Blu-Ray News #461: Directed By Don Siegel (1959 – 1969).

If you’ve spent more than 37 seconds on this blog or my other one, you know Don Siegel’s one of my favorite directors. There’s zero fat on his films. The performances are stellar. And each film hits hard. Riot In Cell Block 11 (1954). Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956). Baby Face Nelson (1957). Flaming Star (1960). Dirty Harry (1971). Charley Varrick (1973). So do the pictures in the upcoming set from Imprint, Directed By Don Siegel.

Edge Of Eternity (1959)
Starring Cornel Wilde, Victoria Shaw, Mickey Shaughnessy, Edgar Buchanan, Rian Garrick, Jack Elam

Siegel didn’t like CinemaScope. But the setting of Edge Of Eternity (1959), the Grand Canyon, screams for the wide screen. So here we get one of the great director’s few films in 2.35. (Flaming Star was also in ‘Scope; Dirty Harry and a few others were in Panavision.) His director of photography for this one was the great Burnett Guffey, who he’d worked with on Private Hell 36 (1954). Guffey’d go on to do the groundbreaking camerawork for Bonne And Clyde (1967).

The Killers (1964)
Starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Ronald Reagan, Clu Gulager

Originally produced as a TV movie for NBC, it was decided to send The Killers to theaters instead. Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager are terrific as a pair of hitmen who try to get the backstory on their last “project.” Angie Dickinson is just great, as she always is. From the original camera negative.

Madigan (1968)
Starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Susan Clark, Don Stroud

Madigan (1968) comes from Siegel’s late 60s, early 70s period when he was knocking out great movies one right after another. It came between The Killers (1964) and Coogan’s Bluff (1968), and it’s one of the best cop movies of the 60s. Richard Widmark is Madigan, a New York cop, and he’s got 72 hours to track down a fugitive. And while that’s going on, his personal life is a train wreck.

Death Of A Gunfighter (1969)
Directed by Allan Smithee (Don Siegel & Robert Totten)
Starring Richard Widmark, Lena Horne, Carroll O’Connor, David Opatoshu, Kent Smith, Dub Taylor, John Saxon, Royal Dano, Harry Carey, Jr., John Sande, Victor French

After Madigan, Richard Widmark wanted Siegel to directed Death Of A Gunfighter. He turned it down and it went to TV director Robert Totten. With just a little over a week of shooting left, Widmark used his pull with Universal to have Totten replaced — by Don Siegel! Later, Widmark didn’t want Totten to get credit, even though he did most of it, and Siegel didn’t want his name on it since it wasn’t his movie. The fake director Allan Smithee was invented for this film — and his direction was applauded by critics like Roger Ebert.

All four films come with some great extras, including the feature-length documentary Don Siegel, Last Of The Independents (1980) and a commentary for Death Of A Gunfighter by yours truly. It’s always a privilege to honor the great Don Siegel — and to be part of a top-notch set like this. Highly recommended.

Blu-Ray News #460: Suddenly (1954).

Directed by Lewis Allen
Starring Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, James Gleason, Nancy Gates, Willis Bouchey, Paul Frees

Suddenly (1954) has always been one of my favorite noir pictures (if you wanna call it noir). The Roan Group put it out on laserdisc eons ago, so I’ve seen it a blue million times.

I’m really, really glad it’s coming to Blu-Ray from Film Masters. I know they’ll treat it right.

Hayden’s cool, Sinatra’s great and the rest of the cast is marvelous. The picture’s a prime example of the tension-building slow burn. I love this one! Highly, highly recommended.

4K/Blu-Ray News #459: Machine Gun Kelly (1958).

Directed by Roger Corman
Starring Charles Bronson, Susan Cabot, Morey Amsterdam, Richard Devon, Jack Lambert

Christmas is already looking pretty merry. Film Masters will release Roger Corman’s Machine Gun Kelly (1958) on 4K and Blu-Ray in December.

I’ve always felt this was the best of Corman’s 50s films, with a solid performance from Charles Bronson in maybe his first lead (Showdown At Boot Hill opened just a month later). And it’s one of the jewels of that late-50s gangster picture resurgence (Don Siegel’s Baby Face Nelson is great!)

Film Masters always does stellar stuff, and I’m sure this one will be no different. You get both the 1.37 version and the Superama widescreen cropping of 2.0 — and a stack of stuff from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures. Highly, highly recommended.

