The Manchurian Candidate is one of the most endlessly fascinating paranoid thrillers ever created. Beginning its life as a 1959 novel by Richard Condon, it was adapted into a classic 1962 film directed by John Frankenheimer, which was subsequently taken out of circulation for 24 years after the assassination of JFK. Despite this quarter of […]
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
February 27, 2023 by
Film Title
The Manchurian CandidateSynopsis
An American POW is brain-washed to be an unwitting assassin
Director
John FrankenheimerCast
Frank Sinatra
Laurence Harvey
Angela Lansbury
Janet Leigh
Henry Silva
John McGiver
James Gregory
James Edwards
Paths Of Glory (1957)
February 24, 2023 by
Film Title
Paths of GlorySynopsis
An army’s inhumanity to its own brave soldiers.
Director
Stanley KubrickCast
Kirk Douglas
Ralph Meeker
Adolphe Menjou
George MacReady
Wayne Morris
Richard Anderson
There are many great anti-war films that have been made. From the greatest and most horrific war movie ever, Come And See, to the preparing for a war already lost in Tigerland, these films are riveting. War is the most cruel, vicious and inhuman of man’s endeavors, but never have such endeavors been foisted upon […]
A Handful of 80s British Classics
March 5, 2022 by
“Don’t threaten me with a dead fish!” Full marks if you can recognize an indignant Withnail trying to be tough with a gruff poacher in a pub. As far as British movies go, Withnail and I gets my vote as the decade’s best alongside the perpetually bewildered Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday. Now […]
Seconds (1966)
January 30, 2022 by
Film Title
SecondsSynopsis
A middle-aged man wants out
Director
John FrankenheimerCast
Rock Hudson
John Randolph
Salome Jens
Will Geer
Murray Hamilton
Sinead O’Connor called her fantastic second album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, although she could’ve just said I Want What I’ve Got. But what if you no longer want what you’ve got? What happens if all your responsibilities, connections and habits are nothing but burdens? Given the chance, would you cast them […]
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
October 5, 2021 by
Some things are undeniably wrong, such as serving peas and baked beans on the same plate, the South African accent, and Phil Collins singing about homelessness. I guess you could throw serial murder into the same mix, but I’d still argue Another Day in Paradise is a greater crime against humanity. Anyhow, we all like […]
The Legacy Of Silent Film
January 18, 2021 by
When Louis and Auguste Lumiere first showed their short film The Arrival of a Train in 1895, they certainly had no inkling that, almost a hundred years later, it would be the film-within-a-film in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Nor could Carl Theodor Dreyer have suspected that his 1928 feature The […]
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
December 12, 2020 by
Film Title
The Bishop's WifeSynopsis
An angel comes to Earth to help raise money for a Bishop’s church. If he had just used Zelle, we wouldn’t have a movie.
Director
Henry KosterCast
Cary Grant
Loretta Young
David Niven
James Gleason
Monty Woolley
Gladys Cooper
There are many examples in cinema history of iconic movie roles originally being intended for very different actors than those who ended up playing them, from Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey as the original would-be stars of the Bad Boys franchise to Will Smith and Val Kilmer in the roles of Neo and Morpheus in […]
We’re No Angels (1955)
December 2, 2020 by
Film Title
We're No AngelsSynopsis
Three escapees from Devil’s Island are master con men, and help out a kind merchant and his family.
Director
Michael CurtizCast
Humphrey Bogart
Aldo Ray
Peter Ustinov
Joan Bennett
Basil Rathbone
Leo G. Carroll
Lea Penman
Here at Ruthless we love our readers, especially when they give us suggestions about great movies to review. We’re No Angels is a light-hearted and unusual Christmas type movie staring the iconic Humphrey Bogart. O.K., it wasn’t a great movie as such, but considering that the film is 65 years old, it holds up quite […]
Loving the Bomb: Technology & Conquest in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
November 27, 2020 by
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was undeniably one of the most brilliant and innovative motion picture directors of all time. His meticulously crafted works have influenced innumerable filmmakers all over the world, from Steven Spielberg to Gaspar Noe. Obviously, entire books have been written about Kubrick’s oeuvre, so let us focus here on the peak of his […]
King Rat (1965)
September 27, 2020 by
Film Title
King RatSynopsis
A resourceful Corporal King is stuck in a Malaysian P.O.W. camp during WW2. He makes the best of things , using brains, bribery and larceny.
Director
Bryan ForbesCast
George Segal
Tom Courtenay
James Fox
James Donald
Patrick O'Neal
John Mills
In wartime, it is not always the highest ranked individuals that run the show. Oftentimes, like with Ex-PFC Wintergreen and Corporal Milo Minderbinder in Heller’s masterpiece Catch-22, it is the most cunning and resourceful who are in charge. George Segal stars in his best performance ever in writer/director Bryan Forbes’s 1965 adaptation of James Clavell’s […]
