In the James Bond poster collecting world, rarity almost always equates to price. I have a number of original Bond posters from around the world framed and up on my walls. I’ve also had an equal number pass through my hands, many of which I sold years ago for what in retrospect were very low…
Spirit Of St Louis
This is a movie I feel I should have seen, but if so I remember nothing about it. It is a biopic of aviator Charles Lindbergh, and specifically his history-making 33 hour transatlantic flight in the plane of the title. The great Billy Wilder directs, and the 25 year-old Lindbergh is played by the 47…
The Satanic Rites Of Dracula
1973’s The Satanic Rites Of Dracula is the last of the Hammer Dracula series. It gets something of a bad rep, but I rather enjoyed it. Having brought Dracula into the twentieth century with the previous Dracula AD72, which had a striking title but little else to recommend it, the producers gave Dracula rather more…
The Killing Fields
Uniquely, I saw The Killing Fields in the presence of the producer, director and writer! Back when I was reviewing movies for my university newspaper, the producers of The Killing Fields hit upon what I still think was a clever marketing ploy: they invited student journalists from universities and colleges around the country to a…
Q The Winged Serpent
I remember I saw this loony concept monster movie from schlock producer Larry Cohen (Its Alive and others) in the lecture theatre at university. It was a lot of fun, I recall. The plot sees an ancient giant flying lizard god make a nest at the top of the Chrysler building’s art-deco spire. From there…
Rear Window
Rear Window is one of Hitchcock’s greatest movies, indeed one of the greatest movies ever. Hitchcock ingeniously makes full use of the single location set to explore one of his favourite themes: voyeurism. James Stewart plays a photographer with a broken leg, driven to distraction by boredom cooped up in his apartment, who amuses himself…
The Wild Geese
In 1978, when it was released, a movie where white mercenaries kill a bunch of black soldiers and (almost) rescue a black resistance leader was nothing more than a cracking adventure. Now, its ‘white saviour’ theme is rather uncomfortable, notwithstanding some token attempts in the script to address racism head-on. (The movie also invited controversy…
Barbarella
I honestly do not know what to make of Barbarella. I only have vague memories of having seen it once on TV and I recall it was very campy, silly and not particularly funny. Yet it has a status now as something of an influential cult classic, so maybe I was just too young to…
Round Midnight
Here is an Oscar-winning soundtrack from a movie I must admit I do not remember at all well. I cannot claim to be much of a jazz connoisseur either, but I do like the imagery of late nights in smoky 50s clubs, with fragile or frazzled talents bringing magic onstage. Round Midnight casts one of…
Peplums
Here are some examples of a peculiar sub-genre. “Peplums” are a term for low-budget Italian-made ‘sword and sandal’ historical epics. The peak “peplum” period was the 60s, when hundreds of such movies featuring Biblical stories and/or Greco-Roman mythical heroes were made. These attempted to copy the success of Hollywood epics such as Ben Hur or…