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Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:39 pm**

Alida Valli, the enigmatically beautiful Italian actress who would become something of an inadvertent horror icon after her appearance in such films as Lisa and the Devil and Suspiria, died on April 22, at age 85. One of her most striking early roles was in Georges Franju's nightmarish and surreal Eyes Without a Face, an exquisite tale of terror that remains as harrowing today as it was upon its 1959 release. This chiller, about a surgeon who, with the help of his assistant (played by Valli), kidnaps young girls for a fiendish skin-grafting experiment, was released at a time when horror films were becoming bolder and more daringâ€”from the U.S. (Hitchcock's Psycho) to England (Michael Powell's Peeping Tom) to Japan (Nobu Nakagawa's Jigoku).

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:41 pm**

While 'swarming devils' just makes me think of Milton, it might indeed be a nod towards Jigoku being one of the premiere titles from Eclipse.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:41 pm**

ellipsis7 wrote:I remember=september?

Talk to me about this equation. I can only think of the musical number from Man Who Fell From Earth.

Could "I remember" refer to re-releases or maybe Laserdiscs?

Swarming Devils=Ingmar Bergman (The Devil's Eye, The Devil's Wanton)
or maybe Pinal in Simon of the Desert

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:47 pm**

I'm remembering 'late spring' in this newsletter spot, the wordplay there, so 'I remember' is AMARCORD but also rhyming/punning on September...

Hell
Nakagawa's most ambitious film, a cult item in Japan, is wildly eccentric. Shot mostly on bare studio sets with a lighting style even more theatrical than the acting, it feels like a weird piece of fringe theatre in three acts. Act 1, in Tokyo, sets up the characters' moral failings. Shiro (Amachi) is a student engaged to his professor's daughter Yukiko (Mitsuya); under the influence of the demonic Tamura (Numata), he's involved in both a hit and run accident which kills a yakuza and a taxi crash which kills his fiancée. Act 2, in rural Tenjoen ('Paradise Garden'), adds assorted dissolute adults and has Shiro fall in love again, this time with Sachiko (Mitsuya again), who turns out to be his sister. Mass poisonings kill everyone. Act 3, in Hell, gives Shiro the chance to redeem himself by rescuing the soul of his and Yukiko's unborn daughter; everyone suffers lurid tortures. A Buddhist twist on the old US film Dante's Inferno, this actually anticipates the traits of Corman's contemporary Poe cycle: guilt-ridden characters, tacky visual effects, outré compositions in 'Scope. TR

From Time Out - definitely sounds like an Eclipse title...

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:47 pm**

No, I'm sure "I remember" is Amarcord. I'm glad to see the Rohmer confirmation directly from them. Those things alone are enough to keep me satisfied for awhile.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:50 pm**

jorencain wrote:No, I'm sure "I remember" is Amarcord. I'm glad to see the Rohmer confirmation directly from them. Those things alone are enough to keep me satisfied for awhile.

Actually, the more I think about it the more it is Amarcord. The film is spine number four and while I haven't seen what the disc quality looks like, it is a semi bare-bones release.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:51 pm**

cinephrenic wrote:
Alida Valli, the enigmatically beautiful Italian actress who would become something of an inadvertent horror icon after her appearance in such films as Lisa and the Devil and Suspiria, died on April 22, at age 85. One of her most striking early roles was in Georges Franju's nightmarish and surreal Eyes Without a Face, an exquisite tale of terror that remains as harrowing today as it was upon its 1959 release. This chiller, about a surgeon who, with the help of his assistant (played by Valli), kidnaps young girls for a fiendish skin-grafting experiment, was released at a time when horror films were becoming bolder and more daringâ€”from the U.S. (Hitchcock's Psycho) to England (Michael Powell's Peeping Tom) to Japan (Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku).

Hmm, that is intriguing that they mention it... And what's more intriguing at least for me is that they only fail to mention one movie that was also made in 1960 and that somehow managed to rock the horror film foundations: Bava's Black Sunday.

It's sort of a strange coincidence that so far I haven't seen anyone in the world of film criticism point it out but those 5 films that were very influential in their own ways and made in 5 very distinct countries, were all made in the year 1960 which for me now is officially "The Year that Changed Horror Forever".

Anyway, Jigoku would be a FANTASTIC addition to the Collection, no doubt!

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:53 pm**

justeleblanc wrote: The film is spine number four and while I haven't seen what the disc quality looks like, it is a semi bare-bones release.

Amarcord is a complete bare-bone disc. It only includes a trailer and a booklet.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:55 pm**

The trailer is not included. I had it and can confirm this. I now own the 2 disc spanish edition that comes with the trailer and other very worthwhile bonus too. The picture is not so great, though.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:57 pm**

From the FORTHCOMING LIST page:

JIGOKU (1960, Nakagawa) - mentioned in a post in another forum as a rumor that Criterion was eager to purchase entire Shintoho catalog to release this year (sourced from the KineJapan list)

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 8:58 pm**

AMARCORD re-release is something that will do well in a proper fully loaded or 2 disc package with anamorphic HD transfer... the previous version sold at top price with nothing to justify!

I haven't seen this through since original release - Fellini got kinda lazy as time went on, so I suppose I'll be swayed by what's in the CC package either way...

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:03 pm**

Annie Mall wrote:The trailer is not included. I had it and can confirm this. I now own the 2 disc spanish edition that comes with the trailer and other very worthwhile bonus too. The picture is not so great, though.

You're right. Is just a restoration demostration.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:03 pm**

The current Amarcord is going out of print, along with some Kurosawas and supposebly The Third Man (check this link: http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php ... ost6982539 ) We know new editions of the Kurosawas are coming, it looks like all are going OOP to make room for new editions, so I'd say with firm certainty that "I remember" is referring to a new edition of Amarcord.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:04 pm**

The Devil Probably - Bresson?

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:13 pm**

I'd think they release Mouchette first. Not sure if they licenced it from New Yorker (which I thought they where going to release it).

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:17 pm**

Conceivably MOUCHETTE is victimised by 'swarming devils'...

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:18 pm**

justeleblanc wrote:From the FORTHCOMING LIST page:

JIGOKU (1960, Nakagawa) - mentioned in a post in another forum as a rumor that Criterion was eager to purchase entire Shintoho catalog to release this year (sourced from the KineJapan list)

Irony: the dvd-listing of the IMDB-page for this movie mentions a region 2 release by a Japanese company called 'Eclipse film'...

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:23 pm**

mouche = fly

as in insects which swarm

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:49 pm**

What about swarming bees??

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 9:58 pm**

PfR73 wrote:The current Amarcord is going out of print, along with some Kurosawas and supposebly The Third Man (check this link) We know new editions of the Kurosawas are coming, it looks like all are going OOP to make room for new editions, so I'd say with firm certainty that "I remember" is referring to a new edition of Amarcord.

I posted this yesterday in the Amarcord thread:

Here is the complete list of discontinued titles that I managed to pull up from Michael's Movie Mayhem.

Akira Kurosawa: Four Samurai Classics: VAR Foreign Criterion/Voyager Discontinued
Amarcord 1974 Foreign Criterion/Voyager Discontinued
Sanjuro 1962 Foreign Criterion/Voyager Discontinued
Seven Samurai (Special Edition) 1954 Foreign Criterion/Voyager Discontinued
Third Man (Special Edition/ Criterion/Voyager) 1949 Mystery/Suspense Criterion/Voyager Discontinued
Yojimbo 1961 Foreign Criterion/Voyager Discontinued

Interestingly, no mention was made in the newsletter of Alida Valli's role in The Third Man...

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 10:05 pm**

Perhaps they lost the rights to The Third Man or a re-release (for some crazy reason) along with The Fallen Idol.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 10:08 pm**

justeleblanc wrote:What about swarming bees??

Isn't there a scene in Tati's "Jour de FÃªte" where Tati, playing a postman, is plagued by a swarm of bees?

With the golden silence and slamming door reference pointing to "Playtime," maybe we can expect a couple Tati films soon?

What do you think?

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 10:20 pm**

cinephrenic wrote:Perhaps they lost the rights to The Third Man or a re-release (for some crazy reason) along with The Fallen Idol.

Exactly why I mentioned this.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 11:38 pm**

kinjitsu wrote:
cinephrenic wrote:Perhaps they lost the rights to The Third Man or a re-release (for some crazy reason) along with The Fallen Idol.
Exactly why I mentioned this.

Nah, I think that's too premature. They've talked about Dead Ringers in newsletters and Warner now owns that one.

Posted: **Mon May 08, 2006 11:46 pm**

I reckon that the "swarming" bit is only there to create a plausible link between "bees" and "devils" (and make up the syllable count), so "devils" is the real clue. Jigoku sounds like the most plausible candidate, but I hope there's an outside chance of Bresson's Le diable, probablement. If they meant to hint at Mouchette, then they'd surely have gone with "bees, / little flies" or something: it's an easy title to hint at.

All in all, a very newsworthy newsletter, even if we'd already had strong inklings about most of the news.

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