Poll

What's your favorite film by Jacques Tourneur?

Cat People
3 (12.5%)
I Walked with a Zombie
1 (4.2%)
The Leopard Man
0 (0%)
Days of Glory
0 (0%)
Experiment Perilous
0 (0%)
Canyon Passage
2 (8.3%)
Out of the Past
11 (45.8%)
Berlin Express
0 (0%)
Easy Living
0 (0%)
Stars in My Crown
0 (0%)
The Flame and the Arrow
1 (4.2%)
Anne of the Indies
0 (0%)
Stranger on Horseback
0 (0%)
Wichita
0 (0%)
Great Day in the Morning
0 (0%)
Nightfall
0 (0%)
Night of the Demon
1 (4.2%)
The Fearmakers
0 (0%)
The Comedy of Terrors
0 (0%)
other (please specifiy)
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
4 (16.7%)
don't like any
1 (4.2%)

Total Members Voted: 23

Author Topic: Tourneur, Jacques  (Read 7310 times)

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #20 on: June 28, 2012, 01:38:07 PM »
Nightfall Jacques Tourneur, 1957

I had words, but then I found this by a Mr. Greg X at mubi.com

"Nightfall can be considered a mistaken noir, or a film that starts as if it were a noir using all the familiar tropes or conventions of the genre, a paranoid loner on the run in a foreboding urban landscape pursued by both ruthless criminals and a government man with a femme fatale for a companion, and then undermines them all one by one, the woman is true and only seeks to help, the government man turns out to be an insurance agent whom he befriends and even the thugs are given a soul, if not fully redeemable, the dark night of the city gives way to a country morning in a field of blinding white."

So, yeah, great movie. It's been a while since I've seen a film start off with such an aura of mystery - whatever ails the protagonist feels like something almost hidden deep down, but all expressed thru the film's mise en scene (the street corner with the cigarette, the bar counter, etc). I think I'll be ordering that Fujiwara book after all.

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #21 on: February 09, 2013, 08:10:43 PM »
The Flame and The Arrow (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)

Burt Lancaster is a mountain man and as such he is free to do the things we are not. Like challenge the occupying forces of this one other kingdom. In the ensuing struggle, his kid is kidnapped, so he has to get him back. The whole thing's a lot of rollicking fun, full of those wonderful technicolor shadows, ala Canyon Passage, and elaborate staging. Lancaster's able body is the star, and the film's final moments are fantastic - acrobatic trojan horses, revolution, roujin.
« Last Edit: February 29, 2020, 02:55:33 PM by 1SO »

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #22 on: February 23, 2013, 04:14:31 PM »
Great Day in the Morning (Jacques Tourneur, 1956)

This is Canyon Passage-level of mysterious, complex mise en scene, meaning it's a masterpiece. Each scene full of confrontations, counter-balances, opposing ideologies, fluid characterization, pictorial beauty, self-destruction, and an acknowledgement of people's unknowable nature - the final shot (scene) is just incredible.
« Last Edit: February 29, 2020, 02:55:41 PM by 1SO »

1SO

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Tourneur, Jacques
« Reply #23 on: March 30, 2013, 12:44:10 AM »
1. Canyon Passage
2. Out of the Past
3. Stranger on Horseback
4. Night of the Demon
5. Wichita
6. Stars in My Crown
7. The Flame and the Arrow
8. Great Day in the Morning
9. I Walked With a Zombie

10. Cat People
11. Circle of Danger
12. The Fearmakers
13. Easy Living
14. Way of a Gaucho
15. Nightfall
16. Experiment Perilous
17. The Leopard Man
18. Nick Carter, Master Detective
19. The Comedy of Terrors
« Last Edit: July 23, 2019, 10:04:19 PM by 1SO »

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #24 on: April 24, 2013, 12:37:06 PM »
The Flame and The Arrow. Acrobatic Lancaster thank you for the reminder roujin.

pixote

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2013, 04:51:03 PM »
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
For whatever reason, I was expecting a melancholy western, where the white hats face off with the black hats at high noon on a mountain trail and a few people get shot and the survivors ride off into the night, their hats now a shade of grey. Canyon Passage really isn't a western at all, though, especially not one of the gunslinger variety. Tourneur's film is a novelistic tapestry of frontier life in Oregon. It might well be the first film to emphasize, rightly, the thick mud of main street in a frontier town like this (something the series Deadwood was celebrated for fifty-plus years later). The narrative is appealing slack and the thematics resonantly underplayed, both of which give way to the overall mood of time and place and me and us.
Grade: B+

pixote
« Last Edit: February 29, 2020, 02:55:53 PM by 1SO »
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1SO

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #26 on: July 19, 2013, 11:38:10 PM »
Stars in My Crown
I was hoping for a companion piece to Canyon Passage, but this is more of a spiritual drama told through the eyes of a child, (and in crisp but disappointing black and white.) Still quite good, but not really a western. Joel McCrea is rather amazing. I wish the rest of the cast could match him. Every time he started a story I was glued. Whenever someone else started monologuing I did what I could to stay interested. Really liked the relationship between McCrea's parson and the young doctor. Two sides of a coin, each just as important. There's a confrontation with The Klan at the end that spins in an unusual and brilliant direction. John Ford could hardly do it better. Plus, African-Americans playing Indians in a medicine show. Sometimes it's those little touches.
RATING: * * * - Good

I'm adding Wichita and Stranger on Horseback to my Watchlist. Possibly Way of a Gaucho too.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2017, 02:51:45 PM by 1SO »

1SO

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #27 on: July 24, 2013, 12:19:24 PM »
Wichita
Though Joel McCrea is way to old to be playing young Wyatt Earp, this is like the excellent first film in a trilogy we never got. I would love to have seen Tourneur and McCrea continue onto Dodge City and Tombstone. Again, Tourneur splashes the buildings and furniture with some lively colors to break up all that brown and yellow. The story moves swiftly and character loyalties shift nicely between good and evil. Cattlemen are the bread and butter of Wichita, but they also bring violence and destruction. You need law, but you want them to spend their dollars. It's like turn of the century Spring Break. Doesn't reach the heights of Canyon Passage but a little better than Stars in My Crown.
RATING: * * * - Very Good
« Last Edit: May 27, 2017, 02:51:35 PM by 1SO »

1SO

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #28 on: August 11, 2013, 12:22:08 PM »
Stranger on Horseback
Another Joel McCrea western, and I'm sure it would look great if the VHS wasn't horrible. This has become an unbeatable formula for success. McCrea plays a judge who rides into town and becomes curious about a recent "self defense" killing involving the son of the family that owns everything in the town. The ensuing search for justice in a town too afraid to say how afraid they are reminds me of a good film noir. Not only is it very entertaining, nobody even appears to be breaking a sweat making it so good. Would love to see it again on Blu Ray.
RATING: * * * - Very Good
« Last Edit: May 27, 2017, 02:51:26 PM by 1SO »

roujin

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Re: Directors Best Poll - Jacques Tourneur
« Reply #29 on: March 02, 2014, 02:54:44 PM »
Stranger on Horseback (Jacques Tourneur, 1955)

Joel McCrea rides into town to bring law to it, but the town will have none of it. The bloodied history of the American Dream (this land is MINE) meets its logical conclusion as its offspring amorally decide the fates of people.

The final decision made by the patriarch is done with the weight of blood and violence (something he says late in the film that he hates) that shaped not only him, but the land. The film ends, not with the hero riding off, but with a moral choice to no longer pursue violence, and instead let the structure of government take over (no matter how painful it may ultimately be).

 

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