With the insane games that the various streaming platforms are pulling in terms of removing content from their services (sometimes projects that were made specifically for those platforms), an added emphasis has been placed on home video. And with good reason. The only way you can insure that the movies you love will be around is by owning them on Blu-ray. Thankfully the home video labels have been stepping up their game, with deluxe packages overflowing with extras and feature films presented in their best possible format.
Here are the biggest and best releases on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K in August 2023.
Marvel Studios
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
Ready for one last ride? Writer/director James Gunn, who is now overseeing DC Studios at Warner Bros., returned for the third part of his “Guardians of the Galaxy” saga. This time around, the Guardians, led by Star Lord (Chris Pratt...
Here are the biggest and best releases on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K in August 2023.
Marvel Studios
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
Ready for one last ride? Writer/director James Gunn, who is now overseeing DC Studios at Warner Bros., returned for the third part of his “Guardians of the Galaxy” saga. This time around, the Guardians, led by Star Lord (Chris Pratt...
- 8/31/2023
- by Drew Taylor
- The Wrap
“Fair to middling” is how Angie Dickinson is feeling this morning as she talks about “Rio Bravo,” the 1959 film that made her a star. “Somebody who says they’re great at 90, you can figure out that they lie a lot.” It’s a line that could have come straight from Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett’s script for the film — and a reminder that Dickinson’s gift for delivery isn’t dependent on working with a brilliant director, though she has many times in her seven-decade career.
Dickinson has more then 350 screen credits — an enormous body of work that includes “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 1960 original), “Point Blank” and “Dressed to Kill.” She’s set to appear April 13 at the TCM Film Festival to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ classic Western, whose boys’ club cast of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan she breaks up with that same brisk humor.
Dickinson has more then 350 screen credits — an enormous body of work that includes “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 1960 original), “Point Blank” and “Dressed to Kill.” She’s set to appear April 13 at the TCM Film Festival to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ classic Western, whose boys’ club cast of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan she breaks up with that same brisk humor.
- 4/12/2023
- by Todd Gilchrist
- Variety Film + TV
Howard Hughes's deliriously ahistorical "The Outlaw" is probably best known for star Jane Russell's brassiere, which the director painstakingly designed to accentuate her 38Dd bosom. Never mind that Russell claimed she wore it all of a few minutes, loathed the fit, and padded her own bra the old-fashioned way; the undergarment is still on display in a Hollywood museum -- the, er, stuff of showbiz legend.
The film itself is an agreeably campy Western. Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) rides into Lincoln, New Mexico looking to recover his stolen horses. He tells his friend Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell) that Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) is the thief, which sets up a not-terribly-understated homoerotic love triangle. It's a goofy movie that should be a lot more fun than it is, but its script by Jules Furthman boasts some nifty flourishes, one of which finds the sharp-shooting Holliday trying to goad...
The film itself is an agreeably campy Western. Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) rides into Lincoln, New Mexico looking to recover his stolen horses. He tells his friend Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell) that Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) is the thief, which sets up a not-terribly-understated homoerotic love triangle. It's a goofy movie that should be a lot more fun than it is, but its script by Jules Furthman boasts some nifty flourishes, one of which finds the sharp-shooting Holliday trying to goad...
- 10/5/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Though it received a Best Picture nomination at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, Guillermo del Toro's re-adaptation of the William Lindsay Gresham novel "Nightmare Alley" hit theaters the same day as "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and was overshadowed by that movie's juggernaut success amid the pandemic. It makes the most of those shadows, though, filling them with smoke and "the poetry of disillusionment and existentialism," as del Toro has called it. This is a movie that lives at the carnival, where you're less likely to see any spider-men and more likely to see a woman with a spider's body warning children about the sins of lust and pride.
Co-written by Kim Morgan, the del Toro version of "Nightmare Alley" takes its cues from Gresham's book and was not intended as a remake of the black-and-white 1947 adaptation starring Tyrone Power. However, that movie is a classic and it's worth...
Co-written by Kim Morgan, the del Toro version of "Nightmare Alley" takes its cues from Gresham's book and was not intended as a remake of the black-and-white 1947 adaptation starring Tyrone Power. However, that movie is a classic and it's worth...
- 8/27/2022
- by Joshua Meyer
- Slash Film
This ‘dawn of sound’ classic from Josef Sternberg is an important early entry in the gangster genre, a romanticized tale of urban crime with little violence but a full measure of romantic revenge. Star George Bancroft is the title underworld kingpin, who risks everything to hold his girlfriend Fay Wray the way he holds onto power — with his fists and with his gun. The highly sentimental story has some odd ideas about prison rules on Death Row; although packed with ‘Sternbergian’ touches the visuals aren’t as overtly poetic as is his norm. It’s an interesting study from the first year of ‘all talkie’ pictures: the audio is highly creative but the dialogue delivery is slow — perfect for anyone learning English!
Thunderbolt
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1929 / B&w / 1:20 Movietone (?) / 85 min. / Street Date July 20, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Tully Marshall, Eugenie Besserer, James Spottswood,...
Thunderbolt
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1929 / B&w / 1:20 Movietone (?) / 85 min. / Street Date July 20, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Tully Marshall, Eugenie Besserer, James Spottswood,...
- 7/27/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Guillermo del Toro takes a walk on the noir side in his first film since winning the Oscar for directing the 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Things.” “Nightmare Alley,’ based on the uncompromising 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, offers a bleak depiction of humanity including low-rent carnivals filled with has-beens, geeks and “rum-dums.” Searchlight Pictures is giving “Nightmare Alley,” which had to shut down production during the height of Covid in 2020, the “A” treatment, opening the film on Dec. 3 just in time for awards consideration.
The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.
The innovative Mexican filmmaker best known for his acclaimed fantasy, horror (“The Devil’s Backbone”) and sci-fi (‘Hellboy”) productions, co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan. Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a handsome manipulative carny worker who has a massive chip on his shoulder. Stan wants to hit the big time and with the help of carnival headliner Zeena (Toni Collette) resurrects her old mentalist act.
- 6/4/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
The Empire Strikes Back is a masterpiece of blockbuster cinema and the standard by which we measure all other big-screen space adventures. But before it became the magnum opus of the original Star Wars trilogy, the spark that would become The Empire Strikes Back floated in the nothingness of space, waiting for its big bang.
When Star Wars premiered in May 1977, the saga’s sequel could have gone either the low-budget or blockbuster route. Although we got the latter, there was already a plan in case the film wasn’t a huge hit. George Lucas hired Alan Dean Foster, who ghost-wrote the novelization of the first film, to write a relatively subdued sequel. That story eventually became the first Expanded Universe novel in the franchise’s history, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which sees Luke and Leia crash on a jungle planet and face off with Darth Vader in...
When Star Wars premiered in May 1977, the saga’s sequel could have gone either the low-budget or blockbuster route. Although we got the latter, there was already a plan in case the film wasn’t a huge hit. George Lucas hired Alan Dean Foster, who ghost-wrote the novelization of the first film, to write a relatively subdued sequel. That story eventually became the first Expanded Universe novel in the franchise’s history, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, which sees Luke and Leia crash on a jungle planet and face off with Darth Vader in...
- 5/21/2021
- by jbindeck2015
- Den of Geek
One of the most glamorous / unsavory films noir ever, this creepy tale of a master con-man undone by warped ambition was planned as a career-altering role for the big star Tyrone Power. Power plumbs the depths of personal degradation in terms that even today skew to the squeamish side of human experience. Almost as fascinating are the women Power uses, arrayed in dynamic contrast: Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell and Helen Walker. Yes, this is the movie about ‘The Geek’… Hollywood hadn’t been this intimate with the seamy underside of carnival life since Tod Browning’s Freaks. The disc extras include top contributions from James Ursini and Alain Silver, Imogen Sara Smith and even Coleen Gray.
Nightmare Alley
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1078
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 111 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 25, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Tyrone Power, Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith,...
Nightmare Alley
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1078
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 111 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 25, 2021 / 39.95
Starring: Tyrone Power, Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith,...
- 5/11/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Paul Greengrass’ western drama “New of the World” starring Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel is gaining traction during this pandemic awards season despite the fact that sagebrush sagas often get short shrift at the Oscars. Only three traditional Westerns — 1931’s “Cimarron,” 1990’s “Dances with Wolves” and 1992’s “Unforgiven” — and one contemporary Western (2007’s “No Country for Old Men”) have won the Best Picture Oscar.
Among the oaters to be nominated for the top prize at the Academy Awards: John Ford’s 1939 “Stagecoach,” William A. Wellman’s 1943 “The Ox-Bow Incident,” Fred Zinnemann’s 1952’s “High Noon” (Gary Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor), George Stevens’ 1953 “Shane”; 1960’s “The Alamo;” 1962’s “How the West Was Won”; and George Roy Hill’s 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
But some of the most acclaimed, treasure and influential Westerns have been all but ignored. Here’s a look at some of the...
Among the oaters to be nominated for the top prize at the Academy Awards: John Ford’s 1939 “Stagecoach,” William A. Wellman’s 1943 “The Ox-Bow Incident,” Fred Zinnemann’s 1952’s “High Noon” (Gary Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor), George Stevens’ 1953 “Shane”; 1960’s “The Alamo;” 1962’s “How the West Was Won”; and George Roy Hill’s 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
But some of the most acclaimed, treasure and influential Westerns have been all but ignored. Here’s a look at some of the...
- 1/12/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
The experts were right when they said that silent filmmaking was developing something unique and beautiful, before talkies came along and spoiled the party with all that noise. This ‘handy three-pack’ of once-obscure Josef von Sternberg classics proves the theory 100% — his intense dramas excite audiences with something that’s gone missing from the movies, or the cinema or whatever you want to call it: the magic of visual stylization in the service of basic human emotions. Before Marlene there was Evelyn Brent and Betty Compson: Sternberg presents them as shimmering visions.
3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 529, 530, 531
1927-28 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap / 81, 88, 75 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 8, 2019 / 79.96
Starring: George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook; Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell; George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon; Bert Glennon; Harold Rosson
Original Music: multiple scores by Robert Israel,...
3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 529, 530, 531
1927-28 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap / 81, 88, 75 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 8, 2019 / 79.96
Starring: George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook; Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent, William Powell; George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon; Bert Glennon; Harold Rosson
Original Music: multiple scores by Robert Israel,...
- 10/22/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
John Wayne! Janet Leigh! Nifty jet-age flying sequences! Goofy, bad-taste sex jokes! Hans Conreid as a chortling Russian army officer! Howard Hughes’ personal fun project took seven years to make while he played games with the aerial footage. It’s a highly-polished absurd joke, but it’s certainly entertaining. See Hughes try to do for Janet Leigh what he did for Jane Russell — I assume Ms. Leigh was too shrewd to sign any long-term contracts! This German disc has excellent widescreen image and audio.
Jet Pilot
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Düsenjäger / Street Date June 14 2018, 2019 / 12.99 euros
Starring: John Wayne, Janet Leigh, Jay C. Flippen, Paul Fix, Richard Rober, Roland Winters, Hans Conried, Ivan Triesault, Hall Bartlett, Gregg Barton, Gene Evans, Paul Frees, Harry Lauter, Nelson Leigh, Denver Pyle, Gene Roth, Kenneth Tobey, Mamie Van Doren, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Winton C. Hoch
Aerial Stunts: Chuck Yeager
Original Music:...
Jet Pilot
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Düsenjäger / Street Date June 14 2018, 2019 / 12.99 euros
Starring: John Wayne, Janet Leigh, Jay C. Flippen, Paul Fix, Richard Rober, Roland Winters, Hans Conried, Ivan Triesault, Hall Bartlett, Gregg Barton, Gene Evans, Paul Frees, Harry Lauter, Nelson Leigh, Denver Pyle, Gene Roth, Kenneth Tobey, Mamie Van Doren, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Winton C. Hoch
Aerial Stunts: Chuck Yeager
Original Music:...
- 7/16/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Here’s what happens when the need to see takes over and I start pulling DVDs off the shelf with only my dark heart as a guide…
The sleazy, claustrophobic, catch-as-catch-can transience of the carnival world, with its ever-changing roster of freaks, geeks, disappointed con men and women with few options, all clinging to shreds of dignity and eyeing a better life while digging themselves deeper into the one from which they want to flee, seems a naturally cinematic subject. Yet there are surprisingly few movies that have ever captured the symbiotic push-pull of vibrant show-biz fakery and dark personal obsessions that lurk behind the curtain, beyond the barker’s call. Somewhere between the boy’s wish-fulfillment of Toby Tyler and the mind-wrenching funhouse mirror reflections of Tod Browning, Tobe Hooper and Rob Zombie, Edmund Goulding’s film of W.L. Greshman’s Nightmare Alley (1947), from a script by Jules Furthman...
The sleazy, claustrophobic, catch-as-catch-can transience of the carnival world, with its ever-changing roster of freaks, geeks, disappointed con men and women with few options, all clinging to shreds of dignity and eyeing a better life while digging themselves deeper into the one from which they want to flee, seems a naturally cinematic subject. Yet there are surprisingly few movies that have ever captured the symbiotic push-pull of vibrant show-biz fakery and dark personal obsessions that lurk behind the curtain, beyond the barker’s call. Somewhere between the boy’s wish-fulfillment of Toby Tyler and the mind-wrenching funhouse mirror reflections of Tod Browning, Tobe Hooper and Rob Zombie, Edmund Goulding’s film of W.L. Greshman’s Nightmare Alley (1947), from a script by Jules Furthman...
- 5/19/2019
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
"The genius of the system" is a contradiction in terms, but it seems to have stuck as an alternative to the auteur theory in explaining how the Hollywood studio system made so many good films. Yet René Clair, specialist in comic-romantic soufflés, reported that he was offered a project developed for Fritz Lang, and where was the sense (or genius?) in that?Still, the system was maintained by men possessed, if not of genius, then of horse sense: when someone proposed that Raoul Walsh direct, as a change of pace, a tender love story, Darryl F. Zanuck of Twentieth Century Fox swatted the idea down, saying, "Raoul Walsh's idea of a tender love story is to set fire to a whorehouse."This month, the Museum of Modern Art in New York is offering another great season of films from Fox (before it merged with Twentieth Century), including five from Walsh...
- 3/12/2019
- MUBI
Delirious silver-screen glamour never disappoints! Marlene Dietrich’s six Paramount pictures for Josef von Sternberg arrive in a beautifully annotated disc set. The most creative director-muse relationship of the 1930s created an all-conquering German siren-goddess, a screen icon vom kopf bis fuss.
Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood
Blu-ray
Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, The Devil is a Woman
The Criterion Collection 930
1930-1035 / B&W / 1:19 Movietone (2), 1:37 flat Academy (3) / 542 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 3, 2018 / 124.95
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Victor McLaglen, Clive Brook, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Sam Jaffe, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero.
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood assembles a package we’ve long desired, a quality set of the duo’s highly artistic Paramount pictures from the first half of the 1930s. The Scarlet Empress arrived in a sub-par Criterion disc early in 2001, and three more...
Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood
Blu-ray
Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, The Devil is a Woman
The Criterion Collection 930
1930-1035 / B&W / 1:19 Movietone (2), 1:37 flat Academy (3) / 542 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 3, 2018 / 124.95
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Victor McLaglen, Clive Brook, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Sam Jaffe, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero.
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood assembles a package we’ve long desired, a quality set of the duo’s highly artistic Paramount pictures from the first half of the 1930s. The Scarlet Empress arrived in a sub-par Criterion disc early in 2001, and three more...
- 6/30/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Louise Brooks once said that the movies were invented to enable rich men to own desirable women. The Outlaw is the stuff of legend less for itself than for Howard Hughes’ creation of the sex star Jane Russell, and his battle with the censors and Hollywood itself. We’ve always gotten the impression that nobody has told the full story behind Hughes, Russell and this ultra-hyped notorious western.
The Outlaw
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1943 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 116 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Walter Huston, Thomas Mitchell, Mimi Aguglia, Joe Sawyer, Ben Johnson, Emory Parnell.
Cinematography: Gregg Toland
Film Editor: Wallace Grissell
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Jules Furthman
Produced by Howard Hughes
Directed by Howard Hughes, Howard Hawks
“How’d you like to tussle with Russell?”
The most notorious film title in the censor debate of the 1940s is Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw,...
The Outlaw
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1943 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 116 min. / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Walter Huston, Thomas Mitchell, Mimi Aguglia, Joe Sawyer, Ben Johnson, Emory Parnell.
Cinematography: Gregg Toland
Film Editor: Wallace Grissell
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Jules Furthman
Produced by Howard Hughes
Directed by Howard Hughes, Howard Hawks
“How’d you like to tussle with Russell?”
The most notorious film title in the censor debate of the 1940s is Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw,...
- 2/27/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A look at 5 movies that you might not have known were written by famous authors. Sometimes they worked out, sometimes they did not.
Writing a movie can be a lot different from writing a book. Unlike a movie script, a novel is freeform. The author can take any style or format they would like to convey their ideas. A script, on the other hand, has to be able to be interpreted by the actors, filmmakers, and the audience. Therefore, it is typically structured in a certain way to help people working on the movie do their job and people watching the movie comprehend what is happening. Furthermore, a major difference between writing novels and movies is that movies are (mostly) restricted to the visual realm. It’s not easy to show audiences what characters are thinking, which severely limits plot and character development techniques. Overall, there are unique challenges to...
Writing a movie can be a lot different from writing a book. Unlike a movie script, a novel is freeform. The author can take any style or format they would like to convey their ideas. A script, on the other hand, has to be able to be interpreted by the actors, filmmakers, and the audience. Therefore, it is typically structured in a certain way to help people working on the movie do their job and people watching the movie comprehend what is happening. Furthermore, a major difference between writing novels and movies is that movies are (mostly) restricted to the visual realm. It’s not easy to show audiences what characters are thinking, which severely limits plot and character development techniques. Overall, there are unique challenges to...
- 8/30/2017
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (G.S. Perno)
- Cinelinx
Remakes are not always bad things. Take, for example, The Breaking Point, based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway. First published in 1937, To Have and Have Not followed the adventures of Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain in Key West, who is forced into the black market, ferrying contraband between Florida and Cuba. Seven years later, it was adapted for the big screen by director Howard Hawks, based on a screenplay credited to Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (?!). The film departed significantly from its source material, becoming a romantic, wartime thriller with comic elements, featuring the first screen appearance by Lauren Bacall, who famously fell in love with Humphrey Bogart during production. I've seen Hawks' version of To Have and Have Not so...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 8/10/2017
- Screen Anarchy
David Crow Aug 23, 2019
We still don't know what happened in Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's noir masterpiece The Big Sleep!
When The Big Sleep premiered exactly 73 years ago today, it marked the newest silver screen adventure of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s beloved private dick. In this context, Howard Hawks was delivering a hard-hitting crime story to audiences and dealing with seedy subjects so obscured by polite society that they can barely even be seen in the finished film: blackmail, pornography, murder, and the amoral decadence of the one-percent. All of these deliciously morbid ingredients were baked into what became one of the greatest noirs of the post-war era.
Yet, they are not alone what makes The Big Sleep a timeless classic of deep cynicism and even deeper debauchery. From the very first frame, even Raymond Chandler’s then very impressive name was cast in the shadow of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
We still don't know what happened in Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's noir masterpiece The Big Sleep!
When The Big Sleep premiered exactly 73 years ago today, it marked the newest silver screen adventure of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s beloved private dick. In this context, Howard Hawks was delivering a hard-hitting crime story to audiences and dealing with seedy subjects so obscured by polite society that they can barely even be seen in the finished film: blackmail, pornography, murder, and the amoral decadence of the one-percent. All of these deliciously morbid ingredients were baked into what became one of the greatest noirs of the post-war era.
Yet, they are not alone what makes The Big Sleep a timeless classic of deep cynicism and even deeper debauchery. From the very first frame, even Raymond Chandler’s then very impressive name was cast in the shadow of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
- 8/22/2016
- Den of Geek
The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
- 8/22/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
Night & Fog (Alain Resnais)
Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, filmmaker Alain Resnais documented the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek in Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard), one of the first cinematic reflections on the Holocaust. Juxtaposing the stillness of the abandoned camps’ empty buildings with haunting wartime footage, Resnais investigates humanity’s capacity for violence, and presents the devastating suggestion that such horrors could occur again. – Criterion
Sing Street (John Carney)
Returning...
Night & Fog (Alain Resnais)
Ten years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, filmmaker Alain Resnais documented the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek in Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard), one of the first cinematic reflections on the Holocaust. Juxtaposing the stillness of the abandoned camps’ empty buildings with haunting wartime footage, Resnais investigates humanity’s capacity for violence, and presents the devastating suggestion that such horrors could occur again. – Criterion
Sing Street (John Carney)
Returning...
- 7/19/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Bogart finds Bacall and movie history is made; for once the make-believe romantic chemistry is abundantly real. Howard Hawks' wartime Caribbean adventure plays in grand style, with his patented mix of precision and casual cool. It's one of the most entertaining pictures of the 'forties. To Have and Have Not Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. / Street Date July 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael,Dolores Moran, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Szurovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour. Cinematography Sid Hickox Art Direction Charles Novi Film Editor Christian Nyby Original Music Hoagy Carmichael, William Lava, Franz Waxman Written by Jules Furthman, William Faulkner from the novel by Ernest Hemingway Produced by Howard Hawks, Jack L. Warner Directed by Howard Hawks
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Speaking for myself, I can't think of a more 'Hawksian' picture than To Have and Have Not.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Speaking for myself, I can't think of a more 'Hawksian' picture than To Have and Have Not.
- 7/10/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Stars: Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Allyn Joslyn, Sig Ruman, Victor Kilian | Screenplay by Jules Furthman | Directed by Howard Hawks
When thinking about the great flying pictures of Hollywood’s Golden Age, many would immediately turn to war films containing dogfights, high political drama and the sense that all the death we see onscreen is somehow noble because it’s for the causes of peace and freedom. But perhaps the greatest of these pictures, Only Angels Have Wings, isn’t a war movie and doesn’t contain a single dogfight. It’s an altogether smaller story than those sweeping dramas, and all the more powerful for it.
When Jean Arthur’s chorus girl, Bonnie, gets off a steamer at the fictional South American port of Barranca, she expects to see the sights (comprising a bustling market, a couple of dive bars and a rickety open-topped...
When thinking about the great flying pictures of Hollywood’s Golden Age, many would immediately turn to war films containing dogfights, high political drama and the sense that all the death we see onscreen is somehow noble because it’s for the causes of peace and freedom. But perhaps the greatest of these pictures, Only Angels Have Wings, isn’t a war movie and doesn’t contain a single dogfight. It’s an altogether smaller story than those sweeping dramas, and all the more powerful for it.
When Jean Arthur’s chorus girl, Bonnie, gets off a steamer at the fictional South American port of Barranca, she expects to see the sights (comprising a bustling market, a couple of dive bars and a rickety open-topped...
- 5/3/2016
- by Mark Allen
- Nerdly
We've waited long enough: Bogart's take on Raymond Chandler's tough guy Philip Marlowe is finally on Blu-ray, with Lauren Bacall hyped as his provocative leading lady. The fascinating 1945 pre-release version is also present, with an uncut copy of Bob Gitt's versions comparison docu. Somebody tell Elisha Cook Jr. not to drink that stuff. The Big Sleep Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 114 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Peggy Knudsen, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook Jr., Louis Jean Heydt, Sonja Darrin, Tommy Rafferty, Theodore von Eltz. Cinematography Sidney Hickox Film Editor Christian Nyby Original Music Max Steiner Written by Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, William Faulkner from the novel by Raymond Chandler Directed by Howard Hawks
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep became...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep became...
- 2/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Pat O'Brien movies on TCM: 'The Front Page,' 'Oil for the Lamps of China' Remember Pat O'Brien? In case you don't, you're not alone despite the fact that O'Brien was featured – in both large and small roles – in about 100 films, from the dawn of the sound era to 1981. That in addition to nearly 50 television appearances, from the early '50s to the early '80s. Never a top star or a critics' favorite, O'Brien was nevertheless one of the busiest Hollywood leading men – and second leads – of the 1930s. In that decade alone, mostly at Warner Bros., he was seen in nearly 60 films, from Bs (Hell's House, The Final Edition) to classics (American Madness, Angels with Dirty Faces). Turner Classic Movies is showing nine of those today, Nov. 11, '15, in honor of what would have been the Milwaukee-born O'Brien's 116th birthday. Pat O'Brien and James Cagney Spencer Tracy had Katharine Hepburn.
- 11/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Nightmare Alley
Written by Jules Furthman
Directed by Edmund Goulding
U.S.A., 1947
A carny cons his way up to high society through cold-reading and (un)timely circumstance. Based on that one-liner, who would you cast? If you say Tyrone Power, I’d say that my friend Stan Carlisle is on his way (The name Stan Carlisle being a con-industry handshake of sorts, informing one con-artist that he’s stepping in on another man’s con, or at least according to Eddie “The Czar of Noir” Muller’s introduction of this film at Tcmff). In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power, the 20th Century Fox matinee idol, plays a lowlife con man, who lies and cheats his way from a podunk carnival to becoming a spiritualist amongst the more gullible of Chicago’s upper crust. His character is also the namesake of the above con slang.
And any which way, yes, Tyrone Power...
Written by Jules Furthman
Directed by Edmund Goulding
U.S.A., 1947
A carny cons his way up to high society through cold-reading and (un)timely circumstance. Based on that one-liner, who would you cast? If you say Tyrone Power, I’d say that my friend Stan Carlisle is on his way (The name Stan Carlisle being a con-industry handshake of sorts, informing one con-artist that he’s stepping in on another man’s con, or at least according to Eddie “The Czar of Noir” Muller’s introduction of this film at Tcmff). In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power, the 20th Century Fox matinee idol, plays a lowlife con man, who lies and cheats his way from a podunk carnival to becoming a spiritualist amongst the more gullible of Chicago’s upper crust. His character is also the namesake of the above con slang.
And any which way, yes, Tyrone Power...
- 4/17/2015
- by Diana Drumm
- SoundOnSight
Nightmare Alley
Written by Jules Furthman
Directed by Edmund Goulding
U.S.A., 1947
Who can tell when they are being conned? Or lied to for that matter? Some people are blessed (or cursed) with a potentially dangerous gift, that of being able to fool their way into earning other people’s confidence. It is a perverse talent to say the least, a double-edged sword. When caught in a rut, the ability to smooth talk one’s way to calmer shores is commendable, but when the same talents are applied by someone with far fewer moral scruples, then the consequences may ultimately prove painful for both the con victim and the artist. Nightmare Alley, directed by Edmund Goulding, is a bit of an anomaly within film noir for its setting and the sort of protagonist the story evolves around. In fact, the case can be made that he is more antagonist than protagonist.
Written by Jules Furthman
Directed by Edmund Goulding
U.S.A., 1947
Who can tell when they are being conned? Or lied to for that matter? Some people are blessed (or cursed) with a potentially dangerous gift, that of being able to fool their way into earning other people’s confidence. It is a perverse talent to say the least, a double-edged sword. When caught in a rut, the ability to smooth talk one’s way to calmer shores is commendable, but when the same talents are applied by someone with far fewer moral scruples, then the consequences may ultimately prove painful for both the con victim and the artist. Nightmare Alley, directed by Edmund Goulding, is a bit of an anomaly within film noir for its setting and the sort of protagonist the story evolves around. In fact, the case can be made that he is more antagonist than protagonist.
- 9/21/2013
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall: From ‘To Have and Have Not’ to ‘Key Largo’ Humphrey Bogart (born on Christmas Day 1899, in New York City) is Turner Classic Movies’ first “Summer Under the Stars” star on Thursday, August 1, 2013. TCM will be showing several Bogart movies not made at Warner Bros., e.g., 20th Century Fox’s The Left Hand of God and Columbia’s In a Lonely Place, but nothing that the cable network hasn’t presented before. In other words, don’t expect anything along the lines of the 1934 crime drama Midnight or the 1931 Western A Holy Terror (assuming these two movies still exist). Now, the good news: No Casablanca — which was shown on Tuesday, as part of TCM’s Paul Henreid movie series. (See “Humphrey Bogart Movies — TCM schedule.) (Photo: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not.) Of TCM’s Humphrey Bogart movies I’ve seen,...
- 8/1/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Big Sleep
Written by William Faulkner, Leigh Bracket and Jules Furthman
Directed by Howard Hawks
U.S.A., 1946
There are, arguably, two minds when it comes to intricately plotted, complex mystery stories. There may exist other, more nuanced opinions, but it feels safe to assume that most people fall into one of the following categories. First, there are those who simply do not have or, quite frankly, want to award said story their time and patience. Too many names, too many different subplots, made up alibis and in the end it often seems like much ado about, well, not a whole lot. Second are those who either genuinely enjoy trying to wrap their heads around all the large and minute details a protagonist follows in his or her quest to uncover the truth or maybe do not even invest much stock in the minutia yet still discover a level...
Written by William Faulkner, Leigh Bracket and Jules Furthman
Directed by Howard Hawks
U.S.A., 1946
There are, arguably, two minds when it comes to intricately plotted, complex mystery stories. There may exist other, more nuanced opinions, but it feels safe to assume that most people fall into one of the following categories. First, there are those who simply do not have or, quite frankly, want to award said story their time and patience. Too many names, too many different subplots, made up alibis and in the end it often seems like much ado about, well, not a whole lot. Second are those who either genuinely enjoy trying to wrap their heads around all the large and minute details a protagonist follows in his or her quest to uncover the truth or maybe do not even invest much stock in the minutia yet still discover a level...
- 4/19/2013
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
The Big Sleep
Written by William Faulkner (screenplay), Leigh Bracket (screenplay) and Jules Furthman (screenplay)
Directed by Howard Hawks
U.S.A., 1946 There are, arguably, two minds when it comes to intricately plotted, complex mystery stories. There may exist other, more nuanced opinions, but it feels safe to assume that most people fall into one of the two following categories. First, there are those who simply do not have or, quite frankly, want to award said story their time and patience. Too many names, too many different subplots, made up alibis and in the end it often seems like much ado about, well, not a whole lot. Second are those who either genuinely enjoy trying to wrap their heads around all the large and minute details a protagonist follows in his or her quest to uncover the truth or maybe do not even invest much stock in the minutia yet...
Written by William Faulkner (screenplay), Leigh Bracket (screenplay) and Jules Furthman (screenplay)
Directed by Howard Hawks
U.S.A., 1946 There are, arguably, two minds when it comes to intricately plotted, complex mystery stories. There may exist other, more nuanced opinions, but it feels safe to assume that most people fall into one of the two following categories. First, there are those who simply do not have or, quite frankly, want to award said story their time and patience. Too many names, too many different subplots, made up alibis and in the end it often seems like much ado about, well, not a whole lot. Second are those who either genuinely enjoy trying to wrap their heads around all the large and minute details a protagonist follows in his or her quest to uncover the truth or maybe do not even invest much stock in the minutia yet...
- 4/19/2013
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Rio Bravo
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett and
U.S.A., 1959
Being a writer, producer, director or actor during the era when westerns were all the craze, a period which lasted an impressive amount of time, could not always have been very easy. With so many of such films flooding the cinemas during the 50s, 60s and into the 70s, conjuring up some remotely original ideas certainly required a sharp witted mind. As is so often the case, movie studios, for good or ill, are consistently keen on beating iron while it is hot, basing new films on old ideas that sold well to the movie going public at large. Giving the public want it wants it smart business, no one would argue against such a point. It can also lead to dullness, lack of ambition, eventual boredom and incur the risk of creative stagnation.
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett and
U.S.A., 1959
Being a writer, producer, director or actor during the era when westerns were all the craze, a period which lasted an impressive amount of time, could not always have been very easy. With so many of such films flooding the cinemas during the 50s, 60s and into the 70s, conjuring up some remotely original ideas certainly required a sharp witted mind. As is so often the case, movie studios, for good or ill, are consistently keen on beating iron while it is hot, basing new films on old ideas that sold well to the movie going public at large. Giving the public want it wants it smart business, no one would argue against such a point. It can also lead to dullness, lack of ambition, eventual boredom and incur the risk of creative stagnation.
- 1/7/2013
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Frederica Sagor Pt.2: Women Screenwriters in 1920s Hollywood [Photo: Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh.] Frederica Sagor's reported final Hollywood screen credit was the scenario for the 1928 slapstick comedy The Farmer's Daughter, directed by Arthur Rosson at Fox. Marjorie Beebe, previously featured in several comedy shorts, had the title role (no relation to Loretta Young's 1947 Oscar-winning Congresswoman-to-be). In her book, Sagor says she was paid $750 a week (approx. $9,700 today) to write the story for this programmer — one she hated — about rural lovers and piles of manure. The previous year, Sagor had married screenwriter Ernest Maas, who held an executive post at Fox. In her autobiography, she states that the couple wrote a story named Beefsteak Joe, inspired by the life of Maas' father, that was misappropriated by Paramount and released as The Way of All Flesh. Directed by Gone with the Wind's Victor Fleming, the now-lost melodrama — Madame X meets Stella Dallas in...
- 1/7/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Two weeks ago, it was announced that Cabin in the Woods, the horror flick produced and co-written by Joss Whedon, would finally get a release date after years of sitting on the shelf. It's set for April 2012. Then yesterday, in even more surprising news, a release date was miraculously set for Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan's long-delayed follow-up to You Can Count on Me. That film, which stars Matt Damon and Anna Paquin, has been delayed now for six years, mostly because Lonergan couldn't finish the edit, which led to a lot of squabbles with the studio. Those two movies -- along with Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, which also recently received a release date -- were among the list of the Six Highly Anticipated Films You May Never Get to See, which we ran back in May.
However, long delays have rarely been kind to a film's box-office prospects, and if history is any indication,...
However, long delays have rarely been kind to a film's box-office prospects, and if history is any indication,...
- 8/4/2011
- by Dustin Rowles
David Thomson salutes the work of Jane Russell, star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who has died age 89
For decades, wherever she went, Jane Russell was the subject of dirty jokes. She knew this in advance, and she continued to meet fate and fortune with good humour and the kind of sassy grin that keeps hope alive in the guys who tell the smutty stories. But she must have known how in Hollywood innuendo can kill you as easily as the official diseases. After all, Russell had worked with one of the great victims of the dirty joke. In Howard Hawks's gorgeous and very witty Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she had done immaculate routines with Marilyn Monroe.
You can still feel Jane's sisterly care for Marilyn on screen, and Gentlemen was one of Marilyn's happier outings. Russell had opportunities to see how Marilyn might get to be a wreck one day,...
For decades, wherever she went, Jane Russell was the subject of dirty jokes. She knew this in advance, and she continued to meet fate and fortune with good humour and the kind of sassy grin that keeps hope alive in the guys who tell the smutty stories. But she must have known how in Hollywood innuendo can kill you as easily as the official diseases. After all, Russell had worked with one of the great victims of the dirty joke. In Howard Hawks's gorgeous and very witty Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she had done immaculate routines with Marilyn Monroe.
You can still feel Jane's sisterly care for Marilyn on screen, and Gentlemen was one of Marilyn's happier outings. Russell had opportunities to see how Marilyn might get to be a wreck one day,...
- 3/2/2011
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
At a press conference at the National Media Museum yesterday, Artistic Director Tony Earnshaw announced the full programme details for the 17th Bradford International Film Festival (Biff). This year the Festival, which runs from 16th – 2th7 March will open with Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger starring Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch, Freida Pinto, Pauline Collins, Ewen Bremner and Anna Friel.
The Closing Night Gala will be the UK Premiere of Oren Moverman’s The Messenger starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton and Steve Buscemi. The Festival will showcase more than 100 features from countries all over the world including France, Romania, Australia, USA, Argentina, Portugal and Japan.
A selection of horror films will be featured in the new strand introduced this year titled Bradford After Dark, an all-day mini “fest within a fest” that focuses on some of...
The Closing Night Gala will be the UK Premiere of Oren Moverman’s The Messenger starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton and Steve Buscemi. The Festival will showcase more than 100 features from countries all over the world including France, Romania, Australia, USA, Argentina, Portugal and Japan.
A selection of horror films will be featured in the new strand introduced this year titled Bradford After Dark, an all-day mini “fest within a fest” that focuses on some of...
- 2/23/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Howard Hawks, 1946
Howard Hawks outdid himself in 1946 with this, the first entirely successful adaptation of a Chandler/Marlowe novel. Humphrey Bogart has since been indissolubly linked with Chandler's cynical but honourable La shamus, no matter how many successors have tried on his raincoat and battered fedora since. Hawks emphasised the wit and world-weariness of the original – the screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner is a never-ending succession of indelible one-liners and double entendres.
He also amped up the sexual electricity between Marlowe and the many women he encounters or fights off. Besides Lauren Bacall's smouldering Vivian Rutledge and her blowzy sister Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers), there's an early encounter in a bookstore with future Sirk-siren Dorothy Malone that is so erotic it will remind you why your grandparents said they "preferred it when they kept their clothes on". (Malone does remove her spectacles.) Along the way, the arcane mystery,...
Howard Hawks outdid himself in 1946 with this, the first entirely successful adaptation of a Chandler/Marlowe novel. Humphrey Bogart has since been indissolubly linked with Chandler's cynical but honourable La shamus, no matter how many successors have tried on his raincoat and battered fedora since. Hawks emphasised the wit and world-weariness of the original – the screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner is a never-ending succession of indelible one-liners and double entendres.
He also amped up the sexual electricity between Marlowe and the many women he encounters or fights off. Besides Lauren Bacall's smouldering Vivian Rutledge and her blowzy sister Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers), there's an early encounter in a bookstore with future Sirk-siren Dorothy Malone that is so erotic it will remind you why your grandparents said they "preferred it when they kept their clothes on". (Malone does remove her spectacles.) Along the way, the arcane mystery,...
- 10/17/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Josef von Sternberg's Thunderbolt (1929), his first talkie, is perhaps not so much forgotten as simply hard to see, which means it lives on in the minds of film lovers but in abstracted form, since so few Sternberg fans have managed to get hold of a copy or attend a screening. It's prime Sternberg and deserves to be seen.
On one level a near-remake of Underworld, the so-called "first gangster film", Thunderbolt, like its predecessor (and like altogether lost filmThe Dragnet) it stars George Bancroft as a tougher-than-nails gangster and bank robber who winds up in jail but plots to avenge himself upon his girlfriend's nice-guy lover. Key differences are that Thunderbolt is written by Jules Furthman and his brother Charles—Jules would go on to script several of the Dietrich movies that cemented Sternberg's immortality—rather than by Ben Hecht, so the wisecracking is more philosophical, peculiar and perverse...
On one level a near-remake of Underworld, the so-called "first gangster film", Thunderbolt, like its predecessor (and like altogether lost filmThe Dragnet) it stars George Bancroft as a tougher-than-nails gangster and bank robber who winds up in jail but plots to avenge himself upon his girlfriend's nice-guy lover. Key differences are that Thunderbolt is written by Jules Furthman and his brother Charles—Jules would go on to script several of the Dietrich movies that cemented Sternberg's immortality—rather than by Ben Hecht, so the wisecracking is more philosophical, peculiar and perverse...
- 7/22/2010
- MUBI
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