New on Blu-ray: RED SCORPION (1989) and TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973)

RED SCORPION
(US - 1989)

An expensive, controversial box office bomb that became a hit in video stores, RED SCORPION now gets the deluxe Blu-ray treatment from Synapse Films.  It looks fantastic, far better than what's essentially an over-budget Golan-Globus ripoff should look (and with MISSING IN ACTION/INVASION U.S.A. director Joseph Zito onboard, it really does feel like Cannon).  Dolph Lundgren is Soviet Spetsnaz killing machine Nikolai Rachenko, ordered by his commander General Vortek (STRAW DOGS' T.P. McKenna) to go to the (fictional) African country of Mombaka (a stand-in for Angola) and assassinate Sundata (Rubin Nthodi), the leader of a group of anti-Communist rebels.  Sure enough, Rachenko realizes who the real oppressors are and with the help of a grizzled American journalist (M. Emmet Walsh), Sundata's right-hand man (Al White), and an elderly bushman named Gao (played by 95-year-old Regopstaan, an actual bushman), turns his back on his country and fights with the rebels, taking on the forces of Vortek, Cuban Col. Zayas (Carman Argenziano) and generic Commie henchman Krasnov (the great Brion James).

RED SCORPION is pure 1980s anti-Commie nonsense, not surprising given that it was the brainchild of a 30-year-old D.C. businessman, lobbyist, noted Young Republican, and fledgling movie producer named Jack Abramoff.   Yes, the same Jack Abramoff who was later convicted of fraud and tax evasion.  There's definitely a right-wing agenda to RED SCORPION, and it may be the only film about a Soviet military officer fighting with African rebels that's designed to have the audience still somehow chanting "USA!" when shit starts blowing up.  Abramoff's baby was a legendarily troubled shoot, as the production was kicked out of Swaziland just before filming began in 1987 and moved to Namibia and South Africa, during the anti-Apartheid boycott (another thing Cannon was frequently doing at the time).  This caused distributor Warner Bros. to back out and the indie Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment ended up releasing the film, which ultimately cost about double its original budget.  But with all that backstory and all those problems, watching the film today, it plays surprisingly well.  It's a cheesy '80s RAMBO knockoff (a monotone Rachenko to the Mombaka rebels: "Let's kick some ass") from start to finish, with tons of action, explosions, and impressive stunt work...the way it used to be done.  Synapse's Blu-ray package comes with a DVD copy of the film (both at 1.78:1, and the unrated, uncensored version), and tons of bonus features, including interviews with Lundgren, Abramoff, and special effects maestro Tom Savini, some behind-the-scenes footage, and a commentary track with Zito and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson.  RED SCORPION is not a classic awaiting rediscovery, but fans of over-the-top '80s action will find a lot to like.  Zito's engaging, informative, and refreshingly unpretentious commentary harbors no grandiose illusions about what the movie is and he talks a lot about what went into making this kind of action fare in the 1980s ("Action films like this are pure fantasy, but as a director, you have to know where you stand with a movie like this and it's up to you to establish the tone for the audience. You're not making APOCALYPSE NOW, but you're not making HOT SHOTS, either"). (Unrated, 106 mins)


TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS
(UK - 1973)

Going back to 1965's DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, the anthology film was a staple of British horror cinema for nearly a decade.  A number of the more popular ones--like DR. TERROR, plus TORTURE GARDEN (1967) and TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972), were directed by the venerable Freddie Francis.  Francis also helmed TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS, which isn't one of the most stellar examples of the subgenre.  The set-up is familiar:  a doctor (Jack Hawkins in his last theatrical feature; he died before it was released) visits a psychiatrist friend (Donald Pleasence), who introduces him to four asylum inmates and tells their stories.  "Mr. Tiger" is about a young boy's imaginary friend, a tiger that might not be so imaginary.  "Penny Farthing" is about a haunted portrait of an old man that wills an antique dealer (Peter McEnery) to travel back in time on a magic penny farthing bicycle.  "Mel" has Michael Jayston as a man who finds a tree stump (with "MEL" carved into a part of the bark) in the vague shape of a woman's body.  He brings it home as a piece of art to display in the house, but it soon casts some kind of seductive spell on him and provokes intense jealousy on the part of his wife (Joan Collins).  "Luau" has literary agent Kim Novak planning a Hawaiian-themed party for a popular young author (Michael Petrovitch).  Her attempts to get her client into bed are thwarted by her flirtaceous daughter (Mary Tamm), but Petrovitch has something else far more sinister and gruesome in mind.  Of course, this all leads to a tired twist at the end.  Except for a few late-period high points like THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1970) and TALES FROM THE CRYPT, anthologies of this sort were pretty much running on fumes by this point, and that's firmly exemplified by the uninspired TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS.  Written by "Jay Fairbank," a pen name for actress-turned-screenwriter Jennifer Jayne, these tales are more weird than scary, with "Mel" being the definite low point (especially its last shot).  As is normally the case with films of this sort, they save the best--relatively speaking--for last, but in this genre's prime, "Luau" would've been a first or second segment, certainly not the grand finale.  And the first three wouldn't have even made the cut.

