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Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate had one of the most infamous and tragic relationships in Hollywood history. Their complicated one-year marriage ended in horror in 1969 when Tate, who was 8½ months pregnant with the couple’s first child, was murdered — along with Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent — in a horrific stabbing at their Los Angeles-area home by followers of cult leader Charles Manson.

Manson, whose name became synonymous with evil after his arrest in connection with the 1969 murders of Tate and eight others, died of natural causes on Sunday night. He was 83 and serving a life...

Before Charles Manson — who died on Sunday at age 83 — and his murderous “family” of followers embarked on a plan to kill famous people in the ’60s, the group sought out celebrities as friends, roommates and professional connections.

Manson was drawn to the famous and glamorous, biographer Jeff Guinn explains to People: “Manson fully intended to become the most famous rock ’n’ roll star in history” — and he worked to connect with those who he believed could aid his career.

The time period is also important, Guinn says: From the mid- to late-‘60s, many celebrities embraced an egalitarian idea that...

Infamous cult leader Charles Manson, who became synonymous with evil after ordering the murders of nine people over two months in 1969, has died. He was 83 and serving nine life sentences in California’s Corcoran State Prison.

In 2014, People published a cover story featuring Debra Tate, the sister of actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered at the hands of Manson’s followers, known as his “family.” Below is a reprint of the story, headlined: “My Sister’s Murder 45 Years After Manson’s Spree.”

Following Manson’s death, Debra told People, “I said a prayer for his soul.”

It was an unusually...

From a pop culture perspective, private detectives stand for all that’s memorable about film noir. The indifference, the wittiness, and the moral ambiguity that define each urban knight has since become the stuff of parodied legend. We’re talking about the mediators between the crooks and the cops, the embodiment of back alley grayness that’s so tough to pin down. P.I.’s could cooperate with the law if needed, but they could just as soon do business with the bad guys for the right price. To a certain extent, that is – shamus work has always attracted the ignored and the ethical. The Wild West has mythical men with no name, The Asphalt Jungle has names with investigating licenses attached to them. Instead of a poncho and a ten gallon hat, they’re provided a fedora and trench coat.

The archetype has undergone many faces throughout Hollywood’s history,...

Brian De Palma has become the directorial litmus test of cinephiles everywhere. To supporters, he stands as a startling visual genius with a penchant for set pieces and lurid subject matter. To naysayers, he remains a lowbrow imitator who spends his studio budgets chasing the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard. Great director or high class hack? Inconsistent misogynist or Master of the Macabre? Much like his fractured narratives, the answer is never an easy one to attain.

Both sides provide ample support for their case. De Palma’s resume is riddled with enough hollow imitations (Sisters [1973], Raising Cain [1992]) and bloated commercial flops (The Bonfire of the Vanities [1990], The Black Dahlia [2006]) to sink any director. But even in misfires such as these, an undeniable attention to detail remains.

The split screen cover-up of Sisters or the heartbreaking screen tests of The Black Dahlia are breathtaking in scope and execution,...

Producer Robert Evans, circa 1970s, in the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Robert Evans: The Kid Is Alright

By

Alex Simon

I interviewed legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans in 2002 for Venice Magazine, in conjunction with the release of the documentary "The Kid Stays in the Picture," adapted from his iconic autobiography and audiobook. Our chat took place at Woodland, Evans' storied estate in Beverly Hills, in his equally famous screening room, which mysteriously burned down a couple years later. Evans was still physically frail, having recently survived a series of strokes, but his mind, his wit and his charm were sharp as ever, with near total recall for people, places and stories. Many, many stories. Here are a few of them.

It’s a widely-held belief that the years 1967-76 represent the “golden age” of American cinema. Just look at a few of these titles: Rosemary’s Baby,...

Murder mysteries are so commonplace on TV that each week offers seemingly dozens of them on police procedural series and detective shows. But in the movies, whodunits are surprisingly rare, and really good ones rarer still. There's really only a handful of movies that excel in offering the viewer the pleasure of solving the crime along with a charismatic sleuth, often with an all-star cast of suspects hamming it up as they try not to appear guilty.

