I'm sure I have EX-LADY somewhere. I distinctly remember recording it.

This Gun For Hire , released in 1942, has some claims to be the earliest true film noir. The Maltese Falcon was earlier, but is really (to my way of thinking) more a straight private-eye movie than a film noir. In This Gun For Hire Alan Ladd plays a taciturn hitman with a surprisingly sentimental s...

Illicit , in 1931, gave Barbara Stanwyck her first starring role. She plays a young woman, Anne Vincent, who doesn’t want to marry her boyfriend. She wants to keep living in sin, because that’s what they’ve been doing and she’s been thoroughly enjoying it, and because she believes marriage kills ro...

I appreciate the early Welles films. As much as I love film, I still cannot fathom how so many people can call Citizen Kane the best film ever made. I think it's his weakest film. I think he just got better and better. Touch of Evil and The Trial are his masterpieces, IMHO. I definitely belong to t...

mrsl wrote:It's hard to believe he was not nominated, let alone win for either Cape Fear or Night of the Hunter.

It's the flashy performances that win Oscars, not the genuinely deserving ones.

mrsl wrote:Mr. Arkadin:

I know what you mean about Casablanca and a matter of taste. A million people to your one love the movie

Make that two! I find it a terribly overrated rather dull film.

mrsl wrote: He did a fairly decent job on Touch of Evil, Magnificent Ambersons, and The Third Man,

The Third Man was directed by Carol Reed.

Mitchum also liked to pretend that he didn't take acting seriously and didn't have a high opinion of his own talent. I suspect he actually took acting much more seriously than he let on. He was a remarkably subtle actor, who could do more with a lifted eyebrow than most actors could do with ten page...

MikeBSG wrote:I've never seen the original.

It's a superb film. Very scary. Not scary by 1962 standards, scary by any standards. Mitchum is amazing.

I don't need no stinkin critic. I buy classic films about 95% of the time, most of which I have seen many times previously. :wink: I very rarely buy a movie on DVD if I've already seen it. There are just so many movies I haven't seen! But then my obsession with classic movies is only about a decade...

I usually avoid anything with a Tarantino comection, but I may have to have a look for that one!

How do you decide which film to buy next on DVD? Do you have a favourite film review website? Do you read up about classic movies before you buy them on DVD? Or do you read up on them before you watch them?

I'd be inclined to give people a couple of weeks to get hold of the movie. Unless it's on TCM, which mean I won't be able to participate, due to the different (and very much inferior) scheduling of TCM in Australia. So I'd be inclined to pick something that's shown on TCM, but that is also fairly ea...

The Innocents , released in 1961, is based on the classic Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw . Conveying the uncertainties and ambiguities of the story on film would seem to be a daunting task but director Jack Clayton has done a superb job. If anything the movie is perhaps even better than ...

I liked The Getaway . I know a lot people hated it, but it was a decent crime film. I liked The Getaway as well. Even with Ali McGraw! A very stylish film. A pity, though, that he dropped the remarkably cynical and delightfully twisted ending of the novel. Junior Bonner was an interesting movie als...