FILM FRENZY

Bud Abbott, Bela Lugosi, and Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Photo: Kino)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET… (1948-1955). From Laurel and Hardy to Martin and Lewis to Cheech and Chong, comedy duos have long been a popular commodity on the silver screen. Among the most beloved of all are Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, who scored a sizable number of hits during the 1940s and early ‘50s. Over the course of 17 years (1940-1956), the team made a total of 36 movies together, several of which involve a dash of the fantastic. They tackle sci-fi in 1953’s Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and get involved in supernatural shenanigans in 1941’s Hold That Ghost and 1946’s The Time of Their Lives (the latter one of their most atypical, and finest, efforts). And then there are the four films in which they meet many of the classic Universal Studios monsters — those movies are newly arrived in 4K Ultra HD in individually sold editions.

None of the A&C efforts have endured quite like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), a horror-comedy classic enshrined in modern times by both the Library of Congress and the American Film Institute. It’s perhaps their best picture, allowing them to go for the nyuks yet never diminishing the standing of the classic Universal monsters that figure in its plot. Bud and Lou are Chick and Wilbur, baggage handlers who end up delivering crates containing the bodies of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) to a Florida horror museum. Soon, the ghouls are up and about, with Dracula planning to put Wilbur’s dim brain inside the creature’s body. Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) arrives to warn the pair, but his aid is interrupted whenever a full moon turns him into the wolf man. (Talbot: “I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but in half an hour the moon will rise and I’ll turn into a wolf.” Wilbur: “You and 20 million other guys!”) Although the success of this film led to them meeting other horror icons over the ensuing years, the involvement of Chaney and Lugosi (and, to a lesser extent, Strange) in their signature roles is largely why this is generally considered the final film in the prosperous monster cycle that had begun with the one-two punch of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931.

Vincent Price had starred in one of the earlier Invisible Man features (1940’s The Invisible Man Returns) in the Universal series, and it’s his voice that can be heard as the voice of the Invisible Man in one great gag in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Alas, Price wasn’t tapped to star in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), although Arthur Franz is fine as this entry’s now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t character. He’s Tommy Nelson, a boxer who’s framed for murder by a local mobster (Sheldon Leonard). Wanted by the police and hoping to clear his name, he recruits newly graduated detectives Bud Alexander and Lou Francis (the actors using their real middle names as their characters’ surnames) to help him out; he also gets his hands on some invisibility serum that proves to be handy when Lou goes undercover as the boxer “Louie the Looper” and it’s up to the unseen Tommy to provide Lou’s powerhouse punches. Three films in the franchise, 1940’s The Invisible Man Returns, 1941’s The Invisible Woman, and 1942’s Invisible Agent, all earned Best Special Effects Oscar nominations for FX wiz John P. Fulton — with David S. Horsley and Roswell A. Hoffmann, two members of Fulton’s team on those movies, in charge of the FX work in this outing, the visuals are in good hands. The trick photography is aces, and the comedic highlight is the climactic boxing match.

Bud and Lou had already worked with Boris Karloff in 1949’s Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (an oddly titled film, since neither Karloff nor his character was the killer!). They reunited with the horror superstar in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), with Karloff as the doctor and an uncredited Eddie Parker as his monstrous alter ego. In this one, Bud and Lou are Slim and Tubby, American policemen in London to study how the Brits tackle law and order. Dr. Jekyll, meanwhile, is experimenting in his lab and periodically turning into a hirsute murderer. On the surface a pleasant man, Jekyll lusts after his young ward, suffragette Vicky Edwards (Helen Westcott), and grows insanely jealous once she falls for Bruce Adams (Craig Stevens), a flagrantly sexist reporter (so much for Vicky’s feminist ideals…). This holds nostalgic value as it’s one of the first films I recall seeing in my lifetime, even if it isn’t as consistently funny as many A&C romps — the romantic subplot between Vicky and Bruce just keeps getting in the way of the merriment. But there are nevertheless many clever bits: the cameos by the Frankenstein monster and Dracula, Lou himself turning into a furry (albeit more benign) beast, and the fadeout gag.

