Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

ST. IVES (1976)

Less a movie than a ‘deal memo’ that slipped into production, this limp Charles Bronson pic tries for a ‘MALTESE FALCON’ vibe with John Houseman making like ‘fat-man’ Sydney Greenstreet, Jacqueline Bisset in the Mary Astor spot as a lying femme fatale and even Elisha Cook, Jr. (from the original) in a small role. Maximilian Schell has what should be the Peter Lorre role, but you’d hardly know it. What a shame they didn’t also borrow the storyline. Instead, we get Bronson as a tough crime writer with gambling debts who’s hired by Houseman & Co. as go-between to help recover some stolen papers. Something or other to do with an international crime syndicate. Don’t ask. It’s dreary stuff, with megger J. Lee Thompson, scorer Lalo Schifrin & and even lenser Lucien Ballard all phoning it in. A quick shot of a young, slack-jawed Jeff Goldblum is fun to spot, but Bronson soon takes him out of action and the film goes right back to sleep.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Bronson was at his best the previous year, co-starring with James Coburn in Walter Hill’s fine debut pic, HARD TIMES/’75, finally out in its original WideScreen format.

No comments: