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Is it a film noir? This desert-set crime tale sees a rat (Ray Milland) escaping to Mexico with a bag of cash, forcing a hunting guide (Anthony Quinn) to show him the way and stealing his wife (Debra Paget) in the bargain. Remember what Godard said about only needing a girl and a gun to make a movie? Veteran director Allan Dwan has already memorized that lesson, and pulls it off in color and CinemaScope on Mexican locations. Ms. Paget takes both a bath and a shower, only to be upstaged by a peach-colored T-Bird convertible.

The River’s Edge

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date March 19, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn, Debra Paget, Harry Carey Jr., Chubby Johnson, Byron K. Foulger, Tom McKee, Frank Gerstle.

Cinematography: Harold Lipstein

Film Editor: James Leicester

Original Music: Louis Forbes

Written by Harold Jacob Smith,...

Looking to discover a top-quality film that honors lasting values? Jean Renoir gives Zachary Scott and Betty Field as Texas sharecroppers trying to survive a rough first year. It's beautifully written by Hugo Butler, with given realistic, earthy touches not found in Hollywood pix. And the transfer is a new UCLA restoration. With two impressive short subjects in equal good quality. The Southerner Blu-ray Kino Classics 1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date February 9, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Carol Naish, Norman Lloyd, Zachary Scott, Percy Kilbride, Charles Kemper, Blanche Yurka, Estelle Taylor, Paul Harvey, Noreen Nash, Nestor Paiva, Almira Sessions. Cinematography Lucien Andriot Film Editor Gregg C. Tallas Production Designer Eugène Lourié Assistant Director Robert Aldrich Original Music Werner Janssen Written by Hugo Butler, Jean Renoir from a novel by George Sessions Perry Produced by Robert Hakim, David L. Loew Directed by Jean Renoir...

April 13-18

Fifty years after Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Bozon and the .young turks. of Cahiers du cinéma resolved that the best way to criticize movies was to make their own films. The result was the creation of another exciting .new wave. of critic-filmmakers, hailing from the iconoclastic film magazine La lettre du cinéma(1997-2005), boldly storming the gates of the French film establishment.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center brings writer, director, actor and DJ, Serge Bozon to New York to present this first major North American survey of films by the Lettre du cinéma circle as well as to curate and present a series of screenings of rarities (along with Anthology Film Archives) that have influenced his work. Also introducing and discussing their films will be his fellow filmmakers, Jean-Charles Fitoussi and Aurélia Georges. And if that weren.t enough, Bozon will also put his DJ skills on display,...

The films of director Allan Dwan—whose career was one of the longest and most fruitful in Hollywood history, ranging from 1911 to 1961—have multiple virtues to recommend them. But the one I tend to value most is Dwan's unhurried, confident storytelling style. It's exemplified, to a fair extent, in a pair of shots from 1954's Silver Lode, arguably the best of several Westerns Dwan made in the mid-'50s for Rko and producer Benedict Bogeaus. They occur in the opening sequence. It's a bright sunny day in the film's eponymous town, and some kids are playing. Benignly—these aren't the deprived/depraved ragamuffins of The Wages of Fear, they're good American kids, damnit! But the sound of approaching horses makes them look up, and move back in fear. Whoever's approaching isn't going to ride around them.

Pretty much any other director would cut to a direct reverse shot, probably from a low angle,...