Barry Forshaw

Subtitled ‘Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops’, Tim Robey’s assiduosly researched book is as entertaining as it is informative. The author, long one of the most authoritative commentators on film for (among other things) the Daily Telegraph’s arts pages and Radio 4’s Front Row, has compiled a fascinating history of key films that have been responsible for stonking deficits in film company ledgers. Having said that, Robey is well aware that commercial and artistic success do not go hand-in-hand, and is prepared to acknowledge the virtues of the films he discusses while anatomising the reasons for their failure – but while he can make a case for Freaks from 1932, he is more challenged by, say, Catwoman in 2004. If you have the slightest interest in cinema, this is a volume that you will devour at speed for its insightful writing on films which have often been neglected – justly or unjustly – because of their total lack of box office clout.

Box Office Poison by Tim Robey is published by Faber

Barry Forshaw

CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER, Brian Clemens, director/Hammer 4K

In British Gothic Cinema, I wrote of Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter that ‘TV writer Brian Clemens was in the director’s chair, grafting then-current elements onto classical Gothic motifs. As Hammer introduced new concepts, it became easier to assess the various changes of direction the company had initiated to stay fresh. Clemens, writer of self-mocking espionage parody The Avengers, was drafted in for this pre-Buffy tongue-in-cheek vampire outing with the beguiling Caroline Munro joining Horst Janson (who took the title role) for some colourful derring-do, using some of the self-reflexive humour of the director’s TV work. Janson, of flowing locks and athletic mien, certainly looked the part, The film is the first sally from the new iteration of Hammer as the company’s first ever 4K restoration, and marks the film’s 50th anniversary. The film has been restored from the original film negatives and is available as a limited collector’s edition 5-disc set (2 * UHD discs and 3 * Blu-rays) with three presentations of the film: UK Theatrical, US Theatrical and As-Filmed Versions, and a slew of tempting extras.

THE GREAT ESCAPE, John Sturges, director/Arrow

Another film for which I produced a booklet essay was John Sturges’ much-loved The Great Escape. This was conceived as a major war film based on real-life events: the mass breakout from Stalag Luft 3 in Germany. Sturges was extremely keen to make this film, following up his durable hit the Western The Magnificent Seven which had also featured Steve McQueen and an equally starry cast. The director was well aware that a largely British event could not simply be rendered into an all-American adventure in the same way that the Errol Flynn film Objective Burma had controversially attempted, and although the American stars Steve McQueen, James Garner and Charles Bronson were placed centre stage, the British players — principally Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance and James Donald – are portrayed as being every bit as significant in the cannily organised escape attempt. And it was not just the director and the players that made the film the institution it has since become – the stirring orchestral score by Elmer Bernstein (with its jaunty march) became every bit as iconic. Apart from its endless TV showings, the best way to see the film will never be better than in this latest 4K Deluxe Edition fashioned by Arrow producer Michael Mackenzie. It’s absolutely the last word in creating a physical media package of the kind that collectors relish.

SAHARA, Zoltan Korda, director/Indicator

While Humphrey Bogart’s actual war experience involved him playing civilians in the cinema – he was classified 4F – his contribution to the war effort included this remarkable effort. Bogart plays a resilient army sergeant in charge of a disparate group of soldiers of several nations taking a tank through Nazi lines. Ably directed by Zoltan Korda, photographed by Rudolf Maté and energetically scored by Miklos Rozsa, it’s a piece that works as well as it did when it was first made, not least for some superb playing: apart from the always reliable Bogart, there is Hollywood’s’ all-purpose foreigner J Carrol Naish as a luckless Italian soldier, effortlessly scooping up the acting honours.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Quentin Tarantino, director/Arrow

Can you remember when Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs started to make its remarkable impact? Even before the film had been seen in the UK, we were well aware that it was an incendiary combination of extreme violence and witty and caustic dialogue — Tarantino’s career as a cult director was known to us in this country even before we had seen this memorable debut. And now we have such films as this ruthless contribution to the library of uncompromising war films, a remake of an Italian film with much typically Tarantinoesque violence ladled on. It’s made with the kind of gusto that we have come to expect as the director’s hallmark.

LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER, Henry Hathaway, director/Indicator

The legacy of empire is much interrogated these days but was less so when Henry Hathaway made this exhilarating Boy’s Own adventure, the feature film that established him as a major directing talent in Hollywood. The fact that the three Brits (and a Canadian) who come up against a ruthless Moslem enemy are played by Americans Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone and Richard Cromwell matters not a whit – this is not a film for those seeking historical verisimilitude. This welcome print from Indicator makes a Hollywood classic available again in commendable form.

BLOOD BATH AT THE HOUSE OF DEATH, Ray Cameron, director/Nucleus

Younger viewers today are unlikely to remember just how popular the late Kenny Everett was as a television comic, always pushing at the boundaries of so-called good taste, with the kind of in-your-face humour that would not play in these more straitlaced days. This is Everett’s parody of the horror film, played in end-of-the-pier fashion but much enhanced by the talented Pamela Stephenson and horror icon Vincent Price, always ready to send up both himself and his genre. The print here is excellent, and this is a well filled two disc set.

RAMPO NOIR, various directors/Arrow

On Limited Edition Blu-ray, we have four talented filmmakers from disparate backgrounds bringing their very different takes to the work of Japan’s key purveyor of the macabre, Edogawa Rampo. Produced by the team responsible for Ichi the Killer and Uzumaki, the cast includes some of Japan’s top stars, including Tadanobu Asano (Maboroshi, Silence) and Ryuhei Matsuda (Blue Spring, Gohatto), The release features new interviews, a new commentary, and a feature-length making-of documentary, and comes with a collector’s booklet and a reversible sleeve. And the icing on the cake? Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp.

INCUBUS, Leslie Stevens, director/Arrow

Arrow films supply the deeply unusual, with the release of a cult piece, long thought lost: Leslie Stevens’ unique monochrome black-and-white curiosity Incubus, lovingly restored on Limited Edition 4K UHD and Limited Edition Blu-ray. Starring a pre-Star Trek William Shatner as a soldier in thrall to a supernatural figure, this is American folk horror from the creator of TV’s finest SF series The Outer Limits. Written in the synthetic Esperanto language, and filmed in Big Sur and other California locations by ace cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, Incubus is a film for those with a taste for the bizarre and unusual

THE GIFT, Sam Raimi, director/Arrow

The Gift shows direct Sam Raimi firmly in his comfort zone of the supernatural thriller, with a capable cast working from a script by Billy Bob Thornton & Tom Epperson. That impressive cast includes Cate Blanchett, and this Raimi pre Spider-Man offering was in sore need of the sprucing up it receives with this new 4K remaster. Cate Blanchetts, as ever, is mesmerising as the possessor of the eponymous ‘gift’.