Glenn Erickson's Reviews: Month: April 2023

Silent Avant-Garde 04/29/23

CineSavant dips into film school heaven with Bruce Posner’s new collection of experimental art pix spanning a hundred years of cinematic impishness. The Dadaists and Cubists are here — Léger, Man Ray, Duchamp — plus camera geniuses, cinematic theorists and others wishing to make a splash in museum showings. Featured are works by Orson Welles, Slavko Vorkapich, Jay Leyda, Joseph Cornell, Francis Thompson, Mary Ellen Bute, Robert Flaherty, Ralph Steiner and Robert Florey. All are digitally optimized, with curated soundtracks. On Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
04/29/23

Border Incident 04/25/23

The first MGM film from the noir team of Anthony Mann / John Alton is a crime exposé of the migrant farmworker issue. Ricardo Montalban is excellent as a Mexican immigration cop, and co-star George Murphy makes a traumatic impression in one of the most sadistic scenes in classic film noir. Hardcore noir addresses a thorny political issue, and has the guts to place the blame where it belongs — on corrupt U.S. agri-business. Mann and Alton are in top form; even with the film’s EGBOK ending, this was pretty strong tea for MGM in the middle of the HUAC years. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
04/25/23

12 Angry Men 4K 04/25/23

The Sidney Lumet classic graduates to the 4K bracket, with a new transfer. Pictures like this taught a generation of American kids that our system of justice was alive and vital — even if Reginald Rose’s tense drama suggests that twelve inconvenienced jurors can also behave like a Lynch Mob. Star Henry Fonda continued his career streak playing men of high moral principle. The drama hasn’t weakened and the direction is flawless — Sidney Lumet was very proud of this, his feature debut. Also starring Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman & Ed Begley. One of the extras is William Friedkin’s 1997 remake with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. On 4K Ultra HD from KL Studio Classics.
04/25/23

Backtrack 04/22/23

Dennis Hopper’s self-indulgent romantic hit man thriller is too interested in modern art and cinematic detours to give its own storyline a fair shake. The supporting cast and celebrity walk-ons are fun; star Jodie Foster does the heavy lifting with a difficult character to play. Kino’s disc has both versions — the theatrical cut is shorter than Hopper’s director’s cut, and uses uses some alternate scenes. The candid audio commentary is by the actual unbilled authors of the shooting script, Tod Davies and Alex Cox. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
04/22/23

The Assassination Bureau 04/22/23

Pitched somewhere between spy thrills, camp satire and art nouveau nostalgia, Basil Dearden’s assassination adventure didn’t launch a comic book fantasy phase, even if it resembles the graphic-novel thrillers that now dominate the movies. Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed do their utmost to elevate the joky script, and almost succeed . . . and plenty of fans say that it’s a winner. Also with Telly Savalas, Curd Jürgens, Philippe Noiret, Beryl Reid & Clive Revill. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
04/22/23

Danza Macabra Vol 1 The Italian Gothic Collection 04/18/23

Severin’s latest deluxe collector’s box gathers a quartet of ‘Gothic holdovers,’ Italo productions that persist with spooky castles, strange noblemen and aggressively passionate leading ladies. They range from the B&W ’60s to the more permissive screens of the early ’70s, when contemporary-set Giallos took over. The group includes an oddity, a rarity and a garish pair of titles imported for U.S. drive-ins — in their original versions and multiple languages, of course: The Monster of the Opera, The Seventh Grave, Scream of the Demon Lover and Lady Frankenstein. On Blu-ray from Severin Films.
04/18/23

They Came to Cordura 04/18/23

We finally caught up with this bold yet misconceived Robert Rossen drama, a desert trek in which Army major Gary Cooper must deal with 5 mutinous Medal of Honor nominees. It’s a lengthy discourse on bravery versus cowardice, held together by the fine actors Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin, Tab Hunter and Richard Conte. A lot to discuss here:  a masterful extra with the late, great Bertrand Tavernier makes the film ten times more interesting. A heck of a big desert battle, too. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
04/18/23

The Shiver of the Vampires 04/15/23

A Jean Rollin film scores a first 4K disc release before Bava, Franju or Fisher; we review the Blu-ray edition. Once again dipping into free-form softcore Ero-horror, the French filmmaker imposes his improvisatory style on a fairly conventional vampire story, embracing the lesbian trends of the day (night). Should we be surprised that Rollin is one of the few French directors to consistently work in the horror field?  To stay in business, he had to alternate his feature output with straight pornography. Also available on 4K Ultra HD. On Blu-ray from Powerhouse Indicator.
04/15/23

Hell is for Heroes 04/15/23

A gritty combat drama with Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Harry Guardino?  Why wasn’t this on Blu ten years ago?  Don Siegel directs an entertaining ‘infantry squad in trouble’ thriller with his expected hard-edged, unsentimental attitude. Bob Newhart excels via an audience-pleasing comic bit but Bobby Darin’s co-starring position is diminished by the aggressive McQueen. His anti-social private uses good judgment in a bold counter-attack — which doesn’t go well at all. Other members of this Unlucky Bunch of ditch dogs are Fess Parker, Nick Adams and Mike Kellin. On Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video.
04/15/23

The Seventh Seal 4K 04/11/23

This Ingmar Bergman masterpiece still works, and its profundity is only part of the bargain. Max von Sydow is the returning knight who discovers that ‘you can’t go home again,’ especially not when the Plague is loose. Existense is chaotic on all levels in this corner of the medieval world; our knight must play a high-stakes chess game with Death itself . . . an iconic visual that has remained indelible. It’s an Art Movie that really delivers. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
04/11/23

The Assassin of the Tsar 04/11/23

Get set for another intriguing Russian import from Deaf Crocodile Films. Karen Shakhnazarov’s tale interweaves history with our essential human identity: if the truth of past events remains hidden, how can we know who we are?  Star Malcolm McDowell is Timofeyev, an asylum inmate convinced that he’s killed two Tsars, at different times in history. Conscientious doctor Oleg Yankovskiy tries to get to the bottom of the man’s delusion . . . a bad idea. Viewers with a special interest in the Romanovs might want to look into this one. On Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile Films.
04/11/23

Star Trek The Next Generation 4-Movie Collection 4K 04/08/23

The four ‘TNG’ feature films under the Rick Berman flag maintain the character fun of the TV series while working awfully hard to deliver high-quality space opera for the 1990s. Fans get what they want, plus at times a decent sense of humor. An obvious mission was to extend the characters of Jean-Luc Picard and especially Data, who does everything but play a banjo and morph into a goldfish. The series definitely looks and sounds superb in 4K, even if it lacks a unifying mission beyond repeatedly saving the universe. But the TNG years were when The Franchise had its ‘boldly going’ act most together. The films: Star Trek Generations,  Star Trek First Contact,  Star Trek Insurrection,  Star Trek Nemesis. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital from Paramount Home Video.
04/08/23

Counsellor at Law 04/08/23

William Wyler’s breakthrough movie gives John Barrymore one of his better sound-era dramatic roles, in a strong, incisive pre-Code adapted from Elmer Rice’s play set in a high-powered New York Law office. Attorney George Simon has done well by defending the rich, and eases his conscience by helping people from his roots down on Second Avenue. Now he’s being targeted for an old case, probably because his ancestors ‘didn’t come over on the Mayflower.’ Can Simon keep his wife, fend off the accusations of a communist activist, and avoid being disbarred? Bebe Daniels is his loyal Girl Friday, with Melvyn Douglas, Isabel Jewell and Thelma Todd in support. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
04/08/23

Asphalt 04/04/23

One of the last of the classic Weimar silents, Joe May’s melodrama is only partly expressionist; Günther Rittau’s terrific camerawork tells a ‘street’ story of crime and sex with minimal dialogue. Gustav Fröhlich is the green Berlin street cop and Betty Amman the vamp who sullies his badge; the story takes place in 24 hours and includes a slick bank heist in Paris. Producer Erich Pommer made sure nobody would forget this one soon: its legendary talking point is an enormous exterior street set, built inside a vast Zeppelin hangar. On Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
04/04/23

Martin Roumagnac 04/04/23

Something of a missing link in the filmography of Marlene Dietrich, this immediate postwar French production pairs her with one of her great amours, Jean Gabin. Almost forgotten now, it has qualities other Dietrich films don’t, starting with her taking a character role rather than one that plays off her glamorous silver screen image. It’s a tragic romance with the French social divide as its context, and was dismissed as a failure here — after being cut a full two reels by the censors. Also with Marcel Herrand & Daniel Gélin. On DVD from Icarus Films Home Video.
04/04/23

Resurrection 04/01/23

Daniel Petrie and Ellen Burstyn’s excellent film elevates a genre we normally disdain — the Ethereal Cereal do-you-believe Spiritual Awakening picture. Call this one intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, respectful and emotionally extra-effective. It pushes all the right buttons and finds a conclusion that doesn’t make us roll our eyes. Burstyn’s commitment, Petrie’s direction and the input of great actors takes us all the way: Sam Shepard, Eva Le Gallienne, Richard Farnsworth, Lois Smith, Roberts Blossom. The minimal visual effects are a class act, too. On Region Free Blu-ray from Viavision [Imprint].
04/01/23

No Man Is an Island 04/01/23

Here’s a hard-to-see WW2 real-life drama that holds up rather well. Jeffrey Hunter plays radioman George Tweed, the lone U.S. sailor holdout when Guam Island was taken by the Japanese right after Pearl Harbor. The production is modest but the story is told with a winning honesty — it’s a basic survival tale that avoids heroic overstatement. Marshall Thompson is second-billed as one of Tweed’s Navy comrades, but the film prevails through its sincere presentation of the locals that protected Tweed, even when he wanted to give himself up. This one earns an “A” for integrity. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
04/01/23