Maria Montez fondly welcomes you to survey of the year’s finest disc entertainment. Her film is first, because…the list is in alphabetical order.
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (Universal) Every year, it seems, Universal comes up with another rubric under which to market the classics and curios of it voluminous library; for 2009, it was “Backlot Series.” Whatever, as long as the stuff gets out there, as I noted in June. This goofy 1944 romp featuring Montez, Turhan Bey, Andy Devine, Fortunio Bonanova and a lot of other actors who have no business enacting tales from the Arabian Nights is not as delirious as Cobra Woman, but it’s great Technicolor fun anyway.
Bardelys The Magnificent/Monte Cristo (Flicker Alley) Billed as “The Lost Films of John Gilbert,” this is also a boon for King Vidor fans, as Bardelys is a long-thought-vanished major work of his. A typically great package from Flicker Alley.
Becoming Charley Chase (VCI) A treasure chest of innovative, hilarious work from a great, underappreciated silent comedian.
Death In The Garden (Microcinema) Primo ’50s Buñuel. Dig that snake!
Eclipse series: Another great year for the Criterion offshoot, with underseen work from Rossellini, Shimizu, and Makavejev among the highlights. Like the man says, collect ’em all!
Empire of Passion (Criterion) Not as overtly provocative as In The Realm Of The Senses, another Oshima classic brought out by Criterion in 2009, but in some respects weirder and richer.
The Exterminating Angel (Criterion) Finally.
The Film Noir Collection Volume 1 (Sony) How great to see Siegel’s remarkably intense The Lineup looking so damn good. Not to mention Dmytryk’s The Sniper, Lang’s The Big Heat, Karlson’s Five Against The House, and Lerner’s frankly amazing Murder By Contract.
Film Noir Double Feature Volume 3: Reign of Terror and The Amazing Mr. X (VCI) This John Alton mini-fest could have looked better, but I reveled in the chance to own Anthony Mann’s Terror aka The Black Book, a wild noir period piece set in the French Revolution!
Forbidden Hollywood Volume 3 (Warner) The-all-William-Wellman set is full of intense, eye-opening thrills, from the innovative opening of Other Men’s Women on, and all the way through. Essential.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Criterion, pictured) An inspired revival. Reviewed here.
Gaumont Treasures (Kino) Truncated from the original French box set, a massive untranslated thing; its title is no hype though. Alice Guy Blanche scholars and Feuillade nuts (such as myself) found a lot to love here.
The GoodTimes Kid (Benten/Watchmaker) Well, yes, I did do the liner notes for this fine release of a wonderful, genuinely eccentric film. But really, it’s the picture and the care with which it’s presented, by a label you’ll be seeing more great stuff from this year, that makes this a keeper.
The Golden Age Of Television (Criterion) A bit of a departure for the label, and also some vital scholarship, as it were; some of the directors represented here would shake up American cinema but good.
Gradiva (Mondo Macabro) Robbe-Grillet’s last film, all pretzel logic and detached kink, well presented by the most refined and informed of exploitation labels.
A Grin Without A Cat (Icarus) Chris Marker’s remarkable, eloquent, epic consideration of ’60s and ’70s radicalism.
Hobson’s Choice (Criterion) A Lean delight.
Husbands (Sony) Finally.
L’important c’est de aimer (Mondo Vision) A label on a mission: to release really snazzy editions of galvanic auteur Andrzej Zulawski’s work. Well done!
Karloff Lugosi Collection (Warner) A four-film collection of odds and ends, all fascinating; any package including both Zombies on Broadway and The Walking Dead is welcome to my dollar.
Made In USA (Criterion) Godard starts getting alienating. But the boy can’t help it.
Magnificent Obsession (Criterion) The wonders of mise en scene, among other things. Drooled over here.
Man Hunt (Fox) Solid American Lang.
The Michael Powell Collection (Sony) Only two films—A Matter of Life And Death and Age of Consent. But: finally. Considered in passim pretty much all over this blog, in a sense. Here’s one example.
My Dinner With Andre (Criterion) Not merely a collection of middlebrow aperçus but a terrifying epiphany.
The Samuel Fuller Collection (Sony) A fascinating, eclectic, and fun collection. Those who bitch about the inclusion of It Happened in Hollywood and such really don’t get the point of these endeavors, I think.
Simon of the Desert (Criterion) Finally.
Summer Storm (VCI) Early American Sirk, stunning; reviewed here.
The Taking of Power By Louis XIV (Criterion) Astute, underplayed history from Rossellini.
That Hamilton Woman (Criterion) Viewed over 80 times by both Andrew Sarris and Winston Churchill. You should see it at least once, then.
Toho Collection Icons of Sci-Fi (Sony) The packaging could have been better-considered, but the material, including The H Man and Mothra, is spectacular.
Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film (Image/American Film Preservation Foundation) Reviewed here.
25 Films By Akira Kurosawa (Criterion) Reviewed here.
Two Or Three Things I Know About Her (Criterion) The cosmos in a cup of coffee, and more.
Universal Pre-Code Collection (Universal) Some crazy stuff, none crazier than Murder At The Vanities, worth the price of admission and considered here.
Walden (Microcinema) Jonas Mekas’ marvelous celluloid poem and time capsule. Drooled over here.
A Walk In The Sun (VCI) Milestone’s WWII opus, a more sceptical view of the war, an excellent companion to Wellman’s Story of G.I. Joe and Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives.
Warner Archives: A revolution in…well, see here.
The Whole Shootin’ Match (Benten/Watchmaker) Another sterling example of the Benten/Watchmaker ethos. Reviewed here. Tragically, the film’s costar Lou Perryman met an awful end only months after this disc’s release; I discuss that here.
Z (Criterion) Finally.
Zabriskie Point (Warner) Finally. Shoulda been a Blu-ray, but you can’t have everything.
FOREIGN ISSUE
Alone Across The Pacific (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) Reviewed here. And no, that’s NOT Jon Gosselin…
Blood (Second Run) Reviewed here.
Daisies (Second Run) Reviewed here.
The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Box Set (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) Just, wow. Reviewed here.
Il Grido (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) A much needed upgrade of a key Antonioni picture. Lauded here.
Joan The Maid (Artificial Eye) Finally, Rivette’s complete epic. Reviewed here.
The Man From London (Artificial Eye) Reviewed here.
Muriel (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) A good year for Resnais on DVD. Reviewed here.
Pialat series (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) La Gueule Ouverte here. Graduate First here. We Won’t Grow Old Together here.
A Time To Love And A Time To Die (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) Magnificent Sirk. Reviewed here.
Une Femme Mariée (Eureka!/Masters of Cinema) Reviewed here. MOC really kicked ass in ’09, no?
Well, there you go. I’d heard about the Sam Fuller set, but then I promptly forgot it.
As for this:
“Those who bitch about the inclusion of It Happened in Hollywood and such really don’t get the point of these endeavors, I think.”
So people are bitching because he only co-wrote it? And it’s one of SEVEN movies in the set? Who exactly would bitch about that?
Well, there’s a legitimate grievance that a “Samuel Fuller collection” of seven films only has two that he actually directed. I love both Underworld U.S.A. and The Crimson Kimono, but they certainly could have been released separately so I don’t have to pay $60 to get them. Considering Criterion gave us an Eclipse set of three REAL Fuller films that will only run you about 20 bucks, it’s a little weak. I’d feel worse about it if I didn’t already have copies of both anyway.
Or maybe I’m just annoyed that there’s still no sign of a Park Row DVD.
Also, if I may segue from Fuller to Fuller-inspired Godard, regarding Glenn’s comments on Made in USA: I thought that film was a pointless, flashy wank; “alienating” doesn’t quite cover it. Of course I feel that way about half of the JLG films I’ve seen.
Re: PARK ROW – Perhaps that should be taken with a grain of salt, but apparently Criterion said on Facebook something to the effect of the movie coming to DVD ASAP mos def. I dig it.
@Lazarus – But without sets like the Sony/Fuller set, those movies that Fuller only wrote could very well NEVER make it to DVD. And unless I’m much mistaken about Fuller (which is possible) he was at least as interested in the writing of his films as the directing of them. They deserve to see the light of day, too.
The Criterion revival of “Downhill Racer” was at least as inspired as that of “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”.
Both great, though, obviously.
Also – the BFI releases of the awesome “Winstanley” and “Comrades” on both Blu ray and DVD…
Oh, yes, I meant to say: THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE was, in my comparatively limited experience, the DVD of the year. That movie might well be the greatest crime film ever made.
The big ones for me this year were THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE and MADE IN USA, with the Columbia Film Noir collection and MAN HUNT close behind. I still have to check out most of the rest of these, particularly that Sam Fuller collection and the Forbidden Hollywood Collection.
I’m under the impression you don’t dig recent Kiarostami but BFI’s Shirin disc is magnificent.
Is that Jeff Wells in the second photo?
I do agree with Bill on many things (though I don’t always post to that effect), but here’s an example again where I don’t. Friends of Eddie Coyle is an unjustly neglected golden-era Hollywood anti-(post-?)procedural, and perhaps Mitchum’s best performance that decade. But I do share some of the late Ms. Kael’s ambivalence about the film. Dunno if Mr. Yates’ British citizenship actually prevented him from appreciating some of the more American aspects of the film as Pauline once suggested, beyond tcertain underclass Boston drab (thinking of Coyle’s home life primarily). The Bruins game at the end, e.g., does have the ethnographic feel of hockey as a second language. I cavil, but only towards a point: Coyle’s a good film, but far from might being “the greatest crime film ever made”. In this past year alone – vis. Gomorrah and Police, Adjective – we’ve gotten at least two better ones.
And wow, I’m gettin’ all polemical and shizz here, but I really did try to watch Husbands again last week when it was on TCM and I just gave up, exclaiming “Who would think this is any good?”. Husbands is really the Maginot line for me and John C. – there’s so much to love in Faces (and Shadows and even Too Late Blues), so much to ridicule in the endless, un-dramatic horsing around in Husbands. And thereafter – there are also great moments in many of his subsequent films, undone by what I can only call unprivleged moments that are simulataneously show-off‑y and do their performers no credit. Opening Night, e.g., might have some of the best instances of theater-on-film ever, but would that Zorah Lampert’s character (ANOTHER crazy wife from Cassavettes!) were less set to “kookoo”, and that they excised the (to put it mildly) lamentable horsing around in the stage-based conclusion. I could go on, but I think you get the point. “No one calls me a phony!” – no one, you say?
@ James: I know what you mean about “Husbands.” It’s definitely a high-wire act in a sense, and a lot of it doesn’t “work.” But I still think it’s fascinating, a significant piece of the John C. picture, and so I celebrate its release, which I do believe was overdue. As for my other “finally“s, well, those are stone masterpieces.
I watched Death In The Garden for a very reasonable $5.00 at The Auteurs. It’s wonderful! Dig that snake.