News

If India ever had a star, it was Dev Anand. He was the mould in which subsequent generations of stars were cast. Dev Anand was born Dharamdev on September 26, 1923, in the Shakargarh tehsil of Gurdaspur district of Punjab. His father Pishori Lal Anand was a successful advocate and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Dev, the third of four brothers, graduated with English Honours from Government College, Lahore. He moved over to Bombay to join his older brother Chetan, who was trying to get a break in films.

Both brothers got involved in the progressive Indian People’s Theatre Association (Ipta). Chetan made ‘Neecha Nagar’ in 1946 and went on to win the Grand Prix at the inaugural Cannes film festival.

Dev told me that when he heard that Babu Rao Pai of Prabhat Film Studios was casting for a new film, he literally gatecrashed into his office and got the lead...

If India ever had a star, it was Dev Anand. He was the mould in which subsequent generations of stars were cast. Dev Anand was born Dharamdev on September 26, 1923, in the Shakargarh tehsil of Gurdaspur district of Punjab. His father Pishori Lal Anand was a successful advocate and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Dev, the third of four brothers, graduated with English Honours from Government College, Lahore. He moved over to Bombay to join his older brother Chetan, who was trying to get a break in films.

Both brothers got involved in the progressive Indian People’s Theatre Association (Ipta). Chetan made ‘Neecha Nagar’ in 1946 and went on to win the Grand Prix at the inaugural Cannes film festival.

Dev told me that when he heard that Babu Rao Pai of Prabhat Film Studios was casting for a new film, he literally gatecrashed into his office and got the lead...

The Keys of the Kingdom

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 137 min. / Street Date December 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Rose Stradner, Roddy McDowall, Edmund Gwenn, Cedric Hardwicke, Peggy Ann Garner, Jane Ball, James Gleason, Anne Revere

Cinematography: Arthur Miller

Art Direction: James Basevi, William Darling

Film Editor: James B. Clark

Original Music: Alfred Newman

Written by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Nunnally Johnson from a novel by A.J. Cronin

Produced by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Directed by John M. Stahl

The Twilight Time label has access to much of the Fox library, and draws from the vault what’s been fully restored and what’s not already claimed elsewhere. Accompanying their UA- sourced disc of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa is a 1944 Fox release from the writer-director-producer, a big studio production directed in this case by John M. Stahl. The Keys of the Kingdom...

Hatter’s Castle (1942) Direction: Lance Comfort Screenplay: Rodney Ackland; from A.J. Cronin’s novel Cast: Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Emlyn Williams, Henry Oscar, Enid Stamp-Taylor James Mason, Deborah Kerr Hatter’s Castle A 1942 adaptation of A.J. Cronin’s first novel, Hatter’s Castle, strips away multiple characters and subplots, thus streamlining the film into melodrama. The material, however, is still ripe for social commentary: James Brodie (Robert Newton) is a successful hatter, but a tyrant; a man who alienates family and villagers on the Firth of Clyde. He creates a small empire tolerated solely because of his financial success; he allows locals to infer the aristocratic pedigree that he projects from his recently constructed castle. When Brodie’s business ventures crumble, his vicious behavior leads to [...]...