Gunsmoke actor Amanda Blake played Miss Kitty Russell for an impressive 19 seasons and one made-for-tv movie. However, the character evolved in numerous ways over the course of the show’s run on CBS from 1955 and 1975. There’s one Gunsmoke episode, in particular, that introduced Kitty’s “beauty mark” for the very first time. It became an instantly recognizable part of the character from then on out.
‘Gunsmoke’ Season 1 hinted at Miss Kitty Russell’s career Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell | CBS via Getty Images
Gunsmoke originally debuted as a radio show in 1952 before making the move to television in 1955 with a new cast for the small screen. The adapted version initially followed the source material quite closely before deviating and finding its own voice. However, Gunsmoke fan letters certainly swayed CBS to make some decisions, including some changes to Kitty.
The story hinted that Kitty worked as a sex worker in Gunsmoke,...
‘Gunsmoke’ Season 1 hinted at Miss Kitty Russell’s career Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell | CBS via Getty Images
Gunsmoke originally debuted as a radio show in 1952 before making the move to television in 1955 with a new cast for the small screen. The adapted version initially followed the source material quite closely before deviating and finding its own voice. However, Gunsmoke fan letters certainly swayed CBS to make some decisions, including some changes to Kitty.
The story hinted that Kitty worked as a sex worker in Gunsmoke,...
- 3/26/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
For nearly a century, the Western genre has been captivating movie-goers with gun-slinging cowboys who traverse the Wild West. As time progressed and societal norms shifted, so too did the western films of each era. They began to act as windows into contemporary culture rather than reflections of past eras. Western movies have become beloved staples in cinema and continue to thrill viewers today with their daring adventures set against grandiose landscapes.
Related: 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time, Ranked by Viewers
Since its birth, the western genre has retained its liveliness and novelty through many decades of existence. Creative filmmakers have continued to deliver their renditions of this classic Western style, keeping it relevant even today.
10 ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins
In ‘The Hateful Eight’, Tarantino presents a revisionist-film-meets-spaghetti-western that honors westerns of the 1960s. Think about all those stories of violence,...
Related: 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time, Ranked by Viewers
Since its birth, the western genre has retained its liveliness and novelty through many decades of existence. Creative filmmakers have continued to deliver their renditions of this classic Western style, keeping it relevant even today.
10 ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins
In ‘The Hateful Eight’, Tarantino presents a revisionist-film-meets-spaghetti-western that honors westerns of the 1960s. Think about all those stories of violence,...
- 3/12/2023
- by Buddy TV
- buddytv.com
The first season of Gunsmoke brought the popular radio show to television screens across the country on CBS. It initially remained fairly close to its original iteration before it started to move in its own direction. Nevertheless, Gunsmoke became the most popular show on television, initially starting with episodes from season 1 in 1955. Here are the top 5 best-rated episodes, according to users on IMDb.
Episode 1: ‘Matt Gets It’ James Arness as Matt Dillon | CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
The first Gunsmoke episodes performed rather well with audiences who became longtime fans. “Matt Gets It” was the first to ever air on Sept. 10, 1955, earning an impressive 8.2 score.
“Matt Gets It” follows U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) after taking what appears to be a potentially fatal wound while attempting to arrest a talented gunfighter named Dan Grat (Paul Richards). The antagonist continues to cause havoc around Dodge City, but Doc Adams...
Episode 1: ‘Matt Gets It’ James Arness as Matt Dillon | CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
The first Gunsmoke episodes performed rather well with audiences who became longtime fans. “Matt Gets It” was the first to ever air on Sept. 10, 1955, earning an impressive 8.2 score.
“Matt Gets It” follows U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) after taking what appears to be a potentially fatal wound while attempting to arrest a talented gunfighter named Dan Grat (Paul Richards). The antagonist continues to cause havoc around Dodge City, but Doc Adams...
- 3/12/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Burbank, Calif., February 15, 2023 – As part of the year-long centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros. Studio, three classic and beloved films from the Warner Bros. library – The Maltese Falcon, Cool Hand Luke, and Rebel Without a Cause – will be available for purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital this April.
On April 4, The Maltese Falcon and Cool Hand Luke will be available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray™ Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
On April 4, Rebel Without a Cause will be available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers. On April 18 it will be available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc will include each feature film in 4K with Hdr...
On April 4, The Maltese Falcon and Cool Hand Luke will be available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray™ Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
On April 4, Rebel Without a Cause will be available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers. On April 18 it will be available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc will include each feature film in 4K with Hdr...
- 2/20/2023
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
If you're a law-abiding citizen with no experience of life behind bars, a good prison movie is a window into a harsh world far removed from regular day-to-day life. There is something so intense about the idea of incarceration that makes it great for drama, and also lends itself to symbolism and metaphor beyond the usual narrative beats of violent inmates, old lags, sadistic screws, and suspenseful escapes.
I recently had a discussion around this with a friend regarding "The Shawshank Redemption." He keeps his kids well away from any screen violence while I have watched the movie with my seven-year-old daughter. Why, he wanted to know, did I think a film containing brutal beatings, suicide, and sexual assault was suitable for her? Well, we skipped some of the darker stuff, and I felt the story's overall message of resilience, hope, and friendship was the important thing, reflected in how...
I recently had a discussion around this with a friend regarding "The Shawshank Redemption." He keeps his kids well away from any screen violence while I have watched the movie with my seven-year-old daughter. Why, he wanted to know, did I think a film containing brutal beatings, suicide, and sexual assault was suitable for her? Well, we skipped some of the darker stuff, and I felt the story's overall message of resilience, hope, and friendship was the important thing, reflected in how...
- 8/23/2022
- by Lee Adams
- Slash Film
L.Q. Jones, the colorful character actor who worked on dozens of Westerns, including the Sam Peckinpah classics The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country as a member of the famed filmmaker’s regular posse, has died. He was 94.
Jones died Saturday of natural causes at his home in the Hollywood Hills, his grandson Erté deGarces told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones portrayed ranch hand Andy Belden on 25 episodes of NBC’s The Virginian over an eight-year span, was one of the bad guys who slipped a noose over Clint Eastwood’s neck in Hang ‘Em High (1968) and played a sheriff on the 1983-84 NBC primetime soap The Yellow Rose, starring Sam Elliott, Cybill Shepherd and Chuck Connors.
The Texas native also portrayed Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb, Robert De Niro’s nemesis, in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) and country singer Chuck Akers in...
Jones died Saturday of natural causes at his home in the Hollywood Hills, his grandson Erté deGarces told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones portrayed ranch hand Andy Belden on 25 episodes of NBC’s The Virginian over an eight-year span, was one of the bad guys who slipped a noose over Clint Eastwood’s neck in Hang ‘Em High (1968) and played a sheriff on the 1983-84 NBC primetime soap The Yellow Rose, starring Sam Elliott, Cybill Shepherd and Chuck Connors.
The Texas native also portrayed Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb, Robert De Niro’s nemesis, in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) and country singer Chuck Akers in...
- 7/9/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Despite its so-so critical reputation John Ford’s cavalry picture is still a superior Civil War drama, making excellent use of a real historical incident. The conflicts between John Wayne’s commander, William Holden’s doctor and Constance Ford’s unexpected prisoner play well — plus Ford manages scores of great images and a handful of classic scenes. Seeing it with the help of Joseph McBride’s commentary helps too — the story behind the movie is interesting in itself. And we’re told that Wayne never personally fires a shot in the film!
The Horse Soldiers
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 / 120 min. / Street Date June 14, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers, Ken Curtis, Willis Bouchey, O.Z. Whitehead, Althea Gibson, Anna Lee, Jack Pennick, Hoot Gibson, Hank Worden, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Carleton Young, Russell Simpson, William Wellman, Jr..
Cinematography: William H. Clothier
Art Director: Frank Hotaling...
The Horse Soldiers
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 / 120 min. / Street Date June 14, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers, Ken Curtis, Willis Bouchey, O.Z. Whitehead, Althea Gibson, Anna Lee, Jack Pennick, Hoot Gibson, Hank Worden, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Carleton Young, Russell Simpson, William Wellman, Jr..
Cinematography: William H. Clothier
Art Director: Frank Hotaling...
- 5/28/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
What a great title to revisit — John Ford’s ‘Kabuki’ western is less about action and more about form and tradition — especially the way the truth gets plowed under in ‘the West,’ which is of course America reduced to a mythological keepsake. John Wayne, James Stewart and Lee Marvin’s characters seem to know they are playing roles that never change. We might question the values but there’s no denying that said values prevailed as the country’s consensus self-image. Paramount’s new 4K makes a great-looking movie look even better, Pilgrim — and we don’t tolerate no disloyal debates ’bout film grain North of the Picket Wire.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Paramount Presents
1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 123 min. / Street Date May 17, 2022 / Available from Amazon
Starring: John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, Ken Murray, John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan,...
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Paramount Presents
1962 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 123 min. / Street Date May 17, 2022 / Available from Amazon
Starring: John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, Ken Murray, John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan,...
- 5/14/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Hello, everyone! Now that September is nearly upon us (which means we’re getting closer and closer to our favorite season), we have one last round of home entertainment releases ahead of us before we can finally bid August a fond farewell - and there are a lot of different titles making their way home tomorrow. Arrow Video is keeping busy this week with their 4K release of Dune as well as the special edition release of The Brotherhood of Satan, and Kino Lorber is resurrecting several classics on Blu-ray this Tuesday, including The Raven, The Last Man on Earth, and The Comedy of Terrors.
If you have younger genre fans at home, you’ll definitely want to pick up the new editions of Coraline and The Boxtrolls from Scream Factory, and for you cult film fans, Vinegar Syndrome has you covered with their new Blu-rays for Killer’s Delight, The Lamp...
If you have younger genre fans at home, you’ll definitely want to pick up the new editions of Coraline and The Boxtrolls from Scream Factory, and for you cult film fans, Vinegar Syndrome has you covered with their new Blu-rays for Killer’s Delight, The Lamp...
- 8/30/2021
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
“What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate.”
Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1957) is one of the most beloved films of the 1960’s . The classic will be on the big screen when it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, Il at 7:00pm Tuesday August 313st. $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. Lobby opens at 6pm.
Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he’s arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the captain (Strother Martin) is for each prisoner to “get their mind right,” it soon becomes obvious that Luke is not about to kowtow to anybody. When challenged to a fistfight by fellow inmate Dragline (George Kennedy), Luke simply refuses to give up, even though he’s brutally beaten. Soon, Luke becomes...
Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1957) is one of the most beloved films of the 1960’s . The classic will be on the big screen when it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, Il at 7:00pm Tuesday August 313st. $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. Lobby opens at 6pm.
Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he’s arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the captain (Strother Martin) is for each prisoner to “get their mind right,” it soon becomes obvious that Luke is not about to kowtow to anybody. When challenged to a fistfight by fellow inmate Dragline (George Kennedy), Luke simply refuses to give up, even though he’s brutally beaten. Soon, Luke becomes...
- 8/26/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“Not your baby, Our baby, Satan’S Baby!”
Strother Martin in The Brotherhood Of Satan (1971) will be available on Blu-ray August 31st from Arrow Video
A small rural town and a family of outsiders, both trapped in the demonic grip of The Brotherhood of Satan!
Recently widowed Ben, his glamourous girlfriend Nicky and his small daughter K.T. are on a road trip across the Southwest, which comes to a screeching halt when they witness an accident. Heading to the nearby isolated desert town of Hillsboro to report it to the Sheriff (played by L.Q. Jones), they are met with a hostile reaction from the locals, who are gripped by paranoia and fear due to a series of gruesome deaths, as well as the mysterious disappearance of eleven of the communitys children. As the bodies continue to pile up around them, Ben and his family find themselves joining the sheriff,...
Strother Martin in The Brotherhood Of Satan (1971) will be available on Blu-ray August 31st from Arrow Video
A small rural town and a family of outsiders, both trapped in the demonic grip of The Brotherhood of Satan!
Recently widowed Ben, his glamourous girlfriend Nicky and his small daughter K.T. are on a road trip across the Southwest, which comes to a screeching halt when they witness an accident. Heading to the nearby isolated desert town of Hillsboro to report it to the Sheriff (played by L.Q. Jones), they are met with a hostile reaction from the locals, who are gripped by paranoia and fear due to a series of gruesome deaths, as well as the mysterious disappearance of eleven of the communitys children. As the bodies continue to pile up around them, Ben and his family find themselves joining the sheriff,...
- 7/20/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Robert Aldrich promised no-holds barred rough-tough dramas, and his first two Associates & Aldrich productions certainly hit hard. This play adaptation shows its director’s strength (no-flinching full shock impact) and weakness (theatrical overplaying) in full measure, but the unrestrained performances of Jack Palance and Eddie Albert are unforgettable. The main event can’t have pleased the Pentagon: shooting one’s own officer in combat. Plus, Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel get in early innings for their future work in Aldrichs’s The Dirty Dozen.
Attack
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, William Smithers, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, Jon Shepodd, Peter van Eyck, Jimmy Goodwin, Steven Geray, Strother Martin.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editor: Michael Luciano
Original Music: Frank Devol
Written by James Poe from the play Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks...
Attack
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date December 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, William Smithers, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, Jon Shepodd, Peter van Eyck, Jimmy Goodwin, Steven Geray, Strother Martin.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editor: Michael Luciano
Original Music: Frank Devol
Written by James Poe from the play Fragile Fox by Norman Brooks...
- 12/15/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
By Doug Oswald
Jack Lemmon is cast against type with co-star Glenn Ford in “Cowboy,” a gritty western available on Blu-ray by Twilight Time. The movie has a rousing start with titles by Saul Bass accompanied by a title score composed by George Duning, setting the mood for this western directed by Delmer Daves. No stranger to westerns, Daves also directed Ford in “Jubal” and “3:10 to Yuma.” The drama in Daves’ westerns was atypical of the genre and unfolded in a more realistic way with no clearly defined hero or villain in an era where the western followed a typical story pattern with clearly defined depictions of heroism and masculinity. Daves was part of a change which redefined the western in the 50s and in some ways prepared us for the inside-out world of the spaghetti westerns to come in the 1960s.
Frank Harris (Lemmon) is a Chicago hotel...
Jack Lemmon is cast against type with co-star Glenn Ford in “Cowboy,” a gritty western available on Blu-ray by Twilight Time. The movie has a rousing start with titles by Saul Bass accompanied by a title score composed by George Duning, setting the mood for this western directed by Delmer Daves. No stranger to westerns, Daves also directed Ford in “Jubal” and “3:10 to Yuma.” The drama in Daves’ westerns was atypical of the genre and unfolded in a more realistic way with no clearly defined hero or villain in an era where the western followed a typical story pattern with clearly defined depictions of heroism and masculinity. Daves was part of a change which redefined the western in the 50s and in some ways prepared us for the inside-out world of the spaghetti westerns to come in the 1960s.
Frank Harris (Lemmon) is a Chicago hotel...
- 9/16/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
By Todd Garbarini
Film historian Douglas Dunning has informed Cinema Retro that Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Ahrya Fine Arts will be presenting the 50th anniversary screening of Sam Peckinpah’s influential 1969 film The Wild Bunch and special guests are scheduled to appear at both locations. The film stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmund O’Brien, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau and runs 145 minutes.
Please Note:
Screening #1 is on February 26th at the Playhouse 7 at 7:00 pm, and at press time W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion after the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater.
Screening #2 is at the Ahrya Fine Arts on March 2nd at 7:30 pm.
Film historian Douglas Dunning has informed Cinema Retro that Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Ahrya Fine Arts will be presenting the 50th anniversary screening of Sam Peckinpah’s influential 1969 film The Wild Bunch and special guests are scheduled to appear at both locations. The film stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmund O’Brien, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau and runs 145 minutes.
Please Note:
Screening #1 is on February 26th at the Playhouse 7 at 7:00 pm, and at press time W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion after the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater.
Screening #2 is at the Ahrya Fine Arts on March 2nd at 7:30 pm.
- 2/14/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
By John M. Whalen
Sam Peckinpah’s “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” (1970) recently released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection, is a movie that doesn’t fit neatly into any specific category. Peckinpah, more notable for his violent action pictures about outlaws who’ve run out their string and go down in a blaze of glory, maintained that “Hogue” is a comedy. But co-star Stella Stevens, in an interview included on this Blu-Ray release, disagrees. She claims it’s a love story—a tragic love story. The answer, in my opinion, is that it probably falls somewhere in between. It’s both a comedy and a love story, and as such, is probably the most honest film about the human condition the hard-nosed Peckinpah ever made.
The story is a simple one. Jason Robards plays the titular character, a man left to die in the Arizona desert by two disreputable partners,...
Sam Peckinpah’s “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” (1970) recently released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection, is a movie that doesn’t fit neatly into any specific category. Peckinpah, more notable for his violent action pictures about outlaws who’ve run out their string and go down in a blaze of glory, maintained that “Hogue” is a comedy. But co-star Stella Stevens, in an interview included on this Blu-Ray release, disagrees. She claims it’s a love story—a tragic love story. The answer, in my opinion, is that it probably falls somewhere in between. It’s both a comedy and a love story, and as such, is probably the most honest film about the human condition the hard-nosed Peckinpah ever made.
The story is a simple one. Jason Robards plays the titular character, a man left to die in the Arizona desert by two disreputable partners,...
- 11/21/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
What makes a good Satanic Panic flick? Is it the urbane, dark humor of Rosemary’s Baby (’68), perhaps the outsized biblical insanity of The Omen (’76), or the insidious paranoia that infuses Race with the Devil (’75)? The answer for me is all of the above, and what a treat it is to come across another that brings something a little different - The Brotherhood of Satan (’71) offers a sense of quiet displacement before unleashing a torrent of blustery brimstone and hellfire.
Released by Columbia Pictures in early August, The Brotherhood of Satan even received some decent notices; Roger Greenspun of The New York Times proclaimed that the film “displays bold, direct, relatively uncomplicated acceptance of its supernature”, which is definitely one of its strengths – the evil is ingrained in the small town structure and those within are resigned to its nature. Hey, it was the ‘70s! Were you really expecting upbeat?...
Released by Columbia Pictures in early August, The Brotherhood of Satan even received some decent notices; Roger Greenspun of The New York Times proclaimed that the film “displays bold, direct, relatively uncomplicated acceptance of its supernature”, which is definitely one of its strengths – the evil is ingrained in the small town structure and those within are resigned to its nature. Hey, it was the ‘70s! Were you really expecting upbeat?...
- 4/21/2018
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
Ross Macdonald’s Cool Cat detective — originally Lew Archer — comes alive in Jack Smight’s smart SoCal kidnapping mystery, thanks to a charismatic Paul Newman and a hot cast of bright, smart actors. It’s the first screenplay sale for the celebrated William Goldman, and the crisp cinematography by ace cameraman Conrad Hall doesn’t hurt either.
Harper
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould, Roy Jenson, Strother Martin, Martin West, Jacqueline deWit.
Cinematography Conrad Hall
Art Direction Alfred Sweeney
Film Editor Stefan Arnsten
Original Music Johnny Mandel
Written by William Goldman from The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald
Produced by Jerry Gershwin, Elliott Kastner
Directed by Jack Smight
Gumshoe detective movies (as opposed to police movies about detectives) suffered a dip in the 1960s,...
Harper
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould, Roy Jenson, Strother Martin, Martin West, Jacqueline deWit.
Cinematography Conrad Hall
Art Direction Alfred Sweeney
Film Editor Stefan Arnsten
Original Music Johnny Mandel
Written by William Goldman from The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald
Produced by Jerry Gershwin, Elliott Kastner
Directed by Jack Smight
Gumshoe detective movies (as opposed to police movies about detectives) suffered a dip in the 1960s,...
- 2/13/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.
Portrait of Jennie
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann
Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by William Dieterle
Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...
Portrait of Jennie
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann
Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by William Dieterle
Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...
- 10/10/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On Monday, August 28, 2017, Turner Classic Movies will devote an entire day of their “Summer Under the Stars” series to the late, great Louis Burton Lindley Jr. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, well, then just picture the fella riding the bomb like a buckin’ bronco at the end of Dr. Strangelove…, or the racist taskmaster heading up the railroad gang in Blazing Saddles, or the doomed Sheriff Baker, who gets one of the loveliest, most heartbreaking sendoffs in movie history in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Lindley joined the rodeo circuit when he was 13 and soon picked up the name that would follow him throughout the length of his professional career, in rodeo and in movies & TV. One of the rodeo vets got a look at the lank newcomer and told him, “Slim pickin’s. That’s all you’re gonna get in this rodeo.
Lindley joined the rodeo circuit when he was 13 and soon picked up the name that would follow him throughout the length of his professional career, in rodeo and in movies & TV. One of the rodeo vets got a look at the lank newcomer and told him, “Slim pickin’s. That’s all you’re gonna get in this rodeo.
- 8/27/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Rob Leane Aug 14, 2017
Samuel L Jackson and Salma Hayek chat to us about their new flick, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and how they got into Hollywood...
Samuel L. Jackson stars alongside Ryan Reynolds in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Jackson is the hitman, and a key witness in a case to bring down a despot. Reynolds is the bodyguard, tasked with getting the hitman from A to B in order to testify in court.
Salma Hayek plays the wife of Jackson’s character. She’s locked up in prison for much of the film, with the carrot of her release being dangled to make Jackson’s killing machine comply in the upcoming legal proceedings.
We were invited to chat to the pair at a swanky hotel in London. And let me tell you: walking into a room with that much star-power in it is very nerve-wracking. Jackson was sat at a...
Samuel L Jackson and Salma Hayek chat to us about their new flick, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and how they got into Hollywood...
Samuel L. Jackson stars alongside Ryan Reynolds in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Jackson is the hitman, and a key witness in a case to bring down a despot. Reynolds is the bodyguard, tasked with getting the hitman from A to B in order to testify in court.
Salma Hayek plays the wife of Jackson’s character. She’s locked up in prison for much of the film, with the carrot of her release being dangled to make Jackson’s killing machine comply in the upcoming legal proceedings.
We were invited to chat to the pair at a swanky hotel in London. And let me tell you: walking into a room with that much star-power in it is very nerve-wracking. Jackson was sat at a...
- 7/27/2017
- Den of Geek
Easily the most mellow of the films of Sam Peckinpah, this relatively gentle western fable sees Jason Robards discovering water where it ain’t, and establishing his private little way station paradise, complete with lover Stella Stevens and eccentric preacher David Warner. Some of the slapstick is sticky but the sexist bawdy humor is too cute to offend . . . and Peckinpah-phobes will be surprised to learn that the movie is in part a musical.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1970 / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date June 6, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring Jason Robards Jr., Stella Stevens, David Warner, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Peter Whitney, Gene Evans, William Mims, Kathleen Freeman, Susan O’Connell, Vaughn Taylor, Max Evans, James Anderson.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Art Direction: Leroy Coleman
Film Editor: Frank Santillo, Lou Lombardo
Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Written by John Crawford and Edmund Penney
Produced by Sam Peckinpah...
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1970 / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date June 6, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring Jason Robards Jr., Stella Stevens, David Warner, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Peter Whitney, Gene Evans, William Mims, Kathleen Freeman, Susan O’Connell, Vaughn Taylor, Max Evans, James Anderson.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Art Direction: Leroy Coleman
Film Editor: Frank Santillo, Lou Lombardo
Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Written by John Crawford and Edmund Penney
Produced by Sam Peckinpah...
- 5/29/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
April's Blu-ray and DVD releases are kicking off in a big way, as we have a lot of great genre releases to get excited for this week. Mike Mendez’s Don’t Kill It arrives on both formats April 4th as well as the cult classic Invasion of the Bee Girls, which makes its HD bow courtesy of Scream Factory. Mill Creek has put together a triple dose of terror with their Psycho Circus Triple Feature Blu-ray set, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is keeping busy with their releases of Ghost of New Orleans, A Room to Die For, and We Go On this Tuesday.
Other notable home entertainment titles arriving this Tuesday include The Evil Within, Tank 432, Don’t Hang Up and the DVD set for Medium: The Complete Series.
Don’t Kill It (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray & DVD)
When an ancient demon is accidentally unleashed in a...
Other notable home entertainment titles arriving this Tuesday include The Evil Within, Tank 432, Don’t Hang Up and the DVD set for Medium: The Complete Series.
Don’t Kill It (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray & DVD)
When an ancient demon is accidentally unleashed in a...
- 4/4/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
This spring, Mill Creek Entertainment invites viewers to step right up to watch three vintage horror films—The Creeping Flesh, Brotherhood of Satan, and Torture Garden—in their Psycho Circus Blu-ray collection.
Blu-ray.com reports that Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Psycho Circus Blu-ray collection on April 4th. You can check out the official synopses, trailers, and cover art below.
From Mill Creek Entertainment: “Step Right Up And Experience The Triology Of Terror That People Are Dying To See!
The Creeping Flesh – (1973) – Color – 94 minutes – Rated PG
Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing
A Victorian-age scientist returns to London with his paleontological bag-of-bones discovery from Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, when exposed to water, flesh returns to the bones unleashing a malevolent being on the scientist’s family and friends.
Brotherhood of Satan – (1971) – Color – 92 minutes – Rated PG
Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Charles Bateman, Ahna Capri
A family is trapped in a desert...
Blu-ray.com reports that Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Psycho Circus Blu-ray collection on April 4th. You can check out the official synopses, trailers, and cover art below.
From Mill Creek Entertainment: “Step Right Up And Experience The Triology Of Terror That People Are Dying To See!
The Creeping Flesh – (1973) – Color – 94 minutes – Rated PG
Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing
A Victorian-age scientist returns to London with his paleontological bag-of-bones discovery from Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, when exposed to water, flesh returns to the bones unleashing a malevolent being on the scientist’s family and friends.
Brotherhood of Satan – (1971) – Color – 92 minutes – Rated PG
Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Charles Bateman, Ahna Capri
A family is trapped in a desert...
- 2/7/2017
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
The biggest, most lavish hook-up between Hollywood and the Pentagon was this Anthony Mann-James Stewart collaboration, a morale & recruiting cheer for America's intercontinental bombing air force, the service that kept the peace by holding up our side of the balance of fear. Strategic Air Command Blu-ray Olive Films 1955 / Color / 1:66 widescreen (VistaVision) / 112 min. / Street Date October 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan, Alex Nicol, Bruce Bennett, Jay C. Flippen, James Millican, James Bell, Rosemary DeCamp, Harry Morgan, William Hudson, Strother Martin, House Peters Jr. Cinematography William Daniels Film Editor Eda Warren Original Music Victor Young Written by Valentine Davies, Beirne Lay, Jr. Produced by Samuel J. Briskin Directed by Anthony Mann
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the 1950s America was spending its enormous military budget on a fantastic array of advanced weapons technology, the most expensive of which was...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the 1950s America was spending its enormous military budget on a fantastic array of advanced weapons technology, the most expensive of which was...
- 10/22/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman
Lee Marvin rose through the ranks of movie stardom as a character actor, delivering mostly villainous supporting turns in many films before finally graduating to leading roles. Regardless of which side of the law he was on however, he projected a tough-as-nails intensity and a two-fisted integrity which elevated even the slightest material. Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was badly wounded in battle when a machine gun nest shot off part of his buttocks and severed his sciatic nerve. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. where he began working as a plumber. The acting bug bit after filling in for an ailing summer-stock actor and he studied the art at the New York-based American Theater Wing. Upon making his debut in summer stock,...
Lee Marvin rose through the ranks of movie stardom as a character actor, delivering mostly villainous supporting turns in many films before finally graduating to leading roles. Regardless of which side of the law he was on however, he projected a tough-as-nails intensity and a two-fisted integrity which elevated even the slightest material. Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was badly wounded in battle when a machine gun nest shot off part of his buttocks and severed his sciatic nerve. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. where he began working as a plumber. The acting bug bit after filling in for an ailing summer-stock actor and he studied the art at the New York-based American Theater Wing. Upon making his debut in summer stock,...
- 8/30/2016
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Bronson’s Loose Again!: On the Set with Charles Bronson is author Paul Talbot’s all-new companion volume to his acclaimed Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the ‘Death Wish’ Films. His new book reveals more information on the Death Wish series and also details the complex histories behind eighteen other Charles Bronson movies. Documented herein are fascinating tales behind some of the finest Bronson films of the mid-1970s (including Hard Times and From Noon Till Three); his big-budget independent epics Love And Bullets and Cabo Blanco; his lesser-known, underrated dramas Borderline and Act Of Vengeance; his notorious sleaze/action Cannon Films classics of the 80s (including 10 To Midnight, Murphy’S Law and Kinjite: Forbidden Sunjects); the numerous unmade projects he was attached to; and his TV movies of the 90s (including The Sea Wolf). Exhaustively researched, the book features over three dozen exclusive, candid interviews including...
- 6/27/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Ivan Tors and Curt Siodmak 'borrow' nine minutes of dynamite special effects from an obscure-because-suppressed German sci-fi picture, write a new script, and come up with an eccentric thriller where atom scientists behave like G-Men crossed with Albert Einstein. The challenge? How to make a faceless unstable atomic isotope into a worthy science fiction 'monster.' The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 76 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Byron, Leonard Mudie, Byron Foulger, Michael Fox, Frank Gerstle, Charles Williams, Kathleen Freeman, Strother Martin, Jarma Lewis. Cinematography Charles Van Enger Supervising Film Editor Herbert L. Strock Original Music Blaine Sanford Written by Curt Siodmak, Ivan Tors Produced by Ivan Tors Directed by Curt Siodmak
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did we ever survive without an "Office of Scientific Investigation?" In the early 1950s, producer Ivan Tors launched himself with a trio of science fiction movies based on that non-existent government entity, sort of an FBI for strange scientific phenomena. As of this writing, Kino has released a terrific 3-D Blu-ray of the third entry, 1954's Gog. The second Tors Osi mini-epic is the interesting, if scientifically scrambled Riders to the Stars, which shows up from time to time on TCM but has yet to find its way to home video in any format. The first of the series, 1953's The Magnetic Monster is considered the most scientifically interesting, although it mainly promotes its own laundry list of goofy notions about physics and chemistry. As it pretends that it is based on scientific ideas instead of rubber-suited monsters, Tors' abstract threat is more than just another 'thing' trying to abduct the leading lady. Exploiting the common fear of radiation, a force little understood by the general public, The Magnetic Monster invents a whole new secret government bureau dedicated to solving 'dangerous scientific problems' -- the inference being, of course, that there's always something threatening about science. Actually, producer Tors was probably inspired by his partner Curt Siodmak to take advantage of a fantastic special effects opportunity that a small show like Magnetic could normally never afford. More on that later. The script plays like an episode of Dragnet, substituting scientific detectives for L.A.P.D. gumshoes. Top-kick nuclear troubleshooter Dr. Jeff Stewart (Richard Carlson) can't afford to buy a tract home for his pregnant wife Connie (beautiful Jean Byron, later of The Patty Duke Show). He is one of just a few dauntless Osi operatives standing between us and scientific disaster. When local cops route a weird distress call to the Osi office, Jeff and his Phd. sidekick Dan Forbes (King Donovan) discover that someone has been tampering with an unstable isotope in a room above a housewares store on Lincoln Blvd.: every metallic object in the store has become magnetized. The agents trace the explosive element to one Dr. Serny (Michael Fox), whose "lone wolf" experiments have created a new monster element, a Unipolar watchamacallit sometimes referred to as Serranium. If not 'fed' huge amounts of energy this new element will implode, expand, and explode again on a predictable timetable. Local efforts to neutralize the element fail, and an entire lab building is destroyed. Dan and Jeff rush the now-larger isotope to a fantastic Canadian "Deltatron" constructed in a super-scientific complex deep under the ocean off Nova Scotia. The plan is to bombard the stuff with so much energy that it will disintegrate harmlessly. But does the Deltatron have enough juice to do the job? Its Canadian supervisor tries to halt the procedure just as the time limit to the next implosion is coming due! Sincere, likeable and quaint, The Magnetic Monster is nevertheless a prime candidate for chuckles, thanks to a screenplay with a high clunk factor. Big cheese scientist Jeff Stewart interrupts his experimental bombardment of metals in his atom smasher to go out on blind neighborhood calls, dispensing atom know-how like a pizza deliveryman. He takes time out to make fat jokes at the expense of the lab's switchboard operator, the charming Kathleen Freeman. The Osi's super-computer provides instant answers to various mysteries. Its name in this show is the acronym M.A.N.I.A.C.. Was naming differential analyzers some kind of a fetish with early computer men? Quick, which '50s Sci-fi gem has a computer named S.U.S.I.E.? The strange isotope harnesses a vague amalgam of nuclear and magnetic forces. It might seem logical to small kids just learning about the invisible wonder of magnetism -- and that understand none of it. All the silverware at the store sticks together. It is odd, but not enough to cause the sexy blonde saleswoman (Elizabeth Root) to scream and jump as if goosed by Our Friend the Atom. When a call comes in that a taxi's engine has become magnetized, our agents are slow to catch on. Gee, could that crazy event be related to our mystery element? When the culprit scientist is finally tracked down, and pulled off an airliner, he's already near death from overexposure to his own creation. We admire Dr. Serny, who after all managed to create a new element on his own, without benefit of a billion dollar physics lab. He also must be a prize dope for not realizing that the resulting radiation would kill him. The Osi troubleshooters deliver a stern lesson that all of us need to remember: "In nuclear research there is no place for lone wolves." If you think about it, the agency's function is to protect us from science itself, with blame leveled at individual, free-thinking, 'rogue' brainiacs. (Sarcasm alert.) The danger in nuclear research comes not from mad militarists trying to make bigger and more awful bombs; the villains are those crackpots cooking up end-of-the-world scenarios in their home workshops. Dr. Serny probably didn't even have a security clearance! The Magnetic Monster has a delightful gaffe in every scene. When a dangerous isotope is said to be 'on the loose,' a police radio order is broadcast to Shoot To Kill ... Shoot what exactly, they don't say. This line could very well have been invented in the film's audio mix, if producer Tors thought the scene needed an extra jolt. Despite the fact that writer-director Curt Siodmak cooked up the brilliant concept of Donovan's Brain and personally invented a bona fide classic monster mythology, his '50s sci-fi efforts strain credibility in all directions. As I explain in the Gold review, Siodmak may have been the one to come up with the idea of repurposing the climax of the old film. He was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and had written a film with director Karl Hartl. Reading accounts in books by Tom Weaver and Bill Warren, we learn that the writer Siodmak had difficulty functioning as a director and that credited editor Herbert Strock stepped in to direct. Strock later claimed that the noted writer was indecisive on the set. The truly remarkable aspect of The Magnetic Monster comes in the last reel, when Jeff and Dan take an elevator ride way, way down to Canada's subterranean, sub-Atlantic Deltatron atom-smasher. They're suddenly wearing styles not worn in the early 'fifties -- big blocky coats and wide-brimmed hats. The answer comes when they step out into a wild mad-lab construction worthy of the visuals in Metropolis. A giant power station is outfitted with oversized white porcelain insulators -- even a set of stairs looks like an insulator. Atop the control booth is an array of (giant, what else) glass tubes with glowing neon lights inside. Cables and wires go every which-way. A crew of workers in wrinkled shop suits stands about like extras from The Three-Penny Opera. For quite some time, only readers of old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland knew the secret of this bizarre footage, which is actually from the 1934 German sci-fi thriller Gold, directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Helm. Tors and Siodmak do their best to integrate Richard Carlson and King Donovan into this spectacular twenty-year-old stock footage, even though the extravagant production values and the expressionist patina of the Ufa visuals are a gross mismatch for The Magnetic Monster's '50s semi-docu look. Jeff's wide hat and David Byrne coat are there to make him look more like Hans Albers in the 1934 film, which doesn't work because Albers must be four inches taller and forty pounds beefier than Richard Carlson. Jeff climbs around the Deltatron, enters a control booth and argues with the Canadian scientist/turnkey, who is a much better match for the villain of Gold. Jeff changes into a different costume, with a different cap -- so he can match Albers in the different scene in Gold. The exciting climax repurposes the extravagant special effects of Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau, changing the original film's attempted atomic alchemy into a desperate attempt to neutralize the nasty new element before it can explode again. The matching works rather well for Jeff's desperate struggle to close an enormous pair of bulkhead doors that have been sabotaged. And a matched cut on a whip pan from center stage to a high control room is very nicely integrated into the old footage. The bizarre scene doesn't quite come off... even kids must have known that older footage was being used. In the long shots, Richard Carlson doesn't look anything like Hans Albers. A fuel-rod plunger in the control room displays a German-style cross, even though the corresponding instrument in the original show wasn't so decorated. Some impressive close-up views of a blob of metal being bombarded by atomic particles are from the old movie, and others are new effects. Metallurgy is scary, man. The "Serranium" threat establishes a pattern touched upon by later Sci-fi movies with organic or abstract forces that grow from relative insignificance to world-threatening proportions. The Monolith Monsters proposes giant crystals that grow to the size of skyscrapers, threatening to cover the earth with a giant quartz-pile. The Sam Katzman quickie The Day the World Exploded makes The Magnetic Monster look like an expensive production. It invents a new mineral that explodes when exposed to air. The supporting cast of The Magnetic Monster gives us some pleasant, familiar faces. In addition to the beloved Kathleen Freeman is Strother Martin as a concerned airline pilot. Fussy Byron Foulger owns the housewares store and granite-jawed Frank Gerstle (Gristle?) is a gruff general. The gorgeous Jarma Lewis has a quick bit as a stewardess. The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Magnetic Monster is a fine transfer of this B&W gem from United Artists. Once hard to see, it was part of an expensive MGM-Image laserdisc set twenty years ago and then an Mod DVD in 2011. The disc comes with a socko original trailer that explains why it did reasonably well at the box office. Every exciting moment is edited into a coming attraction that really hypes the jeopardy factor. At that time, just the sight of a hero in a radiation suit promised something unusual. Nowadays, Hazardous Waste workers use suits like that to clean up common chemical spills. The commentary for The Magnetic Monster is by Fangoria writer Derek Botelho, whose name is misspelled as Botello on the disc package. I've heard Derek on a couple of David del Valle tracks for Vincent Price movies, where he functioned mainly as an Ed McMahon-like fan sidekick. His talk tends to drift into loosely related sidebar observations. Instead of discussing how the movie was made by cannibalizing another, he recounts for us the comedy stock footage discovery scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Several pages recited from memoirs by Curt Siodmak and Herbert Strock do provide useful information on the film. Botelho appreciates actress Kathleen Freeman. You can't go wrong doing that. Viewers that obtain Kino's concurrent Blu-ray release of the original 1934 German thriller Gold will note that the repurposed scenes from that film look much better here, although they still bear some scratches. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good + Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary with Derek Botelho, Theatrical trailer Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 8, 2016 (5138magn)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
How did we ever survive without an "Office of Scientific Investigation?" In the early 1950s, producer Ivan Tors launched himself with a trio of science fiction movies based on that non-existent government entity, sort of an FBI for strange scientific phenomena. As of this writing, Kino has released a terrific 3-D Blu-ray of the third entry, 1954's Gog. The second Tors Osi mini-epic is the interesting, if scientifically scrambled Riders to the Stars, which shows up from time to time on TCM but has yet to find its way to home video in any format. The first of the series, 1953's The Magnetic Monster is considered the most scientifically interesting, although it mainly promotes its own laundry list of goofy notions about physics and chemistry. As it pretends that it is based on scientific ideas instead of rubber-suited monsters, Tors' abstract threat is more than just another 'thing' trying to abduct the leading lady. Exploiting the common fear of radiation, a force little understood by the general public, The Magnetic Monster invents a whole new secret government bureau dedicated to solving 'dangerous scientific problems' -- the inference being, of course, that there's always something threatening about science. Actually, producer Tors was probably inspired by his partner Curt Siodmak to take advantage of a fantastic special effects opportunity that a small show like Magnetic could normally never afford. More on that later. The script plays like an episode of Dragnet, substituting scientific detectives for L.A.P.D. gumshoes. Top-kick nuclear troubleshooter Dr. Jeff Stewart (Richard Carlson) can't afford to buy a tract home for his pregnant wife Connie (beautiful Jean Byron, later of The Patty Duke Show). He is one of just a few dauntless Osi operatives standing between us and scientific disaster. When local cops route a weird distress call to the Osi office, Jeff and his Phd. sidekick Dan Forbes (King Donovan) discover that someone has been tampering with an unstable isotope in a room above a housewares store on Lincoln Blvd.: every metallic object in the store has become magnetized. The agents trace the explosive element to one Dr. Serny (Michael Fox), whose "lone wolf" experiments have created a new monster element, a Unipolar watchamacallit sometimes referred to as Serranium. If not 'fed' huge amounts of energy this new element will implode, expand, and explode again on a predictable timetable. Local efforts to neutralize the element fail, and an entire lab building is destroyed. Dan and Jeff rush the now-larger isotope to a fantastic Canadian "Deltatron" constructed in a super-scientific complex deep under the ocean off Nova Scotia. The plan is to bombard the stuff with so much energy that it will disintegrate harmlessly. But does the Deltatron have enough juice to do the job? Its Canadian supervisor tries to halt the procedure just as the time limit to the next implosion is coming due! Sincere, likeable and quaint, The Magnetic Monster is nevertheless a prime candidate for chuckles, thanks to a screenplay with a high clunk factor. Big cheese scientist Jeff Stewart interrupts his experimental bombardment of metals in his atom smasher to go out on blind neighborhood calls, dispensing atom know-how like a pizza deliveryman. He takes time out to make fat jokes at the expense of the lab's switchboard operator, the charming Kathleen Freeman. The Osi's super-computer provides instant answers to various mysteries. Its name in this show is the acronym M.A.N.I.A.C.. Was naming differential analyzers some kind of a fetish with early computer men? Quick, which '50s Sci-fi gem has a computer named S.U.S.I.E.? The strange isotope harnesses a vague amalgam of nuclear and magnetic forces. It might seem logical to small kids just learning about the invisible wonder of magnetism -- and that understand none of it. All the silverware at the store sticks together. It is odd, but not enough to cause the sexy blonde saleswoman (Elizabeth Root) to scream and jump as if goosed by Our Friend the Atom. When a call comes in that a taxi's engine has become magnetized, our agents are slow to catch on. Gee, could that crazy event be related to our mystery element? When the culprit scientist is finally tracked down, and pulled off an airliner, he's already near death from overexposure to his own creation. We admire Dr. Serny, who after all managed to create a new element on his own, without benefit of a billion dollar physics lab. He also must be a prize dope for not realizing that the resulting radiation would kill him. The Osi troubleshooters deliver a stern lesson that all of us need to remember: "In nuclear research there is no place for lone wolves." If you think about it, the agency's function is to protect us from science itself, with blame leveled at individual, free-thinking, 'rogue' brainiacs. (Sarcasm alert.) The danger in nuclear research comes not from mad militarists trying to make bigger and more awful bombs; the villains are those crackpots cooking up end-of-the-world scenarios in their home workshops. Dr. Serny probably didn't even have a security clearance! The Magnetic Monster has a delightful gaffe in every scene. When a dangerous isotope is said to be 'on the loose,' a police radio order is broadcast to Shoot To Kill ... Shoot what exactly, they don't say. This line could very well have been invented in the film's audio mix, if producer Tors thought the scene needed an extra jolt. Despite the fact that writer-director Curt Siodmak cooked up the brilliant concept of Donovan's Brain and personally invented a bona fide classic monster mythology, his '50s sci-fi efforts strain credibility in all directions. As I explain in the Gold review, Siodmak may have been the one to come up with the idea of repurposing the climax of the old film. He was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and had written a film with director Karl Hartl. Reading accounts in books by Tom Weaver and Bill Warren, we learn that the writer Siodmak had difficulty functioning as a director and that credited editor Herbert Strock stepped in to direct. Strock later claimed that the noted writer was indecisive on the set. The truly remarkable aspect of The Magnetic Monster comes in the last reel, when Jeff and Dan take an elevator ride way, way down to Canada's subterranean, sub-Atlantic Deltatron atom-smasher. They're suddenly wearing styles not worn in the early 'fifties -- big blocky coats and wide-brimmed hats. The answer comes when they step out into a wild mad-lab construction worthy of the visuals in Metropolis. A giant power station is outfitted with oversized white porcelain insulators -- even a set of stairs looks like an insulator. Atop the control booth is an array of (giant, what else) glass tubes with glowing neon lights inside. Cables and wires go every which-way. A crew of workers in wrinkled shop suits stands about like extras from The Three-Penny Opera. For quite some time, only readers of old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland knew the secret of this bizarre footage, which is actually from the 1934 German sci-fi thriller Gold, directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Helm. Tors and Siodmak do their best to integrate Richard Carlson and King Donovan into this spectacular twenty-year-old stock footage, even though the extravagant production values and the expressionist patina of the Ufa visuals are a gross mismatch for The Magnetic Monster's '50s semi-docu look. Jeff's wide hat and David Byrne coat are there to make him look more like Hans Albers in the 1934 film, which doesn't work because Albers must be four inches taller and forty pounds beefier than Richard Carlson. Jeff climbs around the Deltatron, enters a control booth and argues with the Canadian scientist/turnkey, who is a much better match for the villain of Gold. Jeff changes into a different costume, with a different cap -- so he can match Albers in the different scene in Gold. The exciting climax repurposes the extravagant special effects of Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau, changing the original film's attempted atomic alchemy into a desperate attempt to neutralize the nasty new element before it can explode again. The matching works rather well for Jeff's desperate struggle to close an enormous pair of bulkhead doors that have been sabotaged. And a matched cut on a whip pan from center stage to a high control room is very nicely integrated into the old footage. The bizarre scene doesn't quite come off... even kids must have known that older footage was being used. In the long shots, Richard Carlson doesn't look anything like Hans Albers. A fuel-rod plunger in the control room displays a German-style cross, even though the corresponding instrument in the original show wasn't so decorated. Some impressive close-up views of a blob of metal being bombarded by atomic particles are from the old movie, and others are new effects. Metallurgy is scary, man. The "Serranium" threat establishes a pattern touched upon by later Sci-fi movies with organic or abstract forces that grow from relative insignificance to world-threatening proportions. The Monolith Monsters proposes giant crystals that grow to the size of skyscrapers, threatening to cover the earth with a giant quartz-pile. The Sam Katzman quickie The Day the World Exploded makes The Magnetic Monster look like an expensive production. It invents a new mineral that explodes when exposed to air. The supporting cast of The Magnetic Monster gives us some pleasant, familiar faces. In addition to the beloved Kathleen Freeman is Strother Martin as a concerned airline pilot. Fussy Byron Foulger owns the housewares store and granite-jawed Frank Gerstle (Gristle?) is a gruff general. The gorgeous Jarma Lewis has a quick bit as a stewardess. The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Magnetic Monster is a fine transfer of this B&W gem from United Artists. Once hard to see, it was part of an expensive MGM-Image laserdisc set twenty years ago and then an Mod DVD in 2011. The disc comes with a socko original trailer that explains why it did reasonably well at the box office. Every exciting moment is edited into a coming attraction that really hypes the jeopardy factor. At that time, just the sight of a hero in a radiation suit promised something unusual. Nowadays, Hazardous Waste workers use suits like that to clean up common chemical spills. The commentary for The Magnetic Monster is by Fangoria writer Derek Botelho, whose name is misspelled as Botello on the disc package. I've heard Derek on a couple of David del Valle tracks for Vincent Price movies, where he functioned mainly as an Ed McMahon-like fan sidekick. His talk tends to drift into loosely related sidebar observations. Instead of discussing how the movie was made by cannibalizing another, he recounts for us the comedy stock footage discovery scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Several pages recited from memoirs by Curt Siodmak and Herbert Strock do provide useful information on the film. Botelho appreciates actress Kathleen Freeman. You can't go wrong doing that. Viewers that obtain Kino's concurrent Blu-ray release of the original 1934 German thriller Gold will note that the repurposed scenes from that film look much better here, although they still bear some scratches. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good + Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary with Derek Botelho, Theatrical trailer Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 8, 2016 (5138magn)
Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...
- 6/14/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
If you wish more horror films came with onomatopoetic titles, I’ve got the movie for you.
When Kevin Smith released his now -notorious horror comedy Tusk, many reviewers took issue with the ludicrous premise in which a mad scientist takes it upon himself to transform a man into a walrus. Apparently none of these critics had ever seen Bernard L. Kowalski’s 1973 horror film Sssssss—new to Blu-ray from Scream Factory—because if they had, they might have recognized that the premise of Smith’s movie had been covered nearly 30 years earlier, only with a snake instead of a walrus. It is, to put it bluntly, not a very good movie. But it is a weird one, and sometimes “weird” counts.
Dirk Benedict (“Face” from TV’s The A-Team) plays college student David, hired as an assistant to Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin), who specializes in snakes and doubles...
When Kevin Smith released his now -notorious horror comedy Tusk, many reviewers took issue with the ludicrous premise in which a mad scientist takes it upon himself to transform a man into a walrus. Apparently none of these critics had ever seen Bernard L. Kowalski’s 1973 horror film Sssssss—new to Blu-ray from Scream Factory—because if they had, they might have recognized that the premise of Smith’s movie had been covered nearly 30 years earlier, only with a snake instead of a walrus. It is, to put it bluntly, not a very good movie. But it is a weird one, and sometimes “weird” counts.
Dirk Benedict (“Face” from TV’s The A-Team) plays college student David, hired as an assistant to Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin), who specializes in snakes and doubles...
- 5/13/2016
- by Patrick Bromley
- DailyDead
By Lee Pfeiffer
Sony has released Walter Hill's 1975 directorial debut, Hard Times, on on DVD through their Sony Choice Collection. Hill was an up-and-coming screenwriter with Peckinpah's The Getaway to his credit as well as solid thrillers like The Drowning Pool, The Mackintosh Man and Hickey and Boggs. There is no evidence in Hard Times that Hill was a novice behind the camera, either. This is one of my favorite films of the period, though many retro movie fans probably haven't seen it. The story is set in 1933. Chaney (Charles Bronson) is a middle-aged drifter who ends up crossing paths with Speed (James Coburn), a fast-talking promoter of "street fights" (no holds barred matches between local tough guys with no rules or regulations). Needing some quick cash, the soft-spoken, low-key Chaney forms a partnership with the mercurial Speed. In his first match, they win big when Chaney knocks the...
Sony has released Walter Hill's 1975 directorial debut, Hard Times, on on DVD through their Sony Choice Collection. Hill was an up-and-coming screenwriter with Peckinpah's The Getaway to his credit as well as solid thrillers like The Drowning Pool, The Mackintosh Man and Hickey and Boggs. There is no evidence in Hard Times that Hill was a novice behind the camera, either. This is one of my favorite films of the period, though many retro movie fans probably haven't seen it. The story is set in 1933. Chaney (Charles Bronson) is a middle-aged drifter who ends up crossing paths with Speed (James Coburn), a fast-talking promoter of "street fights" (no holds barred matches between local tough guys with no rules or regulations). Needing some quick cash, the soft-spoken, low-key Chaney forms a partnership with the mercurial Speed. In his first match, they win big when Chaney knocks the...
- 5/5/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Scream Factory will release slithering scares on home media tomorrow with their Blu-ray release of the 1973 snake-centric horror film Sssssss, and we’ve been provided with three copies to give away to Daily Dead readers.
————
Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of Sssssss.
How to Enter: For a chance to win, email contest@dailydead.com with the subject “Sssssss Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.
Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on May 1st. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.
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From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids...
————
Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of Sssssss.
How to Enter: For a chance to win, email contest@dailydead.com with the subject “Sssssss Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.
Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on May 1st. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.
————
From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids...
- 4/25/2016
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Bernard Kowalski’s Ssssssss joins 1954’s Phffft and Roger Corman’s Gas-s-s-s in the Onomatopoeic Movie Title Club. An unofficial remake of 1959’s The Alligator People, this 1973 shocker features mad doctor Strother Martin experimenting with a serum capable of turning men into snakes. Two years later producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown worked on another thriller with a bit more bite, Jaws.
- 4/25/2016
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Back in February, it was announced that Bernard L. Kowalski’s Sssssss would be coming to Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory on April 26th. With just four days to go, two Blu-ray clips—one featuring an interview with Dirk Benedict—and the film’s official trailer have been released, and we have them for Daily Dead readers to enjoy. “Don’t say it, hiss it.”
From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every Ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery,...
From the Press Release: “Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film, Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every Ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery,...
- 4/22/2016
- by Tamika Jones
- DailyDead
Delmer Daves' easygoing cattle drive western can't make an action hero out of Jack Lemmon, but with fine work from co-star Glenn Ford it presents a thoughtful anti-myth: no glorious rescues or noble gunfights, and the demure maiden doesn't wait for the handsome cowboy hero. With Brian Donlevy (excellent) and Anna Kashf. Cowboy Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1958 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Ship Date February 9, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Glenn Ford, Jack Lemmon, Anna Kashfi, Brian Donlevy, Strother Martin, Dick York, Victor Manuel Mendoza, Richard Jaeckel, King Donovan Cinematography Charles Lawton Jr. Production Designer Cary Odell Film Editor Al Clark, William A. Lyon Original Music George Duning Written by Edmund H. North and, originally uncredited Dalton Trumbo from a book by Frank Harris Produced by Julian Blaustein Directed by Delmer Daves
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Not Delmer Daves' best Western, but a rather good movie, Cowboy...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Not Delmer Daves' best Western, but a rather good movie, Cowboy...
- 2/27/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s snakes! This time, Scream Factory has passed the Blu-ray torch to Bernard L. Kowalski’s Sssssss. Packed with bonus features that include but are not limited to new interviews with the cast, Sssssss is available for pre-order now.
Press Release: Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery, theatrical trailers and more! Fans can pre-order their copies now by visiting ShoutFactory.com
In Sssssss, Strother Martin...
Press Release: Before Venom, Anaconda, Python, or Snakes on a Plane, there was the seminal snake-centric horror film Sssssss. The story of a mad scientist hell bent on turning humans into snakes and using these hybrids to get revenge on those who have wronged him, Sssssss is every ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Making its Blu-ray debut April 26th, 2016 from Scream Factory, Sssssss comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interview with actor Dirk Benedict, a new interview with actor Heather Menzies-Urich, a photo gallery, theatrical trailers and more! Fans can pre-order their copies now by visiting ShoutFactory.com
In Sssssss, Strother Martin...
