Richard Fleischer
58 connections found
Filmography
Soylent Green 1973 
Barabbas 1961 
10 Rillington Place 1971 
Fantastic Voyage 1966 
The Narrow Margin 1952 
Mandingo 1975 
Violent Saturday 1955 
The Boston Strangler 1968 
Red Sonja 1985 
The Vikings 1958 
See No Evil 1971 
The New Centurions 1972 
Conan the Destroyer 1984 
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1954 
Doctor Dolittle 1967 View:
Connections, in both directions
Less-high-flown references evoke Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles and Richard Fleischer’s Mandingo, with former heavyweight boxing champ Ken Norton as the sex slave.
Being the ostentatious character that he is, Schultz devises an elaborate plan to secure her freedom by posing as a buyer with a special interest in 'Mandingos' - slaves who are reared to fight to the death (in a reference to the 1975 film Mandingo ).
But much more forceful is the cruelty dispensed by the Southern whites, both as punishment and whim; attack dogs are unleashed on one man, Mandingo fighters (in an homage to the unforgettable 1975 Mandingo) battle to the death in a beautifully appointed drawing room for the wealthy’s amusement, a woman is locked naked in a metal “hot box,” genital mutilation is arranged for a man and much more.
But only one major-studio film of the modern era, Richard Fleischer's notorious 1975 Mandingo, dared to meet slavery on its own terms—a grind house bacchanal of sadism, incest, and miscegenation, capped by an unforgettable finale in which the eponymous bare-knuckle fighter is boiled alive by his master in a cauldron.
The ’70s also spawned some spectacularly lurid melodramas set in the Old South, including Mandingo, with ex-heavyweight champ Ken Norton as the sex slave of fluttery plantation ladies, and the mockumentary Goodbye, Uncle Tom, in which the directors of Mondo Cane submitted Haitian blacks to nearly as much degradation as their slave forebears.
But Django must swallow his pride and pretend to be that most hated of things, a "Mandingo", a fighter-trainer and the white man's tame plaything, and uncomfortably close to Stephen's domestic servitude.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
influenced by Soylent Green (1973), The Narrow Margin (1952)
Themes Visuals
The sci-fi genre has been clogged lately with films that run the gamut between young adult soap operas to a film like “Snowpiercer” that is reminiscent of a future akin to that of the future shock of “Soylent Green” or to a lesser extent the latest “Purge” offering.
Snowpiercer‘s comic book origins are most apparent in these moments, and references to everything from Dark City to Takeshi Miike to Soylent Green can be found littered everywhere else.
Metropolis (1926), The Time Machine (1960), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Soylent Green (1973), Blade Runner (1982) and Dark City (1998) all were forerunners of The Hunger Games , Divergent , and even the Transformer series.
The post-apocalyptic film has been done many times before – “Soylent Green,” “A Boy and His Dog,” “The Mad Max” trilogy, “Waterworld” are just some.
At which point “Snowpiercer” sheds the close-quarters claustrophobia of the first half (which nods to such classic cinematic railway fare as “The Narrow Margin” and “Runaway Train”) in favor of a more expansive vision.
With its villainous overseers, so free with the N-word, and its scenes of sadistic violence, "12 Years a Slave" inevitably recalls such previous and nakedly exploitative slave sagas as " Mandingo " (1975) and that film's sequel, "Drum" (1976).
One of the shocks of “12 Years a Slave” is that it reminds you how infrequently stories about slavery have been told on the big screen, which is why it’s easy to name exceptions, like Richard Fleischer’s demented, at times dazzling 1975 film, “Mandingo.”
Mandingo (1975) turned the subject into softcore cheese.
In a storytelling convention that’s at least as old as the 1966 sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage —another example that springs to mind is Madeleine L’Engle’s great novel A Wind in the Door —Inside Out cuts between two parallel storylines, one taking place around Riley, the other inside her.
Miniaturized interlopers have also found comic results ("Innerspace") and harrowing ones ("Fantastic Voyage") after being injected into bodies.
This isn't the first film to depict small beings inside others (beyond the likes of "Fantastic Voyage" and any number of demonic possession flicks there's been "Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex" (or at least one segment of that Woody Allen film), "Meet Dave" and "Osmosis Jones," among a few others).
Tipping its hat to The Wizard of Oz, Fantastic Voyage and numerous other fantasy journeys, this animated adventure thoroughly amuses and challenges on its subconscious quest.
When something goes wrong and Joy and Sadness are inadvertently ejected from the "Control Room," we begin perhaps the strangest road trip since Fantastic Voyage: a trek through Riley's subconscious.
If anyone can recall that over dramatic swashbuckling action film starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis as friends and rivals in the 1958 classic, The Vikings , Robert Eggers’ vision will definitely knock any remaining memory from your mind.
There haven’t been too many Viking movies, most likely because the time and place involved pretty seriously restrict the format to two things—sailing and marauding, and the more violent the better; Richard Fleischer’s 1958 The Vikings , which was very violent for its time, still stands tall in the mini-genre.
Yet the period detail is unstinting; scholars of Old Norse who were unconvinced by Tony Curtis’s miniskirt, banded with chevrons, in “The Vikings” (1958), will be reassured by Eggers’s dedication.
It’s here, during a meeting with a medium who has been smuggled into a British bunker—in a riveting scene that I have on good authority was modeled after an effect in Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler (1968)—that Fawcett appears suddenly to be transported into the rain forest, an image mirrored, quite literally, in the film’s mysterious closing shot.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Directed by Boots Riley
influenced by Soylent Green (1973)
Themes Visuals
Billed as a comedy, Sorry to Bother You isn’t particularly funny, but it’s consistently offbeat and original—roughly akin not just to Get Out, but also They Live and Soylent Green, salted with an hipster wit all its own.
There’s a little “Soylent Green” and “Brazil,” The Truman Show” and Karl Marx in all this, and Riley gives this just-past-the-present future the sting of recognition, workers with zero power and no rights facing an economy stacked against them at every turn.
Looking as wild-eyed as Charlton Heston at the end of “Soylent Green,” Cassius goes on TV and screams, “They’re [third-act spoiler redacted], and nobody gives a f—!” Except guess what: Neither do we.
Downsizing (2017)
Directed by Alexander Payne
influenced by Fantastic Voyage (1966), Soylent Green (1973)
Themes Plot
…dwindling resources reaching “Soylent Green” critical levels has triggered a worldwide movement to conserve and cut back without sacrificing the lush life.
They seem to be aiming for something Charlie Kaufman-esque, but can’t even match Fantastic Voyage, or Innerspace… or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
…after an early lab sequence that plays like a dorky update of 1966's 'Fantastic Voyage'…
In “Fantastic Voyage” (1966), a submarine crew is shrunk all the way down to microscopic size so they can be injected into a prominent scientist’s bloodstream and attempt to repair the damage to his brain.
Paul’s Fantastic Voyage may seems miles away from Payne’s previous efforts, but Downsizing regards its characters and their alienation with the same compassionate eye as its predecessors…
Conan the Barbarian (2011)
Directed by Marcus Nispel
influenced by Conan the Destroyer (1984), Red Sonja (1985)
In "Conan the Barbarian," the latest attempt to bring the muscular hero of the pulp novels of Robert E. Howard to the big screen (following John Milius' 1982 classic of the same name that made a star of the then-unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger, the lame family-friendly 1984 sequel "Conan the Destroyer" and the appearance of an ersatz version featured in the ludicrous 1985 take on Howard's "Red Sonja," enemies are crushed and driven before us in enormous numbers but the greatest lamentations are likely to come from fans of the character as they once again watch Hollywood screw up what should have been a sure thing.
Arnold went on to portray Conan in two increasingly disappointing movies: 1982's amusing "Conan the Barbarian" and 1984's godawful "Conan the Destroyer".
In "Conan the Barbarian," the latest attempt to bring the muscular hero of the pulp novels of Robert E. Howard to the big screen (following John Milius' 1982 classic of the same name that made a star of the then-unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger, the lame family-friendly 1984 sequel "Conan the Destroyer" and the appearance of an ersatz version featured in the ludicrous 1985 take on Howard's "Red Sonja," enemies are crushed and driven before us in enormous numbers but the greatest lamentations are likely to come from fans of the character as they once again watch Hollywood screw up what should have been a sure thing.
There's a lot of winking going on here that genre fans will recognize; everything from "Army of Darkness" ("This is my gnomestick!"), to "Soylent Green", and of course, George Miller's "Mad Max" movies.
