At least the title SOUNDS Christmas-themed! Preston Sturges’ sweet trifle is as simple as a sit-com mix-up, but the charm is in the lovable characters (the core of Sturges’ formidable stock company) and the sincerity of all concerned. Ellen Drew is the most deserving fiancé ever to pine for a wedding ring, and Dick Powell…

The most notorious pre-Code shocker comes to Criterion — and proves to be a superior drama with a mature outlook on the political issues around women’s sexuality and personal freedom. Taken from a raw novel by William Faulkner, this tale of rape and terror stars Miriam Hopkins in one of the bravest, best performances of…

Abbott & Costello – The Complete Universal Pictures Collection Blu ray Shout! Factory 1940-1955/1:33-1:85 Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff Directed by Arthur Lubin, Erle C. Kenton, Charles Barton Two footloose Jersey boys with no particular place to go, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello finally found themselves – literally and figuratively –…

Once again CineSavant becomes intrigued by a minor genre opus normally dismissed in a sentence or two; this Roger Corman production may fall short of his other early efforts because it tried to be too cerebral  and then ran afoul of the Hollywood Guilds. David Kramarsky is listed as director but it’s hard to know…

At the end of his career, Fritz Lang returned to Germany and a producer who gave him a big budget to remake a silent classic in color, with an international cast and locations in remote India, including a palace never seen in a movie before. The two-movie, 200-minute epic was chopped in half for America…

Kurt Vonnegut’s quirky sci-fi novels didn’t always adapt well to film, but George Roy Hill’s 1972 effort is a faithful winner. The filmmaking craft used to ‘unstick’ Billy Pilgrim in time is nothing short of brilliant, highlighting the camera talent of Miroslav Ondricek and the editing skill of Dede Allen. The book even has a…

An amazing Blu-ray year is now capped by a genuine favorite, rescued by its filmmaker and set aside for almost twenty years. Wim Wenders was forced to drastically shorten what he hoped would be his greatest success, following Wings of Desire. But he cleverly saved his 4.5-hour uncut version, which is making its Blu-ray debut…

I wrote the pair of articles here in 1998 after seeing the long  ‘Die Trilogie’ version of Until the End of the World at the Harmony Gold Preview Theater on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. The articles contain plenty of Spoilers, so beware. A new 2019 disc release is reviewed at CineSavant. The Strange Case of…

The Magic Sword Blu ray Kino Lorber 1962/ 1:85 / 80 min. Starring Gary Lockwood, Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood Directed by Bert I. Gordon Fresh off producing and directing Tormented, a mildly lurid psychological shocker released in 1960, Bert I. Gordon pointed his next film in the direction of the Saturday matinee crowd, a select…

One of America’s favorite holiday movies plays strangely today, and despite being one of the most popular pictures of its year, really should have disturbed people when it was new as well. Director Leo McCarey and his glowing stars Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman do remarkable work, and the show has its heart in the…

This must be an official Bette Davis month… Criterion has two vintage Davis pictures on offer, and TCM is devoted to a roundup of the actress’s work as well. This one qualifies as the all-time champion Women’s Weepie, but one that holds up as a great picture on all levels. Director Irving Rapper guided this…

Michael Cimino could have done worse for his first directing gig — a big Clint Eastwood-Jeff Bridges buddy picture with guaranteed major attention. It’s a simple crime caper for simple audiences, and he pulls it off in style. The Sunday movie supplements celebrated Cimino as a great new talent. His picture still looks handsome and…

Extra-special extras adorn this stunning reissue of a modern sci-fi action classic. Paul Verhoeven’s sledgehammer of graphic-novel brutality and wicked political satire (courtesy of a Michael Miner-Ed Neumeier screenplay that should have won awards) hasn’t diminished one iota. We still feel like we’re being subjected to a shockingly ultra-violent entertainment from the future. Both versions…

