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Janis Paige, who racked up more than 100 film, TV and stage credits over six decades including The Pajama Game, Silk Stockings and Santa Barbara, died June 2 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 101.

Her friend Stuart Lambert told The Associated Press about Paige’s death.

During her long career, Paige toured with Bob Hope and danced onscreen with Fred Astaire, along with originating the Babe Williams role in The Pajama Game on Broadway in 1954. That same year she headlined It’s Always Jan, a CBS sitcom about the problems of single-parenthood during which she usually sang a song. It lasted a single season.

Born Donna Mae Tjaden on September 16, 1922, in Tacoma, Wa, she began singing in talent shows at a tender age and moved to Los Angeles after graduating high school.

Paige made her Broadway debut in 1951 opposite Jackie Cooper in the mystery comedy Remains to Be Seen but...

They Came From Beyond Space, the Amicus Productions’ 60s sci-fi horror from the legendary director Freddie Francis is available to buy on Blu-ray for the first time and on DVD and digital formats from 8th March 2021. To mark the release we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

Starring Robert Hutton, Jennifer Jayne, Zia Mohyeddin and Bernard Kay They Came From Beyond Space was written by Milton Subotsky, the acclaimed screenwriter of Dr Who and the Daleks and Tales from the Crypt, adapted from the book ‘The Gods Hate Kansas’ by Joseph Millard. An enjoyably camp B-movie, the Amicus producers followed in the tradition of 50s classics such as Invasion of the Bodysnatchers adding some 60s kitsch-styling and ingenious low-budget special effects to this British retro treat.

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It’s another big-star MGM romantic comedy, and not exactly a classic. Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford pick their way through a travelogue story that seems made of leftovers from I Love Lucy, inventing flat-farce gimmicks to sex things up without offending the Production Code. What’s the movie most remembered for? It features the exotic concept car that became TV’s Batmobile.

It Started with a Kiss

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1959 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Eva Gabor, Gustavo Rojo, Fred Clark, Edgar Buchanan, Harry Morgan, Robert Warwick, Frances Bavier, Alice Backes, Carmen Phillips, Richard Deacon, Martin Garralaga, Robert Hutton, Morgan Jones, Joi Lansing, Marion Ross, Ralph Taeger, Carleton Young.

Cinematography: Robert J. Bronner

Film Editor: John McSweeney Jr.

Original Music: Jeff Alexander

Written by Charles Lederer story by Valentine Davies

Produced by Aaron Rosenberg

Directed by George...

Submarine movie evening: Underwater war waged in TCM's Memorial Day films In the U.S., Turner Classic Movies has gone all red, white, and blue this 2017 Memorial Day weekend, presenting a few dozen Hollywood movies set during some of the numerous wars in which the U.S. has been involved around the globe during the last century or so. On Memorial Day proper, TCM is offering a submarine movie evening. More on that further below. But first it's good to remember that although war has, to put it mildly, serious consequences for all involved, it can be particularly brutal on civilians – whether male or female; young or old; saintly or devilish; no matter the nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other label used in order to, figuratively or literally, split apart human beings. Just this past Sunday, the Pentagon chief announced that civilian deaths should be anticipated as “a...

April's Blu-ray and DVD releases are kicking off in a big way, as we have a lot of great genre releases to get excited for this week. Mike Mendez’s Don’t Kill It arrives on both formats April 4th as well as the cult classic Invasion of the Bee Girls, which makes its HD bow courtesy of Scream Factory. Mill Creek has put together a triple dose of terror with their Psycho Circus Triple Feature Blu-ray set, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is keeping busy with their releases of Ghost of New Orleans, A Room to Die For, and We Go On this Tuesday.

Other notable home entertainment titles arriving this Tuesday include The Evil Within, Tank 432, Don’t Hang Up and the DVD set for Medium: The Complete Series.

Don’t Kill It (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray & DVD)

When an ancient demon is accidentally unleashed in a...

This spring, Mill Creek Entertainment invites viewers to step right up to watch three vintage horror films—The Creeping Flesh, Brotherhood of Satan, and Torture Garden—in their Psycho Circus Blu-ray collection.

Blu-ray.com reports that Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Psycho Circus Blu-ray collection on April 4th. You can check out the official synopses, trailers, and cover art below.

From Mill Creek Entertainment: “Step Right Up And Experience The Triology Of Terror That People Are Dying To See!

The Creeping Flesh – (1973) – Color – 94 minutes – Rated PG

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing

A Victorian-age scientist returns to London with his paleontological bag-of-bones discovery from Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, when exposed to water, flesh returns to the bones unleashing a malevolent being on the scientist’s family and friends.

Brotherhood of Satan – (1971) – Color – 92 minutes – Rated PG

Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Charles Bateman, Ahna Capri

A family is trapped in a desert...

"Earth Given 24 Hours to Surrender!" Invisible murderous moon maniacs invade, with invisible troops and invisible flying saucers! John Agar, Jean Byron and John Carradine do their best to keep this underfed sci-fi turnip on its feet --- and we diehard monster fans love it. Invisible Invaders Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1959 / B&W /1:66 widescreen / 67 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring John Agar, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge, Robert Hutton, John Carradine, Paul Langton. Cinematography Maury Gertsman Film Editor Grant Whytock Original Music Paul Dunlap Written by Samuel Newman Produced by Robert E. Kent Directed by Edward L. Cahn

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

At the tail end of the '50s monster boom the pickings became lean indeed. For every killer matinee filler like The Blob or The Fly, cheap double bills encouraged by American-International's example became even cheaper. Producers at Columbia, Allied Artists and United Artists turned out...

Invisible aliens from the moon threaten to destroy all humankind on Earth, and it is up to scientist Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) to stop them in Invisible Invaders (1959), being released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber this summer.

On July 12th, Kino Lorber will release Invisible Invaders on Blu-ray. Directed by Edward L. Cahn from a screenplay by Samuel Newman, the film stars John Agar, John Carradine, Jean Byron, Philip Tonge, and Robert Hutton. In addition to a trailer gallery, special features on the Blu-ray will include a new audio commentary:

From Blu-ray.com: “Synopsis: Aliens, contacting scientist Adam Penner, inform him that they have been on the moon for twenty thousand years, undetected due to their invisibility, and have now decided to annihilate humanity unless all the nations of earth surrender immediately. Sequestered in an impregnable laboratory trying to find the aliens’ weakness, Penner, his daughter, a no-nonsense army major...

Horror comics and magazines filled my shelves as a kid, titles such as Creepy, Eerie, House of Secrets and The Witching Hour weakening my eyes and troubling my sleep. I simply could not get enough of them. However, when I discovered that there were films made in the same multistory, blood soaked spirit, well, I forgot about sleep altogether. My first stop was Creepshow (1982), and delighted with that, I made my way back through earlier (and gentler) excursions of terror. Step right up ladies and gentlemen! Enter the Torture Garden (1967), a carnival exhibit where the evils of man are laid before you…for a price.

Released by Columbia Pictures November ’67 in the U.K. and July ’68 in North America, Torture Garden was the second film of Amicus Productions (Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (’65) being the first) that followed the omnibus format. Amicus, started by producers Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky,...

Cary Grant films on TCM: Gender-bending 'I Was a Male War Bride' (photo: Cary Grant not gay at all in 'I Was a Male War Bride') More Cary Grant films will be shown tonight, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its Star of the Month presentations. On TCM right now is the World War II action-drama Destination Tokyo (1943), in which Grant finds himself aboard a U.S. submarine, alongside John Garfield, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton, and Tom Tully, among others. The directorial debut of screenwriter Delmer Daves (The Petrified Forest, Love Affair) -- who, in the following decade, would direct a series of classy Westerns, e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree -- Destination Tokyo is pure flag-waving propaganda, plodding its way through the dangerous waters of Hollywood war-movie stereotypes and speechifying banalities. The film's key point of interest, in fact, is Grant himself -- not because he's any good,...

Reviewed by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com

Torture Garden (1967)

Written by: Robert Bloch

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Cast: Burgess Meredith (Dr. Diablo), Jack Palance (Ronald Wyatt), Beverly Adams (Carla Hayes), Peter Cushing (Lancelot Canning), Maurice Denham (Uncle Roger), Robert Hutton (Bruce Benton), John Standing (Leo Winston), John Phillips (Eddie Storm), Bernard Kay (Dr. Heim), David Bauer (Mike Charles)

It goes without saying how much I love the Amicus and Hammer anthology films. So elegantly terrifying with a prim and proper British flair, I would love to see a film like that today. Not saying that there aren’t good anthologies made now, but I haven’t seen any that mined that perfect blend of EC comics pulp horror and some solid style as classically trained actors and actresses bring it to life. I can even look past all the neckerchiefs and high 1970’s fashion, in fact I kinda like it.

“Torture Garden...

1976 saw the publication of John Brosnan’s excellent book The Horror People. Written during the summer of 1975, it makes interesting reading 40 years down the line. Those who feature prominently in the book – Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, Jack Arnold, Michael Carreras, Sam Arkoff, Roy Ward Baker, Freddie Francis, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and Milton Subotsky – were still alive, as were Ralph Bates, Mario Bava, Jimmy Carreras, John Carradine, Dan Curtis, John Gilling, Robert Fuest, Michael Gough, Val Guest, Ray Milland, Robert Quarry and Michael Ripper, all of whom were given a mention. Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Junior, Michael Reeves and James H Nicholson were not long dead. Hammer, Amicus and American International Pictures were still in existence. George A Romero had yet to achieve his prominence and Stephen King wasn’t even heard of!

Brosnan devoted a chapter to a new British company called Tyburn Films. Founded by the charismatic and ambitious Kevin Francis,...

Jean Kent: British film star and ‘Last of the Gainsborough Girls’ dead at 92 (photo: actress Jean Kent in ‘Madonna of the Seven Moons’) News outlets and tabloids — little difference these days — have been milking every little drop from the unexpected and violent death of The Fast and the Furious franchise actor Paul Walker, and his friend and business partner Roger Rodas this past Saturday, November 30, 2013. Unfortunately — and unsurprisingly — apart from a handful of British publications, the death of another film performer on that same day went mostly underreported. If you’re not "in" at this very moment, you may as well have never existed. Jean Kent, best known for her roles as scheming villainesses in British films of the 1940s and Gainsborough Pictures’ last surviving top star, died on November 30 at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, England. The previous day, she had suffered a fall at her...

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...

Paul Henreid: From Eleanor Parker to ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (photo: Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in ‘Between Two Worlds’) Paul Henreid returns this evening, as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. In Of Human Bondage (1946), he stars in the old Leslie Howard role: a clubfooted medical student who falls for a ruthless waitress (Eleanor Parker, in the old Bette Davis role). Next on TCM, Henreid and Eleanor Parker are reunited in Between Two Worlds (1944), in which passengers aboard an ocean liner wonder where they are and where the hell (or heaven or purgatory) they’re going. Hollywood Canteen (1944) is a near-plotless, all-star showcase for Warner Bros.’ talent, a World War II morale-boosting follow-up to that studio’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, released the previous year. Last of the Buccaneers (1950) and Pirates of Tripoli (1955) are B pirate movies. The former is an uninspired affair,...

Eleanor Parker Now on TCM Palms Springs area resident Eleanor Parker, who turns 91 next June 26, is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June. One of the best actresses of Hollywood’s studio era, Parker isn’t nearly as well-remembered today as she should be despite three Best Actress Academy Award nominations (Caged, 1950; Detective Story, 1951; Interrupted Melody, 1955), a number of box-office and/or critical hits, and a key role in one of the biggest blockbusters of all time (The Sound of Music). Hopefully, the 34 Eleanor Parker movies TCM will be showing each Monday this month — beginning tonight — will help to introduce the actress to a broader 21st-century audience. Eleanor Parker movies "When I am spotted somewhere it means that my characterizations haven’t covered up Eleanor Parker the person. I prefer it the other way around," Parker once said. In fact, the title of Doug McClelland’s 1989 Eleanor Parker bio,...

They Came From Beyond Space

Stars: Robert Hutton, Jennifer Jayne, Zia Mohyeddin, Bernard Kay, Michael Gough, Geoffrey Wallace | Written by Milton Subotsky | Directed by Freddie Francis

Amicus has a history of horror and fantasy, be it their famous anthologies or the Doug McClure adventures with dinosaurs and beautiful women. They Came From Beyond Space brings a change to this, being a cross between Quatermass and The Avengers (the Steed and Emma Peel variety), with its storyline very similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers but much more eccentric, in a way that manages to make it quite unique especially from Amicus.

When a group of meteorites fall into a farm field in rural England Doctor Curtis Temple sends a group of scientists to look into them, one of these being his assistant and girlfriend Lee Mason. When he loses contact with the scientists he decides to take a trip to...

Following hot on the heels of the recent remastered re-releases of Hammer’s classic horror titles, another classic collection of titles, this time from celebrated horror house Amicus Productions, are set to make their debut on DVD in revived and digitally restored versions – Warlords of Atlantis, They Came From Beyond Space, At The Earth’s Core and The Land That Time Forgot. All of which are available to own individually from 30th July.

As the studio creators of some of Britain’s best fantastical horror titles, their spectacular styles and imaginative stories featuring man’s discoveries and subsequent battle against jaw dropping mythical creatures or extra-terrestrial life forms, have resulted in many of their films receiving cult status.

Warlords Of Atlantis

Aboard the Texas Rose, a professor of archaeology, his scientist son, and an engineer are on a quest to find the lost city of Atlantis. When a giant octopus attacks their ship,...