News

This is the first time the transcript of this interview has been made available in its entirety, although an edited version (entitled “The Lost Interview”) was published in Movie Maker Magazine in February 2004. At the time of the interview, Fritz Lang was recently home from hospital, recuperating from an operation. The interviewers, Lloyd Chesley and Michael Gould, were recent film graduates from York University in Toronto. Gould is the author of Surrealism and the Cinema: Open-eyed Screening 1972), one of the first English language books on this topic. One can access the complete audio of the Lang interview by buying an electronic version of the revised book at his website. Lloyd Chesley is the owner of Legends Comics and Books in Victoria, Canada. Fritz Lang: Danke schoen.Lloyd Chesley: Interviewing you here in the Hollywood Hills, and you started off in Austria, and you’ve been an expatriate it seems all your life,...

Fritz Lang’s third wartime anti-Nazi film is an Alfred Hitchcock-type spy chase taken from a psychological novel by Graham Greene, with the psychology angle transferred mostly to physical threats — ticking clocks, a mystery cake, and German bombs in the Blitz. Ray Milland is cool and collected for a man just released from a mental asylum, and proves up to the task of defeating a Nazi conspiracy.

Ministry of Fear

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date August 27, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99

Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, Byron Foulger.

Cinematography: Henry Sharp

Film Editor: Victor Young

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Seton I. Miller from the novel by Graham Greene

Produced by Seton I. Miller

Directed by Fritz Lang

Why do we go for certain Region B Blu-ray imports, even...

John Woo’s first contemporary action film produced in Asia for more than 20 years falls woefully short of the director’s best work. Shot entirely in Japan with a mostly local crew, Man Hunt pairs Zhang Hanyu and Masaharu Fukuyama as reluctant allies in a corporate conspiracy thriller involving an Osakan pharmaceutical giant. The heavyweight international cast, which also includes Jun Kunimura and South Korean actress Ha Ji-won, are forced to communicate in English for large portions of the film, which only accentuates an unintentionally hilarious script from no less than seven credited writers. Shot in a flat, lifeless fashion, Man Hunt often resembles a made-for-television pastiche of Woo’s style, edited so sloppily that even the film’s best action sequences are rendered dull and incoherent. ...

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

Dana Andrews movies: Film noir actor excelled in both major and minor crime dramas. Dana Andrews movies: First-rate film noir actor excelled in both classics & minor fare One of the best-looking and most underrated actors of the studio era, Dana Andrews was a first-rate film noir/crime thriller star. Oftentimes dismissed as no more than a “dependable” or “reliable” leading man, in truth Andrews brought to life complex characters that never quite fit into the mold of Hollywood's standardized heroes – or rather, antiheroes. Unlike the cynical, tough-talking, and (albeit at times self-delusionally) self-confident characters played by the likes of Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and, however lazily, Robert Mitchum, Andrews created portrayals of tortured men at odds with their social standing, their sense of ethics, and even their romantic yearnings. Not infrequently, there was only a very fine line separating his (anti)heroes from most movie villains.

Wow! Fritz Lang's second western is a marvel -- a combo of matinee innocence and that old Germanic edict that character equals fate. It has a master's sense of color and design. Robert Young is an odd fit but Randolph Scott is nothing less than terrific. You'd think Lang was born on the Pecos. Western Union Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1941 / Color /1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 8, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Randolph Scott, Robert Young, Virginia Gilmore, Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Chill Wills, Slim Summerville, Barton MacLane, Victor Kilian, George Chandler, Chief John Big Tree, Iron Eyes Cody, Jay Silverheels. Cinematography Edward Cronjager, Allen M. Davey Original Music David Buttolph Written by Robert Carson from the novel by Zane Grey Produced by Harry Joe Brown (associate) Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Darryl Zanuck of 20th Fox treated most writers well, was good for John Ford...

Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Just...

It’s shaping up to be quite the year for Benedict Cumberbatch. Towards the end of 2016, the fan-favorite Brit will execute the one-two punch of Doctor Strange and Sherlock season 4, with the latter signalling his final turn as the illustrious sleuth – you know, potentially.

But Cumberbatch’s streak doesn’t there; Variety is reporting that the Oscar-nominated thesp is attached to produce and star in Rogue Male, a period thriller penned by Michael Lesslie of Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed fame.

It’s a fairly high-concept piece, too, one lifted from Geoffrey Household’s novel of the same name. Taking point as the lead, Cumberbatch will assume the role of a deadly assassin. His target? A malevolent dictator. One that Household himself designed to evoke Adolf Hitler in all the wrong ways.

1930-something: a professional hunter is passing through an unnamed Central European country that is in the thrall of a vicious dictator.

World War Two survival thriller is being set up at Fox Searchlight.

Benedict Cumberbatch will produce and star in an adaptation of Geoffrey Household’s 1939 thriller novel Rogue Male.

The Sherlock actor will produce the project alongside Adam Ackland under Cumberbatch’s production outfit SunnyMarch, which was launched in 2013.

Lloyd Levin, Branwen Prestwood Smith and Beatriz Levin will also produce for Black Sheep Pictures.

The project is set up at Fox Searchlight where it will be overseen by co-heads of production Matthew Greenfield and David Greenbaum, senior vp of production Anikah McLaren and director of production Katie Goodson-Thomas.

Macbeth scribe Michael Lesslie has been hired to write the screenplay.

The novel’s plot follows an unnamed British man who attempts to assassinate an unnamed dictator in the spring of 1938.

The book was previously adapted in 1941 as Man Hunt, starring Walter Pidgeon. In 1976, the BBC produced a TV adaptation starring Pete O’Toole.

The news was...

After Star Wars and Mission: Impossible both went rogue, another feature film will do so as well. In adaptation news, Variety reports the British novel Rogue Male is being turned into a feature with Benedict Cumberbatch set to star, as well as produce the story about a hunter who is tortured and left to die after he attempts to assassinate a dictator. He escapes, and is then hounded by enemy agents and the police in his rural hometown. The script is penned by Michael Lesslie, whose resume include Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed. Also producing with Cumberbatch is Lloyd Levin, Black Sheep Pictures’ Beatriz Levin and Branwen Prestwood Smith. This is not the first time Rogue Male has been adapted to the screen, as Fritz Lang brought it to life with his 1941 film Man Hunt.

In another exciting pairing, Aubrey Plaza is set to star alongside Elizabeth Olsen in director...

Benedict Cumberbatch is set to join Fox Searchlight’s adaptation of the 1939 English novel by Geoffrey Household, “Rogue Male.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar-nominated actor will also produce with his SunnyMarch production company and Black Sheep Pictures.

The script will be penned by Michael Lesslie and follows the story of a hunter who attempts to assassinate a dictator, is caught, tortured and left for dead. After he escapes, he must hide in rural English to avoid the enemy agents and police who are in pursuit of him.

“I am thrilled both as an actor and producer to be working on bringing this most treasured of English novels to the big screen,” said Cumberbatch in a statement.

Read More: ‘Sherlock’ Season 4 Trailer: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Demons Are Waiting

The survivalist thriller is regarded as Household’s masterpiece and has previously been adapted for the screen twice. In 1940, Twentieth Century Fox...

Nick Harley Aug 2, 2016

Benedict Cumberbacth will tackle another adaptation of a classic British novel, Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male.

Benedict Cumberbatch is taking on another classic British literature roles, with the Sherlock star set to star in an adaptation of Geoffrey Household’s 1939 survival thriller, Rogue Male.

The World War II-era novel centers on a hunter who attempts to assassinate a powerful dictator, only to be caught, tortured, and left to die. After he manages to make it back home to England, he’s forced to remain in exile in the countryside, dodging enemy hitmen as well as police. Household is said to have based the dictator character on Adolf Hitler.

Cumberbatch will star in and produce the adaptation alongside producers Loyd Levin, Branwen Prestwood Smith and Beatriz Levin of Black Sheep Pictures and Adam Ackland of SunnyMarch, Cumberbatch’s production company. The picture is set up at Fox Searchlight with Michael Lesslie (Macbeth,...

Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did Fritz Lang...

Los Angeles, Calif. (October 2, 2015) – In 1915 William Fox founded Fox Film Corporation and forever changed the course of cinema. Over the next century the studio would develop some of the most innovative and ground-breaking advancements in the history of cinema; the introduction of Movietone, the implementation of color in partnership with Eastman Kodak, the development of the wide format in 70mm and many more. Now in honor of the 100th anniversary of the studio, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will celebrate by releasing some of their most iconic films that represent a decade of innovation.

Starting today, five classic films from the studio will be made available digitally for the first time ever – Sunrise (1927), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Man Hunt (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Throughout the rest of the year a total of 100 digital releases will follow from Fox’s extensive catalog, including 10 films...

Twilight Time is celebrating its 4th anniversary with a major promotion that sees some of their limited edition titles reduced in price through April 3. These are the titles on sale.

Group 1

Retail price point: $24.95

Picnic

Pal Joey

Bite The Bullet

Bell, Book, And Candle

Bye Bye Birdie

In Like Flint

Major Dundee

The Blue Max

Crimes And Misdemeanors

Used Cars

Thunderbirds Are Go / Thunderbird 6

Group 2

Retail price point: $19.95

Rapture

Roots Of Heaven

Swamp Water

Demetrius And The Gladiators

Desiree

The Wayward Bus

Cover Girl

High Time

The Sound And The Fury

The Rains Of Ranchipur

Bonjour Tristesse

Beloved Infidel

Lost Horizon

The Blue Lagoon

Experiment In Terror

Nicholas And Alexandra

Pony Soldier

The Song Of Bernadette

Philadelphia

The Only Game In Town

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

Sleepless In Seattle

The Disappearance

Sexy Beast

Drums Along The Mohawk

Alamo Bay

The Other

Mindwarp

Jane Eyre

Oliver

The Way We Were...

The Interview and the geopolitical crisis it caused is arguably the most important movie-related story of recent weeks.

The story device featured in The Interview, the idea of a film featuring the assassination of the current ruling leader, is nothing new, and in fact is seen through much of film’s history. In 1941 a German-in-exile Fritz Lang shown an unsuccessful attack on Adolf Hitler in Man Hunt (this story was also told in BBC’s Rogue Male from 1976 starring Peter O’Toole). The Shaw Brothers used the actual newsreel footage of Queen Elisabeth visiting Hong-Kong (then a British colony) in their 1976 martial arts flick A Queen’s Ransom (a.k.a. The International Assassin) starring post-James Bond George Lazenby as an Ira assassin and Angela Mao as a heroine trying to stop him. In fact, the Queen of England might be the most popular assassination target among actual world leaders...

Picking up where the big studios have been leaving off, home video label Twilight Time has for the last few years been releasing some pretty damn awesome horror flicks on Blu-ray, including the original Fright Night and Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead.

Joining them next is the 1988 version of The Blob, headed our way just in time for Halloween! As the company just revealed, October 14th will mark the Blu-ray release of The Blob.

Joining it on Blu will be a handful of other horror films, including Audrey Rose (1977), The Believers (1987), Man Hunt (1941), Under Fire (1983), and The Vanishing (1993).

Typical for Twilight Time, all of the releases will be limited with The Blob being cut off at 5,000 copies and the others limited to only 3,000.

Directed by Chuck Russell, The Blob is one of the better horror remakes we've yet seen, centering on a strange pink life...

It took me a while to watch something in tribute to the late Peter O'Toole—too upsetting—and I still haven't been able to face Joan Fontaine on the screen since her recent passing, though when I do perhaps I'll go for September Affair (1950) or Something to Live For (1952), neither of which I've ever seen.

With O'Toole, I eventually plumped for Rogue Male (1977): the title seemed to fit him to a tee. This is a television adaptation of Geoffrey Household's excellent thriller, previously filmed by Fritz Lang under the title Man Hunt, back in 1941 when the events were current.

A hunter (O'Toole) called Hunter takes aim at Hitler, but is apprehended before he can pull the trigger. Tortured by the Gestapo, he miraculously escapes and now Hunter becomes the hunted, pursued all the way back to England and run to earth in a self-made burrow, trapped like a rat.

Sky Atlantic is holding a film festival event to coincide with the launch of its new season of documentaries.

The Sky Atlantic Documentary Film Festival - which will take place on Thursday, October 24 - is open to the public and will air all six films from the first season throughout the day, accompanied by masterclasses and panel discussions with the film-makers behind the documentaries.

Documentaries featured include The Crash Reel, a Lucy Walker film focused on champion snowboarder Kevin Pearce, Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry, the story of China's most famous artist, and The Act of Killing, which explores the imaginations of death squad leaders.

Former war correspondent Greg Barker's Man Hunt: The Search for Bin Laden, Beeban Kidron's InRealLife, and James Toback's Seduced and Abandoned starring Alec Baldwin, completes the line-up.

Director of Sky Atlantic Elaine Pyke said: "Sky Atlantic is the home of great storytelling...

Sky Atlantic is holding a film festival event to coincide with the launch of its new season of documentaries.

The Sky Atlantic Documentary Film Festival - which will take place on Thursday, October 24 - is open to the public and will air all six films from the first season throughout the day, accompanied by masterclasses and panel discussions with the film-makers behind the documentaries.

Documentaries featured include The Crash Reel, a Lucy Walker film focused on champion snowboarder Kevin Pearce, Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry, the story of China's most famous artist, and The Act of Killing, which explores the imaginations of death squad leaders.

Former war correspondent Greg Barker's Man Hunt: The Search for Bin Laden, Beeban Kidron's InRealLife, and James Toback's Seduced and Abandoned starring Alec Baldwin, completes the line-up.

Director of Sky Atlantic Elaine Pyke said: "Sky Atlantic is the home of great storytelling...

Jay Lee may be best known as the director of Zombie Strippers, but he has a new psychological horror movie, Alyce Kills, that is out on DVD next week. We had the opportunity to have Jay take part in our Q&A series and he told us about getting back to psychological horror, working with Jade Dornfeld, and the possibility of us seeing a Zombie Strippers sequel:

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us. Alyce Kills is very different from a movie like Zombie Strippers. What made you want to go into this more serious/psychological direction?

Jay Lee: Actually it was the other way around. Alyce Kills is more of a return for me from the detour that was the over-the-top gorefest comedy horror films. The latter was just better business (my prior psychological thriller that actually premiered at Sundance is indeed a...

Looking back at 2012 on what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2012—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2012 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2012 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.

How would you program some...

Anthony Asquith's 1928 classic is a time capsule depiction of London's tube network, as well as a brilliant expressionist-influenced thriller

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Anthony Asquith's Underground (1928) is part thriller, part time capsule: a riveting film from one of the silent era's most ambitious British directors, and an intriguing portrait of 1920s London. In particular, the manners and motifs of the capital's tube system are seen just as they were 85 years ago. Re-released in cinemas this month to tie in with the 150th anniversary of the tube, Underground speaks not just to silent movie buffs but to the quiet public transport geek inside every commuting Londoner.

The underground in Underground is more than a metaphor for the repressed passions of four "ordinary workaday people", it is integral to the plot, and its shadowy locations set the film's tone. From their arrival in 1895, films about...

Below you will find our total coverage of the 2012 Vienna International Film festival by Daniel Kasman.

The Major and the Minor

On Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (both 1924), and Ministry of Fear (1944)

American Genres

On Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941), John Ford's Donovan's Reef (1963), John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), and Tony Scott's Unstoppable (2010)

 The Unseen Guerrilla

On Fritz Lang's An American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950)

James Benning's the war

On James Benning's the war...

I got to experience an unexpected spectrum of American genre cinema here at the Viennale by yet again ignoring the new in favor of the old. Watching in a continuum Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941), in the Film Museum's retrospective, John Ford's Donovan's Reef (1963), programmed in the Viennale “for Jean-Marie Straub,” John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), shown in the retrospective sidebar “They Wanted to See Something Different” curated by Jörg Buttgereit, and Tony Scott's Unstoppable (2010) gave me an ellipticalt glimpse of the movement and address of a certain strain of popular American cinema from the middle of the 20th century to the present.

It would be foolish to take Man Hunt as a sort of pure example of Hollywood's industrial genre making of its time, unself-conscious; after all, Ford's own Stagecoach came two years earlier, electrically alive with awareness of the conventions of nearly forty years of the Western in cinema.

For reasons not clear to me, Fritz Lang's an American Guerilla in the Philippines is almost totally unknown, at least in America, and most existent awareness is tainted by it having the worst reputation of the director's already generally undervalued (but superior) American period. I got a rare chance to see the film on 35mm at the Viennale and was unexpectedly moved by its vivid adventure. I feel like I've read for years that Lang loved adventure stories, and while he made many that were artificially constructed, I think one can sense in their ambition and grandeur a desire, in his focus on science and exoticism, to make a “real” one. (Perhaps much like how Alain Resnais has always giddily wanted to make a comic book movie.) What was so moving for me was the realization that this 1950 film seems to be the first and only time Fritz Lang...

It’s Monday, so we all know what that means! Yes, it’s time for another rundown of DVDs and Blu-ray’s hitting stores online and offline this week. It’s a jam-packed week, with plenty of movies waiting to take you money, so let us breakdown the new releases and highlight what you should – and shouldn’t – be buying from today, September 24th 2012.

Pick(S) Of The Week

The Raid (DVD/Blu-ray)

Deep in the heart of one of Jakarta’s most deprived slums stands an impenetrable high-rise apartment block. To most it is 30 floors of Hell to be avoided at all costs but for many of the city’s most dangerous killers and gangsters, including the area’s most notorious crime lord, it is a fortress-like safe house protecting them from the law. Even for the bravest and most experienced police officers it is considered a no-go area.

Blu-ray Release Date: Feb. 28, 2012

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Kino

The classic 1945 film noir Scarlet Street remains one of legendary director Fritz Lang’s (Metropolis) finest American films.

Joan Bennett gets under Edward G. Robinson's skin in Scarlet Street.

When middle-aged milquetoast Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson, The Stranger) comes to the aid of damsel-in-distress-ish, street-walking bad girl Kitty (Joan Bennett, Man Hunt) one rainy New York night, he plunges into a whirlpool of lust, larceny and revenge–the kind that one finds in any great film noir. Chris’s obsession with the irresistibly vulgar Kitty grows as her nasty pimp boyfriend (Dan Duryea, The Woman in the Window) gets involved, ultimately corrupting and humiliating Chris and turning him into the kind of man he never wanted to be. Will justice triumph? Well, yes…and no.

Available on disc in various qualities from a handful of suppliers over the years, Kino...

We’ve teamed up with Optimum Releasing’s Classic label to bring you this rather exciting competition. Fritz Lang is one of the masters of cinema and his 1941 anti-Nazi chase thriller Man Hunt has just been released on DVD.

To celebrate this rather excellent news we’ve got three copies of the flick to giveaway. To be in with a chance of winning a copy answer the simple question below and who knows, maybe you’ll win:

Fritz Lang directed which sci-fi masterpiece? A Trip To The Moon Metropolis The Forbidden Planet Invaders from Mars

Email:

2+2 =

To be kept informed on all of our fantastic features and competitions, tick this box

Competition closes 7th February, 2011 and open to UK entrants only (sorry). Terms and Conditions Apply.

Fritz Lang’s taut 1941 thriller Man Hunt is given a new outing on DVD courtesy of Optimum Releasing through their Classics label. Starring Walter Pidgeon as big game hunter out to prove he can assassinate Adolph Hitler for the sport of it, the film’s sentiment and anti-Nazi message is still pretty blunt to this day.

Co-starring the excellent George Sanders – who appears to have modelled his villainous character on Lang himself (check out the monocle) and the great Joan Bennett, Man Hunt isn’t one of Lang’s masterpieces but ranks well enough.

Before the director left Nazi Germany he was film-making royalty but once he hot-footed it away from the Third Reich he re-invented himself as director for hire in Hollywood, even becoming a Us citizen. At the forefront of the film noir era Lang also directed the occasional thriller, of which, Man Hunt is one. Lang was...

Man Hunt is based on the 1939 novel 'Rogue Male' by Geoffrey Household and is set just before the start of the Second World War. We are introduced to big-game hunter Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) as he hunts in an undisclosed location. It quickly becomes apparent that he is stalking the ultimate prey - Adolf Hitler. The suspense mounts as he traps the dictator in his sights and fires off a blank shot. On the spur of the moment, Thorndike rushes to load his gun with live ammunition, but at the very last minute his plan is foiled and he is seized by Nazi guards.

Here we are introduced to Gestapo leader Quive-Smith, excellently portrayed by George Sanders. The Nazi attempts to force Thorndike into signing a statement, declaring that he was trying to assassinate Hitler by order of The Queen. Thorndike boldly refuses, boasting that should he go missing,...

An elegant George Clooney exudes mystery and inner torment as a cold-hearted assassin in picturesque Italy

Anton Corbijn, the Dutch portrait photographer long resident in Britain, made his directorial debut three years ago with Control, an accomplished portrait, shot in black and white, of the doomed rock musician Ian Curtis who committed suicide in 1980. His second feature, The American, is another portrait of a doomed figure, handsomely photographed by the same German cameraman, Martin Ruhe, but this time in beautiful colour.

It's a poised, self-conscious film that begins with a pre-credit sequence set around a snow-covered lake in Dalarna, the Swedish province where the painted wooden horses come from, and ends beside an idyllic stream in the mountainous Abruzzo region of central Italy. The pre-credit sequence resembles a Bond movie when a lyrical walk suddenly erupts into violence as lethal hunters ambush the hero and have the tables turned on them.

Flix Picks [1] is a new semi-regular feature that explores the depths of my Netflix queue and allows me the chance to catch up with some older films that I’ve not yet seen. You can count me as one of the many cinephiles in the Alfred Hitchcock fan club. I’ve seen a wide array of his films, although mainly the more well-known titles. So, in an attempt to widen my knowledge on the Master of Suspense, I recently caught up with Foreign Correspondent, a slightly less talked-about film in his canon. As usual, thanks to my handy-dandy Netflix account, it was an easy find. Set during the days leading up to WWII, Foreign Correspondent tells the story of Johnny Jones, a crime reporter who’s editor assigns him to Europe after becoming fed up with vague reports from other correspondents. Despite a lack of experience in foreign affairs, Johnny...

 

"Clive Donner, who helped launch the careers of actors such as Sir Ian McKellen and Alan Bates, has died at the age of 84," reports the BBC. "He was best known for a series of 1960s films including Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and What's New Pussycat," which, "released in 1965, featured Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Woody Allen and Ursula Andress in the leading roles. Allen also wrote the screenplay, while Burt Bacharach composed the music."

The BFI's screenonline has a fine biography; let's pick it up in the early 60s, when he's just had a surprise box office hit, Some People (1962). "Despite this success Donner was unable to find a backer for a film version of The Caretaker (1963 [clip above]), written by his friend Harold Pinter, but a private consortium, headed by Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noël Coward and Peter Sellers, agreed to put up a minimum of £1000 each. The film...

Director who captured swinging London's zeitgeist and remade classics for television

For a few years in the 1960s, Clive Donner, who has died aged 84 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was among the leading film directors of swinging London. Unfortunately, when London stopped swinging, so did Donner. The four films that made his name were a low-budget adaptation of Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker (1963); Nothing But the Best (1964), a wicked satire on the British class structure; the farcical What's New Pussycat? (1965); and the coming-of-age comedy Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968).

Already in his 30s when he started directing, Donner gained a reputation for being tuned in to "youth". His debut movie, The Secret Place (1957), a heist drama shot on location in the East End, had David McCallum as a Brandoesque leather-jacketed "crazy mixed-up kid".

The Heart of a Child (1958) concerned a boy and his St Bernard dog, Rudi,...

(1951, PG, Optimum)

Optimum's latest valuable tranche of six western classics ranges in time from The Return of Frank James (1940, Fritz Lang's first western and first colour movie) to Butch & Sundance: The Early Years (1979), Dick Lester's witty prequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The major release, however, is Rawhide, an intense, monochrome, chamber western set on a remote stagecoach station where an outlaw gang holds the residents captive to steal a consignment of gold bullion. The whole cast are 20th Century Fox performers, the crooks led by Hugh Marlowe, customarily a solid citizen, backed by wall-eyed Jack Elam in one of his first notable roles. Opposing them are Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward. They're directed by veteran Henry Hathaway, here bringing together his command of the western and the noir thriller. The script is by one of Hollywood's most distinguished writers, Dudley Nichols, whose credits include Bringing up Baby,...

Rejoice! Looking to wash away the taste of the Clash of the Titans remake! We are, too. Hopefully the latest news from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will get you as giddy as it has us!

From the Press Release

Embark on an adventure with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment when the epic odyssey Jason and the Argonauts is released on Blu-ray Disc on July 6, 2010 for the Slp of $24.95. Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen (Clash of the Titans, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad), who turns 90 this year, solidified his mark as a stop-motion master when this movie hit theaters in 1963. Harryhausen’s use of the medium exhilarated audiences as they followed Jason on his journey, encountering behemoth bronze statues, multi-headed serpents and the iconic animated armed skeletons. Through these effects, Harryhausen gave this mythical tale new legs and a provided an enduring spectacle for audiences. Viewers can now take this journey in...

So last year I joined Twitter and desperately struggled to figure out a good use for it. Assuming most people following my account might come from the Film Junk podcast, I thought it might be an idea platform to keep track of what films I've been watching and what ratings I give them. My first post was March 9th, 2009 with David Cronenberg's The Brood (3.5/4) and since then I've managed to check out a good number of great films over the last year. (Jacques Tati's Play Time and Wim Wender's Paris, Texas are definitely two stand outs on this list.) Many of these are first time viewings, but a there are also a lot of movies I just felt the urge to revisit. So what do you think? Any favourites? Have a look for yourself after the jump! The Brood, (Cronenberg, 1979) 3.5/4 Operation Crossbow (Anderson, 1965) 3.5/4 Watchmen, (Snyder, 2009) 3/4 Pontypool, (McDonald, 2008) 4/4 Pinocchio,...

Actor and model Abhinav Shukla enters the most popular show of Zee TV, ‘Choti Bahu’ this week. Abhinav has previously done couple of television shows earlier and has also been a model on various commercials .He was amongst the top five participants at the Gladrags Man Hunt 2004. And now he comes to give a twist to ‘Chhoti Bahu’.

Our source from the production house informs, "Abhinav is playing Vikram, a bad guy from Mumbai who meets Vishakha (Priyanaka Mishra) and befriends.

Inglourious Basterds London Press Conference – Quentin Tarantino, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, Lawrence Bender (Spoilers Ahead)

Inglourious Basterds is the sixth film from Quentin Tarantino (counting Kill Bill as one), and he’s been talking about it since the mid-90s. His World War II picture is an ensemble piece told in five chapters, with a style of knowing comedy and over-the-top violence that bares more comparison to Kill Bill than his earlier work. There are many characters, and many plot strands, but the Basterds of the title are a group of fearless Jewish-Americans (led by Brad Pitt and including Eli Roth, Til Schweiger and Bj Novak from The American Office) who are busy scalping and gouging their way through Nazi troops toward the end of the war. Other key figures include Christoph Waltz, an Austrian actor best known until now for his roles in German television, who steals the show...

DVD Playhouse—June 2009

By

Allen Gardner

The International (Sony) An Interpol agent (Clive Owen) joins forces with a Manhattan D.A. (Naomi Watts) to bring down an arms dealing ring and a corrupt global banking cartel that’s funding them. Superlative thriller was oddly ignored by critics and audiences alike, but expertly blends intelligence (courtesy screenwriter Eric Warren Singer’s masterfully-crafted script) and full-throttle action (director Tom Tykwer stages one of the great film shoot-outs in New York’s iconic Guggenheim Museum), making this dynamite thriller reminiscent of the best work from masters such as John Frankenheimer and Robert Aldrich. Armin Mueller-Stahl is wonderful as a world-weary covert op. Bonuses: Extended scene; Featurettes; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.

The Jack Lemmon Film Collection(Sony) Five films from the two-time Oscar winning actor, focusing on his early career: Phfft! is a zippy comedy from 1954, one of Lemmon’s earliest films, in which...

The great Fritz Lang takes on Der Fuehrer in 1941‘s Man Hunt, a neglected 1941 gem of film noir and ballsy left-wing thriller, scripted by John Ford‘s liberal conscience, Dudley Nichols. Lang’s source novel is Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male, a furiously topical pre-WW2 bestseller about a British big game hunter (played by Walter Pidgeon), who goes after Adolf Hitler (played by the actual Schickelgruber in documentary footage) , and then finds himself the target of Nazis, killers and fifth columnists in a very foggy London of shadowy houses and rain-slickened streets, where chills, betrayal and murder are always in the air.

Just imagine if someone had hunted and shot Hitler before World War II broke out? It would.ve saved countless lives and the world a lot of grief. British hunter Thorndike had his opportunity, but missed it. Now he finds himself on the run from the Nazis. Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) is a big game hunter. He.s chosen the biggest game of the time period to see if he could shoot him . Adolf Hitler (Carl Ekberg). He hides out in the woods above Hitler.s retreat, gets him in his sights, and pulls the trigger. Unfortunately, Thorndike only wanted to see if it was possible so instead of ending one of history.s greatest madmen, we only hear a...

Who knew that the Nazis -- one of the most brutal regimes in the history of brutal regimes -- would be responsible for such fun, mind-blowingly awesome entertainment? The second I see a dude in a grey German uniform and an eye patch enter the frame, I’m like ‘Whoa. That Nazi is going to provide me a great amount of entertainment this evening’. So, with Inglorious Bastards having recently premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, I figured I'd put together a list of some awesome WW2 films as a resource for anyone wanting to beef up their WW2 film knowledge before checking out Tarantino's self-proclaimed 'masterpiece'. It's worth noting that I focused on older films -- pre-1980 for the most part -- and only the stories featuring Nazi's. It was tough to cut this down to 15 films, but I'm sure you all will be able to come up with...

We're four weeks into 2009's summer movie season. X-Men Origins: Wolverine got things off to a soggy start and was eclipsed by Star Trek as a popular favorite. Not many were impressed by Angels & Demons (though it did big business overseas), leading into this long weekend with Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian doing battle (and a little Dance Flick on the side).

So what are your general impressions so far? I was disappointed by Wolverine and loved Star Trek. My ambitious weekend viewing plans began with a viewing of Terminator Salvation, which satisfied the 12-year-old boy in me, but left the adult me sorely hungry for more substantial entertainment. So I watched two DVDs that came out last Tuesday. Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) stars Walter Pidgeon as a British big game hunter whose "sporting stalk" of Hitler ends up with the hunter becoming the hunted.

Upon viewing Man Hunt, it becomes nearly impossible to not wonder what kind of director Fritz Lang might have become had he not fled Nazi Germany. Apparently not understanding the subtext of M and Metropolis, the Third Reich government offered him the chance to direct propaganda films for them based on the strength of those two films, which are still by and large considered to be Lang’s best; instead, he left the country that very day, making a quick stop in France before making Hollywood films for the rest of his life, none of which ever achieved the legacy that his German films did. Certainly, living in Nazi Germany is more than we could ever really ask from an artist, but it’s a sure bet that whatever he would have made, it would have been a whole lot more interesting than Man Hunt.

The film opens in the...

A decent assortment of new DVDs in stores this week, from My Bloody Valentine 3-D to the early surprise hit of the year, Paul Blart: Mall Cop (err... you'll have to look past those ones to get to the good stuff). The Tom Cruise Nazi thriller Valkyrie is in stores today, and might make a good double bill with Fritz Lang's 1941 film Man Hunt which is hitting DVD for the first time. Then there's Howard McCain's viking vs alien epic Outlander, which might make a good double bill with The Asylum's direct-to-video monster battle Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus! The Star Wars comedy Fanboys is finally out on DVD (in the U.S. at least), along with the first season of True Blood and the seventh season of 24. See anything worth picking up? Valkyrie [1] (DVD, Blu-ray [2]) Fanboys [3] Paul Blart: Mall Cop [4] (DVD, Blu-ray [5]) Outlander [6] My Bloody Valentine 3-D [7] (DVD,...