Whatever Wilby, Wilby

Memory is a funny thing.  For decades I had recalled that as a youth, I was drawn to watch The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) by seeing commercials depicting Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine on the run in the South African countryside, shackled together like some apartheid-era variation on Poitier’s The Defiant Ones (1958).  Imagine my amused [...]

Read Full Post »

Bradley’s Hundred #41-50

Continuing the explication of my hundred favorite films, listed on the B100 page accessible above. The Godfather: My Dad and I avoided this for many years, he because he thought it glamorized the Mafia (I don’t think it does; it’s just a good movie about bad people) and me because I thought I couldn’t take [...]

Read Full Post »

Super Mario, Part II

Before I conclude my cursory examination of the great Mario Bava’s directorial career, here are some personal reminiscences from my Filmfax interview with John Saxon, who starred in Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much:  “I ran to make this film.  It was brought to me by the girl involved, Letícia Román, who was Letícia [...]

Read Full Post »

Culp Ability

Kelly Robinson is no more: Robert Culp, who played said agent opposite Bill Cosby’s Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking interracial series I Spy (1965-68), has died at 79; weirdly, he was born just forty-three days after my mother. I was a little young for that show, and I must confess that I’m unfamiliar with the [...]

Read Full Post »

Dutch Master

Okay, now that TCM’s Kurosawa retrospective is over, you’re all allowed—nay, encouraged—to devote your Tuesday evenings to the new Elmore Leonard series Justified on FX. I haven’t had a chance to watch the second episode yet, so all I will say about last week’s premiere is: good cast, good characters, good story, good production. Like [...]

Read Full Post »

The Other Titan, Part IV

Continuing our reflections on the late, great Elleston Trevor. I didn’t get to see Elleston in person very many times, since I live in Connecticut and he lived in Arizona, which is a story in itself. Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of his novel The Flight of the Phoenix (see “Bradley’s Hundred #31-40″) was shot in the Arizona [...]

Read Full Post »

Reminder

I’m recording Kurosawa on TCM.  Are you?  Don’t make me come down there!

Read Full Post »

Super Mario, Part I

My brief mention of Mario Bava the other day (see “Tim the Enchanter”) reminds me that I’ve given him short shrift here, which is regrettable not only because of my affection for his work, but also because I’ve failed to sing the praises of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark.  Written by Video [...]

Read Full Post »

William F. Nolan

Fifth in a series of six previously unpublished profiles. William F. Nolan was a core member—along with Charles Beaumont, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson—of the Southern California School of Writers that revolutionized the SF, fantasy, and horror genre on page and screen. Dubbed the Matheson Mafia by Bloch in his autobiography, it is [...]

Read Full Post »

Nick (and Norah) at Night

Yes, it’s true that I normally gravitate toward films featuring guns, monsters and/or naked women (more on that another time), but it’s also true that I’m an incurable romantic, even if my idea of a love story is more The Abyss or Altered States than, well, Love Story. One slightly more conventional love story that [...]

Read Full Post »