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These old Jack Arnold films are a perfect example of how expectations don’t always meet reality. Because if you’re like me, you have a certain preconception about how these movies will go — how they will look — and thus you may have written them off. Part of this might be th read more

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and they were without form or void.” This not only the beginning of the book of Genesis and the creation story but also the film Creature from the Black Lagoon. If this sounds like a curious inclusion, it fits the way the story is read more

It Came From Outer Space looks to check all the boxes when we consider prototypical 1950s Sci-Fi. Based on a treatment by Ray Bradbury, it was shot by director Jack Arnold in black and white to utilize 3D. These are only some of the trappings it offers up in line with much of what you would expect read more

Masculin Féminin (1966) Hello to everyone who has taken the time to read this film blog! First off, thank you so much for reading! I’m really bad at self-promotion so the fact that anyone would take time to look over something I’ve written still humbles me. I’ve been amazed to see read more

“Times had changed. It was the age of James Bond and Vietnam.” The film opens with a casual conversation between two young people: the young man, Paul (Jean-Pierre Leaud), bugs the girl, Madeleine (Chantal Goya), sitting across the way. Then, this conversation between young people in a read more

“Photography is truth, and cinema is truth 24 times a second.” Although Le Petit Soldat was released in 1963 — no thanks to the censors — it was actually filmed in 1960. This context is all-important because Jean-Luc Godard is still fresh off the sensibilities of Breathless, read more

Doris Dowling has a name that sticks out in the opening credits for the very reason she was an American actress and she offered up a particularly memorable role as Alan Ladd’s vitriolic wife in The Blue Dahlia. Here she’s an Italian playing the moll of a two-bit hoodlum wanted by the po read more

You half expect cinema to have remained dormant in wartorn Europe during the 1940s. That’s part of what makes Ossessione such a fascinating curio within this context. In fact, the film almost never made it out of the decade alive. One can only imagine how unpopular the picture might have been read more

It occurs to me, like with Jean-Pierre Melville (and so many others), that the landscape and context of the war years left such a lasting impact on Robert Rossellini, and they are made manifest in his films. Although it’s shot over a decade later, there’s still a lived-in quality, commi read more

Europa ’51 is one of those films butchered by time and yet eventually, it was stitched back together to resemble how it was intended to be viewed by its director. Its serpentine history to restoration hints at its subversive elements, although on the surface, it seems like a fairly common bre read more

“I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.” – Romans 10:20 (taken from Isaiah) Isabella Rosselini gave an interview where she posited her father was not so much a neorealist but a maker of “probable films.” In other read more

For those familiar with the tales of Odysseus, My Name is Nobody earns its name from the witty trick the Greek hero uses to escape the Cyclops. However, the movie should draw more comparisons to the works of Sergio Leone than Homer. It’s difficult not to immediately calibrate the film’s read more

When I was living abroad it was one of my European friends who first introduced me to Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. I had never heard of them and was anxious to learn something about the duo. Regardless of what their names imply, both men are Italians with aliases befitting American action heroes. read more

It’s true that Peter Fonda comes out of a western tradition of sorts, which is merely an indication of his family’s presence in the film industry. Obviously, one of his father’s identifying genres was the western, and he worked with some of the greats from John Ford to Sergio Leon read more

When the Columbia statue whips off her toga and comes out with western wear and six shooters, the movie’s intentions are made quite clear. And if that’s not enough Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye appear on the scene, decked out, strumming their banjos. They become the accompanying bards r read more

In Cowboy, Delmer Daves and Glenn Ford continue their fruitful partnership by examining the life of a different sort of cattleman. The movie opens on a grand mid-century establishment soon to be frequented by a  cowboy named Reece. Everything is colorful and ornate in the Spanish style with gaudy c read more

Roberto Rossellini famously dedicated Germany Year Zero to the memory of his son Romano. After such personal forays into Italy’s own tumultuous relationship with the war years in Rome Open City and then the interwoven portraiture of Paisan, the final picture in the trilogy feels a bit like an read more

“Paisan” feels like a ubiquitous term. At the very least, it seems to have entered into a shared vernacular most Americans understand. And of course, this is part of the reason Roberto Rosselini’s follow-up to Rome Open City employs the word. His newfound audience would be able to read more

A lot of memorable films are instigated with a jubilant wedding. A couple takes a photo out in front of the church and ride off triumphantly, leaving friends and relations in their wake. Like most of its brethren, Il Tetto falls back to earth with a more sobering reality. The wife takes the bus wit read more

It’s easy to be skeptical of anthologies, portmanteaus, or these kinds of thematic character pieces. However, The Gold of Naples’s structure, built out of 6 interlocking vignettes, suits the talents of Vitorrio De Sica since he’s always invested in a world of characters — em read more