ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Fran]

Synopsis:

Vertigo Comics' heralded comic book Y: The Last Man is headed to the big screen from Disturbia's production team of director D.J. Caruso and writer Carl Ellsworth for New Line Cinema. The plot features a lone male survivor in a world where all the male mammals are wiped out by a plague.

-- Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

[Lynne]

From amazon.com reviewer Greg T. Smith:

This is a great film which combines extreme psychological contrasts and contradictions, beautifully filmed landscapes, and the brutal reality of sub zero temperatures where basic survival is the goal. In short, it is a harrowing game of psychological and physical survival with a lot of twists and surprises. Some of the hunting scenes, particularly the scene involving a nasty walrus, are amazing. The sledding with teams of amazingly stout and rugged sled dogs in extremely dangerous and perilous conditions are perhaps unprecedented.

[Fran]

Espionage Movies!

Spies, secret agents, double agents, etc.

[oilgun]

Synopsis
A group of four secret agents - Captain Georges Brisseau, his partner Lisa and their colleagues Raymond and Loïc - lead the External Security General Directive's latest sabotage operation in Morocco. The mission: Intimidate Russian businessman Igor Lipovsky and intercept a delivery of weapons to an Angolan rebels unit and sink their boat. A 'Guardian Angel', Tony, supplies the rebels' locations and the explosives which Raymond and Loïc will attach to the hull of the boat. Brisseau and Lisa coordinate the operation from the luxurious Casablanca hotel. Everything is working according to plan... until now.

[southendmd]

Tagline:  ROARING AT YOU! Thrills galore as lone Marine grabs spies on speeding bus! (original poster)

IMDb user comment:

This Warners programmer is rarely seen today, and that's a pity. It does show up occasionally on DVD, and I found a 16mm copy in the Wisconsin State Historical Society. I enjoyed the entertaining World War II-based storyline with its loose-lips-sink-ships propaganda. Warners didn't miss adding a plug for Victory Bonds, either. (Good for them.) It's set mostly within a large bus terminal along the California coast on one dark night shortly after the onset of the War. Within the spacious interior, civilians and military personnel intermingle around the big waiting-room and its ticket counters, the news-stand, cocktail lounge and restaurant, and also eventually in the rear service areas. This interplay allows the opportunity for the human drama to unfold.

At the time of production, there was a real-life submarine sighting along the West Coast, and in "Busses Roar" we see Axis spies and saboteurs scheme to plant a bomb on a coastline bus to create a target beacon for an offshore sub. That plot device pales, though, in comparison to the interesting characters who pass in and through the ornate bus station, each with his/her own traveler's tale to tell.

"Busses Roar" has a multi-personal, kaleidoscopic plot that you'll like, and another terrific plus is the great background music score by William Lava, Howard M. Jackson and Max Steiner. Today's expensive films should have such talent.

The second half of the film has road action on the pre-Interstate nighttime coastline highways, within those long, low-slung, almost sinister-looking front-engine buses with rooftop luggage racks that predate today's boring cruiser-coaches. (Interestingly, they're equipped with radios for background music and war news.)

As the spy plot thickens, there is a chase, failed brakes, and a runaway bus. (The buses do indeed roar as their headlights sweep the night and dramatic camera angles emphasize looming fenders, wheels and grilles. Great stuff.)

The Warners cast pulls it off gracefully with humor and without heavy-handed tactics. Willie Best, of course, steals every scene.

[Lynne]

Virginia McKenna was nominated for a BAFTA for her portrayal of Violette Szabo in Carve Her Name with Pride, based on the true story of the heroism of this Special Operations Executive agent during WWII.

[Fran]

aka  Zarte Haut in schwarzer Seide



From Rotten Tomatoes:

Sex kitten Sommer is hired to model for an exclusive Roman fashion house, but she gets into more trouble off the runway -- especially when she becomes mistakenly involved in a murder plot and must elude spies. Considered scandalous at the time of its release because of a nude scene....

[oilgun]

Rise up, Spy

[Lynne]

From Wikipedia:

The plot centres on a secret 1968 East-West agreement to halt nuclear proliferation. One of the clauses, the Fourth Protocol, forbids the non-conventional delivery of a nuclear weapon to a target.

=aside=
Joanna Cassidy, who I just saw in Kiss the Bride at the SIFF is also in The Fourth Protocol. 

[Fran]

From IMDb:

Laconic and self-contained, Edward Wilson heads CIA covert operations during the Bay of Pigs. The agency suspects that Castro was tipped, so Wilson looks for the leak. As he investigates, he recalls, in a series of flashbacks, his father's death, student days at Yale (poetry; Skull and Bones), recruitment into the fledgling OSS, truncated affairs, a shotgun marriage, cutting his teeth on spy craft in London, distance from his son, the emergence of the Cold War, and relationships with agency, British, and Soviet counterparts. We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of the film's narration as he closes in on the leak.