Hello!

Nice news from Criterion: their May Blu-ray titles include Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, Borzage’s Moonrise, Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar and Schrader’s Mishima.

Universal (gasp) is releasing some vintage titles in Blu: The List of Adrian Messenger and Wood’s For Whom the Bell Tolls are coming in March, and De Mille’s 1934 Cleopatra arrives in April.

VCI has announced Steve Barkett’s The Aftermath and yet another edition of City of the Dead (Horror Hotel); we’ll be curious to learn what prompted the new go-round.

Twilight Time has four ‘hot’ pictures for April: Demy’s The Model Shop, Auto Focus, Ritt’s No Down Payment and the teen pregnancy epic Blue Denim — with music by Bernard Herrmann.

And Kino has a date for its 3-D disc of William Cameron Menzies’ The Maze: April 24.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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CineSavant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

I’m doing my best to keep writing — I’m less jet-lagged from my journey than I am exhausted … but I did lose five pounds and I intend to keep them off. My aged body could do the climbing and hiking and sort-of keep up with the young’uns, which shows me that there will be rewards if I continue to get the exercise I need.

Fellow reviewer Charlie Largent forwards a new ‘NZ Pete’ article — make that a lengthy article, entitled Forgotten Gems of Visual Effects Part Nine – When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. It’s been assembled with help from Jim Danforth’s digital book, and also discusses Hammer effects in general.

The ever-watchful Gary Teetzel sends us to a Letter from Christopher Lee to Vincent Price, up on eBay from Vincent’s estate. It’s pretty entertaining.

And the folks at Indicator, the UK disc boutique, tell me that their Hammer Volume 2: Criminal Intent disc box (Cash on Demand, Never Take Sweets from a Stranger, The Full Treatment, The Snorkel) is on the way, along with Stanley Kramer’s star-studded Ship of Fools.

Happy Valentine’s day — it’s also my Anniversary! — Glenn Erickson

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The Border
Powerhouse Indicator
Region B Blu-ray

Tony Richardson’s look at corruption in the border patrol service is both sensational and insightful, and Jack Nicholson gives a committed performance as a downtrodden functionary who finds himself in a major moral and humanitarian catastrophe. The problem is still there today, with no consensus on the right diagnosis or solution. The action melodrama costars Harvey Keitel & Valerie Perrine, and introduces (to the U.S.) the impressive Elpidia Carrillo. From Powerhouse Indicator.
2/09/18

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CineSavant is back — had an incredible time but a real physical workout, seventeen days on the move and my head is almost too dizzy to write. I’ll say no more except that it was an intense trip to Peru — six hotels and trips by air, bus, and boat and a lot of hiking. But I lost seven pounds going up and down those paths and ruins. Thanks for staying with me.

The good news is that I now have plenty of time free to catch up on reviews, especially with reviewers Charlie Largent and Lee Broughton helping. The discs ready to peruse are a daunting selection:

Milestone: Shoes; Severin: Threads; Arrow Video: The Witches, Federico Fellini’s Orchestra Rehearsal, Clouzot’s Inferno; Warner Archives: Harper and The Drowning Pool; ClassicFlix: Along Came Jones; Kino: The Covered Wagon; Twilight Time: Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Dragonwyck, My Cousin Rachel;  Criterion: Tom Jones, Elevator to the Gallows, The Silence of the Lambs, Night of the Living Dead.

Upcoming titles that tickle Glenn’s fancy: Kino: The Outlaw, Under Capricorn, The House that Dripped Blood, Doctor Blood’s Coffin, The Outer Limits, Duck You Sucker (as A Fistful of Dynamite), The Lion in Winter, Joan of Arc (1948), Topaze, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, Roger Corman’s Highway Dragnet, and The Vampire and the Ballerina (hopefully with the Italian version L’Amante del Vampiro); The Maze in 3-D (not sure from where); Twilight Time: Jacques Demy’s Model Shop, Auto Focus, Martin Ritt’s No Down Payment, Blue Denim.

— Glenn

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Kameradschaft
The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray

 Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s mine disaster saga is both a stirring social drama and a remarkable feat of technical engineering — the underground cave-ins and gas-fed fires are still frightening in their realism. Criterion’s extras offer critical and historical context for a pacifist statement filmed during a tense political time in France and Germany. From The Criterion Collection.
2/06/18

The L-Shaped Room
Twilight Time
Blu-ray

 Charlie Largent wanders over to the poor side of London town for Bryan Forbes’s poignant kitchen-sink classic. This particular kitchen sink saga has a touch of glamour — the luminous, talented Leslie Caron is a Frenchwoman struggling to find an apartment in which to make some crucial life decisions. With able support from Tom Bell and Brock Peters, the movie is out now on an equally luminous Blu ray release, from Twilight Time.
2/06/18

Almost back! But we’ve got a little more review action today, thanks to Charlie Largent. I hope to have a full report on my weird wanderings late next weekend.

Thanks for Reading! — Glenn

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The Thomas Crown Affair
KL Studio Classics
Blu-ray

 Hollywood glamour strikes the crime genre, with a bank robbery tale that concentrates on high living and high fashion. Superstars Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway play a coy game of thief and investigator. This expensive show is not really in fashion anymore, but in 1968 it was high-class filmmaking, with Norman Jewison solidifying his position as a smart maker of solid mainstream entertainment. With Paul Burke, Jack Weston and Yaphet Kotto, and two audio commentaries. From KL Studio Classics.
2/03/18

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CineSavant’s sojourn into other dimensions is almost at an end; I will be returning refreshed, if bruised and sore, and ready to go on a full writing schedule once again. Sorry for the less than exciting presentation in the interim, and thanks for your patience! — Glenn

 

 

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The Amicus Collection
Severin Films
Blu-ray

Charlie Largent reviews a choice Blu-ray box with four horrors from the house of Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg: Asylum, And Now the Screaming Starts and The Beast Must Die, plus a bonus disc with a wealth of special material. The stars include Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Britt Ekland, Patrick Magee, Stephanie Beacham, Calvin Lockhart, Michael Gambon and Charlotte Rampling; on Blu-ray from Severin Films.
1/30/18

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Hi from far away … CineSavant hasn’t been chloroformed, but is operating with a skeleton crew and at long distance. To vendors, your discs are being watched and will be up in good time (the spice must flow!) I only wish I could post pictures from where I am and write up the usual frills and links.

 

Thanks for Reading — we’ll be back up to speed soon enough — Glenn

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The Diabolical Dr. Z
Redemption / Kino Lorber
Blu-ray

Picked up by a reputable producer, Jesús Franco takes yet another stab at conventional B&W horror. The pulp thrills get a boost through the contributions of talented collaborators: excellent camerawork flatters the idiosyncratic obsessions of a writer-director trying to get a grip on something resembling a dream-world sensibility. Although it’s not saying much, this might be the best of Franco’s earlier B&W horror output. With Estella Blain, Mabel Karr, Howard Vernon; on Blu-ray from Redemption / Kino Lorber.
1/27/18

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Aha, it looks like another abbreviated column is up in a timely manner. . .  Once again, in case CineSavant is out of contact, it’s easy to see if a new review is up at this link —

New Savant Reviews HEREIt’s a good page to find other features at Trailers from Hell as well. Thanks to Charlie Largent and Gary Teetzel for keeping things moving at CineSavant central.

The adventure continues! — Glenn

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Claude Autant-Lara:
Four Romantic Escapes from Occupied France
Eclipse Series 45
Blu-ray

 Charlie Largent scrutinizes a quartet of moody wartime dramas from Claude Autant-Lara: Le mariage de Chiffon, Lettres d’amour, Douce and Sylvie et le fantôme. The films were the work of a famously conflicted artist (to say the least) and the movies, though frivolous on their surface, occasionally display a darker and more somber temperament at their core. From Eclipse, Series 45.
1/23/18

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CineSavant is running lean for a few installments! Reviews are going up twice a week but I won’t be around to report them here … Instead, follow this link —

New Savant Reviews HERE

to see them as they’re updated at Trailers from Hell. Hopefully they’ll be posted smoothly … I’ve backlogged a couple, and reviewer Charlie Largent will be contributing a couple as well.

Thanks for Reading — we’ll be back up to speed soon enough — Glenn

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CineSavant’s new review today is:

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Hello!

CineSavant is going lean for several installments — it’s vacation time for academics, and we’re taking advantage of the break. Trusted Trailers from Hell cohorts will try to get at least one review up per posting, but it may be hit and miss. And I don’t know If I’ll be able to update this home page, so if nothing changes on Tuesday, you can always directly check at TFH for the CineSavant list of recent reviews, at a link called Articles: CineSavant.

But I do have links today! Up new at the Current Thinking on the Western page is an archival item, Bill Shaffer’s Eli Wallach interview from back in 1975. Shaffer’s an old friend; and I don’t doubt that he could convince nearly anybody to record an interview for him, long distance.

An online page called Film School Rejects has an article recommended by Joe Dante, called The Integrity of Aspect Ratios. One of the directors posting there makes an excellent point: TV commercials are routinely letterboxed on digital TV of all kinds, but cablecasters like HBO are routinely pan-scanning anamorphic-ratio features!

And Gary Teetzel sends along this YouTube video from The Slow Mo Guys, showing us how TV images are ‘written’ as a scanned beam of light: How a TV Works in Slow Motion. It’s very educational.

I’m told that Kino Lorber is bringing out a new Blu of Duck You Sucker on March 6. They seem to be calling it A Fistful of Dynamite once again, after we moved heaven and Earth back in 2003 to get MGM to use the original Duck You Sucker title, the one that makes the film’s final joke make sense. Kino grossly fumbled our featurette extras for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by improperly bumping them up to HD and making them unwatchable. They’re promising our extras for Duck here as well, so I have my fingers crossed.

Okay, we’ll see if we can keep the CineSavant content flowing in the next few days … Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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CineSavant’s new reviews today are: