The Magnificent Seven is one of those movies where the score is perhaps even more widely recognised than the movie itself. You will almost certainly have heard the music, by Elmer Bernstein. The Oscar-nominated score has subsequently featured in countless ads and TV shows. If you have been living under a rock and are not…
French movie poster books
In addition to collecting movie posters themselves, I have also amassed a number of books about movie posters. Whilst some of these are in English, an equal number I have found in France, where I live. Some of these are translations of books that are available elsewhere in English, but others are more specifically about…
Network
“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more.” If you remember nothing else of Network, you probably remember that line. Sidney Lumet’s 1976 classic satire is perhaps still the greatest movie ever made about television. Peter Finch’s unhinged TV newscaster is about to be fired, and announces he intends…
Diamonds Are Forever
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…