CRISS CROSS, Robert Siodmak, director/Eureka Entertainment Blu-ray Writing a booklet essay for Eureka’s splendidly spruced-up edition of a classic film noir has given me the chance to appreciate once again just how key this movie was in the history of the genre. The German director Robert Siodmak’s approach to this film — one of his best — is an exemplar of just how different he was from another expat director working in Hollywood: the Englishman Alfred Hitchcock. Although the latter often puts the audience on the side of criminals as much as the putative heroes of his films (in, for instance, Strangers on a Train (1951)), Hitchcock’s troubled protagonists were generally individuals on the right side of the law – even if the law was pursuing them. Not so Siodmak, who forces the viewer to identify with ill-fated, avowedly criminal protagonists — as in Criss Cross. We are taken into the world of Steve Thompson and ex-wife Anna (played by Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo) in the preliminary hours before a payroll robbery with which Lancaster’s character – who drives a security van – is criminally involved. In any selection of the most influential and fully achieved crime cinema, there are few aficionados of the genre who would not argue that Siodmak’s film is securely placed at the top. Any film that can boast the presence of Robert Siodmak, Burt Lancaster, cinematographer Franz Planer and composer Miklós Rózsa has a guaranteed place in crime film history. And thanks to the Blu-ray medium, a whole new audience can acquaint itself with this classic crime movie, now looking as fresh as paint in this new 4K restoration as part of The Masters of Cinema Series.
BLOOD TIDE, Richard Jefferies, director/Arrow Blu-Ray The problem with many a low-budget horror film is often the fact that there have been insufficient funds to hire the most impressive actors – hence the armies of (mostly) photogenic teenagers, usually dying while in the act of copulation. That’s not the case with Blood Tide as mature Academy Award-winning actors James Earl Jones, José Ferrer and Lila Kedrova add their considerable weight to this unlikely but entertaining smorgasbord of sea monsters and sacrificial virgins. The writer here is exploitation specialist Nico Mastorakis — best known for such lively outings as the notorious Island of Death, The Zero Boys, The Wind and many others — and the less celebrated director is Richard Jefferies (Scarecrows, Tron: Legacy). Blood Tide makes the most of its ageing stars, the less-than-respectable aspects of exploitation fare that still delight aficionados (e.g. nudity and bloody mayhem) are firmly in place here. Not, it goes without saying, for the squeamish.
SYNCOPATION, William Diertele, director/Eureka Blu-ray There are films in which the musical extracts featured are a more pertinent reason to watch than the drama – particularly when the film offers a snapshot of a particular era. The actual plot of Syncopation (the progress of a young jazz trumpeter played by Jackie Cooper, later to be the newspaper editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman films) is handled capably enough, but it’s the real-life musicians of the jazz era with whom he interacts that make it so enjoyable. These musicians are such top-notch jazz players as Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnett, Gene Krupa and Harry James. It’s perhaps a caveat that we see relatively few black jazz musicians, but those on board here are more than enough reason to take a look at Syncopation.
NEW BLU-RAYS FROM POWERHOUSE INDICATOR, Various directors One of the most cherishable things about the plucky bijou label Powerhouse Indicator is the amazingly eclectic selection of films it presents in Blu-ray polishings. With very few exceptions, the films that the company has chosen to pluck from obscurity or neglect really deserves the attention of the cineliterate viewer, and recently there has been something of a cornucopia. Take a look at this list:
CISCO PIKE, Bill L Norton, director Starring Kris Kristofferson (The Last Movie) in his first leading role, and boasting an impressive supporting cast – including Gene Hackman (The Conversation), Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces), Harry Dean Stanton (Christine) and Warhol superstar Viva (Necropolis) – Cisco Pike follows the fortunes of a musician who turns to drug dealing to make ends meet.
SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT, Joseph L Anderson, director With its non-professional cast, this sensitive drama, which explores the intimate relationship between a coal-miner’s daughter and her half-brother, is American independent cinema’s closest relation to Italian Neorealism. Presented by Nicolas Winding Refn in a beautiful new restoration by Peter Conheim and Ross Lipman, Joseph L Anderson’s film played international festivals in 2019 to great acclaim.
WATERMELON MAN, Melvin Van Peebles, director A bigoted, white salesman (played by stand-up comedian Godfrey Cambridge) wakes up one morning to find he has become black. Although it has been somewhat overshadowed by Melvin Van Peebles’ next film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Watermelon Man has never felt more relevant than it does today.
MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON, Paul Mazursky, director Vladimir, a musician with the Moscow circus, defects to the US and must navigate a new life in New York. An early dramatic role for star Robin Williams, the actor undertook a crash course in Russian and learned to play the saxophone in order to play the part.
A FOREIGN AFFAIR, Billy Wilder, director/Eureka Entertainment Blu-Ray Few would argue with the fact that the most sophisticated director of comedy in Hollywood was the German expat Billy Wilder, even in the face of competition from such native-born talents as Howard Hawks. Far less familiar than such classics as Some Like It Hot, A Foreign Affair is a delight, not least for the participation of the talented Jean Arthur, always at her best in this kind of material. Her co-stars are Marlene Dietrich and John Lund, and the film appears for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK, as part of The Masters of Cinema Series. Uptight Iowa congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Arthur) fetches up in post-war Berlin, investigating the morale of US troops, and experiencing the attentions of fellow Iowan Captain John Pringle (John Lund), who is hiding his affair with Nazi-associated singer Erika (Dietrich)Sharp, cynical and very funny.
WHO DARES WINS, Ian Sharp, director/Fabulous Films In its day, this film became notorious for its uncomplicated celebration of Right-wing tactics in dealing with terrorists. In fact, the film initially offers some nuance in its opening scenes, but that’s forgotten as soon as the hijinks start. When an anti-nuclear group resorts to terror to secure their ends, the SAS is called in. The inexpressive Lewis Collins plays Peter Skellen, an SAS Captain sent to join the terrorists who are lead by Frankie Leith (Judy Davis, the best thing in the film). Skellen joins as an undercover agent as the terrorists attack the London residence of the American secretary of state. Fans of the film include Stanley Kubrick and Ronald Reagan, who requested it have a special screening for ‘friends and cabinet members’ at the White House. In America the film was released with the title The Final Option. Soldiers from the SAS assisted in the production of the film but weren’t supposed to perform stunts for the SAS assault. When the crew had the scene set up with helicopters and stuntmen at the ready the SAS offered to do the scene instead which director Ian Sharp jumped at.
THROW DOWN; Johnnie To, director/Eureka Entertainment Blu-Ray The ghost of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa may be discerned behind these lively and inventive riffs on his themes. Judo fighter Szeto Bo (Louis Ko of Flash Point) plays a troubled man who give up martial arts to run a bar, sinking into a morass of gambling and alcoholism. But he soon finds himself obliged to take up the cudgels that he thought he had left behind. Johnnie To’s action drama appears on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration in its UK debut as part of The Masters of Cinema Series.
THE SPECIALISTS [Gli Specialisti], Sergio Corbucci, Eureka Entertainment Blu-Ray While this is not quite an undiscovered classic by Sergio Corbucci, it’s a reminder of why the director is considered to be second only to the great Sergio Leone in the ranks of Italian directors of Westerns – and it’s particularly interesting to see the French Elvis, Johnny Halliday, acquitting himself reasonably well as the gunslinging hero. An underrated Spaghetti Western from Sergio Corbucci; presented on Blu-ray from a new 4K restoration. Corbucci directed such genre classics as Django, Navajo Joe, The Great Silence, Companeros and The Mercenary.