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A couple months after spotlighting the world’s greatest actress, the Criterion Channel have taken a logical next step towards America’s greatest actress. May (or: next week) will bring an eleven-film celebration of Jennifer Jason Leigh, highlights including Verhoeven’s Flesh + Blood, Miami Blues, Alan Rudolph’s Mrs. Parker, her directorial debut The Anniversary Party, and Synecdoche, New York, and a special introduction from Leigh. Another actor’s showcase localizes directorial collaborations: Jimmy Stewart’s time with Anthony Mann, an eight-title series boasting the likes of Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie. Two more: a survey of ’80s Asian-American cinema (Chan Is Missing being the best-known) and 14 movies by Seijun Suzuki.

That would be enough for one month (or two), but No Bears and Cette maison will have their streaming premieres, while Criterion Editions offers the Infernal Affairs trilogy (plus its packed set), Days of Heaven, and the aforementioned Chan Is Missing.

Josh Olson shares his top 10 movies from his favorite movie year, 1992, with Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Star Wars (1977)

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

The Last Of The Mohicans (1992)

Thief (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The Last Of The Mohicans (1936)

The Player (1992) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Popeye (1980)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Quintet (1979)

​HealtH (1980)

Come Back To the Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Secret Honor (1984)

The Graduate (1967) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Touch Of Evil (1958) – Howard Rodman’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Dead Alive a.k.a. Braindead (1992) – Mike Mendez’s trailer commentary

Meet The Feebles (1989) – Mike Mendez’s...

With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

MGM sends James Stewart and Anthony Mann to Colorado high country locations for their third big-ticket western, a tight & tense psychological drama with a select cast: Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell. Stewart’s anguished bounty hunter is a sick man on a mission he knows is self-destructive and just plain wrong; it’s the actor’s most fraught western performance. The landscape itself is psychological, with treacherous rocky outcroppings and a dangerous river. Even more impressive is the new restoration from Technicolor elements: this is one of the most beautiful westerns yet out on disc.

The Naked Spur

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1953 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date September 21, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell.

Cinematography: William C. Mellor

Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons, Malcolm Brown

Film Editor: George White

Production Illustrator: Mentor Heubner

Stunt Performers: Virginia Bougas, Ted Mapes,...

The reunion of Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray for the new A24/Apple release “On the Rocks” comes 17 years after their first collaboration on the Oscar-winning “Lost in Translation.” Such repeated pairings between directors and actors have been mainstay a in Hollywood since the earliest days of cinema. In the silent era, there were multiple films from D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish and Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance.

One of the great partnerships during the Golden Age of Hollywood was John Ford and John Wayne. Ford had actually befriended Wayne when the young man was doing odd jobs as well as extra work-including in few of the director’s films-at Fox Studios in the late 1920s. Wayne made his official film debut starring in Raoul Walsh’s 1930 epic western “The Big Trail.”

The film wasn’t a hit and Wayne found himself spending the decade doing “B” westerns including 1938’s...

James Stewart in Anthony Mann’s The Far Country will be available on Blu-ray November 12th From Arrow Academy

An archetypal example of its genre, The Far Country is one of five superb westerns the screen legend James Stewart made with acclaimed Hollywood auteur Anthony Mann.

Mann s film tells of Jeff Webster (Stewart) and his sidekick Ben Tatum: two stoic adventurers driving cattle to market from Wyoming to Canada who come to logger heads with a corrupt judge and his henchmen. Ruth Romain (Strangers on a Train) plays a sultry saloon keeper who falls for Stewart, teaming up with him to take on the errant lawman.

An epic saga set during the heady times of the Klondike Gold Rush, The Far Country captures the scenic grandeur of northern Canada s icy glaciers and snow-swept mountains in vivid Technicolor. Mann s direction expertly steers the film to an unorthodox,...

Cult favorite Samuel Fuller explodes the mid-range Hollywood oater with elements we can all appreciate: a ritualistic fetishizing of the gunslinger ethos, and a reliance on kinky role reversals and provocative tease dialogue. It’s as radical as a western can be without becoming a satire. Playing it all perfectly crooked-straight is the still formidable Barbara Stanwyck. Her black-clad ‘woman with a whip’ keeps a full forty gunmen to enforce her will on a one-lady town.

Forty Guns

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 954

1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 80 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 11, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Eve Brent, Robert Dix, Jidge Carroll, Paul Dubov, Gerald Milton, Ziva Rodann, Hank Worden, Neyle Morrow, Chuck Roberson, Chuck Hayward.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc

Film Editor: Gene Fowler Jr.

Original Music: Harry Sukman

Produced, Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

Was there ever a...

