01.26.11 | Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD BeatPrint this Post
Tags: Fred MacMurray
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.
DVD Bytes: A certain company we can’t mention is on an acquisitions tear. Among the titles on the way from them is Twilight’s Last Gleaming, the crackerjack 1977 suspense film about a bunch of U.S. military men who take over a missile silo. Burt Lancaster, Paul Winfield and Richard Widmark star in the Robert Aldrich effort. Also on the way are: Fedora, Billy Wilder’s 1978 companion piece to the classic Sunset Blvd., starring William Holden and Marthe Keller; several films from German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder; The Hellstrom Chronicle, the 1971 Oscar-winning documentary about insects taking over the world, and Visions of Eight (1973), a look at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics as seen by such directors as Milos Forman, Arthur Penn and John Schlesinger. Additionally, expect films from the same enterprise directed by French auteurs Godard, Chabrol, and Bresson..2011 is looking to be “The Year of Kubrick.” We expect Blu-ray versions of the rest of the Warner-owned features of the late director like Lolita and Barry Lyndon, as well as a Stanley Kubrick Blu-ray Collection...You probably already know about the Star Wars movies coming to Blu-ray, but we thought it was worth at least a passing mention.
