DVD Review: Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

A landmark in world cinema, Rocco and His Brothers marries the neo-realism of Luchino Visconti's early films with the grand, operatic vision of his later masterpieces.  The story centres around the Parondi family who leave their home in rural, southern Italy for the bright lights of Milan.  Brothers Rocco (Alain Delon), Simone (Renato Salvatori), Ciro (Max Cartier) and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi) arrive amidst eldest sibling Vincenzo's (Spiros Focas) engagement to kindly Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale), whereupon their fiery Mama (Katina Paxinou) - suspicious of all beautiful women - squabbles with their future in-laws and gets everyone turfed out on the street. 

As the family struggle to survive in the harsh city, Rocco moves from dry-cleaning to military service and finally boxing, giving every penny of his hard-earned cash to his demanding mother ("If you have anything left - send it.  You can't spend it anyway").  Meanwhile, feckless dilettante Simone sinks lower and lower.  Things come to a head when both brothers fall for sultry prostitute Nadia (Annie Girardot) and the family unravels amidst robbery, rape and murder. 

Alain Delon excels in the role that - alongside Rene Clement's Plein Soleil (1960) - made him a superstar, but Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot (married in real life!) deliver performances of equally remarkable depth and realism.  Visconti may have been an aristocrat, but he was also a Marxist and this film reflects his preoccupation with the injustices endured by the poor.  He tackles prejudice (Immigrants mocked as coming "from the land of layabouts") and satirises Milan's welfare programme (the Parondis are advised: "rent a house, avoid paying, get evicted and then city hall will look after you.")

DVD Review: Der Letzte Mann (1924)

F.W. Murnau's Der Letzte Mann ("The Last Man", also known as The Last Laugh) represented a major technical breakthrough for silent cinema.  Inspired by Nikolai Gogol's story "The Coat", it concerns an elderly hotel doorman (silent cinema giant: Emil Jannings) who, because of his age, is cruelly demoted to bathroom attendant.  Reduced to towelling hands and polishing sinks, he tries to conceal the truth from friends and family, but to his shame is discovered.  Neighbours believe he's lied all along about his prestigious job and taunt him mercilessly, while his niece (Maly Delschaft), her new husband (Max Hiller) and his aunt (Emilie Kurz) reject him out of embarrassment. 

Grief-stricken, the old man retreats to the hotel bathroom, where a kindly night watchman (Georg John) covers him with his coat while he sleeps.  A title card concedes the story should end here since "in real life the old man has little left but death".  However "the author took pity on him and provided an improbable epilogue."  At the end, the old man inherits a fortune and dines happily at the hotel where he once worked. 

DVD Review: The Seventh Seal (1957), 50th Anniversary Special Edition

Not before or since the 1957 release of Ingmar Bergman's haunting masterpiece The Seventh Seal has the momentous theme of humankind's search for existential meaning – within or outside a religious framework – been treated of with such furious grace, intelligence and insight. All cynicism concerning the re-release of a '50th Anniversary Digitally Remastered Edition,' in the year of the great filmmaker's death, must therefore be put on hold. Any reason to publicise or disseminate or roll back the technical decay of this supreme piece of cinematic art, whether or not the companies in question make some extra baksheesh by finagling historical contingency, is a good reason.

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is a crusading knight freshly returned to the shores of his native Sweden. He has lost all the moral certainty he left with, presumably having seen and participated in atrocities in the name of Christianity. The hypocrisy of this institution which teaches forbearance, peace and tolerance yet practices murder, torture and empire-like expansionism is too much for his reflective nature to bear without apostasy. He yearns for a meaning to life beyond the circumscribed and vague one offered by the Church.

Cult Clip: Mad Love (1935)

The great German character actor Peter Lorre appeared in a lot of terrific thrillers during his lifetime and one of the best films he made is Mad Love (1935; Karl Fruend). In this creepy classic Lorre plays a crazy surgeon named Dr. Gogol who is obsessed with a beautiful actress that happens to already be married to a concert pianist. When the woman's husband is terribly injured in a train accident that crushes his hands, she asks Dr. Gogol to help save him. Dr. Gogol replaces her husband's hands with those of a murderer and afterward tries to drive the man mad in order to have his wife all for himself.

Mad Love is currently available on NTSC Region-1 DVD as part of Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection and you can see Peter Lorre as the mad Dr. Gogol in this terrific clip:

- Kimberly Lindbergs

DVD Review: Bellissima (1951)

It seems like you can’t turn on the idiot box these days without coming across the newest reality show star turn. Thirteen weeks of Big Brother and the great British public vote for a winner who thinks Shakespeare directed Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet simply because he was the nicest of a particularly motley crew.

Concerns about the dumbing down of TV aside, it does make you wonder what televisual legends we’re going to revere in twenty or thirty years time. Genuine talent seems to be in painfully short supply, and nowadays producers are reverting to the lowest common denominator, which is your basic common-or-garden talent revue. There’s no denying that there are some people in this green and pleasant land that do have genuine skill and presence, but that’s not exactly why people tune in – it’s to see either cute kids being pushed to the front of the stage by pushy parents living a dream vicariously through their offspring, or the judges arbitrarily ripping into self-deluded but honest people.

Coming to DVD: The Fly Collection 1958-1965

This week 20th Century Fox will be unleashing their all new NTSC Region-1 The Fly DVD Collection which will include The Fly (1958), The Return of the Fly (1959) and The Curse of the Fly (1965). This terrific 4 disc DVD set features all new transfers of each of these classic science fiction thrillers and the films are presented in their original widescreen aspect ratios. This is also the first time that The Curse of the Fly has been made available on DVD in the U.S.

Besides the three movies mentioned above, The Fly Collection also includes a bonus DVD with a Vincent Price A & E Biography made in 1997, a short feature called Fly Trap: Catching a Classic, still galleries, poster art galleries and more!

The Fly Collection promises to be a real treat for anyone interested in classic science fiction films and monster movies. Few films have been as influential as the original Fly (1958). The film spawned numerous sequels and remakes, but it still has plenty of surprises to offer first-time viewers.

For more information about The Fly Collection please see Amazon

- Kimberly Lindbergs

Win the Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two DVD boxset

The first Jean-Luc Godard DVD Collection got high praise on its release back in May - and Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two looks every bit as good. So you'll definitely want to win one of the two boxsets we have to give away.

Five movies from the French New Wave pioneer are featured, including two new to DVD in the UK - the Parisian love triangle Une Femme Est Une Femme from 1961 and 1963's Le Petit Soldat, which focuses on love across the political divide. Also included in the box are Pierrot Le Fou (1965), the tale of a couple (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina) on the run to the south of France, La Chinoise from 1967 (Godard's most political movie, a satire based on Maoist theory) and finally, one from the 80s - Detective - Godard's take on modern morality and popular culture.

All titles are packed with extras, making up a set that's pretty much a must for any fan of French cinema. The set is available to buy now for around £39.99, but if you enter the competition at our sister site Modculture, you could grab one for free. Simply enter your details using the link below and you'll be in the draw. Good luck!

Enter the Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two competition

DVD Review: Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume 1

For a director who produced maybe his most important and accessible work almost half a century ago, Jean-Luc Godard has been granted the kind of career that would have jaded many film-makers long before now. It’s reached the stage where he’s such an institution in both French and mainstream cinema that he can pretty much film what he wants. It’s not committing stuff to videotape now that’s the challenge – it’s quality control.

Godard was born to be a director, although the route took him from poacher to gamekeeper. Starting out as a film critic for influential magazines, including the so-hip-it-hurts Cahiers du cinéma, Godard fell in with a group of like-minded aesthetes including François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. Although like most popular movements bound loosely by a style rather than an idea, the main thrust of what would come to be known as the ‘New Wave’ shared contempt for the classic narratives of cinema’s old guard.

The Sandwich Man (1966)

If England swung "like a pendulum do" during the mid-1960’s, then London was its heart, mind and soul. The Sandwich Man attempted to buy into the bright colours of the swinging capital in 1966, and succeeds (if nothing else) by capturing some great images of the West End and surrounding areas.

The storyline finds Michael Bentine as "Horace Quilby", a cheeky sandwich board advertiser who touts his message around town. On route, he bumps into a menagerie of characters in a variety of comic situations. To be honest, the majority of the humour has its roots in the conscription era, although the cast carries off the wooden script fairly well. It’s a pretty impressive cast list though, with the likes of Harry H Corbett, Ian Hendry, Norman Wisdom, Terry Thomas, and Bernard Cribbins putting in cameos. For connoisseurs of feminine beauty, the luscious Suzy Kendal fills the screen with her enormous screen presence. Tasty visuals aside, the film benefits hugely from a top-notch soundtrack by Manfred Manner Mike Vickers, who by 1966 was branching out in the world of film accompaniment. (For further confirmation of the man’s prowess, check out Vicker’s other 1966 soundtrack, "Press for Time").

DVD Review: Le Jour Se Lève (1939)

Marcel Carné’s career as a director lasted until the 1970s, through the Nazi occupation, the Vichy government and the last breaths of French empire. His greatest work is considered to be the three-hour Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), filmed under the noses of the occupying forces. A love tangle set in the world of the theatre, leading lady Arletty pulls the heart strings of no less than four potential suitors.

In less than half that running time, Carné gives this story a dry run in Jean Gabin’s last major project before the actor chanced his arm in Hollywood, conveniently before Europe collapsed in on itself. Gabin did come back eventually when most directors found him a horror to work with, and the actor regained some glory by fighting with the Free French. He remained one of the country’s most popular actors until his death in 1976.