Olive Films in March: Ford, Fuller, Babenco, Ulmer, Wood, Auer, and Martinson
Posted January 16, 2013 04:46 PM by Webmaster
Olive Films will bring seven more titles to Blu-ray in April: John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright (1953), Samuel Fuller's China Gate (1957), Hector Babenco's Ironweed (1987), Sam Wood's The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Edgar G. Ulmer's Ruthless (1948), John H. Auer's Hell's Half Acre (1954), and Leslie H. Martinson's The Atomic Kid (1954).
John Ford weaves three "Judge Priest" stories together to form a good- natured exploration of honor and small-town politics in the South around the turn of the century. Judge William Priest is involved variously in revealing the real identity of Lucy Lake, reliving his Civil War memories, preventing the lynching of a youth and contesting the elections with Yankee Horace K. Maydew.
Near the end of the French phase of the Vietnam War, a group of mercenaries are recruited to travel through enemy territory to the Chinese border, to blow up an arms depot. A Eurasian smuggler, Lucky Legs, agrees to use her connections to help them, in return getting her bastard son into America. The racist father of the boy, Sergeant Brock, is also part of the multinational group. Lucky Legs must use the love of a Eurasian guerilla leader, Major Cham, to get access to the base. Will they destroy the base, and will Brock overcome his racism before Lucky Legs makes The Ultimate Sacrifice?
Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep star with Fred Gwynne and rock singer Tom Waits in this bittersweet story of haunting memories and the harsh realities of life on the streets. It's winter, 1938 in Albany, New York. The soup kitchens and flophouses are overflowing with homeless street people seeking food and refuge from the unforgiving cold. Francis Phelan (Nicholson) wanders the streets, back in his hometown after 22 years, an aimless vagabond ready to confront the family he abandoned long ago. While sharing his whiskey with longtime "pal" Helen (Streep), Francis reveals the dark secrets of his past, the painful memories from which he once tried to escape... but now must reconcile.
Horace Vendig shows himself to the world as a rich philanthropist. In fact, the history of his rise from his unhappy broken home shows this to be far from the case. After being taken in by richer neighbours he started to exhibit an obsessive and selfish urge to make more and more money, loving and leaving women at will to further this end.
A woman arrives in Honolulu to look for her missing husband, an ex-racketeer. Meanwhile, the man, under new identity, begins looking for his missing girlfriend. Eventually, the man's former associates also begin looking for him.
A uranium prospector is eating a peanut butter sandwich in the desert where atom bomb tests are being done. He becomes radioactive, and helps the FBI break up an enemy spy ring. Starring Mickey Rooney, Robert Strauss and Elaine Devry.
Yes! Sam Fuller's China Gate! It has been unavailable since VHS and it's one of a few films of his that I've missed out on. I hope there are more Fuller films in the works! Right on Olive!
YES! John Ford films are my most wanted on blu, so I'm very excited about The Sun Shines Bright....Not to mention The Quiet Man next week. Now if only Fox will bring out My Darling Clementine (It's ok Fox, I am enjoying my new How Green Was My Valley disc).
If you want to see where the nuclear test site scene came from in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," check out "The Atomic Kid!" I might purchase this because it's been decades since I've saw it.
Really psyched about Ironweed on Blu-ray! Great movie, although a serious downer. Been wanting to replace my crappy full screen DVD version of it for a long time...
Excited to see Ironweed come out on Blu and get the upgrade it deserves. I was thinking that this would be a could Criterion title someday but a good choice by Olive. Solid performances by Nicholson and Streep, and also Nathan Lane as the ghost who haunts Francis (Nicholson's character).
