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February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.

February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...

Even with the changing times, there are some movies that are still iconic for their central romances. It may be surprising for some to realize that there are unique romances between ghosts and single mothers and creative takes on classic novel love stories. There are relationships that examine social boundaries, acting in dialogue with the time they were written in.

Childhood friends turned lovers, forbidden romances, and ironic romantic comedies fill the classic movie pantheon. There are many kinds of romances and love stories. Some are epic and have bittersweet endings, and some are delightful romps with a traditional romantic Happily Ever After. There's a love story for every romantic's taste.

No-Nonsense Mrs. Muir Can't Stop the Ghost in Her House from Flirting With Her The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

In 1900, a young widow finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, which bloomed in the late 1920s and dwindled in the late 1960s, film production and distribution were under the control of the studio system, and everyone, actors, filmmakers, and writers alike, was under strict contract. It is true that movie stars enjoyed worldwide recognition and partook in exclusive, prestigious events, but this glamorous façade came with a high emotional price and was often a front for terrible personal tragedies.

Marilyn Monroe spent her childhood in orphanages and foster homes, was groped and abused throughout her career, and died in circumstances still debated today. Judy Garland was forcibly put on a pill regiment at an early age and her marathonic schedule was ruthlessly controlled by her mother. Rita Hayworth was abused by her father, suffered mental cruelty from her fundamentalist husband, and succumbed to Alzheimer’s.

And then there was Gene Tierney. With her chiseled cheekbones,...

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ “Cleopatra,” which opened in New York on June 12, 1963 and in Los Angeles a week later, was not a flop. In fact, the 243-minute film was a box office champ making $26 million at the box office, $6 million more than the Cinerama epic “How the West was Won.” But being the most expensive movie of its time — the budget ended up being around $44 million which would be around $429.5 million in 2023 — it took a long time to recoup its staggering costs. The film was such a drain on Twentieth Century Fox, the studio ended up having to sell nearly 300 acres of its backlot. That acreage was transformed into Century City.

The budgets started to soar when the original production with Elizabeth Taylor, who asked for and received $1 million for her services, Peter Finch as Julius Caesar, Stephen Boyd as Marc Antony and veteran filmmaker Rouben Mamoulian as director, stopped production...

Throughout the 1960s, several theatrical films from two decades prior were reworked into television series, the majority of which lasted a maximum of two seasons. One of these cases involved the 1947 fantasy film “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. The TV adaptation, which debuted in 1968 with Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare in the lead roles, did not fare particularly well and was cancelled by NBC after a single season. It was immediately picked up by ABC, but its tenure there was just as short.

The show did manage to garner six Emmy nominations during its short run, including one for Best Comedy Series. Lange also picked up a pair of Best Comedy Actress trophies, making her the second youngest champion in her category at the time. Over half a century later, she places behind a total of nine younger women, including three who triumphed in their 20s.

Get out your handkerchiefs, director Joseph Mankiewicz’ 1947 fantasy has been known to inspire tears in even the hardest-hearted moviegoer. This ectoplasmic romance between Gene Tierney (as the most beautiful spinster ever to don a shawl and wire-rim glasses) and Rex Harrison as the sea-faring ghost who loves her is a match not made in heaven but certainly headed there. Bernard Herrmann’s wistful score is the finishing touch on one of the greatest date-night movies ever.

The post The Ghost and Mrs. Muir appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Former Partridge Family actor Danny Bonaduce, 62, announced on Twitter today that he is taking a medical leave from his Seattle radio program “The Danny Bonaduce & Sarah Morning Show” on Kzok.

“Some news to share,” the actor wrote above a photo of himself with a red cane in hand. “I’m taking a temporary medical leave from my radio show. I’ll share more when I know more. I’m still working towards receiving a diagnosis. What I know is, I need time to focus on my health. I love my job and talking to you guys & I’ll be back on the air soon.”

Referencing the cane he added below, “Charlie Chaplin, Willy Wonka, Danny Bonaduce. I’ve joined the club of cool guys with canes.”

Some news to share. I’m taking a temporary medical leave from my radio show. I’ll share more when I know more. I...

With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

Jay Sandrich, the prolific Emmy-winning TV director who was an instrumental player in such series as “The Cosby Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died Sept. 22 in Los Angeles, CAA confirmed. He was 89.

Sandrich was beloved in the creative community and was considered a mentor to a generation of TV directors, notably James Burrows. Sandrich had a major influence on TV comedy as the director of pilots for “Soap,” “The Golden Girls,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Empty Nest,” “Night Court” and “A Different World.” His career began on the set of “I Love Lucy” and stretched through “Two and a Half a Men.”

His father, Mark Sandrich, was a famed movie director of musicals such as “Holiday Inn” and “Top Hat.”

Jay Sandrich earned five Emmys for directing throughout his career, including two for “The Cosby Show” in 1985 and 1986, plus two for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1971 and...

Throughout the 1960s, several theatrical films from two decades prior were reworked into television series, the majority of which lasted a maximum of two seasons. One of these cases involved the 1947 fantasy film “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. The TV adaptation, which debuted in 1968 with Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare in the lead roles, did not fare particularly well and was cancelled by NBC after a single season. It was immediately picked up by ABC, but its tenure there was just as short.

The show did manage to garner six Emmy nominations during its short run, including one for Best Comedy Series. Lange also picked up a pair of Best Comedy Actress trophies, making her the second youngest champion in her category at the time. Over half a century later, she places behind a total of nine younger women, including three who triumphed in their 20s.

Bones star Emily Deschanel discusses a few of her favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Shining (1980) – Adam Rifkin’s trailer commentary

Dumb And Dumber (1994)

Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Crusoe (1988)

Watership Down (1978)

Gandhi (1982)

Small Soldiers (1998)

Waiting For Guffman (1996)

Best In Show (2000) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Vertigo (1958) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review,

Marnie (1964) – Dan Irleand’s trailer commentary, Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing recommendation

La Femme Nikita (1991)

Psycho (1960) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing recommendation

Psycho (1998) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Citizen Kane (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Rear Window (1954) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Topaz (1969)

Foreign Correspondent (1940) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

North By Northwest (1959)

Notorious (1946) – John Landis’s trailer commentary,...

The year of 1969 saw the moon landing of the Apollo 11’s Eagle module, Richard Nixon sworn in as the 37th president of the United States, the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village ushering in the gay rights movement, the Tate-La Bianca murders by the Manson Family, the landmark Woodstock Music and Arts Fair which attracts 400,000, the tragic and violent Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway and even Tiny Tim marrying Miss Vicki on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

But one major event was basically ignored by the mainstream media: the Harlem Cultural Arts Festival which took place June 29-August 24 at the Mount Morris Park. Founded by Tony Lawrence, the festival celebrating Black pride, music and culture features such landmark performers as Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Stevie Wonder, The Fifth Dimension and Mahalia Jackson. And when the NYPD refused to supply security,...

John Erman, an Emmy-winning director-producer who helmed multiple episodes of such classic TV series as Star Trek, M*A*S*H and Peyton Place along with Part 2 of Roots and much of its sequel miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, has died. He was 85.

His friend, Charles Silver of SMS Talent, told Deadline that Erman died June 25 in New York City after a brief illness.

Born on August 3, 1935, in Chicago, Erman began his show business career as an actor, including an unbilled role in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle before working extensively as a casting director. His first job in that role was with Jim Lister at Republic Studios in New York, and Erman would go on to work with numerous Hollywood legends in this capacity, from Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland to Woody Allen, Angela Lansbury and Ann-Margret — with whom he’d have a long-running working relationship.

He got his first shot...

by Cláudio Alves

In fiction, love is more powerful and heartfelt when it's impossible. Be it the doomed lovers in Shakespeare's tragedies or Keira Knightley and James McAvoy separated by war and a child's lies in Atonement, we, as spectators, are predisposed to find beauty in the loves that cannot be. Death is a common way to enshrine romance in the perfection of upended passion. Like flowers plucked and dried, kept in the pages of a book, the love that's cut short by the Grim Reaper's blade can preserve its appearance. If it weren't for that, such amorous glories would do like their floral brethren, rotting away with time until dropping into the earth, a mushy decaying mess.

In 1947's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney, this dynamic between love and premature demise is both perpetuated and upended. Death facilitates and limits passion, making it...

