Planet of the Apes (1968)

Second viewing; previously viewed on an unremembered date, earlier than 1986.

A team of astronauts are on an experimental space journey whose purpose is to prove that, by moving at speeds close to that of light, one travels in time into the future. They land on a place ruled by intelligent apes.

Science fiction with a provocative premise and some stunning architectural sets and special make up. The script is mediocre at best, and, in addition to its dramatic flaws, has plot holes that are hard to swallow (are we really supposed to believe that no one in this film finds it strange that people supposedly on different planets speak the same language?). Films reflecting the fear of nuclear holocaust were very popular throughout the Cold War; after that, the fad sort of fizzled out.

Rating: 50 (down from 63) 

The Paleface (1948)

 Second viewing, and the first complete one; previously viewed on January 19, 1989, without the beginning

Calamity Jane is offered a pardon in exchange of working as a government agent. Her assignment is to find out who is selling guns to a tribe of Native Americans. She tricks a dentist into marrying her in order to pose as an innocent wife in a wagon caravan.

Comedy which is a little uneven, but delivers enough comic moments, either in the form of visual gags or through dialogue. Two basic situations get repeated throughout the movie: 'Painless' tries to make love to Jane, but is frustrated, either through cunning or through violence; and 'Painless' gets credit for some prowess made by Jane. Sometimes this gets a little monotonous, but overall the film acquits itself well enough. The central duo of actors is good, and work well together. 

Rating: 56 (down from 62)

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

During World War II, an American soldier (Kelly) stationed in France learns, while interrogating a German prisoner, that there are 14,000 gold bullions being stored at a bank in Clermont, behind enemy lines. Kelly convinces his platoon mates to join him in an attempt to rob that bank.

War comedy which entertains in a crude, vulgar manner. Its mocking tone is certainly in tune with the spirit of the times. Perhaps the overall insatisfaction with the Vietnam war was being channeled into productions which made fun of other wars, like WWII here, and the Korean war in M*A*S*H. The sheer number of characters in Kelly's Heroes, mostly in very small parts, and each with his peculiarities, is impressive. Although the film is somewhat longer than the average film, I suspect it wouldn't suffer by the inclusion of the deleted scenes, as detailed in its Wikipedia page. Incidentally, that page has some interesting details about the real-life affair which inspired this movie:

Kelly's Heroes - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Rating: 51

L'âge ingrat (1964)

 English title: That Tender Age

Marie and Antoine are planning to get married, and Marie's parents accept the invitation to spend their familial vacation as a guest of Antoine's parents in their seaside hometown. Their respective fathers strike up a friendship, interspersed with occasional bouts of mutual animosity. Things turn for the worse when the two lovebirds quarrel over a former suitor of hers.

Dramatic comedy. It's mainly about generation differences, but also about North-South human differences. It's all simplified for dramatic effect, and doesn't go very deep into any particular issue. The older generation gets more interesting characters and dialogue than the younger one. The ending is outwardly an optimistic one, but anyone with some real life experience would seriously doubt that the young couple's marriage could last more than a few years.

Rating: 40

The Long Gray Line (1955)

 An immigrant from Ireland goes to West Point. He starts out as an employee, but then enlists and spends the rest of his life there as a non-commissioned officer, mostly working as an athletic instructor. He marries, brings his father from Ireland, goes through two world wars, etc.

This film has been compared to Goodbye, Mr. Chips by some reviewers. The main difference between the two films is that the protagonist here does not seem to have anything remarkable about him. He does not seem to be a bad person, but that's as far as his qualities go. So, the only reason he becomes an object of affection is because, being a fixture of the place where he lives, a sentimental value is attached to him. This is a film with a void as a center. It becomes a film about West Point, really, but a rather trivial one. The amazing thing is that the leading actor gives what is probably the best performance of his career playing this nobody.

Rating: 31

Adorables créatures (1952)

 English title: Adorable Creatures

On his wedding day, a young man recollects his past adventures with three women. The first one is married and will not leave her husband; the second one is a money-grubber; the third one is a widow millionairess devoted to charity events. As he goes through those relationships, his feelings towards his neighbor's daughter (shown at the beginning as the woman he marries) grows stronger.

While not exactly an earth-shattering masterpiece, this film deserves more recognition than it has. It is splendidly directed, and has a very decent screenplay. It is structured as an episodic film, with each of the protagonist's women being the center of one episode. The first one is possibly not as good as the two following it. This film has been accused of being misogynistic; well, that is the whole point of the movie, made explicit already in its ironic title. 

Rating: 55

The Night of the Generals (1967)

 During World War II, a series of murders of prostitutes happen at various European cities where some German generals are staying. A German inspector is obsessed with finding the murderer. The plot to kill Hitler interferes with his quest.

Convoluted melodrama which is a mix of war drama and whodunit. It's all very silly, as many commenters have pointed out, but it looks good and entertains to a moderate degree, as long as one is prepared to spend more than two hours being thus entertained.

Rating: 44

Fuzileiro do amor (1956)

 José Ambrósio enlists in the Marines (actually, their Brazilian counterpart) in order to be accepted by his girlfriend's father, who is himself a retired marine. Since José Ambrósio is physically unfit and clumsy, he is the constant butt of jokes of his comrades and a victim of harassment by his sergeant. By a strange coincidence, his identical twin is also a military who is stationed nearby. That causes some confusion.

Very unoriginal comedy with some musical numbers thrown in for good measure. As the initial plot concerning an unfit recruit didn't provide enough material for a full-length film, they inserted the twin subplot which completely diverts the course of the movie.

Rating: 31

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 had 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