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New remastered restorations of Val Lewton pictures? We’re there. This terrific double bill gives us two Lewton shockers that are in no way ‘lesser’. The progressive psycho killer picture The Ghost Ship suffered a legal setback and disappeared for almost fifty years; it’s a masterpiece of taste and tone. Bedlam is a costume picture with an ideal role for Boris Karloff, and multiple eerie moments worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. Both movies exhibit interesting storytelling techniques, too. Rko should have promoted Lewton to A pictures, as they did his collaborators Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson.

The Ghost Ship + Bedlam

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1943 + 1946 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date October 12, 2021 / 24.99

Starring: Richard Dix, Edith Barrett; Boris Karloff, Anna Lee.

Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca

Art Directors: Albert S. D’Agostino, Walter E. Keller

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by Donald Henderson Clarke; Carlos Keith & Mark Robson...

This unassuming noir classic can boast a strong creative pedigree and an unusual ending… which I’ll not spoil. Dan Duryea is the confused pianist helping June Vincent clear her husband of a murder charge, by infiltrating the nightclub of suspicious Peter Lorre. The outline sticks close to Cornell Woolrich’s story source, and Roy William Neill contributes a classy job of direction.

Black Angel

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1946 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 81 min. / Street Date January 28, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford, Constance Dowling, Wallace Ford, Hobart Cavanaugh, Ben Bard, Freddie Steele, John Phillips.

Cinematography: Raoul Ivano

Film Editor: Saul A. Goodkind

Special effects: David S. Horsley

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by Roy Chanslor from a novel by Cornell Woolrich

Produced by Roy William Neill, Tom McKnight

Directed by Roy William Neill

The many movies made from Cornell Woolrich’s novels and stories can be a...

After decades as one of cinema's most creative, unique and mysterious filmmakers, David Lynch will finally give his audience a glimpse into his own life with a quasi-memoir titled Life & Work. For the book, billed as a tribute to the filmmaker's "inexhaustible imagination," Lynch will partner with writer Kristine McKenna, who first interviewed Lynch in the late Seventies after experiencing Eraserhead. Grand Central Publishing has secured the U.S. rights to Life & Work, which will arrive in 2017.

"There's a lot of bullshit out there about me, in books and all over the Internet,...