It’s been half a century since David Frost and Danny Thomas hosted the 22nd Emmy Awards, and there are many moments that remain memorable 50 years later. A shift in audience’s tastes during this time can be seen in the nominees from this year, as quite a few new series received nominations and wins, there were some anomalies in the comedy categories and one actress made history, while another shocked viewers with her behavior. Here’s a flashback trip back to June 7, 1970, and shag carpet, TV dials and hoping to get your antenna just right so that you could watch the star-studded gala.

SEEEmmys flashback 20 years ago to 2000: ‘The West Wing’ dominance, 1st win for James Gandolfini, emotional Michael J. Fox victory

In a reflection of the changing culture, all comedy series up for the top award were first-time nominees in their freshman seasons. This is the last...

Natalie Wood was one of the most luminous stars to grace the big screen in the history of Hollywood. The San Fransisco native began her career as a child actor at the age of five, appearing in such classic films as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Miracle on 34th Street before she reached the age of ten.

Related: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Making Of Miracle On 34th Street

As she matured, Wood became one of the most sought-after actresses during the '50s and '60s, earning three Oscar nominations for her stellar performances in this stretch of time. One year prior to her tragic and mysterious death in 1981, Wood earned a Golden Globe for her turn as Karen Holmes in the TV adaptation of From Here to Eternity. For more, here are Natalie Wood's 10 best movies, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

This episode includes Hollywood spoilers. You can find our easter egg guide for the first episode here.

Ah, the episode of Hollywood introduces us to Anna May Wong and the 1940s studio caste system. There’s a lot to unpack in this hour, which may give you nightmares about how a studio cafeteria is apparently not that different from a high school… except, you know, with racism.

Hollywood Episode 2

-When Ernie bails Jack out of prison, Jack laments he cannot have a record. “Yeah you can,” Ernie answers, “Ever heard of Frank Sinatra?” Ol’ Blue Eyes was arrested in 1938 in New Jersey after being charged by an ex-girlfriend with “adultery and seduction.” That is to say, he could be and was charged back then with promising marriage and then ghosting her the morning after.

-We then hear Johnny Mercer and Paul Eston’s rendition of “Button Up Your Overcoat.”

-Avis...

There are so many categories for the Emmy Awards that the Television Academy hands out the statuettes during three very long ceremonies. But that wasn’t the case with the first Emmy Awards on Jan. 25, 1949. In fact, there were less than a million TV sets in the U.S. at the time.

The Emmys took place at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Rudy Vallee was slated to host the event but had to leave town. So, radio star Walter O’Keefe emceed the proceedings. Tickets were $5. Six awards were handed out including a special award for Louis McManus who designed the Emmy. The ceremony was broadcast on the local L.A. station Ktsl, which is now Kcbs. -TV.

Back in 1998 I talked to three of the winners of the 1st Emmy Awards for the L.A. Times.

Then 22-year-old ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale — who appeared on Ktla with her puppet Judy Splinters-she...

Gene Reynolds, a former child actor who went on to co-create M*A*S*H and Lou Grant and direct and/or produced multiple other series and was a two-term DGA president, died Monday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 96.

Reynolds won six Emmys — from more than two dozen nominations — three DGA Awards and a WGA Award during a six-decade showbiz career that began as a preteen actor. He would continue with onscreen roles through the 1950s before segueing to producing and directing.

He got his start behind the camera writing the 1958-61 NBC Western Tales of Wells Fargo and soon began directing episodes of such enduring TV series as Leave It to Beaver, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Andy Griffith Show — co-starring a young Ron Howard — Father of the Bride, The Munsters and more than 70- half-hours of the long-running Fred MacMurray sitcom My Three Sons.

Back in 1950, famed Hollywood director Joseph L. Mankiewicz released the soon-to-be-classic tale of stardom and backstabbing, All About Eve. The film won a whopping six Academy Awards and garnered another 17 wins and 18 nominations. All About Eve stars Bette Davis in one of her most well-known roles in a filmography of huge films, as Margo Channing, a superstar of the stage. Anne Baxter is excellent as Eve Harrington, the sociopathic, conniving starlet who manages to steal both roles and men. Marilyn Monroe has a small role as an actress in All About Eve, as well. Rounding out the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Ghosts are famous for their flexibility, spiraling through keyholes and up from the floorboards in search of their next mark. But movies about ghosts can be flexible too. Three classics of the genre, The Uninvited, House on Haunted Hill and The Innocents, demonstrate that there’s more than one way haunt a house.

