The Radley Metzger Collection – Volume One (First Run Features DVD Box set)

 

                              Picture/Sound/Extras/Films:

The Alley Cats             C-/C/C+/C

Theresa & Isabelle      C-/C-/C/C

Camille 2000              C/C+/C/C+

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This set is out of print, but Camille 2000 is now available as a restored Blu-ray and you can read more at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11077/Camille+2000+(1969)+++Monamour

 

 

Now, the original review…

 

 

After issuing several of his films on single DVDs like The Libertine and other cheesy soft sex films, not forgetting his bid for “legitimate filmmaking” with his 1978 remake of The Cat & The Canary (among his work reviewed elsewhere on this site), First Run Features has decided to start offering his unreleased films in DVD boxed sets.  The Radley Metzger Collection – Volume One offers three of his soft sex films shot in widescreen scope formats, including his last one in that frame.

 

The Alley Cats (1965) tries to show the swinging that took place in the “Swinging Sixties” in the bedroom, sort of, in what was only Metzger’s second film as director and after so many imports.  Leslie (Anna Arthur) is rich and ignored by her husband to be.  Unbeknownst to her, he is having an affair with her best girlfriend, but she decides to go out and find some sexual action anyhow.  Of course, some of it will be with other women and there will be group sex.  Supposedly, we are seeing inside the world of the rich, but now, we know how especially silly it all is.  The James Bond film Thunderball came out the same year, the first in scope, so the rush was on for films of all budgets to go into that direction if it could.  A few shots are interesting, but the film is laughably average otherwise.

 

Theresa & Isabelle (1967) is almost the same film, but it pumps up (no pun intended) the lesbianism and drops down the socio-economic class of the characters to some extent.  There is more story here comparatively speaking, and this has more of a reputation than its predecessor, but it is ultimately no better as it cannot improve upon The Alley Cats despite having an extra half-hour of screen time.

 

Camille 2000 (1969) is easily the best of the three films, amusingly trying to cross the looks of Roger Vadim’s Barbarella and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (both 1968) as if it were as important or as adult and innovative as Kubrick’s epic.  I will admit that because he was being more reserved, this was less cheesy than usual, but even that and real three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor release could place it up there.  It is the most amusing of the three and of all Metzger soft sex films to date, just about.

 

The first two films were shot in black and white with 2.35 X 1 Ultrascope lenses, which are German answers to CinemaScope.  Texas, Adios (1966) is the only other film shot with those lenses we have reviewed to date, which was in color, but looks much better than either of the films here.  Both The Alley Cats and Theresa & Isabelle come from dated analog video masters that are muddy and lack depth, not doing justice to whatever was achieved here.  This will be the last time Metzger will be able to use these transfers before needing to do digital High Definition transfers with restored film prints of both.  Despite being in real Technicolor, the transfer of Camille 2000 here has pasty color troubles and is also too old an analog video master to really appreciate the work by cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri, who used better Panavision scope lenses.  All three are English-dubbed Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono soundtracks that vary in sound.  Camille 2000 is the best by default, while Theresa & Isabelle is in especially lame shape.  For such older films, if the dubs cannot be found in their original form, new dubbing ought to be done if it is not the original actors in the first place, though that has been controversial on new DVDs of George Miller’s original Mad Max (1979) and animated classic Akira (1987), both reviewed elsewhere on this site and now on Blu-ray.  For the soft sex scenes, more than a few viewers will only want to hear the moaning, which does not need as much articulation, we guess.

 

Roughly the same trailers, Metzger text information, and menu set ups run across the extras of all three DVDs.  They also have their own separate text film notes and stills galleries per film.  The Alley Cats ads alternate nude scenes, while Camille 2000 has deleted scenes and costume designs.  Despite performance problems with the actual film transfers, fans and the curious will have no problem getting their fill of each film.  We look forward to the next volume, where Metzger dumps scope, but goes all color permanently.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo