These things do take time. I started collecting notes for this at the end of August and where are we now? Almost optimally placed for a pre-Black Friday Consumer Guide, although your shopping utility may vary. And in a couple of days the Severin Black Friday Sale stars, so for me, this process is, as Ruth Donnelly put it in Blessed Event, “like Tennyson’s brook — it never ends.”
N.b.: I did not get through the latest and last volume of Universal’s 4K rendering of The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection in time for a coherent assessment but I’ve looked at both Rope and Torn Curtain and they are as spectacular as the other reviews say. Very much looking forward to Topaz and Frenzy and of course the Vista Vision splendor of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Buy with confidence!
Equipment: Equipment: Sony UBP-X800 multi-region 4K player, Sony KD50X690E display, Yamaha RXV-385 A/V receiver.
American Pop (Sony)
The animator Ralph Bakshi is in many respects a heroic figure, as an American artist who tried to drag animation into some kind of Adult World even as the form, or at least the gatekeepers of the form, kicked and screamed resistance. While I hate to make this pronouncement while the man is still around to read it (not that I think he will, mind you), I have to say that in my direct experience of moviegoing, particularly as a teenager, Bakshi as consistently the source of my greatest disappointments. He had the best, most forward ideas (including, yep, an animated adaptation of Tolkien’s Ring series), and followed them up with execution that was either lackluster, crude, or spectacularly wrongheaded. His fondness for rotoscoping frequently brought his work up short, I felt. But there was also something in the quality of his defiance to the aesthetic forces that be, or were, as the case may be. American Pop, a scrappy fictionalized history of the evolution of popular music as essentially a multi-generational crime story, exemplifies the ultimately coarse nature of Bakshi’s vision and reaches an apotheosis of absurdity in its ultimate vision of the rock star as street pusher. Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” isn’t quite the song that can sell this conceit, to say the least. The colors are vivid, some of the vulgarity packs a genuine kick (particular in the turn-of-the-19th-century stuff [and isn’t it weird to have to specify “19th” when you bring up a century turning nowadays?] with its overstuffed women of the evening and manic pianists) but ultimately the movie, while constantly diverting in a way, is an encyclopedia of Ralph bringing you up short. —B+
Andrzej Zulawski: The Third Part of the Night/The Devil/On the Silver Globe (Eureka! Region B Blu-ray)
Watching the blood orgies and crucifixions at great heights that make up just some of the action of On The Silver Globe, a Zulawski novice might wonder whether the person who committed this imagery to celluloid isn’t confined in an institution of some sort. WE all like to talk a good “derangement of the senses” game but this stuff is…well, genuinely dangerous. Anyway, not only was Andrzej Zulawski allowed to walk free (after a fashion) on this earth, but he also actually narrates Silver Globe, providing a meta-narrative about the film he could never properly complete. And at the very end he appears as a reflection in a shop window, looking composed enough. The diegesis stuff — based on a sci-fi novel by Zulawski’s great uncle — was shot in the ‘70s, while Zulawski’s docenting accomplished in the 80s; the final form was released in 1988. While the home-media debut of this monumental and controversial It’s the main event of this spectacular box set, the other two pictures included are no slouches either. His 1971 feature debut, The Third Part of the Night, set in occupied Poland during the second World War, doesn’t have the story you might expect, and as such succeeds in presenting an unusually distinctive nightmare. 1972’s The Devil, set in the late 18th century, posits, among other things, that the evil we associate with the Dark One is already inside of us; the devil, as he’s called, just hands us the knife. Silver Globe gets the bounty of supplements, including a documentary on its making and a commentary by Daniel Bird that sets the standard for such items as usual. Michael Brooke, in interviews, provides fresh insights on the other two films. Spectacular restoration/presentation. Essential. — A+
Blood and Black Lace (Arrow 4K Ultra Disc)
GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY THIS LOOKS AMAZING. This is not super-big news, as the latest edition presents the 4K restoration on a 4K Ultra disc. We’ve seen its earlier iteration on Blu-ray, but now in native resolution it’s that much more more, and it’s magnificent. This round with Mario Bava’s, ahem, seminal but never equaled giallo was my first time with the commentary, which was on the prior Blu-ray. Tim Lucas bringing it as usual, and it’s pleasing to note that over the years Tim’s delivery of his splendidly detailed and informative scripts is getting less stiff. So in addition to being fascinating, here he’s genuinely a pleasure to listen to. And of course he wrote the book on the guy (Bava, that is), literally. This package seems like an unlikely source for information about the marital history of Rosemary Clooney, but just you wait. —A+
Christopher Strong (Warner Archive)
A plot right out of Evelyn Waugh, if Evelyn Waugh wrote romantic melodramas: unlikely lovers brought together by vile bodies/bright young things indulging in the height of frivolity, that is, an unusually crass scavenger hunt. (The actual source material derives from the now-forgotten Gilbert Frankau.) Katharine Hepburn has never been quite so damn Hepburny as in her third movie debut, directed with admirable dispatch and an even more, perhaps, admirable straight face by Dorothy Arzner. Colin Clive is a little too Colin Clive to make an entirely credible romantic lead, but his off-kilter quality adds nice neurotic notes to the proceedings. Which are both brisk and, shall we say, wrought almost to the point of over. All shot in a luminous black and white that’s very handsomely presented here. One could say for Hepburn completists only but really, why aren’t you a Hepburn completist to begin with? — A
Contempt (Lionsgate 4K Ultra Disc)
A 4K Ultra disc of a recent and very fine restoration is a no-brainer. So give Lionsgate credit for transferring Godard’s remarkable 1963 poison-pen missive to producers, and valentine to Fritz Lang, on to slabs of plastic and metal. As for the menus, the absence of extras, and so on, they are a monument to “perfunctory.” “Cineastes de notre temps? Never heard of it!” — A+ for image, B- for everything else
The Devil Doll (Warner Archive)
Physical media has yielded a bumper crop of Tod Browning recently, between this and the Criterion triple feature headed by Freaks, which naturally gets the highest recommendation possible. This 1936 oddity is his second-to-last picture, and its driving premise, believe it or not, was reiterated in Alexander Payne’s 2017 Downsizing. Lionel Barrymore takes the people-shrinking technology co-developed by his fellow Devil’s Island escapee and uses it for evil ends, or at least vengeful ends — the guys he’s taking revenge on were stinkers. The movie’s defining atmosphere is established with the daughter of the escapee scientist playing goth organ as her mother works in a lab full of vile foaming liquids. The mom’s got a Bride of Frankenstein white streak in her updo, natch. Erich Von Stroheim worked on the scenario, not that you’d guess. The image quality is lovely silvery stuff. The optical-printer effects showing miniaturized animals and people is not dissimilar to what we saw in Bride, now that we think of it. New supplements are rarities on Warner Archive releases but this has a solid, informative mint commentary by Dr. Steven Haberman and Constantine Nasr, who’ve produced a bunch of documentaries on genre cinema, including Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy. They know their stuff and have impeccable taste and of course can’t help but notice the similarity between Franz Waxman’s score here and what he did in the prior year’s, yup, Bride of Frankenstein. Bottom line, I guess: If you love Bride of Frankenstein (and if you don’t, why are you reading this?) you’ll need this.. — A+
The Exorcist (Warner 4K Ultra Disc)
As Robert Harris has pointed out on Home Theater Forum, there’s no “reference” version of this on home video so mere consumers with no access to original materials have a limited comparison perspective with respect to what many of us saw in theaters back in the 1970s.. What it boils down to for this high-high def edition, then, is how it looks to you while watching. I do not cotton to Friedkin’s director’s cut — while an undeniably great filmmaker, the man was prone to some poor decisions, and this was one of them — so I’m going by my impression of the theatrical version in this edition. And my impression is rather good. I like the surround mix. I like the colors in the Iraq sequence and especially the detail. I like the way the bedroom lamp makes Chris McNeil’s script pages look a little pink. One of the first things I did at Premiere was an article about the potential and the shortcomings of the then-new DVD format, which had its origins in MP4 video compression technology, and I used the approach-of-the subway shot about 17 minutes in as an example of a certain kind of picture distortion. Anyway, I like how that shot looks here too. I like the muted chilliness and the popping purples of the priest’s vestments in the exorcism scene. What else? Max Von Sydow is a great actor, Jason Miller is a great actor, Ellen Burstyn is a great actor, Linda Blair is a great actor, Mercedes McCambridge is a great actor, Jack MacGowran is a great actor. Lee J. Cobb is Lee J. Cobb. Pretty great movie, and this is great version. — A+
Night of the Hunted/Rape of the Vampire/Fascination/Lips of Blood (Powerhouse 4K Ultra Discs)
The Powerhouse 4K Rollin project continues apace and the results are rapture inducing. The threadbare maestro’s feature debut, 1968’s Rape of the Vampire, is in starkly beautiful black and white; Imagine a heterosexual, more compulsive Jean Cocteau working with a crew accustomed to making cheap “roughies.” 1980’s Night of the Hunted is moderately Cronenbergian, as commentator Tim Lucas notes. He also bemoans the film’s disjointedness and lack of resourceful use of film language, a byproduct of the rushed nature of the production and Rollin’s dissatisfaction with the conditions. All true, but star Brigitte Lahaie provides constructive distraction from such ostensible defects. And Tim is unabashed in his adoration of the film’s ending, and why not? It’s fantastic. I personally don’t mind the disjointedness, it gives the movie a peculiar collage feel. I also quite appreciated its kinship with The Crazies. Fascination features Lahaie with a scythe, life, and/or death, doesn’t get any better. Lips of Blood is bonkers and definitive. All are presented in restorations that can’t help but engulf the receptive viewer. — A+
Father’s Little Dividend (Warner Archive)
A few years back I waxed rhapsodic over 1950’s Father of the Bride, Minnelli and MGM’s celebration of the joys and sorrows of American upper-middle-class values. Against all class odds, it’s an ineffable, practically transcendent vision. Lightning did not strike twice for the 1951 sequel, in part because the imagery is not nearly as splendid. Of course Elizabeth Taylor still looks great but in the first film she was conceived and shot as the apple of both a father’s and a potential husband’s eye, and here she’s relegated to performing her wifely duty, for God and country and so on. The Blu-ray is fabulous, as is customary. The comedic stuff of the film is however a little less coherent than it might have been. The “losing the kid” episode is darker than this movie wants, as Minnelli doesn’t apply much melodramatic brio to it, and melodramatic brio could at times of course be his middle name. It’s both sharp and tolerant (it would of course have to be) in critiquing men and their sexism. The cast is of course uniformly lovable and splendid but Joan Bennett winds up as the MVP., and good for her. — A
The Giant Gila Monster/The Killer Shrews (Film Masters)
I fondly remember considering this 1959 masterpiece of forced perspective a little goofy even when I was ten. In any event, this small-label restoration gets the much-desired job done: Giant Gila Monster has NEVER LOOKED BETTER. The Kuleshov Effect shots (are they intentionally so? We will never know) of the Gila Monster doing the bit with its tongue while watching the “teen” lead characters make out are fantastic. Haven’t gotten to Killer Shrews yet, because frankly it skinks me out, even when given the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. But this package bears recommending on Gila Monster alone. — A
Heroic Times (Deaf Crocodile)
Lest you presume that this 1983 Hungarian animated feature might be catnip for the likes of Viktor Orban, the title turns out to be ironic. This tale of medieval slaughter and concomitant personal betrayal) and rage, rage, rage), directed by József Gémes, features really unusual multiple graphic approaches including impressionist tableaux. Not life-changing fare but damn intriguing and illuminating. Alternate Title: My Brother Was In Jethro Tull. — A
It Came From Outer Space (Universal 4K Ultra Disc)
Jack Arnold’s beautiful 1953 sci-fi picture, was an anomaly at the time because the “It” that came from outer space wasn’t malevolent. Yes, it was menacing, or at least highly disquieting, in its cloning powers, but it meant no harm. Leave it to Ray Bradbury to come up with this particular narrative curveball. Richard Carlson plays the astronomer who has to convince his community over and over again, Barbara Rush is his BEAUTIFUL wife whose presence and costuming provide the movie with what I’ve always seen as very Cocteau-esque touches. It was produced by Thompson from Citizen Kane. A stone classic presented in very gorgeous 2D 4K Ultra — the image, although not without native grain, is arguably a little TOO pristine depending on your taste. But I found it dreamy, almost literally. — A+
The Last Horror Movie (Severin 4K Ultra Disc)
Taxi Driver showed Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle aimlessly sitting in porno theaters. This grindhouse oddity starring Joe Spinell (also in Taxi Driver, hey!) pointedly shows his character Vinny beating off in a porno theater. The camera setup is more or less identical to Scorsese’s. That’s the thing about exploitation cinema: it goes where the mainstream will not dare. You really gotta hand it to Spinell, as an actor he had exactly ZERO vanity. Here he plays a slob who travels to Cannes to enlist Caroline Munro, Spinell’s costar in the genuinely aberrant Maniac (and indeed this item was marketed as Maniac II in some provinces, and the slipcase artwork for this exemplary package is for that iteration) to star in his own incoherent vision. Along the way he cuts a murderous swath through the fest. Confronting Stanley Kline, the fictional auteur of the fictional Caller In the Night, Vinny declaims,” It was disgusting, it made me sick it made everybody sick, you shouldn’t be ALLOWED to make films like this Stanley!” He then enacts activist criticism at its most extreme. The murder here are mostly of dudes, which is kind of refreshing. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d get with this but ended up enjoying myself quite a bit. — A
The Life of Emile Zola (Warner Archive)
People talk about the “great man” biopics of the late 30s as being stodgy and righteous but to be honest, I enjoyed this quite a bit more than Maestro even though it’s one of the most egregious copouts in U.S. studio history. In that — try to keep up — the whole reason that Dreyfus was persecuted — antisemitism in the French military, oh, and EVERYWHERE ELSE IN FRANCE — is not only not articulated in this movie but scarcely even implied, because the Warner brothers didn’t want to offend Germany, or something. This was 1937, and eventually the Warners would get with the damn program but still. So what’s in the asset side of the ledger? Great image quality, fevered Paul Muni performance, that great Warner biopic pacey-ness, overseen by the reliable William Dieterle. It’s staggeringly literal at times but maybe that’s the way to get your social justice message across after all —at least its approach has got clarity. With Grant Mitchell as Clemenceau. That guy had range. Also keep an eye out for out for l’il Dickie Moore as a Dreyfus kid. Funny, he doesn’t look… — A
Pandora’s Box (Eureka! Region B Bluray)
I have to confess that for reasons of mere personal slovenliness I’ve never paid G.W. Pabst much mind. I was underwhelmed on my first viewings, back in the ‘80s, of both Diary of a Lost Girl and The Threepenny Opera, and so I held Pandora’s Box at arm’s length for years. I figured I’d get as much from various stills of Louise Brooks in the picture as I might from actually sitting through the thing itself. Always been a big fan of Berg’s opera, though. Enjoyed the hell out of that production a couple of years ago at the Met. Yes, my explanation here is diffuse and incoherent, but it's prelude to telling all you people that I’ve SEEN THE LIGHT via this new Blu from Eureka, a 2K rendering of a restoration, and yes, this actually is a Great Film. Ado Kyrou said, “Louise Brooks is the only woman who had the ability to transfigure no matter what film into a masterpiece” and maybe he’s right (wonder if he ever saw her Three Mesquiteers picture, 1938’s Overland Stage Raiders, as unusual a retirement movie as has ever been). But Box has a truckload of legit goods beyond Brooks’ remarkable intuitive performance. This looks beautiful for the most part, but there is a problem and it’s not an insignificant one. It was pointed out on the NitrateVille site and subsequently mentioned by Ye Olde DVD Beaver. "The mistake: When Lulu stuffs some money into the meter reader's hand, he is so distracted that he lets two coins drop onto the carpet and doesn't even realize it. The digital clean-up software registered those two falling coins as defects and erased them. So we do not see anything fall out of his hand.” This is pretty early on: around 4:37 on the disc, 1:37 in the movie proper (there’s about three minutes of restoration explanation in the presentation before the movie itself gets underway). Once seen it’s impossible to unsee, because Brooks’ Lulu observes the coins falling from his hand (he picks them up from the carpet a little later) and you wonder why she’s observing literally nothing. Obviously for this viewer the subsequent enjoyment was not killed. Whether this will be fixed is not yet known. —A-
The Psychic (Severin 4K Ultra Disc)
The early shots of face-mutilation-as-a-byproduct-of-jumping-off-a-cliff-and-one’s-head-scraping-the-rock-face (which eventuality strikes me as at least a trifle implausible to be honest) notwithstanding, this 1977 goodie is one of Lucio Fulci’s more restrained efforts and this 4K edition is intoxicatingly beautiful. The movie also features shots of Jennifer O’Neill in a car looking worried, endless shots of gloved hands turning on and off recording devices, and an excellent cheesy/drippy score. Masterpiece, obviously. The supplemental array is incredible and features the shot-in-’93 interview film Fulci Talks, a typically candid session with the maestro —who, among other things, knew the highbrow Italian arts scene well enough that he refers to William Weaver as “Bill” — shot three years prior to his 1996 passing. Inspirational Fulci quote: “There was always a dwarf reciting Walt Whitman poems from a chair. I later found out he was Truman Capote.” Definitive Fulci quote: “I regard myself as kind of an accumulation of incoherence.”—A+.
Queen Christina (Warner Archive)
Quite good lookin’, spectacular Mamoulian stylization, superb Garbo performance, this title has it all. The role capitalizes on Garbo’s androgynous appeal in a way that lets Mamoulian and the actor flex some comedic muscle, as when the iconoclastic title character disguises herself as a lad in order to be Among The People, and thus masqueraded, winds up bunking at an inn with Spanish envoy Antonio, Garbo’s frequent on-screen romantic partner John Gilbert, who’s quite good. Haunted, romping, funny, ultimately stirring — the final shot is one for the ages and even if you’re not a fan you’ve probably seen it in a lot of Industry-Celebrating-Montages. Tom Milne’s Mamoulian book is required reading, and his chapter on this is breathtaking. On a sequence prior to the disguise adventure he is at his bedazzled best: “[A] long, lingering, magnificent close-up as she stands at the window staring out over the endless, unchanging landscape of white: ‘Snow,’ mourns the voice of the greatest blues singer of all, ‘is like a wild sea. One could go out and get lost in it and forget the world.’” — A+
The Sexual Story of O (Severin)
In a move that pays homage to the original marketing of the movie, Severin put some ooh-la-la shots of late-period Franco consort and muse and star Lina Romay on the slipcover — even though she is nowhere to be seen in this 1984 film. By this time Romay had dialed back on the frantic performative sexuality that remade her name (born in 1954, Franco rechristened Rosa Martinez with the handle of the Brooklyn-born [in 1919] Mexican-American big band singer who, among other things, cameos in Tex Avery’s Señor Droopy) and in this picture the erotic hijinks are enacted mostly by a trio of younger performers who are appositely somnambulant. This is one of Franco’s better “Camera looking in and out of hotel windows” movies. The shooting style is casual while never getting too lax, and while it takes its time getting seriously outré, when it gets there, get ready. —A