Ya know, “It’s a Big Country!” Westerns and pacifism are like oil and water, but William Wyler, Jessamyn West and three other top writers found a way for Gregory Peck to surmount eight showdowns and never fire a pistol in anger. Jean Simmons and Charlton Heston win top acting honors, while Burl Ives earns his Oscar, Carroll Baker gets the thankless role and composer Jerome Moross makes western music history. MGM’s remastering job fixes the problems of an earlier Blu-ray, and even brings the title sequence up to tip top condition. Plus several hours of special extras.

The Big Country

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 166 min. / Street Date June 5, 2018 / 60th Anniversary Edition / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, Alfonso Bedoya, Chuck Connors, Chuck Hayward, Dorothy Adams, Chuck Roberson.

Cinematography: Franz F. Planer

Film Editor: Robert Swink...

The Western is the quintessential American movie genre. Its iconography has been seared into our collective conscious: the solitary cowboy riding the endless frontier, towns struggling to survive in a lawless land, the quick-drawing gunfighter. Generations of filmmakers have engaged with those symbols, building an entire cinematic language on a genre that began with the simple premise of good “white hats” vs. bad “black hats.” In doing so, they have created mythologies, torn down legends and subverted what it means to be an American.

My exposure to the West began in the living room of my parents’ house. My father, a Sephardic Jew born and raised in Greece, shared with me the movies he loved as a child. Over the years my enthusiasm for the genre only grew as I became a history buff, a lover of myths, and eventually a filmmaker. In interviews, I’m often asked to name my favorite Western,...

Any list of the greatest foreign directors currently working today has to include Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The directors first rose to prominence in the mid 1990s with efforts like “The Promise” and “Rosetta,” and they’ve continued to excel in the 21st century with titles such as “The Kid With A Bike” and “Two Days One Night,” which earned Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama

The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...

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

Edge of Eternity

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

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

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

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Written by Knut Swenson, Richard Collins

Produced by Kendrick Sweet

Directed by Donald Siegel

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

The biggest, most lavish hook-up between Hollywood and the Pentagon was this Anthony Mann-James Stewart collaboration, a morale & recruiting cheer for America's intercontinental bombing air force, the service that kept the peace by holding up our side of the balance of fear. Strategic Air Command Blu-ray Olive Films 1955 / Color / 1:66 widescreen (VistaVision) / 112 min. / Street Date October 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan, Alex Nicol, Bruce Bennett, Jay C. Flippen, James Millican, James Bell, Rosemary DeCamp, Harry Morgan, William Hudson, Strother Martin, House Peters Jr. Cinematography William Daniels Film Editor Eda Warren Original Music Victor Young Written by Valentine Davies, Beirne Lay, Jr. Produced by Samuel J. Briskin Directed by Anthony Mann

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In the 1950s America was spending its enormous military budget on a fantastic array of advanced weapons technology, the most expensive of which was...

You can't choose your neighbors in an apartment complex, and sometimes you get stuck next to a noisy, mean-spirited soul who makes you want to look in the classified ads before you even finish unpacking. Alison Parker has some rowdy neighbors around her new Brooklyn apartment, but what disturbs her the most is that nobody else lives on her floor. And that's only one of many creepy elements to be found in 1977's The Sentinel, and fans of the cult classic fright film should be excited to hear that Scream Factory has announced they will release The Sentinel on Blu-ray this summer.

From Scream Factory: "We are beyond thrilled today to report that we will be bringing the 1977 cult classic chiller The Sentinel to Blu-ray for the first time in the U.S. and Canada!

Planned release is for August. This often underrated, overlooked and shocking film from Director Michael Winner...

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

Group 1

Retail price point: $24.95

Picnic

Pal Joey

Bite The Bullet

Bell, Book, And Candle

Bye Bye Birdie

In Like Flint

Major Dundee

The Blue Max

Crimes And Misdemeanors

Used Cars

Thunderbirds Are Go / Thunderbird 6

Group 2

Retail price point: $19.95

Rapture

Roots Of Heaven

Swamp Water

Demetrius And The Gladiators

Desiree

The Wayward Bus

Cover Girl

High Time

The Sound And The Fury

The Rains Of Ranchipur

Bonjour Tristesse

Beloved Infidel

Lost Horizon

The Blue Lagoon

Experiment In Terror

Nicholas And Alexandra

Pony Soldier

The Song Of Bernadette

Philadelphia

The Only Game In Town

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

Sleepless In Seattle

The Disappearance

Sexy Beast

Drums Along The Mohawk

Alamo Bay

The Other

Mindwarp

Jane Eyre

Oliver

The Way We Were...

Anthony Mann

As much as any other filmmaker who found a niche in a given genre, in the 10 Westerns Anthony Mann directed from 1950 to 1958 he carved out a place in film history as one who not only reveled in the conventions of that particular form, but also as one who imbued in it a distinct aesthetic and narrative approach. In doing so, Mann created Westerns that were simultaneously about the making of the West as a historical phenomenon, as well as about the making of its own developing cinematic genus. At the same time, he also established the traits that would define his auteur status, formal devices that lend his work the qualities of a director who enjoyed, understood, and readily exploited and manipulated a type of film's essential features.

Though he made several fine pictures outside the Western, Mann as an American auteur is most notably recognized for his work in this field,...

The New York Film Festival, whose 52nd edition runs from September 26 through October 12, carries on rolling out the lineups for its various programs. This weekend sees the full roster for a Joseph L. Mankiewicz retrospective featuring such classics as All About Eve (1950), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955) and Sleuth (1972). Additions to the Revivals section include Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) and Anthony Mann's The Man from Laramie (1955). And there are two programs of Short Films, too. » - David Hudson...

The New York Film Festival, whose 52nd edition runs from September 26 through October 12, carries on rolling out the lineups for its various programs. This weekend sees the full roster for a Joseph L. Mankiewicz retrospective featuring such classics as All About Eve (1950), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955) and Sleuth (1972). Additions to the Revivals section include Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) and Anthony Mann's The Man from Laramie (1955). And there are two programs of Short Films, too. » - David Hudson...

Launched in 2012, Venice Classics will be presenting 21 new restorations at during the 71st edition of the festival running from August 27 through September 6. Among the highlights: Robert Bresson's Mouchette (1967), Krzysztof Kieslowski's No End (1984), Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971), François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (1968), Anthony Mann's The Man from Laramie (1955), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Guys and Dolls (1955), Marco Bellocchio's China Is Near (1967), Maurice Pialat's Love Exists (1961) and Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961). » - David Hudson...

Launched in 2012, Venice Classics will be presenting 21 new restorations at during the 71st edition of the festival running from August 27 through September 6. Among the highlights: Robert Bresson's Mouchette (1967), Krzysztof Kieslowski's No End (1984), Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1971), François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (1968), Anthony Mann's The Man from Laramie (1955), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Guys and Dolls (1955), Marco Bellocchio's China Is Near (1967), Maurice Pialat's Love Exists (1961) and Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961). » - David Hudson...

The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the 21 restored films – 18 features and 3 shorts - that will screen in its Classics section of restored films.

The section, introduced in 2012, features a selection of classic film restorations completed over the past year by film libraries, cultural institutions or production companies around the world.

Director Giuliano Montaldo will chair the jury of film students which will award the Venice Classics Award for Best Restored Film and for Best Documentary on Cinema.

The 2014 Venice Classics line up:

Features

Baisers volés (Stolen Kisses), dir François Truffaut (France, 1968, Colour) restored by : Mk2

Bez końca (No End), dir Krzysztof Kieślowski (Poland, 1984, 108’, Colour) restored by: Studio Filmowe Tor with the support of the National Audiovisual Institute (the Multiannual Government Programme Culture +) and the Polish Film Institute

Gelin (Bride), dir Omer Lütfi Akad (Turkey, 1973, 92’, Colour) restored by: Erman Film

Guys and Dolls, dir Joseph L. Mankiewicz (USA, 1955, 150’, Colour) restored by: Warner Bros. Motion Pictures Imaging and [link...

Above: Transformers: The Premake. A new video essay by Kevin B. Lee on the production of Michael Bay’s new Transformers film, fan viral marketing, the Chinese film market, and Hollywood as occupation. In the latest episode of the podcast The Cinephiliacs, Peter Labuza talks to Michael Koresky of Reverse Shot.

Above: a stunning trailer for the new Steven Soderbergh-directed miniseries, The Knick, starring Clive Owen. Also from Soderbergh, published on his website, a transcribed conversation with the late Gordon Willis:

"Q: How were you different when you came out of it as a cinematographer? Did you find yourself having to think in much larger strata about what you were doing?

A: Right. Well, the answer to that is, yes. I'm a minimalist in the way I think. So when I look at something, I usually start eliminating things as opposed to adding things. And not that...

Blu-ray Release Date: June 10, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

James Stewart is The Man from Laramie.

Thanks to Twilight Time, the well-respected 1955 western The Man From Laramie is on Blu-ray.

Directed by Anthony Mann (Strangers in the Night), the movie stars James Stewart (Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation) in the last of his five-film collaboration with Mann. Here, Stewart is a man with an agenda, determined to avenge the death of his brother and stumbling into a hornet’s nest of family dysfunction when he encounters the troubled Waggoman clan, New Mexico ranchers who make the tale of King Lear look like a children’s story.

Written by Philip Yordan and Frank Burt and photographed by Charles Lang, The Man from Laramie comes to Blu-ray with a new 4k transfer, remastered from the original negative, presenting the film in a magnificent 2.55 widescreen image for the first time since its initial release in theaters.

Sabrina

Written by Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor, and Ernest Lehman

Directed by Billy Wilder

USA, 1954

The past few weeks have been good for Humphrey Bogart on Blu-ray. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen were recently rereleased and assembled for the Best of Bogart Collection, and now, Sabrina, one of the legendary star’s final films, has received its first American appearance on the format. Perhaps more importantly, if total number of titles available on Blu-ray is the basis for judgment, Sabrina also marks one of disappointingly few Billy Wilder titles available in the remastered form. That the film also stars the radiant Audrey Hepburn and the remarkably versatile William Holden confirms that the release is worth commending.

From about 1944, with Double Indemnity, to Irma la Douce in 1963, Wilder had an astonishing run in Hollywood, and Sabrina came roughly in the middle of that period.

Cinema is a kind of uber-art form that’s made up of a multitude of other forms of art including writing, directing, acting, drawing, design, photography and fashion. As such, film is, as all cinema aficionados know, a highly collaborative venture.

One of the most consistently fascinating collaborations in cinema is that of the director and actor.

This article will examine some of the great director & actor teams. It’s important to note that this piece is not intended as a film history survey detailing all the generally revered collaborations.

There is a wealth of information and study available on such duos as John Ford & John Wayne, Howard Hawks & John Wayne, Elia Kazan & Marlon Brando, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart, Ingmar Bergman & Max Von Sydow, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon, Francis Ford Coppola & Al Pacino, Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, Martin Scorsese & Robert DeNiro...

They favour weighty works over genre fare such as Avatar and The Dark Knight – no wonder the telecast ratings are in decline

The Oscars have always been a lumbering, unwieldy beast. To win a Golden Globe one needs to convince an electorate of fewer than 100; to walk off with an Oscar, an actor, director or producer must pass muster with more than 6,000 voters. The weight of all these members alone makes it hard for the Oscars animal to turn its head and catch sight of objects in its peripheral vision. Instead it appears fixated on what is directly in front of it: usually movies that have been hyped as worthy contenders from the moment the annual awards season begins at the tail end of each November.

There's also a particular type of film that tends to get picked up. The Oscarly movie is generally one with a certain gravitas that...

The “adult” Western – as it would come to be called – was a long time coming. A Hollywood staple since the days of The Great Train Robbery (1903), the Western offered spectacle and action set against the uniquely American milieu of the Old West – a historical period which, at the dawn of the motion picture industry, was still fresh in the nation’s memory. What the genre rarely offered was dramatic substance.

Early Westerns often adopted the same traditions of the popular Wild West literature and dime novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries producing, as a consequence, highly romantic, almost purely mythic portraits the Old West. Through the early decades of the motion picture industry, the genre went through several creative cycles, alternately tilting from fanciful to realistic and back again. By the early sound era, and despite such serious efforts as The Big Trail (1930) and The Virginian (1929), Hollywood Westerns were,...

The films that weren't even given a shot at winning best picture

• Charles Saatchi: my love affair with Orson Welles

Here, in no particular order, is Charles Saatchi's list of the post-1950 films that should have been nominated for a best film Oscar. Tell us your picks below.

North by Northwest

The African Queen

Paths of Glory

Spartacus

Hud

What's Up Doc?

The Manchurian Candidate

The Big Country

Scarface

Vertigo

Kill Bill

Parenthood

Reversal of Fortune

Harold and Maude

Being There

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Lost in America

Minority Report

Jurassic Park

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Heat

Once Upon a Time in America

Seven

The Searchers

Psycho

Rear Window

The Producers

Toy Story

Some Like It Hot

2001: A Space Odyssey

Lolita

The Shining

Touch of Evil

Gran Torino

Beetlejuice

Edward Scissorhands

Raising Arizona

Advise and Consent

Mean Streets

King of Comedy

Reservoir Dogs

Manhattan

Crimes and Misdemeanors...

Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and re-repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Code series, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...

The new wave 40 years early. The soft side of Jean-Pierre Melville. Nicole Kidman makes the unmakeable. Somewhere out there is an alternative history of film – David Thomson unearths 10 lost works of genius

Erotikon (1920)

Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...

In the early 70s, directors of giallo, the Italian horror genre, made a few tentative trips to England, producing at least one classic

When one thinks of giallo, the bloodsoaked Italian horror genre of the 1960s and 70s, one imagines axes through heads, rooms full of naked corpses, massive bloodshed, pioneering gore special effects, zany psychology, imported has-been leads, spooky music, far too many zooms, and terrible post-synched dialogue. The last thing that crosses your mind is England.

And yet in the early 70s, giallo directors made a few tentative trips to England, producing at least one classic of the genre, Lucio Fulci's Lizard in a Woman's Skin. There's also an enjoyable lesser effort, Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, which lives up to its splendid title (one of no fewer than 15 titles it has had worldwide).

Living Dead, made in 1973, features a mini-army of...