He Who Gets Slapped (1924/MGM/Flicker Alley Blu-ray)/Intruder In The Dust (1949/MGM/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Los Golfos (1959/aka The Delinquents/Radiance*)/Materialists (2025/A24 Blu-ray)/Niki (2024/Icarus DVD)/Palindromes 4K (2004/Radiance 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/*both MVD)

4K Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B-/B-/B/B-/C/X Sound: B/B-/B-/B/C+/B Extras: B/C/B-/B-/C-/B- Films: B-/B-/B-/C+/C+/B

PLEASE NOTE: The Intruder In The Dust Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Next up are a wide-ranging group of dramas that stretch for just over a century and counting....

Victor Sjostrom's He Who Gets Slapped (1924) is the saved and restored edition of the highly successful silent movie with Lon Chaney as a clown trying to save a woman (Norma Shearer) from the truly horrible Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott) who ruined his life before. He intends to never let that happen again.

The first film ever made by the finalized version of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (aka MGM,) this dark tale is not an outright horror film, but smart, holds up well and remarkably nuanced, helping establish the studio as the #1 of the classical Hollywood period. Beautifully shot and edited, it is visually memorable and Sjostrom had more than proved his visual capacities with The Phantom Carriage (1921, see our Criterion Blu-ray review elsewhere on this site) that was so amazing, it influenced Ingmar Bergman to become a filmmaker.

Chaney was one of the biggest stars in the world and this only added to his popularity, star power and critical acclaim. After so many bad copies, all running too short or at the wrong speed, Flicker Alley's new Blu-ray edition brings it back to its original silent 18 frames-per-second speed and the result is much more impactful and convincing. Shearer is also in great form here, joined by John Gilbert, Ford Sterling, Tully Marshall, Ruth King and several actors who somehow went uncredited. When you see these actors who did not make it into sound in a film like this, you can see what we lost in that transition.

Extras in a really nice slipcase packaging include a Feature Length Audio Commentary track by Emmy award-winning makeup artist and Lon Chaney expert Michael F. Blake

• He Who Gets Smacked (1925): From producer Mack Sennett and director Lloyd Bacon, this comedic short stars Ralph Graves as Jimmie, a hapless department store worker who accidentally volunteers for a professional boxing match

• Koko at the Circus (1926): Will Koko and Fritz the Dog's circus act be replaced by a giant? Find out in this animated short from Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series, directed by Dave Fleischer, featuring a stunning new restoration by Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored

• Leo: The Truth and the Lion (2025): An original featurette that explores the early days of MGM's beloved Leo the Lion

• Image Galleries featuring production stills and promotional material

• Booklet Insert: Presenting an article by Thomas Gladysz exploring the life of Victor Sjostrom and the production of He Who Gets Slapped

• and Limited Edition Spot Gloss Slipcover: Optional packaging upgrade with exclusive artwork, available only at FlickerAlley.com.

Clarence Brown's Intruder In The Dust (1949) is a decent, respected feature film adaption of the William Faulkner novel about an innocent man (Juano Hernandez) who is of color, accused of killing a member of his community connected to money and power. As a mob mentality starts to accumulate, there are a few people who are not sure and the murderer knows it is a lie. Chick (Claude Jarman, Jr.) is a younger part of the town and decides to lead the way in finding out the truth.

A rare social commentary film for the MGM Studios, it was a moderate success at the time and though some parts have dated more than others and censorship laws stopped some aspects of the novel from being more explicit on the big screen. The supporting cast never hits a false note and includes David Brian, Porter Hall, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Kemper, David Clarke, Harry Antrim, Lela Bliss, Elzie Emanuel and Will Geer. So good, ti makes em want to read the book, but be sure to, at least once, see the movie.

Extras include two Technicolor MGM shorts: the live action Playlands Of Michigan (in low def) and animated cartoon Counterfeit Cat (in HD) and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Carlos Saura's Los Golfos (1959) is a censored film from Spain about a group of young men who, sick of petty crimes, decide to get into bullfighting with more stolen money and plan a much larger heist. Can they succeed or are they doomed to be stuck as their plans do not go as intended?

Well shot in a realistic documentary style and looking really good here, some would say this also owes something to Italian Neo-Realism, this can have some heady moments (animal lovers will highly object to the bullfighting, but it is ironic that they go from one bad life to possible killing and death as a way out) and it is surprisingly tight, rich, full and impactful for running only 80 minutes. However, the Franco Government saw it as a threat for a reason and that it both survived and did so so vividly well makes it a must see, even if only once if you object to some of the visuals.

Extras include an introduction by author and former director of Filmoteca Catalunya Esteve Riambau (2025, 22 mins)

• Interview with filmmaker and curator Ehsan Khoshbakht on Los golfos, its influences and makers (2025, 17 mins)

• Censored scenes: scenes affected by censorship are presented alongside notes from the censorship committee and Carlos Saura (2025, 13 mins)

• Two early short films by Saura: La llamada, about a solider leaving for war (1955, 7 mins) and La tarde del domingo, about an oppressed live-in maid (1957, 34 mins)

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Vincent Wild

• and Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing by Mar Diestro-Dopido, reprints of original documents including committee notes on the script and a detailed breakdown of the restoration process.

Celine Song's Materialists (2025) is a mixed love triangle tale that tries once again to give Dakota Johnson a chance for a star breakthrough, but with results that do not work out as planned. Just when she meets a new guy (Pedro Pascal) she likes, an old flame (Chris Evans, and no, they do not try to recruit her for another Marvel Comics movie) comes back to challenge her situation further. Too bad the screenplay was nto more challenging itself.

Directing is also mixed, with Johnson's acting offering more of her talking at than to anyone and there is a general lack of chemistry as nothing her convinced me it was palpable, realistic and despite the possibilities, hardly any chemistry with anyone. And this goes on for almost two forgettable hours, somehow holding back any potential from the talents involved. If you expect something to 'materialize' from this film, forget it. See it with low expectations if you must, but it was more of a dud than expected.

Extras include a Director's Feature Length Audio Commentary with Celine Song
○ ''The Math of Modern Dating: Making Materialists'' featurette
○ Composer Deep Dive with Japanese Breakfast
○ and Six Collectible Postcards with Behind the Scenes Photography.

Celine Sallette's Niki (2024) has some initial promise, with Charlotte Le Bon as the title character, the real life French-American artists who was bold and controversial in her time, arriving in France in 1952 after many harrowing experiences and needing a fresh start. Unfortunately, as this starts to unfold, she experiences a very unfortunate return of the repressed, leading to serious mental illness issues, et al and more.

She still managed to be a major Avant Garde artist in her time, but if any of this film is true, no matter any liberties they took, then she had some very ugly things happen in her life and female artists tend to be too forgotten for our own good. Running about 100 minutes and having a good cast with some good locales, I wish the screenplay had tried to do more, but this ultimately runs into the same issues all biopics do in predicability. At least it has some raw moments that work.

Extras include Trailers, but that's all.

Todd Solondz's Palindromes 4K (2004) is yet another remarkable film from one of the most realistic (and therefore dangerous?) filmmakers around, with remarkable works like Welcome To The Dollhouse, Storytelling, Happiness, Life During Wartime and more. He's also one of the most underrated and I was reminded of this yet again when watching this story of 'Judah' Aviva (Valerie Shusterov; many characters are named Aviva, thus the film's title) who has always wanted to have a baby, at a remarkably young age and now that she is getting older, does what she has to do to do so, no matter how it will turn out.

Of course, the lack of grown adults, intelligent adults and adults who can or will actually do something to help out or stop bad things from happening are almost totally absent, which is too much like real life (and more than ever lately) and Solondz pulls no punches in showing how bad, awful and ugly this is. It is honesty we used to see all the time in movies and even on TV in the 1970s, now suddenly ignored and not discussed.

With a nod to Welcome To The Dollhouse, the film moves forward with its sometimes heartbreaking story, dense with hopelessness and emptiness that the situations portrayed would result in, always convincing without a false note and strong in its impact. The supporting cast of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ellen Barkin, Richard Masur, Will Denton, Sharon Wilkins, Tyler Maynard, Matthew Faber, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Danton Stone, Hillary B. Smith and Emani Sledge work very well here and its a great act of film restoration and preservation that this got a rerelease and the respect the films deserves.

Highly recommended, even if the subject matter is stronger than you might be used to.

Extras include:

• 4K restoration from the original negative by the Museum of Modern Art approved by writer-director Todd Solondz

• New interview with Todd Solondz by critic Hannah Strong (2025, 26 mins)

• New interview with actor Alexander Brickel (2025, 14 mins)

• Todd Solondz and His Cinema of Cruelty, a new video essay by critic Lillian Crawford (2025, 12 mins)

• Original Theatrical Trailer

• Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters

• Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing by Bence Bardos, extracts from the original press book, plus archival interviews with Solondz and composer Nathan Larson

• and Limited Edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

For more on Solondz, check our coverage of his other films so far:

Happiness DVD

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/540/Happiness+-+Signature+Ed.+(full+screen

Life During Wartime Criterion Blu-ray

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11211/Life+During+Wartime+(2010/Criterion+Collection+Blu-r

Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Palindromes 4K is the best performer here as expected, has a somewhat raw, unpolished look to match the narrative and is as rich as it is consistent. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is also solid, well recorded and as good as any release on the list.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on He Who Gets Slapped is going to show the age of the materials used, but despite being far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film on home video, there is still a little more damage here and there that was not fixable. Whether those parts can be fixed without ruining the visuals, who knows, but the look works and is authentic enough, including tinting. Both music scores are here in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes and sound fine, both having their strengths and both worth trying out.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Intruder In The Dust looks good, but is a little softer throughout than expected (the 35mm camera negative was apparently destroyed in the infamous 1978 MGM fire) while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is as good as the film will likely ever sound. Director of Photography Robert Surtees, A.S.C., does some memorable work here and is also known for That Midnight Kiss (also just released by Warner Archive,) Quo Vadis, The Bad & The Beautiful, The Merry Widow, Oklahoma!, Raintree County, Ben-Hur (1959,) The Satan Bug, The Graduate, The Last Picture Show, The Sting and The Hindenburg.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Los Golfos hardly shows the age of the materials used and is the second-best performer on this list with fine detail, depth and solid Video Black. The Spanish PCM 2.0 Mono is as good as this film will also ever sound and the combination is a pleasant surprise.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Materialists is a little softer than I would have liked, but a 4K version would really tell us how good this one looks, while the lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) is often dialogue-based and has its share of silences, so only expect so much sonically, though it is professionally recorded, mastered and mixed.

The 1.33 X 1 color image (anamorphically enhanced in a 1.78 X 1 frame, bookended) on Niki is well-shot, but too soft for its own good (despite some good color) in this older format, while the lossy French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix is better, but would likely sound much better lossless.

To order the Intruder In The Dust Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo