CÉCILE IS DEAD/CÉCILE EST MORTE, Maurice Tourneur, director/Eureka
Thanks to the ever-enterprising Eureka label, non-French audiences have a chance to sample one of these difficult-to-see outings for Simenon’s doughty copper, Cécile is Dead/Cécile est Morte, with Albert Préjean puffing on the familiar pipe. Apart from its rarity, the film also affords a chance to see how creative the director Maurice Tourneur was. These days, his son Jacques is far better known, but it is refreshing to be reminded – as this Maigret outing demonstrates – that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in terms of the Tourneur family. A plus here: the insightful commentary by Sergio Angelini.
FEAR IN THE NIGHT, Jimmy Sangster, director/Studio Canal
Is there a better loved actor in the whole of the horror genre than Peter Cushing? Vincent Price, Boris Karloff… yes, contender stakes. And, of course, Christopher Lee – but Cushing is top of the tree for many. And Cushing excels in this late entry in the Diaboliques homage stakes. Fear in the Night has a decidedly strange headmaster in a deserted school possibly menacing and new colleague Ralph Bates and his partner Judy Geeson. Cushing’s charcter is judiciously peppered throughout the film, but, boy, did he earn his money registering with maximum impact as we wonder whether or not he is a red herring or a psychopathic murderer. The director, of course, is Hammer’s primary screenwriter, Jimmy Sangster.
IVY, Sam Wood, director/indicator
This is a real curiosity, containing intriguing work by all of its participants moving out of their usual areas of expertise. Joan Fontaine, customarily a vulnerable victim as in Hitchcock’s Rebecca, is here actually a cunning murderess, and acquits herself with real skill under the professional direction of sandalwood. The supporting cast, too, is very strong, particularly the ever-reliable Cedric Hardwicke as a dogged police inspector on her trail. As is typical of Indicator, something highly unusual has been dusted off in order to make a welcome reappearance.
WAKE IN FRIGHT Ted Kotcheff, director/Eureka
Rescued from destruction, Ted Kotcheff’s lost film is a considerable find. A middle-class schoolteacher, stuck in a government-enforced teaching post in an arid backwater, stops off in the mining town of Bundanyabba on his way home for the Christmas holidays. Discovering a local gambling craze that may grant him the financial independence to move back to Sydney for good, the opportunity proves irresistible. But the bad decisions are just beginning and a reliance on local standards of hospitality in “the Yabba” may take him on a path darker than ever expected. One of director Ted Kotcheff’s most impressive achievements, Wake in Fright simmers with a phantasmagoric nightmare quality and is immeasurably enriched by impeccable performances from Donald Pleasance as an intellectual doctor living in squalor (one of the best of his later films), Gary Bond, Sylvia Kay, and Chips Rafferty in his final role. An uncompromising picture of brutal, sexist Australian masculinity. But the director’s defence (in the extras) that he was not attempting to paint a totally negative picture seems distinctly disingenuous.
INSOMNIA, Erik Skjoldbjærg, director/Second Sight
Another disc for which I provided extras, Insomnia is one of the most powerful of Scandinavian crime films, impeccably acted and directed. Erik Skjoldbjærg’s tense directorial debut Insomnia is immeasurably enhanced by the presence of Stellan Skarsgård, showcased to the full in this 4K UHD/Blu-ray Limited Edition. Christopher Nolan’s 2002 remake does not offer real competition to the original. Special features include new interviews with the filmmakers, short films from director Erik Skjoldbjærg, and a 120-page book with new essays, including my own.
HELL OR HIGH WATER, 4K, David Mackenzie, director/StudioCanal
Shot through with a strong hint of the quirky crime writing of Elmore Leonard, Hell or High Water is a very solid addition to the crime genre, acted and directed with real élan. Before working on such successes as Yellowstone, Tulsa King and Landman, Taylor Sheridan was responsible for this impressive crime thriller starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges. This 4K UHD debut showcases a new restoration. The powerful direction is by David Mackenzie (
