TEN TO WISH FOR Part One

A little something different for a while as I chose ten films that I have always wanted to own but are not available in any officially sanctioned digital versions. Some I may have seen long ago and some I have longed to see. These are personal choices and in no way reflect artistic merit unless otherwise noted. 

1.

I WALK ALONE (1948: Dir. Byron Haskin)

I have been a Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas fan forever, so not having access to I Walk Alone, their first appearance on film together seems unjust in the extreme. The film also marked the screen debut of Tony Curtis, another famous co-star of Burt's, as well as the directorial debut of Byron Haskin (War of the Worlds), one of the earliest special effects men to become a fully fledged filmmaker. Having no memory of ever seeing it, I cannot comment on its status as an important film noir. Until recently another film missing in action was Burt's other 1948 noir Kiss The Blood Off My Hands, a film with a haunting title cherished by every Lancaster fan.

                                                                   
                                                                        2.

                                 THE STRANGER'S HAND (1954: Dir. Mario Soldati)

Novelist and film critic Graham Greene enjoys a sterling reputation for his cinematic contributions, both as a screenwriter and an author whose works have been adapted into numerous espionage and suspense dramas. His most lauded film was Carol Reed's The Third Man starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. Trevor Howard and Alida Valli co-starred, and were opportunistically reunited five years later in another Greene adaptation, The Stranger's Hand, an Anglo-Italian co-production that has been unavailable in any home video format. I remember watching it twenty years ago on television in Halifax, and being struck by its atmospheric Venetian scenery, a rather obvious attempt to replicate the ominous shadows of The Third Man's fabled post-war Vienna setting.