thunderbolt is a 1929 american pre-code proto-noir film which tells the story of a criminal , facing execution , who wants to kill the man in the next cell for being in love with his girlfriend .

the movie was adapted by herman j. mankiewicz , joseph l. mankiewicz ( titles ) and josef von sternberg from the story by charles furthman and jules furthman .

it was directed by sternberg .

bancroft was nominated for the academy award for best actor .

thunderbolt ( 1929 film )

thunderbolt : fay wray and george bancroft star in the 1929 gangster film directed by josef von sternberg . ( ucla film & television archive )
thunderbolt ( 1929 ) - - ( movie clip ) it ' s only . . .
thunderbolt ( 1929 ) - - ( movie clip ) don ' t you . . .
was , in 1929 ) , but it was the first german sound film . th
mon 2 sep 1929 - the sydney morning herald ( nsw : 1842 - 1954 ) page 8 - new films .
thunderbolt .
the sydney morning herald ( nsw : 1842 - 1954 ) , mon 2 sep 1929 , page 8 - new films .
thunderbolt .
claire johnston , “sternberg’s thunderbolt ” , focus on film no . 2 , 1970 , p . 54 .
woman in the moon ( 1929 , germ . ) ( aka frau im mond )
diary of a lost girl ( 1929 , germ . ) ( aka tagebuch einer verlorenen )
pandora ' s box ( 1929 , germ . ) ( aka die büchse der pandora )
un chien andalou ( 1929 , fr . ) ( aka an andalusian dog ) ( short )
survival status : prints exist in the ucla film and television archive film archive [ two 35mm positives ] .
white hell of pitz palu ( 1929 , germ . ) ( aka die weiße holle vom piz palü )
a criminal known as thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution . into the next cell is placed bob moran , an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with thunderbolt ' s girl . thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young moran for romancing his girl .
looking for movie tickets ? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing thunderbolt near you .
thunderbolt is a 1929 american pre - code proto - noir film which tells the story of a criminal , facing execution , who wants to kill the man in the next cell for being in love with his girlfriend . it stars george bancroft , fay wray , richard arlen , tully marshall and eugenie besserer .
a criminal known as thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution . into the next cell is placed bob morgan , an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with thunderbolt ' s girl , without knowing of their relationship . thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young morgan for romancing his girl .
in his 21 june 1929 new york times review , mordaunt hall described thunderbolt as “a musical comedy plot striving to masquerade as a drama” . its deliberately conceived absurdist structure anticipates the final act of dennis potter’s 1978 teleplay for the series pennies from heaven .
a criminal known as thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution . into the next cell is placed bob moran , an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with thunderbolt ' s girl . . . . see full summary »
josef von sternberg directs with camera movement constrained by early - talkie sound recording , brassy ritzy ( fay wray ) not buckling under pressure from cop william l . thorne , asking after her old gangster boyfriend and threatening her new one ( richard arlen ) , in thunderbolt , 1929 . >
get breaking stories straight from hollywood , covering film , television , music and more .
backstage at a harlem night club ritzy ( fay wray ) has just told her fugitive boyfriend ( george bancroft , title character ) shes going straight and wants out , hes more concerned he might have a rival , until the cops show up , in thunderbolt , 1929 , directed by josef von sternberg .
backstage at a harlem night club ritzy ( fay wray ) has just told her fugitive boyfriend ( george bancroft , title character ) shes going straight and wants out , hes more concerned he might have a rival , until the cops show up , in thunderbolt , 1929 , directed by josef von sternberg . >
we don ' t have enough data to suggest any movies based on thunderbolt . you can help by rating movies you ' ve seen .
every film that has ever been nominated for an academy award in any category . enjoy !
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
janet bergstrom and cecilia cenciarelli summarize their research on von sternberg’s lost film the sea gull .
founded in 1999 , senses of cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional , high quality film - related content on the internet .
{ { cite news urltoken | title = new films .
thunderbolt .
| newspaper = [ [ the sydney morning herald ] ] | issue = 28 , 599 | location = new south wales , australia | date = 2 september 1929 | accessdate = 10 july 2018 | page = 8 | via = national library of australia } }
thunderbolt has suffered neglect in comparison to underworld . both films share common features such as the noble gangster dying for his friends and due to his kindness to animals : bull weed gives milk to a kitten while thunderbolt befriends a dog that leads to his capture . but thunderbolt undermines superficial sentimentalities derived from the earlier film by emphasising comic undertones such as the eponymous character playing doggy games before he attempts to murder bob . death row is really a vaudeville venue with thunderbolt teaching his pet dog to “play dead” before his execution ( 9 ) . but sentimentality may actually conceal deep masochistic desires . this will not be the last occasion von sternberg subverts genre conventions , utilising a particular type of masochistic performance technique he also mentions in his autobiography ( 10 ) .
a growing source of silent era film information . this listing is from the progressive silent film list by carl bennett . copyright © 1999 - 2018 by carl bennett and the silent era company . all rights reserved .
another unbelievable film from someone who is quickly becoming one of my very favorite directors , with sound design from 1929 ( holy shit ) that ' s as dense and creative as anything this side of francis ford coppola , and a performance from george bancroft that proves he ' s von sternberg ' s male dietrich .
) . despite his limited acting range , george bancroft carries the film almost singlehandedly , although his delivery is so slow that you soon become convinced that the film is being played at half its intended speed . today ,
serving as proof that josef von sternberg did make fine films before the blue angel , thunderbolt is a bizarre gangster picture which is as much a romance as a thriller .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
the film gets long during its lengthy scenes , especially after the more interesting technical methods cease . it’s decent instead of interesting .
: the “director’s cut” was released in argentina during the 1920s , with spanish intertitles and inserts made at ufa . a collector acquired a print . ( once more we have a collector to thank for saving film history . ) when the argentine film archive (
this josef von sternberg underworld melodrama ( which he did just before he went to germany and made the blue angel ) was filmed as a silent and released in that form in some places , but sound was added after the film was completed , and it was more generally released as a talkie . george bancroft is the gang leader known as thunderbolt ; fay wray is his gun moll , ritzy ; richard arlen is the bank clerk who knew her before she took up with thunderbolt , and wants to marry her . bancroft was such a genial , large - spirited actor that he makes thunderbolt likable even while he ' s framing the bank clerk for murder . the two men wind up facing each other in opposite cells on…
this list collects every film from the starting list that became they shoot pictures don ' t they ' s 1000 greatest films . this…
see , for example , s . m . eisenstein , v . i . pudovkin , and g . v . alexandrov , “a statement” , film sound : theory and practice , ed . elisabeth weis and john belton , columbia university press , new york , 1985 , pp . 83 - 5 ; v . i . pudovkin , “asynchronism as a principle of sound film” , film sound : theory and practice , pp . 86 - 91 ; lucy fischer , “ enthusiasm : from kino - eye to radio - eye” , film sound : theory and practice , pp . 247 - 264 .
) , but she also bears a resemblance—perhaps deliberately enhanced through costuming and make - up—to barbara steele and other horror - film heroines of the 1960s .
unfortunately , there’s a lot of flash in the screenplay . in terms of plotting , thunderbolt is exquisite . the first half of the film operates without a protagonist . all of the films scenes are long , but those first forty - five minutes play even longer due to the passage of time ( a couple months ) . there’s the initial setup , with fay wray and richard arlen as young lovers who get picked up by the police . it seems wray’s got an infamous paramour , played by george bancroft ( as the titular thunderbolt , a moniker describing his lethal right ) . there’s some stuff with wray and bancroft , then a very pre - code scene with wray staying with arlen and mother eugenie besserer , and finally the development into the second half of the film .
thunderbolt also uses sound expressionistically whether it originates from the sewing machine of a mother ( eugenie besserer ) , worried about a son fired from his bank job due to police pressure , or the sinister squeaking sounds from a dog’s cat ball toy that thunderbolt squeezes in his last hours on death row as he considers his revenge on bob . when thunderbolt hits someone in the black cat , a drum roll accompanies their slide to the floor . a crashing cymbal instantly synchronises with the final fall as the victim reaches the floor . although part two naturally lacks the impressive camera mobility of part one’s nightclub sequence , the limitation of space does not prevent the appearance of innovative sound techniques complementing those heard earlier . both parts complement and counterpoint each other .
following a violent incident leading to the cessation of the music , entertainment resumes with a black torch singer singing a blues song , “daddy won’t you please come home” , the lines articulating later feelings of romantic despair thunderbolt and ritzy will later experience . the nightclub sequence ends with the police raiding the club armed with tommy - guns , appearing little different from the gangsters they seek . as the lights go off , the police appear in the entrance lit in german expressionist / pre - film noir lighting . but thunderbolt escapes off - screen . the off - screen sound techniques used in the black cat nightclub scenes anticipate those later used in the death row sequence .