Spinout/Double Trouble (Warner Archive)
When considering the unfortunate aspects of Elvis Presley’s film output, and there are many, the cookie-cutter quality of his ‘60s musicals is often cited. How cookie-cutter were they? Check it out: 1966’s Spinout is 93 minutes long. And 1967’s (yes, 1967’s; it’s like Sgt. Pepper wasn’t happening, even though the movie is partially set in London) Double Trouble is 92 minutes long. Impressive! Trouble is, of course, now semi-legendary as having been initially developed for, who else, Julie Christie. Irwin Winkler’s producer credit here is a mutation of his then-status as, with Robert Chartoff, Christie’s U.S. manager. Both pictures are directed by then-nearly-blind Norman Taurog, Gore Vidal’s one-man refutation of the auteur theory. They are both amiable, goofy and corny as Kansas. As for Spinout, it has an unusually strong audio component. And looks great. Why, I asked myself, does the rear-projection driving stuff here look better than it does in Hitchcock pictures of the same period?. While there’s certainly a legitimate technical explanation, I’m just going to go with “life is unfair.” Presley plays a singing race car driver, because of course he does, and “Stop, Look and Listen” is not a terrible song. “Adam and Evil,” on the other hand, kind of is. Set design and costumes are very POPPY. The proceedings, involving Elvis dodging the affections of three beauties, are relatively narcotizing. For luthiers and gear nuts there are glimpses of Elvis and a bandmate playing one of the most bizarre Gibson SG double necks ever. It is, my guitar expert sources tell me, a six string guitar and a six string bass, or baritone guitar, and one of only two known to be in existence, special ordered for Elvis by the Colonel. One of the two is on exhibit at Graceland. The other is MIA. The features Donna Reed’s TV husband Carl Betz and Una Merkel of 42nd Street, Destry Rides Again, and I Love Melvin fame. Double Trouble was written by Jo Heims, whose work here does nothing to hint that she’d later co-write the scenario for Dirty Harry and co-script Play Misty for Me. The Elvis/Julie Christie issue becomes easier to understand if you figure, while watching (and you might!) that the Christie part was not of the male lead but of this film’s female lead Annette Day, as a moderately ditzy heiress pursued by a variety of criminals. The vaudevillian Wiere Brothers provide ostensible screwball comedy accents. One wonders why, and then one detects, once again, The Colonel’s hand. One can see this, with Christie and a suitable male lead — and EVEN ELVIS PRESLEY, properly directed would have made a suitable male lead — working along similar lines to Gambit, made the same year as this, with Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine. In any event, this isn’t Gambit. Both discs: —A
Touch of Evil (Eureka 4K Ultra Disc)
Damn this looks great Particularly in the grimy closeups of Welles and Tamiroff. One disquieting side effect of the excellent image quality is that you really notice how Charlton Heston’s brownface makeup, which is relatively “tastefully” or discreetly applied (or maybe at times not quite applied at all) to Heston in the Welles-shot stuff, is slathered on to an embarrassing and shameful degree in the reshoots Universal ordered for story clarity, such as it is, and which were overseen by Harry Keller, whose own credited directorial career doesn’t even reach journeyman level. The scene where it really popped for me, in a hotel lobby with Heston and Janet Leigh, is properly excised in the reconstructed version, one of three to choose from here. I got around to checking out the commentaries, one from the late and fast-talking F.X. Feeney (“small wonder there’s an explosion when these two kiss”) another from Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore, who also sound pretty caffeinated, and two from restoration honcho Rick Schmidlin, one solo and one with Leigh and Heston, who lived to see the Welles memo carried out as best possible. All are informative and companionable, but of course the one with the stars is the most to be cherished. — A +
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