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(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Following last summer’s restoration of Swedish auteur Jan Troell’s directorial debut Here is Your Life (1966), Criterion presents the director’s most notable accomplishment from his most prolific period, the one-two punch of The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972). Though technically released as two distinct features, they are more of a conjoined saga detailing the travails of America’s Scandinavian ancestors. Richly attenuated, they’re adapted from the celebrated series of four novels by Vilhelm Moberg, Upon a Good Land, hailed as cornerstones of Swedish literature. Until now, these, along with most of Troell’s 1970s titles, (who is known best for his 2008 masterpiece, Everlasting Moments) have been largely unavailable, a pity considering the level of achievement and a handful of Academy Award nominations (including a Best Picture nod) between both features. It’s difficult to imagine a more authentic depiction of the early immigration experience, narratives which have...

Jan Troell knocks us for a loop with his masterful epic of a Swedish farming family in the 1840s, making the big move to the promised green acres in frontier Minnesota. Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are heartbreakingly deserving and hopeful; the dreamers and the devout and the intolerant come too. The two-film, six-hour saga is a faithful to history and politically neutral. The Emigrants / The New Land Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 796 & 797 1971-1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 191 + 202 min. / Utvandrarna & Nybyggarna / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 9, 2016 / 49.95 Starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Sven-Olof Bern, Aina Alfredsson, Allan Edwall, Monica Zetterlund, Pierre Lindstedt, Hans Alfredson, Ulla Smidje, Eva-Lena Zetterlund, Gustaf Faringborg. Cinematography and Editing Jan Troell Original Music Erik Nordgren /Bengt Ernryd, Georg Oddner Production design P.A. Lundgren Written by Bengt Forslund, Jan Troell from novels by Vilhelm Moberg Produced by Bengt Forslund Directed by Jan Troell...

Criterion brings Jan Troell’s masterful debut feature Here is Your Life into their fold. It’s the Swedish auteur’s second film to join the collection, following his beautiful 2008 film, Everlasting Moments, the title many contemporary audiences may recognize. Though his narrative features are rather few and far between, generally based on expansive novels or real life events (his last work to date is 2012’s The Last Sentence documenting a journalist’s quest to inform the Swedish public on Fascism in the 1930s), his expressive debut would launch his career as a notable European auteur in the 1970s, with his Oscar nominated epic The Emigrants (currently slated to be remade by Daniel Espinosa) leading a pack of titles finding Troell working continually with Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, while crossing over internationally with films starring Gene Hackman and Mia Farrow.

Regarded as a masterpiece in Sweden, Troell based...