Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter is so loaded with neurotic symbology that you can attach nearly any meaning to it, and that’s the source of its uneasy, primordial power. In 1955, it might’ve been logical to assume that Laughton and critic turned screenwriter James Agee, working from David Grubb’s novel, were intending the film as an allegory for McCarthyism. After all, the villain, Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), cannily exploits people’s panic in order to line his pockets, turning them on one another so as to distract them from the true evildoings being committed.
Like those in the grip of the second Red Scare, most of Harry’s victims are easily exploited because they willingly forfeit individual judgment in the presence of reassuringly unquestioned leadership. As in other McCarthyism parables (most obviously Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers), only the children and...
Like those in the grip of the second Red Scare, most of Harry’s victims are easily exploited because they willingly forfeit individual judgment in the presence of reassuringly unquestioned leadership. As in other McCarthyism parables (most obviously Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers), only the children and...
- 6/23/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.
Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!
Godzilla & Godzilla Raids Again Novelizations from University of Minnesota Press
First published in Japan in 1955, the original novelizations of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again will be released in English for the first time on October 3 via University of Minnesota Press.
Jeffrey Angles, professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University, has newly translated the original material written by Shigeru Kayama, who conceived the initial story for Godzilla.
The two young adult novellas are being published together in one 256-page book, which is available to pre-order in paperback for $17.41 and and e-book for $9.99.
Scooby-Doo Play Set from Mezco Toyz
Mezco Toyz has announced a Scooby-Doo Friends & Foes box set as part of its 5 Points line of retro-style 3.75” scale action figures.
Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!
Godzilla & Godzilla Raids Again Novelizations from University of Minnesota Press
First published in Japan in 1955, the original novelizations of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again will be released in English for the first time on October 3 via University of Minnesota Press.
Jeffrey Angles, professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University, has newly translated the original material written by Shigeru Kayama, who conceived the initial story for Godzilla.
The two young adult novellas are being published together in one 256-page book, which is available to pre-order in paperback for $17.41 and and e-book for $9.99.
Scooby-Doo Play Set from Mezco Toyz
Mezco Toyz has announced a Scooby-Doo Friends & Foes box set as part of its 5 Points line of retro-style 3.75” scale action figures.
- 3/24/2023
- by Alex DiVincenzo
- bloody-disgusting.com
John Huston is one of the most celebrated directors and screenwriters in Hollywood. Born on August 5, 1906, in Nevadaville, Colorado, he was the son of actor Walter Huston and Rhea Gore. He began his career as a journalist and later worked as an amateur boxer before entering movies.
Huston’s movies were often morally ambiguous, with elements of both comedy and tragedy. He rose to fame for movies such as “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), which starred Humphrey Bogart, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, and “The African Queen” (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. He also wrote many movies including “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) and directed iconic movies such as “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975).
Huston was highly acclaimed by critics for his skillful direction in movies that explored complex themes such as greed and morality. Many of his movies featured actors who had trained under revered director Erich von Stroheim.
Huston’s movies were often morally ambiguous, with elements of both comedy and tragedy. He rose to fame for movies such as “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), which starred Humphrey Bogart, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, and “The African Queen” (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. He also wrote many movies including “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) and directed iconic movies such as “The Man Who Would Be King” (1975).
Huston was highly acclaimed by critics for his skillful direction in movies that explored complex themes such as greed and morality. Many of his movies featured actors who had trained under revered director Erich von Stroheim.
- 2/19/2023
- by Movies Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
Frank Galati, the Tony Award-winning director of Broadway’s The Grapes of Wrath and nominee for Ragtime, died Monday night. He was 79.
A cause of death was not immediately available.
Galati, who was an associate director at Chicago’s famed Goodman Theatre from 1986 to 2008 and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1985, was Oscar-nominated, along with co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, for the 1988 screenplay adaptation of Anne Tyler’s novel The Accidental Tourist.
Galati’s 1990 stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath won the Tony Award for Best Play; Galati also won the award that year for Best Direction. The acclaimed production, which debuted at Steppenwolf before transferring to Broadway, starred Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Lois Smith in Tony-nominated performances.
“Frank had a profound impact on Steppenwolf, and all of us, over the years,” said Steppenwolf’s co-artistic directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis in a joint statement.
A cause of death was not immediately available.
Galati, who was an associate director at Chicago’s famed Goodman Theatre from 1986 to 2008 and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1985, was Oscar-nominated, along with co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, for the 1988 screenplay adaptation of Anne Tyler’s novel The Accidental Tourist.
Galati’s 1990 stage adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath won the Tony Award for Best Play; Galati also won the award that year for Best Direction. The acclaimed production, which debuted at Steppenwolf before transferring to Broadway, starred Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney, and Lois Smith in Tony-nominated performances.
“Frank had a profound impact on Steppenwolf, and all of us, over the years,” said Steppenwolf’s co-artistic directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis in a joint statement.
- 1/3/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Nobody knew what to make of "Night of the Hunter" when it screened in 1955. Directed by actor Charles Laughton from a script by James Agee, it broke every rule in the book. It's a fairy tale that's nastier and more adult than anything Disney could produce. It's a black-and-white film made at a time when color movies were coming into vogue. Famous actor Robert Mitchum plays one of the scariest villains in film history. There's a stretch in the middle that swings into magical realism, and the end is a Christmas movie. "Night of the Hunter" was so hated by critics at its release that Laughton decided never to make another film. These days it's heralded as not just one of the greatest pictures of its era, but one so miraculous in its construction (despite its foibles) that it might as well be a UFO.
Many have lauded Charles Laughton as the film's guiding genius,...
Many have lauded Charles Laughton as the film's guiding genius,...
- 12/24/2022
- by Adam Wescott
- Slash Film
Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film "The Shining" was recently selected as one of the 100 best movies of all time by the venerable once-a-decade Sight and Sound poll, coming in at #88. It was one of three films by Kubrick to have made the list, the others being "Barry Lyndon" (at #45) and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (at #6). Many hold "The Shining" to be one of the scariest films of all time, and its iconography is referenced and recognizable across the pop culture landscape; Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One," for instance, recreated whole scenes from Kubrick's film.
Perhaps infamously, Stephen King, the author of the 1977 novel on which the film is based, openly dislikes Kubrick's film. In King's original version of the story, the main character, Jack Torrance, was a recovering alcoholic attempting to stay sober ... just like King. "The Shining" book is about a normal man who succumbs to the evil...
Perhaps infamously, Stephen King, the author of the 1977 novel on which the film is based, openly dislikes Kubrick's film. In King's original version of the story, the main character, Jack Torrance, was a recovering alcoholic attempting to stay sober ... just like King. "The Shining" book is about a normal man who succumbs to the evil...
- 12/16/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
There isn't a finer film about the self-destructive power of greed than John Huston's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." It's Huston at his rugged, fiercely unsentimental best. The tale of three down-on-their-luck Americans scrounging about a treacherous mountain region in search of gold features loads of quotable, hard-bitten dialogue and a boldly unflattering performance from Humphrey Bogart as the madly rapacious Fred C. Dobbs. Legendary author and film critic James Agee hailed it as "one of the best things Hollywood has done since it learned to talk." Three quarters of a century later, it still is.
But let's get back to Bogart, who dynamites his sympathetic, cynical hero image with his portrayal of a man who descends into full-on psychosis via his lust for a precious-metal mother lode. Audiences were stunned by the star's transformation, which may have played a role in the film's ho-hum box office performance.
But let's get back to Bogart, who dynamites his sympathetic, cynical hero image with his portrayal of a man who descends into full-on psychosis via his lust for a precious-metal mother lode. Audiences were stunned by the star's transformation, which may have played a role in the film's ho-hum box office performance.
- 8/23/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Vincente Minnelli took a break from musicals to feature Judy Garland in the first movie to show her dramatic acting range, a charming and thoughtful wartime tale in New York: a whirlwind romance goes from nothing to marriage in 48 hours. She’s a working woman and he’s a soldier shipping out for combat; the miracle is that the whole thing is believable, and resolutely unglamorized. The illusion of ‘ordinary life’ in NYC is remarkable for 1945; star Robert Walker leaves behind the gangling bumpkin character he’d been playing. The Warner Archive’s Blu-ray is a welcome addition to the Minnelli disc library.
The Clock
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date June 7, 2022 / 21.99
Starring: Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason, Keenan Wynn, Marshall Thompson, Lucile Gleason, Ruth Brady.
Cinematography: George Folsey
Art Director: William Ferrari
Film Editor: George White...
The Clock
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date June 7, 2022 / 21.99
Starring: Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason, Keenan Wynn, Marshall Thompson, Lucile Gleason, Ruth Brady.
Cinematography: George Folsey
Art Director: William Ferrari
Film Editor: George White...
- 6/4/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On March 20, 1952, two black and white dramas came into the Oscar ceremony vying for the win. Both “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “A Place in the Sun” had everything the Academy loves: drama, an ensemble of well-known actors and directors – many of whom had previous nominations and wins – and loads of nominations. By the time the Best Picture was to be announced, each had picked up major wins – “Streetcar” had claimed three of the four acting wins, while “Sun” had picked up statues for directing, cinematography and editing. So, it was a “what the heck??” Oscar moment when the final big prize was shockingly announced: the romantic musical “An American in Paris.”
A little over six years after the end of a war that ravaged Europe and in the middle of a Cold War that led to the infamous Hollywood blacklist that destroyed the careers of friends and collaborators, the...
A little over six years after the end of a war that ravaged Europe and in the middle of a Cold War that led to the infamous Hollywood blacklist that destroyed the careers of friends and collaborators, the...
- 2/25/2022
- by Susan Pennington
- Gold Derby
Every once in a while a movie studio would ruin what might have been a masterpiece — and Preston Sturges’ last-released Paramount comedy suffered exactly that. “Triumph Over Pain” was supposed to be something new, a daring blend of comedy and tragedy. Studio politics intervened and tried to turn it into a straight comedy. Disc producer Constantine Nasr oversees two extras that explain what happened in full detail; it’s a fascinating story of a brillant and successful writer-director at odds with his studio bosses. Joel McCrea, Betty Field and William Demarest star — and the show is still entertaining despite its problems.
The Great Moment
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Great without Glory, Immortal Secret, Morton the Magnificent, Triumph over Pain / Street Date February 1, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Julius Tannen, Edwin Maxwell, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn,...
The Great Moment
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Great without Glory, Immortal Secret, Morton the Magnificent, Triumph over Pain / Street Date February 1, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Julius Tannen, Edwin Maxwell, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn,...
- 1/18/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It’s the Gold Standard of Christmas movies and likely the oldest feature still broadcast on network TV during the holidays: Frank Capra’s sentimental favorite is his most human movie, the kind of show that convinced people that raising a family is a great idea. Although we’re now a full three generations removed from the world events that surround the story of George Bailey, his problems haven’t dated. Paramount’s anniversary disc gives us a new encoding from a 4K scan, a repressing of the older colorized version, a good making-of piece by Craig Barron and Ben Burtt, a reel of home movies from the film’s wrap picnic in the summer of ’46. . . and a set of ‘Bailey Family Recipe Cards.’
It’s a Wonderful Life 75th Anniversary
Blu-ray
Paramount
1946 / B&w + Colorized / 1:37 Academy / 130 min. / Street Date November 16, 2021 / Available from /
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore,...
It’s a Wonderful Life 75th Anniversary
Blu-ray
Paramount
1946 / B&w + Colorized / 1:37 Academy / 130 min. / Street Date November 16, 2021 / Available from /
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore,...
