News

You can’t argue with disc collectors eager to rediscover movies they loved at age 10, in terrific kiddie matinees. Cowboy star Rory Calhoun makes a perfectly fine Italian vagabond ladies’ man for this very un-serious ‘oriental’ adventure, and Yôko Tani is the requisite princess who needs kissing lessons. Tim Lucas’s welcome, info-packed commentary satisfies our curiosity about the long-unavailable title — it’s different than the A.I.P. release we (barely) remember.

Marco Polo

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1962 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 104, 95 min. / Street Date , 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Rory Calhoun, Yôko Tani, Camillo Pilotto, Pierre Cressoy, Michael Chow, Thien-Huong, Franco Ressel.

Cinematography: Riccardo Pallottini

Production Designer: Zoran Zorcic

Art Directors: Aurelio Crugnola, Franco Fumagalli, Miodrag Miric, Jovan Radic

Film Editor: Ornella Micheli

Costume design: Mario Giorsi

Original Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino / Les Baxter

Written by Oreste Biancoli, Ennio De Concini, Eliana De Sabata, Antoinette Pellevant, Piero Pierotti, Duccio Tessari

Produced by Luigi Carpentieri,...

Pepla! Pepla! Rah Rah Rah! These two remastered Italo muscleman pix could be the start of something big. A pair of relatively early Maciste epics became Samson vehicles in American-International’s Hollywood-ized revisions. Mark Forest & ex-Tarzan Gordon Scott overthrow tyrants in Egypt and Cathay, while hurling boulders and kissing exotic damsels like Chelo Alonso, Yôko Tani and Hélène Chanel. Separate releases from Kino Lorber.

Samson Double Bill

Son of Samson + Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World

Blu-ray Separate Purchases

Kl Studio Classics

1960 + 1961 / Color / 2:35 widescreen /

Starring: Mark Forest, Chelo Alonso; Gordon Scott, Yôko Tani, Hélène Chanel, Valéry Inkijinoff.

Cinematography: Riccardo Pallottini

Original Music: Carlo Innocenzi

Produced by Luigi Carpentieri, Ermanno Donati

Directed by Carlo Campogalliani, Riccardo Freda

Is it true? Will the neglected Italian costume pictures known as ‘sword ‘n’ sandals, Pepla & muscleman epics finally be released on disc in editions of worthwhile quality? We ‘fifties kids were raised...

By Jeremy Carr

The beginning of Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents—by no means the most typical or best film from this iconoclastic director—touts the ethnographic appeal of its Inuit focus. With debatable accuracy, the 1960 international coproduction illuminates, in somewhat superficial fashion, a “race of nomads” called “The Men.” The narrator says we call them Eskimos, individuals who live a life of ostensible simplicity “in the age of the atom bomb.” For a good portion of the movie, this is the basic premise, in terms of theme and (loose) narrative. It is a fictional, cursory study of a small and select segment of this Arctic population. On the outside looking in, there is a fundamental crudity in their behavior, their stilted English dialogue, their purity and naiveté, and the animalistic manners and utterances of main character Inuk (Anthony Quinn). But try as it might to make this all...

There appear to be no rules governing tricky politics in movies — Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel about terrorism in French-held Vietnam completely reverses the author’s message. Does a conspiracy theory about a movie still carry any weight, when our daily political life now plays like one giant conspiracy?

The Quiet American

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1958 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 122 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, Claude Dauphin, Giorgia Moll,

Bruce Cabot, Fred Sadoff, Kerima, Richard Loo.

Cinematography: Robert Krasker

Film Editor: William Hornbeck

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a novel by Graham Greene

Produced and Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Fans of author Graham Greene know him for his political sophistication and his adherence to Catholic themes; he’s found holy values in a razor-wielding Spiv in Brighton Rock and...

The original Quinn the Eskimo (no kidding) is another life-loving rough portrait from Anthony Quinn, in Nicholas Ray’s rather successful final spin as a writer-director. Despite some technical awkwardness, Ray’s sensitivity to outsider souls finds full expression. Humans don’t get any more ‘outside’ than Inuk, a primitive unequipped to deal with the modern world.

The Savage Innocents

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Super Technirama 70) / 110 min. / Street Date June 27, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yoko Tani, Carlo Giustini, Peter O’Toole, Marie Yang, Marco Guglielmi, Anthony Chinn, Francis De Wolff.

Cinematography: Peter Hennessey, Aldo Tonti

Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma, Ralph Kemplen

Original Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

Written by Nicholas Ray, adapted by Franco Solinas, Baccio Bandini, Hans Ruesch from his novel

Produced by Maleno Malenotti

Directed by Nicholas Ray

It’s arguable that Nicholas Ray’s career began to fall apart as...