News

Before there was the iconic film Bonnie and Clyde, there was Gun Crazy. A passionate, violent noir thriller from 1950, it has stood the test of time and remains an extremely important film from the time period. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, Gun Crazy stood out from the crowd during the noir boom for its torrid love affairs, daring femme fatales, and action sequences. The film stars Peggy Cummins and John Dahl, and both give simmering performances that make it an epic, lovers-on-the-run saga, as well as solidifying it as a classic American film.

by Cláudio Alves

A boy loves guns, he's obsessed with them, thrilled by them, given purpose by their dangerous nature. He grows up, and the love persists. One day, the boy finds a girl who shares the same fascination. A match made in hell, they come to love each other as much as they're besotted by the firearms, falling headfirst into a romance bound to become a tragedy. Even as they embark on a life of crime, the boy refuses to kill while the girl is all too eager. It doesn't end well, but it's a horny good time while it lasts. Guns and sex, sex and death, death as love, and love is the American way – and you know what? That's cinema, baby. That's also Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy, also known as Deadly Is the Female, a B-movie masterpiece that often feels like the urtext of film noir,...

Arthur Penn's controversial "Bonnie and Clyde" was one of the first shots across the cultural bow at the outset of the New Hollywood revolution. This is when the major studios finally, if quite accidentally, realized a legion of moviegoers (i.e. Baby Boomers) were losing interest in historical epics, war films, and Westerns, and, desperate to save their industry, handed over the reins to artists and executives who understood what this upstart generation was craving. Rock-and-roll was over a decade old by this point, while beat poetry and protest music were all the rage. Audiences wanted movies that burned with the same dissatisfied fire that fueled all of the other art they were imbibing and inhaling at the time. They wanted to be challenged.

"Bonnie and Clyde" did more than challenge moviegoers. It shook them up. Many loved this. Some, like The New York Times' chief film critic Bosley Crowther,...

Despite social media causing shorter attention spans, movie runtimes have been significantly increasing since the dawn of the twenty-first century. In 2023, the average runtime of the ten highest-grossing movies in the United States was two hours and twenty-three minutes, up nearly thirty minutes from the average at the start of the decade. While films with epic lengths possess the ability to offer audiences a grand cinematic experience, sometimes it is not feasible to fit such a long movie into a busy schedule.

Historically, the Western has been one of cinema's best genres for the epic format. Some of the genre's greatest works, such as Dances with Wolves, Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, each have runtimes over two and a half hours. On the other end of the spectrum, the Western genre is also full of fantastic movies...

Quick Links Road to Perdition Shows Hanks' Range as an Actor in an Against-Type Performance Road to Perdition Is One of Hanks' Greatest Displays of Physical Acting

Released in 2002, Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition features one of Tom Hanks' most unique and best performances of his entire 45-year career in show business. Since 1980, Hanks has been one of Hollywood's most famous and well-liked actors. From children's classics such as the Toy Story franchise to renowned dramas like Philadelphia and Saving Private Ryan, Hanks has a multigenerational appeal that has led him to earn the moniker "America's Dad." While many of Hanks' films have earned icon status, Road to Perdition remains one of Hanks' lesser-known works. Last year, while appearing on the ReelBlend podcast, Hanks professed that he believes Road to Perdition is one of his greatest films even though it is a movie almost no one talks about when discussing his premier works.

On Saturday June 1, Hollywood actor Ethan Hawke will introduce two classic films on the TCM talk show Two for One. The Gunfighter (1950) and Gun Crazy (1950) are both considered masterpieces of their respective genres, the Western and film noir. ## The Gunfighter Starring Gregory Peck, The Gunfighter is a dark, brooding Western that […]

Ethan Hawke Introduces Gunfighter and Gun Crazy on Two for One, June 1 on TCM...

Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.

Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.

New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.

Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.

Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...

April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.

One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...

A movie marathon with our favorite auteurs? Where do we sign up?

Turner Classic Movies’ latest limited series “Two for One” features curated double features coupled with commentary from select guest programmers like Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and more. The upcoming TCM series is hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, who will interview each director about why they chose to highlight their two chosen films.

“Two for One” will feature 12 nights of double features, beginning April 6. With the logline “two films, one filmmaker, countless perspectives,” the series is set to span all of cinematic history. Directors will offer commentary on the double feature’s cultural significance, its influence on other films, behind-the-scenes stories, and their own personal reflections.

Martin Scorsese kicks off the show with a conversation comparing “Blood on the Moon” and “One Touch of Venus.” The following week, actress/director Olivia Wilde picks “Auntie Mame” and 1976 documentary “Grey Gardens.

Turner Classic Movies have announced a new limited series, Two for One, that will feature 12 nights of double features curated by some of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood beginning April 6. TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz will be joined by each director, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Todd Haynes, Spike Lee, Nicole Holofcener, and Rian Johnson, to introduce the two films they chose. They will offer commentary on the double feature’s cultural significance, its influence on other films, behind-the-scenes stories, and their own personal reflections.

“This was such an eclectic group of filmmakers to sit down with, which was invigorating, from Martin Scorsese talking about a Robert Mitchum western, to Spike Lee discussing Elia Kazan, to Olivia Wilde’s breakdown of Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame,” said Ben Mankiewicz. “In these double features, these 12 directors lead us on an insider’s journey through cinematic history.”

See...

Although "Billy Madison" got poor reviews at the time, it still holds up for the kids who grew up watching it. That "I award you no points" speech is still iconic, and the scene with the O'Doyle family cheering as they fall to their deaths is still funny. It also helps that Adam Sandler would go on to make a ton of other movies throughout his career, and most of them make this movie's script look like Shakespeare in comparison. We've seen what a truly terrible Adam Sandler movie looks like, and this ain't it.

The exact version of "Billy Madison" we got almost never happened because the studio originally had mixed feelings. "The studio didn't know what to think about the film, which was, frankly, weird," director Tamra Davis explained. "Thank god for audience test scores — they loved it."

It should come as no surprise that it was teenagers specifically that loved the film,...

The writer-director’s death at 82 leaves behind a legacy of impactful films, from The Last Picture Show to Mask, and also a deep love of the craft

Peter Bogdanovich: a life in picturesPeter Bogdanovich, acclaimed writer-director, dies at 82

Peter Bogdanovich was the blazing night-sky comet of the New Hollywood generation whose trajectory got knocked off course a little, by personal tragedy and the contingencies of show business, but kept hurtling onwards with brilliant work and passionate cinephilia to the very end. His first four hits, Targets (1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), What’s Up Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973) were somehow both thrillingly and authentically modern and yet also instantly belonged to the classic pantheon. With the touch of restless young genius, he seemed to reinvent pulp crime, the western, the road movie and the screwball comedy – in short order.

I remember Bogdanovich in 2018, frail and unwell as he then reportedly was,...

LeBron James might be out of the NBA playoffs, but he’s still angling to be a big part of the summer entertainment season. That’s because HBO Max’s list of new releases for July 2021 is highlighted by a very special sequel.

Space Jam: A New Legacy premieres on July 16. will find LeBron teaming up with the Looney Tunes in a Warner Bros. IP-extravaganza. Can ‘Bron and the Looney Tunes beat the Goon Squad before Warner Bros.’ server steals LeBron “Bronny” Jr.’s soul (or something)? Let’s hope so. The two other major WB releases this month, No Sudden Move and Tom and Jerry in New York, both come to HBO Max on July 1.

HBO Max is also bringing some fun TV shows to its stream this month. The long-awaited Gossip Girl revival premieres on July 8. That will be followed by Mike White’s satirical limited series The White Lotus...

Summer is officially here and with it comes a surfeit of new movies and television shows available on HBO Max. Next month, the WarnerMedia streaming service will debut the long-awaited sequel to “Space Jam” with Lebron James taking the baton from Michael Jordan and the latest heist movie from Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh. But while those titles arrive, others depart, including “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” and “In the Heights.”

Ahead, highlights of the month ahead on HBO Max, plus the full list of July programming.

“No Sudden Move” (July 1): Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour, Kieran Culkin, Jon Hamm, Ray Liotta, and “Uncut Gems” breakout Julia Fox, among others, the heist thriller is set in 1950s Detroit and “enters on a group of small-time criminals who are hired to steal what they think is a simple document. When their plan goes horribly wrong,...

The Criterion Channel has unveiled their March 2021 lineup, which includes no shortage of remarkable programming. Highlights from the slate include eight gems from Preston Sturges, Elaine May’s brilliant A New Leaf, a series featuring Black Westerns, Ann Hui’s Boat People, the new restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi.

They will also add films from their Essential Fellini boxset, series on Dirk Bogarde and Nelly Kaplan, and Luchino Visconti’s The Damned and Death in Venice, and more. In terms of recent releases, there’s also Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century and Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In.

Check out the lineup below, along with the teaser for the Black Westerns series. For weekly streaming updates across all services, bookmark this page.

The Adventurer, Charles Chaplin, 1917

Bandini, Bimal Roy, 1963

Behind the Screen, Charles Chaplin, 1916

Black Jack, Ken Loach, 1979

Black Rodeo, Jeff Kanew, 1972

Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen,...

Someone must have left the freezer door in the morgue open, because grisly reminders of the past are thawing before our eyes. You can see it this weekend with the release of John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things, a throwback to the days when movie stars hung out at crime scenes instead of in spandex, and it’ll be more apparent next month with the launch of Clarice, a television spinoff of 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs. All the evidence points to only one conclusion: the serial killer thrillers of the ‘90s are back!

Not that we’re complaining. For a macabre minute or two, every Hollywood name appeared eager to play either the detective or the killer—the hunter or the obsessed, which often proved interchangeable for both characters. Granted that means there can be something formulaic about many of these movies. Yet they can also be bleak,...

New superlatives are needed to express just how good is this wonderful Americana musical from the 1950s boom years. The Broadway creator tapped Hollywood’s most qualified (and creative) director of musicals for the stage to screen conversion, retaining much of the original New York talent. Doris Day is a sensation as Babe Williams, whose romantic and labor problems play out at a sleepwear factory. The color design is a delight, every song is a keeper, and the talent on view makes one want to clap, sixty-five years later.

The Pajama Game

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date January 26, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy Jr., Reta Shaw, Barbara Nichols, Thelma Pelish, Jack Straw.

Cinematography: Harry Stradling Sr.

Film Editor: William H. Ziegler

Art Direction: Malcolm C. Bert

Choreography: Bob Fosse

Musical Supervision: Ray Heindorf

Songs by: Richard Adler,...

Time and time again during this year’s pandemic, movie studios have had to make the best of a bad situation. HBO Max’s list of new releases for December 2020 comes along with the most extreme example yet.

WarnerMedia undoubtedly had big plans for Wonder Woman 1984 when it scheduled it for a holiday release last year. After moving it to the summer, however, the conglomerate had to delay its theatrical release time and time again. Now HBO Max is the lucky winner of the saga, as it gets to premiere the long-awaited sequel on its servers on Dec. 25.

While Wonder Woman 1984 is definitely the headline this month, there are some other intriguing streaming options for HBO Max in December. The month plays host to a whole host of high-powered documentaries like Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults (Dec. 3), Alabama Snake (Dec. 9), and the Tiger Woods documentary Tiger (Dec.

We’ve now got just a few days left of November, so it’s time to take a look ahead at everything that’s headed to the major streaming networks in December. As it’s Christmas, Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video have extra special hauls ready to gift to their subscribers this holiday season, with literally hundreds of new movies and TV shows dropping over the course of the month.

All the various sites – excepting Disney Plus – are serving up a ton of newly licensed films on December 1st. Netflix, for instance, is adding such classics as E.T., Little Nicky and the first three Jurassic Parks. Meanwhile, HBO Max is offering up The Shawshank Redemption, Shaun of the Dead and a bunch of Final Destinations, while Hulu and Prime Video, which share a lot of the same movies, are treating users to a host of iconic...

Just like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Disney Plus, HBO Max is adding a ton of great new titles to give you some festive treats this holiday season. The Warner streaming service’s December haul isn’t necessarily full of Christmas content – there’s a lot of that already available – but there are definitely a ton of must-see films and TV shows on the lineup, so let’s take a look at the highlights.

December 1st brings a glut of newly licensed titles, including everything from horror prequel Annabelle: Creation to the original Westworld movie. In terms of franchises, you’ll be able to find a bunch of The Crown films, some Final Destinations and the whole Free Willy trilogy on the site next month. And if you’re looking to chow down on some of the best movies around, you won’t be disappointed. Just a few of the acclaimed...

There’s something perversely fascinating about a film as aggressively off-putting as “Infamous,” a lovers-on-the-run crime drama that practically defies you to develop a rooting interest in its two dim-bulb lead characters. Writer-director Joshua Caldwell borrows freely and indiscriminately from several earlier and superior examples of its sub-genre — particularly “Gun Crazy,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Natural Born Killers” — while attempting to craft some kind of cautionary tale about the many and varied ways social media can turn the dangerously discontented into sociopathic celebrity-seekers. But as he indefatigably underscores the obvious while steadily escalating the violence, he does little to sustain the attention of his audience while taking an unconscionably long time to arrive at a thoroughly predictable conclusion.

Right at the start, Caldwell makes a serious mistake by borrowing a page from classic films noir and opening “Infamous” with a scene that reveals where everything will ultimately wind up. Maybe...

Once upon a time…or maybe twice…and on a personal note…I’ve been a Beatles fan as long as I can remember. Similarly, I’ve been a movie fanatic for almost as long (though not quite). So, at some point, I naturally started thinking about my favorite Beatle movie moments. Then, I started to ponder the moments that never actually happened. Now, I’m not suggesting that I was lost in some sort of drug-induced Sixties flashback, but rather I was thinking about the several unrealized film projects that the band never actually made.

Sure, A Hard Day’s Night (1964) is fantastic; Help! (1965) has its own unique charm by spoofing the then “new” James Bond style spy film; Yellow Submarine (1968) is sublime in its ground-breaking animated whimsy; and, finally, Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and Let It Be (1970) are pretty darn good celluloid time capsules. But, wouldn’t it have...

Without a doubt, American director Joseph H. Lewis is best remembered for his contributions to film noir, particularly his 1950 classic Gun Crazy and 1955’s The Big Combo. Arrow Academy has been restoring some of the director’s forgotten titles, having recently released Lewis’ final narrative feature, 1958’s Terror in a Texas Town (the director worked on various television shows until his retirement in the mid-1960s) and now revisiting some of his forgotten 1940s items. His UK set 1945 film My Name is Julia Ross is an excellent and extremely efficient take on the gaslight subgenre, which was later remade by Arthur Penn in 1987 as Dead of Winter.…...

Throughout the early 1970s, Carlos Robledo Puch committed a number of homicides and robberies that scandalized Argentina. Dubbed “El Angel” by the press for his youth and good looks, he was eventually caught and thrown in prison, where he remains to this day. Now dramatized in the feature film also bearing that nickname, the notorious criminal’s life luckily gets the chance to be as banalized as any other big-screen serial killer.

Sure, it’s true that making claims about Puch’s life or rather acting like Luis Ortega’s film is absolutely an attempt to unlock the mystery behind the man–or, rather, boy–is unfair. Yet if the film wants to serve as some kind of grander indictment of how a generation’s malaise spawned so much violence, or even just deliver a consistently entertaining film, it can’t help but come as a failure.

With an opening...

Madrid — Yvonne Blake, an Academy Award-winning costume designer and indefatigable recent president of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, died Tuesday on Madrid having suffered a stroke this January. She was 78.

Manchester-born and a grant-winning student at its Regional College of Art & Design, Blake worked as an intern at costume house Berman’s, becoming an assistant costume designer on Hammer Studios’ underrated “Never Take Sweets from a Stranger,” released in 1960, its 1961 “The Shadow of My Cat” and George Cukor’s “My Fair Lady” (1964).

Also working on François Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451,” Blake talents were rapidly recognized: She had risen to the full status of costume designer by 1966.

Meeting her future husband, Spaniard Gil Carretero, on the set of Richard Quine’s Spain-shot “Gun Crazy,” Blake won an Oscar aged only 31 in 1972, along with Antonio Castillo, for her work on “Nicholas and Alexander,” which brought her back to Spain.

It’s a good week for cinematic iconoclasts, with extras-laden Blu-ray editions of Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive trilogy, Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy, and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars all newly available. Cohen’s reputation has received a major and well deserved boost in the last couple years with the release of Steve Mitchell’s King Cohen documentary and reissues of many of his best films on Blu-ray. Shout Factory’s new boxed set containing It’s Alive (1974), It Lives Again (1978) and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) is likely to further fuel the […]...

It’s a good week for cinematic iconoclasts, with extras-laden Blu-ray editions of Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive trilogy, Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy, and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars all newly available. Cohen’s reputation has received a major and well deserved boost in the last couple years with the release of Steve Mitchell’s King Cohen documentary and reissues of many of his best films on Blu-ray. Shout Factory’s new boxed set containing It’s Alive (1974), It Lives Again (1978) and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) is likely to further fuel the […]...

The Warner Archive comes through with a film noir gem that still has the power to make one’s skin crawl, as a pair of circus sharpshooters go on the lam, using their skills to pull off cheap robberies. The clammy feeling of being cut off from society, having no place to go, is expressed in near-existential terms. Peggy Cummins’ cheap tease Annie Laurie Starr promises John Dall’s Bart Tare eternal love, but what good are promises from a psycho?

Gun Crazy

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1949 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date , 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger, Anabel Shaw, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young, Rusty Tamblyn, Morris Carnovsky.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: Harry Gerstad

Production Designer: Gordon Wiles

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Dalton Trumbo and MacKinlay Kantor from his short story

Produced by Frank King, Maurice King

Directed by...

Hollywood film actor who starred in the now-revered 1950 B-movie Gun Crazy, a forerunner of Bonnie and Clyde

The British actor Peggy Cummins, who has died aged 92, was discovered by the Hollywood mogul Darryl F Zanuck when she was a teenager and almost immediately given the lead in his big film of the age, Forever Amber, based on the historical romance by Kathleen Winsor. In 1946 she began filming the part of Amber St Clare, a young beauty making her way in 17th-century England, shooting opposite Vincent Price as Almsbury. Hundreds of stills were shot of her in period costume. But then the director was sacked, filming started all over again – and Cummins was replaced (as was Price).

A career that had promised so much for Cummins was reduced to small parts in big films and big parts in small pictures. Among these, her best known performance was in Gun Crazy (1950), directed by Joseph H Lewis,...

Peggy Cummins, one of Hollywood’s most unforgettable film noire molls for her role in 1950’s Gun Crazy, died following a stroke in London Friday. She was 92. Her death was confirmed to the Associated Press by her friend Dee Kirkwood. Cummins, born in Wales and an actress since childhood, had appeared in a string of modestly budgeted films (1943’s Old Mother Riley Detective, 1949’s If This Be Sin) when she was cast as the seductress carny Annie Laurie Starr in director…...

Irish actor Cummins never quite conquered Hollywood but she made her mark in the 1950 film noir classic, as well as cult horror Night of the Demon

Irish actor Peggy Cummins, who left her mark as the brazen femme fatale in the film noir Gun Crazy, has died aged 92, having suffered a stroke. She died in a London hospital on 29 December, surrounded by family, her friend Dee Kirkwood told the Hollywood Reporter.

Cummins, who was born in Prestatyn, Wales, began acting as a child, having been spotted at a tram stop in Dublin by a theatre owner. She made her debut on the London stage aged 13. After a stint in British cinema, in 1945 she went to Hollywood, where Darryl F Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, cast her as the lead in Otto Preminger’s Forever Amber. “Fox made a big splash for me when I came over. I weighed 98 pounds and had an 18-inch waist,...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

A recent article (based on a very unscientific poll) argued that millennials don’t really care about old movies. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t, but the fact remains that many people disregard classic cinema on principle. These people are missing out, but it only takes one film — the right film — to change their minds and forever alter their viewing habits.

This week’s question: What is one classic film you would recommend to someone who doesn’t watch them?

Candice Frederick (@ReelTalker), Hello Beautiful, /Film, Thrillist, etc

“Rebel Without a Cause.” I’ll out myself by saying that I’ve only recently seen this film...

Fritz Lang continues his take-no-prisoners indictment of America’s curious relationship with crime; this time he presents the thesis that an innocent man can be a pawn in cosmic game of injustice. Three-time loser Henry Fonda, the glummest actor in ’30s films, doesn’t mean to rob or kill, but gosh darn it, They Made Him a Criminal. Those considerations aside, it’s a wonderful cinematic achievement, made all the better by a decent digital restoration.

You Only Live Once

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1937 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / 29.98

Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon,

William Gargan, Jerome Cowan, Charles ‘Chic’ Sale, Margaret Hamilton, Warren Hymer,

Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Ward Bond, Jack Carson, Jonathan Hale

Cinematography: Leon Shamroy

Art Direction: Alexander Toluboff

Film Editor: Daniel Mandell

Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer

Written by Graham Baker and Gene Towne

Produced by Walter Wanger

Directed by Fritz Lang...

On paper it’s a western with everything — a major star, decent supporting players, a cult director and sideways references to the blacklisting years. But even with its ya-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it high noon showdown scene, Joseph H. Lewis’s last feature film is still a lower-tier United Artists effort. Sterling Hayden goes up against Sebastian Cabot and Nedrick Young, armed with a, with a . . . aw, you probably know already.

Terror in a Texas Town

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 80 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Sterling Hayden, Sebastian Cabot, Carol Kelly, Eugene Martin, Nedrick Young, Victor Millan, Frank Ferguson, Marilee Earle, Byron Foulger, Glenn Strange.

Cinematography: Ray Rennahan

Original Music: Gerald Fried

Written by Dalton Trumbo, fronted by Ben Perry

Produced by Frank N. Seltzer

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis

Auteurists in the early 1970s championed directors like Phil Karlson, Budd Boetticher and Anthony Mann. These stylists...

Peggy Cummins, the petite blond actress who played the carnival sharpshooter turned murderous bank robber in the sexually charged 1950 film noir classic Gun Crazy, has died. She was 92.

Cummins suffered a stroke and died Friday in a London hospital surrounded by her family, her longtime friend Dee Kirkwood, a fellow trustee of Stars Foundation for Cerebral Palsy, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Irish actress also starred in the Western Green Grass of Wyoming (1948) with Charles Coburn and in Jacques Tourneur's British horror classic Curse of the Demon (1957) opposite Dana Andrews.

Cummins came to America in 1945...

Terror In A Texas Town will be Available on Blu-ray and DVD on July 11th From Arrow Video

For his 41st and final feature film, Joseph H. Lewis was able to combine the two genres in which he had excelled. The man in the director’s chair for My Name is Julia Ross, Gun Crazy and The Big Combo, Lewis was one of the all-time greats in film noir. But he was also a fine director of Westerns, having made A Lawless Street, 7th Cavalry and The Halliday Brand, all of which – especially the last – remain underrated. Terror in a Texas Town would bring his noir sensibilities to the American West, resulting in one of his finest works.

McNeil (Sebastian Cabot, The Time Machine) is a greedy hotel owner who wants to take control of Prairie City, the Texas town of the title. Keen to drive the local farmers of their land,...

Don’t look to this noir for hardboiled cynicism – for his first feature Nicholas Ray instead gives us a dose of fatalist romance. Transposed from the previous decade, a pair of fugitives takes what happiness they can find, always aware that a grim fate waits ahead. The show is a career-making triumph and a real classic from Rko — which shelved it for more than a year.

They Live by Night

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 880

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig, Will Wright, William Phipps, Ian Wolfe, Harry Harvey, Marie Bryant, Byron Foulger, Erskine Sanford .

Cinematography: George E. Diskant

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Leigh Harline

Written by Charles Schnee, Nicholas Ray from the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson

Produced by John Houseman

Directed by Nicholas Ray...

This French disc release of the Jacques Tourneur classic gets everything right — including both versions in picture perfect transfers. Devil debunker Dana Andrews locks horns with Niall MacGinnis, a necromancer “who has decoded the Old Book” and can summon a fire & brimstone monster from Hell, no election fraud necessary. Even fans that hate ghost stories love this one — it’s a truly creepy, intelligent highlight of the horror genre.

Night of the Demon

Region A + B Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Wild Side (Fr)

1957 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 95 & 82 min. / Street Date November 27, 2013 / Curse of the Demon, Rendez-vous avec la peur / Available from Amazon UK or Foreign Exchange Blu-ray

Starring: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham,

Athene Seyler

Cinematography: Ted Scaife

Production Designer: Ken Adam

Special Effects: George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music: Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester

from the...

My favorite thing about taking these weekly trips to the Drive-In is my own selfish thirst for discovery. I need to patch up the holes of missing films on my personal movie screen; there is still so much to see, and sometimes the holes are so big that they obscure the view. Every once in a while though, a film comes along that not only mends the tears in the fabric but strengthens the whole. Such is the case with Night of the Demon (1957), Jacques Tourneur’s masterpiece of shadowy menace and dread, and a new personal favorite.

Released in its native U.K. in December and then stateside in July of ’58 under the new title Curse of the Demon (where 13 minutes were trimmed from an already lean 95 minute running time), this Columbia Pictures production was fraught with anguish before it even appeared to audiences, most famously producer Hal E. Chester...

March 21st is a big day for cult film fans, not to mention all you RoboCop enthusiasts out there, as Tuesday has a variety of horror and sci-fi offerings that you’ll undoubtedly want to add to your home entertainment collections. Scream Factory is releasing a pair of amazing Collector's Edition Blu-rays for RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, and Kino Lorber is keeping busy with a trio of HD releases, too: Chamber of Horrors, Invisible Ghost, and A Game of Death.

Other notable titles making their way home on March 21st include Wolf Creek: Season One, Eloise, John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs, and Frankenstein Created Bikers.

Chamber of Horrors (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)

Newly Mastered in HD! Chamber of Horrors was based on the classic novel, The Door with Seven Locks by Edgar Wallace (King Kong, The Terror) - it was the second Wallace adaptation brought to the States by Monogram Pictures.

Robert Siodmak’s superb noir classic pits two graduates of Little Italy against one other: a crook who can deceive relatives and seduce strangers into helping him, and the cop who wants to put him out of business. Starring the great Richard Conte, with Victor Mature in what might be his best role.

Cry of the City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Berry Kroeger, Tommy Cook, Debra Paget, Hope Emerson, Roland Winters, Walter Baldwin, Mimi Aguglia, Kathleen Howard, Konstantin Shayne, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography Lloyd Ahern

Original Music Alfred Newman

Written by Richard Murphy from the novel The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth

Produced by Sol C. Siegel

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Perhaps because of a legal or rights issue, Robert Siodmak...

Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Just...

This is one of Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor's best, written and directed by the classy MGM team of director Vincente Minnelli and writers Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett. It inspired a decade's worth of TV family sitcoms and set the benchmark for weddings for generations. Great fun and solid sentiment without mugging or exaggeration. Father of the Bride Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 93 min. / Street Date May 10, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Don Taylor, Billie Burke, Moroni Olsen, Melville Cooper, Leo G. Carroll, Rusty Tamblyn, Tom Irish, Frank Cady, Carleton Carpenter. Cinematography John Alton Film Editor Ferris Webster Original Music Adolph Deutsch Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett from the novel by Edward Streeter Produced by Pandro S. Berman Directed by Vincente Minnelli

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

There's almost no point in reviewing Father of the Bride, as one doesn't need insights,...

This noir hits with the force of a blast furnace -- Cy Endfield's wrenching tale of social neglect and injustice will tie your stomach in knots. Sound like fun? An unemployed man turns to crime and reaps a whirlwind of disproportionate retribution. It's surely the most powerful of all filmic accusations thrown at the American status quo. Try and Get Me! Blu-ray Olive Films 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date April 19, 2016 / The Sound of Fury / available through the Olive Films website / 29.95 Starring Frank Lovejoy, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson, Lloyd Bridges, Katherine Locke, Adele Jergens, Art Smith, Renzo Cesana, Irene Vernon, Cliff Clark, Donald Smelick, Joe E. Ross. Cinematography Guy Roe Production Design Perry Ferguson Film Editor George Amy Original Music Hugo Friedhofer Written by Jo Pagano from his novel The Condemned Produced by Robert Stillman Directed by Cyril Endfield

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Socially conscious 'issue' movies are not all made equal.

Anti-gun violence advocacy group States United to Prevent Gun Violence pulled off another “prank” intended to make people look differently at firearms. The group set up a screening for a film called “Gun Crazy,” described as the latest Hollywood blockbuster. As fans were interviewed heading into the theater, they described excitement for the screening, hoping for “a good shootout” scene among others. Instead, the audience was treated to footage of real gun violence, including mass shootings, store robberies, traffic stops gone wrong and other videos. Also Read: Sundance 2016 Preview: Gun Violence, TV Party-Crashers and Young Obamas in Love Needless to say,...

Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

“See It Big! Jack Fisk” celebrates one of cinema’s greatest production designers. The first weekend brings four Malick features, Mulholland Dr., Carrie, and There Will Be Blood.

A collection of the Muppets‘ appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson will be presented this Sunday.

Metrograph

A retrospective of the...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

The release of Carol (our coverage can be found here) brings “Todd Haynes: The Other Side of Dreams,” which will pair the director’s work with his personal favorites. Safe and Imitation of Life show on Friday; on Saturday, see “Todd Haynes: Rarities” — which brings Dottie Gets Spanked,...

'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...

Bryan Cranston is irresistible as Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted screenwriter of Oscar-winning classics Roman Holiday and Spartacus, in this sparkling period drama surrounding the Hollywood Ten. His larger-than-life performance promises surface sheen rather than cruel dissection of tinseltown’s failure to stand up for those disaffected by the Red Scare. But Jay Roach’s film has the daring to flatten the reputation of Hollywood’s previously lionised – including John Wayne and Louis B. Mayer – marking an intriguing look at post-Golden Age Hollywood, helped by a very funny script from John McNamara.

After the Second World War, Trumbo rose to become the highest paid writer in Hollywood – “a record breaking contract to make shit up,” as he himself refers to it. But in the late 1940s the Red Scare took hold, and Hollywood was among the first to suffer McCarthyist sanctions. Trumbo, who argues his political position is as a “liberal democrat” in the film,...

CB4

Directed by Tamra Davis

Written by Nelson George, Robert LoCash and Chris Rock

1993, USA

Back in 1993, two low-budget mockumentary-style comedies based on Gangsta Rap were released. The better of the two is Rusty Cundieff’s Canadian indie gem Fear of a Black Hat, chronicling the rise and fall of Nwh, a not particularly talented but always controversial hip-hop group. The second was CB4, about the rise to fame of Mc Gusto, Stab Master Arson, and Dead Mike, members of the rap group Cell Block 4. The similarities between the two are uncanny, so much so that one would think someone got their greedy hands on the other script and decided to shamefully steal the idea.

Written by music critic Nelson George and Saturday Night Live’s Chris Rock (who also plays the lead role of Albert, a k a Mc Gusto), this spoof on gangsta rap targets controversial rap groups (specifically N.W.A.) and deliberately provocative,...