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Courtesy of BFI

by James Cameron-wilson

Between the years 1931 and 1937, Michael Powell directed twenty-three films: twenty-three films in six years. Sadly, ten of those works are no longer with us due to the fact that they were printed on the highly volatile nitrate film stock, which was not only extremely difficult and expensive to store, but was highly flammable. Michael Powell, who went on to direct such classics as The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, was still in his twenties when he started directing but was known for his sense of economy and swiftness of turning a project around. Thanks to a government initiative set up to boost British cinema by establishing a quota system – so that a proportion of British films had to be shown in British cinemas alongside the big-budget Hollywood releases – the ‘quota quickie’ was born.

Courtesy of Studiocanal

by James Cameron-wilson

Hard to believe today, but Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1949 drama was a flop. A glum, perhaps cynical, claustrophobic piece of film noir shot in black-and-white, The Small Back Room was released just four years after the end of the Second World War – and it was not what postwar audiences wanted to see. Indeed, it is hardly one of the most celebrated titles in the Powell/Pressburger catalogue and I, for one, had never seen it before. Even so, having just watched this consummately photographed and magically restored work, I would say without hesitation it is one of my very favourite Powell and Pressburger films.

With the psychological complexity of a good play and replete with telling touches, it blends both the disciplines of Hollywood film noir with the Expressionism of the Weimar cinema of Germany, but with its own ineffable, stiff upper lip Englishness.

Thelma Schoonmaker at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2010. Photo by Petr Novák.At 83 years old, Thelma Schoonmaker has no intention of slowing down. Best known for her career-long collaboration with Martin Scorsese, the three-time Oscar-winning editor is still juggling multiple projects. As we sat down for our conversation in London, the press juggernaut for her latest film with Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon, was in full swing, while back in New York, her editing consoles were whirring away, already at work on the duo’s next feature: a documentary on the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It’s a film close to the legendary editor’s heart. Schoonmaker was married to Powell from 1984 until his death in 1990. She was introduced to the filmmaker—one of the greatest in the history of British cinema—by Scorsese, a lifelong admirer who had set out to rehabilitate Powell’s critical reputation.

August isn't especially famous for its great movies. As months go, the eighth one on the calendar has often been a bit of a wasteland for Hollywood, as blockbusters peter off, kids have a lot less free time and money, and studio executives need to find somewhere to dump their proverbial dead bodies.

If you want a good example, you can pretty much throw a dart at any year after "Jaws" popularized the concept of summer blockbuster season. For example, let's take a look at 1993. 30 years ago, August was a month for dreck comedies like "Son of the Pink Panther," family film misfires like "Father Hood" and "Surf Ninjas," and the weird-ass "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday."

But then again, there are exceptions to every rule. There were also a few excellent motion pictures in August 1993. The increasingly timeless classic "The Fugitive" came out that month, along with...

About 43 minutes into the 1933 pre-code horror classic “King Kong,” aspiring actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) finds herself on a remote island struggling to free herself from the two stone pillars she’s tied to as an offering for the giant ape its inhabitants worship. The trees rustle, and then we see him. Kong. The camera quickly cuts to Wray, who instantly freezes, holding in her breath as if her life depended on it. The camera zooms in on the ape’s face, his eyes growing wide, then suddenly cuts back to Wray, who lets out the most iconic blood-curdling scream in cinema history.

And thus, the scream queen was born.

“I’d become Hollywood’s scream queen without even realizing it,” Wray told journalist James Bawden in a 1989 interview. After the film wrapped, Wray recorded what she called an “Aria of Agonies” — screams and moans for the editors to use as they pleased.

It may not have Doris Day singing "Que Sera, Sera" like its 1956 remake, but Alfred Hitchcock's original 1934 film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" represents some of the master's best work before he came to Hollywood. It's got the Hitchcock magic, that strange movie logic that doesn't need to make complete sense to be wildly entertaining. Like so many of the movies he made later, it embraces some classic beats: a man on the run, complex international intrigue, and as much suspense as he could wring out of every moment.

It also opens with a moment of surprising levity, following British couple Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) on their holiday in the Swiss Alps. When their French friend Louis (Pierre Fresnay) is mysteriously shot while dancing, he divulges a crucial secret to Jill -- where to find a note with dangerous information about the planned...

Exclusive: Here’s your first trailer for thriller The Most Dangerous Game, a remake of the 1930s classic.

Starring are Tom Berenger (Platoon), Chris “Ct” Tamburello (MTV’s The Challenge), two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) and Caspar Van Dien (Starship Troopers).

North America home entertainment firm Mill Creek Entertainment is co-producer, marking their first co-pro on a scripted feature, and will release stateside in early August. The Koenig Pictures production was made in association with Charach Productions.

The original “man hunting man” story gets a twist as father and son are washed ashore after their steamership explodes. The men find refuge on a mysterious island where their nefarious host, Baron Von Wolf, reveals to them that the island is his game preserve where human beings serve as the ultimate hunt. Berenger plays a man who has been hiding on the island but whose sanity...

Exclusive: Two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) and Caspar Van Dien (Starship Troopers) have joined Tom Berenger (Platoon) and Chris “Ct” Tamburello (MTV’s The Challenge) in thriller The Most Dangerous Game, a remake of the 1930s classic.

North America home ent firm Mill Creek Entertainment has joined the project as a co-producer, marking their first co-pro on a scripted feature. Mill Creek will oversee the North American release of the film.

The Koenig Pictures production, which is being made in association with Charach Productions, is currently in production and is aiming for a summer 2022 release. Today we can reveal some first look images for the film.

The original “man hunting man” story gets a twist as father and son are washed ashore after their steamership explodes. The men find refuge on a mysterious island where their nefarious host, Baron Von Wolf, reveals to them...

Exclusive: Chris ‘Ct’ Tamburello (MTV’s The Challenge) and Oscar nominee Tom Berenger (Platoon) have been set to star in a remake of 1930s classic The Most Dangerous Game.

The original “man hunting man” story gets a twist as father and son are washed ashore after their steamership explodes. The men find refuge on a mysterious island where their nefarious host, Baron Von Wolf, reveals to them that the island is his game preserve where human beings serve as the ultimate hunt. Berenger plays a man who has been hiding on the island but who’s sanity is on the verge of collapse.

Writer-director Justin Lee (Final Kill) is currently in production on the project which is being filmed on the Koenig Pictures Backlot in the Pacific Northwest. Other cast members include Elissa Dowling, Kevin Porter, Eddie Finlay and Randy Charach.

Koenig Pictures is producing the picture alongside Quiet On Set,...

(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.) The Movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Where You Can Stream It: The Criterion Channel, HBO Max The Pitch: On a family vacation in Switzerland, a couple (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) […]

The post The Quarantine Stream: ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ Features a God-Tier Performance From Peter Lorre appeared first on /Film.

Can a war movie be reassuring in a time of crisis? Each of the films in this excellent collection stress people working together: to repel invaders, escape from or attack the enemy, and just to survive in sticky situations. All are inspirational in that they see cooperation, organization and leadership doing good work. See: the ‘other’ great escape picture, the original account of Dunkirk, and the aerial bombing movie that inspired the final battle in Star Wars. Plus a tense ‘what if?’ invasion tale, and a desert trek suspense ordeal that’s one of the best war films ever. The most relevant dialogue in the set? Seeing the total screw-up at Dunkirk, Bernard Lee determines that England will have to re-organize with new people in key leadership positions, people who know what they’re doing. I’m all for that Here and Now, fella.

Their Finest Hour 5 British WWII Classics

Went The Day Well,...

Alfred Hitchcock celebrates his 119th birthday on August 13. Born in 1899, the director has long been revered as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. He also holds the unfortunate distinction of being one of Oscar’s biggest losers, with five Best Director nominations and no wins. Still, who needs an Oscar when you’ve impacted world cinema as significantly as “Hitch” has? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked from worst to best.

