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This grouping of Bogart’s Columbia output has one bona fide noir, a pair of exotic ‘romantic intrigue’ thrillers and three social issue pictures. It’s a good set, with films directed by John Cromwell, Nicholas Ray and Mark Robson, and with leading ladies Lizabeth Scott, Florence Marley, Marta Toren, Jody Lawrance and Jan Sterling. And the Powerhouse Indicator extras are especially well curated. Watch out — it’s Region B only.

Columbia Noir #5 Humphrey Bogart

Region B Blu-ray

Dead Reckoning, Knock on Any Door, Tokyo Joe,

Sirocco, The Family Secret, The Harder They Fall

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-1956 / B&w / 1:37 Academy & 1:85 widescreen

Street Date June 27, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring or Executive Produced by Humphrey Bogart

For an established actor who really didn’t break through as a starring leading man until age 41, Humphrey Bogart sure gave us a legacy of prominent movies. As movie stars go he...

“Women will understand!” read one of the many various taglines associated with The Story of Temple Drake, the pre-code rape and revenge talkie the release of which, despite its box office success, pushed Hollywood into the vicious enforcement of the Production code a year later, the moral censorship developed in 1930 which would plague American cinema until its complete collapse at the end of the 1960s. But would they (women) understand? And if so, what exactly is Faulkner’s treatment (here adapted by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Maurine Dallas Watkins) saying about women, or at least a certain kind of ‘woman’ as this is a tale preoccupied with rich, desirable, privileged (i.e.,…...

David O. Selznick’s absurdly over-cooked western epic is a great picture, even if much of it induces a kind of hypnotic, mouth-hanging-open disbelief. Is this monument to the sex appeal of Jennifer Jones, Kitsch in terrible taste, or have Selznick and his army of Hollywood talents found a new level of hyped melodramatic harmony? It certainly has the star-power, beginning with Gregory Peck as a cowboy rapist who learned his bedside manners from Popeye’s Bluto. It’s all hugely enjoyable.

Duel in the Sun

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1946 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Special Edition / Street Date August 15, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Butterfly McQueen, Charles Bickford, Tilly Losch.

Cinematography Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan and Harold Rosson

Production Designer J. McMillan Johnson

Film Editor Hal C. Kern, John Saure and William H. Ziegler

Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin

Written by Niven Busch,...

John Ford and Samuel Goldwyn's South Seas disaster picture can boast spectacular action and compelling romance. The unjustly imprisoned Jon Hall crosses half an ocean to rejoin his beloved Dorothy Lamour under The Moon of Manakoora, before an incredible (and incredibly expensive) hurricane blows the island to smithereens. Ford's direction is flawless, as are the screenplay by Dudley Nichols and the Hollywood-exotic music score by Alfred Newman. The Hurricane Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1937 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 110 min. / Street Date November 24, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, Jerome Cowan, Al Kikume, Kuulei De Clercq, Layne Tom Jr., Mamo Clark, Movita, Inez Courtney, Chris-Pin Martin. Cinematography Bert Glennon Film Editor Lloyd Nosler Special Effects James Basevi, Ray Binger, R.T. Layton, Lee Zavitz Original Music Alfred Newman Written by Dudley Nichols, Oliver H.P. Garrett from the...

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.

Until its recent showing at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, and the unveiling of this DVD, Night Flight hadn’t been shown publicly since the 1930s. It’s been on many film buffs’ wish list for years and years, given its all-star cast and pedigree (based on Antoine de St. Exupéry’s acclaimed novel, directed by Clarence Brown, produced by David O. Selznick, with a screenplay by the solid and prolific Oliver H.P. Garrett). That it isn’t a masterpiece is only a slight disappointment. It’s quite good, and what is more important, it represents a genuine attempt by Selznick and MGM…...