Barry Forshaw

SALÒ, Pier Paolo Pasolini, director/BFI

In terms of pushing boundaries, the late filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini had few rivals. His films created something of a censorship stir in their day with the earthiness of the sexual depictions (including the odd unsimulated encounter). Pasolini’s truly scandalous magnum opus, however, in terms of graphic, twisted sexuality, though, is the much-banned Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). For a long time, the very title of Pasolini’s film was an index of the unacceptable in cinematic excess – a film so disturbing in its uncompromising violence and perverted sexuality that it seemed as if it would forever have censorship problem. The horrors of the last reel were famously among the most unsettling ever put on celluloid, all the more disturbing for the director’s consummate skill. using sex as a metaphor for power. It is also a prophetic view of our contemporary corporate-run culture of consumerism. Drawing on the Marquis de Sade’s original novel, the film depicts the series of sexual tortures inflicted by four libertines upon a group of young men and women. Unavailable in Britain for many years, Salò was finally passed uncut by the BBFC in late 2000. Is it possible, even for film scholars, to regard Salò as an integral part of its controversial director’s oeuvre — or does its continuing notoriety mean that any consideration of the film demands that this most shocking example of Pasolini’s films be considered in isolation? Salò’s procession of good-looking, often naked young men — precisely the kind of available youths that Pasolini visited in the male red-light areas of Rome – reflects on his own life, not least, in fact, the violence of his death (at the hands of one of these young men) resulting in Salò being the director’s final film. Can Salò be read as a personal testament – Pasolini’s loathing of fascism and political conformity being writ large in the film — or do we read it as an ingenious modernisation of de Sade’s iconoclastic text, with a notably ambiguous layer of lip-smacking voyeurism? Catholic moralists were one of one of the much-relished establishment targets for the director (the film’s monstrous authority figures represent the state, the church and the judiciary, and are shown to possess in place of a moral compass an enthusiastic penchant for depravity of every kind), and religious commentators could barely contain their glee at the news that the ‘dissolute’ director had died at the hands of a member of the rough trade with whom he conducted commercial sexual transactions. This is the definitive iteration of the film, restored 4K (2160p), it is a UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible).

ICE CREAM MAN, Eli Roth, director/STUDIOCANAL

A new entry from Eli Roth, the confrontational director of Cabin Fever, Host and Thanksgiving. In some ways, Roth is something of a throwback to an earlier generation of horror directors, when the breed was considered subversive and dangerous – a syndrome less evident as the Draconian censorship of the genre has largely evaporated. This latest outing, lighter than its predecessors, still delivers the requisite gruesome material.

THE FRIGHTENERS, Peter Jackson, director/ARROW

Directed by Peter Jackson in 1996 and written in collaboration with Fran Walsh, The Frighteners sported a cast of eccentric character actors known more to the cognoscenti than the general public. Notably, these included John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone and R. Lee Ermey from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) – in exactly the same role as a bullying sergeant, but this time hectoring the ghosts in a cemetery. And there’s the very distinctive Jeffrey Combs – so memorable in Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) – here given a nerdish haircut and encouraged by Jackson to entertainingly chew the scenery. But amidst all these lesser-known actors, Jackson cannily showcases his star, Michael J. Fox, much loved by audiences for his turns as Marty McFly in Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future trilogy (1985–90) and caught on film here some time before the actor’s debilitating illness. No longer a teenager, as he was in the Zemeckis trilogy (although he was in his twenties when he made those films), in The Frighteners Fox is on his way to be the mature actor that he would never really become on screen, channelling perhaps Harrison Ford’s similar transition from juvenile leads by playing an alienated private detective figure adrift in a world of the fantastic; In The Frighteners, Fox  plays Frank Bannister, a small-town psychic who utilises spectral henchmen to hoodwink locals – until things go badly wrong. Produced by Robert Zemeckis, this release includes both the theatrical director’s cut and a copious collection of extras.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE: THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES, Neil Jordan, director/WARNER

The cast alone – both at the time of the film’s release and today – whets the appetite: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, Christian Slater and a youthful Kirsten Dunst adorn Interview with Vampire, now available for the first time in 4k resolution with a high dynamic range. At the time of the film’s original release, there was a curious dichotomy in the response to this starry cast. While audiences were guaranteed with such stars, there was a feeling that Anne Rice’s long-lived vampires required actors able to convey quite different qualities, but time has been kind to these performances and certainly the visual qualities of the film remain as striking as ever in the hands of the director Neil Jordan.

THE MONSTER SQUAD, Fred Dekker, director/ARROW

While perhaps receiving a mixed response on its appearance, there are devoted followers for this lively monster mash. In the past, Dr Abraham Van Helsing and a group of like-minded followers  invaded Count Dracula’s castle with a cleansing intention. However, it wasn’t permanent, and a century later, Dracula is revived in the company of a werewolf, a mummy, a gill-man and even Frankenstein’s monster… but they have new juvenile opponents. This 2-disc edition features a full-length documentary co-written and directed by The Monster Squad star Andre Gower along with copious extras. This is a 2-disc set with a new 4K Paramount master in Dolby Vision/HDR10 along with a standard 1080p Blu-ray.

