Major Dundee (1965) is famous, even legendary as the movie director Sam Peckinpah made prior to The Wild Bunch (1969), a potential masterpiece had the film not been taken out of his hands and ruined by others in a ham-fisted effort to salvage it. Charlton Heston and Richard Harris star as Civil War soldiers pursuing Apache Indians responsible for a massacre and who've kidnapped three young boys.

Over the years the myth of a "Peckinpah version" of Major Dundee has stubbornly persisted. The fact is his version is irretrievable, partly because even back then Peckinpah was a firebrand and a mean, self-destructive alcoholic (the career-ruining cocaine came later), and that the lost opportunity that was Major Dundee was as much self-inflicted. Peckinpah, for instance, never completely finished writing it (resulting in an outstanding first act and a weak third one) and he squande...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Please Note: The images used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review.

"For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible."

While I actually have little problem with religious-themed motion pictures, I have never had one so insistently close the door on non-believers as The Song of Bernadette. I must say, there was something terribly off-putting about entering into a 2-1/2 hour movie that begins with a title card telling me right up front that I won't get it and I never will. So much for spreading the gospel.

Which isn't to suggest I might have enjoyed The Song of Bernade...Read the entire review

Please Note: The images used here are taken from the film's 2001 DVD release, not the current Blu-ray edition under review.

Like most films by Brian De Palma (Dressed to Kill, Blow Out), 1978's The Fury is of dubious genre: Is it a horror film, with its eerie supernatural story elements? Is it a suspense/political-thriller picture, with its nefarious, secretive, CIA-like government agency waiting around every corner to thwart what's humane, unsullied, and...Read the entire review

An unusual choice for indie distributor Twilight Time to sublicense from 20th Century-Fox, Pony Soldier (1952) is a once popular, now all but forgotten "Northwestern" starring Tyrone Power. I don't recall ever seeing it on anyone's list of the Greatest Westerns or even the Greatest 1950s Westerns. With its strong emphasis on movie music, I suspect Twilight Time chose it primarily because of Alex North's original score, one he later cribbed or adapted cues from for later movie music he wrote for Spartacus (1960) and Cleopatra (1963).

Filmed in (three-strip) Technicolor, Pony Soldier was a hit in its day, earning $1.65 million in rentals, a lot of money back then, against a budget probably in the $750,000-$900,000 range.

Though the underrated Power is good and the film is reasonably colorful and entertaining, today Pony Soldier is memorable only for its thoroughly...Read the entire review

The second and last Derek Flint movie, In Like Flint (1967) is widely considered inferior even by die-hard fans of the first entry, Our Man Flint (1966). Probably due to my strong dislike of the original movie, my expectations were so low there was nowhere to go but up with the second one. Overall it's not an improvement, weaker as it is in some ways while a bit better in others, and like its predecessor at 114 minutes it's criminally overlong. One of my main complaints about Our Man Flint was that it smothers the viewer with 007-type iconography - sexy women, neat-o gadgets, larger-than-life villainy, etc. - without ever understanding or contextualizing any of its appeal. In Like Flint pulls back (out?) a bit, is less emphatically trying to out-Bond Bond, but in its place is an equally oddball script in which Flint's boss, rather than Flint himself, more or less beco...Read the entire review

Nicholas and Alexandra is anambitious, sprawling, and well-meaning motion pictureabout the remaining members of the Romanov family dynasty in Russia.Thecharacters are in the thrust surrounding revolution and changes toRussiangovernment. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and produced by SamSpiegel,...Read the entire review

The directing (and producing) career of Blake Edwards ran hot and cold, boy howdy. To his credit, he was frequently attracted to controversial and difficult-to-adapt projects; at one point he was attached to the first Planet of the Apes movie, for instance. But he also had a soft spot for classical slapstick, especially the kind of pantomime done to perfection by Laurel & Hardy. He paid tribute to the form (and, specifically, to The Boys) in the extravagantly broad The Great Race (1965), while his Pink Panther movies ran the gamut from hilarious to unwatchable, with more of the latter than the former. He was best grappling with subjects with which he was intimately familiar. The show business world-set comedies 10 (1979) and S.O.B. (1981) played to his strengths. They were much more sophisticated, intimate, and adult, harking back to the occasional offbeat project one wi...Read the entire review

Consider this a counterpoint to DVD Savant's rave review. The first of two Derek Flint spy pictures starring James Coburn, Our Man Flint is a James Bond imitator that I liked a lot as a child but as an adult I invariably find disappointing. Every time it and its sequel, In Like Flint (1967) are released to a new home video format - VHS, laser disc, DVD, Blu-ray - I watch them again hoping against hope I'll change my mind. And yet while then as now I quite enjoy Coburn's fully committed, confident performance, the movies themselves seem worse with every viewing. This time, watching as Flint finally infiltrates the villains' secret island lair, I was relieved that after being bored silly the movie finally was nearly over, only to realize it still had nearly 45 minutes yet to go.

The Bond series spurred probably close to a hundre...Read the entire review

The Blue Lagoon (1980) is the story of two children, a boy and girl, marooned on a South Seas island paradise. Completely cut off from civilization, as teenagers they instinctively learn about love and sex. Although it was an enormous hit, earning ten times its cost, it's also quite odd in that it was marketed as one kind of film, received by audiences as something altogether different, and today plays as neither of those things but as something else entirely. And though gorgeously photographed on location in Fiji and featuring a terrific musical score by Basil Poledouris and scattered moments of visual inspiration, The Blue Lagoon is hard to take seriously and in some respects now plays like high camp.

A Twilight Time release licensed from Columbia Pictures/Sony, the Blu-ray of The Blue Lagoon is pretty much flawless, with the outstanding video transfer and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Aud...Read the entire review

I haven't yet seen the new film of Les Mis rables but the hostile reception it has been receiving reminds me a lot of what happened to Lost Horizon (1973), another critically savaged musical based on a novel previously adapted in highly regarded non-musical versions. By my reckoning Lost Horizon was the penultimate classical Hollywood musical of its kind (with 1974's Mame being the last). Those kind of big-scale, roadshow releases, often in large negative formats like Todd-AO and Super Technirama and exhibited on a reserved-seats basis for long runs in big downtown movie palaces, seem to have begun with Oklahoma! (1955). The genre pretty much peaked with The Sound of Music (1965), the biggest hit of the entire 1960s and so successful that it saved 20th Century-Fox from the financial bath it took on Cleopatra (1963), but it was almost all downhill from th...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Despite being a pretty big F. Scott Fitzgerald fan, it was only recently that I discovered that there had been a film version of Beloved Infidel, Sheilah Graham's memoir about her romance with the great American author, a dalliance that occurred at the tail-end of Fitzgerald's life when he was living in Hollywood trying to make money writing screenplays and working on The Last Tycoon. Now that I have seen the film via this limited edition Blu-Ray from Twilight Time, I understand why Henry King's biopic is rarely spoken of: Beloved Infidel is a real stinker.

Produced in 1959, Beloved Infidel stars Gregory Peck as the floundering scribe and Deborah Kerr as the self-invented gossip columnist who falls under his thrall. The m...Read the entire review

A remake of the studio's earlier, somewhat better The Rains Came (1939), The Rains of Ranchipur (1955) was another in 20th Century-Fox's line of early CinemaScope epics, designed to showcase the process's widescreen and stereophonic splendor but with less regard for trivialities like story, pacing, and characterization. Yet, like a lot of these films made by all the big studios during 1953-1955, there's still much to like in terms of the former even if it means wading through long, turgid glops of the latter. Basically a romantic melodrama about miscegenation and Westerner decadence in India, The Rains of Ranchipur climaxes with a spectacular dam burst and flood sequence. It is, however, fatally miscast: for instance, actors with thick Welsh, Russian, and German accents play the leading Indian characters.

A Twilight Time release limited to 3,000 units and sublicensed from Fox, ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Fran oise Sagan's 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse, published when she was only 18, is a bit like a French Catcher in the Rye: Its story, style, and characters are very different from Holden Caulfield and his "crummy" life, but it expresses a similar sort of teenaged confusion, longing, and disaffection -- a tender heart hidden behind a brave front -- and it left the same permanent mark on its culture as representative of adolescent defiance, skepticism, and melancholy. When director Otto Preminger (Laura, Anatomy of a Murder) decided to make a film version, he added an extra dimension of rebelli...Read the entire review

