DVDBeaver Newsletter - June 9th, 2006

Howdy! - 16 new reviews this week including 3 westerns (2 X John Ford ). Some fabulous short film compelation packages. Paul Morrissey, Nicolas Philibert, Marcel Carne, Orson Welles imposing presence, Gene Tierney appearing as beautiful as any woman should be allowed to look (Thunder Birds), Clark Gable, Newman, Redford - a re-issue Criterion, Two striking new Galleries, a clandestine Noir... and the list goes on...

2 NEW Galleries:

Femme Fatales of Film Noir Gallery HERE - (Folks - click on the last image (very bottom) of Barbra Stanwyck (called 'Barbara Stanwyck 2') and find an actress who is looking directly into your soul...)

Garbo, Grace Kelly, Deborah Kerr - check out these incredible Colorizations by Alberto D'Arce HERE

UPCOMING: DVDBeaver will publish the new Jonathan Rosenbaum article entitled - A Dozen Eccentric Westerns - very soon! Stay Tuned!

Easiest way to catch up is simply read the new Newsletter Archive HERE.

Gregory has kindly updated our  Film Noir listings HERE

The Sales:

The Desert of the Tartars and Massacre in Rome

Amazon.com has an exclusive offer for early release of the Hammer Film Noir Collector's Set, Vol. 1-3 - Bad Blonde (1953); Man Bait (1952); Stolen Face (1952); Blackout (1954); Gambler And The Lady (1952); And Heat Wave (1954) HERE

SAVE AND HELP A BEAVER: If you will purchase more than 35 DVDs (or anything) in a 365 day period (and live in the Continental US) it makes excellent financial sense to subscribe to Amazon Prime! You will get Free 2-day shipping on your purchases!

New Additions to the Release Calendar (PRE-ORDER!)

Wife vs. Secretary (Clarence Brown, 1936) Warner Studios

Dancing Lady (Robert Z. Leonard,1933) Warner Studios

San Francisco (W.S. Van Dyke, 1936) Warner Studios

Boom Town (Jack Conway, 1940) Warner Studios

China Seas (Tay Garnett , 1935) Warner Studios

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (James Goldstone,1971) Warner Studios

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (Hy Averback, 1968) Warner Studios

A Fine Madness (Irvin Kershner , 1966) Warner Studios

Ludwig (Luchino Visconti, 1972) R2 UK - 2-disc - Infinity Arthouse

Valley of the Dolls - Special Edition (Mark Robson, 1967) 20th Century Fox

Louis Malle Collection - Vol. 2 (Black Moon, Milou En Mai, Lacombe Lucien, Le Souffle Au Coeur, Au Revoir Les Enfants) R2 UK Optimum Home Entertainment

The Child aka L'Enfant (Dardenne bros., 2005) R2 UK Artificial Eye

Dreams That Money Can Buy (Hans Richter, 1947) R2 UK BFI Video

Knights Of The Teutonic Order (Aleksander Ford, 1960) R2 UK SecondRun DVD

Passenger (Andrzej Munk , 1963) R2 UK SecondRun DVD

Mogambo (John Ford, 1953) Warner Home Video

Betty Grable Collection, Vol. 1 - My Blue Heaven / The Dolly Sisters / Moon Over Miami / Down Argentine Way - 20th Century Fox

Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey (Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker,1968) - Criterion Collection

Monterey Pop Single Disc (D.A. Pennebaker, 1968) - Criterion Collection

RECOMMENDATIONS:  Let's see - on the strength of the individual releases of Boom Town, China Seas and Mogambo  - it appears the Clark Gable Signature Collection is well worth a purchase - great value - 6 discs (also includes Dancing Lady, San Francisco and Wife vs. Secretary). I think all three Cinema 16: Shorts are worthy viewing but Cinema 16 - European Short Films is essential in my opinion. Those familiar with Nicolas Philbert's work (In the Land of the Deaf, To Be and To Have etc.) need no introduction to another masterpiece - Every Little Thing - we strongly recommend. Solely on the basis of Welles performance and the impeccable DVD transfer we can whole-heartedly endorse Compulsion. All three westerns reviewed this week are strong representations of the genre - thumbs up to Stagecoach, Two Rode Together and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Although not at Children of Paradise's lofty standards Marcel Carne's Hôtel Du Nord is a great film experience.

Obviousness?: perhaps a little less than subtle but the strong performances and unique environment rank Emperor of the North as a memorable film. Great image, strong commentary and its under $10.            

New Reviews:

Stagecoach - one of John Ford's greatest frontier epics. This western eclipsed all films in the genre that had gone before it, and so vastly influenced those that followed that its stamp can be found in most superior westerns made since Ford stepped into Monument Valley for the first time. Set in a landscape of endless horizons, Stagecoach is a wonderful, broad portrait of pioneer life in the untamed Great Southwest, as well as an in-depth character study of eight people, all diverse in their pursuits and all traveling to separate fates on a journey packed with danger. New 2-disc Special Edition DVD Release Date: June 6th, 2005

Boom Town - Romantic comedy with a top-notch cast. Gentle Tracy and macho Gable are the buddies who head out West to try their luck making a fortune in the oilfields. Unfortunately, they run across Colbert who has turned up in the hope of making her fortune by marrying it and soon the two men are battling over her. It all starts to go badly wrong, though, when Lamarr arrives on the scene to teach them all about love and money. The performances from the four leads are sparkling and vintage character actors Wills and Atwill provide solidly eccentric support. DVD Release Date: June 20th, 2006

China Seas - Dynamic Alan Gaskell (Clack Gable) captains a ship bound from Hong Kong to Singapore. Gaskell tries to turn over a new leaf from his hard-drinking lifestyle after becoming attached to a refined high class English lady, Sybil Barclay. His former girlfriend Dolly is extremely jealous of the budding relationship and tries hard to get the Captain back. He is apparently unimpressed with her loud, obnoxious, and uncivilized manners, even though she is extremely beautiful. DVD Release Date: June 20th, 2006

Emperor of the North - Gritty story of the Depression, railways and hoboes. With a tough performance from Ernest Borgnine as the guard who won't let any freeloaders onto his patch. This is a wonderfully dark and realistic tale of the never-ending battle between railwaymen and the hoboes who try to use their beloved trains for free rides. DVD Release Date: June 6th, 2005

Cinema 16 - European Short Films - Fascinating early works of some of Europe’s greatest directors to award-winning films from its most exciting new filmmakers. With over three and a half hours of films CINEMA16 is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the moving image. Includes work by Lars von Trier, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Jean-Luc Godard. DVD Release Date: June 5th, 2005

Cinema 16 - American Short Films - An engrossing, eclectic collection of the most striking short films made by many of America's most respected directors. Includes The Lunch Date - Adam Davidson; Carmen - Alexander Payne; The Discipline Of D.E. - Gus Van Sant; Daybreak Express - D.A. Pennebaker; Vincent - Tim Burton; Terry Tate: Office Linebacker; The Wraith Of Cobble Hill - Adam Parrish King; Freiheit - George Lucas; Feelings - Todd Solondz; Terminal Bar and more... DVD Release Date: June 5th, 2005

Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey - Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding arrived in California virtually unknown. Returning stateside from London, where he had moved to launch his musical career, Hendrix exploded at Monterey, flooring an unsuspecting audience with his maniacal six-string pyrotechnics. Redding, venerable star of Memphis’ Stax record label, seduced the “love crowd” in one of his best—and last—performances. Jimi Plays Monterey and Shake! Otis at Monterey feature the entire Monterey sets of these legendary musicians, performances that have entered rock and roll mythology. DVD Release Date: June 13th, 2005

Slightly Scarlet - Made when the prolific Dwan was 70, this complicated adaptation of Cain's Love's Lovely Counterfeit was slightly unusual for RKO and for the director in being a noir movie which is shot in wide screen and in colour. But it is still an enjoyable crime-romance, boasting remarkable credits, including a perfect B-list cast headed by Payne as a hoodlum who meets his match when two sisters react to his attempts to smear a would-be Mayor. His secretary (Fleming) falls for the hood, while the boozy sister (Dahl) adopts a less orthodox response.

Hôtel Du Nord - Obscure Marcel Carne film from 1938, the peak year of French "poetic realism"--shadows and soliloquies. Arletty plays a prostitute, Louis Jouvet her pimp; both are holed up in a riverside hotel where Annabella and Jean-Pierre Aumont are considering a lovers' suicide. DVD Release Date: April 24th, 2006

Every Little Thing - In the summer of 1995, French documentarist Nicolas Philibert shot the rehearsals for an outdoor performance of Witold Gombrowicz's Operetta at a psychiatric clinic in La Bord; the film that resulted was released the following year. As in Philibert's other documentaries, his uncoercive respect for the participants registers almost immediately; he wants us to get to know these performers as people rather than as patients, even though the mood is periodically one of amiable chaos. DVD Release Date: May 1st, 2006

Blood For Dracula - NEW Tartan PAL DVD added to the existing comparison - Paul Morrissey’s moralistic take on modern values is a brash mixture of humor, horror, and sex – and a revelation to fans of the horror film. In Blood for Dracula, the infamous count searches Italy for virgin blood.

Flesh For Frankenstein - NEW Tartan PAL DVD added to the existing comparison - Maverick filmmaker Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein reevaluates the horror film, infusing it with satiric wit and sexuality. Morrissey’s tale of the mad Baron Frankenstein and his perverse creative urges was heavily edited upon initial release.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Butch and Sundance is more than a Western: It's an iconic, American experience, a classic adventure tale, and a singular slice of late-'60s moviemaking that has never really been repeated. The story is a surprisingly, "mostly" accurate tale of two of history's best-known outlaws. First, the duo robs a series of trains on the frontier, then spends a lengthy amount of time on the run from the hired guns the railroad is paying to hunt them down. DVD Release Date: June 6th, 2005

Two Rode Together - This rather atypical late (1961) John Ford western stars James Stewart as a cynical marshal hired to negotiate with the Comanches for white prisoners and Richard Widmark as a cavalry officer who comes along with him. Not a film with any of the resonance of The Searchers, despite a certain similarity in theme, but interesting nonetheless.

Compulsion - When Orson Welles speaks in any of his films, he makes words sound as if they were born of lightning. It is the same in “Compulsion” where he, as Jonathan Wilk---representing Clarence Darrow in this examination of the famous Leopold-Loeb murder case in 1924 Chicago—works not to understand the young men (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) who heinously murdered a young boy, but to seek for them the justice that is deserved without resorting to the death penalty, as Darrow was known for being against. DVD Release Date: May 23rd, 2006

Thunder Birds - A well done Technicolor story about flight training at Thunderbird Field, Arizona in 1942 at the height of WWII. Great cast of supporting players, with main stars Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton well suited for their roles. Beautiful flying shots with the Arizona desert as background. The dialogue in some spots is not too realistic in terms of aviation, e.g. when Preston Foster, playing the role of a civilian flight instructor at a military training school exclaims that a student's "motor conked out" while viewing the incident from the ground with his former sweetheart, Tierney. DVD Release Date: June 6th, 2005

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar:

Our stack of 'to be reviewed' is still as high as ripe wheat - stay tuned...

Gary

P.S. - Although the percentages keep juggling around you can still pick up some amazing deals at Amazon.UK!:

Laurel-Hardy 21-disc collection (42% off),  The Gospel According To St. Matthew (40% off), Jamon Jamon (60% off), Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf (65% off), Girl on the Bridge (70% off), Baise-Moi (56% off), The Seventh Seal (65% off), Central Station (68% off), Kes (62% off), The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (2-disc) (70% off), Amelie (Two Disc Special Edition) [DTS] (72% 0ff), Pedro Almodovar Collection: Bad Education / Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down / Live Flesh / All About My Mother / Talk To Her (58% off), Visconti's Conversation Piece (61% off), The Fallen Idol (43% off), Sherlock Holmes - The Definitive Collection (54% off), Katherine Hepburn - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Rita Hayworth - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Barbara Stanwyck - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off), Sophia Loren - 6-disc Screen Goddess Collection (52% off), Marilyn Monroe - 6-disc Screen Goddess Boxset (52% off)

P.P.S.

Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) Criterion Collection