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Back in 2016, Moma curator Dave Kehr programmed a series of restorations and rediscoveries from the early days of sound at Universal Studios. Across the country in Los Angeles, film historian Leonard Maltin looked at the schedule with envy and longing. “My mouth was watering,” Maltin told IndieWire. “I was so frustrated that I couldn’t just fly to New York and set up a futon in the lobby so I could go to all the films he was screening.”

Luckily, Maltin was able to see some of the films back in Hollywood when Universal archivist Bob O’Neil allowed him to sit in on screenings that had been set up to check answer prints. “I saw dozens of them,” Maltin said. “Some were good, many were unmemorable or downright bad, but every now and then I got lucky and found a real winner.”

Maltin wanted to share his discoveries with the Los Angeles film community,...

Chicago – Get out your flapper dresses and raccoon coats as Facets Chicago goes back to the early talkies and so-called “pre-code” films, paired with a cocktail bar at their new “Speakeasy Cinema,” programmed by Raul Benitez. The first film is “The Doorway to Hell” (1930) on Saturday May 11th, starting at 6:30p. For ticket info and more details, click Speakeasy.

Facets invites film lovers to leave their troubles at the door, grab a prohibition-era cocktail, listen to some jazz, and make their way through the secret back entrance to an intimate cabaret-style screening room showcasing underrated gems from the Golden Age of Hollywood. From trailblazing pre-code cinema to classic gangster fare, series programmer Raul Benitez has curated a lineup of films to be presented within their historical context, yet appreciated through a modern lens.

Speakeasy Cinema at Facets Chicago

Photo credit: Facets.org

“The Doorway to Hell” involves Louie Ricarno...

The following contains spoilers for "All Quiet on the Western Front."

The biggest difference between the two theatrical versions of "All Quiet on the Western Front" is the specific perspective they bring to the story of German soldier Paul Bäumer and his friends and fellow enlistees during World War I. There have actually been three adaptations of Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front," but one was a TV movie. The original 1930 theatrical version was the first literary adaptation to win Best Picture and the first film to ever win both that category and Best Director at the 3rd Academy Awards.

Now, over nine decades later, the most recent Netflix adaptation of "All Quiet on the Western Front" has joined the ranks of "Parasite," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and "Fanny and Alexander" to become one of four foreign-language films with the most wins in Oscar history.

The power of an important story told with passion and unflinching clarity always transcends the bonds of time. This explains the durability of Shakespeare’s plays when they land in the right hands, and it explains Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s fierce anti-war novel, “All Quite on the Western Front,” which is nominated for the best picture Oscar.

Nearly a century ago, director Lewis Milestone triumphed in one of the first Oscar competitions with his Universal Pictures version of the 1928 tome, filmed, remarkably, completely in and around its Hollywood Studio home.

Today, “Front” is registering with voters who are seeing the horrors of war in Europe live and in color as it sadly unfolds again with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

When Milestone filmed his “Front,” WWI was a decade behind the voters, who had just roared through the 1920s and hadn’t yet confronted the...

Germany’s anti-war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 classic World War I novel made a lot of noise at the 95th annual Oscar nominations January 24th. The Netflix production earned nine nominations just two behind the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and tying with “The Banshees of Inisherin.”

The Oscar nominations for “All Quiet” come a week after the war drama dominated the BAFTA nominations earning 14. Only two other foreign language films have earned more Oscar nominations: both Ang Lee’s exhilarating “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” from 2000 and 2018’s “Roma” received 10 nominations with “Tiger” winning four Academy Awards while “Roma” picked up three including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron.

As predicted, “All Quiet” was nominated for Best International Feature, and it has made history by becoming the first German-language movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Its nine nominations topped the six...

When German writer Erich Maria Remarque was 18 and a student at the University of Munster, he was drafted into the army and fought in the trenches on the Western front during World War I. He was wounded five times with the final instance in 1917 being so serious he spent the last year of the conflict recuperating in a German hospital. His experiences during the global conflict inspired his powerful 1929 anti-war novel “All Quiet On the Western Front” which, with the war in Ukraine, seems more timely than ever.

The novel slammed the door on the concept of the romanticism of war. War is hell. The book’s protagonist, the wide-eyed innocent Paul Baumer, and his friends are excited to get into battle on the Western front, exterminate the enemy and return home heroes. But Paul quickly realizes the horrors of war. Reading the book is a visceral experience-one can smell...

Click here to read the full article.

The new All Quiet on the Western Front, Germany’s Oscar submission for best international feature film, is an adaptation of the 1929 World War I novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque. That best-seller, based on Remarque’s experiences in the German Army, moved 3 million copies in 22 languages in its first two years in print and remains one of the great works about the trauma of war.

It and its 1930 sequel, The Road Back, were banned and burned in Nazi Germany. In the U.S., All Quiet on the Western Front was adapted for the screen in 1930, produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. — son of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle — and directed by Lewis Milestone, who the following year would helm the landmark media satire The Front Page. Made in the days of pre-Code Hollywood, before censorship guidelines were enforced, All Quiet...

Close to 100 years after Erich Maria Remarque’s novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” was published, Emmy nominee Edward Berger adapts the World War I epic for Netflix, premiering October 28.

“We have so much to say, and we shall never say it,” a quote from Remarque’s 1928 “literary masterpiece” is shown in the trailer. The film promises to “show the true face of World War I.”

The official logline reads, “A young German soldier’s terrifying experiences and distress on the western front during World War I.” Co-written and directed by Edward Berger (“Deutschland 83”), “All Quiet on the Western Front” stars Felix Kammerer as a hopeful soldier who faces head-on the horrors of war. Daniel Brühl, Sebastian Hülk, Albrecht Schuch, and Anton von Lucke also star.

Along with director Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell co-wrote the script.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” was first adapted into...

(Welcome to Year of the Vampire, a series examining the greatest, strangest, and sometimes overlooked vampire movies of all time in honor of "Nosferatu," which turns 100 this year.)

Unlike vampires themselves, the best stories arguably don't go on indefinitely. Think about it: would you really want to keep watching the same vampire show (or any show), with no end in sight, for all eternity? At the very least, you'd probably want an intermission of a few years, some time to unplug, think about your life choices, and hibernate in your coffin.

In the Year of the Vampire series, we've been focused almost exclusively on movies. The one TV show we revisited back in March was "True Blood," but even that show lasted seven seasons and 80 episodes. It requires a real time commitment. And if you're new to a show, the prospect of that can be daunting, especially during the Peak TV era,...

Stephen King’s second published novel, ‘Salem’s Lot, arrived in hardcover in October 1975 and was King’s next step toward transforming himself from an obscure Maine writer to a pop culture phenomenon. His first novel, Carrie, had sold modestly in hardcover, but the paperback edition of the book took off, selling more than one million copies in its first year of release. Sales were also helped by Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie adaptation, which was not just a box office hit but yielded Academy Award nominations for stars Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie.

And the paperback edition of ‘Salem’s Lot came out right around this time; it became King’s second bestseller in a row and cemented his status as a superstar horror writer. The book, at its core, also posed a simple yet alluring question: What if vampires invaded a small town in rural Maine in the 20th century?...

Adapted from Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name, Edward Berger’s take on “All Quiet On The Western Front” is a chilling piece of anti-war filmmaking with a star-making turn from Felix Kammerer in the lead role of young Paul Bäumer, who learns the hard way that war is hell.

Although it’s hard not to compare and contrast this new version to Lewis Milestone’s Best Picture-winning 1930 film starring Lew Ayres, it’s equally wild that it took nearly 100 years for a German adaptation given it’s the novel’s country of origin.

Continue reading ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ Review: Netflix Adaptation Is A Chilling Piece Of Anti-War Filmmaking [TIFF] at The Playlist.

The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.

Broken Lullaby

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...

It’s a manhunt South of the Border — Niven Busch’s drama has violence and murder but is really a novelistic character study that goes against the typical rules of Hollywood. Lew Ayres tries to atone for mistakenly killing a man, by coming to the aid of the victim’s widow. But he doesn’t realize that Teresa Wright’s ranch wife has learned the truth about him. The independent production is a modern oil-field western set in Mexico, and unusual both in storytelling style and emphasis, with an atypical imperfect hero and a romance far removed from Hollywood clichés. John Sturges is the director of this interesting obscurity.

The Capture

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1950 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from The Film Detective / 24.95

Starring: Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright, Victor Jory, Jacqueline White, Jimmy Hunt, Barry Kelley, Duncan Renaldo, William Bakewell, Milton Parsons, Felipe Turich, Edwin Rand,...

“Killing a Man is One Thing … Loving His Wife is Another!“

The Film Detective Presents the Intriguing, Golden Age-Sizzler The Capture, Coming to Special-Edition Blu-ray & DVD, Jan. 18th. Rare 1950 Western Noir Classic Returns With Striking New Restoration & Exclusive Special Features. Here’s a trailer for the restoration:

Cinedigm announced today that The Film Detective, the classic film restoration and streaming company, will release the western noir classic The Capture (1950) on special-edition Blu-ray and DVD, available Jan. 18.

From writer Niven Busch, author of Duel in the Sun, comes this equally torrid sizzler, loaded with the intrigue and passion that marked the Golden Age of Cinema.

Injured and on the run from police, Lin Vanner (Lew Ayres) confesses the sordid details of his life to a priest, which includes the death of a man he’d turned over to the police. Vanner also reveals that he fell in love with the dead...

Writer, director and actress Rebecca Miller discusses a few of her favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)

The Ballad Of Jack And Rose (2005)

The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (2009)

Maggie’s Plan (2015)

Explorers (1985)

The Way We Were (1973)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953)

Annie Hall (1977)

Repulsion (1965)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Knife In The Water (1962)

The Tenant (1976)

Cries and Whispers (1972)

Persona (1966)

The Magician (1958)

Hour Of The Wolf (1968)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Shining (1980)

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Regarding Henry (1991)

Angela (1995)

Badlands (1973)

Casino (1995)

On The Waterfront (1954)

My Dinner with Andre (1981)

Jules and Jim (1962)

The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant (1972)

Wings Of Desire (1987)

The Killer Inside Me (1976)

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Married To The Mob (1988)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Dune (1984)

Imitation Of Life (1934)

Imitation Of Life (1959)

Written On The Wind (1956)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

All That Heaven Allows...

Riots erupted in Germany when this anti-war classic debuted in cinemas. Lewis Milestone (who took home a directing Oscar along with the Best Picture award) imported tons of WW I German and French military equipment in his quest for authenticity. Dp Karl Freund suggested the indelible concluding butterfly sequence, and the dead hand we see supporting the butterfly is Milestone’s. Star Lew Ayres, a genuine pacifist whose career suffered a decade later, served selflessly in WW II in noncombat positions. Banned in France until 1962.

The post All Quiet on the Western Front appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

William Wellman’s The Public Enemy (1931) turns 90 this weekend. When the film first came out, a theater in Times Square showed it nonstop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The movie marks the true beginning of gangster movies as a genre. Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar may have hit theaters first, but The Public Enemy set the pattern, and James Cagney nailed the patter. Not just the street talk either; he also understood its machine gun delivery. His Tommy Powers is just a hoodlum, never a boss. He is a button man at best, even if he insisted his suits have six buttons.

The Public Enemy character wasn’t even as high up the ladder as Paul Sorvino’s caporegime Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. But Cagney secured the turf Edward G. Robinson’s Rico Bandello took a bullet to claim in Little Caesar, and for the...

