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A Time for Killing is a 1967 Western film that is more of a grim look at war and revenge than it is a rollicking shootout in the American frontier. Also known as The Long Ride Home, A Time For Killing is a Civil War Western set in a Union prisoner-of-war camp near the Mexican border where Major Tom Wolcott (Glenn Ford) is in charge of an inept group of Union guards and scheming Confederate prisoners. The prisoners are led by Captain Dorrit Bentley (George Hamilton), a Southern gentleman who is not as gallant as he would like to believe.

Along with being Harrison Ford's first credited movie role as Lt. Shaffer, A Time for Killing is best known for switching directors early in production. The film was first set to be directed by B-movie legend, Roger Corman, who left after reported fights with Columbia Studios, who grew frustrated with...

Ever feel like you’ve stumbled upon a treasure trove but have no map to find more of the gold? That’s exactly how fans of Rebel Ridge are feeling these days—absolutely smitten by Jeremy Saulnier’s Netflix gem, but stumped on what to watch next.

Don Johnson and Aaron Pierre in Rebel Ridge | Credit: Netflix

Is it the unique blend of legal conspiracy and payback action that makes Rebel Ridge so addictive? This film truly stands out as one of Netflix’s finest. It offers a fresh take on the classic revenge narrative, featuring a breakout performance from Pierre, and showcases the director’s talent for ramping up the tension like no one else.

If you’ve recently treated yourself to Rebel Ridge and are on the hunt for more cinematic gems with a similar vibe, you’re in luck! We’ve put together a list that’ll...

Kathryn Crosby, who starred in such films as Operation Mad Ball, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Anatomy of a Murder before she curtailed her acting career as the wife of Hollywood legend Bing Crosby, has died. She was 90.

Crosby died peacefully at her home in Hillsborough, California, surrounded by her family, according to a family spokesperson.

Billed under her stage name, Kathryn Grant, the Houston native made five features for famed film noir director Phil Karlson, including Tight Spot (1955), The Phenix City Story (1955) and The Brothers Rico (1957).

She also played the younger sister of Martha Hyer’s character in another film noir, the Blake Edwards-directed Mister Cory (1957), starring Tony Curtis, and portrayed a budding trapeze artist in The Big Circus (1959), starring Victor Mature.

Soon after wrapping production in Spain with her turn as the damsel in distress Princess Parisa in the Ray Harryhausen fantasy The 7th Voyage of Sinbad...

Phil Karlson’s 99 River Street is, along with Kansas City Confidential, an exemplar of the director’s brutal, cynical, economical approach to noir. We first meet boxer Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) in the middle of a heavyweight title fight, in which his potential victory is hijacked by a knockdown that leaves him bleeding from a huge cut above his eye. Only then is it slyly revealed that the fight is a replay on TV, which Driscoll has been poring over, as if trying to grasp the opportunity that escaped him four years earlier, while his bitter, disapproving wife, Pauline (Peggy Castle), snaps at him to finish his dinner.

It’s clear that Ernie hasn’t recovered from that career-ending knockout, but he still figures on getting himself a gas station one day, or maybe he’ll knock Pauline up, using a box of chocolates as bait—advice from his former...

The Criterion Channel has unveiled its streaming lineup for August 2024, which features an eclectic mix of independent films showcasing the work of auteurs from around the world.

The boutique service will become the exclusive streaming home of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 comedy “Licorice Pizza,” and will celebrate the occasion by adding four more of his films to the channel: “The Master,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “Magnolia.” Anderson’s frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman will additionally be celebrated on the streaming service as part of a larger retrospective. Many of the late actor’s most iconic roles, including “Capote” and “Synecdoche, New York,” will be included, along with his sole directorial outing “Jack Goes Boating.”

The channel will also highlight several other prominent filmmakers including Preston Sturges, who helped pioneer the modern rom-com through films like “The Lady Eve” and “The Palm Beach Story,” and prolific Egyptian auteur Youssef Chahine.

The Criterion Channel’s August lineup pays tribute to auteurs of all kinds: directors, actors, and photographers, fictional or otherwise. In a notable act of preservation and advocacy, they’ll stream 20 titles by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, here introduced by the great Richard Peña. More known (but fun all the same) is a five-title Paul Thomas Anderson series including the exclusive stream of Licorice Pizza, as well as a Philip Seymour Hoffman series that overlaps with Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love (a Criterion Edition this month), and The Master, plus 25th Hour, Love Liza, and his own directing effort Jack Goes Boating. Preston Sturges gets five movies, with Sullivan’s Travels arriving in October.

