Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Roman Polanski.

The Pianist (2002)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the book The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Produced by Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
150 minutes

A tale of an urban castaway that’s as powerful as it is restrained, The Pianist was Roman Polanski’s finest work in two decades. Originally published in 1946 under the title Death of a City, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of survival detailed the classical pianist’s six years under Nazi occupation in Warsaw. Seizing upon the book as his next film, Polanski selected South African born playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood — whose play Taking Sides also featured a composer caught in the maelstrom of World War II — to adapt a screenplay. France’s Le Studio Canal largely financed the €38 million (roughly $33 million) production in association with England’s Cadre Films and after Joseph Fiennes declined the role in order to remain on the British stage, Polanski arrived on Adrien Brody to portray Szpilman. The actor went from 160 to 130 pounds in six weeks to prepare for the part.

Filmed at Babelsburg Studios in Berlin, with additional shooting in the Braga district outside Warsaw, what sets The Pianist apart from WWII dramas like Saving Private Ryan or Enemy At the Gates is its simplicity and grace. Written immediately after the occupation, Szpilman’s story is resplendent in detail and confident enough in its truth not to employ artificiality or unearned sentiments. Turning genre conventions on their head, we meet Jews who are less than virtuous and at least one German who is more than pure evil, creating a landscape that provokes thought and feeling. A tale of genocide, the irony is that Polanski’s craftsmanship is so solid we wish the story kept going. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Adrien Brody (Best Actor), Ronald Harwood (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Roman Polanski (Best Director) all won Oscars.

In Warsaw of September 1939, pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is performing Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp minor for Polish radio when German artillery shells hit the city. Szpilman’s violinist father (Frank Finlay), mother (Maureen Lipman), younger brother Henryk (Ed Stoppard) and two grown sisters (Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer) rejoice with the news that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but Poland quickly falls under Nazi control. Szpilman has time to take an adoring cellist named Dorota (Emilia Fox) for coffee before the city’s 360,000 Jews are evicted from their homes and sealed inside a ghetto in October 1940. Szpilman finds employment as a piano player in an upper class Jewish café and along with Henryk, rejects an offer from a family friend named Heller (Roy Smiles) to join the Jewish Ghetto Police.

When Henryk is arrested, Szpilman appeals to Heller’s ego to secure his brother’s release. He keeps his family from being deported by obtaining employment certificates for them, but these prove worthless when in August 1942, the Szpilmans are herded onto trains bound for Treblinka. Heller pulls Szpilman off the line, sparing his life, but the pianist never sees his family again. He survives by joining a Jewish work detail and buys enough time to arrange for his escape. Harbored by friends, Szpilman is reunited with Dorota, now married and expecting a child. Once the Polish uprising begins in August 1944, he’s near the brink of famine. Scrounging for food in the deserted city, Szpilman comes to face to face with Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann). Instead of being shot, the pianist is rewarded by an act of kindness after the German officer hears his music.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 107,318 users: 94% for The Pianist

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 85 for The Pianist

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Yojimbo (1961)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa & Ryûzô Kikushima, story by Akira Kurosawa
Produced by Akira Kurosawa
110 minutes

To watch a samurai picture by Akira Kurosawa is to read a book adapted by Hollywood in the ‘70s and ‘80s for what we take for granted as the modern action movie. Inspired by the idea of a helpless citizenry trapped between two factions who were equally despicable and corrupt, Kurosawa authored a script with frequent writing collaborator Ryûzô Kikushima that was financed by Toho Studios, home of Godzilla and the company which kept Kurosawa under contract. A blockbuster back home — where it became one of the biggest grossing movies ever in Japan — Yojimbo would be ripped off by Sergio Leone as the basis for the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and remade by Walter Hill as Last Man Standing (1996), with Bruce Willis battling Depression Era gangsters. Neither comes close to eclipsing the majesty of Yojimbo.

Defining any one aspect that makes Yojimbo a classic is an exercise in futility. Toshirô Mifune anchors the film with a rough charisma and physicality that western action heroes like Eastwood, Stallone and Willis would become celebrated for. Composer Masaru Satô gives the film a medieval swing with a sensational musical score. Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and assistant cameraman Takao Saitô collaborated with Kurosawa to give Yojimbo an eye popping visual sheen and depth, respectively. The trend to play graphic violence for the occasional laugh would outrage critics when it started showing up in American movies like Bonnie and Clyde, but executed so fluidly, broke new ground in terms of style. Beyond exploiting violence to sell popcorn, Kurosawa’s moral bearing is felt throughout Yojimbo, which mocks greed and actually condemns violence.

Somewhere in Japan of the 1860s, a samurai who offers the name “Sanjuro Kuwabatake” (Toshirô Mifune) wanders into a town held hostage by a war between two gambling houses.  Taking shelter with an old tavern owner named Gonji (Eijirô Tôno), Sanjuro learns that the trouble started when Seibei (Seizaburô Kawazu) promised his territory to his cowardly son. Seibei’s lieutenant Ushitora (Kyu Sazanka) took half the boss’s men and allying himself with the sake merchant appears likely to topple Seibei. The local constable greets mercenaries arriving in town and receives a commission for selling their services as a “yojimbo”, or bodyguard, to the highest bidder. War has also been good business for a coffin maker (Atsushi Watanabe) whose hammering has Gonji at the end of his rope.

Seeing an opportunity to rid the town of its twin evils, Sanjuro challenges three hoodlums in Ushitora’s employ and dispatches them with his sword. Seibei agrees to pay Sanjuro the sum of 60 ryo to work for him. Seibei’s wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada) advises that it will be cheaper just to kill Sanjuro once the war is won. As the factions gather for battle, Sanjuro abandons his employer, climbing a watchtower to enjoy both sides killing each other. The carnage is postponed when an inspector from Edo arrives. During the ceasefire, Ushitora’s brutal but stupid brother Inokichi (Daisuke Katô) bids against Orin for Sanjuro’s sword. As the samurai plays both houses against each other, Ushitora’s shrewder and much deadlier brother Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai) returns to town with a revolver and a healthy suspicion of the interloper.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average 10,518 users: 96% for Yojimbo

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Directed by David Miller
Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
Produced by Edward Lewis
107 minutes

In contrast to the cotton candy being churned out by Universal Pictures in the 1960s featuring Rock Hudson or Doris Day, few movies then or now corral craftsmanship, social awareness and entertainment as magnificently as Lonely Are the Brave. Edward Abbey’s novel Brave Cowboy was published in 1954 and optioned by Kirk Douglas four years later. The theme of a man overcoming resistance to achieve his freedom had inspired Douglas to develop Spartacus. For a fable about modern day enslavement, the actor-producer turned again to Dalton Trumbo for an adaptation and put up the completion funds to sell Universal on the project. Dumped into theaters in May 1962, Lonely Are the Brave was ignored at the box office, but landing on the year-end top ten lists of several critics, it enjoyed a successful run in art houses like the Surf Theater in Chicago and the River Oaks Theater in Houston.

Journeyman director David Miller isn’t even a blip on the radar screens of most film scholars or movie geeks, but Lonely Are the Brave represents the Hollywood studio system at its best. The stuntwork involving Douglas and his horse is amazing, while a cantina brawl ranks as one of the most creative ever staged. Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, George Kennedy and Carol O’Connor all show the depth and humor they’d become renowned for, while the cinematography by Philip Lathrop and musical score by Jerry Goldsmith have no equal. As with The Great Escape or Cool Hand Luke, Lonely Are the Brave begins and ends with a hero whose spirit refuses to submit even as he appears whipped by The Man. Whether interpreted as a border drama or a morality play about man seeking to retain his individuality in a fast changing world, the film remains as vital to our national debate now as it was then.

Slumbering amid the sagebrush of New Mexico, cowhand John W. Burns (Kirk Douglas) is awakened by the scream of jet aircraft overhead. Saddling up his defiant appaloosa Whiskey and steering the horse across a highway that’s been put in his way, Burns reaches the town of “Duke City”, where he drops in on Jerry Bondi (Gena Rowlands), the wife of a childhood buddy. Burns discovers that his pal has been sentenced to two years in prison for rendering aid to “wetbacks” crossing the border. Defiant of rules like the ones dictating when he can visit a friend in jail, Burns strolls into a cantina and picks a fight with a WWII veteran (Bill Raisch) who has one arm and a bad attitude. When authorities offer to drop the charges, Burns hits a deputy, earning him time to catch up with Paul Bondi (Michael Kane) behind bars.

While Paul ignores the taunts of a brutal deputy (George Kennedy), Burns tells the cop exactly where he can go and later loses a wisdom tooth for his backtalk. Once the lights go down, Burns reveals to his friend two hacksaws he’s smuggled in his boot. The men cut through a bar in their cell, but Paul elects to pay his debt to society by serving out his sentence. Burns bids farewell to his friend and then to his friend’s wife, who Burn still harbors feelings for. As Burns heads up the foothills and seeks to climb a mountain ridge that will take him into Mexico, wry Sheriff Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau) engages in a pursuit. The cowboy and his horse are able to evade the hapless deputies sent up the mountain and a helicopter on loan from an army base, but progress and conformity finally catch up with John W. Burns.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 226 users: 82% for Lonely Are the Brave

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Directed by Don Siegel
Screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring and Richard Collins (uncredited) and Sam Peckinpah (uncredited), based on the magazine serial by Jack Finney
Produced by Walter Wanger
80 minutes

One of the most beloved of the science fiction B-movies that attacked the 1950s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a testament to how a powerful story and an appealing cast can elevate an otherwise awful mess into a classic. Originally published in Collier’s Magazine as a three-part serial beginning in November 1954, Jack Finney’s source material captured the imagination of producer Walter Wanger, who was coming off a personal scandal, prison term and even worse, a commercial calamity in 1948 with Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman. Languishing in a deal at Allied Artists for Walter and Harold Mirisch, Wanger and director Don Siegel made box office lemonade with a prison reform picture titled Riot On Cell Block 11. When Wanger pitched the studio The Body Snatchers, AA purchased the screen rights.

Shot in 19 days on a $300,000 budget — $2 million in today money — Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a hit in spite of its studio, which hoping to sell more tickets, mangled Ellsworth Fredericks’ 1.33:1 compositions by cropping the frame to fit RKO’s “SuperScope” format of 2:1. They also inserted a prologue and epilogue that gave the film a resolution far more upbeat than what Siegel intended. The conceit of alien pods stripping human beings of their individuality while they sleep is seductive in how easily it can apply to any number of social or political paranioas, while Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter appear to have a blast as the doomed couple. A stiff voiceover narration kills the suspense and makes it difficult to stay on edge about anything in the film, but with so little money for special effects, the original Body Snatchers plays like a drum tight film noir as opposed to a silly sci-fi movie.

A psychiatrist (Whit Bissell) is summoned in the middle of the night to treat to a raving lunatic being held by police at a local hospital. The wild-eyed Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) insists that he is not insane and begging to be listened to, begins his story. Returning from a two-week conference to his practice in the idyllic town of “Santa Mira”, Dr. Bennell’s nurse Sally Withers (Jean Wiles) reports that several of his patients have demanded to see the doctor, only to later cancel their appointments as if everything was fine. On their way back from the train depot, Dr. Bennell almost mows down a boy running away from his mother; apparently, he’s scared to go to school. At his office, Dr. Bennell is reunited with a recently divorced college flame named Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter).

