News

Almight Motion Pictures Aquires The Rights To Sabu Dastagir’s Biography(Photo Credit –Almighty Motion Picture)

Almighty Motion Picture has officially acquired the book rights to Sabu: The Remarkable Story Of India’s First Actor In Hollywood, the biography of Sabu Dastagir, India’s first international movie star, written by Debleena Majumdar. The cinematic and soul-stirring biography traces Sabu’s life from colonial India to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and chronicles a forgotten epic of fame, war, identity, and legacy.

Who Was Sabu Dastagir?

Sabu Dastagir was the son of a Mahout from Mysore who rose from the elephant stables to become India’s first international movie star and ruled Hollywood. He made his acting debut in Elephant Boy based on the story Toomai of the Elephants from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894).

The film was directed by documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty, who produced some of the Indian footage,...

David Korda, a prominent member of the Korda family movie dynasty who served as a producer and important film financier in a show business career that spanned more than 60 years, has died. He was 87.

Korda, chairman of the British company Film Finances Ltd., died Sept. 18 at Cromwell Hospital in London, author, editor and film historian Charles Drazin told The Hollywood Reporter. He had been in poor health after a battle with cancer.

Korda’s parents were Zoltan Korda, director of the Ralph Richardson-starring epic The Four Feathers (1939), and actress Joan Gardner (Dark Journey, The Scarlet Pimpernel).

One of his uncles was Alexander Korda, the founder of London Films, the owner of British Lion Films, a producer of such classics as The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and The Third Man (1949) and the first filmmaker to receive a knighthood. Another uncle, Vincent Korda, was a painter and Oscar-winning art director.

As the android David (Michael Fassbender) once said in Prometheus, "big things have small beginnings." Martin Scorsese would most definitely qualify as a "big thing," being one of the defining filmmakers of the 20th century, whose hold on cinema culture is still felt to this day. For a noted cinema encyclopedia like him, his small beginning was watching television in 1947, when he saw a film called The Thief of Bagdad. It was a fantastical film that not only captivated little Marty, it helped ingrain in him his life-long fascination with director Michael Powell, who would become a deeply influential person in his career. Looking back as an adult, Scorsese would attribute Powell's specific direction in The Thief of Bagdad as a watershed moment in making him fall in love with films, and the film stands as a seminal example of sheer storytelling craft.

Brad Pitt's character in "Babylon," Jack Conrad, mirrors real 1920s actors like John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolph Valentino. Conrad's tragic death in response to Hollywood's transition to sound films reflects the struggles of many silent era stars. "Babylon" features fictional characters inspired by real Hollywood figures, exploring the industry's shift from silent to sound films.

This article contains mention of suicide and substance abuse.

With Babylon's in-depth look into a certain period in Hollywood history, many people wonder if Brad Pitt's Jack Conrad is a real actor. Damien Chazelle's Babylon examines the rise and fall of several stars as 1920s Hollywood transitions from silent movies to talkies. Conrad plays a pivotal part in giving Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) and Manny Torres (Diego Calva) their big breaks, even as he feels they could replace him. At a time when the industry was in a great phase of transition,...

Anna May Wong — born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles on Jan. 3, 1905 — is widely recognized as Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star.

A year before she died in 1961 from a heart attack at age 56, she joked that her epitaph should be, “I died a thousand deaths.” During her career, she’d appeared in more than 60 films, TV series and theatrical shows, but many of her roles were stereotypical caricatures of Asian women as exotic temptresses, dragon ladies and China dolls who inevitably met their doom so the white leads could attain their happy ending.

Though Wong’s many deaths are well documented on film, her multifaceted life offscreen remained generally unacknowledged until now. For the next seven months, the exhibit Unmasking Anna May Wong at downtown L.A.’s Chinese American Museum (Cam) will shine a broader light on the actress, philanthropist and socialite, who was known variously as...

