Nosferatu, The Vampyre. Review by Alan Price. For me there are only four vampire films that can be called great. They are Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922), Nosferatu, The Vampyre (Herzog, 1979), Dracula (Badham, 1979) and Dracula (Fisher, 1958) that are both faithful and part loose adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. All are successful for different reasons.
Alan Price
Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Review by Alan Price. The on-location stories of Werner Herzog’s clashes with Klaus Kinski on Aguirre, The Wrath of God, have passed into cinematic legend. The most alarming being Kinski wanting to leave the film after Herzog refused to dismiss one of the technical crew, for at this point Herzog is supposed to have made Kinski act at gunpoint.
The Hidden Fortress. Review by Alan Price. The time is the 16th century. A period of civil wars. Princess Uki with her family and their clan gold are attempting to escape to a peaceful province. The enemy have posted up a reward for her capture. She’s accompanied by her General (Toshiro Mifune, who else could it be!) and two greedy and quarrelsome farmers. Onto this slight (almost formulaic) story Kurosawa has applied great craft and artistry.
Who Wants to Kill Jessie? Review by Alan Price. What makes Who Wants to Kill Jessie such a warm and very entertaining film is its modesty. No colour, wide screen and expensive special effects. Its charms are economical, crisp black and white B picture production values.
Paradise Lost. Review by Alan Price. Talking to some of my poetry reading friends on how they feel about Milton they all said he is greatly admired but unloved: especially when tackling his epic (700 lines) poem, Paradise Lost.
Zoltan Huszarik box set. Review by Alan Price. The great pleasure of this box set is to discover the remarkable work of a Hungarian director whose films have sadly slipped off the radar.
New York, New York. Review by Alan Price. The bad bits of New York, New York make you cringe. The good bits have you cheering out loud in praise. It’s flawed, meandering, joyful and downbeat and never quite the sum of all its parts.
The Man Who Would be King. Review by Alan Price. Both the novella and film of The Man Who Would Be King have been described as a ripping yarn but that expression has lost some of its charm and romance.
Women in Love. Review by Alan Price. What D. H. Lawrence’s and Ken Russell’s Women in Love have in common is a focussed passion. Both artists produced works that are vibrantly alive.
Billy Wilder & Ernst Lubitsch. Review by Alan Price. Without Ernst Lubitsch we wouldn’t have had a sophisticated American film comedy that drew upon a cosmopolitan culture and in particular a vanishing memory of Viennese society. And therefore maybe a different Billy Wilder style.
Throne of Blood. Review by Alan Price. T.S.Eliot rarely went to the cinema. However in 1957 he did see Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and called it his favourite film (though I’ve not been able to trace Eliot’s announcement back to any interview, letter or newspaper article).
Object Z. Review by Alan Price. Object Z is a SF rarity from 1965 that’s just been exhumed from the archive vaults and nicely restored. This six part serial of half hour episodes was screened in the children’s tea time slot, on Rediffusion TV, after its director Daphne Shadwell advised scriptwriter Christopher McMaster to aim for that audience.
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, television • Tags: Alan Price, television