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Starting out in 1939 as the little studio that could, Hammer would finally make their reputation in the late fifties reimagining Universal’s black and white horrors as eye-popping Technicolor gothics – their pictorial beauty, thanks to cameramen like Jack Asher and Arthur Ibbetson, was fundamental to the studio’s legacy. So it’s been more than a little frustrating to see such disrespect visited upon these films by home video companies happy to smother the market with grainy prints, incoherent cropping and under-saturated colors. The House of Hammer and the film community in general deserve far better than that.

Thanks to Indicator, the home video arm of Powerhouse films based in the UK, those wrongs are beginning to be righted, starting with their impressive new release of Hammer shockers, Fear Warning! Even better news for stateside fans; the set is region-free, ready to be relished the world over.

Hammer Vol. 1 – Fear Warning!

Two for the Road

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date January 10, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney, Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, Claude Dauphin, Nadia Gray

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Art Direction: Marc Frederic, Willy Holt

Film Editor: Madeleine Gug

Original Music: Henry Mancini

Written by Frederic Raphael

Produced and Directed by Stanley Donen

Some so-called sophisticated ‘sixties romantic dramas have dated pretty badly, as it’s not easy to create a movie acceptable to a fickle audience, that doesn’t end up with attitudes, politics or even costumes that don’t look ‘wrong’ just a few years later. I’ve found that enjoying Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s takes a conscious act of selective blindness. The music, the style, the images were swooningly vital to an audience perhaps ten years older than this reviewer. Hepburn’s ravishing Holly Golightly misses...

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...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

Aiche Nana shot to fame in striptease scandal in Rome, an episode recreated in Federico Fellini's classic film

Aiche Nana, the Turkish belly dancer and stripper whose story inspired the late Italian director Federico Fellini to make his classic film La Dolce Vita, has died at the age of 78, her lawyer said.

Nana, whose real name was Kiash Nanah, died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Rome.

She shot to fame when she performed a striptease at a restaurant in Rome in 1958. The sequence was shot by Tazio Secchiaroli, the street photographer who was the model for the character Paparazzo in the 1960 film that starred Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni.

Police raided the Rugantino restaurant while the party was still in progress and closed it for offending public morality, but Secchiaroli managed to get out with a roll of pictures of Nana stripping to her underwear. The photos...

French dancer and choreographer Roland Petit died in Geneva on Sunday. He was 87. Associated with the Paris Opera Ballet and the Ballet de Marseille for a number of years, Petit was credited for creating more than 100 ballets throughout his career. Additionally, he choreographed dance sequences for a handful of movies, notably Samuel Goldwyn's Hans Christian Andersen (1952), a color extravaganza starring Danny Kaye, Farley Granger, and Petit's future wife Zizi Jeanmaire; two 1955 Leslie Caron vehicles, the Cinderella tale The Glass Slipper and Daddy Long Legs, which paired Caron with Fred Astaire; and Henri Decoin's Folies-Bergère (1956), with Jeanmaire, Eddie Constantine, and Nadia Gray. "With his muse Zizi Jeanmaire," whom Petit married in 1954, "he wrote some of the most beautiful pages of contemporary music hall," French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand eulogized. Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire remained married until his death. Mitterrand quote via the BBC.