These films never appeared on any triple bill that I know of, but I’d like to think they did, somewhere in some small town with a theater manager that knew a good scare when he saw it. How could the programmer resist it? Each film is united by a beautiful black and white sheen, eerie locales and their ability to scare the bejeezus out of you. But they’re also alike in their differences, coming at their specters from distinctly different vantage points.

1944’s The Uninvited, a three-hankie haunted house tale with a dysfunctional family subplot,...

Well, Krieger definitely stole the show.

Archer Season 8 Episode 4 didn't do much to advance the main story about Woodhouse, or even about the criminal goings-on in Dreamland.

It did, however, give us a fantastic twist to Krieger's backstory.

The running myth/implication about Doctor Krieger is that he was something akin to the Boys from Brazil. This was a major plot point in Archer: Vice Season 5 Episode 10, when he met his clone brothers in San Marcos.

Archer: Dreamland, however, turns this on its head. In Dreamland, Krieger is actually a Jewish scientist who infiltrated the Nazi science division to sabotage their weapons programs.

Aaron Leibowitz, no less!! I love this so much!

We had every reason to believe that Dreamland Krieger had the same or a similar backstory as his real-world counterpart. We heard him speak German early on, and his connection to Len Trexler and penchant for crazy experiments was certainly classic Krieger.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Photo courtesey of Film-in-evolution | Les Productions BalthazarGone are the glory days when Hollywood would identify and poach remarkable foreign (inevitably European) directors, enticing them with greater budgets and production capabilities. France, with its generous co-production financing, cannot compete with Hollywood of the 1930s, but half a decade ago they brought over a spate of our favorite East Asian auteurs to make several great films: Hou Hsiao-hsien (Flight of the Red Balloon), Hong Sang-soo (Night and Day) and Tsai Ming-liang (Visage). Now count Kiyoshi Kurosawa with that number. The Japanese director, best known for a cluster of haunting mysteries that coincided with the J-Horror trend and still conflated with that brief cultural moment, has made Daguerrotype, a haunted house gothic featuring French stars Tahar Rahim and Olivier Gourmet.Though often creeping towards horror—“thriller” might be more appropriate if his films didn’t move at an unsettling, dreamily...

DaguerrotypeDear Fern,I've heard a lot of mixed things here about Terrence Malick's Voyage of Time, so I'm very pleased at your enraptured praise. Did you know from the first moment that you liked it so much? Sometimes, in those rare special occasions, you know right off that a film is great. From the first shot of Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, a grainy Montana landscape grayed by winter, with hills so soft in they could be painted on, and a train arcing its way towards the camera, it is clear this film is special. Based on stories by author Maile Meloy, the film takes the unusual form of a sequence of three stories, all set in small town Montana, and each foregrounded on a woman and her conflicted yearning.Laura Dern is a lawyer whose client (Jared Harris) in a dead-end malfeasance lawsuit gets increasingly dejected and unhinged...

Regardless of the budget at his disposal, Guillermo del Toro always incorporates a wide range of influences in his films — just look at Pan’s Labyrinth, or take a quick peek at a recently launched Twitter account that puts other directors’ use of the platform to shame — and it’s no different with his forthcoming Crimson Peak.

We said in our review, “Crimson Peak works as many things: a melodramatic romance; both the recreation of a period and a revival of the way movies have made us perceive it; a genre-jumping comedy; and a critique of capitalistic excess. It does these things earnestly and without compromise, and it’s far braver — far more admirable — for having done so. What Guillermo del Toro’s new film doesn’t work as: a haunted-house picture.”

So if you’re seeking something to fill the horror void or want a few options that are...

This year's poster for the Vienna International Film Festival is of a flame, and while around the world in other cinema-loving cities and at other cinema-loving festivals one might that that as a cue for a celluloid immolation and a move forever to digital, here in Austria cinema and film as film aren't burning up but rather are burning brightly.

The tributes and special programs in artistic director Hans Hurch's 2014 edition make this position clear: John Ford, Harun Farocki and 16mm, with new films by Tariq Teguia, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Marie Straub accompanying older ones by the same directors. These aren't just retrospectives, they are revitalizing redoubts, inexhaustible fountains of flame, of sensitivity, of consciousness, and of intervention. With such a profound retrospective program, I hope you'll forgive me telling you very little of anything new at the festival; unless, that is, you like me count cinema revived as something always new.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a Hollywood chameleon who ranged from thoughtful thrillers (The Quiet American), to acid character dramas (All About Eve) and Renta-ghosty romances (The Ghost And Mrs. Muir) with equal aplomb. Perhaps his most beloved film, though, remains his starry stab at the musical genre, 1955’s Guys And Dolls. It’s been spruced up and will be back on the big screen in time for all your Christmas sing-along needs*, and there's a new poster to help spread the word. Adapted from Frank Loesser’s Tony-winning musical, Guys And Dolls is the story of New York bad boy Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra), in deep with the gambling community and feeling the cops breathing down his handmade-suited neck. His fiancée (Vivian Blaine) also wants a ring on her finger. So what does he do? He makes a $1000 bet with Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that he can’t wow Jean Simmons...

The late career of Joseph L. Mankiewicz—who is getting a sidebar retrospective, The Essential Iconoclast, at the New York Film Festival—is fascinating. While many of his contemporaries floundered as the rules of filmmaking changed, formally and in every other aspect, he found ways, for a while at least, to carry on telling the kind of stories he liked, with the kind of people he liked, in the way he liked. Sleuth (1972) could probably have been made earlier—the amorality and venality of the characters might well have passed the censor, since vice can be said to be punished. The filmmaking is a little less sure-footed than we expect from Mankiewicz, though: he should have been the perfect director for a two-hander full of arch talk in elegant surroundings, but his attempts to keep the visuals lively sometimes seem forced.

There Was a Crooked Man (1970), is more problematic, illustrating...

Kenneth Lampl and Darren Tate are the composers of Magnolia Picture’s “Frontera”. What makes them so unique? They've never met in person. Join us as we talk with them about their interesting and unique working relationship.

Working partnerships are common in the movie-making industry. Pooling together knowledge and talent is one way to create a more appealing and more complete product. Furthermore, for large projects with lots of work to do and tasks to complete, it makes the burden easier to bear (we all know how helpful it can be to have a shoulder to lean on). What is not common is having such partnerships develop across an ocean and not in person. For Kenneth Lampl and Darren Tate, that's exactly what happened.

Kenneth Lampl is a Professor of music at Hofstra University in New York. Darren Tate is an international DJ and producer who resides in London. Together,...

Somewhere in the Night

Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Directed by Howard Dimsdale and Joseph L. Mankiewizc

USA, 1946

A man (John Hodiak) wakes up in a military hospital, cognizant of the fact that he has been in battle for the United States but entirely oblivious of who he is or where he lives. Only a few cryptic pieces of paper in his pocket inform him of his name George Taylor; that a woman now hates him; and that a good pal of his, Larry Cravat, wants to meet him in Los Angeles transfer a significant amount of saved up funds through a bank account. Thus begins George’s vertiginous journey into the City of Angels, where the clues as to his true identity sometimes add up whilst other times stir further confusion. By all accounts, there are some people who view the name Larry Cravat as either a threat, as in the case of Lt.

Film buffs rejoice! Vintage Books is going back to the source material that inspired a number of iconic Hollywood films. As part of Vintage Movie Classics, the publisher–founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf–is re-issuing four classic novels in March: Show Boat, Cimarron, Back Street and Alice Adams. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, The Bad Seed and Drums Along the Mohawk will follow over the next few months. The stories, of course, remain the same -- the covers and forwards are what differ -- but this re-issue could be just enough of a

read more...

British actress Sarah Marshall, a Tony-nominated veteran who later appeared in memorable episodes of TV’s Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, has died. She was 80. Marshall died Saturday in Los Angeles following a long battle with cancer, her daughter-in-law, Trixie Flynn, said. Marshall was the daughter of noted British actors Herbert Marshall (The Letter, Foreign Correspondent) and Edna Best (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir). She made her feature film debut opposite Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the adaptation of William Faulkner’s The Long, Hot Summer (1958), but her most

read more...

Growing up, Saturday nights were usually spent with the NBC peacock. Their sitcom lineup during the 1960s included Flipper, Get Smart, Adam-12, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. The latter lasted just a season on the network, moving to ABC for its second and final season. It was the first time I recall learning that the series was based on a film, one I never got to see.

Thankfully, 20th Century Home Entertainment remedied that this holiday season with the release of the 1947 film, starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, on Blu-ray.

While the sitcom played it for family friendly yucks, with an over-the-top performance by Charles Nelson Reilly as the ghost’s descendant, the film, written by Philip Dunne, is something far different. It is a story of love and loss, missed opportunities and evokes reminders of the overlooked romance Somewhere in Time.

Fox has been doing its part to bring classic films into the modern era with its line of Blu-ray releases aimed at honoring some of the most memorable and cherished features of the 20th century by letting movie lovers choose which titles get the HD treatment next. This time around, Fox offers us a delightful selection of eight films, some which are well known and others which border on the obscure side, but all of which ought to be seen by discerning cinephiles. The titles include the lauded Desk Set (starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), the Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge musical Carmen Jones, the 1935 adaptation of Jack London’s Call of the Wild starring Clark Gable, the supernatural romance The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, the swashbuckler adventure The Black Swan, the John Wayne flicks The Undefeated and North to Alaska, and Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda in the Western gangster flick Jesse James.

Most home video releases are mass produced and marketed by faceless conglomerates interested only in separating you from your hard-earned cash. If you look closely though you’ll find smaller labels who love movies as much as you do and show it by delivering quality Blu-rays and DVDs of beloved films and cult classics, often loaded with special features, new transfers, and more. But yes, they still want your cash, too. Before you accuse me of selling out and featuring a major studio in a column dedicated to smaller labels, please understand that they paid me very well. That’s not true. Instead let me point out that these releases come via 20th Century Fox’s Studio Classics line, which is both a small division and in this instance one very receptive to the desires of fans. They launched a program called Voice Your Choice earlier this year where film lovers got the chance to vote on...

This kaleidoscopic compilation of soundtracks by Bernard Herrmann scored for film, television and radio presents a feature-length overview of this incredibly unique composer's wide-ranging and distinctive style. Working with directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, during a career that spanned over forty years, Herrmann created scores of such innovative and emotional magnitude that notions of sound and music in cinema have never been the same. The breadth and scope of Herrmann's ingenious composing, arranging and orchestrating talent is on full display here, from the use of the theremin in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), to the all-string "black & white" sound for Psycho (1960), and the whistled main title of The Twisted Nerve (1968). Despite a well-charted, stormy history of personal and professional battles, Herrmann could work effortlessly in many musical idioms, seemingly without pause, whether it be within the Romanticism of Jane Eyre (1943) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir...

Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...

Jeanne Crain: From Pinky to Margie Jeanne Crain, one of the most charming Hollywood actresses of the ’40s and ’50s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured player on Monday, August 26, 2013. Since Jeanne Crain was a top 20th Century Fox star for about a decade — a favorite of Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck — TCM will be showing quite a few films from the Fox library. And that’s great news. (Photo: Jeanne Crain ca. 1950.) (See also: “Jeanne Crain Movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Schedule.”) Now, my first recommendation is actually an MGM release. That’s Russell Rouse’s 1956 psychological Western The Fastest Gun Alive, an unusual movie in that the hero turns out to be a "coward" at heart: quick-on-the-trigger gunslinger Glenn Ford is reluctant to face an evil challenger (Broderick Crawford) in a small Western town. But why? Jeanne Crain is his serious-minded wife...

Hi all, it’s Tim. With Natalie Wood Week upon us, there will be much talk of the actress’s run of films as a beautifully virginal ingénue, or her transition into roles as troubled adults and young women. But I want to pause on the threshold of all those Splendor in the Grasses and West Side Stories to pay tribute to the an earlier era in the Life of Natalie, when she became one of the best-loved child actors of the 1940s (and a good time it was for child actors, too).

The film that put her on the map was Miracle on 34th Street, of course, released when the actress was a mere eight years old in 1947. It wasn’t her first credited role (that would be the Claudette Colbert/Orson Welles vehicle Tomorrow Is Forever, from 1946), nor even the first movie to showcase her to good effect; earlier that same year,...

by Blood Raven, MoreHorror.com

Think back to season one of American Horror Story. Remember Tate walking down the hallways of his high school just before his shooting spree? What was the song playing in the background?

If you know what I'm talking about, most of you are thinking it was the whistling song from Kill Bill when "nurse" Elle was on her way to poison Beatrix Kiddo with a syringe while she was still asleep in a coma. Your guess would be right, except it would also be wrong.

The whistling song is actually the main sound track of an old 1969 British Horror film, Twisted Nerve, composed by the talented Bernard Herrmann. That's Right! It didn't originate with Kill Bill.

After seeing Twisted Nerve, it makes sense why this song has been reused with other "unsuspecting" killers…

Twisted Nerve is the tale of a troubled young man named Martin...

Like Night of the Hunter, Tod Browning’s Freaks or Leonard Kastle’s The Honeymoon Killers, The Road to Yesterday can be ranked among the UFOs of cinema. It’s place in the heart of Cecil B. DeMille’s work proves to be in itself very distinctive. We know that, during his entire life, DeMille had virtually only one producer—Paramount (the former Famous Players Lasky)—just like Minnelli was MGM’s man and Corman American International’s. Sixty-three of his films (out of seventy) were produced at Paramount. And, oddly enough, it is among the seven outsiders, situated within a brief period from 1925 to 1931, that his best activity is to be found (I’m thinking of Madam Satan, The Godless Girl, and The Road to Yesterday)–his most audacious undertakings. To top it off, for this uncontested king of the box office, his best films were his biggest commercial failures.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is letting you decide what classic films they will release on Blu-ray for the first time.

That’s right, your vote counts. Fans vote for their favorite classic titles through the “Voice Your Choice” campaign.

Click Here To Vote

Here is an portion the news release:

Los Angeles (January 15, 2013) – Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced today its partnership with the ultimate film discussion website, Home Theater Forum, for a one-of-a-kind campaign, Voice Your Choice, allowing film enthusiasts to decide which classic films they would like to see digitally restored and transferred to Blu-ray for the very first time. The program celebrates Fox’s most notable films from the 1930’s thru the 1960’s featuring performances by famous actors such as Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, John Wayne and more. Throughout the campaign, fans will also have the opportunity to write in and submit additional titles.

The first-ever manufacturer of light bulbs in Portugal, Manoel de Oliveira’s father died in 1932, nine years after Raul Brandão wrote a play called Gebo and the Shadow. In the year 2012 Oliveira turned the play into a film, making a grimy, dim oil lamp its legitimate character: elderly accountant Gebo burns the midnight oil in it as he plods away at his books. In an early scene, meanwhile, his wife lights the lanterns outside their house with a match. No one seems yet to have heard of electricity; the time setting is unclear; presumably, it’s the turn of the century.

Presumably. Oliveira’s Benilde, or The Virgin Mother (1975) opens with a title-card of this word to gradually lure us into a province of utter chronological disorder. This very same word has ever since been unchallenged as the most accurate description of the bizarre, atemporal effect that grows stronger in each subsequent Oliveira film.

From Japanese ghost stories such as Ringu (1998) and Ju-on (2002, remade as The Grudge) to modern revisionist ghost stories such as Brad Anderson’s Session 9 (2001) and Ti West’s The Innkeepers (2011), cinematic specters have nearly always been evil, or at the very least, malicious. Scary movies have long held the belief that ghosts should frighten us, and Hollywood had lined their pockets with that notion, but is it possible to make a good movie about “good” ghosts? We think so, and here’s our proof… our Top Ten Movies About Friendly Ghosts.

10. Heart And Souls (1993)

Anything starring Robert Downey, Jr. is worth checking out in my book, but this comedy was surprisingly enjoyable. Downey plays a guy used by four ghosts to reconcile their lives before moving on into the afterlife. The catch is, Downey is less than enthusiastic, but finds himself the catalyst for something bigger than himself and goes along for the ride.

DVD Release Date: Sept. 4, 2012

Price: DVD $19.95

Studio: Hen’s Tooth

Barry Bostwick and Persis Khambatta aim to save the world in Megaforce.

The silly 1982 science fiction action movie Megaforce is a cult favorite and guilty pleasure if ever there was one!

Barry Bostwick (Some Guy Who Kills People) stars as Ace Hunter, leader of an elite task force of American adventurers who gallantly fight to uphold justice around the world. The team’s ultramodern weaponry plays a major part in their perilous mission to save a small democratic nation which has been invaded by a band of ruthless mercenaries led by the evil dictator Guerrera (Henry Silva, The Manchurian Candidate).

Megaforce is directed by stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham of Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run fame. Needham brings his flair and knowledge of stunt work and automotive hijinks to the film for its frequent action scenes, which include many high...

The networks announced their 2012/13 seasons this week. Many years ago, this was a big event. It isn't anymore. But the media still trots out a few column inches on the new shows we can expect to see cancelled next fall. And I always look, hoping to find some vestige of brief, glorious part of America's cultural past.

Most current sitcoms can be traced to one of several family trees. You can still see the spawn of Lucy and Ricky in Mike and Molly, just as you can scratch The Middle hard enough and find Father Knows Best. The Seinfeld/Friends juggernaut is visible in the Fox hit The New Girl, among others. And workplace comedies that sprang from The Dick Van Dyke Show make up most of NBC's current line-up.

The networks' new shows mostly fall into these generic categories. Chances are, one or two will strike a chord, most will flounder.

A master turns 100 and Joe offers his Top 10 Herrmann scores….

One hundred years ago today — June 29th, 1911 — Bernard Herrmann was born. He was one of the great film composers and I have no doubt that, if you’re reading this, you’ve heard some of his music. If you’ve never delved into the classics that Herrmann scored (for shame), you’ve probably heard its influence. Quentin Tarantino notably borrowed a track from Twisted Nerve for a scene in Kill Bill and Beatles producer George Martin has cited the influence of Herrmann. (Go listen to “Eleanor Rigby”.)

On the web, NPR has a pretty conclusive overview of the man and there’s an exhaustive list of where you can track down celebrations of the man and his music over at the Bernard Herrmann Society.

I remember reading an interview with the late, great Jerry Goldsmith where he told this story about how,...

Encino, CA - While Charles Nelson Reilly is beloved for his time on Match Game, there’s more to this actor than Dumb Dora answers. He was the toast of Broadway with roles in Hello Dolly and Bye, Bye, Birdie and won the Tony for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Later in life he directed several plays on the Great White Way. While many actors sum up their lives in thick tomes, Charles created a one-man show. He was a stage performer so this was the best way to distill his experiences for an audience. The Life of Reilly captures his final performance before his passing in 2007.

After playing the festival circuit and a limited theatrical release, Life of Reilly is finally out on DVD, Blu-ray and iTunes. You can take Charles every where. In edition to the feature film, there’s tons of bonus features including...

Most ghosts in film and television are dickholes. Let's face it -- they have unfinished business which makes them rather unpleasant. Like that Poltergeist fuckstump? Rolling around with that evil clown puppet bastard, fucking up all our drinking by sending worm monsters into Coach, fucking with the television reception. Not a ball of laughs.

Yet, there have been a rare few ghosts that have crossed our screens that would probably be a hoot at a Halloween party. They like to drink, maybe cause a little trouble, but they seem like they'd be pretty fucking cool to have a glass of Ecto-Cooler and vodka punch. Here's my guest list for the party of the damned.

Phantom Dennis -- "Angel"

He's not much of a talker, but he'd make sure the trash got moved and the drinks were full. The moody poltergeist might even invite his roommate Charisma Carpenter along, but don't get too close,...

Tim Burton fans in the Toronto area have cause to celebrate and rejoice. Tiff Bell Lightbox will be offering a major exhibition and retrospective on the director’s work. The exhibition will hundreds of pieces of Burton’s artwork going back as far to work he did as a teenager. There will be more than 700 items including paintings, drawings, puppets, costumes, storyboards, and maquettes from Burton’s personal vault, studio archives, and private collections. There will also be an “extensive film retrospective spanning Burton’s 27-year career, including his early shorts and a related series of films that influenced, inspired and intrigued him as a filmmaker, will run parallel to the exhibition.”

Hit the jump to check out the full press release. The exhibition will run from November 26, 2010 until April 17, 2011. Tickets go on sale October 26th.

Here’s the press release:

Tim Burton Exhibition And Retrospective Opens On November 26

At...