Hello!

Good news came in last Saturday for  The Warner Archive Collection, and today we have joyful disc tidings from the folks at The Criterion Collection. The April 2026 sale sheet lists a new 4K box with 3 pictures by John Singleton — Boyz in the Hood,  Poetic Justice,  Baby Boy, and an Eclipse Blu-ray collection for Kinuyo Tanaka — Love Letter,  The Moon Has Risen,  Forever a Woman,  The Wandering Princess,  Girls of the Night, and  Love Under the Crucifix.

We zero in on the classic collector titles: four 4K Ultra HD remasterings, with something for everyone.

Ernst Lubitsch’s  Trouble in Paradise with Herbert Marshall, Kay Francis and Miriam Hopkins, given a commentary by Scott Eyman and a video essay by David Cairns;

Charles Vidor’s  Gilda with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford and George Macready, given an interview with Eddie Muller;

Terry Jones’  Monty Python’s Life of Brian with audio commentaries featuring Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin;

And John Boorman’s  Point Blank with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Carroll O’Connor and Keenan Wynn, given an audio commentary with Boorman and Steven Soderbergh, plus Lee Marvin on the Dick Cavett Show.

They’re all favorites we haven’t seen in a long time, so the anticipation is already settling in.

Up next and forwarded by advisor Gary Teetzel is a peculiar radio show from a YouTube channel called ‘Theater of the Mind – Old Time Radio.’

It so happen that today we are reviewing today one of the many movie adaptation- rethinks of Richard Connell’s timeless short story  The Most Dangerous Game. This radio show from 1947 is a straight presentation of the original. But Gary’s note (1.16.26) tells that he found it had a special appeal:

Glenn … I listened to another old Escape radio show the other day, this one an adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game. The cast is what makes it noteworthy: announcer Paul Frees is the big game hunter Rainsford and Hans Conreid is cast as the evil murderer Count Zaroff. Since it just happens to star two very distinctive voice actors from Jay Ward’s Dudley Do-Right cartoons, I naturally ‘saw’ the TV cartoon characters in the roles. Now I really want a Jay Ward version of the story, with Zaroff portrayed by Snidely Whiplash!  — Gary

Now try and listen to the radio show without imagining Snidely as Zaroff!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson