News

Anthony Mann came to prominence in the 1940s as a maker of some of the bleakest, most socially acidic noirs from the genre’s heyday. In films like Raw Deal and T-Men, he forged a style that balanced ornate compositions with docudrama immediacy, making his work feel at once raw and epic. But the filmmaker would go on surpass himself when he began to make westerns. Fortuitously paired with James Stewart, who was entering into middle age and willing to push beyond his squeaky-clean image, Mann opened a new chapter of his career with Winchester ’73, the first of a number of golden-age westerns that presented a vision of frontier morality so caustic that only a handful of the so-called revisionist westerns to emerge in the ’60s and beyond could match their frank social critique.

As the opening text explains, the film’s title is a dedication to the Winchester Model...

George Schenck, who served as a writer, producer and/or co-showrunner on NCIS during the CBS drama’s first 15 seasons, died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles, a network spokesperson announced. He was 82.

He and Frank Cardea shared a creative partnership for 40 years. In addition to collaborating on NCIS, they created the 1982-83 CBS adventure series Bring ‘Em Back Alive, starring Bruce Boxleitner; the 1984-86 CBS crime show Crazy Like a Fox, starring Jack Warden and John Rubinstein; and the 1991-92 ABC drama Pros and Cons, starring James Earl Jones and Richard Crenna.

After writing nearly 50 episodes of NCIS starting with show’s inaugural season in 2003, the pair were elevated to co-showrunners in November 2016 following the sudden death of Gary Glasberg two months earlier. “It’s with heavy hearts that we assume his duties,” they said at the time.

“So sorry to hear the news on George,” NCIS star...

The bread and butter of film festivals is the unveiling of new movies. And in the case of the major festivals taking place in the late summer and early fall — Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York — the selections offer a preview of potential Oscar nominees and winners. Remember the eight-minute standing ovation Brendan Fraser received last year at Venice for “The Whale”? It kicked off his comeback and journey to a best Oscar win this year.

And with the 50th annual Telluride Film Festival kicking off August 31 at in the picturesque Colorado mountain burg, let’s take the cinematic time machine back 1993 when the fest was a mere 20 years old. John Boorman of “Deliverance” and “Hope and Glory” fame was the guest director of the festival. Jennifer Jason Leigh, then just 31 and whose latest film was Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” was honored with a tribute as was socialist British director Ken Loach,...

“The Afterparty” has placed all sorts of lenses on its murder mystery wedding romp in Season 2: the generic conventions of rom-com and film noir, specific directorial styles like Alfred Hitchcock’s and Wes Anderson’s, and even whole modes of filmmaking as in Feng’s (Ken Jeong) found-footage episode peppered with vertical iPhone videos ready for TikTok.

The sheer number of different visual styles the show needs is a challenge, but so is creating a “normal” look for the present-day interrogation scenes with Danner (Tiffany Haddish), Aniq (Sam Richardson), and Zoë (Zoe Chao). Working out the feeling of that grounding “home base” look was as challenging as crafting the show’s most extreme visual styles, and in both cases required cinematographer Ross Riege to do a lot of calibrating in order to get it right — and then keep it straight.

“We’d shoot something [in the] present day, and then the...

Classic movie lovers, rejoice! Going virtual once again this year, the TCM Classic Film Festival will take place from May 6 to 9 and will be extended to HBO Max’s platform as well. The lineup has now been unveiled and there’s no shortage of both canonical classics and gems worth discovering.

Along with much-adored classics from Breathless to North by Northwest to Mean Streets, the lineup also features a Nichols and May documentary, a pair of Chantal Akerman films, Anthony Mann’s T-Men, Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm, Samuel Fuller’s Underworld U.S.A., Powell & Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going!, the world premieres of the new restorations of Irving Pichel’s noir gem They Won’t Believe Me, the French drama Princess Tam Tam, the Pre-Code film Her Man, and more.

There’s also a number of special events, including a star-studded Plan 9 From Outer Space table read,...

Once upon a time, MGM launched a big spectacle Western remake with the top star Glenn Ford and the bright import Maria Schell — and then second-guessed the whole production, cutting back on everything so severely that director Anthony Mann ankled the set for Spain and El Cid. The storytelling is a mess — after starting big, the show soon falls into pieces. But many of individual scenes and set pieces are exemplary, especially Mann’s re-run of the Oklahoma Land Rush, staged in Arizona and augmented by classy special effects. The large cast rounds up some big talent — Mercedes McCambridge, Russ Tamblyn — to tell Edna Ferber’s multi-generational story about ambition, intolerance and dreams of glory on the frontier.

Cimarron (1960)

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1960 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 147 min. / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow,...

Style can be the star in Classic Noir, making a less prestigious film more entertaining than one with bigger names. Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt spin an excellent crime-love-murder triangle, for a road picture that’s one of the best Noirs not made by a big studio. Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton dial up the intensity for an experience as rich as the best pulp crime fiction.

Raw Deal

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1948 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 79 min. / Special Edition / Street Date January 16, 2018 / 39.99

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, John Ireland, Raymond Burr, Curt Conway, Chili Williams, Regis Toomey, Whit Bissell, Cliff Clark, Greg Barton, Tom Fadden, Ilka Grüning, Ray Teal.

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Alfred DeGaetano

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Leopold Atlas, John C. Higgens, from a story by Arnold B. Armstrong & Audrey Ashley

Produced by Edward Small

Directed by Anthony Mann...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the Classicflix.com:

For one night only, fans of classic film noir will be able to watch a free streaming World Premiere of the recently restored thriller T-Men (1947) on Friday, November 24, hosted by ClassicFlix. Anthony Mann's breakout film will be part of the home video label’s “Black and White Friday,” which will be streaming the film in high definition on their YouTube channel from 5:00 Pm to 7:00 Pm Pt*.

The ground-breaking film recently made its Blu-ray™ debut after undergoing major restoration. The T-Men Special Edition Blu-ray is loaded with bonus features and a 24-page booklet. During the screening ClassicFlix will be hosting a giveaway of T-Men Special Edition via their Twitter page, in addition to a special low-price offering for fans who wish to buy the Blu-ray. Instructions on how to participate in the giveaway will be posted...

Do you think older crime thrillers weren’t violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a vicious killer who has a murderous solution to every problem, and uses special talents to evade police detection. Richard Basehart made his acting breakthrough as Roy Martin, a barely disguised version of the real life ‘Machine Gun Walker.

He Walked by Night

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1948 / B&W /1:37 flat full frame / 79 min. / Street Date November 7, 2017 / 39.99

Starring: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, James Cardwell, Jack Webb, Dorothy Adams, Ann Doran, Byron Foulger, Reed Hadley (narrator), Thomas Browne Henry, Tommy Kelly, John McGuire, Kenneth Tobey.

Cinematography: John Alton

Art Direction: Edward Ilou

Film Editor: Alfred De Gaetano

Original Music: Leonid Raab

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur

Produced by Bryan Foy, Robert T. Kane

Directed by Alfred L. Werker

Talk about a movie with a dynamite...

Mubi is showing Anthony Mann's T-Men (1947) from October 25 - November 24 and Raw Deal (1948) from October 26 - November 25, 2017 in the United States as part of the double feature Anthony Mann Noirs.T-MenIt’s all about how it’s done. That’s a central belief in cinephilia, which, when it comes to genre, is anti-exclusionist. It’s virtually anathema to dismiss any specific genre, and for many good reasons beside the primacy of the director. Rarely do you even read cinephile critics state preferences; I’m all for minimizing them in practice, perhaps for the sake of adventure above all. But I cannot tell a lie: the crime film is by far my favorite type of mainstream movie. It exists in the inviting ground between fantasy and reality; westerns are historical and abstract, sci-fi movies are conjectural, musicals are frankly fantastical, horror films are blatantly outlandish, but in every city in the world,...

The 26th entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi is showing Anthony Mann's Raw Deal (1948) October 26 - November 25, 2017 in the United States as part of the double feature Anthony Mann Noirs.Few film critics intend the same thing when they invoke abstraction in cinema. For some, the reference is to the purity of abstract painting, and its extension into experimental cinema; for others, it points to those moments in otherwise narrative films (such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s) when plot and characters momentarily fall away, and textures or settings surge into the foreground. For some, abstract cinema is Stan Brakhage; for others, it’s particularly kooky action movies where nothing makes much logical sense and so “pure film” takes over. Watching the remarkable series of works forged by the collaboration of director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton—including T-Men (1947), Raw Deal...

Found: a must-see Film noir in all its brutal glory, restored to a level of quality not seen in years. Anthony Mann and John Alton made their reputations with ninety minutes of chiaroscuro heaven — it’s one of the best-looking noirs ever. With extras produced by Alan K. Rode.

T-Men

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / Special Edition / 92 min. / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.99

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Alfred Ryder, Wallace Ford, Charles McGraw, Jane Randolph, Art Smith, Herbert Heyes, Jack Overman, John Wengraf, June Lockhart, Keefe Brasselle, James Seay, Tito Vuolo, John Newland, Reed Hadley.

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Fred Allen

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by John C. Higgins, story Virginia Kellogg

Produced by Aubrey Schenck, Edward Small

Directed by Anthony Mann

Wow — I’ve seen T-Men many times, but never like this. It’s always listed as a significant success, a trend-starter, a career-launcher, but only...

What in the world -- an A + top-rank film noir gem hiding under the radar, and rescued (most literally) by the Film Noir Foundation. Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe trade dialogue as good as any in a film from 1950 -- it's a thriller with a cynical worldview yet a sentimental personal outlook. Woman on the Run Blu-ray + DVD Flicker Alley / FIlm Noir Foundation 1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 79 min. / Street Date May 17, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, John Qualen, Frank Jenks, Ross Elliott, Jane Liddell, Joan Fulton, J. Farrell MacDonald, Steven Geray, Victor Sen Yung, Reiko Sato. Cinematography Hal Mohr Art Direction Boris Leven Film Editor Otto Ludwig Original Music Arthur Lange, Emil Newman Written by Alan Campbell, Norman Foster, Sylvia Tate Produced by Howard Welsch, Ann Sheridan Directed by Norman Foster

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Amazing! Just when one thinks one won't see another top-rank film noir, the...

It's an All Star monster rally -- Lon Chaney Jr.!, John Carradine!, Bela Lugosi!, Basil Rathbone!, Tor Johnson! -- with Akim Tamiroff in there pitching as well. It's considered a must-see picture, and this HD presentation is nothing to sniff at. Added bonus: a Tom Weaver commentary. The Black Sleep Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 82 min. / Dr. Cadman's Secret / Street Date March 22, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Rudley, Patricia Blake, Phyllis Stanley, Tor Johnson, Sally Yarnell, George Sawaya. Cinematography Gordon Avil Film Editor John F. Schreyer Original Music Les Baxter Written by John C. Higgins, Gerald Drayson Adams Produced by Howard W. Koch Directed by Reginald Le Borg

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Older monster kids know that the 1956 chiller The Black Sleep existed for years only through stills in Famous Monsters magazine. We saw tantalizing...

It is common knowledge that Martin Scorsese has impeccable taste when it comes to movies, but, starting tomorrow, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will display the director’s exquisite taste in movie poster art too.Scorsese Collects brings together 34 of the most prized items in his reportedly vast collection. There are posters for many of Marty’s avowed favorite directors: Kazan and Kubrick, Ford and Franju, Mann and Melville, Siegel and Sturges, and, especially, Jacques Tourneur, Max Ophüls and Michael Powell, who each get practically a wall to themselves. But the stars here are really the poster artists, and curators Dave Kehr and Ron Magliozzi have assembled works by many of the greats (many of whom are Movie Poster of the Week favorites too) such as Peter Strausfeld, Anselmo Ballester, René Péron, Jean Mascii, Guy Gérard Noël, Osvaldo Venturi and Boris Grinsson.The highlight of the show...

He Walked by Night

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur

Directed by Alfred L. Werker and Anthony Mann

U.S.A., 1948

The very long and arduous investigation tasked of Los Angeles police captain Breen (Roy Roberts) and Sergeant Merty Brennan (Scott Brady) begins on a quiet night, on a quiet street when aspiring criminal guru Roy Martin (Richard Basehart) is accosted by a patrolling officer after the latter sees him trying to break into an electronics shop. Roy is prepared for the confrontation, surprising the unfortunate law enforcement representative with his pistol, killing the man in the process. With one of their own gunned down mercilessly, Captain Breen and Sgt. Brennan tackle one of the most difficult cases of their careers, a story inspired by the newspaper headlines of the time when in 1945 and 1946 a former police officer and army veteran Erwin Walker took the city by storm...

Anthony Mann

As much as any other filmmaker who found a niche in a given genre, in the 10 Westerns Anthony Mann directed from 1950 to 1958 he carved out a place in film history as one who not only reveled in the conventions of that particular form, but also as one who imbued in it a distinct aesthetic and narrative approach. In doing so, Mann created Westerns that were simultaneously about the making of the West as a historical phenomenon, as well as about the making of its own developing cinematic genus. At the same time, he also established the traits that would define his auteur status, formal devices that lend his work the qualities of a director who enjoyed, understood, and readily exploited and manipulated a type of film's essential features.

Though he made several fine pictures outside the Western, Mann as an American auteur is most notably recognized for his work in this field,...

Men in War

Written by Philip Yordan

Directed by Anthony Mann

USA, 1957

Director Anthony Mann was a specialist at genre filmmaking. From early crime dramas like T-Men and Raw Deal, to historical epics like El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire, he seemed to have a knack for working within — and working with — the conventions of a given generic formula. His Westerns, especially, are among the best that that particular type of movie has to offer. And when he set his sights on the war film, his natural aptitude for genre would be as prominent as it was anywhere. Men in War, from 1957, his second war film of the decade (released two years after Strategic Air Command), contains much of what makes Mann a distinct filmmaker, and reveals much of what makes the war film its own unique form of motion picture.

Set in Korea, 1950, Men in War...

T-Men

Written by John C. Higgins

Directed by Anthony Mann

USA, 1947

Two Treasury Board inspectors, Dennis O’Brien and Tony Genaro (Dennis O’Keef and Alfred Ryder, respectively), are sent to Detroit for undercover duty that the Board hopes will smash a nationwide counterfeiting operation. After adopting aliases and studying the Detroit crime scene, they make their way to Motown and, under the guise of former members of a now-defunct gang, infiltrate a high-end gangster’s outfit pretending to look for jobs. Upon learning that The Schemer (Wallace Ford), next in line in the food chain, operates out of Los Angeles, the duo split up with Dennis flying off to the West Coast to pursue the investigation. Of course, the closer the undercover T-Men get to the bottom of the operation, the greater the risk to their mission as well as their very lives.

A long forgotten sub-genre of film noir,...

From The Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 1948. Article text Excerpt:

Chaplain Pens Movie

Ministers Accept Roles In ‘Underground’ Film

By Hedda Hopper

Hollywood – Twelve ministers will play themselves in Eagle-Lion’s “Twelve Against the Underworld,” which is based on a story by Dr. Norman Nygaard, a World War I veteran and civilian chaplain in the last war. When he returned to his home in Steubenville, O., in 1945, Nygaard found it overridden with the underworld, so he and 11 other ministers organized to rid the town of gangsters and grafting politicians. Aubrey Schenck will produce and Director Anthony Mann and Cameraman John Alton, who worked together on “T-Man” will be reteamed. The picture will be made entirely on location. It might set an example for other towns throughout America.

Underground Film Journal notes: The film critic Manny Farber is typically credited with inventing the term “underground film” in 1957 for an article in the...

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

A periodic round up of interesting and notable books about film, including biographies, histories, critical assessments, and more.

I have to confess from the off that, apart from Daniel Day-Lewis’ typically spellbinding performance (if that’s even the right word for what he does) and the meticulous detail and cinematography that made the film a joy to look at, Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln left me rather cold; perhaps if I had read Lincoln: A Cinematic and Historical Companion (Disney Editions, distributed in the UK by Turnaround www.turnarounduk.com) beforehand, my viewing experience would have been richer and more rewarding.

The book opens with earnest forewards by Spielberg and producer Kathleen Kennedy, and is thereafter divided into two sections, each in two parts. Part One, ‘Players on the Stage of History’, features full page colour photos of the film’s main players in the style of 19th century portraiture, which...

The authors wish to acknowledge with gratitude the venues in which some version of this article previously appeared: Cinema Scope 24 (Fall, 2005), Trafic 62 (Summer, 2006), and the late and twice-lamented The New-York Ghost (Dec. 26, 2006).

In the Place of No Place

Every movie contains its alternates, phantom films conjured variously by excess or dearth: textures and movements that carry on their own play apart from the main line of the narrative, an obtruding performance or scene, an unexplained ellipsis or sudden character reversal, the chunk life of an object seizing the frame in an insert whose plastic beauty transcends its context.

Though the extremes of pure narrative economy (in which each detail exists purely for transmission of plot) or utter dispersal (in which no piece connects to any other) can never exist, we can tentatively use the concepts as limit-cases to differentiate films which make room for their phantoms (or, in the worst case,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013

Price: DVD $19.95, Blu-ray $24.95

Studio: Olive Films

The 1944 crime mystery Strangers in the Night is generally considered to be the first film-noir directed by a master of the form, the great Anthony Mann of Side Street, Raw Deal and T-Men fame.

In the movie, Marine sergeant Johnny Meadows (William Terry) is stationed overseas and falls in love with a woman he has only met through their regular letters to each other. While on the train back home, he meets a beautiful young doctor (Virginia Grey) who’s starting a new practice in the same small town. Once he’s arrived, Johnny finds his pen pal’s place of residence, but to his surprise he only finds the girl’s mother (Helen Thimig) living at the old mansion with her servant (Edith Barrett). The old woman informs him that her daughter has gone away and will return shortly,...

The 14th Annual Festival of Film Noir kicks off at the Egyptian and Aero Theaters in Los Angeles, see, and the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby gets things started. (If you haven't heard, there's a modern update of Fitzgerald's classic coming this winter with Baz Luhrman's version starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan.) Other prominent films being showcased during the festival include The Maltese Falcon, the Sterling Hayden/Frank Sinatra suspenser Suddenly, Anthony Mann's T-Men and Strange Impression, a new 35mm print of Three Strangers starring Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, as well as Lana Turner and John Garfield in perennial favorite The Postman Always Rings Twice. Many of the films, like Gatsby and the newly restored Gary Cooper-starrer City...

Read More

Read Comments...

MGM head Dore Schary essentially co-opted one of Anthony Mann's Eagle-Lion projects, hiring Mann, writer John Higgins and the great cinematographer John Alton away from the low budget factory and giving them more money to work  with. As in their earlier T-Men, government agents infiltrate a crime ring, this time one exploiting migrant farm workers. Surprisingly violent for Metro, this is one of the greatest looking  black-and-white movies.

He Walked by Night was a "B" movie released by Eagle Lion Films in late 1948 and early 1949. The credited director is Alfred L. Werker, but no one disputes that the actual director is the masterful Anthony Mann (who apparently took over production soon after it was begun). The movie was part of a series of increasingly accomplished noirs by Mann, including Railraoded! (1947), Desperate (1947), T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948), and Border Incident (1949). It's my favorite of the series; it manages to perfect the "docudrama" style begun in T-Men and Raw Deal, and it contains some of the most striking cinematography of the decade, creating a gripping combination of procedural and suspense. There are public domain videos available, but MGM/UA released on a good, quality DVD in 2003, which is still in print.

What It's About

A patrol cop is on his way home when he stops a suspicious man (Richard Basehart) on the street.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson

Rating (out of 5): ****

This has been quite a summer for film noir on DVD. In addition to the Columbia Noir set that just arrived, now Warner Home Video releases a new eight-film box set, featuring at least three long-awaited and essential classics. First up is Anthony Mann's Desperate (1947), which is the first of three "B" noirs Mann released over the course of one year. It was followed by Railroaded! and then his groundbreaking T-Men, upon which he collaborated with the great cinematographer John Alton and reached new heights in the use of darkness and shadow. While Desperate isn't quite at the same level, it does have Mann's sense of coiled violence, just waiting to unload.

This thrilling new neo-noir masterpiece hits DVD on October 6th

Get ready to enter Dark Country on October 6th, when Thomas Jane's directorial debut hits store shelves nationwide. Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman and Lauren German star in this thrilling neo-noir masterpiece, which takes us deep into the depths of human depravity. When two honeymooners rescue a mysterious car crash survivor in the Las Vegas desert, their decision to save the man becomes increasingly regrettable. The mysterious blood-faced stranger unexpectedly turns on them, forcing the newlyweds to do the unthinkable. In a blur of paranormal chaos, the couple must take drastic measures to cover up their actions from the local police, ultimately leading them to an inescapable fate. We recently met up with Thomas Jane to find out more about this exceptional film. Here is what the maestro had to say:

Dude, what do you have against country music?

Thomas Jane...