Leonard Maltin

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Great Films You Can't Find on DVD

By Leonard Maltin
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March 24, 2010 4:00 AM
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9 Comments

With the long-awaited release of The African Queen on DVD this week, film buffs can check another prominent title off their want lists. That’s the good news…but there are still a surprising number of movies from every decade of the 20th century that aren’t commercially available.

The most surprising titles? Two winners of the Best Picture Academy Award—in fact, the only two not—

By Leonard Maltin
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March 22, 2010 7:29 AM
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1 Comment

If ever a movie was worth waiting for on DVD, it’s The African Queen. Because the film’s ownership was split among a handful of companies, on both sides of the Atlantic, and because it required an expensive restoration, it’s taken much longer than it should have to reach the marketplace…but now it’s here, and it’s great.

By Leonard Maltin
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March 16, 2010 5:54 AM
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1 Comment

The Norma Talmadge Collection (Kino)

The Constance Talmadge Collection (Kino)

Two of the most popular female stars of the 1920s are all but unknown today—sisters Norma and Constance Talmadge. In recent years some of their long-unseen features have been restored by the Library of Congress, using 35mm materials from the Rohauer collection, and now four of those films have been released on DVD by Kino. The Norma Talmadge disc includes Kiki (1926) and Within the Law (1923), while the Constance Talmadge disc features a pair of films costarring Ronald Colman, Her Night of Romance (1924) and Her Sister from Paris (1925).

By Leonard Maltin
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February 23, 2010 7:35 AM
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4 Comments

(Volumes 1 and 2)

By Leonard Maltin
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December 28, 2009 4:20 AM
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1 Comment

If you missed this documentary special on Turner Classic Movies, it’s a must-see for anyone who loves the Great American Songbook and the era in which it flourished. It’s now been released on DVD with a second disc of bonus material. Produced by Clint Eastwood (who first paid tribute to Mercer in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which took place in the songwriter’s home town of Savannah, Georgia) and directed by Bruce Ricker, the program compresses...

By Leonard Maltin
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December 13, 2009 7:22 AM
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0 Comments

Funny, I thought the last DVD release of this Alfred Hitchcock gem was definitive, with an excellent hour-long documentary hosted by its leading lady, Eva Marie Saint, and a commentary track by its articulate screenwriter, Ernest Lehman. How lucky for us that Warner Home Video decided that the movie’s 50th anniversary warranted the investment of returning...

By Leonard Maltin
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December 13, 2009 4:46 AM
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1 Comment

As a longtime 3-D aficionado, my two favorite shots from the “golden age” of stereoscopic moviemaking (that is to say, 1953) have always been the paddle-ball man in House of Wax and the mad doctor (Phil Van Zandt) who extends a hyper-long hypodermic needle toward the camera in The Three Stooges’ short Spooks. By constructing an absurdly long prop needle...

By Leonard Maltin
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December 13, 2009 2:50 AM
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0 Comments

I never dreamed this would happen: a six-disc set collecting the entire Joe McDoakes series! (Or perhaps I should say oeuvre.) For the uninitiated, I should explain that these ten-minute shorts, made between 1942 and 1956, were a snappy blend of slapstick and situation comedy featuring George O’Hanlon (later famous as the voice of George Jetson) as an ordinary guy who always wound up “behind the 8-ball.” I first documented the series in my book The Great Movie Shorts, many years ago, and had a devil of a time tracking down prints. They weren’t shown on television, and while some were available in 16mm, finding them was hit-and-miss. I actually traveled to Washington, D.C. to screen some of them on a Steenbeck editing machine. I never knew if I’d have a chance to see some of them again.

By Leonard Maltin
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December 13, 2009 2:11 AM
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0 Comments

There has never been a filmmaker quite like Sam Fuller: as director Curtis Hanson remarks in one of the interviews on this DVD set, he constituted his own genre. Fuller’s staccato, slap-in-the-face melodramas, war stories and genre pieces all bore his unique voice. As it happens only two of the films on this 7-disc set are bona fide Fuller productions, The Crimson Kimono (1959) and Underworld U.S.A. (1961). They may not be his best films but they’re significant contributions to...

By Leonard Maltin
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December 13, 2009 1:50 AM
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0 Comments

Robert Benchley is one of my lifelong heroes. I first read his hilarious essays as an assignment for a humor project in junior high school English class. (I can’t imagine that happening today, although the thought of life without Benchley or his compatriot...

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Categories

Great Films You Can't Find on DVD

DVD review: The African Queen

dvd review—Forgotten Stars

dvd review: Bad Girls of Film Noir

Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me

North By Northwest

The Three Stooges Collection, Vol. 7 – 1952-1954

The Joe McDoakes Collection

The Samuel Fuller Collection

The Robert Benchley Miniatures Collection

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