Leapin’ Lizards! The original cavemen vs. dinosaurs saga is a winner — if viewer involvement trumps visual effects, it’s got a narrow lead over the Hammer/Harryhausen remake. Victor Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. all made career hay out of their weeks spent running in loincloths, out in the desert. And Vci’s new disc is a terrific UCLA Archive restoration.

One Million B.C.

Blu-ray

Vci

1940 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 80 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 /

Starring: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark, Jean Porter, Inez Palange, Edgar Edwards, Jacqueline Dalya, Mary Gale Fisher.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: Ray Snyder

Original Music: Werner R. Heymann

Visual Effects: Roy Seawright, Jack Shaw, Frank Young

Written by Mickell Novack, George Baker, Joseph Frickert

Produced and Directed by Hal Roach

In the late 1930s fantasy and science fiction movies were few and far between,...

You pick up a lot of baggage when you live to be 100, a sentiment confirmed by the long, long movie career of Bob Hope. His unofficial status as the preeminent entertainer of the 20th century is open to debate but he was without a doubt that era’s most conspicuous comedian. Marlon Brando’s infamous dismissal, “He’ll go to the opening of a market to receive an award”, was mean-spirited but it had the sting of truth; for over eighty years Hope was everywhere, for better or worse.

Living up to his nickname, “Rapid Robert”, the 31-year old Hope shot out of the gate in 1934 with a series of quick-on-their feet comic shorts revolving around his unique presence as a leading man and comical sidekick rolled into one. It wasn’t long before he was starring in pleasantly prosaic musicals like The Big Broadcast of 1938 and handsomely mounted...

Looking to discover a top-quality film that honors lasting values? Jean Renoir gives Zachary Scott and Betty Field as Texas sharecroppers trying to survive a rough first year. It's beautifully written by Hugo Butler, with given realistic, earthy touches not found in Hollywood pix. And the transfer is a new UCLA restoration. With two impressive short subjects in equal good quality. The Southerner Blu-ray Kino Classics 1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date February 9, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Carol Naish, Norman Lloyd, Zachary Scott, Percy Kilbride, Charles Kemper, Blanche Yurka, Estelle Taylor, Paul Harvey, Noreen Nash, Nestor Paiva, Almira Sessions. Cinematography Lucien Andriot Film Editor Gregg C. Tallas Production Designer Eugène Lourié Assistant Director Robert Aldrich Original Music Werner Janssen Written by Hugo Butler, Jean Renoir from a novel by George Sessions Perry Produced by Robert Hakim, David L. Loew Directed by Jean Renoir...

“She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up!”

The Big Sleep screens this Saturday morning, January 9th at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117) as part of their Classic Film Series.

Director Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946) is one of the best Humphrey Bogart movies, one with more twists and turns than a pretzel factory. As Philip Marlowe, Bogie gives one of his best performances as the honest Private Eye up against the corruption and deceit of the Sternwood family and their “acquaintances”. Lauren Bacall is charming and sexy as Vivian, Bogies main love interest. But whose side is she on? Martha Vickers effectively plays Bacall’s younger spoiled sister whom Marlowe frequently encounters in his quest for the truth.

John Ridgely appears as Eddie Mars the chief villain of the piece. Veterans Elisha Cook Jr. (Harry Jones), Regis Toomey (Bernie) and Louis Jean Heydt...

'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...

Despite Hand of God‘s Old Testament-esque title… and the presence of a pastor as one of its main characters… and the fact that its protagonist thinks a higher power is communicating with him via signs and wonders… the new Amazon drama is no holy roller, cast member Garret Dillahunt says.

“It’s oddly not a show about religion as much as it is about man’s interpretation of it, or twisting it to his own ends,” says the Raising Hope alum, who plays Kd, a former white supremacist whose introduction to Christianity hasn’t completely bled him of his violent tendencies.

The experiment has failed. The Oscars simply don’t work. And no, I’m not just continuing to vent my frustration over Boyhood losing.

For the last six years, The Academy has experimented with a different number of Best Picture nominees, starting with 10, then a variable number between five and 10 based on first place votes.

That experiment could now be coming to an end. The Hollywood Reporter floated the rumor Tuesday that the Academy is seriously considering switching back to five nominees for Best Picture, and that the motion has support with a “significant fraction of the Academy”.

This is speculation at the moment, as the Academy’s Board of Governors isn’t set to meet until March 24. That said, this year’s Oscar ratings were down by 15 percent from last year, despite having one of the year’s biggest box office hits in American Sniper up for Best Picture...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Every year, the glittering lights and unique experience of Broadway lures Hollywood actors to the East Coast; some are veterans of the stage and others are making their Broadway debut. Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), James Franco (This is the End) and Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids) all made their Broadway debuts earlier this year, with O’Dowd receiving a Tony nomination for Of Mice and Men and Cranston winning a Tony for All The Way. Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), who hadn’t been on Broadway since his 2004 run in Assassins, scored his first Tony nomination and win for Hedwig and the Angry Inch this summer.

The Broadway lineup for the end of the year hosts a number of Hollywood actors making their Broadway debuts, and they are joined by an illustrious group of Broadway vets returning to the stage.

Michael Cera (Arrested Development) and Kieran Culkin,...

Widely regarded as the Oscars of Broadway, the 2014 Tony Awards went off without a hitch on Sunday night (June 8) in New York City.

Hugh Jackman took over the Radio City Music Hall with his amazing hosting talents and welcomed many performers on stage including Idina Menzel and Neil Patrick Harris.

As for the winners, Harris and Jessie Mueller (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) took home the prize for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical, respectively, while Bryan Cranston ("All The Way") and Audra McDonald ("Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill") scored a win for Best Actor and Actress in a Play, respectively.

In addition, the cast and crew of "All the Way" and "A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder" were recognized for their outstanding work on stage winning Best Play and Best Musical.

Check out the full list of 2014 Tony Award winners below!

Best Performance...

The 68th Tony Awards on Sunday, hosted by Hugh Jackman, took place at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, where the best of the stage were honored.

Tony Awards Recap

A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder picked up steam leading up to Tony night. At the end of the show, the musical, which follows a destitute man looking to remove the eight ahead of him inline for a title, won four awards Sunday. Gentleman’s Guide won for best musical, book of a musical, director and costume design.

How I Met Your Mother actor Neil Patrick Harris, who has previously been a favorite Tony host, picked up his first award – best lead actor in a musical – for starring in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Hedwig won for best musical revival, and Harris’ costar Lena Hall won best featured actress in a musical.

Jessie Mueller beat out...

Check out all the winners and nominees of the 68th Annual Tony Awards.

The biggest stars of Broadway gathered at New York City's Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night to honor and celebrate all the greatest shows and show-stopping performances from the world of theater at the 68th Annual Tony Awards.

Hugh Jackman served as host for his fourth time, and the three-hour ceremony saw lots of big wins.

The 2014 Tony Awards showcased many of the musical numbers from this year's nominated shows, and featured a slew of big-name Hollywood stars who served as presenters. Here is the complete winners list, along with some of our favorite acceptance speeches.

Did the right shows and stars win?

Best Play

Winner: All the Way

Other Nominees:

Act One

Casa Valentine

Mothers and Sons

Outside Mullingar

Best Musical

Winner: A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder

Other Nominees:

After Midnight

Aladdin

Beautiful — The Carole King Musical

A Gentleman’s Guide...

New York – Just over a week ago, The Hollywood Reporter conducted its first Tonys Actor Roundtable with six 2014 Tony nominees — Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), James Monroe Iglehart (Aladdin), Andy Karl (Rocky), Jefferson Mays (A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder), Chris O'Dowd (Of Mice and Men) and Tony Shalhoub (Act One) — and the conversation produced so much interesting material that it couldn't all fit into the main video. Therefore, THR is now releasing an 11-minute bonus feature: the actors' discussion about what first brought them to New York and what they regard

read more...

Will Neil Patrick Harris claim his first Tony Award this Sunday for his gender-bending turn in the musical revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch? Probably. Will fellow multiple-Emmy winner Bryan Cranston win for playing Lyndon B. Johnson in the biodrama All the Way? Count on it. But will it be the Carole King biomusical Beautiful or the murderously funny A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder that earns top honors as the Best New Musical of the Broadway season?

On that point, as on many other tight races in this year’s Tony contest, EW critics Melissa Rose Bernardo and Thom Geier are divided.

As we sneak up on this Sunday’s Tony Awards, the Broadway season’s box office winners are quickly emerging. And the biggest new hit appears to be on a magic carpet ride. For the week ending June 1, Disney’s Aladdin led new shows with nearly $1.2 million in ticket sales, according to figures from the Broadway League. The animated-film-based tuner is playing to full houses and nearly 88 percent of its potential gross in the cavernous 1,723-seat New Amsterdam Theatre. Right behind Aladdin, though, is a rare non-musical blockbuster: the Denzel Washington-led revival of A Raisin in the Sun, which...

