Shameless Self Expression

Fictionalised account of the creation of the title mail route, featuring ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (Charlton Heston) and ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok (Forrest Tucker). They encounter a scheming brother and sister duo (Rhonda Fleming and Michael Moore), who team up with rival business owners Henry Brandon and Stuart Randall to get in the way of progress. Also conflicting with our heroes are a tribe of Native Americans, led by Pat Hogan. Meanwhile, tomboy Denny (Jan Sterling) has eyes for Cody, and isn’t too keen on flame-haired Evelyn (Fleming) seemingly expressing interest in him and vice versa.   Very minor 1953 western from director Jerry Hopper (A TV veteran of “Perry Mason” , “Gilligan’s Island” , and “Gunsmoke” ) is hardly a stinker, but is certainly very lucky to have the very well-cast Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling. Both underrated actresses they’re terrific, as is the lovely colour cinematography by Ray Rennahan ( “Whispering Smith” , “The Paleface” , and a lot of TV). Otherwise ther...

Set in the 22 nd Century, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as construction worker Douglas Quaid, who has always been fascinated by Mars. Doug hears about a company called Rekall, which provides ‘synthetic’ vacations, memory implants that offer you what is considered to be the next best thing to actually travelling. Doug visits Rekall, and before you know it he’s signed himself up for an ‘Adventure Package’ where on his synthetic holiday he’ll be a secret agent on a dangerous mission where he’ll kill the bad guys and get the brunette (Rachel Ticotin) to boot. Because this is a movie, something goes screwy during the procedure and Doug wakes up and is convinced he really is the secret agent and that his other life was actually fake and based on artificially implanted memories. Now all of a sudden, bad guys (led by Michael Ironside and Michael Champion) are trying to kill him, and Doug ends up joining a band of Mars revolutionaries in their attempt to overthrow the evil Cohaagen (Ronny Cox). ...

In some kind of post-apocalyptic landscape, David Goss and Harrison Muller are trying to rescue their pretty friend who was kidnapped by evil Gordon Mitchell. Eventually recruited into the rescue mission is Amazon warrior queen She (Sandahl Bergman), as the encounter bizarre flesh-eating werewolves, a psychic cult faction (headed by Gregory Snegoff), a crazed scientist, and mutants among other assorted creatures.   I wasn’t a great fan of the 1960s Hammer version of the H. Rider Haggard novel, but this 1984 uber low-budget version from writer-director Avi Nesher (who went on to make “Timebomb” with Michael Biehn and “Doppelganger” with Drew Barrymore) is about a thousand times worse. Mostly playing like an inexplicable Italian-made “Mad Max II” rip-off (one of seemingly a thousand), Nesher isn’t even trying to make a “She” film here. He’s just trying to make a quick, cheap buck with Kellogg’s Corn Flakes product placement and Motorhead on the soundtrack. “Escape From New Yo...

Olivia de Havilland is the title character, the meek and plain daughter of cold-hearted, domineering widowed father Ralph Richardson, whom she lives with along with her more supportive Aunt (Miriam Hopkins). de Havilland falls for young Montgomery Clift, a social climber from a lower class, much to Richardson’s cold disapproval. Clift and de Havilland want to be married, but Richardson (a successful physician by trade) sees the young man as being entirely motivated by money, as he can’t fathom why anyone should want to marry his ‘modest’ daughter for any other reason than money. So he decides to prove his point by suggesting that if the two should marry, de Havilland will be disinherited. You’ll have to watch the film to find out how well that goes down with Mr. Clift.   The late, great Olivia de Havilland sure did have a long innings until Father Time finally called on her in 2020 at the incredible age of 104. One of the last of the Golden Era in Hollywood to fall, she was als...

An elderly, wheelchair-bound countess is murdered at her bayside villa, only for her murderer to be himself killed off by an unknown killer. They will not be the only ones who end up sliced and diced. Brigitte Skay plays a sexy hippie, whilst Claudine Auger and Luigi Pistilli play the countess’ daughter and her husband, respectively.   Controversially violent for its time, this 1971 giallo from director/cinematographer Mario Bava ( “Black Sunday” , “Black Sabbath” , and the underrated pair of “Kill, Baby…Kill” and “Five Dolls for an August Moon” ) is one of his most popular. It’s also one of his most influential, with “Friday the 13 th Part 2” in particular clearly being inspired by what Bava offers up here. I loathe the first two “Friday the 13 th ” films (and most of the others for that matter), and feel that Mr. Bava is much better than what he offers up in this good-looking but extremely cluttered film. I don’t reject the film quite as outrightly as say the late Sir Chr...