- 2/26/2016
- by Tamika Jones
- DailyDead
Quentin Tarantino's new Western The Hateful Eight revolves around the vicious Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is eligible to be hanged for her crimes. Later this year, we'll finally get to see Natalie Portman in Jane Got a Gun, said to be a Western about a woman who turns to an ex-lover for help in defending her homestead and her husband from a vicious gang. More than 40 years ago, Hannie Caulder featured Raquel Welch as the titular character, a woman who has been viciously raped by three outlaw brothers. The outlaws first killed Hannie Caulder's husband, a station agent at a remote outpost, and then are delighted to discover a beautiful woman inside. "Look what we've got for supper!" exclaims Strother Martin, who immediately paws...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 1/11/2016
- Screen Anarchy
Best known for playing Norman Bates in the Psycho films, Anthony Perkins played a plethora of other cinematic characters in his career, including roles in Destroyer and Edge of Sanity, both of which will come out on a new double feature Blu-ray this year from Scream Factory.
Originally planned to be released last summer as a double feature release with Scarecrows, Destroyer—along with Edge of Sanity—will finally get its high-def due on April 12th from the fine folks at Scream Factory.
Also slated to slither onto shelves this spring is the snake-centric horror film Sssssss, which is scheduled for an April 26th release. Below, we have Scream Factory's official details on both upcoming Blu-rays, as well as a look at the cover art:
From Scream Factory: "Another wild & crazy retro double feature (both featuring Psycho star Anthony Perkins) is planned for release on blu-ray this Spring!
Originally planned to be released last summer as a double feature release with Scarecrows, Destroyer—along with Edge of Sanity—will finally get its high-def due on April 12th from the fine folks at Scream Factory.
Also slated to slither onto shelves this spring is the snake-centric horror film Sssssss, which is scheduled for an April 26th release. Below, we have Scream Factory's official details on both upcoming Blu-rays, as well as a look at the cover art:
From Scream Factory: "Another wild & crazy retro double feature (both featuring Psycho star Anthony Perkins) is planned for release on blu-ray this Spring!
- 1/7/2016
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Their hissing can cause you to stop dead in your tracks... or pick up the pace. Snakes are often the source of slithering scares, and Scream Factory's set to release the 1973 snake-centric horror film Sssssss on Blu-ray for the first time next year.
Sssssss will make its Blu-ray debut in the spring/summer of 2016. No special features have been revealed yet, but we'l keep Daily Dead readers updated on further announcements.
From Scream Factory: "If you're into snakes then we have a film for you: The 1973 cult classic called Sssssss (don't say it, hiss it) will be slithering its way to the Blu-ray format for the first time sometime in late Spring/early Summer! Stars Heather Menzies (Piranha), Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica) and Reb Brown (Yor, the Hunter from the Future).
No other details to report at thissss (sorry, we can't help ourselves) time."
Synopsis: "Strother Martin and...
Sssssss will make its Blu-ray debut in the spring/summer of 2016. No special features have been revealed yet, but we'l keep Daily Dead readers updated on further announcements.
From Scream Factory: "If you're into snakes then we have a film for you: The 1973 cult classic called Sssssss (don't say it, hiss it) will be slithering its way to the Blu-ray format for the first time sometime in late Spring/early Summer! Stars Heather Menzies (Piranha), Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica) and Reb Brown (Yor, the Hunter from the Future).
No other details to report at thissss (sorry, we can't help ourselves) time."
Synopsis: "Strother Martin and...
- 12/18/2015
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
We still love John Ford's bitter-sentimental look back at the lost Myth of the West. John Wayne and James Stewart are at least thirty years too old for their roles, but everything seems to be happening in a foggy reverie, so what's the difference, Pilgrim? Great comedy and Lee Marvin's marvelous villain, plus the assertive 'print the Legend' message that's been hotly debated ever since. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Blu-ray Warner Home Video / Paramount 1962 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 123 min. / Street Date October 13, 2015 / 14.98 Starring John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine, Ken Murray, John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan, John Qualen, Willis Bouchey, Carleton Young, Woody Strode, Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Lee Van Cleef Cinematography William H. Clothier Production Designer Eddie Imazu & Hal Pereira Film Editor Otho Lovering Original Music Cyril J. Mockridge Writing credits James Warner Bellah & Willis Goldbeck from a story by...
- 10/20/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
By Lee Pfeiffer
The good news is that Timeless Video is releasing multiple films in one DVD package. The bad news is that one of these releases, although featuring two highly-watchable leading men, presents two stinkers. Love and Bullets is a 1979 Charles Bronson starrer that Roger Ebert appropriately described at the time as "an assemblyline potboiler". The film initially showed promise. Originally titled Love and Bullets, Charlie, the movie had John Huston as its director. However, Huston left after "creative differences" about the concept of the story and its execution on screen. The absurdity of losing a director as esteemed as Huston might have been understandable if the resulting flick wasn't such a mess. However, one suspects that, whatever the conceptual vision Huston had for the movie may have been, it must have been superior to what ultimately emerged. Stuart Rosenberg, the competent director of Cool Hand Luke took over...
The good news is that Timeless Video is releasing multiple films in one DVD package. The bad news is that one of these releases, although featuring two highly-watchable leading men, presents two stinkers. Love and Bullets is a 1979 Charles Bronson starrer that Roger Ebert appropriately described at the time as "an assemblyline potboiler". The film initially showed promise. Originally titled Love and Bullets, Charlie, the movie had John Huston as its director. However, Huston left after "creative differences" about the concept of the story and its execution on screen. The absurdity of losing a director as esteemed as Huston might have been understandable if the resulting flick wasn't such a mess. However, one suspects that, whatever the conceptual vision Huston had for the movie may have been, it must have been superior to what ultimately emerged. Stuart Rosenberg, the competent director of Cool Hand Luke took over...
- 9/22/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Are people inherently evil? Is society just a barrier between us and our worst impulses, preventing us from exacting violence on one another, albeit through laws enforced with the thinly veiled threat of comparable violence? Must absolute power always corrupt absolutely? If left to our own devices, without checks to our authority, would we abuse it? The Stanford Prison Experiment, director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s chilling dramatization of the infamous Philip Zimbardo study, posits a painfully pessimistic response to those questions. Not only would abuses of power occur without safeguards in place – they would occur almost immediately.
In the 1971 study at the center of this relentlessly grim thriller, volunteers (college guys, earning $15 a day) are separated by a coin flip into “prisoners” and “guards.” In the basement of a campus building, the guards are given free reign to watch over the prisoners and assert their authority in whatever manner seems most appropriate to them.
In the 1971 study at the center of this relentlessly grim thriller, volunteers (college guys, earning $15 a day) are separated by a coin flip into “prisoners” and “guards.” In the basement of a campus building, the guards are given free reign to watch over the prisoners and assert their authority in whatever manner seems most appropriate to them.
- 7/23/2015
- by Isaac Feldberg
- We Got This Covered
The legendary Lost in Space turns 50 years old this year and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will celebrate the occasion this September by releasing the complete series on Blu-ray, with over six hours of bonus features included.
At Comic-Con, Daily Dead was honored to take part in roundtable interviews with Lost in Space cast members Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright, and Bill Mumy, who reflected on their favorite Lost in Space memories, the show's legacy, the upcoming Blu-ray, and much more.
The cast reflects on their favorite memories of working on Lost in Space from 1965–1968:
Mark Goddard: My moments are always the fun that I had with Bill [Mumy] on the show. I'm a prankster, and Billy came along with me during my pranks because I had to have him with me because I might get in trouble. If I had Billy with me, I wouldn't get in...
At Comic-Con, Daily Dead was honored to take part in roundtable interviews with Lost in Space cast members Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright, and Bill Mumy, who reflected on their favorite Lost in Space memories, the show's legacy, the upcoming Blu-ray, and much more.
The cast reflects on their favorite memories of working on Lost in Space from 1965–1968:
Mark Goddard: My moments are always the fun that I had with Bill [Mumy] on the show. I'm a prankster, and Billy came along with me during my pranks because I had to have him with me because I might get in trouble. If I had Billy with me, I wouldn't get in...
- 7/16/2015
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
“I suppose you’ve been down the long, hard road?”
“Who hasn’t?”
You never know what’s brewing at Webster University’s Strange Brew cult film series. It’s always the first Wednesday evening of every month, and they always come up with some cult classic to show while enjoying some good food and great suds. The fun happens at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, Mo 63143).
This month, they’re brewing up some Bronson! Hard Times screens at Schlafly Bottleworks Wednesday, April 1st as part of Webster University’s ‘Strange Brew’ Film Series. The ‘Charles Bronson Exhibit’, a collection of movie paper, figures, models kits, toys, and other odd memorabilia will be on display that night at Schlafly.
No one could touch Charles Bronson in terms of global popularity throughout the 1970’s and Hard Times (1975) was his best film from that decade (my favorite for cinema,...
“Who hasn’t?”
You never know what’s brewing at Webster University’s Strange Brew cult film series. It’s always the first Wednesday evening of every month, and they always come up with some cult classic to show while enjoying some good food and great suds. The fun happens at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, Mo 63143).
This month, they’re brewing up some Bronson! Hard Times screens at Schlafly Bottleworks Wednesday, April 1st as part of Webster University’s ‘Strange Brew’ Film Series. The ‘Charles Bronson Exhibit’, a collection of movie paper, figures, models kits, toys, and other odd memorabilia will be on display that night at Schlafly.
No one could touch Charles Bronson in terms of global popularity throughout the 1970’s and Hard Times (1975) was his best film from that decade (my favorite for cinema,...
- 3/18/2015
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Pioneering woman director Lois Weber socially conscious drama 'Shoes' among Library of Congress' Packard Theater movies (photo: Mary MacLaren in 'Shoes') In February 2015, National Film Registry titles will be showcased at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus Theater – aka the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation – in Culpeper, Virginia. These range from pioneering woman director Lois Weber's socially conscious 1916 drama Shoes to Robert Zemeckis' 1985 blockbuster Back to the Future. Another Packard Theater highlight next month is Sam Peckinpah's ultra-violent Western The Wild Bunch (1969), starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine. Also, Howard Hawks' "anti-High Noon" Western Rio Bravo (1959), toplining John Wayne and Dean Martin. And George Cukor's costly remake of A Star Is Born (1954), featuring Academy Award nominees Judy Garland and James Mason in the old Janet Gaynor and Fredric March roles. There's more: Jeff Bridges delivers a colorful performance in...
- 1/24/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Robert Redford movies: TCM shows 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' 'The Sting' They don't make movie stars like they used to, back in the days of Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Harry Cohn. That's what nostalgists have been bitching about for the last four or five decades; never mind the fact that movie stars have remained as big as ever despite the demise of the old studio system and the spectacular rise of television more than sixty years ago. This month of January 2015, Turner Classic Movies will be honoring one such post-studio era superstar: Robert Redford. Beginning this Monday evening, January 6, TCM will be presenting 15 Robert Redford movies. Tonight's entries include Redford's two biggest blockbusters, both directed by George Roy Hill and co-starring Paul Newman: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which turned Redford, already in his early 30s, into a major film star to rival Rudolph Valentino,...
- 1/7/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“The truth is I’m just an old veteran character actor” says Robert Englund as we sit down to discuss The Last Showing, his latest foray into genre cinema. To find one standing opposite the genial and softly-spoken man who devoured so many hours of sleep by searing to the mind the menacing image of claws piercing first the mattress and then the torso, can only be described as ‘surreal.’ As these words flow onto the page there is a realisation that the reason horror cinema earns our affection was so eloquently phrased by Emily Berrington when she said, “There is a desire to feel that tiny part of your mind that otherwise doesn’t get tapped into.” By touching our sensibilities in a way that we crave, these terrifying encounters remain some of the most evocative and defining moments of the human experience, and therein cinema is our fix.
- 9/5/2014
- by Paul Risker
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The obligatory movie catchphrase…memorable golden dialogue for the cinematic soul. What film fan does not enjoy reciting and repeating their favorite movie quotes? After all, there are countless catchphrases in films–some are famous, some are familiar, some are obscure. Still, paraphrasing movie quips has become an art onto itself?
So what are your all-time movie catchphrases? Perhaps it is Jimmy Cagney’s “You dirt rat…you killed my brother?”. Maybe it is Cary Grant’s “Judy, Judy, Judy”? Or how about Lauren Bacall’s “You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just blow…” Whatever movie catchphrases catches your fancy is fine so long as it brings up memories of the film or film characters tat have made a big impression on your cinema experiences.
The Lip Service: The Top 10 Movie Catchphrases selections are: (in alphabetical order according to film title):
1.) “Fasten your seat belts, it...
So what are your all-time movie catchphrases? Perhaps it is Jimmy Cagney’s “You dirt rat…you killed my brother?”. Maybe it is Cary Grant’s “Judy, Judy, Judy”? Or how about Lauren Bacall’s “You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just blow…” Whatever movie catchphrases catches your fancy is fine so long as it brings up memories of the film or film characters tat have made a big impression on your cinema experiences.
The Lip Service: The Top 10 Movie Catchphrases selections are: (in alphabetical order according to film title):
1.) “Fasten your seat belts, it...
- 7/12/2014
- by Frank Ochieng
- SoundOnSight
New York (AP) - After failed attempts and broken dreams, by golly, someone went and put "Fargo" on series TV.
The 10-episode season premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. Edt on FX. And it mesmerizes. As a furtherance of the 1996 crime classic by Joel and Ethan Coen that starred Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi, the TV adaptation is a wonder.
Like that movie, the series is set in rural, snow-glazed Minnesota, but 20 years later (in 2006), and is stocked with new characters, deadly mischief and a bounty of stars including Allison Tolman as a bright-eyed deputy and Martin Freeman as a nebbishy insurance salesman (distant echoes of the roles played by McDormand and Macy in the film). Also on hand are Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Oliver Platt, Kate Walsh, Keith Carradine, Adam Goldberg, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, and more.
At the core of its deliciously deranged narrative is Lorne Malvo,...
The 10-episode season premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. Edt on FX. And it mesmerizes. As a furtherance of the 1996 crime classic by Joel and Ethan Coen that starred Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi, the TV adaptation is a wonder.
Like that movie, the series is set in rural, snow-glazed Minnesota, but 20 years later (in 2006), and is stocked with new characters, deadly mischief and a bounty of stars including Allison Tolman as a bright-eyed deputy and Martin Freeman as a nebbishy insurance salesman (distant echoes of the roles played by McDormand and Macy in the film). Also on hand are Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Oliver Platt, Kate Walsh, Keith Carradine, Adam Goldberg, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, and more.
At the core of its deliciously deranged narrative is Lorne Malvo,...
- 4/14/2014
- by The Associated Press
- Moviefone
Westerns – the Great American Movie Genre. Yes, the Italian cinema has its Spaghetti Western - Cameriere, more Sangiovese, please! But we’re talking real, honest-to-John-Wayne American westerns here. The kind with a big, wide-open-spaces theme by somebody like Elmer Bernstein, Alfred Newman, orLerner and Loewe. Morricone magic is better served with the aforementioned grape of Chianti – and movies where the dubbed dialog doesn’t quite match up with the actors’ mouths.
The soundtrack of “The Horse Soldiers” rides in on the strains of “Dixie” and out to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” You not only get a western, you get a Civil War movie, too. And John Wayne’s in both of them.
Heck, you even get John Ford directing at no extra charge, and a story that was ripped from the headlines of the Vicksburg Post, circa 1863. A western? In Mississippi? That’s right, pilgrim. Mississippi was once The West.
The soundtrack of “The Horse Soldiers” rides in on the strains of “Dixie” and out to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” You not only get a western, you get a Civil War movie, too. And John Wayne’s in both of them.
Heck, you even get John Ford directing at no extra charge, and a story that was ripped from the headlines of the Vicksburg Post, circa 1863. A western? In Mississippi? That’s right, pilgrim. Mississippi was once The West.
- 3/12/2014
- by Randy Fuller
- Trailers from Hell
Fighting, dying, hoping, hating … great sports films are about far more than sport itself. Here Guardian and Observer critics pick their 10 best
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• Top 10 silent movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. This Sporting Life
Lindsay Anderson brought to bear on his adaptation of David Storey's first novel, all the poetic-realist instincts he had been honing for the previous decade as a documentarian in the Humphrey Jennings mould. (Anderson had won the 1953 best doc Oscar for Thursday's Children.) Filmed partly in Halifax and Leeds, but mainly in and around Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club, one of its incidental attractions is its record of a northern, working-class sports culture that would change out of all recognition over the next couple of decades.
The story of Frank Machin, a miner who becomes a star on the rugby field,...
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• Top 10 silent movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. This Sporting Life
Lindsay Anderson brought to bear on his adaptation of David Storey's first novel, all the poetic-realist instincts he had been honing for the previous decade as a documentarian in the Humphrey Jennings mould. (Anderson had won the 1953 best doc Oscar for Thursday's Children.) Filmed partly in Halifax and Leeds, but mainly in and around Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club, one of its incidental attractions is its record of a northern, working-class sports culture that would change out of all recognition over the next couple of decades.
The story of Frank Machin, a miner who becomes a star on the rugby field,...
- 11/25/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
I think everyone remembers where they were August 31st, 2003 when they heard that Charles Bronson had died. I was visiting my brother in Atlanta when my nephew knocked on my door and informed me that CNN had announced his death. I collapsed into a sobbing heap. Bronson was my hero, my muse, my role model. Hollywood’s brightest star would shine no more. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone ten years.
Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Of all the leading men in the history of Hollywood, Charles Bronson had the least range as an actor. He rarely emoted or even changed his expression, and when he did speak, his voice was a reedy whisper. But Charles Bronson could coast on presence, charisma, and silent brooding menace like no one’s business and he wound up the world’s most bankable movie star throughout most of the 1970’s.
Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Of all the leading men in the history of Hollywood, Charles Bronson had the least range as an actor. He rarely emoted or even changed his expression, and when he did speak, his voice was a reedy whisper. But Charles Bronson could coast on presence, charisma, and silent brooding menace like no one’s business and he wound up the world’s most bankable movie star throughout most of the 1970’s.
- 8/31/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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