Category Archives: Uncategorized

I first saw FACE BEHIND THE MASK on TV when I was 10 years old. That was back in 1963. The print wasn’t very good even for that time and it was billed as a horror movie which it wasn’t but still, even at that young age, I was moved by Peter Lorre’s acting andContinue reading “THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941) Is Finally Given A First Class Release”

What happened to MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is a textbook case of studio interference ruining a potential masterpiece. After preparing the original FRANKENSTEIN project only to have it handed to James Whale (who retained the idea of the stolen criminal brain), original director Robert Florey and star Bela Lugosi (who rejected the part ofContinue reading “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932): Studio Tampering At Its Worst”

I first encountered this version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND back in the early 1960s when I was home from school recovering from a bad cold. In those days your local TV station would show morning movies before the game shows started. I only saw it that one time until many years later but I neverContinue reading “ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933)”

Not your father’s AIW could easily have described this version when it first appeared in 1966 and it can still be used to describe it over 50 years later. There’s no two ways about it, people either love or hate this adaptation by Jonathan Miller (read some of the other reviews) and it’s easy toContinue reading “ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1966)”

When I was growing up in Greenville SC in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, I was somewhat familiar with what used to be known as “Country & Western” music as my family had a friend, a former pro football player, who worked as a DJ at one of the local radio stations thatContinue reading “SECOND FIDDLE TO A STEEL GUITAR: A Trip Down Memory Lane In More Ways Than One”

No major American director has had a lower percentage of his films available on DVD than John Huston. Part of the reason is that Huston made a number of his films for smaller, newer companies that appeared after the collapse of the old studio system in the late 1960s. These companies quickly went bust leavingContinue reading “THE KREMLIN LETTER: A Complex Spy Thriller That Is Available At Last”

THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY is one of those films that has been criminally underseen and that needs to be seen (instead of talked about) in order to be appreciated. If anyone other than Marlon Brando had been in it (which was the original plan) it would have fared much better critically and commercially.Continue reading “NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY: An Offbeat Film Noir With Memorable Performances That Deserves A Wider Audience”

Panned and patronized at the time of it’s initial release, Elia Kazan’s adaptation of his best selling book THE ARRANGEMENT plays much better now than it did in 1969. Made after a 6 year hiatus from filmmaking at a time when movies were enjoying unheard of freedom due to the demise of the production code,Continue reading “THE ARRANGEMENT: Elia Kazan’s Comeback Movie”

Although released in 1940, DR CYCLOPS was filmed in 1939, the benchmark year of so many great Hollywood classics. It was not the first film to feature a mad doctor shrinking people. That was Tod Browning’s 1936 fantasy-melodrama THE DEVIL DOLL. It WAS the first Hollywood movie to attempt fantasy special effects in Technicolor andContinue reading “DR. CYCLOPS: A Sci-Fi Classic That Still Entertains After 80 Years”

If you have never seen Georges Franju’s 1963 remake of Louis Feuillade’s 1917 serial JUDEX then you owe it to yourself to catch this remarkable film. Franju (1912-1987) is best remembered for his poetic, much copied horror film EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959) but he made a number of other movies including this as wellContinue reading “JUDEX (1963): Edward Gorey’s Favorite Movie”