Poll

What's your favorite film directed by Richard Brooks?

Crisis
0 (0%)
The Light Touch
0 (0%)
Deadline - U.S.A.
1 (6.3%)
Battle Circus
0 (0%)
Take the High Ground!
0 (0%)
Flame and the Flesh
0 (0%)
The Last Time I Saw Paris
0 (0%)
Blackboard Jungle
2 (12.5%)
The Last Hunt
0 (0%)
The Catered Affair
0 (0%)
Something of Value
0 (0%)
The Brothers Karamazov
0 (0%)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1 (6.3%)
Elmer Gantry
1 (6.3%)
Sweet Bird of Youth
0 (0%)
Lord Jim
0 (0%)
The Professionals
0 (0%)
In Cold Blood
5 (31.3%)
The Happy Ending
0 (0%)
$
0 (0%)
Bite the Bullet
0 (0%)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
3 (18.8%)
Wrong Is Right
0 (0%)
Fever Pitch
0 (0%)
[Don't Like Any]
0 (0%)
[Haven't Seen Any]
3 (18.8%)

Total Members Voted: 16

Author Topic: Brooks, Richard  (Read 2233 times)

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Brooks, Richard - Director's Best
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2013, 11:37:11 PM »
Blackboard Jungle
Th Professionals

1SO

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Re: Brooks, Richard - Director's Best
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2014, 01:05:46 PM »
Deadline - U.S.A.
* * * 1/2

"A journalist makes himself the hero of the story. A reporter is only a witness."
You often read about films that are enjoyable if you turn off your brain, well here's a film that requires your brain to be on. Thick with dialogue, character actors and journalistic atmosphere, the 1952 film is about the still relevant death of print journalism. Humphrey Bogart plays the editor of a folding newspaper who uses his final editions to try and take down a powerful gangster nobody will touch after one of his reporters gets injured during an investigation.

The film may actually be a little better or worse that I'm saying because it was hard to keep up with everything. It reminded me of the type of film George Clooney and Grant Heslov have been trying to make their whole careers, a fine piece of entertainment punctuated by sharp observations about professional integrity we no longer seem to have. Also like Clooney/Heslov films, there are a number of subplots. Most of them work fine on their own, but take away from the overall momentum of the film. (Bogart's ex-wife is remarrying. The wife of the paper's deceased founder is trying to delay proceedings.) A little preachy towards the end, but overall this is like watching His Girl Friday soaked in whiskey.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 08:34:42 PM by 1SO »

Antares

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Re: Brooks, Richard - Director's Best
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2014, 06:35:37 PM »
In Cold Blood

The Professionals
The Catered Affair
Elmer Gantry
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Blackboard Jungle
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Masterpiece (100-91) | Classic (90-80) | Entertaining (79-69) | Mediocre (68-58) | Cinemuck (57-21) | Crap (20-0)

verbALs

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Re: Brooks, Richard - Director's Best
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2014, 02:42:41 PM »
1. Looking For Mr. Goodbar
2. Elmer Gantry
3. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
4. The Professionals
5. Blackboard Jungle
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Corndog

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Re: Brooks, Richard
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2016, 01:46:03 PM »
1. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (4)
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

1SO

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Re: Brooks, Richard
« Reply #15 on: September 02, 2018, 10:34:34 PM »

Crisis (1950)
"Doctor, do many people die in an operation like this?"
"Under the best conditions, about 12 percent. These are not the best conditions."


When you picture Cary Grant in a more serious film you might think of one of his Hitchcock thrillers. This gem is less well-known because it doesn't amp up to suspenseful sequences. Instead, there's consistent intrigue over how everything is going to turn out. In the film, Grant plays a brain surgeon in an unnamed Latin country who is essentially kidnapped along with his wife (Paula Raymond) to save the life of the country's highly-despised leader (José Ferrer). His good morality is challenged as the evidence stacks up the amount of good he might do for the entire country if he were to accidentally botch the operation.

With a minimum of comedy to play, Grant is still awfully good in this. He has a gentleman's way of getting tough, able to provoke armed men to shoot with the confidence that if he dies so does their leader. His dependability is matched and sometimes secondary to Ferrer, who leans so hard into the character's humanity you start to wonder if he's really such a tyrant or if it's the brain tumor that's causing such inhumane decisions. For a character that should draw obvious similarities to our current President, Ferrer's dictator is singular instead of a stand-in for all such rulers.

"Nothing destroys so much as civil war. Now, what is the answer to civil war? What stops it?
Compromise? No! Truce? No! To give in? Never! The only answer is war. Real war, against an outside country.
Any country. Everybody must come to the defense of his own country. Patriotism is a great weapon.
Brother stops fighting brother when a stranger attacks."

I wouldn't call the writing especially clever, but the plotting is unusually intelligent for a time in cinema when all motivations are usually spelled out and underlined. For example, there's a situation late in the film and we get some of the information but not all of it so that, like Grant, we're unsure just how much danger he is actually in or if the revolutionaries against the leader are just as evil in their deeds. For a thriller set on one path of suspense you have to nail the ending, and I'm happy to report this one does.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good

Knocked Out Loaded

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Re: Brooks, Richard
« Reply #16 on: October 08, 2018, 05:38:28 AM »
Looking For Mr. Goodbar, 40°
Extraordinary (81-100˚) | Very good (61-80˚) | Good (41-60˚) | Fair (21-40˚) | Poor (0-20˚)

Antares

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Re: Brooks, Richard
« Reply #17 on: October 08, 2018, 06:10:24 AM »
Looking For Mr. Goodbar, 40°

Back when it was released, it was considered a daring film, but now it's dated badly. Only remembered for being Richard Gere's breakout role.
Masterpiece (100-91) | Classic (90-80) | Entertaining (79-69) | Mediocre (68-58) | Cinemuck (57-21) | Crap (20-0)