Known as “the Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock cut his teeth directing silent movies in his native England. With films like “The Lodger” (1927), he gained a reputation for helming tense and stylish psychological thrillers. With the invention of sound came an added element to Hitchcock’s work: a sly sense of humor.

He moved to America in 1940 to direct two films that earned Best Picture nominations: “Foreign Correspondent” and “Rebecca,...

Based on a short story by Graham Greene, this 1942 “what-if?” war film from the venerable Ealing Studios tells the story of a small British village overrun by invading German soldiers whose inhabitants strike back and violently murder their oppressors.The cast is equally venerable including Leslie Banks, Mervyn Johns and Basil Sydney. The director was Alberto Cavalcanti, who headlined that quintessential horror film omnibus, Dead of Night. Barely released in the Us due to its strong content, it is fairly bracing to watch even today. The original trailer is Mia so we’re using the home video release trailer.

Chamber of Horrors

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber

1940 / B&W / 1:33 / Street Date March 21, 2017

Starring: Lilli Palmer, Leslie Banks.

Cinematography: Alex Bryce, Ernest Palmer

Film Editor: Ted Richards

Written by Gilbert Gunn, Norman Lee

Produced by John Argyle

Directed by Norman Lee

Near the turn of the century a struggling war correspondent named Edgar Wallace began churning out detective stories for British monthlies like Detective Story Magazine to help make the rent. Creative to a fault, his preposterously prolific output (exacerbated by ongoing gambling debts) soon earned him a legion of fans along with a pointedly ambiguous sobriquet, “The Man Who Wrote Too Much.”

A reader new to Wallace’s work could be excused for thinking the busy writer was making it up as he went along… because that’s pretty much what he did. He dictated his narratives, unedited, into a dictaphone for transcription by his secretary where they would then...

March 21st is a big day for cult film fans, not to mention all you RoboCop enthusiasts out there, as Tuesday has a variety of horror and sci-fi offerings that you’ll undoubtedly want to add to your home entertainment collections. Scream Factory is releasing a pair of amazing Collector's Edition Blu-rays for RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and Kino Lorber is keeping busy with a trio of HD releases, too: Chamber of Horrors, Invisible Ghost, and A Game of Death.

Other notable titles making their way home on March 21st include Wolf Creek: Season One, Eloise, John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs, and Frankenstein Created Bikers.

Chamber of Horrors (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)

Newly Mastered in HD! Chamber of Horrors was based on the classic novel, The Door with Seven Locks by Edgar Wallace (King Kong, The Terror) - it was the second Wallace adaptation brought to the States by Monogram Pictures.

By Tim Greaves

Not the most beloved entry in Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic oeuvre – by either audiences in general or the director himself – 1939's Jamaica Inn (based on a Daphne du Maurier novel first published three years earlier) is nevertheless a serviceable enough piece of drama, which perhaps finds its most ideal place nowadays as an undemanding rainy Sunday afternoon programmer.

Following the death of her mother, Mary Yellen (Maureen O'Hara) travels from Ireland to England intending to take up residence with her relatives at their Cornish hostelry the Jamaica Inn. After an unexpected detour, which on face value proves beneficial when she makes the acquaintance of local squire and magistrate Sir Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton), Mary arrives at her destination to find her browbeaten Aunt Patience (Maria Ney) living in fear of a tyrannical husband, the brutish Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks). It also transpires that the Inn is the...

Acquiring the late Lord Selford's fortune proves to be a deadly and nerve-shredding task in Chamber of Horrors, aka The Door with Seven Locks, a 1940 horror mystery movie coming out on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber.

A release date and special features for the Chamber of Horrors Blu-ray / DVD have not been revealed yet, but we'll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further details. In the meantime, we have the official announcement from Kino Lorber, as well as the movie's synopsis and poster artwork.

From Kino Lorber: "Coming Soon to DVD and Blu-ray!

Chamber of Horrors (1940) Starring Lilli Palmer, Leslie Banks, Romilly Lunge, Gina Malo and Robert Montgomery - Screenplay by Norman Lee (The Monkey's Paw) and Gilbert Gunn (The Cosmic Monster) - Based on the Novel "The Door with Seven Locks" by Edgar Wallace - Directed by Norman Lee."

Synopsis (via Blu-ray.com): "When the wealthy Lord Selford dies,...

or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015

This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.

What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...

“Make Way For Pengallan!”

By Raymond Benson

The general consensus among critics and fans alike is that Jamaica Inn, the last British film Alfred Hitchcock made before moving to America to work in Hollywood, is not one of the director’s best. It isn’t. It definitely belongs in the lower echelon of his canon. However, there is still much to savor in the picture, and the new Blu-ray restoration by the Cohen Film Collection is a worthwhile medium with which to revisit this odd action-adventure thriller.

Based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier (the first of three works by the author that Hitchcock adapted), Jamaica Inn is a story of pirates operating out of an English coastal village in the early 1800s, thus making it one of Hitch’s few period dramas. Charles Laughton was a co-producer on the film as well as the star, and accounts of...

Constance Cummings: Stage and film actress ca. early 1940s. Constance Cummings on stage: From Sacha Guitry to Clifford Odets (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Flawless 'Blithe Spirit,' Supporter of Political Refugees.”) In the post-World War II years, Constance Cummings' stage reputation continued to grow on the English stage, in plays as diverse as: Stephen Powys (pseudonym for P.G. Wodehouse) and Guy Bolton's English-language adaptation of Sacha Guitry's Don't Listen, Ladies! (1948), with Cummings as one of shop clerk Denholm Elliott's mistresses (the other one was Betty Marsden). “Miss Cummings and Miss Marsden act as fetchingly as they look,” commented The Spectator. Rodney Ackland's Before the Party (1949), delivering “a superb performance of controlled hysteria” according to theater director and Michael Redgrave biographer Alan Strachan, writing for The Independent at the time of Cummings' death. Clifford Odets' Winter Journey / The Country Girl (1952), as...

'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...

Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...

Top Ten Scream Queens: Barbara Steele, who both emitted screams and made others do same, is in a category of her own. Top Ten Scream Queens Halloween is over until next year, but the equally bewitching Day of the Dead is just around the corner. So, dead or alive, here's my revised and expanded list of cinema's Top Ten Scream Queens. This highly personal compilation is based on how memorable – as opposed to how loud or how frequent – were the screams. That's the key reason you won't find listed below actresses featured in gory slasher films. After all, the screams – and just about everything else in such movies – are as meaningless as their plots. You also won't find any screaming guys (i.e., Scream Kings) on the list below even though I've got absolutely nothing against guys who scream in horror, whether in movies or in life. There are...

Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

Jamaica Inn

Written by Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

UK, 1939

With 23 feature films to his credit, by 1939, Alfred Hitchcock was the most famous director in England. And with his celebrity and his reputation for quality motion pictures, he had attained a degree of creative control unmatched in the British film industry at the time. When it comes to Jamaica Inn, for more than three decades the last film he would fully shoot in his native land, this reputation and this independence would be thoroughly tested. Available now on a stunning new Blu-ray from Cohen Film Collection, which greatly improves the murky visuals and distorted sound marring all previous home video versions, Jamaica Inn had the renowned Charles Laughton as supervising star and producer. Predictably, he and Hitchcock did not always see eye to eye as they jockeyed for authority on set. The result is a contentious...

Cohen Media Group beautifully restores Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 title Jamaica Inn. A title worthy of reconsideration, considered by many to be an inferior work from the master of suspense, even from the director himself, it’s a definite gem, particularly for fans of Charles Laughton. The actor, whose production company basically commandeered the production, gives a swarthy, deliciously overwrought performance. It’s a standout in a career already filled with such distinction. The film also serves as the film debut of the beautiful Maureen O’Hara, here playing a glorified damsel in distress.

The narrative is relatively simple, set around 1800 as young Irish lass Mary (O’Hara) makes a surprise visit to the Cornish coast to visit her Aunt Patience (Marie Ney) following the death of her mother. Patience lives with Mary’s uncle Joss (Leslie Banks, who vies with Laughton for greatest scene chewer), a man that provides the...

The Most Dangerous Game. Courtesy of Rko Radio Pictures Inc./Photofest.Early in his career as a leading man, Joel McCrea was cast in two films about dangerous animals on the loose. Using the same jungle sets, the same directors (Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack), and even the same stars (Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong) as their upcoming King Kong (1933), Rko’s production of The Most Dangerous Game (1932) submitted to economic shortcuts. Both adventure films would be made at the same time by organizing the same constituents in different roles. Even our hero McCrea would be asked to cross over to Team Kong, only to pull out thanks to thesesame frugal actions. Within this year of production McCrea’s star power had already exceeded what the studios could afford him.The Most Dangerous Game’s first reveal of McCrea’s Bob reveals him wearing a sport shirt adorned with...

Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh look gorgeous but it's Flora Robson as Queen Elizabeth who steals the show

Fire Over England (1937)

Director: William K Howard

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: C

In 1588, the Spanish Armada sailed against Elizabeth I's England.

International relations

Philip II's Spain is beleaguered by English pirates. The Spanish ambassador turns up at the court of Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) to protest. Elizabeth insists she has nothing to do with piracy, and considers herself Philip's loving sister (as history buffs will know, he was married to her half-sister, Mary I). "His portrait still hangs in a place of honour," she assures the ambassador. "My king does not ask your grace to hang his portrait, but to hang his enemies," the ambassador zings back.

Piracy

Meanwhile, fictional English pirate's son Michael Ingolby (Laurence Olivier) is aboard a ship when it is taken by the Inquisition. He jumps...

The 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival continues to expand, with newly added appearances by legendary stars at screenings of some of their most memorable films, including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan, Barrie Chase, Polly Bergen,Coleen Gray, Theodore Bikel and Norman Lloyd, as well as producer Stanley Rubin, Clara Bow biographer David Stenn, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film collections manager Katie Trainor and director Nicholas Ray’s widow, Susan Ray. In addition, TCM’s Essentials Jr. host and Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader will present screenings of Shane (1953) and The Ladykillers(1955).

And The Film Forum’s Bruce Goldstein will present a special screening of Frank Capra’s The Donovan Affair (1929), complete with live voice actors and sound effects to replace the film’s long-lost soundtrack.Mel Brooks is slated to talk about his comedy The Twelve Chairs (1970). Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan...

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Hitchcock’S Breakthrough

By Raymond Benson

Finally! After years of sub-par and downright bootleg quality transfers of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 British classic, The Man Who Knew Too Much, we now have a very decent-looking presentation. Thanks to The Criterion Collection, the film has undergone a new digital restoration, and it looks great. We can finally see a clear photographic image! Peter Lorre is no longer blurry and in soft-focus. And the sound! Thanks to an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, we can now actually hear the dialogue and understand it, whereas on previous releases everyone sounded like they were speaking from inside a barrel.

The Man Who Knew Too Much was Hitchcock’s first hugely successful talkie. In fact, Man was the number one picture in the UK in 1934, and it more or less introduced America to the Master of Suspense when it was imported across the pond. So, in many ways,...

While New Yorkers have plenty of opportunity to see classic films on the big screen, you'll be hard pressed to find a lineup as front to back awesome as the Film Society Of Lincoln Center's "15 For 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures."

The series honors the reknowned arthouse distribution shingle founded in 1997 that has brought some of the best known (and previously unknown) classics of cinema to American audiences. And the selection here by programmers Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern represents the breadth and scope of the films Rialto has put their stamp on, ranging from the French New Wave ("Breathless") to film noir ("Rififi") to comedy ("Billy Liar") and more. There is something here for everybody and with the series kicking off tonight, we've got a special prize for some lucky readers.

Courtesy of Film Society Of Lincoln Center, we've got a copy of the excellent Rialto DVD...

Hollywood has been running out of ideas since filmmakers started making movies in Hollywood. Even the first "official" movie made in Hollywood proper, Cecil B. DeMille's 1914 Western The Squaw Man, wasn't an original story. DeMille's Western was based on Edwin Milton Royle's play. And prior to that, there had been movie shorts with titles such as The Squaw and the Man (1910), Cow-boy and the Squaw (1910), and The Squaw Man's Sweetheart (1912). So, no one should be too surprised that remakes, adaptations, and reboots have been Hollywood staples for decades. And here's another remake in the works: DreamWorks and Working Title Films are to revisit (or reboot, as the case may be) Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 Best Picture Oscar winner Rebecca, which starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. As per Variety, Eastern Promises' screenwriter Steven Knight will use Daphne Du Maurier's novel as the source for the project, sort...

L.A. Banks (Leslie Esdaile Banks) was a writer of urban fantasy, and passed at only 51 years of age on August 2, 2011 from adrenal cancer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Born in 1959, she was a Sagittarius who lived in Pennsylvania her entire life, attending the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. She was just diagnosed with cancer in June, 2011. She spent her remaining weeks in the hospital with family and friends, and fans helped raise money through charity events to help pay for hospital bills.

She wrote crime, romance, and more under various pseudonyms such as Leslie Esdaile, Leslie E. Banks, Leslie Banks, and Leslie Esdaile Banks - she was a prolific and constant writer.

Her first fantasy novel was Minion (2003), which began the Vampire Huntress Legends series. That continued with The Awakening (2003), The Hunted (2004), The Bitten (2005), The Forbidden (2005), The Damned (2006), The Forsaken (2006), The Wicked (2007), The Cursed (2007), The Darkness (2008), The Shadows (2008), and...

Went the Day Well? (1942)

Director: Alberto Cavalcanti

Based on Graham Greene’s short story The Lieutenant Died Last

Screenplay by John Dighton

UK , 1942

How many films and TV shows have left you quaking at the thought of your quiet home town being overrun by flesh-eating zombies or sex-crazed vampires? When Ealing Studios released Went the Day Well? in 1942, anxieties were focused on equally fiendish invaders from across the English Channel. You never know, that polite British officer sipping tea in your drawing room, might turn out to be part of the advance party from the Third Reich.

Based on a short story by Graham Greene, Alberto Cavalcanti’s film is set in the idyllic English village of Bramley End (in reality, Turville in Buckinghamshire). A framing device introduces us first to the church warder (played by Mervyn Johns), who sets the scene for the extraordinary events of Whitsun weekend 1942. The...

Editor-turned-producer Hugh Stewart, among whose credits is Alfred Hitchcock's original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, died at his home in Denham, in the United Kingdom, on May 31. Stewart was 100 years old. One of Hitchcock's most respected British efforts, the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much is considered by many to be far superior to the 1956 Hollywood remake, in which James Stewart and Doris Day replaced Leslie Banks and Edna Best, whose son mysteriously disappears. About Hitchcock's working methods, Stewart remarked in the documentary Hitchcock – The Early Years: "When he came on stage for the [...]...

No doubt this comes as four-year-old news to many Ray Harryhausen fans, but in the whirl and rush of so many DVD and Blu-ray releases of interest, I’d completely missed out on (or perhaps simply forgotten about) the fact that special effects genius Harryhausen had very recently given us the results of his ambitious efforts to colorize—yes, colorize—three movies dear to his heart: She, Things to Come, and The Most Dangerous Game. I came upon this information intending first to offer simply a look back at Game, Rko Pictures’ 1932 jungle-action-horror movie, a compact and entertaining thriller adapted from the Richard Connell story. I knew there was a Criterion release of the film (that I’d seen ages ago but don’t own), but the existence of this re-issue came as a genuine surprise. After all, there are some word pairings that appear pretty unnatural at first. Harryhausen-colorization...

Predators (15)

(Nimród Antal, 2010, Us) Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo. 107 mins.

Twenty-three years and three sequels after the original, the sub-Alien sci-fi movie at last gets a proper follow-up, and even if Brody barely has the bulk to fill one of Schwarzenegger's combat boots, this serves up the semi-guilty action pleasures you'd demand. Brody is one of a gang of random human badasses who wind up in a strange jungle and realise they're now training material for apprentice alien badasses. So who will survive to be the, er, worst ass?

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (12A)

(David Slade, 2010, Us) Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner. 124 mins.

Another teen-conquering exercise in sexless erotica, but at least there's an actual film around it this time. A new vampire threat and Bella's love triangle won't be enough to entice newcomers, but fans will enjoy the unconsummated fantasy thrills they crave.

Really, what's not to like about reissued rustic village shoot-'em-up, Went The Day Well?

Playing like some stiff-upper-lip, second world war, homefront version of John Milius's Red Dawn, it should delight us that Alberto Cavalcanti's Went The Day Well? is back in circulation once again. In its casting and its subversive storytelling, its 1942 setting offers a parallel universe wherein not only are the Nazis invading Britain and coldly massacring the Home Guard, but postwar TV battleaxes such as Thora Hird and Patricia Hayes are caught in cinematic amber as plucky young Land Girls vigorously sticking it to the filthy Boche (with axes, bayonets, rifles and household pepper). And the goose-stepping enemy are played by quintessentially English postwar actors, including Powell and Pressburger's phallocratic fave David Farrar and perpetual Pow Co James Donald, plus Alexander Korda's very own imperialist hero, Leslie Banks, as the head Nazi collaborator and local squire.

Tina Fey and Steve Carell play a married couple mistaken for spies in the new comedy Date Night. At first shown as a boring suburban husband and wife, they find themselves involved in an action plot consisting of corrupt cops, gangsters, chases and shoot outs. Sound familiar? Well, at least neither one actually turns out to be a spy, a la Mr. and Mrs. Smith, True Lies and the upcoming Killers. No, they're just an average Jane and Joe unexpectedly and unwillingly thrust into a night of adventure. But they aren't the first spousal duo to find themselves in an action scenario. Just recall the following seven couples of yore:

Bob and Jill Lawrence in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1936)

In Alfred Hitchcock's first version of this suspense story, Leslie Banks and Edna Best play a British couple just trying to vacation in Switzerland with their daughter, but...

I re-watched this last week via Netflix, and just discovered that the entire film is on YouTube, thus I’m sharing.

It’s a 1932 film called The Most Dangerous Game, and stars Leslie Banks as a big game hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic prey – human beings; specifically, his house-guests, played by Fay Wray and Joel McCrea. However, I’m sharing it specifically for you to check out Noble Johnson as Ivan, the mute brute, loyal to his master, the big game hunter.

He’s the sole African American actor in a sea of mostly white men; however, he doesn’t play a black man. He plays a Russian, and he’s essentially in “white face,” we could say, and covered in hair. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter because, as I said, he’s mute. His job is to look and be mean, taking orders from the boss,...

This week Warner Bros. announced it's moving ahead with a Gilligan's Island movie, and a number of people responding to the news (including our own Elisabeth) obviously mentioned Lost. And why not? It's impossible to imagine a story of castaways that ignores what's being done on the hit ABC series. Merely stranding a varied ensemble on an island is just too plain now. Even with a bumbling sailor in the mix. So here's my idea: combine Gilligan's Island with a remake of The Most Dangerous Game.

Based on Richard Connell's short story, The Most Dangerous Game is about a famed game hunter who ends up shipwrecked on an island inhabited by an evil aristocrat who finds his thrills in hunting human prey. Like Lost there is the intentional luring of castaways and the idea of playing a figurative form of outdoor chess. The story has been redone even more...