Expatriate blacklistee Joseph Losey is the perfect director for this excellent, strange tale, a big award winner in France. The terrible Occupation-era victimization of the Jewish citizens of Paris is told tangentially from the viewpoint of a jackal-like opportunist who buys art and valuables cheaply from Jews desperate for cash. But Klein has a little ‘doppelgänger’ problem straight out of Franz Kafka . . . and finds himself in an existential nightmare that’s strangely . . . appropriate. This original, superior thriller arrives in a new special edition.
Mr. Klein
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1123
1976 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 123 min. / Monsieur Klein / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine Bergé, Michael Lonsdale, Juliet Berto, Suzanne Flon, Massimo Girotti, Jean Champion, Francine Racette, Louis Seigner.
Cinematography: Gerry Fisher
Production Designer: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editors: Marie Castro-Vasquez, Henri Lanoë, Michèle Neny
Original Music: Egisto Macchi, Pierre Porte
Written by Franco Solinas, collaborator...
Mr. Klein
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1123
1976 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 123 min. / Monsieur Klein / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine Bergé, Michael Lonsdale, Juliet Berto, Suzanne Flon, Massimo Girotti, Jean Champion, Francine Racette, Louis Seigner.
Cinematography: Gerry Fisher
Production Designer: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editors: Marie Castro-Vasquez, Henri Lanoë, Michèle Neny
Original Music: Egisto Macchi, Pierre Porte
Written by Franco Solinas, collaborator...
- 5/10/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Luchino Visconti’s handsome final feature adapts a classic Italian novel about an arrogant aristocrat whose selfish double-standard philosophy causes ruin and misery. The 19th century villas and ornate costumes dazzle, but the depressingly fated story will be tough going for sensitive audiences. This new disc encoding highlights the intoxicating atmosphere, and the intense performances of Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli and Jennifer O’Neill.
L’innocente
Blu-ray
Film Movement Classics
1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 129 112 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / 29.95
Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Rina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Didier Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Roberta Paladini, Claude Mann, Marc Porel.
Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis
Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni
Original Music: Franco Mannino
Production Design: Mario Garbuglia
Costumes: Piero Tosi
Written by Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti from the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio
Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci
Directed by Luchino Visconti
The availability of European art cinema became spotty in the 1970s,...
L’innocente
Blu-ray
Film Movement Classics
1976 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 129 112 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / 29.95
Starring: Giancarlo Giannini, Laura Antonelli, Jennifer O’Neill, Rina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Didier Haudepin, Marie Dubois, Roberta Paladini, Claude Mann, Marc Porel.
Cinematography: Pasqualino De Santis
Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni
Original Music: Franco Mannino
Production Design: Mario Garbuglia
Costumes: Piero Tosi
Written by Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti from the novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio
Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci
Directed by Luchino Visconti
The availability of European art cinema became spotty in the 1970s,...
- 8/4/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The strangest Italian portmanteau picture of the sixties features glorious Silvana Mangano in dozens of costume changes, directed by big names (Visconti, De Sica, Pasolini) and paired with a woefully miscast Clint Eastwood. The other major attraction is a delightful music score by Piero Piccioni, with an assist from Ennio Morricone.
The Witches
Special Edition Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 (?) 111 105 min. / Le streghe / Street Date January 30, 2018 / 34.95
Starring: Silvana Mangano, Clint Eastwood, Annie Girardot, Francisco Rabal, Massimo Girotti, Véronique Vendell, Elsa Albani, Clara Calamai, Marilù Tolo, Nora Ricci, Dino Mele Dino Mele, Helmut Berger, Bruno Filippini, Leslie French, Alberto Sordi, Totò, Ciancicato Miao, Ninetto Davoli, Laura Betti, Luigi Leoni, Valentino Macchi, Corinne Fontaine, Armando Bottin, Gianni Gori, Paolo Gozlino, Franco Moruzzi, Angelo Santi, Pietro Torrisi.
Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno
Film Editors: Nino Baragli, Adriana Novelli, Mario Serandrei, Giorgio Serrallonga
Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni
Written by Mauro Bolognini, Fabio Carpi,...
The Witches
Special Edition Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 (?) 111 105 min. / Le streghe / Street Date January 30, 2018 / 34.95
Starring: Silvana Mangano, Clint Eastwood, Annie Girardot, Francisco Rabal, Massimo Girotti, Véronique Vendell, Elsa Albani, Clara Calamai, Marilù Tolo, Nora Ricci, Dino Mele Dino Mele, Helmut Berger, Bruno Filippini, Leslie French, Alberto Sordi, Totò, Ciancicato Miao, Ninetto Davoli, Laura Betti, Luigi Leoni, Valentino Macchi, Corinne Fontaine, Armando Bottin, Gianni Gori, Paolo Gozlino, Franco Moruzzi, Angelo Santi, Pietro Torrisi.
Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno
Film Editors: Nino Baragli, Adriana Novelli, Mario Serandrei, Giorgio Serrallonga
Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni
Written by Mauro Bolognini, Fabio Carpi,...
- 2/13/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Review by Roger Carpenter
In a day and age when video distribution companies are mostly concerned with the bottom dollar and release or re-release films they know are guaranteed to sell (anyone care to count the number of Us releases of The Evil Dead series or Night of the Living Dead?), one of my favorite things about Arrow Video USA is their apparent fearlessness in releasing films and box sets that are probably only going to appeal to a very small niche audience.
Along with Arrow Academy, Arrow Video USA’s arthouse imprint, the company has released a good portion of Walerian Borowcyzk’s films and is busily releasing the early works of Seijun Suzuki as well as other, relatively obscure, 50’s and 60’s Japanese films. While I applaud Arrow for releasing these films and enjoy them all immensely, I’m just not sure the typical movie fan has a...
In a day and age when video distribution companies are mostly concerned with the bottom dollar and release or re-release films they know are guaranteed to sell (anyone care to count the number of Us releases of The Evil Dead series or Night of the Living Dead?), one of my favorite things about Arrow Video USA is their apparent fearlessness in releasing films and box sets that are probably only going to appeal to a very small niche audience.
Along with Arrow Academy, Arrow Video USA’s arthouse imprint, the company has released a good portion of Walerian Borowcyzk’s films and is busily releasing the early works of Seijun Suzuki as well as other, relatively obscure, 50’s and 60’s Japanese films. While I applaud Arrow for releasing these films and enjoy them all immensely, I’m just not sure the typical movie fan has a...
- 2/12/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Sergio Martino was a journeyman Italian director who averaged around three films a year into the early nineties and who worked in many different genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent), spaghetti westerns (A Man Called Blade), poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals), sex comedies (Sex with a Smile), and action films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York). But this blue-collar filmmaker is arguably most famous for his early seventies gialli such as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and Torso. Each of these gialli films are–rightly so–considered genuine classics of the genre and fans of these films each have their favorite Sergio Martino giallo. However, his final giallo of this period (he...
Sergio Martino was a journeyman Italian director who averaged around three films a year into the early nineties and who worked in many different genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent), spaghetti westerns (A Man Called Blade), poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals), sex comedies (Sex with a Smile), and action films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York). But this blue-collar filmmaker is arguably most famous for his early seventies gialli such as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and Torso. Each of these gialli films are–rightly so–considered genuine classics of the genre and fans of these films each have their favorite Sergio Martino giallo. However, his final giallo of this period (he...
- 10/2/2017
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Welcome to the world of Jean Grémillon, where adult characters work through adult problems without benefit of melodramatic excess. The impressively directed experiences of Micheline Presle’s lady doctor on a storm-swept island opts for a progressive point of view, not sentimentality.
The Love of a Woman
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 104 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / L’amour d’une femme / Available from Arrow Video 39.95
Starring: Micheline Presle, Massimo Girotti, Gaby Morlay, Paolo Stoppa, Marc Cassot, Marius David, Yvette Etiévant, Roland Lesaffre, Robert Naly, Madeleine Geoffroy.
Cinematography: Louis Page
Film Editor: Louisette Hautecoeur, Marguerite Renoir
Production Design: Robert Clavel
Original Music: Elsa Barraine, Henrie Dutilleux
Written by René Fallet, Jean Grémillon, René Wheeler
Produced by Mario Gabrielli, Pierre Géin
Directed by Jean Grémillon
Film critics that pride themselves on rediscovering older directors haven’t done very well by France’s Jean Grémillon, at least not in this country.
The Love of a Woman
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 104 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / L’amour d’une femme / Available from Arrow Video 39.95
Starring: Micheline Presle, Massimo Girotti, Gaby Morlay, Paolo Stoppa, Marc Cassot, Marius David, Yvette Etiévant, Roland Lesaffre, Robert Naly, Madeleine Geoffroy.
Cinematography: Louis Page
Film Editor: Louisette Hautecoeur, Marguerite Renoir
Production Design: Robert Clavel
Original Music: Elsa Barraine, Henrie Dutilleux
Written by René Fallet, Jean Grémillon, René Wheeler
Produced by Mario Gabrielli, Pierre Géin
Directed by Jean Grémillon
Film critics that pride themselves on rediscovering older directors haven’t done very well by France’s Jean Grémillon, at least not in this country.
- 9/9/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Love Of A Woman (1953 – L’amour d’une femme) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD + Blu-ray will be available August 22nd from Arrow Academy. Pre-order Here</strong
The Love Of A Woman (L’amour d’une femme) was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as Remorques, Lumière d’été and Pattes blanches.
Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.
Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, The Love of a Woman is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.
Special Edition Contents
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by...
The Love Of A Woman (L’amour d’une femme) was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as Remorques, Lumière d’été and Pattes blanches.
Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.
Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, The Love of a Woman is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.
Special Edition Contents
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by...
- 8/8/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
When he spoke these words, Italian film director Sergio Sollima, who died this week at age 94, was referring to his love of travel, of the ability to visit far-flung parts of the world, observing and absorbing varied and unfamiliar cultures afforded to him by his career. But he always seemed to translate that love of observation and experience to even his grimiest, most disreputable thrillers, infusing his films with vitality and a distinct political thrust that often separated them from the more routine product of the Italian film and television industry of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Sollima was born in Rome in 1921 and as a young man graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the Italian national film school established in 1935. He started out writing film criticism but soon moved toward crafting plays and screenplays. The first of them to be produced, "Behind Closed Doors" (1951), on which he was one of four writers,...
- 7/2/2015
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the second of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.
Passion...
Passion...
- 12/11/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
★★★★☆ However disposable our current trends are, there's still a desperate need to classify what digital culture means to us. Trolling, outrage on social media, hacktivism - is it just iconoclasm writ large across the web? Some argue that these actions represent the mutilation of community, the loss of social value, worth and privacy. If so, we haven't travelled far from a 1960s culture which wrestled with the emptiness of bourgeois living. So we revisit 1968: stumbling towards the end of a tumultuous decade which united the student population and liberated many attitudes towards sex, politics and money.
All across Italy (and indeed much of the West), undergraduates rioted against police, supported by the convictions of left-wing organisations. But Pier Paolo Pasolini, openly an anti-consumerist along with communist comrades, opposed the students, arguing that policemen were the real proletariat. The same year, Pasolini delivered his sixth feature film, Theorem (Teorema, 1968), which...
All across Italy (and indeed much of the West), undergraduates rioted against police, supported by the convictions of left-wing organisations. But Pier Paolo Pasolini, openly an anti-consumerist along with communist comrades, opposed the students, arguing that policemen were the real proletariat. The same year, Pasolini delivered his sixth feature film, Theorem (Teorema, 1968), which...
- 5/28/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Stars: Joseph Cotten, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti, Rada Rassimov, Antonio Cantafora, Umberto Raho, Luciano Pigozzi | Written by Vincent Fotre | Directed by Mario Bava
Italian director Mario Bava was responsible for some truly great horror movies of the 60s and 70s, including The Mask of Satan, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, Lisa and the Devil and proto-slasher A Bay of Blood. However some, whilst a success at the time, haven’t aged quite so well… like Baron Blood.
The film is yet another gothic horror from Bava that, like Black Sunday before it, features a witch’s curse – this time placed on Baron Otto von Kleist, Austria’s legendarily murderous ‘Baron Blood’, whose corpse is inadvertently revived when an ancient incantation is read out as a joke by a descendant and his girlfriend. Naturally, the Baron decides to carry on where he originally left off, with the help of an...
Italian director Mario Bava was responsible for some truly great horror movies of the 60s and 70s, including The Mask of Satan, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, Lisa and the Devil and proto-slasher A Bay of Blood. However some, whilst a success at the time, haven’t aged quite so well… like Baron Blood.
The film is yet another gothic horror from Bava that, like Black Sunday before it, features a witch’s curse – this time placed on Baron Otto von Kleist, Austria’s legendarily murderous ‘Baron Blood’, whose corpse is inadvertently revived when an ancient incantation is read out as a joke by a descendant and his girlfriend. Naturally, the Baron decides to carry on where he originally left off, with the help of an...
- 5/6/2013
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Anna Magnani in (what looks like) Luchino Visconti's Bellissima At the end of Giuseppe Tornatore's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso, small-town projectionist Philippe Noiret has died and the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso has become a pile of rubble. The bratty Italian boy Salvatore Cascio has grown into the classy Frenchman Jacques Perrin (like Noiret, dubbed in Italian), a filmmaker who sits to watch a mysterious reel of film the deceased projectionist had left him. It turns out the reel contains clips from films censored by the prudish local parish priest, whose family values found kisses, embraces, and bare breasts and legs a danger to society. Now, who's doing all that kissing, embracing, and breast/leg-displaying in that film reel? (Please scroll down for the Cinema Paradiso clip.) Here are the ones I recognize: Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice (1949); Mangano...
- 2/14/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Senso (1954) Direction: Luchino Visconti Cast: Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Heinz Moog, Nina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni Screenplay: Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Luchino Visconti; from Camillo Boito's novella Highly Recommended Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Senso Critical consensus regards Luchino Visconti's Senso as a radical departure, a sign of the director's shift in focus from the gritty world of downtrodden proles (such as in his neorealist classics Ossessione and La Terra Trema) to a rather more exciting historical fantasy involving the illicit romance between Countess Serpieri (Alida Valli) and Lieutenant Mahler (Farley Granger) during the Italian revolt against Austria — shot in radiant three-strip Technicolor to boot. A rather more defensible truism portrays Senso as a dry run for Visconti's later adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard. There are obvious parallels between the two: male leads played by American actors (Granger in Senso, Burt Lancaster in The Leopard), brilliant color cinematography,...
- 3/14/2011
- by Dan Erdman
- Alt Film Guide
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