ViaVision's Imprint line will release a limited edition, region-free (1,500 units) Blu-ray boxed set commemorating director Walter Hill. Suggest you get your pre-orders in early, as Imprint limited edition sets usually sell out fast. This set will be released in July.

Here is the official announcement:

Walter Hill has been directing films for almost 50 years and has established himself a reputation of delivering thrilling, gritty, and highly stylized films.

This special edition set collects five films and one landmark miniseries from one of the most important and influential filmmakers of modern cinema.

• Hard Times (1975)
• The Driver (1978)
• The Long Riders (1980)
• Extreme Prejudice (1987)
• Johnny Handsome (1989)
• Broken Trail (2006)

Featuring performances from some of Hollywood’s greatest actors including Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Bruce Dern, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman & Robert Duvall.

Limited Edition 8-Disc Hardbox. 1500 copies only.

Hard Times (1975) – Imprint Collection #164

In the middle of the Great Depression, Chaney (Charles Bronson, Death Wish) is just looking to catch a break. When he meets Speed (James Coburn, The Magnificent Seven), a promoter of bare-knuckle street fighting, Chaney thinks with his fighting skill and Speed’s savvy, he might have a chance. But Speed has his own problems, and what seemed like a sure thing is not as simple.

This gritty, compelling drama is the directorial debut of Walter Hill.

Starring Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Jill Ireland & Strother Martin.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Special features TBC
• Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
• Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
• Optional English subtitles

The Driver (1978) – Blu-ray & 4K – Imprint Collection #165

Ryan O’Neal plays the Driver, an ice-cool getaway “Wheel Man” for hire. Bruce Dern is the detective who becomes obsessed with catching him. The more O’Neal leaves tantalising clues at the crime scenes, the more Dern becomes a man possessed with catching his prey.

This cult neo-noir thriller is presented on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.

Starring Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani, Joseph Walsh & Ronee Blakley.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

4K UHD Disc

• NEW 4K restoration by StudioCanal
• Walter Hill Masterclass – featurette
• Interview with Walter Hill
• Alternate Opening
• Original English Trailer
• Original German Trailer
• 13 Original Teasers

Blu-ray Disc

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historian and critic Matthew Asprey Gear (2022)
• NEW Cut to the Chase – interview with actor Bruce Dern on The Driver (2022)
• NEW Teeth Bared – interview with actor Rudy Ramos on The Driver (2022)
• NEW Simplicity in Motion: Editing The Driver – interview with editor Robert K. Lambert (2022)
• Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

The Long Riders (1981) – Imprint Collection #166

The Long Riders is Hill’s version of the story of the James-Younger gang. Held as heroes by many, and much celebrated for its attacks upon the railroad, the gang became the most famous band of outlaws in the country. They were eventually brought to ruin by the Pinkerton detective agency, losing many of their number in the ill-fated Northfield, Minnesota bank raid.

Four sets of real-life brothers – the Carradines, the Keachs, the Quaids and the Guests – star in this classic western.

Starring Keith Carradine, James Remar, Dennis Quaid, Stacy Keach, Robert Carradine & David Carradine.

Special Edition 2-Disc Set.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

Disc One

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Toby Roan
• Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Disc Two

• Interview with actors Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine
• Interview with actors Stacy Keach and James Keach
• Interview with actor Randy Quaid
• Interview with actor Nicholas Guest
• Interview with director Walter Hill
• Interview with composer Ry Cooder
• Interview with producer Tim Zinnemann
• Outlaw Brothers: The Making of The Long Riders – documentary
• The Northfield Minnesota Raid: Anatomy of a Scene – featurette
• Slow Motion: Walter Hill on Sam Peckinpah – featurette
• Theatrical Trailer

Extreme Prejudice (1987) – Imprint Collection #167

Extreme Prejudice stars Nick Nolte as tough, no-nonsense Texas ranger Jack Benteen, whose childhood friend Cash (Powers Boothe) is now a ruthless drugs baron on the other side of the border. Jack finds himself recruited by the CIA to eliminate Cash, who allegedly has secret government documents.

Starring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Rip Torn, Maria Conchita Alonso & Michael Ironside.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film critic / author Walter Chaw
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Daniel Kremer and Nat Segaloff
• Audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke
• Interview with director Walter Hill (2010)
• Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with music historian John Takis
• The Major’s Agenda – interview with actor Michael Ironside
• The War Within – interview with actor Clancy Brown
• Capturing The Chaos – interview with director of photography Matthew F. Leonetti
• Theatrical Trailer
• Vintage Electronic Press Kit
• Photo Gallery
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Johnny Handsome (1989) – Imprint Collection #168

Severely-deformed petty criminal Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) is double-crossed in a robbery and left to take the rap on his own. He is stabbed in jail and sent to hospital, where a prison doctor decides that plastic surgery and a fresh start will lead Johnny on the path to reform. However, when the handsome new Johnny emerges from prison, his potential fresh start in life is hampered by his desire to get even with the man who put him away.

Starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman & Forest Whitaker.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film critic and author Walter Chaw (2022)
• NEW Audio commentary by film critics Daniel Kremer and Scout Tafoya (2022)
• NEW Interview with actor Peter Jason
• Codes to Live By: Walter Hill on Johnny Handsome – featurette
• Wordsmith – interview with writer Ken Friedman (2010)
• Eye of the Beholder – interview with makeup artist Michael Westmore (2010)
• Action Man – interview with stuntman Allan Graf (2010)
• Theatrical Trailer
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Broken Trail (2006) – Imprint Collection #169

Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Robert Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Haden Church) become the reluctant guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte’s attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Classic Western action takes centre stage in this dramatic miniseries!

This critically acclaimed miniseries is the winner of four Emmy Awards.

Starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden Church & Greta Scacchi.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Broken Trail: The Making of a Legendary Western – featurette
• Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
• Audio English DTS HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English subtitles

Any pre-order titles will be dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special features and artwork are subject to change.

Click here to to order.  (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)

By Lee Pfeiffer

In reviewing "Fuzz" when it opened in 1972, Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that the film looks more like a dress rehearsal than a finished movie and was obviously intended to appeal to viewers who had a limited attention span. In contrast, Roger Ebert said he was put off by the exploitive elements of the movie poster, but in the end called it a funny, quietly cheerful movie. I guess I land in the same ballpark as Ebert, although I'm not without criticism of the film, which was based on author Ed McBain's popular "87th Precinct" novels that explored the excitement and absurdities found in a modern, big city police department. The film has an impressive ensemble cast: Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch (reunited after co-starring in "100 Rifles"), Tom Skeritt, Jack Weston and Raquel Welch, who appears rather fleetingly despite her prominent billing. Oh, and the bad guy is played by Yuel Brynner, who appears rather late in the film in a limited number of scenes.

The film is primarily played for laughs and it's scattershot plot jumps around at a dizzying pace. The action takes place in the aforementioned 87th Precinct in Boston, a run-down venue located in a troubled part of the city. The plot focuses on a harried group of cynical detectives who report to their equally cynical, burned-out boss, Lt. Byrnes (Dan Frazer). The precinct is depicted as decrepit and as worn-out as its inhabitants. There's a lot of chaotic action going on throughout the day with various local miscreants and eccentrics clogging up the works, much to the frustration of the burned-out cops.  The plot sees seasoned veteran cops Steve Carella (Burt Reynolds), Bert Kling (Tom Skerritt) and Meyer Meyer (you read that right) (Jack Weston) trying to cope with the chaos- as well as the arrival of a strikingly beautiful policewoman who has been assigned to the precinct, Eileen McHenry (Raquel Welch). Among the cases being investigated simultaneously are the identities of the creeps who have been setting local hobos on fire, a serial rapist, various petty crimes and a late-breaking, high-profile threat posed by an unknown man who phones in death threats aimed at local public officials.When the ransom he demands isn't paid, said officials are bumped off in a high profile manner despite intense efforts by the police to thwart the plots. The villain is known as The Deaf Man (Yul Brynner), a sophisticated brute with the persona of a Bond villain, who employs a small team of loyal and very competent crooks to help him carry out the various assassinations.

