Dennis Hopper, the actor, and Nicholas Ray, the director, had crossed paths before. In 1955. When Hopper played a punk kid in "Rebel Without a Cause," Ray's melodrama about teen alienation that starred James Dean. Down the road, both found themselves blackballed from movies. Ray's fall came in 1963 as he infamously had to abandon "55 Days in … [Read more...]
‘Touch of Evil’ on Blu-ray, times 3
The three faces of "Touch of Evil" make their U.S. debuts on Blu-ray in Universal's "limited edition" rerelease of the dark Orson Welles classic. The Blu-ray release is essentially a rerun of the October 2008 "50th Anniversary Edition," complete with director Welles' pleading and cajoling notes to the studio that took the editing away from him. … [Read more...]
‘Foreign Correspondent’: Hitch at war
The Brits excelled at propaganda movies, an awkward genre that nonetheless produced a handful of classics -- say, Noel Coward's "In Which We Serve" and the Archers' "The 49th Parallel." MIA from the brisk U.K. propaganda effort was one Alfred Hitchcock, the director who'd found fame combining dark British sensibilities with German … [Read more...]
Fritz Lang’s ‘Ministry of Fear’
Funny thing about the wrong man: He never, ever did it. This lack of mystery never held back the thriller subgenre, in large part because of Alfred Hitchcock's fondness for tales of the unjustly accused on the run. The German director Fritz Lang also worked cases of mistaken identity, notably in "Fury" (1936) and "Ministry of Fear" … [Read more...]
‘High and Low’ and hard-boiled
Akira Kurosawa wasn't known for film noir or crime thrillers, but he did do a genre drive-by back in 1963. Of course, it's killer. The Criterion Collection has reissued to Blu-ray "High and Low," the Japanese master's tale of a hardworking factory chief whose life is ruined after his son is targeted by kidnappers. Toshiro Mifune plays shoe … [Read more...]
