Customer Reviews

The Lost Man [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

THIS MOVIE IS THE FIRST TRUE BLAXPLOITATION FILM, LONG BEFORE THERE WAS A SWEETBACK, SHAFT, OR SUPERFLY. SIDNEY POITIER'S PERFORMANCE, AS ALWAYS, STANDS OUT. AT THE TIME THIS MOVIE WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED (1969), THE CRITICS AND THE PUBLIC CRITICIZED MR. POITIER FOR BEING THE PERFECT NEGRO IN HIS PREVIOUS FILMS (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, GUESS WHO COMING TO DINNER, THE SLENDER THREAD, DUEL AT DIABLO,ETC). HOWEVER, IN THE LOST MAN, MR. POITIER PORTRAYS A 1960'S REVOLUTIONARY WHO MASTERMINDS A DARING ROBBERY THAT GOES WRONG AND PLACES HIM ON THE RUN FROM THE POLICE. A FINE SUPPORTING CAST WITH A EDGE OF THE SEAT, NAIL-BITING CLIMAX THAT WILL LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS.FOR A FILM THAT IS CLOSE TO 40 YEARS OLD, THE MOVIE STILL HOLDS UP VERY WELL AND IS ANOTHER PIECE OF THE POWERFUL BODY OF FILM WORK OF SIDNEY POITIER.

This is a good movie about explosive late 60s race relations. But the soundtrack is not listed on Amazon. So I will use the movie entry to review the soundtack.

Quincy Jones, one of the absolute best film composers of this time, wrote the Lost Man Soundtrack, and it is excellent. It holds a lot of soul and blues by unknown singers, and lots of electrified flutes and heavy fuzz bass. It is typlically outstanding work by Jones, who understood jazz and blues better than any composer of the period. He also understood how to exploit tone color to get the maximum tension from the film.

The music, however, holds up beautifully on its own, and I would encourage
anyone to seek out this soundtrack on vynal, until someone has the good sense to reissue The Lost Man score.

Starting with a gripping, truly firstclass title score and equally touching, well fotographed views of Philadelphia's poor downtown neighbourhoods, this film spirals gradually downward and left me disappointed. The script ist bad: Most of the time people stand around and don't really have to say much to each other - you almost feel pity for the actors who certainly would have been able to deliver better performances, if the script had allowed them to.
The movie is based on the same story as Carol Reed's Odd Man Out - in my opinion one of the best movies of all times. Odd Man Out focuses on the main character, his doubts, his desperation and the reaction of the people he meets as a helpless, severely wounded man on the run after falling off a getaway car rushing from the scene of a robbery he had planned.
The Lost Man, by comparison, does never appear to be really lost. He can contact his friends easily after he escapes alone from the scene of the robbery, despite a bullet wound he appears to be in perfect physical condition, and apparently it poses no problem to pass through road blocks as long as you have a social worker handy who loves you, does not question your motives - and owns a station wagon. I suppose that the attitudes of the characters can be explained by the political and social climate of the late Sixties but it is sad that nobody let Sidney Poitier do in this film what James Mason did in Odd Man out.

another hard film to find,is on a ntsc vhs tape in the states or dvd-r copies from private collectors,but don`t try too much to get it as poster is promising more than film delivers,just seen this last night and should have been much better,anything with Sidney Poitier in it is worth a look,but this is very slow and way too talkie,feels like an episode of ironside or any cop series from the sixties,idea of blacks knocking off a local companies payrol sounds good,but the bits inbetween way the movie down and ending takes a little to believe,may get a proper release but will not be high on any dvd firms releasing schedule,or your wish list.