The Movie:

Very much a product of its time, Fritz Lang's Cloak And Dagger begins with an opening scene in which a small group of European resistance fighters are shoot down in cold blood by Nazi's. From there, the action shifts to an American university where we're introduced to a physicist named Alvah Jesper (Gary Cooper). Here he meets up with an old friend of his who now works for The Office Of Strategic Services. They're intercepting Nazi transmissions from Europe but can't crack the code they're being transmitted in on their own - they're hoping that he'll be able to help them, because they know that the Germans have come very close to perfecting their atomic weapons experiments.

Jesper is understandably apprehensive at first, but given that his friend already knows he's been secretly working for the government on The Manhattan Project as it is, he figures he really do...Read the entire review

The Movie:

In 1940, Metro Goldwyn Mayer produced a short subject called Jack Pot as part of their gritty "Crime Does Not Pay" series. Viewable on Warner Archives' terrific Crime Does Not Pay set, the film matter-of-factly delved into the then-current epidemic of racketeers pressuring small business owners to stock slot machines for their customers to play, then hogging all the profits for themselves. Dated and sometimes funny though it was, Jack Pot followed the template of the other "Crime Does Not Pay" shorts by delving into a hot-button subject concisely and with little fuss.

What does all this have to do with Hoodlum Empire, a 1952 drama recently reissued on home video by Olive Films? Well, Hoodlum Empire is basically ...Read the entire review

Though Marlon Brando first made his name both on stage and on the silver screen in A Streetcar Named Desire, there was a short interval between his final Broadway performance as Stanley Kowalski and the whir of 35mm cameras

Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60209 Sun, 12 May 2013 21:12:59 PDT Recommended The first surprise one finds with War of the Wildcats, with John Wayne as a cowboy overseeing an oil-drilling operation on Indian land, is that War of the Wildcats is not its original title. The movie, in fact, was first released as In Old Oklahoma in December 1943. When Republic Pictures reissued it in June 1950 they opted to rename it War of the Wildcats, which may also have been its working title while it was in production. From here it gets a bit murky, but it appears the movie was also usually shown on television under the Wildcats title, as was its only previous home video release, a 1998 VHS tape. Still, nowhere on the packaging is In Old Oklahoma ever mentioned, creating unnecessary confusion. I'd never heard of War of the Wildcats before but through various John Wayne biographies knew of In Old Oklahoma. Olive Films' high-def transfer,...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60431 Sun, 12 May 2013 08:24:34 PDT Skip It You know how the home video rights to movies sometimes shuffle around from studio to studio. As if you need an example, Cujo first [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] hit Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate and now has Olive Films' logo stamped...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60216 Sat, 11 May 2013 08:24:13 PDT DVD Talk Collector Series Republic Pictures was rarely associated with high-caliber, prestige pictures, though during the late 1940s and early 50s they made several, notably Orson Welles's Macbeth, Frank Borzage's Moonrise (both 1948), John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952), and they co-produced this, a classy adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella (originally published in short story form) The Red Pony (1949), adapted for the screen by Steinbeck himself. Everything about it was first-rate. It was one of Republic's few films in three-strip Technicolor. (When they made color films at all, it was usually in the inferior, cheaper Trucolor process, a technology more or less controlled by Republic. Thank you, Barry Lane.) Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), who'd previously helmed the fine adaptation of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in 1939*, again directed. (Robert Aldrich was a...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60214 Fri, 10 May 2013 04:05:07 PDT Highly Recommended The third of eight "Three Mesquiteers" movies that John Wayne starred in before, during, and after John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) put his career into high gear, Santa Fe Stampede (1938) is a decent enough entry in that admittedly juvenile B-Western series. It may be historically significant in depicting a violent act supposedly never before shown in American movies at least, though that claim might not be completely accurate. Either way, if you don't want to find out what happens, you might want to stop reading right here. For eons various Republic Three Mesquiteers films were released to VHS and DVD by fringe home video labels specializing in public domain movies. Those video transfers always looked terrible; I'd all but given up hope that better-looking editions would ever see the light of day. But, once again, Olive Films dazzles with a spectacularly pristine high-definition t...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60299 Thu, 09 May 2013 03:49:03 PDT Rent It THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are stills provided by director Hal Hartley's Possible Films website, not the current Blu-ray edition under review. Writer/director Hal Hartley (Henry Fool), with his pictures' eccentric ratios of cerebral, philosophically-minded intellectualism to wackiness and romance, is himself already something of an anomaly in the American-indie-filmmaker milieu, making his 1995 film Flirt, by far the most experimental and odd of Hartley's features, a curiosity's curiosity. Telling and retelling the same tale thr...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60207 Wed, 08 May 2013 03:49:29 PDT Highly Recommended Despite a hoary romantic triangle trite even when it new, The Fighting Seabees (1944) is an undeniably effective and entertaining wartime propaganda picture, an iconic example of such films even. A highly fictionalized account of the U.S. Navy's formation of its Construction Battalion (CB), it was an unusually lavish, large-scale production for B-movie studio Republic Pictures, with a budget hovering somewhere between $700,000 and $1.5 million (sources vary). Whatever it's exact cost it was a far cry from the company's usual fare, with most of Republic's features budgeted between $50,000-$150,000. The Fighting Seabees was John Wayne's third war movie (not counting Pittsburgh, in which the war figures only slightly), following the Only Angels Have Wings-inspired Fighting Tigers and Reunion in France, both 1942. Although Wayne would eventually become closely ti...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59706 Tue, 07 May 2013 05:46:16 PDT Recommended I was drawn to Late Bloomers (2011) a drama with humor starring William Hurt and Isabella Rossellini, by the caliber of its two stars. I've been a fan of Hurt's film work since the early 1980s, and Rossellini, well, I admire her as an actress, too, but also consider her one of the great beauties of recent decades, arguably even more beautiful than her famous mother, Ingrid Bergman, who wasn't exactly chopped liver herself. Rossellini was pushing 60 when she made Late Bloomers, and though a bit heavier, a lot more wrinkled but mercifully showing no signs of plastic surgery, she's aging with incredible grace and, in once sense, is no less beautiful at 60 than she was at 25. In the movie Hurt and Rossellini play a couple coming to grips with growing older. It's a struggle, just as it's a struggle for not-much-younger moviegoers like myself who've followed these actors for decades come to ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60210 Mon, 06 May 2013 05:09:10 PDT Highly Recommended Copacabana (1947) was comedian Groucho Marx's first solo feature, made without brothers Chico and Harpo. His co-starring role, opposite Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda, is virtually the only reason people still watch it today and, put into context, his part and his performance are rather fascinating. Needless to say the movie isn't in the same league as Duck Soup (1933) or A Night at the Opera (1935) but then again, it was never a Marx Brother movie to begin with. Rather, Copacabana is a kind of screwball comedy-musical variety extravaganza typical of the 1940s, and on that wavelength it's very enjoyable, if overlong. It's also worth noting that the film marks the final movie appearance of the "Groucho character," who with his funny walk and greasepaint mustache, makes something of a surprise appearance toward the end of the film. For most of the film, however, Groucho mo...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60302 Mon, 06 May 2013 05:09:10 PDT Recommended THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are stills provided by director Hal Hartley's Possible Films website, not the current Blu-ray edition under review. Joseph Fulton (D.J. Mendel) is the least troubled of writer/director Hal Hartley's typically down-on-their-luck leading men, a gallery that ranges from Martin Donovan's suffocated genius in 1990's Trust to Thomas Jay Ryan's...suffocated genius in Hartley's masterpiece, 1997's Henry Fool. Fulton, too, is a genius whose ample gifts g...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60211 Sun, 05 May 2013 03:07:50 PDT Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. See John Wayne fight a giant octopus! I mean, what more do you need to know before you're sold on Wake of the Red Witch, a 1949 man's adventure that throws the Duke into several scenarios unique to his filmography. Wayne stars as Captain Ralls, the top man on the Red Witch, a cargo ship for hire. At the start of the picture, the Witch is hauling gold bouillon. The gold's owner, a man named Sidneye (Luther Adler), has reason to suspect Ralls, his longtime rival, is going to double-cross him, so he has sent along a spy to try to commandeer the boat before that can happen....Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60206 Thu, 02 May 2013 09:33:25 PDT Recommended The Movie: Mark Robson was a talented director with an interesting, albeit varied, filmography to his name. He made suspense titles like The Ghost Ship, drama like Peyton Place and even corny misfires like The Valley Of The Dolls - and then there's his 1949 Republic production, Champion. Widely regarded, and rightfully so, as the one of the films that made a then young Kirk Douglas a box office star, it's a tense film noir that mixes up drama, suspense and romance and places it around the most dramatic of sports - competitive boxing. When the movie begins, Michael "Midge" Kelly (Kirk Douglas) and his crippled brother Connie (Arthur Kennedy) are on a trip, heading west in a box car in search of a better life. On their way, they're run off the train into a ditch and with no other choice, they have to hitchhike their way back to civilization. They're picke...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60298 Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:37:33 PDT Recommended The Movie: Would you believe... an action-packed movie about public opinion polls? The 1947 comedy Magic Town could best be described as "Capra Corn," only Frank Capra didn't handle the direction (improbably, it was helmed by "Wild Bill" Wellman), and the corn it serves up has been transmogrified into a sticky, unsubtle concoction. Enjoyable but subject to some bizarre choices, the film's "huckster in a small town" story unfolds as if Norman Rockwell decided to draw an EC horror comic. Despite the iffy subject matter and execution, Magic Town does have one shining asset in that it stars James Stewart, who's at his most James Stewart-y playing the protagonist here. Stewart's Rip Smith is a cocksure yet genial big city pollster who journeys to the picture perfect Anywhere, U.S.A. that his character believes is the most statistically perfect town in America. Troubled times have ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=60205 Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:26:46 PDT Recommended The Movie: Directed by John Auer for Republic Pictures in 1953, The City That Never Sleeps takes place not in New York City as you'd probably guess, but on the seedy side of Chicago, Illinois. Advertised with a salacious one sheet showing dancing girls, a passionate kiss, a murder scene, a sneaky cop and a fight on an aboveground subway line, it's a fast paced movie with a great cast that tells a solid, suspenseful story with a few fun twists. The central part of the storyline revolves around a man named Johnny Kelly (Gig Young), a cop who is really having some serious difficulty dealing with the stress of his job. Johnny's pretty much ready to throw in the towel and return his badge, and if that weren't enough he's unhappy with his marriage to Kathy (Paula Raymond). In fact, Johnny would love nothing more than to take off with a foxy burlesque dancer named Sally Connors (M...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59695 Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:04:23 PDT Recommended The Movie: Directed by Hungarian filmmaker Benedek Fliegauf in 2010, Womb (his first English language feature, also known in the UK as Clone) begins in a small town along the sea where we meet a nine year old girl named Rebecca (Ruby O. Fee) who is there visiting her grandfather for a little while. Soon after arriving, she meets and becomes very close with a ten year old boy named Tommy (Tristan Christopher). When Rebecca's mother accepts a job in Japan and whisks her off with her, their relationship is cut short but twelve years later, an adult Rebecca (Eva Green) heads back to that same town and manages to track down Tommy (Matt Smith) in hopes of starting over. They fall in love fast and hard and things are going great until Tommy is killed a car accident. Distraught and broken hearted, Rebecca soon decides that there is a way to bring him back to her and so she m...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59624 Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:33:02 PDT Highly Recommended Though it taps a B-Western chestnut - the cowboy seeking to avenge the murder of parents killed when he was a child - Westward Ho (1935) is above average for its budget level and highly significant in terms of the career trajectory of its leading man, John Wayne. The actor had a fairly disastrous starring debut in The Big Trail (1930) and was blamed in part for its financial failure. Within a year he was reduced to playing a corpse in The Deceiver (1931), but gradually Wayne found his footing in incredibly cheap oaters. After supporting Buck Jones and Tim McCoy in their B-Westerns, Wayne got his own series of low-budget movies. Ride 'Em Cowboy (1932) was the first of six such films he made for Warner Bros. Most were remakes of silent Ken Maynard films and incorporated scads of stock footage from those earlier movies. Wayne then made more than a dozen even cheaper "Lone St...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59625 Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:31:24 PDT Highly Recommended John Wayne made eight "Three Mesquiteers" movies for Republic Pictures during 1938-39, before, during, and after his game-changing role in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). Wayne, who worked hard to reestablish himself following his disastrous starring debut in The Big Trail (1930), a financial flop for which Wayne unfairly received much of the blame, was not a happy Mesquiteer. Replacing actor Robert Livingston in what he regarded as a series of kiddie films, especially after Ford's acclaimed and popular success, was a career move he could have done without. Oddly, though, the series was, like Republic generally, capable of a few startling surprises amidst these most formulaic of program pictures. Considering the last entry, the goofy Three Texas Steers (1939), had our three heroes (four, if you count Elmer, ventriloquist Max Terhune's dummy) helping out circus folk and their fris...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59623 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:31:35 PDT Recommended Of John Wayne's earliest starring films for Republic Pictures, The Lawless Nineties (1936), while adequate, is among his least memorable. The script and its execution are routine even by sausage factory Republic's standards, though it's a harmless enough way to spend 56 minutes. The most, maybe only distinguishing feature of The Lawless Nineties is the prominent role given character actor George Hayes, who only months before created his iconic Western sidekick character, usually called Windy Halliday in the Hopalong Cassiday films, and then later "Gabby" Whittaker (or just "Gabby" Hayes) in his films for Republic and elsewhere. He was, as far as this reviewer goes, the greatest Western sidekick of them all, and his persona is famous even among those who've never seen a Western of any sort. In The Lawless Nineties he plays a distinguished citizen quite unlike that much more...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59699 Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:32:28 PDT Recommended Blissfully unaware of its own extreme tastelessness, The Atomic Kid (1954) has a beguiling kind of na ve charm. A sci-fi comedy about a dumb schlub (Mickey Rooney) who miraculously survives an atomic bomb test at point-blank range, The Atomic Kid isn't exactly good and in fact much of it is mediocre, pointless, and meandering, but as a genuinely oddball relic of the Cold War it's quite mesmerizing. And, in its defense, some of the broad slapstick and intended satire isn't bad (if more frenetic than funny, like Rooney himself), particularly in early scenes that team the diminutive, hyperactive actor with hulking, sloth-like Robert Strauss (Stalag 17). I hadn't seen the film since I was a child, when for no clear reason I stayed up to catch a 4:35 am showing on a local UHF station. Olive Films' high-def video transfer is full frame even though The Atomic Kid very clearly wa...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59675 Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:05:56 PDT Recommended THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are taken from promotional materials, not the current Blu-ray edition under review. To a socially conscious filmmaker like Hector Babenco (an Argentine-born Brazilian filmmaker who, before he took Hollywood and Oscar with 1985's Kiss of the Spider Woman, made more or less directly activist narrative features in Brazil), it must have seemed like the right time for Ironweed. It was 1987, the "trickle-down" (or, more accurately, "leech-up") Reagan era; William Kennedy's 1984 Pulitzer prizewinning novel had harked ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59622 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:28:45 PDT Rent It The Movie: When it comes to John Wayne, who do you see? The Duke, of course. Tall, powerful, quietly commanding. Ten gallon hat, red hankerchief. All-American icon of Western cinema, idol to Republicans and grannies alike. John Wayne did several non-Westerns throughout his long career, however. Some (like The Quiet Man) were bona fide classics, while many others have become quirky footnotes in his vast filmography. If one were to find any commonality in the likes of Jet Pilot (1957), The Conqueror (1956), His Private Secretary (1933), Brannigan (1975), Reunion in France (1942), etc. - it would be that Wayne was not so ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59391 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:17:02 PDT Rent It THE FILM You'd think it would be the foreign/art-house film fanatic's dream come true: "Wim Wenders [legendary director of Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire] presents a film by Michelangelo Antonioni [the even more legendary director of visionary masterpieces from L'Avventura to Red Desert and beyond]." That's the alluring DVD-sleeve verbiage announcing Beyond the Clouds, Antonioni the elder s...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59671 Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:40:13 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. Critics are fond of declaring things like, "It's the best time I had at the movies all year!" Only, when we do, it's not supposed to be about a movie that is over 70 years old. Except some times it's true. I've had a rough time with movies in 2013. I've felt like I've disliked more than I've liked, and what I have liked, it's usually come with reservations. Let's hope that 1941's marvelous The Devil and Miss Jones is the true break to that negative streak. An efficient, unadorned comedy, The Devil and Miss Jones is a delight from start to finish, inviting viewers to invest in its characters and chee...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59674 Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:20:33 PDT Recommended The Movie: An unusual film noir from director Edward G. Ulmer made in 1948, Ruthless introduces us to a wealthy man named Horace Woodruff Vendig (Zachary Scott). On the outside at least, Horace would seem to have everything that he could ask for - he's fabulously wealthy and has everything that goes along with a life of privilege, he's also well regarded by many for his efforts as a philanthropist. His past, however, tells a different story. We learn through a flashback sequence that young Horace (Bob Anderson) and two friends, Vic (Arthur Stone) and Martha Burnside (Ann Carter), were out for a paddle in a canoe one day. With both boys intent on winning Martha's heart, a skirmish ensues and the canoe tips. Martha falls in and almost drowns but Horace is able to save her in time but when he gets home his mother slaps him for ruining his suit, unable or more likely unwilling to let...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59667 Sat, 06 Apr 2013 08:20:33 PDT Rent It The Movie: A fairly obscure film directed by the great Samuel Fulller in 1957, China Gate is interesting not only because it features a legitimately unusual cast but because it's one of the first Hollywood productions to deal with the Vietnam War. The film follows a woman nicknamed Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson), a woman of European and Chinese descent who runs an opium den. Legs has got a good little business going, she also serves up booze and, for the right price to the right customer, women as well. She's got a kid (Warren Hsieh) who, early in the film, tries to save his puppy from a Saigon local who wants to steal it and cook it up. There's a food shortage going on and that dog is looking mighty tasty. This sets the type of mood, atmosphere and political tone for pretty much the rest of the movie. Soon enough, Legs is approached by one Colonel De Sars (Maurice Marsac) wh...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59621 Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:36:32 PDT Recommended The Movie: Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, 1963's McLintock! (you've got to have that exclamation point there for maximum impact) stars John Wayne as George Washington McLintock, a man who has made a fortune raising cattle and an influential player on the local scene. George is quite excited about the impending arrival of his daughter Becky (Stefanie Powers) who has spent the last couple of years studying aboard. Complicating things for George is the not insignificant matter of Katherine McLintock (Maureen O'Hara), the wife he's been living apart from for some time now. When she moves back into the picture, he's understandably surprised though her intent to take Becky back home to the city with her obviously ruffles his feathers. So the two women in George's live are more or less in line to cause him all manner of problem, but they're not alone in that. While George has the...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59666 Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:05:02 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: John Ford's 1953 character piece The Sun Shines Bright has the genial air of a backyard barbeque. Virtually plotless, but overloaded with character, the film is an odd entry in the director's canon, more laid back than its most comparable companions, like The Quiet Man or How Green Was My Valley. Ford apparently credited it as his favorite feature, yet it's a film that, frankly, I had never even heard of before this latest home video release. It seems to be a largely forgotten mid-period effort from the master cineaste. Or quite possibly swept under the carpet. Charles Winninger stars in Th...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59693 Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:29:31 PDT Recommended The Movie: When John Auer's 1954 film Hell's Half Acre begins, we're transported to a post World War II Hawaii where we meet a man named Chet Chester (Wendell Corey). Though he used to be a criminal, Chet has since mellowed out and become a respectable, legitimate member of society since opening his nightclub, one of the hottest spots around - he's even written a popular song. He and his girlfriend, Sally (Nancy Gates), are enjoying the evening's entertainment one night when one of his old criminal acquaintances shows up with blackmail on his mind. Sally learns of this man's plan and before you know it, he's dead at her hand. When the cops show up, however, Chet tells them that he did it and they lock him up for murder. Meanwhile, back on the American mainland, a widow named Donna Williams (Evelyn Keyes) has lost her husband in the war. When she hears some music by Chet on ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59444 Sun, 24 Mar 2013 06:05:24 PDT Rent It When Fernand (Lino Ventura) is contacted by his old friend Louis (Jacques Dumesnil) for the first time in years, demanding to meet at once, he has no idea what it could be about, but it's unlikely that even his best guess would've been that Louis (more widely known as "The Mexican") is dying, and he hopes that Fernand (a former gangster himself) will take over his racket and look after his daughter, Patricia (Sabine Sinjen). Before Fernand has a chance to turn down the offer, Louis passes on, and Fernand is left with a group of underground businesses including gambling and liquor who owe Louis (and therefore, Patricia) several million francs, but -- surprise, surprise -- they'd rather take a shot at rubbing Fernand out and taking the throne for themselves than pay up. Monsieur Gangster, or Les tontons flingueurs, is a funny but flawed French gangster comedy featuring a trio of lead ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59346 Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:52:56 PDT Recommended The vast majority of Republic Pictures' output consisted of B-Westerns and serials, but once in a blue moon they'd attempt a first-class A-picture. Many of these were tepid costume melodramas of which Lady for a Night (1942), an obvious fusing of two recent blockbusters, Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940) plus bits of Showboat, exemplifies. Also around this time, John Wayne had outgrown his Republic Pictures contract, John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) having promoted him to a kind of lower level A-status. However, permanent A-plus stardom came later, after the success of Red River (1948) particularly. In the early forties, Wayne alternated between Republic-originated projects and major movies for bigger studios, in which the actor typically played second fiddle to a leading lady whose popularity was in decline. During 1942-43 alone he did movies opposite ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59398 Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:52:56 PDT Rent It Movies are more transporting when you're young. Kids are willing to allow their imaginations to accept the visions of people and other worlds that filmmakers dream up, and thus, the films are more impactful. Some of that goes away when kids turn into teenagers, but there's an angle that even 15 and 16-year-olds will allow themselves to believe whatever they want: themselves. To me, this explains why teen romantic comedies of all types tend to occupy that perfect sweet spot of nostalgia that favorites seen as a child or an adult can't quite match. Plain Clothes is a decent teen romantic action comedy from the late 1980s, but even though the most memorable thing about it is the laundry list of talent involved with it, I'm sure plenty of people would single it out as one of their favorites. Arliss Howard plays Nick, a 24-year-old police officer who can plausibly pass as five years younger and t...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59350 Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:00:13 PDT Recommended Alan Alda's career as auteur is a real puzzler. As a writer and director, he found great success on series television but only partially succeeded in theatrical features. He'd been active since the mid-1950s (he's featured in an early episode of Sgt. Bilko), but of course it was the beloved, long-running television series M*A*S*H (1972-1983) that brought him stardom and, in turn, opportunities to write and direct. He ended up directing 31 episodes of M*A*S*H, most of which he also wrote or co-wrote, and almost all of which are memorable. While the series was still on the air he created a failed pilot, Hickey (1976), a short-lived series, We'll Get By (1975), and both directed and starred (opposite Carol Burnett) in a highly-regarded TV-movie called 6 Rms Riv Vu (1974), an adaptation of a play. At the peak of his popularity as a television actor, he wrote and st...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=59445 Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:56:50 PDT Highly Recommended A spoof made near the beginning of the James Bond-fueled spy craze of the 1960s, The Great Spy Chase (Les Barbouzes, or "The Secret Agents," 1964) is a fairly good if dated comedy. Stylishly directed by Georges Lautner and starring Lino Ventura, one of the great French (though Italian-born) film personalities, the movie is enjoyable if more than a trifle inconsequential, overwrought, and overlong. It's also not as good as the earlier Lautner film Monsieur Gangster (Les tontons flingueurs, 1963), in which Ventura plays a similar character. That movie is subtler and, ultimately, funnier. Still, compared to the much broader spoofs that would quickly follow, The Great Spy Chase is comparatively understated, much more closely resembling Western Germany's krimi, particularly the then-hot Edgar Wallace film series, than it does the 007 movies emanating from Britain. <...Read the entire review ]]>