News

More than a movie star: America’s one female Hollywood director working in the 1950s receives a four-title boxed set well worth the investment — one noir mini-masterpiece is accompanied by a pair of independent social issue movies better than what the studios were turning out. It’s all thanks to Lupino’s fine dramatic direction. She emphasizes basic human values: cooperation over competition, and interior conflict. Her company ‘The Filmmakers’ lasted only about six years, but as an independent experiment it consistently turned out ‘special’ pictures anybody could be proud of.

Ida Lupino Filmmaker Collection

Blu-ray

Not Wanted, Never Fear, The Hitch-Hiker, The Bigamist

Kl Studio Classics

1949-1953 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen (1) 1:37 Academy (3) / 91, 81, 71, 79 min. / Street Date September 24, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Leo Penn, Hugh O’Brian, Joan Fontaine, Edmond O’Brien, Ida Lupino, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman.

Cinematography: Henry Freulich; Archie Stout; George E. Diskant...

This moody, unsettling whodunnit benefits from sensitive cinematography, fine direction and a perfectly-cast group of players. Stephen Boyd gets a worthwhile starring role, backed by some good names and a nice debut from Judi Dench. What I don’t understand is why Pamela Franklin, possibly the most talented and versatile young English player ever, didn’t become a major star. She’s more than half the picture here.

The Third Secret

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1964 / B&W / 2:35 / 103 min. / / Street Date February 25, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £17.77

Starring: Stephen Boyd, Pamela Franklin, Diane Cilento, Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Paul Rogers, Alan Webb, Rachel Kempson, Freda Jackson, Judi Dench, Peter Copley, Nigel Davenport, Charles Lloyd Pack, Barbara Hicks.

Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe

Film Editor: Frederick Wilson

Original Music: Richard Arnell

Written and Produced by Robert L. Joseph

Directed by Charles Crichton

Trying to keep up a production schedule during the cash-flow crisis of Cleopatra,...

Ida Lupino was the first woman to direct a classic noir film. In fact, she was the only woman working within the 1950s Hollywood studio system to direct a feature and she directed seven features and more than 100 TV episodes. She was the only woman to direct episodes of the original “The Twilight Zone” series, as well as the only director to have starred in the show.

She was born in London on Feb. 4, 1918, during a German zeppelin bombing. Her father’s forbears were traveling players and puppeteers in Renaissance Italy. Later generations migrated to England in the 17th century. Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a noted comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald, was an actress who was also descended from a theatrical family. A cousin, Lupino Lane, was an internationally popular song-and-dance man.

As a child, she improvised and acted scenes with her younger sister, Rita, in a small...

The AFI Fest is free! And it takes place in the heart of Hollywood at the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. All you need is a ticket!SydneysBuzz is proud to be the official presenter of “The Hitch-Hiker” directed by Ida Lupino, one of the rare women directors in Hollywood in the 1950s and today being brought back to our collective consciousness by AFI!“The Hitch-Hiker”Ida Lupino

A deranged hitchhiker takes two all-American Everymen as hostages in the gripping film noir classic, “The Hitch-Hiker” by Ida Lupino, a pioneering director, writer, producer and actress who became the first woman to direct a film noir. She is one of a trio of diverse female trailblazers being celebrated in the 30th edition of AFI Fest presented by Audi. AFI Fest will also spotlight Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award® and Anna May Wong,...

With the exit from Iraq and the draw-down of troops in Afghanistan, the numbers of Americans killed continues to drop. Still, loved ones are mourning 311 lost, and as of Dec. 17, the wars' toll since 2001 now stands at 6,656. Edward Joseph Acosta, 21 Trevor Brandon Adkins, 21 Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, 46 Erica Paige Alecksen, 21 Tobias Christoph Alexander, 30 Joseph James Altmann, 27 Mabry James Anders, 21 Joshua Ryan Ashley, 23 Bradley Wayne Atwell, 27 Daniel Benjamin Bartle, 27 Jon-Luke Bateman, 22 Jonathan Batista, 22 Rayvon Battle Jr., 25 Taylor John Baune, 21 Jordan Logan Bear, 25 Clayton Ross Beauchamp, 21 Genaro Bedoy, 20 Bryan Richard Bell, 23 Russell Ryan Bell, 37 Jose Oscar Belmontes, 28 Kenneth Wade Bennett, 26 Keith David Benson,...

The good news about The Boy Behind the Gate by Larry Jacobson (Buoy Press, $27.95), a memoir about a gay man's actual five-year journey around the world by sailboat, is that it includes a wealth of detail about the journey, taken from actual emails and journal entries written during the journey itself.

The bad news about The Boy Behind the Gate is this wealth of detail.

On one hand, you have a very real sense of what Larry went though, the problems big and (mostly) small that a person might encounter on a journey sailing around the world.

On the other hand, the book isn't a "story," with a theme and a beginning, middle, and end, so much as a list of actual chronological events, some admittedly interesting, others not so much.

Worse, there isn't a enough detail about some of the most interesting things in the book, like Larry's relationship with Ken,...