Tequila Sunrise 4K (1988)

Writer-director Robert Towne’s late 80s neo-noir is getting a limited edition 4K release (on both UHD and Blu-ray) from Arrow Films in a set that will also include a booklet featuring new writing on the film from Sean Hogan and Josh Nelson.

Dale ‘Mac’ McKussic (Mel Gibson) and Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell) were childhood buddies. While Mac went on to become a drug dealer, Nick became a cop. Now Nick’s a detective while Mac is apparently retired from the drugs business. However, news that the mysterious drug lord Carlo is coming to town has the police keen to keep tabs on Mac as they know each other well.

Meanwhile, both Mac and Nick get involved with restaurateur Jo Ann Vallenari (Michelle Pfeiffer), further complicating things. When the Mexican drug squad headed by Commandante Xavier Escalante (Raul Julia) get involved as well, events reach a head.

A Tequila Sunrise is a cocktail made from tequila, orange juice and grenadine, and apart from Mel chugging a couple, the title here (probably) refers to the love triangle between the three leads. For a movie from one of Hollywood’s most respected screenwriters, TEQUILA SUNRISE is surprisingly slow and uneventful. Certainly some of the dialogue crackles and there are some memorable speeches and one-liners, but the whole thing adds up to not very much indeed plotwise. However, if you’re a fan of the leads, or of DP Conrad Hall’s cinematography (which is excellent) those might be reasons enough to make you want to take a look at this one. Just don’t expect anything on the level of Towne's screenplay for CHINATOWN. 

Arrow’s disc comes with a commentary track by producer Thom Mount (who comes in at around the 43 second mark so wait for it), who also provides a new 21 minute interview. There are also interviews with second assistant director Robert Roda (17 minutes) and Lala Sloatman (16 minutes) who played ‘Sin Sister 2’. Lucy Bolton provides a very useful appreciation and overview of Towne’s career (25 minutes), plus you get the usual trailers and image gallery. 

Robert Towne’s TEQUILA SUNRISE is out on 4K from Arrow in both UHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 14th September 2026

36 Hours 4K (1953)

 

It’s time to dive back into the vaults as Hammer brings us another of their B-movie crime thrillers that most people have never heard of. This time it’s the turn of 36 HOURS aka TERROR STREET, an almost Cornell Woolrich-type tale from author (screenplay and novel) Steve Fisher, to get the 4K UHD and Blu-ray treatment and apparently marks the first time the film has been released on physical media.

Major William Rogers (Dan Duryea) sneaks away from his military posting in the US to find out what has happened to his wife Katie (Elise Albiin), who lives in London and from whom he hasn’t heard in months. He eventually tracks her down and confronts her, only for him to be knocked out. When he regains consciousness she’s dead, he’s holding the gun, and the police are on the way.

The 36 hours of the UK title of this one refer to the time Rogers has before he has to get back to the plane that will return him to his military base so he won’t be registered as AWOL. The film itself is pretty much a perfunctory by the numbers tale of a smuggling scheme. Director Montgomery Tully (THE TERRORNAUTS - not exactly the highest recommendation) stages many of the dialogue scenes in the most workmanlike way possible which, if nothing else, makes this a useful comparison piece to demonstrate just how good directors like Terence Fisher (MANTRAP) and Francis Searle (THE MAN IN BLACK, WHISPERING SMITH HITS LONDON) were at staging this sort of material.

Of course by now everyone should be used to the concept that you’re not buying these packages for the film alone but for the extras, and once again Hammer have outdone themselves. You get two versions of the film - the UK 36 HOURS which comes with a commentary track from experts Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman which is up to their usual standard, and the US TERROR STREET which gets a commentary from US critics Toby Roan and Heath Holland. The US version is only ten seconds shorter than the UK version (both run at close to 85 minutes) and it’s difficult to tell if there are any real differences between the two. Sources have stated that the UK version should be five minutes shorter at 80 minutes but there’s nothing anywhere here about that.

Other extras include a decent 38 minute chat between Vic Pratt and Dr Josephine Botting of the BFI about the neglected genre of British noir of this period, Maxim Jakubowski talking about pulp crime in general and author Steve Fisher in particular (17 minutes), Chris Alexander on Dan Duryea, kicking off with the actor’s contribution to the Twilight Zone (22 minutes), Sergio Angelini discussing the film in relation to other crime pictures of the period (23 minutes) plus the usual trailers, censor card and image galleries. 

You also get two episodes of the radio series Suspense starring Dan Duryea - The Man who Couldn’t Lose (1947) and Remember Me (1952). Both run nearly half an hour. Finally there’s the obligatary book which wasn’t provided for review but which apparently contains articles on the making of the film as well as production paperwork.

36 HOURS is out on 4K in a limited edition UHD and Blu-ray combo set on Monday 15th June 2026

Marlowe (1969)

Arrow Films are releasing director Paul Bogart, writer Stirling Silliphant and actor James Garner’s interpretation of Raymond Chandler’s classic detective, updating him to a contemporary (for 1969) setting on Blu-ray. 

Private investigator Philip Marlowe (James Garner) is employed by Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell) to find her brother Orrin (Roger Newman). Orrin has disappeared after taking some compromising photographs of top rated sitcom star Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicut) in a clinch with gang boss Sonny Steelgrave (H M Wynant). 

The last two people to see Orrin end up murdered with ice picks in their necks, Marlowe is warned to leave the case alone by the promise of a thousand dollars if he does and a serious kicking by Bruce Lee if he doesn’t. The police gets involved, as does Mavis’ exotic dance friend Dolores (Rita Moreno), and as things get even more complicated it becomes obvious to Marlowe that someone, and perhaps everyone, is lying. 

MARLOWE does as good a job at setting Chandler’s private eye in late 1960s LA as Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE would just a few years later, and James Garner makes for just as good a Marlowe, albeit rather less rumpled. As is often the case with this kind of plot that contains numerous people either being economical with the truth, telling outright lies, or being involved in multiple double crosses, you have to pay close attention to what’s going on, especially the dialogue, at all times. MARLOWE doesn’t waste a minute of its running time with the result that it’s an extremely satisfying example of its type.

Apart from a trailer and image gallery there’s only one extra but it’s a good one, as Howard S Berger goes large on the Marlowe character, beginning with his literary origins and moving through his screen incarnations. What Berger also does, though, is pull in some interesting, and very personal observations and comparisons between Marlowe through the ages and other popular characters in movies at the time, all the way from the Hope and Crosby Road pictures, through Paul Newman’s HARPER to James Bond (in many of his incarnations) and beyond. 

It runs 51 minutes but the time flies by and this is a fascinating piece that will be all the more valuable and informative to those who aren’t perhaps as familiar with the periods in cinema history Berger discusses as some of us are. Arrow’s limited edition Blu-ray also comes with a booklet featuring new writing from Jeff Chang and Priscilla Page, plus a reversible sleeve.

MARLOWE is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 8th June 2026

A Desert (2025)

 

"Filled with Insidious Menace"

Blue Finch are releasing director Joshua Erkman's A DESERT, a film that could sit comfortably alongside Rose Glass's LOVE LIES BLEEDING in the offbeat desert noir genre. 

Alex (Kai Lennox) is a professional photographer famous for 'The Death of the New West', a book of images of abandoned towns and landmarks that are now crumbling and rotting. Hoping to repeat his success he sets off into the desert intending to deliberately lose himself in a maze of ghost towns and lost places that will form the subject of his next book.

Unfortunately he spends the night at a rundown motel where he meets the psychotic Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman) and his 'sister' Susie Q (Ashley Smith). Soon Alex has vanished and his wife Sam (Sarah Lind from A WOUNDED FAWN) employs private investigator Harold (David Yow from UNDER THE SILVER LAKE)  to find him, with ultimately horrific results.

A DESERT could be described as 'slow burn', but that would be by people for whom plot progression is the maxim by which movies should be judged. The film takes its time to allow you to drink in the gorgeous landscapes and the very real ghost towns that are the subject of Alex's obsession, such that we begin to understand his desire to capture them on the very old fashioned camera he lugs round with him. At the same time the film manages to convey a sense of creeping dread pretty much from the outset. The climax is suitably bloody and overall A DESERT is a fine entry in the offbeat desert noir genre.

A DESERT is out on digital from Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 24th November 2025

Dark City (1998)

Alex Proyas' innovative science fiction movie is getting an impressive whistles and bells 4K and Blu-ray release from Arrow Films, including a total of seven commentary tracks and a wealth of newly produced, excellent extras.

In a film noir version of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakes in a bath in a grim hotel room. Also in the room is a dead woman with bloody spirals carved into her skin. The phone rings and a Dr Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) tells John he has to get out of there as there are men after him. And what peculiar men they are, all dressed in black and consisting of very tall Bruce Spence, normal-sized Richard O'Brien, and a small child.

Murdoch finds himself wandering a city where it is always night but nobody notices, and where people change jobs, partners and lives at the stroke of midnight but again (almost) no-one notices. Police Inspector William Hurt is also on Murdoch's trail, believing him to be the killer, but what's actually going on is very strange (and, for its time, really rather original) indeed.

When DARK CITY was originally released word quickly spread that to enjoy it properly you needed to stick your fingers in your ears for the first two minutes to avoid the opening studio-imposed voice-over narration that essentially explained most of the film, and spoiling what was intended as a series of surprise reveals. The film starts off as a noir but as it gets stranger you start to wonder if any of what Murdoch is experiencing (and indeed what you are watching) is real. Movies like THE MATRIX used some of the ideas in DARK CITY and because the film is now nearly 30 years old it's difficult to describe just how mind-blowing some of this was back in the day.

Arrow's two disc UHD set gives you both films in 4K with the director's cut on disc one. This runs 112 minutes (11 minutes longer than the theatrical), eliminates the voice over and has scenes in a different order. If you are new to DARK CITY watch this first. The film comes with five commentary tracks & if you want to tackle them all a suitable order might be the archival commentaries first (director Alex Proyas, then writers Lem Dobbs and David S Goyer - recorded separately and then edited together - and finally Roger Ebert) then go to the new commentaries, with Alex Proyas first and finishing off with the highly entertaining and chatty one from podcast team Craig Anderson, Bruce Isaacs and Herschell Isaacs. 

Other new extras include an hour long documentary featuring many of the crew and Rufus Sewell from the cast talking about their memories of the film, a 20 minute visual essay from Josh Nelson on film noir as related to DARK CITY and another from Alexandra West on the psychology of mazes. Also new is 14 minutes of storyboards and production drawings.

Disc two has the theatrical cut (101 minutes with voiceover). Watch this after the other version. There are two archival commentary tracks from 2008, one with the film-makers, the other with Roger Ebert. Extras here are all archival with a 44 minute making of and a 33 minute meaning of, which is a nice addition. There's also a trailer and an image gallery. Finally, this is an Arrow special edition so you get a 60 page book, double-sided poster, some postcards and a Dr Schreber business card as well.

Alex Proyas' DARK CITY is out on limited edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 23rd June 2025

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Director Bryan Singer's and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie's classic Oscar winning (for original screenplay and for Kevin Spacey as best supporting actor) 1995 neo-noir gets a 4K restoration limited edition UHD and Blu-ray release from Arrow Films.

After a massacre on a cargo ship leaves 27 men dead and one Hungarian burns victim in intensive care, FBI man Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito) investigates the case while customs officer Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) interviews the one survivor capable of walking and talking, con artist Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). 

As Baer gets to the bottom of what happened on the ship and who was responsible, Kint tells Kujan how he and four others were recruited by enigmatic crime boss Keyser Söze, whom they had all apparently and unwittingly previously stolen from, to stop a drug deal from taking place. But as more facts are uncovered it becomes apparent that Kint may not be the most reliable narrator of events.

A clever script that's given equally clever direction, THE USUAL SUSPECTS tells the viewer all they need to know to provoke nagging questions at the back of their own minds as events unfold. The denouement is extremely satisfying, not least because rather than saying 'fooled you' to the audience it instead confirms that all along they were right to be suspicious. Thirty years later it remains extremely effective and I have no intention of spoiling it here.

Arrow's 4K restoration looks splendid, and there are 5.1 and 3.0 sound potions. As far as it's possible to tell, extras on the disc are all archival. These include two commentary tracks (one from composer / editor John Ottman,  the other from Singer and McQuarrie), interviews with DP Newton Thomas Sigel (16 minutes), and John Ottman (18 minutes), a two part making of (51 minutes in total), a piece on Keyser Soze with cast interviews (18 minutes), the 1995 Cannes premiere (4 minutes), Polygram's EPK (Electronic Press Kit - 6 minutes), 10 minutes of deleted scenes introduced by John Ottman, a seven minute gag reel, three minutes of interview out-takes, trailers and a TV spot.

Arrow's limited edition UHD also comes with a booklet featuring new writing by Barry Forshaw, a double-sided fold out poster, and a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned art.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS is out on limited edition 4KUHD and Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 6th January 2025