French filmmaker Alain Jessua comes up with a commercial thriller with a science-fiction, medical horror twist. Alain Delon and Annie Girardot don’t shy away from some matter-of-fact nude scenes, that serve a legit dramatic purpose. Outside France the sex content was almost the only angle exploited. Beneath the glamour and intrigues at a chic…

  The Cuban masterpiece has been restored, and is now viewable on the Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project 3 boxed set. Humberto Solás’ nearly 3-hour national epic revisits two earlier revolutions to tell the stories of  three Lucías. The first Lucía is entangled in the war of independence against Spain, and the second opposes the gangland-era…

  It’s Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing together in a horror picture, a formula no shock feature fan can resist. Most of us remember staring at the beautiful full-color photo of Chris Lee in monster makeup in Denis Gifford’s picture book about horror movies. Yet this has remained one of the pair’s most obscure items,…

  If you like Euro-crime and haven’t seen this one you’re in for a real treat. English killers are on the road in Spain, executing a hit on a ‘Supergrass’ who’s spent ten years in protective custody. The brilliant cast — Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth and Laura Del Sol give the criminal twists…

  Clint Eastwood proves again that he Owns the western genre with this odd tale of land reform insurrection and establishment blowback, in New Mexico of 1906. To direct the script by the great Elmore Leonard, Eastwood brought in the western movie legend John Sturges. But Sturges discovered that collaboration now meant acceding to whatever…

The Ape Blu ray  Kino Lorber 1940 / 62 min. / 1:33:1 Starring Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon Cinematography by Harry Neumann Directed by William Nigh William Nigh directed over 40 silent films before he signed on for The Ape, which might account for this 1940 film looking far older than its release date—the staging is…

This CinemaScope musical remake of 1939’s The Women is highly watchable, especially in this flawless digital remaster. The actresses that bare their claws, compete for husbands and just plain cat-fight are a choice batch, with favorites from the ’50s (June Allyson, Agnes Moorehead) the ’40s (Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller) the ’30s (Joan Blondell, Charlotte Greenwood)…

  Easily the best family-oriented black experience movie of the early 1970s, the Third World Cinema Corporation’s first film features Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones in a funny, endearing saga of life in the welfare system, with human feeling and compassion to spare. But the triumphant socially progressive movie fails the 2020 diversity test…

  This big, expensive and well-produced action-suspense Sci-fi epic mostly delivers on its promise to be Aliens at the bottom of the sea. At heart it’s a 1950s pulse-pounder with a bigger monster, a zillion times the budget and a script that does everything but make us care. We appreciate the likable characters but it’s…

  It’s finally back on Blu in Region 1, the ‘sixties spy movie beloved by enthusiasts that yearned for something a bit more substantial & nutritious than James Bond. This first Harry Palmer adventure seems even more perfect than when it was thanks to a great espionage recipe and quality ingredients. Michael Caine is sensational…

The Chalk Garden Blu ray  1964 / 106 min. / 1:85:1 Starring Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills, John Mills Cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson Directed by Ronald Neame Julie Andrews thrived in the role of governess—even when pitted against the Nazis in The Sound of Music she found plenty of time for sing-alongs—the same for Mary Poppins where…

If you have to name ONE movie that’s not likely to ever be screened in a prison, this one’s a good bet. In his sophomore starring outing Burt Lancaster leads a group of rebel convicts on a do-or-die bust-out against Hume Cronyn’s utter Nazi of a warden Captain. Richard Brooks’ script and Jules Dassin’s direction…

Producer-star Richard Widmark may have thought he was inventing a new kind of spy film but his adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel just grinds the Cold War grist, mixing good atmosphere with unconvincing action derring-do. The handsome production makes good use of Austrian and Swiss locations and the unfamiliar cast is a big assist….

  A bona fide film classic, George Stevens’ movie is less revered as an excellent adaptation of Theodore Dreiser than for its intense, almost hallucinatory romantic scenes between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. A guileless poor boy tries to succeed above his economic background and entangles himself between two very different women. I guess the…

  TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’…

The Vincent Price Collection Blu ray  1960,’61, ’63, ’64, ’68, ’71 / 79, 85, 87, 90, 86, 94 min. / 2.35 : 1, 1:85:1 Starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, Hazel Court Cinematography by Floyd Crosby, Nicolas Roeg, John Coquillon, Norman Warwick Directed by Roger Corman, Michael Reeves, Robert Fuest The Vincent Price Collection, the first…

  Ya like quality pro-intervention propaganda?  Warners’ filmic call to arms inspired America’s reluctant warriors via a superhuman feat by a highly decorated WW1 veteran… and promptly got into hot water with the United States congress. Howard Hawks’ highly effective load of sentiment and sanctimony makes Tennesseans look like denizens of Dogpatch, U.S.A.. But America…

  And now for something we had read about but never before saw: Tod Slaughter’s highly entertaining murder thriller is stylized in a vintage theatrical format, the Victorian blood & thunder barnstorming drama, originally from 1880 or thereabouts. Slaughter’s refined gentleman is also a crazed killer with a bizarre modus operandi. Everything that happens is…

  Sci-fi alert!  New classic science fiction discoveries are rare these days, which makes Arrow’s rejuvenation of Japan’s first science fiction tale in color a special item. Fans may need both hands to count the ‘copycat’ elements but Kôji Shima’s epic improves on many of its American predecessors. Despite the star-shaped arts ‘n’ crafts aliens,…

The Phantom of the Opera Blu ray  1962 / 84 min. / 1:85:1, 1:66:1, 1:33:1 Starring Herbert Lom, Heather Sears, Michael Gough Cinematography by Arthur Grant Directed by Terence Fisher Hammer Studios made their mark by viewing Universal’s classic horror films through a contemporary lens—which for the late 50’s and early 60’s meant more explicit…

  Ride ’em, rope ’em, bite ’em? Is this ‘Dracula Goes West,’ or ‘Fangs of the High Chapparal?’ The fading Universal-International house of horrors squeaks out a bizarre horror item that one sits through just out of curiosity… are these people serious?  We respect the professionalism of Michael Pate, Kathleen Crowley and Bruce Gordon as…

  Is Joseph Losey’s elusive, maudit masterpiece really a masterpiece?  Stanley Baker’s foolish lout of a writer ruins his life pursuing the wanton Jeanne Moreau, and it’s hard to tell if she’s punishing him or he’s punishing himself. Losey’s directing skills are in top form on location in Venice and Rome for this absorbing art…

  Why is it that, when a horror film achieves something special, both the critics and the public tend to elevate it above and beyond the ‘lowly’ horror genre?  David Lynch’s most humane and sympathetic film still makes our heads spin, and this new 4K remaster renders Freddie Francis’s great cinematography at its best. Lynch…

Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 Blu ray  1943, 1944, 1945, 1941 / 61, 61, 63, 64 min. Starring Ellen Drew, John Carradine, Acquanetta Cinematography by George Robinson, Jack MacKenzie, Maury Gertsman, Victor Milner Directed by Edward Dmytryk, Reginald Le Borg, Harold Young, Stuart Heisler The Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 should appeal to ape suit…

  It’s a perfect movie for a dark time: Carlo Levi’s famed novel about a political undesirable became a major Italian miniseries by the great Francesco Rosi, starring the now-legendary Gian Maria Volontè. In Mussolini’s most popular years of make-Italy-great-again Fascism, a dissident is given an indefinite ‘time out,’ an exile to a small town…

  This mid-‘sixties black comedy from the mischievous George Axelrod defines and dissects ‘crazy California culture’ just as West Coasters were being slandered as godless weird-oh hedonists. It’s partly a sarcastic put-down, citing anecdotal extremes like drive-in churches (how 2020 can you get?), perverse youth encounter groups and mindless beach party movies. But Axelrod’s paints…