Buried Treasures

[c...@allegra.uucp]

*The Heart is a Lonely Hunter* is indeed a treasure. It is currently
at No.2 on my desert-island movie list and is without a doubt the most
moving film I have ever seen. I remember when it ended (around 2 A.M.)
the first time I saw it, four years ago, I wept uncontrollably for
about fifteen minutes. Never before had I so completely identified
with a character as I did with Singer, the deaf-mute whose life touches
for the better several troubled people around him, while his own life
slowly disintegrates, unattented. Without uttering a single word, Alan
Arkin, who has since become my favorite actor, delivers what must be
one of the most heartbreaking I've seen. The movie, which is based
on a novel by Carson McCullers, is sometimes revived. The last time I
noticed it playing was this past summer at the Thalia in NYC.

Another Arkin Buried Treasure: *Popi* (1969, Dir. Arthur Hiller). No.
18 on my list. Talk about offbeat. This time out, Arkin plays a zany
Puerto-Rican father who wants to secure a better life for his two
little boys, at least better than what the ghetto has to offer. He is
willing to go to any extremes for the sake of his kids, ... and does in
a touching and mostly hilarious commentary on the American social
system. I chuckled my way through that one until I had to surrender to
the concluding all-out assault on the lacrimal glands. Director Hiller
and Arkin later teamed up again for the *In-Laws*, No. 22 on my list.

Finally, a really Buried treasure that apparently no one else has ever
heard of: *Jubal* (1956, Dir. Delmer Daves). No. 29 on my list, this
is a delightful mixture of two cinematic genres, the Western and the
Film Noir, complete with murder, good redeeming girl, femme fatale, and
jaded existensial hero. Glenn Ford (so fine in *Gilda* and *The Big
Heat*, two classic Films Noirs) plays a more-articulate-than-usual
lonesome drifter who is hired on a ranch and finds himself in the
middle of a nasty triangle. The jealous, hot-blooded owner (Ernest
Borgnine) has a wild, hot-blooded young wife who rejects her vicious,
hot-blooded lover (ranch head Rod Steiger) in order to throw herself at
peaceful, uninterested Jubal, who instead falls for nice Mormon girl.
This all makes for one sizzling movie. The acting is of course
first-rate, and the ending is a cliffhanger. If it ever shows up on
TV, don't miss it.

--Charles (decvax!allegra!cbf)

[Dan Glasser -- PRO 350 Graphics - ML]

Another pair of "Buried Treasures" are "My name is Nobody" and "They Call
Me Trinity". Both are spoofs on the western. The first stars Henry Fonda
as a retired "fastest gun in the west", who is followed around by a young
man who refuses to let him retire. The latter is centered around the same
young gunslinger and what happens when he runs into his brother... I will
not spoil either, but I recommend both.

And I don't even like Westerns!

Daniel Glasser
...!decvax!sultan!dag

[Laura Frank Clifford]

Now that Halloween's coming up a good one to look out for is
"Diabolique", a 50's French suspense/horror film starring Simone Signoret.
(A younger "Za-Za??" from "La Cage Aux Folles" is also in this film.)

Another excellent film which I only caught on cable is "I Sent A Letter
To My Love", also French and also starring Simone Signoret. This one's
a real tear-jerker, but a good one and well acted.