Mel the Cockteasing Tree Stump in
the absurd TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS

At least it has an interesting cast, even if they're all clearly beneath the material.  Novak, still stunning and already in semi-retirement at just 40, was a last-minute replacement for an ill Rita Hayworth.  Other than doing a favor for her friend and PAL JOEY (1957) co-star, I can't imagine what she found interesting about this project.  Nevertheless, it does show some signs of life during "Luau" and Novak is terrific in her minimal screen time. Collins and Jayston can't do much with the silliness of "Mel," and you almost feel sorry for Jayston (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) when he's required to look turned on by "Mel" and somehow use all of his extensive thespian training to convince the audience that he wants to get it on with a tree stump.  Completists will probably get more out of TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS than the casual viewer, but even with its modern advances like occasional splatter and a couple bits of nudity, it's pretty C-list material at best, and Francis made much better films than this one in his long and stellar career as a director and cinematographer.  This is another Paramount title licensed to Olive Films, and their Blu-ray looks very nice and is framed at 1.78:1.  No extras, not even a trailer.  (R, 90 mins, also available on DVD)

On Blu-ray/Reissued on DVD: 1900 (1977)

1900
(Italy/France/Germany, 1977)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.  Written by Franco Arcalli, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Bernardo Bertolucci.  Cast: Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Burt Lancaster, Donald Sutherland, Stefania Sandrelli, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti, Werner Bruhns, Stefania Casini, Sterling Hayden, Anna Henkel, Ellen Schwiers, Alida Valli, Romolo Valli, Giacomo Rizzo, Paolo Pavesi, Roberto Maccanti, Maria Monti, Jose Quaglio, Pietro Longari Ponzoni, Piero Vida. (Unrated, 315 mins)

In recent years, Paramount hasn't been known for showing an interest in making its back catalog available, so they've been licensing titles out to the upstart Olive Films label (recent releases include a batch of Jerry Lewis comedies and the '70s cop thrillers HIT! and BADGE 373).  Back in 2006, Paramount listened to fan requests and made the surprise decision to release the uncut version of Bernardo Bertolucci's European political epic 1900 on DVD.  It wasn't in print very long and now they've farmed it out to Olive Films for a DVD re-release (minus the bonus features on the 2006 DVD but with a 2002 documentary on Bertolucci that wasn't on the previous release) and a debut on Blu-ray.  It looks mostly good on Blu-ray, framed at 1.78:1, a change from the DVD's 1.85:1 (IMDb claims the original aspect ratio is 1.66:1, so who knows?).  The difference is pretty minor, and I only noticed one shot where the change made a difference and something seemed oddly-framed (we should just be thankful that cinematographer Vittorio "2.00:1" Storaro wasn't put in charge of the Blu-ray transfer)  There's some scenes where there's a bit too much saturation and the caked makeup and wig-cap glue lines on the actors' heads are plainly obvious, but overall, the colors are bolder and the textures better-defined than the occasionally washed-out DVD.  Probably worth the upgrade for fans of this long-neglected masterpiece, but the transfer is not perfect. If ever a film deserved to be rescued by a Criterion restoration, it's this one, but the Blu-ray's visual inconsistencies may be inherent in the film itself.  You know how sometimes the higher-resolution of Blu-ray doesn't help?  This might be the case here, depending on one's tolerance for grain.  Still, this Blu-ray is probably as good as it'll ever get for a film that may come to be regarded as either Bertolucci's finest work or his ultimate act of madness.

De Niro and Depardieu as best friends torn
apart by political upheaval in 1900

I do think it's Bertolucci's masterpiece and it's also one of the great epics in all of cinema.  It never ceases to amaze me that a film this mind-bogglingly expansive and ambitious even got made, let alone distributed by a major Hollywood studio, but after LAST TANGO IN PARIS, Bertolucci clearly had enough clout to do what he wanted.  It's a densely-plotted, graphically violent, sexually explicit film with major Hollywood stars and a pro-Communist agenda and it's over five hours long and took over a year to shoot.  Of course, the US release was cut down from 315 minutes to 243 minutes, losing a little over an hour but still running four (a 255-minute version also exists).  Bertolucci didn't cut any scene in its entirety--he just shortened them or toned down some of the more graphic material to avoid an X rating.  The 2006 DVD and this new Blu-ray have the director's complete 315-minute version, restored and shown in the US for the first time in the mid 1990s and given an NC-17 rating, which was dropped in favor of simply going without a rating.  How graphic is this film's content?  I don't know what necessarily constitutes an abundance of nudity, but even Sterling Hayden's dick gets some screen time.

Burt Lancaster as the padrone

Beginning in 1901 on the day of Verdi's death, the film chronicles the following 44 years of political turmoil in Italy, centered on the wealthy, landowning Berlingheri family and the peasant Dalco family who work their wheat fields and their farm.  The patriarchs--padrone Alfredo Berlingheri (Burt Lancaster) and peasant leader Leo Dalco (Hayden) have grandsons born on this very day.  As youths, the boys, the Berlingheri child also named Alfredo (Paolo Pavesi) and Olmo Dalco (Roberto Maccanti) are close friends and despite his bourgeois upbringing, Alfredo feels more at home with the field workers than with his family, especially his cold father Giovanni (Romolo Valli).  The boys grow, and Alfredo (Robert De Niro) and Olmo (Gerard Depardieu) eventually find themselves at the center of a Fascist uprising, started by greedy Giovanni, who uses religion and patriotism to rope in the rich in his quest to keep profits high and the peasants under their thumbs.  Giovanni hires a sadistic foreman, Attila (a demonic Donald Sutherland) to lord over the Dalco clan, who see jobs eliminated and wages reduced while the Berlingheris get richer and more decadent by the year.  All the while, the politically active Olmo fights the Fascist movement while Alfredo passively steps aside and looks the other way while Attila's power grows.

Donald Sutherland as the sadistic Attila

Many characters weave in and out of the story, which unfolds and progresses like a great novel.  With Storaro's stunning cinematography and a majestic score by Ennio Morricone, 1900 looks and sounds incredible.  And rarely has a film this long been so consistently engrossing.  It's truly a film like no other.  It's remarkably ambitious, grandiose, operatic, overwrought, and profoundly moving in equal measures.  Every few minutes, there's some beautifully-staged sequence or some inspired bit of crazed acting or some unexpected transgression happening.  The sexual content is surprising at times:  young Alfredo and Olmo compare erections in a controversial scene; as young adults, they visit a prostitute (Stefania Casini) who gives them simultaneous handjobs and there's no effects or camera trickery...she's really stroking both De Niro and Depardieu; there's a weird scene where De Niro's Alfredo uses the butt of a shotgun to masturbate his horny cousin Regina (Laura Betti), who's also seen going down on Sutherland while he rants about Fascist ideals.  There's also some almost-Pasolini levels of scatology:  Lancaster buries his feet in cow shit before asking a peasant girl to feel his impotent penis; Bertolucci gives us a close-up of a horse taking a steaming dump and the piles of manure get thrown at Sutherland.  The violence is also very disturbing at times, especially the fate of a little boy raped and killed by Attila and Regina, and a rough, non-faked scene where Depardieu kills and guts a large pig.