- 11/30/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Errol Flynn goes to war! One of the last major direct-combat pictures to come out of Hollywood during the war, Raoul Walsh’s finely-crafted ode to the jungle fighters in Burma lets loose a powerful, almost frightening blast of anti-Japanese rage. Errol Flynn earned his pay slugging it out through the swamps, George Tobias provides the Brooklyn humor and Henry Hull the outrage over combat atrocities. And the English were none too happy either, claiming that the movie made it look as if America had done the heavy fighting in what was largely a Brit field of battle.
Objective, Burma!
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 142 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull, Warner Anderson, John Alvin, Mark Stevens, Richard Erdman, Anthony Caruso, Erville Anderson, Hugh Beaumont, Douglas Henderson, William Hudson, Rodd Redwing, George Tyne.
Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Art...
Objective, Burma!
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 142 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull, Warner Anderson, John Alvin, Mark Stevens, Richard Erdman, Anthony Caruso, Erville Anderson, Hugh Beaumont, Douglas Henderson, William Hudson, Rodd Redwing, George Tyne.
Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Art...
- 7/31/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Guillermo del Toro takes a walk on the noir side in his first film since winning the Oscar for directing the 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Things.” “Nightmare Alley,’ based on the uncompromising 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, offers a bleak depiction of humanity including low-rent carnivals filled with has-beens, geeks and “rum-dums.” Searchlight Pictures is giving “Nightmare Alley,” which had to shut down production during the height of Covid in 2020, the “A” treatment, opening the film on Dec. 3 just in time for awards consideration.
The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.
The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.
- 6/4/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Ron Gilbert, an Emmy-nominated producer and partner with David Susskind in the indie production company Talent Associates Ltd that was behind TV series like Get Smart and movies including Straw Dogs and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, died of heart failure December 4 at his Los Angeles home. He was 87.
Talent Associates was a major force in the 1960s and ’70s, producing series including East Side, West Side starring George C. Scott, NYPD, The Glass Menagerie starring Katharine Hepburn, Eleanor and Franklin, Blind Ambition starring Martin Sheen and Get Smart. Gilbert served as executive in charge of production on several shows including Get Smart, the spy comedy that was hatched in the mid-1960s at the then New York-based company by two of its young writers, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. It premiered on NBC in 1965, ran five seasons and established Talent Associates’ L.A. base.
On the feature side, Talent Associates produced Straw Dogs,...
Talent Associates was a major force in the 1960s and ’70s, producing series including East Side, West Side starring George C. Scott, NYPD, The Glass Menagerie starring Katharine Hepburn, Eleanor and Franklin, Blind Ambition starring Martin Sheen and Get Smart. Gilbert served as executive in charge of production on several shows including Get Smart, the spy comedy that was hatched in the mid-1960s at the then New York-based company by two of its young writers, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. It premiered on NBC in 1965, ran five seasons and established Talent Associates’ L.A. base.
On the feature side, Talent Associates produced Straw Dogs,...
- 12/8/2020
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
C.S. Forester’s novel was originally bought by Columbia for Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, then sold to Warners for Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. John Huston found it years later at Fox. He encouraged Katherine Hepburn, who suffered from dysentery through most of the shoot, to play her role like Eleanor Roosevelt. Screenwriter James Agee, sidelined by a heart attack, disliked the happy ending provided by Huston and writer Peter Vertiel.
The post The African Queen appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The African Queen appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 9/25/2020
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Release was delayed for a year while Paramount mulled an offer by the liquor industry to shelve the picture. Well-deserved Oscars went to Ray Milland, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder for a movie that was only made because the studio owed Wilder a picture of his choosing. Critic James Agee bemoaned the dropping of the novel’s explanation for the hero’s drinking: a homosexual affair in college. Frank Faylen is unforgettable as Bim, the creepy male nurse at the Bellevue alcoholic ward.
The post The Lost Weekend appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Lost Weekend appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 8/7/2020
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
A double bill of films by Aleksandr Dovzhenko are showing April and May, 2020 on Mubi in most countries.Above: EarthIt’s disconcerting that the collected writings in English of one of the world’s greatest filmmakers currently sells for $852 on Amazon—or a whopping $980, if you opt for the paperback—while the only American book about him downgrades his work’s artistic value in its very title (Vance Kepley’s 1985 In the Service of the State: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko). Look him up on Wikipedia, and you find that his name is shared by a poker player and a psychiatrist—hardly fit company for the epic, poetic Alexander Dovzhenko (1894-1956), a pagan mystic whose masterful films look as wildly experimental, as dreamlike, as hysterically funny, as fiercely tragic, and as beautiful today as they did a century ago.A Cold War casualty, often defined in the West as a...
- 4/21/2020
- MUBI
Charles Laughton’s iconic 1955 serial killer thriller “Night of the Hunter” is getting a remake from Universal Pictures. The news was first reported by Variety. The studio has tapped “Operation Finale” screenwriter Matt Orton to pen the script, which is believed to be a contemporary reimagining of the storyline and not a period piece. Amy Pascal is producing the project through her production banner Pascal Pictures. Additional producers include Peter Gethers and Jay Polidoro, the latter of whom is Universal’s senior vice president of production. Pascal recently had a major hit with Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” which grossed over $200 million worldwide and picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture and more. Universal is coming off box office success for genre title “The Invisible Man.”
The first iteration of “Night of the Hunter” was Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel of the same name. Film critic turned screenwriter James Agee adapted...
The first iteration of “Night of the Hunter” was Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel of the same name. Film critic turned screenwriter James Agee adapted...
