Showing Soon; Losey, Leigh and Bette Davis Collections… February 26, 2008
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, Showing Soon , 11 commentsShowing Soon in R2
Another look at what’s upcoming for fans of classic film and TV in the U.K…
Slipped under the radar; Cinema Club have just released Joe Losey’s 1973 filmed version of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with Jane Fonda, Edward Fox, Trevor Howard and David Warner, plus the 1975 TV version of In This House of Brede with Diana Rigg, Pamela Brown, Gwen Watford and Denis Quilley. Also available now, Abel Ferrara’s 1985 movie Fear City with Tom Berenger and Melanie Griffith.
Sony is releasing the Deluxe Edition of The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen in April, concurrently with a Blu-Ray edition. Fox has both Commando and Wall Street coming on Blu-Ray in March.
Early April sees the release of an 11-disc Mike Leigh Collection; this is by way of Spirit Entertainment (who they?) and sees a box set of some of the best work from one of Britain’s finest directors. It contains:
A 56-page companion booklet with a complete filmography, stills and quotes
Bonus DVD of extras
Vera Drake: Special Features: Cast & Crew documentary, trailer.
All or Nothing: Special Features: Commentary by Mike Leigh, Interviews and Trailer.
Topsy-Turvy: Special Features: Commentary by Mike Leigh, Trailer.
Career Girls: Special Features: Trailer.
Secrets & Lies: Special Features: Interview with Mike Leigh, short film - A Sense of History, Trailer.
Naked: Special Features: Commentary by Mike Leigh, David Thewlis and Katrin Cartlidge. Trailer
Life Is Sweet: Special Features: Short The Short & Curlies, Trailer.
High Hopes: Special Features: Interview with Mike Leigh and On Set Footage, Production Notes and Biographies.
Meantime: Special Features: Interviews with Mike Leigh, Tim Roth and Marion Bailey.
Bleak Moments
Though I own most of those, I’m still bizarrely tempted; such is the lure of a nicely presented collection. I’m a huge fan, but I think Leigh is strangely under-appreciated - any director that can include both the magnificently bleak Naked and the quite joyous Topsy-Turvy in his CV must surely take his place at the top table of talents? The same day Contender releases Game of Death, their blurb reads: ‘After 22 years of waiting, Game of Death is at last available to UK audiences as nature intended. Now re-instated is the incredible one-on-one nunchuka battle between Bruce Lee and top student Dan Inosanto, which conceptually is totally unique to this movie.’
For animation fans in April, there’s a fistful of ‘Asterix’ releases - The Twelve Tasks Of Asterix, Asterix And Cleopatra and Asterix The Gaul. Paramount has a little treat for movie lovers (and foodies) with Big Night, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s beautiful 1996 film with Tucci, Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini, Ian Holm and Tony Shalhoub. Don’t forget that Paramount is also releasing the original Sleuth (to coincide with the release of the remake) with Caine and Olivier at the end of April, unfortunately sans the Anthony Shaffer interview that was on the OOP Anchor Bay disc. Paramount is also to go the re-release route (again) with ‘Special Editions’ for Mission Impossible 1 & 2 at the end of June alongside HD DVD (or perhaps Blu-ray now) releases of Coming to America (May) plus The Untouchables and Reds (June).
No word on just who is responsible yet, but April also sees a DVD release for Peter Brooks’ spirited The Beggar’s Opera with Laurence Olivier as Captain MacHeath. Second Sight have slated Ronald Neame’s Walter Matthau comedy spy caper Hopscotch for April 21, the same time they release Georges Franju’s Eyes Without A Face while Artificial Eye have Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac, A Man Escaped and The Devil, Probably ready to go. Shameless have the ‘nunsploitation’ film The Story of a Cloistered Nun (candle’s out girls…). Don’t forget AE’s Les Vampires (3-disc Collector’s Edition) is released next month.
From Optimum, another feast: The Joseph Losey Collection is released April 28 and contains:
The Go Between: Summer 1900: Queen Victoria’s last and the summer Leo turns 13. He’s the guest of Marcus, a wealthy classmate, at a grand home in rural Norfolk. Leo is befriended by Marian, Marcus’s twenty-something sister, a beauty about to be engaged to Hugh, a viscount and good fellow. Marian buys Leo a forest-green suit, takes him on walks, and asks him to carry messages to and from their neighbor, Ted Burgess, a bit of a rake. Leo is soon dissembling, realizes he’s betraying Hugh, but continues as the go-between nonetheless, asking adults naive questions about the attractions of men and women. Can an affair between neighbours stay secret for long? And how does innocence end?
The Servant: In this landmark drama of class struggle and moral decay, a pampered playboy (James Fox) acquires an elegant townhouse complete with a dedicated man servant (Dirk Bogarde). But when the young man’s fiance (Wendy Craig) becomes suspicious of the servant’s intentions, he and his ’sister’ (Sarah Miles) thrust the household into a sinister game where seduction is corruption and power becomes the most shocking desire of all.
Accident: When an accident kills one of his student, and Oxford professor (Dirk Bogarde) recounts the circumstances of their meeting. But as these turbulent memories unfold, they reveal a series of shocking relationships betrayed by adultery, obsession and self-destruction in which nothing is what it seems and everything has its cost.
The Criminal: Stanley Baker stars as underworld kingpin Johnny Bannion, sprung from prison by his best friend Mike Carter to mastermind a daring racetrack heist. But when Johnny is sent back to jail shortly after hiding the stolen loot, he must survive and ordeal of brutality and betrayal at the hands of his fellow convicts and former accomplices in this gritty drama that was originally advertised as “The Toughest Film Ever Made In Britain!”
Eva: Welsh writer Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker) seems to have it all, Sixties style — an international best seller, an apartment in Rome, a gorgeous fiancée in Virna Lisi - but he’s bitter anyway. He meets his existential match in ennui in the mod seductress Eve, played by Jeanne Moreau, who was never more cynical or iconic. Decked out in pointy pumps and heavy eyeliner, listening to Billie Holiday on scratchy LPs as she counts the lire and smokes endless packs of cigarettes in strangers’ bedrooms, she is the epitome of frayed glamour. An emotional tyrant, Eve’s casual maneuvering forces Baker to confront his past - and his weaknesses - as a man and an artist.
Mr. Klein: As Jews flee Paris, Mr. Klein exploits them, preying on their desperation by buying their valuables at a fraction of their worth… until he finds his name is shared by a Jewish member of the anti-Nazi resistance. Klein reports this to the authorities only find that he is uncontrollably sinking into the quicksand of mistaken identity.
The Sleeping Tiger: A doctor who believes he can reform criminals by psychiatric treatment takes into his house a young criminal who had tried to rob him at gunpoint to test his theories. The youth, however, begins an affair with the doctor’s wife.
Some cross-pollination there for owners of Optimum’s Dirk Bogarde and Julie Christie sets (and surely - surely - Optimum will release a Stanley Baker Collection at some point?) Now, please Optimum - please let’s have a proper anamorphic OAR release of The Go Between. Optimum is to release Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13: Special Edition in April and (fans of Stanley Baker rejoice) Peter Yates’ exciting take on the Great Train Robbery - Robbery - in May, lots of thwackings to the groin, screeching of tyres and steely hard man looks. Yum. Optimum has also rescheduled Happy Is The Bride for August and Rashomon for September release.
May sees an R2 release for Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! from Warner, who are also releasing a six disc Bette Davis Anniversary Boxset the same month (this may switch, as they sometimes do, to a retailer exclusive). The titles are:
In This Our Life (Dir. John Huston) (1942): A young woman Stanley (Bette Davis) dumps her fiancée Craig (George Brent) and runs off with her sister’s husband Peter (Dennis Morgan). They marry, settle in Baltimore, and Stanley ultimately drives Peter to drink and suicide. Stanley returns home to Richmond only to learn that her sister and old flame have fallen in love and plan to marry. The jealous and selfish Stanley attempts to win back Craig’s affections, but her true character is revealed when she attempts to pin a hit and run accident on the young black clerk who works in Craig’s law office.
The Old Maid (Dir. Edmund Goulding) (1939): This is the sad story of Charlotte (Bette Davis), a woman whose circumstances force her to give up her illegitimate child and pose as the child’s old maid aunt, thereby facing a lifetime of maternal sacrifice. Miriam Hopkins provides effective counterbalance with her portrayal of Charlotte’s effusive cousin, who raises the little girl.
All This And Heaven Too (Dir. Anatole Litvak) (1940): A first-rate drama about a 19th century nobleman who falls in love with his childrens’ governess and murders his wife
The Great Lie (Dir. Edmund Goulding) (1941): After a newlywed’s husband apparently dies in a plane crash, she discovers that her rival for his affections is now pregnant with his child.
Watch On The Rhine (Dir. Herman Shumlin and Hal Mohr) (1943): Set during WW2. An anti-Nazi leader escapes with his wife to America, only to find himself being pursued and blackmailed by Nazi agents.
Deception (Dir. Irving Rapper) (1946): Based on Louis Verneuil’s 1928 play Jealousy, the film tells the story of pianist Christine Radcliffe separated from her great love, cellist Karel Novak by World War II. Unexpectedly reunited with him, Christine desperately strives to hide her wartime dalliance as the mistress of a wealthy, sadistic composer (Rains), with devastating results.
It is said that all films come with the extra content: ‘Warner Night At The Movies’ - a ’special selection of extras that recreate the movie going experience of the time with newsreel footage, featurettes and contemporary cartoons and trailers’. Hopefully, the only difference content wise between this and the R1 Bette Davis Collection 3 is the title.
April sees a raft of titles coming yet again from various PD merchants (The Big Trees, Charade, etc., etc.), slipped in there are The Bela Lugosi Collection, The Boris Karloff Collection and The Classic Westerns Collection, The John Wayne Collection, The Rudolph Valentino Collection, The Roy Rogers Collection; no word on titles but don’t have any hopes transfer wise.
Looking ahead to May and you’ll find Jess Franco’s Demons from Redemption, and a Yume Pictures release of Nigisa Oshima’s Night And Fog in Japan (aka Nihon No Yoru To Kiri) plus Tartan’s three disc Fukasaku Trilogy Box Set. According the HMV website, June also sees Paramount releasing the remastered box set of the Godfather trilogy mentioned in a recent Showing Soon; the rrp is £29.99, some £30 cheaper than the original release seven years ago, which tells you quite a lot about the way the DVD game has gone in recent years - little wonder studios are bleating about those little shiny discs becoming less profitable. When I think about what I paid for discs at the turn of the millennium. No details on whether the extras will be carried over, or indeed, if there are any new extras in store - watch this space.
The BBFC has shown a pass for Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law for Optimum. Less thrilling news is a pass for the 1965 Agatha Christie ‘whodunit’ Ten Llittle Indians for PD specialists Orbit; expect nothing in the way of a restored transfer. The BBFC is also currently passing extras for Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of The Body Snatchers for Fox, who, as in R1, are currently marketing discs for MGM - if the R2 replicates the R1, fans this side of The Pond will be very happy.
TV releases in April include The Chinese Detective (5 Discs), The Gentle Touch - Series 2, London’s Burning - Series 7, Mork And Mindy - Season 2, The Owl Service, Crown Court - Volume 3, Enemy At The Door - Series 1 and Series 2, Follyfoot - Series 2, Hadleigh - Series 1 and Series 2, Laverne And Shirley: Season 1, The Morecambe and Wise Show: Series 4 (2 Discs), Desmond’s: Complete Series 2, Ironside: Series 1 (8 Discs) plus the 1976 adaptation of Our Mutual Friend, from Acorn, featuring Jane Seymour, Leo McKern, John McEnery and Lesley Dunlop; extras include Cast Filmographies, a Charles Dickens Biography, and a Charles Dickens Bibliography. May sees another release for Threads, Porterhouse Blue, The Incredible Hulk: Season 3 (6 Discs), The Incredible Hulk: Season 4 (6 Discs) and The Cosby Show: Season 1 (4 Discs). Network say they have something quite special coming May; Department S; The Complete Series. By the way, Fremantle have recently announced a budget release for Oliver Stone’s Wild Palms next month.
A Hitch Slight…
Finally, a recent Showing Soon looked forward immensely to Network’s new box set, Alfred Hitchcock; The British Years, but the just posted DVD Times reviews are disappointng to say the least. Bad sound - no sound - scratchy, sometimes unrestored prints transferred to single layer discs, extras cobbled together from the butt end of the archives or retrieved from previous releases to save the pennies, no commentaries, and box art that would disgrace a pair of comedy Union Jack underpants; it all smacks of a huge under-achievement from a British company supposedly celebrating not just one of the great directors, but a great British director. Well, that’s my grumpy over-reaction; read the reviews yourself here. Grrr…
‘Til next time…