The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne

[kidc85]

Any chance on getting the background story of how you finally got the rights to the film?

[MichaelB]

Any chance on getting the background story of how you finally got the rights to the film?

As I said above, it's not my story to tell, and I suspect the fine details are commercially confidential anyway.

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced:

“Potent and poetic, mischievous and macabre, Borowczyk’s film shows how many imaginative worlds the horror movie can open up when the right artist holds the keys” (Nigel Andrews, Financial Times)

It’s the engagement party for brilliant young Dr Henry Jekyll (Udo Kier) and his fiancée, the beautiful Fanny Osbourne (Marina Pierro), attended by various pillars of Victorian society, including the astonishing Patrick Magee in one of his final roles. But when people are found raped and murdered outside and ultimately inside the house, it becomes clear that a madman has broken in to disrupt the festivities - but who is he? And why does Dr Jekyll keep sneaking off to his laboratory?

We know the answer, of course, but Walerian Borowczyk’s visually stunning adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s much-filmed tale is crammed with wildly imaginative and outrageously perverse touches characteristic of the man who scandalised audiences with Immoral Tales and The Beast, not least the explicitly sexualised nature of Mr Hyde’s primal urges.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
• Brand new 2K restoration, scanned from the original camera negative and supervised by cinematographer Noël Véry
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the film, released on both formats for the first time anywhere in the world
• English and French soundtracks in LPCM 1.0
• Optional English and English SDH subtitles
• Introduction by critic and long-term Borowczyk fan Michael Brooke
• Audio commentary featuring archival interviews with Walerian Borowczyk, Udo Kier, Marina Pierro and producer Robert Kuperberg, and new interviews with cinematographer Noël Véry, editor Khadicha Bariha, assistant Michael Levy and filmmaker Noël Simsolo, moderated by Daniel Bird
• Interview with Marina Pierro
• Himorogi (2012), a short film by Marina and Alessio Pierro, made in homage to Borowczyk
• Interview with artist and filmmaker Alessio Pierro
• Video essay by Adrian Martin and Cristina Alvarez Lopez
• Eyes That Listen, a featurette on Borowczyk’s collaborations with electro-acoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani
• Jouet Jouyeux (1979), a short film by Borowczyk based on Charles-Émile Reynaud's praxinoscope
• Introduction to Jouet Joyeux by production assistant Sarah Mallinson
• Returning to Méliès: Borowczyk and Early Cinema, a featurette by Daniel Bird
• Reversible sleeve with artwork based on Borowczyk’s own poster design
• Booklet with new writing on the film by Daniel Bird and archive materials, illustrated with rare stills
• More to be announced!

Region: A+B
Rating: 18
Duration: 91 mins
Language: English/French
Subtitles: English/English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audio: Mono
Colour
Discs: 2
Cat No: FCD1079
Barcode: 5027035012476
UK
RRP: £24.99
Release Date: 20th April
USA
MSRP: $39.95
Release Date: 21st April

[MichaelB]

...and here's the official website for Marina and Alessio Pierro's short Himorogi.

I haven't seen it myself yet, but its inclusion was a bit of a no-brainer given who made it and the fact that it's explicitly billed as "un omaggio a Walerian Borowczyk".

The short Jouet Joyeux came out of nowhere during the research for the Camera Obscura set - not even Daniel Bird had heard of it before, and it's not recorded in any pre-2014 Borowczyk filmography that I'm aware of.

[TMDaines]

Looks great, Michael. Look forward to discovering this along with the rest of the Boro work in the future.

[EddieLarkin]

So this will be mine and many others first Borowczyk film that comes with a choice of audio tracks. I wonder if Michael or Daniel can explain the story behind them? Was the film made with live sound or post synced? If the latter, was there one principle language spoke on set or did everyone speak in whatever language they wanted? Is there a consensus among Boro fans as to which is the preferred soundtrack? My instinct would be to go French, but English is given prominence in the specs and of course one of the primaries is a well known English speaking actor.

[MichaelB]

The English dubs on Immoral Tales and The Beast are horrible - and the latter should be bilingual in any case, given that two of the characters natively speak English. So there wasn't any particularly strong case for including them.

Dr Jekyll is a vastly different matter, though, because the English soundtrack not only features Michael Levy's rather wonderful Victorian English dialogue ("I'll thank you to stop that - you're behaving like an unmitigated fool!"), but it also showcases one of the great voices of twentieth-century acting in Patrick Magee - and there's no question that he dubbed himself, because who could have imitated him? So we had a completely different attitude to this one - far from deciding whether or not to include the English track, we agreed upfront that not including it was a deal-breaker!

As with certain other bilingual titles (some of the Bavas, for instance), there doesn't seem to be a true original-language track - Magee was obviously speaking English on set, many other actors equally obviously weren't. So go with whichever you prefer.

[EddieLarkin]

Thanks, I figured as much. I'll no doubt be finding time to watch both versions in their entirety!

[zedz]

Amazing specs, Michael! That'll do nicely.

[criterion10]

April can't come soon enough.

As it is, I still need to catch up on Goto and Blanche.

[lefeufollet]

Looks to be a stellar release!

As the UK edition will bow under Arrow Academy, does this leave open the door for Arrow Video USA to take on other titles that may similarly straddle the AA/AV divide in the UK?

[Finch]

Definitely blind-buying the film even though I only loved Blanche out of the other Boro films in the tremendous set from last year. Bound to be the definitive release of this film for many years, and that's not even the full specs as yet.

[Drucker]

I'll probably skip this, as I was more supportive of the Boro set to encourage more risky-Kickstarter projects than out of a love for the director/a real interest, but if you guys haven't fallen in love with Goto or the full animated feature in the set, I'm shocked! Definitely my favorite part of the set.

[MichaelB]

As the UK edition will bow under Arrow Academy, does this leave open the door for Arrow Video USA to take on other titles that may similarly straddle the AA/AV divide in the UK?

There are no current plans for existing Academy releases to be ported over (which would be impossible with the vast majority as the US rights are tied up elsewhere), but there are likely to be more Academy (UK)/Arrow Video (US) splits with upcoming projects - I'm in the early stages of developing one right now, in fact. Arrow Academy isn't launching as a US label, but there are titles like Jekyll that straddle the art/exploitation divide with such élan that they could easily be part of either strand.

[TonyleStephanois]

Looks to be a stellar release!

As the UK edition will bow under Arrow Academy, does this leave open the door for Arrow Video USA to take on other titles that may similarly straddle the AA/AV divide in the UK?

Yes there are some things we are looking at that satisfyingly straddle the divide and this would be our approach.

[swo17]

It sounds like there's a lot of enthusiastic straddling going on over at Arrow HQ.

[zedz]

It sounds like there's a lot of enthusiastic straddling going on over at Arrow HQ.

I blame those Radley Metzger films they released.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Great to see old Bernie Parmegiani in amongst the extras. Le grand fromage of musique concrete.

[MichaelB]

He also scored Himorogi.

[Ron]

Meanwhile Arrow has released the cover artwork of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne:
http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/wp-content/ ... _2D_BD.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Would it be possible to post the reversible sleeve as soon as it is available? Many thanks!

[Koukol]

Ordered along with the Steelbox of BLOOD & BLACK LACE.
These will definitely be THE releases of the year.

[nolanoe]

BRAVO, Michael (and all else involved.

And now, I am crossing my fingers that Arrow is re-thinking their stance on La Marge! I regard it as quite a unique film, much better than some give it credit for.

[MichaelB]

What is Arrow's "stance on La Marge"?

Other than pointing out that it's owned by StudioCanal and there are likely music rights difficulties?

[MichaelB]

The new restoration of Dr Jekyll had its world premiere in Rotterdam last night, accompanied by Adrian Martin and Cristina Àlvarez López's visual essay on the film - here's a reaction to both.

[MichaelB]

Many thanks for the information, dear Michael. I'm sorry to bother you with hasty questions, but could you please tell us if the missing scenes of the VHS tapes are intact in the negative?

I've now seen a lo-res MPEG of the new restoration, and am very happy to confirm that every shot that was in the notionally uncut Dutch VHS is present and (politically in)correct in Arrow's version. As one would expect, given the source.

Of course, whether the BBFC takes umbrage at some of the more graphic moments remains to be seen, but it was over thirty years ago that they cut nearly two minutes out of it, and since then they've passed things like Immoral Tales and The Beast uncut, so I'm not anticipating any serious problems. It'll obviously get an 18 (well, duh), but hopefully nothing stronger than that.