Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley (1947):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Proud, ambitious Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) has fallen as low as it gets in Edmund Goulding's Nightmare Alley (1947)

Continuing their recent run of classic Hollywood restorations, Criterion have released an excellent edition of Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley (1947), a sordid story of madness and criminality starring Tyrone Power in his best role as an opportunistic carny who cons his way to the top of respectable society only to plunge back down to the lowest depths. A remarkably grim movie to have been made by a major studio on an A-picture budget, it still remains a potent glimpse of existential horror.

Dorothy Arzner’s Merrily We Go to Hell (1932):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Dorothy Arzner’s pre-Code romantic comedy/tragedy Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) is given a gorgeous presentation by Criterion from a new 4K restoration. This story of a vibrant heiress (Sylvia Sidney) and her marriage to an alcoholic writer (Frederic March) avoids the standard Hollywood cliches which would soon become entrenched as the Production Code imposed rules of behaviour on the characters who populated studio movies.

Frank Borzage’s History is Made at Night (1937):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Romance begins in menacing darkness in Frank Borzage’s History is Made at Night (1937)

Criterion have released a stunning restoration of History is Made at Night (1937), Frank Borzage’s startlingly unpredictable mixture of romantic comedy, melodrama, noir and horror, which climaxes as a full-blown disaster film. Production began with only half a script and much of the film was improvised on the fly, yet it emerged as a wonderfully entertaining, continuously surprising testament to Borzage’s belief in the redemptive power of love.

Recent BFI releases

The Gamin (Adrienne Barrett) is trapped in a noirish cycle of violence in a city of perpetual night in John Parker's Dementia (1953)

Two new BFI releases present a variety of movies from the fringes of the industry – John Parker’s surrealist noir Dementia (1953), aka Daughter of Horror (1957), and Short Sharp Shocks, a collection of British theatrical shorts with an emphasis on horror and the uncanny made between 1949 and 1980.

Indicator in a box

Killers Dancer (Eli Wallach) and Julian (Robert Keith), looking for smuggled drugs, terrorize a mother and daughter in Don Siegel's The Lineup (1958)

Indicator have done their usually exemplary job with a pair of recent box sets – one devoted to the five Fu Manchu movies written and produced by Harry Alan Towers in the late 1960s, all starring Christopher Lee in racial drag; the other showcasing six films from Columbia Pictures rather loosely gathered together and labelled film noir.

Life and Death in the films of George A. Romero

Peter (Ken Foree) has no patience for stupidity in George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978)

With the release of Second Sight’s massive edition of George A. Romero’s genre-defining Dawn of the Dead – all three cuts restored in 4K, plus commentaries and a supplementary disk with almost seven hours of new and archival documentaries and featurettes, and no less than three CDs of music including the complete Goblin soundtrack and hours of library tracks – the late, great director is given his due. Arrow’s 2017 three-disk set of early features, Between Night and Dawn, illuminates how he got there.

Blasts from the past

Styles of Horror, part two

Culling the collection

Mackenzie Valley gas pains

January releases from Indicator

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