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It’s time for a new episode of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw video series, and in this one we’re looking back at a movie that originally reached theatres just in time for Halloween in 1980. That movie is writer/director Vernon Zimmerman’s Fade to Black (watch it Here), and you can find out all about it by watching the video embedded above.

Fade to Black has the following synopsis:

Eric Binford is a lonely movie-buff who struggles to find his place in the world. The rejection by a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, who embodies his obsession, sends him on a killing spree during which he transforms himself into classic film characters.

The film stars Dennis Christopher, Norman Burton, Morgan Paull, Gwynne Gilford, Eve Brent, James Luisi, Linda Kerridge, Tim Thomerson, and Mickey Rourke.

Our Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series is dedicated to highlighting horror films that,...

Cult favorite Samuel Fuller explodes the mid-range Hollywood oater with elements we can all appreciate: a ritualistic fetishizing of the gunslinger ethos, and a reliance on kinky role reversals and provocative tease dialogue. It’s as radical as a western can be without becoming a satire. Playing it all perfectly crooked-straight is the still formidable Barbara Stanwyck. Her black-clad ‘woman with a whip’ keeps a full forty gunmen to enforce her will on a one-lady town.

Forty Guns

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 954

1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 80 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 11, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Eve Brent, Robert Dix, Jidge Carroll, Paul Dubov, Gerald Milton, Ziva Rodann, Hank Worden, Neyle Morrow, Chuck Roberson, Chuck Hayward.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc

Film Editor: Gene Fowler Jr.

Original Music: Harry Sukman

Produced, Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

Was there ever a...

Teresa Wright ca. 1945. Teresa Wright movies on TCM: 'The Little Foxes,' 'The Pride of the Yankees' Pretty, talented Teresa Wright made a relatively small number of movies: 28 in all, over the course of more than half a century. Most of her films have already been shown on Turner Classic Movies, so it's more than a little disappointing that TCM will not be presenting Teresa Wright rarities such as The Imperfect Lady and The Trouble with Women – two 1947 releases co-starring Ray Milland – on Aug. 4, '15, a "Summer Under the Stars" day dedicated to the only performer to date to have been shortlisted for Academy Awards for their first three film roles. TCM's Teresa Wright day would also have benefited from a presentation of The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956), an unusual entry – parapsychology, reincarnation – in the Wright movie canon and/or Roseland (1977), a little-remembered entry in James Ivory's canon.

Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t quite follow this one. In his 1957 review of the film for Cahiers du cinema (reprinted in the booklet accompanying this release), Jean-Luc Godard wrote that Forty Guns “is so rich in invention – despite an incomprehensible plot – and so bursting with daring conceptions that it reminds one of the extravagances of Abel Gance and Stroheim, or purely and simply of Murnau.” For a movie featuring a half-dozen standoffs, at least as many deaths, two musical numbers, and an honest-to-God tornado, nothing much seems to happen in Forty Guns. The tone and tenor of the thing feels as relaxed as Rio Bravo. I’ve seen it twice now, and viewed a few scenes here and there beyond that, and I still can’t quite reconcile the whole. But Godard’s right – it’s a hell of a thing to see.

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Shirley Jones Movies: Innocent virgins and sex workers galore (photo: Shirley Jones and Burt Lancaster in ‘Elmer Gantry’) (See previous post: “Shirley Jones: From Book to Movies.”) I haven’t watched The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), a comedy Western directed by Gene Kelly, and starring 62-year-old James Stewart as a cowpoke who inherits an establishment that turns out to be a popular house of prostitution. Henry Fonda plays Stewart’s partner. And I’m sure Shirley Jones, as one of the sex workers, looks lovely in the film. Hopefully, director Kelly gave this likable, talented actress the chance to do more than just stand around looking pretty. But then again … For all purposes, The Cheyenne Social Club ended Shirley Jones’ film stardom; that same year she turned to TV and The Partridge Family. Jones would return to films only nine years later, as one of several stars (among them Michael Caine,...

Kellan Lutz (photo), best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight movies, and Resident Evil actress Spencer Locke, will star in the performance-capture 3D movie Tarzan, adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic tale, and to be directed by Animals United’s producers / directors Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe. Needless to say, Lutz will bring Tarzan back to life, while Locke will play Jane. The screenplay was written by Klooss, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs‘ Yoni Brenner and Jessica Postigo, whose sole listed credit on the IMDb is Harald Zwart’s The Mortal Instruments, currently in pre-production. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it updates Burroughs’ story by having Tarzan’s parents killed in a plane crash, the CEO of Greystoke Energies as the film’s chief villain, and Jane as an environmentally conscious heroine. Come to think of it, the first "update" isn’t something really new: Boy’s...

HollywoodNews.com: The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by founding sponsor American Express, today announced its lineup of 60 short films, 26 of which are world premieres.

For the second year running, the recipient of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules. The 2011 Tff Narrative Short Pentecost was nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year’s annual Academy Awards®, while last year?s award-winning Tff documentary short Incident in New Baghdad was nominated for Best Documentary Short.

Tff’s shorts programs chart a wide range of cultural perspectives and geographic coordinates. Drawn from more than 2,800 submissions, the 2012 roster represents 25 countries and territories, including Australia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Palestine, Puerto Rico,...

Eve Brent, best remembered for playing Jane twice opposite Gordon Scott's Tarzan, died August 27 of "natural causes" at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley, Calif. She was either 81 or 82. Initially billed as either Jean Lewis or Jean Ann Lewis, Eve Brent's show business career in films and on television lasted nearly six decades. The Houston-born actress appeared in about three dozen movies, ranging from a small part in Bruno VeSota's crime drama Female Jungle (1955), featuring Lawrence Tierney and Jayne Mansfield, to playing Cate Blanchett's grandmother in David Fincher's Oscar nominated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Almost invariably in small supporting roles or bit parts, Brent could also be seen in the Jean Simmons vehicle The Happy Ending (1969), George Seaton's all-star blockbuster Airport (1970), the Charles Bronson Western The White Buffalo (1976), Frank Darabont's 1999 Best Picture Oscar nominee The Green Mile ("a lovely experience,...

Actress Eve Brent has died at the age of 82.

The Green Mile star, who was born Jean Ewers, passed away on 27 August of natural causes at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley, California, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Brent broke into the industry in the 1950s, starring in a number of TV shows and commercials, before rising to fame in films including Gun Girls and Journey To Freedom.

She then went on to play iconic character Jane in 1956's Tarzan's Fight For Life and changed her name to Eve Brent after starring in Samuel Fuller's 1977 western Forty Guns.

She won a Best Supporting Actress Saturn Award in 1980 for her role in Fade To Black and starred in 1999's The Green Mile, 2004's Garfield and 2008 movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Brent also had bit-parts in TV shows including Scrubs and Roswell High.

She is survived by her son, Jack Lewis.

As noted in the roundup on A Dangerous Method, Amy Taubin's cover story on David Cronenberg's new film opens a New York Film Festival preview package in the new Film Comment … Erich Kuersten introduces "The Nordics," the new Acidemic issue with contributions from Steven Shaviro, Kim Morgan and more … The Harvard Film Archive's series American Punk runs through September 15 and, as Victoria Large, tells us, Not Coming to a Theater Near You will be all over it … Mark Cousins's "ten films that changed the world" … Studio Ghibli co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata are both working on new projects … Noah Baumbach may adapt Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections for HBO … Jean Lewis played Jane to Gordon Scott's Tarzan twice before Samuel Fuller changed her name to Eve Brent; she was 82.

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