Jules Dassin’s powerful picture was a hit in Europe but remained mostly obscure here, despite featuring the great Melina Mercouri and a score of Continental stars. Adapted by two blacklistees in exile it doesn’t try to hide its revolutionary aims — Nikos Kazantzakis’s uncompromised storyline places The Church as a main obstruction to social progress, justice, and life & liberty. It’s no wonder it wasn’t ‘movie of the week’ in 1957. It’s been beautifully remastered at its original CinemaScope width, uncut.
He Who Must Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 128 122 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / Celui qui doit mourir / Available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Grégoire Aslan, Gert Fröbe, René Lefèvre, Lucien Raimbourg, Melina Mercouri, Roger Hanin, Pierre Vaneck, Nicole Berger, Maurice Ronet, Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Gilbert Chain, Jacques Natteau
Production Designer: Max Douy
Film Editors: Roger Dwyre, Pierre Gillette
Original Music: Georges Auric
Written by Ben Barzman,...
He Who Must Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 128 122 min. / Street Date September 6, 2022 / Celui qui doit mourir / Available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Grégoire Aslan, Gert Fröbe, René Lefèvre, Lucien Raimbourg, Melina Mercouri, Roger Hanin, Pierre Vaneck, Nicole Berger, Maurice Ronet, Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Gilbert Chain, Jacques Natteau
Production Designer: Max Douy
Film Editors: Roger Dwyre, Pierre Gillette
Original Music: Georges Auric
Written by Ben Barzman,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
John Huston plays every narrative card in the deck for the difficult task of expressing the great doctor’s insights into psychoanalysis. His actors personalize the concepts of neurosis, etc., investing us in Sigmund’s search for answers in long-ago Vienna. The fascination has multiple levels: in investigating the nature of ‘hysteria’ Dr. Sigmund Freud finds that he shares to a degree the same mental aberrations, as does his mentor. Actor Montgomery Clift was fighting numerous personal demons at the time, and Huston’s directing methods were described by some as cruel. Superb production values and Jerry Goldsmith’s music score enhance the experience. The scan on view is Huston’s director’s cut, not Universal’s shorter original release version.
Freud
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1962 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date November 20, 2021 / Freud: The Secret Passion / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner,...
Freud
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1962 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date November 20, 2021 / Freud: The Secret Passion / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner,...
- 10/26/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Brigitte Bardot proved her mettle as a dramatic actress in H.G. Clouzot’s strikingly pro-feminist courtroom epic, that puts the modern age of ‘immoral’ permissiveness on trial. Is Bardot’s selfish, sensation-seeking young lover an oppressed victim? Clouzot makes her the author of her own problems yet doesn’t let her patriarchal inquisitors off the hook.
La vérité
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 960
1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 12, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Sami Frey, Marie-JoséNat, Jean-Loup Reynold, André Oumansky, Claude Berri, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Marin. Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Albert Jurgenson
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Simone Drieu, Michèle Perrein, Jérôme Géronimi, Christiane Rochefort, Véra Clouzot
Produced by Raoul Lévy
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
H.G. Clouzot mesmerized audiences with the political outrage of The Wages of Fear and the riveting horror-suspense of Diabolique, but his intellectual,...
La vérité
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 960
1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 12, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Sami Frey, Marie-JoséNat, Jean-Loup Reynold, André Oumansky, Claude Berri, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Marin. Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Albert Jurgenson
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Simone Drieu, Michèle Perrein, Jérôme Géronimi, Christiane Rochefort, Véra Clouzot
Produced by Raoul Lévy
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
H.G. Clouzot mesmerized audiences with the political outrage of The Wages of Fear and the riveting horror-suspense of Diabolique, but his intellectual,...
- 2/12/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Mariann Lewinsky curates several strands at Bologna's festival of restored or recovered films, Il Cinema Ritrovato: this year, she commemorated the centenary birth of the Dada movement and Krazy Kat with her Krazy Serial, in which surviving episodes of incomplete serials were jammed together with shorts and newsreels. The finest moment was perhaps when one serial ended and another, Abel Gance's The Poison Gases, began, but with it's opening title long lost, so that the caption "A few minutes later" seemed to join to wholly unconnected narratives.The preceding serial was Jacques Feyder's bizarre spoof, The Clutching Foot (Le pied qui étreint), which I realized from pervious excursions to Bologna was a parody not just of serials in general but of 1914's The Exploits of Elaine in particular, in which Pearl White was regularly menaced by a secret society led by the hooded and spasm-wracked mastermind The Clutching Hand.
- 7/7/2016
- MUBI
Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the second of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.
Passion...
Passion...
- 12/11/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Jan. 22, 2013
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Bourvil (l) and Jean Gabin star in the 1958 French film version of Les Miserables.
French filmmaker Jean-Paul le Chanois’s 1958 film version of Les Miserables is considered to be one of the greatest epic drama movie adaptations of Victor Hugo’s renowned novel.
Jean Valjean (Jean Gabin, Remorques) is paroled after serving 19 year term in a hard labor prison for stealing some bread. After spending a night in a missionary, he tries to steal some silverware, but he is set straight by a kindly bishop (Fernand Ledoux) who protects him from the police and makes him promise that he has to become a new man. Nine years later, Valjean has become a wealthy industrialist and a mayor. He eventually befriends Fantine (Daniele Delorme), a single mother turned prostitute and risks everything when he comes to her aid, after she...
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Bourvil (l) and Jean Gabin star in the 1958 French film version of Les Miserables.
French filmmaker Jean-Paul le Chanois’s 1958 film version of Les Miserables is considered to be one of the greatest epic drama movie adaptations of Victor Hugo’s renowned novel.
Jean Valjean (Jean Gabin, Remorques) is paroled after serving 19 year term in a hard labor prison for stealing some bread. After spending a night in a missionary, he tries to steal some silverware, but he is set straight by a kindly bishop (Fernand Ledoux) who protects him from the police and makes him promise that he has to become a new man. Nine years later, Valjean has become a wealthy industrialist and a mayor. He eventually befriends Fantine (Daniele Delorme), a single mother turned prostitute and risks everything when he comes to her aid, after she...
- 11/8/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Known for creating some of the most important films in French history, and during Nazi Occupation, no less, Criterion issues two of Marcel Carne’s most widely acclaimed masterpieces, his crowning achievement, Children of Paradise (1945), which, if you haven’t seen, you need to, and a noteworthy work that directly precedes it, Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942), which has long since been popularly interpreted as an allegory of the hostile occupation. While this interpretation is hardly surprising and seems rather fitting, Carne’s film is much more universal than that, instead conveying the unbreakable spirit of pure love. Presented like the dark, harsh fairy tale it is, Carne managed to create a sumptuously poetic, luxurious film about how love does not indeed conquer all, but can perhaps endure.
Pages flipped by a dark gloved hand inform us that our tale is set in the Middle Ages, May of 1485. Two of the devil’s envoys,...
Pages flipped by a dark gloved hand inform us that our tale is set in the Middle Ages, May of 1485. Two of the devil’s envoys,...
- 9/25/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
In 1925, Universal released what would become one of the most influential and important movies ever made. Even today it stands as a singular achievement in film that still impresses some eighty years on.
From Lon Chaney’s outstanding makeup to the beautiful sets and costumes, it is a breathtakingly lavish film that entertains as much as it educates. The film cannot be overstated in its historical importance, as it was the first of the Universal Monsters to be born.
Without Chaney and his amazing creation, we would arguably never have seen Lugosi’s Dracula or Karloff’s Monster and so on. One could point to this film and say it was the birth of the horror film, as we know it today. Sure, Nosferatu had come before, as had The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and of course Edison’s Frankenstein. However, The Phantom of the Opera was the...
From Lon Chaney’s outstanding makeup to the beautiful sets and costumes, it is a breathtakingly lavish film that entertains as much as it educates. The film cannot be overstated in its historical importance, as it was the first of the Universal Monsters to be born.
Without Chaney and his amazing creation, we would arguably never have seen Lugosi’s Dracula or Karloff’s Monster and so on. One could point to this film and say it was the birth of the horror film, as we know it today. Sure, Nosferatu had come before, as had The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and of course Edison’s Frankenstein. However, The Phantom of the Opera was the...
- 12/29/2011
- by Derek Botelho
- DailyDead
Jean Gabin was France's answer to Humphrey Bogart, many (English-language) historians have claimed. Either that, or Gabin was France's answer to Spencer Tracy. Never mind the fact that Gabin was a major international star before either Bogart or Tracy achieved Hollywood stardom. In other words, if there was someone emulating someone else, it was Bogart and Tracy who followed the Frenchman's lead so as to become the American Jean Gabins. Turner Classic Movies is devoting a whole day to Jean Gabin's movies today, August 18, as part of its "Summer Under the Stars" series. [Jean Gabin Movie Schedule.] Right now, TCM is showing Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937), the tale of a Parisian gangster (Gabin) hiding in Algiers' Casbah neighborhood, but who becomes careless after he falls for a beautiful woman (Mireille Balin, Gabin's co-star that same year in Jean Grémillon's Gueule d'amour / Lady Killer). Those whose idea of cinema begins...
- 8/19/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Yeah, kiddos. With Buried on the brain now that it’s been lowered into theaters, we thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the worst moments in characters’ lives in the history of stuffy cinema.
These are some of the scenes that have either caused me to hold my breath, breathe too quickly, or simply flail my arms and legs around like someone dropped an ice cube down my shirt, in the hopes that my empathetic energy might help the characters onscreen out of their sticky situation. Here are a few of:
The Serpent and the Rainbow – Any flick whose tagline announces in the first person “Don’t bury me… I’m not dead!” must be included, no? Bill Pullman is an anthropologist who goes to Haiti to discover the truth behind whether or not zombification is possible. He finds out, and it sucks extraordinarily hard for him.
These are some of the scenes that have either caused me to hold my breath, breathe too quickly, or simply flail my arms and legs around like someone dropped an ice cube down my shirt, in the hopes that my empathetic energy might help the characters onscreen out of their sticky situation. Here are a few of:
The Serpent and the Rainbow – Any flick whose tagline announces in the first person “Don’t bury me… I’m not dead!” must be included, no? Bill Pullman is an anthropologist who goes to Haiti to discover the truth behind whether or not zombification is possible. He finds out, and it sucks extraordinarily hard for him.
- 10/14/2010
- by Chris Haberman
- DreadCentral.com
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