News

Like most of the cinema’s recurring images and sensations, there’s no precise “first movie” about the maladjusted, dissatisfied, wounded soul, but the floodgates about this most serious of fellows seemed to open just after World War II. The late 1940s and early ’50s witnessed the infiltration of the New York theater, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Robert Rossen, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray, and so on—directors, scribes, or actors whose meal tickets more often than not depended on their ability to write the counter-mythology to V-Day utopia. They asked, amid the fanfare and the ticker-tape parades, “Is this all there is?”

Deities such as Brando and James Dean were responsible for taking that particular ship into orbit, but John Garfield was a pioneer of sorts, as early as 1938’s Four Daughters, where his appearance in such a genteel trifle was no less jarring than a Martian invasion.

The Garden of Allah. The Cocoanut Grove. The Brown Derby and The Luau. They were the hottest places to see and be seen during the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Anyone who dined at these glamorous venues or wishes they had will thrill to the Out With the Stars exhibit, opening Saturday at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. The exhibition showcases these starry restaurants and much more from the 20th century in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, with a special room devoted to World War II’s Hollywood Canteen.

Most of these atmospheric spots are long gone now, except a few stalwarts like Musso and Frank, the Tam O’Shanter and the Smokehouse. But in the days before social media and TMZ, making the scene at one of Hollywood’s swanky nightspots was the best way to boost your career, explains entertainment manager Darin Barnes,...

The days are getting longer everywhere, except Palm Springs, where darkness is on the ascent each May. That’s when the city plays host to the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary May 9-12 with a program of a dozen classic films from the 1940s and ’50s. Great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Rossen, Andre de Toth and Anthony Mann and stars like Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan will have desert dwellers and visitors alike eager to blot out the sun for four days, culminating in the festival’s customary Mother’s Day crime spree.

As always, the festival is curated and hosted by a face familiar to any serious modern-day noir aficionado, Alan K. Rode, one of the principals of the Film Noir Foundation and a co-host of the Noir City festival every April in Hollywood. Rode’s Noir City cohort,...

Everyone remembers their first time. That is the first time they saw Marlon Brando.

For the late Mike Nichols, seeing Brando on Broadway in 1947 in his seminal turn as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams‘ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” was the catalyst that lead to his career in the arts which saw him become a rare Egot winner. The teenage Nichols and his then girlfriend’s mother were given tickets for the second night of the Elia Kazan-directed production. “There had never been anything like it, I know that by now,” Nichols recalled in a 2010 L.A. Times interview. It was, to this day, the only thing onstage that I had ever seen that was 100% real and 100% poetic. Lucy and I weren’t exactly theater buffs, but we couldn’t get up at the intermission. We were just so stunned. Your heart was pounding. It was a major experience.”

Susan L.

Micheline Presle, the French actress whose controversial Devil in the Flesh role was the start of a career that included starring opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died at 101.

Presle died Wednesday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law, Olivier Bomsel, told Le Figaro.

Presle portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.

She was soon signed by 20th Century Fox, which changed her surname to Prelle and cast her as a café owner who falls in love with a crooked jockey (Garfield) in Jean Negulesco’s Under My Skin (1950). She also starred with Power in the Technicolor war film American Guerilla in the Philippines (1950), and in The Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951).

She would appear...

Micheline Presle, the standout French actress who starred in the controversial Devil in the Flesh before making a foray into Hollywood that included roles opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died. She was 101.

Presle died Wedneday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law Olivier Bomsel told Le Figaro.

Presle came to international attention when she portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.

Because it featured a woman who took a lover while her husband was away at war, it generated a great deal of discussion.

In 1949, Presle met American actor William Marshall, who had been married to another French star, Michèle Morgan, and followed him to America. They would wed that year in Santa Barbara.

If Valentine cards are too lame and saccharine for your taste, then maybe you need something a little more hard-boiled for this lovers’ holiday. Perhaps, “What do I call you besides stupid?” or “We go together like guns and ammunition” are more in line with the romantic sentiments you’d like to express to your gumshoe or femme fatale. If that’s the case, then here are some lethally attractive film noir romances with the cynical bite your cold heart craves.

Marriage vows state, “till death do us part.” But in noir, that death is very rarely of natural causes. I mean, there’s a reason women in noir are referred to as femme fatales – they can be deadly.

Here’s a list of the 10 best classic American films noir to celebrate with on Valentine’s Day.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t already figured it out, I will be...

Those who fought in World War II are considered the Greatest Generation. And executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman paid homage to these young men who risked life and limb during the global conflict in their award-winning 2001 HBO series “Band of Brothers” and 2010’s “The Pacific.” And now they’ve taken to the not-so-friendly skies in their latest World War II series, Apple TV +’s “Masters of the Air.”

Created by John Shiban and John Orloff, “Masters of the Air” is based on the 2007 book: “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the War Against Nazi Germany,” the series starring Austin Butler focuses on the 8th Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group stationed in England. It was known as the “Bloody Hundredth” because of the high causalty rate.

Watching the series, one can’t help but remember the numerous bombardier films produced by Hollywood...

Over the course of two decades, Alexander Payne has directed seven Oscar-nominated performances by as many actors, including first-time contenders Thomas Haden Church (“Sideways”), Virginia Madsen (“Sideways”), and June Squibb (“Nebraska”). In 2024, his general total could reach 10 if the film academy decides to recognize the work of “The Holdovers” cast mates Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa. While the former two are by no means new to screen acting, the opposite is true of Sessa, whose potential Best Supporting Actor bid would make him the 21st man to receive one for a film debut. Scroll through our photo gallery to learn more about the actors who presently belong to this exclusive group.

This particular list has existed since 1939 when 25-year-old John Garfield landed in the third annual supporting lineup on the merit of his film debut in “Four Daughters.” In the years since, three of his 19 fellow club...

Chicago – The Czar of Noir is coming to town, bringing his very popular “Noir City Chicago” back to the Music Box Theatre for 2023. Eddie Muller, the host of Turner Classic Movies “Noir Alley,” will appear on behalf of a specially curated series of noir genre classics. For more information, full schedule and tickets, click Noir City.

“Noir City: Chicago” is a week-long celebration of “film noir” … the dark category of film drama that usually takes place at night, and features a rogues gallery of dames, gumshoes, coppers and crooks … and will be hosted by Muller from Friday to Sunday, and Film Noir Foundation’s Alan K. Rode the rest of the way. For the kickoff night on August 25th, Muller will be sailing away with Bogie and Bacall on “Key Largo” (1948), followed by the Orson Welles essential “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) and wrapping up with John Garfield in “Force of Evil...

You are reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Subscribe to WrapPRO.

“All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born,” William Faulkner wrote in “Requiem for a Nun.” As we’ve seen with the WGA strike, Hollywood’s past issues with labor often seem like a familiar tangle. An ongoing exhibit at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles about the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s is making those attending since the writers’ strike began see the dispute in a new — and yet familiar — light.

The writers’ battle with studios is primarily economic, while the blacklist dealt with Cold War politics. But Skirball Center curator Cate Thurston, who put together the current exhibition “Blacklist: The Hollywood Red Scare,” sees similarities between then and now — chiefly in the idea that studios and writers are pitted against each other by external forces...

Academy Award-winner Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries and Sony Music Entertainment today announced Death on the Lot, a new eight-episode podcast series that will spotlight the untimely deaths of the biggest stars in 1940s and 1950s Hollywood, launching Thursday, June 1. Developed and hosted by McKay, Death on the Lot will dive into the cultural transformation of Post-war America and Hollywood’s fabrication of a new American dream, as well as Hollywood unions and labor strikes. The trailer is available now and all eight episodes will be available on The Binge on June 1.

In each episode, McKay will focus on the story behind one celebrity’s tragic death and the cultural implications that upended their life. The podcast will cover the deaths of gangster Willie Bioff, method actor John Garfield, teenage idol James Dean, Superman actor George Reeves, first Black Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, swashbuckling star Errol Flynn, and western legend John Wayne.

Here’s looking at Warner Bros. which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Earlier this year, Turner Classic Movies, which is a member of the Warner Bros. Discovery family, celebrated the centennial with a monthlong tribute to the studio that gave the world such landmark films as 1927’s “The Jazz Singer,” the first feature with synchronized recorded singing and some dialogue; the ultimate gangster flick 1931’s “Public Enemy,: the glorious 1938 swashbuckler “The Adventures of Robin Hood”; and the beloved 1942 “Casablanca.

And during its Golden Age, its roster of stars included such legends as Rin-Tin-Tin, John Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Paul Muni, John Garfield and Sydney Greenstreet.

Max is currently streaming the four-part documentary series “100 Years of Warner Bros.” (the first two episodes premiered at Cannes). And also arriving this week is the lavish coffee table book “Warner Bros.

Adam McKay is unveiling his follow-up podcast to 2021’s “Death at the Wing,” this time focusing on 1950s Hollywood deaths.

The Oscar nominee and his company Hyperobject Industries and Sony Music Entertainment will release “Death on the Lot” on June 1, centered on the deaths of James Dean, Hattie McDaniel, John Garfield, and more Hollywood figures. The eight-episode podcast is hosted by McKay and features interviews with Ron Howard, Lee Grant, James Cromwell, and even relatives of some of the episode subjects.

“All during the making of ‘Death at the Wing,’ we kept saying the only other comparison we can think of is Hollywood after World War II,” McKay told Variety. “Then we thought, ‘Well, let’s do a season about that, and see what we can uncover.’ And if possible, it was even richer and deeper, and more to the core of the American story than we anticipated.”

McKay continued,...

Apple TV +’s “Causeway” revolves around a U.S. soldier (Jennifer Lawrence) who suffers a traumatic brain injury while surviving in Afghanistan. Returning home, Lawrence’s Lynsey has a difficult time recovering physically, mentally, and emotionally. She finds a kindred spirit when she meets James (Brian Tyree Henry) who lost his leg in a car crash and is fighting his own demons

The well-received “Causeway” (Henry is nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award for outstanding supporting performance) is the latest in the movie genre exploring the problems veterans have once they return from the battlefield.

The best and most beloved of these films is 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives,” directed by William Wyler which won seven Oscars. The haunting drama looks at three World War II vets — all dealing with trauma and severe injuries — who return home to discover they and their families have forever changed.

Conversely...

It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.

Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...

Click here to read the full article.

Robert Brown, who starred alongside David Soul and Bobby Sherman by portraying the oldest of the three logging Bolt brothers on the 1968-70 ABC series Here Come the Brides, has died. He was 95.

Brown died Sept. 19 at his home in Ojai, his friend Kiki Bremont told The Hollywood Reporter.

Brown appeared twice on Broadway and guest-starred as alternating versions of a dilithium-lusting character named Lazarus on the 1967 Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor.” He got that gig when John Drew Barrymore failed to show up on the morning of the shoot.

In 1968, Brown was on the other end of a last-minute replacement situation. All set to star as Det. Steve McGarrett on the original Hawaii Five-0, he was replaced by Jack Lord five days before filming on the pilot began after producer Leonard Freeman had a change of heart about his leading man.

Fred Ward, who starred in films including “Henry and June,” “Tremors,” “The Right Stuff” and “The Player,” died May 8, his publicist confirmed to Variety. He was 79.

Among his other prominent roles were parts in “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins,” “Miami Blues” and “Short Cuts.”

There was a certain retro quality to the actor’s persona that made Ward seem more akin to Humphrey Bogart or John Garfield (although not quite with those actors’ level of charisma) than to his contemporaries, and it did not seem at all affected. He appeared to be the sort of fellow who hailed from the South Side of Chicago or Hell’s Kitchen, but he was actually from San Diego.

Ward most recently appeared in the second season of HBO’s “True Detective” as Eddie Velcoro, the retired cop father of Colin Farrell’s Det. Ray Velcoro.

He recurred on NBC’s “ER” as the...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

In honor of the esteemed actor Nehemiah Persoff, who recently passed away at age 102, we are running this interview originally conducted with Mr. Persoff in 2010 by the late writer Herb Shadrak.

Nehemiah Persoff: From Jerusalem to Hollywood and Beyond

By Herb Shadrak

Born in Jerusalem in 1919, Nehemiah Persoff went on to become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood. His face is familiar to millions of boomers across North America from his numerous guest appearances on just about every TV series that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s. Persoff’s name may have been unfamiliar to many of these TV viewers, but his face was instantly recognizable. Filmspot.com describes Persoff as a short, dark and stocky-framed actor who specialized in playing ethnic-type villains, although he frequently essayed sympathetic roles as well.. (Witness his heartbreaking moments with Maria Schell in Voyage of the Damned.

Sidney Poitier — film noir icon? That may not be one of the phrases that popped up most frequently in the recent obituaries and appreciations for the late actor, but Poitier did take his turn at noir. The movie with which he made his screen debut, “No Way Out,” will be featured at the upcoming resumption of the annual Noir City Hollywood Festival, which is devoting separate days to the treatment of race and women in the crime dramas of the ’40s and ’50s, along with a continued focus on presenting restorations in 35mm glory.

Noir City Hollywood has been a staple at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre each spring since the late ’90s, but with that theater closed for extensive Netflix-funded renovations, this year it will take place at the Hollywood Legion Theatre a few blocks up Highland Blvd. Hosted as always by Film Noir Foundation president (and...

After exploring “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Country Music,” award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick examined the importance of being Ernest Hemingway in their three-part PBS documentary “Hemingway.” Premiering in April to strong reviews and Emmys buzz, the series weaves Papa’s biography with excerpts from his fiction, non-fiction, and personal correspondence. The series also reviews the mythology around the larger-than-life Hemingway, who penned such classic novels as “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” to reveal the truth behind the bravado.

Feature film adaptations of Hemingway’s works had mixed results. Hemingway Bff Gary Cooper excelled in 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms” and 1943’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. John Garfield gave one of his strongest performance in 1950’s superb noir “The Breaking Point,” based...

Actor, director, and producer Norman Lloyd passed away Monday, May 10 at the age of 106. The actor, a regular staple in the classic film community, was a jack-of-all trades with a career going back to the golden year of 1939. Lloyd’s most notable credits include Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur” and “Spellbound,” the television series “St. Elsewhere,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence,” and Amy Schumer’s “Trainwreck” which he starred in at the age of 100.

Lloyd was born Norman Perlmutter in Jersey City, New Jersey on November 8, 1914. Lloyd started working the vaudeville circuit in New York at age nine. When he graduated high school, he started attending classes at NYU but dropped out quickly. He worked his way up through repertory theater companies before starring on Broadway in 1935.

The budding star soon met Orson Welles, and when Welles launched his famed Mercury Theatre troupe, Lloyd was one of the first members.

by Brent Calderwood

The Lana Turner / John Garfield classic The Postman Always Rings Twice opened 75 years ago in US theaters. Based on James M. Cain’s bestselling 1934 novel about a wife who colludes with her lover in an attempt to pull off the perfect murder, Postman had to gloss over the grime to get past the censors, but it remains one of the best-loved film noirs of all time, and its huge box office success has been credited with cementing Turner’s status as a top-billed star.

While The Film Experience isn't set to celebrate the movies of 1946 until June, Postman belongs to multiple years. Here's a rundown of the four most famous screen adaptations of Cain’s crime novel, listed more or less in order of their critical reputation today...

1. “In the Heat of the Night” (1967)

Why Should I Watch? Director Norman Jewison crafts one of the tautest crime dramas of the 1960s that, on top of the suspense, should have nabbed leading man Sidney Poitier an Oscar. The film follows detective Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) as he investigates a murder in a Southern town. The movie was groundbreaking, at the time, for its depiction of Poitier as a Black cop entering the South. One of the film’s most memorable moments sees Poitier slap a white man who hurls a racial slur at him. In 1967, that was the slap heard round the world. Alongside that, you have an Oscar-winning performance by Rod Steiger as Tibbs’ reluctant partner and a searing performance from Lee Grant. “In the Heat of the Night” airs February 4.

2. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Why Should I Watch? I’m jealous of those experiencing “Dog Day Afternoon” for the...

Concluding our Shelley Winter's Centennial party, here's new contributor Baby Clyde...

My film obsession started around the age of 12 when I somehow acquired my first "Encyclopedia of Movie Stars". It changed my life. I spent literally hours pouring over it, utterly entranced by the legends of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I remember it introduced me to the likes of Luise Rainier and John Garfield who I had never heard of before, but mostly I remember being totally confused by the entry on Shelley Winters.

Who was the glamourous woman who had been a sex bomb and serious actress before going on to win two Oscars and how was she in any way related to the harridan who had been the stuff of my childhood nightmares? Whilst I understood that actors played different roles, I don’t think I’d quite grasped at that point just how different they could...

Although only one of these 1950s B&w thrillers falls within a mile of a hard definition of film noir, all give us glamorous actresses in interesting roles. Claudette Colbert takes her turn at playing a nun, Merle Oberon tries a femme fatale role on for size and Hedy Lamarr does very well for herself as a man-hungry movie star. Kino gives all three excellent transfers, and one comes with an appropriately gossipy audio commentary.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema II

Thunder on the Hill, The Price of Fear, The Female Animal

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1951-58 / B&w / 1:37 Academy, 1:85 widescreen / 84,79,82 min. / Street Date May 12, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas, Anne Crawford, Connie Gilchrist, Gladys Cooper, Michael Pate, Phillip Friend; Merle Oberon, Lex Barker, Charles Drake, Gia Scala, Warren Stevens, Phillip Pine, Konstantin Shayne, Stafford Repp; Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell,...

