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A few films that should be better known, or at least more appreciated

Started by Sydward Lartle, May 15, 2017, 01:09:23 AM

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Sydward Lartle

Death Line
Or, if you're a resident of the US / Canada, you might very well know this one as Raw Meat. Donald Pleasance turns in a towering performance as a world-weary copper (matched almost blow-for-blow by Norman Rossington as his long-suffering second-in-command) on the trail of the last remaining survivor of a tunnel collapse that took place during work on the London Underground - who, naturally, has taken to cannibalism. The fact that the film's first victim is James Cossins (the outboard motors salesman from Fawlty Towers) prowling through a gloriously seedy, neon-splashed early seventies Soho to the accompaniment of a brilliantly effective electronic music score should be enough on its own to convince you that this is going to be brilliant. And even though the cannibal is undoubtedly a horrible individual, you just can't help feeling sorry for him - not after that staggering tracking shot of his lair, anyway.Mind the doors!

The Fiend
In my book, Robert Hartford-Davis is one of the great nearly-men of British cinema, a man who clearly had the talent to go properly mainstream but apparently preferred to offer mordant commentary on the rotten state of society from the sidelines. In Compulsion, he gave us Peter Cushing as an authentically demented, copiously sweating surgeon murdering women for their pituitary glands, along with David 'I was in Cockleshell Heroes' Lodge as a Lennon-capped, mentally retarded hooligan called Groper, for goodness' sake. The Fiend finds him back on fine exploitative form, paring his directorial style down to egg-and-chips basics with this tawdry tale of Patrick Magee running his murderous religious cult from widower Ann Todd's palatial residence, whilst her son Tony Beckley (Camp Freddie from the Italian Job) goes about murdering women and taping their dying screams. Add some wonderfully ripe rock gospel to the soundtrack (hey, Jesus Christ Superstar was a thing back then!) and a sledgehammer sensitivity, and you're in sleaze heaven.

Haunted Honeymoon
Gene Wilder makes another decent, if unspectacular, fist of doing for horror films what his old chum Mel Brooks had been doing for every other film genre for years by that stage. Granted, it's not going to set the world on fire, but if ever a film was undeservedly - and downright unfairly - slagged off for being about a million times more rotten than it actually is, it's this one. Look at the cast, for God's sake. Jonathan 'Gethin Price' Pryce! Peter 'Grouty' Vaughan! Ann 'Mrs Hall' Way! Dom DeLuise in drag! Ideal for Bank Holiday or Boxing Day teatimes.

The Long Good Friday
Guy Ritchie? I've shit 'im. Nick Love? Shut it you slag. Danny Dyer? Muggy cunt. Here we have John 'frenzy' MacKenzie's definitive post-Sweeney study of the London underworld, mostly bankrolled by Sir Lew Grade, who was none too impressed with the finished product and wanted to give it a major trim before George Harrison's Handmade Films stepped in and saved the day. Thatcherite do-or-die Laaandun gangster Bob Hoskins (fresh from turning cartwheels and miming lovely old thirties standards in Pennies from Heaven) attempts to broker a deal with a couple of visiting New York Mafiosi in time for London's bid for the 1988 Olympics, but in his absence, Charlie from Casualty has managed to royally piss off some high-ranking IRA members who are now hell-bent on destroying Hoskins' empire, piece by piece. Incredible acting from start to finish, and proof that you don't need to have your characters saying 'cunt' every thirty seconds in order for them to be effectively threatening.

Memoirs of a Survivor
Until recently, I thought this was a Look and Read serial which was haunting my memories, but a quick Google search reveals it to have been a proper film with Julie Christie and everything. Bleak-as-you-like dystopian future London (think Survivors) gives way to Victoriana courtesy of a time portal or possibly hallucinations. I'm just rambling here, but good fuck, if ITV3 can show the bloody On the Buses films several times a year, I'm bloody sure BBC Four could dust this one off.

The Legend of Hell House
Distinctively early-seventies updating of the old 'strangers accept a lucrative challenge to stay the night in a haunted house' trope, married to the clunking analogue technology of Nigel Kneale's the Stone Tape and headlined by a redoubtable cast of reliable character actors, including Roddy MacDowall, Pamela Franklyn, Clive Revill, Michael Gough and Peter Bowles. Channel Four used to show a shoddy-as-hell print of this which looked for all the world like a feature length public information film, and was frankly several shades more disturbing than the spit-and-polished 35mm print used for the DVD. Don't ask me why, it just was. The bit with the dead cat is simultaneously incredibly fake and really fucking nasty.

Whistle Down the Wind
Hankies at the ready for Bryan Forbes' classic tale of childhood innocence in which Hayley Mills' farmer's daughter finds escaped murderer Alan Bates cowering in a barn and mistakes him for Jesus Christ. Despite the best efforts of the adult performers, the slightly annoying younger brother ("Rotten cows!") steals the show every time. "Leave her alone, Patto!"

Brundle-Fly

Top choices.

Yesterday, I was strolling down to a mates' 50th birthday bash and was listening to The Wayfarers Whistle Down The Wind and had to take a minute to have a sob at a bus stop. Silly old man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5_H4qsTYU

Brundle-Fly

I'm a committed atheist but by Jiminy, you'd have to be a Dalek and hate life itself, not to be moved by this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOq-A9rYsqI

zomgmouse

Underknown and underappreciated films are among my cinematic lifeblood. Some that come to mind in particular at the moment are:

Lord Love a Duck
Truly odd dark comedy with Ruth Gordon and Roddy MacDowall.

The Devil (Diabeł)
Andrzej Żuławski's hugely daunting and mesmerising historical horror-drama.

Anything by Max Linder, the most cast-aside of the silent greats.

Max mon amour
Semi-surrealist romance drama with Charlotte Rampling as a woman who falls in love with a chimp.

Gumshoe
Stephen Frears' debut, starring Albert Finney as a small-time comedian who dreams of being a private eye (also starring Billie Whitelaw!)

200 Motels
Psychedelic mockumentaryesque freakshow from the mind of Frank Zappa.

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
Cheeky satire of fashion and other things by American in Paris three-hit wonder William Klein. Also worth mentioning Mr. Freedom, a wholly broad and ridiculous satire of global politics and fuck knows what else.

I could go on if you like but I've also made a couple of lists of films with fewer than 400 views on a couple of film logging sites I frequent:
https://letterboxd.com/zomgmouse/list/favourite-underseen-films-400-on-letterboxd/
https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/dashleft400/zomgmouse/?sort=checks
Have a look and also if you're a member of either/both of those sites please add me!

zomgmouse

Quote from: Sydward Lartle on May 15, 2017, 01:09:23 AM
Memoirs of a Survivor
Until recently, I thought this was a Look and Read serial which was haunting my memories, but a quick Google search reveals it to have been a proper film with Julie Christie and everything. Bleak-as-you-like dystopian future London (think Survivors) gives way to Victoriana courtesy of a time portal or possibly hallucinations. I'm just rambling here, but good fuck, if ITV3 can show the bloody On the Buses films several times a year, I'm bloody sure BBC Four could dust this one off.
I read the book by Doris Lessing earlier this year, fucking great book, thank you for reminding me to add the film to my list of stuff to watch.

Sydward Lartle

My mistake - the film with Peter Cushing and David Lodge is Corruption. Compulsion is a shit Shaun Hutson book. As you were...
EDIT And fuck me stone dead, you can watch it right here!


Bhazor

I will always remember Wag the Dog purely because it was the source of my very first conspiracy theory. I remember it was in the teleguide but oddly it was cancelled and replaced by something else because "the football ran five minutes over schedule". This was a week after the war in Iraq was kicked off. Hmmmm?

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on May 15, 2017, 07:25:17 PM
Network.
Timecrimes.
Wag the dog.

Good films.

Repo Man doesn't get the credit it deserves. You never see it in those crappy cult film lists but it is a masterpiece.

Clerks. How it was made is mental and it's just a perfect little movie that gets forgotten over other Kevin Smith stuff.

Linlaters Slackers. Amazing. Caught it in there early 90s on after the pub telly. I was transfixed

Sebastian Cobb

Yeah Repo Man is a classic; anything with Harry Dean Stanton in it is underrated.

Sebastian Cobb

Delicatessen as well. Always gets overshadowed by Amelie.

Not unknown, but Bill and Ted was much better and overshadowed by Wayne's World.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on May 15, 2017, 08:10:46 PM
Delicatessen as well. Always gets overshadowed by Amelie.

Not unknown, but Bill and Ted was much better and overshadowed by Wayne's World.

100% agree on both points. Especially Biil And Ted.

Boogie Nights. One of PTA's best films. It's so rich. Crazy film.

Serge

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on May 15, 2017, 08:04:49 PMClerks. How it was made is mental and it's just a perfect little movie that gets forgotten over other Kevin Smith stuff.

Really? Even 'Big Bang Theory' had a gag about how a (then) mooted 'Clerks III' would see Smith going back to his best-known work again and again.

phantom_power

I am sure this has been said before in previous threads but Freaked and So I Married an Axe Murderer are unfairly overlooked in the cult comedy stakes.

Frailty is a fantastic psychological thriller directed by the late, great Bill Paxton that doesn't get the credit it deserves.

I know it isn't that well-loved but I think Gerry is one of Gus Van Sant's best films

Static and Miracle Mile are a couple of oddball 80s films that deserve to have similar cult followings to Buckaroo Banzai and Big Trouble in Little China

Johnny Dangerously should be a comedy classic along the lines of Airplane and The Jerk

Mr Banlon


armful

The Outsiders, I caught this late one night on TV when I was about 13 and thought it was the most edgy movie of all time. I re watched   it the other year on you tube,  although it has lost its edge to my adult jaded mind it is still worth a watch. 

A perfect film for playing spot  the future famous person  , special shout outs for Daniel  San  in the movie before he met Miyagi, in which  he uses a flick  knife instead of a crane kick and  Emilio Estevez toying with the young crazy character he perfected in Young Guns 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tgJqnVMAtc

Kane Jones

Quote from: armful on May 16, 2017, 12:15:31 PM
The Outsiders, I caught this late one night on TV when I was about 13 and thought it was the most edgy movie of all time. I re watched   it the other year on you tube,  although it has lost its edge to my adult jaded mind it is still worth a watch. 

A perfect film for playing spot  the future famous person  , special shout outs for Daniel  San  in the movie before he met Miyagi, in which  he uses a flick  knife instead of a crane kick and  Emilio Estevez toying with the young crazy character he perfected in Young Guns 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tgJqnVMAtc

Directed by Coppola. Also starred Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell and a pre-dental work Tom Cruise.

It's an OK film, but I wouldn't call it a classic. The big rumble between the greasers and the socs is the best scene in the film.

Blumf

The Long Goodbye (1973) is a good film that hardly ever gets any attention, yet I think everybody who has seen it likes it. It even has an early surprise Schwarzenegger appearance!

The Squeeze (1977) is a slice of grimy 70s British crime drama that gets overlooked in favour of Get Carter and The Long Good Friday. Even Freddie Starr does well in it.

Blumf

Quote from: phantom_power on May 15, 2017, 10:41:31 PM
Johnny Dangerously should be a comedy classic along the lines of Airplane and The Jerk

Yep, also Top Secret! (1984), the inexplicably forgotten/ignored Abrahams, Zucker, & Zucker film.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Blumf on May 16, 2017, 01:05:17 PM
The Long Goodbye (1973) is a good film that hardly ever gets any attention, yet I think everybody who has seen it likes it. It even has an early surprise Schwarzenegger appearance!

The Squeeze (1977) is a slice of grimy 70s British crime drama that gets overlooked in favour of Get Carter and The Long Good Friday. Even Freddie Starr does well in it.

Most of Altman's films seem to be massively underrated. The people who say they're slow shouldn't be allowed to watch them.

Custard

Calvaire (2004)



Recommended to me on this very forum a few years ago, this is a modern masterpiece

Brutal, horrific, jaw-dropping

GET IT WATCHED

(and don't read anything about it beforehand xxx)

phantom_power

More from the 70s:

The Conversation - usually well behind in the Coppola stakes but I think it may be his best film
Brewster McCloud - another under-rated Altman film, usually ignored in favour of MASH or Nashville
California Split - see above

Also:
Summer School - a fine addition to the "kids dicking around in high school" genre
The Frighteners - the perfect blend of Peter Jackson's early sloppy fun and later CGI spectacle
Primal Fear - Ed Norton's first film and a brilliant performance in an under-rated thriller

mothman

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on May 16, 2017, 01:25:37 PM
Most of Altman's films seem to be massively underrated. The people who say they're slow shouldn't be allowed to watch them.

I love The Long Goodbye. And also The Long Good Friday (not Altman, but mentioned above). I'm also a big fan of Gosford Park, which may not be his best work by a long shot and is likely to be forever tarnished by the TV ratings behemoth that is Downton Abbey. I'm not sure who deserves death more for it, the person who went to Fellowes and said "we'd like to make a TV version of Gosford Park, but instead of showing the upper classes to be the shower of shit they are, we'd like it made plain to our viewers that they're actually really wonderful and just all-round better than the proles who watch out channel" - or Fellowes himself for agreeing to do it...

Quote from: mothman on May 16, 2017, 04:58:37 PM
I'm not sure who deserves death more for it, the person who went to Fellowes and said "we'd like to make a TV version of Gosford Park, but instead of showing the upper classes to be the shower of shit they are, we'd like it made plain to our viewers that they're actually really wonderful and just all-round better than the proles who watch out channel" - or Fellowes himself for agreeing to do it...

Probably Fellowes, for his lifelong addiction to writing incredibly dull stuff about the problems of incredibly wealthy people. He's the closest you'll get to an anti-Ken Loach. He represents the worst of English cinema and television, and his success is ample evidence of the English public's inferiority complex and willing subservience to rich and powerful people.

greenman

Quote from: phantom_power on May 16, 2017, 03:52:50 PM
The Frighteners - the perfect blend of Peter Jackson's early sloppy fun and later CGI spectacle

That is a strange one in that you'd think post Lord of the Rings people would have gone back to it more, especially given the similarities to now ever more loved 80's blockbusters and a certain drill sargent featuring. I spose you could argue its never really shifted how unhip unearthing the only recently dead 80's blockbuster corpse seemed at the time?

phantom_power

I think it is a bit too dark for mainstream success as well

The Anderson Tapes - A Sean Connery heist film. Really engrossing seventies film.

The Loved Ones - Gory Australian horror.


AliasTheCat

John Hillcoat's Ghosts...of the Civil Dead- A very good, bleak prison drama which took me forever to find a physical copy of a decade ago. I would have thought that the success of The Proposition, The Road and Lawless -as well as Nick Cave's involvement- would have merited at least a DVD release, but as far as I'm aware it's still pretty much unavailable outside Australia.

phantom_power

I remember seeing that on Channel 4 back in the day. Proper fucking grim

Serge

Quote from: phantom_power on May 16, 2017, 03:52:50 PMThe Conversation - usually well behind in the Coppola stakes but I think it may be his best film

Yes! This is the only Coppola film I actually like. (Francis, that is - I like two by Sofia.)

Anyway, my choice:

The Offence isn't as well known as it should be, possibly my favourite Sean Connery film. Set in an unnamed grim northern town, which is being terrorized by a child rapist, a suspect (played marvellously by Ian Bannen) is arrested and the interrogation (by Connery's beaten-down cop) goes wrong in a very big way. The film isn't told in chronological order - the opening titles have people at the station reacting to something going wrong, then it goes back to before the arrest, leads up to it, then jumps to after the bad thing, before showing the bad thing. I often wonder if Quentin Tarantino ever saw it.