Barry Forshaw of the Financial Times
FILM NOIR COLLECTION VOLUME 3: OUTSIDE THE LAW, RIDE THE PINK HORSE, CALCUTTA, THE FEMALE ANIMAL, various directors/Arrow There is something of an embarrassment of riches in Film Noir reissues these days, but this new set issue is something special (and I suppose I should — for full disclosure — mention that I have written a booklet essay for the set). In eye-popping new restorations, this collection features army veterans with a taste for revenge, brutal, double-crossing professional criminals and psychological dramas that cover the widest possible range. Outside the Law with Ray Danton is a strong and authoritative entry in the genre, reminding the viewer that Danton (before he became a director) was a charismatic screen presence. The Female Animal is really only peripherally Noir, but is fascinating stuff and represents the last screen appearance of Hedy Lamar. After Calcutta, the ringer here is the unorthodox Ride the Pink Horse from 1947, starring and directed by Robert Montgomery. The reworked scenario has very little to do with Dorothy B Hughes’ cult novel, but comes up with an alternative scenario which is every bit as strange and unconventional. A very collectable set.
THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES, John Farrow, director/Indicator Sometimes, it is easy to define a genre a particular film belongs to – while on other occasions, definitions are difficult. Is The Night has a Thousand Eyes in the Film Noir genre? Or is it a striking example of the supernatural movie? Certainly, the character played by Edward G Robinson initially appears to be one of many fake psychics that the cinema has given us over the years, but it gradually becomes apparent that the charcter is the real deal and genuinely possesses occult gifts. Might a glance at the creator of the original novel on which the film is based make things clearer? Cornell Woolrich, one of the great workhorses of the pulp era, turning out an immense body of work for minimal rewards, is a writer whose name conjures up psychosis, threatening cityscapes and plots of tortured complexity. It is easier to appreciate his work as a totality, rather than through an assessment of individual books. Rear Window, however, is a good entry point and exemplifies many of the pulp writers’ interest in psychology and aberrant behaviour. Similarly The Night has a Thousand Eyes is keenly interested in its psychological as much as its uncanny elements. But whatever genre the film belongs to, it is still a very striking piece of work, not least for the always reliable Robinson, adept at providing fully fleshed portraits of his conflicted characters – and, what’s more, putting the audience on his side – something that happens very quickly here.
MORE FROM INDICATOR The Indicator label has always been prized for its sprucing-up of intriguing work from the past, and the latest batch includes two neglected films directed by Marlene Dietrich’s favourite filmmaker, Josef Von Sternberg: JET PILOT and THUNDERBOLT. The former (a much-tinkered-with Howard Hughes production) is a tongue-in-cheek Cold War portrayal of the relationship between an American pilot (John Wayne) and a Russian pilot the latter played by none other than Janet Leigh. The fact that Leigh makes not even the vaguest attempt at a Russian accent shows the wry attitude to the material – though the anti-communis tone is pure Howard Hughes. Thunderbolt is interesting as a very early talkie, and affords a glimpse of Fay Wray just before she became the girl in the hairy paw.
COSA NOSTRA: THREE MAFIA TALES BY DAMIANO DAMIANI/Damiano Damiani, director/Radiance Films It has long been a characteristic of Italian genre directors that they have demonstrated a readiness to work in whatever field was energising the market place at a given time, emulating (in catchpenny fashion, but often with panache) foreign commercial successes. When a producer requested that (for instance) Mario Bava direct a Western, a sword and sandal epic or a horror film, he – and his Latin colleagues — would cheerfully oblige, bringing customary expertise to the task. The filmmaker Damiano Damiani, celebrated for utilising political metaphors in such westerns as A Bullet For The General (1967), demonstrated his versatility with some solid entries in the ‘poliziotechsi’ crime genre with the much-employed Franco Nero: Il Giorno Della Civetta/The Day of the Owl (1968) and, three years later, the snappily-titled Confessione di un commissario di poliza al procuratore della repubblica (Confessions of a Police Captain), which presented the Mafia as an all-encompassing, implacable force for corruption and evil And now, courtesy of the enterprising Radiance films, we have a limited edition issue of Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in Three Mafia Tales By Damiano Damiani – a collection of the three impressive (and complex) films in the Nero/Damiani collaboration; appearing in 2K restored editions are The Day of the Owl, The Case is Closed: Forget It and How to Kill a Judge. The clinchers for the set are the copious and studiously researched extras.
FRONTIERS, Xavier Gens, director/Second Sight If you were in the audience at of the first UK showings of The Last House on the Left, you may remember that a gauntlet had been thrown down to the audience – such was the daunting advance reputation of the film, could you take the grimness which would be subsequently on offer? Whatever your response to this film, a real test will be offered to the hardened horror aficionado by Xavier Gens’ Frontiers, which not only delivers full-throated (and blood-soaked) material that makes most such films seem a touch undernourished, but even folds in uncompromising sociopolitical commentary – initially presenting its hapless protagonists as violent members of a criminal underclass, but then setting them against a depraved neo-Nazi family that (by contrast) has the audience subsequently rooting for characters we had earlier been alienated by. Whatever their copious failings, the protagonists here are nothing like as monstrous as those they encounter in a secluded hotel. This was the directorial debut for Xavier Gens (also noted for Hitman and Gangs of London); this Limited Edition Blu-ray Box set is released along with a Standard Edition; the set comes with new artwork by James Neal and a 70 page book featuring new essays plus many special features.
THE MAN ON THE ROOF, Bo Widerberg, director/Radiance Films If you have even the most peripheral affection for the Nordic Noir genre, Bo Widerberg’s film of The Man on the Roof is essential viewing – particularly in this splendid transfer. Two writers from the left – a crime-writing team with a markedly Marxist perspective – might (without too much argument) be said to have started it all in terms of important Scandinavian crime: the spectacularly talented Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Their continuing influence (since the death of Per Wahlöö) remains prodigious. It was something of scandal that for some considerable time the complete oeuvre this most influential team of crime writers was not available in translation (certain books – such as The Laughing Policeman (1968) – successfully filmed with Walter Matthau — haunted various publishers’ lists, and then would inexorably melt away). This relative invisibility (until recent – and welcome – reissue programmes remedied this egregious blot on the reputation of publishing) was particularly odd, as the almost viral penetration of the duo’s literary reach was total, with many crime fiction writers citing them as the ne plus ultra of the socially committed crime novel., What’s more, the team has been – in many cases – a source of personal inspiration for the work of contemporary crime writers. The sequence of books featuring their tenacious policeman Martin Beck are shot through with the ideological rigour of his creators; that’s to say: as well as being lean and compelling crime novels, they simultaneously function as an unforgiving leftwing critique of Swedish society (and, inter alia, of Western society in general). In The Man on the Roof, a police officer is murdered by a killer with a bayonet. It falls to his colleagues Beck, Rönn and Kollberg to solve the case, but the revelations about their dead colleague are very unwelcome. Investigating and drawing up a list of potential suspects leads the team to discover he was a compromised cop. Widerbergs mesmerising take on the novel is shored up here with terrific extras, including With a View to Realism, a documentary by Ronny Svensson and Markus Strömqvist on the making of film, along with a portrait of Widerberg by Karsten Wedel in which he talks about his films, plus other tempting extras. An unmissable issue.
RICH AND FAMOUS/TRAGIC HERO, Taylor Wong, director/Eureka The influence of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather saga over the years has been prodigious, and the fruits of that influence are often extremely interesting in their own right – as in this powerfully persuasive sequence of films involving trust between two brothers, in a scenario that spans decades. The brothers here are played by the charismatic Alex Man and Andy Lau – both giving exemplary performances – but the acting honours are stolen (as so often) by Chow Yun fat as the powerful gangster both brothers work for. Stirred into this incendiary mix is a brutal Triad leader seeking revenge. The two films are prime entries in what is now known as the ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ genre, and both look splendid in these new restorations from Eureka.