Becky is troubled by a cousin who claims Becky’s uncle is no longer her uncle. Santa Mira’s psychiatrist Dr. Kauffman (Larry Gates) reveals that he’s had a dozen patients suffering the same hysteria, which he theorizes is due to stress over world events. Dr. Bennell and Becky have their romantic evening cut short when his writer friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan) and wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones) summon them to their home, where the body of a strange being with a resemblance to Jack is laid out on a pool table. Dr. Bennell later discovers imitations of them hatching from seed pods in the Belicec greenhouse, where it becomes clear that aliens lacking emotion have replaced townsfolk while they sleep. With the phone company and police already fallen victim, the couples try to stay awake long enough to get help.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5,280 users: 81% for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 2 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Dan O’Bannon & Don Jakoby and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Gordon Carroll
109 minutes

There haven’t been many movies about the LAPD’s Air Support Division. That might be due to logistics, or maybe the best picture you could possibly make in that milieu has already been done: Blue Thunder. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was so incensed by the ghetto bird buzzing his L.A. abode that he was inspired to write a thriller — with USC Film School buddy Don Jakoby — about a Travis Bickle type going AWOL in a police helicopter above the City of Angels. Columbia Pictures loved the ballistic third act, the crazed lone nut in the first and second acts not so much, prompting rewrites in which the LAPD became good guys and government spooks were invented as bad guys. O’Bannon & Jakoby at the time lambasted the finished film, a box office hit that inspired two TV series in the ‘80s; Airwolf on CBS and the short lived Blue Thunder on ABC, one even cheesier than the other.

Blue Thunder is wound like a Swiss watch and designed with almost the same level of craftsmanship, briskly introducing us to Los Angeles, the rigmarole of the Air Support Division (dubbed “Astro Division” in the film to avoid hate mail flooding the LAPD) and issues of privacy on the approach to the year 1984. The action is set up gracefully and executed tenaciously, while a post-Watergate malaise gives the film an edge. John Alonzo’s lighting and Arthur Rubenstein’s electronic score were cutting edge for their time and hold up well, while the casting is superb. It’s easy to forget how strong a leading man Roy Scheider was, while the magnificent Warren Oates — in his final movie — chews up scenery like a buzzsaw. Director John Badham shot the film back-to-back with WarGames and was in a zone, fusing high concept, high tech, compelling characters and fun without crossing over into cartoon.

Maverick police helicopter pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) breaks in a new partner, the baby faced Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) who’s transferred over for some supposed peace and quiet in the haze above Los Angeles. While the men spy on a yoga practitioner in Encino known to perform in the nude, a city commissioner is attacked outside her home in Brentwood and shot. Reprimanded for his flight patterns by the loquacious Captain Braddock (Warren Oates), Murphy contends that the attack on the city commissioner was no attempted rape but a stakeout. A Vietnam vet compressed with PTSD, Murphy makes up with his oddball girlfriend (Candy Clark) and returns to the crime scene, where a memo he retrieves from the commissioner’s lawn has the cryptic word THOR written on it.

Assigned a special detail, Murphy accompanies Braddock and two feds to the demonstration of a prototype helicopter designed for crowd control in the Los Angeles ’84 Summer Olympics. “Blue Thunder” is equipped with a 20mm gun turret, turbine boost, whisper mode and surveillance devices that see and hear through walls. The test pilot is Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), a nefarious operator Murphy knew in ‘Nam. In an attempt to rub out his competition, Cochrane sabotages Murphy’s chopper. Staying alive long enough to take Blue Thunder for a test spin, Murphy and Lymangood discover the feds have big plans for THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response), instigating social unrest in L.A. to justify military expenditures. Framed by Cochrane and the feds running the project, Murphy commandeers their toy and takes to the friendly skies.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 65% for Blue Thunder

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 1 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

