The Films

The Shining (1980)

2007-07-24T02:18:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew
for

The Shining (1980)

Also Known As:Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (1980) Runtime: 119 min / USA:146 min (original version) Country: UK Language: English Color: Color Sound Mix: Mono Certification: Argentina:18 / Australia:MA (uncut version) / Australia:M / Canada:18A / Finland:K-18 / Italy:VM14 / Netherlands:16 / Norway:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:18 / USA:R / West Germany:16

Directed by Stanley Kubric

Writing credits
Stephen King

(novel)
Stanley Kubrick

(screenplay) &
Diane Johnson (I)

(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Jack Nicholson
....
Jack Torrance
Shelley Duvall
....
Wendy Torrance
Danny Lloyd
....
Danny Torrance
Scatman Crothers
....
Dick Hallorann
Barry Nelson (I)
....
Stuart Ulman
Philip Stone (I)
....
Delbert Grady
Joe Turkel
....
Lloyd, Overlook bartender
Anne Jackson
....
Doctor
Tony Burton (I)
....
Larry Durkin
Lia Beldam
....
Young woman in bath
Billie Gibson
....
Old woman in bath
Barry Dennen
....
Bill Watson
David Baxt
....
Forest Ranger #1
Manning Redwood
....
Forest Ranger #2
Lisa Burns (I)
....
Grady daughter
Louise Burns (I)
....
Grady daughter
Robin Pappas
....
Nurse
Alison Coleridge
....
Suzie (Mr. Ulman's secretary)
Burnell Tucker
....
Policeman
Jana Sheldon
....
Stewardess
Kate Phelps
....
Receptionist
Norman Gay
....
Injured guest
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Vivian Kubrick
....
Smoking guest on ballroom couch (uncredited)

Produced by
Robert Fryer
....
producer
Jan Harlan
....
executive producer
Mary Lea Johnson
....
producer
Stanley Kubrick
....
producer
Martin Richards (I)
....
producer

Original Music by
Wendy Carlos

Rachel Elkind

Non-Original Music by
Béla Bartók

(from "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta")
György Ligeti (I)

Krzysztof Penderecki

Cinematography by
John Alcott

Film Editing by
Ray Lovejoy

Casting by
James Liggat (I)

Production Design by
Roy Walker (I)

Art Direction by
Leslie Tomkins

(as Les Tomkins)

Costume Design by
Milena Canonero

About the Movie

Novelist Jack Torrance and his family have been chosen to become the care-takers of a large hotel in the Rockie Mountains, The Overlook. Jack was delighted. Before long, Jack, his wife Wendy and their 6-year-old son, Danny, head up there. Danny has an imaginary friend, Tony and just recently, he was frightened of am image he saw in his mind of elevator doors opening and blood pouring out. Once at the hotel, the Torrances are shown around. There's a dozen rooms, kitchen, everything. The entire hotel would be vacant for the winter so it would be just the three of them alone. The cook, Dick Hallorann, notices that Danny is clarevoyent. He can read minds.Pretty soon, Jack, Wendy and Danny were completely alone and soon strange things start to happen; Danny rides his tricycle up and down the hallways, he sees two girls standing there. Also, there was a woman in one of the rooms that tries to strangle him. Jack goes to investigate and the woman becomes a rotting corpse. Jack also meets ghosts in the ballroom. One of them is of the former caretaker, Delbert Grady. He had gone insane and butchered his wife and two daughters. Coincidence? Danny continues to exhibit weird behavior and Jack comes down with cabin fever. He was going crazy. He must be, because Wendy noticed a whole pile of papers with only one continuous sentence on them: All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy. Jack had been told by the spirits to kill his family. He vowed he would, even Wendy locking him in the storage closet didn't stop him. It was starting to snow pretty hard outside and Wendy couldn't radio for help, due to Jack had sabotaged both the radio and the Snow Cat: a vehicle built for traveling in snow. Jack chases Wendy and Danny with an axe. Danny summons Dick Hallorann with his mind and he hurries to the hotel in a Snow Cat. When he arrives, Jack plunges an axe in his back then chases Danny through a hedge maze in the backyard. Wendy finds him and they escape in the Snow Cat, leaving Jack to freeze to death and join the spirits in the hotel.A pretty good movie. Both perplexing and scary. Jack Nicholson was good. Shelley Duvall was good also, so were Scatman Crothers and Danny Lloyd. Crothers and Nicholson also starred in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, also a good film. Scatman Crothers is sadly no longer with us. He died in real life in 1986.

Filmography for Jack Nicholson
Untitled Nancy Meyers Project (2003) (post-production) .... Harry Langer
Anger Management (2003) .... Dr. Buddy Rydell
About Schmidt (2002) .... Warren R. Schmidt
Pledge, The (2001) .... Jerry Black
As Good As It Gets (1997) .... Melvin Udall
Mars Attacks! (1996) .... President James Dale/Art Land
Evening Star, The (1996) .... Garrett Breedlove
Blood and Wine (1996) .... Alex Gates... aka Blood & Wine (1997) (video box title)
Crossing Guard, The (1995) .... Freddy Gale
Wolf (1994) .... Will Randall
Who's Tommy, the Amazing Journey, The (1993) (archive footage) .... The Specialist
Hoffa (1992) .... James R. 'Jimmy' Hoffa
Few Good Men, A (1992) .... Col. Nathan R. Jessep
Man Trouble (1992) .... Harry Bliss
Two Jakes, The (1990) .... Jake Gittes/Narrator
Batman (1989) .... The Joker/Jack Napier
Ironweed (1987) .... Francis Phelan
Broadcast News (1987) .... Bill Rorich
Witches of Eastwick, The (1987) .... Daryl Van Horne
Elephant's Child (1986) (TV) .... Narrator
Heartburn (1986) .... Mark Louis Forman
Prizzi's Honor (1985) .... Charley Partanna
Terror in the Aisles (1984) (archive footage) .... Jack Torrance (segment "The Shining")... aka Time for Terror (1984) (Europe: video title English title)
Terms of Endearment (1983) .... Garrett Breedlove
Border, The (1982) .... Charlie Smith
Reds (1981) .... Eugene O'Neill
Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1981) .... Frank Chambers
28. Shining, The (1980) .... Jack Torrance... aka Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (1980)
29. Goin' South (1978) .... Henry Lloyd Moon
30. Last Tycoon, The (1976) .... Brimmer
Missouri Breaks, The (1976) .... Tom Logan
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) .... Randle Patrick McMurphy
Fortune, The (1975) .... Oscar Sullivan aka Oscar Dix... aka Spite and Malice (1975)
Tommy (1975) .... A. Quackson, Mental Health Specialist... aka Tommy by 'The Who' (1975) (USA: complete title) ... aka Tommy: The Movie (1975) (USA: promotional title) ... aka Who's Tommy, The (1975)
Professione: reporter (1975) .... David Locke... aka Passenger, The (1975) ... aka Profession: reporter (1975) ... aka Reportero, El (1975) (Spain)
Chinatown (1974) .... J. J. (Jake) Gittes
Last Detail, The (1973) .... Billy Buddusky
King of Marvin Gardens, The (1972) .... David Staebler
Safe Place, A (1971) .... Mitch
Carnal Knowledge (1971) .... Jonathan Fuerst
Rebel Rousers, The (1970) .... Bunny
Five Easy Pieces (1970) .... Robert Eroica Dupea
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) .... Tad Pringle
Easy Rider (1969) .... George Hanson
Psych-Out (1968) .... Stoney
Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) .... Poet
Shooting, The (1967) .... Billy Spear
St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The (1967) (uncredited) .... Gino, Hit Man
Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) .... Wes
Back Door to Hell (1964) .... Burnett
Flight to Fury (1964) .... Jay Wickham
Ensign Pulver (1964) .... Dolan
Terror, The (1963) .... Lt. Andre Duvalier... aka Castle of Terror, The (1963/II) ... aka Haunting, The (1963/II) (USA: TV title) ... aka Lady of the Shadows (1963)
Raven, The (1963) .... Rexford Bedlo
Broken Land, The (1962) .... Will Brocious
Wild Ride, The (1960) .... Johnny Varron... aka Velocity (2000) (USA: video title)
Studs Lonigan (1960) .... Weary Reilly
Too Soon to Love (1960) .... Buddy... aka Teenage Lovers (1960) (UK)
Little Shop of Horrors, The (1960) .... Wilbur Force
Cry Baby Killer, The (1958) .... Jimmy Wallace

Filmography for Stanley Kubric
See Course literature for 2001: A Space Oddesy

Useful Web Sites:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0081505

http://www.drummerman.net/shining/

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

2007-07-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

FULL METAL JACKET (1987)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987) (USA) (poster title) Runtime: 116 min Country: USA Language: English / Vietnamese Colour: Colour Sound Mix: Mono Certification: Argentina:18 / Australia:R / Canada:18A / Finland:K-16 / France:-12 / Ireland:18 / Italy:VM14 / Netherlands:16 / Norway:18 / South Korea:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:18 / USA:R / West Germany:16

Cast
Cast overview, first billed only:
Matthew Modine
....
Pvt. Joker
Adam Baldwin
....
Animal Mother
Vincent D'Onofrio
....
Pvt. Pyle
R. Lee Ermey
....
Gny. Sgt. Hartman (as Lee Ermey)
Dorian Harewood
....
Eightball
Arliss Howard
....
Pvt. Cowboy
Kevyn Major Howard
....
Rafterman
Ed O'Ross
....
Lt. Touchdown
John Terry
....
Lt. Lockhart
Kieron Jecchinis
....
Crazy Earl
Bruce Boa
....
Poge Colonel
Kirk Taylor
....
Pvt. Payback
Jon Stafford
....
Doc Jay (as John Stafford)
Tim Colceri
....
Door gunner
Ian Tyler
....
Lt. Cleves

Crew
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/combined

Writing credits Gustav Hasford (also novel The Short Timers)Michael Herr

Produced by
Jan Harlan
....
executive producer
Michael Herr
....
associate producer
Philip Hobbs
....
co-producer
Stanley Kubrick
....
producer

Original Music by
Vivian Kubrick

(as Abigail Mead)

Non-Original Music by
Jeff Barry

(song "Chapel of Love")
Tom T. Hall

(song "Hello Vietnam")
Lee Hazlewood

(song "These Boots Are Made For Walking")
Mick Jagger

(song "Paint it Black")
Keith Richards

(song "Paint it Black")
Domingo Samudio

(song "Wooly Bully")

Cinematography by
Douglas Milsome

Film Editing by
Martin Hunter

Casting by
Leon Vitali

Production Design by
Anton Furst

Art Direction by
Keith Pain

Rod Stratfold

Leslie Tomkins

(as Les Tomkins)

Set Decoration by
Barbara Drake

Costume Design by
Keith Denny

AWARDS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/awards

About the Movie
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1987/06/240105.html

Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" is more like a book of short stories than a novel. Many of the passages seem self-contained, some of them are masterful and others look like they came out of the bottom drawer. This is a strangely shapeless film from the man whose work usually imposes a ferociously consistent vision on his material.
The movie is about Vietnam and was shot on stages and outdoor sets in England. It's one of the best-looking war movies ever made on sets and stages, but that's not good enough when compared to the awesome reality of "Platoon," "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter." The crucial last passages of the film too often look and feel like World War II films from Hollywood studios. We see the same sets from so many different angles that after the movie we could find our own way around Kubrick's Vietnam.
That would not be a problem if his material made the sets irrelevant. It does not, especially toward the end of the film. You can only watch so much footage of a man crouched behind a barrier, pinned down by sniper fire, before the situation turns into a cinematic cliché. We've been here before, in other war movies, and we keep waiting for Kubrick to spring a surprise, but he never does.
The opening passages of "Full Metal Jacket" promise much more than the film finally is able to deliver. They tell the story of a group of marine grunts undergoing basic training on Paris Island, and the experience comes down to a confrontation between the gunnery sergeant (Lee Ermey) and a tubby misfit (Vince D'Onofrio) who is nicknamed Gomer Pyle. These are the two best performances in the movie, which never recovers after they leave the scene.
Ermey plays a character in the great tradition of movie drill instructors, but with great brio and amazingly creative obscenity. All situations in the Marines and in war seem to suggest sexual parallels for him, and one of the film's best moments has the recruits going to bed with their rifles and reciting a poem of love to them.
In scene after scene, the war/sex connection is reinforced, and it parallels the personal battle between Ermey and D'Onofrio, who at first fails all of the tasks in basic training and then finds he has one skill: He is an expert marksman. It is likely that in a real boot camp D'Onofrio would have been thrown out after a week, but Kubrick's story requires him to stay, and so he does, until the final showdown between the two men.
In that showdown, and at several other times in the film, Kubrick indulges his favorite closeup, a shot of a man glowering up at the camera from beneath lowered brows. This was the trademark visual in "A Clockwork Orange," and Jack Nicholson practiced it in "The Shining." What does it mean? That Kubrick thinks it's an interesting angle from which to shoot the face, I think. In "Full Metal Jacket," it promises exactly what finally happens and spoils some of the suspense.
There is a surprise to come, however: the complete abandonment of the sexual metaphor once the troops are in Vietnam. The movie disintegrates into a series of self-contained set pieces, none of them quite satisfying. The scene in the press room, for example, with the lecture on propaganda, seems to reflect some of the same spirit as "Dr. Strangelove." But how does it connect with the curious scene of the Vietnamese prostitute - a scene with a riveting beginning but no middle or end? And how do either lead to the final shoot-out with a sniper?
Time and again in the film, we get great shots with no payoffs. In one elaborate setup, for example, Kubrick shows us a TV cameraman and soundman being led by their shirttails as they pan down a line of exhausted marines. At first the shot has power. Then the outcome is that several soldiers deliver neat one-liners, all in a row, all in their turns, all perfectly timed, and the effect is so contrived that the idea of actual battle is lost completely.
Kubrick seems to want to tell us the story of individual characters, to show how the war affected them, but it has been so long since he allowed spontaneous human nature into his films that he no longer knows how. After the departure of his two most memorable characters, the sergeant and the tubby kid, he is left with no charactors (or actors) that we really care much about. And in a key scene at the end, when a marine feels joy after finally killing someone, the payoff is diminished because we don't give a damn about the character.
The movie has great moments. Ermey's speech to his men about the great marine marksmen of the past (Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald among them) is a masterpiece. The footage on the Paris Island obstacle course is powerful. But "Full Metal Jacket" is uncertain where to go, and the movie's climax, which Kubrick obviously intends to be a mighty moral revelation, seems phoned in from earlier war pictures. After what has already been said about "Vietnam" in the movies, "Full Metal Jacket" is too little and too late.

Useful References and Web Sites

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/externalreviews

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/combined

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0380282/

For Mathew Modine
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000546/

For R.Lee Ermey
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000388/

Dr Strangelove (1964)

2007-07-24T02:14:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Writing credits
Peter George (III)

(novel Red Alert, aka Two Hours to Doom)
Stanley Kubrick

and
Terry Southern

&
Peter George (III)

Dr. Strangelove (1964) Runtime: 93 min Country: UK Language: English / Russian Colour: Black and White Sound Mix: Mono Certification: Argentina:Atp / Australia:PG / Canada:PG / Finland:K-16 / France:U (re-release) / Iceland:Unrated / Netherlands:AL (video release) / Norway:11 / Sweden:11 / UK:PG / USA:PG / West Germany:16

Cast overview, first billed only:
Peter Sellers
....
Capt. Lionel Mandrake/President Merkin Muffley/Dr. Strangelove
George C. Scott
....
Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson
Sterling Hayden
....
Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Keenan Wynn
....
Col. 'Bat' Guano
Slim Pickens
....
Maj. T.J. 'King' Kong
Peter Bull (I)
....
Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky
James Earl Jones
....
Lt. Lothar Zogg
Tracy Reed (II)
....
Miss Foreign Affairs
Jack Creley
....
Mr. Staines
Frank Berry (I)
....
Lt. H.R. Dietrich
Robert O'Neil (I)
....
Adm. Randolph
Glenn Beck
....
Lt. W.D. Kivel (as Glen Beck)
Roy Stephens
....
Frank
Shane Rimmer
....
Capt. G.A. 'Ace' Owens
Hal Galili
....
Burpelson AFB Defense Team member

Produced by
Stanley Kubrick
....
producer
Victor Lyndon
....
associate producer
Leon Minoff
....
executive producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Laurie Johnson

Cinematography by
Gilbert Taylor (I)

Film Editing by
Anthony Harvey (II)

Production Design by
Ken Adam

Art Direction by
Peter Murton

Makeup Department
Stuart Freeborn
....
makeup artist (as Stewart Freeborn)
Barbara Ritchie
....
hair stylist

Production Management
Clifton Brandon
....
production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Eric Rattray
....
assistant director

About the film.
``Dr. Strangelove'' (1964) is filled with great comic performances, and just as well, because there's so little else in the movie apart from faces, bodies and words. Kubrick shot it on four principal locations (an office, the perimeter of an Air Force base, the ``War Room,'' and the interior of a B-52 bomber). His special effects are competent but not dazzling (we are obviously looking at model planes over Russia). The War Room, one of the most memorable of movie interiors, was created by Ken Adam out of a circular desk, a ring of lights, some back-projected maps, and darkness. The headquarters of Gen. Jack D. Ripper, the haywire Air Force general, is just a room with some office furniture in it.
Yet out of these rudimentary physical props and a brilliant screenplay (which Kubrick and Terry Southern based on a novel by Peter George), Kubrick made what is arguably the best political satire of the century, a film that pulled the rug out from under the Cold War by arguing that if a ``nuclear deterrent'' destroys all life on Earth, it is hard to say exactly what it has deterred.
``Dr. Strangelove's'' humour is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But a man who doesn't know he's wearing a funny hat ... ah, now you've got something.
The characters in ``Dr. Strangelove'' do not know their hats are funny. The film begins with Gen. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) fondling a phallic cigar while launching an unauthorized nuclear strike against Russia. He has become convinced that the commies are poisoning ``the purity and essence of our natural fluids'' by adding fluoride to the water supply. (Younger viewers may not know that in the 1950s this was a widespread belief.) Ripper's nuclear strike, his cigar technique and his concern for his ``precious bodily fluids'' are so entwined that they inspire unmistakable masturbatory associations.
The only man standing between Ripper and nuclear holocaust is a British liaison, Group Captain Mandrake (Sellers), who listens with disbelief to Rippers' rantings. Meanwhile, Ripper's coded message goes out to airborne B-52s to launch an attack against Russia. A horrified President Muffley (Sellers again) convenes his advisers in the War Room and is informed by Turgidson, bit by reluctant bit, of the enormity of the situation: The bombers are on the way, they cannot be recalled, and General Ripper cannot be reached, and so on. Eventually, Muffley calls the Russian premiere to confess everything (``Dimitri, we have a little problem ... '').
Other major players include the sinister strategist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers a third time); a character whose German accent now evokes Henry Kissinger, although in 1964 nuclear think-tanker Herman Kahn was the likely target. Strangelove's black-gloved right hand is an unruly weapon with a will of its own, springing into Nazi salutes and trying to throttle Strangelove to death. Action in the War Room and on the Air Force base is intercut with the B-52 cockpit, ruled by Major T.J. ``King'' Kong (Slim Pickens); when he's told by his radio man that the order to attack has come through, he tells them, ``No horsin' around on the airplane!''
Major Kong was intended to be Sellers' fourth role, but he was uncertain about the cowboy accent. Pickens, a character actor from westerns, was brought in by Kubrick, who reportedly didn't tell him the film was a comedy. Pickens' patriotic speeches to his crew (and his promises of promotion and medals) are counterpoint to the desperate American efforts to recall the flight.
I've always thought the movie ends on an unsure note. After the first nuclear blast, Kubrick cuts back to the War Room, where Strangelove muses that 'deep mines' could be used to shelter survivors, whose descendants could return to the surface in 90 years (Turgidson is intrigued by the 10-to-1 ratio of women to men). Then the film abruptly ends in its famous montage of many mushroom clouds, while Vera Lynn sings ``We'll Meet Again.``
It seems to me there should be no more dialogue after the first blast; Strangelove's survival strategy could be moved up to just before Slim Pickens' famous bareback ride to oblivion. I realize there would be a time lapse while Russian missiles responded to the attack, but I think the film would be more effective if the original blast brought an end to all further story developments. (Kubrick originally planned to end the film with a pie fight, and a table laden with pies can be seen in the background of the War Room, but he wisely realized that his purpose was satire, not slapstick.)
``Dr. Strangelove'' and ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) are Kubrick's masterpieces. The two films share a common theme: Man designs machinery that functions with perfect logic to bring about a disastrous outcome. The U.S. nuclear deterrent and the Russian ``doomsday machine'' function exactly as they are intended, and destroy life on earth. The computer HAL 9000 serves the space mission by attacking the astronauts.

Useful Websites

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0057012

http://www.indelibleinc.com/kubrick/films/strangelove/

for Peter Sellers
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Sellers,%20Peter

for George C. Scott
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Scott,%20George%20C.

for Sterling Hayden
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Hayden,%20Sterling

Miller's Crossing (1990)

2007-07-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Miller’s Crossing (1990)

Directed by Joel / Ethan Coen

Runtime: 115 min Country: USA Language: English / Italian Color: Color Sound Mix: Dolby SR Certification: Argentina:16 / Australia:M / Finland:K-16 / Germany:18 (video release) / Netherlands:16 / Portugal:M/16 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 (re-rating) / UK:18 / USA:R

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Gabriel Byrne
....
Tom Reagan
Marcia Gay Harden
....
Verna
John Turturro
....
Bernie Bernbaum
Jon Polito
....
Johnny Caspar
J.E. Freeman
....
Eddie Dane
Albert Finney
....
Leo
Mike Starr
....
Frankie
Al Mancini
....
Tic-Tac
Richard Woods
....
Mayor Dale Levander
Thomas Toner
....
O'Doole
Steve Buscemi
....
Mink
Mario Todisco
....
Clarence 'Drop' Johnson
Olek Krupa
....
Tad
Michael Jeter
....
Adolph
Lanny Flaherty
....
Terry
Jeanette Kontomitras
....
Mrs. Caspar
Louis Charles Mounicou III
....
Johnny Caspar Jr.
John McConnell
....
Cop - Brian
Danny Aiello III
....
Cop - Delahanty
Helen Jolly
....
Screaming lady
Hilda McLean
....
Landlady
Monte Starr
....
Gunman in Leo's house
Don Picard
....
Gunman in Leo's house
Salvatore H. Tornabene
....
Rug Daniels
Kevin Dearie
....
Street Urchin
Michael Badalucco
....
Caspar's Driver
Charles Ferrara
....
Caspar's Butler
Esteban Fernández
....
Caspar's Cousin (as Esteban Fernandez)
George Fernandez
....
Caspar's Cousin
Charles Gunning
....
Hitman at Verna's
Dave Drinkx
....
Hitman #2
David Darlow
....
Lazarre's Messenger
Robert LaBrosse
....
Lazarre's Tough
Carl Rooney
....
Lazarre's Tough
Jack Harris
....
Man with Pipe Bomb (as Jack David Harris)
Jery Hewitt
....
Son of Erin
Sam Raimi
....
Snickering Gunman
John Schnauder Jr.
....
Cop with Bullhorn
Zolly Levin
....
Rabbi
Joey Ancona
....
Boxer
Bill Raye
....
Boxer
William Preston Robertson
....
Voice (voice)
Frances McDormand
....
Mayor's Secretary (uncredited)

Writing credits
Joel Coen

(written by) &
Ethan Coen

(written by)
Dashiell Hammett

novels Red Harvest and Glass Key (uncredited)

Produced by
Ben Barenholtz
....
executive producer
Ethan Coen
....
producer
Graham Place
....
line producer
Mark Silverman
....
co-producer

Original Music by
Carter Burwell

Non-Original Music by
James Campbell

(song "Goodnight Sweetheart")
Connelly

(song "Goodnight Sweetheart")
A.H. Gibbs

(song "Runnin' Wild")

Cinematography by
Barry Sonnenfeld

Film Editing by
Michael R. Miller

Casting by
Donna Isaacson

John S. Lyons

(as John Lyons)

Production Design by
Dennis Gassner

Art Direction by
Leslie McDonald

Set Decoration by
Nancy Haigh

Costume Design by
Richard Hornung

Makeup Department
Lynn E. Champagne
....
assistant hair stylist (as Lynn Champagne)
Lynn E. Champagne
....
assistant makeup artist (as Lynn Champagne)
Cydney Cornell
....
hair stylist
Peggy Hannaman
....
assistant hair stylist
Peggy Hannaman
....
assistant makeup artist
Katherine James
....
makeup artist (as Kathrine James)

Production Management
Alma Kuttruff
....
production manager
Ron Neter
....
unit manager

Filmography for Joel and Ethan Coen
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/

Ladykillers, The (2004) (post-production)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Man Who Wasn't There, The (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ... aka O' Brother (2000) (France)
Big Lebowski, The (1998)
Fargo (1996)
Hudsucker Proxy, The (1994) ... aka Hudsucker - Der große Sprung (1994) (Germany)
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple. (1984)

Filmography for Gabriel Byrne
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000321/

Filmography for Albert Finney
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001215/
About the film
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0100150/

"Miller's Crossing" is brooding, dark and as coldly gleaming as gun metal. A gangster noir movie written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, it is a grim classic to admire if not to love, a Dashiell Hammett-style jigsaw of hard-boiled argot, dame troubles and existential dread. As violent as the streets of Washington, this Prohibition-era drama -- "a dirty town movie," the Coens call it -- is more than a little at home as a blood-and-pulp parable for these times.
Gabriel Byrne is the quintessential noir loner, a moralist whose Bambi eyes belie his tough guy's air. Adhering to a twisted chivalric code, he is Bogart by way of Dublin, a rigid man of honour among thieves. And "Miller's Crossing" is very much a story of honour among thieves. In its hard heart of hearts, it is a masterfully written and visually unsettling study in manly love.
In the leading role of Tom, Byrne is torn -- make that shredded -- between his fedora-covered head and his scabbed-over heart. The hat, symbolic of Tom's quandary, leads a life of its own, blowing off in the wind, then magically reappearing on the stair. Like many a Hammett hero, Tom would keep everything under his hat, if only he could keep it on his handsome head. And it's no accident that the movie's moll, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), wins it from him in a game of chance. Love's a gamble and Tom, in debt to the local loan shark, has a record as a loser.

