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No film so perfectly encapsulates the generation gap in America in the '60s than John Wayne's corny Vietnam War epic, The Green Berets. The genre has reached such a level of ubiquity and cliché that soon it birthed its own parody in the form of Tropic Thunder. There’s no shortage of productions exploring the political nuances and the social ramifications of the war today, but that was a different story in 1968.

Adapting the 1965 best-selling novel of the same name to theaters, it boasted John Wayne in the lead, with The Fugitive star David Janssen, Jim Hutton, and George Takei in supporting roles. The Vietnam War was a travesty in many respects. Blame US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. For the movie, that is. Come to think of it, blame him for the war too. Reactions to the action flick were unkind. For screenwriters, journalists, and directors, it only...

One of the most successful actors and directors that the world has ever witnessed, Clint Eastwood remains a pop-culture icon even at the age of 94. Bursting onto the scene with his ice-cool breakout turn in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, Eastwood would go on to cement his status as cinema's quintessential badass with his bow as anti-hero cop Harry Callahan in the wildly popular Dirty Harry movie series. Complementing his best movie character roles with a string of acclaimed directorial efforts over the years, the American also boasts four Academy Award wins from 11 nominations.

A Western icon, many of Eastwood's best movies take place within the genre he made his name in. However, the actor has also demonstrated a penchant for starring in or directing a number of prominent war movies throughout his career. Typically bringing his accomplished style of film making to the table with great effect, Eastwood's performances,...

Few figures in Hollywood can match Clint Eastwood's towering legacy as an actor and director with nearly 70 years in the industry. From his 1955 debut in Revenge of the Creature to 73 different acting roles and 45 directorial efforts, Eastwood transformed from Sergio Leone's stoic Western hero to the iconic Dirty Harry before emerging as one of cinema's most accomplished filmmakers. His instantly recognizable delivery of lines like "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" helped cement his status as a cultural icon. But his versatility allowed him to inhabit roles across every conceivable genre.

Behind the camera, Eastwood developed a distinctive minimalist style marked by patient film noir-inspired cinematography and understated dramatic tension. This approach, favoring action over dialogue and subtle character development over exposition, has earned him numerous accolades, including Academy Awards for Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Oscars nominations for Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper.

"The Fugitive" ran for four seasons on ABC from 1963 to 1967. The series followed Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen), a (you guessed it) fugitive accused of murdering his wife. Pursued across the country by lawman Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), he tries to prove his innocence by finding the real killer.

On one hand, "The Fugitive" is as episodic as you'd expect from a 1960s TV show. Each episode features Kimble in a different town with a new problem to solve. The backstory is also told via title sequence; the first episode, "Fear in a Desert City," is just another adventure for Kimble, not the murder, trial, and Kimble's escape the way it would be today. However, there's also some serialization with the story threads of Gerard hunting Kimble and Kimble hunting the real murderer, a one-armed man (Bill Raisch). These reach their conclusion in the finale, "The Judgment."

With such a simple and exciting premise,...

Action-paced, international intrigue ensues when a Swiss bank president hires an American investigator to ferret out a group of blackmailers who have been terrorizing his clients in The Swiss Conspiracy, available 20th February 2024 in a special collector’s edition on Blu-ray and DVD from Film Masters.

Scanned in 4K from original 35mm archival elements, The Swiss Conspiracy has never seen a high-quality release to date. Film Masters has enlisted colorist and restoration expert Marc Wielage to painstakingly bring back vibrant and original colors that have not been seen since this film made its original debut in 1976.

Shot entirely in and around Zurich, The Swiss Conspiracy, based on the hit novel by Michael Stanley, was directed by Jack Arnold, best known for B horror/cult movie classics such as The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space and The Tattered Dress. One of the...

Richard Romanus, the tough-guy character actor best known for his turn as Michael Longo, the Little Italy loan shark who gets into it with Robert De Niro’s Johnny Civello in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, has died. He was 80.

