Blu-ray Consumer Guide, February 2019

To Peter Nellhaus, and to the memory of Nick Redman.

Equipment: Playstation 3,  Sony KD50X690E display, Pioneer Elite VSX-817 AV amplifier/receiver. (As it happens even the U.K. imports I looked at this time around were all-region, so the OPPO was not brought into play.)

 Age of Consent (Indicator)

There’s a super-cheap U.S.-issued Sony Blu-ray double-featuring this 1969 Michael Powell picture with Cactus Flower (some May-December romance theme uniting them I guess) and while it looks decent if you are any kind of Powell person this is the version to seek put and pay more money for. It’s dated in the way so many ‘60s films that took advantage of the “new freedoms” tends to look today, but once it shifts to the island where James Mason’s quasi-Prospero makes his home there’s so much beauty in it you can’t help but be seduced, and this disc sops up and redelivers all of it like a thirsty sponge. My friend Kent Jones’ commentary is terrific, detailed, intimate, entirely in consonance with Powell’s sensibility. “Powell comes from the era of filmmaking as exploration,” he reminds us, pertinently. On-screen contributions from Helen Mirren (this was her first film) and Martin Scorsese are also great, and the disc also contains Powell and Pressburger’s final collaboration, a 1972 mini-feature for children, The Boy Who Turned Yellow, which aside from being a delight in itself also features young Lem Dobbs (under the name Lem Kitaj) in a small but central role. What a world. —A+

 All The Colors of The Dark/All the Colors of Giallo (Severin)

I reviewed a Blu-ray of this essential and essentially odd giallo (the film that introduced this lad to the allure of Edwidge Fenech, via a converted-to-NTSC German version I bought from Luminous Video at a Chiller Theatre Expo in the late 1980s, for what it’s worth to you) that Shameless put out in 2017 and was somewhat resigned to that version being the best we’d get. But, as Mike Ness might say, “I WAS WRONG,” because this Severin disc, mastered from the original negative, supposedly (where’d they FIND it?), blows the Shameless away while also revealing that as imaginative and grotesque and titillating as the movie is, it’s also often outstanding in what Frank Zappa would call its cheepnis. But no matter. Some might argue that the best Psychotronic cinema intertwines all the above attributes. I sprung for the Severin limited edition bundle, which also includes the All The Colors of Giallo package, which is an insane compilation of giallo trailers, a documentary, a CD full of giallo tunes (the Dark package also includes the film soundtrack on CD) and more. No, I haven’t watched every last minute of all this but I think you can trust me: if this sort of thing is your thing, it’s a lot of your thing and it’s delightful. Critic and above-and-beyond-the-call-of duty enthusiast Kat Ellinger has shed her collaborator from the commentary she did for the Shameless edition, and done a whole new commentary on her own, and there’s not a whole hell of a lot of overlap between the two, which is impressive. (She does lean heavily on a defensive “film historians UNFAIR to Sergio Martino” tack.) In a feat of endurance exceeded, as far as I know, only by Richard Suchinski’s’s full-length commentary on the Cohen Blu-ray of La Belle Noiseuse, Ellinger provides running commentary for the full four hours of trailers too, and concocts a drinking game, that you should by no means play if you want to avoid alcohol poisoning. The movie itself remains quite the wild ride, and Ellinger’s not wrong in her esteem for Martino. The picture’s risible is-she-or-isn’t-she-hallucinating premise gains credibility (sort of) from Martino’s confident shot-by-shot construction—and, of course, the iconic presence of Fenech. Inspirational trailer commentary line: “Despite the sensationalism in that [title] — Naked You Die — there’s not very much nudity actually in this. It’s slightly misleading.”—A+

Born of Fire (Indicator)

I’d not even heard of this unusual 1987 film prior to its release on this impeccable U.K. label. Directed by Jamil Dehlavi from a scenario he concocted, it concerns a British musician named Bergson (nice; he’s played by Peter Firth) who’s haunted by time-tripping visions; Suzanne Crowley has multiple roles as “The Woman” but mostly she plays an astronomer who helps Firth’s character figure out that a so-called “Master Musician” is about to call the apocalypse with his flute, and all this is tied in with Bergson’s dad’s marriage. Described in some quarters as “the first Muslim horror movie,” it’s not quite that; point of fact, it takes some time figuring out whatever it is it wants to be. Once Bergson travels to Turkey and some rough, volcano-inclusive terrain there (other attractions include maggots, skulls, an evil [maybe] woman), the movie takes off. The beautiful transfer highlights ceaseless striking imagery. If Dehlavi is not quite as inspired as Tarkovsky or Herzog in shooting his landscapes, he’s good enough to approximate a mystic atmosphere, and the supporting cast, including Nabil Shaheen — whose condition of brittle bone disease necessitates that he move around in a way that’s fascinating to watch — add to the minimalist sense of The Significant/Cosmic Other. Supplemental interviews with Firth, Dehlavi, Shaheen  and composer Colin Towns add a lot of anecdotal intrigue but my fave extra is Dehlavi’s short documentary of a volcanic eruption accompanied by Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream jams. ‘Delic for sure. I do love when you gamble on a disc and get this kind of reward. Inspirational film dialogue: “The sun’s power is so strong it’s damaging the surface of the earth. That volcano is the beginning.” Inspirational supplement soundbite: “The shoot wasn’t physically demanding, but morally demanding.” The flute soloist on the soundtrack is, whoa, James Galway! —A

Crimson Peak (Arrow)

Guillermo del Toro’s vivid Gothic romance, a 2015 picture, has been in print on Blu-ray since…February of 2016? So why invest in this Arrow limited edition issue? I’m not always sold on beautiful packaging myself, although the package and accompanying booklet are indeed lovely. Moving on to the disc, one immediate advantage is that you don’t have to slog through the Universal BD Live previews (I already saw The First Purge, thanks) to get to the main menu. And then there are the 12 or so discrete additional extras that are not on the Uni disc (the delightful, passionate, nicely organized but also quirkily digressive commentary from del Toro was on that puppy). And while there’s no note on the disc indicating this is a different transfer from the Universal one, I noticed slight differences. To my eyes, the Universal presentation is a little brighter than the Arrow one, and the downtick in brightness in the new edition brings out more detail; check out Sofia Young’s cheekbones in the opening scene. The integrity of the movie’s VERY COMPLEX color scheme is maintained throughout. The chapter breaks are placed differently too, and make more sense. I’m not trying to twist your arm but if you cherish this  misunderstood-by-too-many picture, and you have the cash you should absolutely go for it.— A+

Daisies (Second Run)

Criterion made this still-stunning 1966 (!!!) film available in a relatively raw (but completely, pleasurably watchable) form in its Eclipse “Gems From The Czech New Wave” collection. But this region-free stand-alone upgrade is spectacular. The movie is a remarkable phantasmagorical delight that benefits from the cleanest presentation possible. The phantasmagoria itself is offered in the service of what the filmmaker called a “philosophical essay in the form of a farce.” Its young heroines wander through their world making droll commentary and enacting rebellious gestures, with mixed results. Director Vera Chytilova has said it is not a feminist film, and of course it is, but I understand why she’d think it’s not, because the movie’s concern for FREEDOM is ultimately/arguably gender-neutral. The movie has two commentary tracks, one from historians Peter Hames and Donald Bird (who mistakenly say the movie was made “before feminism almost. Before U.S. style feminism,” but wait, The Feminine Mystique was published in 1962, my dudes) and another from Kat “I Live To Do Audio Commentaries” Ellinger  + her Daughters of Darkness partner Samm Deighan (whom I was worried about after she failed to show for the new All The Colors of the Dark commentary).  Both tracks are on the staid and sober side; it takes 20 minutes for one of the males contributing to allow of the film, “it’s fun!” That said, they’re worthwhile, and my only complaint about the disc is authoring related—it doesn’t allow you to toggle between the commentaries while they’re running, you have to listen to one or the other via the main menu, from the beginning. Rounding out the extras is an eye-opening short doc on Chytilova.  If you’re a fan of Broad City who’s looking to, um, broaden their horizons, this is a potent gateway drug to I’m not sure what.  –A+

The Giant Behemoth (Warner Archive)

