Glenn Erickson's
Review Page and Column
Abandon Ship — 4K UHD 07/25/26
Sony Home Entertainment
4K Ultra HD + Digital
Sony surprises us with another fine 4K upgrade for an unheralded classic in the Columbia library. It’s a shipwreck survival tale that challenges ship’s officer Tyrone Power with a series of impossible decisions. The most important is a heartbreaker: everyone will drown if the 9-person lifeboat continues to carry the 26 people presently clinging to it. To save as many as possible — to save anybody — logic dictates that some must be thrown overboard. What is a responsible ship’s officer to do? Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan, Stephen Boyd, and Moira Lister lead the ensemble of souls at sea in this surprisingly uncompromised thriller. On 4K Ultra HD + Digital from Sony Home Entertainment.
07/25/26
A Man Named Rocca 07/25/26
KL Studio Classics
Blu-ray
This early starring feature for Jean-Paul Belmondo co-stars him with Christine Kaufmann in an episodic crime tale. One friend tries to spring another from prison, while contending with gangsters on his home turf. It’s uneven but has many excellent scenes, especially a midsection filmed in le taule. Also starring Michel Constantine and Béatrice Altariba, and presented in a flawless new restoration. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
07/25/26
CineSavant Column
Hello!
Since everybody’s caught up in Odyssey fever … at least that’s the news says … we looked into the past to remember some older, good versions of the same story.
The Odyssey is of course the sequel to a larger epic about War, The Iliad. We might be re-reviewing the Wolfgang Peterson version of that tale, as there’s a new Arrow disc due in mid August. It starred Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Diane Kruger, etc. Sean Bean plays Ulysses/Odysseus … all I really remember is the camera fussing over Brad Pitt’s hair and costume.
We still favor the old, somewhat stiff 1955 Robert Wise version of The Iliad, with Rossana Podestà, Jacques Sernas, Stanley Baker, Niall MacGinnis and Brigitte Bardot. Good old Torin Thatcher, ‘Sokurah’ himself, plays Ulysses / Odysseus as a crafty, ruthless strategist.
We reviewed one good version of The Odyssey. In one of the first instances of a big Hollywood star working in Italy, Kirk Douglas gave a good accounting of himself in a star-studded Italo epic, in color. From 1954, Ulysses gets good mileage from Sylvana Mangano as both Circe and Penelope. The Cyclops sequence is excellent. Seeing how Ulysses gets involved with more than one woman on his ten-year effort to get home, we can’t help but think that the whole story is an excuse for a straying husband. “She looked just like you, honest!”
We also really enjoyed a version of The Odyssey that hasn’t a big profile, a Hallmark/Zooetrope TV miniseries from 1997, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. It’s a couple of minutes longer than Christopher Nolan’s version. It was shot flat for TV, and has its share of shaky CGI effects, but the story plays extremely well. Armand Assante is Odysseus, and he’s magnificent … his big problem is his ego, and the Gods punish him by continually delaying his return to his home in Ithaca. Greta Scacchi is Penelope, Bernadette Peters is Circe, plus we’ve got Isabella Rossellini, Irene Papas, Vanessa Williams and Geraldine Chaplin in tow. Jeroen Krabbé, Eric Roberts, Nicholas Clay and Christopher Lee carry the name male roles.
I remember my kids being very taken with the Armand Assante version … he was the best actor/hero ‘fit’ since Liam Neeson played Rob Roy.
The old DVD of the ’97 Konchalovsky The Odyssey seems to still be around. It looks like it might be on Prime Video … the flag when I bring it up says ‘included with Prime.’
We don’t often look in the past to re-think this story, but correspondents Jeff Allee and Alan Dezzani tipped us off to an 8 minute discussion (happy rant) on a YouTube page called James Whale Bake Sale: none other than Quentin Tarantino weighs in on Steven Spielberg’s ‘problem picture’ “1941”, the one with the poor reputation.
Did you hear that Mr. Tarantino expresses his opinions with enthusiasm? We’re not surprised that he’d choose 1941 as a title to praise, as he loves nothing better than to give out with interesting, wildly inconsistent reviews. He’s great when he likes a picture we like, as he finds unique ways to give a thumbs up. When we disagree with him, we usually grumble that he thinks movies like Switchblade Sisters are a pinnacle of film art. Well, I liked that one too.