The Hollywood Reporter has been sitting down with actors and actresses for Oscar and Emmy roundtable discussions for several years, but this year they're expanding eastward with their first ever Tonys roundtables. The inaugural participants include best actress in a musical nominees Sutton Foster (Violet), Idina Menzel (If/Then), Jessie Mueller (Beautiful: The Carole King Story) and Kelli O'Hara (The Bridges of Madison County) as well as best actress in a play nominees Tyne Daly (Mothers and Sons) and Latanya Richardson Jackson (A Raisin in the Sun). As for the men, THR spoke to best actor in a musical nominees Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Andy Karl (Rocky) and Jefferson Mays (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder), best featured actor in a musical nominee James Monroe Iglehart (Aladdin) and best actor in a play nominees Chris O'Dowd (Of Mice and Men)...

New York (AP) — It was a brutal Tuesday morning for some A-list stars on Broadway. Snubbed for Tony Award nominations were Denzel Washington, James Franco, Zachary Quinto, Michelle Williams, Orlando Bloom, Ethan Hawke, Zach Braff, Billy Crudup, Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig. Daniel Radcliffe struck out for his third consecutive Broadway show. Neil Patrick Harris, who won a nomination for his brilliant performance in the punk-rock show "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," said he was surprised by the final list. But he's been a Tony host and knows from experience the process is often rough. "Having been the host in previous years, it's always interesting and surprising," he said. "It's a small group of people that nominate and you're never quite sure what they're responding to. That being said, it does get to showcase the talents of people who often don't get their moment in the spotlight." One of the...

New York (AP) — The musical "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder," a comedic romp in which a poor man eliminates the eight heirs ahead of him for a title, nabbed a leading 10 Tony Award nominations on Tuesday. Nominations were spread out for most other shows, reflecting the lack of a juggernaut this year. "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," a cult off-Broadway hit about a transgender East German performer, stars Neil Patrick Harris and won eight nominations, while "After Midnight," a musical celebrating Duke Ellington's years at the Cotton Club nightclub, got seven, tied with "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" and a British revival of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." Bryan Cranston won a nod for playing Lyndon Johnson in "All the Way," and Woody Allen got one for turning his film "Bullets Over Broadway" into a musical. The nominations also made waves for snubbing some big names, including Denzel Washington,...

Always a summer highlight, the 68th Tony Awards will have plenty of excitement and drama when four-time host Hugh Jackman kicks things kick off on June 8th at Radio City Music Hall.

This morning (April 29) Lucy Liu and Jonathan Groff showed up at the Paramount Hotel’s Diamond Horseshoe nightclub in Manhattan to announce the illustrious list of hopefuls.

And with nominees like Idina Menzel and Audra McDonald on the docket, there’s no telling who will end up taking home a trophy.

The nominees for the 68th Tony Awards are:

Best Play

Act One

All the Way

Casa Valentina

Mothers and Sons

Outside Mullingar

Best Musical

After Midnight

Aladdin

Beautiful

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Best Revival of a Play

The Cripple of Inishmaan

The Glass Menagerie

A Raisin in the Sun

Twelfth Night

Best Revival of a Musical

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Les Miserables...

There was more suspense than usual in this year's hotly contested Tony Awards nomination race. So who came out ahead and who lost out? Mostly a rash of Hollywood thespians hitting Broadway: Daniel Radcliffe, Denzel Washington, James Franco and "Cabaret" star Michelle Williams were left off the nominations list, along with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart (“No Man’s Land/Waiting for Godot”), Zachary Quinto (“Glass Menagerie”), Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz (“Betrayal”), Orlando Bloom (“Romeo and Juliet”), Debra Messing (“Outside Mullingar”) and the entire cast of “The Realistic Joneses”: Michael C. Hall, Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei and Tony-winner Tracy Letts. Among those scoring nominations were Neil Patrick Harris ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), lead actor Chris O’Dowd (“Of Mice and Men"), Tony Shalhoub ("Act One"), and Bryan Cranston as Lbj in "All the Way"--who is getting closer to the rare Egot (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). Time to release a.

With the nominations for the 2014 Tony Awards finally upon us, the race has been blown wide open in one of the most nail-biting stage seasons in recent memory. Although Tuesday’s nominations announcement narrows down the pack to a manageable four or five candidates for Broadway’s highest honors, there’s an overwhelming feeling of absence when it comes to some of the bigger names who didn’t make the cut this year.

Snub: England’s the New Hollywood

All The Way’s Bryan Cranston and Of Mice and Men’s Chris O’Dowd are the marquee names in the...

Neil Patrick Harris, Bryan Cranston and Chris O'Dowd all earned Tony Award nominations Tuesday morning, while Denzel Washington, Daniel Radcliffe and Michelle Williams were among the high-profile snubs. Harris, 40, who has hosted the Tonys four times, earned his first nomination for best actor in a musical for his role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He was joined in that category by Ramin Karimloo (Les Misérables), Andy Karl (Rocky) and Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham (both for A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder). Cranston, 58, and O'Dowd, 34, both earned their first Tony nods and will square off in the category of...

Neil Patrick Harris, Bryan Cranston and Chris O'Dowd all earned Tony Award nominations Tuesday morning, while Denzel Washington, Daniel Radcliffe and Michelle Williams were among the high-profile snubs. Harris, 40, who has hosted the Tonys four times, earned his first nomination for best actor in a musical for his role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He was joined in that category by Ramin Karimloo (Les Misérables), Andy Karl (Rocky ) and Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham (both for A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder). Cranston, 58, and O'Dowd, 34, both earned their first Tony nods and will square off in the category of...

The 2014 Tony Award Nominations were announced this morning, and as expected, Neil Patrick Harris received his first Tony nom for Lead Actor In A Musical (and is the instant front runner) for Hedwig And The Angry Inch (which also received a Best Revival nom, and 8 nominations in total.).

Lucy Liu and a morning-gorgeous Jonathan Groff announced the nominations (and Jonathan got a hug from surprise guest Hugh Jackman), and there were some shockers. High profile performances from Denzel Washington, Michelle Williams and James Franco were snubbed, and sadly, Zachary Quinto was overlooked for his well-received work in The Glass Menagerie

Here’s a rundown of the acting categories. The Tony Awards (with host Hugh) will air on CBS at 9 Pm Et on Sunday, June 8th.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

Samuel Barnett – Twelfth Night

Bryan Cranston – All The Way

Chris O’Dowd – Of Mice And Men...

Tony nominations are here! Lucy Liu and Jonathan Groff read off the announcements this morning, with A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder topping the list with 10 nominations, including best musical, best book of a musical, and best original score. On the famous-people side of things, Bryan Cranston earned a nomination for his role in All the Way, Chris O'Dowd for his role in Of Mice and Men, Tyne Daly for her role in Mothers and Sons, and Audra McDonald for her role in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill — but no nominations for Denzel Washington or Daniel Radcliffe. As expected, Neil Patrick Harris picked up a nomination for Hedwig (which was also nominated in seven other categories), and Idina Menzel was nominated for If/Then (whose only other nomination was for best original score). The full list is below.Best Play Act OneAuthor: James LapineProducers: Lincoln Center Theater,...

Fully realizing its underdog appeal, the cheeky musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder slayed the competition this morning with a whopping 10 Tony nominations, including nods for both of its tireless leading men, Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham. Neil Patrick Harris’ return to Broadway after a decade yielded him his first-ever Tony nomination for the celebrated revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which netted an impressive eight nods. (Had it been eligible as a new musical, Hedwig probably would have easily tied Guide, as score and book would have been slam dunks). Trailing these shows with seven...

The nominations for the 2014 Tony Awards, which will be hosted once again by Hugh Jackman, were announced this morning by Jonathan Groff and Lucy Liu.

Tony Award Nominations

Nominated for best play this year are Act One, All the Way, Casa Valentina, Mothers and Sons and Outside Mulliger, while revival plays that got a nod included The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Glass Menagerie, A Raisin in the Sun and Twelfth Night.

Best Musical nominations went to After Midnight, Aladdin, Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. As for revival musicals, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Les Miserables and Violet were nominated.

While The Cripple of Inishmaan received a total of five nominations, marquee star Daniel Radcliff once again missed out on a Tony nod. Other movie star names who failed to earn nominations include James Franco (Of Mice and Men), Michelle Williams (Cabaret...

This season, the Broadway stages are filled with men of the screen — with James Franco in Of Mice and Men, Denzel Washington in A Raisin in the Sun, Neil Patrick Harris in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Daniel Radcliffe in The Cripple of Inishmaan, and Bryan Cranston in All the Way, among others. These five allowed photographer Andreas Laszlo Konrath to shoot portraits in their dressing rooms, and told us all about their fan gifts, celebrity visits, and pre-show rituals. Click through the gallery ahead to see them all. *This article appeared in the April 21, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

There are no dreams deferred for the producers of the Denzel Washington-led revival of A Raisin in the Sun. In its first full week since its April 3 opening, director Kenny Leon’s well-reviewed revival earned a remarkable $1.18 million, according to figures from the Broadway League covering ticket sales for the week ending April 13. That makes it the fifth highest-grossing show of the week and the only non-musical to cross the seven-figure threshold. And thanks to premium ticket prices as high as $348, Raisin actually exceeded the estimated gross potential of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre by 16 percent.

The new season is...

Faye Dunaway in ‘Mommie Dearest’ — Joan Crawford portrayal ‘Greatest Bad Performance’? Clint Eastwood Best Picture Oscar nominee among ‘Greatest Bad Movies’ See previous post: “From John Travolta to Bob Dylan: ‘The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time’: Q&A with Phil Hall.” (Photo: Mommie Dearest, Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford.) I noticed you have included some Bad Movies that were well received upon their release, e.g., Clint Eastwood’s Best Picture Oscar nominee ‘Mystic River’ (2003) and Henry King’s ‘In Old Chicago’ (1937) — another Best Picture nominee. Why are those movies not only Bad Movies, but also Great Bad Movies? I need to begin my answer by insisting that my new book is strictly about opinion. I don’t pretend to be the author of a be-all/end-all encyclopedia on the subject. Many people may disagree with the selection of films, both from an inclusive viewpoint and from...

Now that Bret Easton Ellis has conceded that he wasn’t chosen to write the screen adaptation to Fifty Shades of Grey, you may have thought that his hyperactive tweets about E L James’ best-seller, the upcoming movie, his casting thoughts, his first choice for director, more of his casting thoughts, would finally subside. But Ellis has not gone quietly. On Wednesday, he followed up his announcement that the film’s producers were no longer considering him by provoking fans with a string of tweets that claimed Matt Bomer could never be cast as Christian Grey, the controlling sexual dynamo...

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it.s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it.s the year that the headline is from. It.s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 25th successful year! Steve and I collaborated last Spring on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and I’ve been writing a regular monthly movie-related column since then. Since there is no on-line version of The Globe, I will be posting all of my articles here at We Are Movie Geeks. When Steve informed me that this month.s St. Louis Globe-Democrat was to take place in 1939, often labeled “Hollywood’s Greatest Year”, I knew the possibilities were immense.

"Denis Villeneuve's Incendies — an operatic saga of intergenerational woe — is the cinematic equivalent of a Harlem Globetrotters game, with brazen contrivances and a preordained outcome repurposed as dazzling spectacle." David Ehrlich at Reverse Shot: "A strained melodrama that unspools like the bastard child of Homer and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Incendies devotes the brunt of its 130 minutes to earning the audacity of its resolution — it's a work of such unchecked ambition that it almost has to be excused before it can be appreciated at all. But if Villeneuve's film ultimately resolves itself as little more than a gaudy parlor trick, it's an expertly executed bit of chicanery whose punchline hits you square in the gut."

"It's a dual story," explains New York's David Edelstein, "of French-Canadian brother-and-sister twins compelled by the will of their dead mother to locate a father they thought died decades earlier and a brother they never knew existed; and,...

Mark Gordon, a veteran actor on film, TV and stage who was a key figure in the improvisational theater movement, died Aug. 12 of lung cancer in New York. He was 84.

Gordon's credits include the Woody Allen films "Take the Money and Run" (1969), "Don't Drink the Water" (1969) and "Sleeper" (1973), roles on such soap operas as "The Edge of Night" and "As the World Turns" and a one-episode stint on "Mary Tyler Moore" as Chuckles the Clown.

Gordon was workshop director and an actor in the famed Chicago-based Compass Players (which later became Second City), working alongside the likes of Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Barbara Harris and his wife of 52 years, Barbara Glenn Gordon.

With May, he continued in New York at the Premise, whose improvisational company that included Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser. Gordon also appeared in "A New Leaf," a 1971 comedy written and directed by May, and had the lead...

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right Here for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

We Live In Public - DVD Review

There’s a moment in We Live In Public (Now out on DVD) in which Josh Harris, an Internet wunderkind who saw the convergence of our online and everyday lives meshing long before any of us delighted in the joy of broadband service, makes an underground lair. Now, as founder of Pseudo.com, one of the very first sites to ever make video on the Internet available in the late 90’s, he wanted to push the sociological and psychological boundaries of what we would consider voyeuristic.

