Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF May 6th, 2019

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Zdrastvujte! An stacked week of reviewed Blu-rays by Criterion, Arrow, Kino, Kit Parker Film, Shout! Factory, Second Run, Mondo Macabro... of films directed by Anthony Mann, Claire Denis, Aleksey German, Joseph M. Newman, Budd Boetticher, Jack Arnold, William Cameron Menzies, Peter Yates, Enzo G. Castellari, Michael Winner, Fred F. Sears, Robert Parrish, Phil Karlson, Ted Tetzlaff, Henry Levin, André Hunebelle, Radu Jude, Jean Brismée and others. Our Calendar has last week's updates of films-to-Blu-ray, including works by Jacques Tourneur, Robert Siodmak, Max Ophuls, Stanley Donen, Robert Hamer, Hirokazu Kore-eda, George Stevens, Norman J Warren, José Ferrer, John Cameron Mitchell, Barry Levinson, Christian Petzold, Hal Ashby, John Guillermin, Kathryn Bigelow, Ishirô Honda, John Hughes, Jimmy Sangster and more. We also have our Feature Blu-ray posted for MAY Enjoy!!

LISTING PAGES:

Cinema of Japan, Discs of the Year for 2018, The TOP 100 DISCS, Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, HAGSPloitation, BLAXPloitation, OZPloitation, 'WOMEN IN PRISON' CINEMA, CREATURE-FEATURES (on Blu-ray!), PRE-CODE FILMs (on Blu-ray!), SILENT ERA FILMs (on Blu-ray!), HAMMER Studios (on Blu-ray!) The 100 BEST Neo-Noirs (on Blu-ray!), The GREATEST 100 Westerns (on Blu-ray!), Giallo on Blu-ray!, ESSENTIAL NOIR on Blu-ray!, Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.FR (France), Shopping Guide for Blu-rays at Amazon.DE (Germany) and our LATEST ARTICLES: Movies From... the End of the World,  The Beauties of Star Trek (TOS)

Feature Blu-ray chosen for the Month of MAY!

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ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): A wonderful week of film watching this past week. Arrow's Blu-ray of Aleksey German's Khrustalyov, My Car! get top spot this week - with stunning black-and-white cinematography this pitch-black comedy is not to be missed. Extras include 2-hours worth of video supplements - plus an insightful commentary. Kit Parker Films Film Noir Archive Volume 1 Blu-ray gets a huge nod this week - especially 'the essential'; Joseph M. Newman's 711 Ocean Drive set in 50's LA, Anthony Mann's 'costume noir' The Black Book - all at once a historical, romance, thriller penned by Philip Yordan, Budd Boetticher's Escape in the Fog with Nina Foch and espionage on the streets of San Francisco plus The Killer That Stalked New York with a misdiagnosed killer evocative of Panic In The Streets. The others include The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Miami Story, Assignment - Paris, Address Unknown and Johnny Allegro maintain delightful 'dark cinema' appeal. Enzo G. Castellari's Keoma is a top-flight spaghetti western with iconic Franco Nero as half-breed gunfighter who partners with his father's former ranch hand (Woody Strode) to exact violent revenge on the baddies including three of his half-brothers. Fabulous genre cinema. Kino's Fantomas 60s Collection includes the complete trilogy - Fantomas, Fantomas Unleashed and Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard -wonderful spy-parody adventure comedies filled with gadgets and disguises starring Jean Marais and delightfully hypnotic Mylène Demongeot. The first film in Kino's Blu-ray package includes a Tim Lucas commentary. Kino get into the pre-code Blu-ray boxset mode with two entries; RKO Classic Romances with Helen Twelvetrees, Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, Betty Compson, Lili Damita, Constance Bennett and Basil Rathbone plus, in a separate Blu-ray release, RKO Classic Adventures that has a western, a crime-drama and a northern adventure starring a young Clark Gable (his debut film) and Jean Arthur among others. Peter Yates' 1967 Robbery is a suspenseful, realistic heist thriller based on the true story of the 1963 British Royal Mail robbery is on Kino Blu-ray. Criterion's Blu-ray of Claire Denis' Let the Sunshine In stars Juliette Binoche who experiences romantic highs and heartbreak while dealing with three imperfect suitors. Second Run bring Radu Jude's dark comedy Everybody in Our Family to Blu-ray. A key work of the Romanian New Wave. Devil's Nightmare is an effective 70s exploitation Eurohorror channeling a seven deadly sins motif - on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro. Michael Winner's Gothic-esque horror The Nightcomers has Marlon Brando playing a subversive Irish lout formerly employed as a valet. On Blu-ray from Kino. While I am a big fan of Jack Arnold's Tarantula - the new Shout! Factory Blu-ray has video issues when compared to the German 1080P transfer although it does offer an entertaining commentary.

"I'm not a genius; I'm a worker." Anthony Mann

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Devil's Nightmare BD - A busload of tourists on holiday discover that they are going on an unscheduled trip… a trip into the macabre. They find themselves lost and in need of food and shelter. A gloomy castle ahead seems to be the refuge that have been seeking. What they don't know is that Baron von Runberg, the castle's owner, lives under an ancient family curse - one that will draw the unsuspecting guests into a terrifying game of death. As they enjoy a splendid meal at the Baron's table, a beautiful stranger arrives at the castle. And the nightmare begins… Blu-ray Release Date: May 14th, 2019

Keoma BD - Directed with immense flair and virtuosity by veteran Enzo G. Castellari (who channels Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone in equal measure), Keoma is an epic film of Shakespearean and biblical proportions, which boasts compelling performances and thrilling violent action. Truly epic in scope, Keoma is considered by many to be one of the greatest spaghetti westerns. Blu-ray Release Date: April 16th, 2019

Everybody in Our Family BD - Recently divorced husband Marius plans to take his young daughter away on a weekend holiday. When things do not go as planned, Marius strikes out at those around him, and what began as comic drama soon turns bitter as Marius' increasingly erratic behaviour and morbid self-pity send the film spiraling into much darker territory. Blu-ray Release Date: April 29th, 2019

RKO Classic Adventures BD - Preserved by the Library of Congress and restored by Lobster Films, these potent two- fisted brawlers from the prolific RKO Radio Pictures studio were the types of movies that sold out theaters in the wild early days of sound film. The Painted Desert is a pistol-packing Western about feuding families starring Bill Boyd and Helen Twelvetrees (and featuring Clark Gable in his talkie film debut). The Pay-Off is a cool-minded gangster movie directed by (and starring!) Lowell Sherman as an honorable mobster in a dishonorable racket. The Silver Horde drops Joel McCrea into the midst of a dreaded rivalry between two fishing groups led by Evelyn Brent on one side and Gavin Gordon on the other. Blu-ray Release Date: May 21st, 2019

Robbery BD - Robbery is an uncompromising portrayal of swinging London’s criminal underworld. Quintessentially British and with a documentary-style commitment towards accuracy, Robbery mixes meticulously constructed, high-octane action sequences (including one of the most nerve-shattering—and often replicated—car chases ever seen on film) with taut suspense and gritty realism, making it the groundbreaking template for future crime dramas. Starring Stanley Baker, Joanna Pettet, James Booth, Frank Finlay and Barry Foster, Robbery is an entertaining and archetypal entry into the genre of British gangster movies. Blu-ray Release Date: May 21st, 2019

Khrustalyov, My Car! BD - Named after the apocryphal exclamation of Soviet security chief Lavrentiy Beria as he rushed to Stalin's deathbed, this blackly funny, deliriously immersive satire distils the anticipation and anxiety in the Moscow air, as the Soviet despot lay dying. Late winter 1953. The lives of nearly half the planet are in Stalin s hands. A military surgeon, General Yuri Georgievich Klensky (Yuri Tsurilo), finds himself a target of the ''Doctors' Plot'': the anti-Semitic conspiracy accusing Jewish doctors in Moscow of planning to assassinate the Soviet elite. Pursued, abused, and marked for the gulags, Yuri is chased and dragged through a Stalinist Soviet nightmare. His desperate, jolting journey encapsulates the madness of the era. Blu-ray Release Date: April 29th, 2019

RKO Classic Romances BD - Millie is a grand melodrama about a divorcee (Helen Twelvetrees) who climbs the ranks at a luxe hotel, and whose tattered romantic relationships drive her to a life of independence. Kept Husbands circles around a bet made by a steel magnate s impish daughter, played by Dorothy Mackaill. She guarantees that she will get a plant manager (Joel McCrea) to marry her within four weeks. She wins her bet, but gets all the class issues that come with it. The Lady Refuses is a frank Pre-Code melodrama about a poor woman on the verge of becoming a prostitute (Betty Compson), who is hired by an aristocrat to woo his son away from a gold-digger. The Woman Between is a risque romance in which Lili Damita unknowingly enters into an affair with her estranged stepson (Lester Vail). In Sin Takes a Holiday Constance Bennett plays a poor secretary in love with her boss a womanizing divorce attorney. He proposes a sham marriage to Bennett to keep his lovers at bay, giving her what she wants in exactly the wrong way. Blu-ray Release Date: May 21st, 2019

The Killer That Stalked New York BD - In New York, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes) and her spouse, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), are trying to unload a trove of rare jewels they smuggled into America from Cuba, but the police are hot on the couple's trail. Meanwhile, government officials begin a desperate search for an unknown individual who is infecting the city with smallpox. When the cops discover that Sheila has the virus, they team up to find and quarantine her as she continues to unwittingly pass her sickness on to others. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

Address Unknown BD - A plot revealed through the correspondence between German-American businessman and his Jewish partner, Lukas, the German-American, returns to Germany during the early Nazi years and gets caught up in the racist philosophies. He goes to the point of denying even his partner's daughter, who is engaged to Lukas's son. Disastrous results follow this man's newly acquired bigoted decisions Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

Fantomas 60s Collections BD - Pierre Souvestre’s Fantômas was originally adapted for the screen by legendary filmmaker Louis Feuillade (Les vampires) in 1913. André Hunebelle (OSS 117: Mission for a Killer) introduced a revamped and modernized version of Fantômas to the 1960s OSS 117 and 007 audience. All three films starred the great Jean Marais (Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast) as Fantômas, a criminal mastermind and man of a thousand faces. The three films co-starred Louis de Funès as Le commissaire Juve, Mylène Demongeot as Hélène, Jacques Dynam as L’inspecteur Bertrand and Robert Dalban as Le directeur du journal. The first film, Fantomas (Fantômas), was released in 1964, followed by Fantomas Unleashed (Fantômas se déchaîne) in 1965 and Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard (Fantômas contre Scotland Yard) in 1967. Blu-ray Release Date: April 30th, 2019

Tarantula BD - This 50's sci-fi staple has all the expected clichés... from the small isolated town (Desert Rock in rural Arizona) to the skeptical Sheriff (Nestor Paiva) - from the suspicious young doctor (John Agar) linked to the ultra feminine heroine (Mara Corday). Plus where would we be without the loner experimenting professor (Leo G. Carroll) whose scientific, but well meaning, intrusion in nature's scheme produces the titled monster. The effects are better than average as the Tarantula was an actual spider manipulated on miniature sets with air jets. Shout! Factory Blu-ray Release Date: April 30th, 2019

Johnny Allegro BD - Ex-gangster Johnny Allegro (George Raft) makes the acquaintance of the beautiful Glenda Chapman (Nina Foch) when he helps her out of a tight spot. As a result, a Government agent persuades Allegro to exploit his new contact to go undercover and infiltrate a crime ring led by Glenda's husband. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

The Black Book (1949) BD - Anthony Mann’s The Black Book (1949). One of the great unacknowledged forms of noir is costume drama. I can’t think of a better example than this campy, hugely enjoyable thriller about the French Revolution—-also known as Reign of Terror, with Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, and Arlene Dahl--brilliantly shot by John Alton, the greatest noir cinematographer. I even prefer it to Mann’s more conventional noirs in contemporary settings, many of them also shot by Alton. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

Assignment - Paris BD - Assignment - Paris is based on a serialized Saturday Evening Post yarn by Paul and Pauline Gallico. The film stars Dana Andrews as reporter Jimmy Race, assigned to the Paris bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. Race makes the acquaintance of French journalist Jeanne Moray (Marta Toren), who is forced to suppress a white-hot news story about an impending Iron Curtain political conspiracy because she lacks proof. At great risk to himself, Race heads to Budapest to ferret out the facts, sometimes right under the noses of the communist "damage control" experts. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

The Guilt of Janet Ames BD - Rosalind Russell plays a war widow whose husband threw himself on a grenade and saved five of his platoon. Angry and bitter, she has the names of the men, and sets out to meet each one to see if any of them were worth her husband sacrificing his life. En route to see one of them, she is hit by a car and has an hysterical paralysis so that she is confined to a wheelchair. One of the names on her list is recognized as that of a reporter, Smitty (Douglas), and he goes to the hospital to identify her. Though he has lost his job, is an alcoholic and due to leave for Chicago soon, he does a mental exercise with Janet that is inspired by the story of Peter Ibbetson. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

711 Ocean Drive BD - Academy Award® winner Edmond O’Brien stars in this top-flight film noir, based on actual events. He plays a telephone repairman who uses his knowledge to help his bookie expand his business to increased profits and rises to the top. But when syndicate head Otto Kruger wants to take over, things start to get dicey — and O’Brien’s in too deep to call the cops. With gritty photography by Frank F. Planer, direction by Joseph M. Newman, and a white-knuckle climax atop Boulder Dam, this is one of the finest crime thrillers of its era. The excellent cast also includes Joanne Dru and such veteran tough guys as Barry Kelly, Donald Porter, Howard St. John and Robert Osterloh, plus a brief appearance by Cleo Moore. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

Escape in the Fog BD - It's the story of an expert in psychological warfare (William Wright) who is given a secret mission to deliver some wartime documents from San Francisco to the Far East. German agents, however, have gotten wind of the plan and spend the movie trying to capture Wright before he can leave the city. Before we see all this, however, we are introduced to a Navy nurse on leave (Nina Foch) who has a dream of Wright being attacked by two men on the foggy Golden Gate Bridge - but only after she awakes does she actually meet Wright. As she tries to figure out the meaning of her dream, she becomes his unwitting partner as he tries to outwit the Germans; naturally the two also fall for each other. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

The Miami Story BD - The feds and the Miami police chief Martin Belman hire reformed gangster Mickey Flagg to work undercover for them to get info on Tony Brill that would put him in jail, something they haven't been able to do on their own due to the crime lord's cleverness. Flagg agrees for the following reasons: the $50,000 offered, to redeem himself in the eyes of his young son and because twelve years ago Brill framed him on a murder charge which got him a prison sentence. Leaving his Indiana farm, Flagg poses as head of a Cuban syndicate trying to muscle in on Brill's gambling operations run from the Biscayne Club casino. Flagg enlists the help of nice girl hoofer Holly Abbott (Beverly Garland) just arriving from Cuba to track down her missing older sister hoofer Gwen (Adele Jergens), last seen in the company of Brill's mobsters. Blu-ray Release Date: April 23rd, 2019

Let the Sunshine In BD - Two luminaries of French cinema, Claire Denis and Juliette Binoche, unite for the first time in this piercing look at the elusive nature of true love, and the extent to which we are willing to betray ourselves in its pursuit. In a richly layered performance, Binoche plays Isabelle, a successful painter in Paris whose apparent independence belies what she desires most: real romantic fulfillment. Isabelle reveals deep wells of yearning, vulnerability, and resilience as she tumbles into relationships with all the wrong men. Shot in burnished tones by Denis’s longtime collaborator Agnès Godard and featuring a mischievous appearance by Gérard Depardieu, Let the Sunshine In finds bleak humor in a cutting truth: we are all, no matter our age, fools for love. Criterion Blu-ray Release Date: May 21st, 2019

The Nightcomers BD - Marlon Brando delivers a respectably creepy performance in the Michael Winner directed The Nightcomers -- a film inspired by the characters in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. On a British country estate, two recently-orphaned children, Miles (Christopher Ellis) and Flora (Verna Harvey), live on their own with only a nurse, housekeeper, and gardener as companions. Miles and Flora are particularly fascinated by the gardener, Quint (Marlon Brando). In fact, fascinated to the point of obsession, the boy and girl model their young lives after him. Blu-ray Release Date: May 7th, 2019
 

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