Notizie

The best movie remakes are those that can stand on their own merits, and have their own identity separate from their source material. This is especially true for remakes of movies that are considered by both critics and general audiences to be untouchable classics. That said, there are some remakes that are so well-made and popular that they don't just surpass the original, but outright bury them and leave them in obscurity.

This doesn't mean that the original movie was inferior or never good to begin with. Truth be told, many of the original movies still hold up well under modern scrutiny. It's also not difficult to see why audiences of the time loved them. But thanks to a combination of the passage of time, the new cast's and crew's talents, and modern tastes, these remakes' original versions were forgotten and fell through the cracks.

The Ten Commandments Transformed a...

Frank Griffin, who nosed out another makeup artist to work with Steve Martin on Roxanne, just one of the 20 movies they did together, has died. He was 95.

Griffin died Wednesday of cancer at his home in Studio City, his daughter Roxane Griffin, a veteran Hollywood hairstylist (Avatar, Transparent, 80 for Brady), told The Hollywood Reporter.

Frank Griffin started out in Hollywood as an actor and studio laborer before turning to makeup in the mid-1960s, and he went on to work on Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Scarecrow (1973), Westworld (1973), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Urban Cowboy (1980), Midnight Run (1988), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Vacation (1983), Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985).

Survivors also include his sister Debra Paget, who starred in such films as Broken Arrow (1950), Love Me Tender (1956) — Elvis Presley’s first movie — and The Ten Commandments (1956).

His other two sisters were actresses as well: Lisa Gaye,...

“The Ten Commandments” is the 1956 epic religious drama feature produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, based on the 1949 novel “Prince of Egypt” by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, the 1859 novel “Pillar of Fire” by J. H. Ingraham, the 1937 novel “On Eagle's Wings” by A. E. Southon and the “Book of Exodus”, found in the ‘Bible’, starring Charlton Heston (“Planet of the Apes”):

“…the ‘Ten Commandments’ dramatizes the biblical story of the life of ‘Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of the enslaved ‘Hebrews’ and leads the ‘Exodus’ to ‘Mount Sinai’, where he receives the ‘Ten Commandments’…”

Cast also includes Yul Brynner (“Westworld”) as ‘Rameses’, Anne Baxter as ‘Nefretiri’, Edward G. Robinson as ‘Dathan’…

…Yvonne De Carlo (“The Munsters”) as ‘Sephora’, Debra Paget as ‘Lilia’, John Derek as ‘Joshua, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as ‘Seti I, Nina Foch as ‘Bithiah’, Martha Scott as ‘Yochabel’, Judith Anderson as ‘Memnet...

Click here to read the full article.

Mickey Kuhn, the busy child actor of the 1930s and ’40s who played Beau Wilkes, the son of Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard’s characters, in Gone With the Wind, has died. He was 90.

Kuhn died Sunday in a hospice facility in Naples, Florida, his wife, Barbara, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was in excellent health until recently, she said.

Kuhn also portrayed the ward of a famous movie cop in Dick Tracy (1945) and younger versions of Kirk Douglas and Montgomery Clift in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and John Wayne’s Red River (1948), respectively.

And in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Kuhn reunited with Gwtw actress Vivien Leigh to appear as a sailor who gives Blanche DuBois directions. (Was he Leigh’s good luck charm? She won her two best actress Oscars with him in the cast.)

Kuhn was 6 when...

Long before Harry Styles was being criticized left and right for his work in the new thriller "Don't Worry Darling," he was being compared to every iconic musician in the book — so clearly, he's no stranger to being analogized among his contemporaries and influences alike.

But from a film standpoint, he can be analyzed just as well. In fact, his movie career is starting to take a page or two from the books of the singer-actor hybrids that came before him, namely Elvis Presley, Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Cher, and even Sting. Each of these iconic performers started their acting careers in the same way as Styles did: in a relatively small supporting role. From there, they forged ahead to successful, and sometimes not so successful, movie careers.

Elvis Presley's Humble Film Beginnings

For Elvis Presley, it all started when his manager, Colonel Tom Parker — whom we all now know as...

This weekend, Harry Styles will participate in a long and storied Hollywood tradition that includes Frank Sinatra in “Higher and Higher,” Elvis Presley in “Love Me Tender,” Madonna in “Desperately Seeking Susan,” Cher in “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” and Sting in “Quadrophenia.” Each was an established pop-music icon who began a film career with a comparatively humble role.

It’s one context among the many for anticipating this weekend’s performance of “Don’t Worry Darling” (Warner Bros.). Olivia Wilde’s second feature (after her well-received “Booksmart”) is an original R-rated thriller starring Styles and Florence Pugh as a married couple in strange circumstances. Like last week’s “The Woman King” (Sony), it is a mid-budget original story with a female director with the chance to reassert the value of non-franchise films.

Here, Styles was a late replacement for Shia Labeouf and this wasn’t his...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***I believe David Thomson once said something about Fox's fifties output being "the antithesis of cinema," which is very slightly nuts if you consider the films of Samuel Fuller (Pick-Up on South Street among others), Nicholas Ray (Bigger Than Life), Frank Tashlin (The Girl Can't Help It), and more.But we sort of know what he means: the advent of CinemaScope caused aesthetic confusion, as technical advances often do, and we can all picture laundry lines of less-than-fresh 1940s actors eking out their remaining B.

At the end of his career, Fritz Lang returned to Germany and a producer who gave him a big budget to remake a silent classic in color, with an international cast and locations in remote India, including a palace never seen in a movie before. The two-movie, 200-minute epic was chopped in half for America and dubbed in English. Seen in its full Eastmancolor glory, The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb form an old-fashioned storybook tale, with its special charm lying in our knowledge of Fritz Lang’s fixation on fatalism and intricate patterns of betrayal and intrigue. Plus the films contain the erotic highlight of the decade, the spectacle of star Debra Paget’s scorching ‘temple dances’ before an all-male audience of admirers.

Fritz Lang’s Indian Epic

The Tiger of Eschnapur

and The Indian Tomb

Blu-ray

Film Movement Classics

1959 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame / 203 min. / Street...

Often relegated to a cursory mention as one of the great filmmaker’s late-career trifles, Fritz Lang’s “Indian Epic”—comprising The Tiger of Eschnapur (Der Tiger von Eschnapur) and The Indian Tomb (Das Indische Grabmal), both from 1959—is more like a charming throwback to his earliest work than it is an indication of any waning productivity. Its supporting roots stretch from the early 1920s, when Lang and his soon-to-be-wife Thea von Harbou began drafting an adaptation of her 1918 novel, “The Indian Tomb.” Owing in part to Lang’s relative inexperience, though, the project was turned over to Joe May, who directed the subsequent two-part feature in 1921, which would itself be remade by Richard Eichberg in 1938. Lang bristled at the creative theft (as he saw it anyway) and went packing to Ufa, promptly flourishing as one of the preeminent filmmakers in the world. Later, after more than two decades in Hollywood,...

In the extensive filmography of director Allan Dwan, there’s perhaps no more glorious period of his filmmaking than his DeLuxe color film noir period of the 1950’s. Following on the heels of the tawdry Slightly Scarlet, which featured red-heads Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming squaring off with John Payne, Dwan inverts the ménage a toi for The River’s Edge utilizing another red-head, Debra Paget, positioned between the amorous interests of Anthony Quinn and Ray Milland in one of his most sinister on-screen personas. Like a cross between Joseph Pevney’s Fox Fire (1955) and the classic The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), a beautiful woman finds herself indebted to her husband while languishing in a rural backwater, this time a New Mexican ranch.…...

Is it a film noir? This desert-set crime tale sees a rat (Ray Milland) escaping to Mexico with a bag of cash, forcing a hunting guide (Anthony Quinn) to show him the way and stealing his wife (Debra Paget) in the bargain. Remember what Godard said about only needing a girl and a gun to make a movie? Veteran director Allan Dwan has already memorized that lesson, and pulls it off in color and CinemaScope on Mexican locations. Ms. Paget takes both a bath and a shower, only to be upstaged by a peach-colored T-Bird convertible.

The River’s Edge

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date March 19, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn, Debra Paget, Harry Carey Jr., Chubby Johnson, Byron K. Foulger, Tom McKee, Frank Gerstle.

Cinematography: Harold Lipstein

Film Editor: James Leicester

Original Music: Louis Forbes

Written by Harold Jacob Smith,...

Distributor plans a 2019 theatrical, digital, home entertainment and Svod release.

Film Movement Classics has acquired Us and English-speaking Canadian rights to Fritz Lang Indian Epic, the two-part cliffhanger comprising The Tiger Of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb.

The distributor plans a 2019 release as a theatrical double feature followed by digital and home entertainment release, and a launch on FilmMovement’s Svod platform, Film Movement Plus.

After more than two decades of exile in Hollywood, Lang triumphantly returned to his native Germany to direct the two-part cliffhanger in 1959 from a story he co-authored nearly 40 years earlier.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg,...

Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger shine in Richard Brooks’ engaging drama about the grim slaughter of the Buffalo — a fairly appalling historical episode. A disclaimer is required to explain why we’re seeing real animals killed on screen… which in this case would seem justified by the film’s ecological theme.

The Last Hunt

Blu-Ray

The Warner Archive Collection

1956 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date August 21, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Stewart Granger, Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget, Russ Tamblyn, Constance Ford, Joe De Santis.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: Ben Lewis

Original Music: Daniele Amphitheatrof

From a novella by Milton Lott

Produced by Dore Schary

Written and Directed by Richard Brooks

This rather good western adds another notch to the theme of ‘the end of the West,’ preceding films by Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah and introducing an ecological theme not dissimilar to that of Romain Gary and John Huston...

Think, “I Was a Teenage Empress.” A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. It’s fuzzy history designed to prop up German morale, but the film is graced with the incredible presence of a teenaged Romy Schneider, whose beauty and personality became a sensation in the European film world.

The Sissi Collection:

Sissi

Sissi The Young Empress

Sissi The Fateful Years of an Empress

The Story of Vickie

Blu-ray

Film Movement

1955, 1956, 1957 / Color / 1:78 widescreen & 1:33 flat full frame / 102, 107, 109 min. / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 74.95

Starring: Romy Schneider, Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider, Uta Franz, Vilma Degischer, Josef Meinrad, Gustav Knuth.

Cinematography: Bruno Mondi

Film Editor: Alfred Srp

Original Music: Anton Profes

Produced by Karl Erlich, Ernst Marischka

Written and Directed by Ernst Marischka

I’m fascinated by National Epics, movies that individual countries might take as a film...

David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.

Portrait of Jennie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.

Cinematography: Joseph H. August

Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt

Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann

Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by William Dieterle

Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...

The Loved One

Blu-ray

Warner Archives

1965 / B&W / 1:85 / / 122 min. / Street Date May 9, 2017

Starring: Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer.

Cinematography: Haskell Wexler

Film Editor: Hal Ashby, Brian Smedley-Aston

Written by Terry Southern, Christopher Isherwood

Produced by Martin Ransohoff (uncredited), John Calley, Haskell Wexler

Directed by Tony Richardson

Funeral Director: Before you go, I was just wondering… would you be interested in some extras for the loved one?

Next Of Kin: What kind of extras?

Funeral Director: Well, how about a casket?

Mike Nichols and Elaine May – The $65 Dollar Funeral

That routine, a classic example of what was known in the early 60’s as “sick humor”, was nevertheless ubiquitous across mainstream variety shows like Ed Sullivan and Jack Paar. It also popularized the notion of a new boutique industry, the vanity funeral. The novelist Evelyn Waugh, decidedly less mainstream, documented the beginning of that phenomenon over a decade earlier with The Loved One,...

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

Cry of the City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

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

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

Cinematography Lloyd Ahern

Original Music Alfred Newman

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

Produced by Sol C. Siegel

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

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

“Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!”

The Ten Commandments screens Wednesday October 5th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Sixty years after its initial release, The Ten Commandments remains one of the highest-grossing and most popular titles of all time. Filmed in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula with one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a motion picture, The Ten Commandments remains a cinematic triumph and perennial fan-favorite. Directed by renowned filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, The Ten Commandments grossed more than $65 million at the U.S. box office in 1956—equal to more than $1.1 billion today—ranking it below only Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Titanic on the list of highest-grossing titles.

Randolph Scott's final 'Ranown' western is a minimalist masterpiece, an unusually gentle story about a great westerner on a forlorn romantic quest. It's also a showcase for the underrated Nancy Gates and Claude Akins, and a pleasure to watch in wide, wide CinemaScope. Comanche Station All-region Blu-ray Explosive Media / Alive 1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 74 min. / Street Date July 22, 2016 / Einer Gibt Nicht Auf / available at Amazon.de/ EUR14,99 Starring Randolph Scott, Nancy Gates, Claude Atkins, Skip Homeier, Richard Rust. Cinematography Charles Lawton Jr. Film Editor Edwin H. Bryant Music supervisor Mischa Balaleinikoff Written by Burt Kennedy Produced and Directed by Budd Boetticher

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

One must be careful when ordering Blu-ray discs of Hollywood films from overseas. Foreign distributors license American movies that the studios won't release here, but sometimes they don't have access to good video masters. In a few cases the films being offered are simply being pirated.

