Charles Bronson on Blu-ray

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

Farewell, Friend sounds especially interesting and it has Alain Delon along for the ride. Any thoughts?

It's a different but cool flick; not as fun as Red Sun, but Bronson and Delon are an odd couple that somehow works.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

I don't know anything about these movies, but I thought it was strange that apparently (unless I missed it) no-one has posted about the 2 new/old Bronson flicks coming out on BD Nov. 19th from Kino: Farewell, Friend (1968) and Someone Behind the Door (1971). Farewell, Friend sounds especially interesting and it has Alain Delon along for the ride. Any thoughts?

Farewell Friend is really good fun, and Delon and Bronson both play of each other superbly.

[Franz Propp]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

I don't know anything about these movies, but I thought it was strange that apparently (unless I missed it) no-one has posted about the 2 new/old Bronson flicks coming out on BD Nov. 19th from Kino: Farewell, Friend (1968) and Someone Behind the Door (1971). Farewell, Friend sounds especially interesting and it has Alain Delon along for the ride. Any thoughts?

Farewell Friend is in my top 10 favorite films ever made list... It's a very original and mix of noir, character drama and caper film. Bronson's performance as Franz Propp is really great, he brings all his brilliance on screen, all the qualities that make his screen presence so unique. He was at the peak of his career. It's my second favorite Bronson film right next to Once Upon a Time In The West.

[kchrules]

How we don't have The Mechanic (other than the out of print Twilight Time disc) is beyond me. Hopefully it can get the treatment Death Wish got. The blu ray of that is the best the movie has ever looked in my opinion.

[Eschenpod]

Originally Posted by kchrules

How we don't have The Mechanic (other than the out of print Twilight Time disc) is beyond me. Hopefully it can get the treatment Death Wish got. The blu ray of that is the best the movie has ever looked in my opinion.

Definitely on my most wanted list. Not paying outrageous eBay prices.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by kchrules

How we don't have The Mechanic (other than the out of print Twilight Time disc) is beyond me. Hopefully it can get the treatment Death Wish got. The blu ray of that is the best the movie has ever looked in my opinion.

I assume Shout could release this one, they re-did Twilight Time's 10 to Midnight and they're both MGM

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by drush9999

I assume Shout could release this one, they re-did Twilight Time's 10 to Midnight and they're both MGM

I'm sure I read somewhere that Scorpion Releasing now had the rights to the Mechanic.

[seagal]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

I don't know anything about these movies, but I thought it was strange that apparently (unless I missed it) no-one has posted about the 2 new/old Bronson flicks coming out on BD Nov. 19th from Kino: Farewell, Friend (1968) and Someone Behind the Door (1971). Farewell, Friend sounds especially interesting and it has Alain Delon along for the ride. Any thoughts?

I´m sure that "Farewell Friend" will look much better on blu-ray than "Someone behind the Door". I own both movies on blu-ray.

I have the Japanese blu-ray of Farewell Friend" and the Picture Quality is quite good.

I oww the HD 1080p version of "Someone behind the Door" from the Canadian ITunes Store and they got the master from Studio Canal.

The picture quality is not very good. But there´re a lot of indoor scenes in the movie and not so many outdoor scenes.

Therefore I´m sure that "Farewell Friend" will look much better on blu-ray than the other film.

The next Bronson film I´m going to buy will be the French blu-ray of "Can´t win ´em all" on December 2nd.

[Early Memphis]

Thanks for all the info, folks. I tried to find Farewell, Friend somewhere on the many TV channels I get, but no go. One thing I wanted to check was if it's in English, dubbed or just in French. Bronson did a lot of European movies and this appears to be a French project with a French director. Still just weird that minor gems like these two make it to Blu when titles like Telefon and St. Ives remain DVD only (wow, searching led me to check on Love and Bullets, which I don't really remember, and it's only out on a single-disc, "Double Feature" DVD with a George Segal flick. First-rate quality, I'm sure).

[seagal]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

Thanks for all the info, folks. I tried to find Farewell, Friend somewhere on the many TV channels I get, but no go. One thing I wanted to check was if it's in English, dubbed or just in French. Bronson did a lot of European movies and this appears to be a French project with a French director. Still just weird that minor gems like these two make it to Blu when titles like Telefon and St. Ives remain DVD only (wow, searching led me to check on Love and Bullets, which I don't really remember, and it's only out on a single-disc, "Double Feature" DVD with a George Segal flick. First-rate quality, I'm sure).

It´s not strange because Warner Archives habe 1000s of titles in their library and the two Bronson films (St.Ives+Telefon) are only two of them.

Therefore we have to wait till they´ll release them on blu-ray.

"Love and Bullets" and "Borderline" are small films and not among the films that Bronson was famous for.

I assume Shout Factory owns the rights. "Borderline" doesn´t have many daylight Scenes so I would prefer "Love and Bullets" on Blu-ray if I have to choose between the two films.

It´s not surprising that the Europaen films of Bronson made it on blu-ray because Bronson was and is a big name in Europe and also in Japan.

[Franz Propp]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

Thanks for all the info, folks. I tried to find Farewell, Friend somewhere on the many TV channels I get, but no go. One thing I wanted to check was if it's in English, dubbed or just in French. Bronson did a lot of European movies and this appears to be a French project with a French director. Still just weird that minor gems like these two make it to Blu when titles like Telefon and St. Ives remain DVD only (wow, searching led me to check on Love and Bullets, which I don't really remember, and it's only out on a single-disc, "Double Feature" DVD with a George Segal flick. First-rate quality, I'm sure).

Farewell Friend as well as Rider On The Rain are filmed in both languages(French, English). On the French version, Bronson is dubbed by a french actor, on the english version he dubbs himself... The Kino Lorber upcoming release is supposed to have both versions.

[d2cheer]

Originally Posted by seagal

The next Bronson film I´m going to buy will be the French blu-ray of "Can´t win ´em all" on December 2nd.

Can you provide some more details on this? I have a barely watchable DVD that I am sure is a boot. Region coding?

[seagal]

Originally Posted by d2cheer

Can you provide some more details on this? I have a barely watchable DVD that I am sure is a boot. Region coding?

https://www.amazon.fr/baroudeurs-Blu...1951727&sr=8-2

I don´t know if this release will be codefree or not but the blu-ray will offer the original 2,35:1 scope format.

As a Europaen I don´t have to care about the region. I don´t own a Sidonis blu-ray so I don´t know whether their releases are codefree or not.

[seagal]

https://www.amazon.fr/Cercle-noir-Bl...476D7VZAVMG61T

"The Stone Killer" will also come out by Sidonis and according to the link it will be a code B disc, so it can be possible that it will be the same with "You can´t win ´em all".

[d2cheer]

The Amazon.fr listing does indeed say Region B sadly.

[Jompa]

those listings cannot be trusted

[Tom Sharky]

Okay, I have to ask - have any of you seen CaboBlanco? I am tempted to try to pick it up used, as it is one of the Bronson movies that I have never seen but I expect it to be bad, like really bad.

[Aclea]

There are so many bad reasons to see films that seeing CaboBlanco simply because it has one of Jerry Goldsmith's most obscure scores doesn't seem quite such a stupid one, especially since the score is pretty good. Although it never matches its magnificent Ravelesque opening, let alone the extraordinary work Goldsmith was doing at the same period (Star Trek, The Boys From Brazil, The First Great Train Robbery, Magic, The Swarm, Masada, Poltergeist), it's another case of a composer being inspired by a bad film to turn out a good score that's still head and shoulders over 99% of film scoring today.

The film itself is certainly an oddity, an attempt to do a Casablanca in post-war Peru, but Charles Bronson, Dominique Sanda, Simon MacCorkindale, Fernando Rey and Jason Robards were never likely to offer much competition to Bogie, Bergman, Heinreid, Rains and Veidt even had the script been better. (There's no Dooley Wilson or As Time Goes By, but Nat King Cole is playing on the jukebox singing The Very Thought of You.) Sanda in particular, as usual in her English language work, is so staggeringly awful you half-expect her to bump into the furniture, although she gets strong competition from MacCorkindale in the who-can-give-the-worse-performance stakes, but an easygoing Bronson at least is good value.

Feeling more like one of RKO's mid 50s SuperScope South of the Border treasure hunt movies than anything from Warner Bros.' golden age, the film at times shows the scars of last-minute editing, jumping into some scenes apparently midway while some characters are never introduced properly (prominently billed Clifton James never appears at all), and the ending - involving a parrot, a secret code, a stuck record on a jukebox and a cyanide pill - is one of the most absurd endings in screen history. Still, there's some fluid and impressively composed Scope camerawork and the scenery's nice, although this is the shorter version of the film. It's an unlikely candidate for restoration and Kino couldn't find the longer version that originally played in France, so this is probably the best we'll get.

The Region A-locked US Blu-ray from Kino Lorber isn't going to knock anyone out with the picture quality, which is pretty much decent DVD quality (though still leaps and bounds ahead of the non-German Public domain DVD releases) and has the same problematic soundtrack as the German BD/DVD release. It carries over the same extras from the German edition (trailer, 25-minute making of) and adds one of Paul Talbot's everything you could ever want to know about a Charles Bronson film and more commentaries and an entertaining and frank interview with producer Lance Hool that covers its lavish sales pitch at Cannes, development and brief flirtations with the project from Paul Newman and an ailing Steve McQueen before Charles Bronson got involved after his agent got his own son added to the film as co-producer, to the film's horrendously botched under the radar release and resulting lawsuits.

[Tom Sharky]

Bronson staring at that parrot fascinates me.

[drush9999]

CaboBlanco is weak sauce, but as a Bronson completist I just gotta have it