Epics — everybody wants to make them but the studios are naturally wary. Richard Attenborough’s ode to the youthful ambitions of Sir Winston Churchill was a big hit in England but didn’t make a dent here. Although a dead ringer for the young Winston, Simon Ward didn’t take off as a star either, leaving Anne…

Once upon a time, MGM launched a big spectacle Western remake with the top star Glenn Ford and the bright import Maria Schell — and then second-guessed the whole production, cutting back on everything so severely that director Anthony Mann ankled the set for Spain and El Cid. The storytelling is a mess — after…

Viy Blu ray Severin Films 1967/ 1:37:1 / 78 min. Starring Leonid Kuravlyov,Natalya Varley Directed by Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov Anything can happen in a horror movie and that was one of the reasons despots from Stalin to Khrushchev banned the genre from their homeland for the better part of a century. Education and propaganda,…

Why do we like horror and monster movies that routinely get labeled as ‘bad?’  Because many of them have great story ideas and look at the world from odd, warped viewpoints. Back when ‘warped’ wasn’t a prerequisite for ALL filmed entertainment (my exaggeration) this murderous rejuvenation tale could be appreciated as something unusual, even quirky….

He’s mean, he’s nasty, he carries a razor and he’s dating your sister! Cosh Boy was front & center in 1953 debates about ‘what’s wrong with the British cinema.’ It holds up well, if not as PC social comment, then as solid exploitation fare, with our verminous hero putting the moves on tough-but-vulnerable local girl…

Cobra Woman Blu ray Kino Lorber 1944/ 1:33 / 71 min. Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu Directed by Robert Siodmak In the early 40’s Universal Pictures was still best known for its shadowy black and white horror shows. That all changed in 1944 when the studio produced the kind of candy-colored dreamland not seen…

Much of Ealing Studios’ core appeal begins right here, with T.E.B. Clarke’s astute look at the character of pragmatic, energetic Londoners, who in this fantasy face an outrageous situation with spirit, pluck, and a determination not to be cheated. What happens when a few square blocks of London discover that they’re no longer even part…

It may be a little creaky, but Dr. Cyclops is a genuine classic of the imagination, from a time long before pulp fantasy dominated Hollywood filmmaking. For 1940 audiences this must have felt like a strange dream. Five humans are miniaturized and terrorized by Albert Dekker’s Dr. Thorkel, a card-carrying mad scientist. Held firm by…

Marlon Brando is back in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending. The cameraman is Boris Kaufman and the director is Sidney Lumet; Marlon’s a classic tomcat drifter in a dangerous parish, who attracts two women. Acting styles mesh, or mix without blending — Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward each get opportunities to shine….

Two givens for Los Angeles living in 1969: perpetual driving around listening to the radio, and stereo cartridge needles dropping onto record grooves. Those things were the basics of our existence!  CineSavant closes out his pre-Christmas cheer with his favorite picture of ’19. It’s possibly Quentin Tarantino’s best. Yes, yes I know it has that…

They say you Can’t Go Home Again, but Francis Coppola has pulled a real magic trick — his 1984 gangland musical ended up heavily compromised by outright racism producers that didn’t like the half of the story that favored a black show-biz drama. All the gangster action has been retained in this impressive Encore recut,…

One could be forgiven for not suspecting that Hammer Films, known for their comparatively lurid and bloody, sometimes pointedly lusty, and otherwise vividly imagined (and reimagined) catalogue of horror classics, would be the first place to look if one were in the market for a low-key yet spirited take on a holiday classic to turn…

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh Blu ray Disney Movie Club 1964/ 1:66 / 151 min. Starring Patrick McGoohan, George Cole, Michael Hordern Directed by James Neilson One part Walt Disney, one part Patrick McGoohan – a bittersweet recipe if ever there was one. The notoriously brusque Irishman was immune to the crowd-pleasing sentimentality that shaped…

Back in the early 1970s I was crazy about Depression-Era Warner Bros. movies, that weren’t being shown on TV or anywhere else. In that climate of deprivation, a documentary that used movie film clips from the period felt extremely fresh and new. Philippe Mora’s picture sees 1930s America through the movies, through music, and the…

There never has been (nor will there ever be) anything quite like Beetlejuice, that inimitable horror comedy concoction hailing from the demented brains of screenwriter Michael McDowell, plus writer/producer Larry Wilson and script doctor extraordinaire Warren Skaaren, filtered through the wacky gothic lens of director Tim Burton. To celebrate Beetlejuice’s Los Angeles return to the…

Noir Nirvana isn’t found amid literary swells and hoity-toity art connoisseurs — but in the trenches of humble Eagle-Lion Films, where Richard Fleischer, Lloyd Bridges and a hotter-than-hot Barbara Payton steamed up the streets of Los Angeles circa 1949. The Film Noir Foundation experts give us an expertly curated slice of hardboiled crime — Eddie…

In the fall of ‘64, while Hollywood was gently satirizing the battle of the sexes with Send Me No Flowers and What a Way to Go!, Europe was at work in the trenches, peppering art houses with piercing dramas like François Truffaut‘s The Soft Skin and André Cayatte’s dual release, Anatomy of a Marriage: My Nights…

Remember those DVD collections organized by star, that combined favorite actors’ big movies with good titles you might not have seen?  Shout Select has gone that route in honor of the great Anne Bancroft, collecting eight titles in one box. They span the years 1952 to 1989 … and are sourced from multiple studios and…

Scottish director Bill Forsyth has a strange way, one for which audiences should be eternally grateful, of delivering a symphony of melancholy notes which register in his movies with a sort of blithe exhilaration instead of the customary patina of hopelessness they perhaps might otherwise be subject to in the hands of another filmmaker. One…

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc…

Ah yes, we have a winner for the best ‘Comfort Food Movie’ of them all. When a trailer for this show popped up at a screening of The Farewell back in August, I heard gasps of excitement from the (slightly older-skewing) audience, as if everyone’s favorite relatives were coming back to town. Loyal fans of…

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…