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Hollywood classics don’t have to be stuffy — this 1940 swashbuckling adventure has style, great action, laughs and one of the most attractive screen couples of their day, Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. And that’s not mentioning a superb fencing match, a great, quaint Spanish dance, and a smart cast directed by Rouben Mamoulian at his best. This German import is fully compatible with U.S. players.

The Mark of Zorro

Im Zeichen des Zorro

All-Region Blu-ray Special Edition

Explosive Media GmbH

1940 / B&W/colorized / 1:37 Academy / 94 min. / Im Zeichen des Zorro / Street Date September 27, 2018 / Available through Amazon.de / Eur 15,99

Starring: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard,

Eugene Pallette, J. Edward Bromberg, Montagu Love, Janet Beecher, George Regas, Chris-Pin Martin.

Cinematography: Arthur Miller

Film Editor: Robert Bischoff

Original Music: Alfred Newman

Written by John Taintor Foote, Garrett Fort

Produced by Raymond Griffith, Darryl F. Zanuck

Directed by Rouben Mamoulian

“I am off to California,...

It’s time to talk about remakes again. In this installment of our series, we’re going to be looking at a revamped version of one of the most legendary fictional heroes ever. This week, Cinelinx looks at The Mask of Zorro (1998).

The Zorro character was introduced in the 1919 serialized story, “The Curse of Capistrano”, written by Johnston McCulley, and was published in All-Stories Weekly, the same magazine that first published Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan of the Apes” and “John Carter: Warlord of Mars”. Zorro was partly the inspiration for Batman. (Parenthetically, in DC comics, Bruce Wayne and his parents were coming out of a theater after seeing a film version of Zorro when his parents were killed.)

The story has been adapted several times. The first time was a silent film version in 1920, starring the cinema’s first-ever action star Douglas Fairbanks as the title character. However, we...

It's the John Ford film you never heard of, not because it's bad, but because it's a little confused. Richard Greene, David Niven and an emotional George Sanders (!) dedicate their lives to clearing their father's name of a smear by international arms smugglers! Their spirited companion Loretta Young behaves almost as if this were a screwball comedy. So does the director! Ford aficionados will be fascinated. Four Men and a Prayer 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives 1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 85 min. / Street Date December 15, 2015 / 19.98 Starring Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith. J. Edward Bromberg, William Henry, John Carradine, Alan Hale, Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill, Barry Fitzgerald, Chris-Pin Martin. Cinematography Franz Planer Film Editor Louis R. Loeffler Written by Richard Sherman, Sonya Levien, Walter Ferris from a novel by David Garth Produced by Kenneth Macgowan Directed by John Ford

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

We 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...

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love the silent era of movie making. I’ve written of this before and will again, many times I’m sure. Roger Ebert, on his website, made the observation (accurately I’d say) that silent films are not just movies without sound; they are a different medium altogether from the movies we are used to seeing now. Silent films are as different to sound films as radio is to television.

Hollywood Cavalcade was one of the first movies to look back at Hollywood history, and managed to involve several artists who were instrumental in making films that are still enjoyable today.

Hollywood Cavalcade tells the story of Mike Conners (Don Ameche) and his partner, ace cameraman Pete Tinney (Stu Erwin) and their trip to New York City to find a stage actress they can take back to Hollywood and make into a star of moving pictures.