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Pauline Kael once called the gulf between E.T. and Poltergeist a testament to the confounding ability for one man, Steven Spielberg, to produce one enduring masterpiece and one miserable failure in the space of a year—and God forever damn her for not realizing that Poltergeist is, if anything, a more harrowing portrait of the nuclear family on the verge of dissipation, but I digress. Apparently, she hadn’t seen Mel Brooks’s 1974 one-two punch.

Young Frankenstein is so loving and charmingly goofy in spoofing one of Hollywood’s most successful early genres (the Universal monster movies of the 1930s) that it winds up as much a tribute as it is a parody. But Blazing Saddles, a burlesque about a western town standing in the way of the railroad expansion and the Black sheriff sent to discourage its citizens from deserting, is a limp, shapeless mess of a film...

Warner Bros. is bringing two cinematic classics to a new physical media transfer this Thanksgiving season. Blu-ray.com has announced the 4K Ultra-High Definition Blu-ray releases of Alfred Hitchcock‘s spy thriller North by Northwest and Mel Brooks‘ irreverent western satire Blazing Saddles. Both releases will be hitting retailers on November 19.

North by Northwest stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, and Leo G. Carroll. The description reads, “Cary Grant stars as an innocent man mistaken for a spy in one of director Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest thrillers. While leaving New York’s Plaza Hotel, advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Grant) has the misfortune of standing just as the name “George Kaplan” is paged–starting a lethal case of mistaken identity and a nonstop game of cat and mouse as he is pursued across North America by espionage agents trying to kill him–and by police who suspect him of murder.

Mel Brooks’ classic western comedy Blazing Saddles is getting a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release to mark its 50th anniversary. More here.

Mel Brooks’ much-loved and groundbreaking comedy favourite Blazing Saddles is arriving at its 50th birthday this year. And just as with other anniversary films this year such as North By Northwest and A Nightmare On Elm Street, Warner Bros appears to be pulling out the stops for a posh-looking 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray collector’s set.

The film hasn’t been on the 4K disc format before, so it’s enjoying a 4K remaster for a start. The set will always include a Blu-ray disc too, to carry across previous additional features too.

Then, the 50th anniversary set will come in Steelbook casing, and include an envelope with 10 art cards inside. There’s also a double-sided bookmark, a double-sided retro art card, three double-sided behind the scenes cards,...

Everyone knows that Steven Spielberg's "1941" was a notorious box office flop. And everyone ... is wrong. Despite its reputation over the years, Spielberg's 1979 war comedy was not a box office failure. It just looked that way because, well, it was a Steven Spielberg movie. In '79, in the wake of the record-breaking box office juggernaut that was "Jaws" and its successful follow-up "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Steven Spielberg seemed untouchable. It felt like the wunderkind director could not fail — that, like a cinematic King Midas, everything he touched would turn to gold.

"1941" changed that. While the film went on to become a modest box office success, taking in $94.9 million on a $35 million budget, it was not well received. Critics were mixed at best on the film. As Roger Ebert wrote, "The movie finally reduces itself to an assault on our eyes and ears, a nonstop series of climaxes,...

Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" remained depressingly relevant. We live on a planet wherein humans have invented single explosive devices powerful enough to eliminate all life on Earth, and yet they are being handled by whiny, insecure, clownish politicians and violence-obsessed military wonks with impotence and delusions of grandeur. It's telling that one of the biggest hits of 2023, Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," was also about how petty egos tend to take precedence over the profound immoral invention of the nuclear bomb.

1964 was a time when phrases like "balance of power" were bandied about in the news, all while politicians and pundits argued about the moral righteousness of every major global superpower possessing the ability to destroy the world with equal skill. If everyone on Earth can blow up the planet, surely, then, everything is in perfect balance.

Kubrick...

A strong case could be made that Mel Brooks co-writing and directing "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles" in the same year (1974) is one of the greatest filmmaking one-two punches of the 20th century. It's hard enough to make a single comedy that becomes a stone cold classic, but for both of them to have such fantastic reputations 50 years later (despite "Blazing Saddles" having some aspects in it that don't age well for modern viewers) makes this achievement downright legendary. Of course, the fact that these movies came out 50 years ago sadly means that most of the actors who starred in these projects are no longer with us.

For "Blazing Saddles," a film that was so controversial even upon its release that Brooks thought he might be killed because of its content, that means we've already lost towering performers like Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Corman, Slim Pickens, the great Madeline Kahn,...

