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Mill Creek’s latest disc collection gathers three Columbia Sci-fi faves and throws in a Blu-ray debut for a fourth. It’s a good selection: two giant Ray Harryhausen monsters, one marginal bad-taste Sam Katzman zombie epic, and a quirky Lou Costello comedy with Dorothy Provine doing a wholesome take on Allison Hayes’ biggest role. Do these encodings measure up to fancier editions? We give them a spin.

Sci-Fi from the Vault: 4 Films

Blu-ray

Creature with the Atom Brain, It Came from Beneath the Sea, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock

Mill Creek Entertainment

1955-1959 / B&w / 303 min. / Street Date February 14, 2023 / Available from Mill Creek Entertainment / 29.99

Starring: Richard Denning; Kenneth Tobey & Faith Domergue; William Hopper & Joan Taylor; Lou Costello & Dorothy Provine.

Directed by Edward L. Cahn, Robert Gordon, Nathan Juran, Sidney Miller

Disc collectors are now tempted weekly by plenty of interesting disc releases...

Exclusive: The last thing we needed to hear as the box office and exhibition are rebounding from the pandemic was a piece of bad news, but word spread like wildfire in distribution and exhibition circles Monday that the Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres won’t be reopening. The chain, owned by Decurion, has issued a statement — read it below.

Last week, I was hearing that the chain was shooting for a Memorial Day weekend reopening with A Quiet Place Part II and Cruella. Now those hopes look dashed, and at an unfortunate time because it’s expected that Los Angeles County could have movie theaters operating at 100% capacity by then — well before California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s June 15 wide-open order.

Decurion’s crown jewel is the Hollywood Arclight multiplex on Sunset Boulevard and its 58-year old Cinerama Dome, which made a big cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Actor Rip Torn has died at age 88. He was a volatile figure in the entertainment industry, known for his sometimes bizarre behavior as well as his brilliant performances. A native Texan, he gravitated to  New York City in the 1950s where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the legendary Actors Studio. He was championed by director Elia Kazan, who gave Torn high profile roles in his stage and film productions. Torn gained major acclaim with a Tony-nominated performance on Broadway in "Sweet Bird of Youth", a role he would reprise in the 1963 film version. Torn's film career occasionally saw him attain leading man status but he remained a highly acclaimed supporting actor throughout his career. His feature films include "A Face in the Crowd", "Baby Doll", "The Cincinnati Kid", "Pork Chop Hill", "King of Kings", "Beach Red", "Coming Apart", "Tropic of Cancer", "Crazy Joe", "The Man Who Fell to Earth...

Robert Day, the veteran British director who in the 1960s worked on five Tarzan movies and guided Peter Sellers in the delicious comedy Two-Way Stretch, has died. He was 94.

Day, who also helmed two Boris Karloff horror flicks, died Friday on Bainbridge Island in Washington state, his family announced. He worked in the U.S. starting in the 1970s and retired in 1991.

Day was married to bubbly American actress and dancer Dorothy Provine (TV's The Roaring 20's, That Darn Cat!) from 1969 until her death in 2010.

Day directed Gordon Scott as the King of the Jungle...

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...

Cast

Captain T. G. Culpeper Spencer Tracy J. Russell Finch Milton Berle Melville Crump Sid Caesar Benjy Benjamin Buddy Hackett Mrs. Marcus Ethel Merman Ding Bell Mickey Rooney Sylvester Marcus Dick Shawn Otto Meyer Phil Silvers J. Algernon Hawthorne Terry-Thomas Lennie Pike Jonathan Winters Monica Crump Edie Adams Emeline Finch Dorothy Provine Cabdriver Eddie “Rochester” Anderson Tyler Fitzgerald Jim Backus Man driving in the desert Jack Benny Union official Joe E. Brown Biplane pilot Ben Blue Police sergeant Alan Carney Detective Chick Chandler Mrs. Halliburton Barrie Chase Mayor Lloyd Corrigan Police chief William Demarest Sheriff of Crocket County Andy Devine Ginger Culpeper (voice) Selma Diamond Cabdriver Peter Falk Detective Normal Fell Colonel Wilberforce Paul Ford Deputy sheriff Stan Freberg Billie Sue Culpeper (voice) Louise Glenn Cabdriver Leo Gorcey Fire chief Sterling Holloway Mr. Dinckler Edward Everett Horton Irwin Marvin Kaplan Jimmy the Cook Buster Keaton Nervous motorist Don Knotts Airport...

Article by Sam Moffitt

It’s tough to say goodbye to Sid Caesar. I’ve been pondering what I can possibly say about a comedy legend who has been around as long as I can remember and contributed so much to comedy, mostly on television but also many times in motion pictures.

Firstly Sid Caesar was in on the ground floor of television, his earliest programs done live in 1949 before the video switch board had even been invented. In those earliest shows the director was on the stage telling the floor managers which cameras and mikes to hook or unhook to the coax and audio cables! Consider that just for a moment!

Caesar’s wonderful book Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter, co written with Eddie Friedfeld tells all about Sid Caesar’s years in show business and the legendary live variety shows; Your Show of Shows...

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Hollywood Goes "Mad"

By Raymond Benson

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the 1963 classic epic comedy directed by Stanley Kramer, is one of those Hollywood train wrecks that you can’t help but like. It’s a one-of-a-kind all-star extravaganza featuring some of the biggest names of mostly 1950s and early 1960s comedy (and a good number of them were known primarily as television actor/comics rather than big screen performers). The United Artists release was one of a current trend of movie star ensemble film in which the producers attempt to throw in as many big names as possible (e.g. Exodus, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Longest Day). As Kramer himself states in a reunion extra that appears on Criterion’s new Blu-ray/DVD combo set, “It would be impossible to make today,” due to the salaries stars demand now.

Natalie Wood: Hot Hollywood star in the ’60s - TCM schedule on August 18, 2013 See previous post: “Natalie Wood Movies: From loving Warren Beatty to stripping like Gypsy Rose Lee.” 3:00 Am The Star (1952). Director: Stuart Heisler. Cast: Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden, Natalie Wood, Warner Anderson, Minor Watson, June Travis, Paul Frees, Robert Warrick, Barbara Lawrence, Fay Baker, Herb Vigran, Marie Blake, Sam Harris, Marcia Mae Jones. Bw-90 mins. 4:30 Am A Cry In The Night (1956). Director: Frank Tuttle. Cast: Edmond O’Brien, Brian Donlevy, Natalie Wood. Bw-75 mins. 6:00 Am West Side Story (1961). Director: Robert Wise. Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Simon Oakland, Ned Glass, William Bramley, Tucker Smith, Tony Mordente, David Winters, Eliot Feld, John Bert Michaels, David Bean, Robert Banas, Anthony ‘Scooter’ Teague, Harvey Evans aka Harvey Hohnecker, Tommy Abbott, Susan Oakes, Gina Trikonis, Carole D’Andrea, Jose De Vega, Jay Norman,...

The 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival continues to expand, with newly added appearances by legendary stars at screenings of some of their most memorable films, including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan, Barrie Chase, Polly Bergen,Coleen Gray, Theodore Bikel and Norman Lloyd, as well as producer Stanley Rubin, Clara Bow biographer David Stenn, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film collections manager Katie Trainor and director Nicholas Ray’s widow, Susan Ray. In addition, TCM’s Essentials Jr. host and Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader will present screenings of Shane (1953) and The Ladykillers(1955).

And The Film Forum’s Bruce Goldstein will present a special screening of Frank Capra’s The Donovan Affair (1929), complete with live voice actors and sound effects to replace the film’s long-lost soundtrack.Mel Brooks is slated to talk about his comedy The Twelve Chairs (1970). Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan...

Turner Classic Movies will present back-to-back showings of two films by the late Howard Morris, the supremely talented comedy actor and director. The films begin at 8:00 tonight (Est) with the 1968 comedy With Six You Get Eggroll starring Doris Day, Brian Keith and George Carlin in his first major screen appearance. Following this is the rarely-seen 1967 comedy Who's Minding the Mint? with a stellar cast that includes Jim Hutton, Dorothy Provine, Milton Bearle, Walter Brennan, Joey Bishop, Bob Denver, Victor Buono and Jamie Farr. Neither film is available on DVD.

 

Provine played against her usual perky image in the starring role in The Bonnie Parker Story (1958)

Actress Dorothy Provine died last week at age 75. Provine was a sexy blonde whose career was somewhat sidelined by critics who felt she was an imitation Doris Day. Her perky on-screen personality landed her prominent roles in films such as Good Neighbor Sam, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, That Darn Cat! and Who's Minding the Mint? Provine also was the female lead in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature film One Spy Too Many. Her most memorable role was in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as the reluctant participant in a treasure hunt who ironically discovers where the fortune is buried. Provine was also a singer who scored two pop chart singles in the UK in the 1960s. For more click here...

Actress Dorothy Provine has died after a battle with emphysema.

The star passed away on Sunday at a hospice in Bremerton, Washington at the age of 75, reports Reuters.

Her career began after she landed the title role in 1958's The Bonnie Parker Story - just three days after moving from a small town in South Dakota to Hollywood.

She later went on to star in The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock with Lou Costello, and played Jack Lemmon's wife in Good Neighbor Sam.

Provine also appeared in 1963 comedy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World as well as Live Fast, Die Young and Never a Dull Moment, opposite Dick Van Dyke.

She is survived by her husband, TV director Robert Day.

Dorothy Provine, best-known for her appearance in Stanley Kramer’s 1963 all-star comedy blockbuster It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and for the TV series The Roaring ’20s, died of emphysema on Sunday morning, April 25, at the Hospice of Kitsap County in Bremerton, Wash. She was 75. According to Provine’s widower, television director Robert Day, Provine "was very reserved," preferring long drives, watching movies, and reading books to socializing. The couple had been living on Washington State’s Bainbridge Island for about two decades. Born on Jan. 20, 1935, in Deadwood, S.D., Dorothy Provine attended the University of Washington. The pretty blonde was later featured in a number of Hollywood productions of the late 1950s and 1960s, [...]...

Etta James must be taking lessons from Faye Dunaway in how to be a diva. Etta James came out swinging against Beyonce for daring to perform her signature song — "At Last" — as the first dance for Barack and Michelle Obama at an inaugural ball. At a Jan. 28 concert in Seattle, the veteran singer let rip: "I tell you, that woman he has singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ... whipped. I can’t stand Beyonce, she had no business up there singing ... my song that I’ve been singing forever."

However, that was not the first time Beyonce had sung "At Last." She played Etta James in the December release "Cadillac Records" and performed that tune among many others in the film. And at the premiere of the picture, Beyonce sang her predecessor’s praises: "She’s a living legend and I want her to love the movie,...