SAFE HOUSE, Daniel Espinosa, director/Fabulous Films The success (or otherwise) of a film can often rely on two key factors: a director totally in command of his idiom, or charismatic stars who do solid justice to the material they are given. Fortunately, both of these elements are at play in the tense Safe House which delivers both filmic nous and well-rounded performances from its two principal stars, Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, but also delivers the energy of the action thriller. Admittedly, there are no innovations on show here, but the familiar ingredients are delivered with panache. Ryan Reynolds utilises his patented rough charm as an inexperienced CIA agent and Washington is full of cold authority. The pair enjoy efficient support rom Oscar nominees: Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard. Oh, and let’s not overlook the on-the-nail cinematography from Oliver Wood, who lensed the Bourne franchise, A South African safe house is under siege, and ex-CIA agent Tobin Frost (Washington) is on the run, along with tyro CIA officer Matt Weston (Reynolds) . It’s lively stuff – and it’s a shame that a mooted sequel never happened.
THE GATES, Stephen Hall, director/101 Films The appeal of The Gates resides not just in its lively command of filmmaking technique, but in its cleverly judged casting. We have John Rhys-Davies (denizen of many an Indiana Jones movie, including the latest), Richard Brake, Michael Yare and Elena Delia, and the material served up here is dealt out with relish, even if at times it is a touch rough and ready. Victorian London, 1892, with the capital in the grip of fear: a savage serial killer is cutting a bloody swathe through the city. He’s caught, but death doesn’t stop him ,as two post-mortem photographers — turned paranormal investigators — Frederick Ladbroke and Emma Wickes, find to their cost.
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, David Cronenberg director/Second Sight Films In terms of his cinematic career, it can be said that the Canadian director David Cronenberg hit the ground running with his remarkable and surreal early films, notably Scanners. Since then, he has built up a cinematic legacy that is as visually striking as it is disturbing and unorthodox (his remake of Kurt Neumann’s The Fly found even stranger areas to investigate than the already bizarre original). This 2022 science fiction outing is redolent of the director’s truly odd early works, presenting a world in which the human body has undergone a series of mutations. Cronenberg’s visual imagination apart, the bizarre scenario is rendered persuasive by the striking central performances by Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux.
TIME BANDITS, Terry Gilliam, director/Arrow The much-loved Terry Gilliam comic science fiction outing is here given a definitive issue which allows us to relish the director’s customary visual imagination – not to mention the cherishable cameos by John Cleese (as Robin Hood) and Sean Connery (as Agamemnon).
THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, directors/Studio Canal Certain films inspire a genuine sense of wonder with their readiness to embrace a fantasy world and fill it out with both invention and imagination. The City of Lost Children is a key example of this endeavour, and this new issue is a perfect chance to reacquaint yourself with a piece to which you may not have done justice on a first viewing. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, were behind the 1991 cult movie Delicatessen, and the same surreal perspective is brought to the narrative of Krank, a conflicted scientist who kidnaps local children with a view to purloining their dreams in order to stymie his accelerated ageing. This is a new 4k ultra-high-def restoration, coming up fresh as paint.
I wrote in Brtish Gothic Cinema: ‘When Hammer decided to film The Devil Rides Out in 1968, It was to be the first in a series of adaptations of Dennis Wheatley, but the film led to no further sequels and this remains one of the great might-have-been is in the studio’s history, not least because of the casting of Duc de Richleau, played by one of the studio’s great assets, Christopher Lee, who perfectly incarnates the combination of energy and cool intellect in the face of unspeakable evil. Silva Screen Records is to digitally release James Bernard’s seminal score: essential for Hammer aficionados
