Kino

[manicsounds]

dvdtalk review of Buster Keaton The Saphead

[Calvin]

We'll be posting most of our Oct slate on Facebook in just a bit -- one major announcement has to wait until later this week!

[Cash Flagg]

We'll be posting most of our Oct slate on Facebook in just a bit -- one major announcement has to wait until later this week!

I really hope Night Tide is back on.

[Calvin]

When discussing the Kubrick set, Kino said "Leaks are never 100% accurate, folks!". I'm not sure how to read into that.

[Calvin]

From KINO CLASSICS:

10/9 - BIG TIME ANNOUNCEMENT COMING AS SOON AS WE'RE ALLOWED

10/9 - LINA WERTMÜLLER COLLECTION (LOVE & ANARCHY, THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI, ALL SCREWED UP)
[now available as a Blu-ray set!]

10/23 - THE PENALTY (1920, Wallace Worsley, Blu-ray only)
[first time ever on Blu-ray!]

10/30 - SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964, Nicholas Webster, DVD & Blu-ray)
[first time ever on Blu-ray! "A movie so bad has never looked this good!" – Eric D. Wilkinson, VP, Home Entertainment]

From KINO LORBER:

10/2 - HEADSHOT (2012, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, DVD & Blu-ray)

From ALIVE MIND CINEMA:

10/9 - BEING IN THE WORLD (2010, Tao Ruspoli, DVD only)

From REDEMPTION FILMS:

10/16 - FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973, Jess Franco, DVD & Blu-ray)
[first time ever on Blu-ray!]

10/16 - EXORCISM (1974, Jess Franco, DVD & Blu-ray)
[first time ever on Blu-ray!]

[ryannichols7]

let's hope the big time announcement is actually worth it...

[HerrSchreck]

The Penalty on blu is fucking dazzling-- great silent and brutal as cancer.

[bigP]

The Penalty on blu is fucking dazzling-- great silent and brutal as cancer.

Seconded. I'll be picking it up day 1. My knees ache thinking about it.

[Minkin]

let's hope the big time announcement is actually worth it...

I assume that it will just be Nibelung (to be in concert with the MOC release).

I'm sorta surprised by Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Didn't see that one coming. Perhaps if the PQ and supplements are really worthwhile (throw on some of the other weird Santa themed movies - such as Santa Claus (1959) and Santa Claus and The Ice Cream Bunny (1974) - both of those need to be seen to be believed) otherwise I would just be happy enough with the Oscilloscope Rare Exports release.

[Calvin]

I don't see why they wouldn't be allowed to announce Die Nibelungen. I'm thinking it will be the Kubrick set.

[Ashirg]

Any idea what happened to their announced and never released Night Tide DVD and blu-ray? Amazon still has pages up with "May 22, 2012" release date...

[HerrSchreck]

Maybe it'll be that 75mm remastered Bondarchuk WAR AND PEACE they flopped on after announcing somewhere around 2008?

Then again maybe not. That's not capital B-big.

[mteller]

It would be to me!

[warren oates]

The Penalty on blu is fucking dazzling-- great silent and brutal as cancer.

Seconded. I'll be picking it up day 1. My knees ache thinking about it.

Well, I read the plot synopsis and now I kind of wish I hadn't, as there are dark motives and big reveals that it may be better not to know going in. Kind of like a pre-make of some frenzied bit of New Korean Cinema. So other than the OTT story, is there much to recommend in this one? As far as silent directors go, can this guy compare to the best of them?

[swo17]

The film is all about Lon Chaney. It's one of his most memorable performances, helped no doubt by the fact that he isn't hiding behind a wall of make-up, but also because of the tremendous physical strain he put himself through to accomplish the double amputee effect.

[Tommaso]

I had the pleasure of viewing the old dvd of "The Penalty" for the first time only a few days ago (terribly ashamed to admit that my knowledge of American silents still leaves a lot to be desired...), and I must say it's a completely amazing film, almost like something from Feuillade seen through the psychologically scrutinizing eyes of Pabst. Or, anachronistically, something that could have come from Franju in "Yeux sans visage" mode/mood. The ending is a terribly cop-out, but the extras on the disc informed me that this must have been even worse in the original novel, so no complaints. Fantastic performance by Chaney. While the age-old dvd isn't bad at all, I'm sure a new blu transfer will improve a lot on this masterpiece. So if you're blu-ready, this should be an absolute no-brainer.

[warren oates]

Well, now, The Penalty sounds better and better...

All of this talk of the virtuoso performance puts me in mind of a story the screenwriter of Bad Day at Black Rock told about how they were having trouble casting the lead until they decided to remove one of the protagonist's arms. "Actors love playing cripples!" a producer advised them. And there's plenty of evidence that actors love playing the mentally challenged too. And I half remember some Taxi Driver reminiscence in which Scorsese expressed surprise that Harvey Keitel wanted the comparatively smaller part of the pimp, instead of the role of the campaign worker he was originally offered. So, in conclusion, I present to you the perfect Oscar bait actor attracting role yet to be written: a crippled, retarded pimp.

[knives]

I think Mark Ruffalo already gave himself that role.

[Saturnome]

I don't like a lot of pre-1925 american silents for some reasons, but The Penalty is a favorite of mine. Great news to see this going blu, I wasn't expecting it, I have hopes that most of Kino's silent collection will get the hi-def treatment now.

[captveg]

Any idea what happened to their announced and never released Night Tide DVD and blu-ray? Amazon still has pages up with "May 22, 2012" release date...

Was it announced? My recollection is that it only ever appeared on a "leaked" list (which proved correct otherwise). Probably just got delayed.

[Emak-Bakia]

I hope the big announcement is the Kubrick set. Does anyone know, though, what's up with this? I also saw it listed in the last issue of Film Comment as an upcoming release, though I couldn't really find much other talk of it anywhere online.

[onedimension]

Given the Metropolis region-coding conflict between Kino and MoC, is it possible that a Nibelungen announcement is delayed to give MoC first shot at pre-orders?

[knives]

let's hope the big time announcement is actually worth it...

I assume that it will just be Nibelung (to be in concert with the MOC release).

I'm sorta surprised by Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Didn't see that one coming. Perhaps if the PQ and supplements are really worthwhile (throw on some of the other weird Santa themed movies - such as Santa Claus (1959) and Santa Claus and The Ice Cream Bunny (1974) - both of those need to be seen to be believed) otherwise I would just be happy enough with the Oscilloscope Rare Exports release.

The '59 Santa is already on Blu thanks to VCI in a pretty definitive edition.

[justeleblanc]

So, the big announcement is Rivette's Out 1? Yes? \:D/

[HerrSchreck]

. So other than the OTT story, is there much to recommend in this one? As far as silent directors go, can this guy compare to the best of them?

In my opinion, it's Chaney's best film. Elsewhere, I wrote:

To this day The Penalty is one of the most wicked, blackhearted, nasty films I've ever seen. . . featuring what is far over and above anything else my favorite performance by Lon Chaney Sr. The man delivers, in what is considered his first starring role, a positively ferocious performance as Blizzard, "Lord and master of the Underworld." In my opinion he never surpassed it.



In my opinion this is the first genuine Film Noir, in the true sense of the word. The film is gritty, nasty, filled with utterly vicious characters without even a touch of a hint of redeeming qualities, with a narrative heart that pumps black blood through the life of its thru-line fore and aft. Featuring onscreen nudity, drug-addiction, accidental amputation of an innocent pre-teen boy's (Blizzard's) legs by an inept idiotic doctor (who is protected by an even more idiotic older doctor who shields his young protoge by lying to the kid's parents and tells them that the uneccessary amputation was the only way the boy's life could've been saved), burlesque dancers shaking their tits, a female hustler robbing a mark she's conked out with knock-out drops in his beer, a slimy coke addict who glady stabs her, an undercover law enforcement agent who completely wilts in the face of the ferocious power of her target and becomes his willing plaything, this for starters... moving forward with satanistic flourishes and "underworld" metaphors it smokes along like a belch from a fumarole. The film was thusly described by a trade paper of the day who, while granting the excellence of its craft, croaked "Here is a picture about as cheerful as a hanging." Often confused as a Browning-Chaney film, owing to it's lurid nature and seedy subject matter, the film is far more sinister and dark than anything in the Chaney-Browning canon.



Here are some quotes, including the aforementioned:


Quote:

Here is a picture that is about as cheerful as a hanging---and as interesting. You can't, being an average human and normal as to your emotional reactions, really like THE PENALTY, any more than you could enjoy a hanging. But for all its gruesome detail you are quite certain to be interested in it...It is a remarkably good performance this actor (Chaney) gives." ---Photoplay

"One of the striking things about the picture is the remarkable characterization given by Lon Chaney, who has the leading character...Rarely has the screen seen a better piece of acting." - --Moving Picture World



I love this film and could go on and on. Chaney is truly unbelievable in the film. He plays Blizzard... the legless young boy who has grown up into a truly sinister head of the San Francisco underworld, hobbling around on stumps through the streets between HQ's with the aid of leather knee-cups and a pair of crutches. The film is devoted to Blizzards plan to wreak vengeance on the (now elder) doctor who destroyed him when a child. He lights on a plan to shatter the doctor's world by hitting him where it will hurt the most-- the doc's saughter. The daughter, an aspiring artist who wants to do something worthwhile with her life before going passively into a marriage, puts an ad in the papers for a model. . . and ad with Chaney answers with sinister glee.

Watch closely as Chaney hatches the plan in his head to pose for the daughter--a sculptress-- of the jerk doctor who ruined him and left him legless from the knees down as a boy... she has placed an ad in the paper for people who think they look appropriate to pose for a work called "Satan After The Fall." Watch his face run the gauntlet of expressions as he ruminates on his deviousness, picturing his ultimate ruination of the daughter, smiling, gritting his teeth with wide-eyed sinister exhultation, then suddenly subject to a torrent of agony as he recalls all the misery he has suffered and continues to suffer as a result of his (unneccessary) life as a double-amputee whereby he smashes a hand against his temple and drags a palm up and down his countenance almost unable to bear the pain... trying to get under control he throws a tightclenched fist out and grimaces sternly while regaining himself. . . study the screen-- a tear jumps out of his eye and runs down his face as a riot of subtle and conflicting emotions crash through his mind's eye.

It should also be noted that the director of The Penalty was Wallace Worsely, who directed Chaney in Hunchback (as well as The Ace of Hearts, included in the TCM Lon Chaney Vol 1 box).