Sterling Hayden as peasant leader Leo Dalco

There are shocking elements in 1900, but it's never exploitative.  The film is not just a political history of Italy, but it also functions as a history of cinema.  Rarely has such an eclectic group of actors been brought together on the same film.  Young breakout stars like De Niro and Depardieu, an established box office star in Sutherland,  Hollywood legends Lancaster and Hayden, acclaimed European stars Dominique Sanda (as De Niro's wife), Romolo Valli, Alida Valli, and Stefania Sandrelli (as Depardieu's wife), and perhaps most interesting, the inclusion of Francesca Bertini in a rare screen appearance as Lancaster's older sister.  Bertini, born in 1892, was the first major star in Italian cinema, with a screen career dating back to 1907.  In her 80s and long retired by this point, Bertolucci talked her into taking a small role, and in a film with history as its central theme, Bertini's appearance, limited to maybe three scenes, really does feel special. Bertolucci also establishes a connection to his own inspirations in Lancaster again being cast in an Italian film as an aging patriarch lamenting the passage of time and the changing of values, which he'd portrayed so masterfully in Luchino Visconti's THE LEOPARD (1963).  With a mix of actors speaking English, Italian, French, and German (mostly English), the English-dubbed option is probably the way to go, as you get the voices of De Niro, Sutherland, Lancaster, Hayden, and a few others.  Depardieu is dubbed by someone else for the English version, but his voice can be heard on the French track.

De Niro's Alfredo, the landowner put
on trial by his field workers

1900 took over a year to film.  Shooting began in May 1974 and ended in September 1975.  De Niro had finished THE GODFATHER PART II but it hadn't been released when he started shooting 1900.  He made TAXI DRIVER immediately after 1900 (and late in 1900's shoot, he would fly from Rome to NYC on weekends to drive a cab to prep for his role as Travis Bickle), but TAXI DRIVER ended up coming out a full year before 1900's US release in late 1977, in its truncated 243-minute version.  It obviously didn't do well and vanished from sight for years until the 255-minute cut got released on VHS in the late '80s.  Even though the uncensored version was ultimately given a brief release in the '90s, it wasn't until the 2006 DVD that Bertolucci's full version was made widely available in the US.  It's an incredible, one-of-a kind film the likes of which we'll never see again, and one that still resonates today.  Decidedly not for all tastes, but adventurous cinema fans who have yet to tackle it should consider it essential viewing.  You've never seen anything like it.

On DVD/Blu-ray: HIT! (1973) and BADGE 373 (1973)

In recent years, with occasional exceptions, Paramount has shown little interest in getting their extensive catalog of library titles out on DVD and now Blu-ray.  A few years ago, they licensed several cult horror titles to Legend Films (among them THE SKULL, PHASE IV, THE SENDER, and THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY), and over the last couple of years, a number of titles have been farmed out to the relatively new Olive Films label.  Two Paramount crime thrillers from 1973 that earned cult followings through late-night TV airings in the '80s are just out on DVD and Blu-ray from Olive.


HIT!
(1973/US)

HIT! is an offbeat and frequently very strange thriller/character piece that often feels like what might've happened if French auteur Jean-Pierre Melville hadn't died in 1973, but instead came to Hollywood to make a blaxploitation flick.  It's directed by veteran journeyman Sidney J. Furie, who had just made the Diana Ross blockbuster LADY SINGS THE BLUES and was in one of his occasional ambitious phases.  It also reunites him with no less than four (!) of that film's co-stars (Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Paul Hampton, and Sid Melton).  Williams is Nick Allen, a CIA operative whose 15-year-old daughter dies after being shot up with heroin by her shitbag boyfriend.  Nick doesn't just want revenge on the boyfriend or the pusher who sold him the drugs--he wants to go after the whole operation, attacking it at its base in Marseilles.  With the help of his hamburger-obsessed cop pal Dutch (Warren Kemmerling), Nick puts together a ragtag team of unlikely vigilantes, most with some drug-related tragedy in their past and all with government-related tax issues that he's willing to wipe clean if they help him out:  there's electrician Mike (Pryor), whose wife was raped and killed by a junkie; college prof Barry (Hampton), high-class call girl and heroin addict Sherry (Gwen Welles), and aging Jewish couple Ida and Herman (Janet Brandt, Melton), who recently lost their son to a drug overdose.  Nick takes them to an abandoned fishing town just past the Canadian border and intensely trains them and coordinates a complex takedown of the nine Marseilles drug lords who supplied the drugs that have, in various ways, profoundly changed all of their lives.

One of the chief complaints that's always been leveled at HIT! is its length.  Running an admittedly bloated 135 minutes, it's uncommonly long for a genre picture of its type (and was usually shown on TV in a two-hour timeslot, with commercials, which means at least 35 minutes had to be chopped out).  But is it just a genre picture?  Furie was never a "making a statement" type of director, though he did later make the budget-starved anti-nuke fiasco SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE.  Furie's quality films are mostly confined to the earlier part of his career (he's still active at 79), with titles like THE IPCRESS FILE (1965) and THE APPALOOSA (1966), and even as late as 1982 with the supernatural horror film THE ENTITY.  By that point, he seemed to settle for being a hired gun and became a go-to guy to get genre films done on time, on budget, and without hassle, helming three of the four IRON EAGLE films and the 1992 Rodney Dangerfield comedy LADYBUGS before moving on to TV and straight-to-video.  But Furie's earlier days had a lot of promise and HIT! aims high.  A lot of screen time is given to the French drug lords, as we see them trying on expensive clothes, stuffing their faces with ludicrously lavish meals, living lives of privileged and often degenerate luxury and it's juxtaposed with the effects of their operation in the ghettos of America.  This could've easily been an 85-minute drive-in programmer focusing just on the revenge, but Furie and the screenwriters are going for more.  They give it room to breathe, room for the actors to work and room for the characters to be established (though prof Barry's backstory is still a little hazy).  A real camaraderie and sense of closeness develops with this odd group of people, which makes it all the more shocking once the bright red 1970s blood starts splashing across the screen in the final act.  Anchored by an intense, driven performance by Williams, HIT! is a frequently unbelievable and sometimes disorientingly odd film that rewards the patient viewer looking for something more than just another vigilante shoot 'em up. Olive's Blu-ray presents the film in a nice 2.35:1 transfer.  This would make a great double bill with Enzo G. Castellari's similarly-plotted but more straightforward THE BIG RACKET (1976), another film where a vengeance-obsessed law figure (Fabio Testi) assembles a ragtag group of enraged citizens whose lives have been ruined by the city's crime syndicate and corrupt law enforcement. (R, 135 mins).



BADGE 373
(1973/US)

A box office flop in 1973, BADGE 373 was another film "inspired by the exploits of Eddie Egan," the NYC supercop who also provided the basis for THE FRENCH CONNECTION's Popeye Doyle, which earned Gene Hackman an Oscar a couple of years earlier.  FRENCH CONNECTION producer Phil D'Antoni made an unofficial follow-up with 1973's THE SEVEN-UPS and there was the official FRENCH CONNECTION II in 1975, but Egan worked with producer/director Howard W. Koch for BADGE 373, and even appears in a supporting role as the lieutenant of Egan surrogate Eddie Ryan (Robert Duvall).  Ryan is a rule-breaking, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, sexist Irish cop who gets suspended after a Puerto Rican suspect he was pursuing falls from a rooftop and everyone just assumes Ryan pushed him.  But when his partner Gigi (Louis Cosentino) has his throat slashed, Ryan is convinced Puerto Rican drug pusher/arms dealer Sweet William (Henry Darrow) is responsible and goes after him on his own time.  Like Popeye Doyle, Duvall's Eddie Ryan is a heroic figure, but thoroughly loathsome:  he's constantly complaining about "spics," "spades," and "Jew pricks," calls a junkie prostitute a "poked-up whore bitch," and barks at a perp, "You look like you take it up the chocolate-covered speedway."  Of course, we're supposed to root for Eddie because all he wants is justice, but he's pretty much a total asshole (I'd hate to see the character elements Egan didn't approve), even if it's probably an accurate portrayal for its era. 

BADGE 373's content is certain to offend some viewers in today's more PC times, but what a visual portrait of 1973 New York City!  Shot entirely on location in some of the city's seediest areas, BADGE 373 is fascinating on that level alone.  There's also the required post-FRENCH CONNECTION destructive chase sequence, and it's pretty good.  Not SEVEN-UPS good, but pretty good (it involves a foot chase through some tenements, leading to Eddie commandeering a city bus).  Written by iconic NYC columnist Pete Hamill, BADGE 373 loses some steam after its riveting first hour, and could've used some tightening in the second half, which focuses too much on Eddie's relationship with girlfriend of five weeks Maureen (Verna Bloom), who's perhaps the clingiest and most grating girlfriend in all of cop cinema.  Darrow, hiding behind sunglasses and a hilariously fake moustache, seems to be channeling Jack Palance and really hams it up in the climax.  An uncredited, pre-GOOD TIMES Jimmie Walker can be spotted hanging out on the steps in a tenement during the chase scene.  Not a front-to-back winner, but BADGE 373 the kind of tough, mean, outrageously politically incorrect relic of a bygone era that fans of '70's NYC grime will appreciate in this terrific-looking transfer, framed at 1.78:1.  (R, 116 mins)