The Violent Years 1956

[bigshot]

Screened this tonight. Fantastic widescreen transfer. The sound was great too. I never imagined this film could look so good. The trailer reel was a lot of fun too. I haven't watched the second feature yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Very happy with this. I hope Agfa does more older films like this. I'm not so fond of 80s slasher films.

[The Great Owl]

I'm right there with you.

Since a separate thread was started for this Blu-ray, I'll take the liberty of double-posting my review of both features from the AGFA thread....



Bad girls are on the loose. Four female high school students are alleviating their boredom by turning to crime. During the evening hours, they rampage around town in a carefree way by robbing gas stations, vandalizing school property, and raping men. Paula, the leader of the gang, is given free reign by her wealthy parents, and she exploits investigative information given to her by her father, who is the local newspaper editor with an inside line on the actions taken by the police. This female crime wave escalates in an intense way when they engage in a fierce shootout with the police and kill an officer.

The 1956 film noir crime thriller, The Violent Years, was written by none other than the legendary Ed Wood (Plan 9 from Outer Space), and his trademark ineptness at dialogue is all too evident, but the scrappy effort simply adds to this movie's retro charms. The four teenage girls are all played by women who are obviously in their 20s, and this aspect of the production also enhances its appeal. Jean Moorhead, who plays Paula, was a Playboy Playmate in 1955, and she also appeared in a few late 1950s sci-fi B-movies. This film, which rockets by with a 56-minute run time, opens with a spoken word narrative and a courtroom sequence before relaying the main story, noir style, in flashback. An obnoxiously heavy-handed monologue by a court judge during the final minutes will elicit laughter from most present-day viewers, but, once again, it's just part of the overall offbeat awesomeness.

As I watched this movie for the first time tonight, I was all smiles when I recognized a particular line, "You have had all that money can give you, but that wasn't enough. You became a thrill seeker...", from a song, “So What”, that appears on the 1990 album, The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, from the industrial band, Ministry. I used to listen to that Ministry album all of the time when it was released during my senior year of high school, and I have revisited it fairly often since then, so the sampled quote jumped out at me. Several subsequent lines from the film are also sampled in that song, and, in fact, the line, “So what?”, appears a few times late in the film.

The Violent Years is a bad movie, even by the standards of the juvenile delinquent offshoot of the noir genre during the 1950s, but it's insanely entertaining in a time capsule sense, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. The voiceover spoken word intro makes it clear that this story was directly inspired by real-life newspaper headlines, because this sort of thing was apparently occurring with increasing frequency during the 1950s and beyond. I, for one, am counting my lucky stars that I was never held at gunpoint in a “man attack” by four pretty women.

The 4K scan of The Violent Years that appears on this AGFA Blu-ray looks and sounds great, especially when compared to the available YouTube showings of the film. The commentary track by Frank Henenlotter and an Ed Wood historian is truly fun-spirited.



...and now for my take on Anatomy of a Psycho, which appears as a bonus film on The Violent Years Blu-ray.

When Duke Marco, a violent criminal, is sentenced to death and executed for his crimes, his younger brother, Chet, is blinded by anger and by a thirst for vengeance. His loving sister and her boyfriend both try to reassure him and counsel him to no avail, and a sensible police lieutenant also expresses concern. Chet's three best friends, however, are all too willing to accompany him on his wrathful outings as he attacks the District Attorney's son and as he seeks to exact revenge on a witness who testified in court against his brother. When he finds out that his sister's boyfriend is none other than the son of that witness, his rage reaches the boiling point, with terrible consequences.

Despite its title, the 1961 film, Anatomy of a Psycho, is not a horror movie. Instead, it takes its cues from the 1950s trend of films noir centered around juvenile delinquents. The end result may seem campy to most present-day viewers, but I enjoy watching how this feature pushes the envelope with regard to sex and violence in a way that foreshadowed more graphic cinema that would appear later that decade. A stabbing late in the movie must have been pretty intense for its time. There's also an interesting almost-but-not-quite-steamy moment between Chet and an ex-girlfriend.

This film apparently attempted to elbow its way into the horror market by way of its title, which was undoubtedly penned in the wake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece, Psycho. Chet, played by Darrell Howe, however, does not quite fit that bill in a convincing way. It's pretty amusing to watch how a scar on Chet's face seems to change slightly from scene to scene.

Anatomy of a Psycho flies by at lightning pace with its 75-minute run time, and it's never boring. I won't go so far as to say that it's a great movie, but it is a fun earlier example of the drive-in aesthetic that really took shape during that decade.

As with The Violent Years, the AGFA Blu-ray presentation of Anatomy of a Psycho hits the right notes, even with noticeable print damage here and there.

[Member-167298]

I love the MST3K episode so I am interested to see the full movie, especially with a commentary from Henenlotter. Will definitely get this once the price comes down to around $15.

I wonder what AGFA has coming next. When I went to the Alamo Drafthouse recently, a few employees were wearing AGFA shirts. They also had the Violent Years Blu-ray for sale along with random Arrow and Drafthouse Films releases too.

[kingdoxie]

Originally Posted by bigshot

Screened this tonight. Fantastic widescreen transfer. The sound was great too. I never imagined this film could look so good. The trailer reel was a lot of fun too. I haven't watched the second feature yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Very happy with this. I hope Agfa does more older films like this. I'm not so fond of 80s slasher films.

The OAR is 1.37:1, is this option available on the disc?

IMDB has 1.37:1 and this site has 1.85:1, who's right?

[MifuneFan]

1.85:1 is the OAR.

[bigshot]

Some Ed Wood films look better open matte (Plan 9) but this one looks perfect in 1:85. It's actually shot better than you would expect for an Ed Wood film.

Re the unfinished Hellborn clips... This looks to me like something Wood shot just to impress some potential backers or actors and never intended to finish. He doesn't shoot it as setups and scenes. He takes chunks of story and just has the actors play it out in front of the camera. Plus he seems to have given a "make out" scene to Conrad Brooks as a gift. I don't think he ever intended to make this as a film. It must have been either a shoot organized to impress some potential backer or actor, or he intended to use it as pitch material.

[Jobla]

That sounds plausible. Some of the HELLBORN footage showed up in THE SINISTER URGE, and reportedly some of it showed up in NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (I can't testify to that myself, not having seen GHOULS for many years).

AGFA/SWV is planning to release Wood's "lost" film TAKE IT OUT IN TRADE in November of 2018.

Another title that might be good for AGFA/SWV to release is THE SINISTER URGE, but Sinister Cinema claims to own the rights to it. However, Sinister Cinema's print is missing two brief topless shots, probably from a "hot" print. Those boob shots did appear in the old Admit One Canadian VHS release of the film.