By Todd Garbarini

After the dramatic, Ingmar Bergman-esque directorial turn he took with Interiors (1978) which came unexpectedly on the heels of his masterfully hilarious Oscar-winning film Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen turned back to contemporary New York for a daring film that was shot in black-and-white and scored with the music of George Gershwin. Proclaimed as the only truly great American film of the 1970s by film critic Andrew Sarris, Manhattan is a joy to behold from start to finish and is quite simply one of the most romantic-looking films of all-time (though its subject matter in the era of the MeToo movement will indubitably raise more than a few eyebrows with the allegations of sexual molestation launched against Mr. Allen). Gordon Willis’s beautiful photography married with the sumptuous Gershwin music makes me wish that filmmakers would make black-and-white films today. There are some who do, admittedly, but they appear to only do it within avant-garde and independent circles.

Manhattan, released on Wednesday, April 25, 1979, stars Mr. Allen as Isaac Davis, a television writer who is unfulfilled with his life as a comedy writer. His second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) has left him for another woman and is writing a book about their marriage. Isaac is 42 and is dating Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) who is 25 years younger than he is and is still in high school. He feels very guilty about this, but genuinely cares for her (this plot point was reportedly inspired by Mr. Allen’s affair with actress Stacy Nelkin on the set of Annie Hall which was shooting in 1976, though her part was eventually cut from that film). His friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is writing a book about Eugene O’Neill and is married to Emily (Anne Byrne) but has started an affair with high-strung and neurotic Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton) whom Isaac initially cannot tolerate but increasingly grows fond of. Throughout the film we are confronted by these characters who cannot seem to put their finger on what they want and stick with it. They are not inherently bad people. They just keep making questionable decisions. By the end of the film, the only person who seems to have their head on straight is Tracy and the film ends, like Mr. Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), on a very positive and upbeat note.

The real star of the film is Manhattan itself, with its pulsating and bustling people and automobiles. Rarely has the city looked so luminous and beautiful onscreen (if ever). Gordon Willis, the revered cinematographer of The Godfather films and a good number of Mr. Allen’s early works, captures Gotham in all its beauty even during an era when the city was beset by social decay. For the first time in his career, Mr. Allen forgoes the relative constraints of the 1.85:1 flat ratio to the far more accommodating 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision vista and the results makes one ache for further use of this format.

Manhattan was penned by Mr. Allen and Marshall Brickman, who also co-wrote Annie Hall. The dialogue in Mr. Allen’s films has always been a strong point, but here it really shines. His use of long, uninterrupted takes that first surfaced in Annie Hall shine here Rarely have onscreen walks and chats been so fascinating.

Manhattan was also one of the first movies to appear on home video in the widescreen format, which retained much (but not all) of the film’s original image. I have owned Manhattan on letterboxed VHS, letterboxed laserdisc with a gatefold, letterboxed DVD, and I must say that this Region B anamorphically-enhanced Blu-ray courtesy of Fabulous Films is beautiful.

It would be wonderful if Mr. Allen would be open to providing commentary tracks on his older films, specifically this one which, unbelievably, he reportedly was so displeased with that he imposed on United Artists to shelve it and offered to do another movie for free.

Thankfully, they did not take him up on it.

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By Todd Garbarini

Would you go see a horror film billed as “Makes Night of the Living Dead Look Like a Kids’ (sic) Pajama Party! Scream so they can find you!!!” Somebody did. Released in New York City on Wednesday, March 7,1973 as the second feature on a double bill with Mario Bava’s R-rated 1971 film Twitch of the Death Nerve (the U.S. title of A Bay of Blood), Amando de Ossorio’s The Blind Dead actually was given a theatrical release in a watered down, PG-rated version minus blood, gore and nudity. It is also a tighter cut of the original (known as Tombs of the Blind Dead) as it also dispenses with some prolonged meandering that gets old real fast. Does the truncated Stateside version triumph over the longer original Spanish cut of the film? That depends on the viewer. As a purist who prefers a director’s original vision, I applaud the efforts of the uncut version.

Lensed in 1971 in Spain and Portugal at some truly creeping locales, Tombs of the Blind Dead, clearly influenced by George A. Romero’s aforementioned highly successful Night of the Living Dead (1968), is one of the better Spanish horror films to come out of the 1970s, so much so that it spawned no less than three follow-ups all written and directed by the original’s writer/director: Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974), and Night of the Seagulls (1975). The madness begins when Virginia White (María Elena Arpón) encounters her old college lover Betty Turner (Lone Fleming) at a public pool. Their congenial attitude quickly becomes strained when Virginia’s friend Roger Whelan (César Burner) shows up and immediately takes a more-than-platonic liking to Virginia, inviting her on a train ride that he is taking with Betty. Female resentment ensues and Virginia takes it upon herself to jump off the train midway, baggage in hand, and goes off into the ruins of a town named Berzano that the train deliberately bypasses due to an unsavory past. Making creepy and effective use of the Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Valdeiglesias, Pelayos de la Presa, Madrid, Spain, the director follows Virginia through the decrepit structures and, unbelievably, camps out solo overnight! Her presence awakens the buried corpses of the Knights Templar from their crypts who attack and kill her, her body found by the train conductor the next morning when on the return trip. Betty and Roger look for Virginia in Berzano, and out of nowhere, two police detectives emerge to question them about their relationship to Virginia. It’s a peculiar entrance into the scene, as though they were standing “stage left” and issued in front of the camera by the offscreen director. Betty and Roger make their way to the requisite know-it-all, The One who comes in at the eleventh hour to explain the goings-on to them, in this case Professor Candal (José Thelman), who explains to them (and the audience) who manipulates them into finding his son, and the this leads to a showdown with the Knights and sets up the film for a continuation.