Posted in 1958, Ben Johnson, Elisha Cook, Hank Worden, John Dierkes, Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Paramount, Slim Pickens on December 2, 2018| 12 Comments »
On December 2, 1958, under the watchful eye of DP Charles Lang, the big VistaVision cameras rolled for Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (1961). It would be six full months — June 2, 1959, to be exact — before they stopped. A number of inserts and reshoots came later.
My book on the film isn’t taking quite that long. Not quite, anyway.
Posted in 1958, Phil Karlson, Van Heflin on July 9, 2018| 15 Comments »
Tab Hunter (Arthur Andrew Kelm)
(July 11, 1931 – July 8, 2018)
I was sorry to see that Tab Hunter, who’s so good in Phil Karlson’s Gunman’s Walk (1958), had passed away. He was 86, and just a few days shy of 87.
Gunman’s Walk is a criminally obscure picture (that’s Tab in the center, above), and the fact that it’s not available on DVD or Blu-Ray here in the US is a shame.
Posted in 1958, 20th Century-Fox, DVD/Blu-Ray News, Gregory Peck, Twilight Time on June 30, 2018| 7 Comments »
Directed by Henry King
Screenplay by Philip Yordan
Cast: Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Henry Silva, Kathleen Gallant, Barry Coe, George Voskovec, Herbert Rudley, Lee Van Cleef, Andrew Duggan, Joe DeRita
Twilight Time has announced they’ll be putting out Henry King’s The Bravados (1958) on Blu-Ray.
Gregory Peck’s riding the vengeance trail in this one, looking for the men who killed his wife six months earlier. By the time it’s all over, he hardly seems any better than the men’s he’s after.
Twilight Time will certainly offer up some nice extras to go with a gorgeous transfer — and this CinemaScope picture surely deserves it. Highly recommended.
Thanks for the tip, Paula!
Posted in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, Arthur Hunnicutt, Budd Boetticher, Burt Kennedy, Claud Akins, Columbia, DVD/Blu-Ray News, James Coburn, Nancy Gates, Noah Beery Jr., Paramount, Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Skip Homeier, Virginia Mayo, Warner Archive, Warner Bros. on February 16, 2018| 44 Comments »
The word on the street is that Powerhouse/Indicator out of the UK is prepping some of the Budd Boetticher – Randolph Scott pictures, the five Columbia ones, for Blu-Ray. Of course, those were put out by Sony in a terrific set several years ago, with plenty of extra stuff — but we’ve all been pining for all of these to make their way to Blu-Ray.
Michael Dante, Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher on the Westbound set.
Powerhouse/Indicator will do a tremendous job with these. This would leave Seven Men From Now (1956) and Westbound (1959) orphaned in high-definition. Seven Men is handled by Paramount these days, and Westbound is in the care of the Warner Archive. More news as it turns up.
Thanks to John Knight for the tip.
Posted in 1958, Ads, posters & art, Anthony Mann, Barton MacLane, Gary Cooper, James H. Griffith, John Agar, John Dehner, Julie London, Lippert/Regal, Robert J. Wilke, Royal Dano, Theaters on December 2, 2017| 4 Comments »
Here are a couple of interesting movie marquees from 1958. First, Gary Cooper in Anthony Mann’s Man Of The West playing in Buenos Aires.
Next is a marquee for a theatre on a military base somewhere. Friday’s feature is Frontier Gun, a Regalscope picture with John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Barton MacLane, Robert Strauss, James H. Griffith and Morris Ankrum. It was directed by one of my favorite unsung directors, Paul Landres. On Tuesday is It! The Terror From Beyond Space, a terrific little science fiction thing starring Marshall Thompson and directed by Edward L. Cahn.
That marquee is as good a pitch for joining the military as anything I’ve ever seen. Take me back to 1958 and sign me up!
Posted in 1958, DVD/Blu-Ray News, John Sturges, MGM, Richard Widmark, Robert Taylor, Warner Archive on August 15, 2017| 29 Comments »
Directed by John Sturges
Starring Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, DeForest Kelley
The Law And Jake Wade (1958) is one of the best Westerns of the 50s. It’s tight, tense and in CinemaScope, which is exactly what you want in a John Sturges movie. Oh, and it’s coming to Blu-Ray from Warner Archive.
Jake Wade (Robert Taylor) wants to go straight, but his old partner Richard Widmark wants to know where he buried the loot from an old bank job. Before long, Widmark’s abducted Taylor’s fiancé (Patricia Owens) and they’re all headed into Comanche territory — and the Comanches are on the warpath.
This is as good as it gets, folks — and I’m sure Warner Archive will treat it right. Essential stuff.
Posted in 1958, Charlton Heston, Chuck Connors, DVD/Blu-Ray News, Gregory Peck, Kino Lorber, United Artists, William Wyler on May 4, 2017| 24 Comments »
Directed by William Wyler
Starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors
The Big Country (1958) is coming to Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber with a slew of extras — commentary, documentary, interviews, etc.
The cast is a great one. Burl Ives won an Oscar for his incredible, and incredibly mean, performance. But, to me, Chuck Connors steals the picture — he’s absolutely perfect in a complex, tragic role.
Franz F. Planer’s Technicolor and Technirama cinematography is beautiful, offering up stunning vistas that live up to the film’s title. The opening credits were created by Saul Bass, and the score by Jerome Moross is one of the best to ever grace a Western.
The old Blu-Ray was a huge improvement over the DVD, but it had some distortion problems. Let’s hope those are sorted out for this new one. And I hear the stereo tracks still haven’t turned up.