Director Richard A. Colla employs the Altmanesque gimmick of having characters talk over each other in a Tower of Babel-like scenario, but in the context of a chaotic police department, the tactic works. The air of realism is accurate. During this era, my father was a cop in Jersey City, a stone's throw across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Like most urban areas during this era, it was a city beset by plenty of problems. Whenever I would see him at the precinct, I witnessed the kind of mutual ball-busting humor cops would engage in. I realized it was their way of coping with the pressures of the job and "Fuzz" captures this environment perfectly. The screenplay by Evan Hunter, who wrote the source novel under the nom de plume Ed McBain, is rather episodic and some plot lines are left to dwindle as the cops try to solve any number of on-going threats to the city. Raquel Welch's character is subjected to the predictable sexist comments, but, refreshingly she is spared any exploitation scenes (except for one fleeting moment) and acquits herself well as this valiant public servant. The whole messy scenario comes together in a very clever ending in which all of the unrelated characters end up converging on a local liquor store where the cops are holding a stakeout. The mayhem that ensues is both funny and exciting and ties some of the loose ends together. A comic highlight finds Reynolds and Weston dressed as nuns in a stakeout to capture the rapist.

The cast is first-rate. Reynolds is in top form and he gets fine support from Tom Skerritt, Jack Weston (particularly impressive), Dan Frazer and James McEachin. Don Gordon is among the bad guys, and as with any of his screen appearances, he's a welcome presence. Reynolds breaks the wise-cracking mode in a touching scene that shows him with his wife, a deaf mute played by Neile Adams. Yul Brynner adds his customary classy presence in his limited screen time.

Reynolds and Welch could not have been pleased with the marketing campaign for the movie: a Mad magazine-style ad that capitalized on Reynold's recent centerfold in Cosmopolitan and had Welch depicted in a bikini, although she appears in no such attire and is demurely dressed in the film. (Her character disappears mid-way through the movie and inexplicably doesn't show up again.) Nevertheless, Reynolds would finally rise to major boxoffice status later in the year with his superb performance in "Deliverance" and Welch would graduate to intelligently-written roles that proved she was more than a pretty face.

"Fuzz" is an imperfect movie but it's a lot of fun. Recommended.

(The film is currently showing on Screenpix, which is available by subscription through Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)

To order the Blu-ray, click here.

By Lee Pfeiffer

"The Pink Jungle" is a Universal production from 1968 and it looks it, with plenty of backlot sets doubling for authentic foreign settings. The studio always clutched the purse strings rather tightly when producing mid-range fare such as this, but it doesn't mean these films were devoid of value. This particular production was based on a 1965 action adventure novel titled "Swamp Water" by Allan Williams, which is regarded as a straight-forward thriller. The film adaptation with a script by Charles Williams eschews the thrills in favor of laughs. The film opens in one of those conveniently unnamed-but-undesirable South American countries where we find James Garner arriving in a one-horse town. He's fashion photographer Ben Morris who is there to do a quick shoot before returning to the States. The subject of his fashion spread soon arrives: supermodel Alison Duguesne (Eva Renzi), and she's more than a bit put off by the primitive environment. Things go downhill from there. They find they are stranded when the only local helicopter is stolen. They are introduced to the local corrupt police chief, Colonel Celaya (Fabrizio Mioni), who is looking to squeeze them for any bribes he can get. Then there is Raul Ortega (Michael Ansara), a local shady character in his own right. I won't bother with detailing how all of these characters affect the story, as we're not outlining "Citizen Kane" here. Suffice it to say that both Ben and Alison find themselves on defense all the time among this stew of swindlers and killers. Things kick into high gear when they meet Sammy Reiderbeit (George Kennedy), a South African with an American accent (!). He's a volatile nut case who embroils them in a seemingly madcap scheme to find a hidden diamond mine. He has access to a map that supposedly outlines where it is located but it requires an arduous and dangerous journey to reach the area- and there are all sorts of villains on their trail trying to obtain the map at any cost. 

"The Pink Jungle" is played strictly for laughs with Garner playing a typical Garner role: a man of action who can dispense punches and quips with equal skill. Kennedy plays a typical Kennedy role: a loud, crude boisterous type who is more brawn than brains. They form one of those uneasy partnerships to set off to find the gold only to encounter another disreputable character, McCune (Nigel Green) who joins the team even though no one trusts him. The first section of the film is shot entirely on the Universal backlot, though the art directors- Al Ybarra and and Alexander Golitzen- do succeed in making the seedy buildings seem convincing. Things only open up when the characters hit the mountains and desert (entirely filmed in California and Nevada). It's clear that Universal designed this movie for quick playoff. I'm not even certain it ever played as a main feature, as I recall as a kid seeing it as the bottom half of a double-bill with "Lady in Cement". Writing in his memoirs many years later, Garner dismissed the film thusly: "I made this thing for the money and I'm lucky it didn't wreck my career". That seems a bit harsh. If one approaches the film with modest expectations, they might be rewarded with some modest pleasures. Garner is always fun to watch and Eva Renzi, fresh from her success in "Funeral in Berlin",  makes an appealing leading lady whose flirtatious relationship with Ben remains chaste, probably because they spend most of their time dodging assassination attempts. George Kennedy dominates every scene he's in as the cigar-chomping, erratic, yet likable madman who is obsessed with finding the diamond mine. Nigel Green's appearance mid-film adds some intrigue and he's fun to watch.  Director Delbert Mann, like his cast members, would not have put this film near the top of his credentials. (He had directed the Oscar winner, "Marty"). However, his workmanlike direction here keeps the pace lively and the action flowing. Oh, and the ending does provide a bit of a surprise revelation.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the film in a reasonably good transfer. The only bonus extra is the original trailer (which plays up George Kennedy's recent Oscar win for "Cool Hand Luke") and a gallery of other trailers for KL action movie releases.

Click here to order from Amazon

"Retro-Active: From the Cinema Retro Archives"

By Lee Pfeiffer

Seven years after his blockbuster success producing the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, Irwin Allen revisited the same story for a sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. The 1979 film represents all the reasons that sequels to most hit films are generally disdained. Yes, there was The Godfather trilogy to buck the trend, but there were also those God-awful sequels to Jaws. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure opens the morning after the capsizing of the cruise ship. Michael Caine is Mike Turner, the financially destitute captain of a small vessel who is facing bankruptcy after losing his cargo in the same violent storm that destroyed the Poseidon. On board his boat are his first mate Wilbur (Karl Malden) and Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), a perky but klutzy young drifter the men have befriended. They stumble upon the capsized wreck of the Poseidon and Turner immediately smells financial opportunity in the tragedy. If he can make his way through the hull and down to the purser's office, he can raid the safe and abscond with the riches that are inevitably stored there. This is the first of any number of absurdities in the script. With the Poseidon the worst maritime disaster since the Titanic, Turner and his crew discover that, with the exception of one French copter that is conveniently leaving the scene upon their arrival, there is literally no other sign of the international  rescue forces that would be omnipresent at the scene. Instead,  after rescuing the few people who managed to make it onto the hull in the preceding film, those forces are in no hurry to get additional manpower to the scene in order to search for additional survivors before the ship sinks the bottom of the ocean. Inexplicably, while the rescue forces can't make a timely arrival at the scene, a small craft under the command of Captain Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas) does. Svevo claims he is a doctor who is there with his crew to enter the ship and search for any survivors. (Absurdity #2: Svevo is about to undertake this arduous, grimy and potentially deadly task while attired in a snow white designer suit!). Turner buys his story and forms and uneasy alliance with Svevo and his team, who are also clad all in white and resemble some of those bands of henchmen from the old Batman TV series.

Once inside the ship, movie magic takes over and the group finds every chamber to be brightly lit, thus making it possible to move about freely. True, there is the hazardous task of finding your way around an upside down vessel, but that problem is solved when they conveniently find a map that lays out precisely where everything is located. Soon, Turner discovers what even the most naive viewer has already realized: that Svevo is actually a villain with his own agenda. In the third major absurdity, we learn that the Poseidon was transporting plutonium that Svevo wants to acquire for nefarious purposes relating to bomb- building. As if that isn't enough, it turns out the ship was also transporting a huge shipment of assault weapons and stockpiles of ammunition. It's a wonder there was any room for those joyous conga lines to dance around on that fatal New Years Eve.

Since a hallmark of any Irwin Allen film is the presence of respected actors peppered throughout the production, it isn't long before familiar faces start popping up in every room, like those celebrities who used to stick their heads of windows and make wise-cracks on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Slim Pickens, in full scenery-chewing hayseed mode, comes stumbling out of nowhere, drunk and protecting a precious bottle of wine. He pretends to be a Texas tycoon but it turns out he was the ship's wine steward and regards the bottle of expensive vino as a symbol of his life long dream to acquire the lifestyle that has always eluded him. Then there is Shirley Jones, who emerges and announces that she is a registered nurse, which is certainly more practical to the group than if she were a butcher by trade. Angela Cartwright is a young woman who was on the cruise with her father, a bull-headed Archie Bunker type played by an unusually over-the-top and embarrassing Peter Boyle. Every Allen film needs a sympathetic older couple to wring a few tears from from the audience so this time we have Shirley Knight and Jack Warden substituting for the previous film's Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson. Allen throws in the kitchen sink by making Warden play a blind man. Not to be politically incorrect, but the sequences of Warden stumbling around the upside down wreck of the Poseidon with a cane and wearing sunglasses begins to resemble a Monty Python sketch. Then there is Veronica Hamel as the prerequisite "bad girl" who slinks around in a drenched evening gown showing ample cleavage- oh, and Mark Harmon has a major role as a young hunk who finds love with Angela Cartwright in the bowels of the sinking ship. If that isn't enough, we learn that lovable ol' Karl Malden's character is terminally ill and the symptoms manifest themselves while he's holed up in the upside down ship. (Somehow Allen showed restraint by not introducing killer sharks to the mix.)  

Irwin Allen had the good sense to have seasoned directors Ronald Neame and John Guillerman direct his two biggest blockbusters, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno and they remain enormously entertaining films. However, he became convinced that he could save a few bucks by doing the job himself. Thus, the man known for making disaster movies became better known for the man who made disastrous movies. The first slip was The Swarm, a 1978 flapadoodle that we always refer to as the worst "Bee" movie of all time. The movie was a bomb but that didn't teach star Michael Caine and co-star Slim Pickens a darn thing, since they re-teamed with Allen right away for  Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. (Many years later, Caine said he was ashamed of this period of his career when he took virtually any job in order to earn an easy pay check.) With Allen back in the director's chair, Beyond was destined to be another camp classic and it has the look and feel of a TV movie. Caine looks understandably embarrassed, Field is in Flying Nun cutesy mode and Savalas channels his inner Blofeld as the villain. Allen packs in everything from an ax murder (!) to a full blown shoot-out in which every day people turn out to be as adept at handling machine guns as Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.  There are some reasonably impressive sets on view but many of the special effects are sub-par. The most hilarious are found in the opening frames in which we see Caine at the helm of his storm-tossed boat in the midst of a hurricane. The sequence was apparently filmed with the ship on rockers and the violent rainstorm was simulated apparently by having some guy off camera spray garden hoses. It's quite possibly the cheesiest effect I've ever seen in a modern, major studio production.

The Warner Archive has released Beyond the Poseidon Adventure only on DVD. With the film itself a dud, there is at least the saving grace of an interesting bonus extra: a vintage 22 minute TV special about the making of the film. It affords some excellent behind the scenes views of the production and makes it clear that a lot of talented people put a great deal of work into creating films that often turn out badly. There are also some nice trailers for the main feature, The Swarm, Twister and The Perfect Storm. Even bad movies need some love, so how about a Blu-ray release of "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure"?

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE

By Lee Pfeiffer

Way back in 1971 when I was in high school, there seemed to be a tidal wave of soft-core porn flicks, mostly imported from Europe and dubbed rather crudely into English. I never sought to spend the paltry contents of my wallet on these tame sex movies movies because I lived directly across the river from Times Square and that offered my friends and I the real forbidden fruit in sleazy, grind house movie theaters. Age was no barrier as long as you were willing to pay the then tidy sum of $5. However, the softcore Euro imports did find enthusiastic audiences in places where there weren't many alternatives to finding cinematic "adult entertainment". The films were generally rated "X" but were pretty tame, stressing humor to overcome objections from local killjoys who thought the idea of seeing some naked people on screen would condemn their entire community to eternal damnation. One of the most profitable of these films was the 1969 release, "The Stewardesses", which was so tame that it could be shown on Disney+ today. Nevertheless, these films afforded women to get a few cheap thrills without having to suffer the stigma of being seen entering a theater showing hardcore fare. Thus, plenty of couples enjoyed the opportunity to share in date nights that somewhat pushed the envelope in terms of general standards. The films were generally bestowed with memorable titles, which is why I remember the newspaper ads for "Dagmar's Hot Pants" and similar fare such as "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried". The good news is that some of these films have been lovingly presented on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, in collaboration with Code Red. When a screener arrived of "Dagmar's Hot Pants", I took an immediate interest, remembering hot pants as one of those short-lived fashion trends of the 1970s. For those readers who were not around way back then, the gimmick with hot pants was a simple one: they were very short and very tight and left little to the imagination. Although my high school had a very liberal dress code (jeans and T shirts were the norm), I do recall one of my female classmates pushing the envelope by wearing hot pants to class. That was a bridge too far and she was summarily sent home to change into something less offensive, much to the consternation of her male classmates. At least hot pants were provocative and sensible, as opposed to the male fashions of the era such as the leisure suit and safari jacket, the latter of which was a dress/casual abomination that looked as though it was designed to allow a man to hunt elephants in the morning and then attend a swank cocktail party in the evening without changing attire.

I looked forward to viewing "Dagmar's Hot Pants" simply to see an abundance of this long-forgotten fashion trend glorified on screen. Alas, I was snookered, as was anyone back in the day who paid to see the film. You see, there are no hot pants in "Dagmar's Hot Pants". They are neither shown nor discussed. It was simply a case of a shamelessly deceptive marketing campaign to capitalize on a recent fashion trend. Oh, well.The film itself presents lovely Diana Kjaer in the title role, playing a fabulously successful young woman who has emerged as one of Copenhagen's most in-demand hookers. Dagmar's daily schedule of meeting with clients from around the globe is frantic and she sometimes has to call on the services of fellow prostitutes to assist her in meeting some of the more unusual demands of her customers. The film takes a humorous view of all this, as we see Dagmar patiently keeping a straight face while interacting with oddball clients ranging from two goofy Japanese businessmen who want an orgy to horny local businessmen of some esteem, including a doctor who pays Dagmar to initiate his teenage son in the ways of the world. The only "normal" client Dagmar services is a member of Copenagen's Vice Squad, who ensures she doesn't get busted in return for sexual favors. One of her adoring clients is a gruff, but rich American businessman played by Robert Strauss...yes, that Robert Strauss who had earned an Oscar nomination for Billy Wilder's "Stalag 13". It's a bit uncomfortable seeing the sixty-something actor engaging in a sexual dalliance with Dagmar but presumably the lure of a quick paycheck and a trip to Copenhagen made for an offer Strauss couldn't refuse. If Robert Strauss has always figured into your fantasies, then your ship has come in. Throughout the story, Dagmar is keeping a big secret as she arranges to leave her lucrative business for a top secret venture. "That's it!", I thought- she's going into the hot pants manufacturing business, but alas, the answer is somewhat more mundane and disappointing. There are a couple of minor efforts to introduce some dramatic scenes into the slapstick. Dagmar lends her desperate brother money so that his girlfriend can get an abortion. There is also a tense scene with her quasi-pimp, a scary fellow who threatens her if she doesn't obey his wishes. In this sense, the film differs from similar movies of this type by at least acknowledging that the life of a call girl isn't all fun and games. 

As is usual with these films, there are some interludes showing the star walking through the lovely streets of Copenhagen in an obvious attempt to add an exotic appeal to the production. Diana Kjaer manages to keep her clothes on occasionally but for the most part she is seen showering or chatting on the phone sans any cumbersome garments. I must say the dubbing in this film is a bit better than most and Code Red and Kino Lorber have provided a good looking transfer from a 2K master. You have to admire companies that take such efforts to preserve and present even minor films such as this.

The only bonus extra is an English language trailer that continues the sin of false advertising by saying "Dagmar's Hot Pants" is the name the title character has given to her prostitution network. In fact, there is never any mention of Dagmar's Hot Pants anywhere in the film. However, if these tame sex comedies from the distant past appeal to you, this is one of the better in this genre. I now hopefully await a Blu-ray release of "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried"!.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Lewis Gilbert's 1964 film The 7th Dawn is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Longtime readers will remember that Gilbert discussed the movie in an exclusive interview with Matthew Field in Cinema Retro issue #18. The movie had previously only been available in the U.S. as a burn-to-order MGM DVD. This is a thoroughly engrossing, adult drama with an unusual setting and story background. The movie begins on the final day of WWII and centers on three disparate friends: an American named Ferris (William Holden), a French woman, Dhana (Capucine) and a Malayan, Ng (Tetsuro Tamba) who have led guerilla forces against the Japanese occupation in Malaya. The three close friends are jubilant in victory, after having suffered from fighting in the jungle for extended periods. At the end of the war, Ng goes off to Moscow to pursue communist political training. The apolitical Ferris stays behind, with Malayasia now under British occupation. He thrives as a local rubber plantation owner, and Dhana is his lover, despite her frustration with Ferris' womanizing. The story advances to 1953, with Malayans now impatient for independence from England, which is easing toward granting their demands, but at a snail's pace. Ng returns to Malaya to try to instigate communist-inspired violent uprisings. To his sympathizers, he is a freedom fighter. To the British, he is a terrorist and the most wanted man in the nation.

Ferris is shaken from his cynical desire to remain removed from the political situation when Dhana is framed and charged by the British for assisting the terrorists. She has a choice: lead the authorities to Ng's hideout in the jungle or be sentenced to death. Dhana, who has always been as attracted to Ng as she has to Ferris, refuses to give him up. Ferris is faced with the ultimate dilemma: betray his best friend by capturing him and turning him into the British, or face the prospect of his lover being executed. Adding to the complications is the presence of Candace (Susannah York), the comely young daughter of the British governor who is also in love with Ferris and who concocts a scheme that might save Dhana, despite the fact that it places her own life in danger.

The 7th Dawn is a superb movie on every level, although it was not particularly successful on its initial release. Unlike most of the simplistic, special-effects driven action films of today, this movie deals with basic human dilemmas such as the meaning of friendships and the price of loyalties. The four leads are outstanding and Holden, in particular, gives one of the most impressive performances of his career. York and Capucine give touching performances, as well, and Tamba (who would go on to star as 'Tiger' Tanaka in Lewis Gilbert's 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice) is particularly impressive as a man who is torn between political ideology and his affection for his friends. The political drama is played out in an engrossing manner, as one witnesses the bumbling, if sincere attempts by the British bureaucrats to try to win the hearts and minds of the locals through tragically misguided methods. The film builds to a harrowing conclusion as Ferris and Candace venture into the jungle in an attempt to capture Ng before the death sentence can be carried out against Dhana. The last half hour of the movie is especially riveting and packed with suspense and Gilbert's direction is truly impressive. The film benefits from the lush landscapes photographed by Freddie Young and a beautiful musical score by Riz Ortolani.

Put this one on your "must see" list.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts an impressive transfer, though bonus materials are relegated to a trailer gallery. It would have been a good idea to include a commentary track, but considering the Blu-ray is a big step up from the previous DVD release, we won't complain. 

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By Fred Blosser

In “Secret of the Incas,” a 1954 release from Paramount Pictures, Harry Steele (Charlton Heston) and Ed Morgan (Thomas Mitchell) are rival opportunists in Cuzco, Peru. Both are searching for the Sunburst, a fabled Incan artefact said to be hidden in the “lost city” of Machu Picchu. “Not too many people go to Machu Picchu,” Harry says. Today, when tourists descend on the ancient Incan capital in droves, you would have to wonder if he’d ever heard of Expedia. But the observation was true enough in the early 1950s when the ruins were far off the beaten path. In those days, most small-town Americans would have regarded a visit to New York or Miami as an exotic excursion, never mind finding the time, money, or inspiration to fly to the Andes.

Harry has the edge in the quest for the Incan treasure, having appropriated a broken chunk from an idol. The fragment contains part of a pictograph which, when fitted to the rest of the carving on the remainder of the statue, reveals the method for finding the hiding place of the Sunburst. Putting the two together isn’t a problem, requiring Harry only to follow a tourist group into the museum where the fractured statue sits on display. But getting over the Andes to Machu Picchu to claim the Sunburst, “a hunk of gold with 119 pure diamonds and 243 other precious stones,” is another matter. This challenge is solved when Elena (Nicole Maurey) arrives in Cuzco, a refugee from communist Romania. Elena is as grasping as Harry, whom she views as her meal ticket to the U.S., while Harry uses her as bait to steal a small private plane from the Romanian counsel, who flies into Cuzco to arrest her. In Machu Picchu, Stanley Moorehead (Robert Young), an archeologist directing a dig for the tomb of the last Incan king, falls in love with Elena. Harry is more amused than put out. His real concern is Ed, who has followed by pack train and carries a gun.

The Indians in the surrounding villages regard the Sunburst with spiritual awe, believing that when it is found, the discovery will mark the rebirth of the Inca nation. But Harry and his rival only care about the fortune they can realize when they pry the jewels off the relic and melt the gold into ingots. “We’ll sit around and pluck it over like a roasted chicken, piece by piece,” Ed gloats. The two agree on a fifty-fifty split for the Sunburst, but given their mercenary natures, it’s about as tenuous a deal as a division of spoils between competing bounty hunters in a Spaghetti Western. Cast against type if you remember them strictly for their signature roles, Heston and Mitchell are excellent. Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, as one of Machu Picchu’s Indian caretakers, has a sly screen presence and three vocal numbers, which may be three too many for those who only want to get on with the story. But Sumac was a marketing draw comparable to having a performance by Lady Gaga or Adele in a 2023 movie. Largely forgotten today, she was a star in the early 1950s “exotic music” genre pioneered by Les Baxter and Martin Denny, with performances at Carnegie Hall and best-selling LPs on the Billboard charts. Heston appears in some exterior scenes of Cuzco and Machu Picchu, having participated in a month-long, pre-production location shoot, but he, Mitchell, Young, Mourey, Sumac, and the supporting Hollywood cast are missing (or represented by stand-ins at a distance) from scenes where crowds of actual Peruvian Indians congregate at Machu Picchu. Eagle-eyed viewers are likely to notice the seams, but for most of us, it’s part of the fun to watch old-school escapist pictures like this and tease out the real locations from the studio sets.

“Secret of the Incas” was absent from official U.S. home video release for decades—neglectfully so, according to critics who have cited it as an influence on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a precursor to the James Bond franchise in the double entendres that Harry trades with an appreciative housewife of means from Michigan, Mrs. Winston, played by the great Glenda Farrell. When Mrs. Winston greets the strapping Harry by commenting, “My, you’re a big one,” and looks forward to his “services” as a tour guide, you know she has more in mind than a dinner reminder to her tourist group. “I’ll be right outside your door,” he assures her.

A new Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics makes up for the film’s long absence with a remastered print licensed from Paramount, from a 4K scan of original negative elements. The rich colours of the Indians’ shawls and serapes are eye-popping in restored Technicolor. Maybe the movie’s omission from prior video formats, especially the inferior VHS process, and more especially the even worse VHS/EP/SLP budget format in which Paramount briefly released a handful of its archival titles in 1992, wasn’t such a loss after all.

The special features on the Blu-ray include an informative audio commentary by Toby Roan, previews of related KL titles, and sharp SDH captioning.

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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

By Lee Pfeiffer

In the estimation of many film scholars the 1970s was the most adventurous and liberating period in the history of the medium. The new freedoms in regard to sex, violence and adult themes that had exploded in the mid-1960s became even more pronounced in the '70s. Among the most daring studios to take advantage of this trend was United Artists. The studio had been conceived by iconic actors in the silent era with the intent of affording artists as much creative control over their productions as possible. UA had continued to fulfill that promise, producing a jaw-dropping number of box-office hits and successful film franchises. The studio also disdained censorship and pushed the envelope with high profile movie productions. The daring decision to fund the X-rated "Midnight Cowboy" paid off handsomely. The 1969 production had not only been a commercial success but also won the Best Picture Oscar. A few years later UA went even further out on a limb by distributing "Last Tango in Paris". UA fully capitalized on the worldwide sensation the movie had made and the many attempts to restrict it from being shown at all in certain areas of the globe. Like "Midnight Cowboy", "Tango" was an important film by an important director that used graphic images of sexual activity for dramatic intensity. Unfortunately, not every filmmaker who was inspired by these new freedoms succeeded in the attempt to mainstream X-rated fare during those years that the rating wasn't only synonymous with low-budget porno productions. Case in point: screenwriter John Byrum, who made his directorial debut with "Inserts", a bizarre film that UA released in 1975 that became a legendary bomb. The movie was released some years ago on Blu-ray as a limited edition by the now sadly defunct Twilight Time label. To my knowledge, it isn't available in that format today, although it is streaming on Screenpix, the subscription-based service that can be accessed through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV.

The claustrophobic tale resembles a filmed stage production. It is set primarily in one large living room in a decaying Hollywood mansion. The time period is the 1930s, shortly after the introduction of sound to the movie industry resulted in the collapse of silent pictures (Charlie Chaplin being the notable exception.) The central character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, is not named but is referred to as "The Boy Wonder". From our first glimpse of him we know we are seeing a man in trouble. He is unkempt, dressed in a bathrobe and swizzling booze directly from the bottle. We will soon learn that he was once a respected mainstream director of major studio films and was revered by Hollywood royalty. Now he is a has-been who has resorted to making porn movies in 16mm in his own home. (Yes, Virginia, people liked to watch dirty movies even way back then.) He is entertaining a visitor, Harlene (Veronica Cartwright), a perpetually cheery,  bubble-headed young woman who was once a respected actress but who, like Boy Wonder, has fallen on hard times. She is now a heroin addict who earns a living by "starring" in Boy Wonder's porn productions. They make small talk and some names from the current movie business are bandied about. Harlene tells Boy Wonder that a rising star named Clark Gable is said to be an admirer of his and wants to meet him. Instead of responding favorably to this news, Boy Wonder seems unnerved by it. The implication is that he is locked in a self-imposed downward spiral and lacks the self-confidence to attempt a real comeback. Harlene also needles him about his sexual prowess. It turns out that the king of porn films has long been impotent for reasons never explained.  As they prepare to film some scenes Harlene's male "co-star" (Stephen Davies) arrives. He is nicknamed Rex, The Wonder Dog, which seems to bother him especially when the Wonder Boy uses it to intentionally disparage him. Like Harlene, Rex is short on brains but is physically attractive. Boy Wonder seems to have a real resentment towards him, perhaps because Rex is a powerhouse in bed while he can't get anything going despite directing naked people in sex scenes. It becomes clear that Boy Wonder and Rex don't like each other. Boy Wonder ridicules Rex for performing sex acts on male studio executives who he naively believes will help him become a star. However, their relationship looks downright friendly compared to the interaction between Harlene and Rex. When Rex is a little slow in becoming physically aroused, Harlene mocks him mercilessly. This results in him essentially subjecting her to a violent rape which thrills Boy Wonder, who captures it all on film. Harlene doesn't appear to be any worse for the wear, however, and blithely says she's going off to a bedroom to rest.

The household is next visited by mobster Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), the man who finances Boy Wonder's film productions. He is accompanied by his financee Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), a pretty young woman who seems to have a particular interest in the forbidden world of pornography. Big Mac and Boy Wonder also hate each other. Big Mac berates Boy Wonder for making his porn flicks too esoteric and artistic for their intended audiences who just want a cheap thrill. However, for Boy Wonder the porn films represent the last opportunity he has to demonstrate the cinematic style and camera angles that once impressed critics and the public. In the midst of their arguing, it is discovered that a tragedy has occurred: Harlene has died from a heroin overdose. Everyone seems nonplussed by the news and Big Mac's only concern is to ditch the body somewhere quickly. Turns out Rex has a part time job in a funeral parlor and can arrange for a gruesome plan in which they dump her body inside a grave that is being prepared for another person's funeral the next day. The plan is to dig a bit deeper, bury Harlene, then place a layer of dirt over her and have the "new" body placed on top of hers. As Big Mac and Rex leave to "undertake" this sordid task, Boy Wonder finds himself alone with Cathy Cake. She wants to use the time to have Boy Wonder film her in her own personal porn movie since Big Mac would never let his "fiancee" do so with his knowledge. She finds the idea of sex on film to be a stimulant but Boy Wonder won't have any of it. He knows that Big Mac's volatile temper and ever-present bodyguard could result in him being the next corpse in the house. Cathy Cake tries another tactic and feigns interest in Boy Wonder. He lets his guard down and gradually is seduced by her. She even manages to cure his impotence but the tryst turns ugly when she learns he has not filmed it. Boy Wonder soon discovers that his renewed pride and self-respect is to be short-lived when it becomes clear that Cathy Cake actually loathes him and was only using him in order to fulfill her porn movie fantasy. The ploy works to a degree- her attention to Boy Wonder reawakens his sexual prowess but when she learns the camera wasn't rolling, she cruelly tells him that she only used him for selfish purposes. With this, Big Mac and Rex return from their horrendous errand and catch Boy Wonder in bed with Cathy Cake. The situation becomes dangerous with Big Mac threatening to kill Boy Wonder and things only deteriorate from there. 