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) was not only the last of the A&C/monster series, it was also the last movie the team made with Universal (28 of their 36 features were for the studio) as well as the penultimate release before the dissolution of their partnership (their final film, made for United Artists, was 1956’s Dance With Me, Henry). Stuntman-actor Eddie Parker, who, as noted above, played Mr. Hyde opposite the guys, here performs monster duty by donning the bandages and shuffling through the proceedings. He’s Klaris (curiously switched from Kharis in all the previous Uni Mummy movies), whose swathed remains are sought by archaeologists and cultists alike. The boys plays Pete and Freddie, Americans who are stranded in Egypt and get involved in all the spooky shenanigans. While hardly top-notch, this is still an amusing entry in the A&C filmography, with a good role for film noir regular Marie Windsor as a woman interested in the treasure attached to the legend of Klaris and the sight of Richard Deacon, later Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show, as a cult leader.

Extras for each film consists of film historian audio commentaries (three on A&C Meet Frankenstein, two apiece on the other titles); the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other Kino offerings.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: ★★★½

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man: ★★★

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: ★★★

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy: ★★½

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES (2025). Ed and Lorraine Warren, America’s favorite non-political grifters, are back again in the fourth installment in the primary Conjuring franchise and the ninth picture in the overall Conjuring Universe. As I wrote in a past column, “Just as it’s always important to separate the art from the artist (Exhibit A: the astonishing Chinatown and the odious Roman Polanski), it’s equally crucial to separate the films from the phonies. I’ve never allowed my utter disdain for money-grubbing charlatans Ed and Lorraine Warren to interfere with my feelings for the Conjuring films.” To wit: a mixed review for the 2013 original, a positive review for the 2016 second chapter, and a negative review for the 2021 third flick. This latest release returns the series to middle-of-the-road status, with the two lead performance again providing the backbone. The real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren (once described by those in the know as, “at best, tellers of meaningless ghost stories, and, at worst, dangerous frauds”) had about as much combined personality as wet dishrags, but they were blessed with the casting of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Besides being charismatic performers, Wilson and Farmiga have established real chemistry and a real kinship throughout these films, and that bond immeasurably helps this new entry. I suppose this one could have been advertised with the tagline, “This time, it’s personal,” since the evil entity in question has its sights set on their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson). Residing in an antique mirror, the demon targets Judy upon her birth and returns decades later when the Warrens investigate a haunting at a Pennsylvania home. There’s nary a scare to be found anywhere, but the family angle is strong, touching even.

Blu-ray extras consist of a few making-of featurettes.

Movie: ★★½

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (1943). Ernest Hemingway’s bestselling 1940 novel was not surprisingly turned into a cinematic smash, with the film version of For Whom the Bell Tolls second only to the musical morale booster This Is the Army as the top-grossing film of 1943. Hemingway badly wanted Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman to play the lead characters from his book, and he got his wish, with Cooper cast as Robert Jordan, an American helping fight the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, and Bergman playing Maria, the dewy-eyed freedom fighter for whom he falls. It’s a handsome production bolstered by fine turns from Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou as temperamental husband-and-wife guerillas, but it’s also rather toothless, so much so that Hemingway ultimately disliked it for largely eliminating his novel’s political throughline and turning the tale into a common love story. Despite being adapted by leftist screenwriter Dudley Nichols, there’s no mention of brutal dictator Francisco Franco (one of the heroes, incidentally, of a new novel for which JD Vance and Steve Bannon provided gushing forewords), and I recall the word “fascist” only being used once, and in a vague manner — certainly the result of foaming-at-the-mouth HUAC friend Sam Wood being the director and the pragmatic Adolph Zukor being the studio head, but also rumored to have been tamped down by the influence of the Catholic Church and the Franco regime. As a generic war story between good guys and bad guys, it gets the job done, but don’t expect much Hemingway in there. Nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actor (Akim Tamiroff), it won for Best Supporting Actress (Paxinou).

Blu-ray extras consist of film historian audio commentary; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other films on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★½

GENE KELLY: 4-FILM COLLECTION (1942-1952). It’s not often that a performer lands the starring or co-starring role in his or her very first motion picture — Gregory Peck in Days of Glory, Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, and William Hurt in Altered States are some of the lucky ones — yet Gene Kelly did just that in For Me and My Gal. It’s one of the four films included in a new Blu-ray set showcasing the athletic hoofer.

Although his newcomer status earns him third billing under Judy Garland and George Murphy in For Me and My Gal (1942), he’s the male lead, with Murphy often fading away both in terms of screen time and movie-star magnetism. (Or let me put it this way: The plot synopses on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Wikipedia don’t even mention Murphy or his character.) Garland and Murphy play Jo Hayden and Jimmy Metcalf, vaudevillians trapped in a mediocre act. Along comes the arrogant and conceited Harry Palmer (played by Kelly and obviously no relation to Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer), and it’s immediately apparent that he and Jo share great chemistry on stage and off. With Jimmy’s blessing (and despite the fact that he’s in love with Jo), Harry and Jo create their own act, but the road to Broadway success is a long and hard one — and one that’s rudely rerouted by the appearance of World War I. With one exception, the Oscar-nominated song score is comprised of old standards, including the title tune (performed by Garland and Kelly) and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” (a Judy solo).

In The Pirate (1948), a Caribbean villager (Judy Garland) with a romantic vision of the notorious pirate Macoco is set to enter into an arranged marriage with the dull mayor (Walter Slezak). When a traveling circus hits town, she’s duped into believing that its ringmaster (Gene Kelly) is actually the fearsome Macoco. A troubled production, The Pirate was a rare box office flop for Kelly and especially Garland. It’s certainly cumbersome in spots, but some zesty musical numbers (one featuring The Nicholas Brothers) and spirited performances help carry it over the finish line (although, if you read between the finish lines, the denouement actually contains an off-camera execution). The score is by Cole Porter, and if the song “Be a Clown” sounds familiar, that’s because many of its musical and lyrical beats were “borrowed” for the “Make ‘Em Laugh” number in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain. This nabbed an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.

An American in Paris (1951) finds Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan, a struggling Yankee artist living in the title city. Jerry agrees to allow his work to be promoted by society woman Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who clearly has an interest in more than just his paintings. Unfortunately for her, he’s smitten by a lithe Parisian girl named Lise (Leslie Caron) who, unfortunately for him, happens to be engaged to a popular singer (Georges Guetary). Oscar Levant adds the comic relief as Kelly’s sad-sack best friend, while George & Ira Gershwin provide the classic tunes — the climactic “An American in Paris Ballet” sequence is the film’s most famous, although I’ve always had a soft spot for Kelly singing “I Got Rhythm” with the assistance of a group of children. Still, the story is thin, Jerry’s treatment of Milo leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and Kelly and Caron don’t exactly set off fireworks as a couple (Kelly would find a much better match the following year with Debbie Reynolds in Singin’ in the Rain). Nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Vincente Minnelli), this won six, including Best Picture and Best Story & Screenplay (Alan Jay Lerner); Kelly also won a special Oscar that year for his versatility as an actor, singer, director, and dancer.

It’s tough to fight the longstanding consensus that Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is the greatest movie musical of all time (although, to be honest, I would place it second, just a hair below the 1935 Astaire-Rogers marvel Top Hat), but what’s often lost in the praise is that this also qualifies as a great comedy — and a pretty good love story, to boot. The plot is a strong one, as it looks at the troubles the film capital faced with the introduction of sound in the late 1920s. Kelly is silent screen star Don Lockwood, who attempts to survive the transition with the help of his best friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) and aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). The musical sequences are of course what take center stage. There’s Kelly’s exhilarating splash dance during the title number, Kelly, O’Connor, and Reynolds bidding “Good Morning,” and, best of all, O’Connor pulling out all the stops for “Make ‘Em Laugh” — perhaps the greatest example of physical prowess ever applied in the service of a musical. Shamefully, this only earned a mere two Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Jean Hagen is a riot as Lina Lamont, a screechy-voiced starlet without even a drop of talent) and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Extras on For Me and My Gal include audio commentary by Garland biographer John Fricke; the film’s deleted finale; and 1935’s wild La Fiesta de Santa Barbara, an Oscar-nominated short featuring over two dozen stars, among them Gary Cooper, Harpo Marx, Buster Keaton, and The Garland Sisters (including Judy). Extras on The Pirate include audio commentary by Fricke; a making-of piece; and the Oscar-nominated 1948 live-action short You Can’t Win. Extras on An American in Paris include a making-of featurette; the 2002 American Masters episode “Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer”; and an outtake song sequence for “Love Walked In.” Extras on Singin’ in the Rain include audio commentary by Donen, Reynolds, O’Connor, co-star Cyd Charisse, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and others; a discussion of the film by various musical performers and directors; and a jump-to-song feature.

For Me and My Gal: ★★★

The Pirate: ★★★

An American in Paris: ★★★

Singin’ in the Rain: ★★★★

JAMES CAGNEY: 4-FILM COLLECTION (1931-1949). Admittedly, many of these compilation sets are more a matter of the studio grabbing whatever titles are in its back catalog rather than offering what are truly the stars’ most popular or acclaimed titles. I daresay, though, that this collection pretty much nails it with the four flicks chosen to represent one of cinema’s all-time greats.

Warner Bros.’ gangster cycle kicked off with 1931’s Little Caesar, which was a sizable hit and made a star out of lead Edward G. Robinson. The formula was repeated with The Public Enemy (1931), which similarly earned a bundle of money and likewise shot its leading man into the cinematic stratosphere. Cagney’s charismatic turn as violent criminal Tom Powers perfectly lines up with William A. Wellman’s inventive direction and a risqué, pre-Production Code script that includes Cagney’s famous smackdown of Mae Clarke with a grapefruit in the kisser. Cagney was absurdly denied an Academy Award nomination for his vibrant turn (unlike Robinson, he at least went on to earn three career nominations and one win), but the film did score one for Best Writing, Original Story.

The scorching gangster film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) centers on Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connolly, two street toughs who grow up to become, respectively, a criminal (Cagney) and a priest (Pat O’Brien). Back in his old neighborhood after his latest stint in prison, Rocky renews his friendship with Jerry, although the priest does worry about the future of the boys (The Dead End Kids) who idolize and emulate Jerry. Cagney is fantastic in one of his best roles, with Humphrey Bogart offering support as Rocky’s crooked lawyer. The ambiguous “death row” finale packs a wallop, and the weighty closing line triggers haunting reflections on chance, destiny, and the capricious nature of the universe. This earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Cagney), Best Director (Michael Curtiz), and Best Original Story (Rowland Brown).

“My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.” Cagney might have delivered many of his greatest performances in the service of gangster flicks, but the greatest performance by the versatile star can be found in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). He’s cast as patriotic melody maker George M. Cohan, who beginning as a child performed on the vaudeville circuit alongside his parents (Walter Huston and Rosemary DeCamp) and sister (played by his real-life sister, Jeanne Cagney) before achieving his greatest fame as the writer of such enduring hits as “The Yankee Doodle Boy,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” and “Over There.” How sensational is Cagney? The real George M. Cohan saw the film shortly before he died of cancer in 1942 and, marveling at Cagney’s performance, exclaimed, “My God, what an act to follow!” Nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Huston), Director (Michael Curtiz), and Original Story (Robert Buckner), this won three: Best Actor for Cagney, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, and Best Sound.

White Heat (1949) finds Cagney delivering his best performance this side of Yankee Doodle Dandy. He’s Cody Jarrett, a psychotic killer plagued by crippling headaches, burdened with a scheming wife (Virginia Mayo), and loved by an elderly mom (Margaret Wycherly) who can be just as ruthless as her baby boy. The explosive “Top of the world, Ma!” climax has long been an acknowledged staple of classic cinema, although the scene that always sticks with me is when Jarrett “helpfully” adds some air holes to a car trunk with a man trapped inside. Like The Public Enemy, White Heat earned a solitary Oscar nomination for its words (Best Writing, Motion Picture Story) but nothing for its leading man’s mercurial turn.

Each movie in this collection arrives complete with film historian audio commentary, a featurette detailing the history of the film, and Leonard Maltin hosting “Warner Night at the Movies,” which, emulating the moviegoing experience from decades past, includes a newsreel, a short film, a cartoon, and a theatrical trailer before the main attraction.

The Public Enemy: ★★★½

Angels With Dirty Faces: ★★★★

Yankee Doodle Dandy: ★★★★

White Heat: ★★★★

TOGETHER (2025). While Cronenberg père et fils might seem to have collectively cornered the market on “body horror” cinema, they’re by no means its only practitioners. On the heels of writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 sensation The Substance comes writer-director Michael Shanks’ Together, starring real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie. Franco and Brie play Tim and Millie, a couple who throughout a sizable chunk of the film seem as if they should not be together. She’s an elementary school teacher who has just been hired at a remote school in the country; he’s a musician who reluctantly leaves the big city with her. Tim has grown emotionally distant, and neither can say the right thing to each other — when she worries that he now finds her boring, her friend (Mia Morrissey) states that “Tim is a 35-year-old white male who still dreams of being a rock star — now that’s boring” (a great line). Hiking in the nearby woods, the pair fall into a mysterious cavern, whereupon their legs temporarily get stuck together (“Mildew,” opines Tim as to the reason). But as time passes, Tim and Millie find themselves physically drawn to each other in disturbing ways, which ironically only accentuates the emotional separation between the pair. Together is gruesome and disturbing in the best “body horror” sense, but it’s also wickedly funny and deeply perceptive, detailing a relationship perpetually teetering on the brink of collapse and lending new meaning to the phrase, “You complete me.” And while it’s a given that the trailer (included on the Blu-ray) will end up employing the Turtles’ “Happy Together,” the movie itself is canny enough to use a relevant Spice Girls song for its finale.

Blu-ray extras consist of an interview with Shanks; an interview with Brie and Franco; a codependency quiz conducted by Brie and Franco; and a pair of trailers.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

FLAMING STAR (1960). During his successful Hollywood career, Elvis Presley made a total of 31 feature films, but when the subject of The King’s best movie comes up, that number gets drastically reduced. Jailhouse Rock and King Creole are consistent contenders, and so is Flaming Star, a Western tale that was originally fashioned as a vehicle for no less than Marlon Brando. Elvis delivers one of his finest performances — you can tell he means business, as there are only two songs and he’s completed both of them before the film is even six minutes old! — as Pacer Burton, son of white settler Sam (John McIntyre) and Kiowa woman Neddy (Dolores del Rio) and half-brother to Clint (Steve Forrest), Sam’s offspring from his first marriage. The Burtons are a happy clan and enjoy friendships with many of their neighbors, but that all changes once Kiowa warriors slaughter a frontier family. Racial tensions suddenly spring to the forefront as Pacer and Neddy are harassed and the loyalties of Sam and Clint are questioned. To complicate matters, the new Kiowa chief, Buffalo Horn (Rudolfo Acosta), pays Pacer a visit and demands that he pick a side. The prickly screenplay by Western vet Clair Huffaker and Hollywood vet Nunnally Johnson (adapting Huffaker’s novel Flaming Lance) is well-matched by the taut direction by future Dirty Harry helmer Don Siegel. Trivial pursuit: Flaming Star also marked the first of 17 Presley pictures that included a bit part for his friend/bodyguard/songwriter Red West (later seen to memorable effect as the co-lead in 2009’s lovely indie flick Goodbye Solo).

Movie: ★★★

MEAN STREETS (1973). Who’s That Knocking at My Door was a respectable calling card in 1967, while 1972’s Boxcar Bertha gave him the expected baptism on a Roger Corman production. But it was his third picture that allowed Martin Scorsese to position himself as one of the most notable of the exciting new directors making their mark on Hollywood during the explosive ’70s. Mean Streets plays as autobiographical as just about any picture from any filmmaker, as it centers on an Italian-American man living in New York’s Little Italy section. Charlie (Harvey Keitel) hangs around with hoods, loves going to the movies, and struggles daily with his Catholicism (and the attendant guilt). Add a terrific soundtrack (The Rolling Stones, The Ronettes, etc.) culled from Scorsese’s own iPod — excuse me, record collection — and it’s clear that this was one deeply personal project. Rough around the edges but boasting an electric visual style that would be developed even further in subsequent works, this loose-form and largely improvised picture features a number of bravura sequences (love that sloppy poolroom brawl!) and an attention-grabbing performance by Robert De Niro as Johnny Boy, an irresponsible punk who repeatedly ignores Charlie’s sound advice and in the process infuriates just about everyone around him. De Niro nabbed Best Supporting Actor honors from the National Society of Film Critics for his hyperactive turn (he won the same category from the New York Film Critics Circle for his other 1973 release, the baseball weepie Bang the Drum Slowly), but I maintain that Keitel’s excellent central performance has always been critically undervalued.

Movie: ★★★½

ROMANCING THE STONE (1984) / THE JEWEL OF THE NILE (1985). Sneaking into theaters just before the start of the potent blockbuster season, Romancing the Stone turned out to be a sleeper hit and continued the career ascension of director Robert Zemeckis (he would next helm Back to the Future and later win an Oscar for Forrest Gump). Written by Diane Thomas, a former waitress who would tragically die in a car accident a year after the movie’s release, this romance-cum-adventure yarn stars Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, a best-selling author who, unlike the heroine of her string of romance novels, can’t ever find the right guy. After her sister gets kidnapped in Colombia by a pair of crooks (Danny DeVito and Zack Norman) hot on the trail of a hidden treasure, Joan finds herself basically living her own novels as she’s pursued by a corrupt police official (Manuel Ojeda) through the harsh South American terrain. Luckily, she bumps into Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), an opportunistic soldier of fortune who’s handy to have around in moments of peril. An ingratiating mix of comedy, action, and romance, this derives most of its charm from Turner, whose Joan Wilder remains one of the most memorable movie heroines of the past half-century. Turner won the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Best Actress award for her performance, and she should have snagged the Oscar as well (alas, she wasn’t even nominated, the film’s sole nod coming for Best Film Editing).

Romancing the Stone was followed a year later by The Jewel of the Nile, with Joan and Jack striving to keep the title “jewel” (not what you think it is) out of the hands of a Middle Eastern tyrant (Spiros Focas). The movie was critically lambasted for not living up to the charms of its predecessor, yet I’ve always found it a tad better than its mangy reputation. Turner and Douglas maintain their easygoing chemistry, DeVito has plenty of chances to provide comic relief, and Avner Eisenberg contributes a scene-stealing turn as a whimsical holy man.

Romancing the Stone: ★★★½

The Jewel of the Nile: ★★½

UNFORGETTABLE (1996). The plot of this absurd thriller involves the presence of brain fluid — no small irony, since the makers of this goof could have used some themselves, if only to avoid concocting a movie riddled with so many ridiculous coincidences, narrative implausibilities, and downright stupid characters. Ray Liotta plays David Krane, a medical examiner haunted by the murder of his wife. He meets Martha Briggs (Linda Fiorentino), a scientist who has developed a serum which allows a person to experience the memories of another human being, living or dead. Krane injects himself with the fluid, hoping to identify his wife’s murderer but discovering that related killings and corruption run deep. It’s a far-out narrative — the sort that could lead to something exciting (e.g. Memento) — but the script by Bill Geddie is inconsistent even within the dictates of its own plotline. Director John Dahl was coming off the career twin peaks of The Last Seduction and Red Rock West (with one making Roger Ebert’s 10 Best list and the other landing on Gene Siskel’s 10 Best, both in 1994), but he stumbled badly with this one before rebounding with the riveting Rounders, the underrated Joy Ride, and the quirky You Kill Me. (Since then, he’s worked exclusively in television, directing over 100 episodes of such series as True Blood, Dexter, and Yellowstone.) Incidentally, this has no relation to 2017’s Unforgettable, a thriller with Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson that somehow manages to be even more terrible.

Movie: ★½