Hello!

I’m not crazy about film lists, unless it’s a list of what I might be able to see in the next couple of years! The ‘Kino Insider’ has posted a huge list of Studio Canal titles that Kino Lorber plans to put out on Blu-Ray; some are already announced. Here’s my shortened list of the ones that immediately interest me (the important ones, of course). This should take us to 2022 … :

Accident – 1967 – Joseph Losey
Alphaville – 1965 – Jean-Luc Godard
And Hope To Die – 1972 – René Clément
The Bedroom Window – 1987 – Curtis Hanson
Billy Liar – 1963 – John Schlesinger
Bitter Moon – 1992 – Roman Polanski
Blackmail (Both Versions) – 1929 – Alfred Hitchcock
Bob Le Flambeur – 1956 – Jean-Pierre Melville
Brighton Rock – 1948 – John Boulting
Britannia Hospital – 1982 – Lindsay Anderson
Buffet Froid – 1980 – Bertrand Blier
Camille Claudel – 1988 – Bruno Nuytten
The Captive Heart – 1947 – Basil Dearden
Champagne – 1928 – Alfred Hitchcock
The Criminal – 1960 – Joseph Losey
Dead Of Night – 1945 – Alberto Cavalcanti, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton, Robert Hamer
The Deadly Trap (La Maison Sous Les Arbres) – 1971 – René Clément
Death In The Garden (La Mort En Ce Jardin) – 1956 – Luis Buñuel
Diabolically Yours (Diaboliquement Vôtre) – 1967 – Julien Duvivier
Le Doulos – 1962 – Jean-Pierre Melville
The Farmer’s Wife – 1928 – Alfred Hitchcock
The Hellbenders – 1967 – Sergio Corbucci
The Holly And The Ivy – 1952 – George More O’ferrall
An Inspector Calls – 1954 – Guy Hamilton
It Always Rains On Sunday – 1947 – Robert Hamer
The Lavender Hill Mob – 1951 – Charles Crichton
Leon Morin, Priest – 1961 – Jean-Pierre Melville
The Light At The Edge Of The World – 1971 – Kevin Billington
Link – 1986 – Richard Franklin
Lucky Luciano – 1974 – Francesco Rosi
The Man Between – 1953 – Carol Reed
The Man In The White Suit – 1951 – Alexander Mckendrick
A Man, A Woman And A Bank – 1979 – Noel Black
The Manxman – 1929 – Alfred Hitchcock
La Marseillaise (The Marseillaise) – 1938 – Jean Renoir
The Milky Way (La Voie Lactée) – 1969 – Luis Buñuel
Murder! – 1930 – Alfred Hitchcock
Number Seventeen – 1932 – Alfred Hitchcock
The Nun (La Religieuse) – 1965 – Jacques Rivette
Old Boyfriends – 1979 – Joan Tewkesbury
Outcast Of The Islands – 1952 – Carol Reed
Perfect Friday – 1971 – Peter Hall
Port Of Shadows (Le Quai Des Brumes) – 1938 – Marcel Carne
La Prisonnière (Woman In Chains) – 1968 – Henri-Georges Clouzot
The Professionale (Le Professionnel) – 1981 – George Lautner
Quai Des Orfèvres (Jenny Lamour) – 1947 – Henri-Georges Clouzot
The Queen Of Spades – 1949 – Thorold Dickinson
Rich And Strange – 1931 – Alfred Hitchcock
Rider On The Rain – 1970 – Rene Clement
The Ring – 1927 – Alfred Hitchcock
Robbery – 1967 – Peter Yates
Seven Days To Noon – 1950 – John Bolting
The Silent Partner – 1978 – Daryl Duke
The Skin Game – 1931 – Alfred Hitchcock
The Sound Barrier – 1952 – David Lean
A Sunday In The Country – 1984 – Bertrand Tavernier
The Third Lover (L’ Oeil Du Malin) – 1962 – Claude Chabrol
Touchez Pas Au Grisbi – 1954 – Jacques Becker
Un Coeur En Hiver – 1992 – Claude Sautet
Un Flic (Dirty Money) – 1972 – Jean-Pierre Melville
Woman Times Seven – 1967 – Vittorio De Sica

The 3-D Film Archive has announced its next 3-D release, The 3-D Nudie Cutie Collection. Adam and Six Eves is an hourlong peekaboo in the desert spectacle, involving binoculars. For a running commentary we’re given the thoughts of a donkey named Toby. The better-known The Bellboy and the Playgirls is another ‘now you see ’em’ spectacular that’s likely to involve key-hole peeping. It’s basically flat, but various 3-D sequences were added, filmed by a very young Francis Ford Coppola. And Love for Sale is an early ’50s short subject never seen in full polarized 3-D. The release date has been listed as an exacting, ‘Coming Soon!’

I had a fine time last night at the opening party for the 21st Noir City Hollywood Festival of Film Noir at the American Cinematheque. It continues through April 7. The theme is the 1950s, and the chosen features present a chronological progression through the decade. All the shows will be hosted by Eddie Muller and/or Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation and both gentlemen were there last night in fine form. The new 35mm restoration of Trapped looked fine (and is a very good movie), and Muller introduced the son of director Richard Fleischer for a post-screening talk. Margaritas were served in the Egyptian’s courtyard, and as you can see I had my picture taken with a policeman dressed in a vintage 1940s LAPD uniform.

But wait! there’s one more… David Cairns’ blog Shadowplay has offered up a link to a six-minute chunk of a restored High Treason, from 1929. It’s a klunky as all get-out, but it does have a futuristic (1940) massacre at a border crossing, and views of the London of the Future. It also offers a look see at High Treason’s idea of a car of the future, the one that David Cronenberg seemed to imitate for his movie Naked Lunch.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson