All
Ladies Do It 4K (1992/aka
Cosi fan tutte/Cult
Epics 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray*)/Jailhouse
Wardress
(1981/Blu-ray/*both MVD)/The
Sales Girl (2021/Film
Movement DVD)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B-/C+/C Sound: B-/C+/C+
Extras: B-/D/C- Films: C+/C/C+
Here's
a new group of erotic dramas that yield mixed results...
Tinto
Brass' All
Ladies Do It 4K
(1992) gets a nice upgrade by Cult
Epics in a 4K
Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray set that tops the old, basic, import DVD we
reviewed in this long out-of-print Brass DVD set you can see more
about here...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10243/Barebums+&+Voyeurs+%E2%80%93+The+Steam
As
I said in my older review, the story...
''...has
married woman Diana (Claudia Koll) happy with her marriage to Paolo
(Paolo Lanza), but she still wants to try things with other men and
the results (like the film) are mixed.''
It
is still interesting to watch, no matter its flaws or flat points,
but seeing it more vividly in these better transfer, it is all the
more compelling. Claudia Knoll leads the exceptionally striking,
sexy, beautiful women featured here and looking great, more
well-photographed than you will see women captured in motion than
almost anywhere else. Especially in 4K, that is now the way to see
this film.
Extras
(per the
press release) include...
New
Audio Commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
Theatrical
Trailers (including the one from the old DVD set)
Interview
with director Tinto Brass (2001)
Outtakes
All Ladies Do It
Photo
Gallery
Double-sided
sleeve with original uncensored Italian poster art
20-Page
illustrated booklet with liner notes by Eugenio Ercolani and
Domenico Monetti
Slipcase
AND
the 4K Ultra HD First pressing Exclusive: 4 Repro Italian Lobby Card
prints.
Jess
Franco's Jailhouse
Wardress
(1981), is another wild exploitation piece from the iconic Spanish
filmmaker, whose work spans over one hundred films, almost all of
which fall under the cult / exploitation categories. This X-rated
film has plenty of nudity and scenes that many would find disturbing
or inappropriate, but if you are familiar with Franco's work this is
pretty standard and a lesser effort than other films he made.
Jailhouse
Wardress stars Lina Romay (Jess Franco's wife and frequent
collaborator) and Didier Aubriot, Eugenie Laborde, Michael Bates, and
Monica Swinn.
A
woman accused of murdering her father (Romay) hatches a scheme to
escape a prison which is headed by a vicious Wardress, Nazis, and a
male nurse she has to trick.
Sadly,
Jess Franco's massive film library isn't available under one sole
distributor and so various cult film companies (Severin, Arrow, Blue
Underground, Synapse, Vinegar Syndrome and others) have released some
of his more renowned works such as Vampyros Lesbos, She
Killed in Ecstasy, Count Dracula, Shining Sex, and
Faceless to name a few. Needless to say, if Jailhouse
Wardress catches your fancy then you should swim into the deeper
pool of Jess Franco (or likely you're another fan such as myself
adding the films slowly to your home movie library.)
Special
Features: Trailers.
Lastly,
Sengedorj Janchivdorj's The
Sales Girl
(2021) is cynically trying to deconstruct the sex industry and sex
films, et al, as college coed Saruul (Bayartsetseg Bayangerel)
accepts a job at a sex shop (they still exist all over, even in the
cyber age, though there are less of them) as the owner of the shop
tries to teach her more about real life and how fake this profitable
world of graphic-yet-formulaic sexual imagery and commodification is.
There
are some moments here that work, the actors are good and you can
believe this is a real shop, but this runs over two hours and
unfortunately, is so much we have seen before. That is what bored me
and disappointed me, though at least it was not wallowing in
exploitation and was trying to do more than the usual such film. See
at your own risk.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer for this and three other Film
Movement releases, but a text statement by the director on the film
is inside the front cover.
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, HDR (10;
Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on All
Ladies Do It 4K is beautiful, brings out how well shot the film
is and even the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image regular
Blu-ray image shows improvements over the old, PAL format 540i image
that was better than any U.S. DVD that could have been issued at the
time, but is now fuzzy (no pun intended) and very dated.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono and 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes in
Italian and lesser English dubs are all included here, but the
Italian tracks are the best and not too different. I liked both and
maybe the stereo a little more. The film will never sound better
than this.
Jailhouse
Wardress is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc
(BD-25) with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a full-frame aspect ratio of 1.66:1
(1.42:1 and lossless audio mixes in English (dubbed) LPCM 2.0 Mono
(48kHz, 16-bit) and French LPCM 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 16-bit) with English
subtitles. The transfer is certainly not struck from a new 4K scan
and looks a bit rough around the edges. You can tell this was a
bare-bones production and the film on disc looks to have a standard
up-resolution from the previous scan. This certainly is not on par
with other Franco films on disc from other labels that have had more
detailed transfers.
Lastly,
the anamorphically enhanced 2.00 X 1 image on Sales Girl is
just too soft for its own good despite some good color quality, while
the lossy Mongolian/Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo mixes are about even and better, but not by much.
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (Jailhouse)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