One of the best was "Murder on the Orient Express," released 40 years ago this week, on November 24, 1974. Like many films adapted from Agatha Christie novels, this one featured an eccentric but meticulous investigator (in this case, Albert Finney as Belgian epicure Hercule Poirot), a glamorous and claustrophobic setting (here, the famous luxury train from Istanbul to Paris), and a tricky murder plot with an outrageous solution. The film won an Oscar for passenger...

Knife in the Water

Directed by Roman Polanski

Poland, 1962

Certainly a stretch to categorize as horror, Roman Polanski’s debut feature anticipates the creeping dread and tense blocking that will characterize his later, truer films of the genre.

Husband and wife Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) pick up a young hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz) on their way to a sailing outing. The young man joins them on the water and tensions rise among the three as the men jockey for power.

Coming after a number of murky, eerie shorts – including 1957’s grim A Murder – Knife in Water is Lifeboat meets Dead Calm but with Polanski’s signature brooding unease rather than overt, textbook suspense or violence. Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant make up the director’s “Apartment Trilogy,” and though Knife in Water is almost exclusively on open water it may as well mark the beginning of a “Claustrophobia Quadrilogy.

This is another edition of Short Starts, where we present a weekly short film(s) from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s career. Today marks both the U.S. theatrical release of Venus and Fur and the 40th anniversary of the U.S. theatrical release of Chinatown. So, let’s just consider it Roman Polanski day. In honor of the occasion, we should just skip his latest (see our review for why) and hold off on watching his 1974 classic for the billionth time. How many of you have seen his early short films? They’re available in proper form on Criterion’s two-disc DVD set for Polanski’s first feature, Knife in the Water, and they can also be found on YouTube. For the latter, there are no English subtitles, but that only matters for one or two that have very minimal dialogue. For the most part, they’re all really “silent” films. Nine...

Check out Roman Polanski's student short film "Murder," made in 1957. Silent, black-and-white and only a minute in duration, the film shows what the title promises with queasy bluntness. "Murder" is the first of eight early Polanski shorts included in the video below. The films are part of the special features on Anchor Bay's 2003 Polanski DVD box set, which also includes "Knife in the Water," "Repulsion" and "Cul-de-Sac." Polanski is best-known for 1968's "Rosemary's Baby" and 1974's "Chinatown," as well as 2002's "The Pianist," for which he won the Oscar for Best Director. The director, 79, is currently filming "Venus in Fur" with French actors Emmanuelle Seigner and Louis Garrel. It centers on an actress attempting to secure the lead role in a film. Also in the works is "D," chronicling the Dreyfus Affair.

Roman Polanski has been making films for over 50 years now, and he's carved out a reputation as one of our most talented filmmakers during that time. From Rosemary’s Baby to Chinatown to The Pianist, Polanski’s career is filled with unforgettable films. Thanks to the Roman Polanski Collection, we can get a glimpse at how Polanski developed in his earliest days as a director. The video below showcases eight short films that were included as part of the Anchor Bay box set celebrating his career. From 1957’s Murder to the documentary-esque Let’s Break the Fall, viewers are given a detailed look at the evolution of one of cinema's greatest talents. Of all the shorts, it’s Murder that is perhaps the most striking. An exercise in detached...

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When American Horror Story co-showrunner Ryan Murphy revealed after the conclusion of Season 1 that many of the actors would be returning for season 2, he also explained that the two actors who played the Harmons, Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, would not.

Happily for us, he wasn’t entirely accurate, as we were treated to an appearance by the talented Mr. McDermott during the last episode before the holiday break. This season he is sitting on the opposite side of the therapist chair, as it was revealed that he is playing the very disturbed Johnny Thredson, son of mass murderer Oliver Thredson (played in the 1960s time setting by Zachary Quinto).

The day after his debut as the modern day Bloody Face, he talked with the press about this season versus last, how this season will end (spoiler free), and violence on TV. Please be advised that this interview took place...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

50: Thundercrack!

Directed by Curt McDowell

Written by George Kuchar

1975, USA

Thunderstruck! is by far the most obscure film you will find on this list. It is without a doubt one of the true landmarks of Underground cinema. With a screenplay by veteran underground film maker George Kuchar (story and characters by Mark Ellinger) and directed Curt McDowell (than student of Kuchar),

Thundercrack! is a work of a crazed genius.