Newsletter - FOR THE WEEK

OF October 28th, 2019

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Manao ahoana! We have a SILENT AUCTION for patrons running LIVE HERE. This has been a reasonably strong week of Blu-ray reviews in this newsletter of packages from Kino, Shout! Factory, Wild Side, Second Run, BFI, of films directed by Carol Reed, Jean Renoir , Ida Lupino, Terence Fisher, Milos Forman, Karel Zeman, Don Siegel, Robert Hamer, Richard Lester etc. .Our Calendar has NEW updates of Blu-rays including by directors Vincente Minnelli, Fritz Lang, Jacques Tourneur, George Cukor, Jacques Rivette, Leo McCarey, Francis Ford Coppola, Michelangelo Antonioni, Paul Schrader, Hal Ashby, Kenji Mizoguchi... and more. We also have our Feature Blu-ray and 4K UHD posted for OCTOBER Enjoy!!

LISTING AND LARGE REVIEW PAGES:

Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975 (on Blu-ray), 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 and 4K UHD chosen for the Month of OCTOBER!

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Gary at 2ze dot com

ONE VOICE (not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey): A few top-notch Noirs reviewed this week from the lesser-seen Naked Alibi with smoldering Gloria Grahame and a Kat Ellinger commentary on the Kino Blu-ray, to Ida Lupino's iconic 'dark cinema' staple The Hitch-Hiker with Blu-ray commentary by Imogen Sara Smith... From Lupino's desperate performance in the damsel-in-distress Noir, Woman in Hiding (another Ellinger commentary) on Blu-ray to another Lupino directed (and commentary) of not quite dark-enough cinema, The Bigamist. What a time for fans of the cycle. Dipping our collective toes in what is oft-considered Brit-Noir - we have Robert Hamer's It Always Rains on Sunday with an escaped convict trying to hide out at his now re-married former lover's house and Carol Reed's post-World War II Berlin thriller The Man Between - both with commentaries on their respective Blu-rays. Now we also have a bona-fide Neo-Noir this newsletter with Don Siegel's gripping cop-drama-cum-procedural-esque Madigan with Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda plus an exceptionally probing commentary from the expert trifecta of Berger, Mitchell and Thompson on the new Blu-ray. Journey to the Beginning of Time has Karel Zeman's imaginative and joyous fantasy expression - fulfilling childhood dreams with adventure and dinosaurs. Big thanks for Second Run's 4K-restored Blu-ray. Jean Renoir’s historical epic La Marseillaise remains one of the best films ever made on the French Revolution and Kino's Blu-ray sports a commentary, director interview and a booklet. In Hammer's The Devil Rides Out devil worshipers plan to convert two new victims. The Terence Fisher's effort remains one of the studio's most accomplished and thrilling mystery horrors. The Shout! Factory Blu-ray has new interviews and a new (and old) commentary. Milos Forman's musical Hair is brilliantly realized; fun, happy and impressive. The new BFI Blu-ray is stacked. 1988's remake of The Blob gets one of the most complete Blu-ray packages of the year with 3 commentaries, a dozen new interviews and the over-the-top effects benefit from the best a/v transfer. Juggernaut is a taut 70's sea-faring terrorist thriller with Richard Harris and Anthony Hopkins on new Blu-ray from Wild Side out of France. 1983's Private School has a nubile cast with notables Phoebe Cates and Betsy Russell - film value is low but nostalgia value high for this teen comedy-romance with new commentaries and interviews on the Shout! Factory Blu-ray.

 “Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation...” ― Ida Lupino

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Madigan BD - Police Det. Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and his partner have lost their firearms. A suspected murderer made off with them during a scuffle. Now Police Commissioner Anthony Russell (Henry Fonda) has ordered the men to get their pistols back within 72 hours -- or else. And if that weren't enough, Russell has to deal with disturbing evidence of police corruption surrounding an old friend, accusations of police brutality from a minister and the departure of his longtime mistress. Blu-ray Release Date: November 12th, 2019

Hair BD - The film, loosely based on the 1968 Broadway musical Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, centres on two men, Claude (John Savage) a naïve young man from America's 'Bible Belt' and Berger (Treat Williams), the leader of a hippie tribe in New York. Drafted into the army and soon to ship out to Vietnam, Claude spends his last time as a civilian with Berger, learning for the first time about race and class issues in 60s America. He soon meets and falls for Shelia, a rich debutante with a rebellious soul. Welcome to the Age of Aquarius. Blu-ray Release Date: October 28th, 2019

