Within the same broad outline as Jean Renoir’s La Chienne, Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street strikes many notes to emphasize the emasculation of Christopher “Chris” Cross (Edgar G. Robinson): at a dinner in his honor, the lowly bank cashier sees his boss (Russell Hicks) rush through a ceremonial toast to make time with his mistress; in his own home he’s obligated to indulge his unwelcome hobby of picture painting in the bathroom; and there’s a bit of business with a frilly smock he puts on to do the dishes.
Against the grain of what we might assume about put-upon little guys in movies and the way they lash out, Lang only dwells on the tableaux of Chris eunuchized doldrums to make one almost invisible moment work—when, over drinks with Katherine “Kitty” March (Joan Bennett), Chris doesn’t really correct her when she makes the fateful...
Against the grain of what we might assume about put-upon little guys in movies and the way they lash out, Lang only dwells on the tableaux of Chris eunuchized doldrums to make one almost invisible moment work—when, over drinks with Katherine “Kitty” March (Joan Bennett), Chris doesn’t really correct her when she makes the fateful...
- 2/6/2024
- by Jaime N. Christley
- Slant Magazine
Cinephiles love to quote Roberto Rossellini, after his viewing of Chaplin’s oft-maligned late work A King in New York: “This is the film of a free man.” Alain Guiraudie, among the more accomplished French filmmakers of this century, is one of few who directs with that similar sense of freedom––which is not to say he’s on the same canonical level as Chaplin, or most other auteurs, where that line is invoked. Although there are many ways one can interpret the adjective “free,” Guiraudie’s work seems very related to his unconscious, manifesting the eclectic amorous desires that bubble up from there, in strange combinations that push the boundaries of queer sexuality ever further. And there’s also the sense that audience and industry reaction––especially after Stranger By the Lake brought him wider attention a decade ago––is not something that makes him second guess his natural instincts.
- 2/10/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
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“A Mentalist Mystery”
By Raymond Benson
Anything that originated from the mind of celebrated mystery novelist, Cornell Woolrich, is worth one’s perusal, and the 1948 film adaptation of the author’s 1945 work, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mostly measures up.
Directed with confidence and style by John Farrow, Night is a film noir that ticks a lot of boxes that define that Hollywood cinematic movement of the late 1940s and early 50s. There’s a cynical and disturbed protagonist who is haunted by the past, cinematography (by John F. Seitz) that highly contrasts light and shadows, voiceover narration, flashbacks, and, of course, crimes. It’s short (81 minutes) and it’s intriguing. The picture’s faults might be that it can be overly melodramatic at times, and there are a couple of weak casting choices that prevent Night from being a classic. It’s good enough,...
“A Mentalist Mystery”
By Raymond Benson
Anything that originated from the mind of celebrated mystery novelist, Cornell Woolrich, is worth one’s perusal, and the 1948 film adaptation of the author’s 1945 work, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mostly measures up.
Directed with confidence and style by John Farrow, Night is a film noir that ticks a lot of boxes that define that Hollywood cinematic movement of the late 1940s and early 50s. There’s a cynical and disturbed protagonist who is haunted by the past, cinematography (by John F. Seitz) that highly contrasts light and shadows, voiceover narration, flashbacks, and, of course, crimes. It’s short (81 minutes) and it’s intriguing. The picture’s faults might be that it can be overly melodramatic at times, and there are a couple of weak casting choices that prevent Night from being a classic. It’s good enough,...
- 11/13/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, and actor Larry Fessenden chats with hosts Joe Dante & Josh Olson about some of his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Habit (1995)
Jakob’s Wife (2021)
Phantom Thread (2017)
The Last Winter (2006)
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
The Crawling Eye (1958)
The Reptile (1966)
Peeping Tom (1960)
Casablanca (1942)
Jaws (1975)
Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Suspicion (1941)
Rope (1948)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Wolf Man (1941)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Dracula (1931)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Mean Streets (1973)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Playtime (1973)
The Thing (1982)
The Howling (1981)
An American Werewolf In London (1981)
An American Werewolf In Paris (1997)
I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Ginger Snaps (2001)
The Terminator (1984)
The Wolfman (2010)
Van Helsing (2004)
The Mummy (2017)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Invisible Man (2020)
Amazon Women On The Moon (1987)
Wendigo (2001)
Fargo (1996)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Seven (1995)
Man Bites Dog...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Habit (1995)
Jakob’s Wife (2021)
Phantom Thread (2017)
The Last Winter (2006)
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
The Crawling Eye (1958)
The Reptile (1966)
Peeping Tom (1960)
Casablanca (1942)
Jaws (1975)
Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Suspicion (1941)
Rope (1948)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Wolf Man (1941)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Dracula (1931)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Mean Streets (1973)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Playtime (1973)
The Thing (1982)
The Howling (1981)
An American Werewolf In London (1981)
An American Werewolf In Paris (1997)
I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Ginger Snaps (2001)
The Terminator (1984)
The Wolfman (2010)
Van Helsing (2004)
The Mummy (2017)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Invisible Man (2020)
Amazon Women On The Moon (1987)
Wendigo (2001)
Fargo (1996)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Seven (1995)
Man Bites Dog...
- 4/27/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Myke Towers’ new album, Lyke Mike, is 65 minutes of dogged, hard-nosed trap — full of blaring bass that’s sure to wake up the neighbors, clenched, claustrophobic drums, and drubbing raps.
But “Pin Pin,” which comes early in the 23-song set, offers a welcome moment of levity: Towers builds the track around a cheery salsa sample, a brassy snippet borrowed from Tommy Olivencia’s “Periquito Pin-Pin.” This salsa/hip-hop hybrid has proved effective in the past, from Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Hot Night” to Common’s “Stolen Moments – Part III” to C. Tangana’s “Mala Mujer.
But “Pin Pin,” which comes early in the 23-song set, offers a welcome moment of levity: Towers builds the track around a cheery salsa sample, a brassy snippet borrowed from Tommy Olivencia’s “Periquito Pin-Pin.” This salsa/hip-hop hybrid has proved effective in the past, from Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Hot Night” to Common’s “Stolen Moments – Part III” to C. Tangana’s “Mala Mujer.
- 4/26/2021
- by Elias Leight
- Rollingstone.com
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“A Noir Mid-life Crisis”
By Raymond Benson
Fritz Lang, who emigrated to Hollywood in the 1930s after escaping Nazi Germany, enjoyed a long and productive career in the U.S. He was, of course, one of Germany’s preeminent filmmakers in the silent era, having made such dark and cynical masterpieces as Dr. Mabuse—the Gambler (1922) and Metropolis (1927), and the brilliant sound picture, M (1931). In Hollywood, Lang was adept at many genres, but his films noir stand out. His crime pictures are among the best in this movement that begin in the early 1940s and ran until the late 1950s.
The Woman in the Window (1944) was adapted by Nunnally Johnson from the J. H. Wallis’ novel Once Off Guard. Johnson made some changes to the original story and added a “surprise” ending. In 1944 the conclusion may very well have been a clever twist...
“A Noir Mid-life Crisis”
By Raymond Benson
Fritz Lang, who emigrated to Hollywood in the 1930s after escaping Nazi Germany, enjoyed a long and productive career in the U.S. He was, of course, one of Germany’s preeminent filmmakers in the silent era, having made such dark and cynical masterpieces as Dr. Mabuse—the Gambler (1922) and Metropolis (1927), and the brilliant sound picture, M (1931). In Hollywood, Lang was adept at many genres, but his films noir stand out. His crime pictures are among the best in this movement that begin in the early 1940s and ran until the late 1950s.
The Woman in the Window (1944) was adapted by Nunnally Johnson from the J. H. Wallis’ novel Once Off Guard. Johnson made some changes to the original story and added a “surprise” ending. In 1944 the conclusion may very well have been a clever twist...
- 12/19/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***Joseph L. Mankiewicz, former producer at MGM, where Louis B. Mayer called him Joe Monkeybitch, became a top director at Fox, and his films there are spectacularly well-represented on streaming services today, along with Ford and Preminger, but one exception seems to be House of Strangers, his 1949 noir saga starring Richard Conte, Susan Hayward, and Edward G. Robinson.It's an unusual genre to find the urbane Mankiewicz dirtying his hands with. Robinson's presence is a throwback to the pre-Code gangland epics of Warner Bros., while the...
- 7/8/2020
- MUBI
Dan Duryea and Peter Lorre in Black Angel (1946) will be available on Blu-ray January 28th From Arrow Academy
Elegantly directed by Hollywood veteran Roy William Neill (best known for his 11 Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone), Black Angel is an underappreciated film noir treasure, adapted from a novel by the acclaimed crime writer Cornell Woolrich (Phantom Lady).
When the beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is slain in her chic apartment, the men in her life become suspects. There is Martin Blair, her alcoholic musician ex-husband, nursing a broken heart; there is the shady nightclub owner Marko who has been sneaking around her place, and there is Kirk Bennett (John Phillips), the adulterer who found his mistress s dead body and fled the scene. When Bennett is convicted and sentenced to death, his long-suffering wife Catherine (June Vincent) joins forces with the heartbroken pianist Martin Blair to uncover the truth…...
Elegantly directed by Hollywood veteran Roy William Neill (best known for his 11 Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone), Black Angel is an underappreciated film noir treasure, adapted from a novel by the acclaimed crime writer Cornell Woolrich (Phantom Lady).
When the beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is slain in her chic apartment, the men in her life become suspects. There is Martin Blair, her alcoholic musician ex-husband, nursing a broken heart; there is the shady nightclub owner Marko who has been sneaking around her place, and there is Kirk Bennett (John Phillips), the adulterer who found his mistress s dead body and fled the scene. When Bennett is convicted and sentenced to death, his long-suffering wife Catherine (June Vincent) joins forces with the heartbroken pianist Martin Blair to uncover the truth…...
- 12/28/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
One of Max Ophüls’ best American movies is this razor-sharp ‘domestic film noir’ with excellent acting and a premise that was probably too sordid-real for 1949: cheap crooks blackmail an ordinary housewife trying to protect her family. Joan Bennett confronts the crisis head-on, facing down James Mason’s unusually sympathetic ‘collector.’
The Reckless Moment
Region free Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1949 / B&W / 1:37 full frame Academy / 82 min. / / Street Date April 22, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.00
Starring: James Mason, Joan Bennett, Geraldine Brooks, Henry O’Neill, Shepperd Strudwick, David Bair, Roy Roberts, William Schallert.
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Film Editor: Gene Havlick
Original Music: Hans Salter
Written by Henry Garson, Robert Soderberg; Mel Dinelli, Robert E. Kent, from a story by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Produced by Walter Wanger
Directed by Max Ophüls
Nobody forgets Joan Bennett’s film noir appearances — she has a dark, moody quality that even Dario Argento appreciated. In The Woman in the Window...
The Reckless Moment
Region free Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1949 / B&W / 1:37 full frame Academy / 82 min. / / Street Date April 22, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.00
Starring: James Mason, Joan Bennett, Geraldine Brooks, Henry O’Neill, Shepperd Strudwick, David Bair, Roy Roberts, William Schallert.
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Film Editor: Gene Havlick
Original Music: Hans Salter
Written by Henry Garson, Robert Soderberg; Mel Dinelli, Robert E. Kent, from a story by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Produced by Walter Wanger
Directed by Max Ophüls
Nobody forgets Joan Bennett’s film noir appearances — she has a dark, moody quality that even Dario Argento appreciated. In The Woman in the Window...
- 4/13/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Review by Roger Carpenter
By 1944 Fritz Lang was already known as one of the greatest film directors of all time. Although he was unable to find steady work in the 1950’s (due mostly to his reputation of being difficult to work with and abusive to cast and crew), he had already created classics such as Destiny, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, the Die Nibelungen epic, Metropolis, and M.
Escaping from Nazi Germany after turning down Joseph Goebbels for the position of Director of the German Cinema Institute, Lang came to Hollywood where he directed numerous film noir classics like Scarlet Street and The Big Heat. The Woman in the Window was made the year before one of his biggest American hits, Scarlet Street.
The Woman in the Window stars Edward G. Robinson as Professor Richard Wanley, perhaps the most unlikely middle-aged man ever to be hit on by a beautiful woman.
By 1944 Fritz Lang was already known as one of the greatest film directors of all time. Although he was unable to find steady work in the 1950’s (due mostly to his reputation of being difficult to work with and abusive to cast and crew), he had already created classics such as Destiny, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, the Die Nibelungen epic, Metropolis, and M.
Escaping from Nazi Germany after turning down Joseph Goebbels for the position of Director of the German Cinema Institute, Lang came to Hollywood where he directed numerous film noir classics like Scarlet Street and The Big Heat. The Woman in the Window was made the year before one of his biggest American hits, Scarlet Street.
The Woman in the Window stars Edward G. Robinson as Professor Richard Wanley, perhaps the most unlikely middle-aged man ever to be hit on by a beautiful woman.
- 8/15/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954) is showing from June 28 - July 28, 2018 in the United Kingdom as part of Human Beasts: A Fritz Lang Double Bill.The ringmaster and the architect—in the history of cinema, before the New Hollywood, before the French New Wave, there may be no directors who complement each other as well as Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang. The surface parallels are evident enough: both began their careers in silent cinema, made their most canonical masterpiece in the 1930s, fled to Hollywood as fascism took over Europe, and returned to their homelands after the war to make their final films. Both have a somewhat totemic place in film history, and in neither case is the totem the whole story. As much as he signifies cinematic humanism, Renoir could be an unsentimental and deeply cynical storyteller. And for all the dark cities,...
- 7/9/2018
- MUBI
Fritz Lang and Nunnally Johnson take a deep dive into Psych 101 and come up with a winner: a milquetoast-meets-murderous-femme tale that pays off marvelously, even with its trick ending. Entranced more by his own gentle dreams than the allure of Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson imagines a perfect dalliance, and follows it up with a self-imposed punishment.
The Woman in the Window
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 107 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editors: Gene Fowler Jr., Marjorie Fowler
Original Music: Arthur Lange
Written by Nunnally Johnson from a novel by J.H. Wallis
Produced by Nunnally Johnson
Directed by Fritz Lang
Considered a top noir and one of Fritz Lang’s very best American films, The Woman in the Window is a dreamlike meditation on crime and guilt, distilled to...
The Woman in the Window
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 107 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editors: Gene Fowler Jr., Marjorie Fowler
Original Music: Arthur Lange
Written by Nunnally Johnson from a novel by J.H. Wallis
Produced by Nunnally Johnson
Directed by Fritz Lang
Considered a top noir and one of Fritz Lang’s very best American films, The Woman in the Window is a dreamlike meditation on crime and guilt, distilled to...
- 6/16/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Review by Roger Carpenter
Jim Henry (Richard Conte) is a decorated soldier who has just returned from the Korean War. Making his way across the country to California, he’s stopped over in Vegas to visit an Army friend. While killing time until his dinner date he cozies up to a pretty blonde in a bar before the two argue very publicly. The next day finds Jim hitchhiking out of Vegas when he is arrested by the police—for the murder of the girl he fought with the night before. Jim claims he can prove his innocence but his Army pal, on a classified mission, has disappeared, along with Jim’s alibi. Feeling railroaded, Jim manages to escape the clutches of Detective White Eagle (Reed Hadley) to go on the run.
While on the road he meets two ladies, a high-class photographer, Mrs. Cummings (Joan Bennett), and her assistant, the...
Jim Henry (Richard Conte) is a decorated soldier who has just returned from the Korean War. Making his way across the country to California, he’s stopped over in Vegas to visit an Army friend. While killing time until his dinner date he cozies up to a pretty blonde in a bar before the two argue very publicly. The next day finds Jim hitchhiking out of Vegas when he is arrested by the police—for the murder of the girl he fought with the night before. Jim claims he can prove his innocence but his Army pal, on a classified mission, has disappeared, along with Jim’s alibi. Feeling railroaded, Jim manages to escape the clutches of Detective White Eagle (Reed Hadley) to go on the run.
While on the road he meets two ladies, a high-class photographer, Mrs. Cummings (Joan Bennett), and her assistant, the...
- 4/30/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Quad Cinema
Straub-Huillet’s immense Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, restored in 2K, begins a week-long run.
A retrospective of director Philippe de Broca is underway.
Metrograph
The cult classic Mind Game returns, while Labyrinth, Scarlet Street, and Klute have showings.
Bam
“Women at Work” celebrates, it turns out, just that.
Nitehawk Cinema
Peas in a pod,...
Quad Cinema
Straub-Huillet’s immense Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, restored in 2K, begins a week-long run.
A retrospective of director Philippe de Broca is underway.
Metrograph
The cult classic Mind Game returns, while Labyrinth, Scarlet Street, and Klute have showings.
Bam
“Women at Work” celebrates, it turns out, just that.
Nitehawk Cinema
Peas in a pod,...
