Savant's new reviews today are:

The Prowler
VCI strikes noir gold with this superlative special edition release of a formerly lost and now gloriously restored scorcher from the blacklisted Joseph Losey. Ambitious cop Van Heflin sees what he wants in lonely housewife Evelyn Keyes, and takes steps to eliminate her husband. The subversive tale is an emotional indictment of the American go-getter ethic -- the hero's twisted goal is to "make money while he sleeps". With terrific extras organized by The Film Noir Foundation: Eddie Muller, Alan K. Rode & James Ellroy contribute excellent commentary and featurettes.
2/01/11

The Strawberry Blonde
Roughneck New Yorker James Cagney moons after the alluring Rita Hayworth, when his best hopes lie with the adorable Olivia de Havilland. Raoul Walsh's charmingly directed story of love and ambition from an earlier era also stars Jack Carson and George Tobias. From the Warner Archive Collection.
2/01/11

and

Shock Corridor
Blu-ray
Sam Fuller's most experimental feature has reporter Peter Breck comitting himself to an asylum to obtain a prizewinning murder exposé -- but will he go mad before he can report it? Constance Towers co-stars as the stripper who doesn't want him to risk his sanity. In razor-sharp Blu-ray, from Criterion.
2/01/11

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Greetings!

What's new? For Midwesterners, the Kansas Silent Film Festival is bigger than ever this year, with almost three days of gala events, dinners and screenings. It's held at the Washburn campus in Topeka, and this website carries the full details. I saw the auditorium facility for the festival last April, and it's like a concert hall, better than most revival screening venues here in Los Angeles.

Correspondent Rob forwards this YouTube link to an entire segment from the weird children's show (with creepy Bible school overtones) Andy's Gang. This is the piece I describe (or try to describe) in my article on Joe Dante's Movie Orgy from a couple of years back -- Andy leads his friends, a piano-playing cat and a drum-banging hamster, in singing "Jesus Loves Me" to a fake, edited-in audience of kids. It's genuinely mind-warping, watching that trapped hamster struggling in his little knit strait-jacket.

Oh, drat ... the star Betelgeuse is not going to explode this year, giving us a second sun and showering us with dreaded positronic rays, turning us all into slavering fiends, raising the dead and loosing Godzilla from the Earth's core. Maybe next year.

Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Hotel
Arthur Hailey's novel becomes an interesting saga of the last day of a grand New Orleans hotel, where efforts to sell are made difficult by the crimes and crooked deals of by its high-class guests. With Rod Taylor, Merle Oberon, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden, Richard Conte, Michael Rennie, Kevin McCarthy and Melvyn Douglas. Directed by Richard Quine, from the Warner Archive Collection.
1/29/11

The Color Purple
Steven Spielberg's long-form saga of injustice and heartbreak in Georgia is aided by wonderful performances by Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey; and somewhat muted by the director's over-emphasis on pretty pictures and empty cinematic flourishes. An attractive, well-appointed collector's Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
1/29/11

and

Alice in Wonderland
Disney's latest animated classic for Blu-ray takes on Lewis Carroll's fantastic nonsense story about a little girl who can't stay out of rabbit holes. Great animation and characterizations go up against adaptation problems that defy solution. Disney Blu-ray gives the 1951 show the royal treatment.
1/29/11

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Greetings!

No real news this weekend, except to say that I now have a full roster of discs to review and will be proceeding full steam ahead. I still don't have a contact email for Olive Films , even to say "thank you", but the company has graciously sent me new discs of WUSA and Riot to review. They'll be up shortly.

Also, I've been enjoying the titles in Eclipse's new set entitled Basil Dearden's London Underground, which includes The League of Gentlemen, Victim, All Night Long and, in glorious color, Sapphire. And who should show up with two lines in a bit part in Sapphire but a very young Barbara Steele. Wonders never cease.

Also in is VCI's The Prowler, Joseph Losey's 1951 noir, and certainly one the director's best films. The restored feature comes with some excellent extras by the experts at the Film Noir Foundation, and I'm eager to get into them. Warner Home Video's America, America disc is here as well, and I'm just as enthusiastic about it.

