CineSavant

Region A + B Blu-ray + PAL DVD Night of the Demon (Rendez-vous avec la peur) This French disc release of the Jacques Tourneur classic gets everything right — it includes both versions in perfect picture transfers. Devil debunker Dana Andrews locks horns with Niall MacGinnis, a necromancer  ‘who has decoded the old book’ and can summon a fire & brimstone monster from Hell, no election fraud necessary. Even fans that...

DVD Decoy aka Policewoman Decoy Unsung actress Beverly Garland becomes TV's first lady cop, in what's claimed to be the first TV show filmed on the streets of New York City. This one-season wonder from 1957 has vintage locations, fairly tough-minded storylines and solid performances, from Bev and a vast gallery of stage and TV actors on the way up.

Blu-ray The World’s Most Beautiful Swindlers A breezy five-episode compilation movie about swindles plays out in five film capitals, under the eye of five different directors including Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard. But Roman Polanski's Amsterdam segment couldn't be included, which is a shame. It's in B&W 'scope, and everybody gets to bring their favorite cameraman and composer along.

Blu-ray Pelle the Conqueror Bille August's 1987 award winner is yet another full cinema meal, a deeply satisfying drama about working conditions among Scandinavian immigrants back when being poor was a life sentence. Max von Sydow's performance is stunning, as an aging stock tender forced to begin again as a veritable serf. He and his good son Pelle are...

Kiss Me Deadly Restoration 20th Anniversary — Savant Article How did Kiss Me Deadly come to be restored? The real question should be, how did filmdom lose track of its original ending in the first place? Savant uncovers evidence that may explain when, and why, United Artists mutilated the finish of Robert Aldrich’s apocalyptic film noir. (Note: The images below with text can be...

Blu-ray The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection That bad boy of (mostly) French cinema Walerian Borowczyk has been converting doubters into fans for sixty years, even though his pictures were never easy to see. Before he took a headlong leap into soft-core epics, he made some of the most creative and influential short films of his time -- and they eventually became...

Blu-ray Marjorie Morningstar The most-read book since Gone with the Wind looked at the coming of age struggle of an ambitious, upwardly mobile Jewish girl in the 1930s. This glossy film version gives Natalie Wood an 'adult' role and provides Gene Kelly with the seemingly optimal character of a troubled theatrical artiste. Good intentions aside, the show lacks...

Blu-ray + DVD The Assassin Writer-director Elio Petri scores big in his first feature, the story of a heel suspected of murder. Is he a killer, or just an average guy trying to get ahead, who uses women to his advantage? Marcello Mastroianni impresses as well in a serious role, with Salvo Randone shining as the police inspector trying to pry...

Blu-ray The Mephisto Waltz Jacqueline Bisset's in a heck of a fix. Her hubby Alan Alda has been seduced by promises of fame and fortune from creepy concert genius Curt Jurgens, and is responding to weird overtures from Curt's daughter Barbara Parkins. The pianist's mansion is stuffed with occult books, and he displays an unhealthy interest in Alda's piano-ready...

Blu-ray THE LOVED ONE / BROKEN ARROW Funeral Director: Before you go, I was just wondering… would you be interested in some extras for the loved one? Next Of Kin: What kind of extras? Funeral Director: Well, how about a casket? Mike Nichols and Elaine May – The $65 Dollar Funeral That routine, a classic example of what was known in the...

100 Girls by Bunny Yeager A look at the art photography of Bunny Yeager, starring Bettie Page? We can think of less pleasant ways to pass the time. Savant raises his standards to check out what’s happening in the disc section behind the gray curtain, and finds that the fringe product suppliers are up to their old tricks. 100 Girls...

Blu-ray Seven Days in May A military coup in the U.S.? General Burt Lancaster's scheme would be flawless if not for true blue Marine Kirk Douglas, who snitches to the White House. Now Burt's whole expensive clandestine army might go to waste - Sad! John Frankenheimer and Rod Serling are behind this nifty paranoid conspiracy thriller.

Blu-ray How to Steal a Million William Wyler's 1960s screwball heist comedy is a squeaky-clean high fashion vehicle for stars Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole -- who of course aren't really crooks despite pulling off a major art theft. It's lush, beautiful to look at and directed with verve by Wyler; with some funny jabs at the art world from screenwriter...

Blu-ray The Indian Fighter Kirk Douglas grits his teeth and goes full macho, wrasslin' with that beautiful Sioux up in the high country -- the Sioux miss in question being the Italian model Elsa Martinelli in her screen debut. Kirk can't decide if he wants to stay with Elsa, or lead what must be the most shameful bunch of...

Blu-ray I Am Not Your Negro A welcome blast of clear thought, Raoul Peck's documentary represents the point of view and philosophy of James Baldwin, the writer and artist known best as a social critic of the Civil Rights movement. Allowing Baldwin to 'speak' thirty years after his passing sheds light and wisdom on the issue that hasn't gone away.

Blu-ray The Accidental Tourist Is it a modern classic? I think so. Lawrence Kasdan's best movie embraces characters often lampooned, dismissed, or stereotyped as kooks -- introverts, extroverts, people trying to make personal connections and those trying to avoid them. William Hurt finds his best role and Geena Davis won an Oscar for hers; thirty years later the entire...

Blu-ray The Young Girls of Rochefort Perhaps motivated by the success of La La Land, Criterion has reissued two impressive Jacques Demy musicals as separate releases. This all-singing, all-dancing homage to candy-colored vintage Hollywood musicals is a captivating Franco-American hybrid that allows free rein to Demy's marvelously positive romantic philosophy.

Region B+A Blu-ray The Day of the Jackal One of the best international thrillers ever has almost become an obscurity, for reasons unknown - this Blu-ray comes from Australia. Edward Fox's wily assassin for hire goes up against the combined police and security establishments of three nations as he sets up the killing of a head of state - France's president Charles de...

Blu-ray I BURY THE LIVING / THE SCREAMING SKULL I Bury the Living implicates us in a primal childhood thought-crime… what if you stepped on a crack and really did break your mother’s back? What if simply wishing someone dead made it so? Guilt, pure and simple, gives this off–kilter 50’s chiller its lasting power. The film boasts an off–kilter leading man as well...

Blu-ray You’ll Never Get Rich "Am I decent?" They said that Ginger Rogers gave Fred Astaire sex appeal, but the teaming of Astaire and Rita Hayworth is something else. Columbia's 1941 release is a weak service comedy until the dancing starts, at which point it becomes one of the better musicals of the year - and the breakout vehicle for...

Blu-ray A Farewell to Arms (1957) This remake of a pre-Code classic adds amazing European locations, glorious Technicolor and entire armies on the move, yet doesn't improve on the original. Producer David O. Selznick secured Rock Hudson to play opposite Jennifer Jones, but the chemistry is lacking. Why did the man spend twenty years trying to top Gone With the Wind?

Blu-ray RUMBLE FISH / EDGAR WALLACE COLLECTION Rumble Fish, Francis Ford Coppola’s Young Adult tone poem, unspools in a black and white never-never land of sullen teens, pool tables and pompadours. It may take a moment for the audience to suss out that we’re not in the Eisenhower era with Chuck Berry, Marilyn Monroe and the Cold War but squarely in Reagan’s domain...

Blu-ray The Salesman This Iranian import made news when its director found himself on the wrong side of the recent travel ban. It's well worth the bother. Asghar Farhadi's suspense story can't be topped for maturity, insight or honest emotions about social stress: after an assault in a new apartment, the strain affects everything that a wife and...

Blu-ray + DVD Donnie Darko Many weird-world genre bending millennial epics have already dated badly, but not Richard Kelly's sci-fi / horror / satirical mind-trip about a guy given a glimpse of time travel in another dimension. The wit hasn't faded and the menace hasn't cooled, and the cast seems hipper than ever: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary...

Blu-ray Ophélia New Wave director Claude Chabrol goes off in an odd direction with this Francophone adaptation of Hamlet. Convinced that his father was murdered, the heir to an estate behaves like a madman as he sets out to unmask the killers. The 'castle' is a country manse guarded by thugs as a precaution against the signeur's...

Blu-ray + DVD Caltiki, The Immortal Monster It creeps and leaps and slides and glides along the wall... and then it eats your face, dude. Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda's ultimate monster mastication epic now looks sensationally gory thanks to a full restoration. Arrow's disc has pretty much everything including two transfers and two audio commentaries. And Savant has a guilty admission...