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ONE VOICE
(not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey):
Arrow's 4K restoration of Billy Wilder's
The Apartment on
Blu-ray gets top nod this week.
A classic film looking great with plenty of extras.
Must-own. Criterion's 1080P transfer of Louis Malle's
Elevator to the Gallows
is in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio and is from a "new 2K digital
restoration". The legendary score by Miles Davis get an
uncompressed (24-bit) rendering and makes this an immensely
desirable
Blu-ray. I thoroughly enjoyed
Stanley Kramer's
Not as a Stranger, on
Kino
Blu-ray with commentary,
starring Robert Mitchum, Olivia de Havilland (complete with
Scandinavian accent), Frank Sinatra, Broderick Crawford,
sultry Gloria Grahame, stalwart Charles Bickford, plus Lon
Chaney Jr., Harry Morgan, Lee Marvin... wow. Georg Wilhelm
Pabst's, restored, anti-war titles
Westfront 1918 and
Kameradschaft on
separate Criterion
Blu-rays, with supplements, is
an easy recommendation. Cinephile's should have both in
their collection. Eureka Entertainment's stunning
Blu-ray of Hoon-jung Park's
New World (Sinsegye) is
an excellent, and hyper-intense, crime-drama that we can
fully endorse. Back to Stanley Kramer; both
Judgment at Nuremberg
and
Inherit the Wind seem
essential to own on
Blu-ray for fans. Courtroom
dramas at epic proportions.
The Young in Heart
(Selznick produced), an unjustly neglected comedy, also gets
the upgrade to
Blu-ray from Kino. We finish
with two love stories and two Gialli (and a third on DVD).
The Garden of Allah
with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer is a gorgeous early
Technicolor, on
Blu-ray, set under the
seductive, blazing sun of the Sahara.
Intermezzo, on
Blu-ray, has hypnotic, young,
Ingrid Bergman teamed with sophisticated Leslie Howard -
proving, indeed, that music is the food of love. Arrow gives
Dario Argento's
The Cat O'Nine Tails a
brand new 4K
Blu-ray restoration plus a new
audio commentary - an intriguing mystery with a soave Carlo
(James Franciscus), blind, ex-journalist, sleuth Franco
(Karl Malden) an d beauty Anna (Catherine Spaak.) Umberto
Lenzi's
Seven Blood Stained Orchids,
from the golden age of Italian thrillers, gets a
Blu-ray transfer from Code Red.
On DVD, I reviewed
The Pyjama Girl Case, a
film based on a real-life case that makes fro m a cracking
Giallo..
"Give them pleasure. The same
pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare..."
Alfred Hitchcock
Have an easy
week!
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The Cat O'Nine Tails
BD - When a break-in occurs
at a secretive genetics institute, blind puzzle-maker Franco
Arno (Karl Malden, Patton,
One-Eyed Jacks), who
overheard an attempt to blackmail one of the institute's
scientists shortly before the robbery, teams up with intrepid
reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) to crack the case.
But before long the bodies begin to pile up and the two amateur
sleuths find their own lives imperiled in their search for the
truth. And worse still, Lori (Cinzia De Carolis), Franco's young
niece, may also be in the killer's sights…
Blu-ray Release Date: January
29th-30th, 2018
The Apartment
BD - Bud Baxter
(Lemmon) is a lowly Manhattan office drone with a lucrative
sideline in renting out his apartment to adulterous company
bosses and their mistresses. When Bud enters into a similar
arrangement the firm s personnel director, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), his career prospects begin to look up... and up. But
when he discovers that Sheldrake's mistress is Fran Kubelik
(Shirley MacLaine), the girl of his dreams, he finds himself
forced to choose between his career and the woman he loves...
Arrow Blu-ray Release Date:
December 18th - 26th, 2017
The Young in Heart
BD - A comparatively
little-known entry in the "screwball comedy" genre, David O. An
inexplicably neglected film from producer David Selznick, The
Young in Heart (1938) was Janet Gaynor's last film before
she retired from the screen to marry MGM costume designer Adrian
(Gaynor made one last big screen appearance in 1959's
Bernardine, starring Pat Boone). In The Young in Heart,
Gaynor plays the daughter in a family of con artists, the
Carletons, who meet a sweet old lady, Miss Ellen Fortune (Minnie
Dupree), on a train. At loose ends after being driven out of
Monte Carlo, the family learns that Miss Fortune is rich, and
sets out to bilk her, moving into her London home.
Blu-ray Release date: January 9th
2018
The Garden of Allah
BD - The Garden of Allah
follows Domini (Dietrich), who is lonesome after the death of
her beloved father. In order to bring some change into her life,
she heads off to the desert. At the same time, Boris (Charles
Boyer), a Trappist monk, has decided to break his vows of
silence and escape to the same destination. It is at the oasis
that they meet, fall in love and get married. Boyer plays the
tortured soul with distinction. His dark European looks bode
well with his character, as he struggles to throw off religion
and keep the secret of his past from his new bride.
Blu-ray Release date: January 9th
2018
Seven Blood Stained Orchids
BD - A maniac on the loose
is committing savage acts of slaughter, and one survivor may be
the only key to unmasking the serial slayer known as the
Half-Moon Killer. The mysterious half-moon lockets could be the
only key to unraveling his sinister motives, but will that be
enough before he completes his ice-cold plot to claim his
intended seven victims? Based on a classic murder mystery novel
by Edgar Wallace and starring Uschi Glas, Antonio Sabato and the
stunning Marisa Mell, this stylish shocker from the golden age
of Italian thrillers is a crimson-dripping gem from cult
director Umberto Lenzi. Blu-ray
Release Date: January 2nd, 2018
Not as a Stranger
BD - Ambitious but
impecunious medical student Lucas Marsh (Robert Mitchum) marries
the older and (in this film, at least) not especially attractive
Kristina Hedvigson (Olivia de Havilland) so that she can pay his
tuition fees. Kristina loves Lucas, but he loves nothing but his
work. Emotionally shutting himself off from everyone --
including best friend, Alfred Boone (Frank Sinatra), and drunken
dad, Job Marsh (Lon Chaney Jr.) -- Lucas survives his training
and goes to work as the assistant to tough but tender small-town
medico Dr. Runkleman (Charles Bickford).
Blu-ray Release date: January 9th
2018
Westfront 1918
BD - Pabst's first talkie
offered a grim, humanitarian perspective on trench warfare, not
unlike that in the almost contemporary All Quiet on the Western
Front. Hardly any film since has given such an unremittingly
horrific picture of warfare-in-action, from the agonising lulls
to the surprise attacks, from harsh resilience to the release of
madness or a death wish. The point is ultimately a simple
pacifism, with all the political limitations that implies. But
Pabst's brilliant tracking shots along the trenches, through
ruins, and across no man's land, remain more haunting than
anything in 'expressionist' cinema. Criterion
Blu-ray Release date: January 30th
2018
Kameradschaft
BD - The absolute high-point
of German socialist film-making of its period. Pabst imagines a
coal-mine on the French-German border, where the aftermath of
World War I is still being played out: French prosperity and
chauvinism hard up against German inflation and unemployment.
There's a disaster in the French wing of the mine...and the
German miners go to the rescue. Both the visual style and the
'message' of solidarity owe a lot to Soviet Socialist Realism,
but Pabst was a more sophisticated social critic than any of the
Russian film-makers. Only a bruised and cynical Berlin pessimist
could produce a film as moving, sincere and committed as this.
Criterion Blu-ray Release date:
January 30th 2018
Inherit the Wind
BD - One of the great
courtroom dramas of the screen, Inherit The Wind is based on the
infamous Scopes 'monkey trial' of 1925, an event bearing an
uncomfortable reminder of debates still occurring today in some
American states. A young high schoolteacher was brought to court
for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of the
theories of Charles Darwin in schools, and thereby denying the
biblical account of divine creation. It was a new law back then,
and controversial - one in fact not overturned until some 40
years later, and is still being fought over - and the first
prosecution under its terms quickly aroused widespread interest.
Blu-ray Release date: January
9th 2018
Judgment at Nuremberg
BD - Producer-director
Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), considered by
many to be the legendary filmmaker’s masterpiece, is a grave,
near-documentary attempt to deal with the Holocaust, war crimes,
the complex moral-political impact of the Nuremberg Trials, and
the very nature of justice, itself. With a thoughtful,
intelligent screenplay by Abby Mann (based on his own
award-winning Playhouse 90 television play), the film features
wrenching performances by Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster,
Maximilian Schell, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery
Clift, and Judy Garland. Kino Blu-ray
Release date: January 9th 2018
Intermezzo
BD - Gregory Ratoff directed
David O. Selznick's richly produced American remake of the
Swedish film directed by Gustav Molander and starring Ingrid
Bergman, who re-creates her role here. The story -- based on the
original screenplay by Molander and Gosta Stevens -- concerns a
love affair played out between famed concert violinist Holger
Brandt (Leslie Howard) and a young pianist, Anita Hoffman
(Ingrid Bergman). Holger has just finished a grand tour and has
returned to his home country of Sweden, into the arms of his
wife Margit (Edna Best) and two children, Ann Marie (Ann Todd)
and Eric (Douglas Scott). But soon Holger falls deeply in love
with his children's piano teacher Anita.
Blu-ray Release date: January 9th
2018
New World (Sinsegye)
BD - When the chairman of
South Korea’s largest crime syndicate is killed in mysterious
circumstances, a complex and violent struggle for power takes
place between the three most powerful figures in the Korean
underworld. Meanwhile the police, led by section chief Kang (Choi
Min-sik, Oldboy), have established operation “New World”,
in an attempt to weaken the syndicate even further. However,
Kang’s inside man, Ja-sung (played by
The Housemaid‘s Lee
Jung-jae), is nearing breaking point after eight years working
undercover. Blu-ray Release
date: January 15th, 2018
Elevator to the Gallows
(Criterion) BD - For his
feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together
a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative
cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by
Miles Davis. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris
night, Malle’s richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau
and Maurice Ronet as lovers whose plan to murder her husband
(his boss) goes awry, setting off a chain of events that seals
their fate. A career touchstone for its director and female
star, Elevator to the Gallows was an astonishing
beginning to Malle’s eclectic body of work, and it established
Moreau as one of the most captivating actors ever to grace the
screen. Criterion Blu-ray
Release Date: February 6th, 2018
The Pyjama Girl Case -
Based On The Infamous Real-Life Murder Case That Shocked The
World! When the mutilated corpse of a young woman is found on an
Australian beach, retired detective Thompson (Ray Milland)
involves himself in the investigation. But before they can find
the killer, the police must first identify the victim. Who was
this once-beautiful girl found clad only in yellow pyjamas? Why
would the authorities put her nude body on public display? What
sexual depravity did she endure before her murder? And even if
Thompson can crack the baffling case, will he survive to see her
killer brought to justice? DVD Release Date: August 4th, 2015 |
