WARNING! Wall-of-text incoming!
Gambler is, as already mentioned, a documentary about NWR and his troubles after
Fear X, as he was going bankrupt and owed a lot of money in taxes. I remember seeing it on local TV, when it was first released, and thinking it was quite good.
The Poul Nyrup films are an odd inclusion, but I guess the idea is that they take place among the same kind of people in Copenhagen in the 1960s.
Poul Nyrup was a sound engineer and worked on some Danish movies (among them the infamous
Reptilicus) and as a radio technician. Apparently he really wanted to make films himself, so he teamed up with some friends from work and shot three exploitation-type movies during the early 1960s.
The Nyrup films were all received with total disdain by the local critics and called 'the worst films ever made in Denmark.' They take place among pushers, small-time crooks, thieves, hookers etc. A lot of the actors are amateurs, there are murders, violence, plenty of nudity or near-nudity and a soundtrack by early Danish beat/ rock groups (which was called 'pigtrĺd' or barbwire music). Some of these bands even perform on screen in clubs etc.
As a whole, the Nyrup films are by no means lost masterpieces in any traditional sense, but they are quite entertaining, if you set your expectations accordingly. If you like 1960s exploitation, you will probably have a lot of fun with them.
They are also a very interesting as a time capsule of a part of 1960s Copenhagen, you don't really see depicted in film anywhere else, and they are fascinating as the only real examples of psychotronic (s)exploitation cinema from a country that has no tradition whatsoever for doing this type of film.
This was probably the reason that one of them,
Mellem venner, was released on DVD back in the day by Something Weird under the title
Days of Sin and Nights of Nymphomania, though in a slightly cut version, IIRC.
None of them have been released on disc in Denmark before, though, or even on sell-thru video. They were released on rental VHS in the early 1980s, and these are the only official releases of them so far. Needless to say, those ex-rental tapes are very sought after among local collectors today and sell for quite a lot.
Back around the turn of the millennium, a friend of mine did some extensive research into the Poul Nyrup films and wrote the first real lengthy article about them and him ever published for his own fanzine Stay Sick (vol. 3), thereby introducing them to a whole new audience.
The fanzine is available for free and legally on the
Internet Archive. It is in Danish, but it does have some pictures from the films.
The article created quite a bit of a buzz among local fans of weird and psychotronic cinema, who had not heard about the Nyrop films before. Local newspapers picked up the story and a film festival ended up booking all three and screen them in sold-out shows to rave reviews.
Unfortunately, the succes of these shows meant that Poul Nyrup's daughters and heirs, suddenly saw the films as potential cash-cows and lawyered up, and when the national Danish film museum later tried to organize another screening, they were denied the right to do so.
According to local legend, the tapes were also bootlegged by a local business man, who owned a small chain of videostores in Copenhagen. Apparently he originally had some financial stake in the production of the Nyrup films and claimed to own the rights, so he made a ton of VHS copies to sell in his stores. I am not certain whether this was before or after the famous screenings at the festival, but the guy even licensed the screening rights to a small local TV channel, before Nyrup's heirs and their lawyer put a stop to it. Rumor has it, though, that for years you could still buy the bootleg tapes of the movies under the counter in his video stores if you asked nicely.
Another friend of mine is one of the owners of the only thing close to a boutique label we ever had here in Denmark, Another World Entertainment.
They were quite big back in the days of DVD, releasing a lot of classic genre movies, and he told me he actually tried to make a deal with the heirs back then. Unfortunately their (or their lawyer's) demands were totally unrealistic, meaning they would have to sell more copies than of any of their other releases to break even, so nothing ever came of it.
That is basically why none of the Nyrup films have been shown or been accessible anywhere for the last 15-20 years. The people who know about them mostly only know them from bootleg DVD copies of the old VHS tapes. This is the only way I have ever seen them myself.
A couple of years ago a rumor then surfaced that Nicolas Winding Refn had bought the Nyrup films. Nobody knew, and it is still not clear, whether he just bought a bunch of old theatrical 35mm prints or he straight up bought the rights to them all from Nyrup's family. At one time there was talk of a potential screening in a small local cult cinema, but nothing happened until the news about this box set.
Very little is still known about the situation. All three of the Nyrup films will be included in the
Pusher box set, but it has not yet been disclosed whether they will be on 4K UHD or only BD. It is also not known whether they are transferred from some kind of pre-print material or based on old theatrical prints. This point is important, as at least one of the titles,
Stenbroens helte, was cut in its original theatrical release when strangulation scene was deemed to violent for the local audience (adult censorship was only abolished in 1969 in Denmark). This scene is intact on the VHS release, so it should still be available somewhere.
We know that the booklet in the box set will have some text on the Nyrup films as Nicolas Barbano, who recently was part of the commentary track on Vinegar Syndrome's release of
Reptilicus, was asked to proof-read it.
Someone from NWR film company also wrote in a comment on a blog that the Nyrup films will be available to stream for free later on the byNWR website.
Personally, I am quite positive that Winding Refn has bought the rights outright. He probably has the money to do so, he is a HUGE genre fan and owns a large collection of original prints and posters from genre and exploitation movies, and he has several times before put his own money into rescuing obscure movies and poster collections. NWR was a driving force behind the restoration of Curtis Harrington's
Night Tide and the films or the Ormond family, all released on disc by Indicator. He also had money in the recent restoration of Mario Bava's
Planet of the Vampires. So, if anyone would be able to negotiate a deal with Nyrup's heirs and rescue the movies for posterity, it would probably be him.
Another friend of mine uploaded the original trailers to all three films on YouTube a few years ago. The quality is not great, as they area all taken from the VHS tapes, and they are only in Danish (Warning! NSFW):
[Show spoiler]
Villa Vennely:
Mellem venner:
Stenbroens helte:
And as a bonus, a music scene from Stenbroens helte with a small local band:
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