While this version is beautifully photographed and admirably acted, there is never any real feeling of romance or sadness. It is all given a matter-of-fact approach, which doesn't make for a great film.

Only the performance of Elam remains lively, but it is the type of characterization he has done dozens of times. A sad finale to Hawks's magnificent career.

The pacing and action sequences are staged in a manner reminiscent of a spaghetti western and are quite good, but the allegories are too much and too many.

Love Story is actually better than Segal's previously released best-seller (written from his screenplay in order to promote the film). But then that's not saying much.

Most of Cassavetes's cinema verite films as a director are invariably accused (and with some justification) of being rambling, self-indulgent, and unfocused, but it is precisely those elements that make his best work so affecting and memorable, and Husbands, though deeply flawed, is one of the finest examples of that.

Director Ronald Neame's well-paced film captures the period beautifully, and the acting is superb, with Finney and Alec Guinness, as Marley's ghost, real standouts.

Although the film was cut by more than 30 minutes by United Artists, what is left of this satirical, intimate look at the revered character is intriguing and wholly entertaining.

Obviously filmed on a budget, production values leave much to be desired, but the power of the performances and the claustrophobic yet exciting atmosphere caught by the film more than make up for that.

One of Bertolucci's best films, The Conformist makes a provocative connection between repressed sexual desires and fascist politics. It's an intriguing, elegantly photographed study of the twisted Italian character of the 1930s. (Review of Original Release)

While The Vampire Lovers is an interesting and entertaining effort, containing excellent performances from both Pitt and Cushing, writers Harry Fine and Michael Style and director Roy Ward Baker seem to shy away from actually addressing the questions of sexuality and repression inherent in the material.

The Great White Hope persuasively recreates the climate of the time and generally avoids the preachiness for which director Ritt is sometimes known. The love story between Alexander and Jones is touchingly portrayed.

The Japanese sneak attack that plunged the US into WW II is lavishly and fairly accurately, if not enthrallingly, brought to the screen in this Japanese-US coproduction.

Deceptively simple, Pieces is one of the most complex pictures of the 1970s.

Probably the director's most ambitious film, The Wild Child spins a modern myth with resonances for parents and children, teachers and students, and even filmmakers, actors and audiences.

Visually the production is good, primarily because of the Texas exteriors and a lot of period autos, indicating the BONNIE AND CLYDE influence had not played out as yet. But the story drags in this Depression-era melodrama.

This film wants to be bleak, nihilistic, and darkly hilarious but Catch-22 emerges as an exercise in frustration for those unprepared for Nichols's episodic, detached, and surreal treatment of the novel. Like a nightmare, the film shifts from one bizarre episode to another, with Alan Arkin's dazed Yossarian reacting to the madness that surrounds him, but second only to the viewer.

This humorous, lively, and entertaining picture could be described as a caper film set against a WW II backdrop.

Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is an outrageously entertaining cult classic, and probably one of the most bizarre movies ever produced by a major Hollywood studio.

This western almost makes the grade as high-quality moviemaking, but just never quite gets there.

While it's implausible that all of these mishaps would befall a couple in 24 hours, none of these occurrences is beyond the realm of belief, and Simon has cleverly strung them together in one of his best screenplays.

This often-funny film fails to sustain its premise through its entire length. Cambridge is hilarious in his role, but many of the gags are cliched, uninspired, and just what one might have expected from the situation. In order to work, comedy must offer surprises.

A disappointing, quickie follow-up that vainly tries to imitate the look of the original on an obviously limited budget, and for the most part, eschews the philosophical, social, and racial subtext of the first film in favor of straightforward shoot-em-up action and comic-strip characters.

The film offers some fine performances, and Ashby's quirky but skillful direction allows the individual personalities of the characters to shine through. The script has a few uneven moments, none of which damage the overall quality of the film, and Willis captures the atmosphere of both rich and poor New York lifestyles with an impressive visual style.

Hollywood's attempt to capitalize on student rebellion looked trivial in comparison to real events (the shootings at Kent State occured in the same year), but Getting Straight, buoyed by Gould's eccentric screen presence and Kovacs' stylish camerawork, holds up surprisingly well.

Filmed as the Beatles were crumbling under the weight of their own legend, LET IT BE is a milder film than its reputation suggests.

By all accounts, the events depicted are historically accurate, but historical accuracy does not always guarantee a well-paced, interesting film.

If the 1960s political thrust of the movie is somewhat blunted by the passage of time, the historical, even archival, import of Wadleigh's accomplishment is all the more striking. This is a documentary in the purest sense of that word, in that it "documents" a social and cultural benchmark, the coming together of more than 400,000 young people in the meadows of a dairy farm in upstate New York for what was billed as "three days of peace and music"--but turned out to be much more. [Director's Cut]

A keen satire, MANDABI is not only Sembene's first comedy and first film in color, but also his first in Wolof, the language spoken by most Senegalese people. Its critique of a postcolonial state is much more narrowly focused than those of his earlier short films, and, as the first Senegalese film to be distributed commercially in Senegal, it more than got its point across.