Verna is the boss's girl, a classic put-your-lips-together-and-blow broad, a heart-melting icicle queen with cast-iron defence mechanisms and finger-waved hair. Good at taking care of herself, she talks in catty claw-and-scratch. "Intimidating helpless women is part of my job," says Tom, grabbing her arm. "Well, go out and find one and intimidate her," Verna returns. Naturally Tom, hat tipped back over his glossy waves, wants her even more. Now he's caught between his duty to his boss, Leo (Albert Finney), and Verna's silken allure.

Tom is Leo's closest adviser and the older man loves him, in his hood's way, like the son he's never had. But he's even crazier about Verna. "You don't like her, Tom, but I trust her as much as I trust you," says Leo. And so Tom confesses a night with Verna and the partnership is dissolved. Tom signs on with Leo's rival, the hot-headed Italian Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), who orders him to ice Verna's odious brother, Bernie (John Turturro), a bookie under Leo's protection.

"It's getting so a businessman can't expect a return on a fixed fight," complains Caspar, whose priorities aren't really all that unlike those of certain S&L chieftains. A little kingpin with an inferiority complex, he is easily manipulated by Tom, who convinces him that his henchman Dane (J.E. Freeman) is in cahoots with Bernie, allegedly Dane's homosexual lover. Whether straight or gay, the brutes find it impossible to cope with their feelings, which erupt in a volley of bullets and bashed brains.

"Miller's Crossing" explores that tension between cold blood and white heat in a thunderclap of venom and gunfire. If Tom's heart is pierced at all, it is merely for taking the pulse of the times. The Coens are playing a controlling game, the same as their cast of characters, and control frustrates passion, irrevocably. Love among these gangsters is a hard-luck affair.

But casting noir is another matter altogether. The Coens always get their girl, whether she is Frances McDormand of "Blood Simple," Holly Hunter of "Raising Arizona" or Harden here. All of them are astonishingly fierce actresses who approach their roles with quirky zeal. Harden, eloquent as the cheap satin moll, is an alumna of the stage, like most others in this explosive company. Finney, Byrne and Polito, to varying degrees, all seem capable of nuclear hatred. And do they ever blow.

"Miller's Crossing" is as disturbing and densely beautiful as its opening image, a lofty forest that dwarfs the gangsters as they laugh over their kill. There is an uncompromising magic about this primeval setting, until it comes over you like a wolf's shadow that this is where the brutal truly belong.

Raising Arizona (1987)

2007-07-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Raising Arizona (1987)

Directed by Joel / Ethan Coen

Runtime: 94 min Country: USA Language: English Color: Color (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: Dolby Certification: Argentina:13 / Finland:K-14 / France:U / Sweden:15 / UK:12 (video rating: 2001) / UK:15 (original rating) / USA:PG-13 / West Germany:12

CAST

Nicolas Cage
....
H.I. McDonnough
Holly Hunter
....
Edwina 'Ed' McDonnough
Trey Wilson
....
Nathan Arizona (Hufheinz) Sr.
John Goodman
....
Gale
William Forsythe
....
Evelle
Sam McMurray
....
Glen
Frances McDormand
....
Dot
Randall 'Tex' Cobb
....
Leonard Smalls
T.J. Kuhn
....
Nathan Arizona Jr. (as T.J. Kuhn Jr.)
Lynne Dumin Kitei
....
Florence Arizona
Peter Benedek
....
Prison Counselor
Charles 'Lew' Smith
....
Nice Old Grocery Man
Warren Keith
....
Younger FBI Agent
Henry Kendrick
....
Older FBI Agent
Sidney Dawson
....
Moses (ear-bending cellmate)
Richard Blake
....
Parole Board Chairman
Troy Nabors
....
Parole Board Member
Mary Seibel
....
Parole Board Member
John O'Donnal
....
Hayseed in the Pickup
Keith Jandacek
....
Whitey
Warren Forsythe
....
Minister
Ruben Young
....
'Trapped' Convict
Dennis Sullivan
....
Policeman in Arizona House
Richard Alexander
....
Policeman in Arizona house (as Dick Alexander)
Rusty Lee
....
Feisty Hayseed

CREW
Writing credits
Ethan Coen

(written by) and
Joel Coen

(written by)

Produced by
Ethan Coen
....
producer
James Jacks
....
executive producer
Deborah Reinisch
....
associate producer
Mark Silverman
....
co-producer

Original Music by
Carter Burwell

Non-Original Music by
Igor Stravinsky

(from "Petrushka") (uncredited)
Ludwig van Beethoven

(from "9th symphony") (uncredited)

Cinematography by
Barry Sonnenfeld

Film Editing by
Michael R. Miller

Casting by
Donna Isaacson

John S. Lyons

(as John Lyons)

Production Design by
Jane Musky

Art Direction by
Harold Thrasher

Set Decoration by
Robert Kracik

Costume Design by
Richard Hornung

Makeup Department
Dan Frey
....
hair stylist
Camille Henderson
....
assistant hair stylist
Camille Henderson
....
assistant makeup artist
Katherine James
....
makeup artist (as Katherine James-Cosburn)

Production Management
Kevin Dowd
....
production manager
Alma Kuttruff
....
production supervisor
Andrew Sears
....
post-production manager
Andrew Sears
....
second unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Patricia Anne Doherty
....
second assistant director (as Patricia Doherty)
Jon Kilik
....
second assistant director
Chitra F. Mojtabai
....
second assistant director (as Chitra Mojtabai)
Deborah Reinisch
....
first assistant director
Kelly Van Horn
....
first assistant director

Filmography for Joel and Ethan Coen
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/

Ladykillers, The (2004) (post-production)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Man Who Wasn't There, The (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ... aka O' Brother (2000) (France)
Big Lebowski, The (1998)
Fargo (1996)
Hudsucker Proxy, The (1994) ... aka Hudsucker - Der große Sprung (1994) (Germany)
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple. (1984)

Filmography for Nicolas Cage
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000115/

Filmography for Holly Hunter
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000456/

About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093822/combined
"Every day we keep a child out of the world is a day he'll miss," says Ed just before she flunks her fertility test. Then all the adoption agencies go and turn them down because Hi, though reformed, is an ex-con. So they kidnap a quintuplet -- who's going to miss one anyway?
The Coen brothers -- director Joel and producer Ethan -- deliver this bouncing baby picture with nods to Monty Python, comic Sam Kennison, the Gerber Baby and the Road Warrior. It is a wacky, happy, daring, darkly comic tale of parenting outside the law. It celebrates the middle-of-the-road dreams of decidedly off-center folks. It's a bundle of joy.

The cowriting Coens are like a couple of big kids who got cameras for Christmas; they're full of raw comic energy, as silly as they are sophisticated. But crucial to their success here is their affection for their dull-witted protagonists played with endearing deadpan by Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter. He's Hi, a former convenience-store robber with a high recidivism rate, and she's Ed, his former police booking officer and now loving wife, who longs to change Huggies and push an Aprica full of tomorrow.

"I tried to stand up and fly straight, but with that darned Reagan in the White House . . ." recalls Hi, who vows to reform when he one day finds the tight-lipped Officer Ed in tears, deserted by her fiance.

Hi gets a job punching holes and the newlyweds move into a "suburban starter home," a tiny trailer in the Arizona scrub, where they start taking their temperatures and whatever else is necessary for the making of babies. "These were the happy days," says Hi, narrating as the camera pulls back for a panorama of the McDonnoughs relaxed on drugstore lawn furniture outside their modest home on the arid plains.

Even the photography is funny, and telling, as directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who earned kudos for his amusing cinematography on the Coens' first movie "Blood Simple." Through it, the Coens keep highlighting the contrast between what Hi perceives and the realities of his impoverished life.

Cage, who narrates much of the story, hooks us the minute we lay eyes on him. He's got that blank look that Wile E. Coyote gets after he's been hit between the eyes with an anvil. Nevertheless he is a deep thinker, without the IQ to support his habit. The cartoon look carries over to his hairdo -- like Woody Woodpecker's topknot without benefit of styling gel.

Cage, who proved himself a fine dramatic actor as the bandaged Vietnam veteran of "Birdy," brings that same sort of Innocence Lost to this absurd part. Badly cast as the husband in "Peggy Sue Got Married," he makes up for that lapse as a lovable loser who can say things like "I cannot tarry" and get away with it.

Hunter, who the Coens spotted in Broadway's "Crimes of the Heart," had the part of Edwina from the time they put it on paper. She recalls a repressed Cindy ("Laverne & Shirley") Williams, as she compulsively pursues motherhood. She looks about to burst with the need to nourish. But coming from a long line of police officers, she keeps her passion under control. She's tight-lipped, pinched as an American gothic farmwoman's bun.

"I want you to go up there and get me a toddler," she orders Hi in her perfunctory twang. And he climbs into the home of Nathan and Florence Arizona, an unfinished- furniture magnate and his fertility-drugged wife, who have borne at long last the cutest-wootest quintuplets. Given a choice between Harry, Barry, Larry, Garry, or Nathan Jr., of course Hi swipes Junior.
It's a merry abduction scene, with Hi scrambling after tots as they start spilling out of their cribs like assembly-line cakes on "I Love Lucy."

The joys of parenting are imperiled, however, with the arrival of Hi's old cellmates Evelle and Gale Snopes (played by William Forsythe and the baby-faced John Goodman), who sit drooling their breakfast cereal down their chins while warning Edwina of the consequences of not breast-feeding. "That's why we ended up in prison," says dopey Evelle. Goodman and Forsythe make a merry pair of incorrigibles from their muddy jailbreak (and symbolic rebirth) to their final holdup (an easy job they heard about from one of Nixon's imprisoned plumbers). In one scene, they scream continually, like colicky, grown-up variations on the adorable Nathan Jr. himself (played by the adorable T.J. Kuhn).

Eventually comes the Lone Motorcyclist of the Apocalypse, a scuzzy grenade-toting bounty hunter in search of the baby. Blowing up bunnies and butterflies on route, Tex Cobb is the uneasy rider who probably embodies every parent's fear of the nuclear world they bring their child into. And certainly he is Hi's nightmare incarnate

Barton Fink (1991)

2007-07-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Barton Fink (1991)

Directed by Joel / Ethan Coen

Runtime: 116 min Country: USA / UK Language: English Colour: Colour Sound Mix: Dolby Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:M / Chile:14 / Finland:K-14 / Germany:16 (bw) / Norway:15 / Portugal:M/12 / South Korea:18 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 / USA:R

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Turturro
....
Barton Fink
John Goodman
....
Charlie Meadows
Judy Davis
....
Audrey Taylor
Michael Lerner
....
Jack Lipnick
John Mahoney
....
W.P. Mayhew
Tony Shalhoub
....
Ben Geisler
Jon Polito
....
Lou Breeze
Steve Buscemi
....
Chet
David Warrilow
....
Garland Stanford
Richard Portnow
....
Detective Mastrionotti
Christopher Murney
....
Detective Deutsch
I.M. Hobson
....
Derek
Meagen Fay
....
Poppy Carnahan
Lance Davis
....
Richard St. Claire
Harry Bugin
....
Pete

Writing credits
Joel Coen

(written by) &
Ethan Coen

(written by)

Produced by
Ben Barenholtz
....
executive producer
Ethan Coen
....
producer
Bill Durkin
....
executive producer
Jim Pedas
....
executive producer
Ted Pedas
....
executive producer
Graham Place
....
co-producer

Original Music by
Carter Burwell

Cinematography by
Roger Deakins

Film Editing by
Ethan Coen

(as Roderick Jaynes)
Joel Coen

(as Roderick Jaynes)

Casting by
Donna Isaacson

John S. Lyons

(as John Lyons)

Production Design by
Dennis Gassner

Art Direction by
Robert C. Goldstein

(as Bob Goldstein)
Leslie McDonald

Set Decoration by
Nancy Haigh

Costume Design by
Richard Hornung

Makeup Department
Fríða Aradóttir
....
hair stylist (as Frida Aradottir)
Jean Ann Black
....
makeup artist (as Jean Black)
Sarah Gaye Deal
....
assistant makeup artist (as Sarah Deal)
Keith Edmier
....
special makeup effects assistant
Peggy Hannaman
....
assistant hair stylist
Rick Lazzarini
....
makeup artist
Denise Van Arsdale-West
....
assistant makeup artist
Julie A. Welsh
....
assistant makeup artist (as Julie Ann Welsh)

Filmography for Joel and Ethan Coen
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/

Ladykillers, The (2004) (post-production)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Man Who Wasn't There, The (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ... aka O' Brother (2000) (France)
Big Lebowski, The (1998)
Fargo (1996)
Hudsucker Proxy, The (1994) ... aka Hudsucker - Der große Sprung (1994) (Germany)
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple. (1984)

Filmography for John Turturro
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/

Filmography for John Goodman
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000422/

About the film
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/combined

If there is a favourite image in the movies by the Coen brothers, it's of crass, venal men behind desks, who possess power the heroes envy. Maybe that's because, like all filmmakers, the Coens have spent a lot of time on the carpet, pitching projects to executives. In "Blood Simple," the guy behind the desk was M. Emmet Walsh, as a scheming private detective. In "Raising Arizona," it was Trey Wilson's furniture czar. In "Miller's Crossing," it was Albert Finney, as a mob boss. In "Barton Fink," it is Michael Lerner, as the head of a Hollywood studio. All of these men are vulgar, smoke cigars, and view their supplicants with contempt.

To their desks come characters that want to make a deal with the devil. They know these men are evil, compromised and corrupt. But they want what they have - a lot of money. "Barton Fink," the latest Coen film (directed by Joel, produced by Ethan, written by both), tells the story of a man who would like to sell out to Hollywood, if only he had the talent. Barton Fink is a left-wing New York playwright, modelled on the Clifford Odets of "Waiting for Lefty," who writes one proletarian hand-wringer in the late 1930s and then is summoned to Hollywood, where Jack Lipnick (Lerner), the vulgarian in charge of Capitol Pictures, pays him piles of money and assigns him to write a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery.

Fink, played with a likable, dim earnestness by John Turturro, checks into an eerie hotel that looks designed by Edward Hopper. There is apparently only one other tenant, the affable Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), a travelling salesman who lives next door and says he could tell Fink a lot of interesting stories. But Fink, who claims to be the poet of the workingman, is not interested in a real proletarian, and spends most of his time staring at his typewriter in despair. He has writer's block.

Lou Breeze (Jon Polito), the studio czar's right-hand man, tells Fink he should look up W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), another great American writer on the studio payroll. Mayhew is obviously modelled on William Faulkner, and Mahoney, with a moustache, is his uncanny double. Fink arrives breathlessly at the great man's feet, only to discover that he is a raving drunk and that his "secretary" (Judy Davis) has written most of his recent work. The three go on a picnic one day, and the scene builds into a wry comic vignette - some satire, some slapstick.
Like all of the Coen productions, "Barton Fink" has a deliberate visual style. The Hollywood of the late 1930s and early 1940s is seen here as a world of Art Deco and deep shadows, long hotel corridors and bottomless swimming pools. And there is a horror lurking underneath the affluent surface. Goodman, as the ordinary man in the next room, is revealed to have inhuman secrets, and the movie leads up to an apocalyptic vision of blood, flames and ruin, with Barton Fink unable to influence events with either his art or his strength.

The Coens mean this aspect of the film, I think, to be read as an emblem of the rise of Nazism. They paint Fink as an ineffectual and impotent left-wing intellectual, who sells out while telling himself he is doing the right thing, who thinks he understands the "common man" but does not understand that, for many common men, fascism had a seductive appeal. Fink tries to write a wrestling picture and sleeps with the great writer's mistress, while the Holocaust approaches and the nice guy in the next room turns out to be a monster.

It would be a mistake to insist too much on this aspect of the movie, however, since "Barton Fink" is above all a black comedy in the tradition of David Lynch, Luis Bunuel and the Coens themselves. Turturro is the right man for the role, making Fink a plodding, introspective, unsure intellectual whose lack of insight is matched only by his lack of talent. The movie is a little unfair to Odets, its inspiration (even if he did go to Hollywood in the late 1930s and write a boxing picture, "Golden Boy," which did not drip with political commitment). But it is unfair, hilariously, to Faulkner, whose works were not written by a "secretary," but who was by all accounts just as much of a boozer as the Mayhew character.

"Barton Fink" won the 1991 Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and an unprecedented two more prizes as well, for director and actor. Since Cannes juries traditionally limit themselves to one award per film, their ecstasy would seem to indicate "Barton Fink" is one of the greatest films ever made. It is not. But it's an assured piece of comic filmmaking, and perhaps a warning by the Coens to themselves about what can happen when brilliant young talents from the East make that trek out to the land of the guys behind the desks.

Chinatown (1974)

2007-07-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Chinatown (1974)

Directed by Roman Polanski

Runtime: 131 min Country: USA Language: English Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: Mono Certification: Australia:M / Finland:K-16 / Netherlands:16 / Norway:15 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 / USA:R / West Germany:16

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Nicholson .... J. J. (Jake) Gittes

Faye Dunaway .... Evelyn Cross Mulwray

John Huston .... Noah Cross

Perry Lopez .... Lt. Lou Escobar

John Hillerman .... Russ Yelburton

Darrell Zwerling .... Hollis I. Mulwray

Diane Ladd .... Ida Sessions

Roy Jenson .... Claude Mulvihill

Roman Polanski .... Man with knife

Richard Bakalyan .... Det. Loach (as Dick Bakalyan)

Joe Mantell .... Lawrence Walsh

Bruce Glover .... Duffy

Nandu Hinds .... Sophie

James O'Rear .... Lawyer

James Hong .... Kahn

Writing credits
Robert Towne

Roman Polanski

uncredited

Produced by
C.O. Erickson
....
associate producer
Robert Evans
....
producer

Original Music by
Rudolf Friml

(song "Some Day")
Jerry Goldsmith

Brian Hooker

(song "Some Day")

Cinematography by
John A. Alonzo

Film Editing by
Sam O'Steen

Casting by
Jane Feinberg

Mike Fenton

Production Design by
Richard Sylbert

Art Direction by
W. Stewart Campbell

Set Decoration by
Ruby R. Levitt

(as Ruby Levitt)

Costume Design by
Anthea Sylbert

Makeup Department
Hank Edds
....
makeup artist
Susan Germaine
....
hair stylist
Lee Harman
....
makeup artist
Vivienne Walker
....
hair stylist

Production Management
C.O. Erickson
....
unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michael Ader
....
second assistant director
Hawk Koch
....
assistant director (as Howard W. Koch Jr.)
Lee Rafner
....
second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Bill MacSems
....
property master
Gabe Resh
....
set designer
Robert Resh
....
set designer
Mike Reedy
....
property maker (uncredited)

Sound Department
Clint Althouse
....
boom operator (as Clint Althaus)
Bob Cornett
....
sound editor
Charles Grenzbach
....
sound re-recordist
John C. Hammell
....
music editor
Larry Jost
....
sound mixer
Howard Beals
....
sound editor (uncredited)
David Dockendorf
....
sound re-recording mixer (uncredited)
Roger Sword
....
sound editor (uncredited)
John Wilkinson
....
sound re-recording mixer (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Logan Frazee
....
special effects

Stunts
Jim Burk
....
stunts
Alan Gibbs
....
stunts (uncredited)
Hal Needham
....
stunt coordinator (uncredited)

Filmography for Roman Polanski
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000591/

Filmography for Jack Nicholson
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000197/

Filmography for Faye Dunaway
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001159/

Filmography for John Huston
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001379/

Filmography for Robert Evans
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0263172/
About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/

`Are you alone?" the private eye is asked in Roman Polanski's "Chinatown." "Isn't everybody?" he replies. That loneliness is central to a lot of noir heroes, who plunder other people's secrets while running from their own. The tone was set by Dashiel Hammett, and its greatest practitioner was Raymond Chandler. To observe Humphrey Bogart in Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" and Chandler's "The Big Sleep" is to see a fundamental type of movie character being born--a kind of man who occupies human tragedy for a living.

Yet the Bogart character is never merely cold. His detachment masks romanticism, which is why he's able to idealize bad women. His characters have more education and sensitivity than they need for their line of work. He wrote the rules; later actors were able to slip into the role of noir detective like pulling on a comfortable sweater. But great actors don't follow rules, they illustrate them. Jack Nicholson's character J.J. Gittes, who is in every scene of "Chinatown" (1974), takes the Bogart line and gentles it down. He plays a nice, sad man.
We remember the famous bandage plastered on Nicholson's nose (after the Polanski character slices him), and think of him as a hard-boiled tough guy. Not at all. In one scene he beats a man almost to death, but during his working day he projects a courtly passivity. "I'm in matrimonial work," he says, and adds, "it's my metier." His metier? What's he doing with a word like that? And why does he answer the telephone so politely, instead of barking "Gittes!" into it? He can be raw, he can tell dirty jokes, he can accuse people of base motives, but all the time there's a certain detached underlevel that makes his character sympathetic: Like all private eyes, he mud wrestles with pigs, but unlike most of them, he doesn't like it.

Nicholson can be sharp-edged, menacing, aggressive. He knows how to go over the top (see "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and his Joker in "Batman"). His performance is key in keeping "Chinatown" from becoming just a genre crime picture--that, and a Robert Towne screenplay that evokes an older Los Angeles, a small city in a large desert. The crimes in "Chinatown" include incest and murder, but the biggest crime is against the city's own future, by men who see that to control the water is to control the wealth. At one point Gittes asks millionaire Noah Cross (John Huston) why he needs to be richer: "How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Cross replies: "The future, Mr. Gitts, the future." (He never does get Gittes' name right.)

Gittes' involvement begins with an adultery case. He's visited by a woman who claims to be the wife of a man named Mulwray. She says her husband is cheating on her. Gittes' investigation leads him to Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), to city hearings, to dried river beds and eventually to Mulwray's drowned body and to the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). Stumbling across murders, lies and adulteries, he senses some larger reality beneath everything, some conspiracy involving people and motives unknown.

This crime is eventually revealed as an attempt to buy up the San Fernando Valley cheaply by diverting water so that its orange growers go broke. Then that water and more water, obtained through bribery and corruption, will turn the valley green and create wealth. The valley has long been seen as a key to California fortunes: I remember Joel McCrea telling me that on his first day as a movie actor, Will Rogers offered two words of advice: "Buy land." McCrea bought in the valley and died a rich man, but he was in the second wave of speculation.

The original valley grab was the Owne River Valley scandal of 1908, mirrored in the 1930s by Towne. In the preface to his Oscar-winning screenplay, he recalls: "My wife, Julie, returned to the hotel one afternoon with two quilts and a public library copy of Carey McWilliams' Southern California Country, an Island on the Land--and with it the crime that formed the basis of Chinatown." McWilliams, for decades the editor of the Nation, presented Towne not only with information about the original land and water grab, but also evoked the old Los Angeles, a city born in a desert where no city logically should be found. The screenplay explains, "Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water." John A. Alonzo's cinematography, which got one of the movie's 11 Oscar nominations, evokes the L.A. you can glimpse in the backgrounds of old movies, where the sun beats down on streets that are too wide, and buildings seem more defiant than proud. (Notice the shot where the bright sun falls on the fedoras of Gittes and two cops, casting their eyes into shadows like black masks.)

Gittes becomes a man who just wants to get to the bottom of things. He's tired of people's lies. And where does he stand with Evelyn Mulwray, played by Dunaway as a cool, elegant woman who sometimes--especially when her father is mentioned--seems fragile as china? First he's deceived by the fake Evelyn Mulwray, and then by the real one. Then he thinks he loves her. Then he thinks he's deceived again. Then he thinks she's hiding her husband's mistress. Then she says it's her sister. Then she says it's her daughter. He doesn't like being jerked around.
Her father the millionaire is played by Huston with treacly charm and mean little eyes. There is a luncheon where he serves Gittes a fish with the head still on, the eyes regarding the man about to eat it. "Just as long as you don't serve the chicken that way," Gittes says. In life and on the screen, Huston (who directed "The Maltese Falcon") could turn on disarming charm by admitting to his failings: "Of course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

Like most noir stories, "Chinatown" ends in a flurry of revelation. All is explained, relationships are redefined, and justice is done--or not. Towne writes of "my eventual conflict with Roman and enduring disappointment over the literal and ghoulishly bleak climax" of the movie. Certainly the wrong people are alive (and dead) at the end of the film, but I am not sure Polanski was wrong. He made the movie just five years after his wife, Sharon Tate, was one of the victims of the Manson gang, and can be excused for tilting toward despair. If the film had been made 10 years later, the studio might have insisted on an upbeat ending, but it was produced during that brief window when Robert Evans oversaw a series of Paramount's best films, including "The Godfather."

For Polanski, born in 1933 in Paris, reared in Poland, "Chinatown" was intended as a fresh start in Hollywood. After several brilliant thrillers made in Europe in the early 1960s ("Knife in the Water," "Repulsion"), he came to California and had an enormous success ("Rosemary's Baby," 1968). Then came the Manson murders, and he fled to Europe, making the curious "Macbeth" (1971), with its parallels to the cult killings. After "Chinatown" came charges of sex with an under-age girl, and exile in Europe. "Chinatown" shows he might have developed into a major Hollywood player, instead of scurrying to finance bizarre projects such as "Pirates" (1986).

For Nicholson, the role had enormous importance. After a decade's slumming in exploitation films, he made an indelible impression in "Easy Rider" and followed it with strong performances in "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), "Carnal Knowledge" (1971) and "The Last Detail" (1973). But with Jake Gittes he stepped into Bogart's shoes as a man attractive to audiences because he suggests both comfort and danger. Men see him as a pal; wise women find weary experience more attractive than untrained lust. From Gittes forward, Nicholson created the persona of a man who had seen it all and was still capable of being wickedly amused. He could sit in the front row at a basketball game and grin at the TV camera as if he expected the players to commit lascivious deeds right there on the floor.

"Chinatown" was seen as a neo-noir when it was released--an update on an old genre. Now years have passed and film history blurs a little, and it seems to settle easily beside the original noirs. That is a compliment.

Casablanca (1943)

2007-07-20T06:51:00.000-07:00

Full cast and credit for

Casablanca (1943)

Directed byMichael Curtiz

Complete credited cast:
Humphrey Bogart
....
Rick Blaine

Ingrid Bergman
....
Ilsa Lund Laszlo
Paul Henreid
....
Victor Laszlo
Claude Rains
....
Capt. Louis Renault
Conrad Veidt
....
Maj. Heinrich Strasser
Sydney Greenstreet
....
Signor Ferrari
Peter Lorre
....
Guillermo Ugarte
S.Z. Sakall
....
Carl (Rick's Cafe manager) (as S.K. Sakall)
Madeleine LeBeau
....
Yvonne
Dooley Wilson
....
Sam
Joy Page
....
Annina Brandel
John Qualen
....
Berger (Norwegian underground member)
Leonid Kinskey
....
Sascha (bartender at Rick's Cafe)
Curt Bois
....
Pickpocket

Crew
Writing credits
Murray Burnett (I)

(play Everybody Comes to Rick's) and
Joan Alison

(play Everybody Comes to Rick's)
Julius J. Epstein

and
Philip G. Epstein

and
Howard Koch

Casey Robinson

uncredited

Produced by
Hal B. Wallis
....
producer
Jack L. Warner
....
executive producer

Original Music by
M.K. Jerome

(songs)
Jack Scholl

(songs)
Max Steiner

Non-Original Music by
Herman Hupfeld

(song "As Time Goes By") (uncredited)

Cinematography by
Arthur Edeson

Film Editing by
Owen Marks

Art Direction by
Carl Jules Weyl

Set Decoration by
George James Hopkins

Costume Design by
Orry-Kelly

(gowns)

Makeup Department
Perc Westmore
....
makeup artist

Production Management
Al Alleborn
....
production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Lee Katz
....
assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Francis J. Scheid
....
sound

Special Effects by
Lawrence W. Butler
....
special effects director (as Lawrence Butler)
Willard Van Enger
....
special effects

Stunts
Harvey Parry
....
stunts (uncredited)

Other crew
Robert Aisner
....
technical advisor
Leo F. Forbstein
....
musical director
Hugo Friedhofer
....
music arranger: orchestral arrangements
James Leicester (I)
....
montage
Hugh MacMullan
....
dialogue director
Don Siegel
....
montage
Bob Williams (II)
....
unit publicist
Elliot Carpenter
....
musician: piano, dubbed Dooley Wilson's playing (uncredited)
Anthony Gasbarri
....
tailor: Mr. Bogart's tuxedo (uncredited)

Everybody Comes to Rick's (1943) (USA: original script title) Runtime: 102 min Country: USA Language: English / French / German Color: Black and White Sound Mix: Mono (RCA Sound System) Certification: Argentina:Atp / Australia:PG / Canada:PG / Chile:TE / Finland:S / Germany:6 / Norway:10 (re-rating: 1992) / Norway:11 (re-rating: 2002) / Norway:16 (original rating) / Peru:PT / Sweden:15 / Sweden:7 (re-release) / UK:U / USA:PG (1992)

If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that ``Casablanca'' is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis.
No one making ``Casablanca'' thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release. It was an ``A list'' picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of ``Casablanca'' was largely the result of happy chance.
The screenplay was adapted from a play of no great consequence; memoirs tell of scraps of dialogue jotted down and rushed over to the set. What must have helped is that the characters were firmly established in the minds of the writers, and they were characters so close to the screen personas of the actors that it was hard to write dialogue in the wrong tone.
Humphrey Bogart played strong heroic leads in his career, but he was usually better as the disappointed, wounded, resentful hero. Remember him in ``The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,'' convinced the others were plotting to steal his gold. In ``Casablanca,'' he plays Rick Blaine, the hard-drinking American running a nightclub in Casablanca when Morocco was a crossroads for spies, traitors, Nazis and the French Resistance.
The opening scenes dance with comedy; the dialogue combines the cynical with the weary; wisecracks with epigrams. We see that Rick moves easily in a corrupt world. ``What is your nationality?'' the German Strasser asks him, and he replies, ``I'm a drunkard.'' His personal code: ``I stick my neck out for nobody.''
Then ``of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.'' It is Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman Rick loved years earlier in Paris. Under the shadow of the German occupation, he arranged their escape, and believes she abandoned him--left him waiting in the rain at a train station with their tickets to freedom. Now she is with Victor Laszlo (Henreid), a legendary hero of the French Resistance.
All this is handled with great economy in a handful of shots that still, after many viewings, have the power to move me emotionally as few scenes ever have. The bar's piano player, Sam (Wilson), a friend of theirs in Paris, is startled to see her. She asks him to play the song that she and Rick made their own, ``As Time Goes By.'' He is reluctant, but he does, and Rick comes striding angrily out of the back room (``I thought I told you never to play that song!''). Then he sees Ilsa, a dramatic musical chord marks their closeups, and the scene plays out in resentment, regret and the memory of a love that was real. (This scene is not as strong on a first viewing as on subsequent viewings, because the first time you see the movie you don't yet know the story of Rick and Ilsa in Paris; indeed, the more you see it the more the whole film gains resonance.)
The plot, a trifle to hang the emotions on, involves letters of passage that will allow two people to leave Casablanca for Portugal and freedom. Rick obtained the letters from the wheedling little black-marketeer Ugarte (Peter Lorre). The sudden reappearance of Ilsa reopens all of his old wounds, and breaks his carefully cultivated veneer of neutrality and indifference. When he hears her story, he realizes she has always loved him. But now she is with Laszlo. Rick wants to use the letters to escape with Ilsa, but then, in a sustained sequence that combines suspense, romance and comedy as they have rarely been brought together on the screen, he contrives a situation in which Ilsa and Laszlo escape together, while he and his friend the police chief (Claude Rains) get away with murder. (``Round up the usual suspects.'')
What is intriguing is that none of the major characters is bad. Some are cynical, some lie, some kill, but all are redeemed. If you think it was easy for Rick to renounce his love for Ilsa--to place a higher value on Laszlo's fight against Nazism--remember Forster's famous comment, ``If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend.''
From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund's role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie's real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with? There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the ``happy'' ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility (``it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world''). And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism.
In her closeups during this scene, Bergman's face reflects confusing emotions. And well she might have been confused, since neither she nor anyone else on the film knew for sure until the final day who would get on the plane. Bergman played the whole movie without knowing how it would end, and this had the subtle effect of making all of her scenes more emotionally convincing; she could not tilt in the direction she knew the wind was blowing.
Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. The director, Michael Curtiz, and the writers (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch) all won Oscars. One of their key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place. The richness of the supporting characters (Greenstreet as the corrupt club owner, Lorre as the sniveling cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief and minor characters like the young girl who will do anything to help her husband) set the moral stage for the decisions of the major characters. When this plot was remade in 1990 as ``Havana,'' Hollywood practices required all the big scenes to feature the big stars (Robert Redford and Lena Olin) and the film suffered as a result; out of context, they were more lovers than heroes.
Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned. Much of the emotional effect of ``Casablanca'' is achieved by indirection; as we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do after all amount to more than a hill of beans.

Filmography for Humphrey Bogart
Play It Again, Sam (1972) (uncredited) (archive footage) .... Rick Blaine in Casablanca... aka Aspirins for Three (1972)
Harder They Fall, The (1956) .... Eddie Willis
We're No Angels (1955) .... Joseph
Desperate Hours, The (1955) .... Glenn Griffin
Left Hand of God, The (1955) .... Jim Carmody
Barefoot Contessa, The (1954) .... Harry Dawes... aka Contessa scalza, La (1954) (Italy)
Sabrina (1954) .... Linus Larrabee ... aka Sabrina Fair (1954) (UK)
Caine Mutiny, The (1954) .... Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg
Beat the Devil (1953) .... Billy Dannreuther... aka Tesoro dell'Africa, Il (1953) (Italy)
Battle Circus (1953) .... Maj. Jed Webbe
Deadline - U.S.A. (1952) .... Ed Hutcheson, Managing Editor of The Day... aka Deadline (1952) (UK)
African Queen, The (1951) .... Charlie Allnut
Sirocco (1951) .... Harry Smith
Enforcer, The (1951) .... Dist. Atty. Martin Ferguson... aka Murder, Inc. (1951) (UK)
Chain Lightning (1950) .... Lt. Col. Matt Brennan
In a Lonely Place (1950) .... Dixon Steele
Tokyo Joe (1949) .... Joe Barrett
Knock on Any Door (1949) .... Andrew Morton
Key Largo (1948) .... Frank McCloud
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948) .... Fred C. Dobbs
Dark Passage (1947) .... Vincent Parry
Two Mrs. Carrolls, The (1947) .... Geoffrey Carroll
Dead Reckoning (1947) .... Captain Warren 'Rip' Murdock
Big Sleep, The (1946) .... Philip Marlowe
Conflict (1945) .... Richard Mason
To Have and Have Not (1944) .... Harry Morgan (Steve)
Passage to Marseille (1944) .... Jean Matrac
Sahara (1943) .... Sgt. Joe Gunn
Action in the North Atlantic (1943) .... Lt. Joe Rossi
Big Shot, The (1942) .... Joseph 'Duke' Berne
Casablanca (1942) .... Rick Blaine
Across the Pacific (1942) .... Rick Leland
In This Our Life (1942) (uncredited) .... Cameo appearance (Roadhouse owner)
All Through the Night (1942) .... Alfred 'Gloves' Donahue
Maltese Falcon, The (1941) .... Sam Spade
Wagons Roll at Night, The (1941) .... Nick Coster
High Sierra (1941) .... Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle
They Drive by Night (1940) .... Paul Fabrini... aka Road to Frisco, The (1940) (UK)
Brother Orchid (1940) .... Jack Buck
It All Came True (1940) .... Chips Maguire, aka Mr. Grasselli
Virginia City (1940) .... John Murrell
Invisible Stripes (1939) .... Chuck Martin
Return of Doctor X, The (1939) .... Marshall Quesne
Roaring Twenties, The (1939) .... George Hally
Old Maid, The (1939) .... Clem Spender (replaced by George Brent (I)) (uncredited)
You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939) .... Frank Wilson
Dark Victory (1939) .... Michael O'Leary
Oklahoma Kid, The (1939) .... Whip McCord
King of the Underworld (1939) .... Joe Gurney
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) .... James Frazier
Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, The (1938) .... 'Rocks' Valentine
Men Are Such Fools (1938) .... Harry Galleon
Racket Busters (1938) .... John 'Czar' Martin
Crime School (1938) .... Deputy Commissioner Mark Braden
Swing Your Lady (1938) .... Ed Hatch
Stand-In (1937) .... Doug Quintain
Dead End (1937) .... Baby Face Martin... aka Cradle of Crime (1937)
San Quentin (1937) .... Joe 'Red' Kennedy
Kid Galahad (1937) .... Turkey Morgan... aka Battling Bellhop, The (1937) (USA: TV title)
Marked Woman (1937) .... David Graham
Great O'Malley, The (1937) .... John Phillips
Black Legion (1937) .... Frank Taylor
Isle of Fury (1936) .... Valentine 'Val' Stevens
China Clipper (1936) .... Hap Stuart
Two Against the World (1936) .... Sherry Scott... aka Case of Mrs. Pembroke, The (1936) (UK) ... aka One Fatal Hour (1936) (USA: reissue title)
Bullets or Ballots (1936) .... Nick 'Bugs' Fenner
Petrified Forest, The (1936) .... Duke Mantee
Midnight (1934) .... Gar Boni... aka Call It Murder (1934) (USA: reissue title)
Three on a Match (1932) .... Harve (Ace's henchman)
Big City Blues (1932) (uncredited) .... Shep Adkins
Love Affair (1932) .... Jim Leonard
Holy Terror, A (1931) .... Steve Nash
Women of All Nations (1931) .... Stone
Bad Sister, The (1931) .... Valentine Corliss
Body and Soul (1931) .... Jim Watson
Devil with Women, A (1930) .... Tom Standish
Up the River (1930) .... Steve
Life (1920) (uncredited) .... Bit

Important Web Sites
http://us.imdb.com/TUrls?COM+0034583
http://www.filmsite.org/casa.html

The Third Man (1949)

2007-07-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

Full Cast and Crew for

The Third Man (1949)

Directed by Carol Reed (1906 - 1976)

3rd Man, The (1950) (USA: poster title) Runtime: 104 min / USA:93 min Country: UK Language: English / German Colour: Black and White Sound Mix: Mono (Western Electric Recording) Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:PG / Finland:K-16 / Norway:11 / Spain:13 / Sweden:15 / UK:PG / USA:Approved (PCA #14125) / West Germany:12

Cast

Joseph Cotten
....
Holly Martins
Alida Valli
....
Anna Schmidt (as Valli)
Orson Welles
....
Harry Lime
Trevor Howard
....
Major Calloway
Paul Hörbiger
....
Porter (as Paul Hoerbiger)
Ernst Deutsch
....
'Baron' Kurtz
Erich Ponto
....
Dr. Winkel
Siegfried Breuer
....
Popescu
Hedwig Bleibtreu
....
Old Woman
Bernard Lee (I)
....
Sergeant Paine
Wilfrid Hyde-White
....
Crabbin

Writing credits
Graham Greene (I)

(story) and
Alexander Korda

(story)
Graham Greene (I)

(screenplay)
Carol Reed

uncredited and
Orson Welles

uncredited

Produced by
Hugh Perceval
....
associate producer
Carol Reed
....
producer
Alexander Korda
....
producer (uncredited)
David O. Selznick
....
producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Henry Love

(song "Das Alte Lied")
Anton Karas

(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Robert Krasker

Film Editing by
Oswald Hafenrichter

Set Decoration by
Dario Simoni

(uncredited)

Makeup Department
George Frost
....
makeup artist
Joe Shear
....
hair stylist (as J. Shear)

Production Management
T.S. Lyndon-Haynes
....
production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Guy Hamilton (I)
....
assistant director
Gino Wimmer
....
assistant director: Austria (uncredited)

Art Department
Joseph Bato
....
set designer
Ferdinand Bellan
....
assistant art director
John Hawkesworth
....
set designer
Vincent Korda
....
set designer
James Sawyer (I)
....
assistant art director

Sound Department
John Cox (I)
....
sound supervisor
Jack Drake
....
sound editor
Red Law
....
sound recordist
Bert Ross (I)
....
sound recordist

Visual Effects by
W. Percy Day
....
matte painter (uncredited)

Ivy Baker
....
wardrober
Denys N. Coop
....
camera operator (as Denys Coop)
Anton Karas
....
musician: zither
Alexander Korda
....
presenter
Fritz Löhner-Beda
....
lyricist (as Beda)
Peggy McClafferty
....
continuity
Elizabeth Montagu
....
austrian advisor
Stanley Pavey
....
additional photographer (as Stan Pavey)
Edward Scaife
....
camera operator (as E. Scaife)
David O. Selznick
....
presenter
Peter Taylor (I)
....
assembly cutter
John Wilcox (I)
....
additional photographer
Angela Allen
....
script supervisor: second unit (uncredited)
Esther Harris
....
trailer (uncredited)
George Murrey
....
wardrobe master (uncredited)

About the Film.
An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.
Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's ``The Third Man''? The score was performed on a zither by Anton Karas, who was playing in a Vienna beerhouse one night when Reed heard him. The sound is jaunty but without joy, like whistling in the dark. It sets the tone; the action begins like an undergraduate lark and then reveals vicious undertones.
The story begins with a spoken prologue (``I never knew the old Vienna, before the war. . .''). The shattered postwar city has been divided into French, American, British and Russian zones, each with its own cadre of suspicious officials. Into this sinkhole of intrigue falls an American innocent: Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), alcoholic author of pulp Westerns. He has come at the invitation of his college chum Harry Lime. But Lime is being buried when Martins arrives in Vienna.
How did Lime die? That question is the engine that drives the plot, as Martins plunges into the murk that Lime left behind. Calloway (Trevor Howard), the British officer in charge, bluntly says Lime was an evil man, and advises Holly to take the next train home. But Harry had a girl named Anna (Alida Valli), who Holly sees at Lime's grave, and perhaps she has some answers. Certainly Holly has fallen in love with her, although his trusting Yankee heart is no match for her defenses.
``The Third Man'' (1949) was made by men who knew the devastation of Europe at first hand. Carol Reed worked for the British Army's wartime documentary unit, and the screenplay was by Graham Greene, who not only wrote about spies but occasionally acted as one. Reed fought with David O. Selznick, his American producer, over every detail of the movie; Selznick wanted to shoot on sets, use an upbeat score and cast Noel Coward as Harry Lime. His film would have been forgotten in a week. Reed defied convention by shooting entirely on location in Vienna, where mountains of rubble stood next to gaping bomb craters, and the ruins of empire supported a desperate black market economy. And he insisted on Karas' zither music (``The Third Man Theme'' was one of 1950's biggest hits).
Reed and his Academy Award-winning cinematographer, Robert Krasker, also devised a reckless, unforgettable visual style. More shots, I suspect, are tilted than are held straight; they suggest a world out of joint. There are fantastic oblique angles. Wide-angle lenses distort faces and locations. And the bizarre lighting makes the city into an expressionist nightmare. (During a stakeout for Lime, a little balloon man wanders onto the scene, and his shadow is a monster three stories high). Vienna in ``The Third Man'' is a more particular and unmistakable *place* than almost any other location in the history of the movies; the action fits the city like a hand slipping on a glove.
Then there are the faces: Joseph Cotton's open, naive face contrasts with the ``friends'' of Harry Lime: the corrupt ``Baron'' Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch); the shifty Dr. Winkel (Erich Ponto), the ratlike Popescu (Siegfried Breuer). Even a little boy with a rubber ball looks like a wizened imp. The only trusting faces are those of innocents like the hall porter (Paul Hoerbiger) who tells Holly, ``There was another man . . . a third man. . .'' and the beefy Sgt. Paine (Bernard Lee), Calloway's aide, who levels the drunken Holly with a shot to the chin and then apologizes. Even the resident exiles are corrupt; Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White), the head of the discussion group, chatters about culture while smoothly maneuvering his mistress out of sight through doors and up stairs.
As for Harry Lime: He allows Orson Welles to make the most famous entrance in the history of the movies, and one of the most famous speeches. By the time Lime finally appears we have almost forgotten Welles is even *in* the movie. The sequence is unforgettable: the meow of the cat in the doorway, the big shoes, the defiant challenge by Holly, the light in the window, and then the shot, pushing in, on Lime's face, enigmatic and teasing, as if two college chums had been caught playing a naughty prank.
The famous speech comes during an uneasy ride on a giant Ferris wheel; at one point, Lime slides open the door of the car they are riding in, and Holly uneasily wraps an arm around a post. Harry tries to justify himself: ``You know what the fellow said: In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.'' (Greene says this speech was written by Welles.)
The emotional heart of the movie is Holly's infatuation with Anna, who will love Harry and be grateful to him no matter what she learns. The scenes between Holly and Anna are enriched by tiny details, as when they visit Harry's apartment and she opens a drawer without looking--because she already knows what will be inside. Or the way she sometimes slips and calls Holly ``Harry.'' Everyone in the movie has trouble with names. Holly calls Calloway ``Callahan,'' and Dr. Winkle insists on ``VINK-ell!'' And the name on Harry Lime's tombstone is wrong, too.
The chase sequence in ``The Third Man'' is another joining of the right action with the right location. Harry escapes into the sewer system like a cornered rat, and Reed edits the pursuit into long, echoing, empty sewer vistas, and closeups of Lime's sweaty face, his eyes darting for a way out. Presumably there would be no lights in the Vienna sewers, but there are strong light sources just out of sight behind every corner, throwing elongated shadows, backlighting Harry and his pursuers.
The final scene in ``The Third Man'' is a long, elegiac sigh. It almost did not exist. Selznick and Greene originally wanted a happy ending. (Greene originally wrote, ``. . . her hand was through his arm''). Reed convinced Greene he was wrong. The movie ends as it begins, in a cemetery, and then Calloway gives Holly a ride back to town. They pass Anna walking on the roadside. Holly asks to be let out of the jeep. He stands under a tree, waiting for her. She walks toward him, past him, and then out of frame, never looking. After a long pause, Holly lights a cigarette and wearily throws away the match. Joseph Cotten recalled later that he thought the scene would end sooner. But Reed kept the camera running, making it an unusually long shot, and absolutely perfect.
``The Third Man'' reflects the optimism of Americans and the bone-weariness of Europe after the war. It's a story about grownups and children: Adults like Calloway, who has seen at first hand the results of Lime's crimes, and children like the trusting Holly, who believes in the simplified good and evil of his Western novels.
``The Third Man'' is like the exhausted aftermath of ``Casablanca.'' Both have heroes who are American exiles, awash in a world of treachery and black market intrigue. Both heroes love a woman battered by the war. But ``Casablanca'' is bathed in the hope of victory, while ``The Third Man'' already reflects the Cold War years of paranoia, betrayal and the Bomb. The hero doesn't get the girl in either movie--but in ``Casablanca,'' Ilsa stays with the resistance leader to help in his fight, while in ``The Third Man'' Anna remains loyal to a rat. Yet Harry Lime saved Anna, a displaced person who faced certain death. Holly will never understand what Anna did to survive the war, and Anna has absolutely no desire to tell him.
Of all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies. I saw it first on a rainy day in a tiny, smoke-filled cinema on the Left Bank in Paris. It told a story of existential loss and betrayal. It was weary and knowing, and its glorious style was an act of defiance against the corrupt world it pictured. Seeing it, I realized how many Hollywood movies were like the pulp Westerns that Holly Martins wrote: naive formulas supplying happy endings for passive consumption. I read the other day that they plan to remake ``The Third Man.'' Do you think Anna will cave in to Holly--or will she remain true to her bitter cynicism and unspeakable knowledge?

