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Take a trip into the depths of German silent film in a documentary that links expressionist cinema with dark political undercurrents. Director Rüdiger Suchsland’s essay adapts a famous & worthy but slightly outdated book, yet is an excellent overview of movies in the Weimar period.

From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses

DVD

Kino Lorber

2014 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 118 min. / Von Caligari zu Hitler: Das deutsche Kino im Zeitalter der Massen / Street Date January 9, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber Video Store / 29.95

Starring: Rüdiger Suchsland (voice), Hans Henrik Wöhler (voice), Fritz Lang (voice), Volker Schlöndorff, Fatih Akin, Thomas Elsaesser, Eric D. Weitz, Elisabeth Bronfen.

Cinematography: Frank Reimann, Harald Schmuck

Film Editor: Katja Dringenberg

Original Music: Henrik Albrecht, Michael Hartmann

Written by Rüdiger Suchsland, from the book by Siegfried Kracauer

Produced by Martina Haubrich

Directed by Rüdiger Suchsland

I’ve always sought out good documentaries about films...

Shout Factory opens the crypt once more, for the last remaining UA and Aip fright movies starring our favorite gentleman of horror. The label lays on the extras, with Steve Haberman commentaries and episodes of Science Fiction Theater. Now where are the Vincent Price cooking shows? The Vincent Price Collection III Master of the World, The Tower of London, Diary of a Madman, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe, Cry of the Banshee Blu-ray Scream (Shout!) Factory 1961-72 / B&W + Color / 1:85 & 1:66 widescreen / 420 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / 69.97 Starring Vincent Price Directed by William Witney, Roger Corman, Reginald Le Borg, Kenneth Johnson, Gordon Hessler.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Scream Factory now brings us Part Three of its Vincent Price collection, pretty much emptying the closet over at MGM. Not counting his twilight feature The Whales of August every Vincent Price film under the MGM banner will soon be out on Blu-ray.

On February 16th, Scream Factory will release their third home media celebration of a cinematic legend with The Vincent Price Collection III, and we've been provided with three copies of the four-disc Blu-ray set to give away.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of The Vincent Price Collection III.

How to Enter: For a chance to win, email [email protected] with the subject "The Vincent Price Collection III Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on February 19th. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

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Previous Press Release: On February 16, 2016, collectors, classic film aficionados and horror enthusiasts will relish the 4-Disc Blu-ray™ release of Scream Factory’s The Vincent Price Collection III.

On February 16th, Scream Factory will release their third celebration of a cinematic legend with The Vincent Price Collection III on Blu-ray. Ahead of the collection's release, we have high-definition clips and trailers from the four-disc tribute.

Previous Press Release: On February 16, 2016, collectors, classic film aficionados and horror enthusiasts will relish the 4-Disc Blu-ray™ release of Scream Factory’s The Vincent Price Collection III. This extraordinary collector’s set is an essential collection for every movie library and brings together Five Vincent Price masterpiece classics, featuring the first-ever Blu-ray movie presentation of Master Of The World (1961), Tower Of London (1962), Diary Of A Madman (1963), An Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe (1970) and Cry Of The Banshee (1970). Packed with a bevy of chilling bonus content including new interview with producer/director Roger Corman and writer/producer/director Kenneth Johnson, new audio commentary with actor David Frankham, film historians, original theatrical trailers, archival materials,...

Vincent Price fans have seen Scream Factory distribute two collections honoring the horror legend, and now they're about to witness a third. On February 16th, Scream Factory will release The Vincent Price Collection III, a four-disc tribute to Price containing five of his films and an abundance of bonus features:

Press Release: On February 16, 2016, collectors, classic film aficionados and horror enthusiasts will relish the 4-Disc Blu-ray™ release of Scream Factory’s The Vincent Price Collection III. This extraordinary collector’s set is an essential collection for every movie library and brings together Five Vincent Price masterpiece classics, featuring the first-ever Blu-ray movie presentation of Master Of The World (1961), Tower Of London (1962), Diary Of A Madman (1963), An Evening Of Edgar Allan Poe (1970) and Cry Of The Banshee (1970). Packed with a bevy of chilling bonus content including new interview with producer/director Roger Corman and writer/producer/director Kenneth Johnson, new audio commentary with actor David Frankham,...

'Being Julia' movie: Annette Bening and Shaun Evans 'Being Julia' movie review: Annette Bening showcase tells us a little about Avice A little Being Julia movie background: In Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1950 Oscar-winning classic All About Eve, Bette Davis plays Margo Channing, a major Broadway star who, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, falls prey to the youthful, ambitious wannabe Eve Harrington: sweet, soft-spoken Anne Baxter on the outside; ruthless, poisonous gargoyle on the inside.* More than a decade earlier, in 1937 to be exact, W. Somerset Maugham had written Theatre, a novel about West End diva Julia Lambert. In Maugham's tale, Julia, despite her talent, wit, and some forty-odd years on this planet, succumbs to her vanity when she falls madly in love with Tom Fennel, a handsome – and deceptively innocent-looking – American half her age. Through Tom's "special friendship" with the renowned Julia, an ambitious young actress,...

Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...

Elisabeth Bergner, who started in German silents went on to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Escape Me Never (1935)Schweigen a fine collection of 1920s and 1930s postcards of film actors. I loved looking at it despite my Richard Dix aversion. And this postcard left makes me desperate to see Escape Me Never, one of the 30s Best Actress nominations I still haven't seen

Cinema Blend profiles the 5 pilots from Amazon Studios including Hand of God with Dana Delany and Ron Perlman

E! Online Neil Patrick Harris responds to rumors that he and David Burtka are breaking up. It ain't so.

Pret-a-Reporter Inside Madonna's 56th birthday bash

THR Cinematography Gordon Willis who died earlier this summer, was memorialized in Hollywood this weekend

List Mania

Rope of Silicon every death in a Quentin Tarantino movie thus far

Cinema Enthusiast has been investigating 1992 cinema. Loves Howards End, The Player, Batman Returns...

As the undisputed king of American gothic, Vincent Price holds a unique position regarding his association with British horror. From the mid sixties, nearly all his films were made in the UK, and while not as distinguished as The House of Usher (1960), Tales of Terror (1962) and The Raven (1963), they are not without interest. As an actor perfectly suited to English gothic, Price’s output includes two career-defining performances. In a nutshell, he had the best of both worlds.

Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The British phase of his career began with a bang. After directing all of Price’s Poe chillers for American International Pictures, Roger Corman wanted to give the formula a fresh approach by making his next film in England. Aip’s Samuel Z Arkoff and James H Nicholson had already produced several European films, so the next step was to establish a London base with Louis M Heyward in charge.

Actor and director who brought dark good looks and a commanding presence to his roles

Austrian by birth, Swiss by circumstance and international by reputation, Maximilian Schell, who has died aged 83, was a distinguished actor, director, writer and producer. However, he will be best remembered as an actor, especially for his Oscar-winning performance in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) – an early highlight among scores of television and movie appearances. He also directed opera, worked tirelessly in the theatre and made six feature films, including Marlene (1984) - a tantalising portrait of Dietrich, his co-star in Judgment, who is heard being interviewed but not seen, except in movie extracts.

Schell courted controversy and much of his work, including The Pedestrian (1973), dealt with the second world war, its attendant crimes and the notion of collective guilt. In 1990, when he was offered a special award for his contributions to German film, he refused to accept it.

Maximilian Schell movie director (photo: Maximilian Schell and Maria Schell) (See previous post: “Maximilian Schell Dies: Best Actor Oscar Winner for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg.’”) Maximilian Schell’s first film as a director was the 1970 (dubbed) German-language release First Love / Erste Liebe, adapted from Igor Turgenev’s novella, and starring Englishman John Moulder-Brown, Frenchwoman Dominique Sanda, and Schell in this tale about a doomed love affair in Czarist Russia. Italian Valentina Cortese and British Marius Goring provided support. Directed by a former Best Actor Oscar winner, First Love, a movie that could just as easily have been dubbed into Swedish or Swahili (or English), ended up nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Three years later, nominated in that same category was Schell’s second feature film as a director, The Pedestrian / Der Fußgänger, in which a car accident forces a German businessman to delve deep into his past.

Most recent film appearances, plus concert and television work Please check out our previous post: "Montiel La Violetera and Pedro Almodóvar Icon." Her last star vehicle of note was Juan Antonio Bardem's Varietés (1971), a melodrama about an aging actress who continues to dream of becoming a bona fide star. [Please scroll down to listen to Montiel's husky rendition of "Amado mío."] The forty-something hopeful eventually gets her chance at stardom, but it all turns out to be a flash in the pan. By then, following a whole array of formulaic romantic musical melodramas, Montiel's box-office allure had waned rather radically. She turned down roles in Spain's cine del destape -- post-Franco softcore comedies -- which eventually meant the demise of her movie career. Her last official star vehicle was Pedro Lazaga's comedy Cinco almohadas para una noche ("Five Cushions for One Night," 1974) -- though she would be seen in Eduardo Manzanos Brochero's That's Entertainment-like compilation feature Canciones de nuestra...

Elizabeth Hartman and Sidney Poitier in A Patch of Blue (1965)

Look, I can't help it: The Oscars rule. I care about them. I refuse to stop thinking about them. And if you read snicks' recent Oscar snubs piece, you'd refuse too. If you love entertainment, glamor, and winning, you simply have to love the Oscars. And Project Runway. But hey, back to the Oscars! Even the biggest Oscarphiles can stand to know more about the precious gold statuette, and I'm willing to bet most of you don't know about these five nominees, actresses who've faded from public consciousness. Let's revisit the weird and wild catacombs of the Academy's most fascinating forgotten ladies, shall we?

Eva Le Gallienne: Respected Actress, Kickass Lesbian

Before Gloria Stuart hurled an ugly diamond into the Atlantic in Titanic, Eva Le Gaillienne was the oldest woman nominated for an Oscar at age 80 for Resurrection, a...

So you probably saw the headline and thought to yourself, “Oh Dave came up with a cute tie-in to all the pomp and ceremony that went on over in London last week, how clever of him to find an Eclipse title that connects so well with the marriage of Prince William and his girlfriend Catherine Middleton.” Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you were thinking and I can’t fault you for drawing such an obvious conclusion, even though it’s wrong. I actually chose this film for my next installment in this series simply because May 2 happens to be the birthday of Catherine the Great, the most powerful woman on earth during her lifetime and one of the most influential of all monarchs in Russia’s long and turbulent history.

Despite the fact that The Rise of Catherine the Great depicts a young woman’s entry into the...

Jan 24, 2011

The plot of All About Eve is based on a short story and radio play by the actress and writer Mary Orr, who adapted it from a real life incident told to her by actress Elisabeth Bergner. Joseph Mankiewicz recommended that Darryl F. Zanuck buy the film rights to Orr's story in 1949.

Adapting it for screen, the director originally cast Claudette Colbert as Margo Channing, the aging theatre actress ousted by her understudy, Eve Harrington (played in the film by a young Anne Baxter). Colbert dropped out of production after slipping a disc ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...