Indications of Incoming Indicator Entertainments

[What A Disgrace]

Perfume of the Lady in Black would easily be the best film Indicator has released in a while, in my opinion, and I also think it's the first time they yoinked a film from 88 Films.

[colinr0380]

They really went there! Surprised Indicator chose to translate the title into “Girls Without Shame” - Jeunes Filles Impudiques might have been easier to smuggle into the home as French arthouse.

It's not Indicator's translation; that really was the film's original official English-language title, as confirmed by the original 35mm materials including English-language credits featuring that title in a matching font. By contrast, the Schoolgirl Hitchhikers title is in a different font and looks spliced in, which was almost certainly the case – our hypothesis is that it was a crude attempt to cash in on the then wildly successful West German Schoolgirl Report soft porn series, or the US film Teenage Hitchhikers. Or, of course, both!

Or maybe the same year's Schoolgirls In Chains (NSFW)! For some inexplicable reason most of these films have much more benign alternate titles!

[GaryC]

Perfume of the Lady in Black would easily be the best film Indicator has released in a while, in my opinion, and I also think it's the first time they yoinked a film from 88 Films.

Snapshot was a previous example.

[andyli]

Carnal Knowledge 4K UHD announced! I'm in tears.

[rapta]

Perfume of the Lady in Black would easily be the best film Indicator has released in a while, in my opinion, and I also think it's the first time they yoinked a film from 88 Films.

Snapshot was a previous example.

And Harlequin too! I'm hesitant to buy 88's edition of Stone as there's now a chance it could pop up at Indicator instead (since I had to sell my 88 Films editions of Snapshot and Harlequin, would rather not have to keep doing that).

Luckily I just sold my copy of The Perfume of the Lady in Black, and for a good price too so that'll cover the impending Indicator release (hope I don't regret ditching it in advance for some reason).

[Orlac]

Indicator has teased ZOMBIE LAKE, which is Rollin subbing for Jess Franco! Weirdly, Franco went on to make OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES which feels more Rollin-like in flavour than Rollin's own zombie movie.

I wonder if this marks the beginning of Indicator working with Eurocine, who owns several Franco classics, or at least the French versions!

[JSC]

New titles for July:

H.M.S. Defiant (a.k.a. Damn the Defiant!)
Taming of the Shrew
The Hireling
The Dresser
Saraband for Dead Lovers (4K)

The Hireling seems to be one of those Palme d'Or winners that few people have actually seen.

[beamish14]

New titles for July:

H.M.S. Defiant (a.k.a. Damn the Defiant!)
Taming of the Shrew
The Hireling
The Dresser
Saraband for Dead Lovers (4K)

The Hireling seems to be one of those Palme d'Or winners that few people have actually seen.

The Dresser was so acclaimed in its time, but it’s become incredibly neglected, much like many of the fine films made by Peter Yates

[rapta]

Mostly interested in The Dresser because of Yates' name (as much as I like Finney and Courtenay). Funnily enough, The Hireling is the opposite; I'm primarily in it for the cast (namely Shaw and Miles).

[colinr0380]

I had not fully realised before receiving Spawn of the North and putting it in order with Now and Forever, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Peter Ibbetson and The Shepherd of the Hills that we now have a five film run of films directed by Henry Hathaway! Just released individually rather than in a boxset.

[diamonds]

I have been hoping their interest in Hathaway leads to releases of From Hell to Texas, The Dark Corner, Home in Indiana, and Down to the Sea in Ships…

[domino harvey]

Fox titles are highly unlikely, unless Disney drastically reverses course

[MichaelB]

Yes, you can forget about Fox titles for now - they're simply not licensable, and that's that.

And all six of Indicator's Fox titles are now unavoidably OOP, as the rights couldn't be renewed.

But if Disney ever changes its corporate mind, the news will no doubt be splurged all over this forum in seconds.

[ChunkyLover]

This month's newsletter teaser is for 1949's "Undertow". Very likely to be in a future Universal Noir set.

[domino harvey]

Hopefully not a portent of the quality of the other films in the set

[TechnicolorAcid]

Hopefully not a portent of the quality of the other films in the set

They’re going to include The Girl in the Kremlin and you’re going to like it.

[ChunkyLover]

Hopefully not a portent of the quality of the other films in the set

It probably will be. Considering how much the second set has been such a slog to watch, in my experience, I don't think I can take much more from the Universal vaults (and I still have plenty of Kino boxes to suffer through!).

[andyli]

At the beginning of their newsletter, they wrote

This summer, INDICATOR is thrilled to announce a new series of UHD and Blu-ray releases, beginning on 22 September. Featuring all-new 4K restorations and extensive extras, these unmissable UK-only editions will showcase a number of classics from the golden age of Italian genre cinema.

Does this mean there will be more gialli to come, forming a UHD series like the Jean Rollin titles?

[reaky]

Time to grab your sword and don your sandals.

[domino harvey]

C’mon Cottafavi!

[rapta]

Hoping it's a broader term and will include Spaghetti Westerns and poliziotteschi and the like. But I'd also be happy with more gialli, as Arrow don't release as many as they once did and Shameless are hit-and-miss with the presentation side of things.

[MichaelB]

The Limelight Collection is running a sale that includes Indicator titles, and their website's first blog entry includes interviews with a hefty cross-section of the Indicator team - namely co-founder Sam Dunn, production head Anthony Nield, designer Nick Wrigley, booklet editor Jeff Billington, and technical producer me.

[Aunt Peg]

I suppose this is as good as any thread to bring up California Split.

I went to a screening tonight which is part of a Robert Altman film festival (18 of his films over 18 weeks). I had only ever seen California Split over 30 years ago on TV and found it very ho-hum. Seeing it on the big screen tonight really changed my view of the film.

I've long had the Sony DVD but have never gotten around to actually watching it.

I noticed that there really wasn't that much music in the film and I noted the scenes with songs being sung. Got home checked my Sony DVD and those scenes were on the disc.

Is it possible the US DVD release back in the 00s was the original cinema release? I can't imagine what I watched on the big screen wasn't the original version but you never know. Also noticed it is streaming on Amazon so I assume that it the same version.

Anybody know if the Sony DVD was re-edited or what may be preventing a Blu Ray release.

The print screened at the festival was gorgeous looking, certainly better than the DVD release.

[therewillbeblus]

Boston is running a similar (the same?) retrospective, and the cut listed is the 108-min version caught up with music rights issues

[MichaelB]

Sony's 2005 DVD release ran about three minutes short, the cuts being made because of music rights.

Indicator could have released that version, but opted not to do so because whereas in 2005 there was no easily accessible alternative aside from very occasional TV screenings and even rarer repertory outings, twenty years on the full version is easily available via streaming, and so it would have seemed perverse if Indicator's edition had been cut.

(Second Run has a similar attitude towards Marketa Lazarová - it was worth releasing in 2007 with a slight cut for animal cruelty because there was no alternative DVD version anywhere in the world. But they haven't put it out on Blu-ray, and won't be doing so, because there are excellent uncut alternative editions from Criterion and the Czech National Film Archive, the latter being region-free.)

As to why the full version of California Split is legally streamable but not legally releasable via physical media, it's to do with the original contracts drawn up at the time of production, whereby all music rights were cleared for theatrical and broadcast, but not for home video, on the reasonable grounds that that market didn't yet exist. (Several other 1970s films have been caught in a similar trap.) And because lawyers in their infinite wisdom have interpreted streaming as being legally equivalent to broadcasting, that means that the full version can be streamed.

But because the home video rights weren't cleared, in order to release the full version, all the music rights would have to be cleared all over again. Indicator actually made enquiries, on the off-chance that the rightsholders might be sympathetic, but it became very clear very quickly that the cost would be way beyond the budget of a small boutique label. And Sony presumably isn't that fussed.

So the short answer is that the full version can be released on video - but at a price so high as to guarantee a thumping loss. Which is why nobody's released the full version.