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We can tell that writer-director John Sayles really loves this movie, a sentiment we understand with Jules Dassin’s masterpiece — it’s extremely well made, even the so-called weak domestic scenes with the young detective’s family. I’m linking to Trailers from Hell’s trailer-plus-commentary John Sayles on The Naked City. Without apologies, I think I’ll pull out that disc again. CineSavant’s third and latest review of the show: The Naked City.

And our thanks go out to correspondent Charles Lore for sending along a very handy YouTube link: in last Tuesday’s review of the Harry Palmer/Michael Caine spy romp Billion Dollar Brain I talked about a scene that had to be trimmed for music clearance issues– and Mr. Lore forwarded a link to The Deleted Beatles Music scene from Billion Dollar Brain. I know Ken Russell never thought this was a personal picture, but for me it’s one of his best.

Now you can see the excised scene opening for yourself, exactly as I described it. Enjoy it in all its low-res glory. Thanks Charles!

We received a nice Criterion Collection announcement of their planned releases for February 2022 — all Blu-ray, no 4K. It’s a fine quartet of prime cinema from the 50s to the 90s– Douglas Sirk’s Americana success & impotence saga Written on the Wind with Lauren Bacall, Rock Hudson and Robert Stack; the Coen Bros.’ marvelous gangster romp Miller’s Crossing with Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro and Marcia Gay Hardin; Leo McCarey’s swooningly romantic Love Affair with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer; and Ann Hui’s Boat People, a drama about the state of Vietnam three years after the Communist victory.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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After reading my review of The Window Alan K. Rode wrote to say that it tempted him to buy the disc.  He also offered the information that RKO’s mogul- nutcase Howard Hughes held up the completed film back for more than a year before allowing its release, which is shocking considering how any sane studio would have leaped upon The Window as a sure box office winner. But there was no premiere, it just slipped out. I assume that its good reputation had to come from word of mouth.

Star Barbara Hale never got to see it. In fact, she finally saw it for the first time in 2014 when Alan screened it in Palm Springs, and talked with her onstage. She was in her nineties — it was her last public appearance.

The WAC didn’t ask to use the video coverage of Barbara Hale’s talk for the disc so Alan steered me to a link to a YouTube encoding: Alan K. Rode interviews Barbara Hale, part One. She’s delightful. I want to be that sharp and vivid when I’m in my eighties.

Two quick disc announcement that CineSavant knows you can’t live without. Severin’s Bloody Pit of Horror is prime Euro-horror sleaze starring Mickey Hargitay as Il boia scarlatto; Severin Films says it has prime elements of an original cut, which ought to be a slice above the old DVD I couldn’t make myself review twenty years ago — gee, I had principles then!

Also just announced from The Film Detective is another beloved grade- Z 1950s sci-fi monster romp, as Jim Davis and Barbara Turner undertake a stock footage safari in search of the Monster from Green Hell. We all know that that the giant wasps had to be given a state of the art 4K scan! The special edition promises fan-special extras as well. This disc has a street date: March 8, 2022.

And don’t miss your opportunity to admire the crazy trailer for Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point over at Trailers from Hell.  Larry Karazewski serves as the TFH guru of note for one of the strangest trailers ever, for what’s essentially a stinkbomb thrown at America and Hollywood, a “thanks for the money and by the way screw you” gesture of artistic contempt.

The audiences I saw it with in 1970 just shook their heads; I think they felt they were being conned. MGM’s promotion treated it like Great Art From Heaven. I have to say that I’ve grown to like the movie but still enjoy the soundtrack more — you know, ‘Heartbeat Pig Meat dum ba dum ba dum.’ The final voiceover for the film’s key advertising tagline always strikes me as hilarious, a parody of faux-hippie ‘right on!’ drivel. TFH must feel the same way, because they billboards the tagline in the clear, even in the trailer version with Karazewski’s commentary.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Generous correspondent Andre Ferreira sends along a link to a Sam Peckinpah- directed episode of Route 66, Mon Petit Chou from 1961. Martin Milner and George Maharis are in fine form and the guest stars are Lee Marvin, Macha Méril and Bert Remsen. It’s some pretty good direction with Marvin, as a complex bully. Overall the picture’s very well put together, even if the screenplay isn’t exactly #Meetoo endorsed: a singer is all but imprisoned by a man who also beats her — but that’s okay because he’s ‘troubled.’

Ms. Méril is announced as ‘introducing;’ she’s really special and we just reviewed her in Deep Red. It’s a good show for Bert Remsen too, and the IMDB rates it higher than several of Peckinpah’s features. Good fistfight, too. Thanks Andre.

Whenever packages from Australia arrive it’s a special day: this lineup of Viavision [Imprint] Blu-rays is the best news this week. The carefully produced deluxe editions use heavy-duty slip covers, and some are packaged in handsome gift boxes.

This month gives us Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in the comic The Assassination Bureau, William Fraker’s horror film A Reflection of Fear, Mick Jagger in Ned Kelly, and a double bill of versions of The Browning Version, one each with Michael Redgrave and Albert Finney. There’s also a Big Screen British Comedy collection, with features adapted from TV series: Dad’s Army, Steptoe & Son, Steptoe & Son Ride Again and Are You Being Served?

A very special gift box set is Collaborations: The Cinema of Zhang Yimou & Gong Li, with the titles Red Sorghum, Jou Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju, To Live, Shanghai Triad, Curse of the Golden Flower and Coming Home.

Because ViaVision contracts with ITV, MGM and Paramount, the last gift set for the first time gives us The Harry Palmer Collection with all three Michael Caine features from the 1960s: The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain. We’ll be getting right to work on these — the extras on the Harry Palmer pictures are really good.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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We were impressed by this Daily Mail photo article for Halloween, Ariana Grande wows…. There’s clearly a lot of Photoshop work in those composite images, but the makeup does indeed look creative and clever on its own. I’d say she’s ready for a wet date with Guillermo del Toro. Let’s see some unretouched photos Ms. Grande!

Universal’s original Gill Man is of course untouchable in the aquatic mer-man sweepstakes, with del Toro’s The Shape of Water a handsome contender. Even if it’s only for some limited views in a novelty fashion shoot, Ms. Grande easily tops most of the pretenders in older films, like the aqua-men in the A.I.P. snooze-fest War-Gods of the Deep. I keep trying to watch that show in one go, and it puts me right to sleep.

I’ve just contributed an article to Lee Broughton’s Current Thinking on the Western page, rewriting an article I wrote around 1998 for the old ‘MGM Video Savant’ page. In the guise of an academic essay, I chart the changing tone of the ‘foreign policy’ western, mainly the ‘Gunmen go to Mexico’ subgenre that began in 1954 with Robert Aldrich’s Vera Cruz and pretty much ended (along with the evolution of the American western) in 1969 with Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch.

The article is called The Foreign Adventurism Western. I suppose a later, radical revisit of the same idea is Alex Cox’s Walker from 1987, a sort of post-modern spaghetti-filibuster epic.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson