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SNAM Video Trailer Collection Alphabetical Listing
Video Trailers from picks on TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies
Entries in Drama (31)
Malcolm X (1992)
In “Malcolm X” (1992) IMDb, Denzel Washington plays the title role of the black civil rights and religious leader also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. This bio-pic directed by Spike Lee reveals much about the public and private life of this important modern-day figure of American history as based on the autobiography written by Alex Haley. Denzel Washington does an admirable job of capturing the complexity of a man in search of himself as he searches for a meaningful ethnic and religious identity. Although the politics of the times loom large in this film, it is the personal journey of growth and the fascinating interplay of religious and cultural influences that are of particular interest to me.
Don’t miss the informative TVO SNAM Interviews segment devoted to the subject of the making of “Malcom X” as well as the producer’s blog entry about the “re-discovery” of the man behind the film. The SNAM mini-doc is entitled “By Any Means Necessary”.
"The Dandies-Shorty& Malcolm" courtesy of Movie Screenshots
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See the video trailer for “Malcolm X” (1992)
Catherine Savard
in 1990s movies, Drama, Saturday Night at the Movies 2009, Video Trailers
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Nobody's Fool (1994)
Paul Newman is “Nobody’s Fool” (1994) IMDb . Robert Benton’s delicately drawn portrait of aging also stars Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis. Newman plays Sully, a rascally character living in small town America who decides that it’s never too late after all to join the human race. Sully’s worked hard all his life to avoid facing up to inevitable realities. We’d all like to believe that people can get better and not just “older”, in spite of all the examples we see to the contrary. Newman is such a wonderful actor and Benton is such a masterful storyteller in this 
film that we’ll just have to become believers.
See the “Never Too Late” video interview preview for Nobody’s Fool from SNAM here.
Don't miss the entire TVO SNAM interviews for the "Never Too Late" episode. Includes a discussion of "Nobody's Fool" and "The Late Show" in the discussion of Hollywood films and the subject of aging.
Read Thom Ernst’s blog entry on the ageless Paul Newman .
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Catch the video trailer for Nobody’s Fool here.
Catherine Savard
in 1990s movies, Bruce Willis, Drama, Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith, Paul Newman, Robert Benton, Saturday Night at the Movies 2008, aging
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Operation Crossbow (1965)
"Operation Crossbow (1965)" -INDb combines a good spy story and WWII military history with a pinch of the human interest angle thrown in for good measure. George Peppard is the British spy masquerading as a Dutch engineer in the pay of the Germans to help create the dreaded V2 rocket bombs (no explanation of his American accent). Sophia Loren makes a cameo appearance 
as the Italian wife of the Dutch engineer trying to escape the Nazi occupation with her (trilingual ?) children. It's all very confusing. You have to keep an eye on those German subtitles. Sophia is evidently there to prop up the galmour factor. If you like rockets a lot, wartime intrigue or Sophia Loren, this film may have some points of interest for you.
This movie was recently screened with two other wartime movies on TVO. See reviews for “The Man Who Never Was” 1956 and “Went the Day Well?” 1942 in the Midnight Oil video trailer section.
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See director, Michael Anderson interviewed in the video trailer of "Operation Crossbow" from TVO.
Catch the opening scenes video trailer of “Operation Crossbow” 1965
Catherine Savard
in 1960s movies, Action, Drama, Saturday Night at the Movies 2008, Video Trailers, War
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Panic in the Streets (1950)
“Panic in the Streets” (1950) starring Richard Widmark and Jack Palance as directed by Elia Kazan, makes for a scary combination. I’m not sure which one you should take your chances on; the menace of the totally deadly pneumonic plague (a form of the Black Plague) or the totally creepy Jack Palance as the villain. The hero, Richard Widmark, as Lieutenant Commander Clint Reed, runs around New Orleans with his syringe, prepared to do battle with either culprit. (Apparently, it is true that the totally deadly effects of pneumonic plague can be forestalled with a dose of antibiotics within 24 hours.) This highly potent concoction of gangsters, bioterrorism, post-war anxieties with a bit of romance thrown in, thanks to Barbara Bel Geddes as the good doctor’s wife, makes it a highly watchable film more than 50 years later. 
It may not be Elia Kazan’s best film ever, but it’s worth a look. And it’s so comforting in this crazy post-SARS world of ours to think that there is some nice, upstanding medical man out there who has everything under control with his syringe, if he could just get all those nasty miscreants rounded up.
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Are you ready to "roll up your sleeve"? See the video excerpt from "Panic in the Streets" (1950)
Catherine Savard
in 1950s movies, Barbara Bel Geddes, Drama, Elia Kazan, Film Noir, Jack Palance, Paul Douglas, Richard Widmark, Saturday Night at the Movies 2009, Video Trailers
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Places in the Heart (1984)
In “Places in the Heart” (1984), writer/director Robert Benton delivers a poignant portrait of a way of life as it once was in the deep South during the Depression era. Edna Spalding (played by Sally Field) finds herself in an unexpected place, facing life as a widow with two young children after her husband is suddenly killed. Edna seems to represent many women of her 
generation. She is ill-prepared to deal with the harsh realities of being a single parent in what is still very much a man’s world. She doesn’t even know how to write out a cheque, much less run a farm and earn a living. Sally Field’s character demonstrates courage, warmth and toughness in the face of overwhelming odds as she attempts to 
keep her family together during a deep economic and personal crisis.
Danny Glover’s portrayal of the character Moze, a migrant worker who ends up helping Edna to work the farm and bring in the cotton, captures the essence 
of the situation of the black man in this period of time. Moze searches not only for work to keep body and soul together, but for dignity to make life worth living. He finds both for just a moment with Mizz Spalding on a little farm just outside of the small town of Waxahachie, Texas.
John Malkovich plays Mr. Will, a complicated character whose injuries from the First Great War involve more than just the loss of his eyesight. As a boarder in the household, Mr. Will temporarily finds a place to belong and a group of people who need him almost as much as he needs to be needed.
Benton frames his semi-autobiographical work with bookends in the form of two hymns that open and close the film. (See below) These scenes set up a 
context for understanding the rest of the action of the film. As with the folksy irregular rhythm of the cotton pickin’ ballads in the middle of the movie, the music comes out of the real life experiences of the townspeople. The music is presented as something that’s a part of what the people here really live. It’s not just an ornamental backdrop for the dramatic action.
The final scene with the communion in church raises particular issues. Everything else in the film has been firmly anchored in reality until the final frames of the film. Why is it that unreality suddenly takes over? Edna’s dead husband and his killer, the young black man, who was brutally killed by a lynch mob, suddenly appear sitting in church. Sitting there in the pew, they seem as normal as every other member of the community as the communion plate is passed. My thought is that it has to do with what 
Robert Benton wants to show us about his main characters and the community they live in. “Places in the Heart” may be a memory of a place and a time that no longer exist. The magic in it is that Benton manages to help us to understand something of what it was like to live there and then, just as he lived it.
See the TVO Saturday Night at the Movies in depth Interviews as the subject of "Surviving the Depression" is treated in two films shown on SNAM: "Places in the Heart" (1984) and "Pennies from Heaven"(1981).
>>Real Life: Everything in life seemed to be going fine. That all changed the day Tamara learned she had incurable cancer and was faced with only a few uncertain years to live. Where do you turn when confronted with a no-win situation?
>>More to see: Looking for more out of life?
See the framing opening and closing scenes with accompanying music from "Places in the Heart".
Catherine Savard
in 1980s movies, Danny Glover, Drama, John Malkovich, Robert Benton, Sally Field, Saturday Night at the Movies 2010, Video Trailers
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