Favorite DVD Releases of 2007: Part II. - Top 30 DVDs #1-10.

Black Test Car (1962)

Black Test Car (Fantoma)
Yasuzo Masumura is one of my favorite Japanese directors, but unfortunately many of his films are unavailable on DVD and have never been seen outside of Japan. Thankfully Fantoma has been making an effort to release many of Masumura’s films and in 2007 they released his brilliant and extremely dark satire Black Test Car (Kuro no tesuto kaa, 1962). The film takes a rather unflattering look at the corruption and greed behind the burgeoning car industry in Japan and anyone who’s familiar with the director’s earlier film Giants and Toys (Kyojin to gangu, 1958) will immediately spot similarities between the two movies. Masumura was a director who was clearly interested in critiquing Japan’s economic boom and exploring the ways in which American capitalism was affecting Japanese society after WW2. As much as I enjoyed the director’s colorful satire Giants and Toys (1958), I personally think Black Test Car is a more effective film dealing with similar themes and I’m grateful that Fantoma has made it available on DVD. Black Test Car features some stunning black and white photography, and Masumura’s direction is top-notch here. All the actors involved with the production deliver some great performances, but I found Jiro Tamiya and Junko Kano especially effective as a young couple whose relationship becomes deeply strained throughout the course of the film. The Fantoma DVD contains an excellent widescreen transfer of the film along with the original theatrical trailer, a biography on the director and still galleries.

Peter O’Toole in Becket (1964)

Becket (MPI Home Video)
I enjoy well-done British historical dramas and many great ones were released on DVD for the first time last year including the wonderful Anne of the Thousand Days (1968), which I also considered including on my list. But my favorite film of the bunch was Becket (1964), which is based on the Tony Award-winning play written by Jean Anouilh. The film plays somewhat free and loose with historical facts, but still manages to be an engaging and thoughtful take on the important events surrounding the relationship between King Henry II and Thomas Becket (the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170). Becket was directed by the gay filmmaker Peter Glenville and he injects the film with a wonderfully subversive edge that hints at a deeper relationship between Becket and King Henry II, who are played brilliantly by Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. The film can be viewed simply as a great historical drama and I first saw it presented as an education tool when I was in high-school, but I also think Becket is one of the most sentimental and moving films ever shot about unrequited love shared between two men. Watching Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton struggle with their feelings for one another is what really keeps the film interesting and adds weight to the political power plays in the film and its dramatic conclusion. The DVD features an audio commentary from Peter O’Toole, the original trailer, an impressive still gallery and archival interviews with Richard Burton as well as composer Laurence Rosenthal and editor Anne V. Coates.

Doris Day in Caprice (1967)

Caprice (20th Century Fox)
Like movies such as Last of the Secret Agents? (1966) and Skidoo (1968), Caprice (1967) is a film often talked about disparagingly by people who’ve never actually seen it and it’s nowhere near as awful as you’ve been led to believe. Yes, the film has its problems and its stars (Doris Day and Richard Harrison, who’s rarely looked so good) don’t seem to have much chemistry on screen, but this entertaining spy satire also contains some really funny bits, well-done action scenes, fantastic Ray Aghayan costumes and a wonderfully polished pop-art look thanks to director Frank Tashlin and Oscar winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy. I never expected Caprice to get a DVD release, much less one as wonderful as this, but 20th Century Fox really went all out last year. Besides a spectacular restored widescreen transfer of the film, the DVD also includes commentary tracks by film historian John Cork and Pierre Patrick, a fascinating interview with costume designer Ray Aghayan, radio interviews with Doris Day and Richard Harrison, a nice photo gallery and two interesting shorts called Double-O Doris and Doris and Marty that explores the strained relationship between the Doris Day and her husband & manager, Martin Melcher. Hopefully I’ll get around to writing a longer review of Caprice in the future, but in the meantime, I highly recommend the film if you happen to enjoy Dean Martin’s Matt Helm movies as much as I do.

