movie

The Schizophrenic Cult of Director Dennis Potter’s Secret Friends (1991)

cultfilmalley January 24, 2021 2

*contains spoilers It could be said that writer and director Dennis Potter’s (1935-94 pancreatic cancer) movie Secret Friends (1991) is about the evolution of schizophrenia in the individual from childhood, where the beginnings are laid in the mind and, finally, how it hatches into adolescent or adult madness. It is also about the individual coming…

The Cult of Director Ida Lupino’s The Filmakers Movies (Part Two)

cultfilmalley January 19, 2021 3

*contains spoilers Different actors were used for Ida’s next film, which she directed and co-wrote, entitled Outrage (1950). This film was only the second movie about rape ever released in modern day Hollywood under the rule of The Production Code after Johnny Belinda (1948), which won actress Jane Wyman (1917-2007 in sleep) an Oscar. The…

The Cult of Director Ida Lupino’s The Filmakers Movies (Part One)

cultfilmalley January 18, 2021 1

*contains spoilers British-born actress and director Ida Lupino (1918-95 stroke and colon cancer) lived her the life the hard way which ended in alcoholic oblivion… Yet she was the first woman in Hollywood to direct herself in a movie and the first to direct a film noir. Many of the movies she directed had a…

The Cult Movies of Writer and Director Murray Fahey

cultfilmalley January 9, 2021 2

*contains spoilers The films of Australian filmmaker Murray Fahey (no info) are very low budget but couldn’t be more diverse. Of the four movies which impressed me most to write about – two are comedies and two are horror movies… And they are all original to some degree. For example, his comedy/drama Sex is a…

The Cult of Actress Lanah Pellay in Eat the Rich (1987)

cultfilmalley January 7, 2021 0

*contains spoilers Call it youthful naivety, call it sexual ambivalence or confusion but when I first saw Eat the Rich (1987) several times in my late teens as an usher during a film festival, I really thought actress Lanah Pellay (1959-) was a woman, or I thought she was a man… Ummm… Alan Pellay or…

The Megaflop of Director John Schlesinger’s Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)

cultfilmalley December 16, 2020 0

*contains spoilers Box office megaflop Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) was unleashed at the beginning of a period of conservative Reagan-ism and the public simply didn’t take to its community led by a corrupt Christian minister and politician… even if he did mean well! This reimagining of Stanley Kramer’s (1913-2001 pneumonia) It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad,…

The Cult of Director Brian Hannant’s The Time Guardian (1987)

cultfilmalley December 14, 2020 0

*contains spoilers There is a tale behind the making of the Australian science fiction movie The Time Guardian (1987) and it is not a pretty one. I credit the film to director Brian Hannant (1940-) but he more or less disowns the final product… his only venture into fully-fledged feature directing. In fact, Hannant wouldn’t…

The Cult of Inner Beauty in The Enchanted Cottage (1945)

cultfilmalley December 8, 2020 1

*contains spoilers Inner beauty is a hard thing to write about and to define which is probably the reason there aren’t too many movies on the subject. Of course, there are poets and filmmakers who can write or direct beautiful things – but what about inside of the creators themselves as we just assume that…

Actress Susannah York goes insane in Images (1972)

cultfilmalley November 22, 2020 0

*contains spoilers Director Robert Altman’s Images (1925-2006 leukemia) is an, at times, puzzling movie about the creation of writing and the madness that lies in between. It is also one woman’s journey through insanity brought to life by a great performance by Susannah York (1939-2011 multiple myeloma) in the lead. Or is the act of…

Actor Rupert Everett and The Right Hand Man (1987)

cultfilmalley November 17, 2020 1

*contains spoilers and strong course language The fact actor Rupert Everett was gay was an open secret long before he appeared as Julia Robert’s pal in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). It just took him a long time to come out on the world stage. Everett probably would have come out on the world stage…