Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video.

HOLY SCHNIKES!

Celebrate 30 years of gut-busting laughs with the 90s classic TOMMY BOY, arriving for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD™ March 25, 2025 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

TOMMY BOY stars “Saturday Night Live” alumni Chris Farley and David Spade in one of cinema’s funniest on-screen pairings as two drastically different personalities on a hellish road trip to save a family business.  Produced by Lorne Michaels and directed by Peter Segal (50 First Dates, Get Smart), TOMMY BOY scored with audiences when it debuted in 1995 and continues to attract new fans three decades later.

Newly remastered under the supervision of director Peter Segal, TOMMY BOY is presented for the first time on 4K Ultra HD in a 4K/Blu-ray™ Combo or in a Limited-Edition SteelBook®, both of which include hours of legacy bonus content and access to a Digital copy of the film.

Bonus content on Blu-ray is detailed below:

• Commentary by director Peter Segal
• Featurettes:
• Tommy Boy: Behind the Laughter
• Stories from the Side of the Road
• Just the Two of Us
• Growing Up Farley
• Storyboard Comparisons
• Deleted and Extended Scenes
• Alternate Takes
• Gag Reel
• Photo Gallery
• TV Spots
• Theatrical Trailer

Synopsis

Celebrating 30 years of gut-busting laughs, Chris Farley and David Spade are two ne'er-do-well traveling salesmen who hit the road to save the Callahan family's auto parts business, resulting in one disastrously funny consequence after another. This larger-than-life comedy features Rob Lowe, Bo Derek, and Brian Dennehy. 

TOMMY BOY is rated PG-13 for sex-related humor, some drug content and nudity.

Click here to order from Amazon

In his Blu-ray review of "Smile 2", Cinema Retro's Todd Garbarini made a favorable reference to director Parker Finn's 10-minute horror film short "The Hidebehind" starring Robin Collins from 2018. We decided to check it out. Indeed, the low-budget project is unsettling and eventually unnerving. Don't take our word for it-watch it yourself. Sometimes good things do come in small packages! (There is a brief commercial early in this YouTube video but it doesn't ruin the atmosphere in terms of what follows.)

“LET’S ROCK!” (or “!KCOR S’TEL”)

By Raymond Benson

“Diane, I’m holding in my hand a box of chocolate bunnies.”

If you haven’t heard of Twin Peaks by now, well, you must have been trapped in the Red Room for the last 35 years. In tribute to the recent passing of filmmaker and artiste David Lynch, we are taking a look at the brand new release of one of the cornerstones of Lynch’s legacy: Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks Z – A was a limited edition Blu-ray box set originally released in 2019 that contained everything available in the Twin Peaks franchise. It had 21 disks and an elaborate cube-shaped packaging with little “goodies” enclosed. That edition is now out of print, rare, and sells for big bucks in the second hand market.

Thankfully, CBS/Paramount made the decision to re-release the box set, only without the lavish packaging, which was cute and clever but ultimately a gimmick. What really counts are the disks, and now there are 22 disks: a new one has been added with 4K UHD presentations of the Pilot and Season Three’s Episode 8, the latter being one of Lynch’s most extraordinary creations.

At an affordable price, now you can own everything there is to Twin Peaks in one purchase.

Home Video releases of Twin Peaks over the years have usually been problematic. In the 1990s, the VHS releases were often flawed because the Pilot episode was owned by a different company and couldn’t be included in the packages with the regular Season One (and later Season Two) episodes. Instead, available separately, was the “International Pilot,” which was the original 90-minute pilot (two hours when commercials were inserted) but with a tacked on fifteen-minute non-canonical “ending” that included footage from what would be Season One, Episode Three (or Episode Two, if you’re not counting the Pilot as Episode One… and that’s another issue*). This International Pilot was released in some cinemas overseas in 1989-1990 as a stand-alone movie prior to the television broadcast of the series in the States.

(* Officially, the Pilot is just “the Pilot” and the first hour-episode is Episode 1, but really in terms of television, the Pilot would be Episode 1, the next Episode 2, and so on. Confusing, just like some of Twin Peaks!)

When DVDs came about, we finally got the real TV Pilot and the International Pilot released in a box set (“Definitive Gold Edition”) in 2007 with all of Seasons One and Two. It wasn’t until the Blu-ray release of 2014 (“The Complete Mystery”) that we got all of that plus the 1992 feature film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, plus the legendary The Missing Pieces, which was 90-minutes of deleted footage from FWWM that Lynch himself edited into a separate feature film!

After the 2017 “Season Three” appeared on Showtime (also known as Twin Peaks: The Return and Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series) and released in its own Blu-ray box set… we got a box set with just the Pilot and Seasons One through Three (without Fire Walk With Me). Then, in 2019 came Twin Peaks Z – A, which had everything, as mentioned above. (And to muddy the waters even more, The Criterion Collection issued a Blu-ray of Fire Walk With Me and The Missing Pieces by themselves!)

Thus, the new repackaging of this wonderful set includes: The Pilot, International Pilot, Season One, Season Two, Fire Walk With Me, The Missing Pieces, Season Three, and hours and hours of Supplements. Easily over 50 hours’ worth of material.

Twin Peaks, created by Lynch and Mark Frost, began as a quirky murder mystery set in a small northwestern town near Seattle and close to the Canadian border. Popular high school cheerleader Laura Palmer’s body is found (“wrapped in plastic”) on a riverbank. Because of the murder’s similarities to a previous case, the FBI is called in. Enter Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, in the role he was born to play). Cooper, with the aid of Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean), investigates the case and uncovers a world and other-world of mysteries upon mysteries, eccentric characters, and Lynchian surrealism that was startling content on American network television in 1990-1991. After Laura’s murder is solved, the series continued to explore the supernatural and alternate universes, establishing a Twin Peaks lore that spawned fan sites, conventions, books, and podcasts.

Other recurring roles were played by the likes of (in no particular order) Lara Flynn Boyle, Dana Ashbrook, James Marshall, Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Grace Zabriskie, Richard Beymer, Piper Laurie, Joan Chen, Jack Nance, Warren Frost, Madchen Amick, Peggy Lipton, Everett McGill, Eric Da Re, Kimmy Robertson, Michael Horse, Harry Goaz, Russ Tamblyn, Kenneth Welsh, David Patrick Kelly, Catherine Coulson, Heather Graham, Ian Buchanan, Michael Parks, Michael Anderson, Al Strobel, Carel Struycken, David Duchovny, Miguel Ferrer, David Lynch himself, and many others.

Season One was a huge hit and became a cultural phenomenon. Season Two began well but the network (ABC) forced Lynch and Frost to solve Laura Palmer’s murder shortly into the season (they had wanted to never solve it). After the revelation of the killer, the audience dwindled. ABC moved the show to Saturday, the one night young audiences wouldn’t watch it. The Gulf War pre-empted many episodes, and it became a challenge to keep up with the season. Lynch went off to do other projects and Season Two faltered in its subplots (however, there was still quite a bit of excellent material, especially with Cooper’s exploration of the Black Lodge/White Lodge puzzle). The season ended with a cliffhanger of Cooper trapped in the other-dimension’s Red Room, while his evil doppelganger escaped to roam free on earth. Then… boom. Canceled.

Lynch then made a prequel feature film with several of the television cast focusing on the week leading up to Laura’s murder; hence Laura (Sheryl Lee) is the protagonist. New cast members included Chris Isaak, Kiefer Sutherland, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Bowie (!). The studio, unfortunately, forced him to cut at least 90-minutes from his lengthy picture and thus it lost many of the television show’s quirky characters and humor. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, at the time, was a box office disaster and critically slammed. One issue was that the film never resolved the cliffhanger of Season Two. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin for Twin Peaks.

However, over the years, re-evaluation of Fire Walk With Me has occurred. It is now considered one of Lynch’s more personal and important works. With the release in 2014 of The Missing Pieces, which brought more context to the movie, interest in Twin Peaks rekindled. Lynch and Frost decided to have another go and do Season Three, which aired in 2017. New cast members to Season Three include Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Robert Forster, Jim Belushi, Matthew Lillard, Tim Roth, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and bunches more. The story takes place 25 years after the end of Season Two, with Cooper attempting to get out of the Red Room, and his doppelganger wreaking havoc and mayhem on Earth. Locations expand beyond the town of Twin Peaks as far as New York City, Las Vegas, and South Dakota. The story then becomes something of a retelling of the Orpheus myth with Cooper finding a way to change the past—but with tragic results.

Did it resolve all the mysteries? Did it end satisfactorily? Hell, no! It’s Lynch! Season Three gave us even more mysteries to ponder and debate what it all means. But that’s what makes Twin Peaks so compelling and fun.

The video and audio quality of the Blu-ray disks are all beautiful. Superb. Twin Peaks never looked and sounded so good.

Supplements include everything that has been presented before in previous box sets, which includes hours of behind the scenes material of Lynch working on Season Three; a lengthy conversation between MacLachlan, Lee, and author/journalist Kristine McKenna, who co-wrote with Lynch his autobiography, Room to Dream; a conversation with Kimmy Robertson and Harry Goaz; and the especially welcome stand-alone full-length Roadhouse performances of all the musical artists that appeared in Season Three.

Twin Peaks was a mind-blowing, controversial, groundbreaking entertainment phenomenon that went from television to cinema and back to television… and while many talented artists, writers, producers, and directors all contributed to the television series (and feature film)—especially Mark Frost—this franchise will always and forever be associated with the late, great David Lynch. Cinema Retro can’t recommend this box set highly enough.

(At the moment it appears as if Amazon is sold out and can be obtained only by third party dealers or Barnes and Noble. We expect Amazon to restock, as it is a brand new release.)

Click here to see buying options available on Amazon.

By Todd Garbarini

Parker Finn is a director who made a short film called Laura Hasn’t Slept (2020), starring Caitlin Stasey and Lew Temple as her somnologist. It is the second short he made after his impressive and creepy The Hidebehind (2018), a nearly ten-minute now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t bit of computer trickery that will make you think twice about trekking solo in a forest. In Laura Hasn’t Slept, which runs under twelve minutes, Laura tells her therapist that she has a recurring nightmare wherein a frightening man is constantly smiling at her. While I appreciated the effort of this film and experienced no difficulty in determining the ending, the prospect of sitting through the theatrical version entitled Smile (2022) simply did not sit well with me. To my surprise, Smile is every bit as terrifying as its marketing campaign has professed. Like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Smile feels like the sort of film that would emotionally bifurcate the audience into those who love it and those who hate it (I am zealously ensconced in the first camp). In terms of genre tropes, the film’s most obvious cinematic antecedent is David Robert Mitchell’s superb It Follows (2014), and a nod to Smile’s title can be further traced back to the malevolent chauffeur, played with icy stillness by the late Anthony James, in Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (1976). The basic premise of Smile concerns an evil entity that exists in a human being, or “host,” and survives by transferring itself from one victim to another, albeit invisibly, not unlike the monster in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), by essentially “infecting” a new host through trauma, specifically when someone witnesses the horrific death of a previously infected person; this new witness then becomes the next target, perpetuating a cycle of terror and suicide.

Smile’s box office success, both critically and financially, virtually ensured a sequel. In many ways Smile 2, which was released on Friday, October 18, 2024, and was also written and directed by Parker Finn, reminds me of Jon Harris’s The Descent: Part 2 (2009), the pedestrian follow-up to Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005), which was one of the most effective and most terrifying horror films of recent memory, in that the original and sequel are worlds apart in terms of their effectiveness. I wanted to love Smile 2 just as much as its superior original, however following two viewings of the film I have decided that it simply is not meant to be.

To follow Smile 2, it is imperative that the audience view the first film. The sequel begins six days after the ending of Smile. Joel (Kyle Gallner of 2022’s Scream remake), the ex-husband of Smile’s heroine, is now infected with the Smile Entity, and is desperate to pass it on to another person. In a bravura opening sequence that is nearly completed in one take, he attempts to pass the Smile Entity on by stabbing one drug dealer in front of a second dealer. Unfortunately, during the mayhem, Joel inadvertently kills the second dealer, which thwarts his plan. Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage of HBO’s The White Lotus), a drug addict, stumbles upon the action and “inherits” the Smile Entity instead. When Joel attempts to run from more dealers who arrive unexpectedly, he races from the house and is killed by a truck, his blood and entrails made to form a smile on the asphalt.

Skye Riley (Naomi Scott of Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin and Elizabeth Banks’s Charlie’s Angels, both from 2019) is a pop singer coming off the heels of a personal traumatic event. In an effort to stage a return to the spotlight following her substance abuse issues and car accident which killed her boyfriend Paul (Ray Nicholson of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021)) as she embarks on her comeback tour, she revisits high school friend Lewis in need of drugs to calm her and unwittingly becomes the next victim of the Smile Entity as it is transferred from him to her. Skye’s life becomes a downward spiral into confusion, fright and madness as she begins to question the validity of everything before her eyes. A reconnection with her old friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula) has an unfortunate, if predictable, outcome. Her mother and personal manager Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) suffers a horrible fate – but does she? The lines between fantasy and reality become blurred and we are left with more questions than answers – and an ending that left yours truly with an upside-down smile, indubitably paving the way for Smile 3.

If you have seen Smile, you have seen Smile 2. In the first film, I was actually convinced that these characters were possessed by the Smile Entity, which essentially sold the film. That conviction is somehow missing from the sequel. Why? I am unsure. Perhaps because we know what to expect now?

Watching Smile 2, I am reminded of Gene Siskel’s take on Richard Franklin’s 1983 film Psycho II (a film which I actually liked a lot at the time) which he referred to as a film that “does nothing extra than the original film did. What I like about sequels that are good…is that they take the characters into new places. This is basically a retread with sort of a wink at the audience…I don’t think it was anything special. We don’t need this movie.”

Smile 2 is now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray limited edition steelbook (which this review pertains to) and standard Blu-ray and both formats come in the same package from Paramount Home Video. I watched both discs on a 43” TLC television and the visual image differences are indecipherable to me. The 4K disc contains the director’s audio commentary wherein he describes the difficulties in mounting the film’s opening shot and the enthusiasm he felt in following up his successful original with even more crazy kills. The standard Blu-ray contains this also in addition to the following extras:

Ear to Ear runs 5:17 and is a brief look at the making of the film.

The Rise and Fall of Skye Riley runs 5:33 and features input from actress/singer Naomi Scott, director Finn, costume designer Alexis Forte, actress Rosemarie DeWitt and how they created a persona for the artificial Skye Riley.

Behind the Music runs 4:44 and interviews songwriter Alexis Idarose Kesselman and choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall on how they created the music, and dance moves that Skye sings and performs, respectively. These songs are very well done and the “mega pop star” persona is convincing.

A New Smile runs 5:37 and introduces us to production designer Lester Cohen and prosthetic makeup designer Jeremy Selenfriend who school us on the practical effects used to represent the Smile Entity.

Smiler: A New Monster runs 5:44 and provides comments from animatronics designer Zachary Teller Trevor Newlin, creator of “The Monstrosity,” and costume designer Alexis Forte.

Turn That Frown Upside Down runs 5:25 and features actor Lukas Gage as Lewis and prosthetic makeup designer Jeremy Selenfriend.

Show Me Your Teeth runs 5:11. This features Ray Nicholson (who is a spitting image of his father, Jack) as Paul and Charlie Sarroff, the director of photography, and the ingenious method that was devised to create the car crash sequence.

Deleted and Extended Scenes – this consists of three scenes that wisely runs 6:54

The package also includes a digital code for an additional viewing option.

Click here to order from Amazon

By Doug Oswald

The story of the Battle of Bastogne is told on screen for the first time in “Battleground,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. The film begins with the arrival of replacement soldiers in France to join other members of the 101st Airborne Division’s glider infantry in December 1944. We meet several members of “I” Company as they prepare to head out for the town of Bastogne, Belgium, and anyone familiar with the Battle of Bastogne knows what’s in store for them. The German Army soon surrounds the American soldiers as one of the coldest winters on record sets in as they endure the severe conditions in the Ardennes Forrest.

Those familiar with the HBO series “Band of Brothers” saw another version of this story in several episodes of that show. Fans of the 1965 big screen Cinerama epic “Battle of the Bulge” will be familiar with incidents in “Battleground” such as German soldiers pretending to be American soldiers to misdirect the Americans, the constant German artillery bombardment, the extreme cold temperatures experienced by the Americans ill-equipped for the winter, battle fatigue and the response “Nuts!” by Brig. General Anthony McAuliffe to German surrender demands.

“Battleground” stars Van Johnson as Private Holley, but the film is a who’s who of recognizable and up and coming actors. James Whitmore is Sergeant Kinnie who chews and spits tobacco literally and figuratively in every scene he appears in. Ricardo Montalban is Roderigues, Richard Jaeckel is Bettis, James Arness is Garby, John Hodiak is Jarvess, Marshal Thompson is Jim Layton, Don Taylor is Standiferd, George Murphy is “Pop” Stozak and too many others to list here. The only woman member of the cast is Denise Darcel as Denise, the owner of a Bastogne residence who takes in some of the soldiers for some respite away from the front lines.

Known as the Battered Bastards of Bastogne, the various infantry units who defended and fought in the Battle of the Bulge take umbrage when they hear they were rescued by General Patton. The supply air drop at the end as the men of the 101st are resupplied with food and ammo is followed by the finale with Sergeant Kinnie marching his platoon in close order drill with a wink and a nod twist by Kinnie.

Directed by William A. Wellman, “Battleground” wasn’t his first effort depicting the infantry soldier in WWII and it wouldn’t be his last. Wellman, known as “Wild Bill” from his WWI days as a pilot serving in the French Foreign Legion, directed the 1943 classic WWII film, “The Story of G.I. Joe,” released in 1943 and based on the exploits of war reporter Ernie Pyle and his coverage of the North Africa and Italian campaigns and the soldiers he journeyed with.

Along with the 1946 release “A Walk in the Sun,” “Battleground” shares the common soldier’s view of war also seen in “The Story of G.I. Joe” and all three films give a very realistic depiction of the war. “Battleground” was filmed on two large MGM sound stages and cinematographer Paul Vogel won an Oscar for his realistic lighting of the sets which made them look like they were exterior shots.

The screenplay was by Robert Pirosh who was also made associate producer on the film. He wrote the screenplay for over a dozen films including “A Day at the Races” with the Marx Brothers, “Up in Arms” with Danny Kay and “I Married a Witch.” Later, he would go on to also direct five movies including “Go for Broke” and “Valley of the Kings.” Master Sergeant Pirosh was a veteran of the Battle of Bastogne where he served as a combat infantryman with the 35th Infantry Division.

“Battleground” became Pirosh’s pet project which he first brought to RKO with the help of Dore Schary who was head of production and shared Pirosh’s enthusiasm for the project. After returning from a research trip to Bastogne in 1947 (where he found his old foxhole), new RKO head Howard Hughes cancelled the project under the belief that American’s were no longer interested in military combat movies. Pirosh and Schary quit RKO and Schary was hired as head of production at MGM where he purchased “Battleground” and hired Pirosh as executive producer. It became the first major studio military combat movie made after the end of WWII.

MGM head Louis B. Mayer also thought Americans were no longer interested in war films and thought the film would fail, but boy was he wrong. “Battleground” became a huge hit for MGM and was their largest grossing film in five years, ushering in a renewed interest in military themed movies for decades to come. The movie also won an Oscar for Pirosh’s screenplay. I’d say Pirosh and Schary had the last laugh.

“Battleground” had its premiere on 9 November, 1949 in Washington D.C. The film was nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Whitmore, Best Film Editing for John D. Dunning and wins for Robert Pirosh for his screenplay and Paul Vogel for black and white cinematography. The black and white image looks terrific on this Warner Archive release and is presented in the pre-scope flat aspect ratio. The film clocks in at 118 minutes and sounds great with a score by Lennie Hayton who was the musical director for MGM from 1940-1953 and who was married to singer Lena Horne.

Extras on the Warner Archives Blu-ray disc includes the Tex Avery animated classic “Little Rural Riding Hood,” the Pete Smith short film “Have You Ever Wondered No.2: Let’s Cogitate” and the “Battleground” trailer. The release would have benefitted greatly from an audio commentary by Steven Jay Rubin, the author of “Combat Films: American Realism, 1945-2010,” McFarland & Company, 2011 (second edition). The book is an excellent reference and the chapter on “Battleground” was helpful in both my enjoyment of the movie and in writing this review. “Battleground” is highly recommended for fans of military combat movies.

Click here to order from Amazon

Kino Lorber pays tribute to the late, great African-American director Oscar Micheaux with two exciting releases: "Oscar Micheaux: The Complete Collection" Blu-ray set and the DVD documentary"Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking".

Here are the official descriptions:

In this unprecedented undertaking, Kino Classics, in cooperation with the Library of Congress and several international film archives, pays homage to one of cinema’s most historically important artists: Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951). Operating on shoestring budgets completely outside the studio system, Micheaux explored the Black experience with nuance and depth, often challenging the negative stereotypes so commonly portrayed in films of the era. This five-disc collection showcases the director’s entire surviving body of work, including seven new restorations: Within Our Gates, The Symbol of the Unconquered, Body and Soul, God’s Step Children, Veiled Aristocrats, Murder in Harlem, and The Notorious Elinor Lee. It also showcases Micheaux’s rarely seen genre films, such as Lying Lips, Underworld, and Swing! from the best surviving film elements.

Special Features:
• Introductions by series curator Rhea L. Combs
• Printed booklet of film notes
• Theatrical trailers for select films
• 2024 Theatrical re-release trailer

Click here to order from Amazon

In the late 1910s, Pullman porter-turned-successful self-published novelist Oscar Micheaux was unimpressed by the film rights offers for his works-and embarked on a 30-year career writing, directing, producing, and self-distributing silent and talking motion pictures, bringing perspectives to appreciative African Americans that Hollywood could not. Copious clips from his surviving efforts are combined here with comment from John Singleton, Melvin Van Peebles, Morgan Freeman, many more. 80 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack: English; featurette; theatrical trailers.

Click here to order from Amazon

By popular demand, Cinema Retro presents a special edition issue devoted to director John Sturges' 1960 Western classic, "The Magnificent Seven" starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Horst Bucholz and Brad Dexter.

• Adapted from Brian Hannan's book "The Making of the Magnificent" with an abundance of new material.
• Packed with rare production photos and scene stills.
  
• The comparisons between "The Magnificent Seven" and the film that inspired it, Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".
• Foreword by Sir Christopher Frayling
• An abundance of rare international movie posters and marketing materials.
  
• Coverage of the film's big screen sequels.
  

NOTE: IF YOU LIVE IN SOUTHERN IRELAND, PLEASE USE THE "REST OF THE WORLD" ORDER OPTION.

Joe Dante's Trailers from Hell site presents screenwriter/producer Larry Karaszewski's insightful appreciation of the little-seen and long-forgotten film "The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker" from 1971. Based on the novel by Charles Webb, who also wrote "The Graduate" (and who also directed this film), "Stockbroker" stars Richard Benjamin as a young man who is successful in business but no so successful in his personal life.  He's got a beautiful wife (Joanna Shimkus) but he suffers from a psychological obsession with voyeurism. The film looks at his dilemma from a comedic standpoint but the underrated movie also provides plenty of insights into the human psyche and the way we deal with relationships. Benjamin is terrific as the every day guy whose obsession causes him quite a few problems. There are fine turns by Elizabeth Ashley and Adam West, whose amusing performance reminds us of how foolish Hollywood was to alienate him after "Batman". Sadly, the movie was only released on video in the early days of VHS and has not resurfaced since except for an occasional showing on Turner Classic Movies. Hopefully, this will be rectified and we'll get a Blu-ray release at some point. 

By Lee Pfeiffer

Actress and singer Marianne Faithfull has passed away at age 78. Faithfull was discovered in 1964 and quickly became one of the so-called "It Girls" who helped define the emerging mod movement in London. Faithfull gained fame with her recording of  "As Tears Go By", which was written by Mick Jagger and fellow Rolling Stone member Keith Richard. Although the song was envisioned to be sung by a much older person reflecting on their life, Faithfull was only 17 years-old at the time. Neither Faithfull or Jagger had much enthusiasm for the sober ballad but the song became a major hit and the Stones would record their own version of it the following year, which would also resonate with the public in a major way. Faithfull capitalized on her fame to become an actress, though her involvement with the film industry would be sporadic. Perhaps her most popular film was director Jack Cardiff's 1968 production of "The Girl on a Motorcycle" (also known as "Naked Under Leather".)

(Marianne Faithfull graced on the cover of Cinema Retro issue #14.)

Faithfull ultimately left her husband, with whom she had a son, and began a high profile love affair with Jagger. After they broke up in 1970, Faithfull's life and career began to deteriorate with her ultimately becoming addicted to drugs, sex and alcohol. She would attempt periodic comebacks as a singer with some success and married two more times but was still plagued by serious health problems including Hepatitis, breast cancer and COVID-19. Faithfull never blamed anyone but herself for her destructive excesses and in a 2021 interview admitted she had never expected to live a long life. Undeniably, it was a life of triumph and tragedy. For more, click here.

By Fred Blosser

“The Carpetbaggers,” directed by Edward Dmytryk from Harold Robbins’ 1961 novel, opened on July 1, 1964, with a massive publicity campaign from its producer, Joseph E. Levine. The film was savagely attacked by old-fogey critics who were offended by Robbins’ salacious story and characters, elements emphasised in Levine’s marketing and advertising as “adult entertainment.” This backlash cancelled the picture’s chances for any prestigious Academy Award nominations in a highly competitive year of family-friendly entertainment, but I’m certain Levine and Robbins cried all the way to the bank. The implied threat that anyone under 21 would be unceremoniously turned away at the box office only enhanced the lure for audiences avid for material spicier than the standard TV fare of the time like “Ozzie & Harriet” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” “The Carpetbaggers” earned a hefty return on its production investment of $3 million and placed fourth in box-office returns for the year. In the law of diminishing returns, it fuelled many imitations and spinoffs, including several more pictures produced by Levine from other novels by Robbins, but none were as successful or influential as “The Carpetbaggers.” Its most lasting impact may be the template it offered for every glossy TV soap opera and “reality” show about greed, bad behaviour, and tawdry backstabbing that followed, from 1980s’ “Dallas” and “Dynasty” to today’s “Deal or No Deal Island.”

It’s well-known by the dwindling generation of Robbins fans that the story’s protagonist, Jonas Cord Jr., was modelled on the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Or at least, on the tabloid version of Howard Hughes that still loomed then in the popular imagination, the Hughes of the 1930s and 1940s who was routinely linked with Hollywood’s most beautiful starlets. As the movie opens, Jonas is still the restless heir to his father’s small chemical company but already notorious as a high-living playboy who now faces the threat of a costly breach-of-promise lawsuit and nasty newspaper headlines. Summoned by his angry father for rebuke over the scandal, the meeting turns into a shouting match in which both men vent their longstanding disdain for each other. Jonas (George Peppard) asserts that dad (veteran actor Leif Erickson in a brief but juicy role) is jealous of Jonas’ sexual prowess because he’s an “impotent old man.” The clash drives the older man to a fatal stroke, and before the coroner even has time to arrive and take away the body, Jonas has summoned his father’s staff and taken control of the company. He uses his capital to diversify into aviation and movie-making, building a vast fortune and creating plenty of enemies along the way with his ruthless methods. Only a few associates, notably his corporate attorney McAllister (Lew Ayres) and his longtime minder Nevada Smith (Alan Ladd), remain loyal to him as he makes risky investments and runs roughshod over Hollywood. Eventually, even their patience for his hard-charging arrogance wears out. The picture’s sexual elements are tame by today’s standards, displayed mostly in seductive outfits worn by Carroll Baker and Martha Hyer as hyperbolic versions of Jean Harlow and Jane Russell. The two actresses look spectacular, even if Baker’s filmy peignoir and Hyer’s peekaboo mink coat would barely qualify as provocative now; you can see more nudity in a TV ad for body wash. In a denouement to help the film skirt Hollywood’s restrictive Production Code, Jonas reforms after his personal demons—the toxic childhood residue that shaped his cutthroat instincts—are exorcised in a furniture-smashing fistfight with Nevada Smith. The tough-love cure of the showdown is similar to the medical advice routinely dispensed in old movies, where amnesia caused by a blow to the head could be reversed by another blow to the head. As usual in a story when an unrepentant louse transforms into a softie, the kinder, gentler Jonas in the movie’s final two-minute scene hardly registers; it’s the bad boy image that sticks, thanks to Peppard’s career-defining ferocity on the 148 minutes up to then.

“The Carpetbaggers” is available from Kino Lorber Studio Classics in a Blu-ray edition from a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. If like me, you first saw the movie in a terrible TV print, the hi-def transfer with its sharp definition and color is doubly impressive. Special features include two informative audio commentaries, one by Julie Kirgo that studies the movie’s cultural place in the social ferment of 1964, and the other by David Del Valle and David DeCouteau that delves into everything from the careers of the moviemakers to the sociological implications of the garish red wallpaper in the Cord mansion, glimpsed in a couple of scenes.

Click here to order from Amazon.

(Fred Blosser is the author of "Focus on the Spaghetti Western #1:The Films of Tony Kendall". Click here to order from Amazon.)

Lately, the on-line communities of movie lovers have seen plenty of concerns raised over the announcement by Sony that it is going to stop manufacturing Blu-rays. The term "fake news" has been used far too flippantly in recent years, especially since stories that are derided as fake news are often legitimate and vice-versa. In fact, these rumors are "real" fake news, if that makes sense. Sony has announced that it is going to stop manufacturing blank, recordable Blu-rays. The company has every intention to continue to release Blu-ray and 4K editions from its vast movie library. Watch YouTuber Jeff Rauseo's video to get the full story.  (Lee Pfeiffer)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Largely forgotten by the general public, Hickey & Boggs, a 1972 crime thriller, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. The film's primary merit is that it reunited I Spy co-stars Bill Cosby and Robert Culp (though by this time, Cosby's fame had eclipsed Culp's, thus resulting in his receiving top billing). In their classic TV show, Culp and Cosby played a tennis pro and his trainer who were actually secret agents. The glitz of the tennis world allowed them to live Bondian lifestyles while they thwarted bad guys. Intriguingly, Hickey & Boggs goes in a very different direction. Resisting the temptation to revive their wise-cracking I Spy personalities, Culp and Cos are seen as down-and-out private investigators in Los Angeles. Both are divorced but pine away for their ex's; they can't pay the office phone bill and they ride around in cars that look like they barely survived a demolition derby. As the TV spots for the film said at the time, "They have to reach up to touch bottom." On the brink of financial disaster, the men finally get a case: they are hired by a mysterious man to find an equally mysterious woman he wants to locate. The money is good, but the seemingly mundane case soon turns deadly with Hickey and Boggs dodging mob hit men, Black Power radicals and unfriendly police brass.

Although the film boasts a screenplay by the noted Walter Hill, this is the weakest aspect of the production. The story becomes completely incomprehensible within minutes and, in terms of confusing aspects of the plot, makes The Big Sleep play like a Pink Panther movie. So many characters and relationships are introduced that the viewer is never sure who is doing what to whom and why. What the film does have is atmosphere, and Culp, who also directed, takes pains to distance the two lead characters from their I Spy counterparts. They still have terrific screen chemistry, however, even as they play against type as two rusty private eyes who can't hit the broad side of a barn even with their .357 Magnums blazing. The film features a number of exciting action sequences and an excellent supporting cast including Rosalind Cash, Vincent Gardenia, Ed Lauter, Bill Hickman (the legendary stunt driver) and, in early career roles, James Woods and Michael Moriarty. It would have helped immensely if the downbeat script was at least decipherable, but as it stands there is still plenty to recommend about Hickey & Boggs.

Click here to order DVD from Amazon

By Lee Pfeiffer

The western "Cattle Annie and Little Britches" wasn't released, it escaped, as the old Hollywood joke goes. The film was unceremoniously dumped at a smattering of theaters by Universal in 1981 and then largely faded into obscurity. The general implication of such treatment is that the movie was a dog. In fact, it's a charming, well-made (if traditional) lighthearted adventure with much to recommend about it. Universal's disdain for the title is rather inexplicable especially since the movie represented Burt Lancaster's first starring role since his triumphant, Oscar-nominated performance in Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" (although he made the movie before shooting the Malle production). Lancaster, in a marvelously wry peformance, stars as legendary outlaw Bill Doolin in a tale that is loosely based on actual people and events. Doolin ran the infamous Doolin-Dalton gang with his late partner Bill Dalton but when we first see the notorious outlaw band, they are a mere shadow of their former selves. Most of the gang has either been arrested or killed (including Dalton himself) and the remnants are desperately trying to survive by outwitting Sheriff Tilghman (Rod Steiger), the lawman who relentlessly pursues them. The focus of the script, however, is the journey of two plucky runaway teenage girls, Annie (Amanda Plummer) and her younger friend Jenny (Diane Lane). The two free spirits have been drawn to Oklahoma from the east, having been weened on largely exaggerated tales by Ned Buntline about the exploits of famed outlaws. The girls are determined to meet these legendary figures in the flesh and join a gang. A chance meeting with Doolin and his dwindling fellow misfits allows them to do just that. Doolin admires their courage, especially when they help the gang escape a bloody ambush by Tilghman. They earn the nicknames Cattle Annie and Little Britches. The script follows their adventures as their ingratiate themselves into the gang. Both girls are virgins but the feisty and fearless tomboy Annie is determined to fix that and manages to do so when she catches the eye of Bittercreek (John Savage), a hunky gang member who is part Indian and whose indulgence in mysticism and love of nature appeals to her. (The family-friendly nature of the movie ensures that all sex occurs off screen.) Ultimately, the impressionable Jenny develops a crush on Bill Doolin, but fortunately he recognizes she simply yearns for a father figure and gently finds a way to rebuff her advances while leaving her with her dignity intact.

The movie, ably directed by Lamont Johnson, is a leisurely-paced tale with a fine script by David Eyre and Robert Ward, based on the latter's novel. Apparently, the book was based on two real life young women who did travel with the gang. The performances are uniformly marvelous, with Lancaster giving a charming performance as the world-weary outlaw who finds new inspiration from his young female admirers. Rod Steiger, who was often guilty of chewing the scenery, gives an unusually understated performance, and it's all for the better. I loved the byplay between Lancaster and Steiger's characters. They are old warriors, determined to take each other down but they've also grown to admire each other in the process. Even when Tilghman finally captures his man and prepares him for his execution, he seems genuinely depressed by the prospect of losing an adversary who has become almost a friend. The most impressive performance is by Amanda Plummer, who made her screen debut with this film. She's pure dynamite as the fearless young female who refuses to be intimidated by any man. Had the film been more widely seen, she might have been a contender for an Oscar nomination. In a rave review for the film, New York Times critic Vincent Canby called Plummer's performance "smashing". Another hard-to-please critic, Pauline Kael of the New Yorker, was also charmed by the movie and Plummer's performance. Plummer may have emerged as the only winner from the film, though it has developed an appreciation among retro movie lovers who will be delighted by the fact that it is streaming on Amazon Prime. (The Kino Lorber Blu-ray of a few years ago is now out of print.) "Cattle Annie and Little Britches" is a highly enjoyable western that will hopefully find a wider audience through streaming.

By Hank Reineke

One of the best features of George McCowan’s Frogs (1972) is the fantastic art created for the film’s poster and advertising campaign: a giant-sized frog with a human arm hanging limply from its mouth. The grisly art sort of bears a resemblance to a harvest cornucopia, a disembodied arm displacing the usual spillage of autumnal gourds and seasonal vegetables.

The poster and ad mats for Frogs was certain to attract interest with the horror-film freaks who simply couldn’t get enough of this stuff, no matter how weird. Still, one can’t help but wonder today if moviegoers of 1972 left the theater slightly disappointed. The poster seemingly promises expectations of a giant human-eating frog, the sort of creature as seen in all of those atomic-era Roger Corman or Bert I. Gordon films.

McCowan’s Frogs doesn’t treat us to anything as cool and retro as that. Though there may be hundreds of frogs on screen – ostensibly - on “cerebral” attack, they’re all disappointingly of regular proportion. They’re not terribly seen as threatening either, truth be told. Yes, I imagine opening a door to find an army of croaking frogs crawling about would startle. It would certainly illicit uncomfortable, cringing reactions… but not necessarily fatal ones. Let’s face it. If a potential victim manages to assess the situation with measured, reasonable composure, a safe extrication would be simple. It wouldn’t take great bravery to clear a straight walking path through the frog horde with a mere lateral sweep of one’s work boots.

The only frog that I call recall as malicious in disposition, was the derby-topped, cigar-smoking villain of the old Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon series. Yes, I suppose if one subscribes to aged folklore beliefs, the worst consequence of engaging with a frog is, perhaps, having a wart developed on point-of-contact… or his becoming a Prince. The filmmakers of Frogs seemed to have recognized early on that such amphibians are hardly fearsome, creatures lacking shiver-inducing adversarial characteristics. This would task the film’s screenwriters to somehow make sure the titular frog(s) would be abetted in their vengeful attacks on humankind.

Indeed, they did. The frogs telepathically summon a multitude of swampland friends to assist in their scorching revenge: their army includes snakes, spiders, scorpions, insects, lizards, alligators, leeches, turtles, Spanish moss entanglements, tarantulas and Gila monsters. (Let’s not quibble why such Southwestern desert dwellers as tarantulas and Gila monsters have made U.S. Southeast swamp country their habitat). Though the frogs get top billing in the film and are featured on the nifty poster, they mainly serve throughout as cheerleaders, beckoning their swampland mates to annihilate these inconsiderate, pesky, eco-insensitive humans.

In early October of 1971, Variety announced that Frogs would be AIP’s next horror film effort, a co-production with Peter Thomas Productions. Thomas and George Edwards would co-produce, with Norman T. Herman to serve as executive producer. The screenplay would be co-written by Robert Hutchinson (from his own original story) and Robert Blees. Though location shooting in New Orleans was suggested early on, the city would not ultimately play host in the film’s production. By October’s end three of film’s primary cast were announced: Ray Milland, Judy Pace and Lynn Borden.

Frogs would mark Milland’s fourth appearance (of five total) in an AIP horror/sci-fi flick. Like other aging film stars of the 1940s (Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre e.g.), the actor found autumnal employment in a stream of macabre exploitation films for AIP and others. His previous films for AIP included roles in The Premature Burial (1962), Panic in Year Zero! (which he also directed) and The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963) – all well-made and reasonably good films for the most part. Judy Pace had recently graduated from television roles to big screen features in such films as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Brian’s Song (1971). Frogs would be Borden’s first credited feature film role, though she too was already a familiar fresh-face seen on television.

By mid-November, there was news that actor William Smith (best known for such motorcycle pictures as Angels Die Hard (1970), C.C. & Company (1970), and Chrome and Hot Leather (1971)) was reportedly cast as well but – for whatever reason – he ultimately would not appear in the film. For the most part the on-screen talent had been selected from a pool of actors whose primary resumes had been compiled from television work.

In one of this set’s special features, ultra-slim actress Joan Van Ark (Karen Crockett), recalls Frogs as her first true feature film role. She was especially excited to work with the great Ray Milland, a favorite actor of her father’s generation. Twenty-seven year-old actor, Sam Elliott, whose previous experience was also primarily tethered to the medium of television, was cast as the film’s hero, Pickett Smith. This too was Elliott’s first “big” break into feature films, though he was somewhat familiar to fans of the small screen through a recent reoccurring role as “Doug Robert” on TV’s popular Mission Impossible series. Van Ark recalled Elliott, even back then, as a complete “class act” and “gentleman” throughout.

Pre-production of Frogs would kick off on the “warm, white sands of Panama City Beach” during the first week of November 1971. The cast and crew had arrived in the resort town of Florida’s Panama City only days earlier. Everyone gathered was enjoying the respite of warm water and plentiful sunshine. Milland in particular would describe the beach as resplendent as any in Hawaii. Milland was tired upon arriving in Panama City, having only recently returned from South Africa for his aging scientist role in Robert Day’s The Big Game (1973). He’d later concede the breakneck, four-week production of Frogs was simply an opportunistic, open timetable gig, a quick pre-holiday season paycheck.

On Monday, 1 November, AIP would host a “welcoming dinner” at a nearby Holiday Inn so local press and city officials could meet and hobnob with Hollywood glitterati. One crew member sheepishly allowed to a reporter that the film was, partly, conceived to coast on the box-office coattails of Daniel Mann’s Willard (1971), Bruce Davison’s rat-loving psychopath. The shooting of Frogs was quick and strenuous as filming often went late into the wee hours. On 8 December, barely a month since production had commenced, Variety reported that principal photography of Frogs had wrapped.

Despite the hectic schedule, Van Ark recalled director George McCowan as easygoing and completely “unflappable,” a helmsman who encouraged a “family atmosphere.” This was no small trick as the actress recalled that due to the tight shooting schedule, there were many “stressful and tedious” long hours of work expected from cast and crew. But since McCowan’s directorial resume also bristled with television assignments, he was used to work expediently under deadline pressures.

On the morning following the press dinner, the unit would move to its primary location of “the old Eden estate,” forty miles north of Panama City. Production manager Elliot Schick told the press the area had been chosen due to its proximity to the Eden State Park mansion and historical museum, a location one hundred miles east of Pensacola. “We had looked at houses in Louisiana and Georgia,” he informed, “but this one was best and it was available.” He added, it was helpful that production would take place entirely in Florida as the state offered a more “pleasant climate” in which to shoot. Schick conceded that while AIP was choosing to invest in, as ever, another “low budget” production, he cautioned, “you’ll notice I didn’t say ‘cheap.’”

The film’s scenario takes no time in establishing its ecological premise. Opening credits are imposed over some footage of freelance photographer Pickett Smith (Elliott) canoeing through a dismal swamp. The only sound we hear are rustling wildlife noises and Smith’s quiet snapping of evidential photos. The images were to document the trash and pollution threatening the habitat. Actor Elliott plays Smith as a reserved outdoorsy-type: his personality rests somewhere between the strong-and-silent-type and brooding loner. His canoe ride is soon upended by a speedboat driven by a nervy Clint Crockett (Roarke) with his sister Karen in tow (Van Ark). With apologies, the two rescue Smith from the lake and take him to the island mansion home of their grandfather, Jason Crockett (Milland).

Old man Crockett is a rather surly, curmudgeonly fellow. Wheelchair-bound for fifteen years, the wealthy and privileged Jason is bitter man, controlling of both staff and family. He’s gathered his family together (children, grandchildren, nephews etc.) for a combo celebration of his upcoming birthday and the 4^th of July holiday. When introduced to the still-soaked Smith, Jason suspiciously asks why the photographer has chosen to ignore his No Trespassing signage. He learns that Smith is on an assignment to create “a pollution layout for an ecology magazine,” an explanation that doesn’t put the shutterbug in a positive light with the old man. However, Jason asks Smith (in Milland’s not entirely convincing Southern drawl) to stick around. He explains the peaceful idyll of his mansion estate is being ruined by the sounds of armies of croaking frogs – creatures of which he soon intends to put an end to.

Smith learns Crockett’s intended frog genocide is to be done by dousing the surrounding swamp with poisons, pesticides and oil slicks. Smith cautions such a plan would not only be devastating to the frogs but to all area wildlife. But the crusty, cigar-smoking patriarch of the Crockett family cares not one whit. He admonishes Smith, declaring “Man is master of the world.” Of course, this is completely the wrong attitude to take. It isn’t long until nearly all in the Crockett family circle are attacked and killed by an assortment of slimy, slithering creatures. The frogs are (apparently) communicating to their swampland brethren to carry out the brutal attacks since… well, they’re frogs and can’t do it themselves. With most of the family missing and/or dead, the beleaguered Smith advises survivors, “We got to get off this damn island!” Which, all things considered, sounds an entirely reasonable position to take.

Frogs would have its world premiere screening on Thursday, 23 March 1972 at Martin’s Florida Theatre in Panama City. The earliest newspaper adverts read, “Frogs Lay Millions and Millions of Eggs Each Year.” It then asks ominously, “What if They ALL Hatched?” The ad tag was soon tweaked to the more concise and memorable, “Today – The Pond, Tomorrow – The World!” Sam Elliott, Adam Roarke and Lynn Borden were all scheduled to attend the premiere. Conspicuously missing was Ray Milland. The actor could not attend as he was already at work on yet another exploitation picture for AIP, The Thing with Two Heads. AIP had pre-arranged another “press junket” to help with the premiere’s exploitation, bringing in Debbie Callaway, the “Miss Panama City” beauty pageant contestant, to attract salacious attention to the event.

No one attending could have predicted the future box-office success of Frogs, least of all the actors. Adam Roarke had been looking forward to expanding his roles beyond those in such hippie-biker films as Hell’s Angels on Wheels (1967) and The Savage Seven (1968). He had recently auditioned for the role of Michael Corleone in Coppola’s runaway box-office smash The Godfather. He disappointedly lost out, of course, the part going to Al Pacino. Still looking for his first big break, Roarke conceded that Frogs was unlikely the ticket. Though pleased with the film’s “strong ecology message,” Roarke candidly admitted Frogs simply wasn’t Gone with the Wind.

