News

Cate Blanchett has received a symphony of praise from critics for her starring role in Todd Fields’ “Tar”and as a strong-willed orchestra conductor. Lydia Tar speaks her mind whether making a fool out of a conducting student at Juilliard or threatening a young girl bullying her daughter at school. But Tar’s diva-tude has nothing on the Sir Alfred de Carter (Rex Harrison) the famed conductor with an ego as big as the Ritz in writer/director/producer Preston Sturges’ hilarious dark 1948 comedy “Unfaithfully Yours.”

Sturges had had an incredible run at Paramount with his brilliant comedies: 1940’s “The Great McGinty,” for which he won the original screenplay Oscar and “Christmas in July”; 1941’s “The Lady Eve” and “Sullivan’s Travels”; 1942’s “The Palm Beach Story”; and 1944’s “The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek” and “Hail the Conquering Hero.” But then came many clashes with Paramount executives, the 1944 critical...

Righteous propaganda fuels the patriotic fire: Lewis Milestone and Robert Rossen’s blood-soaked ode to Norwegian resistance goes way over the top. These Norsemen and Norsewomen take up arms to fight their Nazi occupiers tooth and nail. Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan star; some of Hollywood’s best partake of the rah-rah celebration of suicidal vengeance: Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine, Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon, John Beal, Morris Carnovsky, Charles Dingle, Roman Bohnen, Richard Fraser, Art Smith, and a very young Virginia Christine. We’re all anti-Fascist freedom fighters on this bus!

Edge of Darkness

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 119 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date January 18, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine, Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon, John Beal, Morris Carnovsky, Charles Dingle, Roman Bohnen, Richard Fraser, Art Smith, Monte Blue, Henry Brandon, Virginia Christine, Tom Fadden, Kurt Katch, Kurt Kreuger,...

Roger Corman’s ferocious gangster epic (more squibs!) bounces back in a UK Region B edition, noisier and bloodier than ever. Jason Robards, George Segal, Ralph Meeker and a couple of dozen top-notch hoods replay the ugly events that led up to the notorious 1929 gangland slaying — which now almost seems tame — where gun massacres are concerned, today ‘Every Day Is a Holiday.’

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 100 min. / Street Date April 30, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring Jason Robards, George Segal, Ralph Meeker, Jean Hale, Frank Silvera, Joseph Campanella, Richard Bakalyan, David Canary, Bruce Dern, Harold J. Stone, Kurt Kreuger, Joe Turkel, John Agar, Celia Lovsky, Tom Reese, Jan Merlin,Alex D’Arcy, Reed Hadley, Gus Trikonis, Charles Dierkop, Alex Rocco, Leo Gordon, Russ Conway, Jonathan Haze, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Jack Nicholson, Joan Shawlee.

Cinematography Milton Krasner

Art Direction Philip Jefferies,...

“Grand Hotel. Nazis come. Nazis go. Nothing ever happens.” That’s a paraphrase from 1932’s Grand Hotel, indicating that the hallowed halls once occupied by Greta Garbo are now overrun with Warner Bros. contract players. As defeat looms, German officers, crooks, fugitives and ordinary citizens fumble for a way to survive. Writer and fervent anti-fascist Alvah Bessie almost didn’t — he would later be politically scourged as a member of The Hollywood Ten. Get set for a soap opera with swastikas.

Hotel Berlin

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 98 min. / Street Date March 6, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Alan Hale, George Coulouris, Henry Daniell, Peter Whitney, Helen Thimig, Steven Geray, Kurt Kreuger, Erwin Kalser, Torben Meyer, Jay Novello, Frank Reicher, John Wengraf.

Cinematography: Carl Guthrie

Film Editor: Frederick Richards

Original Music: Franz Waxman

Written by Alvah Bessie,...

Fear

Written by Sergio Amidei and Franz von Treuberg

Directed by Roberto Rossellini

German/Italy, 1954

The moral furor that erupted when Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman began their much-condemned affair in 1950 did not, thankfully, hinder their productivity or their creativity. Despite the outrage, the two embarked on a cinematic collaboration that produced a series of excellent films in a relatively short period of time. While their marriage lasted until 1957, their final feature together was Fear (1954), out now on a new DVD from the British Film Institute. Though the film’s home video release is a welcome one—any Rossellini film made available is a good thing—the film itself pales in comparison to their earlier efforts.

Just as he had on many of his brother’s films, Renzo Rossellini provides the score, which here is instantly redolent with the sounds of a thriller. The opening likewise looks as if it’s a standard film noir,...

'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...

Dark Corner

Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Jay Dratler

Directed by Henry Hathaway

USA, 1946

Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) is a private investigator with a modest office in Manhattan. His only help is in the shape of his trusty and charismatic receptionist Kathleen (Lucille Ball). One evening after a day’s work, Brad convinces Kathleen to spend the evening with him, not too difficult a feat given that she fancies her employer. When perusing the games at a carnival, it comes to their attention that a tough-looking man dressed in a shiny white suit (William Bendix) is tailing them. One thing leads to another (including an attempt on Brad’s life) until the private dick gets his tail to fess up his employer. It turns out Brad’s former partner and now lawyer Tony Jardine (Kurt Kreuger) is keeping tabs on him. What neither Brad nor Tony know, however, is...

Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...

Kurt Kreuger, a Swiss-German actor often cast as a Nazi officer in World War II movies and who later became a realtor, has died. He was 89. Kreuger died on July 12 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a stroke, according to his friend Lynne Riehman. The actor was born in Michenberg, Germany and was raised in Switzerland. In the 1950s, he appeared in more than 20 films, including Mademoiselle Fifi, his first major role. Kreuger's good looks made him 20th Century Fox's third most-requested male pin-up photo. Although he tried to break free from his stereotyped image, Kreuger was frustrated by the studio, who refused to cast him in different types of roles. He moved to Europe in the 1950s where he appeared in German films. His last film was The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, released in 1967. After acting on television through the 1960s, Kreuger became a successful realtor in Beverly Hills, California.