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January 2025 could mark a bleak month for very specific reasons, but in that month one can watch a nicely curated collection of David Bowie’s best performances. Nearly a decade since he passed, the iconic actor (who had some other trades) is celebrated with The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Linguini Incident, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Basquiat. (Note: watch The Missing Pieces under Fire Walk with Me‘s Criterion edition for about three times as much Phillip Jeffries.) It’s a retrospective-heavy month: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Crowe, Ethan Hawke, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Paolo Sorrentino, and Sean Baker are given spotlights; the first and last bring with them To Die For and Take Out‘s Criterion Editions, joining Still Walking, Hunger, and A Face in the Crowd.

“Surveillance Cinema” brings Thx 1138, Body Double, Minority Report, and others, while “Love in Disguise” offers films by Lubitsch,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

The noir titan Robert Siodmak is subject of a new retrospective.

Film Forum

A celebration of Marlon Brando’s centennial has begun.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings 35mm prints of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala, 1994’s Little Women, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller on Ib Technicolor; John Denver & The Muppets screens Saturday and Sunday.

IFC Center

It’s a Wonderful Life and a 4K restoration of Carrie plays daily; 2001, Spider Baby, Reservoir Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Tokyo! show late.

Museum of Modern Art

A dual celebration of Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni begins.

Anthology Film Archives

A look at Robert Frank and his influences begins, while two of Hollis Frampton’s best films screen in Essential Cinema.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Robert Siodmak, Marlon Brando, Tokyo! & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News Emilia Pérez.Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (2024) leads the Golden Globe film nominations with ten, including for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress. On its heels are Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2024) with seven nominations and Edward Berger’s Conclave (2024) with six. The January 5 ceremony will be hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser. The year-end list season has begun in earnest. Check out Adam Nayman’s list of the top 10 films of the year at The Ringer, plus Bilge Ebiri’s and Alison Willmore’s respective rankings over at Vulture, which also hosts John Waters’s picks. Meanwhile, Sight and Sound and NME have shared their contributor-solicited lists as well.A new...

Director Robert Siodmak and actress Ella Raines both had a hell of a busy 1944, even by workhorse studio-system standards. Raines, a striking, slightly opaque beauty who had made her movie debut just a year earlier, appeared in five features, including the Preston Sturges classic-in-waiting Hail The Conquering Hero and the...

Burt Lancaster could be just about anything you needed him to be — except small. He was not towering at 6'1", but he sure made it look that way on screen. Whether smiling or glowering, good natured or pure evil, there was a formidable bearing to Lancaster. But he did not lumber. God no, he was as graceful as a circus acrobat because, well, he was one. How dare a man so sturdy be so damn limber. And golden. And beautiful.

Lancaster's acting career was as remarkable as his absurdly perfect physicality. He made his motion picture debut in a stone-cold classic, and was one of the most popular movie stars on the planet for well over a decade. Lancaster worked too frequently to not slip up on occasion, but he generally exhibited great taste, particularly as a producer. His partnership with Harold Hecht (and later James Hill) yielded three Best...

Welcome to the dark side of the American dream.

The best film noir movies of all time are visions of a universally known truth not always spoken out loud: It can be really hard to live in America, and if you don’t have money, you have nothing. If Westerns are about “manifest destiny,” film noir is about what comes after. If you do finally get the swimming pool, you might end up face-down dead in it, like poor William Holden’s struggling screenwriter in “Sunset Boulevard.” Or you may have entered a miserable marriage to get your gilded palace. In film noir, you might have that gilded palace all to yourself if you’re willing to murder for it. Take a look at “Double Indemnity.” This genre is all about recognizing that some success in America might not be attainable through legal means, and so working outside the law becomes a tantalizing temptation,...

Billy Wilder was the six-time Oscar winner who left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.

After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, earning Oscar nominations for penning 1939’s “Ninotchka” and 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn” and “Ball of Fire.” He...

The most notorious unmade Stanley Kubrick project is probably his "Napoleon," a massive biopic that the director infamously researched for years. In 2012, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted a Kubrick exhibit, and guests were permitted to see Kubrick's filing cabinet where he stored thousands of hand-written notecards, each one detailing a single day in Napoleon Bonaparte's life. Kubrick worked on "Napoleon" in the 1970s, and claimed he wanted Jack Nicholson to play the part. Kubrick wrote a screenplay, secured filming locations in Romania, and was all ready to go. The 1970 film "Waterloo" bombed, however, and the then-recent film version of "War and Peace" threatened to flood the market with too much Napoleon. A lot of Kubrick's "Napoleon" research went into the production of 1975's "Barry Lyndon." 

Kubrick's unrealized projects are plentiful. Audiences may also know all about Kubrick's plans to make "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" near the end of his life,...

Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.

Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.

New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.

Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.

Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...

April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.

One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

A furious yet resiliently hopeful documentary about white America’s long and ongoing history of colonizing the Očeti Šakówin (along with the rest of this land’s indigenous people), Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli’s vital “Lakota Nation vs. United States” doesn’t waste any of its 121 minutes, but it also boasts a number of moments that effectively squeeze the film’s entire perspective into a single unforgettable image.

Chief among them: The shot of some Maga jackass at the foot of Mt. Rushmore as they greet anti-Trump protestors at the ex-president’s 2020 Independence Day event while dressed in an American flag t-shirt and holding a sign that simply reads “Fuck You.” After all, that succinct little phrase has essentially been the entire platform since America was first christened as such. At this rate, the Republican party will probably adopt it as its official slogan by 2028.

“Fuck You” was...

Christian Petzold, the director of the well-timed summer movie Afire with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I’m really sure that we don’t have summer movies. The Americans have summer movies, the French have summer movies.”

Christian Petzold’s slow-burning Afire, shot by Hans Fromm, stars Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, and Matthias Brandt.

Nadja (Paula Beer) with Devid (Enno Trebs), Felix (Langston Uibel), and Leon (Thomas Schubert) in Afire

A scene in Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember (with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr); Sophie Calle’s Voir La Mer and Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs; Astrid Lindgren; a Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre touch; Uwe Johnson’s Mutmassungen über Jakob and Margarethe von Trotta’s Jahrestage series; Johan Wolfgang von Goethe; a Nanni Moretti quote; meeting Paul Dano’s Wildlife cinematographer Diego García (Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery Of Splendor) in Tel Aviv; Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak,...

From The Big Red One to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, some Lee Marvin movies rank among the greatest films ever made. Marvin first rose to prominence in the 1950s and early 1960s with his villainous roles as “the heavy” in Westerns and film noirs, but he eventually transitioned into lead roles and revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking with the introduction of the antihero. Marvin’s most iconic characters, like Walker in Point Blank and Major John Reisman in The Dirty Dozen, helped to bring morally gray protagonists into mainstream productions, paving the way for characters like John Wick and Snake Plissken.

Throughout his storied career, Marvin won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Film Award, and a Golden Globe. Decades after he passed away, Marvin remains a timeless icon of the silver screen whose performances continue to thrill audiences to this day. Marvin is one of the few “tough guy” movie stars to have real-life grit,...

Throughout the history of cinema, numerous directors have left their unique and indelible mark on the industry. One such director is Fritz Lang, a visionary filmmaker whose groundbreaking work continues to influence and inspire generations of artists. In this article, we will explore the cinematic legacy of Fritz Lang, with a particular focus on his body of work known as the “Long Fritz.” We will delve into his early life and influences, examine his most iconic films, and discuss the lasting impact of his innovative directing style on film noir and modern cinema.

Introduction to Fritz Lang and the Long Fritz

Fritz Lang, born in Austria in 1890, was a pioneer of German Expressionist cinema and an early architect of film noir. His groundbreaking work in the 1920s and 1930s laid the foundation for what would later become known as the “Long Fritz” – an extensive body of work that spans a wide range of genres,...

Gabrielle Upton, who wrote the screenplay for the classic California surfing movie Gidget, starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson and James Darren, has died. She was 101.

Upton died Sept. 13 in Santa Rosa, California, her daughter, Greer Upton, told The Hollywood Reporter. News of her death had not been reported until now.

A three-time WGA Award nominee, Upton wrote for such network shows as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour/Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey, Convoy, One Step Beyond, The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, The Virginian, The Big Valley and The High Chaparral.

She also worked on several daytime soap operas during her career, including Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow, The Secret Storm and Love of Life.

After Frederick Kohner took a crack at adapting his best-selling 1957 novel Gidget, the Little Girl With Big Ideas for Columbia Pictures’ Gidget (1959), Upton came on and received sole screenplay credit.

February, marking both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, is the kind of stretch from which a programmer can mine plenty. Accordingly the Criterion Channel have oriented their next slate around both. The former is mostly noted in a series comprising numerous features and shorts: Shirley Clarke and William Greaves up to Ephraim Asili and Garrett Bradley, among them gems such as Varda’s Black Panthers and Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground; a six-film series on James Baldwin; and 10 works by Oscar Micheaux.

Meanwhile, the 23-film “All You Need Is Love” will cover the blinding romance of L’Atalante, the heartbreak of Happy Together, and youthful whimsy of Stolen Kisses; four Douglas Sirk rarities should leave their mark, but I’m perhaps most excited about three starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Perhaps more bracing are 12 movies by Derek Jarman and four by noir maestro Robert Siodmak. Also a major...

Powerhouse Indicator’s first foray into the Universal library yields six noir thrillers, all crime-related and all different: the list introduces us to scheming businessmen, venal confidence crooks, black-market racketeers, a femme fatale, a gangster deportee and baby stealers. The B&w features are enriched with some of the best actors of the postwar years, and the titles themselves are a litany of vice and sin: The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported and Naked Alibi.

Universal Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported, Naked Alibi

Powerhouse Indicator

1948-1954 / B&w / Street Date November 14, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, Vincent Price, William Bendix; John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelly Winters, Dorothy Hart; Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton; Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Raymond Burr; Marta Toren, Jeff Chandler, Marina Berti, Richard Rober; Sterling Hayden,...

It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.

Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...

Humble Marty Piletti finally gets to home video in its proper widescreen format. Paddy Chayefsky’s TV play-turned theatrical feature really shines in Kino’s new 4K remaster. The performances of Betsy Blair and especially Ernest Borgnine provide the gentle magic, as non-glamorous Bronx-ites learn that two lonely people can find romance. It’s a winning formula and a thoughtful meditation on social reality in the pursuit of happiness. With a new audio commentary by Bryan Reesman and Max Evry.

Marty

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1955 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen + 1:37 flat open matte / 90 94 min. / Special Edition / Street Date July 19, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Joe Mantell, Esther Minciotti, August Ciolli, Karen Steele, Jerry Paris, Frank Sutton, James Bell, Jack Klugman.

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Art Directors: Ted Haworth, Walter Simonds

Editing Supervisor: Alan Crosland Jr.

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by Paddy Chayefsky from his teleplay

Produced by Harold Hecht,...

“Woman Warriors in Brutal Death Battle!” This adventure thriller has no reputation to speak of, and is mainly notable as a strange chapter in the topsy-turvy life of Curt Siodmak, who as a producer-writer-director, filmed this and another equally absurd jungle romp on location in Brazil. How Siodmak got these pictures going is a mystery — they received national releases, in Technicolor through Universal-International. CineSavant makes its best, wholly un-researched guesses, breaking all the rules of ethical film reportage. But honest, this is the jungle fantasy populated by Amazon warriors — all painted green.

Love Slaves of the Amazons

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 81 min. / Street Date June 14, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Don Taylor, Gianna Segale, Eduardo Ciannelli, Harvey Chalk, Wilson Viana, Eugenio Carlos, Tom Payne, Gilda Nery, Ana Maria Nabuco, John Herbert, Louis Serrano — and Paul Frees, times six.

Cinematography: Mario Pagés

Art Director: Pierino Massenzi

Film Editors: Oswald Hafenrichter,...

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“Our Town With Unions”

By Raymond Benson

This is a little-known gem of a film from producer Louis de Rochemont, the man best known for introducing The March of Time documentary newsreels to cinemas that ran from the 1930s until the early 1950s. He also produced several mainstream pictures, and one of these from 1951, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, is an underdog-battles-severe-odds tale of the highest caliber.

Directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Whistle might be described as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, only with unions. Yes, this is a union drama along the lines of On the Waterfront or, much later, Norma Rae.

In a tight 96 minutes, Siodmak brings us a riveting story—the kind that gets an audience riled up against the injustices thrown at a protagonist. The suspense builds to a breaking point as we wonder how it...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Japan Society

Ghost in the Shell kicks off “Monthly Anime.”

Film at Lincoln Center

The thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features have their last weekend until May—highlights include Tale of Cinema on 35mm and a triple-feature on Sunday.

IFC Center

The new restoration of Inland Empire continues, while Mississippi Masala starts; Eraserhead, The Crow, Twilight, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.

Roxy Cinema

A Nick Zedd program screens Friday; Death in Venice, Traveling Light, and prints of Unstoppable and Lady Terminator play on Saturday; Death in Venice and Unstoppable also play on Sunday, alongside a Yale Film Archive program.

Museum of Modern Art

As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix winds down, Buñuel’s Nazarin screens in a new restoration.

Metrograph

The Robert Siodmak retrospective winds down, while three Dracula movies play in...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A series of thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features has begun.

IFC Center

The new restoration of Inland Empire is now playing, while Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Mamma Mia!, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.

Roxy Cinema

A 35mm-heavy Alex Ross Perry retrospective is underway; a print of Lady Terminator plays on Saturday; prints of River’s Edge and The Seventh Seal play on Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix and films by Larry Clark continue, The Birds has a screening.

Metrograph

The Robert Siodmak retrospective continues, as does “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen; Eden and After plays in Left Bank Cinema; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights.”

Anthology Film Archives

The Hong-Kong-a-Thon returns, while programs screen in “Essential Cinema.

TCM premiered a welcome restoration of this honorable Louis de Rochemont drama last year, and now it’s on a pristine-quality Blu-ray. Almost an ‘anti- film noir,’ the story of a labor conflict in a tiny New England hamlet is a docu-drama that actually has a positive, if not Utopian, ending. Fine direction by Robert Siodmak breathes life into the thesis that Yankee ingenuity and ethical fair play can still save the day. A superb underdog cast — Lloyd Bridges, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan, Russell Hardie, Helen Shields, Doro Merande, Diana Douglas, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine, Arthur O’Connell and even Dorothy Gish — bring this odd ‘Pepperidge Farms’ neo-realist tale to life.

The Whistle at Eaton Falls

Blu-ray

Flicker Fusion

1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date March 15, 2022 / Richer Than the Earth / Available from Flicker Alley / 24.95

Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of Modern Art

Peter Bogdanovich’s very funny, never-before-seen Squirrels to the Nuts has an exclusive run (about which more here), while a retrospective of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix is underway.

Metrograph

A Robert Siodmak retrospective has started, as has “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen, while Resnais, Demy, and Marker lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Powell-Pressburger and Ray; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights“; Charles Grodin is paid tribute with screenings of Midnight Run and Clifford.

Anthology Film Archives

A series on imageless films—featuring Hollis Frampton, Guy Debord, and Derek Jarman—is underway while some of Buster Keaton’s greatest works screen in “Essential Cinema.”

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSian Heder's Coda took home the Best Picture award at the 94th Academy Awards, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car took Best International Feature, and Jane Campion won Best Director for The Power of the Dog. Find more of this year's Oscars winners here. We're saddened by the loss of Japanese filmmaker Shinji Aoyama, who recently died at the age of 57. Most revered for his 2000 film Eureka, about a trio who embark on a road trip after surviving a bus hijacking, Aoyama continued his humanist exploration of violence, family, and generation gaps in films like Desert Moon (2001) and Sad Vacation (2007), the loose sequel to Eureka. He was also a prolific novelist and critic, with his novelization of Eureka awarded the Yukio Mishima prize in 2001. Il Cinema Ritrovato has announced the programs of this year's festivities,...

It’s the most impressive ‘new’ movie we’ve seen this year: Robert Siodmak’s 1957 political thriller fictionalizes a true mass murder case in 1943 Berlin — one that a high-ranking Nazi wants to justify the extermination of ‘undesirables’ for the furtherance of Aryan white supremacy. The snapshot of home-front Berlin is fascinating, and also the depiction of a complacent public, going along with official lies nobody fully believes. Produced on a big scale, the unjustly obscure show stars Claus Holm, Mario Adorf, Hannes Messemer, Peter Carsten, Karl Lange, Werner Peters and Annemarie Düringer. The illuminating audio commentary is by Imogen Sara Smith.

The Devil Strikes at Night

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1957 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 97 min. / Nachts wenn der Teufel kam / Street Date , 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Claus Holm, Mario Adorf, Hannes Messemer, Peter Carsten, Karl Lange, Werner Peters, Annemarie Düringer, Monika John, Rose Schäfer, Ernst Fritz Fürbringer, Walter Janssen.

Cinematography:...

People On Sunday brought together Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann early in their careers.

A feminist remake of the 1930-Berlin set silent classic People On Sunday is being developed by German director Alice Agneskirchner, whose documentary Come With Me To The Cinema is screening in Berlinale Forum Special.

People On Sunday brought together Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann early in their careers and is seen as a key work in the development of their careers.

The film showed a group of young Berliners enjoying themselves in the city on a typical Sunday.

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The Whistle At Eaton Falls

Flicker Fusion Blu-ray Disc Edition

Special Pre-order Sale Price: $19.95 (M.S.R.P. $24.95)

The Whistle at Eaton Falls / 1951 / Directed by Robert Siodmak / 96 minutes

USA / Upc: 6-17311-60629-8

(Los Angeles, CA–January 14, 2022) -- Flicker Alley and LdR Films, in association with the Library of Congress, proudly present a new restoration of Robert Siodmak’s labor drama, The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951), in a replicated media publication as part of Flicker Alley’s new “Flicker Fusion” Blu-ray disc series.

Flicker Alley invites you to discover The Whistle at Eaton Falls, a rarely seen 1951 film by renowned filmmakers Robert Siodmak and Louis de Rochemont, featuring Lloyd Bridges, Ernest Borgnine, Murray Hamilton, and Dorothy Gish (in one of her rare later screen appearances). Making its home video debut, this superb quasi-documentary labor drama has been brilliantly restored, utilizing 2K scanned...

Let’s shout our approval of this foursome of vintage noirs, all of which have been scarce since Eddie Muller was old enough to rob candy stores. Three Paramounts and one Universal give us four notable directors and a gallery of attractive stars, including a swoon-worthy array of actresses: Marta Toren, Loretta Young, Susan Hayward, Gail Russell, Frances Farmer and Marina Berti. The selection includes one of the key ‘just prior to the official style’ titles, a thriller with supernatural overtones, a ‘woman in jeopardy’ story and a gangster tale reportedly inspired by Lucky Luciano.

Kino Noir Times Four

Blu-ray

Among the Living, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Accused, Deported

Kl Studio Classics

1941-1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / Street Date November 16, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / Separate Purchases / 24.95 each

Starring: Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward; Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell; Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey; Jeff Chandler, Marta Toren.

Directed by Stuart Heisler,...

Acclaimed writer/director David Lowery joins Josh and Joe to discuss the films that inspired The Green Knight.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Green Knight (2021)

Peter Pan & Wendy (2022)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The Old Man And The Gun (2018)

A Ghost Story (2017)

Pete’s Dragon (1977)

Pete’s Dragon (2016) – Glenn Erickson’s review

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Ghost Story (1974)

Sword of the Valiant (1984)

Gawain and the Green Knight (1973)

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Masters of the Universe (1987) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Andrei Rublev (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s Muriel Awards blurb

War And Peace (1966) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Devils (1971)

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The Conjuring (2013)

Jubilee (1978)

Benedetta (2021)

Dune (1984)

Dune (2021)

Hard To Be A God (2013)

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

Moby Dick (1956) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary,...

Gotta love that title! Producer Walter Mirisch’s small-scale Monogram noir was once assumed lost, but now it’s making its home video debut on Blu-ray. A luckless young entertainer finds himself neck deep in murder trouble, when an unbreakable string of circumstantial evidence points directly at him. As the date of his execution nears, the only way his desperate wife can help him is to encourage the detective on the case to think he has a chance with her. Taken from a Cornell Woolrich story, the show tries hard despite its low budget — we can almost feel Mirisch behind the scenes, making sure the picture has heart and sincerity.

I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1948 / B&w Color / 1:37 Academy / 71 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date July 20, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Don Castle, Elyse Knox, Regis Toomey, Charles D. Brown, Rory Mallinson, Robert Lowell, Dorothy Vaughan, Steve Darrell,...

It’s smooth noir sailing with this polished noir from Universal-International and its choice cast of pros — Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines and William Bendix, plus Vincent Price doing an excellent turn as a Machiavellian businessman, a ‘frame’ expert with a side specialty in double-dealing. Director Michael Gordon earns an early credit at Universal-International with a nice look: almost all exteriors are richly photographed nighttime scenes. Ella Raines is particularly good — despite the cover illustration, she’s not a femme fatale, just a cautious independent woman.

The Web

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1947 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer, John Abbott, Fritz Leiber, Howland Chamberlain, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: Irving Glassberg

Production Designer Art Directors: Bernard Herzbrun, James Sullivan

Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth

Original Music: Hans J. Salter

Written by William Bowers, Bertram Millhauser...

Steven Soderbergh is a fantastically eclectic filmmaker (you never know where he’s going to go next), but if you look back over his roughly 30 dramatic features it’s telling to consider how many of them are some variety of tricky old-school thriller or film noir powered by suspenseful screw-tightening. I’m talking about the “Ocean’s” trilogy, the ebullient Elmore Leonard adaptation “Out of Sight,” the redneck heist thriller “Logan Lucky,” the deconstructed gangster mystery “The Limey,” the brooding noir “The Underneath,” the small-town grunge noir “Bubble,” the sex-industry noir “The Girlfriend Experience,” and the true-life-bumbler noir “The Informant!” Soderbergh has a prankish side, but the truth is he would have been right at home in the ’40s or ’50 churning out moody black-and-white thrillers like Robert Siodmak or Joseph H. Lewis.

His latest, “No Sudden Move,” makes that connection all the more explicit. Opening on a gorgeous vintage version of the Warner Bros. logo,...

It’s Marlene Dietrich, before Josef von Sternberg and The Blue Angel — and much of her mystique is already present. This sophisticated German silent observes a precarious, dangerous love triangle. Two men are entranced by the same woman: one deserts his bride on their wedding night and the other may have killed to possess her. Neither seems to get what he wants, yet Dietrich’s ‘woman one longs for’ is not a scheming femme fatale … maybe. The fluid, very modern direction of Curtis Bernhardt will be a revelation — this obscure Marlene Dietrich starrer is a superior piece of filmcraft.

The Woman One Longs For

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1929 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 78 min. / Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt / Street Date June 8, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Uno Henning, Fritz Kortner, Frida Richard, Oskar Sima, Karl Etlinger, Bruno Ziener, Edith Edwards.

Cinematography: Curt Courant, Hans Scheib

Art direction:...

After exploring “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Country Music,” award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick examined the importance of being Ernest Hemingway in their three-part PBS documentary “Hemingway.” Premiering in April to strong reviews and Emmys buzz, the series weaves Papa’s biography with excerpts from his fiction, non-fiction, and personal correspondence. The series also reviews the mythology around the larger-than-life Hemingway, who penned such classic novels as “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” to reveal the truth behind the bravado.

Feature film adaptations of Hemingway’s works had mixed results. Hemingway Bff Gary Cooper excelled in 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms” and 1943’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. John Garfield gave one of his strongest performance in 1950’s superb noir “The Breaking Point,” based...

It’s another CineSavant Revival Screening Review of a show not presently available on disc: not an old favorite, but something we admittedly never heard of … a marvelous 1951 film that’s seemingly been hiding under the carpet for sixty years, despite being directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, Diana Douglas, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine and Arthur O’Connell. At first we fear it will be another angry midcentury indictment of free enterprise … but it becomes something else entirely. The unusual near- neorealist picture was filmed on location in a New Hampshire mill town; it is newly restored and hopefully destined for Blu-ray soon.

The Whistle at Eaton Falls

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

Not on Home Video

1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Richer Than the Earth / Not Yet On Home Video

Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray Hamilton, James Westerfield, Lenore Lonergan, Russell Hardie,...

Perhaps the most clever idea in this prestigious throwback to potboilers of yore, The Woman in the Window, is how it upends the bourgeois escapism of most thrillers. While following child psychologist Anna Fox (Amy Adams), who suffers from agoraphobia and keeps herself locked inside her home, we get to luxuriate in a spacious New York brownstone, only to have all the fun taken out via Anna’s lonely nights falling asleep in front of the television and wandering around dead, empty rooms.

Things change when she finds herself quickly entangled in the lives of her across-the-street neighbors. Working their way into her home is Ethan (Fred Hechinger), a sensitive 16-year-old boy towards whom, due to her profession, she feels a natural empathy. Ethan draws into Anna’s orbit his abusive father Alistair and even a solo encounter with the family’s doting wife and mother Jane (Julianne Moore), who...

The name talent attached makes this late- Weimar thriller a must-see proposition: Billy Wilder, Robert & Curt Siodmak, Franz Waxman. Their dark murder farce resembles what would later become the self-aware Black Comedy. The trouble begins when a suicidal nice guy can’t pull the trigger, and hires a crook to do the job for him. The satire is clever but the execution is awkward — the filmmakers set up big laughs that the heavy German filming style doesn’t deliver. Just the same, the situations seem extremely progressive, ahead of their time.

The Man in Search of his Murderer

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber Kino Classics Kino Repertory

1931 / B&w / 1:33 flat / 97 min. / Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht; Jim, der Mann mit der Narbe, Looking for his Murderer / Street Date April 6, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Heinz Rühmann, Lien Deyers, Raimund Janitschek, Hans Leibelt, Hermann Speelmans, Friedrich Hollaender, Gerhard Bienert, Roland Varno.

Ahead of FrightFest’s UK special screening of The Woman With Leopard Shoes at the Glasgow Film Festival, director Alexis Bruchon talks about his love of Noir, casting his brother and directing in his underwear…

Your background is in illustration and graphic design. Was making a movie the next logical step as an artist?

From a very young age, I wanted to make a movie (as a teenager I did make a slasher called Ice Crime a true masterpiece!) – but drawing is direct, cost nothing and allows you to produce any images you want. So, I started with two unpublished graphic novels. The good thing with comics is that I realised you can tell a story with very few elements… and no money!

So, when I started on The Woman With Leopard Shoes, drawing was highly important in the making of the film because I storyboarded everything with a lot of indications like light,...

[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

If there's one immediate connection one can establish between the Italian giallo and the traditional American slasher, it's that both have been on the end of pointedly barbed criticism. Popularity, of course, has never been an issue, but cultural gatekeepers have had their knives out for the slasher from day one, while the giallo has often been decried as nothing but violent misogynism told through incoherent plots. Even the original Mondadori novels from which the genre takes its name were denounced by Mussolini's fascist government—you couldn't ask for a better recommendation. But the other connection? Music.

In contemporary times and the advent of the DVD and more advanced Blu-ray, audiences have had access to the giallo like never before, meaning they can not only see these pictures almost for the first time, but also hear them, both of which have contributed to a reassessment of the giallo as art.

Rhonda Fleming, whose long career embraced filmdom’s Golden Age and the early days of television, died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif. at age 97. No cause was given, but her death was confirmed by her secretary.

Fleming was known as the “Queen of Technicolor” for her stunning red hair and green eyes, which lit up appearances in such films as Out of the Past and Spellbound. Overall, she appeared in more than 40 films, working with directors Alfed Hitchcock, Jacques Tourneur and Robert Siodmak, among other film greats.

Her best-known films included the 1948 musical fantasy A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with Bing Crosby, the 1957 Western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and the noir Slightly Scarlet, alongside John Payne.

Fleming was the costar to some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including four films with Ronald Reagan before he entered politics. She worked with Glenn Ford, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster,...

Rhonda Fleming, the actress who starred in films like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” and Jacques Tourneur’s “Out of the Past,” has died. She was 97.

Fleming’s secretary Carla Sapon confirmed the news to TheWrap, stating that she passed away on Wednesday in Santa Monica, California.

Fleming appeared in more than 40 films, which included Robert Siodmak’s “The Spiral Staircase,” the 1948 musical fantasy “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” the 1957 Western “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and the noir “Slightly Scarlet.”

Over the years, she worked with people like Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan, with whom she made four films. Her other credits include “Pony Express,” “The Big Circus” and most recently, “The Nude Bomb” in 1980.

Fleming was born as Marilyn Louis in Hollywood, California, in 1923. She began working as a film actress while attending Beverly Hills High School, and was discovered by...

Rhonda Fleming, star of the 1940s and ’50s who was dubbed the “Queen of Technicolor” and appeared in “Out of the Past” and “Spellbound,” died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif., according to her secretary Carla Sapon. She was 97.

Fleming appeared in more than 40 films and worked with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock on “Spellbound,” Jacques Tourneur on “Out of the Past” and Robert Siodmak on “The Spiral Staircase.”

Later in life, she became a philanthropist and supporter of numerous organizations fighting cancer, homelessness and child abuse.

Her starring roles include classics such as the 1948 musical fantasy “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” alongside Bing Crosby, 1957 Western “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and the noir “Slightly Scarlet” alongside John Payne.

Her co-stars over the years included Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, Burt Lancaster, Bob Hope, Rock Hudson and Ronald Reagan, with whom she made four films. Other notable roles included Fritz Lang...

If you’re looking to dive into the best of independent and foreign filmmaking, The Criterion Channel has announced their August 2020 lineup. The impressive slate includes retrospectives dedicated to Mia Hansen-Løve, Bill Gunn, Stephen Cone, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Alain Delon, Bill Plympton, Les Blank, and more.

In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.

See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.

25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...

Don’t call them Bad Movies — when something’s this enjoyable, other verbal put-downs are more appropriate. This low-grade German sexploitation horror pic spent its full budget on its roster of frisky Berlin showgirls. After years of study, experts have finally proven that it was filmed with a camera. Severin’s special edition does justice to a cult non-classic with an uncut original German version, plus a second American version and extra alternate scenes. Alexander D’Arcy’s scary horror-face is a childhood monster magazine memory. The creepy title critter looks like a land crab morphed with a really pissed-off Woody Woodpecker.

Horrors of Spider Island

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1960 / B&w / 1:665 widescreen / 84, 79 min. / Ein Toter hing im Netz, It’s Hot in Paradise / Street Date June 16, 2020 /

Starring: Harald Maresch (Temple Foster), Helga Franck, Alexander D’Arcy, Helga Neuner, Rainer Brandt, Dorothee Parker, Gerry Sammer, Eva Schauland, Helma Vandenberg (Helma van den...

The latest in a seres of writers highlighting underrated films available to stream sees a recommendation for Ida Lupino’s taut 1953 drama about a love triangle

Ida Lupino is the great director of noirs, thrillers and message pictures from the 1950s – an inspired film-maker to compare with Nicholas Ray and Robert Siodmak. She combined it with being a producer, a distributor and, most importantly of all, a star, directing herself in this fierce, extraordinarily potent drama, which candidly delivers its subject matter right up front in the title. It tells us a lot about the sexual politics of the age.

Related: My streaming gem: why you should watch Images...

One of Fritz Lang’s least-known thrillers had aspects that appealed to him, and he certainly applied his personal viewpoint and visual talents. It’s a period Gothic with women in corsets, about a deranged writer who lets his desires get out of hand. It may be actor Louis Hayward’s best work. Jane Wyatt is the suffering wife, but the real honors go to Dorothy Patrick, in an all-too brief appearance.

House by the River

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1950 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date January 14, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt, Dorothy Patrick, Ann Shoemaker, Jody Gilbert, Peter Brocco, Howland Chamberlain, Sarah Padden, Kathleen Freeman, Will Wright, Carl Switzer.

Cinematography: Edward Cronjager

Film Editor: Arthur D. Hilton

Original Music: George Antheil

Art Direction: Boris Leven

Written by Mel Dinelli from a novel by A.P. Herbert

Produced by Howard Welsch

Directed by...

Cobra Woman

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1944/ 1:33 / 71 min.

Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu

Directed by Robert Siodmak

In the early 40’s Universal Pictures was still best known for its shadowy black and white horror shows. That all changed in 1944 when the studio produced the kind of candy-colored dreamland not seen since Dorothy woke up to Oz. The movie was Robert Siodmak’s Cobra Woman starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and studio stalwart Lon Chaney Jr., last seen putting the bite on Louise Allbritton in Siodmak’s Son of Dracula. There aren’t any vampires in this florid South Sea adventure but this is Universal, after all – villagers are dying and the bite marks on their throats suggest Siodmak’s latest wouldn’t stray too far from the studio’s comfort zone.

Montez plays two roles, a moony island girl named Tollea and her twin sister Naja who rules far-off...