DVD Reviews

Can a movie that is a mess also be considered genius? Well, that is the perpetual debate about Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai. Based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King, this film takes all of the noir essentials and twists them in such an entertainingly strange  ...

On again, off again. In love, out of love. Going back to school, starting a new job. Everything is fluid and everything is changing in the whimsical and lustful drama from French director Jacques Audiard. Capturing the residential district of Les Olympiades in beautiful black and white photography ...

I must admit, this one has me conflicted. Based on Sidney Kingsley’s Broadway play of the same name, William’s Wyler’s adaptation of Detective Story deals with a handful of rather outdated themes that are explored in the most melodramatic fashion that makes modern-day eyes roll. But on the ...

“But I am in love with her, Your Highness! I feel terrible.” Ah, yes! A classic case of the lonely heart butler being mistaken for a prince by a beautiful, young countess. What could go wrong? ...

There’s really no way around it. Arsenic and Old Lace, directed by Frank Capra, is a certified REEL CLASSIC as the crazy situations get cranked up on one Halloween in Brooklyn, New York. With Cary Grant leading a wildly talented cast - which includes ...

“The ink that made blood flow.” How this film was able to be made is still a bit of a mystery to me. Made in a Germany-occupied France during World War II and produced by a German production company, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Corbeau was somehow able to disguise its anti-informant  ...

Rabies is the least thing you need to worry about when The Bat flies into your town! Prepare for the camp to hit the ceiling in this forgotten cult classic, newly restored for its debut on blu-ray. The Film Detective, in association with Cinedigm, have unearthed a rare whodunnit gem which should  ...

“At-mos-phè-re! At-mos-phè-re! Do I look like an at-mos-phè-re?” Atmosphere is precisely what Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord is all about. Arletty’s character of Raymonde (a prostitute) shouts these words at Edmond (Louis Jouvet) – her pimp/protector – when he claims that he needs a change of atmosphere – a change from  ...

Out of all of the films that director David Lean made during his legendary career, he admits himself that Summertime is his favorite. Not Dr. Zhivago. Not The Bridge on the River Kwai. Not Lawrence of Arabia. But Summertime, starring fellow film legend Katharine Hepburn, is the film  ...

At its heart, Killer’s Kiss is a movie where the choreography of ballet dancing meets the moves of boxers crossing in the ring.  Film fans recognize it as Stanley Kubrick’s second film (the first being his 1953 debut feature Fear and Desire), in which he took the streets of New York with 35 mm  ...

Psychological. Shocking. Suspenseful. And downright BEAUTIFUL to look at. The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection II release in Ultra 4K is a DEFINITIVE release for some of the most thrilling classics from the master of the macabre. Seriously, there is no flaw to be seen in both the  ...

Tampering with evidence?  Bullying witnesses?  Doctoring voice recordings?  Just what won’t the mob do?!  Looks like it is all in play in 1957’s Chicago Confidential, written by Robert T. Marcus, which is now on blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber’s ongoing Film Noir: The Dark Side of  ...

From sea to shining sea!  That’s the attempted reach of 1951’s The Raging Tide, yet another film noir offering highlighting the streets and alleys of San Francisco.  With steely-eyed direction from prolific director George Sherman (Larceny, The Sleeping City) and ace cinematography from Russell Metty (The Stranger, Touch of ...

Hard-boiled and crackling with stark intensity, Los Angeles after dark is always an exciting place.  Especially with all the femme fatales walking the streets. Whether it be out on the street or gazing out the window of your home, the air of unpredictability is always lurking ...

Based around a single make-or-break heist, The Asphalt Jungle is known in the halls of film noir thrillers as the first ever caper flick and, honestly, this brilliantly scripted offering is more than deserving of its praise and its legacy, which is why the Criterion Collection has added it to their list of  ...

Are there two sides to everyone? One good and simple. The other…bordering on evil perhaps. And does this “evil” side live in all of us just waiting to be unleashed? While attending church one morning, Dr. Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) witnesses a man - once a good, upstanding citizen – turn  ...

"Ya wanna dance, Mike Doyle?!" The hills!  The fog!  The slick city streets!  The atmosphere is on point as Johnny Stool Pigeon opens and that’s thanks to cinematographer Maury Gertsman, who shot Singapore, the first offering in this set from Kino Lorber ...

Pear smuggler Matt Gordon (played wonderfully by Fred MacMurray) has returned to the scene of his heartbreak: Singapore.  Cue the lush heartstrings!  The drama!  The crimes!  And, oh, the Casablanca influences as Singapore, with boat and schooner whistles blaring in the distance instead  ...

“Why do people have to love people, anyway?” By the time the 1960’s rolled around in America, the infamous Production Code that was implemented in the 1930’s was clearly losing its grip in Hollywood. The years of filmmakers sliding in double-meaning lines of dialogue and skirting  ...

Want to watch some classic films for the first time again?  Scoop up this release.   Psychological.  Shocking.  Suspenseful.  And downright BEAUTIFUL to look at.  The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection release in Ultra 4K is a DEFINITIVE release for some of the most thrilling classics from the  ...

“Orson Welles had a perception of everything in the film, including the music. He knew. He truly understood film scoring. …Touch of Evil was one of the best things I’ve ever done.” - Henry Mancini And it shows, too.  From Mancini’s score to ...

“The things we like best are either illegal, immoral or fattening.” It starts on a boat – an ocean liner headed to New York. Two strangers who enjoy a life of indulgences have a chance meeting when a telegram caught in the wind brings them together. Despite being engaged to their own respective  ...

Elwood P. Dood has a really BIG secret.  No, it’s not his constant drinking, which might be a cause for alarm in and of itself.  It’s his friend; his drinking buddy; and the only person who shares his innermost secrets with.  His best friend in the whole wide world is invisible.  He’s also 6-foot tall ...

We’re in the money!  We’re in the money!   Well, not everyone, but that doesn’t mean the star-studded comic song-and-dance spectacle of following the exploits of chorus girls Polly, Carol, and Trixie around New York City while they scratch about trying to land parts in the next BIG Broadway  ...

“Talk to me later. I’m killing myself.” With a noose hanging around his neck, dramatically (and quite insincerely) calling out the name of the gorgeous chambermaid he is in love with, this is probably one of the most brilliantly understated ways of introducing Bob Hope’s title character in Monsieur ...

Cue the music and pull back the “safety curtain.” You are in for a fun one.  It is one of the most over-looked projects in Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, but Stage Fright, has no shortage of suspense from the master himself. In this piece of theater, virtually every character plays the roles of  ...

“I like being shipwrecked!” As far as Hitchcock romantic comedies go, well…you probably did not even know one existed! (I did not even know one existed). In fact, the whole idea that Alfred Hitchcock has quite a few comedies credited to his filmography seems more unnerving than any of his ...

Director Jack Arnold was Universal’s go-to guy when they wanted a quick hit.  He proved himself mightily as he churned out classics like It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking  ...

“Immoral women shouldn't work in banks, you know. They might corrupt the young dollar bills.” Small towns can be so wonderful, can’t they? Everybody knows one another so well. It can be like having one giant family with the sense of comfort and love gushing from the community. Well, why  ...

Think it’s just the rainy day blues that has this mind reader down in the dumps?  Think again.  Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel, Night Has A Thousand Eyes might be classic B-movie material (due to its supernatural sources), but the film is both poetic and engaging as one mind reader  ...