With Halloween on the horizon, some great scary treats to stock up on coming out this month on Blu-ray. From a 4K Horror of Dracula; two chilling Eli Roth Hostel films now on 4K UHD. Several films that never got a decent run are restored on Blu-ray- Pennies from Heaven and William Friedkin’s Jade. A terrific early Bette Davis film- Marked Woman; a heart-tugging Geraldine Page romantic drama- Dear Heart, and an excellent Doris Day comedy- Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. Also, a sublime documentary- Kim Novak’s Vertigo– to watch while handing out cavity-ripping candy to kiddies ringing your doorbell.
Horror of Dracula (Warner Archive) This is the stunning new 4K UHD restoration of Hammer Studios’ 1958 masterpiece starring Christopher Lee as the snarling, fanged vampire. Fairly faithful to the Bram Stoker novel, the costumes, sets, cast (with the magnificent Peter Cushing as hunter Van Helsing), not to mention plenty of heaving bosoms and blood, made this a game changer for the studio, and horror movies in general. Christopher Lee adds elegance, seductive charm, and palpable menace. The direction by Terence Fisher is peerless. The Blu-ray Includes some of the footage cut by censors at the time- which is some startling bits at the end with Dracula’s demise. Trust me, seeing new frames of this seminal horror classic is so worth it.
Pennies from Heaven (Warner Archive) Director Herbert Ross’s brilliant 1981 adaptation of the 1978 BBC drama by Dennis Potter. Potter adapted the screenplay for American audiences setting it in Chicago during the depression. Starring Steve Martin as a sheet music salesman falling on tough times. During his extensive travels he meets a shy schoolteacher (Bernadette Peters) who he has an affair with. But he deserts her to go back with his wife (Jessica Harper). The schoolteacher becomes pregnant and in desperation hooks up with a stylish, sleazy pimp (Christopher Walken). The sheet music salesman is falsely accused of murder, which an accordion-playing vagrant (Vernel Bagneris) actually committed. The conceit of the movie is that the character’s tragic lives are transformed through popular songs in which they fantasize themselves performing dazzling, Hollywood dance numbers. These lip-synched flights of fancy are gorgeously choreographed by Danny Daniels and costumed by Bob Mackie. Highlights include a fantastic number with Bernadette Peters in a slinky silver gown in front of her school kids, who are dancing and playing musical instruments in white dinner jacket attire. Christopher Walken tap dances a wild strip on a bar, and Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters go into Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers mode with “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” It’s both heart-breaking and sensational. A box office flop, this was rightfully championed by critic Pauline Kael who said, “there was never a second when I wasn’t fascinated by what was on the screen.”
Hostel/ Hostel II (Shout Factory!) A 4K UHD restoration of two great Eli Roth chillers. Hostel (2005) was about two college students- Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) who unwisely travel to a youth hostel in Slovakia, only to be used as victims for sick killers who pay big money to murder tourists. Quentin Tarantino pops up as a partier yelling out a window, and director Takashi Miike (Audition) is one of the “Elite Hunting Club” clients. There are some harrowing sequences in this film that became a lightning rod for critics complaining about the explicit violence and sadism in movies, now referred to as “torture porn.” But fuck them, it’s a terrific, genuinely scary film. Hostel: Part II joins that rare group of fright sequels like Evil Dead 2 and Dawn of The Dead that not only reinvents itself and ups the ante but crosses over into hard core horror art as well. Eli Roth is a rarity among genre directors. He has an affinity for horror but is smart enough to shape his films into something original, darkly funny and disturbingly visceral. Hostel was about a bunch of dudes backpacking in Europe out for girls and ganja who are coerced to Slovakia for more of the same but end up becoming victims for rich decadents who want to experience the thrill of a kill. In the new film, it’s three women- Lauren German, Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo, lured by a gorgeous model (Vera Jordanova) to this dreadful place. But we also see more of the nefarious organization and the bidding war for potential targets (which is like eBay of the damned). Everything boils down to cash in this film- and that’s what makes this scarier in many respects (and politically on target). This movie is more operatic, with scenes of unparalleled terror. A scene with Heather Matarazzo is so gothic and ghastly it takes your breath away. The film feels richer and more fleshed out and still manages to sucker-punch you at the end. Roger Bart and Richard Burgi are particularly great as two clients of this terrible “Elite Hunting” in town for their first “kills”, and there are clever shifts and surprises in their character arc that reveal the genius of Roth’s master plan. And then to throw the legendary Italian director of Cannibal Holocaust– Reggero Deodato in a scene right out of a Lucio Fulci’s 1988 Touch of Death is demented and too wonderful for words. A true horror movie classic.
Kim Novak’s Vertigo (Kino Lorber) (DVD only) Alexandre O. Philippe’s incredibly moving documentary of actress Kim Novak, looking back on her life and her films, particularly focusing on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Novak is incredibly candid about her past and her career and that she was a “reactor” more than an “actor” on screen. She talks of her love of Greta Garbo, particularly the way she lived her life, and how she too had to leave Hollywood when she did, at the height of her popularity. Novak describes how art (particularly painting) was her salvation. But the crux of the film is her recollection of Vertigo. She holds the script- which miraculously survived two fires. She unpacks the gray dress she wore and becomes incredibly emotional. She describes what her character was thinking, while watching scenes from the film. It’s all surprisingly powerful and very revealing, and gives a better understanding of Novak, her work, and her life. At the end when she thanks Alexandre O. Philippe for “giving her permission to appreciate myself, to appreciate that reacting was good,” the moment is incredibly tender and intimate. A cinephile wet dream.
Marked Woman (Warner Archive) A “ripped from headlines” 1937 crime drama, directed by Lloyd Bacon and vaguely based on the 1936 “Lucky” Luciano trial in which prostitutes bravely gave testimony against him, causing Luciano to be convicted of running a vice racket. In this film, Bette Davis plays a “clip joint hostess” who dares to stand up to a fearsome gangster (excellent Eduardo Ciannelli), who causes the death of her sister and has a X carved into her face as a warning. But she defiantly takes the stand to help a District Attorney (Humphrey Bogart channeling real Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey) nail the mob boss. This was a big turning point for Bette Davis– who subsequently legally fought Warner Brothers for better roles and got suspended. She lost that case. Afterwards she feared the studio might punish her but she ended up getting a string of excellent film parts which changed the trajectory of her career. This was good for Humphrey Bogart too, who wearied of only playing gangsters. The film looks sensational on Blu-ray and comes with two early great Warner Brothers cartoons- “Porky’s Hero Agency,” and “She was the Acrobat’s Daughter.” The end of this film is just unforgettable.
Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (Warner Archive) So happy to see this great 1960 comedy on Blu-ray. Based on the book by Jean Kerr, who was married to noted NY Times theater critic Walter Kerr. The film charts the comic misadventures of theater critic Larry Mackay (David Niven), his wife Kate (Doris Day) and rambunctious kids and sheep dog when they move to the suburbs and into a run-down mansion. Larry gets sudden fame for his caustic reviews, which causes problems. And then there’s curvaceous musical star Deborah Vaughn (fabulous Janis Paige) seductively targeting Larry. With heavenly Spring Byington as Kate’s mom, and a funny Jack Weston as a cab driver who has written a musical based on the Bible. Cheerfully directed by Charles Walters, this is great fun from beginning to end and Doris does get to sing the theme song while volunteering to watch over a bunch of kids after school.
Dear Heart (Warner Archive) A real guilty pleasure for me. An offbeat 1964 urban romance starring a glorious Geraldine Page as effusive Evie Jackson, arriving at a New York hotel from Ohio for a Postmasters convention. She’s the kind of woman who knows the name of every bellboy and elevator man. She brings pictures to hang on the walls and new lightbulbs to soften the light in her room. “I always try to make hotel rooms what they aren’t.” She meets cute with a greeting card salesman named Harry (Glenn Ford), who is apprehensively about to marry a “tomato from Altuna”- Phyllis (Angela Lansbury)- but her unruly college son (Michael Anderson Jr.) shows up, kicked out of school, with a beatnick girlfriend taking a bath in Harry’s hotel room. Full of great character actors like Barbara Nichols, Mary Wickes, Alice Pearce, Richard Deacon, and directed by Delbert Mann (Marty). There’s a disarming charm to all of it, and Page and Ford are just terrific. For some reason just hearing that sweeping Henry Mancini theme song I’m a goner for some unknown reason. The new transfer looks fantastic and it comes with two Warner Brothers cartoons- “Hawaiian Aye Aye” and “The Iceman Ducketh.”
Kriminal (Cult Epics) Umberto Lenzi based his 1966 film on ”fumetti neri,” 1960s dark Italian comic books glorifying anti-hero criminals and reveling in sex and sadism. This may be hard to imagine from the director of Cannibal Ferox, but Lenzi toned down the sleaze and made this criminal more of a roguish bad boy, bedding women and stealing the Crown Jewels of England for the hell of it- even returning them to Scotland Yard because they were too hard to fence. Glenn Saxson, a handsome Dutch actor known for starring in spaghetti westerns, gets to portray this master thief, who dresses in a body suit painted with a yellow skeleton. Kriminal sides up with his ex-wife who works for Lady Gold (Esmeralda Ruspoli), who is shipping diamonds to Istanbul using attractive identical twin female couriers (Helga Line). Many double crosses and triple crosses ensue. Kriminal even escapes from a death row gallows. Like a nasty James Bond film in some ways- it’s hard to imagine Sean Connery trap and gas a woman to death in a sauna or trade a man’s shaving cream with flesh-eating sulfuric acid. Included on the extras is a feature length documentary on Umberto Lenzi; a new interview with Glenn Saxson and audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth (who wrote the excellent book “Make Them Die Slowly: The Kinetic Cinema of Umberto Lenzi.”)
The Haunted Cop Shop (88 Films) Whacky 1987 horror comedy directed by Jeffrey Lau (A Chinese Odyssey) and amazingly co-written and produced by Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love). Set at a police precinct built over a funeral parlor and occurring during “The Hungry Ghost Festival.” Two bumbling cops (Jackie Cheung and Ricky Hui) spend most of the movie fighting ghosts and vampires overrunning the precinct. It ends at a battle with the lead vampire- in a full cape and fangs- at the haunted, abandoned “Three Saint’s House” where they even have to put underwear on their head and assume the “Imminent Star Strikes Dipper” stance to hold back the bloodsucker. Extras on the disc include audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema expert Frank Djeng, and “Hauntings and Hollerings” with James Mudge discussing the director and film.
Bluebeard (Kino Lorber) One of my favorite so-bad-it’s-good movies is given a 4K UHD restoration! Bluebeard starred Richard Burton and sex-kitten Joey Heatherton. I remember vividly seeing this 1972 stinker in a sparsely attended movie theater and had to jam my scarf down my throat to stifle the unintentional laughter that kept surging up. But to see it looking beautiful on Blu-ray is a joy indeed and watching it again after so many years I was relieved to find it still God-awful and still unbearably hilarious. Burton plays Baron Von Sepper, an ace flyboy and World War I war hero, who lives in a massive castle and is revered by the town elders. He commands a group of crypto-Nazis, raiding and decimating Jewish sections of town. He is also a literal lady-killer, wedding or wooing a series of women who are never seen alive again. And yes, his beard is actually blue! His newest bride is a sexy American vaudeville star Anne (Joey Heatherton). Her musical number is laughably modern and ends in a split on stage and a wet-lipped sexy smile at the Baron who is instantly smitten. He weds her and in very Grimm’s fairy tale-mode gives her the keys to the castle but warns her that one gold key she can never ever use. Burton wearily seems to sleepwalk through the film. Wearing lavender tuxedos, playing the organ with a hawk on his shoulder, or even gazing with disbelief at his sex-kitten bride. In his autobiography, director Edward Dmytryk blamed the disaster on Richard Burton’s round-the-clock drinking, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. The film plays like it’s supposed to be a black comedy but all the laughs are unintentional. Thank God for Joey Heatherton who seems beamed in from another universe. One where she is always ready to burst into a glitzy song and dance and show off her perky breasts with pouty abandon.
Jade (Vinegar Syndrome) William Friedkin’s 1995 erotic thriller starring David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino and Chazz Palminteri, with a script by Joe Eszterhas, was a bomb at the time of its release and Vinegar Syndrome’s stunning 4k UHD release is a fun re-evaluation and a bit of a revelation. Because the movie is actually great, kinky fun. It kind of falls apart at the end but for the most part it zips right along. Set in San Francisco, David Caruso plays Corelli, an Assistant District Attorney investigating the brutal hacking to death of a wealthy art dealer, who they soon discover had a beach house where call girls had sex with important men. They were secretly filmed there and later blackmailed. As the case continues, incriminating sex photos of the Governor (Richard Crenna) and a hooker are uncovered and a mysterious woman named “Jade” is alluded to. Could Jade be Trina (Linda Fiorentino), a former flame of Corelli now married to his best friend- Matt (Chazz Palminteri)- a formidable lawyer. There are some hair-raising chases down the hills of San Francisco to rival Bullit, but, considering it’s from a script by Joe Eszterhas, the sleaze factor is really high. This Blu-ray includes the 95-minute Theatrical Cut and the 147-minute Director’s Cut where we get to see a lot more sex. Not to mention a completely different ending. Nonetheless it was nice to re-discover it. I’ve always loved Friedkin and remember dismissing Jade when it came out- but I had a great time watching it on Blu-ray and it looks fantastic. Linda Fiorentino is always sensational- beautiful and mysterious and with that sexy, throaty voice. And she plays a fascinating, complicated, liberated sexual being in the film, which is refreshing. This is a 2-disc, newly restored restoration on 4K UHD and Blu-ray with an interview with Joe Eszterhas, a featurette with editors Augie Hess and Darrin Navarro, and a handsome booklet with essays on this unfairly maligned film.