Darryl Ponicsan’s The Last Detail + Cinderella Liberty (1973)
Two stellar classics from 1973 based on the novels by Darryl Ponicsan: Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail (Twilight Time) + Mark Rydell’s Cinderella Liberty (Fox).
Author Archive: Mark R. Hasan
BR: Last Detail, The (1973)
Scripted by Robert Towne (and preceding his Oscar-winning classic Chinatown by a year), Detail is also renowned for packing in a then record-breaking level of “fucks,” which must have made studio Columbia rather nervous in unleashing such a profanity-laden film on audiences…
DVD: Cinderella Liberty (1973)
In a peculiar stroke of luck, author Darryl Ponicsan managed to strike gold and have two films based on separate works produced and released in one year. Both deal with sailors in the U.S. Navy, but where Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail steered very gradually from comedy to drama, under the baton of Mark Rydell, Cinderella Liberty moves from overt comedy to melodrama, which isn’t necessarily a detriment to Ponicsan’s material…
Solange and Other Tales of Schoolgirls in Peril
Reviews of Massimo Dallamano’s schoolgirls-in-peril trilogy: 1972’s What Have You Done to Solange? (new on Blu via Arrow Video / MVD Visual), 1974’s What Have They Done to Our Daughters? + 1978’s Virgin Killer.
BR: What Have You Done to Solange? / Cosa avete fatto a Solange? (1972)
Branded a schoolgirl-in-peril entry, the genre isn’t new nor unique to Italian cinema – one can find traces (emphasizing terror and implied / potential violation over murder) in the kidnapped teen thriller Union Station (1950) and the psycho-sexual blackmailer / bank robber / teen molester Experiment in Terror (1961) – but Massimo Dallamano’s What have You Done to Solange…
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