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South Africa’s Known Associates, the fast-growing parent company of Johannesburg-based Known Associates Entertainment (Kae) and Cape Town-based Moonlighting Films, is launching into unscripted programming, Variety can reveal.

The company has acquired a 60% stake in Zero Gravity, a production outfit founded in 2017 by former Endemol Shine Africa and Trace Studios CEO Sivan Pillay, and will team up with South African media giant Primedia to “relaunch multiple new high-end unscripted formats,” according to Pillay. Though specific titles covered by that agreement have not been finalized, Primedia’s catalog includes hit series “The Masked Singer,” “Deal or No Deal” and “Ready Steady Cook.”

“For us, it’s a natural progression,” said Known Associates chairperson Joel Phiri at the Joburg Film Festival. “We’re bringing our production expertise, and it’s keeping in line with our acquiring [production services giant] Moonlighting [in 2022]. It’s linking with our servicing facilities and growing that side of the business.”

The...

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

Amazon Prime Video has closed a multi-picture licensing agreement with South Africa’s Known Associates, the parent company of Johannesburg-based Known Associates Entertainment (Kae) and Cape Town-based Moonlighting Films, the company announced Thursday during the Joburg Film Festival.

The deal grants Prime Video exclusive SVOD access to over 20 South African feature films, including Zane Meas’ “Klip Anker Baai,” Marvin-Lee Beukes’ “Tickets,” Jahmil Qubeka’s “You Are My Favorite Place,” Dick d’vLz Reubïn’s “Gereza” and Norman Maake’s “Piet’s Sake 2.”

The slate also includes at least eight newly produced films in 2023, among them new features from Ian Gabriel (“Four Corners”), Alastair Orr (“Triggered”), Meg Rickards (“Tess”) and John Barker, who will be filming the sequel to his 2022 Toronto Film Festival premiere “The Umbrella Men” (pictured).

“We’re delighted to be bringing Prime Video customers this diverse and compelling slate of South African movies from the dynamic team at Known Associates,...

Exclusive: The BBC has greenlighted a landmark documentary series on Elon Musk from Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story producer 72 Films, Deadline can reveal.

Airing later this year, BBC Two’s The Elon Musk Show (working title) comes with the world’s richest man in the headlines like never before as he pushes through his 44B mega-deal to buy Twitter. Deadline understands the producers have updated the three-part doc series in order to accommodate for the Twitter acquisition, the big news of the past few weeks.

72 Films, which has nursed a reputation over the years for producing top-quality archive docs including the BBC’s Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and The Trump Show, has interviewed family members, close friends and business associates of the Tesla tycoon, who tell the intimate story of his journey to becoming the globe’s wealthiest person and one of its most controversial.

The jurors in Johnny Depp’s defamation trial were shown several text messages on Thursday in which he used violent and obscene language, and discussed copious drug and alcohol use.

Depp took the stand for the third consecutive day in a courtroom in Fairfax, Va., as his trial against ex-wife Amber Heard continued. Depp claims that Heard lied when she accused him of hitting her, and is seeking 50 million in damages for the harm she caused to his career.

In his testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday, Depp denied that he had ever hit any woman. He also alleged that Heard had repeatedly attacked him, and had thrown a bottle at him, severing the tip of his middle finger. Depp testified that he would customarily flee to a bedroom or a bathroom to get away from Heard when she was violent.

On Thursday, Heard’s attorney Ben Rottenborn read aloud from...

FromSoftware games tend to feature deep and intentionally confusing lore. Gamers and theorists are still trying to piece together the story and backstory of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and Elden Ring continues that proud tradition by offering a narrative full of fascinating facts that are surprisingly easy to miss.

Elden Ring‘s basic story is surprisingly straightforward: Players have to gather the Great Runes and reassemble the Elden Ring to become the next Elden Lord. Along the way, the player’s character acquires a ton of equipment and occasionally bumps into potential allies. However, that driving narrative doesn’t even scratch the surface of the game’s lore. While much of Elden Ring’s backstory was seemingly penned by George R.R. Martin, players will likely discover most of the game’s lore in the usual Soulsborne ways (i.e. item descriptions and vague character dialogue). It’s not uncommon for...