Finally, Zeitgeist has sent me Promised Lands, a documentary about the 7-day Israel-Arab war directed by Susan Sontag. I'm eager to see this one, to find out why it has been considered so controversial.

So, with this full docket you can bet what I'll be doing for the next few days. I hope you're in a part of the country where the weather isn't too severe. Thanks for reading! ... as always, Glenn Erickson.

Savant's new reviews today are:

Blondie Johnson
Joan Blondell gets a thorough leading-lady workout in this spirited Pre-Code about an impoverished woman who rises in the rackets, almost becoming a lady gang leader. A smart and impassioned thriller that skirts the ban on gangster characters. Co-stars Chester Morris. Allan Jenkins and Sterling Holloway. From the Warner Archive Collection.
1/25/11

and

Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection
It's a stack of Reagan performances already released in other boxed sets, but it's a good selection: Dark Victory, Knute Rockne All American, Kings Row (Reagan's best), Desperate Journey, This is the Army, The Hasty Heart, Storm Warning, and The Winning Team. And each film is encoded on a separate disc. Warner Home Video.
1/25/11

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Greetings!

Dick Dinman's Classics Corner on the Air radio show has two offerings this week. In The Twisted 60s Blu-ray World of Samuel Fuller, The Naked Kiss star Michael Dante and Samuel Fuller's widow Christa Lang Fuller regale producer/host Dick Dinman with their touching, hilarious and affectionate reminiscences on one of cinema's great rogue directors. In Elia Kazan, the Actor's Director Dick covers Fox's awe-inspiringly comprehensive DVD collection devoted to the brilliant director which includes an all-new Martin Scorsese documentary. Dick interviews Terry Moore as well, who played in Kazan's Man on a Tightrope.

Both Craig Reardon and Stefan Anderson have tipped me off to the news that Bernard Herrmann fans need to be informed that the horror film he scored, The Night Digger is available starting today from the Warner Archive Collection. The film also stars Patricia Neal and Pamela Brown; we're hoping that the WAC's print will be uncut, as this particular feature has turned up edited and censored every which-way.

These links to YouTube attractions already have high hit tallies, but I thought they were worth passing on:

Gary Teetzel points us to a clever editorial mash-up in Even James Bond Needs a Little Help Now and Then.

Jaci Spuhler forwards this hilarious initiation to the narrative wonders of opera, in All the Great Operas in Ten Minutes... without all that music stuff.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Pleasantville
Blu-ray
Gary Ross' delightful fantasy transports Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon into the reality of a B&W '50s situation comedy family show, where everything is "G" rated and the innocent citizens have no knowledge of sex, the outside world, or Color. But a little bit of knowledge leads to a cultural revolution in this strange Garden of Eden. With William H. Macy and Joan Allen. Fascinating special effects now in Blu-ray. From New Line.
1/22/11

The Celluloid Salesman
and
Safe... Not Sorry
Classic Educational Shorts
Kino brings forth volumes #3 and #4 of its Classic Educational Shorts series. This time out the subjects are unusual and sometimes dishonest promos for companies or products, and a selection of "safety" pictures warning viewers against potentially dangerous hazards, children against molesters, etc. With 'video essay' introductions by archivist Skip Elsheimer.
1/22/11

and

The Naked Kiss
Blu-ray
Sam Fuller's most extreme melodrama sees a reformed prostitute getting involved with crippled children, police corruption and a civic leader with a disturbing secret. For 1964, it's very extreme .. in subject matter, characterization and camera style. Starring Constance Towers. Blu-ray, from Criterion.
1/22/11

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Greetings! Some quick news from Savant-land.

The original 1962 The Manchurian Candidate is coming to Blu-ray, but as a Best Buy exclusive on May 3. I've heard rumors about other MGM discs going this route, which is bad news for review sites: as these deals are handled outside normal distribution channels (like Burn On Demand discs), review copies probably won't be available. DVD Savant most likely won't be able to report on them. I am hearing some complaints about these changes in the home video industry. My readers do remark that these store exclusives and Burn On Demand discs usually cannot be purchased by overseas buyers, frustrating collectors outside the U.S..

Artist Charlie Largent, whose work adorns the Trailers from Hell website and Video Watchdog, has begun a new page devoted to "Ad Mats" and original newspaper advertising for feature films. I knew I never should have thrown out my old clippings collection! The fun for New York and Los Angeles viewers is seeing where their favorite genre pictures played when new .. which hardtop theaters and which drive-ins. And there are so many theaters that no longer exist but whose names sound familiar, like Burbank's San Val drive-in that features prominently in White Heat. Largent's fascinating page is called The Friends of Marty Melville, and also features galleries of collector's photos.

Vincente Minnelli fans will want to know that the Warner Archive Collection has just announced the release of four of the director's CinemaScope films from the '50s: The Cobweb, Tea and Sympathy, The Reluctant Debutante and Two Weeks in Another Town. All are remastered editions.

Finally, a very interesting reader-contributor has been sending around links to six pages from the official "Percepto" Booklet for The Tingler, showing exhibitors how to install and operate the ridiculously complicated theater seat vibrators used as a gimmick for that film. It's six separate links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Managers are advised to find girls who can scream and faint on cue to carry out the medics-with-a-stretcher gag. And no giggling!

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Human Comedy
William Saroyan's ode to the small town experience during wartime becomes a glossy MGM production blessed with dozens of good scenes and inspiring moments. Yet MGM slathers on the gloss, almost spoiling the brew. A great performance from Mickey Rooney and good work from Frank Morgan, Marsha Hunt, Donna Reed, James Craig and an unforgettable child actor, Jackie "Butch" Jenkins. All that and a memorable early Robert Mitchum appearance. Directed by Clarence Brown and remastered for the Warner Archive Collection.
1/18/11

and

Dances With Wolves
20th Anniversary Extended Cut
Blu-ray
Kevin Costner's big Oscar winner is 25% more grandiose in its 20th Anniversary Extended Cut, and a beautiful sight in widescreen Blu-ray. A disillusioned soldier journeys to the frontier, and "goes native" with a tribe of the Sioux nation. MGM's presentation includes two BD discs, with a large selection of extras -- including 8 hours' worth of commentaries.
1/18/11

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Greetings! Two reviews today because, because, well, the weather on MLK day was just too fantastic here in L.A.. We walked around the neighborhood (in sandals), had coffee and got to talk for over two whole uninterrupted hours ... Look at it this way, I didn't rush something out just to pack today's post with titles.

But this is supposed to be about discs and films! Correspondent Faisal A. Qureshi sends along interesting links to a new UK restoration site for British Industrial shorts called Time/Image. They're fifteen films into digitizing 175 rare and interesting-sounding titles. This Technicolor sample, World Garden was filmed by the great Geoff (Geoffrey) Unsworth. Faisal's information is that some of the films to come are the work of Jack Cardiff.

I just received a much-anticipated Warners' BD of a favorite fantasy film, Pleasantville and have already decided to cheat its position in the review stack ...

Correspondent Tim Kocher has written me with some weird news. My review screener of the Disney documentary Walt & El Grupo has an entire encoding of the short animated feature Saludos Amigos, and definitely restores a censored sequence in which a "Cowboy Goofy" rolls and smokes a cigarette. Tim tells me that on his store-bought copy, the extra feature is the same censored version we're accustomed to seeing. I'm certain the sequence was there because I hadn't seen Saludos Amigos intact since TV in the 1960s. So ... has anybody else checked this out?

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Army of Crime
The true story of the "Manouchian Cell", a fierce French resistance group dedicated to the destruction of the German occupiers of Paris. With the French police doing the Nazis' work for them, these immigrants, Communists and fugitive Jews bombed and murdered the enemy undetected ... until they were betrayed. Robert Guédiguian's suspenseful thriller has an excellent, interesting cast. Lorber Films. .
1/15/11

The Window
Young Bobby Driscoll has told too many tall tales, and now his parents won't believe him when he sees his neigbors murder a man in their apartment upstairs. A unique paranoid noir with an unusually realistic tenement setting: sort of a pre-teen Rear Window. With Barbara Hale, Ruth Roman, Arthur Kennedy and Paul Stewart. Warner Archive Collection.
1/15/11

and

Stone
Blu-ray
Up for parole, crafty prisoner Edward Norton games the system by instructing his promiscuous wife Milla Jovovich to seduce his parole officer, Robert De Niro. Fine performances, especially from De Niro: the frustrated, conflicted bureaucrat he plays is worthy of his talent. Anchor Bay / Overture.
1/15/11

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Greetings! I'm still catching up with all the DVD Savant Wish List suggestions and thank my readers for sending in so many ... I just need to carve out the hour it will take to log them in. The corrections are appreciated as well.

Kino International is continuing its Classic Educational Shorts DVD series with two new releases due February 8: The Celluloid Salesman contains fifteen instructional films that are really exended advertisements. Safe, Not Sorry presents 14 safety films from the era of 16mm educational cinema, covering everything from Say No to Strangers! to An Outbreak of Salmonella Infection. I find this odd film genre 100% fascinating, a look at earlier attempts at commercial propaganda -- you know, persuasive mind control. And they just arrived ... so I'll be reviewing them soon.

I've talked to someone who's seen Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's horror film Cabin in the Woods, and the word is that it's "really good" and "lots of fun". The movie has been held up for quite a while, but hopefully it will find a release soon.

Writer David J. Schow wants my L.A. readers to know that on February 25, the Billy Wilder theater at UCLA is hosting a special UCLA Film Archive screening of two "lost" Outer Limits-related pilots. The Unknown is the pilot cut of the Forms of Things Unknown episode - the second half-hour was changed to make the story non-science-fictional. With Vera Miles, David McCallum, Barbara Rush and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. UCLA will screen a rare 35mm print. The Haunted is the "holy grail" of lost Outer Limits films, only recovered to the UCLA collection since 2007. It is a supernatural series pilot for CBS, written and directed by Outer Limits main man Joseph Stefano (in fact, the only thing Stefano ever directed himself). Its longer iteration, released to foreign markets as The Ghost of Sierra De Cobre, is even more elusive. The one-hour pilot is a rarity indeed, with Martin Landau and Diane Baker. UCLA will screen the 16mm print from its archives. The screening is FREE, and Marilyn Stefano will be in attendance.

Reader Ed Sullivan reports on an upcoming English DVD of Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight, a great picture and perhaps the director's best film after leaving Hollywood. It's been absent for many years. The Amazon UK listing reads that the disc is region-coded and thus unplayable here; let's hope that it's not!

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The World The Flesh and The Devil
MGM's atomic apocalypse picture takes one step up from genre exploitation fare to big-screen CinemaScope, but an unsatisfying theme of racial friction has been added. Starring Harry Belafonte (who also produced), the talented Inger Stevens and the less interesting Mel Ferrer; good special effects and haunting views of a deserted Manhattan still excite the imagination. From the Warner Archive Collection.
1/11/11

and

Robinson Crusoe On Mars
Blu-ray
This transplant of Daniel Defoe from a deserted island to the chilly Red Planet is a fairly impressive survival story, at least until Friday shows up along with some unlikely space slavers. It's a colorful attempt at realism in space yarns that earned praise but didn't win big at the box office. Paul Mantee acquits himself well as the marooned astronaut. Criterion's Blu-ray retains the excellent Robert Skotak extras from the earlier DVD release.
1/11/11

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Hello ...

Well, the violent events of the weekend have thrown me for a loop, with the result that I only have two reviews today. I was also going to pass on writing up a cheerful greeting, but the fact is that I have one very interesting, and overdue, link to offer.

Producer Dick Dinman has another radio show up at his Classic Corner On The Air site. This one is entitled Walt Disney vs. The Nazis in South America, a true story reflected in the recent documentary DVD release Walt & El Grupo: "At the outbreak of World War 2 the U.S. State Department sent Walt Disney and his top animators to South America as good will ambassadors to deflect growing Nazi/fascist influence. Producer/host Dick Dinman's guest Theodore Thomas has written, produced, and directed a just-released on dvd documentary which reveals the unvarnished truth and hitherto unknown facts about this significantly important occurrence, entitled Walt & El Grupo".

And also, I've added a number of reader replies and comments to the recent review of Once Upon a Time in America, for those interested. As we say here on the coast, let's talk again in next Saturday's DVD Savant post ....

Peace & Sanity, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Lipstick on Your Collar
UK correspondent Lee Broughton offers this Region 2 PAL disc set of Dennis Potter's impressive musical-drama miniseries, starring Ewan MacGregor. Acorn Media UK.
01/08/11

Heat Lightning
A desert rest stop is the setting for passion and crime in this steamy Pre-code from Warner Bros. Great performances from Aline McMahon, Ann Dvorak and Preston Foster. The Warner Archive Collection.
01/08/11

and

Army of Shadows
Blu-ray
Jean-Pierre Melville's taut, uncompromised story of the French resistance benefits from excellent performances from Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret. It's even more atmospheric in Blu-ray. From Criterion.
01/08/11

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Greetings!

Plenty of email action hereabouts, with numerous welcome writers suggesting additions to the DVD Savant Wish List and helping to straighten out errors in the logs. If a new release isn't listed, it might be because it has no official date yet ... I've carried too many titles, only to have their releases canceled after I've been broadcasting misleading information for months.

Here's an example of an interesting title with no set release date yet: Dennis Doros of Milestone Films is preparing a Mary Pickford Box Set with the silent hits Poor Little Rich Girl, The Hoodlum and Sparrows. When I get a date they'll go up on the Wish List. Dennis has another "big restoration project", and promises to tell me about it soon (hopefully in a way that I can report here).

George Lucas's publicists made the announcment on Thursday that all of the Star Wars films will be coming out on Blu-ray this September -- nine months from now. We'll be able to buy all six or in groups of three. I find the first three films attractive enough to be desirable, even with Lucas's digital "improvements". The official press release calls the films "the most anticipated Blu-ray collection since the launch of the high-def format." That's an amusing statement, considering how far in advance they're being hyped. I guess we can expect a bigger media push as the year rolls out: a trailer is already in place that features Han Solo yelping, "Yahoo!"

Thanks for reading -- more reviews next Tuesday! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Once Upon a Time in America
Blu-ray
Sergio Leone's final film is awe-inspiring beautiful scenes and appallingly ugly characters and vulgarisms. But a great cast enlivens his convoluted, nearly four-hour gangland saga: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Tuesday Weld, Elizabeth McGovern. With terrific photography and design; one of the best-looking films of the 1980s. In Blu-ray, From Warner Home Video.
01/04/11

The Outfit
Robert Duvall, Joe Don Baker and Karen Black strike back at the mob in one of the best neo-noir action films of the 70s. Director John Flynn presides over a gathering of great noir supporting actors. From a novel by Donald E. Westlake (Richard Stark); from the Warner Archive Collection.
01/04/11

and

The Mission
Blu-ray
Jesuit brother Jeremy Irons wants to peacefully settle an ugly slavery dispute in the South American jungle, but ex-mercenary Robert De Niro knows that the Spanish and Portuguese powers respect only the sword. Roland Joffé's intense historical epic combines Chris Menges' cinematography with Robert Bolt's intelligent screenplay. Blu-ray, from Warner Home Video.
01/04/11

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Greetings!

I just noticed that all three of my review discs today are from Warner Bros., which is just how it worked out -- I have product from Anchor Bay and Criterion still coming up as well. The Warners Archive Collection reviews will continue apace -- with the end-of-the-world film illustrated to the left expected soon.

Every January my rejuvenated DVD Wish List elicits a flurry of titles from readers new and correspondents familiar, and I'm rushing to include them. I really am: listen and you'll hear the Gods laughing! They're all good suggestions, and keep the list healthy.

Criterion's latest "clue doodle" makes us think that these are possible new discs for the label in 2011, most probably in Blu-ray: Wild Strawberries, Carlos, Insignificance, Zero for Conduct, Solaris. Other guesses not so certain are Cul-De-Sac, Kiss Me Deadly, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Kuroneko, Y Tú Mama Tambíen, Les Diaboliques, and The Great Dictator.

Um, what else have I got here? Several readers who had never seen Metropolis received it as a gift on Christmas morning and told me they liked it-- I hope they really did. I'm considering sending away for the UK Masters of Cinema release as well, just to glom its alternate set of extras.

Gregory Giles and Tom Weaver are the latest folk to send in helpful corrections to Savant articles and the Wish List. Please feel free to squawk when I goof on the details -- with the workload around here the Wish List is bound to collect a few errors and omissions!

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson