cult film freak: john frankenheimer

Showing posts with label john frankenheimer. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 5/26/2025 / No comments / action , burt lancaster , heist , jeanne moreau , john frankenheimer , paul scofield , sixties , train , wolfgang preiss , world war II

BURT LANCASTER STEALING JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'THE TRAIN'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8-mulIS3BqT10g0Ax30bCyPwQSWwVFW0nzyuXb9sR3QZqjolhVbW2IZcsvY5Ori9XZ5y33swU5QLqR5td72rZ8a5Ie6iN1EXo36BaR1S95mya74DQ8Ms1J5zrMIY82mxbQczD6mH-q6zkxmf0ct1Cr0MtEEYMqV24qzMUqfEjKeBjMLlmqZ6bUsmQP-p/s1980/Screen%20Shot%202025-12-14%20at%201.03.35%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1980" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8-mulIS3BqT10g0Ax30bCyPwQSWwVFW0nzyuXb9sR3QZqjolhVbW2IZcsvY5Ori9XZ5y33swU5QLqR5td72rZ8a5Ie6iN1EXo36BaR1S95mya74DQ8Ms1J5zrMIY82mxbQczD6mH-q6zkxmf0ct1Cr0MtEEYMqV24qzMUqfEjKeBjMLlmqZ6bUsmQP-p/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-12-14%20at%201.03.35%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burt Lancaster in THE TRAIN Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>Not since Jean Renior's French classic LA BÊTE HUMAINE has the rugged, grimy, grungy and grainy B&W workings of freight trains been so up-close and palpable... this an American-made war film about the French, where Burt Lancaster teams with director John Frankenheimer, an auteur inserting documentary-style camerawork into mainstream action...That's not only about particular action-packed scenes but pretty much every movement: Lancaster (doing his own stunts) and fellow train-workers saving famous classic paintings from the Nazis at the tail-end of World War II...

action, burt lancaster, heist, jeanne moreau, john frankenheimer, paul scofield, sixties, train, wolfgang preiss, world war II

BURT LANCASTER STEALING JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'THE TRAIN'

Burt Lancaster in THE TRAIN Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2 Not since Jean Renior's French classic LA BÊTE HUMAINE has the rugged, grimy, grun...

GENE HACKMAN RETURNING FOR 'THE FRENCH CONNECTON II'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTw8c1vhHV36_v2zP7lbef6uscchCk6jZIAxEcbRdBby_jf-Ra-0HJHJexFtqemS41eH_MCIiIN5TEXzCauVuGCQzJnzEUjTwtTSBzl5HxVIsL87x-q40IfFw238q_qaLDmkgBJzdrcCW_JtCnj_9IJJToi0021p_vVm7sFZW42hbFUjBfjFneE8c4LU2F/s1312/1-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="1312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTw8c1vhHV36_v2zP7lbef6uscchCk6jZIAxEcbRdBby_jf-Ra-0HJHJexFtqemS41eH_MCIiIN5TEXzCauVuGCQzJnzEUjTwtTSBzl5HxVIsL87x-q40IfFw238q_qaLDmkgBJzdrcCW_JtCnj_9IJJToi0021p_vVm7sFZW42hbFUjBfjFneE8c4LU2F/s16000/1-1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION II Year: 1975 Rating: *** </td></tr></tbody></table>There's a kind of guilty pleasure watching a thinned-down Gene Hackman as New York's favorite tough cop Popeye Doyle being force-fed heroin in a Euro-slum, and then kicking it cold turkey whilst squirming, vomiting, and eventually screaming about Mickey Mantle... We begin in France and this time remain there. Unlike his New York stomping grounds, Doyle can't get a decent whiskey buzz, this time gets beat up by a black guy, finds it impossible interrogating perps, and is without partner/anchor Roy Scheider, who, that same year, was busy hunting a Great White Shark for Steven Speilberg...

action, bernard fresson, cop, drugs, ed lauter, exploitation, fernando rey, gene hackman, john frankenheimer, sequel, seventies

GENE HACKMAN RETURNING FOR 'THE FRENCH CONNECTON II'

Gene Hackman in THE FRENCH CONNECTION II Year: 1975 Rating: *** There's a kind of guilty pleasure watching a thinned-down Gene Hackman ...

ROBERT FOXWORTH BEARS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'PROPHECY'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqu-jae__wDcdUv07R_ONjAex7gyl-GSi3z345ls4kNEk5AchpolvLIfHo2GTMdhMOrNQMI2Uh1iSTwnoxUE3iCmQwF5g9oGvtY_eCTwrUWWOJuXGYEi3mzvsE0WQCUcV2Hry0yJjsfZQuRGBbSLkOjL2LVqwmuc-JoFHmcflgF8-XwUQUy9gGR0kGq5K/s1717/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="1717" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqu-jae__wDcdUv07R_ONjAex7gyl-GSi3z345ls4kNEk5AchpolvLIfHo2GTMdhMOrNQMI2Uh1iSTwnoxUE3iCmQwF5g9oGvtY_eCTwrUWWOJuXGYEi3mzvsE0WQCUcV2Hry0yJjsfZQuRGBbSLkOjL2LVqwmuc-JoFHmcflgF8-XwUQUy9gGR0kGq5K/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: PROPHECY Year: 1979 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>At one point, when idealistic city doctor Robert Foxworthy and quiet musician wife Taila Shire are in the Oregon woods investigating strange happenings around a Native American community, we cut to an immense paper-mill with formidable music that would usually prelude a march of Nazi soldiers, or their mustached leader...Meanwhile polite antagonist Richard Dysart, a few years before being part of a gory monstrous takeover in THE THING, is subtly covering things up: overall making the liberal-minded eco-horror PROPHECY far more ambiguous than if it were made today (or in the last thirty-years)...

armand assante, eco-horror, john frankenheimer, mia bendixsen, richard dysart, robert foxworth, talia shire

ROBERT FOXWORTH BEARS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'PROPHECY'

Title: PROPHECY Year: 1979 Rating: ***1/2 At one point, when idealistic city doctor Robert Foxworthy and quiet musician wife Taila Shire are...

MARLON BRANDO & VAL KILMER RUIN 'THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcpkoBSsUNliEi-EKOlUGI5kMxQSZdYCRnnU5XByWA3e_K_Gj7YSOQalshkw41o-6CJ8iQpu5jK3RCGpCbg-UJYY8RyQjkdS6YsMnKnbUAIvmZr7ND2IKcRNuDMxCtw0N66-tVh46AcTtt7h2pnh1bsy96uxXEsr2AA9NhbB1yN7700q2uflPUbuJwIfE/s1869/Screen%20Shot%202024-11-02%20at%2010.20.55%20AM%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="1869" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcpkoBSsUNliEi-EKOlUGI5kMxQSZdYCRnnU5XByWA3e_K_Gj7YSOQalshkw41o-6CJ8iQpu5jK3RCGpCbg-UJYY8RyQjkdS6YsMnKnbUAIvmZr7ND2IKcRNuDMxCtw0N66-tVh46AcTtt7h2pnh1bsy96uxXEsr2AA9NhbB1yN7700q2uflPUbuJwIfE/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202024-11-02%20at%2010.20.55%20AM%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Val Kilmer in THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU Year: 1996 Rating: **</td></tr></tbody></table>As the story goes, original director and screenwriter Richard Stanley was fired from THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, replaced by veteran John Frankenheimer who, prone to making action movies, seems confused whether it's an aggressive PLANET OF THE APES creature-uprising prequel or the quirky sci-fi/horror that the quirky Richard Stanley probably intended... What's really strange is that big-budget superstar Bruce Willis was going to star in that original arthouse horror... replaced with offbeat British actor David Thewlis, seeming more like he'd be Stanley's choice over Frankenheimer's, who would have been able to do a high-octane Bruce Willis flick with his aged-eyes closed... meanwhile the more ambiguous Thewlis allowed the strange story to unfold before his vulnerable eyes as opposed to Willis (or Rob Morrow even), who would probably seem far above and beyond the situation... Thewis is there for the audience and the story...

creature, horror, john frankenheimer, marlon brando, nineties, science-fiction, val kilmer

MARLON BRANDO & VAL KILMER RUIN 'THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU'

Val Kilmer in THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU Year: 1996 Rating: ** As the story goes, original director and screenwriter Richard Stanley was fired...

BRUCE DERN WITH MARTHE KELLER & ROBERT SHAW 'BLACK SUNDAY'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mSSFPpkSzNP5KYwFDm7JXAMiXGKxIGfv6du4RqqOAAa_Y6luRkRCTKpwE7xz9yzoX-K6YUYnsiyO_vHrjt7FX341IXJuyRCkC4e_1vH7b2b7TEKOotlwdwfjP0zp5GJqFORZAkhPrHFUBezJkABE4LGKJ6oLTyjlz4SpwgivIz2CL1kSP3qdSJhm5h-Y/s2296/Screen%20Shot%202024-04-08%20at%205.52.06%20PM%202-1%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="928" data-original-width="2296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mSSFPpkSzNP5KYwFDm7JXAMiXGKxIGfv6du4RqqOAAa_Y6luRkRCTKpwE7xz9yzoX-K6YUYnsiyO_vHrjt7FX341IXJuyRCkC4e_1vH7b2b7TEKOotlwdwfjP0zp5GJqFORZAkhPrHFUBezJkABE4LGKJ6oLTyjlz4SpwgivIz2CL1kSP3qdSJhm5h-Y/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202024-04-08%20at%205.52.06%20PM%202-1%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bruce Dern in BLACK SUNDAY Year: 1977 Rating: ****</td></tr></tbody></table>At the peak of Bruce Dern's 1970's career playing insane, frantic characters, Palestinian terrorist Marthe Keller cautiously asks if he has a deadly contraption (that shoots tiny shards upon explosion) ready as Dern quickly answers, finishing what he thinks she was really getting to, "Do I feel CRAZY today?" She's the perfectly patient black-widow moll to Dern's off-kilter Vietnam vet, who flies the Goodyear blimp over football games and will soon work the targeted Super Bowl... while on the heroic side is another contrary team-up in Robert Shaw's brooding yet effectively lethal Israeli commando with edgy, bickering sidekick Steven Keats...

action, bruce dern, fritz weaver, john frankenheimer, marthe keller, michael v. gazzo, robert shaw, seventies, steven keats, walter gotell

BRUCE DERN WITH MARTHE KELLER & ROBERT SHAW 'BLACK SUNDAY'

Bruce Dern in BLACK SUNDAY Year: 1977 Rating: **** At the peak of Bruce Dern's 1970's career playing insane, frantic characters, Pal...

BURT LANCASTER AND GENE HACKMAN SOARING 'THE GYPSY MOTHS'

action, burt lancaster, carl reindel, deborah kerr, drama, gene hackman, john frankenheimer, romance, scott wilson, sheree north, sixties, sport, suspense, william windom

BURT LANCASTER AND GENE HACKMAN SOARING 'THE GYPSY MOTHS'

Scott Wilson's yellow suited character's jump YEAR: 1969 John Frankenheimer's THE GYPSY MOTHS has some incredible aerial sho...

RICHARD HARRIS IN '99 AND 44/100% DEAD' W/ EDMOND O'BRIEN

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 1974</td></tr>
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This crime/comedy curio has a crazy title and a quirky dark comedic intro reminiscent of the comparably underpar <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2011/05/gang-that-couldnt-shoot-straight.html">THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT</a>, here involving an underwater mafia burial ground on the waterfront dock where a young mob upstart is moving in on an old-timer... 
 
With capable direction by capable director John Frankenheimer and starring Richard Harris as a freelance hit-man/problem-fixer named Harry Crown, sheds its silly skin pretty damn quick... 
 
Harris, hired by Edmond O'Brien as a cigar-smoking Uncle Frank, is so ultra serious his cemented expressions alone force the film into submission, adhering to a severe and violent plot-line: he must stop the other side from moving in on Frank's territory, and to keep the old fella... and himself, a partner and a few ladies... alive in the process. 
 
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">99 MOVIE SCORE: ***1/2</td></tr>
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Not like anything was wrong with the opening five minutes involving a cute whistling musical intro and an animated credit sequence, used on most of the poster artwork, but since edgy grit ruled the 1970's crime genre... and if you cut down an overlong love scene establishing good girl/love interest Anne Turkel and add a bit more to the old/young partnership of Harris and I DISMEMBER MAMA co-star Zooey Hall as the young, vulnerable but faithfully dependable Tony... this is a perfect fit for the always-intriguing Harris and serves as effective ammunition in the overall Frankenheimer crime canon. 
 
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWWUGI4PmSpGbg9hB6OzE3jbYaUvqAL91LMXfIV8-Z231l8NZMmOkCc_YK7_lIjgfXhpSLzm-chj3mxxfh8fhtmD2zPx3P1ciYosCzfCKXpqWlOANmT5BHEmkvzQNPIaUya2BE0qEgbw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-06-30+at+1.14.14+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWWUGI4PmSpGbg9hB6OzE3jbYaUvqAL91LMXfIV8-Z231l8NZMmOkCc_YK7_lIjgfXhpSLzm-chj3mxxfh8fhtmD2zPx3P1ciYosCzfCKXpqWlOANmT5BHEmkvzQNPIaUya2BE0qEgbw/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-06-30+at+1.14.14+PM.png" width="143" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With Janice Heiden</td></tr>
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While O'Brien, in his last feature-length role, was said (by Peter Jason in a Cult Film Freak podcast) to be in ill heath, and not so "with it," on the set of Orson Welles' unfinished THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, he does a fine job as the kind of mobster – though bordering on obvious satire – the likes of an era where the man himself derived: you can imagine a young Uncle Frank sharing a cell with James Cagney (but not undercover) only here he's... 
 
Despite the situation of being bullied out of business by Bradford Dillman's intentionally overboard Big Eddie... having a fine life with one of the prettiest ladies of that decade, Janice Heiden as his favorite mistress, Clara, her wandering eyes glued on Harris's Crowne, older but not as old and also very fit, tough as nails and best yet, completely resilient. 
 
From a hotel room shoot-out to a dangerous bridge battle against sadistic chief goon Chuck Conners, Harry's an assassin more the creative likes of James Bond than those gun-wilding lug-heads he's pitted against. His impossibility to fail makes the movie less suspenseful, sure, yet the entire bloody romp becomes more enjoyable – seeing just how many corners he can sneak into and out of and, on the film-making end, those nifty zooms and quick-edits are all part of the terrific, underrated, under-appreciated whole. 
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Opening Title Sequence for Edmond O'Brien's last film in 1974 along with a review of a 1954 Film Noir</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edmond O'Brien talks to while Janice Heiden makes eyes at Richard Harris in 99 AND 44/100% DEAD</td></tr>
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action, bradford dillman, dark comedy, edmond o'brien, exploitation, janice heiden, john frankenheimer, mob, richard harris, seventies

RICHARD HARRIS IN '99 AND 44/100% DEAD' W/ EDMOND O'BRIEN

year: 1974 This crime/comedy curio has a crazy title and a quirky dark comedic intro reminiscent of the comparably underpar THE GANG THA...

Written by James M. Tate / 6/23/2016 / No comments / burt lancaster , john frankenheimer , prison , sixties , telly savalas

BURT LANCASTER IN BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Twilight Time Blu Ray YEAR: 1962</td></tr>
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It's impossible to know the truth, the real truth, about something, or in this case, someone who gained fame from accomplishing something pretty amazing. That being Robert Stroud, given the name THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, which was more of a legendary status. On the infamous island fortress, he was already known and famous for what he did in Leavenworth, given free reign to work with birds since he was downright violent around people. Meanwhile, in Alcatraz, he had nothing to do with those feathery friends at all... His reputation proceeded him, and Alcatraz is a much edgier nickname than where he truly broke ground: A more lenient prison that, thankfully, the warden (or actually, several wardens) permitted this strange, desperate lone wolf, in prison for murdering a man who supposedly beat up one of his "girls," be able to keep a good number of birds inside his isolation cell. Much of the film, directed in a beautifully contained and hypnotic manner by John Frankenheimer, shows Stroud during the good times and bad, the birds he raised eventually dying from unnamed illnesses; one he eventually cures them of, which is what made Stroud famous – a violent man with a "third grade education" was able to find a vaccine to save birds – first his own, a mere microcosm for the world, including farm chickens and... Anyhow, when it came to his studies, Stroud, the BIRDMAN OF LEAVENWORTH, was more than an expert: He was a guru and a genius. And that brooding aura is captured nicely by Burt Lancaster in the first two acts in Leavenworth where he's treated like a king, befriended by guard Neville Brand in a surprisingly passive role, and an endearing lunatic in the cell-next-door played by Telly Savalas, who was able to have his own winged pet. But being more than pets to Stroud, Lancaster, with his expressions alone and no dialogue at all, captures the love one man had for a species, other than his own!

burt lancaster, john frankenheimer, prison, sixties, telly savalas