck, a ‘cowboy’ from Texas who moves to New York to become a male prostitute. He meets the crippled conman Enrico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo and, of course they become friends going through the usual escapades. What makes the film interesting is the two characters are so different.

I felt the film didn’t really develop the relationship between Buck and Enrico Rizzo for the audience to have any real emotional connection, although the ending is certainly quite sad and tragic. You probably already know what happens by reading the reviews, but its pretty obvious from the start.

I personally think the film beautifully and poignantly explores its main themes. The deprivation of humanity (shown by the darkness of the city streets, the breaking-down tenements). Most of the characters in the film exist beyond the law (a conman, giggolo.etc) yet you can’t help liking them. Joe Buck is endearing because he is so naive and optimistic, while we begin to feel pity for Ratso later in the film.

I think the film was rated so high because it was certainly very ground-breaking for its period. At the time (And even now) it was definitely not a typical movie (quite art-house). At a time when the cinema was dominated by tired westerns, musicals and dramas a film with such an unusual theme as Midnight Cowboy pops up.

On a personal level, I must say I quite liked the film. The imagery conveyed a dream-like quality. I particularly liked the scene at the party, the music, images etc stay in your mind for a long time after watching. However, as a movie for entertainment’s sake it was a bit lacking (not really my style of movie) in thrills. This is a film to be savoured and appreciated, rather than a cheap thrills action flick.

Although I would hardly consider myself qualified to analyse this film, the characters and their motives were quite interesting. From what I understand from the flashbacks, Joe Buck was sexually abused as a child by his grandmother, although it still doesn’t seem to be relevant to the story. He is a happy-go-lucky young stud, who suppresses his darker memories. The religious connotations in the film are also puzzling. Some have suggested a homosexual connection between Buck and Ratso, although I fail to see where they have got the idea from. The theme of homo-sexuality in general is more than touched upon in their conversation, and later in Joe Buck’s encounter with a lonely old man, but it has little to do with the main story.

Certainly from a technical point of view one of the finest films of the decade (it has more of a 70s feel to it than a 60s feel) and revolutionary for its time touching on subjects few other films dared to do. While it has a simple, sentimental story to it (disguised by a hard edge) the beauty of the film is in the strange, often psychedelic sequences.

Much better than expected

Author: MovieAddict2016 from UK
5 December 2004

I sat down to watch “Midnight Cowboy” thinking it would be another overrated ’60s/’70s movie. Some of my favorite films come from the ’70s, in the same vein as “Midnight Cowboy” (“Taxi Driver,” “Mean Streets,” “Panic in Needle Park,” etc.) but there are many, many overrated ones as well that have gained strong reputations amongst critics for being groundbreaking – unfortunately a vast majority of them don’t hold up as well today. I sort of feel this way about “Easy Rider.” (Although it, too, is one of my favorites.)

So, I didn’t expect much from “Midnight Cowboy” but got a lot back. It’s a touching story, well-made and well-told with some of the best performances of all time. Dustin Hoffman, as Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, gives one of his best – it’s a bit funny at times (he sounds like a cartoon character when he speaks – maybe because of the Lenny/”Simpsons” connection), but Hoffman is entirely convincing. Half of the film’s budget went towards his paycheck as he was just becoming a major star in Hollywood. Opposite him is the second-billed Jon Voight as Joe Buck, the “cowboy” who travels North to the Big Apple in the hopes of becoming a male prostitute. Soon his naive ways land him in trouble and he pairs up with a crippled scam artist named “Ratso” – who offers to become Joe’s “manager” for a certain percentage of profits.

The movie is quite long at two hours but never really seems very long. Some films can tend to drag, especially some of the films that were made in the ’70s because (as it’s been said in “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”) the directors were the stars of the movies in the 1970s and occasionally they got a bit too infatuated with their material, going on too long examining characters/scenes/etc. that aren’t important. Just about the only scene I felt was a bit too long and unnecessary was the drug party – it makes the film seem extremely outdated (similar to the drug odysseys in “Easy Rider”) and really harms its flow because it’s not needed.

Other than that, “Midnight Cowboy” is an almost flawless motion picture. I was pleasantly surprised. It does have its flaws (flashbacks are a bit tacky and never used as well as they could have been, for instance) and some of the scenes are a bit uneasy (such as the gay movie theater sequence) but if you can handle its content “Midnight Cowboy” is a truly great motion picture, an uncompromising examination of life on the streets in the late ’60s/early ’70s.

It’s a depressing movie, yes, and by today’s standards might seem a bit outdated and heavy on the liberal perspective of “life is horrible, etc.”…but I still love it and particularly the extremely touching ending will stay with me for a long, long time.

Highly recommended. One of the best films of the ’70s. (It was technically released in late 1969 but I’d still categorize it as a 1970s film. It also won the Best Picture Oscar, being the first – and only – X-rated motion picture to do so. It was later re-rated R on appeal.)

Two Stellar Performances and a Pervasive Honesty Make This One Still a Winner

Author: Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA
5 April 2006

It’s not quite the timeless masterpiece you would hope it would be based on the acclaim it garnered, but 1969’s “Midnight Cowboy” is still a powerhouse showcase for two young actors just bursting into view at the time.

Directed by John Schlesinger and written by Waldo Salt, the movie seems to be a product of its time, the late 1960’s when American films were especially expressionistic, but it still casts a spell because the story comes down to themes of loneliness and bonding that resonate no matter what period. The film’s cinematic influence can still be felt in the unspoken emotionalism found in Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain”.

The meandering plot follows Joe Buck, a naive, young Texan who decides to move to Manhattan to become a stud-for-hire for rich women. Full of energy but lacking any savvy, he fails miserably but is unwilling to concede defeat despite his dwindling finances. He meets a cynical, sickly petty thief named “Ratso” Rizzo, who first sees Joe as an easy pawn. The two become dependent on one another, and Rizzo begins to manage Joe. Things come to a head at a psychedelic, drug-infested party where Joe finally lands a paying client. Meanwhile, Rizzo becomes sicker, and the two set off for Florida to seek a better life. This is not a story that will appeal to everyone, in fact, some may still find it repellent that a hustler and a thief are turned into sympathetic figures, yet their predicaments feel achingly authentic.

In his first major role, Jon Voight is ideally cast as he brings out Joe’s paper-thin bravado and deepening sexual insecurities. As Rizzo, Dustin Hoffman successfully upends his clean, post-college image from “The Graduate” and immerses himself in the personal degradation and glimmering hope that act as an oddly compatible counterpoint to Joe. The honesty of their portrayals is complemented by Schlesinger’s film treatment which vividly captures the squalor of the Times Square district at the time. The director also effectively inserts montages of flashbacks and fantasy sequences to fill in the character’s fragile psyches. Credit also needs to go to Salt for not letting the pervasive cynicism overwhelm the pathos of the story. The other performances are merely incidental to the journeys of the main characters, including Brenda Vaccaro as the woman Joe meets at the party, Sylvia Miles as a blowsy matron, John McGiver as a religious zealot and Barnard Hughes as a lonely out-of-towner.

The two-disc 2006 DVD package contains a pristine print transfer of the 1994 restoration and informative commentary from producer Jerome Hellman since unfortunately neither Schlesinger nor Salt are still living. There are three terrific featurettes on the second disc – a look-back documentary, “After Midnight: Reflections on a Classic 35 Years Later”, which features comments from Hellman, Hoffman, Voight and others, as well as clips and related archive footage such as Voight’s screen test; “Controversy and Acclaim”, which examines the genesis of the movie’s initial ‘X’ rating and public response to the film; and a tribute to the director, “Celebrating Schlesinger”.

Brilliant counter-culture film

Author: camadon from United States
18 February 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Midnight Cowboy opens with a run down Drive In theater with the voice-over of the main character Joe Buck (Jon Voight) singing in the shower. He is singing a cowboy song, the very thing he strives to be. Joe picks up his humdrum life living in Texas and moves it to New York City with the dream of lots of women, and even more money. He dresses as the epitome of the cowboy, but in a cartoonish fashion, not even his friends take him seriously. He begins his journey on the bus to NYC and we can quickly see how diluted Joe is through his interactions with the other passengers. This is primarily a story of Joe’s realization of the harsh realities of the real world.

He starts off as a very naïve southerner thinking he can make it in NYC just on his good looks. He has no other reason to think otherwise, as they proved helpful in the past; we learn this from the many flashbacks he has. In the beginning the flashbacks are filmed in a way that portrays them as being somewhat whimsical.

They are hazy and the voices sound as if they are coming from a great distance, as they are, they are coming out of his past. However, as Joe delves deeper and deeper into the reality of the harsh atmosphere of NYC we see more of his past, which is no longer whimsical but gritty, filmed in black and white with rapid editing to portray the cruel nature of the past events. This is especially seen in the flashback of him and his girlfriend being assaulted, and her being raped. In one of these flashbacks we see a building being torn down brick by brick. This mirrors the way in which Joe himself is falling apart; the naiveté that he once carried is falling off of him. He and Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) are living in squalor, and barely able to get food to eat; Joe is realizing he cannot live off of his looks, that there is a gritty underbelly of New York that he didn’t envision. His subconscious mirrors the way in which his real life is panning out.

Ratso is also serves as a kind of mirror to Joe, but in an opposite way; Ratso is Joe’s foil. Joe is a handsome, strong man who, for the most part, has a good outward appearance. Ratso, on the other hand, from the very first time we see him sitting next to Joe in the bar we can tell he is the opposite. He is short, dark, and always coated with a sheen of sweat. He understands how the world works, that it is unforgiving, and sometimes no matter how hard you try you will fail; just as his father did. They are living in the same world, the same apartment even, but they understand things on a completely different level.

The theme of alienation, one that is common of this era, is very apparent in this film. Neither Joe nor Ratso fit into the culture surrounding them. Joe feels trapped in Texas and moves to NYC where he is still very much an outsider. Ratso, living in the cold of NYC, wishes to move to sunny Florida where he thinks he will be able to find a good life. Even though this is his ideal, in the fantasy we get from Ratso’s perspective, it is apparent that he knows he will never really fit into society. In said fantasy he is turned on by the people living around him, he is yet again an outsider, alienated from society.

It is not until the end that the gap between Joe and Ratso begins to narrow. Joe resorts to violence; he takes on the mentality of this city in order to get money to fund a means of escape for Florida for himself and Ratso. On the journey we see Joe coming out of a store not wearing the cowboy clothes that he is never without in the rest of the film. He is dressed as someone who looks like they are headed to Florida for vacation.

He dresses Ratso the same way; he tires to make them fit into the new society they are entering, but it is to no avail. Upon Ratso’s death on the bus, their fellow passengers once again look them upon as outsiders. Even in this new culture they have entered, they cannot escape the alienation they have met at every turn in this film. Despite the Ratso’s death, and Joe’s continued alienation, the film ends with the hope that Joe can take his new knowledge of how the world works and create a better life than he would have had as a hustler in NYC. Midnight Cowboy is an excellent film portraying the harsh reality of society, and alienation, with stellar performances by both Voight and Hoffman.

It gets better with every passing year

Author: Martin Bradley (MOscarbradley@aol.com) from Derry, Ireland
3 August 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

“Midnight Cowboy” was never a great movie to start with but it is a classic. You know it’s a classic the moment its insistent theme song, ‘Everybody’s Talking’ starts up on the soundtrack, (actually not written for the film), and the way the camera introduces us to Joe Buck, (naked and in the shower). We had seen Jon Voight before but had never really noticed him but when he tells us he’s ‘one helluva stud’ who’s to doubt him?

This was a great performance that had iconic star status as well as a complete grasp of the character and if Voight had never done anything else, his performance here would still be legendary. As it is Voight has seldom disappointed on screen; even a piece of ham as well cured as his performance in that glorious rubbish “Anaconda” is a source of pleasure).

The film became famous and infamous almost overnight. It was a crowd-pleaser, (even with its downbeat ending), funny and sexy and recognizably ‘real’; (it was the tail-end of the sixties and all the characters rang true). It was also the first ‘X’ rated film to win the Oscar as the year’s Best Picture. Adapted, (brilliantly), by Waldo Salt from a James Leo Herlihy novel it was probably the first main-stream commercial American movie to deal with ‘taboo’ subjects such as homosexuality and drug-taking in a matter-of-fact manner. Everyone is recognizably human, warts and all, and everyone is treated sympathetically.

Voight’s Joe Buck is an innocent abroad, a Candide who comes to New York to seek his fortune as a hustler, (a profession he sees as glamorous and not seedy; he’s a cross between a gigolo and a social worker). But when he himself is hustled by a scraggy, wormy little con-man called ‘Ratso’ Rizzo, (Dustin Hoffman, fresh from “The Graduate” and he’s a revelation), he realizes that perhaps the reality is a little different from the pipe-dream.

Essentially it’s a male love story, (though totally platonic), between these two not so unlikely bedfellows. Both totally alone, both totally needy each becomes the protector of the other, (Voight with his physical prowess, Hoffman with his street-wise savvy). They are misfits adrift from the mainstream, tolerant of their own peculiarities and the deviances of others. Though ‘straight’ Voight isn’t beyond a homosexual encounter in a 42nd street cinema with a boy even lonelier than himself. (The whole film posits a strangely ‘Christian’ attitude).

It’s also magnificently acted. While Voight and Hoffman hold the screen throughout there are superb vignettes from the likes of Brenda Vaccaro and Sylvia Miles as well as John McGiver, Bob Balaban and Bernard Hughes as sundry customers and hangers-on, beautifully delineated little character studies that seem to transcend acting altogether while John Schlesinger’s direction gives the film the feel of a documentary as well as an alien’s totally detached eye-view of the American under-belly without rancor and without criticism. On second thoughts, maybe it is a great movie after all.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Cinematography	Michael Chapman

Directed by	Martin Scorsese

Travis Bickle, a 26-year-old honorably discharged U.S. Marine, is a lonely, depressed young man living on his own in New York City. He becomes a taxi driver to cope with his chronic insomnia, driving passengers every night around the city’s boroughs. He also spends time in seedy porn theaters and keeps a diary. Travis becomes infatuated with Betsy, a campaign volunteer for Senator and presidential candidate Charles Palantine. After watching her interact with fellow worker Tom through her window, Travis enters to volunteer as a pretext to talk to her, and takes her out for coffee. On a later date, he takes her to see a Swedish sex education film, which offends her, and she goes home alone. His attempts at reconciliation by sending flowers are rebuffed, so he berates her at the campaign office, before being kicked out by Tom.

Travis confides in fellow taxi driver Wizard about his thoughts, which are beginning to turn violent, but Wizard assures him that he will be fine, leaving Travis to his own destructive path. Travis is disgusted by the sleaze, dysfunction, and prostitution that he witnesses throughout the city, and attempts to find an outlet for his frustrations by beginning a program of intense physical training. A fellow taxi driver refers Travis to illegal gun dealer Easy Andy, from whom he buys a number of handguns. At home, Travis practices drawing his weapons and constructs a sleeve gun to hide and then quickly deploy a gun from his sleeve. One night, Travis enters a convenience store moments before an attempted armed robbery and he shoots and kills the robber. The shop owner takes responsibility for the shooting, taking Travis’ handgun. On another night, child prostitute Iris enters Travis’s cab, attempting to escape her pimp Matthew “Sport” Higgins.

Sport drags Iris from the cab and throws Travis a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, which continually reminds him of her and the corruption that surrounds him. Some time later, Travis hires Iris, but instead of having sex with her, attempts to dissuade her from continuing in prostitution. He fails to completely turn her from her course, but she does agree to meet with him for breakfast the next day. Travis leaves a letter to Iris at his apartment saying he will soon be dead, with money for her to return home.

After shaving his head into a mohawk, Travis attends a public rally, where he plans to assassinate Senator Palantine, but Secret Service agents notice him with his hand in his coat and chase him. He flees and later goes to the East Village to invade Sport’s brothel. A violent gunfight ensues and Travis kills Sport, a bouncer, and a mafioso. Travis is severely injured with multiple gunshot wounds. Iris witnesses the fight and is hysterical with fear, pleading with Travis to stop the killing. After the gunfight, Travis attempts suicide, but has run out of ammunition and resigns himself to lying on a sofa until police arrive. When they do, he places his index finger against his temple gesturing the act of shooting himself.

Travis, having recovered from his wounds and returning to work, praised by favorable press reports for hitting the bad guys, receives a letter from Iris’ father thanking him for saving her life and revealing that she has returned home to Pittsburgh, where she is going to school. Later, he also reconciles with Betsy when dropping her off at home in his cab. As she tries to pay her fare, Travis simply smiles at her, turns off the meter and drives off.

An Unforgettable Movie and Lead Character

3 April 2006 | by ccthemovieman-1 (United States) – See all my reviews

“Travis Bickle” has to be one of the most fascinating characters ever put on film, and this has to still rank as one of the best post-film noir era “noirs” ever made.

Yeah the story is a bit seedy but it’s an incredibly interesting portrait of a mentaly unbalanced cab driver (Bickle, played by Robert De Niro) and his obsessions with “cleaning up” New York City.

In addition to De Niro’s stunning performance, we see a young and gorgeous Cybill Shepherd and a very, very young (12 years old) Jodie Foster. I’ve always wondered what kind of parents would allow their 12-year-old daughter to play a role like this, but that’s another subject. Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel (with shoulder-length hair!) and Peter Boyle all lend good supporting help.

Bickle’s transformation from a “disturbed” cabbie to a fully-deranged assassin is fantastic to watch, and includes one of the classic scenes in all film history: Bickle talking to the mirror and repeating the question, “You talking’ to me?” That scene, and seeing De Niro in a Mohawk haircut later at a political rally are two scenes I’ll never forget.

The more times I’ve watched this, the more I appreciate the cinematography and the music in here. There are some wonderful night shots of the city’s oil and rain-slicked streets. Also, Bernard Herrmann eerie soundtrack is an instrumental part of the success of this film and should never be neglected in discussing this film.

Director Martin Scorcese has made a number of well-known (but not particularly box-office successful) films, and I still think this early effort of his was his best. He’s never equaled it, although I think he and De Niro almost pulled it off five years later with another whacked-out character, “Rupert Pupkin” In “The King Of Comedy.”

In any case, there is no debate that Scorcese and De Niro are a great team and that Taxi Driver is one of the most memorable movies of the Seventies.

Disturbing, powerful, relevant, important

Author: Drew (andrew7@erols.com) from New Brunswick, NJ USA
17 November 1999
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A towering classic of American cinematic power. Martin Scorsese teams up with one of the most intense actors of that time to create a masterpiece of urban alienation. Paul Schrader’s magnificent script paints a portrait of loneliness in the largest city of the world. Travis never once enters into a meaningful relationship with any character anywhere in the film. He is the most hopelessly alone person I’ve ever encountered on film.

He is alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts are dark ones. The film fools you on a first viewing. Is Travis an endearing eccentric? Sure, he’s odd, but he’s so polite, and he’s got a quirky sense of humor. His affection for Betsy is actually rather endearing. But on a second view, you see it for what it is. The audience comes to see Travis’s psychosis gradually, but there’s actually far less development than one might think. When he talks about cleaning up the city, the repeat viewer knows he doesn’t mean some sort of Giuliani-facelift. This is less a film about a character in development as it is a kind of snapshot. To be sure, it takes the stimulus to provoke the response, but does that imply some kind of central change in the character?

Tremendous supporting roles are brought to life through vivid performances by Keitel and Foster especially. Shepard’s character, Betsy, is little more than a foil to highlight Travis’s utter alienation from society, but she is still impeccably portrayed. With only two scenes that don’t center on Travis, it is unavoidably De Niro’s show.

The life with which the supporting cast imbues their characters is a credit to themselves, and to the director’s willingness to let the film develop from the intersection of diverse ideas and approaches. What would the plot lose by eliminating the Albert Brooks character (Tom)? Nothing at all. He makes almost no impact on Travis’s life, which is where the plot lives. But his inclusion makes the film as a whole much richer and fuller.

As a piece of American cinema history, this film will live forever. But far more important than that, this film will survive as a universal, ever-relevant examination of the workings of the alienated mind. The story doesn’t end when the credits roll. We know Travis will snap again. But the story doesn’t end with Travis either. It continues today in the cities and in the schools. The film is about the brutal power of the disaffected mind.

This film didn’t cause the incidents in Colombine, or Hawaii, or Seattle, or wherever you care to look, even with all of its disturbing images of violence. It didn’t cause those things. It predicted them.

A story about a lonely man

Author: David Antonio from Spain
16 May 2004

Taxi Driver is one of the best films ever made. This is one of those films that you do not get tired of seeing and every time you watch it you realize a little detail that you have not seen before. Excellent actors, a good director, an impressive soundtrack and a real story are the main appeals of this film.

This film is about loneliness, about the isolation of a man in a society full of scum. His objective is to finish with the scum of the streets.

The story uses a taxi driver as a metaphor of loneliness and it has some kind of irony because we can see that a city which is full of people can be the most lonely place for a man. The long nights in the city, the night environment full of whores, junkies, pimps and thieves are the main elements of the world in which Travis Bickle lives. Travis is an misunderstood guy who is seeking desperately for some kind of company because as he says ‘loneliness has followed me all my life, everywhere’ but at the same time he seems not to do anything to avoid his situation and it is seen when he goes with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) to a porn cinema. At the end of the film the character makes real his most violent fantasies, with a look of certain soldiers from Vietnam, and he behaves like this because of his loneliness, his alienation and because he does not find any sense to his life. The violent behaviour becomes Travis into a hero, although he had killed many people and he could do it again. Although he acts with an extreme violence the spectator understand him and the reasons why he acts that way.

The soundtrack of the film, which is composed by Bernard Herrmann, inspires some kind of loneliness and sometimes it is absolutely terrifying like in a horror film. This music and the slow camera showing the streets help to introduce the spectator into the world of Travis, to know what he is thinking about.

In general I cannot say any negative aspect of this film because I have not found anything bad. Although it is a film of the 70s it is not an old-fashioned movie because the essence of the story, the reality that is shown on it, can be perfectly referred to the current society. This film has the privilege of having made famous the sentence ‘You talking’ to me? You talking’ to me?’ which will remain in the history of cinema. This is an authentic masterpiece.

A wonderfully engaging and convincing slide into a modern madness from a director and actor showing some of their best form

Author: bob the moo from United Kingdom
13 February 2006

Travis Bickle is a Vietnam veteran who cannot sleep at night and just ends up travelling around. To try and use the time effectively he becomes a taxi driver. Things start to look up for him as he works nights and slowly starts to live a little bit. He meets a girl, Betsy, and arranges to see her a few times despite the fact that he is a little bit out of the ordinary – a quality that seems to interest her. His connection to the night allows him to see young prostitute Iris being bullied by her pimp Matthew and he begins to see his role to perhaps save her – him playing his part in cleaning up the sewer that he feels New York has become. However when his view of normal life puts Betsy off him he starts to retreat more and more into the night, looking for meaning in his life and growing more and more outraged by the world he is part of.

Hardly the most uplifting of films it is engaging and impressive and truly deserves the reputation it has. Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader have produced a film that convincingly portrays a man cut out of society who has the slightest connection to normality before finding it eroded away. The script is brilliant because the detail is engaging but it is this descent into a very modern type of madness that drives the film forward. Travis has just enough about him that is recognisable that it makes it so easy to go along with the rest of his madness. A major part of this is getting the feeling right about living in a cesspit; a city that seems to have forgotten its way morally – New York is the strongest example but elements of it could be parts of any city I suspect. In painting this world in such a real way, Scorsese has made Travis all the more convincing and, to a point, all the easier to follow in his fall. Like I said it is not a film to morally uplift you but one that is depressingly fair. There is no redemption in this modern world and although it appears that the violence at the end somehow redeems Travis in reality by showing “society” accepting his action it drags the rest of us down nearer the world that he hates and has become part of. I love King of Comedy for the same reason albeit in a different world.

Scorsese injects a real understanding of the place and a real sense of foreboding into even the earliest scenes. He inserts clever and meaningful shots into scenes that other directors might just have filmed straight and his choice of scene and shot compliments the script is depicting Travis descending into madness. What makes the film even better is De Niro showing the type of form that makes his recent form such a major disappointment. He is outstanding as he moves Travis from being relatively normal to being eaten up from the inside out. His eventual implosion is impressive but it is only as impressive as the gradual slide he depicts over the course of the film. Although he dominates it, others impress as well. Foster stands out in a small role, while Keitel makes a good impression as the pimp. Shepherd is not quite as good but her character was not as well written as the others so it isn’t all down to her. Regardless, the film belongs to De Niro and although the quotable scenes are the ones that are remembered it is in the quieter moments where he excels and shows genuine talent and understanding.

Overall an impressive and morally depressing film that deserves its place in cinematic history. The portrayal of a city and a man slipping into moral insanity is convincing and engaging and it shows how well to “do” modern madness and the effects of the moral void of parts of society. Scorsese directs as a master despite this being at an early stage in his career and De Niro is chillingly effective as he simply dominates the film in quiet moments and quotable moments alike. I rarely use phrases like “modern classic” because I think they are lazy but this is one film that certainly deserves such a label.

Scorsese’s dark masterpiece of urban alienation

Author: TomC-5 from Jersey City, NJ
2 November 1999

Despite what some might see as limited by technical flaws and/or as an overly simplistic plot, Taxi Driver deserves its critical reputation as a cinematic masterpiece. Some 23 years later, the existential plight of Travis Bickle, “God’s lonely man,” continues to pack a hard emotional punch. In fact, it’s hard to know where to begin when praising the elements of this film – such elements as the dark location shots of a (now gone) seedy Times Square, the cinema verite settings of the cabbies and campaign workers, the magnificent Bernard Hermann score, Paul Schrader’s fine script, the memorable performances of Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Peter Boyle all must be mentioned. However, the brilliance of this film is primarily a result of the brilliance of De Niro and Scorsese, one of the greatest actor-director teams in movie history. This is an unforgettable film and rates a 10 out of 10, in my estimation.

Diary of a madman

Author: francois chevallier (francheval@noos.fr) from Paris, France
13 February 2006

The script of “Taxi Driver” is built like a diary, the diary of a very ordinary guy who gets hired as a night taxi driver back from Vietnam, because he can’t sleep at night. A very ordinary guy who tries to break his isolation, but can’t, while violence accumulates inside him. One of those unnoticed people with dark things on their mind, one of those who break up the news one day with some extraordinary outburst of rage, to fall back immediately into anonymity.

The gradual transformation of man into beast in this movie is chilling. It’s still funny and pathetic when the hero threatens himself in front of the mirror (“you’re talking to me?”), but when he comes out with a mohawk hairdo and dark glasses, it is obvious that nasty stuff is going to take place. As in “A Clockwork Orange”, violence is recuperated by society depending on what purpose it is used for. Whereas he was about to murder the candidate for presidency, “god’s lonely man” fails and instead kills a vicious pimp who exploits teenage prostitutes. The potential criminal becomes a hero for a day.

Such stories happen everywhere of course, but it seems that the bewildering atmosphere of New York City’s summer night was the best choice. “Taxi Driver” gives us a very realistic approach of New York, in a way that is not seen on screen so often, at least not anymore, whilst that city is probably the one in the world that has been filmed the biggest number of times.

Most of the movie takes place at night. The credits open on the blazing lights of the yellow taxi cab moving slowly in the dark rainy streets. A kaleidoscope of neonlight appears through the dripping windows as the driver’s eyes blink in the front mirror. The night is the hero’s universe, it’s the time when “all the animals come out”, as he says. By contrast, the few daylight scenes look somewhat off-key, but this was definitely intentional.

The final scene still appears today as extremely violent, but at least, it shows murder for what it is. Brutal, ugly, crude. It is something one tends to forget about after seeing so many police series where people get shot so often that it gets casual. Real violence is not casual when you face it, and here is a film that makes you face it.

The directing is first class and deservedly made path for Scorsese as a world renowned artist. Some techniques he used here are unusual for American cinema, like focusing on details for a few seconds. The movie is enhanced by an excellent music soundtrack by jazz composer Bernard Herrman who died before the picture was even released.

Two of the actors also deservedly made it to stardom. Robert de Niro plays a very unglamorous character, but his presence on screen is so intense that it’s no wonder it made such an impression. As for Jodie Foster, she already appeared in films as a child, but playing a teenage prostitute was certainly not an easy challenge, and probably it was that role that really turned her into a major actress.

“Taxi Driver” was a big hit when it came out, both for the public and the critics. It won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, and served as a trend setter for many later films, like for instance Quentin Tarantino’s and Abel Ferrara’s. But even today, the original model seems difficult to emulate, probably because achieving a masterpiece is a rare thing, by definition.

Ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Robert De Niro!

Author: Kristine (kristinedrama14@msn.com) from Chicago, Illinois
20 November 2003
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Taxi Driver, the classic that made Robert DeNiro Robert DeNiro. It’s amazing to see how far this man has come in cinema, some of my friends ask me questions about films and advice, one of my friends had asked if they wanted to see where Bobby got the big notice I usually recommend Taxi Driver, granted he was in The Godfather Part 2 and was incredible, but Taxi Driver made him stand out as a strong lead actor. Taxi Driver is just all together a great film that is absolutely perfection. Martin Scorcesse who also was just really starting out made this movie that brought us back to the film noir genre. He made this great classic and I don’t even think he realized how much it would stand against the test of time, to this day we still know this film and even if you don’t know it, you know the infamous speech “You talking’ to me?”. This is a film about isolation, loneliness, and self destruction at it’s worst.

Travis Bickle who claims to be an honorably discharged Marine it is implied that he is a Vietnam veteran is a lonely and depressed young man of 26. He settles in Manhattan, where he becomes a night time taxi driver due to chronic insomnia. Bickle spends his restless days in seedy porn theaters and works 12 or 14 hour shifts during the evening and night time hours carrying passengers among all five boroughs of New York City. Bickle becomes interested in Betsy, a campaign volunteer for New York Senator Charles Palantine. She is initially intrigued by Bickle and agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her over coffee and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. On their date, however, Bickle is clueless about how to treat a woman and thinks it would be a good idea to take her to a sex film. Offended, she leaves him and takes a taxi home alone. The next day he tries to reconcile with Betsy, phoning her and sending her flowers, but all of his attempts are in vain. Rejected and depressed, Bickle’s thoughts begin to turn violent.

Disgusted by the petty street crime that he witnesses while driving through the city, he now finds a focus for his frustration and begins a program of intense physical training. He buys a number of pistols from an illegal dealer and practices a menacing speech in the mirror, while pulling out a pistol that he attached to a home-made sliding action holster on his right arm “You talking’ to me?”. Bickle is revolted by what he considers the moral decay around him. One night while on shift, Iris, a 12-year-old child prostitute, gets in his cab, attempting to escape her pimp. Shocked by the occurrence, Bickle fails to drive off and the pimp, Sport, reaches the cab. Later seeing Iris on the street he pays for her time, although he does not have sex with her and instead tries to convince her to leave this way of life behind. But after her rejection as well, Travis decides to take things into his own hands, “Pow!”.

This is one of the most memorable movies of all time and has really stood it’s ground. It’s personally one of my favorites and made me fall in love with Robert DeNiro all over again. The script to Taxi Driver is just so incredibly powerful and the performances were just perfect. Jodie Foster, this little girl at the time was such a presence on screen, she pulls in what was a very tricky performance and was hauntingly beautiful. Cybill Sheppard was also very beautiful and I was absolutely in love with her character and felt so bad for her. Everything about Taxi Driver is just great, I don’t know how much I could go on about the love I have for this film. It’s a film that you will never forget and trust me, if you haven’t seen it, go out and rent it immediately, you won’t regret it. It’s bloody, it’s twisted, it’s crazy, but it’s one of the best films of all time.

10/10

A Triumph of Pure Filmaking

Author: johnpaulz (johnpaulzpt@yahoo.com) from los angeles, CA
13 April 2002
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Despite having an unsurpassed shoot-out bloodbath and despite having a timeless and touching storyline, the aspect that I like most about Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is the music. Bernard Herrmann, who died shortly after completing the score, provides a melancholy feeling to the movie. This is perfect because Travis Bickle’s loneliness is the heart of the story.

Robert DeNiro’s performance in Taxi Driver as Travis Bickle is one of the best I have ever seen. DeNiro does every pause, smirk, and stare in exactly the right time. He transformed a despicable and psychotic character into a lonely and desperate man, who the audience can relate and understand. His scenes talking to himself in the mirror is entertaining, at the same time, terrifying.

Travis Bickle is a Vietnam veteran who cannot sleep at nights, so he decided to work long shifts at night driving a taxicab. As Travis drives around New York City, his feelings and emotion soon show: he is disgusted and angry at sleaze in the world, he hates pimps, and he is prejudiced against blacks.

Travis then falls to a beautiful campaign worker named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), and he persuaded her to go on a date with him. Betsy is clearly intrigued by Travis’ character, so she agreed. Their relationship is going well, but when Travis made a mistake on bringing her to an X-rated movie, she decided to ignore him.

In a later conversation with a fellow cab driver named Wizard (Peter Boyle), it is shown that Travis is on verge of going psychotic. The next sequences show Scorsese’s genius. We clearly see how Travis slowly creates his plans and how he prepares himself. DeNiro’s narration shows signs of breakdown, saying things like `here is a man who cannot take it anymore’ and `loneliness has followed me all my life.’

Travis also befriends a twelve-year-old prostitute named Iris, played by a young Jodie Foster. Travis tries to convince her that she is hanging out with scums, and that she should be at school and making friends. One of the best acting scenes I have seen is when Travis talks with Iris in a restaurant. As Travis tries to convince Iris to give up prostitution, she manages to keep a steady face but clearly is suffering inside. Travis’ emotion is clearly anger but he tries to hold it because he does not want to scare Iris. Foster and DeNiro play the scene with wonderful realism and emotion.

Taxi Driver is a good example of how great a film can be if it was made by talented persons. Paul Schrader’s script is intense, Martin Scorsese’s direction is watertight, Bernard Herrmann’s music is beautiful, and the actors’ acting is superb. Taxi Driver can relate to a lot of people and clearly is one of the greatest movies of all time.

Portrait in Black (1960)

Directed by	Michael Gordon

Cinematography	Russell Metty

Sheila Cabot (Lana Turner) becomes increasingly disturbed as she cares for her ailing, disagreeable husband (Lloyd Nolan). Along the way, she falls in love with Dr. David Rivera (Anthony Quinn), who is tending her husband. This leads to a series of unfortunate events, resulting in the death of the husband and an ensuing murder investigation.

Distress Of The Very Rich

1 March 2010 | by Lechuguilla (Dallas, Texas) – See all my reviews

Oh the heartache and troubles rich people suffer through. Take Sheila Cabot (Lana Turner) for example, an attractive, middle-aged woman married to a wealthy, but ailing, shipping tycoon, Matthew Cabot (Lloyd Nolan). They live in a San Francisco mansion overlooking the Bay, and have multiple servants. But Matthew is gruff, verbally abuses his wife, and generally treats everyone like dirt. It’s enough to make Sheila … well … cry. Making matters infinitely worse, Sheila has a lover on the side. And she’s desperate to exchange the gruff hubby for the lover. However will she manage?

That’s the setup for this melodrama-mystery combo, a story that involves passion, suspicion, deception, and ultimately murder. The film’s easy to follow plot gets a needed boost when a card addressed to Sheila arrives in the mail. All the card says is: “Congratulations on the success of …” That scene sends the plot hurling into mystery territory. Who wrote the card, and why?

The script’s two main characters behave in ways that do not seem credible, given their circumstances. And the idea that a grown woman living in California has never learned to drive is a tad dubious.

The film’s overall look and feel is that of a typical 1950s melodrama. Elegant, expensive clothes, dreamy violin background music, and melodramatic acting conjure up visions of some sudsy 1950s film directed by Douglas Sirk. I don’t recall any scene in which Lana Turner is not wearing an expensive dress and, in some scenes, a full-length mink coat.

Color cinematography is acceptable, if unremarkable. Casting favors well-known actors. And they perform well enough. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Sandra Dee.

If you’re looking for a believable story, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a sudsy melodrama and/or mystery, “Portrait In Black” will appeal. I could have done without the pretentious suds of these very rich people. But the plot puzzle provided enough mystery to keep me hooked.

Lana and Company in Entertaining Melodrama

Author: dglink from Alexandria, VA
12 March 2008

Adultery, murder, blackmail, and Lana Turner, what more could one ask of a Ross Hunter production? Perhaps a good script, but that would spoil the fun. “Portrait in Black” will have lovers of camp in stitches at dialog that makes daytime soaps seem Shakespearean. The overwrought emoting and melodramatic scenes are often unintentionally funny, and the plot requires Olympian leaps to cross the credibility gaps.

Lana is having an affair with Anthony Quinn, the doctor who is attending her terminally ill husband, Lloyd Nolan, a shipping magnate. Nolan’s company, Cabot Lines, is evidently quite successful, because Lana’s daily expenditures on wardrobe, coiffures, and makeup would likely sink a ship. The couple’s palatial San Francisco home is a Ross Hunter fantasy whose upkeep could sink yet another Cabot Line vessel. Nolan’s daughter from a first marriage, Sandra Dee, evidently has her stepmother’s taste in clothes and manicure, while the son from his marriage to Lana has to make do with a toy airplane. Throw in a greedy business associate played by Richard Basehart; Dee’s suitor, John Saxon; a chauffeur, Ray Walston; and a housekeeper, Anna May Wong; and you have a delicious cast of potential suspects to populate an Agatha Christie mystery. However, “Portrait in Black” is not a whodunit, but rather a “who knows they dun it.”

Lana is the ultimate drama queen, and she is in peak form. She suffers, she screams, she cries; she is the empress of high camp. Anthony Quinn, who should have read the script before he signed the contract, plays down to his part and seems to know he has had and will have better parts. Sandra Dee appears to be studying for future Lana Turner roles, while Walston and Wong play their parts with the necessary ambiguity to keep viewers guessing their secrets.

However, despite the overacting, bad writing, and soap opera direction, “Portrait in Black” is great fun for those who love their melodramas with big budgets and great style. Even the obligatory mirror smashing has been incorporated. The movie is enormously entertaining for its sometimes howlingly funny situations, absurd lines, and the sheer pleasure of watching Lana looking and emoting at her best.

A fun Ross Hunter soap opera from 1960

Author: mrsastor from United States
5 January 2007

Portrait In Black is in many respects typical of the Ross Hunter films that rejuvenated Lana Turner’s later career. If you’re a fan of the genre, this one is quite entertaining, and in my opinion far superior to the previous year’s terrible remake of Imitation of Life.

Portrait In Black brings us a torrid soap opera revolving around the relationship between the wife of a wealthy shipping magnate, Sheila Cabot, and her husband’s physician, Dr. David Rivera. Unable to bear having only a few stolen moments for the each other, they conspire to murder Sheila’s husband so they can be together. They subsequently find themselves blackmailed and must determine who is the blackmailer and how they will extricate themselves from this web of danger that continues to keep them separated.

As previous reviewers have pointed out, there are some rather silly aspects to the story, but these again are typical of the genre. For beginners, Sheila’s husband Matt Cabot is said to have a hopeless terminal illness and to have been ill for many months. Thus, their motivation for murdering him is rather weak; he will soon die without any malicious intent on their part. If they really could not bear the wait, the idea proposed in the script, that they cannot just run away together because Matt Cabot would ruin Dr. Rivera’s career and he would “never practice medicine again”, is a rather unrealistic threat (although admittedly common in soap opera land).

Dr. Rivera’s home gives the impression he is already quite wealthy, it is not as though these two would be condemned to a life of poverty and want. These plot holes are exasperated by the poorly directed love scenes between David and Sheila, which consist of much-overplayed melodramatic panting, gasping, crying, and an inordinate and unnatural amount of chewing on one another’s hands. Secondly, there are a few script blunders that could have been easily corrected. When Dr. Rivera requires Sheila to drive, he puts her in the car and has to explain what the gas and brake are for, yet in scene one we are told Sheila has been issued a learner’s permit by the Department of Motor Vehicles. A learner’s permit allows one to drive so long as another licensed driver is present, and one would obviously have to have mastered the basics of what makes the car go in order to be issued such a permit. The plot of device that Sheila “doesn’t drive” would have been far more believable without the unnecessary learner’s permit in the script. There are a number of similar absent-minded script errors here.

Having said that, one does not watch a period Ross Hunter soaper for realism. One watches it for drama, and the lush and beautiful feel we expect from Mr. Hunter. In this regard, Portrait does not disappoint. Our setting is upper crust Nob Hill in San Francisco. The Cabot home, with the exception of the library being inexplicably painted black, is breathtaking. Lana Turner is stunning, and of course immaculately outfitted in high class fashions, shoes, hats, furs, and jewels at all times, as is Sandra Dee in her second role as Lana Turner’s daughter (well, step-daughter in this one). Drama abounds and the at times weak script is handled expertly by the well seasoned cast, including Richard Basehart, Ray Walston, Virginia Grey, Anna Mae Wong, and John Saxon. While Anthony Quinn would have been ideally suited to his role of Dr. David Rivera if the film had been made fifteen years earlier, he is so badly addled by Michael Gordon’s incompetent direction in this role it makes him seem a bit past it (with the exception of Pillow Talk, none of Mr. Gordon’s films are particularly well directed).

All things considered, this film easily meets its purpose, to entertain and is fun to watch…if you can find it. It is not out on DVD, is no longer available on VHS, and is seldom aired on television. But if you get the chance, it’s well worth a watch.

UPDATE: This film was release on DVD in Jan 2008, and it looks great!

A picture the likes of which will never be seen again.

Author: Poseidon-3 from Cincinnati, OH
6 June 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Ms. Turner, enjoying a career renaissance kicked off by the combination of her Oscar-nominated role in “Peyton Place,” the Stompanato murder case and the extraordinary success of “Imitation of Life,” reteamed with producer Ross Hunter here as another well-to-do beauty suffering great duress. She plays the wife of cantankerous Nolan (who was the noble doctor in “Peyton Place”), a successful shipping magnate confined to a mechanical bed. His inherent bitterness leads him to lash out at Turner, who turns to his handsome doctor Quinn for comfort. When it becomes clear that they can never truly be together as a couple, they decide to relieve Nolan of his pain for good, but soon after they begin to get letters that hint of blackmail. Before long, they are faced with the prospect of committing a second murder in order to protect their secret. Meanwhile, shifty Basehart is running the company and eyeing Turner and Nolan’s daughter Dee (who was Turner’s daughter in “Imitation of Life”) is carrying on with low-rung tugboat owner Saxon. Also, sneaky chauffeur Walston and vaguely threatening housekeeper Wong lurk around every other corner.

Turner looks terrific throughout most of the film, being saddled with a couple of ugly hats here and there (and :::gasp::: wearing one outfit twice!), but generally looking fantastic. She was perfect at these types of glossy, over-the-top melodramas and this is among the best. The story (riddled with contrivance and preposterousness) reaches a fever pitch several times and overwrought Lana is right there to help serve it up at its best. Quinn seems a tad out of place, but it’s nice to see him in a film from this period that didn’t have him playing an Indian, a slave, a fisherman or some other type of earthy character. Basehart is remarkably slimy, Dee a bit more mature than she had been in previous films, yet still unable to shake off her squeaky-clean image and Saxon gritting his teeth in outrage when he isn’t trying to canoodle with Dee. Walston gives an appropriately mysterious performance while silent film legend Wong is mostly relegated to stern stares and curt comments.

Grey has a supporting role as Nolan’s beleaguered secretary, while fairly grating child actor Kohler plays Turner’s inquisitive son. Based on a short-running Broadway play from the 40’s, but slathered over with the customary Hunter lavishness, this slightly overlong film is a glimmering camp hoot today. As if the overheated acting, silly script and glitzy décor weren’t enough, there is a deliriously insane Frank Skinner score punctuating every “nuance” of the plot. At least there is some very creative, for the time, lighting and camera-work in evidence, giving the picture a nourish feel at times (which is quite an accomplishment considering all the gloss in view.) Highlights of the film include: Turner running open-armed to Quinn in his apartment, Turner, decked out in a purposefully drab gown, watching Quinn enter the house to kill Nolan, Turner running around the house and up and down stairs in her snug skirt, turning off lights and panicking and, most especially, Turner confessing that she can’t drive and then being forced to operate an unfamiliar car on the Pacific Coast Highway during a hysterical rainstorm! Yes, it’s basically her show all the way right up to the closing frames.

Love Story (1970)

Director:

Arthur Hiller

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny – and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver’s wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail. Oliver and Jenny continue to build their life together. Relying only on each other, they believe love can fix anything. But fate has other plans. Soon, what began as a brutally honest friendship becomes the love story of their lives.

Oliver Barrett IV comes from an American upper-class East Coast family and is heir to the Barrett fortune. He attends Harvard University, where he is very active in ice hockey. At the library, Oliver meets Jennifer “Jenny” Cavalleri, a quick-witted, working-class Radcliffe College student of classical music. She mocks him, calling him “preppy” and “jock.” Oliver finds charm and truth in her comments. They quickly fall in love, despite their differences.

Jenny reveals her plans for the future, which include studying in Paris. Oliver is upset that he does not figure in those plans. He wants to marry Jenny and proposes. After she accepts, she is driven to the Barrett mansion to meet the old guard parents. Oliver reassures her that their class differences won’t matter. However, his parents are clearly not impressed and are judgmental. Later, at the Harvard club Oliver’s father tells him that he will cut him off financially if he marries Jenny. Oliver storms out of the dining hall. Upon graduation from college, the two students decide to marry against the wishes of Oliver’s father, who severs ties with his son. The wedding is modern and contains no religious denomination. Jenny’s widowed father attends, although he also has concerns about their social differences.

Without his father’s financial support, the couple struggle to pay Oliver’s way through Harvard Law School. Jenny gets work as a private-school teacher. They rent the top floor of a triple decker near the Law School. Oliver graduates third in his class, winning $500, and takes a position at a respectable New York law firm. They eventually move into a doorman building, which contrasts greatly with their Cambridge digs. The 24-year-olds are ready to start a family, but when they fail to conceive they consult a medical specialist. After many tests, Oliver is informed that Jenny is terminally ill. Her exact condition is never stated explicitly, but she appears to have leukemia (confirmed by Oliver in the sequel Oliver’s Story).

As instructed by his doctor, Oliver attempts to live a “normal life” without telling Jenny of her condition, but she finds out after confronting her doctor about her recent illness. Oliver buys tickets to Paris but she declines, wanting only time with him. Soon after she begins costly cancer therapy, Oliver is desperate enough over the mounting expenses to seek financial relief from his father. The senior Barrett asks what the money request of $5,000 is for, but Oliver will only say that it’s “personal”. His father asks if he’s “gotten a girl in trouble”. Oliver, not wanting to admit the truth, says yes to this scenario. His father writes him a check.

From her hospital bed, Jenny makes funeral arrangements with her father, then asks for Oliver. She tells him to not blame himself, insisting that he never held her back from music and it was worth it for the love they shared. Jenny’s last wish is made when she asks him to embrace her tightly before she dies. As grief-stricken Oliver leaves the hospital, he sees his father outside, having rushed to New York City from Massachusetts as soon as he heard the news about Jenny and wanting to offer his help. Oliver tells him, “Jenny’s dead,” and his father says “I’m sorry,” to which Oliver responds, “Love– Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Oliver walks back alone to the outdoor ice rink, where Jenny had watched him skate the day she was hospitalized.

Erich Segal originally wrote the screenplay and sold it to Paramount Pictures. While the film was being produced, Paramount wanted Segal to write a novel based on it, to be published on Valentine’s Day to help pre-publicize the release of the film. When the novel came out, it became a bestseller on its own in advance of the film.

The original director was Larry Peerce. He backed out and was replaced by Anthony Harvey. Harvey dropped out and was replaced by Arthur Hiller. Jimmy Webb wrote a score for the film that was not used.

The lead role was turned down by Beau Bridges, Michael York and Jon Voight. Ryan O’Neal was given the lead role on the recommendation of Eric Segal, who had worked with the actor on The Games; he was paid $25,000.

The main song in the film, “(Where Do I Begin?) Love Story” was a major success, particularly the vocal rendition recorded by Andy Williams.

 

Filming Love Story on site caused damage to the Harvard campus; this, and a similar experience with the film A Small Circle of Friends (1980), caused the university administration to deny most subsequent requests for filming on location there.

It’s widely regarded as the ultimate romantic movie for a good reason.

22 November 2006 | by Boba_Fett1138 (Groningen, The Netherlands) – See all my reviews

To be honest I was quite surprised as the low rating the movie gets her, since I’ve always been under the assumption that this movie is widely regarded to be the best and ultimate romantic movie ever made.

The movie has all the ingredients a romantic movie needs, even the most formulaic ones. Two totally different boy and girl from different social levels fall in love with each other and of course not everyone in the environment (mainly the parents of course) are happy with this. Their love life has a couple of ups and downs in which they have to weight some choices for themselves against choices for their love together. Further more the movie also features an unavoidable dramatic twist in which one of the characters get seriously sick (Don’t worry, this is not really a spoiler since this is mentioned right in the beginning of the movie already). In other words this movie has all of the formulaic sappy sounding ingredients to make this a sappy formulaic romantic movie. Yet “Love Story” is not. Why? It’s hard to put your finger on why “Love Story” is so much more and so much better than your average love story but I guess that you can still answer this question, once you start analyzing the movie.

Although the story and all of its elements are sappy and formulaic the movie itself doesn’t try to be sappy or dramatic. The movie doesn’t attempt to make you cry, by putting in over-the-top dramatic filmed moments with dramatic loud music and all that sort of stuff. Instead the movie chooses to take a realistic approach, no real surprise, considering that this is a ’70’s movie. The decade in which the most realistic (and best) movies were made. It has as a result that the movie never feels forced or overdone. It even makes the most formulaic and predictable elements of the movie work out, as strange and unbelievable as it might sound. You also have to keep in mind that at the time it was released, this movie was not formulaic at all. It was a fresh approach on the genre and inspired many later movies. In a way “Love Story” was bare raising and set the standards for many later romantic movies. The movie was nominated for 7 Oscar (of which it won 1 in the end) not just for no reason.

The movie is obviously made on a low budget but it makes the end result look all the more creative. It’s effectively directed by Arthur Hiller, who later went on directing lame comedies. A real waste of talent. The musical score by Francis Lai is a classic and the simple effective cinematography from Richard C. Kratina makes the movie feel all the more realistic.

The movie made Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal big stars for the moment and they were both even nominated for an Oscar. To be frank I didn’t even always liked their characters in the movie and I’ve never been to fond of Ryan O’Neal as an actor. In that regard I liked the supporting cast way better with John Marley, Ray Milland and Tommy Lee Jones in his very first (and very small) screen appearance. He looked so amazingly young, that he was hard to recognize.

Although the movie takes some formulaic and obvious dramatic turns, the movie still always remain perfectly watchable, just not always emotionally involving enough. So I’m not to sure about it if this is a movie that can (still) make people cry. Nevertheless the movie still has its powerful moments, mostly due to the realism of it all. Everybody should be able to recognize the situations- and put themselves in the place of the characters of the movie. Everybody have been through similar events in their life at one point, in one way or another.

Now days lots of people actually complain about the tag-line and famous quote from the movie; ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’. People find this a stupid and illogical line. To those people I would like to say; Wait until you’ve truly falling in love once. If you’ve REALLY been in love, you’ll understand what is the meaning of that line. Love is about mutual respect and also accepting each others less pleasantries and still love each other for it. This also means never having to apologies to each other. Actually when I was in love once and the girl felt the same way about me (Yes amazing, I know. It seems like ages ago now), whenever one of us said ‘sorry’ for something the other always said; ‘You never have to apologize for anything to me’. None of us had ever seen the movie or heard of its famous line before, so I think that really says something about the line and the truth that is in it.

It in my opinion certainly is one the best and perhaps most influential romantic movie ever made. A must-see that deserves more objective respect and higher rating on here.

8/10

He Walked by Night (1948)

He Walked by Night is a 1948 police procedural film noir, directed by Alfred L. Werker and an uncredited Anthony Mann. The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, was loosely based on newspaper accounts of the real-life actions of Erwin “Machine-Gun” Walker, a former Glendale California police department employee and World War II veteran who unleashed a crime spree of burglaries, robberies, and shootouts in the Los Angeles area during 1945 and 1946.

During production, one of the actors, Jack Webb, struck up a friendship with the police technical advisor, Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, and was inspired by a conversation with Wynn to create the radio and later television program Dragnet.

The Noir Blueprint For “Dragnet”!

2 September 2001 | by jimddddd (Hollywood, CA) – See all my reviews

Based on a true 1946 Hollywood Police Department case, “He Walked By Night” is an early attempt at a “police procedural” film. It has a semi-documentary look combined with many of the conventions of film noir (thanks partly to cinematographer John Alton). Many of the outside scenes were filmed in or around actual locations. Richard Basehart plays a loner who is well-versed in electronic technology, guns, and police procedures. He’s able to stay one step ahead of the cops because his paranoia and attention to detail keep him in a constant state of alert. It’s also helpful that he listens in with his police-band radio. For a time he confounds the Hollywood cops because he changes his modus operandi. He begins as a break-in artist who steals electronic equipment, but when he kills a suspicious young policeman and loses some of his tools, he turns to armed robbery of liquor stores.

Nobody can find him because he travels through Los Angeles in its underground storm drains, where he has hidden stashes of guns and other survival equipment. We also follow the cops as they make use of whatever little information they’re able to gather on Basehart’s character, and slowly they do close in after several missed opportunities and track the killer into the storm drains, where the play of light and shadow really takes over. One of the cops in “He Walked By Night” is played by Jack Webb, and there’s no question he got the inspiration for ‘Dragnet” from this film. For starters, “He Walked By Night” begins with a sky pan of Los Angeles and scenes of everyday Hollywood while the narrator gives a kind of “this is the city” speech. The police scenes are often very quotidian (sometimes to the point of being overly detailed), with cops tossing in small talk like “how’s the missus? glad to hear it” before they ask other questions. Much of the pacing, attitude and overall feel of “Dragnet,” which began as a radio show a year after this film and then moved to TV in 1952, is already here.

The final scene in Los Angeles’ storm drains (“seven hundred miles of hidden highways,” according to the narrator) provides probably this film’s most memorable images. Its set-up and execution are remarkably similar to Orson Wells being chased through the sewers of Vienna in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man,” which was filmed a year later and likely inspired by “He Walked By Night.” And who knows, it might also have given a few ideas to the makers of “Them” a couple of years later when they revisited the L.A. storm drains with their giant ants. Ultimately, Basehart’s character remains an enigma. We never learn that much about him. “He Walked By Night” isn’t a great film, but it’s an enjoyable look at postwar police work and primitive forensics.

Here’s a version of the real story

Author: Pete from Sacramento, California
12 October 2004
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I’ve seen this film two or three times, and I keep wondering Why did “Roy” do any of the things he did? What was his motivation? Strangely, we aren’t even offered a guess by anyone in the film.

Intrigued by the statement that the film is “based on a true story,” I did some research. Apparently the real-life Roy was named Erwin Walker — aka “Machine Gun” Walker. Honest.

Walker was indeed a World War II vet, a former Glendale PD radio dispatcher, and a brilliant student at Cal Tech. The true story is even better than the film: Walker wasn’t killed by police, and managed to evade the death penalty with a plea of insanity. Better yet, he was subsequently released, and has lived, somewhere, among us.

You can read a first-person account of Walker here (as long as the link remains good): http://www.epinions.com/content_3817054340 .

Nightime in L.A.

Author: jotix100 from New York
8 January 2010
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

As the story begins, a policeman on his way home sees a man lurking in the darkness, he becomes suspicious. To his amazement, the man surprises him pulling a gun and shoots him. The incident marks the beginning of a dragnet in which all police resources will concentrate in apprehending the criminal that killed one of their peers.

Roy Martin, as he calls himself, is a young man with an unusual ability for everything electric. He likes to put things together, then tries to interest Paul Reeves, a businessman with an important clientele to lease the things Martin brings him. All goes well until the time he makes a tactical mistake. He leaves an equipment for television that turns out to have been stolen from the same man that Reeves has called to peddle the item.

What the LAPD doesn’t know is that Roy Martin has a way for evading the enemy. He has discovered the system under the Los Angeles streets for the heavy flash floods it experiences to make his getaway. He is a slippery man with superior intelligence to outsmart the police. Ultimately, the police gets a break that will put an end to Roy’s crime spree.

Albert Werker directed the impressive “He Walked by Night”, a 1948 film noir that went to be imitated by a lot of people in Hollywood. It also became the model of the television show “Dragnet” that came later, in which Jack Webb, who is prominently featured, explored some of the principles originated in the breakthrough film. Anthony Mann was also on board to help with the direction, and it shows, although he is not given credit for the work he did. Crane Wilbur and John Higgins wrote the screenplay in a semi-documentary style. It is a tribute to all the creators the film has survived long after it was first released. The best thing in the film is John Alton’s black and white cinematography that captures the Los Angeles of that era in all its splendor.

Richard Basehart made a cool Roy Martin. This was Mr. Basehart’s third picture and he showed a great potential as the criminal that was able to outsmart the police. The supporting players, Scott Brady, Whit Bissell, James Cardwell, and Roy Roberts, among them, do a good job under Mr. Werker’s direction.

Technical Adviser Marty Wynn and Miscellaneous Observations

Author: pgstipe from Ann Arbor, Michigan
3 June 2009
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Fascinating and insightful to read the comments posted by Sgt. Wynn’s son Charles (see comment #42 by annwynn). Police technical advisers are commonplace nowadays, but Sgt. Wynn’s participation was a novel idea in 1948. This straight shooting approach does nothing to diminish the compelling drama told in this story (accurate depiction of the case it’s based on or not).

This film is among the best of the documentary style dramas of it’s time with A-list voice over specialist Reed Hadley providing the narration. The brief travelogue guide and the tour of Los Angeles Police Headquarters in the opening segment little prepare you for the shocking murder of Officer Robert Rawlins.

As a retired police officer, I can assure you that no dispatched call creates quite the adrenalin surge than that of an officer involved shooting. Like a “Broken Arrow” transmission in the military, all cops break off their current assignment to respond, just like in the film. The film doesn’t glorify the drudgery of detective work, on the contrary, it shows that only tireless followup will often lead one to their suspect.

This film is among those that piqued my interest in becoming an officer. I too commuted to work and back in uniform (to avoid dressing twice everyday) but Officer Rawlins’ ambush was always in the back of my mind and I employed tactics accordingly (always address suspects or suspicious persons from outside your vehicle for instance).

It is a bygone era when it was cooler to be a cop than a criminal. Modern films glorify acts of mindless violence and copycat crimes are commonplace. He Walked By Night not only shows the gritty side of policing, it rightly shows that the job can not be done without the help of citizen involvement. If only all sketch artists were as handy with their pencils as Jack Webb/Lee is with his slides. There is little doubt that the use of deadly force in the capture of Roy Morgan is justified and there is no glamour or glory in his death.

Two bits of humor in the closing sequence are the apparent length of the battle lantern’s cords as they stretch the length of the sewer system and speed in which the detectives/officers don their gas masks before the final confrontation.

He Walked By Night to me remains the definitive model upon which all other such police dramas are inspired. Alfred Werker’s pacing and John Alton’s cinematography are flawless. I think this film is a fitting tribute to Sgt. Marty Wynn and all the cops of his era. I recommend it to everyone.

Tense, Realistic & Visually Strong

Author: seymourblack-1 from United Kingdom
4 December 2012
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

“He Walked By Night” is a low budget crime drama which tells the true story of an exceptionally resourceful cop killer and the way in which he was pursued by the LAPD. The methods used by the police and the killer couldn’t be more different, as the LAPD place a high value on adhering to standard procedures whereas their quarry uses his considerable ingenuity and expert knowledge of electronics to outwit his pursuers. This all makes for a fascinating cat and mouse game which is compelling to watch and becomes increasingly intense as it moves towards its exciting and visually impressive climax.

In the early hours of a summer morning, Roy Martin (Richard Basehart) is trying to break into an electronics store when he sees a police patrol car approaching and casually walks away. The police car follows him and when he’s asked to produce some identification, Martin pulls out a gun and shoots the police officer at point blank range. Detective Sergeants Marty Brennan (Scott Brady) and Chuck Jones (James Cardwell) are assigned to the case by Police Captain Breen (Roy Roberts) but their initial efforts to identify the killer draw a blank because there are no leads to follow.

Martin regularly sells electronic equipment to a dealer called Paul Reeves (Whit Bissell) who becomes suspicious after one of his customers recognises a television projector (which Martin had supplied) as one that had been stolen from him. After Reeves reports the matter to the police, Brennan and Jones wait in the dealer’s office with the intention of arresting Martin but his eventual arrival culminates in a shootout which ends with both Martin and Detective Jones having been shot. Jones is seriously injured and Martin goes home and successfully operates on himself to remove the bullet.

The LAPD are determined to hunt down Martin but he continues to keep one step ahead of them by regularly changing his appearance and listening in to their radio communications until Detective Jones has a hunch which enables the police to positively confirm the identity of the killer. This piece of knowledge together with information that they subsequently find about Martin’s previous employment, soon enables them to continue their manhunt with greater speed and success than had previously been possible.

Roy Martin’s story is told in typical docu-noir style complete with the obligatory solemn narration (by Reed Hadley) and some acting which, by today’s standards, is rather stiff and formal. Richard Basehart, however, is exceptionally good in his role as the psychopathic loner and World War 11 veteran who’s cold, calculating and extremely ruthless. He’s a particularly interesting character as he’s both intelligent and highly skilled in some areas but also paranoid and a man of few words.

It’s widely acknowledged that Jack Webb (who appears in this movie as a laboratory technician) was inspired by the experience to create his own very popular radio and TV show “Dragnet” which also emphasised the value of methodical police work.

“He Walked By Night” looks very realistic and is often suspenseful but its most impressive feature is John Alton’s incredible cinematography which enhances the look of the whole movie considerably and contributes to the claustrophobic feel of certain passages. His use of low key lighting, deep focus photography and interesting camera angles is inspired, effective and dramatic and at times, bathes the screen in compositions which create a rather disconcerting atmosphere.

A Year Before a Better Remembered Use of Urban Sewers in a Thriller

Author: theowinthrop from United States
15 January 2009
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Only a year separates Richard Basehart’s fleeing through the sewers of Los Angeles with Orson’s Welles’ similar flight through those of Vienna. Yet although the flight of Basehart’s Roy Martin has precedence over Welles’ Harry Lime, and both are terrific thrillers, more people are acquainted with THE THIRD MAN than with HE WALKED BY NIGHT. It’s probably due to the “exotic” nature of post-war Vienna, with such touches as the zither music, and the scenes in the ruins (and the classic moment in the Prater’s ferris wheel). Also the last flight of Harry Lime has overtones regarding why Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) kills his old friend – is it to save him from the humiliation of a trial? That does not happen in the Basehart film.

It’s unfair, for HE WALKED BY NIGHT is a tidy and tense little thriller and police procedural. Told like a documentary, it follows Basehart’s criminal career wherein he seems always one step ahead of the police. The film begins when he commits a murder in a robbery (he shoots a policeman) and flees leaving a remarkable set of skeleton keys and picks behind him. The Los Angeles police led by Roy Roberts start looking into whatever clues they have and realize they don’t have really much. But Roberts has assistance from the crime lab (Jack Webb, in a prescient – pre-DRAGNET role), and detective Scott Brady as well as others looking into every aspect of the case. But despite some minor advances (they can see how clever the criminal is in the lack of fingerprints and traces) they are not getting anywhere.

They get an opening when an electronics firm headed by Whit Bissell discovers that the devices that have been leased out for one Roy Martin are actually stolen items. Bissell is forced to work with the police, and a stake-out ends with Basehart shooting another cop (crippling him) and being shot himself). But Basehart (in a somewhat over-the-top sequence) removes the bullet at his home.

That’s his secret. Basehart plays the perfect loner. Except for his pet dog nobody gets close to this killer. In fact it is the only flaw in the story that nothing about the reason for Basehart’s anti-social point of view is ever given. On the other hand, there is no psychiatric gobbledy-gook that we have to swallow to “understand” the poor man. For he is totally amoral, and vicious, and one can properly dislike him throughout the movie.

But he is smart. He is an electronics whiz, and he has two radios on the police frequency to keep track of what they are up to. He also is clever enough to alter the method of his robberies (this before the use of profiling by police) to confuse the cops. Finally he discovers a perfect way to avoid notice by the police: he uses the sewers of Los Angeles as a private highway around that wide city.

The film shows how Roberts, Brady, Webb, and the other police gradually manage to get a picture of Basehart from the witnesses (one that Bissell recognizes) and then to zero in on his probable background. It is a film showing police procedural for what it really is – the pounding of city streets asking questions and questions and questions. Sometimes a break comes through, but frequently there is more that confuses the issue (when Brady – in disguise as a milkman – goes to spy on Basehart towards the end of the film, he meets a neighbor who says something evil is going on in the neighborhood, but turns out to be insane about a landlady). It is a film noir that works quite well, and should be better known. But it was not written by a great English author like Graham Green, nor was it directed by Sir Carol Reed. The more colorful film using that great climax in the sewers was still to come. Unfairly that was not the end to this irony. The best known film about the city of Los Angeles with a great fight sequence in the sewers is THEM, the science fiction film of seven years later. HE WALKED BY NIGHT deserves better renown, but it is hard to believe it ever will get it.

Indestructible Man (1956)

Indestructible Man is a 1956 American crime horror science fiction film, an original screenplay by Vy Russell and Sue Dwiggins for producer-director Jack Pollexfen and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Ross Elliott and Robert Shayne.

Told in a narrative style, popularized by the television police series “Dragnet“, by police detective Dick Chasen (Max Showalter), the story concerns a 72-hour period of horror for the city of Los Angeles. Charles “Butcher” Benton (Chaney) is a double-crossed convicted robber and murderer who was executed in the gas chamber. His body is unlawfully sold to a scientist (Robert Shayne) who plans to move his experiments into the cause and cure of cancer to human subjects. Benton’s corpse is subjected to chemical injection and massive jolts of high-voltage electricity in order to study the effect on human tissues. But Benton’s heart is restimulated and he completely revives (though rendered mute due to electrical damage to his vocal cords), immensely strong and with skin virtually impervious to scalpels, police bullets, even to bazooka shells.

After killing the doctor and his assistant (Joe Flynn), Benton sets out to avenge himself on his two henchmen and his attorney (Ross Elliott) who, in collusion with the attorney, had betrayed Benton in order to steal his loot. Benton had left the location of his stash to his stripper-girlfriend (Marian Carr), who had since gone straight and begun dating the detective who brought Benton to justice, after she had rejected the lawyer’s own advances.

The story then follows Benton’s revenge on his enemies; the police who first learn of a wave of mysterious killing, then of Benton’s reanimation; and the developing relationship between the detective and the stripper. The lawyer, fearing for his life after the two henchman are murdered, confesses the plot to the police, and reveals that Benton had always used the sewer system to evade detection; and to find a hiding place for the money, as it turns out.

Tracked down by the police, Benton takes a direct hit in the solar plexus from a bazooka, and is heavily burned by a flame thrower. Weakened, he flees to a power station, where he climbs atop a gantry, inadvertently setting it in motion. As he watches the actions of the police down below, he fails to notice the gantry is moving toward the main power terminals. A dangling hook catches on a wire, and the gantry erupts in sparks as masses of electricity surge throughout its metal frame, searing Benton to ashes. On a quiet night a few days later, Chasen successfully proposes to his girlfriend.

It’s Electrifying Fun!

5 March 2001 | by BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) (NC) – See all my reviews

First let me say that this is…without any hesitation….a bad film. It has choppy transitions, cheap sets(wait till you see the lab equipment), mediocre to horrible acting, and some of the most ridiculous plot developments to grace any film. Yet, this is one fun film to watch. Charles “Butcher” Benton is killed in the electric chair only to be sold to scientists who bring him back to life. No scientific explanation is really given for this feat, but Lon Chaney comes back to life and with a vengeance. See, he wants to kill the three guys that put him in prison, a sleazy lawyer and two small hoods.

Chaney is definitely fun to watch, and except for a few lines early in the picture, is mute throughout. He is a mute killer who literally throws people all over and kills with no discrimination at all. Chaney has many close-ups of his face and the way his eyes move is hilarious! I laughed myself silly any time he got mad and started to throw people. The cast is pretty average to below average with a couple exceptions. Max Showalter does a good job as the cop hot on the trail of the Butcher and the lovely blonde playing Eva Martin is nice to look at and has some talent as well. Look for Joe Flynn…yes, Captain Binghamton himself in a small role as a scientist’s assistant. Lots of fun!

Interesting 1950’s Offering

Author: Tom Fowler (tom.fowler@sbcglobal.net) from Overland Park, KS
8 February 2004

I viewed this film recently for the first time in many years, then went to the IMDb to see what other viewers had to say about it. I was pleased to learn that many feel the same way as I do about this film; that it is entertaining and holds up well within the limits of it’s time and 1950’s B film genre.

In case you are unfamiliar with the storyline: A small time hoodlum known as `The Butcher’ (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is executed for a crime his underworld companions set him up for. A bizarre scientific experiment brings him back to life via a massive dose of electricity, which destroys his vocal cords but makes his skin impenetrable, thus becoming the `Indestructible Man.’ The story revolves around the Butcher seeking revenge on those who double-crossed him and a zealous police lieutenant chasing he and a missing $600,000 down, with said policeman, (the versatile Casey Adams), falling in love with the Butcher’s would-be love interest, (Marion Carr). The Indestructible Man reminds sci-fi fans of Them!, as much of the action takes place in Los Angeles’ massive sewer system. This is not the best film to come out of it’s era, but it was not meant to be. I would say it rates in the top half of it’s class. The editing is a little weak, but there are some good 1950’s era location shots of downtown LA which should be of interest to historians, plus it contained some interesting players. Casey Adams, AKA Max Showalter, is not generally known to the viewing public but appeared in hundreds of film and television programs throughout his lengthy career. Joe Flynn had an interesting bit part as the lab assistant, this coming several years before McHale’s Navy fame. Female lead Marion Carr should have had a more successful career, as she was very attractive with a pleasing screen personality.

Of course, Lon Chaney, Jr. was the lead. In 1956, he still looked fit and menacing. It would not be long until his well documented personal troubles would diminish him physically and professionally. All in all, a solid effort by director Jack Pollexfen. View this one when you have a chance. It is interesting and will be time well spent.

Lon Chaney; furious avenger!

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
6 July 2005

I cherish a great deal of respect for the late Lon Chaney Jr. His acting career must not have been easy, since he’s the son of his father (Lon Chaney Sr.; the father of silent cinema) and since he always somewhat stood in the shadows of fellow horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Chaney Jr. starred in several really good horror gems (“Spider Baby”, “House of Dracula”) but also in many overlooked B-movies like this “Indestructible Man”. The plot is more ambitious than you’d think Chaney fits into his role perfectly. He plays the murderous gangster Charles “Butcher” Benton, sentenced to death and taking the secret of a hidden loot (worth over 600.000$) with him in his grave. He swears vengeance on his attorney who double-crossed him and he’s offered the opportunity when an experimenting scientist accidentally brings the Butcher back from the dead. Even though filmed on a minuscule budget, “Indestructible Man” is a very entertaining crime/horror movie with fairly good acting and a couple of nice special effects. The plotting is rather incompetent (for example: though the shock, Butcher loses his vocal cords but his memory stays intact…) but you’re not supposed to take it too seriously, anyway. Chaney’s eerie madman-charisma is more than enough to make “Indestructible Man” a worthwhile effort, if you ask me. This is just one of those many well-intended 50’s films that got wrongfully ridiculed by MST3K.

“There you are old boy, you respond properly and my theory is sound, you’ll be more famous dead than alive…, throw the switch!”

Author: classicsoncall from Florida, New York
3 September 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

“Indestructible Man” is one of those 1950’s pseudo horror gems that threaten to implode into comedy at any minute, but chalk one up for Lon Chaney Jr. here, he holds this thinly scripted melodrama together long enough to provide some entertaining moments. Chaney’s character is Butcher Benton, about to die in the electric chair for his role in a six hundred thousand dollar robbery. Masterminding the heist, as well as taking the fall is Paul Lowe (Ross Elliott), Benton’s attorney. Vowing revenge from beyond (like he knew he was coming back), Benton declares “Remember what I said, I’m gonna getcha, all three of ya”, including partners Squeamy Ellis (Marvin Ellis) and Joe Marcelli (Ken Terrell).

First major suspension of disbelief – how does a lab professor’s assistant score a celebrity corpse, even if he WAS a criminal? You’ll recognize future Captain Binghamton from “McHale’s Navy” as that assistant, and boy does he play it without emotion. When Professor Bradshaw (Robert Shayne) brings Benton back to life with an untested combination of a special blood transfusion with a kick of two hundred seventy thousand electrical volts, the most Flynn’s character can muster is “How do you explain this?” When Benton revives, he’s left without his vocal chords, they were burned out in the electrical shock. The good news however is that his cellular structure was changed to acquire super human strength. The indestructible man can now withstand gun shots at close range without harmful effect, and as an added bonus, so can his clothes. They hold up well (his clothes) after repeated police encounters, including a bazooka round, and a blast from a flamethrower.

The film tries to get some mileage from repeated close up shots of Lon Chaney’s eyes, similar to footage of Bela Lugosi’s signature eye stare in films like “Dracula” and “White Zombie”. It doesn’t work as well for Chaney, the menace that Bela achieved with his glare is far superior. Maybe Chaney had too much on his mind, like what did I sign up for here?

Balancing out the cast and the story are Max Showalter as Police Lieutenant Dick Chasen and Marian Carr as showgirl Eva Martin. Eva had a somewhat platonic relationship with the Butcher, a shoulder for him to cry on when the Butcher’s girl left him high and dry. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems a more than generous smile came across Eva’s face when she learned the lieutenant’s first name.

Ultimately, Benton exacts his revenge upon attorney Lowe and the rest of his no-goodnik partners, just as he vowed earlier from a prison cell. Alas though, he meets his end atop a gigantic crane high above a power plant. The scene is reminiscent of James Cagney’s farewell in “White Heat”, but without the defiant “Top of the World, Ma”. As Butcher Benton succumbs to a massive high voltage charge, I couldn’t help thinking that here in fact was the basis for the film’s real title – “Almost Indestructible Man”.

It’s Electrifying Fun!

Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC
5 March 2001

First let me say that this is…without any hesitation….a bad film. It has choppy transitions, cheap sets(wait till you see the lab equipment), mediocre to horrible acting, and some of the most ridiculous plot developments to grace any film. Yet, this is one fun film to watch. Charles “Butcher” Benton is killed in the electric chair only to be sold to scientists who bring him back to life. No scientific explanation is really given for this feat, but Lon Chaney comes back to life and with a vengeance. See, he wants to kill the three guys that put him in prison, a sleazy lawyer and two small hoods. Chaney is definitely fun to watch, and except for a few lines early in the picture, is mute throughout. He is a mute killer who literally throws people all over and kills with no discrimination at all. Chaney has many close-ups of his face and the way his eyes move is hilarious! I laughed myself silly any time he got mad and started to throw people. The cast is pretty average to below average with a couple exceptions. Max Showalter does a good job as the cop hot on the trail of the Butcher and the lovely blonde playing Eva Martin is nice to look at and has some talent as well. Look for Joe Flynn…yes, Captain Binghamton himself in a small role as a scientist’s assistant. Lots of fun!