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Basically obligated to make another Halloween sequel but hoping to leave Michael Myers behind, producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill decided to try to turn the franchise into an anthology series, where each film would tell a different story set on Halloween. Nigel Kneale was hired to write the initial script for what became Halloween III: Season of the Witch (watch it Here), and Carpenter and Hill’s pal Tommy Lee Wallace was hired to direct the film. After watching his movie get rejected by viewers when it was released in 1982 and then gain cult classic status over the decades, Wallace has taken it upon himself to write a tell-all book about the production of his Halloween sequel. The book is titled Halloween 3: Where the Hell is Michael Myers? – The Definitive History of Horror’s Most Misunderstood Film, and is going to be available from Bear Manor Media this November.

“I’m filthy — period!” With an ideal cast — Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone — director Douglas Sirk tells a tale with everything the ’50s wouldn’t allow — lust, nymphomania, impotence, the works. It’s perhaps Sirk’s most accomplished, self-contained masterpiece — a glamorous soap with absorbing characters caught in a cycle of unfulfilled desires. An oil dynasty comes tumbling down because the heir is “tortured by a secret that made him lash out at all he loved!” I keep expecting bathos, but this great show makes its world come alive.

Written on the Wind

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 96

1956 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 1, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch, Joseph Granby, Roy Glenn, Maidie Norman, William Schallert, Kevin Corcoran, Cynthia Patrick.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Art Directors: Robert Clatworthy,...

This CinemaScope musical remake of 1939’s The Women is highly watchable, especially in this flawless digital remaster. The actresses that bare their claws, compete for husbands and just plain cat-fight are a choice batch, with favorites from the ’50s the ’40s the ’30s — plus a few wildflowers that bloomed cinematically for only a few years (Dolores Gray) and one that somehow managed immortality (Joan Collins). It’s highly watchable despite, or maybe because of, its criminally outdated recipe for marital bliss. Did women really go for this fantasy — did anybody ever really live like this?

The Opposite Sex

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 116 min. / Street Date October 27, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Jeff Richards, Agnes Moorehead, Charlotte Greenwood, Joan Blondell, Sam Levene, Alice Pearce, Barbara Jo Allen, Sandy Descher, Carolyn Jones, Jerry Antes, Harry James, Art Mooney,...

All hail Frank Tashlin! America's subversive secret weapon of the 1950s made incredible adult live-action cartoon movies that satirized all the sex and vulgarity denied by the mainstream. In Technicolor! Political incorrectness meets lollypop-sweet sentimentality in a farce that transcends good taste. Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date April 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Alvy Moore, Glenda Farrell, Horace McMahon, Herb Vigran, Les Tremayne, Mara Lane, Maidie Norman, Rita Johnson, Ellen Corby, Red Skelton. Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca Film Editor Harry Marker Original Music Leigh Harline Choreographer Robert Sidney Written by Alex Gottlieb from a play by Gottlieb and Steve Fisher Produced by Harriet Parsons Directed by Frank Tashlin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Director Frank Tashlin has finally found an appreciative audience with adventurous film fans, but the charms of his glorious style of filmmaking are unknown to...

First-time director Richard Wilson's B&W '50s western is different. Robert Mitchum is on-task as a town tamer with believable problems, both in exterminating gunslingers Claude Akins and Leo Gordon, and with making peace with his estranged wife, Jan Sterling. That's not to mention Mitchum's attraction for pacifist Karen Sharpe, and ditzy showgirl Barbara Lawrence. And don't forget an incredibly young Angie Dickinson. Man with the Gun Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1955 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 83 min. / Deadly Peacemaker / Street Date September 25, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Robert Mitchum, Jan Sterling, Karen Sharpe, Henry Hull, Emile Meyer, John Lupton, Barbara Lawrence, Ted de Corsia, Leo Gordon, James Westerfield, Jay Adler, Claude Akins, Joe Barry, Norma Calderón, Angie Dickinson, Mara McAfee, Maidie Norman, Robert Osterloh, Maudie Prickett, Stafford Repp. Cinematography Lee Garmes Film Editor Gene Milford Original Music Alex North Written by N.B. Stone Jr., Richard Wilson Produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr....