Author Archives: Don Druker

1 hour 53 min

Germaine Dulac’s 1927 surrealist classic is best remembered today for having prompted the British censor to write: “The film is so cryptic as to be meaningless; and if there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable.” Antonin Artaud, who wrote the scenario, denounced the film for falling short—in its sterile pictorial design—of his realistic conception. […]

A golden oldie, in which Jeanette MacDonald hunts for fugitive brother James Stewart in the wilds of Canada but finds a duet partner in Mountie Nelson Eddy. They sing “Indian Love Call” without damaging each other’s ears, and Nelson bellows “Song of the Mounties” all by himself. W.S. Van Dyke directed this 1936 antique in […]

The inflated reputation of John Ford’s moody, heavily symbolic 1935 drama has rightly been put into perspective by critics who now recognize that Ford went on to greater things over the next 30 years. The extravagant praise of critics in the 30s may have been a bit unwarranted, but this is still a work of […]

Abraham Polonsky’s somber, sensitive direction lifts this maudlin, plodding chase story up a few notches. Robert Redford stars as a sheriff who’s forced to track down and execute a Paiute Indian (expertly played by Robert Blake) in order to preserve the equanimity of President Taft’s tour through the territory. A thoughtful, intelligent film that nearly […]