directed by Tinto Brass
Italy 1980

 

Bruno Martel (Luc Merenda) is an unstable French actor whose agent gets him an audition for a pornographic film by a pretentious director. Bruno "saves" his co-star Doris (Susanna Javicoli) who is obsessed with playing the role of Hamlet's Ophelia. After an attack by a female punk gang and a stay in an asylum where the staff is crazier than the inmates, they take to the road with a man who believes he is Garibaldi and encounters more bizarre characters before the pair end up working at an out of the way gas station for a wheelchair bound old man and his horny young wife (a nod to THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE - or more appropriately, Luchino Visconti's OSSESSIONE).

A return to low-budget filmmaking after the opulent SALON KITTY and the fiasco of CALIGULA, this near-plotless series of set-pieces and hommages to the cinema recalls Brass' New Wave-ish sixties work like L'URLO (forthcoming on DVD) combined with the progressively explicit nudity and lampooning of sexuality that dominates his later work.

Eric Cotenas

Theatrical Release: 4 January 1980

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DVD Review: Ripley's Home Video - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

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Distribution

Ripley's Home Video

Region 2 - PAL

Runtime 1:56:20 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.70:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 6.93 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate

Audio Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1); Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono)
Subtitles Italian, English, none
Features Release Information:
Studio: Ripley's Home Video

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.70:1

Edition Details:
• Trailer (3:39)
• Interview with Tinto Brass [Italian only] (9:47)
• Filmographies
• Photo Gallery

DVD Release Date:
Amaray

Chapters 20

 

Comments

Although the DVD cover does not mention English subtitles, they are present and selectable from the setup menu (the director's interview, however, does not have subtitles). Shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm (the source for the restoration was a 35mm interpositive) and probably looks as good as it can without manipulation.

The audio is at times badly out of sync on both the mono and 5.1 tracks but that may be an issue with the original post-synchronization. The photo gallery actually features behind the scenes photographs and production stills by Brass regular Gianfranco Salis rather than the expected frame grabs.

 - Eric Cotenas

 



DVD Menus
 

 


Screen Captures


Subtitle sample

 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 


DVD Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

 

 

Distribution

Ripley's Home Video

Region 2 - PAL

 





 

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