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Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

To celebrate Studiocanal’s brand new 4K restoration of King and Country available in the UK for the first time ever on Blu-ray & Digital and on a new DVD 6th November, we’re giving away a Blu-Ray copy!

Studiocanal is thrilled to announce a brand new 4k restoration of British anti-war classic King And Country (1964) from esteemed American director Joseph Losey (The Servant), available in time for Remembrance Day on Blu-Ray & Digital for the first time ever in the UK, plus a new DVD on 6th November, through the Vintage Classics brand. The new restoration of King And Country recently premiered at Venice Film Festival to great acclaim.

Returning for another stellar collaboration with director Joseph Losey is revered British actor Dirk Bogarde (The Servant), seen here as Captain Hargreaves, a tough army lawyer assigned to defend army volunteer-turned-deserter Private Hamp, played by the brilliant Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar), whose...

The cinema of science fiction began to mature in the 1950s, concurrent with the arrival of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, as well as the growing sophistication of the literature. But it was during the 1960s that the genre really began to expand in different directions, still heavily influenced by the ideological paranoia and existential dread of the previous decade, but finding even more distinctive expressions of it.

At the same time, the 1960s was also the decade in which sci-fi movies truly started to become event films, not just B-movies and drive-in fodder, as evidenced by the likes of landmarks like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes, both released in 1968. There were other successes as well, some of them on our list below, but a lot of remarkable sci-fi films of the era did not initially score with critics, audiences, or either. Yet nuclear terror,...

When folks say they love winter, typically they refer to the earliest months of the season, with winter beginning on Dec. 21 in the northern hemisphere. In those early days of holiday cheer, there is something familiar and comforting about the cold. But eventually the bright lights go away, and the wind howls louder. Eventually, all you’re left with is icy darkness.

Perhaps that’s why so many of the best horror movies are set during the winter season! Utilizing folks’ fear of barren bleakness, and the tedium of being trapped inside becoming lethal, filmmakers who run the gamut from Stanley Kubrick to John Carpenter have imprinted our worst nightmares onto the snow. Below is a list of their frozen works.

30 Days of Night (2007)

They have lived in shadows long enough. They are the last of their kind. But above the Arctic Circle there’s a party going on,...

Val Guest’s cinema quest for his own semi-docu style pays off in this fine, intelligent police investigation into a gruesome dismemberment murder. U.K. favorite Jack Warner is the main detective, Guest’s actress wife Yolande Donlan is a ‘person of interest,’ and the illusion of reality is enhanced by real locations in Greenwich, Brighton, Lewes and points between. It’s an excellent legwork murder mystery, with good atmosphere and colorful characterizations — within the dry ‘serious business’ format, of course.

Jigsaw

Blu-ray

Cohen Media Group

1962 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 108 97 min. / Street Date April 5, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jack Warner, Ronald Lewis, Yolande Donlan, Michael Goodliffe, John Le Mesurier, Moira Redmond, Christine Bocca, Brian Oulton, Ray Barrett, Norman Chappell, John Barron, Joan Newell, Geoffrey Bayldon, Julie Samuel.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Art Director: Geoffrey Tozer

Film Editor: Bill Lenny

From the novel Sleep Long, My Love by Hillary Waugh

Produced,...

CineSavant reaches back to a U.K. disc released in 2014, because the subject is (what else) a semi-obscure science fiction effort. Favorite John Neville stars as a scientist opposite newcomer Gabriella Licudi, a beauty who may be an invader from outer space. This is the one with the teardrops that burn; not having seen it since 1966 or so, evaluating a ‘new’ Blu was an imperative. The main takeaway is that it’s awfully small-scale and the fantastic content is almost entirely confined to dialogue. But the performances are exemplary and actress Jean Marsh is terrific.

Unearthly Stranger

Region B Blu-ray

Network-bfi

1963 / B&w / 1:66 / 80 min. / Street Date November 3, 2014 / Available from Amazon / 14.99

Starring: John Neville, Philip Stone, Gabriella Licudi, Patrick Newell, Jean Marsh, Warren Mitchell.

Cinematography: Reg Wyer

Art Director: Harry Pottle

Film Editor: Tom Priestley

Original Music: Edward Williams

Written by Rex Carlton based on an idea by Jeffrey Stone...

Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none

By Hank Reineke

Val Guest’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) is one of the better science-fiction films to come out of the Cold War decades of the 1950’s and 1960s. While it’s no metaphorical masterpiece as Don Siegel’s more celebrated Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the screenplay for this British production was co-penned by Guest and the novelist/playwright/screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. The two would collaborate on other projects as well, but it’s the thoughtful, literate script co-written for The Day the Earth Caught Fire that would justifiably garner them the award for the Best British Screenplay from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. This superb new Blu-ray from Kino Lorber is absolutely beautiful, having been digitally re-mastered from a print held in the National Archive of British Film Institute in association with StudioCanal.

Partly inspired...

What’s the best Ecological Thriller of all time? Finally available in a good Region A disc is Val Guest and Wolf Mankowitz’s thrilling, realistic account of our world turned topsy-turvy, and perhaps plunging into a fiery oblivion. The violent shifts of climate and weather patterns echo today’s global warming chaos. Newspapermen Edward Judd and Leo McKern track down a frightening government secret; Janet Munro is the confidential clerk that leaks the truth. One of the top all-time British Science Fiction films is also a great newspaper story about the importance of a free press. Extras include a new Richard Harland Smith commentary.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1961 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date July 7, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Edward Judd, Michael Goodliffe, Bernard Braden, Reginald Beckwith, Renée Asherson, Arthur Christiansen, Pamela Green, Robin Hawdon.

Cinematography: Harry Waxman...

What’s the best Ecological Thriller of all time? Finally available in a good Region A disc is Val Guest and Wolf Mankowitz’s thrilling, realistic account of a world turned topsy-turvy, and perhaps plunging into a fiery oblivion. The violent climate/weather pattern shifts predict today’s global warming chaos. Newspapermen Edward Judd and Leo McKern track down a frightening government secret; Janet Munro is the confidential clerk that leaks the truth. One of the top all-time British Science Fiction films is also a great newspaper story about the importance of a free press. Extras include a new Richard Harland Smith commentary.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1961 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date July 7, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Janet Munro, Leo McKern, Edward Judd, Michael Goodliffe, Bernard Braden, Reginald Beckwith, Renée Asherson, Arthur Christiansen, Pamela Green, Robin Hawdon.

Cinematography: Harry Waxman

Art...

From the people that brought you Pandemic Parade chapters 1-8, comes yet another thrilling episode featuring Jesse V. Johnson, Casper Kelly, Fred Dekker, Don Coscarelli, Daniel Noah, Elijah Wood and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wondrous Story of Birth a.k.a. The Birth of Triplets (1950)

Contagion (2011)

The Omega Man (1971)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Innerspace (1987)

The Howling (1981)

The Invisible Man (2020)

The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Where Eagles Dare (1969)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Goldfinger (1964)

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Dr. No (1962)

From Russia With Love (1963)

Bellman and True (1987)

Brimstone and Treacle (1982)

Richard III (1995)

Titanic (1997)

Catch 22 (1970)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

The Graduate (1967)

1941 (1979)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Jaws (1975)

The Fortune (1975)

Carnal Knowledge (1970)

Manhattan...

I’d never heard of this gem of a British production; now it goes on my list of highly recommended titles. A dock area on the Thames is ‘the pool,’ and the sailors that disembark from the cargo ships are susceptible to the temptations of black market trade. A single eventful weekend traces the fates of a half-dozen young people, the women that like the sailors, and the sailor that gets mixed up in a deadly serious crime. Director Basil Dearden’s excellent cast is mostly unfamiliar to us Yanks, but we get really tied up in their problems. This picture should be much better known. It’s the first English movie to depict an interracial romance, and it does so without sensationalism or special pleading. The best new extra is an interview with actor Earl Cameron, who at 103 years of age has his act (and his memories) totally together.

Hammer’s copycat Quatermass picture stands apart from similar ‘mystery sci-fi monster’ thrillers by virtue of its serious tone and realistic presentation. Talk about a sober semi-docu style: there are no major female roles and the leading character is a mass of radioactive mud. (Is there an election year joke in that?) Hammer found a new writer in Jimmy Sangster, imported the Yankee name actor Dean Jagger, tried to hire the expatriate director Joseph Losey. Former child actor Anthony Newley has a small part, but he doesn’t get to sing X’s theme song: “Who can I turn to, when nobody needs me, because the flesh is melting from my skull?”

X The Unknown

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1956 / B&w / 1:75 widescreen / 80 81? min. / X…the Unknown / Street Date February 18, 2020

Starring: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley, William Lucas, Michael Ripper.

Cinematography: Gerald Gibbs

Film Editor: Philip Leakey

Makeup:...

Mean-spirited ‘Bad Movie’ satirists forget that production values aren’t everything, even if the collected works of Barry Mahon and Coleman Francis say otherwise. This threadbare backyard production has ‘endearing’ written all over it. I judge many independent movies to be like picture puzzles with pieces missing, and this one is missing a Lot of them. But back when the drive-in was king, there was hope for just about any picture with a determined producer. The Last Time We Saw Arch Hall (we never saw him a first time), he may have been cooking up a sequel to this maladroit teenage caveman epic … if only he hadn’t killed off his main character. But this Turkey actually performed in release: Eegah would rate its niche in film history even if Richard Kiel hadn’t become a star in James Bond movies. Don’t miss the Trade Paper clipping feature at the bottom of the review.

This strange picture goes forth in search of a genre, mainly because its theme — the destruction of the human personality — had previously seen light only in movies about brainwashing and alien possession. The Michael Relph and Basil Dearden team may not be as slick as The Archers, but they do peg this sober Isolation Chamber drama — even if we wonder if Dirk Bogarde will start talking like Paddy Chayefsky, and then shape-shift into an ape man. The real issue here is scientific ethics, of which Bogarde’s associates seem to have zero.

The Mind Benders

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1963 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date October 15, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant, Wendy Craig, Harold Goldblatt, Geoffrey Keen.

Cinematography: Denys N. Coop

Film Editor: John D. Guthridge

Original Music: Georges Auric

Written by James Kennaway

Produced by Michael Relph

Directed by Basil...

Global warming in 1961! Is it a newspaper picture, or a disaster picture, or a political picture, or…well, it’s all of these and more. Former journalists Val Guest and Wolf Mankowitz bring a bracingly realistic slant to their persuasive end-of-the-world scenario through the use of real Fleet Street newspapermen, including non-actor Arthur Christiansen, editor of The Daily Express. Tossed off as an exploitation picture in the Us, it’s one of the great unsung science fiction pictures, and a must-see.

The post The Day the Earth Caught Fire appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Just as there have been many spooky villains in Hammer movies over the years, there have also been many protagonists who protect our world from unholy horrors. Having appeared in several British serials and three movies, Professor Bernard Quatermass is one such hero, and Scream Factory is celebrating the iconic character by releasing Quatermass 2 and Quatermass and the Pit on respective Blu-rays. Originally slated to come out in May, the Blu-rays are now scheduled for a July 30th release, and we've been provided with the full list of special features.

Press Release: Hobbs End, Knightsbridge, London. While working on a new subway tunnel for the London Underground, a group of construction workers uncover a strangely shaped skull. Nearby, another discovery: a large, mysterious and impenetrable metal object. Initially mistaken for an unexploded bomb, the object and its strange power turn out to be far more horrific than anybody could have possibly imagined.

In today’s film news roundup, Jodie Foster is remaking Iceland’s “Woman at War,” the Art Directors Guild honors production designers Anthony Masters and Ben Carre, “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” gets cast and Melissa Takal directs “New Year New You” for Hulu.

Project Announcement

Jodie Foster will direct, co-produce and star in an English-language remake of the thriller “Woman at War,” Iceland’s submission to the Foreign Language competition at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards.

The Icelandic movie centers on a music teacher who’s escalating her sabotage against the local aluminum industry when she discovers that her adoption application has been approved and a baby girl is awaiting her in the Ukraine. The script won the best script prize in the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Foster plans to relocate the setting to the American West. It will be her fifth directorial gig following “Money Monster,...

David Crow Don Kaye Daniel Kurland Tony Sokol Jan 11, 2019

In the midst of wintertime doldrums, we compile a list of the 16 Best Winter Horror Movies to keep you warm with dread.

A New Year has come and the last of the holiday decorations have been stored away. Yet even if we have turned the page to what is hopefully a bright, shiny new 2018, the fact remains that if you live anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, things are hardly warming up. In fact, winter is just entering its deepest and scariest throes with a chill that risks spreading to your soul, and there’s nary a Christmas light in sight for comfort. Perhaps that’s why now ‘tis the real season for a certain kind of horror movie. One so grim that the quiet, lingering dread in its backdrop can be as all-encompassing as a 10-foot snowfall.

Hence why we...

A big welcome to UK disc purveyors Indicator, or Powerhouse, or how does Powerhouse Indicator sound? Savant’s first review from the new label is a favorite from the Columbia library. The extras are the lure: they company has snagged long-form, in-depth interviews with James Fox and director Arthur Penn. Everybody’s written about The Chase but here Penn tells his side of the story.

The Chase (1966)

Blu-ray + DVD

Powerhouse: Indicator

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date September 25, 2017 / Available from Amazon UK / £14.99

Starring: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall,

Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford,

Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando, Clifton James, Steve Ihnat

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Production Designer: Richard Day

Art Direction: Robert Luthardt

Film Editor: Gene Milford

Original Music: John Barry

Written by Lillian Hellman from the novel by Horton Foote

Produced by Sam Spiegel

Directed by Arthur Penn

Yes,...

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 100 96 min. / Street Date February 28, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Victoria Vetri, Robin Hawdon, Patrick Allen, Drewe Henley, Sean Caffrey, Magda Konopka, Imogen Hassall, Patrick Holt, Jan Rossini, Carol Hawkins, Maria O’Brien.

Cinematography: Dick Bush

Film Editor: Peter Curran

Visual Effects: Jim Danforth

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene, Philip Martell

Written by: Val Guest, J.G. Ballard

Produced by: Aida Young

Directed by Val Guest

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth didn’t get much attention when released here early in March of 1971. Only film fanatics obsessed with special effects had much to say about it. Cinefantastique magazine showed a still photo or two of dinosaurs on the rampage, and told us that stop-motion effects notable Jim Danforth, who we knew from mentions in Famous Monsters, was attached. We also learned that an animator named David Allen had worked on one sequence.

Criterion's special edition of Stanley Kubrick's doomsday comedy is more powerful than ever in a 4K remaster; and it even comes with a top-secret mission profile package and a partial-contents survival kit. A Kubrick fan can have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 821 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 28, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, Tracy Reed Cinematography Gilbert Taylor Production Designer Ken Adam Art Direction Peter Murton Film Editor Anthony Harvey Original Music Laurie Johnson Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, Peter George from his book Red Alert Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Leon Minoff Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

When I heard that Criterion was putting out a Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb I thought that there already was a disc out there from The Collection. Nope, Sony released a Blu-ray in 2009, and back around 2000, a DVD. I was thinking of a deluxe laserdisc from Criterion sometime in the early 1990s. I remember being impressed by its extras, which included documentary materials about the Bomb in the Cold War years. Potential new fans of Kubrick's wickedly funny movie are being born every year, which leaves those of us for whom Strangelove was an important part of growing up having to remind ourselves just how good it still is. I remember recording the soundtrack off TV in high school and memorizing all of the dialogue; this has to be the most quotable movie of its decade. I also can remember my father's reaction when we watched it together on network TV, ABC, I think. An Air Force lifer who wouldn't discuss politics (or much of anything), the Old Sarge had little use for 'defeatist' movies like On the Beach. But he thought the premise of Seven Days in May wasn't really farfetched, having worked with Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. He shook his head after seeing Dr. Strangelove but I could tell that he found it very funny. It's too bad the two of us couldn't have gotten our senses of humor more in sync -- as soon as I wore my hair long, I think he stopped trusting me. I believe that Dr. Strangelove is one of few movies that 'made a difference' in that it redirected American public opinion about a major life issue. From that point forward only the ignorant and Shoot First fanatics talked about nuclear war as win-able, at least not until the neo-con Millennium. 1963 audiences had little use for suspect 'pacifist' movies that ended in masochistic doom, like On the Beach. The nuclear crisis was such a hot topic that that the low-key English science fiction film The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a surprise hit. Strangelove is more realistic than the straight atom nightmare movies. We're told that when Ronald Reagan was briefed at the start of his first term in office, he asked where the White House elevator to the War Room was. He figured it was there because he saw it in the movie. The decision to opt for broad comedy was Kubrick's inspired stroke. Dr. Strangelove may be the first hit film that was a bona-fide black comedy; I don't recall anybody even using the expression before it came out. It's not a crazy comedy where anything funny is okay. The backbone of the story remains 100% serious, while the jokes relentlessly demolish the death-cult logic of our Nuclear Deterrent. Kubrick and Terry Southern populate Peter George's credible cold-sweat crisis with insane caricatures given ridiculous names. The scary part is that, no matter how stupid they behave, none are really that exaggerated. Peter Sellers serves triple duty in a trio of characterizations, effectively outdoing previous champion film chameleon Alec Guinness. George C. Scott steals the show as an infantile Air Force General who acts like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. And the rest of the inspired cast nails their highly original quasi-comic characters. Every joke is a gallows joke; we're never allowed to forget that we all have an atomic noose around our necks. I almost envy the dead viewers still unfamiliar with Dr. Strangelove, as seeing it for the first time was a mind-opening experience. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, orders a flight of B-52s to attack Russia. He then seals off Burpelson to prevent a recall of the planes. Exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to talk him into divulging the recall code. Holding court in the War Room, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is horrified to discover that such a Snafu is even possible. He orders General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) to take Burpelson Air Base by force and recall the planes, and gets on the hotline with the Soviet Premier. Up in the lead B-52, Major 'King' Kong (Slim Pickens) receives Ripper's orders, coded 'Wing Attack Plan R.' He urges his crew to avoid Russian defenses and reach their primary target, while Turgidson tries to talk Muffley into launching an all-out attack. Advising in the War Room is ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, a grinning theoretician already fantasizing about the sexual recreation for the ruling elite in the VIP bomb shelters, where America's chosen high officials will be living for the next 93 years. Dr. Strangelove divides its time between three main locations, each with its own deadly serious function and each overlaid with a different comedic tone. In his locked executive office in the Alaskan Air Force Base, the sexually obsessed American General Ripper faces off with a veddy proper English officer in a farcical one-act. Beady-eyed and intense in his anti-Communist convictions, Sterling Hayden contrasts beautifully with Seller's genial Group Captain, who can't fathom the depth of his commanding officer's madness. The action in the B-52 is a throwback to those gung-ho WW2 action films in which a racially and ethnically diverse attack team uses brains and guts to barrel through their suicide mission. Even though their pilot is a cowboy clown (Slim Pickens doing his only characterization, Slim Pickens) they're an admirable bunch, seemingly the only humans capable of doing anything without red tape or Coca-Cola machines getting in their way. The horror is that our heroes' mission is totally against every moral precept ever imagined. The docu feeling in the B-52 is further amplified by the gritty newsreel-like footage of the taking of Burpelson Afb, with American troops fighting American troops. In 1964 these were traumatic, subversive scenes. U.S. troops on film are supposed to fight for freedom and righteousness, not kill each other. Kubrick has the audacity to place in the middle of it all a big sign that reads, 'Peace is our Profession.' The grainy authenticity of these scenes would come back to haunt us when similar footage started being seen nightly on television, fresh from Vietnam. The center of activities is the War Room, a Camelot-like round table of Death located in the basement of the White House. The rational President Merkin Muffley trips over an ideological roadblock in the form of Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing military nutcase itching to go to war and overjoyed that Jack Ripper has 'exceeded his authority.' The President is hardly in charge of foreign policy, and none of fifty advisors come to his aid with any original thinking. An amateur among experts, Muffley must be shepherded through protocol by an assistant. Here's where Southern and Kubrick make their biggest points, basically asserting that a showdown with the Russkies is inevitable because the American stance is a military one -- Sac just wants the peacenik in the Oval Office to get out of their way. The comedy is all over the place, and it's a miracle that it works. The stand-up humor on the hot line to Moscow is very much like a Bob Newhart routine. At Burpelson, it's the Goon Show all over again. Sellers' Mandrake cannot sway General Ripper, and the moronic Major Bat Guano (Keenan Wynn) suspects the Raf officer of being a 'deviated prevert.' Up in the bomber, Mad Magazine craziness is grafted onto combat realism. Previous looks at the Air Force's flying deterrent were enlistment booster films like Strategic Air Command. Kubrick drove his English craftsmen to fake the entire bomber interior right down to the switches and gauges. The aerial combat is more realistic than that in escapist films, even with inadequate models used for exteriors of the jet bomber in flight. Dr. Strangelove maintains a nervous tension between absurd comedy and morbid unease. Kubrick's main career themes -- sexual madness, treacherous technology and the folly of human planning -- come into strong relief. We're motivated to root for the fliers that are going to destroy the world. Then we fret over the President's pitiful lack of control. Dour, glowering Russian Ambassador De Sadesky (Peter Bull) informs the War Room about his country's solution to the costly Arms Race, the dreaded Doomsday Machine. Security advisor Dr. Strangelove enters the film in the last act to serve as sort of an angel of Death. Based loosely on Rand-corporation experts that calculated eventualities in nuclear war scenarios, Sellers' vision of Strangelove is a throwback to German Expressionism. A Mabuse in a wheelchair, he's black-gloved like the brilliant but mad Rotwang of Metropolis. Strangelove enters like the specter of Death itself; his grin looks like a skull. Contemplating 'megadeaths' gives him sexual pleasure. The detonation of the first bomb seems to liberate Strangelove, and he finds he can walk again. The character is straight from the Siegfried Kracauer playbook. The evil of nuclear war has restored the representative of apocalyptic Nazi vengeance to full power. Twenty years after his death, we all get to join Hitler in his suicide bunker. First-time viewers are usually floored by the audacious Dr. Strangelove. Only the truly uninformed will not recognize baritone James Earl Jones as one of Major Kong's flight crew. Those going back for a repeated peek will derive added enjoyment from Kubrick's deft juggling of his several visual styles and his avoidance of anything that might deflate tension: we hear about the recall code being issued but are spared any view of the responsible military personnel that must have sent it. Some of the best fun is finding details in designer Ken Adam's impressive War Room, such as the pies already laid out in preparation for the aborted pie-fight finale. Even better is watching the War room extras as they strain to maintain straight faces no matter how funny Sellers and Scott get; that contrast is what makes the comedy so brilliant. Watch Peter Bull carefully. In one extended take he starts to smile at Sellers, more than once. He catches himself and then is clearly on the verge of cracking up, forcing Kubrick to cut away. The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the expected sterling transfer of this Kubrick classic, a 4K digital transfer. I put it up against Sony's old Blu-ray and the difference is not so great as to recommend that a trade-up is necessary. However, it looks extremely good. The Kubrick faithful out there will be thinking, 'I must not allow a disc shelf gap.' The HD picture makes quite a bit of difference in understanding Kubrick's photographic strategy. Not only do the hand-held Burpelson combat sequences approximate the look of documentary footage, a more contrasty and grainy film stock has been used. Switching "film looks" later became a fad for directors looking to be viewed as artists. The idea perhaps reached its zenith in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. Back in 1964 the effect of imitating a news film look was quite stunning -- audiences reacted to the combat scenes as if they were real. I'm glad that we're finally beyond the frustrating early DVD years, when someone (at Warner Home Video?) claimed that Stanley Kubrick insisted that his films be shown at the old 1:33 aspect ratio for TV and disc. Even if they wangled a note from Kubrick to that effect, I still believe that the aspect ratio games were played because Kubrick was too busy to oversee new masters of his films, and Whv wanted to market them in a hurry at a minimum of cost. That's all old news now, but there was also the interesting aspect ratio question concerning Strangelove. At least one disc iteration -- Criterion's laserdisc, I'm fairly sure -- was released in a completely un-original dual-ratio scan. Kubrick apparently said that he preferred to see the War Room scenes at a full-frame 1:37, and so this one transfer of the film popped back and forth between ratios. I've never heard of anything like this before or after. Criterion's British 1:66 framing for this disc is correct, even though the film was probably screened at 1:85 for many of its American play dates. Criterion's new extras begin with interview featurettes with well-chosen spokespeople, like scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill. Kubrick archivist Richard Daniels' piece is quite good, as is an examination of the film's visuals by two of the original camera crew. The son of author Peter George gives an excellent account of his father's life and the adaptation of his novel Red Alert. George reportedly liked the notion of turning his story into a black comedy, especially when his original narrative was changed very little. The stroke of genius was deciding that the entire subject could best be approached as a sick joke. Other extras are repeated from Sony's DVD disc of 2004. A making-of docu interviews several surviving technicians and actors, and a primer on the Cold War atom standoff goes deep into detail. The featurettes have input from Robert McNamara, Spike Lee and Bob Woodward. Critics Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker are also represented. Docu pieces on Peter Sellers and Kubrick appear to suffer from legal restraints disallowing the use of clips from non-Columbia sources. The Peter Sellers show features several choice film clips from the 'fifties, including Sellers' almost perfect take on a William Conrad-like hired killer. We're shown some stills from the legendary The Goon Show, which is not mentioned by name. A Stanley Kubrick career piece that uses UA, MGM and Universal trailers covers a lot of territory a bit too quickly. It does have some nice interview input from Kubrick's partner James B. Harris. Harris has since given terrific interviews on Criterion discs for Kubrick's The Killing and Paths of Glory. Criterion's Curtis Tsui produced those discs as well as this one. An entertaining extra is a pair of vintage 'split screen' fake interviews with Sellers and Scott intended for publicity use. Each actor projects his chosen PR image. They're charming, especially when Sellers takes us on a lightning tour of regional English accents. I wonder if those distinctions have faded, 52 years later? As a pleasant surprise, Curtis Tsui has overseen the creation of a collectable, highly amusing substitute for a standard disc insert booklet. Inside an authentic-looking 'Wing Attack Plan R' envelope, David Bromwich's insert essay is printed in the form of classified orders on two sheets of loose-leaf paper. Terry Southern's hilariously profane 1994 essay on the movie comes in the form of a Playboy parody, illustrated with photos of Tracy Reed as 'Miss Foreign Affairs.' Finally, the disc credits and details are printed in a genuine miniature Russian Phrase Book and Holy Bible, a little bigger than one-inch square. It indeed offers some phrases that I'll have to try on my multi-lingual daughter, like "Where is the toilet?" But the cover Lies, as there's no Bible in there that I could find. Also, no nine packs of chewing gum and no issue of prophylactics. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Dr. Strangelove Blu-ray rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent uncompressed monaural + alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-hd Master Audio Supplements: (from Criterion stats): New interviews with Stanley Kubrick scholars Mick Broderick and Rodney Hill; archivist Richard Daniels; cinematographer and camera innovator Joe Dunton; camera operator Kelvin Pike; and David George, son of Peter George, on whose novel Red Alert the film is based. Excerpts from a 1966 audio interview with Kubrick, conducted by physicist and author Jeremy Bernstein; Four short documentaries about the making of the film, the sociopolitical climate of the period, the work of actor Peter Sellers, and the artistry of Kubrick. Promotional interviews from 1963 with Sellers and actor George C. Scott; excerpt from a 1980 interview with Sellers from NBC's Today show; Trailers; insert essay by scholar David Bromwich and a 1994 article by screenwriter Terry Southern on the making of the film. Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 7, 2016 (5136love)

Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: [email protected]

Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...

Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Forum

The amazing films of Robert Downey Sr. play as part of “Robert Downey (The Original).” The still-shocking Putney Swope screens throughout this weekend; Greaser’s Palace can be seen on Saturday and Sunday, while the latter day offers a print of Chafed Elbows.

The restoration of Fritz Lang‘s Destiny begins its run.

The King and the Mockingbird...

Hey, we're having a Nuclear family crisis, so load up your shotgun, grab the grenades and head for the hills, stealing what you need as you go. Ray Milland's tense tale of doomsday survival shook up a lot of folks with its endorsement of ruthless violence. Fortunately the worst never happened, allowing us to ask, "Where were you in '62?" Panic in Year Zero! Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1962 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date April 19, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchel, Joan Freeman, Richard Bakalyan, Cinematography Gilbert Warrenton Production Designer Daniel Haller Film Editor William Austin Original Music Les Baxter Written by John Morton, Jay Simms Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, Arnold Houghland, James H. Nicholson, Lou Rusoff Directed by Ray Milland

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

There's nothing like good old atom-scare hysteria, which Hollywood dished out as early as 1952's Invasion,...

A few years ago the editors of Shadowlocked asked me to compile a list of what was initially to be, the ten greatest movie matte paintings of all time. A mere ten selections was too slim by a long shot, so my list stretched considerably to twenty, then thirty and finally a nice round fifty entries. Even with that number I found it wasn’t easy to narrow down a suitably wide ranging showcase of motion picture matte art that best represented the artform. So with that in mind, and due to the surprising popularity of that 2012 Shadowlocked list (which is well worth a visit, here Ed), I’ve assembled a further fifty wonderful examples of this vast, vital and more extensively utilised than you’d imagine – though now sadly ‘dead and buried’ – movie magic.

It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...

A clip from 80,000 Suspects, a tense 1963 thriller about an epidemic sweeping south-west England, directed by British thriller maestro Val Guest (also known for The Quatermass Xperiment and The Day the Earth Caught Fire). Set mostly in Bath, 80,000 Suspects stars Richard Johnson as a doctor attempting to control an outbreak of smallpox, and Claire Bloom as his wife who becomes a victim of the virus. 80,000 Suspects is available on DVD and Blu-Ray

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Let’s face it, most of us have a soft spot for things blowing up in movies, and for a long time movies have been happy to feed our appetite for destruction. But it wasn’t always that way.

I know it’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when explosions weren’t so common in movies. Back then, big-budget movies had dancing and singing, and everyone had a merry time. After WWII though, things started to change. In newspapers and magazines, Americans were being exposed to terrible images of war-torn Europe and Japan. This imagery was haunting, yet it sparked some imaginations. At first, Hollywood was careful not to glamorize it. They figured out a way to show massive destruction and violence while making it fun and moderately profitable instead of soul-crushing and distasteful. The 50’s became known for its low-budget cheese-fests; sci-fi B movies featuring such...

★★★☆☆It's amazing how in the space of fifty odd years public taste and opinions have changed. Take for instance the classic Science Fiction thriller The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) - newly restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray to coincide with the BFI's Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season (running from October through to December). Directed by Val Guest, the filmmaker responsible for Hammer's groundbreaking 1950s Quatermass films, and starring Edward Judd and Janet Munro, The Day the Earth Caught Fire brings a gritty tabloid realism to a terrifying subject that was very much in the public consciousness at the time of its release.

The British Film Institute has launched a revamped version of its BFI Player.

The on-demand service has received a visual overhaul with a new user interface and introduced a wealth of additional content.

Its redesigned interface makes programming easier to discover, with films arranged into Collections curated by BFI experts and a 'film of the day' highlighted prominently.

Following the addition of the new content, there are now more than 1,400 films available to view on the service, around 60% of which are free.

Premium programming is priced at £1 for shorts, running up to between £2.50 and £10 for feature-length movies.

"BFI Player is uniquely placed to join the dots of film, taking audiences on an expertly curated journey from the very earliest films to the very latest releases," said Edward Humphrey, Director of Digital at the BFI.

"Growing audiences for British independent and specialised films is core to everything the BFI does and...

VOD service relaunched with enhancements and a Universal Pictures catalogue of sci-fi classics.

A year on from the launch the British Film Institute’s video on demand service, the BFI Player has received a major make-over.

Following a consultation with 1,000 BFI Player users, the look, layout, curation of films and amount of new content has been enhanced with further improvements to be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Edward Humphrey, director of digital at the BFI said the revamped service would serve “growing audiences for British independent and specialised films” and would offer “a real diversity of choice in the on-demand market”.

A new catalogue of movies from Universal Pictures has also been added to BFI Player, from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the Back To The Future trilogy. This ties with the BFI’s ongoing season, Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder. The collection also includes films such as Flash Gordon and The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

A number...

'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...

The disaster movie hits the next level a week from now with the release of Into the Storm, a drama that sees a tornado rip through a small American town on the day of high school graduation. Directed by James Cameron protégé Steven Quale, the film introduces the found footage aesthetic to a story of a father (Richard Armitage) desperately trying to save his son (Max Deacon). There are multiple perspectives juggled, too, notably a pair of redneck daredevils getting close to the action in a bid to make a viral video and a professional storm-chasing outfit led by Matt Walsh's documentary maker. Think of it as Twister turned up to 11.

"The journey all these characters go through, I was hoping to do that in a more intimate way to show a disaster as opposed to the wide, epic, sweeping shots that a cinematic movie would traditionally do," Quale tells Digital Spy.

The gray rolling seas thundered through the forest of pilings under the piers, sometimes cresting enough to send a geyser of wind-whipped froth up onto the decking. Other places, it poured through the gaps the wind and tide had eaten through the dunes and poured into the beach town streets. It pulled boats large and small from their moorings in the lagoon marinas and piled them like a child’s toys up on the land. Some in apartment buildings would tell of the cars in the ground level garage floating against each other bathtub playthings. But there was nothing childlike in the way it took entire houses, made seaside villages look like an extension of the ocean and not the land.

For the day and a half I watched Hurricane Sandy pound my home state of New Jersey – which was all the time I had before I lost my cable...

Apocalypse is an ever-popular idea in cinema. After all, what could be more dramatic than the possibility -- or even the actuality -- of the end of everyone and everything that you've ever known. It's an all purpose metaphor, and can be used to tell all kinds of stories, in all kinds of tones, as highlighted by this weekend's comedy-drama "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World," which sees Steve Carell and Keira Knightley brought together by the impending end of civilization.

The film's only semi-successful at melding romantic comedy with the end of days, as you'll find from our review, but there's plenty in the film to recommend it as well. And if you're still looking for a little more end-of-the-world drama, we've picked out five lesser-known examples that are worth seeking out Asap. Check out our selections below, and let us know your own favorites in the comments section.

A must-have reader!

Glenn Erickson’s masterful and insightful criticism over at DVD Savant is a regular stop for many of us here at Trailers From Hell, so it excites us to no end that he’s finally released another compendium of reviews in book form. This time focusing on a genre near-and-dear to our hearts: sci-fi films. Erickson’ aptly titled Sci-Fi Savant features over 100 bits of criticism spanning the history of science fiction on film.

From the publicist:

Sci-fi Savant‘s 116 separate title entries are in chronological order starting with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and ending with James Cameron’s Avatar. Many are exclusive to this book. In addition to representing all of the key classics of the 1950s, the selection gives full coverage to more arcane but equally significant titles.

A brief list of notable rarities:

La fin du monde (The End of the World), Abel Gance’s weird apocalyptic epic,...

By Harris Lentz, III

British model Pamela Green was a blonde bombshell who appeared in little to nothing in magazines and short films from the mid-1950s. She is most notable for her role as a scantily-clad victim of a homicidal photographer in the controversial 1960 thriller Peeping Tom.  Director Michael Powell cast her as the ill-fated Milly, a model for psychopath Karl Boehm, who used his camera tripod as a murder weapon to capture his subjects terror as he impaled them.

Green was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England, on March 28, 1929.  She began posing as a model while in her teens, and performed as a chorus dancer in West End show.  She met theatrical photographer George Harrison Marks while working as a model in 1953.  They soon teamed professionally and personally, producing provocative postcards for sale in shops in Soho.  They published the racy magazine Kamera, which usually featured Green in various stages of undress.

If Andrew Sarris had been British, and had endeavored to write a book called The British Cinema, Directors and Directions, 1929 to 1968 (I know, I know, but bear with me), where might he have placed the journeyman director Val Guest? Guest's career as a writer and director produced a variety of films in all manner of genres, both reputable and not so much, but who really hit his stride in the 1950s and early 60s, working largely for Hammer. At that studio he made several dynamic, absorbing sci-fi, horror, suspense and war films, two in the popular "Quatermass" series and at least one, 1961's apocalyptic The Day The Earth Caught Fire a bonafide B classic. But would one call him an auteur? Classify his work as "Lightly Likable?" His output is sufficiently unpretentious that one couldn't say he presents "Less Than Meets The Eye." How about "Expressive Esoterica?"

It's an interesting question,...

Between Dimensions [1] is a continuing feature that examines science-fiction on the screen in all of its forms: big or small, good or bad. Man fumbles the planet... The first in a continuing series If you want to sample the golden age of science fiction, The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a good place to start. Since British director Val Guest made the film in 1961, this apocalypse is a little more cerebral than what we’re used to (e.g. the recent new gold standard of 2012). With limited effects, Guest relies on good actors, disaster news reels, and clever staging to make his story real. Set in London, Decf sharply conveys the nervousness of a world discovering nuclear fission for better or worse. In this case, much worse. The premise is simple – two simultaneous nuclear explosions (thank you USA and Russia) knock the earth off its axis. England’s weather...

Science-fiction moviemaker Val Guest has lost his battle with prostate cancer in a Palm Desert, California hospital. He was 94. The British-born director and screenwriter is best known for his work on films like The Quatermass Xperiment and The Day The Earth Caught Fire, but he's also among the credited film-makers behind 1960s James Bond spoof Casino Royale. Guest and co-writer Wolf Mankowitz picked up a Best British Screenplay award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in 1962 for their work on The Day The Earth Caught Fire.