After the modest success of 1952’s The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, someone at Walt Disney Productions decided the legend clearly needed more talking animals and fewer human beings. Because if there’s one thing medieval English folklore was missing, it was a fox with impeccable comedic timing. Thus, 1973’s Robin Hood was…
Night Tide (1961) – Review
Before Dennis Hopper went Easy Riding through America’s existential malaise, he was falling for a girl who might be a mermaid. Night Tide, written and directed by Curtis Harrington, is a dreamy and melancholy horror film about loneliness, obsession, and the mysterious allure of the sea. It’s an offbeat mixture of Poe, pulp, and pure…
The Innocents (1961) – Review
Few films capture the haunting ambiguity of Gothic horror quite like 1961’s The Innocents. Directed by Jack Clayton and shot with eerie precision by cinematographer Freddie Francis, this adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw turns repression, loneliness, and madness into an elegant fever dream. It’s not just a ghost story; it’s a…
Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960) – Review
Richard Greene returns as Robin Hood in Sword of Sherwood Forest, bringing his television incarnation from The Adventures of Robin Hood to the big screen for Hammer Films. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film trades the television series’ half-hour adventures for a compact feature-length conspiracy involving crooked nobles, a threatened Archbishop and Peter Cushing looking…
Mill of the Stone Women (1960) – Review
Italian cinema of the early ’60s had a flair for grand horror melodrama. Still, Mill of the Stone Women (Il mulino delle donne di pietra) might be its most baroquely unhinged example. It’s beautiful, bizarre, and far too committed to its premise to be brushed off as just another knockoff. This is a film that…