Exclusive: Mindful that David Mamet gave me the best quote I’ve ever gotten in 30 years of trade reporting, I have been chasing him down to try to get him to answer a question on my mind. What does it feel like for a great writer of dialogue to have an actor like the late Sean Connery — who won his only Oscar with the Mamet-scripted Brian De Palma-directed drama The Untouchables — elevate the words like Connery did as the rough and tumble Irish cop Jim Malone? Or, for that matter, when Alec Baldwin and the other stellar stars turned Glengarry Glen Ross in a master class in toxic testosterone.

But when you talk to him, Mamet is like his best plays and scripts: unpredictable. That was the case back in my Daily Variety days, when I got Mamet on the phone to discuss the abrupt exit of actor Jeremy Piven...

It’s lurid, it’s soapy, it’s forbidden: where does the line form? Joseph E. Levine made hay from Harold Robbins’ best seller, with prose that The New York Times said belonged more properly “on the walls of a public lavatory.” So why is the picture so much fun? When the performances are good they’re very good, and when they’re bad they’re almost better. Plus there’s a who’s who game to be played: If George Peppard is Howard Hughes and Carroll Baker is Jean Harlow, who exactly is Robert Cummings? I think this is the first time on Blu for this title, and playback-wise it’s A-ok for Region A.

The Carpetbaggers

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 9 (Australia)

1964 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 150 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / Available at [Imprint] 34.95

Starring: George Peppard, Alan Ladd, Robert Cummings, Martha Hyer, Elizabeth Ashley, Martin Balsam, Lew Ayres, Carroll Baker, Ralph Taeger, Archie Moore,...

Kino Lorber has released three Barbara Stanwyck films in a boxed set collection. Here is the official announcement:

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This collection feature three classic films starring screen legend Barbara Stanwyck:

Internes Can’T Take Money (1937) – Young Dr. James Kildare, interning at a clinic, falls for his patient Janet Haley. The feeling is mutual, but Janet has a secret she will not divulge: She’s the widow of a bank robber who hid their daughter before he died and she is desperately trying to find the little girl. She will use anyone—including Dr. Kildare—to get her child back. The doctor’s association with gangster Hanlon, whose injuries Kildare secretly patched up, and Janet’s connection with gangster Innes (Stanley Ridges, Black Friday), who’s helping her find her daughter, bring it all to a rousing head filled with action, suspense and the unexpected!

Right now, in this galaxy… featuring Lloyd Kaufman, Brad Simpson, Gilbert Hernandez, Grant Moninger and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Mondo Keazunt (1955)

The Human Tornado (1976)

Gigot (1962)

The Hustler (1961)

How to Commit Marriage (1969)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Touch of Evil (1958)

The Last Man On Earth (1963)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The Omega Man (1971)

I Am Legend (2007)

Panic In Year Zero! (1962)

Dogtooth (2009)

The Entity (1983)

Shelf Life (1993)

The Killers (1964)

The Next Voice You Hear… (1950)

Donovan’s Brain (1953)

Talk About A Stranger (1952)

Julius Caesar (1950)

They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1968)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

The Jerk (1979)

Kings Row (1942)

Santa Fe Trail (1940

Bedtime For Bonzo (1951)

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (19468)

Point Blank (1967)

House of Wax (1953)

Black Shampoo (1976)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Return To Oz (1985)

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Psycho (1960)

Two Evil Eyes (1990)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three...

This classy late-’30s Park Avenue romp gives us Katharine Heburn and Cary Grant at their best; Grant is especially good in a particularly demanding comedy role. The original play is warmed up a bit with comedy touches, and some pointed political barbs slip in there as well. The marvelous acting ensemble gives terrific material to favorites like Jean Dixon and Edward Everett Horton.

Holiday

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1009

1938 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 7, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Kolker, Binnie Barnes, Jean Dixon, Henry Daniell, Ann Doran.

Cinematography: Franz Planer

Film Editor: Al Clark, Otto Meyer

Original Music: Sidney Cutner

Written by Donald Ogden Stewart, Sidney Buchman from the play by Philip Barry

Produced by Everett Riskin

Directed by George Cukor

Holiday was written by Philip Barry, the playwright who tailored The Philadelphia Story for Katharine Hepburn.

A dozen war movies have won the best-picture Oscar, from “Wings” through “The English Patient.” Despite an overabundance of World War II movies through the decades, Fox Searchlight has two that offer original points of view: “Jojo Rabbit” and “A Hidden Life.”

The latter film, written and directed by Terrence Malick, is one of the few movies to explore the world of a conscientious objector, based on real-life Austrian farmer Franz Jagerstatter. He refused to cooperate with the Nazis, saying, “We can’t remain silent in the face of evil. We have to confront it.”

A conscientious objector, or Co, status has never been fashionable in Hollywood, because it’s never been fashionable with the general population.

Example No. 1: Actor Lew Ayres, who worked regularly in 1930s Hollywood. His career nearly ended in 1942, when he was given 4E, conscientious objector, status. The public considered him a traitor, but calmed...

“Marriage Story” looks like the only Oscar contender this season with a plausible shot at earning nominations in all four acting races, in large part because it’s one of the few films in the conversation with male and female co-leads. Only 15 other movies have accomplished that feat, which would make “Marriage” the 16th. But it’s even more impressive when you consider that it has only happened twice in the last 37 years.

According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, “Marriage Story” is a reasonably safe bet for Best Actress (Scarlett Johansson as an actress filing for divorce), Best Actor (Adam Driver as her husband fighting to retain custody of their son) and Best Supporting Actress (Laura Dern as Johansson’s lawyer). That leaves Best Supporting Actor, where Alan Alda is a contender for playing Driver’s kindly but out-of-his-depth attorney, but he’s an underdog according to...

“A whole week of fun,” reads a prominent advertisement in the background of the final scene of Henry King’s State Fair (1933), as Janet Gaynor and Lew Ayres slip out of frame in a lovers’ embrace and “The End” unfurls behind them on a billboard. This happened also to be my final image, projected in 35mm on the screen before me, of Il Cinema Ritrovato, the blissful, week-long festival in Bologna, Italy that each year offers itself up as an event of seemingly endless Elysian splendour. But of course, like the Iowa State Fair in King’s movie, it had to […]...

“A whole week of fun,” reads a prominent advertisement in the background of the final scene of Henry King’s State Fair (1933), as Janet Gaynor and Lew Ayres slip out of frame in a lovers’ embrace and “The End” unfurls behind them on a billboard. This happened also to be my final image, projected in 35mm on the screen before me, of Il Cinema Ritrovato, the blissful, week-long festival in Bologna, Italy that each year offers itself up as an event of seemingly endless Elysian splendour. But of course, like the Iowa State Fair in King’s movie, it had to […]...

This article marks Part 2 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following 11 films that scored a single prize among the top races.

More than eight decades prior to Bradley Cooper’s take on the timeless tale, the first “A Star Is Born” (1937), headlined by Fredric March and Janet Gaynor, became the third motion picture, following “Cimarron” (1931) and “It Happened One Night” (1934), to earn nominations in the Big Five Oscar categories.

At the 10th Academy Awards ceremony, however, neither March nor Gaynor emerged triumphant, losing in their...

The Impatient Maiden (1932) is an almost entirely overlooked film, and it's easy to see why, falling as it does between Frankenstein (1931) and The Old Dark House (1932) in director James Whale's Universal career. Those two films are important classics of the horror field, whereas Maiden is a modest romantic comedy that probably nobody had any particular hopes for. Still, as some of Whale's other, lesser-known movies are getting more attention (The Road Back has been restored, and Whale's own favorite film, By Candlelight, has had recent revivals; I'd like to see more attention paid to The Great Garrick and The Man in the Iron Mask) this one might reward attention—or at least I supposed so.How it came into the world: Universal had bought the novel The Impatient Virgin as a vehicle for fading star Clara Bow, who promptly rejected it. The censors mandated a change of title, despite...

“I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used,” Nolan said earlier this year when it came to the creation of his WWII epic Dunkirk, referencing films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson.

Throughout the entire month of July, if you’re in the U.K., you are lucky enough to witness a selection of these influences in a program at BFI Southbank. Featuring all screenings in 35mm or 70mm — including a preview of Dunkirk over a week before it hits theaters — there’s classics such as Greed, Sunrise, and The Wages of Fear, as well as Alien, Speed, and even Tony Scott’s final film.

Check out Nolan’s introduction below, followed by...

Running from 1-31 July, BFI Southbank are delighted to present a season of films which have inspired director Christopher Nolan’s new feature Dunkirk (2017), released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 21 July.

Christopher Nolan Presents has been personally curated by the award-winning director and will offer audiences unique insight into the films which influenced his hotly anticipated take on one of the key moments of WWII.

The season will include a special preview screening of Dunkirk on Thursday 13 July, which will be presented in 70mm and include an introduction from the director himself.

Christopher Nolan is a passionate advocate for the importance of seeing films projected on film, and as one of the few cinemas in the UK that still shows a vast amount of celluloid film, BFI Southbank will screen all the films in the season on 35mm or 70mm.

In 2015 Nolan appeared on stage alongside visual artist...

Lorna Gray, who appeared on the big screen with John Wayne, Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff and The Three Stooges and, billed as Adrian Booth, starred in many 1940s Republic Pictures serials and Westerns, has died. She was 99.

The actress died Sunday at her home in Sherman Oaks, her niece, Pam Loe-Watson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Born Virginia Pound on July 26, 1917, in Grand Rapids, Mich., she won the Miss Michigan beauty pageant and worked as a model, singer and in a vaudeville show before making her movie debut in Paramount Pictures' Hold 'Em Navy (1937), starring Lew Ayres.

She...

Welcome back for Day 5 of Daily Dead’s fourth annual Holiday Gift Guide, readers! Once again, our goal is to help you navigate through the horrors of the 2016 shopping season with our tips on unique gift ideas, and we’ll hopefully help you save a few bucks over the next few weeks, too. For today’s gift ideas, we have a bunch of Stephen King holiday gift ideas, Lunar Crypt pins, Grey Matter Art, Last Exit to Nowhere’s apparel, horror-themed necklaces, and so much more.

This year’s Holiday Gift Guide is sponsored by several amazing companies, including Mondo, Anchor Bay Entertainment, DC Entertainment, and Magnolia Home Entertainment, who have all donated an assortment of goodies to help you get into the spirit of the season. Daily Dead also recently teamed up with Texas-based artist Dustin Pace of Duddy in Motion to create an amazing Stranger Things print...

Earlier this summer, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment gave Stephen King fans a big reason to rejoice when they announced a September 20th release date for their It miniseries Blu-ray. And now they’ve added two other King adaptations to their September 20th Blu-ray slate: 1979’s two-part miniseries Salem’s Lot (1979) and the horror anthology Cat’s Eye (1985), with the former being released with a new audio commentary by director Tobe Hooper.

EW reports that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release Salem’s Lot and Cat’s Eye on Blu-ray, respectively, on September 20th.

On the new audio commentary for Salem’s Lot, director Tobe Hooper will discuss what should be fascinating insights on the making of the miniseries based on King’s 1975 novel about a small New England town with a serious bloodsucker problem.

Featuring adaptations of King’s short stories “Quitters, Inc.” and “The Ledge,” as well as a third tale starring Drew Barrymore,...

Stephen King adaptations are very hard to pull off successfully. For every Misery, there’s a Graveyard Shift; Carrie soars while Cujo stalls. The small screen has had it just as bad—the elephantine The Stand benefits from its four-night rollout, while no amount of time could save The Tommyknockers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg—at last count, there were 91 King adaptations (I’ll need to double-check those figures) across all media. For this blurry-eyed cathode ray kid, however, nothing has yet to match the two-part graveyard dance known as Salem’s Lot (1979).

