Criminal Affair

Studio: Bci Eclipse Company
Product Type: DVD

Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)

Average customer rating:

Double Indemnity
Classic film noir from the great Billy Wilder
It doesn't get any better than this blistering jewel
a great example of the early days of film noir.......
Lust and Greed Lead to Murder

Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
Starring: Fred MacMurray , Barbara Stanwyck , Edward G. Robinson , Porter Hall , and Jean Heather
Director: Billy Wilder , and Jack Smight
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Laura (Fox Film Noir)

ASIN: B00005JNG5
Release Date: 2006-08-22

Amazon.com essential video

Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in these plots things never quite go as planned, and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily insurance investigator who must sort things out. From the opening scene you know Neff is doomed, as the story is told in flashback; yet, to the film's credit, this doesn't diminish any of the tension of the movie. This early film noir flick is wonderfully campy by today's standards, and the dialogue is snappy ("I thought you were smarter than the rest, Walter. But I was wrong. You're not smarter, just a little taller"), filled with lots of "dame"s and "baby"s. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, and MacMurray, despite a career largely defined by roles as a softy (notably in the TV series My Three Sons and the movie The Shaggy Dog), is convincingly cast against type as the hapless, love-struck sap. --Jenny Brown

Customer Reviews:

Double Indemnity.......2007-06-21

One of the quintessential noir films, Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" is a masterpiece of stark atmosphere and carefully stylized suspense. The talented Barbara Stanwyck, a familiar face in the 1940s noir universe, assumes her role with feline deviousness, while "My Three Sons" TV dad Fred MacMurray--narrating the film via flashback--brilliantly plays against type. Raymond Chandler's screenplay sizzles with hard-boiled repartee and the great Edward G. Robinson is aces as always as the dogged investigator hot on the lovers' trail. Sinister, tense, and cynical, Wilder's "Indemnity" is riveting film suspense.

Classic film noir from the great Billy Wilder.......2007-06-10

"Double Indemnity" is one of the first films of the genre that would come to be known as "Film Noir".

The plot is classic film noir - a smug, womanising insurance salesman Walter Neff (played by Fred MacMurray) gets in over his head with a conniving femme fatale Phyllis Diedrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) who wants rid of her boorish husband. Neff must also be wary of a suspicious claims manager at his insurance company Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson).

Naturally the story has some dated elements (it was made in 1943) but it still holds up pretty well as entertainment for a modern audience.

MacMurray is excellent in his role as a heel making a change from his usual nice guy roles. He helps make the character sympathetic whereas Stanwycks role has few redeeming features - she really is "rotten". Her turnabout at the end is also somewhat unconvincing. The great Edward G. Robinson steals every scene he's in as the tenacious investigator who has a soft spot for Neff.

The DVD includes a good commentary by Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman with useful insights on the film but it also continually laments the decline of Hollywood, which I think is a trifle unfair.

Like most Billy Wilder films "Double Indemnity" doesn't really have a message - it just provides great entertainment aimed at adults. It also marks a growing shift in the 1940s towards more maturity in Hollywood film-making.

It doesn't get any better than this blistering jewel.......2007-05-30

What else remains to be said about one of the true classics of noir? Fred Macmurry is just right as the sap who thinks he's a lot smarter & sharper than he really is; Edward G. Robinson shines as a dedicated & inexorable seeker of the truth, even as his concern & disappointment for his fallen friend shows clearly; and Barbara Stanwyck scalds the screen as the trashy, blatantly sexy femme fatale with the morals of an alley cat & an icy ruthlessness that stops at nothing -- just look at that cover art! Wrap these characters in moody, bleakly beautiful black & white cinematography, give them a witty, scathing script by Raymond Chandler, and you've got a sordid masterpiece about small-timers whose greedy, self-centered dreams are much larger than their shriveled souls. I can't recommend this film highly enough!

a great example of the early days of film noir..............2007-05-20

DOUBLE INDEMNITY, a 1944 film by Billy Wilder, is one of the most definitive and beautiful examples of early film noir (literally, "black film") at its best. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre of film noir, this was a type of film made popular in the 1940s and 1950s, features very dark cinematography (plenty of shadows intermixed with light), as well as equally dark subject matter. Common themes are murders, affairs and grizzly illegal activity. DOUBLE INDEMNITY is a great example of this style at its best.

Fred MacMurray plays wily insurance man Walter Neff, who finds himself drawn to a beautiful, married woman, Phyllis Dietrichsen, played by the lovely Barbara Stanwyck. Together, they cook a plot to murder her husband, so Walter can make off with the policy money. Of course, things don't go quite according to plan. Enter Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), an investigator who gets wind that "something is rotting in Denmark." Keyes knows that there is something decidedly un-kosher about the whole arrangement between Neff and Dietrichsen, and he is determined to find out where that feeling is coming from.

This film is beautifully acted, directed with great zest, and very, very engaging. Even though some of the dialogue is (delightfully) dated, you are still going to have a great time watching DOUBLE INDEMNITY. There is no question that this is an example of filmmaking, at its best.

Lust and Greed Lead to Murder.......2007-05-15

Late at night a man enters an office building. Mr. Walter Neff is working overtime. Dozens of desks for the clerical workers are void of life. In his office he begins to speak into his Dictaphone about the Diedrickson claim. It all started when Neff went to see about an auto insurance renewal. Mr. Diedrickson wasn't home, but his wife Phyllis was. [The dialogue between them shows Raymond Chandler's skills.] Claims manager Mr. Barton Keyes is skilled in sniffing out false claims. Neff returns to Diedrickson for the auto insurance renewal. Phyllis asks about an accident policy for her husband. Could she get one without her husband's knowledge? Neff explains why she could never get away with it. But Phyllis visits Neff to better explain her wants, and there is a meeting of their minds. [Use your imagination.] Phyllis doesn't like her stepdaughter Lola, and Lola doesn't like her stepmother (there is a reason for this).

Neff explains how insurance companies know all the tricks used to make a murder look like an accident. But Neff impulsively decides to help Phyllis remove an inconvenient husband. [Is this plausible? Like the rain in Los Angeles.] Mr. Diedrickson is concerned about Lola's activities. Neff explains to Phyllis why Mr. Diedrickson must travel by train. Lola also has problems with her boyfriend. Neff plans their surreptitious meeting where they can plot the crime. The film show how they could then check if a doorbell of telephone rang. The murder is cold-blooded and horrible, but off scene. [Did they leave fingerprints on those crutches?]

The actuarial tables are cited to show the encyclopedic knowledge of insurance companies. But Keyes has noticed a discrepancy in this case, and begins to question the apparent facts. Then there is another glitch, something that wasn't foreseen. Daughter Lola meets Neff and tells him some old facts, and some new ones! Keyes surmises how this accident was concocted. There is now great danger for Phyllis and Neff. More surprising complications arise in this story until the shocking ending. [Could a person who murders another be implicitly suicidal?]

