Zardoz (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) is one of the most fascinatingly misguided sci-fantasies of the seventies, a truly strange social satire with counterculture echoes: think of Brave New World by way of The Wizard of Oz (which is where the film gets its title). Sean Connery stars as Zed, a savage barbarian of the polluted plain who wears an animal skin kilt and a bandoleer and sneaks into the city of immortals courtesy of a giant flying stone head that disgorges weapons from its mouth. Zed thinks he’s headed to heaven or Valhalla but ends up in a decadent, decaying society of bored, senile, impotent aesthetes, and he’s kept around as a kind of pet.
It’s the kind of weird, pretentious, not uninteresting mess you get when ambitious directors create original sci-fi works, with not-so-subtle references to class warfare, social insularity, and big brother-like government manipulation. Religion is the opiate of the masses, war a form of population control, and reading and education is the key to salvation. You know, exactly what the radical revolutionaries of the sixties were telling us all along. But, coming from Boorman, it is gorgeous and strange, shot on the lush hills of Ireland (some of the same locations were used in Excalibur). Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, John Alderton, and Sally Anne Newton co-star.
John Boorman recorded a commentary track for its DVD debut and it’s included in this Blu-ray debut. It’s a bit spotty, but he still has a fondness for the film (“I was trying all kinds of things. Perhaps too much.”) and is happy to reminisce. Among the tidbits: Connery’s part was written for Burt Reynolds, and the Communist paper gave the film a rave review only after Boorman signed a note swearing the giant head was not modeled on Lenin.
New to this disc is a commentary track by film historians Jeff Bond, Joe Fordham, and Nick Redman. Also includes radio spots and the original theatrical trailer.
It also features, like all Twilight Time releases, an isolated audio track featuring the musical score and an accompanying booklet with an essay by Julie Kirgo.
Most Twilight Time releases are limited edition of 3,000 copies. Zardoz is an exception: it is a limited edition of 5,000 copes. Unless otherwise notes, every release reviewed here is limited to 3,000.
A Man For All Seasons (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) – The timing surely wasn’t planned but it sure is fortuitous. Paul Scofield won the Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance as Thomas More, England’s Roman Catholic Chancellor torn between conscience and duty to the crown when King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) betrays the Roman Catholic Church to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn (Vanessa Redgrave). The original screen take on the story of More, Henry VIII, and Thomas Cromwell, which recently played out in Wolf Hall with a very different perspective on events, puts More at the center of the story, a man who chooses to say nothing with his life on the line, which only infuriates the king even more, and it plays Cromwell (Leo McKern) as a scheming, ruthless power player. Orson Welles plays Cardinal Wolsey and Wendy Hiller, Susannah York, Nigel Davenport, John Hurt, and Corin Redgrave costar.
Features new commentary by screenwriter and film historian Lem Dobbs with Twilight Time’s resident historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman plus the short featurette “The Life of Sir Thomas More” from the DVD special edition.
Hombre (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), adapted from the novel by Elmore Leonard, plays as a ruthless, revisionist take on Stagecoach. Paul Newman is the blue eyed “savage,” a white man raised by the Indians who rejects so-called civilized society for his spiritual family, who has chosen to go native rather than live in the lies and corruption of the white world. Not exactly Grand Hotel on wheels, the hypocrites, crooks, and racists he travels with cast him out of their polite company in the coach, then turn to him for salvation when a gang of outlaws (led by a wolfish Richard Boone) holds up the stage and hunt them through the desert. It’s hard to “like” Newman’s cold, hard survivor, but you can’t help but respect his cunning and his unsentimental directness. Fredric March is sweaty with corruption as a crooked Indian Agent and Boone smiles his deadly charm as a lusty bad man. Director Martin Ritt and star Paul Newman collaborated on some fine films, among them The Long, Hot Summer and Hud, and this is one counts among their best. Its social politics are hardly subtle, but the building tension and the arid, barren landscape make it a vivid western. While this 1966 western wears its social politics on its dusty sleeves, director Martin Ritt tempers the revisionist moral of the tale with a stripped down ruthlessness befitting the rugged, unforgiving landscape.
Features commentary by film historians Lee Pfeiffer and Paul Scrabo and the trailer.
In The Remains of the Day (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), Anthony Hopkins stripped his actorly, often hammy stock in trade to play the purposefully repressed butler who has dedicated his life to capturing the perfect, well-mannered distance of the ultimate gentleman’s gentleman. So placid and disconnected is he that he rejects even the intrusion of his own feelings when he becomes attracted to the manor’s new housekeeper, the professional yet individual Emma Thompson. James Ivory’s camera is just as proper as Hopkins’ manners, not quite intimate yet fearlessly penetrating: behind the elegant surfaces, under the manners, and beneath the frozen faces he finds the repression and denials that trap Hopkins’ butler and James Fox’s lord of the manor in lives of repetition, duty, and sheer blindness. It’s a tragedy of the soul and Ivory beautifully shows the hollowness of life of meaningless emotional sacrifice echoed in the manners and rituals that distance the classes, and even the ranks within the servant class. Adapted by screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the 1989 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, this is one of the most powerful and nuanced of the Merchant-Ivory dramas of England’s calcified class system, a sad, ironic tale of sublime restraint where the humanity can be barely seen peaking from under the richly decorous but impersonal surfaces, and it earned eight Academy Award nominations.
