Richard III (1995)

Richard Loncraine and Ian McKellan’s cracking movie adaptation of Richard Eyre’s National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s play gets a Blu-ray and DVD release courtesy of the BFI.

We’re in an alternate history version of England in the 1930s. The houses of Lancaster and York are battling for the throne while the scheming Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Ian McKellen) is plotting his own route to power. Torture and death pave his way to the throne, and when he eventually gets there, an already fascistic United Kingdom becomes even more dictatorial.

There are plenty of movie adaptations of Shakespeare out there. The best include Polanski’s MACBETH (still my favourite) and Baz Luhrman’s ROMEO & JULIET (which provided an entirely successful modern updating). This version of RICHARD III deserves to be up there as well. Running at 104 minutes you’re not going to get the entire play, but you do get a lot of cleverness, some stunning location work, and great performances from a cast of well-known faces.

Fans of horror and SF will find their viewing rewarded as well. As well as the whole Philip K Dick, Keith Roberts etc alternate history setting, you get to see Robert Downey, Jr die in a scene that could have been pinched from Sean Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13TH. Richard’s famous ‘Now is the winter...’ speech is cleverly split between public performance and the immediate privacy of the men’s toilets, this latter setting giving us plot divulgence by a mechanism similar to that used in Joe Dante’s THE HOWLING.

Before that speech, however, we get seven minutes of action. Director Richard Loncraine (THE HAUNTING OF JULIA / FULL CIRCLE) was keen to ensure that even if the Shakespearean dialogue couldn’t be followed (it can, by the way) what was happening onscreen would be obvious. I actually think he’s done a terrific job, because you could almost watch this with the sound turned down and you can pretty much tell exactly what’s going on. So if you find the prospect of a Shakespeare movie a bit daunting but still want to see the likes of Jim Broadbent being strangled and Nigel Hawthorne meeting an end admittedly more similar to Marat than the Duke of Clarence, you should have no fears about giving this a go.

The BFI’s disc also contains a lengthy (79 minute) lecture by Ian McKellan delivered at the NFT earlier this year entitled Shakespeare on Stage, Screen and Eleswhere. There’s a six minute making of that’s worth a look if only to see how some of the London locations were turned into interiors in the movie. Ian McKellan and Richard Loncraine are in conversation with Francine Stock for a 21 minute piece also recorded earlier this year at the NFT, and there’s also a feature length commentary from the two of them that made me wish they would have a go at something else together as they obviously work well.

              The DVD also contains the annotated screenplay as a pdf, and last but not least you get a BFI booklet that contains a massive 31 page essay by McKellan that’s well worth a read. Another excellent package from the BFI of a film that absolutely deserves this kind of presentation. 

The Ian McKellan-Richard Loncraine RICHARD III is out on DVD & Blu-ray from the BFI on Monday 20th June 2016

That Cold Day in the Park (1969)

“Robert Altman’s Psychological Gothic Thriller”

The film Robert Altman made before M*A*S*H (and if the producers had seen it they wouldn’t have employed him to direct it, apparently) gets a dual format UK release courtesy of Eureka.

Young, wealthy, intolerably lonely Frances Austen (Sandy Dennis) lives in an elegant apartment in Vancouver. Her only friends are those she has inherited from her mother. They all resemble Pete Walker types who probably beat misbehaving servants or eat people who come to have their fortunes told when they’re not round at Frances’ house having quail and sherry prepared by her own housekeeping staff.

After one such dinner party, and during a terrible storm, Frances looks out through the window and sees a young man getting drenched on a park bench. She invites him inside and thus begins Altman’s increasingly claustrophobic and disturbing psycho thriller.

The young man (David Burns) initially pretends to be mute as she offers him food, a bath, breakfast the next day and buys him new clothes. The fact she locks his bedroom door at night doesn’t stop him leaving through the window to visit his family during an impressive crane shot that might have inspired Argento’s even more ambitious use of a similar piece of equipment in TENEBRAE.

