侍 Samurai aka Samurai Assassin (dir. 岡本 喜八). Talk, talk, talk, talk, bloodbath, End.
How To Murder Your Wife (dir. Richard Quine). Phooey. For comedy we make some allowance for a contrived story and an immoral resolution, but this one “takes a mile.”
Repulsion (dir. Roman Polanski). Slow and not my cup of tea, but technically somewhat interesting. — Near the end, Carol “writes” on a window: that is, she moves a stylus (or maybe it’s only her finger) in the manner of writing, but makes no mark. Someone must know what she writes, but I haven’t found the right keywords!
Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (The Saragossa Manuscript) (dir. Wojciech Has). Tales within tales: I’m not sure there is a point to it, but it was good fun along the way. Duels, hauntings, lovers climbing in at windows, the Spanish Inquisition (don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming) . . . . — At one point someone used a word that sounded like English nonsense; does any of my readers speak enough Polish to confirm that it has been borrowed?
Lord Jim (dir. Richard Brooks). After Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O’Toole went further back in time and up the river Kwai to destroy a warlord (Eli Wallach), with pretty much the results you’d expect, which is to say a quite competent adventure flick: not quite a classic but a good way to pass the time. James Mason plays a pirate.
赤ひげ (Red Beard) (dir. 黒澤 明). A young physician is shocked to find himself assigned to a primitively-equipped charity hospital rather than to the Shōgun’s staff. You can guess the plot from that premise; but the patients’ stories told along the way are, though almost unrelievedly sorrowful, not without interest.
座頭市二段斬り (Zatōichi’s Revenge) (#10; dir. Inoue Akira). The corrupt village boss this time around is more evil than usual. — I begin to wonder whether I miss anything by forgetting the names mentioned in previous instalments, because this is the second or third in which (as a minor part of the story) someone is hired to kill Ichi on account of one or another of his past exploits.
Alphaville (dir. Jean-Luc Godard). An awesomely advanced computer rules the city, rationally of course, which means the arts are long forgotten along with the word love. Once the foregoing was expounded (after about half an hour), I put it away.
Shenandoah (dir. Andrew V. McLaglen).
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (dir. Ken Annakin). Like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, it could be improved by cutting half an hour of slapstick.
The Collector (dir. William Wyler). I watched about twenty minutes; couldn’t get into it. Perhaps some other time.
What’s New, Pussycat (dir. Clive Donner). Thin.
獣の剣 Sword of the Beast (dir. 五社 英雄). Unusually complex samurai flick. — One of the players, Kato Go, looks strikingly like Gregory Peck.
Cat Ballou (dir. Elliot Silverstein). Light (though less comical than I expected), but warm.
The Knack . . and how to get it (dir. Richard Lester). Abandoned in twenty minutes or less. Lucky that I didn’t see this before A Hard Day’s Night or A Funny Thing Happened or The Three Musketeers or The Ritz.
The Great Race (dir. Blake Edwards). I remember watching this with Dad, on television in 197x. “Push the button, Max! Not that button!” — We see Professor Fate and his assistant on a pedal-powered mini-blimp; I wonder, could such a thing be practical? — Miss Dubois’s feminism is established with some annoyingly nonsensical conversations. — The fencing bout of Tony Curtis and Ross Martin is more realistic, with less wild slashing, than usual.
Lost In Space. The opening shot announces the date as October 16, 1997. Funny, I don’t remember hearing it mentioned back when people were talking about prominent fictional dates that were then approaching, such as the pivotal disasters in Space: 1999 and Terminator 2. — Anyway. It’s so well-meaning that I hate to criticize it for such details as bad science and trite slow-moving plots. (I suppose it wasn’t quite so trite then.)
Hogan’s Heroes (first seven episodes). Better than I expected.
The Wild Wild West; Get Smart; I Dream of Jeannie. Not available. Does that seem right to you?
座頭市逆手斬り (Zatōichi and the Doomed Man) (#11, dir. Mori Kazuo). Ichi’s fame has now spread enough that a rogue briefly profits by impersonating him. — The climactic battle is more ‘stagey’ than usual.
Bunny Lake Is Missing (dir. Otto Preminger). For the first hour it’s an absorbing, if slow-moving, mystery. But when the criminal is revealed to us he takes on a new personality, a madness incompatible with his previous cunning, which wrecks the show for me. — In the first few minutes an American is made to say “marketing” where most of us, so far as I know, would say “shopping”. Is there such a dialect?
Lásky Jedné Plavovlásky (Loves of a Blonde) (dir. Milos Forman).
La Decima Vittima (Tenth Victim) (dir. Elio Petri). From a story by Robert Sheckley, who died 15 days before I saw it. — One brief scene reminds me of a throw-away line from Heinlein’s “All You Zombies”.
Doctor Zhivago (dir. David Lean). I spotted a small error: in the “peaceful demonstration” the first banner is missing a letter from svoboda i bratstvo (freedom and brotherhood).
座頭市地獄旅 (Zatōichi and the Chess Expert) (#12, dir. Misumi Kenji). As in #6, some of the violence in #12 is more graphic than usual. — Ichi plays a shamisen; I think that’s a first; previously he has often played a pennywhistle.