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William Holden may have won his only Academy Award for Billy Wilder’s “Stalag 17,” but he wasn’t the first choice to play Sefton, the cynical sergeant who is a one-man black market at a German Pow camp. Originally, Charlton Heston was going to headline the film. Heston was red-hot at the time coming off his flashy starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar winning 1952 circus epic “The Great Show on Earth.” But as Wilder and co-writer Edwin Blum were working on the script for the film, which premiered on July 1, 1953 in New York and two weeks later in Los Angeles, the character became darker and more disparaging; They realized Heston wasn’t right for the part

The AFI catalog noted that supposedly Wilder went to Kirk Douglas who had starred in Wilder’s 1951 “Ace in the Hole,” a masterpiece that flopped badly when released. After he turned...

Thrillers from the Vault – 8 Classic Films

Blu-ray

Mill Creek Entertainment

1941, 1942, 1943, 1951 / B&w / 1.33: 1 / Blu ray

Starring Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi

Written by Robert Andrews, Edwin Blum, Randall Faye, Arch Oboler

Directed by Edward Dmytryk, Lew Landers, Arch Oboler

This is part two of a review for Mill Creek Entertainment’s Thrillers from the Vault, 8 Classics Films. Part one can be found here.

The Devil Commands is a hell of a title, and it’s a pretty good movie too. Released in 1941, Edward Dmytryk’s spookfest stars Boris Karloff as Julian Blair, a scientist whose experiments are a family affair—his wife Helen is one of his subjects.

Blair achieves his goal—a machine that records thought processes—but on a night he should be celebrating, his wife is killed in a car crash. Something breaks inside Blair and when he discovers that Helen may continue to live on through his invention,...

As we continue with the list, we still see a lot of World War II, but throw in some World War I and Persian Gulf War, too. While some of the films in this portion of the list spin the war film into something a little more ingenious, it doesn’t completely rule out the idea of a patriotic call to arms film. We also see a few more foreign language films on the list, as well as some Oscar winners for their work. Without further ado, let’s light this candle.

courtesy of toutlecine.com

30. Black Book (2006)

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Conflict: World War II

In 2008, the Dutch public named it the greatest Dutch film ever made. Who am I to argue? A surprisingly complete film from a director who has Showgirls and Hollow Man under his belt (and Starship Troopers and Robocop…I can’t be too hard...