Backwoods
Double-Feature: Common Law Wife
+ Jennie Wife / Child
(both 1963/Film Masters Blu-ray Set)/Frivolous
Lola 4K (1998 aka
Monella/Cult
Epics 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray*)/Homework
(1982/Unearthed Blu-ray/*both MVD)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: B/B-/C+
Films: C+/B-/C+
Sexploitation,
exploitation, something else or all of the above? These next
releases will have you wondering at times...
Backwoods
Double-Feature: Common Law Wife
+ Jennie Wife / Child
(both 1963) are definitely is baiting stereotypes, sexism, a lurid
take on sexuality, echoes of socioeconomic division, the improper,
illegal, knowingly depraved, sick and anything else cheap it can
comer up with for titillation and empty thrills. Common
Law Wife has a goofy guy
wanting to get rid of his 'old wife' and have his niece (named 'Baby
Doll'!!!) replace her. When the girlfriend has been with him long
enough to qualify for the title status, things get wackier.
Jennie
Wife/Child has an older
guy marrying a much younger gal, really way too young, but she lands
up finding some guy her own age to be with intimately and hopes her
new 'husband' will not find out. Of course, he does and....
It
would be nice and comfortable to say that this kind of thing was
limited to small B-movies, but that is wrong and the Southern
stereotypes even go back to the silent era, while any such characters
are partly a manifestation of the fact that the United States had no
major intellectual beginnings the way you would see in some European
countries. That has its advantages and disadvantages, but after The
Civil War, this is how these stereotypes get such credit exposing how
'the losers' or the like got that way.
On
the other hand, the stereotypes could be gentle friendly ones (The
Beverly Hillbillies
remains one of the biggest hit TV shows of all time and premiered the
year before these films were released) and the documentary included
here does explain some of this phenomenon. Those stereotypes are
still with us, transmuted as they have become and it makes watching
these as strange and sick as it does sad. However, A-movies with
major actors even would feature such characters as soon as sound
arrived on film, so this is just the bottom end of a much larger
trend.
These
are not great or good films, but worth seeing to see how bad and
bizarre they are and some viewers seek out junky films like this, the
kind Mystery Science
Theater 3000 has been
great at mocking for many decades. However, this set is only for the
most curious or those actually researching such things.
Extras
(per the press release) include
Ballyhoo Motion Pictures documentary, That's
Hicksploitation: The Origin of Southern Sinema;
archival audio commentary for Common
Law Wife
by director of Swamp
Rose,
Larry Buchanan, and film historian/Mondo Digital founder, Nathaniel
Thompson; Millie De Chirico, film programmer, writer and host of the
podcast I
Saw What You Did,
and Ben Cheaves, programmer at Turner Classic Movies, provide a new,
feature-length audio commentary for Common
Law Wife;
De Chirico also provides the full-length audio commentary for Jennie
Wife/Child;
liner notes by Lisa Petrucci; original, restored trailer for Common
Law Wife;
and newly created trailer by Film Masters for Jennie,
Wife/Child.
Tinto
Brass'
Frivolous
Lola 4K
(1998) is one of the Penthouse Magazine Caligula
director's better erotic films having a little more story and plot
than usual. Not part of the import DVD box set we covered eons ago,
it was issued on an import Blu-ray we reviewed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12630/Black+Angel+(2002/aka+Senso+'45/Cult+Epics+D
As
explained in the previous coverage of the film, ''Lola (Anna
Ammirati) and her fiancee/baker Masetto (Mario Parodi) dealing with
the oppression of 1950s Italy, but while he wants to wait until they
get married to have sex, she is not waiting and finds other men,
including her mother's new lover Andre (Patrick Mower of the British
spy series Callan, among others.) It just works and flows a
bit better than his usual film and I guess that is why it has
received better treatment than most of the others (at least until
Caligula comes to 4K disc with a new version of the film
comprised of surviving earlier, better takes where the cast gets to
actual show their acting abilities!) so it is worth a good look if
you have not seen it before.''
Extras
go beyond the Original Theatrical Trailer that was the import
Blu-ray's only extra, also here in 4K, the new
disc set adds mini lobby cards, a good slip case, a nicely
illustrated booklet on the film including informative text, posters
and the like beyond this film, while the actual discs add a feature
length audio commentary track by Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel
Thompson more trailers, a Photo Gallery and a 2004 Tinto Brass
interview.
James
Beshears' Homework
(1982) features Joan Collins prominently in the artwork as 'the older
woman' in a film about a young teen maned Tommy (Michael Morgan) who
is obsessed with sex and wants to 'get some' as soon as possible.
Collins is hardly in the film, but her sudden next wave of acting
success on the huge 1980s hit nighttime soap opera Dynasty
(staring with the Second
Season for her, reviewed
elsewhere on this site) ion the latter half of the year this film
arrived.
Still
being a teen B-movie of the time, it is on the raw, exploitive and
even politically incorrect side and some of the jokes are just plain
bad to desperate, yet Morgan is convincing in the lead role and it
lands up having some good and interesting moments when it is not just
plain dumb. A definite product of the late 1970s (especially, say,
pre-Disco mania era) he tris to get a rock band together he tells the
potential members cold be the biggest thing since KISS!!!
Thus,
it is a time capsule of a lost era worth seeing now more than ever
just for that. Had the makers tried harder and focused on the better
aspects of what we get here, this might be remembered better like all
of the Matt Dillon teen films of the time or the teen novel adaption
Francis Coppola was making at the time. The supporting cast is
better than you might expect, including Carrie Snodgress, Wings
Hauser, Betty Thomas, Howard Storm, Stephan Gustafson and sometimes
director but longtime character actor Mel Welles.
That
makes this a curio most people should consider catching and for the
scenes Collins has, she shows off her acting chops and steals every
moment.
Extras
include an illustrated slipcase, Promotional Gallery, Original
Theatrical Trailers and an on camera interview with longtime producer
Max Rosenberg.
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Ultra High
Definition image on Lola is interesting as compared to the
import Blu-ray and Blu-ray included. Of course, this new disc set
comes from the same transfer, but despite some new clarity in the 4K
and flesh tones are good, the color overall seems to be different and
sometimes, the import Blu-ray had better or different colors. It is
hard to say which of the three discs are the best, but none of them
necessarily seem 100% on the money. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High
Definition image is just a weaker variant of the 4K and passable, but
makes the film look a little older than it should, while the 4K puts
a little age on the two different Blu-rays.
The
sound is here in two English and two Italian DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
2.0 Stereo and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, but the
original sound recordings are only so good and limited, though both
are legit soundtracks in this case. The older import Blu-ray only
had Italian PCM 2.0 Stereo, as authentic as any of the soundtracks
here and the 5.1 upgrades in both languages is really pushing it.
You can choose which one you like, but I would stick with either
Stereo version and they are as good as this film will ever sound.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfers on the Backwoods set can certainly show the age of
the materials used, but much work has been done to fix these as much
as possible and they look good for their low budget age and likely as
good as we will ever see them. It is nice and interesting that they
survived as well as they have. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes are as good as the
films will ever sound and cheers to whomever restored and fixed the
limited sonics on these films.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Homework
is from an older HD master with various flaws, dirt and is looking
older than it is in some ways, but color can be really good ands we
get some good shots too. Any of those issues can be corrected of the
negative survives and they can get a 4K scan. Not bad looking for
its low budget. The
PCM 2.0 Mono represents the original theatrical monophonic sound
about as well as it can, but maybe it could sound marginally better
if they went back to the surviving sound materials. Otherwise, this
is the best the film has looked and sounded on home video to date.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
