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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...

Today’s noir forecast is vice, kidnapping, murder, suicide, narcotics and a sleazy stolen baby racket! Kino’s third volume of Universal-International pix contains two seldom-screened quality urban noirs. Expect genuine dark themes in these sizable-budget location noirs filmed before Universal pulled most production back onto its one-size-fits-all backlot sets. Barbara Stanwyck dominates one show, while noir stalwarts Richard Conte and Dennis O’Keefe anchor the other two dramas, with dynamic showings by Coleen Gray, Edith Barrett, Peggy Dow, Jeanette Nolan, Meg Randall and especially Gale Storm.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema III

Abandoned, The Lady Gambles, The Sleeping City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1949-50 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 79,99,86 min. / Street Date June 9, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.99

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Meg Randall, Raymond Burr, Marjorie Rambeau, Jeanette Nolan, Mike Mazurki, Will Kuluva, David Clarke; Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Preston, Stephen McNally, Edith Barrett, John Hoyt,...

After The Seventh Victim‘s disappointing returns, Val Lewton and Rko clashed over their next project. Lewton wanted a comedy, provisionally titled The Amorous Ghost, as a change of pace; studio boss Sid Rogell, Lewton’s bete noir, insisted on a sequel to Cat People, which Lewton resisted. Then Rko suggested a Universal-style monster rally, They Creep By Night, reuniting villains from past Lewton pictures. Charles Koerner rescued Lewton from this absurd prospect by pitching a maritime thriller. “Call it The Ghost Ship,” Koerner ordered. Lewton also scored a big, though past-his-prime star in Richard Dix, an Oscar nominee for Cimarron (1931).

The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...

Val Lewton, Russian émigré turned horror master, was a reporter, pulp novelist and MGM publicity writer before moving into film. He spent the 1930s as David O. Selznick’s story editor, directing second unit work on A Tale of Two Cities (1935) and script doctoring Gone With the Wind (1939), warning Selznick it would be “the mistake of his life.” While not Hollywood’s most prescient man, Lewton’s professionalism earned Selznick’s respect, and their collaboration led to Rko offering Lewton a producing job in 1942.

Rko was reeling from Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, an expensive flop forcing a refocus on low budget films. Charles Koerner headed the studio’s B Unit, envisioning a horror series inspired by Universal Studio’s successful franchises. Where Universal culled from established literature (Dracula, Frankenstein), Rko worked from Koerner’s whim: he created a title and left the filmmakers to handle trivia like plot and characters.

Mind

“There is an image, and people believe me when I say I make films, because, well, in the end...because we used a camera, and there is an image,” muses Jean-Luc Godard to potential producers in his video pitch, Petites Notes à propos du film Je vous salue Marie (1983), shown at the 51st New York Film Festival’s retrospective programmed by Kent Jones and Jake Perlin, Jean-Luc Godard - The Spirit of the Forms. “People think everything comes from the camera.”

Sometimes I think the images come from inside myself. On rare occurrence, a picture unspools in front of me that in the moment has no antecedent in my mind. Its movement is that of a dream, spontaneously created, this instant’s images connected only by the most opaque thread to those behind them. Its future images, those that follow what I am seeing, are not predestined by the...

Strangers in the Night

Written by Bryant Ford and Paul Gangelin

Directed by Anthony Mann

U.S.A., 1944

Coping mechanisms vary from person to person, innumerable variable influencing how, why and when an individual must invest a conceited effort in attenuating psychological and emotional stress caused by past trauma. Visits to the doctor, medication, a new hobby, a new job, changing ordinary habits, the possibilities are endless The circumstances become dire when someone engages in what they believe to be a form of therapy to sooth their pain but in actuality only aggravates it without them either acknowledging or recognizing the problem. Such is the dominant theme of Anthony Mann’s odd little mystery film from 1944, Strangers in the Night.

At the tail end of the second world war, American Marine Johnny (William Terry) is recovering from injuries suffered during combat. More effective than any medicinal treatment are the letter...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013

Price: DVD $19.95, Blu-ray $24.95

Studio: Olive Films

The 1944 crime mystery Strangers in the Night is generally considered to be the first film-noir directed by a master of the form, the great Anthony Mann of Side Street, Raw Deal and T-Men fame.

In the movie, Marine sergeant Johnny Meadows (William Terry) is stationed overseas and falls in love with a woman he has only met through their regular letters to each other. While on the train back home, he meets a beautiful young doctor (Virginia Grey) who’s starting a new practice in the same small town. Once he’s arrived, Johnny finds his pen pal’s place of residence, but to his surprise he only finds the girl’s mother (Helen Thimig) living at the old mansion with her servant (Edith Barrett). The old woman informs him that her daughter has gone away and will return shortly,...

Reader and contributor Gemma St. Clair returns this weekend with a new list of horror trivia:

1. The Phantom of the Opera: There are multiple versions of this film, including the original silent 1925 release (107 minutes long) and the 1929 re-release (98 minutes long). There was a third version with talking scenes, but it is now considered lost.

2. Cat’s Eye: Stephen King wrote the part for Drew Barrymore in Cat’s Eye because he was so impressed with her in Firestarter.

3. Freaks: This film was banned in the UK for nearly 30 years after its release.

4. Willard (2003): A picture of Willard’s Father in the film is actually Bruce Davidson who played Willard in the 1971 original.

5. House of the Dead: The Sega logo can be seen in the background of the rave.

6. Alone in the Dark (1982): The house that was used for Dr. Potter’s home actually belonged to a psychiatrist.

Rko has found a director for its upcoming remake of the 1943 horror classic, “I Walk with a Zombie”. His name is Adam Marcus, and he last directed the Val Kilmer starrer “Conspiracy” (you’ve probably never heard of it, cause mostly it sucked), and before that, “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday”, which as it turns out, wasn’t really the final Friday. Variety has more on the remake: The film focuses on a private tutor who discovers a terrifying family secret while working at the ancient estate of a New Orleans businessman. The original was a forerunner of the corps of walking corpse films that followed. Hartley called the film one of the most valuable in the Rko library. The 1943 original was directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starred Edith Barrett, James Bell, and Tom Conway. Marcus will adapt the remake with his writing partner Debra Sullivan, while Ted Hartley,...