- 4/7/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
At a surprise party for his daughter, a randy Italian homeowner studies a neighbor’s wife through the sliding glass door and describes all the ways he’d like to violate her. In the bathroom, his 14-year-old son sits with his best friend, studying the hardcore porn sites listed in the browsing history of Dad’s cellphone. A few days earlier and a couple doors down, a pregnant teen senses the prepubescent kid’s sexual curiosity and taunts him with a series of increasingly provocative acts. For example, when he offers her a cookie, she exposes a breast and gives a whole new meaning to “Got milk?”
Innocence is not a concept to be found in the D’Innocenzo Brothers’ cinematic oeuvre, which consists of two films so far: “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” both of which forgo the notion of childhood as a state of uncorrupted naivete. Rather, in the Italian siblings’ deeply cynically,...
Innocence is not a concept to be found in the D’Innocenzo Brothers’ cinematic oeuvre, which consists of two films so far: “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” both of which forgo the notion of childhood as a state of uncorrupted naivete. Rather, in the Italian siblings’ deeply cynically,...
- 2/25/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
The Great McGinty
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1940/ 1:33:1 / 82 min.
Starring Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff
Cinematography by William C. Mellor
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
If the story of a unscrupulous crook who rises to great political power hits a little too close to home these days, consider that in 1940’s The Great McGinty the mobster in question is a fundamentally decent gent who sacrifices his career to do the right thing. When the jig is up he high-tails it to the border, penniless but with a clean conscience. Current events require that Preston Sturges’ bittersweet political satire be filed under Fairy Tales.
The movie opens in a rowdy little dive in South America where the once and future lowlife Dan McGinty has made his new home, lording over the bar while dispensing equal amounts booze and wisdom. One poor fellow wanders in who could use a little of both.
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1940/ 1:33:1 / 82 min.
Starring Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff
Cinematography by William C. Mellor
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
If the story of a unscrupulous crook who rises to great political power hits a little too close to home these days, consider that in 1940’s The Great McGinty the mobster in question is a fundamentally decent gent who sacrifices his career to do the right thing. When the jig is up he high-tails it to the border, penniless but with a clean conscience. Current events require that Preston Sturges’ bittersweet political satire be filed under Fairy Tales.
The movie opens in a rowdy little dive in South America where the once and future lowlife Dan McGinty has made his new home, lording over the bar while dispensing equal amounts booze and wisdom. One poor fellow wanders in who could use a little of both.
- 2/15/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
The only movie directed by Charles Laughton but he made it count. A brilliant mix of heavenly poetry and harrowing horror film, James Agee’s script, seemingly influenced by the New Testament and Jim Thompson, tells the story of a psychotic preacher (played by a terrifying Robert Mitchum) and his unstoppable hunt for some stolen loot. Lillian Gish and Stanley Cortez’s cinematography are the other high points of this perverse but tender thriller.
The post The Night of the Hunter appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Night of the Hunter appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 12/9/2019
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
In his day Buster Keaton’s popularity trailed that of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, but now those reputations have switched around. These two ‘lesser’ Keaton features generate more sheer fun than anything going. Seven Chances and Battling Butler are great on remastered Blu-ray — better materials, no missing frames — but do yourself a favor and find a way to see a Keaton picture with a big audience!
Seven Chances & Battling Butler: The Buster Keaton Collection Volume 3
Blu-ray
Cohen Film Collection
Street Date August 20, 2019 / 29.98
Original Music composed and Conducted by Robert Israel
Produced by Joseph M. Schenck
Starring, and Directed by Buster Keaton
Seven Chances
1925 / B&w + Color / 1:37 Silent Ap / 56 min.
Starring: Buster Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Ruth Dwyer, T, Roy Barnes, Jean Arthur, Constance Talmadge.
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley, Byron Houck
Art Direction: Fred Gabourie
Written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, Joseph Mitchell from a play by Roi Cooper Megrue
Directed...
Seven Chances & Battling Butler: The Buster Keaton Collection Volume 3
Blu-ray
Cohen Film Collection
Street Date August 20, 2019 / 29.98
Original Music composed and Conducted by Robert Israel
Produced by Joseph M. Schenck
Starring, and Directed by Buster Keaton
Seven Chances
1925 / B&w + Color / 1:37 Silent Ap / 56 min.
Starring: Buster Keaton, Snitz Edwards, Ruth Dwyer, T, Roy Barnes, Jean Arthur, Constance Talmadge.
Cinematography: Elgin Lessley, Byron Houck
Art Direction: Fred Gabourie
Written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, Joseph Mitchell from a play by Roi Cooper Megrue
Directed...
- 8/20/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Release was delayed for a year while Paramount mulled an offer by the liquor industry to shelve the picture. Well-deserved Oscars went to Ray Milland, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder for a movie that was only made because the studio owed Wilder a picture of his choosing. Critic James Agee bemoaned the dropping of the novel’s explanation for the hero’s drinking: a homosexual affair in college. Frank Faylen is unforgettable as Bim, the creepy male nurse at the Bellevue alcoholic ward.
The post The Lost Weekend appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Lost Weekend appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 6/28/2019
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Asolo Repertory Theatre will proudly present the world premiere of Knoxville in spring 2020. This moving and innovative musical will feature lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty and will be adapted and directed by Frank Galati, reuniting the dynamic Tony Award-winning creative team behind Ragtime, one of the most beloved musicals of all time. Knoxville is based on James Agee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel A Death in the Family and based, in part, on the play All The Way Home by Tad Mosel.
- 2/6/2019
- by BroadwayWorld TV
- BroadwayWorld.com
Executive produced by Laura Poitras, this documentary RaMell Ross is a revelatory study of African American lives
RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a beautifully realised documentary study of African American real lives in Hale County, Alabama. To some degree, it can be seen as a creative or intellectual response to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the classic 1941 work of photo-reportage by James Agee and photographer Walker Evans that recorded the lives of depression-hit white sharecroppers from Hale County. But as film-making, it is more personal and engaged than simply that: it feels as if Ross has created a sustained kind of euphoria, a 76-minute epiphany of love for his community, and the use over the closing credits of Billie Holiday singing Stars Fell on Alabama is very moving.
