{"id":19229,"date":"2019-05-13T13:09:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T17:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=19229"},"modified":"2019-05-13T17:26:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T21:26:24","slug":"allan-dwans-the-rivers-edge-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=19229","title":{"rendered":"Allan Dwan’s The River’s Edge (1957)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Allan Dwan really likes his job.<\/p><\/div>\n

Just posted is a heavily updated review of The River\u2019s Edge<\/a> <\/strong>(1957), the weird but engaging ‘colour noir’ by Allan Dwan, a prolific filmmaker (and Toronto-born!) who moved to the U.S., worked his way up through assorted Hollywood productions in multiple departments before settling as writer, director, and producer from 1911-1961.<\/p>\n

I caught the film on TV decades ago, and loved the Fox DVD which came with a fine commentary by noir historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. The cast is perfect \u2013 Ray Milland as a murderous crook, Anthony Quinn as a maybe cuckolded husband, and Debra Paget as the babe forced to trek with the men to Mexico. Each has a dark past, but only Quinn and Paget are hungry to start new clean lives \u2013 if only such a miracle could happen.<\/p>\n

River\u2019s Edge<\/strong> is also one of many films produced by Benedict Bogeaus, a name that frequently popped up on B and B+ productions which were packaged and distributed by major studios. Silver and Ursini say Bogeaus lured aging stars with decent paycheques and kept the budgets tight \u2013 his films certainly contain some solid stars \u2013 but being indie productions, they\u2019d sometimes appear as grey market\u00a0public domain works on LP-recorded VHS<\/a>, and sold in budget racks in variety and department stores.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I snagged a tape of From the Earth to the Moon<\/a><\/strong> (1958), an intriguing film hobbled by the sudden shutdown of doomed major studio RKO. I wish that film would get the Blu-ray treatment, but The River\u2019s Edge<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is among the few Dwan and Bogeaus films to make it to Blu.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s disc is gorgeous \u2013 the image is so crisp, you can see the seam in a background cyclorama through a shack window \u2013 and Paget is unsurprisingly stunning. The booklet has some classic production stills that infer steamy sex & violence & improvised surgery, but they\u2019re cheats that misdirect and probably help feed the imaginations of the artist who inked the ridiculous poster art.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

This fight does NOT happen at cliffside!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Film fans have their own strange fixations. I\u2019m game for anything RKO, anything in CinemaScope, anything directed by Milland, anything produced by Bogeaus, and maybe anything directed by Dwan. I swear I saw an interview with him on TVOntario<\/a> eons ago, but I might be wrong; host and\u00a0Saturday Night at the Movies<\/strong> series creator Elwy Yost<\/a> supported his themed evenings with rare filmmaker interviews, and it\u2019s not impossible that he programmed one of Dwan\u2019s films, and perhaps chatted with the filmmaker after he retired at 76, and before he passed in 1981 at 96. Amazing career.<\/p>\n

Coming next: <\/em>Eric Friedler\u2019s second documentary at TJFF 2019, the zippy It Must Schwing! The Blue Note Story<\/strong> (2018), Rouben Mamoulian\u2019s Becky Sharp<\/strong> (1935); and The Cohens and Kellys<\/strong> (1926), a restored silent comedy classic that also screened at TJFF yesterday, with live music. I hope to pair it with a faux sequel which co-starred C&K actress\u00a0Olive Hasbrouck.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allan Dwan’s weird & wonderful colour noir THE RIVER’S EDGE (1957) finally makes it to Blu via Twilight Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5018,3296,3664,1657,2562,352,2563,6135,6136],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/RazorsEdge_featured_m.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-509","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19229"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19238,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229\/revisions\/19238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}