Word: films
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Buccaneer (Paramount) introduces to the moviegoing millions the most exciting new film personality since Clark Gable with a mustache: Yul Brynner with hair. Yul did not really grow his own. The studio has provided him with a "transformation"-a curly, reddish-brown confection that suggests a sensitive blend of Bonaparte, Presley and well-kept Irish setter. Unfortunately, the picture will surely prove for many moviegoers, no less than it was for Actor Brynner, a hair-raising experience...
Inspector Maigret, which has been at the Exeter for several weeks, is a bit on the psychological side, but not quite intellectual enough to be disastrous, Based on a Georges Simenon novel, the film concerns the untimely demise of a long string of plump, middle-age women in a small Paris district. The murderer becomes overconfident, and in one of his triumphant moments makes the mistake of calling the famous Maigret to goad him into action. Once the pipe-smoking, perpetually weary Maigret arrives on the scene, however, the ball-game is clearly over for the murderer. Using most...
...time at all, Gabin finds himself involved with a rather unsavory assortment of jigolos, impotent husbands, virgin wifes, etc. Unfortunately, the identity of the murder is revealed, by a peculiar habit of knuckle cracking, to the audience near the middle of the film, and much of the suspense is lost, especially in the final scene when Gabin gives the killer-suspect, expertly acted by Jean Desailly, one of the finest and most subtle third degrees in recent film history...
...French are very much given to psychology and the like in their film making, and Inspector Maigret has more than its share. Mother-son, husband-wife, wife-mother-in-law relations are explored somewhat to the detriment of the story, but Gabin manages to turn the whole pot-pourri into a first-rate show...
...shoot-em-up fans have their day at the Brattle, where one of the finest French gangster flicks of all time is now showing. Razzia leaves nothing to be desired. The mystery which runs through the entire film does not reach its denouement until the very end, and there is enough violence to last all but the most sadistic for several weeks. Again Gabin is masterful, although he leaves the shooting to several excellently portrayed gangster types who expires at the film's end in a burst of machine gun fire...