Sixty years after its initial release, The Ten Commandments remains one of the highest-grossing and most popular titles of all time, and on Sunday, March 20, and Wednesday, March 23, Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) offer a rare chance to see the monumental epic on the big screen.

For four screenings only – two each day – the TCM Big Screen Classics series presents this fully restored Vista Vision production, which reveals every vibrant detail of the stunning landscapes, costumes and visual effects, digitally projected in its original 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio. This special presentation of The Ten Commandments will play at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (local time) each day in more than 650 theaters nationwide.

Filmed in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula with one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a motion picture, The Ten Commandments remains a cinematic triumph and perennial fan-favorite. Directed by renowned filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille,...

Welcome back readers for day ten of Daily Dead’s 2015 Holiday Gift Guide and with the release of Michael Dougherty’s wondrous holiday horror tale, Krampus, this weekend, I thought this would make for the perfect opportunity to provide you guys with some fun Krampus-related gift ideas today.

We’ve also got some more badass apparel choices from Ten Thirty One Halloween for this installment of the Hgg and for those of you with younger zombie fans in your life, we’ve got you covered too. We also take a look at the wildly inventive artwork and accessories at Creepy Company and much more.

This year’s Holiday Gift Guide is being sponsored by Rlj Entertainment and their recent terrifying yuletide release, A Christmas Horror Story, and to help you guys get into the spirit of the season, we’ve put together 10 amazing prize packs filled with goodies, a...

Mark Rappaport, the film essayist, is long gone from New York and from America, but he’s back with more of his often-acerbic reflections on cinema and society. His five new films, which premiered at the Viennale, are short—most of them under half an hour. Their subjects range from tough guy John Garfield to the French actor Marcel Dalio to the largely forgotten actress Debra Paget, a "kitsch princess," as Rappaport calls her. As always, these are the reflections of a man who has seen a lot of cinema, maybe too much. Rappaport is best known for two feature-length film essays—"Rock Hudson’s Home Movies" (1992), and "From the Journals of Jean Seberg" (1995), both wry views of art and society from unexplored perspectives. Since moving to Paris some 12 years ago, Rappaport has been most visible in the media for a dispute with the American film professor Ray Carney over...

(Region B)  It's just like the film industry, I tell ya!  Director Jules Dassin teams with writer A.I. Bezzerides for one of filmdom's strongest slams at the free market system. Trucker Richard Conte fights back when cheated and robbed by Lee J. Cobb's racketeering produce czar. Thieves' Highway Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1949 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 94 min. / Street Date October 20, 2015 / Available at Amazon UK / £14.99 Starring Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Barbara Lawrence, Jack Oakie, Millard Mitchell, Joseph Pevney, Morris Carnovsky Cinematography Norbert Brodine Art Direction Chester Gore, Lyle Wheeler Film Editor Nick DeMaggio Original Music Alfred Newman Written by A.I. Bezzerides from his novel Thieves' Market Produced by Robert Bassler Directed by Jules Dassin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Did Jules Dassin initiate his string of studio produced films noirs, each of which has a strong element of social criticism, if not outright condemnation of 'the system?...

Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...

“Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieveFor if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once we hadBetter by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.”—Christina Rossetti, Remember (1862)An opening title card from director Thom Andesen’s new feature film, The Thoughts That Once We Had, directly identifies the cinematic writings of philosopher Gilles Deleuze as the project's primary subject and inspiration. Deleuze’s two volumes on film, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (1983) and Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1985), are today synonymous with a certain modernist school of thought that, while integrated in academia to such a degree as to be all but understood, remains quite radical. Unquestionably dense and provocatively pedantic, the French empiricist’s filmic texts integrate an array of theories and conceptualizations into a fairly delineated taxonomy, and are therefore fairly conducive...

The second week of April is a big one for horror fans, as one of the most buzzed-about indie genre films of 2014—The Babadook—is finally coming home this Tuesday courtesy of Scream Factory and IFC Midnight. There are also a multitude of classic cult titles arriving in high-def on April 14th as well, including Long Weekend, Tales of Terror, the sequels to both The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke ’Em High, and Class of 1984.

Several new titles are also being released this week including Jinn, Roadside, and Echoes, and 20th Century Fox is unleashing their terror-filled sequel, The Woman in Black 2 Angel of Death, on both Blu-ray and DVD.

