Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics DVD

"With a few exceptions," wrote Andrew Sarris in You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet, "The Bride of Frankenstein represented the last gasp of the horror film as a serious genre.  The creeping disease of facetiousness crippled the genre even more distressingly than it had the gangster film.  The dilution of creativity proceeded apace in both genres with anachronistic wise-cracking, farcical reactions, low-brow skepticism, and ‘darky’ caricatures.  Warners even promoted the miscegenation of genres with gangsters and ghouls, electric chairs, and haunted graveyards…" 
If those lines rouse your curiosity as to just what those films from the horror genre’s declining years might have been like, let me direct your attention [...]

NOAH’S ARK – George O’Brien, Dolores Costello

Noah’s Ark (1928)
Direction: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Anthony Coldeway; from Darryl F. Zanuck’s original story
Cast: George O’Brien, Dolores Costello, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Noah Beery, Louise Fazenda, Malcolm Waite, Paul McAllister
 

 

Of all the films from that magical moment when silent movies merged into sound, nothing is as effective as Michael Curtiz’s Noah’s Ark: it has a romantic story, splashy scenes, and plenty of disasters. Add to that some Biblical babble and you have what can be best described as an "epic."
In Noah’s Ark, two American chums bumming around Europe on the eve of WWI get personally involved in the drama when their country enters the conflict. Travis, played by handsome male lead George O’Brien, and his best friend, Al (Gwynn [...]

Great Directors Series on Turner Classic Movies

Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, Oskar Werner in François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim

In June, Turner Classic Movies‘ month-long series "Great Directors" will be celebrating the efforts of 52 films directors, from past and present, from Hollywood and overseas (though, as to be expected, mostly Hollywood).
Among TCM’s "greats" are, inevitably, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, and John Ford, but also Jacques Tourneur, Mervyn LeRoy, and Budd Boetticher.
Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Carol Reed, and Ingmar Bergman are four of the non-Hollywood filmmakers who have been included in the series.
Each weekday of the "Great Directors" series will feature two directors — one during the day; the other at night.  The daytime lineup includes Victor Fleming (June [...]

Best Films – 1941

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane
FILM
Cheers for Miss Bishop
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Sheridan Gibney, Adelaide Heilbron
Citizen Kane
d: Orson Welles; scr: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
The Devil and Miss Jones
d: Sam Wood; scr: Norman Krasna
Dumbo
d: Ben Sharpsteen; scr: Joe Grant, Dick Huemer and others
The Great Lie
d: Edmund Goulding; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Seton I. Miller, Sidney Buchman
The Lady Eve
d, scr: Preston Sturges
The Little Foxes
d: William Wyler; scr: Lillian Hellman
Manpower
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Richard Macauley, Jerry Wald
The Sea Wolf
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Robert Rossen
 

Sara Allgood, Roddy McDowall in How Green Was My Valley
CHECK THESE OUT
La Fille du puisatier / The Well-Digger’s Daughter
d, scr: Marcel Pagnol
How Green Was My Valley
d: John Ford; scr: Philip Dunne
Meet John Doe
d: [...]

Best Films – 1938

Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold in You Can’t Take It with You
FILM
The Adventures of Robin Hood
d: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley; scr: Seton I. Miller, Norman Reilly Raine
Bringing Up Baby
d: Howard Hawks; scr: Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde
Dramatic School
d: Robert B. Sinclair; scr: Ernest Vajda, Mary McCall Jr.
L’Etrange Monsieur Victor
d: Jean Grémillon; scr: Albert Valentin, Charles Spaak, Marcel Achard
Four Daughters
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Lenore J. Coffee, Julius J. Epstein
If I Were King
d: Frank Lloyd; scr: Preston Sturges
The Lady Vanishes
d: Alfred Hitchcock; scr: Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder
Marie Antoinette
d: W. S. Van Dyke; scr: Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Vajda
Vivacious Lady
d: George Stevens; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Ernest Pagano
You Can’t Take It with You
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
 

[...]

Best Films – 1933

Greta Garbo in Queen Christina
FILM
Baby Face
d: Alfred E. Green; scr: Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola
The Barbarian
d: Sam Wood; scr: Anita Loos, Elmer Harris
Dinner at 8
d: George Cukor; scr: Frances Marion, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Donald Ogden Stewart
Gold Diggers of 1933
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: Erwin Gelsey, James Seymour, David Boehm, Ben Markson
I’m No Angel
d: Wesley Ruggles; scr: Mae West
The Kennel Murder Case
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Robert Presnell, Robert N. Lee, Peter Milne
King Kong
d: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper; scr: James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose
The Mystery of the Wax Museum
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Don Mullaly, Carl Erickson
Queen Christina
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: H. M. Harwood, S. N. Behrman
 

Nils Asther, Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of [...]

Best Films – 1931

Willi Fritsch and Lilian Harvey in Congress Dances
FILM
À nous la liberté / Liberty for Us
d, scr: René Clair
City Streets
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: Max Marcin, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Dashiell Hammett
Daybreak
d: Jacques Feyder; scr: Ruth Cummings, Cyril Hume, Zelda Sears
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath
Five Star Final
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: Robert Lord, Byron Morgan
Der Kongreß tanzt / Congress Dances
d: Erik Charell; scr: Norbert Falk, Robert Liebmann
The Maltese Falcon / Dangerous Female
d: Roy del Ruth; scr: Maude Fulton, Lucien Hubbard, Brown Holmes
The New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford
d: Sam Wood; scr: Charles MacArthur
The Public Enemy
d: William A. Wellman; scr: Kubec F. Glasmon, [...]

CASABLANCA VII – Final Commentary

Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

CASABLANCA Review Part VI
On the plus side, Casablanca is quite modern in terms of pacing (and in some aspects of editing), for within the first ten or twelve minutes you feel as if you know these archetypal characters (for good or ill), as if you’d already had a full movie’s worth of them under your belt. This is part of the reason why the film sucks you into its vortex, and gets (subjectively) better as it goes on, even if, objectively, it’s fairly static in terms of plot.
On the downside, Casablanca has not dated well because of its poor special effects (at the level of Alfred [...]

CASABLANCA V d: Michael Curtiz

CASABLANCA IV – Ingrid Bergman
Casablanca is part of a two-disc DVD package, put out by Warner Bros. Disc one has the film in a transfer (1.33:1 aspect ratio) stunningly free of blemishes. The disc also has two theatrical trailers (the original and re-release trailers); an introduction by Bogart’s widow, Lauren Bacall; and two commentaries. The lesser one is by film historian Rudy Behlmer. It’s loaded with information on the making of the film, but Behlmer is just reading from a script of Warner Bros. inter-office memos about the film, and few of the facts are scene-specific. Behlmer’s monotone is also rather off-putting, and he rarely ventures an idea or [...]

CASABLANCA

Casablanca (1942)
Direction: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch; from Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced play "Everybody Comes to Rick’s"
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, S. Z. Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Joy Page
 

Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca
 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
About three years ago, I finally gave in to watch It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) for the first time. I had hesitated because of the five- and ten-minute snippets of the film I had seen, and for its reputation as a hokey Christmas story ‘chestnut.’ Well, was I wrong, for It’s a Wonderful Life is a truly great film — arguably the best [...]

Oscar Answers #3, 4, 5

Oscar Answer No. 3
John Huston (right), from Moulin Rouge (1952) to Prizzi’s Honor (1985), a total of 33 years.
In 1952, Huston lost the Oscar to John Ford for The Quiet Man, and in 1985 to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa. Huston, however, did win for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
Roman Polanski comes in second, from Tess (1980) to The Pianist (2002), 22 years; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in third, from 5 Fingers (1952) to Sleuth (1972), 20 years.
In fourth place, with a 19-year gap between nominations, it’s a tie: Otto Preminger, from Laura in 1944 to The Cardinal in 1963; and David Lean, from Doctor Zhivago in 1965 to A Passage to [...]

Best Films – 1947

Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar in Black Narcissus
FILM
Black Narcissus
d, scr: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cheyenne
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Alan Le May, Thames Williamson
Crossfire
d: Edward Dmytryk; scr: John Paxton
Down to Earth
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Edwin Blum, Don Hartman
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
d: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; scr: Philip Dunne
Life with Father
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Donald Ogden Stewart
Miracle on 34th Street
d, scr: George Seaton
Monsieur Vincent
d: Maurice Cloche; scr: Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Anouilh
Mourning Becomes Electra
d, scr: Dudley Nichols
Nicholas Nickleby
d: Alberto Cavalcanti; scr: John Dighton
The Perils of Pauline
d: George Marshall; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Frank Butler
 
CHECK THESE OUT
Body and Soul
d: Robert Rossen; scr: Abraham Polonsky
A Double Life
d: George Cukor; [...]

Best Films – 1945

Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter
FILM
Blithe Spirit
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward
Boule de suif / Angel and Sinner
d: Christian-Jaque; scr: Henri Jeanson
Brief Encounter
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame
Dead of Night
d: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer; scr: John Baines, Angus MacPhail
Les Enfants du paradis / Children of Paradise
d: Marcel Carné; scr: Jacques Prévert
Leave Her to Heaven
d: John M. Stahl; scr: Jo Swerling
Love Letters
d: William Dieterle; scr: Ayn Rand
Mildred Pierce
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Ranald McDougall, Catherine Turney
A Royal Scandal
d: Otto Preminger; scr: Edwin Justus Mayer
State Fair
d: Walter Lang; scr: Paul Green, Oscar Hammerstein II, Sonya Levien
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
d: Elia Kazan; scr: Tess Slesinger, Frank [...]