Agatha Christie: Marple Series One - Three (2004 - 2006/McEwan/Via Vision Import Limited Edition Region Free Blu-ray Box Set)/Incubus 4K (1966/4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray*)/Nora Prentiss (1947/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Rampo Noir (2005/Blu-ray/*all MVD Arrow)

4K Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B Sound: B/B-/C+/C+ Extras: B-/B-/C/B- Main Programs: B/C+/B-/C+

PLEASE NOTE: The Marple Import Blu-ray Set is now only available from our friends at Via Vision/Imprint Entertainment in Australia and can play on all 4K and Blu-ray players, while Nora Prentiss Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and both can be ordered from the links below.

Next up are four creepy mystery and horror releases...

Agatha Christie: Marple Series One - Three (2004 - 2006) is a surprise upgrade to the three DVD sets we covered of this solid Jane Marple revival show many years ago. Here are the links to our U.S. DVD coverage of each Series/Season:

One (with links to other Marple releases)

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2119/Agatha+Christie+-+Marple:+Series+One+(2004

Two

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4026/Agatha+Christie+%E2%80%93+Marple

Three

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6005/Agatha+Christie+%E2%80%93+Marple

I really liked the late Geraldine McEwan in the title role, thought this was worthy of the best past Marple adaptions and it holds up even a little better than I expected. I get into deeper detail on the episodes in those older reviews, but the fact that they were able to land great guest stars like Derek Jacobi, Ian Richardson, Timothy Dalton, Dawn French, George Cole, Tom Baker, Jane Seymour, Joanna Lumley, Simon Callow, Jack Davenport, Joan Collins, Richard E. Grant, Laurence Fox, Griff Rhys Jones, Niamh Cusack, Griff Rhys Jones, John Hannah, David Warner, Jenny Agutter, Pip Torrens, Zoe Wanamaker, Keeley Hawkes, Elaine Paige, Virginia McKenna, Catherine Tate, Francesca Annis, Peter Davidson, Greta Scacchi, Juliet Stevenson, Richard Armitage, Pam Ferris, James D'Arcy, Frances de la Tour, Patricia Hodge, Michael Brandon, James Wilby and Ken Russell (yes, the legendary director in one of his acting roles) is impressive.

With TV networks/streaming usually making gimmick productions, so-called 'reality TV' and other garbage, rarely putting out any serious money for anything smart anymore, but save a 2018 South Korean TV series, no new Marple TV or feature films have been made. That's sort of shocking, even as Hercule Poirot has a successful feature film series, while Julie McKenzie took over from McEwan for the last two season of this show (episodes not in this set, but you can get to my links to those seasons with the Series One DVD link above) and did as well. So why the dry spell?

Hard to tell, but this show was so well made that maybe producers are slightly intimidated or maybe the Christie Estate wants feature films for Marple too, which would be the first series (and second ever) after the Margaret Rutherford trilogy. That's all the more reaosn to get this set if you are as big a Marple and Christie fan as I am. It may be one of the most underrated TV series of any kind from the last three or four decades.

Extras in this solid, hardbox packaging repeat the eight behind-the-scenes featurettes on the first eight episode/telefilm adaptions and they can look a little weaker than the actual episodes in HD, but are still better than their DVD appearances.

Leslie Stevens' Incubus 4K (1966) is a supernatural thriller form the creator of the hit TV anthology series The Outer Limits, with Stevens bringing much of the cast and crew here for this film. Besides having William Shatner just before his Star Trek work began, Stevens made the interesting choice to record all the dialogue in (and only in) the 'universal' language of Esperanto, reasoning that it would help it play in unusual markets.

Shatner is a wounded soldier who goes to a small town where their water apparently have some kind of healing powers, but he is soon greeted by a women who are secretly demonic, trying to seduce him with their sexuality and mysteriousness. One is even a succubus, while the title companion and potential damnation in hell (et al) awaits the poor soldier.

The film never got distributed originally, two of the cast members in the film killed themselves (for reasons unknown) in ugly instances no one expected, Stevens was obviously hoping to launch a big theatrical movie career, but it did not work out. The film is effectively atmospheric, but not necessarily always effective, though better than most of its kind made today. English might have made it more commercial, but this other language makes it more jarring on a few levels. This is the last time Stevens would take a risk this broad and its a shame because who knows what he might have done if this was a hit or huge hit.

Stevens was still behind backing a few feature films afterwards (and he had produced a few before,) but his TV work continued to succeed including a few interesting telefilms, Search, the David McCallum version of The Invisible Man, The Gemini Man (a quick relaunch of the McCallum show that did not hit either,) a little work on other hit shows like It Takes A Thief and McCloud, work on the launch of the original Battlestar Galactica and in the same year (1979) Buck Rogers In The 25th Century with Gil Gerard that only lasted two season, but looks incredible in its Blu-ray release and holds up better than you might expect.

Arrow is issuing the film in both 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray formats, which is good because it belongs with the most interesting horror and supernatural horror of the decade, especially in black and white, up on a shelf with the likes of Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, the Vincent Price Last Man On Earth, Carnival Of Souls, The Haunting, Moxey's City Of The Dead and Night Of The Eagle. It is a very good thing then that Leslie Stevens' Incubus has been saved!

Extras include a brand new audio commentary by writer and genre historian David J. Schow, author of The Outer Limits: The Official Companion

• Archive audio commentary by star William Shatner

• Archive audio commentary by producer Anthony Taylor, cinematographer Conrad L. Hall and camera operator William Fraker

• Alternate 1.37:1 presentation of the film (1080p only)

• Words and Worlds: Incubus and Esperanto in Cinema, a newly filmed interview with genre historian Stephen Bissette

• Internacia Lingvo: A History of Esperanto, a newly filmed interview with Esther Schor, author of Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language

• An Interview with the Makers of Incubus, an archive interview by Schow with Taylor, Hall and Fraker

• Video trailer

• Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Richard Wells

• and an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Frank Collins and Jason Kruppa.

Vincent Sherman's Nora Prentiss (1947) is an interesting drama that soon turns murder mystery and almost horror film, as longtime actor Kent Smith (Cat People (1942,) Curse Of The Cat People, Night Stalker (1972,) The Spiral Staircase (1946,) The Garden Murder Case, The Mugger, Die Sister, Die!) plays a happily married medical doctor who is good at helping all kinds of people when he has to help the title lady (Ann Sheridan) after she is almost hit by a cab near his office she falls in front of.

It should have been that, but they become friends quickly (SPOILER ALERT!!!) and inappropriately, he never tells her he is married, he becomes obsessed with her, she is not a femme fatale and when a patient of similar size and build to him dies in his office, he quickly comes up with a crazy idea. He'll take the dead man, 'disguises' as him (by throwing his glasses and the like into his car with the dead body) while dousing it with gasoline, drives it all over a cliff and the result is a spectacular explosion that burns up the body beyond recognition, trashes his car and he is listed as accidentally killed in a car crash, ridding himself of his wife and family!

So how does this all work out? The hot new life and affair picks up, but some strange circumstances start to make a police officer suspicious, but he has no idea what has really happened. From there, the film takes more twists and turns until a climax that is so wild, it would never work in real life (the writers forgot a few BIG items here) where the man he is pretending to be to everyone but Nora is arrested for killing the doctor... or himself!

Running an always interesting 101 minutes, it is one of those films you have to see to believe and no matter where it goes wrong, it keeps moving along like the screenplay has totally sound logic until its end. I won't spoil anything else, but it can be a hoot and also intriguing at the same time, thanks to its cast, how well shot it is, its pacing and its cast. Catch it!

Extras include the Original Theatrical Trailer, live action short film So You Think You're A Nervous Wreck and classic Warner animated Technicolor short The Big Snooze.

Lastly, Rampo Noir (2005) is a multi-director anthology feature film based on the works of writer Edogawa Rampo. Highly respected and celebrated, I had only heard of him in passing, so I was curious to see how this film would turn out and I love anthologies. As the press release explains it...

''In Mars's Canal, by music video director and visual artist Suguru Takeuchi, a lone man encounters the other side of his psyche beyond the reflective surface of a circular pond set in a desolate landscape. Japanese New Wave auteur and longtime director of the Ultraman series Akio Jissoji (This Transient Life, Mandala) harnesses his distinctive stylistic sheen in his story of a mad mirror maker, Mirror Hell. Caterpillar sees the singular vision of cult director Hisayasu Sato (The Bedroom, Naked Blood) at its most grotesque, in his portrait of a wounded war veteran who returns from the frontline as little more than a bloody torso, helpless to defend himself against the increasingly perverted caprices of an embittered wife. Finally, a famous actor is subjected to the obsessive attentions of her limo driver in Crawling Bugs, the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed manga artist Atsushi Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun).''

It can get very graphic and even gruesome, not surprising as the producing team behind Ichi the Killer under their belt, so lots of body politic here. However, unless you are a big fan of this kind of thing, or want a crash course on it, this nearly NC-17 release is not for you. It can be atmospheric and have some interesting shots, but it never added up for me and I can see why I had barely heard of it. However, if this is your thing, you might enjoy it more and this new expanded Blu-ray edition from Arrow is loaded with extras.

Those extras include a brand new audio commentary by Japanese film experts Jasper Sharp and Alexander Zahlten

• Another World, a new interview with Suguru Takeuchi, director of ''Mars's Canal''

• A Moving Transformation, a new interview with Hisayasu Sato, director of ''Caterpillar''

• Butterfly Queen, a new interview with Atsushi Kaneko, manga artist and director of ''Crawling Bugs''

• Hall of Mirrors, a new interview with cinematographer Masao Nakabori about working with Akio Jissoji and ''Mirror Hell''

• The Butterfly Effect, a new interview with Akiko Ashizawa, the cinematographer of ''Caterpillar''

• Looking in the Mirror, a new interview with actor Yumi Yoshiyuki about ''Mirror Hell''

• Archive stage greeting footage with the cast and directors from the Japanese premiere of Rampo Noir

• Crossing the Lens, a feature-length making-of documentary by Tatsuya Fukushima from 2006

• Image gallery

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Luke Insect

• and an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Eugene Thacker and Seth Jacobowitz.

Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.78 X 1, black & white, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Incubus 4K is just barely the best performer here, looking really good despite coming from the only surviving print. Video Black and Video white are rendered well, as well as some nice depth in shots. Soon to be legendary Director of Photography Conrad L. Hall did some impressive early work here.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image on the regular Blu-ray is weaker, but not bad, while the same 1.33 X 1 black & white 1080p edition appears on both versions and gives you more of the soft matter frame, but has its weaknesses. All versions are here in Esperanto PCM 1.0 Mono sound and sound pretty good, even a little better than expected.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on all the Marple episodes have fine color and look good, definitely better than the older DVD from years ago, with better color in the earlier shows, yet the also have a slightly softer and somewhat diffused look. That's not necessarily meant to make it look old or from the past either, while all episodes have been upgraded to PCM 2.0 Stereo resulting in a much warmer, fuller feel than the lossy sound on the old DVDs. You can also try Pro Logic and other surround modes on these tracks if you have a home theater system to get more out of them.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Nora rarely shows the age of the materials used, but otherwise offers top restoration work and is impressive throughout, even sharper and clearer at times than Incubus from almost 20 years later. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is a little weaker overall than expected, but sounds about as good as it ever will, so the combination is fine and enjoyable enough. Legendary Director of Photography James Wong Howe delivers his usual monochrome excellence.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Rampo Noir has some variations between the various segments, but not wildly so, offers good color (especially where pushed) and all look decent, while the Japanese PCM 2.0 Stereo can actually be limited and a little more problematic throughout than expected, though also know there are more moments of silent than you might expect.

To order the Marple Limited Edition import Blu-ray set, go to this link for to order:

https://viavision.com.au/shop/agatha-christies-marple-series-1-3-blu-ray-limited-edition/

You find more exclusives and limited editions elsewhere on their site too. And to order the Nora Prentiss Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo