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The UK disc purveyors Powerhouse Indicator are back with a second installment of Region B Film Noir goodies from the darker end of the Columbia Torch Lady’s film vault. This time around we have a couple of Femme Fatale thrillers (does she or doesn’t she?), a trio of organized crime mellers, and a hit man saga so minimalist, it’s almost avant-garde. The icing on the noir cake is the curated selection of extras, plus the absurd counter-programming of Three Stooges short subjects. Why did nobody think to cast Moe, Larry and Shemp as cold-blooded Noir hit men?

Columbia Noir #2

Region B Blu-ray

Framed, 711 Ocean Drive, The Mob, Affair in Trinidad, Tight Spot, Murder by Contract

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen & 1:37 Academy / Street Date February 15, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Broderick Crawford, Richard Kiley, Rita Hayworth,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Braguino (Clément Cogitore)

Le Cinéma Club excels in presentation—opening their clean website every Friday reveals a free, new, conveniently sized film playing alongside original written content—but more important is their reach: time and again they’re screening unavailable, underseen, sometimes thought-missing work by auteurs established and upcoming alike. Their current program concerns recent documentaries—starting today is French filmmaker Clément Cogitore’s Braguino, which surveys two rival families in images merging you-are-there immediacy with stunning high-definition clarity. At 49 minutes the experience is ideal for your dense quarantine lineup. – Nick N.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Columbia Noir

To celebrate their one-year anniversary, The...

At first blush, I thought that John Ford moment in Roland Emmerich’s Midway was surely over-the-top, a parody, like the semi-silly Bruce Lee bit in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But why interrupt a deadly serious war film with what seemed to be a comic walk-on by a famous movie director, shouting orders and eager for action (or “Action!”)

So I trekked (again) to the Film Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, to learn where Ford actually fit in the Midway battle.

Apologies to Emmerich. I stand corrected. His brief portrayal of Ford at Midway in June 1942 was, if anything, understated.

Film scholars will know, but I only discovered, that John Ford—whose filmmaking career is among the most heavily chronicled in Hollywood history, with over two dozen biographies currently on the shelf—really was directing the action at Midway. A Navy commander on assignment to the Office of Strategic Services,...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

This obscure 1972 thriller features excellent performances by Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed, and marks the feature debut of the great director Michael Apted. The wartime home front drama takes a surprisingly precocious and sensitive view of a bizarre incident that probably happened in real life: to escape his military service, a reluctant soldier cross-dresses as a woman.

The Triple Echo

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1972 / Color / 1:85 / 94 min. / Soldier in Skirts / Street Date March 25, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £18.36

Starring: Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, Brian Deacon, Anthony May, Gavin Richards, Jenny Lee Wright.

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Film Editor: Barrie Vince

Original Music: Mark Wilkinson

Written by Robin Chapman, from the story by H.E. Bates

Produced by Graham Cottle

Directed by Michael Apted

Billy Wilder would have given the makers of The Triple Echo cautioning advice about putting male actors in drag and passing them off as women: it’s a...

A sleek and smart sci-fi thriller that vanished into the cosmos due in part to the supernova that was 2001. Known as Doppelgänger in its original British release, the film starred Roy Thinnes as an astronaut with space-time continuum problems. Directed by Robert Parrish, the film was produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson of Supercar fame – which explains the obsessive attention to detail.

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