Theme-wise, a photographer series includes Rear Window, Peeping Tom, Blow-up, Close-Up, and Clouzot’s La prisonnière; “Vacation Noir” features The Lady from Shanghai, Brighton Rock, Kansas City Confidential, Purple Noon, and La piscine. Alongside the aforementioned PTA and Antonioni pictures,...

“You know you can watch that at home, right?” Such was the advice directed my way by a wisecracking passerby while queued up for a screening at the 2024 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood, California. They were clearly not a festival passholder, but the indifference heard right there on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was another instance of the trampling of history that both the festival and its parent channel aim to counter.

Probably the most even-handed response to that trampling would be a reminder—to flip a well-known phrase—that a home is not a house (not a movie house anyway). The folks who flock to Los Angeles every year from all over the world to attend this festival, probably all subscribers or rabid devotees of the channel that bears its name, cough up a prodigious amount of money to do so. It’s clear that for them,...

Phil Karlson’s The Scarface Mob was originally made as a two-part pilot for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse anthology series before the 80-minute episodes were re-cut for theatrical release. Given the sterility of so much dramatic television in the 1950s, it’s hard to imagine Karlson—best known for hard-hitting noirs like Kansas City Confidential and The Phenix City Story—seeing the format as suitable for his style. But Desi Arnaz, a huge admirer of the latter film, promised Karlson no studio interference. And while The Scarface Mob’s story presents a clear battle between good and evil in the form of Eliot Ness (Robert Stack) and Al Capone’s (Neville Brand) Chicago bootlegging empire, Karlson’s gritty brutality finds its way on-screen as the film conflates the maniacal ruthlessness of both men’s actions.

Stack’s performance went a long way in cementing Ness’s legacy in the public imagination.

"A Time For Killing" (also called "The Long Ride Home") isn't one of the best Westerns of all time, nor is it the most memorable, but the 1967 film still comes up in conversation thanks to its unique status as the very first movie role Harrison Ford was ever credited in. Ford played a young, sideburn-wearing Union soldier in the film, which followed the exploits of a group of captured Confederate soldiers on a mad dash for Mexico — none of whom realize the war has officially ended.

Aside from Ford's debut as Lieutenant Shaffer (for which he was credited as Harrison J. Ford), "A Time For Killing" is most noteworthy for its status as an abandoned Roger Corman flick. Corman started making "A Time For Killing" after already churning out cult classics like "A Bucket of Blood" and "The Little Shop of Horrors," but the low-budget filmmaker was replaced by "99 River Street...

Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, has faced criticism for the control he exercised over the singer. According to members of Elvis’ entourage, he also exercised control over them. They claimed Parker was able to put them in a state of hypnosis and used it to control their behavior.

Elvis’ manager used hypnosis on the singer’s entourage

Parker had the ability to hypnotize people, a skill he used frequently on members of Elvis’ entourage.

“He had a thing where he would hypnotize me and get me to do crazy things,” bodyguard Sonny West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Now, I wasn’t in a trance and I knew what I was doing, but I did them just the same, some really nutty things that always had people in stitches. I would just do whatever he told me. I was hypnotized.”

Colonel Tom Parker...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures with an expansive retrospective titled The Lady with the Torch, mounted in collaboration with the studio’s parent company, Sony.

Organized in partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse, The Lady with the Torch will be curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual festival in Bologna dedicated to film history and film restoration. The official unveiling will take place at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Locarno has said the retrospective will present the studio in “all its glory,” shining a light on lesser-known genre filmmakers like Max Nosseck, Seymour Friedman, and William A. Seiter, as well as celebrating auteurs like Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Ford. After launching at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, running August 7-17, the retrospective will tour the world. The Retrospective will...

11 years before Harrison Ford hit the hyperdrive to stardom via George Lucas' "Star Wars," he made his amusingly unassuming big-screen debut in the James Coburn vehicle "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round." Directed by Bernard Girard, the film is a standard-issue con-man yarn designed to go as far as Coburn's considerable charm will take it and not an inch further. If you enjoy watching Coburn be Coburn, it's diverting enough, but the only reason it's at all notable today is for Ford's 30-second appearance as a bellboy.

This bit part was a test run of sorts for Ford, who'd joined Columbia Pictures' New Talent Program a year prior. By 1965, studios were getting out of the talent-development business, an old-fashioned system that required performers to report to the set every weekday in a suit or dress, and busy themselves with acting classes and promotional photoshoots. Ford was hardly a standout amongst his peers,...

As 2021 mercifully winds down, the Criterion Channel have a (November) lineup that marks one of their most diverse selections in some time—films by the new masters Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Garrett Bradley, Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen (one of 2020’s best films) couched in a fantastic retrospective, and Criterion editions of old favorites.

Fourteen is featured in “Between Us Girls: Bonds Between Women,” which also includes Céline and Julie, The Virgin Suicides, and Yvonne Rainer’s Privilege. Of equal note are Criterion editions for Ghost World, Night of the Hunter, and (just in time for del Toro’s spin) Nightmare Alley—all stacked releases in their own right.

See the full list of October titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

300 Nassau, Marina Lameiro, 2015

5 Card Stud, Henry Hathaway, 1968

Alone, Garrett Bradley, 2017

Álvaro, Daniel Wilson, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandra Lazarowich, and Chloe Zimmerman, 2015

America, Garrett Bradley, 2019

Angel Face, Otto Preminger, 1953

Angels Wear White,...

Powerhouse Indicator moves forward to their fourth fancy box of noirs from the studio of Harry Cohn, six pictures stretching from the postwar boom to the end of the original classic noir era. This time around we have some notable directors, and a nice selection of stars — Dennis O’Keefe, George Murphy, Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun and Richard Conte. Kim Novak makes her starring debut as a femme fatale; noir icon Richard Conte shines in a movie that marks a turn into a new kind of existential, paranoid thriller. And speaking of paranoid, we again get to lighten up with another selection of theme-appropriate Three Stooges shorts.

Columbia Noir #4

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1948-1957 / B&w + Color / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / Street Date September 27, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / 49.99

Starring: Louis Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe; George Murphy; Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak; Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun; Dennis O’Keefe,...

Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is no stranger to heist movies. Remember 1998’s “Out of Sight,” 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven” and 2017’s “Logan Lucky”? And he’s returned to the popular genre with this latest film “No Sudden Move,” which landed on HBO Max July 1 after having premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Set in Detroit in 1954, “No Sudden Move” around a group of small-time hoods who are hired to steal a document. Though they consider it to be a straightforward job, it turns out to be anything but when the gig goes wrong. While the crooks try to figure out who hired them and way, they are lead down a rabbit hole of twists and turns involving racial prejudice, corporate greed in the auto industry and even the mob. “No Sudden Move,” which stars Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Brendan Fraser, and Ray Liotta, is currently at...

It happens every time: we want to cruelly betray somebody, but Love keeps getting in the way. When evil Dan Duryea sics con-man louse John Payne on the saintly war widow Joan Caulfield, three other women come tagging along as well, ’cause Payne is just too attractive. The swindle in George Sherman’s unsure noir gets uglier and then loses its way in the third act, with clunker dialogue and a climax that dissolves when it should resolve. Look out for super femme input from Shelley Winters, Dorothy Hart and Patricia Alphin. It’s an early featured role for Winters, and she doesn’t hold back.

Larceny

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 89 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelley Winters, Dorothy Hart, Richard Rober, Dan O’Herlihy, Nicholas Joy, Percy Helton, Walter Greaza, Patricia Alphin, Gene Evans.

Cinematography:...

Exclusive: David Eick, one of the exec producers of the 2003 version of Battlestar Galactica and a number of its spinoffs, has closed a couple of developments with the NBCU family.

The writer/producer is developing a remake of 1973 feature film Walking Tall, which was later remade with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, at USA Network and a Romancing the Stone-esque sci-fi series at Peacock.

WWE star Charlotte Flair (left), who featured in Psych: The Movie, is attached to star in the reboot, which has received a script sale from the cable network and is being set up as a two-hour TV movie with the hope of future instalments or as an ongoing series.

Flair, the daughter of WWE legend Ric Flair, will play a Tucson cop who finds herself caught in a web of fraud, exploitation and murder, and is forced to go full vigilante to protect her home town from falling victim to modern corruption.

The UK disc purveyors Powerhouse Indicator are back with a second installment of Region B Film Noir goodies from the darker end of the Columbia Torch Lady’s film vault. This time around we have a couple of Femme Fatale thrillers (does she or doesn’t she?), a trio of organized crime mellers, and a hit man saga so minimalist, it’s almost avant-garde. The icing on the noir cake is the curated selection of extras, plus the absurd counter-programming of Three Stooges short subjects. Why did nobody think to cast Moe, Larry and Shemp as cold-blooded Noir hit men?

Columbia Noir #2

Region B Blu-ray

Framed, 711 Ocean Drive, The Mob, Affair in Trinidad, Tight Spot, Murder by Contract

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen & 1:37 Academy / Street Date February 15, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Broderick Crawford, Richard Kiley, Rita Hayworth,...

Viavision’s first deluxe Film Noir boxed set gives us four titles that emphasize star power — Glenn Ford, Ray Milland, Kirk Douglas and Lee J. Cobb. The Australian release includes three Columbia titles and the home video premiere of a rare Paramount picture. Which ones are core Noir and which are merely ‘noir adjacent?’ The special extras invest in a quartet of audio commentaries from the top experts and Film Noir Foundation creators Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode. There’s nothing that pair doesn’t know about these pictures.

