Richard Attenborough plays a sympathetic creep uncannily in Séance on a Wet Afternoon, the ’64 feature about the abduction of a child by aspiring psychics.

Kim Stanley is also brilliant as the nutjob who’s convinced she and hubby’s kidnapping is really just the “borrowing” of a child. Bryan Forbes’ sharp direction is matched by his screenplay, one that holds back on the motivation for the couple’s criminal act. Whether or not the child makes it becomes the film’s ultimate cliffhanger, and the film’s final séance sequence is perfectly played.

Just in time for the release of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man comes a DVD compilation of some of the animated series. The standout is the original ’67 toon pilot, full of hallucinogenic backgrounds (what was up with those skies?), the unforgettable theme song and that jerky, budgeted-by-cheapskates animation. And it must be said: though Tobey Maguire is getting raves for his rendition of Peter Parker and Spider-Man, Paul Soles, the Canuck actor who first voiced the superhero, did fantastically well as the original. Sadly, the rest of the DVD is laden with the more recent Spidey cartoons, which are pretty generic. And the entire effort is bogged down by Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee’s burdensome intros to each cartoon. Are kids really going to enjoy listening to him drone on about his inspirations? :

—Matthew Hays