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Superman Serials – The Complete 1948 & 1950 Collection
Theseries starred Noel Neill as reporter Lois Lane, Tommy Bond (the smirking bully Butch of the Our Gang comedies) as eager beaver…
Articles by Charlie Largent
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Frankenstein 1970
Color TVs, swimming pools and cars (especially cars). American culture of the 50s was fueled by desire for the newest status symbol…
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The Whole Town’s Talking
Overworked, under-appreciated and ever optimistic, Arthur Jones’ humdrum existence takes a turn for the weird when he returns home to find a…
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Hope and Crosby – The Road Pictures
Between 1940 and 1962, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby starred in seven “Road” pictures directed by such distinct talents as David Butler,…
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Cleopatra Jones
A good-natured if rickety assemblage of action movie cliches, Cleopatra Jones is dominated by two bigger than life actresses, Tamara Dobson and…
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The 50 Foot Art of Reynold Brown
Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung 2009, The Illustrated Press, Hardcover, 224pp. ,$39.95 – 2017,…
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Psyche 59
The story of a troubled marriage and a tenacious home wrecker, Psyche 59 is a Brigitte Bardot movie without Bardot – despite…
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The Admirable Crichton
True love and the British Empire collide in 1957’s The Admirable Crichton, the riches to rags story of one hard-to-get butler and…
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Audition
It could be described as lyrically sadistic but de Sade himself might flinch at Audition – like its fragile leading lady, Takashi…
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Tarzan Goes to India/Tarzan’s Three Challenges
Jane Goodall fell for Tarzan at an early age – ‘he married the wrong Jane’ she said, half joking. A confirmed tree-hugger,…
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Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper arrived in America with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for visiting royalty. Thanks to Joseph E. Levine’s million…
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In the Heat of the Night
The racial animus that roiled recent elections in Mississippi was a reminder of segregation’s cockroach-like resiliency in that state – it wasn’t…
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The Plague of the Zombies
Propping up one of Hammer Studios’ more visceral double-bills, John Gilling’s The Plague of the Zombies was released alongside Terence Fisher’s Dracula,…
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Popeye The Sailor: The 1940s Volume 1
The most animated of the great philosophers, Popeye relied on his fists to express his unapologetic mantra – “I am what I…
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Disney Classics on Blu ray
Treasure Island – 1950 Thanks to cinematographer Freddie Young and matte artist Peter Ellenshaw, 1950’s Treasure Island is a splendid translation of not…
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True Stories
A concert film filmed over four nights at the Pantages Theater in 1983, Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense has the redemptive quality…
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Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection
Mamie Van Doren, née Joan Lucille Olander, was born in Rowena, South Dakota in 1931. In 1942 the family relocated to Hollywood…
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The Best of The Three Stooges
Garden variety slapstick has always been fraught with physical peril but The Three Stooges took the concept to medieval levels, their persona…
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Sword of Sherwood Forest
The prime architect for the gothic horror revival of the 50’s, Hammer Studios began the next decade with a revival of the…
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William Castle at Columbia – Volume One
1959’s The Tingler was produced on the heels of House on Haunted Hill and once again the mayhem swirls around the darkly comic…
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The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler
In January of 1972 ABC broadcast the story of a middle-aged newsman hot on the trail of a vampire seemingly escaped from…
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Horrors of Malformed Men
The Toei Company made their mark in the 50s with a series of atmospheric horror films like Kinnosuke Fukada‘s Ghost Cat of…
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The Collector
German-born William Wyler was a storyteller who asked the audience not to understand him too quickly. A notorious perfectionist (Bette Davis credited…
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The Changeling
The success of 70’s shockers like The Devils, The Exorcist and Alien – grindhouse films in big budget drag – opened the door to…
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The Invisible Man Complete Legacy Collection
Paranoid, vengeful, with skin so thin you can see through it, The Invisible Man is the most nakedly neurotic of Universal’s classic…
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Strait-Jacket
The planets aligned in 1964 as William Castle’s Strait-Jacket premiered in January and Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp was published later that…