Courageous disc boutique Scream Factory takes on one of Hammer’s biggest embarrassments, that almost everyone connected to it would like to disown. I bailed from my first viewing around 1990 … yet this time around found it somewhat better than I expected. The girlie-show nudity is treated as a special effect, and the story at least hangs together. And like every Hammer horror, there’s a sizable, vocal cheering section out there that sings its praises.
Lust for a Vampire
Blu-ray
Scream Factory
1971 / Color / 1:85 & 1:66 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date July 30, 2019 / 27.99
Starring: Barbara Jefford, Ralph Bates, Suzanna Leigh, Yutte Stensgaard, Michael Johnson, Helen Christie, Mike Raven, Christopher Cunningham, Harvey Hall, Pippa Steel, David Healy, Jonathan Cecil.
Cinematography: David Muir
Film Editor: Spencer Reeve
Original Music: Harry Robinson
Written by Tudor Gates, based on characters by Sheridan Le Fanu
Produced by Harry Fine, Michael Style
Directed by Jimmy Sangster
What? This column...
Lust for a Vampire
Blu-ray
Scream Factory
1971 / Color / 1:85 & 1:66 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date July 30, 2019 / 27.99
Starring: Barbara Jefford, Ralph Bates, Suzanna Leigh, Yutte Stensgaard, Michael Johnson, Helen Christie, Mike Raven, Christopher Cunningham, Harvey Hall, Pippa Steel, David Healy, Jonathan Cecil.
Cinematography: David Muir
Film Editor: Spencer Reeve
Original Music: Harry Robinson
Written by Tudor Gates, based on characters by Sheridan Le Fanu
Produced by Harry Fine, Michael Style
Directed by Jimmy Sangster
What? This column...
- 8/3/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Philomena focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock — something her Irish-Catholic community didn’t have the highest opinion of — and given away for adoption in the United States.
In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn’t allow for any sort of inquiry into the son’s whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.
The film also features Sophie Kennedy Clark, Maxwell Martin, Ruth McCabe, Barbara Jefford, Kate Fleetwood, Peter Hermann, Marie Winningham, and Michelle Fairley.
From director Stephen Frears, Philomena opens nationwide Wednesday, November 27th!
Wamg invites you to...
In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn’t allow for any sort of inquiry into the son’s whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.
The film also features Sophie Kennedy Clark, Maxwell Martin, Ruth McCabe, Barbara Jefford, Kate Fleetwood, Peter Hermann, Marie Winningham, and Michelle Fairley.
From director Stephen Frears, Philomena opens nationwide Wednesday, November 27th!
Wamg invites you to...
- 11/15/2013
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The American Film Institute (AFI) today announced additional Centerpiece Galas and Special Screenings – comprised of a world premiere, award season contenders and highly anticipated independent and international films of the fall – for AFI Fest 2013 presented by Audi.
There will be a red carpet Gala each night of the festival.
The additional Centerpiece Galas are August: Osage County (Dir John Wells) on Friday, November 8; The Last Emperor 3D (Dir Bernardo Bertolucci) on Sunday, November 10; and the World Premiere of Lone Survivor (Dir Peter Berg) on Tuesday, November 12.
All Galas will be presented in the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre.
August: Osage County
AFI Fest’s Special Screenings are Her (Dir Spike Jonze); The Invisible Woman (Dir Ralph Fiennes); Jodorowsky’S Dune (Dir Frank Pavich); Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom (Dir Justin Chadwick); The Past (Le PASSÉ) (Dir Asghar Farhadi); Philomena (Dir Stephen Frears); and The Unknown Known: The Life And Times...
There will be a red carpet Gala each night of the festival.
The additional Centerpiece Galas are August: Osage County (Dir John Wells) on Friday, November 8; The Last Emperor 3D (Dir Bernardo Bertolucci) on Sunday, November 10; and the World Premiere of Lone Survivor (Dir Peter Berg) on Tuesday, November 12.
All Galas will be presented in the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre.
August: Osage County
AFI Fest’s Special Screenings are Her (Dir Spike Jonze); The Invisible Woman (Dir Ralph Fiennes); Jodorowsky’S Dune (Dir Frank Pavich); Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom (Dir Justin Chadwick); The Past (Le PASSÉ) (Dir Asghar Farhadi); Philomena (Dir Stephen Frears); and The Unknown Known: The Life And Times...
- 10/17/2013
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
One of the highly anticipated Galas playing this week at the 57th BFI London Film Festival, here’s the new trailer for director Stephen Frears’ Philomena.
Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Philomena focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock – something her Irish-Catholic community didn’t have the highest opinion of – and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn’t allow for any sort of inquiry into the son’s whereabouts.
After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.
The film also stars Michelle Fairley, Barbara Jefford, Anna Maxwell Martin and Mare Winningham.
Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Philomena focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock – something her Irish-Catholic community didn’t have the highest opinion of – and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn’t allow for any sort of inquiry into the son’s whereabouts.
After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.
The film also stars Michelle Fairley, Barbara Jefford, Anna Maxwell Martin and Mare Winningham.
- 10/8/2013
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
No, this is not a remake of the Samuel L. Jackson brain-enhanced killer sharks thriller. The Deep Blue Sea is actually a new screen adaptation of a stage work more than sixty years old by Terence Rattigan as part of a centennial celebration of the noted British playwright. It’s set just a few years after the end of World War II and could very well have been made in the waning years of Hollywood’s Golden Age . This might be considered a ” woman’s picture ” back in the day and starred Bette Davis or Joan Crawford ( maybe at that time it would be Deborah Kerr or Olivia DeHaviland ). Going back to the early talkies romantic dramas were big earners for the studios in the days before male-dominated action flicks took over . An intimate study focusing on the female protagonist is rare these days. Of course certain elements of this...
- 4/20/2012
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
by Vadim Rizov
Terence Rattigan's 1952 play The Deep Blue Sea has been filmed before, but all director Terence Davies remembers of the 1955 incarnation (which he saw during childhood with his mother) is a shot of Kenneth More walking down a staircase. It makes sense that his version is less an adaptation than a hallucinatory recollection, a mostly wordless rendition of a wordy drama. Rachel Weisz is Hester Collyer, her most tightly coiled and miserable screen character since 2005's The Constant Gardener. The ostensible source of Hester's unhappiness is her adultery, which at the film's beginning has led to a suicide attempt. As she slips deeper into a death-spiral reverie, we see a compressed version of her affair with ex-raf pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), until she's slapped awake, a brutal return to the real world after a failed escape.
In honor of her Scarlet Letter namesake, Hester's literally a woman in red,...
Terence Rattigan's 1952 play The Deep Blue Sea has been filmed before, but all director Terence Davies remembers of the 1955 incarnation (which he saw during childhood with his mother) is a shot of Kenneth More walking down a staircase. It makes sense that his version is less an adaptation than a hallucinatory recollection, a mostly wordless rendition of a wordy drama. Rachel Weisz is Hester Collyer, her most tightly coiled and miserable screen character since 2005's The Constant Gardener. The ostensible source of Hester's unhappiness is her adultery, which at the film's beginning has led to a suicide attempt. As she slips deeper into a death-spiral reverie, we see a compressed version of her affair with ex-raf pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), until she's slapped awake, a brutal return to the real world after a failed escape.
In honor of her Scarlet Letter namesake, Hester's literally a woman in red,...
- 3/22/2012
- GreenCine Daily
It takes only a moment to drop a bomb, but it can take years to clean up the devastation it leaves in its wake. Such is the case for post-Blitz London, with its damaged flats and crumbled cathedrals, which makes a fitting backdrop for The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies‘ newest film as writer/director since 2000′s The House of Mirth.
Hester Collyer (a brilliant Rachel Weisz) is not long for this world. Or at least that’s the hope. Through a kaleidoscopic opening nine minutes, we get the speed-through of the steps she’s taken to end up in this dingy apartment, the kind where you have to pay for the gas in the heater, coin by coin. It makes for a very tedious and costly suicide attempt. Collyer sits on the love seat, taking languid drags of her cigarette, watching as it slowly burns to ash. She probably takes it as a mirror.
Hester Collyer (a brilliant Rachel Weisz) is not long for this world. Or at least that’s the hope. Through a kaleidoscopic opening nine minutes, we get the speed-through of the steps she’s taken to end up in this dingy apartment, the kind where you have to pay for the gas in the heater, coin by coin. It makes for a very tedious and costly suicide attempt. Collyer sits on the love seat, taking languid drags of her cigarette, watching as it slowly burns to ash. She probably takes it as a mirror.
- 3/22/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
As James Bond prepares for his 23rd official outing in Skyfall and to mark next year’s 50th Anniversary of one of the most successful movie franchises of all time I have been tasked to take a retrospective look at the films that turned author Ian Fleming’s creation into one of the most recognised and iconic characters in film history.
Following the huge success of the first James Bond film Dr. No, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were keen to start production on a follow-up. With United Artists offering the pair $2 million, double the budget of Dr. No, to quickly get a sequel in the works Broccoli and Saltzman were left to decide which of Fleming’s novels to adapt next.
In an interview with Life magazine the then Us President John F. Kennedy had mentioned the Bond novel From Russia With Love in a list of his top ten favourite books.
Following the huge success of the first James Bond film Dr. No, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were keen to start production on a follow-up. With United Artists offering the pair $2 million, double the budget of Dr. No, to quickly get a sequel in the works Broccoli and Saltzman were left to decide which of Fleming’s novels to adapt next.
In an interview with Life magazine the then Us President John F. Kennedy had mentioned the Bond novel From Russia With Love in a list of his top ten favourite books.
- 11/30/2011
- by Chris Wright
- Obsessed with Film
Versatile actor and writer best known as Wexford in the TV detective stories
Of all the television detectives of recent years, George Baker's Inspector Wexford, with his mature West Country burr, slight air of fallibility and occasional stubbornness, was the one who seemed to spring from real life rather than an author's fancy. Sometimes ponderous, sometimes wrong, always homely, Baker's Wexford had his affable ex-constable's feet firmly on the ground. The character had a solid, believable family life. The actor, also a family man, had a hand in some of the adaptations that went under the title of the Ruth Rendell Mysteries. Whatever the combination of factors, it gave Baker, who has died aged 80 of pneumonia, his greatest success.
Not that fame was unfamiliar to the actor, whose career had got off to such a promising start back in the 1950s. The British cinema spotted his handsome features almost...
Of all the television detectives of recent years, George Baker's Inspector Wexford, with his mature West Country burr, slight air of fallibility and occasional stubbornness, was the one who seemed to spring from real life rather than an author's fancy. Sometimes ponderous, sometimes wrong, always homely, Baker's Wexford had his affable ex-constable's feet firmly on the ground. The character had a solid, believable family life. The actor, also a family man, had a hand in some of the adaptations that went under the title of the Ruth Rendell Mysteries. Whatever the combination of factors, it gave Baker, who has died aged 80 of pneumonia, his greatest success.
Not that fame was unfamiliar to the actor, whose career had got off to such a promising start back in the 1950s. The British cinema spotted his handsome features almost...
- 10/9/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Distinctive, durable British character actor on stage and screen
Terence Longdon, who has died of cancer aged 88, was a character actor whose parted hair and thick-set face – though not his name – were familiar for several decades. Only once did he step into the spotlight at the top of the bill, when he starred as the title character in the television series Garry Halliday (1959-62). The almost-forgotten BBC children's adventure programme, based on books by Justin Blake, perfectly fitted Longdon's educated, smooth, well-mannered persona – and a man who had flown with the Fleet Air Arm during the second world war. The actor played a Biggles-like commercial airline pilot, with Terence Alexander as his co-pilot, Bill Dodds. Posing a constant threat to the Halliday Charter Company was "The Voice", an arch-villain who sat behind a two-way mirror and shone a light into the faces of his gang members, keeping his own in darkness.
Terence Longdon, who has died of cancer aged 88, was a character actor whose parted hair and thick-set face – though not his name – were familiar for several decades. Only once did he step into the spotlight at the top of the bill, when he starred as the title character in the television series Garry Halliday (1959-62). The almost-forgotten BBC children's adventure programme, based on books by Justin Blake, perfectly fitted Longdon's educated, smooth, well-mannered persona – and a man who had flown with the Fleet Air Arm during the second world war. The actor played a Biggles-like commercial airline pilot, with Terence Alexander as his co-pilot, Bill Dodds. Posing a constant threat to the Halliday Charter Company was "The Voice", an arch-villain who sat behind a two-way mirror and shone a light into the faces of his gang members, keeping his own in darkness.
- 6/13/2011
- by Anthony Hayward
- The Guardian - Film News
This is a bold and high-minded stab at the ultimate unfilmable book, writes Peter Bradshaw
In 1967, the American film-maker Joseph Strick took a bold and high-minded stab at the ultimate unfilmable book: Joyce's Ulysses. Inevitably, it's a disappointment, though watched again now for this rerelease, it doesn't seem as much of a disappointment as all that. Milo O'Shea gives a very decent performance as Leopold Bloom: he is dignified, vulnerable, sensitive and tragicomic. However, Maurice Roëves's Stephen Dedalus is flat and uninteresting; his opening dialogue scenes with Mulligan and Haines in the Martello Tower are odd and stilted, yet maybe there's no other way of doing them. I was reminded of Manoel De Oliveira's 2002 film I'm Going Home, in which John Malkovich plays a film-maker directing a new version of Ulysses, and unhappily attempting to direct Michel Piccoli's elderly French actor, whom he has stupendously miscast as Buck Mulligan.
In 1967, the American film-maker Joseph Strick took a bold and high-minded stab at the ultimate unfilmable book: Joyce's Ulysses. Inevitably, it's a disappointment, though watched again now for this rerelease, it doesn't seem as much of a disappointment as all that. Milo O'Shea gives a very decent performance as Leopold Bloom: he is dignified, vulnerable, sensitive and tragicomic. However, Maurice Roëves's Stephen Dedalus is flat and uninteresting; his opening dialogue scenes with Mulligan and Haines in the Martello Tower are odd and stilted, yet maybe there's no other way of doing them. I was reminded of Manoel De Oliveira's 2002 film I'm Going Home, in which John Malkovich plays a film-maker directing a new version of Ulysses, and unhappily attempting to direct Michel Piccoli's elderly French actor, whom he has stupendously miscast as Buck Mulligan.
- 11/19/2009
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.