Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Sidney Lumet's retelling of the true events of a bank robbery gone wrong are a tour de force of cinema.

It's the true story of a bungled bak robbery that turns into a hostage crisis. Al Pacino plays Sonny, who along with his friend Sal rob a Brooklyn bank in order to obtain the money for Sonny's boyfriend/wife's sex change operation. Things don't go according to plan and the two end up taking the staff of the bank hostage and a media circus envelops around it. 

Sonny becomes an amazing anti hero winning over the hearts of the public and the hostages. You are routing for him until the bitter end.

One of Pacino's greatest roles, he portrays Sonny so well. A great supporting cast co-operates to make this a tight thriller and up there with Lumet's best.

A must see.

82. Belle De Jour (1967)

Catherine Deneuve stars as Severine, a bored bourgeois housewife who has a rather frigid sex life with her husband. She assumes a double life and goes and works for a high class brothel where she feels safe to explore and satisfy her prolific sexual fantasies.

For such a sexual storyline, the film is rather chaste and this is its advantage. Sex is never shown on camera and the fetishes of her clients are hinted at and left to the imagination. A great scene has her presented with a buzzing box by an Asian client. The only thing shown is the look on their faces which give little away and the audiences imaginations are left to run wild.

Severine's dual life is upset when she falls for a gangster client who infracts into her respectable life with dire consequences.

It is certainly a film of its time. Highly stylised in the look and also the attitude of the mid-sixties. It could be mistaken as a take on a male fantasy, but the film never completely subjugates the women and it is Severine who is experimenting with her own sexuality and no character's psychology is stamped out as this or that.

It's a beautifully complex film, bizarre at times, but never simple. 

81. The Bigamist (1953)

A rather strange sort of melodrama. Edmond O Brien stars as Harry Graham, a freezer salesman from San Francisco who is trying to adopt a child with his wife and business partner Eve (Joan Fontaine.) In the vetting process, the head of the adoption agency, Mr. Jordan, uncovers Harry's dual life in LA where he also has a wife and a son to boot. The film is Harry explaining to Mr. Jordan how he came to be in such a predicament.

The melodrama is at full pelt here, but for such a mix of damaged characters, you start to empathise with all of them. Ida Lupino stars as his LA wife Phyllis, but also directs the film. She was known as a poor man's Bette Davis and when the new wave of young starlets came into the studio system, she decided to step behind the camera and also write roles for herself. Good for her.

The film culminates in a courtroom scene with the conclusion of how it will all pan out left up in the air with a series of silent expressions that tell a wealth more than the script ever could.

It's a film that does well with the empathy, but though perfect Sunday afternoon viewing, I am not sure it quite belongs on this list.

80. The Band Wagon (1953)

The last of the great MGM musicals, Band Wagon, is a meta mix of styles from old to new; traditional to modern; revue to plot & character.

This modernisation is told in the story of Tony, a has-been star returning from Hollywood to New York to star in a musical written by his husband & wife writing friends. This pair are semi-autobiographical characters from the real pens of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. They based a lot of the plot on their own experiences of dealing with difficult directors. The real life pairing were just platonic friends, but wrote Lester & Lily as a married couple as their genuine friendship was considered to be unbelievable in a film.

The director Vincente Minnelli shows off his skills to the extreme here. The smorgasbord of styles are all exquisitely filmed and the cast seem to be having a ball. By far the best sequence is the noir parody, Girl Hunt: A Murder Mystery in Jazz.  Michael Kidd's choreography is brilliant as the action enfolds with jazz hand fighting and Fred Astaire delivers some great corny lines. "She came at me in sections. More curves than a scenic railway." The 'she' is Cyd Charisse who adds a whole spate of glamour (and a fine set of pins) to the proceedings.

A true classic musical.

"That's Entertainment!" is correct.

79. Klute (1971)

A detective thriller par excellence.

John Klute is a small town, Pennsylvania detective who decides to investigate his friend's disappearance after the police have failed to come up with anything. His first port of call is Bree Daniels, a prostitute who seemingly received explicit letters from the friend.

Klute enters into the seedy underbelly of New York to try and track down his friend with the help of Miss Daniels. She tries to tempt him into the temptations of the big city, but in turn he shows her another side of the male sex she has come to know and loathe.

Jane Fonda is just sublime in this film. Ignore the eponymous title. this is the story of Bree. She has survived the game and is desperate to get out. Her scenes with her analyst are great, juxtaposed with her scenes getting to know and falling for Klute.

The detective story does take a back seat to the development of their relationship, but not to the detriment of the thriller.

Thrill indeed this does. The actual perpetrator is revealed quite early, but it is well perceived. It becomes more of a case of "what will happen?" rather than a "whodunit?"

New York is shot to perfection. It is gloriously noir in its restricted pallet.

Sublimely shot. Excellent direction. Donald Sutherland is great as the eponymous lead, but this is Fonda's film and rightly so. Well deserved Oscar.

78. Point Blank (1967)

Lee Marvin plays Walker. A crook who is betrayed and left for dead by his best friend, gangster Mal Reese. Reese takes Walker's share of a robbery and his wife. Unfortunately for Reese, Walker isn't dead and does the impossible, swimming to the shore from Alcatraz. Once his wounds are healed, he begins a mission to retrieve his $93,000 share of the loot and exact vengeance on his wife, Reese and the rest of the accomplices.

This is a very stylised thriller. Marvin's Walker is a very unsympathetic anti-hero, though his seemingly unstoppable nature is to be admired. Someone just give him his money! The use of single names is used throughout and acts as a mystery to the identity of the mysterious head honchos. Who is Fairfax?

Boorman's use of flashback throughout is well motivated. From the opening scene where we see the apparent death of the main character to the repeated imagery in the frequent scenes of violence and death, each point is hammered home.

Angie Dickinson as Chris, Walker's sister-in-law, is on great form and the neo-noir genre does leave you guessing about her character's motivations. Is she a femme fatale? Is she Fairfax?

It is a great on the edge thriller and has many traits of a classic noir. Boorman's makes great use of wide screen and colour palate to make the most beautiful views look bleak.

77. The Awful Truth (1937)

Jerry and Lucy are a married couple who, after believing they have caught each other in indiscretions, decide to divorce. Before their divorce is finalized  each plots to ruin the others plans to remarry. Lucy to a rich Southern rancher (well observed by Ralph Bellamy) and Jerry to a madcap heiress.

This is truly one of the great screwball comedies. Perfectly observed subtle comedy combined with sharp witty dialogue and a showcase of slapstick and bedroom farce. Both Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are exceptional in the lead roles, but the film is fleshed out with a wealth of witty supporting roles. Allegedly, the comedy was greatly improvised from day to day making it even greater in my opinion.

Leo McCarey's direction has produced a masterpiece in comic timing. It's wonderfully paced. The comedy is both subtle sand broad and the tenderly sweet ending is very touching and rounds out a great ride.