“DVD Beat” Archive
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Double Dose Of Doug: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. tackles two roles in the 1941’s The Corsican Brothers, the Edward Small (The Man in the Iron Mask) production based on the Alexander Dumas novel. He plays the siblings who are separated and regroup later to avenge the death of their father at the hands of the evil, Bolero-wearing Akim Tamiroff. Complicated matters is the fact that the brothers—one a gentleman, the other a bandit—have interest in the same woman, a beautiful Corsican countess played by Ruth Warrick. Expert swordfighting sequences and Fairbanks’ athletic prowess make this one a swashbuckling winner.
Fox Film Flashlight : While the 20th Century Fox archives hasn’t really materialized like we had hoped, the studio is busy on the VOD scene putting out tiles from MGM, which also means titles from now-defunct companies of all sorts. This gives movies that have seemingly fallen between the cracks and opportunity to see the light of day, for which we are grateful for. The latest batch is similar to the what we’ve getting from them as late—a real diverse group of films ranging from recent to vintage, from genre to genre, and from studio to studio. Take a gander at what’s on tap here:
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Sousa Phone Home: Finally, the 1952 biopic of marching band music composer John Phillip Sousa is marching onto DVD and Blu-ray. Stars and Stripes Forever, one of our most requested titles, is landing on the home market. Clifton Webb starred as Major Sousa, leader of the Marine Corps Band in the 1890s and composer of such standards as Semper Fidelis and the title song. Directed by Henry Koster (The Inspector General), this film focuses on Sousa’s work as a bandleader and composer, his relationship with his wife (Ruth Hussey) and friendship with Willie Little (Robert Wagner), the inventor of the instrument called the Sousaphone and boyfriend to Lily Becker (Debra Paget). This package includes DVD and Blu-ray versions as well as a color booklet about the film and the life of “The March King.”
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Back Street’s Back, All Right: Among the most requested titles we’ve had over the years has been Back Street, the 1961 adaptation of the Fannie Hurst novel with Susan Hayward as the woman who loves and loses WWII soldier John Gavin, reconnects with him years later, and opts to become his mistress rather than disrupt his family life. Well, good news: It’s coming to DVD on a double feature with the 1941 version starring Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan. Any and all films with Ms. Hayward are much desired by classic film fans, but this is the one that is most desired, and the twin bill gives people an opportunity to compare the two approaches to the same story.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat, Staff Notes
Mike & Emeric Go To War: Ill Met By Moonlight (1957) (aka Night Ambush) comes to DVD on the heels of other great Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger releases like The Battle of the River Plate (The Flight of the Graf Spee) and Black Narcissus. The British filmmaking team also known for The Thief of Bagdad and the Red Shoes in top form here, telling the thrilling true story of two British soldiers kidnapping a Nazi officer in charge of operations on the island of Crete during World War II. Dirk Bogarde, David Oxley and Cyril Cusack star in this intense, atmospheric war thriller—the last from “The Archers”—that features music by Mikis Theododrakis (Zorba the Greek).
More Brit Pics That Click: Also on the way from jolly ol’ England are Simba (1955) and Penny Princess (1952), both with the versatile Dirk Bogarde. In Simba, Bogarde plays a Brit who arrives in Kenya and discovers his famer brother has been killed during the Mau Mau uprising. The film delves into the racial friction between the English settlers and the natives and co-stars Virginia McKenna (Born Free) as the woman Bogarde falls for. Bogarde takes the romantic lead in Princess, playing a cheese salesman who arrives at a small European country which has just installed American-born heir Yolande Donlan on its throne. The pair team to save the postage-stamp principality from going bankrupt.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Murphy’s Law: Audie Murphy, WWII legend-turned-movie hero, is showcased in Audie Murphy Westerns Collection, an exclusive to Movies Unlimited. The four-disc, four-film set is a surefire hit for Murphy mavens and sagebrush fanatics alike, boasting these titles:
Sierra (1950): Audie and father Dean Jagger are hiding away in the hills until lawyer Wanda Hendrix (then Murphy’s wife in real life) arrives to prove that they are innocent of the crimes they are accused of.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Air Born: The MGM feature Night Flight (1933) has not been seen in any parts since 1942, but all that will change when Warner Home Video puts it on DVD this summer. Known in some circles as “Grand Hotel of the air,” Night Flight offers an amazing cast that includes Clark Gable, John and Lionel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy. Directed by Clarence Brown (National Velvet, The Yearling), the film features incredible aerial footage and centers on a group of brave pilots who fly from Santiago to Rio de Janeiro in order to get a serum that will halt an outbreak of polio. This is what has become a rarity: a regularly pressed, non-manufactured-on-demand release of a library classic.
Shout, Shout Lets Them All Out: For years, Shout Factory, started by some of the folks behind Rhino Records, has been one of the most aggressive indie companies out there. They’ve managed to wrangle the rights to much-requested TV series like SCTV and Leave It to Beaver, and cult films such as the original The Stepfather. Now, the company has pacted with Fox for some interesting titles. Among them are:
Capone (1975): Ben Gazzara plays “Scarface,” a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone is Frank Nitti and John Cassavetes, Susan Blakely and Harry Guardino are also featured in this slam-bang gangster yarn helmed by Steve Carver (Big Bad Mama).
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Bounding Main: Marjorie Main is best known as the “Ma” in the Ma and Pa Kettle series made for Universal Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s. But Ms. Main was also a reliable character actress who appeared in such favorites as Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer Stock and Rose Marie. As an exclusive, Movies Unlimited is rolling out an exclusive double bill of Ms. Main in Murder, He Says/Feudin’, Fussin’ and A-Fightin’. In Murder (1945), Marjorie plays the head of a homicidal hillbilly clan encountered by pollster Fred MacMurray when he gets stranded in the Ozarks. And in Feudin’ (1948), she teams with her Kettle co-star Percy Kilbride for a saga of travelling salesman Donald O’Connor, who is talked into joining an annual footrace between rival towns. Born Mary Tomlinson, Ms. Main also appeared in such efforts as The Women, Dead End, Heaven Can Wait and The Long, Long Trailer.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Luck Be a Lady Tonight
Never before on video in ANY format, Lucky Lady arrives on DVD. This gorgeously filmed 1975 romantic adventure features Liza Minnelli as a prohibition-era widow who gets involved with run-running and two lovers, played by Burt Reynolds and Gene Hackman. The director is the great Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers). While the expensive production from Fox didn’t fare well at the box-office, it does have its supporters. And since it has rarely been seen, now is a good time to check out this curio that also has a top-notch supporting cast including Robby Benson, John Hillerman and Geoffrey Lewis.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Dig Doug : Douglas Sirk, the German-born filmmaker best known for such superior soapers as Imitation of Life, Written on the Wind and Magnificent Obsession, is getting his own collection and Movies Unlimited has an exclusive on it. It’s theDouglas Sirk Filmmaker Collection, a four-disc set which showcases that there was more to Sirk than soap. The most famous title of the batch is The Tarnished Angels (1957), based on William Faulkner’s Pylon, and featuring Rock Hudson as a journalist who befriends WWI ace-turned-barnstorming pilot Robert Stack in 1930s New Orleans. Dorothy Malone is Stack’s wife, desired by Hudson and mechanic Jack Carson, in this exciting and powerful tale of lust in the dust and heroics in the sky. Also included is Thunder on the Hill (1951), in which nun Claudette Colbert believes convicted killer Ann Blyth is innocent and strives to clear her; Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), featuring Hudson as the son of the Apache Indian leader, who battles war-mongering brother Rex Reason and his followers while trying to bring peace with the Cavalry; and Captain Lightfoot (1955), with Rock as the Irish hellraiser mentored by revolutionary Jeff Chandler who battles the British and romances Chandler’s daughter Barbara Rush. All four titles are available individually, as well.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Our Man Flynn: Errol Flynn may have best been known for his portrayals of Robin Hood, the Earl of Essex, General Custer and “Gentleman” Jim Corbett. But Flynn brought his rugged and often dashing demeanor to other roles as well, such as those contained in TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures, a five-disc set showcasing the Tasmanian-born star. Included here are Desperate Journey (1942), in which he teams with fellow RAF pilot Ronald Reagan to escape the Nazis in Poland after their plane is downed; Edge of Darkness (1943), in which Flynn and Ann Sheridan are resistance fighters battling the Axis in a Norwegian fishing village; Northern Pursuit (1943), with Errol as a Mountie tracking down Nazi Helmut Dantine in the Canadian wilderness; Uncertain Glory (1944), with Flynn as a condemned murderer fleeing a Parisian prison following a British air raid; and Objective Burma! (1945), where the actor leads paratroopers trying to put the kibosh on Japanese forces in Burma. The amazing thing to us was how he got all of these films done in such a short span of time!
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
High Hopes
The legendary comic Bob Hope is being feted by Universal with a set of terrific farces he made for Paramount, some of which have never seen the light of day on video in any format. The Bob Hope: Thanks For The Memories Collection boasts Thanks for the Memory (1938), with Bob as a writer who turns househubby to pen a novel while wife Shirley Ross heads to work. In the much-requested horror-comedy The Cat and the Canary (1939), Paulette Goddard is an heiress that Ol’ Ski Nose must protect when she agrees to stay in a creaky old house in order to gain an inheritance. Bob and Paulette reteamed for Nothing but the Truth (1941), where Hope played a stockbroker saddled with a $10,000 bet that he can refrain from telling a lie for 24 hours. Other titles in this three-disc set include The Ghost Breakers, Road to Morocco and The Paleface.
Read More »
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Roger, Corman
Roger Corman was recently honored with a special Academy Award, and a new 3-D remake of his 1978 production Piranha is heading for theaters this year. So it makes sense that Corman’s “B” movie classics from New World Pictures have found a new home at Shout Factory!/Vivendi.
The Corman library has been out of circulation for a few years, and the company is welcoming such water-logged monstrosity movies as the original Piranha, Humanoids from the Deep, Up from the Depths, and Demon of Paradise back in April. They will be followed by the likes of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, Suburbia, Death Race 2000, Deathsport and others. We say it’s about time the Academy recognized Corman’s contributions to cinema, as a producer, director and mentor to young talent. It’s just a shame his award will not be part of the telecast this year.
Read More »
Tags: Douglas Fairbanks