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On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Otto Preminger Plays New Games in Widescreen

By the discerning standards of IndieWire After Dark, there’s nothing too salacious or gruesome going on in “Bunny Lake Is Missing.” Instead, it’s Otto Preminger’s camera that’s nasty here. This is, first, a gorgeously shot movie, and one that doesn’t just rely on one camera or staging approach to yank us into its mystery and hold us there against our will.

There are plenty of classic Preminger long takes, of course, with the kind of diabolical dolly...

Stella Stevens, who starred with Elvis Presley in “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and with Jerry Lewis in “The Nutty Professor” as well as in disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died Friday in Los Angeles. Her son, Andrew Stevens, said she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 84.

“Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962) was one of the more generic Elvis films— there wasn’t all that much for Stevens to do — but Variety was keen on her performance in 1963’s “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” starring Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones in the story of a widower who’s romantically interested in one woman while his son wants him to marry another: “Stella Stevens comes on like gangbusters in her enactment of a brainy but inhibited doll from Montana. It’s a sizzling comedy performance of a kook.”

In “The Nutty Professor” (1963) or any other Jerry Lewis film, one might expect the...

It’s time for a new episode of the Revisited video series, and with this one we’re looking back at a TV movie that started a franchise, 1972’s The Night Stalker ((pick up a copy Here)! The Night Stalker was followed by a sequel called The Night Strangler, and then a twenty episode season of a TV series called Kolchak: The Night Stalker. A show that served as inspiration for The X-Files and received a short-lived remake series called Night Stalker in the early 2000s. To find out all about The Night Stalker, check out the video embedded above!

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey from a teleplay by Richard Matheson, which was based on a novel by Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker has the following synopsis:

After several high-profile newspapers fire him for his difficult attitude, investigative journalist Carl Kolchak finds a job following the police beat for a small Las Vegas publication.

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- arguably one of the best films of all time -- is so expansive and far-reaching in its story and tone that a casual viewer might miss that astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) is the protagonist. Indeed, Dave doesn't even appear until about halfway through the film, and that's after an early extended sequence set during prehistoric times among a group of proto-human hominids, and then a very long sci-fi sequence wherein characters other than Dave discover a mysterious monolith buried on the surface of the moon.

Dave, however, does get the lion's share of the film's screentime. Dave also has the more "exciting" scenes, like matching wits with the malfunctioning computer intelligence Hal 9000 (Douglas Rain). Dave will also be the recipient of an effable form of evolutionary awareness, allowed to first see space travel as the logical next step in human evolution.

Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson can’t quite bring this all-star western fully to life, even with Robert Aldrich at the helm and a storyline that toys with (then) lurid, adult subject matter. Screen-written by Dalton Trumbo and filmed in Mexico, it perhaps packs too much edgy psychodrama into a simple cowboys & six-guns saga. Dorothy Malone and Carol Lynley give fine support and the locations are nice, as is Ernest Laszlo’s cinematography.

The Last Sunset

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1961 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date October 12, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone, Joseph Cotten, Carol Lynley, Neville Brand, Regis Toomey, Rad Fulton (James Westmoreland), Adam Williams, Jack Elam, John Shay, José Torvay.

Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo

Art Directors: Alexander Golitzen, Alfred Sweeney

Film Editor: Michael Luciano

Original Music: Ernest Gold

Written by Dalton Trumbo from the novel Sundown at Crazy Horse by Howard Rigsby

Produced by Eugene Frenke,...

We are pleased to announce that Cinema Retro magazine has once again been nominated for Best Magazine by the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. (Rondo Hatton was the famed character actor who often played villains in "B" movies that are now cult favorites.) Although Cinema Retro differs from most of our worthy competitors because we are not strictly a horror-themed magazine, apparently we do cover the genre enough to impress the nominating group. It's a lot of fun participating in the awards which cover many other categories such as best film, best DVD/Blu-ray commentary, best DVD/Blu-ray extras, best restoration, etc. We'll put a blatant plug in for our own contributing writer, Tom Lisanti, whose biography of actress Carol Lynley has been justifiably nominated for Book of the Year. We're also proud of our London photographer and writer Mark Mawston, who has been nominated in the "Best Article" category...

“This gun is my judge, my jury… and my executioner!”

Robert Forster and Fred Williamson in Vigilante is coming to 4K Uhd and Blu-ray December 15th from Blue Underground’s. Check out the retsoration trailer:

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. But when a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, Eddie goes berserk and vows revenge. Now there’s a new breed of marauder loose on the city streets, enforcing his own kind of law. His justice is swift. His methods are violent. He is the Vigilante.

Fred Williamson (From Dusk Till Dawn), Richard Bright (The Godfather), Rutanya Alda (Amityville II: The Possession), Carol Lynley (The Poseidon Adventure), Woody Strode (Spartacus), Joe Spinell (Maniac) and Salsa legend Willie Colón co-star in this hard-hitting exploitation classic from director...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.***As the great studios declined like mammoths sinking into tar pits, the films they produced started bifurcating: there were the stodgy, prestige pictures, like Cleopatra (1963) (which nearly sank Fox into the bitumen altogether), and there were trashy low-budget affairs farmed out to bottom-feeding indie producers, the sixties equivalent of the B pictures of yore. These were often more enjoyable than the respectable productions, even when they really were trash.Lauren Bacall counted Shock Treatment (1964) as the worst film of her career, and apart from her tendency to underrate Written on the Wind (1956), she had pretty sound judgement. Director Denis Sanders was among the first film school graduates to make films...

With Lovecraft Country finishing its acclaimed first season, you may be looking to fill that new gap in your viewing schedule with more content based on or inspired by the works of the enigmatic author from Providence, Rhode Island.

Let’s get one thing clear upfront: Howard Phillips Lovecraft was very much a product of his time and upbringing, and his views on race, ethnicity, and class — while commonplace for where and when he lived — were truly noxious, an aspect of his legacy that Lovecraft Country addresses in its own themes. But it’s also clear that Lovecraft was arguably the most influential horror writer of the 20th century, with a reach that extends to this day.

While there have been a number of movies based directly on stories by Lovecraft — including titles like Die, Monster, Die! (1965), The Dunwich Horror (1970), Re-Animator (1985) and its sequels, From Beyond (1986), Dagon (2001), The Whisperer in Darkness...

Al Kasha, the Academy Award-winning composer who, along with songwriting partner Joel Hirschhorn, won Oscars for the soft rock disaster movie classics “The Morning After” and “We May Never Love Like This Again,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 83.

His death was announced by spokesperson Deborah Radel. A cause of death was not disclosed.

Dominating music charts – and Oscar’s Best Original Song category – in 1973 with “The Morning After,” from The Poseidon Adventure, and again in ’75 with “We May Never Love Like This Again” from The Towering Inferno, Kasha and Hirschhorn returned to film songwriting with 1977’s Disney classic Pete’s Dragon. The duo was Oscar-nominated for that song score and the song “Candle On The Water,” sung by Pete’s Dragon star Helen Reddy.

For his Broadway stage work, Kasha received Tony Award nominations for the scores of 1981’s Copperfield and 1982’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Both Broadway productions were short-lived,...

[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” but they don’t take the fun out of this movie.]

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

More from IndieWireStreaming Wars: Virtual Cinemas Offer Haven for Cinephiles and Struggling Theaters AlikeStream of the Day: 'Hollywood Shuffle' Raised Issues Facing Black Actors That Still Exist 30 Years Later

Otto Preminger’s “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” aside from introducing The Zombies to the moviegoing world, is probably most famous for its final 20 minutes, a cascade of nonsensical psychological hairpin turns that merge to become a quite stunning pile-up car-crash of “is this really happening?” moments. That’s the ghoulish fun of this unhinged movie, which provides the most toxic brother-sister codependency plot this side of Shakespeare or Hitchcock’s darkest nightmares.

While Preminger has at...

Updated with Academy statement: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has responded to complaints about the exclusion of some entertainment figures from its annual In Memoriam segment on Sunday’s Oscar telecast.

“The Academy receives hundreds of requests to include loved ones and industry colleagues in the Oscars In Memoriam segment,” the organization said in a statement obtained by Deadline. “An executive committee representing every branch considers the list and makes selections for the telecast based on limited available time. All of the submissions are included on Oscar.com and will remain on the site throughout the year.”

Previously: Kobe Bryant led off the Oscar telecast’s In Memoriam segment and Kirk Douglas was the last film personality it honored.

The annual portion late in the show, introduced this time by Steven Spielberg and accompanied by a rendition of “Yesterday” by Grammy winner Billie Eilish, appeared to avoid major controversy.

For Sunday’s Oscars 2020 ceremony on ABC, producers had a difficult decision of which film industry people would make the cut and who would unfortunately be left out of the “In Memoriam.” For the segment, for the song “Yesterday” performed by Grammy champ Billie Eilish.

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEE2020 Oscars: Full list of winners (and losers) at the 92nd Academy Awards

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have passed away in the past 12 months. Here is a list of the some of the names included in the tribute:

Danny Aiello (actor)

Jim Alexander (sound)

Bibi Andersson (actor)

Ben Barenholtz (executive)

Kobe Bryant (producer)

Diahann Carroll (actor)

Seymour Cassel (actor)

William J. Creber (production designer)

Doris Day (actress)

Stanley Donen (director)

Kirk Douglas (actor/producer)

Robert Evans (executive)

Peter Fonda (actor)

Robert Forster (actor)

Harriet Frank,...

One of the most significant additions to the Academy Awards ceremony around 30 years ago has been the In Memoriam segment. Producers find the perfect blend of music, photos and clips for the short annual presentation.

Which of the past Oscar winners and nominees from many different branches will be featured this Sunday, February 9, on the Oscars 2020 ceremony for ABC? Some of the most likely to be included will be acting nominees Danny Aiello, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Kirk Douglas, Peter Fonda, Robert Forster, Sylvia Miles, Michael J. Pollard and Rip Torn. How about major creatives such as Stanley Donen, Robert Evans, Buck Henry, Andre Previn and John Singleton?

Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019 and the just launched gallery for 2020.

SEEWho is Performing at the Oscars 2020?: Full List of Presenters and Performers

Over 100 people in the film industry, many of them academy members, have...

Sunday’s telecast of the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards will feature a special In Memoriam segment devoted to many of the actors and actresses who have died since last year’s ceremony in late January. Sure to be among those saluted include Oscar-nominated actresses Diahann Carroll and Doris Day, plus nominated “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Luke Perry. Visit our own Gold Derby memoriam gallery for the year of 2019.

The 26th annual ceremony will be live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, January 19, at 8:00 p.m. Et; 5:00 p.m. Pt. The SAG life achievement award will be presented to Robert De Niro.

SEE2020 SAG Awards nominations: Full list of Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees

Over 100 people in SAG/AFTRA have passed away in the past 12 months. Which of the following 50+ names will also be featured in the televised tribute?

Julie Adams

Danny Aiello

Jed Allan

Bibi Andersson...

Poseidon Adventure star Carol Lynley has died at age 77 in her Los Angeles home, her daughter Jill Selsman announced Friday. Friend and actor, Trent Dolan told Variety that she passed away from a heart attack and died “peacefully in her sleep.” The actress’ career spanned more than six decades, appearing in over 100 films […]

The post ‘Poseidon Adventure’ Star Carol Lynley Dies At 77 appeared first on uInterview.

American actor best known for her roles in The Poseidon Adventure, Blue Denim and Bunny Lake Is Missing

Carol Lynley, who has died of a heart attack aged 77, emerged as a young star in the late 1950s, when Hollywood was becoming aware of the growing teen audience who identified with new actors such as Lynley, Sandra Dee, Tuesday Weld and Sue Lyon, who all played similar coming-of-age roles.

Lynley’s poignant portrayal of a 15-year-old girl who finds herself pregnant and seeking an abortion in Blue Denim (1959) broke new ground, despite Hollywood’s lingering puritanical mores. The main differences between the play, by James Leo Herlihy, in which Lynley had appeared triumphantly the year before on Broadway, and the film were that, on screen, the word abortion is never uttered and the girl has the baby.

Carol Lynley, best known for the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, died on September 4. She was 77.

The actress, who was born in New York City, died “peacefully in her sleep” at her Pacific Palisades home.

Her daughter, Jill Selsman, said in a statement the actress “loved the industry and she was equally a great fan of the movies.”

“She loved working in film as much as she loved going to the movies. I saw everything as a child with her,” Selsman, a director, said of her mother’s love for film and television. “She was curious about the world around her, loved to spend time with interesting people, of all stripes and was generally a very peaceful person. Very live and let live.”

Lynley was also a “life-long fitness person” and a yoga practitioner since the 1970s “when everyone still made fun of it,” Selsman said of her mother.

“She loved to dance,...

(Above: Lynley in the 1972 hit "The Poseidon Adventure")

By Lee Pfeiffer

Actress Carol Lynley has died from a heart attack at age 77. She began her career as a child model before gravitating to the movie industry. With her stunning looks, Lynley showed great potential in an era in which studios groomed starlets to become full-blown stars. Lynley gained fine notices for her starring role in the 1959 drama "Blue Denim" in which she and Brandon DeWilde played middle-class teenagers dealing with the secret of her unintended pregnancy in an era in which such scenarios were met with repression instead of compassion. Prominent roles followed including "Hound Dog Man", "Return to Peyton Place" and "The Last Sunset" in which she co-starred with Hollywood icons Rock Hudson and Kirk Douglas. Other major films of the 1960s include "The Stripper", "Under the Yum Yum Tree", "Shock Treatment", "The Pleasure Seekers", "The Maltese Bippy", "Danger...

Actress Carol Lynley, whose popularity in the 1960s and ’70s grew with films Return to Peyton Place, Under the Yum Yum Tree and Bunny Lake is Missing, as well as TV appearances in some of the most watched series of the era while peaking with 1972’s disaster film classic The Poseidon Adventure, died Tuesday after suffering a heart attack at her home in Pacific Palisades, CA. She was 77.

Her death was announced by her friend, the actor Trent Dolan.

With a modeling background, Lynley had a few small credits (she was Rapunzel in 1958 on TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook) before really making a name for herself that year in James Leo Herlihy’s controversial Broadway play Blue Denim, in which she portrayed a pregnant teenager seeking an illegal abortion. She starred in the feature film adaptation the following year, scoring a...

Carol Lynley, best known for the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, has died. She was 77.

The actress, who was born in New York City, died “peacefully in her sleep” at her Pacific Palisades home on Tuesday, People confirms.

Her daughter, Jill Selsman, tells People in a statement the actress “loved the industry and she was equally a great fan of the movies.”

“She loved working in film as much as she loved going to the movies. I saw everything as a child with her,” Selsman, a director, said of her mother’s love for film and television.

She continued, “She...

Actress Carol Lynley, best known for her role in the 1972 film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died at her Pacific Palisades home Tuesday after suffering a heart attack, according to her friend, actor Trent Dolan. She was 77.

Lynley began her career as a child model, appearing on the cover of Life magazine at the age of 15, before starring in Disney’s “The Light in the Forest” and the independent film “Holiday for Lovers.” Shortly after, she secured a breakout role in the 1958 Broadway play “Blue Denim” and its subsequent film adaptation, in which she played 15-year-old Janet Willard tasked with figuring out how to undergo an illegal abortion.

The play, written by James Leo Herlihy, received immediate criticism for its laissez-faire attitude toward abortion, leading to a revised ending in the film that sees Janet go through with her pregnancy. Despite the controversy, the role earned Lynley a nomination for a Golden...

Carol Lynley, whose ethereal look captivated the public in commercials, movies and TV, has died. She was 77. 

Lynley died Tuesday at her home in California following a heart attack, a source close to the family said.

Lynley garnered national attention as a teen when she appeared in a number of Clairol and Pepsodent commercials. In 1955, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine, which reportedly inspired Walt Disney to cast her in the family drama The Light in the Forest (1958). 

Parlaying her modeling and commercial success into an acting career, Lynley embodied the waifish ingenue. She ...

Carol Lynley, whose ethereal look captivated the public in commercials, movies and TV, has died. She was 77. 

Lynley died Tuesday at her home in California following a heart attack, a source close to the family said.

Lynley garnered national attention as a teen when she appeared in a number of Clairol and Pepsodent commercials. In 1955, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine, which reportedly inspired Walt Disney to cast her in the family drama The Light in the Forest (1958). 

Parlaying her modeling and commercial success into an acting career, Lynley embodied the waifish ingenue. She ...

Valerie Harper, the multiple-Emmy-winning sitcom star whose role as the somewhat neurotic Rhoda Morgenstern made her one of television’s biggest and most beloved actors in the 1970s, died today. She was 80 and had been suffering from various cancers for a number of years.

Her family told Kabc-tv entertainment reporter George Pennacchio that Harper had been in a coma for a while before succumbing,

The veteran TV and stage actress was best known for playing sidekick Rhoda Morgenstern on CBS The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then taking the character into her own popular spinoff, Rhoda.

She also starred in the 1980s sitcom, Valerie, which — thanks to some head-butting over creative control with the show producers – saw Harper’s character killed off as an explanation for her exiting the show. It then morphed into Valerie’s Family and later was retitled The Hogan Family.

Harper also had recurring roles on The Office and The Simpsons.

Exclusive: Bunny Lake is no longer missing. A remake of the 1965 crime thriller Bunny Lake is Missing, is in the early development stages under Sony’s Screen Gem label. The original was directed and produced by Otto Preminger and starred Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, and Keir Dullea.

Based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell, the gripping story follows a mother who comes to pick up her daughter Bunny from school only to find her missing. She and her brother begin looking for the child and eventually call the police. When the police start investigating, they can’t find any evidence of a child ever living at the home and learn that Bunny was the name of the mother’s imaginary childhood friend. It’s not clear whether the mother is crazy or she is being set up by someone who is glasslighting her.

The new twist...

1981: General Hospital's Lesley had no shortage of admirers.

1985: Daniel confessed his love for Krystle on Dynasty.

1989: Gl's Reva and Sonni walked across a suspension bridge.

2009: The wedding of All My Children's Reese and Bianca began."History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into d ifferent and unexpected images."

― Anselm Kiefer

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1939: Virgina Payne joined the cast of radio soap opera The Carters of Elm Street as Ms. Carter. Payne was best known for her 27-year run as "Ma Perkins".

1974: Joseph Gallison debuted on Days of our Lives as Neil Curtis, a role...

By Todd Garbarini

I was three years-old when John Llewellyn Moxey’s The Night Stalker premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on January 11, 1972 and it took me nearly twenty years to catch up with it on a late night rerun on a local ABC-tv affiliate. Featuring the terrific late character actor Darren McGavin in the role of Carl Kolchak, an intrepid reporter who wants to print the truth regardless of what his editor says after finding himself in the midst of several murders, The Night Stalker, penned by the great Richard Matheson based on an unpublished novel, is a delightful slice of early 1970s spooky entertainment fare that is most definitely a product of a time that was populated by groovy music on the radio, TV dinners, and little kids getting tossed around in the backs of mammoth station wagons. The Las Vegas of 1971 when this movie was...

The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1972/73 / 1.33:1 / 74/90 Min. / Street Date October 2, 2018

Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland

Cinematography by Michel Hugo, Robert B. Hauser

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis

In January of 1972 ABC broadcast the story of a middle-aged newsman hot on the trail of a vampire seemingly escaped from a 50’s horror comic. The man and the monster had one thing in common – by the 70’s they were both anachronisms, adrift in an era of hot pants and roller disco.

Carl Kolchak, the overbearing reporter played by crusty TV vet Darren McGavin, was not simply immune to current fashions – his steadfast belief in the supernatural ensured his outsider status throughout two films and 20 hour-long episodes broadcast between 1974 and 1975.

The first of those movies was The Night Stalker, a nocturnal thriller animated by the lurid neon of the Vegas strip where a string of showgirl...

Now that October is officially underway, that means we have a big week of Blu-ray and DVD releases to get excited for, and there are some great genre-related titles coming out on Tuesday. Universal Studios Home Entertainment is unleashing both Tales from the Hood 2 and The First Purge on multiple formats, and for fans of action cinema, Death Race: Beyond Anarchy races home this week, too. Kino Lorber is giving both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler the limited edition treatment, and for those who enjoy indie horror, Feral, Housewife,and Blood Fest are certainly all worth your time.

Other notable releases for October 2nd include Extremity, Molly, The Legend of Halloween Jack, The Evil Dead in 4K, Sleep No More, and West of Hell, with Rob Zombie’s Halloween getting a Steelbook release as well.

The First Purge

Blumhouse Productions welcomes you to the movement that began as...

Before the influential Kolchak: The Night Stalker series aired on ABC in the mid-’70s, Darren McGavin brought the titular investigative reporter to life for the first time in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, which is getting a 4K restoration Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber this October, along with its 1973 sequel, The Night Strangler.

Announced on Facebook and Twitter, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler Blu-rays will be released on October 2nd in the Us. Each release will come with a new 4K restoration, a new audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas, and other new special features.

Below, we have the announcements from Kino Lorber, as well as a look at the new cover art by Sean Phillips. Let us know if you'll be adding these releases to your home media collection, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From the Tube column...

Let’s go back to 1959, when just implying that two teenagers might have first-hand knowledge of sex is socially unacceptable dynamite. This adapted play about an unwanted teen pregnancy is actually quite good, thanks to fine performances by Carol Lynley and Brandon De Wilde, who convince as cherubic high schoolers ‘too young to know the score.’ And hey, the teen trauma is set to the intense music of composer Bernard Herrmann.

Blue Denim

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date April 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editors: William Reynolds, George Leggewie

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble

Produced by Charles Brackett

Directed...

1981: General Hospital's Lesley had no shortage of admirers.

1985: Daniel confessed his love for Krystle on Dynasty.

1989: Gl's Reva and Sonni walked across a suspension bridge.

2009: The wedding of All My Children's Reese and Bianca began."Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."

― Machiavelli

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1939: Virgina Payne joined the cast of radio soap opera The...

Carol Lynley (The Poseidon Adventure) was rumored to have the part back in 1991. And theories swirled over the years suggesting Agent Cooper’s trusty Gal Friday might just be a figment of his imagination. But in Sunday’s Twin Peaks, the one and only “Diane” was finally revealed to be none other than Laura Dern. (Nifty that she played his Girl Friday back in Blue Velvet too, huh?) A satisfying moment 27 years in the making (even if most of us guessed and hoped it was coming). Now, Albert (who found her in Max Von’s Bar in Philadelphia – did that...

“Ya had a lotta guts, lady… a lotta guts.”

The Poseidon Adventure screens at St. Louis’ fabulous Hi-Pointe Theater this weekend as part of their Classic Film Series. It’s Saturday, April 12th at 10:30am at the Hi-Pointe located at 1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117. The film will be introduced by Harry Hamm, movie reviewer for Kmox. Admission is only $5

The Poseidon Adventure is the breathtaking story of a cruise ship capsized by a tidal wave, the result of an undersea earthquake. At the time of the disaster, many of the ship’s passengers are celebrating New Year’s Eve in the Grand Ballroom of the ocean liner. The film then details the trials of ten survivors as they desperately make their way to the ship’s hull, which is now their only hope for escape, something they must do before the ship sinks to the ocean floor. Along the way,...

Sometimes it’s hard to put a fresh coat of paint on an old house. The colors can bleed through no matter how many new layers are added, giving the house a look of desperation from a block away. But sometimes the right paint is used, the restoration is done with love and affection, and the new owners actually care about their surroundings. Such is the case with The Night Stalker (1972), the ABC TV movie that took the vampire out of his crumbling castle and transported him to the seedier side of the modern day Las Vegas strip; and in doing so created one of the most endearingly reluctant monster hunters of all time, Carl Kolchak.

Originally airing as the ABC Movie of the Week on Tuesday, January 11th, 1972, The Night Stalker slayed the competition in the ratings, including CBS’s successful Hawaii Five-o/Cannon lineup. And I mean destroyed...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) is showing January 31 - March 2 and Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is showing February 2 - March 3, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the double feature Gone Girls.In Peter Weir’s Australian classic, Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975), an injured, delirious Englishman being ferried away by doctors hands over a piece of lace he found on “the Rock,” as the locals refer to it. It is a scrap torn from the dress of one of three schoolgirls who went missing days earlier during a lunchtime picnic, and who all believe are lost, surely dead. This, his desperate look says, is proof the girls are up there somewhere. Halfway through Otto Preminger’s late masterpiece Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), a distraught mother seizes upon a paper stub that she finds in a wallet,...

Cinema Retro columnist Tom Lisanti co-authored (with Louis Paul) the book "Femme Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973" for McFarland publishers. The book has just been issued in a softcover edition, revised and updated. Here is Tom Lisanti's story behind the creation of the book.

It was a long time coming, fifteen years in fact, but McFarland and Company finally released a soft cover edition of the very popular and well-received Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Film & Television, 1962-1973 by Louis Paul and myself. The book profiles 107 dazzling women (Ursula Andress, Raquel Welch, Dahlia Lavi, Carol Lynley, Elke Sommer, and Sharon Tate, among them) who worked in the swinging sixties spy genre on the big and small screens. Some include interviews with these sexy spy gals. This new edition contains some profile revisions and updates and a few new photos.

The idea for this book was all Louis Paul’s.

Years after Steve McQueen’s character helped stop the Blob from absorbing an entire small town, the gelatinous terror returned to ooze eerily in Beware! The Blob (aka Son of Blob) Earlier this year, Kino Lorber announced that they were releasing the 1972 sequel on Blu-ray and DVD, and now they have revealed the debut date, cover art, and special features for the home media release.

From Kino Lorber: “Coming September 20th on Blu-ray and DVD!

Brand New 2016 HD Master!

Beware! The Blob (1972) aka Son of Blob!

Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith Alternate Title Sequence Trailers”

Beware! The Blob stars Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Godfrey Cambridge, Carol Lynley, Larry Hagman, Dick Van Patten, Shelley Berman, Gerrit Graham, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb, Sig Haig, and Burgess Meredith. The sequel was directed by Larry Hagman from a screenplay by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods. For those unfamiliar with the film,...

Join us for some old-school 16mm Movie Madness! – It’s our monthly 16Mm Double Feature Night at The Way Out Club (2525 Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis) ! Join We Are Movie Geeks‘ Tom Stockman and Roger from “Roger’s Reels’ for a double feature of two complete films projected on 16mm film. The show is Tuesday May 3rd and starts at 8pm. Admission is Free though we will be setting out a jar to take donations for the National Children’s Cancer Society.

First up is The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The Poseidon Adventure is the breathtaking story of a cruise ship capsized by a tidal wave, the result of an undersea earthquake. At the time of the disaster, many of the ship’s passengers are celebrating New Year’s Eve in the Grand Ballroom of the ocean liner. The film then details the trials of ten survivors as they desperately make their...

Hollywood tackles the big issues! This adapted play about an unwanted teen pregnancy is actually quite good, thanks to fine performances by Carol Lynley and Brandon De Wilde, who convince as cherubic high schoolers 'too young to know the score.' And hey, the teen trauma is set to an intense music score by Bernard Herrmann. Blue Denim 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives 1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date March 16, 2016 / available through Amazon / 19.98 Starring Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert. Cinematography Leo Tover Film Editor William Reynolds, George Leggewie Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble Produced by Charles Brackett Directed by Philip Dunne

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Sex education today is erratic, with no established standard, but...

Following the debut of Irvin Yeaworth Jr.'s The Blob in 1958, filmgoers were safe from its absorbent wrath until Beware! The Blob (aka Son of Blob) invaded the big screen in 1972. Now Kino Lorber is looking to bring the oozing menace into living rooms with their newly announced Blu-ray and DVD release of The Blob sequel.

Kino Lorber revealed today that they will release Beware! The Blob on Blu-ray and DVD sometime in 2016. The enhanced release will benefit from a new HD master. No special features are known at this time, but we'll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further announcements.

Beware! The Blob stars Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Godfrey Cambridge, Carol Lynley, Larry Hagman, Dick Van Patten, Shelley Berman, Gerrit Graham, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb, Sig Haig, and Burgess Meredith. The sequel was directed by Larry Hagman from a screenplay by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods. For those unfamiliar with the film,...

Michael Winner is the bad-taste choice to give The Exorcist a run for its money in the faux-religious horror shocker sweepstakes, and the brave actress Cristina Raines leads an impressive supporting cast as the unfortunate suicide attemptee chosen to be the new Gatekeeper for the portal to Hell. Don't expect to see a Keymaster, but instead some of the most indigestible exploitation of the mainstream decade -- mainly real sideshow oddities to represent 'evil' people. Easily the hands-down insensitivity champ of the '70s. The Sentinel Blu-ray Shout! Factory / Scream Factory 1977 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / 27.99 Starring Cristina Raines, Chris Sarandon, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Kennedy, Deborah Raffin, Ava Gardner, John Carradine, Beverly D'Angelo, Eli Wallach, Sylvia Miles, Martin Balsam, José Ferrer, Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, William Hickey, Jeff Goldblum, Anthony Holland, Tom Berenger. Cinematography Dick Kratina Special Effects Albert Whitlock Special Makeup Effects Dick Smith Original Music Gil Melle...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Dean Jones: Actor in Disney movies. Dean Jones dead at 84: Actor in Disney movies 'The Love Bug,' 'That Darn Cat!' Dean Jones, best known for playing befuddled heroes in 1960s Walt Disney movies such as That Darn Cat! and The Love Bug, died of complications from Parkinson's disease on Tue., Sept. 1, '15, in Los Angeles. Jones (born on Jan. 25, 1931, in Decatur, Alabama) was 84. Dean Jones movies Dean Jones began his Hollywood career in the mid-'50s, when he was featured in bit parts – at times uncredited – in a handful of films at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer In 2009 interview for Christianity Today, Jones recalled playing his first scene (in These Wilder Years) with veteran James Cagney, who told him “Walk to your mark and remember your lines” – supposedly a lesson he would take to heart. At MGM, bit player Jones would also be featured in Robert Wise's...

'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' 2015: Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' movie is a domestic box office bomb: Will it be saved by international filmgoers? Directed by Sherlock Holmes' Guy Ritchie and toplining Man of Steel star Henry Cavill and The Lone Ranger costar Armie Hammer, the Warner Bros. release The Man from U.N.C.L.E. has been a domestic box office disaster, performing about 25 percent below – already quite modest – expectations. (See also: “'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' Movie: Bigger Box Office Flop Than Expected.”) This past weekend, the $80 million-budget The Man from U.N.C.L.E. collected a meager $13.42 million from 3,638 North American theaters, averaging $3,689 per site. After five days out, the big-screen reboot of the popular 1960s television series starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum has taken in a mere $16.77 million. For comparison's sake:...

'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' box office: Bigger domestic flop than expected? Before I address the box office debacle of Warner Bros.' The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I'd like remark upon the fact that 2015 has been a notable year at the North American box office. That's when the dinosaurs of Jurassic World smashed Hulk and his fellow Halloween-costumed Marvel superheroes of Avengers: Age of Ultron. And smashed them good: $636.73 million vs. $457.52 million. (See also: 'Jurassic World' beating 'The Avengers' worldwide and domestically?) At least in part for sentimental (or just downright morbid) reasons – Paul Walker's death in a car accident in late 2013 – Furious 7 has become by far the highest-grossing The Fast and the Furious movie in the U.S. and Canada: $351.03 million. (Shades of Heath Ledger's unexpected death...

'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' with Henry Cavill. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' box office: Hollywood's third domestic bomb in a row Right on the heels of Chris Columbus-Adam Sandler's Pixels and Josh Trank's Fantastic Four comes The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a big screen adaptation of the 1960s television series, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Man of Steel hero Henry Cavill and The Lone Ranger costar Armie Hammer. (See updated follow-up post: “'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' Movie Box Office: Bigger Bomb Than Expected.”) Budgeted at a reported $88 million, to date Pixels has collected a mere $61.11 million in North America. Overseas things are a little better: an estimated $73.6 million as of Aug. 9, for a worldwide total of approx. $134.71 million. Sounds profitable? Well, not yet. First of all, let's not forget that distributor...

Ann-Margret movies: From sex kitten to two-time Oscar nominee. Ann-Margret: 'Carnal Knowledge' and 'Tommy' proved that 'sex symbol' was a remarkable actress Ann-Margret, the '60s star who went from sex kitten to respected actress and two-time Oscar nominee, is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 13, '15. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, TCM is showing this evening the movies that earned Ann-Margret her Academy Award nods: Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Ken Russell's Tommy (1975). Written by Jules Feiffer, and starring Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel, the downbeat – some have found it misogynistic; others have praised it for presenting American men as chauvinistic pigs – Carnal Knowledge is one of the precursors of “adult Hollywood moviemaking,” a rare species that, propelled by the success of disparate arthouse fare such as Vilgot Sjöman's I Am Curious (Yellow) and Costa-Gavras' Z, briefly flourished from...

The recent passing of Lesley Gore was not noted on We Are Movie Geeks, I’d like to correct that and as a tribute to her review one of the best concerts ever captured on film (actually on video but I’ll get to that soon.)

Born Lesley Sue Goldstein in New York City on May 2nd 1946 Lesley Gore passed on February 16, this year. She never tried her hand at acting (to my knowledge) yet she appeared in several films and many television shows singing one of or more of her considerable string of hits in a very strong voice, for such a little lady.

It’s My Party is probably her most famous and well remembered song but Judy’s Turn To Cry, Maybe I Know, Sunshine Lollipops, You Don’t Own Me and several other songs charted during her long career. She never resented being consigned to the...