Blu-ray valentines abound this month, with many Francois Truffaut directorial treats, a new thriller from Dario Argento, a witty, politically savvy werewolf film, a sexy melodrama starring Esther Williams and Jeff Chandler, an early Mel Gibson action film, a banned French shocker about two evil convent girls, a loony first feature from Alex de la Iglesia, outlandish “beast creatures” from Connecticut and razor-clawed Amazon monsters attacking poor Beverly Garland.
The Bride Wore Black (Kino Lorber) Jeanne Moreau is glorious as the vengeful bride, avenging her husband’s murder on their wedding day by tracking and killing the five men responsible. Directed by Francois Truffaut in 1968 and based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window) and scored by the great Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo), there is definitely a Hitchcock vibe here. Moreau is stunning, decked out in black and white outfits, as she stalks her prey in this elegant and fiendishly satisfying tale of unimaginable grief and revenge. Audio commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo, Steven C. Smith and Nick Redman.
The Story of Adele H (Kino Lorber) Francois Truffaut’s mesmerizing 1975 film about the daughter of author Victor Hugo- Adele (played by the incandescent Isabelle Adjani) and her obsessive love for an officer- Lt. Pinson (Bruce Robinson) in 1863 which caused her to follow him across the globe writing letter after letter professing her love which he repeatedly ignored. Tragically this grand affair was all in her mind and the film charts her tragic odyssey of delusionary self-destruction. Truffaut himself appears as an officer Adele mistakes for Pinson. Heartbreaking and achingly beautiful, and with one of the most haunting and unforgettable of endings. Audio commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
Mississippi Mermaid (Kino Lorber) This 1969 Francois Truffaut film is set in Reunion, a French Colonial island in the Indian Ocean. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Louis, the owner of a tobacco plantation, who is set to meet his upcoming mail order bride- Julie (met through a series of ads in the personal column) arriving by boat, a woman he has never met or seen. Julie (Catherine Deneuve) is not the woman who he is expecting, but she explains she used another person’s picture. He accepts her story, marries her and lives in bliss until suddenly Julie disappears, along with all his money, and Louis suffers a complete breakdown. That’s when the film takes a fabulously bizarre turn into obsessional love and murder. Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel Waltz into Darkness (a better title indeed), it’s a strange and rather beautiful film (much like the two leads). With audio commentary by film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
The Werewolf of Washington (Kino Lorber) Barely released at the time (and criminally underappreciated) 1973 political dark comedy about the President’s press secretary who transforms into a werewolf when the moon shines over the White House. Dean Stockwell gives an inspired, witty performance as a former press corps rising star who gets attacked by a wolf while on assignment in Budapest. When he returns to the States he becomes the President’s (Biff McGuire) press secretary as a series of werewolf attacks rock the city. Typically, the White House blames it on the Black Panthers. The quirky, dark-humored satire, directed by Milton Moses Ginsberg, is truly worthy of rediscovery. (The bowling scene alone is memorably cracked). The negative was thought to be lost and found only 10 years ago and this is the director’s cut of the film and comes with an interview with director Milton Moses Ginsberg by Jake Perlin (who was instrumental in the film’s resurrection). Ginsberg, who also directed the controversial Coming Apart, sadly passed away in 2021.
Raw Wind in Eden (Kino Lorber) Once MGM’s aquatic mermaid, Esther Williams was signed by Universal where she attempted more serious acting fare. Here she plays a fashion model who is aboard a small plane (along with a rich playboy) which crashes on a rocky island off Sardina. Living there is a elderly man, his spitfire daughter (Rossana Podesta) and her fiancé, a beachcomber (Jeff Chandler) with a secret past. Passions are enflamed between Williams and Chandler as she is stranded there for weeks. Never before on home video, this 1958 color Cinemascope melodrama is full of ripe dialogue and colorful scenery and damned if they don’t get Esther into a fetching bathing suit in one scene. With entertaining audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle and Daniel Kremer.
White Woman (Kino Lorber) Pre-Code shocker starring the luminous Carole Lombard as Judith Denning, a nightclub singer performing in a “native bar” after her husband scandalously took his own life. She is run off the island by the authorities and reluctantly accepts a proposal of marriage by rubber plantation owner Horace Prin (Charles Laughton), known as “King of the River.” He lives in a glorified riverboat and has blackmailed all the men who work under him (including future “Pa Kettle” Percy Kilbride), holding their criminal past over them. When Judith begins to fall for another man (Kent Taylor), both their lives are in peril. Laughton with a handlebar mustache and an irascible, cruel glint in his eye has a field day as the monstrous Prin. Audio commentary by filmmaker Allan Arkush and Daniel Kremer.
Don’t Deliver Us from Evil (Mondo Macabro) Banned around the world as “blasphemous” and never released in the US, this 1971 French shocker is about two convent girls who read forbidden books and sinfully give themselves over to the dark side, reveling in cruel and perverse acts. Their wicked deeds only accelerate, seducing and destroying many along the way. I remember seeing this years ago and marveling at how subversive and fiendishly enjoyable it was. Directed by Joel Seria, this Blu-ray is a brand-new restoration from the original negative with interviews with the director and archival interviews with actress Jeanne Goupil and audio commentary by Kat Ellinger).
Bubba Ho-Tep (Shout! Factory) Elvis never left the building in the gleefully gonzo film by Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale. Elvis (Bruce Campbell) traded places with an Elvis impersonator and is still alive in Mud Creek Texas at the Shady Rest Convalescent home. But a bad hip and a “growth on his pecker” is the least of his troubles. There are winged scarabs scuttling across the floor at night and a soul-sucking mummy who uses the rest home as a feeding ground. Elvis’ only ally is an elderly black man who says he’s JFK (Ossie Davis) and these grumpy old mummy killers’ weapons are walkers and bedpans. Coscarelli made the supremely scary Phantasm when he was in his teens and this has the ingenious simplicity of that one plus a poetically funny comic voice-over reminiscent of the best of the Coen Brothers. Bruce Campbell gives a poignant and hilarious performance as the aging “King.” A 4K UHD restoration.
Dark Glasses (Shudder) The first film in 10 years from the 82-year-old Italian master of the macabre Dario Argento is a glorious return to “giallo” thriller, but with surprising tenderness and compassion alongside the gore. Diane (llenia Pastorelli) is a recently blinded high-class call girl targeted by a fiendish serial killer who ends up on the run with an orphaned Chinese boy named Chin (Andrea Zhang) and a very protective seeing-eye dog. Asia Argento, in a lovely sympathetic role, plays Rita, who helps Diana navigate through her new state of blindness. There are elements that reference earlier Argento works. One suspects the movie Argento would have made 20 years ago (when he first wrote the script) would be very different from the way this plays out. Perhaps it comes with Argento’s age or maturity as an artist, but there is real beating heart beneath this brooding, elegantly mysterious, dark thriller.
Attack Force Z (Severin) Based on a true Australian Special Force Operation Team assembled during World War II who were sent in to do impossible acts of bravery or die trying. A very young charismatic Mel Gibson (2 years after he had made Mad Max) plays Sgt. and other Z members include actors Sam Neill, John Phillip Law and Australian actor John Waters. They play a squad sent onto a small Pacific Island (swarming with Japanese soldiers) to rescue some men who crashed in a plane in the mountains. They engage other island resistant fighters to aid them in this doomed mission. A surprisingly brutal film, with almost non-stop action. Director Phillip Noyce was originally set to direct, but, because of major disagreements with the producers, Tim Burstall was brought in and did a serviceable job with the impressive cast. This comes with an extra: Z Men Debriefed, with interviews with producer John McCallum and actor John Waters. Waters plays a soldier who dies right at the beginning of the film so as to disorient the audience and make them wary that any cast member could be killed at any given moment.
Attack of the Beast Creatures (AGFA: American Genre Film Archive) This loony 1985 wonder was shot in Fairfield, Connecticut and it’s about a group shipwrecked on an island filled with little toothy creatures that attack them. The “beasts” reminded me so much of the doll that attacks Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror, but funnier. Supposedly set in the roaring 20’s (so the actors could wear vintage clothes). The big attack on the group near a stream is required viewing it’s so hilarious. And when one of the castaways announces that there are “hundreds of them!” you barely can count 10. The disc includes an interview with director Mike Stanley and screenwriter Robert Hutton. I just love this film.
Accion Mutante (Severin) First time ever in a legit American release, this is a stunning 4k UHD and Blu-ray of director Alex de la Iglesia’s wild, rude and outrageous first feature produced by Pedro Almodovar and his brother Augustin. Set in a scrap-metal Mad Max futurescape where the deformed and handicapped have formed a terrorist group called Accion Mutante. Their leader, Ramon (Antonio Resines), has just been released from prison and plots a major violent event at the wedding of the daughter of a fearsome food magnate. They hide a man with a machine gun in the wedding cake and mow down the guests, kidnapping the heiress daughter and keeping her aboard a ramshackle space craft hoping to score a hundred million from the father. But then they crash land on a hostile planet. Almodovar favorite Rossy de Palma shows up as a doomed wedding guest. A non-stop, loony, cartoonish provocation that shows the scrappy, sardonic vision of Alex de la Iglesia, which would shine in later films like Perdita Durango, Day of the Beast, Witching & Bitching and his TV series 30 Coins. This is just a real blast.
Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (Vinegar Syndrome) Never before on home video of any kind is this 1956 adventure film directed by Curt Siodmak (Love Slaves of the Amazon) about a legendary bird-like monster causing the natives to flee their plantation jobs all along the Amazon. Leave it to macho owner Rock Dean (John Bromfield) and a cancer research doctor Andrea Romar (Beverly Garland) to go deep into the jungle to hunt down this fearsome creature. Filmed on location in Brazil and in Eastmancolor with plenty of whacky dance interludes, attacks by headhunters, snakes, wild buffalo, gators and one of the goofiest monsters in film history. Newly restored in 2K from its 35mm dupe negative with an archival featurette about Curt Siodmak (who wrote the screenplays for The Wolf Man and I Walked with a Zombie).
What a great collection of movies Dennis. Thanks.