Actors | Cagey Films

Roberto Gavaldón’s Untouched (Sombra Verde, 1954) on Blu-ray from Indicator

Posted on September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Yáscara (Ariadne Welter), raised far from society, expresses an unconstrained eroticism in Roberto Gavaldón's Untouched (1954)

Indicator have taken a break from their recent spate of Mexican genre movies by dipping a little deeper into the Calderón family archives. Untouched (Sombra Verde, 1954) is a torrid romantic melodrama with allegorical notes which trades in the urban noir of a movie like Emilio Fernández’s Victims of Sin (1950) for the primal jungle of Veracruz. Both were produced by Guillermo Calderón and show him pushing against the boundaries of censorship and testing how far cinema could push a frank depiction of sexuality in a society still very much under the sway of the Catholic Church.

Columbia Noir #6: The Whistler: Indicator Blu-ray review

Posted on August 14, 2024August 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Things go very wrong for trucker Steve Reynolds (Richard Dix) in William Clemens' The Thirteenth Hour (1947)

Indicator’s latest box set of noir B-movies is devoted to Columbia’s series adapted from a popular radio show in which the mysterious Whistler observes and comments on the fates of various characters whose lives go off the rails. In the first seven movies, character actor Richard Dix suffers a variety of situations, sometimes as victim, sometimes as the perpetrator of murder; after the actor’s death, the studio made one more film, replacing him with the bland Michael Duane, before retiring the Whistler for good.

Emilio Fernández’s Victimas del pecado (Victims of Sin, 1951): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 26, 2024June 24, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Emilio Fernández’s Victimas del pecado (Victims of Sin, 1951), newly restored in 4K from the original nitrate negative, is a Mexican musical melodrama loaded with tragedy punctuated with ecstatic dance numbers from star Ninón Sevilla, who plays a cabaret dancer whose life is upended when she takes responsibility for an abandoned baby. Taut direction by Fernández and stunning photography by the masterful Gabriel Figueroa provide a remarkable showcase for Sevilla’s considerable talent.

Spring 2024 viewing, part two

Posted on May 22, 2024May 20, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A strange young woman disrupts a middle-class home in Go Yeong-nam's Suddenly in the Dark (1981)

Continuing my survey of what I’ve been watching this Spring… Mondo Macabro Mondo Macabro is a label I haven’t mentioned much here, though they specialize in genre movies from around the world and I’ve discovered some real oddities through them – like H. Tjut Djalil’s Mystics in Bali (1981) and Juan Lopez Moctezuma’s Alucarda (1975). […]

The lasting pleasures of second-tier golden age Universal horror movies

Posted on April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ernest Sovac (Boris Karloff) makes unethical decisions to further his research in Arthur Lubin's Black Friday (1940)

Three two-disk sets from Eureka provide an overview of Universal Studios’ horror movies from the mid-’30s to the early ’50s, in the period when the first wave of early sound horrors petered out and briefly flourished again as low-budget B-movies as the Depression gave way to World War Two. Karloff and Lugosi are joined by notable, if lesser, genre figures like Lionel Atwill and Rondo Hatton in a mix of science fiction and the supernatural, with gangsters and Gothic trappings spicing the mix.

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers on Blu-ray from Criterion

Posted on March 27, 2024March 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Alonzo (Lon Chaney) realizes that his romantic feelings for Nanon (Joan Crawford) will never be returned in Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927)

Criterion’s two-disk Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers showcases three of the director’s best movies, including the peak of his long collaboration with Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927) and Browning’s masterpiece Freaks (1932) along with the lesser-known The Mystic (1925). Fine 2K transfers and some illuminating extras leave you hoping that more of Tod Browning’s work will turn up on disk in restored versions.

Winter 2024 viewing, part four: More other labels

Posted on March 13, 2024March 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

An enigmatic gunman (Jean-Louis Trintignant) seeks revenge in Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence (1968)

Yet more wide-ranging genre viewing – from classic and modern samurai to spaghetti western and ’40s supernatural noir and ’70s hard-boiled romance, ’50s exploitation horror to Hitler, Bigfoot and haunted 12″ vinyl.

Winter 2024 viewing, part two: Vinegar Syndrome

Posted on February 28, 2024February 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A brain chip turns Erica (Jade Leung) into a killing machine in Stephen Shin's Black Cat 2 (1992)

Recent Vinegar Syndrome releases offer a range of genres and styles and widely varying degrees of satisfaction – there’s Hong Kong action, Indonesian horror, experimental indie sci-fi, neo-noir and feminist vigilante violence, giant rats, Biblical horror and quite a bit of sex and violence.

Winter 2024 viewing, part one: Severin

Posted on February 21, 2024February 20, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) keeps the dead in their graves in Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

Time again to catalogue what I’ve been watching over the past couple of months, but haven’t yet mentioned. First, a mix of throwaway low-brow entertainment and more interesting genre movies from Severin – Italian horror spanning from the ’60s to the ’90s, some low-budget exploitation, and a box set of minor movies featuring Peter Cushing.

Arrow’s Savage Guns: 4 Classic Westerns on Blu-ray

Posted on January 17, 2024January 16, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Sole survivor Stubby Preston (Fabio Testi) heads back into the wilderness in Lucio Fulci's The Four of the Apocalypse (1975)

Arrow’s third collection of spaghetti westerns, Savage Guns, brings together another four movies which display the range and flexibility of the genre, from Lucio Fulci’s elegiac and mystical The Four of the Apocalypse (1975) to Mario Camus’ veiled political criticisms of the Franco regime in Wrath of the Wind (1970) and Paolo Bianchini’s intersection of personal motives and historical events in I Want Him Dead (1968). Edoardo Mulargia’s El Puro (1969), about a drunken gunfighter forced back into action, is the most conventional of the four features.

Tag: Actors