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With its list of May 2024 releases, Amazon Prime Video is giving us the kindest gift of all: cougar Anne Hathaway.

May 2 sees the premiere of The Idea of You, a romantic-comedy that features Hathaway as a 40-year-old mom finding romance with a 24-year-old boy band singer (Nicholas Galitzine). Having saved the medium of film forever, Prime Video is celebrating with some big time library titles this month as well. American Fiction and BlacKkKlansman arrive on May 14 and will be followed by Creed and Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story on May 16.

For its TV offerings, Prime is leading off with Outer Range season 2 on May 16. This James Brolin sci-fi Western will continue the mysteries of the strange happenings on Thanos’ ranch. Reality TV fans will be able to enjoy the Daniel Tosh-hosted competition series The Goat on May 9.

Here’s everything coming to Prime Video and Freevee in April – Amazon...

Rock Hudson was one of the biggest stars of the 1950’s and 60s: the most handsome leading man who romanced the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Julie Andrews and Gina Lollobrigida on the silver screen. But he was living a secret life off-screen — he was gay.

The new Max/HBO documentary “Rock Hudson All That Heaven Allowed” examines his double life and the lengths that were taken to ensure his LGBTQ+ identity wasn’t revealed It wasn’t until 1985 did the truth make the headlines when he became the first famous Hollywood star to die of AIDs.

Barbara Rush, who appeared in three films with Hudson including 1954’s “Magnificent Obsession,” told me in a 2019 L.A. Times interview that it was no secret in Tinseltown that he was gay. “His agent [Henry Willson] decided that there had been enough about the rumors about Rock being gay.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Alice, Darling (Mary Nighy)

Everything you need to know about Alice’s (Anna Kendrick) state of mind concerning the abuse inflicted by her boyfriend Simon (Charlie Carrick) are the words “it’s not like he hurts me.” We feel Sophie’s (Wunmi Mosaku) wince in our bones—”hurt” doesn’t only become noteworthy when wrought by a physical altercation. Alice is glued to her phone to ensure she doesn’t miss a call or text. She wakes up super early to apply make-up and style her hair to Simon’s preference. Parrots all the soundbites he uses to police her eating habits about the toxicity of sugar. And literally pulls her hair out of her head whenever she has a spare second...

February, marking both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, is the kind of stretch from which a programmer can mine plenty. Accordingly the Criterion Channel have oriented their next slate around both. The former is mostly noted in a series comprising numerous features and shorts: Shirley Clarke and William Greaves up to Ephraim Asili and Garrett Bradley, among them gems such as Varda’s Black Panthers and Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground; a six-film series on James Baldwin; and 10 works by Oscar Micheaux.

Meanwhile, the 23-film “All You Need Is Love” will cover the blinding romance of L’Atalante, the heartbreak of Happy Together, and youthful whimsy of Stolen Kisses; four Douglas Sirk rarities should leave their mark, but I’m perhaps most excited about three starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Perhaps more bracing are 12 movies by Derek Jarman and four by noir maestro Robert Siodmak. Also a major...

When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]

The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]

The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“I’m filthy — period!” With an ideal cast — Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone — director Douglas Sirk tells a tale with everything the ’50s wouldn’t allow — lust, nymphomania, impotence, the works. It’s perhaps Sirk’s most accomplished, self-contained masterpiece — a glamorous soap with absorbing characters caught in a cycle of unfulfilled desires. An oil dynasty comes tumbling down because the heir is “tortured by a secret that made him lash out at all he loved!” I keep expecting bathos, but this great show makes its world come alive.

Written on the Wind

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 96

1956 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 1, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch, Joseph Granby, Roy Glenn, Maidie Norman, William Schallert, Kevin Corcoran, Cynthia Patrick.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Art Directors: Robert Clatworthy,...

Warning: contains spoilers for Endeavour series 1-8.

Love them as we do, a great episode of Endeavour isn’t only down to the central pillars of Morse, Thursday, DeBryn, Bright and Strange. It also takes memorable turns from the host of actors playing one-time characters who leave their own indelible mark on the detective drama. After ruthlessly whittling down the possible choices to a mere handful (there are so many to choose from that the true villains deserve a list all to themselves), here are some of Endeavour’s most memorable guest stars. Tell us who tops your list below.

Sheila Hancock as Dowsable Chattox in ‘Harvest’

To mark the thirtieth anniversary of John Thaw’s first television appearance as Inspector Morse, Endeavour paid wonderful tribute by inviting Thaw’s widow Dame Sheila Hancock into the cast of ‘Harvest’ (which of course also featured one of several appearances by Abigail Thaw...

The life and career of Rock Hudson gets a revisionist look in Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Hollywood.” The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas and adventure flicks. While you’re binging Murphy’s newest show, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.

One of the strangest ‘uplifting moral tales’ of the 1950s was a huge hit, and launched Rock Hudson as a major star. Criterion’s deluxe presentation puts it on a par with world cinema, mawkish Kitsch-o-Rama and all. Comes with a restored copy of the slightly less head-spinning 1935 version, too. Co-stars Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, and Otto Kruger, whose moral guidance has something to do with ‘contacting one’s power source.’ Oh, it’s about recharging my iPhone!

Magnificent Obsession

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 457

1954 / Color / 2.00:1 anamorphic widescreen / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 20, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Film Editor: Milton Carruth

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by Robert Blees from an original screenplay by Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason, George O’Neil from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas

Produced by Ross Hunter

Directed...

The Strange Door

Blu Ray

Kino Lorber

1951 / 1:33:1 / 81 Min.

Starring Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest

Written by Jerry Sackheim

Cinematography by Irving Glassberg

Directed by Joseph Pevney

Charles Laughton is a vengeful aristocrat with a secret in the cellar and Boris Karloff is the family servant who holds the key to The Strange Door. Released in 1951, the Universal International period piece stars Laughton as Alain de Maletroit, a bitter reprobate who lures a fugitive into his castle with the promise of sanctuary in exchange for a wedding vow.

There’s a bright side to that peculiar overture – the mystery bride is de Maletroit’s niece, the prim but pliant Blanche played by the low key seductress Sally Forrest.

Laughton’s convoluted plan is a decades-long effort to corrupt Blanche and humiliate her father, Edmond, the man who stole Blanche’s mother from Laughton years before. The fugitive, Denis de Beaulieu,...

Douglas Sirk took our heads off with this intense, thematically adult tale of love and obsession in a Depression-Era flying circus that’s the open air equivalent of the marathon dance craze — pilots die to thrill the crowd. The terrific-looking show provides career-best roles for some deserving actors: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson and Robert Middleton … but the newly-minted star Rock Hudson seems miscast.

The Tarnished Angels

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, Robert Middleton, Alan Reed, Alexander Lockwood, Chris Olsen, Robert J. Wilke, Troy Donahue.

Cinematography: Irving Glassberg

Film Editor: Russell F. Schoengarth

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by George Zuckerman from a novel by William Faulkner

Produced by Albert Zugsmith

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk made his name with big, glossy soap operas starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson,...

The walls literally close in on those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the dungean of the Sire de Maletroit (Charles Laughton) in 1951's The Strange Door. Co-starring the legendary Boris Karloff and based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Door will be opened by Kino Lorber on Blu-ray this April.

Special features for The Strange Door (1951) Blu-ray have yet to be announced, but you can read the official announcement from Kino Lorber below, and stay tuned to Daily Dead for further updates.

From Kino Lorber Studio Classics: "Coming April 2019 on Blu-ray!

The Strange Door (1951) Starring Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest, Richard Wyler, Alan Napier and Michael Pate - Shot by Irving Glassberg - Screenplay by Jerry Sackheim (The Black Castle) - Based on the Story "" by Robert Lewis Stevenson - Directed by Joseph Pevney."

Synopsis (via Blu-ray.com): "The Sire de Maletroit (Charles...

Rock Hudson would’ve celebrated his 93rd birthday on November 17, 2018. The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas, and adventure flicks. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.

He received his sole Oscar nomination for...

The 2018 Telluride Film Festival will feature the world premieres of Joel Edgerton’s “Boy Erased,” starring Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman; David Lowery’s “The Old Man & the Gun,” featuring a performance that Robert Redford said will be his last; and Yann Demange’s “White Boy Rick,” with Matthew McConaughey and Bruce Dern.

On Thursday, Telluride organizers announced a lineup that includes those films, as well as a number of others that are premiering at the Venice Film Festival, including Damien Chazelle’s “First Man,” Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite.”

Other films at the festival will include Jason Reitman’s drama about presidential candidate Gary Hart, “The Front Runner”; Marielle Heller’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” with Melissa McCarthy; Karyn Kusama’s “Destroyer,” with Kidman; Mike Leigh’s period drama “Peterloo”; and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner, “Shoplifters.”

Also Read: 'First Man...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe great post-war Italian auteur Ermanno Olmi had died at the age of 86. Winner of the Palme d'Or in 1978 for The Tree of the Wooden Clogs, Olmi was making great cinema up until the end. Sam Roberts of the The New York Times remembers.And another mourning that also hits us personally: Pierre Rissient, the ultimate cinephile (and filmmaker in his own right!), has left us. Scott Foundas has penned a most thorough remembrance for IndieWire.Recommended VIEWINGWe're covering the Cannes Film Festival this week and next, and are ever-more excited for the latest film from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong (Poetry), which so happens to be his first film in 8 (!) years.Two of the minds behind the brilliant television series Atlanta, Donald Glover (in his musical alias Childish Gambino) and director Hiro Murai,...

The 28th entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angels (1957) is showing May 7 - June 6, 2018 in the many countries around the world as part of the series In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective.It is often said that the mark of a good, rich film is that the part mirrors the whole—or, more specifically, that the structure of each individual scene should reflect, as in a microcosm, the overall structure. If Douglas Sirk had a particular fondness for this way of working—and if his films provide especially dazzling examples of the process—that is no doubt because his films are often hell-bent on emphasizing a certain, deathly repetition. Sirk’s central characters twist in their social traps, commit the same mistakes over and over, and trigger the same, perverse, interpersonal binds. It...

Hollywood star who won an Oscar for her role in Written on the Wind and appeared in the TV soap Peyton Place

Although the Hollywood star Dorothy Malone, who has died aged 92, appeared in only a handful of works of distinction in a fairly lengthy career, they were good enough to secure her place in film history. On those occasions when the role permitted, most notably in two flamboyant melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk, Written on the Wind (1956) and The Tarnished Angels (1957), Malone revealed what a talented performer she could be, one capable of projecting a potent blend of cynicism, sexuality and intelligence. However, she was probably most familiar to the general public as Constance MacKenzie in Peyton Place (1964-68), one of the first primetime TV soap operas.

In Written on the Wind, Malone played Marylee, an oil heiress, sister of an alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack). She’s...

Any list of the greatest foreign directors currently working today has to include Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The directors first rose to prominence in the mid 1990s with efforts like “The Promise” and “Rosetta,” and they’ve continued to excel in the 21st century with titles such as “The Kid With A Bike” and “Two Days One Night,” which earned Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama

The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...

These were only meant to be seen once. These explosive, unwieldy, nearly unprecedented and almost peerless essay films, densely packed with images so resonant they have been studied for nearly one hundred years, were only meant to be seen once. This observation comes from Adrian Martin on the excellent commentary track accompanying Man with a Movie Camera (1929), easily Dziga Vertov’s most important film. The other four films on the set were produced contemporaneously – Kino-Eye in 1924, Kino-Pravda #21 in 1925, Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass in 1931, and Three Songs About Lenin in 1934. The latter two are sound films. The silent films – Movie Camera, Kino-Eye, and Kino-Pravda #21 feature musical accompaniment, none more accomplished than Alloy Orchestra’s landmark work.

For viewers in my generation, and I would imagine for a great many older than I, Alloy Orchestra’s score for Man with a Movie Camera is as important a component to the film as anything else.

Welcome back to our Criterion Christmas! I'll be using Meeting the Criterion as a convenient way of reminding you of many of the Criterion Collections great releases from the last year. Whether your Criterion Collection is organized by spine number, title or director, there's a good chance you'll see some releases that are bound to end up on your 'must remember to get' list. All That Heaven Allows (1955) was directed by Douglas Sirk. It's one of a handful of movies he did for Universal International Pictures between 1952 and 1959 and it appears dead center of that creative period that included other films like Magnificent Obsession (1954), The Tarnished Angels (1957) and Imitation of Life (1959). Sirk's movies weren't taken too seriously when they...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

★★★★☆ The latest work from German auteur Douglas Sirk to get the Masters of Cinema treatment (following the rerelease of The Tarnished Angels earlier this month), 1958's A Time to Love and a Time to Die is remarkable not only for its sympathetic portrayal of disheartened and disenfranchised German soldiers towards the end of the Second World War, but also for its fine blend of sharp humour and sweeping CinemaScope melodrama. Starring John Gavin and Liselotte Pulver as the lovestruck Ernst Gräber and beautiful Hamburg resident Elisabeth, this is Sirk at the height of his Hollywood power.

Returning home to the burnt-out remnants of Hamburg after several long, cold years on the Russian-German Front, Gavin's square-jawed Gräber comes back to a city in ruins. With his parents' apartment block completely destroyed by enemy bombing raids, Gräber frantically searches the note-littered wall of the district to find some trace of his beloved family.

(Douglas Sirk, 1957; Eureka!, U)

Initially derided by critics in the English-speaking world (though not in France), this version of William Faulkner's 1935 novel Pylon is now regarded as one of Douglas Sirk's masterworks. Shot in stark black-and-white CinemaScope, it's set in New Orleans and is about the desperate lives of itinerant barnstorming fairground aviators risking their lives as they eke out a living during the Depression. Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone co-star, as they did the previous year in Sirk's Written on the Wind.

Hudson plays an alcoholic journalist (unnamed in the novel but called Burke Devlin in the film) who becomes fascinated by the odd menage a trois of a former first world war ace pilot obsessed with flight (Stack), his loving but promiscuous wife (Malone) and his devoted mechanic (Jack Carson), who may possibly be the father of the couple's young son. Devlin becomes close...

★★★☆☆ An adaptation of William Faulkner's 1935 novel Pylon (and considered by Faulkner to be the finest of all screen adaptations of his work), Douglas Sirk's haunting and inherently sad The Tarnished Angels (1957) has been given the Blu-ray treatment by The Masters of Cinema, a label known for cherishing the more challenging and notable notches in cinema's lifespan. While Sirk didn't believe it to be his greatest work, it's perhaps best-known for being his most personal, ambitious and starkly cynical film; far removed from the more distinguishable, Technicolor-infused melodramas of that peppered his career.

Whilst visually dissimilar to the more intoxicating Written on the Wind (1956) - a spiralling and perversely glorified soap opera - Sirk (whilst collaborating again with screenwriter George Zuckerman) retains a large portion of that film's main cast and, indeed, its subversive themes regarding post-war infatuation and obsession. Set in, and effectively evoking, Depression-era New Orleans, the...

