An impressive batch or demented favorites, classics and cult oddities on Blu-ray this month. From Busby Berkeley-choreographed insanity like Footlight Parade to Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula– what more could one ask for?
Footlight Parade (Warner Archive) One of the best of the Busby Berkeley-choreographed Warner Brothers musicals of the 30s. James Cagney stars as the director of a theatrical dance company that do “prologues” at movie theaters before the show. Joan Blondell is his devoted girl-Friday, and tenor Dick Powell and sweetheart hoofer Ruby Keeler are also on board for all the back-stage drama. But the final three Berkeley numbers are fabulously deranged- from the naughty Honeymoon Hotel number to the mad, psychedelic water ballet- By A Waterfall to Shanghai Lil’, with Cagney stepping in to dance (a wonder to watch). Berkeley’s kaleidoscopic dance routines re-invented the wheel in Hollywood. The new transfer will melt your eyeballs it’s so beautiful.
Alice, Sweet Alice (Arrow) Alfred Sole’s provocatively perverse 1976 thriller is set in Paterson, New Jersey in the 1960s. A young girl (Brooke Shields) is murdered at her Catholic communion and all eyes fall on her hateful, jealous sister Alice (amazing Paula Sheppard). A mysterious little figure wielding a knife in a yellow rain slicker haunts the film, not to mention the obese, cat-loving creep who lives upstairs (unforgettable Alphonso DeNoble)- listening to 78s on a windup Victrola while eating cat food. A stylish, creepy, terrific film with all sorts of wonderfully (lapsed Catholic) sardonic touches. This version is the best this movie has ever looked- it’s a 2k scan from the original negative elements. Prepare to be blown away.
Charlie Says (Shout! Factory) Leave it to director Mary Harron to make a feminist film about Charles Manson and his scruffy desert group of followers and the grisly murders they committed that was the death knell for the 1960s hippie-movement. Harron unfolds the story in two time frames. One is about a new recruit to the commune at Spahn Ranch- Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray) who quickly comes under the spell of their leader, aspiring musician and former jailbird Charles Manson (Matt Smith). The second is years later with three female cult members in a separate wing of California Institution For Women and a graduate student (wonderful Merritt Wever) who attempts to break the hold that Manson still had over the women by teaching and introducing them to feminist books, trying to return the women to were before they met Manson. But she knows this comes at a price- after the fog of the bullshit Charlie preached about Helter Skelter wears off, the girls will have to live with the unending guilt of the crimes they committed. The murders themselves are reenacted with discretion but without losing their brutality and horror.
Django: The Bastard (Synapse) Sergio Garrone’s stylish, almost gothic-horror, spaghetti-western of a mysterious figure (Anthony Steffen) that rides into town- unshaven, with black hat, serape and tall black boots- who leaves makeshift crosses with its victim’s name and that day’s date, and systematically assassinates those on his “revenge” list. It takes 54 minutes to flashback as to why all this fury, but by then, who cares? This really enjoyably violent, revenge-fantasy was also known as The Strangers Gundown.
Touch Of Death (Raro Video) One of Lucio Fulci’s nastiest gore thrillers, about an unrepentant cannibal (Brett Halsey) who murders wealthy women with chainsaws and roasts them in his oven, merrily dining on his conquests. Meanwhile a copy-cat killer roams, threatening to take both men down. More of a dark comedy, Fulci definitely pushed the envelope here, much like he did in The New York Ripper. This doesn’t get a lot of love, except for Eli Roth’s loving homage in Hostel: Part II. But I have a great fondness for this movie- and it looks just spectacular on Blu-ray.
Vice Squad (Shout! Factory) Season Hubley plays a suburban mother who has a secret life as a Hollywood Boulevard prostitute named “Princess.” When a fellow call girl is beaten to death by her sadistic pimp Ramrod (an outrageously scary Wings Hauser), Princess wears a wire to entrap Ramrod. Unfortunately, he escapes from the police and comes after her with a vengeance. Director Gary Sherman grinds our noses in the street sleaze, even the theme song (sung by Wings Hauser) is about the “neon slime.” God, is it a blast! I saw this on Times Square countless times and the grindhouse crowds would go insane. Wings Hauser is just phenomenal- but so is Season Hubley, who should have had a better career. This Collector’s Edition has multiple interviews with cast and crew and two audio commentaries.
Cruising (Arrow) “Hips or lips?” That’s one of the more confounding lines from William Friedkin’s wildly controversial thriller about a killer stalking gay men in late-1970s New York. Al Pacino plays a cop who goes undercover and immerses himself in the leather bar and backroom-sex-club subculture, cruising Central Park’s “Rambles” at night in search of the killer. The murders themselves have a creepy sexual component (and were interspersed with gay porn frames). This caused an uproar and was protested by gays while the film was getting made, and died at the box office. While the film is a bit of a mess, I’ve always had a sick affection for it. Especially over those head-scratching sequences like the black cop in the police station wearing only a cowboy hat and jock strap. What the hell? I was a bit startled to see the opening credits different on this Blu-ray (the original included the giant letters spelling out Cruising and then a fade into the movie). But the transfer is just gorgeous.
4D Man (Kino Lorber) Fabulous 1959 sci-fi film from the same team that brought you The Blob– producer Jack H. Harris & director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. Robert Lansing plays a scientist who succeeds in “stimulating” the molecular structures of objects, which allows him to pass through walls. But the experiment has dire side effects- it ages him drastically, which can only be cured by draining the life out of the living. Look for a very young Patty Duke (in pigtails), who asks the 4D man to play with her. The rich colors of the movie now pop thanks to this sterling 4K transfer.
Magnificent Obsession (Criterion) Douglas Sirk’s delirious 1954 adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas novel about a playboy (Rock Hudson) who inadvertently causes a widow (Jane Wyman) to go blind. He enters medical school and studies to be a doctor in hopes of curing her sightlessness. He also falls in love with her, and romances her pretending to be someone else. It’s high melodrama but so amped up and glorious-looking it’s impossible not to luxuriate in Sirk’s soapy theatricality. This new Blu-ray edition comes with audio commentaries and appreciations by other directors, and even a separate disc with the 1935 version directed by John M. Stahl and starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.
Dinosaurus! (Kino Lorber) This 1960 movie is about some underwater explosions off a Caribbean island (St. Croix) that unearth a Tyrannosaurus, a Brontosaurus and a Neanderthal man. Lightning strikes them and you can imagine what happens next. The prehistoric man is constantly confronting modern life and screaming like a little girl. There’s a Cuban villain, the caveman befriends a little boy named Julio, and there’s a final battle between the T-Rex and a bull-dozer. I’ve showed this to many kids and they just love it as much as I did when I saw this in a theater at 10. Hunky Paul Lukather (Hands Of A Stranger) co-stars and the fact that Blu-ray looks this exquisite is unfathomable. Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. (The Blob).
Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula (Kino Lorber) This campy horror/western hybrid sets Dracula (John Carradine) in ye old west setting his fangs on a pretty ranch owner. But her boyfriend Billy The Kid (Chuck Courtney) might have something to say about that. This vampire walks around in daylight, doesn’t sleep in a coffin, is repelled by wolfsbane, and when he hypnotizes his victim a red spotlight shines on his face. Directed by prolific director William Beaudine, often referred to as “one shot” Beaudine because he used only one take (which is not really true- he was just economical). Yes, this is pretty ludicrous but so much fun. (Check out the scene showcasing the stagecoach massacre- you can see a man wearing a white short-sleeve shirt through the window of the stagecoach). It’s hard to imagine seeing such a sparkling version on home video. And on Blu-ray, no less. Now, where is a Blu-ray of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter?
The Thin Man (Warner Archive) Crackling mystery/comedy and the beginning of a well-loved series of films starring William Powell as retired detective Nick Charles and Myrna Loy as his wealthy wife Nora. The delightful, droll, slightly drunken patter between husband and wife is gracefully mixed with the intricate mystery (based on a Dashiell Hammett novel). Sublime entertainment, seamlessly directed by W.S. Van Dyke. There’s a great moment when Nora arrives late to a bar and asks her husband how many martinis he has consumed. She then calmly orders the waiter to bring her six to catch up. So much fun it’s almost criminal. And now looking amazing on Blu-ray!
The Reflecting Skin (Film Movement) A haunting masterpiece by director Philip Ridley set in the rolling plains of Idaho in the 1950s where a young boy- Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) navigates a dark summer dealing with his father’s suicide, his ailing brother (Viggo Mortensen) returning from war, a series of child abductions, and a strange woman (Lindsay Duncan) Seth is convinced is a vampire. Visually this movie is astonishing, and it has always looked dreadful on home video. This Blu-ray restores the dream-like visuals. Director Philip Ridley even admits he painted the wheat yellow to achieve the right visual background. The movie is definitely bizarre, often disturbing, but also unforgettable.
Horror Of Frankenstein (Shout! Factory) In this 1970 Hammer Studios horror film, actor Ralph Bates takes over the role of the ruthless Victor Frankenstein. Victor murders his father, makes it look like an accident, goes to medical school in Vienna and returns to his family castle with his pregnant wife to begin his nefarious scientific experiments. He stitches together random body parts to create a living creature (musclebound David Prowse), who, typically, goes on a rampage. Jimmy Sangster, who penned many screenplays for Hammer, wrote and directed and slips in more sex and sardonic humor than previous entries.
The Leech Woman (Shout! Factory) An endocrinologist and his bitter, aging wife June (Colleen Gray) travel to Africa after listening to a wizened old woman who promises to reveal the secret of eternal youth. Unfortunately, each beauty treatment results in taking a life (and pineal gland). June returns to the States a merry widow, revitalized and draining victims left and right to retain that youthful glow. Grant Williams (The Incredible Shrinking Man) plays a lawyer, half her age, that June sets her sights on, planning to permanently eliminate his girlfriend (Gloria Talbott). One of my all-time favorites- it’s sublimely stupid and just wonderful.
Blue (Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber) Derek Jarman’s poetic reverie on his ensuing blindness from AIDS. The color blue is projected on the screen while the actor’s voices relate Jarman’s meditations on losing his sight. There a hallucinatory quality to staring at the Technicolor blue for 74 minutes. The text shifts from firsthand reportage of Jarman’s observations in the hospital to ruminations on the possible side effects of the drugs he is taking. Background music swells and a bell chimes as if to separate the passages. Watching the film causes a rush of emotions- from fascination, to boredom, to rapture, to sadness, and to awe. By the end I was emotionally devastated. A profoundly haunting, incredibly moving, film.
Wax Mask (Severin) A 1997 Italian remake of House Of Wax produced by Dario Argento and directed by Sergio Stivaletti. The movie begins with a little girl hiding under a bed only to see her own father’s steaming, disembodied, heart when a masked killer punches his metal fist through the man’s chest and through the bed. Years later the girl- Sonia (Romina Mondello) is an aspiring artist who applies for a job as apprentice to the sculptor (Robert Hossein) at a new wax museum opening in Rome. Meanwhile mysterious deaths haunt the city. Will Sonia eventually confront the killer of her father? Not before lots of gory action and bad dubbing. This was a project that was to be helmed by Lucio Fulci, but he died before the film began to shoot. It’s still a lot of fun. This is a 4K scan of the negative and finally includes the Italian audio with subtitles.