The effort to restore neglected films doesn’t get more rewarding than this 4K rebirth of Lewis Milestone’s version of the acclaimed Somerset Maugham story. Loaned from MGM, Joan Crawford tries on the role of Sadie Thompson and holds her own opposite Walter Huston’s fire & brimstone preacher. It’s still a major achievement of the pre-Code era, an adult story that doesn’t water down its ‘dangerous’ themes: it’s exactly the kind of show that the censors didn’t want made.
Rain
Blu-ray
Mary Pickford Foundation / Vci
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 + 76 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 / Available from Mvd / 29.95
Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Fred Howard, Ben Hendricks Jr., William Gargan, Mary Shaw, Guy Kibbee, Kendall Lee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett.
Cinematography: Oliver Marsh
Art Director: Richard Day
Film Editor: W. Duncan Mansfield
Original Music: Alfred Newman
Screen adaptation by Maxwell Anderson from the play by John Colton,...
Rain
Blu-ray
Mary Pickford Foundation / Vci
1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 + 76 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 / Available from Mvd / 29.95
Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Fred Howard, Ben Hendricks Jr., William Gargan, Mary Shaw, Guy Kibbee, Kendall Lee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett.
Cinematography: Oliver Marsh
Art Director: Richard Day
Film Editor: W. Duncan Mansfield
Original Music: Alfred Newman
Screen adaptation by Maxwell Anderson from the play by John Colton,...
- 9/20/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
For his first re-teaming sans Ginger, Fred Astaire hot-foots it to MGM and the waiting tap & sweep partner Eleanor Powell, already a terrific box office draw in her own right. These were the days when the caliber of talent in Hollywood justified the exalted, glamorous aura of star status. The story is a backstage mixup with sidebar singing and joke acts, decent dialogue and not much else. But when these two alight on a dance floor — not just ‘a’ dance floor but an enormous expanse of glittering glass — Hollywood hits a too-glamorous-to-be-real peak. The music by Cole Porter includes Begin the Beguine. Just-okay George Murphy is the third wheel on this musical bicycle, with Frank Morgan serving as fuddy-duddy comic relief.
Broadway Melody of 1940
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date April 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Florence Rice, Trixie Firschke,...
Broadway Melody of 1940
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date April 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Florence Rice, Trixie Firschke,...
- 5/1/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Few ’30s classics have held up as well as this MGM blockbuster, a costume thriller that in spirit is quite faithful to the great Charles Dickens novel. Heroes don’t come more sophisticated or noble than Ronald Colman’s Sydney Carton, nor as vile as Basil Rathbone’s Marquis St. Evrémonde. David O. Selznick’s impeccable production hits all the right notes and even downplays the ‘save the royals’ sentiments. This is the one where the Bastille gets stormed and a chortling hag cheers every drop of a guillotine blade. The show even has a connection to producer Val Lewton. Just remember that activities like capitol-storming and public executions need to stay back in the 18th century where they belong.
A Tale of Two Cities
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1935 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 126 min. / Street Date February 9, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Donald Woods,...
A Tale of Two Cities
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1935 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 126 min. / Street Date February 9, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Donald Woods,...
- 2/6/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This past weekend, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Greig Fraser for his contribution to Lion as last year’s greatest accomplishment in the field. Of course, his achievement was just a small sampling of the fantastic work from directors of photography, but it did give us a stronger hint at what may be the winner on Oscar night. Ahead of the ceremony, we have a new video compilation that honors all the past winners in the category at the Academy Awards
Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...
Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...
- 2/6/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Luise Rainer as Anna Held, The Great Ziegfeld Best Picture Academy Award winner The Great Ziegfeld (1936) will be screening tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the American Cinematheque's Aero Theater in Santa Monica. Robert Z. Leonard directed this sumptuous MGM production, starring William Powell as theatrical showman Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld, Myrna Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke (the good witch Glinda in The Wizard of Oz), and Luise Rainer as Anna Held. For her performance — which amounts to a supporting role, including a highly effective telephone scene — Rainer won the first of her two back-to-back Best Actress Oscars. The following year, she would take home the statuette for her Chinese peasant in Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth. Rainer, by the way, is the oldest Oscar winning performer around. The London resident turned 101 last January. Featuring cinematography by Oliver T. Marsh and others, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, costumes by Adrian,...
- 9/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Merry Widow (1934) Direction: Ernst Lubitsch Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Minna Gombell, Sterling Holloway Screenplay: Ernest Vajda and Samson Raphaelson; from Franz Lehár's operetta Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, The Merry Widow The Merry Widow is neither one of Ernst Lubitsch's most discussed nor best-liked films. Film critics and historians generally tend to focus on a couple of his early, pre-Code Paramount talkies, One Hour with You (co-directed with George Cukor) and Trouble in Paradise, and his later comedies Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be. But that's the critics' and historians' fault. For the visually and aurally arresting The Merry Widow is a superlative musical, boasting sumptuous sets (production design by Cedric Gibbons), exquisite black-and-white cinematography (Oliver T. Marsh), and a magnificently staged ballroom-dancing sequence that should impress even those who couldn't care less about...
- 3/26/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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