News

Airing as part of ABC’s Wide World of Mystery in 1973, five-part horror series The Classic Ghosts has been rescued from obscurity for a Blu-ray release on October 29.

Bloody Disgusting is teaming up with Kino Lorber to give away three copies of the Blu-ray set.

Click here to enter!

This contest is open to US residents only. One entry permitted per address. Three winners will be drawn on October 29.

Produced by broadcast pioneer Jacqueline Babbin, The Classic Ghosts has been preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

“The Haunting of Rosalind” (65 min) is directed by Lela Swift, based on a story by Henry James. Pamela Payton-Wright, Susan Sarandon, Beatrice Straight, and Frank Converse star.

“The Screaming Skull” (67 min) is directed by Gloria Monty, based on a story by Francis Marion Crawford. David McCallum, Vince Gardenia, and Carrie Nye star.

“The Deadly Visitor” (66 min) is directed by Lela Swift, based...

Late-night horror series The Classic Ghosts has rarely been seen since airing on ABC’s Wide World of Mystery in 1973, but that’s about to change.

The UCLA Film & Television Archive has preserved all five installments, coming to Blu-ray on October 29 via Kino Lorber’s Kino Cult line. Watch the exclusive trailer below.

Produced by broadcast pioneer Jacqueline Babbin, The Classic Ghosts was celebrated upon its debut for being made by a predominantly female crew, including trailblazing television directors Gloria Monty (General Hospital) and Lela Swift (Studio One).

Shot on videotape in the style of a soap opera, with expressive and colorful production design, The Classic Ghosts has an immediacy and otherworldliness akin to Dark Shadows — not surprising since two of the directors (Swift and Henry Kaplan) directed hundreds of episodes of the classic horror TV series.

The two-disc set includes interviews with Mark Quigley (John H. Mitchell Television...

Netflix is in the process of adapting “The Picture of Dorian Gray” into a modern TV series, TheWrap has learned.

The show, titled “The Grays,” will be produced by Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with “The Girls on the Bus” showrunner and EP Rina Mimoun serving as showrunner and executive producer, according to an individual with knowledge. Katie Rose Rogers will write the series.

As the team modernizes the Oscar Wilde novel, the series will center on siblings Basil and Dorian Gray as “The Grays” tackles the classic’s themes through the eyes of the modern beauty industry, according to Deadline, who first reported the news.

Representatives for Warner Bros. Television and Netflix declined to comment.

Mimoun and Rogers will executive produce the series alongside Rogers’ brother, Robbie Rogers, with whom she worked on “Fellow Travelers” and who has served as a producer on “All American” and an EP on “All American: Homecoming.

British Buggery.

After closing out January with the very gay (and very terrible) The Covenant (listen) and the pseudo-remake of Single White Female: The Roommate (listen), we kicked off February with journey to the world of H.P. Lovecraft in Re-Animator. Now, we’re traveling back in time to discuss Albert Lewin‘s 1945 adaptation of The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton (George Sanders), tells his friend Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield) that men should pursue their sensual longings, but laments that only the young get to do so. Taken with the idea, Dorian inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain to stay young forever. His wish comes true, and his boyish looks aid him as he indulges his every whim. Unfortunately, his sins take physical form on a portrait of himself, and as the years go by he must decide what type of man he wants to be.

Decades ago, “when the Clash was falling apart” – as the band’s bassist Paul Simonon tells it – Joe Strummer wanted to return to his roots busking in public. So he and the band journeyed to the north of England to play in the streets. “We slept on a lot of people’s sofas, because we left our credit cards and money behind and lived on what we earned in the street,” Simonon remembers on a Zoom from his home in London. “We had enough to get to the next town and something to eat.

10. “Nanny McPhee” (2005)

Angela Lansbury has often projected an air of menace, as she does playing the near-sighted great-aunt of the newly motherless Brown children in Kirk Jones’ family film. The tightwad meanie gets her comeuppance at a wedding featuring green-frosted cake.

9. “Death on the Nile” (1978)

In this successful adaptation of an Agatha Christie classic, Lansbury plays a romance novelist who might have based one of her characters a little too closely on the murder victim at the center of Hercule Poirot’s investigation

8. “Little Gloria … Happy at Last” (1982)

In this NBC miniseries, based on Gloria Vanderbilt’s best-selling memoir, Lansbury plays the teenage heiress’ aunt who conspires to seize custody of the girl (and her fortune) from her mother. Lansbury earned her first Emmy nomination for the role.

7. “National Velvet” (1944)

In only her second film, Lansbury played the older sister of Elizabeth Taylor’s horse-loving English girl who trains a gelding into a champion.

Freshly divorced from American-International Pictures, Roger Corman leaps into the filmic mainstream with a fairly large-scale World War One aviation picture. He competes with the big studios but retains his nonconformist attitude: his retelling of the story of the Red Baron fixates on the theme of the death of chivalry in combat. For his star player Corman picks John Phillip Law, whose on-screen persona is a good fit for one of the first warrior aces of the sky.

Von Richthofen and Brown

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date May 21, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: John Phillip Law, Don Stroud, Barry Primus, Corin Redgrave, Stephen McHattie, Hurd Hatfield

Robert La Tourneaux, Ferdy Mayne, Peter Masterson, Clint Kimbrough, George Armitage.

Cinematography: Michael Reed

Film Editor: Alan Collins

Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer

Written by John William Corrington, Joyce H. Corrington

Produced by Gene Corman, Jimmy T. Murakami

Directed by...

Most people think that snobby Oscar voters through the decades have turned their backs on the horror genre. Not so. True, far more horror flicks have been nominated for Oscars — including many Alfred Hitchcock movies — than have won. Hitch was nominated six times for Best Director and never took home a gold statue, which is why he was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1968. “Thank you,” he said, and walked offstage.

We scoured the record books to find 25 Oscar-winning horror movies, and herewith rank them for you.

After heated arguments among the IndieWire staff, we threw out a dozen or so monster movies (“King Kong,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Jurassic Park”), ghost films (“Ghost”) and scary psychological thrillers like Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” that just didn’t feel like horror flicks to us.

Defining a horror movie is subjective. Is it about gore and guts and supernatural beings, or how it makes you feel?...

Tony Sokol Aug 17, 2017

Rock star St Vincent will put a feminine spin on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Annie Clark, who is better known by her rock star name St. Vincent, is directing an adaptation of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s controversial 1890 novel for Lionsgate. The updated film will have a twist. The Picture Of Dorian Grey will be a portrait of a woman.

The Victorian era story of a hedonist who never gets old will be adapted by David Birke (Elle, the upcoming Slender Man).

Multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent started her music career as a member of the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens's touring band before forming her own band in 2006. She released her debut album Marry Me in 2007. She collaborated with David Byrne for the 2012 album Love This Giant. Her eponymous album won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album in 2015.

St. Vincent...

Annie Clark, also known as St. Vincent, will make her feature directorial debut with Lionsgate’s adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the only novel ever written by prolific British playwright Oscar Wilde. Variety initially reported the news.

Read More:Tribeca Review: Infectious And Joyful Dance Documentary ‘Contemporary Color’ Featuring David Byrne, St. Vincent, And More

Adding a contemporary twist to the Victorian novel about a narcissistic young man who stays young while his portrait ages, the title character will be a woman. David Birke, who wrote the script for Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle,” will pen the adaptation with Clark directing.

The multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter began her career as a member of the band The Polyphonic Spree and toured with Sufjan Stevens. Her fourth solo album, self-titled St. Vincent, won a Grammy award for Best Alternative Album in 2015. Clark’s previous film, a short titled “Xx,” premiered at the Sundance Film...

True-Crime Terror! Richard Fleischer and Edward Anhalt’s riveting serial killer makes extensive use of split- and multi-screen imagery. One of the most infamous murder sprees on record fudges some facts but still impresses as a novel approach.

The Boston Strangler

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 116 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy, Mike Kellin, Hurd Hatfield, Murray Hamilton, Jeff Corey, Sally Kellerman, George Furth

Cinematography Richard H. Kline

Art Direction Richard Day, Jack Martin Smith

Film Editor Marion Rothman

Written by Edward Anhalt from the book by Gerold Frank

Produced by Robert Fryer

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Twelve years ago i wasn’t all that impressed with The Boston Strangler. I thought it too slick and felt that its noted multi-screen sequences were a trick gimmick. I appreciate it more now — except for the name cast,...

“If only it was the picture who was to grow old, and I remain young. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t give for that. Yes, I would give even my soul for it.”

The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945) screen this Friday through Sunday (June 10th-12th) at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, Mo 63119). The film begins each evening at 8:00.

Hurd Hatfield plays the title character in The Picture Of Dorian Gray, an extremely handsome man of inherited wealth in Victorian England, who at age 22 has his portrait painted by his friend Basil Harwood. After the painting is finished Dorian wishes that he could remain forever young and the painting grow old. He does this in the presence of a replica of an Egyptian idol (a cat) that by legend has the ability to grant such wishes. Dorian gets his wish, although he...

Stop! Don't touch that dial... if you like your atom-age propaganda straight up, MGM has the movie for you, an expensive 1946 docu-drama that became 'the official story' for the making of the bomb. The huge cast includes Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, and Joseph Calleia. How trustworthy is the movie? It begins by showing footage of a time capsule being buried -- that supposedly contains the film we are watching. Think about that. Mom, Apple Pie, the Flag and God are enlisted to argume that we should stop worrying and love the fact that bombs are just peachy-keen dandy. The Beginning or the End DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Calleia, Godfrey Tearle, Victor Francen,...

Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...

'The Beginning or the End' 1947 with Robert Walker and Tom Drake. Hiroshima bombing 70th anniversary: Six movies dealing with the A-bomb terror Seventy years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. Ultimately, anywhere between 70,000 and 140,000 people died – in addition to dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and most other living beings in that part of the world. Three days later, America dropped a second atomic bomb, this time over Nagasaki. Human deaths in this other city totaled anywhere between 40,000-80,000. For obvious reasons, the evisceration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been a quasi-taboo in American films. After all, in the last 75 years Hollywood's World War II movies, from John Farrow's Wake Island (1942) and Mervyn LeRoy's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (2001), almost invariably have presented a clear-cut vision...

Destination Murder

Written by Don Martin

Directed by Edward L. Cahn

U.S.A., 1950

One night during an intermission at a downtown movie theatre Jackie Wales (Stanley Clements), a lowly driver, leaves his girlfriend for a few minutes to run a quick errand. Not just any old chore however, but murder! Driven to the house of a notable businessman by an accomplice, Jackie rings the doorbell, inquires as to the name of the older man who answers the door to make sure he knows who the target is and shoots the gentleman dead. As Jackie flees the premise the victim’s daughter Laura (Joyce MacKenzie) catches a glimpse of the fiend, a clue she latches onto the following days when the police begin their inquiries. Rather than remain sidelined from the action, Laura takes matters into her own hands and pretends to befriend the cantankerous Jackie. Through Jackie the intrepid...

Benoit Jacquot's Diary of a Chambermaid (Le Journal d'une femme de chambre) which is based on Octave Mirbeau's classic novel, has Marion Cotillard of The Dark Knight Rises and Rust & Bone in negotiations. Variety reports that Cotillard would play Celestine in the film set in 1890 to 1900, playing an ambitious woman who works as a chambermaid. Viewers will see the condition of house servants and the perversions of France's upper-crust through Celestine's eyes. The property has had two adaptations, the first in 1946 with Jean Renoir at the wheel and Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith and Hurd Hatfield starring, followed by 1964's Luis Buñuel film starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli, Georges Géret.

Benoit Jacquot's Diary of a Chambermaid (Le Journal d'une femme de chambre) which is based on Octave Mirbeau's classic novel, has Marion Cotillard of The Dark Knight Rises and Rust & Bone in negotiations. Variety reports that Cotillard would play Celestine in the film set in 1890 to 1900, playing an ambitious woman who works as a chambermaid. Viewers will see the condition of house servants and the perversions of France's upper-crust through Celestine's eyes. The property has had two adaptations, the first in 1946 with Jean Renoir at the wheel and Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith and Hurd Hatfield starring, followed by 1964's Luis Buñuel film starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli, Georges Géret.

Many film actors have become box office stars thanks to one character, but while Sean Connery and Christopher Lee managed to break away from 007 and Dracula, Anthony Perkins’ was forever overshadowed by his infamous alter ego Norman Bates. For some actors, one film role was enough to give them lasting cinema immortality; if it hadn’t been for their performances as the Wizard of Oz and Ming the Merciless, Frank Morgan and Charles Middleton would have been long forgotten.

The following ten actors achieved their cult status in the horror and fantasy genre on the strength of one film. Although these working actors appeared in a variety of movies, it is that particular character and their well received performance that has pushed any other notable film work into the background!

Max Schreck (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens – 1922)

Rafaela Ottiano (The Devil-Doll – 1936)

Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz – 1939)

Stanley Ridges (Black...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Hop – Russell Brand, James Marsden, Elizabeth Perkins

Insidious – Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins

Source Code – Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Movie of the Week

Source Code

The Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

The Plot: A soldier (Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown commuter and is forced to live and relive a harrowing train bombing until he can determine who is responsible for it.

The Buzz: Source Code looks to be a Quantum Leap meets Groundhog Day sci-fi action romp. 35 seconds into the film’s trailer, I half expected Jake Gyllenhaal to utter, “oh boy.” He instead exclaims, “no, no, no, no,” as if to echo my thoughts exactly — I don’t want to see Gyllenhaal act the same “stop the terrorist on the train” scene, over and over and over again.

I have a strong feeling that this...

Barely heralded today among the midcentury Hollywood auteurs, Albert Lewin was as distinct in his personality as Alfred Hitchcock or Fritz Lang or Sam Fuller, and just as much of a terrarium-maker. His micro-worlds, including the new-to-disc 1951 classic Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, had a particularly dreamy vibe. His most-seen film, the 1945 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, is unforgettable not for its fidelity to Wilde's morality play but for its very strange, doomed-romantic bell-jar effect, a movie seemingly made up entirely from Hurd Hatfield's cheekbones, Angela Lansbury's round eyes, a single Victorian tavern set, and mist.

Director: Albert Lewin Writer(s): Oscar Wilde (novel), Albert Lewin (screenplay) Starring: Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Lowell Gilmore, Angela Lansbury Hurd Hatfield plays Dorian Gray, the weirdly handsome and incredibly disturbed man about town. Taking a shine to Dorian, Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore) offers to paint his portrait. During their last sitting, in pops Lord Henry (George Sanders) who begins to pester Dorian concerning the merits of youth and the tragedy of growing old, giving rise to some serious paranoia on Dorian's part. Dorian goes into a trance-like state, exclaiming, "If only it was the picture who was to grow old, and I remain young. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't give for that. Yes, I would give even my soul for it." And Dorian Gray's wish is granted. Dorian begins to frequent a rather seedy vaudevillian joint where he becomes enthralled with a young singer named Sibyl Vane,...

Director Arthur Penn.

The Left Handed Gun: Arthur Penn’S Ticket To Hollywood… And His Ticket Back Home As Well

by Jon Zelazny

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on EightMillionStories.com September 29, 2008.

In the 1960’s, Arthur Penn was one of the most acclaimed directors in the world, best known for his smash hits The Mircale Worker (1962) and Bonnie & Clyde (1967), each of which earned him an Oscar nomination.

He spent his early career directing theater and live television in New York, until he and three of his TV colleagues—producer Fred Coe, writer Leslie Stevens, and fledgling star Paul Newman—went to Hollywood to make a western about Billy the Kid.

Paul Newman takes aim as Billy the Kid, in Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun.

2008 marked the 50th anniversary of The Left Handed Gun, Penn’s now-celebrated feature film debut. We spoke by phone, ironically the day...