The Babadook (Scream Factory/IFC Midnight, Deluxe Edition Blu-ray & DVD)

Amelia (AFI Award winner Essie Davis, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Slap) is a single mother plagued by the violent death of her husband.

Dear Danny,

Ah, yes, the plague of "not getting it" is one that afflicts all of us festival-goers on occasion, but I admire your willingness to write on Peter Kern's peculiar film as well as Jiang Wen's totally gonzo farce (which you were nevertheless able to appreciate more than myself). As you and I both know, "getting it" isn't completely necessary and doesn't always get in the way of enjoyment and appreciation. Being a relaxed and open-minded viewer doesn't always make one an expert, but hopefully it prepares them for being responsive, a quality we should all aspire to whether we find ourselves in or outside of our wheelhouses.

In my previous letter, I teased at an incredible viewing experience I had, and indeed it may be one my all-time favourite screenings. Let me start off by describing what is my new favourite place to sit and watch a...

One is written by Richard Matheson, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, directed by Roger Corman, and stars Vincent Price, while the other features Boris Karloff, Barbara Steele, and Christopher Lee—you’d be hard-pressed to find more star-studded horror lineups than those included in Tales of Terror and The Crimson Cult, two films coming out on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, the special features of which have been announced.

Here are the special features that are expected to be included on the Tales of Terror Blu-ray/DVD and The Crimson Cult Blu-ray, both of which are slated for an April release (bonus features via Kino Lorber):

Tales of Terror Blu-ray/DVD Bonus Features:

New on-camera Interview with Producer/Director Roger Corman New Audio Commentary by Film Historian Tim Lucas New Audio Commentary by Vincent Price Historian David Del Valle & Actor David Frankham Original Theatrical Trailer Maybe more...

Written by Richard Matheson, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, directed by Roger Corman, and starring Vincent Price in all three of its segments, 1962’s Tales of Terror features legendary names of the horror genre, and Kino Lorber has announced they are releasing the star-studded fright film, along with 1968’s The Crimson Cult (starring Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee), on Blu-ray next year.

In April of 2015, Kino Lorber will release Tales of Terror on Blu-ray/DVD and The Crimson Cult on Blu-ray. No special features have been announced at this time, but we’ll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further announcements.

Tales of Terror is also now available in the UK from Arrow Films as part of their Roger Corman/Vincent Price home media release package, Six Gothic Tales.

Tales of Terror (1962, synopsis via Blu-ray.com):

“This triple treat of terror is a three-episode “blood-dripping package that includes murder,...

With The Vincent Price Collection being released this week, we thought it would be a great opportunity to give our readers a look at a number of trailers featuring the horror icon. Yesterday, we gave you a look at Witchfinder General, and we now have the original trailer for The Haunted Palace:

“In this chilling adaption of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward” Charles Dexter Ward (Vincent Price) travels with his wife Ann (Debra Paget) to Arkham to inspect a mansion he has inherited. The original lord of the manor was his Great Grandfather Joseph Curwen a disciple of the devil who placed a hideous curse on the villages as they burned him at the stake. Slowly Ward feels the spirit of his ancestor possessing him and seeking a desperate vengeance on the descedants of those who previously thwarted his plans. Accursed mutants…evil possession…will...

Chicago – Few celebrities can be so easily defined by their first names as Marilyn and Elvis. They went beyond their professions to become cultural icons and three of their works have just been released this week on Blu-ray for the first time. While fans of Monroe and Presley will probably gravitate to “Bus Stop” and “Love Me Tender,” the best of the three is easily the underrated “Niagara,” a clever thriller that uses the notorious Falls in a way that Hitchcock probably respected. If you’re going to pick just one, that’s the one.

Maybe it’s because the other two are more based on romance and humor — two elements that date more than murder — but “Niagara” has easily held up the best of the three. I had heard over the years that it was often considered “lesser Monroe” and hadn’t seen it in years to be able to really form an opinion.

One of the centerpieces of this year's Bologna program is an Allen Dwan retrospective, "Noble Primitive," curated by Dave Kehr and Kevin Brownlow. So I am happily filling in some gaps -- well, actually there's almost nothing But gaps -- in my knowledge of the Dwan oeuvre (1885 -1981).  At 9:15 a.m., a particularly grim, dark, cheap, and interesting film maudit, "Most Dangerous Man Alive," 1961, which also happens to be the last film that he made (of 405! -- but then, in his earliest silent days, he was shooting a couple of one-reel Westerns a week).  A gangster escapes from prison in order to punish the fellow crooks who set him up, and en route stumbles into an atomic bomb test that renders him apparently invincible.   Peter von Bagh gleefully (and hyperbolically, and mischievously) tells me before it starts that it's "The best film in the festival!" I'm sitting with Jonathan Rosenbaum,...

On the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival with its focus on the films and filmmakers of Mumbai, the Tiff Cinematheque presents, as part of its fall offerings, a series on the relationship between German Expressionist films and those of Indian cinema pre-Bollywood. Renowned Indian cinema curator Meenakshi Shedde presents a programme that highlights the links between Indian and German filmmaking, and includes a slate of films that illustrate a fantasy India as seen in German films such as Franz Osten’s Light of Asia as well as films that inspired and influenced Indian cinema, such as Josef von Sternberg’s classic 1930 film The Blue Angel, which was remade by V. Shantaram as Pinjra in 1972.

Indian Expressionism runs at the Tiff Bell Lightbox from November 14 to 21. Film screenings include (all information via the Tiff Press Office):

Wednesday, November 14 at 6:15 p.m.

Light of Asia (Prem Sanyas/Die Leuchte Asiens)

Franz Osten,...

Indian films influenced by German expressionism will be screened at a series titled ‘Indian Expressionism’ at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Bell LightBox. The film package, curated by Indian critic and consultant, Meenakshi Shedde will run from 14th to 21st November, 2012.

German Expressionism refers to a series of creative movements in Germany prior to the First World War. The movement sought for change by experimenting with bold, new ideas and artistic styles.

The films to be screened are:

Light of Asia (14th November, 6:15pm)

Hindi: Prem Sanyas / German: Die leuchte asiens

Dir.: Franz Osten / Starring: Himansu Rai and Seeta Devi

Light of Asia (1925) is an Indo-German co-production based on the life of Buddha. This is a silent film with English intertitles.

The Blue Angel (14th November, 8:30pm)

German: Der Blaue Engel

Dir.: Josef Sternberg / Starring: Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings

The Blue Angel (1930) is a German film with English subtitles.

Historical accuracy is tossed overboard in this fierce drama of cigar-smoking, grog-drinking, bear-punching female pirates

Anne of the Indies (1951)

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Entertainment grade: C+

History grade: E

Anne Bonny was one of history's most famous female pirates, operating in the Caribbean in the early 18th century.

Films

Considering how kick-ass the real Anne Bonny's story is, it's surprising that this 1951 attempt by 20th Century Fox is one of the few efforts to turn her into a leading lady. Paul Verhoeven had a go in 1993 with a project called Mistress of the Seas, which was supposed to star Geena Davis as Bonny. Davis was lured instead to Renny Harlin's rival woman pirate movie Cutthroat Island, which sunk Verhoeven's project in development before spending all of Carolco Pictures' buried treasure and glugging its way down to the box-office equivalent of Davy Jones's Locker.

People

In Anne of the Indies,...

Elvis Presley: Double Elvis (Ferus Type) Elvis Presley as a cowboy as seen by Andy Warhol. Warhol's Presley Portrait "Double Elvis (Ferus Type)" will be sold to the highest bidder at Sotheby's on May 9. The 1963 portrait, owned by a "private collector," is expected to sell for anywhere between $30-50 million. As per Sotheby's, this is the first "Double Elvis" to appear on the market since 1995. And to think I had no idea there had ever been more than one Elvis despite his myriad imitators. In truth, Warhol painted 22 images of Elvis Presley, nine of which belong to various museum collections. Presley starred in about 30 films, mostly flimsy musicals (e.g., Blue Hawaii, Harum Scarum, Kissin' Cousins) featuring minor leading ladies as his love interest. Exceptions include the Westerns Love Me Tender (1956), with Richard Egan and Debra Paget, and Flaming Star (1960), with Barbara Eden and Dolores del Rio; the...

Actress Joan Taylor, best remembered for two sci-fi / horror B movies of the late 1950s, died March 4 in Santa Monica, in Los Angeles County. Taylor was 82. According to various sources, Taylor was born Rose Marie Emma in Geneva, Illinois, on August 18, 1929. She was the daughter of Austrian vaudeville player Amelia Berky and an Italian-born immigrant who later became a Hollywood prop man. Curiously, last Friday night I watched for the first time the 1957 Columbia release 20 Million Miles to Earth. Though wasted in a non-role in this King Kong rip-off with stop-motion animation by Ray Harryhausen, Taylor looked quite pretty (as an Italian) whether angry at leading man William Hopper (son of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) or screaming at the ballooning Martian creature. I guess it says something about her screen presence that I was rooting for the Martian Monster to gobble up the film's director (Nathan Juran), writers (Robert Creighton Williams...

DVD Playhouse—December 2011

By Allen Gardner

The Rules Of The Game (Criterion) Jean Renoir’s classic from 1939 was met with a riot at its premiere and was severely cut by its distributor, available only in truncated form for two decades until it was restored to the grandeur for which it is celebrated today. A biting comedy of manners set in the upstairs and downstairs of a French country estate, the film bitterly vivisects the bourgeoisie with a gentle ferocity that will tickle the laughter in your throat. Renoir co-stars as Octave. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Introduction to the film by Renoir; Commentary written by scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by Peter Bogdanovich; Comparison of the film’s two endings; Selected scene analysis by Renoir scholar Chris Faulkner; Featurettes and vintage film clips; Part one of David Thomson’s “Jean Renoir” BBC documentary; Video essay; Interviews with Renoir, crew members,...

Release Date: Dec. 13, 2011

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $27.99

Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Classic musical Stars and Stripes Forever, finally on high-definition Blu-ray, isn’t one of the biggest musical films, like Irving Berlin’s White Christmas or Holiday Inn, but it has cache. Released in 1952, Stars and Stripes Forever was nominated for three Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture Musical/Comedy.

The movie is a biography of 19th century composer John Philip Sousa (played by Clifton Webb, The Man Who Never Was), who is the leader of the Marine Corps Band in the 1890s. There he meets Private Willie Little (Robert Wagner, TV’s Two and a Half Men), the inventor of an instrument called the Sousaphone, and Little’s girlfriend, showgirl Lily (Debra Paget, Cleopatra’s Daughter).

After Sousa leaves the Marines, the three form a band. Although Sousa would rather write ballads, his marches bring him fame and success.

Just in time for the holiday, Stars and Stripes Forever makes its Blu-ray debut December 13th from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Based on the life of talented 19th century composer John Phillip Sousa, Stars and Stripes Forever is a good-hearted musical filled with show-stopping numbers. The film was highly acclaimed, receiving three Grammy Award nominations in 1953 including Best Motion Picture . Musical/Comedy. Stars and Stripes Forever is a 1952 film biography of composer John Philip Sousa. Clifton Webb stars as Sgt. Major John Philip Sousa, who while the leader of the Marine Corps Band in 1890.s, meets Private Willie Little (Robert Wagner), inventor of an instrument he calls the Sousaphone...and Little's girlfriend, shapely showgirl Lily (Debra Paget). The...

Random Acts of Dancing is an ongoing exploration of the weird, wild and obscure world of cinematic dance scenes.

Back when I wrote those “Getting Emotional with Movies” articles, I wasn’t consciously aware of any pattern to the films I chose. If an identifiable pattern did emerge, I figure the most obvious would be my predilection toward female characters who know how to move it like they mean it. (Check out the posts on Joy, Desire and Exhilaration for further information.) I have noticed, though, that often when I come across a dance number that tickles my fancy, it’s in a film that I didn’t necessarily expect one to pop up. Like Christina Ricci‘s tap dance in Buffalo ’66, or this scene from The GoodTimesKid:

In the interest of helping others discover the lesser-known instances of cinematic shaking and shimmying, I put together this random list of...

Originally released in two separate parts (Der Tiger von Eschnapur & Das Inische Grabmal) and shown to audiences over two consecutive nights, Fritz Lang’s complete Indian Epic finally makes its way into UK homes via this splendid new DVD release from Masters of Cinema (Spine #106 & 107).

Part one (Der Tiger von Eschnapur) introduces us to the leads that form the three points of the central love triangle in this 3 hour plus, two part epic, a Western architect Harald Berger (Paul Hubschmid), mixed race dancer Seetha (Debra Paget) and Maharaja Chandra (Walter Reyer). While the plot and much of the dramatic tension hangs on the friction in the relationships between these three characters there is a distinct lack of romance across the two films and it is one of the film’s few weaknesses, and perhaps one of Lang’s career in general. Although the romantic feelings between the characters may be...

If you think Quentin Tarantino invented the splitting up of one movie into two then think again. Although it’s a trend at the moment, Fritz Lang pulled this stunt way back in 1958 with his Indian Epic.

Believing audiences would be bored sitting through a movie pushing four hours he and the producers re-cut it into two instalments: The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. It's a strange reason, really, given it was produced during the age of the historical-religious epic.

Although leaving Nazi Germany for Hollywood in the mid 1930s and becoming a Us citizen Lang was enticed back to his homeland to make an exotic action adventure yarn set in India. After years of battling studios bosses and churning out, admittedly, excellent B-pictures, the project gave Lang an opportunity to paint a movie on a broad canvas much like he was allowed to do in the 1920s...

It should scare you that no one can definitively say that if The Ten Commandments were remade today that it wouldn’t have had a sequel in the works within a week of positive box office response. There was talks of making a sequel to The Passion of the Christ (no, I’m not joking – that idea is in fact still circling the drain of Hollywood); someone remade Ocean’s Eleven, and then, based on the fact that George Clooney and Brad Pitt just have too much chemistry to not sequel the idea into the ground, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen were made; and, for whatever reason, the long buried series of Indiana Jones was exhumed so its creators could give its corpse a good rogering. The point being, there was a time when films were made and their existence set in stone as to make them irreplaceable.

The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this two-part adventure epic directed by the legendary Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M, etc) in the UK for the first time on home video. Widely regarded as one of the most beautiful colour films in the history of cinema, Der Tiger von Eschnapur / Das indische Grabmal (Fritz Lang’s Indian Epic) is released on DVD on 18 April 2011.

See synopsis and disc details below:

Synopsis:

Fritz Lang returned to Germany on the eve of the 1960s to direct this enchanted penultimate work, a redraft of the diptych form pioneered in such silent Lang classics as Die Spinnen; Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler.; and Die Nibelungen. Although no encapsulating title was lent at the time of release to what is, effectively, a single 3-hour-plus film split in two, the work that has come to be referred to in modern times as “the Indian epic” (consisting...

Article by Dana Jung

In 1959 director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) released one of his last works, a two-part film known as The Indian Epic. The films (The Tiger Of Eschnapur and its sequel The Indian Tomb, both available on DVD but currently out of print) were part adventure and part travelogue. Today, these films are remembered (if at all) for two things: their incredible location photography, and the erotic dances of star Debra Paget. The scenes with a barely-clad Paget writhing seductively were considered so sexy at the time that the films received a write-up in Playboy magazine. But just five years earlier, as a 20th Century Fox contract player, Paget had played basically the same role (complete with dancing!) of an exotic beauty caught up in political turmoil. The film was the 1954 Fox B-picture Princess Of The Nile, which is sadly Not available on DVD.

The movie opens with...

Elvis Presley holds the throne as “The King” of rock n’ roll. Music was his forte, but he did dabble in film for awhile and the results were a mixed bag. In honor of his 75th birthday which he won’t be able to celebrate for himself (unless you’re an Elvis Lives conspiracy theorist), Fox has released the Elvis 75th Birthday Collection. Presented in 2.35:1 Widescreen (save for Kid Galahad in 1.85:1 and Frankie and Johnny in 1.66:1), the collection shows its age in a few places as Fox seems to have done little to remaster these classics, but overall it’s a nice look at the musician who would be an actor, even if the selection of films leaves a lot to be desired. If the set is good for anything it’s for showing his progress as an actor from his first film ever, Love Me Tender,...

Sneak Peek the greatest moments of American actress Debra Paget, under contract to Fox studios when she starred in the 1954 costume feature "Princess Of The Nile". Set in 1249, Paget played 'Princess Shalimar' an Egyptian princess who disguises herself as 'Tara' a dancing girl, to rid her country of 'Bedouin' conquerors and form an alliance with 'Prince Haidi', son of the 'Caliph of Bagdad'.

After playing 'Lilia' the watergirl in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", Paget moved to Germany, starring in director Fritz "Metropolis" Lang's "Journey To The Lost City", adding to her exotic dancing repertoire.

Sneak Peek Debra Paget...

Buy Posters at AllPosters.com...

Sneak Peek the greatest moments of American actress Debra Paget, under contract to Fox studios when she starred in the 1954 costume feature "Princess Of The Nile". Set in 1249, Paget played 'Princess Shalimar' an Egyptian princess who disguises herself as 'Tara' a dancing girl, to rid her country of 'Bedouin' conquerors and form an alliance with 'Prince Haidi', son of the 'Caliph of Bagdad'.

After playing 'Lilia' the watergirl in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", Paget moved to Germany, starring in director Fritz "Metropolis" Lang's "Journey To The Lost City", adding to her exotic dancing repertoire.

Sneak Peek Debra Paget...

Buy Posters at AllPosters.com...