Elvis Presley’s handlers found the formula that would keep his stardom solvent through the 1960s in this well-confected, calculatedly vacant star vehicle that Everybody liked and enjoyed in 1961. The coolest celeb in America ended up in some of the squarest, least-hip films of the era. Why do we like it so? Cutting through the fog of nostalgia reveals the appeal. The Hawaiian scenery is a knockout, plus there’s good support from Joan Blackman and especially Angela Lansbury, who humbles herself to play an idiot mother caricature for Mister ‘Rock-a-Hula.’
Blue Hawaii
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Paramount Presents
1961 / Color/ 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date November 15, 2022 / Available from / 39.99
Starring: Elvis Presley, Joan Blackman, Angela Lansbury, Nancy Walters, Roland Winters, John Archer, Howard McNear, Steve Brodie, Christian Kay, Iris Adrian, Hilo Hattie, Jenny Maxwell, Pamela Austin (Kirk), Darlene Tompkins, Jose De Vega, Frank Atienza, Ralph Hanalei, Gregory Gaye.
Cinematography: Charles Lang...
Blue Hawaii
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Paramount Presents
1961 / Color/ 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date November 15, 2022 / Available from / 39.99
Starring: Elvis Presley, Joan Blackman, Angela Lansbury, Nancy Walters, Roland Winters, John Archer, Howard McNear, Steve Brodie, Christian Kay, Iris Adrian, Hilo Hattie, Jenny Maxwell, Pamela Austin (Kirk), Darlene Tompkins, Jose De Vega, Frank Atienza, Ralph Hanalei, Gregory Gaye.
Cinematography: Charles Lang...
- 11/8/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
John Wayne! Janet Leigh! Nifty jet-age flying sequences! Goofy, bad-taste sex jokes! Hans Conreid as a chortling Russian army officer! Howard Hughes’ personal fun project took seven years to make while he played games with the aerial footage. It’s a highly-polished absurd joke, but it’s certainly entertaining. See Hughes try to do for Janet Leigh what he did for Jane Russell — I assume Ms. Leigh was too shrewd to sign any long-term contracts! This German disc has excellent widescreen image and audio.
Jet Pilot
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Düsenjäger / Street Date June 14 2018, 2019 / 12.99 euros
Starring: John Wayne, Janet Leigh, Jay C. Flippen, Paul Fix, Richard Rober, Roland Winters, Hans Conried, Ivan Triesault, Hall Bartlett, Gregg Barton, Gene Evans, Paul Frees, Harry Lauter, Nelson Leigh, Denver Pyle, Gene Roth, Kenneth Tobey, Mamie Van Doren, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Winton C. Hoch
Aerial Stunts: Chuck Yeager
Original Music:...
Jet Pilot
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Düsenjäger / Street Date June 14 2018, 2019 / 12.99 euros
Starring: John Wayne, Janet Leigh, Jay C. Flippen, Paul Fix, Richard Rober, Roland Winters, Hans Conried, Ivan Triesault, Hall Bartlett, Gregg Barton, Gene Evans, Paul Frees, Harry Lauter, Nelson Leigh, Denver Pyle, Gene Roth, Kenneth Tobey, Mamie Van Doren, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Winton C. Hoch
Aerial Stunts: Chuck Yeager
Original Music:...
- 7/16/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Siodmak’s superb noir classic pits two graduates of Little Italy against one other: a crook who can deceive relatives and seduce strangers into helping him, and the cop who wants to put him out of business. Starring the great Richard Conte, with Victor Mature in what might be his best role.
Cry of the City
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Berry Kroeger, Tommy Cook, Debra Paget, Hope Emerson, Roland Winters, Walter Baldwin, Mimi Aguglia, Kathleen Howard, Konstantin Shayne, Tito Vuolo.
Cinematography Lloyd Ahern
Original Music Alfred Newman
Written by Richard Murphy from the novel The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth
Produced by Sol C. Siegel
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Perhaps because of a legal or rights issue, Robert Siodmak...
Cry of the City
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Berry Kroeger, Tommy Cook, Debra Paget, Hope Emerson, Roland Winters, Walter Baldwin, Mimi Aguglia, Kathleen Howard, Konstantin Shayne, Tito Vuolo.
