Barbarella
4K (1968/Paramount/Arrow
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-rays)/Horrors
Of The Black Museum
(1959/VCI Blu-ray)/The
Terror (1963) + Little
Shop Of Horrors
(1960/Film Masters Blu-rays/all MVD)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B/B-/B-/B- Sound: B-/B-/C+/C+
Extras: B Films: B-/C+/C+/C+
Now
for a group of classic and well-known genre films that walk the
tightrope between A & B- movies...
Roger
Vadim's Barbarella
4K
(1968)
was a huge hit film in its time, capitalizing on the rising
counterculture of the time, pop art look of the time and increasing
love of comic books, along with its rising actress/star Jane Fonda in
the title role, though she was also a lightning rod for her
then-controversial stance on the Vietnam fiasco where she turned out
to be about 85% correct about what she was saying. It is also an
early superhero film a decade before Superman:
The Movie
solidified the genre, save the fact that she is a female hero,
connected to another world of love and pleasure in some alternate
world of advanced natural growth and less-mechanical technology, plus
nudity, sex and sexuality are no problem for her or anyone in her
world.
The
French were already coming up with counterculture heroes like jewel
thief Diabolik and others, then at about this time, counterculture
animation (The Beatles' Yellow Submarine) and such artists
(Robert Crumb, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol) and a new industry of
comic books for adults called comix that were more sexual and wild
(if less coherent at times) than regular comic books under the Comic
Book Code and the new 'graphic novel' movement that began around
1986. Barbarella just arrives in all of this.
Fonda
looks great here and is more than able to carry the film, but is
supported by a great cast that includes Milo O'Shea as Durand Durand
(who inspired the pop/rock group with a slightly different spelling,)
John Philip Law (who played Diabolik a few years earlier on the big
screen) is blind angel Pygar, Anita Pallenberg (Candy,
Dillinger Is Dead, Performance,) David Hemmings
(Antonioni's Blow Up) as Dildano, Marcel Marceau as Professor
Ping and uncredited turns by Antonio Sabato and Fabio Testi make for
quiet a unique cast and it all works.
To
say anything else would ruin the film's many surprises, but it is an
amusing comedy with thriller elements and much more that also remains
a one-of-a-kind film that is long overdue for this grand treatment,
preservation and restoration. Fonda would soon prove her serious
acting chops in Alan J. Pakula's Klute (1971, see our
Criterion review elsewhere on this site) all while never selling out
and the film and its success would be a controversy in itself. Can
we watch and enjoy without thinking of the war and her politics?
Should we be enjoying such a film with the war at hand? Is she using
the film as a trojan horse for her politics? 55 years later, she
won, we won (despite not 'winning' in Vietnam) and the film can once
again be enjoyed for the film it is.
If
you have not seen it in a while or never before, now is the
opportunity to see something challenging that is still commercial and
ironically of late, is far better than the several mostly awful
mega-budgeted superhero films being issued as we post that are losing
tons of money and will likely never recoup their budgets. Barbarella
was ahead of its time and has somehow stayed so. Especially with the
growing audience for the 1980 Flash Gordon, it deserves a new
audience and I hope it gets it.
Extras
are many, especially in the limited edition version and (per the
press release) include reversible sleeve featuring two original
artwork options
Double-sided
fold-out poster featuring two original artwork options
Six
double-sided collector's postcards
Illustrated
collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Anne
Billson, Paul Gravett, Veronique Bergen and Elizabeth Castaldo
Lunden, and select archival material
Disc
One - Feature (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)
4K
(2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10
compatible)
Original
lossless English mono audio, plus remixed Dolby Atmos surround and
lossless French mono (featuring the voice of Jane Fonda)
Optional
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio
commentary by film critic Tim Lucas
Alternative
opening and closing credits (in 4K with Dolby Vision, originally by
James Bond movie series and Stanley Donen credits veteran and genius
expert Maurice Binder)
Isolated
Music Score
Disc
Two - Extras (Blu-ray)
Another
Girl, Another Planet, an appreciation of Barbarella by film
critic Glenn Kenny
Paul
Joyce's behind the scenes featurette, Barbarella Forever!
Love,
a two-hour in-depth discussion between film and cultural historians
Tim Lucas & Steve Bissette on the impact and legacy of
Barbarella
Dress
to Kill, a 30-minute interview with film fashion scholar
Elizabeth Castaldo Lunden on Jacques Fonteray's world-changing
costume designs
Framing
for Claude, an interview with camera operator Roberto Girometti
Tognazzi
on Tognazzi, actor/director Ricky Tognazzi discusses the life
and work of his father and Barbarella star Ugo Tognazzi
An
Angel's Body Double, actor Fabio Testi discusses his early
career as a stuntman and body double for John Phillip Law on
Barbarella
Dino
and Barbarella, a video essay by Eugenio Ercolani on producer Dino
De Laurentiis
Original
Theatrical Trailer
US
TV and radio spots
and
an image gallery.
Arthur
Crabtree's Horrors
Of The Black Museum
(1959) has finally made it to the Blu-ray format after years of DVD
releases, primarily by the underrated VCI Home Video company. It was
one of the earliest films reviewed on this site and you can read all
about it at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/83/Horrors+Of+The+Black+Museum+(VCI+DVD
Now
the film is back in a new transfer restoration upgrade and after only
having the older DVD for a few decades, it is a nicer upgrade to see
the film better and capture some subtitles in the way it is shot,
acted and the scope frame seems a little wider. It is now freakier
and creepier to take in and Gough can more than handle the lead
villain role, an underrated actor who was up there with the best of
his generation and then some
Extras
expand from the previous DVDs and include the Original U.S.
Theatrical Trailer, Original European Theatrical Trailer, Photo
Gallery, Archival Commentary by Writer/Producer Herman Cohen 2023
Commentary by noted film historian Robert Kelly, artist 2-sided
coverwrap features original theatrical art and flip side with a new
graphic design by Robert Kelly, Video Tribute to Producer Herman
Cohen Archival Phone Interview/Video featurette with Herman Cohen
Interview with Shirley Ann Field and Original U.S. Hypno-vista
opening featuring psychologist, Emile Franchel.
Roger
Corman's The
Terror
(1963, issued here as a 60th
Anniversary Edition) and Little
Shop Of Horrors
(1960) have been released as a double feature by the terrific new
video label Film Masters and offers the best versions of the films
issued anywhere to date and here are the links to our best coverage
of each from previous Blu-ray releases:
The
Terror
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14306/The+Terror+(1963/Film+Detective+Blu-ray
Little
Shop Of Horrors
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11544/The+Little+Shop+of+Horrors+(1960/Legend+Blu-r
The
former film is a mixed final collaboration between lead actor Boris
Karloff and Producer/Director Roger Corman and on Edgar Allen Poe
adaptions as well. It has some visually striking moments, but is a
somewhat inconsistent film, albeit atmospheric and a rare color film
with Karloff in it. Little Shop is a much sillier,
odder affair that is comical and something different for even Corman,
a curio with a strange, early Jack Nicholson performance and more of
a curio since it later inspired the hit stage and feature film
musical of the same name. They had hardly any budget, so expect next
to no music.
It
is easily the best this film has ever looked, so it was easier for me
to watch it and appreciate how they pushed their very limited budget.
The cinematography was better than expected under the circumstances
and is like watching a print that stayed fresh after being lost for a
few decades or so. Cheers to those who issued it the best they could
before, but this is an unexpectedly detailed upgrade for what could
have been a lost film. Now you can see both for yourself and the
best versions are luckily in the same set.
Extras
are many
and include a high quality, illustrated booklet with tech info and C.
Courtney Joyner contributes an essay on the Karloff/Poe connection up
to his usual high standards. Mark McGee writes our liner notes for
Little
Shop of Horrors
in the same booklet. The disc of The
Terror
adds a C. Courtney Joyner/Dr. Steve Haberman commentary track, while
the disc for Little
Shop of Horrors
ads Author, Justin Humphreys, and film star, Jonathan Haze, put
together a special commentary for this feature, Ballyhoo Motion
Pictures continues "Hollywood
Intruders: The Filmgroup Story"
with Part Two of the story, a bonus featurette by Howard S. Berger,
"Ghosts
in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman's Celluloid
Castle,"
provides a fresh look at The
Terror,
recut trailers, based off of the original theatrical trailers, for
both features are included.
Now
for
playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby
Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition
image on Barbarella
4K
looks great for its age and considering all the optical printing and
the other older visual effects used at the time, costly as they may
have been back then. You get more grain in those shots, but the
color is finally reproduced to mirror a dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor version of the film and that's great, which
brings it more in line with the other two, similar Dino De Laurentiis
pop art/hero/pop culture films he is also know for noted in the
review above, Danger:
Diabolik
(restored not too long ago by Francis Coppola's American Zoetrope,
but no 4K edition yet) and the 1980 Flash
Gordon,
reviewed elsewhere on this site in 4K from Arrow as well. Shots that
have zero optical effects are the ones that really shine and several
of them definitely exceed my letter grade and will even shock some by
their fidelity, detail and depth.
Credit
also has to go to Director of Photography Claude Renoir, nephew of
the legendary director Jean Renoir, who lensed several of his films,
plus the James Bond film The
Spy Who Loved Me,
Gallone's Puccini
and Madame
Butterfly
films, Madwoman
Of Chaillot,
The
Lady in the Car With Glasses And A Gun,
The
Adventurers,
French
Connection II
and lensed both Vadim's Spirits
Of The Dead
segment and The
Game Is Over
with Jane Fonda in 1966, so they already had a great working
relationship. It pays off here.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on the regular Blu-ray
is passable and fine for the format, but lacks the great color and
better detail and depth of the 4K edition. Both offer lossless Dolby
Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) audio
upgrades, which introduces stereo music elements and more to open up
the film's sound versus its original optical monophonic sound, which
may not be as good as similar upgrades on Hitchcock's Psycho
4K, the original The
Exorcist 4K or Enter
The Dragon 4K, but better
than Anatomy Of A Murder
4K, which is just going
too far back to give a monophonic film that kind of upgrade. A
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is also offered for
purists, but is not as good. For the 4K version, it is the best
combination outside of an actual Technicolor print.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Horrors
Of The Black Museum show the age of the materials used,
especially since it was shot in the old CinemaScope format, with all
of its distortions, softness and other flaws. Since it was only made
and developed in Eastman color Kodak 35mm negative, you get more
slight fading, though the color is more subdued in parts since it is
handled by British labs versus any in the U.S. and you can see the
improvements in the color versus the old U.S. trailer and color
refinement versus the U.K. Trailer, but included here. There are
still some detail issues too, but Studio Canal provided the new 4K
scan and this is the best this has ever looked, with a few small
reservations. The original monophonic sound has been restored to PCM
2.0 Mono and is about as good as this film will ever sound.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on The Terror has
some decent color, but definition is mixed and you get grain by the
nature of how it was shot, a dark and creepy horror film. The color
we get is still rich and more consistent than the many other versions
we have seen on home video over the years.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Little Shop has even more grain and can also show
the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to
all previous releases of the film despite the rave my fellow writer
gave the older Blu-ray edition.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes on both have had
some solid work done on them from their original, low budget
theatrical mono sound and are as good as they are likely to ever
sound as well.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
