Columbia Classics

[Frankinho007]

Wasn't there supposed to be a "Film Noir Classics Vol. 2" released along with the first one this month? I got the first volume last week but I don't see any mention or sighting of a volume 2 anywhere online.

Vol. 2 will be released sometime in 2010. This was confirmed by Mike Schlesinger and Grover Crisp.

[Frankinho007]

Good news for Noir lovers.
Sony decided to split the rumoured Bad Girls of Noir set. They are now releasing Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 1 and Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 2 in February 2010. Each set will probably contain 4 movies on 2 discs like Sony's Icons of Screwball releases. That would make 8 movies. This was basically confirmed by Mike Schlesinger in the Home Theater Forum.

[Frankinho007]

Okay, according to Movies Unlimited we will get this on 02/09/10:

Bad Girls of Film Noir Vol.1:

• The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)
  Two of a Kind (1951)
  Bad for Each Other (1953)
  The Glass Wall (1953)

Bad Girls of Film Noir Vol.2:

• Night Editor (1946)
  One Girl's Confession (1955)
  Women's Prison (1955)
  Over-Exposed (1956)

[Perkins Cobb]

Surely they'll push back Volume 2 by at least six months, just as they did when they split the noir set and initially announced both for the same date.

[HypnoHelioStaticStasis]

Vol. 1 looks spectacular! Killer That Stalked New York and Glass Wall go down smooth like vermouth, they're terrific.

Haven't seen anything in Vol. 2... any recommendations among the bunch?

[starmanof51]

I hate to be that guy, but can't help but be saddened that the two I most wanted from the UCLA/Columbia "Cool Drinks of Water" series last year that these sets are mostly drawn from are MIA: My Name Is Julia Ross and Human Desire. I was also hoping (still do, I guess) that they'd be able to put out a definitive Reign of Terror in all this Noiring they're doing. With SD classic releases shriveling, every missed opportunity for one's personal darlings hurts a little.

[Perkins Cobb]

That is really strange that the two most auteur-oriented noirs from that series are getting skipped. I hope there's a master plan to find slots for those; Lang and Lewis director sets seem implausible, so maybe they're on the boards for a third batch of noir?

[Ashirg]

I guess they are planning those two for the next Film Noir collection (after vol.2 is released) since they are from well known directors and Scorsese might want to say a word or two about them (and Bogdanovich will likely want to reminiscent about Fritz Lang). I doubt they will push Vol. 2 of Bad Girls for later date since these are small 2-disc releases, just like those Icons of Screwball Comedy sets they released simultaneously.

[Jonathan S]

Vol. 1 looks spectacular! Killer That Stalked New York and Glass Wall go down smooth like vermouth, they're terrific.

Haven't seen anything in Vol. 2... any recommendations among the bunch?

Night Editor has a wonderfully perverse "Bad Girl" though, like many B noirs, the film is seriously flawed. I haven't seen any others. Only the first title listed in each set is included in Silver & Ward's Film Noir A-Z compendium, written before the boundaries of the genre were subjected to a great deal of stretching! It's possible some of these slipped through their net, though most are a little late in the cycle to raise my hopes for vintage noir.

[oldsheperd]

These aren't going to be too expensive. They're already up for preorder at dvdempire. 20.97 a piece.

[Izo]

Has anyone picked up the Sam Fuller set? Are the non-Fuller-directed features worth the price?

[domino harvey]

Shockproof is worth buying the whole set for, so yeah

[Finch]

I felt that Shockproof is a good film (only diminished by its lead and a completely unbelievable turnabout ending) but the set is hardly worth buying on the strength of it alone. Power of the Press and Adventures in the Sahara apart, almost all the films are about equally good, with Underworld USA the closest to being great. Personally, I liked this and the other film that bookends the set, It Happened in Hollywood, best.

[zedz]

I got through the Fuller set a few days ago and wholeheartedly recommend it. There are a couple of mere curios among the early script-only stuff, but Scandal Sheet is a great film (and Karlson an underappreciated director) - very Fuller-esque in terms of its content, even though his involvement seems to be arms-length - and Shockproof is a very great one. There's a scene near the end of that one where the couple on the run are effectively trapped within a transparent house and we see the threats surrounding them mount through the walls: just ridiculous but brilliant mise-en-scene.

The Fullers, as you'd expect, are the best of the bunch. The Crimson Kimono is only averagely great, in my opinion, but the more you think of the whodunnit plot as purely incidental the more enjoyable it is. Underworld USA is electrifying, a key Fuller film. Some time back, in connection with the Eclipse set I think, somebody here was asking what was so remarkable about Fuller's use of close-ups. Watch this film and all will be revealed. It's also an object lesson in what's so distinctive about Fuller's camera movements.

(In other Fuller news, I wrapped up this splurge by finally viewing Merrill's Marauders. It's fine, but a dizzy step down from the brilliance of the films that surround it. You get measured doses of Fuller stingily spread throughout a traditional war film rather than a pure mainline hit.)

[Cold Bishop]

(In other Fuller news, I wrapped up this splurge by finally viewing Merrill's Marauders. It's fine, but a dizzy step down from the brilliance of the films that surround it. You get measured doses of Fuller stingily spread throughout a traditional war film rather than a pure mainline hit.)

Of course, the studio was to blame for that. The Shaduzup Maze scene especially sounds like it was mangled, although it still is striking.

[zedz]

Zedz I think Kimono is one of those not so unusual Fuller love stories between two guys, post war service and a girl which leaves the homo angle both open and seemingly undisclosed to the guys.

That's the most fascinating aspect of the film. The gay subtext is so blatant in this film that I start resisting it. Rather than thinking "it has to be deliberate", I think "it has to be inadvertent." And it does indeed seem as though the cop couple are unaware of what's really going on (as opposed to Robert Ryan's brilliant finessing of the similar situation in House of Bamboo - Ryan in the Glenn Corbett role here would have really kicked things up a notch).

It's doubly fascinating because this subtext is layered underneath that other transgressive subtext of race. This stuff's relatively sharp for the time, but all the Japanese Culture 101 window dressing that surrounds it does make it seem like an overelaborated red herring to me, Fuller's decoy so people don't ask too many questions about those two guys and their extremely intense relationship.

And my labelling of this as 'middling Fuller' wasn't any sign of disrespect. He's one of those directors, like Peckinpah, whose work I love recklessly, even when I can see that it's pitted with flaws.

[zedz]

Umm.. yes but no... I think in fact it's Fuller's camera and the loving closeups of Shigeta and Glenn Corbett which clearly display [. . .] Fuller's personal investment in their unrecognized relationship

Well, it helps, but I see these shots as characteristic of the 'gaze' (eek!) Fuller directs at all of his lead actors in the films of this period. Hyper-real, heroic, but also somehow pitiless. There are some doozies with Cliff Robertson and Dolores Dorn in Underworld U.S.A., including one where Dorn is locked in, staring down the camera in a really remarkable way.

I also think the film marks a real turning point in Fuller's construction of narrative and his sideways dives from linearity into extended character study. These seem more formally prominent than they do in his earlier pictures.

Definitely. More Moe, less microfilm. Though I think Park Row exhibits quite a bit of that discursive character early on.

[zedz]

I understand your points about the guys and their CUs in Kimono, but I'm very defiinitely responding from a deep seated personal space - they are both completely gorgeous! And I can't help imagining them doing unimagineable things to each other away from the camera.

It probably got quite lonely back when they were war buddies. And Fuller seems to go out of his way to make them much more than just traditional 'buddies'. They're not flatmates; they live together. And the acrimony that breaks out between them at the end (and which is mistaken for but explicitly isn't racism) goes way beyond the standard Hollywood measure of two-guys-one-girl bitterness (which would never completely demolish a solid male friendship).

[manicsounds]

The William Castle Collection:

The documentary on there, "Spine Tingler", non-anamorphic widescreen.
Why are studios STILL doing this? seriously. it's almost 2010....

[Jarpie]

I've watched both The Crimson Kimono and Underworld USA; Crimson Kimono was very good, but I liked Underworld USA a bit more, which is one of the top tier Fullers so far, with Pickup on South Street and Big Red One. Next I'm gonna watch Steel Helmet, hopefully it's worth of all the praises I've heard.

[whaleallright]

I remember being shocked by the extremely tight close-ups of Cliff Robertson's manic, sweaty face in UNDERWORLD, U.S.A. -- when I saw it on the big screen. The stylization must be a bit less unnerving on a TV set.

[zedz]

I remember being shocked by the extremely tight close-ups of Cliff Robertson's manic, sweaty face in UNDERWORLD, U.S.A. -- when I saw it on the big screen. The stylization must be a bit less unnerving on a TV set.

I had the same experience with Shock Corridor. As you observe, the experience is very different than home viewing: it was one of the biggest differences between DVD and film that I've experienced.

[Ashirg]

Looks like Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films is coming on April 6. Link

[Jonathan S]

It looks like Sony has quietly dropped the reissue of In a Lonely Place from their second noir set in favour of Human Desire. Grover Crisp's Jan 13 post on the Columbia Classics website includes:

The next volume, Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics ll which will be released in 2010, will have five films all new to DVD - Human Desire, The Brothers Rico, City of Fear, Nightfall and Pushover.

I don't know if any Hayworth titles have changed:

There will also be The Films of Rita Hayworth collection in 2010 with three films never before released on DVD (Tonight and Every Night, Miss Sadie Thompson, Salome) along with two newly-remastered restorations (Cover Girl, Gilda).

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[Ashirg]

You can vote for a cover artwork on Icons of Suspense set at their web page.