La Marseillaise BD - In Jean Renoir’s La Marseillaise one of the greatest French directors tells the epic story of the French Revolution with scope and intimacy. Disregarded in its time, it is only now emerging as a remarkably innovative work of historical excavation. Made towards the end of France’s left wing Popular Front government when Europe was on the brink of war, La Marseillaise is a markedly political film about a country in flux. Funded by a public subscription service and filmed in a jaunty newsreel style, it follows a cross-section of people—from the citizens of Marseilles to Louis XVI—who are affected by the shifting political and social forces in the early days of the French Revolution. Blu-ray Release Date: October 29th, 2019

Journey to the Beginning of Time BD - A joyous adventure that celebrates science and nature, Journey to the Beginning of Time sends four schoolboys on an epic and perilous voyage through prehistory encountering mammoths, monsters and dinosaurs along the way. Using a variety of innovative techniques (cell animation, stop-motion, puppetry and animatronics) Zeman evokes worlds of wonder and discovery to produce his most beguiling work. Blu-ray Release Date: October 7th, 2019

It Always Rains on Sunday BD - It Always Rains On Sunday starring Googie Withers, John Mccallum, Jack Warner is considered to be one of the greatest and most overlooked achievements of British 1940s cinema. The film was featured in Time Out's 100 Best British Films list, as chosen by 150 film industry experts, including Sam Mendes and Wes Anderson. Googie Withers stars as Rose Sandigate, a Bethnal Green housewife whose Sunday is turned upside down by the re-appearance of an old flame who is now an escaped convict seeking protection from the police. A rare glimpse into life in London's East End post WWII, It Always Rains On Sunday was Googie Withers' last film for Ealing Studios and, due to her wonderful performance as a woman trapped in a claustrophobic domesticity, it remains one of her best. Kino Blu-ray Release date: November 5th, 2019

The Man Between BD - Very much a return to the world of Harry Lime, with the ruins of edgy, divided Berlin standing in for the sewers of Vienna. The drab, snow-clad city finds its human counterpart in Mason's sardonic, disreputable double agent, who stalks and then succumbs to the provocatively virginal Bloom. Cold war dogmatism is refreshingly muted, with free world heroes and Stalinist heavies merely a backcloth to the complexly ambiguous relations centred on Mason. The film's rambling, ramshackle construction drew unfavourable comparisons with The Third Man, but despite thematic similarities, it is more fruitfully seen as a forerunner to the down-at-heel spy stories of John Le Carré. Kino Blu-ray Release date: November 5th, 2019

Woman in Hiding BD - So far as the rest of the world is concerned, Deborah Chandler Clark (Ida Lupino) is dead, killed in a freak auto accident. But Deborah is alive, if not too well. Having discovered a horrible truth about her new husband (Stephen McNally), Deborah had intended to commit suicide. Now she is the "woman in hiding" of the title, living in mortal fear that someday her husband will catch up with her again. Howard Duff, Ida Lupino's husband-to-be, co-stars as a returning GI who turns out to be the hero of the piece. One particularly suspenseful sequence takes place during a noisy convention, with Joe Besser scoring as an obnoxious reveller. Woman in Hiding would make an interesting companion piece to Julia Roberts' Sleeping with the Enemy. Blu-ray Release Date: November 5th, 2019

Naked Alibi BD - Ross Hunter hadn't yet completely graduated to glossy, star-studded soap operas when he produced the taut crime meller Naked Alibi. Chief of detectives Joseph E. Conroy (Sterling Hayden) is busted after failing to prove that "solid citizen" Al Willis (Gene Barry) is a maniacal cop-killer. Despite his lack of authority, Conroy puts so much heat on Willis that the latter skips town with his floozy lady friend Marianna (Gloria Grahame). Conroy follows the two fugitives to a wide-open border town, then slowly and methodically maps out the villain's doom. Essentially a cat-and-mouse game for most of its running time, Naked Alibi slowly but surely builds up to a nailbiting rooftop-chase climax. Blu-ray Release Date: November 5th, 2019

Private School BD - Three of the hallmarks of education in America -- nudity, teenage sex, and big, destructive gags -- are on plentiful display in this teen comedy. Christine (Phoebe Cates), a student at an exclusive all-girls private school, is in love with Jim (Matthew Modine), who attends an academy for boys nearby. Christine's archrival Jordan (Betsy Russell) also has her eye on Jim, and she is willing to do whatever she can to steal him away. Jim's über-slob buddy Bubba (Michael Zorek) is going with Betsy (Kathleen Wilhoite), Christine's cynical friend, though he would probably be unfaithful if any other woman were willing to get near him. Bubba and his pals sneak into the girls' school dressed in drag in hopes of reaching the Promised Land (better known as the women's shower room), while Christine and Jim run away together for the weekend, though their escapade isn't as romantic as they had hoped. Among the adults observing the chaos are Ray Walston, Fran Ryan, Martin Mull, and Sylvia Kristel; one of the sexy students on display is future scream queen Brinke Stevens. Blu-ray Release date: October 29th, 2019

The Blob (1988) BD - In a tiny California town, high school students Brian (Kevin Dillon), Meg (Shawnee Smith) and Paul (Donovan Leitch) discover a strange, gelatinous substance that melts the flesh of any living creatures in its path. The deadly substance gets into the town's sewer system, where it begins growing uncontrollably, occasionally emerging to feast on unsuspecting townspeople. A military clean-up crew is sent to eliminate the menace, but it may end up doing more harm than good. A grisly and inspired remake of the 1958 Steve McQueen B-Movie classic, with an acute angle on horror, The Blob is directed by Chuck Russell and adapted by Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption). Shout! Factory Blu-ray Release date: October 29th, 2019

The Devil Rides Out BD - The debonair Duc de Richleau has been trusted with the care of his deceased friend's son, Simon Aron. The Duc discovers that the young man has been seduced into joining a Satanic cult headed by the diabolic Mocata, who is intent on making Simon one of the Devil's disciples. Having rescued Simon from a bloodied ritual, de Richleau is pursued by Mocata, who will stop at nothing to destroy the Duc and his friends, even summoning the Angel of Death itself. Starring Christopher Lee in one of his personal favourite roles and based on the celebrated novel by Dennis Wheatley, The Devil Rides Out is one of Hammer's most accomplished and thrilling mystery horrors. Shout! Factory Blu-ray Release date: October 29th, 2019

The Bigamist BD - Married for eight years, and highly successful at selling deep-freezes, Harry (Edmund O’Brien) couldn’t ask for more from life - except that he was childless. Harry’s attempts at adopting a child trigger off a nightmare when Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) , the head of the adoption agency gets suspicious and begins delving into Harry’s private life. The dogged Jordan soon finds out the reason for Harry’s frequent visits to Los Angeles. In a flashback Harry explains how loneliness and Eva’s (Joan Fontaine) over-indulgence in their deep freeze business had driven him into the arms of the sympathetic Phyllis (Ida Lupino) , and into a second marriage. Will the judge and jury find Harry innocent or will he spend the rest of his life behind bars? Blu-ray Release Date: September 24th, 2019

The Hitch-Hiker BD - Frank Lovejoy and Edmund O'Brien are two war buddies taking a break from the wives for a Mexican fishing trip; a hitchhiker they pick up turns out to be a crazed killer wanted in nine states (William Talman, later the perennially defeated district attorney on Perry Mason) who forces them at gunpoint to drive him through the desert. Talman's Everett Myers is a fascinatingly abstract creation, filmed by Lupino first as a discorporate flurry of hands and feet, then as a satanic figure whose grinning, key-lighted face seems to float by itself in space. With his paralyzed right eye (he sleeps with it wide open), Myers may represent the return of the fascist evil the two men confronted during the war; he may also represent something inherently violent in the American male that, having been liberated by the war, has to be faced down and defeated by the two vets before they can return to a normal life. Lupino's use of the desert setting, rich with associations of nuclear devastation, seems to look forward to the science fiction films that would flourish later in the decade. Blu-ray Release Date: September 24th, 2019

Juggernaut BD - HMS Britannic is caught in a storm at sea, but the real terror is on board - seven bombs planted by a terrorist calling himself Juggernaut, who demands a high ransom in exchange for the passengers' lives. Bomb expert Fallon (Harris) is flown to the ship and, as negotiations break down, he struggles with the most challenging job of his life in a race against time! Blu-ray Release Date: October 2nd, 2019

Next 2 weeks on the Calendar