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By Adrian Smith 

Ning (Leslie Cheung), a down on his luck tax collector, is by his penury forced to spend the night at the abandoned, and allegedly haunted, Orchid Temple. This broken, ramshackle building is not uninhabited however – Taoist priest, master swordsman and all-round badass Yin (Wu Ma) is hiding from the world, having dedicated himself to the fight against demons. It just so happens that there is some evil lurking just nearby in the form of an ancient tree demon (Siu-Ming Lau) who has enslaved the trapped spirits of virginal young women. She uses them to seduce passing strangers so that she can suck out their souls to replenish her own energy, and Ning ends up meeting one such beautiful ghost, Siu Sin (Joey Wang). She goes through the erotic motions but soon discovers that Ning is not like her previous victims. Not initially realising that Siu Sin is a ghost, they begin to form a close bond. Once the truth is revealed Ning vows to free her from the clutches of the tree demon so that her spirit can finally find peace and reincarnation.

This plot is based on one of the stories to be found in the collection known in English as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, originally published around 1740. The Shaw Brothers adapted it for their gothic melodrama The Enchanting Shadow (1960, released by Imprint as part of their Shaw Shock II boxset, reviewed by Cinema Retro in January 2026). It was this film which producer and occasional director Tsui Hark wanted to remake, following the success he had achieved with the A Better Tomorrow films (1986/ 1987/ 1989), and he took one of those films’ breakout stars, Leslie Cheung, to be its lead. Cheung was an arena-filling Cantonese pop star who would within the space of a few years start winning awards for arthouse films like Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Happy Together (1997). The female lead was given to Taiwanese actress Joey Wang, who would become a huge star because of this trilogy – she is the only person to appear in each instalment, even though she plays a different character each time. To round out the cast he added experienced Shaw Brothers supporting actor and occasional director Wu Ma, who really throws himself into the role and became in great demand after this first film was released.

If you haven’t seen A Chinese Ghost Story before, the best way to picture it is to imagine what it would look like if Sam Raimi directed a supernatural martial arts comedy, complete with songs. The cinematography is kinetic, the special effects are wonderfully rubbery and gooey, the editing cuts at a breakneck pace, and each character does even get their own song – being 1987, Wu Ma gets his own rap number, which is hilarious. According to information in some of the bonus content on these discs, Tsui Hark was told that it was ridiculous to go back to period films now that contemporary action films were such big business, but he kept reassuring all those involved that this was actually a modern film. Yes, it has period trappings, but the special effects, the music, the comedy, the pacing, even the acting style, all make it very much a modern film. A Chinese Ghost Story is wildly entertaining, packed with moments that blindside the audience. It barely lets up, whilst at the same time still allowing the love story at the centre of it to develop in such a way that we genuinely care for the fate of all the couple at its heart.

A Chinese Ghost Story did good enough business that a sequel was demanded by the studio, but because the cast were all so busy and in demand, plus it was pretty clear at the end that Joey Wang’s ghost character was unlikely to return, Tsui Hark proposed making another story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The producers however wanted a direct sequel with all three main characters back, which meant an almost three year wait before everyone was available to make A Chinese Ghost Story II. As discussed by Grady Hendrix in one of his excellent pieces on these discs, this film was imbued with the concerns which Hong Kong had about the imminent handover to mainland China, owing to the brutal suppression of the 1989 student protests in Tianamen Square.

The film itself has a plot which is barely coherent, and sees Ning this time meet Ching (Joey Wang as a different character), the daughter of a wronged official who is due to be executed by the emperor. He teams up with her band of rebels to fight a giant monster, rescue her father from a corrupt priest, and fight even more monsters. Because Wu Ma was unavailable for the full duration of the shoot, a new, younger priest is brought in to provide magical backup, played by Jacky Cheung, another Cantonese pop star. Wu Ma’s swordsman does show up in the final act, which is just one frantic set piece after another. The idea of the emperor being given bad advice by corrupted, demonic officials makes sense within the then political climate of Hong Kong, but it does make for an at times confusing plot.

A third sequel was immediately rushed into production, retaining Joey Wang and Jacky Cheung, but set 100 years later when the tree demon from the first film has returned. The lead character this time is the monk Fong, played by up-and-coming actor Tony Leung, who would become a Hong Kong superstar thanks for films like In the Mood for Love (2000), Infernal Affairs (2002) and Lust, Caution (2007). Often cast in serious roles, this is a rare chance to see him in what is basically an all-out comedy, full of slapstick and comic misunderstandings. The plot is similar to the first film, where he meets a seductive ghost (played again by Joey Wang) who is in the evil clutches of the tree demon, and who he ultimately works to save. The film is full of action, overblown special effects, some early (and not particularly effective) CGI, comedy and romance. It is a fitting end to the trilogy – some even believe it to be the best of the three.

By Fred Blosser

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill enjoyed a fair measure of success in the U.S. during the height of the Spaghetti Western wave in the early 1970s. Even now, fifty years later, their movies continue to play regularly on streaming platforms and home video. “The Five-Man Army,” a 1970 production featuring Spencer in his signature persona as a grouchy brawler called “Animal,” was released on Blu-ray by Warner Archive Collection on May 26. “They Call Me Trinity,” their influential 1970 comedy Western starring the pair as knockabout drifters who happen to be unlikely brothers, is nearly inescapable on Prime Video, YouTube, and other streaming channels. The two actors are even more popular in Europe, where their careers are memorialised in documentaries, retrospectives, video games, museums, and ice-cream shops.

At the outset, the two actors’ breakthrough stardom was partly good luck and partly good timing, as author, film critic, and festival host Philippe Lombard recounts in his new book, “The Adventures of Bud Spencer & Terence Hill” (Pulse Video, 2026). When director Giuseppe Colizzi cast his 1967 Western, “The Cat, the Dog, and the Fox,” his wife suggested Carlo Pedersoli, who had competed in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics as a swimmer, for the role of Hutch Bessy, an Old West insurance investigator. Colizzi had already selected actor Peter Martell for the other lead role, Hutch’s partner, gunslinger Cat Stevens, but Martell dropped out after breaking his leg, and Colizzi’s producer suggested actor Mario Girotti as a replacement, partly because Girotti resembled Franco Nero, popular in Italy from Sergio Corbucci’s “Django” (1966). With fateful changes to improve Colizzi’s chances for distributing the movie internationally—Pedersoli and Girotti became Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, and the title was punched up as “God Forgives—I Don’t!”—the picture became the fourth highest-grossing release in Italy in 1967. The actors’ new screen names stuck, and audiences embraced the teaming of the burly, cranky Spencer and the lithe, handsome Hill. A sequel, “Ace High” (1968), was equally profitable, and a third film, “Boot Hill” (1969), less so but still popular.

Then, in 1970, another enterprising filmmaker, Enzo Barboni, finally gained backing for “They Call Me Trinity” after having tirelessly shopped the script around for several years. As characters called Bambino and Trinity, Spencer and Hill reprised their mismatched partnership from the Colizzi movies with less gunplay, more slapstick comedy, and exaggerated sight gags. It was another big earner and, in the waning days of the Spaghetti Western, a pivotal moment in redirecting the genre. A sequel quickly followed. Instead of the gritty violence of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, Barboni’s lowbrow farce became the ideal for opportunistic filmmakers sensitive to shifts in public tastes. Even Sergio Leone became involved, having come up with the idea for “My Name Is Nobody” (1973) and casting Hill as a disarmingly scruffy character mighty like Trinity in the film, which was directed by Tonino Valerii. Hollywood gave Hill a brief spin in 1977 with roles in “March Or Die” and “Mr. Billion,” seemingly with the intention of positioning the athletic, raffish blond as the new Steve McQueen, but it didn’t take and Hill went back to a long career in Europe, sometimes with Spencer and sometimes on his own. When audience interest in Spaghetti Westerns declined, Hill and Spencer retooled their act in a series of modern-day action comedies, some of which played the drive-in circuit here.

This summary barely skims the surface of Philippe Lombard’s impressively exhaustive, 286-page book. Meticulously drawing from a variety of sources, including personal interviews, vintage film criticism, and reminiscences from the two stars themselves, Lombard offers details that are likely to be new even to fans who know (or think they know) all there is to know about Spencer and Hill. Beyond his affectionate but even-handed survey about the lives and careers of the two actors, he also presents concise, thoughtful remarks on the Spaghetti Western genre, the Italian film industry from the 1960s to the ‘90s that shaped Spencer and Hill’s audience, and guest chapters by Spaghetti enthusiast (and Cinema Retro contributor) Howard Hughes about the distribution of the movies in international markets, on television, and on home video. Lombard even devotes a chapter to the team of Paul L. Smith and Michael Coby, whom producers and distributors shamelessly passed off as imitations of Spencer and Hill in two Westerns and three action comedies. Promotional materials were even engineered to make unwary viewers think they were going to see Spencer and Hill themselves. Many Italian Western fans take a dim view of the impersonators, but some of us admire the subterfuge in a perverse way, and truth be told, the Smith/Coby films are better than most of the farcical Italian Westerns that followed the success of “They Call Me Trinity.” Lombard generously allows that “[a]t any rate, [Coby and Smith] filled a gap between 1975 and 1976, when Terence Hill and Bud Spencer were working separately.”

Physically, the hardback book is impressive in ways that most publishers are reluctant to pursue in these days of mounting production costs. The binding is solid, the paper heavy and glossy, and best of all for movie enthusiasts, it is lavishly illustrated in color with photographs, movie stills, promotional materials, production sketches, and excellent reproductions of theatrical posters and lobby cards. My favourite (which I own as an original) is American-International Pictures’ theatrical poster for the U.S. release of “God Forgives . . . I Don’t!” In 1969. “They call him ‘Pretty Face’ . . .” the tagline reads, lifting a line of dialog from the film when the story’s arch villain, Bill San Antonio, played by Frank Wolff, riffs on Cat Stevens’ handsome features. But the accompanying sketch presumably depicting Hill’s character shows a brute with the grotesque features of a Neanderthal! Was AIP playing to moviegoers’ perception that in the down-and-dirty genre of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, ugly predominated? Who knows.

One question is left unraised and unanswered in the book, as far as I can discern. Did Giuseppe Colizzi derive “Cat Stevens” from the stage name of the English pop star who later converted to Islam as Yusuf Islam, or was the influence in the other direction? Or was it all a coincidence? Lombard’s text is so rich that he may have addressed the issue, and I simply overlooked it. At least that gives me the excuse to dive into the book again.

“The Adventures of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill” is highly recommended. It can be ordered HERE.

By Andrew McGowan

The Mandalorian and Grogu hit theaters in the U.S. on May 22, becoming the twelfth live-action Star Wars movie to grace the big screen. While the film was a relatively conservative installment in the franchise, building on characters and storylines from the three-season Disney+ series, The Mandalorian and Grogu distinguished itself in one unique way within its first fifteen minutes. For the first time in a Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu included an opening credits sequence, breaking a forty-nine-year tradition with a quietly turbulent history in the galaxy far, far away.

Even the most casual viewer can recognize a Star Wars movie by its unmistakable opening. Blue text reads “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” over a black background, before the yellow title appears in space, accompanied by the booming John Williams theme and followed by a crawl of written exposition. Barring the preceding Lucasfilm logo— and the 20^th Century Fox logo for installments released before Disney purchased the franchise in 2012— there are no formal opening credits in Star Wars. The names of the actors, directors, writers, producers, and other real-world Hollywood stakeholders have always been reserved for the closing credits.

This was true for the original Star Wars released in 1977, and it’s held for every theatrical outing in the franchise since. Even when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and released its first Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, in 2015, it forewent opening credits and even omitted the signature Disney logo so as to not break tradition. Disney has even upheld this trend in its Star Wars TV shows and its movies outside of the central Skywalker saga. 2016’s Rogue One and 2018’s Solo had their own riffs on the opening crawls, but they still reserved all proper credits for the ends of their respective films.

While omitting opening credits is not an unusual practice in today’s movies, the decision to forgo them back in 1977 was a bold one from Star Wars creator George Lucas. Back in the late 70s, it was expected (if not contractually mandated) that a movie credit its participants at the start of the feature. If one goes back and watches movies from the mid-20^th century, one can reliably find minutes-long opening credit sequences, naming everyone from the director to the production assistants before the first scene begins. George Lucas, however, saw the potential to immerse audiences more immediately and thoroughly if he threw them directly into the action rather than taking time to list all of the crew members. The gamble worked, as Star Wars not only has one of the most iconic openings of any film, but it gave birth to one of the most immersive and rich diegeses of any franchise.

This audacious decision became more controversial when Lucas repeated it for the sequel, 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. Unlike the first Star Wars movie, Lucas did not direct The Empire Strikes Back. Instead, he served as producer while Irvin Kershner directed. The Directors Guild of America had a policy about movies giving its members on-screen credit at the start of the film, and while Lucas could get by with omitting the credit when he was the director in 1977, omitting Kershner’s credit was seen as a violation. The DGA threatened to fine Lucas $250,000 for his decision, and even tried to pull The Empire Strikes Back from theaters. Ultimately, though, because his production company was U.K.-based and thus outside of the DGA’s jurisdiction, Lucas was able to avoid the fine and retain the opening as he saw fit. In a confusing and stubborn administrative move, the DGA then fined Kershner $25,000 directly for his involvement in the violating film.

The experience troubled Lucas to the point of resigning from the DGA. When it came time to pick a director for 1983’s Return of the Jedi, Lucas went with Welsh director Richard Marquand in part due to him being outside the Guild. Ever the Hollywood iconoclast, Lucas stepped away from Star Wars after Jedi and only returned to the director’s chair himself sixteen years later, when he released The Phantom Menace in 1999. The first of three prequel films, The Phantom Menace as well as its 2002 and 2005 follow-ups upkept Lucas’ tradition of no opening credits. Lucas’ last theatrical Star Wars project was 2008’s animated feature, The Clone Wars (directed by Dave Filoni), which went for a voice-over exposition rather than an opening crawl. Nonetheless, it still withheld all credits until the end of the film.

Since Disney purchased Lucasfilm, it has released six movies and nearly a dozen TV shows in the Star Wars universe. The House of Mouse has certainly taken some liberties with the intellectual property, sometimes to the chagrin of fans. On both the big and small screens, though, it has followed Lucas’ tradition of no opening credits up until just a few weeks ago.

While The Mandalorian and Grogu thrusts its audience into a riveting opening sequence of the title characters hunting imperialist warlords, tradition breaks in the subsequent scene of them traveling the galaxy and arriving on the planet Adelphi. Over a score from composer Ludwig Göransson, we see an extensive list of credits, from actors Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and Jeremy Allen White, to director Jon Favreau, to producers Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy, to cameo-star Martin Scorsese. In a moment of irony, one of the final credits in the sequence is “Based on Characters Created by George Lucas.”

The opening credit sequence is not a poorly executed one. It’s pleasantly placed after a strong prologue that retains the franchise’s feeling of in medias res, and the music and visuals over the credits carry the audience into the main plot. Nevertheless, the observant fan may reasonably question why, after forty-seven years and such a troubled history of avoiding opening credits, would Star Wars finally make this leap.

Lucasfilm has not addressed the decision directly, but audiences have made speculations. A cynical theory posits that the opening credits reflects Disney’s growing indifference to tradition, or the studio’s increased view of Star Wars as intellectual property rather than lore. Another theory suggests that the opening credits come from a place of caution, not wanting to land in the same hot water that George Lucas dove into in 1977 and 1980. The latter is dubious, though, as opening credits are now far less common than they were when the first Star Wars released. More optimistic theories can argue that the opening credits in The Mandalorian and Grogu are a good-natured way of finally giving creators and artisans the recognition they deserve at the start of the film. Likewise, the opening credits could be a homage to the adventure serials that inspired the movie, as well as the original Star Wars. After all, The Mandalorian and Grogu is literally based on a serialized television show.

Interestingly, though, even The Mandalorian on Disney+ doesn’t have opening credits, nor do any of the Star Wars TV shows. One could argue that the opening credits in the film signal the stand-alone nature of The Mandalorian and Grogu apart from the Star Wars movies to come before it, but it is no more of a stand-alone installment than Rogue One, Solo, or any number of the Star Wars television series that have upheld the tradition.

The switch therefore remains a stupefying mystery for now. The next Star Wars movie is due for release next year. Star Wars: Starfighter is directed by Shawn Levy and stars Ryan Gosling. Like The Mandalorian and Grogu, it is a standalone movie within the franchise, but even more so as the characters and plot are not tied to any preexisting series. Whether Starfighter will have opening credits remains to be seen, but that small detail could signal whether the omitting tradition is in the past, or if Lucas’ contrarian choice will persist in the franchise’s future.

Imprint has released the Region-Free boxed Blu-ray set "Tales of the Wild West Collection One" consisting of:

Nevada Smith

The Professionals

Nevada Smith

Three Violent People

Waterhole #3

Cinema Retro's own Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer and contributors Paul Scrabo and Tony Latino provide the audio commentary tracks for "Nevada Smith" and "Waterhole #3". 

Click here to order and get full details.  

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter for your local currency.)

By Tim Greaves

Back around the late 1980s/early 1990s, Joan Collins was making a personal appearance signing books in London, when a fan presented her with a VHS sleeve for director Bert I. Gordon’s film Empire of the Ants, in which she had starred in 1977. She not only refused to sign the sleeve, but declined to answer any questions about the film. It’s a shame, because despite any perceived flaws, the film is a solidly entertaining “nature bites back” thriller, and whatever Collins’ feelings might have been about it, given some of the daft things required of her, she was a real trooper and treated it just as seriously and with the consummate professionalism that she did any role. So said, one can perhaps also understand why she was dismissive of the film. By 1977 her career had tapered off and in order to keep working she was obliged to take jobs that not so many years earlier she would have had the luxury of turning down. Around the same time she had also been set to star in the UK’s answer to Jaws, Cliff Twemlow’s The Pike, but for better or worse that never went into production. Empire of the Ants - or to give it it’s full on screen title, H.G. Wells’ Empire of the Ants - actually marked one of the last films that she made before her career took a sudden upturn when she stripped off at the age of 45 for The Stud (1978). There followed its sequel, The Bitch (1979), and then global recognition anew arrived with a starring role in hit American soap Dynasty.

But enough about Collins. Whether the threat was people, animals or insects, director/co-producer/co-writer/visual effects creator Bert I. Gordon - known affectionately as Mr. B.I.G. - was no stranger to “giant” movies, with such titles as The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), The Spider (1958), Village of the Giants (1965) and Food of the Gods (1976) in his back pocket. Empire of the Ants takes its cues from enormous formicidae classic Them! (1954), improving considerably on its effects work and gleefully upping the gore quotient.

It opens with a short introduction in which it is explained that ants excrete a pheromone that genders compliance. That established, we first meet Collins, who plays a hard-nosed real estate agent, welcoming a bunch of affluent clients aboard a motor launch. They subsequently head out to an island where she hopes to make good money selling off swampland that she intends to pass off as a little bit of paradise. However, a recent dumping of radioactive waste in the ocean just off the island’s coast has resulted in its ant populous growing in both size and ferocity.

The supporting cast, lining up as prospective dishes on an all you can eat buffet for ants, includes Robert Lansing, Brook Palance (daughter of Jack), Pamela Shoop, Robert Pine, Jacqueline Scott, John David Carson, Harry Holcombe and Irene Tedrow. The film itself exudes an of-its-time charm that’s hard to resist, and the effects work - which employed real ants filmed on miniature sets, integrated with the actors via rear projection, matte and split-screen processes - is mostly impressively efficient. Less convincing perhaps are the outsize heads and antennae created for practical effects work when close-ups of hapless victims being mauled were required, but any shortfalls actually only add to the sense of fun. The story is at its most propulsive during the first half, with the island visitors trying to survive out in the wild. When the action shifts to a small town where (spoiler!) it is revealed that islanders willingly line up to submit themselves to the huge queen ant’s controlling pheromone, it becomes a tad less interesting. Make no mistake though: Empire of the Ants is a rollicking good time.

The film makes its UK Blu-Ray debut on the Eureka label this summer. The quality of the 1080p HD presentation is exceptional (even if the clarity occasionally highlights deficiencies in the effects work), with clean original English mono audio. Supplements comprise an introduction by Chris Cooke (co-director of Mayhem Film Festival) who discusses his love of the film and presents a whistlestop overview of Joan Collins’ career in the early 1970s (7:00), “The B.I.G Picture” in which the indefatigably effusive Kim Newman discusses Bert I. Gordon’s career (18:14), an original theatrical trailer (2:19) and a radio spot (1:03). There are two audio commentaries accompanying the film, one from Gordon himself, the other from film historians David Del Valle and Michael Varrati. Not included with our review copy, the release promises to include a limited edition booklet with writing by Liam Hathaway. 

The single disc Region B Blu-ray will be released on the 22nd June and is available to pre-order now.

(With thanks to Eureka Entertainment.)

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By Ernie Magnotta

When some people think of 1980s horror cinema, all they seem to remember are slasher films. Although the slasher sub-genre did dominate most of the decade, there were plenty of other types of horror movies that were produced during that time period. For instance, we had amazing werewolf films like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London; fun and kick-ass vampire flicks such as Fright Night and Near Dark, and revolutionary zombie extravaganzas like Day of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead, just to name a very few. Another type of horror that graced the decade was ghost/haunted house movies. Terrifying films like The Shining, Ghost Story, and The Changeling immediately come to mind; not to mention the enjoyable and entertaining Poltergeist. Death Ship, a slightly lesser known ghost tale which was released in 1980, has just found its way to 4K Blu-ray.

“What in the living hell is onboard!”

Directed by Alvin Rakoff and written by John Robins (from a story by Jack Hill and David P. Lewis), Death Ship deals with an old freighter that collides with and pretty much destroys a cruise ship. The surviving passengers, including Captain Ashland (George Kennedy), have no choice but to board the freighter only to find that it is completely deserted. Soon, the captain is possessed by the ship’s evil and he begins silently stalking the claustrophobic corridors while attempting to hunt down and kill everyone on board. Can the remaining passengers elude the crazed captain, discover the haunted vessel’s secrets and escape the death ship before it’s too late?

It may not be the greatest ghost movie of the 80s, but Death Ship is a decently made and fairly engaging horror film. The movie conjures up some terrific atmosphere and also benefits from excellent production design (in the form of the old, dilapidated ship), wonderful stunt work, and a great, nutty performance by George Kennedy. However, it suffers a bit from things like noticeable stock footage and the use of a few overly familiar horror film tropes. It also could have used another shocking sequence or two. Still, it’s enjoyable enough and although it slightly drags in spots, director Rakoff does a decent job keeping the plot moving.

Death Ship is also greatly helped along by its incredible assortment of talented actors who really make you believe in the horrors they are facing. Besides the always reliable George Kennedy, we have a gifted cast consisting of Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Sally Ann Howes, Kate Reid and Saul Rubinek.

Clocking in at 91-minutes and released in March of 1980, Death Ship, which was filmed in Alabama, the Gulf of Mexico and Quebec City, Canada, may not be in the same league as the previously mentioned ghost films from the 1980s, but it’s still a good time. If you enjoy 80s horror like I do then it’s definitely worth a look.

Death Ship has been released as a 4K/ Blu-ray edition. It is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and the beautiful HDR 10 master—from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative—boasts sharp images and terrific sound. The discs are also loaded with special features. On the 4K disc, we have the theatrical cut of the film as well as two audio commentaries; one with Paul Corupe of Canuxploitation.com and film historian Jason Pichonsky; and another by film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.

The Blu-ray disc contains both the theatrical cut and the extended cut of the film (which runs 93 minutes) and features the same two audio commentaries as the 4K disc (the Alexandra Heller-Nicholas/Josh Nelson commentary appears on both cuts of the film) as well as a third one with director Alvin Rakoff, moderated by Jonathan Rigby (extended cut only). We are also treated to a documentary with George Kennedy, Nick Mancuso, director Alvin Rakoff, and writer Jack Hill (who was set to helm Death Ship, but was replaced because the production required a Canadian director); the featurette What the Ship is Saying with Katarina Severen of Katarina’s Nightmare Theater; the isolated score for the extended cut by composer Ivor Slaney; Jack Hill’s original script (titled Bloodstar which was later rewritten and retitled), and two theatrical trailers.

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"MARLOWE" SPECIAL EDITION COMING FROM ARROW 

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By Jeffrey Wang

Adapted by Yuki Tanada from Moyoco Anno’s manga series, Sakuran is the startlingly original directorial debut of Japanese photographer/visual artist Mika Ninagawa. Set in the ancient Edo period, Sakuran is filmed in a striking, psychedelic color scheme that mirrors Ninagawa’s photographic work, and uses anachronistic modern punk rock and jazz music from J-pop icon Shiina Ringo. The result is a wonderfully eccentric and quirky film that both pays homage to and deconstructs Japanese pink films (pinku eiga) like Hideo Gosha’s Tokyo Bordello and Noboru Tanaka’s A Woman Called Sada Abe.

Anchored by a powerful lead performance by Anna Tsuchiya, Sakuran tells the story of the strong-willed Kiyoha, who is sold by her mother to a brothel at a young age and trained to become a courtesan. As she grows up to become a beautiful, rebellious young woman, Kiyoha quickly rises in the ranks of the brothel, but also encounters obstacles in the form of a forbidden love affair with her client Sojiro (Hiroki Narimiya), and also the possibility of escape with Seiji (Masanobu Ando), a young man who was raised in the brothel as the son of a courtesan. The visual design for Sakuran features Ninagawa’s distinctive eye-popping, sometimes hallucinatory color tone, mirroring her photographic work. Like her contemporary Takashi Murakami (who also ventured into film with Jellyfish Eyes), Ninagawa brings her psychedelic visual arts background into Sakuran.

While many traditional pinku eiga films from male filmmakers approach the subject matter of bordellos from a mostly erotic, titillating perspective, Ninigawa focuses more on the psychological and dramatic aspects of the story. Ninigawa takes her time to explore the power dynamics of the female characters and also helps us understand what drives Kiyoha. Most importantly, Ninigawa focuses on how Kiyoha feels about the various men who are her customers and presents her as an active rather than passive character who is free to approve or reject which men she works with, rather than showing the pleasure her male clients receive. This approach results in viewers becoming more invested in Kiyoha’s journey of personal growth, as she rises to a high-ranking courtesan. Ninigawa wants us to understand the inner struggles and dreams of Kiyoha, rather than using her as purely a sex object to satisfy male customers and viewers.

Released on Blu-ray by 88 Films, Sakuran is presented in high-definition 1080p in its original 1:85:1 aspect ratio, with original Japanese 5.1 and stereo audio (with some English language music) and new English subtitles. The 1080p presentation perfectly captures the bright, vivid red and orange-tinged color scheme and design of cinematographer Takuro Ishizaka, who worked closely with Ninigawa to capture her unique vision as a visual artist. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master surround track clearly presents Shiina Ringo’s punk and jazz inspired soundtrack and also does an excellent job of immersing the viewers in the bustling street and brothel crowd noises of Yoshiwara’s red light district.

The supplemental features for Sakuran are exemplary and provide helpful context for Ninigawa’s film. The features begin with an informative 23-minute-long introduction by film scholar Amber T, in which she provides insights into how Ninigawa’s career in photography and fashion informs Sakuran, details how the original manga developed into the film adaptation, and discusses how Sakuran fits into the wider feminist movement in Japanese art and culture. The audio commentary by film scholar Josh Slate-Williams provides a detailed scene-by-scene analysis of Sakuran, which is best viewed after watching the film to help gain better insight into Ninigawa’s artistic process. There is also a thoroughly researched booklet essay by film scholar Jasper Sharp, which discusses the historical context for Sakuran and how the film relates to the aesthetic of Japonisme. Overall, all three contributors provide a master class into Ninigawa’s career and her making of Sakuran.

If you’re a fan of Japanese pinku eiga films but also want to see the genre presented in a completely new and uniquely feminist perspective by the bold visual artist Ninigawa, Sakuran comes with the highest recommendation. It really is a breath of fresh air in the modern cinematic landscape, and Ninigawa is an exciting filmmaker to watch for.

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By Adrian Smith 

The overwhelming success of Jaws (1975) didn’t just launch the career of Steven Spielberg, change the way the cinema industry operated and invent the modern blockbuster, it also inspired producers around the world to make films about animals running wild. Some of those films were not very good, it’s fair to say, but some, like Alligator (Lewis Teague, 1980), were great; so good you might forget about Jaws altogether. Alligator begins with the urban legend of a pet baby alligator being flushed down the toilet to live in the sewers. Normally such a creature would not do so well, but fortunately for this one it is being fed on a diet of dead dogs, the victims of a local unscrupulous laboratory testing growth hormone products. After a decade in those tunnels, this alligator is bigger than a pickup truck and begins to chow down on any humans who stray too close to its lair. When body parts start turning up in the water treatment plant, it’s up to Detective Madison (Robert Forster) and beautiful (and, crucially, single) herpetologist Marissa (Robin Riker) to stop it.

Alligator has a witty script by John Sayles, excellent performances, including support from Henry Silva, Dean Jagger and Michael V. Gazzo (who surely had the longest eyebrows in Hollywood), dynamic directing and a willingness to push the limits of good taste (the walking the plank scene must have given nightmares to anyone with a backyard pool).

The distribution history of Alligator is interesting: it was shot for theatrical release but then, without any warning, producer Brandon Chase sold the rights to television and an edited version of the film was prepared, removing the gorier deaths, dubbing the worst of the bad language (although, amusingly for any British viewers, “son of a bitch” is switched for “this map is all bollocks!”) and adding back some additional shots of the hero walking through the sewers. Having made all his money back plus a healthy profit, Chase was not interested in spending any money on theatrical promotion or distribution. Director Lewis Teague (a Roger Corman alumnus) took it upon himself to fly to New York with a print of the film for a press screening, to which only one journalist turned up. Thankfully this was Vincent Canby of The New York Times and he loved it, stating that “the film's suspense is frequently as genuine as its wit and its fond awareness of the cliches it's using.” Word spread and Alligator became a hit, and was also very successful on home video, which eventually led to Brandon Chase deciding to make a sequel. Alligator II: The Mutation (Jon Hess, 1991) was conceived as a TV movie right from the start, and you can tell by the casting, the slightly flat shooting style and the almost complete lack of suspense and gory deaths. When people are eaten, they are mainly eaten just off camera. It is effectively a remake of the first film, with unidentified chemicals being illegally dumped into the sewer system instead of growth hormones. The cop on the case is Detective Hodges (played by miscast comedian Joseph Bologna), who is conveniently married to scientist and alligator expert Chris (horror legend Dee Wallace). The big bad here is an evil yuppie property developer and chemical company boss, played in moustache-twirling style by Steve Railsback (who arguably should have played the lead). He is making profits by poisoning the waterways and buying up all the homes around Echo Park Lake in LA, upsetting the Latino locals. Things build towards a carnival he is throwing to impress investors, and you can probably guess which uninvited guest comes to dinner.

It's 36 feet long and it weighs 2,000 pounds... Given the size of some special edition boxsets recently (notably Imprint’s release of The Neverending Story) one could be forgiven for assuming that these are the particulars of this new release, but no, they haven’t packaged both films into an oversized replica alligator with realistic gator skin finish. At least, not yet. That is actually a description of the alligator from the first film, which was stalking the sewers of Chicago (although shot in LA). What we do get here is a shiny hardbox which contains the 4K UHD, which of course looks and sounds fantastic, together with a Blu-ray of the film and the bonus content plus an additional Blu-ray featuring the TV cut, together in one plastic case. Alligator 2: The Mutation is on Blu-ray in its own case, like an unwanted stepchild being kept away from the Alligator family. Sadly, there is no accompanying book, which this reviewer is always a fan of, but there is enough bonus content across both films (seemingly all ported over from the 2022 Shout! Factory release of the films) to keep one busy for hours.

Coming in late July: Arrow Video's 4K special edition UK and U.S. release of the 1973 sci-fi classic "Soylent Green". 

Click here to pre-order U.S. version from Amazon 

Click here to order from Arrow Films UK 

By Jeffrey Wang

Within the hallowed halls of female revenge films, from the 1970s Foxy Brown films to Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Supervixens (1975), the Hong Kong “Girls with Guns” films from the 1980s and 1990s contained some of the finest examples of the genre. One of the best “Girls with Guns” films was the legendary Cory Yuen’s She Shoots Straight (1990), an exhilaratingly kinetic and dramatic powerhouse of a film.

Yuen was a legend of Hong Kong cinema, and began his career as one of the Seven Little Fortunes, a performance troupe made of up China Drama Academy’s most promising young students. Among the other members of this troupe were the legendary stars Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. In addition to his prolific directing career, Yuen was also a popular actor appearing in several high-profile films along with Chan and Hung, including Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) and Sammo Hung’s Heart of Dragon (1985). Yuen also worked with other Hong Kong and international luminaries, including Bruce Lee, Michellle Yeoh, Stephen Chow, Jet Li, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Later in his career, Yuen worked in Hollywood as an action choreographer, working on such popular films as Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), X-Men (2000), and The Expendables (2010). Yuen made She Shoots Straight during the mid-point of his career, when he was still working primarily in Hong Kong.

The heart and soul of She Shoots Straight are the fierce lead performances of Joyce Godenzi and Carina Lau, who play the policewomen Mina Kao and Chia Ling, respectively. As She Shoots Straight begins, Mina marries into Chia’s family with Chia’s brother Huang Tsung-Pao (Tony Leung Ka-fai). All three are members of the same police force, further complicating their relationship as there is career rivalry between Mina and Chia. When Mina gets promoted, the bitterness between her and Chia escalates, as Chia tries to pit her brother Huang (who is also Mina’s husband) against Mina. When a vicious Vietnamese gang led by Yuan Hua (Yuen Wah) attacks Mina and Chia during an armed robbery, resulting in a series of conflicts that lead to a tragic event, the two rival policewomen must put their differences aside to fight against their newfound enemy, along with the help of their commander Officer Hung (Sammo Hung) and Chia’s defiant matriarch (Tang Pik-Wan).

Like other Hong Kong films from the 1980s and 1990s, She Shoots Straight does veer into melodrama at times, but this is just part of what makes Hong Kong action films appealing; they have kinetic action set pieces but also lure the viewer in with emotionally engaging storylines. Although the plot summary may sound lurid and soap-operish, it is this very over-the-top nature of She Shoots Straight that makes the film such a visceral experience. Yuen and other master Hong Kong filmmakers like John Woo and Tsui Hark know how to tap into primal human emotions like revenge, the bond of family, and camaraderie to create action films that not only entertain with elaborately staged, breath-taking action set pieces but also connect with the viewer emotionally.

Which brings us back to the central performances of Gondenzi and Lau, who are the leaders of a band of five policewomen that no one wants to mess with. Not only do Gondenzi and Lau know how to shoot a gun with precision and unparalleled skill (as the film’s title She Shoots Straight clearly alludes to), but they are both powerful martial arts fighters who are able to take down machete and mallet wielding thugs. There are five main, brilliantly choreographed action set pieces in She Shoots Straight, but the climax involving Gondenzi and Lau taking on a horde of vicious gangsters on a boat and through a heart-stopping motorcycle chase truly ranks among one of the best action set pieces in Hong Kong cinema history. It’s too bad that there weren’t additional films featuring Gondenzi and Lau’s policewoman band beating up more gangsters, but at least we have She Shoots Straight to enjoy.

88 Films’ Blu-ray of She Shoots Straight contains a brand new 2K restoration from the original 35mm negative, which was shot using spherical lenses, and it preserves the original 1:85:1 aspect ratio. The visual presentation is crystal clear for an early 1990s film, and there are no specks of dust of hair strands to distract from the image. The sometimes muted looking colors are typical for a 1990s Hong Kong action film, and it’s good that nothing was done to digitally alter the original look and feel of She Shoots Straight. The 5.1 DTS-HD audio track is clean and nicely highlights the pulsating early 1990s style Hong Kong action film music score by Lowell Lo, and we hear every gunshot and bone-breaking fight impact clearly.

There is a fun and enthusiastic audio commentary track from Asian film scholar Frank Djeng, in which he provides a wealth of information about the production of She Shoots Straight, along with great context on the Chinese historical and cultural aspects of the film. In addition to the commentary track, there’s also an informative interview with She Shoots Straight’s screenplay writer Yuen Kai-Chi, in which he details his working relationship with Sammo Hung and Gondenzi, along with background context on the field of scriptwriting in 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong. The last supplements are a touching and entertaining image gallery slideshow of production stills and the original theatrical trailer.

She Shoots Straight is an at-times over-the-top extravaganza of an action film, but it is this boisterous nature of the film that makes it such an entertaining viewing experience. For fans of female revenge films featuring strong women protagonists and lovers of Hong Kong cinema, 88 Films’ Blu-ray release of She Shoots Straight is a must-own.

By  Lee Pfeiffer

The Warner Archive has released a number of films made by Ivan Tors' production company during the 1960s. Tors specialized in underwater and animal-themed adventure movies and TV series and he had a number of major successes including Sea Hunt, Flipper and Gentle Ben. Tors also had a knack for turning feature films into TV series. Flipper began as a theatrical release and morphed into a TV show. Gentle Ben began as a TV show and later inspired the feature film Gentle Giant. The Warner Archive has released another of these cross-over productions, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion which would serve as the feature length pilot for the TV series Daktari. Marshall Thompson stars as Dr. Marsh Tracy, a veterinarian who works in the jungles of Africa to help injured animals and help thwart poachers with the aid of local government authorities. The film's subject matter has something in common with John Huston's 1958 film The Roots of Heaven (click here for review) in that both were extolling the merits of conservation in an era before environmental protection had become mainstream. All other similarities between the films end there, which should be obvious from the title of the Tors movie. The plot finds Dr. Tracy as a widower trying to raise a teenage daughter, Paula (Cheryl Miller, who would reprise her role in Daktari), in a dangerous environment while also training her as his assistant. There is some flirtation with a local widow, Julie Harper (Betsy Drake), who undertakes dangerous solo missions into the jungle a la Jane Goodall to observe and photograph gorillas. The titular beast, Clarence, is indeed an amusing oddity, as no camera tricks have to be employed to obtain the effect of his being cross-eyed. However, the furry protagonist is sort of the Col. Kurtz of the animal kingdom- making only fleeting appearances in the Heart of Darkness until the end of the movie. The script is so squeaky clean it makes The Brady Bunch look like a Bergman movie and the only real danger comes near the end when a virtual army of ruthless poachers are thwarted by Dr. Tracy and his allies, including local police authorities, a chimpanzee and Clarence himself, who somehow commandeers a jeep for a wild ride through enemy forces. (You have to see it to believe it.) There are also fleeting appearances by noted character actor Richard Haydyn, mercilessly going over-the-top as a dapper British tutor who fears the local environment and Clarence. Predictably, the two are constantly encountering each other in rather silly comical sequences. (It's never explained why a man who fears the jungle and animals would decide to reside in the wilds of Africa.) 

The film was designed strictly for the younger crowd. Thompson makes for a sufficiently stalwart hero, Drake (in her last film role before retiring) provides the chaste love interest and the overly-perky Miller does get to toss in a bit of sex appeal by slinking into a party dress in a scene designed to keep awake older brothers who had to bring younger siblings to the film. The best performance comes from Alan Caillou as the charismatic leader of the poachers. The film is directed by Andrew Marton, who was primarily known for presiding over major action sequences in films such as Ben-Hur and The Longest Day. He would go on to produce and direct the far superior Around the World Under the Sea for Ivan Tors. Clarence has a rather chintzy feel to it, owing to the fact that the film was all-too-obviously shot in an American game preserve (in Florida). Second unit footage from Africa is rather unconvincingly blended in to give the movie an exotic appeal. Nevertheless, the movie is likable enough and will probably be most appreciated by Daktari fans who can now enjoy the series' origins as a feature film. An original theatrical trailer is included.

Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store. 

By Hank Reineke

To my knowledge, Kino’s Blu ray of Hobart Henley’s Night World (Universal, 1932) is this film’s long belated official debut in any home video format. The film, which runs a mere 58 minutes in length, mostly disappeared from movie screens following its original roll-out in spring of 1932. Likewise, Night World rarely, if ever, played on broadcast late-night television. The film’s very first TV airing (as far as I can tell) would happen fifty-six years following its theatrical release. In August of 1988 – and in subsequent market broadcasts through 1989 – Night World was screened by the cable-only AMC network. Following those few telecasts the film, once again, seemingly disappeared back into the ether.

Post-1988, the most obsessive fans of Boris Karloff - or curious collectors of early ‘30s gangster flicks - could source copies of the film from gray-market videos. It’s fair to assume most of those bootlegs were duped from the film’s few AMC airings, although I guess more inner-circle enthusiasts might have had access to a print via a 16mm television dupe. In any regard, and though it’s taken some ninety-four years to happen, thanks to Kino Lorber anyone interested in this rare film now has access. No more dupey bootlegs: the film looks magnificent as it offers “a 2K Scan of the Original Fine-Grain” elements.

Night World was the first film in which Karloff would appear following the “monstrous” box-office success of James Whale’s Frankenstein, released December 1931. The entirety of Night World (originally announced under the title of Night Club in January 1932) was shot in March of 1932 - a mere three months following the premiere of Frankenstein. Looking to quickly piggyback on Karloff’s star-making turn as the monster, Universal fast-tracked the release of Night World. The film would make its theatrical debut on 5 May 1932. Though the revamped title of Night World seemingly suggests a film offering macabre atmosphere, it’s not. It’s merely one of the many exploitative gangster pics lensed in the wake of Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar and William Wellman’s The Public Enemy (both Warner Bros., 1931).

That said, Night World is certainly a very different sort of gangster film. Its scripting template is clearly designed as a knock-off of Edmund Goulding’s Grand Hotel (MGM, 1932). Berlin’s Grand Hotel was used by that film’s scenarists as a device to unravel several disparate character stories in a singular setting. Night World does much the same, replacing the gilded German hotel with racketeer Happy MacDonald’s (Karloff) swanky Manhattan nightclub. The storyline of Night World is credited to P.J. Wolfson and Allen Rivkin, but the screenplay itself was written by Richard Schayer, the “scenario editor” on Frankenstein. The result is a fast-moving and decidedly busy programmer: part-gangster film, part-mawkish soap opera, and part musical.

This is the sort of Pre-Code film that really pushed the boundaries of acceptable on-screen adult themes. The film was produced in the midst of the worldwide Depression and of U.S. prohibition. For cinemagoers, the swanky, high-life, good-timey, black tails and gowns, cocktails and dancing girls of MacDonald’s served as reminders of better times in the past.

In the audio commentary of Tim Lucas and “Monster Kid Hall-of-Famer” Joe Busam, the latter acknowledges Night World offers no shortage of “draw-dropping Pre-Code material.” This view is seconded by Jeremy Arnold in this set’s second audio commentary. Arnold suggests the film’s opening montage was purposefully designed to tweak the noses of moralists by offering fleeting images of all the things they were against. This is certainly true. The film’s opening montage juxtaposes fleeting images of gang shootings, street prostitution and well-heeled and debauched partygoers at play under the bright lights of Times Square, against more pious captures of somber Salvation Army workers drumming for donations and a small child kneeling in prayer.

If one accepts this code-tweaking premise as purposeful, Henley is certainly complicit. He allows the often gliding mobile camera of cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad – a frequent photographic collaborator of director Tod Browning - to salaciously languish over the bare legs (and other bits of amorous anatomy) of the nightclub’s female dance troupe. Outside of this film’s marketable gangster angle, there’s also passing references to alcoholism, depression, marital infidelities, and spousal murder.

Busby Berkeley offers his own touch, choreographing a pair of geometric dance and musical numbers. The first of these (“Who's Your Little Who-Zis?”) is allotted extended screen time, the second number merely seen only fleetingly. Lucas suggests the film was originally set to run for some seventy-minutes. If that’s the case, it is likely Berkeley’s second dance sequence fell victim to the scissors of film editor Ted Kent. Busam opines Berkeley approached Universal’s offer to contribute to Night World as “a minor assignment” paycheck. In a second view, commentator Arnold suggests by 1932 movie musicals had already “oversaturated the market.” Movie audiences were now wishing to thrill to something more rough and rowdy on screen.

For a film of such brief duration, there’s a lot of characters breezing in and out. Though a “mysterious” image of Karloff takes center-stage on the film’s marketing materials, he’s actually (and rightfully) third-billed behind Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke. Ayres plays Michael Rand, a troubled young man tortured by the knowledge his father was murdered by his own mother (future legendary gossip columnist Hedda Hopper). Mae Clarke, who earlier played the wife of Colin Clive’s Dr. Henry Frankenstein, is cast as the lovely, good-hearted chorus girl Ruth Taylor. Though of lascivious interest to menacing tough-guy gambler Ed Powell (George Raft), Taylor retreats from his advances, having fallen hard for the handsome if melancholic (and alcoholic) Rand.

Clarke’s role in Night World is certainly one of more emotional nuance and consequence than that in Frankenstein, Karloff’s less so. Though Lucas and Busam feel the actor’s casting as nightclub owner MacDonald seems “hilariously unlikely,” the not-yet-typecast “horror film” icon nonetheless turns in a solid performance. If Frankenstein hadn’t scored so handsomely for Universal, Karloff’s primary film credits would likely have trapped the actor in menacing if equally slight gangster and heavy roles. Prior to the lensing of Night World, Karloff was often seen circa 1931-1932 as a brutal gang member or mobster in such flicks as The Criminal Code, The Guilty Generation, Graft, Behind the Mask and Howard Hawk’s notorious Scarface.

Scarface was a relatively easy film to find back in the early days of home video. But it wasn’t until 2013 when the team at TCM’s Vault Collection released The Criminal Code, The Guilty Generation and Behind the Mask in their DVD package Karloff: Criminal Kind, that many of us got a glimpse of the actor’s early sound work. As far as I can tell, Graft (which also features actress Dorothy Revier, Karloff’s unfaithful wife in Night World) is still only available on gray market video. (There’s a decent-looking – if likely not properly licensed - copy of Graft available on view at YouTube for the curious).

Yes, in Night World Karloff remains a gangster-in-association but at least he’s sort of a good guy. He’s not seen here in his usual stone-cold killer persona but rather as a sympathetic figure, one carrying the weight of personal and business issues. Not only is MacDonald being strong-armed by a mobster to carry their own bootleg liquor in his establishment, but his wandering-eye wife Jill is having an affair with the nightclub’s dance director (Russell Hopton). (To be fair, there’s an earlier allusion that Happy too has been an unfaithful in his vows).

There are other small bits of Peyton Place-style drama threaded about, as well as a bit of comic relief afforded by the musings of nightclub drunk Tommy (Bert Roach). Henley keeps the film’s pace moving quickly with only Berkeley’s musical interludes slowing the film’s drama. Perhaps the most surprising role is allotted to African-American actor Clarence Muse as Tim Washington, the convivial and philosophical doorman of MacDonald’s speakeasy. Lucas asserts correctly that Muse delivers a wonderful “fully-rounded performance” and, unusual for the time, well-scripted. Billed in the film’s opening credits only as “The Doorman,’ Muse’s fully drawn character is integral to the film’s plotting and denouement.

By Doug Oswald 

Harry Carey returns to the Ozark Mountains in “The Shepherd of the Hills” available on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Daniel Howitt (Carey) arrives a stranger to everyone in his home town after being away for decades for reasons not revealed until the end. The local people- farmers, ranchers and moonshiners- are suspicious of all strangers and they are superstitious, too. Daniel meets and befriends Sammy Lane (Betty Field) who skips, hops, walks backwards and chants magic spells as she makes her way through the forest while entering an abandoned cabin to keep evil spirits away.

Daniel saves the life of a local who was shot by federal agents looking for bootleggers and saves a young girl with a high fever, which endears him to Sammy and others in the community. Daniel astonishes the local owner of the general store by asking to cash a check for cash. Too proud to admit he does not have the cash on hand, the owner takes the check and gives Daniel all the cash in the store, finding some of the money hidden in jars. Daniel later meets with Aunt Mollie Matthews (Beulah Bondi) and makes an offer to buy a piece of land and she reluctantly agrees. It also turns out an abandoned cabin Sammy brought him to sits on that land and holds a special connection for Daniel. Young Matt Matthews (John Wayne) finds out about the land sale and makes it clear about his displeasure. Matt and Sammy are an item and she calms him with her common sense approach to problem-solving. When we first meet them together outside the store, young Matt is in a brawl with his friend Wash Gibbs (real life John Wayne pal Ward Bond) and Sammy breaks it up. The movie is not a traditional John Wayne film, as the Duke is more of a supporting player. It’s primarily the story of a man’s returning home to confront his past. Young Matt has vowed to kill his father if he ever returns, because he believes his father had abandoned his mother. Matt's vow is encouraged by Aunt Mollie and tempered by Sammy. In another plot development, Daniel sends Granny Becky (Marjorie Main), who has been blind all her life, to a hospital to have surgery to restore her vision. When she returns to have her bandages removed, much is revealed as we discover Daniel’s true identity and his relationship to the town and its inhabitants. The ending is a bit predictable but satisfying.

Directed by Henry Hathaway and photographed in Technicolor by cinematographer Charles Lang Jr and W. Howard Green, the movie was filmed on location in Branson, Missouri and Big Bear, California which stands in for the Ozarks. Based on the book by Harold Bell Wright, the screenplay is by Grover Jones and Stuart Anthony. In addition to the members of the cast already discussed, the film features James Barton as Old Matt Matthews, Samuel S. Hinds as Andy Beeler, Marc Lawrence as Pete Matthews, John Qualen as Coot Royal, Fuzzy Knight as Mr. Palestrom, Tom Fadden as Jim Lane and many other great character actors of the era. Released 18 July 1941 by Paramount, the Technicolor movie clocks in at 98-minutes and offers up an interesting plot that makes for a perfect rainy afternoon movie for those wishing to catch up on an often overlooked and underrated John Wayne film.

Bonus features on the Kino Lorber release include an audio commentary by Simon Abrams, who calls this a transitional film for John Wayne and I agree. Not only is the film the first color movie for the Duke, but it takes him away from his usual western roles. Hathaway would direct Wayne in numerous films, including two of his best, “The Sons of Katie Elder” and “True Grit”, for which the Duke won his Oscar as the eye patch-wearing marshal Rooster Cogburn. This movie is also the first of several films in which The Duke co-starred with Harry Carey, whom he idolized. They would later co-star in Howard Hawks' classic western “Red River.” The Duke would pay tribute to Carey in the final scene of “The Searchers” by crossing his arms in a manner associated with Carey.  Harry Carey, Jr. would also have a role in that film and several others with Wayne. 

In addition to the interesting commentary, the disc has the trailer for this and six other John Wayne Kino Lorber Blu-ray releases. The movie looks and sounds terrific and is well worth your time. Recommended for fans of The Duke, Harry Carey, Henry Hathaway and the great cast of character actors.

Click here to order from Kino Lorber (This title is currently sold out on Amazon) 

By Adrian Smith 

In Japanese-occupied Shanghai an idealistic group of students, whose bond formed through amateur dramatics, hatch a plan to assassinate a high-ranking Chinese police official, Mr Yee (Tony Leung) who they deem a collaborator. They decide to infiltrate the higher echelons of society in which he exists by having Wang Jia Zhi (Tang Wei) pose as the bored wife of a wealthy exporter. She becomes part of Yee’s wife’s inner circle and they while away their days playing mahjong and shopping. Gradually he begins to let his guard down and the two begin a passionate, sometimes violent affair. By leaking information back to the Resistance, they prepare to gun him down as a warning to others, but the closer she gets to him, the more blurred the lines become.

Lust, Caution was Ang Lee’s follow-up to Brokeback Mountain (2005), a film which broke new ground in terms of onscreen intimacy between men in an American film. Shot in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Lust, Caution would use sex as a crucial depiction of the shifting power relationships between Mr Yee and Wang Jia Zhi. It was considered to be as explicit as a mainstream film could be, creating censorship issues around the world and causing Tang Wei to be banned from making more films in China. Since then, other filmmakers have gone far further and the questions about Lust, Caution’s explicitness seem somewhat quaint now in 2026, nineteen years later.

If one wanted to be flippant, Lust, Caution could be summarised as being a film about the potential danger of signing up to amateur student theatre. Actually, it is a bleak, moving drama. The performances are incredible across the board, particularly when one considers that this was Tang Wei’s first film, and her supporting actor Leehom Wang was a major pop star in Asia and not a film actor. And of course, being an Ang Lee film, it looks incredible. The costumes, the settings and the cinematography combine to make this a sumptuous film to look at, especially in this Blu-ray release (although it is a pity that a 4K has not also been produced).

One disappointment here is that there is not more bonus content, as this is an incredible film which depicts a fascinating time in China’s history, as they approached the end of their Century of Humiliation. There is a new insightful discussion with Jon von Kowallis, an Australian professor and expert in Chinese literature and cinema who puts the film into historical context and discusses the similarities and differences to Eileen Chang’s 1979 novella, plus he has met Ang Lee, which is cool. This is a helpful piece, particularly for those who may be unfamiliar with what was going on in China, especially Shanghai, at the time. Unfortunately, the only other bonus content is an old making-of documentary ported over from the original DVD release and some B-roll footage, most of which can be seen in that making-of doc. Given the film’s importance, the calibre of its director, and the controversy surrounding its release (censored around the world and released as two different versions in the States – NC-17 and R), there is plenty more to say. Even a commentary track by some experts would help to unpack some of this.

However, if this is a film which you have never seen before, or perhaps not since 2007, this release of Lust, Caution is a must-have for any serious collector of world cinema.

Click here to order the region-free Blu Ray of Lust, Caution direct from Imprint. 

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter for your local currency.)

By Ernie Magnotta

What an amazing career acclaimed actor/director/writer/producer Sir Kenneth Branagh has had so far. This incredible talent has directed over twenty features; acted on stage, screen and television; earned 2 Academy Awards, and was nominated for sixteen. Not to mention taking home two BAFTAs as well as a Golden Globe and an Olivier Award.

Some of Branagh’s best and most well-known directorial efforts are Henry V (1989), Peter’s Friends (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), As You Like It (2006), Thor (2011), Cinderella (2015), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Belfast (2021), Death on the Nile (2022) and A Haunting in Venice (2023).

Recently, Branagh’s sophomore directorial feature, Dead Again, was released on 4K/Blu-ray.

Dead Again revolves around Mike Church (Branagh), a private detective who is hired to help an amnesiac (Emma Thompson) suffering from terrifying nightmares. After agreeing to let hypnotist Franklyn Madson (Derek Jacobi) put the woman under hypnosis, Church discovers that she may somehow be connected to Margaret Strauss (Thompson again), a famous pianist who was horribly murdered in the late 1940s.

Dead Again is a wonderfully entertaining, neo-noir romantic thriller and it’s no surprise that Branagh’s direction is top-notch. The talented filmmaker has said that with this film, he was inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock (I was reminded of Vertigo, Rebecca and Spellbound), Orson Welles (especially Citizen Kane) and Edgar Allan Poe, and it certainly shows.

Solidly written by Scott Frank, Dead Again expertly balances mystery, melodrama and humor, and with the help of a gifted crew (gorgeous cinematography by Matthew F. Leonetti; a lush, gothic musical score by composer Patrick Doyle, etc.) and cast, the film is a joy to behold.

Speaking of the cast, we not only have excellent performances by Branagh and Thompson (who both play dual roles), but also magnificent turns from Derek Jacobi as the quirky hypnotist, Andy Garcia as a reporter (played both young and old), Wayne Knight as a comic relief sidekick, and Robin Williams who is darkly humorous as a disgraced doctor. There are also terrific appearances by Campbell Scott, Christine Ebersole, Raymond Cruz, Miriam Margolyes, and lovely German actress Hanna Schygulla.

Released by Paramount Pictures in August of 1991 and clocking in at 108 minutes, Dead Again moves along at a fast enough pace and never becomes tiresome. Highly enjoyable and visually stunning (for instance, the modern day scenes are filmed in lovely, vivid color while the flashback sequences are photographed beautifully in black and white), Dead Again is a triumph for Branagh as well as for his accomplished cast and crew.

Dead Again has been released in a brand new HDR/Dolby Vision master-from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative (approved by Kenneth Branagh). The 4K disc is region free while the Blu-ray is region A only. The film, which is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, looks gorgeous. The audio is also superb making this transfer far superior to all other versions. The discs’ special features (which are ported over from previous releases) consist of two excellent audio commentaries: one by Kenneth Branagh and the other by producer Lindsay Doran and screenwriter Scott Frank as well as the original theatrical trailer (Blu-ray only). Highly recommended.

Click here to order from Amazon

Blu-ray Collection Just Released by Kino Lorber. Highly Recommended! 

James Bond fans take note! This new Kino Lorber release of British crime movie gems features Sean Connery in his last leading role prior to appearing as Agent 007,  Guy Hamilton's debut as director and a film with Bernard Lee. Here is the official description:  

"Dive into the dark side of postwar British cinema with three gems of film noir, each featuring the great Herbert Lom (Inspector Dreyfuss of Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther films). Cage of Gold (1950) – A Young bride (Jean Simmons) believes her husband (David Farrar) has been killed, only to find the “dead” man come back with devious intentions. A glittering thriller directed by Basil Dearden (The Blue Lamp) and co-starring Lom, James Donald and Bernard Lee. The Ringer (1952) – Lom takes the lead as a crooked lawyer who is hounded by vengeance seeking master of disguise. Future 007 veteran Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger) make his directorial debut with this taut Edgar Wallace (Chamber of Horrors) adaptation. The Frightened City (1961) – Lom is a London accountant who, with the help of an ex-thief (a pre-Bond Sean Connery), plans to merge six criminal gangs into a single syndicate. It’s extortion, racketeering and murder—the English way—in this action-thriller directed by John Lemont (The Shakedown).

Product Extras :

• Three 4K Restorations by StudioCanal
• NEW Audio Commentary for Cage of Gold by Entertainment Journalists/Authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
• NEW Audio Commentary for The Ringer by Film Historian/Writer Julie Kirgo and Writer/Filmmaker Peter Hankoff
• NEW Audio Commentary for The Frightened City by Author/Screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and Film Historian Bruce Scivally
• Optional English Subtitles

Click here to order from Amazon

By Tim Greaves

With announcements of new 4K and Blu-ray releases almost every other week, Hammer’s extensive back catalogue has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late. A landslide of expensive all-whistles-and-bells box sets are appearing at premium prices, so many in fact that it has reached the point where all but the most affluent are being forced into choosiness over which titles they open their wallets for.

1974’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell received a special edition release from Second Sight back in 2022, comprising a beautiful transfer of the film, a nice array of supplemental features and bonus goodies such as art cards and a booklet. For those who couldn’t, or maybe chose not to stretch to that, four years on Second Sight’s standard edition (disc only) is finally here.

This was the seventh and final entry in Hammer’s run of Frankenstein features and it’s not unreasonable to suggest the formula had become tired. The story this time concerns a young Doctor, Simon Helder (Shane Briant), who has been busily studying the anatomies of stolen corpses. Arrested and tried for sorcery, he’s sent to an asylum overseen by the cruel and sleazy Adolf Klauss (John Stratton). There, Helder encounters Dr Carl Victor (Peter Cushing), who appears to hold sway over Klauss and, with the rudimentary assistance of a mute girl, Sarah (Madeleine Smith), is using the premises for his own experiments in rebuilding the dead. Before long, Helder gets Dr Victor to confess that he is in fact Baron Frankenstein. With his hands horribly scarred, Frankenstein is unable to carry out the delicate surgery required for his work, so he seconds Helder to help, revealing a bestial “work in progress” that he keeps caged in his laboratory (Dave Prowse). All that’s needed are some new appendages and a brain transplant and Frankenstein will be able to claim himself a “creator of man”. What could possibly go wrong?

With director Terence Fisher at the helm, working from a script by Anthony Hinds (under his John Elder pseudonym), more than any Hammer before it, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell peddles the uber-grotesque. The whole film is shot through with a streak of cruelty, especially in the scenes between the bullying asylum orderlies and the inmates, and if it isn’t busily promoting discomfort on that level, it’s eagerly ratcheting up the gross-out factor; witness the moment when Frankenstein impatiently kicks a discarded brain across the floor. Ommetaphobics should approach with caution too: detached eyeballs trailing ligaments are myriad, and if they’re not being inspected in quease-inducing close-up, jarfuls of them are getting spilled on the cobblestones.

Notably, the grotesquerie reaches its apex with the “creature” itself - a formidable, disfigured, shambling hulk, which without doubt represents Frankenstein’s most deviant creation yet. He proceeds to gift it with the brain of a professor and the hands of a sculptor, but to what end when it otherwise resembles… well, a monster from hell? The finale in which the frenzied inmates tear it apart is particularly unpleasant.

On the more aesthetically pleasing side, Scott McGregor‘s asylum sets are outstanding and, of course, we get another beautiful laboratory with pulsing lights and lots of spinny-whirry things that don’t appear to do very much, but really look the business. 

The big plus, of course, is the return of Peter Cushing after his absence from 1970’s divisive, blackly comic Horror of Frankenstein (for which Ralph Bates stepped in). Although having him wear a curly wig was a curious decision, he brings gravitas to the frankly bonkers story. Through scene after scene, being back in the company of the same driven, ruthless man we first encountered 17 years earlier in The Curse of Frankenstein is infinitely rewarding, perhaps no more so than the moment when he casually remarks that his creation needs to procreate with Sarah; despite it being an outrageous suggestion, the dispassionate, matter of fact expression on his face is Peter Cushing gold. Arguably, without him the film would be wholly dispensable.

Surrounding Cushing are a number of faces from previous Hammer horrors, among them Shane Briant (Straight On Till Morning, Demons of the Mind), Madeline Smith (Taste the Blood of Dracula, Vampire Lovers), Patrick Troughton (The Gorgon, Scars of Dracula), Chris Cunningham (Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, Lust For a Vampire), Dave Prowse (Vampire Circus, Horror of Frankenstein), Charles Lloyd Pack (Dracula, The Reptile) and Andria Lawrence (Countess Dracula). Also on hand - cheap pun intended (you’ll have to see the film!) - is Bernard Lee, between jobs as James Bond’s boss, M. James Bernard delivers a functional score, albeit not the most memorable constituent among his host of greats. 

Second Sight’s Region B coded Blu-ray presents the film with two viewing options: its UK theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and full frame 1.37:1, the latter opening up the image head and foot noticeably. The picture quality is absolutely pristine, the only downside of that being that it occasionally highlights some of the film’s budgetary constraints. For example, the overhead exterior shots of the asylum buildings now clearly show them for what they were: scale models. But there’s no mileage in nitpicks when the film looks as splendid as it does. There are two audio commentaries on offer: a new one from enthusiast Kat Ellinger and the other - rather more engaging due to their first-hand involvement in the film itself - from Shane Briant and Madeline Smith, along with Hammer scholar Marcus Hearn. Supplements comprise “An Appreciation of Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” in which film historian David Huckvale speaks enthusiastically about the film (8:37), “The Music of Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell”, which also features Huckvale, this time tickling the ivories as he discusses James Bernard’s score (11:49), a making-of piece entitled “Taking Over the Asylum” comprising archival interviews (25:55), “Charming Evil: Terence Fisher at Hammer”, which includes various talking heads, among them Micky Harding (née Fisher) who shares memories of her father (13:29) and an extensive gallery of stills and artwork.

Due for release on May 25th, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is available to pre-order now. 

(With thanks to Aim Publicity). 

Click here to order. 

By Hank Reineke

Arthur Lubin’s Hold that Ghost (1941) was the first of two “ghost” films Abbott and Costello would star in for Universal, the second being Charles Barton’s The Time of Their Lives (1946). These two ghost-themed films do not have all that much in common, being completely different in scenario and tone. Perhaps the biggest difference is that Abbott and Costello did not work as the usual team in The Time of Their Lives. Despite this, and in my humble opinion, these two “spirited” pics remain among the pair’s best. Though Time offers a more imaginative story, Ghost serves as the better exemplar of A&C’s more traditional comedies.

The scenario: two bumbling, struggling but dreamy gas station attendants, Chuck Murray (Abbott) and “Ferdy” Jones (Costello) find themselves accidentally in the car of notorious gangster Moose Matson (William B. Davidson). Unfortunately for the pair, Matson is presently trying to escape from the gun-fire of chasing police. Matson is killed in course of that chase which – very improbably – makes strangers Chuck and Ferdy inheritors of his estate. That estate is a roadhouse tavern in the countryside which once served as Matson’s speakeasy and casino. A stormy night strands the boys – alongside secreted Matson gang member Charlie Smith (Marc Lawrence) and several other stranded passengers – at the tavern.

Smith, posing as an associate of Matson’s scheming attorney, is there to locate where his departed boss stashed the gang’s ill-gotten accumulated loot. But there’s all sort of mysterious goings-on in the spooky tavern: people disappearing in dark cellars, corpse’s intermittently reappearing, screams in the night and various ghost sightings. There’s little doubt Moose Matson’s cryptically clued secreted stash of cash will eventually be found… the question now is by whom? The gangsters? Or the group of stranded misfits whom the gang has tried to scare out of the roadhouse… and wits?

This new Kino Lorber Studio Classics 4K set includes two separate audio commentaries (by film historian/author Alan K. Rode and Diabolique associated editor Samm Deighan), both well-researched and informative. Rode certainly pulls no punches nor sugarcoats Lou Costello’s reputation as a “perpetually insecure,” often irascible screen diva. Within a two year span of 1941 and 1942, Abbott and Costello would readily unseat actress Deanna Durbin as Universal Studio’s top cash cow, rocketing to stardom in a pair of morale-boosting WWII comedy and music vehicles, Buck Privates and In the Navy.

The pair’s earliest films circa WWII offer the best of their work – and this certainly includes Hold that Ghost. There’s no denying that as citizens Abbott and Costello were incredibly generous of their time and talents in support of the morale-boosting efforts of the U.S. War Office. Whether performing for weary soldiers or helping to sell war bonds, the pair were seemingly everywhere doing their part in the fight. They were unflinching in their support of the U.S. and her wartime allies as well of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The duo’s sudden meteoric rise from the burlesque stage to radio fame to big screen success would swell Costello’s head. The comedian was increasingly viewed by fellow players and on-set techs as something of a prima donna. Though the roly-poly actor was rightfully acknowledged as a comic natural – he was, in all fairness, a gifted physical comedian - Costello became increasingly self-involved, leery of any fellow cast member celebrated as center of attention.

In the course of a 1983 interview with Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, Hold that Ghost co-screenwriter Robert Lees offered Costello as “a fat little egotist. He couldn’t stand the attention being drawn away from him, even if [someone else’s contribution] made the movie funnier and better.” Lees thought this personality shortcoming was painfully apparent in Costello’s uproariously funny and masterfully choreographed dance sequence with actress Joan Davis. Davis was a tried-and-true master physical comedienne herself, every bit Costello’s equal.

Davis, like Costello, could also expertly deliver a glib line of snappy dialogue as well as take a well-timed pratfall. This was a problem for Costello for in Hold that Ghost he was challenged to play opposite an old-pro. Davis was, at the very least, as every bit as funny as Costello: perhaps more so, and he knew it. Lees was of the opinion that Costello purposefully tried to mute Davis’ contributions, lest he be upstaged. Lees believed the self-preserving actor selfishly “screwed up some scenes, or tried to screw them up, by objecting to [Davis’] action and her lines.”

Though Lees conceded Hold that Ghost ultimately proved “a good film,” he admitted that he and co-writer Frederic Rinaldo’s primary involvement with the picture was mostly finished following their submission of the screenplay. Lees did complain that both he and Rinaldo were annoyed with the subsequent script tampering of the film’s third credited writer, John Grant. Grant, who had been writing bits and gags for Abbott & Costello since the pair’s vaudeville days, was reportedly omnipresent on set, often replacing Lees and Rinaldo’s “good dialogue” with tried-and-true stage and radio bits.

Abbott and Costello’s dependence on routines that had worked for them in the past was partly understandable. Lees thought early on in their film careers, A&C weren’t at ease working before cameras on a Hollywood sound stage. The team, he opined, were “verbal” comedians who had always gauged the effectiveness of their material and performances “in the moment.” They only trusted their comic repartee by laughter received on stage or before a seated radio audience. Lees thought the two were “uncomfortable” with the natural behind-the-camera silences of a working film crew. Despite his personal criticisms, Lees acknowledged Costello was “a superb physical comedian,” well-equipped in this regard to “do pratfalls and double-takes with the best of them.” He also allowed that Costello’s sense of comic timing did often elevate the occasionally subpar material given him.

This set’s commentaries trace the beginnings and backgrounds of A&C’s partnership: from the waning days of burlesque through their galloping success in vaudeville, on radio and finally on the team’s beloved films for Universal. It’s also noted that many of the pair’s most famous gags and bits – earlier having been honed to perfection on stage – were later incorporated (some repetitively) throughout their tenure at Universal. The team’s mysterious and sputtering “moving candle” bit famously makes its first appearance here in Hold that Ghost.

Much of the pair’s success was no doubt due to working under the able mentorship of director Arthur Lubin. Five of the duo’s first six films – and indeed many of their most successful pictures – were made with Lubin at the helm 1941-1942. Much to his credit, Lubin delivers the spooky old house mystery trappings of Hold that Ghost with great effect. Following Hold that Ghost, Lubin’s only two other principal horror-associated pics for Universal were The Phantom of the Opera (1943) and The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946). Lubin was very much a stylish and reliable craftsman as director, always delivering a good film - regardless of genre - on budget and on schedule.

Rodes cites Ron Palumbo’s Universal Film Script Series book on Hold that Ghost (Bear Manor Media, 2018) as a primary resource for his own commentary. In doing so, he repeats an anecdote that can be traced to Chris Costello’s own book on her father’s career, Lou’s On First (St. Martin’s Press, 1981). Daughter Chris offers the canard that her father dismissed the team’s long-serving gag writer, John Grant, due to his refusal to sign on to a House of Un-American Committee-era “loyalty” pledge. This would explain Grant’s name being absent from scripting credits of the pair’s Jack and the Beanstalk and Lost in Alaska, both 1952. If true, Grant would not spend much time in exile. Costello would soon bring Grant back into the fold for Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1953) and subsequent films.

By Tim Greaves

In tandem with 1974’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Second Sight is issuing a standalone Region B Blu-ray disc of 1959 Hammer classic The Mummy, which follows on the tail of the now out of print 2022 special edition box set release.

1895 Egypt: Fronted by the courageous John Banning (Peter Cushing), his father Stephen (Felix Aylmer) and the more cautious Joseph Wemple (Raymond Huntley), an archaeological dig is underway to locate the lost tomb of Princess Ananka. Upon finding and entering the tomb, Stephen makes the mistake of reading aloud from the Scroll of Life, disturbing… something! Three years later, the tomb’s protector Mehemet Bay (George Pastell) arrives in England with the mummified Kharis (Christopher Lee), an ancient high priest who secretly loved Ananka and, upon her death, attempted to resurrect; he paid dearly for his crime, having his tongue cut out before being sealed alive in an annexe within Ananka’s tomb. It transpires that Stephen’s incautious recital of the Scroll of Life three years earlier brought life to Kharis, and now Mehemet is overseeing a trail of vengeance upon those who desecrated Ananka’s resting place. However, when it turns out that Banning’s wife, Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux), bears an uncanny resemblance to Ananka, Kharis defies Mehemet’s orders and sets out to claim her for his own.

In the space of three years, Christopher Lee had played three iconic screen monsters: Frankenstein’s ungodly creation (1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein), Count Dracula (1958’s Dracula aka Horror of Dracula) and here, the Mummy. Was there ever a better screen incarnation of the iconic, bandage-swathed figure than Lee? One look at him emerging from the quagmire into which his casket has accidentally been deposited presents a solid case for saying not. 

Of course, these same three films also headline Peter Cushing, and once again he’s impeccable. It’s one heck of a plot device to have Banning’s wife be a dead ringer for an Egyptian princess. Yet when he casually remarks to her, “It’s extraordinary, I never noticed before, but with your hair like that you’re the image of Ananka”, though it’s a distinctly ridiculous turn of events, with those words coming from the mouth of the consummate Cushing, one accepts the contrivance without further question.

In the hands of director Terence Fisher (working from a Jimmy Sangster script, loosely based on a couple of the 1940s Universal Mummy classics), Hammer’s The Mummy is a slow-burner that shares little of the propulsive energy of the director’s Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. Nevertheless, it builds steadily to a terrific climax in which Kharis seizes Isobel and carries her off into the swamps, with John in heated pursuit.

Bernard Robinson’s sets are of course beautiful, particularly the interior of Ananka’s tomb, bathed in an eerie green light. Meanwhile, the ceremonial entombment of the Princess, which plays out in a protracted middle act, is exquisitely staged.Franz Reizenstein’s score eloquently accompanies the visuals, conveying the awe-inspiring majesty of ancient Egypt and its pharaohs.

It goes without saying that the presentation of The Mummy on Second Sight’s Blu-ray is unparalleled by any previous release. The film itself is presented in a choice of screen ratios, 1.66:1 or 1.37:1, the latter giving the picture more breathing space top and bottom. Supplements are naturally generous.There are two commentaries, one from enthusiast Kelly Robinson, the other from Hammer experts Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby. “An Appreciation of The Mummy” finds film historian David Huckvale discussing the movie (10:10,) and he also hosts “The Music of The Mummy” (9:40), in which he looks at Franz Reizenstein’s background and, using his pianist’s skills, breaks down the score. “Unwrapping The Mummy” is a making-of comprising archive footage and interviews (29:53). “The House of Horror: Memories of Bray” also utilises extensive archival material to examine the history of the famous studio at which so many of the Hammer greats were shot. In “The Hammer Rep Company” Jonathan Rigby discusses some of their wonderful stock players (14:59). An original promotional reel essentially presents the opening of the film without sound (5.55). And finally, there is the requisite extensive stills and art gallery.

Due for release on May 25th, The Mummy available to pre-order now. 

(With thanks to Aim Publicity). 

Click here to order.

“SEX, LIES, AND A LOT OF SWEAT”
By Raymond Benson

Note: The Criterion Collection has released a two-disc edition with one 4K UHD disc of the film in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray disc, and a single disc edition with just the Blu-ray. This review is of the latter edition.

Lawrence Kasdan burst onto the Hollywood scene in 1980 when his name appeared as one of the co-writers of The Empire Strikes Back, a little sequel to another little movie we all know well. It was, uhm, a big hit. He’d already sold the screenplays he’d written for films called The Bodyguard and Continental Divide, both of which would be made later by others (in 1992 and 1981, respectively). Then came another little movie that made a bit of a splash, a ditty called Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kasdan wrote that screenplay from the story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Kasdan was thus poised to take the big dive and begin directing his own scripts and, given the clout he had achieved with those two blockbusters, the writer/director was given the green light to unleash his debut feature… an erotic neo-noir thriller called Body Heat, released in 1981.

What exactly is “neo-noir?” Film noir, of course, is the French term that describes the body of Hollywood crime picture output that appeared between, roughly, 1941 to 1958, although the exact duration of the movement is debatable. It’s not a genre, but rather a style. Most noir scholars define the material as having specific traits such as a cynical outlook, hard-boiled characters, black and white cinematography with high contrasts of light and dark, voiceover narration, a femme fatale character, betrayals and double-crosses, (usually) no happy ending, and much more. Neo-noir is anything that came after that period that attempted to mimic the style and tone of film noir with an updating to contemporary sensibilities (such as shooting in color rather than black and white).

Body Heat is a picture that had several firsts besides Kasdan’s directing credit. It was Kathleen Turner’s debut in a strikingly powerful and sexy performance that made her a star overnight. It also solidified the leading man cache of William Hurt, who had exploded into our collective consciousness with Altered States the year prior and had appeared in Eyewitness (1981, with Sigourney Weaver). With Body Heat, Hurt was assured of his place as a cinematic hunk who could act circles around other such types of leading males. And while we had seen other neo-noir motion pictures (Chinatown comes to mind), we hadn’t before experienced such a hot, sizzling display of two beautiful actors in all their glory of naked skin glistening with sweat in a mainstream Hollywood release (and apparently there was more explicit footage that was deleted in the final editing stages).

It’s a painfully hot summer in South Florida, and Ned Racine (Hurt) is a B-level attorney and known womanizer with little scruples and a restless, unsatisfied soul. Then he meets Maddy Walker (Turner), a drop-dead gorgeous and husky-voiced woman married to the older and very wealthy Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna), a “financier” who makes his money in mysterious ways and is often out of town. Ned and Maddy begin a steamy affair and eventually she reveals her unhappiness in the marriage and that there’s a pesky prenuptial agreement—so divorce would leave her without much of her husband’s fortune. Of course, what does the couple plan next? Murder Edmund, then Maddy splits the money with Edmund’s sister as dictated in his will, and Ned and Maddy run away together. Ned, the hapless schmuck who is always the type of male character in these kinds of stories, is in over his head with a woman like Maddy… and tragic results ensue.

Kasdan, in a candid and fascinating new interview that is a supplement on the new Criterion Collection release of the film, admits that he was inspired by the film noir pictures like Double Indemnity (1944) and other works. That movie was based on the novel by James M. Cain, who also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice, another tale of a married woman enlisting a lover to off her husband. Body Heat is a modern updating of James M. Cain’s world, so much so that many critics and audiences think of the picture as a “remake” of Double Indemnity (it’s not). Interestingly, a sexier remake of the 1946 film, The Postman Always Rings Twice, also came out in 1981, starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange—and it had none of the staying power or artistry displayed in Body Heat.

(Photo: Criterion)

For a directorial debut, Body Heat is darned good, and Kasdan’s stock in the industry rose exponentially with its success (he next went on to make The Big Chill, released in 1983). The performances—and visual eye candy—of both William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are indeed the movie’s biggest assets, despite the predictable Cain-like storyline, even with its clever and often surprising twists. (That said, a head-scratching final twist at the end involving a boat house door is never really explained. But does it matter?)

The Criterion Collection’s new director-approved 4K restoration, supervised by editor Carol Littleton (who worked with Kasdan on a number of occasions) looks marvelous. It has an uncompressed stereo soundtrack and an alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Supplements include the aforementioned interview with Kasdan; a new interview with Littleton in discussion with film historian Bobbie O’Steen; a bevy of archival features that include behind-the scenes making of the picture and interviews with Hurt, Turner, co-star Ted Danson, Kasdan, Littleton, cinematographer Richard H. Kline, and composer John Barry (whose lush and smoky score is superb). There are also nearly ten minutes of deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Last but not least is a learned and insightful essay in the enclosed booklet by crime writer and noir expert, Megan Abbott.

Body Heat is for fans of neo-noir crime tales, erotic thrillers, William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Lawrence Kasdan. Highly recommended.

Click here to order from Amazon

(Photo courtesy of Brian Hannan.)

Cinema Retro regular contributor Brian Hannan has launched a Movie Poster Exhibition at the bookshop Abbey Books he runs in Paisley, Scotland. “It occurred to me the walls of the shop were looking a bit bare above the bookshelves,” said Hannan, “I had about six feet of blank space to play with, so I thought I’d solve the problem by digging into movie memorabilia I’ve got stored in boxes at home.” There are over 200 items on show including quad posters (both vertical and horizontal), half-sheets, insert posters, heralds, window cards, stills, and pressbooks. Trade magazines were also a great source of very rare material – ads that never saw the light of day in consumer magazines or newspapers – and were printed as pop-up, gatefold or fold-outs. In that regard there’s a four-page colour pull-out for Where Eagles Dare (1968) and a pop-up fold-out for Tamahine (1963), among others.“My all-time favorite in that department is the four-page glossy pull-out teaser ad that ran in Box Office magazine in April 1977 that announced Close Encounters of the Third Kind would appear at Christmas 1977, unaware that by that point Star Wars would have rewritten the genre.” However, that may well be out-gunned in terms of fan appreciation by Hannan’s collection of 20 original stills from The Empire Strikes Back, many of which were never released. Hannan was possibly the first journalist to write about the film when he visited the set during production. “That was in the days before public relations people ruled the roost and stuck embargoes on reporting. I worked for a small trade newspaper called The Drawing Paper and managed to garner a set visit. My article was published long before the film was released.”

The exhibition covers the walls of the three rooms of the bookshop, so that’s around 12 walls of movie memorabilia. The oldest is Edward G. Robinson gangster picture Thunder in the City from 1937. There’s a window card of John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners (1940), an insert poster for Dark Command starring John Wayne and Claire Trevor (1940), the pressbook for Love Happy (1949) – Marilyn Monroe Meets The Marx Bros – a half-sheet for The Rains of Ranchipur (1955) starring Lana Turner, and a quad for The Prisoner (1955) starring Alec Guinness. There are also posters for She (1965), War and Peace (1956), Bigger Than Life (1956) Cat Ballou (19650, That Darn Cat! (1966), The Scalphunters (1968), Marooned (1968), Mackenna’s Gold (1962), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Macao (1952), Giant (1956), Blindfold (1966), Chinatown (1974), Play Dirty (1968), The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), The Las Vegas Story (1952), The Collector (1965) and Zulu Dawn (1979).

Among the selection of movie souvenir programs are: The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Isadora (1968), Paint Your Wagon (1969), El Cid (1961), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), Cleopatra (1963), Hawaii (1966), Cromwell (1970), Camelot (1967), Lord Jim (1965) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). “I had imagined that souvenir posters disappeared at the end of the roadshow era but actually I have ones for The Horsemen (1971) and The Valachi Papers (1972)”, said Hannan.

Magazines available include Box Office, Motion Picture Herald, Kine Weekly, ABC Film Review, Films & Filming, Focus on Film, Cinema Retro, Star Wars magazines and books, Lord of the Rings magazines and various MCU and DC comics and graphic novels. Add to that 200 books about the movies.

“As far as I can see there are precious few movie memorabilia shops left anywhere in the world,” said Hannan.” Most items are now sold online or at auction. So there’s no chance just to see these old posters and memorabilia relating to favored movies or triggering a memory. Pop in and see the exhibition. Everything is for sale.”

(Brian Hannan is the author of over a dozen books on the movies, the latest being King of the Action Thriller, Films from the Mind of Alistair MacLean published by McFarland.

The exhibition is open during shop hours – 10.15am-5.15pm Tue-Sat.

Abbey Books, 21 Wellmeadow St, Paisley, Scotland, PA1 2EF.

www.abbeybookspaisley.co.uk bhkhannan@aol.com

Tel 0141 887 7303 and 07946 278403)

By Adrian Smith

A Better Tomorrow is a tale of brotherhood: Mark (Chow Yun Fat) and Ho (Ti Lung) are best friends raised on the streets of Hong Kong who now work in organised crime making counterfeit US dollars. Ho also has a brother, Kit (Leslie Cheung), who works in Hong Kong’s police force and is dedicated to bringing down organised crime, unaware of his brother’s connections until things start to go very wrong and Ho is betrayed and his father murdered. Mark swears to get vengeance for Ho but receives life-changing injuries in the process, and by the time Ho is let out of prison and returns to Hong Kong determined to lead an honest life, he discovers Mark is living in destitute conditions and his brother never wants to see him again. He reconnects with Mark and together they begin to work out just who double-crossed them and what they can do to get payback, and how this might also be able to help Kit finally receive his promotion and become an officer.

This sounds very melodramatic, and it is, with the love and respect these men have for each other never far beneath the surface, but what this plot summary fails to communicate is a) how damn cool everyone is, and b) that this film rewrote the rules of action cinema, invented a new genre (“Heroic Bloodshed”), made Chow Yun Fat one of the most iconic actors of his generation, and launched the stellar action career of director John Woo. This would eventually take him to Hollywood where he would give us, amongst others, Face/ Off (1997) and Mission Impossible 2 (2000, and not as bad as everyone says it is). The “Heroic Bloodshed” films that flooded out of Hong Kong were a huge influence on Hollywood, most notably on the early career of Quentin Tarantino: without A Better Tomorrow there would have been no City on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987), the film that inspired Reservoir Dogs (1992).

The instant box office success of A Better Tomorrow, at first in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and then around the world, took everyone by surprise. As explained in some of the excellent bonus features in this set, this was effectively John Woo’s last chance as a director. He had been forced to direct comedies for years, none of which were exactly lighting up the box office. Producer Tsui Hark (who has a cameo in the film, as does its director) gave John Woo this final opportunity, but had himself been experiencing box office trouble recently. The two stars seemed unlikely too; Chow Yun Fat was a television actor who had been trying, and failing, to break through into cinema for years, and Ti Lung, a former Shaw Brothers kung fu star who fought alongside David Chiang in several brotherhood-focused films in the 1970s, was considered old news with zero audience appeal. So when the film was a hit and other Hong Kong filmmakers began making “Heroic Bloodshed” films of their own, the producers naturally demanded a sequel which needed to focus on the post popular character, Mark. However, given the way things ended for that character, this was going to require some creativity. John Woo’s first idea was to make a prequel, but Tsui Hark preferred to make a direct sequel which magically introduced Mark’s previously unmentioned twin brother Ken, who runs a Chinese restaurant in New York. This deepened further the brotherhood angle, with Ken reminiscing about his brother and even donning the iconic Armani trenchcoat (the budget for Armani coats in A Better Tomorrow was so high they had to cut some planned action set pieces) and his aviator Ray Ban shades. Ho is now working as an informant for the police in return for an early prison release, so that he can get information for his brother who now has a wife and a baby on the way. Naturally things get complicated, and spectacularly violent.

John Woo wrote an incredibly complex script telling the stories of its many characters across two continents, but when his final cut was almost three hours long producer Tsui Hark had to intervene and the film was trimmed significantly. Looking at it now, there’s arguably still a lot of character moments that could have been snipped, particularly a lot of gross close-ups of people with food all over their faces (at least in my opinion), but the action scenes, when they come, are sensational. The final confrontation in the villa of the evil boss is incredible, and there is a seemingly unending supply of besuited henchmen to mow down, blow up or slice open. One favourite moment comes when Chow Yun Fat’s Ken throws a grenade through an open door and then turns his back, facing the camera. The whole wide shot is in slow motion and when the explosion comes it clearly takes Fat by surprise as he first tries to remain cool but is eventually knocked over by the blast wave. Apparently, this burnt some of the hair off the back of his head, and would not be the last time that John Woo seemed to want to blow him to bits in one of his films (the finale of Hard Boiled (1992) is on another level).

It was disagreements over how to produce another follow-up after the success of A Better Tomorrow II that led to Tsui Hark and John Woo, a brotherhood in themselves (as analysed in some of the bonus features), splitting and making separate films. John Woo’s idea for the second film had been to set it in Vietnam ten years earlier, and this developed into his script for Bullet in the Head (1990), which he directed a couple of years later. Hark, who was born in Vietnam but left with his family for Hong Kong because of the war, took over as director and adapted that original idea into what became A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (1989). This is effectively the origin story of Mark, who travels to Saigon to first help his cousin Chi Mun (Tony Ka Fei Leung) get out of jail, and then bring him and Mun’s father, his uncle (played by legendary Hong Kong actor Shih Kien, instantly recognisable for his role as the villain in Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973), back home before things get too dangerous in Vietnam. Whilst there they become embroiled in local organised crime and Mark meets, and falls in love with the beautiful and dangerous Kit (Anita Mui). She is a complete badass and wears a trenchcoat and sunglasses whilst mowing down her enemy with submachine guns. Here we learn how Mark became the Mark we know and love from A Better Tomorrow, by effectively emulating her. It’s an exciting film with plenty of action, as we would expect, but it also has a lot to say about what went on in Vietnam in the 1970s, and invites the viewer to make parallels with what was currently going on in China (the massacre at Tian’amen Square occurred during pre-production) and the nervousness in Hong Kong about the impending British handover of power.

After decades of being legally unavailable for distribution, last year the lawyers at Shout Studio managed to achieve what many believed was impossible and secured the rights to restore over 150 films from the Golden Princess back catalogue, which included many classic John Woo films such as this trilogy and The Killer (1989), A Bullet in the Head (1990) and Hard Boiled (1992). These are the films which cemented Woo’s status as the leading director of action in East Asia and were all hugely influential on Hollywood in the 1990s (and continue to be today). This deal has allowed other labels to pick up the titles too, which is how we get this fabulous, stacked hardbox from Imprint.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Amazon Prime is currently streaming Harry in Your Pocket, a largely unheralded 1973 comedy/drama that finds James Coburn well-cast as a debonair "King of the Pickpockets". Along with his partner, the elderly but equally charismatic Casey (Walter Pidgeon), Harry is intent on recruiting a couple of newcomers to train as part of an ambitious pickpocket team. He settles on Ray (Michael Sarrazin) and his new girlfriend Sandy (comely Trish Van Devere), a destitute couple that is eager to learn from the master. After some rough edges in the "training", Ray and Sandy earn their keep by helping Harry set up the sting operations. Casey decides who will be the victim, Sandy distracts that person while Harry robs his wallet, then quickly passes it off to Ray. Harry's golden rule is "Harry doesn't hold", meaning he is never in possession of the incriminating loot for more than the few seconds it takes to pass it off to his accomplice.Life with Harry is good. The team travels extensively and everything is first class. However, it isn't long before Ray suspects that his real value to the team is the fact that he is accompanied by Sandy, who Harry clearly has eyes for. Soon, sexual tension threatens to disrupt the profitable partnership.

It may seem that a film about pick-pocketing might be a complete yawn. Indeed, there isn't much that happens in terms of plot and the movie relies almost entirely on the chemistry between cast members. Fortunately, everyone is at the top of their game. Coburn is charismatic and charming, but has a hard, threatening edge that makes it clear Harry is man who is used to getting things his way. It's top flight Coburn, in terms of performance and he's well-matched by Sarrazin and Van Devere, who gets to wear some eye-popping mini-skirts to distract the potential victims. The most kudos, however, go to Pidgeon in a wonderful late career performance. As the erudite, dapper and coke-sniffing thief, he dominates every sequence- especially when he opines about the lack of a code of honor that used to be prevalent among people of his peculiar trade.

This is the only feature film ever directed by Bruce Geller, best known as the creator and chief writer for the Mission: Impossible TV series. He handles the action well and capitalizes on lush location shooting in Seattle, Victoria, BC and Salt Lake City, all set to a funky Lalo Schifrin score. If there is one dismaying aspect to the movie, it's the fact that, unlike most films and TV series about charismatic con-men from The Sting to Hustle, the victims here are not corrupt executives and politicians, but everyday working people. It's hard to cheer on the protagonists when they are depriving the guy next door of his week's wages. Nevertheless, Harry in Your Pocket is a forgotten gem of film and well worth catching up with.

3-DVD NOIR COLLECTOR'S SET- AVAILABLE MAY 26, 2026

INCLUDES 12 FILM EPISODE SYNOPSES 

“I didn’t want to kill him… but I wanted him dead.”—

Myra Leeds (Angela Lansbury) Please Murder Me!

NEW YORK CITY — May 2026 — For Immediate Release: Film Chest Media Group, the classic film company, will release Dark Film Mysteries IV in a 3 DVD Film Noir Collector’s Set, available May 26, 2026

Dark Film Mysteries IV continues this successful noir-based series with an additional 12 films and a robust 17 hours of stories that include many of the most memorable actors of the genre including Lizabeth Scott, Raymond Burr, Lee J. Cobb, Hedy Lamarr, Peter Lorre and Fred MacMurray, along with notables Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen.

The stories featured here reach back to the year of 1933 with The Kennel Murder Case, (a successful example of an early talkie), through the 1955 feature, The Man with the Golden Arm starring Frank Sinatra.

Amongst these films you will find those that broke new ground with daring content (The Naked Kiss) or were developed in documentary style (The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery) or used a dream sequence. The trademark black-and-white cinematography, (used here brilliantly on The Big Combo), pushes the classic noir tensions and emotional instabilities, fostering a sense of dread.

Across all these movies, Dark Film Mysteries IV offers the full throttle of psychological traps, dim lit locations, twist-turns, femme fatales, deception and murder to set the course for your dark film viewing pleasure. This carefully reviewed and perceptively assembled selection of historic “dark crime” master’s will undoubtedly be another outstanding addition to this popular series.

Dark Film Mysteries, a continuing noir-based series with 12 films and a robust 17 hours of Dark Film classics is presented with an aspect ratio of 4x3 and is available on DVD ($19.98)

BONUS FEATURES: Episode Synopsis

About Film Chest:

Founded in 2001, Film Chest offers high-quality content for a wide variety of production and distribution needs, boasting one of the world’s largest libraries (10,000+ hours) of classic feature films, television, foreign imports, documentaries, special interest and audio—much of it restored and digitized in HD. Headquartered in Meriden, Conn., with offices in New York City, the company also produces and distributes collector’s DVD sets for its American Pop Classics, CULTRA and HD Cinema Classics labels. Visit us online: www.filmchestmediagroup.com

Dark Film Mysteries IV

Film Chest

Format: DVD

Discs: 3

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Noir

Original Release: 1933 - 1955

Not Rated

Running Time: 1060 minutes

Language: English 

Closed-Captioned Yes

SRP: $19.98

Release Date: May 26, 2026 (Pre-order Now) 

UPC Code: 874757006642

Catalog #: FC-664

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In this 2015 interview, Robert Redford recalls how he first met and worked with Paul Newman and the friendship that developed between them. He also recounts a very funny, elaborate practical joke that they once played on each other. 

Here is a complete ITN News broadcast from 24 June, 1981. If you advance to approximately the 7:45 mark, you'll see coverage of the royal premiere of the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only" with Prince Charles and Lady Diana attending. The clips show them being greeted by producer Cubby Broccoli and chatting with star Roger Moored, who presents the future king with an official Seiko 007 wristwatch. 

In this 1984 interview from the British T.V. show "Sunday Sunday", Herbert Lom provides a rare on-camera interview to promote "Trail of the Pink Panther", the controversial film that director Blake Edwards called a tribute to the deceased Peter Sellers. However, some critics thought the film, which consisted of blending deleted scenes from the series with new footage featuring Sellers' co-stars, was exploitive of the acting icon. Nevertheless, host Gloria Hunniford asks Lom intelligent questions about the Panther series as well as biographical information concerning his career, including starring in the West End production of "The King and I". 

The year 1983 was still representative of the glory days for the Oscar ceremonies. In this clip, the camera pans the audience and we see the superstars of the day in sttendance. Today, not so much. This evening was highlighted by a long-overdue honorary Oscar for a true screen legend: Mickey Rooney. It is presented to him by another legend, Bob Hope and Rooney accepts the honor in a graceful and moving speech. The presentation of honorary Oscars used to be a highlight of the broadcast but in recent years, the Academy has given the awards at a private ceremony, of which only a few brief glimpses are shown on the telecast. Thus, moments like Rooney's speech would go all but unseen by millions of viewers, even as the ceremonies allot time for extended comedy skits. (Lee Pfeiffer) 

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Arrow Video:

On May 26, the blockbuster medieval adventure Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves arrives on 4K UHD. The legend of the English nobleman forced into outlaw life shines under the direction of Kevin Reynolds (Waterworld). The limited edition release features brand new 4K restorations of both the theatrical and extended cuts from the original negative by Arrow Films, hours of special features, and newly commissioned extras.

Robin of Locksley (Kevin Costner, The Untouchables) follows King Richard the Lionheart (Sean Connery, Goldfinger) on a crusade to the Holy Land, only to end up imprisoned in Jerusalem. After years behind bars, Robin escapes with the help of Azeem Edin Bashir Al Bakir (Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption) and returns to England. Things have gone bad in Robin’s absence. The evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman, Die Hard) rules as a tyrant, dreaming of wearing the crown. Alongside his vicious cousin Guy of Gisborne (Michael Wincott, The Crow), he steals from the poor and the defiant rich alike, including Robin’s father (Brian Blessed, Flash Gordon). The Sheriff also sets his sights on marrying Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Scarface).

Special features include 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation of both cuts in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible); original uncompressed stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio; optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing; an audio commentary with director Kevin Reynolds and actor Kevin Costner; an audio commentary with actors Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, and others; a multi-part documentary featuring interviews with director of photography Douglas Milsome, editor Peter Boyle, and members of the creative team; an archival documentary hosted by Pierce Brosnan; archival 1991 interviews with Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Christian Slater, and Alan Rickman; Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” performance at Slane Castle, Ireland; music soundtrack cues; the theatrical trailer; TV spots, an image gallery; a collectors’ perfect-bound booklet; two double-sided fold-out posters; and six postcard-sized artcards.

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A Turner Classic Movies clip from Roger Corman's 1964 production of "Masque of the Red Death", one of the best of his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. The film had a more opulent look than the other adaptations he and Vincent Price collaborated on. That's because when Corman arrived at the studio in England, the sets from the prestigious big-budget film "Becket" were  still standing, thus allowing him to use some of them for his movie. 

"In Roger Corman’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, the Red Death plague sweeps the countryside, and the devil-worshipping Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) believes his loyalty to Satan will keep him safe. But when Francesca (Jane Asher) begs for the lives of her lover, Gino (David Weston), and her father, Prospero sees an opportunity, and no one inside his castle walls is ready for what the Red Death has in store."  

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(The film is also currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)  

On May 19, Paramount will release a boxed DVD set of every episode of "I Love Lucy" to commemorate the series' 75th Anniversary. Here are the details:

194 OF YOUR FAVORITE GRAPE-STOMPIN’, VITAMEATAVEGAMIN SPOONIN’, SHOW-STEALIN’ EPISODES! PLUS SPECIAL FEATURES ON 33 DISCS!

This special 75th Anniversary edition of I Love Lucy: The Complete Season celebrates the legendary comedy that changed television forever, starring the incomparable Lucille Ball. This complete collection includes every episode from the classic series that defined sitcom humor for generations. Packed with iconic moments and timeless laughs, it’s an essential addition for fans and classic TV collectors.

In October 1951, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz debuted the first episode of what was to become one of the best-loved and most watched TV shows of all time. Zany redhead Lucy and her Cuban bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo, along with their neighbors and comic foils Ethel and Fred Mertz (Vivian Vance and William Frawley), got into the most hilarious predicaments ever imaginable. This must-own collection contains all the classic episodes from the six seasons of I Love Lucy (1951-1957) plus three iconic seasons of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960). Overflowing with notable guest stars and escapades that never lose their entertainment value, it’s no wonder everyone still loves Lucy.

FEATURES:

• Special 75th Anniversary Edition with collectable embossed and gold foil o-sleeve.
• One of the most enduring television series of all time!
• The show won 5 Emmy Awards and is consistently cited as one of the most
• influential television series, maintaining multi- generation appeal.
• First aired on October 15, 1951.
• DVD | 33 DISCS

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By Todd Garbarini

It is difficult to believe that it has been thirty-two years since I saw Jim Carrey in Chuck Russell’s film The Mask, released on Friday, July 29, 1994, multiple times with multiple people. I recall thinking that Chuck Russell? The man who directed A Nightmare on Elm Street Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and The Blob (1988)? Learning later that the film’s genesis was originally in the form of a horror film, it makes sense. The notion of spinning it into a comedy to showcase Mr. Carrey’s considerable talents was a stroke of genius. It is impressive, and perhaps unprecedented, to see Mr. Carrey starring in three of his most successful, laugh out loud hilarious, and best-known, films in the same calendar year.

Following a successful stint on the television show In Living Color, Mr. Carrey appeared as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and finally Dumb and Dumber, all of which were box office hits. The Mask is easily my favorite as it depicts a lot of character. Mr. Carrey’s portrayal of Stanley Ipkiss, a timid and hopeless romantic (the dreaded “nice guy”) working an unsatisfying job under the watchful eye of a nepotistic bank manager, is one for the books. Charming in a non-obsequious way, he is just trying to get by like all of us, and is master to an adorable Jack Russell Terrier named Milo. His life changes when he finds a discarded mask – which is possessed by the Norse god Loki who specialized in pranks – in the nearby river of Edge City. When he wears it at night, he turns him into a berserk Don Juan imbued with trickery and cartoonish behavior attempting to woo Tina Carmichael (Cameron Diaz in a splendid big screen debut) who recently opens an account at his bank. Unfortunately for Mr. Ipkiss, Edge City is also home to an organized crime territory struggle between Niko (Orestes Matacena) and Dorian Tyrell (the late actor Peter Greene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction), the latter who also happens to be Tina’s boyfriend. Along for the ride are the late Richard Jeni as Stanley’s co-worker, Amy Yasbeck as news reporter Peggy Brandt who uses Stanley for a story, and Peter Riegert as a police lieutenant doing anything he can to arrest Stanley. And of course, there is Milo, who comes to the rescue as bails Stanley out of jail. Among the cartoon insanity are several musical numbers that come out of nowhere and would feel perfunctory in another setting. They work splendidly here because they contain the same level of manic silliness that makes the film so much fun.

The Mask takes the awkwardness of male machismo and the desire to impress women to a hilarious extreme. Stanley is Every Guy wanting to appeal to women and have fun, but cannot seem to do so in his current Every Man state. By the end of the film, Stanley gets The Girl, and all he had to do was be himself.

Jim Carrey was a virtual unknown at the time having had a recurring role on In Living Color and The Duck Factory. He made a brilliant transition to films and really shines here. So does The Mask in its latest home video incarnation on 4K Ultra High Definition Blu-ray from Arrow Films. We get a 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative approved by director Chuck Russell.

The original audio commentary with Chuck Russell from the DVD has been ported over.

A second audio commentary with Chuck Russell, New Line co-chairman Bob Shaye, screenwriter Mike Werb, executive producer Mike Richardson, producer Bob Engelman, ILM VFX supervisor Scott Squires, animation supervisor Tom Bertino and cinematographer John R. Leonetti has also been ported over.

The Man Behind the Mask is a newly filmed interview with director Chuck Russell, shot in 2025. It runs 20:27. Mr. Russell comes from a comedic background and worked on Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield in 1986. The original comic of The Mask possessed (no pun intended) a dark sense of humor and was more horrific in nature and tone. He was motivated by Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor (1963). He acknowledges seeing Peter Green in Clean, Shaven and needed him for the villain. Given that Jim Carrey was sick during the Cuban Pete sequence, it is remarkable that he was able to perform it.

From Strip to Screen – Adapting the Comic into a Blockbuster is a newly filmed interview with creator and executive producer Mike Richardson and screenwriters Mark Verheiden and Mike Werb, shot in 2025, and running 18:33. They primarily discuss the differences between the original comic book and the finished film, especially the addition of Milo, the Jack Russell Terrier and Cameron Diaz as Mr. Carrey’s love interest. She is brilliant in her film debut.

Green Faces Blue Screens – The Visual Effects of The Mask is also a newly filmed interview shot in 2025. It runs 14:16 and showcases visual effects supervisor Scott Squires whose background as a high school newspaper photographer and a theater projectionist allowed him to come up with ideas for films. His first professional gig was working with Douglas Trumbull in 1976 on Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and later on with Robert Wise on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). John Badham’s Blue Thunder (1983) and W.D. Richter’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension (1984) followed.

Sssssssplicin'! Editing The Mask is also a newly filmed interview with editor Arthur Coburn, running 6:51 and shot in 2025. He started in the 1970s assisting film editors like Walter Murch and worked his way up to editor. He speaks rather quickly and I would have liked to hear about the other people he worked with over the years.

Ask Peggy – Amy Yasbeck Tells All! is a newly filmed interview with actress Amy Yasbeck who played Peggy. She looks almost the same as she did in the movie from 32 years ago! Heartbreakingly, she was married to the late actor John Ritter, who would run through the script with her (this is something I would love to see).

Toeing the Conga Line – Making The Mask Move is a newly shot interview with choreographer Jerry Evans in 2025. This piece runs 10:09 and includes on-set footage from when the film was shot between August and October in 1993 featuring never-before-seen rehearsal footage.

Terriermania: The Mask and America’s Obsession with the Jack Russell Terrier runs 10:18 and is a new video essay by critic Elizabeth Purchell on Milo and the introduction of the Jack Russell into popular culture in the form of television series and movies, to appeal to animal lovers.

