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Quick LinksRichard Harris Is Fondly Remembered For His Time as DumbledoreMajor Dundee Is an Underrated GemRichard Harris Cemented His Leading Man Potential

Typecasting is a very real fear for many actors. When taking on a role, performers are extremely conscious of how they will be viewed for the rest of their careers. In some cases, a single role will result in plenty more offers of similar material, without much room for growth. In other situations, a performance can help cement their legacy, while opening doors they may never have expected. This is especially true of big blockbuster filmmaking and genre pieces. Those that starred in Harry Potter very much have this same difficult tightrope to walk. On one hand, stars like Daniel Radcliffe have attempted to build a new foundation, with unique choices like a Weird Al biopic contributing to an impressive career.

Others, such as Alan Rickman, had a...

It’s a new deluxe Limited Edition of Sam Peckinpah’s mangled masterpiece, the third fancy boxed set in as many years. Arrow’s presentation is certainly got the edge in graphic elegance. They’ve also strived to include as many earlier extras as possible, plus new analytical-critical takes on the picture, and an excellent (and wickedly funny) visual essay from David Cairns. The disc has both of my commentaries, including the comprehensive one that details the missing scenes with information taken directly from Sam Peckinpah and Oscar Saul’s screenplay. And hey, you never know: this could be the year that Mitch Miller’s Singalong Gang makes an incredible comeback, and we can All fall in behind the Major.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / (2-Disc Limited Edition) / Street Date June 29, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters,...

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,...

The new [Imprint] label turns its attention to the Sam Peckinpah favorite, the almost-classic that suffered a number of setbacks — a studio regime change, impractical remote locations, the wrong producer — and a director with zero diplomatic skills, who couldn’t finish his script and fought political battles when his movie needed his full attention. That the finished film shows so much brilliance is a tragedy, as this could have been a landmark epic, Charlton Heston’s best. CineSavant turns its attention to a favored film one more time — to play imagination games with re-cuts. Viavision [Imprint]’s lavish boxed set is said to be sold out, but that may only be at the company source.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 11

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / Street Date October 28, 2019 / available at [Imprint] / $79.95 au

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong,...

Today’s noir forecast is vice, kidnapping, murder, suicide, narcotics and a sleazy stolen baby racket! Kino’s third volume of Universal-International pix contains two seldom-screened quality urban noirs. Expect genuine dark themes in these sizable-budget location noirs filmed before Universal pulled most production back onto its one-size-fits-all backlot sets. Barbara Stanwyck dominates one show, while noir stalwarts Richard Conte and Dennis O’Keefe anchor the other two dramas, with dynamic showings by Coleen Gray, Edith Barrett, Peggy Dow, Jeanette Nolan, Meg Randall and especially Gale Storm.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema III

Abandoned, The Lady Gambles, The Sleeping City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1949-50 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 79,99,86 min. / Street Date June 9, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.99

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Meg Randall, Raymond Burr, Marjorie Rambeau, Jeanette Nolan, Mike Mazurki, Will Kuluva, David Clarke; Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Preston, Stephen McNally, Edith Barrett, John Hoyt,...

Although only one of these 1950s B&w thrillers falls within a mile of a hard definition of film noir, all give us glamorous actresses in interesting roles. Claudette Colbert takes her turn at playing a nun, Merle Oberon tries a femme fatale role on for size and Hedy Lamarr does very well for herself as a man-hungry movie star. Kino gives all three excellent transfers, and one comes with an appropriately gossipy audio commentary.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema II

Thunder on the Hill, The Price of Fear, The Female Animal

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1951-58 / B&w / 1:37 Academy, 1:85 widescreen / 84,79,82 min. / Street Date May 12, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas, Anne Crawford, Connie Gilchrist, Gladys Cooper, Michael Pate, Phillip Friend; Merle Oberon, Lex Barker, Charles Drake, Gia Scala, Warren Stevens, Phillip Pine, Konstantin Shayne, Stafford Repp; Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell,...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Mangled Masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me about Twilight Time’s impressive Blu-ray back in 2013. This is the first time that the original uncut Preview-International version of Major Dundee has come to Blu-ray with its original soundtrack intact. The Two-Disc set includes a longform making-of docu from the prolific producer Mike Siegel, and the other extras make an extensive raid of our combined Dundee photo archives.

Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba)

Region-Free Blu-ray Mediabook

Explosive Media GmbH

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 121 min. / Sierra Charriba / Street Date December 12, 2019 / available at Amazon.de / 21,99 €

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Michael Pate, Karl Swenson, Begonia Palacios, Aurora Clavell.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt

Film Editors: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin...

The character setup in this classy noir potboiler couldn't be better, with Ida Lupino a sensation as the mountain lodge chanteuse who knows her way around men. For its first two acts the show is all but perfect. Road House Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark, O.Z. Whitehead, Robert Karnes, George Beranger, Ian MacDonald, Ray Teal. Cinematography Joseph Lashelle Film Editor James B. Clark Original Music Cyril J. Mokridge Written by Edward Chodorov, Margaret Gruen, Oscar Saul Produced by Edward Chodorov Directed by Jean Negulesco

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

For the first two-thirds of Jean Negulesco's Road House I thought I was seeing one of the best films noirs of the late 1940s, and even when it sagged at the end it came up with a pretty good score.

Curiously, with all the bold, ambitious, fresh talent storming into Hollywood in the 1960s/1970s – directors who’d cut their teeth in TV like Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer; imports like Roman Polanski and Peter Yates; the first wave of film school “film brats” like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese — one of the most popular genres during the period was one of Old Hollywood’s most traditional: the Western. But the Western often wrought at the hands of that new generation of moviemakers was rarely traditional.

During the Old Hollywood era, Westerns typically had been B-caliber productions, most of them favoring gunfights and barroom brawls over dramatic substance, and nearly all adhering to Western tropes which ran back to the pre-cinema days of dime novelist Ned Buntline. With the 1960s, however, the genre began to change; or, more accurately, expand, twist, and even invert.

To be sure, there would...