Richard Dreyfuss was said to have had a personal obsession with this film. He was very involved in all aspects of its production and remained defensive about the movie after its harsh reception from critics. The movie's complete rejection by reviewers and the public might have hurt his career but Dreyfuss already had "American Graffiti" and "Jaws" under his belt. Soon he would also star in another blockbuster, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" followed by his Oscar-winning performance in "The Goodbye Girl". The fact that so few people ever saw "Interiors" actually worked to his advantage. However, whatever motivated him to become involved in this bizarre project remains a mystery. It's an ugly tale about ugly people doing ugly things to each other. If there is a message here, I didn't receive it. There isn't a single character you can identify with or sympathize with. They are all self-obsessed cynics with no redeeming traits. That leaves us with whatever values the performances afford us and it's a mixed bag. Dreyfuss is miscast. He was twenty nine years-old when he made the film and, despite his sordid appearance which ages him considerably, he is still far too young to portray a once-great movie director who has fallen on hard times. John Byrum's direction of Dreyfuss is unsteady. At times he encourages him to underplay scenes while at other times he has Dreyfuss chew the scenery mercilessly. Similarly, Stephen Davies plays the brain-dead hunk Rex with flamboyantly gay characteristics one minute then suddenly transforms into a heterosexual stud the next. Bob Hoskins is squarely in what would become his trademark tough-guy gangster mode but gives a solid performance. The best acting comes from the two female leads, with Veronica Cartwright especially good as the ill-fated Harlene. Jessica Harper also does well in her thankless role. Both women seem at ease in doffing their clothes and playing much of their scenes in a provocative state. Cartwright even goes full frontal for the violent sex scene with Rex while Harper spends almost the entire last act of the film being photographed topless. Curiously, the willingness to appear nude onscreen was considered the epitome of female emancipation in films during the 1970s but the practice  has largely become frowned upon in more recent years. In fact the days are long gone when virtually every major actress had to appear naked on screen. Today, female emancipation is the ability to play erotic scenes on screen without having to be completely compromised.  

If John Byrum's debut as a director is problematic, so, too, is his script. There is a lot of name-dropping about the great figures in the movie industry who once socialized with the Boy Wonder but it all seems pretentious and unconvincing right down to the constant attempts by Boy Wonder to avoid meeting the unseen Clark Gable. In fact, aside from some fleeting references the "Flapper Look" styles worn by the women, the film could have been set in the 1970s. Byrum has the characters indulge in  vernacular that is far too contemporary for the 1930s. The only wit that is apparent concerns Big Mac's plans to build roadside restaurants that would all look the same and serve identical fast food. ("Big Mac"- get it?) Beyond that, there are few attempts at humor and most of those pertain to unspeakably cruel behavior and mutual humiliation. There seems to be no purpose for the film's existence beyond the desire of the participants to be in a porn movie. Given their status in the industry that was obviously not going to happen so they banded together for a quasi-porn movie and shrouded it in the protective layer of intellectualism. This gave them all the cover of being artistes and Richard Dreyfuss the opportunity to nibble on Jessica Harper's nipples while pretending there was some greater purpose to it all. In reality the film's most cringe-inducing scene has Dreyfuss and Harper having an extended conversation about her private parts, which are referred to repeatedly (almost to an absurd degree) in gutter language as those the actors were pre-teenagers using naughty words for the first time. 

There are said to be people who consider "Inserts" to be an underrated gem. But for this writer, it represents an interesting but woefully misguided experiment by some very talented people who should have known better.

Here's a chance to watch  director Andrew V. Mclaglen's highly enjoyable 1979 adventure "ffolkes" starring Roger Moore as a grumpy but courageous leader of a private commando team. He's quite the opposite of his 007 persona: he loathes female companionship and loves cats. The film has a marvelous supporting cast including James Mason, Anthony Perkins and Moore's ol' pal David Hedison. (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube.)
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The Australian video company Imprint has released "The Gidget Film Collection". Here are the details:

The original beach party movie ‘Gidget’ plus three sequels on Blu-ray for the first time worldwide!

Gidget (1959)

The original surfer girl/beach bum movie, adapted from the novel by Frederick Kohner, Gidget (1959) stars Sandra Dee as determined little Frances Lawrence, who falls in love both with surfing and with the characters who populate the local Southern California beach hangout. Of particular interest are the young Moondoggie (James Darren) and the more mature Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), a Korean War vet who is the idol of every surfer on the coast for his life of apparently unfettered freedom.

Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)

In this sequel to the hit 1959 film “Gidget,” Francie “Gidget” Lawrence (Deborah Walley) is once again involved with her boyfriend, Jeff “Moondoggie” Matthews (James Darren). However, they have a lovers’ spat, and Gidget goes to sulk in Hawaii with her parents. In the islands, she meets TV dancer Eddie Horner (Michael Callan). Seeing how miserable she’s become, Gidget’s wise dad (Carl Reiner) sends for Moondoggie, and the couple reunite just as Gidget gets romantic with Eddie.

Gidget Goes to Rome (1963)

Gidget, in Rome for a holiday, misinterprets attention she receives from a famous journalist. Discovering he is “chaperoning” her at Dad’s request she resumes interest in her boyfriend. Based upon characters created by Frederick Kohner.

Gidget Gets Married (1972)

Newly married Gidget makes waves in her husband’s company by taking a stand against the social caste system.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• “Gidget Gets Married” – the 1972 Television Movie
• “Gidget” Theatrical Trailer

Keep in mind that prices are quoted in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see what the price is in your national currency.

To pre-order, click this link: https://viavision.com.au/shop/the-gidget-film-collection-blu-ray/

By Lee Pfeiffer

In days of old before every movie released was designed to be a record-breaking blockbuster, studios routinely produced modestly-budgeted fare designed for a quick playoff and modest profit. A perfect example of this is "Quick, Before It Melts!", a softball sex comedy from 1964 that must have been considered to be a bit risque in its day. Although George Maharis, then a current heart throb gets first billing, the real star is Robert Morse. He plays Oliver Cromwell Cannon, an aspiring reporter who is routinely abused by his boss, publishing magnate Harvey T. Sweigert (Howard St. John), who considers Oliver to be so inconsequential that he has to be reminded that he is engaged to his daughter Sharon (Yvonne Craig). Oliver's career is on the fast track to nowhere until Sweigert affords him an opportunity to prove himself. He is being assigned as the first staff reporter at the South Pole and will be stationed at a U.S. Navy weather installation there. Sweigert is to the political right of Sen. Joe McCarthy and sees Soviet expansion everywhere, even in the remote frozen tundras. Sweigert gives Oliver the seemingly impossible task of digging up some sort of scoop that would embarrass the Soviets. Accompanying Oliver is Peter Santelli (George Maharis), an ace photographer who is also a renowned ladies man.

Prior to leaving, Oliver visits Sharon and does his best to seduce her. She's a virgin on the verge but insists on waiting until their wedding night, much to Oliver's frustration. En route to the South Pole, Oliver and Peter have an extended stopover in New Zealand. Here they befriend two lovely young ladies- Tiara (Anjanette Comer in her big screen debut), an exotic beauty and her equally sexy friend Diana (Janine Gray). Both of the women are the polar opposite (pardon the pun) of Sharon, and they have liberated attitudes towards sex. Peter falls for Diana and Oliver is immediately smitten by Tiara. A running gag in the film is Oliver's inability to get her to tell him if they slept together during one particularly wild night in which he became so drunk he developed amnesia. Soon Oliver is a conflicted man. He wants to remain loyal to Sharon but boys will be boys and his hormones are raging. Fate intervenes when Sweigert insists they leave immediately for the South Pole. Upon arriving at the naval station, Oliver and Peter are hit with the stark reality of how unpleasant life is about to become. Enclosed in the small confines of the base with 50 below zero temperatures outside, they find themselves subjected to hazing rituals by the longtime staffers. The base is manned by Navy personnel as well as a contingent of scientists that includes Mikhail Drozhensky, a Soviet representative of a joint scientific research project.  As the days turn to weeks, boredom becomes a problem and Sweigert is getting impatient for Oliver to file some type of scoop. With everyone on the base suffering from sexual frustration, Oliver and Peter con a visiting admiral (James Gregory) to get some good press by inviting down a contingent of everyday women to visit the base. Naturally, they arrange for Tiara and Diana to be among them. Upon arrival, Oliver's hormones win out and he starts to seduce the willing Tiara in a snowmobile (talk about sexual frigidity!). This leads to another running gag that must have been old in Shakespeare's day: every time they come close to consummating the deal, some distraction interrupts them. Naturally, the women become stranded at the base due to weather and the sexual high jinks continue. Peter isn't having any problem with Diana but fate prevents Oliver from sealing the deal with Tiara. The conclusion of the story has Oliver trying to file a career-saving scoop about the Soviet scientist defecting before his arch rival reporter (Norman Fell) can beat him to it. 

"Quick, Before It Melts" is the kind of mid-range movie that defines mediocrity. It has a good cast but most of them are encouraged to overact by director Delbert Mann, who once directed such estimable fare as "Marty" and "Separate Tables". What led him to become involved in this drivel remains a mystery. Even more bizarre is that the screenplay was written by Dale Wasserman. Yes, that Dale Wasserman- the acclaimed writer of "Man of La Mancha" and the stage version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The film has some amusing gags including composer David Rose finding a way to insert his signature song "The Stripper" into the action. Morse is an energetic leading man but his character inexplicably morphs from Jerry Lewis nerd mode into a sophisticated Sinatra type by the end of the film. Anjanette Comer does make for a stunningly beautiful leading lady and  the equally lovely Yvonne Craig gives her usual perky performance.  Popular character actor Bernard Fox, who generally epitomizes every old fashioned cliche about the British, is bizarrely cast as a U.S. naval officer. Go figure. The film is marred by some poor rear screen projection work. The long shots were filmed by a second unit near the Bering Sea but anyone above the age of five will recognize that the closest the cast members got to something cold was an ice cream sundae at the studio commissary. 

"Quick, Before It Melts" has been released as a Warner Archive title. The transfer is excellent. There are no bonus extras but the disc is region free.

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By Hank Reineke

It’s best to start this review by noting that Kino’s Blu ray release of Claude Chabrol’s Bluebeard is not a retelling of the centuries old French folk tale. The first published appearance of the grim fairy tale was penned by Charles Perrault in 1697, but the oral folk tale actually dates ages older. The Bluebeard of fable is a wealthy nobleman who has savagely murdered and hidden the bodies of his six previous wives in a subterranean chamber beneath his castle. But just as George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) would introduce the psychological manipulation of “gas lighting” into our modern vernacular, Webster’s defines a “bluebeard” as a “man who first marries and then murders one wife after another.” Which is not exactly the case in Chabrol’s film of 1963. Though this bluebeard’s wife is involved in the imbroglio, she is not targeted by her murdering husband. But otherwise the description is close enough.

In fact, the French title of this French-language production - based on a gruesome but series of true crimes - was not Bluebeard but simply Landru. The titular character referenced is Henri Désiré Landru (1869-1922), a bald and thick-bearded Parisian dealer of antique furniture. The problem with Landru is that he’s chosen to supplement his income by murdering a succession of wealthy dowagers, spinsters and widows in the years of French involvement in World War I. Collecting the names of moneyed lonely hearts from personal ads sent privately to a postal box, Landru’s modus operandi was to charm and romance his intended victims, offering all a respite from Paris at his countryside Villa rental near Gambais.

Once separated from their bank accounts and antiquities, Landru coldly murdered the women, disposing of their bodies – and all evidence of his crime - in a coal-fired kitchen stove. Landru was found out and arrested in the spring of 1919, charged with the murder of eleven women – though authorities believed he was likely involved in many other unsolved disappearances. The macabre and sensational circumstances surrounding the Landru case brought with it attendant international press coverage and a circus atmosphere to the courtroom proceedings. Landru was ultimately found guilty of his crimes, despite the absence of bodies. He was executed by guillotine in the early winter of 1922.

Such notoriety would bring Landru lasting infamy as one of the modern world’s most legendary serial killers. Both the fairy tale of Bluebeard and the real-life terror wrought by Landru would figure into a number of film and television productions. Sinister waxen images of Landru’s bluebeard would be cinematically present in practically every wax museum’s rogue gallery of horror: House of Wax (1953), the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The New Exhibit,” and Terror in the Wax Museum (1973) to name only a few. Charlie Chaplin, of all people, would even revisit the Landru affair in his thinly-veiled dark comedy Monsieur Verdoux (1947).

So it was only proper that a French director and French writer should assume ownership of the legend of Landru in this French-Italian co-production. In late February of 1962, Parisian cinema correspondents reported that Italian film producer Carlo Ponti and Frenchman Georges De Beauregard, the latter president of Rome-Paris Films and a champion of France’s “New Wave” cinema, were planning an Eastman color production of Landru. The film was to be directed by Claude Chabrol – already feted for such films as Le Beau Serge (1958), The Cousins (1959) and Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). The screenplay for Landru was to written by the popular French novelist Francoise Sagan. Though this was to be Sagan’s first effort at screenwriting, four of her novels had already been adapted for the screen by French film studios. Earliest expectations were that Sagan’s script was to be one serious in tone and unlike Charlie Chaplin’s comic-take of the serial killer’s spree.

Then, one month later, it was reported that Chabrol and Sagan were in fact both crafting elements of the screenplay, oddly semi-independent of one another: Chabrol was developing the film’s male characters, Sagan charged to concentrate on the murderer’s female victims. Reports also noted that Chabrol himself might play the role of Henri Désiré Landru should a suitable actor for the primary role not be found. A more than suitable actor was found in the person of Charles Denner, an actor mostly unfamiliar-to-the-public at large. It’s Denner who really carries the film with a masterful, emotionally casual performance.

In late March, Rome-Paris announced that a worldwide distribution deal was in the works with United Artists, the studio having agreed to “put up most of the coin” of production. Following their work together on Landru, Chabrol was promising to tackle a film version of Sagan’s 1960 play Château en Suède. (That film would actually be lensed and released in 1964 as a television production sans Chabrol’s involvement). In any event, by mid-summer of 1962, the deal with United Artists seems to have fallen through. It was announced that Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures had secured distribution rights; the deal was reportedly struck when Levine was made privy to the preview rushes of the still unfinished film. Lux Films was to handle domestic distribution in France. With financing and casting and a script in place, principal photography on Landru would wrap in September of 1962.

The film would enjoy – fittingly -a premiere in the city of Paris in February of 1963. Though somewhat charmed by the film, a Variety critic attending a 5 February screening floated the possibility that the production may not enjoy wide appeal being an “unusual offbeater” and an “spirited if uneven pic.” There was also an acknowledgment that Sagan’s script was curiously both “deft” and “repetitive” in its construction. These were fair criticisms, but by April’s end, Landru had already drawn 306,767 paid admissions in France – not a bad box office total for an edgy filmmaker of the “New Wave” school.

The film would be given a domestic publicity boost courtesy of Mme. Fernande Segret. Segret, now age seventy and a mistress of the real-life Landru, attempted to “enjoin” the film’s release, concerned that the film sullied her reputation. Taking her case before the Tribunal of the Seine, the French court dismissed Segret’s complaint, citing her relationship - as a twenty-four-year-old - with the murderous Landru was already a “matter of historical record” of which Sagan’s screenplay took no particular liberties. Segret appealed, but as late as 1967, her continuing attempt to bring suit against the filmmakers was again dismissed.

With Chabrol’s Landru racking up decent reviews and box office returns in France, an opportunistic distributor chose this moment to reissue the director’s previously moribund effort Ophelia, an “updating of the Shakespeare opus.” In the meantime, a U.S. premiere of the French-language, English subtitled Landru was set for April 9, 1963, at Manhattan’s arthouse Cinema I/Cinema II Studio on Broadway near Lincoln Center. It was announced that Francoise Sagan would be in attendance.

Following that U.S. debut Box Office was impressed, acknowledging Landru held “several exploitative angles to attract art house regulars” as well as devotees of “the bizarre and macabre.” But not every critic was as enamored with the film’s promise. The New York Times suggested that Chabrol’s employ of genuine transcript excerpts from the Landru trial were “more entertaining than those Mlle. Sagan found for him.” The famously venomous stage and screen critic John Simon, wrote witheringly that Sagan’s attempt to “compete with Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux takes a good deal of arrogance, but in that area both Chabrol and Sagan are amply endowed.”

In an interview with New York City’s Film Journal, Chabrol confessed that many of his films examined matters of criminality, morality, and the often misused scales of justice, from different angles. “In Landru the problem was to be faithful to the legend and to be funny with it.” Which was an odd angle to tell the story of a serial murderer whose crimes were heinous.

The French actress Michele Morgan, who played Landru’s victim Célestine Buisson, advised prior to the film’s release that Chabrol’s picture was to be “ironic and comic, with each victim ending as a puff of smoke from the chimney.” Chabrol borrowed this smoke billowing visual image from Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, but unfortunately uses this device to the point of near-ridiculous repetition. Despite this being a film being centered on one of the 20^th century’s most notorious figures there’s virtually no on-screen violence – only the suggestion of such.

It was a curious decision. Not allowing audiences to actually see Landru committing his terrible crimes, Chabrol allows the character as written to retain a semblance of evasive humor and an anti-hero aura. Perhaps more tiresome than Chabrol’s multiple cuts to the numerous chimney immolations are the appending comic bits where Landru’s neighbors wilt from the odors of flesh incineration. The only images tying Landru to the brutal murders are brief passing shots of the Villa’s fiery stove, coal bins and a butcher block table with attached meat grinder.

Though a great fan of American films and the work of Alfred Hitchcock – even co-authoring (with Erich Rohmer) an early book-length study Hitchcock (Editions Universitaires, Paris, 1957) – Chabrol’s filmography and interests were more varied than that of his hero. It was also, perhaps, the reason Chabrol’s mystery thrillers are less suspenseful in their construction. Hitchcock once famously wrote, “The mass [film] audience has had no education in technique of cinema, as they frequently have in art and music, from their school days. They think only of story.”

Chabrol approach to film is different. It would be unfair to suggest that Chabrol was a visual artist first, a storyteller second. But it’s clear that Chabrol’s work differs from that of Hitchcock, the latter choosing to work with diligence from prepared story boards and fully formed scripts. Chabrol’s film seems more freewheeling in construction, less plotted. I suppose Landru might have been partly influenced by the mixing of black comedy with the macabre as seen in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (1955).

For my taste, the Chabrol film goes on too long – the running time lasts a single tick under two hours but seems much longer. Choosing to lens the tale of Landru as a darkly sardonic, serio-comic drama was not new – Chaplin already had fun tweaking the public’s morbid interest in the case – but too often the murders and subsequent courtroom drama seem to unspool in real time. With the romancing, the murders, the winking comedy, the inter-cutting of grim black and white WWI newsreel footage, the courtroom proceedings… the layering all becomes too much.

Similarly to Chaplin, Chabrol tries to weave an undercurrent of politically-motivated shenanigans behind the prurient international interest of Landru’s celebrity notoriety. Though involved in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles - which formally brought the WW I to its end - French Prime Minister George Clemenceau was despairing of its outcome – as were the French public who would vote him out of office in 1920. As imagined by self-described communist Chabrol, Clemenceau’s ploy was an attempt to redirect the discontent of the French public by shepherding the press to devote their efforts on the concurrent - and far more titillating - murder trial of Henri Désiré Landru. He may very well have been right about that.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classic edition of Bluebeard offers a stunning and color saturated 4K restoration from the original camera negative. The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 in 1920x1080p and DTS audio. The release comes with its original French language soundtrack and removable English sub-titles. There is an audio commentary courtesy of film historian Kat Ellinger, the editor of Diabolique magazine and self-described Instagram “loudmouthed hysterical feminist.”

Ellinger provides an excellent commentary throughout, describing Landru as the “strangest and most frustrating” films of Chabrol’s 1960s oeuvre. She also notes the politically left director also staged Landru as a cynical commentary of the mores of the petite bourgeoisie class – an element that’s insufferably present throughout.

There are no alternate scenes included on this set. But while there is only the briefest flash of topless nudity present in his finished cut, Chabrol later intimated that producer Ponti insisted he also photograph a number of “undressed” scenes, presumably for European distribution. If indeed there is a continental version of Landru floating about, I have not seen it. The set also includes five trailers, including Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, as well as such French productions as Le Doulos, Alphaville, Diabolically Yours and Max and the Junkman.

Click here to order from Kino Lorber.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video:

Celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the thrilling disaster epic DEEP IMPACT, arriving for the first time on 4K Ultra HD May 2, 2023 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Originally released on May 8, 1998, DEEP IMPACT grossed nearly $350 million worldwide on an $80 million budget.   A unique and dynamic fusion of large-scale excitement with touching personal storylines, the film depicts humanity’s response as a comet hurtles through space on a collision course with Earth.

Fully remastered and boasting Dolby Vision and HDR-10, DEEP IMPACT is a must-have action-adventure for your collection.  Directed by Mimi Leder and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the film features an all-star cast including Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Leelee Sobieski, Blair Underwood, Maximilian Schell, and Morgan Freeman.

The DEEP IMPACT 4K Ultra HD release includes the film on both 4K Ultra HD and on Blu-ray™, access to a Digital copy of the film, and legacy bonus content including commentary and fascinating featurettes delving into the making of this 90s classic.  Bonus content is detailed below:

· Commentary by director Mimi Leder and visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar

· Preparing For The End                                                                                          

· Making An Impact                                                                                                  

· Creating The Perfect Traffic Jam                                                                                                      

· Parting Thoughts                                                                                                    

· Photo Gallery and Trailers     

Click here to pre-order from Amazon