CARLITO’S WAY, Brian de Palma, director/Arrow
Let’s begin with a declaration of interest : I’ve supplied the booklets notes for this extremely welcome hi-def reissue of one of Brian De Palma’s most individual films. I wrote:’ By the time Carlito’s Way appeared in 1993, the career of the director Brian De Palma was at a crossroads, with his successes almost evenly matched by his misfires. But teaming again with the much-respected Al Pacino (with whom De Palma had made the cult gangster movie Scarface ten years earlier), the new film was almost a counterweight to its splashy, hyper-violent predecessor, with a more qualified, affectionate view of its criminal hero Carlito Brigante, and with Pacino’s impressive performance matched by an equally accomplished turn from Sean Penn. While character rather than spectacular action set pieces is at the heart of the film, De Palma does not stint on the latter.’
UNIVERSAL NOIR #2, various directors/Indicator
The enterprising Indicator company continues its follow-up series to their Columbia Noir box sets with welcome issues dedicated to the noir output of another major Hollywood studio – Universal Pictures. This new set contains high definition versions of Lady on a Train, Time Out of Mind, Singapore, A Woman’s Vengeance, An Act of Murder and The Lady Gambles. What makes this particular set intriguing is the fact that the producers have made their definition of the word ‘noir’ extremely elastic – which means that several of the films here (such as the Robert Siodmak classic Time Out of Mind) only fit into that category peripherally. But it’s highly unlikely that purchasers will complain as all films have their different (and individual) virtues.
TOUCH OF EVIL, Orson Welles, director/Eureka 4K
You may think that you have definitive issues of your favourite films, and then comes along a 4K restoration which makes earlier iterations look like VHS. Such is the case with this amazing looking issue of Orson Welles’ matchless Dock thriller which has not lost any of its lustre over the years. Wonderful though all the various constituent elements are, it is Welles’s own performance as the monstrous corrupt policeman that lifts the film into the upper echelons. Welles may have had a certain pride over his accomplishments, but physically he is here totally without vanity even emphasising his considerable girth. If you haven’t seen Touch of Evil yet, this is now the way to experience the film
DELICATESSEN, Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, directors/StudioCanal 4K
Customarily, attempts to create cult films often fall by the wayside – there is clearly no surefire formula for such hopeful endeavours. But Delicatessen, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, quickly assumed that status, and this pitch black comedy looks better than ever in this in a sumptuous new 4K restoration, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, made a mark with the dazzling fantasy adventure The City of Lost Children, a film that embraced a fantasy world and filled it out with both invention and imagination – as does (in a different way) Delicatessen.
TARGETS, Peter Bogdanovich, director/BFI
Film aficionados of mature years may remember when the first film by the late director Peter Bogdanovich appeared, and swept all before it with its assurance and technique. Given licence to make a film with minimal resources by the producer Roger Corman (to whom the actor Boris Karloff out a couple of days’ work), Bogdanovich came up with this remarkable synthesis of genres which, in its unsparing picture of America’s murderous gun culture, was way ahead of its time. Byron Orlok (Karloff) is an elderly horror-star on the point of retiring. Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) is a quiet but disturbed Vietnam veteran who undertakes a lethal shooting rampage. Their confrontation is the film’s edgy climax.
DARK ASSET, Michael Winnock, director/101 Films
You might have thought that espionage cinema had rung every possible change on the cloak-and-dagger genre, but this fast-moving action thriller from writer-director Michael Winnock manages to add a few new wrinkles, utilising action star Byron Mann in creative fashion as an undercover operative with a clandestine secret.
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE Mario Bava, director/Arrow Blu-Ray 4K
A 4k ultra hi-def revelation! Sei Donne per l’Assassino/Blood and Black Lace (1964) was Bava’s delirious tale of a masked killer prowling a fashion house, and remains the most influential Giallo ever made full of visual delights. The director’s cat-like camera prowling through the exquisitely decadent production design (the latter clearly as much the loving creation of the director as that of credited production designer Arrigo Breschi). British censor John Trevelyan took his scissors to the exuberant mayhem at the time of the film’s release. However, the crippling censorship cuts that truncated every murder in the UK have been restored, and the elegantly rendered tension is now unspoilt. Bava’s calling card movie looks ever more decadently gorgeous as the years pass, and continues to be his most influential film (apart from Antefatto/Bay of Blood, 1971, whose catalogue of grisly murders was the blueprint for the Friday the 13th movies and their many imitations). Needless to say, characterisation is pitched at the most generous level (no nuanced playing here), with the saturated colour, wonderfully excessive production design and exuberantly staged scenes of murder maintaining the viewer’s interest rather than any narrative rigour.
MEMENTO, Christoper Nolan, director/101 Films
A handsome new edition of Christopher Nolan’s signature thriller, the first film which really put the director on the map and paved the way for such blockbusters as his Batman Trilogy. The plot may be familiar to long-term readers of crime fiction, but it was new to thriller cinema – and the measure of the film’s success is how often it has been imitated subsequently.
INTERROGATION Ryszard Bugajski, director /Second Run
Hilary Mantel was one of the key supporters of this remarkable film set in 1950s Stalinist Poland. Interrogation is nothing if not Kafkaesque, particularly in its central premise in which a cabaret singer Tonia is imprisoned with no explanation. The unnerving film directed by Ryszard Bugajski is a difficult watch, but tensely rewarding.
THE PSYCHO COLLECTION, Arrow 4K
Unmissable! Presented in a Limited Edition UHD five disc box-set, and on Limited Edition Blu-ray, this collection includes copious extras, including a 120-page perfect bound collector’s book featuring new writing on the films. This has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated of collections: Hitchcock’s most famous film – and many would argue his best – available in a completely uncut 4K edition that does the most comprehensive justice to the film that it has ever received. This critic is one of the many who will applaud the newly created surround sound soundtrack, which allows the film to have the kind of impact it once had in the cinema. And then there are the sequels, the best of which is Richard Franklin’s Psycho 2, which surprised the sceptical by just how well written and played it really was. None of the films in the set have ever looked this exemplary, and it’s an essential way of viewing Hitchcock’s masterpiece that shows the genius of its director at full stretch.
CHOPPER, Andrew Dominick, director/Second Sight Films
It’s a fascinating exercise watching in 2023 the debut film that instantly established Eric Bana as a talented player. But now that the actor is known to us for a variety of other roles, we can see his range In Chopper, he plays the eponymous criminal, perhaps Australia’s most famous lawbreaker and his mesmeric performance is as powerful as ever, particularly in the striking Blu-ray makeover it receives here.
Forthcoming:
SHORT SHARP SHOCKS VOL. 3 inc. RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL, Hilton Edwards, 1951, STRANGE STORIES, John Guillermin / Don Chaffey, 1953, BFI
Following their very welcome earlier issues, BFI is to issue a third volume of these neglected short films all of which have a macabre or sinister element. Legendary actors on board include John Slater, Valentine Dyall and John Laurie
