FILM FRENZY

Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan in Tarzan and His Mate (Photo: Warner Archive)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

HAMNET (2025). This adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, with a script co-written by the author and Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), is history topped with a large dollop of poetic license. It posits that it was the death of Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), the young son of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), that inspired the creation of the Bard’s masterpiece Hamlet. It’s Will’s ability to channel the monumentality of life through art, in essence achieving clarity and catharsis, that teases out the story, yet it’s Agnes’ ordeals that drive it, as this earthy free spirit offers support, self-sacrifice, and a soulfulness that seemingly permeates both the here-and-now and the hereafter. While most will fully absorb this film’s three-hanky credentials — the last act is particularly powerful — there will also be a good chunk of viewers who will find its stately studiedness too obvious, with every birth, death, and dramatic monologue staged with clockwork precision. Hamnet is up for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actress, Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Zhao; a making-of featurette; and a piece on reconstructing the Tudor period.

Movie: ★★★

HANKY PANKY (1982). After the gargantuan success of 1980’s Stir Crazy, director Sidney Poitier and stars Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were set to make another comedy together. But Pryor eventually backed out, his role was rewritten for Gilda Radner, and the result was a sizable romcom bomb. Hanky Panky seems like a spoof of / homage to Alfred Hitchcock thrillers — a MacGuffin, an innocent man accused of murder, cross-country jaunts, etc. — but it’s so anemic that it’s hard to be sure. Wilder stars as Michael Jordon, a Chicago architect who inadvertently gets mixed up in a labyrinthine plot involving a computer disc sought by various parties. After he’s mistaken for a killer, he tries to prove his innocence, accompanied by a mysterious lady (Radner) as they travel from New York to the Grand Canyon. There’s a mildly amusing (emphasis on mildly) bit where Michael performs magic tricks for a busload of passengers, but otherwise there are as many chuckles in this film as there are alligators in the famed Arizona canyon. Poor Gilda really seems to be trying, but her part is so wretchedly written that she’s unable to gain any traction.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★½

HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961). This sword-and-sandal yarn was released in its native Italy as Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis; recognizing the accuracy of the title, other countries opted for similar marquee fillers, including the United Kingdom (where it was called Hercules Conquers Atlantis). But not the U.S. of A.! Stateside, the film was shortened by seven minutes, outfitted with new opening credits, and released in 1963 under the misleading title Hercules and the Captive Women (there’s only one woman, and she’s only held captive briefly on two occasions). Aside from being filmed in 70mm Super Technirama (usually reserved for only the most prestigious of epics, like Spartacus and King of Kings), this is an ordinary entry in the genre, offering minimal thrills as Hercules (Reg Park) seeks to liberate Atlantis from the grip of its power-hungry queen (Fay Spain). For another (and better) Hercules film starring Park, check out Mario Bava’s 1961 Hercules in the Haunted World, co-starring Christopher Lee.

There are no Blu-ray extras. (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★★

PULSE (1988). Not to be confused with the 2001 J-horror fave, this Pulse is an ‘80s suburban terror tale in the tradition of Poltergeist, with spirits in the television set being replaced by ghosts in the machine. As such, it’s actually pretty good — a bit on the bland and predictable side but with better pacing, better performances, and better effects than one might reasonably expect. Charles Tyner, who largely built a career out of playing loonies, here portrays an old coot who informs David Rockland (Joey Lawrence), a kid staying with his dad (Cliff De Young) and stepmom (Roxanne Hart) in their Spielberg-approved, suburban Los Angeles home, that the area’s houses have become possessed by an evil electrical current that’s turning appliances and whatnot against the residents. Joey Lawrence’s little brother Matthew Lawrence co-stars as a chatty neighborhood boy; both siblings were at the time popular for their roles in the hit TV series Gimme a Break! If nothing else, Pulse is at least 100 — scratch that, 1,000 — times better than Wes Craven’s Shocker, also dealing with electrical evil and released the year after this picture.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★½

STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940) / THE VERDICT (1946). These two thrillers share a common plot, as an innocent man has been convicted for a crime he did not convict. The other link: Peter Lorre co-stars in both.

The very first film noir? Good luck finding a definitive answer. Yet in recent times, the frontrunner for that title would seem to be Stranger on the Third Floor. Ignored by audiences and trashed by many prominent critics, it would eventually be recognized for showcasing many of the elements integral to the genre, including an air of fatalism and shadows that almost become characters unto themselves. Rising reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) happens to be the key eyewitness in the murder of a diner owner, and he insists that he saw small-time thief Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr.) commit the crime. But Ward’s fiancée Jane (Margaret Tallichet) believes he’s wrong, and her uncertainty feeds into his own doubts. Could the killer instead be the creepy guy (Lorre) hanging around the neighborhood? The story’s rather simplistic and McGuire makes for a bland hero, but Lorre’s memorably menacing performance and many neat visuals (including a fevered dream sequence) easily compensate.

