Welcome to the weird, irresistible world of Republic Serials, an art form with rules of content and conduct that resemble no other movies, nor any reality we know. “The Phantom Ruler” has plans for world conquest, so get ready for a punch-out every five minutes and a terrific Lydecker miniature special effect in almost every…
Get your beret and warm up the espresso! Some of the most famous deep-dish art film is here — in HD — from 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….
Take a trip into political art history: the state-run East German film company DEFA uses the experiences of Communist artists to promote the party line and educate young people on the sacrifices of the past. Some of the personal stories are incredible, and the art covered is indeed very impressive — writers, illustrators, a…
Scream favorites Vincent Price and Christopher Lee become tangled in an African curse, grave robbing, a premature burial and a clutch of throat-slashings — yet the two stars have no real scenes together. Steve Haberman’s well-researched and insightful commentary tells the story of Gordon Hessler’s first production for the English arm of American-International Pictures, a…
The latest release of Lon Chaney’s most famous silent classic is a Blu-ray, which allows us to marvel at at the actor’s artistry in a beautifully tinted HD image. Erik the Phantom is one of the two or three greatest fantasy makeup performances of all time. The release has three separate encodings, of different…
What would seem the perfect project for tough-guy director Robert Aldrich still commands a high reputation with some. Ambitious top-dog hobo Lee Marvin squares off against Ernest Borgnine’s nearly demonic railroad conductor who routinely murders bums that dare to hitch a ride. The mayhem culminates in a battle on a moving flat car, between Ernie’s…
The advertising promised a surfeit of sleaze — but the film is a superior thriller about a real-life, low-rent serial killers from back in the late 1940s. Tony Lo Bianco and the great Shirley Stoler are Ray and Martha, mixed-up lovers running a Merry Widow racket through the personals ads in romance magazines. Leonard Kastle’s…
Techno-thriller fans have been waiting a long time for a good disc of action ace John Sturges’ sci-fi espionage suspenser. George Maharis, Richard Basehart, Anne Francis and Dana Andrews must stop a madman who has snatched a full set of deadly bio-warfare viruses from a super-secret government lab. Each flask can wipe out an entire…
Robert Enrico’s literally searing terror tale from the French occupation is not for the faint of heart. Fearing reprisals, surgeon Philippe Noiret sends his wife Romy Schneider out of harm’s way of the retreating Germans — but things go horribly wrong. What follows is an ordeal of vengeance even more brutal than Straw Dogs,…
First-time director Richard Wilson’s B&W ’50s western is different. Robert Mitchum is on-task as a town tamer with believable problems, both in exterminating gunslingers Claude Akins and Leo Gordon, and with making peace with his estranged wife, Jan Sterling. That’s not to mention Mitchum’s attraction for pacifist Karen Sharpe, and ditzy showgirl Barbara Lawrence. And…
Brian Trenchard-Smith’s outrageous futuristic gore-fest imagines an Australian extermination camp run by the sadistic Michael Craig and Roger Ward, where jaded rich folk come to hunt human prey. The leading targets for this week’s jaunt are Steve Railsback and Olivia Hussey. It is snarky? Is it subversive? An alternate title was Blood Camp Thatcher! Turkey…
John Huston sets the bar for director-driven quality filmmaking of the early 1970s. Stacy Keach is a punchy boxing bum who teams up with the ambitious newcomer Jeff Bridges; the glowing discovery is the amazing Susan Tyrell, film history’s most convincingly caustic floozy-alcoholic, bar none. Her voice can peel paint, but we love her dearly….
