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Lewis John Carlino’s family-oriented Mafia tale was filmed four years before The Godfather: Kirk Douglas is a loose-cannon capo who bosses his own brother Alex Cord and won’t listen when his fellow kingpins talk about modernization. Irene Papas and Susan Strasberg are married to the mob, while veteran hoods Luther Adler and Eduardo Ciannelli provide the menacing atmosphere. Director Martin Ritt was supposedly not thrilled with the project yet it’s a polished, involving crime-time drama set both in New York City and Palermo, Sicily.

The Brotherhood

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #119

1968 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date April 27, 2022 / Available from / £34.95

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Alex Cord, Irene Papas, Luther Adler, Susan Strasberg, Murray Hamilton, Eduardo Ciannelli, Joe De Santis, Connie Scott, Val Avery, Val Bisoglio, Alan Hewitt, Barry Primus, Michele Cimarosa, Louis Badolati.

Cinematography: Boris Kaufman

Art Director: Tambi Larsen

Film Editor: Frank Bracht

Original Music: Lalo Schifrin

Written...

“Woman Warriors in Brutal Death Battle!” This adventure thriller has no reputation to speak of, and is mainly notable as a strange chapter in the topsy-turvy life of Curt Siodmak, who as a producer-writer-director, filmed this and another equally absurd jungle romp on location in Brazil. How Siodmak got these pictures going is a mystery — they received national releases, in Technicolor through Universal-International. CineSavant makes its best, wholly un-researched guesses, breaking all the rules of ethical film reportage. But honest, this is the jungle fantasy populated by Amazon warriors — all painted green.

Love Slaves of the Amazons

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 81 min. / Street Date June 14, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Don Taylor, Gianna Segale, Eduardo Ciannelli, Harvey Chalk, Wilson Viana, Eugenio Carlos, Tom Payne, Gilda Nery, Ana Maria Nabuco, John Herbert, Louis Serrano — and Paul Frees, times six.

Cinematography: Mario Pagés

Art Director: Pierino Massenzi

Film Editors: Oswald Hafenrichter,...

Fondly remembered as a permanent resident on all-night movie channels, this patchwork concoction has just enough ‘good stuff’ to qualify as a fun monster show. Jim Davis’s stock-footage safari arrives just in time to be irrelevant to the fate of the title monsters; some good actors are along for what amounts to a picnic in Griffith Park’s Bronson Caverns. There’s still not a full accounting of who did what, special effects-wise. But Hey! The picture has stop-motion animation, which always guarantees viewer interest.

Monster from Green Hell

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1957 / B&w with colorized sequence / 1:85 widescreen + 1:33 open matte / min. / Street Date March 8, 2022 / Available from The Film Detective / 24.95

Starring: Jim Davis, Robert Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner, Eduardo Ciannelli, Vladimir Sokoloff.

Cinematography: Ray Franklin

Production Designer: Ernst Fegté

Visual Effects: Louis DeWitt, Jack Rabin, Irving Block, Wah Chang, Jack Cosgrove, Gene Warren

Film Editor: Kenneth G. Crane...

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By Fred Blosser

In “Stiletto,” a 1969 release from Joseph E. Levine’s Avco Embassy Pictures, Cesare Cardinali (Alex Cord) enjoys a jet-setting lifestyle rivaling and maybe even surpassing those of his real-life contemporaries in the “Playboy” era. He resides in a lavish Midtown Manhattan penthouse, hobnobs with movie stars and minor European royalty at red-carpet parties, races cars on the international circuit, and romances two beautiful girlfriends. But he’s increasingly uneasy about what he has to do to keep the money coming. On the books, he earns his millions through a lucrative importing business. In reality, he’s on the Mafia’s payroll through his patron, crime boss Ettore Matteo (Joseph Wiseman). Whenever a particularly important murder contract is ordered, Cesare is called in to do the job. His specialized tool is a medieval stiletto, and although he’s good at what he does,...

Horton Foote, Lillian Hellman and Arthur Penn's All-Star vision of an Ugly America found few friends in 1965; now its overstated scenes of social injustice and violence are daily events. Marlon Brando leads a terrific cast -- Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall! -- to endure the worst Saturday ever to hit one cursed Texas township. The Chase (1966) Blu-ray Twilight Time 1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date October 11, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95 Starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford, Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando, Clifton James, Steve Ihnat Cinematography Joseph Lashelle Production Designer Richard Day Art Direction Robert Luthardt Film Editor Gene Milford Original Music John Barry Written by Lillian Hellman from the novel by Horton Foote Produced by Sam Spiegel Directed by Arthur Penn

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

This adult film noir masterpiece showcases the most glamorous pin-up dream girl of the 1940s. Rita Hayworth, a young Glenn Ford and a sinister George Macready form a sophisticated, poisonous love triangle. Criminal intrigues and killer striptease fill out the bill. Gilda Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 795 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 110 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 19, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia, Steven Geray, Joe Sawyer, Gerald Mohr, Ludwig Donath, Argentina Brunetti, Eduardo Ciannelli, Ruth Roman. Cinematography Rudolph Maté Film Editor Charles Nelson Music underscore Hugo Friedhofer Written by Marion Parsonnet, Jo Eisinger, E.A. Ellington Produced by Virginia Van Upp Directed by Charles Vidor

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some of the best 'movie' times I remember were seeing classic pictures cold, with no knowledge beforehand. Back at film school they'd show us things we'd never heard of, often in prints of incredible good quality.

Michael Curtiz's wartime tale of Devil's Island convict Humphrey Bogart fighting to get back and defend France has a still-controversial scene of violence. The convoluted storyline nests enough flashbacks-within-flashbacks to confuse any viewer, and packs the screen with every actor on the Warner lot who can handle a foreign accent. With Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, and Michèle Morgan. Passage to Marseille Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 109 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loder, Victor Francen, Vladimir Sokoloff, Eduardo Ciannelli. Cinematography James Wong Howe Art Direction Carl Julius Weyl Film Editor Owen Marks Original Music Max Steiner Written by Casey Robinson, Jock Moffitt from a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall Produced by Jack L. Warner Directed by Michael Curtiz...

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.

Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...

Cary Grant films on TCM: Gender-bending 'I Was a Male War Bride' (photo: Cary Grant not gay at all in 'I Was a Male War Bride') More Cary Grant films will be shown tonight, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its Star of the Month presentations. On TCM right now is the World War II action-drama Destination Tokyo (1943), in which Grant finds himself aboard a U.S. submarine, alongside John Garfield, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton, and Tom Tully, among others. The directorial debut of screenwriter Delmer Daves (The Petrified Forest, Love Affair) -- who, in the following decade, would direct a series of classy Westerns, e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree -- Destination Tokyo is pure flag-waving propaganda, plodding its way through the dangerous waters of Hollywood war-movie stereotypes and speechifying banalities. The film's key point of interest, in fact, is Grant himself -- not because he's any good,...

First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings and first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM (photo: Emil Jannings in 'The Last Command') First Best Actor Academy Award winner Emil Jannings in The Last Command, first Best Actress Academy Award winner Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, and sisters Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge are a few of the silent era performers featured this evening on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its Silent Monday presentations. Starting at 5 p.m. Pt / 8 p.m. Et on November 17, 2014, get ready to check out several of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s. Following the Jean Negulesco-directed 1943 musical short Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties -- believe me, even the most rabid anti-gay bigot will be able to enjoy this one -- TCM will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) one of the two movies that earned...

Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...

Paul Henreid in ‘Casablanca’: Freedom Fighter on screen, Blacklisted ‘Subversive’ off screen Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013, Paul Henreid, bids you farewell this evening. TCM left the most popular, if not exactly the best, for last: Casablanca, Michael Curtiz’s 1943 Best Picture Oscar-winning drama, is showing at 7 p.m. Pt tonight. (Photo: Paul Henreid sings "La Marseillaise" in Casablanca.) One of the best-remembered movies of the studio era, Casablanca — not set in a Spanish or Mexican White House — features Paul Henreid as Czechoslovakian underground leader Victor Laszlo, Ingrid Bergman’s husband but not her True Love. That’s Humphrey Bogart, owner of a cafe in the titular Moroccan city. Henreid’s anti-Nazi hero is generally considered one of least interesting elements in Casablanca, but Alt Film Guide contributor Dan Schneider thinks otherwise. In any case, Victor Laszlo feels like a character made to order for Paul Henreid,...

Edmund Goulding's The Constant Nymph, a 1943 romantic drama starring Oscar nominee Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith, will be shown tonight on Turner Classic Movies at 5 p.m. Pt as part of TCM's tribute to the Library of Congress Film Archive. Tied up in legal complications for decades, The Constant Nymph will have its TCM premiere tonight. [In August 2010, The Constant Nymph had a rare screening at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus.] According to Matthew Kennedy's Edmund Goulding biography Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory, Jack Warner initially considered Errol Flynn for the role of the British music teacher. Goulding wanted either Robert Donat or Leslie Howard for the part, but eventually gave up on the British-ness of the music teacher and settled on by then two-time Best Actor Oscar nominee Charles Boyer. Joan Fontaine's role was initially supposed to have gone to Joan Leslie, but Goulding wasn't happy with that choice. Through then-husband Brian Aherne, who had played the music teacher in the 1934 version,...

Inspired by the rampant crime of 30's and gangsters like Lucky Luciano, Lloyd Bacon's Marked Woman (1937) stars Bette Davis as Mary Strauber, the hostess of a nightclub that offers booze, gambling and female companionship all for a price.One night, notorious gangster Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli) shows up and takes over Mary's club, demanding that she and her evening-girls pay him protection money. The girls, knowing all about Vanning's criminal exploits and his tendency to use violence, agree to pay him out of fear and intimidation.After Vanning has a man&nbsp...

Patricia Collinge, Kim Hunter, Ginger Rogers Tender Comrade Ginger Rogers’ Kitty Foyle, The Major And The Minor on TCM Photo: Ginger Rogers and James Stewart at the 1941 Academy Awards ceremony. Rogers won for Kitty Foyle, Stewart for The Philadelphia Story. Schedule and synopsis from the TCM website: 5:00pm [Romance] Kitty Foyle (1940) A girl from the wrong side of the tracks endures scandal and heartbreak when she falls for a high-society boy. Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Eduardo Ciannelli Dir: Sam Wood Bw-108 mins. 7:00pm [Comedy] Tom, Dick And Harry (1941) A girl accepts three wedding proposals at once and dreams of marriage to each man. Cast: Ginger Rogers, George Murphy, Alan Marshal, Burgess Meredith Dir: Garson Kanin Bw-87 mins. 8:30pm [Comedy] Major and [...]...