Milland too wasn’t terribly boastful of his involvement in the film. As reported in the James Robert Parish and Don E. Stanke book The Debonairs (Arlington House, 1975), Milland sighed reflectively, “I just did that film in a hurry, so I could get out of town for Thanksgiving. I thought it was so awful that it would never be released – now it’s making a lot of dough.” Joan Van Ark, on the other hand, shared mostly good memories of the film. She was not only “not embarrassed” by her participation in Frogs, but actually “grateful” to be cast.

Upon the film’s release, much was made in the press of the film’s comparison to Willard and other ecology-based, animal-attack horror flicks in current vogue. Some thought the recent spate of pro-environmentalism films were outright vehicles of propaganda, movies with an agenda. One AIP rep summarily dismissed that charge, telling the press unapologetically, “We don’t make pictures to deliver messages. Western Union takes care of that.” What was certain is that film critics were clearly divided in their opinions of the film. Perhaps choosing to highlight the film’s potential marketability over its artful staging, Variety thought the pic “slickly produced.” In their opinion, the film was “a tale of mounting danger and suspense,” one of “which has every element to keep audience on the edge of their seats.”

A contrarian view was offered by critic Howell Raines of the Atlanta Constitution. He thought the film, “a movie of stultifying stupidity, distinguished only by the total lack of wit which it delivers the message.” Terry Kay of the Atlanta Journal likewise thought the pic’s scripting both implausible and “inane,” suggesting most of the film’s frogs were, at present, “gracing the tables of Panama City’s finer restaurants.” The Detroit Free Press - obviously not holding back in acid opinion - described Frogs as, “the absolute worst film ever made.” The critic asked how an actor of Milland’s status could have involved himself in this, “piece of ecological garbage.” The critic did concede the picture, no matter how awful, would likely bring in “a couple million bucks.”

He was mostly right about that; horror movie fans were seemingly enthralled with the film. The pic would bring in a “lively” take of some seven and a half thousand dollars in its first week in its Motor City run, twelve thousand dollars each on both of its second and third week of play. In Houston, Frogs brought in fifteen thousand dollars in a four cinema opening, with Washington D.C. reporting a healthy twenty-thousand in receipts. When it was becoming clear that Frogs was going to score big bucks with the right promotional push, AIP ramped up the ballyhoo by mid-April. Prior to the film’s opening in Lafayette, LA, AIP would furnish local television and radio stations with plastic frog giveaways. The area’s cinema employees were outfitted with “frog patterned hot pants and ties” in which to greet patrons.

Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer was recently a guest on film music historian Frank Wilson's podcast, "What's the Score". Here is the official episode description:

Click here to access the web site page to listen to or download the episode. 

The Oscar nominations for films released in 2024 have been announced. Click here to read the entire list.

There is no progress to report on plans for the next James Bond movie. Industry sources say there is some tension between Eon Productions and Amazon MGM Studios. (The two companies are rights owners to the franchise.) However, it seems that the two entities have agreed to launch a remake of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". The film was originally brought to the screen in 1968 as a big budget production from Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli in between making "You Only Live Twice" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". The classic children's story was the brainchild of Bond author Ian Fleming and it was the only children's novel he wrote. The film under-performed at the boxoffice when originally released but over the decades it has become beloved by a generation that first saw it on British T.V. broadcasts and on home video. Indeed, enthusiasm for the movie is far greater in Great Britain than anywhere else. In 2002, Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli premiered a high profile stage production on the West End. A Broadway engagement followed. Since then, the production has proven to be very profitable through tours. At this time, no specific details are available about the new screen version. Stay Tuned. For more, click here. (Lee Pfeiffer)

By John M. Whalen

If you made a list of movies about men returning home injured from a war you most likely include “The Men” starring Marlon Brando in his first screen role or “Coming Home” (1978) with Jon Voight or “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) with Dana Andrews and Frederic March. They’re all very good. But another that should be on the list but probably wouldn’t make it because there’s no big star topping the cast is “Bright Victory” (1951) with Arthur Kennedy as a soldier from Florida who was blinded in combat in North Africa. It’s a sensitive, realistic film, with a screenplay by Robert Buckner based on a novel by Baynard Kendrick and directed by Mark Robson (“Home of the Brave” (1947) (Peyton Place (1957)). Kino Lorber has just released this under-appreciated gem on Blu-ray.

Larry Nevins (Arthur Kennedy) catches a bullet in the head that permanently blinds him. He’s sent to an Army hospital in Valley Forge, PA. for rehabilitation. Robson shot the movie on location, actually using patients and soldiers as extras, giving the film a realism that couldn’t be duplicated on a soundstage. Kennedy gives a solid, no frills performance as the blinded veteran-- at first full of self-pity but then filled with a new desire to live when he makes a discovery in one of his therapy sessions. In what’s called an Obstacle Perception Test, the doctors take him outside and tell him to walk until he senses something blocking his way. He’s actually standing in the middle of an obstacle course consisting of brick walls and wooden barricades. He’s doubtful of the outcome but he follows the doctor’s orders and starts walking. Suddenly he stops—just short of one of the barricades. “It’s like I can sense something is there!” he says. The doctors tell him that all humans have this sense of the presence of things immediately in front of them. “It’s a kind of radar,” the doctor explains. People with eyesight don’t need it, he’s told, so they never develop it the way certain blind people can. For the first time, Larry’s excited…excited enough to phone his parents down in Florida, who at first he had even refused to tell that he was blind.

While he’s in the hospital, Larry meets two people who become part of his new life. First is Judy Greene (Peggy Dow) whom he meets in a club where all the GI’s hang out. At first, still cynical and sorry for himself, he brushes her off, thinking she’s a hooker. But the bartender tells him he’s got her all wrong. When he meets her again later, he apologizes and they strike up a friendship. Judy falls for him, but he tells her there’s a girl back home in Florida waiting for him. She’s disappointed but remains his friend.

The other significant person he encounters is Joe Morgan (James Edwards). They accidentally bump into each other in one of the hospitals long hallways, and both being from the South, strike up an immediate friendship. Things go well between them for a while until one day in the bunk room with the other guys Larry casually uses the N-word and the room is suddenly locked in frozen silence. He’s stunned to learn that all along his new friend was a Black man. Joe gets himself transferred to another hospital.

Larry then goes home on a pass, where his family and the girl he left behind are waiting. Chris (Julie Adams) is happy to see him at first, but there’s a nervous strain between them. After talking to her father, who very simply expresses his doubts Larry will ever be able to support his daughter unless he gives him a job in his company, Larry tells Chris they need to leave their hometown and find a life of their own. Chris can’t make the change and they part.

There’s more to the story that involves Larry facing his racism, reuniting with Judy, and finding a suitable career path. What makes “Bright Victory” unusual is the way Larry’s racism is presented. I haven’t seen many films where the protagonist is presented with a character flaw like that. His racism is presented as a result of his upbringing in the South. The “victory” that Larry achieves is seeing that his only chance at a full life is to leave behind the past and its prejudices.

It’s a thoughtful film, partly due to Robson’s involvement. He did another film with racism as it theme, “Home of the Brave” in which James Edwards also had a part. But the characters and plot of “Bright Victory” all come from the Baynard Kendricks novel, ”Lights Out,” according to the audio commentary by screenwriter Gary Gerani. Gerani says that Kendricks actually met the person who became the Larry Nevins character in his book.

Kendricks wrote a lot about blind people, including a series of books featuring blind detective Duncan MacClain, who was played by Edward Arnold in the film adaptation “Eyes in the Night” (1942). The MacClain character lived on into the Seventies under another name, when Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant gave full credit to Kendrick as the inspiration for his blind insurance investigator played by James Franciscus in the “Longstreet” television series on ABC television.

Kino Lorber transferred “Bright Victory” from a brand new 2K Master and it looks very good. The picture is crisp and clear and William H. Daniels black and white cinematography presents this dramatic story in realistic detail and reminds you that human drama has no need of digital effects. Also included as extras are half a dozen trailers for other Universal films including “Bend of the River,” “Fixed Bayonets,” and “Boomerang.”

Click here to order from Amazon.

(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)

By Doug Oswald

John Wayne made three movies with Marlene Dietrich between 1940 and 1942: “Seven Sinners” (1940), “The Spoilers” (1942) and “Pittsburgh” (1942); the latter two also featured Randolph Scott. The years between 1940 and the end of World War II were interesting for all three stars. The Duke and Scott’s star status was rising, while Dietrich reached the peak of her star power. Dietrich was already a superstar, having left Germany for Hollywood in 1930 and rising to become the highest paid actress in Hollywood. During this period the Duke often received second or third billing after bigger names like Dietrich and Scott which was the case in these three releases by Universal Pictures available on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber.

First up is “Seven Sinners” from 1940 which is, in my opinion, the best of the three films. It opens with the classic Universal logo followed by a bar fight playing out behind the opening credits. Dietrich plays Bijou, a sexy cabaret singer traveling from island to island in the south Pacific on the eve of America’s involvement in WWII. She gets deported by the ruling governor general for suspicion of prostitution and ends up on a ship heading out to a new island. There she is joined by an assortment of riffraff, grifters and con artists.

Bijou ends up on the fictional island of Boni Komba and finds work at a bar named Seven Sinners. A U.S. Navy Lieutenant named Dan, played by the Duke, catches her eye while she performs a spicey cabaret number in which she’s wearing a tailored U.S. Navy style dress jacket, trousers and hat while singing to a crowd of sailors. Samuel S. Hinds plays the American island Governor who warns Dan of the dangers of romancing Bijou. She’s followed around by Little Ned, played by Broderick Crawford, and con artist/magician Tony, played by Billy Gilbert. Bijou also has a rival for her affection, Antro, played by Oscar Homolka. “Seven Sinners” is clearly Dietrich’s film and she’s terrific in it.

Marlene Dietrich had a very successful movie career in both Germany and in the United States. Born on 27 December 1901 in what is now Berlin, Germany, she got her start as a cabaret singer in the 1920s which soon led to parts in silent movies. Her breakthrough was in Josef Von Sternberg’s “The Blue Angel” where she played a seductive cabaret singer. Von Sternberg brought her to Hollywood where she rose to become the biggest female star in Hollywood. She co-starred with James Stewart in one of her greatest roles, “Destry Rides Again” in 1939. She became a United States citizen and supported the troops throughout WWII touring with the USO. Her entertainment career peaked during the war and she made just a few movies in the 50s and 60s until her death on 6 May 1992 in Paris.

While she remained married to Rudolf Sieber until her death, it was a marriage in name only as she became notorious for her very public affairs including speculation that The Duke became one of her romantic partners. Known for playing cabaret singers and saloon girls, Dietrich’s film highlights include “The Blue Angel” and “Morocco” (with Gary Cooper), both directed by Von Sternberg, “No Highway in the Sky” again with Stewart, Billy Wilder’s “A Foreign Affair” and “Witness for the Prosecution,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “Stage Fright,” Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil” with Charlton Heston, and Stanley Kramer’s “Judgment at Nuremberg.” She also appeared in a cameo role along with many Hollywood stars of the era in “Around the World in 80 Days.” Her final two films were “Paris When it Sizzles” in 1964 and “Just a Gigolo” in 1978.

The film was directed by Tay Garnet, a World War I aviator who started working in Hollywood in 1920 as a writer, directed many films including “My Favorite Spy” with Bob Hope, “Bataan” with Robert Taylor, “The Postman Always Rings Twice” with Lana Turner and John Garfield, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” with Bing Crosby and dozens of television episodes throughout the 50s and 60s, returning to feature films in the early 70s. He also appeared uncredited in several of his movies including this one.

The Universal release made its way to theaters in October of 1940. The movie is a light comedy playing out over 87 breezy minutes. The movie looks very nice indeed on this Blu-ray edition by Kino Lorber on a disc which includes an informative and entertaining audio commentary track by David Del Valle and C. Courtney Joyner. While there has been much speculation over the years over whether Dietrich and the Duke had a fling, Del Valle downplays this as speculation and doubts the rumors were true. The disc also includes the trailer for “Seven Sinners” and seven other Kino Lorber releases. Highly recommended.

Next up is “The Spoilers”, which finds Dietrich and the Duke in Nome, Alaska during the gold rush of 1900. This time they’re joined by Randolph Scott in a rare bad guy role in a tale where most everyone in the movie is bad except for Duke, Harry Cary and Dietrich. Based on the bestselling novel by Rex Beach, the Duke plays Roy Glennister, a gold mining prospector. He and his partner, Dextry (Harry Carey), team up with saloon girl Cherry Malotte (Marlene Dietrich). They’re forced to protect their claim against the crooked commissioner Alexander McNamara, played by Randolph Scott.

“The Spoilers” is a pseudo western taking place in the Klondike and it comes with all the trappings of a traditional western such as saloon fights, gun fights, horses, saloon girls and cowboys. “The Spoilers” has the distinction of being the only John Wayne movie where the Duke is dressed in women’s clothes and also the only time he appears in black face. It also has one of the longest fight scenes ever filmed at almost four minutes between the Duke and Scott.

Familiar faces on hand include Samuel S. Hinds as Judge Horace Stillman, Russell Simpson as Flapjack Sims and Margaret Lindsay as Helen Chester. The movie was directed by Ray Enright, who started work in Hollywood as a teenager in 1913, served in the Signal Corps during WWI, and working his way up as an editor, writer and director making dozens of feature films through the mid-1950s.

Randolph Scott was born on 23 January 1898 in Orange County, Virginia, and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. He served as an aviator during WWI in France, later played college football and after graduating, caught the acting bug and moved to California where he eventually received a contract at Paramount in 1929. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Scott appeared in everything from comedies to dramas and adventure movies. In the late 1940s he cemented his status as one of the most popular stars of westerns, a genre he worked in almost exclusively starting in the late 1940s. He especially shined in the seven westerns directed by Budd Boetticher starting with “7 Men from Now” in 1956. Becoming one of the biggest box office draws of the 1950s and early 60s, Scott retired from acting after the 1962 release of the classic, “Ride the High Country” directed by Sam Peckinpah. A multimillionaire due to his skilled investments, he lived in retirement with his second wife until his death in 1987.

Released in June of 1942, the Universal release has an 87-minute running time. The film looks and sounds very nice on this Blu-ray release. Extras include an image gallery, trailers for this movie and seven other Kino Lorber releases as well as an informative audio commentary by Toby Roan where he shares lots of information about the production, such as this being the fourth movie version of the Beach novel with another made in 1955 all titled, what else, “The Spoilers.” A popular story indeed. The movie is the least of the three Wayne and Dietrich films, but it’s a good rainy afternoon flick. For my money, a better movie with a similar setting and subject is “North to Alaska” also featuring the Duke.

The third Wayne and Dietrich pairing is “Pittsburgh” which is not only the nickname of the Duke, but also the location of this 1942 release which takes place in the years leading up to WWII. The contemporary drama (at the time) tells the story of two friends and the woman who comes between them. The film opens at the start of America’s entry into WWII with coal and iron works tycoons rallying the civilian workforce as military fighter aircraft fly overhead. The movie flashes back to the two leads pushing a coal cart in a mine shaft. The story follows the rise, fall and rise again of Pittsburgh and his friendship with Scott and Dietrich.

Marlene Dietrich is Josie Winters who is known by her nickname Hunky because she was raised in the Pennsylvania coal mining region where the movie takes place. She meets up with Cash Evens (Randolph Scott) and Pittsburgh Markham (Duke) while out on the town. Cash and Pittsburgh head into a theater advertising a $100 in gold prize (about $1800 in today’s dollars) to anyone able to knock out “Killer Kane.” A fight breaks out in the theater with Cash and Pittsburgh making a getaway. The movie takes a turn away from the comedy of the first act to more serious drama as a coal mining cave in results in Josie joining Cash and Pittsburgh in rescuing their friend, “Doc” Powers (Frank Craven).

The Doc is a genius when it comes to finding different uses for coal from plastics to life saving medical applications. Teaming up with Doc Powers, Cash and Pittsburgh form a corporation and with Josie they start their rise to the top. Their main investor is the wealthy steel magnet Morgan Prentis (Samuel S. Hinds) who also happens to have a pretty daughter, Shannon Prentiss (Louis Allbritton), who catches the eye of Pittsburgh. He marries Shannon for upward mobility rather than love and forgets his friends and the many promises he made along the way.

Pittsburgh’s rise, fall and rise again are the core of the story as we follow him in his journey. Pittsburgh becomes a better man as the film comes to its hopeful conclusion assisting with the war effort. Walking arm in arm with Scott and Dietrich, Pittsburgh provides the final line, “I love you Cash. So help me, I love you.”

The Duke is the lead here and he acquits himself quite well in a role that moves from comedy to drama. Marion Morrison was born on 26 May 1907 in Winterset Iowa. Known as “Duke” Morrison, his family moved to Southern California where Duke entered college on a football scholarship from 1925 to 1927. Tom Mix helped get Duke a summer job as a prop man in Hollywood where he eventually met John Ford. The Duke appeared in over 70 low budget movies in the 1930s, mostly westerns billed as John Wayne, until his breakthrough role in the 1939 classic “Stagecoach.” His star rose in the 1940s where he remained a top box office star into the 1970s and he remains a legend to this day.

The film was directed by Lewis Seiler, who helmed dozens of movies from the silent era until he retired in 1959. He is best remembered for his gangster movies and one of the best war movies made during the WWII, “Guadalcanal Diary” in 1943.

The Universal release comes in at 92-minutes and was released in December 1942, a full year into America’s entry into WWII. The movie contains the typical propaganda of the time, specifically in the American steel and coal industries, and veers from straight drama to comedy. Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges fame makes a cameo as a tailor in the first part of the movie. The Kino Lorber release looks very good and the movie has an impresive performance by The Duke. The disc includes an image gallery and the trailers for this and seven other Kino Lorber releases.

All three Kino Lorber releases are in black and white and offer The Duke in three films pairing him with Marlene Dietrich. The Duke is second and third billed here, but is a standout in all three. While not the classics like many John Wayne films that followed, these three movies are enjoyable and recommended, with “Seven Sinners” being the best of the three.

Click here to order "Seven Sinners" from Amazon.

Click here to order "The Spoilers" from Amazon

Click here to order "Pittsburgh" from Amazon

We return to the realm of movies that were announced with fenthusiasm but never materialized...at least not in the version originally envisioned. This movie trade magazine article from May, 1964 announces that Robert Mitchum would be among a cast of 31 major stars to appear in 20th Century-Fox's "The Day Custer Fell". Custer would play Major Frederick Benteen. You will note that this was intended to be the studio's most ambitious American film production. Alas, for some reason it fizzled and died despite the preliminary ballyhoo (a quaint industry term for "fanfare".) Ultimately, an expensive Custer movie made it to the big screen through Cinerama Releasing's ill-fated 1968 production of "Custer of the West" starring Robert Shaw. (Lee Pfeiffer)

FROM ACCLAIMED DIRECTOR MILOS FORMAN, 

THE WINNER OF 8 ACADEMY AWARDS WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

THE REMASTERED THEATRICAL VERSION OF THE FILM WILL BE AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL AND 4K UHD DISC ON FEBRUARY 25, 2025

The 1984 period biographical drama film stars Academy Award Winner F. Murray Abraham and Academy Award Nominee Tom Hulce

Burbank, Calif., January 8, 2025 – Celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the epic historical film’s 8 Academy Awards,  Amadeus, from acclaimed director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), will be available for the first time Digitally in 4K Ultra HD and on 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc on February 25.

One of the most celebrated films in cinematic history, the theatrical version of Amadeus will be available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc online and in-store at major retailers and available Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Fandango at Home and more.

Directed by two-time Academy Award winner Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) from a screenplay by Academy Award winner Peter Shaffer, the film is based on the play Amadeus by Shaffer and Mozart and Salieri by Alexander Pushkin. Amadeus stars Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri, Academy Award nominee Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart, Simon Callow as Emanuel Schikaneder, Roy Dotrice as Leopold Mozart, Christine Ebersole as Katerina Cavalieri, Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph II and Charles Kay as Count Orsini-Rosenberg.

Amadeus was produced by three-time Academy Award winner and Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award recipient Saul Zaentz.

Amadeus received eleven Academy Award nominations and won eight Oscars - Best Picture, Best Directing Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham), Best Screenplay based on Material from Another Medium, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, and Best Sound.

In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The restoration and mastering of the Amadeus original theatrical cut was completed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with the participation of Paul Zaentz.

About the Film

Disciplined Italian composer becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Amadeus Digital release and Ultra HD Blu-ray disc contain the following new and previously released special features:

The Making of Amadeus (New)

Amadeus: The Making of a Masterpiece

Thanks to the Internet Archive, here's your chance to listen to Lalo Schifrin's score for the 1968 crime thriller "Sol Madrid" (aka "The Heroin Gang"). The film was directed by Brian G. Hutton and featured an impressive cast: David McCallum, Stella Stevens, Telly Savalas, Rip Torn, Ricardo Montalban, Paul Lukas and Pat Hingle. The film and soundtrack album were released by MGM. Click on the Play button below, left. Use the forward arrow button to advance to the next track.

David Lynch, the internationally acclaimed director of such diverse films as "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "The Elephant Man" , "Mulholland Drive" and the creative force behind the classic T.V. series "Twin Peaks", has passed away at age 78.

Click here for details.

If you haven't had the opportunity to attend a screening of a classic movie accompanied by a live orchestra providing the original musical score, you don't know what you're missing. It's a truly thrilling experience, as this CBS News segment illustrates.

By Doug Gerbino

Laurel and Hardy first teamed up in early 1927 and quickly became a sensation, finishing the year at the height of their success. Their achievements in 1928 motivated the staff at Hal Roach Studios, including acclaimed director Leo McCarey, to enhance their efforts in support of the duo’s comedic brilliance. Whether creating chaos as a two-man band, feuding as a millionaire and his butler, or playing grave robbers for a mad scientist, Laurel and Hardy proved in their second year that they could capture audiences in the twilight of the silent era while building momentum for their seamless transition into “talkies” by 1929.

Although they are now synonymous with comedy, much of Laurel and Hardy’s early silent work exists only in fragments, with original negatives scattered worldwide and often in less-than-ideal condition. The Blackhawk Films restoration team devoted four years to assembling and meticulously comparing every surviving film element, frame by frame, to produce the highest-quality digital restorations possible. Today, these beloved shorts look as vibrant as they did nearly a century ago.

This impressive collection includes newly restored versions of their ten 1928 team films, along with additional works from Hal Roach Studios that highlight their final solo performances and the transition from silent films to synchronized sound and music.

Special Materials:

· Audio Commentary Tracks – For each film by historians and authors Randy Skretvedt & Richard W. Bann

· Exclusive, Rare Audio - Featuring Anita Garvin, Thomas Benton Roberts, and Hal Roach

· Additional Musical Scores – including original 1928 Vitaphone tracks on Habeas Corpus & We Faw Down

· Laurel & Hardy On-Location in Year Two – Video essay by John Bengtson on selected location exteriors

· Eve’s Love Letters (1927) – One of Stan Laurel’s final solo films

· Galloping Ghosts (1928) – Two surviving fragments of a rare solo Oliver Hardy comedy

· A Pair of Tights (1928) – A short starring Anita Garvin and Marion Byron

· George Mann’s Home Movies – From behind the scenes of Hal Roach Studios

Shorts on the Laurel & Hardy: Year Two set include:

Leave 'em Laughing, The Finishing Touch, From Soup to Nuts, You're Darn Tootin', Their Purple Moment, Should Married Men Go Home?, Early to Bed, Two Tars, Habeas Corpus, and We Faw Down

Each film includes a newly recorded score by some of today’s leading silent film composers, such as Andreas Benz, Neil Brand, Robert Israel, and Jean-François Zygel. This release has been curated by renowned film historians and Laurel and Hardy experts Randy Skretvedt, Richard W. Bann, Serge Bromberg, and Eric Lange.

As the "Grand Sheik Emeritus" of the founding chapter (or “tent”) of The Sons of the Desert, the International Laurel & Hardy Appreciation Society, I consider this collection—and its predecessor from last year covering 1927—a true treasure. These films have never looked as exceptional as they do in these Flicker Alley releases.

What fascinates me most is the transitional period in cinema history. The final two films in this collection originally premiered with sound-on-disc music and effects scores, designed for theaters equipped with the “Vitaphone” system. Their restored scores bring these silent films to life and offer a perfect bridge to 1929, which is expected to be next year’s release—marking the end of the silent era and the dawn of sound.

By Adrian Smith

A young, impoverished scholar is saved from a gang of thugs by a beautiful, thoughtful woman with fantastical powers who then takes him home and offers to help look after him. Little does he know that she is in fact an immortal vixen who, along with her two equally beautiful sisters (although given what the pair of them get up to together when they think she’s not looking, I hope they’re not actually sisters), is trying to attain human form after a thousand years of spiritual meditation. Once her sisters find out about the scholar, they get extremely jealous and before you can say “love square”, there’s a whole lot of sex going on between all four of them, and this naive young man is going to struggle to get any studying done for quite some time.

Taking its inspiration from The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and the ‘Liaozhai,’ or ‘Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,’ a large collection of supernatural stories published in the 1700s, where ghosts and foxes regularly interfere with the ordinary world, Erotic Ghost Story (1990) was one of the many adult-oriented films made possible by the introduction of the Category III rating in Hong Kong in 1988. Known as Cat III, this rating was the equivalent of the NC-17 in the States or the 18 in the UK and created a lucrative market for filmmakers who saw exploitation potential. Hong Kong audiences would eagerly attend midnight screenings of Cat III films to see nudity, softcore sex and graphic violence, often in the same film, usually held together with goofy comedy. A prime example, Erotic Ghost Story is a film in three acts; it begins with comedy, keeps audiences sitting up straight in their cinema seats with lots of sex and gorgeous leading ladies, and ends with an Evil Dead 2-style explosion of horror and supernatural madness.

Of the three sisters, Amy Yip is probably the best known to audiences in the West. Famed for her stunning looks, large chest (she was forever denying rumours that anything had been implanted) and sense of humour, she was a very popular star, appearing in just a few key Cat III classics like this film and then Sex and Zen, Robotrix and Erotic Ghost Story 2 (all 1991) before effectively retiring to become a business owner. There really was no other star quite like her, and it’s great to see her breakthrough role here, where shines above the rest of the cast, in part thanks to her contract clause that would not allow full nudity. The lengths the camera goes to show the audience almost everything without actually showing us anything is quite remarkable.

Erotic Ghost Story is hugely entertaining, and its popularity ensured two sequels in quick succession. They are thematic sequels with no actual plot connection, drawing again on ancient Chinese tales as well as eighties special effects horror cinema. In the first sequel Anthony Wong, another Cat III star, plays a virgin sacrifice-demanding demon who looks like a member of KISS, and features tons of dry ice, sexy women, bonkers horror freakouts and underwater kung fu. The second sequel, from just a year later, is about a man who enters a painting and finds himself in the afterlife where he must contend with yet another demon whilst also having copious amounts of sex. It’s a hard life for some.

This new Erotic Ghost Story Trilogy boxset from Imprint, limited to just 1500 copies, is a must have for any serious fan of Hong Kong cinema, or of unpredictable horror films, or of gorgeous naked women (or any combination of the three). The restorations for each film look terrific, with fabulous colours and pin-sharp imagery. It is pleasing to see that the negatives for these films, now over thirty years old (good grief, do I feel old), have been well taken care of. Each film comes with new commentaries from critics and historians, alongside a collection of exclusive new interviews with crew members and genre historians. Included on one disc is the 2018 documentary Category III: The Untold Story of Hong Kong Exploitation Cinema, which is an interesting introduction to this world of slightly unhinged Hong Kong film history. Aside from a couple of actors and Hong Kong directors however, most of the talking heads in the doc are middle-aged male white film critics and academics (and I say this as a middle-aged male white academic myself), and it is a shame that more people involved in making the films themselves, or at least more Hong Kongers, could not have been included. Despite that caveat, it is still recommended viewing if you want to put Erotic Ghost Story into context.

So, if you are looking for a spooky, funny, sexy time from an era when studios made films for grownups, you really should check out the Erotic Ghost Story Trilogy. And, in the meantime, if a beautiful, otherworldly woman in revealing attire floats towards you surrounded by dry ice, just be careful...

The Erotic Ghost Story Trilogy Blu-ray Region B boxset is available from Imprint. Click here to order.

Here's a rarity: original 1969 behind-the-scenes production featurette for "Paint Your Wagon". The quality is pretty lousy but it's still fun to watch and hear comments from the stars. Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg starred in the mega-budget musical that went down in flames at the boxoffice, but there's still plenty to like in the film including production designer John Truscott's amazing sets and Marvin's unexpectedly effective warbling of "Wanderin' Star".

By John M. Whalen

In 1958, Esther Williams was struggling to save her career. The era of the Technicolor “aquatic musical,” that had made her a big star at Metro Goldwyn Mayer for so many years, was over. After MGM let her go, she signed up with Universal-International to make more dramatic films sans water ballet. Her first outing with UI was “The Unguarded Moment” (1955), co-starring George Nader. It told the story of a high school teacher sexually assaulted by a student. It had nary a swimming pool in sight, but flopped, for various other reasons too numerous to mention here. (See my review of that film here on Cinema Retro). For her next film she put a toe back in the water with “Raw Wind in Eden” (1958), which was shot on location on an island off the Tuscan Coast. It had a swimming scene (without musical choreography), but it was another box office disaster. NY Times movie critic Bosley Crowther said it looked like “the producers lost the script and went right on shooting without it, making it up as they went along.” It was the end of her relationship with Universal.

“Raw Wind in Eden”’s script was written by the husband/wife team of Richard and Elizabeth Wilson (“Invitation to a Gunfighter” (1964)) and follows the misadventures of a fashion model named Laura. I have to stop here and note that after a thorough screening of the film and an AI search of the internet I can’t find any mention of Laura’s last name. Apparently, the screenwriters didn’t bother to give her one. Anyway, what we do know about her is that besides being a fashion model she’s also having an affair with some rich married guy, who seems reluctant to ask his wife for a divorce. So, fed up with him, she decides to fly off with one of her boyfriend’s playboy friends, a guy named Wally Drucker (Carlos Thompson), who owns a plane. Their intention is to fly to where there is a big party being held on a yacht owned by one of Wally’s friends. Instead they crash into an island in the Mediterranean where three people live by themselves: a mysterious man named Michael Moore (Jeff Chandler), an older man named Urbano Verno (Eduardo de Felippo), and his daughter, Costanza Verano (Rosanna Podesto). Laura is unhurt in the crash, but Wally is injured. Moore, a former World War II medic, patches him up.

Moore tells the new arrivals that it could take as long as five weeks before any help arrives to take them off the island. Of course, during that time various romantic relationships develop. Drucker gets interested in Costanza, and Laura finds the reclusive Moore of interest. In a strange development it turns out that there’s another guy on a nearby island, Gavino (Nik Battaglia), who wants to marry Costanza. Every so often he rides his power boat to the island and fires a few shots, then turns around when Moore fires back at him. Believe me, it’s all pretty lame.

There is a mystery at the core of this goofiness. Who is Michael Moore and why is he living in seclusion on a Mediterranean island? And why did he scuttle the yacht that brought him here? The solution is provided at the end, but you’ll be unlikely to care much by then.

This is not to say that there isn’t entertainment to be found on Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray edition of “Raw Wind in Eden.” First, of course, there is Esther wearing outfits suitable for the tropical climate and having a last cinematic swim. She was still in great shape. But the real gems are to be found in the audio commentary provided on a separate audio channel by film historian David Del Valle and movie historian/filmmaker Daniel Kremer. Perhaps the highlight of their conversation is their discussion of Esther Williams’ claim in her autobiography that her co-star Jeff Chandler was a cross-dresser. She had an affair with him during the filming of “Raw Wind in Eden” and claimed that he liked to wear her dresses. Del Valle and Kremer strongly doubted there was any truth to that accusation. Del Valle says he thought it was very cruel of her to put that in her book, even if it was true. He said that Jane Russell who had costarred with Chandler in “Foxfire” (1955) said she had never heard anything about that. But according to Del Valle, Williams’ autobiography contains many such accusations against the men she worked with on and off the screen— including Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan of the Apes! What? Come on, now! Cheetah never said anything about that.

There are a lot of other insights and stories about what happened behind the scenes during filming that you’ll probably enjoy more than the film itself—especially if your one of the many surviving Esther Williams fans out there. Restored from a 2K Master, the movie looks good in vibrant Technicolor and widescreen. Also included are over half a dozen previews for other Williams and Chandler films. If you’re looking for a film with a good plot and believable characters, this one is probably not for you. But if you want to relax and enjoy the sheer nuttiness of it all, and at the same time experience a period of time when one kind of moviemaking was fading and another kind was moving in, you could do worse.

Click here to order from Amazon

(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)

By  John M. Whalen

In 1955, Esther Williams, the star of films like “Million Dollar Mermaid,” and “Dangerous When Wet”, suddenly found herself out of work when MGM ended her contract. The era of the “aquatic musical,” which she was famous for, was over. So, Esther went to work at Universal-International and focused on more dramatic roles. It wasn’t a successful move. She made only two films for them. The first, “The Unguarded Moment,”(1956), was a noirish tale about a high school teacher sexually harassed by a student. “Raw Wind in Eden (1958)” was about a fashion model who crash lands on a Mediterranean island. I’ll be reviewing that one separately.

In “The Unguarded Moment”, Esther plays school teacher Lois Conway, who starts working in Ogden High School, which is in a typical 1950s “Leave It to Beaver” neighborhood- with the slight caveat that there’s a serial killer in the vicinity. She starts receiving mash notes from an anonymous student on the first day of school. Lois, who frankly, seems not very bright in light of the dumb things she does during the course of the story, first accuses a perfectly innocent boy of writing the note, which results in embarrassment to both her and the student. The notes continue until she receives one that asks her to meet the mystery stalker in stadium locker room that night at nine. Of course, she never considers calling the cops and decides to show up at the rendezvous in order to confront him. Things get nutty in the dark of the gymnasium but she manages to fight him off and her attacker runs out into the headlights of an oncoming car. We see it is a student named Leonard Bennett (John Saxon in his first major role)—the school’s most popular student and star athlete. Esther recognizes him but still fails to identify him to the cops who find her coming out of the stadium all disheveled and with a torn dress. She doesn’t want to turn Leonard in. After all he’s just a kid, not a criminal. Maybe she can help him. Naturally, they’re more suspicious of her than anyone else and she becomes topic number one at the school.

Now the police are involved and the cop in charge of the investigation is Mr. Bland of the 1950s himself, George Nader, playing Lieutenant Harry Graham. He’s frankly annoyed by Lois’s seeming naiveté and lack of cooperation in regards helping identify the suspect, especially since there’s already been one murder. But he is also aware that she’s a pretty good-looking babe, and that body! Also in the cast in a key pivotal role is an actor who probably appeared in at least 10,000 TV shows and films back in the Fifties and Sixties. Edward Andrews plays Leonard Bennet’s father, in one of the weirdest portrayals of a father ever given--even by Universal-International standards. In one creep-out scene, for instance, he enters his son’s bedroom and tells him for the 500^th time how his mother left them years ago and he has made sure that every trace of her was scrubbed out of the house. He keeps Leonard on a tight leash and forbids him to go out with girls. He reminds Leonard they don’t need women in their lives, and tells him: “We’ve built something really good here. If you do anything to hurt it I’ll break every bone in your body.” Not exactly Father of the Year.

“The Unguarded Moment” was directed by Harry Essex (“Tammy and the Doctor,” and a lot of TV work), and written by Herb Meadow (“Have Gun-Will Travel),” Lawrence B. Marcus (“The Stunt Man,” 1980), and Rosalind Russell (“Auntie Mame”). Yes, Auntie Mame herself dreamed up this weird tale and got Marcus and Meadow to write the script, which is surprising because Marcus had written some dynamite scripts for the “Route 66” and “Naked City” TV series back in the day. And Meadows’ “Have Gun-Will Travel” scripts were well-written as well. Their involvement in “The Unguarded Moment” should have resulted in something better.

Kino Lorber says the transfer to Blu-ray was made from a brand new 2K Master. The Technicolor comes through very effectively, but honestly, I thought the picture looked a little worn and grainy. I shouldn’t complain, though. This is the first availability of this feature on home video ever. It’s never even been on video cassette before. So overall I’d have to say this is a Blu-ray that will not only speak to the surviving fans of Esther Williams, but also those who appreciate being able to see movies that have almost been lost forever.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)

Hammer Film’s first ever 4K restoration, 
Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter,
 is released at UK cinemas!

LONDON, UK (07/01/25): Happy New Fear! To celebrate its 50th anniversary, a new 4K restoration of Hammer Film’s swashbuckling horror classic, Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, will be released at UK cinemas nationwide for one night only.

From 18th January 2025, the cult film will be screened at selected cinemas in major cities across the UK including Cambridge, Liverpool, Sheffield, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh (full list below). 

Legendary creator Brian Clemens (TV’s The Avengers, TV’s The Professionals) writes and directs this stylish, revisionist Hammer Horror pitting a swashbuckling hero, his trusty assistant and a feisty young ingenue against a cunning and malevolent vampire. 

Starring Horst Janson (Shout At The Devil, To Catch A King), John Carson (Doomsday, TV’s Poirot), Shane Briant (Hawk The Slayer, TV’s The Naked Civil Servant), Caroline Munro (The Spy Who Loved Me, The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad), John Cater (The Abominable Dr. Phibes), Lois Dane (Cash On Demand), William Hobbs (Willow, The Avengers) with Ian Hendry (TV’s The New Avengers, Get Carter) and Wanda Ventham (TV’s Sherlock, TV’s UFO), Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter makes its worldwide debut as a brand-new 4K restoration from the original negative film elements.

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter shifted the paradigm on cinematic horror, creating a film for which appreciation has only grown over the decades – its post-modern script, stylish direction, memorable performances and folk horror mise en scène make it both of and ahead of its time. Its influence is hard to over-estimate. Fifty years after its initial theatrical exhibition, this new restoration of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter celebrates an absolute classic of British horror whose time has very definitely come. 

Synopsis
A rash of mysterious deaths due to accelerated ageing compels Dr Marcus to summon his brother-in-arms, Captain Kronos – once a soldier but now a professional vampire hunter. As the deaths continue, however, Kronos realises that this is no ordinary vampire he’s hunting.

The Restoration
This brand-new 4K restoration was scanned from vaulted 35mm original negative elements, the resultant scans painstakingly restored to remove dirt and defects. Other issues like density or colour fluctuations were corrected and the film was then graded for High Dynamic Range to show off the full range of colour and the detail in the dark and light areas of the image. Original three-track mono audio elements were used to create a new 5.1 sound mix for theatrical presentation.

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter has a running time of 91 minutes a 15 certificate.

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter is released at UK cinemas from 18th January 2025 for one night only!

Full list of screenings:

18th January:
•    BELFAST Queens Film Theatre

20th January:
•    DUNDEE DCA

22nd January:
•    FINSBURY PARK Picturehouse 
•    CAMBRIDGE Picturehouse 
•    CAMBRIDGE The Light 
•    BIRMINGHAM Mockingbird Cinema
•    WALSALL The Light 
•    BOLTON The Light 
•    SHEFFIELD The Light 
•    STOCKPORT The Light 
•    NEW BRIGHTON The Light 
•    LIVERPOOL Picturehouse 
•    NEWCASTLE Tyneside
•    EDINBURGH Cameo 
•    GLASGOW Film Theatre
•    NORTHAMPTON Film House 

24th January:
•    BRISTOL Cube

27th January:
•    DUNDEE DCA

28th January:
•    MANCHESTER Home

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter Limited Collector’s Edition 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray will be released from 27th January 2025
Pre-order now from Hammer Films, Amazon, HMV

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Arrow Video

On February 25, Arrow Video takes a walk on the wild side with the controversial and erotic thriller, Cruising, making its world premiere on 4K UHD. Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) cast Al Pacino (The Godfather) in a riveting film that sparked protests upon its initial release in 1980. The Limited Edition release features a brand new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible), and hours of special features.

A serial killer is preying on the gay men that frequent the underground leather and S&M bars in New York City’s meatpacking district. Detective Steve Burns (Al Pacino, Serpico) is assigned to go under deep cover because he resembles the victims who have been dismembered or stabbed to death in cheap hotels around the Village. A shop owner (Powers Boothe, Red Dawn) explains the handkerchief color code to Burns, who hopes the colors in his back pockets will lure out the killer at the clubs or in the park after midnight. His investigation leads him into shadowy spaces that make him question everything from his pursuit of a murderer to his relationship with his girlfriend (Nancy Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark). Can he truly return to his normal life when this intense investigation ends? Cruising also features Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas), James Remar (The Warriors), and Joe Spinell (Rocky). 

The special features include two vintage audio commentaries with William Friedkin; audio commentary with musicians from the soundtrack; an alternate music score by Pentagram Home Video; deleted scenes; alternative footage; censored material reels; video interviews with actors Karen Allen, Randy Jurgensen, Mike Starr, Jay Aconvone, Mark Zecca; an interview with the manager of the Mineshaft; a visual essay on the hanky-codes with David McGillivray; a short film on the protests; vintage features on the movie; William Friedkin at BeyondFest 2022; an image gallery; the theatrical trailer; teasers; TV Spots; and a 120-page perfect-bound collector’s book with essays, interviews and vintage articles.

This title will ship on February 25. Click here to order from Amazon.

Thanks to Shout! Factory, you can enjoy this premiere episode of Gerry Anderson's sci-fi TV classic "Space:1999" starring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse, which premiered in 1975.(To maximize screen size, click "Watch on YouTube".)

Warner Bros. has made this scene selection available from the 1985 Western, "Pale Rider" starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. It was rumored at the time that this would be Eastwood's last Western, but he was carefully guarding the script for "Unforgiven" until he felt the time was appropriate to make the film. When he released it in 1992, it won the Best Picture Oscar and an Oscar for Clint's direction. Sadly, there's not much of a market today for Westerns on the big screen, despite Kevin Costner's noble attempt to revive the genre with his ill-fated "Horizon".  

Amazon Prime is currently streaming the acclaimed 1968 French crime thriller "Farewell, Friend" ("Adieu, L'Ami"). The movie was instrumental in elevating Charles Bronson from supporting roles to leading man status. Here is Cinema Retro columnist Brian Hannan's review of the film from his web site "The Magnificent 60s".

By Brian Hannan

This heist picture made Charles Bronson a star, though, like Clint Eastwood a few years previously, he had to go to Europe, in this case France, to find an audience appreciable of his particular skill set. This was such a box office smash in France that it was the reason that Once upon a Time in the West (1968), a major flop virtually everywhere else, turned into a huge hit in Paris. After a decade as a supporting actor, albeit in some quality offerings like The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and The Dirty Dozen (1967), Bronson developed a big following, if only initially in Europe.

Farewell, Friend could also lay fair claim to stealing the title of  “first buddy movie” from the following year’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) because, apart from the heist that is central to the story, it is essentially about the forging of a friendship. But it wasn’t released in the U.S. for another five years, in the wake of Bronson’s Hollywood breakthrough in The Valachi Papers (1972), and then under a different title, Honor Among Thieves.

And you can see why it was such a star-making vehicle. Bronson goes toe-to-toe with France’s number one male star Alain Delon (The Sicilian Clan, 1969). He had the walk and the stance and the look and he was given acres of screen time to allow audiences to fully appreciate for the first time what he had to offer. Like Butch Cassidy, the duo share a lot of screen time, and after initial dislike, they slowly turn, through circumstance and the same code of honor, into friends.

Dino Barran (Alain Delon) is the principled one, after a final stint as a doctor in the French Foreign Legion originally turning down overtures from Franz Propp (Charles Bronson) to become involved in a separate major robbery. Propp is an unsavory customer, making his living as a small-time thief who uses a stripper to dupe wealthy marks. Barran plans to rob a corporation’s safe during the three-day Xmas holiday of two million dollars as a favor to the slinky widow Isabelle (Olga Georges-Picot) of a former colleague, for whose death he retains guilt. Propp more or less barges his way into the caper.

It’s a clever heist. Isabelle gets Barran a job as a company doctor whose office is next door to the giant vault. But there’s a twist. Surveillance reveals only three of the seven numbers required to open the combination to the vault. But Barran reckons three days is sufficient to try out the 10,000 possible permurations.

Barran and Propp despise each other and pass the time playing juvenile tricks, locking each other into a room, stealing all the food from the one dispensing machine, winding each other up, while they take turns trying different combinations. But it opens after only 3,400 attempts and they face a shock. The vault is empty. They have been set up to take the fall for a previous robbery that must have been completed before the building closed for Xmas.  

And there’s no way out. They are in lockdown, deep in a basement. The elevators can only be opened by a small squadron of guards upstairs. Food long gone, they are going to run out of water. If they use a lighter to see in the dark, or build a fire to get warm, the flames will eat up the oxygen they need to survive in the enclosed space. So the heist turns into a battle for survival and brute force attempts to escape before the building re-opens and they are discovered, exhausted and clearly guilty.

But that’s only the second act. There is a better one to follow, as their friendship is defined in an unusual manner. And there are any number of twists to maintain the suspense and tension. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were close friends when that western began. Here, we see the evolution of a friendship between two forceful characters who express their feelings with their fists.

Delon was a known quantity, but Bronson really comes to the fore, more than holding his own against a top star who oozed charisma. This is Bronson in chrysalis, the emergence of the tough guy leading man screen persona that would turn him into one of the biggest stars in the world. Surprisingly, given his later penchant for the monosyllabic, here he does a lot of talking, perhaps more actual acting than he ever did later when his roles tended to fall into a stereotype.

He has the two best scenes, both character-defining, but in different ways. He has a little scam, getting people to gamble on how many coins it would take for an already full-to-the-brim glass to overflow when a certain number of coins were dropped in. While this is a cute trick, it’s that of a small-time con artist, but watching it play out, as it does at critical moments, is surprisingly suspenseful. The second is the strip scene which shows him, as a potential leading man, in a very poor light, and although thievery is the ultimate aim, it is not far short of pimping, with Bronson standing back while the woman (Marianna Falk) is routinely humiliated. It’s the kind of scene that would be given to a supporting actor, for whom later redemption was not on the cards. It says something for Bronson’s command of the screen and the development of his character that by the end of the picture the audience has long forgotten that he could stoop so low.

It is a film of such twists I would not want to say much more for fear of giving away too much, suffice to say that Olga Georges-Picot (Je T’Aime, Je T’Aime, 1968) and her friend, mousy nurse Dominique (Brigitte Fossey, in her grown-up debut), are also stand-outs, and not just in the sense of their allure.

Director Jean Herman, in his sophomore outing, takes the bold step of dispensing with music virtually throughout, which means that during the critical heist sequence the audience is deprived of the usual musical beats that might indicate threat or suspense or change of mood, but which has the benefit of keeping the camera squarely on the two leading characters without favoring either. Most pictures focusing on character rely on slow-burn drama. In the bulk of heist pictures, characters appear fully-formed. Here, unusually, and almost uniquely in the movie canon, character development takes place during an action film.

Top French thriller writer Sebastian Japrisot (The Sleeping Car Murder, 1965) was responsible along with Herman for the screenplay. Japrisot was a key figure in the French movie thriller scene, churning out, either as original novels or original screenplays, A Trap for Cinderella (1965), Rider on the Rain (1970) and The Lady in the Car with the Glasses and the Gun (1970).

Even without Bronson, this would have been a terrific heist picture. With him, it takes on a new dimension.

Click here to order Kino Lorber Blu-ray from Amazon

(This is a press release from Sony)

CELEBRATING THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ACCLAIMED AWARD-WINNING MODERN CLASSIC 

RETURNS TO 4K ULTRA HD™ AS A LIMITED EDITION STEELBOOK FEBRUARY 18^TH

4K ULTRA HD DISC

Feature presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision

Unrated Dolby Atmos English audio

Unrated 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Theatrical 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Feature:

Theatrical Trailers

BLU-RAY DISC™

Feature presented in high definition

Theatrical 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

Audio Commentary with David Fincher

Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin & Cast

Special Feature Blu-ray Includes:

How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?

David Fincher and Jeff Cronenweth on the Visuals

Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter and Ren Klyce on Post

Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and David Fincher on the Score

Ruby Skye VIP Room: Multi-Angle Scene Breakdown

In the Hall of the Mountain King: Reznor’s First Draft

Swarmatron

CAST AND CREW

Directed By: David Fincher

Produced By: Ceán Chaffin, Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca

Screenplay By: Aaron Sorkin

Based Upon the Book “The Accidental Billionaires” By: Ben Mezrich

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella

SPECS

Run Time: Approx. 120 minutes

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language and Unrated.

4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 2.40:1

4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | Unrated English 5.1 DTS-HD MA | Theatrical English 5.1 DTS-HD MA | French (PAR) 5.1 DTS-HD MA

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Instagram: @SonyPicturesHomeEntertainment

Facebook: facebook.com/sonypictureshomeentertainment

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/sonypictureshomeent

Twitter: @SonyPicsHomeEnt

Click here to order from Amazon

In this clip, legendary directors George Cukor and King Vidor announce Robert Redford as the winner of the Best Director Oscar for "Ordinary People" in 1981. Redford's acceptance speech is a model of grace and class.

In this Turner Classic Movies segment, George C. Scott pays tribute to one of his screen idols: James Cagney.

(Photo: Cinema Retro Archives.)

Olivia Hussey passed away last Friday at age 73. Vanity Fair presents this tribute to the talented star of director Franco Zeffirelli's groundbreaking 1968 version of "Romeo and Juliet".

Click here for details.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Director Michael Ritchie seemed to be on the fast track in becoming one of Hollywood's "A" list young filmmakers. His career started in television and hit a speed bump when he was fired from "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." after arguing with a producer about the content of a script. However, he eventually segued into movies. His first big screen feature was "Downhill Racer", the 1969 drama starring Robert Redford that displayed Ritchie's talents behind the cameras. A few years later, his career went into overdrive. He directed the quirky hit crime film "Prime Cut" followed by the prescient political satire "The Candidate" and then the critically-praised satire "Smile". His genial comedy "The Bad News Bears" proved to be a major boxoffice hit.  Ritchie never stopped working but the momentum faded by the late 1970s. He had the occasional modest hit ("Semi-Tough", "Fletch") but all too often he was consigned to mediocre films that played to mediocre results. Whether Ritchie was denied bringing innovative visions to reality by short-sighted studio executives or whether he just ran out of steam is not known. However, by the time he died in 2001 at only 62 years of age, those of us who admired his earlier films couldn't help but think that some great, unfilled projects had died with him. One of Ritchie's "work-for-hire" productions, the 1988 comedy "The Couch Trip" is now streaming on Amazon Prime. The quirky screwball concept falls short of its potential but there is much to recommend about it. 

The movie opens at a psychiatric institution in Illinois where John W. Burns Jr. (Dan Aykroyd) is being held against his will. However, if he is a prisoner, it is in the sense that Bob Crane's Colonel Hogan was prisoner: the inmate is literally running the asylum. Burns has it pretty good for an incarcerated man. He's overflowing with confidence, charisma and superficial charm and wins over everyone in his sphere of influence. There seem to be few pleasures that he is denied at the institution and even finds a way to have sex with the secretary (Victoria Jackson) of the chief psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Baird (David Clennon), an uptight, humorless man who doesn't relate to the inmates under his care.  The script introduces a separate story line concerning Dr. George Maitlin (Charles Grodin), an esteemed and very popular psychiatrist who dispenses pearls of wisdom to "patients" who call into his popular radio program. When it turns out that Maitlin himself is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he decides to take a sabbatical and attend a professional conference in London with his bubble-headed wife Vera (Mary Gross). He puts out the word that he wants an obscure psychiatrist to fill in for him by hosting his radio program, on the proviso that the substitute host isn't impressive enough to challenge Maitland's stranglehold on his audience. When word reaches the institute that Dr. Baird has been chosen to interview for the hosting gig, Burns intercepts the message, orchestrates a brilliant escape, steals a car and adopts the identity of Baird, even managing to fly to L.A. on his plane ticket (this was 1988, after all, before today's onerous security measures would render such a feat virtually impossible).  Once in Hollywood, Burns is met by his "colleague", Dr. Laura Rollins (Aykroyd's real life wife Donna Dixon), who- in addition to being brainy- is also a sexy, leggy blonde. He also meets  Harvey Michaels (Richard Romanus), a smarmy, fast-talking agent who is representing Maitland. The faux Dr. Baird quickly intimidates Michaels by making outrageous demands to host the radio program, all of which are met. Burns hits a speed bump when he has a chance encounter with a seemingly crazed con man named Donald Becker (Walter Matthau), who recognizes him as a wanted man and threatens to expose him if he doesn't make him a partner in his schemes. Left with no choice, Burns has Becker move into his lush hotel suite. 

When Burns makes his debut in the guise of substitute host Dr. Baird on the radio program, he radicalizes the format by dispensing brutally honest advice to his troubled call-in audience. At times, he indulges in outrageous behavior and tosses out obscenities that shock Michaels and Dr. Rollins. However, all is forgiven when he becomes an overnight sensation and a ratings smash. Before long, "Dr. Baird" is the toast of Hollywood, leading to him making even more outrageous demands. A fly in the ointment comes when the real Dr. Baird meets Dr. Maitland at a convention in London. The two men realize they're being exploited and hurry back to Hollywood where they attempt to thwart Burns as he accepts an award on Maitland's behalf at a black tie dinner.

"The Couch Trip" starts out as an uninspired comedy but improves considerably as it progresses. The script is most effective in satirizing the (then) new populist trend of having troubled people rely on advice of radio show hosts to make life-altering decisions in their lives. The concept was absurd in the 1980s and has grown exponentially today with people using social media platforms as Dollar Store versions of psychiatrists, taking the advice of total strangers in regard to resolving their most intimate problems.  Aykroyd is in top form with his cynical con man schtick. Matthau appears only fleetingly but adds his considerable skills to the merriment- and the supporting cast is also very amusing with Charles Grodin and David Clennon particularly funny.  Director Michael Ritchie proves to be as adept with comedy as he was with dramas and thrillers and his "hands off" style allows both Aykroyd and Matthau to shine. The film bombed on its theatrical release but it offers enough gentle pleasures that it can recommended for home viewing.

The Criterion video label has introduced a new and popular series of videos in which well-known people in the film industry visit the Criterion Closet, which is just that- a closet stacked with video titles available from Criterion. The guest browses through the titles and selects a few that they relate anecdotes about and discuss why these films are personal favorites. This time, Francis Ford Coppola is the esteemed guest and, as you might imagine, his observations about certain films are enlightening and informative.

William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director of "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist", succinctly summarizes in two minutes why Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" has an eternal appeal for its fans.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Screenpix is currently streaming  the obscure 1984 thriller "The Ambassador". Despite it's impressive cast, the film was barely seen in the United States and had only sporadic distribution in other parts of the globe. The movie was a production of the Cannon Group, the now legendary schlock factory owned and operated by passionate Israeli movie buffs Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan. Cannon specialized in building often sub-par movies on limited budgets around stars with name recognition. Usually backed by sensationalist ad campaigns, Cannon became the toast of the film industry for churning out product at an almost surreal pace. Initially, Cannon was awash with cash but as moviegoers tastes became more sophisticated their ratio of misses-to-hits increased and ultimately the company folded. Although Cannon is synonymous with low-end action films and tasteless comedies, the company did occasionally seek to elevate the quality of its output by producing higher grade productions. "The Ambassador" was one such instance. It was ambitious in terms of aspirations even if it fell short of delivering on them.

The film was shot entirely in Israel and was based on Elmore Leonard's crime novel "52 Pick-Up". However, when Leonard learned that the screenplay by Max Jack had discarded virtually all of the characters and set-pieces from his book, he disowned the film. (Curiously, Cannon would make this up to Leonard by producing a more literal version of the novel a couple of years later. It was released under the book's title and Leonard wrote the screenplay.) The titular character is Peter Hacker (Robert Mitchum), the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Hacker is an idealist who is determined to use his influence to bring about a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to finally coexist peacefully. However, he not only has to overcome skepticism from mainstream people on both sides, there are also fringe terrorist groups determined to undermine his efforts. The film opens with Hacker and his embassy security man Frank Stevenson (Rock Hudson) attempting to broker a secret meeting in the desert between armed Palestinian and Israeli combatants. Against all odds, both parties send representatives but a terrorist group attacks by helicopter and slaughters most of the attendees. Undeterred, Hacker concentrates on courting young people on both sides in the hopes that he can convince them to use peaceful means to settle their differences. Hacker has other pressures in his personal life: his wife Alex (Ellen Burstyn) is suffering from alcoholism and makes a spectacle of herself at a high profile social occasion. More disturbingly, she's been carrying on an anonymous affair with a local Palestinian merchant, Mustapha Hashimi (Fabio Testi). He doesn't know that his lover is the wife of the American ambassador and she doesn't know that he is a bigwig in the Palestinian Liberation Organization and is under constant surveillance by the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. It turns out someone has secretly filmed the lovers in bed. Hacker receives a phone call threatening to release the film unless he pays a million dollars ransom. This sets in motion a complex but interesting plot in which Hacker and Stevenson work to find the culprits and retrieve the film by any means necessary. The trail leads to mysterious and dangerous characters who attempt to assassinate Hacker even as he doggedly continues his obsession with finding a peaceful solution to Middle East violence.

"The Ambassador" features the three principals in very fine performances. An aging Mitchum still shows charisma and can deliver the goods in terms of a dramatic performance, despite the fact that he was said to be drunk throughout much of the shoot. Burstyn (in a role originally intended for Elizabeth Taylor) gives a daring performance for an actress over 50 years old by appearing topless in several scenes. Hudson, in his final feature film, cuts a handsome figure. He was still in fine athletic shape and performs quite a few action scenes with credibility. Mores the pity that the AIDS that would take his life within the next year was probably already beginning to take its toll on him. Donald Pleasence appears fleetingly but impressively as the head of the Mossad. The direction by the once-esteemed J. Lee Thompson is a step up from the celluloid claptrap he had been churning out for Cannon in recent years. It's also interesting to note that 22 years previously, he and Mitchum had teamed for the classic thriller "Cape Fear". "The Ambassador" has plenty of well-staged action scenes and Thompson makes the most of capitalizing on the Israeli locations, bringing a good sense of exotic atmosphere to the production. The script is more problematic because some aspects of the story stretch credibility. Ambassadors are to follow directions from the administration they serve. Peter Hacker is constantly freelancing by taking on well-intentioned but absurd secret missions and rendezvouses. In reality, he wouldn't last a day in the job. The film ends with a bloodbath but tries to mitigate the shock by tacking on a feel-good ending that comes across as contrived."The Ambassador" is certainly not a classic but it is worth viewing and deserved a better fate. Sadly, the main plot involving peaceful co-existence in the Middle East, remains as elusive today as it was in 1984.

By Lee Pfeiffer

James Stewart in a movie about modern witchcraft in New York City??? That unlikely premise is obviously couched in the form of a comedy in Bell, Book and Candle, a 1958 gem that hits all the right notes and boasts a remarkable cast of Hollywood heavyweights, all seen at their very best. Kim Novak is Gillian, a sensuous young, single woman who runs an esoteric shop in Gotham that sells African artifacts. She also has a bit of a secret: she is a witch. Not the kind who tries to steal ruby slippers from young girls, but a kinder, gentler witch whose worst acts involve some juvenile pranks. Bored with her love life, she decides to use her powers to seduce the first desirable man who comes into her field of vision. It turns out that the "victim" is Shep Henderson, a single, successful book publisher who happens to reside in her apartment building. Gillian works her magic and Shep is instantly smitten, though it strains the imagination to believe that any straight man would need a hex on him to become enamored with Kim Novak. Gillian discovers, much to her delight, that Shep is engaged to Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule), an old rival from their college days. Thus, the opportunity to break up their relationship seems especially delicious. The ploy works and Shep and Gillian become a couple- but, as you might imagine, witchcraft intervenes in unexpected ways that causes them to reevaluate their true feelings for each other. 

This is a very witty film, directed by Richard Quine, who demonstrates a deft ability to carry off a light comedic touch. The movie reunited Stewart and Novak after they starred in Hitchcock's classic Vertigo and, although the two movies couldn't be more different, they do share an interesting relation to the supernatural. Jack Lemmon, then on the cusp of major stardom as a leading man, is very amusing as Novak's warlock brother who is frustrated that his powers never seem to be able to benefit him in any substantial ways. (He has to earn a living as a bongo player in a nightclub that caters to fellow witches and warlocks.) The great Elsa Lanchester is especially terrific as Novak's ditzy aunt (also a witch). Another comedic actress, Hermione Gingold, is wonderful in a brief role as a witch who tries to break the spell Gillian has cast on Shep. Even Howard McNear (better known as Floyd, the barber from The Andy Griffith Show) turns up as Shep's business partner. If there is a true scene-stealer, however, it's Ernie Kovacs as an alcoholic, disheveled author of a book about modern witchcraft who professes to be able to recognize witches in a way the average person could never hope to. Naturally, he never suspects the people he is dealing with are mostly witches. Kovacs, playing low-key, dominates every scene he is in- no small task, considering his talented co-stars. Stewart is at his peak here and Novak's legendary icy persona is used to wonderful effect, giving her an other-worldly quality. 

The movie has one drawback: although it is set in New York City, there are precious few location scenes. The rest of the film is quite obviously shot on sound stages that could represent anywhere and don't resemble the Big Apple in any way. There is one terrific scene, however, that finds Stewart flinging  his hat from atop the Flatiron Building- and cinematographer James Wong Howe captures it's fall to the ground without any cuts in the shot. It's quite an achievement and one wishes Howe's talents weren't restricted largely to studio sets on this film. The movie also boasts a fine score by George Duning that adds immeasurably to the mood and fun.

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. 

Click here to order Blu-ray from Amazon

Turner Classic Movies pays tribute to those we lost in the film community during 2024. As usual with these tributes, they are beautifully produced and very moving to watch. Chances are you didn't realize that some of these beloved individuals had passed on. Through motion pictures, however, their work will live forever. We'll make the same observation that we make every year: why can't the Motion Picture Academy follow TCM's lead when it comes to the annual tribute? The Oscars version of this tribute is always very nicely produced but every year movie fans object to those who were needlessly omitted in favor of showing the artists who are playing the music that accompanies the video and also to make time for the more inane comedic aspects of the broadcast. If egos weren't at play, the Academy would simply strike a deal with TCM to run their tribute, as it's much closer to being definitive. The Academy's broadcast now even omits well-known people who had been nominated for Oscars, a practice that outrages movie fans and insults the families of those who were snubbed. (Lee Pfeiffer)

THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC THRILLER FROM
DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER FINALLY DEBUTS ON 4K ULTRA HD™



AVAILABLE AS A LIMITED EDITION STEELBOOK FEBRUARY 18^TH

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Sony:

Official description:

Check out the Superman teaser trailer for this upcoming DCU film from director James Gunn. Superman stars David Corenswet in the dual role as Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. The film also stars Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Sara Sampaio, Maria Gabriela de Faria, Wendell Pierce, Alan Tudyk, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, and Christopher McDonald as Ron Troupe. Superman is executive produced by Nikolas Korda, Chantal Nong Vo and Lars Winther. Behind the camera, Gunn is joined by frequent collaborators, including director of photography Henry Braham, production designer Beth Mickle, costume designer Judianna Makovsky and composer John Murphy, along with editors Craig Alpert (“Deadpool 2,” “Blue Beetle”), Jason Ballantine (the “IT” films, “The Flash”) and William Hoy (“The Batman”). Superman, written and directed by James Gunn, opens in US theaters on July 11, 2025, and internationally beginning July 9, 2025, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. #Superman #DC #IGN

By Ernie Magnotta

1974... Producer/director Bob Clark’s (Deathdream, Murder by Decree, A Christmas Story) frightening and entertaining suspense-thriller Black Christmas is released and is lovingly devoured by a horror-hungry audience. Expertly written by A. Roy Moore (The Last Chase), who was inspired by the urban legend “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs” as well as a real life murder case, this excellent, Canadian-made horror film details a group of sorority sisters who are terrorized and slaughtered during the holiday season by a mysterious psychopath who, unbeknownst to everyone, is hiding in the sorority house attic.

More than just a marvelous piece of horror cinema, the Gialli-influenced film went on to become quite influential in its own right. Predating John Carpenter’s immortal and amazing Halloween by four years, the smart and stylish Black Christmas (aka Silent Night, Evil Night and Stranger in the House), which has already had two inferior 21^st century remakes, contains many elements that would not only find their way into the Carpenter classic, but into the slasher sub-genre as well. Elements such as a mad killer murdering on a beloved holiday; attractive teen victims; the POV shot as a stand-in for the killer; nail-biting suspense; a female protagonist who fights back, and the killer still being alive in the final scene can all be traced back to Clark’s masterwork. The enjoyable film is also partly responsible for the glut of Christmas-themed slashers which, each year, only seem to be growing in number.

Featuring a top-notch cast—Margot Kidder (1972’s Sisters, Superman: The Movie), Olivia Hussey (1968’s Romeo and Juliet, Psycho IV: The Beginning), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey, David and Lisa), Andrea Martin (SCTV, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Art Hindle (The Brood, 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and the legendary John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street) as well as incredibly talented character actors Doug McGrath, Les Carlson, Marian Waldman, James Edmond and a very creepy score by composer Carl Zittrer—Black Christmas is not only a must-see, humorous and quite terrifying film, but, as already stated, an important and, in my opinion, still underrated piece of horror history.

I was extremely fortunate to be able to speak with gifted actress Lynne Griffin who not only plays the sweet and low-key first victim, Clare Harrison, but whose now iconic image—a dead Clare sitting in a rocking chair in the sorority house attic with a clear plastic bag over her head—was used to promote the film. A veteran of stage, screen and television, the Toronto native appeared in several other memorable films after Black Christmas including the comedy classic Strange Brew (1983) and the underrated slasher film Curtains (1983). Although she was extremely busy, the lovely, gracious and insanely funny Lynne took time out of her hectic schedule to chat with me about her fond memories of Black Christmas.

Ernie Magnotta: How did you get involved in the film?

Lynne Griffin: It was just a general audition. I think the reason I got the part was because I told them I was a good swimmer and that I could hold my breath for a long time.

EM: Because they needed you to wear the plastic bag over your head?

LG: Right. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. That’s how you get a part? (Laughs) Also, I mean, look at that face. If there was ever one that was going to play the eternal virgin it was me. But yeah, just a general audition. I don’t even remember if I met Bob Clark at the audition or not, but it was a wonderfully fun shoot. And Bob Clark is Uncle Bob. He just made every day really fun to be there; especially all my days in the attic.

EM: A lot of people don’t realize that, besides the horror and suspense, he was also responsible for some of the lighter moments in the movie as well as for keeping the ambiguous ending which Warner Bros. wanted him to change. And he made the college student characters more realistic which only helped with the suspense and scares. I’m such a fan of his and it’s a real shame what happened to him.

LG: Oh, so tragic. Oh, my God. And I know there was going to be more greatness to come from Bob. Cut short unfortunately.

EM: Now, you played someone very different from your usually funny, bubbly personality and you did it quite convincingly. Was that difficult or were you able to just slip right into it?

LG: Back then, I was actually very serious. I was studying Shakespeare and was doing very dramatic work, so, when I played Clare, I was in my element.

EM: Do you remember how long you worked on the film?

LG: It was actually quite substantial because we were doing all the initial party scenes and the phone call scenes and I remember that we spent a lot of time shooting the attic stuff. I was probably on it three, maybe four weeks.

EM: That’s longer than I thought.

LG: Yeah, because things weren’t shot in sequence. And I kind of remember it really being like a family/sorority sort of feeling because we were there a lot and we were really getting to know one another. There was always a nice feeling on set. And that always comes from the top. That was Bob.

EM: I thought it would have taken less time for you because I just assumed that they shot all the attic scenes at once.

LG: They did. I kind of remember being around it a lot, though. I don’t really know why that would be. It’s funny with some films. There was one I shot in Vancouver where I was on hold for like three weeks. I was sitting in a hotel room waiting for them to shoot some other stuff with me and they just kept throwing per diem at me. So, when that happens it feels like you’ve worked longer, but the actual filming that I was involved with didn’t take all that time. The attic scenes definitely didn’t take three weeks to film.

EM: I know that, throughout the film, several different people played Billy, the demented and horrifying, unseen killer, but do you remember who played him for both your murder scene and your scenes in the attic?

LG: Camera operator Bert Dunk (an unsung hero of the film who was also responsible for designing the equipment needed to film all of the killer’s POV shots) strangled me in the closet with the plastic bag, but Bob Clark rocked the rocking chair. Bob also did some of Billy’s voices, but that was mostly done by actor Nick Mancuso.

EM: Such a great actor. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more frightening or more insane-sounding phone voice in all of horror cinema.

LG: Absolutely not.

EM: Did you stick around the set even after your scenes were shot?

LG: Yeah, I think we all kind of hung out. And I remained friends with Art Hindle. We’ve worked together a lot since then. We once worked on an animated series where we played old lovers which was really funny. Art always likes to remind me that, in Black Christmas, he was my first screen kiss. (Laughs) So, the fact that we’re still sort of hanging out is very cool. And he’s one of the funniest people on the planet.

EM: Nice. He starred in a David Cronenberg film called “The Brood” which is a favorite of mine. I love that film and he was great in it. I also always loved Margot Kidder. Was she fun to work with?

LG: I adored Margot Kidder and I was enamored with her all the way through just because of the way she works. She was doing a lot of improv which was phenomenal, sensational and funny all the time. She wasn’t standoffish at all. She was lovely. So was Andrea Martin and Keir Dullea. Like I said, it was a very congenial and happy set. There wasn’t really any negativity which was wonderful. I was trying to think if there was anything juicy I could tell you, but no. They didn’t like tie the plastic bag around my head so that I couldn’t breathe or anything like that. (Laughs) Yeah, they were very sweet. When you shoot horror films, I think the general atmosphere is to keep it very light and fun even though you’re doing something that is really quite grotesque.

EM: It’s not real, so it becomes funny.

LG: Right. You know you’re playing pretend and it’s a bucket of fake blood or whatever. And that part of it I really like. If it were taken really seriously I probably wouldn’t like doing it.

EM: I agree. Tell me about working with Olivia Hussey.

LG: A lot of people think that Olivia is sort of like aloof or standoffish, but I didn’t find her that way at all. Of course, it was fascinating to pick her brain about working with Zeffirelli because she’d done Romeo and Juliet for him and, like I mentioned before, I had been working on a lot of Shakespeare too at that time. She was really lovely. And we’re Facebook friends to this day.

EM: Oh, that’s terrific. Now, unfortunately, we lost the great John Saxon. I know you didn’t have any scenes together, but did you get to meet him?

LG: Oh, yes. And you know, for the longest time, John Saxon came out and did the conventions and the panels with us. Art Hindle, myself and John were always on the panels for Black Christmas. John was fabulous. I remember doing one Comic-Con with him. I think it was a Comic-Con. Anyway, the line for people to see him was like around the building and he was so lovely with every single person. And, at that time, he was showing me the ropes about how I should behave at one of these conventions which was really cool. He was a lovely man.

EM: How about Claude, the cat? I heard he was difficult to get along with and pretty full of himself. (Laughs)

LG: (Laughs) Claude was not a happy cat. He did not work well with others. I was sitting in the rocking chair and Claude didn’t like being tossed onto my lap by Bob Clark. So he scratched me. Claude, not Bob.

EM: Thanks for clearing that up. (Laughs)

LG: (Laughs) Oh, and they sprayed catnip all over my face so that Claude would lick my face while I was sitting in the rocking chair.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release pertaining to this UK Region B release:

Director John Sturges reunites with The Magnificent Seven stars Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson in this timeless adaptation of Paul Brickhill’s World War II memoir of an audacious prisoner breakout.

Stalag Luft III: an impenetrable camp built to hold the most persistent escapees. Under the ruthless vigilance of the Nazi guards, a multinational group of prisoners must work together to enact their daring plan: to break out of the camp, forcing the Germans to divert precious military resources towards apprehending them. But getting beyond the camp’s barbed wire fences and gun-towers is only the beginning. Once out, the escapees must make the perilous journey to the border, all the while evading the relentless pursuit of their former captors.

Beautifully shot by Oscar®-winning cinematographer Daniel L. Fapp (West Side Story) and featuring a rousing, infectiously hummable score by Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments), The Great Escape remains one of the most beloved Hollywood historical action movies – a testament to human ingenuity, camaraderie under pressure and indomitability of the spirit.

3-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Hadley
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Barry Forshaw, Neil Mitchell, Wickham Clayton and Mark Cunliffe
• Fold-out double-sided poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Hadley

DISC 1 (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY) – THE GREAT ESCAPE

• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray™ presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Newly restored original lossless mono soundtrack
• Optional lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary by filmmaker/historian Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin, author of Combat Films: American Realism
• Audio commentary featuring director John Sturges and members of the cast and crew, moderated by Steven Jay Rubin
• Theatrical trailer

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY) – BONUS FEATURES

• The Real Great Escape – author and historian Guy Walters separates fact from fiction in this brand new interview
• The Great Escapism – brand new appreciation of the film by Jose Arroyo, Associate Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick
• The Great Composer – brand new interview with composer/author Neil Brand, discussing Elmer Bernstein and his iconic score
• Freedom Forged – critic and educator Rich Johnson explores the film’s place within the war movie canon in this brand new visual essay
• Michael Sragow on The Great Escape – 2020 interview exploring the career of John Sturges and the making of the film
• Heroes Underground – 2001 four-part documentary exploring the making of the film and the events which inspired it, featuring interviews with former POWs
• The Real Virgil Hilts – 2001 featurette interviewing former POW David M. Jones, widely seen as the inspiration for Steve McQueen’s character
• The Untold Story – 2001 documentary exploring the planning and execution of the real-life escape
• The Untold Story: Additional Interviews
• Return to The Great Escape – 1993 featurette exploring the making of the film
• Image gallery

DISC 3 (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY) – THE GREAT ESCAPE II: THE UNTOLD STORY [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]

• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray™ presentation in SDR
• Original lossless 2.0 stereo soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Original Trailer

Details:
Barcode: 5027035027210
Cat number: FCD2551
Format: UHD
UK Release date: 2/12/2024
RRP: £34.99
Genre: War / Drama
Region coding: N/A
Runtime: 172 / 187
Discs: 3
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 / 1.78:1
Audio: 1.0 / 2.0 / 5.1
Colour: Colour
Director: John Sturges
Cast: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Rating: 12

Please note: this is a "Region B" release that requires the appropriate player  or a region-free player in order to view the discs. This release is not available in North America at this time.

Click here to order.