IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

The Warner Archive Collection announced three new Blu-ray releases for March, and all of them sound pretty enticing.  On March 13th, the last two features directed by Fritz Lang in the U.S., While the City Sleeps (1956) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), both films noir starring Dana Andrews, are scheduled to be released.  Then, March 20th will see the Blu-ray premiere of The Black Scorpion (1957), a giant monster sci-fi flick with special effects by the legendary Willis O’Brien (King Kong).

Here are the full details from the Warner Archive Collection Facebook page:

While the City Sleeps (1956)
New 2018 1080p HD Remaster
Run Time 99:00
Subtitles English SDH
DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 Mono – English
ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO – 2.0:1, 16×9 Letterbox
B&W
BD 50
Special Feature: Theatrical Trailer (HD)

“Ask mother,” says the message scrawled in lipstick at a murder scene, written by an unidentified serial killer who preys on women. It’s a sensational story — if it bleeds, it leads — and a news conglomerate offers a big promotion to any high-level company exec who solves the case. So begins the wheeling, dealing and backstabbing of the competing media hotshots as they vie to unmask the so-called Lipstick Killer. Fritz Lang (The Big Heat), whose early career expressionist works would strongly influence the film-noir genre, directs this stylistically understated noir that features an abundance of starpower rare for the genre: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino and other notables.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
New 2018 1080p HD Remaster
Run Time 80:00
Subtitles English SDH
DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 Mono- English
ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO – 2.0:1, 16×9 Letterbox
B&W
BD 25
Special Feature: Theatrical Trailer (HD)

After director Fritz Lang vaulted to prominence with such masterpieces of German cinema as Metropolis and M, he brought his art to Hollywood films, including Fury, Ministry of Fear, The Woman in the Window and more trenchant tales of innocents caught in a web of seeming guilt. His last U.S. movie is this intriguing film noir about a novelist (Dana Andrews) out to expose the injustices of capital punishment. Working with his fiancée’s (Joan Fontaine) father, a newspaper publisher (Sidney Blackmer), he frames himself for murder, intending to produce exonerating evidence at the last moment.

The Black Scorpion (1957)
New 2018 1080p HD Remaster
Run Time 88:00
Subtitles English SDH
DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 Mono – English
ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO – 1.78:1, 16×9 Widescreen
B&W
BD 25
Special Features: “Stop Motion Masters” with Ray Harryhausen; Las Vegas Monster and the Beetlemen test footage; Harryhausen’s Dinosaur sequence from “The Animal World”; Giant Monsters Trailer Gallery; Theatrical Trailer (HD)

They’re big. They’re bad. They scuttle along in caverns miles beneath the Earth – until an earthquake opens paths to the surface. Now, these monsters of genus Arachnida are invading our world with deadly force! With top special effects co-designed by King Kong’s Willis O’Brien, The Black Scorpion is horror with a sting more lethal than the king-sized ants that overran Los Angeles’ sewers in the classic Them! Can humankind survive these invincible juggernauts? That fate rests on the shoulders of Hank Scott (1950s monster-movie stalwart Richard Denning) as the creatures rip a train from its track, snatch a helicopter from the sky and, in the film’s most gripping sequence, battle each other in their subterranean lair.