Lorre and the portly British actor Sydney Greenstreet were a popular screen team, eventually appearing in nine films together. Their first two were of course their most famous: 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, with Greenstreet earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his film debut, and 1942’s Casablanca. The ninth and final one was The Verdict, which places Greenstreet in the lead and hands Lorre a supporting role. Greenstreet is Scotland Yard Superintendent Grodman, who resigns in disgrace after he sends an innocent man to his death based on circumstantial evidence surrounding a grisly murder — the victim was an elderly woman, and the true killer could not be found. The woman’s nephew (Morton Lowry) is later murdered as well, with his body discovered inside a locked room. Grodman decides to do some investigating on his own, aided by his sardonic artist friend Victor Emmric (Lorre). The suspects are plenty in this cleverly constructed thriller that marked the directorial debut of Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry).

Blu-ray extras on Stranger on the Third Floor consist of three 1947 episodes of Mystery in the Air, a radio series starring Lorre; and the 1940 cartoons Ceiling Hero and Wacky Wildlife. Blu-ray extras on The Verdict consist of episodes from three different radio shows, all featuring Lorre: 1942’s Suspense, 1943’s Inner Sanctum, and the first episode of 1950’s The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, starring Greenstreet as the title sleuth; the 1946 Bugs Bunny cartoon Hair-Raising Hare; and the 1947 cartoon Birth of a Notion, starring Daffy Duck and a Lorre lookalike. (Purchase Stranger on the Third Floor here and The Verdict here.)

Stranger on the Third Floor: ★★★

The Verdict: ★★★

TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934). The first sequel to 1932’s Tarzan the Ape Man isn’t just the best Tarzan flick in the Johnny Weissmuller series — it’s the best Tarzan movie ever made. In this one, swingers Tarzan and Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan) get involved in the efforts of a pair of British explorers (Neil Hamilton and Paul Cavanagh) to swipe ivory from an elephant graveyard. Because it was produced in the pre-Code era, the levels of violence and sexuality are startling in their explicitness. Captured hunters are killed in grisly ways, while natives are ground into dust by rampaging elephants. As for the carnal aspect, there’s never any doubt when Tarzan and Jane swing off for the sole purpose of making whoopee, and Weissmuller and O’Sullivan remain an incredibly sexy couple. When the Production Code Office finally got its mitts on the film, it snipped out several moments of nudity (presumed or otherwise), including Jane’s infamous nude swimming scene (performed not by O’Sullivan but by body double and former Olympian Josephine McKim). These moments have long been added back to existing prints.

Blu-ray extras consist of the 1934 live-action shorts The Spectacle Maker and What Price Jazz, and the theatrical trailer. (Purchase this title here.)

Movie: ★★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) / RICHARD III (1995) / O (2001). “The play’s the thing.” “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Given William Shakespeare’s ability to work variations of “play” into his classic works, one can only wonder what sort of mileage he could have gotten from “film.” Alas, we’ll never know. But what’s certain is that the movie industry has a long tradition of transferring the Bard’s immortal plays to film, often in imaginative ways. Here are three such examples.

One of the undisputed classics of sci-fi cinema, Forbidden Planet is a far-flung adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with a smattering of Freud tossed in for good measure. Leslie Nielsen, decades before the Naked Gun films made it impossible to accept him in a serious role, plays the captain of an American rocketship which lands on the planet Altair-4; there, the space travelers meet Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), the only survivors of a scientific expedition sent to the planet years earlier. Aided by his creation, the docile Robby the Robot, Morbius is content to remain on Altair-4, but all hell breaks loose once an invisible “Id monster” starts murdering the crew members. The set design, music score (the film was the first to use an entirely electronic score), and Oscar-nominated visual effects are all first-rate; indeed, this remarkably mature drama was a major influence on the science fiction field for decades to come, most notably on Star Trek. Robby the Robot proved to be a popular fixture over the years, with later appearances in 1957’s The Invisible Boy, 1984’s Gremlins, 1988’s Earth Girls Are Easy, and episodes of countless TV shows as diverse as The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis, Columbo, and The Love Boat.

Richard Eyre’s acclaimed stage production of Richard III is brought to the screen by director Richard Loncraine and star Ian McKellen. The action is updated to 1930s Great Britain — or, rather, a Great Britain that might exist in a parallel universe. In this take, the murderous Richard of Gloucester (McKellen) employs tanks and machine guns to enable him to take over the crown from his unsuspecting kinfolk. It’s a bold revision, and one that works quite well — not too surprising, given the similarities with our own monstrous fascist from the same period (indeed, nods toward Nazism can be seen throughout). And while the film could have benefitted from a little more blood flowing through its veins — it’s no match for Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearian at-bats in all their lusty glory — there are zesty performances from an all-star cast to keep the story percolating. Among those contributing indelible turns are Annette Bening as the American-born Queen Elizabeth, Kristin Scott Thomas as Lady Anne, Maggie Smith as the Duchess of York, and Jim Broadbent as the Duke of Buckingham; only Robert Downey Jr., as Queen Elizabeth’s brother, fails to convince. This earned a pair of Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction & Set Decoration and Best Costume Design.

Othello, the tragic tale of the Moor who “lov’d not wisely but too well,” is given an overhaul in O, but the end result proves to be as irrelevant as 2000’s Hamlet, which clumsily transferred the story to the world of New York conglomerates. Here, the setting is a Charleston high school, as Odin (Mekhi Phifer), the sole black student, and his girlfriend Desi (Julia Stiles) find themselves manipulated by their evil classmate Hugo (Josh Hartnett). Director Tim Blake Nelson and writer Brad Kaaya try to connect the movie to the ever-present dilemma of school violence, but in the process, they have stripped the Bard’s tale of its power. The high school setting isn’t remotely believable (at least in the Taming of the Shrew update 10 Things I Hate About You, the teens really sound like teens), and with Shakespeare’s delicious dialogue replaced with modern vernacular, the character of Othello/Odin has been trivialized, coming off as a grandstanding teen who succumbs to the brutal instincts residing within him. Phifer and Stiles try to add import to their roles, but Hartnett’s approach to Hugo/Iago is all wrong: I chortled when someone stated that his character is liked by everyone, since it’s inconceivable any self-respecting clique would put up with this sullen creep for even one minute.

Forbidden Planet: ★★★½

Richard III: ★★★

O: ★★

THE HUSTLER (1961). It wasn’t until 32 years after his film debut in 1954’s The Silver Chalice that Paul Newman finally won his Best Actor Academy Award for 1986’s The Color of Money, Martin Scorsese’s rocking sequel to Robert Rossen’s The Hustler. But it was a classic case of too-little-too-late — Newman didn’t even bother to attend the ceremony — made all the more painful by the fact that the actor clearly should have won for his initial portrayal of Fast Eddie Felson (instead, fifth-billed Maximilian Schell won for a supporting role in Judgment at Nuremberg). Already adept at playing likable heels, Newman ratchets up the swagger as the rising pool-hall regular who sets his sights on taking down the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). A rocky romance develops with an alcoholic (Piper Laurie), while a pool-hall bargain is struck with a shady backer (George C. Scott). Nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor (Newman), Actress (Laurie), Supporting Actor (both Gleason and Scott), Director, and Adapted Screenplay (Rossen and Sidney Carroll), this masterwork deservedly won for Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Black-and-White Cinematography.

Movie: ★★★★

THE ICE PIRATES (1984). There are seemingly more gags than visual effects shots in The Ice Pirates, a campy sci-fi yarn that imported three popular actors from television to fill out the leading roles. Robert Urich (Spenser on Spenser: For Hire) stars as Jason, the leader of a ragtag galactic outfit making life difficult for the nefarious ruling class in a future where water is a rare commodity. Michael D. Roberts (Rooster on Baretta) plays Roscoe, his best friend and second-in-command. And Mary Crosby (she who shot J.R. on Dallas) is Karina, a princess who hooks up with Jason and his assemblage of lovable rogues. The jokey script is occasionally amusing but more often awful, but it’s difficult to hate a movie as puppy-dog harmless and eager to please as this one. The real fun comes in noting the supporting cast: Anjelica Huston, John Carradine (as the “Supreme Commander”), Ron Perlman, former NFL star John Matuszak, and, most startlingly, Bruce Vilanch, the Emmy-winning co-scripter of a dozen Oscar telecasts, as the Herod-like despot Wendon. For a far superior mix of science fiction and satire, just watch Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs again.

Movie: ★★

M (1931). Orson Welles’ 1941 Citizen Kane is rightly celebrated for hauling more than its share of cinematic innovations, but this German masterpiece from director Fritz Lang likewise deserves praise for introducing new techniques to an international film community that was eager to expand the parameters of this bold medium. Watching this psychological thriller for the umpteenth time, it’s clear yet again that Lang was ahead of most of his peers in grasping the promise of the motion picture form: The inventive camerawork and sharp editing were unusually complex for their time, and the director’s extraordinary use of sound (and this was his first talkie!) further enhances the effectiveness of the piece. In a star-making performance, Peter Lorre is mesmerizing as a child killer whose vile crimes are paralyzing the streets of Berlin. The police exhaustively use every resource at their disposal in an attempt to track him down, but they’re one-upped by the criminal underworld, whose members use their own methods to locate the madman who’s been drawing too much attention to all illegal endeavors.

Movie: ★★★★

OFFSIDE (2006). Like Zhang Yimou back in the 1990s, Jafar Panahi has frequently found himself the target of government interference, with all of his works banned outright from being screened in his homeland. Lucky for us, these humanistic efforts (including Crimson Gold, The Circle, and the current 10 Best of 2025 entry It Was Just an Accident) have over the decades steadily been making their way to U.S. shores. In this offering from the Iranian auteur, a group of young women try to sneak into a stadium to see a World Cup match. Since it’s illegal in Iran for women to be in the same sports arena with men, they’re placed in a holding cell, whereupon they engage in lively chats with their reluctant jailers. Dramatically, this enchanting and illuminating effort is far less punishing than many of Panahi’s other pictures, which isn’t to say it’s any less critical of the way things stand in this Middle Eastern nation. Yet for all its railing against archaic (and misogynistic) ideas, it also introduces us to a handful of endearing characters (male and female), in the process humanizing a nation that is only presented to the U.S. as a boogeyman threatening — what’s the popular term? — “our American way of life.”

Movie: ★★★½