An
American Dream
(1966/Warner Archive DVD)/Emperor
Of The North
(1973/Fox)/Fat City
(1972/Sony/Columbia/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)/Murder
My Sweet (1945/RKO/Warner
Archive Blu-ray)/10 To
Midnight
(1983/Cannon/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Wild
Across The Everglades
(1958/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
C/B/B/B/B/C Sound: C/B-/B/C+/B-/C Extras: D/B/B/B-/C/C-
Films: C/B/B/B/C/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Emperor
Of The North,
Fat
City
and 10
To Midnight
Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time,
are limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies
last, while the An
American Dream
and Wild
Across The Everglades
DVDs, plus Murder
My Sweet
Blu-ray are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Here's
a slew of exclusive releases not available in retail stores, all
dramas and then some, including some serious classics and productions
of unusual ambition dealing with crime and the underbelly of life...
Robert
Gist's An
American Dream
(1966) is a crime thriller based on Norman Mailer's novel about a
controversial TV host (Stuart Whitman, playing a character way far
more common today) who gets himself in the middle of all kinds of
trouble, criticizing the local police (tied in with mobsters in the
worst ways) along with the return of an old flame (Janet Leigh
looking sexier and more erotic in full color than just about any
other lead actress at the time in all of Hollywood filmmaking at the
time!) who might help him or be there to lure and turn on him.
It
is a passable film, one which is so weak and sometimes predictable to
the point that Leigh steals all of her scenes by not only how she
looks, but by one of her most seriously-toned performances, Whitman
is good if not great here and the supporting cast including Murray
Hamilton, Barry Sullivan, J.D. Cannon, Warren Stevens, Susan Denberg,
Les Crane and Eleanor Parker shows how serious Warner was to make
this a big hit. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work as much as you
keep wanting it to.
I
thought it might finally take off with Leigh's first appearance, but
it doesn't. Still, series thriller fans should give it a look (along
with fans of the various actors) making it worthy of being in print.
Glad Warner Archive put it out on DVD.
There
are no extras.
Robert
Aldrich's Emperor
Of The North
(1973) is an ever-remarkable, underrated film set in the Great
Depression (from the director of Kiss
Me Deadly,
The
Dirty Dozen,
Whatever
Happened To Baby Jane?,
Vera
Cruz
and the original versions of Flight
Of The Phoenix
and The
Longest Yard)
about a sadistic train conductor named Shack (a great, thankless
performance by Ernest Borgnine) waging a one-man war against hobos,
even of if means permanently injuring or killing them. The group
trying to get free rides include 'A No. 1' (Lee Marvin), Charles
Tyner (Cracker), Gray Cat (Elisha Cook Jr.) and Dinger (Joe Di Reda),
but Shack is getting worse and worse, so when the train trip is at
its most desolate and tempers flare with survival the ultimate
factor, the big showdown is inevitable.
So
many films claim to be about such things, but 98% of them are phony,
ring false and never work, but Aldrich is one if those rare, honest,
gutsy, talented filmmakers who not only understood what that really
is about, but could deliver such a story with brutal (and brutally
honest) impact. And the described set-up is only the beginning of
what we get here as Aldrich and screenwriter Christopher Knopf have
much more to show and say (including with the inclusion of Keith
Carradine's character) in a truly underrated gem waiting to be
discovered and as relevant as ever. Simon Oakland, Matt Clark,
Malcolm Atterbury, Liam Dunn, Sid Haig, Vic Tayback and an uncredited
Lance Henriksen round out the amazing cast. Definitely see this
film, especially in this great Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray!
The
boxing film has mostly been a formulaic affair over the decades, a
sport (when not fixed) that has always been considered dark, sleazy
and a place where people play big money to see guys with short career
expectations (usually of lower socio-economic classes, though star
fighters have made exception to that somewhat) and was a sport that
often defined the seedy side of the decaying cities of various Film
Noir films. Sometimes the films can be character studies (Martin
Scorsese's Raging
Bull,
David O. Russell's The
Fighter,
biopics with much more to them), but most are usually predictable
formula films, especially bad, angry ones at times (like Fuqua's
Southpaw)
or commercial neo-formula fabrications like the Rocky
films. Then there's
John Huston's Fat
City
(1972), one of the most honest films on the subject ever made.
In
the world of the boxers here, they know they are never going to make
big money (the title refers to where the rich 'fat cats' are among
other things, like guys (getting?) too old to box but do it anyhow
since they have nothing else) has Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges as
those two fighter ready to go into the ring one more time (literally
and figuratively) with the idea of 'The American Dream' as part of
the idea in the background (one the Rocky
film pretends to celebrate despite its politics being the total
opposite and one Southpaw
says is dead with a big F.U. tagged on top in angry manner to its
audience, yet the much superior Darren Aronofsky film The
Wrestler
takes on in mature, real, honest, masculine manner) to get some glory
if they can.
However,
the fix is in and the world is seedy all over, the women in the lives
of both guys cannot help them, just barely keep them together if
that. Their youth gone (they pit too much 'money' on that without
knowing it), they continue on in what is rare in any sports film, the
sport is secondary to the story and characters. In one way as a
result, this becomes part of the 1970s 'buddy' cycle of movies
pairing actors that started with Midnight
Cowboy,
(in sillier terms) Butch
Cassidy & The Sundance Kid,
Scarecrow
and the like, looking honestly at what a 'man's world' is and is
becoming. That doesn't stop Candy Clark (in her feature film debut)
and Susan Tyrell of delivering solid performances or the film itself
from being a knockout.
To
say any more would be to ruin it, but this is one of Huston's amazing
later triumphs to the point that some will be surprised Sony/Columbia
would only allow this to be one of Twilight Time's Limited Edition
Blu-rays, but it is and is instantly one of the most important and
collectible they've made to date. Serious film fans should go for
this one immediately.
Edward
Dmytryk's Murder
My Sweet
(1945) is simply one of the greatest of the detective-based Film Noir
films (along with The
Maltese Falcon
and Kiss
Me Deadly)
ever made, produced by the ever-missed RKO Studios at the peak of
their powers (the studio of the film that launched Film Noir, Citizen
Kane)
with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe (soon in the following years to be
played by Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery and then James Gardner
before revisionist versions with Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum
arrived) investigates where an ex-convict (Mike Mazurki) has hired
him to find the missing man's girlfriend (Claire Trevor). Of course,
a much more complex set of circumstances are going on here.
From
the classic Raymond Chandler book Farewell
My Lovely,
this is one of the most imitated and referenced detective and Noir
films ever made, yet it remains dark, suspenseful, clever and holds
up extraordinarily well as it approaches its 70th
Anniversary. It has the look, the dialogue, the action, the snappy
voiceover and is also one of Dmytryk's best films. In a sometimes
remarkable new transfer, it is only being issued exclusively as a
Warner Archive Blu-ray, a shock for such a classic film, but here it
is and its worth going out of your way for. Also nice to see yet
another RKO Film so well restored.
Many
films these days that dare to claim to be Film Noirs are far from it,
light years away from what that means. Murder
My Sweet
is the real thing and required viewing.
J.
Lee Thompson's 10
To Midnight
(1983) has the enduring, underrated journeyman filmmaker doing a
by-then formulaic action film for a post-Death
Wish
Charles Bronson at infamous Cannon Films no less. The lack of taste
may give the film a certain kinds of freedom, but it is too
squandered on exploitation beyond what Lee (but not Bronson or Cannon
at this point) would allow and made Bronson a sloppier, even more
reactionary variant of the proto-tough guy character Clint Eastwood
originated before it became a tired standard of regressive 1980s
cinema.
So
why give this particular example of a Bronson film the Twilight Time
Limited Edition Blu-ray treatment? The extras were already there,
this is better-directed by default than most Cannon or Bronson
post-Death
Wish
films and it combines several genres from the period, if badly.
Added to he revenge of the reactionary semi (not anti-)hero) is the
enemy within story, sex crime story, true crime story and serial
killer film, all bordering on parts of the Horror genre as Gene Davis
(brother of Brad Davis from Midnight
Express)
is an exhibitionist killer who loves getting naked when killing
beautiful women. He doesn't mind blood all over his body either (not
that he notices), giving you an idea of how seedy this gets.
Early
on, he challenges Bronson's cop to catch him if he can when he gets
out on a technicality, thus complicated by laws getting in Bronson's
way. The rest is quasi-shrill, obvious and it is arguable Thompson
loses control of the film to its vapidness, though some parts work
and it holds together more than most of its exploitive ilk. The
casting of Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens, Geoffrey Lewis and Wilford
Brimley adds to the feeling of this being such an odd mix of the
film, which tries real hard to look like a film of the era. The
result is for fans only at best, who get a better than usual release
of one of these films.
Extras
in all four Blu-rays, except Sweet,
include nicely illustrated booklets on each respective film including
informative text and essays by the terrific Julie Kirgo, Isolated
Music Scores and Original Theatrical Trailers. All four have
solid feature length audio commentary tracks including Lem Dobbs &
Nick Redman on City,
Alain Silver on Sweet,
David Del Valle leading Midnight
and an especially amazing one by Dana Polan on Emperor.
They are all scholars and do great jobs covering the films on their
respective tracks. Emperor
adds TV Spots and Midnight
adds Radio Spots.
Finally
we have Nicholas Ray's Wild
Across The Everglades
(1958) has some similarities to Emperor
Of The North
in that you have a distinct gutsy director pitting tough men against
tough men and a younger man shows up who may or may not be able to
handle the situation. Burt Ives is the head if a gang killing birds
for profit, strictly for feathers for women's hats, et al. Enter a
local official (then-new leading man Christopher Plummer) who wants
to stop the gang outright, though that won't be easy, but any
mano-a-mano between the leads never builds any intensity as Ray
juggles more elements that he should.
The
result is an odd, uneven film that wants to be different (Gypsy Rose
Lee, Peter Falk in his first feature film, then heavyweight boxer
Tony Galento and then-world famous clown Emmett Smith are among the
cast) making this more of a curio than a good film. Not that it does
not have some interesting moments, but it's too muddled despite being
an A-level production.
A
theatrical trailer is the only extra.
All
four Blu-rays have decent prints with spots that can show the age of
the materials used, but otherwise, the 1.33 X 1 black and white image
on Sweet
has excellent Video Black levels, some great demo shots and will
impress to the point that it helps make the argument for black and
white film, especially when it look this consistently good. The
later three Blu-rays offer 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
color image transfers that also have impressive demo moments with
City
and Emperor
coming across especially well. Midnight
is a 1980s shoot with weaker stocks at the time, so sometimes, the
transfer looks odd, but that's the stock and the period. Unless
you've seen a great 35mm film print of any of these films, I can
guarantee you have never seen them look better than they all do here.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on the two DVDs are not as
good, but the print on Dream
is not bad, but this is a bit softer than I would have liked, while
the color image on Wild
is also as soft, but additionally has inconsistent color that does
not always show how good those Technicolor prints could look. Both
were originally issued in three-strip, dye transfer 35mm Technicolor
prints that are worth some money now, so these could both look much
better if the work was done and the material was there.
In
the sound department, all four Blu-ray have lossless DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) sound, with City
upgraded to a 5.1 lossless mix that is not bad for its age, making it
the sonic champ here. Yes, the recording is aged, but the expansion
is appreciated. Emperor
and Sweet
are in 2.0 Mono, leaving Midnight
with 1.0 Mono, but Sweet
is just too much older to benefit as much from the sonic upgrade,
placing third behind the other Blu-ray and the other mono films in
between. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both DVDs are weak,
somewhat compressed and could use some work, so be careful of volume
switching and high volume playback.
To
order the Emperor
Of The North, Fat City
and 10
To Midnight
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them among other great releases while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
… and
to order either of the Warner Archive DVDs of An
American Dream
and Wild
Across The Everglades,
plus Murder
My Sweet
Blu-ray, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
