The Naked Prey (1965) DVD9 (2007 edition) and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Although he directed and produced eight feature films during his career, Cornel Wilde was better known to movie audiences as an actor who excelled in swashbucklers (At Sword's Point, 1952) and athletic action roles (The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952). Only now, almost thirty years after his death, is his work as a director being reappraised as some of the most original and compelling work in the American cinema with his fifth feature, The Naked Prey, regarded as possibly his finest achievement.

Bearing similarities to the 1932 film version of Richard Edward Connell's short story, The Most Dangerous Game, a movie that had a profound effect on Wilde as a young boy, The Naked Prey follows a safari guide as he leads his party through the South African jungle. When the arrogant ivory hunter, who is financing the safari, refuses to pay homage to a group of tribesmen for entering their territory, there is bloody retribution. Only the safari guide is allowed to live...if he can outrun a group of armed warriors in pursuit. He is given a brief head start and then the chase begins, one which will test his strength, endurance and cunning repeatedly as he attempts to reach safety...

Director: Cornel Wilde
Cast: Cornel Wilde, Gert van den Bergh, Ken Gampu
Country: South Africa, USA
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller
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Babyface (1977) Blu-Ray Vinegar Syndrome

Babyface is a great film to have come from the golden age of adult films and director Alex de Renzy.

Dan (Dan Roberts) is a dockworker in heaps of trouble after seducing Priscilla (Lyn Cuddles Malone), a sexed up teen looking for a little trouble to upset her uptight mother, Molly (Molly Seagrim). Nearly killed during a police chase, Dan hopes to reinvent himself as a male prostitute working in a brothel that services an exclusively female clientele, joining a stable of studs (including Joey Silvera and Paul Thomas). Initially overwhelmed by the job and its intimidating customers, Dan soon finds himself in deeper trouble when Molly zeroes in on his location, looking for revenge.

BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:45:43 | 23.2 Gb + 3% rec
Language: English
Subtitles: none

Director: Alex de Renzy (as Alex deRenzy)
Cast: Rudy Graham, Blair Harris, Carla Harwood
Country: USA
Genre: Adult, Comedy
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Corruption (1983), The Last House on Dead End Street (1977) Blu-Ray Vinegar Syndrome

Directed by Roger Watkins (under the pseudonym of Richard Mahler), Corruption is one of those films that blends hardcore pornography with arthouse style to create something unique.

The dirty underbelly of business, sexual fantasy and the deprivation of love and sexual gratification collide in this unique offering from director Roger Watkins.

Corruption is a Faustian like tale where the protagonist sells his soul to a mysterious organization, who in return promise him power and fortune. From there things start too go awry in the protagonists personal and professional lives.

Overall Corruption is an extraordinary film that stands out as one of adult cinema's most unique cinematic experiences.

Director: Roger Watkins (as Richard Mahler)
Cast: Jamie Gillis, Michael Gaunt, Tiffany Clark, Milton Ingley (as Michael Morrison), Samantha Fox, George Payne
Country: USA
Genre: Adult, Crime; Horror

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Dead Man (1995) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

The films of Jim Jarmusch are generally multi-layered reflections of differing aspects of humanity. His films have a subtle and gentle humour that seem to ride well with his philosophical tales and poetic visions. The deliberate pacing and ambiguity of his films are generally not embraced by mainstream audiences, but are devoured by lovers of arthouse cinema.

The fact that Jarmusch had ventured into the western genre surprised many in 1995, with the release of Dead Man, although upon viewing the film, you realise quickly that Dead Man is much more than a simple stereotypical western. This tragic tale of a young man's decent into personal oblivion is rich in black humour, visually stunning and is highly intelligent filmmaking.

Johnny Depp plays William Blake, a Cleveland accountant who arrives in a frontier town ready to start a new life only to find out that the job he was promised has been given to another man.

While he is spending the night with a woman, her lover shows up and kills her. In self defense, Blake shoots the man and flees with a bullet in his chest. Nobody (Gary Farmer), an outcast Native American who was educated in England, looks after Blake and dispenses his spiritual vision of life. They have to elude various lawmen and bounty hunters who are on his trail.

Nobody is convinced that Blake is the reincarnation of the famous English poet and sees it as his mission to usher him back to the spirit world.

Neil Young's electric guitar score punctuates this imaginative Western which includes interesting meditations upon the myth of the frontier, violence, artistic outlaws, and the plight of mistreated Native Americans. Blake's arduous journey toward death is a wonder to behold.
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Verbotene Filme / Forbidden Films: The Hidden Legacy of Nazi Film (2014) DVD9

The documentary Forbidden Films opens with a familiar metaphor for cinephiles. As Felix Moeller's camera tours a Berlin archive of 1,200 German films made between 1933 and 1945, a guide mentions that the nitro-celluloid filmstrips are highly flammable. In both the literal and figurative sense, these Nazi propaganda movies are explosive.

Though most of the tamer Nazi films are available in edited versions that snip out the swastikas, 40 remain banned from public consumption in Germany because their ideology has been deemed too dangerous. These 40 are the ones that interest Moeller.

The film raises the question: Should these films – some of which, crude as they are, are still poisonous – be made available to the general public without restriction?

DVD9 | NTSC 16:9 | 01:37:57 | 5.09 Gb + 3% rec
Language: German
Subtitles: English

Director: Felix Moeller
Country: Germany
Genre: Documentary
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No Way Out (1950), All About Mankiewicz (1983) Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

No Way Out sees Poitier play Luther Brooks, a newly qualified doctor who's assigned to cover in the prison ward on his first night. There he treats two of the notorious Biddle brothers who are brought in after being shot and caught by the police. One of them, Johnny (Dick Paxton), looks considerably worse off than his leg injury suggests and Brooks thinks he may actually have a brain tumour. The doctor decides to take action straight away, but it's too late and Johnny dies. Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark), a violent racist, blames Brooks for his brother's death and vows to take revenge once he's on his feet, not only on Brooks, but on the local black community as a whole. On top of this pressure, Brooks is worried that perhaps he was to blame for the patient's death, so wants an autopsy to define the cause. This requires consent from Johnny's closest family though and Ray of course would never allow it...

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier, Harry Bellaver
Country: USA
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
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Le gang (1977) Blu-Ray

After the enormous popularity of Borsalino and its sequel Borsalino et Co. in the early 1970s, director Jacques Deray and actor/producer Alain Delon hoped to repeat their success with Le Gang, a similar kind of period gangster action film. The film was based on a novel by Roger Borniche, which recounted the real-life story of a notorious gangster boss, Pierre Loutrel (known as "Pierrot le Fou").

In Le Gang (1976), set in 1945 when the French police are somewhat disorganised while trying to root out Nazi collaborators from their ranks, Delon (in a curly wig) assembles a gang which embarks on a series of daring robberies. The story is told in flashbacks from the point of view of Delon's mistress as his mournful gang gather round his deathbed.

BD25 | 1080p AVC | 01:43:41 | 21.7 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Francais
Subtitles: English, Japanese

Director: Jacques Deray
Cast: Alain Delon, Laura Betti, Xavier Depraz
Country: Italy, France
Genre: Crime, Drama
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Clouzot: The Early Works: The Terror of Batignolles / La terreur des Batignolles (1931), Dragnet Night / Un soir de rafle (1931), The Unknown Singer / Le chanteur inconnu (1931), I’ll Be Alone After Midnight / Je serai seule apres minuit (1931), My Cousin from Warsaw / Ma cousine de Varsovie (1931), Tell Me Tonight / La chanson d’une nuit (1932), Dream Castle / Chateau de reve (1933) 2 x Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique) is considered one of the masters of French cinema. The filmmaker has a master's eye for visual storytelling. His most cherished works clearly demonstrate Clouzot's artistic brushstrokes as a director are uniquely his own. With several classic films made during his legacy as a director he is an artist who has undeniably made a mark in the pantheon of filmmaking history.

Clouzot: The Early Works is an interesting compilation of some of the filmmaker's earliest forays into filmmaking. This set showcases his beginnings as a filmmaker when he worked as a screenwriter for dialogue adaptations and as an assistant director. It also includes his directorial debut, The Terror of Batignolles (1931), a short film that only hints at what was to come from Clouzot.

As with other master filmmakers who started their prolific careers during the early era of studio filmmaking (such as the brilliant Alfred Hitchcock), Clouzot's earliest filmmaking demonstrate his finesse for the art and craft while only giving a glimpse of his later brilliance. Before making classics like The Wages of Fear he had to learn the ropes of filmmaking. This set showcases his growth from a novice to a skilled filmmaking who would one day become an auteur.

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John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) 2 x Blu-Ray Shout! Factory – Scream Factory Collector’s Edition, Blu-Ray Arrow Films Limited Edition

A Norwegian helicopter circles the perimeter of United States National Science Institute, station 4, a remote scientific outpost deep in the Arctic. For reasons unknown, a gunman inside the chopper fires a rifle at a dog. The engagement ends with the copter down and the two-man crew killed. The confused American research team takes in the seemingly harmless dog, and several of the group, including R.J. "Mac" MacReady (Kurt Russell), take their own helicopter to the Norwegian outpost in hopes of discovering what drove the Norwegians to hunt the dog in such an aggressive manner that ultimately cost them their lives. There, amidst the smoldering remains of the station, they find the remnants of some "thing." Taking it back to station 4, the facility's medical examiner finds inside of it normal human organs, but the "thing's" external appearance is anything but, a bloody jumble of limbs, torsos, and faces melded together as one. Soon after, the team discovers a deadly creature in their midst, one that can absorb and imitate any life form it so chooses, leaving the team confused, frightened, and untrusting of one another. A series of bloody events reveals that appearances can be deceiving, that your best friend may very well be harboring inside of him a deadly creature capable of unleashing unspeakable, grotesque attacks.