It doesn’t stop him coming back to take advantage of all the free things, either.  In this respect he becomes horror’s typical victim - the one we know shouldn’t go into the dark cellar or the forest at midnight. The only darkness here is inside Frances’ mind, but it’s quite scary enough as we witness her visit to a gynaecologist to obtain contraception for her planned first sexual experience with her prisoner. Eventually she discovers how he gets out and locks the place down. She goes to bizarre extremes to ‘please’ him, which of course misfire completely, until we reach a final shot that’s an absolute cracker and I’m not going to spoil it for you.

Considered Altman’s first movie as an auteur, THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK certainly possesses stylistic elements that follow through his subsequent work. Even if you’re not familiar with it, though, there’s plenty to be appreciated in Altman’s portrayal of a woman who, because of her stifling existence, is ‘not quite right’. The viewer is encouraged to feel distanced from her by numerous devices (viewing her through grills, glass, and lots of mirrors) and the camera often skulks off in a corner as we spy on the interaction of the two leads. 

Eureka’s disc also contains a half-hour interview with David Thompson, author of Altman on Altman. He contextualises the movie within Altman’s career and gives an excellent potted history of how the film came to be made. I’m going to own up now to never having heard of THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK before, but Eureka’s calling it a ‘psychological gothic thriller’ piqued my interest. It certainly is that, with excellent performances, drifting zooms and crisp photography from Laszlo Kovacs, Altman’s film gives us a slow and steady crescendo into insanity that, by the climax, stifles the viewer as much as Frances Austen has been stifled by her entire life. 

Eureka are releasing Robert Altman's THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK in a dual format DVD & Blu-ray set on Monday 20th of June 2016

Evolution (2016)

“Lovecraft Through a Renaissance Lens”

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s weird and meditative body-horror picture on the nature of reproduction (amongst other things) gets a UK release from Metrodome just after it finishes its run on the art house cinema circuit.

        On an isolated island of rocks and black sand lives a strange community of young women and young boys. While the boys are fed a worm-filled gruel and subjected to bizarre medical procedures at a grim hospital, the women congregate by the sea where they commune naked, possibly through the strange sucker-like appendages on their backs. 

This bizarre ritual culminates in the creation of tiny, foetus-like creatures that then have to be implanted within the abdominal cavities of the boys so they can gestate. When young Nicolas (Max Brebant) is brought in for implantation, he develops a relationship with one of the hospital nurses through the pictures he loves to draw. How the relationship ends is something you can discover for yourself.

         I’m not really giving too much away with that synopsis, in fact it might actually help explain some of what is going on. There is more than that of course in this, director Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s first film since the equally peculiar INNOCENCE (2004). The director has herself admitted that EVOLUTION was influenced by the films of David Lynch and David Cronenberg. One assumes the red sheets in the hospital are in homage to Cronenberg's own gynaecological horror picture DEAD RINGERS (1988).

There’s a strong Lovecraft feel to the proceedings as well, though. Lovecraft through a Renaissance lens, perhaps, with some often startlingly beautiful compositions. Some of the female characters do have a rather ‘aquatic’ look about them. I was reminded of axolotls and was actually expecting the boys to grow up to become them. Who knows? Perhaps they do, but if so that’s not made clear here. 

        The first two thirds of the film are equal parts beauty and fascination. As we enter the third act of EVOLUTION, however, the film does begin to feel as if things have been stretched out a bit to get it to feature length. It’s still definitely worth watching, though. Metrodome’s DVD contains no extras other than the option of 2.0 or 5.1 surround sound mix. 

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s EVOLUTION is out on Region 2 DVD from Metrodome on Monday 20th June 2016

Too Late For Tears (1949)

“Excellent Late 1940s Noir”

Another missing film from the classic era of noir gets the restoration treatment and a dual format Blu-ray and DVD release from Arrow. Unlike its companion release, WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950), TOO LATE FOR TEARS is less action-orientated, stagier and a lot more plot-heavy. In fact it’s the convolutions of the well-written, intricate script that form one of the main reasons for catching up with this one.

On their way to a party Jane Palmer (Lizabeth Scott) and her husband Alan (Arthur Kennedy) narrowly miss a car coming in the other direction. The vehicle slows down long enough for a bag containing what turns out to be $60 000 to be thrown into their rear seat.

Almost as soon as they discover the bag’s contents the problem arises of what to do with the money. Alan wants to turn it into the police but Jane wants to keep it. Eventually they reach a compromise with Alan checking the bag into Union Station while they decide what to do. Jane has reckoned without Danny (Dan Duryea) who is looking for ‘his’ money and knows where the Palmers live. More interested in keeping the cash than her husband, Jane concocts a scheme with Danny that leads to Alan’s death. Now she has to dispose of her husband’s body, unaware that her problems have only just begun…

Thoroughly engrossing for its 99 minute running time, TOO LATE FOR TEARS offers a complex plot that’s never difficult to follow. Byron Haskin’s direction only pays lip service to the stylistic flourishes one might associate with the genre, but I suspect he was too busy making sure the audience could follow what was going on. What the movie does possess, however, is an insidious, slowly developing atmosphere of utter mistrust, where by the end you’re wondering if everyone you’ve met (even the dead ones) have secrets you’ve not yet been made party to. 

Arrow’s disc gives us a restoration that’s not what you’d call sparkling, but as all that’s previously been available are grotty old public domain prints, if you’re a fan of this one and that’s all you’ve seen you’ll want to grab this. And again, as I said with WOMAN ON THE RUN, if you’ve not sampled the grim delights of film noir before, this is actually a pretty good place to start. Extras include a short piece on the restoration job, a sixteen minute making of, and a feature commentary by film historian Alan Rode. 

Byron Haskin's TOO LATE FOR TEARS is out from Arrow Films in a dual format edition on Monday 13th June 2016

Woman on the Run (1950)

“Surprisingly Good Film Noir"

It is as well. All I knew about WOMAN ON THE RUN before I popped the disc into the player was that the only existing US print had been burned in a fire in 2008, and that the version I was about to see was the result of painstaking restoration work by the Film Noir Foundation (isn’t it nice to know there are organisations with names like that?). I had no idea, however, if it was going to turn out to be any good.

But it is. Surprisingly so. Running at a brisk 77 minutes and shot on location in San Francisco by a director (Norman Foster) whose main claims to fame are movies in the CHARLIE CHAN and MR MOTO series of 1930s programmers, and a fair bit of US TV, WOMAN ON THE RUN boasts a script brimming with snappy dialogue, some impressively noir camera set-ups, and a pleasingly grim, pre-CARNIVAL OF SOULS fairground setting for its climax. 

Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) is out walking his dog one night when he witnesses a gangland murder. Able to identify the killer, he promptly goes into hiding. much to the chagrin of the police force’s Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith). Ferris contacts Johnson’s wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), convinced that Johnson will make plans to meet up with her.

It turns out that Frank and Eleanor may not have had the perfect marriage as, with tabloid reporter Dan Legget (Dennis O’Keefe) in tow, Eleanor embarks on a journey of Frank’s old haunts to try and find out where he might have gone. Constantly watched by the police, and with Legget not necessarily being all he claims, it’s up to Eleanor to not just find her husband, but save him from the gangland villain he could testify against in court.

There are plenty of reasons to watch WOMAN ON THE RUN, not least of which is the climax, which manages a terrific bit of Hitchcockian suspense on a roller coaster, and an ending that threatens to become depressingly downbeat. Performances are all extremely watchable and constantly interesting, with Sheridan especially coping with some wisecracking dialogue well, and O’Keefe contributing considerably to the sinister climax.

Arrow’s Blu-ray and DVD dual format set contains a full-length feature commentary from ‘noirchaeologist’ (great word) Eddie Muller, as well as short films on the restoration job, the making of the film, and the locations used, as well as a bit about San Francisco’s annual Noir City Film Festival. Excellent stuff. This version of WOMAN ON THE RUN is going to be a must-see for noir fanatics but even if you’re not that familiar with the genre this is actually a pretty good place to start. 

WOMAN ON THE RUN is out in a dual format DVD/Blu-ray edition from Arrow on Monday 13th June 2016

Butterfly Kiss (1995)

Michael Winterbottom’s first film (and his first collaboration with screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce) gets a UK DVD re-release courtesy of Fabulous Films.

Eunice (Amanda Plummer) is searching for something, and possibly someone. Wandering the A roads of Northern England, she stops at petrol stations asking after a particular song and wanting to know if the shop assistant’s name is Judith. No matter the response the encounter can sometimes end in bloody violence and death.

When Eunice comes into a petrol station run by Miriam (Saskia Reeves) it's the start of an uneasy relationship that leads to a spate of killings as the girls travel north on the M6 to a destination that can only end in disaster.

A 1990s British version of a Jack Hill-Roger Corman road movie, if this has been made by New World in the 1970s it would have been called something like ‘Psycho Girls’. Instead this is a more restrained, more thoughtful affair than the purest exploitation, but is no less bloody for it. BUTTERFLY KISS refers to eyelashes tickling skin, by the way.

There’s certainly a 1970s Pete Walker-style vibe to the grimness, though, from Miriam’s disabled mother who gets shoved into Miriam’s bedroom so the two girls can use the mother’s double bed to have sex on, to Ricky Tomlinson’s hapless lorry driver who meets a sticky end. 

I don’t doubt it was never Winterbottom's and Boyce’s intention to make a horror film, or even a thriller. Both seem far more fascinated with the development of the interaction between the two lead characters. Eunice is undoubtedly a very damaged individual, whereas Miriam has seen very little of the world. Most of the action is confined to main roads and motorways and the busy hotels and petrol stations that are peppered along the way, as if to emphasise the idea that Miriam and Eunice are just two of many eternal drifters unable to find (or know) what they want. 

Fabulous Films’ DVD comes with no extras. 

Michael Winterbottom's BUTTERFLY KISS is out on DVD from Fabulous Films on 13th June 2016

Edvard Munch (1974)

Peter Watkins’ immense, detailed, 221 minute, critically acclaimed biopic of the Norwegian artist most famous for his painting ‘The Scream’ gets a new Blu-ray presentation courtesy of Eureka.

Watkins is justifiably famous for his docu-drama style that features his own dispassionate, carefully enunciated voice-over as commentator. Films like CULLODEN, THE WAR GAME, and PUNISHMENT PARK were all biting commentaries on conflict. With EDVARD MUNCH, Watkins employs the same style to the biopic.

For a film lasting nearly four hours, it only covers about ten years of Munch’s life - the years 1884 to 1894, when he embarked on his expressionist career and did a fine job of establishing himself as one of Europe’s most controversial artists. We do get brief flashbacks to Munch’s youth, and the death of his mother and sister. Much is made of his associations with anarchist Hans Jaeger and associated artists in Christiania (Watkins later soberly informs us of the death of many of the group from alcoholism, drug addiction and syphilis) and later Strindberg in Berlin. 

Watkins uses a 4:3 frame and almost everything is shot in closeup. The characters act as if they’re being filmed for a documentary. Everyone speaks in languages appropriate to where we are at any point (Norwegian, German, Swedish, etc) while Watkins’ English commentary maintains a sense of distance. 

Nevertheless, the commentary, the close-ups, and the detail all very much help the viewer to ‘get inside Munch’s head’ so that as we see the works of art take shape (sometimes in a variety of interesting artistic media) we understand where they’re coming from. Watkins’ film absolutely isn’t a typical Hollywood biopic. There’s no glamorisation here and quite a bit of depression, disease and death. It’s probably best watched over a couple of instalments (Eureka have included the two part version here as well as the full four-hour bottom numbing one). 

Eureka’s Blu-ray contains no extras, but you do get a really rather impressive 80 page book in which Peter Watkins interviews himself (!). You also get new writing on the film by Joseph Gomez, a Munch timeline, and reproductions of numerous Munch artworks. If you ever needed to know more about this Norwegain artist, this is the package to get. 

Peter Watkins' EDVARD MUNCH is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 13th June 2016