Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Monte Carlo caper movie with Edward G. Robinson, Rod Steiger and Joan Collins sounds like a winner, so I was happy to watch “Seven Thieves.”  Robinson plays a disgraced professor (Theo Wilkins) who wants to do something big before … Continue reading →

“How Green Was My Valley,” the 1941 film directed by John Ford, tells the story in flashback of a Welsh coal mining village and how the Morgan family adjusts and changes through trials of economic uncertainty, dangerous working conditions, labor … Continue reading →

Grigorly Chukhray’s “Ballad of a Soldier,” a 1959 Soviet film, manages to perfectly blend an effective love story, a road picture, and an antiwar message into a poetic and moving visual and emotional experience.  The Russian language movie stars Vladimir … Continue reading →

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound,” which came out in 1945, explores the psychological effects of guilt amidst a murder mystery.  Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), an up and coming psychologist, wants to make a name for herself by curing patients at a rural mental … Continue reading →

I looked forward to seeing “Jack Reacher, a film released in 2012, because the producers filmed it in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Since Pittsburgh is my home town, I hoped to see a good combination of exterior shots that utilizes the topography … Continue reading →

“The Letter,” a 1940 Warner Brothers film, stars Bette Davis as a woman (Leslie Crosbie) who shoots a man several times in the opening nighttime scene.  Leslie takes aim as the man stumbles down the porch steps of a bungalow, … Continue reading →

The 1935 film “Robert” stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott and takes place in a fashion house and a nightclub in Paris.  Astaire, as Huck Haines, arrives in Paris with his band, Huck Haines and the … Continue reading →

Glenn Ford becomes seriously unhinged over Rita Hayworth in “The Loves of Carmen,” a 1948 retelling of the Georges Bizet opera without the music.  Ford plays Don José, a nobleman, and a corporal in the army.  His assignment in Seville … Continue reading →

When I heard John Ford wanted to direct “The Quiet Man” sixteen years earlier than 1952, I assumed the delay would make a huge difference in how the film turned out.  This doesn’t seem to be the case with Ford’s … Continue reading →