Hello on a beautiful Memorial Day in Los Angeles, where the old flag is flying at Savant Headquarters. It's 110 degrees on the Arizona desert, and probably very cold elsewhere, but today is swimming weather for us ... And thanks to some very astute programming by the DVD companies, we have a bundle of great discs to review:
Taking the brass ring today is Anchor Bay's 2-disc set of Dead of Night and The Queen of Spades, an amazing duo of Horror/fantasy pictures from the 'refined' era of British production. In one film, a Russian social climber tries to profit from a sorcerer's curse, while the other show is a classic omnibus of ghost stories, including the famous ventriloquist's dummy tale that seems to be an earlier version of Psycho.
Not far behind is Criterion's snappy release of the rare French thriller Quai des Orfèvres. Henri-Georges Clouzot tones down his signature acid tone for this kinder, gentler tale of infidelity, murder, forbidden lust, and relentless police inquiry. It also has Criterion's first oo-la-la centerfold!
Fox's Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison arrives on the coat-tails of their Memorial Day war movies, but is a welcome addition. Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr shine under the direction of the impossible-to-overrate John Huston, and the South Seas location looks great in CinemaScope.
HVe's Louisiana Story is an impeccable presentation of one of Robert Flaherty's last semi-docu studies of humans living under primitive conditions. This bayou saga gets tangled up in its own artistic ideals - and comes off as propaganda for an oil company.
Summer a-creeps up on us: with High School proms and kids back all too briefly from college. The influx of genre titles is starting to ebb a tad, and Savant is turning to do justice to a few that slipped through the cracks. But June has some top draws coming in, like Fox's Flight of the Phoenix. Back in a couple of days! Glenn Erickson
Posted by DVD Savant at May 26, 2003 01:09 PM