For a disaster movie to succeed, I suppose all it really has to do is keep you interested for its running time. The Towering Inferno runs almost three hours and manages that task, so much so, the ending seems a little abrupt . It’s not like the first act breezes by, either. In fact, it […]
Entries Tagged as 'Paul Newman'
The Towering Inferno (1974, John Guillermin)
January 13th, 2010 · No Comments
Tagged: 20th Century Fox· Dabney Coleman· Faye Dunaway· Frank M. Robinson· John Guillermin· Paul Newman· Richard Martin Stern· Robert Vaughn· Steve McQueen· Stirling Silliphant· Thomas N. Scortia· Warner Bros.· William Holden· ★★
The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968, Jack Smight)
December 28th, 2007 · No Comments
Paul Newman can’t play stupid. Harry Frigg is, for the first thirty to forty minutes of the movie, stupid. Even after he’s not stupid anymore–Sylva Koscina, quite believably, inspires him to improve himself–Newman’s stuck with the dumb, New Jersey from a Planters Peanut commercial accent. It doesn’t bother much in the scenes with Koscina, since […]
Tagged: Frank Tarloff· Jack Smight· Paul Newman· Peter Stone· Universal Pictures· ★
Harper (1966, Jack Smight)
December 22nd, 2006 · No Comments
Harper may very well be an anachronism. I’m not quite sure how to use the word. There’s certainly something off about it. It’s based on a novel written in 1949–a detective novel in the vein of Chandler, which explains why it feels like Chandler–but then it’s filmed in 1966 and it’s not a period piece, […]
Tagged: Jack Smight· Janet Leigh· Lauren Bacall· Paul Newman· Robert Webber· Ross Macdonald· Warner Bros.· William Goldman· ★★½
Pocket Money (1972, Stuart Rosenberg)
July 2nd, 2006 · No Comments
Pocket Money is, in addition to being an excellent film, an example of a couple interesting things. First, it’s a 1970s character study, which is a different genre than what currently passes for a character study (if there are character studies at all anymore, since Michael Mann and Wes Anderson stopped doing them). The 1970s […]
Tagged: J.P.S. Brown· John Gay· Lee Marvin· National General Pictures· Paul Newman· Stuart Rosenberg· Terrence Malick· Wayne Rogers· ★★★½
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972, Paul Newman)
June 30th, 2006 · No Comments
Paul Newman must have had an interesting experience directing Man-in-the Moon Marigolds. His wife played the lead and their daughter played her daughter, the film’s protagonist. The mother’s awful (Joanne Woodward isn’t awful, the character is awful) and Newman sticks with her. Woodward manages to infuse her with some humanity, but only so much is […]
Tagged: 20th Century Fox· Alvin Sargent· Joanne Woodward· Paul Newman· Paul Zindel· ★★★
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 […]
Tagged: Desmond Bagley· James Mason· John Huston· Paul Newman· Walter Hill· Warner Bros.· ⓏⒺⓇⓄ



