Anthony Mann

[matrixschmatrix]

There's a fantastic Jimmy Stewart Western box set that has Winchester and two other Mann Westerns- the Far Country and Bend of the River- in pretty excellent prints. While I generally cross my fingers a little harder for stuff that's in crappy shape, if all three of those come out on Blu, I'll be a happy man.

[connor]

Anyone heard anything about the new Reign of Terror/The Black Book "Film Chest Restored Version" currently for-sale at Amazon? Trying to figure out if it is, indeed, the uncut, uncensored version.

[swo17]

I only see this listing, which is a DVD. These are the guys responsible for some notoriously bad PD Blu-rays like The Stranger and Kansas City Confidential. If this release looks any good, then it's probably just a copy of the nice restoration available on the Sony MOD DVD.

[domino harvey]

Actually, Film Chest's Blu-ray of the Red House is decent (especially for a film with no good release anywhere). As far as I can recall all others are to be avoided, though

[Jack Phillips]

Their recent release of The Strange Woman looks pretty good.

[Feego]

Beaver on Film Chest's The Black Book -- Gary calls it as "disastrous."

[misterjunior]

I'm in the midst of watching or re-watching everything from Mann that I've been able to get my hands on. Tonight it was Side Street, from 1950, which I must say I enjoyed quite a bit. Mann always uses locations well and the use of authentic NYC locales for this movie worked well -- I found it to be a nice glimpse of the city as it existed at the time. I also thought the film was extraordinarily well paced. Really about the only negative thing I could say about it would involve the narration, which might actually be more tolerable if it appeared more frequently because, as it is, it pops up so sporadically that it's almost startling at times. That's really a minor gripe, though, and certainly didn't impact my overall enjoyment of the movie too severely. The car chase at the end was definitely a highlight, also.

Also on a Mann-related note I emailed Jon Mulvaney recently asking if there were any plans to release any additional Mann titles and/or give The Furies a blu-ray upgrade and surprisingly he wrote back (the next day!). Unfortunately it was to tell me that no, there aren't any plans for new titles or a Furies upgrade in the near future.

So far for this project I've watched all the westerns with Jimmy Stewart, Man of the West, The Tin Star, T-Men, Border Incident, Raw Deal, Men in War, The Furies, The Tall Target and Devil's Doorway. Next up I'm planning to watch either Reign of Terror/The Black Book or El Cid, the former of which I've never seen and the latter of which I haven't seen since I was a kid and my dad rented the VHS from the library.

[zedz]

Of the films you haven't seen yet, The Black Book is by far the greatest. The 60s epics are excellent examples of their type (Mann is one of the few directors who can still make violence personal when working on that scale), but I find it hard to get enthusiastic about them compared to his tougher, leaner works of the late 40s and 50s.

The next best film is his uncredited work on He Walked by Night. Who knows how much is him , how much is Werker, and how much is Alton, but it's a fantastic noir at any rate. You won't regret it. And don't overlook the missing 50s western The Last Frontier, which is pretty damn good, even if it generally gets lost in the scuffle of masterpieces.

The early (pre-T-Men) work is all formative, but generally competent and occasionally inspired. Their problem tends to lie with ridiculous or banal scripts, with Mann doing his best to make everything work. I wouldn't cross the road to avoid any of them. There is a good BluRay of Strangers in the Night out, with various other titles from that period available on decent to terrible DVDs.

[warren oates]

I'd agree with zedz about the noirs, but not The Last Frontier -- great potential but for me probably his worst Western other than Cimarron -- or the late epics. El Cid is totally worth seeing and I'd rate The Heroes of Telemark higher The Fall of the Roman Empire.

[misterjunior]

Thanks, zedz and warren oates, for your suggestions/input. I have access to all of those titles mentioned so I'll definitely watch soon and post some thoughts. Everything I've read about The Black Book makes it sound very interesting, so I think I'll go ahead and watch that one tonight; that way I can watch another movie after or before if I'm so inclined, whereas El Cid would gobble up my whole night.

Can anyone tell me about A Dandy in Aspic? I know Mann passed during the making of it, but is it worth a watch? It's $17 for the DVD on Amazon, which is a little more than I'd like to spend on a blind buy during Criterion Sale Season, but I'm intent on seeing everything by Mann that I can get my hands on.

[domino harvey]

And I love both the Last Frontier and Cimarron! A Dandy in Aspic is okay and of a piece of a lot of the international cinema trends of the sixties-- foreign castings and locations rubbing elbows with Hollywood stars. It's okay, I probably got my five dollars worth from the R2 DVD

[swo17]

Everything I've read about The Black Book makes it sound very interesting, so I think I'll go ahead and watch that one tonight

Which version of The Black Book do you have? Anything before this version looks dreadful.

[Altair]

The Last Frontier, I think, should be seen by any one interested in Mann and in particular his Westerns. While not to the standard of his Stewart collaborations in the genre, it still has much to fascinate (and one of Victor Mature's best performances, if you can take that as a recommendation!).

[mteller]

Agree with zedz, and would add that The Great Flamarion and Strange Impersonation are worth a look, although definitely not top-tier Mann.

[HerrSchreck]

A Cry Into The Void

[hearthesilence]

The Man from Laramie is a wonderfully directed film and certainly makes me appreciate Mann even more, but a few loose threads in this film are a bit surprising. Most seem related to Cathy O'Donnell's character, so much that I wonder if her character had a lot more written, only to have much of that material lost in re-writes or editing. Still an excellent film - the compositions alone are masterful - but considering how rich and thoroughly detailed The Naked Spur and Man of the West depicted every major character and relationship, The Man from Laramie seems a bit uneven in comparison.

[hearthesilence]

New DCP of Winchester '73 screening at MoMA on Wed., Oct. 27 at 1 p.m. (ugh) as part of their ongoing "Modern Matinees" (this month focusing on Tony Curtis). According to the fine print:

"This will be the first New York screening of the new 4K restoration of this classic, produced by Universal and the Film Foundation."

[ChunkyLover]

New DCP of Winchester '73 screening at MoMA on Wed., Oct. 27 at 1 p.m. (ugh) as part of their ongoing "Modern Matinees" (this month focusing on Tony Curtis). According to the fine print:

"This will be the first New York screening of the new 4K restoration of this classic, produced by Universal and the Film Foundation."

I'm surprised that will be the first time showing in New York considering that DCP has been kicking around for a few years now. I saw the 4K restoration in 2019 at the Maine International Film Festival.

[hearthesilence]

They posted something similar about a screening of Da 5 Bloods being a premiere and someone here corrected them, so maybe they're just mistaken again?

Actually, if I was bold, I could *probably* sneak out to watch this, but I'd have to run to the lobby every 15 or 20 minutes to make sure nothing was amiss at work. (Phone signals suck at MoMA.)

[FrauBlucher]

I'm in the midst of watching or re-watching everything from Mann that I've been able to get my hands on. Tonight it was Side Street, from 1950, which I must say I enjoyed quite a bit. Mann always uses locations well and the use of authentic NYC locales for this movie worked well -- I found it to be a nice glimpse of the city as it existed at the time. I also thought the film was extraordinarily well paced. Really about the only negative thing I could say about it would involve the narration, which might actually be more tolerable if it appeared more frequently because, as it is, it pops up so sporadically that it's almost startling at times. That's really a minor gripe, though, and certainly didn't impact my overall enjoyment of the movie too severely. The car chase at the end was definitely a highlight, also.

Side Street was on TCM's Noir Alley this morning. Muller explained that the narration was tinkered with and re-written in spots by the studio, although he said he can't imagine Dore Schary had anything to do with it.

I live just a few blocks from Marie's Crisis Cafe in Greenwich Village which was in the film. It's amazing it's still in business and looks very much the same.

[hearthesilence]

Caught the DCP of the new restoration for Bend of the River and it looks outstanding. I really hope it comes out on a 4K disc, and if they don't screw it up, you're all in for a treat.

Taking a look at Kino's Blu-ray afterwards, I forgot there were so many registration issues - you'll see things like a tree branch with a green border or halo around the entire thing, and it's not just a few scenes, it'll come up over and over again throughout the entire movie. (Check out DVDBeaver for this and other examples.) Having said that, I don't think the disc is unwatchable despite these visible flaws: the detail is passable and the color isn't bad. (If the new restoration's anything to go by, the colors were never supposed to "pop" nor are they supposed to look brownish - they're pretty naturalistic and well-balanced, and that comes through on Kino's Blu-ray, albeit with even less brilliance.) It's watchable, but the new restoration is an enormous step up in every way. Here's the info:

Based on the original Technicolor separations, this new digital restoration from Universal Pictures returns a breathtaking depth and clarity to Irving Glassberg’s innovative location photography.

4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures from the 35mm three-strip original negative in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Restoration services conducted by NBCUniversal StudioPost.

Also a quick question - the film makes reference to Kansas/Missouri border raiders, and I was under the impression that these were synonymous with "border ruffians" which as described by Wikipedia are...

...proslavery raiders who crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri during the mid-19th century to help ensure the territory entered the United States as a slave state. Their activities formed a major part of a series of violent civil confrontations known as 'Bleeding Kansas,' which peaked from 1854 to 1858. Crimes committed by border ruffians included electoral fraud, intimidation, assault, property damage and murder; many border ruffians took pride in their reputation as criminals. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, many border ruffians fought on the side of the Confederate States of America as irregular bushwhackers.

Am I mistaking them for something else? The film doesn't go into too much detail about the history of border raiders, really no more than mentioning the two states involved, but it's a hell of a lot of context!

[Finch]

If the new 4K is in SDR only, the Kino should be fine. Their encoding team doesn't seem to struggle with SDR as they do with HDR and Dolby Vision. Still, hopefully a UK label gets the new restoration too (Arrow or Eureka).

[hearthesilence]

Is Kino definitely reissuing this on UHD? The current Blu-ray described above is an old master, not the new restoration - should be a night and day difference when you see the registration problems alone. (To be clear, MoMA actually listed their screening as a US premiere, so I don't think the new restoration is available yet for home viewing.)

[Finch]

I think they only confirmed a new Blu ray a while ago. My bad.

[knives]

Does Alan Arkush record commentaries for fun? I ask because he just made reference to recording one for Dr. Broadway.