News

All hail Olivia de Havilland, America’s longest living movie star. The more de Havilland pictures we see, the more we admire her taste and judgment in roles… or is that better expressed as, the more we admire her ability to guide a near-perfect career, going so far as to defy the studios in court. This 1941 drama has director Mitchell Leisen in fine form, a smart script by Brackett & Wilder, and a central topic that’s currently quite hot: illegal immigration.

Hold Back the Dawn

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Doane Harrison

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Charles Brackett,...

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.

Cornered

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Screenplay by John Paxton, story by John Wexly

U.S.A., 1945

Of all the villains to have in a film, among the most popular are the Nazis. Cinema has always depicted the Nazis for what they were: very nasty people. Granted, some movies embellish the villainy of the organization to exaggerated heights, but given what history tells us of the party’s ideologies and how they went about putting said ideology into motion during their few years in power in the 1930s and 1940s, there is a strong case to support the notion that they do in fact make for pretty solid movie antagonists. Merely striking the Nazis in the European theatre is one thing, but hunting down those party members who fled Europe in order to find temporary hiding grounds across the globe is an altogether different matter, and possibly even more ripe for adventure and suspense.

Film Noir Classic Collection: Vol. 5, has dusted off eight films of the celebrated genre and adapted them to DVD format. Collections like these, which bring older films to newer light, are godsends regardless (to a degree) of which films are selected, because as timeless as some of these stories and performances might be, the barrier of being stuck in an old format can bury them forever. And these stories deserve to be told. If you watch a few well made noir thrillers you will no doubt see the seeds that were planted in the heads of crime-thriller filmmakers the likes of Martin Scorsese or Michael Mann. Though there are better films in the noir genre that this collection could have culminated, there are also a lot worse. Any fan of noir films or old mysteries and thrillers will be pleased at what this box set has to offer.

Desperate (1947)

Directed...