currently available on youtube in beautiful editions:
The Silent Partner (1978), written by Curtis Hanson,
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Almost 20 years ahead of his "opus," the great LA Confidential, but here is evidence that he "had it" years before. Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer are fine good guy/psychotic bad guy opponents(somewhat in the tradition of Strangers on a Train, Guy and Bruno) and that murder IS so horrific it takes the movie up a whole level.
There is also a very beautiful woman in it. I remember THAT. And I remember a line from Elliott Gould when he is shot in the arm or some such:
"I"ve always wondered what it would feel like to be shot. It feels really painful."
Ha.
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Cloak and Dagger (1946), directed by Lang, this is a solid thriller with a brutal (for its time especially) fight to the death that influenced Hitchcock's death of Gromek sequence in Torn Curtain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQqx6FCVGI
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I saw the movie on afternoon TV years ago, I remember nothing. But somebody pointed us to that fight to the death and yeah, it was pretty damn violent and pretty damn prolonged. I suppose it is a candidate for a "Psycho level of violence" death before Psycho.
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Bedazzled (1967), directed by Donen, a dazzling satire/comedy starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in swinging London (remade horribly in the 2000s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCUvGfvbDM
THAT one, I need to see. I certainly like a lot of Donen's work (Charade and Damn Yankees at the top, and of course including Singin' in the Rain) and as I recall Raquel Welch was a good sport about wearing a bikini in the posters.
Thanks for posting these, swanstep. As DVDs fade into the past and streaming gets more "selective" about what gets shown there, finding these "missing treasures" is a Godsend.
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