DVD Savant, Glenn Erickson's Review Column at DVD Talk

Savant's new reviews today are

The Thief of Bagdad
Criterion

and
Villa Rides!
Legend Films

Greetings! The friendly Dick Dinman has a couple of new web-based audio interview shows that I'm happy to promote tonight. I want to learn more of what Robert Osborne has to say when he and Dick "candidly talk at considerable length about Sinatra's late career laziness":

Frank Sinatra: A Tribute to the (Acting) Chairman of the Board: Dick Dinman's guests Turner Classics Movies host Robert Osborne and three-time Best Actress Oscar nominee and two-time Sinatra leading lady Eleanor Parker (in a rare and exclusive interview) focus on Sinatra the actor and offer some revealing and occasionally critical insights about Sinatra's dramatic abilities.

A Conversation with Robert Osborne. In this second show, Dick says that Osborne gives us some gratifying news about upcoming TCM acquisitions. They discuss the dramatically increased popularity of the Golden Age cinema classics as well as some major never Oscar-nominated stars whose work has always been taken for granted.

I haven't paid much attention to special screenings lately -- the new movies being offered don't always appeal -- but I think I'll check out the new Indiana Jones movie this weekend, just to be able to give an early report -- I promise no spoilers, although the one trailer I saw looks like it's 50% repeated situations from earlier series episodes. Take a look at this Dial B For Blog page that makes a case for the first IJ movie being, ahem, borrowed from a Scrooge McDuck comic book! -- Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Finally! Savant's new reviews today are

Man of the West
MGM / Fox
and

The Major and the Minor
Universal

First off, today's post debuts a film Savant's been whining for for ten years, when he posted an early article about the need for Anthony Mann's Man of the West, with Gary Cooper and Julie London (found her yet?). A DVD is finally here.

Savant headquarters experienced a major DSL breakdown that, in unison with an inability to directly upload material to DVDtalk, seriously interfered with this site's normally dependable work flow. I won't go into the details, but both issues seem to have been resolved (at least for the moment) and we're soldiering on. And I thought I'd never be addicted to anything, but four days with interrupted net access and dealing with dial-up on strange computers, and I was ready to knock off a convenience store to recover my high-speed fix.

On a more optimistic note, DVD Savant is pleased to announce that he's now contributing reviews to the Film.com website. The first two are for Warner Home Video's Frank Sinatra The Golden Years box and an individual entry for Sinatra's Some Came Running. My new boss at Film.com, Mark Bourne, suggested that I ask readers to offer a short comment at the bottom of one of the reviews, you know, to let the Film.com brass know that they haven't backed a lame horse, bought a pig in a poke or tied an albatross around their necks. (That comes later.) The main DVD Savant site at DVDtalk will continue as Savant's home base, assuming that the website management issues stay resolved, the dam holds, and I don't start flashing back to the long-ago Cambodia protests.

A note for reader esa@net : I wrote a nice answer to your note but your returm email ain't working no way no how. Any suggestions?

For something more fun, Allan Peach has forwarded this great link to a UK site called Golden Age Comics. It has a vast archive of public domain comics from the 20 to the 1950s! Thanks for reading (!), Glenn Erickson

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