For Immediate Release
KINO INTERNATIONAL TO RELEASE A SECOND BOX SET OF FIVE MUST-HAVE NOIR CLASSICS TO SELL AT LOW PRICE OF $49.95
FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD II
Kino International is proud to release in one DVD thinpak a second set of classic film noir from the 1940s and 50s: Fritz Lang’s SCARLET STREET, starring Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino's THE HITCH-HIKER, Alberto Cavalcanti's THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE starring Trevor Howard, Michael Powell's CONTRABAND and Anthony Mann's STRANGE IMPERSONATION. While all of these titles have previously been available from Kino, our attractively re-packaged set will sell at the competitive SRP of $49.95 - only one third of the total for the same films sold individually. With a prebook date of October 23, 2007, the box set will street on November 20.
Now seminal titles, these five films are classic B movies in the best sense of the term: tense, raw and cannily devoid of gloss. Masters of the genre, such as expatriated Fritz Lang, Anthony Mann and pioneer female filmmaker Ida Lupino are here in fine form, as are the celebrated British duo Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger.
With cinematography from acclaimed cameraman Freddie Young (CONTRABAND) and Milton Krasner (SCARLET STREET), performances from respected hardboiled character actors like Dan Duryea (Kitty's lecherous boyfriend in SCARLET STREET) and Edmond O'Brien, and acclaim from the National Film Registry (THE HITCH-HIKER), FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD II is not only an astounding bargain, but a necessity for any film lover's library.
Although it ran its course in less than two decades and was only conceived of as a genre largely after the fact, film noir's influence within - and beyond - cinema shows no sign of waning half a century later. From its stark chiaroscuro lighting and its cynical, pessimistic themes, to its menagerie of types (the anti-hero, the femme fatale, inter alia), the hallmarks of noir have become both a codified vocabulary within moviemaking and fertile ground for continual renewals and re-inventions, pastiche and parody.
Noir's heritage and appreciation may be international - its name was donned by French critics; its style and moods owe a great deal to both German Expressionism and France's poetic realism - but its fusion of influences became a distinctively American mode of expression, in part a homefront response to the anxiety of WWII and its aftermath. The pre-Code Hollywood of the early 30s showed that the Dream Factory had its gritty side, but noir's existentially haunted heroes, claustrophobic spaces, and cynical fatalism were unprecedented. Also at odds with previous studio offerings was noir's sense of economy at every level: not only were many of the best noirs brought in on the most modest of budgets, but the narratives were as lean and tough as the hard men and women that peopled them.
The films in FILM NOIR: The Dark Side of Hollywood II are:
SCARLET STREET
A box-office hit in its day (despite being banned in three states), Scarlet Street is perhaps legendary director Fritz Lang's (M, Metropolis) finest American film. But for decades, Scarlet Street has languished on poor quality VHS tape and in colorized versions. Kino's immaculate new digital transfer, from a 35mm Library of Congress vault negative, restores Lang's extravagantly fatalistic vision to its original B&W glory.
When middle-aged milquetoast Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson -- Double Indemnity, Little Caesar) rescues street-walking bad girl Kitty (Joan Bennett -- The Reckless Moment) from the gutters of Greenwich Village, he plunges headlong into a whirlpool of lust, larceny and revenge.
U.S. 1945. 101 min. B&W.
Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Dan Duryea, Edward G. Robinson, and Joan Bennett
THE HITCH-HIKER
The only true film noir ever directed by a woman, this tour-de-force thriller (considered by many, including Lupino herself, to be her best film) is a classic, tension-packed, three-way dance of death about two middle-class American homebodies (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on vacation in Mexico on a long-awaited fishing trip.
U.S. 1953. 70 min. B&W
Directed by Ida Lupino
Starring Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, and William Talman
THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE (I BECAME A CRIMINAL)
Alberto Cavalcanti (Nicholas Nickleby, Dead of Night), one of the key figures in French and British cinema for several decades, turns his sights on the London underworld in this engrossing Brit Noir gangland. Set in unsettled postwar England where crime is on the upsurge, Fugitive is a suspenseful genre film which uses the picturesque Soho district as background to brilliant effect.
U.S. 1947. 96 min. B&W
Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti
Starring Peter Bull and Trevor Howard
CONTRABAND (BLACKOUT)
Contraband is a comedy thriller in the vein of Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Lady Vanishes. The film is an early treasure from the writer-director team of Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, Stairway To Heaven), who have been hailed by critics as jewels in the crown of British cinema.
Set in England during the early days of WW II, Contraband stars Conrad Veidt (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and Valerie Hobson (The Bride of Frankenstein) as a Danish sea captain and his enigmatic passenger who are kidnapped by a cell of Nazi spies operating from a basement in London's Soho.
U.K. 1940. 87 min. B&W
Directed by Michael Powell
Starring Conrad Veidt, Hay Petrie, Peter Bull, and Valerie Hobson
STRANGE IMPERSONATION
Hard-boiled film noir masquerading as a women's melodrama, Strange Impersonation is a twisted tale of jealousy, murder, revenge and facial disfigurement from director Anthony Mann (T-Men, Raw Deal).
U.S. 1947. 98 min. B&W
Directed by Anthony Mann
Starring Brenda Marshall, H. B. Warner, Lyle Talbot, and William Gargan
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