In the narrator’s seat for David Hinton’s eloquent documentary on the filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Martin Scorsese is the ultimate fan. Tracing his all-around movie obsession to his first viewing of the U.K.-based pair’s 1948 tour de force, The Red Shoes, he leads us through a dozen of their features and a few of Powell’s solo efforts, connecting key sequences to memorable scenes in his own work. But beyond its clear explication of the films’ imaginative and technical power, Made in England is also a testament to mentorship and friendship; Scorsese was close to Powell, who died in 1990, for the last decade and a half of the British director’s life, and Powell married Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, in 1984.

The documentary ignites a longing to see the movies, whether for the first time or the umpteenth (many are available on...

For any film lovers who grew up on, generationally depending, the cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, or the essential ’90s cinephile primer “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” — or both, as for this writer — “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” arrives as an unmitigated treat.

A straightforwardly constructed documentary trawl through the dizzy highs and sporadic lows of the most iridescently fabulous filmography in British cinema, David Hinton’s film would be plenty pleasurable as a mere feature-length clip reel. That it gets longtime Powell and Pressburger champion Martin Scorsese to narrate the proceedings, with the same blend of scholarly authority and avuncular enthusiasm he brought to “Personal Journey,” makes the doc more than the sum of its already attractive parts: a movingly sincere valentine from a filmmaker now due his own equivalent tributes, shortening the distance between youthful discovery and senior nostalgia.

In movie history, there are a rare few directors whose style has coined an adjective: Felliniesque, Hitchcockian, Chaplinesque. The modern filmmaker most likely to join that class is Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek auteur famed for “The Lobster” and “The Favourite,” whose newest, wildest project, “Poor Things,” is his most colorful and phantasmagorical to date.

The look of the film – set in a fairy tale 19th century world unlike any you’ve ever seen – is singular, even if the moniker Lanthimosian doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

“That’s a really hard word to say,” said cinematographer Robbie Ryan with a laugh. The Irish camera maestro earned an Oscar nomination for “The Favourite,” his previous collaboration with Lanthimos.

“Maybe Lanthimosesque is better – or is it even worse? I do totally agree, though: His filmmaking is signature, for sure. It’s inventive in a way that’s undefinable. I can describe...

Genies, at least in pop culture, have long been comic foils. Way back in 1940, in “The Thief of Bagdad,” Rex Ingram played Djinn, the movie’s larger-than-life genie — 100 feet tall in his ponytail and red diaper ­— as a sly, laughing soul man of lighthearted effrontery. The surrealist ’60s sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie” featured Barbara Eden, in diaphanous harem silks, as a magical servant/housewife, blinking her eyes to teleport her clueless “master” out of trouble. And Robin Williams’ vocal performance as the Genie in “Aladdin” may have come closer than any of his other film performances to channeling Williams the free-associational joke geyser.

So in “Genie,” when Melissa McCarthy pops out of a jewel box and reveals herself to be an ancient granter of wishes named Flora, it’s hardly a surprise that 1) the character is a complete lark, and 2) the whole joke is that Flora, though she hasn...

Cinephiles who hear the name Michael Powell are likely to think of his collaborations with Emeric Pressburger and their insistence on dazzling Technicolor spectacle — but they should also be thinking ‘industry-changing VFX connoisseur’ as his 1940 historical fantasy remake of The Thief of Bagdad (co-directed alongside Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan) was actually the first movie to ever use blue screen! Fans of The Red Shoes, fret not, for there’s still plenty of Technicolor to be found, and while The Thief of Bagdad may not hold the distinction of being the first color movie like 1939’s The Wizard of Oz is often apocryphally rumored to be, it’s definitely the first film to feature special effects on such an all-consuming scale. Make no mistake, The Thief of Bagdad is the Avatar of the 1940s, but over 80 years later, can it even hold a candle to the VFX-heavy films of today?...

Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, was featured on the back of the American quarter in 2022, marking a significant moment in US coinage history and celebrating her trailblazing legacy. The inclusion of Wong's image on the quarter is part of the American Women Quarters Program, which aims to honor prominent women in American history and their accomplishments by featuring them on the coin. Despite facing racial discrimination and limited opportunities in Hollywood, Wong took control of her own career and achieved success, making her a deserving choice for the quarter and earning other honors such as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2022 saw an important moment in US coinage history, as legendary Asian American actress Anna May Wong was featured on the back of the American quarter. Born on January 3, 1905, Wong became both the very first Chinese American movie star and a trailblazing historical...

Carl Davis, who composed the scores for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice and perhaps most famously Abel Gance’s epic 1927 silent film Napoléon, has died. He was 86.

Davis died Thursday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, his family announced.

“We are so proud that Carl’s legacy will be his astonishing impact on music,” they wrote on Twitter. “A consummate all-round musician, he was the driving force behind the reinvention of the silent movie for this generation, and he wrote scores for some of the most-loved and remembered British television dramas.”

Born in Brooklyn but living in the U.K. since 1961, Davis was hired by documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill to create music for the 13-hour 1980 miniseries Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film and for Napoléon.

“My first score for a silent movie was Napoleon,” he said in 2010. “Five hours of it! It...

Flying saucers and alien invasion movies were the trend in the 1950s. UFO sightings in Washington State in 1947 and the famous crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1948 had ignited a fever for all things alien. The movies soon followed the public interest with films like The Thing from Another World (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), War of the Worlds (1953), This Island Earth (1955), Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957), and many more of varying levels of quality. Many of these science fiction/horror hybrids were aimed toward an audience of children and teenagers and often featured young people, but few placed the viewer so deeply in the child’s perspective as the 1953 classic Invaders from Mars.

In many ways, Invaders from Mars walked so that Invasion of the Body Snatchers could run just three years later. Much of this is due to its extremely low budget and independent production.

Shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo in Luca Guadagnino’s documentary Salvatore: Shoemaker Of Dreams. Photo: Sony Pictures Classics Through several beautifully costumed movies—including A Bigger Splash and I Am Love—Luca Guadagnino has always been a filmmaker of lusciously chic images. So it was about time that he signed his...

220413_TTYOL_g011.0437853_RC Idris Elba stars as The Djinn and Tilda Swinton as Alithea Binnie in director George Miller’s film Three Thousand Years Of Longing A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc. © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved

As the seasons march toward Fall, many begin to lapse into the doldrums, since the excitement of exotic getaways is set aside. Perhaps a bit of magic will perk them up, or as with this new film, a whole lot of magic. Well, one of its two central characters is a magical creature of myth, one that’s not unfamiliar to the movie audiences though really a touchstone of the fantasy sitcom “fad” of the 1960s. Now that really began in the “stars” with Ray Walston’s “Uncle Martin” Aka “My Favorite Martian”, followed by Elizabeth Montgomery’s spellcasting Samantha Stevens in “Bewitched”. And then there was Jeannie,...

At the intersection of big-star international dealmaking, the 70mm epic, and the humble sword ‘n’ shield actioner, this comic book viking saga stacks one absurd, borderline bad taste action scene on top of another. It’s an irresistible mash-up of earlier successes, well directed visually by Jack Cardiff. Richard Widmark at forty must play the Viking action hero, Russ Tamblyn at thirty is still a physical dervish, and Sidney Poitier takes on the strangest casting of his career. Plus, low sexist comedy from a platoon of hearty Brit thesps!

The Long Ships

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 137

1964 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 126 min. / Street Date June 29, 2022 / Available from Viavision / Aus 34.95

Starring: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Russ Tamblyn, Rosanna Schiaffino, Oskar Homolka, Edward Judd, Lionel Jeffries, Beba Loncar, Clifford Evans, Gordon Jackson, Colin Blakely, Paul Stassino, Leonard Rossiter, Jeanne Moody, Julie Samuel.

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Production Designer: Vlastimir Gavrik, Zoran Zorcic

Art Director: Bill Constable...

Sorry, this is not for a new disc. From 23 years ago, this was the first article that convinced me that there might be a real audience for my review page, then called DVD Savant. It’s about time that the illustrated essay was brought up to date and moved to CineSavant. It probes the ‘primitive sophistication’ and weird appeal of William Cameron Menzies’ most accomplished job of direction: the paranoid nightmare that haunted our childhood dreams. It’s slightly rewritten and has improved images. There’s so much to talk about: Near-experimental visuals! Strange editing choices! The idea for the essay is the same as ever, to inspire somebody to properly remaster the show . . . it’s not like we’re going to live forever.

A two-part examination of a Sci-fi classic that, at least

in Savant’s opinion, should be showing in the Louvre.

Alas and alack! As of 12.16.21, there...

Hello, dear readers! November is officially upon us, as well as a new week of Blu-ray and DVD releases, which means it’s time to make some room for more horror and sci-fi to fill your home entertainment shelves. One of this writer’s favorite indie genre movies of the year, Come True, is getting released to both Blu and DVD this week courtesy of Scream Factory, and Kino Lorber is showing some love to a pair of classic thrillers as well: The Spider Woman Strikes Back and The Mad Doctor. Other releases for November 2nd include The Banishing, Pig featuring Nicolas Cage, and The Spore.

The Banishing

From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...

“C’mon Mikey, give me a lickery kiss!”

The Goonies (1985) screens Sunday Night April 11th at the Sky View Drive-in in Lichtfield, Il. (1500 Historic Old Route 66) This is part of the Sky View’s ‘Throwback Sundays’. The second Sunday of the month, they screen a classic movie. Admission is only $7 (free for kids under 5). This is a double feature! Goonies will be followed by Godzilla Vs Kong. Gates will open at 6pm for all showings. Movie Start time: 7:35pm. The Sky View’s site can be found Here.

Four kids – Mikey (Sean Astin), Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Mouth (Corey Feldman) and Data (Ke Huy Quan) who call themselves “The Goonies” finds a map in the attic of Mikey’s house. Their beloved neighborhood is about to become a golf course, so they go out on an adventure to find lost buried treasure. Unfortunately, three crooks Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) with...

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 ...

Nicolás Zukerfeld’s There Are Not Thirty-Six Ways Of Showing A Man Getting On A Horse (No Existen Treinta Y Seis Maneras De Mostrar Cómo Un Hombre Se Sube A Un Caballo), his tribute to Raoul Walsh, co-written and expertly edited with Malena Solarz, is a highlight of the Currents program in the 58th New York Film Festival.

The 1924 Douglas Fairbanks adventure The Thief of Bagdad; the 1933 musical Going Hollywood with Bing Crosby; Rita Hayworth and Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney in the 1890s stage world of Strawberry Blonde (1941); the 1958 Norman Mailer adaptation The Naked And The Dead; the 1960s Biblical drama Esther And The King, with Joan Collins in the title role - it isn’t easy to pick only one Raoul...

Why is David Lean’s stirring ode to British aviation so historically and technically bogus? Because at heart it’s a science fiction film! Ralph Richardson drives his test pilots and his own son to die on the altar of aviation R&d, in a tale focused firmly on futurism and the push to the stars. Nigel Patrick and Denholm Elliott struggle to measure up, while Ann Todd hugs her baby and resists. Watching this terrific production, you’d think the Queen had a monopoly on supersonic aviation.

The Sound Barrier

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1952 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 117 109 min. / Breaking the Sound Barrier / Street Date April 28, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, John Justin, Dinah Sheridan, Joseph Tomelty, Denholm Elliott.

Cinematography: Jack Hildyard

Film Editor: Geoffrey Foot

Original Music: Malcolm Arnold

Aerial and second unit director: Anthony Squire

Written by Terence Rattigan

Produced and...

Tony Sokol Feb 13, 2020

Last summer's Aladdin made Disney rich enough to impress a princess. Studio stands by its oath loyalty to a sequel or three.

There's still a lot of gray area, but after the billion-dollar success of last summer’s reboot, Disney is developing a sequel to Aladdin, according to Variety. Director Guy Ritchie is scheduled to return to the helm. Aladdin starred Will Smith as Genie, Mena Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as Jasmine, who are expected to take another ride on the carpet.

Aladdin 2 will be an original story and not follow the sequels to 1992's Aladdin, 1994's The Return of Jafar or Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), which went straight-to-dvd. The Aladdin 2 screenplay will be written by John Gatins, who was nominated for an Academy Award for writing the Denzel Washington film Flight, and Andrea Berloff, who was nominated for an Oscar...

Google is placing a spotlight on an actress considered to be the first Chinese-American movie star.

Anna May Wong was honored on Wednesday with a Google slideshow Doodle on its homepage exactly 97 years after Wong’s first leading role in a major film, The Toll of the Sea, debuted in theaters.

Wong, who died in 1961 at the age of 56 in Santa Monica, California, was born as Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905 to second-generation Chinese Americans as the second of seven children.

By the age of 11, she had created her stage name, Anna May Wong, and set out to become an actress.

As is our practice we've selected a handful plus of new-to-streaming titles and frozen them at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!). What should you queue up for November 2019 ? (★ means we definitely recommend catching)

Let's get started...

-Meet me in the garden tomorrow

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) on Criterion Channel

This fantasy adventure based on The Arabian Knights won 3 Oscars in its year. Fill in those Oscar gaps! Weird trivia note: None of those categories it won had the standard 5 nominees. It took the Academy awhile to settle on the "five per category" rule that dominated the Oscars for decades. There were 14 films nominated for Special Effects that year -- the visual effects category in particular has had multiple strange incarnations and volatility.

I'm going to ask you to deliver this message to France given your... familiarity with its recipient.

It’s Tab Hunter as you’ve never seen him before! Antonio Margheriti’s limp but colorful Arabian Nights adventure romance is a real head-scratcher — it’s an entirely generic kiddie show, filmed on nice locations, and devoid of style or flash. Some of the sub-Bava effects are clever, but the only ‘magic’ element is the decision to re-voice Tab with an off-the-shelf dubbing artist… it’s as if Hunter has been sucked into a ‘scimitar & sandal’ episode of The Twilight Zone.

The Golden Arrow

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date May 28, 2019 / L’arciere delle mille e una notte / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Tab Hunter, Rossana Podestà, Umberto Melnati, Mario Feliciani, Dominique Boschero, Renato Baldini, Giustino Durano, Franco Scandurra, Gloria Milland.

Cinematography: G´bor Pogány

Film Editor: Mario Serandrei

Art Direction: Flavio Mogherini

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written by Giorgio Arlorio, Augusto Frassinetti, Giorgio Prosperi,...

Based on the Arabic folktale Aladdin and the Magic Lamp from the book One Thousand and One Nights (aka "Arabian Nights"), plus the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad, Disney's animated Aladdin from 1992 was the most successful movie of that year, grossing $217 million in the Us and over $504 million worldwide. The hand-drawn animated film's massive success led to two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar (1994) and Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), an animated series for TV, and a Broadway musical adaptation. Now, after the success of other live-action Disney remakes like Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Beauty and the Beast, British director Guy Ritchie is reimagining the beloved animated classic as a big-budget, live-action, Bollywood spectacle with flying carpets, magic genies, and a lot of wishful thinking. Co-written by Ritchie and John August, the story follows Aladdin (Mena Massoud of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan), ...

Fiery dame Susan Hayward carries this far-flung ‘women’s epic’ to delirious romantic extremes, as her Irish heroine defies nature and exploits admirers to claim the hunky Dutchman of her dreams. Using apartheid-ridden South Africa as a background for a cheerful white conquest wasn’t as touchy an idea in 1955 as it is now, but it should have been. Just the same, Henry King’s film is an impressive production from the early years of CinemaScope.

Untamed

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date January 22, 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Richard Egan, John Justin, Agnes Moorehead, Rita Moreno, Hope Emerson, Brad Dexter, Henry O’Neill, Eleanor Audley, Kevin Corcoran, Philip Van Zandt.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Barbara McLean

Original Music: Franz Waxman

Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg, Matthew Yuricich

Written by Talbot Jennings, Frank Fenton, Michael Blankfort, William A. Bacher from a novel by Helga Moray.

AndreischAfter the staggering success of Shadows of The Forgotten Ancestors (1965), which won awards in London, New York, Mar Del Plata and Montreal, Sergei Parajanov was thrust onto the world stage as one of the most original filmmakers in the business. Depicting the conventions of the Hutsul people of the Carpathian mountains, it was a brave new step in Soviet filmmaking due to its restless camerawork, intense subjectivity, and ambiguous tone. The positive reception would inform his later work, a triumph of the local, celebrating ancient customs and dress in a visually dazzling fashion. To celebrate his legacy, Arsenal Kino in Berlin, supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia, presented all eight of Parajanov’s feature films this fall, allowing audiences to see how the acclaimed filmmaker changed from studio-tied hack to inimitable auteur. When talking about Parajanov’s filmmaking and style, critics will invariably focus on his last four films—Forgotten Ancestors,...

William Goldman and Rob Reiner’s unchallenged modern classic captures the magic of fairy tales about noble lovers, loyal warriors and low-down villains. Everybody’s terrific, all the characters are hilariously magical and Goldman’s writing glows with love for happy storytelling leavened further by sly wit. Criterion presents the Blu-ray in a lush storybook package with a treasure chest of extras.

The Princess Bride

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 948

1987 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 30, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Peter Falk, Mandy Patinkin, André the Giant, Wallace Shawn, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage, Peter Cook, Carol Kane, Billy Crystal.

Cinematography: Adrian Biddle

Original Music: Mark Knopfler

Written by William Goldman from his book

Produced by Rob Reiner, Andréw Scheinman

Directed by Rob Reiner

Criterion’s extra label for the front of its new The Princess Bride special edition doesn’t tell us that it’s authorized,...

The Half Breed (1916) with live music by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra will screen after the new documentary I, Douglas Fairbanks Saturday at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The prgram starts at 7pm. Ticket information can be found Here

There’s nothing better than silent films accompanied by live music! The Rats and People is a treasure and St. Louis is lucky to have them here. I’ve seen them perform with silent films several times, often at The St. Louis International Film Festival, and usually at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium and it’s always a stunning good time at the movies. You’ll have the chance to see them perform their magic this Saturday, November 10th when they premiere their new score for The Half Breed (1916)

During the peak of the silent era, the dashing...

“From the land beyond beyond…” — oops, wrong movie. Kerwin Mathews battles Torin Thatcher once again, with Judi Meredith in a stunning double role as both a delicate heroine and her evil counterpart in a magician’s mirror. Plus more stop-motion monsters than one can throw a ten-league boot at! Boy, we’re coining phrases left and right here.

Jack the Giant Killer

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1962 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 94 + 91 min. / Street Date June 12, 2018 / Special Edition / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Kerwin Matthews, Torin Thatcher, Judi Meredith, Walter Burke, Don Beddoe, Barry Kelley, Dayton Lummis, Anna Lee, Roger Mobley, Tudor Owen.

Cinematography: David S. Horsley

Film Editor: Grant Whytock

Special Effects: Augie Lohman (practical), Howard A. Anderson (optical composites), Tim Baar, Wah Chang, Lloyd Vaughan, Gene Warren, Bill Brace, Jim Danforth, Tom Holland, Phil Kellison, David Pal (stop-motion animation).

Original Music: Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter

Original Music Alternate musical version: musical...

Some of the most famous and popular science fiction characters in modern times were visually inspired by earlier creations or even real people. Cinelinx takes a look at five well-known sci-fi characters and what motivated their appearances.

While these five characters had various inspirations for their personalities and purpose, their specific looks have a clear precedent.

The Joker was based on Gwynplaine from The Man Who Laughs: When Bob Kane needed to come up with the iconic look of the Batman’s soon-to-be arch nemesis, he took inspiration from the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs, starring Conrad Veidt. For those unfamiliar with Veidt, he played the first-ever film zombie in the silent classic The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), and was also Jaffar in the live-action adaptation of Aladdin, called The Thief of Bagdad (1940). The film tells the story of Gwynplaine, the son of an executed 17th century nobleman,...

This past weekend, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Greig Fraser for his contribution to Lion as last year’s greatest accomplishment in the field. Of course, his achievement was just a small sampling of the fantastic work from directors of photography, but it did give us a stronger hint at what may be the winner on Oscar night. Ahead of the ceremony, we have a new video compilation that honors all the past winners in the category at the Academy Awards

Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...

This is splendid. YouTube channel Burger Fiction has put together a beautiful compilation video of every Best Cinematography winner at the Oscars from 1927 to 2015, when it was award to Emmanuel Lubezki of The Revenant, a back-to-back win after Birdman. For admirers of cinematography, this is a breathtaking and awe-inspiring video. And it just makes me want to watch everything all over again. From Cleopatra, The Thief Of Bagdad, Ben-Hur, Doctor Zhivago, Dance With Wolves, Braveheart, The Aviator, Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon, There Will Be Blood to Inception, there's so many excellent films awarded in this category. Thanks to David Chen fro the tip on this. Originally from YouTube, made by Burger Fiction. For the full list of all the Best Cinematography winners seen in this, visit their Tumblr. The Best Cinematography category has been around since the very beginning. From 1939 to 1967 (with the exception of 1957), there were also separate awards...

What happens when a prosecutor tracks down one of the most evil criminals of the century, only to find that politics and corruption prevent him from issuing an arrest warrant? This is the true story of the hunt for the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann — not from the Pov of the Israeli agents that pounced on him in Argentina, but a German prosecutor hemmed in on all sides by Nazi sympathizers in his own government bureaucracy.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer

Blu-ray

Cohen Media Group

2015 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 105 min. / Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer / Street Date January 10, 2017 / 30.99

Starring Burghardt Klaußner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Michael Schenck, Cornelia Goöscher, Lilith Stangenberg.

Cinematography Jens Harant

Film Editor Barbara Gies

Original Music Christopher M. Kaiser, Julian Maas

Written by Lars Kraume, Olivier Guez

Produced by Thomas Kufus

Directed by Lars Kraume

As a movie reviewer I’m attracted to certain subjects. I’ve written up...

How could England have won the war without him? Horatio Smith sneaks about in Nazi Germany, liberating concentration camp inmates right under the noses of the Gestapo. Leslie Howard directed and stars in this wartime escapist spy thriller, as a witty professor too passive to be suspected as the mystery spy.

‘Pimpernel’ Smith

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 121 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring Leslie Howard, Francis L. Sullivan, Mary Morris, Allan Jeayes, Peter Gawthorne, Hugh McDermott, David Tomlinson, Raymond Huntley, Sebastian Cabot, Irene Handl, Ronald Howard, Michael Rennie.

Cinematography Mutz Greenbaum

Camera Operators Guy Green, Jack Hildyard

Film Editor Douglas Myers

Original Music John Greenwood

Written by Anatole de Grunwald, Roland Pertwee, A.G. Macdonell, Wolfgang Wilhelm based on a character by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Produced by Leslie Howard, Harold Huth

Directed by Leslie Howard

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I like movies...

Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty Expressionist fable is as German as they get -- a morbid folk tale with an emotionally powerful finish. Destiny Blu-ray Kino Classics 1921 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 98 min. / Street Date August 30, 2016 / Der müde Tod / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg John. Cinematography Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner Film Editor Fritz Lang Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...

“C’mon Mikey, give me a lickery kiss!”

The Goonies (1985) plays this weekend (July 29th and 30th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

Four kids – Mikey (Sean Astin), Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Mouth (Corey Feldman) and Data (Ke Huy Quan) who call themselves “The Goonies” finds a map in the attic of Mikey’s house. Their beloved neighborhood is about to become a golf course, so they go out on an adventure to find lost buried treasure. Unfortunately, three crooks Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) with her sons Jake (Robert Davi) and Francis (Joe Pantoliano) are also seeking the treasure.

One of the most beloved movies of the 80’s, The Goonies is a timeless adventure from director Richard Donner and producer Steven Spielberg that has stood the test of time.

The Goonies has youth, fun, and excitement by the truckload but also...

William Cameron Menzies: The Shape of Films to Come by James Curtis (Pantheon) This is a book that demanded to be written. William Cameron Menzies has always been one of my heroes. He is the man who brought a unique gift for visualization to such films as Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad, Gone With The Wind, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent, as well as minor films from the silent and sound era that deserve to be seen just for his sets and compositions. He is also celebrated for two of the (few) films he directed, Things to Come and Invaders from Mars. How fortunate for us that James Curtis took on the job of chronicling...

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William Cameron Menzies. William Cameron Menzies movies on TCM: Murderous Joan Fontaine, deadly Nazi Communists Best known as an art director/production designer, William Cameron Menzies was a jack-of-all-trades. It seems like the only things Menzies didn't do was act and tap dance in front of the camera. He designed and/or wrote, directed, produced, etc., dozens of films – titles ranged from The Thief of Bagdad to Invaders from Mars – from the late 1910s all the way to the mid-1950s. Among Menzies' most notable efforts as an art director/production designer are: Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood movie, the Mary Pickford star vehicle Rosita (1923). Herbert Brenon's British-set father-son drama Sorrell and Son (1927). David O. Selznick's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind, which earned Menzies an Honorary Oscar. The Sam Wood movies Our Town (1940), Kings Row (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). H.C. Potter's Mr. Lucky...

Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on nine films where some of the most famous directors in the Criterion Collection first directed a feature in color.

Saturate yourself in the vivid stylings of some of our favorite directors, wielding a whole new spectrum of expression for the very first time.

Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.

Dodes’ka-den, the Japanese Drama by Akira Kurosawa

The unforgettable Dodes’Ka-den was made at a tumultuous moment in Kurosawa’s life. And all of his hopes, fears and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.

Equinox Flower, the Japanese Drama by Yasujirô Ozu

Later in his career, Yasujiro Ozu started becoming...

Its remake time again. For this article, we’re tackling Disney! We’ll be dissecting a popular animated movie, whose cinematic predecessor is a fantasy classic. This week, Cinelinx looks at Disney’s Aladdin. (1992)

Disney has taken many famous old stories and made them into modern cinematic blockbusters. One of those was 1992’s Aladdin, which was based on the story “The Thief of Bagdad” from Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights. Of course, this was not the first time the story was translated to film. It was done previously in 1940 as The Thief of Bagdad, which has been described by Roger Ebert as “One of the greatest fantasy films ever made, on a level with The Wizard of Oz.” (There was actually a silent version released in 1924, but we’re going to save the old silent films for another time.) Was the Disney remake a worthy follow-up to the 1940 classic?...

Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman: The 'Notorious' British (Hitchcock, Grant) and Swedish (Bergman) talent. British actors and directors in Hollywood; Hollywood actors and directors in Britain: Anthony Slide's 'A Special Relationship.' 'A Special Relationship' Q&A: Britain in Hollywood and Hollywood in Britain First of all, what made you think of a book on “the special relationship” between the American and British film industries – particularly on the British side? I was aware of a couple of books on the British in Hollywood, but I wanted to move beyond that somewhat limited discussion and document the whole British/American relationship as it applied to filmmaking. Growing up in England, I had always been interested in the history of the British cinema, but generally my writing on film history has been concentrated on America. I suppose to a certain extent I wanted to go back into my archives,...

I must emphasize once again that what follows is not a roster of reviews, as I have not had time to read these books, but they all pique my interest. That’s why I’m happy to spread the word about them. William Cameron Menzies: The Shape Of Films To Come by James Curtis (Pantheon) This is the book I am most eager to read cover-to-cover. First, it deals with one of my cinematic heroes, production designer (and occasional director) William Cameron Menzies, the man responsible for the look of such varied films as Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad, his own Things to Come, and Gone With...

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Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...

Starting today, the 29th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, one of the world's major festivals of film restoration, is off and running through July 4. A slew of programs will be presenting masterpieces of the Iranian New Wave, jazz classics, restored work by Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Leo McCarey and Renato Castellani, films Ingrid Bergman made before going to Hollywood, producer Alexander Korda's The Thief of Bagdad (1940), an homage to the festival's late director, Peter von Bagh—and much more. » - David Hudson...

Starting today, the 29th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, one of the world's major festivals of film restoration, is off and running through July 4. A slew of programs will be presenting masterpieces of the Iranian New Wave, jazz classics, restored work by Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Leo McCarey and Renato Castellani, films Ingrid Bergman made before going to Hollywood, producer Alexander Korda's The Thief of Bagdad (1940), an homage to the festival's late director, Peter von Bagh—and much more. » - David Hudson...

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,...