You’d frankly be upset if there wasn’t a Soylent Green reference at one point, and there’s a well paid off answer to the old “stopping a bullet” cliché.
The Kid may in one scene use a pile of old VHS tapes as kindling for his fire, but it is from such materials that Turbo Kid has itself been forged – and much as the apocalypse survivors here drink water that has been extracted from human corpses, this is a film that cannibalises other films (not least Soylent Green, whose title is evoked by a cereal product named ‘Soleil vert’).
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Directed by James DeMonaco
influenced by Soylent Green (1973)
Themes Visuals
Not, perhaps, since “Soylent Green” has a future-shock parable been so memorably obvious in its metaphor.
, and — as I noted in my review of The Purge: Anarchy — probably the best satire on America since the grim futures that 1970s SF (think: Rollerball and Soylent Green) showed us.
Another thing he excels at is borrowing from other really good genre movies like Clockwork Orange, Soylent Green, The Warriors, Total Recall, and especially John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.
With visual elements reminiscent of Scott’s 1984 Apple commercial and the arterial river rafting of the 1966 Fantastic Voyage, this scene primes the viewer for lofty consideration of man’s place in a mutable universe — 2012: A Space Ontology.
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery," for example, feels like a dinner theater production of The China Syndrome, while "An Orison of Sonmi-451" borrows from V for Vendetta, Soylent Green and just about every other dystopian sci-fi flick this side of The Hunger Games.
A tapestry of juggled genres and two savvy "Soylent Green" references woven seamlessly together, they all add up to an entertainment that is, at once, a stirring high-seas adventure; an engrossing period drama that is everything 2011's confused folly " Readers of David Mitchell's massive, ruminative, centuries-spanning 2004 opus claimed it was unfilmable, but they were wrong; the key is in adapting said literature into a filmic language without losing the ideas and spirit behind the written word.
Though “Ascending” is half the title, people are always falling from incredible heights into an apparent abyss in the Wachowski siblings’ latest, a madcap mash-up of “Star Wars,” “Dune,” “Star Trek” and even “Soylent Green” that has impressive special effects but a narrative about as smart as a Buster Crabbe “Flash Gordon” serial.
A plot point involving the harvesting of humans was already explored with infinitely more complexity in " Cloud Atlas " and, before that, 1973's "Soylent Green."
"Jupiter Ascending" smashes together the narrative particles of everything from "Richard III" to "Soylent Green" with a cinematic style that could be called High Thor.
Great sci-fi has something to say about the human condition, this movie is only interested in looking cool and ripping off everything from “Flash Gordon” to “Soylent Green.”
Callbacks to films like The Wizard of Oz (tell me the Abrasax trio’s Gatling gun toting guards aren’t flying monkeys), Brazil (complete with a certain cameo), and Soylent Green (the filmmakers go one-step further after Jim Broadbent’s comic declaration in Cloud Atlas) are many, overt, and apt.
The story is clever without being convoluted, reaching an exciting, heartfelt climax, and the broader allegorical nature of the themes raised makes it feel like a throwback to the golden age of 1970s sci-fi like Soylent Green (1973) and Logan’s Run (1976), but with a distinctly modern execution.
Yet a Heston cameo would have been apropos, given that this adaptation of P.D. James' book harkens back to the cinema of the early 1970s, when Hollywood was hell-bent on churning out nightmarish visions of the future in such works as THX 1138, Z.P.G., The Omega Man and Soylent Green (the latter two starring Heston).
The news is not good -- think less Deepak Chopra, more Charlton Heston in "Soylent Green."
The plot? It’s not a far cry from Soylent Green.
The film up to this point is solid future-paranoia “Soylent Green”-style hi-jinks, full of intelligent discourse and other surprises.
Though obviously rooted in present-day concerns about genetic engineering and cloning, the story has been cleverly cobbled from a quartet of classic '70s era sci-fi thrillers: "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Coma" and "Soylent Green."
Curiously, the ultimate tone of the piece, at least on an intellectual plane, is closer to Richard Fleischer’s much-derided slavery epic Mandingo (1975) than it is to most melodramas centred on plucky women; in a Denis diagram, typically, we watch all the figures flail around inside the contradictions of their personal and social positions.
The movie is a mix of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a little bit of Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), part The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) with just a touch of The African Queen (1951)—you know, without all the problematic stuff…yeesh.