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Welcome to Ground Zero for ‘Committed Cinema’ Italian style. Director Giuiano Montaldo filmed his dream project on location in Ireland and a bit in Boston, with top stars Gian Maria Volontè and Riccardo Cucciolla. In one of the highest-profile American ‘media’ trials ever the famed immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti were tried for a crime but convicted by politics: even the judge asserted they were guilty by definition. Montaldo shows how wrongly justice can be served without whitewashing the defendants. UK actors Cyril Cusack and Milo O’Shea up the performance level, and the Ennio Morricone / Joan Baez songs have kept the film alive.

Sacco & Vanzetti

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 125 min. / Street Date May 3, 2022 / Sacco e Vanzetti; Intolerance (shooting title?) / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Gian Maria Volontè, Riccardo Cucciolla, Cyril Cusack, Rosanna Fratello, Geoffrey Keen, Milo O’Shea, William Prince, Claude Mann, Edward Jewesbury, Armenia Balducci, Valentino Orfeo,...

Already eclipsed by James Bond and sexier European films, Paul Newman does his best to energize this derivative but lively spy-chase thriller set during Nobel season, in a Stockholm populated by the glamorous Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Micheline Presle and Jacqueline Beer. Toss several Hitchcock pictures into a blender, and what comes out is reasonably engaging… and more than a little dated.

The Prize

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1963 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Micheline Presle, Gérard Oury, Sergio Fantoni, Kevin McCarthy, Leo G. Carroll, Sacha Pitoëff, Jacqueline Beer, John Wengraf, Don Dubbin, Virginia Christine, Rudolph Anders, Martine Bartlett, Karl Swenson, John Qualen, John Banner, Teru Shimada, Albert Carrier, Jerry Dunphy, Britt Ekland, Gergory Gaye, Anna Lee, Gregg Palmer, Gene Roth, Ivan Triesault.

Cinematography: William H. Daniels

Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith...

Seddok, l’erede di Satana (Atom Age Vampire)

Region 2 Pal DVD

Terminal Video Italia Srl

1960 / B&W / 1:66 flat letterbox / 103 min. / Street Date June 12, 2011 / available through Amazon.it / Eur 6,64

Starring: Alberto Lupo, Ivo Garrani, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni, Rina Franchetti, Franca Parisi, Roberto Bertea.

Cinematography: Aldo Giordani

Film Editor: Gabrielle Varriale

Makeup Effects: Euclide Santoli

Original Music: Armando Trovajoli

Written by: Gino De Santis, Alberto Bevilacqua, Anton Giulio Majano; story by Piero Monviso

Produced by: Elio Ippolito Mellino (as Mario Fava)

Directed by Anton Giulio Majano

Let me herewith take a break from new discs to review an Italian release from six years ago, a movie that for years we knew only as Atom Age Vampire. Until sporadic late- night TV showings appeared, it existed for us ’60s kids as one or two interesting photos in Famous Monsters magazine. Forry Ackerman steered away from adult films, with the effect that...

By Doug Oswald

Rock Hudson is an American commando sent to blow up a dam in “Hornets’ Nest,” a 1970 WWII action adventure set in 1944 Italy as the Allies advance on the German occupation force. Directed by Phil Karlson (“Hell to Eternity,” “Kid Galahad,” “The Silencers,” “The Wrecking Crew” and “Walking Tall”), the movie was an American-Italian co-production filmed in Italy with a mostly all Italian cast and crew.

The movie opens as the residents of Reanoto are massacred by German soldiers after they refuse to give up the location of Italian resistance fighters. Meanwhile, American commandos parachute in on a mission to blow up a nearby dam, but all are killed except for Capt. Turner (Hudson). A group of boys hiding in the hills when the German’s murdered their families rescue Turner and hide him from the Germans. Turner is running a fever from his wounds and the boys convince a local doctor,...

DVD Playhouse—April 2012

By Allen Gardner

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) An eleven year-old boy (newcomer Thomas Horn, in an incredible debut) discovers a mysterious key amongst the possessions of his late father (Tom Hanks) who perished in 9/11. Determined to find the lock it matches, the boy embarks on a Picaresque odyssey across New York City. Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth have fashioned a film both grand and intimate, beautifully-adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, thought by most who read it to be unfilmable. Fine support from Jeffrey Wright, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis and the great Max von Sydow. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay) Adapted from Koushun Takami’s polarizing novel (compared by champions and detractors alike as a 21st century version of A Clockwork Orange) and set in a futuristic Japan,...

This week’s pick is the classic Blake Edwards 1966 comedy What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? which stars legendary comedian Dick Shawn of The Producers (Captain Lionel Cash), James Coburn Cross of Iron (Lt. Christian), Aldo Ray Men in War (Sgt. Rizzo), Sergio Fantoni Von Ryan’s Express (Captain Oppo), Harry Morgan T.V.s M*A*S*H* [...]...

Senso (1954) Direction: Luchino Visconti Cast: Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Heinz Moog, Nina Morelli, Massimo Girotti, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni Screenplay: Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Luchino Visconti; from Camillo Boito's novella Highly Recommended Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Senso Critical consensus regards Luchino Visconti's Senso as a radical departure, a sign of the director's shift in focus from the gritty world of downtrodden proles (such as in his neorealist classics Ossessione and La Terra Trema) to a rather more exciting historical fantasy involving the illicit romance between Countess Serpieri (Alida Valli) and Lieutenant Mahler (Farley Granger) during the Italian revolt against Austria — shot in radiant three-strip Technicolor to boot. A rather more defensible truism portrays Senso as a dry run for Visconti's later adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard. There are obvious parallels between the two: male leads played by American actors (Granger in Senso, Burt Lancaster in The Leopard), brilliant color cinematography,...