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Now that we can read the real story of the great silent actor and makeup magician Lon Chaney, the inaccuracies are fairly glaring in this well-received biopic about his career heights and difficult personal life. But it remains a compelling James Cagney movie, allowing the actor to try on different acting styles (and even a dancing style). The dramatic conflicts may be invented, but they’re compelling just the same. The movie works even as it represents Chaney’s original fantastic makeup creations with a series of ever-worsening rubber masks. Excellent supporting performances from Dorothy Malone, Jane Greer and Celia Lovsky. This one carries a good Tim Lucas commentary as well.

Man of a Thousand Faces

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1957 / B&w / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 122 min. / Street Date October 29, 2019 / Available from Arrow Video / 34.95

Starring: James Cagney, Dorothy Malone, Jane Greer, Marjorie Rambeau, Jim Backus, Robert Evans, Celia Lovsky, Jeanne Cagney, Jack Albertson.

It’s controversy in the Black Lagoon! Universal releases a much-desired box of all three Gill Man epics — but goes cheap on the encoding and hands us a 3-D rendering of Revenge of the Creature at half-resolution. When is a Blu-ray not a Blu-ray? When it’s not even full HD. And all that after commissioning a state-of-the-art 4k 3-D video remaster!

Creature From the Black Lagoon: Complete Legacy Collection

Creature from the Black Lagoon (3-D + 2-D), Revenge of the Creature (3-D) + 2-D, The Creature Walks Among Us (2-D)

Blu-ray

Universal Studios Home Entertainment

1954-1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 79, 82, 78 min. / Street Date August 28, 2018 / 39.98

Starring: Julie Adams, Lori Nelson, Leigh Snowden, Nestor Paiva, Richard Carlson, Jeff Morrow, John Agar, Rex Reason, Richard Denning, John Bromfield, Jeff Morrow, Greg Palmer…

and as the Gill Man: Ricou Browning, Ben Chapman, Don Megowan, others.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder; Charles S. Welbourne; Maury Gertsman

Film...

This devastating romantic melodrama is Max Ophüls’ best American picture — perhaps because it seems so European? It’s probably Joan Fontaine’s finest hour as well, and Louis Jourdan comes across as a great actor in a part perfect for his screen personality. The theme could be called, ‘No regrets,’ but also, ‘Everything is to be regretted.’

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Blu-ray

Olive Signature

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date December 5, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet, Art Smith, Carol Yorke, Howard Freeman, John Good, Leo B. Pessin, Erskine Sanford, Otto Waldis, Sonja Bryden.

Cinematography: Franz Planer

Film Editor: Ted J. Kent

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Written by Howard Koch from a story by Stefan Zweig

Produced by John Houseman

Directed by Max Ophüls

A young woman’s romantic nature goes beyond all limits, probing the nature of True Love.

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right Here for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

WWII in HD - Blu-ray Review

Roger Ebert recently made people aware of a video on YouTube called The Open Road London.

The film was taken decades ago. The hustle and bustle of life in the city is enough to make you think that even after all technology has done for us we’re still as busy as ever. The Beefeater who just saunters in the frame, the double-decker busses, the police directing traffic by hand, it’s all very quaint. The amusing thing about this full color...

Written by Scott Essman

The long-awaited release of Universal Studios’ 2010 version of The Wolfman conjures the history of the men who made the original horror films at the studio in the 1920s through the 1940s. Not only was the original 1941 film The Wolf Man key among them, but the rich history of the other films is directly tied into both why and how that film was created.

In 1928, after his father had appointed 21-year-old Carl Laemmle, Jr. as head of production at Universal Studios, the machinery was in place for a new wave of films based on classic horror stories. By 1931, the studio had both Dracula and Frankenstein as two of its greatest successes, and they followed those up with a few more early 1930s originals, including The Mummy and The Invisible Man.

By 1935, they had produced Werewolf of London, their first film based on the Loup-Garou stories from France...