THE KILLING FIELDS Roland Joffé, director/SECOND SIGHT

The reputation of The Killing Fields, Roland Joffé’s remarkable and powerful film has grown over the years, and there will be a welcome for this limited edition Dual 4K UHD and Blu-ray release; the stain of Cambodia is still an issue that remains pertinent, and Joffé’s film functions as both a strong and disturbing drama as well as a social document of considerable forcefulness. Second Sight Films have issued Joffé’s masterwork in a Dual Limited Edition and Standard Editions

A CHINESE GHOST STORY TRILOGY, Ching Siu-Tung, director/ARROW

A Chinese Ghost Story had respected producer Tsui Hark putting together an ensemble of A Better Tomorrow II’s director Ching Siu-Tung, Peking Opera Blues writer Yuen Kai-Chi and charismatic stars Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma for the high-octane-comedy A Chinese Ghost Story. The success of the film revitalised the 1987 Hong Kong box office, and was followed by two sequels. The boxed set features both new and archival extras for all three films.

EVIL DEAD, Fede Álvarez, director/STUDIOCANAL

The Evil Dead franchise created by Sam Raimi years ago has proved to have real staying power as the various offshoots and remakes have demonstrated – what’s more, the new iterations of the series no longer inspire the kind of hysterical censorship that the first film occasioned. Fede Álvarez’s 2013 standalone horror sequel using the original title – achieved sizable audiences, with lesser known stars Jane Levy and Shiloh Fernandez acquitting themselves well. The film makes its UK UHD debut with a 2-disc Collector’s Edition featuring a 4K restoration, new artwork by Krishna Bala Shenoy, the Theatrical and Unrated cuts of the film plus a generous selection of extras and a 64-page booklet.

OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR, Richard Attenborough, director/ EUREKA

Joan Littlewood’s unorthodox theatrical success was down to strange mélange of anti war feeling (not to mention considerable anti-military sentiment) matched with stirring performances of wartime songs. Richard Attenborough’s attempt to film a virtually unfilmable stage show has worn well, and its remarkable cast acquit themselves memorably.

DISCLOSURE DAY, Steven Spielberg, director/UNIVERSAL

The most successful director in modern cinema, Steven Spielberg, returns to one of his key themes: alien encounter. But this unusual new outing (scored in typically memorable fashion by Spielberg’s key collaborator in this area, John Williams) is very different from such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and much depends on the central performance by the British actress Emily Blunt who is the strangely gifted conduit to the extraterrestrial visitors. The film’s strategies are more subtle and less dramatic than usual, but the director’s adroit treatment of his theme, shows that he has lost none of his touch.

THE SCREAMING SKULL, Alex Nicol, director/Eureka

Cinemagoers are used to memorable catchphrases utilised in the advertising which stay around as long as the films they promote (‘In space no-one can hear you scream’, coined by the late novelist Christopher Fowler for Ridley Scott’s Alien is a good example of this syndrome). Eureka Video have come up with an impressive one for this 1950s cult horror: ‘An eerie Gothic thriller that plays like a meeting between Daphne du Maurier and William Castle’. That perfectly encapsulates the narrative here in which a woman moves into her husband’s country mansion and finds some very dangerous phenomena, all of which is couched in the kind of enjoyably gimmicky scenario that the director William Castle specialised in. The transfer here is very impressive.

THE SINFUL NUNS OF ST VALENTINE, Sergio Grieco, director/INDICATOR

Before the phrase ‘nunsploitation’ was coined, such films were a familiar ingredient in enjoyable exploitation cinema, But this Sergio Grieco film is something a little more than that although many of the standard elements (including, of course, sex and all-stops-out violence.) are successfully integrated into a heady concoction, ably directed by Grieco. It’s an unsparing exploration of ecclesiastical corruption.

DOCTOR BLOOD’S COFFIN & THE SNAKE WOMAN, Sidney J. Furie, director/HAMMER

For those eager to find how the impressive career of the director Sidney J. Furie achieved such diverting entries as the film of Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File, Hammer Films – in their new iteration supplying splendid transfers of older material – provide two of the director’s earliest films, neither in fact produced by the Hammer Studios, but possessing some of the hallmarks of that studio.

Barry Forshaw

One might have thought that there were no areas of genre cinema which had been left untouched in terms of bookish studies (this writer has tackled a couple), but Daniel O’Brien seems to have a particular knack for finding subjects that invite investigation, as in his earlier book, Classical Masculinity, discussed below. The new one, Van Helsing and his Kin, takes a highly unusual premise and forges a scholarly but totally accessible study of an unusual subject. Van Helsing, of course, is the vampire hunter of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, and while people will be familiar with his bloodsucking nemesis, Van Helsing has long been the template for the forces of good ranged against those of evil. But as O’Brien notes, his progeny are many, extending even to Buffy, a vampire hunter of the modern generation. However, there is a positive army of such figures, and they have been played by actors from Edward Van Sloan and Peter Cushing as perhaps the cinemas Best known incarnations of the Figure and played by actors from Laurence Olivier to Hugh Jackman. The variety of iterations stretches far and wide, and in a book of 320 pages, O’Brien’s coverage is truly impressive – as is, of course, his informed and enthusiastic analysis of both ‘respectable’ and cheapjack versions of the character. It’s a fascinating read for those interested in the horror genre.

I wrote of O’Brien’s earlier Classical Masculinity and the Spectacular Body on Film: The Mighty Sons of Hercules :  ‘Forget the unwieldy title and just marvel at the fact that academic writing on film can be as lively and stimulating as this! Daniel O’Brien — whose knowledge of Italian genre cinema is nonpareil — produces a remarkably allusive study of the cinema’s treatment of the muscular male physique (with particular attention to the Hercules movies directed by such talented auteurs as Vittorio Cottafavi and Mario Bava, as well as lesser talents such Pietro Francisci, responsible for the two Steve Reeves Hercules movies). O’Brien examines the fascinating subtexts of this oft-despised genre and its contradictory approaches to masculinity. What’s more, O’Brien performs a particularly impressive feat of prestidigitation, couching complex notions within prose that is always supremely readable.’

Van Helsing and His Kin by Daniel O’Brien is published by Telos

Barry Forshaw

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, Val Guest, director/Hammer

The Real Monsters

It’s a pleasure to start with one of the most underrated (and, in fact, one of the most accomplished) of Hammer Films, the latest to enjoy the spectacular boxed set treatment. I’ve written a booklet essay for the set, and I quote: ‘For one of Hammer’s most intriguing and unusual films, the company turned to the ever-irascible, ever-creative Manx writer Nigel Kneale, who had supplied (via his groundbreaking television serial) the basic material for their first entry into the world of the macabre, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). That film was very ably directed by the highly professional Val Guest (along with its sequel, Quatermass 2, once again featuring the bluff rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass) and Guest – who worked frequently for Hammer – was to prove one of the company’s most reliable craftsmen, along with their key director, Terence Fisher. While Kneale’s teleplay The Creature (1956), with its version of the snow-monster the Yeti, was somewhat different in its elliptical construction from his other work, there was no reason to suppose that with Guest in charge of the direction the company would not strike gold again. The Creature became the basis of The Abominable Snowman (1957; The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas in the USA). Inevitably, of course, audiences might have expected that the titular mythical creature stalking the frozen wastes would be as murderous a threat as, say, the Mummy or Dracula. But this was not to reckon with the work of the inventive Kneale, always disposed to take an unconventional approach to his material…’

OBSESSION, Curry Barker, director/Universal/Spirit

Word-of-mouth is often a key factor in a film achieving cult status, and so that is proving with Curry Barker’s highly accomplished horror outing. After a successful theatrical run, Obsession arrives in 4K UHD Blu-ray. After using the mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win the object of his affection, a nerdy romantic gets his wish, but at a terrible cost. Performances are top-notch, particularly Inde Navarrette (of Superman & Lois fame), as the girlfriend gradually transforming into a monster. In fact, Navarrette’s performance is one of the most genuinely disturbing additions to the horror film genre the viewer is likely to have encountered.

ACCIDENT Joseph Losey, director/StudioCanal Blu-ray 

Impressive though The Servant was, the finest fruit of the Losey/Pinter collaboration is undoubtedly Accident, a film in which the level of achievement matches that of the playwright’s work in the theatre and – what’s more — even aspires to the kind of arthouse filmmaking on British soil that was already characteristic of Bergman in Sweden and Antonioni in Italy. And the matchless cast does perfect justice to Pinter’s text – not just Bogarde, but also Stanley Baker (who had worked on Losey’s crime classic The Criminal), who was moving into what would be his abbreviated middle age as a fine character actor. This new restoration is stunning.

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, Wes Craven, director/88 Films

Despite his reputation for extreme violence, Was Craven was one of the most intelligent and penetrating of directors, and this welcome issue showcases the director’s most groundbreaking film,: the once-banned Last House on the Left (based on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring – the reference shows the ambitiousness of the director), Last House on the Left announced the arrival of two filmmakers, Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) and Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream) and it remains as potent – and as disturbing – as ever it was. 88 Films have issued a completely uncut transfer with impressive extras.

ROSE OF NEVADA, Mark Jenkin director/BFI

The Cornish director Mark Jenkin is unique among his contemporaries for both his very individual cinematic vision and notably low-tech use of the medium – as in this intriguing supernatural outing In which a fishing boat that disappeared with all hands decades before makes a modern appearance in the harbour of a Cornish village. With the idiosyncratic playing of the actors here perfectly in tune with Jenkins’ unique approach, this is a remarkable film which once again boasts Jenkin as writer, director, director of photography, editor, sound designer and composer; extras include an audio commentary by Jenkin and Mark Kermode, and a filmed Q&A with the director, George MacKay and Callum Turner from BFI Southbank.

ZULU DAWN, Douglas Hickox, director/Severin

The considerable success – both critically and commercially –– of Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker’s remarkable Zulu – a pulse-raising evocation of the Battle of Rorke’s drift – perhaps ensured that the notion of a sequel dealing with other aspects of Britain’s past in colonial Africa was inevitable. In fact, Baker and Endfield made considerable efforts to bring about this project. However, by the time Zulu Dawn was actually made, Baker had died and Endfield found his contribution considerably slimmed down. Nevertheless, the resulting film was a remarkable achievement if perhaps lacking the intensity of its predecessor. Certainly, Zulu Dawn is a showcase for a host of the very best British character actors, and this new iteration. Of the director Cy Endfield, I wrote ‘The House Unamerican Activities committee did British cinema a favour by consigning left-leaning directors such as Endfield to professional exile in the UK in the 1950s. Like Joseph Losey, a key casualty of the communist witch-hunt was Endfield, who produced excellent work when exiled to Britain.

X THE UNKNOWN, Leslie Norman director/Hammer

When Nigel Kneale made it clear to Hammer Films that they could not go off at a tangent with his Quatermass character (apart, that is, from the three official adaptations of his original television science fiction dramas). The company, never one to miss a strong commercial opportunity, sanctioned this exceptionally well-made outing with Dean Jagger playing a similar figure to Kneale’s scientist  investigating a monstrous creature which can now be seen as in the line of the American film The Blob and the Italian Caltiki. Restored from original film elements by the teams at Hammer and Silver Salt Restoration, this is a limited collector’s edition 4-disc 4K UHD and Blu-ray set that delivers remarkable clarity.

WEST SIDE STORY, Robert Wise, director/MGM 4K

Given that Steven Spielberg is one of the most considerable directors at work today, there was a dual response to his suggestion that he would be remaking Robert Wise’s version of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking West Side Story. Foolhardy? Well, the remake was a perfectly serviceable crack at the show, but couldn’t begin to hold a candle to what is many people’s favourite musical – Robert Wise and Jerome Robbin’s 1961 film – and certainly the defining musical of the modern era. This new 4K iteration of the Wise film is quite breathtaking, not least for the multi-channel soundscape that this much enhanced version has. Whatever version you have of the 1961 West Side Story, it is now re rendered redundant by this new version. From his early days as a director of atmospheric horror films as part of producer Val Lewton’s team up to his mega-successes such as The Sound of Music and West Side Story, Robert Wise was long one of the most reliable (and frequently inspired) directors in Hollywood (a particular favourite of many Wise admirers is his subtle and allusive treatment of the Shirley Jackson novel filmed as The Haunting. But West Side Story is Wise at his impeccable best.

CRUEL TALES OF THE BOHACHI, Teruo Ishi, director, Eureka

The Eureka label has made something of a speciality of issuing top notch samurai exploitation films from the influential Golden Age of Japanese cult cinema in eye-popping new iterations, and Cruel Tales of the Bohachi, directed by the highly capable Teruo Ishi, is an energetic additions to the company’s catalogue. The film keeps all the colour and inventiveness of the original manga by the Lone Wolf and Cub creators. Eroticism and violence are always to the fore in entertaining fashion.

JOE, John G Avildsen/Indicator

This unique outing by the underrated director John G Avildsen makes for fascinating watching in the 21^st century. Its plot – reminiscent of John Milius’s Hardcore – in which a father attempts to save his daughter from the destructive lifestyle she has sunk into – was much discussed in its original release The abrasive character of the eponymous Joe (played in mesmerising fashion by Peter Byle) is a blue-collar Right-wing Figure who helps a father (Dennis Patrick) in his crusade ending in bloody fashion. But was Avildsen secretly on the side of Joe, or did he regard him as dangerous monster? . Or both? That decision is still left to the viewer, and the film still packs a considerable punch.

IL MOSTRO, Luigi Zampa, director/Radiance

Radiance continues to add intriguing and little-seen Italian films to its now considerable itinerary, and this new release brings further lustre to the company’s already banished reputation. Luigi Zampa’s is a sardonic approach to the genre, with some social commentary on the function of the press. Playing and direction here are nonpareil, and admirers of Italian cinema need not hesitate.

LAST TANGO IN PARIS, Bernardo Bertolucci, director/88 Films

In terms of the stretching of parameters concerning the representation of sex on film, the 1970s was the decade of Bertolucci’s controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972), though the sex between the Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider characters was simulated; what’s more, the desperately nihilistic misogyny of the male protagonist seemed to inform the whole film, and despite the upset it caused (notably the scene in which Brando uses butter on the Schneider character to facilitate penetration), the film’s attitude to sex is markedly ambiguous. Bertolucci, from his earliest films to his most recent, had shown an uninhibited readiness to deal with human sexual activity (e.g. in such films as The Dreamers made in 2003), but nothing else in his career caused such a fuss as Last Tango in Paris. The various attempts at prosecution of the film brought it to the attention of many people who would not otherwise have heard of it. Bertolucci’s sombre, despairing film is really the study of a personality in disintegration – a middle-aged American widower’s doomed love affair with a vulnerable young French woman, and Marlon Brando’s alternately volatile and lachrymose performance is characteristically hypnotic. The sad real-life decline of Maria Schneider led to Bertolucci saying that he wanted to ask forgiveness from the actress. The film has elements of a cinematic version of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde; the ‘Liebestod’ here; while not seeing its trajectory to quite the same fatal conclusion, echoes the composer’s marriage of love and death.

DJANGO SHOOTS FIRST, Alberto De Martino, director/Studio Canal

This entry in the long running Django series (of which many films feature a character who has nothing to do with the original Franco Nero outing) is more tongue-in-cheek than most, and features the Dutch actor Roel Bos (who changed his name for the film to Glen Saxson) and delivered a lively bounty hunter story with frequent action sequences – and unlike American treatment of such a character in frequently negative fashion, the attitude to Django’s profession is balanced. The transfer is eye-popping.

PAINTED FACES, Alex Law, director/88 films

Apart from the nicely observed playing here (particularly from Sammo Hung as the director of a group of children training for theatrical experience), one of the pleasures of the film is the rather beautiful cinematography which presents a world which will be unfamiliar to most viewers. For those seeking something off the beaten track, Painted Faces can be confidently recommended — although it should be pointed out that those expecting the usual acrobatic violence from the rotund Sammo Hung should perhaps look elsewhere – this is another side of his personality. The kung fu legend takes a rare dramatic role as the tough master Yu, a teacher training young kids for a life on the stage. Based on the real-life childhoods of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and, yes, Sammo himself (he’s playing his own, real-life master), Painted Faces is a nostalgic tribute to a man who turned children into superstars.

OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR, Richard Attenborough, director/Eureka

The great era of the musical was over by the time that the actor Richard Attenborough made his directing debut with this remarkable record of Joan Littlewood’s anti war theatrical project; however, like Cabaret, the film was not seen as a standard musical and had a much wider reach than most films in the genre. With a cornucopia of British stars, this is a film that looks even better with the years, and is particularly enhanced in Eureka’s Splendid new transfer.

OUTLANDER SEASON 8 & OUTLANDER: THE COMPLETE SERIES 1-8 Elevation

on Blu-ray™ and DVD
Based on the best-selling books by author Diana Gabaldon, Season 8 of Outlander the time-traveling, fantasy romance sees the epic conclusion of the hugely popular TV series in which Claire (Caitríona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) experience a heart-wrenching journey as they return to Fraser’s Ridge after leaving the Revolutionary War and are met by new arrivals and changes to their community made during their years away. Fraser’s Ridge is now a thriving settlement, flourishing without the Frasers or their influence now for some time. The Frasers soon learn that leaving the war behind is not as easy as they believed and are soon confronted with the question of what they are willing to sacrifice for the place they call home and more importantly, what they would sacrifice to stay together.

Barry Forshaw

‘British cinema doesn’t seem quite sure where to place Whistle Down the Wind. It’s certainly not the crime drama it was originally marketed as, nor the children’s film it’s often dismissed as. Would it receive more attention in academic circles if it was inducted into the British New Wave?’ These questions concerning one of the best-loved of British films – a memorable drama in which a group of children in a rural setting discover a murderer hiding in their barn and mistake him for Christ – are posed by one of the most astute of British film commentators, Dr Josephine Botting, in a scholarly but accesible volume written for the BFI Film Classics series. The reputation of the 1961 film has grown over the years, and it has long been beloved of those who encountered it in their youth, not least for the impeccable performances by a young Hayley Mills as the leader of the children and Alan Bates (his film debut) as the criminal who is the recipient of that innocent help. Despite these manifold virtues, however, there is no denying that much of the success of the film is down to the sensitive and perceptive directorial treatment by then-debut director Bryan Forbes, a truly important British filmmaker who is only now receiving the kind of attention that his skills in a variety of genres have long called out for. And such attention is enhanced by this loving study. Josephine Botting is a curator of the BFI National Archive and a programmer at the BFI South Bank, overseeing the monthly ‘Projecting the Archive’ initiative. She is the perfect chronicler of how this remarkable film came to be — and she is perceptive as a commentator on the career of its director.

Bryan Forbes was one of the reliable, multi-talented professionals of British film; not quite displaying the brio of more coruscating talents, but always producing solid, accomplished and frequently inspired work in whatever field he was essaying, be it acting, directing or writing (the last of these three may be his most pertinent legacy for the cinema; the acting was quickly sidelined when his behind-the-camera skills proved more impressive). Born in Stratford, Forbes’ original ambitions lay in the acting realm, and he underwent training at RADA, but left before the completion of his final term. Initially making his mark as an actor in films (including in Michael Powell’s The Small Back Room in 1949), Forbes then began to exercise his nascent skills as a writer and director. His first significant success was the witty and artfully constructed screenplay for The League of Gentlemen (1960; directed by Basil Dearden), with its ingenious heist committed by a group of alienated ex-servicemen led by Jack Hawkins. Success in other fields followed (such as the gentle, wistful drama Whistle Down the Wind and the quintessential kitchen-sink film The L-Shaped Room (1962), with Leslie Caron considering an abortion). Other films in the crime genre were to follow, such as the flawed but interesting Deadfall (1968) with its vaguely Du Rififi Chez les Hommes-style robbery. The versatile Forbes’ secret (apart from his considerable screenwriting skills) was his fellow-feeling sympathy for actors, and all of his films feature some exemplary work from the group he always continued to regard himself as part of – the thespian community. The most oft-used member of that community (who featured in many of his films) was Forbes’ wife, the actress Nanette Newman.

If Jo Botting’s concise and perceptive tome on Whistle Down the Wind accrues the attention the film deserves – along with Paul Moody’s concurrent study of Bryan Forbes’ The Stepford Wives (also from BFI Film Classics) – the establishment of the director’s name in the pantheon of British talent is assured.

Whistle Down the Wind by Josephine Botting is published by BFI Film classics

Barry Forshaw

LA TETE CONTRE LES MURS, Georges Franju, director/RADIANCE

Many cinéastes – at least those over 30 – will remember with great affection a certain distinctive King’s Cross cinema which, however dilapidated, was the perfect way of catching up with some edgy and elusive films (I remember first seeing there a then-rare uncut print of Georges Franju’s classic LES YEUX SANS VISAGE/EYES WITHOUT A FACE). And like other Franju admirers I was subsequently able to see another then-elusive film by the director, PLEINS FEUX SUR L’ASSASSIN/SPOTLIGHT ON A MURDERER. This was Franju’s first film after the poetic horror of LES YEUX, featuring (albeit briefly) the charismatic character actor from that film, Pierre Brasseur. While the film is as visually striking as we would expect from this director, there was a touch of initial disappointment that the whole thing turned out to be a rather slight Agatha Christiesque murder mystery rather than something as powerful and striking as its predecessor.

But, far more significantly, the ever-enterprising Radiance label has now come up with one of the director’s most impressive films, LA TETE CONTRE LES MURS — in one brief mesmerising moment featuring a beautiful (and mad) young woman singing in a whispery soprano played by Edith Scob, the actress behind the porcelain mask of LES YEUX  – a moment that speaks of hopelessness (as does the film). But the experience of watching LA TETE is anything but despairing; Franju is here concerned with the treatment of the insane (and, inter alia, the treatment of the rebellious central character, Paul, who is unjustly placed in an asylum by his hateful father. The film is Franju’s debut, but possesses all the remarkable assurance of his later work. The two doctors in the film represent the repressively traditional and the progressively modern approaches to treating the insane, and they are played impeccably by Franju favourite Pierre Brasseur (later the ruthless Dr Génessier of Franju’s LES YEUX ) and Paul Meurisse (of Clouzot’s LES DIABOLIQUES). The clash of values between the two men is as crucial to the narrative as the suspenseful narrative device of Paul’s struggle with the staff of the asylum. For those who only know LES YEUX, this is a crucial piece in the Franju puzzle, and the Radiance transfer is impeccable.

Barry Forshaw

ON THE BEACH

Stanley Kramer, director/BFI

While writing a booklet essay for this impeccable BFI Release for Stanley Kramer’s groundbreaking Armageddon epic, the first thing that struck me was the cyclical nature of such genre entries. In 1959, the prospect of the end of the world brought about by the bomb and international conflict was fresh in people’s minds, a situation that receded with the end of the Cold War. But with a slew of newly aggressive nations across the planet, Kramer’s warning about the possible destruction of the human race seems ever more timely. And the film has worn well, with its heavyweight star cast including Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire (in a remarkable non-musical performance) and Anthony Perkins guaranteeing comprehensive audience involvement. Based on Nevil Shute’s novel, On the Beach r posits that almost all human life has been doomed by the radioactive fallout of a nuclear war, with only those in Australia temporarily spared. At the time of its release in 1959, the film’s realistic mien contrasted strikingly with other visions of Armageddon (those, for instance, brought about by alien invasion), and it’s sobering to see how Kramer’s fatalistic vision still has notable resonance. Of course, one of the reasons that the film still works so well today is the immediacy created by this pristine transfer, well up to the customary BFI standard. The  BFI release sports copious extras including two audio commentaries and rare 8mm footage showing the making of the film. An Illustrated booklet sports new essays by Dr Christina Brennan and this writer, along with a biography of Stanley Kramer by Jennifer Frost. and writing by the BFI’s Vic Pratt, notes on the special features and film credits.

COLD PREY TRILOGY, Roar Uthaug, director/Second Sight

I wear my reputation as a specialist in Scandinavian film with a dash of pride, although a lot of homework is required to keep that reputation in place. While I’m more used to the arthouse aspects of Nordic cinema (mostly in the shadow of the definitive Scandinavian filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman), it’s always a pleasure to see just how good genre cinema from the colder regions can be. That’s very much the case with the Cold Prey trilogy from talented director Roar Uthaug, Now presented in a truly collectible limited edition Blu-ray box set, this is certainly the equal of cinematic bloodletting from America. Although we’ve seen the practically unbeatable Serial Killer theme ad infinitum, there are some intriguing new wrinkles added to the formula here, not least frigid setting which is strikingly evoked. The collector’s set sports spectacular special features including new interviews and commentaries with cast and filmmakers, plus a 120-page book full of new essays.

LA TRAVESTIE

Yves Boisset, etc., director/INDICATOR

This is a world premieres Blu-Ray from Indicator showcase a highly unusual film from Director Yves Boisset which addresses issues of gender and sexuality in a serious fashion while also paying tribute to earlier ventures into this territory, notably Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (The final scene here involving personality takeover is, it has to be said, more than a homage to Hitchcock’s film; it’s more like a re-creation). As for whether or not the film has any ideological axe to grind, that would be hard to say — and that is precisely one of its particular virtues: the fact that it would be hard to discern anything tendentious in what Yves Boisset is trying to convey. We are left to make our own minds up. A departure from his other films, Boisset’s La Travestie examines Lawyer Nicole (Zabou Breitman) is dealing with multiple crises in her life by reinvent herself as a man. The. 4K restoration from the original negative also includes Girls and Boys Come Out to Play (2026): a fascinating video essay by key film critic and historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas exploring the film’s themes of gender and power.

