News

Lisa Montell, a starlet in the 1950s and ’60s who appeared in such films as World Without End opposite Rod Taylor and Ten Thousand Bedrooms alongside Dean Martin, has died. She was 89.

Montell died March 7 in Southern California Hospital at Van Nuys of heart problems and sepsis, her daughter, Shireen Janti, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Poland, Montell portrayed characters of various ethnicities during her career. In Naked Paradise (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef (1958), directed back-to-back in Kauai by Roger Corman, she played Hawaiians.

She also showed up on several TV Westerns, including The Gene Autry Show, Broken Arrow, Tales of Wells Fargo, Colt .45, Have Gun — Will Travel, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Bat Masterson and Maverick.

In the sci-fi feature World Without End (1956), written and directed by Edward Bernds, Montell portrayed a woman on Earth in the 26th century, hundreds of years after a devastating atomic war, who...

Thrillers from the Vault – 8 Classic Films

Blu-ray

Mill Creek Entertainment

1935, 1939, 1940 / B&w / 1.33: 1 / Blu ray

Starring Boris Karloff, Ann Doran, Evelyn Keyes,

Written by Arthur Strawn, Karl Brown, Robert Andrews

Directed by Roy William Neill, Nick Grindé

In 1934 Boris Karloff was an unhappy actor, he was one of Universal’s most illustrious stars, yet good parts were scarce, and intelligent horror roles like hen’s teeth—the occasional work at other studios was both a boon and a welcome distraction.

In 1935 the studio loaned him to Columbia for The Black Room, a blood and thunder gothic in which Karloff would play two roles, an aristocrat and his evil twin—a dark fable played out in shadows, but a light at the end of the tunnel for the 47 year old actor who relished a challenge. Even brighter news for Karloff, Roy William Neill was signed to direct. Known for his exacting nature,...

When you think of body horror, "The Fly" is easily a Top 10 contender among the most influential entries. Both the 1958 original and the '86 remake thrilled audiences in very different ways. While the original relied on costuming and admittedly shoddy (by today's standards) visual effects, the remake arrived in a decade famously known for its stomach-turning practical effects. Yet both managed to push the envelope on horror storytelling that often went over the edge, perhaps even taking things way too far.

The first film, directed by Kurt Neumann, was based upon a 1957 short story of the same name. It became a box office success and spawned two sequels, 1959's "Return of the Fly" and "Curse of the Fly" in 1965. Despite a rough road from idea to creation, director David Cronenberg's 1986 remake flipped everything about the original on its head. A sequel, simply titled "The Fly II," followed three years...

Stooges and Bowery Boys director Edward Bernds brings his budget-savvy aesthetic to one of Aip’s profitable drive-in delinquency teen exploitation pics. Bernds was accidentally nominated for an Oscar a year earlier, when the Academy confused his Bowery Boys vehicle High Society with the Bing Crosby-Grace Kelly musical. Tfh Guru Jonathan Kaplan remade this in 1994 for cable.

The post Reform School Girl appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

The Three Stooges Collection –

Volumes 1 and 2

Blu ray

Mill Creek Entertainment

1941-1965 / 1:33, 1:85 / Street Date April 21, 2015

Starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Joe DeRita

Cinematography by Franz Planer, Scotty Welbourne, William P. Whitley

Written by Raphael Hayes, Norman Maurer

Directed by Sidney Salkow, Edward Bernds, Norman Maurer

A frenetic mix of baggy-pants vaudeville and the Spanish Inquisition, the eye-poking exploits of The Three Stooges have appalled faint-hearted sophisticates and overprotective mothers for close to a century.

The team’s lowdown influence still lingers – not in the brutal roughhousing demonstrated by the lads in their most frantic moments but in their low class assault on upper class sensibilities – from the semen-sculpted hair-do of the Farrelly Brothers’s There’s Something About Mary to Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass to the mortifying contagion of diarrhea suffered by Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids, the Stooge abides.

And then there’s the Farrelly’s ode to brainlessness,...

By Hank Reineke

There’s enough cross-plot evidence to suggest that some ideas woven into World Without End (Allied Artists, 1956) were based in part on H.G. Wells’ classic 1895 novel The Time Machine. Wells’ immortal tale would, of course, soon follow the less-celebrated World Without End as a lavish, big-screen Hollywood feature of 1960. Though director-writer Edward Bernds readily admitted to familiarity with Wells’ The Time Machine, he insisted his screenplay was a wholly original creation. Though the similarities between the two works cannot be discounted, Bernds refutation has merit. Certainly modern science-fiction’s fascinations with time and space travel were hardly of the abstract, and most certainly predated Wells’ own literary musings on the subject.

That said, Bernds World Without End is of its own time and primarily a stereotypical 1950s Cold War-era vehicle. It’s a call for a return to reason and détente in the decade following the game-changing horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Thru the Time Barrier, 552 years Ahead… Roaring To the Far Reaches of Titanic Terror, Crash-Landing Into the Nightmare Future!” … and as Daffy Duck says, “And it’s good, too!” Allied Artists sends CinemaScope and Technicolor on a far-out timewarp to a place where the men are silly and the women are… very female. Hugh Marlowe stars but the picture belongs to hunky Rod Taylor and leggy Nancy Gates.

World Without End

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 80 min. / Street Date March 28, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Hugh Marlowe, Nancy Gates, Nelson Leigh, Rod Taylor, Shawn Smith, Lisa Montell, Christopher Dark, Booth Colman, Everett Glass.

Cinematography: Ellsworth Fredericks

Makeup: Emile Lavigne

Art Direction: Dave Milton

Film Editor: Eda Warren

Original Music: Leith Stevens

Produced by Richard V. Heermance

Written and Directed by Edward Bernds

“CinemaScope’s first science-fiction thriller.”

First, huh? What about MGM’s CinemaScope attraction Forbidden Planet, which...

The first Vincent Price collection from Scream Factory was a pure treasure. When October rolls around, almost nothing puts me in the Halloween mood like a constant stream of Vincent Price films on my TV. Never did I think that Scream could improve upon their original price collection, but when the films that would be included in this new set were announced, I was shocked. The first Vincent Price Collection has some really solid Price films, mostly of a Poe nature, and it was one of the most exciting releases of the year for fans of classic horror. The second set, drops the Poe theme(mostly), and includes some of Price’s most famous, well-regarded films, including a couple of my favorites. The list of films is impressive, and there are extras on most of the films. The packaging is consistent, and equally pleasing to the eyes. Scream Factory’s...

The first Vincent Price collection that was released by Scream Factory is a thing of beauty. It was announced recently that they would bringing us a second collection of Vincent Price films on Blu-ray, and I couldn’t be any more excited about it than I already am. Well, maybe I can be, because Scream Factory just released the full details of the set, and it’s going to be a good one. Check out the press release below, and please click here to pre-order your own copy of this collection, which streets on October 21. Man, October is really upon us, isn’t it?

The Vincent Price Collection II

Featuring The First-ever Blu-ray™ Presentation Of

The House On Haunted Hill (1959), The Return Of The Fly (1959),

The Comedy Of Terrors (1963), The Raven (1963),

The Last Man On Earth (1964), The Tomb Of Ligeia (1964),

And Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

In Stores Everywhere On October...

The Academy has announced the Board of Governors has voted to rescind the Original Song nomination for "Alone Yet Not Alone," by Bruce Broughton. A press release says the decision was prompted by the discovery Broughton, a former Governor and current Music Branch executive committee member, had emailed members of the branch to make them aware of his submission during the nominations voting period. This is an important distinction as the song's eligibility was also called into question as noted by the Hollywood Reporter as it did have an Oscar-qualifying run took place at Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino, where it screened once daily at 9:55 p.m. from Nov. 15 through Nov. 22, but in order to be eligible the distributors must also purchase advertising prior to the film's one week run... There was no such advertising. The Academy, however, chose to focus on Broughton's lobbying of his former Branch members,...

Today at Trailers From Hell join Allison Anders as she comments on the trailer to Reform School Girl.

Stooges and Bowery Boys director Edward Bernds brings his budget-savvy aesthetic to one of Aip's profitable drive-in delinquency teen exploitation pics. (Great poster, btw) Bernds was accidentally nominated for an Oscar a year earlier, when the Academy confused his Bowery Boys vehicle High Society with the Bing Crosby-Grace Kelly musical. Jonathan Kaplan remade this in 1994 for cable.

The good news for Shemp-o-holics is that Sony has released, as part of their ongoing Three Stooges project, their first all-Shemp set. Last March's release, Volume Five, was Shemp-heavy, but kicked off with the final ten, quite depressing shorts with a badly debilitated Curly as the Third Stooge. Now we've got Shemp from start to finish, and the set includes (and why we note it here) a number of comical fantasy and horror yarns.

Right off the bat, in fact, we're in horror territory with "The Ghost Talks;" that's the good news. The bad news is that it's one of the weaker shorts in this collection--a precursor of the coming Joe Besser/Curly-Joe DeRita "Dark Ages" with a whimsical, kid-friendly "menace" and the Stooges acting like whiny, weepy kids. The storm-swept setting is Smorgasbord Castle where furniture movers Shemp, Larry and Moe encounter a talking suit of armor--the ghost of Peeping Tom,...