The Night of the Hunter (1955)
A classic I had not yet seen. I was inspired by Exoskeletal's very high thoughts and decided to watch it. I agree with Exoskeletal, great movie with so many beautiful shots. Some of the shots just made me wonder how they did it, like when you can see the silhouette of the preacher riding on the hill. The story was engaging, characters were cool .. Classic for a good reason!
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
This Roman Polanski classic is also one that had been on my to-do list for many years and now I finally got to see it. To those who do not know it, I don't want to tell too much, but it's a thriller/horror/mystery about Rosemary and Guy who move into an apartment complex with a dark history. There, after a particularly disturbing night, Rosemary gets pregnant ..
I absolutely loved it and like with The Night of the Hunter, it's hard to think of ways one could possibly improve on this film. It's exciting, effective, chilling and the performances, particularly by lead actor Mia Farrow, was just brilliant. The only ever so slightly negative feedback I could give is that it may seem slightly comedic towards the end, but that could be explained - at least in part - of how emotionally stumped movie watchers have become since this movie was made.
The Three Musketeers (1973)
This version is an action/comedy with Charles Heston as Cardinal Richelieu, Christopher Lee as Rochefort, Over Reed as Athos and many other old famous actors in various roles. They're well cast as well.
As far as I know, the story follows Alexandre Dumas quite closely, at least for a movie adaptation. Very roughly; D'Artagnan befriends the three musketeers and they all take on a mission from the queen to help against those who would plot against her. The story is fun, the jokes are good, the pace is good and so on but what I like the most is the authenticity of the film. There's something about the locations, the costumes, the buildings and so on that just seems so genuine. It's a joy to watch.
I've seen this movie and its follow-up The Four Musketeers (think they were filmed back to back) many times before, but it's been years and years now. It was definetly worth re-checking out and I'd recommend it to those who like the musketeers. I have to say it's refreshing to watch an adaptation which is not full of zeppelins, explosions and other silly modern Hollywood things.