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Entries Tagged as 'James Mason'

One Way Street (1950, Hugo Fregonese)

March 18th, 2008 · No Comments

Here’s a goofy one–the title also could be The Doctor in the Sombrero–with James Mason as a mob doctor who makes off with two hundred grand and the boss’s girl, only to end up in rural Mexico, healing horses. It’s all pretty standard stuff, down to the excursion to Mexico, but Mason and Dan Duryea […]

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Tagged: Hugo Fregonese· James Mason· Lawrence Kimble· Universal Pictures·

Hotel Reserve (1944, Lance Comfort, Mutz Greenbaum and Victor Hanbury)

February 15th, 2008 · No Comments

Though Hotel Reserve is a British production of a continental story (in other words, British actors playing French and Germans), it does have a certain flare to the visual. It’s a spy thriller set in the south of France with lots of models standing in for buildings and lots of sets. It very often looks […]

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Tagged: Eric Ambler· James Mason· John Davenport· Lance Comfort· Mutz Greenbaum· RKO Radio Pictures· Victor Hanbury· ★½

They Met in the Dark (1943, Carl Lamac)

October 25th, 2007 · No Comments

They Met in the Dark offers James Mason as a romantic leading man in a thriller. For that one alone, it’s worth a look, but also because it’s an incredibly peculiar film. Not overall, unfortunately, because it descends into a routine wartime propaganda bit about fifth columnists–the details of the sinister plot are very familiar […]

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Tagged: Anatole de Grunwald· Anthony Gilbert· Basil Bartlett· Carl Lamac· General Film Distributors· James Mason· James Seymour· Miles Malleson· Victor MacLure· ★★

Evil Under the Sun (1982, Guy Hamilton)

April 5th, 2007 · No Comments

As innocuous as Evil Under the Sun can get–and expecting anything else from it seems unintended–the film does have a slightly discomforting feel about it. Perhaps it’s the extraordinary level of benignity, but at times, it really does seem like Peter Ustinov (as Hercule Poirot) is going to be murdered by each and every person […]

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Tagged: Agatha Christie· Anthony Shaffer· Guy Hamilton· James Mason· Maggie Smith· Peter Ustinov· Roddy McDowall· Universal Pictures· ★½

Frankenstein: The True Story (1973, Jack Smight)

January 19th, 2007 · 2 Comments

While Frankenstein: The True Story singularly credits Mary Shelley as source material, the actuality is a little more complicated. A Universal-produced TV mini-series, True Story actually mixes some of the Shelley (basically, the end in the Arctic and a brother for Frankenstein), with Universal’s 1930s films, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (with a little of […]

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Tagged: Agnes Moorehead· Christopher Isherwood· Don Bachardy· Jack Smight· James Mason· John Gielgud· Mary Shelley· Universal Television· ★½

The Last of Sheila (1973, Herbert Ross)

December 18th, 2006 · 1 Comment

The Last of Sheila has the most constantly deceptive structure I’ve seen in a while. Watching the time code on the DVD player (and on the laserdisc and VHS players before it, and the clock for televised films even before those inventions) really changes the way one experiences a film. I’m always telling my fiancée […]

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Tagged: Anthony Perkins· Herbert Ross· James Mason· Joan Hackett· Stephen Sondheim· Warner Bros.· ★★★½

The MacKintosh Man (1973, John Huston)

June 21st, 2006 · No Comments

Imagine a spy thriller without any spying, without any thrills, without even any mystery, and whatever you come up with… it’s still probably more engaging than The MacKintosh Man. In the post-VHS era, MacKintosh is fairly difficult to find. TCM doesn’t run it, Warner hasn’t done a DVD yet. I only came across it on […]

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Tagged: Desmond Bagley· James Mason· John Huston· Paul Newman· Walter Hill· Warner Bros.· ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

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