The 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival (4,21 thru 4.23) contains four stand-outs — (a) a black-and-white 3D presentation of the 1953 version of I, The Jury, (b) a new restoration of George Stevens‘ Giant (sorely needed after the atrocious 2013 Bluray version), (c) the Warner Archive restoration of Angels With Dirty Faces, and (d) a 1950s title that I can’t mention but will be announced by the festival sometime in early to mid April.
Here’s my November 2013 review of the awful Giant Bluray; the new restoration presumably represents a much more attractive rendering.
The quality of this I, The Jury trailer is atrocious, and the film itself looks terrible. But I love the idea of 3D black-and-white.
Here’s an 8.22.53 N.Y. Times review by Howard Thompson:
“Although an expansive cast of guys and dolls headed by Biff Elliot snarls through Victor Saville‘s handsomely mounted production with pontifical adherence to Spillane protocol, this United Artists release is erratic, flaccid entertainment, and a lukewarm tribute to a trademark.
“For Mr. Spillane, as everybody knows, writes hot stuff. And his sleuth spokesman, Mike Hammer, is a ruthless bedroom-bar commuter, wreaking terrible vengeance on his foes and pacifying a succession of sizzling beauties along the way, often to a pulp. Not here, however.
“Denied a harvest of sadism and sex by the screen’s censorship code, Mike Hammer emerges as a pretty dull operator. While Harry Essex‘ scenario and direction net our hero some random bashings, dalliances with a quartet of cooperative peaches and seven fresh corpses, the tale remains, as it originated, mere standard, bottom-drawer whodunit. Nor are the participants any less stereotyped in their barrage of inane, bitten-off smart talk: a phoney art collector, a testy police captain, the small and big-time underworldlings and, of course, the undulating ladies.
“A frenzied, rather sturdy attempt at camouflaging never quite comes off. But Mr. Essex does manage to keep these synthetic people generally on the hop, slink or prowl. And the photography is excellent, heightened throughout by the endeavor’s sole surprise — a sensible, unobtrusive use of three dimensions as an angular canvas that rarely nudges the text out of focus.
“Franz Waxman‘s moody, atonal jazz background also rates a nod. These technicalities, however, are squandered.
“Exactly why the producer chose Mr. Elliot, an open-faced youth whose demeanor suggests a college sophomore, to play the toughest private eye in fictional history is a real mystery. Among the others, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed and John Qualen try just as hard. But minus the mustard, I, the Jury tastes more than ever like pure baloney.
