
Blood
On The Moon
(1948/RKO/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Limits
Of Control
(2019/Arrow*)/Noir
Archive, Volume 1, 2 & 3
(1944 - 1960/Columbia/Mill Creek sets/*all MVD Blu-rays)/Serie
Noire
(1979/Film Movement Blu-ray)
Picture:
B/B+/B/B Sound: C+/B+/C+/B- Extras: C-/B/D/C+ Films:
B/C+/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Blood
On The Moon
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Film
Noir is a genre that is not totally a genre (its functions defy the
usual descriptions) and was not invented by Hollywood or any other
set of studios. Instead, it was a combinations of technological and
political trends, led by Orson Welles. These set of films over 75
years show the influence and results...
Directed
by editor-turned-filmmaker Robert Wise, it is better than many of his
giant blockbuster productions (The
Sound Of Music,
Star
and West
Side Story
only work so well for me) us the Western with a major sense of Noir,
Blood
On The Moon
(1948). Robert Mitchum is a loner named Jim Garry, who finds himself
nearly run over by a heard of cattle, but that's nothing as compared
to the conflict and double-crossing he is about to go up against in a
grab-counter-grab plot that is highly unusual (and unusually complex)
for any Western. On the one hand is the Lufton Family who has to
meet a government deadline on cattle or lose everything, while an old
friend Tate Riling (Robert Preston) has hired him to help out against
the Luftons, without knowing the whole situation.
Garry
has an early bad brush with Lufton's daughter (Barbara Bel Geddes of
Hitchcock's Vertigo
and TV's Dallas)
as well as men who turn out to be 'friends'/workers of Tate. The
twists and turns continue throughout in what could have been a simple
revenge western, but delivers much more. Thus, this is up there with
The
Andromeda Strain
and The
Hindenburg
as one of Wise's best films. Helping is a solid supporting cast that
includes Tom Tully, Walter Brennan, Charles McGraw, Phyllis Thaxter
and Frank Faylen. It holds up very well and may just be a minor
classic of both genres.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
Director
Jim Jarmusch's films always have a haunting of Noir in them, even
when they are comic, such as his remarkable Bill Murray 'road movie'
Broken
Flowers
(originally titles Dead
Flowers
before the studio asked for a title change) and he is, in his own
way, one of the few proponents of the genre today. Another one of
his interesting yet odd films, Limits
of Control
(2009) gets a new release on Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of
Arrow. The slow but visually alluring film is centered around a
loner (the very picturesque Isaach De Bankole) who travels to Spain
and is instructed to meet various strangers, each of which provide
him a cryptic clue. At the center of the surreal and often times
confusing plot is a unique view of a foreign city with a few familiar
faces and Jarmusch's accomplished filmmaking style.
The
film stars Paz De La Huerta, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, and John
Hurt to name a few.
Special
Features (per the press release):
An
American in Europe,
a new video interview with Geoff Andrew, author of Stranger Than
Paradise: Maverick Film-Makers in Recent American Cinema
The
Rituals of Control,
a new video essay on the film by author and critic Amy Simmons
Behind
Jim Jarmusch,
an archival documentary on the making of the film
Untitled
Landscapes,
an archival featurette showcasing the film's locations
Theatrical
trailer
and
a reversible sleeve featuring two choices of artwork.
Next
up are three sets of Film Noir films from Sony's Columbia Pictures
archive you should know about and mostly see. The
Noir Archive, Volume 1, 2 & 3
(1944 - 1960) are 9 films per Blu-ray set, giving some interesting
films better treatment than they have ever had on home video before.
Outside of a fine 35mm or 16mm film print, this is the best you are
likely to see and hear these films. We'll identify the titles in
each set by title / director / cast as follows...
