A giddy mix of new and old, cult and classic Blu-rays released this month. Included, one terrific Italian thriller starring Giancarlo Giannini (Seven Beauties); a whacked-out Charles Bronson crime thriller; a little-known film noir starring Pat O’Brien and the fabulous Claire Trevor; Boris Karloff as a gangster running a NYC nightclub during prohibition in a Grand Hotel-like melodrama; two delirious W.C. Fields films; Sam Rockwell as a man from the future frantically trying to save to universe along with some harried diner patrons; a hit man hired by a little girl to eliminate the monster under her bed; plus the third of the grisly “Blind Dead” Spanish movies. Could anyone ask for more May-hem?
Dust Bunny (Lionsgate) An inspired, visually astonishing film directed by Bryan Fuller (who created the brilliant, transgressive Hannibal TV series) about a precocious 8-year-old girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan) who hires her hitman neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster living under her bed. With off-the-chart art direction that would put Wes Anderson to shame, it’s horrifyingly funny and truly unique. I don’t want to say too much for fear of ruining the fun of discovering it. I do have to say Sigourney Weaver shows up in just the wildest way and is absolutely sublime.
10 to Midnight (Kino Lorber) A 4K scan from the original 35mm negative of a fabulously demented 1983 Charles Bronson film, where he plays a tough, seasoned detective who plants evidence to put away a psycho serial killer (Gene Davis, brother of Brad Davis). This blows up in his face and sets the killer free to stalk Bronson’s daughter. The scene at the end where a nude Gene Davis shows up at an apartment to kill everyone there (reminiscent of Richard Speck’s infamous murderous spree) has to be seen to be believed. The extras include two sets of audio commentaries- one with film historian Paul Talbot, the other with casting director John Crowther, producer Pancho Kohner and film historian David Del Valle. There’s also an interview with one of the victims in the film- actress Jeanna Tomasina, actor Robert L. Lyons and a fun one with actor Andrew Stevens who describes being able to get Charles Bronson (who was incredibly reserved and private) to open up and tell stories about working on The Great Escape. He also describes actor Gene Davis (who had to perform a lot of the movie completely naked) as fearless.
Crack-Up (Warner Archive) Nifty little 1946 thriller starring Pat O’Brien as George Steele, who gives successful art lectures at a New York museum. But one night he shows up disheveled and disoriented, breaking into the museum and fighting with a cop, convinced he had been in a train wreck even though the police inform him that it never happened. Everyone just figures he is suffering the title of the film. The more he investigates the more he uncovers a shadowy conspiracy involved with the museum which puts his life at risk. The sublime Claire Trevor plays his classy reporter girlfriend who tries to help him figure it all out. Based on the short story Madman’s Holiday by Fredric Brown, it’s a wonderful paranoid film noir thriller where you never know who to trust. And, typically, Claire Trevor is just the best. The Blu-ray transfer is sensational.
Night World (Kino Lorber) A 2K scan of the 35mm fine grain print, this crackling 1932 pre-Code melodrama is set in a Manhattan nightclub during prohibition called Happy’s Place. Boris Karloff plays the gangster “Happy” who runs the joint and the film is set during a long night of revelry and revelations and eventual gunfire. Happy has a cheating wife (Dorothy Revier) who is making it with the choreographer (Russell Hopton). At the club is an unhappy drunken socialite Michael Rand (Lew Ayres), haunted by the fact his mother (Hedda Hopper) murdered his father and was acquitted. Lovely Mae Clarke (Frankenstein) plays kind-hearted chorus girl Ruth, who takes pity on Michael and meanwhile is trying to fend off the advances of a slick gambler (George Raft). Even the doorman Tim (Clarence Muse) can’t get off early to visit his dying wife at the hospital. This Grand Hotel-type drama is filled with terrific touches and even visionary chorographer Busby Berkeley does a snappy crackpot musical number “Who’s Your Little Who-Zis?”
Million Dollar Legs (Universal) A screwball pre-Code 1932 comedy directed by Edward F. Cline (The Bank Dick) and starring W. C. Fields as the president of Klopstokia, a bankrupt European country known for “goats and nuts.” Jack Oakie plays a brush salesman who falls for the president’s daughter Angela (Susan Fleming) and who comes up with a money-making idea of having Klopstokia enter the Olympics, with typical loony results. With a script by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve) of all people, and fun character actors like Hugh Herbert, Billy Gilbert, Ben Turpin and a young Dickie Moore with his trusty bow and arrow. Former New Yorker critic Pauline Kael described the film as one of her favorites, and “one of the silliest and funniest pictures ever made.”
International House (Universal) Really bizarre 1933 all-star comedy directed by Edward Sutherland (Murders in the Zoo) and starring W. C. Fields as a drunken pilot who lands his helicopter/plane on the roof garden of the swanky International House in Wu-hu China. The hotel is filled with people bidding on an invention by a Chinese scientist combining radio with visuals much like a television. George Burns plays the hotel doctor with his scatterbrained nurse (Gracie Allen). Actress Peggy Hopkins Joyce plays herself, looking to land a rich man. Bela Lugosi plays her jealous ex, also bidding on the invention. Stuart Irwin plays a US representative also in the bidding, whose mistaken case of measles puts the whole hotel in quarantine, much to the exasperation of the effete hotel manager (Franklin Pangborn). There are whacky musical numbers interspersed with Sterling Holloway, Baby Rose Marie (who would later co-star on The Dick Van Dyke Show), Rudy Vallee, and the great Cab Calloway doing “Reefer Man.”
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (Universal) Sam Rockwell plays a bearded, disheveled, ranting loon who crashes into Norms diner in West Hollywood with what looks like a bomb strapped to his chest. He announces that he is from the future and he needs a handful of patrons to help him save the universe from destructive A.I. or he will blow the place up. He also says he has done this 117 times and can’t get it right yet. Director Gore Verbinski’s audacious, nightmare comedy really hits the mark when we flashback to the individual diner patron’s lives- like the teachers- Mark (Michael Pena) and Janet (Zazie Beetz)- who lived through a harrowing day when their students, hypnotized by something on the phones, revolted in the school and turned into marauding zombies. Or the poor mother (Juno Temple), losing her son after a school shooting, who is offered a weird clone of him through a secret organization (but with ads). Or the strange girl in the bedraggled princess outfit (Haley Lu Richardson), suffering nose bleeds when she is near Wi-Fi or cell phones. Or how about poor Marie (Georgia Goodman), who just came into Norms for a comforting piece of pie. How will this motley crew survive the night and save the planet? There is something darkly funny about the loony, surreal obstacles they run into during this hellish night and I have to admit the movie kept taking me by surprise.
The Ghost Galleon (Bizarro) A new 4K scan from the original negative of the third in the gory, great Spanish “Blind Dead” films. In 1971 director Amando de Ossorio created Tombs of the Blind Dead, the first of a four-part series. It concerned the living dead Templar Knights, who fought in the Crusades and practiced occult sacrifices of virgins to ensure their immortality. Their eyes were pecked out by crows when they were left hanging by the courts, so now their rotting remains return from the dead in tattered monk’s robes astride skeletal horses to kill and maim. They can’t see you but they can hear your heart beating so they have the ability to strike murderously fast. In this entry, a publicity stunt involving two models in bikinis stranded on the ocean on a boat goes horribly wrong when a bank of fog rolls in and the women are confronted with a spooky, Flying Dutchman-like ghost ship, seemingly deserted. But it really is the tomb of the Templar Knights who rise up from crates like vampires at night, their skeletal forms in rotting monk cloaks, searching for blood. Fashionista Lilian (Maria Perschy) and the politician who thought up the stunt (Jack Taylor) and his henchman and one of the missing model’s roommates head out to save the lost women only to find themselves also stranded with the living dead. Less gruesome than the first two films but with great atmosphere (even though you keep thinking to yourself “toy boat” when they show the ghost galleon). This comes with an appreciation by author Diego Lopez-Fernandez; an interview with Sitges Film Festival director- Angel Sala– about the career of the director and an archival featurette: “Amando de Ossorio: The Last Templar.”
So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… (Raro/Kino Lorber) Love the title! It’s basically a 1975 Italian sleaze version of Bonjour Tristesse with gorgeous blonde Gloria Guida (To Be Twenty) playing the rich, spoiled daughter- Angela, who is bent out of shape because of her father’s new fiancé Irene (Dagmar Lassander/A Hatchet for the Honeymoon). Lying around nude in bed with her handsome gigolo boyfriend Sandro (Fred Robsahm), she plots how to thwart this upcoming marriage. The scheming vixen sends her boyfriend to romance Irene and when that doesn’t work she even seduces Irene herself in hopes of blackmailing her. But everything goes sideways in tragic ways. Fabulous sun-drenched visuals on the Sardinian Coast of Italy and stylishly directed by Silvio Amadio (Amuck!).
Ghost Nursing (Vinegar Syndrome) A really bonkers 1988 Hong Kong supernatural tale about poor Jackie (Suit Li), suffering a lifetime of bad luck who travels to Thailand and visits a holy mystic for help. He offers her an idol that is the spirit of a baby who died in childbirth and if she gives offerings of food, drink (and blood) her luck will change for the better. And it does. She even finds a handsome, successful boyfriend- Raymond (Norman Chu) but neglects the offerings to her child ghost and its spirit possesses the boyfriend in murderous ways. The finale with a battle in a graveyard between the mystic and the possessed boyfriend is really wild. All the usual gross tropes that go with these black magic films- vomiting maggots, attacking snakes, flying fetuses, etc. I forgot how much I loved these outrageous films. Newly scanned and restored in 2K from the original camera negative. There is also a terrific video essay by Samm Deighan: “Ghosts and Black Magic in Hong Kong Cinema.”
The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Celluloid Dreams) A limited edition 3-disc set, restored in 4K from the original negative of director Paolo Cavara’s sensational 1971 mystery about a psychopath targeting “loose” women and using an acupuncture needle first to incapacitate them before killing them. Giancarlo Giannini (Seven Beauties) plays the conflicted policeman, unsure if he is up to the task of solving the crimes. Stefania Sandrelli (The Conformist) plays his loving wife. Expertly directed and with wonderful co-stars (Rossella Falk, Barbara Bach, Barbara Bouchet), everything just works perfectly here. It comes with a wealth of extras besides an 80-page booklet and a set of reprinted publicity stills. One of the best “giallos.”