The Archival section features the following standard definition featurettes that appeared on the original special edition DVD release of the film:

Return to Edge City runs 27:18 and covers much of the same ground that is in the newly shot material and interviews, especially regarding Milo the Terrier and the Industrial Light and Magic visual effects.

The Making of The Mask runs 3:11 and is more of a promotional piece.

Interview Bites runs 4:38 and includes comments from the set during shooting from Cameron Diaz, Peter Green, Richard Jeni, Jim Carrey, Peter Riegert, director Chuck Russell, and even little Milo weighs in.

Introducing Cameron Diaz runs 13:19 and covers at length the difficulty the production team experienced trying to cast the character of Tina Carlyle.

Cartoon Logic runs 13:44 and covers the Tex Avery cartoons that inspired The Mask. Animation historian John Canemaker, who animated the “angry old goat” on Sesame Street and worked on Richard Williams’s Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977), chimes in about how Mr. Avery created characters that went through a series of hilarious and violent maneuvers, with characters exaggerated to an insane degree.

What Makes Fido Run runs 10:52 and examines the challenges that animal trainers find themselves in when training dogs for film productions.

There are two deleted scenes: Viking scene, with optional commentary by director Russell, running 1:50; The Death of Peggy, with optional commentary by director Russell, running 2:05.

There is some B-roll that runs 5:24.

The requisite theatrical trailer runs 1:59.

There are two image galleries: the first is an on-set production photo gallery that runs 6:51 and features 411 photos. The second is a stills gallery featuring 16 publicity images of Stanley, Milo, and Tina.

There is a reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options.

Arrow has included a beautifully illustrated collector's booklet running 38 pages lavishly illustrated with 66 color photos. It features new writing on the film by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and original production notes. The essay is called Masks of Dreams, Masks of Nightmares. She is the author of the 2019 book Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces and here discusses how The Mask was originally positioned as a horror film. The oldest known mask is 9,000 years old. The mask fanaticism that plagued the COVID-19 plague is also referenced.

There is a double-sided fold-out poster featuring two original artwork options.

Also included are six postcard-sized reproduction art cards.

If you’re a fan of The Mask, this set is a ssssssssssssmokin’ must!

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Here's an interesting video tour of "French Connection" film locations then-and-today in New York and France.  

“CINEMA AS TIME TRAVEL”

By Raymond Benson

Brandeis University professor of American studies, Thomas Doherty, has published several books on Hollywood and film history, especially as they pertain to geo-political topics. For example, his 2018 work on the Hollywood Blacklist (Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist) is an excellent resource for anyone researching that sordid time in our history.

Now comes How Film Became History, which examines the birth of what is called the “archival documentary.” Exactly what is that? The “documentary” as a film genre existed since the birth of the medium. The very first films by the Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison are indeed documentaries because they were depictions of real life at the time (trains coming into a station from the former, or a cock fight from the latter). As cinema entered the 20th Century and progressed into what we call the “Silent Era,” all kinds of footage was shot around the world. Kings and queens, presidents, and monarchs were captured on celluloid in official and unofficial settings. There was footage from the First World War. The birth of aviation and all those spectacular crashes caught on film.

By the 1930s, there was a backlog of nearly four decades of documentary footage of all kinds. So, when sound came into the process, what does one do with all this silent documentary footage? You make an anthology of the footage and add a voice narrator, and voila—the “archival documentary” is the result. And we are all familiar with them. All those newsreels that became part of the cinema-going experience in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (they began to die out in the 60s) are archival documentaries. The filmmaker would select and assemble footage from, say, the Tsar of Russia and his family prior to the Russian Revolution and present a brand new documentary about the Tsar of Russia, all narrated by an actor (or academician) with a commanding voice. Today, just about every collage of a newsworthy event is an archival documentary if it utilizes already existing film.

Doherty takes us on a journey through some of the earliest (and rarest) examples of this unique subgenre that really became probably the main form of documentary cinema in the century. The First World War, written and directed by Laurence Stallings, was released in 1934. The author claims this was the first archival documentary from a major Hollywood studio (Fox). It contains incredible footage from that conflict, stitched together to form a narrative. Some of that footage was apparently too gruesome to show originally and was thus censored by the military, instead painting a rosier picture of the war to the public. The First World War changed that by including the uncensored footage. By the way—you can see The First World War only by streaming it from the Imperial War Museum’s website.

Other chapters in Doherty’s book discuss Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.’s Hitler’s Reign of Terror from 1934, Max Eastman and Herman Axelbank’s Tsar to Lenin from 1937, and more.

Then there is The March of Time, the ever-popular newsreel series that cinemagoers enjoyed prior to the feature film. Sponsored by Time, Inc., these shorts that spanned from 1935 to 1951 were some of the best sources of news that the average citizen could get. All archival documentaries.

While Doherty takes an academic approach to the subject matter, anyone interested in documentary filmmaking, cinema history, and the politics of propaganda should enjoy How Film Became History.

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By Hank Reineke

Depending on the regional market – in this case Charlotte, North Carolina - Paul Harrison’s chiller The House of Seven Corpses would premiere as early as mid-December 1973. Doubling as co-writer and producer on the pic, Harrison’s directorial work was mostly consigned to television. The scenario of Seven Corpses was co-written by Harrison with Thomas J. Kelly… of whom I can find only one additional writing credit. For an obvious low-budget feature, the featured cast is a surprisingly impressive one. The pic’s players includes the familiar faces of a trio of veteran film and television stars: John Ireland, Faith Domergue and John Carradine.

The scenario: a film crew chooses the spooky old “Beal Estate,” a brooding mansion (with adjoining graveyard), to shoot a low-budget satanic horror film. The film’s star Gayle Dorian (Faith Domergue) sighs the mansion is “not exactly the Beverly Hilton is it?” True ‘dat. The gloomy locale was partly selected due to its real-life ghastly past. Seven members of the Beal family met untimely and violent ends within the mansion’s walls: an unexplainable fall, a drowning, a shooting, a hanging, a stabbing and even a bludgeoning by candlestick. The bodies of seven of these unfortunates are accounted for by their gravestones. But a mysterious eighth grave remains unmarked… and no one is quite sure why. They’ll find out soon enough.

The film’s production becomes, ahem, troubled when cast member Anne (Carole Wells) and film tech David (Jerry Strickler) discover the Beal mansion library holds a stash of books concerning black magic and the occult. Though Anne wishes otherwise, David becomes increasingly enchanted – one might say obsessed - by one musty volume, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. David suggests to director Eric Hartman (Ireland) that passages from the book should be incorporated into their own film to provide a measure of authenticity.

Hartman agrees. He notes while the hoodoo found in the book “maybe garbage” it’s still “better garbage than what the writer gave us.” This ultimately proves to be a terrible decision – as everyone discovers when David chooses to read the book’s demonic incantations aloud. If that’s not enough to disturb the grim atmosphere, there’s also a creepy, aged caretaker (Carradine) lurking about, unsettling everyone with his doomy warnings.

Hey, this is not the worse set-up for a horror film. Unfortunately, while something is always happening on screen there’s little in the way of pay-off: a bit of mystery, perhaps, but few atmospheric chills. This theatrical film arrived courtesy of the Television Corporation of America and… well, it mostly presents as a typical run-of-mill made-for-television programmer. Director of Photography Don Jones does what he can. The film looks very “nineteen-seventies” in its grit and grain. The film’s many interiors tend to be on the dark side… which is fair, as the house supposedly has no electricity and brightened at night only by candles. It’s also fair to say the pic’s graveyard scenes manage to convey a genuine atmospheric eeriness.

The film ultimately falters due to the too-slow burn of its fuse. One could forgive the long stretches of sidecar storytelling if the film had ignited spectacularly at its denouement. But the last reel is only marginally more chilling than anything offered earlier. It doesn’t help that the characters (well, let’s call them “victims-in-waiting”) aren’t well developed - or even made likable – in scripting. As unpleasant director Hartman, John Ireland comes off as petulant, demanding, impatient and insulting. He’s particularly hard on the film’s star Gayle Dorian. Yes, she’s a bit diva-ish on and off set, sometimes annoying and certainly high-strung. But her rattled emotional state is partly understandable as she suffers no shortage of verbal abuse by Hartman. Oddly, the script never attempts to completely explain this pair’s combative yet seemingly co-dependent professional and personal relationship.

Actress Domergue does her best with the material given, reciting windy passages of satanic gibberish or tending to her beloved cat, Cleon. Though Domergue appeared in only a handful of sci-fi films (all released in 1955), a number of them were classics: Cult of the Cobra, This Island Earth, It Came from Beneath the Sea and The Atomic Man. For those holding fond memories of Domergue’s performances in those films, it was certainly nostalgic to see her terrorized on the big-screen again. Conversely, one wishes she was threatened in a better vehicle than this. Though Seven Corpses was not the sort of pic to enjoy studious notices in the press, a few reviews did trickle in. The Los Angeles Times allowed while Seven Corpses might be a “sour apple,” actress Domergue “manages to act impressively in the film within the film.”

For better or worse (and, alas, the actor’s late-stage filmography was often for the worse), I still remain an unabashed fan of John Carradine. When Seven Corpses went before the cameras in Salt Lake City in September and October of 1972, the legendary actor was still of the sprite age of sixty-six. Depending on how you look at it, Carradine was either fittingly or generously third-billed in this film’s credits. I would suggest it was the former, as his role as the creaky and mysterious caretaker Edgar Vincent is fairly substantive. By the 1980s, too many of Carradine’s appearances in (mostly) low, low budget horrors were found in blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em small roles or cameos. The actor’s presence in Seven Corpses – abetted by his famous low-growl perfect diction and eye-rolling madness - brings gravitas to an otherwise unremarkable film.

Ported over from the Severin release of 2013, is a remarkable twenty-eight minute, on-screen interview with Carradine. (This feature is included only on the Blu-ray disc of Kino Cult’s Seven Corpses 4K/Blu twin as is the film’s scratchy trailer). Film historians with more formidable pedigrees than myself have noted that one shouldn’t always believe everything Carradine shares in reminiscence. It’s charged no matter how lucid his stories and memories may sound, the actor wasn’t above embellishing otherwise small vignettes into tall tales. At one point in the interview Carradine mentions having once gone to Vienna to play either Dracula or a similar vampire alongside German actor Curd Jürgens. This tidbit of info certainly made curious film wonks scramble for confirmation. To my knowledge, no film nor stage play of this exists.

In the interview (originally recorded in February 1983), Carradine is continually pressed to discuss his career in horror films. The classically-trained actor is pretty dismissive of his work in the genre, offering he made only about “twenty-five” such films in his career. Well, should one choose to include among his “horror” filmography overlapping sci-fi and mystery films, I reckon Carradine made somewhere in the vicinity of double that number by 1983… with a lot more ghoulish-shlock to come. Though Carradine (b. 1906) shares gracious memories of working with such greats as Karloff and Lugosi, the actor laments his horror film appearances as “the least of my work.” He notes his favorite horror film was Paul Wegener’s silent film classic The Golem of 1920.

Carradine also unapologetically denigrates the work of the youthful modern actors with whom he presently intermingles as “not very good.” He namechecks some of the great actors in the past: Lionel Atwill, Elsa Lanchester, Lionel Barrymore and Tyrone Power etc.: the sort of actors who learned their craft on the proper professional stage. Carradine’s opinion in this regard is not surprising. The actor’s long film career ran parallel with and concurrent to his stage work. Carradine generously allows his favorite films in which he appeared did not necessarily feature him in leading roles, but simply as one member of a great ensemble: Victor Fleming’s Captain Courageous (1937), John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Rouben Mamoulian’s Blood and Sand (1941). His opined his favorite role was that of Sir Thomas More in a stage production of playwright Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. If Carradine overplayed many of his “horror” film characters with a measure of tongue-in-cheek over-the-top bemusement – as is often charged - it’s likely that he found the material ridiculous and beneath his station.

By Paul Weston

“Where do I start?”

That was my answer every time I was asked, "When are we going to see your book?" I had only been in the business 40 years and thought that memoirs came at the end of a career. I had worked on Star Wars and Bond films, gaining some fans, and had been a signing guest at film and TV conventions all over the world. Also, I had been giving talks about my life and stunts for some time, and occasionally a two-hour 'An Evening with Paul Weston', relating my life as a fashion model and stuntman. As always, the dreaded question would be asked, "Have you written your book yet?"

Writing was a problem for me, growing up in north London during the Second World War, dodging bombs, and running down to air raid shelters. My education was poor in a system that didn't seem to care and did nothing to help my dyslexia. So, at 15 years-old I was shoved out into the working world with no certificates of any kind, not even an 11-plus. Oh, I did have a gold star for boxing, which helped in my future career — that's the boxing, not the star!

I had to admit that my life had been somewhat unusual, from my early days in fashion, to extra work on film, to my 'Claims to Fame' as I call them: dancing with Charlie Chaplin in The Countess from Hong Kong, singing with the Beatles on Help!, standing up actress Lauren Bacall, being considered to play James Bond, and not complaining when the future King of England hit me over the head with a bottle.

About four years ago my family, friends, and fans finally convinced me I should start to put something down on paper. I was starting to mature a little and didn't know when I may shuffle off this mortal —! But where do I start?

I didn't want it to be a book of my stunts — "There I stood, 60 feet up, on fire and —" I also didn't want a ghost writer. I wanted it to be a true story about my life in my words, warts and all.

(Photo courtesy of Paul Weston.)

I feel privileged to have been stunt double for Superman and James Bond, and to have worked with some of the most famous directors, actors, and actresses in the film and TV industry.

It had been 60 years since I first walked through the gates of Pinewood Studios and into a life that a scruffy little kid from the war-torn streets of London could never have conceived. A career that took me from Pinewood to Hollywood, and into the music world, becoming friends with Sammy Davis Jr., Dionne Warwick, and joining Hugh Hefner for Sunday lunch at the Playboy Mansion.

My wife Dolly and I had been married 60 years when I started writing, and tapping out those intervening years made me realise the many months I had been away on locations, away from her and my two daughters. The film industry is a hard taskmaster, and our families suffer for our art, so I wanted to include them as they are woven throughout my long career — ‘long’ being the operative word.

I thought I'd start with a little action. It seemed the right way to go, and so I began with the epic A Bridge Too Far — "There I was, 100 feet up, hanging on a malfunctioning parachute —" I know! Anyway, the chute was malfunctioning, and I thought I was about to die. They say that in that situation your life flashes before you. I survived and decided to write the book as though my life was flashing before me.

I began writing and couldn't stop! Covering 1940 up to the swinging 60’s and on to late 1996, the page count was over 500 — too many for one book — and I had more stories too, both in front of and behind the camera, plus I was still working in 2025.

What could I cut out that wasn't part of my life? The early wartime stories I had written for my grandchildren, to help them understand what it meant to be in a war and to know poverty. I thought perhaps those could go, but the friends who read it said to keep them in, as it is not just my story — it's history.

Although I was warned against putting my life into two books - being told it would never work, it looks like it may actually be three! Book 1, Falling Into Film: A Stuntman's Early Adventures, is published. Book 2, From Pinewood to Hollywood (working title) covering through to 1996, is written and I'm editing it. And Book 3..?

I now know how to start a book; the trick is knowing when to stop.

Click here to order from Amazon UK

Click here to order from Amazon USA

By Hank Reineke

Disc reviewers have an obligation to listen carefully to audio commentaries. But as a growing number of 4K and Blu-ray releases now offer as many as three (sometimes more) separate commentary tracks, it’s becoming a challenge to give them all a proper listening. Having sat through a couple of hundred of such multiple audio commentaries, you learn there’s a lot of repetitive, mind-numbing information to wade through. Having said that, I’ve also discovered even the most well-read of film enthusiasts can glean something new or interesting.

I certainly learned something new from Rob Kelly’s commentary of Herbert L. Strock’s The Crawling Hand (1963). Almost as an aside, Kelly casually informs that those who attending a 1963 screening of The Crawling Hand and The Slime People at Rutherford, New Jersey’s Route 3 Drive-in in were treated to a third exciting “extra attraction.” This nugget of information was not only new to me, but even personal. The Route 3 Drive-in was my drive-in theater in the late 1960s and 1970s, a venue associated with precious familial memories.

Apparently, just as the showing of The Crawling Hand was getting underway, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the drive-in’s cement block concession stand. Though the concessionaires did their best to put out the flames via fire extinguisher, it was of little benefit. Ultimately it took the efforts of five local fire companies to extinguish the inferno. According to a report I found in the Passaic Herald News, the entire “interior of the four-lane, cafeteria style refreshment stand was gutted,” damage estimated at some $25,000.

Luckily the theater’s projection booth – seven-five feet away - was not damaged. The General Manager of the drive-in chose to keep rolling The Crawling Hand despite the curious crowd’s attention having understandably shifted from the screen in front to the inferno blazing behind. “The show must go on,’ the GM told reporters, defending his decision to keep the projectors rolling throughout the torching. ‘We haven’t missed a showing in 17 years.” I imagine those who waited to purchase their popcorn, candy and soda until intermission were now second-guessing that decision.

Reading through news accounts of the event, I was surprised to learn The Crawling Hand began rolling as early as 6:30 PM. That starting time made no sense. It was only then that I discovered the fire broke out on Sunday night, December 22, 1963. December… in New Jersey? So of course it was dark at 6:30 PM. The drive-in was apparently still showing films during a wintry Christmas week. I decided to check out the newspaper’s weather forecast that night: high temps in the low 20s with a chance of snow after midnight. No wonder everyone was crowding around the concession stand fire. They were trying to keep warm.

Which brings us, at long last, to VCI’s new Blu-ray mirroring (sans fire) that double-feature of The Crawling Hand and The Slime People, released a mere sixty-three years following the Route 3 drive-in screening. VCI had previously issued these two pics as a single DVD release in 2013, nicely upgraded here. Some of the bonus features included on the DVD set are included here (minus the film’s original trailers). Most notable is Tom Weaver’s audio interview with actress Susan Hart (“Lisa Galbraith” in The Slime People).

However, we’re going to start with The Crawling Hand. Director Herbert L. Strock was obviously interested in movies offering macabre fare, often pics with sci-fi shadings. Though he primarily worked in television, Strock had also directed a number of big screen flicks. Some of these are warmly remembered fondly by horror-film aficionados: Gog (1954), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), Blood of Dracula (1957) and How to Make a Monster (1958). While disembodied crawling hand films weren’t entirely new – Robert Florey’s mystery The Beast with Five Fingers (1946, with Peter Lorre) is perhaps the best recalled – Strock gives that old premise a new sci-fi twist. The cast of The Crawling Hand is comprised of a lot of television talent (Alan Hale Jr., Peter Breck and Kent Taylor), but also features two big-screen figures: one old (Richard Arlen of the 1927 silent classic Wings), one new (Allison (Attack of the 50-Foot Woman) Hayes). Despite its measly budget, The Crawling Hand delivers adequate chills and offers a passably engaging story.

The folks at the Route 3 Drive-in who chose to forgo The Crawling Hand to watch the concession stand burn down that December night missed the better of the two films. The space center has briefly lost contact with the solo astronaut piloting their X-20 lunar spaceship on its return to Earth. The control center team of Steve Curan (Peter Breck) and Dr. Max Weitzberg (Kent Taylor) are troubled by this interruption of contact as they’ve tragically already lost an astronaut –under similar circumstances - on a previous lunar mission descent.

They do finally make contact with X-20, but the aggrieved voice of the spaceman – who claims to have been without oxygen for some twenty-minutes - implores the techs to push the “red button” and destroy the plummeting craft. When asked why he’s chosen not to simply push the destruct button available inside the craft itself, the desperate astronaut mysteriously answers, “It won’t let me.” It’s a pretty cracking beginning.

The action then shifts to earth where medical college student Paul Lawrence (Rod Lauren) is busily wooing Swedish foreign exchange student Marta Farnstrom (Sirry Steffen). Their fun afternoon on the beach is spoiled however when the pair discover a severed arm on the sand. Paul later collects the arm and brings the appendage home with him, hiding it behind some chemical beakers on his shelf. This turns out to be a not particularly good idea.

The radiation-burned hand is somehow imbued by an alien energy that takes control of human hosts and commands them to strangle fellow earthlings. This rampage begins with the strangulation of poor old Mrs. Hotchkiss (Arline Judge) with whom student Paul boards. A coroner’s report identifies the fingerprints that strangled Hotchkiss as that of astronaut Mel Lockhart. But how can that be? Lockhart, the pilot of X-20 is, of course, dead. One need not worry as perplexed scientists Curan and Weitzberg along with non-believer Sheriff Townsend (Hale Jr.) – the latter of whom suspects Paul is Hotchkiss’ murderer – are on the case.

On his commentary of The Crawling Hand, Rob Kelly (“artist, reviewer, podcaster and film buff extraordinaire!” as per the sleeve notes) offers a light, fun and informative accounting of this opus. He blessedly keeps the IMDB filmography listing credits of cast and crew members brief. He also (as so many commentators understandably do) references stories culled from the pages of Tom Weaver’s indispensable catalog of first-person interviews with the people connected to the production of these films. Kelly, of course, also provides and mixes in his own unique insights and research findings as well. One such moment occurs when he recounts the amusing controversy surrounding the design of the film’s original one-sheet poster.

The original “blue” poster featured a photo frame of half-nude actress Steffen posing lasciviously, her prominent, half-draped backside on display with the blurb, “She revealed her body but not the secret!” Due to the protests of the ever-present morality police, a second “green” one-sheet was commissioned to replace the “nudie” photo with one of fright-faced astronaut “Mel Lockhart.” Interestingly, the moralists didn’t take issue with the block image of actress Arline Judge being strangled “in a violent manner.” Which just goes to show what images, circa 1963, our forgiving-of-violence society deemed acceptable.

Criterion has released a new 4K special edition of director John Boorman's 1967 crime classic "Point Blank", a film that was pivotal in breaking ground in terms of presenting on-screen violence in a realistic fashion. Here, an admirer of the film, director Jim Jarmusch, describes the aspects of the movie that led him to name this his favorite crime movie. 

From Criterion:

"Presented here is an excerpt from a new interview with Jarmusch that is available in full on Criterion’s new 4K-restoration edition of POINT BLANK, alongside a full-length commentary featuring Boorman and Steven Soderbergh; a documentary on Alcatraz and the making of the film; a new program on the Los Angeles architecture in the film; interviews with John Boorman, Lee Marvin, and critic Mark Harris; and more."

Click here to order from Amazon

By Lee Pfeiffer

In addition to being an Oscar winning actor, Ray Milland’s impressive credentials included his work as director. Commencing in the mid-1950s, Milland helmed several low-budget films, casting himself in the starring roles. Most were undistinguished pot-boilers, but Panic in the Year Zero! is an anomaly. The film presents the era of Cold War paranoia in a vivid and disturbing manner that overshadows the movie’s meager production values and Milland’s often clunky direction. He stars as Harry Baldwin, a typical middle-class, middle-aged American who seeks nothing more than to load up his caravan/trailer and take his family on a pleasant camping excursion in a remote mountain area of California. He’s joined by his wife Ann (Jean Hagan) and his teenaged kids Rick (Frankie Avalon) and Karen (Mary Mitchel). No sooner do they get on the outskirts of Los Angeles when they witness an enormous mushroom cloud. News comes through the radio that the U.S. and an unnamed enemy nation are engaged in nuclear strikes against each other. Harry decides he has to move quickly to safeguard his family – at any cost.

It’s at this point in the story that the tale becomes distinctive from the general pacifist nature of nuclear Armageddon films that were produced during the Cold War. If Stanley’s Kramer’s On the Beach was a cautionary tale seen through the prism of a liberal, Panic in the Year Zero! appears to have been written by the executive board of the National Rifle Association. The character of Harry Baldwin may emerge as the voice of sanity and decisiveness, but only from the standpoint of being willing to do whatever it takes to survive – and damn to hell anyone who gets in his way. This aspect of the film is what separates it from most of the ‘kumbaya’-themed pacifist messages exuded by other movies of the era.

Harry’s first move is to exploit people in remote towns who have not heard the devastating news about the destruction of Los Angeles. The concept of a population segment being ignorant of the destruction of a major city may seem absurd in the age of instant communication, but it was a conceivable concept in 1962. He immediately buys up all of the supplies, guns and ammunition he can before the townspeople realize their very survival will depend on access to these items in the days to come. When his money runs out, he blatantly terrorizes and robs an innocent shop keeper to get his stash of guns and ammo. This hardly makes for the actions of the typical American screen hero of the era, but that’s precisely what makes the film bristle with tension. At another point, Harry and his family attempt to get their car and trailer across a motorway upon which thousands of other cars are speeding away from the L.A. area. He devises a unique solution to the problem by pouring gasoline on the roadway and igniting it. In the resulting chaos, he’s able to cross the road, but innocent drivers are endangered and their cars burst into flames as the result of his actions. Harry’s actions horrify his wife but he justifies his behavior by citing the necessity for practicing a Darwin-like philosophy that only the fit will survive the brave new world that the nuclear holocaust has initiated.

Ultimately, Harry leads his family to a remote cave in the midst of a forest where the family used to vacation. Here, his survivalist instincts are brought to the fore as he prepares his loved ones for a threadbare existence. Armed to the teeth, he jealously guards the meager domain they have established. Harry’s paranoia proves to be justified when his daughter is brutally raped by a roving band of teen-aged thugs. He tracks them to a house where he rescues Marilyn (Joan Freeman), a teen-aged girl who is being kept as a sex slave by the thugs, who have murdered her parents. This leads to dramatic developments that we won’t divulge here, ‘lest we provide spoilers.

What sets Panic in the Year Zero! apart from other doomsday thrillers of the period is the willingness to show the central protagonist engaging in behavior that was completely against the grain for American screen heroes of the era. Milland also doesn’t shy away from other distasteful aspects of the character’s plight. While other directors might have compromised on the sequence of Harry’s daughter being sexually threatened, the script makes it quite clear that the girl has indeed been actually raped, leaving her parents to grapple with the inevitable psychological burden she will carry henceforth. The film rather perversely benefited from real life events, as it was released only months before the Cuban Missile Crisis which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and made widespread the same paranoid instincts Milland’s Harry displays in the story. (In America, people coped with scenarios such as whether to allow their neighbors into their well-stocked backyard fall-out shelters if nuclear war were to break out, a plot device used by Rod Serling in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone.) Without the benefit of a sizeable budget, Milland the director sometimes makes awkward concessions to the technical aspects of the production, which are indeed shoddy. Still, he displays a bold instinct as a filmmaker that makes one wonder what caliber of films he could have been capable of creating if he had been given adequate resources. As it stands, Panic in the Year Zero! is a flawed, but compelling film that boldly explores territory that many more mainstream productions would have shied away from. The movie is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.(The film is currently out of print on physical media in the U.S.) 

By Ernie Magnotta

Carpenter. Romero. Craven. Hooper. Cronenberg. These legendary directors are immediately recognizable to fans of horror cinema; especially fans of late 20^th century horror cinema. However, there are some filmmakers who, although their filmographies aren’t as extensive, have made some classic and sometimes original horror movies, but never got the recognition they truly deserved. Brooklyn born Jeff Lieberman is definitely one of those filmmakers. With only five genre flicks to his name (so far), the talented Lieberman has directed some completely solid and seriously underrated works.

His entertaining filmography began with 1976’s Squirm, a nature-strikes-back movie in which a horde of carnivorous worms attack a small Georgia town. In 1981, Lieberman contributed to the super popular slasher genre with Just Before Dawn, a great flick which sees a group of vacationers terrorized by homicidal twins in the Oregon Mountains. Although the movie seems to be inspired by Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterwork The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Lieberman had never seen the film (at that time) and has stated that he was instead influenced by John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972). Next up is 1988’s fun Remote Control, a sci-fi/horror picture where an alien-made VHS tape turns viewers into crazed killers. It would be almost two decades before Lieberman would direct again, but, in 2004, he didn’t disappoint with Satan’s Little Helper, a black comedy which takes place on Halloween and follows a young boy who unwittingly accompanies a masked killer on a murder spree.

Lieberman’s films are not only extremely enjoyable, but they are clearly the product of an artist with a definite point of view and all of his movies are now considered cult classics. Recently, Blue Sunshine, which, in my opinion, is the writer/director’s greatest work, has been released on 4K Blu-ray.

Blue Sunshine deals with Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King), an innocent man wrongly accused of murdering several people at a party. While on the run and trying to clear his name, Jerry discovers that the real killer’s homicidal psychosis stems from a drug he took in the 1960s called Blue Sunshine. The delayed side effects of this hallucinogen are hair loss, splitting headaches, sensitivity to loud noises, total insanity and an extreme urge to kill. What’s worse, Jerry comes to the horrifying realization that Blue Sunshine had been taken by many people in the 60s and all of them are now walking time bombs.

In a list of little known, underrated horror films, Blue Sunshine would be close to the top. It’s an extremely engaging and original horror/suspense film (Lieberman came up with the idea after his brother, who is a doctor, told him about patients freaking out years after dropping acid) with a simple, but very effective premise. Lieberman keeps the mesmerizing story moving and deftly creates many moments of dread as well as perfectly timed bits of humor.

Distributed by Cinema Shares International in late 1977, Blue Sunshine is greatly helped along by its incredible assortment of talented actors. Zalman King rightly gives a bizarre, over-the-top and eccentric performance as the panic-stricken, erratic and desperate hero Jerry Zipkin. Supporting King, we have marvelous turns from Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard, Robert Walden, Charles Siebert, Alice Ghostley, Stefan Gierasch, Billy Crystal’s look-alike brother Richard, and the late, great Brion James, just to name a few.

This criminally overlooked, frightening and sometimes humorous film should have put Lieberman on the map. Why it didn’t, I have no idea except that maybe it was just too quirky for the “normals”. For example, there’s a wonderfully surreal puppet show featuring Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand hand puppets, a parrot that keeps saying “Blue Sunshine”, and Brion James imitating Rodan from a Godzilla movie. This is an imaginative, individualistic and amazing movie from an extremely gifted filmmaker and I highly recommend checking it out.

Blue Sunshine has been released on a region A, B, and C 4K disc by Synapse. It is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and the beautiful 4K restoration of the original 35mm camera negative mastered in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) boasts sharp images and terrific sound, making it superior to all previous releases. The disc is also loaded with special features. We are treated to two audio commentaries by Jeff Lieberman; a new introduction by Lieberman; an archival Jeff Lieberman interview from 2003; Lieberman on Lieberman video interview; Channel Z Fantasy Film Festival interview with Mick Garris and Jeff Lieberman; Fantasia Film Festival 4K premiere Q&A with moderator Michael Gingold and Jeff Lieberman; two anti-drug “scare films” from the late 1960s; Lieberman’s first film The Ringer presented in both the original uncut version (from a projection print source) and the final release version (remastered in 4K from the original camera negative). The uncut version features optional audio commentary by Lieberman and moderator Howard S. Berger. Last, but not least, we have a still gallery as well as the original theatrical trailer. A must have. (Blue Sunshine is also available in a 3-disc limited edition which features the 4K disc, a Blu-ray and a CD soundtrack.)

Click here to order 4K edition.

Click here to order Blu-ray edition

HOLLYWOOD LEGEND ANN-MARGRET TO APPEAR IN PERSON AT OMAHA CLASSIC FILM EVENT MAY 15

BOOK REVIEW: "THE WES ANDERSON COOKBOOK" BY CHRIS PETERSON (HARVARD COMMON PRESS/QUARTO PUBLISHING)

“DINNER IN PASTELS”

By Raymond Benson

Hot off the grill, er, press, is this unique and whimsical cookbook “inspired by the films of Wes Anderson.” Note that director/writer Anderson is not credited anywhere in the book and, in fact, there is an “Unofficial & Unauthorized” disclaimer on the front… and yet anyone familiar with Anderson’s movies will no doubt feel his presence here. Well, maybe his tastes. In food, that is.

Chris Peterson has written witty prose that captures much of the quirkiness of those celluloid delicacies such as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, and all of Anderson’s other titles you may or may not have seen. Illustrations by Heidi Peel capture Anderson’s visual sensibilities in eccentric pastels and fanciful nods to places and maybe characters in the movies. But it is the imagination of Michelle Anderson (no relation), who created the recipes in the book, and her work shines here.

Peterson has done several works on home improvement, cooking, and general reference categories. Michelle Anderson was a chef for twenty years before becoming a food writer and author of several cookbooks.

Divided into six “Acts,” we start with Rise & Shine Breakfasts. My wife, Randi Frank, tried out the deceptively simple Omelette Á La Policier, described as “uniquely French as the Eiffel Tower” and “particularly embraced in Ennui-sur-Blasé (the town in The French Dispatch). The recipe is inspired by the Omelette Mere Poulard, which is a cross between an omelette and a soufflé. It is extremely light and delectable. The ingredients are 1/4 cup of lardons (bacon pieces), two large eggs, and 1-1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. The lardons are sautéed until crispy. The eggs are beaten at high speed with an electric mixer until they are foamy (maybe two minutes). The butter is swirled in a large skillet (preferably copper) over high heat. The eggs are added and cooked for a minute. Sprinkle on the lardons, let the omelette stand for thirty seconds, then fold it over after sliding it onto a plate. Wow.

Act Two consists of Fantastic Appetizers & Snacks; Act Three: Spectacular Sides & Salads; Four: Tipples & Quaffs, a collection of mighty fine-sounding beverages; Five: The Grand Main Course; and finally, Six: The Sweet Life (desserts, of course).

We tried as a main course Suzy’s Lake Trout Almondine (inspired by Moonrise Kingdom). This was especially to die for. You need boneless trout fillets, sea salt, ground black pepper, cornstarch, unsalted butter, raw sliced almonds, lemon zest, fresh lemon juice, and fresh chopped parsley. You’ll have to get the book to see the preparation instructions. It’s not difficult if you’re somewhat experienced in the kitchen. This course was supported by Rosemary’s Carrots (inspired by Rushmore), which consists of baby (young) carrots, extra virgin olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, minced garlic, lemon pepper seasoning, sea salt, and rosemary sprigs for garnish. Oh my. Tender and delicious.

These are just three of the fifty-nine recipes included in the book. Mind you, the recipes range from easy/moderate to difficult/involved. But if you know your way around a kitchen and can obtain all the necessary stuff to make things like Blueberry-Filled Donuts, Minced Lamb Bonbons in Pastry Purses, Roasted Duck with Olives, or New Penzance Sandie Truffles, all washed down with, say, a Bottle Rocket with a Splash… you’re in for some mouth-watering delights.

The Wes Anderson Cookbook is for cooking enthusiasts, and for fans of the films of Wes Anderson.

Click here to order from Amazon

Posted by Cinema Retro in Raymond Benson (see also Criterion Corner) on Wednesday, April 22. 2026

REVIEW: "MAIGRET SEES RED" (1963) STARRING JEAN GABIN; KINO LORBER BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

"BREAKHEART PASS" (1975): WATCH THE ORIGINAL TRAILER

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