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The actor was the real deal, whether as a cherubic psychopath in Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, or playing second fiddle to Barbra Streisand in the smash hit A Star Is Born

If Kris Kristofferson had never sung a single note, he would still have been remembered as a terrific screen actor in the Hollywood tradition of tough frontier masculinity, a movie star who worked with Scorsese, Peckinpah, Cimino and Sayles. He had a natural, unforced charisma in the rugged, take-it-or-leave-it tradition of Robert Ryan or John Wayne, or the newer style of Jeff Bridges and Sam Elliott.

Actually, without his recording career, he might have made it higher in the pantheon of screen legends, and his movie work was perhaps one of the casualties of Michael Cimino’s colossal folie de grandeur epic Heaven’s Gate from 1980, which damaged the prestige of everyone involved – Kristofferson was cast, or even miscast,...

What are the defining traits of a character actor? Why is a shapeshifting virtuoso like Daniel Day-Lewis considered a full-blown movie star, while a chameleon-like genius like Giancarlo Esposito is routinely relegated to supporting player status? As previously discussed here at /Film, there are multiple factors at play: box office, deeply ingrained cultural notions of physical attractiveness, distinctive utility, and the Borgnine Paradox.

It should come as no surprise that my solo endeavor to arrive at a solid-ish definition of "character actor" is not the first in the history of the written word. There have been many, many attempts by whole groups of esteemed journalists to get at some kind of reasonable understanding of this term/concept, and, having read more than a few of them, I can assure you that there is no hard-fast rule. You could call just about everyone outside of Britney Spears a character actor --...

Actor Martin Delaney has stepped into the shoes of a tech visionary in the new film “The Man Who Saved the Internet With a Sunflower.”

Delaney portrays Robert Ryan, the founder of Ascend Communications who played a crucial role in the early days of the internet. The film has already garnered critical acclaim, recently winning the Competition Features Audience Award at the Dances With Films festival.

The film chronicles Ryan’s journey from humble beginnings to becoming a key player in Silicon Valley during the 1980s and ’90s. It focuses on Ryan’s development of the “pizza box” modem, which revolutionized internet access by offering faster speeds at half the price of competitors. This innovation allowed struggling internet service providers to stay afloat and ultimately led to Ascend’s meteoric rise in the tech industry, culminating in its sale to Lucent Technologies for $24 billion in 1999.

“I was intrigued by Rob’s story,...

He was initially an ambassador from the Hippie Nation, a force of irreverence armed with a sharp wit and a what-me-worry smile. Which is why, in the late 1960s, right when Flower Power was beginning to bloom in full and the escalating situation in Vietnam galvanized the youth generation, Donald Sutherland started to make a name for himself in… war movies. It’s funny to think of that factoid now, given the six decades of incredibly versatile work the late, great actor left behind when he died Thursday at the...

The film industry lost another legendary actor as Hunger Games actor Donald Sutherland passed away on Thursday. Sutherland rose to prominence in the ’70s with the roles in The Dirty Dozen and M*A*S*H. However, he had a less prominent role in the former until one actor’s refusal to do a scene landed him a bigger part and the main role in the latter.

Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H | Ingo Preminger Productions

Sutherland had nearly 200 films to his name in his career and the role of Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H always had a special place in the audience’s hearts. Unfortunately, the actor never received an Academy Award in his lifetime, but received an Academy Honorary Award in 2017.

Donald Sutherland Should Thank One Unexpected Scene In The Dirty Dozen For His M*A*S*H Role...

In Robert Aldrich's 1967 World War II film "The Dirty Dozen," an ambitious army Major named John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is tasked with assembling 12 American soldiers who have all been thrown in military prison for their insubordination and tendencies toward violence. His job is to whip them into shape, as he intends to send them on a particularly dangerous mission: infiltrating a Nazi stronghold. It's easily one of the manliest films ever made, something Aldrich was good at; he also directed "Kiss Me Deadly," "The Longest Yard," and "The Flight of the Phoenix." It's a testament to Aldrich's talent that he also made famously femme films like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?," and "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte."

The second member of the Dirty Dozen was a character named Vernon L. Pinkley, played by the late, great Donald Sutherland. There is a scene wherein Reisman asks Pinkley -- at the last...

Several top stars put their careers on hold and their lives on the line to serve during World War II including Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor, Alan Ladd, William Holden, Robert Ryan and Robert Montgomery. And numerous young men who weren’t yet actors during the global conflict including Lee Marvin and Charles Durning saw action and suffered severe injuries.

With the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which was the largest amphibious invasion in military history with five naval assault divisions invading the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, let’s look at some actors who participated in the massive operation.

Charles Durning

The versatile character actor, who earned supporting actor Oscar nominations for 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and 1983’s “To Be or Not to Be” and nine Emmy nominations, was just 21 when he was one of the first group of soldiers to land and...

There is no doubt that the genre of Western movies is often associated with cowboys riding their horses through the deserts of the Wild West. A person who is not into this type of films can even be unaware of the fact that they don’t necessarily have cowboys as the leading characters, and that sometimes a Western hero is not a hero at all.

There are still various discussions regarding the limits of the genre and what kind of movies can be definitely considered as Westerns, as some of the most conservative veterans of the genre are sure you can’t make a Western film without horses.

However, those doubts can be resolved with a classic Western that breaks the canon while appearing to be a good old Western in terms of its hidden meanings. Its plot revolves around John J. Macreedy, a one-armed war veteran, who is unwelcomed...

The days are getting longer everywhere, except Palm Springs, where darkness is on the ascent each May. That’s when the city plays host to the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary May 9-12 with a program of a dozen classic films from the 1940s and ’50s. Great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Rossen, Andre de Toth and Anthony Mann and stars like Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan will have desert dwellers and visitors alike eager to blot out the sun for four days, culminating in the festival’s customary Mother’s Day crime spree.

As always, the festival is curated and hosted by a face familiar to any serious modern-day noir aficionado, Alan K. Rode, one of the principals of the Film Noir Foundation and a co-host of the Noir City festival every April in Hollywood. Rode’s Noir City cohort,...

Edgar Lansbury, the Tony-winning producer and younger brother of famed actress Angela Lansbury who guided the Broadway and big-screen versions of The Subject Was Roses and Godspell, has died. He was 94.

He died Thursday at his home in Manhattan, his son David Lansbury told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lansbury also produced the popular 1974-75 Broadway revival of Gypsy that starred his sister in a Tony-winning turn and worked on other films including The Wild Party (1975), directed by James Ivory.

Angela Lansbury, winner of five Tony Awards and star of Murder, She Wrote, died on Oct. 11, 2022, at age 96. His twin brother, TV producer Bruce Lansbury, died in February 2017 at age 87.

Lansbury’s first Broadway production, the intense family drama The Subject Was Roses, opened in 1964, ran for two years, and won a Pulitzer Prize and the Tony for best play. Written by Frank Gilroy and directed by Ulu Grosbard, it starred Martin Sheen...

It is the spring of “Baby Reindeer.” Netflix’s addictive limited series about a struggling comedian (Richard Gadd) working at a bar who makes the biggest mistake of his life when he gives a lonely woman (Jessica Gunning) a cup of tea on the house is the most watched series currently on the streamer and viewership is growing. And the fact that it’s based on a true story, makes “Baby Reindeer” even more creep and chilling. It’s a must-see voyeur thriller.

The same was true in the fall of 1987 with Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction.” Audiences flocked to the hard R-rated thriller which starred a wild-haired Glenn Close as an editor with a publishing company who has one-night stand with a happily married attorney (Michael Douglas) whose wife and daughter are out of town. Though it’s “understood” that it’s just a fling, Close’s Alex just won’t let go.

Chris Pine, Cynthia Erivo, Kieran Culkin, Sharon Stone and Rosie Perez celebrated Jeff Bridges’ seven-decade career at the 49th annual Chaplin Awards Gala in New York City on Monday night. But the Big Lebowski star almost chose a different career path.

During his acceptance speech for the Film at Lincoln Center‘s prestigious honor, the True Grit star shared that he originally “resisted” the idea of pursuing acting full-time for a few different reasons.

“It made me nervous, anxious, and I had other things I wanted to do,” he told the full auditorium at Alice Tully Hall. “I was very much into music. I loved ceramics, painting, and who wants to do what their parents do anyway?”

He recalled his father, actor Lloyd Bridges, explaining to him that he could do all of those things in this career path and use them all to some degree, which was one of the beauties of the job.

When Tony Scott died in 2012, he left behind more than a few unfinished projects, including a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s iconic Western, The Wild Bunch.

L.A. Confidential screenwriter Brian Helgeland was attached to write the script for the remake of The Wild Bunch for Tony Scott, and he spilled a few details about the project while speaking with Inverse, including that it would have been set in the modern day.

“I also wrote 45 pages of The Wild Bunch for Tony to direct before he died. Sadly, I always say that I’m still on page 45 of that project,” Helgeland said. “It’s pretty violent and set in the modern day. The plot revolves around L.A. rampart cops that were being sent to prison, but during the trial, they’re still technically free. So, they decide to head down to Mexico and rob a bank before scattering to the...

When screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides was asked about the complex layers of meaning running through his adaptation of Mickey Spillane‘s classic crime novel “Kiss Me Deadly,” he denied having any conscious intention of exploring the post-wwii anxieties that gave the film its jittery core. “People ask me about the hidden meanings in the script,” he told an interviewer. “About the A-bomb, about McCarthyism, what does the poetry mean, and so on. And I can only say that I didn’t think about it when I wrote it . . . I was having fun.” Bezzerides may have been just “having fun,” but in the process, he and director Robert Aldrich crafted one of the greatest noirs of all time, an apocalyptic detective story that looks into the heart of 1950s America and sees annihilation.

It’s one of several stone-cold masterpieces written by the novelist-turned-screenwriter, whose work is being properly acknowledged by the...

Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow came along at the tail end of film noir’s steady decline in popularity in the 1950s and just before the civil rights movement reached its peak in the ’60s. The quintessential male icons of these two distinct eras clash in the film through the extremely confrontational yet mutually beneficial collaboration between a virulently racist ex-con, Earle (Robert Ryan), and a slick, Black jazz musician, Johnny (Harry Belaafonte).

The unlikely pair are brought together by a disgraced retired cop, Burke (Ed Begley), who caught wind of a robbery that’s a sure thing. If something sounds too good to be true in a noir, it always is, but the weaselly Earle’s too macho to let his doting wife, Lorry (Shelley Winters), continue being the breadwinner. Meanwhile, Johnny’s gambling debts have caused him to be estranged from his wife, Ruth (Kim Hamilton), as...

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

by Chad Kennerk

Considered the first film noir to feature a leading black protagonist, Odds Against Tomorrow is a vital entry in the noir canon. Directed by legend Robert Wise and produced by star Harry Belafonte’s HarBel Productions, the gritty look at racial tension is also one of cinema’s most important films about prejudice. Created amidst growing disquiet in America, the film heralds the explosive events to come at the dawn of the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement.

The screenplay was based on the novel by William P. McGivern (The Big Heat) and secretly written by Abraham Polonsky, who penned the screenplays for films such as Body and Soul and Force of Evil. Polonsky had been blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, so Belafonte approached black novelist and friend John O. Killens to serve as the credited screenwriter. It would take until...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on Ian Simmons Vodcast, Kicking The Seat, talking the 1973 first JFK conspiracy film “Executive Action” … it’s 50th Anniversary. Why was this particular anniversary film chosen? Because today … November 22nd, 2023, is the 60th Anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

At a gathering in June 1963, shadowy industrial, political and U.S. intelligence figures discuss their growing dissatisfaction with the Kennedy administration. The most powerful, a geopolitical oil mogul, is Ferguson (Will Geer). The rest of these figureheads include Foster (Robert Ryan) and Farrington (Burt Lancaster), a black ops expert. When the green light is lit on the operation, Farrington recruits a team of shooters and a fall guy named Lee Harvey Oswald. Their destination? Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963, and the presidential motorcade of destiny.

‘Executive Action’ on Kicking the Seat, Hosted by Ian Simmons

Photo credit: Patrick McDonald

Kicking The Seat is...

Quentin Tarantino is one of the most influential and distinctive filmmakers of our time. His movies are known for their stylish violence, witty dialogue, eclectic soundtracks, and homages to various genres and eras of cinema. He has also been vocal about his admiration for other filmmakers and their works, often citing them as inspirations or influences for his own projects.

In a recent interview, Tarantino revealed his list of seven perfect movies that he considers flawless and masterful in every aspect. He said that these movies are “the ones that I go, ‘Ok, this is as good as a movie can get.’ And I don’t think I can do any better than that.”

CineArticles decided to rank these seven perfect movies according to their own criteria and preferences. Here is their list, from the least to the most perfect movie picked by Tarantino:

7. The Wild Bunch (1969) The Wild Bunch...

Edward L. Rissien, who produced the Burt Lancaster-starring war film Castle Keep and served as an executive at ABC, Bing Crosby Productions, Filmways and Playboy Productions, has died. He was 98.

Rissien died April 8 of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, his nephew, Emmy-nominated director Michael Zinberg (The Bob Newhart Show, The Good Wife, NCIS), told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Eddie was a well-respected man who had beautiful taste in material,” Zinberg said. “He was always looking for something that would make a difference.”

An Iowa native who started out as a stage manager on Broadway, Rissien helped set up Harry Belafonte‘s HarBel Productions after acquiring the film rights for Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), the Robert Wise-directed drama that starred Belafonte, Robert Ryan and Shelley Winters.

He also produced Snow Job (1972), starring legendary French skier and Olympic champion Jean-Claude Killy as a thief in his only feature role,...

The star with the gorgeous calypso voice was also a naturally passionate actor who appeared in heists, colonial confrontations – and even the last love triangle on Earth

In the middle of the 20th century, Harry Belafonte was at the dizzying high point of his stunning multi-hyphenate celebrity: this handsome, athletic, Caribbean-American star with a gorgeous calypso singing voice was at the top of his game in music, movies and politics. He was the million-selling artist whose easy and sensuous musical stylings and lighter-skinned image made him acceptable to white audiences. But this didn’t stop him having a fierce screen presence and an even fiercer commitment to civil rights. He was the friend and comrade of Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr – and his crossover success, incidentally, never stopped him being subject to the ugliest kind of bigotry from racists who saw his fame as a kind of infiltration.

Harry Belafonte, the actor, producer, singer and activist who made calypso music a national phenomenon with “Day-o” (The Banana Boat Song) and used his considerable stardom to draw attention to Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights issues and injustices around the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte, recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2014, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his Manhattan home on the Upper West Side with his wife, Pamela, by his side, longtime spokesman Ken Sunshine told The Hollywood Reporter.

A master at blending pop, jazz and traditional West Indian rhythms, the Caribbean-American Belafonte released more than 30 albums during his career and received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy from the Recording Academy in 2000.

Calypso, which featured “Day-o” and another hit, “Jamaica Farewell,” topped the Billboard pop album list for an incredible 31 weeks in 1956 and is credited as...

Warner Bros. has already celebrated its centennial with a segment during the Academy Awards, the publication of a studio-supported book (Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling) and, most recently, a barrage of festivities emanating from Turner Classic Movies. TCM’s programming for all of April is being devoted to Warners films, and at the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, running April 13-16, many studio masterpieces, some recently restored and remastered, will be shown on big screens around town. Here are 10 that this THR Hollywood history buff highly recommends.

Footlight Parade (1933)

Ninety years ago, during the depths of the Great Depression, Americans sought escape from their troubles with light movies like this backstage musical. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and highlighted by some of choreographer Busby Berkeley’s most kaleidoscopic dance numbers, it was a giant hit at the box office.

Robert Aldrich's great war film "The Dirty Dozen" wasn't the first men-on-a-mission movie, but it is generally held up today at the apotheosis of the form. The tale of the U.S. Army's most vicious convicts getting assigned to a suicide mission deep behind enemy lines during World War II, with the promise of a pardon should they survive, is stocked with the toughest of the tough guys of the late 1960s. Lee Marvin heads up the brass-knuckle ensemble as the no-nonsense Major John Reisman, who's stuck with the unenviable task of shaping up a unit of anti-authoritarian malcontents or straight-up psychopaths. With troublemakers and nose-breakers like Charles Bronson, George Kennedy, Jim Brown, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, and John Cassavetes along for the ride, "The Dirty Dozen" became more than just the perfect "men-on-a-mission" movie: it was the ultimate guy flick.

We call them "Dad Movies" nowadays. They're the...

Daniel Day-Lewis is a method actor's method actor. He burrows so deep into his characters he becomes them for a time. When he portrayed Abraham Lincoln, he would text Sally Field, who played Mary Todd Lincoln, in the voice of the Great Emancipator. Given his knockout good looks and palpable screen presence, Day-Lewis could've made a killing as a movie star, but he understood his value as a performer, and carefully called his shots after winning his first Academy Award for Best Actor as artist Christy Brown, who famously created while having cerebral palsy, in Jim Sheridan's "My Left Foot."

Over his 20 credited performances, Day-Lewis has only made two movies that could be considered pure genre efforts: Michael Mann's frontier adventure "The Last of the Mohicans" and Rob Marshall's godawful adaptation of the musical "Nine." But even these are deep-tissue immersions. Day-Lewis has resisted the temptation to be Day-Lewis.

A late era noir which sets aside the femme fatales and short-lived husbands to focus on the simplest of crimes – robbery carried out for sake of accessing some ready cash – Odds Against Tomorrow taps into Fifties America’s deep social unease, finding the same problems amongst the criminal fraternity that exist elsewhere, and highlighting the damage they do to all concerned. It was produced by Harry Belafonte, who also stars in it as nightclub singer Johnny Ingram, a man whose gambling addiction forces him to go to desperate lengths. Still working at 96, Belafonte is now the only surviving member of its core cast, but it retains a fan following, as a screening in the Gloria Grahame strand at the 2023 Glasgow Film Festival made clear.

Grahame plays Helen, not quite a femme fatale but certainly a complicating influence in the life of career criminal Earle Slater (Robert Ryan),...

Wow, a ‘new’ Sam Peckinpah western! While we await the rumored Blu-ray of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to surface (or was Alex Cox misinformed?), correspondent Darren Gross has come across a watchable web encoding of a Peckinpah TV drama that seems to be more or less ‘lost.’ Good star performances and intense characterizations prove once again that Peckinpah could deliver superior dramatics. The home video companies should do some investigating — there’s a market out there for this one.

The Lady Is My Wife

TV episode of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

1967 / Color / 1:33 TV / 47 min. / first Aired February 1, 1967 / Not on Home Video

Starring: Jean Simmons, Bradford Dillman, Alex Cord, Begoña Palacios, L.Q. Jones, Roberto Contreras, Alan Baxter, Jim Boles, Billy M. Greene, E.J. André, Billy M. Greene.

Cinematography: Dale Deverman

Art Director: Lloyd S. Papez

Costumes: Kay Hayden

Film Editor: Edward Biery...

When Quentin Tarantino first announced he was working on a "men on a mission" World War II movie called "Inglorious Bastards" (no one knew he would intentionally misspell the title at the time), the internet went into fan casting overdrive. What would a 2000s version of Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" directed by Tarantino look like? Is Bruce Willis in the Lee Marvin role? Robert Forster as Robert Ryan? Some athlete-turned-actor (Mike Tyson?) taking up Jim Brown's mantle?

As we've learned is often the case with Tarantino, the vaguely pitched project never lands anywhere close to fan expectations. Once the two-time Academy Award winner sits down to bang out the screenplay, it takes on a convention-bending life of its own. Tarantino may adore "The Dirty Dozen", but there will be no fan service. You're not going to get what you want.

Nor will Tarantino. At least not when...

Dore Schary’s post-MGM personal production is a class act in every respect — Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan and Myrna Loy are well cast in a story of intimate emotional cruelty. It’s from a play derived from Nathanael West’s soul-crushing novella, and despite the talent involved, it can’t shake the feeling of an overheated TV drama. The acting and characterizations are riveting. Young Dolores Hart is a beacon of light amid the gloom and misery, and in her first movie, Maureen Stapleton’s’ fireball of anxiety and malice all but steals the show. The fine cinematography is again by the great John Alton.

Lonelyhearts

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date October 25, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton, Jackie Coogan, Mike Kellin, Onslow Stevens, Frank Maxwell, Frank Overton, John Gallaudet, Don Washbrook, Johnny Washbrook,...

Quintessential ’40s leading man Dana Andrews excels in perhaps his finest performance as another brutal cop who can’t control himself (shades of Robert Ryan and Kirk Douglas!) in Otto Preminger’s gripping, corrosive noir classic–the flip side of the sensitive cop Andrews played for him in Laura.

The post Where the Sidewalk Ends appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

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Venetia Stevenson, a model, actress and daughter of Hollywood luminaries who appeared in films including Darby’s Rangers, Island of Lost Women and Horror Hotel after being labeled “the most photogenic girl in the world,” has died. She was 84.

Stevenson died Monday at a health care facility in Atlanta after a battle with Parkinson’s disease, her brother, actor and photographer Jeffrey Byron, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Stevenson’s parents were Robert Stevenson, the Oscar-nominated director of Mary Poppins who earlier helmed King Solomon’s Mines and Jane Eyre, and her mother was Anna Lee, who starred in How Green Was My Valley and portrayed the matriarch Lila Quartermaine for a quarter-century on General Hospital.

The screen siren was married to actor Russ Tamblyn from Valentine’s Day 1956 until their divorce in April 1957 and to Don Everly of The Everly Brothers from 1962-...

Antonio Campos, creator of the new HBO Max miniseries The Staircase, walks hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante through his favorite films noir.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Afterschool (2008)

The Devil All The Time (2020)

Rashomon (1950) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (1996)

Raw Deal (1948) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

T-Men (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)

House of Bamboo (1955) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Pickup On South Street (1953) – Sam Hamm’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Naked Kiss (1964)

Reign of Terror (1949)

Detour (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Scarlet Street (1945)

The House on 92nd Street (1945) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Barry Lyndon (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary

Kiss of Death (1947) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Kiss of Death...

Writer, director David Ayer continues to develop a new take on "The Dirty Dozen", based on the E.M. Nathanson novel, that originally was inspired by death row WW2 Allied soldiers dubbed the 'Filthy Thirteen', assigned and trained as demolition saboteurs to destroy enemy targets behind the lines:

Director Robert Aldrich's 1967 feature, starred Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Clint Walker, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini López and Donald Sutherland.

Ayer is also noted for the WWII tank movie "Fury".

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Dirty Dozen"...

Nehemiah Persoff, who appeared as Barbra Streisand’s rabbi father in “Yentl” and had roles in hundreds of films and TV series including “Some Like It Hot” and “Twins,” died Tuesday in San Luis Obispo, Calif. He was 102.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Dahlia Reano. Beyond prolific, Persoff racked up almost 200 credits in film and TV in a career that began in the very earliest days of television.

Persoff broke through in the 1959 movie “Some Like It Hot,” in which he played mobster boss Little Bonaparte. (The actor had been the last surviving member of the cast.) Early in his career, he was known for playing villainous tough guys, such as in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” starring Henry Fonda, and “Al Capone,” starring Rod Steiger, in which he had a substantial role as Johnny Torrio, the mobster who mentored Capone only to be replaced by him.

Jack Hedley, who appeared in films including “For Your Eyes Only” opposite Roger Moore, died on Dec. 11. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by a notice in The Times of London, which reads: “[Hedley] died on 11th December 2021, aged 92, after a short illness bravely borne. At his request there will be no funeral. He will be much missed by his family and friends.”

The actor racked up 99 credits in a career spanning five decades as well as numerous appearances in the theater.

Born in London as Jack Hawkins, he changed his last name at the outset of his career to avoid confusion with a prolific British actor of the same name.

Hedley appeared in numerous British productions including “Colditz,” in which he played Lt. Colonel Preston, and “The Scarlet Blade,” directed by John Gilling. He also had parts in American war epic “The Longest Day,” which starred John Wayne, Robert Ryan and Richard Burton,...

MGM sends James Stewart and Anthony Mann to Colorado high country locations for their third big-ticket western, a tight & tense psychological drama with a select cast: Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell. Stewart’s anguished bounty hunter is a sick man on a mission he knows is self-destructive and just plain wrong; it’s the actor’s most fraught western performance. The landscape itself is psychological, with treacherous rocky outcroppings and a dangerous river. Even more impressive is the new restoration from Technicolor elements: this is one of the most beautiful westerns yet out on disc.

The Naked Spur

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1953 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date September 21, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell.

Cinematography: William C. Mellor

Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons, Malcolm Brown

Film Editor: George White

Production Illustrator: Mentor Heubner

Stunt Performers: Virginia Bougas, Ted Mapes,...

1962 found Great Britain and West Germany collaborating on an action picture, Station Six Sahara. The movie is a remake of 1938’s S.O.S. Sahara. Carroll Baker plays a beautiful woman who turns up at a tiny oil pipeline station in the desert. She and her husband just happen to be driving along, three days from anywhere, when he crashes the car. Wrong turn? “Shoulda made a left at Albakoykee.”

His attempt at killing both of them lands him in the sick bay, where he can only imagine what his estranged bombshell wife is doing with the five men who work there. They leer at her the way the cartoon wolf saw sheep as mutton, and she leers back. The film’s sexual heat is as real as that of the desert, which surprised at least one critic, since the British were involved.

The movie was shot in Libya, which...

The great director discusses some of his favorite movies with host Josh Olson.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Alzheimer Case a.k.a. Memory of a Killer (2003)

Memory (Tbd)

The Protégé (2021)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)

The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

GoldenEye (1995)

Casino Royale (2006)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Slap Shot (1977) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Salt (2010)

Atomic Blonde (2017) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Oliver Twist (1948)

Dr. No (1962) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Guns Of Navarone (1962)

The Dirty Dozen (1967) – Ed Neumeier’s trailer commentary

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s 70mm reissue review

The Spy Who Loved Me...

Despite being an amalgamation of virtually every elevated science-fiction movie of the past four decades—Strange Days, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Minority Report, Until the End of the World, both Blade Runners—the new film Reminiscence feels relatively lacking in self-importance. While prestige television (the film is directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy) and A24 movies have seemingly accommodated us to seeing all genre now as capital-a allegory––the kind of work to inspire “it’s about” tweets or Letterboxd reviews––Reminiscence sticks to its narrow aims, never overwhelmed by a need to pander too hard to the New Yorker’s TV-recap culture. If certainly heavy-handed in its political allusions, one still gets the feeling its creatives ultimately just wanted to do their little ’90s throwback hard-boiled sci-fi noir. This is perhaps why it’s been dumped in late August and feels a bit like a disposable piece...

After exploring “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “Country Music,” award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick examined the importance of being Ernest Hemingway in their three-part PBS documentary “Hemingway.” Premiering in April to strong reviews and Emmys buzz, the series weaves Papa’s biography with excerpts from his fiction, non-fiction, and personal correspondence. The series also reviews the mythology around the larger-than-life Hemingway, who penned such classic novels as “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” to reveal the truth behind the bravado.

Feature film adaptations of Hemingway’s works had mixed results. Hemingway Bff Gary Cooper excelled in 1932’s “A Farewell to Arms” and 1943’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. John Garfield gave one of his strongest performance in 1950’s superb noir “The Breaking Point,” based...

Witness six noir heroes, doing what noir heroes do: one crooked gambler, one psycho, another psycho with access to a gun, a dope railroaded into a prison sentence, and an even bigger dope who doesn’t realize he’s poisoning himself. That’s only five, but the sixth is a cop, and not a particularly compromised one, the way we like ’em in noir. This third Columbia Noir Collection can boast big stars and some name directors, beautiful HD transfers and some fascinating short subjects as extras.

Columbia Noir #3

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-57 / B&w / 1:37 Academy, 1:85 widescreen / Street Date May 17, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Dick Powell, Lee J Cobb, Nina Foch, William Holden, Edmond O’Brien, Dorothy Malone, Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, Marie Windsor, and Vince Edwards.

Directed by Robert Rossen, Rudolph Mat&eacute, Henry Levin, Gordon Douglas, Edward Dmytryk, Irving Lerner

Powerhouse Indicator’s...

While the summer movie season will kick off shortly––and we’ll be sharing a comprehensive preview on the arthouse, foreign, indie, and (few) studio films worth checking out––on the streaming side, The Criterion Channel and Mubi have unveiled their May 2021 lineups and there’s a treasure trove of highlights to dive into.

Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….

On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...

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“Hate Is A Loaded Gun”

By Raymond Benson

The years of the 1940s following World War II exhibited a striking change in Hollywood movies. The moods and world outlooks of post-war GIs and the people they had left behind and to whom they returned were more reflective and serious. Awareness of societal ills that had always been with us were now at the forefront… and Hollywood stepped up to address this new American angst in the form of a) what film historians call “social problem films” that tackled issues such as alcoholism, drug addiction, anti-Semitism, racism, government corruption, and other hitherto taboos of motion pictures, and b) film noir, the gritty crime dramas that never sugar-coated anything and portrayed both men and women—the femmes fatale—as hard-boiled, cynical, and paranoid.

Two pictures were released in 1947 that tackled anti-Semitism with frank, hard-hitting realism.

Hollywood learns to imbed a social message into a crime thriller. John Paxton’s adaptation of Richard Brooks’ neat murder tale is solid noir because it sheds light on the malaise of returning soldiers. No parades and confetti here: Robert Ryan is the hateful bigot but the other characters live amid equally shadowy values — laid-back Robert Mitchum, unhappy bar girl Gloria Grahame. Edward Dmytryk puts a polish on a fine screenplay with a fresh viewpoint, that avoids thriller clichés.

Crossfire

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date , 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly,

Sam Levene, George Cooper, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, William Phipps, Lex Barker, Marlo Dwyer.

Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt

Film Editor: Harry Gerstad

Art Direction: Albert S. D’Agostino, Alfred Herman

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by John Paxton from the novel The Brick Foxhole by...

Robert Mitchum in Crossfire (1947) is available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive. Order it Here

Years of police work have taught Detective Finlay that where there’s crime, there’s motive. But he finds no usual motive when investigating a man’s death by beating. The man was killed because he was a Jew. “Hate,” Finlay says, “is like a gun.” Robert Young portrays Finlay, Robert Mitchum is a laconic army sergeant assisting in the investigation of G.I. suspects, and Robert Ryan plays a vicious bigot in a landmark film noir nominated for five Academy Awards®, including Best Picture. Edward Dmytryk directs, draping the genre’s stylistic backdrops and flourishes around a topic rarely before explored in films: anti-Semitism in the U.S. Here, Hollywood takes aim at injustice…and catches bigotry in a Crossfire.

Special Features: Commentary by Film Historians Alain Silver and James Ursini, with Audio Interview Excerpts...

Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.

And Hope to Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Film Editor: Roger Dwyre

Original Music: Francis Lai

Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...

Writer, director David Ayer continues to develop a new take on "The Dirty Dozen", based on the E.M. Nathanson novel, that originally was inspired by death row WW2 Allied soldiers dubbed the 'Filthy Thirteen', assigned and trained as demolition saboteurs to destroy enemy targets behind the lines:

Director Robert Aldrich's 1967 feature, starred Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Clint Walker, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini López and Donald Sutherland.

Ayer is also noted for the WWII tank movie "Fury".

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Dirty Dozen"...

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By Doug Oswald

The Duke teams up with Robert Ryan as Marine pilots fighting the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII in “Flying Leathernecks,” just released on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. The story picks up in Hawaii in the middle of 1942 as Major Daniel Kirby (John Wayne) takes command of a Marine Corps aviation squadron about to ship out for combat in the Pacific. A veteran of the Battle of Midway, Kirby meets the men in his unit along with his executive officer, Captain Carl “Griff” Griffin (Robert Ryan), who is a bit ruffled after being passed over to take command. While a great pilot, Griff is not good at making difficult life and death decisions regarding the other pilots and has become their friend.

On Guadalcanal, the squadron pilots become experts at close air support which is precision...

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

John Wayne, Robert Ryan and some thrilling color combat footage grace this Howard Hughes WW2 aviation epic, that’s famous for being the odd-title-out in the filmography of Nicholas Ray. Just how did the politically diverging Ray and Hughes get along so well? The Wac’s sensational Technicolor restoration does the real combat footage a big favor: minus scratches and dirt, it looks better than ever.

Flying Leathernecks

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date September 15, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Adam Williams, Barry Kelley, Gordon Gebert, Lynn Stalmaster, Mona Knox.

Cinematography: William E. Snyder

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Roy Webb

Written by James Edward Grant, Beirne Lay Jr. story by Kenneth Gamet

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Howard Hughes

Directed by Nicholas Ray

This by-the-numbers Naval aviation epic — more precisely the Marine Corps.

“Come on Wildcats, make us proud today!

John Wayne and Robert Ryan in Flying Leathernecks is available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive. Ordering info can be found Here

Marine fighter squadron Vmf 247 is in the thick of it on Guadalcanal. The airstrip they hold is hammered by offshore batteries. Malaria and combat fatigue grip the men. Fuel is low and replacement parts are few. The only things not in short supply are the enemy…and Major Don Kirby’s determination to keep fighting with whatever he has. John Wayne is in the cockpit and in command as Kirby, a leader at odds with his executive officer (Robert Ryan) and at the forefront of tacticians eager to coordinate ground combat with low-flying aerial sorties. Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) directs, skillfully incorporating actual battlefield and dogfight footage. Flying Leathernecks has the flight stuff!

The post John Wayne and Robert Ryan...