Clunky, derivative, and sentimental, but also well-intentioned and visually sumptuous, Enemy Mine (1985) is a real mixed bag of ideas, a fusing of themes from the far-superior Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) and the equally muddled and obvious Hell in the Pacific (1968). It's hard to completely dislike this sincere plea for racial and religious tolerance, but except for its outstanding art direction the film falls far short of the profound and emotionally powerful crowd-pleaser it clearly wants to be. The shortcomings are reflected in the title: in Barry B. Longyear's original novella it was intended along the lines of "mine enemy" but so cryptically referenced in the movie the producers felt obliged to build the climax around a literal enemy mine. Either way, it's an inapt name for the big science fiction drama Enemy Mine became and does the film a disservice. The poorly des...Read the entire review

This remake of Night of the Living Dead was such a nightmarish experience for Tom Savini that the legendary effects artist never went on to direct another feature film. Many of the concepts he'd meticulously storyboarded wound up being scuttled to accommodate a tight shooting schedule. Meddlesome producers stomped on Savini's most inspired ideas. This is a movie with a masterful gutslinger at the helm, and yet pretty much every last spatter

Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=58133 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:45:47 PDT Highly Recommended SteelMagnolias is a heartfelt story about the complex lives ofseveral women who live inside the small Louisiana town of Chinquapin.This is astory about these characters uniquely important relationships and allabout theconnection between the characters as they develop as people. The storyaroundthe film is almost a side-product of the development of the charactersas weget to better understand an incredible group of women with differentpersonalities, life goals, aspirations, and directions in life as theyunite aroundseveral import...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=58050 Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:30:00 PDT Skip It Conventional wisdom insists that William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is unfilmable, what with its chaotic timeline, numerous shifts in perspective, parade of unreliable narrators, and occasional disinterest in coherent dialogue. This 1959 adaptation skirts around all that by...well, discarding just about everything that Faulkner put on the page. The Sound and the Fury revolves around the Compsons, a proud Southern family that once enjoyed great wealth and prestige. Those days are now a distant, faded memory. The Compson name has been tarnished by one scandal Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57589 Sat, 18 Aug 2012 19:26:15 PDT Recommended ::audible gasp!:: [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] I know! America's sweetheart -- or...errr...whatever the male equivalent of that is -- has been drafted. Untold millions of smitten, shrieking teenage girls have taken t...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57735 Sat, 18 Aug 2012 16:54:26 PDT Rent It Harvey Howard (Bing Crosby) figures it's about time someone in his family gave higher learning a shot. No, Harv's not browbeating either of his stuck-up, over-entitled kids into heading to college; the millionaire burger magnate has enrolled himself in the hopes of getting that long overdue bachelor's degree. Sure, sure, Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57348 Mon, 06 Aug 2012 04:43:02 PDT Highly Recommended I was pretty disappointed the first time I saw Bell Book and Candle (1958), a romantic comedy-fantasy about a witch who falls in love with a mortal man in present-day New York. Given the cast, headlined by James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, and Ernie Kovacs (and Hermione Gingold and Elsa Lanchester), expectations ran high yet almost unfathomably the film never seemed to live up to its potential. Seeing it again, via Twilight Time's excellent Blu-ray release, I can appreciate its many virtues while identifying, finally, where it goes wrong. It's an unusual, almost experimental film by big studio standards, very subtle both visually and in its screenplay in ways that disappointed audiences expecting a different sort of film. And yet this experimentation and subtlety is what makes Bell Book and Candle (no commas in the title) so interesting today. It was photographed by one of Holl...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57338 Sun, 05 Aug 2012 00:20:21 PDT Highly Recommended Twentieth Century-Fox completely reinvented itself during 1953-54. Prior to 1953, Fox was famous for classy, first-rate movies like All About Eve, Broken Arrow, The Gunfighter (all 1950), The Day the Earth Stood Still, The House on Telegraph Hill, The Desert Fox (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Titanic, and Pickup on South Street (1953). But 1953 was also the year Fox introduced the CinemaScope process, and it completely transformed the content as well as the look and sound of the company's (and other companies') features. After their first CinemaScope release, The Robe, earned $36 million on a $4 million investment, for the next several years Hollywood's A-budget movies were dominated by like-minded epic historical dramas. Fox themselves had King of the Khyber Rifles waiting in the wings to imm...