CineSavant Column

Tuesday February 28, 2023

 

Hello!

Dick Dinman of DVD Classics Corner On The Air has a new podcast out, promoting and celebrating two post-MGM films by star Esther Williams. To help discuss them, he’s rounded up publicist and disc commentator David Del Valle.

The movies in question are The Unguarded Moment and Raw Wind in Eden; in one Esther is menaced by John Saxon and in the other romanced by Jeff Chandler. Both original posters depicted on the disc jackets might suggest swimming scenes — in one she’s in a suit and in the other the background is green-blue, as if she’s kissing George Nader underwater. Dinman’s promo text assures us that ‘controversial aspects of Williams’ life and career’ are on the agenda.

 


 

And Paramount Home Entertainment says it’s bringing out a 4K Ultra HD disc of Mimi Leder’s 1998 ‘astral collision’ science fiction epic Deep Impact, starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Leelee Sobieski, Blair Underwood, Maximilian Schell, and Morgan Freeman.

This is doubly good news because I’ve never reviewed the picture and always wanted to — to date it’s the most successful adaptation/permutation/re-imagining of the classic When Worlds Collide. I’ve only seen the competing 1998 picture Armageddon once, which was enough for me. Writers Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin successfully orchestrate the human aspect of the story to balance out the pyrotechnics. The first-generation CGI effects are mostly good too — the inundation of Manhattan shows the World Trade Center to be in harm’s way.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson