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Swedish outfit will represent film worldwide outside the UK, US and Canada.

Stockholm-based sales agency Eyewell has acquired intenational rights to Michael Wright’s UK-set crime noir The Undertaker excluding the UK, US and Canada.

Paul McGann stars in the film which is being distributed by Rrb Films / DC Releasing in the UK and Ireland. It is now in postproduction.

Set in a northern town in the 1960s, The Undertaker sees a mild-mannered funeral director become caught up in a power-grab by a local gangster.

Tara Fitzgerald co-stars with Roger Barclay, Sean Gilder and Lily Frazer. Murray Melvin, who appeared...

Keith Nale, a contestant on two seasons of “Survivor,” has died at the age of 62 following a brief battle with cancer.

“He passed away this afternoon,” Nale’s son Wes told Et Online on Tuesday. “He’d been battling cancer for the past few months and we found out about it in January.”

“A life taken way too soon,” Nale’s brother Kevin added in a statement to the outlet. “It happened so quickly. Cancer ate him up. He passed this afternoon at his home in Shreveport, Louisiana.”

Keith and Wes, 32, competed on “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” in 2014 as father-son contestants. Keith later returned to the franchise for “Survivor: Cambodia” in 2015. He went on to the final four on “San Juan del Sur” and the final five on “Cambodia.”

Also Read:

Mark Sheehan, Guitarist of Irish Band The Script, Dies at 46

Kelley Wentworth, who competed against Keith on both seasons,...

Murray Melvin, a British actor known for his roles in The Phantom of the Opera, A Taste of Honey, Torchwood and Barry Lyndon, died Friday. He was 90.

His rep Thomas Bowington confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Melvin died at St. Thomas’ hospital in London.

“He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him,” Kerry Kyriacos Michael, a London-bade creative director and producer, wrote on Twitter Saturday.

Born on Aug. 10, 1932, in London, Melvin made his acting debut in 1957 with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop Company in a production of Macbeth at the Theatre Royal Stratford.

After he made his film debut in 1960 in The Risk, he went on to land roles in The Phantom of the Opera, Torchwood and Barry Lyndon. But it was his role as gay textile design student Geoffrey Ingham in A Taste of Honey,...

Veteran British actor Murray Melvin who’s best known for his role in “The Phantom of the Opera,” “A Taste of Honey” and the “Doctor Who” spin-off “Torchwood,” died April 14 at St Thomas’ hospital in London. He was 90.

London-based creative director Kerry Kyriacos Michael made the announcement on Twitter and said Melvin died after taking a bad fall in December “from which he never fully recovered.”

“He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him,” Michael wrote.

He had a fall in December, from which he never fully recovered. He died at St Thomas' Hospital on Friday, 14th April, aged 90. He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him.

— Kerry Kyriacos Michael MBE (@1KerryMichael) April 15, 2023 Also Read:

Mark Sheehan, Guitarist of Irish Band The Script,...

Actor Murray Melvin, whose extensive work in film and on stage was highly respected by his peers, has died from complications from a fall suffered in December. He was 90 and died on April 14, according to Kerry Kyriacos Michael MBE, creative director at Theatro Technis.

Melvin’s body of work included time with Michael Caine and directory Stanley Kubrick. After making his debut in 1957 at the Theatre Royal in Stratford in Macbeth, he went on to appear in such notable films as Alfie (1966), Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

Born on August 10, 1932 in London, he was also seen on the TV sci-fi drama “Torchwood.”

He made his stage debut in 1957 at the Theatre Royal in Stratford for Macbeth. He then went on to star in films such as Alfie (1966) alongside Michael Caine, Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

His film resume includes H.M.S Defiant (1962), Sparrows Can’t...

Haven’t yet seen all the best old-school vintage naval combat epics? This color & ‘scope thriller has a terrific cast of Brit stars and up-n-comers, can boast excellent visuals and is historically accurate. Alec Guinness captains a ship during the Napoleonic Wars, and finds his duty complicated by a psychopathic top officer (Dirk Bogarde) who usurps authority and sees the crew as fresh meat for his sadistic ideas about discipline. All the tech and art credits are top-tier, plus we get nice supporting perfs from the likes of Anthony Quayle, Nigel Stock, Maurice Denham, Victor Maddern, Tom Bell, and Murray Melvin.

Damn the Defiant!

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 136

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date June 29, 2022 / H.M.S. Defiant / Available from Viavision / Australian 34.95 / and Amazon US / 34.95

Starring: Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Maurice Denham, Nigel Stock, Richard Carpenter, Peter Gill, David Robinson, Robin Stewart, Ray Brooks, Peter Greenspan, Anthony Quayle, Tom Bell,...

Move over, Angry Young Men: Alfie Elkins leverages class resentment and killer good looks to become a ladies’ man extraordinaire… in his own eyes. Michael Caine was born to play Bill Naughton’s smooth-talking, responsibility-dodging cad’s cad. Alfie mistreats a glorious lineup of actresses — Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Vivien Merchant — and Shelley Winters is hilarious as the widow who has his number. Will Alfie maybe develop a conscience? The two-disc special edition shares a double bill with My Generation, a highly entertaining Swinging London documentary hosted by Michael Caine. Being kind doesn’t make one a fool, Alfie.

Alfie + My Generation

Blu-ray (Region-Free)

Viavision [Imprint] 41

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date June 2, 2021 / Available from Viavision / au 64.98

Starring: Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Vivien Merchant, Millicent Martin, Denholm Elliott, Alfie Bass, Graham Stark, Eleanor Bron, Shirley Anne Field, Murray Melvin, Sydney Tafler.

Cinematography: Otto Heller

Art Direction:...

Stanley Kubrick’s contribution to great cinema of the 1970s offers his vision of what an epic should be. Transported by images that recall great paintings of the period, and Kubrick’s new approaches to low-light cinematography, we witness a rogue’s progress through troubled times. And even Ryan O’Neal is good!

Barry Lyndon

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 897

1975 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 185 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 17, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger, Steven Berkoff, Gay Hamilton, Marie Kean, Diana Körner, Murray Melvin, Frank Middlemass, André Morell, Arthur O’Sullivan, Godfrey Quigley, Leonard Rossiter, Philip Stone, Leon Vitali Leon Vitali, Wolf Kahler, Ferdy Mayne, George Sewell, Michael Hordern (narrator).

Cinematography: John Alcott

Editor: Tony Lawson

Production design: Ken Adam

Conductor & Musical Adaptor: Leonard Rosenman

Written by Stanley Kubrick from the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray

Produced and Directed by Stanley Kubrick

The...

They don’t make ’em like this any more, and the original TV spots for James Gray’s accurate retelling of history almost didn’t know how to sell it. Charlie Hunnam spends his life trying to solve a riddle of the Peruvian rainforest, in between fighting in WW1 and dealing with class prejudice. Yup, one could say the picture was filmed in a ‘classic’ style . . . can a show like that find an audience these days?

The Lost City of Z

Blu-ray

Broadgreen / Amazon Studios

2016 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / 34.99

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Edward Ashley, Angus Macfadyen, Ian McDiarmid, Clive Francis, Murray Melvin.

Cinematography: Darious Khondji

Film Editor:John Axelrad, Lee Haugen

Original Music: Christopher Spelman

From the book by David Grann

Produced by Dede Gardner, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, Jeremy Kleiner

Written for the Screen and Directed by James Gray

More...

It’s hard to think of a musical that would benefit more from a Blu-ray boost than Ken Russell’s kaleidoscopic all dancing, all singing send-up of theatrical clichés on the music hall stage, circa 1925. We’re just happy that the adorable Twiggy got to be put in a film like this, to be enjoyed forever. The Russell crowd is all aboard, led by Glenda Jackson and Murray Melvin. Gosh!

The Boy Friend

Blu-ray

The Warner Archive Collection

1971 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 136 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Twiggy, Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Bryan Pringle, Murray Melvin, Moyra Fraser, Georgina Hale, Sally Bryant, Vladek Sheybal, Tommy Tune, Brian Murphy, Graham Armitage, Antonia Ellis, Caryl Little, Glenda Jackson.

Cinematography: David Watkin

Film Editor: Michael Bradsell

Production Design: Tony Walton

Costumes: Shirley Russell

Written by: Ken Russell from the musical by Sandy Wilson

Produced and Directed by: Ken Russell

Some...

Next week sees the release of Criterion’s stunning Blu-ray restoration of the film that launched a thousand Smiths lyrics (I nearly fell of the couch when I heard Paul Danquah say “I dreamt about you last night. I fell out of bed twice.”) Morrissey credits half his career as a writer to Shelagh Delaney, the nineteen-year-old Manchester playwright whose 1958 play and subsequent film were a worldwide sensation. The rare kitchen-sink classic that centers on a woman rather than an angry young man, the main reason for the film’s success—though it is excellent in so many ways—was the then-unknown Rita Tushingham. Chosen from among thousands of girls, her star-making performance blew all the remaining cobwebs off British film acting and skipped away with the Best Actress award at Cannes (where, as recounted in a lovely interview with the now 74-year-old Tushingham on the Blu-ray, she and co-star...

Elfin Rita Tushingham makes a smash film debut as Shelagh Delaney's dispirited working class teen, on her own in Manchester and unprepared for the harsh truths of life. It's one of the best of the British New Wave. A Taste of Honey Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 829 1961 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Paul Danquah, Murray Melvin, Robert Stephens. Cinematography Walter Lassally Film Editor Anthony Gibbs Original Music John Addison Written by Tony Richardson and Shelagh Delaney adapted from her stage play Produced and directed by Tony Richardson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The British New Wave got a real shot in the arm with 1961's A Taste of Honey. A stubbornly realistic drama about life in the lower working classes of Manchester, it was adapted from a near-revolutionary play by Shelagh Delaney, produced by Joan Littlewood. Here in...

“Everything But The Kitchen Sink”

By Raymond Benson

In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.

Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working...

Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...

'The Fixer' movie with Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm (background) 'The Fixer' movie review: 1968 anti-Semitism drama wrecked by cast, direction, and writing In 1969, director John Frankenheimer declared that he felt "better about The Fixer than anything I've ever done in my life." Considering Frankenheimer's previous output – Seven Days in May, the much admired The Manchurian Candidate – it is hard to believe that the director was being anything but a good P.R. man for his latest release. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (itself based on the real story of Jewish brick-factory worker Menahem Mendel Beilis), The Fixer is an overlong, overblown, and overwrought contrivance that, albeit well meaning, carelessly misuses most of the talent involved while sadistically abusing the patience – and at times the intelligence – of its viewers. John Frankenheimer overindulges in 1960s kitsch John Frankenheimer...

Interview Rachel Bowles 27 Mar 2013 - 07:30

We chatted to Alan Davies about forthcoming Jonathan Creek Easter Special, the new series, Qi, stand-up, and more...

Jonathan Creek is back on the Beeb, and not just for Easter special, The Clue of the Savant's Thumb starring Alan Davies, Sheridan Smith, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer and Joanna Lumley, but also for three brand new episodes due to film this autumn. We caught up with lead Alan Davies in a round table interview to talk magicians, detectives, Sherlock Holmes, "Creek Geeks", Qi, and more...

Congratulations on the episode, I know you can’t give too much away...

I know it is hard this, you want to big it up but then you can’t say anything that will ruin it, yes it is all so delicate, the clues and the mysteries and everything; you can’t really talk about it.

In light of the...

I’m sure at least some of us take for granted what we have.

The second we hear about an interesting movie, all we have to do is whip out a smart phone and yell at it until it brings us to an IMDb page. In the past decade, our access to films, TV shows and pop culture phenomena has become a need for instantaneous access. Infamous films no longer just exist in the recesses of an older sibling’s mind waiting to scare and delight us. We have full access 24/7. And even then the information comes to us in bite-sized morsels. But some films warrant a bigger discussion. Ken Russell’s The Devils is an obscure and extreme film which has a larger story and history than what was committed to celluloid.

Canada’s leading film critic Richard Crouse (he hosted a screening of The Devils with Ken Russell...

Actor who made his name at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and appeared in the Beatles films, making firm friends with the Fab Four

Victor Spinetti, who has died of cancer aged 82, was an outrageously talented Welsh actor and raconteur who made his name with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and found fame and fortune as a friend and colleague of the Beatles, appearing in three of their five films, and with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967).

It was while he was giving his brilliantly articulated and hilarious "turn" as the gobbledegook-shouting drill sergeant in Oh, What a Lovely War! in the West End in 1963 – he won a Tony for the performance when the show went to Broadway – that the Beatles visited him backstage and invited him to appear in A Hard Day's Night (1964).

George Harrison later said that his mother would...

Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils Ken Russell, the director of Women in Love, The Boy Friend, and Altered States, died Sunday, Nov. 27, at the age of 84. Coincidentally, the British Film Institute, with much fanfare, announced several months ago that it would be releasing for the first time on DVD the X-rated version of Russell's The Devils, a mix of history, political intrigue, religious fanaticism, and unbridled sex in 17th-century France. The X-rated version is purported to be the uncut version of The Devils. Well, it's not, really. Adapted by Russell from John Whiting's 1960 play and Aldous Huxley's 1952 historical novel The Devils of Loudun, The Devils stars Vanessa Redgrave (in lieu of a recalcitrant Glenda Jackson) as Loudun's Ursuline convent head Sister Jeanne, a neurotic, physically deformed woman who is sexually obsessed with local priest Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed). Following a series of "possessions" in the convent, Grandier...

Feisty playwright best known for her ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey

Shelagh Delaney was 18 when she wrote A Taste of Honey, one of the defining plays of the 1950s working-class and feminist cultural movements. The play's group of dysfunctional characters, utterly alien to the prevailing middle-class "anyone for tennis?" school of theatre, each explored their chances of attaining a glimpse of happiness. The central character, a young girl named Jo, lives in a decrepit flat in Salford with her mother, who is apt to wander off in pursuit of men with money. Jo becomes pregnant by a black sailor and is cared for by Geoffrey, a young gay friend, until her mother ousts him in what could be a burst of suppressed maternal love or a display of jealous control-freakery.

Delaney, who has died of cancer aged 71, had to endure harsh criticism for her attack on the orthodoxies of the period.

DVD Playhouse June 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion) Robert Aldrich’s 1955 reinvention of the film noir detective story is one of cinema’s great genre mash-ups: part hardboiled noir; part cold war paranoid thriller; and part science- fiction. Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane’s fascist detective Mike Hammer as a narcissistic simian thug, a sadist who would rather smash a suspect’s fingers than make love to the bevvy of beautiful dames that cross his path. In fact, the only time you see a smile cross Meeker’s sneering mug is when he’s doling out pain, with a vengeance. When a terrified young woman (Cloris Leachman, film debut) literally crossed Hammer’s path one night, and later turns up dead, he vows to get to the bottom of her brutal demise. One of the most influential films ever made, and perhaps the most-cited film by the architects...

One thing I truly love about cinema is the way in which films can make an audience think, to ignite a spark in their minds, provoking thoughts that never would have occurred otherwise and send them off in new directions, contemplating new ideas and viewpoints. One of the most exciting ways that cinema often achieves this is through confrontation, dangerous and exciting cinema that pulls no punches and feels dangerous.

One such dangerous film is Ken Russell’s 1971 The Devils, screened last week as part of Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival with Ken Russell himself in attendance. The film takes place in 17th century France and focuses on Father Grandier, played by Oliver Reed giving probably the best performance of his career. Grandier is a sexually adventurous priest who, despite what appears to be genuine faith and devotion to god, pushes the boundaries of what is morally acceptable at the time,...

New Europe Film Season, Edinburgh

As the EU expands, so too do film festivals that aim to present new European cinema in all its gritty glory. This year's tales of urban survival and cultural and geographical displacement come mainly from central and eastern Europe, with a sneaky entry from the not-quite-in-the-club-but-nearly Croatia, which offers Balkan war drama The Blacks. You can delve into the murky depths of the Warsaw criminal underworld in Snow White And Russian Red, or discover the sweet and surreal stylings of Latvian Signe Baumane's short films. There's also Zero, a brilliantly twisted tale of 24 stories of revenge, jealousy and despair in 24 hours from Polish director Pawel Borowski, and, from Hungary comes the Mike Leigh-esque I Am Not Your Friend, about the dark side of modern Budapest.

Edinburgh Filmhouse, Fri to 28 Apr

Andrea Hubert

Extraordinary Film Festival, London

London used to have cinemas that played nothing but extraordinary films,...

Director Robert Sigl, director of the Fango Video release School’S Out and the upcoming The Spider, sent along some exclusive pics and news on Hepzibah, a horror film he’s currently directing for German network ProSieben. The setting is “an ordinary town called Selmen which has become the bizarre scene of a most terrifying trend,” Sigl tells Fango.

“Seemingly happy girls are killing themselves on their 18th birthday,” he continues. “The video diaries of the dead girls lead our heroine Kirsten toward a dark secret hidden in the ruins of a medieval village recently rebuilt and reopened as a museum. An ancient curse has again surfaced, along with a ghostly figure seeking vengeance. Only three days remain for Kirsten to unravel the mystery before she herself turns 18, or she will become the next victim.”

Although made for German television, the film is being shot in English with leads Eleanor Tomlinson...