Once restored, old movies with ‘creaky’ reputations can yield surprising qualities, especially when the filmmaker is as earnest and creative as the great King Vidor. This English production sees the director engaged by the controversy of medical ethics. The approach may be emotional, but the film makes its points well. Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell and…
Italian maestro Luchino Visconti set the ’50s high mark for epic period reconstruction and historical authenticity. Alida Valli and Farley Granger’s doomed affair plays against a backdrop of civil war in the 1865 il Risorgimento. This new restoration brings out the feel of original Technicolor prints. It includes the English-language version, with dialogue written by…
Italy’s anarchic master thief gets a Covid-era trilogy of films that hew fairly closely to stories from the original Giussani comic books: Diabolik, Diabolik: Ginko Attacks!, Diabolik: Who Am I? It’s all very serious, literal and evenly paced, but can boast terrific art direction and a couple of intriguing characterizations. We’re impressed by the faithful…
A Warners reissue puts the cream of American gangster epics within easy reach, and at a better price. Robinson, Cagney and Bogart each found stardom in crime, just before the Production Code banned the genre outright. The four-disc set tells the rags-to-riches-to-gutter tales of Cesare Rico Bandello, Tom Powers, Duke Mantee and Cody Jarrett. That…
The second Quatermass adventure sees Brian Donlevy’s pushy Professor singlehandedly quash a totalitarian takeover of England in just 36 hours — an incredible interplanetary conspiracy! The most exciting chapter of the classic series is given a massive boxed set by the ‘new’ Hammer Films, a full five discs plus the entire original BBC serial and…
We’re always interested in movies about ships, and Lewis Gilbert’s accomplished Napoleonic battle epic is back in a Region B disc with some new extras. Alec Guinness’s captain is up against mutinous sailors and Dirk Bogarde’s troublemaking executive officer, a sadist who takes his anger out on the captain’s young son. With excellent visual effects…
Modest Z-picture Sci-fi groaners are an American staple, but this English effort is just as desperate. Landing on a moon of Jupiter, Astronauts find a verdant valley just like England, and encounter an Atlantean society with nymphs that dance to Borodin. We watched it 20 times as kids, and it never made much sense; perhaps…
William Inge’s intense drama of teenage angst comes to HD with rich Technicolor hues. Elia Kazan’s film has only improved, with performances that couldn’t be bettered. For Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty’s Deanie and Bud, sexual suppression leads to emotional hysteria, all against a 1929 backdrop of prohibition and a stock market boom. Pat Hingle,…
Is he a feisty French everyman or a selfish jerk?  :Are we talking about the fictional character Antoine Doinel, or the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud? François Truffaut hit on a genuine New Wave breakthrough, combining drama with ‘interview’ material, but soon proceeded to thrillers and dramas in a standard no-nouvelle vague format. Criterion assembled DVDs of…
Resuming his career after WW2, George Stevens assumed the mantle of Hollywood’s most serious producer-director. His ‘super-western’ is a beautiful piece of filmmaking with an optimistic view of American virtues in conflict. It’s a visual delight, and a genre throwback to unrealistic fights and a hero who may as well be the god of Pioneer…
Howard Hughes’ meddling fingerprints are all over this resort-set noir thriller. Even with RKO’s dynamite stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell above the title, the mogul’s endless rewrites and re-shoots guaranteed that it couldn’t earn a profit. Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw and Raymond Burr toil in a show split between light comedy and…
When the big boss croaks, veepees maneuver to take the top slot in a furniture company. Ernest Lehman’s first big screenplay was brought to the screen by Robert Wise and a cast of All Stars: William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, Walter Pidgeon, Shelley Winters, Paul Douglas, Louis Calhern, Dean Jagger and Nina…
Crime fighting gets personal in Fritz Lang’s progressive police vengeance saga. It’s Glenn Ford as an ex-cop against the mob, and his only assists come from a doomed bargirl, a handicapped woman, and the moll of mobster Lee Marvin. Every scene has tension or implied violence, much of it directed toward women. It was a…
Mario Bava’s big-scale fumetti adaptation hits 4K, an event of major interest in the fantasy fan-scape. John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell and Terry-Thomas are as brilliant as ever, and Ultra HD makes the picture even brighter and sharper. Ennio Morricone’s music is still a delight — the movie doubles as a psychedelic concert. Paramount or…
Let’s clear up a common misconception. Unlike The Blob, ‘The Stuff’ doesn’t eat you. You Eat It … and then it eats you! Larry Cohen takes a page from Professor Quatermass for this satirical slap at blind consumerism and unregulated commerce, in a thriller packed with ooky glob-monsters and people hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins….
And now for something completely different — an art-film creation that’s a surreal delight. Jean-François Laguionie’s allegorical animated fable extends what conventional, ‘organic’ animation could do in 1985. The still images alone fire the imagination. It’s an art-house short subject writ large, that we’re grateful to have seen, especially so handsomely remastered in 4K Ultra…
Reissued for the delight of ’80s horror fans is Tibor Takács’ and Randall William Cook’s ode to bibliophile terror, subcategory facial mutilation. David Chakin’s screenplay allows a demented anti-hero from a scary book to invade our reality: Malcolm Brand gives himself a surgical mix-match appearance by straight-razoring features from the faces of his victims. The…
We didn’t know that this seven-season success had racked up so many ‘TV firsts’ on its scoreboard. Clint Walker clicked with America as a roving cowboy do-gooder, solving problems and perforating bad guys on a tri-weekly basis. The series is now more impressive in this deluxe remaster; Warners entreé into broadcast TV emphasized quality in…
Take a cinematic trip 2,500 miles into the depths of the Earth, courtesy of a Cold War- era retelling of Jules Verne. Seven scientists search for a haven from the coming nuclear holocaust ‘deep deep down’ by traveling in a drilling submarine-tank they call a Cyclotram. Produced by effects specialists Jack Rabin and Irving Block,…
A second 4K release for the Billy Wilder-I.A.L. Diamond classic? Yes, but the advantage goes to the extras, which include unique input from the stars and especially the director. It’s a career best show for Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis give everything they’ve got to a pair of cross-dressing musicians, roles that…
What a terrible title … but it does describe a playwright’s effort to solve the ‘Ireland problem’ with a single cheerful thriller about anti-English terrorism during World War 2. Basil Dearden’s direction is mostly good, and we love the cast: John Mills, Dirk Bogarde, Elizabeth Sellars, Robert Beatty, Barbara Mullen, Eddie Byrne, Joseph Tomelty, Liam…
This gem is too charming to ever become old or creaky; a new viewing confirms it as a pleasing confection for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, a fairy tale with a slightly caustic edge. Filmmaker Billy Wilder caught a lot of flak for ‘brutalizing’ his actresses, when he’s really a romantic softie … with a…
Steven Soderbergh fashions a thinking-fan’s spy picture about the hunt for a traitor among a group of agents that socialize together. Married agents Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender are a warm couple in a ‘cool’ business, with a domestic arrangement that allows for ‘professional mistrust’ … neither can be expected to trust anyone on faith…
This gem of a romantic comedy is as fresh now as it was 86 years ago. Mitchell Leisen’s lightest farce is also a comic triumph for the writing team of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore and Mary Astor make the most of delightful characters and a vivid Paris created…
What a surprise … an early sound western that’s solid gold genre entertainment. John Huston adapted W.R. Burnett’s violent retelling of the Wyatt Earp story without an ounce of moralizing. Walter Huston is magnificent as the lawman ‘Saint Johnson,’ a town-taming killer who can’t abide thugs and despots. The show is serious, and so is…
Filmed in the high MGM style, this polished tragic romance stars Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young as Germans having a rough time in the 1920s Weimar Republic, while Margaret Sullavan’s disillusioned beauty succumbs to a dreaded Movie Disease. It is also a prime example of the negative effect of Hollywood’s Production Code. MGM…