For this week's edition of Overlooked Movies, I thought I would post a link to an article I wrote over at Moving Image Source called "The Other Fritz Lang: Cowboys, Swashbucklers, and Guerrillas in the noir master's non-noir films." The article looks at five overlooked movies from Lang's career that aren't his typical crime thrillers. They are his three Westerns (The Return of Frank James, Western Union, and Rancho Notorious), one Swashbuckler (Moonfleet), and a War picture (American Guerrilla in the Philippines).
I saw Rancho Notorious but not the other two above.
ReplyDeletenice movies.........
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing Metropolis again recently, it would be great to try more Lang.
ReplyDeleteExcellent (and I hope later today to squeeze more time in to reread this). I very much enjoyed WESTERN UNION for some of the elements you cite, and would very much like to see MOONFLEET.
ReplyDeleteI recently watched, on TCM, I believe, a Lang film called "Spies". It was his follow-up to "Metropolis" and it was neat to see that many of the genre conventions that still exist today were used in that film, made while he was, of course, still in Germany. You have the villainous threat, the rogue secret agent, the girl, the action, it was all there and very well done. I'm surprised it isn't on the list. If you ever get a chance to see it, it's worth an evening.
ReplyDeleteBrian -- Spies isn't on the list because the article was in conjunction with a series of his movies made in Hollywood here in NYC. Otherwise I would have loved to discuss Spies, as well as some of his even earlier movies that I've managed to track down.
ReplyDelete