News

Powerhouse Indicator moves forward to their fourth fancy box of noirs from the studio of Harry Cohn, six pictures stretching from the postwar boom to the end of the original classic noir era. This time around we have some notable directors, and a nice selection of stars — Dennis O’Keefe, George Murphy, Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun and Richard Conte. Kim Novak makes her starring debut as a femme fatale; noir icon Richard Conte shines in a movie that marks a turn into a new kind of existential, paranoid thriller. And speaking of paranoid, we again get to lighten up with another selection of theme-appropriate Three Stooges shorts.

Columbia Noir #4

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1948-1957 / B&w + Color / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / Street Date September 27, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / 49.99

Starring: Louis Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe; George Murphy; Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak; Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun; Dennis O’Keefe,...

Cobra Woman

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1944/ 1:33 / 71 min.

Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu

Directed by Robert Siodmak

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

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

The 2016 blu ray release of the Frankenstein and Wolf Man Legacy Collections was a moment of celebration for movie and monster lovers everywhere, bringing together all the golden age appearances of Frankenstein’s misbegotten creation and Larry Talbot’s hairy alter-ego. Universal Studios treated those dusty creature features to luminous restorations; from Bride of Frankenstein to She Wolf of London, these essential artifacts never looked less than impeccable and, at times, even ravishing. Colin Clive’s frenzied declaration, “It’s Alive!”, never felt more appropriate.

Now Universal has turned their attention to their other legendary franchise players, Dracula, the sharp-dressed but undead ladies’ man and Im-ho-tep, the cursed Egyptian priest who loved not wisely but too well.

Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection

Blu-ray

Universal Studios Home Entertainment

1931, ’36, ’43, ’44, ’45, ’48 / 449 min. / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date May 16, 2017

Starring: Actors: Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. , Boris Karloff, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Cinematography: Karl Freund,...

Sitting Pretty (1948) Direction: Walter Lang Cast: Clifton Webb, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Young, Richard Haydn, Louise Allbritton, Randy Stuart, Ed Begley Screenplay: F. Hugh Herbert; from Gwen Davenport's novel Belvedere Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Clifton Webb, Sitting Pretty In the late 1940s, the bucolic suburb of Hummingbird Hill is shaken in its tranquil complacency by the scandalous actions of two middle-aged, unmarried men. Each of these elitist, academic bachelors threaten the norm of twin beds, parlor games, and ladies who lunch. One escapes his overbearing mother in persistent eavesdropping and snooping; the other inserts himself as a platonic wedge between a husband and wife, usurping household authority with conceited pleasure. The couple eventually separates under the strain, while the community itself is exposed for its flaws and hypocrisy. The convention of the two-parent, heterosexual family and its corresponding social order is besieged from within by men who exist outside the tradition.