One important part of this story is the background of life in 1944 Los Angeles. How much was changed in just twenty years! [There was no mention of war-time rationing or shortages in that grocery supermarket.]

Average customer rating:

"I want my money"
A forerunner to Dirty Harry and Lee Marvin shining...
companion pieces
Gritty film....love it!
Treasurehouse

Point Blank
Starring: Lee Marvin , Angie Dickinson , Keenan Wynn , Carroll O'Connor , and Lloyd Bochner
Director: John Boorman
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00097DY2A
Release Date: 2005-07-05

Amazon.com

Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and assisted by Angie Dickinson, as he desperately searches for someone, anyone, who can just give him his money. But if Walker is an extreme incarnation of the revenge-driven noir antihero, the modern syndicate has been transformed into a world of paper jungles and corporate businessmen, an alienating concept to the two-fisted, gun-wielding gangster. Boorman creates a hard, austere look for the film and fragments the story with flashes of painful memory, grafting the New Wave onto old genres with confidence and style. Haunting and brutal, Point Blank remains one of the most distinctive crime thrillers ever made. --Sean Axmaker

Description

They double-crossed Walker, took his $93,000 cut of the heist and left him for dead, but they didn't finish the job. Big mistake. He - someday, somehow - is going to finish them. Lee Marvin is in full antihero mode as remorseless Walker, talking the talk and walking the walk in John Boorman's (Deliverance) edgy neo-noir classic filled with imaginative New Wave style, blunt dialogue and Walker's relentless quest that, one by one, smashes into the corporate pecking order of a crime group called the Organization. Angie Dickinson plays the accomplice who uses her seductive wiles to ensnare one of Walker's prey. "I want my 93 grand," Walker growls at him. Throughout, the payoff to that demand is action that "hits like a fat slug from the .38 Lee Marvin uses as an extension of his fist" (Newsweek).

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by Directors John Boorman and Steven Soderbergh
Featurette:Vintage Featurettes The Rock Part 1 and The Rock Part 2

Customer Reviews:

"I want my money" .......2007-06-11

Saw this movie a month and a half ago. What an amazing movie. The whole cast was good especially Marvin and Angie Dickinson. Can you believe this movie bombed when it was released in the summer of 1967? Hard to believe that this is a fast movie (92 minutes) and by the time the movie neared its end it reminded me of a movie that I recently saw and that is the David Cromberg film "A History of Violence". Speaking of movies I think "Point Blank" is the most important movie of the 1960's because it was the inspiration for other shoot-them-up movies that would come out in the years to come including "Bullitt", "Dirty Harry", "Get Carter", and "Death Wish".

A forerunner to Dirty Harry and Lee Marvin shining..........2007-04-20

If you liked "The Getaway" or "Dirty Harry", then meet their forerunner.

"Point Blank" is explosive, fast-paced, and still the acting is there.
Good acting that is.

Lee Marvin is at his best. Angie Dickinson. in her strong performance, is as beautiful as ever. Keenan Wynn and Carroll O'Connor play their parts to the hilt and it truly shows. John Vernon (who was The Mayor in "Dirty Harry") plays a slimy type with diligence and very believable.

Add the killing pace of the entire picture, and you have a hot item, as sharp and cutting as "Film Noir" can be.
Yes, because this is still a "Film Noir", despite the fact that it was filmed in Color and in the mid-sixties.

John Boorman ("Hell in the Pacific", "Deliverance" and "The Emerald Forest"), skillfully "color coded" the entire movie, bringing it from absolute colors at the beginning, to more red-tinted ones towards the end.

The only difference from a true "Film Noir" is its fast-paced storyline, that would lead us to movies as I have mentioned above.

Marvin's minimalistic acting, but forceful presence, is enough to fill every frame of the movie with tension, action and complete mayhem.
Compare him in "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Big Red One" and you will see what I mean.

A big plus was the release on DVD. An excellent transfer with a sharp picture resolution, a clearcut sound, make it a very enticing experience to watch it at home.

This is not just a Highly Recommended title. It is simply a Must!

companion pieces.......2007-04-19

This character (whose original name is Parker) also appears in THE SPLIT, THE OUTFIT, SLAYGROUND, and PAYBACK.

The Outfit

Slayground (Ws)

Gritty film....love it!.......2007-02-14

I just watched this last night and I love these kind of films.Tough talk,double crosses,action.For those of you who wondered how Lee Marvin's character got himself fixed after he had been shot,then just assume that he went to the hospital because if they showed everything,then the movie would've been over 2 hours long.This is one Lee Marvin's best roles that can stand next to Cat Ballou and Who Shot Liberty Valence.They don't make tough guys like Lee Marvin anymore and he was one of the best.Plus,a great comedian,too.Great cast..

Treasurehouse .......2006-11-06

A haunting film, superbly directed, edited and acted, a source for cinema techniques we take for granted today, in short everything that the remake was not. For the film enthusiast an absolutely 'must have.' For those to whom movies are simply entertainments, probably something of a disappointment, open ended as it is and subject to questions to which there is no definite answer.

Average customer rating:

Mindlessly Hilarious
Extremely hilarious
PLEASE DONT KILL ME FREAKY JASON!
So Hillarious
A very funny movie

Nothing to Lose
Starring: Susan Barnes , Penny Bae Bridges , Patrick Cranshaw , Giancarlo Esposito , and Rebecca Gayheart
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 155890834X
Release Date: 1998-04-21

Description

This hugely funny action-comedy hit stars big-screen favorites Martin Lawrence (BAD BOYS) and Tim Robbins (HIGH FIDELITY). Advertising executive Nick Beam (Robbins) has completely bottomed out. His career is a mess, his marriage is on the rocks ... and a fast-talking would-be carjacker (Lawrence) has just jumped into his car! So what does he do? Nick throws common sense out the window and turns the tables on his captor! Soon this mismatched pair speeds off on a comical crime spree that includes holdups, high-speed chases, and revenge! Set to a hot hit soundtrack, NOTHING TO LOSE is another wild comedy success from the creator of ACE VENTURA and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR!

Amazon.com

With a story that's too flimsy to support its running time, this road-movie comedy has plenty of problems, but at its best it's a surprisingly inspired vehicle for the clever teaming of Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. Robbins plays an addled advertising executive who comes home early one day and discovers his wife in bed with his boss. To make matters worse, he's later carjacked by a struggling, unemployed family-man-turned-petty-thief (Lawrence), and that's when he loses his cool completely. He takes the carjacker hostage and recruits him on a road-trip scheme of revenge against his wife and boss. Plotting to break into his boss's high-security vault, Robbins gets a criminal assist from Lawrence, but they're also on the run from another pair of would-be thieves who trail them to the vault's location. The routine plot is occasionally limp and sluggish, but writer-director Steve Oedekerk (who makes a wacky cameo appearance as a security guard) mines comedy gold during several scenes that detour from the plot for the sake of sheer lunacy. Robbins and Lawrence have great comedic chemistry (if you can tolerate Lawrence's constant profanity), and although the movie ends on a false note with some unlikely turns of fate, it's definitely good for more than a few solid laughs. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Mindlessly Hilarious.......2007-06-27

A man comes home early and catches his wife in bed with his boss, just after his boss asked him to take a meeting so he could "get lucky" with her. Having been deeply in love with his, wife the emotional backlash is not insignificant. When he finds himself at gun point in an attempted robbery, the maelstrom that follows makes up the plotline of the movie.

