New on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD.
Sabrina — 4K-UHD/Blu-ray — Kino Lorber
Today, the word ‘iconic’ is tossed around like a Frisbee at the beach in all writings and media pieces that it’s lost much of its meaning. A true icon is not born overnight. And a truly iconic film, or moment in a film, needs time to appreciate. The manner in which Billy Wilder photographs Audrey Hepburn in his 1954 award-winning classic, Sabrina, is, indeed iconic as is the star and the cinematic classic.
It’s so easy to fall in love with Sabrina Fairchild from the first time we see her as the young daughter of a chauffeur for the ridiculously wealthy Larrabee family. And we are beyond captivated, frame after frame, through Sabrina’s yearning for the playboy David Larrabee (William Holden), to her Paris years learning to cook, to her return and being deceptively romanced by the elder Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart). Wilder captures the magic through the loving black-and-white lens of cinematographer Charles Lang, Jr. and with the help of the sumptuous costumes by Edith Head (and Hubert de Givenchy—given no credit).
The dual love story doesn’t matter as much as the camera’s love affair with this gorgeous creature, who made her lead film debut just one year earlier and won the Best Actress Academy Award for William Wyler’s Roman Holiday. That film introduced Hepburn to an eager public starving for movie stars who were both glamorous and real. Sabrina cemented her place in the pantheon— after only two major movie roles.
Wilder was coming off the critical and box office success with Stalag 17, which secured him a Best Director nomination as well as a Best Actor win for Holden.
The reigning Best Actor and Actress united for Sabrina. And Cary Grant was supposed to round out the trio, but he pulled out just one week before filming commenced and was replaced by Bogart.
Based on Samuel Taylor’s Broadway play, Sabrina Fair (Taylor shared screenwriting credit with Wilder and Ernest Lehman), the film is one of the sweetest and most romantic in the Wilder canon, despite the fact that today it may induce a few cringes watching Bogart, age 55, courting Hepburn (25). Incidentally Grant was 50.
But it’s not all romance as Wilder has quite a bit to say about class distinctions, way before Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. Sabrina, as her father states, is a “displaced person. She doesn’t belong in a mansion yet she doesn’t belong above a garage.” And because she’s played by the third greatest screen legend of all-time—according to that famous AFI poll—we root for her to find love and success. Hepburn’s marvelous performance shows the evolution of the teen Sabrina, watching the world from a cozy corner in a tree, to becoming a refined young woman set on living her life to the fullest, regardless of her lineage.
Holden is absolutely hilarious as David, and every time I watch this film, I want him to grow up and end up with Sabrina. Bogart is always good, but, even contextualizing, he really is too old to be courting a 25-year-old.
Sabrina was nominated for six Oscars including Best Director, Actress and Screenplay, winning for Costume Design (Edith Head). Wilder, Taylor and Lehman won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay as well as the Writers Guild Award for Best Written American Comedy.
An ill-fated attempt at a remake, directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear and Harrison Ford did not fare well with audiences or critics.
Kino Lorber has done a fantabulous job with the new 4K-UHD via a brand new HDR/Dolby Vision Master by Paramount Pictures – from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. The film is stunning to behold. And the sound is fine.
Special features include a new audio commentaries by film historian Joseph McBride, author of Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge and by film historian Julie Kirgo and filmmaker Peter Hankoff.
The Blu-ray disc carries over 100 minutes of featurettes from the initial Paramount Blu-ray that are a bit too fluffy, glossy and Paramount-centric, but still worth watching. They include: Audrey Hepburn – Fashion Icon, Sabrina’s World, Supporting Sabrina, William Holden – The Paramount Years, Behind the Gates – Camera, Paramount in the ‘50s: Retrospective and a ridiculously short Sabrina Documentary. The best is Supporting Sabrina which focuses on the amazing character actors in the picture.
https://kinolorber.com/product/sabrina-4kuhd
Brazil — 4K-UHD/Blu Ray — Criterion
“Hi there. I want to talk to you about ducts.”
When I first saw Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, as a youngin, I was blown away by the hellish, Orwellian vision I experienced on the big screen. Dark, depressing and dystopian were and are my three ‘D’s.’ Yes, I’m one of those cinephiles who absolutely loves being torn to shreds at the cinema.
Through the years, I’ve had a mad love/loathe relationship with Gilliam’s film. Loved: Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys. Loathe: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. His other work lands somewhere in the middle.
Brazil was always at the top of the list.
Now, after viewing Criterion’s glorious and pristine 4K, the film remains there, albeit with a few coherence issues, an overabundance of the fantastical as well as one questionable casting choice. But that’s nitpicking at a singular and spectacular cinematic vision of the future that has proven frighteningly prophetic and has influenced a host of subsequent sci-fi filmmakers—Alex Proyas’s Dark City and Marc Caro’s The City of Lost Children, to name two. Of course, Gilliam’s epic borrows from Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece Metropolis and many un film di Federico Fellini, to name a few.
Set against the backdrop of a nightmarish future where totalitarian tyranny reigns (and so does unending bureaucracy), the film’s somewhat convoluted plot centers on working man Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce, in his breakout screen performance) who is saddled with a rather dull job that he enjoys. He soon discovers he’s being promoted against his will, thanks to his affluent and influential mother Ida (brilliant Soap star Katherine Helmond, doing so much with so little). Ida’s introductory scene in this pic is iconic (that word, again) — and rather prescient.
Terrorists are on the loose blowing things up (or are they?) and the government is arresting people willy nilly, without ever really confirming that they’ve committed actual crimes! Sound familiar? Sure, it’s a satire, but one that was rather foretelling.
In order to escape the daily humdrum, Sam daydreams he flies through the air on giant wings and saves a damsel in distress (Kim Greist, miscast). One day he actually sees her in person and realizes she’s in danger. The plot goes kaflooey from there. Oh, and did I mention Robert DeNiro pops in and out of the narrative like some kind of Peter Pan/Spiderman, usually to save Sam from destruction?
Brazil is a startling, eye-popping, cacophonous cinematic experience that, for all its flaws, presents a deliciously nihilistic look at a world where most of its citizens have capitulated to an authoritarian regime. It’s a dark comedy that is outrageously silly one minute and then gut punches you the next.
And the story behind the release of the film —Gilliam clashing with then Universal president Sid Sheinberg who wanted to change it to a love story with a happy ending—is the stuff of legend.
This is yet another Criterion 4K digital restoration (of the director’s cut, supervised and approved by Gilliam), that looks exquisite with terrific sound (2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack).
All of the extras are carried over from the 2012 Criterion Blu-ray including the audio commentary by Gilliam.
What Is “Brazil”? is Rob Hedden’s swell on-set doc. It’s mad fun watching the back/forth between Gilliam and Stoppard, who clearly have different ways of working, but respect for one another.
The Production Notebook provides interviews and video essays, featuring a ton of stuff from Gilliam’s personal collection.
The best Extra was made for the Criterion’s 1996 LaserDisc (remember those?) titled, The Battle of “Brazil, a 55-minute feature that takes you through all of the insanity involved in Gilliam’s literal battle to have his film released as he originally intended. The host, Jack Mathews, was a champion of the movie and wrote a book about the David vs. Goliath nature of the conflict and how the Los Angeles Film Critics Association basically saved the day. After a secret screening of Gilliam’s cut, the group met and awarded Brazil Best Picture, Director and Screenplay. Universal and Sheinberg, with severe egg on their collective faces, were forced to release the filmmaker’s intended version.
Finally, included on the Blu-ray disc, is the 94-minute “Love Conquers All” cut that Sheinberg constructed, with commentary by David Morgan. Compare the two and get the perfect example of art vs. perceived commerce. Sheinberg, who is not shown on camera in The Battle doc, personifies the studio head who pretends to honor artists and then tries to ravage their work.
Brazil received two Oscar nominations, Best Original Screenplay (Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown) and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray). Note: Charles Alverson also worked on the script but was denied credit by Gilliam, until decades later.
In the end, Gilliam won the day and while Brazil received mixed reviews upon release and did barely-okay box office, his cut can now be enjoyed by new generations and is, today, considered a masterpiece.
https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil
Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man — Blu-ray — Raro Video
As crazy Italian “Poliziotteschi” movies go, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man, released in Italy in 1976, is absolutely bonkers-wacky. It’s also an incredibly homoerotic piece of cinema, albeit probably unintentionally.
The film opens with our two gorgeous protagonists dark-haired Alfredo (Marc Porel) and blonde Antonio (Ray Lovelock) on a motorcycle, lovingly photographed together—Antonio holding onto Alfredo tightly, cozily—as their hair billows in the wind, Antonio seemingly fighting to remain in the frame. But before you can say testosterone, they witness a cruel mugging and end up on separate bikes in a long, but exciting, chase scene, through the streets of Rome, that ends in the brutal deaths of the two hooligans. Our yummy duo have saved the day.
Alfredo and Antonio are cops with borderline lawbreaking inclinations who have been recruited into an elite squad to prevent crimes. Most of the film has them encountering violent criminals and then offing these bad guys in some brutal manner.
Our Starsky and Hutch-esque hotties live together and seem to do everything together. Still the screenwriter (Fernando Di Leo) tosses in a few scenes where they’re either shamelessly trying to pick up a girl or, in an arguably offensive sequence, enter the room of a mobster’s gorgeous sister and then take turns doing her. Of course, she does the initiating and the housekeeper makes it clear that she’s a nympho.
The violence, specifically towards women, is a bit much.
And considering the brazen kind of justice these two characters seek and get, the muted ending is a bit jarring.
Director Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust) does a fine job with keeping pace and the action scenes are genuinely enthralling.
Stunning looks aside, Porel and Lovelock have charisma to spare and great chemistry. Although it’s fascinating to watch the screen-aggressive Porel try to divert attention from the more subtle Lovelock, to himself.
The Rome-born, blue-eyed Lovelock began his acting career in Italian crime thrillers. He gained international attention as Fyedka, the Russian Christian farmer who falls for Chava in Norman Jewison’s film version of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) The actor went on to a steady career in mostly cult films like The Cassandra Crossing (1977), The Last House on the Beach (1978) and From Hell to Victory (1979). He also appeared in many Italian TV shows and worked in both mediums until his death in 2017.
French actor Porel was featured in Costa-Gavras’s Shock Troops (1967) and Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig (1973) before making Live Like a Cop. He would go on to work with Visconti again with The Innocent (1976) and continued to appear in films into the early 80s, before dying of a heroin overdose.
Raro Video’s new 4K restoration looks and sounds great and features audio commentary by film historian Rachael Nisbet, TV Spots and a super informative archival doc (2004), Violent Police (or Crime Busters), where Deodato, Lovelock and other key figures discuss the film in detail. Lovelock addresses the alleged feud with Porel way too diplomatically. Deodato talks about the censors cutting an eye stomping scene as well as how the film’s opening chase scene was done and why it could never be filmed the same way again.
https://kinolorber.com/product/live-like-a-cop-die-like-a-man
Promise Her Anything – Blu-ray – Kino Lorber
Arthur Hiller’s “groovy” rom-com Promise Her Anything is intermittently funny, wacky, weird and flat. The film succeeds as much as it does because leads Warren Beatty and Leslie Caron are so good.
Released by Paramount Pictures in late 1965, the basic plot sees widow Michelle O’Brien (Caron) moving into a Greenwich Village brownstone with her annoying/adorable infant son John Thomas (Michael Bradley/Philip Barron) and meeting adult filmmaker Harley Rummel (Beatty), who makes soft-core, mail order movies. Michelle asks Harley to babysit while she’s busy at work wooing her wealthy pediatrician boss (Bob Cummings), which leads to Harley using the child in his films. And, yes, it’s as creepy as it sounds, but also irreverent (it’s a comedy, people)!
Beatty was two years away from his game-changing role as both star and producer of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. Prior to this film he had splashed in Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass and José Quintero’s The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, written by Tennessee Williams and starring Vivien Leigh. In Promise Her Anything he shows off his comic chops as well as the captivating charm and charisma he’s become known for.
Caron was fairly fresh off her Oscar nomination for Bryan Forbes’ The L-Shaped Room, losing to the category-fraud placement of Patricia Neal in Hud.
The rest of the cast is peppered with seasoned actors like Hermione Gingold, Keenan Wynn, Lionel Stander and the delightful Cathleen Nesbitt, who steals all her scenes.
The Exorcist scribe William Peter Blatty penned the script based on a story by Arne Sultan and Marvin Worth. This was his fourth screenplay credit and you can already grasp the beginnings of the clever and abrasive dialogue that would punctuate his two underrated directorial achievements, The Ninth Configuration and Exorcist III: Legion.
Beatty is particularly astute at delivering Blatty’s witty and acerbic words.
The film’s weakest link is Hiller. The Oscar-nominee (for Love Story!) handles things in sitcom style—which is fine if you contextualize—but he has a lousy sense of scene progression, overuses backdrops and, in an extended scene involving the baby, Beatty and a cherry picker vehicle, he creates one of the shoddiest action sequences I’ve seen in a studio film.
Tom Jones performs the super catchy title song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Kino Lorber does a swell job with the visuals from a brand-new HD Master by Paramount via a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. The film’s sound is clear enough. The only feature is a new audio commentary by film historian Dwayne Epstein.
https://kinolorber.com/product/promise-her-anything
Holy Cow – DVD – Kino Lorber
Louise Courvoisier’s first feature, Holy Cow, is a film about a lower class rural young teen that does it’s best to avoid wallowing in misery and, instead, tries to find the bright side in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Totone (Clément Faveau, in a winning feature debut), embarrassed by his father’s drunken behavior at a local club, walks him to his car and tells him to drive home. Along the way, dad crashes the car into a tree and dies, leaving his 18-year-old, irresponsible son in charge of caring for his 7-year-old sister Claire (Luna Garret). The hot-headed Totone lands a job at a cheese factory and almost-immediately gets fired. But not before hatching the idea that he and his friends can produce the best cheese in the western part of the French Alps and win the local contest, which comes with a hefty cash sum.
The film steers along it’s sometimes silly but always absorbing way as Totone runs from one messy situation to another, and matures ever so slightly. And did I mention there are cows! Lots of cows!
The Kino Lorber DVD looks good and features an interesting short film by Courvoisier titled, Mano a mano.
Holy Cow won the Un Certain Regard Youth Award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for four César Awards, winning two for Best First Film and Best Female Revelation for Maïwene Barthelemy, who plays Marie-Lise, who Totone has a fling with.