Originally airing on CBS on Saturday November 17th and 24th, Salem’s Lot was a huge success for the network; there was even talk of turning it into a weekly series. Alas, that never came to be. However, we were gifted with 183 minutes of measured, chilling suspense and terror helmed by none other...

To mark the release of All Quiet on The Western Front on 28th March, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on DVD. The plot follows a group of young German recruits in World War 1 through their passage from idealism to disillusionment. As the central character Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) declares, “we live

The post Win All Quiet on The Western Front on DVD appeared first on HeyUGuys.

Both of the Siodmak brothers made indelible contributions to genre filmmaking, particularly Robert Siodmak’s sterling film noir titles. His brother, Curt Siodmak was more recognizable as a screenwriter, penning a variety of B horror titles such as The Wolf Man (1941) and usually assigned to pen sequels to a number of other franchises, such as The Invisible Man, Dracula, and Frankenstein. Oddly, his 1942 science fiction novel Donovan’s Brain would receive three separate cinematic adaptations of its own (including The Lady and the Monster in 1944 and The Brain in 1962), all informed by particular topical elements of the decade they were mounted in, though none of them particularly astounding in their rudimentary illustrations of science gone wrong.

Dr. Patrick Corey (Lew Ayres) is experimenting on brains out of his lab from the privacy of his country home. Assisted by Dr. Frank Schratt (Gene Evans) and his complacent wife Janice (Nancy Regan...

Blinded by science! And no, it's not a sequel to Donovan's Reef.  Lew Ayres yanks the living brain out of a dying millionaire, plugs it into his mad lab gizmos, and is soon obeying the know-it-all noggin's telepathic commands to scheme and murder. Gene Evans and Nancy Reagan assist in Curt Siodmak's creative, compelling tale of possession by mental remote control. Donovan's Brain Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date March 22, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lew Ayres, Gene Evans, Nancy Reagan, Steve Brodie, Tom Powers, Lisa K. Howard, James Anderson, Victor Sutherland, Harlan Warde, John Hamilton. Cinematography Joseph H. Biroc Film Editor Herbert L. Strock Production Design Boris Leven Original Music Eddie Dunstedter Written by Felix Feist, Hugh Brooke from the novel by Curt Siodmak Produced by Allan Dowling, Tom Gries Directed by Felix E. Feist

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Sci-fi and horror...

Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...

Top Ten Scream Queens: Barbara Steele, who both emitted screams and made others do same, is in a category of her own. Top Ten Scream Queens Halloween is over until next year, but the equally bewitching Day of the Dead is just around the corner. So, dead or alive, here's my revised and expanded list of cinema's Top Ten Scream Queens. This highly personal compilation is based on how memorable – as opposed to how loud or how frequent – were the screams. That's the key reason you won't find listed below actresses featured in gory slasher films. After all, the screams – and just about everything else in such movies – are as meaningless as their plots. You also won't find any screaming guys (i.e., Scream Kings) on the list below even though I've got absolutely nothing against guys who scream in horror, whether in movies or in life. There are...

Halloween doesn’t have to be over once the last trick-or-treater has crept back into the shadows of the night. You may still be possessed by the spirit of the holiday and in desperate need of some real scares. In an effort to address that need and help you find a choice that goes beyond the usual iconography of the season, I’ve picked three titles that may not immediately jump to mind when it comes to autumn-tinged chills and terror. They are not self-consciously seasonal choices, like John Carpenter’s Halloween or Michael Dougherty’s 2007 anthology Trick ‘R Treat, both excellent choices for cinematic fear on the pumpkin circuit. Two of them rely more on mood, creeping dread, an insinuating style and, dare I say, even a poetic approach to storytelling than the usual Samhain-appropriate fare. And one has an inexplicably bad reputation in the halls of conventional wisdom,...

You’ll enjoy Mr. Barlow. And he’ll enjoy you.

Based on the Stephen King novel, Salem’s Lot is a three-hour-long miniseries that originally aired back in 1979, with director Tobe Hooper’s slow burn storytelling approach immersing viewers intricately into the world of a sleepy little town in Maine by paying attention to the atmosphere and tension King so cleverly established in his original story. From the guy who gave us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Salem’s Lot proved Hooper was an assured filmmaker who could still deliver shocking and jarring horror while using a more subtle directorial methodology.

At the start of Salem’s Lot, we meet writer Ben Mears (David Soul), who is returning home to the small town to write his second novel (in reality, it was also King's sophomore novel) based on the infamous Marsten House that he grew up fearing as a kid.

Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.

'The Devil Strikes at Night,' with Mario Adorf as World War II era serial killer Bruno Lüdke 'The Devil Strikes at Night' movie review: Serial killing vs. mass murder in unsubtle but intriguing World War II political drama After more than a decade in Hollywood, German director Robert Siodmak (Academy Award nominated for the 1946 film noir The Killers) resumed his European career in the mid-1950s. In 1957, he directed The Devil Strikes at Night / Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam, an intriguing, well-crafted crime drama about the pursuit of a serial killer – and its political consequences – during the last months of the mass-murderous Nazi regime. Inspired by real events, The Devil Strikes at Night begins as war-scarred Hamburg is deeply shaken by the horrific murder of a waitress. Through the Homicide Bureau, inspector Axel Kersten (Claus Holm) begins an investigation that leads him to a mentally disabled laborer,...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Crash" (on May 6, 2005), an all-star movie whose controversy came not from its provocative treatment of racial issues but from its Best Picture Oscar victory a few months later, against what many critics felt was a much more deserving movie, "Brokeback Mountain."

The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.

The Dark Mirror

Written by Nunnally Johnson

Directed by Robert Siodmak

U.S.A., 1946

A doctor is found murdered in his own condo one morning by the cleaning lady, a knife plunged into his heart. The police, led by the lively Lt. Stevenson (Thomas Mitchell), learn very soon of a possible suspect…or suspects. The recently departed had in fact proposed to a lovely looking girl named Terry Collins (Olivia de Havilland), presently the prime suspect in the investigation, that is, until Stevenson discovers the existence of her twin sister Ruth (de Havilland as well). Neither will reveal very much about who was where and doing what on the night of the murder, putting Stevenson in quite the pickle. Enter psychiatrist Scott Elliot (Lew Ayres), who has dedicated his academic and professional life to the study of twin siblings. He accepts to assist Stevenson by having private sessions with each sister individually.

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...

Teresa Wright movies: Actress made Oscar history Teresa Wright, best remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the World War II melodrama Mrs. Miniver and for her deceptively fragile, small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery-drama Shadow of a Doubt, died at age 86 ten years ago – on March 6, 2005. Throughout her nearly six-decade show business career, Wright was featured in nearly 30 films, dozens of television series and made-for-tv movies, and a whole array of stage productions. On the big screen, she played opposite some of the most important stars of the '40s and '50s. It's a long list, including Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Gary Cooper, Myrna Loy, Ray Milland, Fredric March, Jean Simmons, Marlon Brando, Dana Andrews, Lew Ayres, Cornel Wilde, Robert Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, Joseph Cotten, and David Niven. Also of note, Teresa Wright made Oscar history in the early '40s, when she was nominated for each of her first three movie roles.

Each year, the Library of Congress selects 25 films to be named to the National Film Registry, a proclamation of commitment to preserving the chosen pictures for all time. They can be big studio pictures or experimental short films, goofball comedies or poetic meditations on life. The National Film Registery "showcases the extraordinary diversity of America’s film heritage and the disparate strands making it so vibrant" and by preserving the films, the Library of Congress hopes to "a crucial element of American creativity, culture and history.” This year’s selections span the period 1913 to 2004 and include a number of films you’re familiar with. Unless you’ve never heard of "Saving Private Ryan," "The Big Lebowski," “Rosemary’s Baby” or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Highlights from the list include the aforementioned film, Arthur Penn’s Western "Little Big Man," John Lasseter’s 1986 animated film, “Luxo Jr.," 1953’s “House of Wax,...