"Nothing to Lose" is nothing of not predictable. Even though I won't mention how it all pans out, anyone could predict it anwyay. Despite that, the movie is still gut-wrenching in its hilarity and zany situations. The scene where Nick asks a store clerk what was scarier, (his cool and calm approach or Terence's loud, profanity pumping approach), was a hoot. Especially when the clerk tried to make Nick feel better about himself.

For a good laugh, this is a hard movie to beat. Tim Robbins is great and Martin Lawrence even manages to be less annoyingly squealy than he normally is. Like other reviewers, I love this movie and have seen it a number of times. Want a good laugh? See this one!

Extremely hilarious.......2007-04-29

Watching Tim Robbins dance with his shoe on fire while trying to get a spider off of him led me to the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. Martin Lawrence's character's response to it as well as the back ground music made it even funnier. I had tears in my eyes and my side hurt.

PLEASE DONT KILL ME FREAKY JASON!.......2007-04-06

THIS IS DEFINITELY TOP TEN FUNNIEST MOVIES I HAVE SEEN! MARTIN LAWRENCE AND TIM ROBBINS WERE WELL MATCHED IN THIS COMEDY. MY FAVORTIES SCENES ARE AS FOLLOW:
1. WHEN NICK AND T. ARE FIGHTING OVER THE CREDIT CARD AND NICK DOES THIS WEIRD ELBOW TO FACE HIT ON T.
2. THE SCENE WITH THE SPIDER AND NICKS SHOE CATCHING ON FIRE AND T CATCHES IT ALL ON CAMERA
3. WHERE T. ACCIDENTLY SHOOTS NICK IN THE ARM( MORE LIKE GRAZE )
4. AND OF COURSE THE SCENE IN THE STORE AND NICK ASKING THE OLD MAN CLERK WHO WAS MORE SCARY

ALL IN ALL GREAT FILM TO HAVE!

So Hillarious.......2007-02-28

This movie is so Hilliarious. It SHOULD be a nothing to loose 2.

My favorite scene in the Blocbuster Movie is where. Tim Robbins got his foot on fire, and dancin like an Idiot.

The other scene is here where both Martin and Tim Robbins Robs the old mans store for some flashlights. And Tim Asks the other Old guy who was more scarier,

Tons of laughs on this

A very funny movie.......2007-01-30

Too much adult content to let kids watch it, but one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.
Martin Lawrence is awesome in it, as well as Tim Robbins.

Average customer rating:

The Big Combo
John Alton's cinematography is a classic noir example of what can be done with limited means
Big Dumpo
Great movie, great price!
The Big Combo

The Big Combo
Starring: Cornel Wilde , Richard Conte , Brian Donlevy , Jean Wallace , and Robert Middleton
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Manufacturer: Geneon [Pioneer]
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000B7QCT0
Release Date: 2005-10-04

Amazon.com

A prime example of the American film noir style that flourished during the 1940s and '50s, The Big Combo is now highly regarded as a stylistic milestone for its innovative use of deep shadows and harsh, singular light sources to define its visual strategy. This look is largely credited to the rule-breaking brilliance of cinematographer John Alton, who turns a standard plot of the era into a richly atmospheric experiment in visual invention. Ignoring conventional approaches to lighting, Alton defines the screen in terms of blackness, often framing characters as silhouettes cast in ominous grays or thick, roiling fogs. Moving from clarity to abstraction with masterful grades in between, Alton's trend-setting style has been celebrated by cinematographers since the film's release in 1955.

The film's plot keeps brisk pace with the visuals, focusing on the obsessive efforts of a tenacious detective (Cornel Wilde) to destroy a sadistic mobster (Richard Conte) whose vicious influence has nearly ruined the life of the woman (Jean Wallace) he keeps under his dark wing. Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman are nicely cast as the villain's toady henchmen, and Brian Donlevy's usual limitations serve him well as the humbled, frustrated kingpin who's been stifled by Conte's ambition. Director Joseph H. Lewis previously demonstrated his raw, stylistic vigor with the earlier cult favorite Gun Crazy, and here he's in peak form with a perfect match of subject and sensibility. The result is hard-boiled entertainment that still packs a punch. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

The Big Combo.......2007-06-26

Lewis's ultra-hard-boiled noir is savage and unstinting in its view of two men, one squarely on the side of the law and the other seemingly above it, locked in a battle of wills that may eventually destroy them both. Conte is particularly repellent as the sadistic Mr. Brown, but he gets excellent support from Brian Donlevy as a stoic, humiliated underling whose hearing aids provide one of the movie's most gruesome plot points. Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef are also solid playing Brown's all-too-loyal thugs. Raw and beautifully stylized by John Alton's brilliant use of light, shadow, and slanted angles, "The Big Combo" makes for a bracing night at the movies.

John Alton's cinematography is a classic noir example of what can be done with limited means.......2007-06-14

When the two most interesting scenes involve a hearing aid pulled from Brian Donlevy's ear, I think a good assumption would be that The Big Combo lacks a little something. The plot is simplicity itself. An obsessive cop is determined to bring down a crime boss, come what may. As the cop collects witnesses, the crime boss' two goons turn them into corpses. Eventually, the cop prevails...and maybe even makes a friend of the crime boss' innocent, blond and zaftig girlfriend. In fact, however, I think the Big Combo lacks two big somethings.

First, the movie has a giant, dull center because the two leads, Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace, are two of the most limited actors Hollywood ever gave star roles to. While Wilde might generously be called a limited actor, Wallace, with her little girl voice and intonations, simply isn't an actor at all. For my money, almost all the actors lack any inherent interest. The implied relationship between the two killers, amusingly played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holiman, might have been an inside joke in the Fifties, but it now seems simply an excuse for excessive analysis on Turner Classic Movies. Donlevy, in fact, saddened me. It was disconcerting to see this actor, who had earned major stature in Hollywood in his prime, reduced to playing a broken-down, aging, useless crime boss in a movie of this quickie, low-budget quality.

Second, the dialogue is as flat and stale as yesterday's fried egg. It doesn't power the plot. It doesn't make us sit up because of cleverness or pungency. It's as lifeless as the delivery most of the actors give it, especially Wilde and Wallace. Richard Conte never quite made the A list in Hollywood, but he was always a dynamic and forceful actor, and a good one, too. He's the most animated of any of the actors. His role as the ruthless and smooth Mr. Big, always referred to and addressed as Mr. Brown, gives him more latitude to be interesting than the other players. Yet the silly device of having everyone refer to him only as Mr. Brown brings Conte perilously close to being nothing more than a screenwriter's idea of iconic menace.

What's to like about the movie? Well, the plot is hardly original, yet the idea of a Mr. Big eventually brought down by an obsessed cop while people fall by the wayside is usually satisfying. Most impressively, John Alton, the cinematographer, pulled out all the tricks in his bag to give The Big Combo a great noir look. From dramatic spotlights pinning the bad guy against a wall to the flashes of silent machine guns, from Lee Van Cleef's face looking stark and scary to the opening shots of a woman pursued by two killers through dark shadows and blinding lights, The Big Combo is a pleasure to look at. But if all you can say about a noir is that the lighting was great, that might be faint praise.

Big Dumpo.......2007-05-13

What an utter waste of time. I love old black and white movies, especially film noir, but the lighting is amateurish, the acting is very stiff, the ideas are idiotic (they arrest a woman for murder because she attempts suicide), the makeup is incredibly poor (one man's gray hair looks like it was applied with house paint), the music is suddenly loud for no reason, but the writing should get a special award for stupidity. There is a wandering, nonsensical, and boring plot line that could not be saved with the greatest of actors, and they certainly are not that. Having seen it all the way through, I have no idea what a "Big Combo" is or why anyone wanted to make this movie. It is so bad I will hesitate to order a Big Combo the next time I want fries with my hamburger. I'm actually sorry that I have to give it one star. Stinko!

Great movie, great price!.......2007-04-28

I don't have to repeat everything that others have written-- this is a great movie! I already had the Image DVD when I decided to buy the Geneon PD release for just over a dollar from an Amazon seller to send to a friend. I expected the inexpensive public domain release to be barely watchable. I've had that experience with most of the Alpha DVD's I've purchased. But, THIS Geneon is quite good. Before looking for an out of print Image DVD, check this one out! With shipping, my total cost was under 4 dollars! Highly recommended!

The Big Combo.......2007-03-26

I'm a fan of the old B&W detective/mystery films. This one is OK but not great.

Average customer rating:

Love the nightmare
Dense plotline, pretty interesting approach
Interesting
Potent
James Spader Best Actor??

sex, lies, and videotape
Starring: James Spader , Andie MacDowell , Peter Gallagher , Laura San Giacomo , and Ron Vawter
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: 0767812158
Release Date: 1998-10-07

Product Description

Winner of the Palm d'Or and Best Actor awards at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, sex, lies, and videotape transformed the independent film industry and turned writer-director Steven Soderbergh into the envy of aspiring filmmakers everywhere. Sly, seductive, and coolly intelligent, the movie explores the sexual shenanigans and personal preoccupations of its four central characters, revolving around a selfish lawyer (Peter Gallagher) who responds to his wife by having an affair with her free-spirited sister (Laura San Giacomo). But when the lawyer's college roommate (James Spader) arrives for an unexpectedly extended visit, the neglected wife (Andie MacDowell) is surprisingly responsive to his seductive hobby of videotaping women as they describe their sexual fantasies. It's his way of compensating for impotence, but the curious wife considers this a sexual challenge, and Soderbergh turns sex, lies, and videotape into a fascinating chamber piece that puts a decidedly different spin on the consequences of infidelity. Balanced on a risky and finely tuned performance by Spader, the film delivers frisky passion and emotional intrigue, and yet much of its allure is found in the exchange of secrets and the hidden mysteries of sexual desire. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Love the nightmare.......2007-06-26

Claustrophobic, dyspeptic and pathological, sex, lies and videotape revisits the insalubrious Freudian vertigo first visited upon the public with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Tormented, arrrogant, self-destructive Spader made his case as Gen X's Richard Burton with this, then Crash. Unlike the Great Drunken One, however, it's Spader's feminine facial features (prominently displayed here) that gives the plot thrust it's disarming realism. Of course, Andie MacDowell kicks off proceedings in therapy, where her professional medicine man fails to get her talking about ... sex. Soderbergh is a clever lad - notice MacDowell mimicking Spader's black top and blue jeans near the close. Queasily perfect -

EXCEPT the final scene. What's up with the happy ending? I LIVED this movie and, let me assure you, there is NO happy ending to this stuff.

Dense plotline, pretty interesting approach .......2006-11-11

This movie was very erotic without being truely graphic. It was a new approach for it's time. James Spader was very good (best actor though?), and Andie Mcdowell played the neurotic housewife well. Based in New Orleans, Mcdowell finds herself in therapy and in a loveless marriage, while her husband is confirming her suspiciouns of an affair. Then, a stranger comes to town from her husband's past and turns her life upside down. The pace is slow at times, but it pulls you through just fine. The ending was lackluster, but they had to end it somehow. If you like darker movies, with a little dark humor, then this is worth a watch for you.

Interesting.......2006-06-20

I already knew Steven Soderbergh was a talented director, but I'd never seen a film that he had written. This movie, his first, is written and directed by the Oscar winner (Best Director, 'Traffic') and it's one of my favorite movies by him. I think it's better than both Traffic and Erin Brockovich. The only Soderbergh film I've seen that I like more is Out of Sight. This movie is funny, interesting, intriguing, and very entertaining. I thought there was one downside to the movie...No nudity. The whole time I was watching this movie, everytime Laura San Giacomo was onscreen I was thinking "Take off your shirt." But, I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie stars Peter Gallagher ("American Beauty") and Andie McDowell ("Michael") as a married couple John and Ann. Ann is a stay at home wife, who secretly attends therapy sessions where she confesses her relationship with John isn't much and that they don't have sex. Meanwhile, John (a lawyer) is having sex with Ann's sister Cynthia (Giacomo). At the same time, an old friend of John's named Graham (James Spader in one of his best performances) arrives at their house to stay for a few days until he gets on his feet. Ann is drawn to Graham and finds him interesting, but her opinion is changed when she finds out that Graham interviews woman and asks them personal questions about their sex lives while filming the entire thing. After hearing about this, however, Cynthia takes an interest in Graham. It's basically just one big love triangle. But, this movie is truly a fantastic and extremely interesting film. Soderbergh brings up really interesting points about everything from love to sex to marriage to impotency. The score by Cliff Martinez also helps to move the film along perfectly.

GRADE: A-

Potent.......2006-04-24

It's remarkable that this movie is more than a decade old and yet, its story is still as relevant and potent as nowadays. With a shoestring budget and with a basic premise of analysing the dynamics of a relationship between four persons, this movie captives my imagination from beginning till the end. The title itself can be misleading. Whilst from the outset, it's literally sex, lies and videotapes but without those issues, there wouldn't be the much needed honesty, transparency and communication that facilitate a satisfying resolve for all parties that are concerned. An intelligent movie indeed. Highly recommended. No extras in the DVD other than the set-ups.

James Spader Best Actor??.......2006-03-16

The movie was good but i dont know how james spader got best actor for it..dont get me wrong he was good in it, but i guess the rest of the nomminees really sucked..i like james spader and this was one of the only things ive seen him in, besides boston legal, and the last season of the practice.. worth the money i spent on it..recommended for fans of james spader..

Average customer rating:

Danielle Steel's Now & Forever
Danielle Steel's Now & Forever
A Lesser Known Danielle Steel Movie

Danielle Steel's Now & Forever
Starring: Cheryl Ladd , Aileen Britton , Tim Burns , Robert Coleby , and Carmen Duncan
Director: Adrian Carr
Manufacturer: Trinity Home Ent
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B00009MEGN
Release Date: 2004-11-30

Description

Based on the Best Selling Danielle Steele novel of the same name- Jesse and Ian Clark must struggle to save their marriage when Ian is unfairly sent to prison.

Customer Reviews:

Danielle Steel's Now & Forever.......2007-02-20

I was not particularly fond of this one movie and can't put my finger on it. Not sure if it was the actor/actress or just the story itself Sorry!

Danielle Steel's Now & Forever.......2006-11-10

A good story line and Cheryl Ladd is, as always, magic in this movie. She is a strong, loving wife who has been betrayed by her husband but she stands by him regardless and in the end love prevails. Great entertainment!

A Lesser Known Danielle Steel Movie.......2005-05-17

This film is not known as widely as some of the other films based on the novels of Danielle Steel most likely because it was not shown on commerical TV. Released in 1983, this film is rated PG-13 due to the subject matter (rape). I originally read the book when it first came out years ago and loved it! The film is very faithful to the novel. Cheryl Ladd is beautiful as ever and does a fantastic job portraying the 'wronged wife'- This is one of the darker stories by Danielle Steel, but does have the romantic story line that she is famous for. I would highly recommend this movie for the adult viewer.

Average customer rating:

"Why do they tell me these things?"
Funny , Funny, Funny
5 if in widescreen
4 for movie, 2 for presentation. .
Funny

The Cheap Detective
Starring: Peter Falk , Ann-Margret , Eileen Brennan , Sid Caesar , and Stockard Channing
Director: Robert Moore
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Satire | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

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Murder by Death
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ASIN: B00005Q4D6
Release Date: 2001-11-13

Amazon.com

Most fans of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink comedies like The Naked Gun and Hot Shots probably think the genre started with Airplane!, but Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective came two years earlier. It's a camp parody of Humphrey Bogart's 1940s detective flicks (particularly The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep), with a big dose of Casablanca thrown in for good measure. There's no point in describing the plot--it's little more than a series of cameos by just about every actor working in the 1970s, including Ann-Margaret, Eileen Brennan, Stockard Channing, James Coco, Scatman Crothers, Dom DeLuise, John Houseman, Marsha Mason, and Nicol Williamson. Peter Falk plays the detective and does a fine Bogey impression. Unfortunately, it's not Neil Simon's best work--he's better at character comedy such as The Odd Couple and The Goodbye Girl than this kind of slapstick--but there are a few good lines and the cast gives it their best. Louise Fletcher, not usually known for comedy, does a sharp satire of Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, and Madeline Kahn never fails to entertain in a variety of disguises. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

"Why do they tell me these things?".......2007-05-04

I loved Peter Falk in this movie. I picked up the DVD some time back and only just now had an opportunity to watch it. FUNNY! Of course, you really have to know Casablanca to appreciate just how funny it really is.

Funny , Funny, Funny.......2007-01-10

One of the most hilarious movies ever made -- Peter Falk is magnificent.

5 if in widescreen.......2006-12-23

This is a wonderful tribute to the films of Bogart. True, it's a spoof, but humor is a wonderful tribute. Peter Falk as Lou Peckinpah is outstanding, and the rest of the cast matches him. Neil Simon, who cut his teeth writing for Sid Caesar, does some of his best work here. The humor starts off with the prologue, and never quits. If you enjoy a good spoof, this is one of the best. Watch it with MURDER BY DEATH.

4 for movie, 2 for presentation. . .......2006-11-15

Neil Simon's THE CHEAP DETECTIVE, the followup to the wildly successful MURDER BY DEATH, is presented here in Fullscreen, rather than the original 1:85. Not as bad as Pan and Scan of a Widescreen 2:35 film, but annoying. Fortunately, the film doesn't suffer much, except when one character is talking to a nose (I hate that. . .). But, since this came out at the same time as the DVD of MURDER BY DEATH, both with quick Neil Simon interviews, why the Fullscreen? Has CBS lost their original film elements? Let's hope THE CHEAP DETECTIVE is reissued in its proper format, just to set the record straight, shweetheart.

Funny.......2006-11-10

This was a thoroughly enjoyable, thoroughly ridiculous story with wonderful comic acting. Have fun!

Average customer rating:

Moving and Uplifitng
a superb film, shame about the censored DVD version
A very moral and moving film
Intense, poignant, utterly beautiful...
FABOLOUS MOVIE

Priest
Starring: Linus Roache , Tom Wilkinson , Robert Carlyle , Cathy Tyson , and Lesley Sharp
Director: Antonia Bird
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: 6305428093
Release Date: 1999-09-07

Amazon.com

Despite its title, forget about finding this controversial drama on the Vatican's screening list. The film explores a provocative checklist of religious taboos--celibacy, incest, sexual abuse, homosexuality, the debatable secrecy of the confessional--as director Antonia Bird delivers a bold condemnation of what she views as the outdated politics and harmful nature of Catholic doctrine. The story concerns the ideologically strained relationship between two clergymen, the misleading conservative Father Greg (Linus Roache) and his older and more practical colleague, Father Matthew (Tom Wilkinson). Upon arriving at his new Liverpool parish, Greg is shocked to learn that Matthew ignores celibacy and openly sleeps with his black housekeeper. Greg chooses to satisfy his earthly desires in a more secretive way. Sometimes, he likes to lose the cloth, grab a leather jacket, and pick up guys at the local gay pub. He's got other problems as well. While torturing himself with his own moral dilemma, he's hit with another, as during confession a young girl confides that her father is sexually abusing her at home. While this drags out the old "bound by secrecy" cliché of many religious melodramas, Bird uses it to bolster her theme of unwarranted secrecy in the face of faith and social scorn. Ultimately, both the priest and the girl are victims of their own fear, and must find courage to destroy it. Thankfully, Bird's wicked sense of humor keeps the film's tone from slipping into saccharine sentimentality, while Roache's intense performance and a honest, shattering finale rescue the film from swerving too far into shallow TV movie-of-the-week sensationalism. --Dave McCoy

Description

Critics everywhere declared PRIEST to be one of the best films of the year! The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation. Soon, he is forced to make the impossible choice between keeping the faith and exposing the truth! A gripping and powerful story -- see this unforgettable big-screen hit for yourself!

Customer Reviews:

Moving and Uplifitng.......2006-12-27

"PRIEST"

Moving and Uplifting

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

"Priest" is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. Highly underrated and rarely seen, this is a classic film about the nature of intolerance and how understanding can bring people together. But be warned, you need tissues to watch this film. I remember when the movie was released it so riled the Catholic Church that it was banned in many places and somehow it managed to get on the screen for one showing in New Orleans until the Archbishop demanded its closure. Whereas New Orleans is a Roman Catholic city, this was not surprising but slowly bootleg copies made the rounds and may saw it and spoke of it. This is a movie that I cannot recommend highly enough.
"Priest" is the provocative story about the Roman Catholic Church in Liverpool, England. It appears as if it was meant to shock rather than be audience friendly or obsequious to the church. It has a lot to say about the certainty of dogma in the church, celibacy for priests and how to react when told of sexual abuse against a minor. It also deals with homosexuality in the priesthood. At times it seems to be a morality play when we see that a father has committed incest with his daughter but the church is unable to act and the we hear the condemnation of a priest because he has gay sex with a willing adult).
In a larger sense it questions the purpose of the Catholic Church, its dogmatic stand and its spiritual role in the modern world.
The strength of the film rests on its unswerving viewpoint and the challenge that it throws down to the church to confront those issues it has declined to face. The weakness of the film lies in its melodrama and its profiling of characters. Tom Wilkinson in an understated performance as Father Matthew Thomas and the voice of reason is amazing. Likewise the performance of Robert Carlyle as Graham, the gay lover of Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) and the voice of sensual love is brimming with emotion and fine acting. Roache is the center and the focus of the film and he represents what happens when the church comes under attack and is rocked with inner conflicts.
Father Greg comes to a working-class parish and he is uptight and rigid in philosophy lacks humor in his own religious practice and is unable to see beyond the letter of the law. He is also certain that the church has the answers to all problems. When he sees that his superior is having an affair with the housekeeper of the rectory, he looks for an finds a new father figure who does not judge others and preaches about social causes and interprets church doctrine by breaking down definitions of right and wrong. Long and tedious, some of this could have been cut from the movie but it did show the double standard of the church in breaking the vows of celibacy--that a heterosexual priest can be discrete and get away with having a mistress while we learn later that
A homosexual priest cannot enjoy the same pleasure.
Filled with emotional turmoil and loneliness, Father Gregory emerges from the closet, puts on civilian clothing and goes to a gay bar. He meets Graham and spends the night making love to him but does not tell him that he is a priest. Sometime later Graham appears at his church (after having seen him as a priest) in the hopes of keeping the relationship going. About the same time Father Greg hears a confession from a teenaged girl that her father has been molesting her. The girl does not want him to do anything about this and he is trapped by a vow of silence and is unable to get the help that the girl so badly needs. It is at this point that the plotlines come together--two dilemmas confront the priest. But as the film begins to draw to a close Father Greg is the one to be judged as his parish members discover he is gay and he is asked by the bishop to leave his post. Father Greg has found a sense of redemption in his gay experience and he experiences the suffering that others have felt, he becomes more human and learns to love and accept others even if they do not measure up to the expectation of the church.
This film hits us hard as t looks seriously at some of the challenges and problems that face the clergy. The two priests in the film not only have their own inner demons but they also have to deal with the problems of society, the insensitivity of their superiors and the ethical problems of those in their parish.
All hell breaks lose in the film when the mother of the girl finds her being molested by her father and blames Father Greg for not stopping them. At almost the same time a photographer snaps a picture of the father in an uncompromising position in an automobile with Graham and published the photo in the local newspaper. Father Greg attempts suicide but is unsuccessful and is sent away. When Father Matthew finds him, he convinces him to come back to say mass with him.
The closing scene of the film is in the Liverpool church where Father Greg is confronted by an angry and homophobic mob of parishioners. In a split second the anger subsides when a surprising act of grace occurs and with it are swept away the pain and prejudice that preceded it.successful in having the film banned
"Priest" shows that forgiveness is one of the most distinctive marks of Christianity and there is no future for any church that disregards it. Forgiveness clears a space in time in which people can admit their failures and still reach out to each other in love. Further "Priest" states empathically that the church must be a place where variety and openness reign. In a divine milieu, forgiveness is cherished as the antidote to divisiveness and bigotry.
Obviously the heart and message of the church were in the right place, so much so that the Catholic League was successful enough to have the film banned. This is an in your face confrontational film, heavy with emotion and rails against the rigidity of the Roman Catholic Church. It will make you angry but it will uplift you in a way that you will feel so much better because you have seen it.

a superb film, shame about the censored DVD version.......2006-09-19

I just watched this film again ten years after its original release and was still absolutely gripped by it. The acting is excellent (especially Roache and Wilkinson -- it was also a delight to see a young Robert Carlyle in a very good supporting role). The themes of faith, compassion, and forgiveness are handled in complex and thoughtful ways -- never simplified or sentimentalized. For such a serious movie, it also has some hilarious moments, with witty dialogues popping up all the time to provide intelligent comic relief. I would have given the movei 5 stars were it not for the fact that the US DVD version cut over 7 minutes from the original film: including scenes that develop some minor relationships between characters, a much more realistic sex scene, more wicked humour from Father Greg later on in the film, more scenes establishing the atmosphere of the parish's day-to-day life, and -- most crucially -- a far more open ending re: the relationship between Father Greg and his lover. For those of you who own a multi-system player that plays PAL, I recommend getting the uncut VHS version from amazon.uk instead. For folks at distribution -- would you please put out a new version of the DVD that restores the original cut, and include some good extras as the previous reviewer suggests? Fans of this great film would certainly appreciate it!

A very moral and moving film .......2006-08-14

I just re-watched Priest after 12 years, and I think it is even more powerful and relevant now it was then, given the scandals in the Catholic Church and the rise of religious militancy and fundamentalism in the world.

While occasionally teetering on the brink of preachiness and soap opera, Priest is saved by tight direction and very fine acting. It effectively shows the humaness of people in the Church, as opposed to how some would have you believe.

As a person not all attached to organized religion, I obviously find much to approve of here. But the strength of Priest is that someone who loves the Catholic Church for what is really is, the teachings of Jesus, and not what cruel, irrational and ignorant human beings have made of it will find much to be enriched by here. Priest is not anti-Catholic at all, not in the true sense of the word. Rather, it is anti human folly.

Of course that segment that is fundamentalist and inflexible, who cannot imagine - horrors! - that a Priest could be gay have and will continue to express their moral outrage and call this "hate speech."

As a final note, I also happened to read Roger Ebert's inexplicible review of Priest. If I hadn't seen his name on it, I would think it was written by Michael Medved. Since Ebert is generally religion neutral and very gay positive, I simply don't understand his outrage at all - very puzzling indeed. And he gives Mel's hideous Passion of the Christ, one of the most immoral and disgusting movies ever made (again most especially if you ARE religious) a perfect 10.

Intense, poignant, utterly beautiful..........2006-02-25

No words could describe my feelings after watching this DVD. Linus Roache did unbelievably well in this movie.

The love story between Father Greg and Graham was so DEEPLY moving to me... The torment that Father Greg felt knowing that a little girl was sexually abused by her own father was so tearfully agonizing to watch. The hypocrisy of today's holier-than-thou people was accurately depicted in this film.

This film must have been so controversial when it was released that I did not even know such movie exist in the country where I used to live.
Though fictional, I am sure that the story mirrors a lot of today's people experiences. I, for one, have personally experienced what the character Father Greg went through in this movie. My heart went out for Father Greg... The ending scene of him giving communion to Lisa and both hugged and let the flood of tears flow was so deeply emotional...

I am glad that I have watched it - despite have done that about a decade later - and I enjoyed every bit of the story. I wish that this movie had no ending... Correction, it never ends... Love and compassion are never sinful...

FABOLOUS MOVIE .......2006-01-30

Thsi movie puts important question into a wonderful story , without being pathetic. It is not a movie about homosexuality - it is a movie about the worth of a human beeing.

Average customer rating:

This is the novel brought to life.
Very Textually Accurate
Essential for English Teachers
Help students visualize
I beg to Differ, But . . .

The Scarlet Letter
Starring: Josef Sommer , Meg Foster , Elisa Erali , John Heard , and Ralph Drischell
Director: Rick Hauser
Manufacturer: Wgbh Boston
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (Cliffs Notes)

ASIN: B00008DDS0
Release Date: 2003-03-04

Description

An epic version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's enduring novel of Puritan America in search of its soul. Hester Prynne overcomes the stigma of adultery to emerge as the first great heroine in American literature. Hawthorne's themes—the nature of sin, social hypocrisy and community repression—still reverberate through American society. Stars Meg Foster, John Heard and Kevin Conway. Directed by Rick Hauser.

Special DVD features include: special video segments that take viewrrs behind-the-scenes on the filming of The Scarlet Letter; select cast filmographies; a Hawthorne biography; discussion questions for educators; scene selection; English audiotrack; and closed captions.

On two DVD9 discs. Region coding: All regions. Audio: Dolby stereo. Screen format: 4 x 3 Full-Frame

Customer Reviews:

This is the novel brought to life........2007-01-24

If you want to truly experience Hawthorne's work, this version is for you. In contrast, the Demi Moore version bears little resemblance to the novel. To choose it over the PBS version would be akin to choosing a coloring -book rendering of the Mona Lisa over the masterpiece itself: you get an idea of what it is all about, but all the right colors and strokes are missing, and the drama and effect are lost.

Very Textually Accurate.......2007-01-06

This is a great version of the Scarlet Letter, specifically because it remains very true to the original text. Though, of course, there are some omissions, the majority of the movie is very accurate. I am an American Lit teacher, and I use segments of this version in my classroom. It helps students to visualize the characters and the time period being portrayed.

Essential for English Teachers.......2006-02-25

As a movie buff, I give this DVD 1.5 stars. As an English teacher, I give it 5.

Cons:

Ultra-low budget production
Costumes meant to be dramatic, are actually comic
Filmed on video - looks and sounds almost submerged
Campy music is source of uproarous class laughter
Special effects that aren't special at all (i.e. hilarious meteor)
It takes at least one hour to get used to Meg Foster's eyes
"Boston" has the feeling of "this is all we could afford"
Actress who plays Mistress Hibbens attempts to act "near the edge" and instead plunges over it

Pros:

Extremely faithful to the book
Many critical scenes are reproduced word-for-word
High School appropriate, (unlike Demi Moore's version)
Would be rated "G" if it had a rating - no profanity or nudity
Quite compelling performances by Meg Foster and John Heard
Becomes strangely more and more believable as it progresses
Nice use of natural light and scenery
Convenient menus divided by titles of book chapters

Until someone decides to film this book properly, with a big budget, faithful script, THX sound and world-class actors, this 1979 PBS special on DVD is the only choice for English teachers.

There are, of course, two earlier versions. The first is a silent film that I have not seen. The second is from 1934 and I've seen enough of it to know that it is so hopelessly ancient, with choppy, jerky black and white cinematography and sound that seems to have come from an Alexander G. Bell wax cylinder, that high school students will likely be unable to connect with it.

The third version is this 1979 PBS miniseries on DVD. It is four hours long, and comes on two discs packed in one box. I have found that it lends itself quite well to being shown in conjunction with assigned chapters, and follows the book very faithfully.

All in all, I'm pleased with my investment, and while my students enjoyed laughing at some aspects of the film's (lack of) production quality, they certainly seem to have benefitted from it in terms of comprehension. I recommend it to my fellow English teachers without reservation, until something better comes along.

Final Note: My classes saw this DVD displayed on a big screen by a Hitachi CP-S318 digital projector feeding from a Panasonic DVD player. Crammed down to a 29 inch TV, I'm not sure if it would be visually tolerable. The big screen gives it, (and us,) room to breath.

Help students visualize.......2006-01-29

Though there are some differences between the novel and this version of the movie, they are minor and do not interfere with meaning. My students were discussing character development, viewing scenes from the movie helped them see the characters as more than words on paper.

I beg to Differ, But . . ........2005-11-14

True, Hawthorne's novel deserves a full-out treatment, but not one as plodding and slow as this. We all know the complexities of the novel - we are not reviewing that, but rather a version that is at least an 1 1/2 hours too long. The pacing is deadly, the set - a view of Boston in 1650 - looks like Peabody in 1625. 14 people gather around Hester after her 9 foot walk to the public scaffold. The whole production seems smallish.

And I'm sorry, but Meg Foster's eyes are so weirdly other-worldish that I couldn't concentrate on much else.

This production gets a Scarlet C-.

