Word: thrillers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dead Reckoning (Columbia) would be quite a good thriller if it kept the edge and pace of its first hour or so. During that time ex-Paratrooper Humphrey Bogart hustles all over Gulf City, from morgue to Catholic church to cabaret, in his efforts to learn who rubbed out his comrade-at-arms (William Prince), and why. He becomes interested, particularly, in his late pal's hoarse sweetheart (Lizabeth Scott), in a suave nightclub proprietor (Morris Carnovsky) and in Carnovsky's fat strong-arm boy (Marvin Miller), who likes to torture his victims to soft music...
This storytelling technique is not exactly a revolutionary development in moviemaking, but it is an unusual, effective and clever stunt, particularly well-suited to an action-crammed thriller. Most of the formidable technical problems were ingeniously solved. In his first job, Director Montgomery (who is president of the Screen Actors Guild and something of a Hollywood intellectual) dared to do something different...
...both sides of the Atlantic, thriller-dealers were set ashake by a rather small boo from Msgr. Ronald Knox (The Body in the Silo). "I say the detective story is in danger of getting played out," wrote Father Knox in the Roman Catholic weekly, the Tablet. ". . . . The stories get cleverer and cleverer, but the readers are getting cleverer and cleverer...
Even the strait-laced BBC has its wild & woolly moments. The woolliest: 6:45 every week night, when British youngsters gasp at the well-planned perils of Dick Barton, Special Agent, hero of BBC's only nonstop thriller.* Every night, just as death's door opens, time's up. "What will Dick do? Listen in tomorrow night...
...Madeleine (20th Century-Fox) is the third spy thriller to be culled from the wartime hush-hush files of the Office of Strategic Services. This one bests both its predecessors (Paramount's O.S.S., Warner's Cloak & Dagger) by a wide margin. In fact, it is as good, nerve-racking fun as any spy chase since The House on 92nd Street, which was worked on by the same competent team (Producer Louis de Rochemont, Director Henry Hathaway, Writer John Monks...