Carla Balenda, who starred alongside Dana Andrews and Claude Rains in the Rko Pictures thriller Sealed Cargo and portrayed Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend on the NBC sitcom Hey Mulligan, has died. She was 98.

Balenda, billed at times as Sally Bliss, her birth name, died April 9 of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her grandson Jim Martin told The Hollywood Reporter.

She also played a nurse on the 1955-56 syndicated series The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu, starring Glen Gordon, and recurred as Miss Hazlitt, Timmy’s (Jon Provost) teacher, on CBS’ Lassie from 1958-63.

In Sealed Cargo (1951), Balenda portrayed a woman who is aboard a fishing trawler bound for Newfoundland when she and the skipper (Andrews) wind up tangling in the North Atlantic with Nazis led by Rains’ character. She often said it was her favorite role.

When Rooney took his first crack at television,...

Steven Spielberg, the master auteur, had somewhat of a crash course in the interdependent working relationship between a director and the studio quite early on in his career. Despite his natural expertise and ingrained talent for producing cinematic masterpieces, Spielberg is not entirely immune to box office failures.

Steven Spielberg on the sets of 1941 [Credit: Amblin]

The director of the aquatic thriller, Jaws, and sci-fi alien film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, had ridden the wave of success and glory for far too long to realize that without studio interference, a project can sometimes go downhill too. And Spielberg was quick to learn that on the evening of the premiere of 1941.

Steven Spielberg and His Radical New Hollywood Era

No studio production enters the final theatrical lineup without the absolute say-so of the higher-up execs. The Hollywood of today is entirely guided by the principle of equal collaboration between the suits and the creatives.

Personally and professionally, Sam Peckinpah was running on fumes by the time he made 1973’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Years of substance abuse left the director in such fragile health that he spent some days on the production’s Mexico locations filming from a hospital bed, and his dilapidated condition only exacerbated his notoriously combative personality and contributed to the film’s budget and schedule overruns. Infuriated by the escalating expense of the production and set on an arbitrary runtime ceiling, MGM took over editing before Peckinpah could finish the job and released a hastily assembled 106-minute version that hit theaters to indifferent reviews and middling returns. Only in 1988, four years after the director’s death, did the film gain stature as one of his finest works thanks to the release of a rough, never-finalized preview cut prepared by Peckinpah.

An account of the final days of the...

Before Disney extended their business with the Star Wars franchise, the studio had an expensive bet against George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope— a space adventure that took Hollywood by storm. It was one of the greatest hits of the time, which prompted several studios to have their pie in the game.

George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope poster.

Of course, it was before Disney acquired Lucasfilm— founded by the director of the first and several Star Wars movies, George Lucas. Decades before the acquisition of the company on 30 October 2012, Disney had their own ambitious plan to create another space adventure marvel.

Disney’s Most Expensive Bet Against Star Wars A still from Disney’s The Black Hole

Disney was very keen to have their shot at the space adventure genre following the mega-hit of George Lucas’ 1977 Star Wars movie. Disney made the...

With its scathing social satire, raunchy humor and frequent use of the controversial N-word, “Blazing Saddles” got mixed reviews upon its release February 7, 1974. Nonetheless, it galloped to the top of the box office and earned three Oscar nominations, and set new standards for comedy films with its irreverence, spoofs and just plain silliness. Some reviewers did get the joke from the beginning, including Roger Ebert, who awarded it four out of four stars, saying it’s “a crazed grab bag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken.” On its 50th anniversary, we look back at how “Blazing Saddles” has endured as one of the greatest and most beloved comedies of all time.

It all started when Mel Brooks bought the film rights to a story titled “Tex-x” (changed so it wouldn’t be mistaken for an X-rated...

Netflix generates more contemporary content than anyone, but they’re dipping into the past to curate the great movies from the ’70s. These are the films that people like myself discovered as kids in the early days of when HBO premiered on cable. Bravo, I say. Here’s the preliminary list.

Alice Doesn’T Live Here Anymore

A widowed singer and single mother starts over as a diner waitress in Arizona, befriending her coworkers and romancing a ruggedly handsome rancher.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Writer: Robert Getchell

Producers: Audrey Maas, David Susskind

Key Cast (Alphabetical): Ellen Burstyn, Jodie Foster, Diane Ladd, Alfred Lutter, Harvey Keitel, Kris Kristofferson, Vic Tayback

Distributed By: Warner Bros. Discovery

Initial Release Date: December 9, 1974

At the 47th Academy Awards, Burstyn won Best Actress

Black Belt Jones

High-kicking Black Belt Jones is dispatched to take down a group of Mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downtown karate studio.

1974 was quite a year for cinema; 50 years later, Netflix (of all places) is celebrating the golden jubilee.

In recognition of the anniversary, the streamer on Wednesday launched a new, dedicated content row (and direct URL link) with the first films being honored under its new “Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection” banner. Each of the 14 films came to Netflix this month by way of Warner Bros., Paramount, or Sony — the distributors that license content to Netflix.

The 1974 collection includes “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “Black Belt Jones,” “Blazing Saddles,” “California Split,” “Chinatown,” “The Conversation,” “Death Wish,” “The Gambler,” “The Great Gatsby,” “It’s Alive,” “The Little Prince,” “The Lords of Flatbush,” “The Parallax View,” and “The Street Fighter” (“Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken”).

Netflix doesn’t plan to stop with disco’s heyday. In April, the streaming service will do the same for films from 1984 (turning 40); July will celebrate 1994 movies (turning 30); and in October...

Bender, the alcoholic robot from "Futurama," is one of the primary protagonists of the show, but might also be considered one of its central villains. Bender (John Dimaggio) is an unabashed kleptomaniac and heavy drinker who mugs people regularly, sometimes takes hostages, siphons blood out of humans when they're not looking, and encourages people to beat their children on live TV. He even once worked as a professional stalker, creeping out the robot TV star Calculon (Maurice Lamarche). In one 2012 episode called "Fun on a Bun," he accidentally fed his best friend Fry (Billy West) into a sausage grinder, turning him into hot dogs that he unwittingly served to people at Oktoberfest. Leela (Katey Sagal), Fry's sometime paramour, even had a few healthy bites before realizing the truth. 

Don't worry. It is later revealed that Fry is safe. But for a while, it looked like Bender was complicit in sausage-based cannibalism.

Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley are teaming for a West End stage production of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 war satire, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Billed as the first-ever adaptation of a Kubrick work, Dr. Strangelove will star Coogan in multiple roles at London’s Noel Coward Theatre for a limited run from October 8, 2024-December 21, 2024.

The adaptation hails from Veep creator and Coogan’s Alan Partridge collaborator Iannucci, and Olivier Award-winner Foley. Foley will also direct.

The original Oscar-nominated film about a rogue U.S. General who triggers a nuclear crisis, starred Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens, among others. Sellers memorably played more than one character, scoring an Oscar nomination in the process.

Said Coogan, “The idea of putting Dr. Strangelove on stage is daunting. A huge responsibility. It’s also an exciting challenge, an...

Paramount+ is starting September with a bang with hundreds of new film titles joining its library, from comedies like “Blazing Saddles” and “The Big Lebowski,” to award-winning dramas like “Schindler's List” and “Forrest Gump” and sci-fi thrillers like “Terminator 2” and “Annihilation.”

But the streamer isn’t stopping there, with even more TV series (including Paramount+ originals and exclusives) and sports available throughout the month on the Paramount+ Essential plan and even more titles on the Paramount+ with Showtime.

Check out The Streamable’s picks for the top five titles arriving to the streamer this month!

30-Day Free Trial $5.99+ / month paramountplus.com

For a Limited Time, Get 1 Month of Paramount+ With Code: Lioness

What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Coming to Paramount+ in September 2023? “Blazing Saddles” | Friday, Sept. 1

Return to Rock Ridge with Mel Brooks’ fourth-wall-breaking classic that will leave you anything but tired. The satirical Western-black comedy follows...

Many musicians have recorded covers of famous Bob Dylan songs. Dylan is aware of most of them and has varying opinions of these artists’ renditions of his music. One rock legend who covered a song of Bob Dylan’s is Bruce Springsteen, and the singer thought it was “incredible.”

‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ was a hit for Bob Dylan Bob Dylan | KMazur/WireImage

Bob Dylan doesn’t have many hits in his career. He’s never had a No. 1 hit, and he only has four top-10 hits. However, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came close to reaching the top 10. Dylan wrote the song for the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but it was released two months before its premiere as a single.

While it peaked at No.12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it was a top 10 hit in a few countries, including Ireland, Australia, and Norway. It’s...

On March 13, 1981, one of the best werewolf movies ever made – director Joe Dante’s The Howling (watch it Here) made its debut on theatre screens in the United States. 42 years later, we’re celebrating The Howling with the latest episode of our video series Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie? To find out all about it, check out the video embedded above!

Scripted by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless, The Howling was loosely based on a novel by Gary Brandner. Here’s the synopsis for the adaptation: In Los Angeles, television journalist Karen White is traumatized in the course of aiding the police in their arrest of a serial murderer. Her doctor recommends that she attend an isolated psychiatric retreat led by Dr. George Waggner. But while Karen is undergoing therapy, her colleague Chris, investigates the bizarre circumstances surrounding her shock. When his work leads him to suspect the supernatural,...

"This movie could never be made today" is an increasingly familiar refrain in our fractious times. As our society grows more diverse, and we reckon with the racism and sexism of less enlightened eras, some crotchety members of the old guard have a tendency to throw up their hands and lament that an assortment of classic films with perceived problematic content would never make it past development in modern Hollywood.

In certain, screamingly obvious cases, this is a very good thing. D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation," a virulently racist movie that celebrates the Ku Klux Klan's heroic lynching of a freed slave would be a one-way ticket to infamy (or a three-picture deal with The Daily Wire). The mere notion of Walt Disney's "Song of the South" would probably result in the creator being ousted from his own company (and maybe offered a gig as the chief...

As a member of the legendary writing staff of NBC's "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950s, Mel Brooks played a key role in pushing the formal boundaries of television comedy, so it stands to reason that he would be equally adventurous behind the lens of a film camera. Taking his cues from such pioneering entertainments as Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and H.C. Potter's "Hellzapoppin'," Brooks played broadly to viewers, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to get them involved in the front. He does this multiple times in "Blazing Saddles:" in one instance, he has Harvey Korman's Hedley Lamarr pause his direct-to-camera scheming to ponder to the audience, "Why am I asking you?" There's also the moment where the film's climactic melee crashes into the set of a Busby Berkeley musical, prompting Slim Pickens to blurt out "P*** on you, I'm working for Mel Brooks" before...

Steven Spielberg's "1941" is one of the most blissfully chaotic movies ever made. It is obscenely expensive, narratively scatterbrained, and unabashedly irreverent about one of the most devastating acts of war ever carried out by a foreign nation on American soil. It's more of a model train set than a movie, one operated by a spoiled brat who'd rather send the cars soaring off the track into the basement wall than keep his meticulously constructed railroad running smoothly. Crammed somewhere in the movie is an unruly satire about self-destructive, run-amok jingoism, but it's also a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon where a runaway Army tank crashes through a paint factory and then a turpentine factory.

After the back-to-back blockbuster triumphs of "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Spielberg could call his tune at Universal, and he threw his all into this nutty World War II flick scripted by...

Click here to read the full article.

Mark Miller, who portrayed the patriarch of a castle-dwelling family on the 1960s NBC sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and co-wrote the Keanu Reeves-starring romantic drama A Walk in the Clouds, has died. He was 97.

Miler died Friday in Santa Monica of natural causes, a family spokesperson announced. Survivors include his daughter and Tony-nominated actress Penelope Ann Miller.

Miller also wrote, produced and starred in the classic family film Savannah Smiles (1982), which was inspired by and named for his youngest daughter. It’s the story of a runaway girl (Bridgette Andersen) who forms an improvised family with the two escaped convicts (Miller, Donovan Scott) who find her.

On Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, which aired for two seasons and 58 episodes from 1965-67, the native Texan played college professor Jim Nash opposite Patricia Crowley as newspaper writer Joan Nash. They are the...

When one thinks of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," the most iconic image that comes to mind is that of a hollering Slim Pickens straddling a descending hydrogen bomb. The journey to that image was a royal pain for the celebrated filmmaker.

"Strangelove" co-writer Terry Southern penned a memoir piece titled "Strangelove Outtake; Notes from the War Room," originally published in Grand Street magazine in 1994. He describes the pressure that Kubrick was under to employ Peter Sellers in multiple roles, which the Columbia suits had determined was the sole reason for the success of "Lolita" (it wasn't). So Kubrick agreed to cast Sellers in "at least four major roles," three of which made the final cut: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and the titular Doctor Strangelove.

The fourth role was Major Kong, who commands...

Another unexpected comic treasure from the mid ’70s! Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston make an irresistible pair of would-be outlaws in a tale of the modern West — high-country Montana, actually — where a gentleman rancher from New Jersey owns all the land and making an honest living is just too boring. Thomas McGuane’s hilariously laid-back dialogue pits our slacker cattle rustlers against society — but only in the pursuit of having a good time. Frank Perry’s beautifully directed show gives choice roles to a fistful of actors: Clifton James, Elizabeth Ashley, Harry Dean Stanton, Slim Pickens, Charlene Dallas, Richard Bright, Joe Spinell, Patti D’Arbanville. Call it ‘literate’ country comedy, with musical accompaniment by Jimmy Buffett. The extras include a great new interview with star Jeff Bridges.

