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The disc of the year has finally arrived and it’s 1000 worth the wait. William Cameron Menzies’ flight into schoolboy paranoia now really looks like it ought to hang in the Louvre; the entire show is inspired Modern Art. When Martians conduct a brain-snatching takeover of Middle America little David MacLean must save the day, with an assist from an astronomer buddy and a sexy city nurse. The review is mostly concerned with how the new Ignite release looks and sounds. The rejuvenation of this fantasy masterpiece will turn fans of the 1950s sci-fi boom back into delighted ‘Gee Whiz’ kids.

Invaders from Mars

Blu-ray

Ignite Films

1953 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 81 min. / Street Date September 27, 2022 that was the plan … delivery expected . . . ? / Available from Ignite Films / 55.00

Starring: Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, Leif Erickson, Hillary Brooke, Morris Ankrum, Max Wagner, William Phipps, Milburn Stone, Janine Perreau, Barbara Billingsley, Peter Brocco, Richard Deacon,...

It’s back and Criterion’s got it, so be prepared for sharp-talking insights on Billy Wilder’s nearly flawless, cinema-changing ode to cold-blooded murder, Los Angeles style. Edward G. Robinson wants Fred MacMurray but Barbara Stanwyck has him wrapped around her trigger finger. James M. Cain tapped into our city’s domestic malaise — who doesn’t know somebody they’d like to trade in for some extra cash? What about the extras? The Big C has Noah Isenberg, Imogen Sara Smith, Eddie Muller, Angelica Jade Bastién. Plus, we get the legendary Wilder interviews with Volker Schlöndorff, uncut and völlig ungeklärt. Revolver under the sofa cushion, anyone?

Double Indemnity

4K Ultra-hd + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1126

1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 31, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, Mona Freeman,...

This year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, which took place over the weekend in Hollywood, showcased more than 80 movies, including a particularly memorable classic that takes a child’s-eye view of the aftermath of a spaceship landing on Earth. And no, I’m not talking about the festival’s opening-night movie, Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

Sure, “E.T.” is probably the most famous movie in which aliens are shown through the eyes of children, and it was a kick to see its IMAX remaster screened at the huge Tcl Chinese Theatre as the opening attraction on Thursday.

(And it was a kick to hear Spielberg, who was supposed to have been joined by stars Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore until unspecified events prevented them from coming, talk about how he persuaded screenwriter Melissa Mathison to take on the film, and how the first 50 or so people to see the...

You can’t beat pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck, who glows as a knockout thieves’ accomplice, tough prison convict and deceitful lover of an incorruptible revivalist preacher-politician. She’s matched by the sassy, naughty Lillian Roth. In this Warner crime-tale-duel between piety and sin, darned if Stanwyck and Roth don’t make the crooked path seem cozy. There’s a girl-girl punch-out and an ill-fated prison break, but just watching Barbara ooze attitude as she saunters through the prison is worth the price of admission. Even more eye-opening is a positively lewd cartoon extra, also from the pre-Code halls of joyful infamy.

Ladies They Talk About

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1933 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 69 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date , 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth, Maude Eburne, Ruth Donnelly, Harold Huber, Mary Gordon, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Robert Warwick, Etta Moten, Helen Ware.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Production Designer:...

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“A Mentalist Mystery”

By Raymond Benson

Anything that originated from the mind of celebrated mystery novelist, Cornell Woolrich, is worth one’s perusal, and the 1948 film adaptation of the author’s 1945 work, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mostly measures up.

Directed with confidence and style by John Farrow, Night is a film noir that ticks a lot of boxes that define that Hollywood cinematic movement of the late 1940s and early 50s. There’s a cynical and disturbed protagonist who is haunted by the past, cinematography (by John F. Seitz) that highly contrasts light and shadows, voiceover narration, flashbacks, and, of course, crimes. It’s short (81 minutes) and it’s intriguing. The picture’s faults might be that it can be overly melodramatic at times, and there are a couple of weak casting choices that prevent Night from being a classic. It’s good enough,...

