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Shane, one of the greatest Western movies of all time, is finally coming to 4K Blu-ray. Kino Lorber is releasing the film in a two-disk 4K set this summer. A critical and commercial hit upon its release in 1953, Shane influenced many subsequent films, including the elegiac superhero Western Logan.

The disc features a brand new 4K transfer of the film, taken from a scan of its original 35mm camera negative. It also features the film's original theatrical trailer and two audio commentaries. That includes an all-new commentary by author and historian Alan K. Rode, who is writing a book on the film, and an archival commentary featuring George Stevens Jr. and associate producer Ivan Moffat. The set will also include a standard Blu-ray disc of the film. Shane will be released on July 14, 2025, and will retail for $29.89 Usd.

What Is 'Shane' About?

Shane stars Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire) as the title character,...

While some actors have gone out on a high note with extremely memorable final films, there are other performers whose final roles may surprise viewers. Whether they passed away or retired, it’s always sad to say goodbye to icons of Hollywood, although sometimes their final roles were overshadowed by other work in their acclaimed careers. In some cases, a late-career performance was so popular that many viewers wrongly think it was their final swansong, or other times, a lackluster final movie tarnished an actor's legacy so much that it was best just forgotten about entirely.

Even though some of these actors’ final movies weren’t their most memorable or acclaimed, it’s important to note that a great Hollywood career is based on the cumulative works of a performer, and no actor should be judged on their last performance alone. With this in mind, it’s also essential to...

There have been many stories about Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean bonding during the production of George Stevens’ epic “Giant” in Marfa, Texas, in 1955. Though not exactly a “Harold & Maude” scenario, the 24-year-old Dean also developed a strong friendship with Edna Ferber, the diminutive Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such classic novels as “So Big,” “Showboat,” “Cimarron,” and “Giant,” who turned 70 that summer in Marfa. Ferber, who never married, was seen sitting on the back of Dean’s motorcycle as they would take rides during breaks. And she even tried her hand at twirling the lasso.

Author Julie Gilbert, Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated grand nice and biographer (“Ferber: The Biography of Edna Ferber and Her Circle”), doesn’t think the two were in love. “He was very young,” said Gilbert, who writes about her great aunt and the making of the Oscar-winning film in her latest book “Giant Love” set for a Dec.

Hollywood’s postwar shift to social consciousness addressed familiar issues like bigotry and discrimination. On his way to making his gargantuan, serious epics, famed director George Stevens paused for this almost entirely forgotten contemplation of American anxiety in the business rat race, with a side order of alcoholism and potential adultery. Ray Milland is the troubled ad man who tries to help the drink-impaired actress, Joan Fontaine. Wife Teresa Wright waits patiently back home, but for how long? Is Stevens just dabbling in neorealistic doldrums, or did he feel the wave of dull existential despair as well? It’s one of his least-known films.

Something to Live For

All Region Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #199

952 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Street Date February 22, 2023 / Available from [Imprint] / au 34.95

Starring: Joan Fontaine, Ray Milland, Teresa Wright, Richard Derr, Douglas Dick, Harry Bellaver, Paul Valentine, King Donovan, Kasey Rogers, Douglas Spencer, Mari Blanchard.

Cinematography: George Barnes

Production Designer: Hal Pereira,...

“Bick, you shoulda shot that fella a long time ago. Now he’s too rich to kill.”

Giant, the 1956 classic film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean in his final role, will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital on June 21, it was announced today by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

George Stevens, Sr. won his second Oscar for directing the sweeping family saga set in Texas during the days of the oil boom. Based on Edna Ferber’s controversial novel, the movie’s release in 1956 was a massive box office hit and garnered 10 Academy Award nominations.

Considered by critics as ahead of its time, Giant is admired today for the breadth of its humanity more than its epic scale with its grand themes of generational conflict, racial tolerance, and social change. It exposed the marginalization and segregation of Mexican Americans for the first time on the big screen.

John Frankenheimer’s biggest production since Grand Prix turns the touchy subject of international terrorism into a frightening, outlandish story of a plot to kill thousands of spectators during one of America’s defining rituals, the Super Bowl. Black September operative Marthe Keller seduces disturbed Viet vet Bruce Dern into perpetrating the crime; Israeli agent Robert Shaw races to stop them. The super-crime is both outrageous and credible — making the show seem very modern, even prophetic. True to form, Frankenheimer filmed much of the movie’s final 40-minute suspense sequence during a real Super Bowl game.

Black Sunday

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 34

1977 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date February 23, 2021 / Available from Viavision / 34.95 au

Starring: Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Bekim Fehmiu, Fritz Weaver, Steven Keats, Michael V. Gazzo, William Daniels, Walter Gotell.

Cinematography: John A. Alonzo

Film Editor: Tom Rolf

Original Music: John Williams

Written by Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross, Ivan Moffat...

A bona fide film classic, George Stevens’ movie is less revered as an excellent adaptation of Theodore Dreiser than for its intense, almost hallucinatory romantic scenes between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. A guileless poor boy tries to succeed above his economic background and entangles himself between two very different women. I guess the Academy wasn’t ready to take the glamorous young MGM beauty seriously: both Clift and their co-star Shelley Winters received acting nominations, but not Liz. Stevens’ first ‘fifties picture is perhaps the most balanced of his ‘heavy’ and ‘important’ works, a tragedy that’s too deeply felt to be merely ponderous.

A Place in the Sun

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 8

1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 122 min. / Street Date August, 2020 /

Starring: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Keefe Brasselle, Fred Clark, Raymond Burr, Walter Sande, Ted de Corsia, Kathleen Freeman, Kasey Rogers, Douglas Spencer, Ian Wolfe.

Cinematography: William C. Mellor...

Killer Greek scenery in CinemaScope graces Jean Negulesco's relaxed thriller about art theft in the Aegean. But viewers are more likely to remember Sophia Loren's sexy wet diving costume that insured that her American debut didn't go unnoticed. Boy on a Dolphin Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date October 25, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Alan Ladd, Clifton Webb, Sophia Loren, Alexis Minotis, Jorge Mistral, Laurence Naismith, Piero Giagnoni, Gertrude Flynn, Marni Nixon (voice), Scilla Gabel (Loren underwater). Cinematography Milton R. Krasner Film Editor William Mace Original Music Hugo Friedhofer Written by Ivan Moffat, Dwight Taylor from the novel by David Divine Produced by Samuel G. Engel Directed by Jean Negulesco

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back when working on extras for The Guns of Navarone we saw documentation showing that Columbia Pictures had to jump through a lot of hoops with the Greek Royal Family...

A tyrant is trying to force decent people off their land to take it all for himself. The decent people are willing to stand their ground, but are looking for ways to avoid violence. They’re trying to teach their children not to solve matters with guns, and if something should happen to the men in battling this tyrant, their families would be left with nothing. Yet it becomes increasingly clear the tyrant must be stopped. Along comes a young man with the skills and resolve to do their killing for them, and with no apparently attachments to anyone else to leave behind. He’s their hero, their greatest hope; they can honor him, thank him, even give him work; but we can never truly repay the way he put his life on the line so that we might enjoy our freedom.

This is the plot of Shane, George Stevens’ 1953 western.

Cinema’s Hidden Pearls – Part II

By Alex Simon

One of nature’s rarest items, a pearl is produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a clam, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. Truly flawless pearls are infrequently produced in nature, and as a result, the pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.

Hidden pearls exist in the world of movies, as well: films that, in spite of being brilliantly crafted and executed, never got the audience they deserved beyond a cult following.

Here are a few more of our favorite hidden pearls in the world of film:

1. Massacre at Central High (1976)

Dutch director, and former cameraman for the legendary Russ Meyer, Rene Daalder was hired by producers to direct an exploitation...

Nearly 60 years after his death, James Dean is still mourned by millions of fans throughout the world. Despite only making three films – all of them for Warner Bros. – Dean became one of Hollywood’s most spectacular stars, and almost 60 years later still remains an internationally compelling force, an iconic image, and a cult favorite of timeless fascination.

On 28th October, 2013, Warner Home Video will release East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant (a George Stevens production), on remastered Blu-ray™ as the James Dean Ultimate Collector’s Edition – a limited and numbered six-disc set that boasts three feature-length documentaries about Dean’s life including James Dean Forever Young, narrated by Martin Sheen; American Masters James Dean Sense Memories and George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. Packaged in a double-wide gift set, the collection also contains a 48-page photo book with behind-the-scene images and rare insight into each film.

Blu-ray Release Date: Nov. 5, 2013

Price: Blu-ray $99.98, Individual Movies on Blu-ray $27.98 each

Studio: Warner Home Video

Rebel Without a Cause

The three feature films starring iconic actor James Dean have been remastered for their high-definition Blu-ray debut. East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant are available individually or together in the James Dean Ultimate Collector’s Edition.

Despite his fame, Dean’s career was short, with a number of TV appearances and starring roles in only these three movies.

In 1955′s East of Eden, based on John Steinbeck‘s novel, Dean plays young Cal Trask, who tries to win the affections of his father. 1955 brought out Rebel Without a Cause, about rebellious Jim Stark (Dean) who comes to a new town and makes friends and enemies. Dean’s last film, Giant, came out in 1956, the year after the actor was killed in a car acciden. In Giant, he plays oil tycoon Jett Rink,...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Home Video:

Burbank, Calif., August 6, 2013 — When he died in 1955 at the age of 24 in a car crash, James Dean was mourned by millions of fans throughout the world. Despite only making three films – all of them for Warner Bros. – Dean became one of Hollywood’s most spectacular stars, and 50 years later still remains an internationally compelling force, an iconic image, and a cult favorite of timeless fascination.

On November 5, Warner Home Video will debut East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant (a George Stevens production), remastered Blu-ray as the James Dean Ultimate Collector’s Edition – a limited and numbered six-disc set that boasts three feature-length documentaries about Dean’s life including James Dean Forever Young, narrated by Martin Sheen; American Masters James Dean Sense Memories and George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. Packaged in a double-wide gift set,...