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57313 Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:42:17 PDT Highly Recommended TheBig Heatis one of the most famous noir films of all timeand it has remained as a genuine classic in the genre. Directed byFritz Lang,the gritty and dark journey taken contains shocks, and icy coldness.With solidperformances from a cast including Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and LeeMarvin, audienceswill continue to be impressed by the decidedly dark film about the evilthatcan permeate the world of good and that can even corrupt those who wanttofight for what's right. Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57240 Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:34:05 PDT Highly Recommended Despite its distinction of being Jean Renoir's first American film -- not to mention one of Fox's biggest moneymakers from the class of 1941 -- Swamp Water has somehow managed to long languish in obscurity. Dismissed by Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57237 Mon, 30 Jul 2012 07:21:47 PDT Highly Recommended 20th Century-Fox wouldn't let Marilyn Monroe anywhere near Dostoyevsky but did allow Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins a crack at John Steinbeck in The Wayward Bus (1957), an offbeat, not entirely successful but nonetheless fascinating little drama adapted from the author's 1947 novel. It's like watching Bus Stop (1956), Fox's earlier Marilyn Monroe hit, done in the style of The Last Picture Show (1971), with a plot and ensemble cast of characters similar to another big '50s hit, The High and the Mighty (1955). The film is notable for its striking black and white CinemaScope photography, which looks particularly good in the extremely crisp high-definition transfer Fox has provided distributor Twilight Time. Black-and-white 'scope can look great - the British Blu-ray of Hammer's Paranoiac comes to mind - and this is about par with that release. Visually, it's miles a...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57238 Mon, 30 Jul 2012 05:27:17 PDT Recommended Sure, its title might bring to mind some sort of brutal, nihilistic Spaghetti Western, but 1975's Bite the Bullet is instead a character-driven adventure, one that's set against the backdrop of an epic race at the [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57222 Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:41:55 PDT Highly Recommended The Movie:   Full disclosure: when I first saw Journey to the Center ofthe Earth (1959) as a kid on TV, it totally captured my imagination andenthralled me.  It's been a favorite ofmineever since, and while I no longer put the film on the pedestal that Idid backwhen I was 10, it has aged very well. The movie is a classic adventure flick that's still fun and hasa senseof wonder about it.  Now Twilight Time, asmall niche publisher, has released this favorite of mine on Blu-rayand Icouldn't be happier.  With excellent soundand a very good picture this is a must-buy disc for fans of classic SF.   Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57220 Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:30:45 PDT Recommended The Movie:   The trend is Hollywood to make sequels to successfulpictures isn't a recent invention, no matter how much the press (andthisreviewer) may complain about it.  Theeminently sensible practice dates back to the silent era and to booksbeforethat.  So it should come as no surprisethat after 20th Century Fox's CinemaScope Biblical epic The Robe, which did well at the boxoffice and was nominated for seven Academy Awards (it would win three),has a sequel.  Also filmed in CinemaScope, Demetrius and the Gladiators offers moreaction (both in the arena and in the bedroom) than its inspiration did,and isan exciting film for its time.  Now theepic gets...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57146 Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:38:23 PDT Recommended The Movie:   When I was a kid, I loved the grand epic comedies of the 60's.  You remember them. Blake Edwards's TheGreat Race and Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad,Mad World are themost famous examples but at the time my favorite was ThoseMagnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew FromLondon to Paris in 25 Hours, 11 Minutes directed by Ken Annakin.  How could you not like that film when youwere 10?  Even the name is funny.  Over the years it's been largely forgotten,along with the sequel Those Daring YoungMen in Their Jaunty Jalopies, as has the whole epic comedy raceflickgenre.  Not...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57114 Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:32:55 PDT Recommended Okay, okay, maybe Rusty (Rita Hayworth) doesn't exactly have her name in lights on Broadway, but she's carved out a pretty terrific life for herself in the Big Apple. I mean, she's one of the star attractions in an intimate little club in Brooklyn, plus she has a thing kinda/sorta going with the ridiculously good looking choreographer who owns the joint (Gene Kelly). Rusty doesn't just pal around with her best guys -- cracking oysters open every Friday night with 'em in the hopes of unearthing a big, beautiful pearl -- they're practically roommates. It's a [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56849 Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:25:48 PDT Recommended There's no such thing as an objective movie review, especially if you've seen and enjoyed said movie countless times before. My wife and I first saw As Good As It Gets on opening weekend right around Christmas of 1997, during the beginning months of our dating relationship (and knowing my wife, she probably still has the ticket stub somewhere). We returned to the movie plenty of times after that... although before playing catch-up again earlier this week, it had been close to five years since we'd seen it last. The film's strengths don't stem from nostalgia, thoug...Read the entire review ]]>