Anohni has reteamed with dance music project Hercules & Love Affair for the new song “Poisonous Storytelling,” the latest single off In Amber, producer Andy Butler’s first Hercules & Love Affair album in five years.

Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Budgie also appears on the track, which marks the first time the former Antony and the Johnson singer has collaborated with Hercules & Love Affair since their 2008 self-titled debut album, which yielded the hit “Blind.”

“‘Poisonous Storytelling’ started as a song called ‘Sacral’ – the music evoked sacred rites, but the word ‘Sacral...

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.

311 is teaming up with audio brand Ultimate Ears for the “ultimate” fan collaboration. The rockers have unveiled a new collection of faceplates for Ultimate Ears’ Csx earbuds, inspired by some of the band’s most iconic albums.

The collection dropped appropriately on March 11 (a.k.a. “311 Day”) and includes six, specially-designed faceplates that “snap” onto select Ultimate Ears earbuds, to create a colorful new look.

Fans can choose...

Never one to be boxed into a corner, Jacques Audiard is following up his Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan and his English-language debut, the western The Sisters Brothers, with Paris, 13th District, a black-and-white tale of young love between four individuals. Scripted by Audiard, Léa Mysius, and Céline Sciamma, based on Adrian Tomine’s short stories, the Cannes premiere will now arrive in theaters next month and the new trailer has debuted via IFC Films.

Luke Hicks said in his review, “Audiard’s career-spanning desire to jump from story to story has landed him some new, noteworthy co-writers. The wandering narrative was penned by Léa Mysius, Portrait of a Lady on Fire writer-director Céline Sciamma, and Audiard himself. It’s an interwoven adaptation of three black-and-white Adrian Tomine short stories––“Amber Sweet,” “Summer Blonde,” and “Hawaiian Getaway”––from his graphic novel collection Killing and Dying (pulled from his popular New Yorker cartoon series,...

Known Associates Entertainment, the production company behind the South African adaptation of the Colombian telenovela that inspired “Ugly Betty,” is planning to break ground on a Hollywood-style film studio outside Johannesburg that will boost capacity in one of the world’s hottest shooting locations.

Cradle Film Studios will be built across the road from the Cradle of Humankind, a sprawling archaeological site where traces of some of the earliest humans were discovered.

Comprising state-of-the-art studios and backlots, a data center, an innovation hub, and a housing development, the complex will be located 30 miles from Johannesburg and just 10 minutes from an international airport. It will also include a theme park that takes its inspiration from the world-renowned fossil site.

The project’s backers say the studios will help position South Africa’s commercial capital and the surrounding Gauteng province as a world-class destination for both local filmmakers and foreign productions.

“We...

Apple has ordered a series adaptation of the “Amber Brown” books by Paula Danziger, Variety has learned.

Bonnie Hunt is set to write, executive produce, and serve as showrunner on the adaptation. Carsyn Rose will star in the title role, with Sarah Drew, Darin Brooks, and Liliana Inouye (“The Slows”) also attached.

“Amber Brown” is an unfiltered look at a girl finding her own voice through art and music in the wake of her parents’ divorce. Amber Brown (Rose) is an everykid who is going through what many children experience, and making sense of her new family dynamic through her sketches and video diary. Drew stars as Amber’s mother, Sarah Brown. Brooks will play Max and Inouye will play Brandi Colwin.

The “Amber Brown” books have been published in 53 countries with over 10 million copies in print. Danziger wrote nine books in the series prior to her death in 2004. Then...

Exclusive: First Details on New Streaming Series Leave Quietly: "New streaming series Leave Quietly is set to deliver echoes of terror.

When a group of friends on an Audio-Chat App confront a mysterious stranger, they get more than they bargained for. That is the premise of Leave Quietly, a new suspense packed streaming series written and directed by Curt Wiser (Cam-Girl).

This chilling, limited series features an ensemble cast which includes genre favorites Victoria De Mare (the Killjoy franchise), Brooke Lewis Bellas (iMurders), Susan Lanier (The Hills Have Eyes) and Jackie Dallas (Stranger Things – TV Series), alongside Preston Butler III (The Face of Evil), Doug Penikas (Glee – TV Series), Michael Ruesga (Talons) and Elena Dizon (Shooter – TV Series). Close attention was paid to the group dynamic of these actors while casting.

Here is what Brooke Lewis Bellas had to say about working on this project:

"This pandemic has brought some challenging times for us creatives.

There is no such thing as a typical Jacques Audiard film. Take his last three as examples: in 2012 he captured the trauma-induced romance between a wayfaring father and killer-whale trainer in rural seaside France in Rust and Bone; in 2015 he won the Palme d’Or for Dheepan, a film about a Sri Lankan freedom fighter who seeks refuge in Paris with the involuntary help of two strangers fronting as his wife and daughter; in 2018 he cast Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as bickering, sharp-shooting brothers hunting down Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed in frontier-era Oregon in The Sisters Brothers. His newest, Paris, 13th District, is something entirely different.

Audiard’s career-spanning desire to jump from story to story has landed him some new, noteworthy co-writers. The wandering narrative was penned by Léa Mysius, Portrait of a Lady on Fire writer-director Céline Sciamma, and Audiard himself. It’s an interwoven...

Known Associates Entertainment, the production company behind the South African adaptation of the Colombian telenovela that inspired “Ugly Betty,” is partnering with Ivory Coast public broadcaster Rti on a sci-fi drama series that marks the first co-production between the two countries, Variety has learned.

“Ambre” will be shot in South Africa and in Ivory Coast with actors from both countries, with a script written in both English and French. South African public broadcaster Sabc has pre-licensed the series, which is slated to air in 2022.

“In the vein of ‘American Gods’ and ‘Black Earth Rising,’ ‘Ambre’ is a futuristic action thriller about courage, hope and the heroism of youth in desperate times,” said producer Lebone Maema, who co-created the 6 x 60’ series with Ivorian writer Binta Dembele.

“‘Ambre’ epitomizes Known Associates’ vision for creating premium African global content. We are thrilled to pioneer co-productions between African countries across languages and cultures for a worldwide audience,...

Jackie Collins epitomizes one of the 20th century’s favorite types of star: the celebrity novelist who gets rich and famous writing scandalous best-sellers about fictionalized scandalous celebrities. She rode in from England to Hollywood to take up her throne as the queen of the delectably trashy sex-and-shopping paperbacks, peaking in the Eighties, right around the time her real-life big sister Joan Collins starred in the prime-time soap Dynasty. Jackie turned herself into a wildly successful one-woman factory for fantasies with nuanced titles like The Bitch and The Stud. Yet...

Season 19 of “Hell’s Kitchen” is closing in on its winner announcement, with only four contestants still in the running for the head chef position at Gordon Ramsay‘s Lake Tahoe Restaurant. Of this final four — Mary Lou Davis, Kori Sutton, Declan Horgan and Cody Candelario — the reality TV show’s viewers are adamant that a woman deserves to join the “Hk” winners list. Both Mary Lou and Kori topped our recent poll asking fans to vote for who should win it all. Sorry, boys!

See ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Season 19 cast: Meet the 18 chefs for Las Vegas edition

Here are the complete poll results:

43% — Mary Lou Davis

25% — Kori Sutton

21% — Declan Horgan

11% — Cody Candelario

Just missing out on a chance to make it into the final four was Amber Lancaster. This 30-year-old executive chef from Chicago was eliminated in last week’s episode after failing to impress on the fish station.

And then there were four. After this week’s episode of “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 19, only the Final 4 contestants remain in the running to win the head chef position at Gordon Ramsay‘s Lake Tahoe Restaurant. They are: Kori Sutton, Mary Lou Davis, Cody Candelario and Declan Horgan. Of these remaining talented chef-testants, who do you personally want to win? Vote in our poll below and then be sure to defend your choice in the comments section.

See‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Season 19 cast: Meet the 18 chefs for Las Vegas edition

The fifth-place contestant, Amber Lancaster, was eliminated on Thursday night after her disastrous night on the fish station. Amber started out the competition strong as a member of the Red Team, but when she switched to the Blue Team midway through, she started getting in her head. Amber repeatedly butted heads with Declan and Cody, whom she accused of ganging up against her.

Hey, "The Rookie" fans. Welcome back from the very long, one-month break. The Rookie finally start back up with new episodes tonight. We hope you enjoyed episode 8. Now that it's officially come and gone, we are back on here to explain a few things that the next, new episode 9 of The Rookie's current season 3 will feature. It's indeed currently scheduled to hit the air next Sunday night,April 4, 2021. The terrific ABC folks did supply us with an official episode 8 press release. It contains a few teaser descriptions for episode 9. So, that is what we'll be diving into for this spoiler session. Let's get to it. First thing's first, ABC revealed that this new episode 9 is officially titled, "Amber." It sounds like episode 8 will feature some very intense, action-filled, suspenseful and interesting scenes as the team works a stolen baby case. Jackson and Chen work their final, rookie shifts and more.

The great Emmy debate over a merged variety series category has been solved, at least for now: The Television Academy will announce on Friday that it has decided this year to maintain separate categories for variety talk series and variety sketch series after all.

The decision to keep the two categories, reversing course from a previous plan to merge them back together, came after intense lobbying from the late night shows, their producers and their PR representatives.

The Television Academy announced in December that it would once again award talk and sketch in the same variety category, which it had done until they were split into two fields 2015. But on Thursday night, the Academy’s Board of Governors reviewed the decision and decided to reverse course and keep them separate for the 73rd Emmy Awards.

“While the Academy remains concerned about the number of series produced and the relatively small...

Ever since the very first episode of Deadline’s New Hollywood Podcast with actor Sinqua Walls, the New Hollywood Podcast celebrates Black culture and talent 12 months out of the year. February is Black History Month so we like to put extra shine on Black Hollywood and recognize the achievements of the community and how they have paved the way and pushed the needle further when it comes to diversity and representation in film & TV.

From trailblazers like Ava DuVernay, RuPaul Charles, Janet Mock, Lena Waithe and Issa Rae to talent like Michael B.Jordan, Robin Thede, Daveed Diggs, Yahya Abdul Mateen II and Renee Elise Goldsberry that has taken the industry by storm, New Hollywood has always championed Black actors, filmmakers, producers and writers and will continue to do so after February.

That said, we have compiled a list of our Black guests that have appeared on New Hollywood out of our 134 episodes.

Google has unveiled the top trending searches of 2020, continuing its annual reflection on some of the year’s most searchable moments – from Kobe Bryant’s death, to Parasite’s Oscar wins and the coronavirus pandemic.

An indicator of what were some of the burning topics in users’ minds, the annual Google roundup shows the top trending results for a number of categories including news, people, actors, movies and TV shows.

With the Covid-19 pandemic occurring during the 2020 presidential election, it should come as no surprise that terms including “Election results,” “Who is the winning the election” and “Coronavirus update,” “Coronavirus symptoms” topped the searches list. Zoom, Naya Rivera and Kobe Bryant also were among the top trending overall searches.

On the entertainment side Tom Hanks, Amber Heard, Lea Michele and Joaquin Phoenix were among the top trending actors for Google searches. Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, which took home historic wins back in February,...

The Snyder Cut of Justice League only exists because the fans spent two and a half years relentlessly campaigning for it, so you can guarantee that Zack Snyder will be going out of his way to double down on making them happy when his brand new version of the movie arrives exclusively on HBO Max next year.

A redesigned Steppenwolf, black suit Superman and the absence of even a single frame shot by Joss Whedon are all steps in the right direction as the filmmaker looks to deliver the epic blockbuster that he had hoped to make the first time around, as well as the one that the fanbase wanted to see all along.

However, one potentially sticky situation could be the involvement of Amber Heard, with the actress becoming the least popular figure in Hollywood as Johnny Depp’s supporters appear to have made it their mission to railroad...

After years spent on the shelf gathering dust, The New Mutants was finally released into theaters in August, a full 28 months after it was initially scheduled to hit the big screen. And given the X-Men spinoff’s tortured production that involved extensive reshoots and countless delays, it was almost fitting that it was sent out in the middle of a pandemic when most people were keeping a wide berth from their local multiplex.

Reviews weren’t particularly kind, with some labeling it the worst entry in the entire mutant franchise, and it finished up with a box office haul of just over $45 million. However, because of the year we’re having, that’s still good enough to make The New Mutants the fifteenth highest-grossing title of 2020 so far. To put things into perspective, the fifteenth biggest hit of 2019 was Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which raked in $491 million.

Of course, fans...

Following a four-week break (during which time it was cancelled), Fox’s Next returned on Tuesday night with an episode that upped the creepy factor.

When last we tuned in, Paul had surmised that Next sneaked itself out of Zava by compressing itself onto a single server and having itself shipped out. This week, Paul and Agent Salazar followed the evil A.I.’s trail to BioMotion, a robotics R&d facility near Dartmouth that is run by one of Paul’s few true friends, Professor Richard Pearish (played by Chicago actor Michael Herzovi, though that was not his voice...

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By Darren Allison

“Casablanca - Classic Film Scores for Humphrey Bogart” (CDLK4639 ) was originally recorded on September 6th & 7th, 1973 and released on vinyl (on both the RCA Gold and Red Seal label in 1974). It was also released on a Quadraphonic LP the same year. The album masters were remastered at BMG Studio D on August 18, 1989 and from that came the CD for which we are probably most familiar (a successful series which came in a dark blue coloured tray and recognised by the silver film strip across the top right of the cover of the 20 page booklet). The recordings by Charles Gerhardt and The National Philharmonic Orchestra are quite spectacular, from the opening Warner Bros logo and the superb suite from Casablanca (1942) to Passage to Marseille (1944) to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)… in fact, name just about any Bogart classic and it...

Larry Wilmore is set to “keep it 100” at Peacock.

The fledgling streaming service announced Monday that it has picked up 11 episodes of a new late-night talk show fronted by the former Nightly Show host. It will be paired with the previously commissioned Amber Ruffin Show, which has received a nine-episode order.

More from TVLine'MacGruber' TV Series, Starring Will Forte, Ordered at PeacockSara Bareilles to Lead Peacock's 'Girls5eva' Comedy From Tina FeyA.P. Bio Is Weirder, Wronger and [Bleep]ier in Season 3 Peacock Trailer

Wilmore and Ruffin’s shows are poised to premiere in September. Episodes will unspool weekly in the...

Fiery dame Susan Hayward carries this far-flung ‘women’s epic’ to delirious romantic extremes, as her Irish heroine defies nature and exploits admirers to claim the hunky Dutchman of her dreams. Using apartheid-ridden South Africa as a background for a cheerful white conquest wasn’t as touchy an idea in 1955 as it is now, but it should have been. Just the same, Henry King’s film is an impressive production from the early years of CinemaScope.

Untamed

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date January 22, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Richard Egan, John Justin, Agnes Moorehead, Rita Moreno, Hope Emerson, Brad Dexter, Henry O’Neill, Eleanor Audley, Kevin Corcoran, Philip Van Zandt.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Barbara McLean

Original Music: Franz Waxman

Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg, Matthew Yuricich

Written by Talbot Jennings, Frank Fenton, Michael Blankfort, William A. Bacher from a novel by Helga Moray.

Before Vincent Price haunted houses, he chalked up plenty of experience as a Broadway star and a versatile character actor. This superb Joseph L. Mankiewicz gothic romance assigns him major leading man duty as a ‘dark and troubled’ soul — the kind that intimidates cowering leading ladies. With typical good humor, Price called it the first of his ‘dead wife’ movies!

Dragonwyck

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1946 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 103 min. / Street Date , 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan, Anne Revere, Spring Byington, Connie Marshall, Harry Morgan, Vivienne Osborne, Jessica Tandy, Trudy Marshall, Reinhold Schünzel, Grady Sutton.

Cinematography: Arthur C. Miller

Film Editor: Dorothy Spencer

Original Music: Alfred Newman

From the novel by Anya Seton

Produced by Ernst Lubitsch, Darryl F. Zanuck

Written for the screen and Directed by Joseph H. Mankiewicz

You’d have to say that Vincent Price’s film...

Hollywood film actor who starred in the now-revered 1950 B-movie Gun Crazy, a forerunner of Bonnie and Clyde

The British actor Peggy Cummins, who has died aged 92, was discovered by the Hollywood mogul Darryl F Zanuck when she was a teenager and almost immediately given the lead in his big film of the age, Forever Amber, based on the historical romance by Kathleen Winsor. In 1946 she began filming the part of Amber St Clare, a young beauty making her way in 17th-century England, shooting opposite Vincent Price as Almsbury. Hundreds of stills were shot of her in period costume. But then the director was sacked, filming started all over again – and Cummins was replaced (as was Price).

A career that had promised so much for Cummins was reduced to small parts in big films and big parts in small pictures. Among these, her best known performance was in Gun Crazy (1950), directed by Joseph H Lewis,...

Irish actor Cummins never quite conquered Hollywood but she made her mark in the 1950 film noir classic, as well as cult horror Night of the Demon

Irish actor Peggy Cummins, who left her mark as the brazen femme fatale in the film noir Gun Crazy, has died aged 92, having suffered a stroke. She died in a London hospital on 29 December, surrounded by family, her friend Dee Kirkwood told the Hollywood Reporter.

Cummins, who was born in Prestatyn, Wales, began acting as a child, having been spotted at a tram stop in Dublin by a theatre owner. She made her debut on the London stage aged 13. After a stint in British cinema, in 1945 she went to Hollywood, where Darryl F Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, cast her as the lead in Otto Preminger’s Forever Amber. “Fox made a big splash for me when I came over. I weighed 98 pounds and had an 18-inch waist,...

Meet the lusty Amber St. Clare, a 17th century social climber determined to sleep her way to respectability. Gorgeous Linda Darnell gets her biggest role in a lavishly appointed period epic; Otto Preminger hated the assignment but his direction and Darryl Zanuck’s production are excellent. And it has one of the all-time great Hollywood movie scores, by David Raksin.

Forever Amber

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1947 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 138 min. / Street Date December 19, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde, Richard Greene, George Sanders, Glenn Langan, Richard Haydn, Jessica Tandy, Anne Revere, John Russell, Jane Ball, Robert Coote, Leo G. Carroll, Natalie Draper, Margaret Wycherly, Norma Varden.

Cinematography: Leon Shamroy

Art Direction: Lyle Wheeler

Visual Effects: Fred Sersen

Original Music: David Raksin

Written by Philip Dunne, Ring Lardner Jr. from the novel by Kathleen Winsor

Produced by William Perlberg

Directed by Otto Preminger

Three years ago,...

One of the best Hollywood historical epics takes Technicolor to Mexico for a Production Code version of La conquista: the Inquisition is still bad, but the Church is exonerated. Likewise with the invasion — Cesar Romero embodies a marvelous Hernán Cortés, substantially less murderous than the one we now know from accurate history books. Tyrone Power is the heartthrob hero and newcomer Jean Peters the lowborn girl who loves him. The magnificent scenery is matched by the music score of Alfred Newman.

Captain from Castile

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1947 / Color / 137 Academy / 141 min. / Street Date October 17, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Tyrone Power, Jean Peters, Cesar Romero, Lee J. Cobb, John Sutton, Antonio Moreno, Thomas Gomez, Alan Mowbray, Barbara Lawrence, George Zucco, Roy Roberts, Marc Lawrence, Reed Hadley, Robert Karnes, Estela Inda, Chris-Pin Martin, Jay Silverheels, Gilberto González.

Cinematography: Arthur Arling, Charles G. Clarke, Joseph Lashelle

Film Editor: Barbara McLean...

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,...

Some quick reviews this week. Well, not quite reviews, as I’m not going to get much into plot synopses, but as always I will express some definitely personal opinions. (You know me.) There will be S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S inferred, so caveat emptor!

“The Lie of the Land” (Episode 8, Doctor Who, Series 10): The final episode of a three-episode arc – the first two being “Extremis” and “The Pyramid at the End of the World” – in which alien “monks” have taken over the world through the consent of Bill Potts, the Doctor’s newest companion. She did this in order to have the monks cure the Doctor’s blindness – which occurred in Episode 5, “Oxygen.”

I wasn’t sure where the show was going with this, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t much engaged by our hero’s disability; I found it more annoying than anything else,...

Now in Region A — One of the best releases from the early- ’50s 3-D boom. Millionaire Robert Ryan is abandoned to die in the desert by his wife Rhonda Fleming and her lover; the ‘useless’ executive earns self-respect by focusing on the problem of survival. Ryan’s terrific, and the depth effects in the attractive desert locations are great, thanks to cinematographer Lucien Ballard.

Inferno 3-D

3-D + 2-D Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1953 / Color / 1:33 flat / 83 min. / Street Date May 16, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Henry Hull, Carl Betz, Larry Keating, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Editor: Robert L. Simpson

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Francis M. Cockrell from his story The Waterhole

Produced by William Bloom

Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker

I just reviewed an Inferno 3-D disc not four months ago, but U.S. viewers will want the facts (all the facts!

Here’s a real gem — a ‘classic’ Chekhov story turned into a compelling tale of lust and murder. George Sanders and Linda Darnell shine as a judge and the peasant girl who intrigues him; Edward Everett Horton is excellent cast against type in a dramatic role.

Summer Storm

DVD

Sprocket Vault / Kit Parker

1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Street Date October 20, 2009 (I’m a little late) / available through Sprocket Vault / 14.99

Starring: George Sanders, Edward Everett Horton, Linda Darnell, Anna Lee, Hugo Haas, Lori Lahner, Sig Ruman, Robert Greig, Byron Foulger, Mike Mazurki, Elizabeth Russell.

Cinematography: Archie Stout, Eugen Schüfftan

Art Direction: Rudi Feld

Collaborating Editor: Gregg G. Tallas

Original Music: Karl Hajos

Written by Roland Leigh, Douglas Sirk (as Michael O’Hara), Robert Theoren based on the play The Shooting Party by Anton Chekhov

Produced by Seymour Nebenzal

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk, born Hans Detlef Sierck, had a pretty amazing career.

The Barefoot Contessa

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1954 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 130 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Marius Goring, Rossano Brazzi, Valentina Cortese, Elizabeth Sellars, Warren Stevens, Enzo Staiola, Mari Aldon, Bessie Love.

Cinematography: Jack Cardiff

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written, Produced and Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

As a teenager, many of my first and strongest movie impressions came not from the movies, but from certain critics. I memorized Robin Wood’s analysis before getting a look at Hitchcock’s Psycho. Raymond Durgnat introduced me to Georges Franju and Luis Buñuel, and I first learned to appreciate a number of great movies including The Barefoot Contessa from Richard Corliss, a terrific critic who championed writers over director-auteurs.

The Barefoot Contessa is a classically structured story, in that it could work as a novel; it’s told from several points of view.

What? A movie where adults behave like adults? Otto Preminger showcases a quiet maturity in this story of an independent woman caught between two men, adulterous lover Dana Andrews and conflicted suitor Henry Fonda. The script is witty and the people believable -- this is one of Joan Crawford's best performances. Daisy Kenyon Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 99 min. / Street Date Nov 15, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Joan Crawford, Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda, Ruth Warrick, Martha Stewart, Peggy Ann Garner Cinematography Leon Shamroy Art Direction George Davis, Lyle Wheeler Film Editor Louis Loffler Original Music David Raksin Written by David Hertz from the book by Elizabeth Janeway Produced and Directed by Otto Preminger

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Why is Daisy Kenyon one of Joan Crawford's best pictures? Crawford could be a fine actress, but too many of her pictures seem distorted by her star persona.

or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015

This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.

What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...

'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...

If a network is going to trace the history of film, Turner Classic Movies is the most appropriate one.

It's about to reaffirm that, as it nears its 20th anniversary, with a series -- and series of movies -- that will run for most of the rest of the year. The initiative is built around "The Story of Film: An Odyssey," a 15-part documentary to be offered in weekly chapters Mondays starting Sept. 2.

Director-writer-narrator Mark Cousins' retrospective goes decade by decade through movie history, starting in the era of 1902's "A Trip to the Moon" and going up to such recent (in TCM terms) releases as 2000's "Gladiator." Besides being excerpted in the documentary, many of those features will be shown in full on Mondays and Tuesdays, introduced by TCM staple Robert Osborne.

"It does give a basic history of film," Osborne tells Zap2it of the documentary, "and...