Believe Your Eyes: It's A Blu-ray/4K Consumer Guide

Bathing Beauty (Warner Archive Blu-ray) A

I never believed in the critically half-baked notion called “vulgar auteurism” (which didn’t have much of a vogue anyway) but if I did, George Sidney would be in my pantheon. To demonstrate the thesis behind it, I would contrast the editing style of his 1966 The Swinger with that of any random Russ Meyer movie, or maybe, just to keep the thematic content relatively close together, Meyer’s The Seven Minutes. Very similar. And alas not evident here in this 1944 picture that’s the first of what would be several pictures featuring Esther Williams doing what she’d been doing beautifully since before her teens. Yes, my friends, there was a time in motion picture viewing history in which grown adults would pay real money to watch an attractive woman in a variety of form-fitting, colorful bathing suits…swim. That’s it. Swim. While smiling, that’s something. Actually Esther was quite a swimmer, and an appealing actress, and this picture is a remarkable example of how MGM could take a trifle and spin it out and fluff it up into the most elaborate cotton candy treat ever. Back to Sidney and editing: the pace here is consistently bouncy and cheerful, not an easy thing to sustain for an hour and forty. While her third motion picture appearance, this is her first as “Esther Williams,” so to speak.  But the style of the EW musical was already mature here, what with a meticulous pro named Busby Berkeley choreographing all the movie’s abundant water ballets. What’s the thing about? Oh I have no idea. But it does have Basil Rathbone, Margaret Dumont AND Xavier Cugat gallivanting around. And boy, Harry James sure can blow his glowing golden trumpet. This Warner Archive disc boasts gorgeous reproduction of gorgeous Technicolor because of course it does. Some of the shots give you that 3D effect. Red Skelton is cute when his character goes on about wanting to write “Symphonies, tone poems, sonatas.”  He’s an odd romantic match with Esther but then again sometimes it’s nice to see a relative schnook win over the leading lady. Refreshing, you could say.  —A

The Beast With Five Fingers (Warner Archive Blu-ray) A

You all know the story of how Luis Buñuel, during his pre World-War-II Hollywood sojourn, kinda-sorta came up with the idea for this picture. You probably also know that he himself used this move’s disembodied-hand gag in his own masterpiece The Exterminating Angel.  But with a difference. As I wrote in a booklet essay for Radiance’s superb Nothing Is Sacred: Three Heresies by Luis Buñuel box set, “[t]he limb is clearly a floppy prop hand, not unlike something you’d get at a novelty store. If we take the use of such a plainly fake prop as deliberate — and there’s no reason why we should not — this constitutes the director’s harshest statement on the condition of his characters: that they are so lacking in imaginative faculties that even their nightmares are ersatz.” In this 1946 classic, directed by Robert Florey from a script by Curt Siodmak and starring Peter Lorre in one of his puffy phases, the hand is more often than not a real one, made to look disembodied via effects wizardry. When it’s choking Lorre it is a prop hand, better than Buñuel’s, but still not that convincing. Nevertheless the whole B enterprise has sticking power because it does execute the title conceit with energy and conviction. No wonder Oliver Stone reconjured the concept for his worth-seeking-out The Hand.  The picture quality here is gorgeous, with very rich blacks. One only wishes for a similar upgrade for 1940’s Stranger on the Third Floor, a Skinny Lorre chiller with similarly eerie mise-en-scene. — A

The Beyond (Grindhouse 4K Ultra disc)

I think I’ve mentioned before my lovable Uncle Bob, who in the late-80s though the early 90s ran a small chain of video stores in western Jersey. One of which was managed by my mom, who had Keith Jarrett as a regular customer there. Yeah, and how I loaned Jarrett a laser disc of Vadim’s Dangerous Liaisons by proxy — he wanted to see it because Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were featured therein, and Monk had contributed the score proper. Sure I did. I forget now if I mentioned that Bob developed a slight fixation for extreme Italian horror movies that were trickling into the market in utter garbage transfers on to VHS tape no less. It was through such goods that I first became acquainted with the oeuvre of Lucio Fulci, and I was rather negatively impressed. 1982’s New York Ripper is a foul picture that gains nothing from LOOKING foul. Now that it’s available in s pristine 4K edition from Blue Underground, I admit a not even particularly grudging admiration for it. I’ll get to what turned me around in a minute. As for Ripper’s predecessor, 1981’s The Beyond, it’s also set and shot in the U.S.; way down yonder in New Orleans to be exact. This gives Fulci a pretext to use a lot of fog. Miasma, in the EC Comics sense, I like to think, although I have no idea whether Lucio knew of EC Comics or not. It would stand to reason I guess. Anyway, the abundant gore in this kind of splits the difference between super gnarly and fake looking, and sometimes the fake-looking factor doesn’t even apply because the conceptual point being driven home, so to speak, is so repellent. This comes with more extras than I’ve been able to begin to explore, and also a “Composer’s Cut” featuring a rethink of the score by Fabio Frizzi, which a lot of fans have been looking askance at. Essentially it’s a largely electronic remake of the original orchestral score. I’m not offended by it; essentially, it’s like, “Okay, but what if Goblin?”  But its necessity/attractiveness no doubt exists foremost in the mind of, well, Fabio Frizzi. But it doesn’t take away from the perverse magnificence of the package as a whole, which I mistakenly had shipped to my father-in-law’s residence. Once I realized this you can imagine the panicked “don’t open that package” call I made there.  — A+

Dirty Harry

Outlaw Josey Wales

Pale Rider (Warner Brothers 4K Ultra discs)

By now we all know that Eastwood’s a great filmmaker, so we don’t need, say, to trot out Orson Welles’ enthusiastic endorsement of 1976’s The Outlaw Josey Wales on The Tonight Show to bolster our position, although, sure, it’s a nice thing to have. Bruce Surtees is a god, what can I tell you. Wales’ cold blue of morning opening minutes are as visually breathtaking as…well, the rest of the movie, frankly. Pale Rider, made about a decade later, is also superb even if it’s not the masterpiece Josey is. It’s mighty satisfying in a way that recalls Leone, anyhow. And if Josey had never been made it WOULD be a masterpiece, so there. Both were shot by Bruce Surtees, a magnificent cinematographer who was introduced to Eastwood by Don Siegel, on the great The Beguiled. And yes, Surtees also shot Dirty Harry, which remains Dirty Harry, and whose most notorious scene encompasses a movie marquee announcing Play Misty for Me, another remarkable Surtees outing. These three 4K Ultras, released simultaneously, are reference-level products, incredible picture quality throughout. And no, Harry does NOT have any kind of teal overlay.  — A+ for the bunch

I Remember Mama (Warner Archive Blu-ray) A+

From the screenwriter of Cat People. No really. Not a “what incredible irony” observation, just a note that Dewitt Bodean, for that is his name, had admirable range. Bodean adapted from a John Van Druten play that had itself been adapted from a popular Kathryn Forbes book. The big news is that this is a George Stevens picture, the first fiction feature he was actually able to complete after returning from his yeoman service making pictures related to the war effort. More than one critic has examined how Stevens changed as a filmmaker after the war. The change wasn’t instantaneous; this subject was one that wouldn’t be surprising coming from pre-war Stevens. But one can imagine that his experiences might have shaped his approach. This heart warmer is, among other things, a terrifically pro-immigrant statement. In The American Cinema Sarris called it “the most restrained of the immigrant-family sagas,” but I think that restraint contributes to its power. Renoir said McCarey was one of the great American directors because he really understood people. I’d extend that assessment to George Stevens, which would be presumptuous because, you know, I’m not Renoir. That said, Stevens could not have pulled this humanist gem off without the spectacular Irene Dunne in the lead. Even though she was fifty at the time of shooting, she had to be made up to look older and the fact that she didn’t mind demonstrates how committed she was to her role. The fascinating cast also included a very cozy Oskar Homolka, Ellen Corby, Rudy Vallee and Edgar Bergen. A truly lovely picture. —A+

Th King of Kings (Flicker Alley)

This is a phantasmagoria. Truly. The color sequences — the opening orgiasts, including “Mary Magdelena,” in the court of Herod, in an early Technicolor process, or the hand-tinted flaming torches against the night blue in the garden of Gethsemane — are mindboggling, while the sepias of much of the dramatic meat of the picture is immaculately rendered. And the narrative itself is fascinating. While Nick Ray’s remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1927 picture had the whole Mary and Joseph bit, DeMille’s original begins almost in media res, JC biography wise — in Herod’s lair he’s spoken of almost as a rumor of war, and then we see him a-preachin’ and a -healin’ up a storm. Intertitles give us scripture verse to assure us that DeMille’s storytelling is historically on the level, which of course it is not. What it is is overwhelmingly DeMillean, which is to say kind of awe-inspiring in its nerve. Not everyone’s cup of meat, of course. But no filmmaker staged a better tableau than DeMille — and the introduction of sound would not put any kin do halt to that. Flicker Alley just keeps topping itself; the package features the 161-minute “roadshow” version (my preferred one), a trim 115-minute reconstruction of the general release cut, and a truckload of extras from the film’s production, premiere, and some info on the restoration. A miracle. — A+

The Spanish Main (Warner Archive) A

Here’s a fascinating production, to be sure. For backstory: actor Paul Henreid, as Viktor Laszlo, you may recall, ultimately does get Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa at the end of Casablanca. Nevertheless, it’s a pyrrhic victory because everyone knows righteous propagandist Laszlo is the ethical but drab choice, his heroism notwithstanding. Hasn’t got a patch on the romantic and eventually self-sacrificing Rick Blaine. He’s not exactly in the Ralph Bellamy position but where he’s at isn’t great either. So. Henreid wrote in his memoirs that her was “getting tired of being cast as the suave ladies' man and I had definitely decided no more Nazis so I started thinking in terms of something that would be more fun, a swashbuckling part in a pirate story.” Okay, sure, and since he clearly wanted to be more colorful and sexy, what better role than that of a pirate. But I also believe Henreid was up to something more. He didn’t want to get the girl because the romantic and self-sacrificing other guy decided to cede her to him. No. He wanted to get the girl because he was a badass, and what’s more badass than a pirate?  And who’s the girl you want to get more than Maureen O’Hara? If these contrivances don’t sound like fun to you, I don’t know what to tell you. The movie really is. Fun, that is. Pantheon director Frank Borzage doesn’t take things too seriously but he definitely doesn’t phone it in. This has sweep, scope, grandeur, but also a very appealing wink. And again, glorious Technicolor as Warner Archive delights in delivering. — A

Side Street

The Tall Target (Warner Archive Blu-rays)

Even when not working with original Prince of Darkness cinematographer John Alton, Anthony Mann’s noir visuals were always on point. His frantic thriller Side Street opens with a remarkable bunch of aerial shots of NYC, stuff that, to borrow an Armond White turn of phrase, puts today’s generic drone views to shame. A narrator informs us that in the naked city “two persons living twenty feet apart may never meet,” a notion that would later become a theme of Joseph McElroy’s maddening doorstop novel Women and Men. Just so you know. Mann’s picture begins at a gallop, with Farley Granger thinking he’s lifting $200 from a guy who’s chiseling him but actually stealing 30 grand.  A variation of this plot would animate Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick decades later.  As soon as Farley strikes it ‘rich,” a thin film of sweat comes over his face and never quite dries up. Poor innocent wife Cathy O’Donnell has a baby on the way; the actress is winning and earnest. Lensed by the great Joseph Ruttenberg, every shot has an unusual numinous dynamism. Mann’s style is as distinctive in a more humane mode as it is in the more rough-and-tumble T-Men and Raw Deal. Target, about Dick Powell trying to foil a Lincoln assassination scheme, is set on a richly shadowed night train (lensed by Paul C. Vogel) and features Ruby Dee, who incarnates the movie’s anti-racist theme. It’s rich in suspense and plot twists. Both essential library items. — A+ for both

Comments

[titch]

Lovely to have a new guide - a lot of love for Warner Archive!

[george]

Always good to read comments on Eastwood that aren't gripes about his politics or jokes about talking to a chair. And, yes, Bruce Surtees (1937-2012) was a great cinematographer. He also shot Lenny, Night Moves and The Shootist.