BY CHRIS WADE

Of all the actors to emerge in the 1970s, there are few, if any, as captivating, unpredictable and exciting as James Woods. He began the decade, and his on screen career for that matter, for legendary director Elia Kazan in The Visitors (1972), and in the next few years established himself as one of American film's most promising young performers. He turned up as villains in such classic TV shows as Kojak and Streets of San Francisco, but he also appeared in some major 70s movies too, such as 1973's The Way We Were, Arthur Penn's Night Movies (1975) and The Gambler (1975). But it was his performance in The Onion Field (1979) which really signalled his arrival, as the sociopathic cop killer Greg Powell. The film, based on Joseph Wambaugh's best-selling non-fiction book, was a critical smash and earned Woods his first wave of acclaim. It was a stunning performance, equally charismatic and frightening, and it brought in a new face for cinema, an actor so convincing in his intensity that you would have been scared of him had you met him in the street.

Of course, it was really only the beginning. Into the next decade he proved himself to be one of American cinema's most reliable, quirky, and appealing character actors, appearing in such classics as Eyewitness (1981), David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Against All Odds (1984), Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, Best Seller (1987), Cop (1988) and True Believer (1989). It was one of the most remarkable runs for any actor of the era.

Woods went on to appear in more than his fair share of stand outs in the following decades, in such films as Chaplin (1991), The Hard Way (1992), The Specialist (1994), Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), for Oliver Stone again in both Nixon (1995) and Any Given Sunday (1999), in Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides (1999) and John Carpenter's Vampires (1998). His filmography reveals an almost faultless body of work.

I first had the idea to write a book about Woods' filmography in May 2021. I had interviewed James in 2020 for a book I had written about Once Upon a Time in America and, somewhat unexpectedly, we had stayed in touch. After I put together a retrospective article for a vintage film magazine I sometimes put out (Scenes), I presented the idea of a full book. He said he was OK with that, but I presumed I would just write it and that would be it. No, he was happy to do interviews- and we certainly did. For months in fact, we would speak every week for hours on end, going over his many classics, from his early career days in the 1970s, through his iconic films, right up to the most recent work. I got the chance to interview the likes of Sharon Stone, Debbie Harry, Oliver Stone and Jim Belushi, not to mention having Dolly Parton herself write the foreword (she and Woods made a film together, Straight Talk). However, for the most part the book is a journey through the career of James Woods, with Woods himself acting as a sort of tour guide through his canon, and in the process, a part of film history itself; beginning in the early Seventies with his experiences with such directors as Sydney Pollack, Kazan, Harold Becker and others, through his turbulent but rewarding work with Oliver Stone and numerous other legendary filmmakers.

Woods said to me at one point that the book was turning into a conversation between two film lovers, one of whom just happened to be James Woods. And that, I believe, sums it up rather well. This is a film lover's book, and it has the distinction of having its subject as a kind of co-author. The resulting book, The Films of James Woods, is a journey through a film career, yes, but it is also a relaxed, freewheeling chat between two men, one in the UK, one in America, and one who just happens to be a cinema legend. There is no gossip in the book, no tell-all tattle, but a lot of movie talk. A hell of a lot, in fact.

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Mill Creek Entertainment is releasing "Magnum P.I: The Complete Series" on Blu-ray. The set contains 30 discs, so if you're a fan, you'd better add another shelf to your video library. Here are the details:

"Buckle up and take a ride with Magnum, P.I. in all 8 seasons of the iconic series that are available for the first time on Blu-ray! Explore beautiful and exotic Hawaii with television's most beloved and charismatic private investigator (Emmy® Award winner Tom Selleck) as he tackles baffling mysteries and tracks down the bad guys with the help of T.C. (Roger E. Mosley), Rick (Larry Manetti) and Higgins (John Hillerman) plus his four-legged pals, Apollo and Zeus.

Packed with non-stop adventure and featuring iconic guest stars, Magnum P.I. is an unforgettable thrill-ride. Own the legacy today!"

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from The History Press. 

THE ART OF FILM

Designing James Bond, Aliens, Batman and More

24 March 2022 | 9780750997423 | HB | £25

TERRY ACKLAND-SNOW WENDY LAYBOURN

Legendary Art Director Terry Ackland-Snow lifts the lid on his extraordinary career in cinema.

Features many unpublished images and production sketches, and a wealth of amusing and revealing anecdotes. Terry Ackland-Snow has been a legendary figure in the film / TV industry for more than 40 years. Having worked on over 80 feature films, including two James Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Living Daylights), Aliens, Batman, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Labyrinth and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he reveals in The Art of Film the stories behind the making of these iconic productions. With behind-the-scenes photographs and Terry’s own production sketches, many of which are published here for the first time, this is an essential read for lovers of classic cinema.

Terry Ackland-Snow has been in the film and television industry for more than 50 years. Having worked on over 80 feature productions, he has amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience, all of which he now teaches on his art direction training courses based at Pinewood Studios.

Wendy Laybourn has worked in the film industry since the early 1970s and has spent the past few years helping the future generation of filmmakers to understand the skills and crafts involved.

(In light of Sidney Poiter's recent passing, we are re-running this article by Eve Goldberg that was originally posted in May, 2021.) 

BY EVE GOLDBERG

To Sir, With Love (1967) is a classroom drama set in London’s working-class East End during the swinging 1960s. It’s a well-scripted, well-acted, and well-directed film of the “good teacher vs unruly students” subgenre. But, more than anything else, To Sir, With Love is a Sidney Poitier film. It’s Poitier’s persona and charisma, his decency and humanity, that shine through in every scene. And, it’s Poitier at the apex of his acting career—In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were also released that same year. The film has aged surprisingly well, and is still enjoyable to watch. But it’s as an artifact of the Sidney Poitier oeuvre that To Sir, With Love earns its historical significance.

Class Struggle

In To Sir, With Love, Poitier plays Mark Thackeray, an unemployed engineer who takes a job teaching in a rough London high school while looking for work in his chosen field. From the beginning, the students give him a hard time. Led by rebellious Bert Denham (Christian Roberts), the teens are disrespectful and rude. Despite Thackeray’s patience, he fails to reach them. Eventually, he ditches the academic curricula and decides to engage the students around issues of personal ethics, survival skills, and everyday reality. “Life, love, death, sex, marriage, rebellion—anything you want,” he tells them. Thackeray opens up about his own hard-scrabble childhood in British Guiana. He demands that the students treat him, and each other, with respect. At one point, he takes them on a field trip to a museum, which proves to be a breakthrough scene as they experience life, and themselves, in a new way.

As the students grow and change, new challenges emerge for Thackeray: a female student (pretty blonde Pamela, played by Judy Geeson) develops a crush on him; he guides another student to cope with a humiliating situation in a more mature way. Towards the end of the movie, the students surprise Thackeray when they overcome their racism to attend the funeral of a mixed-race classmate’s mother.

In Poitier’s own words, his character “taught manners to kids who hadn’t understood what manners were… He also taught about self-respect, dignity, integrity, and honesty… He taught them integrity largely by showing them integrity. He offered himself as a friend, and until they were able to understand the offer and accept it, he endured an awful lot. He was driven to anger. He was humiliated… In the end, though, he succeeded in helping his students to see themselves in this new life as valuable, useful human beings with impressive potential.”

At the conclusion of the film, Thackeray receives the engineering job offer he was hoping for. But he tears up the job offer letter, realizing that he has found his calling as a teacher.

Race Takes a Back Seat

Despite several nods to issues of racial prejudice—in addition to the funeral subplot, Thackeray must deal with sporadic racists comments made by a fellow teacher and by the students—To Sir, With Love is more about class than race. Thackeray is educated, sophisticated, of the professional class and upwardly mobile. His students—almost all of them are white—are hard-core working-class, aware that they face a bleak economic future. When Thackeray throws out the text books in favor of teaching practical life lessons, he is in fact choosing to instruct the students in middle-class values and behavior.

But for all that class trumps race in this film, there is not a single moment when an American viewer in 1967 would not have been acutely aware that this is a black man teaching white kids. This is a black man counseling a student to disavow violence and turn the other cheek. This is a black man who might or might not become romantically involved with a white teacher. This is a black man who is intelligent, resourceful, self-restrained, and kind.

And that was a big part of the movie’s draw.

“I’m the only one”

In 1967, Sidney Poitier was the only black movie star in America. There was no Will Smith. There was no Denzel Washington. There was no Halle Berry, no Eddie Murphy, no Viola Davis, no Jamie Foxx, no Angela Bassett.

In 1967, movies were still at the center of the American cultural universe. When Newark and Detroit erupted in riots, when issues of race were daily front page news, when the more radical factions of the civil rights movement were verbally duking it out with the more moderate groups, Poitier was under pressure to be a spokesperson for all of black America.

“I’m the only one,” Poitier stated in an interview from that time. “I’m the only Negro actor who works with any degree of regularity. I represent 10,000,000 people in this country, and millions more in Africa.”

With the release of To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, he also became the top-grossing box office star in the country. His ascent to this rarefied position was a matter of talent, hard work, and the guts to take on challenges and risks.

Sidney Poitier’s life journey began in 1927. He grew up on Cat Island in the Bahamas, population 1,000. His parents were tomato farmers; their house had no electricity or running water. He saw his first automobile at age 10 when the family moved to Nassau. When he was 15, Poitier went to live with his older brother in Miami. A year later, he moved to New York where he worked as a dishwasher, took acting lessons, and joined the American Negro Theater. A fellow restaurant worker helped him improve his reading skills by pouring over the daily newspaper together.

Eventually, the actor began to get parts in theater, film, and television. His breakout movie role came in 1955 when he was cast as an angry, rebellious student in Blackboard Jungle. From there, he went on to leading roles in The Defiant Ones, A Raisin in the Sun, Lilies of the Field, and A Patch of Blue. He was the first black person to win a Best Actor Oscar—for his role in 1963’s Lilies of the Field.

Poitier’s star was rising at the exact time the civil rights movement was making its enormous impact on mainstream America. He became active in the movement, traveling to the south for Freedom Summer, and participating in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1964 March on Washington. (Other stars who attended the march included Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, and Burt Lancaster.)

As an actor, Poitier became an icon in the struggle for racial equality. He refused to play roles that did not embody dignity and strength. In an interview, he described his relationship to the history of black people in cinema: “The kind of Negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits.… I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping … I want people to feel when they leave the theatre that life and human beings are worthwhile. That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do.”

Fortunately for Poitier, he was not the only one in Hollywood concerned with breaking these old stereotypes. “The explanation for my career,” he writes in his memoir, “was that I was instrumental for those few filmmakers who had a social conscience. Men like Daryl Zanuck, Joe Mankiewicz, Stanley Kramer, the Mirisch brothers, Ralph Nelson, Mike Frankovich, David Susskind—men who, in their careers, felt called to address some of the issues of their day.”

In 1966, Poitier was cast as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia police detective investigating a murder in a small southern town, in Norman Jewison’s In The Heat of the Night. While waiting for production to begin, he traveled to London to star in a modestly-budgeted film about a teacher and his students, based on a property that had been kicking around Hollywood for years.

Iconic

To Sir, With Love began as a 1959 autobiographical novel by Guyanese writer E.R. Braithwaite. Columbia Studios owned the film rights but executives worried that it wouldn’t be a money-maker. They fretted that both its London setting and its interracial romance between Thackeray and a white teacher would alienate American audiences. So the book just sat.

Eventually however, Poitier’s agent Marty Baum put together a deal that offset the studio’s concerns.

Baum was also the agent of writer James Clavell (of later Shogun fame) who had scored a big success with his book and movie King Rat. Clavell had done a bit of screenwriting and directing and was eager to do more. He signed on as writer-director of To Sir, With Love. Baum structured a deal in which Poitier would get only a small up-front salary—much less than he would normally command—plus 10% of the film’s gross earnings. Clavell agreed to work for a percentage of the net. The film’s total budget would be $640,000. By way of comparison, the budget for In the Heat of the Night was $2,000,000 and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’s budget was $4,000,000. Taking on only a minimal financial risk, Columbia greenlit the film.

To Sir, With Love was shot on location in London and at England’s Pinewood Studios. It was released in June, 1967, and quickly became a smash hit. Studio executives were surprised: they didn’t know that Poitier was such a huge box office draw.

Teenagers (including 13-year-old yours truly) were among those who flocked to the movie. It had rebellious youth; it had Mod clothing, rock music, and pop star Lulu’s catchy hit “To Sir, With Love.” (Nineteen-year-old Lulu also has a part as one of the students.) The title song plays three times in the film, most notably as the soundtrack for an unusual scene that sticks out in an otherwise conventionally styled move: The class field trip to the museum is presented as a montage of still photos set to the title tune (a slightly longer version than was heard on the radio or on the 45 RPM record.) Is the montage a nod to hip, avant garde filmmaking such as A Hard Days’ Night? Or was it a necessity due to the film’s limited budget? Either way, it works.

Another plus for teenage audiences is the school’s end-of-the-year dance at which live entertainment is provided by real-life British rock band The Mindbenders.

But most of all, the movie had Sidney Poitier. Who wouldn’t want a teacher as handsome, understanding, compassionate, and smart as Mr. Thackeray?

Reviews of the movie were mixed.

The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther called it, “a cozy, good-humored and unbelievable little tale of a teacher getting acquainted with his pupils, implying but never stating that it is nice for the races to live congenially together.”

“If the hero of this Pollyanna story were white, his pieties would have been whistled off the screen,” Penelope Gilliatt wrote in The New Yorker.

Pauline Kael in The New Republic—she had not moved to The New Yorker yet—was sympathetic to the double bind Poitier found himself in: “Poitier has been playing the ideal-boy-next-door-who-happens-to-be-black for so long that he’s always the same…[but] What can he do? He can’t pass as a white man in order to play rats or cowards or sons of bitches, and if he plays Negro rats or cowards or sons of bitches he’ll be attacked for doing Negroes harm.”

The black press, which generally applauded Poitier and his pioneering contributions to civil rights, was mostly enthusiastic about To Sir, With Love. It was noted in Ebony, however, that the book’s interracial romance between Thackeray and fellow teacher Gillian Blanchard (Suzy Kendall) had been deleted in the movie. “Had Thackeray been white, the Thackeray-Gillian relationship would have been a love affair.”

Despite these mixed reviews, the public kept buying tickets. Loads of them. Month after month. Soon, To Sir, With Love became Columbia’s biggest hit since Lawrence of Arabia.

Eclipsed

In the Heat of the Night opened just two months after To Sir, With Love. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner opened several months after that. These latter two films were prestige projects, centered around issues of race, with multiple Academy Awards nominations and wins. All three movies were giant box office hits. By any measure in Hollywood, 1967 had shaped up as The Year of Sidney Poitier.

However, the peak of his acting career was short-lived. Social and political currents were shifting, and the tide turned amazingly quickly against his film persona.

According to the actor, “The issue boiled down to why I wasn’t more angry and confrontational. New voices were speaking for African-Americans, and in new ways. Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, the Black Panthers. According to a certain taste that was coming into ascendancy at the time, I was an ‘Uncle Tom,’ even a ‘house Negro,’ for playing roles that were nonthreatening to white audiences, for playing the ‘noble Negro’ who fulfills white liberal fantasies. In essence, I was being taken to tasks for playing exemplary human beings.”

Already in 1967, Poitier sensed that his career as a leading man on screen was coming to an end. And he was right. He made more movies, as an actor and director—he directed Uptown Saturday Night and Stir Crazy among others—but the height of his cultural influence was over.

Today, Sidney Poitier may be most remembered for his role as detective Virgil Tibbs in In The Heat of the Night. But let’s not forget that it was a little movie about a teacher and his students that launched the great actor’s star into the stratosphere.

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“BROSNAN BEFORE BOND”

By Raymond Benson

In 1986, Pierce Brosnan almost became James Bond, nearly a decade before he actually did so. He had been cast to replace Roger Moore as the iconic 007, but at the last minute, NBC waved his contract for the television series Remington Steele at him, exercising the option to make another season. Brosnan was out, and Timothy Dalton was in.

And then… Remington Steele’s new season ended up consisting of only six episodes, finishing its run in early 1987. So, Brosnan had been baited and switched. Nevertheless, in the interim years between then and his appearance in GoldenEye (1995), the actor set about establishing himself as a leading man in feature films.

One of these early starring roles was in the 1988 production, The Deceivers, a British picture made by the elite Merchant Ivory Productions, and it was produced by Ismail Merchant himself. Based on a 1952 novel by John Masters, the film was touted as being based on fact (the screenplay was by Michael Hirst). After a couple of directors, including Stephen Frears, dropped out of the project, Nicholas Meyer signed on. Meyer, known for his work on such titles as Time After Time (1979) and Star Trek II—the Wrath of Khan (1982), seemed to be a viable choice for this action-adventure period piece that the studio hoped would be perceived as something along the lines of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It wasn’t.

The story is set in India in 1825, before the British Raj but when Britain’s East India Company was a heavy influence in the country. The trading company had already come to rule large areas of India, employing military power and administrative functions. Captain William Savage (Brosnan) is a highly regarded employee, and he’s also engaged to the daughter of his boss, Colonel Wilson (Keith Michell). The bride-to-be, Sarah, is played by Michell’s real-life daughter, Helena Michell. After the marriage, all looks rosy for Savage if he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t rock the boat in his job. However, a loosely-organized cult called the Thugee, or Thugs (which, in Indian, means “deceivers”), are terrorizing the countryside. The Thugee brutally murder groups of people in surprise raids. When British citizens and employees of The Company become victims, Savage takes it upon himself to find a way to infiltrate the gang, become a member, and do something to take them down. Of course, to become a member, he must stain his skin color and become an Indian. Against his father-in-law’s wishes, Savage does just that with the help of a repentant Thug, Hussein (Saeed Jaffrey). What follows causes the “dark side” of Savage’s personality to emerge, as he must adopt murderous tendencies to successfully pull off the charade.

The Deceivers has a “literary,” art-house sensibility, as if it were a Masterpiece Theatre episode. At the same time, however, it is brutally violent and deals with a not-so-admirable period of British dominance in a country of people treated as inferior. While the action and battle scenes are well done, the movie might have benefited from a more populist approach. As a result, the film’s lofty attitudes prevent it from being truly gripping or exciting.

There is much to admire, however. For James Bond fans, there is not only the presence of Brosnan, who performs admirably and intensely in the role of Captain Savage, but also production designer Ken Adam, who presents a gorgeous pallet of period landscape and buildings, and main title designer Maurice Binder, whose style of production is easily recognizable in the opening credits.

Cohen Film Group’s new Blu-ray looks fine, if a bit dark (which could be Walter Lassally’s cinematography). It comes with optional English subtitles. There are no supplements other than the original theatrical trailers and an endless array of trailers for other Cohen releases.

The Deceivers may not be an award winner, but it is interesting enough as a period piece, for the pre-Bond performance by Pierce Brosnan, and for its historical milieu that is rarely touched upon in modern cinema.

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BY HANK REINEKE

When Kino Lorber announced in April 2021 that a Blu-ray of Universal’s The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946) was scheduled for issue in autumn I was, to put it mildly, over-joyed. It’s not that The Spider Woman Strikes Back is a great film – it most certainly is not – but it’s long been a missing entry on home video, a film of great interest to collectors of Golden Age horror. The studio has chosen, time and again, to re-master and re-offer the classic and iconic “Universal Monsters” in nearly every conceivable home video format and creative packaging. Too often these releases would be at the expense of the studios less famous genre titles as the still unissued Ghost Catchers (1944), and The Cat Creeps (1946).

In the course of this disc’s ten-minute featurette, Mistress of Menace and Murder: The Making of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, author C. Courtney Joyner notes the film was essentially the “last gasp” of Universal’s low-budget B-unit. Or as one commentator puts it, an opportunity to “burn out the contracts” of actors still on the lot. The studio’s A-list franchise ghouls of the 1930s – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy – had since been reduced to appearances in B programmers during the years 1940-1945.

Seeking to freshen things up, the studio engaged in a “desperate attempt… to create another horror franchise.” Their first attempt came with their Inner Sanctum series, each supernatural mystery featuring Lon Chaney Jr. in a starring role. The studio also cynically brought aboard non-actor Rondo Hatton, a real life victim of acromegaly, as a hulking brute in such productions as The Pearl of Death, The Jungle Captive, House of Horrors and The Brute Man. Uni-contracted actress Gale Sondergaard had made a splash as the icy and sinister nemesis of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes in the studio’s The Spider Woman (1944) and many thought a return of the villainess was worth considering.

In March of 1945, Hollywood newspapers were reporting that Universal had indeed contracted Sondergaard to appear in a proposed series of Spider Woman films. The Los Angeles Times predicted the “Spider Woman is expected to become as much of a fixture as those other horror protagonists, Dracula, the Monster of Frankenstein, and the newly created Creeper.” The Los Angeles Daily News noted one difference: Sondergaard’s Spider Woman “will not resort to grotesque makeup, but will accomplish her diabolical deeds as a charming sophisticate.”

Technically speaking the Spider Woman that Strikes Back is not the same Spider Woman who tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes a year earlier. Sondergaard is no longer playing the role of villainess Adrea Spedding. She’s now Zenobia Dollard, a blind woman of wealth who lives alone in a creepy mansion house with her frightening mute servant Mario (Rondo Hatton). Dollard, we soon learn, appears to have a lot of trouble keeping her string of nursemaids in employ. They all tend to disappear a short time following their hiring.

The latest nursemaid sent to tend to Dollard’s needs is the lovely and charming Jean Kingsley (Brenda Joyce). Kingsley begins to suspect that the strange goings-on at the manor house might not only have something to do with strange goings-on in town but with the mysterious onset of her own illness. This being a Universal horror picture, it isn’t long before Kingsley stumbles upon a secret brick-wall basement laboratory outfitted with a steamy greenhouse. It’s here that Dollard extracts poisonous venom from a vampire-like plant brought “from the jungles of Central America.” One has to assume that Roger Corman’s far more famous and spoofy Little Shop of Horrors was at least, in part, suggested by the scenario of The Spider Woman Strikes Back.

Though early reports suggested Ford Beebe (Night Monster (1942) and The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1943) would serve as associate producer and director of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, his name was soon scrubbed. Arthur Lubin was signed to helm the feature, directing from a script and original story by Eric Taylor (The Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Son of Dracula (1943). Lubin had been knocking about the film industry since the early 30s, having recently scored with a number of successful Abbott and Costello comedies and the recent Claude Rain’s version of the Phantom of the Opera. He had also, not coincidentally, just finished working with Sondergaard on Universal’s Night in Paradise.

Though all the makings of a good chiller are present here, there’s simply something off about The Spider Woman Strikes Back. The film seems longer than its fifty-nine minute running time (never a good sign). The actors and actresses are blameless, doing what they can with the material in this mostly thrill-less thriller. Sondergaard is at her devilish best working and plotting amongst her poisonous botanicals, but there’s evidence that several key sequences that would have enhanced the storyline were clipped from the final print.

The trade ads for the film would ballyhoo the Spider Woman as the “Mistress of Menace” and “Queen of a 1000 Crawling Killers.” One theater owner in Louisiana practically dared patrons to attend: “We cannot accept responsibility for teeth broken from chattering, curls lost when hair stands on end, chilled spines, jitters, nightmares or any other conditions brought about” from seeing The Spider Woman Strikes Back. Sondergaard would later dismiss the film as a lesser effort, appalled that Universal had exploited Rondo Hatton’s tragic disfigurement as a box office draw. When she first encountered Hatton on set, she thought his elongated skull and swollen facial features were the machinations of Jack Pierce’s makeup department.

It’s a tragedy that Sondergaard wouldn’t find much work in Hollywood as the 1940s drew to a close. Her absence from movie screens was not due to performances, but politics. The actress found herself named as a Communist sympathizer in the pages of the career-wrecking Red Channels. Though Sondergaard was a politically active liberal, her biggest “crime” was one of association. Her husband was director Herbert J. Biberman, a progressive writer-director-producer who later was imprisoned as one of the notorious “Hollywood Ten.”

In March of 1951, Sondergaard too found herself in Washington D.C., summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The actress invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to cooperate or disclose or disparage the names of friends and colleagues. She defiantly interrupted one line of Congressional questioning by asking, “May I say something about [this committee’s] branding as subversive every progressive or liberal organization? I find that shocking.”

Sondergaard would pay a price for her unwillingness to cooperate with the inquisitors. She was effectively put her out of work in Hollywood for two decades, with even the Screen Actors Guild cowering and refusing to lend support. In 1956 she returned to Washington, telling the committee that the absence of acting offers post 1949 “has not been accidental. I think rather that it might be construed as blacklisting.” The actress would disappear from film work for a twenty-years following her appearance in the MGM drama East Side, West Side (1949).

She tried to salvage her career with roles in regional theater, but here too Sondergaard found obstacles. No sooner than her appearance in a “Plays-in-the-Park” production would be announced, that a campaign to cancel her participation would follow. Though she would return to work in 1969, mostly on television dramas, Sondergaard, now age seventy, found roles and opportunities scarce. Sondergaard would pass away in 1985, age 86. The Los Angeles Times would note in her obituary Sondergaard was the first actress to be awarded an Academy Award for a supporting role. The paper would also describe the actress, ironically, as “Hollywood’s reigning female villain” of the 1940s.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray edition of The Spider Woman Strikes back is presented here in a 1920x1080p with an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, dts sound, and removable English subtitles. The set also includes the aforementioned featurette Mistress of Menace and Murder: the Making of The Spider Woman Strike Back which features comments and back stories from the like of actor-archivist Bob Burns, cult filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, special effects wiz Rick Baker and writer-documentarian Ted Newsom. The set also features the audio commentaries of film historians Tom Weaver and David Schecter. This release rounds out nicely with the film’s original theatrical trailer as well as a sampling of titles from Kino’s catalog of 1940s horror and mysteries: The Mad Doctor, The Spiral Staircase, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Lodger and The Undying Monster.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Turner Classic Movies (TCM), now in its 27^th year as a leading authority in classic film, will present the U.S. broadcast premiere of the documentary Dean Martin: King of Cool on Nov. 19, 2021. Director Tom Donahue and producer Ilan Arboleda will appear alongside TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz to introduce the documentary and four of Dean Martin’s most iconic films, including Ocean’s 11 (1960) and The Caddy (1959).

Dean Martin epitomized cool. A founding member of the Rat Pack, Dean was a multi-talented performer who was part of the number one comedy act in America, a chart-topping singer for over half a century and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and on TV. He was the consummate charmer on stage and off. Yet for all his celebrity, fame, and adoration, no one ever truly knew him.

King of Cool dives deep into Martin’s life through never-before-seen archival footage including from his time with Jerry Lewis, his movies and his TV Variety Show and Roasts. Interviews with friends (Angie Dickinson, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett), family (Deana Martin), and admirers (RZA, Jon Hamm) give an intimate and personal account of his life, and the film tries to understand why Martin was such an enigma.

“Despite his extensive discography and his lengthy list of film and television credits, not much is known about Dean Martin,” said Charlie Tabesh, svp of programming for TCM. “We are thrilled to premiere the definitive look at Martin’s life and explore what made him so cool – and mysterious.”

“What an incredible, joyous labor of love it has been to tell the story of one of the 20th Century’s greatest entertainers,” said Tom Donahue, director of Dean Martin: King of Cool. “The more I learned, the greater and deeper my appreciation and affection for this man became.”

Dean Martin: King Of Cool was produced by CreativeChaos vmg in association with Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way, and Danny Strong’s Danny Strong Productions. It was also executive produced by Paul Barry, Deana Martin, John Griffeth, and Steve Edwards. Ron Marasco was the story producer and it was co-produced by Mandy Stein, Peter Greenwald, Tina Potter, Jessicya Materano and Chantel Ellis.

“As a huge Dean Martin fan, I was so honored to be part of this amazing team led by Tom Donahue and Ilan Arboleda to tell the story of one of the greatest talents of the 20th century,” said executive producer Danny Strong. “Dean is an icon, a legend and a mystery. By telling his story we hope to shed some light on that mystery and to keep his legend living on.”

TCM’s full lineup of programming includes:

Friday, November 19
8:00 p.m. King of Cool (2021) – Documentary telling the story of actor and singer Dean Martin through film clips, photographs and interviews with family, friends and colleagues.
9:30 p.m. The Caddy (1953) – A master golfer suffering from performance anxiety caddies for a man he's taught everything.
11:15 p.m. Rio Bravo (1959) – A sheriff enlists a drunk, a kid and an old man to help him fight off a ruthless cattle baron.

Friday, November 26
8:00 p.m. Ocean’s 11 (1960) – A group of friends plot to rob a Las Vegas casino.
10:15 p.m. Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964) - A Chicago gangster stumbles into philanthropic work during a gang war.
12:30 a.m. King of Cool (2021) – Documentary telling the story of actor and singer Dean Martin through film clips, photographs and interviews with family, friends and colleagues.

*all times Eastern

BY HANK REINEKE

In the early spring of 1961, shortly following the completion of his work on A.I.P.’s Master of the World - and following a series of lectures regarding “The Enjoyment of Great Art” – Renaissance man Vincent Price was to jet off mid-April for two acting assignments in Rome, Italy. The two productions he had signed onto for producer-writer Ottavio Poggi were Gordon, il Pirata Nero (Gordon, the Black Pirate) and Nefertiti, Regina Del Nile (Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile). The former film – arguably the better of the two - was belatedly released in the U.S. in June 1963 under the title Rage of the Buccaneers. The film was distributed regionally in the U.S. with neither fanfare nor critical attention.

Rage of the Buccaneers would first appear on the drive-in circuit as the odd undercard to such films as Broccoli and Saltzman’s Bob Hope/Anita Ekberg comedy Call Me Bwana. Rage was later paired, a bit more sensibly, with The Playgirls and the Vampire, an Italian-horror production mostly recalled by old-school monster movie fans and admirers of voluptuous continental on-screen beauties. The weak-tea newspaper campaign in the U.S. for Rage of the Buccaneers could have hardly been helpful in exciting foot traffic into neighborhood cinemas. Though the posters for the U.S. release promised Furious Action! Passionate Love!, the accompanying newspaper adverts offered the far less sensational promise of Excitement plus… Emotional Turbulence. Emotional Turbulence? Meh.

In truth, Rage of the Buccaneers would be dimly recalled, if at all, by U.S. movie fans due to it popping up on television as 1964 drew to a close. In early November of 1964 it was announced - with some degree of ballyhoo - that the NBC network had acquired no fewer than eight post-1960 “first-run” films for television distribution. But even the network’s big newspaper announcement was late out of the starting block. Rage of the Buccaneers had already been televised by several NBC affiliates as early as September 1964.

Several essays and film books would note that Price’s latter ill-fated Italian film, Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile would not actually see a theatrical release in the U.S. market. This is actually untrue. The film had the briefest of runs – as a second feature in support of the Buddy Ebsen comedy Mail Order Bride - at a drive-in theater outside of Phoenix, AZ in March 1964. The film then seemingly disappeared from movie screens - both big and small - until it was picked up as a late-night television programmer in 1966. Shortly thereafter, Nefertiti too fell pretty much off the face of the planet, at least as far as U.S. audiences were concerned.

Then, in 1985, with the home video boom in the ascendant, Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile was briefly resurrected as a “big box” VHS cassette release in the U.S. on the Force Video label. In the UK, there were at least two video cassette releases of Gordon, il Pirata Nero, first as The Black Pirate (Apex Video) and later as Gordon, The Black Pirate (Midas Video). As far as I’m aware, these are the only three editions of these two obscure Vincent Price films to be officially released on the English-speaking home video market, though there are bootlegs circulating of both films. I only dredge up this old history in the, perhaps, overly optimistic hope that Kino Lorber might make note of these glaring deficiencies in their own burgeoning catalog of Vincent Price home video offerings.

In any case, Price’s second professional visit to Italy would prove to be more successful. In January of 1963, Hollywood scene gossip columnists reported that Price would celebrate the New Year by preparing a return to Italy for a “Halloween release of his next horror movie, The Last Man on Earth.” The film was to be based on the novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Matheson’s novel, the author’s first, was published in August of 1954 by Fawcett Gold Medal books. It was a slim paperback of one-hundred and sixty pages, but Matheson was no amateur writer, having previously published a score of science-fiction-based short stories in magazines and anthologies.

Matheson’s novel was optioned by Britain’s Hammer Films in 1957, that studio even commissioning the author to write a screenplay for a proposed production. The problem was that the British censor board found Matheson’s screenplay unrelentingly grim and violent, warning should any production be mounted, there was little chance that the film would pass code. So a wary Anthony Hinds at Hammer chose to sell the rights of Matheson’s screenplay to American producer and cinema theater chain owner Robert L. Lippert (Curse of the Fly). Lippert subsequently engaged Price to star in the project, traveling to Rome in late summer of 1962 to arrange crew and casting of the film’s Italian supporting players.

Matheson’s I am Legend recounts the final years of Robert Neville, one of the few survivors of a pandemic turned plague that killed off most of the earth’s population. The rub is that while those afflicted remained technically dead, they retained mobility. Neville goes to great lengths to investigate why the “undead” have transformed into bacillus vampires of a sort: they drink blood and avoid the rays of the sun much as did the Gothic and folkloric vampires of yore did. But otherwise they remained mostly human in appearance save for a decided graveyard pallor.

Neville (renamed Robert Morgan in the film) is a reluctant, modern day, post-apocalyptic Van Helsing. He has chosen to actively seek out and confront the vampire hordes. He really has no other choice as, much to his disdain, he’s under near-constant assault by them. Matheson’s book is an undeniably grim one with an equally fatalistic ending, but his slim volume would go on to influence countless filmmakers and aspiring science-fiction writers in years following publication. In manner of tone and presentation, it’s reasonable to say that George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was highly and undeniably influenced by The Last Man on Earth.

Price wasn’t terribly excited to travel to Italy in the grim winter season of 1963, but the offer to visit Rome would give the actor the opportunity to canvas galleries and antique stores in search of artworks. In June of 1962 it was announced that Price had entered into his semi-famous partnership with the Sears, Roebuck & Co. to search out art that could be consigned and sold as lithographs through the department store chain. This interest in art was a lifelong passion of the actor’s and he had already been collecting artworks for Sears a month prior to the official press release of their collaboration. The actor told columnist Bob Thomas that his searching out the Vincent Price Collection for Sears had already resulted in a “whirl” of activity, and that he’d already “bought 1,700 paintings and etchings: I’ve got to have 2,500 before the sale starts.”

By Mid-January of 1963 Price was already in Europe, first visiting Paris before traveling on to Rome to begin filming. In the space of three days and visits to the galleries and artist studios of the City of Lights, Price offered that he had already purchased one hundred and fifty paintings that he thought Sears could sell for $300 or less back in the U.S. Columnist Doris Sanders noted that Price had already admitted dropping four thousand U.S. dollars on the very first day of his Parisian shopping spree. It was also noted that the artists Price approached were appreciably happy as the actor – funded by his corporate sponsor - always chose to pay cash up-front.

BY HANK REINEKE

There’s a telling moment at the dénouement of Thomas Hamilton’s and Ron MacCloskey’s affectionate documentary Boris Karloff: The Man behind the Monster. Sara Karloff, the now eighty-two year old daughter of the beloved actor, opines that her father’s lasting cinematic legacy is due, in part, to the tenaciousness of his devoted fan base. It’s a demographic that we soon discover consists of a number of amazingly creative people: folks whose loyalty to and enthusiasm for Karloff’s work has not wavered over the decades. Sara’s contention is inarguably true. As this ninety-nine minute Voltage Films/Abramorama documentary (presented by Shout! Studios) unspools – crisply narrated by Paul Ryan and featuring commentary by preeminent Karloff scholar and “Biographical Consultant” Stephen Jacobs - we discover the actor’s admirer’s bridge several generations of fans and filmmakers.

The first generation to discover Karloff in the decades following his big splash as the Frankenstein monster in 1931, include directors Roger Corman and Peter Bogdanovich. Both men would have the opportunity and honor to work with the actor in his twilight years. The second generation of admirers were those introduced to Karloff via neighborhood cinema screenings or through television broadcasts of Shock Theater in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

These filmmakers, profoundly influenced by Karloff’s art, would go on to create a few cinematic gems of their own: John Landis, Joe Dante, and Guillermo Del Toro, to name a few. The latter gentleman is particularly effusive in his praise, describing Karloff’s performance as the vampiric Wurdalak in Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath as a “tremendous” example of the great actor’s “physical presence, his majesty, his demonic power.”

If the documentary is chock-full of talented filmmakers offering tributes, the film is also supported by the erudite commentaries of film scholars David J. Skal (The Monster Show: a Cultural History of Horror), Gregory W. Mank (Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: the Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration), Donald F. Glut (The Frankenstein Legend: a tribute to Mary Shelley and Boris Karloff), Sir Christopher Frayling (Frankenstein: the first Two Hundred Years), and critic Leonard Maltin.

There are also short tributes and reminisces by several actors – three now gone - who had worked with Karloff at some point in their career: Dick Miller (The Terror), Christopher Plummer (The Lark, Even the Weariest River), Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers), and Orson Bean (Arsenic and Old Lace). Karloff’s tells part of his own story through audio recordings made available to the filmmakers courtesy of the British cinema historian/author Kevin Brownlow (The Parades Gone By…) and the Pacifica Radio Archive.

It has long annoyed me that when one searches out the term “Boris Karloff” in the ever-expanding IMDB, the resulting prompt identifies the actor’s signature film as The Grinch that Stole Christmas (1966). My daughters would remind me that my personal agitation of this result is, by definition, a “first world” problem, one hardly worthy of condemnation. But as cinema’s preeminent boogeyman for four decades, seeing Karloff’s storied career reduced to a role featuring only his disembodied voice as the Grinch… Well, let’s just say that I still find it somewhat misleading and inappropriate.

Be that as it may, Hamilton’s film reminds Karloff himself might disagree with my wariness of the Grinch being bandied as the cinematic crown jewel of the actor’s legacy. Sara Karloff recalls receiving a phone call from her father immediately following his recording of the narration for that beloved Dr. Seuss vehicle. The actor we learn was profoundly happy with his work on the now-famous animated holiday classic, telling his daughter proudly, “I’ve done something which I think is pretty good.”

Karloff would pass away a couple of years following the first broadcast of The Grinch that Stole Christmas, but he worked to the very end of his days, appearing in a number of memorable – and a few less-than-memorable – films, several of which would see release in years following his passing. His last films were little more than cameo-length appearances shot on a Hollywood sound stage. It was director Jack Hill’s idea to take the Karloff footage from these shoots and blend the results into a series of Mexican horror films. Karloff, rightly and proudly, would choose to refer to his spell-binding turn as the semi-autobiographical aging horror film actor Byron Orlok in Bogdanovich’s Targets (1968) as his feature film swan song. Technically, it wasn’t. But the brief appearances in that post- Target series of Hollywood-Mexico co-production mash-ups were mostly an excuse for an old pro to continue to ply his trade and keep busy. But working oxygen-tank dependent and wheelchair bound on the Jack Hill-directed sequences, Karloff was prevented from doing much of anything with the already somewhat cut-and-paste material given to him.

Karloff, of course, was not the only “horror film” star of the genre’s celebrated Golden Age of the 1930s and 40s. Karloff, we learn, was actually not happy with the designation “horror movie”, much preferring his films to be termed as “thrillers.” His contemporary competitor as grand ghoul of the horror film - one whose own legacy would burn bright into the next century - was Bela Lugosi. Although Lugosi had too often played second-fiddle to Karloff in matters of employment and billing, the Hungarian’s post-mortem fame may have eclipsed his friend’s over the last several decades.

For starters, Lugosi’s sad and lurid dependency on morphine and alcohol in his final years made him the subject of tabloid fodder, and gossip then – and now – still rules. Lugosi’s slow demise coupled with his appearances in several of Edward J. Wood’s revered cult films brought him a big degree of post-mortem fame. A brand new generation would discover the actor through Martin Landau’s Oscar-winning turn as Lugosi in Tim Burton’s semi-biographical drama Ed Wood.

To be fair, Lugosi’s string of mad performances in Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Glen or Glenda (1953) are, in many ways, were no less better or worse or more undistinguished than Karloff’s walk-ons in the creaky Jack Hill/Mexi-horror films of spring 1968. Though both sets of films are passably entertaining in their own uneven, cult-ish ways, both actor’s cinematic exits were ignoble ends to these two great men who famously made audiences shiver in 1931.

James Whale’s Frankenstein would ultimately transform Karloff into a full-fledged movie star, but it had been a long road to achieving such fame. The actor had been working on various Hollywood backlots since the silent era. In the course of his earliest silent film efforts – beginning with such titles as The Lightning Raider (1919) and His Majesty, the American (1919) – he worked as little more than an extra. His subsequent fame would cause a score of budding film historians to carefully survey battered old prints of Karloff’s earliest filmography in the often futile hope of catching a glimpse as he passed by the camera.

In truth, his decade-long career as a silent film actor was mostly non consequential. He would appear in approximately sixty or so silent films between 1919 and 1929. He would, on occasion, be gifted a role of some heft, most notably as that of “The Mesmerist” in The Bells (1926) opposite Lionel Barrymore, but he was most often cast in adventure-orientated serials as a heavy, or as a Hindu, Mexican or an Arab, a mystic or a general ne’er-do-well.

It was his casting as the sadistic “Galloway” in Howard Hawk’s sound prison drama The Criminal Code (1930) that brought him to the attention of Universal executives looking to cast a suitably cadaverous-appearing actor as the Frankenstein monster. Following Lugosi’s rejection of the part due to the absence of dialogue afforded, Bela’s pass on the role was fortuitous for Karloff. He was still hungry and looking for that big break. Although the role of the monster would forever typecast him, the actor remained forever grateful for having taking the role in Frankenstein, once describing the career door-opening creature as “the best friend I ever had.”

It’s not hard to see why Karloff’s portrayal of the monster remains the preeminent of the Universal series. He was, after all, the only actor to have been given the opportunity to actually act and emote, to bring a sense of pathos to the role. He was abetted, of course, by Jack Pierce’s iconic make-up which, rather than masking, cannily sculpted and made highlight of Karloff’s facial features and sunken cheeks. This gave the monster, according to one of the participants in the documentary, a “full expression range.” The trio of actors who would subsequently portray the monster in the Universal series simply weren’t given the opportunity to apply any emotive effect of their own. Even by Son of Frankenstein (1939), the third film in the series, the screenwriters had already reduced the monster into little more than a hulking, lumbering menace and henchman.

It is discouraging to learn that when Frankenstein had its gala premiere in the autumn of 1931, Karloff was not even invited to attend. He was already forty-four years of age when he assumed the role, a no-name celebrity and hardly a handsome matinee idol of any recognition. The unexpected phenomenal success of Frankenstein would change all that, and Universal was quick to capitalize on the actor’s sudden notoriety as Hollywood’s most beloved boogeyman. Karloff’s natural proclivity for taking on roles of menacing villainous characters with icy stares would allow his casting into a string of Golden Age horror classics – not only for Universal but for other studios as well, including memorable turn in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu. The latter remains a great, entertaining film… if undeniably one of the most politically-incorrect lavish big studio productions of the 1930s.

When the market for horror films softened in the mid-1940s – thanks, in part, due to the horror genre’s continuing perceived transgressions of the Hays Code - Karloff easily transitioned to character roles, where, according to his daughter, her father’s natural “dark coloring,” permitted him to slip easily into “ethnic roles.” As one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild, he was able to exercise his freelance status by working for, amongst others, RKO, Columbia, Monogram, and Warner Bros.

Another avenue of opportunity had presented itself around this same time. In 1941 Karloff was lured, against his better judgement according to this film, to take on the Broadway role of the villainous Jonathan Brewster in Joseph L. Kesselring’s stage play Arsenic and Old Lace. It was to his life-long disappointment that a clause in his theatrical stage contract prevented his returning to Hollywood – as did several fellow members of the original Broadway cast – to reprise the role for the much beloved Frank Capra film adaptation of 1944.

Though initially frightened to work in theatre before a live audience, the success of Arsenic emboldened Karloff to accept several other roles in such Broadway productions as The Lark (with Julie Harris), The Linden Tree, The Shop at Sly Corner, and even in a memorable turn as Captain Hook in a 1950 production of Peter Pan. Fortunately, we of a certain age who missed out still can get a small taste of what we missed since kinescopes survive from early Hallmark Hall of Fame broadcasts of the original production of The Lark and a 1961 re-staging of Arsenic and Old Lace.

Though Karloff’s work in radio is mostly ignored in this documentary, the film does take pains to point out that he was among the first movie stars of his generation to fully embrace television. Though he would often appear in serious television dramas for such programs as Texaco Star Theater or Playhouse 90, he was not above spoofing his own curious fame as Hollywood’s grandest ghoul on any number of variety programs hosted by the likes of Red Skelton or Dinah Shore.

In the 1960s, he would famously host (and occasionally act) in episodes of the television program Thriller, or appear in drag as “Mother Muffin” in an episode of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E – or with former U.N.C.L.E. agent Robert Vaughn in the spy-film The Venetian Affair (1966). Joe Dante also references the series of wonderful long-playing albums Karloff would record over the years, his unmistakable, lisping voice introducing children to a wonderful selection of folk tales, ghost stories, Washington Irving classics, and time-worn fables.

 

Boris Karloff: the Man behind the Monster reminds us that the actor (1887-1969) accomplished a lot in his eighty-one-years, a large percentage of which would encompass appearances on screen, on stage, on air, on record, and on television. To their credit, the filmmakers share what they can in the constraint of the film’ ninety-nine minute running time, and the film certainly succeeds as an excellent primer. Karloff wonks like myself might hold out hope that a multi-part, Ken Burns-style series might someday be put into the works, but I imagine that’s unlikely. One hundred and thirty four years have passed since Karloff’s birth. The fact that contemporary audiences remain completely entranced by his filmography in 2021 is testament enough to the worthiness of this loving tribute painting him as one of Hollywood’s greatest.

For details about how to view the film, click here.

CELEBRATE NINE DECADES OF YOUR FAVORITE MONSTERS ON 4K FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN COLLECTIBLE PACKAGING

AVAILABLE ON 4K, BLU-RAYâ„¢ AND DIGITAL ON OCTOBER 5, 2021

FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

SYNOPSIS: From the era of silent movies through present day, Universal Pictures has been regarded as the home of the monsters. Universal Classic Monsters Icons of Horror Collection showcases four of the most iconic monsters in motion picture history including Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man. Starring Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains in the roles that they made famous, these original films set the standard for a new horror genre with revolutionary makeup, mood-altering cinematography and groundbreaking special effects.

CLASSIC MONSTER FILMS INCLUDED:

• Dracula (90th Anniversary)

• Frankenstein (90th Anniversary)

• The Invisible Man

• The Wolf Man (80th Anniversary)

HOURS OF BONUS CONTENT, INCLUDING:

• The Road to Dracula

• The Frankenstein Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

• Karloff: The Gentle Monster
  

• Monster by Moonlight

• The Wolf Man: From Ancient Curse to Modern Myth
• Now Your See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed

Universal Classic Monsters Icons of Horror Collection will be available on 4K, Blu-rayâ„¢ and Digital.

• 4K Ultra HD is the ultimate movie watching experience. 4K Ultra HD features the combination of 4K resolution for four times sharper picture than HD, the color brilliance of High Dynamic Range (HDR) with immersive audio delivering a multidimensional sound experience.
• Blu-ray^â„¢ unleashes the power of your HDTV and is the best way to watch movies at home, featuring 6X the picture resolution of DVD, exclusive extras and theater-quality surround sound.
• Digital lets fans watch movies anywhere on their favorite devices. Users can instantly stream or download.
• The Movies Anywhere Digital App simplifies and enhances the digital movie collection and viewing experience by allowing consumers to access their favorite digital movies in one place when purchased or redeemed through participating digital retailers. Consumers can also redeem digital copy codes found in eligible Blu-ray^TM and DVD disc packages from participating studios and stream or download them through Movies Anywhere.  Movies Anywhere is available only in the United States.

Instagram: @uniallaccess

Twitter: @UniAllAccess

Tiktok: @universalallaccess

DRACULA FILMMAKERS:

Actors: Bela Lugosi (Count Dracula), David Manners (John Harker), Edward an Sloan (Prof. Abraham Van Helsing), Helen Chandler (Mina Harker), Dwight Frye (Renfield), Frances Dade (Lucy Weston)

Director: Tod Browning

Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr., Tod Browning

Screenplay: Garrett Fort

Based on the Work(s) of: Bram Stoker, Hamilton Deane, John L. Balderston

FRANKENSTEIN FILMMAKERS:

Actors: Boris Karloff (The Monster), Colin Clive (Dr. Henry Frankenstein), John Boles (Victor Moritz), Mae Clarke (Elizabeth), Edward Van Sloan (Dr. Waldman), Dwight Frye (Fritz), Frederic Kerr (Baron Frankenstein)

Director: James Whale

Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.

Screenplay: Garrett Fort, Francis Edwards Faragoh

Based on the Work(s) of: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Peggy Webling, John L. Balderston

THE INVISIBLE MAN FILMMAKERS:

Actors: Claude Rains (Jack Griffin / The Invisible Man), Gloria Stuart (Flora Cranley), William Harrigan (Dr. Arthur Kemp), Dudley Digges (Chief Detective), Una O’Connor (Jenny Hall), Henry Travers (Dr. Cranley), Forrester Harvey (Herbert Hall)

Director: James Whale

Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.

Screenplay: R.C. Sherriff

Based on the Work(s) of: H.G. Wells

THE WOLF MAN FILMMAKERS:

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Wolf Man / Larry Talbot), Bela Lugosi (Bela), Claude Rains (Sir John Talbot), Warren William (Dr. Lloyd), Ralph Bellamy (Col. Montford), Patric Knowles (Frank Andrews), Maria Ouspenskaya (Maleva), Evelyn Ankers (Gwen Conliffe)

Director: George Waggner

Producer: George Waggner

Screenplay: Curt Siodmak

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the few remaining Steve McQueen films not available on home video finally comes to DVD with Warner Archive's release of the 1961 military comedy The Honeymoon Machine. Sadly, the film can only be recommended to McQueen fans who feel obliged to buy the DVD in order to keep their collections complete. The movie is an embarrassing fiasco that might have been excusable had it been produced by a low-rent film studio. However, MGM backed this turkey and it must have seemed pretty stale even during its release back in the JFK administration. It's worth contemplating that America's obsession at the time with showing respect for any aspect of the military extended to many films that was neutered for fear of offending Pentagon brass. Sure, screenwriters could denote some highschool-like upstarts in the Army or Navy, and the top brass might be seen as  humorless stiffs, but studios rarely wanted to tweak the  powers-that-be, lest they not get cooperation from the military for their war movies. In fact, it wasn't until The Americanization of Emily in 1964 that the glass ceiling was truly broken and the U.S. military could be the object of outright satire and cynicism. From there, the floodgate opened and by the late 1960s and early 1970s, films like Kelly's Heroes and M*A*S*H went to the opposite extreme and portrayed the American military as primarily comprised of dolts.

The Honeymoon Machine was made during the era when servicemen were portrayed as overgrown  kids whose most dangerous exploits were acting like the kind of towel-snapping wiseguys you encounter in locker rooms. In this ill-advised opus, McQueen- in one of his first starring roles- is a Navy lieutenant who teams with civilian scientist Jim Hutton to come up with a scientific method of predicting how roulette wheels can be manipulated. When the fleet pulls into Venice, the theory is tested at the local casino, where McQueen and Hutton break the bank. Unfortunately, through a convoluted sub-plot, their shenanighans are mistaken for espionage activities and a Cold War crisis ensues.

By Mark Cerulli

Thanks to the Ian Fleming Foundation (IFF,) this scribe was invited to the opening night party for the massive Bond in Motion exhibit at LA’s world-famous Petersen Automotive Museum, co-sponsored by EON Productions. You’ve seen the vehicles on screen, but nothing compares to getting up close and personal with over 34 production-used vehicles from the 1960s right up to No Time To Die. It’s a collection representing almost 30 years of sleuthing by the IFF’s co-founder Doug Redenius and other IFF members.

 

L007K UP – Bond’s hang-glider from Moonraker, the Vulcan Bomber model from Thunderball, an Osato chopper model from You Only Live Twice and a full-size Cessna from Licence to Kill.

L007K OUTSIDE – Visitors are greeted by the From Russia With Love chase copter.

L007K OVER THERE – The V8 Volante from The Living Daylights, the (huge) sub from For Your Eyes Only, an Octopussy Tuk-Tuk, the AMC Hornet from The Man With The Golden Gun and a badly damaged Aston Martin DBS used in a record-breaking stunt from Casino Royale.

LOO7K AROUND – At the Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day, a MINT 1964 Aston Martin DB5 (seen in five Bond films), the 1971 Mach 1 from Diamonds Are Forever, Blofeld’s escape sub from Diamonds, the Glastron from Live & Let Die’s iconic boat jump and so many more – all lovingly restored by the IFF.

The evening started with a rooftop cocktail party where the NEFT vodka flowed like Tracy’s dress as invited guests mingled and toasted the night’s VIPs – five, count ‘em, FIVE Bond Girls – Maud Adams (The Man With the Golden Gun, Octopussy), Luciana Paluzzi (Thunderball), Gloria Hendry (Live & Let Die), Lynn-Holly Johnson (For Your Eyes Only) and Mary Stavin (Octopussy, A View To A Kill). They all seemed delighted to see each other and were up for a big night out.

Doug and fellow IFF co-founder Michael VanBlaricum gave a discussion on their acquisition of screen-used vehicles, many found in total disrepair across the globe. Then they shared the spotlight with the Bond actresses for some Q&As. Next, the 00 VIPS cut the red ribbon, officially opening the exhibit and crowds swarmed the cars – all artfully arranged by the Petersen staff in unique dioramas. Even the event’s official car transport – DHL – got into the spirit by positioning their 007-branded yellow vans around the Museum. Bond truly is back – and right now, he’s at the Peterson Auto Museum in LA.

Want to support the IFF’s Bond restorations? You can donate to them at: www.ianflemingfoundation.org

(Special thanks to Stockholm own Double-0, Anders Fredjh.)

For information about the Bond in Motion exhibition, click here. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The first "biker" movie to click with the public was "The Wild One" starring Marlon Brando in one of his most iconic roles. Released in 1953, the film set the template for the biker films that would follow: the motorcycle gang was rebellious and sometimes violent. They ignored laws and looked on young women as prey. But the script would usually provide a sympathetic side to them, as well, just so the audience didn't find itself cheering for protagonists who were irredeemable cretins. Despite the success of "The Wild One", it took until 1966 for the next major biker movie to emerge with the release of Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels". The success of that film shocked the movie industry and before long studios were churning out low-budget copycat productions. Most were crudely made and  instantly dispensable but one of them, "The Born Losers", would introduce the character of Billy Jack, played by Tom Laughlin, who took on a gang of cutthroat bikers. Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider" became a landmark film in 1969 but it was unique in that it centered on two individual bikers and didn't involve the traditional Hell's Angels clones.  The biker movie fad was popular and profitable but by the early 1970s it had already pretty much burned out. One of the last films in the genre, "J.C.", was unknown to me until a screener copy turned up. The film was the brainchild of one William McGaha, who I was equally unfamiliar with. McGaha, who obviously thought of himself as the Orson Welles of the dying biker film cycle, directed, produced, wrote and starred in the film. What emerged was one of the most bizarre biker films imaginable.

McGaha plays the title character J.C., a troubled young man who is trying to live down the shame of his father having been a fanatical preacher. There are instant analogies to Jesus Christ aside from his initials. He is an avid biker who has a group of dedicated followers who he regards as his disciples. Get it? When we first see him, he's working as a carpenter until he quits the job after being bullied by a hippie-hating foreman. In some reviews of the film, it has been speculated that he's supposed to be Jesus Christ himself reincarnated as a hippie. I don't recall that being spelled out specifically and besides, those who believe in Jesus Christ being the son of God would find it difficult to fathom that a man who would willfully endure the horrors of crucifixion would, in his modern guise, throw in the towel on his profession because his boss tossed a few insults his way. Early in the film, J.C. announces that he suddenly has a desire to visit his small hometown in Georgia with the intention of seeing his estranged sister, Miriam (Joanna Moore). As J.C. was despised by the redneck townspeople many years ago, he's advised that the visit will be ill-fated. However, during a drug-fueled hallucinogenic "trip", he announces that God has spoken to him and he is an all-knowing prophet. That's all it takes for the disciples to follow him on his dramatic bike journey home. At first, things go well and J.C. enjoys catching up with his sister. But pretty soon, the town's bigoted sheriff (Slim Pickens) and his deputy (Burr DeBenning) decide to show those hippies they aren't welcome in a traditional "family values" community of racists. They arrest a black member of the gang, David (Hannibal Penney) on a trumped-up drug charge and beat him to a pulp while he is in jail. When word gets to J.C. that a committee of good citizens intends to lynch David, he rallies his disciples like John Wayne did his ranch hands in "Chisum'" and they engage the locals in a battle royale. 

By any measure, "J.C." is an unsatisfying film. The cinematography and editing are erratic and the script is choppy and episodic. But for all its flaws, you have to admire the fact that McGaha got the movie made despite having only two even more obscure films to his credit. He shot largely on location, eschewing studio sets for obvious budget reasons. It would be easy to mock his efforts, but I have great admiration for aspiring filmmakers from the pre-digital era in which shooting even a low-budget movie required financing clunky equipment and expensive film stock that left precious few opportunities for retakes. As an actor, McGaha is adequate at best but he does get a terrific performance from Slim Pickens in a refreshingly non-comedic role. Equally good are Hannibal Penney and Burr DeBenning, especially in a tense jailhouse discussion in which the tortured man and his torturer almost reach a level of humanity between them. McGaha's budgetary problems are all-too-apparent in the climax of the film when action scenes are cut abruptly and the lack of coverage makes it appear as though he barely had enough film stock to complete the scene.

The Kino Lorber transfer is as good as one could expect, given the surviving elements it was mastered from. The bonus extras consist of the trailer and an assortment of trailers for other KL releases.

"J.C" is not a film that merits a recommendation, but it is one I have to admire for simply never being as bad as I had expected. For that, Bill McGaha (who seems to have vanished from society) deserves praise. If he is still alive and well, I hope he enjoys seeing his film get the Blu-ray treatment. (An amusing aspect of the movie's packaging is the use of the original poster art that proclaimed "J.C. and his disciples were a gang of broads, bikes and blacks", which was obviously meant as an inclusive message in 1972.)

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Melvin Van Peebles, the iconic African-American director of influential independent films, has died at age 89. Van Peebles, the father of director Mario Van Peebles, was at the forefront of the counterculture movement among filmmakers in the 1970s. He hit his stride with films such as "Watermelon Man" and"Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss", an X-rated racially tinged satire in which he also starred. Van Peebles, along with Gordon Parks, made vital inroads in advancing the Black point-of-view in films. He was also a playwright and social activist who dedicated his life to the cause of racial justice. Ironically, Criterion has just released a boxed set of his films as a tribute to his contributions to cinema.

For more about his life and career, click here. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

For a film critic, mocking Elvis Presley movies is like reaching for the low-hanging fruit. There's plenty to disparage. Most of the films are predictable and follow a formula that finds the rock 'n roll idol who started off his career as a rebel being morphed into a clean-cut guy whose most threatening behavior is trying to convince a girl who has caught his eye to make out with him. It wasn't always this way with the cinematic Elvis. There were some rare occasions in which he was cast in compelling dramas and acquitted himself very well indeed (i.e "Flaming Star", "Wild in the Country"). However, it didn't take long for the studios and the dictatorial Colonel Tom Parker to realize that those films didn't gross anywhere near Elvis's feel-good, empty-headed musicals. One major factor was the inevitable accompanying soundtrack album which could be used to cross-promote the movie to great success. Thus, by 1963, attempts to build on Elvis's acting talents went by the wayside and he was cast in essentially the same role in each of his films, albeit with the caveat that his characters would have different background stories. He was generally a genial if somewhat flirtatious and mischievous young guy who was sometimes carrying some troublesome personal baggage from his past. He would meet cute with the film's leading lady (who sometimes was initially resistant to his charms) and the romance would brew in between spontaneous musical numbers that were so numerous, it ensured that a compelling screenplay had to be sacrificed on the alter of the soundtrack album. Yet, Elvis was such a charismatic screen presence that even the least of his films still provide some pleasures and what is arguably his best film, "Viva Las Vegas" rose above the mediocrities because he had genuine and sizzling on-screen chemistry with Ann-Margret. But that was the exception. It's safe to say that beginning with "Girls! Girls! Girls!" in 1962, Elvis's films seemed to be produced on a production line. 

"It Happened at the World's Fair", released in 1963, is typical of the watered-down image of Elvis on the big screen. The film plays it safe throughout. Elvis is Mike Edwards, who along with his troublesome best friend Danny Burke (Gary Lockwood), owns an old-time crop dusting bi-plane. Business is grim, however, and when they can't pay their bills (thanks in part to Danny's obsessive gambling habits), their plane is repossessed and the two gravitate to Seattle to explore other opportunities. The city is hosting the 1962 World's Fair with the expected accompanying fanfare as thousands of people crowd into the attraction to get a view of what life in futuristic America will supposedly be like. Once in Seattle, Mike and Danny have a chance encounter with Walter Ling (Kam Tong), who is the caretaker of his adorable little niece Sue-Lin (Vicky Tiu). After Walter is unable to fulfill his promise of bringing Sue-Lin into the fair, Mike reluctantly agrees to be her chaperone for the day. Mike spies Diane Warren (Joan O'Brien), an attractive nurse who works in the first aid office at the fair. In an amusing scene, he pays a little kid (Kurt Russell in his big screen debut) to kick him in the shin so that he can justify having Diane treat him. The ruse works and Mike turns on the charm and finds Diane responsive- until a second encounter with Russell results in Mike's scam being revealed. There's also a cumbersome late sub-plot introduced in which Mike and Danny are hired to run a flight to Canada.Their benefactor pays to get their plane freed up but it soon becomes apparent he wants them to engage in illegal smuggling.

"It Happened at the World's Fair" is a middling but watchable Elvis vehicle. Much screen time is accorded to Vicky Tiu's charming Sue-Lin but does anyone really want to watch Elvis relegated to the role of babysitter for an entire film? Gary Lockwood breathes some life into the film with periodic appearances as the reckless gambler but the lovable rogues he associates with overact under the uninspired direction of Norman Taurog, who had already collaborated with Elvis on three films and would go on to direct five more. Taurog's workmanlike capabilities were generally of the autopilot variety and one can only assume he was greatly responsible for not capitalizing on Elvis's big screen potential to a greater degree. By contrast, George Sidney brought out the best in the King for "Viva Las Vegas" the following year. "World's Fair" also suffers from the fact that Joan O'Brien's character is somewhat less than fun-loving. She treats Mike more like a scolding mother than a potential lover and there is little chemistry between Elvis and O'Brien. Early in the film, Elvis has a romantic encounter with Yvonne Craig and in those couple of minutes there is more sexual chemistry than he demonstrates with O'Brien throughout the rest of the film, as evidenced by the fact that Elvis and Craig had a real-life fling. Elvis gamely sings an interminable number of songs and the scenario isn't helped by the fact that, while they are all pleasant enough, none of them are memorable. What does set the film apart from other Presley films is that the King is seen on location at the World's Fair, though the footage is somewhat limited because MGM found there were so many people crowding around him that private detectives had to be hired to help Elvis shoot his scenes and afford him protection. Indeed, most of the fair scenes were shot in the studio but the brief glimpses afforded here present an interesting time capsule including the introduction of Seattle's iconic Space Needle.

"It Happened at the World's Fair" isn't the worst Elvis movie and it has its moments but it serves primarily as a reminder of how disinterested Hollywood was in developing his skills as an actor. By the time Elvis put his foot down and broke out of the musicals for the 1969 Western "Charro!", it was too late. Despite his good performance in a dramatic role, the film was met with a yawn by critics and the public. If only Elvis had asserted himself a few years earlier...

The Warner Archive Blu-ray is up to the company's high standards. The only extra is a trailer and a menu that allows the viewer to skip ahead to specific musical numbers.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release: TCM To Celebrate Legendary Musical Actress Jane Powell Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will celebrate the life and career of iconic Hollywood Golden Age actress Jane Powell with a programming tribute on Saturday, October 16. Powell, who passed away on September 16 at the age of 92, was known for her roles in mid-century movie musicals. At the age of 25 she starred in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), named as one of the greatest American musicals of all time by the American Film Institute. Powell was a great friend of the late TCM Host Robert Osborne and was with Osborne in Times Square when Turner Classic Movies was launched as a network in 1994. The following is the complete schedule for TCM's on-air tribute to Jane Powell: TCM Remembers Jane Powell – Saturday, October 16 12:00 p.m. Luxury Liner (1948) – The daughter of a ship's captain becomes a sea-going cupid. 2:00 p.m. Small Town Girl (1953) – A sheriff's daughter falls for a playboy arrested for speeding. 4:00 p.m. Royal Wedding (1951) – A brother-and-sister musical team find romance when they tour to London for Elizabeth II's wedding. 6:00 p.m. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) – When their older brother marries, six lumberjacks decide it's time to go courting for themselves. (All times Eastern)

Cinema Retro has received the following press release: Elvira’s back and she’s fabulous! On October 5, 2021, Scream Factory proudly presents the camp classic Elvira’s Haunted Hills from the iconic horror host in a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release. The Blu-ray features a brand-new 4K scan of the original camera negative and comes loaded with bonus features including a new introduction by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, all housed within limited-edition collectible slipcase packaging, while supplies last. Fans who order their copies from shoutfactory.com will also receive an exclusive poster featuring brand-new artwork, while supplies last.   With her voluptuous figure, voluminous black hair and hilarious one-liners, the essence of camp oozes from her pores. Elvira’s Haunted Hills culls its outrageousness from the classic Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe/Roger Corman films of the early 60s, along with a little Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fearless Vampire Killers. The tale begins in 1851, when Elvira and her maid Zou Zou are en route to perform in the Parisian Revue “Yes I Can Can,” but inadvertently end up at the sinister Lord Vladimere Hellsubus’ medieval castle. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Vladimere’s long-dead wife, Elvira learns of the Hellsubus curse and finds her life in danger. Will she escape the family curse and the evil Vladimere? And can she keep her hands off of the stable hand long enough to save the day? Special Features: NEW Restoration from a 4K Scan of the Original Camera Negative NEW Introduction by Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark Audio Commentary with Actors Cassandra Peterson, Mary Scheer, Mary Jo Smith And Scott Atkinson, and Director Sam Irvin Making-Of Featurette “Transylvania Or Bust” Featurette Elvira in Romania Featurette Interview with Actor Richard O’Brien Outtakes Photo Gallery CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast is a new and exclusive podcast hosted by James King. The six-part series features exclusive interviews with Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, Naomie Harris, director Cary Joji Fukunaga, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell and a host of key behind the scenes crew including the franchise’s longstanding casting director Debbie McWilliams and special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.

Each episode focuses on a different aspect of the James Bond universe, from characters to locations and music to action. Daniel Craig also discusses landing the iconic role, and the release of his final outing as the world’s favourite secret agent.

Podcast listeners will get an exclusive first listen to some of the No Time To Die score from Hans Zimmer by Decca Records.

No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast is produced by Somethin’ Else in association with Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Universal Pictures International, United Artists Releasing and EON Productions.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE

It's going to be Double-0-Heaven for James Bond films with announcements coming fast and furious in the lead-up to the release of "No Time to Die". Here is the latest announcement:

Leica Announces Bond Partnership

007 Edition camera and exhibition to celebrate new film

Leica Camera has announced a new Leica Q2 ‘007 Edition’ to celebrate the release of No Time To Die. Limited to 250 pieces only, the special edition Leica Q2 features the iconic 007 logo on the top plate and the famous Bond gun barrel design on the lens cap. Each limited-edition camera will be individually numbered and comes in a customised and handcrafted case designed by the British luxury suitcase brand Globe-Trotter.

The concept of a Leica x 007 partnership began with producer Michael G. Wilson. Wilson is a leading expert on 19th century photography and founded The Wilson Centre for Photography, his passion for photography provided the natural spark for the collaboration. In No Time To Die, Leica worked with the 007 production team to display Leica cameras on the sets of Bond’s Jamaican home, and fittingly the ‘Leica Q2’ in Q’s home in London. Off-screen, Michael G. Wilson has curated an exclusive photography exhibition featuring behind-the-scenes photographs shot on Leica cameras by Michael G. Wilson, Daniel Craig, and No Time To Die photographers Nicola Dove and Greg Williams.

The Leica Q2 ‘007 Edition’ will launch on September 9, 2021 at the official opening of Leica Gallery London’s exhibition: No Time To Die – Behind the Scenes.

The Leica Q2 ‘007 Edition’ will be available to purchase online and in-store.

See No Time To Die in cinemas from September 30.

For more on the exhibition in London, click here.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release regarding the opening of the "Bond in Motion" automotive exhibition, which will be opening on September 25 and running through October 22, 2022 at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles:

Produced in collaboration with EON Productions and The Ian Fleming(TM) Foundation, Bond in Motion is the first official exhibition in the United States to feature original vehicles from one of the world’s most iconic film franchises, James Bond. This exhibit celebrates the 60th anniversary of the franchise since the release of Dr. No (1962).

With the publication of his first spy novel, Casino Royale (1953), author and former naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming introduced the world to the enchanting exploits of James Bond, a British officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. In all, Fleming would produce twelve novels and two short stories, laying the foundation for what would become a global literary and cinematic legacy.

Beginning in 1962, with the movie adaptation of Fleming’s sixth title, Dr. No, the exciting and dangerous world of James Bond was translated to screen, setting the tone for Bond films to come. Much like the novels on which they are based, Bond films combine the adventure of exotic locations and scheming villains with the action of death-defying stunts, and heart-pounding chases in nearly every type of vehicle imaginable. Often modified by quartermaster “Q,” these vehicles, much like Bond himself, conceal their true nature until their weapons and gadgetry become important plot devices.

The Bond in Motion exhibit offers visitors a rare up-close experience of the most iconic vehicles associated with the world’s most famous secret agent, 007.

Click here for more information.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of the Iconic Thriller,
Newly Remastered on 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray^â„¢

Subversive Fan-Favorite Arrives October 19, 2021
with an All-New Look at the Film’s Impact and Legacy 

In celebration of its 25^th anniversary and just in time for Halloween, SCREAM will be released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD and in a newly remastered Blu-ray on October 19, 2021 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

25 years after its theatrical debut, SCREAM remains a wildly entertaining and terrifically terrifying cinematic experience.  Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, the film is a brilliant deconstruction of the horror genre that pays homage to the conventions of slasher films while upending them with clever twists and witty dialogue.

The new  SCREAM 4K Ultra HD, Limited-Edition 4K Ultra HD SteelBook, and Blu-ray include a brand-new look back at the film and director Wes Craven, featuring archival behind-the-scenes footage and new interviews with stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, as well as screenwriter Kevin Williamson and the directors and other cast members from the new installment in the franchise scheduled to premiere in theaters in 2022 from Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.  The discs also include access to a Digital copy of the film and the legacy bonus content detailed below:

· A Bloody Legacy: Scream 25 Years Later— NEW!

· Audio commentary by director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson

· Production featurette

· Behind the Scenes

• On the Scream Set
• Drew Barrymore

· Q&A with Cast and Crew

• What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?
• Why are People so Fascinated by Horror Films?

Synopsis

After a series of mysterious deaths befalls their small town, an offbeat group of friends led by Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) becomes the target of a masked killer. As the body count rises, Sidney and her friends turn to the “rules” of horror films to help navigate the real-life terror they’re living in. The film also stars Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Rose McGowan, and Drew Barrymore.

Fathom Events

In celebration of the 25^th anniversary, Fathom Events and Paramount Pictures will bring SCREAM back to select cinemas for a special two-day event on October 10 and 11.  Additional details will be announced separately.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Celebrate the 55^th Anniversary of the Star Trek Franchise with the Debut of the First Four Films on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray^â„¢

Newly Remastered Films will also be Available Individually on Blu-ray^â„¢

New Releases Arrive September 7, 2021

Just in time to commemorate the 55^th anniversary of the September 8, 1966 airing of the very first Star Trek episode, Paramount Home Entertainment will debut the following new releases for every fan’s collection on September 7, 2021:

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL 4 MOVIES 4K ULTRA HD/BLU-RAY COLLECTION

For the first time ever, experience the original four Star Trek films in stunning 4K Ultra HD.  Newly remastered from original elements for optimal picture quality, each film is presented with Dolby Vision^® and HDR-10.^*  This exceptional collection includes four Ultra HD discs, as well as four remastered Blu-ray discs with hours of previously released bonus content.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both the theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented on both the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Discs, along with access to digital copies of the theatrical version of each film.  A detailed list of the disc contents follows:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture 4K Ultra HD

· Isolated score in Dolby 2.0—NEW!

· Commentary by Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Blu-ray

· Isolated score in Dolby 2.0—NEW!

· Commentary by Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman

· Library Computer (HD)

· Production

o The Longest Trek: Writing the Motion Picture (HD)

· The Star Trek Universe

o Special Star Trek Reunion (HD)

o Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 001: The Mystery Behind V’ger

· Deleted Scenes

· Storyboards

· Trailers (HD)

· TV Spots

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4K Ultra HD

· Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer (Director's Cut and Theatrical Version)

· Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto (Theatrical Version)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Blu-ray

· Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer (Director's Cut and Theatrical Version)

· Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto (Theatrical Version)

· Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda (Director’s Cut)

· Library Computer (HD)

· The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan

· Production

o Captain’s Log

o Designing Khan

o Original Interviews with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and Ricardo Montalbán

o Where No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

o James Horner: Composing Genesis (HD)

· The Star Trek Universe

o Collecting Star Trek’s Movie Relics (HD)

o A Novel Approach

o Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 002: Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI (HD)

· Farewell

o A Tribute to Ricardo Montalbán (HD)

· Storyboards

· Theatrical Trailer (HD)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 4K Ultra HD

· Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy, writer/producer Harve Bennett, director of photography Charles Correll and Robin Curtis                                        

· Commentary by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Blu-ray

· Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy, writer/producer Harve Bennett, director of photography Charles Correll and Robin Curtis                                        

· Commentary by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor

· Library Computer (HD)

· Production

o Captain’s Log

o Terraforming and the Prime Directive

o Industry Light & Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Trek

o Spock: The Early Years (HD)

· The Star Trek Universe

o Space Docks and Birds of Prey

o Speaking Klingon

o Klingon and Vulcan Costumes

o Star Trek and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (HD)

o Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 003: Mystery Behind the Vulcan Katra Transfer

· Photo Gallery

o Production

o The Movie

· Storyboards

· Theatrical Trailer (HD)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 4K Ultra HD

·         Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy

·         Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray

·         Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy

·         Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

·         Library Computer (HD)

·         Production

• Future’s Past: A Look Back
• On Location
• Dailies Deconstruction
• Below-the-Line: Sound Design
• Pavel Chekov’s Screen Moments (HD)
• The Star Trek Universe
• Time Travel: The Art of the Possible
• The Language of Whales
• A Vulcan Primer
• Kirk’s Women
• The Three-Picture Saga (HD)
• Star Trek for a Cause (HD)
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 004: The Whale Probe (HD)
• Visual Effects
• From Outer Space to the Ocean
• The Bird of Prey
• Original Interviews
• Leonard Nimoy
• William Shatner
• DeForest Kelley
• Tributes
• Roddenberry Scrapbook
• Featured Artist: Mark Lenard
• Production Gallery
• Storyboards
• Theatrical Trailer (HD)

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL 4 MOVIES ON BLU-RAY

Each of the original four Star Trek films will also be available individually on Blu-ray with the bonus content detailed above.  Newly remastered versions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both the theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented in high definition along with digital copies of the theatrical version of each film.

FATHOM EVENTS

In addition, in celebration of the 55^th anniversary, Fathom Events and Paramount Pictures will bring Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home back to select cinemas for a special two-day event on August 19 and 22.  Additional details will be announced at a later date.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE Synopsis

The U.S.S. Enterprise boldly debuted on the big screen with the cast of the original Star Trek series, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan. When an unidentified alien intruder destroys three powerful Klingon cruisers, Captain James T. Kirk returns to the helm of a newly transformed U.S.S. Enterprise to take command. This is the original theatrical cut of the acclaimed adventure and features Jerry Goldsmith’s rousing iconic overture.

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Synopsis

Including both the original theatrical and director’s cuts, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the most celebrated and essential chapters in Star Trek lore. On routine training maneuvers, Admiral James T. Kirk seems resigned that this may be the last space mission of his career. But an adversary from the past has returned with a vengeance. Aided by his exiled band of genetic supermen, Khan (Ricardo Montalbán)—brilliant renegade of 20th century Earth—has raided Space Station Regula One, stolen the top-secret device called Project Genesis, wrested control of another Federation starship, and now schemes to set a most deadly trap for his old enemy Kirk… with the threat of a universal Armageddon.

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK Synopsis

Admiral Kirk's defeat of Khan and the creation of the Genesis planet are empty victories. Spock is dead and McCoy is inexplicably being driven insane. Then a surprise visit by Spock's father provides a startling revelation: McCoy is harboring Spock's living essence. Kirk attempts to steal the U.S.S. Enterprise and defy Starfleet's Genesis planet quarantine to search for his friend, but the Klingons are planning a deadly rendezvous.

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME Synopsis

When a mysterious alien power threatens the atmosphere of Earth in the 23^rd century, Kirk and his crew must time travel back to 1986 San Francisco to save mankind. Exploring this strange new world, they encounter punk rock, pizza and exact-change buses that are as alien as anything in the far reaches of the galaxy.

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ED ASNER DEAD AT 91

REVIEW: LUCIO FULCI'S "THE PSYCHIC" (1977); BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FROM SHAMELESS FILMS

SAM SHERMAN: MARK CERULLI INTERVIEWS THE LEGENDARY WRITER, PRODUCER AND DISTRIBUTOR

OUT OF THE PAST: JAMES BOND IS INTRODUCED TO THE ASTON MARTIN DB5

"FIELD OF DREAMS" BASEBALL GAME HITS A HOME RUN

REVIEW: "THE FOREVER PURGE"

REVIEW: "DOCTOR X" (1932) STARRING LIONEL ATWILL AND FAY WRAY; WARNER ARCHIVE BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

NORMAN LLOYD TRIBUTE ON TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES (NORTH AMERICA); JUNE 14

OUT OF THE PAST: ON THE SET OF HOWARD HAWKS' "EL DORADO"

"THE HUSTLER" AT 60: EVE GOLDBERG CELEBRATES ROBERT ROSSEN'S CLASSIC

INDIANA JONES 4K ULTRA HD MOVIE COLLECTION COMING IN JUNE

GEORGE SEGAL, OSCAR-NOMINATED ACTOR, DEAD AT 87

REVIEW: "THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN" (1957) STARRING PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE; WARNER ARCHIVE BLU-RAY RELEASE

REVIEW: "INNER SANCTUM MYSTERIES: THE COMPLETE FILM SERIES"; BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FROM MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT

EXCLUSIVE: ACTOR JOHN RICHARDSON: A PERSONAL TRIBUTE BY MARK MAWSTON

REVIEW: "OUTSIDE THE LAW" (1921) STARRING LON CHANEY AND PRISCILLA DEAN; KINO LORBER BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

BARBARA SHELLEY, HAMMER FILMS LEGEND, DEAD AT AGE 88

"BRUCE", THE ICONIC SHARK FROM "JAWS", TO BE DISPLAYED AT AMPAS MUSEUM

REVIEW: "THE CAT AND THE CANARY" (1939) STARRING BOB HOPE AND PAULETTE GODDARD; BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

REVIEW: "THE APE" (1940) STARRING BORIS KARLOFF; BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION

FOCUS FEATURES 10 MOVIE BLU-RAY/DIGITAL SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION