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Disney opens animation ‘Wish’; indie titles include ‘The Eternal Daughter’, ‘Girl’.

Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon becomes the widest release ever in the UK and Ireland for Sony, starting in 716 cinemas this weekend.

The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the early 19th century French leader, tops the 690-location opening of Whitney Houston biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody from December 2022.

Written by David Scarpa – who previously collaborated with Scott on All The Money In The World – Napoleon tells the story of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power, and his relationship with Empress Josephine, played in the film...

Here’s a highly suspenseful thriller with fine characterizations, set in a grim but meaningful place — Fascist Spain in the late 1950s, when Franco’s operatives still hold the country in a tight grip. The very modern story (by Emeric Pressburger) is also timeless: the old lost-cause warrior takes on one last mission into enemy territory. Gregory Peck (he’s good) is the legendary raider on a mission to kill an old enemy, Anthony Quinn.

Behold a Pale Horse

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1964 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Street Date July 29, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin, Paolo Stoppa, Mildred Dunnock, Daniela Rocca, Christian Marquand, Marietto Angeletti, Perrette Pradier, Zia Mohyeddin, Rosalie Crutchley, Michael Lonsdale, Martin Benson, Claude Berri, Albert Rémy, Alan Saury.

Cinematography: Jean Badal

Original Music: Maurice Chevalier

Written by J.P. Miller from a novel by Emeric Pressburger

Produced by Gregory...

He’s fast on his feet, quick with a gun, and faster with the to-die-for beauties that only existed in the swinging ’60s. The superspy exploits of Oss 117 were too big for just one actor, so meet all three iterations of the man they called Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath . . . seriously.

Oss 117 Five Film Collection

Blu-ray

Oss 117 Is Unleashed; Oss 117: Panic in Bangkok; Oss 117: Mission For a Killer; Oss 117: Mission to Tokyo; Oss 117: Double Agent

Kl Studio Classics

1963-1968 / B&W and Color / 1:85 widescreen + 2:35 widescreen / 528 min. / Street Date September 26, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95

Starring: Kerwin Matthews, Nadia Sanders, Irina Demick, Daniel Emilfork; Kerwin Matthews, Pier Angeli, Robert Hossein; Frederick Stafford, Mylène Demongeot, Perrette Pradier, Dominique Wilms, Raymond Pellegrin, Annie Anderson; Frederick Stafford, Marina Vlad, Jitsuko Yoshimura; John Gavin, Margaret Lee, Curd Jurgens, Luciana Paluzzi, Rosalba Neri, Robert Hossein, George Eastman.

Cinematography: Raymond Pierre Lemoigne...

Review by Roger Carpenter

After cutting his teeth on a couple of spaghetti westerns (Django Defies Sartana; Death’s Dealer), director Pasquale Squitieri moved into the popular gangster genre with Gang War in Naples and Blood Brothers, this last film including the all-star cast of Claudia Cardinale, Franco Nero, and Fabio Testi. He then directed The Climber (1975) , a story about a young, cocky hood who climbs his way up the mafia ladder.

Cult actor Joe Dallesandro stars as the cocky hoodlum, Aldo. Dallesandro had just completed Warhol’s Dracula and Frankenstein films and had decided to stay in Europe. He was riding a crest of popularity and had no trouble finding work. Squitieri was happy to pick him up for this film, alongside co-star Stefania Casini (Warhol’s Dracula, Bertolucci’s 1900, as well as Suspiria).

The film opens with Aldo making off with a load of stolen cigarettes from the docks of Naples.

Dimitri Kirsanoff's 1926 classic Ménilmontant, which is either a short feature or a very long short, is one of the great things. If you haven't already seen it, you have just been handed an urgent mission.Related to the impressionist school of Epstein, Dulac, amd Delluc, but not actually part of that gang or, seemingly, associated with any school, movement or company, Kirsanoff, an Estonian emigré, fashioned a silent film without intertitles that plays like an unholy mash-up of Chaplin and David Lynch.But little of Kirsanoff's other work is seen or discussed. A few lovely shorts are available on YouTube, but what became of him when he was absorbed into the film industry and had to become a professional?Le crâneur (The Hotshot) is the answer. It's a fifties crime movie inhabiting a world familiar to cinephiles from the movies of Jean-Pierre Melville, only the gangsters don't wear white...

'Being Julia' movie: Annette Bening and Shaun Evans 'Being Julia' movie review: Annette Bening showcase tells us a little about Avice A little Being Julia movie background: In Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1950 Oscar-winning classic All About Eve, Bette Davis plays Margo Channing, a major Broadway star who, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, falls prey to the youthful, ambitious wannabe Eve Harrington: sweet, soft-spoken Anne Baxter on the outside; ruthless, poisonous gargoyle on the inside.* More than a decade earlier, in 1937 to be exact, W. Somerset Maugham had written Theatre, a novel about West End diva Julia Lambert. In Maugham's tale, Julia, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, succumbs to her vanity when she falls madly in love with Tom Fennel, a handsome – and deceptively innocent-looking – American half her age. Through Tom's "special friendship" with the renowned Julia, an ambitious young actress,...