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With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

One of the simultaneous joys and embarrassments of attending festivals that include retrospective or revival sections is the haltingly thrilling sensation of discovering a film or personage that, for some, may not be a discovery at all—that for you, may just be your own humbling ignorance. Here at Locarno, I’ve already found my favorite film, though it may be one others already know about: Manfred Blank and Wolf-Eckart Bühler’s Leuchtturm des Chaos (Pharos of Chaos), a happenstance documentary made in 1983 when Bühler tried to find Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden to get permission to adapt one of his books. The film is essentially a two-hour interview with the great actor, who, at the age of 67, is still a physical giant and gorgeous, speaking with booming voice and staccato enunciation; though at this point in life, he is sodden with alcohol and has retreated to his clutterbox houseboat moored in a quay in France.

John Huston’s primal heist film is an almost perfect movie, with a score of unforgettable characterizations. A solid crime noir, it concerns itself with the human ironies in the ‘left handed form of human endeavor.’

The Asphalt Jungle

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 847

1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2016 /

Starring Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, Jean Hagen, John McIntire, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Marilyn Monroe, Brad Dexter.

Cinematography Harold Rosson

Art Direction Randall Duell, Cedric Gibbons

Film Editor George Boemler

Original Music Miklos Rosza

Written by Ben Maddow and John Huston from the novel by W.R. Burnett

Produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr.

Directed by John Huston

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Talk about a film that becomes only more enjoyable with each viewing… John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle is the Singin’ in the Rain of noir masterpieces.