Essential Film Noir Collection 1

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 18, 19, 20, 21

1947-1957 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 366 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / 149.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan; Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell; Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant; Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Kerwin Mathews.

Directed by Richard Wallace, John Farrow, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman

The Australian disc boutique...

What we know as Chino is a Charles Bronson star vehicle all the way, and less interesting as a western than for explaining the state of the film business in the early 1970s. A good coming of age story is reshaped to appeal to Bronson fans, while the formerly front rank director John Sturges is frustrated by star demands and producer re-shoots. The extras on Pi’s disc show what a free-for all the set must have been — even the writer sees fit to boast about how he told Sturges where to head in.

The Valdez Horses

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Chino, Valdez il mezzosangue / Street Date January 25, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Marcel Bozzuffi, Vincent Van Patten, Fausto Tozzi, Ettore Manni, Melissa Chimenti, Corrado Gaipa, José Nieto, Diana Lorys, Conchita Muñoz, Annamaria Clementi.

Cinematography: Armando Nanuzzi

Film Editors: Vanio Amici,...

Region B Blu-ray-capable noir fans have a formidable six-pack of noir crime pictures on tap: a WW2 espionage thriller, two caper pix and the show that launched the notion of a hit man who’s both charismatic and psychopathic. The list of leading actors is stellar as well: Glenn Ford, Kim Novak, Eli Wallach, Brian Keith, James Whitmore and Nina Foch. Do you like extras? Like to read about the movies you see? No video extra has been left behind, and Pi’s big yellow box contains a 120-page book. Plus — several newly remastered Three Stooges shorts. Don’t forget, Noir and Stooges go together like sanity and American politics!

Columbia Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

Escape in the Fog, The Undercover Man, Drive a Crooked Road, 5 Against the House, The Garment Jungle, The Lineup

Powerhouse Indicator

1945-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 8 hours, 11 min. / Street Date November 30, 2020 / available...

Producer-star Richard Widmark may have thought he was inventing a new kind of spy film but his adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel just grinds the Cold War grist, mixing good atmosphere with unconvincing action derring-do. The handsome production makes good use of Austrian and Swiss locations and the unfamiliar cast is a big assist. German star Sonja Ziemann gets the plum role, but Hollywood’s discovery is the lovely Senta Berger.

The Secret Ways

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1961 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date October 27, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Richard Widmark, Sonja Ziemann, Charles Regnier, Walter Rilla, Senta Berger, Howard Vernon, Hubert von Meyerinck, Oskar Wegrostek, Stefan Schnabel, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel, Ady Berber, Jochen Brockman, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Herbert Fux.

Cinematography: Max Greene

Film Editor: Aaron Stell

Original Music: Johnny Williams

Written by Jean Hazelwood from the novel by Alistair MacLean

Produced by Richard Widmark

Directed by Phil Karlson...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Braguino (Clément Cogitore)

Le Cinéma Club excels in presentation—opening their clean website every Friday reveals a free, new, conveniently sized film playing alongside original written content—but more important is their reach: time and again they’re screening unavailable, underseen, sometimes thought-missing work by auteurs established and upcoming alike. Their current program concerns recent documentaries—starting today is French filmmaker Clément Cogitore’s Braguino, which surveys two rival families in images merging you-are-there immediacy with stunning high-definition clarity. At 49 minutes the experience is ideal for your dense quarantine lineup. – Nick N.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Columbia Noir

To celebrate their one-year anniversary, The...

To get everyone in the mood for his ninth film, director and cult film guru Quentin Tarantino has something special in mind for the Sony Movie Channel. From the 5th of August Tarantino’s ‘Swinging Sixties-a-Movie Marathon’ will showcase nine films which perfectly set the tone for Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood, which comes out in cinemas on the 14th of August.

Each of these films has been specially curated, having influenced the director’s new film, and will play individually or as double features. As always with the director, there are some surprises here. In amongst ’60s classics Easy Rider and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice are secret agent specials, violent Westerns and a little bit of love in all its complicated forms. In short – it’s a masterclass in movie mood – just the thing to dive into before you take a trip back to the...

Quentin Tarantino is curating a film series inspired by his new movie “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” that will air later this month on the Sony Movie Channel, Sony Pictures Television announced Monday.

The film series is titled “Swinging Sixties, a Movie Marathon,” which will include nine films from the Columbia Pictures library that were released from 1958 to 1970. All of the movies were handpicked by Tarantino, and each film served as a specific influence on his latest movie, which follows an actor during a changing Hollywood in 1969.

