Tag Archives: John Huston

Dec 20 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Bogart’s Sam Spade is fascinating to watch. His business partner is murdered and he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this loss, but his jaded schtick runs the full gamut, distorts itself, the lad by the end a kaleidoscope of emotions (some real, some not so) in this riot of a film noir. I’ve never been so engrossed by the pursuit of an ornament. There is a grand metaphor in there somewhere.

Pristine deep-focus cinematography, mainly of conversations between shady characters in rooms cocooned by Venetian blinds, the occasional appearance of a pistol, typifies this period of noir. But this is as riveting as it gets. You remain captivated as you’re constantly trying to interpret what a person really wants and what their words actually reveal about themselves – you become a detective, deciphering signs, actively reading language.

This is a deserved classic. You cannot take your eyes off Bogart as he’s so unusual in look and delivery. 

And Peter Lorre’s deranged eyes were born for celluloid.

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Jul 27 2024
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

Prizzi’s Honor (1985).

Yet another doozy from the ’80s starring Kathleen Turner. She is synonymous with the decade and doesn’t exist outside of it in a cinematic sense, a fate shared by a rarefied club of period-tied stars like Burt Reynolds (1970s), a heyday of hits followed by relative obscurity and the occasional flourish. This movie is a swansong of sorts from the great John Huston; it’s a testament to his talents that he somehow made it from the The Maltese Falcon (1941) all the way to this, a career spanning, indeed making, the history of the superlative decades of cinema as we know them.

It’s a fine wee movie, even if the cast have way too much gravitas about them for starring in what is a bit of black comedy fluff. The score by the renowned Alex North is okay, the soundtrack less so. It’s a recycling of tunes popularised in other movies. Why do filmmakers do this? If a musical piece is in a seminal flick, just don’t bother appropriating it again.

Does my tits in.

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Feb 16 2023
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Britain, Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, World War Two

Escape to Victory (1981).

How does this even exist? The cast is something out of a piss-up, a charades gone wrong. Sly, Bobby Moore, Michael Caine, Ossie Ardiles, Pelé, Max von Sydow. Erm, what? And to boot it’s made by John Huston.

Less interesting is the movie, a run-of-the-mill affair, the footy action shot with all the imagination of your random YouTuber.

But it still fascinates merely by its existence. And that’s why it hasn’t been destroyed. It’s a testament, a relic, if you will.

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