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Courtesy of StudioCanal

by James Cameron-wilson

An Inspector Calls, freshly minted with a pristine print of pin-sharp clarity, was originally written as a play by J.B. Priestley and remains a damning indictment of England’s hypocritical upper middle-classes. Set in 1912 in the north Midlands, the play premiered in 1945 in Moscow of all places, before coming to London a year later and to Broadway a year after that. I can’t tell you who was in the Russian version, but in the West End the titular character was taken by Sir Ralph Richardson, with Margaret Leighton, Harry Andrews and, in the Bryan Forbes part, none other than Alec Guinness. Imagine seeing that bunch on the London stage! I say the Bryan Forbes part, as it was he who had one of his best roles as Eric Birling in the 1954 film, running the gamut from embarrassing drunk to tipsy flirt to indignant...

Sim is superbly insinuating as the detective arriving with a few questions for the complacent residents of a grand Edwardian home

Jb Priestley’s drawing-room melodrama of Edwardian guilt and fear is rereleased for its 70th anniversary; it is an intricate clockwork mechanism ticking inexorably to the final reveal, with beautiful monochrome cinematography and thoroughbred character-actor faces looming out of the screen like a bad dream. It was adapted by Desmond Davis from Priestley’s stage play, directed by Guy Hamilton and unforgettably stars Alastair Sim as the implacable Inspector Poole, with his cool professional insolence, a needling, insinuating manner and sonorously droll voice; it is a performance to put alongside Sim’s Scrooge and his Professor Potter in School for Scoundrels.

It is 1912, and the inspector arrives unexpectedly at the sumptuous home of well-to-do magistrate and captain of industry Arthur Birling (Arthur Young), who is hosting a dinner party...

Barbara Leigh-Hunt, the Olivier Award-winning actress who portrayed one of the victims of Barry Foster’s Necktie Murderer in Alfred Hitchcock’s penultimate film, Frenzy, has died. She was 88.

Leigh-Hunt died peacefully Sept. 16 at her home in Warwickshire, England, her family announced.

The British star also was known for her performance as Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the acclaimed 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

During her seven-decade career, Leigh-Hunt appeared for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway. She received her Olivier in 1993 for her turn as Sybil Birling in an Nt revival of J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, directed by Stephen Daldry.

In Frenzy (1972), filmed in London, Leigh-Hunt portrayed Brenda Blaney, the ex-wife of a struggling former Raf squadron leader (Jon Finch), who police at first think is the serial killer on the loose.

Studiocanal are proud to announce the release of a spectacular 4K restoration of the gripping mystery thriller An Inspector Calls (1954) for its 70th Anniversary this year, available on 4K Uhd, Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 7 October, so to celebrate we are giving away a 4K Uhd & Blu-Ray to a lucky winner!

Based on J.B. Priestley’s classic stage play, the film stars the incomparable Alastair Sim (A Christmas Carol), Arthur Young (The Lady with a Lamp), Jane Wenham (The Teckman Mystery), Olga Lindo (Sapphire), Brian Worth (Holiday Week) and Eileen More (The Green Man). The new restoration will be available for the first time on 4K Uhd plus 4K Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 7 October.

The Birling family are rich, pampered and complacent. It is 1912, and the shadow of the impending war has yet to fall across their lives. As they sit down to dinner one night, a knock at...

“Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed,” is one of the most memorable lines in “August: Osage County.” That line played on a loop in my head while I watched Netflix’s “The Boyfriend,” the Japanese reality series about queer men looking for love and friendship that prioritizes tender drama over boozy machinations.

Interspersed throughout the series are quick-cut flash-forwards to what will happen to the men we’re meeting. There are swoon-worthy moments, heartbroken moments, and everything in between. “The Boyfriend” is hardly the first series, reality or scripted, to shuffle the past, present, and future to underscore a point or to keep the audience watching. (“The Bachelor” just did it to great effect in the Season 28 premiere.) But there’s something deeply moving in how “The Boyfriend” handles it.

Much of the charm and power of “The Boyfriend” lies in how ordinary the proceedings are.

Tom Priestley, the son of British playwright and novelist J.B. Priestley who established his own show business career as an Oscar-nominated film editor on such major projects as John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) and Roman Polanski‘s Tess (1979), died December 25. He was 91.

His death was only later announced by the J.B. Priestley Society.

“It with the utmost sadness we announce the death of out President Tom Priestley,” the J.B. Priestley Society said in a statement. “Tom who was J. B. Priestley’s only son became one of this country’s finest film editors. Perhaps his most famous film was Deliverance for which he was Oscar Nominated. He was a most charming man.”

Born Tom Holland Priestley on April 22, 1932, in London, he was educated at Bryanston School and King’s College, Cambridge, before beginning his professional career at Shepperton Studios in various capacities,...

Tom Priestley, the British film editor whose work assembling the dueling-banjos sequence and hellish “squeal like a pig” attack in John Boorman’s Deliverance landed him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 91.

His death on Christmas Day was only recently revealed.

Priestley also cut two other movies helmed by Boorman: Leo the Last (1970), which won the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival, and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977).

He also edited The Great Gatsby (1974); Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panther (1975); That Lucky Touch (1975), starring Roger Moore; Voyage of the Damned (1976), featuring an all-star cast; and Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979).

Priestley was the only son of renowned British novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley, who wrote the classic 1945 drama An Inspector Calls for the theater and served as a BBC Radio broadcaster during the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.

Upon its release in 1972, Deliverance became the...

Exclusive: “Peggy Ramsay used to say ‘agent’ is the most disgusting word in the English language,” ponders Adam Welsh, the founder of Divergent Talent Group (Dtg).

For a group of changemakers making their way through the UK’s bustling agenting landscape, the words uttered by Ramsay, one of the greats — who repped the likes of Stephen Poliakoff, David Hare and J.B. Priestley — don’t exactly chime.

These agents are spearheading the UK TV and film industry’s drive to improve representation for disabled talent, a minority that makes up 20% of the British population and yet is vastly under-utilized both on the small screen and behind the camera.

Welsh founded his agency devoted to repping neurodivergent talent in 2021. Sara Johnson and Julie Fernandez have recently joined Casarotto Ramsay in an intriguing dual role representing, training and developing talent, while long-time advocate Andrew Roach, whose clients include Britain’s Got Talent winner Lost Voice Guy,...

Film editor who was nominated for an Oscar for Deliverance and sought to promote his father Jb Priestley’s writing

Tom Priestley, who has died aged 91, knew early on that he wanted a career in the arts. “But my father had covered so much territory, there wasn’t much left,” he said. He was the sixth child and only son of the playwright and novelist Jb Priestley.

The discipline he eventually chose, and excelled at, was film editing. He won a Bafta for Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), Karel Reisz’s dark comedy about conformity and rebellion, starring David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave. He was also nominated for an Oscar for John Boorman’s thriller Deliverance (1972), with Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight. It was adapted by James Dickey from his own novel about four friends who are terrorised by Appalachian locals while on a canoeing trip.

Ellen Holly, whose long-running turn as Carla on ABC’s One Life to Live made her the first Black actress to gain stardom on a daytime soap opera, has died. She was 92.

Holly died in her sleep Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, publicist Cheryl L. Duncan announced.

A member of The Actors Studio who did Shakespeare for Joseph Papp and was mentored by the same woman who discovered Julie Harris and Kim Stanley, Holly appeared four times on Broadway, beginning with her acclaimed performance in 1956 as the female lead in Too Late the Phalarope.

She appeared in a handful of films as well, from Take a Giant Step (1959), starring Johnny Nash, Estelle Hemsley and Ruby Dee, to School Daze (1988), directed by Spike Lee.

Holly, however, did not work as often as her talents suggested she should have, because as a light-skinned African American, she had difficulty being hired...

Exclusive: Hayley Mills, still fondly remembered for Disney classics Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, is checking into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to take it on the road in the UK and then to London’s West End.

Strictly speaking, it’s a play based on the book (Deborah Moggach’s These Foolish Things) that spawned successful movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in 2011 and it’s 2015 sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Both pictures, starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy, did immensely well at the box office.

The screenplays for the films, directed by John Madden, were written by Ol Parker. However for the stage, Moggach has adapted her own tome about seven British retirees who depart the Home Counties of England to see out the sunset of their years at what they’re led to believe is a luxurious hotel in Bangalore, India.

Show producer...

Marcus D’Amico, the actor best known for originating the role Michael “Mouse” Tolliver in the 1993 limited TV series Tales of the City, died Dec. 16 of pneumonia at his home in Oxfordshire, England. He was 55.

His death was announced by his sister Melissa D’Amico. Patrick Baca, his former manager, said the cause was bronchial pneumonia.

Although best known to U.S. audiences for starring in the adaptation of the Armistead Maupin book, D’Amico, born in Germany but raised in the UK, had a lively stage career in London, originating the role of Louis in the National Theatre’s 1992 production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. The performance earned him a Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor.

“Not only have I lost my beautiful brother but the world has lost an incredibly talented actor and director,” Melissa D’Amico wrote on Twitter. “Words cannot express how much I miss him.

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.

Atomic Blonde (David Leitch)

There’s a bargain underlying the whole of Atomic Blonde, wherein director David Leitch wavers between its more cheeky qualities and its adherence to the conventions of generic spy fare. The film is, by definition, “cool” in every sense. Despite some wonky plotting best described as Diet John le Carré and a heavy-handed soundtrack that occasionally gets in its own way, Charlize Theron plows full...

After six seasons playing Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern is once again the matriarch of a wealthy British family of the early 1900s in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of J. B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways. Revived for the first time since its 1938 debut, the play is a time-jumping story that is filled with optimism and hope as the family celebrates one daughter’s birthday in the present and unimaginable transformations as they face their bitter realities 19 years later. But after watching McGovern perform onstage, which just so happens to mark her first time back on Broadway since playing Ophelia in Hamlet 25 years prior, it’s clear that Mrs. Conway is anything but the seemingly perfect, presentable and understanding mother that the actress embodied on the ITV series.

“I’m finding it a little bit frightening how easy it is for me to understand this mother. I’m not sure...

With Halloween only a week away now (how in the heck did that happen?), of course there are a ton of horror and sci-fi home entertainment offerings arriving on Tuesday, ready to get you primed for all your spooky shenanigans leading up to October 31st. In terms of new titles, both War of the Planet of the Apes and Annabelle: Creation hit various formats, and Criterion has put together a stellar release for Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper as well.

On the cult side of the genre spectrum, we have a myriad of movies to look forward to, including a quartet of titles from Vinegar Syndrome: The Corpse Grinders, Demon Wind, Blood Beat, and the double feature of Prime Evil and Lurkers. Arrow Video has assembled a special edition set for Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast that’s a must-own for any splatter fans out there, and the Warner Archive Collection...

Here at Et, we’re obsessed with a lot of things – and here’s what we’re most excited about this week:

Why We’re Obsessed With ‘Wonderstruck’

Oscar-winning filmmaker Todd Haynes reunites with his Far From Heaven star, Julianne Moore, for a film that appears as wondrous as the title suggests. But after the very adult Carol, Haynes is doing something more family-friendly, about the parallel journeys of a young, deaf girl (Millicent Simmonds) who runs away from home in search of her acting idol (Moore) in 1927 and a boy (Oakes Fegley) who runs away from his Minnesota home in search of his father in 1977.

Wonderstruck is in theaters Friday, Oct. 20.

Why We’re Obsessed With ‘Mindhunter’

With Mindhunter, a new series about two FBI agents researching serial killers in the early days of criminal psychology, David Fincher reimagines the cop thriller for TV. Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany play the two agents, who use their research...

It’s a genuine Universal horror classic that to my knowledge has never been available in a decent presentation — but The Cohen Group has come through with a nigh-perfect Blu-ray, both image and sound. Karloff is creepy, Gloria Stuart lovely and Ernest Thesiger is at his most delightfully fruity. And the potato lobby should be pleased, too.

The Old Dark House (1932)

Blu-ray

The Cohen Group

1932 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 72 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / 25.99

Starring: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Lilian Bond, Ernest Thesiger, Rebecca Femm, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, John (actually Elspeth) Dudgeon, Brember Wills.

Cinematography: Arthur Edeson

Film Editor: Clarence Kolster

Special Makeup: Jack Pierce

Written by Benn W. Levy, from the novel by J. B. Priestley

Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.

Directed by James Whale

I suppose fans of horror films will forever hope that some pristine copy of the lost 1927 London After Midnight will someday appear.

J. B. Priestley is one lucky dead playwright. Priestley is that famous, very prolific British writer whose many plays you’ve probably never seen unless you were in New York or London in the early 1990s and caught Stephen Daldry’s stunning Royal National Theatre revival of “An Inspector Calls.” Daldry took a not very intriguing drawing-room thriller and, to amazing effect, set it in a post-Blitz rainstorm. A quarter of a century later, Rebecca Taichman stages what is only the second Priestley revival on Broadway since that 1994 “Inspector,” and like Daldry, she also works a minor miracle with second-rate material.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the new Broadway production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. The play returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938 and opens officially tonight, October 10, 2017. This is a limited engagement through November 26, 2017 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway 227 West 42nd Street. Scroll down to learn more about the full company, plus check out the cast in rehearsal below...

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the new Broadway production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938. A friendly reminder that Time and the Conways opens officially on Tuesday, October 10, 2017. This is a limited engagement through November 26, 2017 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway 227 West 42nd Street.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the new Broadway production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938. Time and the Conways opens officially on October 10, 2017. This is a limited engagement through November 26, 2017 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway 227 West 42nd Street.

An essential must-see for horror fans who enjoy films set in eerie abodes on dark and stormy nights, The Dark Old House (1932), co-starring the legendary Boris Karloff, is coming to select theaters like never before this October in a stunning 4K digital restoration from Cohen Media Group, and we've been provided with an exclusive reveal of the new poster for the film and a clip that offers a look at the eye-popping makeover given to the classic shadow puppet scene.

Below, you can watch the creepy clip and check out the new poster, which will be included in the Blu-ray / DVD booklet for the film's new home media release on October 24th. We also have the previous press release with full details on The Old Dark House 4K restoration, and keep an eye out for the film in select theaters beginning Friday, October 6th, including the Quad theater in New York City.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the new Broadway production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938.

He played iconic roles like Frankenstein's monster and Imhotep (aka The Mummy), but Boris Karloff also instilled life in so many other intriguing characters, including Morgan in The Old Dark House, coming to Blu-ray (in a 4K restoration), DVD, and digital platforms this October from the Cohen Film Collection:

Press Release: Charles S. Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group, today announced that the landmark thriller The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff, will be released by the Cohen Film Collection on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms on October 24, 2017. The home video release features the dazzling new 4K digital restoration that was screened to wide acclaim at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Based on J.B. Priestley's popular novel Benighted, this legendary classic was directed by James Whale in the fertile period between his Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. In The Old Dark House, Whale puts a surprising spin on...

In addition to fall TV and a new slate of prestigious films, theater is gearing up for a new season, both on and Off-Broadway.

This year, there is no shortage of Hollywood star power -- ahem, the Broadway debuts of Amy Schumer and Uma Thurman, the return of Anna Camp and Clive Owen, and the Boss -- as well as anticipated new productions, must-see revivals and the redemption of director Julie Taymor. And the action is not limited to New York as two major musical adaptions get their feet wet with out of town tryouts.

2017 Fall Preview: Et's Complete Coverage

Frozen

Through 10/1

Denver Center for the Performing Arts (Colorado)

Disney’s global animated phenomenon is headed to the Broadway stage with a new musical from composers and lyricists RobertLopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and book writer Jennifer Lee in February 2018 after a limited engagement in Denver. The Snow Queen-inspired fairy tale and its Norwegian kingdom of Arendelle...

Nearly two years after Downton Abbey went off the air, most of the beloved ensemble cast is back in action on screen and stage, with Michelle Dockery, Dan Stevens and Joanne Froggatt leading several high-profile projects coming out this fall.

2017 Fall Preview: Et's Complete Coverage

Even though the period drama ended in 2015, this year can definitely be dubbed “2017: Life After Abbey.” And to think, all we care about is a Downton Abbey movie!

Check out what’s coming up (and highlights of a few things you may have missed):

Michelle Dockery

Good Behavior (TNT)

Premieres 10/15

Godless (Netflix)

Premieres 11/22

Photo: PBS / Getty Images / TNT / Netflix

Dockery, aka Lady Mary, was one of the first cast members out of the gates with a decidedly un-Downton-like character, playing con artist and recovering drug addict Letty Raines on TNT’s Good Behavior. “I was very fortunate when it came along,” Dockery told Et. “I wasn’t...

If Hollywood’s horror offerings this October have you feeling unperturbed and disappointed, a restoration of a classic in the genre will help to provide your spook-filled fix. A year after Frankenstein and a year before The Invisible Man, James Whale directed an adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s Benighted, titled The Old Dark House.

Ahead of a screening at Nyff, theatrical run at Quad Cinema, and a Blu-ray release, Cohen Media Group has unveiled a trailer for the restoration, which looks hauntingly gorgeous. Starring Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Eva Moore, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas, and Raymond Massey, the film follows a group stranded at a mysterious mansion. Check out the trailer and poster below.

Cast from the mold of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the many gothic tales in its wake, J. B. Priestley’s 1927 novel Benighted was one of the most...

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the new Broadway production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938. A friendly reminder that Time and the Conways begins preview performances tomorrow, September 14, 2017.

New York is the city that never sleeps, and with so many events and activities each week across all five boroughs, it can be hard to know what’s actually worthwhile. Here are the events New York City actors should have on their radars this week. Jenn Damiano returns to Joe’s Pub.Stage fave Jenn Damiano, who received a Tony nomination for her work in Pulitzer-winning “Next to Normal,” will return to a New York stage on Sept. 10, bringing her solo show to Joe’s Pub. Last seen on Broadway in the late, great “American Psycho,” audiences can expect to hear Damiano’s golden-throated takes on songs from the realm of musical theater, as well as the pop and rock cannons. (If you blow it and miss Damiano this time around, she’ll return to the venue Oct. 2.) (Tickets: $20) A “Downton” star takes Broadway.Elizabeth McGovern, best-known for her...

Roundabout Theatre Companywill soon present Time and the Conways by J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony winnerRebecca TaichmanIndecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below...

Roundabout Theatre Companywill soon presentTime and the Conwaysby J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony winnerRebecca TaichmanIndecent.Time and the Conwaysreturns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below...

Roundabout Theatre Company will soon present Time and the Conways by J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman Indecent. Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938.

It’s a given that their Main Slate — the fresh, the recently buzzed-about, the mysterious, the anticipated — will be the New York Film Festival’s primary point of attraction for both media coverage and ticket sales. But while a rather fine lineup is, to these eyes, deserving of such treatment, the festival’s latest Revivals section — i.e. “important works from renowned filmmakers that have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners,” per their press release — is in a whole other class, one titanic name after another granted a representation that these particular works have so long lacked.

The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...

Save up to 60 on tickets to Time And The Conways on BroadwayRoundabout Theatre Company presents this time-traveling play by J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls. In 1919 Britain, Mrs. Conway Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern is full of optimism during her daughter's lavish twenty-first birthday celebration. The Great War is over, wealth is in the air, and the family's dreams bubble over like champagne. Jump nineteen years into the future, though, and the Conways' lives have transformed unimaginably.

Roundabout Theatre Company's new Broadway production ofTime and the Conwaysby J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony nomineeRebecca TaichmanIndecent, and starring Oscar, Emmy amp Golden Globe nomineeElizabeth McGovernDownton Abbey is about toreturnto Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938.

With dozens of castings announced and new projects coming down the pipeline each week across television, film, and theater, it can be near-impossible to keep up. Backstage is here to help. Every Friday, we’re rounding up the week's industry news you shouldn’t miss, so you can be sure you're firmly in the know! Margot Robbie to produce—and star in—“Dreamland.”Robbie will pull double duty on the upcoming feature from screenwriter Nicolaas Zwart. The film will depict a teen whose family’s farm is on the brink of foreclosure and who decides to go after a known fugitive and bank robber (Robbie) to collect her bounty. Additional casting is to-be-announced. Elizabeth McGovern will return to Broadway.The “Downton Abbey” actor will star in the first revival of J.B. Priestly’s “Time and the Conways,” beginning previews Sept. 14 at Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre. The play follows the...

By Tim Greaves

Not the most beloved entry in Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic oeuvre – by either audiences in general or the director himself – 1939's Jamaica Inn (based on a Daphne du Maurier novel first published three years earlier) is nevertheless a serviceable enough piece of drama, which perhaps finds its most ideal place nowadays as an undemanding rainy Sunday afternoon programmer.

Following the death of her mother, Mary Yellen (Maureen O'Hara) travels from Ireland to England intending to take up residence with her relatives at their Cornish hostelry the Jamaica Inn. After an unexpected detour, which on face value proves beneficial when she makes the acquaintance of local squire and magistrate Sir Humphrey Pengallan (Charles Laughton), Mary arrives at her destination to find her browbeaten Aunt Patience (Maria Ney) living in fear of a tyrannical husband, the brutish Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks). It also transpires that the Inn is the...

Mubi is showing Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny (2003) May 14 - June 13, 2016 in the UK.And I know that I won’t ever change’Cause we’ve been friendsThrough rain or shineFor such a long, long time— Gordon Lightfoot, “Beautiful” Autumn’s leaving and winter’s comingI think that I’ll be moving alongI’ve got to leave her and find anotherI’ve got to sing my heart’s true song— Jackson C. Frank, “Milk and Honey”Never mind length, feel the width. At just less than 90 minutes, The Brown Bunny is small enough for its many minutiae to grow big, sink deep, burn permanent imprints on the brain. Not a great deal happens in Vincent Gallo’s second feature. Motorcycle racer Bud Clay (Gallo) drives a van from New Hampshire, where he’s just failed to win a race, to Los Angeles, where he hopes to rekindle the seemingly...

Danièle Delorme and Jean Gabin in 'Deadlier Than the Male.' Danièle Delorme movies (See previous post: “Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 Actress Became Rare Woman Director's Muse.”) “Every actor would like to make a movie with Charles Chaplin or René Clair,” Danièle Delorme explains in the filmed interview (ca. 1960) embedded further below, adding that oftentimes it wasn't up to them to decide with whom they would get to work. Yet, although frequently beyond her control, Delorme managed to collaborate with a number of major (mostly French) filmmakers throughout her six-decade movie career. Aside from her Jacqueline Audry films discussed in the previous Danièle Delorme article, below are a few of her most notable efforts – usually playing naive-looking young women of modest means and deceptively inconspicuous sexuality, whose inner character may or may not match their external appearance. Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire (“Open for Inventory Causes,” 1946), an unreleased, no-budget comedy notable...

BBC One’s adaptation of Jb Priestley’s An Inspector Calls couldn’t have aired at a more apt political moment…

When the march of world events falls accidently into step with TV drama, the result can be tasteless, or illuminating. If, say, a fictional shooting or bombing too closely mirrors a real and recent tragedy, the response is usually to pluck it from the schedules in respect for those suffering. Nobody facing the real thing wants to be confronted with it re-enacted in play.

Then there are the more serendipitous collisions between real world and fiction. Happenstance meetings that can spark a fire inside a drama, turning it into a beacon. The BBC's An Inspector Calls airing in a week where front pages are dominated by people fleeing war in desperate need of help, and the political conversation is about who should be responsible for these strangers, was just that.

J.B. Priestley's celebrated play An Inspector Calls is coming to the BBC. We've got the first trailer, here...

An Inspector Calls is a much-celebrated stageplay, which has also been a staple of the national curriculum here in the UK for quite some time.

J.B. Priestley's 1912 play focuses on the well-to-do Birling family who are grilled by a mysterious inspector after a working class local girl takes her own life. Revelations abound as the three-act play goes on, making An Inspector Calls something of a tense thriller.

The BBC have filmed a new version of the story, with David Thewlis as the inspector and Ken Stott as head of the family Arthur Birling. Here's the first trailer...

An Inspector Calls will air at 8.30pm on Sunday the 13th of September on BBC One.

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★★★★☆Watching Guy Hamilton's An Inspector Calls (1954), which stars Alastair Sim, Arthur Young and Bryan Forbes, one is presented with a masterclass in tension and unease. This screen version of J.B. Priestly's classic play, released by StudioCanal to mark the film's 60th anniversary, focuses on the hidden secrets between the members of an upper-class Edwardian family and how they are laid bare during the course of one fateful evening. The Birlings are a rich and powerful family, of high standing in the local community. Unfortunately their carefully constructed façade of genteel breeding and moral superiority, begins to crumble under the relentless questioning of a mysterious inspector.

The Old Globe presents a revival of J.B. Priestley's period classic Time and the Conways. Directed by Rebecca Taichman, Time and the Conways will run today, March 29 - May 4, 2014 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run March 29 - April 2. Opening night is Thursday, April 3 at 800 p.m. Get a first look at the cast below...

The Old Globe presents a revival of J.B. Priestley's period classic Time and the Conways. Directed by Rebecca Taichman, Time and the Conways will run March 29 - May 4, 2014 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run March 29 - April 2. Opening night is Thursday, April 3 at 800 p.m. Get a first look at the cast below...

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team for the Globe's revival of J.B. Priestley's period classic Time and the Conways. Directed by Rebecca Taichman, Time and the Conways will run March 29 - May 4, 2014 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run March 29 - April 2. Opening night is Thursday, April 3 at 800 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at 619 23-globe, or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

This week Theater Talk, features our annual Tony Wrap up, an AndrewAndrew report from the Tony Red Carpet and a discussion about J.B. Priestley's lost theatrical gem Cornelius. Co-hosted by Michael Riedel of the New York Post and producer Susan Haskins, this episode premieres Friday, June 14, 2013 at 1 Am Saturday morning on ThirteenPBS, and repeats in the New York metro area on Cuny TV Saturday at 830 Pm, Sunday at 1230 Pm, and Monday at 730 Am, 130 Pm, and 730 Pm.

Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein's inaugural season kicks off with The Last Goodbye, a new musical that marries Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and the electrifying songs of the legendary singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. As previously announced, the rock musical is directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers Peter and the Starcatcher, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson with choreography by Sonya Tayeh So You Think You Can Dance. The 2013-14 Season will also feature the World Premieres of The Few by Samuel D. Hunter and Dog and Pony, a new musical by Rick Elice and Michael Patrick Walker. Edelstein will make his Old Globe directorial debut with Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Rounding out the season are the California Premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes, the West Coast Premiere of Bethany by Laura Marks, the J.B. Priestley classic Time and the Conways and Christopher Durang...

In "Quartet," a group of retired classical musicians in England try to raise funds for their stately but financially troubled nursing home by putting on a concert -- and are often distracted from the task by their own rowdiness. It's a familiar enough plot arc, but "Quartet" subverts the classic rom-com script via its unusual first-time director (Dustin Hoffman), and its silver-headed cast of veterans (Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins) sifted in with real-life retired musicians.

Although the movie opens in theaters today, it nearly didn't get the chance to be made. The Huffington Post rang Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright Ronald Harwood -- who adapted "Quartet" from his 1999 play, starring only four people -- at his home in England. He gave us the lowdown on the challenges of pitching a movie about seniors to studios, why marketing people don't really know anything, and Dustin Hoffman's appeal.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Sony has released the 1963 remake of the 1932 James Whale horror film The Old Dark House as a burn-to-order DVD. The difference between the versions is supposedly night and day (I haven't seen the original). The remake is a broad, comedic take on the horror genre that keeps only the basic premise of the story, which was based on a novel by J.B. Priestly. Tom Poston, in a rare leading role, plays Tom Pendrel, an American living in London where he works as a car dealer. His flatmate Caspar Femm (Peter Bull) is a strange man who he hardly ever sees. Nevertheless, Caspar induces Tom to deliver his new car to the family's estate in the British countryside. When Tom arrives, he finds Caspar dead, supposedly from an accidental fall. He's already laid out in his coffin in a parlor. Tom then finds himself among a strange group of other Femms,...

After World War Two, just as the Us was getting hot under the collar about imaginary left-wing plots to seduce the nation via hidden messages in the movies, by a remarkable coincidence British cinema was infiltrated by a genuine socialist conspiracy.

Late in the war, as victory began to seem graspable, people started thinking about what kind of United Kingdom they wanted to live in: Winston Churchill may have led the nation through the conflict, but now something different was required. Sir Michael Balcon, head of Ealing Studios, was part of a group of filmmakers and creative types working behind the scenes to prepare the ground for a Labour government and the introduction of socialist programmes like the National Health Service.

Humphrey Jennings' eloquently understated propaganda short A Diary for Timothy looks at a new-born baby and wonders what kind of world he'll grow up in: as critic Raymond Durgnat observed,...