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8 articles
The Vampire Bat
31 March 2017 8:22 PM, PDT
Another impressive horror restoration! Majestic Pictures pulls together a great cast, including Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill, for a smart gothic horror outing complete with squeaky bats, a flipped-out village idiot (Dwight Frye!), a crazed mad scientist (the worst kind) and a lynch mob with torches that have been hand-tinted in color. Melvyn Douglas is the debonair flatfoot assigned to solve a series of vampire killings.
Blu-ray
The Film Detective
1933 / B&W with part-tinted scene / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / 19.99
Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Maude Eburne, George E. Stone, Dwight Frye, Robert Frazer, Rita Carlyle, Lionel Belmore, William V. Mong, Stella Adams, Harrison Greene.
Cinematography: Ira H. Morgan
Film Editor: Otis Garrett
Written by Edward T. Lowe Jr.
Produced by Phil Goldstone
Directed by Frank Strayer
Hollywood horror was a hot trend in 1932: with the arrival of Frankenstein and Dracula the horror field boomed. »
- Glenn Erickson
The Skull
31 March 2017 8:14 PM, PDT
Peter Cushing! Christopher Lee! Each is at the top of his game, playing competing collectors of occult incunabula — the kind that comes with a satanic curse, when the purloined item in question is the Skull Of The infamous, despicable and sharp-toothed Marquis De Sade! Freddie Francis directs up a storm in this amicable Amicus chiller: the mysterious skull-duggery is beautifully shot and edited, giving the horror scenes real Bite.
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 83 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Peter Cushing, Patrick Wymark, Nigel Green, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Ceorge Couloris, Christopher Lee.
Cinematography: John Wilcox
Art Direction: Bill Constable
Film Editor: Oswald Hafenrichter
Original Music: Elisabeth Lutyens
Written by Milton Subotsky from a story by Robert Bloch
Produced by Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg
Directed by Freddie Francis
Nine years ago Legend Films brought us a DVD of this 1965 horror item, »
- Glenn Erickson
‘How to Succeed’ – Take 2
31 March 2017 8:10 PM, PDT
Not so fast Savant — with the help of correspondent input, DVD Savant presents more information on David Swift’s adaptation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying — correcting and modifying some assumptions in my first review. Don’t worry — it’s good reading.
A Savant article
This is an odd circumstance. I routinely update, modify, correct and de-stupidify DVD Savant reviews, but this time I’m taking a more radical step. In my March 25 coverage of Twilight Time’s Blu-ray of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, I made a big point of the fact that David Swift’s film adaptation had not made many changes. Several songs were dropped, but that would seem the right thing to do considering that the movie wasn’t planned as a Road Show — it’s only 121 minutes in duration and has no break for an intermission. The much missed »
- Glenn Erickson
Angels With Dirty Faces
30 March 2017 10:00 PM, PDT
“C’mon out, Rocky. You haven’t got a chance!” 70 years of parodies haven’t dimmed the luster of this much-beloved Warners gangster saga that pretty much defined the crime movie as we knew it for a generation. Followed by a sequel, Angels Wash Their Faces, and countless programmers featuring the Dead End Kids as The East Side Kids, The Little Tough Guys and‚ The Bowery Boys– 89 movies for three different studios!
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- TFH Team
Invisible Ghost
28 March 2017 12:06 PM, PDT
Bela Lugosi fan alert! This Monogram horror opus is yet another narrative-challenged fumble of unmotivated, incomprehensible characters… but Bela’s great in it, in a central role. He’s a sympathetic, non- maniac this time, if you don’t count his tendency to go into trances and smother random houseguests. Savant’s review has the lowdown on the interesting cast; Tom Weaver’s commentary has the authoritative lowdown on whole show.
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 64 min. / Street Date March 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, Clarence Muse, John McGuire, Betty Compson, Ernie Adams, Terry Walker, George Pembroke .
Cinematography: Harvey Gould, Marcel Le Picard
Film Editor: Robert Golden
Original Music: hahahahah, good one.
Written by Helen Martin & Al Martin
Produced by Sam Katzman
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Horror movie fans come in two varieties, obsessive and dangerously obsessive. Back »
- Glenn Erickson
Julieta
28 March 2017 12:01 PM, PDT
Pedro Almodóvar bounces back with an absorbing saga of a mother and daughter told in an interesting style. A woman feels isolated, powerless, alone and anguished about what has happened in her life. Is any of it her fault? Or is all of it her fault? How do we hold relationships together, or do they fall apart no matter what we do? Highly rewarding dramas still exist; they don’t all go begging for Oscar nominations… just learn to read subtitles and you too can find out how the rest of the world lives.
Blu-ray
2016 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date March 21, 2017 / 30.99
Starring: Adriana Ugarte, Emma Suárez, Michelle Jenner, Darío Grandinetti, Rossy de Palma,Susi Sá Sánchez, Joaquín Notario, Pilar Castro, Tómas del Estal.
Cinematography: Jean-Claude Larrieu
Film Editor: José Salcedo
Original Music: Alberto Iglesias
Written by Pedro Almodóvar based on three short stories by Alice Munro
Produced by Augustín Almodóvar, »
- Glenn Erickson
Peyton Place
28 March 2017 11:54 AM, PDT
The book was raw & dirty, and did you read what that girl did with that guy on page 167? Racking up a stack of Oscar nominations, Peyton Place became one of the big hits of its year, launched the careers of several young actors, and proved that Hollywood could pasteurize most any so-called un-filmable book. Lana Turner is the nominal star but the leading actress is Diane Varsi, in her film debut.
Blu-ray
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 157 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring: Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Arthur Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Philips, Terry Moore, Russ Tamblyn, Betty Field, David Nelson, Leon Ames, Mildred Dunnock.
Cinematography William Mellor
Art Direction Jack Martin Smith, Lyle R. Wheeler
Film Editor David Bretherton
Original Music Franz Waxman
Written by John Michael Hayes from the book by Grace Metalious
Produced by Jerry Wald
Directed by Mark Robson
What’s this, »
- Glenn Erickson
Elle / Blow Up
27 March 2017 4:18 PM, PDT
Blu-ray
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
2017 / Color / 2.40:1 widescreen / Street Date March , 2017
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, Charles Berling.
Cinematography: Stéphane Fontaine
Film Editor: Job Ter Burg
Written by David Birke
Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Michèle Leblanc, glamorous entrepreneur of a successful video game company, is the calm at the center of many storms. Her son’s girlfriend has given birth to another man’s child, an employee is stalking her with anime porn and her botox-ridden mother is betrothed to a male prostitute.
In the face of all this outrageous fortune, Michèle remains cool, calm and collected, even in the aftermath of her own harrowing sexual assault.
Elle, the new film from the Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven, begins with that already infamous assault, our heroine struggling under the weight of her attacker while an unblinking cat perches nearby, watching. »
- Charlie Largent
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