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Yet another 3-D Blu-ray treat — the 3-D Film Archive restores a rare English production, an international crime tale in 3-D. Dennis O’Keefe’s T-Man helps Scotland Yard track down a gang of smugglers that kidnaps and murders to force an Atom scientist to perfect his manufacturing formula for synthetic diamonds. You know, just like the silicon chip business. The widescreen 3-D is excellent, especially in two action set pieces. Margaret Sheridan co-stars. It’s almost a premiere, as the movie was never publicly exhibited in 3-D. Kino also provides an anaglyphic encoding with a pair of red-cyan glasses as an alternate 3-D option. Plus good extras about the 3-D process.

The Diamond Wizard 3-D

3-D Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 83 min. / Street Date November 15, 2022 / Available at Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Margaret Sheridan, Philip Friend, Alan Wheatley, Francis De Wolff, Eric Berry, Gudrun Ure, Paul Hardtmuth,...

Sean Connery, one of the truly iconic actors of Hollywood, died overnight in the Bahamas at the age of 90. No cause of death was announced.

The Scottish actor’s career spanned five-decades in which he played a wide range of unforgettable characters, many of them iconic on their own. But he will always be known as the first, best and most recognizable actor to play the British Spy with the license to kill, James Bond. He played Agent 007 in seven movies, beginning with the first James Bond movie Dr. No in 1962.

But Connery was no mere espionage agent, and he certainly wasn’t secret. Connery starred opposite Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 film Marnie. He stood out in a crowded all-star cast in Murder on the Orient Express from 1974. He escaped Alcatraz in The Rock (1996), defected to the United States in The Hunt for Red October, saved the day...

Directed by Montgomery Tully and released in 1953, Small Town Story spins a tale of football corruption where a Canadian ex-serviceman (Kent Walton) is tempted away from his home club of Oldchester to play for Arsenal, scuppering a potential windfall should the smaller club win promotion. Previously on the list of the BFI's 75 Most Wanted (films thought lost), Small Town Story, which also stars Susan Shaw, has now been restored and is available on DVD now via Network Distributing Continue reading...

Actor whose 1940s heyday featured two films as co-star to James Mason

The 1940s was a ripe period for women in British films, when stars such as Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Valerie Hobson and Jean Simmons had a chance to shine. Although Joyce Howard, who has died aged 88, was never in their league, she had her moments of glory in a relatively short career which lasted from 1941 to 1950. Howard's high spots were the two films in which she co-starred with the up-and-coming matinee idol James Mason: The Night Has Eyes (1942) and They Met in the Dark (1943).

Howard was the ideal foil for the saturnine Mason. In the former film, she is the vulnerable, repressed heroine whose passions are aroused by Mason's brooding, secretive composer, the kind of relationship so beloved of wartime British melodramas. The film, directed by Leslie Arliss, creates a pervasive sense of danger, with the characters...

The Ravagers is another in a long line of Hollywood backed Pa films from the 70s that, despite sporting some pretty big names, just seems to have disappear off the face of the earth. That's right folks. No DVD. Nadda. There was a VHS copy released in England ages ago but other than that the film has become something of a Pa legend over the years and a real coveted item for collectors.

The quality of the film itself is up there with another of the era, Ultimate Warrior which, like The Ravagers, starred big names like Max Von Sydow and Yul Brenner. A little dated maybe, but still great fun. That film was recently releases on DVD as part of a double feature with Montgomery Tully's Battle Beneath the Earth so I still have hopes that we'll see The Ravagers hit home video one day.

Synopsis:

In a...