The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsYour chance to promote an overlooked/forgotten masterpiece: Movies
I have a pet peeve about the word "underrated." People use it all the time when they mean "overlooked." I'm not looking for underrated movies. I don't care about critics. I am looking for great or very good movies that got forgotten, or never got much attention in the first place. I'm going to start with one of my favorites, and it's quite possible you never heard of it.
The Train (1964), starring Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Set just days before the liberation of France in World War II, a Nazi Colonel (Scofield) is determined to steal a huge pile of priceless French art and send it to Germany. Lancaster plays an executive for French rail, who is approached by the resistance to keep the paintings from leaving - and keep them unharmed. Both men are highly intelligent and highly driven, and what follows is a cat-and-mouse struggle between them. This is Frankenheimer's golden period, which included The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May. This is an exciting, well-paced flick; 133 minutes pass before you notice. Much recommended.
Now, do you have one?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Breaker Morant
The Grey Fox
yardwork
(67,339 posts)I haven't seen The Grey Fox. I'll look for it.
Great movie.
BOSSHOG
(43,436 posts)1957 movie about an American Destroyer and a German U-Boat in WWII. Playing suspense filled cat and mouse games for about a 100 minutes. Robert Mitchum plays the US Skipper. I’m partial to WWII movies about the Navy. This ain’t Pearl Harbor but the action and acting are outstanding. My favorite WWII movie for decades. Worth seeing.
erronis
(20,745 posts)
catbyte
(37,400 posts)Hardly anybody mentions it when they talk about Scorsese, but I loved it and think it's a true masterpiece.
SharonAnn
(14,088 posts)
Jeebo
(2,491 posts)One of the best foreign-language films I've ever seen, IMHO, and also one of the best science-fiction films I've ever seen, and yet, it seems, almost nobody has ever heard of it. It's a psychological study of isolation, and survival. Wow, I love this movie. You can watch it free on YouTube.
-- Ron
Tetrachloride
(8,854 posts)BOSSHOG
(43,436 posts)But I gotta throw in the Black and White 1973 Comedy gem Paper Moon with Ryan O’Neil and his daughter Tatum. Conman Man Ryan and moral compass Tatum roving around 1930s Kansas looking to score a Buck. Madelyn Kahn was over the top. The emoting hooker with “a bladder the size of a peanut.” Lots of laughs and a happy ending.
Jeebo
(2,491 posts)But it doesn't fit in this category because it is not forgotten, overlooked, under-appreciated, or anything of the sort. Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress. I just watched it a week or two ago on one of the movie channels I get on cable. As I said, it doesn't fit in this category.
-- Ron
nuxvomica
(13,488 posts)Ben Whishaw plays an olfactory savant in 18th-Century France who had been abandoned by his mother because she was repulsed by the infant's lack of body odor. With his extremely discerning nose he becomes obsessed with finding the perfect fragrance, eventually murdering young women to capture their natural redolence. An incredibly odd and sometimes visually breathtaking film that manages to evoke the sense of smell and, like Hitchcock's Vertigo, convincingly portray obsession.
BlueSpot
(1,133 posts)It was far more recent. Probably a copycat, which is sad. I found it really disturbing. Found it - called "Base Notes". Published in 2022. Benefit of the doubt would be accidental copycat. Took place in New York if I remember right. I haven't seen the movie. I guess there could be a trove of differences.
nuxvomica
(13,488 posts)It's full of sumptuous detail and period flavor. It is so good at evoking the sense of smell that when I learned there was a movie version I was curious whether the movie could do the same. I think it did.
SharonAnn
(14,088 posts)Murder porn! I'm so tired of "great" suspense books that involve the murder of women but purport to be about something else.
This book, as an example, could include the serial murders of young men instead of young women. Why doesn't it? because violence of women is endemic.
question everything
(50,683 posts)
Morbius
(590 posts)...this movie has been released as The Blonde Witch. In case anyone wanted to track it down.
Some fascinating responses, here. Mostly stuff new to me.
johnp3907
(4,069 posts)
Wifes husband
(467 posts)David Bowie should have gotten an Oscar for that one.
Aristus
(70,481 posts)Difficult movie to watch, but worth it for one of the most hauntingly beautiful endings in movie history.
LogDog75
(676 posts)The Canterville Ghost (1944)
People Will Talk (1951)
It Happened to Jane (1959)
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
Oeditpus Rex
(42,150 posts)I'd reschedule almost anything to watch this one again (I first saw it on the old "Night Flight" ). It's about as quirky as they get:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104922/?ref_=ext_shr
Tikki
(14,884 posts)Young adult immigrants come to the United States from everywhere and the adjustments and the attempts to
fit in are always fascinating.
The ending of this movie is a reminder that family roots spoken of over time and places can be
just as fascinating and mysterious to the generations watching as their family adjusts.
Tikki
John Lurie is in this movie.
ret5hd
(21,643 posts)“Dead Man” with Johnny Depp
bonus: music score by Neil Young
yardwork
(67,339 posts)It was very good.
LisaM
(29,300 posts)It has some extremely comic moments, too. (It was also recently available On Demand).
Extra bonus points for having a female lead.
OldBaldy1701E
(8,457 posts)Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. It came out in 1973 and I saw it in a bunker on an Air Force Base in Maryland.
A very powerful movie with some great performances.
marked50
(1,508 posts)An Australian movie released in 1971 about 2 children finding themselves alone in the Outback and trying to survive.
LearnedHand
(4,835 posts)With William Holden and Ricky Schroeder.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080671o/
marked50
(1,508 posts)
Harker
(16,639 posts)"Seconds."
hatrack
(63,118 posts)Plus you don't get to see Grandpa Walton as a bad guy very often.
John Frankenheimer and Martin Ritt might never have crafted a great film, but they made some really good ones.
Floyd R. Turbo
(30,321 posts)BlueSpot
(1,133 posts)I think I might even own that one, lol.
johnp3907
(4,069 posts)Floyd R. Turbo
(30,321 posts) 
marble falls
(67,141 posts)... that movie was better than than good sum of it's parts. It should have been a blockbuster.
The original film it was taken from was really good, too.
Floyd R. Turbo
(30,321 posts)The Wages Of Fear
TexasBushwhacker
(20,950 posts)Floyd R. Turbo
(30,321 posts)
Ptah
(33,842 posts)Witness for the Prosecution is a 1957 American legal mystery melodrama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Laughton, with Elsa Lanchester and John Williams. The film, which has elements of bleak black comedy and film noir, is a courtroom drama set in the Old Bailey in London and is based on the 1953 play of the same title by Agatha Christie. The first film adaptation of Christie's story, Witness for the Prosecution was written for the screen by Wilder and Harry Kurnitz and adapted by Larry Marcus.
The film was acclaimed by critics and received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It also received five Golden Globe Award nominations including a win for Elsa Lanchester as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Additionally, the film was selected as the sixth-best courtroom drama ever by the American Film Institute for their AFI's 10 Top 10 list.
In the film, a man accused of killing a wealthy widow who had named him as the main beneficiary in her will undergoes a trial during which his wife testifies against him.
bif
(25,988 posts)BlueSpot
(1,133 posts)All the plants on Earth have died. Flora is preserved on a spacecraft but the guy in charge has been ordered to destroy it. He disagrees. 1972.
chowder66
(11,014 posts)Phoenix61
(18,504 posts)It wasn’t a box office hit when it was released but gained a following over time. One of my favorites.
hatrack
(63,118 posts)Ran - 1985. Not Akira Kurosawa's last movie, but his last big movie, and simply overwhelming. It's King Lear set in Japan during the Warring States period. Stylized by American standards, but powerful, with some of the most amazing shots of any movie on record and (I would argue) the greatest battle scene on film. Cool trivia - the actor portraying Lord Hidetora, the Lear figure (Tatsuya Nakadai) was the protagonist in "Hara Kiri" (1962).
Dead Ringers - 1988. David Cronenberg even icier than usual in what is (to date) the most genuinely disturbing movie I've ever seen. Jeremy Irons is amazing playing identical twin gynecologists circling the drain, driven by drugs and sexual obsession. Gore-free to all intents and purposes, but staggeringly weird and sad, with one question at the center - who are you, really? Do you really have your own identity?
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - 1989 - Yes, yes, yes, you either like Terry Gilliam or you don't. I do, and there it is. Anyway it's a bit slow to get going, but once it does, enjoy the ride. This is really one of the last movies from the golden age of practical effects and features (among other things) a balloon trip to the Moon, a swashbuckling protagonist in the form of John Neville, and a nearly naked Uma Thurman.
brush
(60,728 posts)who were given a respite from the fight to visit Bette Davs, who is Amercan, her home in DC. Lukas is injured and intends to go back.
Davis' mother and brother live in a grand home and have house guest from Europe, a former lesser royal from eastern Europe turns out to be a nazi to visit the German embassy. A conflict arises with the Davs/Lukas resistance fighters and the nazi and drama unfolrds.
It's a film noir flick, a favorite film era of mine.
ultralite001
(1,900 posts)Also known as "Sammy Going South" w/ Fergus McClelland as the orphan + Edward G Robinson
as the "white hunter"/diamond smuggler...
A favorite: Pennies from Heaven w/ Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken + Jessica Harper...
Finally, Tampopo (available on Kanopy)... the first "ramen Western", a play on the term spaghetti Western...
murielm99
(32,169 posts)from 1994, with Dennis Hopper. I am told that it is a sequel to Cast a Deadly Spell. I have not seen that one.
It is set in 1950s Hollywood, where everyone practices witchcraft. Hopper is a private detective who does not practice witchcraft. The political witch hunts of the 1950s should be an obvious clue. It is a fun and clever movie.
LudwigPastorius
(13,024 posts)Overlooked? At the time, not really. It won some awards (Golden Globe for soundtrack), but it wasn't even nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Oscar crowd.
It also made money ($16 million on a $6 million budget), but couldn't be considered a blockbuster.
Is it forgotten? I don't see it brought up these days as an all-time classic, but think it should at least be in that conversation.
LearnedHand
(4,835 posts)
oasis
(52,571 posts)Morse.
One of the funniest films ever. 
Upthevibe
(9,671 posts)The Lives of Others....
The Madcap
(1,342 posts)Akira Kurosawa. Overshadowed by "The Seven Samurai" and "Ran," this film has humor, adventure, and wonderful cinematography. It has often been credited as being the inspiration for the interactions between C3PO and R2D2 in "Star Wars." My personal first choice for an introduction to Kurosawa.
neeksgeek
(1,236 posts)Absurdist comedy wrapped tightly around existential questions. Meg Ryan. Tom Hanks. Awesome!
Has the best “I quit” scene in cinema history.
Tom Dyer
(211 posts)Every frame is a masterpiece, and I only know a handful of people that have seen it.
A stunning film.
mwmisses4289
(1,639 posts)but they are two comedy moves that I enjoy:
Hudson Hawk
https://m.
Earth Girls are easy
https://m.&pp=ygUcZWFydGggZ2lybHMgYXJlIGVhc3kgdHJhaWxlcg%3D%3D
justaprogressive
(4,792 posts)I recommend "A New Leaf" starring Elaine May & Walter Matthau
2nd funniest movie ever made.
Morbius
(590 posts)This is one of the movies I was thinking about when I started this thread. You cannot find this movie on DVD or any streaming service, and it's hysterical.
boonecreek
(1,155 posts)Humphrey Bogart's character was falsely imprisoned for murdering his wife.
Lauren Bacall and others help him change his identity and face so he can clear himself.
Auggie
(32,439 posts)Elliot Gould, Christopher Plummer, Suzannah York
Miles Cullen, Toronto bank teller (Gould) discovers a discarded holdup note revealing an imminent robbery. Suspecting the mall Santa Harry Reikle (Plummer), Cullen secretly hides $48,300 from his transactions in a lunchbox, giving Reikle only a small amount during the robbery. Realizing he's been shorted, Reikle stalks and threatens Cullen, who must outsmart Reikle in a "cat and mouse" type struggle with the potential to turn very deadly.
Roger Ebert, in his March 30, 1979 review in the Chicago Sun-Times, awarded three-and-a-half of a possible four stars to the film, calling it "a thriller that is not only intelligently and well acted and very scary, but also has the most audaciously clockwork plot I've seen in a long time." Ebert described it as "worthy of Hitchcock."