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“It’s so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema,” the Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro gushed to Jacques Audiard, the French director of Emilia Pérez, during a conversation following an overflow screening of Audiard’s new Netflix film. The highly unconventional musical set is in Mexico and was played for members of the Directors Guild of America on Wednesday night at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. Del Toro said of Audiard to the audience, “I think he’s one of the most amazing filmmakers alive today.”

A full transcript of the conversation appears below.

Del Toro Well, I want to start by saying I’m not a dispassionate observer because I’ve been part of two juries — one in Cannes, one in Venice — that gave Jacques the Palme d’Or and best director. So this is how I feel about him: I think he’s one...

The details of Humphrey Bogart’s epic marriage to Lauren Bacall will now be on the big screen.

Just months after late icon Bacall would have been 100 years old, the new documentary “Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes” puts her romance with longtime collaborator and co-star Bogart front and center. The duo’s son Stephen Humphrey Bogart worked closely with Humphrey Bogart Estate CEO Robbert de Klerk and director Kathryn Ferguson, who previously helmed the Sinéad O’Connor doc “Nothing Compares.”

“Life Comes in Flashes” is billed as an “inside look at one of Hollywood’s greatest cinematic icons, telling Humphrey Bogart’s story through his relationships with the five formidable women in his life – his mother and his four wives. Each relationship offers a deep and intimate understanding of a man for whom stardom was hard-won and richly deserved.”

BIFA-winning, IDA-nominated, and BAFTA Breakthrough-selected filmmaker Ferguson opted for the narration...

“Anybody got a match?” When 19-year-old Lauren Bacall cast a smoldering glance toward Humphrey Bogart in the 1944 film noir “To Have and Have Not,” she stuck the landing of her Hollywood debut with a precision few stars have achieved before or since. Chin down, eyes lifted, she eclipsed one of the most seasoned leading men in the industry. Even before she uttered one of cinema’s greatest innuendos — “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow” — she had walked away with the film. Critics raved, hailing her as the next Marlene Dietrich and claiming she had better chemistry with Bogart than Ingrid Bergman had in “Casablanca.”

Director Howard Hawks had plucked the Brooklyn-born teenager from obscurity after seeing her in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. After changing her name from Betty to Lauren and instructing her to keep her voice in its naturally low register,...

Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall made her feature debut with Howard Hawks‘ adventure yarn “To Have and Have Not” (1945). The film was a landmark for the actress in both her career and her life, since it was how she met her future husband Humphrey Bogart. The two would become a legendary couple off-screen and on, making three subsequent features together: “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947) and “Key Largo” (1948).

Despite her hefty filmography, Bacall received just one Oscar nomination in her career: Best Supporting Actress for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), in which she played Barbra Streisand‘s domineering mother. After victories at the Golden Globes and SAG, Bacall looked like a shoo-in to finally clinch an Academy Award, yet lost to Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”).

Bacall also had a successful stage career, winning two Tonys as Best Actress in a Musical (“Applause” in 1970 and “Woman of the Year” in 1981″). Her...

Every episode of the classic sci-fi/horror anthology "The Twilight Zone" begins with the introduction of some seemingly normal people, usually in the midst of a seemingly normal day. What they don't realize, of course, is that this will be the day they encounter the strange, the fantastic, and sometimes the horrifying. And just as they begin their journey, the camera pans over to a man in a respectable suit. He looks directly at the audience and explains who these people are, exactly what troubles them (or is about to), and reveals that they are about to enter — you guessed it — "The Twilight Zone."

Exactly what "The Twilight Zone" is, is never made clear. Episodes of the classic series often take place in the real world as we know it, but also sometimes in the distant future, or the distant past, or on other planets, or in the afterlife. They don't clearly connect together,...

To have coffee or to not have coffee, that is the question answered by discontinued decaffeinated instant coffee brand High Point Coffee, who tapped Lauren Bacall as a spokesperson in the 1980s.

The resurfaced commercials put screen legend and “To Have and Have Not” actress Bacall in a new light: Hilariously slinging instant coffee as the easiest way to look refreshed on set. Bacall, who would have turned 98 on September 16, starred in iconic films like “How to Marry a Millionaire,” “Dark Passage,” and “The Big Sleep” before dying in August 2014.

The “Designing Woman” alum starred in “Misery,” “Dogville,” and “Ernest & Celestine” among her final roles. Bacall was married to Humphrey Bogart until his death in 1957; the couple met during the filming of “To Have and Have Not,” and co-starred in a series of films together.

Bacall lent her trademark voice and signature sultry charisma to the High Point Coffee campaign in the 1980s.

Much has been made of titles being quietly removed from HBO Max over the last few week, but while the number of films departing the service in September is substantial, at least subscribers have a heads up.

As is the case every month, various movies are due to leave HBO Max in September, and below we’ve got the full list of which films are leaving and when so you can prioritizing some viewing options. Noteworthy removals include the 2021 Warner Bros. thriller “The Little Things” starring Denzel Washington (leaving Sept. 16), the 2020 “Freaky Friday” horror riff “Freaky,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films, the “Lethal Weapon” franchise, “Super 8,” “Tootsie” and the Nancy Meyers classic “The Holiday.”

Check out the full list of what’s leaving HBO Max in September below.

September 4

Meet the Patels, 2014

September 5

Turner Classic Movies: Follow the Thread, 2022

September 8

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, 2018

September 9

Horrible Bosses 2,...

This June on HBO and HBO Max will play host to a new season of “Westworld,” a new adaptation of “Father of the Bride” and much more.

The big new Warner Bros. release on HBO and HBO Max this month is “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” which actually debuted on the HBO Max streaming service on May 30. The third film in the Wizarding World prequel franchise first hit theaters in April, and is now available to stream in 4K.

There’s also the updated version of “Father of the Bride” premiering on June 16, while a pair of noteworthy documentaries are coming on the early side this month: “The Janes” premieres June 8 and follows unlikely outlaws in pre-Roe v. Wade America who defied state legislation that banned abortion, while “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” debuts on June 9.

As for original series, the fourth season of “Westworld” premieres on June...

With its list of new releases for June 2022, HBO Max is joining in what should be a TV summer to remember.

Not content to let Netflix’s Stranger Things or Prime Video’s The Boys to dominate the summer TV landscape, HBO is coming through with a new season of one of its big hits. Westworld season 4 is set to premiere June 26 on both HBO and HBO Max. What will this season of the increasingly confusing sci-fi drama be about? Per HBO’s synopsis it will be “A dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on earth.” So you know, only that.

Irma Vep is the only other Max Original of note this month. Based on a 1996 cult classic of the same name, this limited series stars Alicia Vikander as a disillusioned movie star looking to remake the early 20th century French silent film serial Les Vampires.

It’s...

There’s something about French films. The impeccably styled but lived-in interiors, the laid-back sensuality that feels like real-people sex, the cigarettes upon cigarettes upon cigarettes. The country’s entire oeuvre (has the word ever been more apropos?) feels like a smoky exhalation of the words “le cinéma.” That said, French films get away with certain things American films wouldn’t dare, for better or for worse. In “The Passengers of the Night” (“Les passagers de la nuit”), which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as a newly divorced mother, meaning takes a backseat to mood, and character development happens on a whim. Still,

The film opens on election night in 1981. As the winds of change sweep the streets of Paris, bursting with youthful optimism, Elisabeth (Gainsbourg) is on the precipice of a less welcome change. Her marriage over, and she is filled with uncertainty about how to support her two teenage kids,...

The complete lineup for the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, taking place February 10-20, 2022, has been unveiled and it’s a major collection of some of our most-anticipated films of the year. As teased yesterday, Claire Denis’ Fire (which now has the title Avec amour et acharnement (aka Both Sides of the Blade)) will premiere in competition, alongside Hong Sangsoo’s The Novelist’s Film, Carla Simón’s Summer 1993 follow-up Alcarràs, Ulrich Seidl’s Rimini, Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok, and more.

Elsewhere in the festival is Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, Andrew Dominik’s Nick Cave & Warren Ellis doc This Much I Know To Be True, Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, Gastón Solnicki’s A Little Love Package, Quentin Dupieux’s Incredible But True, plus new shorts by Lucrecia Martel, Hlynur Pálmason, and more. Also recently announced was the Panorama section, which will open...

The 72nd Berlin International Film Festival (February 10-20) revealed its Competition line-up on Wednesday, scroll down for the full list.

As previously announced, the International Competition opens this year with François Ozon’s Peter Von Kant. Joining the Ozon pic today were 17 further features, including new films from Hong Sang-soo, Claire Denis, Ulrich Seidl, and Rithy Panh.

This marks Denis’ first time in Berlin’s Competition, having been a regular at Cannes over the years, while her last film High Life debuted at Toronto. The director’s new movie Both Sides of the Blade (previously known as Fire) stars Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon.

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo picked up the Silver Bear for Best Director in 2020 for movie The Woman Who Ran. His latest pic is The Novelist’s Film, which Berlin Artistic Director today said celebrates chance encounters.

The Competition program is 17 world premieres plus one international premiere,...

Berlin’s Martin Gropius Bau building won’t be hopping with the European Film Market’s frenzied deal-making, but the global film industry is still weighing up trips to Germany for an in-person Berlinale.

Sales companies with a film at the festival, which runs Feb. 10-16, are largely planning to show up, and numerous distributors are expected to attend. Efforts are also underway to get buyers to Berlin by setting up separate market screenings for films in the official selection, although it’s unclear how feasible this will be.

Europa International, the umbrella group representing European sales companies, has been in negotiations with the EFM to try and arrange some sort of informal, on-the-ground market activity, according to several sources.

“We are in a constant dialogue with the sales agents and understand the need a top festival on the scale of the Berlinale generates for the commercial launch of films,...

Les passagers de la nuit (Night Birds)

His film festival bingo card includes Locarno (2010’s Memory Lane), Rotterdam (2016’s This Summer Feeling), and Venice (2018’s Amanda – read review) and you can bet your bottom dollar with the star wattage in the trio of Emmanuelle Béart, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Noée Abita that his fourth feature will be heading to a major European comp premiere as well. Mikhaël Hers‘ Les passagers de la nuit (Night Birds) began production back in February of 2021 (not too obvious during the pandemic) for a set in the 80’s drama. Co-written alongside the prolific scribe Maud Ameline, this is the third project collab between Hers and Nord-Ouest Films’ Pierre Guyard.…...

As Europe copes with yet another wave of Covid-19 infections and skyrocketing cases of the Omicron variant, prospects for a full-blown comeback for the international film festival circuit are looking less likely every day.

The Netherlands and Denmark have taken the strictest measures so far, while France and Germany have closed their borders to U.K. travellers. Other countries are expected to follow suit. The current scenario puts pressure on the European festivals scheduled in the first few months of the year, including the Rotterdam fest (IFFR) and the Berlinale, which could be the most impacted. Cannes and Venice, meanwhile, might be spared as they were in 2021. Here is what we know so far about what to expect at key international festivals in 2022:

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Jan. 26-Feb. 6

With the Netherlands enforcing a strict lockdown ahead of Christmas, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s plans for an on-site...

Each month before the Smackdown event, suggested options for an alternate ballot in Best Supporting Actress...

by Nick Taylor

How is it I've ended up watching three Bogie & Bacall collaborations in reverse chronological order while celebrating the Smackdown years? At least this means that their pairings have only grown more rewarding, rather than less. I’d probably rank To Have and Have Not ever so slightly above The Big Sleep, but boy is it a twisty, entertaining film, making real cinema out of Raymond Chandler’s novel without sanding away his cynical wit and venom. The Big Sleep also boasts the only real instance in any of these films of a supporting performer truly overshadowing the star couple for sheer charisma and watchability. That actress is Martha Vickers, in the role of Lauren Bacall’s drug-addicted, nymphomaniac sister Carmen Sternwood. If it’s one thing for Moorehead to walk away...

The film won the Screen International Buyers Choice Award at Rome’s Mia.

Italian sales firm Tvco has boarded international sales rights on Serge Mirzabekiantz’s Belgian drama Dark Heart Of The Forest, and is selling the title at this week’s online European Film Market (EFM).

Mirzebkiantz’s feature directorial debut won the Screen International Buyers Choice Award at the 2020 Rome Mia Market, in the C EU Soon selection for European production and co-productions.

Currently in post-production, the film follows 16-year-old foster child Nikolai, who dreams of starting his own family. When brazen 5-year-old Camille arrives at his home,...

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Noée Abita, Quito Rayon-Richter and Emmanuelle Béart star in the cast of this Nord-Ouest Films production sold by mk2 Films. Monday 1 February saw the first clapperboard slam on Les passagers de la nuit, Mikhaël Hers’ 4th feature film after Memory Lane (which screened in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present section in 2010), This Summer Feeling (gracing Rotterdam’s Big Screen Award competition in 2016) and Amanda.The cast assembled by the director comprises Charlotte Gainsbourg, Noée Abita (much remarked in Ava, at her best in Sink or Swim and the winner of the...

Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.

And Hope to Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Film Editor: Roger Dwyre

Original Music: Francis Lai

Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...

by Nick Taylor

One way to search for great performances outside of Oscar's history books is merely to check in on what the great character actresses of their day were busy doing besides not getting their due. In 1947 just to cite a few examples, You couldn’t go wrong with Mary Astor, warm and sympathetic as the mother of sickly Liz Taylor in Cynthia, and even better at nimbly flipping through the morally compromised history of a saloon-owner afraid her daughter will run away with a dangerous man in Desert Fury. There’s also Elsa Lanchester as the housemaid in The Bishop’s Wife, so piquantly observant in a role that often invites stooging. But if we’re talking supporting actresses, surely the first stop for anyone seeking out the heavies of Classic Hollywood is Agnes Moorehead. Moorehead’s performances n Dark Passage and The Lost Moment were my first stops...

“You know, it’s wonderful when guys like you lose out. Makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world.”

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage screens at Webster University Tuesday February 12th. The screening will be at 7:30 at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here. This is the third of four Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall collaborations screening at Webster in February. The final film will be Key Largo Feb 26th. Look for more coverage of this great Bogey and Bacall film series here at We Are Movie Geeks in the coming weeks.

Dark Passage (1947) was the third of the four Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall pairings of the 40s. It’s the least remembered, but it’s great entertainment and Bacall and Bogart really steam up the screen. The movie starts off brilliantly,...

Here’s looking at you, Humphrey Bogart. The Oscar-winning leading man would’ve celebrated his 119th birthday on December 25, 2018. Best known for playing a tough guy with a heart of gold, Bogart made dozens of films before his untimely death in 1957. But how many of those titles are classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Though it may sound like a bit of Hollywood lore, Bogart was indeed born on Christmas Day, 1899, in New York City. After a short stint in the Navy, he started acting onstage and in films, mostly in bit parts as gangsters who met the wrong end of a bullet.

SEEOscar Best Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

His big breakthrough came with the Broadway hit “The Petrified Forest,” in which he played a violent bank robber holed up at...

Here’s looking at you, Humphrey Bogart. The Oscar-winning leading man would’ve celebrated his 119th birthday on December 25, 2018. Best known for playing a tough guy with a heart of gold, Bogart made dozens of films before his untimely death in 1957. But how many of those titles are classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Though it may sound like a bit of Hollywood lore, Bogart was indeed born on Christmas Day, 1899, in New York City. After a short stint in the Navy, he started acting onstage and in films, mostly in bit parts as gangsters who met the wrong end of a bullet.

His big breakthrough came with the Broadway hit “The Petrified Forest,” in which he played a violent bank robber holed up at an isolated diner with a hobo and a waitress. When...

Lauren Bacall would’ve celebrated her 94th birthday on September 16. The Hollywood icon showed no signs of slowing down, continuing to work until her death in 2014 at the age of 89. In honor of her birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Bacall made her feature debut with Howard Hawks‘ adventure yarn “To Have and Have Not” (1945). The film was a landmark for the actress in both her career and her life, since it was how she met her future husband Humphrey Bogart. The two would become a legendary couple off-screen and on, making three subsequent features together: “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947), and “Key Largo” (1948).

Despite her hefty filmography, Bacall received just one Oscar nomination in her career: Best Supporting Actress for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), in which she played Barbra Streisand‘s domineering mother. After victories at the Golden Globes and SAG,...

In the peak American film noir years from 1940 to 1960, an astonishing number of these movies took place in the scenic west coast city of San Francisco. Fandor’s new video, “Shadows In The Fog: Classic San Francisco Film Noir” points out that as many as 70 of these films were set in the city by the bay, including classics like John Huston’s version of the The Maltese Falcon, which kicked off the genre in 1941. Orson Welles followed in 1947 with The Lady From Shanghai, which featured scenes in the city’s famous aquarium and a suspenseful footrace through Chinatown.

That same year saw Humphrey Bogart’s return to San Fran to hide out after an escape from San Quentin in Dark Passage, highlighted by director Delmer Daves’ native knowledge of the city, as well as Robert Mitchum’s noir classic Out Of The Past. All of ...

“You know, it’s wonderful when guys like you lose out. Makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world.”

Dark Passage (1947) screens Wednesday April 19th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Dark Passage (1947) was the third of the four Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall pairings of the 40s. It’s the least remembered, but it’s great entertainment and Bacall and Bogart really steam up the screen. The movie starts off brilliantly, shown from the P.O.V. of Vincnet Parry (Bogart), a prison escapee, who has been wrongly incarcerated for his wife’s murder. While on the run he is picked up by a beautiful woman who has been following his case...

“You know, it’s wonderful when guys like you lose out. Makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world.”

Dark Passage (1947) screens Wednesday April 19th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Dark Passage (1947) was the third of the four Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall pairings of the 40s. It’s the least remembered, but it’s great entertainment and Bacall and Bogart really steam up the screen. The movie starts off brilliantly, shown from the P.O.V. of Vincnet Parry (Bogart), a prison escapee, who has been wrongly incarcerated for his wife’s murder. While on the run he is picked up by a beautiful woman who has been following his case...

“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money – and a woman – and I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Double Indemnity screens Wednesday April 12th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as the second installment of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Cold-blooded, brutal, and stylishly directed by Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity is a prime example of The Film Noir genre and remains highly influential in its look, attitude and story. The 1944 crime drama set the pattern for that distinctive post-war genre: a shadowy, nighttime urban world of deception and betrayal usually distinguished by its “hard-boiled” dialogue, corrupt characters and the obligatory femme fatale who preys on the primal urges of an ordinary Joe hungry for sex and easy wealth.

A movie starring two famous actors who happen to be married in real-life: On paper, it sounds like it should be a sure-fire win. In reality? It’s not that simple.

It’s no wonder that famous couples might be hesitant to collaborate in a movie, even if it was guaranteed to smash the box office: Working with your spouse is hard, and it wouldn’t make it any easier to know that throngs of people would be examining the final product, looking for all possible glimpses into your personal life.

Occasionally, some famous couples have considered that possibility and decided,...

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”

The Maltese Falcon screens Wednesday April 5th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as the first installment of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ Crime & Noir film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Frequently considered the first – and finest – example of film noir filmmaking in Hollywood, 1941’s classic The Maltese Falcon will cast its mysterious shadows on the silver screen once again at the Tivoli

Here’s the rare chance for movie buffs to see it in on the big screen, while a new generation can discover the secrets of the infamous “black bird” by seeing it for the first time. Originally released on Oct. 3, 1941, as the nation braced itself for the possibility of war, The Maltese Falcon launched John Huston’s directorial career with the story of high-living...

There’s nothing more fun than getting to watch classic movies the way they were intended–on the big screen!

Now, I understand plenty of people don’t want to go to a theater, spend a fortune on tickets, popcorn, and a drink just to see the glow of cell phones and hear people rudely talking while someone kicks your seat from behind, but that’s not the experience you’ll get at Landmark theaters affordable ‘Crime & Noir’ film series. St. Louis movie buffs are in for a treat as Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater will return with it’s ‘Classics on the Loop’ every Wednesday beginning April 5th at 7pm. This season, the Tivoli will screen, on their big screen (which seats 320 btw), eight crime and noir masterpiece that need to be seen in a theater with an audience. Admission is only $7.

One benefits of the big screen is...

Author: Dave Roper

The Directors, The Auteurs, the Commanders of the Ship, Masters of All They Survey. This is the second of this two-part series on the greatest directors with more of cinematic luminaries under the spotlight. You can see the first part of this article here. You can catch up with the greatest writers, and the greatest actors here.

Here’s Part Two.

Howard Hawks – The Big Sleep

Hawks, like his peer Billy Wilder, proved a genre-hopping master. Like Wilder, he had his crime/noir masterpieces (Scarface, The Big Sleep) and his comedies (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday). Hawks also did a strong line in westerns, with Red River and Rio Bravo the best known and best regarded of this latter-career focus of his. As with any director who covers a lot of thematic ground during their career, it can be difficult to choose a “Best”, as you...

What are your three top noirs you'd love to see discussed this month? I mean besides the obvious choices like Gilda (a personal fav) and films we've discussed in the past few years already like Double Indemnity, Blood Simple, The Bigamist, and Woman in the Window.

Easy Access Fyi:

• Netflix has a paltry selection of Noir but they are offering Dressed to Kill, Don't Bother to Knock, Laura, and House on Telegraph Hill

• Amazon Prime is streaming The Killer is Loose, The Man in the Attic, The Hitchhiker, Shoot to Kill, Scarlett Street, Dark Passage, Strange Woman, Fear in the Night, The Stranger, Port of New York, Strange Illusion, Whistle Stop and Woman on the Run

• The new FilmStruck service has several foreign titles mostly from Japan and France...

TV stalwart Paul Wendkos' biggest success in movies was as the director of the Gidget series. I'm Scottish so I don't know what that was. But it turns out he had a real gift for expressionistic noir, as demonstrated in his debut film The Burglar, which was scripted by pulp noir icon David Goodis, whose novels provided source material for Delmer Daves' Dark Passage, Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, René Clément's And Hope to Die, Beineix's Moon in the Gutter (the author was big in France) and Sam Fuller's Street of No Return.The movie, a low-budget affair, substitutes flair and vigor for production values, and stars lifelong noir patsy/creep Dan Duryea and up-and-coming sex bomb Jayne Mansfield, with the result that it always seems to be in the wrong aspect ratio. Duryea's cranium seems to have an extra story built...

This is one of those weird videos that doesn't really qualify as a supercut, and doesn't really qualify as a video essay either. But regardless of categorization, editor Jacob T. Swinney's selection of 100 shots — one from each of the past 100 years of cinema history — is very cool to watch. Added bonus: it played at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Hans Zimmer's masterful "Time," from the Inception soundtrack, does a lot of the heavy lifting, but Swinney makes some excellent choices here and this is well worth a few minutes of your time. Find a full list of the movies used below:

A journey through the past 100 years of cinema--the most memorable shot from each year (in my opinion). While many of these shots are the most recognizable in film history, others are equally iconic in their own right. For example, some shots pioneered a style or defined a genre,...

Bogie's back and Bacall's got him! Or, at least she's got his voice, and a bundle of bandages. A David Goodis hardboiled crime tale becomes an absurd pile of coincidences and accidental relationships, all wrapped up (literally) in a giant plastic-surgery gimmick. Bogart and his new bride Bacall are charming, but there's a show -stealer at large: the great Agnes Moorehead plays the most entertainingly horrible harpy in film history. Dark Passage Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 106 min. / Street Date May 17, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 16.59 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead, Bruce Bennett, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Douglas Kennedy, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson Cinematography Sid Hickox Art Direction Charles H. Clarke Film Editor David Weisbart Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Delmer Daves from a novel by David Goodis Produced by Jerry Wald, Jack L. Warner Directed by Delmer Daves

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Dark Passage...

As a supplement to our Recommended Discs weekly feature, Peter Labuza regularly highlights notable recent home-video releases with expanded reviews. See this week’s selections below.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Two new restorations from the UCLA Film and Television Archive, in conjunction with the Film Noir Foundation, certainly speak to that ethos. First up, the piercing eyes of Lisabeth Scott explain everything one might need to know about this woman who wants it all. In Byron Haskin‘s Too Late for Tears, writer Roy Huggins stages a flipped gender perspective of Double Indemnity. Driving along with her dull husband (Arthur Kennedy at his most subdued), Scott’s Jane Palmer has a bag of $60,000 literally drop in her lap. Goody two-shoes husband wants to hand it to the authorities, but she sees this as the opportunity to finally lean in. Dp William C. Mellor lights Scott’s...

In this episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, May 17th 2016.

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Follow-Up A History of Disney Television Animation: volume I Amazon purchases News Criterion August titles Kino Lorber: I The Jury, Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, The Neptune Factor, Finders Keepers Code Red: Screams of a Winter Night, The Working Girls Scorpion Releasing: Don’t Go In The House, also – Go Tell the Spartans – through Screen Archives Links to Amazon Candy Cop Rock: The Complete Series Dark Passage FitzPatrick Traveltalks: Volume 1 For Men Only / School for Sex Hired To Kill I Saw What You Did Killer Force The Last Command (Masters of Cinema) The Naked Island Too Late for Tears (Flicker Alley) Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? The Witch...

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

The Witch (Robert Eggers)

“We will conquer this wilderness. It will not consume us,” foreshadows our patriarch in the first act of The Witch, a delightfully insane bit of 17th century devilish fun. As if Ingmar Bergman and Ken Russell co-directed Kill List, Robert Eggers’ directorial debut follows a God-fearing Puritan family banished from their settlement in a colonial New England, only to have their deep sense of faith uprooted when our title character has her way with their fate.

Courtesy of Stx Entertainment

In the action thriller Hardcore Henry, a man wakes up in a high-tech lab and is told by a woman in a lab coat he has been brought back to life as a human-robot hybrid. He can’t remember anything but she tells him his name is Henry and she is his wife, slipping a wedding ring on his finger. But as she is preparing to restore his ability to speak, the lab is attacked. Shortly, Henry is running for his life in Moscow and hoping to rescue his wife from the attackers who have taken her.

The twist with this high-octane thriller is that it is shot in first-person point-of-view, where the audience sees through Henry’s eyes as he battles to stay alive using his considerable skills. Since he cannot speak, the viewer is completely immersed in his role, which is shot like a...

In this episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, April 6th, 2016.

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Follow-Up A History of Disney Television Animation: volume I by Tim Van Hal — Kickstarter Marion Davies’ breakthrough film comes to home video by Ben Model — Kickstarter News Warner Archive on Twitter: “Someone carelessly left this upcoming DVD release schedule up on their monitor where everyone can see it…” Universal – Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, & Jaws: The Revenge on June 14th Kino Lorber: Grandview USA, They’re Playing with Fire, Five Miles to Midnight Synapse: Sorceress Rocktober Blood – Indiegogo Blu-ray + Cd ($50!) Disney Movie Club: Operation Dumbo Drop Star Trek Uhd BDs & Box Sets Olive Films Announce June Titles Shout Factory: Cop Rock on DVD Criterion: UK titles Misc Links Dark Passage (film) – Wikipedia Vondie Curtis-Hall – Wikipedia Links to Amazon The Black Cat...

The Red House

Written and directed by Delmer Daves

U.S.A., 1947

*It should be noted that in order to properly analyze the heart of the picture’s themes, certain important plot points are divulged in the review below.

Sequestered away from most of the town they live in, the Morgan’s operate a modest but efficient little farm. Patriarch Pete (Edward G. Robinson), slightly handicapped by a wooden leg resulting from an incident many years ago, remains hard at work but evidently could use some assistance. Enter young Nath Storm (Lon McCallister), a boy from school that Pete’s shy adopted daughter, Meg (Allene Roberts) befriends and fancies. Meg introduces Nath to Pete, the latter reluctantly agreeing to give the youth a job. Whilst the first day goes swimmingly, that evening proves the fire starter that complicates each of their lives. Nath insists on taking a short cut through the woods,...

The American Cinematheque and the Film Noir Foundation present the 17th annual Noir City fest, running April 3-19 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Rarely seen gems, restorations, new 35mm prints, films unavailable on DVD and Oscar nominees abound in this journey of 12 nights and 26 films through the side streets and back alleys of film noir. This year, some true giants of the genre get a salute, including Humphrey Bogart in Delmer Daves' pitch-black 1947 "Dark Passage" opposite Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck in Roy Rowland's 1954 "Witness to Murder" (like Hitchcock's "Rear Window" through the eyes of a woman) and John Sturges' 1953 "Jeopardy" and French-American auteur Jacques Tourneur's "Circle of Danger" and "Berlin Express." Also check out the Film Noir Foundation's 35mm restoration of "Woman on the Run," which world-premiered earlier this year at San Francisco's Noir City. Directed by Norman...

Reno 911: Boyle’s Indie Neo-Noir an Enjoyable Pulpy Exercise

For his fifth feature, indie filmmaker Dave Boyle pays homage to film noir tropes with his twisty, engaging Man From Reno. Along the lines of the light, comically inclined indie sleuthing of Aaron Katz’s Portland set Cold Weather (2010), Boyle gives noir a fresh face in the culturally ambiguous city of San Francisco. Though not all of its tangential elements feel quite successful, Boyle’s screenplay, co-written with his regular collaborators Michael Lerman and Joel Clark, features an unpredictably dark third act that more resolutely recalls the films it’s inspired by than most of its modern counterparts.

Recently escaping from a book tour back home in Japan, famed pulpy mystery author Aki (Ayako Fujitano) finds herself alone in San Francisco while her disappearance causes a dramatic furor. She runs into a sexy stranger who calls himself Akira (Kazuki Kitamura...

'Focus' movie: Will Smith has third weakest weekend box-office debut of his career (photo: Will Smith in 'Focus') According to those referred to in polite society as "conservatives," winter storms and freezing temperatures are evidence that there's no such thing as global warming. Let's not even go there. Instead, let's focus (bad pun intended) on the Focus movie starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie as a con couple, which opened below expectations – with wintery weather as a possible culprit – in North America this weekend, February 27-March 1, 2015. According to box-office tracking, as late as a couple of days ago Warner Bros.' modestly budgeted Focus was expected to take in between $22-24 million. Barring a miracle akin to a sudden halt to rising ocean temperatures (pardon the hyperbole), that's not about to happen. Now, before I proceed: "modestly budgeted"? Well, for a Will Smith movie, $50 million – after...

Dark Passage

Written by Delmer Daves

Directed by Delmer Daves

U.S.A., 1947

As a pickup truck transporting a collection of large sized barrels leaves San Quentin prison, one of its shipments topples over and rolls down a roadside hill. From it sprouts recently convicted convict Vincent Parry who then perilously makes his way to San Francisco where he plans to uncover the truth about his wife’s murder for which he claims to have been wrongfully accused. It is in San Francisco that Vincent luckily makes the acquaintance of one Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall), a lonesome woman who, through a few degrees of separation, has ties to Vincent and hopes to assist him in his plight, particularly when a common foe, Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorehead) visits Irene, claiming that Vincent is on the loose and will surely find and kill her as well. With so much heat on his tail,...

An Italian To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, USA, 1944). Art by Luigi Martinati.

Lauren Bacall, who left us last week after an astonishing 70 years of making movies, was one of the most beautiful women ever to grace a movie screen and the first golden age Hollywood star I ever fell for. With her unmistakeable features—those eyebrows, those lips—she must have been one of the easiest stars to capture in an illustration and thus a gift to poster artists. For most of her career, however, while she was never less than a star, she was rarely a leading lady, playing co-star to her great love Humphrey Bogart in four of her first five movies, then to Charles Boyer, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Gregory Peck and so on. As a result, she rarely appeared solo in posters and is often dwarfed by her male co-stars.

Lauren Bacall, one of the last links to Hollywood’s Golden Age, died August 12 at 89 in her Upper West Side apartment, 70 years after shooting to stardom in her first film, Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not, opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart. Bacall is best remembered for that film (in which she famously provides instructions about how to whistle) and the three others she made with “Bogie”—The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo—before his untimely death in 1957. But contemporaries also remember her political activism at a time before it was common for celebrities to involve

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“Lauren Bacall models an Mptf Christmas card in 1951.” Courtesy Mptf

Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the life and career of legendary actress Lauren Bacall with a 24-hour marathon of memorable performances, including all four films in which she co-starred with husband Humphrey Bogart.

TCM’s tribute to Bacall, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 89, will air Monday, Sept. 15, beginning at 8 p.m. (Et), and will conclude Tuesday, Sept. 16, her 90th birthday.

“Lauren Bacall was a wonderful and generous friend of ours at TCM, and a great connection to the ‘golden age of cinema,’” said TCM host Robert Osborne. “Personally, I have to admit that she never failed to make my heart beat faster and my voice to stammer when we spoke. Talk about true star quality – that was Bacall. We are truly blessed to have had her as an integral part of our TCM family.”

Turner Classic Movies...

Lauren Bacall will receive a movie marathon tribute from TCM.

The cable channel has confirmed that a two-day tribute to the actress - who passed away in New York on Tuesday (August 12) - will air on September 15 and September 16.

Lauren Bacall: 13 classic photos of Hollywood's Golden Age icon

Barbra Streisand remembers Mirror Has Two Faces co-star Lauren Bacall

TCM will air nearly a dozen of the Hollywood icon's most popular films, including The Big Sleep, Key Largo and Dark Passage.

The marathon will begin on Monday, September 15 at 8pm Et with an airing of Private Screenings featuring the actress.

It will be followed by her breakthrough 1944 classic To Have and Have Not, in which she starred with future husband Humphrey Bogart.

The marathon is slated to wrap up on Tuesday, September 16 with Designing Woman at 6pm Et.

TCM's Robert Osborne said in a statement: "Lauren Bacall was a wonderful...