Rancho Deluxe

Blu-ray

Fun City Editions

1975 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date July 19, 2021 / Available from Vinegar Syndrome /

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley,...

Hollywood’s last big all-star war epic in Black & White? Otto Preminger took a happy film company to Hawaii for this enormous saga about the Naval push in the Pacific Theater of WW2, with none other than John Wayne as the competent commander leading the charge. Soap-opera scenes aside, it’s a thrilling epic directed with Preminger’s well-known reserve. The star-gazing isn’t bad either — Kirk Douglas! Patricia Neal! Henry Fonda! Paula Prentiss! The finish is a huge naval battle with impressive live-action special effects, and given a moody music score by Jerry Goldsmith.

In Harm’s Way

Blu-ray

Paramount Viacom CBS

1965 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 167 min. / Street Date June 29, 2021 / Available from Paramount Movies / 13.99

Starring: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Brandon De Wilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews, Stanley Holloway, Burgess Meredith, Franchot Tone, Patrick O’Neal, Carroll O’Connor, Slim Pickens, George Kennedy, Barbara Bouchet.

Cinematography:...

It’s a new deluxe Limited Edition of Sam Peckinpah’s mangled masterpiece, the third fancy boxed set in as many years. Arrow’s presentation is certainly got the edge in graphic elegance. They’ve also strived to include as many earlier extras as possible, plus new analytical-critical takes on the picture, and an excellent (and wickedly funny) visual essay from David Cairns. The disc has both of my commentaries, including the comprehensive one that details the missing scenes with information taken directly from Sam Peckinpah and Oscar Saul’s screenplay. And hey, you never know: this could be the year that Mitch Miller’s Singalong Gang makes an incredible comeback, and we can All fall in behind the Major.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / (2-Disc Limited Edition) / Street Date June 29, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters,...

The new [Imprint] label turns its attention to the Sam Peckinpah favorite, the almost-classic that suffered a number of setbacks — a studio regime change, impractical remote locations, the wrong producer — and a director with zero diplomatic skills, who couldn’t finish his script and fought political battles when his movie needed his full attention. That the finished film shows so much brilliance is a tragedy, as this could have been a landmark epic, Charlton Heston’s best. CineSavant turns its attention to a favored film one more time — to play imagination games with re-cuts. Viavision [Imprint]’s lavish boxed set is said to be sold out, but that may only be at the company source.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 11

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / Street Date October 28, 2019 / available at [Imprint] / $79.95 au

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong,...

It’s difficult to quantify the breadth of the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; but since those pivotal August days in 1945 when World War II suddenly became a nuclear war, many filmmakers have attempted to capture the uncertainty that nuclear weapons have unleashed. You know that feeling of uncertainty. Anyone who saw that mushroom cloud exploding out of Beirut August 4 was filled with nuclear age dread, even though it appears, thankfully, as if no nuclear material was part of the blast.

“the bomb” is a film and art installation created by artist/filmmaker Smriti Keshari, Kevin Ford, and author Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) that explores the threat of nuclear weapons and captures much of that anxiety. After premiering it at Berlin and Tribeca in 2017, the filmmakers have adapted it into a museum piece that will premiere at Pioneer Works. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,...

While all of our attention might currently be focused on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Disney reportedly has its eyes on rebooting another one of its intergalactic features. According to our sources – the same ones who told us an Aladdin sequel was in the works and that Ace Ventura 3 is in early development, both of which have since been confirmed – the studio is intent on remaking The Black Hole.

The 1979 space opera featured an all-star cast that consisted of Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens. With a production budget of $20 million and an additional $6 million spent on advertising, The Black Hole was the most expensive film Disney had ever produced at that time. It was also the first movie by the studio to ever receive a PG rating, which is crazy when you consider the debate currently surrounding...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

Twilight Time goes for a Blu-ray upgrade of the western remake with the all-star cast. Forget that there was ever a John Ford or a John Wayne and it’s a perfectly presentable wild west story, but the mileage may vary for classic western fans inclined to make comparisons to the 1939 classic. Top billing goes to an enthusiastic Ann-Margret… but we’re sorry to report that her hip-swinging rock number, ‘Viva Geronimo!’ was cut at the last minute.

Stagecoach

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date April 16, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies / 29.95

Starring: Ann-Margret, Red Buttons, Michael Connors, Alex Cord, Bing Crosby, Bob Cummings, Van Heflin, Slim Pickens, Stefanie Powers, Keenan Wynn.

Cinematography: William H. Clothier

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by Joseph Landon from the screenplay by Dudley Nichols from a story by Ernest Haycox

Produced by Martin Rackin

Directed by Gordon Douglas

The Hollywood western...

Canadian actor Shane Rimmer, who voiced pilot Scott Tracy on the series “Thunderbirds” and appeared in multiple James Bond movies, died early Friday at his home in England. He was 89.

His death was reported on the official website of Gerry Anderson, who created “Thunderbirds” and said Rimmer’s widow, Sheila, confirmed the news. A cause of death was not reported.

Rimmer was born on May 28, 1929, in Toronto. In addition to “Thunderbirds,” he worked with Anderson on “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons,” “Joe 90,” “The Secret Service,” “UFO,” “Space: 1999,” and the pilot “Space Police.”

His first major movie role came in 1964’s “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” as Capt. Ace Owens, co-pilot of the B-52 Stratofortress opposite Slim Pickens and James Earl Jones. Rimmer had uncredited roles in the early James Bond movies “Live and Let Die” and “Diamonds are Forever” and...

The ‘other’ Hollywood studio version of the Alamo story is quite good, with strong production values, exciting stunt battle action and something Republic Pictures didn’t manage very often, a solid screenplay. Sterling Hayden is Jim Bowie, this version’s central hero, with great backup from Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ernest Borgnine, J. Carrol Naish, and Ben Cooper. But best of all is that old hay-shaker Arthur Hunnicutt, as the movies’ best and most natural Davy Crockett.

The Last Command

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1955 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date December 11, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Sterling Hayden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Richard Carlson, Arthur Hunnicutt, Ernest Borgnine, J. Carrol Naish, Ben Cooper, John Russell, Virginia Grey, Jim Davis, Eduard Franz, Otto Kruger, Russell Simpson, Roy Roberts, Slim Pickens, Hugh Sanders, Morris Ankrum, Argentina Brunetti, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Jack A. Marta

Film Editor: Tony Martinelli

Original Music: Max Steiner

Special Effects: Howard...

It’s impossible to have any discussion about actor and icon Sam Elliott without mentioning That Voice. Simultaneously rough and smooth, like gravel coated in melted butter, that distinctive, husky sound seems to emanate not from Elliott’s throat, but his very soul.

Filmmaker Brett Haley, who has made two recent films with Elliott, calls it “the most beautiful voice ever, special and singular.”

Bradley Cooper found it so distinctive, he used it as a launchpad for his character, country singer Jackson Maine, in his directorial debut “A Star Is Born” — and then cast Elliott as his brother, Bobby.

“We had never met and so I felt like I was taking a gamble,” Cooper admits of the day he invited Elliott over to his house to talk about the film. “I said, ‘I’m going to play something for you, and this might sound weird.’” He proceeded to play a...

It’s time to celebrate the Irwin Allen disaster epics for what they are — huge, indigestible spectacles that first seem funny and then congeal into a cinematic badness that words cannot describe. This sprawling ordeal tortures good actors and shatters every limit of audience patience. I alone have survived to tell thee. Is a fair review even possible?

The Swarm

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1978 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 156 116 min. /Extended Edition / Street Date September 25, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda, Cameron Mitchell, Christian Juttner, Alejandro Rey.

Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp

Film Editor: Harold F. Kress

Visual Effects: L.B. Abbott

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by Stirling Silliphant, from the novel by Arthur Herzog

Produced and Directed by Irwin Allen

“I never dreamed that it would...

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.

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...

Cut from its over-4-hour length to 136 minutes, Sam Peckinpah’s beleaguered civil war epic was released in 1965 already showing the results of his own civil war with the studio – who then cut another 13 minutes after the film’s disastrous premiere. Over the years that footage and more as been reinstated burnishing the movie’s reputation and its place in Peckinpah’s canon. Other than Charlton Heston, it’s old-home week for the cantankerous director with a cast that includes James Coburn, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens.

What would happen if you crossed Demon Seed, Burnt Offerings, and The Legacy? You’d end up with a pretty confusing six hour horror movie I’d imagine, so scratch that. But what would happen if you took those same elements, made it a TV movie, and threw in The Hardy Boys’ Parker Stevenson for good measure? Well, then you’d be watching This House Possessed (1981), a supremely goofy, sublimely entertaining movie of the week that’s low on scares but high on smiles.

Broadcast on Friday, February 6th, 1981 as part of The ABC Friday Night Movie, This House Possessed was up against the CBS juggernaut The Dukes of Hazzard/Dallas, and NBC offered up…oh never mind. We were all watching the Dukes and the Ewings, okay? Is that what you want to hear? Fine. But I suppose there had to be some people who were repulsed at the...

Marlon Brando put his all into this impassioned, expertly acted and crafted VistaVision western spectacle. Has it been overlooked because of the scarcity of quality presentations? Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Pina Pellicer, Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens are unforgettable, as are the Big Sur locations. One-Eyed Jacks Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 844 1961 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 141 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 22, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Pina Pellicer, Larry Duran, Sam Gilman, Míriam Colón, Timothy Carey, Margarita Cordova, Elisha Cook Jr., Rodolfo Acosta, Joan Petrone, Joe Dominguez, Tom Webb, Ray Teal, John Dierkes, Philip Ahn, Hank Worden, Clem Harvey, William Forrest, Mina Martinez. Cinematography Charles Lang. Jr. Film Editor Archie Marshek Original Music Hugo Friedhofer Written by Guy Trosper, Calder Willingham from the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones by Charles Neider Produced by Frank P. Rosenberg Directed by Marlon Brando...

Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers, is calling it a career this weekend after 67 years in the booth. If you will indulge me, I’d like to tell you about one of my favorite moments from Scully behind the microphone, and about one night at Dodger Stadium that will make me miss him even more.

But first, a little background. I was never a big baseball guy growing up, even though I played a couple of seasons on a local Little League team. (Our squad was called the Firemen.) During those days, when I wasn’t playing the game, either in Little League or somewhere on my grandma’s farm with my cousins, the presence of a baseball broadcast usually meant that something I’d rather have been watching on TV was unavailable to see because someone else wanted to watch the damn game. (I tried to sit down,...

Do you like my choice of leading image?  'We're the Glory Guys! Eee-Yow!' What is surely the most generic cavalry western of all time is actually from a screenplay by Sam Peckinpah. Twilight Time's extras have a lot to say about that, and so does Savant. The Glory Guys Blu-ray Twilight Time 1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date September 6, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95 Starring Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, Andrew Duggan, Slim Pickens, Peter Breck, Jeanne Cooper, Michael Anderson Jr., Adam Williams, Wayne Rogers, Michael Forest, Paul Birch, Stephen Chase, Claudio Brook. Cinematography James Wong Howe Cinematography Ernst R. (Tom) Rolf, Melvin Shapiro Original Music Riz Ortolani Written by Sam Peckinpah from the novel by Hoffman Birney Produced by Arthur Gardner, Arnold Laven, Jules V. Levy Directed by Arnold Laven

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Glory Guys is as generic and standard-issue...

Gene Wilder, the comedian known to a generation as Willy Wonka and an icon thanks to his works with Mel Brooks on The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, has died from complications due to Alzheimer’s Disease, according to Variety. He was 83.

Wilder's nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman revealed the actor died following a private three-year battle with Alzheimer's. "The choice to keep this private was his choice, in talking with us and making a decision as a family," Walker-Pearlman wrote. "We understand for all the emotional and physical challenges this...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the lineup for the Revivals section, taking place during the 54th New York Film Festival (Nyff). The Revivals section showcases masterpieces from renowned filmmakers whose diverse and eclectic works have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners.

Read More: Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Documentary ‘The 13th’ Will Open 54th New York Film Festival

Some of the films in the lineup include plenty of Nyff debuts returning once again: Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers,” which was the the Nyff Opening Night selection in 1967, Robert Bresson’s “L’argent,” and Barbara Kopple’s “Harlan County USA.” Also included are a program of Jacques Rivette’s early short films, Edward Yang’s second feature “Taipei Story,” Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu,” and Marlon Brando’s solo directorial effort “One-Eyed Jacks.”

The Nyff previously announced three of the films screening...

As much as we’re excited for the already enticing line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival, their Revivals slate is always a place where one can discover a number of classics or revisit favorite films. This year is no different as they have newly restored films from Robert Bresson, Edward Yang, Jacques Rivette, Marlon Brando, Kenji Mizoguchi, and more. Check out the line-up below and return for our coverage this fall. If you don’t live in New York City, there’s a good chance a number of these restorations will travel in the coming months (or year) as well as get the home video treatment.

L’argent

Directed by Robert Bresson

1983, France, 83m

Robert Bresson’s final film, an adaptation of Tolstoy’s story The Forged Coupon, is simultaneously bleak and luminous, and sharp enough to cut diamonds. The story of a counterfeit bill’s passage from hand...

