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Although Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film "The Shining" is frequently cited as one of the scariest films of all time, it's widely known that Stephen King — who wrote the 1977 novel on which it's based — hates it. Kubrick famously altered several details of King's book, and the author felt that the changes were arbitrary at best and insulting at worst. King wrote his story as the tale of an ordinary man who was gradually driven to madness. King expressed interest in gentler actors like Martin Sheen or Michael Moriarty for the role of Jack Torrance, feeling they would be sympathetic immediately. Kubrick, however, cast Jack Nicholson in the role, and King felt that Nicholson was already unstable from the jump. With Nicholson, it wasn't a tale of a sane man going insane, but an already-insane man cracking open.

Kubrick, however, was already granted permission by Warner Bros., so he went ahead...

Spoken today, such a statement might arouse contention and debate, but it is far from unthinkable or even impertinent—as it might have been, say, in 1954, the year that Truffaut penned his politique; or in 1966, when Jean-Pierre Léaud played a man named “Donald Siegel” in Godard’s Made in U.S.A.; or even in 1968, when Siegel was the subject of a career retrospective at London’s National Film Theatre and an entry in the “Expressive Esoterica” section of Andrew Sarris’ landmark The American Cinema. In a 1971 issue of Film Comment, film critic Jim Kitses was still able to dismiss Siegel as “a good commercial director, no more and no less,” relegating the “subversive idea—that the French... consider Siegel to be Hollywood’s most gifted filmmaker” to the purview of gossip columnist Joyce Haber (“nobody really believes that kind of thing in this town”). But the filmmaker’s reputation in the U.

Acclaimed stuntman and action director extraordinaire Jesse V. Johnson joins us to discuss the U.S. based action films and filmmakers that have influenced him the most.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

On The Waterfront (1954)

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House (1922)

Undisputed (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka: Undisputed (2016)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Convoy (1978)

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Birdcage (1996)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

Easy Rider (1969)

Fail Safe (1964)

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Ride The High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

Jinxed! (1982)

Beowulf (2007)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Girl Hunters (1963)

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Point Blank (1967)

Falling Down (1993)

M (1951)

M (1931)

The Black Vampire (1953)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Scum (1979)

Elephant (1989)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), possibly Joe’s favorite John Ford...

“Early Dirty”

By Raymond Benson

The filmmaker who made the iconic Clint Eastwood vehicle, Dirty Harry in 1971 also made something of an early test-run three years earlier in the form of a crime picture called Madigan. Starring Richard Widmark as a tough, cynical, and world-weary police detective in New York City, Madigan displays the same look, feel, and grit that the later Eastwood police procedural exhibits. And, like Harry Callahan, Dan Madigan doesn’t always follow the rules.

Don Siegel had been a solid craftsman since the 1950s, responsible for such works as Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the admirable remake of The Killers (1964), and Coogan’s Bluff (1968). Likewise, Madigan is a well-made thriller with a hard-boiled plot and realistic characters portrayed by an excellent cast that includes Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, and James Whitmore.

The tale begins when Madigan (Widmark) and his partner...

Ace director Donald Siegel uses superior direction to transform a so-so who-dunnit into a thrilling big screen spectacle, using the Grand Canyon as a backdrop for A multiple murder set in an Arizona mining town in decline. The cameraman focusing on the scenery and the hair-raising stuntwork — everything we see is real — is the great Burnett Guffey.

Edge of Eternity

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1959 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 80 min. / Street Date February 15, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Cornel Wilde, Victoria Shaw, Mickey Shaughnessy, Edgar Buchanan, Rian Garrick, Jack Elam, Dabbs Greer.

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Written by Knut Swenson, Richard Collins

Produced by Kendrick Sweet

Directed by Donald Siegel

A look at Donald Siegel’s filmography shows that between his standout ‘fifties titles — Riot in Cell Block 11, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Crime in the Streets, The Lineup, he suffered through his share of unrewarding cheapies,...

Unless we’re counting Jauja, my pick for the finest western of last year was S. Craig Zahler‘s brutal, funny, and well-acted Bone Tomahawk. While it didn’t register at the box-office, we could easily see it achieving a cult status in the years to come, but thankfully the right people saw it as he’s now set for his follow-up, which will find him headed to prison.

According to THR, Zahler will direct Brawl in Cell Block 99 (another enticing title, perhaps inspired by Don Siegel‘s Riot in Cell Block 11), and he’s already found a star. Vince Vaughn, hopefully truly diving into some grit after the lackluster season 2 of True Detective, is set to lead the film. Scripted by Zahler and backed by Xyz Films and Caliber Media, production is kicking off at the end of this summer, which means we could see it by 2017.

“Former...

Riot in Cell Block 11

Written by Richard Collins

Directed by Don Siegel

U.S.A., 1954

It is the dawn of great social change in the United States, a time when the public consciousness is about to reckon with real, humanity-based issues that plague the country underneath the veneer of perfection. A wave of riots have exploded in prisons across the country, alerting the media, politicians and ordinary citizens that the penitentiary system is deeply flawed. The prisoners are guilty of crimes, yes, but their confinement conditions go beyond the sort of punishment they should serve. Filmed on location at Folsom State Prison in California, Riot in Cell Block 11 concerns the inmate uprising led by James Dunn (Neville Brand), supported closely by a man nicknamed The Colonel (Robert Osterloh) and dangerous felon Mike Carnie (Leo Gordon) among others. The Warden, Reynolds (Emile Meyer), and Commissioner Haskell (Frank Faylen) have...

Shaggy maniac Neville Brand was born on the bayou. He lives by his high morals and so just can't resist feeding random visitors to his gargantuan crocodile. If they resist that idea, he uses a giant scythe for a persuader. Tobe Hooper's sopho-gore feature boasts several name stars, plus, in this new edition, a brightly colored, picture-perfect transfer. Eaten Alive Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (U.S.) 1976 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 87 min. / Death Trap, Starlight Slaughter, Horror Hotel / Street Date September 22, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Marilyn Burns, William Finley, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund, Crystin Sinclaire, Janus Blythe, Betty Cole. Cinematography Robert Caramico Special Effects Robert A. Mattey Makeup Effects Frank Gluck Confirmed Original Music Wayne Bell, Tobe Hooper Written by Alvin Fast, Mardi Rustam, Kim Henkel Produced by Mardi Rustam Directed by Tobe Hooper

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Tobe Hooper is an odd duck...

Part I.

1971 was an incredibly violent year for movies. That year saw, among others, Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack, with its half-Indian hero karate-chopping rednecks; William Friedkin’s The French Connection, its dogged cops stymied by well-heeled drug runners; Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, banned for the copycat crimes it reportedly inspired; and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, featuring the most controversial rape in cinema history. Every bloody shooting, sexual assault and death by penis statue reflected a world gone mad.

It seemed a reaction to America’s skyrocketing crime. Between 1963 and 1975, violent crimes tripled; riots, robberies and assassinations racked major cities. The antiwar and Civil Rights movements generated violent offshoots like the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Citizens blamed politicians like New York Mayor John Lindsay (the original “limousine liberal”), who proclaimed “Peace cannot be imposed on our cities by force of arms,” and Earl Warren’s Supreme Court,...

It's a Criterion Christmas! I'll be using Meeting the Criterion as a convenient way of reminding you of many of the Criterion Collections great releases from the last year. Whether your Criterion Collection is organized by spine number, title or director there's a good chance you'll see some releases that are bound to end up on your must remember to get list. First up I'm looking at Riot in Cell Block 11. Made in 1954 this is a treasure trove for classic cinema lovers . You get performances by a large number of highly recognizable character actors. Neville Brand the heavy in countless westerns and film noires like D.O. A. (1950) and great classics like Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Stalag 17 (1953),  just shines here as the leader of...

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

It'd be interesting to pinpoint exactly when the term "problem film" went out of vogue. Once a thriving subgenre due to their controversial subject matter and thrifty production value, films like Riot in Cell Block 11 have no real historical antecedent, at least not on the same kind of platform, and not as part of an identifiable genre. In that context, Riot is actually quite remarkable: an unrelentingly and unmistakably political film unbeholden to the two-party dichotomy that never sacrifices the need for action that presumably got it made in the first place. An early work of Don Siegel's, this film has the sort of energetic verve that he would later display in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dirty Harry, but it lacks their ambiguity, and the ability to support multiple interpretations; that may well be an asset. Like the best 'problem films', it is less an opening...

Chicago – The Criterion Collection has added “Riot in Cell Block 11” (1954) to their stellar Blu-ray family, and the transfer is absolutely gorgeous, especially if you’re an admirer of the stark cinematography of the late black & white film era. Although dated, it still packs a gritty wallop.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Directed by Don Siegel – best known for “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) and “Dirty Harry” (1971) – this prison riot film is framed as a cautionary tale regarding the conditions of prisons in the mid-1950s. Packed with noir beauty, the tick-tick-tick of the tensions in the film underscore the use of shadow and light. Shot in Folsom Prison in California, Siegel makes great use of the weird perspectives of long hallways and old timey prison walls. Some of the corny dialogue and hey-you-mugs interplay is silly in the modern era, but I’m sure the adventurous folks who saw this at the time were transfixed.

Don Siegel’s Riot in Cell Block 11 is the perfect sort of film for the Criterion Collection to shine the spotlight on. The film doesn’t have a lot of famous names in the cast (the most notable is Neville Brand), while it’s rarely mentioned as one of Siegel’s best (a distinction often given to Dirty Harry by default, but also in the conversation would be Charley Varrick and Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but definitely deserves to be reconsidered, as this tight narratives about the problems in a prison population is fascinating – it’s a low budget marvel. My review of the Criterion Collection edition of Riot in Cell Block 11 follows after the jump. The movie starts with a ripped from the headlines “News on the March”-style presentation about the then-relevant data about recent prison riots. We then go into a prison (played by Folsom,...

Today on Trailers from Hell, director Joe Dante talks up 1954's prison-based drama "Riot in Cell Block 11," starring Neville Brand and Frank Faylen. An intelligent, well-acted “message” melodrama hides behind that hard-nosed title. Directed by Don Siegel at his most primal, the film’s violence erupts in compelling contrast to the quiet intelligence of the screenplay by Richard Collins ("My Gun is Quick"). Its empathetic attitude is due in some part to veteran producer Walter Wanger whose recent stint in the slammer moved him to advocate for improved prison conditions. Starring Neville Brand as the firebrand who instigates the protests and, as “Crazy Mike Carnie”, real-life ex-con Leo Gordon, who Siegel described as “the scariest man I have ever met ” but went on to a long career as a dependable character actor. This was the beginning of Siegel’s longtime friendship with Sam Peckinpah who served as dialog director...

An intelligent, well-acted “message” melodrama hides behind that hard-nosed title. Directed by Don Siegel at his most primal, the film’s violence erupts in compelling contrast to the quiet intelligence of the screenplay by Richard Collins (My Gun is Quick). Its empathetic attitude is due in some part to veteran producer Walter Wanger whose recent stint in the slammer moved him to advocate for improved prison conditions. Starring Neville Brand as the firebrand who instigates the protests and, as “Crazy Mike Carnie”, real-life ex-con Leo Gordon, who Siegel described as “the scariest man I have ever met ” but went on to a long career as a dependable character actor. This was the beginning of Siegel’s longtime friendship with Sam Peckinpah who served as dialog director on this and several other Siegel films including Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The post Riot in Cell Block 11 appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The inspiration behind the making of Riot in Cell Block 11 is as equally fascinating as the end product. Producer Walter Wanger (who famously produced Hitchcock’s 1941 film, Foreign Correspondent, among others) was sentenced to a brief stint in prison after shooting a man he believed was having an affair with his then wife, actress Joan Bennett. The dramatic scandal would force Wanger into an experience that apparently changed his life, as leaving prison immediately saw his intense interest in getting this project off the ground, basing it on an actual event that happened in Michigan. Undeniably a semi-documentary message film, it’s an arresting prison drama that features believable performances and striking cinematography. Serving as director Don Siegel’s first major hit at the box office despite lack of female stars and subject matter, it’s his first definitive example of the themes that would mark him as Clint Eastwood...

This week’s new Blu-ray releases are rather scarce, but they do include a new HD transfer of an underseen William Friedkin thriller and director Quentin Tarantino’s favorite film of 2013. Briefly: Sorcerer [Blu-ray]- $23.78 (15% off) Big Bad Wolves [Blu-ray] - $14.96 (50% off) Bettie Page Reveals All [Blu-ray] - $31.46 (10% off) Riot in Cell Block 11 (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray + DVD) - $24.99 (37% off) Spectacular Spider-Man - Season 1 / Spectacular Spider-Man - Season 2 - Set [Blu-ray] - $24.99 (46% off) Conspiracy Theory [Blu-ray] - $9.96 (33% off)

The post New to Blu-ray: Sorcerer, Big Bad Wolves, Spectacular Spider-man, and More appeared first on Collider.

Sorcerer My number one pick of the week is obviously the newly remastered Blu-ray release of William Friedkin's Sorcerer, which I already reviewed. The only issue with this one is that it doesn't come with any additional features, but the film alone is enough to consider adding this one to your collection. Read my full review right here.

Big Bad Wolves Big Bad Wolves gained notoriety when Quentin Tarantino declared it the best film of 2013. It's an interesting movie, but I wouldn't say it was the best of last year or any year for that matter. Here's a snippet from my review: Big Bad Wolves ... raises questions of "How far is too farc" and questions a victim's rights for revenge. I like that. I like those shades of grey. I like the idea of not knowing, the question of regret if you don't follow your instinct versus the voice...

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week

"Sorcerer"

What's It About? Roy Scheider co-stars in this thriller about four men from disparate backgrounds who, for various reasons, are forced to hide in a small village in South America. When a nearby oil well explodes, four of them must transport nitroglycerin through dangerous terrain in the hopes of extinguishing the fire.

Why We're In: William Friedkin's film met all sorts of bad luck upon release, from its box office competition (a little film called "Star Wars") to misleading marketing that confused audiences expecting a second helping of "The Exorcist." Although the Blu-ray doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, the quality of the transfer will sate all cinephiles who've been dying to add this cult favorite to their collection.

Rt for a chance 2 win #Sorcerer on BluRay - autographed by Oscar winning director @WilliamFriedkin! Rules: http://t.co/XWD2Vf...

Blu-ray/DVD Review

“Riot In Cell Block 11” (Don Siegel)

“The 400 Blows” (Francois Truffaut)

(The Criterion Collection)

Two Gems From The 50s

By Raymond Benson

Two new releases from The Criterion Collection spotlight low-budget filmmaking in the 1950s—American and European—and couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically diverse. And yet, there is a personal stamp on the pictures that is very similar. Both films also tackle social problems with brutal frankness and feature anti-heroes as protagonists.

Riot in Cell Block 11 was produced by longtime Hollywood independent producer Walter Wanger (he was also responsible for two earlier Criterion releases, Stagecoach and Foreign Correspondent) as a hard-hitting, gritty, realistic picture depicting the inequities and maltreatment prisoners receive in American prisons. Wanger had a personal reason to make a film like that. He had barely missed spending some time in one. He’d caught his wife with another man,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 22, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Prison justice is dispensed in Riot in Cell Block 11.

Early in his career, Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Private Hell 36) made his mark with 1954’s Riot in Cell Block 11, a sensational and high-octane low-budget film noir crime drama set in a maximum-security penitentiary.

The brainchild of producer extraordinaire Walter Wanger (Foreign Correspondent), the hard-hitting film is a ripped-from-the-headlines social-problem picture about prisoners’ rights that was inspired by a recent spate of uprisings in American prisons.

In Siegel’s hands, the movie is at once brash and humane, showcasing the hard-boiled visual flair and bold storytelling for which the director would become known and shot on location at Folsom State Prison, with real inmates and guards as extras.

Criterion’s Blu-ray/DVD Combo edition of the film contains the following features:

• New high-definition digital restoration,...

Criterion has announced the new titles coming in April 2014 and among them are two titles teased on their New Years 2014 illustration, those being Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (4/15) and Don Siegel's prison drama Riot in Cell Block 11 (4/22). Breaking the Waves has long been one of von Trier's more acclaimed films starring Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgaard, a wonderful faith-based drama you might not expect if you're only familiar with von Trier from films such as Antichrist, Melancholia and the upcoming Nymphomaniac. Personally I would love to see Dancer in the Dark get the Criterion treatment, but this should be a good one with a selection of features that includes a selected-scene audio commentary featuring von Trier, editor Anders Refn and location scout Anthony Dod Mantle, as well as new and old interviews, Watson's audition tape and more. As for Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11, I've...

Well, it looks like some of those New Year's Criterion Collection teases are coming true. The boutique label has unveiled their slate for April, and as always, it will cause your accountant worry about the cash you're spending on DVDs. Rumored for a while now, Lars von Trier's heartbreaker "Breaking the Waves" gets the wacky C, and it's coming loaded with extras. The newly restored film will feature selected-scene audio commentary with von Trier, editor Anders Refn, and location scout Anthony Dod Mantle, brand new interviews, Emily Watson's audition tape, deleted and extended scenes, and much more. Not too shabby at all for one of von Trier's finest accomplishments. Meanwhile, the rest of the month will see Criterion digging into classic cinema. Fans of hardboiled drama will be very pleased to see Don Siegel's "Riot In Cell Block 11" enter the collection. The prison flick won't have...

Screenwriter for Don Siegel and writer/producer of classic TV series, he named many of his colleagues as communists

In 1951, when the screenwriter Richard Collins, who has died aged 98, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), he named more than 20 colleagues and friends in the film industry as belonging to or sympathising with the Communist party. Although by so doing he saved his Hollywood career, it was an action that cast a shadow over the rest of his life, regardless of his success in film and television as a writer and producer.

According to many, it was a cowardly act, which Collins later tried to justify, as did directors Elia Kazan and Edward Dmytryk, by saying that it was his patriotic duty, and that Huac knew the names anyway. However, in an interview in Victor Navasky's book Naming Names (1980), Collins called himself "a son of a bitch, a miserable little bastard.

Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Oscar nominee (but not DGA nominee) David Lean's Summertime DGA Awards vs. Academy Awards 1948-1952: Odd Men Out George Cukor, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli 1953 DGA (12) Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Above and Beyond Walter Lang, Call Me Madam Daniel Mann, Come Back, Little Sheba Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Julius Caesar Henry Koster, The Robe Jean Negulesco, Titanic George Sidney, Young Bess DGA/AMPAS George Stevens, Shane Charles Walters, Lili Billy Wilder, Stalag 17 William Wyler, Roman Holiday Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity   1954 DGA (16) Edward Dmytryk, The Caine Mutiny Alfred Hitchcock, Dial M for Murder Robert Wise, Executive Suite Anthony Mann, The Glenn Miller Story Samuel Fuller, Hell and High Water Henry King, King of Khyber Rifles Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Knock on Wood Don Siegel, Riot in Cell Block 11 Stanley Donen, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers George Cukor, A Star Is Born Jean Negulesco,...