MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: CRY OF THE HUNTED (1953)

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It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
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Sunday, November 18, 2018

CRY OF THE HUNTED (1953)

Softhearted (or is it soft-headed?) Maximum Security Sub-Warden Barry Sullivan, ordered to sweat information out of fall-guy prisoner Vittorio Gassman, passes the job off to a pair of detectives who manage to lose him in a traffic accident. Now it’s up to Sullivan to track the guy down for a last chance at locating the stolen cash & missing accomplices Gassman’s been covering for. But it's advantage Gassman when the prisoner slips home, since ‘home’ is deep in Louisiana’s uncharted swamp-lands. Top-tier B-pic director Joseph H. Lewis (of low-budget sexy bank-robbers GUN CRAZY/’50 fame*) manages some nifty set pieces (heavy on action, violence & funiculars!), but the story never finds a believable groove. Instead, concentrate on the peculiar police officers and Gassman’s wicked nasty swamp wife. And who was the genius who thought to put tubby William Conrad in hot, sticky Louisiana back country? He must have sweat thru ten shirts a day.

DOUBLE-BILL: Gassman tried playing Hollywood leading man during his marriage to Shelley Winters (1952 - ‘54), but it didn’t quite take. Best shot: THE GLASS WALL/’53. Then, back to Italian & International stardom. *For prime Lewis, try his next, THE BIG COMBO/’55.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Sunday, November 18, 2018

CRY OF THE HUNTED (1953)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE