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Controversial yet successful, Straw Dogs by Sam Peckinpah was a hit plagued by graphic violence and censorship but still a critical darling. Jerry Fielding's score and Dustin Hoffman's performance elevated the film, making it one of Peckinpah's finest works that endures today. While the original Straw Dogs is unavailable for streaming, physical copies exist with extra content, and a 2011 remake provides a modern take.

A psychological thriller, Straw Dogs (1971) was directed by Sam Peckinpah from a script he co-wrote alongside David Zelag Goodman. They adapted the story from a 1969 novel titled The Siege of Trencher's Farm, which was, in turn, written by Gordon M. Williams. Both cover the same plot, albeit with some exceptions here and there. For instance, there are different names for their respective lead characters.

In the film, Dustin Hoffman stars as David Sumner, a scholar of applied mathematics another difference from the book, as his original counterpart teaches English.

Military ensemble pictures work well when the excitement is all about the job and working under pressure: Charlton Heston, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty and even David Carradine are excellent in this credible story about a near-impossible rescue of submariners trapped 1400 feet below. It’s a solid Navy disaster scenario, unusually authentic and realistic — until the dramatists require actor Ronny Cox to act like an emotional idiot. Those U.K. disc producers do it justice with some excellent extras, including a piece with a Navy specialist who worked with the rescue craft seen in the movie… and who later became a well-known film historian, author and film series organizer.

Gray Lady Down

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1978 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / / Street Date October 25, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK /

Starring: Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Stephen McHattie, Ronny Cox, Dorian Harewood, Rosemary Forsyth, Hilly Hicks, Charles Cioffi, William Jordan,...

The Bad News Bears

Blu ray

Imprint

1976 / 1.78:1 / 102 min.

Starring Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow

Cinematography by John Alonzo

Directed by Michael Ritchie

W.C. Fields’ final screen appearance was a brief walk-on in Sensations of 1945, an overloaded variety show that barely found time for the great man. As usual Fields had the last laugh—thanks to his life-long aversion to authority, the comedian enjoyed a brief renaissance in the 70’s when his films were showcased at revival houses alongside those other counterculture champions, the Marx Brothers. Morris Buttermaker, the obstinate antihero of Michael Ritchie’s The Bad News Bears, is a W.C. Fields for The Me Decade. Like Fields, Buttermaker is a hard-drinking vagabond (he roams the San Fernando Valley cleaning swimming pools), boasts a tomato-shaped proboscis, and has little use for the world or its inhabitants—who else but Walter Matthau to play this slouching, grouching deadbeat.

Blood, gore and the smell of gunpowder! Sam Peckinpah’s booze-soaked Odyssey sends Warren Oates on a grisly fool’s errand to retrieve a rotting, fly-bitten… oh, just read the title will ya? Resolutely sordid and debased, and soaked in ugly exploitation values, the tale of ‘Machete Bennie’ nevertheless scores as Peckinpah’s last successful movie — if Edgar Allan Poe went crazy locked in a room with rotting corpses, he might have come up with this idea.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date , 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson, Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado, Richard Bright, Sharon Peckinpah, Garner Simmons.

Cinematography: Álex Phillips Jr.

Film Editors: Garth Craven, Dennis E. Dolan, Sergio Ortega, Robbe Roberts

Original Music: Jerry Fielding

Written by Sam Peckinpah,...

Lennie Niehaus, who went from Stan Kenton sideman to Clint Eastwood’s movie composer during a nearly 60-year career in music, died Thursday at his daughter’s home in Redlands, Calif. He was 90.

Niehaus’s two dozen films for Eastwood include original scores for the best picture-winning Western “Unforgiven,” the Charlie Parker biopic “Bird” and the popular romantic drama “The Bridges of Madison County.”

The two met in 1953 at California’s Fort Ord, when the two were in the Army during the Korean Conflict. “I used to play jazz jobs at one of the beer clubs on the base, and Clint was tending bar,” Niehaus wrote in an essay about the actor-director for his 1996 American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. “I used to go off post and play in a little jazz club in nearby Santa Cruz on Sunday afternoons, and he would be there.”

Niehaus’s Army service interrupted...

By Fred Blosser

In Sergio Corbucci’s 1967 Italian Western, “The Hellbenders” (1967), now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, embittered Colonel Jonas (Joseph Cotten) devises a plan to avenge the outcome of the Civil War. Where today’s cultural conservatives mostly express their nostalgia for the Old South by gathering to protest the removal of Confederate monuments, Jonas takes more extreme measures. He and his three sons -- the remnant of his old command, known as the Hellbenders -- ambush a military convoy transporting $1.5 million in greenbacks. Slaughtering the convoy’s cavalry escort, they transfer the stolen money to a makeshift coffin supposedly containing the remains of Jonas‘ “son-in-law” Ambrose Allen, another Confederate officer killed in action at the Battle of Nashville. In truth, an officer named Ambrose Allen died at Nashville, but he wasn’t Jonas’ son-in-law, and his corpse isn’t in the coffin. Jonas picked his name off...

W.K. Stratton’s new book, “‘The Wild Bunch’: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film” (Bloomsbury) makes the case for the 1969 Western about American outlaws who died bloody deaths in Mexico. Peckinpah’s masterpiece became a favorite of the Weather Underground and assorted cineastes and a solid hit for Warner Bros. Stratton spoke to Variety about the film’s many innovations and will be screening the film at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 at Laemmle’s 7 in Pasadena. A talk with critic Stephen Farber, presented by Vroman’s Bookstore, will follow the film.

‘The Wild Bunch’ pushed the violence envelope. What were its other important innovations?

‘The Wild Bunch’s’ greatest innovation lies in the production work itself. Specifically, photography. The most familiar images in the film come from the sequence that has come to be known as “the walk”: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine,...

By Todd Garbarini

Film historian Douglas Dunning has informed Cinema Retro that Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Ahrya Fine Arts will be presenting the 50th anniversary screening of Sam Peckinpah’s influential 1969 film The Wild Bunch and special guests are scheduled to appear at both locations. The film stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmund O’Brien, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau and runs 145 minutes.

Please Note:

Screening #1 is on February 26th at the Playhouse 7 at 7:00 pm, and at press time W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion after the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater.

Screening #2 is at the Ahrya Fine Arts on March 2nd at 7:30 pm.

Nick Redman, Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, award-winning soundtrack producer and co-founder of the Twilight Time video label, died Thursday afternoon, Jan. 17, at a Santa Monica Hospital, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 63.

He was nominated for an Academy Award as producer of the 1996 documentary “The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage,” a look back at Sam Peckinpah’s controversial film. He also produced and directed the 1998 “A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne and The Searchers,” about the making of the Western classic, a prizewinner at multiple film festivals.

In 2007 he produced and directed the feature documentary “Becoming John Ford,” which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival and detailed the long and complex relationship between the famous director and 20th Century-Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck.

He made numerous other short films including profiles of actress Stella Stevens and film composers Basil Poledouris and Jerry Fielding.

Film-score buffs had a bonanza of riches to choose from in 2018 — notwithstanding the fact that the soundtrack business is almost unrecognizable from what it was even a decade ago. Instead of farming out their new scores to the traditional soundtrack labels, most studios now retain them for their own in-house labels and generally release them digitally. Meanwhile, the labels that once relied on current films for their bread-and-butter releases are focusing more on the niche market for classic film scores: re-releasing old ones with new material, finding worthy titles that somehow never got released, and in some cases even re-recording classic scores.

It’s a complicated business, label executives say. Not only must they track down the best available audio (studios and production companies don’t always retain the elements or sometimes can’t find them), they have to clear the rights (and sometimes the music publishing details have changed). And,...

This May will be the 30th anniversary of when viewers were first introduced to those cotton candy-loving visitors from above in Stephen Chiodo's Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and on May 19th in Los Angeles, the movie's three-decade mark will be celebrated in style at The Montalban Theatre.

Similar to a three-ring circus, the May 19th celebration will include multiple performance for attendees to enjoy, including fortune tellers, contortionist Bonnie Morgan (who played Samara in Rings), a Q&A with the cast and crew, and a screening of Killer Klowns From Outer Space with a live score accompaniment from The Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, conducted by composer John Massari.

Read on for full details in the press release below, and check here to learn more about tickets to the event.

Press Release: (March Xx, 2018– Los Angeles, CA) – Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Killer Klowns From Outer Space with a Bacchanalian...

Sam Peckinpah was a fine director of actors when the material was right, and his first collaboration with Steve McQueen is an shaded character study about a rodeo family dealing with changing times. Joe Don Baker and Ben Johnson shine, but the movie belongs to Ida Lupino and Robert Preston.

Junior Bonner

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 100 min. / Special Edition / Street Date October 31, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Joe Don Baker, Ben Johnson, Mary Murphy, Dub Taylor, Don ‘Red’ Barry, Bill McKinney.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Film Editors: Frank Santillo, Robert L. Wolfe

Second Unit Director: Frank Kowalski

Bud Hurlbud: Special Effects

Original Music: Jerry Fielding

Written by Jeb Rosebrook

Produced by Joe Wizan

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

I suppose there were plenty of successful rodeo-themed westerns back in the day, perhaps the kind interrupted by a cowboy song every ten minutes or so.

Straw Dogs

Blu-ray

Criterion

1971 / 1:85 / Street Date June 27, 2017

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Film Editors: Paul Davies, Tony Lawson, Roger Spottiswoode

Written by David Zelag Goodman and Sam Peckinpah

Produced by Daniel Melnick

Music: Jerry Fielding

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Adrift from civilization, an attractive young couple find themselves threatened, assaulted, and eventually compelled to defend themselves in a bloody showdown. That is the basic premise of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, released in 1971 and inspired by some of the same movies then crowding the legendary dives of 42nd street. On its surface Straw Dogs is pure exploitation but its lasting power resides in Peckinpah’s transformation of those visceral grindhouse cliches into an appalling examination of human nature.

Straw Dogs begins with the seemingly benign introduction of David Sumner, a young man with an even younger wife, arriving in a tiny hamlet in the north of England,...

An Encore Edition. Peckinpah's macabre South of the border shoot 'em up is back for a second limited edition, with a new commentary. It's still a picture sure to separate the Peckinpah lovers from the auteur tourists - it's grisly, grim and resolutely exploitative, but also has about it a streak of grimy honesty. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Blu-ray Twilight Time Encore Edition 1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date September, 2016 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 29.95 Starring Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson, Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado, Richard Bright, Sharon Peckinpah, Garner Simmons. Cinematography Álex Phillips Jr. Art Direction Agustín Ituarte Film Editors Garth Craven, Dennis E. Dolan, Sergio Ortega, Robbe Roberts Original Music Jerry Fielding Written by Sam Peckinpah, Gordon T. Dawson, Frank Kowalski Produced by Martin Baum, Helmut Dantine, Gordon T. Dawson Directed by...

Here's another installment featuring Joe Dante's reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments!

Dustin Hoffman defends his home against murderous thugs in strong, violent melodrama with appeal to both discriminating trades and the blood- and-guts fans. Rating: R.

Director Sam Peckinpah’s fascination with violence as man’s most basic instinct finds new and disturbing expression in Straw Dogs, a difficult, harrowing film which is in essence a long, slow-burning fuse leading to an explosion of bloodshed. On the whole, the ABC Pictures Corp. production possesses a nightmare intensity few horror films could match, and this should be a factor in drawing both serious filmgoers and the mayhem-minded masses. As an action entry, the Cinerama release has the requisite sex and brutality to pull them in, while Dustin Hoffman’s presence an...

Clint Eastwood revisited Harry Callahan three more times, usually whenever his career was in the dumps. If Dirty Harry was a cultural phenomenon and Magnum Force a respectable follow-up, the rest are uninspired cash-ins. The main law Harry enforces in these sequels is the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Given Dirty Harry‘s San Francisco setting, something like The Enforcer (1976) was inevitable. After all, San Fran hosted Haight-Ashbury, hippie capital of the world; was a favored site for Black Panther and Sds protests; headquarters of the nascent gay rights movement; victim of Weathermen bombings and the racially-charged Zebra murders. Writers Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schurr based their script, originally titled “Moving Target,” on the Symbionese Liberation Army which kidnapped Patty Hearst. Dean Riesner (who cowrote the original Harry) and Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) polished the film.

Harry battles the People’s Revolutionary Strike Froce, led by...

Blu-ray Release Date: June 10, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

Charles Bronson is The Mechanic.

The 1972 thriller The Mechanic starring Charles Bronson—which was remade (unremarkably) by Simon West in 2011 as a star vehicle for Jason Statham (Killer Elite)—makes its Blu-ray debut from Twilight Time.

Directed by Michael Winner, The Mechanic stars Charles Bronson (Hard Times, The Great Escape) as a hardened professional hitman who’s feeling the strains of his profession. He joins forces with a ruthless up-and-comer (Jan-Michael Vincent, Damnation Alley) in a partnership that wavers between sustaining and profoundly dangerous…particularly when they get involved in a couple of tricky contracts.

Still considered by many to be the ultimate hitman flick, The Mechanic features a memorable score by the ever-prolific Jerry Fielding, available on this Twilight Time release as an isolated track.

As supplier Twilight Time prints up only 3,000 copies of each title, the time to pre-order...

At least one Alabama lawmakers stands with Phil: Republican state Sen. Jerry Fielding tells CNN he plans to introduce a symbolic resolution in support of suspended “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson. Fielding joins many social conservatives who have backed the 68-year-old Louisiana duck hunter since he was suspended from his show for making anti-gay comments. More than 250,000 people have signed a petition, IStandWithPhil.com, calling on A&E to bring him back. Also read: Jesse Jackson Calls ‘Duck Dynasty’ Dad ‘More Offensive’ Than Rosa Parks’ Bus Driver Fielding said that while he didn’t agree with Robertson’s statements on race or his comparison of.

Go Ahead, Make My Day! week concludes at Trailers from Hell with TV writer Alan Spencer introducing the third Dirty Harry film, "The Enforcer," starring Clint Eastwood.Although Clint Eastwood had intended to direct the third Dirty Harry movie himself, his replacement of Philip Kaufman during The Outlaw Josey Wales prevented him from taking the reins on The Enforcer, so his assistant director James Fargo was drafted to do the job. Tyne Daley’s tough female cop foreshadows her role in the hit Cagney and Lacey tv series. The music is by Jerry Fielding, making this the only Dirty Harry film without a score by Lalo Schifrin. By the way, the line “Go ahead, make my day” does not actually appear until the next film in the series, Sudden Impact.

Will Smith: The Wild Bunch remake (photo: Will Smith in After Earth) Will Smith has been mentioned in connection with Focus, the caper tale that was to have starred Ben Affleck and Kristen Stewart, and is to star in Edward Zwick’s Hurricane Katrina drama The American Can. But that’s not all. His producing company is working on a remake of the Broadway musical Annie — which got a less-than-satisfactory screen version back in 1982 — and apparently he wants to revive The Wild Bunch as well. Set during the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s, Sam Peckinpah’s ultra-violent 1969 classic Western features William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, and other movie veterans as a group of outlaws fleeing from Robert Ryan while out to do one last job in war-torn northern Mexico. The Will Smith The Wild Bunch reboot, however, is to be set in the present, though the perilous...

From its very beginnings as a genre, Western film has trafficked in the iconic, in the larger-than-life imagery of the tall tale and the never-ending, expansive wilderness that forms the crucial backbone to these stories. More than perhaps any other genre, Westerns deal in types, with their characters standing in for the Other, the Immigrant, the Hero, and the Villain (in their black hat), telling universal stories of camaraderie and isolation, of running from and fighting for civilization, and morality tested by the harshest circumstances. The conventions of the genre run the gamut, from performance (heroes must be taciturn!) to costuming and scenery (gotta have a tumbleweed), and one of the most important elements to any Western is its score.

Most Westerns, particularly those from the heyday of the genre, feature orchestral scores. Given the American frontier setting, most scores tend to feature a number of specific characteristics which have...

Anybody who has ever been to a high school reunion (and I’ve been to my share) will tell you that the calendar and the clock can be incredibly cruel (particularly when combined with the long-term effects of gravity, but let’s not go there).

Time punishes creative works as well. Some work grows dated, stale, stiff. Time and the evolving form of the given art leaves a once vibrant and exciting work behind looking dead and obsolete.

More cruel, perhaps, is work that is simply…forgotten. Not for any good reason. Good as it was, maybe it was simply not successful enough to lodge very deeply in the popular consciousness; working well enough in its day, but soon lost among the ever-growing detritus of a lot of other pieces of yesterday.

Movie music is particularly vulnerable to the cruelties of time. Outside of the form’s devotees, it rarely...

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

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

To be sure, there would...

Fresh fanfare surrounding the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness is revving up renewed interest in the original Star Trek TV series. One key component of what makes Star Trek great is the incredible symphonic soundtrack that accompanied every episode, and now La-la Land Records has released Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection, a limited-edition, must-have box set for true fans of the series – and the perfect gift for the Trekkies and Trekkers in your galaxy.

Pics: 'Star Trek' Movies -- The Best and Worst Moments

According to the set's incredibly detailed and thorough liner notes, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry looked to veteran composer and arranger Alexander Courage to use a nautical approach to the show's soundtrack, hoping to keep the mid-'60s space series that was originally pitched as "A Wagon Train to the Stars" grounded.

"My feeling was this," said Roddenberry in a 1982 interview, "that for the first time on television I was going...

30 Rock, Season 7, Episode 1: “The Beginning of the End”

Written by Jack Burditt

Directed by Don Scardino

Airs Thursday at 8pm Et on NBC

As much as I love 30 Rock, it would be difficult to argue the last few seasons haven’t been a bit rough. The slide began around the end of Season 3, with Season 5 serving as something of an oasis while Season 6 represented the show’s absolute nadir. When word came down that its seventh season would be its last, it was difficult to feel much disappointment. The show hadn’t been cancelled outright, affording Tina Fey and Robert Carlock the opportunity to bid an appropriate adieu to these characters. Nobody could argue they hadn’t got their due, or that it wasn’t time.

Or could they? Despite planting seeds for the finale, “The Beginning of the End” feels like anything but: the jokes are coming at a breakneck pace,...

Set your phasers to stun: Did you know that the complete soundtrack for the original Star Trek TV series has never been released, separate from the episodes? That iconic music from your childhood and beyond is now soon to be released in its entirety, including music that was recorded but never actually used onscreen.

Don’t worry, Trekkies and Trekkers, they understand that some of us are obsessed and they fear our wrath, so when they say complete, they mean complete. 15 discs worth of complete. What they need to know now is how many sets to press. First, here’s a featurette about the project:

Featurette: Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection- Behind the Score

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s the press release with all the details, including their request for info on how many they should be pressing:

Coming Soon From La-la Land Records...

This week’s soundtracks review only features one new soundtrack with three re-releases and new versions of one film series’ scores.

Eastbound & Down by Various Artists

Eastbound & Down is an American comedy series about a former Major League Baseball superstar who fizzled out and is now adjusting to normal life while trying to get back to the Majors. The show predominantly takes place in the American south (and Mexico) and the music of the show reflects that. A majority of the musical tracks on this two-disc soundtrack could be classified as blues/southern rock or rap. This can be evidenced by the theme song, 1971’s “Going Down” by blues musician Freddie King. Almost half of the tracks are clips from the show, showcasing the humor of Eastbound. A great soundtrack for fans of the show or blues rock fans who enjoy some crude humor mixed in between the songs.

Music...

By Lee Pfeiffer

I admit to having a weakness for the "dirty cop" movies that were all the rage beginning with Bullitt in 1968 and extending through the mid to late 70s. Seemingly every major star wanted to be part of the genre, just as the spy film rage of the mid-1960s had everyone and their grandmother portraying a secret agent. The Super Cops, a 1974 MGM production, came at the end of the era in which stars such as Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen and John Wayne had portrayed anti-establishment law enforcement officers. The Super Cops has the key ingredients common to all these films: wisecracking hero(es), tone-deaf police brass who are either resistant to using innovative methods or are flat-out corrupt and gritty urban backdrops.  The Super Cops had the pedigree of being based on fact and a bestselling book by the titular heroes,...

Above: Image from Maurice Binder's title sequence for Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

Sleep Little Lush

This follow-up to the previous soundtrack mix, Hyper Sleep, is very much the same animal: a chance gathering of mesmerizing music tracks, carefully arranged to focus on the interstitial character of film music—its ability to distill into hallucinatory moments, the most sensual or emotional qualities of a film’s nature, and amplify these sensations to increase their temporal impact. With this idea of music as intoxicant in mind, the passing this year of John Barry was a loss of one of the great “perfumers” of film composing (for more on music as perfume, see Daniel Kasman’s “Herrmann’s Perfume”). The beautiful themes that Barry scored for the world of 007 that open this collection set the spell for a kaleidoscopic (largely) 60s and 70s sample of some of the best film music written by Ennio Morricone,...

Straw Dogs

Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, Del Henney, David Warner | Written by Sam Peckinpah, David Zelag Goodman | Directed by Sam Peckinpah

I have a confession to make. I had, until slotting the new Blu-ray from Studio Canal into my player, never seen Straw Dogs. I was always an Expose fan, and (unwisely it turns out) thought that Peckinpah’s film would pale in comparison. Plus I’m a stickler for seeing films uncut… And as you may know, the film hasn’t been available uncut in the UK until very recently.

For those that aren’t familiar with the film, it tells the story of quiet American mathematician David Sumner (Hoffman) and his British-born wife Amy (George) who relocate to Amy’s rural English hometown in an attempt to flee the violent social unrest brewing in the Us. However the social unrest of the Us is replaced...

Intrada Records has announced the world premiere release of the the score for the 1985 horror classic Fright Night. The album includes the original music composed by Brad Fiedel (Terminator, True Lies). To order the CD, visit Intrada’s online store, where you can also listen to lengthy audio clips from the album. Fright Night directed by Tom Holland starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall is available on DVD. A remake of the film, which featured a score by Ramin Djawadi has been released this summer.

The label has also announced the world premiere release of the score for the 1980 horror thriller Funeral Home. The movie was the last project for composer Jerry Fielding (The Wild Bunch). For audio clips and to order the album, visit Intrada’s website.

Mumbai, 1st October 2010: Reliance Big Entertainment (Rbe), the flagship media and entertainment arm of India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group today announced a joint-venture with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's production company Playtone. Rbe together with Playtone will create Electric City a multi-platform digital experience covering a multi-episode animated internet series, online social game and mobile application. Conceived and written by Tom Hanks, Electric City will offer a tantalizing view of the future of civilization, presented through the lens of provocative themes such as energy consumption, freedom of information, crime and punishment. Electric City is being specifically designed as a multi-platform, multi-screen unified digital experience. A Social Game, a mobile Game, web episodes and mobile episodes will be interlinked creating a unique digital experience. The storyline lends itself perfectly to a multi-player browser game application for social networking sites and mobile devices. Zapak, the gaming division of Rbe,...

The 40th Anniversary of director Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western The Wild Bunch, will be celebrated at the 'Jules Verne Légendaire Award Charity Event', November 12 @ Los Angeles' 2,000 seat, downtown 'Million Dollar Theater', bringing the ground-breaking feature back up on the big screen. The film's surviving lead actors Ernest 'Dutch Engstrom' Borgnine, Bo 'Crazy Lee' Hopkins, L.Q. 'T.C.' Jones, Alfonso 'Lt. Hererra' Arau and others will be accepting awards on stage. In addition, Melissa Peckinpah will accept a special award on behalf of her father, director 'Bloody Sam' Peckinpah and Camille Fielding will accept a Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of her late father, composer Jerry Fielding. Celebrities confirmed to attend the event include Ali "The Getaway" MacGraw, composer Lalo "Dirty Harry" Schifrin, director Walter "The Warriors" Hill and actor Malcolm "A Clockwork Orange" McDowell. "It will be the last great ride of the movie," organizers said. Premise of the film,...

Aleph Records will be releasing the final Dirty Harry Soundtrack The Dead Pool on January 13th 2008. This was the fifth and final film of the Dirty Harry series. Lalo Schifrin, who composed the soundtracks for Dirty Harry, Magnum Force and Sudden Impact, wrote the original music. Aleph Records has released the soundtracks for the first four films, including The Enforcer, which was composed by Jerry Fielding.

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Also released this month from Harkit records is the first ever release of Lalo Schifrin's Return from the River Kwai soundtrack and John Barry's The Dove also makes its debut release on CD. (Full reviews of both will be featured in issue #13 of Cinema Retro)

If you are looking for some great little retro stocking fillers for the holiday season, check out these releases from the Vocalion label, Favourite TV themes and Favourite TV themes Vol. 2 (originally released 1973 and 1975 respectfully) that appear...