Showing Soon; BFI Showcases Lubitsch, Huston, Petit, Asquith in May. April 1, 2008
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, Showing Soon , 22 commentsMore upcoming classic film and TV titles set for release in the U.K.
Scratch another Ernst Lubitsch title; his final film, the 1946 romantic comedy Cluny Brown is added to the BFI’s slate in May:
“Combining elegance and wit, Lubitsch’s last film, set in 1938 London, is one of the most engaging romantic comedies. Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer are well teamed as the plumber’s niece (later housemaid) and the intellectual Czech refugee, who throw English society into disarray with their disregard for conventions. This charming satire, aided by a wonderful script taking in snobbery upstairs, downstairs and in the middle classes, is given a jolly run around by a cast comprising most of Hollywood’s British stalwarts from Sir C Aubrey Smith and Peter Lawford to Sara Allgood and Una O’Connor.”
No details yet on extras, if any.
The BFI are on a roll; to add to their Asquith (the previously flagged A Cottage on Dartmoor) and Lubitsch titles in May comes John Huston’s A Walk With Love And Death: ‘From internationally-acclaimed director John Huston (The African Queen, The Misfits, The Night of the Iguana) this ‘lost’ cult classic stars the director’s daughter, Angelica Huston, as one half of the youthful couple who try against all odds to make their love and idealism endure against the backdrop of a brutal and bloody Medieval France.’
Extras include a ‘Behind the scenes look at film shoot on location’
And a fine May BFI quartet is made up with Chris Petit’s Radio On (1979): ‘Following a young London DJ (David Beames) on the road to Bristol to investigate the mysterious death of his brother, Radio On offers a unigue, compelling and even mythic vision of a late 1970s England, stalled between failed hopes of cultural and social change and the imminent upheavals of Thatcherism. Stunningly photographed by luminous monochrome, by Martin Schafer, and driven by a startling new wave soundtrack (Bowie, Kraftwerk, Lene Lovich, Ian Drury, Wreckless Eric) - and an early screen performance by Sting - Radio On is ripe for rediscovery.’
By the way, DVD Times excellent review (penned by FilmJournal’s Clydefro Jones) of that recent BFI Otto Preminger double - Margin for Error & A Royal Scandal - is here. DVD Times also has the full skinny on that new O Lucky Man! SE, noted in a previous Showing Soon.
Still in May and Yume release Nagisa Oshima’s The Sun’s Burial (1960):
“Set in the post-war slums of Osaka, The Sun’s Burial follows the lives and fates of the denizens of this hellish ghetto. Pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, vagrants, hustlers and gangsters struggle to survive amidst the poverty and decay of 1950’s Japan.
“Unflinching in it’s portrayal of life in these slums, the film goes beyond a documentary-style realism to achieve a garish, lurid Cinemascope aesthetic that is at once repulsive and yet mesmerising. It’s a pitiless and dispassionate portrait of a living hell that lurks behind the facade of a prosperous new Japan, a place where everything - food, sex, even blood - is simply a commodity to be stolen and sold.”
Among the ‘two-fers’ on the cards in May (all previously released titles from Sony) is Easy Rider / Two Lane Blacktop. Those Indiana Jones SEs mentioned way back are scheduled for release in May; cheap enough, I’ve seen all three for pre-order at £6.99 each - DVD Times has the full details.
I should be ecstatic at the release of another Korda film in R2, however, Charles Laughton’s astonishing portrayal of Rembrandt comes courtesy of Orbit Media, whose capacity to disappoint in the transfer stakes is seemingly boundless. The cover art is typically nice…and bound to trap the unwary.
That Optimum ‘war’ set (Angels Five One, The Dam Busters and Aces High - due for release in June), I mentioned a while back has now been named. It’s the Heroes Of The Skies Collection (or Heroes of The Heights, depending where you look). Still with Optimum, the much shunted about release of Odette is now planned for June as is Wanted Dead Or Alive - Season 2, Volume 1. It should come as no surprise that the seven film Joseph Losey Collection, planned for April, now looks to be a September release alongside Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 - Special Edition. I’m a little worried that those previously flagged Depardieu, Bardot and Attenborough ‘Icon’ sets haven’t appeared on the schedules of any etailer other than HMV. Hmmmm…
BTW a similar fate has befallen the 2|entertain release of Silas Marner, The Weaver Of Raveloe, which is now set for November.
Eureka’s Masters of Cinema range has two films from Kenji Mizoguchi coming at
the end of May in a double-header; Akasen Chitai and Yokihi, to follow up another Mizoguchi set in April featuring Ugetsu Monogatari and Oyu Sama.
Cheapo label (sorry, but you are…) Lace International Ltd are releasing more budget titles in May/June. Among them, 1980’s Fiend, apty enough a low-budget horror directed by Don Dohler, 1989’s Communion and the good old PD standby 1967’s Hells Angels on Wheels.
June and it looks like Universal is splitting their Laurel & Hardy titles into themed box sets: Laurel and Hardy: Armed Forces, Laurel and Hardy: Crime and Punishment, Laurel and Hardy: Family Life, Laurel and Hardy: Music. No details on the number of titles in each set, but they’ll be available from around £14.99 each. I mentioned ITVDVD Blu-ray releases of Black Narcissus and The Boys From Brazil for June recently; add the George Pan Cosmatos wartime romp Escape to Athena and Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone to that HD slate.
That Network release of Jamaica Inn I mentioned a while back turns out to be 1985 TV series starring Jane Seymour and Patrick McGoohan (seems to have fooled some etailers too); released April. A couple of filmed stage shows from British comedy legends; SonyBMG releases Norman Wisdom - Trouble on Tour and The Thoughts of Chairman Alf - Live the same date:
“Kick back in your comfy armchair, knock off your slippers and get ready for a trip down memory lane as the legendary slapstick actors Sir Norman Wisdom and Warren Mitchell, better known as Alf Garnett bring you classic comedy in the first two releases on SonyBMG’s new Retro TV DVD label. Both titles have not been seen since 1994 when they were released on VHS in a series called “Comedy Box” now revived on DVD and digitally remastered, including surround sound mixes and special bonus features,
“Released in 1994, ‘Norman Wisdom’s Trouble on Tour’ features Norman on stage performing the gags, songs and stunts that have made him one of Britain’s most well loved and admired comics of his generation. Norman, who is now 92, was recently featured in a documentary called ‘The Secret Life of Norman Wisdom aged 92¾’ on BBC2.”
Warren Mitchell appears in The Thoughts of Chairman Alf, a 1994 recording of his famous stage show that later became a TV series: “Mitchell stars as Alf Garnett, the UK’s most reactionary, mean-spirited, selfish, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic man. Alf Garnett was a fictional character on the BBC television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, the ITV sitcom Till Death… and later In Sickness and in Health. First shown in the theatre in 1976, ‘The Thoughts of Chairman Alf’ won the Evening Standard award for best comedy in London’s West End and was snapped up by other theatres. Twenty-two years later, Warren Mitchell reprised the role in Australia in front of a live studio audience as a TV series.”
Spotted at the BBFC; a pass for a 1939 20 minute short Lincoln in The White House, which will be on The Old Maid, part of the upcoming ‘Bette Davis’ box from Warner. Passes too for some Dirty Harry extras which will be on the new set (due for release June, as a stand alone SE and in a new Dirty Harry box set); Clint Eastwood on Directing is only just over five minutes long, John Milius - Getting The .44 Magnum is a mere 3m 41s, Evan Kim - The Martial Artist weighs in at 2m 5s, and Patricia Clarkson On Female Attraction is even shorter - 2m 1s, the same length as Andy Robinson - Does A Flip. Dirty Harry: The Original - Interviews For Dvd - Arnold Schwarzenegger is 2m 47s, Hal Holbrook - Being Seen is a ’blink and you’ll miss it’ 40 seconds.
In the last Showing Soon I mentioned the possibility of the sci-fi classic Colossus; The Forbin Project coming to DVD in the UK, in widescreen, complete with extras. The BBFC has now certified the film (but not those extras), not for Fabulous Films as showing at various etailers, but for Medium Rare - a subsidiary of some sort? (EDIT - I’m now reliably informed that Medium Rare are indeed Fabulous Films Ltd.) The BBFC has also certified the 1965 Anthony Simmons films Four in The Morning (to be released June) for Odeon.
Batman - The Movie (1966) is coming again to R2 it seems, both with more extras and (probably) in HD; the BBFC has just passed a commentary by screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., which should be in addition to the previous commentary track with West and Ward providing it is carried over from the last release.
That’s it for now; until the next Showing Soon, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel…