Hidden Movie Gems

Little-known, underrated, and forgotten films of quality, ranging from B-movies to arthouse cinema.

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

Announcing the BURT LANCASTER CHALLENGE. Background: Recently I suggested to my wife that Burt Lancaster had never been in a bad movie. We discussed every Lancaster film we could remember, and agreed that they ranged from solid Hollywood genre pieces to unquestioned masterpieces.

At the same time, however, we realized we'd only seen perhaps 30 of some 75 films (excluding cameos and narration gigs) in which he appeared. Therefore we decided to put the proposition to the test.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be watching every Lancaster film and reporting back. If there's sufficient interest, we may host a Twitter Space to discuss each movie.

We'll start with Rope of Sand (1949), a noirish thriller set among South Africa's diamond mines and reuniting key cast members of Casablanca. Watch for our assessment.

[Ziya Mutafoğlu @ziyamutaf]

Massive layoffs supposedly due to AI adoption while AI generates almost zero business value will only suppress the wages of the remaining workers while also increasing their workloads.

[Tears of Rage @MrSierra8]

The depravity of these creepy ass CIA/State Dept accounts is only compounded by their cretinous conviction that people other than their racist followers/devotees will actually fall for this bullshit.

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

@videodrome71 https://t.co/0cGgHRXzEH

This is EU Prime. Perhaps not available in US?

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

Il Terrorista (De Bosio 1963), keenly analytical Brechtian drama about The Resistance in Venice, can now be seen on Prime in a 4K restoration. https://t.co/mbx1fmDDZE

[That day will come...Until Victory! @AfrikaHot]

@cinetreasure https://t.co/UYTyQ4vdqF full film

[Mafalda (già86908794) @Mafalda8690879]

Gasparazzo non tollererà alcun compromesso con i "Cappelli", come la borghesia cittadina è conosciuta tra i contadini.
La sua concezione di classe è viscerale, ma rigorosa e spietata.
Così, il figlio del notaio deve essere eliminato, a causa della sua posizione di classe

[Club des Cordeliers @cordeliers]

A must for Gian Maria Volonté completists.

[Tears of Rage @MrSierra8]

@brianlilley Bullshit. That asswipe stood silent while millions of Canadians were banned from society for refusing the clot shot, doctors/healthcare workers SILENCED for daring to QUESTION the Covid Terror/Fascism, bank accounts frozen, population imprisoned, informed consent/Charter shredded

[DepressedBergman @DannyDrinksWine]

Remembering the great Indian filmmaker, Guru Dutt, on his 100th birthday!

Pyaasa (1957)
Director: Guru Dutt

https://t.co/DjzTy9OwrY

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

@DannyDrinksWine My article here should be helpful to those who are new to his work. https://t.co/3bMdODGOnq;

[Douglas Pratt @DVDLaserdisc]

@DannyDrinksWine His masterpiece, Kaagaz ke Phool, is comparible to Citizen Kane
https://t.co/lMeML3WD9H

[Red Kahina @RedKahina]

https://t.co/z2NrgJiXpH @cordeliers

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

@cordeliers The 20 seconds of absolute silence broken by the percussive sound of the catch is a masterstroke.

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

@cordeliers Trigger warning for acrophobics.

[Club des Cordeliers @cordeliers]

Loved this unjustly forgotten film. It’s pure cinema.

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

The BURT LANCASTER CHALLENGE continues with Trapeze (1956). It’s a visually stunning, gloriously silly romantic melodrama that serves up Lancaster’s trademark athleticism (he began his career performing bar routines in a traveling circus) in a stew of barely repressed homoeroticism.

Lancaster plays a once-great trapeze artist crippled and embittered by an injury sustained while attempting to execute the near-impossible triple somersault. Tony Curtis is the ambitious young performer who covets the triple but needs the older man’s collaboration to manage it. Their increasingly intense relationship borders on camp — will Lancaster agree to, ahem, “catch”? — and largely overshadows the undoubted allure of Gina Lollobrigida.

Although the film takes place almost entirely within the confines of the Cirque d'Hiver, director Carol Reed and his preferred cinematographer, Robert Krasker, bring the space to life with delirious Technicolor sequences of dizzying motion. The film, an enormous worldwide hit, has been all but forgotten for reasons we cannot comprehend.

Verdict: A trival joy from start to finish.
Score: 7-0

[Hidden Movie Gems @cinetreasure]

Yet another installment of the BURT LANCASTER CHALLENGE examines Local Hero (1983), a film that, along with Louis Malle's Atlantic City, marked Lancaster's final, graceful comeback.

So charming you could plotz, this universally adored Cold War fable (100% on Rotten Tomatoes) is saved from mawkishness by Lancaster’s refusal to be lovable. His performance as a distracted, egocentric oil tycoon who wants to own everything he sees — not excluding the sky — is likely modeled on the Hollywood execs with whom Lancaster struggled through most of his career.

An American oil company, intending to appropriate a stretch of Scottish coastline in order to build a refinery, sends an advance man (Peter Riegert) to close the deal. He encounters and gradually comes to love the eccentric inhabitants of the fishing village he is meant to destroy. The village is, well, quirky, and the film’s critical and popular success gave rise to innumerable sitcoms and movies that formed a sort of cinéma du quirk during the 80s and 90s.

The briefly celebrated Scottish writer/director Bill Forsyth offers a sentimental Third Camp take on economic imperialism: What a wonderful world it would be if only the Soviets could be a bit more entrepreneurial and the capitalists a tad more benevolent.

The film is nevertheless a pleasant diversion, enhanced by a uniformly excellent cast. The oil tycoon is the pivotal figure. He is far from villainous — indeed, Forsyth wants us to love him — but Lancaster cannily implies that he is incapable of loving us back.

VERDICT: Still endearing after all these years.

SCORE: 6-0