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Auteurist film books from the early ’70s touted the crime pictures of Jean-Pierre Melville, a Yankeephile Frenchman who chose a new name for himself and embraced crime pix because he loved John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. This tale of utter ruthlessness among thieves is one of Melville’s best. The great Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani leading a superior cast of underworld losers: Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli, Jean Desailly and Monique Hennessy.

Le Doulos

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1962 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date July 2, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre, Aimé De March, Monique Hennessy, Carl Studer.

Cinematography: Nicolas Hayer

Film Editor: Monique Bonnot

Original Music: Paul Misraki

Written by Jean-Pierre Melville from a book by Pierre Lesou

Produced by Carlo Ponti, Georges De Beauregard

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

Having plumbed the libraries of some of...

Review by Roger Carpenter

During the first half of the 60’s Mario Bava created several genuine horror classics that remain high-water marks in the genre over a half century later. Films such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), The Whip and the Body (1963), and Blood and Black Lace (1964) either pushed the boundaries of horror or helped to establish cinematic tropes still used in modern horror. Always saddled with shoestring budgets and bad deals, Bava nevertheless remained optimistic in the face of his cinematic struggles. A case in point is the troubled production of Kill, Baby…Kill! which ran out of money midway through the shoot. The cast and crew were so loyal to Bava they worked for free to finish the film—a film, by the way, which only had a 30-page script with no dialogue when filming commenced. Bava had the actors make up their own lines, preferring to resolve...

They said it couldn’t be done. A fifth year of 31 Days of Horror? 31 more terror, gore and shower scene-filled movies worth highlighting? But Rejects always say die and never back away from a challenge, so we’ve rounded up the horror fans among us and put together another month’s worth of genre fun. Enjoy! Synopsis Also known as Operation Fear, Curse of the Living Dead, Don’t Walk in the Park and many other titles, this Mario Bava flick tells the story of a small Carpathian village plagued by a series of bloody murders where the victim is left with a gold coin in her heart. Will the scientific-minded Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) survive a supernatural test? Is the town witch (Fabienne Dali) helping or is she behind the murders? What lies at the mysterious Graps Estate? And which hut does Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2 live in? Killer...