La dénonciation (1962)

 U.S. titles: The Immoral Moment; The Denunciation

A film producer who had been a Resistance fighter unexpectedly gets involved as a witness in the murder case of a righwing activist. The event, and the ensuing interviews with the police, bring back memories of the war, when, as a prisoner of the Germans, he revealed secrets under torture. He sees his current predicament as a chance of redeeming himself for his hidden past.

This pretentious drama is not too hard to watch, thanks to the nicely flowing narrative and the well written dialogue. Upon deeper examination, one would have to object to the artificiality of its plot and the implausibility of its characters.

Rating: 34

Charmants garçons (1957)

 English titles: Too Many Lovers; Charming Boys

A theatrical singer and dancer finds out that her lover is married and breaks up with him. She is being courted by a businessman to whom she does not feel attracted. When she gets home, she is accosted by a thief. She goes on a vacation trip to the seaside, where she meets new men and reencounters some others.

Bland sexual comedy with a few diegetic musical numbers. It's hardly what one would call an interesting film, but it might entertain someone in a lighter mood.

Rating: 37

The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on November 22, 1994

An agent is assigned the mission of finding out the base of a neonazi organization in West Berlin.

This is a moderately entertaining spy story, with slightly tongue-in-cheek dialogue and a slower pace than usual in this type of film. I can't find much to say about it. I liked it a little less on my previous viewing, for some unknown reason. Though the plot is not very exciting, it's very well made in every department, and I especially liked the leading actress's performance.

Rating: 50 (up from 45)

Hustle (1975)

 Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; previously viewed on November 5, 1995

A police detective is on a relationship with a whore. He is working on the case of the apparent suicide of a young woman.

I wonder how much of this film I had managed to understand on my previous viewing, seeing as the dialogue of the dubbed version is incorrectly translated at some key points -- probably due to censorship in Brazil. Well, anyhow, I was hoping to enjoy this film more this time, listening to the original audio. The fact is that it is not very enjoyable. The main problem is the terribly uninspired dialogue. By the way, at one point I presume the author must have been playing a joke on the viewer. The two cops are talking:

Belgrave: So you still think Sellers is clean?

Gaines: Yeah, I think he's clean.

Belgrave: The Summers girl admitted that Leo was the man in the photo.

Gaines: She didn't say Leo who.

Belgrave: No, she's scared of him. She's also afraid of Marty.

Considering that both cops knew Leo Sellers's face, the line "She didn't say Leo who." and the following one do not make sense. An unspoken thesis conveyed by this film seems to be that it's not a worse deal for a man to live with a whore than it is for a woman to live with a cop.

Rating: 31 (up from 21)

Hurry Sundown (1967)

Second viewing; previously viewed on March 31, 1992.

 A big company is buying land for its new plant. Two small farmers -- one white and one black -- don't want to sell their farms. This gets in the way of a local man who plans to sell his wife's estate and also work for the future company.

Anti-racist drama with stereotyped characters and melodramatic situations. While not as bad as I perceived it upon my first viewing, it is indeed poorly written and somewhat disagreeable.

Rating: 31 (up from 10)

The Last Frontier (1955)

 A fur trapper working as a scout in a Fort falls in love with a colonel's wife. When said colonel assumes the command of the Fort, he orders an suicidal attack on the Native Americans.

Western with nice landscapes. The plot is schematic and marred by an unconvincing love story. It is well filmed, though.

Rating: 35

A Lawless Street (1955)

 A marshal progressively realizes that the assassination attempts against him are not a simple case of revenge. Two of the town's citizens see him as an obstacle in a get-rich-quick scheme of theirs.

The main plot idea for this movie must be an extremely common one: this is the third movie I saw only this year which uses it! Basically, there is a mine and some crooked (though apparently law abiding) citizens need to get rid of some people in order to cash in on the upcoming boom. In this one, the writers apparently collected every single Western cliché into a single movie. But it has some degree of watchability, thanks to a well organized script and a decent execution.

Rating: 36

7th Cavalry (1956)

 An officer returning to the Fort where he is stationed after he had been away fetching his bride-to-be discovers that most of the soldiers in the Fort are dead after a battle with Native Americans.

This preposterous film probably couldn't be told apart from the countless TV banalities that made up the remainder of its writer's career had it not been made and released as a theatrical movie. After the fiasco at Little Big Horn, what does the new commander at Fort Lincoln decide to do? Double down on the insanity and order a detachment into Sioux territory once again, looking to bring back the dead corpses so as to give them proper funerals. Fittingly for those death obsessed wackos, they are saved from slaughter by the dead themselves. A film for those with an infinite capacity for seeing the funny side of trash.

Rating: 12

Ice Castles (1978)

 A figure skater from a small town suffers a terrible accident right when she was envisaging a glorious future.

Weak sports drama which seems to have been written in a rush, but is not badly directed. It sort of fills its dramatic void with lovely ice skating sequences. This is the most well known film made by its director, who had most of his career in TV movies and, in a nostalgic fit perhaps, remade it in 2010.

Rating: 30

Gun Fury (1953)

 A bunch of  former Confederate soldiers adhere to criminal life after the Civil War. They rob a stagecoach and kidnap a woman who was about to be married. Her fiancé then searches for her in an attempt to rescue her.

Unnoteworthy Western. Aside from a few strong lines of dialogue which provide commentary about the effects of the Civil War on the South, the film is pretty routine and cliché, though agreeable to look at and easy to watch on the whole.

Rating: 31

Signes extérieurs de richesse (1983)

 English title: Outward Signs of Wealth

A veterinarian is investigated for tax evasion. The fiscal inspector is an unmarried woman.

This film is not totally devoid of intelligence at analyzing the French middle class and its little dishonesties. The major problem I see is that it doesn't come to terms with its own cynicism, and, after a promising start, fizzles into an unconvincing romantic comedy.

Rating: 40

Lawless Range (1935)

John is sent by his father to answer a call for help by one of the latter's friends in another town. It turns out that said friend goes missing and the town is facing a problem of lack of supplies due to a series of robberies. John volunteers to bring supplies to the town with the help of a group of men.

The plot here is nearly identical to that of Blue Steel, which had the same main actor and which I reviewed a few days ago. Again, there is a distinguished citizen who is acting in cahoots with bandits to expel a town's inhabitants in order to get hold of the gold which lies in the town's underground. And once again the protagonist offers to bring supplies to the starved town. Frankly, too much of the same thing is liable to get one bored, though the film has its share of action, comic-book thrills and dubbed singing.

Rating: 32