Rare Connery and Moore Movies Coming to Blu-ray This Fall

Michael Caine isn't the only superspy coming to Blu-ray this fall from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. You'll also be able to trace the gathering age lines on Roger Moore and Sean Connery in high definition in some of their post- (or nearly post-) Bond best non-spy roles. Perhaps most excitingly, the company will release the 1984 Golan Globus action thriller The Naked Face, starring Roger Moore, on both DVD and Blu-ray on October 24. Why is this the most exciting? Because the Chicago-set, Bryan Forbes-directed Sidney Sheldon adaptation (which co-stars Rod Steiger, Elliott Gould, Anne Archer and Art Carney) has never before been available in the United States on DVD! And it's one of Moore's best non-Bond actioners. So Moore fans should definitely check this one out.

On September 16, Kino will release a pair of Seventies Sean Connery movies that have previously been on DVD (though are now out of print and quite pricey), but never before on Blu-ray: Michael Crichton's 1978 Victorian caper The Great Train Robbery (co-starring Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down) and Ronald Neame's 1979 all-star disaster spectacle Meteor (co-starring Natalie Wood, Karl Malden and Martin Landau). The latter may not be considered a Connery Classic, but it is one of my own favorite guilty pleasure movies of that era. Then on December 2, the company will release Connery's own career-favorite performance in Sidney Lumet's The Offence (opposite Trevor Howard). The Offence has previously been available in America only as an MOD title. Finally, spy fans may also be interested to know that Kino will put out Hickey and Boggs on Blu-ray the same day. While not a spy movie, the 1972 private eye tale is notable for reuniting one of the most famous spy duos of the Sixties, I Spy's Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. Whew! It's going to be an expensive fall!