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The longest-running sitcoms in television history come from several different decades and have different styles of humor but have all left a lasting legacy. Sitcoms have always been a staple of television, as even classic golden age TV was known for shows like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver gave way to even more groundbreaking sitcoms like All in the Family and The Jeffersons. However, when it came to sitcoms, lasting for 15 or 20 seasons was never easy as humor is subjective and changes over time. Yet some have shown incredible lasting power over the years.

Though audiences tune into sitcoms for laughs, the longest-running sitcoms show the different ways the genre can connect with audiences. There are the classic easy-going sitcoms like The Love Boat, some that mix in drama, like M*A*S*H, animated classics like The Simpsons, and darker sitcoms like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

2025 will officially mark Clint Eastwood's 70th year in the film industry. That's just five years short of the average life expectancy for American men, so you could absolutely call that a magnificent run even if all he ever did was play baddies and barkeeps since the Eisenhower administration. Of course, Eastwood has done a tad more than that. In collaboration with filmmakers Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Eastwood played a major role in reconfiguring, respectively, the Western and crime genres. He's also won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director twice (for "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby"), and, at the age of 94, will release his latest directorial effort, "Juror #2," this November.

Eastwood's been so successful for so long that it's difficult to accept that he ever truly struggled. But 94 years is a long damn time, and film stardom didn't arrive for this big-screen icon until he was in his 30s.

Pay no attention to the discredited informant facing prison time.

GOP officials were scrambling Wednesday after Alexander Smirnov, a key witness in the impeachment proceedings against President Biden, was accused of being informed by Russian intelligence.

Smirnov was arrested last Thursday after Special Counsel David Weiss charged him on suspicion of providing the FBI with fraudulent information. Smirnov, an FBI informant for over a decade, was further discredited after a DOJ report Tuesday indicated he was not only lying to the FBI about Biden, but had “contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies.

Margia Dean, who co-starred in the cult sci-fi classic The Quatermass Xperiment and appeared alongside the likes of Clint Eastwood, Vincent Price, Esther Williams and George Reeves in other movies, has died. She was 101.

Dean died June 23 in her apartment in Rancho Cucamonga, California, her niece Denyse Barr told The Hollywood Reporter.

From 1948-56, Dean worked in about 20 features for producer Robert L. Lippert, founder of the B-movie studio Lippert Pictures, thus earning the nickname “The Queen of Lippert.”

She acted for Sam Fuller in two of those films, the first two features he ever directed, in fact — I Shot Jesse James (1949), in which she portrayed a saloon singer, and the Price-starring The Baron of Arizona (1950).

Based on a popular BBC serial, Hammer Films’ The Quatermass Xperiment (1956), directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy, told the story of an astronaut (Richard Wordsworth) who crash-lands back on Earth and...

While he may not be as well-known today as Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, director Nicholas Ray had a fantastic run during the '50s working across a range of genres from film noir ("In a Lonely Place") to war saga ("Flying Leathernecks"), coming-of-age teen angst ("Rebel Without a Cause") to westerns, the strangest of which is undoubtedly "Johnny Guitar." Shot in gaudy Trucolor, it stands apart from other studio westerns of the day, maybe because it isn't really a western at all -- It's more like a twisted gothic psychodrama that just happens to be set in the Old West.

Although the title refers to Sterling Hayden's nonchalant protagonist, Mr. Guitar takes a back seat for much of the movie, just one of many of Ray's subversive twists to the standard western formula. Instead, the main focus is the bitter rivalry between Vienna (Joan Crawford), a steely saloon keeper,...

John Sturges’ orbital jeopardy thriller does everything right: the story is taken seriously, the actors seem committed and the special effects aren’t bad. Yet it’s more interesting for what doesn’t work than what does. As one of the first Sci-fi pictures in the wake of 2001 it wasn’t well received despite being technically astute. Did NASA’s race to the Moon put an end to fanciful space Sci-fi? Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant and some ex- TV actors do their best, but producer Mike Frankovich’s space saga just sits there. It looks great in its first Blu-ray release: images of the actual Apollo 11 launch are breathtaking.

Marooned

Region-free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 113

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date March 30, 2022 (Au.) April 8, 2022 (U.S.) / Available from Amazon US / 47.99

Starring: Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant, Nancy Kovack, Mariette Hartley, Scott Brady,...

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“Docu-noir At Its Finest”

By Raymond Benson

A sub-genre of film noir is that of the so-called “docu-noir,” a crime drama usually based on a true story and told as a Dragnet-style procedural. Most likely there is an omniscient voiceover narrator, a focus on the lawmen who are investigating the case, and all the other stylistic and thematic elements associated with film noir in general: starkly contrasting black and white photography, urban locations, shadows, gritty realism, angst and cynicism, and sometimes brutal violence.

Eagle-Lion Films was a British/American production company that existed for only a few years in the late 40s, disbanding in the early 50s. There was some talent involved, and they produced a variety of genres and pictures of varying quality (Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes was a rare Best Picture nominee). Many of the studio’s pictures...

Ben Cooper, a Western star of films and TV like “Johnny Guitar,” “Bonanza,” “Rawhide” and more, died in his sleep on Monday according to his nephew on the actor’s Facebook fan page. He was 86.

Cooper got his start in radio serials and on stage as a child actor before finding work as a boyish looking lead and supporting player on Westerns in both film and TV. He was best known for his role in the Nicholas Ray Western “Johnny Guitar” from 1954, where he played the bandit Turkey Ralston alongside Ernest Borgnine and Scott Brady.

Cooper’s first screen role came when he was 18 in the “Armstrong Circle Theatre,” and he followed that up with several TV appearances and roles in films from Republic Pictures such as “Thunderbirds,” “The Last Command” and “Duel at Apache Wells.”

Also Read: David Roback, Co-Founder of Mazzy Star, Dies at 61

He also appeared in...

The exclusive 4K Ultra-hd club welcomes a worthy new member, Joe Dante’s evergreen horror comedy (and Christmas delight) about a cute furry critter and its 2nd-generation horde of scaly, impish demons. These aren’t Gremlins from the Kremlin, but homegrown domestic terrorist monsters, and Dante contrasts their killer antics with a sentimental parody of small town America. No CGI … You will believe that the animatronic rascals can multiply like rabbits, break dance, and run amuck!

Gremlins

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

1984 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date October 1, 2019 / 41.99

Starring: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Keye Luke, Frances Lee McCain, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, Judge Reinhold, Polly Holliday, Belinda Balaski, Edward Andrews, Don Steele, Scott Brady, Corey Feldman, Harry Carey Jr., Chuck Jones, Glynn Turman, Jerry Goldsmith, William Schallert, Steven Spielberg, Kenneth Tobey.

Cinematography: John Hora

Film Editor: Tina Hirsch

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith...

Now that October is officially underway, that means we have a big week of Blu-ray and DVD releases to get excited for, and there are some great genre-related titles coming out on Tuesday. Universal Studios Home Entertainment is unleashing both Tales from the Hood 2 and The First Purge on multiple formats, and for fans of action cinema, Death Race: Beyond Anarchy races home this week, too. Kino Lorber is giving both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler the limited edition treatment, and for those who enjoy indie horror, Feral, Housewife,and Blood Fest are certainly all worth your time.

Other notable releases for October 2nd include Extremity, Molly, The Legend of Halloween Jack, The Evil Dead in 4K, Sleep No More, and West of Hell, with Rob Zombie’s Halloween getting a Steelbook release as well.

The First Purge

Blumhouse Productions welcomes you to the movement that began as...

Before the influential Kolchak: The Night Stalker series aired on ABC in the mid-’70s, Darren McGavin brought the titular investigative reporter to life for the first time in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, which is getting a 4K restoration Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber this October, along with its 1973 sequel, The Night Strangler.

Announced on Facebook and Twitter, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler Blu-rays will be released on October 2nd in the Us. Each release will come with a new 4K restoration, a new audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas, and other new special features.

Below, we have the announcements from Kino Lorber, as well as a look at the new cover art by Sean Phillips. Let us know if you'll be adding these releases to your home media collection, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From the Tube column...

Do you think older crime thrillers weren’t violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a vicious killer who has a murderous solution to every problem, and uses special talents to evade police detection. Richard Basehart made his acting breakthrough as Roy Martin, a barely disguised version of the real life ‘Machine Gun Walker.

He Walked by Night

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1948 / B&W /1:37 flat full frame / 79 min. / Street Date November 7, 2017 / 39.99

Starring: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, James Cardwell, Jack Webb, Dorothy Adams, Ann Doran, Byron Foulger, Reed Hadley (narrator), Thomas Browne Henry, Tommy Kelly, John McGuire, Kenneth Tobey.

Cinematography: John Alton

Art Direction: Edward Ilou

Film Editor: Alfred De Gaetano

Original Music: Leonid Raab

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur

Produced by Bryan Foy, Robert T. Kane

Directed by Alfred L. Werker

Talk about a movie with a dynamite...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Best in Show (Christopher Guest)

Christopher Guest has had an exceptionally strong ’00s with A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration, and it remains to be seen how his upcoming Mascots will be received, but his arguable peak is still the gloriously funny mockumentary Best in Show. Guest’s other films have lovingly skewered egotistical oddballs and the insanity of subjective or objective criticism, so Best in Show is...

Olive's new branded line reissues the Nicholas Ray classic with a full set of authoritative extras -- plus a never-before-seen widescreen transfer, in all of its Trucolor glory. Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden never looked better -- we can all compare theories about la Crawford's color-coded costumes. Just how masculine is Vienna supposed to be? Johnny Guitar (Olive Signature widescreen edition) Blu-ray Olive Films 1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 110 min. / Street Date September 20, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 39.95 but heavily discounted Starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond, Ben Cooper, Ernest Borgnine, John Carradine, Royal Dano, Frank Ferguson, Paul Fix, Rhys Williams. Cinematography Harry Stradling Film Editor Richard Van Enger Original Music Victor Young Written by Philip Yordan from the novel by Roy Chanslor Produced by Herbert J. Yates Directed by Nicholas Ray

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow, it's already been four years since Olive released a...

Nicholas Ray’s 1954 gem, starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden, is an extraordinary psychological drama

“I intend to be buried here … in the 20th century!” Joan Crawford carries off this line with magnificent hauteur in Nicholas Ray’s extraordinary psychological western – and is there any other kind? This 1954 gem is on rerelease, starring Crawford as saloon-keeper Vienna, with a wonderful range of outfits, stark black eyes and a rectangular red slash of a mouth. Maria Callas herself couldn’t have played Vienna with more poise, more defiance, more passionate abandon. Vienna presides over a surreally upmarket establishment in the middle of the old west, offering roulette, though no customer ever bets. Her office has a bust of Beethoven, and she plays the piano herself. Vienna is waiting for the fancy eastern clientele brought by the slowly advancing railroad, or more to the point, waiting for the railroad company to buy her out,...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Port of New York

Written by Eugene Ling

Directed by Lazlo Benedek

U.S.A., 1949

Ports, much like airports and border crosses, are the among the most important gates through which returning citizens, visitors and imported goods much pass in order to step onto a territory’s soil. The level of security associated with such to and fro activity is unfathomable, ranging from the verification of travellers identification pieces to the inspection of whatever goods said arrivals want to bring with them into the new country or state. Just ask New York customs agent Jim Flannery (Richard Rober), tasked with investigating the sudden disappearance of drugs originally intended for medicinal use. Enter narcotics officer Michael Waters (Scott Brady) who, together with Jim Flannery, is on the prowl for the stolen goods. A suspect presumed to be involved with the clandestine operation, Toni Cardell (K.T. Stevens) is pressured into confessing critical information,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Founded by producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, American International Pictures (A.I.P.) hit upon a formula of financing and releasing low-budget exploitation films for non-discriminating audiences (translation: the youth market). Specializing in horror films and goofy comedies, A.I.P. occasionally strayed into other genres. In 1963, the company capitalized on the always-popular WWII genre with the release of "Operation Bikini". Ostensibly, the movie's title referred to the obscure atoll in the Pacific where atomic bomb tests were conducted during the Cold War era. However, in true A.I.P. style, the advertising campaign was designed to imply that the title might also refer to the fact that the bikini bathing suit was popularized here by a French designer who conducted a photo shoot on the atoll just days after an atomic blast. Still, the sexploitation angle in "Operation Bikini" was saved for late in the film.

He Walked by Night

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur

Directed by Alfred L. Werker and Anthony Mann

U.S.A., 1948

The very long and arduous investigation tasked of Los Angeles police captain Breen (Roy Roberts) and Sergeant Merty Brennan (Scott Brady) begins on a quiet night, on a quiet street when aspiring criminal guru Roy Martin (Richard Basehart) is accosted by a patrolling officer after the latter sees him trying to break into an electronics shop. Roy is prepared for the confrontation, surprising the unfortunate law enforcement representative with his pistol, killing the man in the process. With one of their own gunned down mercilessly, Captain Breen and Sgt. Brennan tackle one of the most difficult cases of their careers, a story inspired by the newspaper headlines of the time when in 1945 and 1946 a former police officer and army veteran Erwin Walker took the city by storm...

Jane Fonda: From ‘Vietnam Traitor’ to AFI Award and Screen Legend status (photo: Jason Bateman and Jane Fonda in ‘This Is Where I Leave You’) (See previous post: “Jane Fonda Movies: Anti-Establishment Heroine.”) Turner Classic Movies will also be showing the 2014 AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring Jane Fonda, the former “Vietnam Traitor” and Barbarella-style sex kitten who has become a living American screen legend (and healthy-living guru). Believe it or not, Fonda, who still looks disarmingly great, will be turning 77 years old next December 21; she’s actually older than her father Henry Fonda was while playing Katharine Hepburn’s ailing husband in Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond. (Henry Fonda died at age 77 in August 1982.) Jane Fonda movies in 2014 and 2015 Following a 15-year absence (mostly during the time she was married to media mogul Ted Turner), Jane Fonda resumed her film acting career in 2005, playing Jennifer Lopez...

Following our report yesterday that The Goonies 2 is moving forward at Warner Bros., Ain't It Cool News reports that a remake of Gremlins has also been put on the fast track to production at the studio.

We reported in May that the Gremlins remake will be produced by Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg, although it isn't known if the studio has found a writer or a director at this time. However, the remake likely won't materialize without the involvement of Steven Spielberg, who served as executive producer on the original Gremlins.

Gremlins starred Zach Galligan as a young man who receives a gremlin as a gift from his father, which comes with three stringent rules: don't get them wet, don't feed them after midnight and don't expose them to sunlight. When these rules are broken, the gremlins replicate at an astounding rate and wreak havoc upon this small town. Hoyt Axton,...

Drew Boynton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

What can you ask an actor when they have to be more secretive than a top-secret Unit secret mission? Well, it turns out…not much, really. At least in a new interview with Gerard Gilbert of The Independent, Jemma Redgrave is game to answer as much as she can. We know that she will be appearing

The post Redgrave: “Doctor Who Is Like Joining MI5!” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Warner Bros. is moving forward with a remake to their 1984 classic Gremlins, with Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg coming on board to produce. The studio is currently seeking a director, but it is not known who will write the screenplay at this point.

Back in January, we reported that the studio was planning the reboot, with Steven Spielberg possibly returning to executive produce. His involvement with the remake has not been confirmed as of yet. That report said the remake would likely not move ahead without Steven Spielberg coming on board.

Joe Dante directed the original Gremlins, which starred Zach Galligan as a young man who receives a mogwai as a gift from his father, with three explicit rules: do not get them wet, do not feed them after midnight, and do not expose them to bright light. When these rules are broken, the gremlins begin to reproduce and create havoc upon this sleepy town.

Warner Bros. is in early negotiations with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment to bring the 1984 horror comedy Gremlins back to the big screen.

The reboot has been talked about many times throughout the years, but the film is not likely to gain traction unless Steven Spielberg is involved. The studio is hoping that the acclaimed director will come aboard the project as a producer, a position which he held on the original film, as well as its sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

This reboot has been a hot topic for fans, none of whom want the franchise brought back to life, especially if it involves CGI. The original film utilized animatronic puppets in bringing the Mogwai and the Gremlins to life. It will be interesting to see how the project comes together, if at all.

Joe Dante directed the original, as well as the sequel. The film is about...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Aug. 7, 2012

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Joan Crawford stars in Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar.

Director Nicholas Ray’s (Bigger Than Life) one-of-a-kind 1954 western Johnny Guitar makes its official U.S. DVD and Blu-ray debut nearly 60 years after its theatrical premiere.

The classic film stars Joan Crawford (Humoresque) as a saloon owner battling the local townspeople headed by Emma (Mercedes McCambridge, Suddenly, Last Summer), the local sexually repressed, lynch-happy female rancher out to frame her for a string of robberies. The title cowboy, played by Sterling Hayden (1900), is a guitar-strumming drifter with a dark past who was once in love with Crawford and has been offered a job in her saloon. Sparks and bullets and lots more eventually begin to fly…

Also starring Scott Brady, Ward Bond (Rio Bravo), Ernest Borgnine (Red) and John Carradine (The Ten Commandments), Ray’s strikingly colorful, intricately constructed film...

A company that started out looking to join the social commerce revolution found an opportunity in simply being useful to people trying to manage email receipts.

With the rise of Square's paperless transactions, those instant digital receipts from Apple Store purchases and others, inboxes are the new wallets--stuffed with too many receipts to even begin to organize.

That’s why Project Slice is today launching a new application that will automatically scan your emails and collect all your purchase information in a single place. You’ll be able to see a history of what you bought and when. And for online purchases, you’ll be able to see when your items shipped and what their tracking number are.

While our inboxes contain the records of everything we’ve bought online, trying to retrieve that information by searching for individual emails is far from easy. “It’s a problem we all experienced personally,...

He Walked by Night was a "B" movie released by Eagle Lion Films in late 1948 and early 1949. The credited director is Alfred L. Werker, but no one disputes that the actual director is the masterful Anthony Mann (who apparently took over production soon after it was begun). The movie was part of a series of increasingly accomplished noirs by Mann, including Railraoded! (1947), Desperate (1947), T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948), and Border Incident (1949). It's my favorite of the series; it manages to perfect the "docudrama" style begun in T-Men and Raw Deal, and it contains some of the most striking cinematography of the decade, creating a gripping combination of procedural and suspense. There are public domain videos available, but MGM/UA released on a good, quality DVD in 2003, which is still in print.

What It's About

A patrol cop is on his way home when he stops a suspicious man (Richard Basehart) on the street.

Director Sydney Pollack 1934-2008.

Director Sydney Pollack passed two years ago today. I had the good fortune to meet and interview Sydney Pollack twice, both of which are included here: first in 1999 for his well-made but ill-fated romantic drama "Random Hearts," and again in 2006 for what would be his final film, "Sketches of Frank Gehry," a masterful documentary look at the eponymous architect's life, work and process. It was also in many respects a personal investigation for Pollack himself, which he spoke quite candidly about during our conversation.

This has been a tough year for those of us who were weaned on the films of the so-called "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" who made the iconic films of the late 1960s and 1970s, with the loss of such figures as Pollack, Roy Scheider, and others of the era. Pollack was certainly among the lions of that pack, but was perhaps...

(A.C. Lyles, below)

by Jon Zelazny

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared at EightMillionStories.com on February 27, 2009

There’s an A.C. Lyles Building at the Paramount Pictures main lot, but you won’t find A.C. Lyles there; his office is on the fourth floor of the William S. Hart Building.

When I arrived for our interview, Mr. Lyles was chatting with some visitors in his outer office. He bid me into his main office, and asked his assistant Pam to put in a video… a short promo reel that opens with a six minute tribute by then-President Ronald Reagan, who warmly recalls his and Nancy’s many years of friendship with A.C. and his wife Martha, and congratulates A.C. on his fifty years at the studio. The President’s intro is followed by taped congratulations from President Carter, President Ford, and Vice President Bush, then assorted clips celebrating Mr.