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‘LOST’ BARBARA STANWYCK, GARY COOPER AND MORE ON DVD/BLU-RAY

Blu-Ray/DVD Leonard Maltin
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  Barbara Stanwyck is one of those actresses who makes any film worth seeing. I don’t know anyone who disagrees, yet A Lost Lady (Warner Bros, 1934) is inexplicably overlooked. It’s not an important picture but I found it entirely satisfying. Stanwyck is in top form, and Frank Morgan is warmly effective as an older man who falls in love with her after tragedy turns her into a recluse. He woos and wins her but she is still vulnerable to the advances of Lyle Talbot and especially Ricardo Cortez. A Lost Lady is very loosely based on a novel by Willa Cather, who was reportedly so upset about this adaptation that she added language to her will forbidding further screen treatments. (Her book had been filmed more faithfully in…

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MALTIN MOVIE CLUB #4: THE MEDDLER

Leonard Maltin Movie Club
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When I saw The Meddler on its theatrical release four years ago, I feared it would be a one-joke movie. The “joke” is that a widow (Susan Sarandon) moves from New Jersey to California to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne) and just won’t leave her alone. Cell phone calls, texts, and unannounced visits to her house—even barging in while her daughter is taking a shower—are an everyday occurrence. Fortunately, writer-director Lorene Scafaria (who scored with last year’s Hustlers) based this screenplay on her own real-life situation and refuses to reduce its subtleties and complications to the level of a routine sitcom episode. She also has the benefit of a highly skilled actress in the leading role and Sarandon makes the most of it, Jersey accent and all. The…

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MALTIN MOVIE CLUB #3: WONDER

Leonard Maltin Movie Club
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There has never been a better time to recommend Wonder (2017). It’s a beautiful movie, and Stephen Chbosky was a perfect choice to direct and co-write it. The author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, who directed his own screen adaptation, isn’t afraid of honest emotion. What’s more, he is clearly in touch with his younger self. That alone would make him a candidate to translate R.J. Palacio’s best-selling young-adult novel to film. Wonder is a tearjerker that earns our tears by drawing us into its world and giving us a deep connection to its leading characters. Auggie (Jacob Tremblay) has had 27 operations by the time we meet him, at the age of 10. He suffers from craniofacial syndrome, which causes everyone who sees him to stare—in horror, disbelief,…

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SHOW BOAT, TEX AVERY, AND MORE: A DVD/BLU-RAY SURVEY

Leonard Maltin
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      SHOW BOAT (Criterion Collection) Show Boat is one of the landmarks of American musical theater, and director James Whale captured the essence of the Broadway show in this stylish 1936 film. Edna Ferber’s generation-spanning novel inspired an exceptional score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which is heard at its best in definitive performances by Irene Dunne as Magnolia, Allan Jones as Gaylord Ravenal, Charles Winninger as Captain Andy, Helen Morgan as Julie, Hattie McDaniel as Queenie, and Paul Robeson as Joe, among others. Universal produced a silent version of the book in 1929 and hastily added talkie musical numbers as it went into release. All of that is covered in this expansive Criterion Collection release. Shana L. Redmond discusses the treatment…

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NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS – March 2020

Books Leonard Maltin
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  PHANTOM LADY: HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER JOAN HARRISON, THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN BEHIND HITCHCOCK by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press) Just when you think you know all there is to know about the principal figures of Hollywood’s golden age, along comes this knockout of a book about the little-known Joan Harrison. Educated at Oxford and the Sorbonne, she answered a want ad for a secretarial job at Gaumont British Pictures in 1933 and within a few short years was collaborating with Alfred Hitchcock on the screenplays of Young and Innocent, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent. She also became an indispensable colleague who traveled and lived with the Hitchcock family. In the 1940s she set off on her own as a producer when few women held that title, and…

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MALTIN MOVIE CLUB #2: LUCKY

Leonard Maltin Movie Club
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Lucky (2017) is a remarkable film, a living testament to the talent and formidable screen presence of the late Harry Dean Stanton. It was written as a vehicle for the nonagenarian actor by his longtime assistant, Logan Sparks, and while it’s fictional it incorporates many facets of the actor’s life and personality. The film opens with a shot of a tortoise crawling through the desert and disappearing behind a rock—an arresting image, especially in a widescreen frame. On the soundtrack we hear a harmonica rendition of “Red River Valley,” and then learn that it’s being played by the main character, Lucky. What a fitting and poetic way of opening this character portrait. Lucky is an old man who lives by himself and follows a daily routine:…

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BLOW THE MAN DOWN: LIKABLY QUIRKY FARE

Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Blow the Man Down marks the feature-film debut for two female friends who’ve been on the New York filmmaking scene for a decade. After an exceptionally long gestation period, Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s quirky tale won the Best Screenplay award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It was subsequently acquired by Amazon and begins streaming today. That’s a happy turn of events all around. Put simply, it’s about murder in a Maine fishing village where everybody knows everybody’s business and there are skeletons rattling in their collective closet. Sophie Lowe and Morgan Saylor play sisters who have just buried their mother, one of the pillars of the community. The siblings have different outlooks on life—and the prospect of running the family business, a fish…

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