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Pity the poor exhibitors in 1953 that splurged on 3-D equipment, only to see the payroll soar and the profits fall. Nope, Anamorphic Widescreen was the innovation that swept the world. It proved perfect for stories with scenic grandeur, such as Fox’s very early mini-epic shot on Florida locations. Thanks to Bernard Herrmann’s impressive music score, this one’s not going away.

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1953 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, Gilbert Roland, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Boone, Peter Graves, Jay Novello, Angela Clarke, Jacques Aubuchon, Harry Carey Jr., Gloria Gordon.

Cinematography: Edward Cronjager

Film Editor: William Reynolds

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by A.I. Bezzerides

Produced by Robert Bassler

Directed by Robert Webb

Four years have passed since the now dormant 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives DVD-r label stealth-released a surprise...

This classy Fox production was considered the epitome of sick film subject matter in the pre- Psycho year of 1959, the true story of jazz-age thrill killers Leopold & Loeb. Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman are the nihilistic child murderers; Orson Welles stops the show with his portrayal of Clarence Darrow, going under a different name.

Compulsion

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date March 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Diane Varsi, Bradford Dillman, E.G. Marshall, Richard Anderson, Robert F. Simon, Edward Binns, Gavid McLeod, Russ Bender, Peter Brocco.

Cinematography: William C. Mellor

Film Editor: William Reynolds

Original Music: Lionel Newman

Written by Richard Murphy from a novel by Meyer Levin

Produced by Richard D. Zanuck

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Movies about serial killers and psychos with exotic agendas were much different before Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which hit America in 1960 like a thrown brick.

Hollywood tackles the big issues! This adapted play about an unwanted teen pregnancy is actually quite good, thanks to fine performances by Carol Lynley and Brandon De Wilde, who convince as cherubic high schoolers 'too young to know the score.' And hey, the teen trauma is set to an intense music score by Bernard Herrmann. Blue Denim 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives 1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date March 16, 2016 / available through Amazon / 19.98 Starring Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert. Cinematography Leo Tover Film Editor William Reynolds, George Leggewie Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble Produced by Charles Brackett Directed by Philip Dunne

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Sex education today is erratic, with no established standard, but...

Who needs epics about Ancient Rome, Egypt, or Greek mythology when we have a thousand years of exotic Central and South American civilizations to exploit? Well, it's only been done a handful of times. This cinematic concatenation of nifty architecture, fruity multicolored headgear and athletic oiled warriors is, well, nifty, fruity and athletic!   Kings of the Sun Kl Studio Classics Savant Blu-ray Review 1963 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date May 26, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95  Starring Yul Brynner, George Chakiris, Shirley Anne Field, Richard Basehart, Brad Dexter, Barry Morse, Armando Silvestre, Leo Gordon, Victoria Vettri, Rudy Solari, Ford Rainey, Chuck Hayward, James Coburn (narrator). Cinematography Joseph MacDonald Film Editor William Reynolds Original Music Elmer Bernstein Written by James R. Webb, Elliot Arnold  Produced by Lewis J. Rachmil Directed by J. Lee Thompson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Epics don't get wilder than this. According to producer Walter Mirisch, 1963's Kings of the Sun...

Wannabe Christian swashbuckler throws a lot of stuff up on the screen in the hopes that something will stick as exciting and romantic. None of it does. I’m “biast” (pro): love a good swashbuckler

I’m “biast” (con): not a fan of “faith-based” movies

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

It’s 1776, and William Reynolds is an assassin for the East India Company! That might be more like something more out of a certain videogame than actual history, but hey! He’s the “villain of India” and an “infamous scoundrel.” But now he’s going straight… straight to the colonies to become best friends with Benjamin Franklin and to foil a Guy Fawkes-ish plot that would stop America from being born. But wait! Before that, he will masquerade as a vicar and prove to a pretty woman that he’s now a Good Man...

It’s It's an oft-echoed sentiment that movies are made in the cutting room, so the Academy Award for Best Film Editing is a cherished trophy indeed. First, some guild award stats: since 1963, the American Cinema Editors have correctly predicted the eventual Oscar winner 36 times (in years when the award has been split between Dramatic and Musical/Comedy Editing, the specific prize given has been noted): 1963: Harold F. Kress, “How the West Was Won” 1964: Cotton Warburton, “Mary Poppins” 1965: William Reynolds, “The Sound of Music” 1968: Frank P. Keller, “Bullitt” 1970: Hugh S. Fowler, “Patton” 1972: David Bretherton, “Cabaret” 1973: William Reynolds, “The Sting” 1975: Verna Fields, “Jaws” 1976: Richard Halsley and Scott Conrad, “Rocky” 1978: Peter Zinner, “The Deer Hunter” 1979: Alan Heim, “All That Jazz” 1980: Thelma...'...

