Lumet’s last great film: ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

BEFORE THE DEVIL
KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (2007)

Few American film makers can match the quality and breadth of  morally complex dramas that make up the long list of motion pictures Sidney Lumet helmed for the big screen.

By the time Lumet died April 9 at age 86, he left a legacy that included such classics as the courtroom drama “12 Angry Men,” the doomsday thriller “Fail Safe” and crime dramas “Serpico” and “Prince of the City.”

His films are funny, edgy and deep. His best are about people so committed to and, in many instances, obsessed with a specific issue or cause that they are unaware or simply don’t care how their decisions and actions affect others.

It’s especially bittersweet that Lumet’s last film, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” in 2007, hit the screen 50 years after his first, “12 Angry Men.” Not surprisingly, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” ranks among his best.

Anthony Hopkins shines in ‘Magic,’ his finest screen role

MAGIC (1978)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Thirteen years before his Oscar-winning role as Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins gave an even better, more impressive performance headlining one of the best horror thrillers of the 1970s.

Based on the best-seller by William Goldman, “Magic” opened at theaters on Friday, Nov. 8, 1978 – two weeks after John Carpenter’s sleeper hit “Halloween” shocked everyone by raking in millions at the box office.

To this day, I believe “Halloween” was an unintentionally funny, vastly overrated low-budget shocker – one that sadly initiated the mad-slasher genre that saw a series of pointless “Halloween” sequels and the “Friday the 13th” series. “Magic,” however, is totally different.

This is the story of Corky Withers, a man who finds sudden fame as a successful magician; of Peggy Ann Snow, an attractive middle-aged woman afloat in a dying marriage; and of Fats, Corky’s ventriloquist dummy that is slowly taking over his personality.

Overlooked and underrated: Spielberg’s ‘Empire of the Sun’

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987)

Before “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan,” director Steven Spielberg tackled a lavish, complicated and personal World War II film that wound up tanking at the box office and attracting few fans.

I was among the many people who trashed “Empire of the Sun,” dismissing the 1987 film as a waste of talented actors and a rare failure from a great film maker. The 2½-hour film was stiff, hard-headed and drab. And I hated it.

Man, was I wrong.

I caught the film on Home Box Office a year later. And this time, I had a distinctly different reaction. That night in my apartment, I found “Empire of the Sun” a fascinating, touching and boldly moving experience. This is one of Spielberg’s unsung greats.

I rarely change my mind about films, certainly not as drastic a swing as I did with “Empire of the Sun.”

‘Across the Universe’ affirms the power of great movie musicals

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007)

I’m a sucker for great movie musicals.

There’s something about watching a film in which the story’s main characters suddenly burst into beautifully crafted songs expressing broad, sweeping emotions that they otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t express.

Unfortunately, the golden age of movie musicals is long gone. While musicals still flourish on Broadway, they’ve all but vanished from the big screen – save for short-lived revivals of the genre that sometimes produce one or two memorable films.

Recent Broadway hits have, indeed, spawned great film musical comedies, including “Hairspray” and “The Producers.” And word has it that Oscar-winning British director Tom Hooper is planning a screen version of the award-winning musical “Les Miserables.”

Among the few recent musicals to grace the screen is also one of the most unusual and one of my favorites – “Across the Universe” from 2007, stage director Julie Taymor’s imaginative, original musical that uses classic songs from the Beatles’ catalog to tell a moving love story.

Original ‘Taking of Pelham One Two Three’ tops insipid remake

THE TAKING OF PELHAM
ONE TWO THREE (1974)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

From the thumping, repetitive bass line of the main title theme to the gritty New York City atmosphere, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” remains one of the screen’s most successful crime thrillers.

Of course, I’m referring to the 1974 original film – not the pointless 2009 remake featuring Denzel Washington and John Travolta, an unsuccessful and totally unnecessary exercise.

“The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” based on the book of the same name by John Godey, tells the gripping story of a group of heavily armed men who hijack a New York City subway and hold its passengers for ransom.

Meanwhile, Lt. Zachary Garber of the New York City Transit Authority leads efforts above ground to negotiate with the terrorists, secure the $1 million ransom and rescue the passengers. The back-and-forth play, above and below ground, heightens the film’s tense suspense.

A timeless classic of French cinema: ‘King of Hearts’

KING OF HEARTS (1968)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

In the darkened auditorium of New Orleans’ only art house theater, I saw my first foreign language film – a wonderful, timeless French fable that opened my eyes to world cinema.

The year was 1975. The movie was Philippe De Broca’s 1966 film “King of Hearts,” a comedy-drama set in World War I France and starring Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier chosen to enter a small French town to defuse a German bomb.

As the local residents flee the town, the patients of an insane asylum escape the hospital and cheerfully take over the entire city oblivious to what is happening or to the ongoing war. They also thoroughly confuse Bates, whom they believe is the “King of Hearts.”

De Broca’s film has a simple and obvious message: Who is more insane – the folks who live in the asylum or the soldiers who wage war. The film’s joys come from watching De Broca and his talented cast work their magic, using sympathetic characters and poignant humor to drag you deeper into the story.

‘Squirm’: Among the best of 1970s drive-in schlock classics

SQUIRM (1976) 

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

During the mid-1970s, schlocky exploitation films from American International Pictures and New World Pictures filled second-run theaters and drive-ins every summer across the Deep South and the United States.

Marketed with catchy titles, bizarre concepts and trailers that promised violence, horror and crashing cars, many of these low-budget quickies played to packed theaters and turned an impressive profit.

But once hooked into the theaters, it was more than obvious most of the films were pure trash – films that had no redeeming value and weren’t nearly as interesting as the trailers that advertised them.

Every once in a while, though, one of those low-budget films would click. And when they did – like the 1976 horror, flesh-eating worm thriller “Squirm” – they often turned out to be an undiscovered gem buried in the middle of an otherwise large pile of pure junk.