Volume
One
Address
Unknown
(1944) William Cameron Menzies Paul Lukas, Carl Esmond, Peter Van
Eyck (one of the best on these sets)
Escape
in the Fog
(1945) Oscar (Budd) Boetticher Otto Kruger, Nina Foch, William
Wright
The
Guilt of Janet James
(1947) Henry Levin Rosalind Russell, Melvyn Douglas, Sid Caesar
The
Black Book
(aka The
Reign of Terror)
(1949) Anthony Mann Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Arlene
Dahl
Johnny
Allegro
(1949) Ted Tetzlaff George Raft, Nina Foch, George Macready
711
Ocean Drive
(1950) Joseph M. Newman Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger
The
Killer That Stalked New York
(1950) Earl McEvoy Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop
Assignment
Paris
(1952) Earl McEvoy Dana Andrews, Marta Toren, George Sanders
The
Miami Story
(1954) Fred F. Sears Barry Sullivan, Luther Adler, John Baer
Volume
Two
Bait
(1954) Hugo Haas Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, John Agar
The
Crooked Web
(1955) Nathan Juran Frank Lovejoy, Mari Blanchard, Richard
Denning
The
Night Holds Terror
(1955) Andrew Stone Jack Kelly, Hildy Parks, Vince Edwards, John
Cassavetes, David Cross
Footsteps
in the Fog
(1955) Arthur Lubin Bill Travers, Ronald Squire, Finlay Currie,
Belinda Lee
Cell
2455, Death Row
(1955) Fred F. Sears William Campbell, Robert Campbell, Marian
Carr
5
Against the House
(1955) Phil Karlson Alvy Moore, William Conrad, Kerwin Mathews
New
Orleans Uncensored
(1955) William Castle Arthur Franz, Beverly Garland, Helene
Stanton (before Castle did his horror comedies)
Spin
a Dark Web
(1955) Vernon Sewell Faith Domergue, Lee Patterson, Rona
Anderson, Martin Benson
Rumble
on the Docks
(1956) Fred F. Sears Laurie Carrol, James Darren, Michael Grange
Volume
Three
The
Crimson Kimono
(1959) Samuel Fuller Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta
The
Lineup
(1958) Don Siegel Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Warner Anderson
Man
on a String
(1960) Andre DeToth Ernest Borgnine, Kerwins Mathews, Colleen
Dewhurst, Alexander Scourby
The
Shadow in the Window
(1956) William Asher Phil Carey, Betty Garrett, John Barrymore,
Jr.
The
Long Haul (1957)
Ken Hughes Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Patrick Allen (has its
moments)
Pickup
Alley
(1957) John Gilling Victor Mature, Anita Ekberg, Trevor Howard
(British and in Technicolor)
The
Case Against Brooklyn
(1958) Paul Wendkos Darren McGavin, Maggie Hayes, Bobby Helms
(one of the best in these sets)
She
Played with Fire
(1957) Sidney Gilliat Jack Hawkins, Arlene Dahl, Dennis Price,
Bernard Miles, Ian Hunter
If
you are expecting sex, backstabbing and clever styling with no
censorship, you're thinking of a more modern set of thrillers. These
are crime dramas, usually where the main characters are in hopeless
situations, some with voiceovers, some with hilariously,
unintentionally funny dialogue and other flaws and campiness that
show their age and the films as time capsules. It is also
interesting how they handled otherwise censored-at-the-time subjects,
et al. They are remarkable in that they got made with such low
budgets and worked as well as they did and include some of the most
famous filmmakers and actors in the business. All the studios made
these films, big and small, but Columbia was a small company then and
had a head start in doing so. Older viewers might recognize these
from seeing them on the late show back in the day or even in movie
theaters, depending on ones age or if a revival house was nearby they
attended.
The
result if the combined sets are a chance to enjoy just one studio's
solid output of the genre in its classical, original (and some would
say only authentic) form, giving you a clearer idea of what these
films were all about, an early maturing of U.S. filmmaking. All the
studios have more like this in their vaults, many of which are still
not out on Blu-ray. Let's hope this collection encourages more such
releases.
There
are sadly
no extras.
Finally,
a sort of neo-noir from France. Jim Thompson is one of the greatest
of all Noir novelists and has had his share of involvement in great
movies, as well as many of his films adapted for the big screen.
Besides writing for Stanley Kubrick on The
Killing
(1956) and war classic Paths
Of Glory
(1957, both reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this site),
his novels have been adapted often enough and often well, as in the
cases of Coup
De Torchon,
The
Getaway
(both film versions) and The
Grifters.
Then there are the mixed results of After
Dark My Sweet,
both adaptations of The
Killer Inside Me
and the subject of this review,
Alain Corneau's Serie
Noire
(1979).
Patrick
Dewaere is door-to-door salesman Franck Poupart, who is always down
on his luck, has all kinds of enemies, owes people here and there and
tends to be a magnet for the most toxic, immature, dysfunctional
people you can meet. Things get odder when he meets a sexy young
woman named Mona (Marie Trintignant) who is a hooker, pimped out by
no less than her rich aunt and attracting Franck, who has been
betrayed by his wife, boss and everyone else, which included a stay
in jail. The two plot to kill the aunt and get her money, but of
course, things do not go as planned there either. Then things get
worse.
Despite
some good (if too limited) locations, good casting and good
performances, the film just becomes too predictable after the first
half-hour or so and never finds a way to do something different,
varied, unpredictable or surprising, though it is in line with a
style of realism in French cinema of the time that makes it more
palpable and naturalistic, if that helps. It just gets stuck on
itself too often and though that is not wallowing in anything or
getting lazy, it does not propel the film like it could. I can
understand the following for the film, but I felt it fell a bit
short.
Myriam
Boyer, Jeanne Herviale, Andreas Katsulas and Bernard Blier also star.
Extras
include a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text and yet another excellent essay
by Nick Pinkerton, while the disc adds Serie
Noire, The Darkness of the Soul featurette
and an interview with Alain Corneau and Marie Trintignant.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white
digital High Definition image on Moon
is another thankfully restored film from the RKO catalog that Warner
Archive has been able to save and preserve. There are some great
wide shots, obviously much of this is on sets, but it looks like a
few shots were on location. This is a darker film than the usual
Western and that goes with its unusually complex script.
Compositions are interesting and the surprising depth and detail is a
plus. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is also surprising
good for the films age, but the limits of sonic fidelity of a film
this age are still apparent, though I doubt this will ever sound
better.
The
1080p black & white digital High Definition image transfers on
the Noir
sets tend to look best and sharpest when they are 1.33 X 1, though we
also get 2.35 X 1 CinemaScope on Pickup
Alley
(with the usual distortions of the older scope format) and 1.85 X 1
framings (even if the films had slightly different ratios in a few
cases) including Footsteps
In The Fog,
a 1955 British film in three-strip, dye-transfer technicolor that
just qualifies as one of those rare color Noirs and could use some
restoration work on it. The films can look great and rarely show
their age, but these are mostly B-movies just the same, so flaws do
show up in parts, yet the quality is cleaner, sharper and more
impressive than expected with many looking like brand new transfers
and the films looking younger than they actually are.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes sound as good as
they can, but being low budget B-movies, you will get noticeable
dubbing, mixing limits and other small flaws, some of which cannot
ever be corrected because that is the way the films were made.
Still, despite the limits, many are much cleaner and more open than
you would expect for older productions and just be careful of volume
switching and high playback levels until you get use to the chosen
film when viewing.
Limits
of Control
is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with a
widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85 X 1 and an audio mix in original
lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and PCM 2.0 Stereo lossless
soundtracks. The film has very interesting cinematography in Spain
with landscapes that suits the interesting music with artists such
as Bad Rabbit and The Black Angels among others.
The
1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Serie
is a new 2K remaster from the original Fujicolor 35mm negative,
making it a rare feature film shot in the film stick. More so since
Fuji does not make motion picture film anymore, it is a nice change
from Kodak (which I love) and especially most HD video (as any films
shot in Agfa film always are) so it does make for a unique viewing
experience that adds to the different look and feel the filmmakers
were trying to accomplish. The PCM 2.0 Mono sound is the
best-sounding monophonic theatrical film
on the list as expected, the soundmaster holding up well, though it
is mostly dialogue and sound effects based.
To
order the Blood
On The Moon
Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for them and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Limits)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/