Category: Saturday Night Cinema

Still in Philly, but Saturday Night Cinema will go on! Tonight’s fabulous feature is the supreme Cecil B. De Mille’s Cleopatra, starring Claudette Colbert, Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon. Cleopatra (1934) NY Times film review: Claudette Colbert, Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon in C.B. De Mille’s “Cleopatra.” By MORDAUNT HALL. Published: August 17, 1934 Cecil…

"There never was a woman like Gilda!" drooled the posters — and no, there probably wasn't. OMG! Tonight's film is a real Hollywood treat, Gilda, one of Atlas's top ten film noir twisted classics. Rita Hayworth is enthralling. Shruggers know I feel about Rita Hayworth. I love huh! And this is her moment. Sexiest. girl….

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the stylish classic, Breakfast at Tiffany's, a near-perfect little package of glamour, cynicism, and love in the greatest city there ever was. It stars Audrey Hepburn at her absolute elegant best. …..Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a must-see classic that, despite diversions from Truman Capote’s original novel, remains his clearest statement…

Saturday Night Cinema is on fire lately, if I do say so myself. It's a winning streak that I will work feverishly to maintain. And tonight I do not disappoint. My feature film this evening is The Little Foxes, starring the brilliant and cruel Bette Davis. The fox that bit her died, and Davis triumphs…

A rare gem tonight for you Atlas cinephiles. Our Saturday Night Cinema feature is the great American classic, The Best Years of our Lives, starring Myrna Loy, Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright and Virginia Mayo. The cast is magnificent in this tender and moving film that deeply explores the characters, almost exclusively, unusual for…

Atlas has a real treat in store for you tonight. The Saturday Night Cinema film feature this evening is The Ox-Bow Incident, starring Henry Fonda and the unheralded (but my personal fave) Dana Andrews. While covering the Trayvon Martin mob action, I used this film as a metapor for the lynching of George Zimmerman. It…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema gem, A Place in the Sun, stars the impossibly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor and the equally striking Montgomery Clift (before the car accident that marred his face). Taylor and Clift were never lovelier. The movie is worth the price of admission, if only for the chemistry between Clift and Taylor. Both give…

"A lean, mean amorality tale that still goes down like a cookie laced with arsenic."  Wow. I was shocked to find this intense, wild classic on youtube. Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the 1957 vicious film noir drama, Sweet Smell of Success, starring a brutal Burt Lancaster and the perfectly cast Tony Curtis, as the hyper-sleazy…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is Trapeze (1956), a circus film directed by Carol Reed (The Third Man), starring the spectacular hunkalicious Burt Lancaster, a very pretty Tony Curtis and super sexpot Gina Lollobridgida (making her debut in American films). That's a helluva lot of eye candy for boys and girls. Hubba hubba. I love Lancaster….

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature, the Academy Award winning film The Guns of Navarone, is dedicated to the fallen warriors who gave their lives so that we might live free. Thank you is hardly enough. Running around town today, it was wonderful to see the city teeming with soldiers and sailors in New York for…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is a masterpiece. Stanley Kubrik set a new, impossible standard with this film, a remarkable piece of work, and not surprisingly, Kirk Douglas gives the performance of a career. "Paths of Glory" was the film by which Stanley Kubrick entered the ranks of great directors, never to leave them. When I…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is a gem. Full disclosure: I love anything and everything Welles does (even his wine commercials). He was a master, a genius. And Rita Hayworth? Atlas readers know Rita is so my girl. I. just. love. her. This looms as the pivotal work of Welles's career, one of the greatest glories…

If someone had told me they could skillfully blend social-crime drama with screwball comedy, I'd have said they were, well, screwy. Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema offering is an enjoyable little confection featuring a top notch trio: Cary Grant (yummy), Jean Arthur (snappy) and Ronald Colman (classy). The acting is top notch. The dialogue is sharp,…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature is "The Red House," starring Edward G. Robinson and the young beautiful Julie London. Robinson will not be disappointed. He gives us another classic Robinson performance in this dark, moody thriller. The Red House (1947) NY Times film review A.W. Published: March 17, 1947 It's been a long time since…

Tonight's classic film feature selection for Saturday Night Cinema is "Our Town." Our Town is a 1940 film adaptation of a play of the same name by Thornton Wilder, starring William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee and Frank Craven. It was adapted by Harry Chandlee, Craven and Wilder. It…

Tonight's great film feature for Saturday Night Cinema at Atlas is " The 400 Blows." Francois Truffaut's masterpiece is considered the "cornerstone of the French New Wave" and one of the greatest movies about childhood. The 400 Blows (1959)  BY ROGER EBERT I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or…

Kilts and bagpipes are part of the reason I chose tonight's superb film feature for Saturday Nght Cinema, Tunes of Glory. Alec Guinness and John Mills, both outstanding actors, are brilliant in powerful roles in this  sublimely crafted film by Ronald Neame that pits one Scottish army colonel against another. NY Times, usually acerbic and…

Something special this evening. Very special. Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the 1939 RKO classic,  The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. This is the very best of the many film remakes of Victor Hugo's classic novel, with a haunting and unforgettable performance by Charles Laughton. It is a masterpiece. In 15th century France, a gypsy girl…

  "Delicately bittersweet." Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the French confection, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Sugary sweet, beautifully done, it is a strange and delightful French musical. And the then-20-year-old Catherine Deneuve is strikingly beautiful. A completely sung movie, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is closest in form to a cinematic opera. Composer Michel Legrand composed…

Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema is the 1956 classic Written on the Wind, the definitive Douglas Sirk film, starring Rock Hudson,  Lauren Bacall,  Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. Dorothy Malone won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Robert Stack recived an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the film was nominated for an Academy…

Dazzling film noir masterpiece. Tonight's Satruday Night Cinema is a return to my favorite genre, film noir. And tonight's gem is pure noir, Kiss Me Deadly. It is arguably one of the best film noir films ever. The cast is excellent — Cloris Leachman makes her film debut, and Ralph Meeker's Mickey Spillane is the…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature film is a jewel that I have been saving for a special occasion like tonight. Happy New Year! Cover Girl stars the incomparable and impossibly beautiful Rita Hayworth. Hayworth is positively enchanting, and proves Kelly's equal in the supreme dance sequences. This technicolor bonanza is wonderfully squareball and predictable, and…

Merry Christmas to the righteous and to the warriors. Tonight's Saturday Night feature film is a wonderful film, "It's a Wonderful Life." Timeless, remarkable, and …… utterly wholesome, Capra's masterpiece is a genuine American classic. If you haven't seen it, you must. If you have, see it again. It defines heartwarming. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE,…

What a treat I have scored for you, my fine, finicky filmophiles this evening. Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema gem is the taut Billy Wilder film noir classic, Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson pack plenty of heat. Gripping crime game thrilla.

Tonight's Saturday Night feature is a perennial Atlas favorite: Hitchcock, of course. Secret Agent is one of Hitchcock's "best and most disturbing British films." Based on the novels of W. Somerset Maugham, Secret Agent is the second in a trilogy of Alfred Hitchcock spy movies (along with The 39 Steps and Sabotage). Set during WWI,…

Mr. Godard is a great one for making shock Impressions with vivid images, and he relies on this technique for achieving the main thematic effects in this film. A scene of people being executed in an airy, antiseptic swimming pool because they have behaved "illogically" — i.e., they have felt emotions—is staggering as a single…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema features my favorite genre. Woman on the Run (1950), a superb white-knuckler film noir, stars Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, and Joan Shawlee. Ann Sheridan is terrific; it's her picture and she owns it. The dialogue is sharp and fast, as is the pace, coupled with a great story line….

  Tomight's Saturday Night cinema is No Man of her Own, starring one of Hollywood's most romantic and tragic couples, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. *sigh* It is worth the price of admission on that alone. No Man of Her Own represented the only time that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard co-starred in the same…

Saturday Night Cinema features the Marx Brothers in Horse Feathers. Da best! The NY Times loved it. Here's the 1932 review: Horse Feathers (1932) By MORDAUNT HALL. Published: August 11, 1932 The Four Marx Brothers score again in "Horse Feathers," a picture which came to the Rialto last night. Groucho's characteristic corkscrew humor, Chico's distortions…

Tonight's delicious little film for your viewing pleasure at Atlas Saturday Night at the Movies is Dark Journey, with the exquisite and extraordinarily talented Vivien Leigh. NY TIMES: The romantic era of movie spying petered out with the cold war and was finished off in the early 1960's, when John le Carre began publishing realistic…

The brilliant Bette Davis graces the Atlasphere in tonight's Saturday Night feature, The Star. Bette Davis portrays a fading movie queen given one last chance at the spotlight. Davis, whom I adore, snaps, crackles and pops as always. In Hollywood's golden era, women were womennand adored for all the right reasons. Davis is less glam…

Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema is one of the great film noir classics, The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster (in his stunning debut) and Ava Gardner, who was never more beautiful, IMAO. Ava, Ava, Ava. According to a comment on the Times website, John Huston, who practically invented the genre in Sam Spade’s office, was an uncredited…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is 9/11, the day of horror caught by chance by a French film crew documenting the 9-month rite of passage of a newbie firefighter. Instead, we witness firsthand the actions the heroes who gave their lives to save their countrymen in the worst-ever attack on American soil in our nation's history….

Perhaps last night's superb Aznavour performance got me jonesing for more of that la culture française. So stylish. Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature is Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. I am a bit of a Seberg fan; a tragic, pathetic figure in real life, she is a compelling, talented beautiful gamine on screen. I like that. She's…

Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema feature is George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; most moviegoers are more familiar with the musical, My Fair Lady. Leslie Howard is, as always, brilliant, and Wendy Hiller was introduced to movie audiences and wowed them. Leslie Howard is that rare talent who never disappoints. He elevated every film he was in. Few…

  Saturday Night Cinema feature is a documentary, Israel: Birth of a Nation, made by the History Channel and one of our generation's leading scholars on the subject matter, Sir Martin Gilbert. The Muslim lies have become so pervasive and repeated that the truth is little known or spoken of. I recently finished Gilbert's In…

Saturday Night Cinema feature is Brute Force, starring total stud and total man's man Burt Lancaster and brilliant talent Hume Cronyn. "Brute Force" is still one of the most powerful prison film noir movies ever made.  A Universal International film (1947), the cast includes  Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines, Anita Colby,…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is this rare B-movie cult classic, A Yank in Libya. Muslims conspiring with the Nazis. It seems you could talk about those things back in free America.  "A Yank In Libya" is one of those more classic B films amongst movie buffs, as well known for its title as it is…

Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature for our fourth of July holiday weekend is considered the best Western in film history: the great American western classic, Stagecoach, directed by the great American film director, John Ford. Starring John Wayne in a career -making performance , Claire Trevor, John Carradine …… a magnificent ensemble piece. Stagecoach has…

Another treasure for Atlas readers this evening. Saturday Night Cinema presents Intermezzo. Gregory Ratoff directed David O. Selznick's richly produced American remake of the Swedish film directed by Gustav Molander and starring Ingrid Bergman, who re-creates her role here. The story — based on the original screenplay by Molander and Gosta Stevens — concerns a…

  Happy Birthday Israel! This week's Saturday Night Cinema pick is a tribute to Israel's 63rd birthday, Cast A Giant Shadow. I love this movie! The post-holocaust Jews dancing on the beach! The Brits never understood the Jewish joie. Could Hollywood ever make a movie like this today? Not in a million years. Cast a…

Tonight's feature, Nothing Sacred, is a love letter to Manhattan (which we love), and I thought it was the perfect compliment to last night's open music thread, Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin's masterpiece. Has any composition ever so utterly defined a city? Nothing Sacred is among the best "screwball" comedies of the 1930s. Musical score by…

Saturday Night Cinema feature tonight is the Acadmy award winning "To Kill a Mockingbird." An American film classic, based upon a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (Horton Foote won the Oscar for adapting the screenplay). In the rural American south during the depths of the Depression, two children watch as their principled father takes a stand. If…

Tonight's film feature is One-Eyed Jacks (1961), starring and directed by Marlon Brando. I really love Brando, and his first directing effort is beautiful, disturbing, brooding (you were expecting bubbly?). It's a shame he never directed again. Karl Malden, as the partner who betrays him, is, as always, brilliant. 1961: Oscar Nomination: Best Color Cinematography…

Ah, yes, before America was overthrown. Tonight's feature is Your Town: A Story of America, a film short produced by the government in 1940. Can anyone see Obama's administration producing anything even remotely like this? You'd have to consume  massive quantities of mind-altering drugs to conceive of such a thing.

  Late night cinema, but I have been speaking in LA today and this evening, so forgive the late hour. A little 1933 gem — includes racy pre-code sexual situations. Category: I Cover the Waterfront (1933) The Late Ernest Torrence in His Last Picture, a Melodrama of San Diego's Waterfront. By MORDAUNT HALL. Published: May…

More Liz! For those, like me, who can't get enough of her fabu stuff 🙂 Saturday Night Cinema tonight features an endearing performance by Elizabeth Taylor in Life With Father. Of course I'd love to run Suddenly Last Summer or watch the onscreen love affair blossom between Liz and Dick in Cleopatra, but alas, there…

  I loved Liz. Her death this week was grim, as I mourned not just a larger-than-life life but an entire ….. era, culture, my ideal. I feel her death most acutely. Of course, I had to run a Taylor film for our Saturday Night Cinema; alas, there is not much Liz in the public…

Tonight's Saturday night feature was a made-for-tv movie that went on to become a teenage cult classic, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, starring John Travolta, Robert Reed (Carol Brady's husband on The Brady Bunch), Glynnis O'Connor and Diana Hyland. Executive Producers were Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. Who can forget John Travolta in the…

In considering tonight's selection for the Atlas Saturday night feature, I could not resist choosing The Man with the Golden Arm, in light of the ugly display of the depraved moochers, looters, addicts, parasites and bloodthirsty thugs in Wisconsin. OT but related 🙂  The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) stars Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak…