Hammer on Blu-ray from Indicator, part two

Posted on April 17, 2019April 14, 2019 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tallulah Bankhead as Mrs. Trefoile, a religious fanatic obsessed with her son's purity in Silvio Narizzano's Fanatic (1965)

Indicator’s first box set of Hammer films on Blu-ray is an uneven selection of the studio’s mid-’60s output, including two of their best along with two of their weakest releases. Alongside Michael Carreras’ mediocre Maniac (1963) and The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), we get The Gorgon (1964), on of Terence Fisher’s finest Gothic horrors along with Silvio Narizzano’s debut feature, Fanatic (1965, aka Die! Die! My Darling!), the best of Hammer’s psychological horrors, all sporting excellent transfers and informative special features.

Hammer thrillers on Blu-ray from Indicator

Posted on March 20, 2019March 19, 2019 by Kenneth George Godwin

Val Guest's The Full Treatment (1960) opens with the dramatic aftermath of a car crash

Indicator lavish attention on four less well-known, non-Gothic Hammer Films productions in their second box set devoted to the company: Criminal Intent focuses on a range of bad behaviour from murder to bank robbery and child molestation in four films which, while not all entirely successful, illuminate the studio’s versatility.

British black-and-white fantasies

Posted on March 13, 2019March 13, 2019 by Kenneth George Godwin

Members of a British Army bomb disposal squad inspect the interior of the alien craft in Nigel Kneale's Quatermass and the Pit (1959)

Two excellent recent Blu-ray releases illuminate different strains of British fantasy. They Came to a City (1944), written by J.B. Priestley and directed by Basil Dearden is a Utopian political fable proposing a new Socialist society for post-war Britain, while Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit (1959) spins an epic tale of human evolution and our innate propensity for violence through the story of an ancient spaceship discovered buried beneath London.

Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and other horrors

Posted on September 12, 2018March 30, 2019 by Kenneth George Godwin

Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Boehm) is obsessed with trying to capture terror on film in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1959)

Michael Powell’s final masterpiece, Peeping Tom (1959) virtually ended his filmmaking career, but it’s rediscovery in the 1970s and ’80s restored him to the pantheon of cinematic greats. Revisiting the film on Blu-ray reinforces my appreciation of a film which was ahead of its time.

(Faulty) Memory and the formation of a passion for movies

Posted on August 18, 2018August 30, 2018 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tomboy Hayley Mills and her friends are about to encounter the mysteries of adulthood in Bryan Forbes' Whistle Down the Wind (1961)

I recently got together with a group of friends to look back at our earliest memories of the movies and the ways in which our love of film evolved.

Indicator Blu-rays: England in the ’60s

Posted on June 27, 2018June 26, 2018 by Kenneth George Godwin

Adrift in the place he came from but no longer belongs in in Jack Gold's The Reckoning (1969)

Recent Blu-ray editions from Indicator in the UK call attention to a couple of interesting but largely forgotten movies from the ’60s: Sidney Lumet’s John le Carre adaptation The Deadly Affair (1966) and Jack Gold’s The Reckoning.

From the department of “what the hell?!”

Posted on March 3, 2018March 1, 2018 by Kenneth George Godwin

Louis Willoughby as Isoldi Keene, a sinister Mormon Elder with hypnotic powers in Trapped By the Mormons (1922)

An obscure silent melodrama reveals an odd niche in British social history: Trapped By the Mormons (1922) was a fumbled piece of propaganda intended to warn English women of the dangers posed by the misunderstood American sect.

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake (2016) Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 by Kenneth George Godwin

Unemployed, Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) resorts to civil disobedience to assert his rights in Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Criterion have released an excellent Blu-ray of Ken Loach’s Palme d’or-winning I, Daniel Blake (2016), supplemented with a commentary track from Loach and writer Paul Laverty, an illuminating behind-the-scenes documentary, and a feature-length account of the director’s life and career. One of the best disks released so far this year.

Miscellaneous notes: Severin Films

Posted on February 7, 2018December 16, 2018 by Kenneth George Godwin

The ruined castle of Montségur dominates the spectacular landscape of southwestern France in Richard Stanley's The Otherworld (2013)

Severin Films recent Blu-ray special edition of Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman’s Jack the Ripper (1959) is ambitious but compromised; the atmospheric horror film is presented in three different versions, all of which have serious issues with the transfers (print damage in one case and incorrect aspect ratios in the other two). More satisfying, technically and creatively, is Severin’s Blu-ray edition of Richard Stanley’s typically idiosyncratic documentary The Otherworld (2013).

Reading early film history

Posted on May 3, 2017May 6, 2017 by Kenneth George Godwin

Defying reality in R.W. Paul's trick film The "?" Motorist (1906)

Rachel Low’s multi-volume History of the British Film, written in the late ’40s and early ’50s, provides a vivid portrait of a new, complex art form being invented moment-by-moment.

British Film