thunderbolt has some excellent use of sound . it’s a very early talky and i’m hesitant to say any of its uses were innovative , because the word suggests others picked up on the techniques and developed them . most of thunderbolt ‘s singular sound designs didn’t show up again in hollywood cinema for over twenty years . the way von sternberg uses on camera singers , showcasing them as a performance for the characters to watch , not for the audience to see , doesn’t resemble any of the ostensibly similar scenes in the 1930s . the overall sound design–the street scenes , the edits–resembles german film a lot more than american ; there’s a particular lack of flash to von sternberg’s tone .
thunderbolt foolishly tries to rehabilitate its protagonist ( and inevitably , i suppose ) . it just goes about it in the worse way possible . it removes the agency from the character , making his salvation a passive event . instead of being interesting , it’s de facto .
according to harold truscott , a focus on film reader from yorkshire , who saw both versions , the silent differed from the sound version by re - staging the positions of actors in certain scenes : “bancroft’s movements in the cell were different in the two films , he stood differently against the bars in the silent version . i should say , also , that the silent version was a good deal more powerful than the talkie . bancroft’s work in the cell was tremendous , but it lost some of its power in the talkie . ” his comments are similar to comparisons made between silent and sound versions of alfred hitchcock’s blackmail ( 1929 ) . see focus on film no . 5 , 1970 , p . 16 .
tony williams is professor and area head of film studies in the department of english at southern illinois university , carbondale . a frequent contributor to cteq annotations on film , he has recently published the second edition of larry cohen : the radical allegories of an american filmmaker . the second edition of hearths of darkness : the family in the american horror film is scheduled for december 2014 . the second edition of the cinema of george romero and an edited collection of essays , postcolonialism , diaspora , and alternative histories : the cinema of evans chan , will appear in 2015 .
josef von sternberg , one of the few internationally admired american directors , achieved his greatest success with his one german film . sternberg emigrated to the u . s . from austria in 1908 , and after a decade of apprenticeship in the film industry during which the “von” was added to his name by an image - minded producer , he gained wide critical acclaim with his first directorial effort ,
static but superb gangster film - it was von sternberg ' s first talkie . before the director found a muse in marlene dietrich he made three superb films with burly george bancroft who here plays the notorious gangster , thunderbolt . the film is a love triangle between the gangster , his moll ( fay wray ) and the young man ( richard arlen ) she is in love with . caught and imprisoned he frames her lover on a bank robbery charge and both men get to face each other in cells . superbly acted by bancroft who predictably plays it tough but shows the man ' s vulnerable side in his interactions with the girl , a dog and the mother of his rival . he has…
i’m not convinced that the film is quite the masterpiece that some claim , but it is a major item in powell’s oeuvre nonetheless , and i felt privileged to have seen it in ideal conditions .
the second half of the film , with bancroft on death row , is where thunderbolt starts to pick up . the character–going into the second half–is already supposed to be somewhat endearing , because he cared for a stray instead of promptly murdering arlen ( and , presumably , besserer ) . the second half doesn’t try to rehabilitate him . instead , it’s a goofy prison movie with bancroft as the gangster ( who we never actually see commit any crimes in the running time ) . there’s some decent stuff , a few good scenes here and there ; really , it’s about bancroft all of a sudden becoming the film’s lead . his performance is occasionally shaky , but it doesn’t matter . he commands the screen .
proof that for a few brief moments after the sound cinema singularity , it was possible for anti - naturalism to exist . the best film of the 1920s is a talkie . death to silent cinema !
ron mottram , “american sound films , 1926 - 1930” , film sound : theory and practice , p . 226 . he also notes the use of space in the death row sequence , dividing the cells with off - screen voices of prisoners from the unified world of the prison separated from the outside world . neither camera mobility nor creative use of mise en scène are absent from this early sound film .
, had elevated expressionism to the sound film and opened up new possibilities for its presentation . however , only von sternberg , and later orson welles , had the technical virtuosity and artistic integrity to continue the
the film is also interesting visually . with its use of high contrast black and white photography and omnipresent shadows , the film presages the film noir thriller . the one sequence of particular interest is the one in which the principal baddie , lang , ascends the staircase to confront his rival . the noirish lighting transforms the staircase into a spider ' s web in which lang becomes enmeshed and incapable of carrying out his deadly plan . the same visual motif recurs in the prison scenes , but this time lang and his rival are both caught , like flies in a spider ' s web , awaiting a cruel end .
metropolis has been reconstructed many times since the 1960s . in 2001 , the murnau foundation presented a digital restoration of the film supervised by martin koerber in collaboration with enno patalas . in this version , which is available on dvd ( transit film , kino international ) about 30 minutes of the original material are missing . in 2003 - 2005 enno patalas and anna bohn together with a team at the university of the arts in berlin created a “study edition” version in which the missing footage was represented by bits of gray leader . for the first time the full length of the film was reconstructed with help from the the original music score .
the expressionistic , shadow - laden environments are beautifully atmospheric , especially the decadent atmosphere of the cabaret stage and dressing rooms . these are meticulously crafted frames that achieve visual depth by shooting highlighted and backlit subjects through shadowy foreground scenery . the expressionist visuals are so dramatically well presented that the film can be pretty well understood without any semantic input from the sound track . in fact it may be better to watch the film without subtitles enabled .
in
thunderbolt ,
an audible production featuring george bancroft , there is a queer idea of humor , that of portraying what the producers esteem to be the lighter side of the death cell . the greater part of this production is of scenes in an aisle of barred cells , with a privileged . . . view full article in timesmachine »
the film was shot cheaply in a salzburg studio , using garish , modernist settings against black backgrounds . these create a labyrinthine , floating space that avoids seeming stage - bound . ( hein heckroth , the production designer , had previously worked on several powell films , including the red shoes and the tales of hoffman . ) i was reminded of hans - jürgen syberberg’s parsifal ( 1982 ) , which looks somewhat less original in the light of powell’s film .
the print shown was a privately held technicolor original from the era , in nearly mint condition . ( the british film institute has a print as well . ) the sparse subtitles written by powell himself were added for this screening .
, which was released in german and english language versions and which ranks with the greatest films of all time . the film marked a transition for von sternberg from his earlier harsh realism to his subsequent baudelairian obsession with feminine ambiguity and erotic v
i ' m not as crazy about the beginning of this film ( though , as one can expect , the scene in the speakeasy is as good as they come in sternberg ) , but once it reaches the jail cell , thunderbolt instantly becomes top tier . this is perhaps the most literal of the films i ' ve seen from sternberg so far , insofar as the metaphorical cage that houses the characters ' fragile , complicated sense of masculinity becomes material for the majority of the picture . it ' s a shame that sternberg and bancroft only did three films together ; they seem like a match made in cinematic heaven
still stands today as one of the stellar expressions in film history . the story charts the tragic downfall of an older german professor as a result of his ruinous infatuation with a lower class cabaret singer . the novel on which the script is based ,
writing a few months after the director’s death , she praises andrew sarris for re - evaluating the non - dietrich films but added that further reassessment suffers from the vagaries of distribution especially concerning access to the director’s first sound film then released on 16mm . despite gaylyn studlar’s examination of the von sternberg - dietrich collaboration , few detailed explorations exist of the director’s other films ( 2 ) . good copies of thunderbolt can be found only in the u . c . l . a . and m . o . m . a archives , while poor quality bootleg copies circulate on dvd and vhs . the silent version , made for general release in cinemas not equipped for sound , is unobtainable ( 3 ) .
( sometimes with only gray leader onscreen ) . the editors determined the duration of each scene by a critical comparison of the remaining film materials with the music score and other source materials . this dvd edition was released in a limited edition available to educational and research facilities . for information see
) . this scrupulous version includes the original score , a lot of production material , and the complete script by thea von harbou . it’s a model of how digital formats can assist documentation of film history . the dvd incorporates production stills and intertitles from the missing scenes , and presents each scene
the following day was the formal ceremony : thomas’ farewell speech in the university auditorium , a converted chapel . thomas and other professors , garbed in robes and caps , filed in and thomas took the floor to present his talk , “of feedback and phasmids : a farewell to film studies . ” he offered both an oblique account of his institutional political battles and a broader account of trends in film theory across the last three decades . he wove clips from master and commander into his talk , which sometimes bolstered a comparison between his tough - minded handling of the program and captain jack’s nautical tactics .
thunderbolt was josef von sternberg ' s first american talking picture . george bancroft , a von sternberg regular ( despite frequents clashes between the two men ) , plays a death row inmate who may be on the eve of eternity , but who has still one more murder on his mind . he plans to kill the young lover ( richard arlen ) of his former girl friend ( fay wray ) ; fortuitously the lover is incarcerated in the same prison where bancroft awaits the chair .
von sternberg regarded the arrival of sound technology as challenging . he also saw it as another way to stimulate audience imagination : “to be correctly and effectively used , sound had to bring to the image a quality other than what the lens included , a quality out of the range of the image . sound had to counterpoint or compensate the image , add to it – not subtract from it . ” ( 5 ) his attempt to put sound in its appropriate relationship to the image remained unnoticed except by his fellow director ludwig berger who congratulated von sternberg on making “the first rounded out and artistically elaborated sound film” ( 6 ) . thunderbolt does have its share of stilted dialogue and problems associated with the new technology . but these minor flaws should not prevent modern viewers from appreciating the innovative nature of the creative solutions von sternberg used for this new form ( 7 ) .
, a violent attack on imperial germany , written in 1905 by heinrich mann ( brother of thomas mann ) . von sternberg was to make vast alterations translating the novel , which had been an old abandoned project of g . w . pabst , to the screen , including the elimination of the last third of the novel . later when there was public criticism for those changes ( in germany ) and when , for complex political reason , ufa tried to dissociate its film from the radical leftist , mann , the author replied simply , “had i been more mature ( when i wrote it ) , i would have developed the character of professor unrath more humanly , as in the film . ”
the dog outwits the kidnappers at first appears to be a sort of sequel ( as it is described in the program ) , since it stars the same dog ( blair ) who had played rover , and again there is a kidnapped baby . it’s not really a sequel , though , since cecil hepworth , who had played the father in the earlier film , here appears as the kidnapper , and the dog is not named rover . the new film is more fantastical than the original , since the dog races after the car in which the child is abducted and rather than fetching its master , effects the rescue itself by driving the car back home when the villain leaves his victim unattended !
isual imagery . what causes this film to transcend the trivial genre of bourgeois male corrupted by bohemian female is the subtly conceived role of lola - lola . . the directness of dietrich , contrasting well with the elaborateness of jannings , established the ground for her magnetic appeal . her impassive , even sometimes sympathetic , innocence renders the fate of the professor into true tragedy .
it was a terrific two days for us , not least for witnessing the great admiration and devotion that his colleagues and students displayed . they even edited , in secret , a book in homage to him ( left ) . thomas has not only reshaped our sense of how film works , but his dedication to media education has created a generation of lively and original young scholars .
there were plenty of other revelations . we got the reconstructed prite ( was it the first really modern soviet film ? ) , a bit of an original kuleshov experiment in constructive editing , and a tantalizing fragment from the female journalist ( 1927 ) , with a surprisingly pensive hohlova as a modern - day reporter . sasha ( 1930 ) , directed by hohlova herself , was a sympathetic portrait of a pregnant woman . an educational film called forty hearts ( 1930 ) explained the need to electrify the soviet countryside and was brightened by faux - naïve animation . timur and his crew ( 1942 ) , with some of the charm of a nancy drew movie , showed young pioneers helping on the home front ; it unexpectedly centered on a girl’s devotion to her military father .
in the 1960s and 1970s , it was common to say that eisenstein and vertov were the most experimental soviet directors , while the others were more conventional . then we realized that in films like arsenal ( 1928 ) , dovzhenko had his own wild ways . then we discovered the feks team , kozintsev and trauberg , and the bold montage of the new babylon ( 1929 ) . a closer look at pudovkin , particularly his early sound films like a simple case ( 1932 ) and deserter ( 1933 ) , revealed that he too was no timid soul when it came to daring cutting and image / sound juxtapositions . but surely their mentor kuleshov , admirer of hollywood continuity and proponent of the simplest sorts of constructive editing , played things safe ?
cast : george bancroft [ ‘thunderbolt’ jim lang ] , fay wray [ ‘ritzy’ mary ] , richard arlen [ bob morgan ] , tully marshall [ the warden ] , eugenie besserer [ mrs . morgan ] , james spottswood [ snapper o’shea ] , fred kohler [ ‘bad’ al friedberg ] , mike donlin [ kentucky sampson ] , e . h . calvert [ district attorney mckay ] , george irving [ mr . corwin ] , robert elliott [ the prison chaplain ] , s . s . stewart [ negro convict ] , william l . thorne [ police inspector ] , elmer ballard , king tut
the film belongs to the late period of powell’s career , after the controversial peeping tom had made it impossible for him to work within the mainstream film industry . it was produced by norman foster —though not the norman foster who directed journey into fear and several of the charlie chan and mr . moto films . this norman foster was an opera singer whose stage career was cut short by a dispute with herbert von karajan . his widow , sybille nabel - foster , explained this and described how foster produced and starred in two television adaptations , herzog blaubarts burg and die lustigen weiber von windsor ( 1966 ) . foster had originally approached ingmar bergman to direct the former , but when that proved impossible , powell stepped in—and probably a good thing , too . it was definitely his kind of project .
thomas is also an old friend , a big influence on our work ever since his days at brighton film review and monogram , and a generous host when we were visiting london in the 1970s and early 1980s to work on our book , the classical hollywood cinema . he kindly published kristin’s lubitsch book in the amsterdam series . i wrote a little tribute essay for his sixtieth birthday festschrift , available in english here .
critical comment on the film is frequently divided between its so - called dream - like nature and its sordid realism . what is actually achieved is a brilliant synthesis of expressionism and artistic detail to bring about a realism of the imagination of memory . the expressive power arising from von sternberg’s control of the cinematic environment to its last detail results in effects even more strongly felt than those of pabst . siegfried kracauer , commenting on
both jannings and dietrich give superb performances . jannings’s highly gestural presentation , derived from his silent movie experience , leads effectively to the dramatic gestures of the clown in the final scenes . dietrich’s performance , by contrast , is a brilliantly natural presentation of the reflexively amoral and passionate aesthete . he embodies the neuroses of civilisation ; she represents the innocence of the pagan . there is nothing cruel about lola - lola , but she can’t help being who she is and she embodies her own signature song : “falling in love again” . this first sound - film performance of dietrich was never surpassed for its mixture of uncompromising and unfathomable femininity . overall , the dialogue and character attitudes are , despite the expressionistic tones in the film , very natural – they reflect an openness in the filmmaking of those days that would soon be curtailed by the hays code .
the melodrama soon kicks in ( bancroft , from prison , frames arlen and arlen ends up on death row and there’s conflict ) and the film can’t narratively recover from it . there are still some decent scenes , some excellent shots from von sternberg , and bancroft maintains . arlen , on the other hand , is silly and awful . it’s a bit of a surprise too , because he was fine during the first half .
kt : one of the high points of the week for me was michael powell’s 1964 film of béla bartók’s short opera bluebeard’s castle . it was made for german television and shown in bologna as herzog blaubarts burg . unfortunately it was programmed opposite the screening of fragments from kuleshov’s gay canary , but powell’s post - peeping tom films are so difficult to see that i made the difficult choice and gave up hope of seeing the entire kuleshov retrospective .
in 1991 thomas left the university of east anglia to form a film department at the university of amsterdam . many members of the university looked askance at the study of cinema , but he grew his program spectacularly . a department with scarcely half a dozen faculty members expanded to sixty staff members and 1400 students . the range of study is now immense , from classical cinema and dutch moviegoing in the silent era to theorizing about contemporary digital media .
as nabel - foster explained , after its initial screening on german television , herzog blaubarts burg has been shown seldom because of rights complications with the bartók estate . non - commercial screenings have occurred on public television in the u . s . and australia , but basically the film is off - limits until the copyright expires in 2015 , seventy years after the composer’s death . nabel - foster has been providently preparing for a dvd release , gathering the original materials .
josef von sternberg has suffered perhaps more than any other director from the vagaries of film criticism ; on the one hand he has been seen as a mannered , self - indulgent stylist with a trivial and dehumanized vision of the world , and on the other as a cult figure largely associated with the mystique of marlene dietrich , with whom he made seven films , beginning in the blue angel in 1930 and ending with the devil is a woman in 1935 . ( 1 )
a viewing copy will not be forthcoming immediately , given the restoration task , but sooner or later we will have a good approximation of the fullest version of one of the half - dozen most famous silent movies . getting news like this while among archive professionals is one of the unique pleasures of cinema ritrovato . ( special thanks to dr . bohn for clarification on several points and to enterprising film historian casper tybjerg , who helped me get a copy of the die zeit issue . )
although lucy fischer notes that directors such as von sternberg often used sound with “less auditory sensitivity” in shutting off sound when “characters moved from one space to another” , she loses sight of the fact that this may involve the deliberate elimination of off - screen sound to increase tension . fischer , “ applause : the visual and acoustic landscape” , film sound : theory and practice , p . 239 . hitchcock uses the same technique when alice enters the phone booth in the sound version of blackmail .
one of the biggest surprises was news of dokhunda ( 1936 ) , an ethnographically based fiction set in tazhikistan . although the film is lost , nikolai has reconstructed its plan , revealing that kuleshov adopted a strange preproduction method . he prepared “living storyboards , ” photos of the cast enacting the scenes . he then drew and scratched on them , creating busy , nervous backgrounds or changing the figures’ features and hair styles—kuleshov as pre - warhol scribbler , or a graffiti artist tagging his own images .
there looks to be no world outside of the moment and bancroft is usually at the forefront of this . von sterberg subverts sentimental motifs which , alongside the irony , seems so strangely out of place for a film that came out in the sound - period of the 20 ' s . music and dialogue acts in unity with one another working intangibly to exemplify emotions . every aspect compliments and brings the elements together . fuck , this is perfect , i ' m at a loss for words .
the interaction of the body with props occurs with a special flair in young partisans . a bolshevik partisan tells some children how a boy saved his life in a german - occupied town ( this flashback was directed by igor savchenko and functions as a short film on its own . ) having learned their lesson , the kids gather in their schoolroom and under the teacher’s eye draw a map of the partisans’ camp . but when nazi soldiers burst in , the teacher flips the blackboard over ; now all we see is algebra .
nikolai has also finished a dvd edition of prite that exemplifies what he calls hyperkino , a way of annotating and comparing a film’s images , texts , and supplementary materials for instant access . another project involves the yevgenii bauer classic , the king of paris ( 1917 ) , which kuleshov completed . we haven’t had the intertitles for this , however , but now nikolai has discovered them , and they will go on the dvd version that is being completed . for more information on these projects and dokhunda , go to urltoken .
wrong again . just as we must reevaluate the other master soviet directors ( even in their purportedly safe stalinist projects ) , so too does kuleshov deserve a fresh look . he got this thanks to yuri tsivian , who with the help of ekatarina hohlova ( right ; granddaughter of kuleshov and his main actress aleksandra hohlova ) and nikolai izvolov , mounted a superb retrospective . it ranged from kuleshov’s first solo effort , engineer prite’s project ( 1918 ) to his final film , the short feature young partisans ( 1942 - 3 , never released ) .
kt : there were several programs of silent shorts , which i could only sample , as they tended to play opposite the kuleshov films . as usual , the bologna program included selections of short films from 100 years ago , so we were treated to numerous films from 1908 . i was particularly pleased to see the dog outwits the kidnappers , directed by lewin fitzhamon , who had made rescued by rover two years earlier . that film had been so fabulously successful that it had actually been shot three times as the negatives wore out from the striking of huge numbers of release prints .
( 1930 ) , his most famous film , director josef von sternberg came to grips with the challenges of early sound cinema with this offbeat gangster melodrama . the problems posed by the early sound recording equipment defeated many a filmmaker in the late 20s , early 30s , but von sternberg fully embraced the opportunities afforded by this new cinematic development to enhance the movie - going experience . the sound highlights include a scene in a busy harlem nightspot , in which swinging cabaret numbers add greatly to the seedy atmosphere , and the later sequences in the prison , where convicts sing in chorus to counterpoint the horror of their predicament .
the great consoler reminds us of the popularity of o . henry in the soviet union , both among readers and the russian formalist literary theorists , who were fascinated by his flagrant , playful artifice . ( boris eikhenbaum’s essay on the writer is one of the most brilliant pieces of literary analysis i know . ) even though kuleshov must denounce porter for reconciling the masses to their misery under capitalism , the zest of the embedded film and the unique architecture of the overall project pay tribute to another entertainer who did not forgo experimentation . and kuleshov’s image of a writer in prison probably had aesopian significance for artists in the era of socialist realism .
kuleshov , like eisenstein , gained his fame for his ideas on editing and sound montage , but both men were deeply interested in performance . kuleshov’s idea that the film actor should become an angular mannequin carries on the impulse of meyerhold’s biomechanics , and he anticipated cgi software in suggesting that human action could be plotted on a three - dimensional grid . still , kuleshov usually gives his figures a fluid dynamism that doesn’t seem mechanical . the three narrative registers of the great consoler are delineated largely through acting : naturalistic and slowly paced in the prison scenes , rigid and posed in the shopgirl romance , and broad and eccentric in the embedded silent movie .
icknamed thunderbolt , jim lang is a hardened gangster who is hotly pursued by the police for a series of crimes that include robbery and murder . he risks capture by confronting his girlfriend ritzy in a harlem nightclub . she has made up her mind to leave him , but he has no intention of letting her go . when he learns that ritzy has moved in with her new boyfriend , a respectable young man named bob morgan , lang decides to settle the matter man - to - man with his rival . before he can reach bob ' s apartment , the crook is caught by the police and soon ends up on death - row , having been convicted of murder . lang ' s cronies successfully frame bob for an armed bank robbery and it isn ' t long before bob is occupying a cell opposite lang ' s . ritzy pleads with lang to confess to having framed bob so that he can evade the electric chair . lang is unrepentant and relishes the fact that his rival will share the same fate as him . . .
a pressbook for this film calls it
a story of a hard - fighting man who lives outside the law in the hidden places of the negro district .
quoting director josef von sternberg on casting for the harlem scenes , the pressbook continues ,
we were fortunate that los angeles has a miniature harlem of its own in its central avenue district . a thorough search gave us scores of negroes who have really lived in harlem . harlem , which extends from 125th to 140th streets , new york , brings heart - beats of southern plantations to metropolitan civilization . sensation - seeking broadwayites make these cafs possible , coming to dance shoulder - to - shoulder with habitues of this black metropolis to the beat of staccato jazz .
references : afi - f2 n . f2 . 5703 ; everson - detective p . 110 ; katchmer - eighty pp . 10 , 12 ; limbacher - feature p . 251 ; parish - gangster pp . 33 , 392 - 393 , 400 ; ryall - blackmail p . 10 ; sarris - sternberg pp . 8 , 16 , 23 - 24 ; sklar - movie p . 179 ; vermilye - twenties p . 186 : website - afi ; website - imdb .
some parts of this page won ' t work property . please reload or try later .
jermaine fowler and omari hardwick of sorry to bother you take us back in time to the worst jobs of their careers .
want to share imdb ' s rating on your own site ? use the html below .
a poor factory worker , employed by a wealthy uncle , falls in love with a beautiful heiress but his happiness and promising future are jeopardized by a previous affair with a coworker he impregnated .
a blue - collar worker on new york ' s depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide .
boisterous gangster kingpin bull weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze , but complications arise when he falls for weed ' s girlfriend .
in late 19th century vienna , lena smith , a naive peasant girl from hungary , has a child by a corrupt young cavalry officer , and goes to work his house as a servant , hiding the truth from . . . see full summary »
stopped in mexico by u . s . immigration , georges iscovescu hopes to get into the country by marrying a citizen .
a former imperial russian general and cousin of the czar ends up in hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary .
the blue angel is a sleazy bar and the local boys go there to see lola who is the dancer . the teacher goes there to confront his students only to fall for the dancer .
the story is set in the seamy soho section of london , where burglar basher bill shares bed and board with his sluttish girlfriend annie . as wicked as they come , bill softens when he meets virtuous salvation army lass elizabeth .
joan and magdalen are the daughters of a fisherman . magdalen leaves her fiancé , peter , to run off to the big city . joan and peter marry . magdalen ' s return years later causes trouble for the . . . see full summary »
jeanne eagels plays the bored and restless leslie crosbie who turns to another man , geoffrey hammond ( herbert marshall ) for attention when neglected by her husband robert ( reginald owen ) . . . . see full summary »
' s only oscar nominated performance , though nominations were not official that year .
14 of 14 people found this review helpful . was this review helpful to you ? yes no | report this
movies and tv shows are certified fresh with a steady tomatometer of 75 % or higher after a set amount of reviews ( 80 for wide - release movies , 40 for limited - release movies , 20 for tv shows ) , including 5 reviews from top critics .
there is nothing edifying about this production , and it is hardly an entertainment .
george bancroft received best actor oscar nomination for this crime movie directed by von sternberg .
html public
- / / w3c / / dtd xhtml 1 . 0 transitional / / en
urltoken
your social account may not have provided your email to us . please confirm or enter it below to complete your profile .
we found your email in our system . please provide your site password to link to your existing account .
forgot your password ? enter your email address and we ' ll send you instructions on how to access your account .
we have not verified that the email belongs to you . please check your inbox for the verification email .
to resend the verification email , please enter your email address and click submit .
at west point , 1857 , in the conceit of wally kline and . . .
father barry ( karl malden ) with a fiery sermon in the hold . . .
just the top of the
yankee doodle boy
number from george . . .
blob , the ( 1958 ) - - ( movie clip ) do . . .
jobless vin ( steve mcqueen ) blows his stake at the saloon , . . .
this is how they did it , the transition in which the . . .
2010 ( 1984 )  ( movie clip ) my god , . . .
12 angry men ( 1957 ) - - ( movie clip ) . . .
wounded zack ( gene evans ) and sidekick
short round
. . .
in the town for which the movie is named , sheriff shaw . . .
cop dave ( joe partridge ) puzzles over a series of women . . .
blinding plot speed as hildy ( pat o ' brien ) , who really is . . .
still from the opening scene , lord henry ( george sanders ) . . .
the movie debut of albert finney , at work in the raleigh . . .
backstage at a harlem night club ritzy ( fay wray ) has just . . .
leonard maltin classic movie guide , copyright 2005 , 2010 . used by arrangement with penguin group ( usa ) inc .
tm & © 2018 turner classic movies , inc . a time warner company . all rights reserved . code of conduct for this site | press room | privacy policy | | terms of use
a reconfiguration of underworld for the arrival of sound , so its poetry can echo on to auden (
in the prison of his days / teach the free man how to praise
) . a feline eye opens josef von sternberg ' s camera , prowling across an ankle - level row of sweethearts at night until spotting the pert moll ( fay wray ) and the bank teller ( richard arlen ) intertwined on a park bench . a police matter ,
don ' t get ritzy with me , you ritzy ,
her dream is to be
regular people
far from the gangster ( george bancroft ) . the black cat nightclub has slanted picket - fence décor and the beginnings of the innovative tessitura ( a stuttering maitre d ' side by side with theresa harris doing a torchy
daddy , won ' t you please come…
arguably the most ravishing use of sound ever , designing contrast between anti - naturalistic rapture and adorned artifice , subverting dramaturgy towards a sense of masochistic anguish , senseless pride giving way to an ontological death drive . shadows and music , a monumental performance , underlying comic tones as its matter drifts in between genres , an absolute masterpiece .
what a quirky movie . it ' s maybe the earliest dramedy i ' ve seen .
being in love with her is apt to cause you a lot of trouble , young man .
just before he traveled to germany to make the blue angel with marlene dietrich , josef von sternberg directed this , his first talkie , for paramount . filled with eccentric characters , unrestrained overacting , and off - kilter line readings , this is as much an absurdist comedy as it is an underworld melodrama . ( take the nervous warden , who frets when bancroft knocks a fellow death - row prisoner ' s block off .
listen , doc . you ' ve just got to see that this man lives ,
he says , adding ,
do something . i ' ve got to execute him tonight .
) it also features the kind of overlapping dialogue that would become robert altman ' s trademark decades later , proving just how far von sternberg was ahead of the curve .


the sky is falling , also known as las flores del vicio ( english : the flowers of vice ) , released in the united states as bloodbath , is a 1979 spanish surrealist thriller film directed by silvio narizzano and written by gonzalo suarez .

it stars dennis hopper , carroll baker , and win wells as hopeless american expatriates living in a spanish village where citizens are dying mysterious deaths after the arrival of a religious cult .

the film has been characterized as an example of the frenetic roles played by hopper in the 1970s .

the sky is falling ( 1979 film )

darren styles & stonebank - sky is falling ( feat . emel ) [ monstercat release ]
we don ' t have enough data to suggest any movies based on the sky is falling . you can help by rating movies you ' ve seen .
a seven minute indian film about the 1979 skylab
disaster
as seen through the eyes of a child .
richie ( matt dillon ) falling to the ground after being shot dead by sergeant doberman .
find out _ _ little 2005 disney film sky is falling fable _ _ little 2005 disney film sky is falling fable answers . we would like to thank you for visiting our website for the solutions of codycross game by fanatee . it is divided into worlds and some of them are : planet earth , under the sea , inventions , seasons , circus , transports and culinary arts . in case something is wrong please send us an email with the problem you are having and we will be glad to help you .
oh wow . metafilter is always so full of interesting surprises . this post brought up some lovely old memories . at the time of skylab falling , i was living in india in 1979 in a tibetan settlement , called
dozens of residents reported seeing debris falling near kalgoorlie , 370 miles ( 595km ) northeast of perth .
polan , dana .
nothing behind the screen : sky captain and the world of tomorrow .
there is also the 1979 film also named
meteor ,
which flopped . this film also centered around a meteor about to collide with earth and the use of nuclear weapons to either destroy it or alter its course to avoid catastrophic damage .
is perhaps the finest example yet of the wild pendulum swing of a bong film’s rhythmic tonality .
excerpt from the film the sky is falling . a moving film about the horrors of war and man ' s struggle for hope against all odds . told through the eyes of a young girl , the sky is falling follows a jewish family who live an idyllic life in the italian countryside during wwii without persecution until a retreating german army enter their small town . stars isabella rossellini ( blue velvet ) and jeroen krabbe ( the fugitive ) .
excellent
( moviemaker ) . in italian with english subtitles . andrea frazzi / antonio frazzi - - - italy - - - 2000 - - - 102 mins . for more info on this film , visit : urltoken facets multi - media is a non - profit media arts organization founded in chicago in 1975 , and dedicated to making cinema accessible to all through film preservation , distribution , presentation , and education . for more information , visit urltoken
» best of film junk -
time for the film junk podcast
( from ep . 323 )
the documentaries in this series show actual film productions that are falling apart at the seams , as in hearts of darkness and demon lover diary . like the latter , the eerily beautiful cuadecuc , vampir shows the making of a low - budget horror film , but keeps the nightmare to a general sense of unexplained unease .
much like the children’s fable about chicken little 1 , many investment pundits have recently been clucking about bond prices falling . they have been technically correct . but , as far as we know , there is no need to worry about the sky falling and common sense will yet prevail ! this article takes a look at bonds and bond returns . it provides a realistic perspective on the role for bonds in a world of rising interest rates . 2 please read on… the subject may be arcane to some , but the issues are of critical importance to most investors .
i have a video of this film . it is indeed sole survivor starring shatner and basehart .
it is sole survivor . i saw it once as a child and it stuck in my mind . the whole film is online here : urltoken
is also not a film about veganism , but it is a film that asks how we can find integrity and , above all , how we can act humanely towards other creatures , humans included . the answers
she also kills for being humiliated , while the laughing crowd is a result of her inner fears in the film .
a few seconds later , nathan ( 8 ) - not saved by roy ' s death , was crushed by the falling plane ' s fiery landing gear crashing through the bar ' s ceiling .
director , byron haskin . produced by george pal . cast : gene barry , ann robinson , les tremayne . h . g . wells ' chilling story of the invasion of earth by martians . mass evacuation begins in panic as nations unite in an effort to repel the aliens . special dvd features : commentary tracks by cast members , the director , and film historian bob burns and bill warren , author of keep watching the skies ! ; the sky is falling ( making of the film ) ; the war of the worlds ( mercury theatre on the air radio broadcast ) .
allen myers , the film you are looking for about the airliner crash in the everglades is
ghost of flight 401
.
iron sky is an invasion movie that i’ve been looking forward to for a couple of years now . it’s not exactly an alien invasion film , as the invaders are nazis that escaped in rockets to the far side of the moon near the end of wwii . and now , all these years later , they’re back !
in this classic slasher film set in either 1979 or 1980 ( on a full - moon friday the 13th , the birthday of jason ! ) , the serial killer was not son jason voorhees ( ari lehman ) - emphasized in the opening of the film scream ( 1996 ) , but his camp kitchen - worker mother mrs . voorhees ( betsy palmer ) .
head of the nasa task force monitoring skylab , richard smith , said they had already received reports of hot debris , which had lit up the night sky , from several points in western australia .
the snakerama gas station seen in the film also appears in spielberg ' s 1979 world war ii comedy , 1941 , with actress lucille benson again appearing as the proprietor . the two elderly people weaver tries to flag down in a car also appear as helpless motorists in close encounters of the third kind .
carrie is not gifted with telepathy in the film . in the novel , people around her telepathically know she is the one wrecking everywhere in vengeance . carrie finds out about the truth behind her prom attendance after her mind is bonded to sue ' s .
the film is ' sole survivor ' and as it is public domain some people have transferred it from vhs to dvd and are legally selling copies on ebay . hope this helps .
the younger carrie was played by jodelle ferland who causes a rain of fiery stones to fall out the sky like in the novel . this version of the character in general was more similar to the novel than sissy spacek ' s portrayal .
vackimes , sophia .
the genetically engineered body : a cinematic context .
max planck institute for the history of science ; preprint 347 uc users only willson , robert f . , jr .
from novel to film : de - sinistering the boys from brazil .
literature / film quarterly , vol . 7 , pp . 322 - 24 , 1979 . uc users only
for my film the sky trembles and the earth is afraid and the two eyes are not brothers , i wanted to move among different realms of reality—storytelling , songs , observation of a film being made , fiction—so that , in the end , the viewer is uncertain about where the fiction begins and ends . the films in this series fall generally into two camps : one , the observational documentary ; the other , a fictional recreation of a film set or filmmaker . what ties them all together is that they each show the darker side of filmmaking and its repercussions . i’m interested in the question of why filmmakers want to expose the dark side of filmmaking . there is something perversely compelling about seeing someone who is a mirror version of yourself being taken down a road of obsession and disaster , finding what at the end ?
soul survivor is not the film . i remember seeing sole survivor at the time it was shown on tv in the 70 ' s and was disappointed that it wasn ' t the film i remembered . the film as i remember was in black and white , my parents only had colour tvs , and only at the end of the film the crew realised they were dead . no scenes of helicopters and no scenes of rescue .
not long ago , as i was clicking through television stations in my study , i caught the tail - end of an ad on the syfy channel which stopped my channel surfing and made me laugh . it showed a space capsule crashing through the ceiling of a university classroom into a gigantic jack - in - the - box , startling some student insurance agents as their farmers insurance professor stood by , unphased . “obscure space junk falling from the sky ? we cover that . ”
in the 2013 carrie remake film , carrie white was portrayed by chloë grace moretz .
carrie white in the 2013 film adaption . you will know her name . . .
had the best rock soundtrack of any film ever made . that’s what he said .
i sent this very enquiry to
empire
film magazine last year and they confirmed that the film is indeed sole survivior , a tv movie made in the early 1970 ' s and starring , amongst others , william shatner . unfortunately the film is not available on video . . . . . . . if anyone knows of a way to obtain a copy i ' d love to have one . it ' s a great film .
leon : the professional is a 1994 thriller film written and directed by luc besson . the film stars jean reno as the titular mob hitman ; gary oldman as corrupt dea agent norman stansfield ; a young natalie portman , in her feature film debut , as mathilda , a 12 - year - old girl who is taken in by the hitman after her family is murdered ; and danny aiello as tony , the mobster who gives the hitman his assignments .
carrie makes a red dress for the prom instead of pink , as depicted in the film .
the only main difference between the film and the article was that our ending was a lot more violent .
:
for whom would nature exist with no one to behold her ?
question mark .
with no one to feel the swirling snow blowing ever colder ?
question mark .
no one to fear the thunder with its mighty roar ?
question mark .
no one to greet the wind blowing from afar ?
question mark .
no one to hear the waves lapping at the shore ?
question mark .
no one to scan the sky to spy the falling star ?
the movie had a fantastic soundtrack that really added to the texture of the movie , especially toward the end of the film .
ok all , definitive answer time as i have been obsessed with this film for years . the film is indeed sole survivor a 1970 tv movie . the reason why the difficulty in identifying it is that there are two versions of the film . the original tv american movie had the survivors knowing they were ghosts and haunting the survivor . the film was released in europe to the cinemas in 71 , and was re - edited so the crew did not know they were dead , thus changing the entire aspect of the film . love both versions and have a very grainy vhs copy of the bbc in about ' 82 , hope this helps paul
it could be a film called lost horizon . it was made in 1973 .
narizzano ' s first feature was the hammer horror film fanatic . photograph : ronald grant archive
ironically , it is eisenstein who speaks of studying over and over again the ethnographic film nanook of the north —the film that inspired the coinage of the term “documentary” in the popular press , and which is all but an homage to long takes of everyday life events in out - of - the - way places , from its collaborators’ point of view .
i ' m curious , what makes you so certain that the movie is called catch 22 . according to the vastness that is the internet , no film exists with that name , other than the ' wrong ' ones we know about .
well , having posted this query . . . and not having seen sole survivor ( or not ) i would like to thank all those looking in and who have answered my query but i still think that the answer is buried under the plane . what is driving me mad now is that i also believe it is referred to in another film , mid 80 ' s possibly , where someone says , when seeing a movie on black and white tv , ' hey , i remember this . . . the guy is buried under the tail of the plane . ' so is this a case where the film is actually sole survivor , but the on - screen reference has sown a seed that is making us all think we have seen the film . . . but with a different ending ?
if anyone says its the film ' sole survivor ' again i ' ll either shoot myself or kill the wife ! its not the film ' sole survivor ' ! ! my family had a colour tv and that film was in black & white . the search goes on : = (
every week , i look at the tv film listings in the hope of finding this film , trying to remember its name , every week the same nagging disappointment that i can never find it .
this is an adaptation of stephen king ' s novel . it is not an official remake of brian de palma ' s 1976 horror movie . if you read the book and then compare with this telefilm you will find that this version is the most faithful transfer from book to film .
the film ended with a zoom to his eyeball under the mask , and a fade to black before the credits .
the hero of the film is an insurance agent who is also a car thief . he steals cars only from various crooks and never from the good people . then he sells those stolen cars and gives all the . . . see full summary »
release date : june 10 , 2011 director : j . j . abrams cast : kyle chandler , elle fanning plot synopsis : set in 1979 ohio , a group of kids with a super 8 camera witness the derailment of a train carrying materials from area 51 . prognosis : steven spielberg is producing the film and the early trailers have felt very reminiscent of his ’80s filmography . although we still don’t know much about it , this is easily one of the most promising ones of the bunch .
the 1976 film of carrie starred sissy spacek . here , carrie had long strawberry blonde hair , clear skin and the plot of the film was close to that of the novel , but certain differences did occur .
as the truck rams the car over the cliff and falls off in the final film , there is a low roar sound effect that the filmmaker included to emphasize the death of the truck . spielberg , who wanted the truck to seem
matheson , t . j .
marcuse , ellul , and the science - fiction film : negative responses to technology .
( film analysts herbert marcuse and jacques ellul ) .
» best of film junk -
chipotle dumpster
( from ep . 489 )
thanks for the effort putting together this great list . you should also include i am number four and the animated comedy mars needs moms , both out now ( 3 / 13 / 11 ) . i also agree iron sky should be included and it looks like it could be great if it is well produced .
is one of the most renowned visual effects artists on the planet . he created the vfx for
plot : the evil cybermen attempt to destroy the planet voga , which is made of solid gold , because gold is the only item that can kill them .
the film in question isn ' t
the survivor
( the film of the james herbert book ) . the plot for the survivor was that one man survives a plane crash ( i think totally unharmed ) and in his struggle to come to terms with this uncovers the fact that the plane was sabotaged / blown up . the twist is that he didn ' t survive . he is a manifestation of the will of all the lost souls and as soon as the truth is reveals he dies .
wow ! can ' t believe i ' ve found this thread , i ' ve wondered about this film for years . there are definitely two different films being discussed here , mind you , and the original answer to the question posed is not sole survivor . i can remember watching this film and i can also remember what it ' s called . there is a very good reason why no one can find it in any database and that ' s because it shares the name of a very famous film which will dominate any internet search results . the film is called catch 22 , not to be confused by the famous 1970 film of the same name . saw it listed sometime back so settled down to watch . of course it was the 1970 film i was watching . disappointment . hope this helps .
» best of film junk -
frank shits himself
( from ep . 515 )
if a take is lengthened , boredom naturally sets in for the audience . but if the take is extended even further , something else arises : curiosity .
it is not surprising to learn that launch nations are insured for damage claims , although like any insurance policy , there are loopholes . famously , the folks of esperanza , a tiny town in northern australia , finally had to resort to sending nasa a ticket for “littering” when in 1979 , parts of the skylab space station crashed into their township .
i agree with ray too . i don ' t think it is the film sole survivor . i have been searching for the answer too . i ' m sure it is a black and white movie too ? does anyone else agree with that ?
official submission of soviet union for the ' best foreign language film ' category of the 52th academy awards in 1980 .
alien ( 1979 ) directed by ridley scott . cast : sigourney weaver , tom skerritt , veronica cartwright , harry dean stanton , john hurt , ian holm , yaphet kotto . terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates a transmission from a desolate planet and discover a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind . each crew member is slain until only ripley is left . 116 min . dvd 2180 ; vhs 999 : 410 credits and other information from the internet movie database
i too have been trying to find this film for years - and am still confused ! i agree entirely with those that say there were no survivors , and particularly with what ray mitcham says - that is spot on . thing is i think the title was flight of the phoenix , but obviously not the film with jimmy stewart in , maybe a made for tv film with the same name ? but also - not an episode of anything , it was a full length flm . so - anyone out there know about the film ray and i are talking about !
chapter 27 is an independent film depicting the murder of john lennon by mark david chapman , starring jared leto . it was written and directed by j . p . schaefer . the film premiered at the sundance film festival in january 2007 and the berlin film festival in february . it received mostly negative reviews , although it did receive positive notices in salon , the hollywood reporter and entertainment weekly . jared gained 67 pounds for the role and at times he was confined to a wheelchair due to so much added weight .
nelson , erika .
invasion of the body snatchers : gender and sexuality in four film adaptations .
bowen , michael j .
embodiment and realization : the many film - bodies of doris wishman .
after cradling her mother to death , carrie realizes what she has done and makes stones begin to rain from the sky . sue appears shortly afterwards , but is held in the grasp of carrie . after scanning sue ' s brain , she realizes that she had nothing to do with the prank . she tells sue ( who didn ' t know ) that she is pregnant with a girl before throwing her out to safety .
the film the original question is trying to find is , indeed ,
sole survivor
, a 1971 tv movie that i have on tape and just watched again tonight ; it ' s the only film of its kind . it ' s one of the best of the tv movies , and one of the earliest . please contact me if you ' re looking for a copy of it .
westfahl , g .
from the back of the head to beyond the moon : the novel and film this island earth .
in :
film descriptions by liz coffey , brittany gravely , haden guest , david pendleton and jeremy rossen .
i have just watched ' sole survivor ' on google videos and after only a few minutes realised it was crap and definitely not the film i remember . the film that was so good we were all moved by , began with the plane flying over what they think is the sea but is the rolling sands of the desert . they think they can jump out with a lifeboat . they do not know they are dead right to the end of the film , which is what makes it so good and definitely not like the weak ' sole survivor ' plot . i think it is ' flight of the ? ' because i was surprised when i discovered it wasn ' t ' flight of the phoenix ' as an adult . please stop telling those of us who have seen this amazing film , that it is sole survivor . it definitely isn ' t ! ! ! !
writer / director john carpenter ' s next film , following his breakout hit halloween ( 1978 ) , was this studio - backed , low - budget horror film about a deadly fog in a northern california coastal town . [ note : an inferior remake of the film , a teen horror film with an unusual plot twist , was released 25 years later , the fog ( 2005 ) directed by rupert wainwright . ]
the si model ' s moment in the sun is an obvious homage to bo derek ' s breakout splashy romp in the classic 1979 comedy ,
10 ,
in which a young derek similarly plays the nubile object of an older man ' s desire . according to critics , the bikini jogging scene is pure leer - bait material . unlike derek , however , upton only has a few lines and is the third wheel behind mann and diaz , who of course , successfully made the transition from model to actress since her big break in 1994 ' s
the mask .
plot : semi - sequel to the 1956 film . this one is set in san francisco , where the
seeds
from outer space are duplicating and destroying the bay area residents at an alarming rate .
telotte , j . p .
the science fiction film as fantastic text : thx 1138 .
in :
plot : aliens try to take over the earth after their own planet is destroyed .
matt dillon was discovered this way . the story is kind of infamous , actually .
plot : disturbingly frightening film about humans being taken over by cold , emotionless pods from outer space .
o ' riordan , kate .
human cloning in film : horror , ambivalence , hope .
sorry i too am unable to find the film or title most are looking for , black and white for sure . saw it as a kid and like the ghosts i too have been waiting ever since , best film ever .
sorry , dino , but the urltoken you quote is the one made in 1970 starring the same cast . ( see
urltoken
web site ) however the film we are trying to find had no survivors . not a sole survivor . the film was about a crew who had all been killed in the crash and were all unknowingly ghosts around the plane . at the end of the film , all the ghosts had gone due to all the bodies being found . it certainly wasn ' t
sole survivor
.
an american agent is assigned to track down a renegade soviet spy who is building an atomic device in los angeles and plans to destroy the city with it .
another voice here confirming that sole survivor is not the film that many of us are seeking . i ordered that and watched it this afternoon , and , good as it is , it isn ' t the film in which the characters gradually realise they are dead as their bodies are found . the two films are so similar , though , it ' s seems likely that they are based on the same root story .
although the film ' s plot led you to believe that jason was the returning maniacal , homicidal killer , most of the film ' s murders ( there were 22 total deaths ) were committed by a ' jason ' copy - cat - paramedic roy burns ( dick wieand ) , who sliced , stabbed and spiked seventeen ( 17 ) individuals throughout the film .
plot : a government agent is sent to uncover the security leak that led to the destruction of a secret space laboratory , and a man with amnesia is his only lead .
one night stand is a 1997 drama film by british director mike figgis . the first draft of the screenplay was written by joe eszterhas , who had his name removed from the project following figgis ' rewrite . in the final scene of the film , the two couples have dinner together and from an audience point of view , there are no clues as to which person is with until they leave the restaurant . starring wesley snipes , nastassja kinski , kyle maclachlan and ming - na , the film is loosely based around the death of their friend , charlie played by robert downey jr . and how a one night stand with a stranger can unbalance the strongest of relationships .
well , ive just watched ' sole survivor ' on dvd . its the one with william shatner playing an air force crash investigator . in this film it is clear that the crew know they are ghosts right at the start , and that its been seventeen years since the crash . the film i remember has the whole crew ( no survivors ) believing that they are still alive . it doesn ' t come to light that they are all dead until right at the end of the film when a helicopter turns up at the crash site and freaks the crew out ( no helicopters in general service at the time of the crash ) and the helicopter crew cant see the ( dead ) crewmen . there is a scene in sole survivor with a helicopter but this is half way into the film , long after the plane wreck has been found , and not the initial discovery .
the movie i ' m trying to find the name of is airliner crashes at airport and the pilot walks away from the crash in a daze . then end of the movie he is found strapped in his seat in the cockpit .
i remember the film and have been trying to find the name of the film for years . i don ' t believe it to be sole survivor , the film was clearly a sixties or even fifties movie . the crew of the doomed plane crash landed in the desert , all the crew appeared to have survived the crash , trying to make the best of it and await for their rescue , when it arrives they are discovered dead in and around the wreckage , and then one by one disappear ; a bit like the film really . i would to see it again though .
sleepless in seattle was a romantic comedy film written and directed by nora ephron . based on a story by jeff arch , it starred tom hanks as sam baldwin and meg ryan as annie reed . the film was inspired by
an affair to remember
and used both its theme song and clips from the film in critical scenes . the climactic meeting at the top of the empire state building is a reference to a reunion between cary grant and deborah kerr .
plot : the invisible creature from another world is back , this time in los angeles .
carrie has a slender figure while in the novel she is described as an overweighted girl .
carrie makes the knife fly off the desk onto the ground , without her mother noticing . she is asked to the prom by tommy , but thinks it is a trick and is confronted again while walking home . this time she accepts . now she . tries to tell her mother , but she is disinterested and attempts to walk away after telling her no .
amazing that this film impacted so many of you as it did me ! i was 13 in 1979 when i saw this movie and fixated by films at the time . that year i carefully logged every film i saw , on what date , i even gave it its own critique . my late father kept this ' log ' of mine in his loft until he died last year . i never ever forgot that movie and have spent the last 30yrs asking friends , family video dvd stores etc etc if they know it ! i can however confirm with absolute truth that the film was called soul survivor and was made in 1970 shown on uk tv in 1979 . it was about the crew of a us ww11 airplane crashing into the desert and in short never realising they had died until the modern day ' rescue ' team arrive at the crash site . it was sad , intense , exciting , magical and for a 13yr old it left a memory of joy and sadness and a feeling of ' who knows ' . i loved it and wish i could see it again to see if it truly is a great film or if you have to 13 to be wowed by it !
brereton , pat .
nature film and ecology : disaster movies ( water ! ) .
in :
a fair question , paul , and one i ' ve been expecting . this film has had quite an effect on those that have seen it , i think a quick glance above confirms that . the fact that the vast majority can ' t remember the title is curious , i grant you , but the reason i am 100 % sure is that i can remember watching the film and i can also remember the title . just because i can ( and those above can ' t ) doesn ' t make me wrong . in addition , two other independent subscribers are suggesting that catch 22 is correct . there is no doubt ! it would now be most helpful , if we could just find the film . . .
in the spring of 1979 , a small - budget movie with a somewhat corny - sounding name was released in just a handful of theaters in new york and los angeles , only to be pulled a few days later due to concerns that audiences would riot . based ( loosely ) on a . . .
i can confirm the film is not sole / soul survivor . the original black and white film was shown in the uk pre 1968 and followed a different plot to sole survivour . the b52 and crew crash land in the desert , try to walk away but always return , try to fix the plane , then start to disappear slowly . eventualy the remaining crew think they are rescued . however the rescue party find the remaining bodies and bury the surviours - who all disappear . it is not sole survior
one of the most noticeable elements in any film is the sudden or memorable appearance of one of the main characters for the first time . often , film entrances are not very extraordinary , but now and again , there are some that are very spectacular and skilfully executed . film scarlet megan fox is no exception to the rule as she makes her opening appearance at an after party . unable to make it across to her publicist who waits on the opposite side of the terrace , she decides that the best way would be via the swimming pool and so gracefully slips fully - clothed into the water , to the astonishment of the other guests .
thank you one and all ! i ' ve been trying to remember the name of this film for 20 years ! have now checked ' sole survivor ' on imdb and it is the right title . excellent !
for the film ' s title number , in which students spill out of the city ' s high school for performing arts and perform an impromptu dance routine among midtown traffic , the filmmakers arranged with the mayor ' s office to close 46th street for several days in the summer of 1979 . the actual performing arts school building which was on the left side of the street was not used in the film after the school board read the script and felt that the bad language would reflect badly on the school . in the end , the filmmakers had tro settle with a decommissioned church on the right side of 46th street . as the irene cara song was not complete , the dancers had to dance to a pointer sisters song inside . the song was later replaced in post production .
mika works as a nurse by day ; by night she entertains covetous men at a girls’ bar . shinji is blind in one eye and ekes out a living as a construction worker . young and grown - up at the same time , they both lead a lonely existence , but somehow their paths keep miraculously crossing under the tokyo sky . can loneliness be experienced together ? director yuya ishii shows japanese society as being caught in a sheer struggle for survival . yozora ha itsu demo saikou mitsudo no aoiro da is a touching ramble through the inner lives of two uncertain people in the middle of tokyo , a city being brutally crushed by globalisation . people alienated from their roots , families falling apart , financial strife , suicides , earthquakes – yet the film handles all of its themes with both lightness and candour . inspired by poetry , full of enchanting visual ideas and recurring music , ishii takes us with him on a lyrical journey undertaken by outsiders who have lost everything . all they can therefore do now is win – in love .
plot : a film in the travel - to - a - planet - of - scantily - clad - women subgenre .
sign up : stay on top of the latest breaking film and tv news ! sign up for our email newsletters here .
plot : america is prepared to go underground if the mission to destroy the comet headed for earth fails .
upon learning that i was an anthropologist , a space law expert at the prague space security conference insisted that i view the ethnographic documentary film , space tourists ( 2009 ) . of course i ordered it immediately . the cover of the video box i received foregrounds a young shirtless boy with binoculars trained at the sky . in the background , bronzed men in t - shirts look towards the stars . they are scanning for signs of freshly fallen space junk . but this is not the prevailing online cover image , which features , in the style of soviet realism , the first tourist of outer space , anousheh ansari .
michael powell , well known and beloved in the uk for his technicolor masterpieces black narcissus , the red shoes and tales of hoffman ( all of which he co - directed with emeric pressburger ) , effectively ended his promising career with 1960’s peeping tom . although also a technicolor delight , the storyline of peeping tom disgusted the british press and proved to be so controversial that the film was re - edited to the point of nonsense for its us release in 1962 , leaving powell’s reputation in ruins . not until 1979 , through the efforts of cinephile martin scorsese , was the american movie - going public able to see the film in its entirety .
hi guys here is another version of a film ' sole survivor ' it is the story of television producer , denise watson ( anita skinner ) , who is the only survivor of a horrific airplane crash en route to a new production job . denise is certain see saw the bodies of all the dead passengers still moving around after the crash but this is written off as shock by her doctor , brain richardson ( kurt johnson ) whom denise soon falls in love with . strange occurrences soon begin for denise as she begins to feel she is being followed by someone in grim reaper mode trying to claim her since she wasn ' t supposed to survive the crash , a revelation from the resident
koo - koo
actress , karla davis ( caren larkey ) , on the new commercial denise is in charge of shooting . this edgy and stylized 80 ' s horror film is the clear basis for the more modern final destination franchise . will denise be able to survive her date with death or find an escape before it is too late ? yep another version of the same name
i started trying to find the name of this film after seeing
king 9 will not return
last night on netflix and remembered how much i enjoyed the ghost story of the bomber crew . i watched sole survivor and it is definitely not the film . another reason i know it is not , is that i saw the film in the 1960 ' s while still living at home before going off to college in 1968 . sole survivor was made in 1970 . maybe the reason it is so hard to find , is that it wasn ' t a movie . king 9 was a 30 minute ( 22 actual minutes ) tv episode . sole survivor 1 : 36 minute movie . what i remember of the film , is that it probably was a one hour tv episode . perhaps of amaing stories , scifi theatre , outer limites or some such tv series . i hope someone comes up with the one so many of us want to find . the unknowing ghosts that disappear one by one as their remains are found till only one remains .
the bionic woman : doomsday is tomorrow . ( 1977 , tv ) cast : lindsay wagner , richard anderson , lew ayres , kenneth o ' brien , david opatoshu . after a sky diving accident jaimie somers undergoes special surgery to make her the first bionic woman . now outfitted with super - human powers she must fight the alex 7000 computer , a
doomsday device
programmed to destroy the world . 47 min . vhs 4759
ben rivers’ latest feature is a diptych film that brings together , but does not necessarily join , its two halves—the first a lyrical documentary of a moroccan film shoot and the second a dark , minimal adaptation of paul bowles ' nightmare fable a distant episode . galician director oliver laxe becomes the bridge between the film’s two worlds when he wanders , in seeming exasperation , away from his production and into the dangerous , unmeasured desert . although rivers avowed fascination with paul bowles inspired his first foray into pure fiction , his film remains firmly rooted in the daydreaming realism for which he is best known , exploring as much the slow mysteries of place as the iconic cultural specificities and mythos of the desert . print courtesy of jacqui davies limited .
©2018 mental floss , inc . all rights reserved . mental floss® is a registered trademark owned by felix dennis . urltoken is a trademark owned by felix dennis .
the name of the film was sole survivor and if you go to you tube and type in sole survivor you can sit back and enjoy the movie .
i started thinking about this film after visiting a ww2 aircraft crash site in the far north of scotland ( near gairloch ) . it is a war grave , and there is still debris from the plan scattered over the hillside and the loch . but back to the film . this is what i remember . it is black and white . the crew do not know that they are dead . as their bodies are discovered , they
vanish
. they do play baseball , and the guy with the mitt and ball does not get found . i don ' t think it was called
sole surviver
, i think the title was longer and might have had the name of the plane .
mobile version | privacy policy | advertise | about | copyright ©2006 - 2018 film junk . all rights reserved .
freedman , carl .
marxism , cinema and some dialects of science fiction and film noir .
in :
we finished the film , but there was trouble right from the get - go . initially , orion decided to present the film as a horror movie . the original poster was an illustration of a few scary - looking , pale kids with wide eyes . it looked like something for
plot : spacemen land on venus and discover it is already populated by the survivors of atlantis .
in 2012 , that these films were comedies just as much as they were action - adventure stories , it crystallized the format in ways both positive and somewhat limiting . the result is that one can never quite take seriously claims that a new film is going to “break the mold” of the mcu , but at the same time it’s hardly something to complain about , when that mold is fundamentally solid and entertaining . to that end ,
marwick , ben .
self - image , the long view and archaeological engagement with film : an animated case study .
everybody please stop trying to guess the movie if : you think it is in color or you think that william shatner is in it , because neither of those things is true . it is a black and white film , and the crew of the crashed plane don ' t ever stray very far from it , nor do i remember seeing any other characters aside from them . i also remember a harmonica being in the mix . it was a slow paced film from what i can recall . i ' m glad i ' m not alone in this , but sad we can not figure it out ! doug
i remember that someone with the casting department told me that matt had “good instincts . ” it was both praise and a conveyed insult . in other words : is he bright ? is he intelligent ? or is he all instinct , like a jungle animal ?
after hearing the arguments presented on this site and laughing myself silly : yes , it is ' sole survivor ' but most here seem to not want to believe it . i have it , it is exactly the film as described ( basehart , shatner etc ) . there is no other , don ' t keep arguing it , i think many people ' s memories have been faded over the years .
plot : a remake of the 1953 film , where a boy battles martians who have taken over his parents and threaten to destroy the world .
narrator : keir dullea . produced in 1971 for broadcast on the television program camera three . a critique and critical commentary on the science fiction film
plot : the commander of the battlestar galactica must take action when the galactica is stranded without fuel and open to enemy attack .
whatever the name of this film is , one thing i remember is the ghosts of the departed crew being in awe of a helicopter that turns up at the crash site , with one of them remarking that it ' hangs in the air just like a bird ' or something like that . suggesting that when they died there were no helicopters in service .
thank you for your reply paul kennedy . the trouble is , with believing the film to be this catch 22 which you mention , is that i must then also believe that the whole of the internet does not know that film as no one can find it . i really doubt that any film which has been made is not known by the internet ! i know that a couple of other people have mentioned that title , but far more have given sole survivor as the title . is it not possible that you simply watched the other known catch 22 all those years ago at the same period as sole survivor and you mixed up the two . they have similarities after all , both have ghosts and have the same feel . it ' s almost certain the film is sole survivor , it ' s simply that some who recall it a little differently ( like me ) , do not remember it completely , it was a long time ago . every time i see jason & the argonauts i see something i don ' t remember . also , it is possible there there was a european edit , i have seen that explanation on 2 different sites .
shielded by faith in its own imaginary , whilst the conceptual and material debris of that dream supplies a groaning ethnoscape with happenstantial resources . other than by the magic of montage , these worlds have no prospect of coming into direct contact , and even in the film they aren’t made to impact one another forcefully : the film puts itself in the way of this . indeed , it is precisely by
jeez , is ray mitcham still yammering on about this one ? the sole survivor is richard basehart . the navigator . the only one who got out of the plane . the one who bailed out and left them lost . get it now ?
closer is a 2004 romantic drama film written by patrick marber , based on his award - winning 1997 play of the same name . it was produced and directed by mike nichols and stars julia roberts , natalie portman , jude law and clive owen . the film , like the play on which it is based , has been seen by some as a modern and tragic version of mozart ' s opera così fan tutte , with references to that opera in both the plot and the soundtrack . although much of the film was shot at elstree film and television studios in london , the closing scene was shot in new york’s time square and thereby earned a place in otsony’s film location section . natalie portman’s character alice supports herself while staying in london as a stripper , where she runs into larry played by clive owen , who realises that he knows her , even though she is wearing a pink wig . he asks her if her name is alice , knowing full well who she is , but no matter how much money he gives her , she keeps telling him her name is
jane jones .
he asks her to come home with him so he can look after her , but she refuses .