The Star Chamber (1983)
Directed by Peter Hyams
Screenplay by Roderick Taylor and Peter Hyams, story by Roderick Taylor
Produced by Frank Yablans
109 minutes

Though Michael Douglas had played opposite Geneviève Bujold in Coma and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, uncovering conspiracies in the healthcare and energy sectors, the producer and actor took a step toward becoming a movie star with The Star Chamber, an unabashed B-movie of the type that used to star Richard Widmark or Sterling Hayden when movies titled Panic In the Streets or Crime Wave played the bottom half of the bill. With an irresistible plot involving Superior Court judges rendering their own justice whenever the law gets in the way, The Star Chamber is a Dirty Harry picture for people who can read without moving their lips. Equipped with way more intrigue and drenched with far greater suspense than required, when it comes to audience appreciation, this movie overachieves.

Co-star Hal Holbrook — Old Man Conspiracy in Magnum Force and The Firm — calling Michael Douglas “kiddo” isn’t the only thing that dates The Star Chamber like a vintage coat. While Sharon Gless makes a refined impression in her three scenes, no time is wasted on a romantic lead or subplots that don’t relate to the one we paid a ticket for: judges delegating vigilante justice. The script keeps most of its nuts and bolts out of view, remaining plausible by letting the audience’s imagination do most of the work. Adapted and directed by Peter Hyams, the film has credible dialogue, solid performances, elegant set pieces and is cloaked in the sinister shadow that Hyams would execute as his own director of photography on 2010, Narrow Margin and The Relic. The Star Chamber is the director at his most soldered.

Detectives (Larry Hankin, Dick Anthony Williams) on the hunt for a serial robber and killer in South Los Angeles spot a suspect drop something into his garbage can. Lacking a warrant to conduct a legal search, the cops wait for trash collectors to dump the contents of the can into a garbage truck’s scoop, where they retrieve the murder weapon. At trial, Superior Court Judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas) is given no choice but rule the evidence, subsequent search and confession inadmissible on a technicality. Lamenting the miscarriage of justice to his mentor Judge Caulfield (Hal Holbrook), Hardin’s next case forces him to set free two suspected child murderers (Joe Regalbuto, Don Calfa) when LAPD officers (Charles Hallahan, David Proval) produce crucial evidence in an illegal search.

The father (James B. Sikking) of the murder victim opens fire on the suspects in court. Visiting the man in jail, Hardin learns that the body of another boy has been found after he set the suspects free. While Detective Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) begins pursuing leads, Hardin approaches Caulfield, who has tantalized his protégé with hints of doing something about his frustration with the legal system. He invites Hardin to join a panel of nine superior court judges who comprise “a court of last resort”, reviewing cases dismissed on technicality and employing their own executioner to carry out sentences. While Hardin’s child murder defendants are soon found “guilty” by the panel, Detective Lowes produces information that the men really were innocent. Unable to cancel the “sentencing”, Hardin takes matters into his own hands and risks exposing the judges.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5 users: 80% for The Star Chamber

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Harry and Walter Go To New York (1976)
Directed by Mark Rydell
Screenplay by John Byrum and Robert Kaufman, story by Don Devlin and John Byrum
Produced by Don Devlin, Harry Gittes
115 minutes

Disparaged by critics and ignored by audiences, Harry and Walter Go To New York deserves a reception much better than the one it was pelted with in July 1976, when all interested parties seemed to agree that the best thing for this lavishly produced comedy with music was to act like it never happened. Actor and veteran TV director Mark Rydell had delivered three solid films in a row — Steve McQueen in The Reivers, John Wayne in The Cowboys and James Caan & Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty — but unable to bank whatever producer Don Devlin was betting on, editor Monte Hellman was hired to recut Rydell’s footage. Harry and Walter Go To New York doesn’t jig to the rhythm of The Sting or any other recognizable genre really, but blunders onto something novel and even magnificent in its own right.

Adapting a story idea by Devlin was screenwriter John Byrum, one of the original staff writers Jim Henson hired for Sesame Street. In many ways, Harry and Walter Go To New York is like something The Muppet Theater might stage on the Muppets’ night off. The jokes don’t have punchlines, at least none that would get very far without a laugh track, but a gentle type of backstage tomfoolery runs through the piece, which like The Muppet Show, allows some of the finest actors of the 1970s — Caan, Gould, Keaton, Caine, Lesley Ann Warren, Charles Durning, Carol Kane — to get in on the low key fun. Whether you think the story is much ado about nothing, the cinematography by László Kovács and production design by Harry Horner make every moment of this visually splendid knick-knack a marvel to watch.

In Sudburry, Massachusetts of 1892, the singing and dancing duo of Harry Dighby (James Caan) and Walter Hill (Elliott Gould) take the stage in a variety show whose audience is filled with just as much poultry as people. In New York City, renowned gentleman thief Adam Worth (Michael Caine) falls into a trap sprung by Rufus T. Crisp (Charles Durning), a bank president whose safe was cracked by Worth and his gang. Meanwhile, the dim witted Walter wants little more than a career in show business, but Harry’s criminal enterprise lands the entertainers in the same Concord prison as Adam Worth. Harry and Walter are put in his employ as butlers, maintaining Worth’s lavish cell and receiving his guests, including crusading journalist Lissa Chestnut (Diane Keaton) who arrives to do an expose on the thief.

While Worth charms Ms. Chestnut, Harry cajoles Walter into using her flash lamp camera to photograph the blueprint of a bank vault that Worth plans to crack. When they set the precious blueprint on fire, Worth has Harry and Walter exiled to the prison’s rock quarry, where it’s hoped the idiots will blow themselves up. Using a vial of nitroglycerin, Harry secures an early release for himself and his partner. Arriving in New York, Harry volunteers to Ms. Chestnut’s newspaper hoping to get his hands on the bank vault photograph. Once Worth is set free, the crime lord smashes up the newspaper office in search of the photo. To repair the damage and forge on protecting the public, Ms. Chestnut implores Harry and Walter to help her and her staff (Jack Gilford, Carol Kane, David Proval, Valerie Curtin) crack the vault first.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1 user: 100% for Harry and Walter Go To New York

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Unforgiven (1992)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by David Webb Peoples
Produced by Clint Eastwood
131 minutes

The Outlaw Josey Wales is the best material Clint Eastwood ever lucked into, but this Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director of 1992 is from sunrise to sunset the best screenplay Eastwood has yet filmed. Known as The Cut-Whore Killings when David Webb Peoples wrote it in 1976, Malpaso took a look at the script five years later. The writing was so digressive and subject matter so reprehensible that story editor Sonia Chernus referred to it as “trash”, but when Eastwood took a look much later as a sample of Peoples’ writing, he optioned the script and held onto it until the time was right to make the film. As savage and foreboding as any indie made that decade by directors half his age, this western is a potent exploration of the roots of violence; elegantly written, boldly photographed and magnificently performed.

Rationing the number of fatalities, Unforgiven is explicit in wanting to make the viewer actually feel something for every felled body. Despite the relative lack of gunplay, the deeper we get into the story, the more it crackles with suspense. The characters are compelling — with Eastwood essentially playing a villain revisited 20 years down the road — and the dialogue has an otherworldly splendor, as if Peoples traveled back in time to take notes. Richard Harris and Gene Hackman deliver monologues as rapturous as any torn from a Quentin Tarantino script and like a Tarantino film, when the talking stops and the bullets fly, we aren’t disappointed. Jack N. Green washes the film in thunderstorm gray while the town of Big Whiskey — built in Alberta, Canada by Henry Bumstead — is one of the most visually compelling frontier villages ever put on film.

As a rainstorm pelts the town of “Big Whiskey”, Wyoming in 1880, a cowpoke slashes the face of Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson) for a slight against his manhood. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) considers bullwhipping the assailant and his partner, but when the cut whore’s employer (Anthony James) protests the assault as destruction of property, Little Bill fines the cowpokes in ponies instead. Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) pools together the savings of the working girls to buy their own retribution. Tending to his pigs, retired mercenary William Munny (Clint Eastwood) receives a visit from the self-proclaimed Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), nephew of a desperado he once rode with. Invited by the kid to partner with him in the murder for hire, Munny maintains that his dearly departed wife cured him of that “drink and wickedness.”

Changing his mind, Munny picks up his pistols and climbs back on a horse for the first time in 11 years. He stops off at the farm of his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and recruits him to participate in the killings. Gunslinger-for-hire English Bob (Richard Harris) and his “biographer” W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) arrive in Big Whiskey ahead of them to collect the reward money, only to have Little Bill and his deputies violently yank away the welcome mat. Amused by Mr. Beauchamp’s frontier fiction posing as fact, the sadistic sheriff sets him straight on how law & order out west really works. Arriving in town, Munny has a hurt put on him by Little Bill, but is able to regroup with Ned and the kid to finish the job. One of them falls prey to Little Bill’s posse, prompting Munny to pay a visit to Big Whiskey for his own retribution.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 55 users: 96% for Unforgiven

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 82 for Unforgiven

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Pale Rider (1985)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Michael Butler & Dennis Shryack
Produced by Clint Eastwood
115 minutes

Proving that the western was as durable as an old Lincoln convertible — though the genre had been largely relegated to the scrap heap since John Wayne’s career fadeout The Shootist in 1976 — Clint Eastwood got back on the horse for Pale Rider, a worn down shoot ‘em up that paints over its rust with pure craftsmanship. Inviting the authors of The Gauntlet to kick around ideas for an oater, Eastwood went with an Ad Libs script by Michael Butler & Dennis Shryack that fills in the blanks by scribbling elements from westerns of much greater substance. Released with fanfare in June 1985, Pale Rider is a treat that melts as soon as you leave the air condition of the theater, but it’s well cast, gorgeously shot and maintains a disquieting tone, helping the film deliver on its poster, which promised “ … and hell followed with him.”

Pale Rider stretches its credulity far enough to snap, with miners who don’t seem armed with more than shovels and a savior whose origins are as ambiguous as the Book of Revelations verse being read aloud as he rides into camp. There’s no suspense because in addition to being played by Clint Eastwood, the hero’s supernatural prowess is spelled out plainly enough for people in the cheap seats to understand. Shot mostly on location in Idaho’s Sawtooth Range, Pale Rider never suffers from lack of scenic beauty though. With actors like Richard Dysart, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Charles Hallahan, Richard Kiel and always intriguing Michael Moriarty as his buddy, Eastwood cast the film magnificently. Collaborating with Bruce Surtees, scenes are bathed in menacing obsidian tones that elevate it above typical popcorn fare.

After raiders whip through a community of tin pan miners, 14-year-old Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny) prays for a miracle to save them. The thoroughly decent Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty) — who’s courting Megan’s mother Sarah (Carrie Snodgress) — ignores warnings and rides into town for supplies. Greeted by the thugs who tore up camp, Hull is rescued by a lean, mean stranger who rides a pale horse and proves handy with a piece of hickory. Accepting an invitation to break bread with Hull, the stranger reveals a clerical collar and is soon given the handle of Preacher (Clint Eastwood). Hotheaded foreman of the mining operation Josh LaHood (Christopher Penn) visits the camp to scare the preacher off, but is turned away when his biggest, baddest employee Club (Richard Kiel) takes a sledgehammer to his sac.

LaHood’s ruthless father and magnate of the mining operation Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) returns from Sacramento disconcerted by news that not only has junior failed to drive the tin pans off the dirt he covets, but that a preacher has appeared to unify their spirit. Meeting with LaHood, Preacher’s unearthly presence is enough to scare up a price of $1,000 per miner to pull up stakes and move on, but the tin pans reject the offer. LaHood telegraphs a marshal-for-hire named Stockburn (John Russell) and his six deputies to take over negotiations; based on the preacher’s eerie description, Stockburn is reminded of a man he knew, but who’s supposedly dead. While both Megan and her mother develop romantic pangs for the preacher, he appears on a path to take his pistols and wreck supernatural vengeance on Stockburn.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 24 users: 92% for Pale Rider

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Screenplay by Philip Kaufman (as Phil Kaufman) and Sonia Chernus, based on the novel Gone To Texas by Forrest Carter
Produced by Robert Daley
135 minutes

Paul Newman is Cool Hand Luke, Steve McQueen is Bullitt and Clint Eastwood’s screen persona is personified by Josey Wales. The finest material he ever chanced upon originated with Forrest Carter, who had approximately 75 copies of a novel then titled The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales printed by Whipporwill Publishers in Alabama. Without knowing any better, Carter mailed a copy to Malpaso, where the book would’ve been returned without being read if not for a soulful cover letter that struck producer Robert Daley. Eventually giving the novel a read, Daley absorbed it one sitting and recommended it to Eastwood, who was game to make the movie. Malpaso story editor Sonia Chernus asked to write the adaptation, which was injected with greater suspense by Philip Kaufman, who Eastwood tapped to direct before replacing several days into filming.

When talking about The Outlaw Josey Wales, the question is: What doesn’t the film do masterfully? The colorful saga stretches from farmland to battlefield, the Missouri River to the Indian Nations, a windswept outpost in Texas to an abandoned silver town where ghosts of war catch up to Wales. The characters are so compelling that even roles taken by Chief Dan George, Sam Bottoms or John Vernon (playing a non-asshole for once!) have the fullness of the heroes in any other movie. The script is a tapestry of deliciously crafted dialogue, goofy wit, idealistic spirit and riveting action. For all its frontier excitement, The Outlaw Josey Wales is ultimately an antidote to war, implying that communities are capable of living together by making peace that their governments seem unable or unwilling to. This is as vital a message for today as it was for the Bicentennial. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Wild Bunch aside, it’s the best western ever made.

On a plot of dirt in Missouri, farmer Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) stands helpless to protect his wife and son from a marauding Union outfit known as the Redlegs. Wales takes up arms for the Confederacy and once the war is lost, becomes the only member of his unit to reject the offer of commanding officer Fletcher (John Vernon), who’s accommodated disarmament terms with the Union. Fletcher is betrayed when the bloodthirsty Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney) summarily executes the men he’s turned in, but is well compensated to ride along with the Redlegs in the manhunt for Josey Wales and a young wounded rebel (Sam Bottoms). Wales and the boy outsmart the Redlegs at a ferry crossing, then a pair of bounty hunters in a marsh, but his young traveling companion succumbs to his wound before they can reach the safety of the Indian Nations.

Resigned to returning to Missouri to settle up with Fletcher, Wales runs into a wily old Cherokee (Chief Dan George) headed to Mexico to join others who refused to surrender. At a trading post, Wales inherits a Navajo woman (Geraldine Keams) he rescues from servitude. The trio beat it through Texas with Redlegs on their tail, stopping to assist Kansas pilgrims set upon by bandits. The two survivors — punchy Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman) and her odd granddaughter Laura (Sondra Locke) — join Wales next. Followed by Comanche warriors, the band reaches the dried up silver town of Santa Rio, whose residents (Matt Clark, Royal Dano, Joyce Jameson) are ecstatic to receive settlers. Wales brokers peace with Comanche chief Ten Bears (Will Sampson) whose land they build on, but when a bounty hunter tips the Redlegs off to Wales’ location, the war finally catches up to him.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 31 users: 97% for The Outlaw Josey Wales

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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