The Desperate Hours (1955)

 

        Arrow Films are releasing William Wyler’s tense and suspenseful THE DESPERATE HOURS on Blu-ray. It’s a film that, if you watch it in the right frame of mind, may well remind you of John Carpenter’s classic HALLOWEEN in places, with its suburban setting and the way in which the police hunt their quarry. But that’s getting ahead of things. 

Glenn Griffin (a wonderfully worn-looking Humphrey Bogart), his brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and their accomplice, the brutish Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton), escape from prison. They decide to hole up in the suburban home of Daniel Hilliard (Fredric March) and his wife and two children. Meanwhile the Griffins’ old foe Deputy Sheriff Jess Bard (Arthur Kennedy) is hot on their trail, but narrowing down exactly where they are will depend on the family they are terrorising giving the police a clue.

The screenplay for THE DESPERATE HOURS  is by Joseph Hayes and is based on both his novel and his play. For a film that takes place mainly in a single house, director William Wyler does a great job of making the story as cinematic as possible, with angled shots and composites that makes this feel anything but stagey. As I mentioned above, if you love HALLOWEEN you may be struck by a number of similarities, to the point where when Bogart is punching through a door you’ll be convinced John Carpenter must have seen this and been influenced by it to make his landmark slasher. Well written, well acted and supremely suspenseful, THE DESPERATE HOURS was quite likely the inspiration for a host of home invasion movies that followed.

Extras on Arrow’s Blu-ray include a new commentary track from Daniel Kremer, as well as a 39 minute appreciation from University of Warwick film specialist José Arroyo that goes into the background of the making of the film. Eloise Rose provides a 15 minute visual essay on the film and there’s a 12 minute audio interview with William Wyler’s daughter who was present on set at the time of filming. There’s also a trailer and lobby cards as well as a collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film from Philip Kemp and Neil Sinyard. 

William Wyler’s THE DESPERATE HOURS is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 14th September 2026 from Arrow Films

The Abominable Snowman 4K (1957)

“Hammer + Nigel Kneale = Excellence in Cinema”

The latest film to receive the extra posh Hammer treatment is the film version of Nigel Kneale’s BBC TV play The Creature, broadcast twice in 1955 and then never seen again, so thank goodness for this superior Hammer adaptation which we can now enjoy in sparkling (especially with all that snow around) 4K. The film is being released in both separate Blu-ray and UHD editions, as well as a limited edition set that includes both UHD and Blu-ray discs plus a 120 page book (not provided for review), double-sided poster and reproduction lobby cards.

Peter Cushing stars as Dr John Rollason, a scientist staying at a remote Himalayan monastery where he, his wife Helen (Maureen Connell) and assistant Peter (Richard Wattis) are collecting rare botanical specimens for transport back to London. But Rollason, a proficient mountaineer, has another reason for being there. He has planned to meet up with Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker) and his team who are planning an expedition to find the yeti.

They set off despite both Helen’s protestations and the monks’ reticence and it soon becomes apparent that Tom’s plans for the yeti, should they find it, extend to rather more than just documenting the experience. As they climb higher and higher, the men find themselves challenged not just by the creature they may be looking for, but by their own collapsing sanity.

Nigel Kneale was always more interested in human interaction than in getting to the monsters, so don’t expect to see any yeti in the opening half of this. What we do get to see, however, is the conflict between the thinker and scientist (Rollason) and the two-fisted money maker (Friend). In QUATERMASS AND THE PIT terms they are akin to Quatermass and Colonel Breen - neither man understands the other and argument only serves to reinforce how little they have in common. Apart from the leads the other stars here are art director Bernard Robinson, whose sets are more detailed than they need to be but make the monastery scenes all the more of a pleasure to watch, composer Humphrey Searle who provides a near-otherworldly score, and director Val Guest who keeps things grounded (although one wonders what someone like Jacques Tourneur might have done with this kind of material). Oh, and fans of Eugenio Martin’s HORROR EXPRESS may get a feeling of deja-vu in the sequence where a scrabbling yeti claw tosses away a rifle.

As mentioned above the limited edition comes with both UHD and Blu-ray discs, and here’s what you get on them:

Disc One (UHD) and Disc Three (Blu-ray)

This offers you the UK theatrical cut running just over 90 minutes and two commentaries. Start with the 1999 one featuring Guest, Kneale, Marcus Hearn and Ted Newsom before moving over to the new commentary with Toby Hadoke and Kneale expert Andy Murray. You get the usual censor card and trailers and then there’s Abominable! a 58 minute documentary in which Wayne Kinsey, Andy Murray, Toby Hadoke, Jon Dear, Richard Hollis and Dick Klemensen discuss both the film and the lead up (in terms of BBC TV plays and Hammer’s adaptation of them) to the making of it.

The Art of Design is an excellent 25 minute piece from Wayne Kinsey about Bernard Robinson and specifically how Hammer sets were redressed and reused from the period when THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN was made. There’s an academic video essay from Heather Wixson on Fear and the Unknown in Monster Cinema in which she talks both about this film and movies like ALIEN and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Captured! is 8 minutes of Nigel Kneale’s own snapshots of his visit to the Hammer set, there’s an image gallery, and there are two Val Guest interviews: audio from 1988 (29 minutes) and video from 2003 (18 minutes). 

Disc Two (UHD) and Disc Four (Blu-ray)

Here we have the US cut of the film entitled THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS which runs five minutes shorter. We also have the very chatty Toby Roan and Heath Holland to provide a new commentary. A second commentary track is given over to cryptid enthusiast Stephen R Bissette who provides a whopping two hour and twenty seven minute audio essay that means they have to start the film over again.

Exhuming The Creature is a 54 minute piece in which Andy Murray, Gavin Collinson, Toby Hadoke, Jon Dear, Hannah Cooper and Richard Hollis talk about the original Nigel Kneale TV play, while The Legend of the Yeti: From Myth to Movies is 40 minutes of chat from Ted A Bohus, Stephen R Bissette, Michael Gingold and Casey Walker, writer-director of Hammer’s forthcoming ITHAQUA. Tim Lucas and Stephen R Bissette chat about the film over Zoom for 75 minutes in another of their ‘Sidebars’ and the disc and set is rounded off by an audio interview with BBC producer Rudolph Cartier from 1991. 

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN is out in 4K from Hammer in separate two disc UHD and Blu-ray sets, and in a limited edition combo set with all the extras listed above, on Monday 31st August 2026

Break in the Circle 4K (1955)

“Gorgeous Transfer of an Entertaining Espionage Thriller”

Hammer are releasing director Val Guest’s BREAK IN THE CIRCLE in a special three disc UHD / Blu-ray combo edition which, in common with their other ‘B’ movie releases, comes with an accompanying book and luxury packaging.

Skip Morgan (Forrest Tucker) is an ex-smuggler living the quiet life in Cornwall, enjoying time on his boat with his sidekick Dusty (Reginald Beckwith) when he’s not bugging local writer Lisa (Eva Bartok) with whom he has had a previous relationship. But his past soon comes back to haunt him in the form of Major Bartok (Guy Middleton) who convinces him to go to London for ‘one last adventure’.

That adventure involves rescuing Kudnic (Arnold Marle) from Hamburg at the request of Baron Keller (Marius Goring) for a large amount of money. Morgan is also wanted by Scotland Yard and it turns out Lisa has been keeping tabs on him for them. So he kidnaps her and sets off to Hamburg with Dusty where, with Emile (Eric Pohlman) they get into a bunch of scrapes, with plenty of double-crosses waiting for them at home.

The outstanding thing about BREAK IN THE CIRCLE is its location photography, filmed in vivid Eastman colour and rendered absolutely gorgeous by Hammer’s new 4K transfer. As such it now provides a valuable historical document of what Cornwall (specifically the village of Polperro), London and Hamburg used to look like. As a thriller it’s pretty routine stuff for the period, but it’s rarely dull and the presence of some familiar Hammer faces (we also get THE REPTILE’s Marne Maitland as a foreign agent) helps pass the time very comfortably.

Hammer’s set consists of three discs. A single UHD is home to three versions of the film: 1.66:1 UK theatrical (with commentary from film historian Richard Hollis and thriller novelist Gavin Collinson), 1.37:1 UK ‘as filmed’ (with commentary by Adrian Martin, who also discusses the US version) and 1.37:1 US version which is in black and white and runs 20 minutes shorter. You also get the censor card and UK and Italian trailers (for INTERPOL AGENT Z-3).

The films are also spread over two Blu-rays, the second of which has the other extras. There’s a look at the Hamburg locations today (11 minutes) and the Cornwall locations as well (5 minutes) as well as an image gallery. The major extra here is Eurocrimes (96 minutes) in which Sergio Angelini, Laura Mayne and Barry Forshaw cover a range of topics including the influence of the US communist witch hunts of the 1950s that caused many American stars and directors to move to Europe, as well as a potted history of European crime movies over that and subsequent decades. Finally you also get a book (not provided for review) with new writing from Wayne Kinsey, Neil Sinyard, Sarah Morgan and Miriam Balanescu.

Val Guest’s BREAK IN THE CIRCLE is out in 4K from Hammer in a three disc UHD / Blu-ray combo set on Monday 31st August 2026

X the Unknown 4K (1956)

Hammer’s follow up (of sorts) to their 1955 hit THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT is the latest film to receive the company’s whistles and bells deluxe treatment, with a special four disc limited edition set being released that includes a book, lobby card reproductions and a poster. 

In Scotland a large crack opens up in the ground where military training is taking place, killing one man and causing severe radiation burns on another. Because of this the help of the nearby Atomic Energy Laboratory is sought, including Quatermass stand-in Dr Adam Royston (Dean Jagger), his assistant Peter Elliott (William Lucas) and their boss John Elliott (Edward Chapman before he was Mr Grimsdale in Norman Wisdom comedies).

There’s a raid on the base, during which a safe door is melted and nuclear material stolen. A small boy sees something moving in the woods and gets the same radiation burns as the soldier. It turns out the crack in the earth has unleashed a large energy-hungry blob and it’s on the way to the atomic station for its next meal.

An entertaining, brisk, well-shot variation on the Quatermass theme, X THE UNKNOWN benefits from straight-faced performances and scientific explanations that you can just about believe for the length of the running time. Fans will spot plenty of familiar faces and if you’ve not seen this and love British SF you deserve to treat yourself.

As mentioned above, X THE UNKNOWN is getting the deluxe treatment. but if you want just the discs then those are being released in separate two-disc UHD or Blu-ray sets as well. However if you go for the limited edition, aside from the printed material, here’s what you’re going to get:

Disc One (UHD) and Disc Three (Blu-ray)

As with Hammer’s CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and other limited edition sets, these two discs have the same material on them. Disc one offers you the UK cut of X THE UNKNOWN in two aspect ratios - 1.66:1 (with optional Toby Hadoke and Andy Murray commentary) and 1.37:1 (with optional Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr commentary). The film really benefits from the 4K transfer and the two commentaries work well in terms of complimenting one another.

There’s a 62 minute new making of documentary, Into the Unknown, which, if you’ve listened to both commentaries, will feature quite a bit of familiar information from Toby Hadoke, Andy Murray, Wayne Kinsey, Dick Klemensen and Frazer Hines. There’s a 2003 Jimmy Sangster interview (22 minutes) but perhaps the highlight of the disc is a 49 minute in depth and quite touching documentary on special effects wizard Les Bowie, hosted by his co-worker Mike Tilley and featuring Wayne Kinsey. It’s excellent and features a number of models, matte paintings and other examples of Bowie’s work. 

Disc Two (UHD) and Disc Four (Blu-ray)

This disc offers the US cut of X THE UNKNOWN in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio with an optional commentary by David Kalat, whose commentaries are always excellent although again if you’ve already listened to the two previous commentaries you may get a little bit of unavoidable deja vu. Disc two also has a plethora of bits and pieces including textless and mute opening titles, a trailer, censor card, the 8mm version of the film (26 minutes), a piece on the restoration (11 minutes), image gallery, and a sidebar in which Tim Lucas and Stephen R Bissette discuss the film for longer than X THE UNKNOWN’s running time (87 minutes).

The undisputed highlight of disc two, however, is Displaced and Damned, a 76 minutes career overview of director Joseph Losey with contributions from Melanie Williams, Gavrik Losey, John Hamilton, David Huckvale, and Lauren Barnett. This being a Hammer disc it’s understandably Hammer heavy, detailing Losey's nearly-directing of X THE UNKNOWN and his actual directing of 1962’s THESE ARE THE DAMNED. We also get the Losey-directed and Jimmy Sangster-scripted short (29 minutes) A MAN ON THE BEACH (in colour and 2.35:1 widescreen) in which criminal Michael Medwin ends up at the house of Sir Donald Wolfit. 

As is so often the case with these releases, the film feels more of an extra to support the special features and as such this package offers excellent value for money, with three commentaries and two excellent documentaries, plus of course you get X THE UNKNOWN looking absolutely pristine. 

X THE UNKNOWN is out in a limited edition four disc UHD and Blu-ray set, and in standard separate two disc UHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 27th July 2026

On the Beach (1959)

The BFI are releasing producer-director Stanley Kramer’s film of Nevil Shute’s novel which, written in 1957, attempted to predict how people might behave when faced with the inevitability of death due to radioactive fall out. The film is getting a Blu-ray release but it’s not a restoration so be aware the print does look a little spotty from time to time. 

It’s 1964 (ie five years in the future) and most of the world has just been destroyed in a nuclear war. The radioactive residue has yet to reach Australia but it’s on the way, with an estimate of five months before it gets there. US submarine commander Dwight (Gregory Peck) arrives in Melbourne in denial that his wife and children are no more. At a party Moira (Ava Gardner) tries to cultivate a relationship with him. Meanwhile Dwight has been given a mission: he and his submarine crew are to travel to the west coast of America because a random morse code signal has been picked up in San Diego. Could there still be life there?

His team includes his lieutenant, Peter, (Anthony Perkins) whose wife Mary (Donna Anderson from COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE) is having trouble coping with the idea of imminent death, and scientist Julian (Fred Astaire in his first non-dancing role). As the months pass it becomes obvious that there is no hope for humankind. At all.

A lavish, serious, big budget look at the end of the world, ON THE BEACH takes its time (134 minutes in all) painting you a picture of a society deciding what to do with its last months on earth. The overriding message here seems to be that humans will face their final days with dignity - something of a a far cry from Val Guest’s THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (1961) and Australia’s own THESE FINAL HOURS (2013) which felt very much like an updating of ON THE BEACH albeit with a different cause for the catastrophe. Performances are solid and perhaps the biggest difference between this and other imminent apocalypse movies is that ON THE BEACH does not have a ‘moment of revelation’ that everyone is going to die. That knowledge is already set in stone before the film begins and it’s mentioned so casually that you actually wonder if you heard correctly. Like all armageddon movies ON THE BEACH is a sobering movie experience, and, with its over-riding theme of quiet dignity, quite a rare one.

Extras on the BFI’s Blu-ray include two commentary tracks, one by Dr Phillip Davey who wrote When Hollywood Came to Melbourne, and a new commentary by Scott Harrison. Both are sober and packed with interesting observations. Making ON THE BEACH is nine minutes of 8mm footage shot by amateur film-maker Richard Goslin with an entertaining voice over dubbed on. 

Kim Newman gives us a talking head piece in which he discusses apocalypse cinema (21 minutes) and he’s quite right that modern audiences worry too much about zombies and not enough about nuclear war. There’s a piece on Ava Gardner’s costumes for the film (16 minutes) that contextualises them within the world of Australian fashion at the time, and there’s a short tribute to director Kramer (14 minutes) from 2004.

There’s a new interview with Donna Anderson which concentrates on the movie, although at the end she admits she went on to star in some “terrible” films, but doesn’t mention any titles, so perhaps she doesn’t mean WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS. Finally we get OPERATION HURRICANE (1952) which is a 33 minute short film about Britain’s nuclear testing on the Monte Bello islands. There’s also a booklet with new writing on the film from Christina Brennan, Barry Forshaw and Vic Pratt.

Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH is out on Blu-ray from the BFI on Monday 27th July 2026