RIP, Gerrit Graham.

Gerrit Graham
(November 27, 1949 – September 15, 2026)

---

Hated hearing that actor/writer/songwriter Gerrit Graham had passed away.

He’s so funny in Used Cars (1980). “Look out, Marshall Lucky…”

4K/Blu-Ray News #458: Pitfall (1948).

Directed by Andre de Toth
Starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, Jimmy Hunt

Warner Archive’s Blu-Ray of Andre de Toth’s Crime Wave (1953) is gorgeous (review’s in the works). Now we hear de Toth’s Pitfall (1948) is coming to 4K. Aren’t you glad I wrote that letter to Santa? (Paraphrasing Son Of Paleface.)

Bored with his insurance adjuster job and ideal family life, Dick Powell quickly commences with destroying everything. He hooks up with a crook’s girlfriend Lizabeth Scott, who’s bad news, and with private investigator Raymond Burr, who’s even worse news. Who’s gonna get dead? And will anything be left of Powell’s marriage (or Powell, for that matter)?

Pitfall is a key film noir and one of my favorites of the genre. Powell’s terrific, Burr’s a real creep and de Toth’s direction is pretty much perfect. (By the way, Jimmy Hunt told me Dick Powell was very nice.)

Cinematographer Harry J. Wild also shot Murder, My Sweet (1944), Son Of Paleface (1952) and Macao (1952). This disc should look like a million bucks. Highly, highly recommended.

4K/Blu-Ray News #457: Scarlet Street (1945).

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Rosalind Ivan, Jess Barker, Charles Kemper

I love Fritz Lang’s Hollywood movies. And any time one of his pictures makes its way to Blu-Ray or 4K, it’s something to celebrate. So maybe tonight I’ll raise a glass of Jack and Coke to Mr. Lang and the folks at Eureka — Scarlet Street (1945) is coming to 4K.

After the success of The Woman In The Window (1944), Lang recalled the cast of that film — Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea — for his next picture, Scarlet Street. (Ms. Bennett had already been in 1941’s Man Hunt, one of Lang’s best films.)

This one’s as noir as noir gets. Clerk and amateur painter Robinson gets involved with a couple of swindlers, Bennett and Duryea, and really lives to regret it. Fatalism is dumped onto this movie by the bucketful. It was even banned in a few places.

Somebody at Eureka really digs Fritz Lang, and they’ve done a great job with a number of his films, including The Woman In The Window. For this one, they tracked down some 35mm nitrate to work with. Can’t wait to see how it comes out. Highly, highly recommended.

4K/Blu-Ray News #456: (Horror Of) Dracula (1958).

Directed by Terence Fisher
Starring Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Christopher Lee

I first saw Horror Of Dracula (1958) when I was nine or ten years old. Not long after that, the above poster appeared in a 1975 issue of Dynamite magazine. That poster hung in my bedroom through high school. Wish it was still there.

All this is to say that Horror Of Dracula had an impact on me that few films have had. It remains one of my all-time favorite movies.

A big part of the mystique around Horror Of Dracula is the idea of various cuts around the world, with Japan supposedly having the longest, most “complete.” With the new 4K/Blu-Ray set on the way from Hammer (and Warner Archive), this mystery is unraveled once and for all. Turns out that Terence Fisher made one cut of the film, his cut. That was then altered by whoever was releasing it in whatever country, after duking it out with their country’s censors. Which means Japan didn’t put anything in, they took less out. At this time, censors were having a field day with Hammer’s rather nasty little horror movies. For this set, we get Fisher’s cut (called simply Dracula), along with the US and other versions.

We also get what has to be one of the largest batches of extras ever. And in the middle of that jaw-dropping list sits—

NEW commentary from writer, filmmaker and film programmer Heidi Honeycutt and cult movie expert Toby Roan.

To be involved in this restoration and release in any way, even to just go get coffee for everybody, would be cool. But a commentary, that’s a monstrous opportunity (pun intended).

Wait till you see this thing, y’all. It’s absolutely essential.

RIP, Shelley Fabares.

Shelley Fabares
(January 19, 1944 – August 22, 2026)

---

Shelley Fabares has passed away at 82. She had a long, successful career, from the Donna Red Show to One Day At A Time to Coach. And three Elvis movies!

I saw Spinout (1966) on the CBS Late Movie in 1973. It, and Ms. Fabares, made a huge impression on me.

Blu-Ray Review: Follow Me Quietly (1949).

Directed by Richard Fleischer
Produced by Herman Schlom
Screenplay by Lillie Hayward
Story by Anthony Mann & Francis Rosenwald
Director Of Photography: Robert De Grasse
Film Editor: Elmo Williams
Music by Leonid Raab & Paul Sawtell

Cast: William Lundigan (Lt. Harry Grant), Dorothy Patrick (Ann Gorman), Jeff Corey (Sgt. Art Collins), Nestor Paiva (Benny), Charles D. Brown (Mulvaney), Paul Guilfoyle (Overbeck), Edwin Max (Charlie Roy/”The Judge”), Frank Ferguson (McGill)

---

If you’ve paid any attention to this blog at all (and sometimes I wonder why you would), you know I tend to prefer cheap movies to expensive ones. Most of this thing’s consistent visitors/commenters seem to feel likewise. Creative decisions are best handled with ingenuity, not a checkbook.

The point of all this is to get around to Mr. Richard Fleischer, a director who positively excelled at making low-budget films like Follow Me Quietly (1949). It’s easy to see why he “graduated” to bigger movies, and he made some terrific ones, but I selfishly wish he’d stuck with the B’s a bit longer. I’d love a lot more pictures like Follow Me Quietly, which us just stunning on the new Blu-Ray from Warner Archive.

There’s a murderer out there who calls himself “The Judge.” He’s strangling folks on rainy nights, through some sort of perceived moral superiority, laid out in the notes he leaves behind (above). Police lieutenant Harry Grant (William Lundigan) and his partner (Jeff Corey) are working the case, constantly annoyed by a pretty reporter (Dorothy Patrick).

The story by Anthony Mann and Francis Rosenwald seems ahead of its time. The Judge feels like the grandfather of the serial killer in something like Seven (1995) — and the faceless Judge predates Mario Bava’s masked killer in Blood And Black Lace (1964). Lillie Hayward’s screenplay digs into the nutjob’s motivations a bit before the big finish as Lundigan and Corey identify the guy and chase him down in a refinery.

Follow Me Quietly gives us a chance to watch Richard Fleischer’s development as a director. From this one to Armored Car Robbery (1950) and The Narrow Margin (1952), he got better with each picture. Here, the intense last reel moves like a rocket, and the scenes with The Judge are genuinely creepy. The cast does a splendid job, especially Jeff Corey and Douglas Spencer (as an innocent guy who confesses to The Judge’s crimes).

On Blu-Ray, Follow Me Quietly is near perfection, getting Warner Archive’s customary B&W high-definition treatment (from the camera negative). WA has a way of scrubbing the dirt and dust without disturbing the grain. It’s absolutely beautiful. (I can’t stand it when the grain’s gone and we’re left with waxy faces. Isn’t detail the whole point with high definition?)

The disc tacks on a short from MGM’s Crime Does Not Pay series, Dark Shadows (1944), along with the theatrical trailer for Follow Me Quietly. This is a fabulous little movie — and another top-notch release from Warner Archive. Highly, highly recommended.

What Happened To The Ravagers?

The fifth of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm movies was to be The Ravagers. It was announced in the end credits of The Wrecking Crew (1969). It didn’t happen. Why?

Sharon Tate was very funny as Freya Carlson in The Wrecking Crew. She was one of the few things about the film that critics seemed to like, and there were plans to bring her back for The Ravagers as Dean Martin’s full-fledged co-star. Phil Karlson was going to return as director.

But Ms. Tate was murdered by Charles Manson’s Family on August 9, 1969.

It was announced in October 1969 that production of The Ravagers would begin in November. In fact, it was reported that Dino had plans to play golf with Jackie Gleason during location shooting in Miami.

But they were having trouble finding a new co-star to replace Sharon Tate.

Martin didn’t like the actresses Columbia Pictures was suggesting (he had pre-approval) and Martin’s choice, Goldie Hawn, wanted more money ($150,000) than Columbia was willing to pay. According to a Columbia executive at the time, “We were all set to roll. A crew had been assigned, a production date set. Now the script’s resting on a shelf and The Ravagers will probably never be made.”

Even the threat of withholding $300,000 of Dean’s share of the profits from The Wrecking Crew didn’t do anything. Others say Dean was upset by Sharon Tate’s death, disappointed in the film’s profits and just plain tired of Matt Helm.