Mike Clark has been writing about film for more than 20 years, starting with a weekly column in USA Today in 1985. He also served as program planner and director of the American Film Institute Theater.
New on Disc: 'Too Late for Tears' and more …
Too Late for Tears
Flicker Alley, Mystery, $39.95 Blu-ray/DVD, NR.
Stars Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Don DeFore, Arthur Kennedy, Kristine Miller.
1949. This arguably definitive Lizabeth Scott performance and more were saved from extinction by UCLA’s Film and Television Archive working with the Film Noir Foundation to juggle various imperfect sources. Scott is such a piece of work here that one can only chuckle at her character’s rabid greed after this so-called housewife flukes her way into a tempting situation that immediately swallows her up and ends up destroying lives.
Extras: Includes an informative but infectiously wry commentary by historian/writer/programmer Alan Rode; a making-of short; cool production photos and press-book ads; some on-screen nuts-and-bolts regarding the restoration; and a background essay.
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The King and Four Queens (Blu-ray)
Street 5/24/16
Olive, Western, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Clark Gable, Eleanor Parker, Jo Van Fleet, Barbara Nichols.
1956. Looking a little weary on the range, Clark Gable took his one stab at producing a movie with this easy-to-tolerate Raoul Walsh trifle.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'Dillinger' and more …
Dillinger (Blu-ray)
Arrow, Action, $39.95 Blu-ray/DVD combo, ‘R.’
Stars Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Dreyfuss.
1973. This John Milius-directed salvo is one of the better examples of the gangster genre, though it helps that some of the supporting casting means more now than it did at the time.
Extras: Stephen Prince’s all-business commentary is diligently researched in terms of juxtaposing real facts with the movie’s fictions.
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Dark Passage (Blu-ray)
Street 5/17/16
Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Mystery, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead, Bruce Bennett.
1947. This third of four Bogart-Bacall teamings (all within a four-year period) can be enjoyed by those fanciers of star-power willing to overlook even the rudiments of logic when it comes to jumbo coincidences and the making of the difficult look relatively easy.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'In a Lonely Place' and more …
In a Lonely Place
Street 5/10/16
Criterion, Drama, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy.
1950. As an artful hybrid of film noir and what used to be called the “woman’s picture,” this now revered movie of Dorothy P. Hughes’s same-titled but much altered novel is regarded by a few as Humphrey Bogart’s big-screen apogee, though it has to be said that co-star Gloria Grahame fights him to a draw here in the acting department.
Extras: There’s a commentary by film scholar Dana Polan, an essay by Imogen Sara Smith; a 1948 radio adaptation of the Hughes novel that aired on “Suspense”; an interview with Grahame biographer Vincent Cursio about her (euphemistically speaking) colorful life; and a featurette, carried over from the old Sony DVD, in which director Curtis Hanson visits some of the original settings. There’s also a slightly pruned version of the famous but relatively little-seen I’m a Stranger Here Myself, which mostly chronicles director Nicholas Ray’s tenure as a faculty member at Binghamton University in upstate New York.
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In the French Style (Blu-ray)
Available via ScreenArchives.com
Twilight Time, Drama, $29.95 Blu-ray, ‘R.’
Stars Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, Philippe Forquet.
1963. Either co-creators Irwin Shaw and director Robert Parrish were going for ambiguity with In the French Style, or they didn’t quite know what they were doing.
Extras: Includes a commentary by Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo and Lem Dobbs.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'Cutter's Way' and more …
Cutter’s Way (Blu-ray)
Available via ScreenArchives.com
Twilight Time, Drama, $29.95 Blu-ray, ‘R.’
Stars Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Ann Dusenberry.
1981. The succulent set-up for what appears to be a conventional murder yarn set in a haves-vs.-have-nots beach town is as good as these things get.
Extras: Includes commentary by Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo.
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Susan Slept Here (Blu-ray)
Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Comedy, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Glenda Farrell, Alvy Moore.
1954. The fourth Frank Tashlin comedy has always been regarded as being somewhat culturally disreputable, and maybe it even is — but the cradle-robbing here is from a more innocent era.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'Jackie Robinson' and more …
Jackie Robinson
PBS, Documentary, $24.99 DVD, $29.99 Blu-ray, NR.
2016. It’s a challenge to think of anyone who’d be more appropriate to receive the Ken Burns treatment than the man who carved out a place for himself both before and after he integrated Major League Baseball.
Extras: This home-viewing keeper includes interviews with key production personnel about how Jackie Robinson came to be, plus additional interviews not used in the documentary proper.
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Try and Get Me!
Olive, Drama, $24.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges, Kathleen Ryan.
1951. Except for some preachy soap-boxing that does its best to undermine inherent dramatic punch at every turn, this is one of the toughest and least compromised movies from the entire noir era.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'Suspicion' and more …
Suspicion (Blu-ray)
Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Thriller, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Nigel Bruce, Cedric Hardwicke.
1941. Though not the most effective of the four Cary Grant/Alfred Hitchcock collaborations (North by Northwest, Notorious and To Catch a Thief are the others), it still makes for a good night at the movies, with a script that still seems psychologically apt.
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Donovan’s Brain
Kino Lorber, Sci-Fi, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Lew Ayres, Nancy Davis (Reagan), Gene Evans.
1953. This loose remake of a Curt Siodmak novel is one of the few films from Nancy Reagan’s film career that has any kind of rep.
Extras: Includes commentary by film expert Richard Harland Smith.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates' and more …
The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates
Street 4/26/16
Criterion, Documentary, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
1960-64. The four JFK-oriented documentaries here are Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis and Faces of November. This is one of those home releases where viewers should take the mammothly rewarded time to watch all the bonus features.
Extras: In addition to still-gripping background material on how the once unlikely Kennedy presidency came to be, there’s a lot of interview footage with the filmmakers, plus outtakes.
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The Gong Show Movie (Blu-ray)
Shout! Factory, Comedy, $24.97 Blu-ray, ‘R.’
Stars Chuck Barris, Robin Altman, Jaye P. Morgan.
1980. Chuck Barris (playing himself) questions whether or not his career as a game show host has been worth the time and effort — due, in part, to all of those novelty acts who insist on auditioning for him when he’s standing at the urinal.
Extras: Includes a commentary by pop culture historian Russell Dyball.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'The Vikings' and more …
The Vikings
Kino Lorber, Drama, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, Janet Leigh.
1958. The Vikings is closer to first-rate entertainment than a truly first-rate movie, but above and beyond its prodigious nostalgic currency, the result is still fairly irresistible for anyone inclined toward its red-meat sentiments.
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RKO Varieties Triple Feature — Variety Time, Make Mine Laughs, Footlight Varieties
Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Musical, $21.99 DVD, NR.
Stars Jack Paar, Gil Lamb, Liberace, Jack Haley, Leon Errol.
1948/1949/1951. Made up of film clips strung together by an emcee’s patter, these hour-long revues were both a lament for long dead vaudeville and an embrace of the new medium of television that was making life miserable for studios and exhibitors.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'After the Fox' and more …
After the Fox
Street 3/22/16
Kino Lorber, Comedy, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Peter Sellers, Victor Mature, Britt Ekland, Martin Balsam.
1966. A Peter Sellers vehicle that the mighty Victor Mature out-and-out steals in a caper that seems even bigger than the one on screen, After the Fox is a high-end trifle.
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Nelson Algren: The End Is Nothing, the Road Is All
First Run, Documentary, $24.95 DVD, NR.
2015. Three directors are credited to this documentary about author Nelson Algren, which, though filmed in start-and-stop fashion over many years, plays seamlessly enough to present satisfying, if inevitably melancholy, look-back.
Extras: Includes an on-camera Chicago radio interview with co-directors Denis Mueller and Ilko Davidov.
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By: Mike Clark
New on Disc: 'Where the Sidewalk Ends' and more …
Where the Sidewalk Ends (Blu-ray)
Available via ScreenArchives.com
Twilight Time, Drama, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Karl Malden.
1950. With the same leads, director, cinematographer and studio, Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends can be seen as the underbelly of Laura — with the sidewalk ending somewhere in a NYC district lower-rent than anything we see in Preminger’s preceding posh masterpiece. Sidewalk is pretty solid, and this has to be one of the most crisp-looking Blu-rays that Twilight Time has ever put out.
Extras: Noir expert Eddie Muller’s bonus commentary has been carried over from Fox’s old standard DVD.
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The Whip Hand
Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Thriller, $21.99 DVD, NR.
Stars Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Raymond Burr, Edgar Barrier.
1951. This movie is definitely a window into the mindset of RKO head Howard Hughes and his Cold War fixation.
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By: Mike Clark
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