Category Archives: Uncategorized

In 1932, MGM decided to do a sound remake of one of Lon Chaney’s most successful post-PHANTOM OF THE OPERA movies, 1928’s WEST OF ZANZIBAR. That film, based on a Broadway play, was set in the jungles of Africa and told the sensational  story of an injured man’s bizarre quest for revenge. A stage magician,Continue reading “KONGO & WEST OF ZANZIBAR: Two Versions Of The Same Story”

During the mid-1940s, the success of the B movie horror units at Universal and at RKO tempted 3 of the best known Poverty Row studios (Monogram, PRC, and Republic) to produce B movie horrors of their own. A great deal of attention has been paid to the horror films of the first two with books,Continue reading “REPUBLIC PICTURES HORROR COLLECTION Is A Treat For B Movie Horror Fans.”

It has always been a great mystery to me how one of America’s largest and most successful production companies in the early days of motion pictures managed to have virtually all of its output completely disappear. Smaller companies from that time period such as Edison and Biograph have left us a large number of theirContinue reading “VITAGRAPH COMEDIES: Rarities Worth Revisiting”

The very first time I saw this movie, I must have been 10 years old and caught it on TV while I was staying home sick from school. As this was my first exposure to anything by H.G. Wells, I was far too young to know or understand any of his principal concerns such asContinue reading “THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (1937): H.G. Wells Fantasy Still Has Something To Say”

H. Rider Haggard’s SHE was one of a number of late Victorian fantasy/romance novels I read when I was in high school back in the late 1960s. I ran across stills from a 1935 production of the story in a book about KING KONG which I’d purchased for my mother in 1976 (KONG was one ofContinue reading “SHE (1935): RKO Version Is A Marvel To Behold”

My mother was a great fan of mysteries and our home book library (back when there was such a thing) was full of them. Most of them were from the 1930s and early 1940s as the taste for mysteries declined after World War II. Being a child of the 1950s, I grew up with theContinue reading “1930s PERRY MASON Movie Set: Worth Seeing But They Are Very Uneven”

I first purchased a DVD of NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH (1948) from quality public domain provider VCI Entertainment back in 2010 (it has since been discontinued). I had never seen it or even heard of it but I was intrigued by hearing it described by its original English critics as “the worst British movie ever made.Continue reading “NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH (1948): Brit Attempt At American Film Noir Is Quite Good”

Kathryn Bigelow’s win for THE HURT LOCKER at the 2010 Academy Awards marked the first time in the Academy’s 82 year history that a woman was awarded Oscar for Best Director. In fact during that eight decade span, only 3 women (Lina Wertmuller- SEVEN BEAUTIES (1976), Jane Campion-THE PIANO (1993), Sofia Coppola-LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)Continue reading “A Brief History Of Women Directors (2010)”

It’s been 30 years since Hammer Films last released a movie. That film was a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 classic THE LADY VANISHES done in collaboration with The Rank Organisation who provided the funding. Rank had just scored a big success with a remake of Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS and wanted to try theirContinue reading “HAMMER FILMS: Back From The Grave (2012)”

t had been several years since I last saw RASPUTIN, THE MAD MONK and that had been in an incomplete form. The 2004 Anchor Bay double DVD set from their Hammer Collection had coupled it with THE DEVIL RIDES OUT which featured Christopher Lee as the good guy. The point was to offer a showcase forContinue reading “RASPUTIN: THE MAD MONK (1966) – More SVENGALI Than RASPUTIN”