One of the best bad movies you'll ever see. No, not so-bad-its-good. But its often silly wartime propaganda filmed with such a visual panache I'm torn between calling it a ridiculous film or a great one. The riot in the theater is a brilliantly filmed sequence, and I'll probably end up buying it for that scene alone.
And while I can never make heads-or-tails of the Paramount library situation, that surely can't be thatCity Streets?
You know, on the Bizarro World version of this forum, some guy named Ttam is crimson with rage that Sony is dumping Nobody's Perfekt and the Hart to Hart TV movies on DVD-R.
I can only suppose a lot of the British films in there are considered too specific for a US audience. 10 Rillington Place and The Pumpkin Eater being the most surprising/saddening of that bunch but I would also point out Footsteps In The Fog (Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons), A Study In Terror (both a great Sherlock Holmes and a great Jack The Ripper film, with an eclectic cast including Adrienne Corri, Judi Dench and Barbara Windsor!) and especially the two films that were based on plays by Peter Nichols - A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg (the film Peter Medak made just after The Ruling Class starring Alan Bates and Janet Suzman) and The National Health.
Hey Domino, Richard Quine alert: Synanon, a melodrama about recovery from drug addiction in a halfway house.
And Colin is absolutely right about A Study in Terror. It's an atmospheric thriller that does a much better job of telling two kinds of narrative strains seamlessly (unlike Nicholas Meyer's gallant but failed attempt with Time After Time) than most historical potpourris.
A fascinating bounty! I have wanted to see The Mind of Mr. Soames for many cycles, so I might splurge. Also, I Never Sang for My Father has been overdue for yonks.
There is an R2 Study in Terror - I gather the quality is OK, I bought a copy for my Mum as her cousin (Barry Jones) is one of the suspects.
And The Mind of Mr Soames? I've never understood what happened to this film. It's no masterpiece, but it's a solid, intelligent piece of SF (and a decent adaptation of the novel - which is also solid and intelligent) with Robert Vaughan and Terence Stamp. It's almost certainly the best non-horror SF film that Amicus produced (although I have a soft spot for Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD) - I'm amazed it's so rare.
Dr Amicus wrote:There is an R2 Study in Terror - I gather the quality is OK, I bought a copy for my Mum as her cousin (Barry Jones) is one of the suspects.
And The Mind of Mr Soames? I've never understood what happened to this film. It's no masterpiece, but it's a solid, intelligent piece of SF (and a decent adaptation of the novel - which is also solid and intelligent) with Robert Vaughan and Terence Stamp. It's almost certainly the best non-horror SF film that Amicus produced (although I have a soft spot for Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD) - I'm amazed it's so rare.
I agree with you on SOAMES. Most of Amicus' SF is pretty dire, but this one's quite good. I don't think I've had a chance to see it since it played on the CBS LAte Night movie back in the late 1970s.
HypnoHelioStaticStasis wrote:Here's the full list of titles I could find (all being released on 9/21):
Doctors’ Wives
If my memory is correct, this is delicious trash, with five underused actresses, each in their prime:
Diana Sands; Cara Williams; Janice Rule !; Dyan Cannon;Spoiler
as a nympho putting the make on poor closeted tennis champ,
Welcome to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s SCREEN CLASSICS BY REQUEST store! This is your ultimate destination for finding and owning the “gems of the screen”. Take a look around and you will find the most requested movies from our vaults that have never been released on DVD before. We have gone to great lengths to bring these impossible-to-find classics to you in the highest quality and at a great price.
Feel free to browse; you will find great information and clips/trailers from all of the movies on our site. We are launching this site with 100 never-before-released films on DVD and every month we will add more gems from the vaults. We invite you to come back often to see the latest releases and offers, and soon we will provide you with an opportunity to help us decide which titles get released each month to add to your collection!
I just realised that Storm Centre is the Bette Davis versus accusations of Communism film. One of the rare films that features a librarian as its main character!
It is Daniel Taradash's only film that he directed - he had previously adapted Lang's Rancho Notorious and some sections of Storm Centre have a kind of anger at mob mentality (plus an arson sequence) that feels somewhat reminiscent of Lang's Fury.
Prior to this afternoon's screening of the new Metropolis resto, the Filmhouse ran a trailer for a restored and rather lovely looking print of From Here To Eternity. Park Circus appear to be handling the theatrical distribution over here; the Blu ought to follow shortly afterwards.
More Sony than Columbia-related but here goes anyway: Sony's UK Blu-Ray of The Evil Dead's been reviewed here and again we Brits get an inferior release to the US. Sony's release loses the original 1.33:1 theatrical cut and the mono track among other things, and the exclusive UK feature sounds quite worthless. Unless you happen to be a casual fan of the film only and aren't region-locked, the Anchor Bay Blu is the obvious choice.
Has anyone been keeping up with the Sony Classics by Request? They don't have a "sort by release date" tab like the Warner Archives does, but several titles have been added, including my much-anticipated Screaming Mimi (there you go, dominoharvey) and Sidney Lumet's The Deadly Affair, as well as a good-looking new transfer of The Spiritualist/The Amazing Mr. X (Mann's Reign of Terror can't be far behind... I don't know whether to dread the fact it'll get such an ignoble release, or just be glad to see it uncut and in good condition).
Is the transfer of Amazing Mr. X a notable improvement over the previous ones? And is that horribly obtrusive line that appears in the last twenty minutes gone?