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Rosemary’s Baby (1968) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Roman Polanski's (Carnage; The Pianist; Chinatown) 1968 Hollywood debut Rosemary's Baby introduced the already established European director of such psychological dramas as Repulsion to an American market with a similar journey through a woman's madness. This time around, however, the journey would take on more supernatural leanings, and Rosemary's Baby, based on the novel by Ira Levin, would also lead the way for the horror/thrillers of the 1970s such as The Exorcist and The Omen.

Starring a waifish Mia Farrow straight from her Peyton Place role in the titular role as Rosemary, the film follows the Woodhouses, Guy (John Cassavetes; A Woman Under the Influence) and Rosemary as they move into a new apartment in Manhattan, the historic building carrying a long history of gruesome deaths. Their nosy elderly neighbors inveigle their way into the Woodhouse's lives. When Rosemary becomes pregnant – the implication being that Rosemary has been raped by the devil himself as we see in an earlier nightmare sequence – Rosemary becomes increasingly suspicious about her neighbors, her doctor, and even her husband, suspecting they want to steal her baby and use it for satanic rituals.

What makes Rosemary's Baby so effective, however, is the fact that the film's focus is rarely on anything supernatural. As a viewer we are forced to question right up to the very end whether Farrow's character Rosemary is truly being targeted by supernatural forces, or if she is just a woman knocked of center by her new circumstances and in the midst of a breakdown. Polanski, already a master at such topics by this time, builds the tension masterfully through his use of the camera, the eerie jazz-inspired score from Krzysztof Komeda, and a breakout performance from Farrow herself.
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Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns (1957) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Forty Guns stars the great Barbara Stanwyck as Jessica Drummond, a wealthy landowner in Arizona. She's a powerful woman who has control over the 'forty guns' of the title, a band of riders who help her maintain her dominant position over the area alongside her ability to pay off anyone she needs. When ex-hired gun Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan) and his two brothers ride into town and put a stop to her brother Brockie's (John Ericson) drunken bullying, Jessica begins to lose her tight grip. This isn't helped by the fact that she falls in love with Griff. Brockie isn't about to let the Bonnells get away with what they did though and Jessica becomes torn between both sides whilst Griff's life is put in danger.

A remarkable, typically eccentric film produced, written, and directed by the irreplaceable Samuel Fuller, Forty Guns is quite unlike any Western made before or since. It's floridly melodramatic in the Douglas Sirk manner and, for its time, was explicitly violent with outrageous sexual innuendo.
Like many other Fuller films, Forty Guns influenced the director's younger European counterparts.

Director: Samuel Fuller
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger
Country: USA
Genre: Romance, Western
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Red, White and Zero (The White Bus, Ride of the Valkyrie, Red and Blue) (1967) Blu-Ray BFI

This film is made up of three separate stories which somehow represent a way of seeing an aspect of life in the Britain of the mid-nineteen-sixties. It starts with Ride of the Valkyrie, where opera singer Zero Mostel must take a perilous journey from the airport where he has just arrived to the theatre where he is meant to be appearing in Wagner's Ring. Second is The White Bus, where a young woman (Patricia Healey) leaves her deadly boring job in London to return north to her hometown, but finds things both the same and different. Third is Red and Blue, as chanteuse Vanessa Redgrave reflects while on a train journey back to her lovers, some more significant than others...

Unfortunately the three segments were quickly separated before the film could be given a theatrical release, with only Anderson's middle segment, the superb "The White Bus," getting a significant commercial release. Fortunately the BFI has corrected that oversight by restoring the entire film as originally intended, and it's a fascinating, sometimes surprising experience that also fills a significant hole in the history of British cinema.

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Valley of the Dolls (1967) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Cutthroat careerism, wild sex, and fierce female protagonists are all on offer in this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's sensational and wildly popular novel.
Neely is a talented Broadway performer, but her talent frightens jealous and aging star Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), so she has her removed from her show. However, she won't be stopped, and strives toward stardom on her own path and becomes a monster in her own right. Jennifer is a beauty, but that's all anyone ever sees in her, while her mother uses her as a piggy bank and breaks her confidence at every chance. Anne is fresh from idyllic New England, and finds herself in the big city, thrown into the whirlwind that is the entertainment industry.
The three will soon realize that life is not all about glamor, though, as they discover the hidden part of fame; drugs, booze, and sex with men who will never love them. Each of them is affected by this discovery in different ways and follow downward spirals that leave them estranged.

Director: Mark Robson
Cast: Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

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Gmar Gavi’a / Cup Final (1991) DVD5

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, an Israeli soldier is captured by a band of PLO guerrillas. Meanwhile, the World Cup finals are happening in Spain, prompting the soldier and several of his captors — particularly the leader of this small group — to bond over their mutual support of Italy.

Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis directs this lyrical anti-war film that covers Israel invasion of Lebanon. It uses soccer as a bridge between enemy soldiers that can possibly bring them to recognize they might also have other things in common. Laced with humor, wit and violence, Cup Final is a subtle tale of shared humanity.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:47:51 | 4.18 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Hebrew
Subtitles: English hardcoded
Genre: Drama, War

Director: Eran Riklis
Cast: Moshe Ivgy, Mohammad Bakri, Salim Dau
Country: Israel
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