Blue
Denim (1959/Fox Archive
DVD)/Dark Passage
(1947/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Garden
Of Evil
(1954/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/The
Gift Of Love (1958/Fox
Archive DVD)/Inside Out
(1975/Warner Archive DVD)/On
The Threshold Of Space
(1956/Fox Archive DVD)/Race
For The Yankee Zephyr
(1984 aka Treasure Of The
Yankee Zephyr/MGM Limited
Edition Collection DVD)/10
Rillington Place
(1971/Sony/Columbia/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B+/B/C-/C+/C-/C/B Sound: C+/B-/B-/C+/C/C+/C/B- Extras:
C-/C/B/C-/D/C-/D/B- Films: C+/B-/C+/C/C/C/C/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Garden
Of Evil
and 10
Rillington Place
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 Dark
Passage
Blu-ray and
Inside Out
DVD are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below, save the
Fox and MGM limited edition DVDs, available online only; go to
Amazon.com at the sidebar to purchase.
Up
next are several dramatic genre films for you to know about including
work by often well-known journeyman directors...
Philip
Dunne's Blue
Denim
(1959) is a time capsule of a different time that the 1960s and 1970s
ended, with a young Brandon De Wilde getting involved with an equally
young Carol Lynley and getting her pregnant. What can they do? No
legal abortion, birth control pills or a conformist world that is
going to be unsympathetic to their plight. Thus, it is a portrait of
a more relatively innocent time and reminds us of why things had to
change. The script makes them both 'good family kids' and that shows
there is 'still' troubles for them. Martha Hunt and MacDonald Carey
lead the adult cast and the score by Bernard Herrmann is a plus.
Yes, some things have dated and there re some odd moments, but at 89
minutes, it is efficient and smart for its time.
Delmer
Daves' Dark
Passage
(1947) is not the most successful Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall film
at Warner Bros., but it is something different, ambitious, fun and
more energetic than you might expect from a film that is enough of a
Noir to qualify. Bogart is a criminal who finds a way to break out
of the famous San Quentin prison, with a plan to escape totally
(pre-DNA era) and we see 'everything' form his point of view for the
first hour of the film. We see what he looks like in a few pictures
and when he gets ambitious plastic surgery so no one recognizes him,
he looks like Bogart!
He
gets serious, sympathetic help early on from a sexy young woman
(Bacall) who takes him home (!) and hides him. She has a male friend
and is know to live alone, but she also has a nosy friend (Agnes
Moorehead) while our fugitive plots his next moves to make that
change. It is also a fun film, but the makers just cannot make
everything work, but it is fun to see them go for it and try no
matter the results. This is as must see as anything on the list and
worth your time. Bruce Bennett and Tom D'Andrea also star.
Henry
Hathaway's Garden
Of Evil
(1954) is an elaborate quest/revenge western with Susan Hayward
desperate to get her mine-trapped husband back, made worse by the
mine being in 'hostile' Apache territory, so she hires three men
(Gary Cooper, Cameron Mitchell and Richard Widmark) to save him.
They run into Rita Moreno, Victor Manuel Mendoza and a decent cast
along the way, but as was the case decades ago, I found the film to
be very choppy when I first saw it despite some solid moments.
It
cannot over come some stereotypes and cliches, but the actors are
good and Bernard Herrmann's incredible music score keeps the film
more relevant than had it been scored by someone else with less
conviction. An early high profile CinemaScope release from Fox (it
has the early wider aspect ratio and Technicolor before their own
DeLuxe lab started doing color). You can see the ambition. I can see
why the film has a devoted following, even if I am not a fan.
Twilight Time has released an impressive special edition here and you
can read more of the details on it below.
Jean
Negulesco's The
Gift Of Love
(1958) is one of the sappiest melodramas of the time with Lauren
Bacall (switching from Film Noir, which was wrapping up this very
year) in what we now call a 'disease of the week' film, played out by
TV but not uncommon to commercial cinema of the time. Bacall plays a
mother/wife who only has weeks to live, but wishes her husband
(Robert Stack) would not be alone without her, so the solution? A
child!
Yes,
toxic and a bit dysfunctional, the film veers into camp at times
despite a solid director, really pushing it at 105 minutes. Lorne
Green and Evelyn Rudie also star in this soapster you had better be
very awake to deal with.
Peter
Duffell's Inside
Out
(1975) is a British film with Telly Savalas, Robert Culp and James
Mason look for $6 Million in Nazi gold (that would be over $26
Million now, but probably higher with gold beating the inflation
index) that has fine potential, but the film has way too much talking
and though I like the scenery, support cast that includes Aldo Ray
and Cold War overtones with the two Germanys involved, it never
really takes off. We've seen poorer variances of this tale (see Race
For The Yankee Zephyr
below), but I was a little disappointed. Again, if you like any of
the actors or aspects of the story, see it at least once.
This
is one of the last major films Savalas made before really becoming a
TV icon with Kojak,
but I give him credit for always being capable of holding his own on
the big screen and always being a world class star. Mason could do
no wrong and Culp was always underrated. Nice to have this in print.
Robert
D. Webb's On
The Threshold Of Space
(1956) is part of an unrecognized cycle of pre space flight films
(from dramas to B-movies) about brave men (and not women at the time)
have to endure high stress to break the sound barrier, death barrier,
gravity barrier and any other barrier that could kill them to create
progress for America and its military. A few years before Sputnik
began the space race, Guy Madison will do what he can to make a
secret U.S. Air Force project (a few years later, it might have been
NASA) work with the support of his boss (John Hodiak) and 'woman'
(Virginia Leith) in another real time capsule that is dated and
uneven at 96 minutes.
It
is worth a look, but it is very dated, though there is some energy,
ambition and money on the screen. Dean Jagger shows up in an early
performance and those familiar with the original Six
Million Dollar Man
TV series will see the tentative connection between what goes on here
and how Col. Steve Austin became bionic, though no such thing happens
here.
David
Hemming's Race
For The Yankee Zephyr
(1984) took three years to be released and was part of an odd series
of genre films international movie star/producer Hemming was either
appearing in himself or just making through his Hemdale Pictures
shingle, now best know for James Cameron's original Terminator
that arrived the same year. A young pre-TV Ken Wahl and Donal
Pleasence play friends looking for Gold stolen by the Nazis (like
Inside
Out)
to the then-tune of $50 Million (that would be over $130 Million now,
but probably higher with gold beating the inflation index) and Leslie
Ann Warren becomes Wahl's wild love interest.
However,
George Peppard is the boo hiss villain who wants the gold himself, so
as you can surmise, this is not unlike parts of Raiders
Of The Lost Ark,
which this film had zero chance of competing against back in 1981.
Needless to say the delay did not help it and not just because a
darker Indiana Jones sequel arrived by then. The film looks decent
in the way its shot, but the actors are worth seeing once even if the
109 minutes go on a little longer than the time would suggest.
Richard
Fleischer's 10
Rillington Place
(1971) is our final film and happens to be another British
production, despite a Hollywood director who usually knew what he was
doing. Based on a true story, a couple (John Hurt and Judy Geeson)
move into a so-so apartment with an old couple running it, but what
they don't know is that the husband (Richard Attenborough in one of
his greatest performance) is actually a serial killer named John
Christie!
At
first, we just see an old couple trying to get by when this new toxic
couple always fighting moves in, but we've already seen Christie kill
early on, so how he manages to hide in plain site is something in an
era where his kind of killer was considerably rare and unknown. A
dark-looking film, that becomes thematically dark quickly, there are
a few moments where it does not take advantage of some of the
suspense possibilities and wallows a bit much into its locales in a
way that cuts off some ironic distance and some other possibilities,
but it is a good film worth rediscovery and I would add that
Attenborough's work here had some influence on Anthony Hopkins'
Hannibal Lecter in the original Silence
Of The Lambs.
Twilight Time has also added some fine extra, so see more below...
Now
for picture quality. Gift
and Space
were both originally CinemaScope widescreen releases, gut these are
old 'analog TV safe' copies that are usually poor pan and scan 1.33 X
1 presentations with credits letterboxed, but very hard to watch just
the same, so be aware. Denim
is here in an anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 black and white image superior to the miscredited
letterboxed note on the back of the DVD case, looking pretty good and
as good as the anamorphically enhanced 1.77 X 1 image image on
Inside,
originally issued in 35mm dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor
prints on both sides of the Atlantic. It looks pretty good
throughout, you can see how good the color must have looked in those
prints often enough and they tie as the best DVD presentations here.
Yankee
is also mislabeled as letterboxed when it too is anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1, though the scope image is windowboxed until the
credits are finished, but it was shot in real 35mm anamorphic
Panavision by Director of Photography Vincent Monton (Newsfront,
Road
Games,
Thirst)
and this does not look bad. Yoo bad this is on the soft side
throughout and deserves an HD upgrade.
Moving
up to Blu-rays, the
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Passage
might show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a
transfer to all previous releases of the film showing a remarkable
sense of sharpness and depth we have not seen in many 1940s films in
the format. Add the extensive use of handheld cameras and how great
the Mitchell Camera was and still is and you get the idea of how
impressive this can be.
The
final color entries tie for second place, with the 1080p 2.55 X 1
digital High Definition image on Garden
with some age and minor color issues, but pretty impressive just the
same enough and also a film originally
issued in 35mm dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints. You can
see how good that color looks in many scenes here too. The
1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Place
is darker as expected (in part being a British film and thriller) has
its share of grain, but that is the way it is meant to look as it has
in the best stills and footage I have seen of the film over the
years. Here to you can see the age of the materials used, but this
is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and
was a Kodak EastmanColor
release developed by the great Rank Labs.
As
for sound, the Blu-rays tie for first place despite the fact that
Garden
has been upgraded to DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and 4.0
lossless mixes from its original 4-track magnetic sound with
traveling dialogue and sound effects on the best 35mm scope
presentations. We even get DTS-MA 2.0 Stereo, but I thought the 5.1
just squeezed by to be the best mix, but they all show their age, so
the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) Mono lossless sound on Passage
(2.0) and Place
(1.0) were sounding overall as good, in part because they were
surprisingly so.
As
for the DVDs, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Inside
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Yankee
(even with its Pro Logic surrounds) are weaker than expected and
about even with each other, both
disappointing and probably a generation down somehow. That leaves
the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Denim,
Gift
and Space
being the best-sounding of the DVDs despite the age of the films.
Extras
are not available on the Inside
or Yankee
DVDs, though that would have been interesting, but the Denim,
Gift
and Space
DVDs at least have Original Theatrical Trailers. The Evil
and Place
Blu-rays offer well-illustrated booklets on each respective film
including informative text and more excellent, underrated essay by
the great film scholar Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-rays add Original
Theatrical Trailers, Isolated
Music Scores and feature length audio commentary tracks. Evil
has a remarkable track by scholar Nick Redman joined by music, film
and Bernard Herrmann scholars John Morgan, Steven C. Smith &
William T. Stromberg, Place
has two. One with John Hurt solo, the other with Nick
Redman joined by the film's co-star Judy
Geeson & Lem Dobbs. Evil
also adds TV Spots and three featurettes: Travels
Of A Gunslinger: The Making Of Garden Of Evil,
Susan
Hayward: Hollywood's Straight Shooter
and Henry
Hathaway: When The Going
Gets Tough....
That
leaves Passage
with an Original Theatrical Trailer, HD Technicolor Looney Tunes
classic Slick
Hare
with Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and cartoon versions of Bogie &
Bacall and the behind the scenes/making of featurette Hold
Your Breath and Cross Your Fingers
on the circumstances on the making of the film and its mixed release.
To
order the Garden
Of Evil
and 10
Rillington Place
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them and other great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
...and
to order the Dark
Passage
Blu-ray or Inside
Out
DVD from Warner Archive, go to this link for them and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
