This groundbreaking, long-suppressed look at the effects of war on returning veterans was among the first films to tackle the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (or as it was then called, “shell shock” or “battle fatigue”). Shot at Mason General Hospital in Brentwood, Long Island, at the end of World War II, LET THERE BE LIGHT follows seventy-five former soldiers suffering debilitating psychological trauma who, in the film’s most dramatic scenes, are given sodium pentothal to recall their horrific experiences in the war. Considered too disturbing and controversial for exhibition, this landmark documentary was suppressed by the military for decades until it finally premiered in New York in 1980.Read More »
John Huston
-
John Huston – Let There Be Light (1946)
John Huston1941-1950DocumentaryUSAWar -
John Huston – The Asphalt Jungle (1950) (HD)
John Huston1941-1950Film NoirUSARecently released from prison, Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) concocts a plan to steal $1 million in jewels. Dix gathers a team of small-time crooks, including a safecracker and a lawyer, and the heist seems to be a success until a stray bullet kills one of the men…Read More »
-
Marty Pasetta – The American Film Institute Salute to John Huston (1983)
1981-1990DocumentaryMarty PasettaTVUSAFrom The New York Times:
The tone of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award dinner each year is foreshadowed in its opening minutes, when a man or woman whose films ”have stood the test of time” walks past the 1,100 stars, directors, and studio presidents who form his honor court.Thursday night as he ambled in, the 11th winner of the award, 76-year-old John Huston threw up his arms like a conqueror. ”All of us,” said Orson Welles later in the evening, ”are doomed to play the hero in our own life story” but are haunted by the fear that a understudy will somehow take over. John Huston, he added, could never be overtaken by an understudy.Read More »
-
John Huston – Moby Dick (1956) (HD)
1951-1960ActionClassicsJohn HustonUSASet in 19th Century New England, the story follows the whaling ship Pequod and its crew. Leading them is Captain Ahab, who was almost killed by the “great white whale,” Moby-Dick. Now he is out for revenge. With the crew that has joined him, Ahab is out to destroy the huge mammal, but soon he learns that his obsession with vengeance is so great that he cannot turn back, eventually leading to the death of him and all save his newest able seaman, Ishmael.Read More »
-
John Huston – The Unforgiven (1960)
1951-1960ClassicsJohn HustonUSAWesternThe Unforgiven is a 1960 American western film directed by John Huston. It stars Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, Charles Bickford and Lillian Gish. The story is based upon a novel by Alan Le May.The film, uncommonly for its time, spotlights the issue of racism against Native Americans and people believed to have Native American blood in the Old West. The movie is also known for problems behind the scenes. John Huston often said this was his least satisfying movie.Read More »
-
John Huston – Beat the Devil (1953)
1951-1960AdventureComedyJohn HustonUnited KingdomHumphrey Bogart stars as one of five disreputable adventurers who are trying to get uranium out of East Africa. Bogart’s associates include pompous fraud Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre as the German-accented “O’Hara”, whose wartime record is forever a source of speculation and suspicion. Becoming involved in Bogart’s machinations are a prim British married couple (Edward Underdown and blonde-wigged Jennifer Jones). As a climax to their many misadventures and double-crosses, the uranium seekers end up facing extermination by an Arab firing squad. The satirical nature of Beat the Devil eluded many moviegoers in 1953, and the film was a failure. The fact that the picture attained cult status in lesser years failed to impress its star Humphrey Bogart, who could only remember that he lost a considerable chunk of his own money when he became involved in the project. Peter Viernick worked on the script on an uncredited basis. Beat the Devil eventually fell into public domain, leading to numerous inferior editions by second and third-tiered labels.Read More »
-
John Huston – The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
John Huston1971-1980USAWesternQuote:
Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker, Judge Roy Bean, rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.Read More » -
John Huston – The Roots of Heaven (1958)
1951-1960AdventureDramaJohn HustonUSAQuote:
Set in French Equatorial Africa, the film tells the story of Morel (Trevor Howard), a crusading environmentalist who sets out to preserve the elephants from extinction as a lasting symbol of freedom for all humanity. He is helped by Minna (Juliette Gréco), a nightclub hostess, and Forsythe (Errol Flynn), a disgraced British military officer hoping to redeem himself.Read More » -
Lilyan Sievernich – John Huston and the Dubliners (1988)
1981-1990DocumentaryDramaLilyan SievernichUSAJohn Huston and the Dubliners is a valentine to the late director and a relatively standard production film about his making of The Dead. Much time is devoted to the actors’ understandably admiring comments about Mr. Huston, and to the disposition of the prop department’s fake snow. The film has the potential to seem ordinary, but it becomes touched with magic whenever the director makes his presence felt. Mr. Huston displays his characteristic gallantry and his keen attention to seemingly unimportant touches (”Don’t worry about what you say, just keep talking,” he tells one actor, and gives precise instructions for reading the line ”Would you please pass the celery?”). He describes The Dead as ”lacework,” and this film makes the aptness of that description very clear.Read More »