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Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer hit the big screen early in the 3-D craze, in a much tamed-down adaptation. The camera legend John Alton handled the lighting and likely called the shots on the camera setups as well. As a detective noir it’s definitely flat-footed, with a bum script, weak direction and a miscast Biff Elliot as the vengeful tough-guy hero. But compensating are the seductive Dran Hamilton, Margaret Sheridan and especially Peggie Castle — the key ‘dame’ in the pulp fiction finale. The United Artists release has been mostly Mia for decades,and this release presents it three ways: flat in both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, plus a beautiful restored 3-D Blu-ray encoding.

I, the Jury

4K Ultra HD + 3-D Blu-ray + Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Special Limited Edition / Street Date November 8, 2022 / Available from ClassicFlix / 34.99

Starring: Biff Elliot, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed,...

By Jeremy Carr

There is an immediate appeal in the very premise of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944), a curiosity that stems from how exactly this story will play out and how the Master of Suspense is going to keep the narrative taut and technically stimulating. It was a gimmick he would repeat with Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder (1954), and Rear Window (1954), similar films where the drama is contained to a single setting. But here, the approach is amplified by having the entirety of its plot limited to the eponymous lifeboat, an extremely confined location that is at once anxiously restricting and, at the same time, placed in a vast expanse of threatening openness.

Following a German U-boat attack that sinks an allied freighter and creates the cramped, confrontational condition, a cast of nine diverse, necessarily distinctive characters are steadily assembled aboard the small vessel (and their variety is indeed necessary...

When Alfred Hitchcock films are praised, this 1944 picture tends to get overlooked. Yet it hooks and holds audiences as strongly as any of the Master’s classics. When a handful of English and Americans are lost at sea, survival depends on their ability to cooperate. Can they trust the experienced sea captain — a German — who joins them? And when things become grim, will their behavior be any better than his?

Lifeboat

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 96 min. /Street Date March 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn, Canada Lee

Cinematography: Glen MacWilliams

Art Direction: James Basevi, Maurice Ransford

Film Editor: Dorothy Spencer

Original Music: Hugo W. Friedhofer

Written by: Jo Swerling, story by John Steinbeck

Produced by Kenneth Macgowan

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock goes to war, this time for 20th...

Behind Green Lights

Written by Charles G. Booth

Directed by Otto Brower

U.S.A., 1946

*This film is in the public domain and can be viewed legally and for free online. However, the version currently circulating has a small continuity glitch early in the film at about the 1-minute mark. The movie will suddenly play about 5 seconds of a scene that chronologically comes a couple of minutes later. It is the only technical issue with the print however. The rest of the movie plays out perfectly fine.

On what began as an ordinary night at the police station, Lt. Sam Carson (William Gargan) is notified of a vehicle parked on the sidewalk just in front of the building. Within the vehicle is the body of the late Walter Bard (Bernard Nedell), a private detective recently engaged in some rather politically relevant cases. Among the suspects possibly involved in man’s...

Marion Cotillard 'Psycho' scream. Marion Cotillard in 'Psycho' A few years ago – more exactly, in Feb./March 2008 – Vanity Fair published a series of images honoring Alfred Hitchcock movies made in Hollywood. (His British oeuvre was completely ignored.) The images weren't from the movies themselves; instead, they were somewhat faithful recreations featuring early 21st century stars, including several of that year's Oscar nominees. And that's why you get to see above – and further below – Marion Cotillard recreating the iconic Psycho shower scene. Cotillard took home the Best Actress Oscar at the 2008 ceremony for her performance as Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahan's La Vie en Rose / La môme. Janet Leigh, the original star of Hitchcock's Psycho, was shortlisted for the 1960 Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but lost to another good-girl-gone-bad, Shirley Jones as a sex worker in Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry. More nudity, less horror Looking at the Marion Cotillard Psycho images,...

Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.

Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

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...

'Jurassic World' velociraptor kicks Iron Man ass at worldwide box office. 'Jurassic World' officially surpasses 'The Avengers' at worldwide box office Directed by Colin Trevorrow; starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Vincent D'Onofrio; and co-executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Jurassic World has officially become the third biggest worldwide box office hit in history. The Jurassic Park sequel – or reboot, as it's basically the same story with a slightly different twist – has surpassed Marvel's Joss Whedon-directed all-star superhero flick The Avengers, which broke box office records back in 2012. Of course, "officially" just ain't what it used to be – like, in the days before The Fall. So you wisely ask, "But which movie has actually sold the most tickets?" After all, that's the true measure of a film's popularity. Well, that's a tough one to answer without the studios providing accurate, precise numbers. And that's not about to happen. It always...

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...

'To Each His Own' movie with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund 'To Each His Own' movie review: Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland stars in Mother Love tearjerker Olivia de Havilland, who had starred in the 1941 melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, returns to the wartime milieu in To Each His Own (1946), once again under the direction of Mitchell Leisen, who guides the proceedings with his characteristic sincerity while cleverly skirting the Production Code's restrictive guidelines. In To Each His Own, de Havilland plays Jody Norris, a small-town woman who falls quickly in love – much like her character in Hold Back the Dawn – but this time during World War I, when Jody's brief liaison with daredevil flying ace Captain Cosgrove (John Lund) results in an out-of-wedlock child. When Cosgrove is killed in battle, the young mother anonymously gives up her baby to a childless couple in her hometown, remaining...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Mary Anderson (1918-2014) - Actress. She's best known for playing Maybelle Merriwether in Gone with the Wind and was also one of the ensemble players in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (see her as Nurse MacKenzie below). Other movies include The Asphalt Jungle, The Women and Cheech and Chong's Next Movie. She died on April 6. (THR) Daniel Anker (1964-2014) - Documentary filmmaker who received an Oscar nomination for Scottsboro: An American...

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‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Mary Anderson dead at 96; also featured in Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘Lifeboat’ Mary Anderson, an actress featured in both Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s adventure thriller Lifeboat, died following a series of small strokes on Sunday, April 6, 2014, while under hospice care in Toluca Lake/Burbank, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, the widow of multiple Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy, had turned 96 on April 3. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1918, Mary Anderson was reportedly discovered by director George Cukor, at the time looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s film version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller Gone with the Wind. Instead of Scarlett, eventually played by Vivien Leigh, Anderson was cast in the small role of Maybelle Merriwether — most of which reportedly ended up on the cutting-room floor. Cukor was later fired from the project; his replacement, Victor Fleming,...

Washington, April 8: Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether in the iconic film 'Gone With the Wind' has died at the age of 96.

The actress was married to famous cinematographer Leon Shamroy and had one child, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

Anderson also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Lifeboat', where she played U.S. Army nurse Alice Mackenzie, opposite Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, John Hodiak and Hume Cronyn. (Ani)...

Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With the Wind and was one of the nine survivors cast adrift from a torpedoed ship in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, has died. She was 96. Anderson died Sunday under hospice care in Burbank, her friend Betty Landess told the Los Angeles Times. Photos: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2014 Anderson was the widow of cinematographer Leon Shamroy, who collected 18 Academy Award nominations during his career and won for The Black Swan (1942), Wilson (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and Cleopatra (1963). They were married for 21 years until his death in

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‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Alicia Rhett dead at 98; was oldest surviving credited Gwtw cast member Gone with the Wind actress Alicia Rhett, the oldest surviving credited cast member of the 1939 Oscar-winning blockbuster, died on January 3, 2014, at the Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, South Carolina, where Rhett had been living since August 2002. Alicia Rhett, born on February 1, 1915, in Savannah, Georgia, was 98. (Photo: Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes in Gone with the Wind.) In Gone with the Wind, the David O. Selznick production made in conjunction with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM head Louis B. Mayer was Selznick’s father-in-law), the stage-trained Alicia Rhett played India Wilkes, the embittered sister of Ashley Wilkes, whom Scarlett O’Hara loves — though Ashley eventually marries Melanie Hamilton (Rhett had auditioned for the role), while Scarlett ends up with Rhett Butler. Based on Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller, Gone with the Wind was (mostly) directed by Victor Fleming...

Washington, Jan 5: Alicia Rhett, the oldest surviving cast member of 1939's 'Gone With the Wind', has passed away due to natural causes. She was 98.

According to Rhett's retirement home - Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, S.C. - the veteran actress died around 5 p.m. on Friday, People Magazine reported.

Rhett played the role of India Wilkes in the movie which also starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

Now that Rhett, who was also known for her portrait painting skills, has died, only 3 main cast members remain : Mary Anderson, 93, who played Maybelle Merriweather, Mickey Kuhn, 81, who.

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...

Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...

Paul Henreid: From Eleanor Parker to ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (photo: Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in ‘Between Two Worlds’) Paul Henreid returns this evening, as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. In Of Human Bondage (1946), he stars in the old Leslie Howard role: a clubfooted medical student who falls for a ruthless waitress (Eleanor Parker, in the old Bette Davis role). Next on TCM, Henreid and Eleanor Parker are reunited in Between Two Worlds (1944), in which passengers aboard an ocean liner wonder where they are and where the hell (or heaven or purgatory) they’re going. Hollywood Canteen (1944) is a near-plotless, all-star showcase for Warner Bros.’ talent, a World War II morale-boosting follow-up to that studio’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, released the previous year. Last of the Buccaneers (1950) and Pirates of Tripoli (1955) are B pirate movies. The former is an uninspired affair,...

Gone With The Wind Actress Ann Rutherford Dies. [Photo: Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara, Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.]

Ann Rutherford‘s most notable screen roles were in films made away from both MGM and Wallace Beery. She was a young woman who falls for trumpeter George Montgomery in Archie Mayo’s 20th Century Fox musical Orchestra Wives (1942), and became enmeshed with (possibly) amnesiac Tom Conway in Anthony Mann’s Rko thriller Two O’Clock Courage (1945).

Following a couple of minor supporting roles — in the Danny Kaye comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) at Goldwyn and the Errol Flynn costumer The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) at Warner Bros. — and the female lead in the independently made cattle drama Operation Haylift (1950), opposite Bill Williams, Ann Rutherford retired from the screen. (Rutherford would later say that her Operation Haylift experience was anything but pleasant.)

She then turned to television, making regular television appearances in the ’50s (The Donna Reed Show, Playhouse 90,...

Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky, Audrey Hepburn, Clara Bow Movies: Packard Campus May 2012 Schedule Friday, April 27 (7:30 p.m.) Solaris (Magna, 1972) An alien intelligence infiltrates a space mission. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. With Natalya Bondarchuk and Donatas Banionis. Sci-fi psychological drama. Black & White and color, 167 min. In Russian and German with English subtitles. Saturday, April 28 (7:30 p.m.) To Kill A Mockingbird (Universal, 1962) A Southern lawyer defends a black man wrongly accused of rape, and tries to explain the proceedings to his children. Directed by Robert Mulligan. With Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, Brock Peters and Robert Duvall. Drama. Black & white, 129 min. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1995. Thursday, May 3 (7:30 p.m.) The Little Giant (Warner Bros., 1933) A Chicago beer magnate about to lose his business with the repeal of Prohibition, moves to California and tries to join society's upper crust, but his gangster origins prove tough to shake.

Sad news arrived this morning. The Coroner from The Wizard of Oz (1939) passed away yesterday. I would tell you that "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" is one of my favorite scenes from The Wizard of Oz but the statement is meaningless; Every scene is "one of my favorite scenes" from The Wizard of Oz. I love that movie like it's a family member or body part.

Meinhardt Raabe (1915-2010)

As coroner, I must aver

I thoroughly examined her.

And she’s not only merely dead,

She’s really most sincerely dead.There are so few people of any height left alive from what's often regarded as cinema's greatest year. I don't know how many Munchkins are still with us from Oz but some must remain. After all, there were baby Munchkins, too.

According to the IMDb there are six cast members of Gone With the Wind still with us:...

To Each His Own (1946) Direction: Mitchell Leisen Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Jacques Théry; from a story by Brackett Cast: Olivia de Havilland, John Lund, Mary Anderson, Roland Culver, Phillip Terry, Bill Goodwin Olivia de Havilland, John Lund in To Each His Own Olivia de Havilland, who had starred in the 1941 melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, returns to the wartime milieu in To Each His Own (1946), once again under the direction of Mitchell Leisen, who guides the proceedings with his characteristic sincerity while cleverly skirting the Production Code’s restrictive guidelines. In To Each His Own, de Havilland plays Jody Norris, a small-town woman who falls quickly in love — much like her character in Hold Back the Dawn, but this time [...]...

Method Man brought the pain all right. The rapper's been tagged with a lawsuit by a Houston woman who claims he shot her with a pellet gun after she asked for his John Hancock. Mary Anderson claims the Wu-Tanger had just wrapped a concert last November with cohort Redman and was signing autographs out the back window of his tour bus when, without warning, he whipped out the weapon and unloaded into her chest multiple times. She survived relatively unharmed, but apparently is still so distressed that the only thing that will make her feel better is money. "These aren't life or death injuries. She's alive. She's not paralyzed. She's moved on with her life as far as the...