Shoot the Piano Player - Criterion Collection

Average customer rating:

Offbeat, undisciplined, sprawling, funny, sad, goofy, loving, uncategorizable
Shoot the Piano Player
The PIANO PLAYER is music to my ears.......
Impossible to characterize, but funny, touching and sad
Shoot the Piano Player

Shoot the Piano Player - Criterion Collection
Starring: Charles Aznavour , Marie Dubois , Nicole Berger , Michèle Mercier , and Serge Davri
Director: François Truffaut
Manufacturer: Criterion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Masculin Feminin - Criterion Collection

ASIN: B000BC8SWO
Release Date: 2005-12-06

Amazon.com essential video

A man runs through deserted night streets, stalked by the lights of a car. It's a definitive film noir situation, promptly sidetracked--yet curiously not undercut--by real-life slapstick: watching over his shoulder for pursuers, the running man charges smack into a lamppost. The figure that helps him to his feet is not one of the pursuers (they've oddly disappeared) but an anonymous passerby, who proceeds to escort him for a block or two, genially schmoozing about the mundane, slow-blooming glories of marriage. The Good Samaritan departs at the next turning, never to be identified and never to be seen again. And the first man--who, despite this evocative introduction, is not even destined to be the main character of the movie--immediately resumes his helter-skelter flight from an as-yet-unspecified and unseen menace.

The opening of Shoot the Piano Player, François Truffaut's second feature film, is one of the signal moments of the French New Wave--an inspired intersection of grim fatality and happy accident, location shooting and lurid melodrama, movie convention and frowzy, uncontainable life. At this point in his career--right after The 400 Blows, just before his great Jules and Jim--the world seemed wide for Truffaut, as wide as the Dyaliscope screen that he and cinematographer Raoul Coutard deployed with unprecedented spontaneity and lyricism. Anything might wander into frame and become part of the flow: an oddball digression, an unexpected change of mood, a small miracle of poetic insight.

The official agenda of the movie is adapting a noirish story by American writer David Goodis, about a celebrated concert musician (Charles Aznavour) hiding out as a piano player in a saloon. He's on the run as much as the guy--his older brother--in the first scene. But whereas the brother is worried about a couple of buffoonish gangsters, Charlie Koller is ducking out on life, love, and the possibility that he might be hurt, or cause hurt, again. Decades after its original release, Shoot the Piano Player remains as fresh, exhilarating, and heartbreaking--as open to the magic of movies and life--as ever. --Richard T. Jameson

Description

Francois Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this, his most playful, anarchic film. Part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of the mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour, in a triumph of hangdog deadpan) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags, guns, clowns, and thugs, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure nouvelle vague.

Customer Reviews:

Offbeat, undisciplined, sprawling, funny, sad, goofy, loving, uncategorizable.......2007-07-01

Before there was Jim Jarmusch, before there was Quentin Tarentino, before there were the Coen Brothers, there was Francois Truffaut and the whole French New Wave. Films that we consider wild and radical today are actually old hat, as this type of bold, irreverent, sassy, rule-breaking, in-your-face cinema has now been with us at least half a century. Sadly, many Americans probably think "New Wave" is a kind of bad dance music from the 80s.

Truffaut's second film, from 1960 (!), deals with a lot of Hollywood staples, but he freshens it up, even more than he appears to give himself credit for, with the very direct, very informal French style of movie-making (and, I'd also add, living). His bold confidence shows itself in the first scene. It begins in the middle of action, without explanation, and a character comes onto the scene who helps our protagonist and volunteers personal information. So he's going to be crucial to our plot, right? No, because he then exits and is never seen again. And guess what? --Our "protagonist" is actually not a very important character either. He just serves to introduce us to his brother, the *real* main character, and to get some small-time thugs on the brother's tail. (Has any other film dared to start like this, either before or since?) So you could argue he's a new twist on an old device, the maguffan. (And we all know how Truffaut loved Hitchcock.)

Structurally this film should just not work. There's a flashback in the middle that takes up half the film at least and introduces a new key character when we're halfway through the picture. Every film teacher would tell you that's "wrong." And for many critics, especially initially, the film didn't work. Reviews were lukewarm at best and for years this languished as one of Truffaut's lesser efforts. Yet it must have sunk in at least subliminally, because the irreverent tone, the loose unpredictability, the large cast, the fast pace and rapid cross-cutting, and the humorous asides (one thug swears to something on the life of his mother, and we cross-cut to his mother dropping over dead) have all found a home in the films of the Coens, Tarentino, Jarmusch, Altman and many others. Not to mention shooting outdoors at night without movie lights, shooting in real cars without projection backdrops, shooting on live locations rather than closed sets. Yes, the first thing that strikes you about this picture today is how modern it is. Watch a typical American film from 1960 for comparison.

There were a few things that left me unsatisfied. The character of the prostitute feels more like a gimmick, and we never resolve anything with her. The fight and subsequent stabbing of the bar owner also feels extraneous, as though it comes from nowhere and leads nowhere. And it's hard to imagine that our main character would still have his job in the bar after that! (He was cleared by the police awfully easily too. Or was that part supposed to make us laugh?) And somehow the ending was a *little* unsatisfying, though I'm not sure what I'd do differently. (Have him playing piano in a *different* bar perhaps?)

But these are relatively minor nitpicks. We're swept away and don't think about them too much. There's also this feeling we get from Truffaut that he's trying to wedge things in to experiment (the French New Wave was in its infancy after all), to see what can work and what can't. I'd rather have something too adventurous than dull.

What of the performances? The first thing you'll probably be struck by, especially if you're new to New Wave cinema or European film in general, is how naturalistic the acting is--it's much freer than Americans were accustomed to in 1960, free of many stage conventions we were still carrying around. In Charles Aznavour we have a Francois Truffautesque character (Truffuat in a supplementary interview, goes to great pains to point out how the main character is not typically French, but I think he's trying to distract us from how much the character is like *him.* I didn't really buy his contention, and I don't think it's evident in the film that Aznavour is Albanian and not French.) Marie Dubois and Nicole Berger are both wonderful in their roles, as Dubois in particularly is perfect as someone both pure and feisty--she is the backbone of the movie, and this part could have fallen apart if it had been miscast. Michele Mercier is charismatic and gorgeous and really really stacked, quite frankly. The two thugs are the perfect counterbalance to all the French angst we get from the main cast, and have provided inspiration to all the talky, haphazard and bumbling thugs that have graced countless American films since.

This Criterion print is extremely clean, in anamorphic widescreen. Sound is clear first-rate mono. Extras include lively commentaries from two Truffaut writers and film school professors, the original trailer, two interviews with Truffaut about the film and the book it comes from, interviews with others who worked with Truffaut, a discussion of the music scoring, and a fascinating screen test where Truffaut tries in vain to make Marie Dubois curse like a sailor (necessary for a scene in the film).

If you've never seen a Truffaut film, I'd suggest you start here--you'll be surprised by how modern it all feels. (You think post-modern irreverence in film is a recent invention, huh?) This film is a delight, and shows the tremendous artistic potential cinema had in the 1960s--potential that's been squandered in more recent times.

Shoot the Piano Player.......2007-06-28

This quirky crime film by the great Truffaut mixes sight-gag comedy with suspense, resulting in a superbly nutty homage to the 1940s film noirs he so admired. Fr