The director developed this project from coaching basketball and studying photography, activities that allowed him intimate...
RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a beautifully realised documentary study of African American real lives in Hale County, Alabama. To some degree, it can be seen as a creative or intellectual response to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the classic 1941 work of photo-reportage by James Agee and photographer Walker Evans that recorded the lives of depression-hit white sharecroppers from Hale County. But as film-making, it is more personal and engaged than simply that: it feels as if Ross has created a sustained kind of euphoria, a 76-minute epiphany of love for his community, and the use over the closing credits of Billie Holiday singing Stars Fell on Alabama is very moving.
The director developed this project from coaching basketball and studying photography, activities that allowed him intimate...
- 1/17/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The simplest way to describe “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” — and maybe the best way, since it’s a film of elemental radiance — is to say that it’s a documentary put together like a series of photographs. In this case, the photographs are filmed images, so they in effect come to life. The director, RaMell Ross, moved to Hale County, Alabama, in 2009 to work as a basketball coach and photography teacher, and the film is his impressionistic portrait of the life he found there — a caught-on-the-fly tapestry of experience. James Agee and Walker Evans shot some of their most famous images in Hale County, and Ross’s film could be considered a raw ragged lyrical answer to their mythologies. Filmed over several years, “Hale County” is a diary of a time, place, and culture, and you could call it a transcendental scrapbook, because it wipes away the muck...
- 12/27/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Duck and Cover! And while you’re down there, enjoy a Flaming Atomic Cocktail! Loader, Rafferty & Rafferty’s influential documentary-satire uses authentic ’50s films and songs to illuminate the lies and myths about Cold War civil defense. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be like children in the face of a horror being characterized as an inconvenience to Americans insufficiently willing to Love the Bomb. And don’t forget to Sing: “Nobody’s worried ’bout the day my Lord will come, When he’ll hit, great God a-mighty, like an atom bomb!”
The Atomic Cafe
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1982 / Color+B&W / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Lloyd Bentsen, Richard Nixon,
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Hugh Beaumont, James Gregory, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Leigh.
Archival Research: Pierce Rafferty, Nan Allendorfer, Victoria Peterson, David Thaxton, Jon Else, Margaret Henry, Richard Prelinger
Film Editors: Jayne Loader,...
The Atomic Cafe
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1982 / Color+B&W / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Lloyd Bentsen, Richard Nixon,
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Hugh Beaumont, James Gregory, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Leigh.
Archival Research: Pierce Rafferty, Nan Allendorfer, Victoria Peterson, David Thaxton, Jon Else, Margaret Henry, Richard Prelinger
Film Editors: Jayne Loader,...
- 12/15/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“Museo” (Vitagraph) led a slew of new specialized releases this week. The Mexican heist film starring Gael Garcia Bernal topped all other fresh titles. The fall season is already taking off with an astonishing 40 films opening theatrically this weekend, including at least six Sundance 2018 titles, two of which just played the Toronto International Film Festival.
And to confuse audiences even more, even more movies were available on home-viewing platforms as well as theaters, from the Nicolas Cage cult film “Mandy” to three films directed by established female directors. Netflix opened Nicole Holofcener’s suburban drama “The Land of Steady Habits” and Ricki Sundberg and Anne Sundberg’s timely documentary “Reversing Roe” on Friday after their Tiff premieres; and Amma Asante followed two Fox Searchlight releases with controversial Nazi Germany romance thriller “Where Hands Touch” (Vertical), which played in over 100 theaters with an estimated gross of under $70,000 while also streaming.
Dwarfing...
And to confuse audiences even more, even more movies were available on home-viewing platforms as well as theaters, from the Nicolas Cage cult film “Mandy” to three films directed by established female directors. Netflix opened Nicole Holofcener’s suburban drama “The Land of Steady Habits” and Ricki Sundberg and Anne Sundberg’s timely documentary “Reversing Roe” on Friday after their Tiff premieres; and Amma Asante followed two Fox Searchlight releases with controversial Nazi Germany romance thriller “Where Hands Touch” (Vertical), which played in over 100 theaters with an estimated gross of under $70,000 while also streaming.
Dwarfing...
- 9/16/2018
- by Tom Brueggemann
- Indiewire
The history of film critics contributing to or creating actual films is long and storied. From the groundbreaking works of Cahiers du cinéma writers that made up the French New Wave to Susan Sontag’s little-seen Duet for Cannibals to James Agee’s screenplay for The Night of the Hunter to Eugene Archer’s acting appearance in La Collectionneuse, they have frequently played a direct role in the process of crafting a feature-length film. While this is no guarantee of quality, it allows viewers to dissect not just a filmmaker’s predilections but also their particular, characteristic translation of pre-established ideas on movies to the narrative and visual form.
Entering into this tradition with Feast of the Epiphany are Michael Koresky, Jeff Reichert, and Farihah Zaman; the former two are the co-founders and editors of the film website Reverse Shot (one of the web’s finest resources for modern movie...
Entering into this tradition with Feast of the Epiphany are Michael Koresky, Jeff Reichert, and Farihah Zaman; the former two are the co-founders and editors of the film website Reverse Shot (one of the web’s finest resources for modern movie...
- 6/22/2018
- by Ryan Swen
- The Film Stage
Now in its 47th year, New Directors/New Films is a stellar showcase for new voices in cinema, both domestic and international, and this year’s lineup is no exception. Opening with a bang with the M.I.A. documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. and closing with one of our Sundance favorites, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, the slate also includes one of the best films we’ve seen at Berlinale, An Elephant Standing Still, as well as festival favorites from last year, including Milla, Cocote, The Nothing Factory, and more.
“The purpose of New Directors/New Films is to seek out emerging filmmakers who are working at the vanguard of cinema,” said Film Society Director of Programming Dennis Lim. “This is as diverse and wide-ranging a lineup as we’ve assembled in years: full of pleasures and provocations and, above all, surprises—proof that film remains a medium ripe...
“The purpose of New Directors/New Films is to seek out emerging filmmakers who are working at the vanguard of cinema,” said Film Society Director of Programming Dennis Lim. “This is as diverse and wide-ranging a lineup as we’ve assembled in years: full of pleasures and provocations and, above all, surprises—proof that film remains a medium ripe...
- 2/22/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Location, location, location. For a documentary preoccupied with poetic, provocative associations, there’s perhaps none more stimulating than the setting of RaMell Ross’ nonfiction feature debut. It was in Hale County, Alabama, after all, that photographer Walker Evans and writer James Agee composed Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), their famed text-and-image study of Great Depression-afflicted sharecroppers. There’s not a single close-up of an African-American face in any of Evans’ photos, though you do see a few in some of the wider shots (specifically an image of a barber/shoeshine shop). And Agee makes mention of the community a few ...
- 1/19/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Location, location, location. For a documentary preoccupied with poetic, provocative associations, there’s perhaps none more stimulating than the setting of RaMell Ross’ nonfiction feature debut. It was in Hale County, Alabama, after all, that photographer Walker Evans and writer James Agee composed Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), their famed text-and-image study of Great Depression-afflicted sharecroppers. There’s not a single close-up of an African-American face in any of Evans’ photos, though you do see a few in some of the wider shots (specifically an image of a barber/shoeshine shop). And Agee makes mention of the community a few ...
- 1/19/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In this week’s edition of Canon Of Film, we take a look at Charles Laughton‘s one-off masterpiece, ‘The Night of the Hunter‘. For the story behind the genesis of the Canon, you can click here.
The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
Director: Charles Laughton
Screenplay: James Agee based on the novel by David Grubb
Although he acted in over 50 films during his illustrious acting career, Charles Laughton only got to direct one film in his lifetime, but he made it count, and it stands as a strange, unique essential film that’s part ‘Huckleberry Finn’, and the rest, this surrealistic nightmare with a tone that seems to directly influence modern horror/slasher film directors like Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. ‘The Night of the Hunter,’ frightened the hell out of me on my first viewing, and still continues to shake me on subsequent ones. It’s at...
The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
Director: Charles Laughton
Screenplay: James Agee based on the novel by David Grubb
Although he acted in over 50 films during his illustrious acting career, Charles Laughton only got to direct one film in his lifetime, but he made it count, and it stands as a strange, unique essential film that’s part ‘Huckleberry Finn’, and the rest, this surrealistic nightmare with a tone that seems to directly influence modern horror/slasher film directors like Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. ‘The Night of the Hunter,’ frightened the hell out of me on my first viewing, and still continues to shake me on subsequent ones. It’s at...
- 11/4/2017
- by David Baruffi
- Age of the Nerd
Everyone notices the eyes first, languid, those of a somnambulist. Robert Mitchum, calm and observant, is a presence that, through passivity, enamors a viewer. His face is as effulgent as moonlight. The man smolders, with that boozy, baritone voice, seductive and soporific, a cigarette perched between wispy lips below which is a chin cleft like a geological fault. He’s slithery with innuendo. There’s an effortless allure to it all, a mix of malaise and braggadocio, a cocksure machismo and a hint of fragility. He’s ever-cool, a paradox, “radiating heat without warmth,” as Richard Brody said. A poet, a prodigious lover and drinker, a bad boy; his penchant for marijuana landed him in jail, and in the photographs from his two-month stay he looks like a natural fit. He sits, wrapped in denim, legs spread wide, hair shiny and slick, holding a cup of coffee. His mouth is...
- 9/29/2017
- MUBI
The answer to the eternal question: What ever happened to the director of ‘Mystery Men’?
The first thing to notice about Kinka Usher’s Twitter account — which we’ll assume is the real deal, even in the absence of a blue check mark — is its profile description: “I directed the movie that actually made All Star by Smash Mouth popular.” As far as legacies go, we can agree this would be an ignoble one, assuming that’s all there was to it. The description does not clarify the movie in question however.
So then, the second thing to notice, after a bit of scrolling, is the title of said movie: Mystery Men. The film, based on marginal superhero characters from an obscure comic book (where my Flaming Carrot fans at?) and released in 1999, stars Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Janeane Garofalo, and an almost literally unbelievable list of others. Smash Mouth is indeed heard on the soundtrack...
The first thing to notice about Kinka Usher’s Twitter account — which we’ll assume is the real deal, even in the absence of a blue check mark — is its profile description: “I directed the movie that actually made All Star by Smash Mouth popular.” As far as legacies go, we can agree this would be an ignoble one, assuming that’s all there was to it. The description does not clarify the movie in question however.
So then, the second thing to notice, after a bit of scrolling, is the title of said movie: Mystery Men. The film, based on marginal superhero characters from an obscure comic book (where my Flaming Carrot fans at?) and released in 1999, stars Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Janeane Garofalo, and an almost literally unbelievable list of others. Smash Mouth is indeed heard on the soundtrack...
- 4/23/2017
- by Daniel Reynolds
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The star of The Promise had such a nomadic childhood that at one point he thought he was Russian. A perfect upbringing to become modern Hollywood’s ‘global human’
Much is made in Hollywood of chameleons – actors who have the ability to “disappear” into a role, appearing “unrecognisable” – while less is said about versatility. At rest, the faces of the best movie actors contain multitudes. Robert Mitchum had the broken-nosed face of a brute but the sleepy, languid eyes of an angel – “Bing Crosby on barbiturates”, in film critic James Agee’s phrase. Bette Davis could switch from glam to dowdy with the angle of her head and a couple of fill lights. And Robert De Niro’s ability to frown and smile simultaneously is legendary.
Related: The Promise review – Oscar Isaac tackles Armenian genocide in cliched but involving romance
Continue reading...
Much is made in Hollywood of chameleons – actors who have the ability to “disappear” into a role, appearing “unrecognisable” – while less is said about versatility. At rest, the faces of the best movie actors contain multitudes. Robert Mitchum had the broken-nosed face of a brute but the sleepy, languid eyes of an angel – “Bing Crosby on barbiturates”, in film critic James Agee’s phrase. Bette Davis could switch from glam to dowdy with the angle of her head and a couple of fill lights. And Robert De Niro’s ability to frown and smile simultaneously is legendary.
Related: The Promise review – Oscar Isaac tackles Armenian genocide in cliched but involving romance
Continue reading...
- 4/20/2017
- by Tom Shone
- The Guardian - Film News
This is where I'm supposed to summarize the past year, find some overaching theme or thread running through my choices, spot trends, or something along those lines. Instead it's just another mea culpa for my continuing and accelerating estrangement from mainstream pop music. Don't mind me, I'm just a grumpy old fart. But these twenty new albums made me less grumpy.
1. Diiv: Is the Is Are (Captured Tracks)
I enjoyed their first album, and far from a sophomore slump, their second is even better. Sure, I'm heavily predisposed to love bands that conjure a moody '80s vibe with thrumming bass, chiming guitar jangle, and submerged vocals, but this is greater than the sum of those parts, simultaneously updating the sound while tapping into a new level of melodicism for this band.
2. David Bowie: Black Star (Sony)
I wrote about this at length. What can I add now that...
1. Diiv: Is the Is Are (Captured Tracks)
I enjoyed their first album, and far from a sophomore slump, their second is even better. Sure, I'm heavily predisposed to love bands that conjure a moody '80s vibe with thrumming bass, chiming guitar jangle, and submerged vocals, but this is greater than the sum of those parts, simultaneously updating the sound while tapping into a new level of melodicism for this band.
2. David Bowie: Black Star (Sony)
I wrote about this at length. What can I add now that...
- 1/18/2017
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Dreyer on the set. Courtesy of Dfi.Located in Glostrup, a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, the Danish Film Institute’s Archive is where a great portion of Danish film history, but also some unique prints of world cinema heritage, have entered a pleasant dormancy of minus 5°C. The mundane looking front building is at the back attached to vaults, sheltering thousands of films and film objects. Inside, there is nothing as ear-pleasing as the silence of a film archive, where the continuous and vague hum of ventilators is the closest thing to the murmur of celluloid.Mikael Braae, film historian and curator of the feature films at the Dfi, generously took me on an tour of the Archive which, after passing through freezing vaults, arrived at a huge storage room where on a temporary platform my attention is brought to a wrapped object: the editing table of the spiritual father of Danish cinema,...
- 11/8/2016
- MUBI
Over five years ago, on Wednesday, March 9th, 2011, John Fell Ryan and Akiva Saunders premiered their experiment The Shining: Forwards and Backwards. At the Williamsburg, Brooklyn locale The Spectacle Theater they screened Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece from start to finish and vice versa simultaneously and superimposed on one another. Perhaps to the surprise of some, the results were fascinating enough to lead to many more screenings, including one at Fantastic Fest in 2012, as well as being featured in Rodney Ascher‘s Room 237.
The various oddities and strange occurrences that crop up when playing the film this way have been exhaustively explored by its own the creator (see here and beyond), and if you haven’t yet seen it this way, today is your chance. Editor Vashi Nedomansky made his own version and while we can’t imagine it’ll survive online for too long due to copyright issues,...
The various oddities and strange occurrences that crop up when playing the film this way have been exhaustively explored by its own the creator (see here and beyond), and if you haven’t yet seen it this way, today is your chance. Editor Vashi Nedomansky made his own version and while we can’t imagine it’ll survive online for too long due to copyright issues,...
- 10/27/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Every week, the CriticWire Survey asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday morning. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?” can be found at the end of this post.)
In a recent piece for The Talkhouse, Shannon Plumb — wife of “The Light Between Oceans” director Derek Cianfrance, as well as a filmmaker in her own right — wrote a candid piece about her reaction to the reviews of Cianfrance’s latest movie, and how it informed her opinion about critics in general. Some of her more pointed comments included:
“Critics can be like horseflies sucking blood from thoroughbreds.
People are losing their ability to be romantic… And the critics, like lemmings, are jumping off the cliff with all the other unsentimental rodents.
Anthony Lane, like so many other critics, seem to be watching movies with his head,...
In a recent piece for The Talkhouse, Shannon Plumb — wife of “The Light Between Oceans” director Derek Cianfrance, as well as a filmmaker in her own right — wrote a candid piece about her reaction to the reviews of Cianfrance’s latest movie, and how it informed her opinion about critics in general. Some of her more pointed comments included:
“Critics can be like horseflies sucking blood from thoroughbreds.
People are losing their ability to be romantic… And the critics, like lemmings, are jumping off the cliff with all the other unsentimental rodents.
Anthony Lane, like so many other critics, seem to be watching movies with his head,...
- 9/26/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Last Halloween (my birthday, as it happens), I loaded up my Bolex to shoot some 16mm black-and-white images of a children’s costume parade in my Brooklyn neighborhood. I was thinking of Helen Levitt’s 1948 masterpiece, In the Street. Levitt (and her co-cinematographers James Agee and Janis Loeb) used a small camera to surreptitiously record images (mostly of children) in Spanish Harlem. The film is a poetic time capsule — observational vignettes that become more than the sum of their parts. The Bolex looks pretty big these days compared to digital cameras, so I wasn’t hiding anything from anybody. As I […]...
