In between the sprawling super-productions of The Hallelujah Trail (1965) and Ice Station Zebra (1968), in 1967 John Sturges switched to a smaller intimate project that was ostensibly about the stubborn friendship between two men of differing moral character bonded by an unwavering loyalty…
As more of Michael Winner’s films emerge on Blu-ray, it’s not hard to pick up on the director’s attraction to tales of disrupted lives and outright nihilistic finales, but what makes Lawman more unique than Winner’s career hit Death Wish (1974) is how whole lives are ruined by the visitation of one man who’s supposed to represent the law…
During the early 1980s, Janice Cole and Holly Dale directed a pivotal documentary on prostitution in Canada, with their gritty 16mm camera trained on Vancouver’s Davie Street, branded in the film’s prologue as “the prostitution capitol of Canada”…
Gary Sherman’s gritty take on Los Angeles’ vice squad and the rotten lives of prostitutes divided critics but proved successful at the box office, and although it’s easy to brand the film as sadistic exploitive drive-in fodder, it’s also one of his best films, benefiting from a solid cast of then relative unknowns, and gorgeous cinematography by the great John Alcott…
After the success of Vice Squad (1983), executive produce / prolific schlockmeister Sandy Howard figured a lighter redo of Gary Sherman’s nasty, grungy drama was worth a try, maybe fashioning a new script that could be spun off into a theatrical franchise or TV series…
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