One hesitates to use the word “dregs” or the phrase “bottom of the barrel” when referring to a giant monster movie with stop-motion effects work, but…well let me put it this way, if you were a Ray Harryhausen/Willis O’Brien nut and you were told you were going to be exiled to a desert island and the only giant monster movie you were going to be allowed to take with you was gonna be 1959’s The Giant Behemoth, you just might say “You know, skip it.” No one blames Willis H. O’Brien for the debacle. He was working with practically nothing, and his Behemoth has occasional moments of integrity in spite of looking like it is coated in chicken skin. Thank God his last film was not this but rather, um, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The disc looks great though, and if you’re in enough of a bitter mood the movie has mordant appeal; Gene Evans’ “what the hell am I doing here?” performance makes him an ideal audience surrogate. On the commentary, recorded for the 2007 DVD of the film, effects mavens Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett simply can’t get excited enough: “So, this movie…was released in…what do you think, ’57?” Inspirational dialogue: “All these beaches are clogged up with dead fish, and nobody can tell why these fish are dead. However, it has its more amusing side to it.”—B-

 The Gingerbread Man (Kino Lorber)

I missed this one on its theatrical release and am just getting to it now. The John Grisham–derived storyline is not quite a world-beater, and despite the great cast this doesn’t get within swinging distance of The Long Goodbye, which is the prior Altman it most resembles generically. As late Altman goes, though, I found it pretty agreeable. (if you want to calibrate this against my barometer, I hated Short Cuts and Gosford Park, admired Kansas City and Cookie’s Fortune, and loved A Prairie Home Companion.) And there are a couple of moments that absolutely qualify as Vintage Altman, like the introduction of Robert Duvall’s character. The Blu-ray offers a clean albeit what you’d call unextraordinary image; the source isn’t  trumpeted on the packaging. The only extra is the sometimes laconic but mostly amiable and informative commentary Altman recorded for the DVD edition in 1998. —B+

The Grissom Gang (Kino Lorber)

Just as much of later Dario Argento work has admirers of his early pictures wondering “Did he FORGET how to direct a movie?” so too does the output of Robert Aldrich in the brief time he ran his own studio (financed with the profits from The Dirty Dozen) cause similar head-scratching. While I find 1968’s The Legend of Lylah Clare a hoot, more emotionally stable film lovers than I hold that its tossed-off contempt lands it on the far side of incompetence. I entertained similar thoughts while watching this, a 1971 rethink of James Hadley Chase’s scandalous novel No Orchids For Miss Blandish, already made into a really weird movie in Britain in 1948, released on Blu-ray, also by Kino, a little while back. Aldrich was clearly aiming at a Bonnie and Clyde style success here but he can’t touch the way that Penn, Beatty and company managed to make their period material both period-credible and absolutely contemporary. The first half hour or so is almost, by my light, unwatchable. The transfer is 4K from camera negative and it’s super vivid, but the main thing I kept noticing was how not one of the actors even vaguely matches the other in skin tone (check out beet-red Don Keefer, and, not entirely on-topic but also not unrelated, the disappearing/reappearing mustache on poor Irene Dailey). And while the movie is relentlessly violent, man, is the fake blood hella fake looking. The movie materially improves as it goes on though, with Scott Wilson, looking rather early–Edward–Norton­–ish, completely committed to his role as lovesick idiot rapist “Slim" Grissom. The commentary is from Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, the same crew that got so agitated by Susan Kiger on the commentary track to Andy Sidaris’ Seven, not that I entirely blame them. Here they recount how certain of them were traumatized by the picture when they were six or seven years old and sundry production tidbits. They are an energetic crew; within mere minutes they manage to slag Vincent Canby (he “never met a foreign film he didn’t like” — this is an empirically false claim), oversell the original Blandish (it’s not a good movie guys), bring up Schindler’s List, and talk about how Robert Lansing is underrated (agreed, but not a whole lot we can do about it now). Entertaining! But still for Aldrich completists only. —B

 Home From The Hill (Warner Archive)

This 1960 Vincente Minnelli-directed melodrama has so outré-seeming elements, like the stiffness of Robert Mitchum’s performance, which clicks once it’s clear that it’s central to the characterization; Mitchum’s not phoning it in. I’ve always found the picture beautiful and compelling. Strangely it feels even more so now that its heteronormative gender politics and other ideologically whack features are even more anachronistic than they may have been back in the day. The camera positioning shot to shot is never less than striving for maximum emotional delivery (I’ve used the climactic truce scene between Mitchum and Eleanor Parker — chapter 33 if you are interested — in my film class to explore the potential of variation within a shot/reverse shot pattern, and in CinemaScope yet). The transfer looks beautiful and features smooth dissolves, nothing glitchy. No extras.  Inspirational dialogue: “Libby, I’m dying to kiss you.” “Don’t die.” So now where’s a Blu-ray of The Cobweb, Warner Archive? —A

Invention for Destruction (Second Run)

A while back I purchased, directly from The Zeman Museum in Prague, a Blu-ray with three Karel Zeman  pictures including this 1958 beauty, released in the U.S. with a quaint Hugh Downs introduction as The Fabulous World Of Jules Verne (and later a very special childhood treat for me when it would turn up in the 1960s on WOR 9). Zeman’s mix of live action and animation always enchanted me; these strangely baroque flat drawn/etched backgrounds traversed by live actors, on their way to action scenes where they’d face cartoon artillery shells and such. The version of Vynález zkázy on that disc is version is handsome, and has been made from clean materials. Due in part (I reckon) to limitations in telecine tech of only just a few years ago, the image has a noticeable flicker to it. This new Second Run presentation is incredible. It’s like looking through a just-cleaned windshield. The English-dubbed version is the exact same transfer with that matchless Hugh Downs intro tacked on, or so it seems. Three Zeman shorts never before available in this format,  and some extras imported from the Zeman Museum discs, are also here. British animator John Stevenson’s on–camera appreciation is more personal than generally informative, detailing his experience of Zeman and the maestro’s influence. I’m still glad to own the Zeman Museum disc (like this Second Run release, it is all–region compatible FYI) but this is what I’m gonna put on when I want to see Invention. —A+

 The Killing Kind (Vinegar Syndrome)

I’m not the world’s greatest Curtis Harrington stan but I know a key component of a distinctive director’s filmography when I see one, and this is that. This unfussy 1973 portrait of a serial killer played by John Savage in an early role is a sharp, nasty picture. It doesn’t ask you to root for the murderous Terry but it does allow you access to his upsetting point of view, which creates a nagging effect. It is replete with supporting players of interest, including Ruth Roman, Luana Anders, and Cindy Williams; Ann Sothern is disquietingly superb as Suffocating Mom. Cinematographer Mario Tosi likes his diffuse light (see The Stunt Man, certain scenes in Carrie, The Betsy) and Harrington allowed him to go full bore with it, which makes the action that much more disturbing. The careful transfer courtesy of the ace schlock revivalists at Vinegar Syndrome gets the job done nicely. Cat lovers will want to take a pass on the movie, as there’s a scene in which Terry pulls peeping tom duty while holding a cat and gets a little too distracted. Essential Psychotronic Cinema  (“A seldom–seen sickie” says the PEF itself) and an exemplary double feature with The Honeymoon Killers. Extras include a vintage 30-minute interview with Harrington (he also goes into some detail in his memoir “Nice Guys Don’t Work In Hollywood,” about his fondness for the film and why it never received proper distribution) and a dishy, affectionate commentary from mondo film historian David Del Valle and mondo film maker David DeCoteau. Inspirational dialogue: “That’s not a mouse, it’s a rat!”—A

My Name Is Julia Ross (Arrow)

So Dark The Night (Arrow)

I know it’s not cricket to review a Blu-ray on which you did the audio commentary but indulge me. When I was preparing for the audio track for So Dark The Night, no disc of the new transfer was yet available, so I worked from a bootlegged version up on YouTube. Circumstances were such that my commentary partner Farran Smith Nehme (she contributes the good parts) had to watch the same while recording the commentary. The film is strong enough that we were able to psychically infer how good a decent print/transfer would look (and we’d seen the film before under different circumstances, so we had our memories to fall back on too). But nothing could have prepared me for the gorgeousness of what Arrow has put on this disc, and the disc of Julia Ross is equally breathtaking. (The two new versions are 2K restoration supplied by Sony, and while he isn’t credited, I reckon Grover Crisp had something to do with them.) Both these thrillers were directed by Joseph H. Lewis and are best watched together. I think they’re among the greatest waking nightmares American cinema has yielded us. Ross is the more familiar of the two, a story of gaslighting that goes up to 11. So Dark the Night…well…as Robert Ridgely says in Blazing Saddles, this one is a doozy. There’s simply nothing like it. Each disc has an equal consort of extras, one commentary, one essay and one video discussion. For Ross, the commentary goes to the great Alan K. Rode, recent author of a terrific Michael Curtiz biography. Rode is more Team Nina Foch (the film’s lead) that Team Lewis. (He takes Lewis to task for his egocentric tall-tale-telling more than once.) The challenging essay is by Adrian Martin.  A video interview with The Nitrate Diva, Nora Fiore, fills out that disc. As I’ve mentioned, the commentary on Night is Farran and me, and I am very much Team Lewis (I believe every word that ever came out of his mouth). Farran does very well as always. The video interview is with Imogen Sara Smith, and she’s informative as always, and very poised. (So is Fiore, while I’m dotting my Is.) David Cairns is his usual superb self for the booklet essay.  Tonci Zonjic’s new cover art for Night is particularly clever. Forgive me for flogging these (I don’t get residuals, in case you were suspicious) but they’re both wonderful. —A+ 

The Naked and the Dead (Warner Archive)

This 1958 movie gets a bad rep for being an unfaithful adaptation of Norman Mailer’s novel, but any picture that begins with L.Q. Jones rhapsodizing over Lily St. Cyr (as “Lily”) can’t be all bad. Can’t be all good, either, it turns out. You could cut this together with the three-years-earlier Battle Cry, also directed by the generally unimpeachable Raoul Walsh, and have a mini-series, especially given that Aldo Ray plays pretty much the same character in each. The movie, a few hairs over two hours, tries to hew to Mailer’s flashback-laden structure but it’s more than weird that it moves to establishing Cliff Robertson’s discontented officer that main guy, and then, when the flashbacks start, they’re… ALDO RAY’S flashbacks! And it turns out he used to be with L.Q. Jones’ girlfriend Lily! (At least that’s what I think is going on.) “Sam! Don’t hit him! He’s from the finance company!” she protests at one point. Scene plays like  The Dark Side of L’il Abner or some such thing. (Hmm.)  Other stray goodies here include the apotheosis of character player Max Showalter, Phantom Echoes of Citizen Kane in Bernard Herrmann’s score (the Xanadu theme most prominent), and very nice picture quality. For some reason this plays like the least WWII movie of all the WWII movies I’ve seen; the conflict at hand seems entirely generic. And the way it upends the novel’s actual narrative is both appalling/hilarious while making for a not-unsatisfying movie-movie conclusion. Inspirational dialogue: “Under that mask of humanism, you’re a reactionary, just like I am.” That might even be from the book, come to think of it. For Raoul Walsh and/or L.Q. Jones completists only. —B-

 The Night of the Demon (Indicator)

This deathless classic finally gets the exhaustive treatment and beautiful picture quality it deserves from Indicator, which really went to town. For instance: the limited edition two-disc set features two discrete high-def transfers of the 96-minute pre-release version, presumed as the closest to a director’s cut we have. (Notwithstanding the appearance of the actual demon, which poor Jacques Tourneur was divested of his say on.) (It’s funny though, as much as we complain about said demon and how it detracts from the movie’s nuance, it’s still a sufficiently iconic image that it adorns the front of this set’s box. And it is a good looking demon, all things considered. ) AND a high-def of the UK release version, an 82-minute cut. I haven’t even made a dent in the extras yet, but I’m grading this anyway just based on how it presents the movie, and also because of one particular extra, an object as hilarious as it is disturbing: a reproduction of the calling card of Julian Karswell, which I barely noticed when it fell out of the box; I put it away someplace I did not remember, and was stunned to find in the pocket of a coat I was wearing several days after watching the disc. After which it took a while for me to calm down and remember that it is the parchment containing the runic inscription, rather than Karswell’s card, that was the film’s bringer of death. Whew. Essential. —A+

Obsession (Scream Factory)

If you’re looking to program a double feature of Cliff Robertson/Bernard Herrmann pictures, you can’t do better than this and the above-reviewed The Naked and The Dead. Literally. Because that’s it — those are the only two. What are the odds they’re both end up reviewed here? This 1976 Brian De Palma picture, hatched with writer Paul Schrader after the then-friends saw Vertigo together (their warm relations waned a bit, apparently, at the completion of the project, which jettisoned a third of Schrader’s original script), is regularly disparaged from all corners practically.. Rumor had it that Hitchcock himself wasn’t thrilled with it. In the recent De Palma documentary by Baumbach and Paltrow, the director laments his fussy, inexpressive leading man. (In the extras here there’s a recollection that Robertson was insistent about having only what he considered his “good side” facing the camera, a position that causes major headaches for directors, camera people, editors, people who are sick of seeing Cliff Robertson’s “good side,” etc.) Still, with what appears to be a spruced up transfer relative to the Region B locked Arrow release of some time back (which had the delightful and now out-of-print extra of a booklet with Schrader’s complete screenplay attached), and the benefit of hindsight and/or nostalgia, the film slightly less misguided than it did on first viewing. In its margins, particularly as they relate to John Lithgow and Florence, the movie achieve its own integrity. The commentary by Douglas Keesey (a professor and the author of De Palma: Split Screen) is well-researched and informative but Keesey sounds so stiff that it can be an awkward listen. While I got somewhat turned around on this film by the presentation, I did conclude that Palma movies need sex and/or violence to really fly and the implications of its premise notwithstanding this doesn’t have a lot of either. Other new extras include on camera interviews with producer George Litto (he once wrote a song that was recorded by Louis Armstrong, who knew?) and editor Paul Hirsch, which have only slight overlap with the EPK type stuff, shot years ago, also included here. Hirsch’s tales of Bernard Herrmann’s explosive temper are hair-raising for sure.—A

The Other Side of Midnight (Twilight Time)

I think my mom had read the Sidney Sheldon novel in the early ‘70s when it came out, and around then, and when the movie followed in 1977, I heard a lot about how LURID it was, but I was too punk rock to care, or something. The recent emergence of a Twilight Time Blu-ray piqued my curiosity. Combined with an old, old memory of a screening of Robbe-Grillet’s Trans Europe Express at MOMA on Senior Citizen Thursday, or whichever it was. Lotsa shots of Marie-France Pisier chained to a metal bed frame in that one, and on the way out a couple of biddies were saying, “Marie France-Pisier, she’s such a nice girl, why did she let them do that to her?” I presumed they got that “nice girl” idea from this, her first Hollywood picture. Thing is, for the first half hour or so this thing is more comatose than lurid. Sure, “nice girl” MFP is besmirched by the future Boss Hogg, but it’s all portrayed very tastefully as, an ocean away, Susan Sarandon is presaging Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy in her portrayal of a period girl with MOXIE, which quality greatly impresses Clu Gulager as Beau Bridges’ uncle or whatever the hell he’s playing. So the movie is moving along in this respect and I’m thinking, God, what is it with the LIGHTING—flat and bright and uninspired on this very handsome disc. I didn’t think I was gonna make it, and then  about 50 minutes in, MFP gets into a warm bath and unravels a wire coat hanger. Not to make light of her character’s predicament, but after that the movie really is off to the races. In seeking her revenge against jilter John Beck, who goes on to marry Sarandon’s character, she climbs the ladder of passion, or whatever it is. When she’s oiling herself up before straddling poor Christian Marquand, who by this time had seen better days, I’m writing in my notes “IS SHE TRYING TO KILL HIM.” He does not die, but notes, drolly, “You make love like a star. Perhaps you’ll be a star.” Um, you betcha. So it does get lurid. I don’t know where those old ladies got that “nice girl” stuff about MFP because it sure is not here. Inspirational dialogue: “In spite of all the smart talk, I guess I’m just Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I’m moral, I’m silly, and I’m sad.” The multi-player commentary, recorded by Laurent Bouzereau for a DVD a long time ago, features producer Frank Yablans’ tips for filmmakers, such as, “There’s a place for camera movement” Once the movie settles in at the estate of Greek Tycoon Raf Vallone, the look of the whole thing gets a big boost. It’s never a model of mise-en-scène and is nevertheless the second Charles Jarrot-directed picture from Twilight Time in a span of months. (The other was Anne of a Thousand Days, which I haven’t been able to check out yet but know is not lurid.) But one thing that makes Twilight Time a great label is its commitment to putting out what floats its boat for reasons overt, obscure or occult. Its cofounder Nick Redman, to whom this column is co-dedicated, died late last year and he is already much missed. This disc’s grade, and the one for Satan Never Sleeps, is for him.  —A+

Panique  (Criterion Collection)

This film is best appreciated if you just forget the novel on which it’s based, Georges Simenon’s landmark 1933 Mr. Hire’s Engagement. (Among other things, with its painstaking attention to physical details other authors would deem insignificant, it’s a precursor to the nouvelle roman.) Yes, the 1946 film directed by Julien Duvivier adheres to many of that book’s plot points, but in its emphases and characterizations it’s a wholly different animal.  Duvivier’s 1933 adaptation of a Maigret novel, La tête d’un homme, demonstrated that the filmmaker “got” Simenon. Now, back from Hollywood after the war and apparently eager to allegorize an occupation undreamed of when Mr. Hire was published (although the novel’s incidents were drawn from Simenon’s experiences during the German occupation of Belgium in World War I), Duvivier opted to make the book a vehicle for his own statement. The tipoff to the differences that will envelop the picture comes early on: Michel Simon’s Mr. Hire speaks more dialogue in the first ten minutes than he does in the first 80 pages of the novel. Not just a voyeur, the character’s a sort of extortionist too. Now, Simon is always worth watching but I have to admit it: all through the picture I just kept thinking how great it would have been to have the actor work on a conception of the character closer to Simenon’s. The presentation of the film is startling, vivid. Supplements include Rialto Pictures’ Bruce Goldstein on subtitling (wonky, fascinating); one of Georges’ sons,  Pierre Simenon, discoursing on how Duvivier’s variations are more than okay ( in order to successfully adapt Simenon, his theory goes, you “have to betray him” at least a little bit) and French critics Guilemette Odicino and Eric Libiot gushing over the movie. Vaguely tut-tutting that Hitchcock raided this picture for elements later seen in overrating the film. Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, and Rear Window, they don’t mention how the bumper-car scene might have influenced Mouchette. —A

Satan Never Sleeps (Twilight Time)

“A film not without its McCarey moments,” Gary Giddins wrote of this 1962 picture when Fox put out a standard-def DVD of this in 2005. He of course has to mention its moments, too,  that are bad McCarey, including the weird theme song (“Satan never sleeps/he walks behind you”) sung, as he accurately (he IS Gary Giddins) notes, in Nancy Wilson style by Timo Yuri. The Pearl–Buck–conceived story of Communist Chinese doing some revolutionary Catholic bashing (as seen from the bashed side) offers almost a full hour of lower grade Going My Way stuff (with a butched–up Clifton Webb as the Fitzgerald surrogate disapproving of fresh recruit William Holden the Crosby surrogate) before exploding into some weird wild anti-Communism plot points and willful misunderstandings of rape. It’s in the more serious values-querying scenes that the most McCarey moments appear, oddly. (I think Giddins took interest in the 2005 disc because he was studying up on the director; there’s practically a mini-biography of McCarey in the recently published second volume of Giddins’ Bing Cosby biography, a honey of a book in every respect.)  Martin Benson as the Russian apparatchik pinching his pince-nez and holding his cig between thumb and forefinger is a classic portrayal of HUAC–nightmare Red Villainy. The picture and sound quality are aces, while the movie’s ending is both insane and obscene. A maddening piece of work...and McCarey's final feature, and Twilight Time remains the best for releasing it. Inspirational Holden dialogue: “Now they’ll be spreading DISEASE along with their propaganda.”—A+

A Story from Chikamatsu (Criterion Collection)

This 1954 Kenji Mizoguchi picture has been more commonly known in the West as The Crucified Lovers, which is both more sensationalistic and not entirely inaccurate but the truly salient feature of this tale is that it indeed derives from an 18^th century puppet play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Do not be confused: this is not a puppet movie, it is beautifully acted by an ensemble of humans including Kyoko Kugawa, who contributes a quiet, revealing interview to the supplements. And yes, you read right, this is a 1954 movie, same year Mizoguchi made the immortal Sansho the Bailiff (and Uwasa no ona, aka The Crucified Woman). Kyoko Kugawa recalls being at the premiere of Sansho at the Venice Film Festival in September and flying back to Japan to start this, which  was released in Japan in…November. Jesus. This film’s story is not as immediately emotionally devastating as Sansho but it’s still pretty tough. And it gives the viewer the same  sense of a masterfully distilled cinematic style as that masterpiece. The narrative, more dry and nuanced, examines the tangled webs of deceit as practiced by both the powerful (who lie so they can profit, sexually or monetarily) and the oppressed (who lie for survival’s sake). The fabulous restoration yields a sumptuous black-and-white image. The supplements are solid, and feature illuminating observations, in an audio essay, from Dudley Andrews about Bunraku (puppet theater, that is) and Mizoguchi’s enthusiasm for the stage. —A+

Comments

[Jon K]

I loved Gosford Park AND A Prairie Home Companion (as well as TLG), so maybe give it a try?

[Blankemon]

Coppola's THE RAINMAKER came out in late '97, and then Altman's THE GINGERBREAD MAN in early '98, and I'm still not sure what to make of "iconoclastic New Hollywood icons hoping to make some of that sweet, sweet John Grisham coin" thing, but mostly I was happy that they were working (with big budgets and big stars, to boot).

Hmmm, I wouldn't have figured you as a GOSFORD PARK-hater. Me, I love it.

[Blankemon]

Shame on me for using "iconoclastic" and "icons" in the same damn sentence, but I just got home from work, so...

[Petey]

"I hated Short Cuts and Gosford Park, admired Kansas City and Cookie’s Fortune, and loved A Prairie Home Companion."

Wait. What?

[Chris L.]

I well remember Glenn's scathing Premiere write-up of Gosford Park. The film's admirers had gone heavy on the Rules of the Game affinities, and GK dryly allowed that, yes, the two works were indeed quite similar in that both were displayed by means of celluloid being run through a projector. (Exact wording of course escapes me after so long, but it made me chortle loudly in a crowded Barnes and Noble.)

The Short Cuts disdain seems a shade more puzzling, and though I can maybe guess at some of the reasons, I'd love to read more. Altman certainly ran the gamut of critical opinion more than most filmmakers of his renown.

[Andrew Del Monte]

I was lucky to see My Name is Julia Ross on 35mm last summer. You'd recommended it as an important Lewis film, so thanks, since I might not have picked it out otherwise. I loved it. I love a sinister Dame May Whitty, and nothing beats George Macready losing it on that pillow. Can't wait to watch So Dark the Night.

[lazarus]

Oddly enough, I also purchased that Invention for Destruction DVD from the Zeman Museum in Prague, along with a couple other titles, when I was there a couple years ago. They were pretty cheap from what I remember, like maybe the equivalent of $7 each?

The museum was a lovely little place, too. I loved the interactivity and how they replicated the special effects processes.

[Redbeard]

Coincidentally I just watched Arthur Penn’s DEAD OF WINTER earlier this week, which was apparently a loose remake of JULIA ROSS. I’m curious to see the original, because WINTER had one of the loopiest premises I’ve ever dropped my jaw to. Would like to revisit OBSESSION someday just to see if I can spot the scenes where Robertson was deliberately fucking with Bujold’s eyeline. And finally, I’m surprised you didn’t mention the ice cubes in OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT. That was the scene we dog-eared when we passed the paperback around in 6th grade. (My other memory is that it played in Cinema II when I first saw STAR WARS; it sold nary a ticket until the space movie sold out.)

Love reading these guides. Thank you. I’m a little bummed there was no Karswell calling card in my blu-ray packaging — but perhaps I should be grateful.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

While I may be a little shocked by our host's dislike of GOSFORD PARK, I'm just happy to know there's someone else out there who likes KANSAS CITY, one of my favorites from the really pretty excellent Altman 90s.

[Cadavra]

Okay, GRISSOM GANG is utterly brilliant, one of Aldrich's most quintessential films. Try watching it again--but this time keep in mind that it's a COMEDY.

[James Keepnews]

Gosford Park would have been totally formulaic exercise in a conventional director's hands, sure. But. Exactly. I think it's truly Altman's final masterpiece, although I admittedly never did see APHC, largely for the same reasons I dared not ever listen to it. I think both Gingerbread and Cookie's are half-baked (sorry/not) -- in my New Haven Advocate Altman obit, I remarked that the opening credits sequence flying over the Georgia keys was GM's most interesting scene and that Glenn Closes's manically dolly-ed (spoiler alert) breakdown scene in CF was, to put it mildly, unconvincing. I didn't mention Ned Beatty's fatuous "Because I fish with him" line, because he says it twice in the film and I heard him twice the first time.

[bill]

I'm dying to watch KANSAS CITY again. I also think GOSFORD PARK is a masterpiece, and Glenn's hatred of it (which I've known about since reading his review in Premiere way back when) has always bewildered me. I mean no disrespect, of course. I just can't wrap my head around it.

[Oliver_C]

As I recall, Altman described 'Kansas City' as his favourite, or one of his favourites, among his films.

Which is the more agonising Branagh accent, 'Gingerbread Man' or 'Celebrity'?