- 8/16/2016
- by Mark Street
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Today, May 1, marks the 75th anniversary of the premiere of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Celebrations are popping up everywhere, and Tuesday saw the publication of Harlan Lebo's new book, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, a book that argues that press lord William Randolph Hearst conducted a serious and well-financed campaign to kill the movie. Today's entry then segues into a review of The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture, David Bordwell's outstanding new book on Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber and Parker Tyler. » - David Hudson...
- 5/1/2016
- Keyframe
Today, May 1, marks the 75th anniversary of the premiere of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Celebrations are popping up everywhere, and Tuesday saw the publication of Harlan Lebo's new book, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, a book that argues that press lord William Randolph Hearst conducted a serious and well-financed campaign to kill the movie. Today's entry then segues into a review of The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture, David Bordwell's outstanding new book on Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber and Parker Tyler. » - David Hudson...
- 5/1/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Looking to discover a top-quality film that honors lasting values? Jean Renoir gives Zachary Scott and Betty Field as Texas sharecroppers trying to survive a rough first year. It's beautifully written by Hugo Butler, with given realistic, earthy touches not found in Hollywood pix. And the transfer is a new UCLA restoration. With two impressive short subjects in equal good quality. The Southerner Blu-ray Kino Classics 1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date February 9, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Carol Naish, Norman Lloyd, Zachary Scott, Percy Kilbride, Charles Kemper, Blanche Yurka, Estelle Taylor, Paul Harvey, Noreen Nash, Nestor Paiva, Almira Sessions. Cinematography Lucien Andriot Film Editor Gregg C. Tallas Production Designer Eugène Lourié Assistant Director Robert Aldrich Original Music Werner Janssen Written by Hugo Butler, Jean Renoir from a novel by George Sessions Perry Produced by Robert Hakim, David L. Loew Directed by Jean Renoir...
- 1/26/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Stop! Don't touch that dial... if you like your atom-age propaganda straight up, MGM has the movie for you, an expensive 1946 docu-drama that became 'the official story' for the making of the bomb. The huge cast includes Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, and Joseph Calleia. How trustworthy is the movie? It begins by showing footage of a time capsule being buried -- that supposedly contains the film we are watching. Think about that. Mom, Apple Pie, the Flag and God are enlisted to argume that we should stop worrying and love the fact that bombs are just peachy-keen dandy. The Beginning or the End DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Calleia, Godfrey Tearle, Victor Francen,...
- 1/4/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Frank Capra won his third Best Directing Oscar for this Kaufman and Hart adaptation. Star Jean Arthur is radiant, and relative newcomer James Stewart seems to have lifted his 'aw shucks' nice-guy personal from his role. With Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller, Dub Taylor, Spring Byington and a terrific Edward Arnold. You Can't Take It with You Blu-ray + Digital HD Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat / 126 min. / Street Date December 8, 2015 / 19.99 Starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington, Samuel S. Hinds, Donald Meek, H.B. Warner, Halliwell Hobbes, Dub Taylor, Mary Forbes, Lillian Yarbo, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson. Cinematography Joseph Walker Art Direction Stephen Goosson Film Editor Gene Havlick Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin Written by Robert Riskin from the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart Produced and Directed by Frank Capra
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
One of Frank Capra's brightest, most entertaining features,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
One of Frank Capra's brightest, most entertaining features,...
- 12/12/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Michael Curtiz's wartime tale of Devil's Island convict Humphrey Bogart fighting to get back and defend France has a still-controversial scene of violence. The convoluted storyline nests enough flashbacks-within-flashbacks to confuse any viewer, and packs the screen with every actor on the Warner lot who can handle a foreign accent. With Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, and Michèle Morgan. Passage to Marseille Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 109 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loder, Victor Francen, Vladimir Sokoloff, Eduardo Ciannelli. Cinematography James Wong Howe Art Direction Carl Julius Weyl Film Editor Owen Marks Original Music Max Steiner Written by Casey Robinson, Jock Moffitt from a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall Produced by Jack L. Warner Directed by Michael Curtiz...
- 11/14/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
After The Seventh Victim‘s disappointing returns, Val Lewton and Rko clashed over their next project. Lewton wanted a comedy, provisionally titled The Amorous Ghost, as a change of pace; studio boss Sid Rogell, Lewton’s bete noir, insisted on a sequel to Cat People, which Lewton resisted. Then Rko suggested a Universal-style monster rally, They Creep By Night, reuniting villains from past Lewton pictures. Charles Koerner rescued Lewton from this absurd prospect by pitching a maritime thriller. “Call it The Ghost Ship,” Koerner ordered. Lewton also scored a big, though past-his-prime star in Richard Dix, an Oscar nominee for Cimarron (1931).
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
- 10/29/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Special Mention: Un chien andalou
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
- 10/28/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
Get your beret and warm up the espresso! Some of the most famous deep-dish art film is here -- in HD -- starting with attempts to translate various art 'isms' to the screen, to graphics-oriented abstractions, to 'city symphonies' to the dream visions of Maya Deren and beyond. The careful remasters reproduce proper projection speeds and original music. Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 Blu-ray + DVD Flicker Alley 1920-1970 / B&W and Color / 1:33 full frame / 418 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 59.95 With films by James Agee, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Rudolph Burckhardt, Mary Ellen Bute, Joseph Cornell, Jim Davis, Maya Deren, Marcel Duchamp, Emien Etting, Oksar Fischinger, Robert Florey, Amy Greenfield, A. Hackenschmied, Alexander Hammid, Hillary Harris, Hy Hirsh, Ian Hugo, Lawrence Janiac, Lawrence Jordan, Owen Land, Francis Lee, Fernand Léger, Helen Levitt, Jan Leyda, Janice Loeb, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Dudley Murphy, Ted Nemeth, Bernard O'Brien,...
- 10/6/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.