Chosen Survivors (1974)

Chosen Survivors / The Earth Dies Screaming (Midnite Movies / 20th Century Fox)
Last year 20th Century Fox released some terrific films as part as their wonderful Midnite Movies series, including The House on Skull Mountain / The Mephisto Waltz double feature, which I also wanted to include on my list. I haven’t seen all of last year’s Midnite Movie double features, but Chosen Survivors / The Earth Dies Screaming was one of my favorites. Before the DVD was released I hadn’t seen either of these unusual science fiction films before, but I really enjoyed them. Chosen Survivors (1974) tells an apocalyptic tale about a group of strangers thrown together in a sort of underground holding tank by the U.S. military after a thermonuclear war has destroyed earth’s surface. Things get worse when bloodthirsty bats show up and start killing people. There’s something strangely compelling about the film, and it’s definitely helped by the wonderful space age set designs and cast, which includes Jackie Cooper in what has to be his creepiest role ever. The film was directed by Sutton Roley who made lots of films for television and Chosen Survivors often has a “small set” feel, but it’s also really entertaining. The Earth Dies Screaming (1964) has a somewhat similar theme involving space aliens who use poison gas to wipe out the earth’s population leaving only a handful of survivors to deal with the aftermath. It was directed by the talented British director and Hammer legend Terence Fisher, who brings a lot of stylish touches to this low-budget movie. Overall I enjoyed Chosen Survivors a bit more, but The Earth Dies Screaming contains some rather creepy moments reminiscent of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). This nice looking two-disc DVD set from 20th Century Fox makes for a worthwhile night of viewing.

The Holy Mountain (1973)

The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky: Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain (Starz / Anchor Bay)
This impressive DVD collection features three of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s earliest films and besides one major complaint I have (when will we get a good NTSC Region 1 DVD release of the director’s best film, Santa Sangre?), this really is a spectacular collection of avant-garde cinema that should be savored. Jodorowsky’s surreal efforts play with genre expectations and are loaded with iconographic imagery and strange landscapes that I never get tired of exploring. El Topo (1970) is probably my favorite film in the collection, but The Holy Mountain (1974) gets more interesting with each viewing. Alejandro Jodorowsky is a fascinating artist and this important collection sheds some much needed light on his body of work. This new DVD set features beautiful restored and re-mastered transfers of his films, plus many impressive extras including soundtracks for El Topo and The Holy Mountain, exclusive in-depth interviews and a feature-length documentary about the director, photo galleries and Jodorowsky’s directorial debut short called La Cravate, which was long thought lost.

Anais Nin in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

The Films of Kenneth Anger” Vol. 1 and Vol. 2(Fantoma)
Fantoma should be applauded for bringing this terrific two-volume collection of Kenneth Anger’s esoteric short films (1947-1981) to DVD. Previously I had only seen a few of Anger’s films (Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954 and Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969) on poor-quality videos, but Fantoma really did a spectacular job of restoring these experimental movies and they look better than ever. I’ve only managed to watch the first volume of this new DVD collection myself, but I wanted to include both volumes on my list because I think Anger’s work is smart, challenging, thought provoking and well worth seeking out. Many interesting counterculture figures and artists such as Anais Nin, Anton LaVey, Mick Jagger and filmmaker Curtis Harrington appear in Anger’s films and collaborated with him, which makes these films important historical documents as well as fascinating viewing. Extras include a deluxe 48-page book with an introduction by Martin Scorsese, audio commentary from Kenneth Anger, rare outtakes and more.

The Singing Street (1952)

Free Cinema (Facets)
This amazing three-disc DVD collection from Facets collects many influential short films from Britain’s Free Cinema movement, which helped reinvent documentary in the early 1950s and gave birth to the British New Wave. Working on shoestring budgets with hand-held 16mm cameras, directors like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lindsay Anderson were able to create startling films that brilliantly brought Britain and its working-class citizens to life, while exploring the underlying social tensions that seemed to be lingering right under the countries surface after WW2. This is the first time these important films (shot between 1952-1963) have been made available on Region 1 DVD and they really highlight the imagination and intelligence of these young British filmmakers, who would go on to create some of the greatest films made in the sixties and seventies. This three-disc DVD collection includes an extensive booklet from the BFI (British Film Institute) and an interesting documentary about the Free Cinema Movement. I hope to write much more about the films in this wonderful collection soon.

Peter Cushing in From Beyond the Grave (1973)

From Beyond the Grave (Warner Home Video)
Please see my previous review of this terrific Amicus anthology film HERE.

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Horrors of Malformed Men (Synapse Films)
For years I’ve been hoping someone would unearth this rare experimental Japanese horror film that was often assumed lost after it was banned in Japan shortly after its initial release, so you can imagine how happy and surprised I was to discover that Synapse was releasing it on DVD last year. Thankfully the film did not disappoint and Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) turned out to be one of the most fascinating Japanese horror films I’ve ever seen. Horrors of Malformed Men is based on an original novel by the popular Japanese author Edogawa Rampo that borrows a lot from H. G. Wells’ classic The Island of Dr. Moreau. Director Teruo Ishii takes what could have been a somewhat familiar premise and turns it into a fascinating fever dream that combines Butoh dance, stunning color photography and a haunting soundtrack by famed composer Masao Yagi. You might laugh, you might cry and you might even have your mind blown by this unapologetically strange and surreal film. Be sure to watch the great interviews included on the DVD with directors Shinya Tsukamoto and Minoru Kawasaki, which only add to the film’s enjoyment and offer an interesting look at the influence this unusual movie had on a new generation of Japanese filmmakers. Other great extras include audio commentary by author Mark Schilling, the original Japanese trailer, a poster gallery and detailed biographies of director Teruo Ishii and author Edogawa Rampo.

Malcolm McDowell in If…. (1968)

If…. (Criterion Collection)
When I first saw Lindsay Anderson’s If…. (1968) it deeply affected me and helped spark my lifelong interest in British cinema. Over the years my admiration for Anderson’s smart film about British youth “revolting against the status quo and daring to imagine what it might be like to put something else in its place” (David Ehrenstein - from his Criterion Essay written for DVD release of If….) has only grown. In the film Malcolm McDowell gives an iconic performance as a troubled student named Mick Travis who rebels against the system with his imagination and wits. I love the way Anderson creatively mixes color with black and white photography within If…. in order to give Mick Travis an inner life that’s so incredibly rich that he seems to literally live and breath right on the screen. If…. has often been compared to Jean Vigo’s 1932 classic Zero for Conduct and Anderson was undoubtedly inspired to some degree by that film, but If…. is clearly a product of the turbulant times that it was made in and frankly it’s a superior and more complex effort that ranks as one of the greatest and most important British films of the sixties. Criterion really did a remarkable job on their two-disc DVD presentation of If…., which includes a newly restored high-definition digital transfer of the film approved by cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, an insightful audio commentary with actor Malcolm McDowell and film historian David Robinson, interviews with McDowell, Ondricek, Anderson’s assistant Stephen Frears, producer Michael Medwin and screenwriter David Sherwin, Anderson’s Academy Award–winning documentary about a school for deaf children called Thursday’s Children (1954) narrated by Richard Burton and a very nice booklet featuring articles about the film by David Ehrenstein, as well as screenwriter David Sherwin and director Lindsay Anderson.

Links to the first, third and fourth part of my Favorite DVD Releases of 2007 list can be found here:
- Favorite DVD Releases of 2007: Part I. - The DVD Year in Review - An Introduction
- Favorite DVDs of 2007 Part III. (#11-20)
- Favorite DVDs of 2007 Part IV. (#21-30)

Part III. of my Favorite DVD Releases of 2007 - #11-20 will be posted soon so stay tuned!

I was hoping I’d get the chance to watch the new Criterion release of Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life (1963) this week, but unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to. Since I’ve seen the film before and I have great respect for it, I really have no problem recommending the new Criterion disc. It promises to be one of the best DVD releases of the year.

I plan to delve deeper into the film in the future after I have a chance to view it again and you can expect to see a lot of posts from me discussing the British New Wave and British cinema in general in 2008.

In the meantime, if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Anderson’s gritty bleak drama yet, I highly recommend This Sporting Life. The film was produced by the talented filmmaker Karel Reisz (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, etc.) and his influence on the production seems somewhat apparent when you watch the film. This Sporting Life is really a pivotal film in Lindsay Anderson’s directorial career and undoubtedly one of the most important films to come out of the British New Wave. It also features one of Richard Harris‘ finest performances.

The new Criterion DVD boasts a lot of great extras including multiple short films by Lindsay Anderson, audio commentary by Paul Ryan and David Storey, a documentary and interviews with people who knew and worked with the director. Criterion’s two disc DVD presentation of This Sporting Life is currently available from Amazon for $34.99 and the film is also available for rent from online sources like Greencine and Netflix.

Richard Harris in one of his many Nehru style jackets he designed himself (1968)

Blame TCM for recently showing Lindsay Anderson’s brilliant This Sporting Life (1963), blame the wonderful Colin for sending me a copy of Richard Harris’s 1968 album A Tramp Shining as an early Christmas gift and last but not least, blame The Simpsons for parodying one of my favorite musical numbers from Camelot (1967) in a recent episode that I just watched. All these factors have somehow combined to put the incredible Richard Harris in the forefront of my thoughts lately.

I first became aware of Richard Harris when I was a very young thing. My parents had a copy of the Camelot film soundtrack and the original Broadway recording, and both of them got a lot of play in our home. I can distinctly remember my father loudly singing all of Richard Harris’ songs from the film while he was in the shower.

Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment
That was known as Camelot.

As the years wore on I became enamored with Richard Harris, as well as that rowdy bunch of womanizing British & Irish actors who drank too much and had egos as big as their booming voices. Along with Richard Harris, I can never get enough of Richard Burton, Oliver Reed, Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole. They’re all personal favorites and I’ll watch them in anything.

With that pronouncement out of the way, you may be asking yourself, besides Richard Harris, what do This Sporting Life, A Tramp Shining and Camelot all have in common? Well, they all feature Richard Harris singing of course!

I was surprised while watching This Sporting Life recently to see Richard Harris take the stage at a pub and belt out a rather lackluster song called Here In My Heart. I love the film and I had first seen it many years ago, but I didn’t remember Harris singing in the movie. It’s one of his earliest and best films and his performance in it made him a star, but his singing voice seems rather underdeveloped in 1963. Even though Here In My Heart is a rather dull tune, it was released as a single in 1963 and was the first song Richard Harris ever recorded. It had previously been a hit for Al Martino in 1952, but I haven’t been able to track down any information about how Harris’ version of Here in My Heart was received by the record buying public.

Harris was never a great singer but he was a great orator, and there is an obvious improvement in his voice when you compare his singing in This Sporting Life to his singing in Camelot four years later. Harris got the part of King Arthur in Joshua Logan’s version of Camelot after Richard Burton (who had been in the stage version) turned it down. In Camelot Harris gets to perform a few songs, including the impressive opening and ending themes. The film and the soundtrack were very popular with listeners in 1967 (including my parents!), and the film went on to win an Oscar for Best Music Score. Camelot is one of my favorite musicals and with a terrific cast that also includes fabulous sixties stars like Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings, what’s not to like?

The popularity of Camelot led Richard Harris to record the pop album A Tramp Shining in 1968, which contained the hit song MacArthur Park. The song has become the butt of a few jokes over the years and is often parodied, but I think it’s amazing for it’s length, memorable lyrics and bombastic tone. Listening to it today might make you wonder how in the world it ever became a hit, but I think it’s a really remarkable tune.

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down…
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

Richard Harris’ album A Tramp Shining was written, arranged and produced by the American songwriter Jimmy Webb. Webb is best known for writing hit songs like Up, Up, and Away for The Fifth Dimension and By The Time I Get To Phoenix for Glenn Campbell, but the hit single MacArthur Park that he wrote for Richard Harris may be his most ambitious effort. MacArthur Park was #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968 and A Tramp Shining was nominated for Album Of The Year. Richard Harris was also nominated for Contemporary Pop Male Vocalist of The Year in 1968 for MacArthur Park.

After the success of his album A Tramp Shining, Harris would go on to record 10 more records, but he never really had the same success with his musical efforts that he achieved in the sixties. Listening to the record now, it’s impossible to not be reminded of the Camelot soundtrack since they share a similar musical style at times. MacArthur Park is undoubtedly the best song on the album, but I also like the sweet and short Dancing Girl and the epic unconventional composition The Yard Went on Forever, which rivals MacArthur Park in length. I’m sure my rather sentimental opinion of Richard Harris colors my view of A Tramp Shining, but the record is just plain fun to listen to.

There’s no video on YouTube featuring Harris actually singing MacArthur Park, but I did come across this video featuring Richard Harris’ hit song:

Newly added (1/2008) - another video detailing the recording and performance of the song from a British program called the “50 Greatest One Hit Wonders.”

Last week I neglected to post my DVD pick of the week, but the pickings were slim and I couldn’t recommend anything. This week there are plenty of great new DVD releases to get excited about such as Polart’s release of Andrzej Zulawski’s The Devil (Diabel, 1972), The second Mario Bava DVD Box Set and Warner’s new Stanley Kubrick DVD Box Set, but my DVD pick of the week is Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! (1973), which was released by Warner as an impressive Two-Disc Special Edition on Tuesday.

I’ve been really happy to see Lindsay Anderson’s films finding there way onto on DVD this year. Anderson is one of my favorite British directors and one of the most important figures of the British New Wave, but his early films have often been hard to see in the U.S. and they were never made available on DVD until recently. Thankfully that’s finally changing. Criterion released Anderson’s brilliant If…. (1968) on DVD earlier this year and they recently announced their plans to release This Sporting Life (1963) in early 2008. Now Warner has entered into the Anderson DVD arena with their impressive Deluxe 2 Disc release of O Lucky Man! which as I mentioned over at Cinedelica earlier this week, promises to be one of the best DVD releases of the year.

O Lucky Man! is the second film in Lindsay Anderson’s trilogy focused around the character of Michael Arnold Travis aka Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) who first appeared in If…. and made his last appearance in Anderson’s Britannia Hospital (1982). All three films offer a critical and humorous look at social and political concerns in Britain, which I personally find just as relevant today as they were some 40 years ago. O Lucky Man! is a sort of surreal musical satire that often veers off in the most unexpected directions, but I’ve always found it really engaging and that has a lot to do with Malcolm McDowell’s terrific performance as Mick Travis. Some of the musical numbers in the film don’t always work for me, but Anderson’s ability to mix brilliant eye-catching imagery with smart dialogue is hard to top. O Lucky Man! contains some of the director’s most impressive scenes, but this middle film in Anderson’s terrific trilogy seems to often be overlooked. Thankfully the new Warner DVD will give more people a chance to see the director’s follow-up to If…. and hopefully a new DVD release of Anderson’s Britannia Hospital is in the works since the Anchor Bay release is now out-of-print.

Recommended Links:
- My write-up on Warner’s new O Lucky Man! Two-Disc Special Edition DVD at Cinedelica
- Tim Lucas talks about Malcolm McDowell
- The Lindsay Anderson Memorial Foundation

A tsunami of great new DVDs have been hitting store shelves lately. I can’t keep up with all the great new releases, but this week there are some really terrific films finding their way onto DVD for the first time and I couldn’t resist mentioning them here.

Criterion is releasing Lindsay Anderson’s brilliant British drama If…. (1968) and I’ve been eagerly awaiting it for months. If…. has long been one of my favorite films after I first saw it playing in a theater as part of a double bill with Peter Brook’s wonderfully disturbing Lord of the Flies (1963) when I was just a teenager. Oddly enough I saw both movies as part of a class field trip. I was stuck in a sort of reform school for troubled teens at the time and for some reason the school supervisors thought the movies would be helpful to the students “psychological development.” The only thing I really wanted to do after watching both films was burn down the school and spit in the face of every authority figure that got in my way. I don’t think that was the outcome the school supervisors wanted, but I can’t imagine what kind of a reaction they were expecting from a bunch of rebellious teens?

Most of the other students who watched If…. with me left halfway through the film to go smoke cigarettes outside the theater much to our chaperone’s distress, but I was transfixed by what I was seeing on the screen. Lindsay Anderson’s film spoke to me in ways that no movie ever had before and I listened. I’m sure my own troubled youth spent in reform schools and shelters made it easy for me to quickly respond to the film’s anti-authority message since I was obviously questioning the adult world around me and often acting out in agressive ways. Even though the young British men in If…. would seem to be completely different creatures from the angry American girl I was at the time, I easily found common ground with them and developed a huge crush on the movie’s star, a very young Malcolm McDowell. The film has haunted me ever since. If…. always manages to find its way onto any list I put together of my favorite films and I suppose I have my old school supervisors to thank for that, so they must have been doing something right.

I own a video copy of If…. that I recorded off of TV in the late 80s, but I look forward to replacing it with the new Criterion DVD which is loaded with terrific extras.

Also worth a look is Marlon Brando and Stephanie Beacham in Michael Winner’s The Nightcomers (1972) which is an unusual take on one of my favorite horror stories, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Lots of critics and film fans seem to have issues with Winner’s films, but I happen to think he’s an under-appreciated director. I’ve only seen The Nightcomers on TV and I caught it late one night after it had already started. I’m not sure if I missed anything and the version I saw was undoubtedly cut up, so I look forward to finally seeing the film in full.

The gritty drama Panic in Needle Park (1971) is another interesting movie finding its way onto DVD this week. The film features Al Pacino in his first starring role as a troubled small time criminal whose heroin addiction is slowly destroying him. I’ve seen this once on television many years ago so I’m looking forward to seeing it out again.

My vote for the week’s best DVD re-release has to go to Jean Herman’s entertaining crime film Honor Among Thieves (a.k.a. Adieu l’ami, 1968) which features Alain Delon and Charles Bronson in their first film together. I think Delon & Bronson work well as a team and if you enjoy good heist films Honor Among Thieves is worth a look. Both actors became friends on the set and would later go on to make the great 1971 western Red Sun (a.k.a. Soleil Rouge) together with Toshirô Mifune.

Last but not least Criterion is also releasing two films by Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) and Sweet Movie (1974). I haven’t seen either myself, but I’ve read a lot about them and they both sound really interesting so I’m looking forward to giving them a look in the future.