News

Like Spirit Halloween seizing a once-beloved store, Silver Scream Con moved into the old stomping grounds of Rock and Shock — New England’s premier horror convention, which came to an end in 2019 — at the Dcu Center in Worcester, Ma for its three-quel on September 13-15.

It was a full circle moment for Silver Scream mastermind and Ice Nine Kills frontman Spencer Charnas, whose experiences attending Rock and Shock inspired him to start his own convention. Having quickly outgrown its previous venue, the Doubletree hotel in Danvers, Silver Scream Con III’s new setting was able to accommodate even more horror fans for three days of horror, music, gore, and more.

The guest list included: Scream‘s David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, and Lee Waddell; Cabin Fever‘s Eli Roth, Cerina Vincent, and Jordan Ladd; Terrifier‘s Damien Leone, David Howard Thornton, Lauren Lavera, Elliott Fullam, and Amelie McLain; Halloween‘s Nick Castle,...

We have learned the sad news this week that prolific horror author Ray Garton, who wrote nearly 70 books over the course of his career, has passed away after a battle with lung cancer.

Ray Garton was 61 years old.

Stephen King tweets, “I’m hearing that Ray Garton, horror novelist and friend, died yesterday. This is sad news, and a loss to those who enjoyed his amusing, often surreal, posts on Twitter.”

Ray Garton’s novels include Seductions, Darklings, Live Girls, Night Life, and Crucifax in the 1980s, followed in later decades by output including A Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting, Trade Secrets, The New Neighbor, Lot Lizards, Dark Channel, Shackled, The Girl in the Basement, The Loveliest Dead, Ravenous, Bestial, and most recently, Trailer Park Noir.

Garton also wrote young adult novels under the name Joseph Locke, including the novelizations for A Nightmare on Elm Street: The...

Sudden success is a hell of a drug. Be it entertainment, sports, or certain, shockingly competitive sectors of the healthcare industry, you can count on numerous fast risers to get high on their own supply and take an ego-fueled torch to their career.

Television actors are especially susceptible to these vain slip-ups, and it's easy to understand why. Before the advent of prestige TV, the small-screen medium was, particularly for young-ish performers, viewed as a potential springboard to big-screen stardom. Sometimes it works out. Chevy Chase bolted from "Saturday Night Live" midway through its second season and instantly became a movie star on the strength of his work in Colin Higgins' sporadically hilarious "Foul Play" (even though he's far from the funniest element of the film). And sometimes you're David Caruso, who quit "NYPD Blue" to topline a pair of 1995 flops in Barbet Schroder's "Kiss of Death" (underrated) and William Friedkin's "Jade".

Generally,...

Get ready for the upcoming episode of “The First 48: Room Full of Lies,” which is Season 1, titled “Kiss of Death.” This episode, enhanced with bonus footage, will be aired on A&e at 8:00 Pm on Friday, September 15, 2023.

In this episode, the focus is on a tragic incident in Rochester, where a man from a nearby suburb is discovered shot to death on a city street. The Major Crimes Unit takes on the task of unraveling the mystery surrounding the circumstances leading up to the victim’s tragic end.

The episode aims to piece together the final hours of the victim’s life, shedding light on what might have brought him to that particular location. Viewers will witness the investigative efforts and methods employed by the Major Crimes Unit as they work diligently to uncover the truth.

Release Date & Time: 8:00 Pm Friday 15 September 2023 on A&e

The First 48:...

Organ Trail: "Abigale and her family fall victim to a ruthless gang while making their way across the Oregon Trail. As the only survivor, she will do whatever it takes to retrieve her one earthly possession, her family's horse, from the clutches of the bloodthirsty bandits."

Release Date: In select theatres April 14 and Available to Buy on Digital May 12, 2023

Starring: Zoé De Grand'Maison, Nicholas Logan, Olivia Applegate, Michael Abbott Jr., Jessica Frances Dukes with Clé Bennett and Sam Trammell

Written By: Megan Turner

Directed By: Michael Patrick Jann

---

28: The Biohazard EP: "Enjoy The Ride Records and Taped Noise proudly present 28: The Biohazard EP by John Murphy. Composer John Murphy has created the scores to some of the most iconic films of our generation. Pressed on 140g single-sided 12" with a screen printed B side, this EP features re-recorded and remastered tracks and is housed in a 350gsm...

Life World

Film Stage contributor Matthew Danger Lippman hosts a screening of Tom Green’s masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered this Friday, with tickets for $5 at the door, on the occasion of its 22nd anniversary. (Read Matthew’s interview with Green for the 20th.)

Film at Lincoln Center

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s early feature Passion has begun screening (read our interview with him here) while a series of films selected by Ari Aster begins, featuring films by Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray, Tai, and more.

Roxy Cinema

The Bedroom Window, featuring the Huppert-Guttenberg romance you never knew you wanted has 35mm showings Friday and Saturday, while Barbarella plays on the latter; on Sunday, new cult sensation For the Plasma screens, while Meg “U.S. Girls” Remy hosts a (currently sold-out) screening of Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue that includes music videos.

IFC Center

Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation shows in a...

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Rick Reitz, Beth Grant, Caylee Cowan, Willy Weasel | Written by G.O. Parsons | Directed by Kevin Lewis

In my humble opinion Willy’s Wonderland is easily the best movie of Nic Cage’s career! I thought it was impossible for Nicolas Cage to get back to the winning ways of the mid 90s… Remember that 5 year run when he dropped The Rock, Con Air, Face Off, Kiss of Death, Snake Eyes and a couple more? Seriously between 1995 and 2000 Cage made about 9 absolute bangers and won an Oscar. Since then he has been stuck in a somewhat middling ground with a 50/50 ratio of good to bad movies.

Then somewhere around 2016-17 Cage seemingly decided it is time to just embrace the nonsense. Mom and Dad came out and banged, Mandy, Colour Out of Space, Primal, Jiu Jitsu and now Willy’s Wonderland. I’m not saying he has stopped making misfires but,...

Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none

“Psycho Scarface”

By Raymond Benson

While we in the United States think of the “gangster film” as something that is perhaps distinctly American, it can be forgotten that other countries have had their fair share of mobsters, too. The U.K. is a typical specimen. There have been some very bad hombres in movies like Sexy Beast and The Long Good Friday, which are classic examples of British gangster cinema.

It was a pleasant surprise to discover Brighton Rock, obviously a beloved crime movie in Britain, but not as well known in the States. In fact, the movie was released in America as Young Scarface. This thriller, made in 1947 and released very early in 1948, is a product by the Boulting Brothers (identical twins!), who were a sort of British Coen Brothers at the time. They produced numerous quality movies from the late 1930s to the 1970s,...

By John M. Whalen

In MGM’s 1958 Western “The Law and Jake Wade,” Robert Taylor rides down from the Sierra Nevada mountains early one morning into a small town and busts his old partner-in-crime, Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark), out of the hoosegow. Hollister is a nasty guy. Not satisfied with escaping a hanging, to Jake’s dismay, he clubs the sheriff and shoots a couple of people out in the street while he and Jake make their getaway. Jake has to take his rifle away from him to keep from killing more people.

Back up in the mountains Clint wants to ride on with Jake but Jake says no. He busted Clint out of jail because he figured he owed him for doing the same thing for him once. Now they’re even. Clint doesn’t agree. There’s that matter of the $20,000 they stole on their last job together.

By Brad Gullickson

70 years after its release, Kiss of Death still terrifies with Richard Widmark’s magnificent scene-stealer.

The article Celebrating the Giggling Horror of ‘Kiss of Death’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

[Hello, readers! With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we here at Daily Dead thought it would be fun to do things a little different this year. We're putting the spotlight on our favorite horror-loving characters from genre cinema, people who have represented our own fandom on screen and, in many cases, helped bring our passion for horror into the mainstream. Be sure to check back here on Daily Dead every day through Valentine's Day for our tributes to some of the greatest horror fans to ever grace the big screen.]

Eric Binford, the protagonist (antagonist?) of Fade to Black (1980), loves movies so much, he is wholly subsumed by them. When not working in a Los Angeles film distribution center delivering prints to various locations, his life revolves around watching films on a projector in his room, or on TV, or reluctantly sharing a film at the theater with a crowd. Eric, played by Breaking Away’s Dennis Christopher, has no need for human interaction—the shadowy figures in the flickering lights are his only allies.

For those unfamiliar with Fade, it tells the simple tale of a lonely young man with an already tenuous grip on reality whose overwhelming passion for film leads him down a vengeful path of retribution against those who’ve wronged him. Dressing up as his favorite characters from filmdom (Dracula, The Mummy, Hopalong Cassidy, Cody Jarrett), Eric lays to waste those who come between him and his celluloid dreams.

Robert Siodmak’s superb noir classic pits two graduates of Little Italy against one other: a crook who can deceive relatives and seduce strangers into helping him, and the cop who wants to put him out of business. Starring the great Richard Conte, with Victor Mature in what might be his best role.