Carried over from the DVD special edition is commentary by director James Ivory with producer Ismail Merchant and star Emma Thompson, deleted scenes with optional commentary, and the featurettes “Love and Loyalty: The Making of Remains of the Day,” “The Remains of the Day: The Filmmakers’ Journey,” and “Blind Loyalty, Hollow Honor: England’s Fatal Flaw,” plus the trailer.
The Story of Adele H. (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), Francois Truffaut’s dramatization of the true story of Adele Hugo, the daughter of French author-in-exile Victor Hugo, and her romantic obsession with a young French officer is a cinematically beautiful and emotionally wrenching portrait of a headstrong but unstable young woman. Isabelle Adjani plays Adele, who follows Lt. Pinson (Bruce Robinson) to Halifax, Nova Scotia, despite the fact that he has broken it off with her. As she sinks farther and farther into her own internal world, she passes herself off as his wife and pours out her stormy emotions into a personal journal filled with delusional descriptions of her fantasy life. Beautifully shot by Nestor Almendros in vivid color, Truffaut’s recreation of the 1860’s is accomplished not merely in impressive sets and locations but in very style of the film: narration and voice-overs, written journal entries and letters, journeys and locations established with map reproductions, and a judicious use of stills mix old-fashioned cinematic technique with poetic flourishes. It’s a powerful, haunting portrait of obsessive love and madness. Apart from the native superiority of Blu-ray, this release is a major upgrade from the existing DVD, a manufacture-on-demand disc from MGM that features the same outdated non-anamorphic transfer of the original, out of print pressed disc. French with English subtitles.
Features commentary by Twilight Time’s resident historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman and the trailer.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), the 1959 screen adaptation of the Jules Verne classic, is retro science-fiction adventure. Set in the late 19th century, it stars James Mason as the esteemed British professor determined to follow clues to a hidden tunnel, Pat Boone as his devoted student turned expedition assistant, and Arlene Dahl as the widow of a colleague who provides research in exchange for a place in the exploration party. Peter Ronson rounds out the team as an Icelandic guide and all-around handy man to have around, and he makes the journey with his pet goose. It’s quite entertainingly lavish for what it is, with great cavern sets and colors, but a better spectacle than a science fiction tale. It is, however, quite beloved by many for its innocence and old Hollywood fantasy style, and Twilight Time’s original release sold out long ago. This new edition is mastered from a newly-restored 4k restoration and while the original release was lovely, this has improved clarity and slightly richer color. It also adds a new commentary track with actress Diane Baker joined by film historians Steven C. Smith and Nick Redman and the trailer.
This edition has a run of 5,000 units.
The First Men in the Moon (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), from 1964, is another retro science fantasy, this one adapted from the H.G. Wells novel and featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen, who brings to life the “Selinites,” the giant ant beings that live in the crystal caverns of the moon. Edward Judd plays the aging scientist who tells his story of a turn-of-the-century moon landing to a stunned United Nations team preparing their own moonshot, Martha Hyer, Lionel Jeffries, and Hugh McDermott co-star and Nigel Kneale (Quatermass and the Pit) co-writes the script. Regular Harryhausen collaborator Nathan Juran directs.
Carried over from the earlier DVD release is commentary by Ray Harryhausen and special effects artist Randall William Cook, a video introduction by Cook, and the featurette “Tomorrow the Moon,” plus the trailer. This edition also has a run of 5,000 units.
The Fantasticks (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) is the 1995 screen version of the off-Broadway musical that ran for 42 years and over 17,000 performances (making it the world’s longest-running musical), a musical comedy twist on Romeo and Juliet with two single fathers (Joel Grey and Brad Sullivan) staging a family feud to push their kids, Luisa (Jean Louisa Kelly) and Matt (Joey McIntyre) into one another’s arms (all you have to do is say no, as the old men sing). A traveling carnival is drafted into the whole plan but things don’t go according to their plans, or to Luisa’s romantic dreams. It’s a thoroughly old fashioned piece of musical filmmaking, which is its charm and likely the reason MGM stuck the film on the shelf for so many years before its nominal release. Ritchie manages to turn his midwest setting into Kansas and Oz simultaneously, with the wizard’s magic all tinsel and mirrors and his heart just black enough to keep Louisa’s necklace when he teaches her a lesson in the big bad world. Jonathon Morris is the dashing ringmaster with a con-man’s soul and Barnard Hughes and Teller co-star.
The film was released at 87 minutes, cut down from Michael Ritchie’s intended length, and that’s on this disc, but it also features the original 109-minute cut of the film in SD as a bonus feature, making this release the home video debut of the director’s cut. The longer version features three songs cut from the theatrical release.
Carried over from the DVD release is commentary by director Michael Ritchie on the theatrical cut. New to this edition is are two additional commentary tracks, one with Broadway expert Bruce Kimmel and Jean Louis Kelly, the other with film historian Nick Redman and journalist Chris Willman, who covered the film’s troubled production and release history.
Carla’s Song (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) – Ken Loach has a marvelous feeling for character and place. At his best, he allows us to live out lives of people far from our realm. In the first half of his 1998 film Carla’s Song we get the busman’s tour of Glasgow via underemployed Robert Carlyle, a headstrong bus driver scraping by on attitude and little else. When he falls in love with Nicaraguan refugee Carla (Oyanka Cabezas), everything good in him pours out and overcomes his economic troubles. Only when the film relocates to Latin America does Loach lose his way in the jungles of polemics as Carla returns to face the ghosts that haunt her: the brutal repression, the reign of terror, the family and friends crippled, murdered, or simply “disappeared” by the government. Where John Sayles covered similar territory in Men With Guns with a rich cast of character types who opened up into strong, emotionally driven characters wandering along the road between social realism and magic realism, Loach uses the crutch of the liberal American on a mission (Scott Glenn) who explains all to the innocent Scottish working class bloke. The story is worth telling, but Loach is so determined to convert us with impassioned pleas he forgets that the most effective method is to allow us to live his characters’ stories.
Features commentary by Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty, originally recorded from the original 2005 British release of the DVD, plus deleted scenes and the trailer.
Also recently released from Twilight Time:
Richard III (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) reimagines the Shakespeare classic in an alternate history take on 1930s Britain, with Ian McKellan’s Richard as riding a wave of Fascism to power. The film is based on a National Theater production staged in 1990 with McKellan scripting with director Richard Loncraine and recreating his performance as the poisonous monarch. He’s surrounded by a superb cast that includes Annette Bening, Nigel Hawthorne, Maggie Smith, Robert Downey Jr., Kristin Scott Thomas, and Jim Broadbent. With the trailer.
Mississippi Burning (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) – Alan Parker’s is one of the most maddening directors of his era, always tackling challenging material and half the time giving in to his worst instincts. This is one of those, a fictionalized take on the FBI investigation of the real-life murder of three young, white Civil Rights workers in 1964 Mississippi. Hand it to Parker to turn a drama of racism and violent oppression into a cop thriller where there isn’t a single black character of any substance. They’re just background to the white story. Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe play the two agents and Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif, R. Lee Ermey, and Michael Rooker co-star. Features commentary by director Alan Parker, carried over from the DVD release, and the trailer.
American Buffalo (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), the 1996 screen version of David Mamet’s play, stars Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz as partners in a plot to rob a rare coin from a second-hand shop and Sean Nelson as teenager who wants in on the action. It’s basically a three-man show and director Michael Corrente, directing from a script adapted by Mamet himself, keeps the film huddled in cramped spaces and dinghy locations. Features new commentary by Twilight Time’s resident film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman and the trailer.
April Love (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), starring Pat Boone as a delinquent of a city kid sent to the country and Shirley Jones as the farm girl next door, is quite the old fashioned fifties screen musical. Dolores Michaels gives Jones competition in the romance department and Arthur O’Connell and Jeanette Nolan co-star. It provided Boone with one of his biggest hit songs and his most successful movies. This is a CinemaScope picture shot in Technicolor and the Fox MOD DVD-R release is pan-and-scan, so there’s no contest: this is gorgeous and widescreen. It also features a new commentary track with Jones joined by film historian Nick Redman.
The Bounty (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), the third version of the story of the real life 19th century mutiny in the South Seas against Captain Bligh, stars Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins as Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian and Caption William Bligh. Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt penned this version, which takes a more nuanced view of the situation, Roger Donaldson directs, and Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Daniel Day Lewis, and Liam Neeson co-star. Features two commentary tracks—one with director Roger Donaldson, producer Bernard Williams, and production designer John Graysmark, the other with historical consultant Stephen Walters.
U Turn (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), Oliver Stone’s sun-baked crime thriller, stars Sean Penn as a small time gambler on his way to the West coast when gets sidetracked in a small desert town when his radiator hose busts and dangerous couple draws him into a deadly game of double crosses. John Ridley adapts his own southwestern neo-noir novel and Nick Nolte, Jennifer Lopez, Powers Boothe, Billy Bob Thornton, Claire Danes, Joaquin Pheonix, and Jon Voight co-star. Oliver Stone provides video introduction and audio commentary, carried over from the DVD box set, and there’s a new commentary track with producer Mike Medavoy and film historian Nick Redman.
Solomon and Sheba (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), the last feature by King Vidor, is a 1959 Biblical epic starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollabrigida in the title roles with George Sanders, Marisa Pavan, David Farrar, and Harry Andrews.
Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD