“Venetian” opens with a bang — an explosion at the table of a nuclear disarmament summit, and the person to blame is one of the men sitting there: the diplomat repping the United States. Fenner, now replete with sobriety issues, is called back into action in a plot that involves peeping telescopes, fatal gunshots, secret […]
Warner Archive
Posted inArts & Culture
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Now that said original has been reissued, coattail-ridin’ style, by Warner Archive, I’d alter that response to, “I liked it OK, but I definitely still prefer the original.” With much fewer resources, the 1973 version is far more effective. The person being menaced by the trolls in the walls has always been Sally, but here, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The George Sanders Saint Movie Collection
There were even eight “Saint” features within five years, with George Sanders (“All About Eve”) playing him five times for RKO Radio Pictures. Those films have been collected by Warner Archive for its two-disc package with the unwieldy title of “The George Sanders Saint Movies Collection.” Also known as Simon Templar, The Saint is no […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The FBI: The First Season: Part One
“The FBI,” a fondly remembered, long-running TV series, is fondly remembered no more! Because now fans can see it again with Warner Archive’s release of its first 16 episodes from the 1965 debut season, spread evenly across four discs. Having never seen the show before — when it finished its run, I was all of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Avalanche Express
I do not doubt that he does, yet I wonder how quickly his heart would beat for “Avalanche Express,” a 1979 thriller whose momentum does not match its promise in title or talent. It boasts the screen’s lone, unlikely teaming of Lee Marvin, Linda Evans and Joe Namath. They’ll all CIA agents sent to secure […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Marlowe
Watch the 1969 film “Marlowe” and you’ll understand. New to DVD through Warner Archive, the Raymond Chandler adaptation beats the pants off “The Rockford Files,” in my humble opinion. Garner is cucumber-cool as flawed private eye Philip Marlowe, who somehow manages to work his way out of work more often than into it. In this […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mister Buddwing
All he has on him are a timetable, a couple of pills, and a phone number. Perhaps those digits will offer a clue to solve the mystery surrounding his identity, and thus, lead him to the only name on the tip of his tongue: Grace. Could he be to whom the newspaper headline “Dangerous Mental […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Smile Jenny, You’re Dead
How ironic for this made-for-TV movie to sport “Smile” in its (incorrectly punctuated) title, because for network television — especially in 1974 — it’s remarkably morose. But it’s a crime drama, so that’s a good thing.“The Fugitive” fugitive David Janssen headlines as Harry Orwell, a former California cop who left the force after taking a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Probe
A 1972 pilot film to a short-lived television series, it’s ahead of its time and still a ton of fun. The title refers to the secret organization PROBE Control — with the acronym standing in part for “Program Retrieval Operations”; the remaining two initials are top-secret — where 007-esque agent Hugh Lockwood (Hugh O’Brian, TV’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hold On!
Like a certain mop-topped UK band who took America by storm a couple years earlier, the pointless but harmless vehicle finds Herman’s Hermits making a trip to America for a tour, and finding themselves mobbed everywhere they go. The “story,” as it were, is that their fans have lobbied hard to get a NASA rocket […]