Iconic actress, singer, and dancer joins screening of "Bye Bye Birdie" at Omaha Community Playhouse in benefit for Douglas County Historical Society

OMAHA, Neb., April 2026 -- Ann-Margret, the two-time Academy Award-nominated actress and five-time Golden Globe winner whose career has spanned more than seven decades, will make a rare personal appearance in Omaha on Friday, May 15, as the featured guest of Omaha Classic Film Event.

The evening will center on a special screening of "Bye Bye Birdie," the 1963 musical comedy that helped launch Ann-Margret to national stardom. She will appear live onstage, with film historian and the event's producer Bruce Crawford and take part in a discussion of the film and her career this will be Crawford's 54th event in Omaha since 1992. 

· Doors open at 6 p.m. at the Omaha Community Playhouse, 6915 Cass Street. The program begins at 7 p.m.

· Proceeds from the event will benefit the Douglas County Historical Society.

· Tickets go on sale April 22nd, are $40 each, and are available in limited quantity at douglascohistory.org or by calling 402-455-9990.

Ann-Margret's career includes acclaimed roles in "Carnal Knowledge," "Tommy," and "Grumpy Old Men," among dozens of others. Her work has earned her five Golden Globe Awards, an Emmy Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards and two Grammy Awards.

Omaha Classic Film Event was founded by film historian, documentary producer, and lecturer Bruce Crawford in 1992. The series has hosted a long roster of Hollywood figures over more than three decades, including Janet Leigh, Debbie Reynolds, Tippi Hedren, and many others. Past events have been held at Omaha landmarks including the Joslyn Art Museum and the Orpheum Theater.

"These events are dedicated to honoring the greatest films and filmmakers in Hollywood's history," Crawford said, "and to giving audiences an experience they simply cannot find anywhere else."

The series has earned recognition from Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz, film critic Leonard Maltin, and Jean Picker Firstenberg of the American Film Institute.

For tickets and information, visit douglascohistory.org or call 402-455-9990.

About Omaha Classic Film Event

Omaha Classic Film Event is Bruce Crawford's long-running classic film tribute series, producing special screenings with celebrity guests, live presentations, commemorative artwork, and community-benefit programming since 1992. For more information, visit the official event archive online.

About Douglas County Historical Society
The Douglas County Historical Society works to preserve and share the history of Douglas County, Nebraska. The organization operates the Crook House Museum, open to the public seven days a week, with self-guided tours available; no reservations are required. For more information, visit douglascohistory.org.

“DINNER IN PASTELS”

By Raymond Benson

Hot off the grill, er, press, is this unique and whimsical cookbook “inspired by the films of Wes Anderson.” Note that director/writer Anderson is not credited anywhere in the book and, in fact, there is an “Unofficial & Unauthorized” disclaimer on the front… and yet anyone familiar with Anderson’s movies will no doubt feel his presence here. Well, maybe his tastes. In food, that is.

Chris Peterson has written witty prose that captures much of the quirkiness of those celluloid delicacies such as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, and all of Anderson’s other titles you may or may not have seen. Illustrations by Heidi Peel capture Anderson’s visual sensibilities in eccentric pastels and fanciful nods to places and maybe characters in the movies. But it is the imagination of Michelle Anderson (no relation), who created the recipes in the book, and her work shines here.

Peterson has done several works on home improvement, cooking, and general reference categories. Michelle Anderson was a chef for twenty years before becoming a food writer and author of several cookbooks.

Divided into six “Acts,” we start with Rise & Shine Breakfasts. My wife, Randi Frank, tried out the deceptively simple Omelette Á La Policier, described as “uniquely French as the Eiffel Tower” and “particularly embraced in Ennui-sur-Blasé (the town in The French Dispatch). The recipe is inspired by the Omelette Mere Poulard, which is a cross between an omelette and a soufflé. It is extremely light and delectable. The ingredients are 1/4 cup of lardons (bacon pieces), two large eggs, and 1-1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. The lardons are sautéed until crispy. The eggs are beaten at high speed with an electric mixer until they are foamy (maybe two minutes). The butter is swirled in a large skillet (preferably copper) over high heat. The eggs are added and cooked for a minute. Sprinkle on the lardons, let the omelette stand for thirty seconds, then fold it over after sliding it onto a plate. Wow.

Act Two consists of Fantastic Appetizers & Snacks; Act Three: Spectacular Sides & Salads; Four: Tipples & Quaffs, a collection of mighty fine-sounding beverages; Five: The Grand Main Course; and finally, Six: The Sweet Life (desserts, of course).

We tried as a main course Suzy’s Lake Trout Almondine (inspired by Moonrise Kingdom). This was especially to die for. You need boneless trout fillets, sea salt, ground black pepper, cornstarch, unsalted butter, raw sliced almonds, lemon zest, fresh lemon juice, and fresh chopped parsley. You’ll have to get the book to see the preparation instructions. It’s not difficult if you’re somewhat experienced in the kitchen. This course was supported by Rosemary’s Carrots (inspired by Rushmore), which consists of baby (young) carrots, extra virgin olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, minced garlic, lemon pepper seasoning, sea salt, and rosemary sprigs for garnish. Oh my. Tender and delicious.

These are just three of the fifty-nine recipes included in the book. Mind you, the recipes range from easy/moderate to difficult/involved. But if you know your way around a kitchen and can obtain all the necessary stuff to make things like Blueberry-Filled Donuts, Minced Lamb Bonbons in Pastry Purses, Roasted Duck with Olives, or New Penzance Sandie Truffles, all washed down with, say, a Bottle Rocket with a Splash… you’re in for some mouth-watering delights.

The Wes Anderson Cookbook is for cooking enthusiasts, and for fans of the films of Wes Anderson.

By Jeffrey Wang

In the 1960s, the legendary French actor Jean Gabin was already a veteran actor near the end of his career. After working with renowned filmmakers like Jean Grémillon, Jean Renoir, and Jacques Tourneur, Gabin teamed up with the prolific Gilles Grainger to make the neo-noir “Maigret Sees Red” (1963). This would be Gabin’s third and final appearance as the detective Jules Maigret, and like the previous two films, it was a boxoffice hit in its native France, although it was not as well received by critics as the previous Maigret films.

Based on the Belgian writer Georges Simeon’s novel “Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters” (1951), “Maigret Sees Red” is very much influenced by American noir films, with its neon-lit city streets and hard-nosed, Sam Spade-like protagonist. After three men cruising through Paris shoot a bystander and the body turns up missing, Gabin’s detective Maigret gets involved in a gang war between dangerous American mobsters and the FBI. As he investigates further, Maigret finds himself in a race against time to stop the gangsters from killing a key witness to the shooting.

What made the Maigret films so popular was Gabin’s tough, yet charming and sardonically humorous portrayal of Maigret. With Gabin as the detective, one always got the sense that no matter how dangerous or seemingly unsolvable the case may seem, Maigret would always find a solution due to his punctilious and authoritative personality. Gabin brings a certain gravitas to the role of Maigret, and one always senses that his very presence in a room will bend the will of even the most cunning criminal. Grainger cleverly emphasizes this robust aura of Gabin in “Maigret Sees Red” by contrasting his character with the weaker, less decisive detective of Longnon (Guy Decomble). Indeed, much of the enjoyment of “Maigret Sees Red” is seeing how Maigret and Longnon approach the investigation, and their at times humorous interactions with each other.

“Maigret Sees Red” is a slow-burn noir that contains some surprisingly violent scenes that burst out of the film like rapid fire gunshots, including a vicious attack by the gangster Cicero (Michel Constantin) when he is cornered by cops. Although it takes a bit for the film to build momentum after the first act, Grainger does a good job of steadily raising the stakes throughout the film, culminating in a thrilling last act as Gabin confronts the various villains head on.

Released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, “Maigret Sees Red” contains a new 4K restoration from Studio Canal, with a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit). The 1080p transfer is crisp and clean, and nicely highlights the cinematography by Louis Page, with its dark noir-tinged shadows and neon-lit Parisian streets. Much of the film is set during nighttime and in dark rooms, giving it a foreboding atmosphere that Kino’s transfer nicely displays. The audio mix is clear and does justice to Francis Lemarque’s jazz-themed score. The extra features include an informative audio commentary with film critic and writer Simon Abrams, in which he goes into detail about the differences between Simeon’s novel and Grainger’s adaptation, and also provides interesting context and background about the filming decisions and actors. Also included are the theatrical trailer, and optional English subtitles. 

If you’re a fan of French crime films and Gabin, Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray edition of “Maigret Sees Red” is highly recommended, and it does a great job of highlighting a neo-noir film that deserves more recognition.

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Here's the original trailer for the 1975 Alistair MacLean western/mystery "Breakheart Pass", directed by Tom Gries and featuring a sterling cast: Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, Jill Ireland, Richard Crenna, Charles Durning, Ed Lauter, David Huddleston and Bill McKinney among other familiar faces. If the trailer whets your appetite, then you might want to read our latest issue, #64, with the film as our cover story. Click here to subscribe for the current season and get all three issues throughout 2026.  

By Lee Pfeiffer

"The Hawaiians" was regarded as a cinematic misfire, was released in England under the title Master of the Islands. The 1970 big budget movie was a critical and commercial failure in its day, but evaluating it after all these years leads the viewer to accentuate its many positive elements. The story is actually an official continuation of James Michener's Hawaii, which was made into a major film in 1966 that curiously also underwhelmed critics and public. This sequel doesn't have the epic proportions of its predecessor, but it does boast some impressively lush production values and a typically enticing score by Henry Mancini. For this film, Heston reunited with director Tom Gries, with whom he made the vastly under-appreciated 1968 Western "Will Penny" which Heston regarded as one of his most satisfying artistic accomplishments. He is cast against type here in a somewhat unsympathetic role during a period of his career in which he was typically cast as a stalwart heroic figure. Heston plays Whip Hoxworth, a hard-nosed sea captain who transports luckless Chinese immigrants to Hawaii where they become cheated, abused and enter into what amounts to indentured servitude. The opening sequence finds the Chinese crammed into the sweltering hold of the ship and falling victim to illness and malnutrition. Hoxworth only adds to their misery by applying beatings and coldly calculating his human cargo in terms of acceptable deaths, 'lest his ultimate profits fall short of expectations. Hoxworth is the black sheep of a wealthy family. He is cut out of his father's will and has a contentious relationship with his siblings, who have little use for him. Barred from further sea duties, he is relegated to a failing plantation which he is determined to turn into a success, if only to spite his relatives. Geraldine Chaplin is his half-Hawaiian wife, whom he adores but who, for reasons never satisfactorily explained in the script, turns frigid after their son is born.

The film tells a parallel story about the plight of two immigrants who work on his plantation: Nyuk Tsin (Tina Chen) and Mun Ki (Mako), two people who, through necessity, live as man and wife even though Mun Ki tells Nyuk Tsin that the children she has borne him will not be considered hers. Instead, Chinese tradition dictates that they will ultimately return to China where his wife will assume the mantle of mother and Nyuk Tsin will be relegated to the status of an aunt. The couple's hard work appeals to Hoxworth's generally dormant sympathies and he allows them to prosper financially, especially when they successfully grow the first pineapples on Hawaii - a development that makes Hoxworth rich. However, the film piles crisis upon crisis on each of the major characters, including political intrigue, armed revolution and, in particularly affecting sequences, outbreaks of leprosy and plague. John Phillip Law appears late in the 134-minute film as Heston's grown son, whose humanitarianism brings him into direct conflict with his father's Machevellian ways.

The Hawiians is big-budget soap opera at every level, but it's a consistently engrossing one. Heston excels playing part that takes him into new territory as an actor. The supporting cast is equally good, with both Mako and Tina Chen giving outstanding performances. It can't be said that the film is an unqualified success, but it's never boring and it probably seems more impressive today than it did at the time of its initial release.  It should be mentioned that the movie has a fine score by Henry Mancini. There are worse fates than spending a couple of hours with Heston under any circumstance.

("The Hawiians" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)

By Nicholas Sheffo

Cindy Williams was one of the funniest actresses imagineable, best known for her immortal pairing up with future filmmaker Penny Marshall (no comedy slouch either by any means) in their megahit TV situation comedy Laverne & Shirley. Yet Williams could also easily do drama and proved it in two all-time classics: Francis Coppola's thriller The Conversation and George Lucas's coming-of-age gem American Graffiti. She goes for comedy played straight in John Binder's UFOria (1981, released 1984 by Universal) with interesting results.

Willians plays Arlene, a Born Again Christian who works as a cashier at a smalltown grocery store. She believes Jesus is connected to all the frequent flying saucer sightings that are happening in the community. A con artist who likens himself to looking like a young Waylon Jennings (Fred Ward, The Right Stuff, Remo Williams, Big Business) robs and cons his way through life. We meet him when he attempts to shoplift in the store Arlene works in. They eventually get involved. However, a phony, money-grubbing preacher (the ever scene-stealing Harry Dean Stanton), turns out to be her new friend's old friend and things will slowly get wilder as he keeps conning people amidst a rash of UFO sightings. The townspeople who claim to have seen the aircraft start to meet up and compare experiences with comedic results.

Fox originally had the film, then dropped it, as no one knew how to sell it and its low-budget made the few visual effects too dated in the Lucas/Spielberg Era. It was critics like Roger Ebert who thought it was a buried treasure and it slowly started to find some kind of following. Not quite a cult item, it is laid back and leisurely in its approach and in a way movies seem not to know how to be these days. To be sure, this is not an underrated classic . Yet, there is still a much larger potential audience for the film and with the three leads sadly no longer with us, it deserves to get the solid release set Kino Lorber has given it. A time capsule in some ways and timeless in certain aspects, UFOria is worth a look. Cindy Williams in particular reminds us of her considerable talents and she is joined by an extraordinary cast: Harry Carey Jr., Hank Worden, Joe Unger, Darrell Larson, James Lemp and Peggy McCay also star.

This new Kino 4K Ultra High Definition disc of the film is pretty good, if not always great due to the older visual effects and low budget, grain included. However, the grain is more of an issue on the regular Blu-rays (both framed at 1.85 X 1). Both discs have the latest DTS sound (lossless MA) in 2-track mono. This is as good as this film will ever sound, though I wish the stereo songs were in stereo, but alas, they are not. The 4K disc has superior color and is a more impressive as a result.

Extras include a feature length audio commentary by director Binder, associate producer Jeanne Field and moderator Daniel Kremer, plus you also get ten original theatrical trailers for other Kino comedy releases.

(Nicholas Sheffo runs the Fulvue Drive-In web site.) 

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By Hank Reineke

Let me say, from the start, I’m a big fan of the work Film Masters (formerly Film Detective) undertake. They are, as they self-proclaim, “Archivists” and “Stewards” and “Historians” of low-budget films. These are the pictures too long neglected or deemed unworthy of serious restorative consideration. They are also aware many of the films to which they’ve applied their white glove are not necessarily of Citizen Kane caliber.

This is made apparent in the deferential rear sleeve notes of their new Monster Mayhem Collection: a two-disc Blu-ray featuring four bottom-of-the-barrel 1950’s sci-fi hokum pics. The four include Kenneth G. Crane’s Monster from Green Hell (1957), Nathan Juran’s The Brain from Planet Arous (1957), and Richard E. Cunha’s Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) and Giant from the Unknown (1958). On one commentary, author Tom Weaver suggests 1957-1958 as either the greatest or most shallow years of silver-age cinematic sci-fi: though the genre was exploding, piggybacking low-budget Indies were flooding the market with dubious product.

It’s true that not every pinched-budget picture reaching for the stars was gold - nor even gold-plated. Film Master admits, in a refreshing, non-hyperbolic manner:

“Logic dictates that these shoe-stringers would be the least admired of the monster movie world but, in many cases, bargain basement titles like these are just so much fun. This collection celebrates four all-expenses-spared science fiction sagas and the clever shortcuts taken by their cash-strapped creators.”

“Amen” to that. I’ve no doubt that young horror and sci-fi fans scratch their heads over boomer interest in such films. Along with being painfully short of budget, it can be argued the four films collected here are also hindered by workman-like scripting and lack of genuine scares. But what they might lack in “art” they most certainly do not lack in heart.

For those of us lucky (?) to have caught one of these double bills in the 1950s or (more likely) were introduced to them via the “free” late-night telecasts in the 1960’s or ‘70s - these pics are a nostalgia trip and strangely comforting. I’m pretty certainly I was first introduced to all four of these films on Manhattan’s WPIX-TV’s Saturday night series Chiller. Now, thanks to home video, we can watch them any night of the week, should we choose to. And, yes, we should.

For collectors of the Film Master catalog, it should be noted there’s – technically – nothing new here. The company previously issued all four films as individual Blu-ray releases in 2021 and 2022. All were sourced from 4K scans of 35mm archival prints and in DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s audio. In short, they all look and play great. All are offered in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All play region-free and include English SDH subtitles and chapter stops. That said, if you do already have the original individual releases, you might want to think twice before selling off those older discs.

There were materials on these earlier single disc releases not ported over to this new collection. Among these: Film Master’s predecessor Film Detective’s 2021 issue of Giant from the Unknown had included a “collector’s booklet” of stills and notes by Tom Weaver, as well as a theatrical trailer; Film Detective’s 2022 issue of The Brain from Planet Arous included a special introduction by actress Joyce Meadows, a Weaver booklet and an alternate full frame 1.33:1 version; the 2020 edition of The Monster Green Hell offered Don Stradley’s booklet “The Men Behind the Monsters” as well as an alternate 1.33:1 version; Film Detective’s 2021 Blu-ray of Frankenstein’s Daughter featured the doc John Ashley: Man from the B’s, a C. Courtney Joyner booklet and a second audio commentary by Larry Blamire.. These earlier special features are all absent from this new set.

The single particular-to-this-release is a new, more encompassing eighteen-page booklet by Tom Weaver. Otherwise, everything on this set has been ported over from the earlier releases: the featurettes Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker of the Unknown and Missouri Born: Films of Jim Davis, the audio commentaries of Tom Weaver - singularly (more or less) on Daughter and Giant, on Arous with the addition of the Weaver “Players.” Gary Crutcher provides a full commentary on Giant as well, with film historian Stephen R. Bissette sharing his thoughts on Monster from Green Hell. We’re also again treated to a pair of worthwhile docs courtesy of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures Productions, The Man Before the Brain: Director Nathan Juran and The Man Behind the Brain: The World of Nathan Juran.

Let’s begin looking at the two films of Richard E. Cunha. As I previously reviewed Film Detective’s single Blu of Frankenstein’s Daughter for Cinema Retro, I’m going to limit my discussion of that film here. Basically, the oft-ridiculed Frankenstein’s Daughter centers around the experimentations of Dr. Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) whom, we learn, is the grandson of the original Dr. Frankenstein himself. Frank, in all truth, is a pretty awful guy: cynical, intense, lecherous and high-strung.  He works alongside two assistants, the doddering Carter Morton (Felix Locher) and Elsu (Wolfe Barzell), the latter an aged creepy colleague of his grandfather’s.

Unfortunately for such a crack team, Dr. Frank’s experiments have all been disappointing failures.  The mad doctor decides these misfires are the result of his decisions to create only strong-willed male monsters.  He’s chosen to re-imagine his experiments by turning a female into a full-fledged monster. This, he reasons, will be enough to correct his past mistakes as a woman’s brain is simply more “responsive to command.” To this end he’s already turned Morton’s lovely niece Trudy (Sandra Knight) into a drug-addled half-monster.

Dr. Frank’s sexist recalibration goes awry, needless to say. Director Cunha offered to Weaver that Frankenstein’s Daughter was his “biggest disappointment” for any number of reasons. The now transformed “Trudy” is so obviously a bulky male sporting not terribly convincing horrific make-up that it’s laughable. This is certainly one monster film that could have been brightened by Universal Studios make-up genius Jack Pierce creating a more feminine-styled creature.

Interestingly, Pierce did the muddied make-up of actor Buddy Baer’s long-dead - but recently revived - Spanish conquistador in Cunha’s Giant from the Unknown. Despite its “ultra-low budget” of $54,000, Cunha’s first foray into feature film production is a pretty nifty production. Cunha and producer Arthur Jacobs tell Weaver their film – shot in an around the woods and the bucolic lakes of California’s Big Bear Valley – was, following a month of planning, shot in a total of six ten-hour days, more or less. They were only able to do this by working under the radar of Hollywood unions and praying the weather held out. Jacobs admits the film, made speculatively under the provisional titles Diablo Giant and The Giant from Diablo Pass, ultimately took “longer to sell” than to actually produce.

I tend to enjoy Tom Weaver’s audio commentaries as much as I do his interview books. Though this set’s packaging only mentions Weaver as commentator for Giant, the author splices in lengthy segments of his original taped interviews with Cunha and Jacobs from the early 1980s. Also included are insights by such friends as Larry Blamire and Steven Kronenberg. Weaver also shares interesting memories of getting his start as a professional writer through a providential letter-writing friendship with Cunha. The occasionally sardonic Weaver acknowledges that too often his fevered horror-film scholarship sometimes goes too far. We not only learn that Giant actor Morris Ankrum was suffering angry hemorrhoids throughout production, we’re also told of an unpleasant creepy legal accusation made against actor Baer (a charge later dismissed) in the year preceding this particular film’s production.

Moving to disc two: in spring of 1957 London’s Daily Film Renter described Kenneth Crane’s Monster from Green Hell as a “reliable booking,” noting the low-budgeter made “effective use of documentary material and ‘cuts,” plus some good model and trick work.” But, ultimately, it was dismissed as a “booking for the less sophisticated.” Which, I guess, is fair. That particular notice is certainly more gracious than the one offered in Tom Weaver’s booklet: “Not everything about the movie is bad,’ Weaver writes, ‘just… almost everything.” Green Hell was one of the many low-budget “mutant insect” knock-offs riding the coattails of Gordon Douglas’ THEM! (1954). The difference? Green Hell offers African jungle giant wasps in place of U.S. desert-producing giant ants, both mothered (of course) by unfortunate large doses of atomic radiation.

It’s obvious in his commentary that film historian/writer/stop-motion fan/DC comic scribe Stephen Bissette is more of a fan of the film than Weaver. His nostalgia for the pic provides a balance to Weaver’s less enthusiastic assessment. Bissette is at his best when sharing personal recollections of catching the film on television or when offering well-researched background information. That’s a tough job as Green Hell runs a scant seventy-minutes and there’s not a terribly large pool of info available on its production. To get around this dearth of info, Bissette fills a lot of the allotted time doing deep dives into the IMDB filmographies of cast and crew. Frankly, he’s more engaged when relating comments gleaned from cast and crew interviews or the mining of such seminal sci-fi film texts as Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies!: American science fiction movies of the fifties.

Bissette allows producer Al Zimbalist too often pilloried the stock footage archives of MGM and 20^th Century Fox to creatively pad out his cheapie-features. It’s true a good deal of the time we’re not watching footage shot by first-time director Crane, but of aged, non-matching safari footage seen earlier in such films as in Fox’s Stanley and Livingstone (1939) and MGM’s Trader Horn (1931). We’re also informed that Zimbalist had perhaps hit creative rock bottom upon purchasing the rights to the 1955 Japanese Yeti film Jû jin yuki otoko. The producer chose to discard a better part of that film, inserting inane narration featuring John Carradine. (Those U.S. version inserts, incidentally, were also directed by Crane at Zimbalist’s request). When Monster from Green Hell was released in May of 1957 – not in 1958 as Bissette suggests – it was as the top-bill to Half Human, Zimbalist’s rejiggered title of Ishir? Honda’s Jû jin yuki otoko.

I’ve also previously discussed The Brain from Planet Arous back in November 2025 when it was included as part of the Corinth DVD Drive-In Retro Classics. I ended that particular review noting Arous was “reportedly being readied for Blu-ray release by another home video company, one known for bring loving attention to neglected films.” That comment, of course, referenced Film Detective’s then up-coming 2022 Blu-ray issue of the pic.

By Nicholas Sheffo

Walter Matthau was still a box office name when Howard Zieff's House Calls (1978) was released to some success. The film finds Matthau as a surgeon and recent widow who is at least getting quite a bit of sympathy and attention from women of all ages at the  hospital he practices at. He unexpectedly finds himself getting involved with an injured patient (Glenda Jackson, who would later reunite with Matthau for Hopscotch in 1980) who has had bad head and jaw injurys. At first, it is one of a few concurrent introductions going along with the other medical characters but eventually moves towards developments between Matthau and Jackson. Too bad the writing is very mixed, with the decent Alan Mandel and Max Schulman, legendary Julius J. Epstein and highly overrated Charles Shyer credited on a script that may have involved even more uncredited writers. It’s a case of too much and not enough and I’ve personally been annoyed by the inept manner in which Art Carney as a forgetful elderly surgeon is utilized. This trait might have been funny if used sparingly but here it is repeated numerous times. Decades later, we know the character's affliction as Alzheimers and dementia, so brace yourself for that part of it when (re-)screening the film.

Richard Benjamin, Candice Azzara, Thayer David, Reva Rose, Dick O'Neill, Brad Dexter, Lloyd Gough, Jane Connell and Gordon Jump are all a plus here, reminding us of all the great actors and character actors Hollywood used to have an abundance of. However, I was never a big fan of the movie, despite its impressive cast. At least the film is now available in its original form for the first time in decades on home video. Director Zieff was on a roll, making six interesting comedies in a row (Slither (1973,) Hearts of the West (1975,) this film, The Main Event (1979,) Private Benjamin (1980) and an ill-fated remake of Unfaithfully Yours (1984,) which made for an impressive achievement.

This new Kino Lorber Blu-ray (1.85 X 1) has a nice, solid transfer with good color and definition, adding the latest DTS sound (lossless MA) in 2-track mono to replicate the original theatrical monophonic sound and sadly, so are the hit records heard in the movie. Not all films had switched to even regular Dolby Stereo yet, so monophonic releases were still very common for a few more years. Otherwise, playback performance is just fine and, after being omitted from the 12-inch LaserDisc and DVD versions of the film, Something by The Beatles has been (finally!!!) restored to the film's soundtrack. Henry Mancini did the overall score for the movie. Extras include a feature length audio commentary by Bryan Reesman and Max Ervy, plus you also get eight original theatrical trailers for other Kino comedy releases. Of course, it inspired a TV series version, but we'll wait for that to hit Blu-ray down the line.

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(Nicholas Sheffo runs the Fulvue Drive-In web site.) 

By Nicholas Sheffo

Back in the 1960s United Artists distributed or launched series that enjoyed commercial (and sometimes critical) success including James Bond, Sergio Leone's Man with No Name trilogy and the the Pink Panther franchise. The concept of movie series with larger budgets was a new idea. Ultimately, the esteemed United Artists gang that was led by Arthur Krim and the Picker family left the studio and by the 1980s some of them were running their co-founded Orion Pictures company. They purchased the rights to the well-known Destroyer novels, from which they hoped to launch a new film franchise. The result was the singular film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) with the likable Fred Ward as the title character, an allegedly dead cop back to fight another day.

With some touches of Bond here and there, the makers got three-time 007 director Guy Hamilton to helm the project and two-time Bond writer Christopher Wood to co-write the screenplay, yet the makers also wanted to have a slight retro-adventure feel (think Indiana Jones, et al) and had all kinds of fighting and set pieces. (Unfortunately, the fight scenes are not that impressive.) Williams investigates some strange goings-on that eventually leads him to the U.S. Army, but it turns out to be more sinister than expected, though not enough to make this film interesting.

Offering more misses than hits, it even has a theme song for Remo by the underrated ex-Styx member Tommy Shaw (called ''What If'') and a mixed supporting cast including Joel Grey as an Asian (!!!) self-defense expert in the worst retro way, Wilford Brimley, Kate Mulgrew, Michael Pataki, Charles Cioffi and George Coe. Dick Clark Productions was also involved, so that is why the film ultimately played it too safe and silly. A bomb in its time, not helping Orion who were now free of Warner distribution, the film has gained a cult following of sorts, but maybe not on the level of the much better Buckaroo Banzai. Either way, Ward is not bad here and his career did not suffer too much, save hurting his lead status commercially. Orion did promote it well at the time, but to little avail. Once viewer and critic reactions arrived, it was finished it was deemed a boxoffice failure.

This new Kino Blu-ray is from the new 4K scan of the film (also issued in the 4K Ultra High Definition format) and though you can see grain and some softness in this regular HD format transfer, I can see color improvements from the older and softer HD master used for years on various Blu-rays. That one was a little too dark, not doing justice to the camerawork by the great Alan Hume (B.S.C., in 1.85 X 1) and the result is comparatively more watchable and makes me curious enough to want to see it in pure 4K at some point. The sound on the older version was analog Dolby, upgraded here in simple stereo and a home theater 5.1 mix (both in the newest DTS sound) that brings out some good things in the soundtrack, but also its weaknesses. This is more obvious sonically than when I last watched it. 

Most extras from previous editions are here, but we get a NEW Feature Length Audio Commentary by film journalist Brandon Streussnig. 

Older extras include:

·Audio Commentary by Producer Larry Spiegel and Co-Producer Judy Goldstein

·Lessons in Popcorn Villainy: Interview with Actor Patrick Kilpatrick

·Created, the Destroyer - Writing Remo Williams: Featurette

·Unarmed and Dangerous - Producing Remo Williams: Featurette

·Secrets of Sinanju - Training Remo Williams: Featurette

·Balance of Power - Designing Remo Williams: Featurette

·Assassin's Tune - Composing Remo Williams: Featurette

·Radio Spot

·Original Theatrical Trailer 

Sadly, but understandably, the impressive booklets from the Arrow U.K. and out of print Twilight Time U.S. Blu-rays are not there, but especially annoying is the absence of the fine audio commentary by Cinema Retro co-founder Lee Pfeiffer, Eddy Friedfeld and Paul Scrabo. It was thorough, honest, informative and detailed, yet apparently too controversial for diehard fans of the movie. Outside of the film's many problems, this is a glaring omission from this upgrade. Otherwise, this is worth a look for fans of the film.

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(Nicholas Sheffo runs the Fulvue Drive-In web site.) 

By Jeffrey Wang

Throughout his career, Wong Kar-wai has explored the theme of unrequited love and longing in intimate and gorgeously lensed films like “Happy Together” and “In the Mood for Love.” Wong Kar-wai expands upon these films on a truly epic level with his television series “Blossoms Shanghai,” based on Jin Yucheng’s novel “Blossoms.” Now streaming on The Criterion Channel, this 30-episode series is ravishingly romantic and set over a decade across Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. It traces the rising and falling fortunes of a group of characters in Shanghai during the 1990s, and the whole series is a vast Dickensian portrait of a city and its people.