Filmography for Carol Reed (1906 – 1976)
Follow Me (1972) ... aka Follow Me! (1972) (UK) ... aka Public Eye, The (1972) (USA)
Flap (1970) ... aka Last Warrior, The (1970) (UK)
Oliver! (1968)
Agony and the Ecstasy, The (1965) ... aka Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Running Man, The (1963) ... aka Carol Reed's The Running Man (1963)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) (uncredited) (some scenes)
Our Man in Havana (1959)
Key, The (1958)
Trapeze (1956)
Kid for Two Farthings, A (1955)
Man Between, The (1953)
Outcast of the Islands (1952)
Men of the Sea (1951)
Third Man, The (1949) ... aka 3rd Man, The (1950) (USA: poster title)
Fallen Idol, The (1948) ... aka Lost Illusion, The (1948)
Odd Man Out (1947) ... aka Gang War (1947)
True Glory, The (1945) (uncredited)
Way Ahead, The (1944) ... aka Immortal Battalion, The (1945) (USA: cut version)
Young Mr. Pitt, The (1942)
Letter from Home, A (1941)
Girl in the News (1941)
Kipps (1941) ... aka Remarkable Mr. Kipps, The (1941) (USA)
Night Train to Munich (1940) ... aka Gestapo (1940) ... aka Night Train (1940) ... aka Night Train to Munich (1940) (USA)
Girl Must Live, A (1939) ... aka Girl Has to Live, A (1939) (UK)
Stars Look Down, The (1939)
Climbing High (1939)
Penny Paradise (1938)
Bank Holiday (1938) ... aka Three on a Weekend (1938) (USA)
Who's Your Lady Friend? (1937)
Talk of the Devil (1937)
Laburnum Grove (1936)
It Happened in Paris (1935)
Midshipman Easy (1935) ... aka Men of the Sea (1935) (USA)

Filmography for Joseph Cotton (1905 – 1994) (Most Important)
The Third Man (1949)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
Gaslight (1944)
Citizen Kane (1941)

Useful Websites

http://www.filmsite.org/thir.html

http://us.imdb.com/Tawards?0041959

Joseph Cotton
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Cotten,%20Joseph

Alexander Korda
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Korda,%20Alexander

Orson Wells
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Welles,%20Orson

Fahrenheight 451 (1966)

2007-07-20T06:48:00.001-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Fahrenheight 451 (1966)

Directed by Francois Truffaut

Runtime: 112 min / Australia:108 min (approx.) Country: UK Language: English Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: Mono (Westrex Recording System) Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:PG / Finland:K-12 / Norway:16 / Sweden:15 / UK:12 / USA:Unrated / Singapore:PG

Cast
Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Oskar Werner
....
Guy Montag
Julie Christie
....
Clarisse/Linda Montag
Cyril Cusack
....
The Captain
Anton Diffring
....
Fabian/Headmistress
Jeremy Spenser
....
Man with the Apple
Bee Duffell
....
Book Lady
Alex Scott
....
Book Person: 'The Life of Henry Brulard'

Noel Davis
....
Cousin Midge, TV Personality
Gillian Aldam
....
Judoka Woman (uncredited)
Michael Balfour
....
Book Person: Machiavelli's 'The Prince' (uncredited)
Ann Bell
....
Doris (uncredited)
Yvonne Blake
....
Book Person: 'The Jewish Question' (uncredited)
Arthur Cox
....
Male nurse (uncredited)
Frank Cox
....
Book Person: 'Prejudice' (uncredited)
Fred Cox
....
Book Person: 'Pride' (uncredited)
Judith Drinan
....
Book Person: 'Plato's Republic' (uncredited)
Kevin Elder
....
First Schoolboy (uncredited)
Joan Francis
....
Telephonist (uncredited)
Denis Gilmore
....
Book Person: 'The Martian Chronicles' (uncredited)
David Glover
....
Book Person: 'The Pickwick Papers' (uncredited)
Caroline Hunt
....
Helen (uncredited)
Edward Kaye
....
Judoka Man (uncredited)
Mark Lester
....
Second Schoolboy (uncredited)
Gillian Lewis
....
TV Announcer (uncredited)
Eric Mason
....
Male nurse (uncredited)
Roma Milne
....
Clarisse's Neighbor (uncredited)
Michael Mindell
....
Trainee Stoneman (uncredited)
Anna Palk
....
Jackie (uncredited)
Donald Pickering
....
TV announcer (uncredited)
John Rae
....
Book Person: 'Weir of Hermiston' (uncredited)
Tom Watson
....
Instructor Sergeant (uncredited)
Chris William
....
Trainee Black (uncredited)
Earl Younger
....
Book Person's Nephew: 'Weir of Hermiston' (uncredited)

Crew
Writing credits
Ray Bradbury

(novel)
Jean-Louis Richard

screenplay
David Rudkin

additional dialogue (uncredited)
Helen Scott

additional dialogue
François Truffaut

screenplay

Produced by
Lewis M. Allen
....
producer
Miriam Brickman
....
executive producer
Michael Dalamar
....
associate producer
Jane C. Nusbaum
....
associate producer

Original Music by
Bernard Herrmann

Cinematography by
Nicolas Roeg

Film Editing by
Thom Noble

Production Design by
Syd Cain

Tony Walton

Art Direction by
Syd Cain

Costume Design by
Tony Walton

Makeup Department
Basil Newall
....
makeup artist

Production Management
Ian Lewis
....
production manager
Tony Walton
....
production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Bryan Coates
....
assistant director

About the Movie
There something distinctively familiar about Fahrenheit 451, it seems very Truffaut-esque. It’s not in the vein of his early films but its direction, the writing, the acting, the overall feel of the movie resembles all the other movies of Truffaut’s late period, the only difference between movies like Small Change, The Man Who Loved Woman, The Woman Next Door or The Bride That Wore Black is that Fahrenheit 451 is actually very, very good, it’s almost a masterpiece. Truffaut never made political movies like Godard and his other French contemporaries but Fahrenheit 451 has a very strong anti-communist message beneath its suspenseful Hitchcockian veneer. That was probably the most distinct difference between the French New Wave directors and Truffaut. Truffaut saw that movies were meant to be entertaining. Movies could be enlightening and intellectually stimulating in the process of entertaining but they should be entertaining first and foremost. Sometimes movies are not entertaining or enlightening and some of Truffaut’s films would fall in that category but Fahrenheit 451 succeeds at being both exciting and though-provoking. Truffaut took Ray Bradbury’s literary futuristic world and translated into a vivid celluloid depiction of a nightmarish, conformist and communist society where books are burned to prevent individualism. Oskar Werner from Truffaut’s bohemian masterpiece Jules and Jim plays Montag, a man whose job it is to burn the books as part of an extremist fireman organization. He’s not like the others though, he does his job with dispassion, and he does it because it is a job, not because he wants to or doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even think about whether what he is doing is right or wrong, he is caught up in the society that he lives in, which promotes listlessness as if it were an art form. His wife Linda (Julie Christie) sits in front of a television wall unit referred to as the “family” everyday, day in day out, 24 hours a day, being brainwashed, literally as all thoughts are washed from her brain as she becomes a shallow nitwit. There are still some, call them rebels, who refuse to conform. They hoard books full of ideas and romance, that is until the fireman come and burn them and arrest the book reading offenders. Upon meeting a mysterious young blond named Clarisse (also Julie Christie), who is one of these individualist and is fired from her job as a school teacher for having fun with her students, Montag starts to question what society is doing to people. An old lady is burned alive because she refuses to leave her books and Montag is fed up. He steals and conceals books and starts reading them and is surprised to find himself loving every word of them. And then… well I won’t reveal the several plot twists that follow but the conclusions are interesting.
What is most fascinating about Fahrenheit 451 is the world that has been created to house the story. Obviously it takes place sometime in the future but when is not clear and how the world came to be this dismal is not made clear, our minds are left to wonder, ‘could this really happen in modern times?’ I think it most certainly could, it’s happening as we speak in some countries and even though in North America and other democratic countries we have a wonderful amount of freedom, that freedom is always in jeopardy. Another aspect that is left to our imagination is how this futuristic world came to be the way it is. Was it the government, the people or something else that caused or wanted the world to be this way? The movie raises some very interesting questions without having to go into deep analytical subjects. I think that the issues being raised would provoke the minds of even the most placid and/or simple-minded viewer. Oskar Werner is an unusual choice to portray the certain everyman that is require by the story but he certainly does well with the part and even has a few superlative moments in his performance, although they are quiet ones. Julie Christie who plays two parts is astonishing however. The two characters she plays are remarkably different, Clarisse is a free spirit and Linda is air-headed ninny who is brainwashed by “the family.” The difference between the two characters is remarkable even though they are played by the same woman and it’s a tribute to Christie’s talent that she was able to pull this off with so much efficiency but like all of his films, Truffaut is the real star here. It’s in the small things that one can identify a Truffaut films, the frequent tracking shots, the colors, the close-ups of faces, the movement of the actors are all immaculately Truffaut-esque and it is, as it was in The 400 Blows, Shoot The Piano Player and Day For Night, Truffaut’s skill that is the most remarkable and admirable aspect of Fahrenheit 451.
Useful References and Web Sites
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/
AWARDS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/awards

For Francois Truffaut
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000076/

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The Abyss (1989)

2007-07-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

The Abyss (1989)

Directed by James Cameron

Runtime: 146 min / USA:171 min (special edition) Country: USA Language: English Color: Color (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / Dolby SR Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:M / Chile:14 / Finland:K-14 / France:U / Norway:15 / Spain:13 (special edition) / Sweden:15 / UK:15 / USA:PG-13 / West Germany:12

Cast of The Abyss (1989)
Ed Harris
....
Virgil 'Bud' Brigman
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
....
Lindsey Brigman
Michael Biehn
....
Lt. Hiram Coffey
Leo Burmester
....
Catfish De Vries
Todd Graff
....
Alan 'Hippy' Carnes
John Bedford Lloyd
....
Jammer Willis
J.C. Quinn
....
Arliss 'Sonny' Dawson
Kimberly Scott
....
Lisa 'One Night' Standing
Captain Kidd Brewer Jr.
....
Lew Finler (as Capt. Kidd Brewer Jr.)
George Robert Klek
....
Wilhite
Christopher Murphy
....
Schoenick, SEAL Team Member
Adam Nelson
....
Ensign Monk, SEAL Team Member
Dick Warlock
....
Dwight Perry (as Richard Warlock)
Jimmie Ray Weeks
....
Leland McBride
J. Kenneth Campbell
....
DeMarco
Ken Jenkins
....
Gerard Kirkhill, Benthick Petroleum Co. Representative
Chris Elliott
....
Bendix
Peter Ratray
....
USS Montana Captain

Produced by
Gale Anne Hurd
....
producer
Van Ling
....
producer (special edition)

Original Music by
Robert Garrett

(additional music) (special edition)
Alan Silvestri

Cinematography by
Mikael Salomon

Film Editing by
Conrad Buff IV

(as Conrad Buff)
Joel Goodman

Steven Quale

(special edition)
Howard E. Smith

(as Howard Smith)

Casting by
Howard Feuer

Production Design by
Leslie Dilley

Art Direction by
Russell Christian

Joseph C. Nemec III

(as Joseph Nemec III)

Set Decoration by
Anne Kuljian

Costume Design by
Deborah Everton

Makeup Department
Starr Jones
....
special makeup effects artist
Kathryn Miles Kelly
....
makeup artist
Emanuel Millar
....
hair stylist

Production Management
Charles Skouras III
....
production manager
Paul Tivers
....
production supervisor (uncredited)

Filmography for James Cameron
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/

Untitled James Cameron Project (2005) (announced)
Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)
Expedition: Bismarck (2002) (TV) ... aka James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck (2002) (TV) (USA: complete title)
Earthship.TV (2001) (TV)
"Dark Angel" (2000) TV Series (epsiode "Freak Nation") ... aka "James Cameron's Dark Angel" (2000) (USA)
Titanic (1997)
T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996) ... aka T2: Terminator 2:3-D (1996) ... aka Terminator 2: 3-D (1996)
True Lies (1994)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) ... aka T2 (1991) (USA: promotional abbreviation) ... aka T2 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) ... aka T2: Extreme Edition (2003) (USA: video box title) ... aka T2: Ultimate Edition (2000) (USA: video box title) ... aka Terminator 2 - Le jour du jugement dernier (1991) (France) ... aka Terminator 2: Le jugement dernier (1991) (France)
Abyss, The (1989)
Aliens (1986)
Terminator, The (1984)
Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) ... aka Piranha II: Flying Killers (1981) ... aka Piranha paura (1981) (Italy) ... aka Spawning, The (1981) (USA: short title)
Xenogenesis (1978)

Filmography for Ed Harris
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000438/
Empire Falls (2004) (TV) (pre-production) .... Miles Roby
Radio (2003) (completed) .... Coach Harold Jones
Volcanoes of the Deep Sea (2003) .... Narrator
Human Stain, The (2003) .... Lester Farley
Masked and Anonymous (2003) .... Oscar Vogel
Hours, The (2002) .... Richard Brown
Just a Dream (2002) (voice) .... Older Henry Sturbuck
Beautiful Mind, A (2001) .... William Parcher
Buffalo Soldiers (2001) .... Colonel Berman... aka Army Go Home (2002) (Germany)
Enemy at the Gates (2001) .... Major König... aka Duell - Enemy at the Gates (2001) (Germany)
Pollock (2000) .... Jackson Pollock
Prime Gig, The (2000) .... Kelly Grant
Waking the Dead (2000/I) .... Jerry Charmichael
Third Miracle, The (1999) .... Frank Shore
Stepmom (1998) .... Luke Harrison
Truman Show, The (1998) .... Christof
Absolute Power (1997) .... Seth Frank, D.C. Homicide
Rock, The (1996) .... Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel
Riders of the Purple Sage (1996) (TV) .... Jim Lassiter, Milly Erne's Brother
Eye for an Eye (1996) .... Mack McCann
Nixon (1995) .... E. Howard Hunt
Apollo 13 (1995) .... Gene Kranz... aka Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience (2002) (USA: IMAX version)
Just Cause (1995) .... Blair Sullivan aka the Angel of Death
Milk Money (1994) .... Tom Wheeler
"Stand, The" (1994) (mini) TV Series (uncredited) .... General Starkey... aka "Stephen King's The Stand" (1994) (mini)
China Moon (1994) .... Kyle Bodine
Needful Things (1993) .... Sheriff Alan J. Pangborn
Firm, The (1993) .... Wayne Tarrance
Running Mates (1992) (TV) .... Hugh Hathaway... aka Dirty Tricks (1992) (TV)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) .... Dave Moss
Paris Trout (1991) (TV) .... Harry Seagraves
State of Grace (1990) .... Frankie Flannery
Abyss, The (1989) .... Virgil 'Bud' Brigman
Jacknife (1989) .... David 'High School' Flannigan
To Kill a Priest (1988) .... Stefan... aka Complot, Le (1988) (France) ... aka Popieluszko (1988) ... aka Zabic ksiedza (1988) (Poland)
Walker (1987) .... William Walker
Last Innocent Man, The (1987) (TV) .... Harry Nash
Sweet Dreams (1985) .... Charlie Dick
Code Name: Emerald (1985) .... Gus Lang... aka Deep Cover (1985) (USA: TV title) ... aka Emerald (1985)
Alamo Bay (1985) .... Shang
Flash of Green, A (1984) .... Jimmy Wing
Places in the Heart (1984) .... Wayne Lomax
Swing Shift (1984) .... Jack Walsh
Under Fire (1983) .... Oates
Right Stuff, The (1983) .... Maj. John Herschel Glenn Jr., Mercury Astronaut
Creepshow (1982) .... Hank Blaine (segment "Father's Day")... aka Cuentos de ultratumba (1982) (USA: Spanish title)
Dream On (1981)
Knightriders (1981) .... Billy
Borderline (1980) .... Hotchkiss
Aliens Are Coming, The (1980) (TV) .... Chuck Polchek
"Seekers, The" (1979) (mini) TV Series .... Lieutenant William Clark
Coma (1978) .... Pathology Resident #2
Amazing Howard Hughes, The (1977) (TV) .... Russ

Filmography for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001512/

Standing Room Only (2002)
Tabloid (2001) .... Natasha Fox
Perfect Storm, The (2000) .... Linda Greenlaw
Witness Protection (1999) (TV) .... Cindy Batton
My Life So Far (1999) .... Moira
Limbo (1999) .... Donna De Angelo
Two Bits (1995) .... Luisa Spirito... aka Day to Remember, A (1995)
Three Wishes (1995) .... Jeanne Holman
Consenting Adults (1992) .... Priscilla Parker
White Sands (1992) .... Lane Bodine
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) .... Marian Dubois
Class Action (1991) .... Maggie Ward
Uncle Vanya (1991) (TV) .... Yelena
Fools of Fortune (1990) .... Marianne
Abyss, The (1989) .... Lindsey Brigman
January Man (1989) .... Bernadette Flynn... aka January Man, The (1989) (USA: poster title)
Slamdance (1987) .... Helen Drood... aka Slam Dance (1987)
Color of Money, The (1986) .... Carmen
"Mussolini: The Untold Story" (1985) (mini) TV Series .... Edda Mussolini-Ciano
Scarface (1983) .... Gina Montana
King of Comedy, The (1983) (uncredited) .... Extra in crowd scene

About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/fullcredits

The Abyss confirms James Cameron as a world-class filmmaker. Consider The Terminator (1984), the violent masterpiece Cameron directed from a screenplay he wrote with producer Gale Anne Hurd about a killer cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from the twenty-first century. The Cameron-Hurd duo, by then husband and wife, next teamed on Aliens (1986), the sequel that received seven Oscar nominations and out grossed its predecessor.
Cameron and Hurd, no longer wed but still working together, now have devised their most ambitious project. The Abyss, with a budget topping $40 million, is many terrific things: the greatest underwater adventure ever filmed, the most consistently enthralling of the summer blockbusters, one of the best pictures of the year. It's also something even more unexpected: a love story of shattering impact.
Some may insist on reading The Abyss as disguised autobiography. Like Cameron and Hurd, the film's two major characters met on the job, married and then split due to the stress of combining work and wedlock. Ed Harris is Bud Brigman, the rig foreman on a civilian underwater oil-drilling facility called Deepcore. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is Lindsey, Deepcore's project engineer, boss lady and soon-to-be-former Mrs. Brigman. Cameron clearly knows from experience how shared labour can heat or chill a relationship. But The Abyss extends far beyond the parameters of his personal life.
Cameron wrote a short story called "The Abyss" when he was seventeen, and the finished film retains traces of youthful innocence in its straight-on treatment of such themes as love, honour, duty, faith in a superior force and hope for a better day. Admirers of the dark and sinister Aliens and The Terminator may worry that Cameron has sells out with this movie. Hardly. Though The Abyss is his most positive film. In this pressure cooker beneath the sea, he has created a microcosm in which each character's capacity for good and evil is tested. The effect is relentlessly unnerving.
The film begins when a mysterious force sends a nuclear submarine to a watery grave in the Caribbean at the edge of a trench leading down into four miles of cold, inky creepiness. The navy, knowing the missiles on board the sub possess five times the power of the bomb that decimated Hiroshima, sends a four-man SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) team - headed by Lieutenant Coffey (Michael Biehn) - to clean up the mess.
That's when Deepcore's corporate owners volunteer the rig and its nine-person crew to aid the naval rescue operation. Above water, there's a hurricane brewing. Below, the clash of egos proves even more threatening. Lindsey, living up to her rep as hell on wheels, is determined not to let Bud run her operation into ruin on a U.S. government exercise. Coffey, showing signs of a nervous disorder due to decompression, resents Lindsey's interference in the ‘top-secret’ situation.
Cameron is uncannily successful at creating a mounting feeling of claustrophobia. Some scenes, like the one in which the divers move through the stricken sub as drowned bodies float by in an eerie mockery of death, have a tragic beauty. Others, such as Bud's towing an unconscious Lindsey in a lung-bursting swim to safety, could reduce an audience to raw panic. Even the first sighting of an NTI (Non Terrestrial Intelligence) skirts Spielberg’s sentimentality to achieve a quiet sense of wonder.
Cameron and a superb technical staff excel at making the fantastical look real. To turn The Abyss into an experience like no other, Cameron took an abandoned nuclear-reactor containment building in South Carolina, filled it with 7.5 million gallons of water and had his cast and some of the crew trained to dive. Then he tossed the lot of them into the drink at depths of up to fifty-five feet. Underwater films are often shot on a sound stage, with smoke and light giving the effect of submersion while actors muck about in fake slow motion. Not this time. What you see and hear in The Abyss has a you-are-there immediacy that makes other undersea films look hopelessly hokey. This is monumental, mould-breaking entertainment.
Despite Cameron's elaborate technical setup; it's the human drama of The Abyss that carries the show. Even the smallest performances are idiosyncratic and memorable. Todd Graff's Hippy, Leo Burmester's Catfish and Kimberly Scott's One Night deserve special praise, as does a white rat named Beany who performs beyond the call of duty in a liquid-oxygen breathing sequence that is one of the film's scariest moments.
The three leads are outstanding. Biehn makes us feel compassion for the lethal Coffey, led astray by his twisted sense of duty. Harris has never been better or more appealing, bringing nuance, humour and gravity to the role of the blue-collar hero who'd risk his life faster than risk exposing his feelings. Still, the movie belongs to Mastrantonio. In a summer dominated by male action heroes, she has the strongest woman's role and instils it with beauty, brains and a spiky wit that rank her with the top actresses of her generation; she is mesmerizing and indelibly moving.
Cameron may have fashioned his film out of familiar parts, but he's put them together in a way that demands fresh attention and respect. There's poetry in the images; The Abyss is pulp transcended. With probing intelligence and passionate feeling, Cameron has raised the adventure film very close to the level of art.

Alien (1979)

2007-07-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Alien (1979)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Also Known As:Alien: The Director's Cut (2003) (USA) (director's cut) Star Beast (1978) (USA) (working title) MPAA: Rated R for sci-fi violence/gore and language. (director's cut)Runtime: 117 min / USA:116 min (director's cut) Country: UK Language: English Color: Color (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / Dolby Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:MA (re-rating) / Australia:M (original rating) / Canada:14A (director's cut) / Canada:18A / Chile:14 / Finland:K-16 / France:-12 / Ireland:18 / Japan:PG-12 / Netherlands:12 / Norway:15 (director's cut) (2003) / Norway:16 (original rating) / Norway:18 (uncut version) / Peru:14 / Spain:13 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 (director's cut) (2003) / UK:18 / USA:R (certificate #25541) / West Germany:16

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Tom Skerritt
....
Dallas
Sigourney Weaver
....
Ripley
Veronica Cartwright
....
Lambert
Harry Dean Stanton
....
Brett
John Hurt
....
Kane
Ian Holm
....
Ash
Yaphet Kotto
....
Parker
Bolaji Badejo
....
Alien
Helen Horton
....
Mother (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Eddie Powell
....
Alien (uncredited)

Writing credits (WGA)
Dan O'Bannon

(story) and
Ronald Shusett

(story)
Dan O'Bannon

(screenplay)

Produced by
Gordon Carroll
....
producer
David Giler
....
producer
Walter Hill
....
producer
Ivor Powell
....
associate producer
Ronald Shusett
....
executive producer

Original Music by
Jerry Goldsmith

Non-Original Music by
Howard Hanson

(from "Symphony No.2")
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(from "Eine kleine Nachtmusik")

Cinematography by
Derek Vanlint

Film Editing by
David Crowther

(director's cut)
Terry Rawlings

Peter Weatherley

Production Design by
Michael Seymour

Roger Christian

(uncredited)
Anton Furst

(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Roger Christian

Leslie Dilley

(as Les Dilley)

Set Decoration by
Ian Whittaker

Costume Design by
John Mollo

Makeup Department
Pat Hay
....
makeup artist
Tommie Manderson
....
makeup designer (as Tommy Manderson)
Sarah Monzani
....
hair stylist

Production Management
Garth Thomas
....
production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Raymond Becket
....
assistant director
Steve Harding
....
assistant director
Paul Ibbetson
....
first assistant director
Bob Jordan
....
trainee assistant director

Art Department
José María Alarcón
....
assistant set decorator
Jonathan Amberston
....
assistant art director
Ron Cobb
....
concept artist
John Davey
....
head painter
Benjamín Fernández
....
assistant art director
Chris Foss
....
concept artist
Jean Giraud
....
concept artist (as Jean 'Moebius' Giraud)
George Gunning
....
head carpenter
Dave Jordan
....
property master
Dan O'Bannon
....
visual design consultant
Jill Quertier
....
production buyer
Bert Rodwell
....
head plasterer
Bill Welch
....
construction manager
John Chisholm
....
prop man (uncredited)

Sound Department
Max Bell
....
stereo sound consultant: Dolby
Robert Hathaway
....
music editor (as Bob Hathaway)
Derrick Leather
....
production sound mixer
Ray Merrin
....
sound re-recording assistant
Bill Rowe
....
sound re-recording mixer
Jim Shields
....
sound editor
Bryan Tilling
....
dialogue editor

Special Effects by
Nick Allder
....
special effects supervisor
Alan Bryce
....
floor effects supervisor (as Allan Bryce)
Clinton Cavers
....
alien effects coordinator
Carlo De Marchis
....
additional alien mechanics
Roger Dicken
....
small alien forms co-designer and maker
H.R. Giger
....
alien designer
Guy Hudson
....
special effects technician
Brian Johnson
....
special effects supervisor
Phil Knowles
....
special effects technician
Dennis Lowe
....
special effects technician
Roger Nichols
....
special effects technician
Carlo Rambaldi
....
alien head effects
Neil Swan
....
special effects technician
David H. Watkins
....
special effects technician (as David Watkins)
Dr. David Watling
....
additional alien mechanics
Bob Keen
....
modeller (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Denys Ayling
....
director of photography: miniature effects
Martin Bower
....
supervising model maker: miniature effects
Eddie Butler
....
modelmaker
Ray Caple
....
matte artist
Shirley Denny
....
modelmaker
David Litchfield
....
operator: miniature effects
Bernard Lodge
....
special graphic effects
Terry Pearce
....
focus: miniature effects
Bill Pearson
....
supervising model maker: miniature effects
Patti Rodgers
....
modelmaker
Peter Voysey
....
modelmaker supervisor
Peter Woods
....
key grip: miniature effects
Bob Keen
....
model maker (uncredited)
Jon Sorensen
....
visual effects miniatures (uncredited)

Stunts
Eddie Powell
....
stunts
Roy Scammell
....
stunt coordinator

Filmography for Ridley Scott
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000631/

Filmography for Sigourney Weaver
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000244/

Filmography for Tom Skerritt
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000643/

Filmography for Harry Dean Stanton
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001765/

Filmography for John Hurt
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000457/

About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/combined
At its most fundamental level, "Alien" is a movie about things that can jump out of the dark and kill you. It shares a kinship with the shark in "Jaws," Michael Myers in "Halloween," and assorted spiders, snakes, tarantulas and stalkers. Its most obvious influence is Howard Hawks' "The Thing" (1951), which was also about a team in an isolated outpost who discover a long-dormant alien, bring it inside, and are picked off one by one as it haunts the corridors. Look at that movie, and you see "Alien" in embryo.
In another way, Ridley Scott's 1979 movie is a great original. It builds on the seminal opening shot of "Star Wars" (1977), with its vast ship in lonely interstellar space, and sidesteps Lucas' space opera to tell a story in the genre of traditional "hard" science fiction; with its tough-talking crew members and their mercenary motives, the story would have found a home in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction during its nuts-and-bolts period in the 1940s. Campbell loved stories in which engineers and scientists, not space jockeys and ray-gun blasters, dealt with outer space in logical ways.
Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in the romance of finding the alien, and still less in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to "Special Order 24" ("Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded") is succinct: "How do we kill it?" Her implacable hatred for the alien is the common thread running through all three "Alien" sequels, which have gradually descended in quality but retained their motivating obsession.
One of the great strengths of "Alien" is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").
A recent version of this story would have hurtled toward the part where the alien jumps on the crew members. Today's slasher movies, in the sci-fi genre and elsewhere, are all pay-off and no buildup. Consider the wretched remake of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which cheats its audience out of an explanation, an introduction of the chain-saw family, and even a proper ending. It isn't the slashing that we enjoy. It's the waiting for the slashing.
Hitchcock knew this, with his famous example of a bomb under a table. (It goes off -- that's action. It doesn't go off -- that's suspense.) M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" knew that, and hardly bothered with its aliens at all. And the best scenes in Hawks' "The Thing" involve the empty corridors of the Antarctic station where the Thing might be lurking.
"Alien" uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know quite what it looks like or what it can do. We assume at first the eggs will produce a humanoid, because that's the form of the petrified pilot on the long-lost alien ship. But of course we don't even know if the pilot is of the same race as his cargo of leathery eggs. Maybe he also considers them as a weapon. The first time we get a good look at the alien, as it bursts from the chest of poor Kane (John Hurt). It is unmistakably phallic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirks mentions its "open, dripping vaginal mouth."
Yes, but later, as we glimpse it during a series of attacks, it no longer assumes this shape at all, but looks octopod, reptilian or arachnoid. And then it uncorks another secret; the fluid dripping from its body is a "universal solvent," and there is a sequence both frightening and delightful as it eats its way through one deck of the ship after another. As the sequels ("Aliens," "Alien 3," "Alien Resurrection") will make all too abundantly clear, the alien is capable of being just about any monster the story requires. Because it doesn't play by any rules of appearance or behavior, it becomes an amorphous menace, haunting the ship with the specter of shape-shifting evil. Ash (Ian Holm), the science officer, calls it a "perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility," and admits: "I admire its purity, its sense of survival; unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."
Sigourney Weaver, whose career would be linked for years to this strange creature, is of course the only survivor of this original crew, except for the ... cat. The producers must have hoped for a sequel, and by killing everyone except a woman, they cast their lot with a female lead for their series.
Variety noted a few years later that Weaver remained the only actress who could "open" an action movie, and it was a tribute to her versatility that she could play the hard, competent, ruthless Ripley and then double back for so many other kinds of roles. One of the reasons she works so well in the role is that she comes across as smart; the 1979 "Alien" is a much more cerebral movie than its sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms.
A peculiarity of the rest of the actors is that none of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain, was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles or sidekicks, but by skewing older, "Alien" achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to Earth (the vast size of the ship is indicated in a deleted scene, included on the DVD, which takes nearly a minute just to show it passing).
The screenplay by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett, allows these characters to speak in distinctive voices. Brett and Parker (Kotto and Stanton), who work in the engine room, complain about delays and worry about their cut of the profits. But listen to Ash: "I'm still collating it, actually, but I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. He has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions." And then there is Ripley's direct way of cutting to the bottom line.
The result is a film that absorbs us in a mission before it involves us in an adventure, and that consistently engages the alien with curiosity and logic, instead of simply firing at it. Contrast this movie with a latter-day space opera like "Armageddon," with its average shot a few seconds long and its dialogue reduced to terse statements telegraphing the plot. Much of the credit for "Alien" must go to director Ridley Scott, who had made only one major film before this, the cerebral, elegant "The Duelists" (1977). His next film would be another intelligent, visionary sci-fi epic, "Blade Runner" (1982).
Though his career has included some inexplicable clinkers ("Someone to Watch Over Me"), it has also included "Thelma & Louise," "G.I. Jane," "Gladiator" (unloved by me, but not by audiences), "Black Hawk Down" and "Matchstick Men." These are simultaneously commercial and intelligent projects, made by a director who wants to attract a large audience but doesn't care to insult it.
"Alien" has been called the most influential of modern action pictures, and so it is, although "Halloween" also belongs on the list. Unfortunately, the films it influenced studied its thrills but not its thinking. We have now descended into a bog of Gotcha! movies in which various horrible beings spring on a series of victims, usually teenagers. The ultimate extension of the genre is the Geek Movie, illustrated by the remake of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which essentially sets the audience the same test as an old-time carnival geek show: Now that you've paid your money, can you keep your eyes open while we disgust you? A few more ambitious and serious sci-fi films have also followed in the footsteps of "Alien," notably the well-made "Aliens" (1986) and "Dark City" (1998). But the original still vibrates with a dark and frightening intensity.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

2007-07-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Also Known As:CE3K (1977) (USA: informal short title) Close Encounter of the Third Kind, The (1977) (USA: working title) Watch the Skies (1976) (USA: working title) Runtime: 132 min (special edition) / 135 min (70mm version) Country: USA Language: English / French / Spanish / Hindi Color: Color (Metrocolor) Sound Mix: Dolby Certification: Australia:PG / Finland:K-12 / France:U / Norway:12 / Spain:13 / Sweden:11 / UK:PG / USA:PG / West Germany:12

Cast overview, first billed only:
Richard Dreyfuss
....
Roy Neary
François Truffaut
....
Claude Lacombe
Teri Garr
....
Ronnie Neary
Melinda Dillon
....
Jillian Guiler
Bob Balaban
....
David Laughlin
J. Patrick McNamara
....
Project Leader
Warren J. Kemmerling
....
Wild Bill (as Warren Kemmerling)
Roberts Blossom
....
Farmer
Philip Dodds
....
Jean Claude
Cary Guffey
....
Barry Guiler
Shawn Bishop
....
Brad Neary
Adrienne Campbell
....
Sylvia Neary
Justin Dreyfuss
....
Toby Neary
Lance Henriksen
....
Robert
Merrill Connally
....
Team Leader

Crew

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Hal Barwood

uncredited
Jerry Belson

uncredited
John Hill (I)

uncredited
Matthew Robbins (I)

uncredited
Steven Spielberg

written by

Produced by
Clark L. Paylow
....
associate producer (as Clark Paylow)
Julia Phillips
....
producer
Michael Phillips (II)
....
producer

Original Music by
John Williams

Cinematography by
William A. Fraker

(American scenes)
Douglas Slocombe

(India sequence)
Vilmos Zsigmond

(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Michael Kahn (I)

Casting by
Shari Rhodes

Juliet Taylor

(as Juliette Taylor)

Production Design by
Joe Alves

Art Direction by
Daniel A. Lomino

(as Dan Lomino)

Set Decoration by
Phil Abramson

Makeup Department
Edie Panda
....
hair stylist
Bob Westmoreland
....
makeup supervisor

Production Management
Clark L. Paylow
....
unit production manager (as Clark Paylow)
Baba Shaik
....
production manager: India
John Veitch (I)
....
executive in charge of production (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jim Bloom (I)
....
second assistant director
Charles Myers (I)
....
assistant director (as Chuck Myers)
Eric Stacey (II)
....
key second assistant director (uncredited)

Useful Websites for:

Steven Spielberg
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/

Richard Dreyfus
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000377/

Francois Truffaut
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000076/

About the movie
We are not alone.
In late 1977, everyone seemed to believe this. Although UFOs have been a popular subject for speculation, rumination, and investigation for more than 50 years, at no time was the phenomenon more popular than during the 1970s. Along with the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snowman, UFOs were no longer the province of "fringe" elements, but had moved into the mainstream. There were plenty of skeptics, but many people, including those who had never purported to see anything out-of-the-ordinary, wanted to believe. Maybe it had something to do with the world order being so bleak (racial tension, Vietnam, the Cold War), but more and more men and women looked to the stars to find hope.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is unquestionably a great movie, but it also benefited from peerless timing. Released on the heels of Star Wars, it was able to absorb the pro-Science Fiction atmosphere that had arisen as a result of George Lucas' unexpected blockbuster. Suddenly, everyone was into stories about space and aliens. And, while Close Encounters is a much different film than Star Wars, it played to the same audience. First, we were given the opportunity to see what it was like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Then, we were allowed to see what it was like here on Earth when visitors come calling.
Close Encounters represented an opportunity for director Steven Spielberg to tell a story he had been wanting to tell for years - what might happen if benevolent aliens made contact with human beings. Spielberg had been working on the story since before he began filming Jaws and, even after Close Encounters was "in the can" in late 1977, the director wasn't done with it. Consequently, the version that was rushed into theaters in November 1977 did not represent Spielberg's final vision. Armed with $2 million, the director went back behind the camera to shoot additional scenes, then returned to the editing room. Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition was released in 1980. It represented a re-working of the 1977 edition (which Spielberg referred to as a "work-in-progress"), with about 15 minutes of original footage deleted, and another 12 minutes of new scenes (including six minutes inside the ship at the end) added. Since then, there have been at least four other versions, all incorporating various combinations of the deleted scenes, and ranging in length from 132 minutes to nearly 2 1/2 hours. From a thematic and content perspective, they are all similar. The differences are minor, with no particular version standing out as obviously better than any of the others. For the record, this review is based on the latest "Collector's Edition" of the film, which is available on DVD. That motion picture cut is heavily based on the 1977 version, with a few of the 1980 scenes included. The selling gimmick of the Special Edition - the six minute epilogue with Richard Dreyfuss in the alien craft - is included as a deleted scene, but is not a part of the actual movie. (Spielberg is on record as calling that sequence a mistake - he now argues that the inside of the ship should never have been shown.)
Alien visitations to Earth are a staple of science fiction. Some of the best (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and worst (Plan Nine from Outer Space) genre entries have used that subject matter as a launching pad. One of the things that differentiates Close Encounters from its seemingly countless predecessors is that the aliens are friendly, curious, and even playful. Mr. Spock aside, this is not a common characterization of space-faring races. More often than not, aliens in motion pictures are shown attacking Earth, not observing and trying to make peaceful contact. Films like Close Encounters, E.T., and Contact are exceptions to the rule.
What would first contact really be like? That's the scenario Spielberg imagined with the aid of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, one of the world's foremost "serious" UFO experts. The military is involved, but they aren't running the show; instead, scientists are in charge. The encounter is a wonderful, magical meeting of cultures - humans putting their efforts not into weapons and fighting, but into the simplest and most important of life's basics: communication. Through colors, music, and hand gestures, we forge an understanding with an alien species. Given a choice between this and Independence Day, not only is Close Encounters more plausible, but infinitely preferable.
The plot is simple and straightforward, unburdened by pointless twists and turns. Close Encounters focuses on three characters and the different paths that bring them together at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, for the climax. First, there's Roy Neary (Dreyfuss), an everyday kind-of-guy with three kids and a materialistic wife (Teri Garr) who's hyper-concerned about what the neighbors will think. For his part, Roy's still a kid at heart, loving goofy golf and going to the movies to see Pinocchio. Roy works for the power company, and, one night, during an area-wide blackout, he has a close encounter with an alien spaceship that leaves half of his face sunburned and his psyche shaken. Suddenly, Roy's family becomes secondary to his obsession about aliens. He has unexplained visions of a mountain, and is compelled to make models of it out of whatever materials are available.
The second character is Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon), a mother who has lost her young son, Barry (Cary Guffey), to the aliens. One night, they arrive at Jillian's house and take Barry away. Now, like Roy, she is obsessed by the image of the mountain, except, instead of making sculptures, she draws, aware that there is some connection between her artwork and the opportunity to be re-united with her son. She meets Roy at the time of the first alien appearance and ends up joining with him for a road trip after his wife and family have left him.
Finally, there's U.N. scientist Claude Lacombe (Fran็ois Truffaut), the man in charge of a mostly-American team investigating unexplained phenomena around the globe and preparing a huge staging area for Earth's first contact with visitors from the stars. Lacombe is focused and humorless, but not unkind. When he recognizes that Jillian and Roy have been "invited" by the aliens to be at Devil's Tower, he does what little he can (without being overt) to assist them. In the end, however, Lacombe is more concerned with the aliens than he is with the humans.
Part of the genius of Close Encounters is that we don't know until the end that the aliens are not hostile. Some of their early appearances in the film (when they shake Roy's power truck and visit Jillian's home to abduct Barry) are unsettling. Think of the furnace-like red light that envelopes Jillian's house as the alien craft approaches. Red is traditionally not a comforting color, and, in this case, it's downright frightening. (This is perhaps the only scene in the film that may scare younger children.) Unlike E.T., Close Encounters does not have a light, playful tone. There is an almost ominous undercurrent to the proceedings. Only in the end, when Spielberg pulls back the curtain on an awe-inspiring, majestic climax, do we finally understand that not being alone does not mean being in danger. We have to unlearn all that nearly every other motion picture has taught us about alien visitations.
Close Encounters is one of those rare films that works equally as well for children and for adults. Kids see this film as a promise of what might be out there and an unthreatening look at the possibilities that the universe holds. How many UFO believers today began their fascination with alien life after seeing this movie as a child? Adults, even skeptics, see Close Encounters as an accomplished fairy tale. Whether UFOs are real or not, this movie beautifully postulates the best of all alternatives - that the government cares about first contact and about the welfare of its citizens, that the aliens are benevolent, and that we can take comfort from the fact that "we are not alone". Remarkably, a film like Close Encounters speaks to the adult in the child and the child in the adult.
Close Encounters does not feature any "big name" stars, but the effectiveness of the casting is crucial to its success. Richard Dreyfuss, who worked with Spielberg on Jaws and, between takes on that movie learned of the filmmaker's plans to direct Close Encounters, won the role only after a hard-fought campaign. Spielberg's first choice was Steve McQueen, who loved the script, but turned down the part of Roy because he had never mastered the art of crying on screen. Dreyfuss was not Spielberg's second or even third option, but his tireless persistence got him the part in the wake of several bigger name refusals. It's a case of serendipity, because Dreyfuss fits perfectly into the "everyman" persona necessary for Roy to connect with the audience. We see ourselves on screen.
Melinda Dillon, who earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work, was not cast until the weekend before she was due to begin filming. Like Dreyfuss, she develops her character into someone it's easy for the average man or woman to sympathize with. There's nothing special or extraordinary about Jillian - she's a single mother who will brave any odds to be reunited with her son. In another movie, she might end up being Roy's "love interest", but Spielberg keeps the attraction between the two strictly platonic.
The casting of Fran็ois Truffaut was Spielberg's coup. Truffaut was the dream choice for the part, and Spielberg didn't expect the great French filmmaker to say yes. Truffaut is, of course, far better known for his work behind the camera (which includes such classics as The 400 Blows and Jules et Jim) than in front of it. As an actor, he has a handful of roles to his credit, the only significant international one of which is Lacombe. (It's interesting to consider how many American children during the late '70s got their first exposure to Truffaut through this film.) Truffaut made it clear from the beginning that he was in Close Encounters to work as an actor and not to function as a second director looking over Spielberg's shoulder. He acquits himself admirably, bringing a dignity and seriousness to the part that is appropriate for his stature.
At the beginning of 1977, composer John Williams was very well known in Hollywood (primarily for his work in television and several Oscar-nominated scores dating back to 1967). However, this was the year that would catapult him to the A-list, joining such luminaries as Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Barry. At the 1978 Academy Award celebration, Williams faced off against himself. While he won for Star Wars, with its bolder, brasher music, one could make an argument that his work for Close Encounters (for which he was also nominated) was more accomplished. Indeed, the signature five notes linger in the memory today, and, at the time, everyone with a musical instrument knew how to play them. (Ironically, there was nothing special about that combination. Williams and Spielberg eventually picked it out of hundreds of possibilities because they needed something, not because it stood out.) Aside from the principle notes, the Close Encounters score is low-key, doing what good movie music should do: setting the mood, but not overpowering the screen action.
The film's special effects are remarkable for their era, dwarfing everything that had come before (including Star Wars and 2001). The mother ship in particular is an amazing creation, and, as it hovers over Devil's Tower late in the film (and in one of the posters for the movie), it's impossible to tell that this is the result of post-production wizardry rather than something genuinely in the sky. Much of Close Encounters passes without major effects; yet, when Spielberg calls upon the genius of Douglas Trumbull (who previously worked on 2001 and Silent Running, and would go on to supervise the visual effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner) to provide a jaw-dropping climax, the master delivers exactly what's needed.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is unquestionably a great movie - its eight Oscar nominations and one win (Best Cinematography) are a testimony to that. Its universal appeal gave movie-goers something to be excited about during the winter of 1977-78 as the first in a wave of post-Star Wars science fiction films broke (although, of course, Close Encounters went into production long before Star Wars reached screens). Today, the movie stands up remarkably well. The story is fresh and compelling, the special effects are as remarkable as anything that CGI can do, and the music represents some of John Williams' best work. Close Encounters is the complete package, and it shines as brightly in its sixth re-editing as it did in its first.

2001: A space Odyssey (1968)

2007-07-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

Full cast and crew for

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Runtime: 139 min / USA:156 min (premiere cut) Country: UK / USA Language: English / Russian Color: Color (Metrocolor) Sound Mix: 4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) / 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / DTS 70 mm (2001 re-release) Certification: Australia:G / Canada:PG / Finland:K-8 / France:U / Netherlands:12 (video release) / Norway:11 / Norway:12 (1969) / Portugal:M/12 / Sweden:11 / Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) / Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) / UK:U / USA:G / West Germany:12

Directed byStanley KubrickWriting credits Stanley Kubrick &Arthur C. Clarke

Keir Dullea
....
Dave Bowman
Gary Lockwood
....
Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester
....
Dr. Heywood R. Floyd
Daniel Richter (I)
....
Moonwatcher
Leonard Rossiter
....
Dr. Andrei Smyslov
Margaret Tyzack
....
Elena
Robert Beatty (I)
....
Dr. Halvorsen
Sean Sullivan (I)
....
Dr. Michaels
Douglas Rain
....
HAL 9000 (voice)
Frank Miller (I)
....
Mission controller (voice)
Bill Weston (I)
....
Astronaut
Ed Bishop (I)
....
Aries 1B Lunar shuttle captain (as Edward Bishop)
Glenn Beck
....
Astronaut
Alan Gifford
....
Poole's father
Ann Gillis (I)
....
Poole's mother
Crew
Produced by
Stanley Kubrick
....
producer
Victor Lyndon
....
associate producer (uncredited)

Non-Original Music by
Aram Khachaturyan

(from "Ballet Suite Gayaneh") (as Aram Khatchaturian)
György Ligeti

(from "Atmospheres", "Lux Aeterna", "Adventures" and "Requiem")
Richard Strauss

(from "Also sprach Zarathustra")
Johann Strauß

(waltz "An der schönen, blauen Donau") (as Johann Strauss)

Cinematography by
Geoffrey Unsworth

Film Editing by
Ray Lovejoy

Casting by
James Liggat (I)

(uncredited)

Production Design by
Ernest Archer

Harry Lange

Anthony Masters

(as Tony Masters)

Art Direction by
John Hoesli

Set Decoration by
Robert Cartwright

(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Hardy Amies

(wardrobe)

Makeup Department
Stuart Freeborn
....
makeup artist
Colin Arthur
....
special effects makeup artist (ape masks)
Carol Beckett
....
key hair stylist (uncredited)
Graham Freeborn
....
makeup artist (uncredited)
Kay Freeborn
....
assistant makeup artist (uncredited)
Alice Holmes
....
key hair stylist (uncredited)
Richard Mills (IV)
....
assistant makeup artist (uncredited)
Charles E. Parker
....
makeup supervisor (uncredited)
Mibs Parker
....
assistant hair stylist (uncredited)
Hugh Richards (I)
....
assistant makeup artist (uncredited)
Muriel Rickaby
....
assistant makeup artist (uncredited)
Daphne Vollmer
....
assistant hair stylist (uncredited)

Production Management
Ronnie Bear
....
post-production manager (uncredited)
Clifton Brandon
....
production manager (uncredited)
Eddie Frewin
....
unit production manager (uncredited)
Robert Watts (II)
....
production manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Derek Cracknell
....
first assistant director
Richard Hoult
....
third assistant director (uncredited)
Richard Jenkins (II)
....
second assistant director (uncredited)
Filmography for Stanley Kubric
1. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) ... aka EWS (1999) (USA: promotional abbreviation)
2. Full Metal Jacket (1987) ... aka Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987) (USA: poster title)
3. Shining, The (1980) ... aka Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (1980)
4. Barry Lyndon (1975)
5. Clockwork Orange, A (1971) ... aka Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange (1971) (USA: poster title)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
7. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) ... aka Dr. Strangelove (1964)
8. Lolita (1962)
9. Spartacus (1960)
10. Paths of Glory (1957)
11. Killing, The (1956)
12. Killer's Kiss (1955)
13. Seafarers, The (1953)
14. Fear and Desire (1953)
15. Flying Padre (1951)
16. Day of the Fight (1951)
General Story
This movie is certainly one of the greatest films ever made. It is a story told in a steady pace, told mostly not by words but by cinematic means of expression. Perfect blend of spectacular special effects and classical music bring to life creations of human imagination in both realistic and poetical way. The story itself is quite simple at a first glance. As the title implies, there is an archetypal journey, a motive repeated for thousands of years. This motive was always used not only to depict a trip in space and time, and beyond, but also had rich philosophic meaning. The film is a poetical contemplation of most exciting eternal questions. It is not just an odyssey of a person; it is an odyssey of our species. The film is great by itself, yet, in my case, the impression from it will always be mingled with that from the book. I've read it at the age of 10, really not thinking about problems like 'what is the relationship between evolution of humankind and development of human morality'. But the impression was great enough to make me fall for entire genre of science fiction.
The film begins four million years ago at the "Dawn of Man". In the prehistoric African savanna, a mysterious black monolith appears, prompting our distant ape ancestors to learn how to use the first tools to kill for food. Cutting to the near future, the audience follows Dr. Heywood Floyd, a bureaucratic space scientist, as he takes a routine trip to the Moon. It is revealed that a four million-year-old monolith has been discovered in a lunar crater. When exposed to the light of the sun, the monolith sends out a powerful electronic signal. The film then skips ahead eighteen months, to the first manned space mission to Jupiter. The ship's human astronauts, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, are forced to consider disconnecting the super-intelligent HAL 9000 computer that runs their ship when it makes an error. Learning of this, the computer succeeds in killing everyone but Dave, who disconnects it and finds out about the previously secret discovery of the lunar monolith. Arriving at Jupiter, Dave discovers another black monolith orbiting the gas giant. Flying into it, he experiences a fantastical 23-minute light show before landing in a Louis XVI style decorated room. There he ages rapidly before encountering the final monolith, which turns him into a newborn "Star Child" and returns him to look at the planet Earth from orbit.

Useful Web Sites

http://www.palantir.net/2001/

(For External Reviews) http://us.imdb.com/TUrls?COM+0062622

Blade Runner (1982)

2007-07-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Full Cast and Credit list for

Blade Runner (1982)

Directed by
Ridley Scott

Writing credits
Philip K. Dick

(novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
Hampton Fancher

and
David Webb Peoples

(as David Peoples)

Runtime: 117 min Country: USA Language: English / Japanese / Cantonese Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / Dolby (35 mm prints) Certification: Argentina:16 / Australia:M / Canada:14A (director's cut) / Chile:18 / Finland:K-16 / France:-12 / Japan:R-15 (director's cut) / Netherlands:16 (director's cut) / Norway:15 / Peru:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 / USA:R / West Germany:16

Main Cast

Harrison Ford
....
Rick Deckard
Rutger Hauer
....
Roy Batty
Sean Young
....
Rachael
Edward James Olmos
....
Gaff
M. Emmet Walsh
....
Bryant
Daryl Hannah
....
Pris
William Sanderson
....
J.F. Sebastian
Brion James
....
Leon
Joe Turkel
....
Tyrell
Joanna Cassidy
....
Zhora
James Hong
....
Hannibal Chew (eyemaker)
Morgan Paull
....
Holden
Kevin Thompson (II)
....
Bear
John Edward Allen
....
Kaiser
Hy Pyke
....
Taffey Lewis
Kimiko Hiroshige
....
Cambodian lady
Bob Okazaki
....
Howie Lee
Carolyn DeMirjian
....
Saleslady

Crew

Michael Deeley (I)
....
producer
Hampton Fancher
....
executive producer
Brian Kelly (I)
....
executive producer
Jerry Perenchio
....
co-executive producer
Ivor Powell (I)
....
associate producer
Run Run Shaw
....
associate producer
Bud Yorkin
....
co-executive producer
Ridley Scott
....
co-producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Vangelis

Cinematography by
Jordan Cronenweth

Film Editing by
Terry Rawlings

Casting by
Jane Feinberg

Mike Fenton

Marci Liroff

Production Design by
Lawrence G. Paull

Peter J. Hampton

(additional scenes) (uncredited)

Art Direction by
David L. Snyder

(as David Snyder)

Set Decoration by
Linda DeScenna

Leslie McCarthy-Frankenheimer

(as Leslie Frankenheimer)
Thomas L. Roysden

(as Tom Roysden)
Peg Cummings

(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Michael Kaplan (I)

Charles Knode

Jean Giraud

(uncredited)

Makeup Department
Shirley Padgett
....
hair stylist (as Shirley L. Padgett)
Marvin G. Westmore
....
makeup artist
John Chambers (I)
....
prosthetic makeups (uncredited)
Michael Westmore (I)
....
prosthetic makeups (uncredited)

Production Management
C.O. Erickson
....
executive in charge of production
John W. Rogers
....
unit production manager

About the Film
Director Ridley Scott's 1982 film "Blade Runner" is arguably the most famous and influential science fiction film ever made. It has exerted a pervasive influence over all subsequent science fiction cinema, and indeed our cultural perceptions of the future.
The film is a combination of 1940s film noir and futuristic detective thriller. The setting is the decayed, rain-soaked Los Angeles of 2019. Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is a retired Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in hunting down replicants. The replicants are artificial humans, indistinguishable from the real thing in every way but two; they have no memories, and they have lifespans of only four years.
Five replicants are loose in LA, led by the fearsome combat specialist Roy Batty. Deckard's job is to hunt them down. He stalks his prey through the neon-lit, future-noir city. The film climaxes in a showdown between the Blade Runner and his nemesis Batty.
Ironically "Blade Runner" did not do well on its initial release. The film was burdened by numerous studio impositions, including an inane happy ending and a frankly embarrassing voice-over from Harrison Ford. The film was criticised for its thin story line, gaps in logic, and over reliance on spectacle. Reaction varied between indifference and hostility.
Time, and a director's cut, have vindicated Ridley Scott's vision. Ford's voice-over is mercifully deleted, and other scenes restored. The spectacle is still there; the most richly detailed future ever seen on screen is visible for all to enjoy. But this alluring eye-candy conceals a rich thematic complexity. "Blade Runner" impresses with its inquiry into the nature of memory, identity, and what it means to be human. The characters, behind their damaged and defensive facades, are complex and well realised. Ford's performance as the world-weary Deckard, and Rutger Hauer's portrayal of the terrifying yet sympathetic Batty, are noteworthy.

This is truly one of the greatest science fiction films ever made, one that requires a thinking viewer in order to understand and appreciate it. The director's cut is the recommended one to see as it omits a somewhat distracting narration and avoids an unnecessary Hollywood-style ending that is at odds with the rest of the film's tone.A true science fiction story or film is about ideas, not spaceship battles, futuristic gadgets, or weird creatures. "Blade Runner" fully qualifies as this in its examination of the impact of technology on human society, existence, and the very nature of humanity itself. These themes are set in a fairly basic detective story that moves slowly but gradually builds power as the viewer is immersed in a dystopian futuristic Los Angeles.Harrison Ford fans accustomed to the normally dynamic roles that he plays may be dissatisfied with the seemingly lifeless lead character that he portrays here as the replicant-hunting detective known as a "blade runner". They should be, for this dissatisfaction is part of the film experience, part of the dehumanized existence in the story's setting. However, as the story unfolds, we see Ford's character, Rick Deckard, slowly come alive again and recover some humanity while pursing four escaped replicants.The replicants, genetically-engineered human cyborgs, that Deckard must hunt down and kill are in many ways more alive than Deckard himself initially. Their escape from an off-world colony has an explicit self-directed purpose, whereas Deckard's life appears to have none other than his job, one that he has tried to give up. By some standards, Deckard and the replicants have thin character development. However, this is a deeply thematic and philosophical film, and as such the characters are the tools of the story's themes. Each character reflects some aspect of humanity or human existence, but they lack others, for each is broken in ways that reflect the broken society in which they live and were conceived/created.There are several dramatic moments involving life-and-death struggles, but most of these are more subdued than in a normal detective story plot. The film's power is chiefly derived through its stunning visual imagery of a dark futuristic cityscape and its philosophical themes.Among the themes explored are the following: - The dehumanization of people through a society shaped by technological and capitalistic excess. - The roles of creator and creation, their mutual enslavement, and their role reversal, i.e., the creation's triumph over its creator. - The nature of humanity itself: emotions, memory, purpose, desire, cruelty, technological mastery of environment and universe, mortality, death, and more. - Personal identity and self-awareness. - The meaning of existence.If you are not someone who naturally enjoys contemplating such themes, the film's brilliance may be lost on you. The climax involves a soliloquy that brings many of the themes together in a simple yet wonderfully poetic way. Anyone who "gets" the film should be moved by this; others will sadly miss the point and may prefer watching some mindless action flick instead."Blade Runner" is a masterpiece that deserves recognition and long remembrance in film history.

Filmography for Ridley Scott (As Director)
Tripoli (2004) (pre-production)
Matchstick Men (2003) (completed)
Cinema16 (2003) (V)
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Hannibal (2001)
Gladiator (2000)
G.I. Jane (1997)
White Squall (1996)
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) ... aka 1492: Christophe Colomb (1992) (France) ... aka 1492: La conquête du paradis (1992) ... aka 1492: La conquista del paraíso (1992) (Spain)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Black Rain (1989)
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
Legend (1985)
Blade Runner (1982)
Alien (1979)
Duellists, The (1977)
"Informer, The" (1966) TV Series
"Adam Adamant Lives!" (1966) TV Series
Boy on a Bicycle (1965) ... aka Boy and Bicycle (1965) (UK)
"Z Cars" (1962) TV Series

Filmography for Harrison Ford
Walk Among the Tombstones, A (2004) (pre-production) .... Matthew Scudder
Hollywood Homicide (2003) .... Joe Gavilan
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) .... Alexei Vostrikov... aka K*19: The Widowmaker (2002) (USA: poster title)
What Lies Beneath (2000) .... Dr. Norman Spencer
Random Hearts (1999) .... Sergeant William 'Dutch' Van Den Broeck
Six Days Seven Nights (1998) .... Quinn Harris... aka 6 Days 7 Nights (1998)
Air Force One (1997) .... President James 'Jim' Marshall... aka AFO (1997)
Devil's Own, The (1997) .... Tom O'Meara
Sabrina (1995) .... Linus Larrabee... aka Sabrina (1995) (Germany)
Clear and Present Danger (1994) .... Jack Ryan
Fugitive, The (1993) .... Dr. Richard Kimble
Patriot Games (1992) .... Jack Ryan
Regarding Henry (1991) .... Henry Turner
Presumed Innocent (1990) .... Rusty Sabich
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) .... Dr. Henry 'Indiana / Indy' Jones, Jr.
Working Girl (1988) .... Jack Trainer
Frantic (1988) .... Dr. Richard Walker
Mosquito Coast, The (1986) .... Allie Fox
Witness (1985) .... John Book
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) .... Dr. Henry 'Indiana / Indy' Jones, Jr.
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) .... Han Solo... aka Return of the Jedi (1983) (USA: short title) ... aka Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi (1997) (USA: video box title)
Blade Runner (1982) .... Rick Deckard
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) .... Dr. Henry 'Indiana / Indy' Jones, Jr.... aka Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (USA: video title)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) .... Han Solo... aka Empire Strikes Back, The (1980) (USA: short title) ... aka Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1997) (USA: video box title)
Apocalypse Now (1979) .... Col. G. Lucas... aka Apocalypse Now Redux (2001) (International: longer version English title)
Frisco Kid, The (1979) .... Tommy Lillard... aka No Knife (1979)
More American Graffiti (1979) (uncredited) .... Officer Bob Falfa... aka Purple Haze (1979)
Hanover Street (1979) .... David Halloran
Star Wars Holiday Special, The (1978) (TV) .... Han Solo
Force 10 from Navarone (1978) .... Lieutenant Colonel Mike Barnsby
Heroes (1977) .... Ken Boyd
Star Wars (1977) .... Han Solo... aka Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1997) (USA: video box title) ... aka Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1981) (USA: reissue title (new title))
Possessed, The (1977) (TV) .... Paul Winjam
Dynasty (1976/I) (TV) .... Mark Blackwood... aka Americans, The (1976) (TV) (USA) ... aka James A. Michener's Dynasty (1976) (TV)
Judgement: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley (1975) (TV) .... Frank Crowder
Conversation, The (1974) .... Martin Stett
American Graffiti (1973) .... Bob Falfa
Intruders, The (1970) (TV) .... Carl
Getting Straight (1970) .... Jake
Zabriskie Point (1970) (uncredited) .... Airport worker
Journey to Shiloh (1968) .... Willie Bill Rearden
Time for Killing, A (1967) (as Harrison J. Ford) .... Lt. Shaffer, USA... aka Long Ride Home, The (1967) (UK)
Luv (1967) (uncredited) .... Hippy
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) (uncredited) .... Bell Hop

Filmography for Phillip K. Dick (As Screenwriter)
Paycheck (2003) (filming) (short story)
Minority Report (2002) (short story)
Impostor (2002) (story Impostor)
"Total Recall 2070" (1999) TV Series (writer) (uncredited) ... aka "Total Recall: The Series" (1999) (USA)
Blade Runner (1997) (VG) (novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
Screamers (1995) (short story Second Variety) ... aka Screamers - L'armée souterraine (1995) (Canada: French title)
Drug-Taking and the Arts (1994) (novel A Scanner Darkly)
Confessions d'un Barjo (1992) (novel) ... aka Barjo (1992) (Canada: English title) ... aka Confessions of a Crap Artist (1992)
Total Recall (1990) (short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale) (inspiration)
Blade Runner (1982) (novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
"Out of This World" (1962) TV Series (short story Impostor)
Useful Websites

http://www.filmsite.org/blad.html

http://www.brmovie.com/

Unforgiven (1992)

2007-07-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

Unforgiven (1992)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Also Known As:Cut Whore Killings, The (1991) (USA: original script title) William Munny Killings, The (1992) (USA: working title) Runtime: 131 min Country: USA Language: English Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: Dolby SR Certification: Argentina:16 / Australia:M / Chile:18 / Finland:K-16 / Germany:16 / Iceland:16 / Netherlands:12 / Norway:15 / South Korea:18 / Spain:13 / UK:15 / USA:R

Cast overview, first billed only:
Clint Eastwood
....
William 'Bill' Munny
Gene Hackman
....
Little Bill Daggett
Morgan Freeman
....
Ned Logan
Richard Harris
....
English Bob
Jaimz Woolvett
....
The Schofield Kid
Saul Rubinek
....
W.W. Beauchamp
Frances Fisher
....
Strawberry Alice
Anna Levine
....
Delilah Fitzgerald (as Anna Thomson)
David Mucci
....
Quick Mike
Rob Campbell
....
Davey Bunting
Anthony James
....
Skinny Dubois
Tara Dawn Frederick
....
Little Sue
Beverley Elliott
....
Silky
Liisa Repo-Martell
....
Faith
Josie Smith
....
Crow Creek Kate

Produced by
Clint Eastwood
....
producer
Julian Ludwig
....
associate producer
David Valdes
....
executive producer

Writing credits (WGA)
David Webb Peoples

(written by)

Original Music by
Lennie Niehaus

Clint Eastwood

(Claudia's theme) (uncredited)

Cinematography by
Jack N. Green

Film Editing by
Joel Cox

Casting by
Phyllis Huffman

Production Design by
Henry Bumstead

Art Direction by
Adrian Gorton

Rick Roberts

Set Decoration by
Janice Blackie-Goodine

AWARDS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105695/awards

1993
Won
Oscar
Best Actor in a Supporting RoleGene Hackman
Best DirectorClint Eastwood
Best Film EditingJoel Cox
Best PictureClint Eastwood
Nominated
Oscar
Best Actor in a Leading RoleClint Eastwood
Best Art Direction-Set DecorationHenry Bumstead Janice Blackie-Goodine
Best CinematographyJack N. Green
Best SoundLes Fresholtz Vern Poore Rick Alexander (as Dick Alexander) Rob Young
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the ScreenDavid Webb Peoples

About the Movie
Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" takes place at that moment when the old West was becoming new. Professional gunfighters have become such an endangered species that journalists follow them for stories. Men who slept under the stars are now building themselves houses. William Munny, "a known thief and a murderer," supports himself with hog farming. The violent West of legend lives on in the memories of men who are by 1880 joining the middle class. Within a few decades, Wyatt Earp would be hanging around Hollywood studios, offering advice.
Eastwood choose this period for "Unforgiven," I suspect, because it mirrored his own stage in life. He began as a young gunslinger on TV and in the early Sergio Leone films "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More," and he matured in "Coogan's Bluff" and "Two Mules for Sister Sara," under the guidance of Don Siegel, the director he often cited as his mentor. Now Eastwood was in his 60s, and had long been a director himself. Leone had died in 1989 and Siegel in 1991; he dedicated "Unforgiven" to them. If the Western was not dead, it was dying; audiences preferred science fiction and special effects. It was time for an elegy.
The film reflects a passing era even in its visual style. The opening shot is of a house, a tree, and a man at a graveside. The sun is setting, on this man and the era he represents. Many of the film's exteriors are wide screen compositions showing the vastness of the land. The daytime interiors, on the other hand, are always strongly backlit, the bright sun pouring in through windows so that the figures inside are dark and sometimes hard to see. Living indoors in a civilized style has made these people distinct.
William Munny is not much of a hog farmer. At one point he chases a hog, lands face down in the mud, and stays there for a moment, defeated. He has two young children to raise after the death of his beloved Claudia. There is not enough money. A rider named the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) appears with an offer of cash money for bounty hunting. The Kid had heard that Munny was "cold as snow and don't have no weak nerve, nor fear." Munny says, "I ain't like that anymore, Kid. It was whiskey done it as much as anythin' else. I ain't had a drop in over 10 years. My wife, she cured me of that, cured me of drink and wickedness."
William Munny is a chastened man, a killer and outlaw who was civilized by marriage. Thus "Unforgiven" internalises the classic Western theme in which violent men are "civilized" by schoolmarms, preachers and judges. When he talks about his wife, Munny sounds like a contrite little boy, determined not to be bad anymore.
The Schofield Kid has named himself, he says, after his Schofield model Smith & Wesson revolver. In an earlier day men were nicknamed by others. Now they create their own monikers, almost as marketing tools. He tells William Munny the story of two drunken cowboys who savagely attacked a prostitute in Wyoming: "They cut up her face, cut her eyes out, cut her ears off, hell, they even cut her teats. ... A thousand dollars reward, Will. Five hundred apiece."
The hog farmer needs the money. But a running theme of the movie is the incompetence of the bounty hunters. The Kid is blind as a bat, and can't hit anything with his trademark revolver. When William Munny prepares to saddle up, he finds to his humiliation that he can hardly mount a horse anymore. ("This old horse is getting even with me for the sins of my youth," he tells his children. "Before I met your dear departed Ma, I used to be weak and given to mistreatin' animals.")
Munny initially turns down the Kid's offer, but reflects on it, and eventually rides off to recruit an old partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). They will catch up with the Kid and share the bounty. This progression is intercut with life in Big Whiskey, Wyo., where Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) rules with an iron fist. His law says: No guns inside the city limits. He enforces it with fearful, sadistic beatings, and then returns to the riverside where he is building himself a house.
The story then works itself out in classic Western terms, with the corrupt sheriff and the righteous outlaw facing each other. The story becomes less about the bounty than about their personal, mutual, need for settlement, made sharper because they have met in the past. And eventually we see the younger William Munny emerging from his shell of age: He turns again into a fearsome man.
This process takes place against a full sense of the town's life. The screenwriter, David Webb Peoples, ignores the recent tradition in which the expensive star dominates every scene, and creates a rich gallery of supporting roles. Here his models are the Western masters like John Ford, who populated their movies with communities. Richard Harris plays English Bob, a famous gunfighter who now lives off his publicity and is followed everywhere by W. W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), a writer for pulp Western magazines; after Munny is in a gun battle, Beauchamp scribbles furious notes, and wants to know, "who'd you kill first?"
Also important in the town is the madam, Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), who has raised the bounty and wants revenge for the mutilation of her girl Delilah (Anna Thomson). Skinny Dubois (Anthony James), owner of the bar and brothel, has more practical concerns: He paid good money for Delilah, and wants compensation; in the half-tamed West, some men now appeal to the law instead of settling things themselves.
The long final act of the movie involves William Munny's desire to avenge the death and public humiliation of his friend Ned, whose corpse has been put on display in a box outside the saloon. Here we see Eastwood as the master of the kind of sustained action sequence he learned from Leone and Siegel: Not a boring montage of quick cuts and meaningless violence, but a story told through deliberate strategy, in which events may not be possible, but are somehow plausible. William Munny, the hapless hog farmer who couldn't even saddle his own horse, has been transformed into the efficient, omniscient figure of vengeance we know from Eastwood's earlier roles. The old pro still remembers the moves.
The title of the movie is intriguing. Does Munny still seek forgiveness from his dead wife, and the others he wronged? There is a sense that he is still haunted by guilt: He has reformed, but has not made amends. Munny tells Logan: "Ned, you remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn't do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin' I could remember when I sobered up."
His friend says "You ain't like that no more." Munny says, "That's right. I'm just a fella now. I ain't no different than anyone else no more." But his voice lacks conviction, and we sense unfinished business in the air. Munny says he needs the bounty money to support his kids, but the kids would be better served if the old man didn't ride off to risk his life against fresher gunfighters.
If Clint Eastwood had not been a star, he would still figure as a major director, with important work in the Western, action and comedy genres, and unique films like "Bird" (1988), his biography of the saxophonist Charlie Parker, the love story "The Bridges of Madison County" (1995), and the wonderful "A Perfect World" (1993), which seems to be about a hunt for an escaped convict, but seems oddly distanced from the chase, and more concerned with the values and histories of the characters. It has the elements of a crime picture, but the freedom of an art film. "Unforgiven," too, uses a genre as a way to study human nature.
There is one exchange in the movie that has long stayed with me. After he is fatally wounded, Little Bill says, "I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house." And Munny says, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." Actually, deserve has everything to do with it, and although Ned Logan and Delilah do not get what they deserve, William Munny sees that the others do. That implacable moral balance, in which good eventually silences evil, is at the heart of the Western, and Eastwood is not shy about saying so.

Filmography for Clint Eastwood
Blood Work (2002) .... Terry McCaleb
Space Cowboys (2000) .... Dr. Frank Corvin
True Crime (1999) .... Steve Everett
Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, A (1998) (uncredited) (archive footage) .... John 'Thunderbolt' Doherty in Movie on TV... aka Fille d'un soldat ne pleure jamais, La (1998) (France)
Absolute Power (1997) .... Luther Whitney
Bridges of Madison County, The (1995) .... Robert Kincaid
Perfect World, A (1993) .... Chief Red Garnett
In the Line of Fire (1993) .... Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan
Unforgiven (1992) .... William 'Bill' Munny
Rookie, The (1990) .... Nick Pulovski
White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) .... John Wilson, Director
Pink Cadillac (1989) .... Tommy Nowak
Dead Pool, The (1988) .... Insp. 'Dirty' Harry Callahan
Heartbreak Ridge (1986) .... Gunnery Sgt. Tom 'Gunny' Highway
Pale Rider (1985) .... Preacher
City Heat (1984) .... Lieutenant Speer
Tightrope (1984) .... Wes Block
Firefox (1983) (VG) (voice) .... Mitchell Gant
Sudden Impact (1983) .... Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan... aka Retour de l'inspecteur Harry, Le (1983)
Honkytonk Man (1982) .... Red Stovall
Firefox (1982) .... Maj. Mitchell Gant/Leon Sprague/Michael Lewis
Any Which Way You Can (1980) .... Philo Beddoe
Bronco Billy (1980) .... Bronco Billy McCoy
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) .... Frank Morris
Every Which Way But Loose (1978) .... Philo Beddoe
Gauntlet, The (1977) .... Ben Shockley
Enforcer, The (1976) .... 'Dirty' Harry Callahan
Outlaw Josey Wales, The (1976) .... Josey Wales
Eiger Sanction, The (1975) .... Dr. Jonathan Hemlock
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) .... John 'Thunderbolt' Doherty, alias 'the Canardor'
Magnum Force (1973) .... Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan
High Plains Drifter (1973) .... The Stranger
Joe Kidd (1972) .... Joe Kidd... aka Joe Kidd (1972) (USA)
Dirty Harry (1971) .... Insp. 'Dirty' Harry Callahan
Play Misty for Me (1971) .... David 'Dave' Garver
Beguiled, The (1971) .... Cpl. John McBurney
Kelly's Heroes (1970) .... Lt. Kelly
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) .... Hogan
Paint Your Wagon (1969) .... Sylvester 'Pardner' Newel
Where Eagles Dare (1968) .... Lt. Morris Schaffer
Coogan's Bluff (1968) .... Deputy Sheriff Walt Coogan
Hang 'Em High (1968) .... Marshal Jed Cooper
Magnifico extranjero, El (1967) ... aka Magnificent Stranger, The (1967) (USA)
Streghe, Le (1967) .... Charlie (segment "Una Sera come le altre")... aka Sorcières, Les (1967) (France) ... aka Witches, The (1969) (USA)
Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) .... Joe... aka Bo, el lleig i el dolent, El (1966) (Spain: Catalan title) ... aka Bueno, el feo y el malo, El (1966) (Spain) ... aka Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The (1967) (USA) ... aka Good, the Ugly, the Bad, The (1967) (USA: literal English title)
Per qualche dollaro in più (1965) .... The Man With No Name (Monco)... aka For a Few Dollars More (1967) (UK) (USA) ... aka Für ein paar Dollar mehr (1966) (West Germany) ... aka For Some Dollars More (1965) (International: English title) ... aka Muerte tenía un precio, La (1966) (Spain) ... aka Por unos cuantos dólares más (1966) (Spain) ... aka Por unos pocos dólares más (1966) (Spain)
Per un pugno di dollari (1964) .... Joe... aka Für eine Handvoll Dollar (1965) (West Germany) ... aka Fistful of Dollars (1967) (USA) ... aka Por un puñado de dólares (1964) (Spain)
"Rawhide" (1959) TV Series .... Rowdy Yates
Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958) .... Keith Williams
Lafayette Escadrille (1958) .... George Moseley... aka C'est la Guerre (1958) (USA) ... aka Hell Bent for Glory (1958) (UK) ... aka With You in My Arms (1958) (USA: alternative title)
Escapade in Japan (1957) (uncredited) .... Dumbo Pilot
First Traveling Saleslady, The (1956) .... Lt. Jack Rice, Roughrider
Away All Boats (1956) (uncredited) .... Marine (Medic)
Star in the Dust (1956) (uncredited) .... Tom, ranch hand... aka Law Man (1956) (USA)
Never Say Goodbye (1956) (uncredited) .... Will
Tarantula (1955) (uncredited) .... Jet Squadron Leader
Lady Godiva (1955) (uncredited) .... First Saxon... aka Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) (UK)
Francis in the Navy (1955) .... Jonesey
Revenge of the Creature (1955) (uncredited) .... Lab Technician

Filmography for GeneHackman
Welcome to Mooseport (2004) (post-production) .... Monroe 'The Eagle' Cole
Runaway Jury (2003) .... Rankin Fitch
Behind Enemy Lines (2001) .... Admiral Leslie McMahon Reigart
Royal Tenenbaums, The (2001) .... Royal Tenenbaum
Heist (2001/I) .... Joe Moore... aka Vol, Le (2001) (Canada: French title)
Heartbreakers (2001) .... William B. Tensy
Mexican, The (2001) .... Arnold Margolese
Replacements, The (2000) .... Jimmy McGinty
Under Suspicion (2000) .... Henry Hearst... aka Suspicion (2000/II) (France)
Enemy of the State (1998) .... Edward 'Brill' Lyle
Antz (1998) (voice) .... General Mandible
Twilight (1998) .... Jack Ames
Absolute Power (1997) .... President Allen Richmond
Extreme Measures (1996) .... Dr. Lawrence Myrick
Birdcage, The (1996) .... Sen. Kevin Keeley... aka Birds of a Feather (1996)
Chamber, The (1996) .... Sam Cayhall
Get Shorty (1995) .... Harry Zimm
Crimson Tide (1995) .... Capt. Frank Ramsey
Quick and the Dead, The (1995) .... John Herod
Wyatt Earp (1994) .... Nicholas Earp
Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) .... Brig. Gen. George Crook
Firm, The (1993) .... Avery Tolar
Unforgiven (1992) .... Little Bill Daggett
Company Business (1991) .... Sam Boyd/John Jones
Class Action (1991) .... Jedediah Tucker Ward
Narrow Margin (1990) .... Robert Caulfield
Postcards from the Edge (1990) .... Lowell
Loose Cannons (1990) .... MacArthur Stern
Package, The (1989) .... Johnny Gallagher
Mississippi Burning (1988) .... Agent Anderson
Full Moon in Blue Water (1988) .... Floyd
Another Woman (1988) .... Larry Lewis
Split Decisions (1988) .... Dan McGuinn
Bat*21 (1988) .... Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton
No Way Out (1987) .... Defense Secretary David Brice
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) .... Lex Luthor/voice of Nuclear Man
Eureka (1986) .... Jack McCann
Hoosiers (1986) .... Coach Norman Dale... aka Best Shot (1986)
Power (1986) .... Wilfred Buckley
Target (1985/I) .... Walter Lloyd
Twice in a Lifetime (1985) .... Harry MacKenzie
Misunderstood (1984) .... Ned... aka Ultimo sole d'estate, L' (1984) (Italy)
Two of a Kind (1983) (uncredited) .... Voice of God
Uncommon Valor (1983/I) .... Col. Cal Rhodes
Under Fire (1983) .... Alex Grazier
Reds (1981) .... Pete Van Wherry
All Night Long (1981) .... George Dupler
Superman II (1980) .... Lex Luthor
Superman (1978) .... Lex Luthor... aka Superman: The Movie (1978)
March or Die (1977) .... Maj. William Sherman Foster
Domino Principle, The (1977) .... Roy Tucker... aka Domino Killings, The (1977) (UK) ... aka Domino principe, El (1977) (Mexico)
Bridge Too Far, A (1977) .... Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski
Lucky Lady (1975) .... Kibby
Bite the Bullet (1975) .... Sam Clayton
Night Moves (1975) .... Harry Moseby
French Connection II (1975) .... Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle
Young Frankenstein (1974) .... The Blindman (Harold)
Zandy's Bride (1974) .... Zandy Allan... aka For Better, for Worse (1974) (USA: TV title)
Conversation, The (1974) .... Harry Caul
Scarecrow (1973) .... Max
Poseidon Adventure, The (1972) .... Rev. Frank Scott
Prime Cut (1972) .... Mary Ann
Cisco Pike (1972) .... Sergeant Leo Holland
French Connection, The (1971) .... Det. Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle
Hunting Party, The (1971) .... Brandt Ruger
Doctors' Wives (1971) .... Dr. Dave Randolph
I Never Sang for My Father (1970) .... Gene Garrison
Downhill Racer (1969) .... Eugene Claire
Marooned (1969) .... Buzz Lloyd... aka Space Travelers (1969) (USA: reissue title)
Gypsy Moths, The (1969) .... Joe Browdy
Riot (1969) .... Red Fraker
Shadow on the Land (1968) (TV) .... Rev. Thomas Davis
Split, The (1968) .... Detective Lt. Walter Brille
Banning (1967) .... Tommy Del Gaddo
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) .... Buck Barrow... aka Bonnie and Clyde... Were Killers! (1967) (UK)
Covenant with Death, A (1967) .... Harmsworth
First to Fight (1967) .... Sgt. Tweed
Hawaii (1966) .... Rev. John Whipple
Lilith (1964) .... Norman
Ride with Terror (1963) (TV)
Mad Dog Coll (1961) (uncredited) .... Cop

Useful References and Web Sites

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105695/

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2002/07/072101.html

The Wild Bunch (1969)

2007-07-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Full cast and Crew for

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Runtime: 134 min / USA:145 min (1995 re-release) Country: USA Language: English / Spanish Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) / DTS (1995 re-release) / Dolby Digital (1995 re-release) / Mono (35 mm prints) / SDDS (1995 re-release) Certification: Australia:MA (director's cut) / Canada:R / Finland:K-16 / Finland:K-18 (1969) / France:-12 (director's cut) / Netherlands:12 / Norway:16 (cut version) / Norway:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:18 / USA:R / West Germany:16 (w)

Directed by
Sam Peckinpah

William Holden
....
Pike Bishop
Ernest Borgnine
....
Dutch Engstrom
Robert Ryan
....
Deke Thornton
Edmond O'Brien
....
Freddie Sykes
Warren Oates
....
Lyle Gorch
Jaime Sánchez (I)
....
Angel (as Jaime Sanchez)
Ben Johnson (I)
....
Tector Gorch
Emilio Fernández (I)
....
Gen. Mapache (as Emilio Fernandez)
Strother Martin
....
Coffer
L.Q. Jones
....
T.C
Albert Dekker
....
Pat Harrigan
Bo Hopkins
....
Crazy Lee
Dub Taylor
....
Rev. Wainscoat
Paul Harper
....
Ross
Jorge Russek
....
Lt. Zamorra

Produced by
Phil Feldman
....
producer
Roy N. Sickner
....
associate producer

Original Music by
Jerry Fielding

Cinematography by
Lucien Ballard

Film Editing by
Lou Lombardo

(as Louis Lombardo)

Art Direction by
Edward Carrere

Makeup Department
Al Greenway
....
makeup artist

Production Management
William D. Faralla
....
production manager (as William Faralla)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Clifford C. Coleman
....
assistant director (as Cliff Coleman)
Fred Gammon
....
assistant director
Robert 'Buzz' Henry
....
second unit director (as Buzz Henry)
Howard G. Kazanjian
....
second assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Robert J. Miller
....
sound
Dan Wallin
....
scoring mixer (uncredited)
Dan Wallin
....
sound re-recording mixer (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Bud Hulburd
....
special effects

Stunts
Gary Combs
....
stunts (uncredited)
Louie Elias
....
stunts (uncredited)
Tony Epper (I)
....
stunts (uncredited)
Mickey Gilbert
....
stunts (uncredited)
Robert 'Buzz' Henry
....
stunts (uncredited)
Bob Herron
....
stunts (uncredited)
Whitey Hughes
....
stunts (uncredited)
Gary McLarty
....
stunts (uncredited)
Jack Williams (I)
....
stunts (uncredited)

Other crew
Sonny Burke
....
music supervisor
Gordon T. Dawson
....
wardrobe supervisor (as Gordon Dawson)
Bud Gaunt
....
key grip
General de Brigada E.E. Procopio Ortiz R.
....
thanks
Crayton Smith
....
script supervisor
Robert L. Wolfe
....
associate film editor
Bernie Abramson
....
still photographer (uncredited)
Elizabeth Burnette
....
voice-over (uncredited)
Dave Friedman (I)
....
assistant camera (uncredited)
'Chema' Hernandez
....
head wrangler (uncredited)

Brief Outline

It's 1913, a bunch of outlaws, led by Pike Bishop, have been running rampant along the U.S.- Mexican border. Although this "bunch" of aging desperadoes make their fortunes through robbery and killing, they have a strict code of honour of which they are bound by. But their world is changing rapidly around them - progress is changing the land, and desperation is destroying the ethics of those around them. "The Wild Bunch" realize that their place in time is nearly at an end, and they decide to call it quits and retire after one final haul.
Holden is Pike Bishop, the charismatic, no-nonsense leader of the Bunch; Borgnine is Dutch, his dogged, faithful second-in-command; Jaime Sanchez is the alert, graceful Angel, the Bunch's only Mexican (and its one out-and-out idealist); Warren Oates and Ben Johnson are the scurrilous Gorch brothers, Lyle and Tector; Bo Hopkins is Crazy Lee, who has unforgettable psychotic eyes. Pike's nemeses are his ex-partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), a haunted man who has been hired out of Yuma Prison to hunt Pike down; the ruthless railroad security chief Harrigan (Albert Dekker); and a scurvy band of "gutter trash" (including Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones) out for bounty.
The Wildbunch is hailed as being one of director Sam Peckinpah's best, but it is more than that...is it an example of American cinema at its best, and rightfully so.

Filmography for Sam Peckinpah
Osterman Weekend, The (1983)
Jinxed! (1982) (uncredited)
Convoy (1978)
Cross of Iron (1977) ... aka Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuz (1977) (West Germany)
Killer Elite, The (1975)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) ... aka Traiganme la cabeza de Alfredo Garcia (1974) (Mexico)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
Getaway, The (1972)
Junior Bonner (1972)
Straw Dogs (1971)
Ballad of Cable Hogue, The (1970)
Wild Bunch, The (1969)
Noon Wine (1966) (TV)
Major Dundee (1965)
Ride the High Country (1962) ... aka Guns in the Afternoon (1962) (UK)
Deadly Companions, The (1961)
"Dick Powell Show, The" (1961) TV Series (episode "Losers, The(1962)") ... aka "Dick Powell Theatre, The" (1963) (new title)
"Klondike" (1960) TV Series
"Westerner, The" (1960) TV Series
"Rifleman, The" (1958) TV Series
"Trackdown" (1957) TV Series
"Zane Grey Theater" (1956) TV Series ... aka "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater" (1956)
"Broken Arrow" (1956) TV Series (episode "Transfer, The")
"Gunsmoke" (1955) TV Series ... aka "Gun Law" (1955) (UK) ... aka "Marshal Dillon" (1955) (USA)

Filmography for William Holden
S.O.B. (1981) .... Tim Culley
Earthling, The (1980) .... Patrick Foley
When Time Ran Out... (1980) .... Shelby Gilmore... aka Day the World Ended, The (1980) (USA: video title) ... aka Earth's Final Fury (1980/II) (USA: TV title)
Ashanti (1979) .... Jim Sandell... aka Ashanti, Land of No Mercy (1979)
Escape to Athena (1979) (uncredited) .... Prisoner smoking a cigar in prison camp
Fedora (1978) .... Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler... aka Fedora (1978) (West Germany)
Damien: Omen II (1978) .... Richard Thorn... aka Omen II (1978) ... aka Omen II: Damien (1978) (reissue title)
Network (1976) .... Max Schumacher
21 Hours at Munich (1976) (TV) .... Chief of Police Manfred Schreiber
Towering Inferno, The (1974) .... James 'Jim' Duncan
Cazadores, Los (1974) .... Wolkowski... aka Open Season (1974) (USA) ... aka Recon Game, The (1974)
Breezy (1973) .... Frank Harmon
Blue Knight, The (1973) (TV) .... Bumper Morgan
Revengers, The (1972) .... John Benedict... aka Vengadores, Los (1972) (Mexico)
Wild Rovers (1971) .... Ross Bodine
Arbre de Noël, L' (1969) .... Laurent Ségur... aka Albero di Natale, L' (1969) (Italy) ... aka Christmas Tree, The (1969) (USA) ... aka When Wolves Cry (1969) (USA: video title)
Wild Bunch, The (1969) .... Pike Bishop
Devil's Brigade, The (1968) .... Lt. Col. Robert T. Frederick
Casino Royale (1967) .... Ransome... aka Charles K. Feldman's Casino Royale (1967)
Alvarez Kelly (1966) .... Alvarez Kelly
7th Dawn, The (1964) .... Ferris
Paris - When It Sizzles (1964) .... Richard Benson
Lion, The (1962) .... Robert Hayward
Counterfeit Traitor, The (1962) .... Eric Erickson, Code Name 'Red'/Narrator
Satan Never Sleeps (1962) .... Father O'Banion... aka Devil Never Sleeps, The (1962) (UK) ... aka Flight from Terror (1962)
World of Suzie Wong, The (1960) .... Robert Lomax
Horse Soldiers, The (1959) .... Maj. Henry 'Hank' Kendall (regimental surgeon)
Key, The (1958) .... David Ross
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957) .... Cmdr./Maj. Shears
Toward the Unknown (1956) .... Maj. Lincoln Bond... aka Brink of Hell (1956) (UK)
Proud and Profane, The (1956) .... Lieutenant Colonel Colin Black
Picnic (1955) .... Hal Carter
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) .... Mark Elliott, Newspaper Correspondant
Bridges at Toko-Ri, The (1955) .... Lt. Harry Brubaker
Country Girl, The (1954) .... Bernie Dodd
Miyamoto Musashi (1954/I) (uncredited) .... Narrator in original US version... aka Legend of Musashi, The (1954) ... aka Master Swordsman (1954) ... aka Musashi Miyamoto (1956) (USA: video title) ... aka Samurai (1954) ... aka Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (1954)
Sabrina (1954) .... David Larrabee... aka Sabrina Fair (1954) (UK)
Executive Suite (1954) .... McDonald Walling
Escape from Fort Bravo (1954) .... Capt. Roper
Forever Female (1953) .... Stanley Krown
Stalag 17 (1953) .... Sgt. J.J. Sefton
Moon Is Blue, The (1953) .... Donald Gresham (US version)/Tourist (German version)
Turning Point, The (1952) .... Jerry McKibbon
Submarine Command (1952) .... Commander White... aka Submarine Story, The (1952) (USA)
Boots Malone (1952) .... Boots Malone
Force of Arms (1951) .... Sgt. Joe 'Pete' Peterson... aka Girl for Joe, A (1951) (USA: reissue title)
Born Yesterday (1950) .... Paul Verrall
Union Station (1950) .... Detective Lt. William Calhoun
Sunset Blvd. (1950) .... Joe Gillis (writer)... aka Sunset Boulevard (1950) (UK) (USA: alternative spelling)
Father Is a Bachelor (1950) .... Johnny Rutledge
Dear Wife (1949) .... Bill Seacroft
Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949) .... Dick Richmond... aka Innocence Is Bliss (1949) (UK)
Streets of Laredo (1949) .... Jim Dawkins
Man from Colorado, The (1949) .... Capt. Del Stewart
Dark Past, The (1948) .... Al Walker
Apartment for Peggy (1948) .... Jason
Rachel and the Stranger (1948) .... David Harvey
Dear Ruth (1947) .... Lt. William Seacroft
Blaze of Noon (1947) .... Colin McDonald
Young and Willing (1943) .... Norman Reese... aka Out of the Frying Pan (1943)
Meet the Stewarts (1942) .... Michael Stewart
Remarkable Andrew, The (1942) .... Andrew Long
Fleet's In, The (1942) .... Casey Kirby
Texas (1941) .... Dan Thomas
I Wanted Wings (1941) .... Al Ludlow
Arizona (1940) .... Peter Muncie
Those Were the Days (1940) .... P. J. 'Petey' Simmons... aka At Good Old Siwash (1940) ... aka Good Old Schooldays (1940) (UK)
Our Town (1940) .... George Gibbs
Invisible Stripes (1939) .... Tim Taylor
Golden Boy (1939) .... Joe Bonaparte
Million Dollar Legs (1939) (uncredited) .... Graduate
Prison Farm (1938) .... Prisoner

Filmography for Robert Ryan
Outfit, The (1974) .... Mailer
Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973) .... Pap Gutshall... aka Lolly-Madonna War, The (1973) (UK)
Iceman Cometh, The (1973) .... Larry Slade
Executive Action (1973) .... Foster
Man Without a Country, The (1973) (TV) .... Lt. Cmdr. Vaughan
Course du lièvre à travers les champs, La (1972) .... Charley... aka And Hope to Die (1972) (USA) ... aka Corsa della lepre attraverso i campi, La (1972) (Italy)
Love Machine, The (1971) .... Gregory Austin
Lawman (1971) .... Marshal Cotton Ryan of Sabbath
Front Page, The (1970) (TV) .... Walter Burns
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969) .... Captain Nemo
Wild Bunch, The (1969) .... Deke Thornton
Anzio (1968) .... Lt. Gen. Carson... aka Battle for Anzio, The (1968) (UK) ... aka Sbarco di Anzio, Lo (1968)
Minuto per pregare, un instante per morire, Un (1968) .... Gov. Lem Carter... aka Dead or Alive (1968) ... aka Dove vai ti ammazzo (1968) ... aka Escondido (1968) ... aka Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, A (1968) ... aka Outlaw Gun (1968)
Custer of the West (1967) .... Sergeant Mulligan... aka Última aventura, La (1967) (Spain) ... aka Custer, homme de l'Ouest (1967) (France) ... aka Good Day for Fighting, A (1967) (short version)
Hour of the Gun (1967) .... Ike Clanton
Busy Body, The (1967) .... Charley Barker
Dirty Dozen, The (1967) .... Col. Everett Dasher Breed
Professionals, The (1966) .... Hans Ehrengard
Crooked Road, The (1965) .... Richard Ashley... aka Krivi put (1965) (Yugoslavia: Serbian title)
Battle of the Bulge (1965) .... Gen. Grey
Dirty Game, The (1965) .... General Bruce... aka Dirty Agents, The (1965) ... aka Guerra segreta, La (1965) (Italy) ... aka Guerre secrète (1965) (France) ... aka Secret Agents, The (1966) (USA) ... aka Spione unter sich (1965) (West Germany)
Billy Budd (1962) .... John Claggart, Master-at-Arms
Longest Day, The (1962) .... Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin
King of Kings (1961) .... John the Baptist
Canadians, The (1961) .... Insp. William Gannon
Ice Palace (1960) .... Thor Storm
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) .... Earl Slater
Day of the Outlaw (1959) .... Blaise Starrett
Lonelyhearts (1958) .... William Shrike... aka Miss Lonelyheart (1958)
God's Little Acre (1958) .... Ty Ty Walden
"Alcoa Theatre" (1957) TV Series .... Alternate Lead Player (1957-1958)
Men in War (1957) .... Lt. Benson (2nd Platoon, Co. D)
Back from Eternity (1956) .... Bill
Proud Ones, The (1956) .... Cass Silver, Marshal Flat Rock Kansas
Escape to Burma (1955) .... Jim Brecan
Tall Men, The (1955) .... Nathan Stark
House of Bamboo (1955) .... Sandy Dawson
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) .... Reno Smith
Her Twelve Men (1954) .... Joe Hargrave... aka Her 12 Men (1954) ... aka Miss Baker's Dozen (1954) (USA)
About Mrs. Leslie (1954) .... George Leslie
Alaska Seas (1954) .... Matt Kelly
Inferno (1953) .... Carson
City Beneath the Sea (1953) .... Brad Carlton
Naked Spur, The (1953) .... Ben Vandergroat
Horizons West (1952) .... Dan Hammond
Beware, My Lovely (1952) .... Howard Wilton
Clash by Night (1952) .... Earl Pfeiffer
On Dangerous Ground (1952) .... Jim Wilson
Best of the Badmen (1951) .... Jeff Clanton
Racket, The (1951) .... Nick Scanlon
Flying Leathernecks (1951) .... Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin
Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) (uncredited) .... Cameo appearance (in audience)... aka Mother of a Champion (1951) (USA)
Born to Be Bad (1950) .... Nick Bradley
I Married a Communist (1950) .... Brad Collins... aka Woman on Pier 13, The (1950) (UK)
Secret Fury, The (1950) .... David McLean
Set-Up, The (1949) .... Stoker
Caught (1949) .... Smith Ohlrig
Act of Violence (1948) .... Joe Parkson
Boy with Green Hair, The (1948) .... Dr. Evans
Return of the Bad Men (1948) .... Sundance Kid... aka Return of the Badmen (1948) (International: English title)
Berlin Express (1948) .... Robert Lindley
Crossfire (1947) .... Montgomery
Woman on the Beach, The (1947) .... Lieutenant Scott Burnett
Trail Street (1947) .... Allan Harper
Marine Raiders (1944) .... Capt. Dan Craig
Tender Comrade (1943) .... Chris Jones
Gangway for Tomorrow (1943) .... Joe Dunham
Iron Major, The (1943) .... The Rev. Timothy Donovan
Behind the Rising Sun (1943) .... Lefty O'Doyle
Sky's the Limit, The (1943) .... Reginald Fenton
Bombardier (1943) .... Joe Connors
Feminine Touch, The (1941) (uncredited) .... Bit Part
Texas Rangers Ride Again, The (1940) (uncredited) .... Eddie
North West Mounted Police (1940) .... Const. Dumont... aka Northwest Mounted Police (1940) ... aka Scarlet Riders, The (1940)
Queen of the Mob (1940) (uncredited) .... Jim
Ghost Breakers, The (1940) (uncredited) .... Interne
Golden Gloves (1939/I) .... Pete Wells

Useful Websites

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0065214

http://www.filmsite.org/wildb.html

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wildbunch/frame.htm

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wildbunch/

Once upon a time in the west (1968)

2007-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

C'era una volta il West (1968)
Once Upon a time in the West (1968)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Also Known As:Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) (USA) There Was Once the West (1969) (USA) (literal English title) MPAA: Rated PG-13 for western violence and brief sensuality. (re-rated; rated M/PG in 1969)Runtime: 165 min / Germany:158 min (cut) / USA:140 min Country: Italy / USA Language: Italian Color: Color (Technicolor) Sound Mix: Mono Certification: Argentina:13 / Australia:M / Finland:K-16 / Netherlands:12 / Norway:16 / Portugal:M/12 / Singapore:PG / Spain:13 / Sweden:15 / UK:15 (re-rating) (2000) / UK:15 (video rating) (1989) / UK:AA (original rating) / USA:M (original rating) / USA:PG-13 (re-rating) (2003) / USA:PG (re-rating) (1969) / West Germany:16 (w)

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Henry Fonda
....
Frank
Claudia Cardinale
....
Jill McBain
Jason Robards
....
Manuel 'Cheyenne' Gutierrez
Charles Bronson
....
Harmonica
Gabriele Ferzetti
....
Morton (railroad baron)
Paolo Stoppa
....
Sam
Woody Strode
....
Stony (member of Frank's gang)
Jack Elam
....
Snaky (member of Frank's gang)
Keenan Wynn
....
Flagstone sheriff
Frank Wolff
....
Brett McBain
Lionel Stander
....
Barman
Livio Andronico
....
Bit part (uncredited)
Salvatore Basile
....
Bit part (uncredited)
Aldo Berti
....
Member of Frank's gang playing poker (uncredited)
Frank Braña
....
Mamber of Frank's gang smoking pipe at auction (uncredited)
Marilù Carteny
....
Maureen McBain (uncredited)
Luigi Ciavarro
....
Older sheriff's deputy (uncredited)
Spartaco Conversi
....
Member of Frank's gang shot through boot (uncredited)
Bruno Corazzari
....
(uncredited)
Paolo Figlia
....
(uncredited)
John Frederick
....
Jim (member of Frank's gang) (uncredited)
Michael Harvey
....
Frank's lieutenant (uncredited)
Stefano Imparato
....
(uncredited)
Frank Leslie
....
(uncredited)
Luigi Magnani
....
(uncredited)
Claudio Mancini
....
Harmonica's brother (uncredited)
Dino Mele
....
Harmonica, as a boy (uncredited)
Antonio Molino Rojo
....
Member of Frank's gang at auction (uncredited)
Enrico Morsella
....
(uncredited)
Umberto Morsella
....
(uncredited)
Al Mulock
....
Knuckles (uncredited)
Tullio Palmieri
....
Flagstone carpenter (uncredited)
Renato Pinciroli
....
First bidder at auction (uncredited)
Sandra Salvatori
....
(uncredited)
Aldo Sambrell
....
Cheyenne's lieutenant (uncredited)
Conrado San Martín
....
Bit part (uncredited)
Enzo Santaniello
....
Timmy McBain (uncredited)
Simonetta Santaniello
....
(uncredited)
Claudio Scarchilli
....
(uncredited)
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia
....
(uncredited)
Benito Stefanelli
....
Frank's lieutenant (uncredited)
Luana Strode
....
Indian woman (uncredited)
Fabio Testi
....
Member of Frank's gang with black hat at auction (uncredited)
Dino Zamboni
....
(uncredited)
Marco Zuanelli
....
Wobbles (uncredited)

Writing credits
Dario Argento

(story) &
Bernardo Bertolucci

(story) &
Sergio Leone

(story)
Sergio Donati

screenplay
Mickey Knox

dialogue: English version
Sergio Leone

screenplay

Produced by
Bino Cicogna
....
producer
Fulvio Morsella
....
executive producer

Original Music by
Ennio Morricone

Cinematography by
Tonino Delli Colli

Film Editing by
Nino Baragli

Production Design by
Carlo Simi

Set Decoration by
Rafael Ferri

Carlo Leva

(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Antonella Pompei

Carlo Simi

Makeup Department
Alberto De Rossi
....
makeup artist
Giannetto De Rossi
....
makeup artist
Grazia De Rossi
....
hair stylist

Production Management
Claudio Mancini
....
production manager
Camillo Teti
....
production supervisor
Ugo Tucci
....
production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Salvatore Basile
....
assistant director (as Salvo Basile)
Giancarlo Santi
....
first assistant director
Adolfo Aristarain
....
assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Antonio Palombi
....
assistant production designer
Enrico Simi
....
assistant set decorator

Filmography for Sergio Leone
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001466/

Filmography for Bernado Bertolucci
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000934/

Filmography for Henry Fonda
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000020/

Filmography for Charles Bronson
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000314/

Filmography for Jason Robards
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001673/

Filmography for Claudia Cardinale
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001012/

About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064116/combined

Director Sergio Leone did two things better than just about any other director before or since: shooting close-ups and choreographing memorable entrances for his characters. Those two skills, which are on impressive display in every feature-length film he ever made, were never so stunningly combined as in the revelation of the villain, Frank, in his masterpiece Once Upon a Time the West (C'era una volta il West).

The scene takes place near the beginning of the 165-minute western, and it begins with a homesteader family, the McBains, preparing a feast to celebrate the arrival of the widower father’s (Frank Wolff) new wife. The celebration is cut short, though, when bullets from unseen assailants take down every member of the family—father, daughter, and son. There is one son left, a 10-year-old boy who come scampering out of the house and is met with the grisly sight of his entire family gunned down in cold blood. Then, the men emerge out of the brush, tall, hulking men in full-length leather dusters.

The camera slowly dollies around the leader, an imposing figure dressed all in black, and then it comes around to the front, we are given one of the great shocks in modern cinema: This ruthless killed is played by Henry Fonda, the longtime Hollywood leading man whose name up until that point had been virtually synonymous with upstanding characters of great moral integrity. This was Wyatt Earp from My Darling Clementine (1946) and Honest Abe from Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), both directed by John Ford. This was the dissenting juror as moral voice in 12 Angry Men (1957). Yet, here he stands, and Leone gives the audience a moment to register the delicious irony of it with a sustained close-up that takes Fonda’s sparkling blue eyes and instantly recognizable smile and turns them both into instruments of evil. And when Frank guns down the kid, it’s clear we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone’s masterpiece, the pinnacle of his storied career. He didn’t want to make another western, having just finished his Dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood—1964’s A Fistful of Dollars, 1966’s For a Few Dollars More, and 1967’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—but U.S. financiers would only give him money if he made another one, so he took their offer and made one of the greatest westerns ever. Grandly operatic in both scale and tone, Once Upon a Time in the West is more about the western genre than it is about anything that actually happened in the southwest United States in the late 19th century. Brimming with homages to just about every memorable western ever, particularly John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954), Once Upon a Time in the West is a brilliant metafilm that plays as both a stirring melodrama and a film geek’s cornucopia of in-jokes and movie references. It shouldn’t come as much surprise that French theorist Jean Baudrillard called Leone cinema’s first postmodern director.

Like many westerns in the late 1960s, most notably Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), Once Upon a Time in the West is about the end of the era associated with the western genre. In this case, it is the railroad that is the primary symbol of the industrial and mechanical advances that would soon render cowboys and their codes of honor obsolete. As the title of the film suggests, Leone’s opus aspires to the heights of both grand storytelling and literal mythmaking. It’s a fable about the violence of progress.

Like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West revolves primarily around three men who fit into different western stereotypes (the story was concocted by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Leone, all men who were well-versed in the western genre). The strong, silent hero is a man known only as Harmonica (Charles Bronson) because he keeps the instrument tied around his neck and his presence is often signaled not by the immediate sight of him, but by his harmonica’s forlorn call (the tune of which is courtesy of Ennio Morricone, who scored all of Leone’s spaghetti westerns). The wily, rambunctious bandit is Cheyenne (Jason Robards), who at first appears to be a bad man and eventually wins us over with his charisma and wit. And, of course, the bad guy is the aforementioned Frank, played with sadistic glee by Fonda in what is truly one of the greatest instances of casting against type ever. His role is so shockingly memorable not because it’s simply “Henry Fonda being a bad guy,” but because, as Alfred Hitchcock did with James Stewart in Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), Leone unearthed a dark mirror side of Fonda’s morally upright persona; the good we associate with his previous roles intermingle with Frank’s unmitigated badness, making him a disturbingly complex villain.

However, unlike Leone’s other westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West also features a central and complex female character: Jill (Claudia Cardinale), the woman who travels from New Orleans to marry McBain only to find him and the rest of his family massacred by Frank and his goons (the fact that we later find out Frank wasn’t supposed to kill anyone makes him seem all the more ruthless). Jill is not your typical western female, as she does not fall squarely into the “whore” or “Madonna” category. Rather, Jill bridges the character types; as a former prostitute, she is an unabashedly sexual character, but her sexuality is not used against her. Rather, it is one of her strengths, something that helps her survive in a hard world.

For reasons that are not made clear until midway through the film, a railroad baron named Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) is determined to see Jill dead, and he uses Frank as his mercenary hitman. Meanwhile, Harmonica is determined to see Frank dead, but only by his own hand because he has a score to settle (the reason for this score is deliciously drawn out in fragmented flashbacks that don’t come together until he and Frank are squaring off for their duel in the sun). Cheyenne is caught up in the middle of it all, and eventually he and Harmonica become unlikely allies.

Of course, Once Upon a Time in the West’s chief strength is its impressive visual scope. Leone was a master of intercutting widescreen vistas of the western landscape (usually shot in Spain or Italy, although several key scenes in this film were shot in Utah’s Monument Valley, home of eight of John Ford’s westerns) with vistas of the human visage. It has been said many times that Leone treated the human face like a landscape, and no one was better as utilizing the ’Scope frame to turn a hardened stare into a moment of pure myth. Leone underscores his mythical impulses with the distention of time, which is most clearly articulated in the film’s opening sequence, where three killers await the arrival of a train.

Unlike today’s frenetic, MTV-inspired action directors who feel that their films are lagging if there isn’t an edit every three seconds, Leone was content to linger on his images, allowing them to derive power and depth from that concerted focus. It adds a level of intrigue and grandiosity that befits his larger-than-life narratives and brilliant upturning of a host of western clichés. He gets away with reworking cherished genre staples because he’s never parodic or insulting. Rather, he finds new depths in previously two-dimensional characters and situations, imbuing the old with an exhilarating sense of infinite possibilities.

Course Films

2007-07-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Please select the film to be studied this week and print out the Material and bring it to class with you.

Read the material.

Thanks

.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

2007-07-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew for

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Directed by John Sturges

Runtime: 128 min Country: USA Language: English Colour: Colour (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: Mono (Westrex Recording System) Certification: Finland:K-16 / Norway:16 / Sweden:15 / UK:PG / USA:PG-13 (video version) / West Germany:12

Cast overview, first billed only:
Yul Brynner .... Chris Adams
Eli Wallach .... Calvera, Bandit Leader
Steve McQueen .... Vin
Horst Buchholz .... Chico
Charles Bronson .... Bernardo O'Reilly
Robert Vaughn .... Lee
Brad Dexter .... Harry Luck
James Coburn .... Britt
Rosenda Monteros .... Petra
Vladimir Sokoloff .... Old Man
Jorge Martínez de Hoyos .... Galario (as Jorge Martinez de Hoyas)
Rico Alaniz .... Sotero
Pepe Hern

Natividad Vacío .... Miguel
Mario Navarro

Writing credits
Akira Kurosawa

(earlier screenplay "Shichinin no samurai") uncredited
William Roberts

(additions)
Walter Bernstein

uncredited and
Walter Newman

Shinobu Hashimoto

earlier screenplay "Shichinin no samurai" (uncredited)
Hideo Oguni

earlier screenplay "Shichinin no samurai" (uncredited)
\
Original Music by
Elmer Bernstein

Cinematography by
Charles Lang

(as Charles Lang Jr.)

Film Editing by
Ferris Webster

Art Direction by
Edward Fitzgerald

Set Decoration by
Rafael Suárez

(as Rafael Suarez)

Makeup Department
Emile LaVigne
....
makeup artist (as Emile Lavigne)
Daniel C. Striepeke
....
makeup artist (as Daniel Striepeke)

Production Management
Francisco Day
....
production manager (as Chico Day)
Allen K. Wood
....
production supervisor
Hubert Fröhlich
....
production manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jaime Contreras
....
assistant director
Robert E. Relyea
....
assistant director

Art Department
Sam Gordon
....
property master

Sound Department
Del Harris
....
sound effects editor
Rafael Ruiz Esparza
....
sound (as Rafael Esparza)
Jack Solomon
....
sound

Special Effects by
Milt Rice
....
special effects

Stunts
Jerry Gatlin
....
stunts (uncredited)
Loren Janes
....
stunts (uncredited)
Jack Williams
....
stunts (uncredited)
Henry Wills
....
stunt coordinator (uncredited)

Filmography for Yul Brynner
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000989/
Lost to the Revolution (1980) (voice) .... Narrator
Con la rabbia agli occhi (1976) .... Peter Marciani... aka Anger in His Eyes (1976) (UK) ... aka Death Rage (1976) (USA)
Indesiderabili, Gli (1976)
Futureworld (1976) .... Gunslinger/Fantasy Lover
Ultimate Warrior, The (1975) .... Carson... aka Barony, The (1975) (International: English title) ... aka Last Warrior, The (1975)
Westworld (1973) .... Robot Gunslinger
Serpent, Le (1973) .... Vlassov... aka Night Flight from Moscow (1972) (USA: reissue title) ... aka Schlange, Die (1973) (West Germany) ... aka Serpent, The (1973) (USA) ... aka Serpente, Il (1973) (Italy)
Fuzz (1972) .... The Deaf Man
"Anna and the King" (1972) TV Series .... King Mongkut of Siam
Light at the Edge of the World, The (1971) .... Jonathan Kongre... aka Luz del fin del mundo, La (1971) (Spain)
Catlow (1971) .... Catlow... aka Oro de nadie, El (1971) (Spain)
Romance of a Horsethief (1971) .... Captain Stoloff... aka Roman d'un voleur de chevaux, Le (1971) (France)
Adiós, Sabata (1971) .... Sabata/Indio Black... aka Adios Sabata (1971) (USA) ... aka Bounty Hunters, The (1971) (UK) ... aka Indio Black (1971) ... aka Indio Black, sai che ti dico... Sei un gran figlio di... (1971) (Italy) ... aka Indio Sabata (1971) ... aka Sabata 2 (1971)
Bitka na Neretvi (1969) .... Vlado... aka Battaglia della Neretva, La (1969) (Italy) ... aka Battle of Neretva, The (1969) (USA) ... aka Battle of the River Neretva (1969) (Australia: video title) ... aka Battle of the River Neretva, The (1969) (USA) ... aka Schlacht an der Neretva, Die (1969) (West Germany)
File of the Golden Goose, The (1969) .... Peter Novak
Magic Christian, The (1969) (uncredited) .... Transvestite cabaret singer
Madwoman of Chaillot, The (1969) .... The Chairman
Villa Rides (1968) .... Pancho Villa
Long Duel, The (1967) .... Sultan
Fantastique histoire vraie d'Eddie Chapman, La (1967) .... Baron von Grunen... aka Triple Cross (1967) (USA)
Double Man, The (1967) .... Dan Slater/Kalmar
Return of the Seven (1966) .... Chris Adams... aka Regreso de los siete magníficos, El (1966) (Spain) ... aka Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966) (International: English title)
Poppies Are Also Flowers (1966) (uncredited) .... Col. Salem... aka Danger Grows Wild (1966) (UK) ... aka Opium Connection, The (1966) ... aka Poppy Is Also a Flower, The (1966) (USA)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) .... Asher Gonen
Morituri (1965) .... Capt. Rolf Mueller, Master of SS Ingo, aka SS Christina... aka Saboteur, Code Name Morituri, The (1965) (UK)
Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964) .... Jules Gaspard d'Estaing
Flight from Ashiya (1964) .... Sergeant Mike Takashima... aka Ashiya kara no hiko (1964) (Japan)
Kings of the Sun (1963) .... Chief Black Eagle
Taras Bulba (1962) .... Taras Bulba
Escape from Zahrain (1962) .... Sharif
Goodbye Again (1961) (uncredited) .... Extra in nightclub scene... aka Aimez-vous Brahms? (1961) (France)
Magnificent Seven, The (1960) .... Chris Adams
Surprise Package (1960) .... Nico March
Testament d'Orphée, Le (1960) (uncredited) .... L'huissier/Court usher... aka Testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi!, Le (1960) ... aka Testament of Orpheus, The (1962) (USA)
Once More, with Feeling (1960) .... Victor Fabian
Solomon and Sheba (1959) .... Solomon
Sound and the Fury, The (1959) .... Jason Compson, Head of Household/Snopes General Store Manager
Journey, The (1959) .... Major Surov, Commanding Officer in Mosan
Buccaneer, The (1958) .... Jean Lafitte
Brothers Karamazov, The (1958) .... Dmitri Karamazov... aka Murderer Dmitri Karamazov, The (1958)
Anastasia (1956) .... Prince Bounine
Ten Commandments, The (1956) .... Rameses
King and I, The (1956) .... King Mongkut of Siam... aka Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (1966) (USA: complete title)
General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein (1954) (TV) .... King Mongkut of Siam (segment "King and I, The")... aka General Foods Anniversary Show (1954) (TV) (USA: short title) ... aka General Foods Anniversary Special (1954) (TV)
Port of New York (1949) .... Paul Vicola
"Mr. and Mrs." (1948) TV Series .... Host
"Mr. Jones and His Neighbors" (1944) TV Series .... Mr. Jones

Filmography for Steve McQueen
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000537/
Hunter, The (1980) .... Papa Thorson
Tom Horn (1980) .... Tom Horn
Enemy of the People, An (1978) .... Doctor Thomas Stockmann
Towering Inferno, The (1974) .... Chief Michael O'Hallorhan
Papillon (1973) .... Henri 'Papillon' Charriere
Getaway, The (1972) .... Carter 'Doc' McCoy
Junior Bonner (1972) .... Junior Bonner
Le Mans (1971) .... Michael Delaney
Reivers, The (1969) .... Boon Hogganbeck... aka Yellow Winton Flyer (1969)
Bullitt (1968) .... Det. Lt. Frank Bullitt
Thomas Crown Affair, The (1968) .... Thomas Crown... aka Crown Caper, The (1968) ... aka Thomas Crown and Company (1968)
Sand Pebbles, The (1966) .... Jake Holman
Nevada Smith (1966) .... Nevada Smith/Max Sand/Fitch
Cincinnati Kid, The (1965) .... Eric Stoner (The Cincinnati Kid)
Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) .... Henry Thomas
Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) .... Rocky Papasano
Soldier in the Rain (1963) .... Sgt. Eustis Clay
Great Escape, The (1963) .... Capt. Virgil 'The Cooler King' Hilts
War Lover, The (1962) .... Capt. Buzz Rickson
Hell Is for Heroes (1962) .... Pvt. John Reese
Honeymoon Machine, The (1961) .... Lt. Fergie Howard
Magnificent Seven, The (1960) .... Vin
Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, The (1960) .... George Fowler... aka St. Louis Bank Robbery, The (1960)
Never So Few (1959) .... Cpl. Bill Ringa... aka Campaign Burma (1959) (USA: alternative title)
Blob, The (1958) (as Steven McQueen) .... Steve Andrews
"Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958) TV Series .... Josh Randall
Never Love a Stranger (1958) .... Martin Cabell
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) (uncredited) .... Fidel

Filmography for John Sturges
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000401/
Eagle Has Landed, The (1976)
McQ (1974)
Valdez, il mezzosangue (1973) ... aka Chino (1974) (France) (USA) ... aka Caballos salvajes (1974) (Spain) ... aka Valdez Horses, The (1973) ... aka Valdez the Halfbreed (1973) (UK) ... aka Valdez, il mezzosangue (1973) (Italy) ... aka Wild Horses (1973)
Joe Kidd (1972) ... aka Joe Kidd (1972) (USA)
Marooned (1969) ... aka Space Travelers (1969) (USA: reissue title)
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Hour of the Gun (1967)
Hallelujah Trail, The (1965)
Satan Bug, The (1965)
Great Escape, The (1963)
Girl Named Tamiko, A (1963)
Sergeants 3 (1962)
By Love Possessed (1961)
Magnificent Seven, The (1960)
Never So Few (1959) ... aka Campaign Burma (1959) (USA: alternative title)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) ... aka One Angry Day (1959) (USA: alternative title)
Old Man and the Sea, The (1958)
Law and Jake Wade, The (1958)
Saddle the Wind (1958) (uncredited)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Backlash (1956)
Scarlet Coat, The (1955)
Underwater! (1955) ... aka Big Rainbow, The (1955) (USA)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Escape from Fort Bravo (1954)
Fast Company (1953)
Jeopardy (1953)
Girl in White, The (1952) ... aka So Bright the Flame (1952) (UK)
It's a Big Country (1951)
People Against O'Hara, The (1951)
Kind Lady (1951)
Magnificent Yankee, The (1950) ... aka Man with Thirty Sons, The (1950) (UK)
Right Cross (1950)
Mystery Street (1950) ... aka Murder at Harvard (1950)
Capture, The (1950)
Walking Hills, The (1949)
Best Man Wins (1948)
Sign of the Ram, The (1948)
Thunderbolt (1947)
Keeper of the Bees (1947)
For the Love of Rusty (1947)
Alias Mr. Twilight (1946)
Shadowed (1946)
Man Who Dared, The (1946)

About the film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/fullcredits

It is oddly appropriate that John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven is an Americanized remake of Akira Kurosawa's masterful Japanese epic Seven Samurai (1954). Seven Samurai had not only been largely inspired by American Westerns, but its popularity in the U.S. helped to revitalize the Western genre in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. While Sturges' film does not compete with Kurosawa's in terms of either visual dexterity or thematic complexity, it is still a rousing adventure story that not only includes a brilliant cast, but explores some of the deeper contradictions of the mythic noble outlaw that was so endemic to the American Western genre.
The majority of The Magnificent Seven is set in Mexico, where a peaceful village of farmers is under constant threat from a vicious bandit named Calvera (Eli Wallach), who rides in from time to time with his gang of forty strong and steals the village's food and supplies, leaving them barely enough to survive. Finally fed up with living under Calvera's thumb, several of the villagers go north to Texas in order to find guns for hire who will come down and help them fight.

The first man they convince to help them is Chris (Yul Brynner), a wandering Cajun gunslinger with a conscience and a strong sense of nobility. He teams up with another gunslinger named Vin (Steve McQueen), and together they slowly assemble a group of desperate men who nonetheless cling to some vestiges of honour in a world that is quickly modernizing and making their kind scarce (this theme would be taken to its logical extreme in Sam Peckinpah's 1969 masterpiece The Wild Bunch).

The final group also includes Britt (James Coburn), O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), Lee (Robert Vaughn), and Harry Luck (Brad Dexter). Lastly there is Chico (Horst Buchholz), a young, would-be gunfighter whose role was played in the Seven Samurai by the great Toshiro Mifune. Chico is naive and high-spirited, with more machismo than brains, yet he also represents the future. Buchholz plays Chico with energy and a sense of comedy, but he does not bring to the role the kind of comic sadness that made Mifune so poignant and hilarious in Samurai.

The first half of the film details how Chris and Vin put the group together--the formation of "The Magnificent Seven"--while the second half deals with their battles against Calvera. There are two climactic battle scenes between Calvera's men and the villagers led by the seven gunslingers. Director John Sturges, who had extensive experience directing both action films and Westerns such as Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), stages these battle with simple efficiency. They are not as visually compelling as either Kurosawa's work or what Peckinpah would bring to the genre 10 years later, but they are exciting and well-paced, with a strong sense of urgency and a clear notion of what is at stake.
Throughout The Magnificent Seven, Sturges displays his keen sense of efficiency; there is not a wasted frame or line of dialogue in the whole film. This ensures a quick pace and maximum audience involvement, yet it sacrifices some of the more subtle humanistic qualities that set Seven Samurai apart.

Sturges relies largely on his talented cast of then-unknowns (Brynner, who had won the 1957 Oscar for The King & I, was the only true marquee star) to carry the film's thematic burden. You can see why these men were cast: All of them have unique, memorable faces that convey both conviction and desolation. They play men who have come to the end of their ropes, and all they have left to do to salvage their nobility is to protect a poor village of farmers. Harry Luck's insistence, even with his dying breath, that there were hidden riches in the hills around the village is testament to their desperation. Yet, all of them attain greater heights of humanity by sacrificing themselves in a just cause.

In playing Calvera, Eli Wallach does an excellent job of conveying how closely associated he is with the members of the Magnificent Seven. After all, they are all gunslingers and outlaws; the only obvious difference between them is which side of the line they stand on in this particular situation. This makes the film much more complex than it first appears, as it becomes increasingly difficult to draw simple distinctions of good and evil. We naturally want to side with the Magnificent Seven, yet we are constantly reminded that they are criminals with no ties to land, family, or nation (something that was always true of Western heroes, but never consciously explored).

Yet, at the same time, there is something about the conviction and determination of the seven men to help protect the village that assures us there is at least some difference between them and men like Calvera. One of the key moments comes when one of the Mexican villagers assumes that all the outlaws care about is the money. Chris quickly puts him right by saying, "Men in this line of work are not all alike. Some care about nothing but money; others, for reasons of their own, enjoy only the danger." It is that moment more than any other in the film that makes you realize the importance of individual humanity, even among gunslingers. They may all be outlaws and killers, but they are not all the same.