Denis Sanders Movies
In 1945, filmmaker Denis Sanders earned an Academy Award for Best Short Subject for his film A Time Out of War. He and his brother, Terry Sanders, co-wrote the script. In 1958, the two teamed up again to pen the script for The Naked and the Dead. Later Sanders became the director who gave Robert Redford his feature debut in War Hunt. Sanders also debuted George Hamilton in Crime and Punishment, U.S.A. In 1968, Sanders again won at the Oscars for the documentary Czechoslovakia. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1973
After several feature-length documentaries (Elvis: That's The Way It Is, Soul to Soul), filmmaker Denis Sanders returned to the short-length form with The Great American West. This 55-minute film was initially a TV special, titled The Great American West of John Ford. The life story of the fabled film director is depicted via interview sequences with Ford, and lengthy clips from such classics as Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, the "Cavalry Trilogy", The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Sharing hosting duties are Ford collaborator Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and, of course, John Wayne. The Great American West of John Ford was first telecast December 5, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Ford, Henry Fonda, (more)
In this "guilty pleasure" outing by B-budget director Denis Sanders (Shock Treatment), William Smith plays an FBI man investigating reports of a coven of "bee-girls" -- women who have taken on the characteristics of bees, and who kill men upon making love. A cute device throughout the film allows us to see the action from a bee's-eye view. The script, by no less than Nicholas Meyer, pokes gentle fun at the conventions of the cheapo-horror genre without ever stooping to cheap parody. Invasion of the Bee Girls was also released as Graveyard Tramps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Smith, Claudia Jennings, (more)
- 1971
No longer professionally linked to his brother Terry Sanders, screenwriter/director Denis Sanders returned to the documentary format in which he'd started his career in the mid-1960s. After enjoying success with the up-close-and-personal Elvis: That's the Way It Is, Sanders decided to focus his attention on the world of gospel music. His 1971 feature-length documentary Soul to Soul follows a group of American gospel luminaries during a tour of Ghana, celebrating the 14th anniversary of that country's independence. Featured performers include Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, Roberta Flack, Les McCann, The Staple Singers, Willie Bobo and Eddie Harris. Soul to Soul proved to be Denis Sander's last documentary effort; his next film was the love it-or-hate it horror spoof Invasion of the Bee Girls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Elvis: That's the Way It Is offers a candid look at Elvis Presley at a point when he decided to permanently abandon movie roles and return triumphantly to concert gigs. It shows him strutting around Vegas with his entourage, Elvis painstakingly preparing for his stage show, Elvis relaxing backstage and trading jokes with his vocal accompanists, and, of course, Elvis before a live, loud audience. Photographed by Lucien Ballard the film was directed by Denis Sanders of Shock Treatment fame. This film was hugely reedited and reissued in 2001, with around 40% new material that replaced preexistent fan footage with musical performances and revelations; it also works in a a version of 'Love Me Tender' that finds The King strutting through the audience. That cut of the film - which received heightened critical kudos - rates 4 stars, and qualifies as more of a performance film than a documentary. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
In this offbeat melodrama, a crazed gardener is relegated to a mental hospital after he goes berserk and beheads his wealthy boss. The scuttlebutt in the courtroom is that the killer has stolen over a million dollars from his former employer and has hidden it on the estate. A professional actor is hired to feign insanity to get into the home, befriend the maniac, and find out where he hid the cash. Once he is admitted, the hapless actor encounters bedlam as he meets the patients, undergoes electroshock therapy, and suffers through several injections. Eventually he finds himself falling for a manic-depressive woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1963
From at least the 1930s on to the 1970s, the upbeat protestant minister, Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to the well-heeled and upwardly mobile of the United States from his pulpit at the Riverside church on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At least as positive-thinking as the similarly cheery Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People), his lift-yourself-by-your-bootstraps message of good cheer was perceived as unorthodox by many within the churches he grew up in. After many decades of preaching his message, summed up in his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking, he was enshrined as a sort of secular saint. His influence reached to Presidents and corporate heads, and his name became synonymous with a kind of extraverted wholesomeness which has long since vanished. This biopic traces his career in the most respectful possible manner. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Murray, Diana Hyland, (more)
Robert Redford makes his big-screen debut in this off-beat war drama that tells the tail of a new replacement on the Korean front line. It is his first time in battle, and he comes all starry eyed and eager to prove himself a glorious hero. Obviously a greenhorn, the platoon commander takes the young private under his wing. All too soon, the youth realizes there is little glory in war. He also encounters a lone-wolf soldier whose lust for killing the enemy has turned him into a full-blown and deadly psychopath, leaving the private and his commanders to somehow stop him before he begins killing his own platoon-mates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Saxon, Robert Redford, (more)
- 1959
Handsome, twenty-year-old George Hamilton had his first starring role in this so-so drama by Denis Sanders inspired by Feodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Robert Cole (Hamilton) is a law student whose certainty that he is a cut above anyone else leads him to murder a pawnbroker with the belief he is too good to get caught. But Inspector Porter (Frank Silvera) begins to suspect that Cole has blood on his hands, even before there is any real proof that he is guilty. As the two play the same cat-and-mouse game that drove Dostoyevsky's hero over the edge, the modern Roskolnikov finds himself in a steadily deteriorating situation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Hamilton, Mary Murphy, (more)
- 1958
Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its "guts", this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer's bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter words). Aldo Ray heads the cast as sadistic sergeant Croft, who'd as soon kill one of his own men as he would the Japanese. Sensitive, moralistic Lieutenant Hearn (Cliff Robertson) tries to put a leash on Croft, but he's ordered to keep out of the situation by psychotic General Cummings (Raymond Massey), who is convinced that soldiers will fight harder the more they hate their superiors. The film wavers uncomfortably between excessive violence and excessive moralizing, with time out for a few ill-conceived slapstick setpieces (including an outsized barroom brawl) and romantic interludes with such zaftig beauties as stripteaser Lili (Lili St. Cyr) and good-time girl Mildred (Barbara Nichols). In one of his first film appearances, comedian Joey Bishop plays Pvt. Roth, whose reaction to Sgt. Croft's relentless anti-semitism culminates in a spectacular death scene. Distribution of The Naked and the Dead was taken over from the failing RKO Radio operation by Warner Bros., who also changed the name of the film's widescreen process from SuperScope to WarnerScope. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson, (more)
- 1954
An interesting look at a moment during the Civil War when soldiers from opposing side share an uneasy truce. ~ All Movie Guide
