criterionforum.org

Nucleus Films Euro Cult Cinema Restoration Project

Help us to restore LADY FRANKENSTEIN and DEATH LAID AN EGG in 2K for Blu-ray release!

Death Laid an Egg!!!

The Nucleus Films Indiegogo campaign went live about 8hrs ago & has already raised 64% of its first £10,000 goal! For any interested, they've currently got a small amount of places left for both discs (should they make it to their 2nd goal) at an 'early bird' price.

Thanks for sharing Adam. Here's a direct link: https://igg.me/at/NucleusEuroCult" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MarcM wrote:Thanks for sharing Adam. Here's a direct link: https://igg.me/at/NucleusEuroCult" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm tempted to pledge for this, but I know very little about the films. Anybody have any opinions?

I've seen Death Laid an Egg, but not Lady Frankenstein. On the strength of the one title, I think this is a deserving cause. The film is very interesting, very funny and strange. It's kind of a critique of "getting ahead" in society. The characters are all varied parodies of the "keeping up with the Joneses" archetypes. Jean-Louis Trintignant gives a very fine performance, and I found him unusually sympathetic––there seemed a little bit of a parallel between his character here and the Michel Piccoli character in Dillinger is Dead, as a figure who has been through the rat race and found it an empty pursuit––only he doesn't know how to escape from it. The film is offhandedly modish, but it uses its visuals in surprising and compelling ways. It's quite a different flavor of Giallo than...really any other Giallo I've seen. Calling it a Giallo might be a tad misleading even. I can't recall much gore, but the film is fairly suspenseful, and its plot hides a lot of layers of character motivations and ideas. I remember it having a pretty rambunctious score as well. Definitely worth being restored and being seen.

Lady Frankenstein is a hoot. For the main it's a pretty standard '70s European Frankenstein film, a bit like a decent Jess Franco with higher production values.
But really this film is all about the great Rosalba Neri who elevates this from the deep well of interesting Euro Cult curios. Neri, along with Edwige Fenech and, perhaps, Barbara Bouchet are '70s explicit European cult cinema royalty and this is seen as one of her best screen roles.
I have the Spanish DVD and only recently watched it. I thought it was great fun and certainly worthy of a blu upgrade.

I actually contributed solely on my wanting to see Death Laid an Egg, as it's been pretty difficult to get a decent legal copy of this that's actually English friendly. Here's a link to the Giallo Ciao Ciao podcast episode on the film. While it's a wonderfully entertaining show, it's not exactly very acedemic in nature, so feihong's description might serve you just as well.
Also, Michael Mackenzie's review.

I've not seen Lady Frankenstein either, but I think you sold it for me Alphonse.
Mondo Digital review.

I contributed for the Alan Jones and Kim Newman commentaries!

But also, whilst I've never seen Death Laid An Egg I'm a big fan of director Giulio Questi's film made just previous to this, Django, Kill!, and would like to finally get a chance to see the other well known film by the director (Alex Cox in that introduction briefly mentions Death Laid An Egg under one of its alternate titles, A Curious Way To Love).

Nucleus hit their £20,000 goal, so Death Laid an Egg is now secured! Another 5k to go for the Newman & Jones extras. They've also added a top-up perk for those who have already backed the project: four of their recent releases (Craze, Give Us Tomorrow, Playgirls and the Vampire and Worst Fears, all DVDs) for 30 quid (+ shipping I think).

An exciting announcement regarding Death Laid An Egg:

DEATH LAID AN EGG - UPDATE!

We've just received confirmation that the 35mm archive print we located contains approximately 15 minutes of previously unseen footage! We're sure you'll all be as happy about this as we are.

However, the print isn't in great shape, so we will need to have it cleaned and scanned, and we will insert the additional scenes from the print into our newly created master, which is currently being scanned from the negatives. This will ensure you get to see the closest thing to Questi's original director's cut.

If you haven't already pledged, you can still order via our Indiegogo campaign.

L.A. wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 9:43 pm The Libertine (1968) @ Mondo Digital

Unfortunately I found the transfer to be awful.

That third screen cap looks hideous (from the blu-ray.com review), the others pretty weak also.

fdm wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:06 pm That third screen cap looks hideous (from the blu-ray.com review), the others pretty weak also.

Yep. You can see remaining traces of scanner noise in the shirt parts. Note the border of the jacket next to the sky, that's where the (strongly set) denoiser has trouble.
Similarly take a look at the frame of the skylight in screencap 8 -- partially noise blasted, partially remaining scanner noise. This goes on like this through pretty much the whole movie. Exception: the first 1-2 frames after a shot change are full of scanner noice, because the (presumably temporal) denoiser hasn't kicked in yet.

Despite the usually ugly scanner noise, I would have highly preferred a transfer without egregious DNR...