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John Aldred, the two-time Oscar-nominated British soundman who collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David Lean and Stanley Kubrick across a 50-year career, has died. He was 99.

Aldred died Dec. 15 in a hospital in Worthing, England, after a short illness, his family announced.

When he was first starting out, Aldred contributed to such films as The Four Feathers (1939), produced by Alexander Korda; The Thief of Bagdad (1940), co-directed by Michael Powell; In Which We Serve (1942), co-directed by Lean; and The Way Ahead (1944), helmed by Carol Reed.

He received his Oscar noms for his work on Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and ...

John Aldred, the two-time Oscar-nominated British soundman who collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David Lean and Stanley Kubrick across a 50-year career, has died. He was 99.

Aldred died Dec. 15 in a hospital in Worthing, England, after a short illness, his family announced.

When he was first starting out, Aldred contributed to such films as The Four Feathers (1939), produced by Alexander Korda; The Thief of Bagdad (1940), co-directed by Michael Powell; In Which We Serve (1942), co-directed by Lean; and The Way Ahead (1944), helmed by Carol Reed.

He received his Oscar noms for his work on Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and ...

Next month will mark the return of New York City’s Quad Cinema, a theater reshaped and rebranded as a proper theater via the resources of Charles S. Cohen, head of the distribution outfit Cohen Media Group. While we got a few hints of the line-up during the initial announcement, they’ve now unveiled their first full repertory calendar, running from April 14th through May 4th, and it’s an embarassment of cinematic riches.

Including the previously revealed Lina Wertmüller retrospective, one inventive series that catches our eye is First Encounters, in which an artist will get to experience a film they’ve always wanted to see, but never have, and in which you’re invited to take part. The first match-ups in the series include Kenneth Lonergan‘s first viewing Edward Yang‘s Yi Yi, Noah Baumbach‘s first viewing of Withnail and I, John Turturro‘s first viewing of Pather Panchali,...

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...

Best British movies of all time? (Image: a young Michael Caine in 'Get Carter') Ten years ago, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine as a dangerous-looking London gangster (see photo above), was selected as the United Kingdom's very best movie of all time according to 25 British film critics polled by Total Film magazine. To say that Mike Hodges' 1971 thriller was a surprising choice would be an understatement. I mean, not a David Lean epic or an early Alfred Hitchcock thriller? What a difference ten years make. On Total Film's 2014 list, published last May, Get Carter was no. 44 among the magazine's Top 50 best British movies of all time. How could that be? Well, first of all, people would be very naive if they took such lists seriously, whether we're talking Total Film, the British Film Institute, or, to keep things British, Sight & Sound magazine. Second, whereas Total Film's 2004 list was the result of a 25-critic consensus,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 9, 2014

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

There's adventure and fantasy afoot in Time Bandits.

The 1981 adventure fantasy Time Bandits is a energetic and engaging voyage through time and space from Terry Gilliam (Brazil).

In the film, a boy named Kevin (Craig Warnock) escapes his gadget-obsessed parents to join a band of time-traveling dwarves. Armed with a map stolen from the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson, The Four Feathers), they plunder treasure from Napoleon (Ian Holm, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Agamemnon (Sean Connery, The Man Who Would Be King)—but Evil (David Warner, Titanic) is watching their every move.

Featuring a darkly playful script by Gilliam and Monty Python’s Michael Palin (who also appears in the film), Time Bandits is at once a giddy fairy tale, a revisionist history lesson, and a satire on technology gone awry.

The film has been out in...

Blu-ray Release Date: Jan. 21, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $Tba

Studio: Twilight Time

Charlton Heston heads into battle in Khartoum.

The 1966 historical action adventure movie Khartoum makes its Blu-ray debut in January, 2014 from Twilight Time.

The exotic epic film concerns the ill-fated expedition of British General Charles Gordon (Charlton Heston, The Ten Commandments) in late 19th-century Sudan, an attempt to halt the incursion of the fanatical Muslim leader, Muhammad Ahmad (Laurence Olivier, Richard III), the self-styled Mahdi (“The Expected One”).

Directed by Basil Dearden and Elliot Elisofon and written by Robert Ardrey, Khartoum is a large-scale widescreen (it was shot in Cinerama) roadshow extravaganza filled with battle sequences, stunning desert landscapes, and political intrigue involving British Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson, The Four Feathers).

As supplier Twilight Time prints up only 3,000 copies of each title, be prepared to pre-order this one directly from distributor Screen Archives as soon as the prebook date is announced,...

In his final column for the Observer, our film critic welcomes the re-release of two influential classics from the late 1950s

What goes around comes around. Or "This is where we came in!", the words we'd whisper back in the days of continuous movie performances, before heading for the exit when we reached the point at which we'd entered the cinema. Appropriately in the week I write my final film column, two classic movies, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Plein Soleil (aka Purple Noon, 1959), are re-released from that period at the end of the 1950s when I was embarking on a career as a professional writer. Both appear in beautiful new prints that do full justice to the Mediterranean sun which dictates their mood of dangerous eroticism, and both are closely associated with what was popularly known as the French Nouvelle Vague. In the first of them an English-speaking cast play French...

Paulette Goddard: An Ideal Husband and Paris Model on TCM Paulette Goddard height: Supposedly 5’4″. Paulette Goddard age: Well… Goddard would have turned 108 today. Or 103. Or 102. Or 98. It all depends on the source, though Goddard herself apparently — and not at all surprisingly — preferred the 1915 birth date, which would have made her 98 years old in 2013. Whether a centenarian or a nonagenarian, Paulette Goddard is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Day. TCM has already shown several Goddard movies, among them Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times and the Luise Rainer star vehicle Dramatic School, and it’s currently showing An Ideal Husband. (Picture: Paulette Goddard publicity shot, ca. 1940.) Made in England for London Films, An Ideal Husband (1947) was quite a prestigious production so as to justify the presence of a top Hollywood star in a British film. No less a figure than London Films founder Alexander Korda directed this movie adaptation of...

As the Academy celebrates 85 years of great films at the Oscars on February 24th, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to take movie fans on the ultimate studio tour with the 2013 edition of 31 Days Of Oscar®. Under the theme Oscar by Studio, the network will present a slate of more than 350 movies grouped according to the studios that produced or released them. And as always, every film presented during 31 Days Of Oscar is an Academy Award® nominee or winner, making this annual event one of the most anticipated on any movie lover’s calendar.

As part of the network’s month-long celebration, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has graciously provided the original Academy Awards® radio broadcasts from 1930-1952. Specially chosen clips from the radio archives will be featured throughout TCM’s 31 Days Of Oscar website.

Hollywood was built upon the studio system, which saw nearly ever aspect...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 30, 2012

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Based on Eugene O’Neill’s classic autobiographical play, the 1962 film drama Long Day’s Journey Into Night was directed by the great Sidney Lumet (Network) and stars Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen), Ralph Richardson (The Four Feathers), Jason Robards (All the President’s Men) and Dean Stockwell (Blue Velvet).

Set in 1912 New England, the story takes place in the summer home of aging actor James Tyrone (Richardson), an alcoholic miser who has spent a lifetime treading on the spirit of his dope-addicted wife, Mary (Hepburn). Oldest son Jamie (Robards) is a troublemaking alcoholic, envious of the writing talent of his sickly younger brother Edmund (Stockwell) who contracted tuberculosis while traveling overseas. The long day’s journey concludes with a hellish night in which the three Tyrone men sit about drunkenly as Mary hallucinates about her younger and happier days.

Creative cinematographer and a key member of the Powell-Pressburger movie production team

Although the cinematographer Christopher Challis, who has died aged 93, was an essential member of the Archers production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he joined them as director of photography at the time of their decline. However, he worked on more of the great British writing-directing team's films than any other cinematographer. These eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies went against the British realist tradition, allowing more scope for a creative cinematographer such as Challis. The sensuous use of Technicolor and flamboyant sets and designs made them closer to the MGM world of Vincente Minnelli and of Stanley Donen, who used Challis on six of his films.

Perhaps Challis's finest achievement was on Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) which, as he explained, had "no optical effects or tricks. It was all edited in...

The Criterion Collection has some of the most anal-retentive fans in the history of collecting. So I wonder how fans might stock 3 Women and The Four Feathers. Perhaps just by the number in the catalog, but with 3 Women – the Robert Altman film from 1977 starring Sissy Spacek and Shelly Duvall – does it get to go in a number section or in the T’s? And if you have a number section, shouldn’t Four Feathers – the 1939 adventure spectacle from Zoltan Korda, starring John Clements and Ralph Richardson – go in it? However you file them both are now out on Blu-ray and our reviews follow after the jump. When talking about Robert Altman’s career, I like to say that he’s the Howard Hawks of the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls generation. Like Hawk,s he spent his career jumping all over the map of genre films. He made war films (M...

"Alexander Korda's production of The Four Feathers, the most popular film version of a 1902 British adventure novel set during the Sudanese Mahdist revolt in the late 19th century, retains on its surface pro-Empire bravado and a streak of colonialist supremacy," writes Bill Weber in Slant. "But as vintage 1939 English-regiment actioners go, it has the edge on Hollywood's Gunga Din in authentic, epically framed locations, a lush Technicolor palette, and a lesser racist taint." Criterion's release is a "landmark physical production is handsomely remastered and preserved, even if the bloom has gone off the rose of its imperial England." Speaking of which. As you've likely heard, perhaps on Start the Week (see Mon, Oct 11), Richard Gott's Britain's Empire: Resistance, Rebellion and Repression has kicked up a bit of dust recently. Verso has a quick primer.

Identification of a Woman is Michelangelo Antonioni's "foolishly underrated 1982 film about men and women,...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Aspen Extreme (1993)

Synopsis: T.J. and his friend Dexter quit their jobs in Detroit to become ski-instructors in Aspen. While T.J. advances to the most popular instructor of the school during the season, he has to take care for Dexter, who’s future is less bright and who’s eventually thinking about jobbing as drug courier – bringing their friendship to a test. Meanwhile the rich business woman Brice supports T.J. in his writing ambitions and invites him to live at her home. But in her absence he falls in love with the stunningly beautiful blond radio moderator Robin. (highdefdigest.com)

Special Features:

Unknown

The Bad Seed (1956)

Synopsis: An ideal housewife begins to suspect her loving eight-year-old daughter may be a heartless killer. (blu-ray.com)

Special Features:

Audio Commentary Featurette Theatrical Trailer

Beautiful Boy (2010)

Synopsis: Bill and...

Release Date: Nov. 29, 2011

Price: DVD $44.95

Studio: Criterion

The young Indian actor Sabu is featured in Criterion's latest Eclipse Series installment.

Eclipse Series 30: Sabu! focuses on the films of the the Indian actor known as Sabu (born Selar Shaik), who, in the 1930s and 1940s, captured the hearts of moviegoers in Britain and the United States as a completely new kind of big-screen icon.

Sabu was a maharaja’s elephant driver when he was discovered by documentary trailblazer Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North). Flaherty cast Sabu as the lead in Elephant Boy, a Rudyard Kipling movie adaptation Flaherty directed with Zoltán Korda (The Four Feathers) that would prove to be enormously popular.

Sabu went on to headline a series of classic fantasie films and adventures, transcending the exoticism projected onto him by commanding the screen with effortless grace and humor.

The Eclipse DVD collects three of the lavish movies...

A new photo of Karl Urban as Judge Dredd in Dredd.

More photos from the Iceland set of Ridley Scott's Prometheus shows various props including a very Giger-esque wall; Zac Efron dressed as a race car driver for Heartland; and an uglified Vanessa Hudgens shooting Gimme Shelter.

A spectacular final poster for Captain America, the first one-sheet for Take Shelter, and twelve character banners for The Three Musketeers.

"Though filming on the adaptation of Jack Kerouac‘s "On The Road" finished last year, director Walter Salles and actor Garrett Hedlund along with a five person crew took a two-week journey across America to shoot more footage…" (full details)

"AMC’s critical darling "Breaking Bad" returned Sunday night with the fourth season premiere delivering the show's highest ratings yet with a total of 2.6 million viewers and 1.5 million adults 18-49 - up 30% from the third season premiere…" (full details)

"Gunnar Hansen,...

Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Lawrence of Arabia Turner Classic Movies' "Race and Hollywood: Arab Images on Film" continues this evening with four movies about European powers and their difficult relationship with "the Arab races": Lawrence of Arabia, Lion of the Desert, The Four Feathers, and Young Winston. In David Lean's sprawling Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole is a much taller version of T. E. Lawrence, the Englishman who fought alongside Arabs at the time of World War I. Lawrence of Arabia won a total of seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director; it's also considered by many one of the greatest movies ever made. Personally, I find Lawrence of Arabia great-looking but much too long: 227 minutes. Also, at times I couldn't quite figure out what Lean's and screenwriter Robert Bolt's political take was; I'm not sure if their vision is just too muddled and wishy-washy, or...

This coming Friday, July 15, marks the birthday of the greatest of all Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn. Born 505 years ago, I figured now was as suitable an occasion as I’d ever have to review Rembrandt, this fine biopic from 1936 starring Charles Laughton, part of Eclipse Series 16: Alexander Korda’s Private Lives.

Korda is one of the most influential and dynamic figures in the history of UK cinema, founder of London Films and the first man ever granted knighthood for his work in the English film industry. Along with his brothers Zoltan and Vincent, he played a major part in creating some of the most fondly remembered British films of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, including The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Four Feathers, That Hamilton Woman, The Thief of Bagdad, The Third Man and Laurence Olivier’s version of Richard III.

As anyone who’s paid even the slightest attention...

This past week Criterion put up a ton of new content on their Hulu Plus page, a number totaling 37. What’s even more interesting is that they put 10 films that aren’t in the collection or any of their Eclipse sets either, which is always an exciting time for film fans everywhere. As per usual, I’ll be listing the films with the links to their respective pages. This entry will just focus on the non-Criterion collection films for the moment. Also, to keep this article going, please sign up using this link. I’ve already had one person do so, and every time one of you does so, it gives another 2 weeks. So a huge thank you to anyone who signs up.

Q Planes (1939), a film by Arthur B. Woods and Tim Whelan, stars Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Valerie Hobson. Produced by Alexander Korda, it’s about a...

My sixth birthday was celebrated in August 1939, five days before the outbreak of war. By that time, I'd begun to make weekly visit to the pictures and embarked on what was to be a lifelong obsession with the cinema. I'd also committed to memory all 50 of that year's Wills series of 50 Great Film Stars cigarette cards (God knows how many packets of cigarettes my father smoked to complete my collection) and so could reel off the names and birth places of the leading movie actors and actresses of the English-speaking world.

On my birthday I'd seen Shirley Temple's first Technicolor film, The Little Princess, and that same week I saw my first Technicolor western, Jesse James, both equally unforgettable. I'd also recently seen and loved two earlier films that were still on release, Alfred Hitchcock's two greatest British pictures, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, which I have...

Movie star Kate Hudson prepared for her new movie, a remake of the classic 1938 film The Four Feathers, by trying out corsets. The actress was told to expect pain during the making of the period movie, because she has to wear restrictive corsets, so she decided to get used to them by wearing them around the house. She says, "I got used to it. They gave me a test corset, so I put it on an hour here and an hour there. Pretty soon your waist just starts syncing tighter and tighter and tighter, so it kind of molds to you. It's really uncomfortable at first."...