This month marks the tenth anniversary of this stupid blog, and I was thinking of what I could do to commemorate this landmark, and the main thing that occurred to me was that I could just pull the plug on the whole thing. My work load really doesn’t allow me the time to contribute much to it, and my temperament has improved over the past few years to the extent that I don’t feel the need to vent as much as I used to, and when I do feel that need, I attempt to exercise some prudence, at least eight times out of ten if my track record of the last seven months is a reliable indicator. In any event, something—sentimentality, the need to maintain a safety valve or existential escape hatch, who can say—compelled me to pony up for another year with Typepad. And to carve out (and it wasn’t easy) the time to write the one thing that no professional outlet will pay me for.
Also, one of the providers of one of these discs asked about a review a little while back, and I got snippy with him about it, which I then felt guilty about, which then motivated me to write an entire thing to support the one capsule. I shall have to discuss this with my therapist. ("So I wrote 6000 words as an amends to a guy I had a mildly unpleasant DM exchange with.") As our President likes to say, “Enjoy!”
Equipment: Playstation 3, Sony KD50X690E display, Pioneer Elite VSX-817 AV amplifier/receiver.
La Belle Noiseuse (Cohen)
Hopefully I need not extol the virtues of this 1991 film directed by Jacques RIvette, nor excessively clamor with respect to the necessity of a swell high-def edition, a necessity that this two-disc set so satisfactorily addresses. The image quality is consistently gorgeous. And what an amazing movie it is, an epic that’s tight and devastating and incorporates all the lessons of Rivette’s prior experimentations with improvisation in the service of a multi-dimensional dissertation on art and life and life as art and art as life. Here’s the matter I want to address though: Once this disc was delivered to my doorstep and I looked at the back cover I had one question, which was “What kind of freakazoid can conceive and deliver a full-length audio commentary to a nearly four-hour motion picture?” Not to say that Rivette’s work doesn’t lend itself to exhaustive analysis but, well, you know. (Believe it or not, I get tired of hearing my own voice after about 40 minutes, which is why I prefer to do Blu-ray audio commentaries with partners.) In any event, for this Blu-ay package that freakazoid is Richard Suchenski, a writer and academic associated with Bard College. Bard. Figures. The phrase “vertiginous interchange between different layers of intertextual reference” is uttered not even ten minutes in. I kid, I kid—while I consider this a borderline jargon incident, I also concede Rivette’s art calls for complex language in analysis. In any event, Suchenski’s work is outstanding. He takes an aesthetically holistic approach harking back to Rivette’s criticism. Weirdly enough there’s little in terms of nuts-and-bolts making-of info or on-set anecdotes. And yet the commentator fills the space. In the first half he’ll pause for 20 or 30 seconds at a time, but that’s nothing! The pauses do get longer in the second half, which reduced my potential resentment somewhat. He’s very sharp on any number of topics, including the film’s approach to female nudity. (Even as you watch with commentary you recognize how amazing Emmanuelle Béart is in an IMPOSSIBLE role.) Suchenski deserves a medal in addition to his fee. Perhaps he’ll settle for my giving this package an… — A+
The Church (Scorpion)
Michele Soavi’s 1989 Not Demons 3, concerning an monoportal church whose only entrance/egress is sealed up via some satanic power, the better to condemn its inhabitants to grotty death. holds up pretty well. It’s no Cemetery Man but what is; anyway it’s credible enough throughout not just to hold your attention but to make you feel bad that poor Soavi’s stuck directing Italian mini-series these days, or so it seems. (The near-suffocation-by-wedding-dress-bit is particularly inspired.) Featuring little Asia Argento, a bit tomboyish as the curious daughter of a church caretaker (she was over 20 here but looks 15), and Tomas Arana, who transforms from Wall Street-trading-floor-extra to Peter Murphy lookalike as he is compelled to serve the devil. Scorpion’s presentation is better than solid—check out the good autumnal tones in its medieval prologue. Only the English-language soundtrack is offered, and that’s fine. There are video interviews with Soavi, who doesn’t dis the prior Demons movies here, as he’s been rumored to in the past, and with Argento, whose recollections are funny and affectionate. Swell. —A
The Color of Pomegranates (Criterion)
The blow-the-top-of-your-head-off imagery of this cheaply made work of film poetry registers beautifully in this edition. Shots that then-music-video directors like Mark Romanek and Tarsem lifted wholesale from this 1969 Sergei Parajanov masterpiece look better in the original; once, you had to take this assertion on trust, now it’s as plain as the nose on your face. The commentary from Tony Rayns, one which he confesses his personal trepidation about taking on in the beginning, splendidly illuminates the rich veins of history, tradition, art, and literature from which the motion picture derives. He is deft in sorting out what he calls its “fusions of trans-Caucasus identity” and still finds time to drop some choice anecdotes, including one in which Parajanov goes to the New York Film Festival and makes dirty talk with Allen Ginsberg. —A+
Dead Man (Criterion)
This new transfer of one of Jim Jarmusch’s best films looks superb, so the 2011 issue regarding the first Blu-ray atrocity (see here) can be considered resolved. (And can also be considered as Harvey Weinstein’s last of many aggressive acts against the film.) The extras are multifarious and delightful. A making-of-focused commentary from production designer Bob Ziembicki and sound mixer Drew Kunin is wonky in all the right ways. There’s a 45-minute supplement in which Jarmusch reads and answers questions submitted by fans of the film. Among the submitters are Bill Hader and Alan Arkush. The latter asks about Iggy Pop and Neil Young and their contributions.. But there’s not a drop of consideration for my friend and neighbor Gibby Haynes, who appears in an unusually memorable cameo. Well you can’t have everything. —A+
Don’t Bother To Knock (Twilight Time)
Made in 1952, the same year in which Marilyn Monroe also did creditable work in Fritz Lang’s Clash By Night, this fascinating, weirdly unfocused melodrama/thriller directed by Roy Ward Baker features a stellar performance, supple and gradient, from MM. She plays a mentally disturbed young woman on a babysitting gig at an NYC lodging, whose bearings are further shaken up when sullen Dick Widmark makes to pick her up after a spat with Anne Bancroft, who plays a singer in the ground floor nightclub. The confined environs of the action suggest the alternate title Glum Hotel. Bancroft lip-syncs “How About You” (the lyrics “and Tyrone Power’s looks/give me a thrill” tip you off to this Fox production in the event you’ve missed the opening logo). MM’s portrayals of longing and malingering listlessness are convincing and upsetting, especially the way she uses her breathy, sex-kitten voice to put over the character at her most dangerous. (It probably goes without saying, by the way, that the movie’s got a pretty unenlightened view of mental illness.) The disc has no extras to speak of, the usual excellent Julie Kirgo booklet essay aside. But it does look good and crisp (Lucien Ballard shot it so we expect no less.). All this and Elisha Cook, Jr. too—he plays an elevator operator and uncle to MM’s character (his insistence of recommending her as a sitter is what gets all the trouble started). Not to mention Jim Backus. —B+
A Fistful of Dollars (Kino Lorber)
Good God I think this is the 700th home video edition of this movie I’ve owned. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH? I think I first saw it in the late ‘60s on a double feature with For A Few Dollars More. I was maybe ten years old and I was completely transfixed and nothing Pauline Kael said will ever make me change my mind and take your bromides about putting away childish things and stuff them because these movies feature Gian Maria Volonte and yours are about superheroes and everyone knows Gian Maria Volonte is cooler than any superhero. Excuse me. This Blu-ray is based on a recent 4K restoration and it looks fabulous. If you know this movie well (and if you don’t WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU) you will remember that it’s the sweatiest movie ever, and lemme tell you in this rendition you can practically count the beads. Extras include pretty much everything that’s been on the previous 700 versions, so that’s a lot. A new one is a commentary by Tim Lucas, delightful as always. There’s also this prologue for network television, shot by Monte Hellman and starring Harry Dean Stanton and some guy dressed in the Man With No Name (or “Joe,” if you believe Richard Schickel, whose old commentary is NOT included—Lucas has a good long riff on his track about how the Man With No Name in fact “has” several but goes by none personally). What’s very funny is how the actor doubling for Eastwood keeps trying to make sure his face isn’t in the frame, almost holding his hand up in front of it at one point—shades of Mrs. Prickley’s double. All things considered this is great and you should buy it. —A+
Gun Crazy (Warner Archive)
This year I showed my Language of Film students the fabled bank robbery long take and was newly impressed by so much, including Peggy Cummins’ driving skills. I am happy to know that next time I do the course I’ll be able to show it with the Blu-ray bump, which is pretty much all this new edition offers but that ain’t nothing. —A
Harper/The Drowning Pool (Warner Archive)
Well here I was hoping that I’d get some kind of eye-opening demonstration that would enable me to argue that the big studio genre films of the 1960s don’t get enough love. But I’m sorry to report that, Paul Newman notwithstanding, both these pictu 
res prove you can’t make The Big Sleep without Howard Hawks and Raymond Chandler, not to mention Leigh Brackett. These are adaptations of Ross MacDonald novels, with Lew Archer now named Lew Harper. Screenwriter William Goldman, on the not unexpectedly engaging commentary he recorded for the standard def DVD of Harpe
r, reproduced here, tells us why this happened, but I didn’t put it in my notes, and what he said now escapes me, so I guess you can rest assured the rationale was real exciting. Anyway, the most interesting thing about 1966’s Harper is that I’m now convinced that Joel and Ethan Coen watched it (maybe preparing for Hudsucker Proxy) and lifted a few facets from it for The Big Lebowski. The movie seems to introduce the cliché of the ditzy poolside bikini babe, which reaches its nose-thumbing apotheosis in Lebowski (in this picture she is played by Pamela Tiffin). There’s also some kidnap-money-drop stuff that Lebowski goofs on. This movie’s tough-guy atmosphere is steeped in ugly sexism, as in the dialogue about a woman who “used to be a pretty hot young starlet, what happened to her?” followed by a cut to high-BMI Shelley Winters. Director Jack Smight handles this kind of stuff competently, but is a stiff with action and suspense sequences. In the time-capsule department, the look is mid-60s Panavision/Technicolor, and the soundtrack features an André and Dory Previn song, sung by Julie Harris in the role of an arty Lola Heatherton. No really. I admittedly eat up this kind of stuff, and this movie has plenty of it, which, combined with the superb image and sound quality of the disc, wound up being its saving grace. Drowning Pool was made almost 10 years later, has the action shifted to Louisiana (for no reason one can discern from the diegesis), and at first seems overall like it might turn out to be a better picture than Harper. Young Melanie Griffith is memorable in a “problematic” role for sure. But while Harper is merely pedestrian, at least it’s got an Old-Hollywood-Tries-To-Stay-Spry spring in its step, while Pool devolves to downright sluggishness (and the playing out of the whole title conceit is five kinds of dumb). The discs are beautiful so if this kind of fare is your idea of a great nostalgia trip, or if you’re a Newman completist. you’ll be in a lower circle of heaven. Both discs:— B+
The Holy Mountain (Kino Lorber)
Hey kids it’s Leni Riefenstahl’s 1925 screen acting debut, given a spectacular restoration by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation. As a screen presence, I never got her, I must tell you. I’m skeptical about her as a filmmaker too but this is not the time for that. As its title suggests, this is, um, a “Mountain Film”—this was a big genre in German filmmaking starting in the beginning of the 20th century, one which is pretty much what it sounds like. Germany, you know, is somewhere in the vicinity of the Alps, and Germanic Romanticism places a great emphasis on, you know, climbing, so, I don’t know how much more of this I need to spell out for you. The director of the movie was one Arnold Fanck, who liked to be known as “Dr.” Arnold Fanck, even though he only had a PhD, and again what does that tell you. I shouldn’t be ragging so hard given this movie is genuinely curious, and ravishing to look upon. One salient feature of the Mountain Film was that it was hard to shoot, and it’s clear that technical difficulty yielded high technical sophistication—the outdoor stuff here is still startling. “The sea is her love—wild, boundless…” an intertitle says of LR’s character early on, and her wacky Dance to the Sea is something to behold. According to the commentary by Tavis Crawford, Hitler loved it. The shot of LR’s love interest standing on a peak is fer-sure Caspar David Friedrich in orange-tinted monochrome. According to the commentator, the Mountain Film also helped popularize skiing; talk about being freighted with a lot to answer for. Another interesting feature is how often the movie messes around with aspect ratio, at one point settling in for a frame orientation that looks quite a bit like what we now call “vertical video.” This goes unnoted by Crawford. The disc itself is pretty great looking. I can’t emphasize enough the truly incredible imagery throughout, but particularly in the final 20 minutes. —A
Joe (Olive)
One of the verboten movies of my childhood, a Socially Significant tale of the late 1960s and one that inspired as many thinkpieces as a movie was capable of inspiring back then. . Beleaguered Square Businessman and Hard-Drinking Bigoted Construction Worker (I don’t think he really IS a construction worker, but might as well be) meet and team up to find and/or kill hippies. In some expects you kinda hadda be there back in 1970, but the title character played by Peter Boyle still walks among us, and makes it to his polling place, alas. The film, directed by John G. Avildsen from a Norman Wexler script, is cheaper-than-the-norm cold-water-flat-kitchen-sink realism, not much to look at, but the Blu-ray features a solid transfer from clean materials, with particularly good color values, so watch with confidence. All the pre-echoes of MAGA aside, this has some not-displeasing anachronistic 1970 feels, beginning with Jerry Butler singing the opening theme. “Child, all you gotta do is grow up little girl,” the lyrics go, and what incredible irony if you already know the movie’s ending. Mr. Wexler’s writing of hippie/drug-addict dialogue lacks (“You promised maybe we could stay off the hard stuff for a while…”) but by the same token, I can’t tell you that a junkie skeezebucket of the era wouldn’t hassle Susan Sarandon over her not at all fat “fat ass.” Peter Boyle’s Joe doesn’t show up in the movie until a half hour in, and when he does it’s in an out-of-focus master shot. The movie meanders in its social commentary, sometimes veering into comedic territory (and here’s where Boyle shows the chops that were to serve him so well in Young Frankenstein and Everybody Loves Raymond)—hey look, the two squares have stumbled into a health food restaurant, and so on. The finale is still pretty harrowing. And interestingly enough, the scene where the working-class Currans have the upper-middle-class Comptons over for dinner could be dropped into Fassbinder’s Why Does Herr R. Run Amok (made the same year) and no one would raise an eyebrow. —B
Les Girls (Warner Archive)
This underrated 1957 Cukor musical is a visually sumptuous cross between Pal joey and Rashomon. Also one of the jewels of Kay Kendall’s too-short filmography. And a good source of early Patrick Macnee (he’s one of the barristers in the courtroom scenes). The Cole Porter songs are all good but I don’t hear a single. The disc itself is dazzling from stem to stern. It never ceases to amaze me that Cukor did so well with CinemaScope here, with cinematographer Robert Surtees, then screwed the widescreen pooch so badly on ‘64’s My Fair Lady with Harry Stradling, Jr. Sr., future beloved of Barbra Streisand and no slouch with 2.35 with Quine on How To Murder Your Wife. Just one of those things, I guess. Check out the solidity of the Paris dressing room scenes, with each of the mirror light bulbs’ filaments visible in a given shot—so gorgeous. I showed the scene, one where Taina Elg tries to escape the notice of her nobleman boyfriend, to my students in tandem with a clip from Black Narcissus to exemplify a Golden Age of Hanging Lights. —A
Manhandled/Stage Struck (Kino Lorber)
Two silent Gloria Swanson starrers directed by Allan Dwan; I’d say these recommend themselves.. If your sole exposure to Swanson is by way of Sunset Boulevard or Stroheim or various and sundry of her works for DeMille, you will be knocked sideways by the super-likable comedienne you’ll meet here. 1924’s Manhandled is a rags to riches story whose generic plot was more or less recycled by the Clara Bow vehicle It a few years hence, while 1925’s Stage Struck depicts a daydream-prone waitress who finds unusual inspiration when a performing idol hits town. Both films are distinguished, and elevated, by the wit, humanity, and reliability of their star and director. The Manhandled commentary by Gaylyn Studlar gets started by referring to the “post-World War I fascination with young women’s deployment of their sexuality,” while the Stage Struck commentary, by Dwan biographer Frederic Lombardi, is a bit more nuts-and-bolts. Stage Struck also has an essay by Farran Smith Nehme, and the movie itself features AMAZING two-strip Technicolor sections, nicely restored, at the beginning and end of the picture. You should have both but if you have to choose, Stage Struck would be it. Both discs: —A
Model Shop (Twilight Time)
Back in the day, when the powers that be, or were, at home video concerns had little interest in releasing catalog titles, those beneath them who were invested with getting stuff out were compelled to come up with unusual marketing schemes. I have no first-hand knowledge in this matter, but I think that must have been what inspired the short-lived Sony-Columbia “Martini Movies” rubric for a group of otherwise completely unrelated titles. This was one such title. As was, I’m seeing now, The New Centurions (see below). As was, good grief, Anthony Newley’s draft-dodger drama Summertree. One of the nice things about boutique labels is they don’t have to justify putting out what they want. On balance I like Agnes Varda’s California movies better than Jacques Demy’s single one, made in 1969, which sees his Anouk Aimee character Lola inhabiting a pretty grim little California world. Gary Lockwood plays a disaffected, directionless would-be architect who’s gotta make up his mind about something or other before Uncle Sam plucks him up for Vietnam duty; instead, he meets Lola at the title establishment and pulls some Before Sunrise action on her. Prior to that he drops in on Spirit, the band, and gives Jay Ferguson the opportunity to do a little acting. A speech Lockwood gives in this scene encapsulates the film’s reason for being: “I was driving down Sunset and I turned down one of those roads that leads up into the hills. And I stopped at this place that overlooks the whole city, it was fantastic. And I suddenly felt exhilarated, you know. I was really moved by the geometry of the place, its conception, its baroque harmony. It’s a fabulous city. To think some people claim it’s an ugly city, when it’s really pure poetry. It just kills me. I wanted to build something right then, create something.” Model Shop is Demy’s own L.A. inspired creation, but as love letters go it’s kind of glum. Also, this is not the color-feast that you might expect in the wake of the one-two punch of Cherbourg and Rochefort. But it’s a key component of the Demy filmo nonetheless and this extras-free package is the finest extant presentation of it. —B+
Moses Und Aaron (Grasshopper)
Grasshopper does invaluable art-film service here not just by presenting a super-scrupulous rendering of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub’s 1975 non-spectacle cinema rendering of Schoenberg’s great opera, but by also including three other films by the duo, all crucial, including their 1965 debut feature Not Reconciled, their prior short Machorka-Muff (1963; practically Expressionist relative to their subsequent works), and Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematic Scene (1973). That’s a lot of Straub-Huillet, and because of the addition of Schoenberg, I’m not sure I’d call it an ideal beginner’s package but on the other hand, with all three of these artists you’re either all in or out, so might as well. I have to be in a very particular mood to be receptive to the filmmakers (I never don’t have time for Arnold), who withhold a lot in terms of conventional audience engagement and provide dense intellectual inquiries instead. Surely no filmmakers are more resolute, or distinguished, in their austerity: they are resolutely anti-chic even when depicting snazzy Euro cocktail lounges (see Not Reconciled). My only complaint about the package is that the Ted Fendt booklet essay is in something like 7.5 point type, which is too small for this old man to comfortably read. —A
The New Centurions (Twilight Time)
Twilight Time remains one of my favorite Blu-ray labels, and I think even they would agree that with their always good-looking releases, the extras situation is either feast or near-famine. “Near” because Julie Kirgo can always be counted on to deliver a great booklet essay every time out. For this 1972 Richard Fleischer adaptation of a Joseph Wambaugh novel, it’s close to feast because of the presence of two audio commentaries. The first is with Nick Redman and actor Scott Wilson, co-starring here with Stacy Keach, George C. Scott, Ed Lauter, Clifton James, and Erik Estrada. It’s a casual conversation with Nick taking the role of the well-informed fan. A lot of Wilson’s stories fall into the “How I Got Shafted Once George C. Scott Came On Board” category—Scott’s star power compelled a reshuffling of the ensemble in terms of numbers of scenes and so on. But he’s entertaining. The second commentary is by film historians Lee Pfeiffer and Paul Scrabo, who are also informative, but allow me to vent a little here. They’re not even ten minutes into the movie before the “Dick Fleischer never got his due critically” complaints start. Now one of the great things that Twilight Time does is give love to underappreciated directors by putting their movies on Blu-ray, which isn’t nothing. But the Fleischer reassessment is not actually all that new, Sarris’ American Cinema rankings only have Papal Infallibility status if you want them to, and sometimes things can be taken too far. Lauding the ostensible eclecticism of a director who mainly went where the work was seems a bit special-pleading to me. Statements such as this: “They certainly never got the recognition or fame that they deserved. They were usually dismissed by critics as ‘workmanlike.’ Efficient directors who could turn out a good movie but really weren’t ‘artistes.’ And I think history has proven that to be wrong and Fleischer was a perfect example.” are really straw man arguments that don’t advance anyone’s appreciation, and when you follow such a pronouncement with “Doctor Doolittle, although a box office bomb, is actually a very good movie that’s better regarded today,” well, I don’t know what to tell you. Messrs. Scrabo and Pfeiffer are otherwise amiable and knowledgeable. As for the movie itself, it's not The Choirboys but it’s not bad. And man is it dated! Plenty of casual sexism and racism and yeesh, the depiction of the Stacy Keach-Jane Alexander union, in the first domestic scene, when they’re discussing partner Scott: “Is he married?” “Divorced.” “Then he’d probably appreciate a home-cooked meal!” The next time we see the couple they’re practically divorcing, though. The “gritty” film doesn’t have much of a plot, just a bunch of it’s-tough-to-be-a-cop anecdotes leading up, of course, to a tragic death. The cinematography, by Ralph Woolsey, is pretty low key and the disc gets the Eastmancolor By Night vibe pretty nicely, which is kinda my favorite part of the package. —A
No Down Payment (Twilight Time)
Speaking of people who discontinued their blogs, I can’t find the entry from Like Anna Karina’s Sweater that hipped me to this “whoa!”-inducing 1957 problem picture, which could be alternately titled Varieties of U.S. Post War Suburban Rot. My buddy Filmbrain, going slightly against what was considered the proper auteurist grain, lavished love on this Martin “Marty” Ritt picture in which Jeffrey Hunter and Patricia Owens buy into a prefab community all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but wind up defeated by All-American hypocrisy. The combination of soap opera and social commentary still whips up a heady froth today, thanks largely to a go-for-broke cast that includes Cameron Mitchell when he was still a thing, Joanne Woodward soaking up fryer oil as the ebullient one-time Southern belle and Tony Randall in a “don’t look at me like I’m an alcoholic” vodka sulk. Early on Pat Hingle, manning a barbecue most manfully, asks Mitchell “When you gonna start a family of your own?” and I’m all like HEY LAY OFF ME JORDAN PETERSON. There’s a lot more crisis-of-masculinity stuff in there too. Lovers of black-and-white widescreen will find a lot to like here even if they can’t engage the content (although I can’t imagine anyone being unable to engage the content); this extras-free presentation is a really nice transfer. —A-
No Orchids for Miss Blandish (Kino Lorber)
What an oddity. This 1948 British production, shot at Alliance Studios, Twickenham, is a New-York-set story that begins with a bogus depiction of the Manhattan skyline. Based on the James Hadley Chase novel that inspired a salty Raymond Queneau parody (We Always Treat Women Too Well), this is one of the messier tales of Stockholm Syndrome before it was so named. (I know that’s not Blue Book accurate, description wise, but bear with me.) The movie fascinates from the start for its off-base depiction of New York life among both the rich and gutter-bound. It’s like that bit in Carpenter’s The Thing when the alien tries to disguise itself as a husky and the other dogs are like, no, you’re not right. Director St. John Legh Clowes (no, really) throws in some fancy camerawork amidst the fake American accents. Linden Travers, as the titular Miss Blandish, sports some pretty elaborate boudoir wear early on, reminding the viewer that British productions were not subject to the overview of Joseph Breen. This circumstance of course extends to features of the plot as well, as witness Bill O’Connor’s Johnny, the rotter fiancé who thinks bringing her to a dive roadhouse will melt Miss Blandish’s frigidity. About a half hour in the movie gets fixated on the sexual assault of the heroine; the squalor is neither bracing or unusually repellent, just odd. The movie was clearly made by people with no experience of firearms, as one of the gangsters involved in the abortive kidnapping of the title character calmly takes hold of a gun by its barrel right after it’s been fired. One may infer that a similar lack of real-world savvy informs every other part of the film. Once Miss Blandish falls in love with one of her captors, and he back (“You’re the only dame that’s ever got me. Got me inside and twisted my guts!”), Travers really starts to magnificently overdo her performance. Unfortunately this plot development also signals the point where the movie starts to truly and finally go off the rails. Pretty good image quality overall. A cinephile novelty. —B+
The Outer Limits, Season One (Kino Lorber)
I may never finish watching this 1,632 minute set 32 episode monster. I haven’t even listened to any of the audio commentaries yet. But for random hours of pleasure to steal, this has proven both incredibly consistently great and revelatory. According to Tosches’ Dean Martin biography, when Martin passed Frank Sinatra said “He has been like the air I breathe.” I haven’t thought about it in a long time, especially as someone who grew up to be not much of a television person, but Outer Limits, even as glimpsed out of a corner of my boyhood eye, was a huge formative influence. The effects might be dated, but that’s fine, and the extremely high quality of the writing, acting, directing, cinematography is consistently awe-inspiring. I’m beside myself with admiration here. And very eager for a Season Two set. —A+
Raw Deal (Classic Flix)
Relative newbie label Classic Flix follows up its first-rate renditions of He Walked By Night and T-Men with another essential Anthony Mann/John Alton collaboration, a narratively astounding noir whose twists and turns are put across in a style that’s both moody and breakneck. The transfer was made from a fine grain element from the BFI, on which 400 hours of digital restoration were spent. The results are pretty remarkable to behold, with the fabled John Alton blacks looking plenty dark and the image stability rock solid overall. The detail is so fresh that I actually noted some surprisingly ragged technique during the beach house scene—a dropped gun that winds up on a section of floor not seen anywhere before, and lighting mismatches once Dennis O’Keefe is outside and moving down the shoreline. Jeremy Arnold’s generally cogent and informative commentary doesn’t address this, which I found frustrating. Overall it’s a spectacular package, with a bounty of supplements. Essential home library material. —A+
The Sadist of Notre Dame (Severin)
Late ‘70s Jess Franco films almost always make you wanna take a long shower afterwards. Talk about a pervasive atmosphere of perdition—you’re soaking in it. This release along with its Severin companion Sinfonia Erotica are exemplary examples. (And both are more rewarding than the recent Severin release of Two Female Spies With Flowered Panties; not that that’s Severin’s fault; it’s just that the movie itself is a dose of cinematic Sominex laced with PCP.) This one is a mad pastiche, a Frankenstein/Franco monster stitched together from portions of 1975’s Exorcism, its hardcore variant Sexorcisme, and more; the extras provide all the gory details (and also contain snippets of Sexorcisme featuring our auteur performing unsimulated cunnilingus, which will allow you the privilege of saying “Now I’ve seen everything”). Turns out Franco maven Steven Thrasher Thrower and I agree that the best parts of the movie are the shots of trench-coated Jess skulking around Rue St. Denis and Ile de la Cité, giving a back street crawler context to the surrounding squalor. The supplements are varied but all high-spirited, including a mini-doc on a Paris grindhouse theater. I was most taken with the interview with Thrasher, though. The presentation looks quite good, especially considering the endless iterations the film material had to have gone through before landing in this mess. For normal people this disc is useless; for the rest of us, it’s an essential course in Franco Education. Inspirational dialogue: “I inherited the house from my parents.” “I only inherited misery.” —A
Seven (Kino Lorber)
This 1979 Andy Sidaris babes-and-bullets (and bombs and stabbing implements and all manner of nonsense) actioner has more integrity in its nuttiness, I think, than Hard Ticket to Hawaii, but I realize such a distinction is possibly lost on those of you who are not “into” Andy Sidaris. As with Jess Franco, your loss. Then again, the three Andy Sidaris fans who contribute the commentary to this title might be a little too enthusiastic for their, or anybody’s, good, as when one of them evinces a desire to be incarnated as Susan Kiger’s shorts. Oh, boys. Shot mostly in Hawaii over what appear to be a series of cloudy days, each individual scene’s color palette seemingly determined by that of whatever car in the scene figures most prominently in the action, this is not the most visually distinguished of Sidaris’ pictures. The titlular seven refers to the number of agents in freelance mercenary William Smith’s team, and one of the film’s biggest formal laughs comes about 40 minutes in when Sidaris seems to realize that if he keeps spending as much time as he has on the individual character introductions, he’s going to have a three hour movie on his hands, and so ruthlessly picks up the pace. The movie seems to have had a high flash-paper budget, as it has more flash-paper tricks in it than I think I’ve seen in any movie ever. In addition to Ms. Kiger (who really is quite attractive) and Mr. Smith, who both seem engaged in some unspoken competition as to who can deliver the worse line reading (Kiger aces “Hat on the bed; that’s bad luck, Cowboy” but Smith trumps her near the end with “Hey I’m rentin’ your bike for a while, pal, thanks, huh?”), the film also features Lenny Montana and Reggie Nalder. And Art Metrano. While the bad guys are plenty bad, it still seems unsporting that Smith’s team pretty much murders them all in cold blood—Kiger and Guich Koock, as the aforementioned Cowboy, actually lock a couple of mooks in their Town Car, douse it in gasoline, and set it on fire. Yikes. An essential 20th century entertainment. —B+
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