Le Chat qui Fume Discussion Thread

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by BunyipPouch

How's everyone tracking looking like?

Mine was dispatched and 'taken in' by the Postal Service (La Poste) on August 5th, 8 days ago, but not a single update to the tracking since then.

I was hoping for $30 shipping it'd be a relatively fast one.

My first time ordering from France but Germany/UK orders usually at least show significant updates every time.

My order of ten titles was shipped on August 6th and arrived today.

[BunyipPouch]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

My order of ten titles was shipped on August 6th and arrived today.

Consider me jealous. 9 days later and still no movement on mine, still seems to be in France

[McCrutchy]

I have no idea what order these should be watched in, so I went chronological and watched this earliest one, Les Désaxées (1972), tonight. I didn't realize how unique Michel Lemoine looked (at least by this point, he was 49/50) and I'm not sure he didn't have some kind of cosmetic surgery, because seen straight on, like in the opening scene, he looks positively unnerving. What is strange is that in profile, he looks very handsome indeed, which is why I wonder if something unnatural is going on.

Anyway, at first blush I thought this was a trifle corny, largely for the reason noted above, because Lemoine, playing writer/publisher? Michel, has some kind of aura where women just give themselves to him. The problem is that though he is married and "40" years old, he is unable to resist the charms of these ladies and his actions eventually take a toll on his marriage (which is open, by his request) to the lovely and loyal Marianne (played by Claudia Coste), who is eventually driven into the arms of another man. There is also the requisite French intellectualizing of love and sex, which I felt has been done better in other films. However, the film is not without its charms and they are in the performances of the women in the film, all of whom are naturally beautiful and quite charming. This is especially true for Janine Reynaud (Lemoine's real-life wife at the time), who plays the sensuous redhead Francis, so named because her parents wanted a son. Also not to be missed is a lesbian scene with two unnamed ladies whose car and residence Michel invites himself into. I believe these two are played by Magda Mundari and Josette Rerat, credited as "The Brunette" and "The Blonde" respectively. Amusingly, these two wear each other out while Michel is in the front room looking at erotic artwork. Serves him right. Supposedly, a substantially shorter, re-edited version of this film was made for English-language audiences under the title Marianne Bouquet, which has hardcore inserts filmed with American actors, but Les Désaxées is well within the boundaries of softcore.

Le Chat's BD-25 disc is very good. The back cover says the film is presented from a 4K master and it looks splendid, with nice grain and only some very light film artifacts, namely some very light vertical lines on the right hand side towards the end of the film in certain shots. The French: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono sound is also good, with clear dialogue, but there is some slight distortion when music is heard loudly on the track. The English subtitle translation is quite good, but there are a handful of very minor grammatical errors, especially towards the end of the film. My guess is that the track was done by a native French speaker with a high degree of English fluency, but possibly they were short on time, as French SDH subtitles are also offered. The English subtitles are perfectly compressible and no one should have any trouble understanding them. Apparently, an English dub track is included, but I did not sample it.

The long (86-minute) interview with Michel Lemoine is in 4:3 SD PAL format and I believe it is on all the Lemoine discs in the Erotissimo pack. Most unfortunately, no subtitles are offered for this extra, which is common with Le Chat discs.

[krishd]

Got all 11 titles delivered today. Final delivery was by usps.

[romppainen]

Got my order today. The Bacchanales discs makes me wonder, it was supposed to be english friendly but either english audio or subs aren't mentioned in the sleeve - can anyone confirm if they are still included?

[pixote]

I really want LES CHARNELLES but no English. I can understand some French. Does anyone have this? Is it dialog heavy?

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Originally Posted by romppainen

Got my order today. The Bacchanales discs makes me wonder, it was supposed to be english friendly but either english audio or subs aren't mentioned in the sleeve - can anyone confirm if they are still included?

It includes French, French w/ English Subtitles, and dubbed English language tracks, all 2-track mono (on the 4K UHD...I didn't check the BD). Alas no HDR but that was probably to be expected

[kmhofmann]

Originally Posted by pixote

I really want LES CHARNELLES but no English. I can understand some French. Does anyone have this? Is it dialog heavy?

I can't answer your question directly, but there's always the Mondo Macabro release just in case... https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sins-...lu-ray/276708/

[pixote]

Originally Posted by kmhofmann

I can't answer your question directly, but there's always the Mondo Macabro release just in case... https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sins-...lu-ray/276708/

Perfect. Had no idea. Thanks!

[Aficionado]

LCQF are releasing Corrado Farina's Baba Yaga (1973) on blu-ray this autumn. Likely to be an improvement on the US and UK releases, but the question remains as to whether it will be English-friendly.

[Christophah Maghen]

Missed out on this and was curious how much it would cost in the resale market, whaaaaat....why?

This is a sold listing.

[Dk8819]

Originally Posted by Christophah Maghen

Missed out on this and was curious how much it would cost in the resale market, whaaaaat....why?

This is a sold listing.

One went for $726 with $15 shipping. Looks like I need to sell my copy lol.

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by Christophah Maghen

Missed out on this and was curious how much it would cost in the resale market, whaaaaat....why?

This is a sold listing.

Not surpriseing really considering the UHD sold out within 3hrs of being made available for pre-order. I think their BD release is still available

I hope Mondo Vision, who've risen from hibernation, actually hurry up & upgrade their BD release to UHD that they said they were going to do. I also hope they include the US cut, that Le Chat Qui Fume included, as a bonus BD.

Does anyone know what the difference between the CD in the US (Mondo Vision) & the French LE releases OTHER than the former has 14 tracks (13 mins) more than the latter?

[Christophah Maghen]

Originally Posted by Dk8819

One went for $726 with $15 shipping. Looks like I need to sell my copy lol.

I saw the $726 but tend not to believe listings that high that are also auctions, not saying some crazy fans didnt get into a bid war and pushed the price up that high, the more likely scenario is the owner of the account had friends or alt accounts place shill bids and/or the sucker that got stuck with the 726 price flaked on buying it.

[kmhofmann]

Originally Posted by fatboyslim142

Not surpriseing really considering the UHD sold out within 3hrs of being made available for pre-order. I think their BD release is still available

This confirms my belief that LCQF are crazy not to reprint this UHD release in much greater numbers. They must have seen within these few hours that the demand is clearly there and that it would sell like hotcakes.
Doesn't seem to be good business sense from their side not to.

[Aclea]

The problem is three or four people may be willing to pay those prices, but would there be enough people willing to pay regular prices for a reprint run?

[Christophah Maghen]

Originally Posted by Aclea

The problem is three or four people may be willing to pay those prices, but would there be enough people willing to pay regular prices for a reprint run?

Based off of the resale prices, the stock would get cleaned out by people like me that missed out the first time + scalpers.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by fatboyslim142

Not surpriseing really considering the UHD sold out within 3hrs of being made available for pre-order. I think their BD release is still available

The quick sellout was for the UHD in the standard packaging, which was cheaper and far more limited than the box version (something like 400, versus 1600 for the box) I know, because I initially missed out on it and only got it when it was briefly put up for sale again at a pre-announced time. The box took much longer to sell out than the standard edition.

Originally Posted by kmhofmann

This confirms my belief that LCQF are crazy not to reprint this UHD release in much greater numbers. They must have seen within these few hours that the demand is clearly there and that it would sell like hotcakes.
Doesn't seem to be good business sense from their side not to.

I'm not sure I'd agree. I don't think Le Chat can really afford to get stuck with another 1000 sets of this film or something like that, particularly when competitors in the US and UK are probably considering their own discs, with HDR, surely.

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

The quick sellout was for the UHD in the standard packaging, which was cheaper and far more limited than the box version (something like 400, versus 1600 for the box) I know, because I initially missed out on it and only got it when it was briefly put up for sale again at a pre-announced time. The box took much longer to sell out than the standard edition.



I'm not sure I'd agree. I don't think Le Chat can really afford to get stuck with another 1000 sets of this film or something like that, particularly when competitors in the US and UK are probably considering their own discs, with HDR, surely.

Mondo Vision still have the US rights but who knows who has the UK rights considering Second Sight no longer have them. I reckon if Second Sight still had the UK rights then I think there would be a limited edition UHD set release of this film similar to the LE French set albeight seperate releases for BOTH the UHD & BD.

[BurningAstronaut]

LCQF’s latest newsletter outlines the next several releases through the rest of the year and January:

Our next pre-orders will start mid / late September. They will include BABA YAGA, ZENABEL, HOLOCAUST 2000, BAYAN KO (UHD) which will be released at the end of October and will also follow this year, LINK, BLUE SUNSHINE and 2 unannounced titles which will be released at the end of November.

LES FAUVES, LA BALANCE and L'IMPORTANT C'EST D'AIMER are scheduled for the end of January. Pre-orders will begin in early December with other unannounced Italian titles.

IN SEARCH OF PLEASURE and THE ASSASSIN RESERVED 9 ARMCHAIRS are back in single BLURAY.
BACCHANALES SEXUELLES will be back on September 9 in single BLURAY.

Plus, it looks like they’ll have EVIL DEAD TRAP 1&2 in January.