Directed by Noel Black and with Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld in starring roles, Pretty Poison is a beautifully paced, steadily developing black comedy about a disturbed young man and a high school cheerleader who go together on a dark criminal path. Adapted from Stephen Geller’s novel She Let Him Continue, the film’s screenplay was written by Lorenzo Elliott Semple Jr., who’d later move on to co-write excellent political thrillers such as The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. Even though Pretty Poison turned out to be a financial disappointment, it was praised by numerous critics and over the years developed a nice cult following.
The first film Perkins shot in Hollywood after Psycho, Pretty Poison was given into the hands of Noel Black, who won the Palme d’Or two years prior for his short film Skaterdater. Lorenzo Semple Jr. was hired to adapt the novel, but since they couldn’t get enough money from Fox, agreed to write the script on spec. Under a lot of pressure from the studio to speed up production, debuting director Black kept clashing with his lead actress Weld, but overall delivered one of the most interesting films of the sixties. “One of the best films of 1968 remains a pleasant memory,” wrote Rex Reed at the time, “for the few of us lucky enough to see it.”
In 1972 a neophyte Spanish media company created a rare platform for artists to explore classic genre imagery with a sophisticated cinematic sensibility.
"Le Choix des armes", or as it was called in foreign markets, "Choice of Arms" is filmmaker Alain Corneauās 1981 French crime film with Philippe Sardeās...
