Adventures in Blu-Ray: FM (1978)

Under the leadership of program director Jeff Dugan (Michael Brandon), L.A.’s QSKY soon becomes the #1 radio station in the market, with a dedicated staff of jocks that believe it’s the music that defines QSKY.  When Dugan accepted the job, his intention was to make his bosses at Billings Radio Corporation pleased with QSKY’s progress...but…

Adventures in Blu-Ray: Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” is a well-known aphorism often attributed to Mark Twain...even though there’s scant evidence to show that Twain actually said it.  But it’s such a witty little maxim that it seems like the sort of remark the humorist would make, and I couldn’t help but think of it the other…

Adventures in Blu-Ray: Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954-1956

It seems like it was just last April—come to think of it...it was last April—when I borrowed some bandwidth on the blog to talk about a collaborative Blu-ray effort between Mill Creek Entertainment and Kit Parker Films/The Sprocket Vault featuring nine movies previously released to MOD DVD as part of Sony’s Choice Collection.  That compendium…

Adventures in Blu-ray: The Big Clock (1948)

How did it come to this?  Within 36 hours, George Stroud (Ray Milland), editor of the popular Crimeways magazine, finds himself trapped in the tower of an enormous clock located in a prominent part of the Janoth Publications building.  In flashback, Stroud explains how a disagreement with his autocratic boss, Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), was the catalyst for the series of events…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954

In Jacobellis vs. Ohio (1964), a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the First Amendment (an Ohio movie theatre banned the 1958 Louis Malle film Les Amants because they believed it to be “obscene”), Justice Potter Stewart made a famous observation about obscenity that has become a colloquial expression today.  “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Phantom Lady (1944)

After a spat with the wife, civil engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) decides to have a little gin with his misery and bellies up to the bar in a dive called Anselmo’s.  He makes the acquaintance of a mysterious woman wearing a rather distinctive hat...and seeing that she’s just as despondent as he is, asks…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Stand-In (1937)

The agenda at a board meeting of prominent New York bank Pettypacker & Sons centers around the sale of Colossal Pictures—a Hollywood independent studio that financier Ivor Nassau (C. Henry Gordon) seeks to acquire for far below its $10,000,000 price tag.  Nassau has made president Fowler Pettypacker (Tully Marshall) an offer of five million, and the senior Pettypacker is seriously considering…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Along Came Jones (1945)

The town of Paynesville isn’t a particularly welcoming one to cowpokes Melody Jones (Gary Cooper) and George Fury (William Demarest) as they ride in one day...but there’s an explanation for this.  Native Paynesvillian (definitely not a favorite son) Monte Jarrad (Dan Duryea) has a $1,000 price on his head after a stage robbery nets him…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Joseph H. Lewis Double Feature – My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946)

He was known as “Wagon Wheel Joe” to his peers in the motion picture industry—a mocking nickname given to him by those who edited his B-Westerns during director Joseph H. Lewis’ early moviemaking days.  Joe is a solid example of the kind of film director who, to borrow an observation from author Gregory Mank on fellow…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Willie Dynamite (1974)

If the 2005 film Hustle & Flow taught us anything, it’s that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”—the tune in the movie that won an Academy Award as Best Original Song. William Andrew Short (Roscoe Orman)—known to friends and the ladies in his employ as “Willie Dynamite”—is a testament to this; he’s the Avis…