Mike Clark
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Mike’s Picks: “Murder, He Says” and “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project”
Murder, He Says Street Date 4/7/20 Kino Lorber, Comedy, $24.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, Jean Heather, Porter Hall. 1945. Fred MacMurray gives what may be the top comic performance of his long and still underrated career in Murder, He Says, a twisted Hollywood comedy that gets a 4K spiff-up for … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: “Murder, He Says” and “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project””
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Beau Brummell’ and ‘Canyon Passage’
Beau Brummell Available via Warner Archive Warner, Drama, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley. 1954. A flop at the time, this superbly cast costume drama has picked up a cult following who should be pleased by the Blu-ray’s 4K scan off the original negative that pays off with such … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Beau Brummell’ and ‘Canyon Passage’”
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Mike’s Picks: “Murder, He Says” and “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project”
Murder, He Says Street Date 4/7/20 Kino Lorber, Comedy, $24.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, Jean Heather, Porter Hall. 1945. Fred MacMurray gives what may be the top comic performance of his long and still underrated career in Murder, He Says, a twisted Hollywood comedy that gets a 4K spiff-up for … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: “Murder, He Says” and “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project””
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Beau Brummell’ and ‘Canyon Passage’
Beau Brummell Available via Warner Archive Warner, Drama, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley. 1954. A flop at the time, this superbly cast costume drama has picked up a cult following who should be pleased by the Blu-ray’s 4K scan off the original negative that pays off with such … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Beau Brummell’ and ‘Canyon Passage’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘A Little Romance’ and ‘Salesman’
A Little Romance Available via Warner Archive Warner, Drama, $21.99 Blu-ray, ‘PG.’ Stars Laurence Olivier, Diane Lane, Thelonious Bernard, Sally Kellerman, Arthur Hill. 1979. It was spring of 1979 when 12-year-old Diane Lane made the cover of Time magazine back when that really meant something — ostensibly as part of a cover story on “Hollywood’s … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘A Little Romance’ and ‘Salesman’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘The Day of the Dolphin’ and ‘X … the Unknown’
The Day of the Dolphin Kino Lorber, Drama, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, ‘PG.’ Stars George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Paul Sorvino, Fritz Weaver. 1973. When I first saw The Day of the Dolphin, my reaction was akin to that of so many other film folk in that we couldn’t quite figure out what the … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘The Day of the Dolphin’ and ‘X … the Unknown’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Cimarron’ and ‘Jungle Fever’
Cimarron Available via Warner Archive Warner, Western, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn. 1960. MGM’s large-scale remake of the 1931 Best Picture Oscar winner looks so impressive on a big screen TV that I pleasurably breezed through its 2 hour, 38 minutes in one sitting, though without … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Cimarron’ and ‘Jungle Fever’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Black Angel’ and ‘Kitten With a Whip’
Black Angel MVD/Arrow, Mystery, $39.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford. 1946. The big takeaway from Angel, at least speaking personally, is just how much of a visual stylist director Roy William Neill apparently was. Extras: Alan Rode provides a voiceover commentary, and there’s also an on-camera interview with British … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Black Angel’ and ‘Kitten With a Whip’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘The Great McGinty’ and ‘Watergate’
The Great McGinty Kino Lorber, Comedy, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest. 1940. It’s a little surprising that it took Hollywood until 1940 to attack the subject of political corruption as directly head-on as in The Great McGinty. However comparably minor it might be compared to the enduring Preston Sturges … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘The Great McGinty’ and ‘Watergate’”
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Mike’s Picks: “House by the River” and “Five Graves to Cairo”
House by the River Kino Lorber, Drama, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt, Dorothy Patrick. 1950. When a gothic late 19th-century murder melodrama is titled House by the River, it can really get off on the wrong foot if the river itself doesn’t look very sinister when it predictably … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: “House by the River” and “Five Graves to Cairo””
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Holiday’ and ‘Trapped’
Holiday Criterion, Comedy, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Lew Ayres, Doris Nolan, Edward Everett Horton. 1938. Adapted from a play Philip Barry wrote well before he concocted The Philadelphia Story, this comic portrait of the unapologetic rich featured one of the four pairings of Katharine Hebburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Holiday’ and ‘Trapped’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ and ‘The Story of Temple Drake’
The Bad and the Beautiful Available via Warner Archive Warner, Drama, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Dick Powell, Gloria Grahame, Walter Pidgeon. 1952.The Bad and the Beautiful, a critical/commercial hit in its day, is tops of its kind if you’re into Vincente Minnelli’s specialized approach to sometimes gasket-blowing melodrama. A dissection of … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ and ‘The Story of Temple Drake’”