Billy Wilder’s first big Oscar winner holds up as fine work in every respect, and serves as evidence of the writer-director’s moviemaking instincts at a time when he could do no wrong. Starring Ray Milland as a self-destructive alcoholic, Wilder and Charles Brackett manage to retain much of the sordid truth and nightmarish horror of the ordeal of would-be writer Don Birnham, who ducks his guilty self-loathing by taking to the bottle. It’s still a harrowing experience, with a sharp emotional kick. This new remastered edition carries a commentary by Joseph McBride. Co-starring Jane Wyman, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen and Phillip Terry; the scary music is by Miklos Rozsa.

The Lost Weekend

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1945 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 101 min. / Street Date November 24, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen, Douglas Spencer,...

It’s smart, it’s funny, it has a touch of romance… it’s Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett’s entertaining espionage thriller set between the battle lines of the North Africa campaign. Franchot Tone must impersonate a double agent, when the command staff of General Rommel (Erich von Stroheim!) takes over a half-bombed hotel run by the forlorn Akim Tamiroff. Anne Baxter is the French maid desperate to make a deal, with whichever side will help her get what she wants. Even the title of this winner has a clever special meaning.

Five Graves to Cairo

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / Street Date September 29, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff, Erich von Stroheim, Peter van Eyck, Fortunio Bonanova.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Film Editor: Doane Harrison

Original Music: Miklos Rozsa

Written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett from a play by Lajos Biró...

George Pal’s second science fiction classic has conceptual imagination and visual wonder to spare, along with a million awkward and dated details. When rogue planets threaten to obliterate the Earth, a super-Ark spaceship is built to spirit forty ‘chosen ones’ to safety. The Ark passengers have the right stuff, but you may be enraged by the rigged process to select who gets to go. Gee-whiz spectacle is the order of the day — how many End Of The World movies actually show terra firma expunged from the Solar System? Barbara Rush and John Hoyt are the acting standouts, but top honors go to Pal’s visual effect artists and designers.

When Worlds Collide

Blu-ray

Viavision / [Imprint] 6 (Australia)

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / available through [Imprint] : $34.95

Starring: Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Larry Keating, John Hoyt, Judith Ames, James Congden, Stephen Chase, Frank Cady, Hayden Rorke, Kirk Alyn, Casey Rogers, John Ridgely,...

George Pal’s second science fiction classic has conceptual imagination and visual wonder to spare, along with a million awkward and dated details. When rogue planets threaten to obliterate the Earth, a super-Ark spaceship is built to spirit forty ‘chosen ones’ to safety. The Ark passengers have the right stuff, but you may be enraged by the rigged process to select who gets to go. Gee-whiz spectacle is the order of the day — how many End Of The World movies actually show terra firma expunged from the Solar System? Barbara Rush and John Hoyt are the acting standouts, but top honors go to Pal’s visual effect artists and designers.

When Worlds Collide

Blu-ray

Viavision / Imprint (Australia)

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / available through [Imprint] : $34.95

Starring: Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Larry Keating, John Hoyt, Judith Ames, James Congden, Stephen Chase, Frank Cady, Hayden Rorke, Kirk Alyn, Casey Rogers,...

I tell you it’s rough out there on Frisco Bay, especially when you say the word ‘Frisco’ within earshot of a proud San Francisco native. This Alan Ladd racketeering tale could have been written twenty years earlier, but it has Warner Color and the early, extra-wide iteration of the new movie attraction CinemaScope.

Hell on Frisco Bay

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen Academy / 98 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru, William Demarest, Paul Stewart, Perry Lopez, Fay Wray, Nestor Paiva, Willis Bouchey, Anthony Caruso, Tina Carver, Rod(ney) Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Mae Marsh, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted

Stunts: Paul Baxley

Original Music: Max Steiner

Written by Martin Rackin, Sydney Boehm from a book by William P. McGivern

Produced by George C. Berttholon, Alan Ladd

Directed by Frank Tuttle

Alan Ladd had always been...

1. Over dinner:2. Over iced cream:3. Straight up:4. Being led out of a room:5. Over Ma's shoulders:6. Out the kitchen window:7. Out of the frame:8. Over hot consomme served cold:9. On His arm:10. On a dock:11. At the lovely moon:12. On a boat:13. At the phone (also known as the Kubrick Stare):14. Shaking His hand:15. On the couch:16. When He's not looking:17. And when He is:18. While He's excited about his work:19. When He begins to notice:20. On the stairs:21. In your bedroom:22. With Pa:23. In a rumble seat:24. At The End, when you're about to kiss:From King Vidor's The Patsy (1928), with Orville Caldwell; cinematography by John F. Seitz.

Sullivan’s Travels

Written and directed by Preston Sturges

USA, 1941

At the start of Sullivan’s Travels, movie director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) has been screening his latest effort. The picture within the picture concludes with an intense rooftop fight aboard a train. It’s almost absurd in its inflated action and Sullivan is not at all pleased with his creation. This type of escapist entertainment may be all right for some, but it’s social commentary he now seeks. These are troubling times, he argues, with war in Europe and strikes on the home front, and the ambitious, idealistic filmmaker wants something beyond mere cinematic frivolity. Apparently, so did the director of Sullivan’s Travels, the great Preston Sturges. At least that’s what he ended up with anyway.

Sullivan’s Travels, “By” Preston Sturges, as the opening credit proclaims, lending the filmic fable something of a storybook...

One of the Most Amazing Silent Movies (or Movies of Any Era, Period) Ever Made Tops the List of Best of Movies Released in 1921 Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Metro Pictures' film version of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s epic novel -- from a scenario by the immensely powerful writer-producer June Mathis -- catapulted Mathis’ protégé, the until then little known Rudolph Valentino (photo, left), to worldwide superstardom, as The Four Horsemen became one of the biggest box-office hits of the silent era. Ingram’s wife, the invariably excellent Alice Terry (right, dark-haired in real life; a light-haired in her many movies), played Valentino's love interest. Ninety-two years after its initial launch, the Four Horsemen remains a monumental achievement. Released by MGM, Vincente Minnelli's 1962 remake of this Metro Pictures production featured an all-star cast: Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin (dubbed by Angela Lansbury), Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb,...

Tomorrow, Paramount Home Media Distribution is celebrating the Blu-ray release of the classic film Sunset Boulevard. Not only is Billy Wilder.s tale coming to life on Blu-ray for the first time ever, the film has also undergone extensive restoration treatment in the attempt to make John Seitz.s cinematography work pop as much as possible. To celebrate the November 6 release, we have a Blu-ray bonus clip to share with fans of the film. While the clip doesn.t delve into the restorative work, it does take a look at some of the settings and interiors that make the film so special. In particular, the swimming pool is looked at, and interestingly, the pool had to be built for the purpose of the film. The house that is prominent in the film was chosen particularly because it had the grace and the imposing style the producers assumed the average person...

A Planet Fury-approved selection of notable genre releases for August.

Jaws (1975) Universal Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo Available Now

Steven Spielberg’s classic thriller has been painstakingly restored from the original film elements. Amity Island has never been so beautiful. The movie itself seems to improve with age, with amazing performances and scenes that still manage to unnerve — Susan Backlinie’s death at the beginning is truly one of the most horrifying ever portrayed onscreen. Making this a true “special edition” is the long-awaited release of The Shark Is Still Working, an expansive documentary on the making and the impact of the 1975 film. All of the surviving cast and crew are interviewed along with several minutes of never-before-seen footage.

Special Features:

*Digitally remastered and fully restored from high resolution 35mm original film elements.

*Digital Copy of Jaws

*UltraViolet Copy of Jaws

*The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy...

Sunset Boulevard is coming to Blu-Ray for the first time ever. Billy Wilder.s iconic and tragic noir tale of life in Hollywood for a struggling screenwriter and an aging silent film star has managed to stay in the cultural lexicon for over 60 years, and it.s Blu-Ray release is being handled equally as reverently. On November 6, fans will be able to catch the Sunset Boulevard Blu-Ray set in all of its restored glory. The main effort of the restoration was to maintain John Seitz.s beautiful cinematography, but unfortunately, none of the original nitrate materials had survived. To achieve this, a team was able to find a vintage print of the film within the Library of Congress to work off of, scanning the materials and restoring them for the best picture possible. The sound, too, has been revamped for the upcoming release, having been transferred to digital and then...

The classic, quintessential film noir, which set the standard for all future noirs, Double Indemnity is to be released in the UK as part of Eureka’s Masters Of Cinema Series on Blu-ray (Standard and SteelBook editions) on 25 June 2012.

We have three copies of the Blu-ray to give away!

“That’s a honey of an anklet you’re wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson.”

Double Indemnity is the dazzling, quintessential film noir whose enormous popular success and seven Oscar nominations catapulted Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment) into the very top tier of Hollywood’s writer-directors. Adapted from a novella by James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye), Double Indemnity remains the hardest-boiled of delectations.

Insurance hawker Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gets seduced by some other man’s wife: a bored, sex-starved Barbara Stanwyck done up...

In our writers' favourite film series, Paul Howlett is moved by the heartbreak in this classy film noir about an insurance salesman

Do you feel betrayed by this review? Then write your own here or brood in the shadows of the comments section below

Who would have thought a movie about an insurance guy could be so bitter, so suspenseful, so heartbreaking? I love Double Indemnity because it's about a couple who are cheap and greedy, but achieve a kind of tragic heroism; because it has one of the great father-son relationships (although they aren't actually father and son); because it's a thoroughly cynical thriller redeemed by just a fading touch of romance. And it also has a trio of superb performances: Fred MacMurray, who tended to play amiable chumps, was here recast as a devious murderer (though still a bit of a chump); Barbara Stanwyck, as the deadliest of...

Ramon Novarro, Barbara La Marr, Trifling Women Ramon Novarro Brutal Death Pt.2: Convicted Killer Blames Catholicism Ramon Novarro's extant films for Rex Ingram, The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), in which he plays the sly villain Rupert of Hentzau, and Scaramouche (1923), in the heroic title role, are also well worth a look. I haven't watched The Arab (1924), which has been recently brought back to the United States from foreign archives. My understanding is that the print is incomplete; even so, here's hoping The Arab will soon be restored and shown on TCM. The now lost Ingram-Novarro collaboration Trifling Women (1922) would probably have been a sumptuous treat — cinematographer John F. Seitz's work in that Gothic melodrama seems to have inspired his later chiaroscuro lighting for Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. The same goes for the idyllic Where the Pavement Ends (1923), a tale of interethnic romance set on a South Pacific...

The CineClub is presenting biweekly screenings at the Crowley Arts Centre here in Montreal every other Sunday, and this week’s screening is one of my favorite films of all time, Double Indemnity.

Below is a brief synopsis; Double Indemnity screens at 7pm; you can find the Crowley at 4325 rue Crowley, near Vendome metro. Admission is $8, or $6 with a student ID.

Double Indemnity – 1944- Billy Wilder. Adapted from a James M. Cain novel by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity represents the high-water mark of 1940s film noir urban crime dramas in which a greedy, weak man is seduced and trapped by a cold, evil woman amidst the dark shadows and Expressionist lighting of modern cities. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) into murdering her husband to collect his accident policy. The murder goes as planned, but after the couple’s passion cools, each becomes...

Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t around to give writer W. Somerset Maugham his father’s famous advice about “stealing” from the best to create your own art, but mystic Aleister Crowley accused the British author of doing just that after he read Maugham’s 1908 novel, The Magician. Maybe it was just sour grapes—seeing as how Maugham’s fantasy-terror tale was said to be inspired in part by Crowley’s life—but in Maugham’s story of a mad medical student who dabbles in the occult secrets of creating life (not to mention unnecessary surgery), Crowley saw elements he felt were directly lifted variously from Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled, as well as a book about 16th-century physician/alchemist Paracelsus and H.G. Wells’ man-beast classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Sounds like that could be a great movie? Not only has the obscure 1926 silent thriller made from Maugham’s book, produced and directed by Rex Ingram,...