filmbriefs
Composer

Frank De Vol

2
briefs
13:00
average
26 min
in total
On film.briefs2
13:00

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Stanley Kramer · 1967

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 Columbia Pictures drama directed by Stanley Kramer, written by William Rose, and starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy (in his final role), Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Houghton. Set over one day in San Francisco, it follows a liberal white couple as they confront their daughter’s engagement to a Black doctor. Structured as a moral argument rather than a psychological portrait, the film isolates race as the sole obstacle to acceptance, using tightly controlled dialogue, restrained cinematography by Sam Leavitt, and a functional score by Frank De Vol. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay, and was added to the National Film Registry in 2017.

13:00

Kiss Me Deadly

Robert Aldrich · 1955

Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Kiss Me Deadly recasts Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer as a morally adrift private investigator drawn into a conspiracy centred on a mysterious, glowing suitcase. Shot on location in a decaying Los Angeles, with stark cinematography by Ernest Laszlo and a percussive score by Frank De Vol, the film rejects noir conventions of resolution and moral clarity. Its power lies in accumulation — of dread, ambiguity, and physical consequence — culminating in an ending that offers no salvation, only exposure.