“Purity Of Essence”

By Raymond Benson

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is such an iconic motion picture that most readers of Cinema Retro, I would bet, already own a copy of this brilliant keepsake of the 1960s on DVD or Blu-ray. The film has been released several times before, but now it gets the Criterion treatment. Believe me—fans of the movie and of director Stanley Kubrick will still want to get this edition. It is definitely an upgrade in quality and the disk also comes with a plethora of fascinating supplements and some terrific goodies in the packaging.

Unless you’ve haven’t been paying attention to the lists of Great Movies You Should See Before You Die, you know that Dr. Strangelove is the story of how an air force general (Sterling Hayden) goes “a little funny in the head.

The 1961 MGM Western A Thunder of Drums has been released by the Warner Archives. The film was regarded as a standard oater in its day but has since built a loyal following who have been eager to have the movie available on the home video market. What sets A Thunder of Drums apart from many of the indistinguishable Westerns of the period is its downbeat storyline and intelligent script, which was clearly geared for adults as opposed to moppets. There's also the impressive cast: Richard Boone, George Hamilton, Charles Bronson, Arthur O'Connell, Richard Chamberlain and Slim Pickens among them.The film opens with a sequence that was very unsettling and shocking for its day: an Indian attack on a tranquil homestead. A little girl is forced to witness the gang rape and murders of her mother and teenage sister. The plot then shifts to the local fort where commandant Boone is overseeing an understaffed cavalry contingent that has to find and defeat the marauding tribe, which has already slaughtered numerous settlers and soldiers. The Indians are window dressing in the story: nameless, faceless adversaries who are not given any particular motivation for their savagery. (These was, remember, far less enlightened times and such conflicts were generally presented without nuance.)

George Hamilton is the by-the-book West Point graduate assigned to the fort as Boone's second-in-command. He gets a frosty reception from minute one. Boone tells him he doesn't meet the requirements of a seasoned officer who can survive in the hostile environment. The two men spend a good deal of their time in a psychological war of wills. Adding to Hamilton's discomfort is the discovery that his former lover, Luana Patten, is not only living at the remote outpost, but is engaged to one of his fellow officers. The two rekindle their own romance and this leads to scandalous and tragic results. 

The film is based on a novel by popular Western writer James Warner Bellah and probably represents the career high water mark of director Joseph Newman, who was destined to toil for decades helming B movies. He gets vibrant performances from his cast. The ever-watchable Boone is in his predictably crusty mode, cynically second-guessing his officers and men, tossing out insults and sucking on an omnipresent stogie. Boone was so dominant in every role he played, one wonders why he never reached a higher status as a reliable box-office figure. Hamilton is in his standard pretty boy mode, but holds his own against macho men Boone and Charles Bronson, who is cast against type as a somewhat dim-witted character of low scruples. Singer Duane Eddy, who was a teenage pop star at the time, made his film debut here with a degree of fanfare, but it was obviously last minute stunt casting as Eddy is given virtually nothing to do except strum a few chords on his guitar. The film boasts some magnificent scenery and some rousing action sequences that are more realistic than those found in  most Westerns of the time. A Thunder of Drums isn't art or even a great or important Western - but it is fine entertainment and the Warner Archive edition looks terrific. An original theatrical trailer is included.

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Criterion's special edition of Stanley Kubrick's doomsday comedy is more powerful than ever in a 4K remaster; and it even comes with a top-secret mission profile package and a partial-contents survival kit. A Kubrick fan can have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 821 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 28, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed Cinematography Gilbert Taylor Production Designer Ken Adam Art Direction Peter Murton Film Editor Anthony Harvey Original Music Laurie Johnson Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George from his book Red Alert Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Leon Minoff Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)

Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com

Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...

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From killer bees to Steven Seagal, Michael Caine's seen it all. We celebrate five hilarious performances in five very bad B-movies...

"If there is one thing worse than being offered bad scripts it's being offered none at all," Michael Caine once noted - an admission that might explain some of the roles he's taken on over his long and often wonderful career.

Michael Caine may have attained national treasure status now, but from the late 70s to the middle of the 90s, classic roles like Dr Frank Bryant in Educating Rita and Scrooge The Muppet Christmas Carol were interspersed with some - shall we say - less acclaimed movies. Yet even when the production values were awful, the script stank and the films flopped, Michael Caine's performances often remained fascinating. This isn't to say he was necessarily putting his heart and soul into them -...