- 3/1/2018
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
No, it’s not a the-day-after sequel to The Lost Weekend, but a class-act mystery-horror from 20th-Fox, at a time when the studio wasn’t keen on scare shows. John Brahm directs the ill-fated Laird Cregar as a mad musician . . . or, at least a musician driven mad by a perfidious femme fatale, Darryl Zanuck’s top glamour girl Linda Darnell.
Hangover Square
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1945 /B&W / 1:37 Academy / 77 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan, Alan Napier.
Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle
Film Editor: Harry Reynolds
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Barré Lyndon
Produced by Robert Bassler
Directed by John Brahm
Here’s a serious quality upgrade for horror fans. Although technically a period murder thriller, as a horror film John Brahm’s tense Hangover Square betters its precursor The Lodger in almost every department. We don...
Hangover Square
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1945 /B&W / 1:37 Academy / 77 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan, Alan Napier.
Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle
Film Editor: Harry Reynolds
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Barré Lyndon
Produced by Robert Bassler
Directed by John Brahm
Here’s a serious quality upgrade for horror fans. Although technically a period murder thriller, as a horror film John Brahm’s tense Hangover Square betters its precursor The Lodger in almost every department. We don...
- 11/28/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It was a serious sucker punch to all film fans when we lost Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds within a day of each other. There have been many tributes to Carrie Fisher and rightfully so. I have not seen that many for Debbie Reynolds so I would like to pay her tribute by reviewing one of her lost gems of a movie, Goodbye Charlie from 1964, based on a play by George Axelrod and directed by Vincent Minnelli.
I can recall seeing this on a network movie night in the late 60s or early 70s, I remember liking it but seeing it again after this many years I was astonished at how funny it really is, and how touching.
The setup is simple, Charlie Sorrell is a writer, sometime screen writer and notorious womanizer. At a Hollywood party on a yacht he is shot by a jealous husband (Walter Matthau in...
I can recall seeing this on a network movie night in the late 60s or early 70s, I remember liking it but seeing it again after this many years I was astonished at how funny it really is, and how touching.
The setup is simple, Charlie Sorrell is a writer, sometime screen writer and notorious womanizer. At a Hollywood party on a yacht he is shot by a jealous husband (Walter Matthau in...
- 6/15/2017
- by Sam Moffitt
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Edgar G. Ulmer movies on TCM: 'The Black Cat' & 'Detour' Turner Classic Movies' June 2017 Star of the Month is Audrey Hepburn, but Edgar G. Ulmer is its film personality of the evening on June 6. TCM will be presenting seven Ulmer movies from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, including his two best-known efforts: The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). The Black Cat was released shortly before the officialization of the Christian-inspired Production Code, which would castrate American filmmaking – with a few clever exceptions – for the next quarter of a century. Hence, audiences in spring 1934 were able to witness satanism in action, in addition to other bizarre happenings in an art deco mansion located in an isolated area of Hungary. Sporting a David Bowie hairdo, Boris Karloff is at his sinister best in The Black Cat (“Do you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead”), ailurophobic (a.
- 6/7/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Soviet poster for The Ghost That Never Returns (Abram Room, Soviet Union, 1929). Designed by the Sternberg Brothers.Have you seen what’s playing on Mubi lately? Many of you who read my column may not often partake of the best of what Mubi has to offer, which is a beautifully curated, constantly changing selection of films which amounts to a top-notch repertory cinema on your laptop and in your living room. Now that Mubi is on the Roku app too there is even more reason to subscribe to the best film streaming deal on the internet. I know, I know, there is always too much to see and too little time, but for me what elevates Mubi over other streaming services—and I’m not just saying this because I write for them—is the 30-day model which offers you a new surprise every morning as well as the...
- 1/27/2017
- MUBI
Dana Andrews movies: Film noir actor excelled in both major and minor crime dramas. Dana Andrews movies: First-rate film noir actor excelled in both classics & minor fare One of the best-looking and most underrated actors of the studio era, Dana Andrews was a first-rate film noir/crime thriller star. Oftentimes dismissed as no more than a “dependable” or “reliable” leading man, in truth Andrews brought to life complex characters that never quite fit into the mold of Hollywood's standardized heroes – or rather, antiheroes. Unlike the cynical, tough-talking, and (albeit at times self-delusionally) self-confident characters played by the likes of Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and, however lazily, Robert Mitchum, Andrews created portrayals of tortured men at odds with their social standing, their sense of ethics, and even their romantic yearnings. Not infrequently, there was only a very fine line separating his (anti)heroes from most movie villains.
- 1/22/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The eighteenth entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street (1945) from December 30, 2016 - January 28, 2017 in the United States. In Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Scarlet Street (1945) it is never simply a matter of characters seeing or not seeing something important—although that can furnish the first, basic level of the intrigue. It is also a matter of what people really understand of what they see—which, in turn, has much to do with what they, consciously or unconsciously, project onto what is before their eyes. So, while the film is full of moments where its central figure, the ‘poor sap’ Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson), has his eyes averted, or doesn’t hear someone creeping behind his back, it also explores his willful blindness: he looks at Kitty (Joan Bennett) and sees an innocent angel where,...
- 1/13/2017
- MUBI
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Accountant (Gavin O’Connor)
That The Accountant is written by Bill Dubuque, the same man who gave us The Judge, makes so much sense, and about halfway through it becomes clear how far this film’s reach will exceed its grasp. Similar to the aforementioned Robert Downey Jr.-starrer from a couple of years back, The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck and directed by Gavin O’Connor, wants to be about everything.
The Accountant (Gavin O’Connor)
That The Accountant is written by Bill Dubuque, the same man who gave us The Judge, makes so much sense, and about halfway through it becomes clear how far this film’s reach will exceed its grasp. Similar to the aforementioned Robert Downey Jr.-starrer from a couple of years back, The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck and directed by Gavin O’Connor, wants to be about everything.
- 12/30/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Wow! Fritz Lang's second western is a marvel -- a combo of matinee innocence and that old Germanic edict that character equals fate. It has a master's sense of color and design. Robert Young is an odd fit but Randolph Scott is nothing less than terrific. You'd think Lang was born on the Pecos. Western Union Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1941 / Color /1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 8, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Randolph Scott, Robert Young, Virginia Gilmore, Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Chill Wills, Slim Summerville, Barton MacLane, Victor Kilian, George Chandler, Chief John Big Tree, Iron Eyes Cody, Jay Silverheels. Cinematography Edward Cronjager, Allen M. Davey Original Music David Buttolph Written by Robert Carson from the novel by Zane Grey Produced by Harry Joe Brown (associate) Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Darryl Zanuck of 20th Fox treated most writers well, was good for John Ford...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Darryl Zanuck of 20th Fox treated most writers well, was good for John Ford...
- 11/1/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
- 10/1/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
There are two major sides to the film noir coin, as I see it – the psychological and the practical. Now, the practical noir is fairly straightforward; maybe a detective has to solve a crime, or someone gets themselves in over their head with some scheme gone wrong. There’s a problem to be solved, and the protagonist either overcomes or becomes consumed by it. Double Indemnity, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Night and the City, The Killing, and The Maltese Falcon fit into this section rather well. The psychological noir uses genre tropes to investigate someone’s soul, usually stemming from their nearness to sin and death. Scarlet Street, Laura, Female on the Beach, The Chase, Sunset Boulevard, and Kiss Me Deadly fit the bill. Obviously films in each use elements of the other to shade the characters or move the story along, but the texture and flavor is notably distinct,...
- 7/19/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
It's the time-honored tale of the cuckolded lover, his heartless woman and 'the other guy,' told in terms that Émile Zola would endorse. Jean Renoir's first full-length talkie is a little masterpiece of social observation and indifference to sentimental niceties. Michel Simon is terrific as the clerk who has a tough time with illicit love. La chienne Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 818 1931 / B&W / 1:19 flat full frame / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 14, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Michel Simon, Janie Marèse, Georges Flamant, Magdeleine Bérubet, Roger Gaillard. Cinematography Theodore Sparkuhl Film Editor Marguerite Renoir Written by Jean Renoir, André Mouézy-Éon from the book by Georges de la Fouchardière Produced by Pierre Braunberger, Roger Richebé Directed by Jean Renoir
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
We American film students learned about Jean Renoir's La chienne only in the context of its remake. It's an earlier version of the book by Georges de la Fouchardière, that was also adapted for Fritz Lang's 1945 noir Scarlet Street. Renoir's film has never been readily available here in the States, an oversight now corrected with Criterion's new Blu-ray. The good news is that the French restoration of this tale of vice and virtue is beyond good -- the movie looks absolutely new. The even better news is that the movie is a revelation, the equal of Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning. This is the kind of movie that might suffer in a bad presentation -- the ability to soak up its atmosphere and detail makes all the difference. Yes, the title does translate as The Bitch, a straight-up vulgarism. The story parallels most of the same events of the Lang version. A puppet theater prologue tells us that story has no moral, no lesson to be learned. Company cashier clerk Maurice Legrand (Michel Simon) is a meek, henpecked husband and a Sunday painter. Maurice's wife Adèle (Magdaleine Bérubet) harangues him about her beloved first husband, to whom he'll never measure up; work colleagues make fun of the meek Maurice behind his back. Late at night Maurice meets Lucienne Pelletier (Janie Marèse), who he does not realize is the sometime-prostitute of Dédé (Georges Flamant), a vain, brutish punk who takes the money she squeezes from the men she meets and beds. He beats her for good measure, but she seems to enjoy it. Maurice has soon installed Lucienne in a love nest. He tells Adèle that he's thrown his paintings away, but instead puts them on the walls of Lucienne's apartment. She and Dédé have the mistaken impression that Maurice is rich, but he keeps her by stealing money from his wife, and eventually, the office safe. Then something unusual happens. Dédé tries to sell Maurice's paintings as the work of Lucienne, and has success. She is soon signing his paintings as a supposedly well-known American artist named Clara Wood. Critic Langelard (Alexandre Rignault of Eyes without a Face) promotes 'Clara's' art because she offers him sexual favors. Dédé makes much better money pimping Lucienne in the art world, than he did on the street. Far too naturalistic, 'earthy' and sordid for anything Hollywood might have produced in 1931, Renoir's La chienne turns a 'way of all flesh' tale into a sharp criticism of society. The milquetoast Maurice Legrand is too naïve to realize that he's being had by Lucienne, a femme fatale well versed in hooking wealthy, vulnerable clients. Lucienne herself is a romantic fool, hopelessly in love, or lust, with a man who treats her like dirt. The more abuse Dédé dishes out, she just comes back for more. When Maurice declares his desire to take Lucienne away, she laughs in his face without a shred of sympathy or basic respect. Stories like this do not have happy endings, and La chienne's main task is to imply that the art world is as big a racket as prostitution. 'Clara Wood's' paintings become big sellers because Dédé pimps Lucienne to a critic willing to praise them for sex. The art dealer and the critic collude to tout 'Clara's' paintings to new clients, one of whom we see getting quality time with the artist as well. As director Renoir was of course the son of the famous painter Auguste Renoir, it's easy to see a personal connection in the critical view of Art as a business. Renoir used live location audio, adding greatly to the film's realism. As there was not as yet any audio mixing for French films, the tracks are beautifully miked to pick up ambient sounds. We even hear the clacking of Lucienne's shoes on the cobblestoned streets. Theodor Sparkuhl's night exteriors are every bit as sophisticated as later low-key, deep focus work in '30s poetic realism and '40s film noir. The rain we see in some scenes may be real as well. The film isn't about crime and retribution, but the grand ironies of 'the oldest story,' a foolish love that leads to murder. The tale turns comic when Maurice has to deal with a man from Adèle's past, who turns up unexpectedly and then figures in the even more ironic ending. The three main characters are just terrific. Michel Simon is a very different character than his bohemian Boudu from the following year. The actor is also far thinner than we're used to seeing him, in films made just a few years later. Janie Marèse is as dangerous a female as ever hooked a man. Lucienne's unreasoning, limitless love for Dédé makes her pure poison for a defenseless fellow like Maurice. Georges Flamant also demonstrates great skill as a thorough, unrepentant louse. Comparing La chienne with Lang's Scarlet Street sets the difference between the humanist and determinist filmmakers in strong relief. Both Renoir and Lang see the events as an unstoppable consequence of human nature, but Renoir's view is much warmer. Maurice lives in a full spectrum of human interaction, even if most people take him for a fool. But he's essentially a warm and accepting person, and his one moment of violent rage is fully understandable. When all is said and done, with his life ruined, Maurice can still laugh at the absurdity of it all. Life goes on, somehow. Lang's version is a chilly noir thesis that makes its innocent hero (Edward G. Robinson) a more innocent victim, not only of Joan Bennett's cheap tart, but of his employers and society itself. His rich boss doesn't even have to hide the fancy woman he keeps on the side, whereas Robinson's wife keeps him around mainly to wash dishes. As one expects from Lang, the plot twists are sharper, wickedly ironic and cruelly merciless. Lang doesn't believe in 'live and let live'.' Haunted by what he's done, his poor hero goes insane. Life does not go on. Renoir's film has a music theme under the titles but I believe the rest of its music is organic, always with a source in the scenes. The beautifully filmed murder takes place with a ballad singer entertaining in the street. Unable to protest when his wife compares him unfavorably to her first husband, the long-lost soldier, Maurice instead sings a mocking children's song about a soldier who went to war and didn't come back. [When we screened La chienne, my wife jumped up immediately at the sound of the song. It has a nearly identical Spanish counterpart, "Mambrú Se Fue A La Guerra." Mambrú went to war, and if he comes back it'll only be at Easter and Christmas. Most likely, it'll be never. To my mind it's a great children's song because it reflects the reality of war glory. There's the Sunday Savant culture lesson for you.] The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of La chienne is simply terrific -- it looks much better than many expensively restored American movies from this year. The producer must have kept the picture and audio masters in perfect conditions. The rich images display a modulated granularity that heavy digital processing would surely have removed. Being from 1931 the sound does carry a light surface noise. The extras explain that a few lines recorded on location are weak, but I didn't notice as I of course was reading the English subtitles. It's a welcome disc indeed. Christopher Faulkner hosts the 25-minute overview featurette. He covers the love triangle that developed among the actors during filming, and the sad fate of the film's star Janie Marèse. Faulkner places the film in Jean Renoir's career, explaining that in the 1920s the director was often adjudged a dilettante. He had to prove himself before the producers would let him do a sound feature. Here in its entirety is Renoir's short (50 minute) film On purge bébé from the same year, a talkie Renoir was obliged to film to prove he could handle sound. The title translates as Baby's Laxative -- it's a comedy from a play by George Feydeau, about a manufacturer of chamber pots whose son is constipated! Michel Simon is a visitor to the house, where Baby's parents carry on a marriage squabble suitable for a music hall farce. Playing a small supporting part is a young Fernandel. On purge bébé must have been kept in the same magic film can as the main feature, for it is fully restored and just as perfect. Jean Renoir offers one of those introductions filmed for French TV in the early '60. Much rarer is a 90-minute 1967 TV show hosted by Jacques Rivette, in which both Jean Renoir and Michel Simon reminisce about their careers and La chienne. The precise, informative insert essay is by Ginette Vincendeau; and the attractive cover art is by 'Blutch.' Criterion's disc producer is Elizabeth Pauker. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, La chienne Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent very surprisingly so Sound: Excellent Supplements: Introduction to the film from 1961 by director Jean Renoir, New interview with Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner, New restoration of On purge bébé (1931), Jean Renoir le patron: 'Michel Simon' a 95-minute 1967 French television program featuring a conversation between Renoir and Simon, directed by Jacques Rivette, Essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 12, 2016 (5139chie)
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
