When Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur teamed up to make their second picture, the world had been at war for four years. Both men were from Europe originally, and now called America home; they felt the sting of war with a double intensity. Both were interested in exploring the underrepresented—the female mind, the indefinable realm…
American writer Patricia Highsmith was enormously prolific and incredibly successful for most of her writing life. Her stories and novels are at one level entertaining for their suspense and mystery, but they remain classics for their insight into the worst psychological aspects a mind can devise. And for this reason, they are both intriguing and excellent source material for thoughtful, disturbing films.
The story of a fiesty woman who resisted the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands was so inspiring and, in many ways, hilarious.
This month I’m highlighting some titles that were released in the last few months worthy of some attention and notice.
Part of the Roman Empire’s success was its ability to scale up its trademark structures anywhere in the world. Long before Henry Ford’s assembly line, the Romans created standardized construction designs and practices. With little variation, they replicated everything — roads, toilets, forts, saunas, plumbing, and, yes, even walls.