Movie Magazine International Blog

By Monica Sullivan It was the last Saturday night in November, 1933, exactly one month before Christmas.  The body of one of the best and brightest young men in San Jose had just been found and his two confessed killers were in jail, awaiting trial.  Only there was no trial.  The town's angry citizens tried and executed the defendants that night and California governor Sunny Jim Rolph praised their actions as he justified his own decision not to send in additional protection for the prisoners.  This may sound like the plot for more than one movie, and it has, in fact, been filmed at least twice before.  (German emigre director Fritz Lang first chose the story for his 1936 American film debut, "Fury")  The San Jose lynching of 1933 was never interpreted better than by the soon-to-be-blacklisted director Cy Endfield in 1950.   "Try and Get Me" is a little-known film noir classic, focusing on Frank Lovejoy as an ordinary man with no money and no p...

By Monica Sullivan If you enjoyed Jeremy Irons' performance in Barbet Schroeder's vastly overrated "Rcversal of Fortune", or even if you didn't, you might enjoy seeing him in "A Chorus of Disapproval", directed by Michael Winner.  Michael Winner began his career in 1957 by directing "This Is Belgium".  Strapped for funds, he shot much of the travelogue in the British suburban town of East Grinstead.  He achieved fame and fortune with the American-made "Death Wish" movies, but his early work on films like "The Jokers" and "I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name" reveal a remarkable feeling for sharp satire that he seldom exploits.   Winner was a good choice to direct Sir Alan Ayckbourn's "A Chorus of Disapproval", a charming satire about the antics of an amateur suburban theatrical troupe.  Like many other Ayckbourn works, including "The Norman Conquests", the satire is in-hous...