Now this is a list that could result in a lot of fascinating dissection and thanks to HitFix it comes to our attention almost three years after it was originally released back in 2012, celebrating the Motion Picture Editors Guild's 75th anniversary. Over at HitFix, Kris Tapley asks, "Is this news to anyone elsec" Um, yes, I find it immensely interesting and a perfect starting point for anyone looking to further explore the art of film editing. In an accompanying article we get the particulars concerning what films were eligible and how films were to be considered: In our Jan-feb 12 issue, we asked Guild members to vote on what they consider to be the Best Edited Films of all time. Any feature-length film from any country in the world was eligible. And by "Best Edited," we explained, we didn't just mean picture; sound, music and mixing were to be considered as well.

A random bit of researching on a Tuesday night led me to something I didn't know existed: The Motion Picture Editors Guild's list of the 75 best-edited films of all time. It was a feature in part celebrating the Guild's 75th anniversary in 2012. Is this news to anyone else? I confess to having missed it entirely. Naturally, I had to dig in. What was immediately striking to me about the list — which was decided upon by the Guild membership and, per instruction, was considered in terms of picture and sound editorial as opposed to just the former — was the most popular decade ranking. Naturally, the 1970s led with 17 mentions, but right on its heels was the 1990s. I wouldn't have expected that but I happen to agree with the assessment. Thelma Schoonmaker's work on "Raging Bull" came out on top, an objectively difficult choice to dispute, really. It was so transformative,...

Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents a new print of the 1965 musical classic “The Sound of Music” as the fourth film in its series “The Last 70mm Film Festival” on Monday, July 30, at 7 p.m. at the Academy.s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The evening will also welcome actress Kym Karath, who played Gretl, the youngest of the seven Von Trapp children in the film.

Based on the Broadway musical, the film follows Maria (played by Julie Andrews in her second Oscar®-nominated role) a young woman who leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed navy captain (Christopher Plummer). The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards® including Actress (Julie Andrews, “Maria”), Actress in a supporting role (Peggy Wood,” Mother Abbess), Art Direction – Color (Art Direction: Boris Leven; Set Decoration: Walter M. Scott, Ruby Levitt), Cinematography – Color (Ted McCord), Costume Design,...

Script rewrites. Exacting directors. Terrible twists of fate. We look back through the ages to bring you 20 nightmarish film shoots…

The lavish lifestyles of Hollywood’s more famous actors and filmmakers may hint at a world of glamour and cash, but as this list proves, the process of actually putting a movie together is rarely a dignified process. What follows is a lengthy catalogue of ill-advised location choices, tantrums, dreadful acts of God, spiked bowls of soup, ruined studios, bruised egos, broken bones and shattered dreams.

For the prospective filmmaker, this article could be read as a cautionary tale of just how badly wrong a production can go – though in order to keep the tone relatively light, we’ve excised those film productions that ended in tragedy (you’ll have to look elsewhere to discover the sad stories behind Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Crow).

Nevertheless, we suggest you...

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies. Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Thursday night for final projections based on actual theatre counts. Apologies that this week's column is later than usual (thanks to Comic-Con) but this week, we also have an extra-special guest writer helping the Weekend Warrior get back on track with deadlines, Mr. William Reynolds, who provided the analysis write-ups for Funny People and Aliens in the Attic this week. Updated Predictions and Comparisons - (Update: Granted, our original predictions only went up less than 24 hours ago, but now that we have official theater counts, we have a quick update, and as we were reminded in the...

Though the show's been off the air for 25 years, the FBI has honored veteran actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. from The FBI.

The FBI ran for nine seasons on ABC, from 1965 until 1974. The series follows the investigations of Inspector Lewis Erskine (Zimbalist Jr.) and his team. The stories are based on actual F.B.I. cases whose details were changed to protect the innocent. Others in the cast include Stephen Brooks, Philip Abbott, William Reynolds, Lynn Loring, and Shelly Novack.

A well-rated show in its day, one of the show's advisers was Mark Felt, an assistant director of the real FBI agency. It was revealed a few years ago that Felt was the "Deep Throat" source in the Watergate scandal.

Zimbalist became so identified with the government agency that J. Edgar Hoover once remarked, "I have received hundreds of letters from people saying that the inspector on the FBI series portrayed...