Reviews of Classic Film, with artwork and news
LAST UPDATE July 1, 2025
Fast Review: The Mark of Zorro - 1940: 26-year old Tyrone Power looks like he is having a lot of fun playing our two main characters, one being the wealthy, foppish, easily-frightened and easily-bored Don Diego Vega, and then in secret he is the fearsome black-clad on a black-horse avenger Zorro. Vega has just returned to California from a long educational stint in Spain (where it looks like he was mostly focused on swordsmanship in his studies) and is astounded to see how badly things have gotten in 1820 Los Angeles. The local government is utterly corrupt and cruel to the peons and anyone else who gets in the way, and the local families with a bit more social standing and position are too cowed to do anything about it.
Basil Rathbone (as Captain Esteban Pasquale) is the local military / police leader for the corrupt (and clownish) governor Don Luis Quintero (played by J. Edward Bromberg). Despite the official position, we can see that in reality Rathbone is playing a mob enforcer and it is quite satisfying to see him being sent half-crazy trying to stop the fast-moving Zorro who shows up suddenly all around the territory, spoiling the governor's crooked tax-gathering operation, and then outsmarts all the traps set to catch him. To top it off, Zorro hangs insulting placards about the town that further humiliate the arrogant Captain Esteban Pasquale.
Besides the combat, trickery, and humor in the story, there is also the side-tale of the governor's beautiful niece Lolita Quintero (played by a 16-year old Linda Darnell) who is repulsed by Vega but drawn toward the menacing Zorro. Then, as they say, things get complicated.
One of the best of the swashbucklers made in Hollywood's prime, The Mark of Zorro has intense stunt work, a long fencing sequence that is done so well I can't think of anything superior to it, and the whole thing is populated with gorgeous horses running to and fro. Though we've got a brutal story of corruption and aristocratic mendacity, it all gets cut by prodigious amounts of humor, both overt and sly.
The Woman They Almost Lynched - 1953: Though a "western," this film belongs in that sub-genre of films set in the Ozarks. Instead of the perpetually open-ended 1870s "Wild West" of the genre, this film's time-frame is that of the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Most of the tale takes place in Border City (located between Arkansas and Missouri), where both Northerners and Southerners are welcome—as long as they keep politics on the down-low. The town’s formidable female mayor, Delilah Courtney (played by Nina Varela), maintains order by ruthlessly suppressing agitators who try to stir up conflict between Yankee and Rebel sympathizers. This threat of violence is very real, as the film opens with a hyper-violent, extended montage (courtesy of cinematographer Reggie Lanning and editing by Fred Allen) depicting burning towns and rampaging looters. As the narrator grimly states, this is a place where “...law and order has disappeared and been replaced by lynch law.”
To run the town, gun-strapping Mayor Courtney is backed by a committee of women who serve as her advisors. Together, they have declared the town "neutral" in the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy—both flags are even shown flying side by side at the town hall. As the narrator explains, Border City has become a haven for "deserters, cutthroats, and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity... a crowded, teeming town."
Who is it they want to lynch? Sally Maris (Joan Leslie) has recently arrived in town to visit her brother, “Bitterroot” Bill Maris (played by Reed Hadley) who she hasn't seen for ten years. On her journey, she travels aboard a stagecoach that is attacked by Quantrill’s Raiders, a guerrilla bandit group led by Charles Quantrill (Brian Donlevy). Amid the chaos, she meets the boyish but lethal Jesse James (Ben Cooper), one of Quantrill’s men. The two form an unlikely, perversely immediate bond, resembling an improvised brother-sister relationship. Once in Border City, Sally discovers that her brother runs the town’s largest gambling saloon—and is stunned when she’s mistaken for a "new dance hall queen" hired to decorate his business. When one man leers, "...wonder if she knows any kissing games?" Jesse James steps in and warns the group: "Stand back and keep your talk clean. She’s a genuine article society lady."
Horrified to discover the extent of what her older brother has been doing in the ten years they've been apart, it gets worse when he doesn't even recognize her, but immediately looks her over as fresh meat for his establishment. They both recoil when their mutual identification is made clear.
Beyond her disorientation in this new world, Sally must also contend with the sometimes nearly psychotic Kate Quantrill, wife of Charles Quantrill (Audrey Totter). Kate carries and uses a revolver and has a volatile temper and was once romantically involved with Sally’s brother, Bill, before being abducted by Quantrill’s Raiders and disappearing for years. Now back in town, Kate launches a one-woman psychological assault on Bill, taunting him with memories of their past. When Bill asks what happened to her during her absence, she replies icily, "I like masterful men," referring to her husband, Quantrill, though whether she really means it in the way she is stating it is a totally different question.
In many ways, The Woman They Almost Lynched is soaked in tangled psychological motivations, pulling in multiple directions and undermining any straightforward reading of its characters—except, perhaps, for Brian Donlevy’s Charles Quantrill, whose violent, domineering style is that of an atypical Hollywood gangster. The real character mysteries lie elsewhere, especially in Kate and Sally. As Quaintrill says to Kate "...sometimes you can be the most exciting woman that ever was. But no man alive can even think of being as mean as a woman."
After our rough introduction to Border Town settles down, we mostly watch Kate and Sally and see that everything that happens across the large cast eventually centers on them and their distaste for each other. While Jesse James looks at Sally with admiration, and Quiantrill the same toward Kate (though mixed with questions about her mental state!), eventually Kate is upset and shaken because Sally "...looks at me as if I was dirt." As The Woman They Almost Lynched continues, the differences between them narrow and the similarities begin to overlap, one at a time.
Usually described as a B-movie, The Woman They Almost Lynched is based on a short story by Michael Fessier, originally published in the January 6, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. The film was initially intended to be shot in Republic Pictures’ Trucolor, their discount version of Technicolor, but budget constraints forced a shift to black and white before filming began. Nonetheless, the large cast size pushes the "B-movie" label to its limits, and there's a great deal of ambition in the script. If only Herbert Yates had more dollars on hand to fully exploit the setting, unique story, and the cast's ensemble of characters.
As a consequence of the budget, though, the narrator tells us that Border Town is a "teeming mass" of refugees and that lawlessness is the order of the day, but the budget means the size of the crowds in the street are more limited and the activities of the cast (for example, an extended "cat-fight" between Sally and Kate) means we see them scrambling about most of the time within the saloon set. This is where most of the camera work is done (and director Alan Dwan handles the multi-floored set very well in this regard) and the film's runtime of 90 minutes means we've got to really cover ground fast because of the large number of sub-stories moving along beneath the surface story of woman-against-woman in a town run by women.
The Cat Girl - 1957: A direct lift from Lewton's 1942 The Cat People, this film takes it for granted the psychological dilemmas that you have when your family is full of legends of shape-changing, and the story here speeds the star (Barbara Shelley as Leonora Johnson), however reluctant she is about her 'curse,' onward to her destiny of becoming a "cat-woman."
What the film lacks in subtlety and imagination it tries to make up for with a more crudely performed exploration of the theme of the earlier Lewton film, which are simply the hazards of being a cat-person. One advantage this film has it reaches deeper into the sense of mental instability and the threat from there being lethal cats on the loose, because not only is our monster a shape-changer, but there's also a separate leopard on the loose that she can control.
Developing the sense of mental dysfunction, the director (
Alfred Shaughnessy) shows us Shelley (whose work here is probably the single highest quality element to the production) in a straight-jacket, being shown in terror after commitment to a mental institution, and pulling out all the stops to convince us the pain and terror is real. This was something we didn't see Simone Simon have to face in the moodier 1942 film, but Shelley's anguish and fear over not just becoming a monster but, in effect, losing her identity and sense of self-control, is more palpable than anything Lewton intimated in his template movie.
The Cat Girl doesn't have many more ambitions than to retell Lewton's story, turn the horror up (and the adultery among the characters) to eleven, and to let Shelley try for being the constant center of our attention. In the case of the latter, it works. The rest of the cast does its job but without a lot of opportunities to break out of the mold of dry melodrama, though. The cinematography and direction is perfectly fine and interesting at times, but hampered by a script that is either too chained to the basic outline of Lewton's original or not inspired enough to break free. Either way The Cat Girl's originality is in filling in the gaps of Lewton's story. Barbara Shelley is the highlight here and puts enough energy into some of the scenes to yank the film up to a higher level, briefly, making this viewer wonder what could've been.
El Vampiro, 1957: If you watch this film and say to yourself "Hey, they must've watched the Christopher Lee Horror of Dracula before making this version" you'll need to switch the order around because El Vampiro was first, released October 4, 1957, predating the Hammer Dracula of June 16, 1958.
The recent Blu Ray edition from Indicator for El Vampiro looks exceptionally well preserved and converted for home video. More about El Vampiro.
An original fine print of the original 1977 Star Wars screened at BFI Festival with Kathleeen Kennedy in attendance – Superherohype
The print’s discovery came as a surprise, and quickly led to a stir amongst fans online. George Lucas infamously did not like the very first print of Star Wars (which would later be renamed to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), and would tinker with it in the years after its release. Specifically, Lucas added the now infamous opening crawl, and changed the scene in the Mos Eisley cantina, making it so that bounty hunter Greedo shoots at Han Solo first, rather than vice versa...."
Sophia Loren's role in making Greece a place for Hollywood films
She praises the island of Hydra, location of her 1957 film Boy on A Dolphin. Story at Greek Reporter
How Athens keeps alive the tradition of hand-painted movie posters
Story at le Monde
Fast Review: The Adventures of Hajji Baba - 1954: A young John Derek plays the ambitious barber Hajji Baba in early 1800s Persia, full of grandiose plans for his future—much to the laughter of his customers. He makes a wager with the successful traveling merchant Osman Aga (Thomas Gomez) that he will achieve great things (by the end we will see Osman as rich, then destitute, then rich all over again). Soon, circumstances conspire to put the barber in a position where he must either live up to his bold promises—or, well, he's dead.
More on The Adventures of Hajji Baba – 1954
Why Gone with the Wind Is Probably the Highest-Earning Film Ever
And Why the Conditions of Its Success Have Locked It into an Unreachable Position
The Billion-Dollar Caveat: There is a certain school of thought that holds Gone with the Wind (1939) as the all-time earnings champion of the film medium. When adjusted for inflation, ticket prices, distribution reach, and continual re-release revenues, the film retains an accumulated box office total that remains virtually unreachable.
More about Why Gone with the Wind Is Probably the Highest-Earning Film Ever
Pandora's Box
G. W. Pabst directs Louise Brooks as "Lulu" and makes a seminal cinemagraphic icon of German and international cinema.
Review of Pandora's Box - 1929
Fast Reviews
Lover Come Back – 1961: Doris Day and Rock Hudson in another war of the sexes comedy, with Tony Randall along, too, playing a part rather close to the character played by John Williams as Irving La Salle Jr., in the superior advertising world story Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), a film where Tony Randall was the star (paired with Jayne Mansfield). Here, Randall is demoted (or promoted, depending upon your point of view) to actually running an advertising firm, and trying to control and understand the firm's star advertising agent played by Hudson. Meanwhile, a competition with another firm (where Doris Day's character works) bubbles up, and with a twist right out of Pillow Talk (another Day-Hudson comedy), Hudson concocts an alternative identity as a naive' and innocent chemist working on a secret consumer product called "Vip" which Doris Day's hard-working advertising agent desperately wants for her firm.
A colorful film with well-engineered jokes, a bit more smarmy than the other Day-Hudson comedies, and with plenty of scenes in which the humor is derived simply from the camera being aimed right at Doris Day and seeing how she reacts to something (for example, when she and Hudson end up in a striptease place).
Review
Shanghai Express – 1932: The problem with this Josef Sternberg film, though it is beautifully photographed and contains a nice panorama of characters on a dangerous ride by rail through war-torn China, is that the star, Marlene Dietrich, mugs for the camera in ways that seem directly lifted from a primitive silent film. She rolls her eyes frequently as if to help visually to enunciate her dialogue, but the eye rolling seems out of synch and she does gesticulations with her hands that also seem out of synch, as if her English language skills and her mannerisms are operating on two different levels, which is to say, the artifice of Dietrich's acting in Shanghai Express is thick and heavy.
More review of Shanghai Express
4K Disc releases from Eureka in July 2025
4K High Noon – The 1952 Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly film with a booklet, plus a list of documentaries, interviews and commentaries. Eureka Page about High noon
4K The Old Dark House – 1932 Karloff film with Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas and Gloria Stuart, also includes audio commentary track with Gloria Stuart. Eureka 4k Old Dark House page - I can remember when seeing The Old Dark House was next to impossible such that a special showing at the Library of Congress around 1983 was considered a major event (that is, for old, hard-to-see movies).
Review: The Amazing Mr. X – 1948
Turhan Bey plays a con-artist-spiritualist who is set upon exploiting the loneliness and gullibility of two sisters, but then is drawn into a much more dangerous plot involving murder – more about The Amazing Mr X
New discs from Criterion in August:
Shoeshine (1946) Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning film about tough times for small kids in post war Italy: two little boys struggle to save enough money by shining shoes to obtain a horse– Criterion page
Cairo Station (1958) Youssef Chahine film about the people centered around an Egyptian rail station and the conditions showing a "raw populist poetry" - Criterion Page
Review: The City Without Jews – 1924
"Utopia" (which looks exactly like Vienna) is plunged into turmoil when the government, seeking to please powerful anti-Semites in their own country and to also give a windfall of job openings to the rest of the populace, passes a law to expel all the Jews. Unique film made that portrays a future that was only a decade away in reality - More about The City Without Jews, 1924
Blu Ray disc of the 1967 Taming of the Shrew coming
The Franco Zeffirelli version, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, includes commentary tracks, documentaries, and an in-case booklet featuring an essay on the film. Scheduled for release in July from Powerhouse Films
Diary of A Chamber Maid - 1946
Diary of A Chamber Maid – 1946
Paulette Goddard works, survives and then triumphs as a lowly chambermaid on a French country estate, putting up with not only the people around her and their sometimes crazy plans, but also her own short-sighted ambitions.
More about the Jean Renoir film Diary of A Chambermaid, 1946
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