Cry of the City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Berry Kroeger, Tommy Cook, Debra Paget, Hope Emerson, Roland Winters, Walter Baldwin, Mimi Aguglia, Kathleen Howard, Konstantin Shayne, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography Lloyd Ahern

Original Music Alfred Newman

Written by Richard Murphy from the novel The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth

Produced by Sol C. Siegel

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Perhaps because of a legal or rights issue, Robert Siodmak...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the Retrospective section of the 54th New York Film Festival, an ambitious two-part lineup that is both headlined and directly inspired by Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema.” Nyff will screen Tavernier’s doc — which clocks in at a hefty and informative 190 minutes — along with a selection of French classics that feature prominently in the film. Additionally, Nyff will play home to a 12-film exploration of the films of Henry Hathaway, one of Tavernier’s favorite American directors. What follows is a feast of French cinema and a crash course in the works of Hathaway.

Read More: New York Film Festival Announces James Gray’s ‘The Lost City of Z’ As Closing Night Selection

Highlights of the “A Brief Journey Through French Cinema” section, as it’s being quite charmingly billed, include Jean Renoir’s revolutionary epic “La Marsellaise,...

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

Night and the City

Written by Jo Eisinger

Directed by Jules Dassin

UK, 1950

Harry Fabian is probably the best at what he does, even if he is never very successful. Richard Widmark’s character in Night and the City, out now on a gorgeous new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, is a low-level con who works wherever he can, however he can, doing whatever he can to make a buck. He enters Jules Dassin’s 1950 film noir classic on the run; he will always be on the run: always hustling, always running. Sincere though his half-baked plans may be, he is perpetually—pathetically—down on his luck. He has the ambition, there’s no doubt about that, and as he shrewdly stumbles past one obstacle after another, it becomes almost humorous in the way he manages to charm his way through life, always just by the skin of his teeth. He cooks...

Actor who flourished during the 40s in films like Kiss of Death and Nightmare Alley, as well as Kubrick’s celebrated heist movie, has died

One of the last links to the glory years of the Hollywood film noir, Coleen Gray, has died at the age of 92. Gray was best known for her roles in the 1940s thrillers Kiss of Death and Nightmare Alley, both released in 1947 by 20th Century Fox for whom she was a contracted player, and for Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, almost a decade later.

Related: Coleen Gray obituary

Continue reading...

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

Cinema deviants can come in all forms or variety. It is just a matter of taking your pick as to what kind of deviant you consider. Perhaps your preference of deviant is of the sexual or molesting persuasion? Or maybe in the arena of hustlers or swindlers or cheaters? Will notorious gangsters and corrupt officials fit the bill for your definition of legitimate deviant sources?

The one type of deviant prototype that no one can question or disregard in terms of an impacting impression is the serial killer…or any killer where the impulse to slaughter is mindless fun or in some cases a perverse release to punish society for their own inner psychological demons and despair.

In “Killer Instinct”: Top Ten Disturbed Deviants in the Movies we will look at the selections of twisted individuals whose overwhelming passion for the pleasure of pain and punishment against their fellow...

don't bother to knock

Happy Centennial to Richard Widmark today, the noir star who won instant fame (and an Oscar nod) for his film debut as dangerous "Tommy Udo" in Kiss of Death (1947). He almost made it to his centennial too but passed away in 2008. Other highlights from his filmography include: Night and the City (1950), Don't Bother to Knock (1952), Pick Up on South Street (1952), and that late career trio of all-star-cast Oscar darlings: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Any favorite Widmark performances? I have never seen (gulp) Kiss of Death. I suppose I should get on that given the Oscar nomination.

Not a single trip to the theater this week. I was going to see Before I Go To Sleep on Wednesday night, but they cancelled the screening only a few hours before it was to take place. However, at home I was able to see a few things. First off there was Samurai Assassin (1965) from director Kihachi Okamoto who also directed The Sword of Doom, which I've already professed my love for, Kill! and Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo. Samurai Assassin, in this case, is second to Sword of Doom and boy is it dark and rather disturbing by the end with yet another great performance from Toshiro Mifune. I also watched the new Blu-ray for A Most Wanted Man, which I ended up reviewing right here, and I also watched the Blu-ray for George A. Romero's The Dark Half, which I reviewed here. Other than that, I watched the opening...

Modern presidential campaigns and Oscar campaigns share several things in common: both have become months-long affairs; both cost sums of money that would have been unimaginable just a generation ago; and above all, both are now shaped tremendously by publicity strategists.

Because most Academy members do not follow the annual Oscar race nearly as regularly or closely as the pundits who cover it, it has become imperative for studios to hire publicity strategists to try to corral their attention — and to make the “case” for their clients in the most succinct and digestible manner possible when they have it.

From conversations with strategists in both the political and cinematic arenas, I learned that two of the oldest and most effective ways to do so are to…

1. Create and hammer home short, general, and easy-to-remember narratives describing their client. For example…

Obama: “the candidate who has shown good judgment in the...

It's interesting how a life can be destroyed by typecasting as an old, bearded man in a red suit, who is forced to assume pseudonyms

While I was researching the new edition of the Biographical Dictionary of Film, I received this letter from one man hoping to get an entry. There was no room, sadly – but it might be of interest to readers to see how a life can be destroyed by typecasting as an old, bearded man in a red suit, and being forced to assume a series of pseudonyms for the opening credits …

"I know a lot of children find me morose or worse (on the Polar Express they say I'm bipolar), but if you had to squeeze through modern chimneys or deal with reindeer (dirty, mean-spirited animals, with a kick like Didier Drogba), you might be bitter, too. Not to mention having to handle the plastic trash...

Leave it to The Daily Beast to get Scorsese talking about films. Not that it would be hard to do. The man is “Mr. Cinema.” He directs, produces and he even has his own nonprofit organization for preserving classic films, The Film Foundation. The director may have toyed with other genres during his lifetime, but the one people would discuss aplenty is his contributions to crime cinema. To think of Scorsese is to think of Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed, despite also directing films like After Hours and The Last Temptation of Christ. As he turns his attention to the small screen with HBO’s Boardwalk Empire – touted as being the network’s costliest production to date – the director lists off his 15 favorite gangster movies. Scorsese writes:

“Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film.

Hollywood actor Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93.

He passed away at his home in Connecticut on Monday after a long illness, according to his wife Susan Blanchard.

The Minnesota-born star enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, during which he made over 70 films.

He made his silver screen debut in 1947, aged 33, as a psychopathic killer in Kiss of Death - a role which earned him an Oscar nomination and scooped him the Golden Globe prize for Best Actor.

Widmark went on to star in 1950s classics like Night and the City, Broken Lance and appeared alongside Marilyn Monroe in 1952's Don't Bother to Knock.

He will also be remembered for his roles in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and 1964's Cheyenne Autumn. Widmark made his final big-screen outing in 1991 thriller True Colors.

He is survived by his second wife Blanchard and a daughter from his first marriage to writer Jean Hazlewood.

Richard Widmark, the actor whose menacing portrayals in numerous film noir thrillers made him synonymous with the genre, died Monday at age 93. According to news reports, the actor passed away at his home in Roxbury, CT after a long illness. Widmark appeared on both radio and the stage before making one of the most auspicious -- and audacious -- debuts in film history as the giggling killer Tommy Udo, a man who pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, in the 1947 thriller Kiss of Death; the film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe for New Star Of The Year, and a contract with 20th Century Fox. His portrayals of hard-boiled men, sometimes criminals, sometimes just plain amoral, made him an instant star, and he played villains in The Street with No Name, Road House, and Yellow Sky. He notoriously menaced Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock, played a racist criminal in No Way Out, and was a pickpocket caught up in a Communist spy ring in Pickup on South Street. Widmark proved he could also play against type as a doctor tracking down a killer infected with the bubonic plague in Panic in the Streets, and a doomed con man in Jules Dassin's Night and the City. The actor worked consistently throughout his career, adding Westerns to his repertoire with roles in Broken Lance, The Alamo, Cheyenne Autumn (directed by John Ford), and How the West Was Won, and appeared in the Oscar-winning Judgment at Nuremberg as well. He segued into television in the 1970s as Madigan (based on his 1968 film of the same name, directed by Don Siegel), and received an Emmy nomination for 1972's Vanished, where he played the President of the United States with a secret to hide. Other notable films during the 1970s and 1980s included Murder on the Orient Express, The Domino Principle, Coma, and the film noir update Against All Odds; his last role was in the 1991 political drama True Colors, after which he retired from filmmaking. Widmark is survived by his second wife, Susan Blanchard, and his daughter, Anne, from his first marriage to screenwriter Jean Hazlewood, who died in 1997. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...

Richard Widmark, who won a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his first movie role in the 1947 gangster film Kiss of Death, has died. He was 93.

Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, said the actor died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. She would not provide details of his illness and said funeral arrangements are private.

Widmark, who often played heavies, received his Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a laughing psychopathic murderer who pushed a crippled old woman down a flight of stairs. Usually associated with villainous roles, he played another heavy in the film noir Road House the following year. Yet he made his mark as the cynical hero of Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street in 1953. His gritty persona also suited him well for Westerns, playing in such John Ford Westerns as Two Rode Together and Cheyenne Autumn. He played the title role in the New York cop story, Madigan (1968) for director Don Siegel. Throughout his career, Widmark was especially gifted in showing the psychological cracks and ticks of otherwise solid authority figures.

Widmark was born on Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn., and grew up in Princeton, Ill.