WWII hero, former stunt double for Rick Dalton, and all-around bad boy Cliff Booth is coming back for more trouble!

Ignite Films is an interesting little video outfit, specializing in meticulously restored independent productions from the past. I have their excellent premiere release, Invaders From Mars.

Ignite’s latest is a film with a title that sounds like it could be a breakfast at Denny’s. The Big Combo, now in the public domain, is a noir title from 1955.

https://www.ignite-films.com/products/the-big-combo

I ordered the regular Blu-ray edition, as my JVC video projector has the 2K resolution formerly known as “full HD.” Did you know that the 3-chip DLP projectors in movie theaters are “only” 4K? That’s right, your 4K TV at home has the same resolution as seen on those gigantic screens.

HBO Max occasionally has some of Eddie Muller’s ‘Noir Alley’ installments from Turner Classic Movies. Here is The Big Combo, in another DogRat simulation of a TCM presentation. My fingers remain crossed that TCM will become available without a cable TV subscription.

SUNDAY! BOSTON AND SEATTLE BATTLE IT OUT! Count on Boston coming out on top.

Update: Well … the Pats could have done better than they did.

By the start of the 1940’s, Alfred Hitchcock had left England for America. The “official” (if that means anything) Alfred Hitchcock page on Facebook has this collection of posters for his Forties movies.

Hitchcock’s peak was during the Fifties, especially when he had an unbroken string of masterpieces from Dial M for Murder in 1954, through Psycho in 1960. At that same time he also produced his excellent anthology TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

My personal favorite Hitchcock film is Vertigo, from 1958. The premise of the story is preposterous, but nothing is beyond belief when a man is obsessed with a woman.

The first time I saw Vertigo was in the 80s, when Hitch’s “lost” (long-withheld) Paramount movies were put back into release for the first time in twenty years. Denro and I attended a very memorable showing at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA.

I have Vertigo in this Hitchcock Blu-ray/4K HD combo package.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CPLM17C

My JVC DLA-HD750 projector is now an old model, but as Bismo can attest the picture quality continues to be outstanding. Although 4K content is scaled down to 2K for the projector, there are other differences that are readily apparent in remastering, besides image resolution and High Dynamic Range.

Recently, I complained about the terrible image quality of Alien on Amazon Prime. I purchased it with high expectations, as I very much prefer the presentation of Vertigo on Amazon Prime over both the Blu-ray and 4K HD copies.