While the name Douglas Sirk has long been a familiar one, The Tarnished Angels marks the first of his films I have actually taken the time to watch. After building his name on high profile studio melodramas, this particular film indicates a somewhat less commercial venture for the German-born director. Given free reign by Universal after the success of All That Heaven Allows and There's Always Tomorrow among others, Sirk chose to adapt William Faulkner's downbeat Depression-era novel, Pylon, and cast the three lead performers from his earlier film, Written On The Wind, in far darker, more compromised territory. Rock Hudson stars, way against type, as Burke Devlin, a dishevelled, drunken newspaperman who stumbles upon the bizarre, nomadic lives of travelling daredevil pilots. Roger Shumann...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

I used to believe, like Wenders or Godard, in the death of cinema. I accepted it as fact but never believed in it. The movies, that’s what I believed in—a dark room, shadows on a surface, a bunch of lonely people sitting down, looking up.

Like Leos Carax to Serge Daney, Abel Ferrara showed me there’d be cinema ‘til the end of the world.

***

At first I thought Abel Ferrara’s films were badly acted; I soon realized Ferrara would take bad acting with truth in it over a masterpiece of falsehoods. (Later I found out that Ferrara would, in Dangerous Game and New Rose Hotel, use one to create the other.)

I thought his films were too commercial. “Already captivated by cinema, I didn’t need to be seduced as well,” as Serge Daney put it. Hollywood in the 21st century is a highly sophisticated marketing ploy.

Robert Stack on TCM: The Tarnished Angels, The Mortal Storm Schedule (Pt) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 Am Date With Judy, A (1948) A teenager thinks her grandfather is involved with a fiery Latin singer. Cast: Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, Elizabeth Taylor. Dir: Richard Thorpe. C-113 mins. 5:00 Am Fighter Squadron (1948) A dedicated flyer pushes himself and those around him during a perilous World War II campaign. Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Robert Stack, Rock Hudson. Dir: Raoul Walsh. C-95 mins. 6:45 Am My Outlaw Brother (1951) A ranger tries to pry his brother from the Mexican bandit gang he’s joined. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Wanda Hendrix, Robert Stack. Dir: Elliott Nugent. Bw-82 mins. 8:15 Am Bwana Devil (1952) A British railway engineer in Kenya tries to capture the lions attacking his workers. Cast: Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, Nigel Bruce. Dir: Arch Oboler. C-79 mins. 9:45 Am Iron Glove, The (1954) [...]...

Actor Steve Drexel appeared in a handful of films in the 1960s and 1970s, starring as David in the 1963 horror film Terrified and as Dr. Oscar Roscoe in the 1966 cult classic Movie Star, American Style or; LSD, I Hate You.

He was born Ernest Joseph Caringi in Mechanicville, New York on December 23, 1931, and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.  He and his parents owned and operated the Hollywood supper club Panzas Lazy Susan in the 1950s and 1960s. He began appearing in films and television in the late 1950s as Steve Drexel, and was featured in such films as the Lon Chaney bio-pic Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). His other films include The Tarnished Angels (1958), Hot Rod Gang (1958), Swamp Girl (1971), and Superchick (1973). He also appeared on television in episodes of World of Giants, Assignment: Underwater, and The Six Million Dollar Man.

Drexel died of lung and bone cancer in Quartz Hill,...

Robert Stack, the stentorian voice behind TV's Unsolved Mysteries and the original Eliot Ness in the `50s TV series The Untouchables, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles of heart failure; he was 84. Starting his film career in 1939 with First Love opposite Deanna Durbin, Stack made more than 40 films, including The Tarnished Angels, The Iron Glove, To Be or Not to Be, Bwana Devil, The High and the Mighty and Written on the Wind, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1956. Despite his prolific film career (punctuated in the `80s by a scene-stealing turn in the comedy Airplane!), Stack gained most of his fame through television, starting in 1959 with The Untouchables, where he won an won an Emmy award for his role as Chicago crimefighter Eliot Ness; other TV series included The Name of the Game, Most Wanted and Strike Force. In 1988, he began a longstanding run as the host of the syndicated series Unsolved Mysteries, which ran through the late `90s. Stack is survived by his wife Rosemarie, whom he married in 1956, and his two children, Elizabeth and Charles. --Prepared by IMDb staff...