Barry Forshaw on MEAN STREETS (Second Sight), THE CHUCKY COLLECTION (Arrow), THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN (Shameless), LOVE ME TONIGHT (Indicator), CULT SPAGHETTI WESTERNS: DJANGO, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL, KEOMA (Cult Films), SCALA!!! (BFI), EUREKA  launches in North America

In publishing circles, January was once customarily regarded as the ‘slow’ month, in which an exciting product – books that the publishers had no conspicuous faith in – would be allowed to creep out. That notion has changed recently, but in terms of Blu-rays and DVDs, this syndrome was generally not the case – with attractive physical product making an appearance immediately after Christmas. And so it proves in January 2024, with some very tempting discs from a variety of companies. From Second Sight, there’s a very impressive transfer of an early Martin Scorsese classic MEAN STREETS, the gritty crime drama that first brought Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel to our attention. While Taxi Driver may have been the director’s breakthrough film, all of his notable skills were already fully in evidence here.

From Arrow, a heavyweight box set (eight discs), THE CHUCKY COLLECTION (various directors) which collects the complete saga of the murderous ambulant doll, guaranteeing a bushel of jump scares which will tickle the horror aficionado. What makes the set particularly valuable is the writing in the accompanying collector’s booklet by such people as Kat Ellinger, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and (er)… me.

Still the horror genre, Piero Schivazappa’s THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN/FEMINA RIDENS (Shameless) is a truly eccentric and surreal experience – in fact, to describe it as a horror film is hardly accurate, as this is a film that defies category. Perhaps most worthy of comment are the performances by Dagmar Lassander and Philippa Leroy, who manage to give verisimilitude to their bizarre and erotic scenario of kidnap and torment. Not, of course, for every taste.

Now – in an era when the major studios are shrinking in panic from sex scenes in our newly chaste cinema — we have (from Indicator) a genuinely sexy movie — from the 1930s! It’s not often that film musicals advance the cinematic art in terms of innovative techniques, but that was very much the case when the classic Rogers and Hart musical LOVE ME TONIGHT was filmed by the great Rouben Mamoulian in 1932, a truly beguiling film which functions both as a top quality film musical and as a piece of innovative filmic technique – note the continuous tracking shots (and participants) into which the song ‘Isn’t it Romantic’ is arranged. A youthful Maurice Chevalier is the epitome of Gallic charm, and Jeanette MacDonald is some distance from the starchy figure she played in the semi-operatic films she was best known for.

One of the particular pleasures of the Blu-ray revolution has been the appearance on silver disc of films which have previously been ill served. Take, for instance, the Italian Western. While Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollar’ films have been lionised, it’s taken a little longer for the work of his most talented colleague, Sergio Corbucci, to achieve equal status. Corbucci directed such genre classics as Navajo Joe, The Great Silence, Companeros and The Mercenary. But his best work can be found on a welcome new three-film set: CULT SPAGHETTI WESTERNS (Cult Films). Along with Leone’s Dollars trilogy, the operatically violent Django (1966) is the most influential of all Spaghetti Westerns, a genuinely iconic movie that (as with Leone in A Fistful of Dollars) plunders Kurosawa’s Yojimbo for its plot (a man of violence, servant of two corrupt masters, plays both against each other, assuring their destruction – a plot, in fact, that Kurosawa himself had lifted from Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest). Originally banned in several countries for its then-extreme violence (and denied a certificate by the BBFC in the UK until 1993), the film made a star of Franco Nero and spawned over 30 unauthorised sequels. It is, of course, the extreme violence that earned the film its reputation: a corrupt preacher, who spies for the villainous Major Jackson, has an ear bloodily cut off – a scene referenced in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs – and then is fed the severed organ; Django himself undergoes the kind of sadomasochistic violence that Brando made such a key ingredient of his screen persona, notably having his hands broken and turned into bloody messes by a Mexican’s rifle butt and horse’s hooves

But it’s Corbucci’s dynamic eye for a composition that marks the film out as something quite new in the Western – he inaugurates a muddy, dirty vision of the West which (for all its implausible gunplay) looks more like the real thing than any Hollywood Westerns of the classic era; the unprepossessing prostitutes in Django, for instance, are a million miles away from the lacquered Linda Darnell in Ford’s My Darling Clementine).. Also on the Cult Films set is another Corbucci classic, A Bullet for the General and the lesser known Keoma (the latter also with Franco Nero).

Many cineastes – 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 Les Yeux sans Visage/Eyes without a Face). Now we have a very welcome new Blu-ray from BFI: SCALA!!! is an affectionate and extremely frank picture of the much-missed cinema in its great era both as a repertoire house and as emblematic of certain countercultural movements (the cinema was a venue for a variety of alternative initiatives). Apart from the brief and sometimes outrageous clips, there are interviews with many of the more celebrated habitués of the cinema such as my Blu-ray commentary colleague, the writer Kim Newman, and these interviews are filmed with skill by the filmmaker and editor Sarah Appleton. Kudos, of course, should go to the director, Jane Giles, most famous as a programmer for the Scala. Often hilarious, always revealing, this is a delight, and fascinating viewing even for those who never braved the shabby interior of the fondly remembered Scala with its wandering cats and auditorium shaken by subterranean train lines.

Some news from the enterprising British label Eureka Entertainment, which has announced the launching of its award-winning Blu-ray label into North America later this year. Eureka has signed a distribution deal with the US production and distribution company MVD Entertainment. The deal has been handled in the UK by Kevin Lambert, formerly Head of Content at Arrow, who returned to Eureka in July 2023 as its Head of Content. Kevin started his career in the industry at Eureka in 2002 and worked his way up to Production Manager before leaving the company in 2016 to take up the role of Head of Catalogue Production and Acquisitions at Arrow. “It’s extremely exciting to be partnering with MVD for our North American physical and digital distribution. We can’t wait to get our first releases out to US retailers, and we look forward to bringing the best of auteur and classic cinema, including our celebrated Masters of Cinema series, to a wider audience. It is a big new step forward for the company, and I’m sure Blu-ray collectors will be thrilled to have another of the world’s best labels available in North America” he said.

Eureka Entertainment is one of the leading independent distributors of Blu-rays in the UK. Its UK catalogue contains an extensive collection of classic and cult films, initially released in limited-edition sets. Its collection spans many genres including, amongst others, silent movies, world cinema, action, martial arts, horror, indie dramas, and Hollywood classics.

Managing Director of Eureka Entertainment, Ruth Schofield, added, “With Kevin’s return to the company it seemed like a logical move to capitalise on his knowledge of multi-territory distribution and finally fulfil the desires of our fans. We’re asked daily when we will be able to distribute in North America, and I’m very happy that the day has come to be able to make those fans’ wishes come true.” The first Eureka releases distributed by MVD Entertainment in North America will be one of the most important and influential films in the early history of American genre cinema, Paul Leni’s THE CAT AND THE CANARY, and the action-packed superhero spectacle starring Jet Li, BLACK MASK. Both titles will be released in both territories and will be available for purchase later in the year.”