VINTAGE MOVIES

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Buffalo ’66 (1998, 110 minutes)

The consequences of Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood missing a game-winning field goal in 1991′s Super Bowl XXV are still trickling down when Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) is let out of prison, five years later. Billy bet 10 grand on the game, couldn’t pay the bookie and had to take the rap for someone else to make it good.

Hours after his release, Billy’s in severe discomfort outside the walls, and not just from the bone-chilling cold. He knocks on the prison door and asks, “Can I use the bathroom?” “I can’t let you back in here. This is the discharge gate,” says the guard. Billy takes the last bus into town.

The restrooms at the bus depot are out of order, and they won’t let him use the facilities at Caffe Lococo. In desperation, Billy finds a lavatory at a dance academy, then can’t pee when the guy at the urinal next to him compliments his manhood. “Fucking faggot!” Billy screams at the intruder. Out in the hall, he asks, “Hey, miss, can I borrow a quarter!” from a girl about to leave the dance session. “Hello, Ma!” he shouts into the pay phone. “It’s me, Billy. Billy! Turn the TV down, Ma. We’re in town for one day, staying at the big hotel downtown. No, don’t come down here! I want to see the old neighborhood!” he roars.

Without warning, Billy puts his hand over the mouth of the girl who gave him the quarter (Christina Ricci) and walks her through the oblivious dancing class into the parking lot. Changing her name from Layla to Wendy, he explains she must pretend to be his wife for a day at his parents’ house. He’s explained his long absence by telling them he works for the CIA. “Make a fool out of me and I’ll kill you right there, in front of Mommy and Daddy. If you do good, you can be the best friend I’ve ever had.”

They park in front of a drab bungalow with a huge “GO BUFFALO!” banner draped across the front. Billy’s mom (Anjelica Houston) can be heard from the sidewalk, screaming at the Bills game on TV. Billy’s dad (Ben Gazzara) was once a Sinatra-style pop crooner. Trying to stay in character and already showing signs of falling for her kidnapper (a la “the Stockholm syndrome”), the girl asks to see baby pictures of Billy.

Dad produces a snapshot of Billy with his puppy Bingo, which brings back a flood of toxic memories for Billy. He recalls his Dad screaming at him: “Billy, didn’t I tell you 50 fuckin’ times what would happen to this dog if he peed in the house again!!” And then Ma brings in the one-pot dinner: a large bowl of tripe, prepared especially for Wendy—a devout vegetarian.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Fargo (1996, 98 minutes)

It’s the dead of winter at a crossroads near Fargo, N.D. Merle Haggard is playing on the jukebox at The King Of Clubs as a man in a floppy golf hat (William H. Macy) walks inside and immediately spots his contacts seated behind six Bud longnecks.

“I’m Jerry Lundegaard,” he says to the short man with the mustache, as though he were selling life insurance. “Shep Proudfoot said you’d be here at 7:30. We’ve been sitting here for an hour. He’s peed three times,” says the short man (Steve Buscemi), gesturing at his companion (Peter Stormare), a lanky tow-head, nodding off with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “I’m Carl Showalter and this is my associate, Gaear Grimsrud. You got the car?” “Yeah, it’s out in the lot, a brand-new, burnt-umber Ciera.”

“What Shep told us didn’t make a lot of sense,” says Carl as Grimsrud begins to wake up. “You want your own wife kidnapped?” “It’s all worked-out,” explains Jerry. “It’s not me payin’ the ransom, see. Her dad’s real well-off. I need money.” The kidnappers and Jerry will split the $80,000 ransom right down the middle. Carl remains doubtful: “You’re tasking us to perform this mission, but you won’t tell us … Aw, fuck it, let’s take a look at that car.”

Jerry’s father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), informs Jerry next morning that his recent financial proposal might work, after all. Desperate to get in touch with the men he hired to put the alternate plan into operation, Jerry strides into the maintenance bay at the Minneapolis auto dealership where he works. “Howya doin’ there, Shep?” he asks a Native American mechanic tinkering with a car up on a hydraulic lift. “You know those two fellas you put me in touch with? I may not need  them, after all. See, this deal I needed them for? Something’s happened. Thought you might know an alternate phone number.” “Nope,” says Shep.

Jerry’s wife Jean (Kristin Rudrud) is nestled in the family room watching a morning cooking show demonstrating how to make “holidazzle eggs.” A man in a black ski mask suddenly appears at the slider on the rear deck and shatters the glass with a crowbar.

At the same time, his partner walks right into the house through the unlocked front door and grabs the terrified woman. She bites him on the hand and runs to the upstairs bathroom. Obsessively searching for unguent to treat his wound, Grimsrud notices her in the medicine-cabinet’s mirror, trembling behind the shower curtain. He rips down the plastic and grabs her. She escapes but falls down the stairs like a bagful of old suitcases. The thugs load her unconscious body, wrapped in the shower curtain, into the Ciera’s trunk and take off for the South Dakota state line.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Ratcatcher (1999, 94 minutes)

Garbage bags are beginning to pile up in front of the council housing tenements in one of Glasgow’s rougher neighborhoods, in the mid-’70s. The dustmen are on strike, and things will get worse before the army is called in to clean up the mess.

In one of these dreary flats, with a murky canal running nearby, 11-year-old Ryan Quinn (Thomas McTaggart) is arguing with his mum (Jackie Quinn). “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you umpteen times, keep your trousers tucked into your boots,” she says as she jams his pant legs into his wellies. “I look like a spaz with them tucked in,” he complains. “You won’t say that when you trip and fall on your backside,” she says. “I look stupid,” he says.

Lagging behind his mother out in the street, Ryan calls out. “Ma, can I play, please?” “We’re going to see your dad,” she answers. But soon as she becomes distracted, he turns around, skirts several kids kicking a football back and forth, and runs toward the canal where his friend James is skimming pebbles off the water’s surface.

Slightly taller, James (William Eadle) pushes Ryan into the canal up to his knees, all in fun. “You fucking bastard!” says Ryan as he scoops up a handful of muck from the bottom and flings it in James’ face. “I got you one there,” he says as James scrapes the mud from his eyes. The horseplay suddenly escalates when James ducks Ryan’s head under the water. When his friend resurfaces, James pushes him out into the deepest part of the canal, and he disappears. As James scampers onto the bank, he looks back over his shoulder. There is no thrashing about, no bubbles. Ryan is just gone.

Petrified, James runs home without telling anyone what’s happened. He watches from a window as an ambulance arrives and takes away his friend’s body. Days later, when the hearse bearing Ryan’s coffin pulls up in front of his mother’s flat, three teenage boys drinking beer on the sidewalk offer a toast “to the wee man.”

Ryan’s mother confronts his father as they lug a bulky wardrobe into a moving van. “You killed my boy! You weren’t there!” she sobs. “He was my boy, as well!” he moans. Walking home from the shops, James’ mother consoles the bereft woman, sitting on the curb. “James, would you give me a wee hug?” begs Mrs. Quinn. As he obliges, a look of dread creeps over James’ face. “Go up to Ryan’s room and get the box that’s on his pillow,” she urges. She gives James the sandals she’d bought for her son the day he drowned. That night, James takes great care to scuff up the new shoes. The guilt, more’s the pity, won’t be so easy to sponge away.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Red Dust (1932, 83 minutes)

Seven years before Gone With The Wind, a mustache-less Clark Gable had a hardboiled, sarcastic love relationship with Jean Harlow in Red Dust similar to his affair with Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara. Gable plays Dennis Carson here, manager of a rubber plantation in what was then French Indochina and would become Vietnam. He’s searching for an employee who’s tapped the rubber trees three years too soon, endangering their growth, then taken the boat for a binge in Saigon.

He finds the bird he’s looking for, passed out in his unlit room, and tosses him roughly onto his bed. “Well, for the love of mud! Where am I sleeping, on a racetrack?” shouts a scantily clad dame, already occupying the bed. “Come on, let’s have it. Who are ya and where’d you come from?” barks Gable, sizing up the broad’s profession.

“I’m Pollyanna, the glad girl,” retorts Vantine (Harlow). “I came up in the boat. but not with that. Get him outta here!” she says, beginning to push the unconscious drunk off the bed with both feet.

“Why’d you get off the boat, at all? You do know it doesn’t stop again for four weeks, don’tcha?” says Carson. “For the same reason I did in Saigon,” she says. “I got mixed up in a little trouble and thought I’d stay out of town until the gendarmes forgot about it. But don’t worry, big boy, I’ll stay out from under foot,” she cracks. As Carson departs she pleads, “Hey, you’re not going to leave that corpse in here? Please, this room is full of lizards and cockroaches, as it is.” As he ducks out he says, “One more won’t hurt!”

“You ever think about quittin’, Mac?” says Carson to his grizzled foreman. “I could sell out pretty.” Mac (Tully Marshall) replies, “But you won’t. You was born smellin’ rubber and you’ll die that way.” Carson bristles: “You think I’m gonna spend my whole life here with dry-rot so the world can go around on balloon tires, and old ladies can take hot-water bottles to bed?” Puffing on his pipe, the old man answers, “As long as there’s one baby left in this world to suck on a rubber nipple.”

Right on cue, Vantine appears in her flimsy, pre-production code bedtime ensemble. “I thought you were going back to sleep,” says Mac. “I’m not used to sleeping during the day,” she says, munching on a cracker smeared with gorgonzola. Drinking whiskey, Carson tells the houseboy to clear the beans from dinner. “You won’t grow up to be a big strong boy like grandpa if you don’t eat your din-din,” quips Vantine. “Why don’t you put that cheese where it’ll do the most good, in your mouth!” snarls Carson—joined by the roar of a wild tiger roaming the jungle outside.

The Big Lebowski (1998, 119 minutes)

It’s a frequent topic of debate among Coen brothers devotees: Which of their groundbreaking movies is the top dog? The Big Lebowski gets plenty of action, no doubt. When Jeff Bridges played at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit a few years ago, he was greeted warmly by a chorus of “Duuuude!”

Let’s get one thing straight. It may say “Jeffrey Lebowski” on his birth certificate, but nobody calls him that. He’s known by everyone as “the Dude” (Bridges), and he’s got the look going to prove it: triple-x, floral-print sweat pants, open-toed sandals and a white v-neck T-shirt under a floppy button-up sweater. It’s a wardrobe you could find anywhere, sitting unsold for years, at a Saturday-morning garage sale, now worn by a hulking man with flowing hair and beard that haven’t been trimmed for some time.

Here’s the Dude’s problem. He’s been beaten up by a pair of goons who’ve somehow mistaken him for the other “Jeffrey Lebowski,” the wealthy one whose wife has run up large, unpaid gambling debts. Even worse than getting his head repeatedly dunked into his less-than-spotless toilet, the thugs pee on the Dude’s favorite oriental rug, the one that holds the room together.

The next morning finds the Dude at the local bowling alley, moaning to his pals Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi). Seldom the voice of reason, Walter becomes so angry at an opponent’s foul-line violation he pulls an automatic pistol from his baggy shorts and threatens to shoot Smokey (Jimmy Dale Gilmore) if he enters an incorrect score. “Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?!” Walter shrieks, brandishing the weapon. “They’re calling the cops, man,” groans the Dude. “Put the piece away.”

The Dude arrives at the “big” Lebowski’s Hollywood estate to collect money owed him to clean his carpet. “Are you employed, sir?” bellows the Dick Cheney-esque Lebowski (David Huddleston) from his wheelchair. “Surely you don’t go out looking for a job dressed like that, do you? The rug is your problem. Every bum’s lot in life is his own responsibility, regardless of who he chooses to blame.” As the Dude shakes his head behind oversized, purple-tinged sunglasses, the old man fires a parting shot. “Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski! Condolences. The bums lost!”

The Dude takes matters into his own hands. “The old man told me to take any rug in the house,” he tells Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Lebowski’s personal assistant. Lugging a carpet through the manicured grounds, the Dude eyeballs Bunny (Tara Reid), Lebowski’s trophy wife, in a bikini, painting her toenails olive green. “Blow on them,” Bunny urges him. “I’ll suck your cock for a thousand dollars,” she whispers. “I’m gonna go find a cash machine,” smiles the Dude as he retreats.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Badlands, (1973, 94 minutes)

The versatility of actor Martin Sheen is clearly demonstrated in his ability to play both the bone-weary Capt. Willard, sent on a mind-numbing Vietnam War mission in 1979′s Apocalypse Now, and the sociopathic teenage drifter Kit Carruthers in Badlands, only six years earlier, when Sheen was 33 years old.

Loosely based on the 1957 killing spree of Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Fugate, Badlands is a chilling portrait of the murder of 10 people during a two-month road trip, carried out with no more passion than one would spend collecting postcards of a vacation. Director Terrence Malick described Kit as “so desensitized he regards the gun with which he shoots people as a kind of magic wand that eliminates small nuisances.”

“My mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid,” says Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek) in the opening voice-over. “My father kept their wedding cake in the freezer for 10 whole years. After the funeral he gave it to the yard man. He tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his home. One day, we moved from Texas to Fort Dupree, S.D.”

And that’s where Holly meets Kit, a local garbage man who’s quit work early. “I just thought I’d come over and say hello,” he says to the red-haired high-school girl twirling a baton on her front lawn. “You want to take a walk with me?” he asks. “What for?” asks Holly. “Oh, I got some stuff to say. Guess I’m kinda lucky that way. Most people don’t have anything on their minds, do they?”

Before long, Kit and Holly are running around together, against her father’s wishes. “Did it go the way it was supposed to?” she asks, buttoning her blouse as she steps out from behind a large tree. “Yeah,” says Kit. “Is that all there is to it? Gosh, what was everybody talking about?” she asks, disappointed. “Don’t ask me,” he says.

After a confrontation with Holly’s father as he paints a farm scene on a rural billboard, Kit realizes there’s only one solution to this problem. He shows up at their house with a gun. “What are you doin’?” says Mr. Sargis (Warren Oates) when he finds Kit packing Holly’s clothes into a suitcase. “Got a gun here, sir,” says Kit. “Go on, get out of here!” says Sargis. “OK, but I’m taking Holly off with me.” Sargis goes downstairs to phone the police. Kit runs after him and shoots him twice in the stomach. “I should call the doctor,” says Holly. “He don’t need no doctor,” says Kit. “Are you sure?” “Go see for yourself.” Kit sloshes gasoline all around the house, lights a match and the pair takes off in his battered old Mercury.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1955, 80 minutes)

It’s not much of a stretch to see parallels between 1955 science-fiction classic Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and the rampant paranoia, a few years earlier, of those who felt a “Communist menace” had America in its death-grip. Instead of “a Red under every bed,” a shibboleth of Senator Joe McCarthy during his brief reign of terror, the Body Snatchers cast found a large pod—every bit as treacherous.

A wailing sheriff’s squad car brings a doctor to the emergency hospital of Santa Mira, a small town in southern California. As the doctor enters he hears the screams of a patient: “Will you let me go while there’s still time? Make them listen to me before it’s too late!” “I’ll listen to you. Let him go,” says the newly arrived doctor. “I’m Dr. Hill from the State Mental Hospital,” he tells the agitated patient. “I’m not insane!” insists the restrained man. “I’m a doctor, too.”

Persuaded to tell his story, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) takes a deep breath and begins his tale. “It started last Thursday. I’d hurried home from a medical convention because of a message from my nurse that something was wrong. At first glance, everything looked the same. But it wasn’t. Something had happened to this town.”

Dr. Bennell tells of slamming on his brakes to keep from hitting a young boy darting out into a country lane. “Come back here, Jimmy!” shouts his grandma, running after him. That afternoon, the sobbing boy is brought into Bennell’s office. “You’ve got to be more careful, Jimmy,” warns the doctor. “I almost ran you down this morning. School isn’t that bad,” he comforts. “School doesn’t upset him,” says his grandmother. “It’s my daughter-in-law. He’s got this crazy idea she isn’t his mother.” Jimmy cries out, “She isn’t! She isn’t! Don’t let her get me!”

At the request of old flame Becky Driscoll (the gorgeous Dana Wynter), Bennell visits Wilma Lentz (Virginia Christine), who has an unusual complaint. “Let’s have it. What do you think?” asks Wilma. “It’s him. He’s your uncle Ira, all right,” assesses Bennell, as uncle Ira mows the front lawn. “He is not,” states Wilma firmly. “How’s he different?” asks Bennell. “That’s just it. There is no difference you can actually see,” says Wilma. “He looks, acts and remembers things just like uncle Ira would. But there’s something missing. Always when he talked to me, there was a special look in his eye. That look’s gone. There’s no emotion, none, just the pretense of it. He’s not my uncle Ira!”

“In the back of my mind a warning bell was ringing,” Bennell tells the psychiatrist in the emergency room. “A boy who said his mother wasn’t his mother. A woman who said her uncle wasn’t her uncle. But I didn’t listen.”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Family Way (1966, 111 minutes)

An astute pair of film directors, the Boulting brothers (Roy and John) were tuned-in to the pertinent issues facing post-WW II England—particularly the demise of its rigid class system—and made it all seem uproariously funny. The Family Way, starred a dewy-eyed, 19-year-old Hayley Mills as Jenny Piper, whose husband, Arthur Fitton (Hywell Bennett), is a cinema projectionist whose work in the bedroom never makes it to the second reel.

With the string arrangements of recent Beatles hits “Yesterday” and “Eleanor Rigby” already added to his knighthood resume, Paul McCartney penned the soundtrack for The Family Way. Life one-upped art when Mills moved in with 52-year-old Roy Boulting after shooting was completed.

“No gas works today, then?” says a neighbor lady to Ezra Fitton as she beats a carpet in her back yard. “It would look bloody funny if our Arthur were to wed and his father not in church,” replies Fitton (John Mills, Hayley’s real-life dad). “Come on, Arthur, out with you,” urges his mother (Marjorie Rhodes), as the groom lounges about in his pajamas. “I’ve got to get this room ready for the bride. I don’t want her seeing it in this state.”

Thumbing through a glossy holiday brochure, Arthur says, “It’s only for one night, mum. And then look: golden sun, golden sand and champagne by the bucket.” His mother sighs, “Your dad and me had to do with Blackpool.” The young couple’s honeymoon dreams of Majorca are about to be shattered when the local travel agency skips town with their hard-earned cash.

The marriage ceremony for Jenny and Arthur is marred by just one small incident. As he’s about to slip the simple wedding ring onto Jenny’s finger, Arthur drops it on the stone floor. Magnified by the church’s acoustics, it sounds to the nervous groom like he’s dropped a bucketful of spanners. “Keep your mind on what you’re doing, son,” whispers the elder Fitton from the front pew. “A man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall be as one flesh. This is a great mystery,” intones the padre, all too prophetically.

With the wedding reception in full swing, Arthur’s dad, drinking too much, maneuvers girls half his age around the dance floor. “Hey, you having one with me, son?” he asks Arthur. “No more ale, thanks very much,” says the groom. “No more ale? My old dad would turn in his grave if he could hear you say that.” “Yeah, but he can’t, can he?” answers Arthur, cheekily. “Hey, that stuff’s for women!” shouts his dad as Arthur pours himself a half pint of lager and lime. “You’ll get a fat lot of jollification out of that!” As it turns out, Arthur’s dad is also something of a prophet.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Glengarry GlenRoss (1992, 100 minutes)

A pair of downtrodden real-estate salesmen are feeding dimes into a couple of pay phones on a rainy night in the city. Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon) is reassuring his wife that he’ll be home soon, making little kissing sounds into the receiver. Dave Moss (Ed Harris) waits to speak with a potential buyer. “Bunch of bullshit!” mutters Moss. “The waste of a good man’s time trying to make a living on these deadbeat leads.”

Suddenly, someone’s on the line. “Hello, Mrs. Swoboda, it’s Dave Moss. We spoke yesterday on the Rio Rancho Estates,” he says, changing gears. “We’ve had a situation come up. The president of our company is in town for just one day, and he’s made certain parcels available for the next 48 hours. Listen to me. I’ve got 48 hours to make you a lot of money,” says Moss, irritated at some resistance. “OK, I’ll call you back in 10 minutes,” he says, stifling the urge to slam down the receiver.

Moss and Levene slog across the rain-drenched street to the office of Premier Properties for a mandatory 7:30 meeting. “Are you ready to do or die tonight, Shelley?” asks office manager John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) as they wash their hands in the rest-room sink. “Always ready, John. I understand we might get some new leads,” Levene replies. “That’s what we’re gonna talk about at the meeting. I’ve seen your sales figures,” says Williamson ominously.

“A woman from White Plains, on the hook for five units in Mountain View, and she says she has to check with her lawyer!” groans a rumpled George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) as Levene heads for his desk. “You let her check with her lawyer?” Levene asks, puzzled.

With no warning or introduction, an impeccably tailored and barbered Blake (Alec Baldwin) strides into the office and begins speaking to the staff. “Let me have your attention,” he says. “You’re talking about how some sons of bitches don’t want to buy your land. Let’s talk about something important. Put that coffee down!” he barks directly at Levene, pouring himself a cup in the back of the office. “Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you?” he says walking slowly toward Levene. “I’m not fucking with you. I’m here from downtown on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levene?” Blake asks menacingly. “Yeah.” “You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”

“I don’t have to listen to this shit,” moans Moss, getting to his feet to leave. “You certainly don’t, because the good news is: You’re fired!” spits out Blake, turning toward Moss. “And the bad news is you’ve all got one week to regain your jobs, starting tonight. Oh, have I got your attention now?” he says as though he’s talking to a roomful of imbeciles.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Ipcress File (108 minutes)

British spy novelist Len Deighton created Secret Service foot soldier Harry Palmer as a more realistic option to Ian Fleming’s James Bond. No high-stakes baccarat games with psychopaths bent on world domination here.

“The 7:55 train to Nottingham,” says Dr. Radcliffe to a porter as Taylor, his Secret Service escort assigned to help prevent a cold-war brain-drain of top British scientists, looks nervously around the station. Upon returning to their cab, Taylor finds Radcliffe’s camera and jogs back to the train. “Dr. Radcliffe, you’ve forgotten your camera,” he says. When the doctor lowers his copy of New Scientist, it’s someone completely different. “Where’s Dr. Radcliffe?” Taylor demands of the imposter. As the train departs, Taylor’s body has been partially covered with luggage on a baggage cart.

Awakened by a jangling alarm clock, Palmer (Michael Caine) puts on his horn-rimmed spectacles and stumbles to the kitchen of his modest flat. He grinds coffee beans for his infuser and sips a cup while reading the newspaper. He circles two horses running at Hamilton Park, then removes a pistol concealed under his pillow and tucks it into the waistband of his trousers.

Arriving at a boarded-up house, Palmer violently kicks open a door on the second floor, startling the man inside. “You’re 20 minutes late. Remember you’re still in the army, boyo,” says the current surveillance man, not amused. Palmer’s replacement arrives early. “Ross wants you, so old muggins has to come down and relieve you,” says the new man. “What did he want?” asks Palmer. “Yes, I’m in his full confidence,” says the replacement sarcastically. “Blast you and blast Ross!” As he departs, Palmer says, “You’ve got some wiping to do. That tape’s still running.”

Colonel Ross (Guy Doleman) is feeding pigeons from his Whitehall office window as Palmer arrives. “I’m transferring you to Major Dalby’s outfit. At least you won’t be sitting in an attic for two months,” says Ross. “Is this a promotion, sir?” asks Palmer. “Sort of. I’ll try to get you 1,400 a month,” answers Ross. “Thank you, sir. Now I can get that new infrared grill,” says Palmer. “You won’t have much time for cooking,” warns Ross. “Dalby works his men, and he doesn’t even have my sense of humor.”

Sporting a clipped R.A.F.-style mustache, Major Dalby (Nigel Green) gives Palmer the slow once-over, then says, “It isn’t usual to read a B107 to its subject, Palmer. But I’m going to put you in the picture: ‘Insubordinate, insolent, trickster, perhaps with criminal intent.’” Palmer replies, unflinchingly, “Yes, that’s a pretty fair appraisal,” then pauses a second before adding, “sir.” “Good,” says Dalby. “That last quality may come in useful. But if I have any trouble with you, Palmer, I shall bite you so hard you’ll go right back where Ross found you.”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955, 106 minutes)

Like something from the sleazy, lipstick-stained pages of True Detective, the writing of Mickey Spillane was well suited to the cold-war-fixated McCarthy paranoia spreading like a bad case of poison ivy through the early ’50s. With certain governments able to wipe out civilization at the push of a button, the time for gentlemanly, pre-World War II detectives was over. Spillane’s hard-boiled, self-absorbed gumshoe Mike Hammer was as subtle as a ball-peen driving a number-12 nail.

A terrified barefoot girl (Cloris Leachman), dressed only in a raincoat, is running down the middle of the Pacific Coast Highway at night, trying to hail any passing vehicle. Desperate, she stands directly in the path of the next car, holding up her arms and closing her eyes to prepare for the bone-crunching impact. Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) slams on his brakes and brings his XK120 Jaguar convertible to a stop just off the road. “You almost wrecked my car!” he says to the out-of-breath girl. “Get in.”

Nat “King” Cole croons “I’d Rather Have The Blues” on the car’s radio as the movie’s credits scroll by, reading bottom to top. Make no mistake, it’s a new day, joker, and you’d better get with the program.

“The thumb isn’t good enough for you. You’ve gotta use your whole body!” complains Hammer as he aims his roadster into the darkness. “Would you have stopped if I’d used my thumb?” she asks. “No,” barks Hammer. “I should have thrown you off the cliff, back there. I might still do it. What’s this all about? I’ll make a quick guess. You were out with some guy who thought ‘no’ was a three-letter word.” He finally asks her, “Where you headed?” “Los Angeles,” she says. “You can drop me off at the first bus stop.”

There’s no way to bypass the flashing red lights of a police road-block, up ahead. “What’s the trouble, officer?” asks the car in front. “Woman escaped from an asylum, young and wearing a trench coat,” says the cop. The girl nestles up to Hammer and grabs his hand. “Haven’t seen a thing, officer,” volunteers Hammer. “Oh, my wife’s been asleep.” “All right, move on,” says the bored cop.

The good deed generates no thanks. “You’re one of those self-indulgent males who does push-ups just to keep his belly hard,” she says. “You against good health, or something?” he parries. “I could tolerate flabby muscles in a man if it would make him more friendly,” she answers. “All right, let it go. That bus stop will be coming up pretty soon, and I don’t even know your name,” he says. “You forget, I’m a loony from the laughing house. I was named after Christina Rossetti. She wrote love sonnets. Get me to that bus stop, and forget you ever knew me.”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Wrong Arm Of The Law (1963, 94 minutes)

A postman opens the back of his van on a quiet London street and finds two intruders hiding inside. After tying him up, they make off with four sacks of mail and drive to a nearby warehouse. They place the bags inside rolled-up rugs and take off in a carpet delivery van for Maison Jules, an up-market haute couture salon in Bond Street. The entire caper is being patiently observed by three policemen in a squad car.

Inside the boutique, M. Jules (Peter Sellers) in a clipped mustache and quilt-collared evening jacket, tries to convince the mother of the bride that the gown worn by a model is just the ticket for the upcoming nuptials. “It looks all right on her, but what about that one?” she says, gesturing toward her willowy daughter.

“I assure you, madame, it will look even more formidable on mademoiselle,” oozes Jules in a plummy French accent. “You won’t have to pad it out a bit in front?” she asks. The proprietor’s voice goes down half an octave. “Oh, but that is the fashion these days. Mademoiselle is completely up to date: the slim, boyish, greyhound look. Today, curves are strictly superfluous on the younger woman.”

Ignoring angry protests from the dress shop’s staff, the policemen burst through the fitting room into a back office where the three delivery men are sitting in the middle of hundreds of pieces of registered mail. “It’s a fine thing when private citizens are going through their personal correspondence, and the coppers come in and knock the lot off,” blusters one of the crooks. “You lot, stay here and don’t try anything,” warns the sergeant. Astonishingly, the police scoop up all the stolen mail and depart, leaving the miscreants behind.

“The police have been here,” says one of Jules’ employees. “What! Where’s the police now?” says Jules in his native East End tongue. “Oh, they’ve gone,” she tells him. “Gone? Where’s the lads? Have they took ‘em down the nick?” he asks, stunned. “No, they just took away some bags. They looked like mailbags.”

Jules, in his alter ego as Pearly Gates, strolls into his office and announces to the three confused carpet delivery men, “The law, as you call it, has gone.” “What do you know about that!” says one of the lads. “Good old Pearly. We knew you could fix it!” says another. “You useless bunch of moronic twits!” barks Gates. “What do you mean useless?” says one of the bunglers. “You know what you’ve fallen for, don’tcha?” says Gates. “The oldest bleedin’ game in the business, that’s all: the IPO caper!” “IPO? What’s IPO?” asks one of the bewildered lads. “Impersonatin’ a police officer,” says Gates. “You mean we’ve been conned?” suggests one of the boys. “I mean you’ve been conned!” bellows Gates.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Hardcore (1979, 109 minutes)

The last time I attended the Bing Crosby “clambake,” the pro-am celebrity golf tournament in Carmel that morphed into the less intimate AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1986, I followed a foursome that included George C. Scott. I’d been a fan since he first appeared with Paul Newman in The Hustler. This was back in the day when you could joke with Arnold Palmer when his iron shot nailed a seagull at Pebble or chat with Glen Campbell after he drained a 15-foot birdie at Spyglass. Approaching Scott that day was out of the question. Unable to get his ball airborne, he hit nothing but worm-burners and looked perfectly miserable.

It’s that same scowl Scott frequently employs in Hardcore as Jake Van Dorn, a tightly wound Grand Rapids, Mich., furniture manufacturer. In the middle of Sunday dinner, he gets a phone call that his teenage daughter, Kristen, is missing from a bus-trip to Los Angeles for a church-sponsored convention. According to a girlfriend, she was last seen talking to an older boy at the White Knuckler ride at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Van Dorn flies to L.A. that same day. “Kristen isn’t the type of person to just up and leave,” he tells the police officer in charge of the case. “Let’s hope she’s a runaway. Then at least she knows where she is. That’s better than most of these other kids,” says the cop, pointing to a bulletin board full of photos of missing children. “A lot of them aren’t going to turn up at all.”

“Let me ask you a personal question,” says Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), a private detective Van Dorn has agreed to meet in a coffee shop. “Was your daughter the type to run around … uh, play practical jokes?” Mast tap-dances, noting the frown on his client’s face. “Let me visualize your daughter,” he continues. “She never had a rebellious or impure thought? She didn’t fuck around?” “If I was you, I’d watch my language, Mr. Mast!” says Van Dorn through clenched teeth. “Look, I’m good at this. I’ll find her,” says Mast. “It may take a week or two, a month at most. It’d be better if you go back home. Go through her stuff. See if she knew anybody out here.”

Weeks later, Mast arrives in Grand Rapids with something to show his client. “You know what a hardcore movie is?” asks Mast. “Yes, it’s like a stag film,” replies Van Dorn. “There’s a little theater up the street I’ve got the use of for an hour,” says the detective. As Van Dorn sits down, Mast flips on the projector to reveal Kristen (Ilah Davis), stripping down to her panties with two young men surrounding her. “Turn it off. Turn it off! Turn it off!!” screams Van Dorn in agony.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Nashville (1975, 160 minutes)

Robert Altman’s films are so richly seductive, a guitar-strumming singer opened a show at San Francisco’s Hotel Utah, two years ago, armed with an entire set of originals written specifically about Altman’s best work (M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville).

Nashville is a complex tapestry of dozens of story lines. It’s almost like a Dostoevsky novel where you have to take notes to keep up. It’s 1975, and Music City has been invaded by a white van draped with gaudy political messages and sporting a bullhorn blaring out the recorded wisdom of presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker: “All of us are deeply involved in politics, whether we know it or not. When you pay more for an auto than it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to America, that’s politics.” Interlaced throughout the picture, the narrative acts like a Greek chorus.

Aimed at next year’s bi-centennial, country star Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) is cutting a bloated, patriotic ballad with a studio full of crack session men: (“I’ve lived through two depressions and seven dust bowl droughts/Floods, locusts and tornadoes but I don’t have any doubts/We must be doing something right to last 200 years”).

Hamilton stops during one take to criticize a long-haired piano player, then orders “that woman with the hat” out of the studio. “Mr. Hamilton,” blurts out the lady in question (Geraldine Chaplin), “I’m Opal from the BBC. I’m making a documentary on Nashville.” Oblivious to her explanation, Hamilton mutters, “I don’t want no recording equipment in here. If she wants a copy of this record, she can buy it when it’s released.” Undaunted, Opal moves on to the adjoining studio where a white girl (Lily Tomlin) is fronting a wailing back gospel chorus.

Months after rehabbing at the Baltimore Burn Center, legendary country warbler Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) is about to land at Nashville Metro Airport, jammed with thousands of rabid devotees, the press, the Franklin High School marching band, an all-girl M-1 rifle platoon spinning their weapons somewhat in unison and the red-white-and-blue-clad Tennessee Twirlers. The American flag, surrounded by those of Tennessee and the Confederate States of America, flap in the scorching breeze.

As Barbara Jean’s personal eight-seater taxis down the tarmac, a local TV newsman intones, “And here she comes at last, Barbara Jean, fully recovered from a terrible accident where she was burned by a fire baton.” Wearing a flowing white gown, Barbara Jean addresses her adoring multitude. “I think you kids get better every year,” she says to the band. “It’s great to be home, even though it’s as hot as a firecracker.” After noticing more fans confined inside the terminal, she takes four steps down a concrete walkway to greet them and collapses to the ground as though she’s been shot.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Night Of The Living Dead (1968, 96 minutes)

The opening sequences of George Romero’s gruesome horror picture Night Of The Living Dead are electric. A brother and sister drive a large Pontiac toward a deserted, slightly overgrown cemetery for an annual pilgrimage to put flowers on a family gravesite. There’s almost as much tension here as Janet Leigh’s unlucky choice of a motel in Psycho.

The pair drives by a rusted-out road sign proclaiming “Cemetery Entrance” that some drunken hunter has blasted years earlier with a shotgun. Johnny, in horn-rimmed glasses and leather driving gloves, complains to his sister, “We’ve still got a three-hour drive back to Pittsburgh. We’re not gonna be home until after midnight.”

“Well, if it really bugged you, you wouldn’t do it,” says his sister, Barbara, dressed in a Burberry raincoat with straight, long blond hair. “You think I want to blow Sunday on a scene like this?” he carps, hauling the modest-sized memorial from the back seat as they reach their destination. “Look at this: ‘We Still Remember.’ I honestly don’t even remember what the man looks like,” he grumbles. “It just takes five minutes, John,” replies Barbara. “Yeah, five minutes to put the wreath on the grave and six hours to drive back and forth. Mother wants to remember, so we drive 200 miles into the country,” he says. “Well, we’re here, John,” says his sister.

“I wonder what happened to the one from last year,” says Johnny, still irked. “Each year we spend good money on these things, and the one from last year is gone.” “Well, the flowers die, and the caretaker takes them away,” she says. “Yeah, a little spit and polish and they could clean this up and sell it to us again next year. I wonder how many times we’ve bought the same one?” Thunder rumbles in the distance as his sister lingers over their father’s grave in silent prayer. “Hey, c’mon, Barb, I mean prayin’s for church.” snipes Johnny eager to begin the return voyage.

“Do you remember one time, when we were small, and I jumped out at you here from behind a tree, and Grampa got all excited? He shook his fist and said, ‘Boy, you’ll be damned to hell!’” His sister implores, “Stop it. You’re being ignorant!”

Pointing at a man lumbering toward them, her brother intones in a mock Boris Karloff accent. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!.” The man walks right up to his sister and grabs her in a ferocious bear hug. Johnny intervenes and is knocked unconscious on a tombstone. Now barefoot, his terrified sister races toward the car to find no keys in the ignition. As her snarling pursuer smashes the passenger’s window with a rock, she releases the emergency brake and rolls slowly downhill only to end her voyage by sideswiping a pine tree.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Jaws (1975, 125 minutes)

When a stripped-down crew consisting of police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and a crazed, Ahab-like skipper known as Quint (Robert Shaw) sets out to kill a deadly great white shark, the parallels between Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick are inescapable.

As the surf rolls in, about 20 shaggy-haired college kids are finishing off several kegs of beer and passing around the weed, well after midnight. A buzzed blond boy hands a joint to a platinum-haired girl who begins running alongside the picket fence toward the beach. “What’s your name, again?” says the boy, stumbling after her. “Chrissie,” she shouts over her shoulder, as she begins disrobing on the fly. “Where we going?” he asks. “Swimming,” she says, cleanly diving into the first wave she encounters.

Her tardy companion mutters to himself, “I’m not drunk. I just can’t undress myself.” Swimming to within a few yards of a buoy, Chrissie feels something hit her leg hard. “Help me,” she screams as she’s picked up and shaken like a dust mop by a powerful unseen force. She makes one gallant effort to escape before being pulled below the surface. Her companion has passed-out just beyond the tidal line, unaware of what has happened.

Brody, the recently appointed police chief of a New England island town called Amity, is awakened early Sunday morning by his office. “Missing person. Gotta go,” he says to his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary). “Chief, be careful,” she says. “In this town?” replies the New York City-raised Brody as he jumps into his Amity PD pickup truck. In his office, he questions the blond kid from Saturday night, who’s reported the girl missing.

Attracted by a PD alarm whistle, Brody and the boy sprint down the beach toward a badly shaken deputy. “Oh Jesus!” says Brody at the sight of a girl’s hand protruding from a gelatinous chunk of human torso, now being consumed by dozens of voracious crabs. Convinced this is a shark attack, Brody buys poster paint and brushes to make signs closing the beaches to all swimming.

