Notizie

On July 17, 1926, a theater opened in Portland, Oregon. Talkies were still a year away and the Great Depression hadn’t yet struck vaudeville, so it played host to variety acts, as well as silent films paired with an 8-piece orchestra and organist. It was called the Hollywood Theatre and its popularity grew so rapidly that soon, the entire district around the theater became known as the Hollywood of Portland. Today it remains the last theater of its era still standing in the City of Roses and showcases both first-run films and a wide range of repertory cinema.

Put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the theater has three auditoriums, one of which features a 50-foot screen and 384 seats. In 1997, the theater was made a non-profit, with major renovations taking place between 2011 and 2015 that revitalized the marquee and brought back 70mm screening capabilities. Extending its reach beyond its doors,...

Despite the proliferation of streaming services, it’s becoming increasingly clear that any cinephile only needs subscriptions to a few to survive. Among the top of our list are The Criterion Channel and Mubi and now they’ve each unveiled their stellar April line-ups.

Over at The Criterion Channel, highlights include spotlights on Ennio Morricone, the Marx Brothers, Isabel Sandoval, and Ramin Bahrani, plus Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise, the brand-new restoration of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, and one of last year’s best films, David Osit’s Mayor.

At Mubi (where we’re offering a 30-day trial), they’ll have the exclusive streaming premiere of two of the finest festival films from last year’s circuit, Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema, plus Philippe Garrel’s latest The Salt of Tears, along with films from Terry Gilliam, George A. Romero,...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

The Film Noir Foundation has helped revive yet another difficult-to-see noir gem — the murder cover-up tale begins with a shooting in a mansion and races across San Francisco to a finale given classic lines by director Felix Feist. And the casting: Saggy Lee J. Cobb as a romantic leading man? Sunny Jane Wyatt as a duplicitous killer? Bring it on!

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 81 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, John Dall, Lisa Howard, Harlan Warde, Tito Vuolo, Charles Arnt, Marjorie Bennett.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: David Weisbart

Production Design: Van Nest Polglase

Original Music: Louis Forbes

Written by Philip MacDonald, Seton I. Miller from his story.

Produced by Jack M. Warner

Directed by Felix E. Feist

In the late ’40s film noir was the default vehicle for ambitious filmmaking — after producing two early Anthony Mann noirs,...

Both of the Siodmak brothers made indelible contributions to genre filmmaking, particularly Robert Siodmak’s sterling film noir titles. His brother, Curt Siodmak was more recognizable as a screenwriter, penning a variety of B horror titles such as The Wolf Man (1941) and usually assigned to pen sequels to a number of other franchises, such as The Invisible Man, Dracula, and Frankenstein. Oddly, his 1942 science fiction novel Donovan’s Brain would receive three separate cinematic adaptations of its own (including The Lady and the Monster in 1944 and The Brain in 1962), all informed by particular topical elements of the decade they were mounted in, though none of them particularly astounding in their rudimentary illustrations of science gone wrong.

Dr. Patrick Corey (Lew Ayres) is experimenting on brains out of his lab from the privacy of his country home. Assisted by Dr. Frank Schratt (Gene Evans) and his complacent wife Janice (Nancy Regan...

Words With Friends: Gozlan’s Stylish Noir all Amalgamated Pulp

Enjoyably anxious, director Yann Gozlan’s sophomore feature A Perfect Man (Un homme idéal) would better recall suspense masters like Hitchcock or Chabrol if its narrative felt a little less familiar. As such, it seems more like the B noir cousin of the cinema Gozlan is in conversation with rather than a revisionist take on one of cinema’s greatest femme fatales—karma. Featuring an excellent lead performance from recent Cesar award winning actor Pierre Niney, there’s much to admire even as Gozlan overdoses with increasing complications that hinge on the ludicrous.

Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) is an aspiring novelist, whose first manuscript, The Man From Behind, has been promptly rejected by publishers. Working vaguely as some sort of janitorial staff and/or garbage man, Vasseur stumbles into a lecture being given about scent’s relationship to memory and literature...

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Written by Seton I. Miller and Philip MacDonald

Directed by Felix E. Feist

U.S.A. 1950

Underestimation is arguably one of Man’s greatest flaws. Once an individual has settled into a false sense of security, or is perhaps convinced of his or her own superiority against all possible odds, the lone variable to disrupt that security shall always arrive with the worst possible timing. Anybody would be hard pressed to not admit to a time when that most unwise habits befell them. Even when weighing the opposition and potential variables, the factor that shall ultimately prove to be their undoing can easily be the least anticipated. In crime movies, the culprits frequently attempt to plan the perfect caper or murder, only to be undone by the simplest of clues left behind. The unexpected harbinger of doom could be a piece of evidence, just as it might be a person,...

If you’ve hunted around for movie bargains, you’ve probably seen some of Mill Creek Entertainment’s 50-Movie Packs on DVD. Apart from other great releases by Mill Creek, these packs are phenomenal boons to cinephiles looking to collect older titles.

There are three new packs available, and I want to not only let you in on a discount code, but I have one of the packs available for you to win.

I know a lot of people may be quick to overlook these packs, and not every movie included stands out as a major value, but there are some great titles in each of them, and fans of the genres will be pleasantly surprised by what they get out of the deal. I have to admit that there is something about seeing a 50-movie pack, especially when it doesn’t cost a couple of hundred dollars, or more,...