THE SEARCHERS 4K, John Ford, director/Warner

Blu-ray collectors will remember when this John Ford Classic first appeared on silver disc — and was an absolute revelation. The crisp and defined image and eye-popping colours made the film appear that it was made in the modern era rather than the 1950s, and it would have been difficult to imagine it looking any better. But that particular miracle has been achieved with this 4K issue which even manages to improve on that splendid Blu-ray Iteration. As for the film itself – well, anyone with an iota of knowledge of classic cinema will know that it is one of the greatest westerns ever made, with its complex picture of the driven, near-psychotic character played by John Wayne (in a career defining performance) in pursuit of his kidnapped relative (played by a youthful Natalie Wood. The film’s modern attitude to racism may be slightly undercut by the treatment of the Indian woman who fixes onto the Jeffrey Hunter character, but it’s the slightest of caveats in a film that really belongs on every collector’s shelves.

OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR, Richard Attenborough, director/Eureka

The great era of the musical was over by the time that the actor Richard Attenborough made his directing debut with this remarkable record of Joan Littlewood’s Anti-war theatrical project; however, like Cabaret, the film was not seen as a standard musical and had a much wider reach than most films in the genre. With a cornucopia of British stars, this is a film that looks even better with the years, and is particularly enhanced in Eureka’s  new transfer.

INTO THE FOREST: FOLKTALES AT DEFA, various directors/Eureka

Largely unknown to modern non-German audiences, these charming live action films are an illuminating vision of the kind of inventiveness that was standard at the celebrated German DEFA studios, and make for fascinating viewing. The one film familiar to non-German audiences, The Singing Ringing Tree, looks particularly lustrous in this new transfer.

HUSH, Mike Flanagan, director/Arrow

Real cineastes always take note of promising directors and follow their careers assiduously. Accordingly, many of us have paid keen attention to the work of Mike Flanagan previously responsible for TV’s The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep, and who now delivers a genuinely flesh-creeping cinema experience. Co-written with and starring Kate Siegel, this home invasion drama is a pulse-raising exercis in suspense. The two-disc release includes the Shush Cut of Hush – a black and white version with an alternative audio mix – as well as a feature length Q&A with Flanagan, a new visual essay, and interviews with cast and crew.

PAINTED FACES, Alex Law, director/88 films

Apart from the nicely observed playing here (particularly from Sammo Hung as the director of a group of children training for theatrical experience), one of the pleasures of the film is the rather beautiful cinematography which presents a world which will be unfamiliar to most viewers. For those seeking something off the beaten track, Painted Faces can be confidently recommended — although it should be pointed out that those expecting the usual acrobatic violence from the rotund Sammo Hung should perhaps look elsewhere – this is another side of his personality. The kung fu legend takes a rare dramatic role as the tough master Yu, a teacher training young kids for a life on the stage. Based on the real-life childhoods of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and, yes, Sammo himself (he’s playing his own, real-life master), Painted Faces is a nostalgic tribute to a man who turned children into superstars

Barry Forshaw

ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, Luchino Visconti, director/BFI 4K UHD

The aristocratic Luchino Visconti had been given a book that greatly impressed him, a French translation of James M Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. From this he would make one of the great Italian films of sexuality and violence, Obsession (Ossessione, 1942), and the inglorious recent past of the Italian cinema quickly receded. An explosion of filmmaking was in the offing, with all genres up for grabs. But the overriding preoccupation for most directors of the period, whether they were from working or middle-class backgrounds (or from a more patrician upbringing, such as Visconti), was the life of the common man. And some of the greatest films produced in Italy would result from this preoccupation, before audiences and directors tired of realism and yearned for colour, and spectacle. And the industry was crammed with filmmakers perfectly prepared to give audiences just what they wanted – even if it upset the all-powerful Catholic Church. Many would argue that Visconti‘s Rocco and his Brothers remains his signature film, combining the gritty blue-collar world of neo-realism with nigh-operatic drama (Visconti, in fact, was one of the great directors of opera). The epic-length film deals with a closely-knit family that leaves Italy’s rural areas for a challenging life in metropolitan Milan. The BFI issue of Rocco on 4K UHD for the first time in the UK is a reminder that Visconti’s 1960 film is one of the great classics of the cinema, and this restoration had a release in UK cinemas by the BFI in 2025. The iconic cast includes Alain Delon (dubbed very persuasively into Italian), Claudia Cardinale, and in a heartbreaking performance as an ill-fated prostitute, Annie Girardot.

Barry Forshaw

WAKE IN FRIGHT Ted Kotcheff, director/Arrow  

Rescued from destruction, Ted Kotcheff’s lost film is a considerable find. A middle-class schoolteacher, stuck in a government-enforced teaching post in an arid backwater, stops off in the mining town of Bundanyabba on his way home for the Christmas holidays. Discovering a local gambling craze that may grant him the financial independence to move back to Sydney for good, the opportunity proves irresistible. But the bad decisions are just beginning and a reliance on local standards of hospitality in “the Yabba” may take him on a path darker than ever expected. One of director Ted Kotcheff’s most impressive achievements, Wake in Fright simmers with a phantasmagoric nightmare quality and is immeasurably enriched by impeccable performances from Donald Pleasance as an intellectual doctor living in squalor (one of the best of his later films), Gary Bond, Sylvia Kay, and Chips Rafferty in his final role. An uncompromising picture of brutal, sexist Australian masculinity. But the director’s defence (in the extras) that he was not attempting to paint a totally negative picture seems perhaps disingenuous.

SLITHER, James Gunn, director/Visions

It’s always interesting to look back on a filmmaker’s career and see the earlier signs of accomplishments that were to flourish later. James Gunn is now best known as one of the heavy-hitters in charge of DC Studio’s new cinema strategy, with recast versions of Superman and Supergirl leading the charge. But one of the reasons Gunn was given this heavyweight responsibility was the success of his Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel and the enjoyably excessive TV series Peacemaker. Apart from spectacle, Gunn is always reliable when it comes to delivering action and character, both of which are in evidence in Slither, in which a small town is taken over by an alien plague. The film was praised sporadically on its first appearance, but is now given a silver disc showcase which shows it to its very best advantage. Watching the film in its new iteration proves something which should not be surprising: how accomplished and well-crafted it is. Clearly, right from the start of his career, James Gunn had what it takes to be an audience-pleasing filmmaker.

MADHOUSE, Jim Clark, director/Eureka Entertainment

One of the principal attractions of this spruced-up new transfer of Jim Clark’s Madhouse is the chance it affords the viewer of seeing various generations of horror film royalty. Vincent Price, of course, had ruled the roost in America in the horror genre since House of Wax in the 1950s, through Roger Corman’s stylish adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe and beyond. Peter Cushing to some degree was his British equivalent (Although he shared that honour with his frequent co-star Christopher Lee – the duo launched their horror careers with the groundbreaking Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula). Madhouse, however, also features a third star who had made a considerable impact with his first two films as a leading man, Robert Quarry: Count Yorga and The Return of Count Yorga. Despite being charismatic and commanding, his star was to be somewhat eclipsed after these films although he continued to work steadily. Interestingly, the behind-the-scenes conflicts in the film between Price and Quarry may have helped with the incendiary atmosphere that the film trades in.

TWO MUSICAL TREATS: BLUE MOON, Richard Linklater, director & MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Maria Friedman, director/Sony

Admirers of the very best classic musicals have cause to celebrate with these very different films. Blue Moon is an unsparing biography of Richard Rodgers’ original lyric writing partner before his association with Oscar Hammerstein, the tragic Lorenz Hart. As the diminutive, self-hating musician, Ethan Hawke delivers a career-best performance as Hart, sitting in a bar on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the musical that was to signal his final break from Rodgers. The finest of all modern musical composers ,Stephen Sondheim was, in fact, a protégé of Hammerstein, and the new recording of his musical Merrily we Roll Along is a demonstration of why he attained the same kind of celebrity as his mentor.

HOUSE OF HAMMER Volume 1 and Coming From Hammer: The Count Uncensored

As the revitalised Hammer Films move from strength to strength, the latest issue is the first volume in a very welcome Series, House of Hammer, which is a freshly curated compendium celebrating the achievements of the Hammer Studio. The documentaries included here are fascinating, along with a packed booklet that will be catnip to lovers of the studio (and aficionados of Britain’s most enterprising studio are growing exponentially).

The company has told us that more delights are on the way. A landmark new 4K restoration of Dracula is coming, featuring long-lost footage unseen for over 60 years. Painstakingly restored in 4K from the best original archival materials sourced from around the world, Dracula (1958) returns to cinemas nationwide and on home entertainment this October, in its most complete form ever presented – just in time for Halloween.

EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, Bert I/Gordon, director/Eureka

His films may have been a battle between inventiveness and poverty of resources, but there’s no denying that the Director Bert I. Gordon left his mark on the cinema of the fantastic. Early hits included The Amazing Colossal Man and its sequel War of the Colossal Beast, but later in his career Mr B.I.G. (as he became known because of his initials) created a series of films based (very loosely) on the work of the most distinguished of British science fiction authors, HG Wells. That writer’s short story distantly supplied the plot here, with the illegal dumping of radioactive waste in the sea leading to grotesque (and lethal) mutations to menace Joan Collins, no less. The limited edition booklet features new writing on Empire of the Ants and ecological horror by genre film expert Liam Hathaway. Also included: The B.I.G. Picture – an interview with film historian Kim Newman focused on the life and career of the cult filmmaker.

Barry Forshaw

There was a time when the DVD revolution seemed to be the last word in home cinema physical media – then along came Blu-ray and had viewers wondering why we once thought so highly of its predecessor. The latest technological development, 4K, is not quite (on the surface) as revolutionary – as the picture quality of Blu-ray was already so analytical – but sometimes a disc comes along which can set new standards of technical excellence – as is the case with this eye-popping new version of Charles Russell’s pulse-raising thriller. Arnold Schwarzenegger fans will know what to expect (particularly if– as is likely – they will have caught the film in one of its earlier iterations), and the Austrian Oak delivers a monolithic but effective performance. Apart from Russell’s skill with action sequences (of which the film boasts a cornucopia), there is the added presence of two major Hollywood stars who may be somewhat past their best but still are utterly reliable: James Caan and James Coburn, both of whom supply a sharp level of characterisation. This 30^th Anniversary edition includes new bonus content featuring the director, along with star Vanessa Williams reflecting on the making of the film 30 years later.