Tamiroff, Akim

Touch of Evil (Restored to Orson Welles' Vision)

Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles's film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all--it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles's original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles's directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles's control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. --Jeff Shannon

Topkapi

Director Jules Dassin (Night and the City, The Naked City) fashioned this breezy and intricate 1964 thriller with a sly comic bent, and it enjoyed international popularity and became an influence for other high-toned European caper films. Peter Ustinov (Spartacus, Death on the Nile) won an Academy Award for his performance as a hapless driver, clueless to the plans of his cohorts, two jewel thieves who plan to steal a priceless dagger from the Topkapi museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Maximilian Schell (Deep Impact, Judgment at Nuremburg) and Melina Mercouri (The Victors, The Gypsy and the Gentleman) play the jet-setting thieves, who choose a motley band of amateurs instead of pros in order to throw off the authorities. But when Ustinov is apprehended by the cops, he agrees to act as a spy in order to thwart the robbery. Eventually, Ustinov must choose between saving his own hide and remaining loyal to the seductive Mercouri as the machinations of the robbery become ever more complex. Sleek and entertaining, Topkapi is filled with intrigue and thrills at every turn. --Robert Lane

A 'skillful blend of romance and comedy (The Hollywood Reporter), Topkapi shimmers with hilarity, action and great performances! Fun-filled and suspenseful, it's an incredibly ingenious affair [and] a considerable pleasure to watch (Newsweek)! Trouble brews beneath the exotically curved towers of Istanbul when the equally exoticand equally curvedElizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri) recruits her former lover (Maximilian Schell) in a scheme to heist the pride of the city's Topkapi museum: a jewel-encrusted dagger. But the job soon turns into a high-tension, high-wire performanceliterallywhen the bumbling fall guy (Peter Ustinov) and other amateurs they ve hired as help find they'll have to lift their prize while dangling from the museum's vaulted ceiling!

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Anastasia

Ingrid Bergman gives one of her memorable, haunting, and haunted performances as an amnesiac chosen by a White Russian general (Yul Brynner) in 1928 to play the part of Anastasia, the long-rumored but missing survivor of the Bolsheviks' murderous attack on the czar's family. The twist is that Bergman's mystery woman seems to know more about the lost Anastasia than she is told. Based on the play by Marcelle Maurette and Guy Bolton, this film--directed by Anatole Litvak (Out of the Fog)--really does get under one's skin, not least of all because of its intriguing story but even more because of the strong chemistry between Bergman and Brynner. --Tom Keogh

An expatriate White Russian general sets in motion a grand hoax after he meets a destitute woman on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. He is amazed at her resemblance to Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas of Russia, rumored to have somehow survived the Bolsheviks' execution of the Romanoff family in 1918. He trains her to impersonate the missing princess but soon begins to feel she may be the real Anastasia. Ultimately, the truth can only be decided by one person Anastasia's grandmother, the Dowager Empress.

Ocean's 11

Leave it to the Chairman of the Board to rope in a great director for the first Rat Pack movie. Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) indeed directed this 1960 caper movie starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop; but the results now seem like more of a historical artifact than a good time. The tone of the film is curiously serious--one somehow expected that the Rat Pack would have made a more buoyant first picture. But it is something to see these guys together, if largely for nostalgia reasons. --Tom Keogh

100 Rifles

A bank robber and a lawman join up with a female revolutionary to help save the mexican indians from a despotic military governor.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

During World War II, Hollywood's patriotic duty was to shoot stirring dramas and good-hearted comedies that celebrated America's brave soldiers and honored their loyal, virtuous wives and girlfriends. Which goes a long way toward explaining why this delirious Preston Sturges farce, filmed in 1943 at the height of the war effort (and of its director's powers), was delayed for a year while Paramount executives wrestled with Sturges's irreverence: in Morgan's Creek, the writer-director tweaked those stereotypes with his tale of Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl who only wants to send our boys off with a smile. That she does, but she wakes up after an all-night party with vague memories of a dubious wedding and soon finds herself pregnant.

Trudy, played by the ebullient Betty Hutton, is wholesome, sexy, and something of a ditz, in contrast to Sturges's usual savvy heroines (represented instead by Trudy's teenaged younger sister, played by Diana Lynn). Trudy's savior is would-be boyfriend Norval, played to apoplectic perfection by the rubber-faced Eddie Bracken, who was never better than in this wide-eyed, pratfall-happy performance as the weary but loyal draft reject who stands by his girl. As Trudy's father, Sturges regular William Demarest likewise achieves a series of comic peaks as the exasperated and increasingly desperate Officer Kockenlocker.

Like Sturges's other Bracken-Demarest vehicle, the equally fine Hail, the Conquering Hero, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was unique among wartime movies for its satirical sting and unblinking eye for hypocrisy on the home front. It's also enormous fun, a comedic romp that epitomizes Sturges's kinetic, high-speed style. --Sam Sutherland

After a wild farewell party for the troops, Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers, wakes up to find that she married someone and can't remember his name. Even worse, he's disappeared and she learns she's pregnant!

Alphaville - Criterion Collection

As the French New Wave was reaching its maturity and filmgoing had evolved as a favorite pastime of intellectuals and urban sophisticates, along came Jean-Luc Godard to shake up every convention and send highfalutin critics scrambling to their typewriters. 1965's Alphaville is a perfect example of Godard's willingness to disrupt expectation, combine genres, and comment on movies while making sociopolitical statements that inspired doctoral theses and left a majority of viewers mystified. Part science fiction and part hard-boiled detective yarn, Alphaville presents a futuristic scenario using the most modern and impersonal architecture that Godard could find in mid-'60s Paris. A haggard private eye (Eddie Constantine) is sent to an ultramodern city run by a master computer, where his mission is to locate and rescue a scientist who is trapped there. As the story unfolds on Godard's strictly low-budget terms, the movie tackles a variety of topics such as the dehumanizing effect of technology, willful suppression of personality, saturation of commercial products, and, of course, the constant recollection of previous films through Godard's carefully chosen images. For most people Alphaville, like many of the director's films, will prove utterly baffling. For those inclined to dig deeper into Godard's artistic intentions, the words of critic Andrew Sarris (quoted from an essay that accompanies the Criterion Collection DVD) will ring true: "To understand and appreciate Alphaville is to understand Godard, and vice versa." --Jeff Shannon

A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard's irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60. Criterion's edition of this seminal film features a new digital transfer.

Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.

Shortly after Dick Van Dyke played Bert in Mary Poppins, he starred as Lt. Robin Crusoe in this lesser known 1966 comedy, splendidly showcasing his myriad comedic talents in a South seas setting. Families who remember Van Dyke's riotous romp as Navy-pilot-turned-island-native will appreciate this digital release of the original film. The laughs begin from the moment Crusoe is marooned at sea on a military-issue rubber raft and fights off a shark while reading a step-by-step survival guide. By the time he washes ashore on the island, discovers the wonders of bamboo, and stumbles upon a poker-playing astro-Chimp, audiences are given over to the gigglefest. Nancy Kwan, as Wednesday, adds to the merriment as the island's other castaway who plays a humorous game of charades with Crusoe before revealing her status as an exile, having escaped her overprotective father. With the battle cry, "Women have rights too," Crusoe and Wednesday prepare for the inevitable patriarchal showdown, a madcap misadventure. While special features are sorely lacking--such as an interview with Van Dyke--this decent family flick remains a rich Disney relic. (Ages 4 and older) --Lynn Gibson

Escape to an island full of castaway comedy as Disney favorite Dick Van Dyke and Nancy Kwan star in this hilarious South Pacific adventure. Lt. Robin Crusoe (Van Dyke) is an all-thumbs Navy pilot who ditches his plane after engine trouble. He survives a riotous raft ride only to find himself marooned on a lush tropical island with a poker-playing chimp, a gadget-rich abandoned sub, and Wednesday (Kwan) -- a wild but beautiful native girl in exile for disobeying her overprotective father. You won't stop laughing as all the natives get restless in this paradise of clowning and chaos.

After the Fox

This wildly funny farce gives the comic genius of Peter Sellers free reign as he assumes several wacky personalities, each one funnier than the last! Superb direction by Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief) and a sparkling original script by Neil Simon (The Goodbye Girl) make Afterthe Fox an absolute "must-see" (Leonard Maltin)! Millions of dollars' worth of gold bullion is on its way from Cairo to an unknown Italian destination. There is only one criminal mastermind capable of stealing it: Aldo Vanucci (Sellers), also known as "the Fox." Aldo devises the perfect plan to seize the gold: Posing as a flamboyant film director, he casts an aging, egotistical film star (Victor Mature) and his own voluptuous sister (Britt Ekland) in a fake film about a gold theft!But the action really heats up when the boat with the real gold arrives.