Official Film Noir on Blu-ray Thread

[MifuneFan]

Detour has officially been announced by Criterion! Coming March 19th

https://www.criterion.com/films/29614-detour

SPECIAL FEATURES

New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen, a 2004 documentary featuring interviews with filmmakers Roger Corman, Joe Dante, and Wim Wenders and actor Ann Savage
New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, author of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins
New program about the restoration of Detour
Trailer
PLUS: An essay by critic and poet Robert Polito
New cover by Jennifer Dionisio

From Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist (Tom Neal) finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to run—a waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage’s snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working with no-name stars on a bargain-basement budget, B auteur Edgar G. Ulmer turned threadbare production values and seedy, low-rent atmosphere into indelible pulp poetry. Long unavailable in a format in which its hard-boiled beauty could be fully appreciated, Detour haunts anew in its first major restoration.

Detour was restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Française, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

[noirjunkie]

I'm thrilled to see this on its way. As far as special features, the included materials look good, but this film could easily support more than one commentary track. It's hard to believe they didn't line up any of the usual suspects (Rode, Muller, Silver and Ursini, etc.) for at least one commentary.

[bipbop13]

wish there was a definitive (so to speak) list of what noir films can be found for free between amazom prime & you tube that have been released on blu ray. Quality isn't an issue, as if I liked it, I'd buy the blu.

[Quake1028]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

11 February 2019:

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Richard Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) is coming from Arrow Academy! Release date is March 12, 2019.

Credit to Akijama

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Detour has officially been announced by Criterion! Coming March 19th

https://www.criterion.com/films/29614-detour

Ooooooooh baby doll.

[noiradelic]

Originally Posted by noirjunkie

As far as special features, the included materials look good, but this film could easily support more than one commentary track. It's hard to believe they didn't line up any of the usual suspects (Rode, Muller, Silver and Ursini, etc.) for at least one commentary.

The feature-length documentary's a great feature, because it was theatrically released and Kino put it out on DVD. A shame about there not being any commentary tracks, but as you know, Criterion's been adding commentaries less often in recent years. A video essay by one of those experts would've been a nice substitute....

Detour and Phantom Lady announcements -- a good day for noir.

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by bipbop13

wish there was a definitive (so to speak) list of what noir films can be found for free between amazom prime & you tube that have been released on blu ray. Quality isn't an issue, as if I liked it, I'd buy the blu.

Start here:

http://www.openculture.com/free_film_noir_movies

https://archive.org/details/Film_Noir

https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search?f...nid=2651254011

[javy]

Originally Posted by Quake1028

Ooooooooh baby doll.

I know right

[Richard--W]

I can't think of a classic film noir that demands context and analysis the way DETOUR
does. There is so much that needs to be said. Criterion is criminally negligent not include
a commentary. Alan K. Rode and Eddie Muller and Foster Hirsch would fight to the death
in a cage match for the chance to do a commentary for this film.

That having been said, restorations of Human Desire, Phantom Lady and Detour
all coming out about the same time is a pipe dream fulfilled. I said the same thing nine
months ago when ClassicFlix released the Alton / Mann films.

[crazednoir]

It is one of the holy grails of film-noir no doubt! and a Criterion edition!

[noiradelic]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

I can't think of a classic film noir that demands context and analysis the way DETOUR does.

I agree. But there's been a trend of Criterion forgoing commentaries more frequently for years. Everyone who's unhappy about it should write them and complain or the trend's going to continue.

I'm still annoyed that they didn't include a commentary on Last Year at Marienbad -- talk about needing context! -- and I bought that in 2013!

Not that this lets Criterion off the hook in the slightest, but the BFI Film Classics book series put out a volume on Detour. It's still in print (I haven't read it yet).

Code GIFTBOOK18 gets you $5 off $20 on books at Amazon till 12/21 haha.

[SeanJoyce]

Screw commentaries.

[GeoffOliver]

Commentaries are usually my favorite bonus features, and there are so many different ways to do it. For classic films, commentaries are almost like video essays that are very useful for film students.

Also, I love the Detour cover art, especially the colors.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by GeoffOliver

Commentaries are usually my favorite bonus features, and there are so many different ways to do it. For classic films, commentaries are almost like video essays that are very useful for film students.

I'll read a review or scholarly essay and/or watch a comprehensive documentary.

I don't care how many times I've seen something, if it's spinning I don't want hear somebody talking over it.

It's nice that some of our best filmmakers (Spielberg, Eastwood, Lee, Allen, Tarantino) also take the old-school approach to enjoying a movie by refusing to record them.

Just my opinion.

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by noiradelic

I agree. But there's been a trend of Criterion forgoing commentaries more frequently for years. Everyone who's unhappy about it should write them and complain or the trend's going to continue.

I'm still annoyed that they didn't include a commentary on Last Year at Marienbad -- talk about needing context! -- and I bought that in 2013!

Not that this lets Criterion off the hook in the slightest, but the BFI Film Classics book series put out a volume on Detour. It's still in print (I haven't read it yet).

Code GIFTBOOK18 gets you $5 off $20 on books at Amazon till 12/21 haha.

Helpful suggestions.
Too late now, but I fired off a message to Jim Mulvaney.

Found the BFI book on Detour cheaper on ebay. I've picked up a few of these
now and then. Their little book on Metropolis was informative, I thought.

[noiradelic]

Commentaries vary so much in quality. When the commentator's prepared in advance -- or the director's articulate -- they can be great. All else being equal, I slightly prefer a substantive video essay, but it really depends on who does the commentary.

[Richard--W]

The boring kind is when the commentator recites endless series of credits instead of
talking about the film. And when they talk about the film they don't get it. There's one
very popular commentator who does this on genre films all the time, and no, it's not Tim
Lucas who is one of the very best. Alan K. Rode and also Eddie Muller among the best
commentators. Tom Weaver is good commentator.

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Let's get this Mamie Van Doren show back on the road with Guns, Girls and Gangsters.



Immediately after he is paroled, Chuck Wheeler, an ex-con played by Gerald Mohr (Gilda), arrives in Las Vegas to orchestrate an armored car robbery plan that he and his cellmate devised in prison. With the help of Lou, a small-time criminal played by Paul Fix (To Kill a Mockingbird), he plans to use a short-wave radio to duplicate police check-in codes for the armored car after executing the robbery, but he first has to recruit Joe Darren, a racketeer played by Grant Richards (The Untouchables), to launder the money. The final piece of the puzzle is Vi Victor, a blonde nightclub singer played by Mamie Van Doren (The Girl in Black Stockings), who is married to Chuck's cellmate, but also secretly involved with Darren.

As these shady players set up base at a roadside motel and gas station, Chuck and Vi begin to fall in love while, at the same time, Vi befriends the couple who owns the motel. There is only one minor problem. Chuck's terrifyingly violent and trigger-happy cellmate, Mike Bennett, played by Lee Van Cleef (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), has escaped from prison on the eve of the planned robbery, and he is leaving a trail of corpses on his way to Las Vegas to be reunited with his estranged wife.

The 1959 film noir crime thriller, Guns, Girls and Gangsters, which was directed by Edward L. Cahn (It! The Terror from Beyond Space), is a riveting and fast-paced 70-minute feature that hits the ground running to serve the three basic cinematic food groups promised by its title. Mamie Van Doren, who, along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, stopped traffic during the 1950s, has one of the most sultry character introductions that I have ever seen, in the form of a nightclub performance early in the movie. The ensuing rough-edged dialogue sequence, where her character first meets Mohr's Chuck, could serve as a contemporary by-the-numbers tutorial for what not to do when interacting with women at their places of work. The plot development of Vi later falling for Chuck after he “made a pass” at her backstage at the club adds to the outdated feel of the film by today's standards, but, on the plus side, it also cements the convincing actor portrayals of our key antiheroes as lost souls who do what they can to survive while navigating through their lives of disappointment and broken dreams, and who are willing to take the ultimate risk for a slim chance at wealth and happiness.

Elaine Edwards (The Bat) and John Baer (We're No Angels), as the friendly motel couple, are memorable as the moral counterpoints to the choices made by our girl and our gangsters. These two are also integral to the equation during the action-packed climax, since we are pulling for them to survive.

Lee Van Cleef is the true show stealer here, though, and he excels at what was one of his most fearsomely unhinged character roles. The split second that he appears on the screen, we know that things are not going to end well for anyone involved.

The final scene of Guns, Girls and Gangsters, showing an armored car driving along a desert road, is a priceless example of Production Code era goodness. A voiceover narration, which states, “This is an armored car, specially constructed for its job. It does that job.”, is downright comical in light of the story that has unfolded just before. The armored car featured in the plot certainly did a great job...of being robbed!

Incidentally, I'm finding it nearly impossible to get the title right, because I keep wanting to type it as, “Girls, Guns and Gangsters.” I guess that this natural inclination is a positive psychological validation that my order of priorities is sound.

As with The Girl in Black Stockings, which I watched and reviewed two nights ago as a first feature in the Kino Lorber set, The Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection, this movie, which shares a disc with the third feature, Vice Raid, is graced by an impressively filmic video presentation and good audio quality. There are no extras on the second disc, so I had to settle for restarting the movie to watch Mamie Van Doren's nightclub performance scene again.

I enjoyed the interview with Mamie at the end of The Girl With Black Stockings.
I learned two things. Not only was the notorious bullet-bra her idea, but she
says she designed it and wore it because she liked it. So feminists can stop
blaming men for that alleged example of exploiting women. Also, I liked what
Mamie had to say about preferring black and white movies and the advantage
of working on the backlot.

These are outstanding transfers that fill all four corners of the monitor, just the
way I like it.

[noirjunkie]

Apparently, a Florida man and woman attempted to re-enact the plot of Double Indemnity. As you can imagine, it did not go well.

AP Article: link.

[Herandar]

Originally Posted by noirjunkie

Apparently, a Florida man and woman attempted to re-enact the plot of Double Indemnity. As you can imagine, it did not go well.

AP Article: link.

Well, they got away with it for 16 years...

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by Herandar

Well, they got away with it for 16 years...

Thanks for ruining the ending. Use spoiler tags next time!

[Show spoiler]