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After Lucille Ball's spunky housewife Lucy signed off on the last episode of "I Love Lucy" but before Mary Tyler Moore did away with the nuclear family sitcom model with her own self-titled show, another actress was one of the faces of womanhood in comedy. Oscar-winning actress Donna Reed headlined "The Donna Reed Show" from 1958 to 1966, playing middle-class mother and housewife Donna Stone in the popular black-and-white series. Reed starred opposite Carl Betz, who played Donna's husband, pediatrician Dr. Alex Stone. In season 5, family friends Midge and Dave joined the fun, but for the most part, the show was all about the lighthearted hijinks of the Stone family.

Though "The Donna Reed Show" was popular upon release, it's now perhaps most often referenced as a pop cultural window into a time before second-wave feminism, when women were expected to spend their time cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing while men went to work.

Diane McBain, whose career playing spoiled rich girls included turns as the yacht owner Daphne Dutton on the ABC crime show Surfside 6 and an author stalking Elvis Presley in Spinout, has died. She was 81.

McBain died Wednesday morning at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills after a battle with liver cancer, her friend and writing partner, Michael Gregg Michaud, told The Hollywood Reporter.

McBain also guest-starred on four episodes of ABC’s Batman, first as a hat shop assistant who’s in cahoots with David Wayne’s Mad Hatter in 1966 and then as stamp company proprietor Pinky Pinkston — she wore only pink and had a pink dog — on the memorable 1967 installment that featured The Green Hornet (Van Williams) and Kato (Bruce Lee).

In her first film, McBain appeared with Richard Burton in Vincent Sherman’s Ice Storm (1960), then starred alongside Troy Donahue and Claudette Colbert...

The year of 1969 saw the moon landing of the Apollo 11’s Eagle module, Richard Nixon sworn in as the 37th president of the United States, the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village ushering in the gay rights movement, the Tate-La Bianca murders by the Manson Family, the landmark Woodstock Music and Arts Fair which attracts 400,000, the tragic and violent Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway and even Tiny Tim marrying Miss Vicki on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

But one major event was basically ignored by the mainstream media: the Harlem Cultural Arts Festival which took place June 29-August 24 at the Mount Morris Park. Founded by Tony Lawrence, the festival celebrating Black pride, music and culture features such landmark performers as Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Stevie Wonder, The Fifth Dimension and Mahalia Jackson. And when the NYPD refused to supply security,...

As a child, I played with childish things; as an adult, I write about them. The ‘70s sure had its share of maniacal machinery, starting with the early Spielberg TV movie Duel (1971). Looking to recreate that success, ABC adapted Theodore Sturgeon’s novella Killdozer (1974) into its own attempt at motorized madness. It is certainly no Duel, but fun is had, and that’s all that matters.

Airing Saturday, February 2nd as an ABC Suspense Movie, Killdozer was trying to plow through the other network’s heavy hitters: CBS had M*A*S*H/The Mary Tyler Moore Show/The Bob Newhart Show, while NBC had their own Saturday Night at the Movies. I’ll go out on a limb and say that CBS crushed anyone in their path. Regardless, if you wanted to see people crushed by heavy, sentient machinery, you had to tune into ABC.

Let’s open up...

Now in Region A — One of the best releases from the early- ’50s 3-D boom. Millionaire Robert Ryan is abandoned to die in the desert by his wife Rhonda Fleming and her lover; the ‘useless’ executive earns self-respect by focusing on the problem of survival. Ryan’s terrific, and the depth effects in the attractive desert locations are great, thanks to cinematographer Lucien Ballard.

Inferno 3-D

3-D + 2-D Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1953 / Color / 1:33 flat / 83 min. / Street Date May 16, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Henry Hull, Carl Betz, Larry Keating, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Editor: Robert L. Simpson

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Francis M. Cockrell from his story The Waterhole

Produced by William Bloom

Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker

I just reviewed an Inferno 3-D disc not four months ago, but U.S. viewers will want the facts (all the facts!

Inferno

3-D Region B (+A ) Blu-ray

Panamint Cinema (UK)

1953 / Color / 1:33 flat / 83 min. / Street Date August 10, 2014 / Available from Amazon UK / £19.99

Starring: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Henry Hull, Carl Betz, Larry Keating, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Editor: Robert L. Simpson

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by: Francis M. Cockrell, from his story The Waterhole :

Produced by: William Bloom

Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker

(Note, 1.18.17: Twilight Time will be releasing a domestic disc of

this title on May 16, licensed for U.S. distribution.)

A fine 20th Fox entry for the 3-D craze of 1953, the adventure thriller Inferno is often labeled a film noir in the desert. Despite the presence of a scheming, murderous wife, the noir quotient here is minimal — it’s just a straight survival tale with a homicidal twist. An odd UK-only release licensed by a small independent company, the Blu-ray 3-D is well encoded...

With Black Friday sales behind us but with Christmas right around the corner, there’s still time to get some great movies on DVD and Blu-ray this holiday season. To help, here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as The Wizard of Oz, Gremlins, Snatch, Ben 10: Alien Swarm and the Blu-ray debut of McG’s Terminator: Salvation (shown above with Christian Bale and Sam Worthington).

Check them out:

A Christmas Tale (The Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)

Ben 10 Alien Swarm ~ Ryan Kelley, Nathan Keyes, Alyssa Diaz, and Galadriel Stineman (DVD and Blu-ray)

Better Off Ted: Season One ~ Jay Harrington,...

DVD Playhouse—August 2009

By

Allen Gardner

Watchmen—Director’S Cut (Warner Bros.) Director Zack Snyder’s film of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark graphic novel is as worthy an adaptation of a great book that has ever been filmed. In an alternative version of the year 1985, Richard Nixon is serving his third term as President and super heroes have been outlawed by a congressional act, in spite of the fact that two of the most high-profile “masks,” Dr. Manhattan (Billy Cruddup) and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) helped the U.S. win the Vietnam War. When The Comedian is found murdered, many former heroes become concerned that a conspiracy is afoot to assassinate retired costumed crime fighters. Former masks Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) and still-operating Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, in an Oscar-worthy turn) launch an investigation of their own, all while the Pentagon’s “Doomsday...