Romanus died Dec. 23 in a private hospital in Volos, Greece, his son, Robert Romanus, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Romanus handled prominent voice roles for Ralph Bakshi in 1977’s Wizards (as the elf warrior Weehawk) and 1982’s Hey Good Lookin’ (as the leader of a 1950s greaser gang), and in between, he played the cab driver Harry Canyon in another animated film, Heavy Metal (1981).

He also appeared on four episodes of The Sopranos as Richard Lapenna, the on-again, off-again husband of Lorraine Bracco’s Jennifer Melfi, from 1999-2002.

In Mean Streets (1973), Romanus’ character is famously disrespected by Johnny when he leans on him for his money.

“You know, Michael, you make me laugh,...

Last year, legendary filmmaker John Carpenter teamed up with Shout! Factory to host a kaiju movie marathon called Masters of Monsters, which consisted of the original Godzilla film, Rodan; Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, and The War of the Gargantuas. That marathon was re-run earlier this month. Now the folks at Far Out magazine have dug up a 1996 article from Film Comment magazine in which Carpenter named The War of the Gargantuas as “the ultimate Japanese monster movie” – and included it on a list of his seventeen favorite “guilty pleasure” movies. It’s a fun list, so we have it included below, with thanks to this site.

Carpenter started out the Film Comment guilty pleasures article by saying, “I wasn’t raised a Catholic, so guilt never played much of a role in my life. We Methodists don’t worry about guilt all that much. In terms of cinema, however, guilt has always been very important.

Apple TV+’s hit limited series “Hijack” starring Idris Elba is a nail-biting thrill ride set in real-time. Over the years, there have been many types of hijack films. Besides planes, there have been suspenseful takeovers of ships, trains, subways and even trucks.

“The Taking of the Pelham One Two Three,” from 1974 — avoid the two remakes — is a superb thriller about four men who take over a New York subway car and hold the passengers, conductor and an undercover policeman hostage unless they get $1 million (remember that was a lot of money 49 years ago). If their demands aren’t met, they will start killing hostages. Directed by Joseph Sargent and adapted by Peter Stone from the best-selling novel by John Godey, “Taking” boasts a stellar cast at the top of their game including Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo and Martin Balsam. David Shire penned the influential score.

A year...

When Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert sat down at the end of 1993 to pick their 10 favorite movies of the year, they largely selected prestige, Oscar-bait films like The Piano, The Age of Innocence, The Joy Luck Club, and Schindler’s List. They skipped nearly all of the big multiplex hits of the year, including Jurassic Park, Sleepless in Seattle, and Mrs. Doubtfire, making an exception only for The Fugitive. It’s an honor they didn’t give to Die Hard in 1988, The Terminator in 1984, Aliens in 1986, or many other great action movies of the VHS era.

The 1963 TV series "The Fugitive" was a massive success in its initial four-season run, and became something of a pop cultural touchstone. The premise was a grabber: Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) has been arrested and convicted for the murder of his wife, a crime he didn't commit. Dr. Kimble slips the authorities and goes on the lam, eager to track down the real killer and prove his innocence. All he knew was that the killer had one arm. On Dr. Kimble's tail -- the Javert to his Valjean -- was Lieutenant Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), who didn't much care if Kimble was guilty or innocent; he merely sought to apprehend him and let the law work itself out. 

30 years later, "The Fugitive" would be adapted into a massively successful and acclaimed feature film starring Harrison Ford as Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as the re-named Sam Gerard, a U.

Stella Stevens, the screen siren of the 1960s who brought sweet sexiness to such films as The Nutty Professor, Too Late Blues and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, has died. She was 84.

Stevens died Friday in Los Angeles, her son, actor-producer-director Andrew Stevens, told The Hollywood Reporter. “She had been in hospice for quite some time with Stage 7 Alzheimer’s,” he said.

Shining brightest in light comedies, the blond, blue-eyed actress appeared as a shy beauty contestant from Montana in Vincente Minnelli’s The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1963), portrayed a headstrong nun in Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows! (1968) opposite Rosalind Russell and frolicked with the fun-loving Dean Martin in two films: the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (1966) and How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968).

Stevens also starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), a movie she said she detested.

Her signature role, however, came in The Nutty Professor (1963), produced,...

Natasha Lyonne’s savvy, road-weary Charlie Cale is a fond homage to classic TV detectives like Jim Rockford and Lt. Frank Columbo: Like Rockford, she lives in a battered mobile home when we first meet her and she’s as dogged in solving crimes as the cigar-smoking Columbo. She also drives a bitchin’ 70s car and rocks a sweater that might have belonged to Paul Michael Glaser’s Starsky.

Here are some of the shows that influenced Rian Johnson’s series and other classic mystery of the week series, and where to watch them.

The Fugitive (1964-1967)

The original series starred David Janssen as a doctor falsely accused of murdering his wife (just like in the 1993 movie starring Harrison Ford). Always on the run from the law and taking odd jobs to survive, each week found him in a new place with a new person needing his help. All while...

This mid-60s detective story has the right ingredients — a good mystery and interesting characters. David Jannsen gets to play a ‘Bosch’- style lone wolf investigator given a public thrashing for a ‘mistake’ that he knows was no mistake at all. Can a ‘bad cop’ redeem himself? The parade of mid-level guest stars — Stefanie Powers, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Steve Allen — may resemble a TV movie, but the tense show has a good feel for Los Angeles and the new swingin’ singles lifestyle. It might be Buzz Kulik’s best job of direction, and it has a great music score by Jerry Goldsmith.

Warning Shot

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #177

1967 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date October 26, 2022 / Available from [Imprint] / au 39.95

Starring: David Janssen, Ed Begley, Stefanie Powers, George Grizzard, Keenan Wynn, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Eleanor Parker, Sam Wanamaker, George Sanders, Steve Allen, Carroll O’Connor, Walter Pidgeon.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc...

Click here to read the full article.

Andrew Prine, the charming character actor who proved quite comfortable in the saddle in Bandolero!, Chisum, Wide Country and dozens of other Westerns on television and the big screen, has died. He was 86.

He died Monday in Paris of natural causes while on vacation with his wife, actress-producer Heather Lowe, she told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was the sweetest prince,” she said.

Prine also played the brother of Helen Keller (Patty Duke in an Oscar-winning turn) in The Miracle Worker (1962) and portrayed a lawman in Texarkana, Arkansas, who hunts a hooded serial killer alongside Ben Johnson in the cult classic The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).

Later in his career, he stood out as Confederate Gen. Richard B. Garnett in the sprawling Gettysburg (1993).

In 1962-63, the lanky Prine got a taste of fame when he starred as the younger brother of Earl Holliman — their...

Episode 2. Charlie Hunnam in “Shantaram,” premiering October 14, 2022 on Apple TV+. Courtesy of Apple TV+

“Shantaram” is an intense thriller series, filmed in Bhopal, India, but set in Mumbai back when it was called Bombay. It offers a gritty look at poverty, corruption and organized crime that many will find will be hard to get into, but well worth the effort. In Season One, protagonist Lin Ford (Charlie Hunnam) is on the lam from Australia for something we won’t learn about for a while. Upon arrival in India, he’s mugged and wakes up in one of Bombay’s poorest sections, luckily surrounded by kind-hearted locals. Without money or a passport, Lin makes himself useful to the community by using medical knowledge he’d acquired in an impoverished area lacking other access to treatment.

The time period isn’t specified but some references and the state of technology make it seem vaguely in the 1980s,...

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,...

“Panama,” the latest offering from The Mel Gibson Movie of the Month Club, is the sort of instantly disposable action-thriller that wears its cynicism on its sleeve while laboring to grab attention with quick-cut visuals. Those combine with more gratuitous nudity than you can shake a stick at — without, it should be noted, any sticks — to goose a narrative that is tediously predictable when not borderline incoherent. It is notable primarily for the presence of Cole Hauser, star of TV’s phenomenally popular “Yellowstone,” who earns his top billing by doing most of the heavy lifting for his sporadically glimpsed but frequently heard co-star.

In terms of facilitating a transition from television to features, “Panama” may do more for Hauser than, say, “Macho Callahan” ever did for David Janssen. Hauser fully commits to his role as Becker, an ex-Marine who free-lances for the CIA, using his macho charm, intimidating snarl,...

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.

By Lee Pfeiffer

In days of old, there were precious few opportunities to see documentaries about the making of specific films. In 1960, John Wayne hosted "The Spirit of the Alamo", a one-hour publicity special for his epic film. In 1965, the James Bond film "Thunderball" was promoted with a one hour prime time TV special, a strategy that was repeated in 1967 for "You Only Live Twice". However, these were the exceptions. In most cases, "making of" documentaries were short featurettes lasting between five and ten minutes on average. Movie fans would only encounter them by accident. American viewers might catch one of them if a network needed something to fill some time gap, such as a rain delay in a live baseball game. The only way die-hard movie buffs could watch such films on demand required access to a 16mm film projector and the ability to know where to purchase them on the collector's circuit.

Henry Darrow, a prolific TV actor from the 1950s through the early 2000s who found his breakthrough success as Manolito Montoya, son of a wealthy Mexican ranch owner on NBC’s hit 1967-71 Western The High Chaparral, died Sunday at his home in Wilmington, Nc. He was 87.

His death was announced on Facebook by his former publicist Michael B. Druxman. A cause was not specified.

In addition to The High Chaparral, Darrow is best remembered by daytime viewers for his Daytime Emmy-winning 1989-92 role in NBC’s Santa Barbara.

Already a familiar presence on television by the mid-1960s through appearances on series including Wagon Train, Stoney Burke, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Wild Wild West, Darrow scored his signature role on The High Chaparral opposite Leif Erickson, who played a wealthy Arizona ranch owner in the 1870s married to the Mexican daughter of a rival rancher.

Henry Darrow, the pride of Puerto Rico who starred as the charming Manolito Montoya, the son of a wealthy Mexican land baron, on the 1967-71 NBC Western The High Chaparral, has died. He was 87.

Darrow died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, his former publicist, Michael B. Druxman, announced.

The actor also played San Diego police detective Manny Quinlan alongside David Janssen in the first season of the 1974-76 ABC series Harry O and received a Daytime Emmy in 1990 for his turn as Rafael Castillo, the father of A Martinez’s character, on the NBC daytime ...

Henry Darrow, the pride of Puerto Rico who starred as the charming Manolito Montoya, the son of a wealthy Mexican land baron, on the 1967-71 NBC Western The High Chaparral, has died. He was 87.

Darrow died Sunday at his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, his former publicist, Michael B. Druxman, announced.

The actor also played San Diego police detective Manny Quinlan alongside David Janssen in the first season of the 1974-76 ABC series Harry O and received a Daytime Emmy in 1990 for his turn as Rafael Castillo, the father of A Martinez’s character, on the NBC daytime serial Santa Barbara.

For ...

TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’ — we’ll rate them from several criteria. The filmed-in-England production has a nicely-chosen soap opera cast: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews.

S.O.S. Titanic

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1979 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 102 + 144 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Timothy Spall, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews, Ed Bishop, Jerry Hauser, Aubrey Morris, Norman Rossington, Catherine Byrne, Warren Clarke, Madge Ryan.

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Film Editor: Rusty Coppleman

Original Music: Howard Blake

Special effects: Wally Veevers,...

A column chronicling events and conversations on the awards circuit.

The long and winding Emmy campaign season is going into its final act this weekend as Television Academy members and those 23,000 or so who are eligible to vote have their last chance to fill out ballots. They’re due back to the Academy’s accountants no later than 10 p.m. Pt Monday. At some point this weekend, I will send mine in, straggler that I am. After that, the next three weeks in September will be all about getting ready and then finally opening those envelopes over the course of six nights, culminating on September 20 with ABC’s broadcast of the Primetime Emmys. That show promises to be like no other, with a reported 140 remote setups for nominees across the globe and host Jimmy Kimmel guiding it all from Staples Center in Los Angeles. We also will be finding out...

Jacqueline Scott, who played the sister of David Janssen's man on the run in The Fugitive and the wife of Walter Matthau's bank robber in Charley Varrick, has died. She was 89.

Scott died Thursday at her home in Los Angeles after a battle with lung cancer, her son, Andrew, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Scott's characters also were married to small-town sheriff Jimmy Stewart in Firecreek (1968) and Dennis Weaver's salesman in Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971), and on the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "The Parallel," she was the wife of an astronaut (Steve Forrest) ...

Jacqueline Scott, who played the sister of David Janssen's man on the run in The Fugitive and the wife of Walter Matthau's bank robber in Charley Varrick, has died. She was 89.

Scott died Thursday at her home in Los Angeles after a battle with lung cancer, her son, Andrew, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Scott's characters also were married to small-town sheriff Jimmy Stewart in Firecreek (1968) and Dennis Weaver's salesman in Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971), and on the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "The Parallel," she was the wife of an astronaut (Steve Forrest) ...

As Roland Deschain says in Stephen King's epic series The Dark Tower, "ka is a wheel." Things always seem to turn back to the way they started. In 1963 ABC launched the hugely popular series The Fugitive. The show, which ran for four seasons, tells the story of Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) who is framed for the murder of his wife by a mysterious one-armed man. Thirty years…...

Kiefer Sutherland is on a frantic hunt for a suspected bomber in Quibi’s first teaser for its reboot of “The Fugitive.”

The series, which also stars Boyd Holbrook, will premiere on Quibi, the short-form streaming service from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman that launched in April.

Watch the video above.

Produced by Thunder Road Films with 3 Arts Entertainment and developed with Riverstone Pictures, the short-form series follows Mike Ferro (Holbrook), a blue-collar worker who must prove his innocence after being wrongly accused of blowing up a Los Angeles subway train. Sutherland plays Det. Clay Bryce, the cop who is trying to track him down.

Also Read: Adam Devine Is Ready to Explore 'Bad Ideas' on New Quibi Show

“The Fugitive” was both a 1960s TV series, and more famously, a 1993 film that starred Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. In that film, Ford was the man on the run,...

"It wasn't me. It was the one-armed man." - Dr. Richard Kimble, The Fugitive Warner Bros. is planning an update to The Fugitive, and they've tapped Albert Hughes to direct. Based on the 1963 TV series that starred David Janssen as Kimble and Barry Morse as Gerard, The Fugitve tells the tragic tale of Dr. Richard Kimble, a man unjustly accused of murdering…...

Joseph Baxter Nov 26, 2019

Warner Bros. is bringing back The Fugitive film franchise, having tapped a director in Albert Hughes.

The Fugitive is getting a remake movie, in which we’ll undoubtedly be reminded of the notion that the embattled Dr. Richard Kimble didn’t kill his wife – even if an obstinate U.S. Marshal doesn’t care.

Warner Bros. has appointed Albert Hughes to direct a new big screen adaptation of The Fugitive, reports Deadline. The movie will manifest as a remake of director Andrew Davis’s 1993 Harrison Ford-headlined film, which, itself, was a reboot of ABC’s 1963-1967 television series. Hughes will work off a script by Brian Tucker, who wrote the script to the director’s Mark Wahlberg/Russell Crowe 2013 crime drama, Broken City, and will also be joined by producer Erik Feig.

The new reboot movie for The Fugitive lands on Warner’s docket a mere...

Exclusive: Warner Bros has just set Albert Hughes to direct a reboot of The Fugitive. Brian Tucker (Broken City) is writing the script, and Erik Feig will produce the film.

The studio intends on putting a new spin on the Andrew Davis-directed 1993 action classic, an exhilarating action film based on the 1963 TV series that starred David Janssen as Kimble and Barry Morse as Gerard. The film earned seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture, with Tommy Lee Jones winning for Best Supporting Actor for playing the dogged U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, who chased Harrison Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble. The doc was accused of murdering his wife and was hellbent on finding the one-armed man who actually did it and with whom Kimble struggled after the killing.

The studio isn’t the only Fugitive remake in town, as Quibi has Kiefer Sutherland playing the hunter and Boyd Holbrook playing...

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s short-form video platform Quibi has put in development The Fugitive, from Scorpion creator Nick Santora, Thunder Road Films, 3 Arts Entertainment and Warner Bros. TV.

The Fugitive is a new take on the classic title, which Warner Bros. owns. The studio previously produced the 1993 movie starring Harrison Ford. There also was a The Fugitive TV series, created by Roy Huggins and starring David Janssen, which aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. It was produced by Quinn Martin Productions and United Artists Television.

Written by Santora, The Fugitive centers on blue collar worker Mike Russo, who just wants to make sure his wife, Allison, and 10-year-old daughter, Pearl, are safe, when a bomb rips through the Los Angeles subway train he’s riding on. But the faulty evidence on the ground and “tweet-now, confirm-later” journalism paint a nightmarish picture: it looks to all the world that Mike...

Warner Bros. International Television Production and Japan’s TV Asahi network are teaming to remake “The Fugitive” as a special program that celebrates TV Asahi’s 60th anniversary.

Ken Watanabe will star in the title role made famous by David Janssen in the 1963-1967 U.S. TV series and then by Harrison Ford in the 1993 film. Both the show and the movie were hits in Japan.

The new drama will be set in present-day Tokyo just before the opening of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The wife of an elite surgeon, Kazuki Kakurai (Watanabe), is murdered and, despite Kakurai’s insistence that a man with a prosthetic hand is the culprit, Kakurai is arrested, tried and sentenced to death. But when the van taking him to prison meets with an accident Kakurai escapes. While on the run, he tries to prove his innocence.

The director is action veteran Seiji Izumi, while the...

Jerry Thorpe, an executive at Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Desilu Productions and a co-creator, director and producer on the David Carradine adventure series Kung Fu, died Sept. 25 in Santa Barbara, his family announced. He was 92.

During his four-decade career, the Los Angeles native also worked on David Janssen's Harry O; Our House, starring Wilford Brimley; and the longtime Jane Wyman CBS primetime soap Falcon Crest.

His father, Richard Thorpe, was a prolific director at MGM whose voluminous credits included Tarzan Escapes (1936), The Crowd Roars (1938), The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), Ivanhoe (1952) and ...

Jerry Thorpe, an executive at Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Desilu Productions and a co-creator, director and producer on the David Carradine adventure series Kung Fu, died Sept. 25 in Santa Barbara, his family announced. He was 92.

During his four-decade career, the Los Angeles native also worked on David Janssen's Harry O; Our House, starring Wilford Brimley; and the longtime Jane Wyman CBS primetime soap Falcon Crest.

His father, Richard Thorpe, was a prolific director at MGM whose voluminous credits included Tarzan Escapes (1936), The Crowd Roars (1938), The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), Ivanhoe (1952) and ...

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic TV series "The Incredible Hulk", Cinema Retro's Ernie Magnotta sat down for an extensive discussion with the show's creator Kenneth Johnson.

By Ernie Magnotta

Dr. David Banner—physician, scientist…searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs.

The creature is driven by rage and is pursued by an investigative reporter. The creature is wanted for a murder he didn’t commit. David Banner is believed to be dead. And he must let the world think that he is dead until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him.

Kids who grew up in the 1970s remember that narration well. Every Friday night at 9pm (until it...

With Chips (2017) becoming the latest in a list of movies based on television shows, we decided to look back at previous attempts and rank our favourites. So here are the 6 best movies based on television shows.

6. The Man from Uncle (2015)

One of many shows from the 60s that explored the world of spies, The Man from Uncle (1964-1968) starred the legendary Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as Us and Russian spies, respectively. In 2015, Guy Ritchie revisited the characters of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin in a film adaptation. Keeping the 60s cold war setting, but with epic set pieces and a tongue-in-cheek tone, The Man from Uncle was your typical Guy Ritchie fair with its slickness.

5. The A-Team (2010)

It was always going to be hard to replace the original actors who spent most of the 80s helping those in need, however once you add Liam Neeson to the cast your film immediately gains several points.

'The Pink Panther' with Peter Sellers: Blake Edwards' 1963 comedy hit and its many sequels revolve around one of the most iconic film characters of the 20th century: clueless, thick-accented Inspector Clouseau – in some quarters surely deemed politically incorrect, or 'insensitive,' despite the lack of brown face make-up à la Sellers' clueless Indian guest in Edwards' 'The Party.' 'The Pink Panther' movies [1] There were a total of eight big-screen Pink Panther movies co-written and directed by Blake Edwards, most of them starring Peter Sellers – even after his death in 1980. Edwards was also one of the producers of every (direct) Pink Panther sequel, from A Shot in the Dark to Curse of the Pink Panther. Despite its iconic lead character, the last three movies in the Pink Panther franchise were box office bombs. Two of these, The Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, were co-written by Edwards' son,...

This story originally appeared as the cover story in Issue 330, November 13th, 1980.

It's eight o'clock and everyone's here... well, almost everyone. There's Carl Reiner, and there's Gavin MacLeod, and there's Betty White and Allen Ludden. They're all here, in this awkward white screening room up four flights of stairs and down a winding hallway deep in the bowels of Paramount Studios. It's a hybrid crowd – TV people and movie people, performers and people from behind the scenes, chorus girls and choreographers, even a few who are just regular people with...

I interviewed James Ellroy, the great American noir novelist, at La's venerable Pacific Dining Car in April 2001. We were there to discuss his latest book, The Cold Six Thousand, but wound up tackling a myriad of subjects over our three hour lunch. Ellroy sported a snappy fedora that I said would have looked great on Meyer Lansky. He barked a laugh and removed it, displaying his bald pate. When he looked at my full head of 33 year-old hair, his eyes narrowed: "That thing on your head real or a rug?" "Real," I replied. Ellroy exhaled for what seemed like a full minute, then murmured: "Cocksucker." We were off and running.

James Ellroy: Bark At The Moon

The "Demon Dog of American Fiction" sinks his teeth into Rfk, Mlk and Vietnam with The Cold Six Thousand

If there were any justice in this world, and in the world of James Ellroy that's debatable,...

Warner Bros is now developing a new "The Fugitive" film and has hired Christina Hodson (Shut In) to write the script. No word if Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones will return, or whether the film will be a reboot. The original 1993 film grossed $369 million worldwide. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, and spawned a sequel, called "Us Marshals," bringing back Jones and adding Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey Jr. "The Fugitive" was also a TV series that starred David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, a surgeon accused of murdering his wife. It lasted for four seasons on ABC. Warner Bros is hoping to enter production by early 2016.

Warner Bros. is moving forward on a new installment of The Fugitive, but they have not confirmed or denied that stars of the original 1993 hit, Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones will return. At this time, it is not known if this is a reboot, remake or straight up sequel. Christina Hodson, who wrote the now-in-production drama Shut In starring Naomi Watts, will pen the screenplay.

The Fugitive is viewed as one of the best TV-to-Movie adaptations ever made, based on the original 1963 ABC series that ran for four seasons. The show starred David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, who was accused of killing his wife. He goes on the run, searching for the one-armed man he believes is actually responsible for his wife's murder. The show culminated in a finale that was viewed by nearly half of the population who owned TVs at the time. Harrison Ford starred as Dr.

’Iron Man’ 2008: The Air Force as ’rock stars’ (See previous post: "The American Military at the Movies: The Pentagon-Hollywood Complex.") Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. are connected to the Pentagon by way of the Air Force-aided Iron Man (2008), and so is Dakota Fanning "at the side of top-gunner Tom Cruise" in Steven Spielberg’s Army-aided 2005 remake of War of the Worlds. (Image: Iron Man 2008.) Oscar winners and/or nominees Jennifer Jones, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, and once again William Holden (not to mention O.J. Simpson, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, and Robert Wagner) are all in thanks to John Guillermin’s 1974 blockbuster and Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Towering Inferno. "The Navy lent helicopters," Nick Turse explains, "and the studio [20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.] said thanks in the form of an acknowledgment in the credits." Regarding Paramount’s Jon Favreau-directed Iron Man, Air Force master...

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...

Twenty years ago, "The Fugitive" debuted in theaters. It was a solid big-screen adaptation of the '60s TV series and made major bank at the box office with $369 million. It was also a critical smash and an awards-getter, a surprise for a movie based on a TV series.

Star Joe Pantoliano later recalled "I remember one day, me and Tommy Lee [Jones] were driving back to the airport after shooting, and he said something like 'It's not like any of us are going to win any Oscars for this!'"

How wrong you were, Mr. Jones! The film not only earned Jones a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but it was also nominated for Best Picture and five other Academy Awards.

Though "The Fugitive" is a movie most of you have probably watched repeatedly, here are a few things you might not have known about the film.

1. Harrison Ford was not...

Man-Trap

Written by John D. Macdonald and Ed Waters

Directed by Edmond O’Brien

U.S.A., 1961

Some people offer to keep promises whereas others are either forced or compelled to offer payback in return for another person’s deeds. The former sounds very much like a nice, virtuous act while the latter tends to fall into a more sour category, like a chore.. Funny then how easily those notions can be flipped on their heads, subverting expectations in the process. For instance, one can promise to avenge an affront or gladly pay back someone who was kind enough to assist them in the past. Both notions easily intertwine depending on the circumstances and neither is necessarily an indication of a purely good or evil intent. What one advertises as a promise to fulfil a good deed may hide ulterior, more nefarious motives. Edmond O’Brien, one of the great...

The Shoes of the Fisherman

By Mike Malloy

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Complex and arcane religious rituals wouldn’t seem to make for good filmed entertainment. And yet, the Vatican’s papal election process – occurring again this week to name a successor to Pope Benedict XVI – has been detailed in cinema almost as many times as the more Hollywood-sounding subject of papal assassination attempts.

And while the workings of the pontifical election conclave might not be surprising in a religious film, they were even deemed dramatic enough for inclusion in The Godfather Part III. Yep, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1990 crime epic takes a break between whackings to portray the 1978 conclave that elected the first Pope John Paul.

But more impressive than the fact that cinema has depicted this process is the fact that, on occasion, the movies seem to have gotten it right. When a...

Prolific television director Don Medford, who is perhaps best known for the two-episode finale of the 1960s drama The Fugitive, died December 12 at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 95. His family reported the death Wednesday. The 1967 conclusion of Fugitive, the popular series about a man falsely accused of murdering his wife (played by David Janssen) and relentlessly pursued around the country by a determined detective (Barry Morse), was seen by a then-record of an estimated 78 million viewers — a milestone that stood until the “Who Shot J.R.” episode of Dallas drew an estimated 83 million in 1980. Medford’s TV career stretched from the early 1950s Tales Of Tomorrow through the late ’80s Jake And The Fatman. Among the many major and varied series he worked on were the anthologies Alfred Hitchock Presents and The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables with Robert Stack, M Squad with Lee Marvin,...

Warning Shot and other themes composed by Jerry Goldsmith - Si Zentner

Dutton Vocalion is a company whose soundtracks feature regularly in our printed version of Cinema Retro. Just missing the deadline on this occasion are two superb debut releases, one of which includes Jerry Goldsmith’s excellent score (performed by Si Zentner) for Warning Shot (1967). Originally released on LP (Lst 7498), Vocalion’s new CD (Cdlk 4470) has smartly doubled up the release to include Si Zentner’s 1964 album From Russia With Love (originally released LP Lst 7353). Warning Shot is a relatively short score, but as with the original album, it includes some great interpretations of Goldsmith favourites such as the Von Ryan march, The Prize, A Patch of Blue and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Warning Shot is a film that generally tends to slip under the radar. However, it’s a neat little thriller starring the ever reliable David Janssen...

From the sixties through the nineties, TV series built around the viscerally appealing concept of the person on the run from authority while in pursuit of a just cause (all the while helping others along the way) has been a staple of television. Yet for some reason, since about 2000 the genre has largely disappeared as mysteriously as the one-armed man following the murder of Helen Kimble. David Janssen, in fact, set the standard for the program category with his portrayal of Dr. Richard Kimble, “an innocent victim of blind justice” who in 1963 began...