WEREWOLF, Adrian Panek, director/Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray Arriving in a Dual Format (Blu-ray & DVD) edition, this is something of a find. Familiar tropes can be reinvigorated with a director and writer of imagination and audacity – very much the case here. If you consider that you have seen every possible treatment of lycanthropy on the screen, think again. This Polish drama is set in World War II, and concerns a group of children who have managed to escape from a concentration camp and have taken desperate refuge in a remote villa. On their trail are a pack of flesh-hungry hounds released by SS officers before their retreat. Survival is the priority for the children, but there are some jawdropping revelations on hand here. The subject of the Holocaust is treated responsibly and intelligently, but essentially Werewolf is designed to raise the pulse of the viewer – and thanks to Adrian Panek’s assured direction that function is executed with skill. The film is inspired by real-life, historical events. Writer and director Panek has made a memorable and disturbing film.
A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, Sergio Leone, director/ Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray When the Westerns of Sergio Leone began to make their mark, several things happened simultaneously: Clint Eastwood, formerly the second-string star of a long-running TV Western soap, Raw Hide¸ became a major international star; the violence of the Italian Western – quickly, and disparagingly, described as Spaghetti Westerns – became the norm in the genre, and altered forever the face of the American Western; and, most significantly of all, audiences had the impression that they were being presented with something closer to the real West. Clint Eastwood’s character, with his dusty poncho, unshaven appearance and generally shop-worn demeanour, was a million miles away from the clean-cut, clean-shaven heroes of the great American Westerns, and the supporting casts in these films has an almost operatic uncouthness. Once Upon a Time… The Revolution was also known as Duck, You Sucker! (Giù la Testa, 1971) and A Fistful of Dynamite. Here the heroic/comic duo was incarnated by James Coburn and Rod Steiger as an ex-IRA explosives expert and Mexican bandit. Leaving aside the film’s uncritical treatment of Coburn’s IRA past (par for the course, in any case, in Italian cinemas, which treated the Troubles with a romanticism that suggested it was a mere continuation of the American revolutionary war), the film was not as personal as usual for Leone, who had suggested Sam Peckinpah as a director, but the film’s backers insisted that Leone direct the film. The original; choices were Jason Robards in the Steiger role and Malcolm McDowell (who Leone had seen in If) as Sean, the IRA bomb-man (Leone feeling that the men of the IRA were young). The contracts, however, had been signed, and Steiger and Coburn were onboard. There was a clash of personality between Steiger and Leone, with the former treating his part with the kind of method-based seriousness that was his speciality (Leone’s approach could not have been further from some of the more actor-friendly directors Steiger had worked with). Leone’s final western is available for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK as part of The Masters of Cinema Series, with a Limited Edition 60-page Collector’s Book and Hardbound Slipcase.
PICKUP ALLEY, John Gilling director/Arrow Blu-ray The term ‘film noir’ was of course coined by French cinéastes, who were the first to identify the American crime film as a medium capable of something richer and more provocative than simple dramas of violence and revenge. It took a little while longer for the British varieties of the genre to be given similar attention – and (accordingly) this unusual item from Arrow will have escaped most people’s attention, having been very hard to see over the years. ‘This picture is about dope!’ screamed the contemporaneous ads. Victor Mature plays an American agent on the trail of a seductive woman played by the statuesque Anita Ekberg (though Trevor Howard, as so often, walks away with the picture), and the treatment of drug addiction is a theme treated head-on. The pleasures here are many, not least an impressive international cast. Such cross-Atlantic casting can sometimes lead to a lack of cohesion but that’s not the case here. This High Definition entry comes with a host of new extras.
ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE, John McPhail, director/Second Sight Blu-ray While the notion of a teenage zombie musical will not be to every taste, it can at least be stated with some authority that you haven’t seen anything quite like this John McPhail’s lively film tackles its unlikely material with gusto. Admittedly, the film is probably more successful in its early stages before a virus has reduced most of the population to blood-lusting zombies, but there is much bad taste humour to be found in the gruesome later segments — though the director struggles to incorporate the incongruous songs in the those sections.
THE FAR COUNTRY, Antony Mann, director/Arrow Blu-ray For many years, the reputation of John Ford as the greatest director of the Western film was assured, but current thinking is that the palm should be extended to the brilliant Anthony Mann, whose films have a psychological complexity and intensity that are particularly modern (while elements of Ford have dated). The Mann Westerns are also, of course, visually impressive, and one of the director’s key collaborations with the actor James Stewart make its Blu-ray debut in this terrific two-disc presentation from Arrow. Unlike other films in the Mann/Stewart catalogue, this one (set during the Klondike Gold Rush) is less intense in its lighter early segments, but no less diverting for that. In the final third, however, it becomes a powerful revenge drama to match other films in the director/actor sequence and is utterly riveting from that point onwards. Stewart as ever, benefits from Anthony Mann’s ability to bring out the darker undercurrents of the actor’s usually amiable persona — undoubtedly Mann was especially able to find these depths in the actor. The supporting cast is matchless, including Walter Brennen as Stewart’s unreliable but likable sidekick and (particularly) John McIntyre as the rather winning villain of the piece, a corrupt judge based on the real-life Judge Roy Bean. The final shootout (framed from distinctly unorthodox angles) is particularly memorable.
MAKING WAVES: THE ART OF CINEMATIC SOUND, Midge Costin, director/Dogwoof Of the many documentaries covering the art of film music from such masters as Korngold onwards, this is the first to deal with the use of sound in film, and it’s difficult to imagine it being done better. All of the finest current practitioners of the art – notably Ben Burtt of the Star Wars films — are on offer, with their immeasurable contributions celebrated. One thing is clear: after watching Making Waves, you will listen with fresh ears to the soundtracks of the films discussed (other than the music score) and are unlikely to take such things for granted in the future.
SPETTERS, Paul Verhoeven, director/BFI Blu-ray Before Basic Instinct, Robocop and Starship Troopers, the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven made an impact on a more human scale in his homeland, establishing his trademark visceral style and launching the international careers of fellow countrymen, actor Rutger Hauer and director Jan De Bout (Speed, Twister). Business is Business (1971) was set in Amsterdam’s red-light district during the 60’s; it was a comic, fast-paced drama, based on true anecdotes, follows lives of prostitutes, their pimps and their clients. More contentious was Turkish Delight (1973) in which a rebellious sculptor marries a respectable suburban girl. When their marriage collapses, he takes to sleeping around with as many women as he can, behaviour which hides an even deeper tragedy. Rutger Hauer found his first taste of international fame in tills erotic romance, which shocked audiences with its explicit sex as well as depicting an honest view of Amsterdam in the 70s. But Spetters, now available in a splendid Blu-ray transfer from BFI, is the most extreme of the director’s Dutch films. If the motorcycle protagonists here are possibly a touch too well scrubbed, they are all (it has to be said) from blue-collar working backgrounds. The straight and gay explicit sex in the film, uncut here, still packs a punch.
DER GOLEM, Paul Wegener, director/Eureka Blu-ray If you haven’t seen one of the most influential films in the history of the cinema (certainly in terms of the macabre), here is the perfect opportunity. Eureka’s wonderfully detailed new Blu-ray has a clarity and definition it has never possessed before. Director Paul Wegener’s own performance as the avenging creature created formed from clay is one of the great monsters of the movies, and still carries a considerable charge even in the 21st century.
UPGRADE, Leigh Whannell, director/Second Sight Films Blu-ray A clever and involving futuristic thriller – almost (but not quite) a superhero film, this kinetic outing is well worth your while.