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With the Sam Raimi-produced 65 now playing in theaters, genre fans are getting something we’ve been craving for years – a big budget dinosaur thriller Not part of the Jurassic Park franchise. The film’s premise of an astronaut crash landing on Earth during the age of the dinosaurs sounds exactly like something that would have hit theaters and drive-ins back in the 60s and 70s when a healthy stream of dinosaur themed B-movie fare was released.

65 seems like a perfect genre mash-up of sci-fi and survival horror. Back in 1969, another genre hybrid about dinosaurs was set loose – The Valley of Gwangi. The hook? Cowboys vs. dinosaurs. Hell, if the movie came out today I guarantee that Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs would be the title.

The Valley of Gwangi was spearheaded by stop motion effects legend Ray Harryhausen and his long-time producing partner, Charles Schneer. Harryhausen needs no introduction. His...

Secure one major book with a serious subject, sign up a wagonload of stars (including a legend or two) and make sure every cookie-cutter character repeatedly explains themselves to the camera in close-up. That formula worked well for Stanley Kramer in 1965; his film hasn’t much of a reputation but the cast is gold. A bright new transfer makes the picture look very good.

Ship of Fools

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1965 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 149 min. / Street Date March 9, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, José Greco, Michael Dunn, Charles Korvin, Heinz Rühmann, Lilia Skala, Barbara Luna, Alf Kjellin, Werner Klemperer,

Gila Golan, Kaaren Verne.

Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo

Film Editor: Robert C. Jones

Special visual effects: John Burke, Farciot Edouart, Albert Whitlock

Original Music: Ernest Gold

Written by Abby Mann from the novel by Katherine Anne Porter

Produced and directed by Stanley...

By Hank Reineke

The blending of two disparate but popular film genres – in this case, the horror/sci-fi film with the saddle opera - was hardly new when The Valley of Gwangi hit the big screen in 1969. This film’s most identifiable predecessor, one pitting cowboys against a prehistoric monster, might be The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), but truth be told Hollywood had been combining these two genres almost from the very beginning. In the 1930s and ‘40s, audiences thrilled to the ghostly monochrome exploits of such western serial heroes as Ken Maynard, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Buster Crabbe with such films as Tombstone Canyon (1932), The Vanishing Riders (1935), and Wild Horse Phantom (1944). Universal’s Curse of the Undead (1959) was a later but no less interesting experiment for Hollywood’s preeminent fright factory. The studio removed the vampire from the usual atmospheric Gothic trappings of old Europe and dropped him onto the sagebrush plain.

Gwangi! Ready your rifles and lariats because this is one of the best. Harryhausen’s happiest dinos- à go-go epic comes thundering back in HD heralded by Jerome Moross’s impressive music score. Unless you count The Animal World, all of the stop-motion magician’s feature films are now available in quality Blu-rays.

The Valley of Gwangi

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson, Laurence Naismith, Freda Jackson, Gustavo Rojo.

Cinematography: Erwin Hillier

Visual Effects by Ray Harryhausen

Art Direction: Gil Parrondo

Film Editor: Henry Richardson

Original Music: Jerome Moross

Written by William E. Bast

Produced by Charles H. Schneer

Directed by Jim O’Connolly

“Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are about to see has never been seen before, I Repeat, has never been seen before by human eyes!”

In just the last month three...

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Our premiere issue is dedicated to "Spy Girls" of the 1960s and 1970s. It's an 80-page magazine that emphasizes rare and exciting photographs of those actresses who were "deadlier than the male" in some of the best retro spy movies ever made!

Over 350 photos and film poster artwork from the era Limited print run. Not available in most retail outlets. All of your favorite femme fatales from such legendary series as James Bond, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Harry Palmer, Bulldog Drummond, Matt Helm, Our Man Flint, and many others! Among the sex sirens featured in this remarkable collector's item issue: Ursula Andress, Diana Rigg, Elke Sommer, Caroline Munro, Camilla Sparv,...