Everything Quentin says about 1941 make perfect sense, but even he seems to be straining for the right words … “it has great things in it,” etc. He judges the movie on the fact that he read Bob Gale’s novelization first. He’s absolutely right in that the big star characters push the show out of shape, letting us lose track of the small-scale story with the original non-stars from I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I still have one of the first scripts, The Night the Japs Attacked, which ‘grew like Topsy.’ John Milius added his guns ‘n’ explosions bits, and then Gale and Zemeckis did constant rewrites and additions as more big stars and more Saturday Night Live and Second City personnel were added. The more the merrier.
We like most everything IN 1941, but by the last act we’ve gone past our tolerance limit for screaming people and explosions. The film might become a terrific editorial experiment: turn the 150 minutes into Ten Serial Chapters, with titles, re-caps and last-gag cliffhangers. Any ten minutes of the movie are exhilarating.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson
Oh! What a Lovely War — Import 07/21/26
Eureka! Masters of Cinema
Region B Blu-ray
Pacifism goes Panavision and color in Richard Attenborough’s first directorial effort, a musical epic of the tragedy of World War One. The mirth and magic — and despair — comes from songs sung in the trenches, that were given alternate, irreverent lyrics by the soldiers themselves. An endless cast of English stars appear, in good roles; the highlight is Maggie Smith’s rousing music hall performance — luring young civilians to ‘take the King’s shilling’ and become one casualty statistic among millions. The movie nullifes a lot of patriotic illusions, and it looks great, newly remastered in HD. On Region B Blu-ray from Eureka! Masters of Cinema.
07/21/26
Walk a Tightrope 07/21/26
KL Studio Classics
Blu-ray
Dan Duryea’s slimy killer fesses up to a cold-blooded killing, but insists that the victim’s wife Patricia Owens hired him to do it! This cheap English production is only fitfully competent but we were fascinated anyway … it provides more context to the story of a big film producer run out of Hollywood by the labor Guilds. The miracle is that the great Dan Duryea comes out of the show with his head held high … even though so little of what happens makes sense. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
07/21/26
CineSavant Column
Hello!
The response to last Saturday’s Sinbad review was positive … the disc is due very soon, so I’d like to hear reactions to it. I’ve personally stayed away from Sinbad for a number of years. When re-watching films that are just too familiar, I tend to free-associate and find myself mentally somewhere else. But this time, it was like watching it anew.
For those in Southern California, and especially Orange County, the new restoration of 7th Voyage is going to be screened at the Frida Cinema, on July 25. It’s an extension of the ‘George Pal’ screenings organized by promoter Arnold Leibovit. Full details are at The Frida Cinema Page. I’d like to hear from any correspondents that attend … to find out how the experience went!
… And … the always-surprising Michael McQuarrie forwarded a link to something I haven’t seen in a long time … a digital copy of the entire 1957 7th Voyage shooting script, by Kenneth Kolb.
It follows the movie fairly closely, most of the time. It’s a good filmmaking / editorial exercise to read along with the movie, noting when dialogue speeches have been dropped or shortened. Did they red-pencil the script on the set, paring down various speeches … or is there editorial evidence (cutaways, truncated lines) suggesting that cuts were made in post production? Also, it’s amusing to see where a fancy effects setup in the script has been replaced with whatever stock shot was available.
A nice touch in the digitized script are pages with thumbnail storyboards … I assume they were put there by Harryhausen, not director Juran.
And we were sent another very good link by Mr. McQuarrie, that coincidentally connects to Ray Harryhausen as well.
It’s a documentary that either has had its titles cut off or is part of a larger film, about the rise and fall of London’s film laboratories, starting in the postwar period. It’s a bit dry and it rambles, but the information looks accurate and the examples it gives are very good — plus the photos and descriptions of lab work are a rare record of the ‘lost art’ of photochemical miracles.
The piece doesn’t have many film clips, but the ones that pop up in the special lab effects section (about 11 minutes in) are 7th Voyage and, because of its excellent traveling mattes, Konga.
‘Lost Art’ is accurate; I’m happy that, at the end of working on Star Trek The Motion Picture, I didn’t take an offer to learn to become an Optical Printer ‘optical lineup’ specialist. Except for labs restoring old films with odd formats, optical printing mostly disappeared just a few years later.
In my Sinbad review I suggested reasons why Ray Harryhausen and Charles Schneer moved their production company to England. The documentary asserts that they moved to be close to English labs that worked with the Sodium Vapor travelling matte process, which saw so much use in Harryhausen’s films.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad — 4K UHD 07/18/26
Sony - Columbia
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital
Harryhausen comes at last to 4K Ultra HD! We hoped that the improved scan would bring out more to see in the master animator’s brightest film, and our initial response is a big Yes. The video remastering people at Sony have done a good job, taking advantage of the newer format’s improvements while retaining the old Technicolor look. That Cyclops is no longer the same dull orange — he jumps out at us even more. The 4K disc is great, but the included Blu-ray is going to disappoint purchasers … On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital from Sony.
07/18/26
Red Sun — 4K UHD 07/18/26
Arrow Video
4K Ultra HD
The creative part of this international genre hybrid was assembling its dynamite all-star cast. The concept is unbeatable: what kid doesn’t want to see Toshiro Mifune as a samurai, fighting to redeem his honor in the Old West? He tangles with outlaws Charles Bronson and Alain Delon, with Honeychile Ryder Ursula Andress thrown in for good measure. It’s almost perfect: all it needed was a good script. Arrow’s punchy 4K remaster improves the color over earlier discs, adding considerable spirit to the proceedings. On 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video.
07/18/26
CineSavant Column
Hello!
We aren’t known as the biggest boosters of Jerry Lewis, but neither do we hold a grudge against him … and we acknowledge his creativity as a director … even though his comedies we like more tend to be by Frank Tashlin.
This reel of outtakes and other odds and ends from Lewis’s The Nutty Professor surfaced the other day … we think they may have been from a WB disc we reviewed years back.
And the reason we feel like posting them is altogether personal — it’s an opportunity to see more of actress Stella Stevens enjoying herself on the set. No big mystery there!
And the newwst CineSavant reviewer Terry Morgan has his own separate TFH review up on his Watching the Dark column … it’s for Evil Dead Burn, described as the latest entry in the longstanding Evil Dead franchise begun by Sam Raimi, back in prehistory when Chris Nolan was carrying a lunch box to grade school.
I shall study Mr. Morgan’s writing style at length … it’s short and sweet, nothing like my own!
Stay cool on these hot days — thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson
Stavisky 07/14/26
Powerhouse Indicator
Blu-ray
Alain Resnais’ historical drama of the notorious l’affaire Stavisky is one of his most accessible movies. Producer-star Jean-Paul Belmondo was fascinated by the story of a swindler who conned half of France in the early 1930s, igniting a scandal that almost brought down the government. His Serge Stavisky projects the charisma of a grand conman, Anny Duperey is his fashion plate muse, and Charles Boyer is the good friend who never realizes the depth of Stavisky’s betrayal. Renais concentrates on beautiful period recreations of a long-gone past. With excellent extras that illuminate the between-the-wars French political context. On Blu-ray from Powerhouse Indicator.
07/14/26
Pretty Maids all in a Row 07/14/26
The Warner Archive Collection
Blu-ray
The movie ratings system experienced a rough beginning. Studios got the notion that America wanted R-rated product, which led to which led to a number of mainstream movies that played like grindhouse smut. A main offender example is Roger Vadim’s unfunny soft-core murder comedy with big stars Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson. With its twisted fantasy of underaged sex, the witless mess gives ‘the Freedom of the Screen’ a bad name. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
07/14/26
CineSavant Column
Hello!
First up is a simple link to a bit of film analysis I liked, from critic David Cairns, July 11, 2026. I’ve been reading about Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity for a long time now, but was surprised that Cairns could put so many great observations and thoughts into such a short space.
Some of his remarks note improvements that Wilder and Chandler made to Cain’s original book.
“Fred MacMurray underplays — Even Humphrey Bogart didn’t underplay before MacMurray.”
“Like many Wilder characters, Neff keeps trying to win by immoral means right up to the third act, then turns noble when he realises he can’t win.”
“And whoever came up with and shot the titles was a bit of a genius too.”
And after my wondering about early TV Sci-fi the other day, we really wanted to see a ‘Space Patrol’ remnant for ourselves. Michael McQuarrie was able to find an episode.
We’re told that the show ran for five years. We like that it gave early work to so many actors: Lee Van Cleef, Robert Shayne, Dorothy Ford, John Larch, William Schallert, Roland Varno, Dabbs Greer, Gloria Saunders, Sally Fraser, Richard Devon. I was looking for Ernest Borgnine on the list, but nah, he was a proud contributor to the ‘other team,’ Captain Video and his Video Rangers.
This episode is pretty glorious, no kidding. It also features Lee Van Cleef and Virginia Hewitt.
Norman Jolley later co-wrote the screenplay for The Monolith Monsters, so penning 77 episode with Commander Corry and Cadet Happy honed his skills.
But wait, here is a much-needed post on the very non-film subject of World Cup Fútbol!
When Argentina played on Saturday, we were ready, with Argentinian Empanadas and Malbec … there’s nothing better.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson
Letty Lynton 07/11/26
The Warner Archive Collection
Blu-ray
This Blu-ray re-premieres a notable Joan Crawford picture that’s been all but unseeable since 1936. It’s romance and murder the way the Rich do it: Crawford’s swank socialite falls in love with the ideal mate played by Robert Montgomery, but she can’t shake a foreign lover who would rather blow up a scandal than give her up. What else are little bottles of poison for? Nils Asther is perfectly slimy as the Uruguayan louse; the dialogue gets thick and flowery but Clarence Brown’s direction is excellent, and Crawford is in control of her performance … too much in control? How often do we get a ‘new’ picture by a golden-era movie star? On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
07/11/26
The Outfit 07/11/26
Arrow Video
Blu-ray
The best film of director John Flynn may be this unpretentious crime saga, a Richard Stark adaptation that makes no wrong moves across a hundred minutes of tense mob banditry. Robert Duvall is out of prison and looking to punish the syndicate. Aided by gunman Joe Don Baker and getaway driver Karen Black, he gets payback by following the time-honored Tony Camonte principle: Do It First, Do It Hard, and Keep on Doing It. Cinematic nostalgia provides added appeal … a gallery of supporting parts is cast with familiar faces from classic films noir: Marie Windsor! Jane Greer! On Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
07/11/26
CineSavant Column
Hello!
It’s not difficult to get our attention about anything related to the upcoming genre restorations due soon on disc: Arrow’s Soylent Green and Forbidden Planet, Criterion’s The Elephant Man, Severin’s The War Game, Threads and Danza Macabra 5, Vinegar Syndrome’s Explorers, Radiance’s The Saragossa Manuscript.
The new Hammer people turned our heads the other day with this teaser for their new 4K remaster of the classic 1958 Dracula, known to us as Horror of Dracula. But some things never change. The teaser’s demo setup doesn’t compare their new color scheme with a previous transfer; it instead gives us what appears to be a raw scan of the movie, which of course looks nothing like a final colorized encoding.
We don’t mind too much. We will likely love whatever we get, if Hammer’s promised uncut / uncensored / remastered version comes through. If it turns out closer to the Technicolor prints we knew and loved in U.S. screenings, all the better.
And then there’s the great disc news for August from The Warner Archive Collection, at least as concerns fans of classic WB & MGM pix. As promised, the label’s monthly output has increased quite a bit. The list spreads a wide net but scores with Golden Age titles with name stars.
Montana with Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith
Torrid Zone with James Cagney, Pat O’Brien and Ann Sheridan
All Through the Night with Humphrey Bogart + William Demarest, Jackie Gleason & Phil Silvers
The Human Comedy with Mickey Rooney and Van Johnson
Broadway Melody of 1938 with Eleanor Powell and Robert Taylor
Then we have the two John Ford pictures,
Sergeant Rutledge with Woody Strode and Jeffrey Hunter
The Wings of Eagles with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara
plus the popular
Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell and Forrest Tucker
The Bad Seed with Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly
and the now cult attraction
Pennies from Heaven with Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters and Jessica Harper
That leaves the unknown quantity TV show Forever and the 90’s picture Wag the Dog.
… But … the even bigger news is a WAC 4K announcement for September 2 — Jacques Tourneur’s prime film noir Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. This one ought to look sensational in 4K.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson