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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 7 |
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Release dates for some top 'dark corridors' titles
of The Columnists.com
Naturally, I always keep my eye open for the home video release dates of new titles in the dark worlds of mystery, horror and film noir. And by checking the schedules of the major distributors, I often find some old classics that are also about to hit the marketplace.
For example, I've been watching for the release of "The Brave One," the 2007 thriller starring two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster as a radio talk show commentator who becomes a night-prowling vigilante when the police fail to catch the thugs who murdered a loved one, stole her dog and left her badly beaten.
The good news is that it's out this week in the widescreen version with a standard list price of $28.98. My favorite online home video company--Amazon.com--is offering it at a nice discount for just $19.99. I'll take one, please. Naw, make that two. I'll donate one copy to my favorite museum--The Museum of Radio and Electricity in Bellingham, WA--where I'm building the largest collection of movies and TV shows about radio anywhere in the world.
"The Brave One" is a really good suspense film with a noir attitude. It raises the obvious question: Do you become as bad as the bad guys when you go seeking vengeance with a gun in your hand? The movie takes a definite stand on the issue.
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 Above: Edward Woodward as "The Equalizer," now on DVD. |
My search for new titles coming out this week also turned up two British TV mystery series that are essential viewing for millions of fans: The Complete Season Four of "Wire in the Blood," the chilling series starring Robson Green as forensic sleuth Dr. Tony Hill, from the novels of Scottish mystery master Val McDermid, and "The Complete Rosemary & Thyme," every episode of the light-hearted "cozy" mystery series about two garden-oriented lady amateur sleuths.
List price for "Wire in the Blood: Season 4" is $59.98, but Amazon offers it for $44.99--and you may qualify for free shipping. List price for "Rosemary & Thyme: The Complete Series" is $99.99, but Amazon lists it at $74.99.
Heck, I was just getting warmed up. I then went looking for the release date for the next package of "Charlie Chan" mysteries from the archives of Fox Studios. The three earlier packages are fabulous. They contain every existing Charlie Chan film made by Fox and 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s with Warner Oland in the leading role as Earl Derr Biggers' brilliant Chinese-American police detective from Honolulu. These films have all been digitally restored to superb condition and each boxed set contains lots of special features, and extras.
Volume One contains one fabulous extra: "Eran Trece," a Spanish-language version of "Charlie Chan Carries On" (1931), the first Chan film that Warner Oland made, but one that, tragically, no longer exists. The film that survives is a version made for Spanish-speaking audiences with a different cast, much like the widely-seen "Spanish Dracula," which was filmed on the standing sets of the original 1931 "Dracula" after the original cast left for the day.
Volume Three also has two rarities: One is a re-creation of "Charlie Chan's Chance," another lost film that starred Warner Oland, that uses still photos from the original movie and actors reading the script. The other is a fully restored version of "Behind That Curtain" (1929), the first sound film in the Chan series. In this film, based on Biggers' first Chan novel, the Chinese detective makes only a token appearance, but is played by a real Asian actor, R.L. Park. The leading roles are played by Lois Moran and Warner Baxter, who won the Best Actor Academy Award for an earlier performance as The Cisco Kid in "In Old Arizona" (1928).
The new boxed set--"Charlie Chan Collection: Volume 4"--comes out Feb. 12. It contains four well-produced Fox films in which Sidney Toler takes on the Chan role, following the death of Warner Oland. The flms: "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" (1938), "Charlie Chan in Reno" (1939), "Charlie Chan at Treasure Island" (1939) and "Charlie Chan in City in Darkness" (1939). List price for the new set is $49.98, but Amazon will sell it to you for $34.99.
Also out next week is "The Equalizer: Season One" (List $49.98; Amazon, $37.49), covering all the one-hour episodes of the season that began Sept. 18, 1985. This imaginative series starred British actor Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a former government agent who retired a few years early and made his living by charging fees to clients who have been denied justice and need an "equalizer" to fix the bad guys for them. He found clients by running ads in the classified sections of New York newspapers. In other words, you might say his job description might have been, "Have Gun; Don't Need To Travel." It lasted four seasons.
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of Robert B. Parker. |
Coming Feb. 26 is "Jesse Stone: Sea Change," the two-hour TV movie that's latest in the series starring Tom Selleck as Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone, a former L.A. cop who's now police chief in a small-town near Boston called Paradise. These are excellent mystery movies and Selleck, as usual, is superb, even though he's way too old for the Jesse Stone character. List price: $24.96; Amazon, $18.69.
Coming March 4 is "Nancy Drew," the 2007 feature film that revived the popular teen girl sleuth heroine from all those novels that date back to 1929. I thought this was an awful film, so I'm just listing this for the record. List: $28.98; Amazon: 19.99.
A much better choice, also coming in March, is one I've been waiting for years to see again--"Black Widow," the 1954 version of the 1952 Patrick Quentin mystery novel starring Oscar-winner Van Heflin as Broadway producer Peter Duluth, the amateur sleuth hero of several novels by Quentin, a make-believe author who was really two different writers who worked together. Written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, "Black Widow" was one of the earliest 20th Century-Fox films in the widescreen CinemaScope process. The key event of the story is the murder of Duluth's ward, a young woman played by Peggy Ann Garner ("A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.") Duluth is the prime suspect, but the chief investigator, played by veteran movie bad guy George Raft, has a load of other potential suspects, including Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, Otto Kruger and Reginald Gardiner.
(Don't confuse this movie with the other, much later "Black Widow" in which Debra Winger is a serial killer, marrying guys and then bumping them off.)
List price for "Black Widow"
is $14.99, but you can pre-order it from Amazon for only $9.99.
(Itr's part of a new Fox Film Noir boxed set that also includes
"Daisy Kenyon" with Joan Crawford and "Dangerous
Crossing" with Jeanne Crain.
Don't want to wait even a few weeks for something unusual? OK.
I still have a couple of suggestions for DVDs that are available
right now.
 in 1982. At right: "The Catman of Paris," a deliciously schlocky "B" horror film from Republic in 1946. Both are now ready for shipping. |
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If you're a fan of British mysteries that DON'T have a series hero, I have one for you that's been seen rarely since its first telecast in America on PBS' "Mystery!" in 1982--Peter Durbridge's "Melissa." In this creepy thriller, Guy, a journalist who's been having some domestic troubles with his wife, Melissa, is framed for her murder--framed so well that he has to try to find her real killer before it's the gallows for him! Author Durbridge made his rep writing some of England's best radio mysteries, including the "Paul Temple" series that also turned up in films of the late 1940s, and "Melissa" is one of his better efforts.
"Melissa" is available from its distributor, Acorn Video, for $29.99, but Amazon will let it go for $26.99.
And for a really unusual treat, go to Sinister Cinema's online website/ film catalog (www.sinistercinema.com) and order "The Catman of Paris," a 1946 "B" horror movie from Republic studios, the busiest spot on Hollywood's Poverty Row during the 1940s. Our colleague John Stanley, the world's foremost monster movie expert, doesn't think highly of this one, but I've had a strange love for it ever since I threw a tantum and forced my whole family to accompany me to a "flea house" movie theater on San Francisco's Market Street just to see it.
Little known Carl Esmond plays a famous
author in 19th century Paris who believes he becomes a were-cat
during his many blackouts. And I DO love those blackouts,
which feature a stormy sea and a loudly-clanging bell, among
other things, during which Esmond is transformed into The Catman,
a hulking guy who wears a top hat, a cape and snarls like a very
angry Lon Chaney Jr. after some apprentice makeup guy has put
cat whiskers on him instead of his standard Wolfman face fur.
(Actually, the actor playing The Catman was Robert J. Wilke,
a favorite heavy from 1940s and 1950s westerns who looked pretty
scarey even before they put any makeup on him!)
Another reason to watch "The Catman of Paris" is the
fact that the cast includes Adele Mara, who, in 1946, was one
of the greatest female scenic attractions to be found in "B"
movies--and she made a slew of them. Sinister Cinema sells this
for $16.95. A bargain at any price.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The DVD cover reproductions are courtesy of Amazon.com, except for "The Catman of Paris," which is courtesy of Sinister Cinema. This column first posted Aug. 20, 2007.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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