CALIFORNIALa Jolla PlayhouseP.O. Box 12039La Jolla, CA 92039(858) 550-1070, fax (858) 550-1075information@ljp.orgwww.lajollaplayhouse.orgChristopher Ashley, artistic directorEquity Lort B contractNon-EquityCasting: Casts productions in-house and through independent casting directors by invitation only. Send pix and resumes to above address, attn: Casting. See website for more information. Internships availableSeason: June - September. Shows: "Surf Report" (June); "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" (September); "Ruined" (November); "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (July); "Notes From the Underground" (September)Marin Shakespeare CompanyP.O. Box 4053San Rafael, CA 94913(415) 499-4485, fax (415) 499-1492management@marinshakespeare.orgwww.marinshakespeare.orgRobert S. Currier, artistic director; Lesley Currier, managing directorEquity Loa referenced to Lort contractNon-EquityCasting: Casts productions in-house. Send pix and resumes to Robert Currier. Please see website for specific audition dates and information.Internships and/or apprenticeships available.Season: July - September. Shows: "Travesties" (July 2-Aug. 15); "The Taming of the Shrew" (July 16-Sep. 26); "Antony and Cleopatra" (Aug. 20-Sep. 25)Pcpa Theaterfest800 S.

The Wolf Man -- or "The Wolfman" as the new remake puts it -- came rather late in the Universal horror cycle, a full ten years after Dracula and Frankenstein. It was a low-budget movie, based not on a famous novel, but on a loose idea that had been bantered around the lot and finally set down on paper by screenwriter Curt Siodmak. The director George Waggner was hardly a master filmmaker like his predecessors Tod Browning and James Whale (The Wolf Man was the one and only high point of his career, not counting several episodes of the "Batman" TV show in the 1960s). And yet The Wolf Man came out exceedingly well, the result of many hands working together at the right time in just the right way. It was a monster hit (pardon the pun) and now a cinema classic. (The great film critic David Thomson recently...

When, and in what dark place, was the horror film born? And why do we love being terrified? David Thomson explains how one Hollywood studio defined a genre

The studio system has gone, even if some of the old names remain in use. No one would dream of a sophisticated romance coming out of Paramount any more, or a musical from MGM. Yet one ghost lives. At Universal, there is still the memory that this is the studio that created Lon Chaney and the working models of Dracula and Frankenstein. Now the beast stirs again, with Universal reviving one of its original horror properties with The Wolfman.

It seems obvious now that one of the inherent functions or opportunities that always faced the movies was scaring the living daylights out of us. When the train came into the station in the Lumiere brothers' early film programme, some in the audience...

Let's face it. There are a number of you that have not seen the original 1941 Universal classic The Wolf Man starring the one and only Lon Chaney Jr. With the remake right around the corner we thought it would be fun to take a nostalgic look back at the movie that started it all. Go back to 1941 with us and let's journey to what made the Wolf Man so terrifying...

In 1941, Universal Pictures released the last of their truly great monster movies, The Wolf Man. Operating in the red most of the thirties, Universal's pocketbook needed a new monster and a new monster star. It had been a decade since the initial box office boom of Dracula, but Bela Lugosi's star had fallen considerably since and he was not considered a bankable lead. Boris Karloff's last picture as a monster was 1939's Son of Frankenstein and he felt...

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right Here for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

WWII in HD - Blu-ray Review

Roger Ebert recently made people aware of a video on YouTube called The Open Road London.

The film was taken decades ago. The hustle and bustle of life in the city is enough to make you think that even after all technology has done for us we’re still as busy as ever. The Beefeater who just saunters in the frame, the double-decker busses, the police directing traffic by hand, it’s all very quaint. The amusing thing about this full color...

Written by Scott Essman

The long-awaited release of Universal Studios’ 2010 version of The Wolfman conjures the history of the men who made the original horror films at the studio in the 1920s through the 1940s. Not only was the original 1941 film The Wolf Man key among them, but the rich history of the other films is directly tied into both why and how that film was created.

In 1928, after his father had appointed 21-year-old Carl Laemmle, Jr. as head of production at Universal Studios, the machinery was in place for a new wave of films based on classic horror stories. By 1931, the studio had both Dracula and Frankenstein as two of its greatest successes, and they followed those up with a few more early 1930s originals, including The Mummy and The Invisible Man.

By 1935, they had produced Werewolf of London, their first film based on the Loup-Garou stories from France...