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Jules Dassin’s powerful picture was a hit in Europe but remained mostly obscure here, despite featuring the great Melina Mercouri and a score of Continental stars. Adapted by two blacklistees in exile it doesn’t try to hide its revolutionary aims — Nikos Kazantzakis’s uncompromised storyline places The Church as a main obstruction to social progress, justice, and life & liberty. It’s no wonder it wasn’t ‘movie of the week’ in 1957. It’s been beautifully remastered at its original CinemaScope width, uncut.

He Who Must Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 128 122 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / Celui qui doit mourir / Available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Grégoire Aslan, Gert Fröbe, René Lefèvre, Lucien Raimbourg, Melina Mercouri, Roger Hanin, Pierre Vaneck, Nicole Berger, Maurice Ronet, Fernand Ledoux.

Cinematography: Gilbert Chain, Jacques Natteau

Production Designer: Max Douy

Film Editors: Roger Dwyre, Pierre Gillette

Original Music: Georges Auric

Written by Ben Barzman,...

Gangland London, 1960: Expatriate director Joseph Losey gives the Brit crime film a boost with a brutal gangster tale starring the ultra-tough Stanley Baker — and seemingly every up & coming male actor on the casting books. A committed thief returns to his craft the moment he’s freed from prison, but the emphasis is on the nasty betrayals and squeeze-plays of the criminal underworld, that conspire to foil Baker’s plans.

The Criminal

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1960 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date February 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Margit Saad, Jill Bennett, Rupert Davies, Laurence Naismith, John Van Eyssen, Noel Willman, Kenneth Warren, Patrick Magee, Kenneth Cope, Patrick Wymark, Paul Stassino, Tom Bell, Neil McCarthy, Nigel Green, Tom Gerard, Edward Judd.

Cinematography: Robert Krasker

Film Editor: Reginald Mills

Original Music: John Dankworth

Written by Alun Owen and Jimmy Sangster

Produced by Jack Greenwood...

With nearly two years of worthy Blu ray releases under their belt, ranging from traditional favorites like To Sir With Love to rare essentials like Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater, it can be said that UK’s Indicator has finally shed their rookie status. Their newest effort is Hammer Volume Two: Criminal Intent, a well-programmed package of that studio’s little seen crime films featuring two minor classics and a couple of honorable misfires, all in glorious black and white.

The Snorkel

1958 – 74 Minutes

Written by Peter Myers and Jimmy Sangster

Produced by Michael Carreras

Directed by Guy Green

Featuring the sloppiest killer this side of the Coen Brothers and the least curious investigator since Chief Wiggum, 1961’s The Snorkel, with its urbane villain and Riviera scenery, is positively Hitchcockian in its intent but definitely not in its execution.

Shadow of a Doubt dogs this story of a young teen...

It’s Obi-Wan versus Fidel! Well, not really. The pre-Bond espionage genre lights up with cool intrigues and comic absurdities, as a Brit vacuum salesman in Havana is recruited to spy for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The filmmakers and stars are all top caliber, and the location is legendary: Castro’s Cuba, immediately after the revolution.

Our Man in Havana

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Jo Morrow, Gregoire Aslan.

Cinematography: Oswald Morris

Music Score: Frank and Laurence Deniz

Art Direction: John Box

Film Editor: Bert Bates

Written by Graham Greene from his novel

Produced and Directed by Carol Reed

One of the best pre-James Bond spy pictures is this brilliant, yet lumpy adventure with an historically unique setting — it was filmed in Castro’s Cuba,...

Ray Harryhausen eases up for his second color Dynamation feature, restricting the stop-motion and instead utilizing traveling mattes to make a more juvenile adventure movie for smaller kiddies. The big draw is the beautiful music score by fantasy favorite Bernard Herrmann.

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1960 / Color / 1:66 & 1:78 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring Kerwin Matthews, Jo Morrow, June Thorburn, Sherry Alberoni, Lee Patterson, Gregoire Aslan, Basil Sydney, Peter Bull, Charles Lloyd Pack, Martin Benson, Alec Mango, Doris Lloyd, Joan Hickson, Noel Purcell.

Cinematography Wilkie Cooper

Original Music Bernard Herrmann

Creator of Special Visual Effects Ray Harryhausen

Written by Arthur Ross, Jack Sher based on the book by Jonathan Swift

Produced by Charles H. Schneer

Directed by Jack Sher

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In The 3 Worlds of Gulliver Ray Harryhausen, Charles H. Schneer and Dynamation go tame — unlike...

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto Film Festival 

A Monster Calls (Ja Bayona, USA/Spain)

This fable about grief and growing up will surely be someone's favorite movie. Alas, it isn't mine. A Monster Calls is a simple fantasy about a boy named Connor (Lewis MacDougall) whose mother (Felicity Jones) is dying of cancer. His grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) and father (Toby Kebell) attempt to console him but the only solace Connor can find is in visitations from a giant tree monster (voiced by Aslan... excuse me, Liam Neeson) who promises to tell the boy three stories in exchange for the boy's own. The film is somewhat moving and fantastically visual in its three animated stories within the movie; they're sensory overload mashups of computer generated imagery, watercolor fluidity, and bold color choices. In both its earthbound and magical moments, though, A Monster Calls is relentlessly gilding the lily. It's so...

Possibly everyone’s favorite animated sleuths have joined Funko’s Dorbz line. Eight items from Dorbz’s Scooby-Doo Series 1 and 2 are coming this June! Also in this round-up: a behind-the-scenes clip from Damien and details on the Hammer Films Collection – Volume 2 DVD.

Scooby-Doo Dorbz: From Funko: “Dorbz: Scooby-Doo Series 1 (the first three in the gallery)

Zoinks! Scooby-Doo is coming to Dorbz! When there’s a spooky mystery afoot, Shaggy and his pal Scooby-Doo are on the case! Just make sure they don’t split up so they can catch Werewolf in the act!

Coming in June!

Dorbz Ridez: Scooby-Doo – Mystery Machine

Jenkies! Mystery Machine Dorbz Ridez are coming, too!

Coming in June!

Dorbz: Scooby-Doo Series 2 (the last four in the gallery)

Coming this Summer!”

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Damien: “Watch Glenn Mazzara, Executive Producer, and the rest of the staff talk about the ‘Omen Curse’ that occurred when filming Season 1 of #Damien.

The...

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...

Many children have grown up with C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books. It is important for the movies to remain true to the books because Narnia, like Tolkien’s Middle-earth, is a solid universe in the minds of its target audience. Walden Media and Fox 2000 don’t disappoint us with “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. In under two hours they do a fairly good job of telling this story of coming-of-age and redemption.

The wide open, scenery is gorgeous on land and sea, and the 3-dimensional effects don’t feel overdone. They are also not missed in the 2-dimensional version. The Dawn Treader is just as beautiful a ship in two dimensions and the colors everywhere are vibrant and alive. Lighting and framing make magical effects sprinkled throughout feel a completely natural part of the landscape, just as in Narnia proper. The soundtrack rolls...