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Even if you didn't grow up watching "The Twilight Zone," you've almost certainly been influenced or seen something that's been influenced by Rod Serling's seminal sci-fi horror series. Aside from becoming hugely popular during its original five-season run from 1959-64 on CBS, the show galvanized its standing in syndication before being reimagined with three separate TV revivals in 1985, 2002, and 2019. There was also the cursed "Twilight Zone" movie from 1982, and the fact that individual episodes have been referenced, parodied, and used for inspiration in everything from "Child's Play" to "The Simpsons."

In the latter case, you might remember a segment from 1993's "Treehouse of Horror IV" entitled "Terror at 5+1⁄2 Feet," in which Bart is menaced by a gremlin that only he can see while on the school bus. This was just one of many reimaginings of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," a classic "Twilight Zone" episode which has officially been remade...

The opening narration to "The Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" states that Bob Wilson (William Shatner) has just been discharged from a sanitarium, finally having (mostly) recuperated from a nervous breakdown experienced on an airplane six months earlier. He is about to get on a plane again for the first since his breakdown, and his wife Julia (Christine White) is wary that flying may trigger another severe panic attack. Bob assures her that he may be nervous, but that he should be able to survive.

Of course, nothing natural or easy happens in the Twilight Zone. Bob peers out the window and sees, on the wing of the plane, a large furry gremlin (Nick Cravat). It sees Bob as well. When he calls a stewardess for help, the gremlin vanishes, able to lift off into the rainy night sky. When Bob is looking, however, it reappears and begins...

William Shatner wasn't always Captain James T. Kirk. Before his breakout part, he starred in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone." The first, and more famous, was "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Shatner plays Bob Wilson, an airplane passenger with a fear of flying. Wilson has recently recovered from a mental breakdown and his sanity is seemingly in doubt again when he sees a gremlin messing with the plane's engines. Is the Gremlin just his illness and fear acting up? After failing to convince everyone else aboard of the monster's existence, he takes matters into his own hands.

Shatner wasn't the only future star on board this flight. The episode was directed by the late Richard Donner, future director of "The Omen," "Lethal Weapon," and "Superman." The irony is twofold. In a few short years, Shatner would star as the captain of a ship that flies a lot higher than 20,000 feet.

Robert Aldrich gives the Cavalry Western a rough going-over in this brutal, unforgiving horror-western. Burt Lancaster gets in a fine late-career action turn as well. The pursuit of an Apache raiding party becomes guerrilla war in the desert, the kind of conflict that cements racial hatred forever. Aldrich and Alan Sharp’s answer to the ‘mud & rags’ western of the early 1970s carries on the director’s anarchic streak. This is how the West was won?

Ulzana’s Raid

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date January 21, 2020 / 29.99

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke, Joaquín Martínez, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, Douglass Watson, Dran Hamilton, Gladys Holland, Aimee Eccles, Tony Epper, Nick Cravat, Richard Farnsworth, Dean Smith.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Film Editor: Michael Luciano

Original Music: Frank De Vol

Written by Alan Sharp

Produced by Carter DeHaven

Directed by Robert Aldrich

After all of the bloodletting...

Murder strikes a private college. In the new security guard’s efforts to find the killer, he uncovers sordid secrets and multiple unsavory conspiracies. Triple-threat Burt Lancaster boasts directing and screenwriting credits here, and heads a large, exemplary cast of suspects in a mystery that implicates practically all of them in something illegal.

The Midnight Man

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date February 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Linda Thorpe, Cameron Mitchell, Morgan Woodward, Harris Yulin, Robert Quarry, Joan Lorring, Lawrence Dobkin, Ed Lauter, Mills Watson, Charles Tyner, Catherine Bach, Bill Lancaster, Quinn K. Redeker, Peter Dane, Linda Kelsey, William Splawn, Nick Cravat.

Cinematography: Jack Priestley

Film Editor: Frank Moriss

Original Music: Dave Grusin

Written by Roland Kibbee, Burt Lancaster from a book by David Anthony

Produced and Directed by Roland Kibbee & Burt Lancaster

Carrying a reputation as an intelligent low-key murder mystery, 1975’s...

Top stars Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida earn their keep in Carol Reed’s powerful tale of ambition and excellence performing forty feet above a circus arena. The best circus movie ever is also among Reed’s most exciting, best directed movies, a solid show all around.

Trapeze

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez, Sidney James, Johnny Puleo.

Cinematography: Robert Krasker

Costume Design: Veniero Colasanti

Editorial Supervisor: Bert Batt

Production Design: Rino Mondelli

Dialogue Coach: Harriet White Medin

Original Music: Malcolm Arnold

Written by James R. Webb & Liam O’Brien from a novel by Max Catto

Produced by James Hill, Harold Hecht, Burt Lancaster

Directed by Carol Reed

For a long time it seemed that Carol Reed had been canonized for The Third Man, Odd Man Out and...

Blu-ray fans are now well aware that many great movies unavailable in the U.S., can be easily found in Europe. One of the best westerns of the ’70s is this jarringly realistic cavalry vs. Apaches drama from Robert Aldrich and Burt Lancaster, which used the ‘R’ rating to show savage details that Hollywood had once avoided. In this case it works — the genuinely scary movie is also a serious meditation on violent America.

Ulzana’s Raid

(Keine Gnade für Ulzana)

All-region Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Explosive Media

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date November 9, 2017 / available through the Amazon Germany website / Eur 17,99

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke, Joaquín Martínez, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, Douglass Watson, Dran Hamilton, Gladys Holland, Aimee Eccles, Tony Epper, Nick Cravat, Richard Farnsworth, Dean Smith.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Film Editor: Michael Luciano

Original Music: Frank De Vol

Written by Alan Sharp

Produced by...

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...

With so many films released on the run up to Halloween it’s been hard to keep up with reviews, so we’re going to play catch-up with another review round-up looking at some recent releases in brief. This time round we have reviews of Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari, Saints & Soldiers: The Void, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and The Pigman Murders.

Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari

Stars: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Rudolf Lettinger | Directed by Robert Weine

Synopsis: At a local carnival in a small German town, hypnotist Dr. Caligari presents the somnambulist Cesare, who can purportedly predict the future of curious fairgoers. But at night, the doctor wakes Cesare from his sleep to enact his evil bidding…

My thoughts: Along with Last Year in Marienbad and The 400 Blows, Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari was one of those “important” films that I,...

If you have Netflix and are a horror fan in need of something to watch this Labor Day weekend, one look at this gargantuan list I compiled of the new terror titles Netflix has added for instant streaming in just the first three days of this month should keep you busy until Labor Day next year. You'll find something for everyone, from older titles to recent releases, famous to obscure, classic to not-so-classic, monsters to maniacs - you name it.

For the record, I considered compiling this list in alphabetical order or by year of the film's release, but then I realized I had already spent well over an hour just sorting through the massive catalogue of titles Netflix has now made available for instant streaming and realized Labor Day would be over by the time I finished arranging this list in any kind of order. Ready? Here you go.

Almost every time I step out of—or into—my apartment, I expect to see Rod Serling standing there, just out of frame, ready with an ironic comment, ubiquitous cigarette in hand. (The man was a creative genius, but he had little respect for “No Smoking” signs.) And you know, it’s not that I’ve only Just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. I already live there, in the middle ground between light and shadow. Some call it New Jersey.

Anyhow, I often imagine Serling hanging around because, like most of you, I’ve experienced strange, Twilight Zone things in my own life. For example, I’ll get into my New York office at 8 a.m. and wonder “Where Is Everybody?” (Wait a minute, it’s Saturday!) Or I’ll be on a train, exhausted as usual, waiting for “A Stop at Willoughby”—or in my case, Bethany, a...

They say in every successful relationship, there's a flower and a gardener -- a star and an extra -- and that people gravitate toward those who'll let them inhabit their instinctive roles. A similarly symbiotic dynamic is often set up, in film and comedy, between a main character and his or her silent sidekick. The silent sidekick is a somewhat exotic species, but there are enough of them and enough similarities in the function they have played in some famous films and infamous comic pairings, that we decided to take a closer look on the eve of "The Brothers Bloom," which opens on the 15th, and which features Rinko Kikuchi as a bomb-making expert named Bang Bang who speaks, literally, three words of English (or any other language). Below are some of our favorites.

Ben Doyle in "Lightning Jack"

Ben Doyle (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is mute, but he's not deaf,...