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Murder She Said (1961)
See the strange case of the strangler-killer on the night express!
Filmmaker(s): George Pollock

Miss Marple believes she's seen a murder in a passing-by train, yet when the police find no evidence she decides to investigate it on her own.

Tumbling Down history of introspection in film starts with clever mystery writers. Then when talkies fell on us there was a huge experimental breeding ground for techniques that worked. By the 40s that chapter was all over and noir was incubated. Agatha Christie played a central...


Published November 26, 2022
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Apartment (1960)
Movie-wise, there has never been anything like it - laugh-wise, love-wise, or otherwise-wise!
Filmmaker(s): Billy Wilder

Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.

Mechanical have just had quite an argument with a well known film critic. He maintains that films are either good or bad and any good film is just simply good. I maintained that films are little worlds. Some are created more successfully than others. Some...


Published April 15, 2023
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Atom Age Vampire (1960)
You'll gasp with Horror...
Filmmaker(s): Anton Giulio Majano

When a singer is horribly disfigured in a car accident, a scientist develops a treatment which can restore her beauty by injecting her with a special serum. While performing the procedure, however, he falls in love with her. As the treatment begins to fail, he determines to save her appearance, regardless of how many women he must kill for her sake.

Unexpected Assembly don't suppose many people have the time for watching bad movies in the hope of transcendent insights. If you are one of these, let me save you some time. This might be on your list. Yes, I know it is yet another cheapo; made...


Published May 16, 2023
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Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
No search of human emotions has ever probed so deeply, so truthfully as… Anatomy of a Murder.
Filmmaker(s): Otto Preminger

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Drunk Lawyers seems to be a sub-genre of movies that feature drunk or downtrodden lawyers taking on cases and winning. This is sometimes associated with the “courtroom” film where reality is unfolded according to specific rules, coloured by human dynamics. And this is under the...


Published April 2, 2023
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The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
BACK AGAIN - INGRID BERGMAN in her greatest role
Filmmaker(s): Mark Robson

All her life, Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin, and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.

Three Forces gosh: how could this fail to please. It employs all three of the major forces in pandering film: cute children, a beautiful woman ennobled by adversity and finally: unlikely ‘interracial’ love (‘.. he pressed his earthy oriental skin...


Published May 16, 2022
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Blood of the Vampire (1958)
Nothing Like It This Side of Hell!
Filmmaker(s): Henry Cass

A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.

The Evil Eye each have the experiences that brought us to the way we dream, and the forms we use in wrangling the world. My cinematic maturity is pretty traceable because the films and the watching were so self-ware. Going back before well-formed notions of self,...


Published January 20, 2024
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310 to Yuma (1957)
The lonesome whistle of a train... bringing the gallows closer to a desperado... the showdown nearer to his captor!
Filmmaker(s): Delmer Daves

Dan Evans, a small time farmer, is hired to escort Ben Wade, a dangerous outlaw, to Yuma. As Evans and Wade wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma, Wade's gang is racing to free him.

These Are the Brown Ones am particularly fond of movies that I can see through other facets: remakes, derivatives, spoofs and so on. This one is particularly rich. The remake is quite modern, a story about making a story. The Crowe character (the bad guy)...


Published December 15, 2022
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Ghost Ship Part 2 (1957)
Filmmaker(s): Sadatsugu Matsuda

As Part I opens, Jubei (Denjiro Okochi), the best of sea skippers, is unable to overcome the stormy seas of Luzon. All hands on board the Kannonmaru were lost except for Shinkei, who alone made his way to land & eventually home to inform his grandson Jiromaru (Kinnosuke Nakamura) that his father Jubei met with disaster. Young Jiromaru tells his grandfather that he doesn't want to be a skipper like his father, but wants to go to Kyoto and become a samurai…

Pirates! Ghosts! Samurai! not sure how much I will be able to devote to a study of Japanese cinema. I am attracted to films that rinse modern concepts through a Shinto lens. So the filmmakers and projects I value are actually few. But you have...


Published June 17, 2025
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A Girl in Black (1956)
Filmmaker(s): Mihalis Kakogiannis

Against the backdrop of a cloudless summer, love's unforeseen complications will entwine an Athenian writer, a morosely beautiful daughter, and a scorned local suitor. And then, calamity strikes. Can love redeem the sad girl in black?

Do Greek Villagers Deserve Ice Cream? small drama, lots of contrasts. Cruel jokes, innocent deaths. The story told by the filmmaker of the writer; the implied story told by the writer, and the stories confabulated by the villagers and imposed on their peers. These three...


Published December 24, 2022
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An Inspector Calls (1954)
Is he real... or the creature of conscience?
Filmmaker(s): Guy Hamilton

An upper-crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?

Inspecting the Story you want to understand film, the first thing on the list is narrative structure, specifically cinematically structured narrative. If I were teaching in film school, I would introduce this subject in a semester’s worth of detective narrative. Nowhere are more tricks pulled, more...


Published November 24, 2022
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