“Blossoms Shanghai” is Wong Kar-wai’s love letter and tribute to his birth city of Shanghai, focusing on the financial boom of the 1990s when China opened up the country’s economy, resulting in the creation of the Shanghai Stock Market. This economic boom revitalized the country and led to the modernization of China as the powerhouse of commerce that it is today.

“Blossoms Shanghai”’s protagonist Mr. Bao (Hu Ge) capitalizes on the economic boom and becomes a sort of Great Gatsby of Shanghai, while being mentored by the wise businessman Uncle Ye (You Benchang). Mr. Bao has amorous relations with three ambitious women (Ma Yili as Ling Zi, Tiffany Tang as Miss Wang, and Xin Zhilei as Li Li), and faces a fierce rival when he encounters the shark-like businessman Mr. Qiang (Huang Jue). All these characters face off with each other to seek fame and fortune in Shanghai’s Huanghe Road district. Like Wong Kar-wai’s previous films “Chungking Express” and “2046,” “Blossoms Shanghai” presents its story in a beguiling fractured narrative, deftly juggling multiple narrative strands while seamlessly weaving backwards and forwards in time.

Wong Kar-wai and his creative team recreated the gleaming, bustling Huanghe Road district from scratch, a sort of Shanghainese Las Vegas strip with neon-lit restaurants and hostess bars. Both the exteriors and interiors of Huanghe Road are intricately designed with an old-world charm that makes 1990s Shanghai resemble the roaring 1920s of New York. The incredibly lush and beautiful cinematography is by the legendary Peter Pau, who also shot the classic films “The Killer,” “The Bride with White Hair,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Naked Killer,” and “The Swordsman.”

Just like Jacques Tati recreated Paris in “Playtime” and Stanley Kubrick recreated New York City in “Eyes Wide Shut,” Wong Kar-wai recreated 1990s Shanghai’s Huanghe Road district from the ground up, placing his characters in a vast story filled with femme fatales, scheming dreamers, and enigmatic tycoons. This gorgeous reproduction of Shanghai during the 1990s truly immerses us in the time period.

“Blossoms Shanghai” culminates with some of the most emotionally powerful moments of Wong Kar-wai’s filmmaking career, and the epic runtime gives him the time to truly explore all facets of his various characters’ complex lives. In many ways, “Blossoms Shanghai” is like a Chinese version of “Mad Men” with its portrait of the cutthroat nature of business, and the various vultures and personalities attracted to the pursuit of wealth and commerce. Wong Kar-wai has stated that “Blossoms Shanghai” is the project he has been working towards his entire career. Indeed, with its fragmented narrative, tragically yearning lovers, and ruminations on the fleeting nature of love and time, “Blossoms Shanghai” is perhaps the purest distillation of what makes Wong Kar-wai such a powerful artist. If Cahiers du Cinema can declare the television series “Twin Peaks: The Return” by David Lynch to be the greatest film of the 2010s, then “Blossoms Shanghai” is one of the best films of this decade so far.

Although it’s only available for streaming now on The Criterion Channel, there is still hope for a massive physical media boxset of “Blossoms Shanghai” from Criterion, as Criterion has released most of Wong Kar-wai’s previous films on Blu-ray. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of Asian cinema and the work of Wong Kar-wai, “Blossoms Shanghai” is highly recommended.

Cinema Retro covered this 1965 film in our war movies special edition. If you can ignore the Hollywood hokum inserted to provide a sexual element to the movie, it covers the incredible mission undertaken by Norwegian Underground fighters and every day citizens to prevent Hitler from developing an atomic bomb. Ably directed by the esteemed Anthony Mann with input from veterans of the real campaign, the film is exciting and almost too impossible to believe...but it really happened! The movie's main flaw was excluding a tragic aftermath to the successful mission. The movie succeeds as a rousing WWII thriller despite the fact that stars Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris came to loathe each other. (Lee Pfeiffer) 

For more about the film and its historical aspect, click here.  

By Thomas Doherty

Serendipity is the film historian’s best friend. A few years back, I was scrolling through a newspaper from 1937 looking for something when my eyes happened upon something I was not looking for: an item in a Hollywood gossip column passing on an intriguing vignette. At an arthouse in New York, a woman saw something so unsettling she screamed and bolted from the theater, leaving in such a hurry that she forgot her purse. The next day she called the management to retrieve the purse and explain her reaction: she had spotted herself on screen.

The woman was Dr. Angelica Balabanoff and the movie was Tsar to Lenin (1937), a landmark archival documentary about the Russian Revolution. A lifelong radical socialist, Balabanoff had been first secretary of the Second Congress of the Comintern, which had met in Petrograd and Moscow from July 19 to August 7, 1920. In newsreel footage of the Congress, she was shown quite clearly and identified by name. Lenin was in the same shot. When Balabanoff purchased her ticket, she surely knew she had lived through some of the history she would be witnessing, but in 1937 people were not used to seeing their past selves come back to life on screen. The sudden flashback to her younger self--when both she and the Soviet experiment were full of hope and promise—was jarring.

I had never heard of Balabanoff or the film Tsar to Lenin. Investigating further, I found that Dr. Balabanoff was not alone in being rattled by Tsar to Lenin. It was, in its time and ever since, a one-of-a-kind motion picture journey through the history of the Russian Revolution. Drawing upon a remarkable trove of archival footage, collected by the obsessive motion picture pack rat Herman Axelbank and directed and written by the literary polymath Max Eastman, the documentary traced the end of the 300-year-old autocratic rule of the Romanov dynasty and followed the transition to an even more ruthless dictatorship.

I soon learned that Tsar to Lenin was not the only forgotten archival documentary from the 1930s. Eventually, my curiosity congealed into the idea behind How Film Became History: to trace the origin of the motion picture genre that is now the central repository for our shared history--the archival documentary.

“Films beget films,” declared the film historian Jay Leyda, but only in the 1930s would they become fruitful and multiply. The proliferation was due to two parallel developments, one archival, one technological. By 1930, a sufficient backlog of motion pictures—roughly four decades worth of filmed life—had accrued to provide the raw material to spawn a second generation stitched together exclusively from the first. That same year, Hollywood completed the task begun in 1927, the re-tooling of the studio assembly lines for the recording of synchronous dialogue. Together, the accumulation of a film inventory and the sound of the human voice gave rise to a new motion picture genre.

“Archival documentary” became the term for the branch of next-generation cinema, though the name would not stick until the end of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, the decade in which it came of age, critics and practitioners struggled for the right label: compilation films, library films, historical films, salvage films, celluloid anthologies, synthetic features, episodic reelage, super newsreel, and collections of stock footage. Whatever the name, it referred to a parasitical genre that drew its life from pre-existing film.

By 1930, plenty of source material had grown up to feed the new format. After the Lumière brothers turned on their projector in 1895, the production of motion pictures accelerated as fast as the cellulose nitrate film stock could be processed. But if the accumulation of some forty years of film footage was a necessary precondition for the creation of the archival documentary, the introduction of synchronous sound into the grammar of cinema was the decisive addition—soundtrack music, ambient noise, and, above all, the human voice. Joined together, the commentary from a know-it-all narrator and the backlog of film footage parented a supple new medium for the transmission of history.

(Photo courtesy of Thomas Doherty.)

The films discussed in How Film Became History are not high-profile titles: they do not appear on Ten Best lists, they have not made the cut for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, and they are not in heavy (or any) rotation on Turner Classic Movies. J. Stuart Blackton’s The Film Parade (1933), Laurence Stallings and Truman Talley’s The First World War (1934), Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.’s Hitler’s Reign of Terror (1934), and Eastman and Axelbank’s Tsar to Lenin are not so much below the radar of cinematic memory as entirely off the screen. The March of Time screen magazine (1935-1951) is better known, but perhaps less for itself than for the parodic “News on the March” sequence that jump starts the search for Rosebud in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941). Overall, however, the films may seem to have been chosen out of a willful penchant for the obscure. “I’ve never even heard of Vanderbilt’s film and I’ve taught American film history for decades,” groused a colleague who read the manuscript.

Of course, not every forgotten film is unjustly forgotten, but almost all are worthy of a line entry in an index of American film history and some—like the titles above-- deserve a whole chapter. As blueprints for the archival documentary, they are the best evidence for the overarching argument of the book: that only with the passage of thirty-or-so years of documentation by the motion picture medium had a sufficient backlog of footage accumulated for filmmakers to create a new kind of film stitched together from footage from older films.

Admittedly, most people prefer to read about films they know and admire—a book on MGM musicals or the Marvel Cinematic Universe sells itself-- but I hope they might also like to read about films they might never have heard of but which are crucial to the way we understand the past.

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By Hank Reineke

The screenplay for The Story of Sound was written by Ben Shattuck, based on his own short story first published in a literary magazine in 2018. The story tells the tale of two young men, the Kentucky-born Lionel Worthing (Paul Mescal) and Newport, RI, born David White (Josh O’ Connor) who have a chance meeting at a New England Music Conservatory. Both men are conservatory misfits and, we soon learn, homosexuals. White’s parents died early on, so as an orphan he was sent to live with an uncle in England. His Uncle Silas was, in White’s recollection, “an amateur hobbyist folksong collector” who imbued his nephew with a love of traditional folk music.

Lionel, at the prestigious school on scholarship, did not approach traditional music as items of mere academic interest. He was of the tradition. Following that first meeting, the two men hit it off instantly – professionally and romantically – the worldlier, more supremely confident and occasionally cocky White intrigued by his new friend from the farm. The bespectacled Lionel was, in contrast, a country kid at heart, someone of quiet and reserved presence. He was perplexed to meet someone in Boston who somehow knew the mountain songs of his heritage – in fact, a lot of the old songs. In Lionel’s view, David “had a thousand songs in his mind” and could effortlessly suss all of them out on piano.

Though The Story of Sound is a romance film, the truth is director Oliver Hermanus has brought to the screen something far greater than simply another “lost love” pic. Though the film was selected as an Official Selection for Competition at the 2025 Festival De Cannes, I’m guessing many Cinema Retro readers might be unfamiliar with it. So it would be unfair to write a detailed synopsis of the film as it would give away the story’s many plot twists and turns. Simply put, at its core The Story of Sound tells a very universal human story. Its narrative mirrors the troubles of the times in which it is primarily set - on the eve of and at the conclusion of WW I. The scenario also mimics many of the same hardships recalled in the verses of the ancient and bittersweet songs they both covet.

It’s a tale of love, of secrets, of hardship, of family, of war and its consequences, of folklore and mystery, of youthful passion and adventure, of changing times and life’s constant cycling of leaving and returning. Above all else, the film concerns itself with the burden of carrying the crushing weight of lingering memory. This is a very involving, melancholic film, without doubt, but one extremely moving. It’s beautifully written and masterfully constructed. Beyond the film’s gentle romantic angle, there’s a weaving in of the universal, perhaps wistful, desire of longing for those things that might have been. No one exits this world without paying the price of a lifetime’s struggle of hesitative decision making and the address of familial responsibilities.

It’s a dark film, but not necessarily dark in content. There’s a few brightly-lit scenes scattered about, but much of the film takes place in low-light situations, in shuttered rooms and cabins. Even a better part of the film’s exteriors seem overly gloomily and overcast, cloudy and gray. The cinematography of Alexander Dynan is beautifully realized. His capture of such drab, muted colors of brown, amber and gray perfectly match the sense of earthy moodiness conveyed in the songs sprinkled throughout. It’s ironic that when the film briefly shift’s to the sunny skies of Rome, the bright sunlight is offset by the internal dark wrangling of one character’s troubled mind.

The film’s soundtrack is wonderful, the pair’s ballad gatherings true to the song-collecting practices of such real-life pioneering recording engineers and collectors as John and Alan Lomax and Cecil Sharp. David and Lionel travel southward from Maine to Augusta, Georgia, seeking out singers and musicians not yet touched or otherwise influenced by commercial radio broadcasts or early 78rpm records. These are the traditional songs, recorded in modest country homes, saloons or worksites, passed down from generation to generation. Though the songs did not go unchanged in their many generational or regional interpretations, all remained rooted firmly to their antecedents: Irish, Scottish, and English balladry or West African ancestry.

The pair travel with a collection of thirty-six wax cylinders and a phonograph cylinder – a device in which soundwaves are engraved via a stylus directly into wax - to record the songs of the people they meet en route. As a child, Lionel’s fiddle-playing father told him that his unusual musical aptitude was “a gift from God.” Early on, Lionel heard music in everything – in the wind and in the trickling of streams. Music was everywhere and wasn’t simply aural alone. He could, in his recollection, both see and taste sound. Later on during his and David’s song-collecting sojourn, they explain to a curious boy their cylinder phonograph was merely a device to capture sound. When sound “touches something,” they explain, it “makes an impression.”

Many of the songs heard in the film will be familiar to those who listened to the polished records of the revivalist “folk boom” artists of the 1950s and 1960s: a peculiar period when traditional music was being mined for pop-market remuneration. Among these are “Across the Rocky Mountains,” “Pretty Saro,” “Silver Dagger” “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies,” and “Down in the Willow Garden” to name only a few. David and Lionel are seen combing the backwaters of the eastern seaboard U.S. together, in search of homespun traditional singers and musicians. They find them everywhere: in isolated mountain communities, in remote lake coves, embedded deep in darks woods and in secluded farming villages. Anywhere, really, where strong local musical folkways had not yet been diluted by outside influence or mechanical modernity.

Most of the musical performances on the soundtrack – many haunting - are performed acapella, some occasionally tempered with a bit of mountain fiddle or old-timey string-band accompaniment. The narratives of the songs, much like the film’s cinematography, tends to run dark. Many of the roughhewn, earnest songs are mournful – almost dirge-like – in performance. These are the honest songs of love and loss, of murder, heartache and hard times. These are the songs folksinger Woody Guthrie would later deem, circa 1940, as “Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People.”

Near the film’s conclusion, Lionel – now in his eighties and a respected ethnomusicologist and college professor – delivers an exquisitely beautiful, heartfelt testament to the “treasures” and import of traditional ballad music. These songs had long served as musical and cultural delivery systems, authentically documenting their time. Lionel offers traditional music was, at its best, pure “emotion in song, nothing fancy.” Yet he finds this music was somehow of greater value than that of the worshipping, pitch-perfect chorales he once conducted.

Those songs, no matter how expertly executed, tended to celebrate only such supernatural entities as angels and spirits. Conversely, though more amateurishly performed and rough in instrumental technique or vocal, the emotional and spiritual power of traditional music was somehow greater than that made by professionals who performed in musical halls or on radio. It’s mostly all gone now, as there are few hamlets that mass media has not yet touched. With a sense of profound loss, Lionel solemnly asks in the film’s coda, “What happens to it all, all the sounds released into the world never captured?” I’m guessing the answer is only in the lingering memories of the very few still surviving able to recall.

Mubi’s Blu-ray release of The Story of Sound offers the film in BD50 Dual Layer with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and DTS-HD MA 5.1 or 2.0 English language audio. The set offers subtitling in both English and French and ten chapter stops. There are no other special features included nor, in my opinion, are any necessary. The Story of Sound stands solidly on its own.

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By Ernie Magnotta

In the 1970s, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the king of bodybuilding. Nicknamed “The Austrian Oak”, Schwarzenegger focused all of his attention on the sport, transformed his body and, from 1970-1975 and once more in 1980, became a seven-time Mr. Olympia; the most prestigious title in the bodybuilding world. In the 1980s, Arnold reinvented himself. This time, he turned his attention to acting and, before long, he was one of the biggest movie stars in the world; known mostly for big budget action films. Some of his most iconic action movies are Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Commando (1985), Predator (1987), Total Recall (1990), True Lies (1994), and Eraser (1996). Recently, another Arnold classic—1987’s futuristic, sci-fi/action film The Running Man—was released on Blu-ray, in an obvious attempt to cash in on Edgar Wright’s recent remake of the film starring Glen Powell.

The 'Running Man' is a deadly game no one has ever survived. But… Schwarzenegger has yet to play.

In 2017, the United States has become a totalitarian police state. After disobeying orders to open fire on unarmed criminals, Captain Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) is framed for the killings which were carried out by other members of the police force. Richards is arrested, escapes and is recaptured. He is then forced to participate in The Running Man; a top-rated TV game show in which criminals called “runners” are pursued by deadly stalkers. If the criminals survive the run, they are granted freedom. If not, they are violently murdered. Can Richards and his group of fellow “runners” win the game and start life anew?

The film is well-directed by Paul Michael Glaser, who is best known for his acting career including his starring role, with David Soul, in the“Starsky & Hutch” TV series. Glaser works from a thoroughly enjoyable script by Steven E. de Souza (which was loosely based on the Richard Bachman/Stephen King novel of the same name), The Running Man is a well-done, entertaining piece of 80s action cinema as well as a fun Schwarzenegger vehicle.

The adrenaline-charged screenplay contains plenty of exciting action set pieces (which are competently handled by Glaser) and also some nice humor. The well-written characters are made convincing by the incredible talents of Arnold, Maria Conchita Alonso and Richard Dawson. Schwarzenegger gives another believable performance, this time as a capable, athletic and strong everyman, and, as usual, he uses his natural charisma and humor to great effect. Alonso is feisty and very likeable as Arnold’s love interest and fellow runner, Amber, and Richard Dawson shines as villainous game show host Damon Killian.

The Running Man features more great acting talent such as Yaphet Kotto as runner William Laughlin and Jim Brown, Erland Van Lidth and former pro wrestlers Jesse Ventura and Professor Toru Tanaka as stalkers Fireball, Dynamo, Captain Freedom and Subzero, respectively. There are also appearances by Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa, Ken Fuller, Ken Lerner, Dey Young, Lynne Marie Stewart, Lin Shaye, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Franco Columbo and George P. Wilbur. Just to name a few.

Last, but not least, the engaging film, which was released by Tri-Star Pictures in November of 1987, benefits from a great musical score by Harold Faltermeyer and a very catchy end credits song, “Restless Heart (Running Away With You)”, performed by John Parr.

The Running Man may not be as well-known as other Schwarzenegger action extravaganzas, but that shouldn’t stop you from watching it. I’ve enjoyed this movie ever since I first saw it theatrically in 1987. It’s a thrilling futuristic actioner with a solid cast and an interesting story that predates America’s obsession with reality television. I highly recommend checking it out.

The Running Man has been released on Blu-ray from Paramount in both Region A and B. The wonderful-looking and sounding transfer, which is a significant improvement over past DVD/Blu-ray releases, is presented in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio (the film’s original ratio is actually 1.85:1). Strangely, the disc has no special features, but, as mentioned, the movie looks and sounds terrific and it does come with a digital code. If you don’t collect 4k and have yet to add The Running Man to your Blu-ray collection, this is the release to get (but hold on to your DVD for the special features).

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“STILL A WONDER”

By Raymond Benson

If the Oscars had been around for silent films made in 1924, several surely would have been handed out to Raoul Walsh’s epic fantasy production of The Thief of Bagdad. Often cited as actor Douglas Fairbanks’ crowning achievement (he starred in it and produced it), it’s difficult to imagine today how it would have played to audiences back then. As eye-popping as Star Wars? As jaw-dropping as The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Whatever… The Thief of Bagdad is still a wonder. Whether you enjoy Hollywood silent films made during that glorious period or not, this one is worth a look. Yes, it’s long (154 minutes, with a built-in Intermission), but don’t let that dissuade you. It’s a riveting, vastly fascinating depiction of the magic of cinema, even back when visual effects were primitive and nothing like what they are today.

The movie has been remade more than once, of course, but this was the first and possibly most impressive. Adapted from One Thousand and One Nights, it’s the story of a clever but common Bagdad thief, Ahmed (Fairbanks), who falls in love with the Princess (Julanne Johnston), the daughter of the Caliph (Brandon Hurst). With the aid of his sidekick (Snitz Edwards), Ahmed finagles a way to become one of the Princess’ suitors, competing with the likes of the conniving Cham Sang (Sojin Kamiyama), the Prince of the Mongols. A treacherous Mongol slave (Anna May Wong) who attends to the Princess, conspires with Sang to foil Ahmed in his goals and help the Mongol leader take over Bagdad.

Distributed by the fairly new company United Artists (Fairbanks had created the studio with his wife, Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith in 1919), The Thief of Bagdad was likely the pinnacle of spectacle at that time. One of the prime assets the movie had going for it was the art direction by William Cameron Menzies, easily one of the most significant production designers in cinema history. His sets are Intolerance-style gigantic. They are beautifully imagined Arabian Fantasy worlds with a touch of the art deco style that was everywhere then. Even in black and white (with some scenes tinted for nighttime, bright sunshine, and the like), the visuals are astonishing.

The visual effects, especially in Part Two, when Ahmed (Fairbanks) goes off to hunt for the “rarest treasure,” are, yes, a bit hokey at times; but other times they are still convincing and magical. For example, the dragon Ahmed fights is unfortunately a big rubber monster that wiggles around like an inflatable kids bouncy house, and the flying giant bat looks pretty silly. But the effects of the flying carpet are unexpectedly impressive, as are the instances of becoming invisible with the “invisibility cloak” and climbing up the magic rope that can stand straight and stiff.

Fairbanks (Senior, not Junior) was the Harrison Ford of his time, or maybe the Tom Cruise. He is extremely athletic, handsome, and built with a body that women of the time likely swooned over. He does many of his own stunts, too. This was the period when the actor was becoming the Hollywood swashbuckler star in movies like The Mark of Zorro (1920) and Robin Hood (1922). The Thief of Bagdad is easily his career high. Fairbanks is quite winning in the role, considering the broad style of pantomimic acting that went into silent films then. Snitz Edwards has some good comic bits, and Anna May Wong, here in an early screen appearance, is also memorable.

Beside Fairbanks, though, the star of the movie is Menzies and his wondrous sets. Director Walsh had been making films since the business moved west to Hollywood in 1914 and was an experienced, reliable craftsman who would go even further with his artistry after sound came in, working into the 1960s!

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray (in their “Classics” imprint) presents a 4K restoration by Photoplay Productions that looks about as good as we’ll ever have of this priceless relic. The occasional artifacts and blemishes in the picture can’t be avoided, but most of the time the image looks very, very good. The movie is accompanied by the original 1924 score by Mortimer Wilson, re-recorded and performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and conducted by Mark Fitz-Gerald, and a lovely, melodic score it is. An optional six minute orchestral prelude can be added to your experience (it serves as an Overture).

An audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide accompanies the film. Slide has much to offer in terms of the history of the production, and even goes into the various Hollywood gossipy news that was going around at the time. His voice has a peculiar, erudite quality that might be a turnoff to some listeners, but there’s no question that he knows what he’s talking about. There’s a vintage six minute introduction to the film by none other than Orson Welles, who admits that he’s not a fan of the fantasy genre, but he likes this one! There are outtakes and visual effects test footage, all of which can be interesting for the cinephile.

In short, The Thief of Bagdad is well worth the investment in time to see. It is one of classics of Hollywood’s silent era, never boring, and highly recommended for fans of cinema history.

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“WHAT, IT’S NOT A HORROR FILM?”

By Raymond Benson

The new Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ Blu-ray release of Edward Ludwig’s The Man Who Reclaimed His Head contains two audio commentaries—one by film historian David Del Valle and another by film historian Troy Howarth. Both of these gentlemen begin their commentaries with the same story that they each viewed this film as a child on television, coupled with a Universal horror film like Dracula or The Mummy or even The Invisible Man, which starred Claude Rains, the lead actor in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. In both cases, the young lads expected the movie to be a horror film. After all, it was released by Universal Studios, produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr., and also co-starred the likes of Lionel Atwill, a mainstay in the Universal monster flicks.

To Del Valle’s and Howarth’s disappointment, Man was indeed not a horror film, although with that title, that cast, that studio, and the vague promise of a severed head somewhere in the story, one can understand how it might be perceived as such. In fact, when the movie was released in late 1934, audiences likely expected it to be a horror film, too, thanks to its marketing and lurid poster. It was not a success. No, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head is a war film and a melodrama. Del Valle and Howarth both make the argument that it is more comparable to Universal’s own All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) than it could be to Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932).

That said, both commentators agree that as they grew older and became more in tune with film history, they came to admire the picture. Over time, Ludwig’s movie has indeed gained a better reputation, thanks to the presence of actor Rains, for whom the material was something of a personal project. Claude Rains had starred in a stage version of the story just prior to the making of the movie (the Broadway show flopped, too, so one wonders how the studio justified making the picture).

The story takes place during World War I in France. Paul Verin (Rains) is a journalist who is known for his political pieces. He is married to lovely Adele (Joan Bennett) and has a young daughter (Juanita Quigley, billed as “Baby Jane”). Verin is a rather meek, soft man, easily manipulated and gullible. He is hired by politician Henri Dumont (Atwill) to write political material for him. But as time goes on, Dumont is seduced by the munitions lobbyists and becomes pro-war. Paul is staunchly pacifist and from then on refuses to write for Dumont. Dumont gets his revenge on Paul by jockeying the system to send Paul to the front and keep him there while at the same time seduce Adele for himself. Paul eventually musters enough rage that he is propelled to get his own vengeance on Dumont, and, yes, it does involve a severed head (that the audience never sees; after all, the movie was released in the latter half of 1934 after the Production Code had kicked in).

Thankfully, the movie is only 82 minutes long. While Rains delivers a heartfelt, emotional performance, frankly he comes off as a whiny dweeb. Bennett is fine, but she is quite young here at the beginning of her career, which blossomed more in the 1940s when she was playing femmes fatale. Atwill steals the show as the heavy, and what a bastard he is. Otherwise, the melodrama unfortunately falls into the “why should we care?” bucket. The production, however, was an A-list effort for the time. Cinematography by Merritt B. Gerstad is lovely in glorious black and white, and there are some battle sequences that are effective.

The two audio commentaries are actually more entertaining than the film, especially that of Del Valle’s, whose approach is laced with humor. The other supplements are trailers for other Kino titles.

The Man Who Reclaimed His Head is for fans of Claude Rains and Lionel Atwill, and perhaps for those interested in early pre-1935 Hollywood dramas.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Edgar Allan Poe's stories have long provided fodder for movie adaptations. In the 1960s, producer/director Roger Corman struck boxoffice gold by bringing many of these tales to the screen, often with Vincent Price starring. In the ensuing years, there have been countless other cinematic adaptations of Poe's works, usually with underwhelming results. Among the production companies took that to film adaptations of novels was Cannon Films, which had come to prominence in the 1980s when Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus took control of the ailing company for the rock bottom price of $500,000. They soon became the Dynamic Duo of the film industry, churning out low-budget films that were masterfully marketed. The company soon attracted some big name talent, most notably Charles Bronson, who made many crime thrillers for Cannon. Their quality varied wildly and none were blockbusters, but the return on investment for these films usually dwarfed the returns enjoyed by major studio's big budget releases. Among the producers doing business with Cannon was Harry Allan Towers, a British producer who, not coincidentally, had made hefty profits off modestly-budgeted films. Among the most popular were his screen adaptations of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories with the titular character memorably portrayed on screen by Christopher Lee. Towers was an intriguing figure with a shady background, having fled bail for England when arrested on vice-related charges in New York City in the 1960s. (Charges were ultimately dropped when he paid a fine.) Towers had signed actors Robert Vaughn and Ernest Borgnine for his 1988 action film Skeleton Coast, which was filmed in South Africa. The country was under tremendous international pressure to disband its racist policy of Apartheid. In order to help keep the economy solvent, the country awarded major tax breaks to film producers to shoot their latest films there. Towers ended up working with Cannon Films shortly thereafter to film Alistair MacLean's adventure novel "River of Death". The film also starred Robert Vaughn along with Donald Pleasence and Cannon's in-house martial arts star Michael Dudikoff.  As with "Skeleton Coast", the movie was shot in South Africa. Although its theatrical release was spotty, this was the era of enthusiasm for VHS tapes and the movie probably did well in the video sales and rental market, especially with the MacLean connection.

Towers next decided to get on board with the new audience enthusiasm for horror films that found teenagers in peril. (Critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel referred to this genre as "Dead Teenager Movies".) The film was originally titled "Ravenscrof"t, the name of the correctional institution where the story is set. It would later be changed to "Buried Alive!" with a notation that the film was "inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe". Here again, Towers thumbed his nose at the growing economic isolation of South Africa ("I'm not political", he mused) and filmed the entire movie on location there. This release would not be through Cannon, however. Instead, Towers signed a release deal with 21st Century Film Corporation, a company that specialized in the kind of fare that Cannon released. For the third time, a Towers film would star Robert Vaughn, this time with his "River of Death" co-star Donald Pleasence. To add some spice to the proceedings, Towers' cast Playboy Playmate Karen Witter (aka Karen Lorre) and popular adult film actress Ginger Lynn. Both ladies were hoping to make inroads for careers in mainstream films. The movie was shot in Jeppe High School for Boys in Johannesburg. 

The story opens at Ravenscroft, an institute for teenage girls who have been deemed juvenile delinquents. One of the students/inmates had made a desperate attempt to escape but is captured by a man wearing a Ronald Reagan mask, who buries her alive. We then see our protagonist,  Janet (Karen Witter) arrive at the institute, eager to start her new job as assistant to the school's fabled director, Gary Julian (Robert Vaughn.) Janet is committed to rehabilitating troubled young women and Julian has received widespread acclaim for his innovative theories and methods in pursuing this goal. Julian is proud that he is now running the school that was founded by his father, Jacob (John Carradine), whose portrait is prominently displayed in his son's office. Janet finds Julian to be what she expected: a professional, serious-minded man with the greater good of his students foremost in his mind- until she finds he is obsessed with her. Janet also finds the "students" are not only a troubled lot, but wild and rambunctious. For reasons never explained, the esteemed Gary Julian provides less oversight of the students than Colonel Klink had imposed on Hogan's Heroes. The kids run wild, smoke pot and invite local boys in for sexually-infused parties. Understandably, they prove resistant to Janet's outreach. However, she has other problems. Girls keep disappearing and Julian seems unconcerned, saying they found ways to run away. Meanwhile, she makes the acquaintance of Dr. Schaeffer (Donald Pleasence), the in-house psychiatrist who displays all the characteristics of a mad doctor from the early Universal horror films. When Debbie (Ginger Lynn), a girl Janet was succeeding in building trust with, disappears she decides to investigate. This leads to the predictable scenario of a young woman walking through foreboding settings, in this case a vast underground complex that is no longer being utilized. It is also here that our unidentified killer has been burying his victims alive behind brick walls. 

Under the direction of Gerard Kikoine , "Buried Alive!", the film has every predictable aspect of this genre and if you can't guess the real killer (who is revealed well before the finale), then you should be sentenced to enroll in "Dead Teenager Movies 101". There's also no way a film was going to be set in a detention facility for wayward teenage girls without the requisite elements. Naturally, every young woman is a looker (including Nia Long, who would go on to a successful career) and thus there's no way to avoid their playful group shower scene. Yet for all the predictable elements, there are some salvageable aspects of the film. The performances by the principal actors are played straight and Karen Witter makes for a winning protagonist. Robert Vaughn is his sturdy, reliable and dignified self and only Pleasence is encouraged to chew the scenery. There's also an occasional dab of genuine suspense as we see victims subjected to a terrible fate and production designer Leonardo Coen Calgi deserves praise for designing a truly ghastly underground lair. 

There is an aspect of the film's marketing that was quite deceitful. This was the last movie that the legendary John Carradine appeared in and although he receives prominent billing, he makes no more than a blink-and-you'll miss him appearance in the final moments of the movie. Ginger Lynn would later recall that Carradine was very frail and confused on the set and should not have been in the film at all. The filmmakers at least pay tribute to him in the final credits. 

"Buried Alive!" is by no means the best of these types of films but it's a notch better than many. However, to say the film is "inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe" because of the burial scenes is as ludicrous as saying the fortune hunting aspect of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was inspired by "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". 

"Buried Alive!" is streaming on MGM+ and can also be found on YouTube. (There are also numerous other films from the same era bearing the same title, so browse carefully.) It's also on Tubi but you have to suffer through commercial interruptions. 

By Jeffrey Wang

In his brief career before he tragically passed away at the age of 59, the Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang made seven essential films and two masterpieces of world cinema. One of these masterpieces was “A Brighter Summer Day” (1991) and the other was Yang’s swan song “Yi Yi” (2000), an intimate epic set in Taipei about three generations of the Jian family.

Opening with a wedding and ending with a funeral, “Yi Yi” examines the daily lives of the Jian family—the father NJ (Wu Nien-jen), the mother Min-Min (Elaine Jin), the teenage daughter Ting Ting (Kelly Lee), and the son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang). After the matriarch of the Jian family (Tang Ru-Yun) suffers a stroke, Yang takes his time to show how this event affects and shapes the lives of the various members of the Jian household.

With its languid, observational pace and long takes, “Yi Yi” is very much in the tradition of slow cinema masters like Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Yasujir Ozu, Béla Tarr, and Lav Diaz. But unlike the films of Tarr and Diaz, Yang’s “Yi Yi” is much more grounded with its focus on human relationships, while many other slow cinema practitioners focus more on experimental deconstructions of cinematic time. With its emphasis on narrative drama, “Yi Yi” has a wider appeal to audiences than many other slow cinema films.

The new Criterion 4K UHD upgrade of “Yi Yi,” which includes an original theatrical 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, is a revelation. While some Criterion 4K releases are minor upgrades from their regular Blu-ray releases, “Yi Yi” is a substantial upgrade, with a much cleaner and crisper video presentation than its initial Blu-ray release, making it look almost like a new film. This release comes with two discs—one contains the 4K UHD restoration of the film, and the other is a Blu-ray with the film and supplemental features. The extras include an insightful interview with critic Tony Rayns, in which he discusses how Yang’s films fit in with the new Taiwan Cinema movement, the U.S. theatrical trailer, and a booklet containing writing by critic Kent Jones and notes by Yang. The highlight of the features is the audio commentary with Yang and Rayns, in which Yang provides much fascinating context on his working method.

So far, Criterion has released Yang’s films “Taipei Story,” “A Brighter Summer Day,” “A Confucian Confusion,” “Mahjong,” and “Yi Yi” on physical media. Let’s hope Criterion also releases the rest of Yang’s filmography. If you’re a fan of Asian cinema, and especially of Taiwanese films, Criterion’s 4K UHD upgrade of “Yi Yi” is a must-own release.

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By Hank Reineke

My first viewing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was, sadly, on television. This was the infamous, re-edited and rightly maligned two-part ABC-broadcast of February 1976. OHMSS was the only James Bond film rarely treated to retrospective 35mm screenings in U.S. repertory cinemas. I was aware the ABC television footage-scramble did not resemble the film as originally released. One of my most paged-through books back then was John Brosnan’s James Bond in the Cinema. That book was, at the time, the only one available detailing every Double-)-Seven film scene-by-scene. In May of 1980 I had second chance to sit through OHMSS, alas, again on television. This subsequent ABC re-broadcast would properly restore Peter Hunt’s magnificent film to, more or less, original form following producer Cubby Broccoli’s legal threats against the network.

Still, I wasn’t satisfied. This was a film, a great film, one needing to be experienced on the big screen. I would finally get the opportunity to enjoy a proper theatrical showing of OHMSS in March of 1982, when it was paired on a double-bill with You Only Live Twice at the Hollywood Twin Cinema on Eighth Ave. and 47^th Street in Manhattan. That was a memorable afternoon of James Bond Nirvana. In December of 1983, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service would belatedly make its way onto home video via a CBS/Fox VHS tape or on a RCA Video Disc. I’m pretty certain it was the last James Bond film at that time to be offered on home video to fans.

The home video revolution was in full swing by the early 1980s, with the price of tapes affordably leveling off and rental shops springing up everywhere. The big national outlets - such as Blockbuster - offered geeks like myself the opportunity to page through a yellow, tombstone-sized book called the “Videolog.” This massive catalog of extant VHS tapes allowed cineastes to look up films by title, actor or director. It was thanks to Richard Schenkman’s oft-cited interview with George Lazenby - in the July 1978 of the fanzine Bondage – when I was first made aware the actor made films outside of OHMSS. With the assistance of info discovered in the Videolog, I planned to collect all the films of Lazenby’s oeuvre – at least those available on VHS.

It was the early 80s and the search took some time. Eventually I was able to collect – mostly via mail-order - many of the actor’s films of the 70’s and early ‘80s: Universal Soldier (1971), Stoner (1974), Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), The Newman Shame (1978), Saint Jack (1979), Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E., Never Too Young to Die (1986) and Hell Hunters (1987). Sometimes I needed to seek out such then-rare titles as Who Saw Her Die? (1972), The Man from Hong Kong (1975) and A Queen’s Ransom (aka International Assassin, 1976) from rare-film dealers in magazines who proffered tapes made from dodgy transfers.

Following the production of A Queen’s Ransom in 1975 - the actor’s third and final martial arts film made for Raymond Chow’s Hong Kong-based Golden Harvest - Lazenby bounced back between Australia, London and the U.S. seeking work. He would occasionally find short-term employment in Australia, making appearances on such television programs as the Australian series Matlock Police (1974) or in Peter Maxwell’s psychological-thriller tele-film Is There Anybody There? (1976).

It was possible that Lazenby might carve out a decent living working in Australia. Aside from the occasional acting role, he was also would moonlight as a television and print ad pitchman for cigarette or alcohol manufacturers (Benson & Hedges, Kirin Beer). But the actor was hoping to find success elsewhere, preferably in the “big time” arena of Hollywood. He later lamented to Aussie journalist Jill Bowen his career would surely remain in stasis should he stay on in Australia. “I hung around Australia for a long time a couple of years ago,” he lamented. “I got a few roles but nothing spectacular [despite being] “ready, willing and able to work. I just don’t think I’m going to make it here.”

So, in early 1976 the actor chose to relocate with wife and family to Brentwood, California. His goal was to revive his acting career - or as he would put it at the time – go “for my second world heavyweight title.” The road back wasn’t going to be an easy one. For starters Lazenby would need to obtain a resident alien green card allowing him to work in the U.S. It was then he discovered that, despite being a member of Equity in England, he needed to secure, at a minimum, “two television commercials in a row” to earn a Screen Actors Guild card in the U.S.

He was, in essence, a new actor on the scene trying to get a break. He was serious in the pursuit, taking acting classes from Charles E. Conrad’s famed CEC Studio in Burbank. He also chose to take lessons in American elocution in an attempt to disguise his Australian accent. This would be necessary if he was to break into network TV in the U.S. He offered to Baltimore’s Evening Sun, “Hollywood is not very good to foreigners when it comes to television series. Can you name one foreign actor who is the star of a series?” He was especially aggrieved when having recently tested for “a James Bond-type series” he was turned down. “I can’t understand that,” an incredulous Lazenby offered to columnist Lou Cedrone. “Can you?”

Though progress was slow – he claimed to have not worked “the first twelve months” since his move to the U.S. - Lazenby was making some small inroads in Hollywood. He was seen as a James Bond-type character in the 60 sec. national TV advertising spot “Agent” for the Sony Corporation of America. He was cast as “The Architect,” a decidedly small role in a segment of the John Landis comedy Kentucky Fried Movie. In March of 1977 Lazenby played the role of the villainous “Michael” in the NBC television pilot of Cover Girls, executive producer David Gerber’s rip-off of ABC-TV’s widely-popular Charlie’s Angels.

Though the pilot caused no sensation and was not picked-up, Jerry London, the director of Cover Girls, was conscripted in April of 1978 to begin shooting Irwin Shaw’s Evening in Byzantium for the Operation Prime Time indie network. It was through Lazenby’s working with London on Cover Girls that he managed to secure a small role in the first episode of that four-million-dollar, ballyhooed production. The actor was, at the very least, now again involved in mainstream industry projects. This allowed for visibility and the opportunity to network.

One result of such networking came as something of a surprise. Following the broadcast of Cover Girls on 18 May 1977, Lazenby received a phone call from an old friend: Harry Saltzman, the former co-producer of the James Bond film franchise. “Harry saw me in a TV show I’d recently made for NBC,” the actor related to Australian Women’s Weekly. “He rang me up out of the blue and said, “Now that was a damn lousy show, but I thought that you were ger-reat.” Lazenby recalled Saltzman promised him “a leading part” and the chance to appear alongside Michael Caine in his ambitious (but ultimately ill-fated) science-fiction epic The Micronauts.

Lazenby desperately needed a big screen credit. With the exception of OHMSS, the actor didn’t find his filmography worthy as resume material. He told columnist Nancy Anderson that the majority of his films post-OHMSS, “aren’t worth mentioning. I made them for people who hadn’t heard that I’d fallen apart.” The actor sighed to journalist Holly Spence, “I just wish they could burn all the films I’ve done before.” He similarly lamented to Richard Schenkman, “If I get lucky and get a hit, you’ll see all this trash I left behind. I really made some shitty stuff.”

Which brings us, at long last, to producer-director Al Adamson’s sci-fi/martial-arts mashup Death Dimension (1978). I will confess to having a long-standing appreciation of this bargain basement epic – mostly due to my belief the pic ambitiously tries to be something greater than it is. The film was also, for better or worse, the first of Lazenby’s non-Bond films I managed to sort out. A clamshell case video cassette of the film was released by Long Island’s “Best Film & Video” label in 1983. I still have it as I’m stubbornly nostalgic and sentimental.

It wasn’t my intention to revisit this film in 2026 – perhaps ever - but when our fearless editor recently told me the film was available to stream on Amazon Prime I had an excuse, no matter how feeble, to write about it. The very decent version on Prime has obviously been taken from a German print as the title credit reads Der Einzelkämpfer (“The Lone Fighter”). The film was directed by the notorious low-budget auteur Al Adamson - whose career was recently celebrated by Severin Films in The Masterpiece Collection, a massive thirty-two film, fourteen-disc Blu-ray box set. I suspect this is the version currently streaming on Amazon, but can’t say for certain.

ISSUE #61 OF CINEMA RETRO HAS NOW SOLD OUT. CONSEQUENTLY, WE CAN NO LONGER PROVIDE SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR SEASON 21. ISSUES #62 AND #63 ARE STILL AVAILABLE. 

“THE GENIUS BLOOMS”

By Raymond Benson

Thank goodness for Flicker Alley, the home video label that has recently been restoring and producing new Blu-ray titles of very classic film history gems that include works by Laurel and Hardy, Lon Chaney, Rudolph Valentino, Charles Chaplin, and more. The care and precision that obviously goes into making these celluloid treasures of yesteryear look “like new” is truly remarkable. While many of these early cinema selections from the silent era and beginning talkies have been around on subpar VHS and DVD releases for years, a company like Flicker Alley has stepped up and made these jewels sparkle.

Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies is a 2-disk Blu-ray set that includes all twelve short films made by Charles Chaplin between 1916-1917 for the Mutual Film Corporation in Hollywood. One could say there are five distinct “periods” of Chaplin’s work that easily depict the evolution of his genius.

The first was, of course, his year (1914-1915) with Keystone Studios, all produced by Mack Sennett. This was Chaplin’s entry into cinema after performing on vaudeville and in a touring stage company. The iconic Tramp character was created here early on and slowly developed over thirty-six very short films (between five and ten minutes, usually). Chaplin began writing and directing his own pictures around film number eleven.

The second, more important, period was the year (1915-1916) at Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. The fifteen titles made during this time, all produced by Jesse T. Robbins, were mostly two-reelers lasting twenty minutes or more in length. The Tramp character became much more developed, more than just a slapstick clown. Pathos crept in, and audiences began to feel more empathy for the character and understand his personality better.

The third period, featured in this Blu-ray set, was the year (1916-1917) at Mutual, where he made twelve films that were two reelers lasting up to almost a half hour each. Chaplin not only wrote and directed them, but he produced them as well. Mutual gave him complete artistic control and even built for him his own studio, Lonestar, in Hollywood. It was here that the genius truly bloomed.

The fourth period was the transition from shorts to features (mostly longer shorts) between 1918 and 1923 for the First National Company, which acted only as a distributor of the titles made by Chaplin’s own production company. There were nine films, including his first feature, The Kid (1921). The fifth period, beginning 1923, followed, after Chaplin formed United Artists with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith. He made solely feature films from then on.

The Mutual Comedies have many things going for them. For one, the plots are more involved. They’re not just a setup that goes wrong and produces a few minutes of laughter. These have deeper character development for not only the Tramp persona but also with the supporting cast as well. Leading lady Edna Purviance shines in these pictures. More notably is the addition to Chaplin’s “stock company” the Scottish actor Eric Campbell, a big guy who specialized in playing the villain. Note that in those days, it was stylistically standard to display costumes and makeup much in the same way vaudevillians did—with broad, exaggerated makeup that included big bushy eyebrows and long mustaches. Campbell’s appearances in this way typified the “silent film villain.” Sadly, Campbell had a short-lived career in film; his only appearances are in Chaplin’s Mutual comedies until his untimely death in a car accident in 1917. Other stock company actors included Henry Bergman and Albert Austin.

The Mutuals also had something to say besides presenting sight gags. Several of the pieces deal with the state of poverty, or the plight of immigrants coming to the USA, or the rivalry between classes. With the making of these pictures, Chaplin grew as an artist even more so than he had with the Essanay titles.

Each and every Mutual comedy is a jewel. Included, in chronological order, are The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A.M., The Count, The Pawnshop, Behind the Screen, The Rink, Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, and The Adventurer. If this reviewer had to pick three favorites from the bunch, they would be The Rink, The Cure, and The Immigrant.

There are two very good bonus features included: The Birth of the Tramp is an hour long documentary by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange about the evolution of Chaplin’s career beginning with his humble beginnings and getting into vaudeville; and Chaplin’s Goliath, a near-hour piece by Kevin Macdonald on the life and career of Eric Campbell. Both of these are excellent additions to this marvelous set.

As for the transfers? My gosh, for films that are over 100 years old, they look marvelous. They were restored mostly by Lobster Films and Cineteca di Bologna, with contributions from a number of institutions around the world. Each film comes with two musical soundtracks from which to choose—and orchestral one and a piano one. Among the many composers and musicians to take part are Eric Beheim, Neil Brand, Timothy Brock, Antonio Coppola, Carl Davis, Stephen Horne, Robert Israel, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Maud Nelissen, Donald Sosin, and Gabriel Thibaudeau. The enclosed booklet contains detailed historical information and contemporary reviews/receptions of each title.

Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies is a must-have for cinephiles who love Chaplin, naturally, but also for anyone with an interest in classic silent cinema. Highly recommended.

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(Photo: Timeout)

Here's a fun and informative article from Timeout that lists their choices for the world's 100 greatest cinemas. As with all such lists, the choices are subjective but it's a fun tour through traditional, historic and outright quirky movie houses around the globe. Click here to read. 

By Andrew Hook 

I first saw the 1980 film, Union City, on television over thirty years ago. It struck me as an odd story. Not quite experimental, but also not quite mainstream, despite the central performance of Deborah Harry from Blondie who it might be thought would have chosen a more ‘rock star vehicle’ for her debut starring role. I saw the film a second time when it was released on DVD in 2006. I was freelancing for an online magazine, and immediately requested it for review. On this occasion, now that I was older, I picked up more of the references to decaying masculinity and greater understood the stylised setting than I did on my first viewing. I concluded that review by stating Quite excellent in its realisation, direction, and character development, Union City easily pre-dates Lynch’s Blue Velvet for brooding, oppressive paranoia, and is one hell of a must watch movie from that period.

I feel some of this was intuition. I hadn’t realised at the time that the producer, Monty Montgomery, had subsequently worked as producer on Lynch’s Wild at Heart, or that he played the cowboy in Mulholland Drive. I certainly never knew that it was the ear of Union City’s line producer, Fred Caruso, which served as the model for that on the lawn in Blue Velvet, nor that co-star Everett McGill, in addition to working with Lynch on Twin Peaks, had the following quote attributed to him: “Before Twin Peaks there was Union City”. In fact, I also hadn’t known that script girl Kathryn Bigelow might advance to greater successes, or that cinematographer Edward Lachman would have a long and industrious career, or that the gaffer, Stefan Czapsky, had gone on to work with Tim Burton, among others. What I was aware of was that Union City was director Mark (Marcus) Reichert’s sole feature length movie, and in the intervening years I wondered about the significance of that.

When the opportunity arose to write a book about a film for a publisher with an imprint specialising in single movies, Union City jumped to the forefront of my mind. Chris Stein of Blondie had written the score, and I’d previously had interactions with him on Instagram, so I reached out and he agreed to be interviewed. Suddenly, the ball was rolling. Other contributors began to fall into place. Upon re-watching the film (over and over) during the writing of my book, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only is it a forgotten masterpiece, but that it was a catalyst for the early careers of the cast and crew, in addition to arguably being the first neo-noir movie of its time.

The plot is quite simple. Harlan (Dennis Lipscomb) and Lillian (Deborah Harry) rent an apartment in a tenement block in the eponymous city situated in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey. Their lives have become stale, the marriage mundane. Harlan becomes fixated by a ‘milk thief’ who drinks from their morning doorstep delivery. An unhealthy obsession develops and after a convoluted ploy to wake and catch the thief he does so. Assuming moral superiority backdropped against the impotency of his life, Harlan attacks and accidentally kills the man. The remainder of the film explores his paranoia and fear of being found out.

If this sounds like the plot of a simple noir thriller then indeed it is. The film is based on The Corpse Next Door, a short story by the crime writer Cornell Woolrich. I felt the film was ripe for examination, and as it happened my timing was perfect. Having contacted Chris Stein in November 2019, most of my initial interviews with the cast and crew were conducted during 2020, when the world was in lockdown. From my tiny terraced house in Norwich, UK, I conducted in-depth telephone conversations with some major film industry names in Hollywood, who were at home instead of on location and therefore had the time and inclination to chat, considering they could do little else! Most especially, I was able to cultivate a close friendship with Marcus Reichert (the director), which led to us talking regularly, reading each other’s work, and providing insights I hadn’t expected. Reichert had become completely disillusioned with the film industry following the release of Union City (for reasons which I discuss in the book). The writing of my book was to prove cathartic for him, enabling reconnections with those he had been involved with during that time, and a reassessment of that period of his life. He was very grateful for my efforts, and thankfully was able to read and offer approval (if not always outright agreement) over the finished draft, before he regretfully and unexpectedly passed away in 2022.

(Photo: Author Andrew Hook)

In addition to extensive interviews with Marcus, my book includes a scene by scene run through of the film together with chapters on film noir, colour, comedy, the hitherto unknown proposed sequels, and writer Cornell Woolrich; plus interviews with the aforementioned Monty Montgomery, Ed Lachman, Stefan Czapsky, Fred Caruso, Deborah Harry, Chris Stein, and Everett McGill, and also with Irina Maleeva (actor whose career started with Federico Fellini), and Sam McMurray (an actor now known for his US TV work).

Union City (the book) is a story of two halves: the film that we know and the film that we don’t. For those who have seen the film, I feel this in-depth movie monograph will provide many surprising insights and fresh information. For those who have yet to watch the film, I hope my book will encourage them to seek it out. As a precursor of neo-noir and with several of the crew latterly working with David Lynch, it inhabits a pivotal role in cinematic history and remains – for me, certainly – an essential watch.

Union City can be ordered worldwide by clicking here through the publisher’s website.

By Fred Blosser

“Convoy Buddies” was released in 1978 by Film Ventures International, an independent movie production company and distributor based in Atlanta, Ga. The one-sheet poster and newspaper advertisements for the film promised viewers a “truckin’ terrific” time with runaway big rigs, fistfights, car crashes, shootouts, and a curvaceous blonde in a midriff-baring shirt and denim short-shorts. Prospective ticket-buyers may have assumed that this would be one more good-ol’-boy comedy about maverick truck drivers and irate county sheriffs on rural backroads, like two other 1978 releases, Sam Peckinpah’s “Convoy” and Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose.”

Not so. The promotional materials for B-movies in the 1970s were notorious for promising more than they could possibly deliver on their dollar-and-dime budgets. Even by those slippery standards, the ads for Convoy Buddies” were bait-and-switch on a monumental scale. “Convoy Buddies” was actually a dubbed version of a 1975 Italian-made slapstick comedy filmed in the Mediterranean coast, Simone e Matteo—Un gioco da ragazzi, or “Simon and Matthew: Kid Stuff.” The poster credited “Arthur Pitt” as the director and “Terrence Hall,” “Bob Spencer,” and “Karen Blake” as the stars. Easy to suppose, at a quick glance, that you were going to see a picture by the celebrated Arthur Penn, starring Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, and Karen Black. Hill and Spencer were top box-office stars in Europe, and even now, fifty years later, they still have an enthusiastic fan base over there. In the U.S., the duo had name value on drive-in marquees thanks to their comedic roles in popular Spaghetti Westerns like “Ace High” (1971), “They Call Me Trinity” (1972), and “Trinity Is Still My Name” (1973).

In fact, “Terrence Hall” wasn’t Terence Hill nor was “Bob Spencer” Bud Spencer. No frisky blonde appeared in the picture, no Karen Black, and there was only one truck to speak of (at that, a Fiat of French manufacture), not a convoy. The stars were actually Michael Coby and Paul L. Smith, who were groomed as Hill and Spencer lookalikes in the waning days of the Spaghetti Western—Coby the handsome, athletic partner in the duo like Terence Hill, Smith burly and bearded like Spencer. When the fad for Italian Westerns faded, Hill and Spencer transitioned to modern-day action comedies, and the team of Coby and Smith followed suit. “Convoy Buddies” was the first of three movies featuring Coby and Smith as Toby and Butch (in the European prints, Matteo and Simone), a pair of characters whose misadventures leave plenty of room for slapstick chases and brawls.

To compound the confusion of multiple names, Coby was an Italian actor, Antonio Cantafora, who found it expedient to adopt an American-sounding screen name to further his career, much as Hill and Spencer had done by swapping out their real names, Mario Girotti and Carlo Pedersoli, for their screen names in the Spaghetti Western era. In that context, “Paul L. Smith” sounds as if it could be a made-up name too, but the actor really was named Paul L. Smith; he was an American who later had prominent roles in “Midnight Express” (1979), “Popeye” (1981), “Dune” (1984), and “Red Sonja” (1985). When “Convoy Buddies” was released and Smith saw that he was credited as “Bob Spencer,” he sued Edward L. Montoro, the owner and director of Film Ventures International, alleging that the distributor was legally obligated to use his real name on the film. I’d love to see a movie based on that court case.

In “Convoy Buddies,” petty thieves Toby and Butch assess their slim pickings from recent shoplifting and pickpocketing. The only item worth anything is a commercial driver’s license, and even that turns out to be a disappointment at first. When Toby attempts to sell it to one man after another in an employment line, no one wants it. Then they’re approached by a stranger who offers them a job driving a cargo of pesticides from Italy to France. They accept the gig, not realising the truck contains guns, not pesticides, for delivery to Renard, a gangster in Marseilles. When they reach their destination after evading a crew hired by a rival boss to hijack the truck, Renard keeps them on the payroll to shepherd the load of guns by ship to buyers in Dakar, North Africa. Having learned they were duped into a dangerous assignment the first time around, Toby and Butch decide to turn the tables on Renard in the second assignment.

“Convoy Buddies” runs 82 minutes; the scenes that establish and further the plot occupy about 15 minutes. In a tradition going back to Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops of silent-movie days, the storyline exists simply as the framework on which director “Arthur Pitt” (actually Italian B-movie specialist Giuliano Carmineo, another Spaghetti Western veteran) mounts a barrage of pratfalls, sight gags, and shameless mugging by veteran Italian heavies Dominic Barto, Mario Brega, Tony Norton, and Nello Pazzafini. The chases proceed from the ineptitude of the bad guys pursuing Toby and Butch’s truck, and brawls from the inevitability that when another burly character like Brega or Pazzafini appears in the story, he and Butch will head-butt each other until Butch’s harder skull prevails. Many of the gags rely on predictability, another basic element of farce that probably goes back to the Stone Age. When Toby observes, as he and Butch cross over an empty railroad track, “It’s strange we haven’t seen a train since we entered France,” you know what will follow as sure as Moe will poke Larry and Curly in the eyes in a Three Stooges short. As the pursuing gangsters reach the track, their car stalls halfway across. A speeding train bears down on them, the car is sliced in two, and they spend the rest of the chase driving the truncated front end. In a confrontation with a gangster wearing a patch over one eye, Toby moves so fast (thanks to an under-cranked camera) that he repeatedly moves the patch from one of his opponent’s eyes to the other before the gangster can respond to the indignity. Terence Hill used a similar routine in his Spaghetti Westerns, only there the prop was a six-gun that Hill repeatedly drew from his opponent’s holster and repeatedly put back faster than the other guy could move.

Many and perhaps most fans of Hill and Spencer deride the Coby/Smith movies as opportunistic knock-offs, but others (like me) concede that the two imitators have their own charm. The slapstick is likely to amuse five-year-olds and maybe even older kids and adults who laugh at similar wackiness in the Pink Panther and Dumb and Dumber farces. These days, as politicians and social-media influencers do their best to unsettle and infuriate us on a regular basis, a little silly comedy feels good. Beware, though, the movie’s bouncy tune, “On Our Way,” which plays over the opening and closing credits and periodically over the frantic chases. Once heard, it will stick in your mind long after you’ve forgotten the rest of the movie.

“Convoy Buddies” streams for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video in a good, widescreen print under the original Italian title, Simone e Matteo—Un gioco da ragazzi, although it appears as “Convoy Buddies” on the Prime search engine. The voice track is the original Italian track, but English-language subtitles are provided. As “Kid Stuff,” it can be accessed on YouTube with ads in a slightly cropped version, also with the Italian-language voice track, but the subtitles there are in Italian, not English. That’s not a problem in watching the slapstick melees, but the verbal humor (for example, when innocent remarks by Toby and Butch are misheard as insults by guys in another passing truck) is lost in non-translation for us viewers who don’t speak or read Italian.

(Fred Blosser is the author of "Focus on the Spaghetti Western #1:The Films of Tony Kendall". Click here to order from Amazon.)

By Ernie Magnotta

The recent passing of karate champion and action movie icon Chuck Norris had me thinking back—way back—to 1982. I was only 13-years-old and while I was watching television I saw a TV spot for a new movie titled Silent Rage. “What the hell is Silent Rage”, I asked myself. Well, the commercial showed some nutcase in a silver jumpsuit running rampant, killing everyone in sight including people who were at what looked to be a hospital. I was already an enormous fan of both Halloween (1978), 1981’s Halloween II (which not only featured a jumpsuit-wearing killer, but also contained a hospital massacre) and the entire slasher movie cycle. Silent Rage seemed to be another in an already long line of rip-offs, but if that wasn’t enough to hook me (which it was), there was also a Frankenstein-like element and, most of all, this flick contained none other than high-kickin’, tough-as-nails Chuck Norris! “What?”, I screamed to no one in particular.

By this time, I was already a Norris fan. On HBO, I had seen 1980’s The Octagon, an exciting action film in which Norris teamed with Lee Van Cleef to stop a group of deadly terrorists trained in the ancient style of the ninja. I also caught 1981’s An Eye for an Eye which culminated in a thrilling fight between Chuck and former pro wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka. The extremely fun film had a James Bond-like feel to it, featured Christopher Lee and Richard Roundtree, and instantly became one of my favorites. Another fave was 1979’s A Force of One in which Norris, acting alongside Jennifer O’Neill, Clu Gulager and Ron O’Neal, pretty much played himself—a karate champ. The difference here is that he helps the cops stop a drug dealing killer who is also a skilled martial artist.

I saw Chuck’s enjoyable 1977 CB trucker flick Breaker! Breaker! (his first starring role) on channel 11 here in New York and I vividly remember my friends and I renting VHS copies of the political action thriller Good Guys Wear Black (1979) which Chuck considered to be his breakthrough film (look for the amazing karate-kick-thru-car-windshield scene), 1974’s Yellow Faced Tiger aka Slaughter in San Francisco; a Hong Kong made martial arts film with Chuck playing the lead villain, and of course, the immortal Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon (1972) in which Norris appeared as a hired killer and battled Lee at the Roman Colosseum in the iconic finale.

Needless to say, I was not only a Norris fan, but he was quickly becoming one of my onscreen heroes. So, by the time I saw the Silent Rage TV spot and heard the awesome tagline “Science created him. Now Chuck Norris must destroy him”, I was psyched beyond belief. It didn’t matter what else was going on in the world at the time, seeing Silent Rage was this 13-year-old’s top priority. And yes, I loved it. It’s basically Chuck versus Michael Myers. Is it great? No. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun and I still enjoy it to this day (even though Chuck wasn’t a huge fan of it). But this was the film (along with A Force of One and An Eye for an Eye) that really made me realize how much I loved Chuck Norris movies. That same year, Norris showed up in the martial arts thriller Forced Vengeance for MGM, and in 1983 he starred in Lone Wolf McQuade, a sort of spaghetti western/karate film in which he battles David Carradine of Kung Fu fame. I remember the excitement at the time because we all couldn’t wait to see which martial arts master would win. (Carradine played the villain so it wasn’t difficult to figure out, but we were young.) This was also the first time Chuck sported a beard, something which would pretty much become his trademark from then on.

Born Carlos Ray Norris in Oklahoma in 1940, Chuck served in the United States Air Force and held black belts in Karate, Judo, Taekwondo, Tang Soo Do and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He later became a martial arts teacher and instructed several high profile celebrities including the great Steve McQueen. It was McQueen who advised him to seriously get into acting and up until Lone Wolf McQuade, Norris’ movies had relied heavily on his karate expertise. However, he really wanted to move into pure action films and leave his roots behind. He never truly did as all of his later movies feature him doing some sort of martial art. However, this was toned down quite a bit and action became more prominent.

In 1984, Norris signed a multiple picture deal with Cannon Films. He would eventually make ten movies with Cannon, the first being the Rambo-esque Missing in Action. This film, which sees Chuck as Colonel James Braddock heading back to Vietnam in order to rescue American POWs was the beginning of the martial arts champion-turned actor moving more into pure action movie territory. Chuck made two sequels, one in 1985 and the other in 1988, and he dedicated the series to his younger brother Wieland who was tragically killed in 1970 while serving in Vietnam.

If there is one film which can be pointed to as changing the game for Norris’ career it would have to be the 1985 action thriller Code of Silence. Directed by Andrew Davis, Code was originally written as a Dirty Harry sequel. When Clint Eastwood and Warner Bros. passed on it (and made the third sequel titled Sudden Impact), the script was offered to many top stars of the day until finally reaching Norris. Not only was Code of Silence a very well done and gritty action/cop picture, it is considered Chuck’s best film. He was very proud of it and once said that it legitimized his career and helped him to reach a broader audience.

From this point on, Norris would become an action icon and he stood tall with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Bruce Lee. Like those similar action movie giants, he knew why audiences wanted to see him and he rarely deviated from playing the hero. Like Arnold, Chuck regularly promoted the benefits of physical fitness. And just like Bruce Lee, when it came to martial arts skill, Norris was the real deal.

Throughout the rest of his amazing career, he would continue to star in a slew of action films including Invasion U.S.A. (1985), The Delta Force (1986), and Hero and the Terror (1988). Just to name a few. (Several of his later films were directed by his talented brother Aaron Norris.) In addition to this, Norris was featured in a 1986 animated show titled Karate Kommandos, and also appeared in comic books and video games. In 1993, Chuck became a television star, headlining the popular series Walker, Texas Ranger (which was inspired by his film Lone Wolf McQuade). It ran for nine seasons on CBS. He also became a best-selling author of many books including martial art and self-help books as well as being the spokesperson for Total Gym fitness equipment. In 2005, a seemingly endless supply of hysterical internet memes were created which hilariously exaggerated his tough guy persona. Norris also created two martial art systems: American Tang Soo Do and the Chuck Norris System. Last, but certainly not least, he was a great philanthropist who promoted and supported several important causes including many for children.

I considered Norris a hero for many reasons. Yes, his movies were extremely entertaining and yes, he almost always played the hero which I loved, but also, off-screen, I heard wonderful things such as him not accepting certain negative roles because he was always thinking about the young fans who looked up to him. And again, his selfless philanthropy; especially to help children and his promotion of health and fitness. I never met the man himself, but I knew a few people who had and they all said the same thing; Chuck Norris was a kind gentleman. I have heard that some of his political beliefs were a bit controversial, but to be honest I never really knew much about that. What I have heard, I can’t say I agree with, but that isn’t the reason for this article. It’s for the reasons I just mentioned that I considered Chuck Norris a hero and that’s why I wanted to pay tribute to him. He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten. Norris will live on in his entertaining work, in the many people he inspired, and in his five children and thirteen grandchildren. Rest in peace.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Cult Epics. 

Cult Epics presents Tinto Brass’S  first erotic film

THE KEY

World Premiere on 4K UHD+Blu-ray

+ North American premiere on Blu-ray

March 24th, 2026

Los Angeles, CA (March, 2026)

Cult Epics presents the World premiere 4K UHD release of Tinto Brass, THE KEY, the erotic arthouse classic, completely newly restored on 4K UHD+Blu-ray March 24th, 2026.

Synopsis

Art professor Nino (Frank Finlay) feels he can no longer satisfy his younger, passionate wife Teresa (Stefania Sandrelli) the way she desires. He articulates his innermost thoughts and sexual fantasies in a diary, including the secret wish to see his daughter’s fiancé’s Laszlo (Franco Branciaroli) make love to Teresa. Nino leaves the key to the drawer, containing the diary, out for his wife to find.

The Key is based on the Japanese novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, but set in Venice, in the year 1940 during World War II. The Key is Tinto Brass’ his erotic masterpiece featuring a seductive score by Ennio Morricone. This is regarded worldwide as one of the best erotic arthouse movies ever made.

THE KEY 4K UHD+Blu-ray / Blu-ray

Price:              $49.95 / $34.95

Street Date:          March 24, 2026

Production Year: 1983

Country: Italy

Video run time:         Approx. 112 Mins

Language: English & Italian language w/optional English subtitles

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

Audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono

Label: Cult Epics

Distributor: MVD Entertainment Group

Blu-ray/DVD Cat.no. CE234 / CE235

BD/DVD UP 881190023495 / 881190023594

Rating:                         Not Rated

Region: Free

SPECIAL FEATURES

4K Transfer (from the original camera negative & Restoration + HDR

Audio Commentary by film historians Eugenio Ercolani & Marcus Stiglegger

Brass’ Talisman - An Interview with actor Franco Branciaroli

Keyhole Venice - A look at the Venetian locations of the film

Sensuous Morricone - A special on Ennio Morricone and Tinto Brass

Isolated Score by Ennio Morricone

Archival Interview with Tinto Brass (2001)

Outtakes of The Key: Venice

The Key Poster Gallery

Tinto Brass Photo Gallery

Tinto Brass 4K Trailers

Includes:

Slipcase

Reversible Sleeve w/Original Italian Poster Art

20-Page illustrated Booklet w/Essay by Eugenio Ercolani

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“A HITCH POTPOURRI”

By Raymond Benson

The “Imprint” imprint of Australia’s ViaVision company is rapidly becoming a major player in home video releases in Europe and America, seeing that most of their releases are region free. They’re pricey, especially with shipping costs added on, but for connoisseurs of Blu-ray titles that might be hard to get in the West, Imprint is totally worth it.

The company has lately been releasing Alfred Hitchcock box sets, including a now-rare out of print Hitchcock Nine set of his British silent pictures (including the first-time Blu-ray release of The Pleasure Garden, Hitch’s first film)… but good luck finding that second-hand for a decent price.

Front and center here is The Early Years, Volume 2, a lovely package that contains four of the filmmaker’s upper tier movies, three of which are easily some of the best of his British titles.

First up: Sabotage (1936), a welcome release since it has not appeared on Blu-ray in the USA. It’s a suspenseful tale of a saboteur (Oscar Homolka) in London who is working for an unnamed European power. Tragedy occurs when a bomb he is supposed to deliver gets in the hands of the younger brother of his wife (Sylvia Sidney). While some consider the picture flawed due to the shocking death of a child, it’s actually a realistically contemporary scenario when one considers when the film was originally released.

Next: Young and Innocent (1937), again most welcome in America, where the title has never been released on Blu-ray. Another engaging murder mystery-thriller in which a young man (Derrick De Marney) discovers a dead woman on a beach and runs to get help—but he is seen and mistakenly suspected of being the killer. The daughter of the village police chief (Nova Pilbeam) unwittingly takes a liking to him and deep down believes his innocence. She aids his escape and search for the real killer. The film is fast moving and exciting, and save for an unfortunate scene in which white musicians perform in blackface (but remember, this was Britain in 1937!), the picture definitely falls in the “underrated Hitchcock” list.

Third: The Lady Vanishes (1938), one of the Master of Suspense’s greatest works. It was Vanishes that convinced producer David O. Selznick to bring Hitchcock to Hollywood. A kind old lady (Dame May Whitty) disappears during a long train journey and a young woman who befriended her (Margaret Lockwood) is the only person on board to believes the lady was even there. Eventually she convinces a musician (Michael Redgrave) that something is afoot… and of course the plot turns into one of the most engaging spy stories Hitchcock ever made. Also with Paul Lukas, Cecil Parker, and what became the popular duo of “Charters and Caldicott” (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, respectively). Great fun, terrific storytelling.

Fourth: Oddly, the set skips over two movies to Hitch’s second Hollywood picture, Foreign Correspondent (1940), another title that is easily one of the director’s better American films in the 40s. In fact, it was nominated for the Oscar Best Picture in competition with Hitch’s own Rebecca (which won). Frankly, this reviewer prefers Correspondent! James Bond author Ian Fleming reportedly was a fan of this picture, likely because the plot involves a journalist (American actor Joel McCrea) on assignment in Europe covering the “winds of war” that are brewing… and wouldn’t you know it? He uncovers a dastardly spy plot of the Nazi enemies. A prescient motion picture for its time. Also starring Laraine Day as the love interest, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, and Albert Basserman, who was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar. Contains the classic “sea of black umbrellas in the rain” sequence!

One of the key ingredients in Hitchcock’s films (and it’s true here of title 2, 3, and 4) is that without the crime or thriller plot, we would be left with a screwball comedy starring a mismatched couple. The two leads in the latter three films bicker, fight, and fall in love just like the screwball comedy heroes and heroines by Capra, Hawks, and others (and this is true of such Hitch films as The 39 Steps, Saboteur, Spellbound, and more.). Thus, mixed in with the suspense and chills are comedy and romance. A winning formula.

The transfers of these four titles are about as good as you can get. (Should you get rid of your Criterion Blu-ray disks of Vanishes and Correspondent?—Well, there are completely different supplements, for the most part, on those disks… but the image quality is just as exquisite.)

The supplements abound on each disk, a virtual cornucopia of material that will take hours to get through. Three films sport one or two audio commentaries:

Sabotage: 1) by writers and film experts Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw (recorded 2025) that delve into the very Britishness of the picture; 2) by author/film scholar Leonard Leff, who presents a more accessible track in terms of film history.

Young and Innocent: 1) by writers and film experts Kim Newman and Jo Botting (recorded 2025) which takes on many aspects and background of the picture; 2) by authors Steve Rebello and Bill Krohn, who provide an American viewpoint on the proceedings.

The Lady Vanishes: by professor and film scholar Jason Ney (recorded 2025), which is just as thorough as any existing commentary for this title.

Besides the commentaries, the supplements number up to seven or eight features and featurettes on each disk, too many to list and describe here… But one very welcome supplement on The Lady Vanishes disk is Hitch’s complete 1934 film Waltzes from Vienna (in standard definition), which is unavailable in the United States in any form. There are some supplements that are port-overs from previous releases by other labels, such as the 1944 radio adaptation of Foreign Correspondent starring Joseph Cotten, but most are newly created pieces featuring learned film historians talking about each picture, style montage studies, documentaries, image galleries, trailers, and more.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Early Years, Volume 2 is a must-have for collectors of the master’s movies—these are top-notch high definition transfers with a trove of extras. Recommended.

Click here to order.

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter for your local currency.)

“LOVE AND ANGST—FRENCH STYLE”

By Raymond Benson

Note: Much of this review was written for an earlier Kino Lorber release of the film and posted here in 2019. A new 2-disk set has just been issued from Kino Lorber with one 4K/UHD disk, and the second disk the original Blu-ray transfer from 2019 plus supplements. This review refers to the Blu-ray disk.

One of the most acclaimed films from France in the late 1930s was Port of Shadows (Le quai des brumes), which was among Marcel Carné’s earliest pictures (he is probably best known to Western audiences for his 1945 masterpiece, Children of Paradise). Port was the recipient of the Prix Louis-Delluc, then the equivalent of the “Best Picture” award in its native country.

The film stars the great Jean Gabin in a quintessential role as Jean, an army deserter who wanders penniless into the port city of Le Havre and soon becomes entangled in a conflict between a beautiful young woman, Nelly (the luminous Michèle Morgan), a group of petty gangsters, and Nelly’s creepy guardian, Zabel (Michel Simon). Zabel wants to sleep with Nelly, who finds her godfather disgusting, the gangsters want to kill Zabel for some offence he has committed, and Jean just wants peace and quiet and a meal. Nevertheless, Jean and Nelly quickly fall in love. Much angst is displayed, the gangsters frame Jean for a murder, and our central characters find themselves in an existential crisis.

The picture is billed as a “crime drama,” although in truth it’s more of a melodrama with some shady characters on the periphery who are up to no good. The main focus is on the burgeoning relationship between Jean and Nelly, and apparently this was hot stuff in 1938. The French censors ended up chopping up the movie—especially the sequence in which Jean and Nelly spend the night in a hotel room (shocking!)—and it wasn’t restored to its original form until years later. Some critics have called Port of Shadows an early film noir, but again, the romance takes too much of a center stage in the story for the picture to be thus labeled.

Carné’s direction of Jacques Prévert’s script (based on Pierre Mac Orlan’s novel) is in the style of what was called “poetic realism,” in that the proceedings are not quite as naturalistic as what was achieved later with Italian Neo-Realism, but the soft focus, the moody night scenes, and the fog that envelopes the port city combine to create an impressionistic, painterly pragmatism that is indeed realistic, but lyrical as well. It’s good stuff, especially the tangible chemistry between Gabin and Morgan.

Kino Lorber Classics presents a restored 1920x1080p transfer that looks exquisite. It’s in French, of course, with optional English subtitles. There is a new audio commentary (which was not on the earlier release) by film critic and author Simon Abrams, who talks very, very fast! He piles tons of information about the pre-production and history of the film just in the first five minutes of commentary. That said, Abrams provides an insightful exploration into French the poetic realism movement and the title’s place in French cinema history. Supplements are the same from the previous release: a video introduction by professor and film critic Ginette Vincendeau; a substantial documentary of the film’s making, On the Port of the Shadows; and the theatrical trailer.

Devotees of French cinema and film history will want to pick up this one. It’s also not a bad date movie.

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“A REINCARNATION WHODUNIT”

By Raymond Benson

In the early 1990s, director/actor Kenneth Branagh was on a roll. Coming off the spectacular success of Henry V (1989), Branagh tried something completely different for his next film, a neo-noir murder mystery called Dead Again. An original script written by Scott Frank, the story deals with a murder that took place in the past, and how it is somehow destined to be repeated within the souls of entirely different people in the present day (in 1991, that is).

The picture stars Branagh and (then) wife Emma Thompson, the cast includes Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi, Hanna Schygulla, Wayne Knight, and Robin Williams, and it was shot in Hollywood for Paramount.

Dead Again was a modest success with decent critical reviews. The biggest thing it had going for it was Emma Thompson, who, like Branagh, was just becoming known to cinema audiences. While Thompson was also in Henry V, it was the new movie that catapulted her into something of a breakthrough (and the following year she would receive an Oscar for Howards End).

In the late 1940s, a composer named Roman Strauss (played by Branagh) was convicted of murdering his wife, Margaret (played by Thompson). Years later, in the present, private detective Mike Church (also Branagh) is investigating a case of a woman who mysteriously appears at an orphanage with no memory of who she is and where she came from (also Thompson). Church sets out to solve this mystery, unwittingly ending up with the woman (whom he calls “Grace” for the heck of it) staying with him at his home. Of course, they fall in love. A hypnotist and antiques dealer, Franklyn Madson (Jacobi), a disenfranchised psychiatrist, Cozy Carlisle (Williams), and a reporter/photographer, Pete (Knight), all pitch in to help solve the puzzle. Through hypnotism, Madson figures out that “Grace” is channeling the Strauss murder and that her identity is somehow tied in with that situation. With clues provided by the three helpers plus Baker (Garcia), a reporter from the Strauss era who is still alive, Inga (Schygulla), the Strauss’ old housekeeper, and the hypnotism “flashbacks” that go into the lives of the Strauss couple, Church learns the truth about the murder and Grace’s identity.

Well, gee. It’s all pretty fanciful, isn’t it? For a neo-noir crime drama, complete with black and white sequences illustrating the past events, one would think that the drama would end up being not about reincarnation after all, as a twist to what’s going on. But metaphysics do play a big role in the plot and the audience is expected to happily go along with it. Is it believable? Hardly. Especially when one considers the true “twist” of the reincarnation roles in the story (it has to do with gender swapping, an even more preposterous notion).

And yet, Branagh’s handling of the material serves to the audience a platter of high melodrama and entertaining nonsense. Most of the actors are all-in and deliver fine performances. Emma Thompson is radiant, she steals every scene she’s in. The character of Mike Church is, unfortunately, a fast-talking, rather annoying fellow, and Branagh pushes this intensity past the limit at times… But perhaps this fits with the heightened tone of the entire piece, which you either accept or don’t.

Kino Lorber presents a beautifully rendered high definition Blu-ray disk with optional English subtitles. There are two weighty audio commentaries. The first, more in-depth one, is by Branagh himself. He goes into many of the technical challenges in making the film as well as how the thing was developed and executed. In one sequence, for example, he points out the back and forth cutting between a location exterior set and an interior studio set that created one scene. The other commentary is by producer Lindsay Doran and screenwriter Scott Frank, who together go into the various aspects of making the movie, Frank’s storyline, and Doran’s dealing with the production and actors. All good stuff. The theatrical trailer for this and other Kino Lorber titles round out the disk.

Dead Again is for fans of Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, the others in the cast, murder mysteries, neo-noir, and speculative tales of “past lives.”

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By Ray Morton 

I first saw the original 1933 King Kong sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, when I was around 7 or 8. I watched it with my Dad on New York’s WOR Channel 9, the Tri-State area’s home for classic monster movies. My Dad had seen King Kong for the first time when he was a young teen, during it's 1942 re-release on a double bill with Gunga Din. He had loved it and had a hunch I would love it as well. His hunch was correct -- I was captivated by the film: by its mythic story, its eerie black & white atmosphere, it’s stunning visual effects, its powerful score, its dinosaurs, and by the massive, powerful, terrifying, and ultimately tragic figure of Kong himself. After that first viewing, I rewatched the film every time it was on, including every Thanksgiving when WOR would broadcast it on a triple bill with The Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young.

The early 1970s was a great time to be a Kong fan. In addition to its frequent television showings, the original film had become a staple in revival theaters, many of which screened a version featuring scenes that had been censored prior to the 1938 re-release and only recently restored. The two Japanese Kong films of the 1960s – King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962) and King Kong Escapes (1967) – were in heavy rotation on local television stations, as were reruns of the 1960s Saturday morning cartoon series The King Kong Show. There was a great deal of Kong merchandise in stores: toys, games, posters, record albums, and most prominently, two model kits produced by the Aurora Plastics Corporation. The giant gorilla was also featured in numerous print and television advertisements and was a prominent subject in two books aimed at young readers -- Thomas G. Aylesworth’s Monsters of the Movies and Favius Friedman’s Great Horror Movies. Early 1975 saw the publication of The Making of King Kong, George E. Turner and Orville Goldner’s excellent, essential tome about the production of the original picture. I was there and in for all of it.

Kongmania, the world’s and mine, went into overdrive at the end of 1975, when both Universal Pictures and producer Dino De Laurentiis announced they had secured the rights to remake King Kong from RKO, the studio that produced the original. These dual announcements marked the beginning of a protracted legal battle that De Laurentiis would ultimately win. His movie began shooting in January 1976 and I followed every step of the film’s production with great interest and enthusiasm. On opening day – December 17, 1976 – I was first in line at the Ridgeway Theater in Stamford, CT and, after waiting for many hours in the freezing cold, was finally able to see the movie I had been eagerly anticipating for almost a year. I wasn’t disappointed – then and now I consider the De Laurentiis King Kong to be a worthy companion piece to the original and a movie that added a great deal to the Kong mythos.

Kongmania settled down after that, but I never lost my interest in the big ape. Years later, when I was working at Paramount, I met some folks who worked on the 1976 version and they told me some things about the making of that film I hadn’t heard before. That gave me the idea to write an in-depth book on the production (there has been a paperback “making of” published at the time of the film’s release, but it was far from comprehensive). To that end, I began interviewing the makers of Kong 76, starting with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and continuing with cinematographer Richard H. Kline (who became a good friend), star Jeff Bridges, and Kong co-creator and performer Rick Baker, among many others. As I worked on the project, I realized it was impossible to write about any one Kong movie without putting it into the context of the overall history of the character and so I eventually decided to expanded my concept to encompass the entire Kong phenomenon – to do a book on all of the films, publications, tv shows, and merchandise, as well as the character’s place in and influence on the pop culture firmament.

At this point – the early 2000s -- the project was hobby: I was conducting interviews and compiling the research in my spare time, intending to actually write the book and look for a publisher “someday.” The 2004 announcement that Peter Jackson was going to produce another remake of King Kong turned “someday” into “right now!” The coming of Jackson’s film created a great interest in publishers for books on the Eighth Wonder and, aware of my project, an author friend referred me to agent June Clark, who made a deal with Applause Theatre & Film Books for me to write my book. The deal was made at the end of 2004 and the only catch was the manuscript had to be completed by the end of April 2005, so the book could be put through the production process in time for it to reach the marketplace concurrent with the release of Jackson’s film in December 2005. This meant I only had five months to pen an extensive account of Kong’s (then) 73-year, six-film history. It was an intensive effort, during which I worked pretty much around-the-clock, surviving on junk food and very little sleep as I continued to do research, conduct interviews and wrote, wrote, wrote. I got the job done and the book came out at the end of November 2005. It was well-received by critics and readers, for which I was and remain profoundly grateful.

By Hank Reineke

The Flesh & Blood Show has been described, not unreasonably, as a “proto-slasher” or lurid horror film. But, at its heart, director Pete Walker’s opus is primarily a serial-murder mystery with dashes of blood. Truthfully, The Flesh & Blood Show in some ways mimics a Scooby Doo mystery – minus the explicit female nudity, of course. The identity of the murderer, once unmasked, is revealed through a calculated entrapment by the same young folks targeted as potential victims… ala the aforementioned Mystery Machine gang.

The scenario is this: a contingent of actors and theatre techs are mysteriously summoned to the aged Dome Theatre. The Dome is a once historic, now rundown and long closed, venue sitting on the far end of a pier in the seaside resort town of East Cliff, England. An organization named “Theater Group 40” have invited the troupe – mostly young talent unfamiliar to each other – to band together for a proposed stage production titled “The Flesh & Blood Show.” “Theatre Group 40” promises the program will enjoy an eventual residency on London’s West End. Upon the arrival of the shaggy-haired talent, stage manager Mike Archer (Ray Brooks) greets the hopefuls with the prescient declaration, “Welcome to the Morgue.” Among those late to arrive is the lovely Julia Dawson (Jenny Hadley).

Arriving, the cast discovers there’s no empty hotel beds in East Cliff to board at. (This is certainly improbable as its desolate mid-winter and East Cliff is supposedly a summer resort). In any case, it’s decided everybody in this randy, promiscuous group will simply “shack down in the theatre.” As far as I can tell, no one gets much sleep. The cast’s days and nights are filled to the brim with rehearsals, sexual encounters, petty jealousies, police involvements, gruesome murders, suspicions, accusations and investigations. The cast makes little contact with anyone outside of their circle. The one exception is the aged (if somewhat pervy) Major Bell (Patrick Barr). Bell, we learn, was once a star of Othello, Shakespeare’s famous play of tragedy, jealousy and unfaithfulness – all themes revisited in The Flesh & Blood Show.

It’s not long before the ensemble’s rehearsals are hampered when members go missing or are found dead. There’s someone – or something – lurking in the cramped passageways under the old stage. It’s a creepy corridor, for sure. Along with the sounds of screams in the night, there’s a working guillotine, waxwork figures, a couple of tethered human skeletons and an assortment of other macabre theatrical oddities warehoused in the shadows. As colleagues start disappearing or are found murdered, the troupe needs to sort out, as if their lives depended on it, who are the producers behind the mysterious – and still absent - “Theater Group 40?”

So that’s the set-up. As Pete Walker was very much an outlier in the British film industry, there’s not a lot of production data or trade notices on this evolving production. There was a decision to shoot a portion of the film in 3D, an optical novelty that had become somewhat passé by 1972. Actually, due to the expense of shooting in that process, only the last ten or so minutes of The Flesh & Blood Show were photographed in 3-D. Those sequences, to be totally honest, are neither memorable nor inventive in execution.

Walker later admitted the 3-D ending was simply a gimmick: one largely missed even by those attending the screenings. As most of the film was not shot in 3D, audiences tended to forget the 3-D glasses they were given upon entry were necessary to watch the film’s final minutes. When The Flesh & Blood Show hurtled to its dramatic climax, attendees scrambled in the dark trying to recall where they put their specs. Walker conceded the use of 3-D was simply an exploitative device to bring people into the cinema. But with the British film industry in crisis in the early 1970s - and not terribly encouraging or supportive of such mavericks as Walker - one did what one had to do to put bums in seats.

In a 2014 accompanying twelve-minute on-screen reminiscence – Flesh, Blood and Censorship: an interview with Pete Walker, the producer-director offers to Elijah Drenner he was mostly disinterested in the Gothic costumed horrors of Hammer Films. He was more interested in producing “contemporary thrillers” or “terror films,” pictures that featured scenes of explicit violence and nudity well-beyond that offered by Hammer’s bloodletting and cleavaged lovelies. (I should also mention here that Walker’s interview on this Kino Cult release is not new. It has been ported over from the Redemption’s Blu-ray release of March 18, 2014).

As the film was created mostly for a UK market, Walker admitted to being purposeful in his interest to “rattle cages” of the British Board of Film Censors. He was successful in that desire. The film was allotted an X-Certificate, allowing no patrons under the age of eighteen to be admitted. Fair enough, but while the film does feature moments of on-screen violence, it’s really the endless parade of on-screen female nudity that one can’t help notice… and one doesn’t need to wait long for this particular parade to start rolling.

Within the pic’s first few minutes a woman crawls from the bed she shares with another buxom lovely. She’s not restless, but has chosen to answer, completely nude, a late-night call at her apartment door. Perhaps the film’s budget didn’t allow for a robe or pajamas. I can’t say. But given Walker’s past history of producing sexploitation-comedies, one assumes this nude portal greeting was completely intentional. There is no shortage of bums and breasts on display in The Flesh & Blood Show. The indiscriminate hook-ups and fondling’s are both hetero and lesbian. In his sit-down with Drenner, Walker admits The Flesh & Blood Show perhaps offered “too much sex content,” but “the way it was in ’72.” Perhaps. I was only nine-years-old in 1972 so I’ll have to take his word for it… but, boy, what a time that must have been.

It’s of interest that in the two additional “Special Features,” two members of the cast recall their uneasiness with the film’s nude sequences. Actress Jenny Hanley recalls telling Walker prior to signing on she was not willing to do any nude or semi-nude scenes. She was steadfast in this demand, having earlier told Bond producer Harry Saltzman - during the casting of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - “I want to be an actress. I don’t want to be a stripper.” So she admitted to feeling “betrayed” by Walker.

As she watched The Flesh and Blood Show for the first at a local theatre, she discovered he had had inserted shots of a body-double during her undressing scene, the stand-in’s bottom and boobs freely on display. Hanley was so upset that she chose to take the matter up with Equity, demanding the filmmakers add a “Julia Dawson” “body double” notice to the film’s credit roll. (I doubt such a suffix was ever affixed. The film boasts no end credits). As for the film itself, Hanley thought the film had a “cheap” sheen despite the good cast assembled. The actress also wasn’t thrilled with the film’s moniker, thinking a less exploitative title might have allowed the pic to be treated with a modicum of respect.

In a separate interview of 2018, actor Stewart Bevan (“Harry Mulligan”) also made note of his uneasiness of the nudity on set. As he had been tasked to appear in the buff astride an equally nude actress, he suffered from both nervousness and the frigid cold. As the film was shot in mid-winter, the actor mostly recalled standing naked in the chilly temps, watching the sea rage beneath him via separated floorboards of the stage. He found these purposeful titillating inserted moments – at least as staged – to be both “unsensual” and “unsexy.” A few years later Bevan would work again with Walker on The Confessional (1976), the director’s controversial Catholic slasher film. Bevan recalls his pondering why Walker had chosen to kill him off in two separate films set years apart. He hoped it was nothing personal.

The following press release pertains to the forthcoming release of "Zulu Dawn" on 4K UHD format. This is a Region Free edition.

Screen legends Burt Lancaster (GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL), Peter O’Toole (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA), Simon Ward (THE THREE MUSKETEERS) and Bob Hoskins (THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY) lead an all-star cast in this “fascinating and awesome” (DVD Talk) prequel to the 1964 classic ZULU.

In January 1879, officials of the British colony of Natal, Africa issued a list of ultimatums to the Zulu Nation. When the Zulu King refused, the Empire declared war. And in a series of grave tactical blunders, a garrison of 1,500 British soldiers faced 25,000 enraged Zulu warriors in what would become the most horrific disaster in British military history.

Nigel Davenport (CHARIOTS OF FIRE), Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) and Simon Sabela (SHAKA ZULU) co-star in this “eye-filling, spectacular experience” (Mondo Digital), directed by Douglas Hickox (THEATRE OF BLOOD) from a screenplay by ZULU writer/director Cy Endfield, now scanned in 4K from the interpositive with 6+ hours of new and archival Special Features, plus an exclusive 100 page book, poster and art cards.

SPECIAL FEATURES

·    EXCLUSIVE: 100-Page Collectors Book With New Articles By Ian Knight And Film Historian Simon Lewis

·    EXCLUSIVE: 6 Collectors’ Art Cards

·    EXCLUSIVE: Double-Sided Poster

DISC 1: 4K UHD - ORIGINAL THEATRICAL VERSION (118 mins)

·    Audio Commentary With Anglo-Zulu War Historian Ian Knight And Film Historian Simon Lewis

·    Theatrical Trailer

DISC 2: BLU-RAY – ORIGINAL THEATRICAL VERSION (118 mins)

·    Audio Commentary With Anglo-Zulu War Historian Ian Knight And Film Historian Simon Lewis

·    War Cry of the Zulu – The Making Of ZULU DAWN, A Feature-Length Documentary Narrated By Dai Bradley Featuring Producer Nate Kohn, Co-Producer & Actor James Faulkner And Many More

·    Trailblazer: The Simon Sabela Story – A Documentary On The South African Actor/Director

·    The Saga Of Bob’s Last Stands – Bob Hoskins’ Death Scene

·    The Scene That Never Was – The Eclipse At Isandlwana

·    Theatrical Trailer

DISC 3: BLU-RAY – U.S. THEATRICAL VERSION (98 mins)

·    The Symbol Of Sacrifice (1918) – The 1997 Reconstruction Of The Historical South African Film

·    Saviour Of The Symbol Of Sacrifice – Interview With Mayer Levy, producer of the restoration of The Symbol of Sacrifice

·    The History Of The Zulu Wars – Featurette With Zulu Rising Author Ian Knight

·    Recreating The War – Interview With Historical Advisor Midge Carter

·    A Visit To The Battlefield – Author Ian Knight Visits The Location Of The Battle Of Isandlwana

·    Outtakes

The video will be released on 25 May.

Click here to order.