Newman’s Law (1974) Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

From Richard T. Heffron, the director of "Trackdown", "Futureworld", "Foolin' Around" and "I, the Jury", comes this action-packed thriller starring George Peppard ("The Groundstar Conspiracy", "P.J.") as an honest L.A. cop battling criminals and corrupt policemen in his own precinct.

Detective Vince Newman, a tough but honest cop investigating a reputed druglord named Lo Falcone (Louis Zorich). After two years of coming up short on evidence, Newman finally hits paydirt when he and his partner Garry (Roger Robinson) discover a mountain of hashish and the dead body of the nephew of Falcone's mob rival Dellanzia (Abe Vigoda) in a house owned by Falcone.

However, the too-slick district attorney (Gordon Pinsent) refuses to prosecute the case after Newman's reputation — and potential testimony — are tarnished by a frameup by Falcone's men. With no longer a job or pension to risk, Newman has little to lose by bringing Falcone to justice his way.

Director: Richard T. Heffron
Cast: George Peppard, Roger Robinson, Eugene Roche
Country: USA
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
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Time Limit (1957) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Major Harry Cargill (Richard Basehart) was the highest ranking American officer while being held in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. His fellow prisoners admired him and considered him unbreakable until the day he became a collaborator, spreading anti-American, pro-Communist propaganda not only in the camp but over radio broadcasts. Later, liberated from the camp, Cargill faces the possibility of court martial for treason. But first an Army investigator, Col. Edwards (Richard Widmark), must make a recommendation for or against court martial. And Edwards suspects there's more to the story than he's been told. What could possibly make a man suddenly betray his country? What pressure was applied to Cargill in the camp to cause him to break?

It's a deeply serious film not just about war but about patriotism, idealism, and the ways in which war inevitably strips soldiers of parts of their humanity.

Director: Karl Malden
Cast: Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart, Dolores Michaels, Rip Torn
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, War
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Chicago (1927), The Golden Twenties (1950) 2 x DVD and Blu-Ray Flicker Alley

Seventy-five years before it was released as an Oscar-winning musical, Chicago was a sassy silent film created by Cecil B. DeMille's production company. It boasted a brilliant turn by Phyllis Haver as the heartless Roxie and, just to make things yummier, it was secretly directed by Mr. DeMille himself!

The story should be familiar to most filmgoers. The blonde seductress Roxie Hart has been two-timing her good-natured husband Amos (Victor Varconi). Roxie is a true gold digger, and Amos's empty pockets don't turn the girl on any longer. She has been having an affair with a moneyed businessman, Rodney Casely (gravel-voiced character actor Eugene Pallette), and when Casely tries to drop her, Roxie shoots him. The district attorney (Walter Richmond) is more than ready to string the murderess up, but a reporter (T. Roy Barnes) sees a way to milk the case and sell some papers. He dubs Roxie "the Jazz Slayer" and plasters her pretty face on the front page. A celebrity is born!

It's a terrifically entertaining mix of humor and melodrama, as well as a pungent critique of trash journalism. It's a film that was thought to be lost for a long time, until an intact print was found in DeMille's archives in 2006.
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Buffet froid / Cold Cuts (1979) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Superb black comedy and a tour-de-force of the absurd. This is about morbid fears, murder and cliches, an absurd world where people break out in compulsive violence as if they were being controlled, a place where everyone is sad and afraid but when death comes along, they shrug it off. A man finds his knife in a man's stomach who claims he killed him. A police inspector is morbidly afraid of string orchestras, murdering or jailing violinists, and arguing that murderers are OK because if you put them away, you'd be contaminating the innocents in jail. And thus, the movie is endlessly surprising, moving from one absurd hilarious scene to another, including a doctor who charges money for raping a patient, a man who sets up his own murder, and high-class torture by chamber orchestra.

The best way to enjoy this very, very strange film is to let it transport you to the Wonderland where its kooky characters reside and then get comfortable in their company. If you question its intentions from the get-go or try to discover the logic that explains the madness that will unfold before your eyes, you will kill a lot of precious brain cells and grow incredibly frustrated.

Director: Bertrand Blier
Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet
Country: France
Genre: Comedy, Crime
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Lo sceicco bianco / The White Sheik (1952) DVD9 Criterion Collection, Blu-Ray Studiocanal

This early Federico Fellini 1952 movie, his first as writer and sole director (after jointly filming 1951's Lights of Variety), is an extremely eye-catching and highly diverting triumph.

Newlyweds Wanda (Brunella Bova) and Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) Cavalli have just arrived for their honeymoon in Rome from their village in the countryside. The thoroughly middle-class Ivan has every minute of their stay in Rome planned out. Most of it is to be spent with his uncle, who is an employee of the Vatican, and his family. The highlight will be an audience with the Pope.

Wanda heads upstairs while Ivan is on the phone and gets a dreamy look in her eyes when she looks over the city. Before we know it, she asks to take a hot bath then sneaks out of the hotel. She is headed to the studio where her idol Fernando Rivoli (Alberto Sordi), better known as the "white sheik", works. She has written Rivoli several fan letters signed "Passionate Dolly" and he wrote back asking her to visit if she ever happened to be in Rome.

Director: Federico Fellini
Cast: Alberto Sordi, Giulietta Masina, Brunella Bovo, Leopoldo Trieste
Country: Italy
Genre: Comedy, Drama
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Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse / The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) 2 x DVD9 Criterion Collection, Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

A sequel to his enormously successful silent film Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse reunites the director with the character that had effectively launched his career. Lang put slogans and ideas expounded by the Nazis into the mouth of a madman, warning his audience of an imminent menace, which was soon to become a reality.

With the titular character, crime lord Dr. Mabuse now locked away in an asylum, taken by madness, under the watchful eye of Professor Baum, mysterious violent crimes begin to occur around the city. The only clues left behind lead to the impossible scenario that the nefarious crime lord has been directing the crimes from his cell in the asylum.

Using the same stunning visuals that defined his silent films, like Metropolis and the earlier Mabuse film, Lang creates an astonishing vision of the morose, high tech, and eerie impending doom that would find itself banned by the Reich. Shadowy docks, empty warehouses, foggy nights, explosions, and a fantastic climax verging on the supernatural all make The Testament of Dr. Mabuse one of Lang's classics on par with his most memorable title, the Metropolis.

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Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse / The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) Blu-Ray Eureka – Masters of Cinema

Fritz Lang's final feature brings his career full circle to the core thriller concepts he pioneered back in 1922: superstitious human nature and sinister technological advances combine to make the 20th century an Age of Terror. Lang reboots his highly cinematic Weimar-era narrative tricks for a film that heralds the beginning of a brave new world where total surveillance and mind control are at the service of paranoid conspiracies.

Police inspector Kras receives a phone call from the psychic Peter Cornelius who predicts the murder of journalist Peter Barter at the traffic lights moments before it happens. In investigating the murder, Kras discovers there have been an alarming number of suspicious deaths of high-profile people where the common factor is that all have stayed at the Luxor Hotel. Kras finds links to the late criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse and comes to believe that Mabuse is still alive...

Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Gert Frobe, Wolfgang Preiss
Country: West Germany, France, Italy
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
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