Film Noir - LIST (1 Viewer)

[MarcoBiscotti]

And while I'm at it...

which version of the 1952 noir classic - "Kansas City Confidential" - is considered the definitive in terms of video quality:


- Image



- Gotham Distr.



Any official announcements for this title either?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Marco,
I placed your posts in this thread and you should find the answer to your questions here.







Crawdaddy

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I searched by title so that's probably why this didn't come up.

Thanks.

 

[Herb Kane]

For those who weren't aware, noir title Lady On A Train (1945) is being released as part of the Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Collection by Universal which is to be released August 3rd along with several other titles as a set.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Is the region 2 edition of You Only Live Once superior to Image's grotty transfer?

18th October: UK release of Leave Her To Heaven - finally!

It's a shame about the woeful transfer of Image's edition of Too Late For Tears. It's a fine Noir. Let's hope that any future transfer of Haskin's superb 1948 Noir, I Walk Alone, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster is of high quality. Does Paramount still own this or is it now owned by Universal? The VHS is OOP.

Where can I order the region 2 editions of Berlin Express and Secret Beyond the Door?

Are Warner planning to release all the Lewton RKO films next year - including the underrated, Ghost Ship?

 

[Herb Kane]

Gordy,

Berlin Express (Manga Films) is available in Spain from www.dvdgo.com. They were recommended by a few other HTF members. I wound up ordering 5 or 6 noir titles from them and they were great to deal with. I've watched one of the titles so far (Crossfire '47), and the transfer was pretty good.

Secret Beyond The Door (Wild Side Video) can be ordered from Amazon.fr, there are 5 or 6 other noirs that Wild Sild have available in Fr. but to be honest, I'm hesitant to order them due to the forced subs and I don't know if that's the case on all of the titles.

Great news on Leave Her To Heaven. I suspect it'll be the first title among the group of noirs to show up early in the new year among the new Fox noir line.

And finally, Alpha will be releasing another decent noir, Jigsaw (1949) starring Franchot Tone on October 26th.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Fox Film Noir Update

 

[Amy Mormino]

Regarding Gordon's question about the Lewton films, I just asked that question on the pre-1950 Horror thread. It seems, according to a response from a previous Warners dialogue, that all nine movies will be on the box set coming in 2005. Not sure that Lewton's films quite count as noir, though the list seems to count them that way. Anyone want to speculate on the distinction between noir and horror?

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

The way I see it, Film Noirs from the 40s and 50s contained elements of German Expressionism and Universal's horror films of the 30s/40s. Later, Noir informed modern 'horror' movies like Les Yeux Sans Visage and Psycho, amongst others. But, then, as I see it, there are two types of 'horror' in Cinema: Supernatural horror (monsters, ghosts, undead) and psychological horror, of which Les Yeux Sans Visage and Psycho belongs to. Lewton's films count as Noir - to a degree - due to the psychological effect the visual style evokes. Tourneur, like his father, was a truly great filmmaker. In the horror genre, at least, he is, in my book, a Master of Cinema alongside Murnau, Whale, Terence Fisher, Bava, Corman, Carpenter and so on!

 

[Herb Kane]

Some noir news. The following titles are now available or soon to be released:

The Letter – Warner Brothers January 11th, 2005

The WB Gangster Collection – January 25th, 2005 – Contains White Heat, The Petrified Forest, Angels With Dirty Faces, Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and The Roaring Twenties.

The Bigamist (1953) Dec 21st - Alpha
Port Of New York (1949) Dec 21st - Alpha
Alimony (1949) - Alpha
Jigsaw (1949) - Alpha
Trapped (1949) - Alpha

The following titles are also available in R2:

The Fugitive (1947) – Spain (Manga Films)
Clash by Night (1952) - Spain (Manga Films)
Second Chance (1953) - Spain (Manga Films)
Whistle Stop (1946) - Spain (Manga Films)
His Kind of Woman (1951) - Spain (Manga Films)
Obsession (1949) – UK (Fabulous Films Ltd.)
Female Jungle (1956) – UK (Direct Video Distribution Ltd.)
The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) – UK (Direct Video Distribution Ltd.)


If you know of any others, please let me know.


EDIT: I've now had a chance to finally watch all of the Manga RKO's and can safely say these are all very good releases with the exception of one; Second Chance (1953). Besides the fact the film is only mediocre at best, it was apparently shot for 3D and it appears to suffer some nasty artifacting (color shifting - overall terrible color and an extremely blurry image lacking any real sharpness). I wouldn't be in a hurry to order this one.

 

[eifert]

This is a great list of Film noir available. Here's a couple that will have noir-heads drooling!

Night and The City and Thieves Highway are getting released by Criterion in Feb!!!

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/coming_soon.asp

Time to update the list

 

[Herb Kane]

Everything is updated, including the changes to the Fox lineup. Thank you.

 

[rich_d]

Herb,

Thanks for the update and the terrific Noir list (to begin with).

All,

Herb designates upcoming titles as TBR (to be released) along with the expected month of release. Thus a search on the term 'TBR' (on the first page of this thread) makes it a snap to keep up with new releases.

2005 is starting to shape up nicely.

 

[Chris Cheese]

Any ideas why Laura has been bumped off the schedule yet again by Fox? Everyone had assumed it was to use it as a launch title for the film noir series, and initial reports from the Digital Bits even said as much, but now that we have the announcement, there's no Laura to be found.

 

[rich_d]

No idea Chris.

Maybe it's in the same "lifeboat" as Double Indemnity

 

[eifert]

Good news: Laura coming out in March, Leave her to Heaven in Feb... also Caged should be coming out soon too...

Time to update the list

 

[Herb Kane]

Thanks eifert. I’ve only edited the Fox release changes three times now, so I was reluctant to do it again... Let’s hope at least Leave Her To Heaven is safe since the cover art has surfaced. Caged is still a rumor (per Mondo Digital) as is Kiss Of Death (1947), but as soon as I hear something definitive, I'll gladly bold them.




List is updated and I've included the 1957 U.A. film Monkey On My Back due to release on February 8th, ’05.

 

[GregoryMesh]

The following RKO titles are available in Italy from Columbia:
Las Vegas Story
They Won't Believe Me

Macao
Crossfire
His Kind of Woman
Big Steal

The first 2 are unavailble in other countries, while others are available in France and/or Spain.

Also, Whistle Stop is available in Region 1 from Brentwood as part of Classic Literature on Film Set.

 

[Herb Kane]

Hi Gregory,

Thanks very much for the info. By chance, do you have info or links for Las Vegas Story and They Won't Believe Me…?

I checked two Italian etailers - www.dvd.it and www.dvdland.it (admittedly, the only two Italian etailers I’m familiar with) and I can’t seem to locate them. I do have the other four listed and I will add the R1 Brentwood release for Whistle Stop. Thanks again.

Herb.

 

[GregoryMesh]

Looks like dvd.it doesn't have it and links to dvdland.it don't work, so here's links to another store that has nice covers for the discs. Unforunately the forum doesn't let me post direct links to the titles, but here's the store name and titles in Italian for you to search.

terminalvideo.it

The Las Vegas Story - Citta' Del Piacere
They Won't Believe Me - Nessuno Mi Credera'