It’s a nearly perfect tale of identity swaps and royal intrigues: Ronald Colman’s voice is velvet smooth as the poet-rogue François Villon, who uses his wits when dealing with Basil Rathbone’s (very strangely played) Louis XI. The real charm comes with lady-in-waiting Frances Dee (swoon) and the peasant firebrand Ellen Drew (double swoon). And don’t forget the sophisticated, semi-satirical screenplay by Preston Sturges. The refreshing Blu-ray discovery comes with a commentary by Julie Kirgo.
If I Were King
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 101 min. / Street Date February 7, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, C.V. France, Henry Wilcoxon, Heather Thatcher, Stanley Ridges, Alma Lloyd, Sidney Toler, John Miljan, Montagu Love, May Beatty, Henry Brandon, Darryl Hickman.
Cinematography: Theodore Sparkuhl
Costumer: Edith Head
Art Directors: Hans Drier, John Goodman
Film Editor: Hugh Bennett
Visual Effects: Gordon Jennings
Original Music:...
If I Were King
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 101 min. / Street Date February 7, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, C.V. France, Henry Wilcoxon, Heather Thatcher, Stanley Ridges, Alma Lloyd, Sidney Toler, John Miljan, Montagu Love, May Beatty, Henry Brandon, Darryl Hickman.
Cinematography: Theodore Sparkuhl
Costumer: Edith Head
Art Directors: Hans Drier, John Goodman
Film Editor: Hugh Bennett
Visual Effects: Gordon Jennings
Original Music:...
- 2/18/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ya like quality pro-intervention propaganda? Warners’ filmic call to arms inspired America’s reluctant warriors via a superhuman feat by a highly decorated WW1 veteran… and promptly got into hot water with the United States congress. Howard Hawks’ highly effective load of sentiment and sanctimony makes Tennesseans look like denizens of Dogpatch, U.S.A.. But America loved it, even favorite Gary Cooper’s cute ‘aw shucks’ mannerisms that compare shooting the enemy with shooting a turkey. That’s how we baby boomers learned about patriotism.
Sergeant York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 134 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart.
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Second Unit Director: Don Siegel
Film Editor: William Holmes
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee, Howard Koch, John Huston...
Sergeant York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 134 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart.
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Second Unit Director: Don Siegel
Film Editor: William Holmes
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee, Howard Koch, John Huston...
- 10/3/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Kino Lorber has released three Barbara Stanwyck films in a boxed set collection. Here is the official announcement:
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
This collection feature three classic films starring screen legend Barbara Stanwyck:
Internes Can’T Take Money (1937) – Young Dr. James Kildare, interning at a clinic, falls for his patient Janet Haley. The feeling is mutual, but Janet has a secret she will not divulge: She’s the widow of a bank robber who hid their daughter before he died and she is desperately trying to find the little girl. She will use anyone—including Dr. Kildare—to get her child back. The doctor’s association with gangster Hanlon, whose injuries Kildare secretly patched up, and Janet’s connection with gangster Innes (Stanley Ridges, Black Friday), who’s helping her find her daughter, bring it all to a rousing head filled with action, suspense and the unexpected!
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
This collection feature three classic films starring screen legend Barbara Stanwyck:
Internes Can’T Take Money (1937) – Young Dr. James Kildare, interning at a clinic, falls for his patient Janet Haley. The feeling is mutual, but Janet has a secret she will not divulge: She’s the widow of a bank robber who hid their daughter before he died and she is desperately trying to find the little girl. She will use anyone—including Dr. Kildare—to get her child back. The doctor’s association with gangster Hanlon, whose injuries Kildare secretly patched up, and Janet’s connection with gangster Innes (Stanley Ridges, Black Friday), who’s helping her find her daughter, bring it all to a rousing head filled with action, suspense and the unexpected!
- 8/12/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
This great, unheralded western is divorced from the usual concerns of law and order and gunslinger protocol. As in most every film by Jacques Tourneur, we feel a strong empathy for characters that behave like real people working out real problems. The Oregon Territory is pioneered by imperfect people — opportunists, knaves and hopeful dreamers — all rich in personality. Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward lead a large cast in a tale with just as much conflict and violence as the next western, but with an integrity one can feel. The icing on the cake is the presence of ‘troubadour’ Hoagy Carmichael and his beautiful music.
Canyon Passage
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1946 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward, Brian Donlevy, Patricia Roc, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Fay Holden, Stanley Ridges, Lloyd Bridges, Andy Devine, Victor Cutler, Rose Hobart, Halliwell Hobbes, James Cardwell,...
Canyon Passage
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1946 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward, Brian Donlevy, Patricia Roc, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Fay Holden, Stanley Ridges, Lloyd Bridges, Andy Devine, Victor Cutler, Rose Hobart, Halliwell Hobbes, James Cardwell,...
- 2/22/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Is this the filmic birth of both the wartime Oss and the SuperSpy genre? State department diplomat trainee Joel McCrea weds refugee Brenda Marshall, not realizing that she has gained her freedom by volunteering to become a Nazi spy. Released just as WW2 broke out but filmed and produced earlier, Warners’ production faced stiff political pressure from an isolationist Washington. Ever heard the phrase ‘premature anti-Nazi?’ Here there be patriots.
Espionage Agent
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1939 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date May 1, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Joel McCrea, Brenda Marshall, Jeffrey Lynn, George Bancroft, Stanley Ridges, James Stephenson, Martin Kosleck, Rudolph Anders, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Egon Brecher, Nana Bryant, William Hopper, Glenn Langan, Chris-Pin Martin, George Reeves.
Cinematography: Charles Rosher
Film Editor: Ralph Dawson
Original Music: Adolph Deutsch
Written by Warren Duff, Michael Fessier, Frank Donoghue, James Hilton, story by Robert Henry Buckner
Produced by Louis B.
Espionage Agent
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1939 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date May 1, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Joel McCrea, Brenda Marshall, Jeffrey Lynn, George Bancroft, Stanley Ridges, James Stephenson, Martin Kosleck, Rudolph Anders, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Egon Brecher, Nana Bryant, William Hopper, Glenn Langan, Chris-Pin Martin, George Reeves.
Cinematography: Charles Rosher
Film Editor: Ralph Dawson
Original Music: Adolph Deutsch
Written by Warren Duff, Michael Fessier, Frank Donoghue, James Hilton, story by Robert Henry Buckner
Produced by Louis B.
- 5/19/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Is it a classic? Well, not exactly, but it’s also not a typical disappointing ’40s Z-picture. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett pens a nice twist on the Dracula motif, and actor John Abbott is genuinely impressive as what is surely the most low-key vampire on the books. Plus a sexy dance from Adele Mara!
The Vampire’s Ghost
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 59 min. / Street Date October 31, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring: John Abbott, Charles Gordon, Peggy Stewart, Grant Withers, Emmett Vogan, Adele Mara, Roy Barcroft, Martin Wilkins, Zack Williams.
Cinematography: Robert Pittack, Ellis Thackery
Special Effects: Howard and Theodore Lydecker
Written by John K. Butler, Leigh Brackett, story by Brackett
Associate Producer: Rudolph E. Abel
Directed by Lesley Selander
When Republic dabbled in genre work away from their serials and westerns, the result was often embarrassing. One horror title due for an upward bump in...
The Vampire’s Ghost
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 59 min. / Street Date October 31, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring: John Abbott, Charles Gordon, Peggy Stewart, Grant Withers, Emmett Vogan, Adele Mara, Roy Barcroft, Martin Wilkins, Zack Williams.
Cinematography: Robert Pittack, Ellis Thackery
Special Effects: Howard and Theodore Lydecker
Written by John K. Butler, Leigh Brackett, story by Brackett
Associate Producer: Rudolph E. Abel
Directed by Lesley Selander
When Republic dabbled in genre work away from their serials and westerns, the result was often embarrassing. One horror title due for an upward bump in...
- 10/31/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Now restored to perfection, this genuine classic hasn’t been seen intact for way over sixty years. Michael Curtiz and Robert Rossen adapt Jack London’s suspenseful allegory in high style, with a superb quartet of actors doing some of their best work: Robinson, Garfield, Lupino and newcomer Alexander Knox.
The Sea Wolf
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. uncut! / Street Date October 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Alexander Knox, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Gene Lockhart, Barry Fitzgerald. Stanley Ridges, David Bruce, Francis McDonald, Howard Da Silva, Frank Lackteen, Ralf Harolde
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Film Editor: George Amy
Art Direction: Anton Grot
Special Effects: Byron Haskin, Hans F. Koenekamp
Original Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Written by Robert Rosson, from the novel by Jack London
Produced by Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Chopping up films for television was once the...
The Sea Wolf
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. uncut! / Street Date October 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Alexander Knox, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Gene Lockhart, Barry Fitzgerald. Stanley Ridges, David Bruce, Francis McDonald, Howard Da Silva, Frank Lackteen, Ralf Harolde
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Film Editor: George Amy
Art Direction: Anton Grot
Special Effects: Byron Haskin, Hans F. Koenekamp
Original Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Written by Robert Rosson, from the novel by Jack London
Produced by Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Chopping up films for television was once the...
- 10/14/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Susan Hayward. Susan Hayward movies: TCM Star of the Month Fiery redhead Susan Hayward it Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in Sept. 2015. The five-time Best Actress Oscar nominee – like Ida Lupino, a would-be Bette Davis that only sporadically landed roles to match the verve of her thespian prowess – was initially a minor Warner Bros. contract player who went on to become a Paramount second lead in the early '40s, a Universal leading lady in the late '40s, and a 20th Century Fox star in the early '50s. TCM will be presenting only three Susan Hayward premieres, all from her Fox era. Unfortunately, her Paramount and Universal work – e.g., Among the Living, Sis Hopkins, And Now Tomorrow, The Saxon Charm – which remains mostly unavailable (in quality prints), will remain unavailable this month. Highlights of the evening include: Adam Had Four Sons (1941), a sentimental but surprisingly...
- 9/4/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...
- 8/30/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...
- 8/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. To Be or Not to Be is playing on Mubi in the Us through August 28.In 2002, the American Film Institute selected To Be or Not to Be as one of the 50 funniest American movies of all time. In March of 1942, when the film was initially released, most critics weren't laughing. A movie lampooning Adolf Hitler may have been acceptable a few years prior (see, for example, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator [1940], though even then Chaplin began to regret his decision after learning more of the Nazis' "homicidal insanity"). But by 1942, Pearl Harbor had been attacked, America had entered World War II, and, to make matters even more dour, the star of To Be or Not to Be, the radiant Carole Lombard, had died in a plane crash less than two months before the premiere. All told, those...
- 7/27/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- MUBI
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Brains on Ice! week concludes at Trailers from Hell with director and Tfh creator Joe Dante introducing 1940 Boris Karloff starrer "Black Friday." More brain games from screenwriter Curt Siodmak, this time involving Boris Karloff as an ethically-challenged scientist who transfers the grey matter of a brutal gangster into the skull of timid professor Stanley Ridges. Karloff and Lugosi are top-billed but the velvet-toned Ridges, an underrated vet who refined his craft on the English stage, turns in a memorable dual-edged performance as the gentle soul who suffers through a series of Hyde-like transformations.
- 9/6/2013
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Eleanor Parker: Palm Springs resident turns 91 today Eleanor Parker turns 91 today. The three-time Oscar nominee (Caged, 1950; Detective Story, 1951; Interrupted Melody, 1955) and Palm Springs resident is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Earlier this month, TCM showed a few dozen Eleanor Parker movies, from her days at Warner Bros. in the ’40s to her later career as a top Hollywood supporting player. (Photo: Publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in An American Dream.) Missing from TCM’s movie series, however, was not only Eleanor Parker’s biggest box-office it — The Sound of Music, in which she steals the show from both Julie Andrews and the Alps — but also what according to several sources is her very first movie role: a bit part in Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On, a 1941 Western starring Errol Flynn as a dashingly handsome and all-around-good-guy-ish General George Armstrong Custer. Olivia de Havilland...
- 6/26/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
To celebrate the release of the classic horror Black Friday on May 27th, we are offering you the chance to win one of three copies of the DVD.
Mild-mannered College professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges) is caught in a bloody gangster shoot out and is gravely injured. Kingsley’s close friend Dr. Ernest Sovac (Boris Karloff) preforms an emergency operation replacing the damaged section of Kingsley’s brain with that of injured gangster Red Cannon (Bela Lugosi). But while the operation is a success, Kingsley experiences disastrous ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ side effects, occasionally taking on the more brutal aspects of Cannon’s personality.
While under one of his ‘spells’, Kingsley reveals the existence of a stash of stolen money. Struggling to control his greed, Sovac hypnotizes Kingsley bringing out his alter ego, hoping to get information on the location of the money. But hypnosis brings Kingsley closer to madness, with...
Mild-mannered College professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges) is caught in a bloody gangster shoot out and is gravely injured. Kingsley’s close friend Dr. Ernest Sovac (Boris Karloff) preforms an emergency operation replacing the damaged section of Kingsley’s brain with that of injured gangster Red Cannon (Bela Lugosi). But while the operation is a success, Kingsley experiences disastrous ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ side effects, occasionally taking on the more brutal aspects of Cannon’s personality.
While under one of his ‘spells’, Kingsley reveals the existence of a stash of stolen money. Struggling to control his greed, Sovac hypnotizes Kingsley bringing out his alter ego, hoping to get information on the location of the money. But hypnosis brings Kingsley closer to madness, with...
- 5/15/2013
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Title: To Be Or Not To Be Director: Ernst Lubitsch Starring: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman. The younger generations who have missed a great all time classic such as Ernst Lubitsch’s ‘To Be Or Not To Be,’ will soon have the chance to see its full version restored, in Blu-Ray. The title is a reference to the famous Shakespearean soliloquy in Hamlet and becomes a humorous leitmotiv throughout Ernst Lubitsch’s film. The 1942 American comedy is about a troupe of theatre actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, who use their acting abilities to mock and disguise amongst the German troops. The movie had been [ Read More ]
The post The Restored ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Restored ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 4/19/2013
- by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
- ShockYa
Many film actors have become box office stars thanks to one character, but while Sean Connery and Christopher Lee managed to break away from 007 and Dracula, Anthony Perkins’ was forever overshadowed by his infamous alter ego Norman Bates. For some actors, one film role was enough to give them lasting cinema immortality; if it hadn’t been for their performances as the Wizard of Oz and Ming the Merciless, Frank Morgan and Charles Middleton would have been long forgotten.
The following ten actors achieved their cult status in the horror and fantasy genre on the strength of one film. Although these working actors appeared in a variety of movies, it is that particular character and their well received performance that has pushed any other notable film work into the background!
Max Schreck (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens – 1922)
Rafaela Ottiano (The Devil-Doll – 1936)
Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz – 1939)
Stanley Ridges (Black...
The following ten actors achieved their cult status in the horror and fantasy genre on the strength of one film. Although these working actors appeared in a variety of movies, it is that particular character and their well received performance that has pushed any other notable film work into the background!
Max Schreck (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens – 1922)
Rafaela Ottiano (The Devil-Doll – 1936)
Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz – 1939)
Stanley Ridges (Black...
- 8/14/2011
- Shadowlocked
Possessed (1947) Direction: Curtis Bernhardt Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen Screenplay: Silvia Richards and Ranald MacDougall; from a story by Rita Weiman Oscar Movies Van Heflin, Joan Crawford, Possessed From the moment we see her shuffling across town in a comatose stupor to the homicidal climax, Possessed is Joan Crawford's picture all the way. And once you get past some of its contrived psychobabble, this Curtis Bernhardt-directed melodrama is also one of her best. [Note: Spoilers ahead.] In Possessed, Crawford plays Louise Howell, a private-duty nurse inexplicably obsessed with David Sutton, a cynical, hard-drinking mechanical engineer played by Van Heflin. That brings up my biggest objection to Possessed: the casting of the bland Heflin in a role that required an actor with a certain amount of animal magnetism. This viewer, for one, was unable to understand what made him put the...
- 3/22/2011
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
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