Cinema Basement

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich In order to hide his shady business dealings, retired war hero major general Martin Hollister, a surprisingly intimidating Eddie Albert, murders his accomplice Colonel Hutton by shooting him when Hutton comes to warn Hollister of an impending investigation. The murder is partially witnessed by Helen, a stunning Suzanne Pleshette, who was sailing with her mother at the time. Helen calls the so called murder in and due to Hollister's standing, homicide is sent instead of a uniform. So of course Lieutenant Columbo arrives at Hollister's house and initially finds no evidence of foul play. But in typical Columbo fashion, something doesn't feel right to him, especially as Helen continues to insist she saw a murder. Complicating the case further is Hollister's courtship of Helen, as he tries to dissuade her from her claims in his own way.  Dead Weight is an early episode of the series and the first to sort of deviate away from the typical formul...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Three friends, Gus, Harry, and Archie, are propelled into midlife crises with the sudden death of their friend Charlie. They spend two days having fun, playing basketball, drinking, gambling, and upon returning to their normal lives finds they want more. A trip to London however proves to them that they aren't young men anymore and eventually we all have to grow up.  Husbands came out in 1970 and to be fair I don't think it ages as well as some of Cassevetes other films. I found myself kind of  It was not well received when it came out and was trashed by some prominent critics, including Roger Ebert. It is a film more for cinephiles who are interested in the evolution of Cassavetes work. It is interesting to see him go from this to A Woman Under the Influence.  Falk is playing another working class guy in this. He's solid as always and there's a natural likability to him. There's a likability to everyone. The three main actors, Cassav...

A retrospective by Forrest Humphrey    The Detective genre can be a hard one to stand out in, but for decades, television's most beloved detective pulled it off. Peter Falk's “Columbo” managed it by changing the question any detective story asks. We aren't trying to figure out “who did it” but “how will they get caught?” You see, at the start of an episode/film, we are shown exactly who killed who and how it's done, and the real meat of the story is watching the titular detective piece together the evidence and close in on the murderer by the end.   1971's “Murder by the Book” revolves around a pair of famous mystery writers, played by Jack Cassidy and Martin Milner. One partner, Jim, does most of the work (Milner) and the other, Ken, handles the publicity (Cassidy), and eventually, the one doing the real work decides to split up and work on his own. Furious at being cut off, Ken stages a 'perfect' murder. He invites his partner out to a lakeside cabin fo...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands are Nick and Mabel Longhetti, a middle class couple living in Los Angeles. They come to the agreement that Mabel might have mental issues and Nick has her committed. While she's gone Nick struggles to be a father to their three children and then he and Mabel struggle to find her place in the world when she is released.  The year is 1974 and we're fully into the evolution from old Hollywood, the glitz and glamour of the studio system to new Hollywood, where film became grittier and the Auters of the '70s, filmmakers like Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, were changing film forever, pushing the prestige films in a grittier director or creating the blockbuster. Then we had filmmakers like John Cassavetes pushing the indie film to new heights.  A Woman Under the Influence is very much a smaller film in the grand scheme of the '70s. Cassavetes will be a filmmaker who will get their own month at one point. I thin...

Welcome to the month long celebration of the career of Peter Falk. This post will not cover Columbo as there's already a segment dedicated to his famous character, the detective. Instead, we'll focus on Falk as an indie star in the '60s and '70s, especially through his collaboration with John Cassavetes. Most people will know him as either Columbo or as grandpa from The Princess Bride. But Falk was more than that. With the exception of  Columbo, he was an actor who stayed mostly below the radar. It's worth looking at his early work to find out why he never seemed to escape the shadow of his most famous character. Perhaps he never wanted to.