One of Vincente Minnelli’s best is this glamorous ‘Hollywood Looks At Hollywood’ exposé of sin and conniving among the actors, directors and producers that make Quality Entertainment for us unglamorous nobodies. It’s overstated and often grossly overacted (Kirk Douglas, front and center!) but still carries a grandiose charm. Lana Turner gets to play an idealized…

We’ve got more Spaghetti western action from Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton — the more obscure they become, the more fanciful the concept. This creative 1968 entry foregrounds a gothic vibe and employs imagery and narrative devices that Lee says would fit well in a horror movie. Italo western fans know the regular actors Fernando Sancho,…

Manhattan detective Richard Widmark is up the creek without his .38 special — a maniac killer has stolen it. He’s desperate to get it back, while his personal and professional problems pile up. Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens and Harry Guardino give sterling performances, but the assured direction of Don Siegel is what keeps us on…

Did star James Stewart and director Anthony Mann corner the market on upscale ‘A’ ’50s westerns?  This beauty sends Stewart, Ruth Roman and Corrine Calvet on a breezy trek over a Canadian glacier, with Walter Brennan as a folksy, ditsy sidekick — not very original but endearing. John McIntire saves the day as a charmingly…

Konga Blu ray Kino Lorber 1961/ 1:85 / 90 min. Starring Michael Gough, Margo Johns Directed by John Lemont Like any actor worth their salt, Michael Gough contained multitudes. And so did his fans – from the West End to 42nd Street they gathered as one to sing his praises. Born in Kuala Lumpur and educated…

Oh, have you reached the right page?  We know you were looking for the review of Aunt Minerva’s Hymns of Faith in 3-D.  We instead have uncovered a blistering, too-too spicy duo of ‘adult movies,’  created for dirty old men in the prehistoric days before humanity was transformed by X-rated porn. The first show may…

Sinister stabbings, women kicked and beaten, perverse hoodlums selling cocaine and murdering street-beat bobbies: what happened to civilized English crime?   Cavalcanti’s vicious postwar Brit Noir shocked critics for The Times and was cut to ribbons for American distribution. A disillusioned, bored RAF hero turns to smuggling and skullduggery;  this fully restored crime classic gives…

Jacques Tourneur’s ‘big sky’ western gives us the beauty of Colorado mountains plus stunning color images (originally Technicolor) of his attractive cast: Robert Stack, Virginia Mayo, Ruth Roman. North-South antagonisms break out in Denver City, before the Civil War begins, and Robert Stack’s loner opportunist must choose a side. The WAC’s disc includes four Jacques…

Spirited Away Blu ray GKIDS/Shout! Factory 2001/ 1:85 / 125 min. Starring Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino Directed by Hayao Miyazaki The story of a lonely child lost in a beautiful and bizarre dreamscape, Spirited Away naturally begs comparison to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. But in contrast to those frenetic classics, Hayao…

Critics compare this sophisticated spy thriller to Carol Reed’s earlier Triumph set in Vienna with Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles — but it’s a different story altogether, not about black-market evil but the perils of moral compromise in a divided Berlin. James Mason and Claire Bloom are stunningly good together, in a moody suspense that’s…

Mean-spirited ‘Bad Movie’ satirists forget that production values aren’t everything, even if the collected works of Barry Mahon and Coleman Francis say otherwise. This threadbare backyard production has ‘endearing’ written all over it. I judge many independent movies to be like picture puzzles with pieces missing, and this one is missing a LOT of them….

‘Mission impossible’  escapism about high-stakes wartime sabotage looks at an authentic, dramatic episode of WW2 — the onslaught of futuristic V-Weapons on London — and then veers into fictional fantasy (think big explosions). George Peppard toughs it out to get free of his MGM contract. Lili Palmer and Barbara Rütting do the heavy lifting, while…

Italian horror from the early 1960s covers a wide range of quality, from eerie hauntings to tacky vampire romps. For one of his first major credits ace giallo scribe Ernesto Gastaldi cooks up Lycanthropus, a murder mystery in which the savage slashing is committed by a drooling maniac with a hairy face, wild eyes and…