Items filtered by date: July 2013

Some long out of print titles from both Warner Bros. and Paramount are the focus of this week’s new releases from Warner Archive.  There are some first-rate choices this week, so let’s take a look at ‘em.

Targets (1968) – Boris Karloff gave his last great performance as Byron Orlock, a fading horror star who feels irrelevant in the modern world.  He comes face to face with real terror in the form of a psychotic sniper, picking off victims at random.  A remarkable early film from Peter Bogdanovich.

Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (1974) – Hammer Films’ final Frankenstein entry finds Peter Cushing continuing his experiments in an insane asylum.  David Prowse, still a few years away from becoming Darth Vader, plays the Creature.  [...]

Before we get to this week’s new releases, I’d like to draw your attention to a worthwhile documentary project on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo.  If you’re reading this column, you probably have some interest in classic Hollywood and the history of Los Angeles.  If so, check out After 68, a documentary on the rise and fall of L.A.’s historic Ambassador Hotel.

The Ambassador and its adjacent nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, was one of the key hot spots in Los Angeles, particularly throughout the 30s and 40s.  It hosted two Academy Award ceremonies, was frequented by pretty much every major star you can think of, and was used as a filming location for everything from The Graduate to Tobe Hooper’s Toolbox Murders, which is how I was able to visit it.  [...]

This will be a quick one, updating you all on the week’s newest releases from Warner Archive, so let’s dive right on in.

The Frozen Dead (1966) – An early JET’s Most Wanted pick finally makes its official DVD debut!  Mad scientist Dana Andrews had the forethought to cryogenically freeze the heads of some of the top Nazi leaders of WWII.  Now it’s time to bring them back and get the old Third Reich going again.  Your Nazi Zombie collection isn’t complete without this one, folks.  [...]

This week’s Burnt Offerings include titles from Paramount returning to print courtesy of Warner Archive and a quartet of classics from 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives.

Let’s kick things off with the latest from the Warner Archive Collection.

WARNER ARCHIVE – NEW THIS WEEK

Going Hollywood (1933) – Marion Davies and Bing Crosby star in this musical from director Raoul Walsh.  Crosby plays a radio crooner (quite a stretch, I realize) who goes to L.A. to make his movie debut.  Davies is a schoolteacher with a crush who follows him, determined to win him over.  Evidently restraining orders weren’t around back in 1933.  [...]