Warner Home Video has released John Wayne's The Green Beretson Blu-ray. Wayne stirred up a hornet's nest among his political opponents when he released the film in 1968 at the height of the protest movement against the Vietnam War. After his 1966 visit to Vietnam to bolster the spirits of American troops, the Duke wanted to make a statement in support of the U.S. involvement in the war. He felt so strongly about the subject that he directed the movie as well as starred in it. (Ray Kellogg directed most of the major action scenes.)
The film remains one of only two films the Duke directed, the other being his 1960 epic The Alamo. Predictably, the movie caused a firestorm of protest, as it was released just when calls for withdrawing from the conflict were picking up steam. Most critics wrote the film off as hopelessly inept from an artistic standpoint. Indeed, Wayne employed every cliche imaginable and the script seemed to have been left on a shelf since the WWII era. There is the lovable company scrounger (Jim Hutton) who unofficially adopts a doe-eyed orphan kid and other key characters are actually named Kowalski and Muldoon.Wayne does address the political controversies of the era, but the opposing viewpoint of the war is seen through diatribes of another cliched character, a liberal reporter played by David Janssen. Wayne's simplistic outlook on the conflict is represented by his answer to Janssen's complaint that due process of law is not being followed. Wayne's Colonel Kirby tells him, "Out here, due process is a bullet."
Among the gems recently released by Paramount as part of the studio's Centennial special editions DVDs is John Ford's 1962 classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.Count me among those who consider the film a masterpiece, but upon its initial release, the movie was dismissed as morose and claustrophobic by short-sighted critics who couldn't see beyond Ford's penchant for filming in the great outdoors. The plot finds James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard, a tenderfoot lawyer who goes west in the naive belief the populace will welcome his offer to bring civility and legal representation to the residents of a small town. Before he even gets to his destination, his stagecoach is robbed by the vicious bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who takes special delight in beating and humiliating the lawyer. Stoddard is nursed back to health by sympathetic townspeople, primarily Hallie (Vera Miles) and her cynical, macho boyfriend Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Tom sizes up Stoddard's abilities to fend for himself and advises him to leave town immediately. However, Stoddard is determined to bring the rule of law to the town and stubbornly stays on - until Valance challenges him to a gun duel from which only one man will emerge alive.
The cover art for the Blu-ray release of the 1981 Italian thriller The New York Ripper screams "The most controversial horror film ever made!" Although the hyperbole may be true, I'll confess that I had never even heard of the movie until viewing the screener copy from Blue Underground. Apparently, the film does have a long history of being censored and the original version is still banned in the UK. Research shows there have been numerous international versions of film, many of which have been compromised by edits ranging from minor to the exclusion of entire key sequences. Blue Underground's release is the complete 93 minute version of director Lucio Fulci's vision of the film.As you might imagine, the movie isn't for everyone. A strong stomach and penchant for kinky sex scenes might well be advised.
The film was shot on location in New York City (with interiors shot in Rome) in 1981. The Big Apple was in the midst of its decline during this period and movie makers exploited the public misery to the fullest extent. Big studio releases like Taxi Driver and Death Wish were seen as legitimate social commentaries, while other smaller budget movies just seemed to exploit the explosion in crime. Viewing The New York Ripper today, one has to force oneself to remember those bad old days in Gotham. With the city now having undergone an amazing renaissance that has resulted in the lowest crime statistics on record, it might be difficult for those who did not grow up in or near the city to recall how accurately films reflected this era. Fulci's film centers on a psychopath who menaces New York by murdering numerous women in the most horrendous manners. Bizarrely, he uses the voice of Donald Duck in taunting phone calls to the police. Nominally, the film would seem to be based on a modern version of London's Jack the Ripper, but more likely Fulci was inspired by the Son of Sam murders that gripped the city in the summer of 1977.
Scorpion Releasing has made possible the DVD debut of the 1973 cult horror film Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls. The special edition release is top-notch in all respects. The movie was the brainchild of Eddie Saeta, a lifelong member of the movie community who started out as Harry Cohn's messenger boy and later became a well-respected assistant director. (He worked on a number of the Three Stooges shorts at Columbia and several Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes that were turned into feature films.) Doctor Death was a rare opportunity for Saeta to fulfill his dream of directing a feature film. The low-budget horror opus was shot in 12 days - a remarkable achievement, given the film's ambitious special effects and varying sets and locations. The movie is played primarily for laughs, with John Considine cast as the titular villain, a charismatic practitioner of black magic who has secured the secret to eternal life. When the present body he inhabits is on the verge of death, he is able to transfer his soul into a recently-deceased person. The fly-in-the-ointment is that, if a suitable cadaver is not available, the good doctor secures one through murder. In contemporary times, he turns his art into a for-profit venture by charging distraught people huge sums to bring their loved ones back from the grave by transposing their souls into another body. The script follows one such grieving victim, Fred Saunders (Barry Coe), who cannot accept the fact that his beautiful young wife Laura (Jo Morrow) has died from an illness. He hires Doctor Death to bring her soul back to life - and it doesn't ruin any plot device to inform the reader that certain unexpected complications occur.
A number of readers have written to publicly request that Universal release The Nude Bomb on DVD. It will therefore come as a shock to those readers to discover that the film has been out on DVD for quite some time. Universal wisely released it to coincide with with the 2008 premiere of the Get Smart feature film starring Steve Carrell. Fans could be forgiven for not noticing, as Universal used scant resources to make the film's availability known. There is good reason for this: the 1980 big screen Get Smart feature film disappoints on all levels. The hit TV series ran from 1965 to 1970, with CBS having picked it up after NBC canceled the show. A decade later, Universal brought Don Adams to the big screen in a full length motion picture. At first glance, The Nude Bomb seemed promising: writers Bill Dana, Arne Sultan and Leonard B. Sultan were brought on board from the original series. However, Barbara Feldon, who played "99" chose not to appear and Edward Platt, who had the pivotal role of Chief had passed away years before. Thus, the scenario Adams found himself in was comparable to a Three Stooges reunion minus Larry and Moe.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Home Video:
.
Burbank, Calif., March 15, 2010 – Warner Home Video (WHV) today
announced that it is bringing back “the shack†on June 8 on Blu-ray DiscTM.
Just in time for Father’s Day, tour the grounds of the exclusive Bushwood
Country Club like never before, as the screen’s most notorious gopher chews its
way onto stunning Blu-ray for the first time ever.
30 years ago, the game of golf was redefined when Chevy Chase, Rodney
Dangerfield, Bill Murray and Ted Knight took to the fairways of Bushwood
Country Club. When Caddyshackhits
Blu-ray, fans will see the riotous hole-in-one comedy like never before. The fairways
will be greener. The golf balls whiter. The gopher…err…fuzzier. The Blu-ray
will contain an all new, feature-length Bio documentary, Caddyshack: The
Inside Story (90 min), which includes new interviews with producers and
stars about the making of Caddyshack.
The Blu-ray will also include all of the special features from the original standard
definition version: Caddyshack: The 19th
Hole (37 min), a retrospective documentary featuring hilarious outtakes,
rare footage and interviews with stars Chevy Chase and Cindy Morgan, producers
Jon Peters and Mark Canton, and director Harold Ramis, along with other cast
and creative team members recalling their on-set experiences; and the theatrical
trailer.
The standard
definition DVD has been updated
with new 5.1 audio and contains special features: Caddyshack: The 19th
Hole and the theatrical trailer. The film will also be available day and
date on Video on Demand from cable and satellite providers and for electronic
download from online retailers.Â
Â
Among AFI’s Top 100 for “Funniest and Best Quotesâ€
and Top 10 for “Best Sports Movies,†the inspiration for the madcap milieu of Caddyshack
is the boyhood experiences of writer Brian Doyle-Murray and his kid brother
Bill Murray. Brian was a caddy at Indian Hills, outside Chicago, and Bill was
an assistant groundskeeper for the Evanston Country Club in Indiana.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
With two of the finest British
actresses of this or any other generation in the main roles and a cast of
instantly recognisable homegrown talent, Mary Queen Of Scots is a long lost
classic costume drama on an epic scale.
Mystifyingly unavailable since its
original theatrical release almost 40 years ago, it is at last set to make its
DVD courtesy of Second Sight on 1 February 2010.
Nominated for five Oscars this
outstanding costume drama stars two of the greatest British actresses; Vanessa Redgrave (Julia) in the title role and Glenda
Jackson (Woman In Love) as Queen
Elizabeth I, along with a stellar cast including Ian Holm, Trevor Howard,
Patrick McGoohan and Timothy Dalton. It also boasts a score
by John Barry.Â
Originally released in 1971, this lavish
Tudor power play tells the story of Queen Mary, the last Catholic ruler of Scotland who
faces religious prejudice, from the Protestant community and, in particular,
her half-brother James Stuart (McGoohan) leader of the Protestant faction. Throughout her reign she is faced with a fierce
adversary, her cousin the Queen of England Elizabeth I.Â
Mary Queen Of Scots is a passionate and
energetic costume drama with an outstanding cast that makes for powerful
viewing.
Bonus
features include: Isolated John Barry music track with commentary by film
historians Nick Redman and Jon Burlingame, Overture and intermission music,
Promotional featurette
Like most classic movie fans, I have have viewed The African Queen countless times. However, I had never truly seen The African Queen until I attended a special digital screening of the restored version. Cinema Retro was among a select number of publications to be invited by Paramount for the unveiling of the restored version of director John Huston's classic adventure. The screening took place at Viacom headquarters in Times Square (Viacom is the parent company of Paramount). Following a reception attended by Ron Smith, the man who headed up the restoration process, we were escorted into the screening room where a new documentary was shown detailing the painstaking efforts to preserve the film. When the movie itself was shown in digital format, the result was literally breathtaking. The film looks better than Huston could have ever hoped for.
A truly under-appreciated and little-seen gem, Power Play has recently been released on DVD through the Scorpion label. Like other niche market titles that have been surfacing in droves, this one has so much to recommend about it that it seems almost criminal so few movie fans have seen the movie. The 1978 thriller takes place in an unnamed central European country where the repressive government is employing increasingly harsh crackdowns on the general population and utilizing torture against dissidents. Fearing the breakout of civil war, Dr. Jean Rousseau (Barry Morse), an intellectual with ties to the military, persuades key army officers to plan a coup. They are led by Col. Anthony Narriman (David Hemmings, who co-produced the film), a rather pacifist soldier who reluctantly agrees to head the plot in order to save the nation he loves. The tight-knit group carefully approaches other officers they suspect may be in sympathy. Among them is a wild card: tank commander Colonel Zeller (Peter O'Toole), a flamboyant and egotistical man whose forces are essential to the operation.As the plotting proceeds, the story becomes quite suspenseful as the group deals with an almost paranoid obsession that their activities are being uncovered by Blair (Donald Pleasence), a murderous government bureaucrat who will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo.
Warner Brothers informs us they are to release a number of Clint Eastwood features on Blu-ray in June. Among them will be double feature discs that sell for $30 each. The double features will include Where Eagles Dare/Kelly's Heroes; Dirty Harry/Magnum Force and The Enforcer/Sudden Impact. Great news, to be sure, but we hope they at least issue a single disc Blu-ray release of The Dead Pool so the entire Dirty Harry series will be available in that format. Stay tuned for further news.