Cinematography Lloyd Ahern
Original Music Alfred Newman
Written by Richard Murphy from the novel The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth
Produced by Sol C. Siegel
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Perhaps because of a legal or rights issue, Robert Siodmak...
- 12/3/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Patricia Neal ca. 1950. Patricia Neal movies: 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,' 'A Face in the Crowd' Back in 1949, few would have predicted that Gary Cooper's leading lady in King Vidor's The Fountainhead would go on to win a Best Actress Academy Award 15 years later. Patricia Neal was one of those performers – e.g., Jean Arthur, Anne Bancroft – whose film career didn't start out all that well, but who, by way of Broadway, managed to both revive and magnify their Hollywood stardom. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating Sunday, Aug. 16, '15, to Patricia Neal. This evening, TCM is showing three of her best-known films, in addition to one TCM premiere and an unusual latter-day entry. 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Robert Wise was hardly a genre director. A former editor (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons...
- 8/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Lee Pfeiffer
Scorpion has released the complete version of the 3-part 1978 mini series "The Dain Curse" as a double DVD set. The show has a checkered history in terms of home video. A truncated version was available for a while on VHS, then Image released the full three episodes on DVD. Now Scorpion has done the same and the quality of the set is very good, capturing the relatively rich production values of the series. Those of us of a certain age can remember when the major networks put a great deal of time, talent and financial resources into mini-series. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of these shows constituted "must-see" TV. In an age in which the average household didn't have video recorders, some shows were so special that people altered their lifestyles to ensure they could catch each episode. Today, those days seem long gone, with network...
Scorpion has released the complete version of the 3-part 1978 mini series "The Dain Curse" as a double DVD set. The show has a checkered history in terms of home video. A truncated version was available for a while on VHS, then Image released the full three episodes on DVD. Now Scorpion has done the same and the quality of the set is very good, capturing the relatively rich production values of the series. Those of us of a certain age can remember when the major networks put a great deal of time, talent and financial resources into mini-series. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of these shows constituted "must-see" TV. In an age in which the average household didn't have video recorders, some shows were so special that people altered their lifestyles to ensure they could catch each episode. Today, those days seem long gone, with network...
- 9/5/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
James Garner movies on TCM: ‘Grand Prix,’ ‘Victor Victoria’ among highlights (photo: James Garner ca. 1960) James Garner, whose film and television career spanned more than five decades, died of "natural causes" at age 86 on July 19, 2014, in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. On Monday, July 28, Turner Classic Movies will present an all-day marathon of James Garner movies (see below) as a tribute to the Oscar-nominated star of Murphy’s Romance and Emmy-winning star of the television series The Rockford Files. Among the highlights in TCM’s James Garner film lineup is John Frankenheimer’s Monaco-set Grand Prix (1966), an all-star, race-car drama featuring Garner as a Formula One driver who has an affair with the wife (Jessica Walter) of his former teammate (Brian Bedford). Among the other Grand Prix drivers facing their own personal issues are Yves Montand and Antonio Sabato, while Akira Kurosawa’s (male) muse Toshiro Mifune plays a...
- 7/25/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Charlie Chan was the literary creation of Earl Derr Biggers, but he also starred in a popular film series. Political correctness be damned as the films, though stilted, are still entertaining. This set nearly completes the series but alas not yet. The short history of Charlie Chan: author Earl Derr Biggers created the Chinese-American sleuth in 1923. It wouldn’t take long till Chan made the jump to the silver screen, but it wouldn’t be until Warner Oland took the role in 1931. His death in 1938 passed the role to Sidney Toler but Fox tired of the series and the bargain basement studio Monogram took the series and Toler. Toler’s death would find Roland Winters taking over the...
- 8/16/2013
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
Warner Bros/courtesy Everett C Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows, from left: Noomi Rapace, Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”
The next new “Sherlock Holmes” movie is out, and if you loved the first film, it’s more of what you loved — more slam-bang Victorian action, more whimsically anachronistic dialogue, more sly homoerotic innuendo and of course, more Robert Downey Jr. doing what he does best, which is to say, upend every convention...
The next new “Sherlock Holmes” movie is out, and if you loved the first film, it’s more of what you loved — more slam-bang Victorian action, more whimsically anachronistic dialogue, more sly homoerotic innuendo and of course, more Robert Downey Jr. doing what he does best, which is to say, upend every convention...
- 12/19/2011
- by Jeff Yang
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
TCM: Spotlight Charlie Chan Collection (Dark Alibi / Dangerous Money / The Trap / The Chinese Ring)
Am I allowed to like this? There really isn't any getting around how utterly un-pc this series was. Yet it has aged as well as the Sherlock Holmes stuff from this period. Maybe even better. I always preferred Warner Olands Chan above Sydney Toller or Roland Winters but it's fascinating to think that all three men made careers out of playing Chan. In fact both Oland and Toller played the character repeatedly until their respective deaths. By all accounts this is an important set as four of the films have never been available before. That leaves only two Chan films currently unavailable on DVD (Shadows Over Chinatown and The Red Dragon) the real question is how long until we get one big box set option. No extras which is a real disappointment here.
Buy It Now...
Am I allowed to like this? There really isn't any getting around how utterly un-pc this series was. Yet it has aged as well as the Sherlock Holmes stuff from this period. Maybe even better. I always preferred Warner Olands Chan above Sydney Toller or Roland Winters but it's fascinating to think that all three men made careers out of playing Chan. In fact both Oland and Toller played the character repeatedly until their respective deaths. By all accounts this is an important set as four of the films have never been available before. That leaves only two Chan films currently unavailable on DVD (Shadows Over Chinatown and The Red Dragon) the real question is how long until we get one big box set option. No extras which is a real disappointment here.
Buy It Now...
- 6/23/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Charlie Chan is one of the few super sleuths who haven't gotten much press recently. New television and film treatments, even going back several years, feature a lot of the greats, but Chan isn't among them. Though Hollywood is leaving the master of wise one-liners to fade into obscurity, you can now relive some of the classic moments of the Chinese-American detective with the release of the Charlie Chan Collection, part of the TCM Spotlight series. It would be tough to choose among the dozens of Chan films when putting together a set, but the four we have here make for a nice collection, even if they are overly close to each other in terms of release date for a true sampling of the variety. Sidney Toler gave the film series its legs, and we get three of his latest films, including the last he starred in. You've also got...
- 6/15/2010
- by Marc Eastman
- AreYouScreening.com
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)
You wouldn’t think a comedy like Caddyshack (Warner Bros., Rated R, Blu-Ray-$24.98 Srp) would benefit so much from high definition, but the new Blu-Ray benefits from a crystal clear picture that looks better than it ever has previously. To add even more incentive, there’s a new feature-length 30th anniversary documentary featuring most of the principals (sans Bill Murray and Chevy Chase) reminiscing, as well...
(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)
You wouldn’t think a comedy like Caddyshack (Warner Bros., Rated R, Blu-Ray-$24.98 Srp) would benefit so much from high definition, but the new Blu-Ray benefits from a crystal clear picture that looks better than it ever has previously. To add even more incentive, there’s a new feature-length 30th anniversary documentary featuring most of the principals (sans Bill Murray and Chevy Chase) reminiscing, as well...
- 6/11/2010
- by UncaScroogeMcD
Charlie Chan definitely has a place among the pantheon of famous fictional detectives. He is certainly one of the more controversial ones. Although Chan is undoubtedly a hero, many Asians resent the character as an ethnic stereotype. Chan is polite and soft spoken, never lacking an appropriate old Chinese proverb to suit the occasion.
The character of Charlie Chan was created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1923 as a rebuttal to the “Yellow Peril” stereotypes so common in literature of the day, such as Fu Manchu. Biggers lived in Hawaii and resented the unflattering Asian clichés so he invented a benign Chinese Investigator working for the Honolulu Police Force. He wrote several Chan novels. The honorable Chinese Detective became so popular that he was soon adapted into film. There were many Chan films, starting in the silent film era. Early films actually starred Chinese actors but the Audience didn’t respond to Asian Leading men.
The character of Charlie Chan was created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1923 as a rebuttal to the “Yellow Peril” stereotypes so common in literature of the day, such as Fu Manchu. Biggers lived in Hawaii and resented the unflattering Asian clichés so he invented a benign Chinese Investigator working for the Honolulu Police Force. He wrote several Chan novels. The honorable Chinese Detective became so popular that he was soon adapted into film. There were many Chan films, starting in the silent film era. Early films actually starred Chinese actors but the Audience didn’t respond to Asian Leading men.
- 6/5/2010
- by Rob Young
- JustPressPlay.net
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