Border Incident (1949 - Anthony Mann) - Look how painterly these images are - especially that last one behind Mann's name. How very fitting.
The Silencers (1966 - Phil Karlson) - The film doesn't live up to these wonderfully vibrant and sexy opening titles, but it had its moments. Cyd Charisse sure had a set of gams didn't she?
The Killer That Stalked New York (1950 - Earl McEvoy) - Not a great film (it seems to skip over many obvious issues with the search for a Typhoid Mary style woman), but the titles contain that terrificly arresting image of the shadow of a woman threatening the whole city...
MicMacs (2009 - Jean-Pierre Jeunet) - For a film filled to the brim with all manner of inventive gadgets and Rube Goldberg type devices, the titles are relatively simple: a pan up from the prone body of Bazil (Dany Boon) who has just been accidentally shot in the head; a slow zoom into the final images of "The Big Sleep" being broadcast on TV; a transition into heavenly dreamlike clouds for the beginning of the story. Quite apropos.
3 comments:
I started watching The Killer That Stalked New York last week, but I got too sleepy to finish it. I did love that striking image at the credits, though. Too bad the voiceover dispelled that mood almost entirely! Ah well, I'm hoping to watch it all soon.
And re: Cyd Charisse. Yes. Yes, she did. I was rewatching the Girl Hunt Ballet from The Band Wagon yesterday - wow.
Heh, yeah, that voiceover didn't help much did it?
The Girl Hunt Ballet is so great that it kind of leaves the rest of The Band Wagon in the dust (I like the entire film, but that sequence is spectacular).
Yeah...I only got maybe fifteen minutes into it, but I was already like, dude, just shut up and show the story. Geez.
And well, I rate The Band Wagon pretty highly in general - the whole thing's pretty awesome, aside from any parts in which Cyd Charisse tries to act. But The Girl Hunt Ballet is the standout for sure.
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