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Nicholas Meyer’s ‘other’ fantastic film project was ignored for all the wrong reasons; Pierce Brosnan fills a heroic leading role in a revisit of The Stranglers of Bombay, but filmed on location with great attention to authentic details. An officer of the East India Company detects an incredibly murderous cult of Kali-worshipping Thugs, a criminal underclass of thieves that practice ritual mass murder. The story has roots in history, snarled in colonial injustice and xenophobia. It’s a period picture unafraid to be controversial. Also starring Saeed Jaffrey and Helena Mitchell.

The Deceivers

Blu-ray

The Cohen Film Collection / Kino

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date November 16, 2021 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Saeed Jaffrey, Shashi Kapoor, Helena Michell, Keith Michell, David Robb.

Cinematography: Walter Lassally

Art Directors: Gianfranco Fumagalli, Ram Yedekar

Film Editor: Richard Trevor

Original Music: John Scott

Written by Michael Hirst from the novel by John Masters

Produced by Ismail Merchant,...

November 17th looks to be one of the quieter home media release days we’ve had in a while, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some great titles headed home this week, either. Hammer fans will undoubtedly want to pick up Mill Creek’s new box sets for Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection and Inner Sanctum Mysteries this Tuesday, or if you’re looking for more modern horror to entertain you, Relic and Monstrum are headed to both Blu-ray and DVD this week as well.

Other releases for November 17th include Death of Me, 2067, Westworld: Season 3, Alfred Hitchcock: 4-Film Collection, and So Sweet, So Dead.

Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection

For more than four decades, Hammer Films unique blend of horror, science fiction, thrills and comedy dominated countless drive-ins and movie theaters. Enjoy this massive collection from the darkest corners of the Hammer Imagination!

Featuring 20 Cult-Classics...

Any time we at Cinema Retro might feel self-congratulatory about staying in print for sixteen years, we're immediately humbled by the fact that Dick Klemensen has been publishing Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine since 1972. You read that right...1972, the same year it seemed like a good idea to re-elect Richard Nixon in the biggest landslide in American history and Marlon Brando regained his mojo as The Godfather. Since then, Dick's magazine has been the gold standard for coverage of everything and anything to do with the Hammer films horror classics. The vast majority of every issue is dedicated to Hammer and yet he never gets repetitive. Dick started to reach out to the Hammer stars, directors, producers and technicians in the early 1970s and thus acquired a priceless archive of their stories and memories during an era in which most critics didn't take the films seriously. Dick's latest issue features...

Powerhouse Indicator continues its series of exotic attractions from the house of Hammer — productions that found new ways to shock audiences than tradition-breaking gore and violence. Two are war pictures with sharply contrasting themes, and the second pair constitute a popular-cinema referendum on racist colonial attitudes.

Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror

Blu-ray

The Camp on Blood Island, Yesterday’s Enemy, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Terror of the Tongs

Powerhouse Indicator

1958-1960 / Color / B&W / 1:85, 2:35 widescreen / / Street Date July 30, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £44.99

Directed by Val Guest, Terence Fisher, Anthony Bushell

It’s true — unless one is a full-on Hammer true believer that considers The Brigand of Kandahar and Creatures the World Forgot to be timeless classics, delving into the lesser-known Hammer films can be a case of diminishing returns. But when the company got truly creative, either with a radical screenplay or a committed director — Terence Fisher,...

Can a pirate be a substitute monster? Hammer Films gives yet another genre a spin with this box-office winner that launched a sideline in costume adventures. The Hammer crew makes it work: Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, Marie Devereaux, Michael Ripper, Oliver Reed and Andrew Keir, plus yank assistance from Kerwin Mathews and Glenn Corbett.

The Pirates of Blood River

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date October 17, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir, Glenn Corbett, Marla Landi, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne, Oliver Reed, Marie Devereux.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Production Design: Bernard Robinson

Art Direction: Don Mingaye

Film Editor: Eric Boyd-Perkins

Original Music: Gary Hughes

Written by John Hunter, John Gilling, Jimmy Sangster

Produced by Michael Carreras, Anthony Nelson-Keys

Directed by John Gilling

Hammer Films didn’t start out as a horror studio, but after their big Technicolor successes in 1957-...

It's a minor -- very minor -- Terence Fisher Sci-Fi suspenser that reaches the bare genre minimum and nothing more. Love the title and love those great stills, but when it's finished you're going to be saying, 'Now all I need is a good alien invasion movie!' The Earth Dies Screaming Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 62 excruciating minutes of horror / Street Date October 4, 2016 / available through Kl Studio Classics / 29.95 Starring Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, Anna Palk. Cinematography Arthur Lavis Film Editor Robert Winter Makeup Harold Fletcher Original Music Elisabeth Lutyens Written by Henry Cross (Harry Spalding) Produced by Robert L. Lippert, Jack Parsons Directed by Terence Fisher

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So I guess we have to add a third choice for the end of the world: a Bang, a Whimper... and now a Scream. Low-budget science fiction didn't...

Hammer hits one out of the park with this 'ripping good' Sherlock Holmes tale, tilted heavily toward gothic mystery and horror. Peter Cushing and André Morell excel in heroic roles, while Christopher Lee doesn't have to play a monster, just a coward. Terence Fisher's directing skill is at its height. The Hound of the Baskervilles Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1959 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 86 min. / Ship Date June 14, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, David Oxley, Francis De Wolff, Miles Malleson, Ewen Solon. Cinematography Jack Asher Production Designer Bernard Robinson Film Editor Alfred Cox Original Music James Bernard Written by Peter Bryan from the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle Produced by Michael Carreras & Anthony Hinds Directed by Terence Fisher

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In addition to their straight-up gothic horrors, Hammer films produced films in other genres, such as costume adventures and war pictures.

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 movie planned to be directed by the mysterious Michael Reeves. The Oblong Box Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1969 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date October 20, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Uta Levka, Sally Geeson, Alister Williamson, Peter Arne. Cinematography John Coquillon Original Music Harry Robertson Written by Lawrence Huntington, Christopher Wicking Produced by Gordon Hessler, Louis M. Heyward Directed by Gordon Hessler  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I've been doing my best to warm up to the filmic output of producer-director Gordon Hessler. I agree that Hessler's three major A.

Child radio star of the 1940s and 50s best remembered for playing Richmal Crompton's Just William

David Spenser, who has died aged 79, was the pre-eminent child radio star of the 1940s and 50s and will be best remembered for his portrayal on air of Just William. The author Richmal Crompton cast him in the role, in a series of dramatisations of her novels about the raucous but endearing 11-year-old outlaw.

This was in 1948, when David turned 14 and was already a seasoned radio actor – performing more than one play a week, he once told me. He had come into acting through a ruse set up by his ambitious mother and a BBC friend: he was lured into Broadcasting House and found himself in a studio being auditioned by the Children's Hour producer Josephine Plummer. For playing the lead in Just William he received the standard juvenile fee of four guineas...