How did this sneak by? It’s a combo escapist spy story, engrossing soap opera, and historically accurate Cold War flashback to the time of Duran Duran and Blondie, produced in Germany with a great cast of young and/or unfamiliar actors. Sure, the expected unlikelihoods are there, but so is an essential authenticity. Great fun! Deutschland…
Shaggy maniac Neville Brand was born on the bayou. He lives by his high morals and so just can’t resist feeding random visitors to his gargantuan crocodile. If they resist that idea, he uses a giant scythe for a persuader. Tobe Hooper’s sopho-gore feature boasts several name stars, plus, in this new edition, a brightly colored, picture-perfect…
Bruce Beresford says that by 1980 most Australians had forgotten that their countrymen had fought in the Boer War, and this scathing condemnation of England’s scapegoating of commonwealth volunteers had a big impact. Stars Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown front a protest from the past, in one of the most respected Aussie Renaissance…
It was a winner right out of the starting gate, an instant classic that’s still a pleasure for the eyes and ears. Carroll Ballard and Caleb Deschanel’s marvel of a storybook movie has yet to be surpassed, with a boy-horse story that seems to be taking place in The Garden of Eden. The Black…
Steve McQueen spent most of the 1960s avoiding lightweight movie roles — only to do well with his winning comedy-drama performance in William Faulkner’s most cheerful tale of old Mississippi. Get set for music by John Williams and an exciting climactic horse race. In storytelling terms this show would seem to have given Steven Spielberg a…
Let’s hear it for the great westerns — not the Ford and Hawks classics, but the fascinating marginal gems that see The West in a different way. Do you like Sam Peckinpah? Robert Parrish’s evocation of Texas and Mexico in the 1880s will be pleasantly familiar — a testing ground for personal codes and shifting…
Who needs epics about Ancient Rome, Egypt, or Greek mythology when we have a thousand years of exotic Central and South American civilizations to exploit? Well, it’s only been done a handful of times. This cinematic concatenation of nifty architecture, fruity multicolored headgear and athletic oiled warriors is, well, nifty, fruity and athletic! Kings of the Sun…
Animal movies aren’t just for kids anymore, but nobody made one better than this French production, which stars a pair of talented Ursine thespians doing their thing amid more beautiful mountain scenery than seems decent. It’s guaranteed perfect ‘watch something with the kid’ material, and more than intelligent enough for consenting adult fans of the great…
Forget English soap operas about upstairs and downstairs upheavals, Yoji Yamada’s chronicle of a life in the little Tokyo house with the little red roof is an emotional grabber. It’s the war years of patriotic acquiescence and home-front selfishness — and a secret, forbidden romance. The Little House (Chiisai ouchi) Twilight Time Savant Blu-ray Review Limited Edition…
There’s one ironclad rule for mad scientist movies: if you show a monstrous caged ape-creature in the first act, that ape-creature must absolutely break loose and wreak havoc before the end of Act III. It makes no difference if the film is being made on Gower Gulch, or at Germany’s prestigious UfA Studios. Just ask George Zucco or…
Viewers expecting to see a lighthearted ‘Cisco Kid’ swashbuckler got a surprise with William Wellman’s movie: it’s a tragedy about a genuine historical California bandit who may have been an outlaw terrorist, avenging murderous discrimination against Mexican-Americans in the Gold Rush days. Hangings, rape and massacres — not your average popcorn matinee fare for 1936….
How does one make a movie about a hot-button political topic that’s divided the nation for sixty years? And if the facts of the case aren’t fully known, how can one be sure that some news revelation won’t reach back and make your well-meaning film play like a stack of lies? E. L. Doctorow and Sidney Lumet…
As far as Hollywood was concerned, hardboiled pulp author Raymond Chandler was big news in 1944 and 1945, working with Billy Wilder on the Production Code breakthrough hit Double Indemnity, and getting two of his popular Philip Marlowe books transposed to the screen — and not completely shorn of their racy content. Savant Blu-ray Review The Warner Archive Collection Warner…
We’ve all wished we could change our appearance to attract some desired object of our affections. Demented Malcolm Brand takes the notion seriously. Since his face doesn’t charm lovely Virginia, he’ll make himself a new one — stealing facial features from Virginia’s favorite friends. With a straight razor. I, Madman Savant Blu-ray Review Scream (Shout!) Factory 1989 / Color…