Stealers Wheel

We are now less than one week away from the Academy Awards and I thought it would be a good time to visit one of the biggest Oscar winning movies of the 1970's – the classic 1975 motion picture One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – which took home five of the biggest prizes; namely, Best Picture (a young Michael Douglas won for producing the movie), Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

After looking at an Academy Award winning picture in Casablanca and a best actor in a leading role in Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, it is time to look at a female lead that has taken home the big prize. This will also be the first movie that I have looked at that is an adaptation of one of horror maestro Stephen King’s novels. As those of you who watch a lot of movies will know, Stephen King’s creations usually turn out one of two ways on film – an absolute train wreck or an entertaining and very strong effort; this movie falls into the latter category. By this point, some of you may have already figured out that I am reviewing the 1990 dramatic thriller Misery.

This week I’m bringing us back ninety-one years to 1923. The silent era was dominated by a few comic juggernauts. Even to this day, the names of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are synonymous with their great silent films featuring brilliant physical comedy. One name that has almost been lost to time though is Harold Lloyd, who completed the triumvirate of powerhouse comedians in the 1920's.

This is the second week in a row that I have had to begin with the sad news of another death of a film legend. Joan Fontaine, the actress who gained fame for playing threatened wives to possibly dangerous husbands in the early 1940s, passed away at the age of 96 last week.

My plan for this week was to write a review on the Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, but after the passing of legendary Irish born actor Peter O’Toole, who is best known for his amazing portrayal of T.E. Lawrence in the epic Lawrence of Arabia, I thought it would be fitting to turn my gaze to another darker Christmas movie, the 1968 historical drama The Lion In Winter, directed by Anthony Harvey.

For the month of October, I will be highlighting films that fall within the horror and thriller genres. With this article, I will also be starting an extended series of reviews that will look at director Brian De Palma’s lesser known works that are a part of the mystery or thriller categories. Though best known for iconic movies like Scarface, The Untouchables, Mission Impossible and Carlito’s Way, for more than forty years De Palma has created lesser-known classic thrillers inspired by master director Alfred Hitchcock, as well as classic genres such as film noir, and then adds his own masterful spin and touches to these unique areas of cinema. Within this sub-section of De Palma’s work, his most famous film is probably the 1980 mystery thriller Dressed to Kill. It is this movie, that to his detractors, proved he was nothing but a Hitchcock rip-off artist, yet his fans were once again delighted by the man’s genius as a visually talented director that was on a higher plateau than anyone else at the time. You can probably guess that I fall within the second grouping of people.