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Plenty of actors have played Abraham Lincoln well, but the actor still most associated with the role is Raymond Massey, who starred in Robert E. Sherwood’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play. The film version was not a hit, as Sherwood’s aim is to capture the melancholy, even the foreboding, of a man who was a natural for politics. In this reading Lincoln tries to resist his ‘call to greatness’ knowing he’s letting himself in for an unhappy life. The Warner Archive’s restoration retrieves the film from old 16mm prints, restoring James Wong Howe’s handsome cinematography.

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 110 min. / Spirit of the People / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date , 2022 / 21.99

Starring:

Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard, Minor Watson, Alan Baxter, Harvey Stephens, Howard da Silva, Dorothy Tree, Louis Jean Heydt, Clem Bevans, Herbert Rudley,...

“This picture is perfect, end of review.” That may not be 100 true, but Leo McCarey’s unabashed leap into romantic Nirvana really hasn’t been bettered, although his color & ‘scope remake is very good. Never was smart adult dialogue this winning — Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer’s cinematic courtship is a highlight of the Big Studio years. And Maria Ouspenskaya’s performance will send you out to pamper the nearest grandmother. The restoration for this one is a revelation, as the show has looked terrible for sixty years- plus. Serge Bromberg and Farran Smith Nehme make the extras especially valuable.

Love Affair

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1114

1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 15, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovitch, Ferike Boros, Scotty Beckett, Bess Flowers, Harold Miller, Dell Henderson, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Joan Leslie.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté

Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,...

A thousand releases down the line, Criterion gives us a special edition of the most creatively brilliant & innovative movie in history, as the label debuts selected 4K releases. It’s a four-disc set, with three Blu-rays that hold a huge quantity of well-chosen and well-produced extras. What can be said about Kane that hasn’t been debated decades ago? Our Declaration of Principles is to just try and tell the truth: we try a ‘civilian’ approach, sketching the film’s wonderments without assuming the reader is already a true believer in the Cinema God Orson Welles. Which Welles definitely is.

Citizen Kane 4K

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1104

1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 119 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 23, 2021 / 47.96

Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris, Fortunio Bonanova.

Cinematography: Gregg Toland...

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,...

Alfred Hitchcock assembles all the right elements for this respected mystery thriller. Joan Fontaine is concerned that her new hubby Cary Grant plans to murder her. But Hitch wasn't able to use the twist ending that attracted him to the story in the first place! Suspicion Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 99 min. / Street Date , 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Auriol Lee, Leo G. Carroll Cinematography Harry Stradling Art Direction Van Nest Polglase Film Editor William Hamilton Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison, Alma Reville from the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley) Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some movies don't get better as time goes on. Alfred Hitchcock got himself painted into a corner on this one, perhaps not realizing that in America,...

Marlene Dietrich Grandson J. Michael Riva, Robert Clatworthy, and Harper Goff: Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame 2014 Production Designers Robert Clatworthy, Harper Goff, and J. Michael Riva will be posthumously inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 18th Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony, to be held on February 8, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (Photo: Production designer J. Michael Riva.) J. Michael Riva J. Michael Riva (1948-2012), grandson of Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, A Foreign Affair), was production designer for Stuart Rosenberg / Robert Redford’s 1980 socially conscious drama Brubaker. Later on, Redford hired Riva as the art director for Ordinary People, also released in 1980. Riva’s other production design credits include the Lethal Weapon movies starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover; A Few Good Men (1992), with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore; The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), with Will Smith; Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst,...

First released in 1946, Gilda is a wonderfully perverse noir classic that comes over as a cross between Casablanca (an intentional influence) and Hitchcock's Notorious (which appeared just weeks after Gilda). The movie revolves around the exotic Rita Hayworth and was produced by Virginia Van Upp, the most powerful woman at Columbia, who was charged by tough studio boss Harry Cohn with supervising the star's career. Hayworth is stranded in Buenos Aires at the end of the second world war, trapped between her sadistic, middle-aged husband, the Nazi-sympathiser Ballin Mundson (George Macready), and her ex-lover, the cruel, amoral American adventurer, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford). The men have a homoerotic love-hate relationship. After Johnny sees Ballin's phallic sword-cane the first time they meet, he says admiringly: "You must lead a gay life."

Hayworth is sad and stunning, the film is beautifully lit by Rudolph Maté (who photographed Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc,...

The Art Directors Guild has instituted an inaugural Hall of Fame to honor the contributions of legendary production designers and art directors. The first group of inductees includes Wilfred Buckland (1922's Robin Hood), Richard Day (1941's How Green Was My Valley), John DeCuir (1963's Cleopatra), Anton Grot (1937's Life of Emile Zola), Boris Leven (1965's The Sound of Music), William Cameron Menzies (1939's Gone With the Wind) and Van Nest Polglase (1941's Citizen Kane, co-credited with Perry Ferguson).