Category Archives: Classic Film
New From WarnerBlu: Cabaret 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Book
Last year, WarnerBlu released a fabulous new Blu-ray book for the 60th anniversary of A Streetcar Named Desire. Yesterday saw the release of one of my favorite films, which I just wrote about for Oscar Vault Monday, Cabaret.
TCM To Honor Jane Fonda At 2013 Film Festival
The first year I attended they honored Peter O’Toole (oh god I will never forget 2011 O’Toole-fest) and last year they honored Kim Novak. This year Ms. Jane Fonda will be getting her hands in the cement. Her choice of film to present is On Golden Pond, the film in which she was able to work with her father, legend Henry Fonda, who finally won an Academy Award after five decades in the industry. I’ll post the full press release below. I hope Jane is as sassy as I imagine!
Giveaway: Warner’s 90th Anniversary Blu-ray Bundle [ended]
In honor of Warner Bros. Pictures’s 90th Anniversary on April 4, 1923, the studio is releasing a handful of their films on Blu-ray for the first time. You can get a good look at some of their amazing 100-film and 50-film collections here. I was lucky enough to get copies of three of their most lauded films on Blu-ray for review, Best Picture winners: Grand Hotel, Mrs. Miniver and Driving Miss Daisy. I am happy to report these films look amazing in their new Blu-ray transfers. Unfortunately, I can’t screencap Blus on my Macbook, so you’ll have to take my word for it. If you’d like to see for yourself, you can enter a giveaway for all three films by leaving a comment below. The only stipulation is you must be a U.S. resident (sorry international readers, Warner Bros. makes these rules, not me!) So just leave a comment and I will pick one winner at random on Monday!
[edit] Congratulations to Candice, whose comment was chosen via a random number generator!
“The Matrix,” “A Christmas Story” Among the 25 Films Added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registery
In order to be added a film must be at least ten years old and be considered, “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” You can see this year’s list below.
- 3:10 to Yuma, 1957 (dir. Delmar Daves)
- Anatomy of a Murder, 1959 (dir. Otto Preminger)
- The Augustas, 1930s-1950s (dir. Scott Nixon)
- Born Yesterday, 1950 (dir. George Cukor)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961 (dir. Blake Edwards)
- A Christmas Story, 1983 (dir. Bob Clark)
- The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight, 1897
- Dirty Harry, 1971 (dir. Don Siegel)
- Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2, 1980-82 (dir. Nathaniel Dorsky)
- The Kidnappers Foil, 1930s-1950 (dir. Melton Barker)
- Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests, 1922
- A League of Their Own, 1992 (dir. Penny Marshall)
- The Matrix, 1999 (dir. the Wachowskis)
- The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair, 1939
- One Survivor Remembers, 1995 (dir. Kary Antholis)
- Parable, 1964
- Samsara: Death and Rebirth of Cambodia, 1990 (dir. Ellen Bruno)
- Slacker, 1991 (dir. Richard Linklater)
- Sons of the Desert, 1933 (dir. William A. Seiter)
- The Spook Who Sat by the Door, 1973 (dir. Ivan Dixon)
- They Call It Pro Football, 1967
- The Times of Harvey Milk, 1984 (dir. Rob Epstein)
- Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971 (dir. Monte Hellman)
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1914 (dir. William Robert Daly)
- The Wishing Ring; An Idyll of Old England, 1914 (dir. Maurice Tourneur)
From The Warner Archive: Lili, 1953 (dir. Charles Walters)
The Warner Archive recently released a newly remastered DVD of the six-time Oscar nominated 1953 film Lili starring Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer. This is a film I had been meaning to watch for years and I am so glad I finally got to see it. It’s a simple film and a sweet one, yet somehow it is never saccharine. It’s almost like a children’s book come to life, except that there are a few scenes – especially at the beginning – that are quite dark. I think this is a film that could have fallen into an overly melodramatic trap, but Walters tackles the subject with such a light touch, the result is nothing short of magical.
UCLA Film & Television Archive To Showcase the Films of Director Mitchell Leisen
This looks to be a really great line up of films. If you are in L.A. I definitely recommend you head out to these. I am a big fan of Easy Living, Death Takes a Holiday and Midnight, but if you can only see one of these films make it 1945’s Kitty with Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland. Basically, it is Pygmalion, but with prostitutes. It’s not on DVD and it’s a real treat.
- Midnight (1939); Easy Living (1937) November 16, 2012 – 7:30 pm
- Death Takes a Holiday (1934); Murder at the Vanities (1934) November 18, 2012 – 7:00 pm
- Hold Back the Dawn (1941); Swing High, Swing Low (1937) November 30, 2012 – 7:30 pm
- No Man of Her Own (1950); The Mating Season (1951) December 2, 2012 – 7:00 pm
- Lady in the Dark (1944); Take a Letter, Darling (1942) December 9, 2012 – 7:00 pm
- Kitty (1945); Frenchman’s Creek (1944) December 10, 2012 – 7:30 pm
- Remember the Night (1940); Hands Across the Table (1935) December 14, 2012 – 7:30 pm
- To Each His Own (1946); No Time For Love (1943) December 16, 2012 – 7:00 pm
From The Warner Archive: Red Dust, 1932 (dir. Victor Fleming)
When I saw that the Warner Archive was releasing Red Dust on DVD – and newly resmastered to boot – I literally shouted with joy (you can ask my roommate about that). This is my second favorite Harlow film (narrowly behind Personal Property). It has never been on DVD before and when the Warner Archive released the Harlow collection last year, I was pretty bummed that Victor Fleming’s pre-code masterpiece wasn’t part of it. Now we can all rejoice and our Harlow collections are almost complete (so many of her films on DVD now, it is amazing!) If I had to pick one actress to call my favorite (and please don’t make me!), there would be a strong case for Harlow taking that top spot. I just love her so much, and she is at the top of her game opposite Clark Gable in this steamy tale of lust, class, love and deception.
What A Character! – Lew Ayres as Ned Seton in “Holiday”
As part of the What a Character! Blogathon, I decided to take an extended look at Lew Ayres as Ned Seton in George Cukor’s Holiday because not only is Lew Ayres one of my favorite actors, but this is the film that made me fall so hard for him. I also thought I would take this time to remind y’all that Lew Ayres: Hollywood’s Conscientious Objector goes on sale on November 1st. If you will remember, I contributed the foreword to that book and it would mean the world to me if you pre-ordered it; you won’t regret it, I swear.
I am going to go through Lew’s performance as Ned almost scene-by-scene, so if you haven’t seen the film yet, there will be spoilers.
From The Warner Archive: Two Offbeat Westerns
If you follow me on Tumblr, y’all know how much I love westerns, so I was really excited to find out about these two newly remastered films from the Warner Archive. The first is a Zapata spaghetti western Un esercito di cinque uomini aka The Five Man Army, from producer/director Italo Zingarelli with a screenplay co-written by master of Italian horror Dario Argento (who also co-wrote Once Upon a Time in the West). A Zapata spaghetti western, fyi, is an Italian western from the late-1960s/early-1970s that is set in Mexico and usually they have political (i.e. dealing with the revolution, etc.) themes. The second film is 1972’s The Wrath of God directed by Ralph Nelson (not to be confused with Werner Herzog’s similarly named film, which also came out in 1972).
From The Warner Archive: Battle Circus, 1953 (dir. Richard Brooks)
This newly remastered release of Battle Circus, an early film from director Richard Brooks, is a must for fans of Bogart and as well as those who love Robert Altman’s 1970 Best Picture nominee M*A*S*H. The Korean War still had another few months before it was officially over when this film was first released and actual footage from the war is featured in it. The title comes from a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit’s ability to pick up and move itself and its surgical tents as swiftly as a traditional circus. Much like Altman’s later film, it also features the interconnectivity of the personal lives of the nurses, doctors and soldiers alike.
the diary of a film history fanatic 