A limousine with three Amity councilmen drives onto the ferry taking Brody across the harbor where Boy Scouts are swimming for merit badges, unaware of any danger. “Martin, are you shutting down the beaches on your own authority?” asks Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton). “We’re anxious you’re rushing into something serious,” says the mayor, more concerned with the economic windfall from next weekend’s Amity Island Celebration than public safety. “Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars.” It’s suggested the girl’s death might have been a boating accident. Reluctantly, Brody agrees to keep the beaches open until he gets the opinion of a marine biologist. In the meantime, a giant predator lurks just off the coast.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Slap Shot (1977, 123 minutes)

A rare bird, a great sports movie, Slap Shot follows the Charlestown Chiefs, a struggling minor-league hockey team from western Pennsylvania as it tries to stay afloat in a town where the local mill is about to lay off 10,000 workers. Costume design here scores a hat trick, cherry-picking from a painted desert of bad mid-’70s fashion: loud sports jackets, wide-collared floral-print shirts and double-knit trousers.

With most of tonight’s sparse hometown crowd already booing the Chiefs’ players, the organist strikes up the National Anthem, a truncated instrumental version that goes from “Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight” directly to “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Before the game is two minutes old, the Chiefs’ goalie, looking like an epileptic fighting off a swarm of bees, has already let in two easy ones, with plenty more to come.

General Manager Joe McGrath (Strother Martin) orders aging player/coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman)—in full denial that his long, undistinguished hockey career is nearly over—to pick up three kids he’s just signed to beef-up the Chiefs’ roster.

Looking around the train station, Dunlop hears a thunderous crash in the lobby. He finds Jeff, Steve and Jack, the Hanson brothers, tipping over a Coke machine that has swallowed their quarter. All three, peering out from behind owlish, horn-rimmed glasses, are Joey Ramone clones. “We pay for you to stay here a week,” says Dunlop of their temporary quarters as the brothers unpack model Indy 500 cars and plastic dump-trucks from their luggage. “You think they show Speed Racer here?” asks one of the Hansons.

“Are you crazy, you cheap son of a bitch? Those guys are retards! They brought their fuckin’ toys with ‘em!” roars Dunlop at McGrath. “I’d rather have them play with toys than play with themselves,” says McGrath. “They’re too dumb to play with themselves,” says Dunlop. As the Chiefs suit-up for a road game, Dunlop watches the Hansons tape something heavy under aluminum foil around their knuckles. “They don’t leave the bench,” he mutters, realizing the mayhem these young goons would cause in enemy territory.

McGrath forces some of his players to model boutique fashions down the runway of a local department store, the afternoon before a game. “I’m gonna flash ‘em!” screams defenseman Johnny Upton (Allan Nicholls) at the GM. “I’m gonna open this faggot bathrobe and wiggle my dick at ‘em! When I yank it out, everybody in that room is gonna be running for the exits! I want you to have a heart attack and die, so we never have to do this shit again!” McGrath stoically replies, “It’s good publicity.” But the high-pitched screams from the next room testify that Upton has already carried out his threat.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Birds (1963, 120 minutes)

In 1960, Alfred HItchcock made the leap from pictures filled with mystery and intrigue—Vertigo and North By Northwest—to the sheer terror of Psycho. The Birds continues down that twisted path to a place where horrifying things happen when nature goes berserk.

As Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), young, beautiful and rich, strides across San Francisco’s Union Square toward Davidson’s Pet Shop to pick up a Mynah bird for her aunt, she looks up to see a large flock of seagulls, squawking high overhead.

With the shop clerk in the back, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), mistakes Melanie for an employee and questions her about a pair of lovebirds for his sister Cathy’s birthday. “She’s only 11. I wouldn’t want a pair that were too demonstrative,” he says. “Doesn’t it make you feel awful, all these poor little creatures caged-up like this?” “Well, we can’t just let them fly around the shop,” replies Melanie, playing the role. When the real employee returns, Mitch admits he knew, all along, who Melanie was. “I think you’re a louse,” she says, angry at being played for a fool.

And yet, she writes down Brenner’s license plate number and purchases a pair of lovebirds to leave on his doorstep, along with an irate letter. When she learns he spends weekends with his mother and sister in Bodega Bay, she bundles up in an expensive fur coat, hops into her pewter-tinged 1954 Aston Martin and drives 60 miles up the Pacific Coast, just to deliver the birds for his sister’s birthday.

Melanie convinces the local postmaster to point out Mitch’s home, two miles across Bodega Bay. She hires a skiff at the Tides Boat Rental to ferry the birds to the Brenners’ dock, then jumps into the boat like she’s done this before. She cuts the engine and paddles to shore as Mitch disappears into the barn. With the nerve of a cat burglar, she enters the house and places the birds on an ottoman in the living room, with a birthday card to Cathy replacing the angry letter. Melanie returns to the boat, yanks the starter-cord and slowly heads back to Bodega Bay.

Twenty yards from the dock, a gull plummets from the sky and violently strikes her, just above her platinum-tinted hairline. Mitch, who’s found the lovebirds and driven around the bay to meet her, has seen the entire incident. “You all right?” he asks, scampering down to help her from the boat. “Yes, I think so. What do you suppose made it do that?” she asks, dazed. “That’s the damndest thing I ever saw,” he says. “It swooped down on you deliberately. Oh, you’re bleeding. Let’s take care of that.” “What happened?” asks the boat-rental skipper, back from lunch. “A gull hit her!” says a still bewildered Brenner.