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Now up for grabs in Region A, it’s the Robert Aldrich movie that wins over all that see it. The epitome of Men In Peril adventures, the tale of 14 random oil men marooned in the Sahara is brutal yet optimistic about human cooperation — please, the world needs more of that right now. James Stewart is at his best, stretching his hard-bitten loner persona and tapping into his flying experience. Also with an English-language-best performance from Hardy Krüger. The male group dynamics are absorbing and the suspense powerful — especially when seen cold. No spoilers here!

The Flight of the Phoenix

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1116

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 22, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc...

Forgotten amid Robert Aldrich’s more critic-friendly movies is this superb suspense picture, an against-all-odds thriller that pits an old-school pilot against a push-button young engineer with his own kind of male arrogance. Can a dozen oil workers and random passengers ‘invent’ their way out of an almost certain death trap? It’s a late-career triumph for James Stewart, at the head of a sterling ensemble cast. I review a UK disc in the hope of encouraging a new restoration.

The Flight of the Phoenix

Region B Blu-ray

(will not play in domestic U.S. players)

Masters of Cinema / Eureka Entertainment

1965 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 142 min. / Street Date September 12, 2016 / £12.95

Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Stunt Pilot: Paul Mantz

Art Direction: William Glasgow...

Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland and Agnes Moorehead play it nasty, chop-chopping their way through a Grand Dame Guignol epic of 'sixties Hag Horror. Ace director Robert Aldrich's big success handed the deserving Davis a big role, and it looks better than ever on this razor-sharp remastered edition. With good original film promos as well as a lively new commentary. Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte Blu-ray Twilight Time 1964 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 133 min. / Street Date October 11, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store29.95 Starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway, Victor Buono, Mary Astor. Cinematography Joseph F. Biroc Art Direction William Glasgow Film Editor Michael Luciano Original Music Frank De Vol Written by Lukas Heller from a novel by Henry Farrell Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Good horror pictures featuring big stars were once fairly rare; this month Twilight Time...

Despite it being the directorial debut of five times Oscar nominated cinematographer William A. Fraker, 1970’s revisionist Western Monte Walsh isn’t as well remembered as it possibly should be. Prizing characterization over narrative and ignoring the usual set of genre highlights until its third act, it’s a mellow, melancholy bit of nostalgia about the last days of the Old West. Sporting a handsome cast and imbued with the right touch of technical appropriations, it’s a rather humble offering following on the footsteps of iconic juggernauts of the genre, like True Grit or The Wild Bunch, both of which premiered the year prior. Awards glory and controversial depictions of violence launched those films into the zeitgeist, but Fraker’s has remained an obscure item rooted in realistic, low key tendencies.

As Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin) and best pal Chet Rolling (Jack Palance) descend from the mountains after a long winter,...

After all these decades we finally have an answer to the question What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and you may or may not like it. The remake we first heard about in July now has a backer. Yep, pretty soon everything will be remade, rebooted, reduxed, and redistributed.

According to Variety, Lakeshore Entertainment has come on board to produce and finance a remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Walter Hill sitting in the director's chair.

Lakeshore Entertainment's Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi will be producing along with the Aldrich Co.'s Adell Aldrich. The original production was directed and produced in 1962 by Adell Aldrich's late father, Robert Aldrich, from a screenplay by Lukas Heller.

"Walter Hill is a great American talent," Rosenberg said. "His compelling vision has created a brilliant reimagining of this terrifying Gothic thriller."

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? revolves around...

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? We’ll soon find a completely new answer to that legendary question, because a remake of the whole thing is coming! According to the latest reports, director Walter Hill is on board to direct a remake for Lakeshore Entertainment, who will finance and produce the film.

Bullet To The Head director, Hill, is also responsible for the script, or if you prefer – an adaptation of Henry Farrell‘s novel of the same name.

I’m sure you’re already familiar with the plot, but what the hell, let us remind you once again that it centers on a former child star Jane Hudson and her sister Blanche (a movie queen from the 30′s) who are forced into retirement after a crippling accident.

The original 1962 movie was directed and produced by Robert Aldrich from a screenplay by Lukas Heller, with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford playing the toxic sisters.

We now have an answer to the question, who is going to produce and finance the remake of the Bette Davis-Joan Crawford classic Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? The answer is Lakeshore partners Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi, who’ll produce with The Aldrich Company’s Adell Aldrich. Robert Aldrich helmed the 1962 original, and as Deadline revealed during Comic-Con, Walter Hill is helming the remake. Hill, who most recently wrapped the Sylvester Stallone-starrer Bullet To The Head, partnered with The Aldrich Company to develop the remake, which Lukas Heller adapted from the Henry Farrell novel. Lakeshore will help Hill re-create the nightmarish relationship between two sisters in a crumbling Hollywood mansion, where former child star Jane Hudson (Davis) holds captive her crippled former movie-queen sister (Crawford). “The idea is to make a modern film without modernizing the period,” Hill told me at the time. “It needs to...

Walter Hill is set to write and direct a remake of the 1962 classic "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" at Aldrich Co. says THR.

Robert Aldrich's classic starred Bette Davis as former child star Baby Jane Hudson and Joan Crawford as her crippled sister Blanche. Hill said the plan is to create a modern film without modernizing the period.

Hill will adapt the screenplay from Lukas Heller’s screenplay for the original, rather than the Henry Farrell novel on which it was based. Hill and Adell Aldrich will produce.

I don't know how many of you have seen the original Bette Davis/Joan Crawford tour de force Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, but it about scarred me for life the first time I watched it. Here's hoping the planned remake announced today can do it justice!

According to Deadline, Walter Hill (pictured; The Warriors, Streets of Fire, "Tales from the Crypt") has partnered with The Aldrich Company to develop a remake of the 1962 classic. Hill will write the script and direct the film. The original was directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, with Lukas Heller adapting the Henry Farrell novel.

The story is set in a decaying Hollywood mansion where Jane Hudson (Davis), a former child star, and her sister, Blanche (Crawford), a movie queen forced into retirement after a crippling accident, live in virtual isolation. “The two equal leads demand great performers — that is a given, Hill said.

Breaking: Walter Hill, who most recently wrapped the Sylvester Stallone-starrer Bullet To The Head, has partnered with The Aldrich Company to develop a remake of the 1962 Bette Davis-Joan Crawford classic What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Hill will write the script and direct the film. The original was directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, with Lukas Heller adapting the Henry Farrell novel. Warner Bros will release Bullet To The Head in February and Hill sparked to the idea of re-creating the nightmarish relationship between two sisters in a crumbling Hollywood mansion, where former child star Jane Hudson (Davis) holds captive her crippled former movie-queen sister (Crawford). “The two equal leads demand great performers — that is a given,” Hill said. “The intensity of the Gothic storyline makes a reconfiguration of the drama still a potentially searing experience. The idea is to make a modern film without modernizing the period.

When New York Times critic Bosley Crowther reviewed "The Dirty Dozen" upon its release (45 years ago this week, on June 15, 1967), he blasted the World War II action drama for its characters' "hot, sadistic zeal," its "astonishingly wanton" depiction of war, the way its violent-felons-turned-heroes plot "encourag[es] a spirit of hooliganism that is brazenly antisocial" and its "studied indulgence of sadism that is morbid and disgusting beyond words." If a similar action movie came out today, those would all be its selling points. Indeed, in recent decades, we've come to take Robert Aldrich's ultramacho commando flick for granted, not because it hasn't aged well (it still delivers the goods), but because it's been copied by so many movies and TV shows that its innovations seem old hat now. But 45 years ago, it not only pushed the envelope (in ways that disgusted Crowther but so delighted audiences that it was one...

Last week this column featured a review from the most recent Eclipse Series release, Silent Naruse. Sharp-eyed, or perhaps somewhat obsessive-compulsive, readers may have taken note that I had not yet made any mention in this space of the Eclipse set that preceded Silent Naruse. There’s a simple reason for that: I was waiting for the late 50s/early 60s films included in Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden’s London Underground to come up in the meticulous chronological sequence I use in my main blog, Criterion Reflections, where I’ve just recently advanced to the movies of 1959. (And with that disclosure, those same sharp-eyed readers are now wondering just who I am to call anyone else “somewhat obsessive-compulsive.”) Well, since I’ve moved past the double feature of First Man Into Space and Corridors of Blood, that point in the timeline has been reached. This week, I’m buffing up and polishing Sapphire.

The last time we saw Dennis Quaid, he was trudging his way through an apocalyptic blizzard in Fox's "The Day After Tomorrow".

No wuss he, Quaid is now taking on brutal sandstorms and blistering heat in "Flight of the Phoenix", a remake of the gripping 1965 survival yarn about a group of men whose plane, piloted by Jimmy Stewart, crashes into the Sahara Desert.

Quaid would have been right at home among the rugged cast in the Robert Aldrich original, which included Peter Finch, George Kennedy and Ernest Borgnine, and his performance as a no-nonsense cargo plane captain lends the refurbished version a nicely weathered patina.

But while it certainly looks swell thanks to director John Moore's striking visuals, the wings of this rebuilt "Phoenix" (initiated by Aldrich's son, William) have been clipped by generic scripting and a short supply of dramatic tension that goes slack soon after takeoff and never really recovers.

Still, a certain B-movie allure remains that could translate into some solid holiday business, particularly among males in the market for a little awards season counterprogramming.

Combining the right amount of decency and grit, Quaid does well by the Stewart role -- that of Frank Towns, a cargo plane pilot who, this time around, is sent to Mongolia to evacuate the members of an aborted oil exploration operation.

Shortly after takeoff, the full plane flies into a crippling sandstorm that destroys one of its engines and sends Towns and company hurtling into the Gobi desert.

Most of the passengers survive the wreckage, including co-pilot AJ (singer-actor Tyrese Gibson), the company hatchet man, Ian (Hugh Laurie), the tough guy with the Snake Plissken eye-patch (Kirk Jones), the nice-guy Hispanic cook (Jacob Vargas) and the oil rig's chief roustabout and lone female (Miranda Otto).

Also along for the ride is the nerdy outsider (a virtually unrecognizable Giovanni Ribisi) who insists he knows how to rebuild the plane. But with a dwindling food and water supply and an encroaching band of murderous desert smugglers, time is quickly running out.

Irish director Moore, best known for his innovative commercials before cutting his feature teeth on "Behind Enemy Lines", makes the most of the unpredictable elements, but style alone can't compensate for the inert pacing and a perfunctory script credited to Scott Frank and Edward Burns that settles for the sketchiest of character traits and standard-issue dialogue.

Actually filmed in Namibia (the original, though set in the Sahara, was in fact shot in Arizona, giving the title a much less exotic meaning), the production is ably assisted by aerial photographer David B. Nowell's sweepingly surreal shots of dramatic, wind-sculpted dunes that look as smooth and inviting as butterscotch pudding.

Flight of the Phoenix

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox presents an Aldrich Group production/Davis Entertainment Co. production

Credits:

Director: John Moore

Producers: John Davis, William Aldrich, Wyck Godfrey, T. Alex Blum

Screenwriters: Scott Frank, Edward Burns

Based on a screenplay by Lukas Heller and the novel by Elleston Trevor

Executive producer: Ric Kidney

Director of photography: Brendan Galvin

Production designer: Patrick Lumb

Editor: Don Zimmerman

Costume designer: George L. Little

Music: Marco Beltrami

Cast:

Frank Towns: Dennis Quaid

Elliott: Giovanni Ribisi

AJ: Tyrese Gibson

Kelly: Miranda Otto

Ian: Hugh Laurie

Rodney: Tony Curran

Jeremy: Kirk Jones

Sammi: Jacob Vargas

MPAA rating PG-13

Running time -- 113 minutes...