Transmission, Raro, Arbelos UK and other sublabels

[TMDaines]

a.k.a. I need an excuse to get that sweet sweet Jesus Franco money without souring the well of good taste.

I’m only kidding, mostly.

Fair play to Fran, if he wants to keep the wheels greased to ensure he can continue to release his true loves.

[MichaelB]

Every label needs cash cows - and if the label is inclined to take risks, they're not a luxury, they're a necessity.

My favourite example is the British Transport Films catalogue, one of the canniest investments that the BFI ever made - and although they register as a barely perceptible blip on the Criterion Forums' radar, there's a reason why they've gone to something like sixteen two-disc sets and multiple reissues! Because the trainspotter/nostalgia market would appear to be a fair bit bigger than the arthouse cinema market, which doesn't come as much of a surprise.

[Finch]

Fran is not the curator of Transmission anyway; it is Radiance's production manager, Paul Martinovich.

[MichaelB]

And the regular BFI Blu-ray team doesn't curate the BTF releases - sensibly, they hand them over to a knowledgeable expert like Steve Foxon.

But they're still ultimately being released by the same entity, and profits flow into the same department.

[dwk]

Someone actually said, apparently in all seriousness, that they hoped that Indicator's Jean Rollin survey would be over soon as he can't stand his films but nonetheless "had to" buy them all because they had Indicator spine numbers.

Guess I'm luck in that my collector's sickness (need to be complete) really only runs to a handful of directors and not labels or genres. Although this did lead me to buy Giallo and Dracula 3D.

I'm pretty much the same for books too, a few authors are all I collect, with two exceptions, Valancourt's Paperbacks from Hell reprint line (which I am complete on, but is only 21 books with 3 more to unannounced titles that will be the end of the series) and the Hardcase Crime line (which I'm 40 or so books short of being complete)

[colinr0380]

and one of the most outrageous black comedies of the 80s

The 1983 Burt Reynolds version of The Man Who Loved Women?

(Although on a more serious note, I would be excited if it was something like The World According to Garp)

[BoltzmannBrain]

The situation with Radiance was a bit different in that many people bought a three-year subscription to the new label for all the releases in order to help launch it, with the expectation it was going to be what Arrow Academy had been, and not the Arrow that released Microwave Massacre, so some of them felt a bit burned by the Messiah of Evil announcement.

They shouldn't have felt burned by Messiah of Evil because Radiance did say right at the launch that they would be releasing horror too, and the only thing they ruled out regarding the horror genre was slasher films (a promise that they have kept, thankfully). Also about half of the initial slate's titles would have been more at home with Arrow Video than Arrow Academy, and since then Radiance has put out so much violent yakuza and samurai stuff that it's hard to see the label as a straightforward successor of Academy.

[CSM126]

The Stunt Man will be Transmission spine #2

[domino harvey]

I didn’t get much from it but I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be at home on the main label

[pianocrash]

I didn’t get much from it but I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be at home on the main label

Starting to feel like early Vinegar Syndrome type titles, which is a great thing if you miss early Vinegar Syndrome type titles

This is also a big movie for lots of weirdos (me included), back when "cult" and "extreme" were less cliched in the world of physical home entertainment. I was wondering why Severin never upgraded it forever ago (licensing renewals, I would think).

Also, this is the type of title that screams big deluxe $50 4K treatment, and per Radiance's main line proper, is not a yakuza or poliziotteschi or a Truffaut-adjacent film. And it certainly isn't What Happened Was... (apologies to Tom Noonan), but I think a deluxe edition of that one would be a harder sell if anyone wanted 10 art cards of Tom Noonan & Karen Silas sitting in a room. I would rock a Tom Noonan temporary tattoo, if that was possible (drawn by Johnny Ryan, of course) :^o

[dwk]

This is also a big movie for lots of weirdos (me included), back when "cult" and "extreme" were less cliched in the world of physical home entertainment. I was wondering why Severin never upgraded it forever ago (licensing renewals, I would think).

Unless something has changed recently, Shout Factory owns The Stunt Man in the US.

[beamish14]

The Stunt Man will be Transmission spine #2

Fuck, I just got the Blu!

[Finch]

The Stunt Man

Cameron (Steve Railsback, Lifeforce) is a man who finds himself unmoored from American life: recently returned from Vietnam, he is now a drifter on the run from the law. While evading police, he stumbles upon the filming of a World War I movie helmed by the megalomaniacal Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole, Lawrence of Arabia). When Cameron discovers that he bears a striking resemblance to the lead actor, he hatches a plan: to hide from his potential captors by disguising himself as a stunt double and agreeing to perform a series of increasingly dangerous stunts.

But nothing is what it first seems on an Eli Cross set, and as illusion and make-believe start to bleed into one another, Cameron finds himself locked in a battle of wits with a possibly insane genius, and in danger of becoming unmoored not just from society, but from reality itself…

Newly restored in 4K, The Stunt Man was a critical smash that suffered from distribution issues on its original release in 1980 - it was nevertheless nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Richard Rush, and has earned a reputation as one of the most beloved cult films of all time. Featuring one of Peter O’Toole’s greatest performances, and enough action-packed mayhem to power several blockbusters, The Stunt Man is - to use the words of Eli Cross - pure movie magic.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

Brand new 4K restoration from original 35mm camera negative by Radiance Films, presented in Dolby Vision HDR
4K UHD and Blu-ray presentation of the feature
The legendary feature-length making-of documentary directed by Richard Rush: The Sinister Saga of Making The Stunt Man (2001) (131 mins)
New audio commentary with critics Christina Newland and Monica Castillo
Archival cast and crew commentary with writer/director Richard Rush and actors Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Alex Rocco, Sharon Farrell and Chuck Bail (2001)
New interview with Chuck Bail, stuntman and actor (2024)
Archival interview with Richard Rush (2011)
Archival interview with Peter O’Toole (2011)
Archival interview with Steve Railsback and Alex Rocco (2011)
Archival interview with Barbara Hershey (2011)
Q+A with Richard Rush, Steve Railsback and Barbara Hershey from a screening at The New Beverly Cinema
Deleted scenes
Trailer
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Option of 5.1 DTS Surround mix or original uncompressed mono audio
Pull-out poster and six lobby-card style postcards
Limited edition 40-page perfect bound book featuring new writing from Adam Nayman and Brandon Streussnig, and an archival interview between Kenneth Turan and Richard Rush
Limited edition of 5000 copies, presented in rigid box and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[MichaelB]

I caught what was believed to be the first ever UK cinema screening* of Night of the Juggler last night, and while its reception wasn't quite as raucous as that which a full-throated Scala audience would have given it back in the 1980s, it's still a great collective audience experience and I'm so glad that that I first saw it that way. In particular, the relentless pace came across particularly well on the big screen.

(*I did a bit more digging into this, as the BBFC gave it an X certificate back in 1980, suggesting that a UK theatrical release was certainly intended, but I can't find any evidence of one actually happening - the Monthly Film Bulletin doesn't seem to have reviewed it, and newspaper sites turned up a complete blank on a release - and we're not just talking a dearth of reviews but also a complete absence of cinema listings. So the release was presumably scrapped at a late stage.)

[jlnight]

(*I did a bit more digging into this, as the BBFC gave it an X certificate back in 1980, suggesting that a UK theatrical release was certainly intended, but I can't find any evidence of one actually happening - the Monthly Film Bulletin doesn't seem to have reviewed it, and newspaper sites turned up a complete blank on a release - and we're not just talking a dearth of reviews but also a complete absence of cinema listings. So the release was presumably scrapped at a late stage.)

Apparently the Dec '82 issue of MFB carries a 'video review' of the film. Other than that it turned up on ITV and the regions in 1983 and 1987/88 (According to the Telegraph there were two screenings in '87, the second one a quick repeat because of the famous hurricane!). Which cinema did you watch it in, the Prince Charles Cinema?

[MichaelB]

Thanks for that - I didn't think to check TV listings.

Although I don't imagine the ITV broadcasts were intact - they were the most notorious UK broadcaster for censoring films, and there's a lot to potentially censor in this one, from language (swearing, startling levels of racism) to full-frontal nudity in a sexualised context. Its original theatrical X certificate is a lot less surprising than the rather lenient 15 that it has now.

I saw a preview in The Garden Cinema, the other London venue that's screening it this month.

As for Steve Jenkins' MFB review, it's surprisingly long for the video section and gratifyingly positive. I thought from the length that it might have been written for the putative theatrical release, but the Hill Street Blues reference gives away that at least the first paragraph was from 1982. Particularly interesting is the revelation of the title's rather hair-raising origins, which confirms suspicions that the "juggling the books" reference was shoehorned in - and there's no mention of Sidney J. Furie having directed a third of it.

Given that Robert Butler's main claim to fame may well turn out to be his contributions to TV's Hill Street Blues, it is perhaps no surprise that Night of the Juggler is an intelligently scripted, tightly directed urban thriller. But beyond such basics, it is noticeable that much of its specific strength springs from the way William McGivern's source novel has been stripped of elements which might have furthered the connection with Hill Street Blues. Essentially, what has gone is a weave of sub-plotting, involving numerous characters who interconnect with the kidnapping at various points, while always being pre-defmed, to varying degrees, in their own right. The film, however, makes it clear from the start, as hero, victim and villain run insistently parallel paths through Central Park, that the chase which is the core of the plot also provides a structure with which other characters will collide, rather than encroach on or displace.

A notable example is the crazed figure of Sergeant Barnes: reduced to a violent frenzy at the first sight of Boyd, following up his initial attack with a rifle-blazing chase through crowded streets, and ending up, almost, as dog food, he functions as simply one more encounter along the trail. And as such he is as adequately defined, but no more 'developed' than, for example, the manic Puerto Rican cab driver who first aids Boyd in the pursuit, or the wino who emerges from the shadows to threaten Kathy when she flees from Soltic. And the film coherently extends this alienating conception of character into a more generalised image of the circles of hell: the (circular) peep show which flaunts and denies the possibility of Boyd obtaining the information he requires; or the burnt-out no man's land of the South Bronx, where the street gang's notion of territory and trespass provides a logical, physical correlative to the gulf between hunter and hunted.

In this context, it is apparent that Night of the Juggler is weakest when attempting to suggest positive links between characters. Maria, for example, who helps Boyd in the latter stages of his search, is rather awkwardly introduced and then dropped. More seriously, the relationship between Kathy and Soltic, while certainly suggesting an oasis of tranquillity amidst the surrounding chaos, does not achieve the depth or weight which the climax, with her hesitating before returning to the light, seems to suggest. But this is perhaps an inevitable result of the film's pleasingly audacious reworking of the significance of McGivern's title. The novel has its villain nicknamed "The Juggler" after his annually indulged habit of slitting the jugular veins of his teenage victims. The movie has him exacting financial retribution – "juggling the books" his way – on the city which has permitted the decline of the neighbourhood in which his parents owned property. Which neatly provokes Clayton, his intended victim, into threatening Tonelli for not offering the amount of protection he feels his tax payments have bought. In other words, Soltic represents not so much the city's psychopathic sickness as the unacceptable mirror image of its capitalist fathers. The attempt to 'humanise' him consequently seems rather half-hearted and unnecessary.

Squaring nicely with this 'materialist' openness is the paradoxical fact that this "night" of the Juggler takes place for the most part in crowded, location-shot, broad daylight, descending to more conventionally expressionist subterranean depths only for the climax. The busy, naturalistically observed surface not only allows a pleasing denial of certain expectations (the initial car chase which never really gets going due to the volume of traffic), but also nicely confirms Tonelli's feeling that this is going to be "another goddamned New York day". And with the central plot framed between the activities of a group of Puerto Rican bombers and the Latin-sounding music of the Central Park rock concert, Night of the Juggler zips satisfyingly through at least some of the contradictions his remark suggests.

[Finch]

Special Effects



Aspiring actress Andrea (Zoe Tamerlis Lund, Ms .45) has run away from her domestic life in Dallas to New York City, with dreams of becoming a future movie star. Director Christopher Neville (Eric Bogosian, Uncut Gems) promises Andrea a role in his next film - but when she visits him at his apartment one night, a sexual encounter turns violent, and Andrea is murdered while Neville’s camera captures the whole sordid affair. When Andrea’s estranged husband Keefe (Brad Rijn) arrives to look for her, he is immediately suspected of her murder, until he finds an unlikely ally in Neville. In exchange for helping secure his freedom, Neville persuades Keefe to help him with his new film, and to find him a new leading lady, one who bears a remarkable resemblance to Andrea…

Special Effects is a pungent, grindhouse-friendly riff on psycho-sexual thriller classics such as Vertigo, Peeping Tom and Blow Out, presented with inimitable style from the king of low-budget NY genre cinema, Larry Cohen (Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff).

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

UK Blu-ray premiere
High definition digital transfer
Uncompressed mono audio
Newly recorded interview with star Eric Bogosian
New audio commentary with director of King Cohen, Steve Mitchell
Cohen on Cohen - feature length interview with Larry Cohen (2017, 71 mins)
Archival directors commentary with Larry Cohen, moderated by Steve Mitchell
New interview with critic Christina Newland on Zoe Tamerlis Lund
Trailer
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Includes O-card featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Eric Adrian Lee
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing from Juan Barquin
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented with o-card and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings


Released in the UK: 23rd March.

[Finch]

Highway to Hell

When Charlie (Chad Lowe, Apprentice to Murder) and Rachel (Kristy Swanson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) decide to elope to Las Vegas, their decision to take a desert shortcut via an abandoned Nevada backroad proves to be a fateful one: they are ambushed by the Hellcop (C. J. Graham, Friday the 13th), who abducts Rachel on behalf of Satan, snatching her through a portal to hell with the intention of making her the bride of the Satan himself. In hot pursuit via a supernatural car from a local gas station attendant (Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story), Charlie must dodge demons while keeping Rachel and the Hellcop in his sights in order to rescue his kidnapped fiance and battle his way out of Hell!

A wild and witty fusion of Highway ‘66 iconography, pop-culture Satanism and the Odyssey, Highway to Hell was written by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) and directed by Ate De Jong (Drop Dead Fred). With fantastically creative uses of claymation and visual effects from supervisor Steve Johnson (Species) and Randall William Cook (Lord of the Rings), and a stacked supporting cast (including cameos from Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller, rocker Lita Ford and Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler), Highway to Hell is a deliriously entertaining, nitro-boosted slice of pure 90s excess. Long languishing in cult obscurity, Transmission presents this film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

UK Blu-ray premiere
High definition digital transfer
DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo
Newly recorded interview with director Ate de Jong
New audio commentary with critics Kim Newman and Sean Hogan
Archival director’s commentary with Ate de Jong
Archival interview with actor C.J. Graham
Archival interview with Steven Johnson
Production stills and behind-the-scenes gallery
Theatrical trailer
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Limited Edition booklet featuring original storyboards, archival correspondence and new writing from Sean McGeady
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in and full-height Scanavo packaging with O-card and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[mfunk9786]

Really impressed by the curation that Transmission is doing thus far. These are genuinely obscure movies, but not *outright bad* movies that they’re picking. A friend with a high profile role in rep cinema curation in LA loves this one and has brought it up to me before.

[domino harvey]

Depends on who you talk to

Highway to Hell (Ate de Jong 1991) Now this is a bad Kristy Swanson vehicle (and I don't mean the Hellcruiser she's locked inside). A bizarre, tonally illogical excursion through Hell-as-backroads-Arizona that finds Chad Lowe trying to rescue his bride-to-be Swanson from getting deflowered by the Devil. So, a universally relatable plot. Nothing can be bothered to make any sense, and the film looks both cheap and far too expensive. For some reason every member of Ben Stiller's family and two-time Oscar nominee Richard Farnsworth are in this film as well. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland later went on to win an Oscar, presumably for recalling his work here and just doing the opposite.

[Cash Flagg]

It’s among the worst films I’ve ever seen.

[MichaelB]

I haven't seen it, but I remember Domino slagging off their inaugural release Night of the Juggler as "crap" (turns out it was in this very thread!) and I had an absolute blast with it; in fact, it was one of my most enjoyable cinema experiences last year when I saw it at the Transmission launch party.

And just to forestall the obvious riposte, I wasn't bombed out of my skull; for various health reasons I've been alcohol-free for the better part of two years.

(UPDATE: I'm very touched by the congratulatory PMs, but it's really no big deal—I wasn't an alcoholic or anything. In fact, I genuinely don't think I've had so much as a hangover since the 1990s. But when Lee Gambin died out of the blue a couple of years ago, that was a serious wake-up call for me—not least because he was twelve years younger—and completely cutting alcohol out of my diet going forward as part of a general heart-maintenance regime could hardly have been easier given that I barely drank it much anyway.)

[mfunk9786]

It’s among the worst films I’ve ever seen.

Read this in Brian Cox’s voice

[cdnchris]

I haven't seen it, but I remember Domino slagging off their inaugural release Night of the Juggler as "crap" (turns out it was in this very thread!) and I had an absolute blast with it; in fact, it was one of my most enjoyable cinema experiences last year when I saw it at the Transmission launch party.

Same. Not really "good," I guess, kind of all over the place, but it was way more fun than I was anticipating. Gotta love a film where Dan Hedaya, playing a cop, chases Brolin down busy New York streets, blasting a shotgun without any concern for the public whatsoever, destroying property, and then never receiving any repercussions whatsoever, other than another cop basically saying "what do you think you're doing?" '70s/early '80s were apparently a simpler time.

[dwk]

Same. Not really "good," I guess, kind of all over the place, but it was way more fun than I was anticipating. Gotta love a film where Dan Hedaya, playing a cop, chases Brolin down busy New York streets, blasting a shotgun without any concern for the public whatsoever, destroying property, and then never receiving any repercussions whatsoever, other than another cop basically saying "what do you think you're doing?" '70s/early '80s were apparently a simpler time.

I don't know, seems like cops still do that.