Films such as “Easy Rider,” “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “Hammerhead” and more will begin airing on the Sony Movie Channel starting July 21, with two films airing each night until July 25.

Also Read: Critics Love 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood' - but Saying Why Might Spoil Everything

Tarantino will also hold conversations with film writer and historian Kim...

Exclusive: Quentin Tarantino has teamed with Sony Pictures Television on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Quentin Tarantino Present the Swinging Sixties. It’s a series of 10 films personally curated by Tarantino, including Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Easy Rider — all of which served as a specific influence in the creation of his upcoming 1969-set film.

The 10 films from the Columbia Pictures library, dating from 1958-70, will air over consecutive nights in more than 80 territories worldwide beginning about one week before Sony’s July 26 theatrical release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in each market. Interstitial segments featuring specially created conversations between Tarantino and film writer and historian Kim Morgan will accompany each film, along with a first look at scenes from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The film series will premiere in the U.S. on Sony Movie Channel from July 21-25, with two films airing...

The 30th entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. As is well known, Donald Trump is a big fan of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941). But, as Errol Morris pointed out (having interviewed him for an unfinished TV documentary segment in the early 2000s), Trump tends to read Kane askew: when prompted by Morris to offer Charles Foster Kane some life advice, Trump confidently replied: “Get yourself a different woman.”Our agitprop audiovisual essay, started on the day of Trump’s recent “declaration of emergency” and concerning the border between Mexico and America, begins from this wild speculation: if Trump, in his announced Welles fandom, has ever seen Touch of Evil (1958), what mangled trace of it could remain embedded in his imagination? We are not equating the mindsets of Trump and Welles here. Touch of Evil is a complex film. As many intelligent B-movies do,...

Sometimes a successful sequel requires the filmmakers to tear apart what made the previous entry work, and piece together something new; perhaps just keeping the engine and the chassis, and other car stuffs that I know nothing about. What I do know, however, is that when you rebuild a clever psychodrama like Willard (1971) and turn it into a Rats Gone Wild meets Disney Lonely Sick Boy flick, the result is Ben (1972). And that result is a model so endearingly odd I’m amazed it made it off the assembly line at all, yet so glad it did.

Released by Cinerama Releasing in late June stateside with a worldwide rollout in the fall, Ben was viewed by critics at the time as a laughable follow up to a film that didn’t exactly win over reviewers. They simply found the premise and execution unfrightening and silly, and moved on. They’re not wrong,...

Hollywood glamour strikes the crime genre, with a bank robbery tale that concentrates on high living and high fashion. Superstars Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway play a coy game of thief and investigator. This expensive show is not really in fashion anymore, but in 1968 it was high-class filmmaking, with Norman Jewison solidifying his position as a smart maker of solid mainstream entertainment.

The Thomas Crown Affair

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber

1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date February 13, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston, Biff McGuire, Astrid Heeren, Gordon Pinsent, Yaphet Kotto, Bruce Glover.

Cinematography: Haskell Wexler

Film Editor: Hal Ashby, Byron Brandt, Ralph E. Winters

Montage and title design: Pablo Ferro

Original Music: Michel Legrand

Written by Alan R. Trustman

Produced and Directed by Norman Jewison

Ah, 1968 was a good movie year. I remember my father returning from a car hunt (before he bought...

Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton is back, with a rodent roundup of horror, or more accurately, psychological suspense interrupted by a few salacious slayings. What would Mickey say?

The brief synopses of Daniel Mann’s Willard and Phil Karlson’s Ben that appeared in the horror movie books and magazines that kids in the UK loved to pore over during the late 1970s always gave the impression that this pair of killer rat films were hardcore horror shows.

In truth, the actual horror content of both films is relatively mild and infrequent. In spite of this, Willard and Ben still tend to be discussed in terms of their relation to the often more extreme movies that appeared in the “animals attack” cycle of horror films that flourished during the 1970s.

That particular subgenre represents something of a niche interest area that is governed by a pretty tight set of boundaries. The...

Nick Aldwinckle Oct 30, 2017

This month's round up of genre DVDs and Blu-rays features Ray Harryhausen, Willard, rats on the rampage and more...

The underappreciated ‘nature gone wild’ porn horror movie subgenre has a somewhat patchy history, with a viewer’s search more likely to end up in some SyFy channel Megapterranoshark Versus Crocosaur cul-de-sac than something of the calibre of a Jaws or Arachnophobia. Sharks, spiders and gators are all well served, though (alongside the glaring lack of a movie adaptation of Guy N. Smith’s glorious Night Of The Crabs books) rodents have had something of a raw deal.

See related 26 new TV shows to watch in 2017

Fear not, though, faithful readers: we’re not going to drift off into Stuart Little territory just yet (that’ll be next month’s Stuart Little IV: The Rattening), as this month brings with it not one but two seventies rat-themed monster movie classics (well,...

Witness the ‘fifties transformation of the femme fatale, from scheming murderess to self-deluding social climber. Barbara Stanwyck redefines herself once again in Gerd Oswald’s best-directed picture, a searing portrayal of needs and anxieties in the nervous decade. With fine support from Raymond Burr, Virginia Grey and Royal Dano.

Crime of Passion

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1957 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date September 5, 2017 /

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Royal Dano.

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Art Direction: Leslie Thomas

Original Music: Paul Dunlap

Original Story and Screenplay by Jo Eisinger

Produced by Herman Cohen, Robert Goldstein

Directed by Gerd Oswald

A key title in the development of the Film Noir, 1957’s Crime of Passion shows how much the style had departed from the dark romanticism and expressive visuals of the previous decade. The best mid-’50s noirs strike a marvelously cynical and existentially bleak attitude regarding crime and society.

Many of MGM’s productions were scraping bottom in 1958, yet the studio found one more acceptable western vehicle for their last big star still on contract. Only-slightly corrupt marshal Robert Taylor edges toward a showdown with the thoroughly corrupt Richard Widmark in an economy item given impressive locations and the sound direction of John Sturges.

The Law and Jake Wade

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, DeForest Kelley, Henry Silva, Burt Douglas, Eddie Firestone.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Written by William Bowers from a novel by Marvin H. Albert

Produced by William B. Hawks

Directed by John Sturges

As the 1950s wore down, MGM was finding it more difficult to properly use its last remaining big-ticket stars on the steady payroll, Cyd Charisse and Robert Taylor. Cyd...

He sings, he fixes cars, and he takes punches better than De Niro’s Raging Bull. Elvis Presley excels in one of his few ’60s pictures that shows an interest in being a ‘real movie,’ a remake of a boxing saga with entertaining characters and fine direction from noir specialist Phil Karlson. Plus Charles Bronson, Lola Albright and Joan Blackman in standout roles.

Kid Galahad

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1962 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date August 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Elvis Presley, Gig Young, Lola Albright, Joan Blackman, Charles Bronson, Robert Emhardt, Liam Redmond, Judson Pratt, Ned Glass, George Mitchell, Roy Roberts, Michael Dante, Richard Devon, Jeff Morris, Edward Asner, Frank Gerstle, Seamon Glass, Bert Remsen.

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Film Editor: Stuart Gilmore

Original Music: Jeff Alexander

Written by William Fay, Francis Wallace

Produced by David Weisbart

Directed by Phil Karlson

What, a good Elvis Presley picture?...

On paper it’s a western with everything — a major star, decent supporting players, a cult director and sideways references to the blacklisting years. But even with its ya-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it high noon showdown scene, Joseph H. Lewis’s last feature film is still a lower-tier United Artists effort. Sterling Hayden goes up against Sebastian Cabot and Nedrick Young, armed with a, with a . . . aw, you probably know already.

Terror in a Texas Town

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 80 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Sterling Hayden, Sebastian Cabot, Carol Kelly, Eugene Martin, Nedrick Young, Victor Millan, Frank Ferguson, Marilee Earle, Byron Foulger, Glenn Strange.

Cinematography: Ray Rennahan

Original Music: Gerald Fried

Written by Dalton Trumbo, fronted by Ben Perry

Produced by Frank N. Seltzer

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis

Auteurists in the early 1970s championed directors like Phil Karlson, Budd Boetticher and Anthony Mann. These stylists...

“Isn’t it like France here?”

By the late 1940’s, the cityscape of New York seemed to be solidified as a well-trodden noir trope in and of itself, if solely due to the fact that being the supposed ultimate symbol of the post-war Free World made it ripe for subversion; criminal networks and the misdeeds of average citizens crawling under the surface of the booming metropolis. The city’s cinematic presence came even greater by this period’s emergent trend of noir films shooting on-location as opposed to embracing the artifice of a Los Angeles soundstage simulacra of the Big Apple; realism imparted on Hollywood as if a way of making the escapist medium of the movies taken more seriously as an art form.

Yet even the burden of verisimilitude could be flipped on its head by an outsider looking in, as by the end of the 1950s, the metropolis...

This French disc release of the Jacques Tourneur classic gets everything right — including both versions in picture perfect transfers. Devil debunker Dana Andrews locks horns with Niall MacGinnis, a necromancer “who has decoded the Old Book” and can summon a fire & brimstone monster from Hell, no election fraud necessary. Even fans that hate ghost stories love this one — it’s a truly creepy, intelligent highlight of the horror genre.

Night of the Demon

Region A + B Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Wild Side (Fr)

1957 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Street Date November 27, 2013 / Curse of the Demon, Rendez-vous avec la peur / Available from Amazon UK or Foreign Exchange Blu-ray

Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,

Athene Seyler

Cinematography: Ted Scaife

Production Designer: Ken Adam

Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music: Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester

from the...

A military coup in the U.S.? General Burt Lancaster’s scheme would be flawless if not for true blue Marine Kirk Douglas, who snitches to the White House. Now Burt’s whole expensive clandestine army might go to waste – Sad! John Frankenheimer and Rod Serling are behind this nifty paranoid conspiracy thriller.

Seven Days in May

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1964 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date May 8, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Martin Balsam, Andrew Duggan, John Houseman, Hugh Marlowe, Whit Bissell, George Macready, Richard Anderson, Malcolm Atterbury, William Challee, Colette Jackson, John Larkin, Kent McCord, Tyler McVey, Jack Mullaney, Fredd Wayne, Ferris Webster.

Cinematography: Ellsworth Fredericks

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by Rod Serling from the book by Fletcher Knebel, Charles W. Bailey II

Produced by Edward Lewis

Directed by John Frankenheimer...

In the 1970s crime films morphed into sadistic vigilante fantasies about tough-guy heroes avenging terrible crimes against their families. Veteran noir director Phil Karlson directed the bruiser’s bruiser Joe Don Baker in a standard tale of violent vengeance, with the violence factor given an extra bloody boost.

Framed

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1975 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date February 28, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Joe Don Baker, Conny Van Dyke, John Marley, Gabriel Dell,, Brock Peters, John Larch, Warren J. Kemmerling, Walter Brooke, Paul Mantee, H.B. Haggerty, Roy Jenson.

Cinematography: Jack A. Marta

Film Editor: Harry W. Gerstad

Stunts: Carey Loftin, Gil Perkins, Buddy Joe Hooker

Original Music: Pat Williams

Written by Mort Briskin from a book by Art Powers & Mike Misenheimer

Produced by Joel Briskin, Mort Briskin

Directed by Phil Karlson

Time for another curiosity review, of a grindhouse gut-basher from the 1970s — a subgenre I avoided when new.

Hacksaw Ridge

Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD

Summit Entertainment

2016 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 139 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / 39.99

Starring – Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths, Luke Pegler.

Cinematography – Simon Duggan

Film Editor – John Gilbert

Original Music – Rupert Gregson-Williams

Written by – Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight

Produced by – Paul Currie, Bruce Davey, William D. Johnson, Bill Mechanic,

Directed by – Mel Gibson

Combat movies fascinate this reviewer — if you look at the Savant review index you’ll see that I review practically every war picture of note that I can get my hands on. But brace yourself — I become huffy when I see themes of patriotism and faith used to deliver dicey messages.

Mel Gibson’s big, slick WW2 combat film Hacksaw Ridge tells the truly inspiring story of combat medic Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor and the only one to...

By Lee Pfeiffer

I recently wrote in relation to a review of "The Big Show" that circus movies have gone the way of the Model T. You can add to that another genre of film that used to be a Hollywood staple- the safari movies in which the hero was a great white hunter. Changing social attitudes make it unlikely we'd ever again cheer some rock-jawed leading man as he unloads some hi caliber bullets into a grazing elephant or a lazing hippo. The last word on such films was Clint Eastwood's woefully underrated (and woefully under-seen) 1990 film "White Hunter, Black Heart", which was loosely based on the hunting obsessions of director John Huston during production of "The African Queen". Nevertheless, jungle-themed adventures are still the stuff of cinematic thrills in the minds of retro movie lovers. One of the best is "Rampage", a 1963 opus directed by Phil Karlson...

Do you like your noir heroes bitter and bruised, and your noir dames daring and resourceful? Phil Karlson's gem of a thriller pits two-fisted John Payne against murderous hood Brad Dexter, with Peggie Castle the unfaithful, unlucky wife who decides to run off with the wrong guy. And star Evelyn Keys is a pulp noir adventuress to admire, with a roving eye of her own. 99 River Street Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date June 21, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, Peggie Castle, Jay Adler, Jack Lambert, Glenn Langan. Cinematography Franz Planer Film Editor Buddy Small Original Music Arthur Lange, Emil Newman Written by Robert Smith, George Zuckerman Produced by Edward Small Directed by Phil Karlson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

99 River Street is a top noir title in all respects -- a great cast, a literally hard-hitting...

By Doug Oswald

Rock Hudson is an American commando sent to blow up a dam in “Hornets’ Nest,” a 1970 WWII action adventure set in 1944 Italy as the Allies advance on the German occupation force. Directed by Phil Karlson (“Hell to Eternity,” “Kid Galahad,” “The Silencers,” “The Wrecking Crew” and “Walking Tall”), the movie was an American-Italian co-production filmed in Italy with a mostly all Italian cast and crew.

The movie opens as the residents of Reanoto are massacred by German soldiers after they refuse to give up the location of Italian resistance fighters. Meanwhile, American commandos parachute in on a mission to blow up a nearby dam, but all are killed except for Capt. Turner (Hudson). A group of boys hiding in the hills when the German’s murdered their families rescue Turner and hide him from the Germans. Turner is running a fever from his wounds and the boys convince a local doctor,...

Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did Fritz Lang...

After falling into the public domain, Phil Karlson’s 1952 film noir Kansas City Confidential became unfairly lumped into B-grade bracket, a disservice considering the title’s odd narrative and eventual influence on contemporary filmmakers. Karlson, who would eventually turn to mainstream efforts starring the likes of Dean Martin and Elvis Presley in the 1960s and 1970s, contributed several enjoyable minor noir efforts in the 1950s. These would include 1952’s Scandal Sheet with Donna Reed and Broderick Crawford, Kim Novak casino heist effort 5 Against the House, and that same year’s Tight Spot with a peculiar role for Ginger Rogers. But none have enjoyed the staying power of this particular heist drama, now restored with its most accomplished transfer yet.

Kansas City delivery man Joe Rolfe (John Payne) is at the wrong place at the wrong time when he’s nabbed by the cops as the driver of a heist involving...

Germany's Explosive Media company has a serious itch for American westerns, and they have a trio of new releases. One is a minor Hollywood classic with major graces, from the late 1950s. A second sees an American producer based in England filming in Italy with a rising international star, and for the third an established American star goes European  to stay in the game. The best thing for Yankee buyers? The discs are Region-free.

Gunman's Walk, Land Raiders, A Man Called Sledge Three Westerns from Explosive Media Blu-ray Separate Releases 1958-1970 / Color Starring Van Heflin, Tab Hunter; George Maharis, Telly Savalas; James Garner

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The majority of American studios now choose not to market their libraries for digital disc, and license them out instead. Collectors unwilling to settle for whatever's on Netflix or concerned about the permanence of Cloud Cinema, find themselves increasingly tempted by discs from Europe,...

Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...

Kansas City Confidential

Written by George Bruce and Harry Essex

Directed by Phil Karlson

U.S.A., 1952

From across the street in a quiet hotel room, a man (Preston Foster) attentively observes the coming and goings of security guards that transport hundreds of thousands of dollars to and from the bank across the street. A plan is brewing in his mind, a plan that will require the assistance of three pawns, all known criminals. They are: small time gambler Pete Harris (Jack Elam), cop killer Boyd Kane (Neville Brand) and Tony Romano (a young, moustache-free Lee Van Cleef). Each is invited to the man’s room on separate occasions, presented a plan to steal the doe from the guards and make a getaway. Everyone is to wear masks so that no one participant can rat on any other in the event that things go awry. For the masked convicts themselves,...

Coleen Gray ca. 1950. Coleen Gray dead at 92: Leading lady in early Stanley Kubrick film noir classic Actress Coleen Gray, best known for Stanley Kubrick's crime drama The Killing, has died. Her death was announced by Classic Images contributor Laura Wagner on Facebook's “Film Noir” group. Wagner's source was David Schecter, who had been friends with the actress for quite some time. Via private message, he has confirmed Gray's death of natural causes earlier today, Aug. 3, '15, at her home in Bel Air, on the Los Angeles Westside. Gray (born on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska) was 92. Coleen Gray movies As found on the IMDb, Coleen Gray made her film debut as an extra in the 20th Century Fox musical State Fair (1945), starring Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews. Her association with film noir began in 1947, with the release of Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death (1947), notable for showing Richard Widmark...

Throughout the vast history of cinema the profession of law enforcement has been portrayed heavily and made its mark on the big screen in both dramatic and comical fodder. Whether it be straight up cops and robbers or crooked officers on the take in gangster flicks or ant-hero gun-slinging loners trying to buck the system the presence of crime-busting cads never fail to add compelling, if not at times over-exaggerated, insight into the world of law-enforcing personalities.

The one element of the law-enforcing community that seems somewhat limited but still registers mightily in some cinematic arenas is the concept of the sheriff. Sheriffs do cast a prominent shadow in all sorts of fields in the movies: westerns, medieval times, contemporary country car-chasing farces and even some urban melodramas.

In Arresting Developments: Top Ten Sheriffs in the Movies we will take a look at some of the notable on-screen sheriffs in...