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Grand action entertainment bursts forth on the high seas, showing us how much production value Golden Hollywood could lavish on an exciting, artful swashbuckler. Errol Flynn is at his glorious best, backed by greats like Flora Robson, Henry Daniell and Claude Rains in fine form. The special effects and full-sized ship sets impress in ways that computer generated images never will. And the rousing music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold seals the deal — the term ‘Timeless Classic’ was invented for marvels like this.

The Sea Hawk

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 127 min. / Street Date December 18, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp, Flora Robson, Alan Hale, Henry Daniell, Una O’Connor, James Stephenson, Gilbert Roland, William Lundigan, Julien Mitchell, Montagu Love, J.M. Kerrigan, David Bruce, Fritz Leiber, Francis McDonald, Pedro de Cordoba, Ian Keith, Jack La Rue, Halliwell Hobbes, Victor Varconi,...

Elia Kazan would have celebrated his 109th birthday on September 7, 2018. Years after his death in 2003, the two-time Oscar-winning director remains both an influential and controversial figure, respected and reviled in equal measure. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Kazan started his career as a stage actor, soon transitioning into directing. He mounted several landmark productions, including the original run of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Throughout his career he received three Tony awards for Best Director of a Play: “All My Sons” in 1947, “Death of a Salesman” in 1949, and “J.B.” in 1959.

He transitioned into filmmaking with “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945). Two years later, he won his first Oscar for Best Director for “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947), which also took home Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm). A taboo-shattering drama about antisemitism, the film established...

Now in Region A — One of the best releases from the early- ’50s 3-D boom. Millionaire Robert Ryan is abandoned to die in the desert by his wife Rhonda Fleming and her lover; the ‘useless’ executive earns self-respect by focusing on the problem of survival. Ryan’s terrific, and the depth effects in the attractive desert locations are great, thanks to cinematographer Lucien Ballard.

Inferno 3-D

3-D + 2-D Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1953 / Color / 1:33 flat / 83 min. / Street Date May 16, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Henry Hull, Carl Betz, Larry Keating, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Editor: Robert L. Simpson

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Francis M. Cockrell from his story The Waterhole

Produced by William Bloom

Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker

I just reviewed an Inferno 3-D disc not four months ago, but U.S. viewers will want the facts (all the facts!

Inferno

3-D Region B (+A ) Blu-ray

Panamint Cinema (UK)

1953 / Color / 1:33 flat / 83 min. / Street Date August 10, 2014 / Available from Amazon UK / £19.99

Starring: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Henry Hull, Carl Betz, Larry Keating, Robert Burton.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Editor: Robert L. Simpson

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by: Francis M. Cockrell, from his story The Waterhole :

Produced by: William Bloom

Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker

(Note, 1.18.17: Twilight Time will be releasing a domestic disc of

this title on May 16, licensed for U.S. distribution.)

A fine 20th Fox entry for the 3-D craze of 1953, the adventure thriller Inferno is often labeled a film noir in the desert. Despite the presence of a scheming, murderous wife, the noir quotient here is minimal — it’s just a straight survival tale with a homicidal twist. An odd UK-only release licensed by a small independent company, the Blu-ray 3-D is well encoded...

The icon-establishing performances Marilyn Monroe gave in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) are ones for the ages, touchstone works that endure because of the undeniable comic energy and desperation that sparked them from within even as the ravenous public became ever more enraptured by the surface of Monroe’s seductive image of beauty and glamour. Several generations now probably know her only from these films, or perhaps 1955’s The Seven-Year Itch, a more famous probably for the skirt-swirling pose it generated than anything in the movie itself, one of director Wilder’s sourest pictures, or her final completed film, The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller and costarring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.

But in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) she delivers a powerful dramatic performance as Nell, a psychologically devastated, delusional, perhaps psychotic young woman apparently on...

Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

Teresa Wright and Matt Damon in 'The Rainmaker' Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn: Nasty Falling Out.") "I'd rather have luck than brains!" Teresa Wright was quoted as saying in the early 1950s. That's understandable, considering her post-Samuel Goldwyn choice of movie roles, some of which may have seemed promising on paper.[1] Wright was Marlon Brando's first Hollywood leading lady, but that didn't help her to bounce back following the very public spat with her former boss. After all, The Men was released before Elia Kazan's film version of A Streetcar Named Desire turned Brando into a major international star. Chances are that good film offers were scarce. After Wright's brief 1950 comeback, for the third time in less than a decade she would be gone from the big screen for more than a year.

Timeless Television is available for free viewing on FilmOn. This is one of FilmOn’s newest channels focusing on classic and rare television. Timeless Television brings back popular television shows from the ’50s and ’60s for new audiences. As its description states, “Timeless Television is for people who miss the classic television from years gone by.” One of the shows you can view is “Climax”. This is one of the more unique shows on Timeless Television. “Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958,” states its synopsis. “The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa.” You can watch Timeless Television [ Read More ]

The post Watch Timeless Television for Free on FilmOn appeared first on Shockya.com.

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Deanna Durbin: Ephemeral fame (photo: Deanna Durbin in 1981) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: 'Sweet Monster.'"] Unlike Greta Garbo, whose mystique remained basically intact following her retirement in 1941, Deanna Durbin’s popularity faded away much like that of the vast majority of celebrities who were removed — or who chose to remove themselves — from public view. Despite the advent of home video and classic-movie cable channels, Durbin remains virtually unknown to the vast majority of those who weren’t around in her heyday in the ’30s and ’40s. Yet, although relatively few in number, she continues to have her ardent fans. There are a handful of websites devoted to Deanna Durbin and her film and recording careers, chiefly among them the appropriately titled "Deanna Durbin Devotees." Fade Out Charles David, Deanna Durbin’s husband of 48 years, died in March 1999, at the age of 92; Institut Pasteur medical researcher Peter H. David is their only son. Durbin also had a daughter,...

The odds are stacked against Limp Bizkit member DJ Lethal in a brand new fender bender lawsuit -- because the woman he allegedly rear ended is represented by iconic personal injury superstar Larry H. Parker (he got one guy $2.1 million!). The woman -- Suraj Kayastha -- filed docs in L.A. County Superior court Nov. 5th, claiming she was driving on the 101 last December when Lethal (real name Leor Dimant) smashed into her car.According to docs,...

If you’ve hunted around for movie bargains, you’ve probably seen some of Mill Creek Entertainment’s 50-Movie Packs on DVD. Apart from other great releases by Mill Creek, these packs are phenomenal boons to cinephiles looking to collect older titles.

There are three new packs available, and I want to not only let you in on a discount code, but I have one of the packs available for you to win.

I know a lot of people may be quick to overlook these packs, and not every movie included stands out as a major value, but there are some great titles in each of them, and fans of the genres will be pleasantly surprised by what they get out of the deal. I have to admit that there is something about seeing a 50-movie pack, especially when it doesn’t cost a couple of hundred dollars, or more,...

Anne Francis (minus beauty mark), William Lundigan in Henry Koster's Elopement Anne Francis, best known for sporting a futuristic mini-skirt in Fred M. Wilcox's classic sci-fier Forbidden Planet (1956, right with Robby the Robot) and for her tough, smart and sexy private detective in the 1960s television series Honey West, died Sunday, Jan. 2, at a retirement home in Santa Barbara, about 150kms northwest of Los Angeles. Francis (born Sept. 16, 1930, in Ossining, N.Y.) had previously undergone an operation for lung cancer, though the official cause of death was pancreatic cancer. She was 80. Anne Francis' filmography is quite short. Thirty-six film appearances during the course of nearly half a century. Her career as a leading lady was even briefer; in fact, it was surprisingly brief, spanning from 1951 to 1957 — a period during which she usually alternated leads in programmers with supporting roles in major releases. That's it. Yet, [...]...