We American film students learned about Jean Renoir's La chienne only in the context of its remake. It's an earlier version of the book by Georges de la Fouchardière, that was also adapted for Fritz Lang's 1945 noir Scarlet Street. Renoir's film has never been readily available here in the States, an oversight now corrected with Criterion's new Blu-ray. The good news is that the French restoration of this tale of vice and virtue is beyond good -- the movie looks absolutely new. The even better news is that the movie is a revelation, the equal of Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning. This is the kind of movie that might suffer in a bad presentation -- the ability to soak up its atmosphere and detail makes all the difference. Yes, the title does translate as The Bitch, a straight-up vulgarism. The story parallels most of the same events of the Lang version. A puppet theater prologue tells us that story has no moral, no lesson to be learned. Company cashier clerk Maurice Legrand (Michel Simon) is a meek, henpecked husband and a Sunday painter. Maurice's wife Adèle (Magdaleine Bérubet) harangues him about her beloved first husband, to whom he'll never measure up; work colleagues make fun of the meek Maurice behind his back. Late at night Maurice meets Lucienne Pelletier (Janie Marèse), who he does not realize is the sometime-prostitute of Dédé (Georges Flamant), a vain, brutish punk who takes the money she squeezes from the men she meets and beds. He beats her for good measure, but she seems to enjoy it. Maurice has soon installed Lucienne in a love nest. He tells Adèle that he's thrown his paintings away, but instead puts them on the walls of Lucienne's apartment. She and Dédé have the mistaken impression that Maurice is rich, but he keeps her by stealing money from his wife, and eventually, the office safe. Then something unusual happens. Dédé tries to sell Maurice's paintings as the work of Lucienne, and has success. She is soon signing his paintings as a supposedly well-known American artist named Clara Wood. Critic Langelard (Alexandre Rignault of Eyes without a Face) promotes 'Clara's' art because she offers him sexual favors. Dédé makes much better money pimping Lucienne in the art world, than he did on the street. Far too naturalistic, 'earthy' and sordid for anything Hollywood might have produced in 1931, Renoir's La chienne turns a 'way of all flesh' tale into a sharp criticism of society. The milquetoast Maurice Legrand is too naïve to realize that he's being had by Lucienne, a femme fatale well versed in hooking wealthy, vulnerable clients. Lucienne herself is a romantic fool, hopelessly in love, or lust, with a man who treats her like dirt. The more abuse Dédé dishes out, she just comes back for more. When Maurice declares his desire to take Lucienne away, she laughs in his face without a shred of sympathy or basic respect. Stories like this do not have happy endings, and La chienne's main task is to imply that the art world is as big a racket as prostitution. 'Clara Wood's' paintings become big sellers because Dédé pimps Lucienne to a critic willing to praise them for sex. The art dealer and the critic collude to tout 'Clara's' paintings to new clients, one of whom we see getting quality time with the artist as well. As director Renoir was of course the son of the famous painter Auguste Renoir, it's easy to see a personal connection in the critical view of Art as a business. Renoir used live location audio, adding greatly to the film's realism. As there was not as yet any audio mixing for French films, the tracks are beautifully miked to pick up ambient sounds. We even hear the clacking of Lucienne's shoes on the cobblestoned streets. Theodor Sparkuhl's night exteriors are every bit as sophisticated as later low-key, deep focus work in '30s poetic realism and '40s film noir. The rain we see in some scenes may be real as well. The film isn't about crime and retribution, but the grand ironies of 'the oldest story,' a foolish love that leads to murder. The tale turns comic when Maurice has to deal with a man from Adèle's past, who turns up unexpectedly and then figures in the even more ironic ending. The three main characters are just terrific. Michel Simon is a very different character than his bohemian Boudu from the following year. The actor is also far thinner than we're used to seeing him, in films made just a few years later. Janie Marèse is as dangerous a female as ever hooked a man. Lucienne's unreasoning, limitless love for Dédé makes her pure poison for a defenseless fellow like Maurice. Georges Flamant also demonstrates great skill as a thorough, unrepentant louse. Comparing La chienne with Lang's Scarlet Street sets the difference between the humanist and determinist filmmakers in strong relief. Both Renoir and Lang see the events as an unstoppable consequence of human nature, but Renoir's view is much warmer. Maurice lives in a full spectrum of human interaction, even if most people take him for a fool. But he's essentially a warm and accepting person, and his one moment of violent rage is fully understandable. When all is said and done, with his life ruined, Maurice can still laugh at the absurdity of it all. Life goes on, somehow. Lang's version is a chilly noir thesis that makes its innocent hero (Edward G. Robinson) a more innocent victim, not only of Joan Bennett's cheap tart, but of his employers and society itself. His rich boss doesn't even have to hide the fancy woman he keeps on the side, whereas Robinson's wife keeps him around mainly to wash dishes. As one expects from Lang, the plot twists are sharper, wickedly ironic and cruelly merciless. Lang doesn't believe in 'live and let live'.' Haunted by what he's done, his poor hero goes insane. Life does not go on. Renoir's film has a music theme under the titles but I believe the rest of its music is organic, always with a source in the scenes. The beautifully filmed murder takes place with a ballad singer entertaining in the street. Unable to protest when his wife compares him unfavorably to her first husband, the long-lost soldier, Maurice instead sings a mocking children's song about a soldier who went to war and didn't come back. [When we screened La chienne, my wife jumped up immediately at the sound of the song. It has a nearly identical Spanish counterpart, "Mambrú Se Fue A La Guerra." Mambrú went to war, and if he comes back it'll only be at Easter and Christmas. Most likely, it'll be never. To my mind it's a great children's song because it reflects the reality of war glory. There's the Sunday Savant culture lesson for you.] The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of La chienne is simply terrific -- it looks much better than many expensively restored American movies from this year. The producer must have kept the picture and audio masters in perfect conditions. The rich images display a modulated granularity that heavy digital processing would surely have removed. Being from 1931 the sound does carry a light surface noise. The extras explain that a few lines recorded on location are weak, but I didn't notice as I of course was reading the English subtitles. It's a welcome disc indeed. Christopher Faulkner hosts the 25-minute overview featurette. He covers the love triangle that developed among the actors during filming, and the sad fate of the film's star Janie Marèse. Faulkner places the film in Jean Renoir's career, explaining that in the 1920s the director was often adjudged a dilettante. He had to prove himself before the producers would let him do a sound feature. Here in its entirety is Renoir's short (50 minute) film On purge bébé from the same year, a talkie Renoir was obliged to film to prove he could handle sound. The title translates as Baby's Laxative -- it's a comedy from a play by George Feydeau, about a manufacturer of chamber pots whose son is constipated! Michel Simon is a visitor to the house, where Baby's parents carry on a marriage squabble suitable for a music hall farce. Playing a small supporting part is a young Fernandel. On purge bébé must have been kept in the same magic film can as the main feature, for it is fully restored and just as perfect. Jean Renoir offers one of those introductions filmed for French TV in the early '60. Much rarer is a 90-minute 1967 TV show hosted by Jacques Rivette, in which both Jean Renoir and Michel Simon reminisce about their careers and La chienne. The precise, informative insert essay is by Ginette Vincendeau; and the attractive cover art is by 'Blutch.' Criterion's disc producer is Elizabeth Pauker. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, La chienne Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent very surprisingly so Sound: Excellent Supplements: Introduction to the film from 1961 by director Jean Renoir, New interview with Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner, New restoration of On purge bébé (1931), Jean Renoir le patron: 'Michel Simon' a 95-minute 1967 French television program featuring a conversation between Renoir and Simon, directed by Jacques Rivette, Essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 12, 2016 (5139chie)
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
“The Streetwalker And The Sucker”
By Raymond Benson
Fans of Fritz Lang’s film noir of 1945, Scarlet Street, may do well to take a look at this little French gem from 1931. Lang’s film was a Hollywood remake of La Chienne, which was based on a novel by Georges de La Fouchardière (it was also adapted into a stage play by André Mouëzy-Éon). More significantly, La Chienne was the second—and first feature length—sound film by the great Jean Renoir.
Renoir had done well in the silent era, but the invention of talkies presented the filmmaker with a larger palette of tools with which to craft some of his greatest works. Beginning with La Chienne, Renoir became France’s premiere director, a position he held for a decade.
La Chienne translates as “The Bitch,” and viewers may question which woman in the picture the title is referring to—the lead, Lulu, a beautiful blonde “street woman” (a con artist and often a prostitute), who serves as the femme fatale of the story (and wonderfully played by Janie Marèze)... or the wife of our protagonist, such a shrew of a woman that there’s no wonder why we sympathize with the poor schmuck, Maurice (portrayed by the brilliant Michel Simon), a banker and part-time painter who does everything he can to get away from his marriage and set up Lulu as his mistress. Of course, Lulu is really being played by her lover and pimp, the nasty Andre (played by real-life Parisian gangster Georges Flamant, who was also an amateur actor). Maurice is merely the mark, the sucker who is seduced by lust and led to his ruin.
Unlike Scarlet Street, La Chienne is more melodrama than film noir. Renoir handles the material well without making it overwrought, and he succeeds in developing fine character studies of the three leads. Those familiar with the director’s later masterpieces such as Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) will find this early work fascinating. Renoir’s signature mise-en-scène is easily identifiable, even in its baby steps. Also impressive are the street scenes shot on location—this was the real Paris of 1931, displayed in glorious black and white.
Michel Simon, like Renoir, was one of France’s biggest film artists. Originally Swiss, Simon made French silent films and later had a long run as an actor in talkies. He has a distinctive Bassett Hound face, perfect for betraying first the joy and then the pain Lulu puts him through. According to Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner, who talks about the movie in one of the disk’s supplements, apparently Simon fell in love with the actress playing Lulu off-screen. But, like in the film, Janie Marèze was seeing Flamant, and this relationship was encouraged by Renoir. Not long after production was completed, Marèze was killed in an automobile accident with Flamant at the wheel. At the funeral, Simon allegedly threatened Renoir with a gun, but he must have calmed down, for Simon starred in a subsequent Renoir feature, the excellent Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932; incidentally, this was remade in Hollywood in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills).
The Criterion Collection’s release features a new, restored 4K digital transfer that looks so pristine and sharp you might think the film was made last week. There’s an uncompressed monaural soundtrack and a new English subtitles translation. Supplements include an introduction to the film by Renoir himself, shot in 1961; the aforementioned interview with Faulkner on the movie; a sparkling new restoration of Renoir’s first sound film, the short On purge bébé (also 1931), a comic bauble based on a one-act play by Georges Feydeau and also starring Michel Simon; and a ninety-five minute 1967 French TV program featuring a conversation between Renoir and Simon. An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau adorns the booklet.
A fine, notable release, and a must for lovers of European cinema.
Click Here To Order From Amazon...
By Raymond Benson
Fans of Fritz Lang’s film noir of 1945, Scarlet Street, may do well to take a look at this little French gem from 1931. Lang’s film was a Hollywood remake of La Chienne, which was based on a novel by Georges de La Fouchardière (it was also adapted into a stage play by André Mouëzy-Éon). More significantly, La Chienne was the second—and first feature length—sound film by the great Jean Renoir.
Renoir had done well in the silent era, but the invention of talkies presented the filmmaker with a larger palette of tools with which to craft some of his greatest works. Beginning with La Chienne, Renoir became France’s premiere director, a position he held for a decade.
La Chienne translates as “The Bitch,” and viewers may question which woman in the picture the title is referring to—the lead, Lulu, a beautiful blonde “street woman” (a con artist and often a prostitute), who serves as the femme fatale of the story (and wonderfully played by Janie Marèze)... or the wife of our protagonist, such a shrew of a woman that there’s no wonder why we sympathize with the poor schmuck, Maurice (portrayed by the brilliant Michel Simon), a banker and part-time painter who does everything he can to get away from his marriage and set up Lulu as his mistress. Of course, Lulu is really being played by her lover and pimp, the nasty Andre (played by real-life Parisian gangster Georges Flamant, who was also an amateur actor). Maurice is merely the mark, the sucker who is seduced by lust and led to his ruin.
Unlike Scarlet Street, La Chienne is more melodrama than film noir. Renoir handles the material well without making it overwrought, and he succeeds in developing fine character studies of the three leads. Those familiar with the director’s later masterpieces such as Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) will find this early work fascinating. Renoir’s signature mise-en-scène is easily identifiable, even in its baby steps. Also impressive are the street scenes shot on location—this was the real Paris of 1931, displayed in glorious black and white.
Michel Simon, like Renoir, was one of France’s biggest film artists. Originally Swiss, Simon made French silent films and later had a long run as an actor in talkies. He has a distinctive Bassett Hound face, perfect for betraying first the joy and then the pain Lulu puts him through. According to Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner, who talks about the movie in one of the disk’s supplements, apparently Simon fell in love with the actress playing Lulu off-screen. But, like in the film, Janie Marèze was seeing Flamant, and this relationship was encouraged by Renoir. Not long after production was completed, Marèze was killed in an automobile accident with Flamant at the wheel. At the funeral, Simon allegedly threatened Renoir with a gun, but he must have calmed down, for Simon starred in a subsequent Renoir feature, the excellent Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932; incidentally, this was remade in Hollywood in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills).
The Criterion Collection’s release features a new, restored 4K digital transfer that looks so pristine and sharp you might think the film was made last week. There’s an uncompressed monaural soundtrack and a new English subtitles translation. Supplements include an introduction to the film by Renoir himself, shot in 1961; the aforementioned interview with Faulkner on the movie; a sparkling new restoration of Renoir’s first sound film, the short On purge bébé (also 1931), a comic bauble based on a one-act play by Georges Feydeau and also starring Michel Simon; and a ninety-five minute 1967 French TV program featuring a conversation between Renoir and Simon. An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau adorns the booklet.
A fine, notable release, and a must for lovers of European cinema.
Click Here To Order From Amazon...
- 6/12/2016
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
This is one of Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor's best, written and directed by the classy MGM team of director Vincente Minnelli and writers Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett. It inspired a decade's worth of TV family sitcoms and set the benchmark for weddings for generations. Great fun and solid sentiment without mugging or exaggeration. Father of the Bride Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 93 min. / Street Date May 10, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Don Taylor, Billie Burke, Moroni Olsen, Melville Cooper, Leo G. Carroll, Rusty Tamblyn, Tom Irish, Frank Cady, Carleton Carpenter. Cinematography John Alton Film Editor Ferris Webster Original Music Adolph Deutsch Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett from the novel by Edward Streeter Produced by Pandro S. Berman Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
There's almost no point in reviewing Father of the Bride, as one doesn't need insights,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
There's almost no point in reviewing Father of the Bride, as one doesn't need insights,...
- 4/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. The Big Heat is playing on Mubi in the UK through January 3.Glenn Ford and Gloria Graham in a promotional still for The Big Heat.There's a moment about an hour into The Big Heat that, if you're lucky enough to be watching it in a theater, will still make the audience gasp. It's an act of violence that seems both impossible and, given the direction of the story, inevitable. It sends everything reeling. One of the silliest biases that many modern moviegoers have to overcome is the idea that Old Hollywood movies were safe: that they come from such a repressed, naive, and censored era that nothing too dangerous, worldly, or subversive could ever end up on screen. Few films can blast aside that misconception quite like The Big Heat. This is a Fritz Lang film, and...
- 12/15/2015
- by Duncan Gray
- MUBI
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. The Big Heat is playing on Mubi in the UK through January 3.Glenn Ford and Gloria Graham in a promotional still for The Big Heat.There's a moment about an hour into The Big Heat that, if you're lucky enough to be watching it in a theater, will still make the audience gasp. It's an act of violence that seems both impossible and, given the direction of the story, inevitable. It sends everything reeling. One of the silliest biases that many modern moviegoers have to overcome is the idea that Old Hollywood movies were safe: that they come from such a repressed, naive, and censored era that nothing too dangerous, worldly, or subversive could ever end up on screen. Few films can blast aside that misconception quite like The Big Heat. This is a Fritz Lang film, and...
- 12/15/2015
- by Duncan Gray
- MUBI
Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress and pioneering female film producer. Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 actress was pioneering woman producer, politically minded 'femme engagée' Danièle Delorme, who died on Oct. 17, '15, at the age of 89 in Paris, is best remembered as the first actress to incarnate Colette's teenage courtesan-to-be Gigi and for playing Jean Rochefort's about-to-be-cuckolded wife in the international box office hit Pardon Mon Affaire. Yet few are aware that Delorme was featured in nearly 60 films – three of which, including Gigi, directed by France's sole major woman filmmaker of the '40s and '50s – in addition to more than 20 stage plays and a dozen television productions in a show business career spanning seven decades. Even fewer realize that Delorme was also a pioneering woman film producer, working in that capacity for more than half a century. Or that she was what in French is called a femme engagée...
- 12/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Distribution deal covers docs and select classics from Kino Lorber’s catalogue.
French documentary producer-distributor Zed has closed an agreement with Us independent theatrical distributor and DVD publisher, Kino Lorber.
Under the terms of the deal, Zed will handle distribution in Europe of select documentaries and classic films in the Kino Lorber catalogue.
The agreement was negotiated between Larris Dubois-Flavien, Zed’s Head of International Acquisitions, and Elizabeth Sheldon, Svp of Kino Lorber.
The distribution agreement includes recent documentaries such as Seeds of Time (2014) directed by Sandy McLeod, and the 1970 Oscar-nominated doc King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis, along with restored classics including The Birth of a Nation (1915) directed by D. W. Griffith, and Scarlet Street (1931) directed by Fritz Lang.
The collaboration marks the move by Zed to grow its distribution activities, driven over the past five years by the company’s founder and president Manuel Catteau.
French documentary producer-distributor Zed has closed an agreement with Us independent theatrical distributor and DVD publisher, Kino Lorber.
Under the terms of the deal, Zed will handle distribution in Europe of select documentaries and classic films in the Kino Lorber catalogue.
The agreement was negotiated between Larris Dubois-Flavien, Zed’s Head of International Acquisitions, and Elizabeth Sheldon, Svp of Kino Lorber.
The distribution agreement includes recent documentaries such as Seeds of Time (2014) directed by Sandy McLeod, and the 1970 Oscar-nominated doc King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis, along with restored classics including The Birth of a Nation (1915) directed by D. W. Griffith, and Scarlet Street (1931) directed by Fritz Lang.
The collaboration marks the move by Zed to grow its distribution activities, driven over the past five years by the company’s founder and president Manuel Catteau.
- 10/23/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...
- 8/3/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Brad Pitt 'Glory Days' costar Nicholas Kallsen Brad Pitt 'Glory Days' costar Nicholas Kallsen dead at 48 Nicholas Kallsen, who was featured opposite Brad Pitt in the short-lived television series Glory Days, has died at age 48 in Thailand according to online reports. Their source is one of Rupert Murdoch's rags, citing a Facebook posting by one of the actor's friends. The cause of death was purportedly – no specific source was provided – a drug overdose.* Aired on Fox in July 1990, Glory Days told the story of four high-school friends whose paths take different directions after graduation. Besides Nicholas Kallsen and Brad Pitt, the show also featured Spike Alexander and Evan Mirand. Glory Days lasted a mere six episodes – two of which directed by former Happy Days actor Anson Williams – before its cancellation. Roommates Nicholas Kallsen and Brad Pitt vying for same 'Thelma & Louise' role? The Murdoch tabloid also...
- 5/1/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Veterans Day movies on TCM: From 'The Sullivans' to 'Patton' (photo: George C. Scott in 'Patton') This evening, Turner Classic Movies is presenting five war or war-related films in celebration of Veterans Day. For those outside the United States, Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which takes place in late May. (Scroll down to check out TCM's Veterans Day movie schedule.) It's good to be aware that in the last century alone, the U.S. has been involved in more than a dozen armed conflicts, from World War I to the invasion of Iraq, not including direct or indirect military interventions in countries as disparate as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. As to be expected in a society that reveres people in uniform, American war movies have almost invariably glorified American soldiers even in those rare instances when they have dared to criticize the military establishment.
- 11/12/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hedy Lamarr: 'Invention' and inventor on Turner Classic Movies (photo: Hedy Lamarr publicity shot ca. early '40s) Two Hedy Lamarr movies released during her heyday in the early '40s — Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flat (1942), co-starring Spencer Tracy and John Garfield, and King Vidor's H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), co-starring Robert Young and Ruth Hussey — will be broadcast on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, November 12, 2014, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pt, respectively. Best known as a glamorous Hollywood star (Ziegfeld Girl, White Cargo, Samson and Delilah), the Viennese-born Lamarr (née Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), who would have turned 100 on November 9, was also an inventor: she co-developed and patented with composer George Antheil the concept of frequency hopping, currently known as spread-spectrum communications (or "spread-spectrum broadcasting"), which ultimately led to the evolution of wireless technology. (More on the George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr invention further below.) Somewhat ironically,...
- 11/2/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
There are few auteurs as instantly recognizable and divisive as Stanley Kubrick, few filmmakers as idiosyncratic or groundbreaking. His work spans the entirety of life itself–sometimes in the same film–and has inspired almost as much derision as hosannas. There is no easy consensus on Kubrick’s films–though you may not be terribly surprised by our writers’ choice for his best, it’s hard to imagine that your ranking of his work will line up wholly with ours–nor on the messages imparted within. Is The Shining secretly about the moon landing? Is 2001? What is he really saying about violence in society in A Clockwork Orange? And so on. Closing out (some weeks late, granted) our monthly theme on his works, here is Sound on Sight’s ranking of the films of Stanley Kubrick. Enjoy. Share. Debate. We know you’ll want to debate.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey...
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey...
- 4/23/2014
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
The Woman in the Window
Written by Nunnally Johnson
Directed by Fritz Lang
USA, 1944
Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) is an assistant professor of psychology at a local university. While the academic’s family is away for the summer, he spends his evenings at a gentlemen’s club with fellow intellectuals, among them Dist. Atty. Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey). Just next door to the club is an art shop where, set beside the window for all to see, a portrait of a beautiful woman sits, catching Richard’s attention. Happenstance has it that the subject, Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), passes by one night and, flattered by Richard’s admiration, invites him over to view other sketches. Everything is quite innocent until a middle-aged man, an acquaintance of Alice’s, storms into the apartment and attacks Richard out of jealousy. The professor has no other choice but to retaliate and stabs...
Written by Nunnally Johnson
Directed by Fritz Lang
USA, 1944
Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) is an assistant professor of psychology at a local university. While the academic’s family is away for the summer, he spends his evenings at a gentlemen’s club with fellow intellectuals, among them Dist. Atty. Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey). Just next door to the club is an art shop where, set beside the window for all to see, a portrait of a beautiful woman sits, catching Richard’s attention. Happenstance has it that the subject, Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), passes by one night and, flattered by Richard’s admiration, invites him over to view other sketches. Everything is quite innocent until a middle-aged man, an acquaintance of Alice’s, storms into the apartment and attacks Richard out of jealousy. The professor has no other choice but to retaliate and stabs...
- 3/28/2014
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Black Angel
Written by Roy Chanslor
Directed by Roy William Neill
USA, 1946
Famous recording artist Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) has sheltered herself from her drunkard husband Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) in her lush Los Angeles condo. To ensure tranquility and peace of mind, she has asked the doorman to disallow Martin from reaching her, the latter looking up anxiously from street level at her window high above. The doorman’s rebuttals send Martin into a drinking frenzy, during which time another man, Kirk Bennet (John Phillips), enters Mavis’ home for reasons unknown only to find her dead. It isn’t long before the police track Kirk to his homely domain, where his wife Catherine sees her better half arrested for murder, sending her into a tizzy. With Kirk convicted and sentenced to death, Catherine takes it upon herself to piece together the puzzle to clear her husband’s name. To do so,...
Written by Roy Chanslor
Directed by Roy William Neill
USA, 1946
Famous recording artist Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) has sheltered herself from her drunkard husband Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) in her lush Los Angeles condo. To ensure tranquility and peace of mind, she has asked the doorman to disallow Martin from reaching her, the latter looking up anxiously from street level at her window high above. The doorman’s rebuttals send Martin into a drinking frenzy, during which time another man, Kirk Bennet (John Phillips), enters Mavis’ home for reasons unknown only to find her dead. It isn’t long before the police track Kirk to his homely domain, where his wife Catherine sees her better half arrested for murder, sending her into a tizzy. With Kirk convicted and sentenced to death, Catherine takes it upon herself to piece together the puzzle to clear her husband’s name. To do so,...
- 3/21/2014
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Scarlet Street
Written by Dudley Nichols
Directed by Fritz Lang
USA, 1945
In a private party set up by J. J. Hogarth (Russell Hicks), president of one of New York’s largest banks, honours are bestowed upon the company and its employees for their diligent service. Among those celebrated is Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson), faithful cashier for 25 years. Chris is a mild-mannered, milquetoast sort of chap. He lives with his wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan), who only married him out of convenience after the passing of her first husband; she actually loathes him. A hopeful painter, all Chris has to call his joy is amateur painting on Sundays. Fate has something far different in store for Chris once he leaves his employer’s party. He stumbles upon a man physically assaulting a woman on the sidewalk, prompting him to come to her aid. The young woman, Katherine (Joan Bennett), is thankful...
Written by Dudley Nichols
Directed by Fritz Lang
USA, 1945
In a private party set up by J. J. Hogarth (Russell Hicks), president of one of New York’s largest banks, honours are bestowed upon the company and its employees for their diligent service. Among those celebrated is Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson), faithful cashier for 25 years. Chris is a mild-mannered, milquetoast sort of chap. He lives with his wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan), who only married him out of convenience after the passing of her first husband; she actually loathes him. A hopeful painter, all Chris has to call his joy is amateur painting on Sundays. Fate has something far different in store for Chris once he leaves his employer’s party. He stumbles upon a man physically assaulting a woman on the sidewalk, prompting him to come to her aid. The young woman, Katherine (Joan Bennett), is thankful...
- 2/28/2014
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...
- 12/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The votes have been tallied, and what can we say but "you like us, you really like us!" As we help announce the results of the 11th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, let us thank you, the voting public, for once again naming Dread Central as the best horror site on the web. It means the world to us. Thank you.
The Cabin in the Woods took top film honors with "The Walking Dead" being the favorite small screen offering. You can see the full list of winners at the official Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards website.
From the Press Release
Today's grisly takes on zombies and terror shared honors with some of Hollywood's oldest monsters in the results of the 2013 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon's homage to 80's teen thrillers, was named Best Horror Film of 2012 while AMC's hit series...
The Cabin in the Woods took top film honors with "The Walking Dead" being the favorite small screen offering. You can see the full list of winners at the official Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards website.
From the Press Release
Today's grisly takes on zombies and terror shared honors with some of Hollywood's oldest monsters in the results of the 2013 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon's homage to 80's teen thrillers, was named Best Horror Film of 2012 while AMC's hit series...
- 4/13/2013
- by Scott Hallam
- DreadCentral.com
Spanish director dies following a stroke: Best known for his nearly two hundred underground, "exploitation" films "I think I was born because my father and my mother had sex ... ." Nope, that has nothing to do with the anti-censorship lectured delivered by Oz the Great and Powerful and Interior. Leather Bar's James Franco online. The words above were uttered by another Franco, a Spaniard. No, not the foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing military ruler Francisco Franco, but multitasking filmmaker Jesús Franco, aka Jess Franco aka dozens of other aliases, including those in honor of jazz performers Clifford Brown and James P. Johnson. His oeuvre included about 200 films, among them The White Slave, The Sexual History of O, Macumba Sexual, , Emmanuelle Exposed, Vampyros Lesbos, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, and White Cannibal Queen. The director died today in Malaga, a city in southern Spain, after suffering a stroke. According to reports, he had never truly...
- 4/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 4, 2012
Price: DVD $24.95 each, Blu-ray $29.95 each
Studio: Olive Films
Olivia De Havilland doesn't like what she sees in The Dark Mirror.
The Dark Mirror (1946) and Secret Beyond the Door (1947), two classic film noir crime movies, make their DVD and Blu-ray debuts from Olive Films.
The Dark Mirror finds Olivia De Havilland ( Gone with the Wind) portraying twin sisters who are implicated in a Hollywood murder, while a police detective (Thomas Mitchell) must figure out if one or both were involved in the killing. As a psychiatrist approached by the detective to help with the complicated case, Lew Ayres agrees to see them separately and he’s immediately attracted to one of them and fears the other one to be killer. But he’s also worried that if he’s wrong he could end up on a slab in the morgue himself.
The movie features taut direction...
Price: DVD $24.95 each, Blu-ray $29.95 each
Studio: Olive Films
Olivia De Havilland doesn't like what she sees in The Dark Mirror.
The Dark Mirror (1946) and Secret Beyond the Door (1947), two classic film noir crime movies, make their DVD and Blu-ray debuts from Olive Films.
The Dark Mirror finds Olivia De Havilland ( Gone with the Wind) portraying twin sisters who are implicated in a Hollywood murder, while a police detective (Thomas Mitchell) must figure out if one or both were involved in the killing. As a psychiatrist approached by the detective to help with the complicated case, Lew Ayres agrees to see them separately and he’s immediately attracted to one of them and fears the other one to be killer. But he’s also worried that if he’s wrong he could end up on a slab in the morgue himself.
The movie features taut direction...
- 6/21/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Sometimes you just get stuck with some leading men. The rakishly handsome Ethan Hawke, currently starring in “The Woman In The Fifth,” has retained that youthful insouciance despite his mature action star frame. He’s compelling when in motion, clearly a thoughtful actor who can convey several conflicting emotions. In conversation, however, he’s still got that inward intellectual curiosity, as if he’s wondering, what am I, and what is happening around me? No current actor quite clearly portrays dead-serious befuddlement quite like Hawke, who seems equally at home (which is to say perplexed) contemplating the secrets of the universe as he does programming the DVR.
As Tom, Hawke is appropriately vexed as a visiting American trying to re-connect with his ex-wife and their six year old daughter in France. While minimal details are revealed, it’s clear that there was a very good reason they fled, as Tom forcefully enters their new home,...
As Tom, Hawke is appropriately vexed as a visiting American trying to re-connect with his ex-wife and their six year old daughter in France. While minimal details are revealed, it’s clear that there was a very good reason they fled, as Tom forcefully enters their new home,...
- 6/12/2012
- by Gabe Toro
- The Playlist
Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda) leaves his third stretch in prison and walks straight into the arms of his wife to be, Joan (Sylvia Sidney). He vows to leave his criminal ways behind him and make a new life with Joan, but it proves hard to go straight. No-one trusts him and when he appears to have become involved in a deadly bank job, no-one will believe in his innocence (apart from the doting Joan). Eventually they go on the run together, but the odds seem stacked against them.
*****
Director Fritz Lang has a nigh-on peerless resumé. Metropolis, M, The Big Heat, Scarlet Street and this, only his second film made following his move to Hollywood from an increasingly problematic 1930′s National Socialist-dominated Germany. Film Noir, Expressionism and big themes of determinism, human nature and destiny – all seemlessly woven through his oeuvre and all very much present in this excellent crime drama.
*****
Director Fritz Lang has a nigh-on peerless resumé. Metropolis, M, The Big Heat, Scarlet Street and this, only his second film made following his move to Hollywood from an increasingly problematic 1930′s National Socialist-dominated Germany. Film Noir, Expressionism and big themes of determinism, human nature and destiny – all seemlessly woven through his oeuvre and all very much present in this excellent crime drama.
- 6/6/2012
- by Dave Roper
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman, Chloë Grace Moretz as Carolyn Stoddard, Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard, Gulliver McGrath as David Collins, Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters, Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Ray Shirley as Mrs. Johnson, Jackie Earle Haley as Willie Loomis, Jonny Lee Miller as Roger Collins, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Dark Shadows Tim Burton / Johnny Depp’s Dark Shadows is off to a middling start, earning $550,000 at Thursday midnight screenings in North America. Comparing the box-office performance of Dark Shadows to those of, say, Jennifer Lawrence’s eagerly awaited The Hunger Games or Joss Whedon’s superhero ensemble The Avengers would be not only cruel but downright unfair. Although the previous Burton / Depp collaboration, Alice in Wonderland, was a humongous hit, opening with $116 million in March 2010, Burton’s campy version of the late ’60s soap opera Dark Shadows has a different sort of appeal.
- 5/11/2012
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
Dark Shadows 2012 poster Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, a film version of the popular television series of the late '60s/early '70s opens on May 11. Please scroll down for the special-effects-laden, uncontrollably campy trailer. Now, are you old enough to remember Dark Shadows? No? Neither am I. All I can tell you is that Dark Shadows has nothing to do with The Munsters or The Addams Family — though don't feel bad if you get Burton's Dark Shadows reboot confused with either comedy series. Looking at the above poster, my first impression was: "Oh, Johnny Depp will be playing Morticia … in Dark Shadows? Something is off." The white-powdered faces also made me think of the Cullen Clan in the Twilight movies. I'm assuming that was intentional, so as to make clueless moviegoers think they'll be watching a sneak spring preview of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in Breaking Dawn Part 2. Or maybe not.
- 3/16/2012
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
Sex is one hell of an odd concept with regards to the general population’s perception of it. Both the most sellable aspect of media, and also the one aspect that garners the most condemnation if confronted head on, sex and human sexuality is both titillating and damning. However, in most instances, it has the power to truly change lives, or that is what the film ‘Scarlet Street,’ currently showing at SXSW, would have you think.
Read more on SXSW 2012 Review: Scarlet Road...
Read more on SXSW 2012 Review: Scarlet Road...
- 3/12/2012
- by Joshua Brunsting
- GordonandtheWhale
Moviefone's Pick of the Week "Hugo" What's It About? Martin Scorsese tries his hand at family films with this adaptation of the award-winning children's book. Hugo Cabret is an orphaned boy who lives out of a train station in 1930s Paris; by day he works as the station's clocksmith, by night he tries to solve the mystery that connects his departed father to a broken toy robot. Soon he is swept up in an adventure involving a mean old shopkeeper (Ben Kingsley) and lost pieces of film history. See It Because: It's a gorgeous, heart-warming, one-of-a-kind movie. Every detail -- from the snow-covered skyline of Paris to the recreation of landmark moments in silent film -- pop with excitement and beauty. We struggle to find the words that can describe this movie appropriately; Scorsese's technical craftsmanship and passion for film history are a surprising perfect fit for this sweet, whimsical...
- 2/28/2012
- by Eric Larnick
- Moviefone
Two days after we tragically, absurdly lost Theo Angelopoulos to a motorcycle accident late last month, Ecm Records posted a remembrance I've come across just today, thanks to a pointer from Robert Koehler. In a text Angelopoulos contributed to the collection Horizons Touched: The Music of Ecm, he wrote, "There are moments when you hear a piece of music, have a chance conversation with someone or read a text and you get the unexpected feeling of communication at a deeper level, of a common language. In Eleni Karaindrou, I found a musical language which seemed to come into being at the same time as the images in my films. Sounds that were mine before they were born. This is why the way we collaborate has — or at least I think it has — its special characteristics."
Ecm founder Manfred Eicher said in a 1990 interview, "Angelopoulos looks at things in silence. His sense of time,...
Ecm founder Manfred Eicher said in a 1990 interview, "Angelopoulos looks at things in silence. His sense of time,...
- 2/21/2012
- MUBI
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