Robby the Robot is back, this time in 4K UHD. Arrow Video’s 4K restoration brings back the full early width of CinemaScope, along with re-created ‘Perspecta’ stereophonic sound. Hollywood’s one full-out attempt to depict an intergalactic Sci-fi future is a smashing success that relies on complex ideas as well as spaceships and monsters. It’s also…
Reviewer Denise Morrison is back with another silent movie on disc, or actually, two separate releases starring the huge silent star Gloria Swanson. One is hard to find and was mastered/restored from surviving 16mm prints; the other is beautifully preserved in original 35mm. Both were produced and directed by Allan Dwan. They’re actually older releases,…
We’ve rediscovered a new favorite from the Warner corral, a bright action comedy that raised spirits when America needed it most, fewer than 60 days after Pearl Harbor. It’s an all-star comic delight, acted stylishly by Humphrey Bogart and directed smartly by Vincent Sherman. With the congressional Isolationists finally backing down, Hollywood hit the fascists…
UK correspondent Lee Broughton returns with a review of Vincent Price’s final film for American-International Pictures. Behind-the-scenes tussles amongst its producers and a series of hasty re-writes found director Jim Clark delivering a film that employed the aesthetics of gothic horror alongside slasher film tropes in a sometimes slightly incongruent manner. The results may be…
The Bubble is back, new but somewhat the same: the 3-D Archive restores an original cut, extending the running time by 21 minutes. Arch Oboler’s 1966 feature introduced the impressive 3-D system called Space-Vision, which is still the main attraction. Michael Cole and Deborah Wally endure a Sci-fi ordeal that plays out in a crazy…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, it’s Peter Sellers time, so the wine pairings had better be dry. From 1968, I Love You Alice B Toklas was a rom-com aimed at a young audience. Sellers plays a…
Back in 1984, England was terrorized by this special TV event. The apocalypse begins with trouble in Iraq. Maybe the last thing we need to see now is something this unsettling … yet Severin’s atom-age restoration gives this 1980s Cold War event movie a polish we can hardly believe. Besides being yet another deluxe Severin…
Here’s a picture from a decade ago that holds up well. It’s another accomplished performance from Denzel Washington, who showed nary a stumble in at least twenty good movies. His talented, intuitive pilot is Handed a crash emergency with no hope for survival, he averts total disaster through pure talent and intuition. But the reveal…
Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell light up the Portuguese colony, but on the studio backlot: mogul Howard Hughes hired the great Josef von Sternberg to direct, and then had three other directors reshoot half of the movie. It’s another promising RKO thriller compromised by crazy production practices. The stars still shine, and the WAC gives…
