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In Paul A. Cantor's 2001 book "Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization," the author posited that Sherwood Schwartz's celebrated-and-lambasted-in-equal-measure 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" stood as a symbol of America's indomitable confidence in its post-War, Baby Boom period. One could, "Gilligan's" argued, place a random assortment of seven Americans in whatever isolated locale you wanted, and they would essentially form a pleasant democracy. The seven stranded castaways of "Gilligan's Island" might have bickered, but they never went to war. Instead, several distinct American classes came together. The ultra wealthy (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer's Howells) hobnobbed with a farmer (Dawn Wells' Mary Ann). The intelligentsia (Russell Johnson's Professor) got along perfectly well with the Hollywood elite (Tina Louise's Ginger), and they were all held together by a gentle military hand (Alan Hale's Skipper). Gilligan, meanwhile,...

The tenth episode of "The Twilight Zone" was an episode called "Judgment Night," written by show creator Rod Serling and directed by John Brahm. "Judgment Night" takes place on board a British cargo liner crossing the Atlantic in the year 1942. The main character is an amnesiac named Carl (Nehemiah Persoff) who has no recollection as to how he got on the boat or what his name is. Everyone on board the cargo ship is deathly afraid of Nazi U-boats that may potentially be lurking in the water, and Carl is infected with the premonition that something utterly horrifying is going to happen at 1:15. Curiouser: a cap found in Carl's quarters indicates that he is a member of the Nazi navy. What is going on? 

Then a Nazi U-boat does appear in the water next to the cargo ship and blows it up at 1:15, killing everyone on board, including Carl.

Four-time Grammy winner Lenny Kravitz will perform for Sunday’s emotional “In Memoriam” segment on the Oscars 2023 ceremony. While only 40-50 people are generally remembered for the television ceremony hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC, over 200 people will be recognized on the Academy’s webpage starting that evening.

SEEWho is Performing at the Oscars 2023?: Full List of Presenters and Performers

Here is a lengthy list of many contributors to film who died since last year’s Academy Awards ceremony:

Mary Alice (actor)

Gil Alkabetz (animator)

Kirstie Alley (actor)

Burt Bacharach (composer)

Angelo Badalamenti (composer)

Simone Bär (casting director)

Joanna Barnes (actor)

Carl A. Bell (animator)

Jeff Berlin (sound)

David Birney (actor)

Bruce Bisenz (sound)

Robert Blake (actor)

Eliot Bliss (sound)

Nick Bosustow (shorts)

Albert Brenner (production designer)

Tom Bronson (costume designer)

James Caan (actor)

Michael Callan (actor)

Donn Cambern (editor)

Irene Cara (songwriter)

Gary W. Carlson (sound)

Marvin Chomsky...

Sunday’s SAG Awards ceremony will be a streaming event for the first time on the Netflix YouTube channel. One of the highlights each year is the special In Memoriam segment. It’s been a particularly rough year with over 100 deaths of prominent actors and actresses who were likely members of SAG/AFTRA. Show producers typically are able to include approximately 40-50 people in a tribute.

Among that group will certainly be Oscar winners Louise Fletcher, William Hurt and Irene Cara, plus nominees Angela Lansbury (a SAG life achievement recipient) and Melinda Dillon. Emmy champs Mary Alice, Kirstie Alley, Leslie Jordan, Ray Liotta, Stuart Margolin, Robert Morse and Barbara Walters.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2023: In Memoriam Gallery

Here is our expansive list of over 100 people who died since last year’s ceremony, several of whom will be honored on Sunday’s event:

Ralph Ahn

J. Grant Albrecht

Mary Alice

Rae Allen...

The legendary RZA joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Man With The Iron Fists (2012)

Cut Throat City (2020)

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

Cooley High (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Car Wash (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Grease (1978)

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) – Dennis Cozzalio’s best of 2020

The Devil You Know (2022)

The Last American Virgin (1982)

The Beastmaster (1982)

Porky’s (1981)

Sixteen Candles (1984)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Carmen Jones (1954)

An American In Paris (1951)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

The Wizard Of Oz (1939) – John Badham’s trailer commentary

Is That Black Enough for You?!?...

A lot of episodes of "The Twilight Zone" have become stone-cold classics in the 60+ years since the show was on the air. There are some episodes that are pop-cultural touchstones, twist-ending stories that everyone remembers: the monster on the wing of the plane, the one where she's beautiful and everyone else is ugly, the one where it's a cookbook, etc. The most famous episodes have been made and re-made several times over the course of the show's life, reappearing in films, revival series, and even as radio dramas (now available in podcast form thanks to iHeartRadio!).

However, there were 153 episodes in the original run, and they can't all be re-run in primetime on SyFy every New Years' Day. Marathons tend to stick to the classics. Still, there are plenty of other episodes well worth checking out. Even when "The Twilight Zone" wasn't at its absolute best, it's still "The Twilight Zone,...

The latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," entitled "Reflections," features -- quite amusingly -- a Starfleet recruitment tent. Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) have been ordered to "work the booth" a jobs fair. They have to stand at a folding table and dispassionately call over passbersby, then explain to them that a life in Starfleet is romantic and exciting. This, when their current job is the least romantic or exciting task imaginable. Making matters worse, Mariner and Boimler are stationed right next to an archeology tent. Archeologists, as all Trekkies now, is the sexiest possible profession. All archeologists are gorgeous, tomb-raiding rogues that make Indiana Jones look like Ben Stein. In a fun Easter egg, the archeologist leans on a plinth resembling those seen in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Masks". 

On the other side of Mariner's and Boimler's recruitment tent is collector's booth...

Producers of this Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony have some difficult decisions to make about who to honor during the emotional In Memoriam segment. John Legend will perform “Pieces,” a new song he has written for the tribute. Kenan Thompson will host the 2022 Emmys for NBC at 8 p.m. Et; 5 p.m. Pt.

Our list below includes almost 100 people who made a strong contribution to television and have died since mid-September of 2021 following the previous Emmys ceremony. Only about 40-45 of these people will probably be in the video segment. Certain to be featured will be TV Academy Hall of Fame members actress Betty White and director Jay Sandrich.Other prominent names almost certainly chosen are: Mary Alice (acting winner), Louie Anderson (acting winner), James Caan (acting nominee), Anne Heche (acting winner), Howard Hesseman (acting nominee), William Hurt (acting nominee), Gregory Itzin (acting nominee), Ray Liotta (acting winner), Burt Metcalfe...

By the time of Humphrey Bogart's final film performance, in 1956's "The Harder They Fall," the movie star had fallen gravely ill. His years of smoking and drinking climaxed with what would become fatal esophageal cancer, which cast an unmissable pall on his performance. And yet, he still brings his star-making qualities: the toughness and bitterness, the anger and wry sarcasm.

Because "The Harder They Fall" is just one of many noir-era movies about the boxing underworld, it gets less respect than Bogart's many classics. He hadn't even wanted to be in the movie, focusing his remaining energy in vain on another movie with his wife Lauren Bacall, according to Stefan Kanfer's Bogart biography "Tough Without a Gun." He had many reasons for not being interested in the movie, but the cast was a big one.

"The Harder They Fall" is unromantic and cynical, with Bogart, reduced...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

In honor of the esteemed actor Nehemiah Persoff, who recently passed away at age 102, we are running this interview originally conducted with Mr. Persoff in 2010 by the late writer Herb Shadrak.

Nehemiah Persoff: From Jerusalem to Hollywood and Beyond

By Herb Shadrak

Born in Jerusalem in 1919, Nehemiah Persoff went on to become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood. His face is familiar to millions of boomers across North America from his numerous guest appearances on just about every TV series that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s. Persoff’s name may have been unfamiliar to many of these TV viewers, but his face was instantly recognizable. Filmspot.com describes Persoff as a short, dark and stocky-framed actor who specialized in playing ethnic-type villains, although he frequently essayed sympathetic roles as well.. (Witness his heartbreaking moments with Maria Schell in Voyage of the Damned.

As reported today by Variety, Nehemiah Persoff, a prolific Hollywood character actor whose career spanned six decades, has passed away at the age of 102 in San Luis Obispo, CA. 

Persoff began acting in films in 1948 with an uncredited walk-on role in "The Naked City," and would also play various roles in the 1959 TV adaptation. Fans of classic Hollywood cinema might remember him as the man sitting in the front seat when Marlon Brando made his famous "I coulda been a contender" speech in 1954's "On the Waterfront." Persoff appeared in over 200 films and TV shows besides,...

The post Nehemiah Persoff, Character Actor Known for Yentl, The Twilight Zone, Some Like It Hot, Dies at 102 appeared first on /Film.

Nehemiah Persoff, who appeared as Barbra Streisand’s rabbi father in “Yentl” and had roles in hundreds of films and TV series including “Some Like It Hot” and “Twins,” died Tuesday in San Luis Obispo, Calif. He was 102.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Dahlia Reano. Beyond prolific, Persoff racked up almost 200 credits in film and TV in a career that began in the very earliest days of television.

Persoff broke through in the 1959 movie “Some Like It Hot,” in which he played mobster boss Little Bonaparte. (The actor had been the last surviving member of the cast.) Early in his career, he was known for playing villainous tough guys, such as in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” starring Henry Fonda, and “Al Capone,” starring Rod Steiger, in which he had a substantial role as Johnny Torrio, the mobster who mentored Capone only to be replaced by him.

Nehemiah Persoff, an actor who went from the uncredited role of a cab driver in On The Waterfront‘s iconic “coulda been a contender” scene to become one of the busiest character actors in television and film for five decades, died Tuesday at a rehabilitation facility in San Luis Obispo, California. He was 102.

Persoff had retired from acting in recent decades after suffering a stroke and other health issues. His death was reported to Deadline by a family friend.

Born in Jerusalem, Palestine, Persoff and his family moved to the United States in 1929, and after serving in the U.S. Army in World War II he relocated to New York to pursue a career in theater. He became a member of the famed Actors Studio in the late 1940s, studying with Elia Kazan, who would pay him a reported 75 to play the silent cab driver in Waterfront.

Persoff was also performing...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

Review – Naked City: The Complete Series

Rlj Entertainment / 6,063 minutes

By Harvey F. Chartrand

Naked City was like no other TV series before or since – Michel Moriarty, star of Law and Order, once told this reviewer.

Inspired by Jules Dassin's 1948 film of the same name, Naked City centers on the detectives of the NYPD’s 65th Precinct, but the criminals and New York City itself often played as prominent a role in the dramas as the series regulars. Like the film it was based on, Naked City (1958- 1963) was shot almost entirely on location. The first season ran as a half-hour show under the title The Naked City, starring James Franciscus and John McIntire playing, respectively, Detective Jimmy Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon—the same roles essayed by Don Taylor and Barry Fitzgerald in the film.

The Naked City also starred Harry Bellaver as Det.

Exclusive: Tom Hanks has endorsed Fran Drescher for president of SAG-AFTRA. He’s also backing her running mate, Anthony Rapp, and “their entire team” of candidates running on the ruling parties’ Unite for Strength and Usan slates.

“The future of SAG-AFTRA is streaming,” Hanks is quoted as saying on the front of a Usan voter guide sent to the union’s members. “Members deserve stronger contracts, more residuals, better protections and ending unfair exclusivity. I’m supporting Usan Leadership, Fran, Anthony and their entire team. Your vote matters.”

Dresher, who is seeking to succeed Gabrielle Carteris as president of the 160,000-member union, is running against Matthew Modine. He and his running mate, Joely Fisher, head up the opposition party’s MembershipFirst slate.

Other A-list endorsers featured on the voter guide include Alec Baldwin, Debra Messing, J.K. Simmons, Rosario Dawson and Tichina Arnold.

“In this new world where streaming is transforming our work and our compensation,...

After exploring “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Country Music,” award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick examined the importance of being Ernest Hemingway in their three-part PBS documentary “Hemingway.” Premiering in April to strong reviews and Emmys buzz, the series weaves Papa’s biography with excerpts from his fiction, non-fiction, and personal correspondence. The series also reviews the mythology around the larger-than-life Hemingway, who penned such classic novels as “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” to reveal the truth behind the bravado.

Feature film adaptations of Hemingway’s works had mixed results. Hemingway Bff Gary Cooper excelled in 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms” and 1943’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. John Garfield gave one of his strongest performance in 1950’s superb noir “The Breaking Point,” based...

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By Tim McGlynn

Kino-Lorber has released a Blu-Ray edition of the 1959 musical comedy, Never Steal Anything Small starring James Cagney, Shirley Jones, Roger Smith and Cara Williams. If it doesn’t sound all that familiar it’s because this movie is a very odd duck. A musical without songs and dances, and a Damon Runyon type plot with characters that get a little nasty at times.

James Cagney, in his final musical performance, plays Jake MacIllaney, a crooked dockworker and steward for the local stevedore’s union in New York City. He cheats, he schemes and he occasionally embezzles funds, but he is somehow still a lovable chap who is well liked by the rank and file. He dreams of becoming the union president and hires a straight-laced lawyer, Dan Cabot (Roger Smith), to help him keep one step ahead of the law.

Rhonda Fleming died last Wednesday in Santa Monica, California. The 97-year-old actress, who had left a successful 15-year career as a leading lady in studio films 60 years ago, was correctly noted in her obituaries as “the Queen of Technicolor” because of her flaming red hair, as well as her significant presence as a film noir actress, particularly in Jacques Tourneur’s masterpiece “Out of the Past” (1947).

Her films included a number of now-acclaimed auteurist titles like Budd Boetticher’s “The Killer Is Loose,” Allan Dwan’s “Slightly Scarlet” and “Tennessee’s Partner,” and Fritz Lang’s “While the City Sleeps,” to go along with more mainstream titles like “The Spiral Staircase” and “The Gunfight at O.K. Corral.”

Unlike actresses like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, and others who made multiple films with Alfred Hitchcock, Fleming is less identified with the master. But he provided her with her breakout role in 1945’s “Spellbound.

We thought it was time to update this list after a recent sad passing as well as more celebratory news: this weekend Bernie Koeppel from The Love Boat turned 87, Marisa Pavan turned 88, Olympia Dukakis turned 89, and Gena Rowlands turned 90. Happy birthday to all of them. Anyway here's the list. Lots of great rental ideas herein...

200 Oldest Living Screen Stars

105 years young

Norman Lloyd (11/08/14) 

Most recently seen in the supporting cast of Trainwreck. He started as a Hitchcock player and later became a Hitchcock producer ("Alfred Hitchcock Presents") which led to a long producing career on TV (two Emmy nods). Other acting roles: Dead Poet's Society, The Flame and the Arrow, Wise Guy and St Elsewhere.

103 years young

Olivia de Havilland (7/1/1916) 

This centenarian is the oldest bonafide Movie Star alive and had already won Best Actress twice by the time she was 33 for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). Olivia's...

How does Hollywood sell a gritty, realistic western? With a sexy shot of star Tina Louise! Viewers will be surprised: this fine western is a showcase for the elemental ruthlessness we associate with director André de Toth — its convincing snowbound setting is so intense, we can almost feel the cold. Slick writer Philip Yordan sets up an impossible conflict as a blizzard moves in on a tiny town… Robert Ryan must sort out his feelings for the town beauty Tina Louise, as he negotiates with the he-boss of the killer crooks, Burl Ives. It looks as if Ryan has no choice but to volunteer for a suicide journey — but nature has the last word.

Day of the Outlaw

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1959 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date August 27, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal, Venetia Stevenson, David Nelson, Nehemiah Persoff, Jack Lambert,...

Nehemiah Persoff & Barbra Streisand in Yentl (1983)Papa can you hear me? 

Papa can you watch me... fly...

In the last shot of Alfred Hitchcock’s final (and underrated) “Family Plot,” impostor-psychic-turned-kidnapper Barbara Harris looks straight at the camera and winks. It was only time in Hitchcock’s career that he broke down the fourth wall, and the gesture felt like his goodbye to his fans.

Harris died August 21 at 83 of lung cancer. Her notable roles included “A Thousand Clowns,” “Nashville,” “The Seduction of Joe Tynan,” and a supporting actor Oscar nomination for “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” But for Hitchcock fans, her death reminds us that 42 years have passed since the master’s last film, and fewer of his actors are still alive.

It’s nearly impossible to track every actor who appeared in his work. (Anyone from Hitchcock’s early British films would have had to be a very small child.) However, there are still a number...

Al Capone is America’s best known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of law and order in the United States during the 1920s Prohibition era. Capone had a leading role in the illegal activities that lent Chicago its reputation as a lawless city and an interesting variety of Hollywood stars have had the leading role as Al Capone in the many films that have been made that featured him as a character.

The first film about Capone was produced when he was still making headlines. The main character may be named Antonio Camonte, but there’s little doubt as to who producer Howard Hughes had in mind when he and director Howard Hawks filmed Scarface during the Great Depression. Camonte shares more than the same initials with one Al Capone, who was about to begin his eleven-year sentence for tax evasion when the movie was released...

Alfred Hitchcock's true-life saga of a man wrongly accused may be Hitchcock's most troublesome movie -- all the parts work, but does it even begin to come together? Henry Fonda is the 'ordinary victim of fate' and an excellent Vera Miles is haunting as the wife who responds to the guilt and stress by withdrawing from reality. The Wrong Man Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date January 26, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, John Heldabrand, Doreen Lang, Norma Connolly, Lola D'Annunzio, Robert Essen, Dayton Lummis, Charles Cooper, Esther Minciotti, Laurinda Barrett, Nehemiah Persoff. Cinematography Robert Burks Art Direction Paul Sylbert Film Editor George Tomasini Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Wrong Man sees Alfred Hitchcock at the end of...

Charlton Heston movies: ‘A Man for All Seasons’ remake, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ (photo: Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur) (See previous post: “Charlton Heston: Moses Minus Staff Plus Chariot Equals Ben-Hur.”) I’ve yet to watch Irving Rapper’s melo Bad for Each Other (1954), co-starring the sultry Lizabeth Scott — always a good enough reason to check out any movie, regardless of plot or leading man. A major curiosity is the 1988 made-for-tv version of A Man for All Seasons, with Charlton Heston in the Oscar-winning Paul Scofield role (Sir Thomas More) and on Fred Zinnemann’s director’s chair. Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Thomas More’s wife in the TV movie (Wendy Hiller in the original) had a cameo as Anne Boleyn in the 1966 film. According to the IMDb, Robert Bolt, who wrote the Oscar-winning 1966 movie (and the original play), is credited for the 1988 version’s screenplay as well. Also of note,...

Humphrey Bogart movies: ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘High Sierra’ (Image: Most famous Humphrey Bogart quote: ‘The stuff that dreams are made of’ from ‘The Maltese Falcon’) (See previous post: “Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Movies.”) Besides 1948, 1941 was another great year for Humphrey Bogart — one also featuring a movie with the word “Sierra” in the title. Indeed, that was when Bogart became a major star thanks to Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. In the former, Bogart plays an ex-con who falls in love with top-billed Ida Lupino — though both are outacted by ingénue-with-a-heart-of-tin Joan Leslie. In the latter, Bogart plays Dashiel Hammett’s private detective Sam Spade, trying to discover the fate of the titular object; along the way, he is outacted by just about every other cast member, from Mary Astor’s is-she-for-real dame-in-distress to Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Sydney Greenstreet. John Huston...

Billy Wilder movies, Johnny Carson interviews tonight on TCM Billy Wilder is Turner Classic Movies’ Director of the Evening tonight, July 8, 2013. But before Wilder Evening begins, TCM will be presenting a series of brief interviews from The Tonight Show, back in the old Johnny Carson days — or rather, nights. The Carson interviewees this evening are Doris Day, Charlton Heston, Tony Curtis, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin. (See also: Doris Day today.) (Photo: Billy Wilder.) As for Billy Wilder, TCM will be showing the following: Some Like It Hot (1959), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Spirit of St. Louis (1958), and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Of course, all of those have been shown before and are widely available. Some Like It Hot vs. The Major and the Minor: Subversive and subversiver Some Like It Hot is perhaps Billy Wilder’s best-known film. This broad comedy featuring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis...

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By Harvey Chartrand

Mr. Lucky: The Complete Series is now available for the first time ever as a 4-dvd box set from Timeless Media Group… all 34 episodes, with a running time of about 840 minutes. Mr. Lucky– created by writer/director Blake Edwards (Peter Gunn) – ran for only one season (from 1959 to 1960), even though it was a hit with viewers.

This adventure/crime drama is a sort of Peter Gunn Lite, featuring a lush, organ-powered theme song by Henry Mancini (a bonus CD of Mr. Lucky’s soundtrack is included in the set), an assortment of shady characters aboard a floating casino, and competent acting by series regulars John Vivyan (as suave professional gambler Mr. Lucky), Ross Martin (as his sidekick and business partner Andamo), Pippa Scott (as Mr. Lucky’s girlfriend Maggie Shank-Rutherford) and Tom Brown (as Lieutenant Rovacs, Mr. Lucky’s...

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it.s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it.s the year that the headline is from. It.s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 25th successful year! Steve and I collaborated last Spring on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and I.ve been writing a regular monthly movie-related column since. Since there is no on-line version of The Globe, I post all of my articles here at We Are Movie Geeks. This month’s edition of The Globe takes place in 1947. The headline on the cover will scream “Al Capone Dead!” and there will be several articles about the famous gangster.

DVD Playhouse June 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion) Robert Aldrich’s 1955 reinvention of the film noir detective story is one of cinema’s great genre mash-ups: part hardboiled noir; part cold war paranoid thriller; and part science- fiction. Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane’s fascist detective Mike Hammer as a narcissistic simian thug, a sadist who would rather smash a suspect’s fingers than make love to the bevvy of beautiful dames that cross his path. In fact, the only time you see a smile cross Meeker’s sneering mug is when he’s doling out pain, with a vengeance. When a terrified young woman (Cloris Leachman, film debut) literally crossed Hammer’s path one night, and later turns up dead, he vows to get to the bottom of her brutal demise. One of the most influential films ever made, and perhaps the most-cited film by the architects...

At a time when movie stars were truly larger-than-life and iconic, few stood taller and were more memorable than John Wayne. The Duke more or less played himself, the tall, laconic keeper of the moral code regardless of era or genre. He’s best remembered for his work in Westerns, ultimately earning his one Oscar for True Grit, a tribute to a career spent along the dusty trails of a bygone America.

Bit by bit, Wayne’s oeuvre is being preserved on DVD and now Blu-ray, with The Comancheros being the most recent offering. In time for the perfect Father’s Day gift, the deluxe package from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment offers up one of Wayne’s last big Westerns just as interest in the genre was beginning to wane. The movie is well regarded by many Western fans and Elmer Bernstein’s score has lived on, well beyond the film itself,...

Chicago – Two of cinema’s most iconic actors appeared on Blu-ray new release shelves this week with excellent HD transfers and hours of special features for 50th Anniversary Editions of Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” and John Wayne’s “The Comancheros.” History has well-documented that the Newman is one of the best films from one of the form’s best actors. The Wayne film may have a more niche audience but they’re surely be satisfied with a very solid release.

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Packaged like hardcover books with photos and essays included in the actual packaging, the releases of “The Hustler” and “The Comancheros” are appealing before the disc has even been put in your machine. There’s not a lot of information in the books but they get you in the mood to watch the movie, not unlike leafing through a program before a play.

The Hustler was released...

The John Wayne classic western The Comancheros has ridden to Blu-ray from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and M&C.s giving away three copies! Wayne is Capt. Jake Cutter, a Texas Ranger determined to crush a powerful outlaw gang that's selling guns to the Indians. Cutter is also trying to bring in gambler Paul Regret (Whitman), who's wanted for murder. Both missions get entangled when Cutter crosses paths with Regret unexpectedly, and the men form an unlikely friendship while Regret decides which side of the law he's really on. Co-starring Ina Balin, Nehemiah Persoff and Lee Marvin, The Comancheros is a rousing western, and the last film of director Michael Curtiz. Special features include audio commentary...

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of The Hustler and The Comancheros On Blu-ray For the First Time May 17th And Relive the Intense Vietnam Story Tigerland on Blu-ray For the First Time May 24th

Hold on to your hats and get ready for three action-packed films when The Hustler, The Comancheros and Tigerland come to Blu-ray for the first time from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. In honor of the 50th Anniversary of The Hustler andTHE Comancheros, the two classic films are available in special Blu-ray book packaging, including rare photos from the Fox archives and brand new special features.

The Comancheros

John Wayne is Capt. Jake Cutter, a Texas Ranger determined to crush a powerful outlaw gang that’s selling guns to the Indians. Cutter is also trying to bring in gambler Paul Regret (Whitman), who’s wanted for murder. Both missions get entangled when Cutter crosses paths with Regret unexpectedly,...

20th Century Fox has announced John Wayne’s The Comancheros: 50th Anniversary Edition for May 17th on Blu-ray.

The disc will include: audio commentary (by Stuart Whitman, Nehemiah Persoff, Michael Ansara and Patrick Wayne), 2 featurettes (The Comancheros and the Battle for the American Southwest and The Duke at Fox: A Two-Part Documentary), a vintage Comancheros comic book gallery, A Conversation with Stuart Whitman (Audio Only), Fox Movietonews: Claude King and Tillman Franks Receive Award for The Comancheros, theatrical trailers and 24-page book packaging.

This sounds like an amazing disc for western HD fans. More soon!

Source: TheDigitalBits...

Fate is the Hunter, the tense 1964 drama about the investigation into a mysterious and disastrous crash of an airliner, will be shown on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, January 2 at 10:00 Pm (Est). The movie, directed by Ralph Nelson, boasts a superb cast: Glenn Ford, Rod Taylor, Nancy Kwan, Jane Russell, Suzanne Pleshette, Nehemiah Persoff and Wally Cox. The movie has never been released on DVD.

After a very quiet post-Labor Day weekend for new movies, where Resident Evil: Afterlife (review) was the only major film released widely (and owned the box office), this week's new horror DVD titles aren't aplenty either.

But we do have television shows from the recent season and re-releases of older titles all trying to chase the Blu(-ray) dollar.

Fringe: The Complete Second Season

Directed by Various

While "Fringe" is not strictly horror per se, the sense of fear and suspense that greets us week after week should qualify for some mention. They have enough quality freaks of the week and bloodshed to satisfy the fiends in us. This is the acting job that Leonard Nimoy is retiring from! "Fringe" stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown and Jasika Nicole.

Buy the Blu-ray set or the regular DVD box set.

The Twilight Zone: Season...

As if you needed any other encouragement to pick up a copy of "The Twilight Zone" Season One on Blu-ray on Tuesday, September 14th, we've got three clips from the upcoming box set from Image Entertainment.

All new 1080p high-definition transfers have been created from the original camera negatives, as well as uncompressed Pcm audio, remastered from the original magnetic soundtracks. In addition, the set includes new and exclusive bonus features not available anywhere else, including the rarely seen, never-before-released unofficial pilot “The Time Element,” written by Rod Serling and hosted by Desi Arnaz – the episode that started a cultural phenomenon – presented in glorious high definition!

Also included are 19 new audio commentaries, 34 isolated music scores, 18 radio dramas, new and archival cast/crew and scholar interviews, a “Tales of Tomorrow” episode of “What You Need,” the original unaired pilot version of “Where Is Everybody?” along with Rod Serling’s network pitch,...

Hell yeah! The classic Twilight Zone TV series created by the great and imaginative Rod Serling is coming to Blu-ray! This is one of my favorite TV series of all time. Image Entertainment will release the first season on September 14th. They've now issued a full press release officially detailing the release. Check out the full details below.

In 1959, a ground-breaking television series premiered – investigating the futuristic, the telepathic, the cryptic, and the metaphysical: The Twilight Zone. Every week, Rod Serling’s masterwork of “fear noir” took viewers from the safety of their living rooms on amazing journeys of fantasy and imagination. On September 14th, Image Entertainment will release the complete first season of The Twilight Zone, fully remastered for Blu-ray.

All new 1080p high-definition transfers have been created from the original camera negatives, as well as uncompressed Pcm audio, remastered from the original magnetic soundtracks. In addition, the set...

Now this is how we like capping off a work week! Pull up a chair, dear reader, as we have got the complete specs for "The Twilight Zone" Season One for you. I want to nest inside of this Blu-ray like Han Solo did a Tauntaun on planet Hoth. And the angels sing ...

From the Press Release

In 1959, a ground-breaking television series premiered – investigating the futuristic, the telepathic, the cryptic, and the metaphysical: The Twilight Zone. Every week, Rod Serling’s masterwork of “fear noir” took viewers from the safety of their living rooms on amazing journeys of fantasy and imagination. On September 14th, Image Entertainment will release the complete first season of The Twilight Zone, fully remastered for Blu-ray™.

All new 1080p high-definition transfers have been created from the original camera negatives, as well as uncompressed Pcm audio, remastered from the original magnetic soundtracks. In addition, the set includes...

Director Anthony Mann helmed this somewhat forgotten Korean War film which pits a small platoon of American soldiers against unseen North Korean snipers and combatants as U.N. forces are pushed further back across the 38th Parallel in September, 1950. The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 as communist insurgents attempted to overthrow the democratic government of the south. The Korean peninsula became divided by the victors after the end of World War II.

The North embraced Chinese communism, while the south became democratic. The U.S. was the first major power to send in an expeditionary force to help its South Korean allies stem the communist invasion. Within a few short months, the U.N. forces were fighting with their backs against the sea and it looked like the war was about to be lost.

‘Men in War‘ (1957) was originally conceived as a World War II story set during the D-Day invasion.

Full of high and low comedy, virtuosity and good spirits, ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'' well deserves the sobriquet ''family film''; there really is something here for everyone in the family.

Directors Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells have, along with a large band of gifted animation talents, produced a feature that emphasizes speed, motion, bright colors, shifts of perspective, and eye-popping computer graphics all served up in a stylish rush. Boxoffice prospects look exceptionally good.

The feature finds the title mouse, Fievel Mousekewitz, still living in the Bronx with his family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. A mass attack by cats drives the family underground (in a super rapids ride through the sewers) where they and a swarm of other, similarly harried mice are persuaded by a ticket-bearing, spiel-speaking mouse to head out west for a new settlement. The assembled mice agree, not knowing that the mouse is a puppet front for the evil feline Cat R. Waul, who together with his spider aide, T.R. Chula, and a gang of cats, plans to use these immigrants as the basis of a regular voluntary food supply.

There is also a subplot featuring Fievel's cat buddy, the tubby Tiger, and that fat cat's girlfriend, the saloon-singing Miss Kitty. They, together with Fievel and a broken-down old western hound named Wylie Burp, triumph over the cats in the climactic showdown.

However, the movie is less about its story than its technique, which is a delightfully relentless, zooming onslaught. Fievel goes from one trouble spot to another, from traps by alley cats to falls from moving trains to capture by a buzzard to being bottled up by the spider. And when Fievel gets a rest, its Tiger's turn for misadventure.

These episodes unwind in the densest concentration of computer graphics effects ever marshalled for a major feature release, and angles and perspectives spin vertiginously and continuously, the dazzle compounded by the flamboyantly bright coloring.

However, the animators have not neglected their character work, and the individuals are portrayed in elastic eloquence, with faces and whole bodies undergoing comically expressive transformations. The bulbous Tiger goes through some particularly circular transformations while the villainous Cat R. Waul (who seems based on the Fox in ''Pinocchio'') is all calculating angles.

The three main songs are bouncy and appropriate, though not as memorable as the original's ''Somewhere Out There, '' which gets a short reprise from Fievel's older sister Tanya, whose singing aspirations form part of the plot's engine. The theme from ''Rawhide'' gets a short and amusing (for grownups) run-through. James Horner's score is a nice western pastiche, from Copeland to hoedown.

The voices are all well-done, with John Cleese doing a drolly supercilious turn as Cat R. Waul and Jon Lovitz a chip-on-the-right-shoulder T.R. Chula. As the voice of Wylie Burp, James Stewart was an extremely effective choice, and his denouement benediction provides a perfect closing sentiment. Dom DeLuise (Tiger), Phillip Glasser (Fievel), Nehemiah Persoff (Poppa Mousekewitz) and Erica Yohn (Mama Mousekewitz) all return from the original, while Amy Irving performs for Miss Kitty and Cathy Cavadini is perfectly on key and off as Tanya.

AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST

UNIVERSAL

Steven Spielberg Presents

Producers Steven Spielberg, Robert Watts

Directors Phil Nibbelink, Simon Wells

Story Charles Swenson

Screenplay Flint Dille

Created by David Kirschner

Original songs James Horner, Will Jennings

Music James Horner

Casting Nancy Nayor, C.S.A., Valerie McCaffrey

Art director Neil Ross

Supervising animators Nancy Beiman, Kristof Serrand, Rob Stevenhagen

Special effects supervisor Scott Santoro

Supervising editor Nick Fletcher

Color

Voices:

Fievel Phillip Glasser

Cat R. Waul John Cleese

Wylie James Stewart

Tiger Dom DeLuise

Papa Nehemiah Persoff

Chula Jon Lovitz

Miss Kitty Amy Irving

Tanya Cathy Cavadini

Mama Erica Yohn

Running time -- 75 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...