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★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆

Two of J Lee Thompson’s early films – a gritty women’s prison drama and a postwar crime thriller – serve as a reminder that the director deserves more kudos as an artist

J Lee Thompson is a British director who could maybe do with a bit more auteur respect: here is a double-bill rerelease of two of his early black-and-white films from the 1950s. The Weak and the Wicked (★★★★☆) is a melodrama that came out in 1954 just before his wrenching classic Yield to the Night, which featured Diana Dors on death row. It is a tough women’s prison film as well, one that quickly morphs into a social-issue sermon; it is richly flavoured, speckled with comic interludes and gloriously cast with Glynis Johns as Jean, a young society beauty and gambling addict whose dud cheque leads to an appearance in court and whose head-girl demeanour never falters in the clink.

Studiocanal are delighted to announce the release of two compelling dramas from British director J. Lee Thompson into their Vintage Classics Collection The Weak And The Wicked and No Trees In The Street, both Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 5 August. We’re giving you the chance to win both copies on Blu-Ray.

Studiocanal are delighted to announce the release of two compelling dramas from British director J. Lee Thompson (Ice Cold in Alex) into their Vintage Classics Collection featuring standout performances from two legendary and much-missed British actresses Glynis Johns and Sylvia Syms. The Weak And The Wicked stars the late Diana Dors (Yield to The Night) alongside Glynis Johns (Mary Poppins), and No Trees In The Street features Herbert Lom (The Pink Panther Strikes Again) and Melvyn Hayes (Summer Holiday) alongside Sylvia Syms (Woman in a Dressing Gown) in her BAFTA-nominated performance. Both films will premiere at Bristol’s...

To celebrate the release of a brand-new 4K restoration of director Carol Reed’s A Kid for Two Farthings, on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 26 February, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!

Starring Celia Johnson, Diana Dors, David Kossoff and Jonathan Ashmore in his sole acting role, the film is packed with memorable supporting characters including the affectionate Mrs Abramowitz (Irene Handl), blowsy fashionista Lady Ruby (Brenda de Banzie) crooked jewellery salesman Ice Berg (Sid James) and finicky tailor Madam Rita (Sydney Tafler).

In the vibrant Petticoat Lane community of East London, amidst the hustle and bustle of the ancient market, small shops and open-air vendors, Joe (Jonathan Ashmore) lives with his mother, Joanne (Celia Johnson) above the Kandinsky tailor shop, where Joanne also works.

Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to make the lives of his impoverished, hard-working neighbours better. Hearing Mr. Kandinsky (David Kossoff) tell a...

Alice Troughton’s first feature is a jewel, an exquisitely made chamber piece with Richard E. Grant as J.M. Sinclair, an acclaimed novelist on his way down, Julie Delpy as Helene, his art-curator wife, and Daryl McCormack as Liam, a would-be novelist who idolizes Sinclair. With a clever script that keeps us off guard, the setting of a gracious country estate whose sumptuous visuals mask a dark undercurrent, and a score that entices us into an increasingly unsettling world, The Lesson is a small delight.

The opening scene makes it seem as if we can see the film’s whole trajectory. Liam is being interviewed about his first novel, whose plot about a great patriarchal writer is obviously based on Sinclair. The narrative then flashes back to the beginning of the story, when Liam is hired to tutor the Sinclairs’ son, Bertie (Stephen McMillan), for his entrance exams to Oxford University.

During a three-hour discussion on a recent episode of “The Empire Film Podcast,” Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino revealed the existence of their makeshift quarantine movie club over the last 9 months. As Wright explained, “It’s nice. We’ve kept in touch in a sort of way that cinephiles do. It’s been one of the very few blessings of this [pandemic], the chance to disappear down a rabbit hole with the hours indoors that we have.” Tarantino added, “Edgar is more social than I am. It’s a big deal that I’ve been talking to him these past 9 months.”

A bulk of the film club was curated by none other than Martin Scorsese, who sent Wright a recommendation list of nearly 50 British films that Scorsese considers personal favorites. In the five months Wright spent in lockdown before resuming production on “Last Night in Soho” — and before he received the...

Harrowing prison scenes transfigure this gripping 1956 story of a woman awaiting execution for murder, written just before the hanging of Ruth Ellis

J Lee Thompson’s gripping capital punishment drama Yield to the Night from 1956 gets a re-release: a Brit noir classic and a unique career achievement for Diana Dors as Mary Hilton, a woman awaiting execution for murder. The events leading up to Mary’s crime are intercut with her jail ordeal, attended by female wardens or “matrons” in the brightly lit cell, whose lights can never be dimmed because of suicide-watch surveillance. It unfolds like an eerie, lucid dream of squalor and shame. I first became aware of this film in 1995 when the Smiths’ Singles album came out, using as cover design the image of Dors gripping the frame of her bedstead, like the bars of a cell. The final track of that album, incidentally, is There Is...

To mark the release of Yield to the Night on 12th October, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

Salesgirl Mary Hilton (Diana Dors) is convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. She spends her final weeks in a condemned cell remembering the events that led to her crime. Having met and fallen hopelessly in love with impoverished musician Jim Lancaster (Michael Craig), Mary left her neglectful husband for him, only to find his attraction to her deflected by his involvement with rich socialite Lucy Carpenter (Mercia Shaw). When Jim’s relationship with Lucy takes a tragic turn, a heartbroken Mary snaps – transforming her love for him into a murderous hatred for her rival.

Alone, imprisoned and desperately afraid; as each day the end grows closer Mary attempts to settle matters with her family as she awaits her final sentencing, or a possible reprieve.

Please note: This...

Van Johnson steps into adventure-guy shoes more suitable for Humphrey Bogart in this European-shot thriller. Daring Martine Carol provides the sex appeal as the mystery dame who entices Johnson to smuggle a man out of Red Albania. The movie is practically a proto- James Bond film: it’s directed by Terence Young, includes Sean Connery and Anthony Dawson in the cast list, and features a fight in a gypsy camp. But Herbert Lom steals the show from them all as a monocle-wearing, oversexed gypsy bandit who can’t abide Commies. Oh, and the disc has special treat in store for discerning, high-toned art-movie intellectuals: this is the film’s hotter Continental version.

Action of the Tiger

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date April 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Van Johnson, Martine Carol, Herbert Lom, Gustavo Rojo, José Nieto, Helen Haye, Anna Gerber, Anthony Dawson, Sean Connery,...

Above: Mondo poster for The Graduate (Mike Nichols, USA, 1967); artist: Rory Kurtz; lettering: Jay Shaw.On my daily movie poster Tumblr I don’t make a habit of posting fan art or art prints—call them what you will—because I’m most interested in the intersection of commerce and art that is the theatrical movie poster. But I make an exception when something stands out, and nothing stood out last year quite like Rory Kurtz’s beautiful, elegant and unexpected Mondo illustration for The Graduate, which quite rightly racked up over 200 more likes than even its nearest competitor. But its nearest competitor was fan art too: a brilliant poster for Badlands by the insanely talented Adam Juresko, whose art poster for In the Mood for Love (featured in my Maggie Cheung article) was also in the top four. What makes art posters easy to like—beyond their extraordinary artistry...

Cinematographer on the first Star Wars film who worked with the Boulting Brothers, Hitchcock and Polanski

The British cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, who has died aged 99, was best known for his camerawork on the first Star Wars movie (1977). Though its special effects and set designs somewhat stole his thunder, it was Taylor who set the visual tone of George Lucas's six-part space opera.

"I wanted to give it a unique visual style that would distinguish it from other films in the science-fiction genre," Taylor declared. "I wanted Star Wars to have clarity because I don't think space is out of focus … I thought the look of the film should be absolutely clean … But George [Lucas] saw it differently … For example, he asked to set up one shot on the robots with a 300mm camera lens and the sand and sky of the Tunisian desert just meshed together. I told him it wouldn't work,...

Diana Dors may be famous for all those flirty, saucy one-liners, but she had a sharp, knowing wit of her own, and was more serious an actor than she gets credit for

The early 50s is remembered as an era smeared with boredom, with Billy Cotton on the wireless and rationed gruel for dinner. In such a country, the beauty and easy charm of Diana Dors must have seemed like an insult to many people.

Dors is frequently referenced as Britain's "answer" to Marilyn Monroe, but a brace of Dors's films – My Wife's Lodger (1952) and Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? from 1953 – set for DVD release by the BFI – show a vibrant and underrated star with a decidedly English sass. Aside from her role as a convicted murderer in Yield to the Night, it is usually assumed that her acting talent was wasted on fripperies, yet she also had hefty roles in another prison drama,...