French director Bertrand Tavernier (“Round Midnight”) – who recently concluded a major TV documentary series, “My Journey Into French Cinema” – received a career tribute award Sunday at the Marrakech Film Festival, presented to him by U.S. actor Harvey Keitel, who starred in Tavernier’s 1980 science-fiction thriller “Death Watch.”

Keitel began the ceremony by comparing the “inspiring and beautiful evening musical call to Allah” to the call made by the film festival to the world. “There is an ancient wisdom that says ‘bring forth what is within you and it will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you it will destroy you’. This festival is its own reply to that wise phrase and filmmakers all around the world continue to respond in their own way.”

He continued: “The music of the cinema has its own call and we’re here tonight to honor one of its prophets.

Klute

Blu ray

Criterion

1971/ 2.39:1/ 114 min.

Starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland

Cinematography by Gordon Willis

Directed by Alan J. Pakula

Jane Fonda plays Bree Daniels, the hooker with a heart of glass in 1971’s Klute. The lanky vamp in the shag cut and form-fitting mini-skirt is desired by many but they’ll have to pay a price – that includes John Klute, a small town detective who wants more from Bree than just sex.

Director Alan J. Pakula’s stylish murder mystery connects the dots between depression era potboilers, the doomed romanticism of 40’s noirs and in particular the European crime films that riled up 42nd street audiences in the late 60’s and early 70’s – macabrely glamorous entertainments featuring debonair degenerates like the man Klute is searching for.

Klute has left his tiny hometown of Tuscarora to find Tom Gruneman, a friend and erstwhile “family man” who’s gone missing in New York City.

It’s a world of rigor and solemnity, a world of devotion, isolation, and self-control. Most often shown within the stylish realm of studied gangsterdom, the cinematic province of Jean-Pierre Melville, realized in just 13 features, was generally consistent in tone, subject matter, and formal order. But it’s because this vision was so thoroughly entrenched in one prominent genre, that a film like When You Read This Letter (Quand tu liras cette lettre), Melville’s third, is regarded as such a discernible outlier. In any event, Melville himself dismissed When You Read This Letter as a mere commercial exercise, a means to the end of funding his own studio. And auteurist critics, just before establishing Melville as one of their pioneering exemplars, were also quick to sweep aside this purportedly blasé work of creative compromise. Contemptuous evaluations are unfortunate, for while When You Read This Letter does stand out from...

Now restored to perfection, this genuine classic hasn’t been seen intact for way over sixty years. Michael Curtiz and Robert Rossen adapt Jack London’s suspenseful allegory in high style, with a superb quartet of actors doing some of their best work: Robinson, Garfield, Lupino and newcomer Alexander Knox.

The Sea Wolf

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. uncut! / Street Date October 10, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Alexander Knox, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Gene Lockhart, Barry Fitzgerald. Stanley Ridges, David Bruce, Francis McDonald, Howard Da Silva, Frank Lackteen, Ralf Harolde

Cinematography: Sol Polito

Film Editor: George Amy

Art Direction: Anton Grot

Special Effects: Byron Haskin, Hans F. Koenekamp

Original Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Written by Robert Rosson, from the novel by Jack London

Produced by Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Chopping up films for television was once the...

From the beginning of Michael Curtiz’s 1950 film The Breaking Point, things are dire for Captain Harry Morgan (John Garfield). Since serving in the military, Harry’s ambition has been to start a fleet of boats to escort sport-fishermen through the waters around Southern California and the Baja Peninsula, but that venture has failed to take off. He has one boat, the Sea Queen, and he’s the only captain in his fleet. When the film begins, Harry has a new client but has to spend the last of his cash to fill up his boat with fuel for the pending excursion. This particular job is a matter of survival, not prosperity.

But his own survival is only a part of this transaction. Curtiz quickly takes us into Harry’s modest seaside home, which, at first, looks as charming as any in an old sitcom. After spending the last of...

Michael Curtiz's 1950 adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal, is coming from Criterion in August!

You can tell it’s film noir — even the cabin cruiser has Venetian blinds. Ernest Hemingway’s favorite film adaptation of his work is this uncompromised story of a good man taking a criminal course on the high seas. John Garfield is again ‘one man alone’ against the system, and the moral quicksand all but swallows up Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter and Wallace Ford.

The Breaking Point

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 889

1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 8, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez, Wallace Ford, Edmon Ryan, Ralph Dumke, Guy Thomajan, William Campbell, Sherry Jackson, Donna Jo Boyce, Victor Sen Yung, Peter Brocco, John Doucette.

Cinematography: Ted D. McCord

Film Editor: Alan Crosland Jr.

Original Music: Howard Jackson, Max Steiner

Written by Ranald MacDougall from a novel by Ernest Hemingway

Produced by Jerry Wald

Directed by Michael Curtiz

After...

Edgar G. Ulmer movies on TCM: 'The Black Cat' & 'Detour' Turner Classic Movies' June 2017 Star of the Month is Audrey Hepburn, but Edgar G. Ulmer is its film personality of the evening on June 6. TCM will be presenting seven Ulmer movies from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, including his two best-known efforts: The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). The Black Cat was released shortly before the officialization of the Christian-inspired Production Code, which would castrate American filmmaking – with a few clever exceptions – for the next quarter of a century. Hence, audiences in spring 1934 were able to witness satanism in action, in addition to other bizarre happenings in an art deco mansion located in an isolated area of Hungary. Sporting a David Bowie hairdo, Boris Karloff is at his sinister best in The Black Cat (“Do you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead”), ailurophobic (a.

Submarine movie evening: Underwater war waged in TCM's Memorial Day films In the U.S., Turner Classic Movies has gone all red, white, and blue this 2017 Memorial Day weekend, presenting a few dozen Hollywood movies set during some of the numerous wars in which the U.S. has been involved around the globe during the last century or so. On Memorial Day proper, TCM is offering a submarine movie evening. More on that further below. But first it's good to remember that although war has, to put it mildly, serious consequences for all involved, it can be particularly brutal on civilians – whether male or female; young or old; saintly or devilish; no matter the nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other label used in order to, figuratively or literally, split apart human beings. Just this past Sunday, the Pentagon chief announced that civilian deaths should be anticipated as “a...

God bless the Criterion Collection for their forthcoming Blu-ray of a nifty 2K restoration of The Breaking Point (1950), the second swipe at Ernest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not, which is on the company’s release schedule for August 2017. You may have heard of the first version… Bogie, Bacall, Hawks, “You know how to whistle, don’t ya?” Remember that one? Well, this one, the story of a down-on-his-luck charter boat captain Harry Morgan (John Garfield) who gets manipulated into a deadly smuggling run to help make ends meet, is directed by Michael Curtiz, and it trades Hawks’ larky, Casablanca-derived vibe for something decidedly darker, a daylight-splashed noir that somehow ferrets out all the chiaroscuro shadows in Hemingway’s material nonetheless. Throughout The Breaking Point, but especially in the movie’s riveting second half when Morgan allows himself to get roped into a second, even more dangerous scheme,...

This summer (or winter, depending on where you live), the Criterion Collection will release five movies on Blu-ray and DVD that may be less familiar but are no less potentially fascinating. First up on August 8 is Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point, arriving on Blu-ray for the first time. Curtiz will forever be remembered for Casablanca, but as a Hollywood studio veteran, he applied his talents to a bewildering range of material. Released the same year as the director's Young Man with a Horn (a musician's melodrama) and Bright Leaf, (pro-cigarette Southern drama), The Breaking Point stars John Garfield and Patricia Neal in an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel about the financially-strapped captain of a charter boat who is drawn into illegal activities. On August...

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

Late summer is all about reflection over at The Criterion Collection, as the library is spending August offering up a handful of unsung classics and new look at some longtime favorites.

Michael Curitz’s “The Breaking Point,” a mostly overlooked Hemingway adaptation, starring John Garfield and Patricia Neal, will be available on Blu-ray for the first time, while Sacha Guitry’s “La poison” arrives on home video for the first time ever. Elsewhere, Mike Leigh’s revelatory “Meantime” is getting a 2K restoration, all the better to enjoy the early work of Tim Roth and Gary Oldman. That’s not all for Oldman fans, however, as Alex Cox’s “Sid & Nancy” hits the collection with a brand new 4K digital restoration. Finally, Walter Matthau stars in the charming comedy “Hopscotch,” also available on Blu-ray in a 2K digital restoration.

Below is the complete list of August additions, with descriptions provided by Criterion.

Ida Lupino was the first woman to direct a classic noir film. In fact, she was the only woman working within the 1950s Hollywood studio system to direct a feature and she directed seven features and more than 100 TV episodes. She was the only woman to direct episodes of the original “The Twilight Zone” series, as well as the only director to have starred in the show.

She was born in London on Feb. 4, 1918, during a German zeppelin bombing. Her father’s forbears were traveling players and puppeteers in Renaissance Italy. Later generations migrated to England in the 17th century. Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a noted comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald, was an actress who was also descended from a theatrical family. A cousin, Lupino Lane, was an internationally popular song-and-dance man.

As a child, she improvised and acted scenes with her younger sister, Rita, in a small...

The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here

Here’s a look at the final phase of King Baggot’s career.

King Baggot, the first ‘King of the Movies’ died July 11th, 1948 penniless and mostly forgotten at age 68. A St. Louis native, Baggot was at one time Hollywood’s most popular star, known is his heyday as “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “More Famous Than the Man in the Moon”. Yet even in his hometown, Baggot had faded into obscurity.

I’ve been back from my Oregon vacation for a couple of weeks now, and though the getaway was a good and necessary one, I’m still in the process of mentally unpacking from a week and a half of relaxing and thinking mostly only about things I wanted to think about. (I also discovered a blackberry cider brewed in the region, the source of a specific sort of relaxation that I’m still finding myself pining for.) It hasn’t helped that our time off and immediate time back coincided with the bombast and general insanity of the Republic National Convention, followed immediately by the disarray and sense of restored hope that bookended the Democrats’ week-long party. The extremity of emotions engendered by those two events, coupled with a profoundly unsettling worry over the base level of our current political discourse and where it may lead this country, hasn...

Bogart finds Bacall and movie history is made; for once the make-believe romantic chemistry is abundantly real. Howard Hawks' wartime Caribbean adventure plays in grand style, with his patented mix of precision and casual cool. It's one of the most entertaining pictures of the 'forties. To Have and Have Not Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. / Street Date July 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael,Dolores Moran, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Szurovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour. Cinematography Sid Hickox Art Direction Charles Novi Film Editor Christian Nyby Original Music Hoagy Carmichael, William Lava, Franz Waxman Written by Jules Furthman, William Faulkner from the novel by Ernest Hemingway Produced by Howard Hawks, Jack L. Warner Directed by Howard Hawks

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Speaking for myself, I can't think of a more 'Hawksian' picture than To Have and Have Not.

My guest for this month is West Anthony, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1976 comedy-drama film The Front. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

Not sure what happened to the audio in the introduction, apologies! The Hollywood blacklist is a term for the treatment of people in the entertainment industry who refused to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee from 1947 to 1960 For a more in depth take on the blacklist, check out the latest season of the phenomenal You Must Remember This podcast WonderCon is a comic book convention that was held annually in Sf until it was cruelly moved to the La area in 2012. Yes I’m still bitter about it. West also recommends the Gabrielle de Cuir directed Thirty Years of Treason by Eric Bentley Among the people famously blacklisted were Lillian Hellman, Lionel Stander,...

Because we're having fun with this little feature we'll continue. On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1881 Ahead of her time Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross. She doesn't get a biopic because Hollywood is only interested in "Great Man" biopics

1916 Happy Centennial to author Harold Robbins who penned 25 best-sellers some of which became famous movies like The Carpetbaggers (1964), the Elvis flick King Creole (1958), and the notorious Pia Zadora Razzie winner The Lonely Lady (1983)

Rope (1949) and Swoon (1992) - two great movies inspired by the Leopold & Loeb case

1924 Chicago college students Leopold & Loeb murder a teenage boy in a "thrill killing." Their crime inspires the story of the gay deviants in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1949), the Cannes Best Actor winning Compulsion (1958) and is recreated in the New Queer Cinema classic Swoon (1992)

1926 Kay Kendall of Les Girls (1957) fame is born

1952 Two time Oscar nominee John Garfield (best...

Remember Charlie Chaplin's 'The Killer with a Heart?' You too will be frustrated by this well-produced story of a slum kid who commits an unpardonable crime... except that a do-gooder priest wants to pardon him. Dana Andrews and Farley Granger star but the good work is in the smaller roles of this urban tragedy. Edge of Doom DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 97 min. / Street Date February 9, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 18.59 Starring Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Robert Keith, Paul Stewart, Mala Powers, Adele Jergens, Harold Vermilyea, John Ridgely, Douglas Fowley, Mabel Paige, Howland Chamberlain, Houseley Stevenson Sr., Jean Inness, Ellen Corby, Ray Teal. Cinematography Harry Stradling Film Editor Daniel Mandell Original Music Hugo Friedhofer Written by Philip Yordan Produced by Samuel Goldwyn Directed by Mark Robson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

What's the most hopeless, depressing, feel-bad film noir on the charts? How about Detour,...

Tired of stupid sword 'n' sandal costume pictures? Robert Rossen's all-star bio-epic of the charter founder of the Masons is a superior analysis of political ambition and the ruthless application of power. Yeah, he's wearing a blond wig, but Richard Burton captures the force of Alexander without camping up Asia Minor. Alexander the Great Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 136 min. / Ship Date March 15, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom, Danielle Darrieux, Barry Jones, Harry Andrews, Stanley Baker, Niall MacGinnis, Peter Cushing. Cinematography Robert Krasker Art Direction Andrej Andrejew Film Editor Ralph Kemplen Original Music Mario Nascimbene Produced by Gordon Griffith, Robert Rossen Written and Directed by Robert Rossen

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Critical opinions aren't supposed to flip-flop with every screening of a film, but I have to admit that my appreciation of Robert Rossen's 1956 epic Alexander the Great...

Bogie and Bacall are back, but with Edward G. Robinson's oily gangster breathing down their necks -- "Nyah!" Excellent direction (John Huston) and great performances (Claire Trevor) have made this one an eternal classic. We want subtitles for whatever Eddie whispered in Betty's ear... A most-requested, or demanded, HD release from Warners. Key Largo Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 100 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence, Dan Seymour, Monte Blue, William Haade, Jay Silverheels, Rodd Redwing. Cinematography Karl Freund Film Editor Rudi Fehr Original Music Max Steiner Written by Richard Brooks, John Huston from the play by Maxwell Anderson Produced by Jerry Wald Directed by John Huston

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I'd guess that Key Largo became a classic the moment it hit the screen,...

Shall we sing the praises of actress Marie Windsor? A self--assessed Queen of the Cheapies, she was anything but cheap, gracing some of the better films noirs and delivering some of the most deliciously acidic dialogue ever heard on screen. The woman doesn't just have bedroom eyes, she has bedroom everything, and a wicked smile to go with it.

No Man's Woman Blu-ray Olive Films 1955 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Marie Windsor, John Archer, Patric Knowles, Nancy Gates, Jil Jarmyn, Richard Crane, Louis Jean Heydt, Percy Helton, Morris Ankrum. Cinematography Bud Thackery Film Editor Howard A. Smith Original Music R. Dale Butts Written by John K. Butler story by Don Martin Produced by Rudy Ralston Directed by Franklin Adreon

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Marie Windsor is really something in Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil, lounging around in an effort to seduce John Garfield.

Michael Curtiz's wartime tale of Devil's Island convict Humphrey Bogart fighting to get back and defend France has a still-controversial scene of violence. The convoluted storyline nests enough flashbacks-within-flashbacks to confuse any viewer, and packs the screen with every actor on the Warner lot who can handle a foreign accent. With Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, and Michèle Morgan. Passage to Marseille Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 109 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loder, Victor Francen, Vladimir Sokoloff, Eduardo Ciannelli. Cinematography James Wong Howe Art Direction Carl Julius Weyl Film Editor Owen Marks Original Music Max Steiner Written by Casey Robinson, Jock Moffitt from a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall Produced by Jack L. Warner Directed by Michael Curtiz...

Patricia Neal ca. 1950. Patricia Neal movies: 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,' 'A Face in the Crowd' Back in 1949, few would have predicted that Gary Cooper's leading lady in King Vidor's The Fountainhead would go on to win a Best Actress Academy Award 15 years later. Patricia Neal was one of those performers – e.g., Jean Arthur, Anne Bancroft – whose film career didn't start out all that well, but who, by way of Broadway, managed to both revive and magnify their Hollywood stardom. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating Sunday, Aug. 16, '15, to Patricia Neal. This evening, TCM is showing three of her best-known films, in addition to one TCM premiere and an unusual latter-day entry. 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Robert Wise was hardly a genre director. A former editor (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons...